Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

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Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Dominus Atheos »

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/22/isr ... blacklist/
“It’s Killing the Student Movement”: Canary Mission’s Blacklist of Pro-Palestine Activists Is Taking a Toll
Alex Kane@alexbkane

S.A. was a high school sophomore when she had her first personal encounter with the post-9/11 surveillance state. It was 2010, and the federal government’s security apparatus had taken a particular interest in New York Muslims like herself. One of her classmates called the FBI to report that S.A. was a threat.

Federal agents responded to the call and questioned S.A about terrorism, after which she grew paranoid about government surveillance and deleted her Facebook. Still, a year later, she felt comfortable enough to get back online.

That comfort didn’t last. Her paranoia and anxiety blew up again in 2015. At the time, she was the head of a campus Students for Justice in Palestine group and advocated for boycotting Israel. S.A. was placed on the website Canary Mission, which compiles dossiers on Palestinian rights advocates and labels them racists, anti-Semites, and supporters of terrorism.

Being placed on Canary Mission led her to close all her social media pages to the public. She stopped posting on Tumblr. She hasn’t created a LinkedIn, even though that could hinder future job searches. And when she contemplates her future, S.A.’s anxiety flares up again because of her profile on Canary Mission, which focused on, among other things, her criticism of her school system’s support for Israel and her participation in protests condemning Israel’s use of force on Palestinians.

“My anxiety is so bad I literally have put off applying to grad school for the past two years because I’m afraid that this will be part of the reason I’m rejected,” she told The Intercept. “[Canary Mission] updates the page, so I know there’s someone who looks for me online and updates every few months, which just feels incredibly scary.”

Canary Mission’s growth coincides with the increasing strength of the Palestinian rights movement in the United States, and S.A. is one of more than 1,000 students, professors, and activists that the website has placed in its crosshairs.

Since it first splashed on the web three years ago, the blacklist has taken a remarkable toll on activists’ mental health and ability to engage in free speech and public advocacy on Palestine. A survey of over 60 people profiled on Canary Mission, conducted by the group Against Canary Mission, found that 43 percent of respondents said they toned down their activism because of the blacklist, while 42 percent said they suffered acute anxiety from being placed on the website.

Their shared experiences include feelings of anxiety and paranoia, and in some cases, stepping back from Palestinian rights activism.

The Intercept spoke with 13 people, all of them current or former students, who are profiled on Canary Mission. The majority of them, like S.A., requested anonymity because they were afraid that speaking out about the blacklist would result in additional harassment. Their shared experiences include feelings of anxiety and paranoia, and in some cases, stepping back from Palestinian rights activism — mirroring the results of the Against Canary Mission survey. Some reported receiving death threats online when Canary Mission tweets about them, and others said they believe they have had a tough time finding a job because of their inclusion on the list.

The blacklist has become especially frightening, some activists said, because it’s being used by law enforcement in Israel and the United States. Palestinian rights advocates have been interrogated and deported from Israel because of their Canary Mission profiles. Others have been interrogated by the FBI, as The Intercept reported in June.

Canary Mission has grown alongside the explosion of a nationwide panic over campus free speech manufactured by right-wing activists and supported by some leading liberal writers. But in the face of Canary Mission’s actual threat to free speech and activism on college campuses, those supposedly concerned with the silencing of dissenting voices have largely remained mum on how the website deters speech and activism.

While Canary Mission promotes itself as a group working against anti-Semitism, the blacklist’s effective goal is to clamp down on growing support for Palestine in the United States by intimidating and tarnishing Palestinian rights advocates with the brush of bigotry. Many students were added after they got involved in campaigns led by Students for Justice in Palestine to get their universities to divest from corporations that support the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Some profiles on Canary Mission do highlight actual bigotry, but critics of the blacklist say the profiles are often based on quotes ripped out of context, and wrongly conflate support for Palestinian human rights with support for violence or anti-Semitism. (Canary Mission is a reference to the phrase “canary in the coal mine,” which the group sees as a “metaphor for the persecution of a minority that subsequently spreads to the general populace.”)

