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March 20, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
29:24
This Week in Stupid (20⧸03⧸2016)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 20th of March 2016.
If you find anything you'd like to see in this week in Stupid, tweet using hashtag TWIS or post it to our Sagan of ACAD and I'll find it.
So quite a lot has happened in the last week and some of it's involving me, so I'll try and get through it as quickly as possible so we can get to the actual interesting bits.
I'm sure you remember Francesca Ramsey, known as Aunt Cheska Lay on Twitter.
She works for MTV doing Decoded, a race-based propaganda series that seems to be entirely to project the ideals of the regressive left onto other people.
It's massively unpopular, and despite this, Francesca Ramsey still has a job.
She recently discovered that I have a Patreon account.
Holy crap, I never understood why this dude was snaking so many vids about me, but his fans are paying him almost $1,000 per vid on Patreon.
Okay, stop you there, Francesca.
The videos aren't about you.
They're about the things you are saying.
The ideas you are currently polluting the public sphere with.
Things like, are the primary elections racist?
Or, is political correctness good for free speech?
Both which you think, yes, because you're insane.
But public criticism, that's gotta go against the terms and conditions.
You should talk to Patreon, Patreon support, and Jack Conte.
Always remember that the regressives think it is legitimate to destroy your livelihood if you criticise them, if you are their political enemy.
This is a completely moral tactic for them.
In fact, it's the first place they go.
Which is why Francesca Ramsey was, oh trust, I am putting together an email right now, frenziedly typing.
Remember to take no prisoners, Francesca.
Someone criticised the bullshit that came out of your mouth.
That person needs to be silenced.
But angry black Homo doesn't think it's going to work.
I'd bet money that they'd overlook it, purely because of the revenue the bigots bring in.
Doesn't that kind of make Patreon bigots as well?
I don't know, but thank you so much for your input.
I'd call you by a name, but you seem to have deliberately dehumanized yourself, to the point where I don't have a name to call you.
I literally just have your identifiers, which is angry, black, and homo.
Remember that Patreon is located in San Francisco, if I recall correctly.
And so it's no surprise that Patreon would have a trust and support safety team that Angela Rayford of Patreon is so eager to help her with.
I mean, she's even sent her the emails on who to contact to get on this terrible case of disagreement.
Now, Francesca's tweets are protected, so even if you're not blocked, you can't see her Twitter feed.
Only her followers can.
Which just screams, I have the courage of my convictions.
Thankfully, Twitter user Captain Privilege is obviously following her and can see this, and tweeted me to let me know that this was what she was doing.
To which Francesca replies, are you fucking kidding me?
Where did I say anything about shutting down anyone's Patreon?
Uh, right here, Francesca, when you said you were going to email them because you've just discovered this and it might violate their terms and conditions.
Or were you just emailing and say, hey, well done on doing such a great job ensuring that Patreon remains politically neutral to ensure that content creators can be funded by their audiences and continue on to build the world that everyone wants to see.
That's probably what it is.
Yeah, that's what you were doing.
Sorry, Francesca.
I didn't mean to impugn your honour.
I'm sure you had no nefarious intentions at all.
At time of recording, my Patreon does still exist, and I don't think that Patreon will take it down because of ideological reasons either.
I think that Jordan Owen and David Cerini versus Zoe Quinn when they were doing the Sarkeesian effect really kind of set the precedent there.
I think Patreon has taken the stance of attempting to be ideologically neutral and not banning people for what is obviously not hate speech and is instead just political dissent.
And this is of course eternally to their credit and I am very grateful.
And I'm really grateful for everyone who supports me as well.
I never say it enough and I'm really terrible at replying to people's messages, but I really do appreciate it.
Thanks everyone.
So in other more interesting news, Hulkamania is indeed running wild.
Hulk Hogan has been awarded $115 million in the Gorka sex tape case.
Just to give you a very brief summary, Gorka obtained a sex tape of Hulk Hogan and his friend's ex-wife, and they put it up on their site and Hulk Hogan has sued them to get it down.
Hogan's legal team argued that the New York-based website violated his privacy and the video was not newsworthy.
The case which was pitted Freedom of the Press Against a Celebrity's Right to Privacy has been closely watched.
Lawyers for Gorka argued that although jurors might find the website's actions distasteful, might, the concept of freedom of the press was more important to uphold.
That requires it to be newsworthy, Gorka.
Hulk Hogan fucking his mate's wife isn't news.
This isn't the freedom of the press, this is you posting revenge porn, which is something you generally tend to object to, but we'll get to that in a minute.
Nick Denton, the founder of Gorka, has said that he'll appeal against the verdict, arguing that important evidence was not heard by the court.
Important evidence that can prove what, Nick?
That can prove a sex tape of Hulk Hogan fucking his friend's wife is important news.
Do you think that could be the- Are there national secrets involved?
What the fuck could possibly make that real news?
And of course, this is also about the subject of revenge porn, which is criminalized in many places, including New York, where Gorka is based.
However, this didn't become illegal until 2014, and Gorka posted the tape in 2012.
So I'm sure this doesn't apply retroactively.
The interesting thing is that Gorkra have been given court orders by judges in the past to take down this tape, and they have refused.
But yeah, so well done for standing on a point of principle there, Gorka.
I mean, you've got a sex tape from someone who doesn't want you to have sex tape, and you resisted the court order until it really finally came around to bite you in the ass.
Oh yeah, don't forget to be massive fucking hypocrites.
I'm sure everyone has seen this little Imiga picture comparing the fact that Gorka and Jezebel, two distinct entities that are housed in the same office, are quite willing to display their double standard here, unless of course Jezebel is going to start writing articles like, our own parent company won't take down a sex tape with Hulk Hogan that also involves a woman.
But of course, we both know that you're never going to do anything of the sort, because you are giant fucking hypocrites who have an open double standard that you don't seem to be in any way ashamed of.
So you know what, Gorka, it's really hard to sympathise with you.
It really is.
You seem to have dug your own grave, lain down in it, and then handed Hulk Hogan the shovel so he can bury you.
Now Gorka are of course going to appeal the decision, but it looks like they may still have to pay a $50 million bond.
Although less than half the amount that they're going to have to pay in full if the appeal fails, $50 million is still more than an entire year's worth of revenue to Gorka.
Because while Gorka has been a profitable company and does still continue to grow despite the losses that Gamergate caused it last year, it's not very big.
It's only worth about $250,300 million.
I'll be interested to see how this ends up playing out and whether the appeal is successful or not, and if not, what happens.
But you know what?
One person that we haven't asked about this is Hulk Hogan himself.
What do you think, Hulk?
Don't worry about my Hulkamanias!
That's oddly topical, but I meant about the Gorka trial.
When Hawkamania rules, when Honka Media lives forever, when Hawkamania puts you down on your knees, I want the whole world to realise that I'd be just your best!
Very sportsmanlike.
Do you have any final words for Gorka?
And what you're gonna do when the whole world full of Hulkamaniacs destroy you?
Rice on brother.
But seriously though, Gorka is just reaping what it sowed.
This is nothing that Gorka doesn't entirely deserve.
They have completely brought all of this on themselves by being a complete cesspool.
It's not by someone else's malevolent design that Gawker is being brought to the brink of bankruptcy.
They've done this to themselves by being Gawker.
And now from one cancer to another...
The rise of the regressive left hashtag.
What the alt-right's newest explosively popular hashtag is all about.
The irony being, of course, this is not a hashtag the alt-rights commonly use.
But I guess don't let the truth get in the way of BuzzFeed's reporting.
This article is actually surprisingly cunning propaganda.
For example, it starts by pointing out actual alt-right campaigns and hashtags, or at least ones they did popularly participate in.
And then they claim that regressive left is one of those hashtags, which it's not, it actually comes from a completely different source.
So they claim that it's become wildly popular on the alt-right.
Although it only started popping up on Twitter two or three months ago, now it's being tweeted hundreds of times a day.