“Targets of Canary Mission have been denied entry to Palestine, fired from jobs, interrogated by employers and university administrators, and targeted with death threats and racial, homophobic misogynist harassment from Canary Mission followers,” said Liz Jackson, a founding staff attorney for Palestine Legal, a group that has interviewed over 200 people targeted by Canary Mission. “We know one person who was denied a bank account. People have reported their relationships with parents and business relationships being damaged. And that doesn’t begin to describe the self-censorship and psychological warfare effects.”

Canary Mission perfectly articulated its vision and strategy in its April 2015 debut video. The two-minute clip features images of Jews with yellow stars on their clothes followed by images of hijab-clad women waving Palestinian flags. The video’s female narrator closes by saying, “It is your duty to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.”

Along with the ominous video, Canary Mission’s website went live with dozens of profiles of students and academics who were critical of Israel. The profiles feature students’ names, professions, photos, screenshots of social media posts that included critiques of Israel, and allegations that Students for Justice in Palestine intimidates and assaults Jewish students. Many allegations of anti-Semitism are based on declarations of support for Palestine and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that targets Israel over human rights abuses.

The website was anonymously run, making it even more creepy. But in the three years since Canary Mission went online, journalists — most notably Josh Nathan-Kazis of The Forward — have slowly peeled back the careful veneer of anonymity the site constructed.

Earlier this year, The Forward uncovered two sources of funding for the website. The Helen Diller Family Foundation, a charity controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, gave the website $100,000 in late 2016 or early 2017, while the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, between November 2016 and September 2017, sent $250,000 to an Israeli nonprofit thought to operate the website. (Both charities said they would no longer be funding the blacklist.) The Forward also reported that the Israeli nonprofit linked to the site, Megamot Shalom, is run by former employees of Aish HaTorah, a right-wing Orthodox Jewish organization. (Requests for comment sent to Jonathan Bash, an ex-Aish HaTorah employee who The Forward identified as the operator of the website, and Canary Mission were not returned.)

A clip from Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation into the Israel lobby in the United States showed a pro-Israel advocate pointing to another funder of Canary Mission: Adam Milstein, an Israeli-American real estate magnate who funds an alphabet soup of pro-Israel organizations. No hard proof has emerged that Milstein is in fact a funder, though Milstein, who denied he gave the website cash, has praised the blacklist.

The puncturing of Canary Mission’s anonymity has done little to slow it down.

But the puncturing of Canary Mission’s anonymity has done little to slow it down. The website continues to add information on Palestinian rights advocates, and has continued to single out activists on Twitter, which in turn leads Canary Mission’s followers to harass those activists. (Canary Mission has been suspended from Twitter twice, but its account was reinstated both times.)

In its dossiers, Canary Mission also links to the Facebook profiles of the activists it targets. R.G., a member of SJP at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that after Canary Mission added him to its blacklist, he started receiving threatening messages to his Facebook account.

“My first quarter at UCLA, someone said they were going to come to UCLA and kill me. And I had to move out of my dorm,” he told The Intercept.

The harassment happens in the offline world, too. D.G., the president of an SJP chapter at an Illinois university, is a resident adviser in a dorm. She says that two of her fellow resident advisers found her profile on Canary Mission, printed out a dossier on her based on her Canary Mission profile, and gave it to her boss in an unsuccessful effort to get her fired.

Many of those on the blacklist say it has harmed their mental health.

“I had a dissociative panic attack when I was added,” said K.G., a Chicago-based activist who was involved in Palestine solidarity work while in college. “It seemed like my world had changed because all of these hateful and violent things attached with my picture had just been lobbed into the public sphere.”

That Canary Mission mostly goes after people of color, who are often already at a disadvantage in a job market rife with discrimination, makes the blacklist even more harmful. Moreover, Palestinians and Arabs listed on the site say that it reinforces pernicious stereotypes.