Usually it's meant to indicate disgust with a backward-looking or hypocritical stance by the left, particularly on campus or in the media.
Here's several typical examples of usage.
So you have the lie that this is wildly popular among the alt-right, and then you give some actual truth, and you give it last, so that's the thing that people focus on.
I mean, they even say that it was coined by Majid Noaz and used by Richard Dawkins, people who are obviously not part of the alt-right.
They go and show how it's become a very popular meme, and it has.
And to feed this interest, dozens of explainer videos and alt-right YouTube news segments have cropped up.
Two of the most popular, The Truth About the Regressive Left and Introduction to the Regressive Left, boast 150,000 views each.
The latter is by the popular men's rights activist Sagan of Akad.
Well, A, I'm not a men's rights activist, and B, I am not racially pure enough to be part of the alt-right.
But the thing is, I'm just a nobody, so they can slander me and nothing's going to happen.
No one's going to call them on it.
It's just going to be a lie that they tell.
One of many.
Nobody's going to report on it.
Instead, they do make a big point of saying how it comes from people like Martin Dawkins and Noirs, who, controversial as they might be on the internet, would almost certainly identify as a big L liberal.
But again, this is just one small sentence of truth buried in a mountain of lies.
What I find interesting about this piece though, really, is the willful blind spot that they have to the idea that there are people on the left who are not also like themselves.
They have to persuade themselves that all of their opponents are part of the right.
Even those who identify as big L liberals, well, we'll say that they identify as that.
But you know, Buzzfeed, since you have deliberately identified me as an MRA, instead of even consulting me as to what my personal choice of labels might be, shall I put on my MRA lens and have a look at something else that people are telling people that MRAs must think?
How about, will Matrix filmmakers coming out as women turn off men's rights activists?
It's ironic that a popular film with men fearing a world controlled by women turns out to have been made by transgender siblings.
The Matrix isn't about a world controlled by women.
This looks like a giant Freudian slip where you actually meant to say machines.
And why would MRAs give a fuck whether this has been made by transgender people?
Who cares?
Obviously, this entire article is built around a straw man of what a men's rights activist is.
At least as far as I can see from my own personal experience with them.
You know, even though I don't think of myself as an MRA, I am still pissed off with the way MRAs get treated in the media.
I mean, I've never met an MRA who was just an ideological bigot.
They always seem to have some actual legal ruling or problem that they want solved, or like an actual demographic issue, like male suicide or something like that.
It's never bullshit.
You know, it's never bullshit.
And they don't act like feminists.
They seem to be quite rational because, I mean, they actually have real evidence and problems that they are trying to solve.
So it's one of those things where it's just like, okay, well, MRAs seem to be fairly lucid.
Feminists look like they're about to elect a pope.
And the thing is, let the way that feminism has gone be a warning to the MRAs.
Don't get like that.
Don't get ideological.
As soon as you don't have a legal problem you can stand on, you're done.
The MRA movement's over.
That's when you've got to hang up your hat and go, right, I'm no longer an MRA because those problems have been solved.
You know, I get the feeling this person has never actually watched The Matrix.
The 1999 film The Matrix is built on the idea that dreams happen to everyone all at once.
They're mass-produced, which means your most private thoughts are put out there by someone else.
Or are put there by someone else.
It's like, no, what?
No, it's about the idea that machines have taken over the earth and are using human beings as batteries and controlling them by creating a mass delusion that they do not even know that they are a part of.
To say dreams happen to everyone all at once and they're mass produced, it's really missing the nuance and the scope of what you're talking about.
As Parker Molloy points out in FlavorWise, there's a delicious irony in the fact that the directors of The Matrix are trans women.
That's because The Matrix is one of the most celebrated cultural touchstones of the men's rights movement.
And MRAs hate transgender women.
That's just in The Guardian.
It's a flat statement.
MRAs hate transgender women.
Just don't know why.
I mean, I don't really see what they've got to do with transgender women.
But Moy quotes MRA adherents describing the creeping danger of men transitioning to women and warning all good MRAs to push back against transsexualism before it infects those who you love and care about.
Is that really their position?
I've never seen an MRA say anything even remotely like that.
It's certainly satisfying to imagine the horror of MRAs discovering that their beloved Matrix was created by two transgender women.
Well, I think we've really established a motivation there.
You want to feel smug and self-satisfied that the straw man that you have created is getting its comeuppance.
And I love where they go with this.
And it's really hard to believe anyone could actually believe this about anything, right?
So the enthusiasm focuses on the scene where Morpheus gives him the red or blue pill.
MRAs refer to taking the red pill as the moment that they realize women control the world and men are the oppressed underclass.
Because they literally can't view it in any other way.
If you aren't saying that women are the oppressed underclass and men rule the world, then you must mean that women rule the world and men are the impressed underclass.
And that's obviously ridiculous.
And I agree, it's obviously as ridiculous as saying that women are the oppressed underclass and men rule the world.
Neither one of these propositions is correct.
You fucking idiots.
But watch out, transgender women.
You're sometimes accused by feminists of enforcing the gender binary.
Because you want to transition from male to female or female to male.
And not male to asexual demi fucking pansy or whatever it is.
You are enforcing the gender binary and you don't even know it.
You know, I mean, as an argument that feminist and trans activist Julius Serrano points out though, is cut from the same cloth as the arguments that gays and lesbians are merely looking for an alternative lifestyle or that bisexuals are merely sex crazed or sexually confused.
So there are feminists who have got your back, but there are also feminists who will accuse you of enforcing a gender binary.
So good luck!
This article in The Guardian though really is the gift that keeps on giving.
The tired gender script in The Matrix isn't just due to the fact that Wachowskis are transgender women, it's due to the fact the film is a popular action adventure and entertainment.
And they end with, the world is made of entertainment designed for the approval of MRAs.
As if people in Hollywood studios have ever fucking heard of an MRA.
She just conflates MRAs with just all men.
And this, I think, is not an uncommon feminist position.
Feminists are women, politicized.
MRAs are men, politicised.
It's not that they've got men and women on both sides, which they obviously do.
It's that that's what these things are in the simplistic, half-witted, feminist brain that ends up getting published on The Guardian alongside Jessica Valenzi.
Since we've been dealing with feminists, let's have a look at what's sexist this week.
Now this week, our dreadfully sexist thing is where people sit on breakfast television.
Apparently sitting on the left-hand side of the sofa signifies seniority.
I mean, I'm sure that the BBC is a dreadfully sexist organisation, and this is a clear case of discrimination, and it's not feminists being hyper-paranoid, because it turns out when you put your feminist lenses on, you see sexism everywhere.
Anyway, moving on.
We also have a very interesting update about the Mazoo situation with Melissa Click, you know, the woman who decided to call for some muscle to remove a student journalist from a public area because there was a protest going on, and she is now, of course, the victim.
What would our world be like if no one ever took a chance?
I don't know, Melissa, I think there would probably be less human rights violations.
See, you don't understand you guys.
Melissa was just out for a walk and suddenly found herself in the presence of an unfolding political demonstration, and she was immediately faced with a sudden question of conscience.
A question I hadn't anticipated when I'd hurriedly got ready that morning.
Would I remain a spectator, or would I stand with these students enduring disparagement from the bystanders who wished the parade to continue unhindered?
Among the debates and judgment the video footage of my mistakes has attracted, few have sincerely grappled with the sudden choices I had to make in challenging circumstances, and fewer have still earnestly asked whether my protected right to speak out as a US citizen requires that I must be perfect while doing so.
I love it, Melissa.
You called for some muscle to remove a student journalist from documenting the protest in a public space that you had obviously no rights to do.
You bullied out the student.
You were charged with assault.
Saying, oh, I wasn't perfect.
No, you weren't perfect, Melissa.
No one actually expects perfection.
People just expect a bare minimum of respecting other people's rights.
Is that so hard?
I do not understand the widespread impulse to shame those whose best intentions unfortunately result in imperfect actions.
What would our world be like if no one ever took a chance?
What if everyone played it safe?