“When you’re Arab and you’re on it, you’re automatically guilty. There’s no question that you’re an anti-Semite, or whatever it is they want to accuse you of,” said one woman blacklisted by Canary Mission. She noted that the uniqueness of Arabic names makes it more likely that Arabs on the list will be impacted by the dossiers. “If my name was Mark Smith, you could Google me all you want, you’re not going to find anything on it,” she said. “But for me, when it first happened, it was the first hit when you Google my name.”

Canary Mission has also led people to quiet their support of Palestinian rights. One organizer of a national Students for Justice in Palestine conference held in mid-November said many students decided not to attend because of fear of the blacklist.

“It’s killing the student movement,” said Rani al-Hindi, who was a member of Palestine activist groups at Hunter College in New York. “We’re not able to organize any big actions, have any big events, organize for the divestment campaign that has launched. There is a lot of intimidation.”

Still, some who are listed on the Canary Mission website, particularly those who are more established in their workplace or school program, have not backed down from their advocacy.

“Resistance has to continue no matter how dire the material manifestations are.”

“In my mind, I had to keep going just as strong as and stronger than before,” said Omar Zahzah, who said he was one of the first people placed on the website while organizing with University of California, Los Angeles’s SJP. “From a historic perspective, resistance has to continue no matter how dire the material manifestations are. That kind of spirit, of needing to continue in the struggle no matter what, is my guiding inspiration.”
To see an example, this profile was updated just today:

canarymission.org/individual/Mackenzie_Abele

On dozens of fronts that individually may be small, there is a big war going on between decent people who are capable of empathy towards people who are different from them, and terrible people who aren't.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by The Romulan Republic »

The fascists have figured out that, while they can't (yet) have the government legally blacklist and harass private citizens for their views (though lord knows Dickless Donald is trying), they can outsource despotism to private companies and organizations, or other nations overseas. Trump does this as well, for example by pressuring the NFL to punish players for kneeling during the national anthem (which actually is an illegal abuse of his office, but a less direct and obvious violation of the 1st. Amendment than ordering Justice to indict the players would be), or by inciting his mob (and foreign governments like the Saudis) to attack reporters, and then condoning their violence when they do. He can't go around terrorizing his critics directly to the extent that he'd like, so he outsources fascism.

That's what this sounds like, too- a private company blacklisting and harassing people, and then law enforcement just taking their claims at face value, rather than the Feds directly blacklisting people for their political views.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Eulogy »

I can't wait to see the fallout from the inevitable class-action lawsuit against the website and the wastes of skin that run it.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Oh, I hope so.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by U.P. Cinnabar »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-22 06:56pm The fascists have figured out that, while they can't (yet) have the government legally blacklist and harass private citizens for their views (though lord knows Dickless Donald is trying), they can outsource despotism to private companies and organizations, or other nations overseas. Trump does this as well, for example by pressuring the NFL to punish players for kneeling during the national anthem (which actually is an illegal abuse of his office, but a less direct and obvious violation of the 1st. Amendment than ordering Justice to indict the players would be), or by inciting his mob (and foreign governments like the Saudis) to attack reporters, and then condoning their violence when they do. He can't go around terrorizing his critics directly to the extent that he'd like, so he outsources fascism.

That's what this sounds like, too- a private company blacklisting and harassing people, and then law enforcement just taking their claims at face value, rather than the Feds directly blacklisting people for their political views.
They figured that out during Gamergate, when private individuals were doxxing those on the anti-Gamergate side, then projecting their bad behavior onto their victims.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Darth Yan »

Typical. The good news is that a lot of American Jews are have denounced this garbage so I think long run canary will loose
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Starglider »

The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

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Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
From my perspective (which may very well be completely wrong): the right wing doesn't seem to offer us any other choice. No form of reasoning from reality can get through to them anymore and they've decided to turn it into a game of "the side that annihilates its opponent wins". So they shouldn't start acting shocked and indignant when we play by the rules they've set just to continue surviving.