Well then we'd have less human rights violations wouldn't we, Melissa?
I mean literally they would have been able to record this protest without you bullying them.
I mean you aren't the fucking victim who because you took a chance you used your position of authority over the students to encourage them to bully another student to infringe upon his right to go where he wants in a public area.
Unbelievable you would try and defend this.
While I never used my authority as a professor in the actions I took, the University of Missouri's collective rules and regulations, the guidelines that govern my employment, indicate that standards of excellence do not equate to perfection.
Well, well done, Melissa.
Nobody's suggesting they do.
I mean, you didn't use your authority as a professor because your authority as a professor does not include calling for muscle.
But you did use your influence as a professor to get this muscle.
This is why you have done something wrong, Melissa.
No one's asking you to be perfect.
They're just asking you not to break the rules, which you seem incapable of doing because you think you are morally entitled to do so.
You are not morally entitled to do so, and you are not the victim here.
You are in fact the victimizer.
She ends this by complaining that she's been heavily scrutinized on social media because of her not being perfect, and her imperfections have been exposed.
We should all be concerned about the larger issues my situation raises.
I don't want to live in a world where citizens are too afraid of public scorn to take a chance.
Do you?
Well, if that public scorn means they're not going to bully journalists out of protest, yeah.
Yeah, I do.
That's what needs to happen.
You're right.
There is exactly a larger issue here, Melissa.
And the larger issue was that you felt it was okay to do what you did.
And you think just an apology is what you should get.
No, you've got what you deserve.
You got fucking fired for abusing your position and the influence that comes with it to violate someone else's rights, Melissa.
I can't believe you would actually try and get out of this by just, you know, well, it's just a mistake.
It's just a little mistake.
It was you willfully trying to bully someone, you liar.
And finally this week, we'll talk about Glenn Greenwald complaining that the rise of Trump shows the danger and sham of compelled journalistic neutrality.
Ah yes, an anti-objectivity activist from the regressive left.
What a surprise.
I know I've said before that I didn't know that Glenn Greenwald, I didn't know what he thought really, so I didn't really know he was part of the regressive left.
I just heard people say it, but I couldn't substantiate it.
Well, I think that this article is probably going to put that issue to rest.
As Donald Trump's campaign predictably moves from toxic rhetoric targeting the most marginalized minorities to threats and use of violence, Donald Trump's campaign is using threats and violence, according to Glenn Greenwald.
There is a growing sense that American institutions have been too lax about resisting it.
Political scientist Brendan Nyan on Sunday posted a widely cited Twitter essay voicing his concern, arguing that Trump's rise represents a failure in American parties, media and civic institutions.
They are continuing to fail right now.
And Glenn has decided to interpret this as meaning that the regressive left have not denounced Trump hard enough.
In fact, the media in general hasn't denounced Trump hard enough.
Which is hilarious because the people following Trump know the media is full of shit.
The problem, in fact, is that the media is full of shit.
At least one problem is that the media is so full of shit nobody trusts it anymore, Glenn.
If you were someone who is following or involved with Gamergate, listen to this and tell me how you've heard this before.
Many people are alarmed, but it's difficult to know that by observing media coverage, where the little journalistic alarm over Trump is expressed.
Are you fucking kidding?
There's media all over the place calling Trump Hitler.
Everyone thinks he's a racist, even the people of his own fucking party are opposed to him.
Fox News has been opposed to him from day one.
And now he's just clearly winning.
People are starting to fall in line.
That's because the rules of large media outlets, venerating faux objectivity over truth along with every other civic value, prohibit the sounding of any alarms.
What are you talking about, Glenn?
It's been nothing but alarms and Trump has just strode through them like they don't matter.
Because they don't.
Because you fucking idiots don't know what you're dealing with.
And I love the faux objectivity.
Oh, because we can't have perfect objectivity.
We should have no objectivity.
And any objectivity that tries is faux objectivity.
This is exactly the regressive mindset.
This is why Melissa Click was making such a big deal about going, well, I'm not perfect.
I'm not perfect.
No one's expecting perfect.