Again, I'm probably wrong about reality in this case (let me know if so), but that is the vibe I've been getting for a while.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Zaune »

Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
You're not wrong. But do you think that if the hard left stopped doing all that, the hard right would reciprocate?

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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Ralin »

Zaune wrote: 2018-12-04 01:41pm You're not wrong. But do you think that if the hard left stopped doing all that, the hard right would reciprocate?

Winning this particular race to the bottom will be awful. Losing it will be worse.
You're not wrong. Though depending on the specifics responding in kind can do more harm than good by normalizing, say, harassing people offline by trying to get them fired for shit they say on social media.

Not that Starglider is speaking in anything like good faith given that he's comparing isolated and often deliberately taken out of context 'threats' from anti-TERF organizations to stalking and doxxing transgender women, adult women harassing and outing teenagers, etc. Don't forget, he's a troll and trolls are bad.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by madd0ct0r »

No, there are definitely hit list websites documenting and doxing members of far right orgs, just as there are ones targeting leftwingers.

I ended up reporting a welsh one to the police as i recall.

We are moving more to a "many watch the many" society, which would be fine if extreme members of that society didnt have the ability to enact their fantasies and society as a whole was less worried about noisy publicity. As noted above, neither side will disarm in the race to the bottom, so the only option is to minimise the prize.

If no-one cares you are in a death metal band, or spent last weekend with antifa or a member of the masons, a lot of the doxxing pressure lists would fade away.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by mr friendly guy »

Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
I don't have a problem airing people's dirty laundry such as racist views. I also don't have a problem is the "other side" points out that this particular person complaining about a guy's shirt being misogynist actually made more misogynists posts in the past. * I do have a problem if you distort their view and claim its an accurate representation. This is what Canary mission is accused of, and I am not going to go through all the posts to see if this is true, but that is clearly a different kettle of fish. And yes I am aware of anti Israel sites doing the same thing to pro Israel students.

* this event was true BTW.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by mr friendly guy »

One of the arguments the right used against hate speech laws is, we don't need a law to regulate that, racists should be controlled by showing them society's scorn. Well I think pointing out to their employer that they are racists, and the employer choosing not to keep them on is a prime example of the society's scorn. The right wing (who totally aren't racist) have no grounds to complain about Leftists shaming racists.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Darth Yan »

Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
The Right started it. They've tried to get people fired for their views, and given that many of the people outed were engaged in support of neo nazis, or that many of the "experts" like Jordan Peterson peddle quackery to angry young men you have no room to talk. For every left winger who's behaved badly you have 10 right-wingers threatening rape and murder (statistically 2/3rds of all domestic terrorist incidents are done by right wingers)
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Zaune wrote: 2018-12-04 01:41pm
Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
You're not wrong. But do you think that if the hard left stopped doing all that, the hard right would reciprocate?

Winning this particular race to the bottom will be awful. Losing it will be worse.
I do not and will not condone people on the Left harassing, threatening, or enabling harassment and threats against private individuals for simply holding or expressing Right wing views. Even if we were in a state of actual civil war I would not condone attacks on private citizens for their political views. That is domestic terrorism you are advocating, full stop, and if we decide that the only way to win is to become as vicious and hateful as the other side, then in a larger sense it doesn't really matter much who wins- because there is no right or wrong, just two rabid dogs trying to tear each other's throats out over the carcass of civilization.

I mean, stop and think for a moment. Is "the Left really needs to close the rape threat gap with the Right" a position you want to defend?

That said, I see this stuff far more from the Right than from the Left, and I reiterate my utter contempt for "Both Sides" narratives and deflections in all their forms.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Zaune »

No, it's not a position I want to defend. And as far as the specific example of a "rape threat gap" goes, that can stay as wide as the bloody Grand Canyon because it's one of the few tactics I consider to be morally repugnant and completely ineffective, because the alt-right has such utter contempt for women that they would only see it as another stick to beat the left with.