Nobody is expecting perfect.
Everybody knows that everything in life is imperfect.
You suggesting otherwise is a straw man.
But under this framework of corporate journalism, to denounce Trump or even to sound alarms about the dark forces he's exploiting and unleashing would not constitute journalism.
That's because that would be editorializing you fucking idiots.
To the contrary, such behavior is regarded as a violation of journalism.
Because it is.
It's not neutral or objective.
It's not fact reporting.
It's opinion, Glenn.
Such denunciations are scorned as opinion, activism, and bias.
I wonder why.
I wonder why they're scorned as such.
All the values that a large media-owning corporation have posited as the antithesis of journalism in order to defang and neuter it as an adversarial force.
it's not meant to be an adversarial force.
It's meant to be a force looking for the truth, Glenn!
The objective, unbiased truth.
And so you saying, I'm not going to be objective and unbiased because I'm trying to do good, damn it, shows that you don't understand journalism in any way, shape, or form.
You are not doing good.
You will in fact end up doing bad by spreading propaganda.
And it will be another example of the road to hell being paved by good intentions.
Not that I expect you to give a fuck.
Listen to this.
Imagine calling yourself a journalist and then, as you watch an authoritarian politician get closer to power by threatening and unleashing violence and stoking its ugliest impulses, because Trump started the violence in his mind, denouncing not that politician but rather the other journalists that warn of the dangers.
What are you warning of?
You're warning that there is a danger that people in a democracy might get what they want.
And that's the embodiment of the ethos of corporate journalism in America, and a potent illustration of why this fetishized reverence for objectivity is so rotted and even dangerous.
That's right.
Being fair and honest to everyone is dangerous in this lunatic's mind.
Roberts herself agreed that it was justified for her to speak out only because she's in the role of NPR commentator and not reporter.
She's not a reporter, Glenn.
She's a commentator.
If I were doing it in your role as a reporter, Roberts told Green, you should be disappointed.
Yes.
She doesn't think journalists, reporters, should be biased or at least show their bias when they're reporting.
Greenwald considered this an abdication of journalistic duty to be biased, to attack things that the journalist doesn't personally approve of.
Despite the fact that's just going to lead to a fucking madhouse of insanely biased outlets that everyone is going to know aren't giving you the real truth.
Listen to this screed from Greenwald.
Imposing objectivity rules on the journalists who work for the media divisions was a means to avoid offending anyone by forcing journalists to conceal their perspectives, assumptions, viewpoints, and worse, forcing them to dishonestly pretend that they had none.
That they float above all that.
No, Glenn.
It's to ensure accuracy of reporting.
You fucking lunatic.
This framework neutered journalism and drained it of all its vitality and passion, reducing journalists to stenography drones permitted to do little more than summarize what each equally valid side asserts.
Well done.
That's, yes, that journalists aren't commentators.
They might from time to time editorialize, but when they are doing that, Glenn, it's not journalism.
And this is how Greenwald ends this piece.
As a result, nobody should be looking to our nation's largest media outlets to serve as a bulwark against Trumpism or any other serious menace.
The rules they have imposed on themselves by design ensure their own neutrality in the face of the most extreme evils.
As if this is Trump is an extreme evil.
Which is absurd.
It's fucking absurd.
There are a lot of things wrong with Donald Trump, but he isn't an extreme evil.
But more to the point, you seem to fail to understand, Glenn, that there is nothing that these outlets could possibly do to serve as a bulwark against Trumpism.
They tried and failed, and they will keep failing, just like you will keep failing, while you continue to misrepresent your opponent.
You cannot accurately explain why Donald Trump is popular.
You can't even accurately explain what kind of human being Donald Trump is.
You are putting him on the same fucking level as Hitler.
You are wrong, and you will continue to be wrong, and you will end up losing, and frankly, I don't know what's going to happen to you.
You're probably going to have a fucking mental breakdown or something, because like all regressives, you have the blind spot.
The I cannot possibly criticize myself blind spot because fundamentally, people like you in the media, the regressives, are the reason Trump is doing so well.
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