But nevertheless, if the US government becomes so totally suborned by fascism that there's no means of resisting it short of picking up a gun, I'm afraid it will very quickly come down to a choice between becoming as vicious and hateful as the other side and being trampled under their boots. The neo-Nazi movement attracts the sort of people who will take a principled refusal to resort to atrocities as a license to commit atrocities of their own without fear of retaliation.
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Zaune wrote: 2018-12-07 06:54am No, it's not a position I want to defend. And as far as the specific example of a "rape threat gap" goes, that can stay as wide as the bloody Grand Canyon because it's one of the few tactics I consider to be morally repugnant and completely ineffective, because the alt-right has such utter contempt for women that they would only see it as another stick to beat the left with.
So there are lines you will draw, short of what fascists are willing to condone. Good. It doesn't mean you're weaker than them. It means you're better than them.

I am curious, though, as to whether you would condone such a tactic if you thought it would be effective.
But nevertheless, if the US government becomes so totally suborned by fascism that there's no means of resisting it short of picking up a gun, I'm afraid it will very quickly come down to a choice between becoming as vicious and hateful as the other side and being trampled under their boots. The neo-Nazi movement attracts the sort of people who will take a principled refusal to resort to atrocities as a license to commit atrocities of their own without fear of retaliation.
You do realize that in that scenario being "as vicious and hateful as the other side" would probably include committing acts of genocide? Is that something you'd be willing to engage in under "necessary evil"? How 'bout torture? Caging children? Hell, they're doing that now. Does that mean that we should as well?

And Nazism attracts people who will commit atrocities regardless of wether we commit them in kind or not. They don't need "licence"- as far as they're concerned, the existence of people different from them is licence enough. If we get to the point trading bullets in the streets on a regular basis, they're not going to be dissuaded by anything less than complete, systematic defeat.

The people we would need to attract are the people who aren't okay with a society built on blood and subjugation. There simply aren't enough violent extremists on the Left to build a viable opposition out of even if you throw moral considerations out of the window.

I'm not saying that there wouldn't be atrocities on both sides, if it got to that point. I'm not delusional. Of course there would be. That's what happens in war, and it's one of the main reasons why war should be avoided whenever possible. But that doesn't mean we should wholeheartedly embrace any and all tactics, just because the fascists use them. The most brutal method isn't always the most pragmatic one. We should do what it takes to defeat fascism. No less, and no more. And we should consider very carefully what that means. Because too often, "necessary evil" is used as a way to hand-wave away objections to committing evil, rather than pausing to ask whether the evil being proposed is really "necessary".
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Zaune »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-12-08 02:52amSo there are lines you will draw, short of what fascists are willing to condone. Good. It doesn't mean you're weaker than them. It means you're better than them.

I am curious, though, as to whether you would condone such a tactic if you thought it would be effective.
I don't know. I don't really want to know, because I don't think there's a good answer to that: If I do condone morally repugnant methods that nevertheless work then it makes me a terrible human being, but when the stakes are literally preventing the world from turning into the epilogue of The Turner Diaries, what does it make me if I don't?
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Re: Canary Mission's blacklist of pro-Palestinian activists is taking a toll

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

Starglider wrote: 2018-12-03 12:54pm The left use the exact same tactics of centralised block lists, doxxing, personal threats (up to and including murder and rape, e.g. the numerous 'anti-TERF' organisations), trying to force employers to fire people because of their political views ('outing' various demonstrators and harassing their employers), trying to ban debate and shut down scientific work (e.g. anything that touches on how evolutionary psychology applies to humans). While these particular activists might not be approve of that and thus still get my sympathy, the median SDN attitude these days is very much in favour of 'each and every suppression tactic is fine as long as we're the ones doing the suppressing', which is just reprehensible hypocrisy.
Where are you getting this "shut down scientific work" component from? Or anything relating to evolutionary psychology?
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