By now you've probably heard about Buzzfeed
News' investigative series on selfish-help giant (in more ways than one) Tony Robbins. The first installment -- and the one
that elicited the most reaction from the news media and even
prompted a rapid response from Tony himself -- was published on May 17,
complete with a large animation that alternated between an image
of a hugely smiling "normal" Tony and that of a
sinister, malevolently grinning Devil-red caricature. The
headline screamed:
Leaked Records Reveal Tony
Robbins Berated Abuse Victims, And Former Followers Accuse Him Of
Sexual Advances
Buzzfeed has thus far published two additional
and somewhat anti-climactic pieces in their investigative series
on Robbins: the second one reporting that
four additional women had come forward with accusations against
him, and the third installment documenting that a very young Robbins had been filmed using racial
slurs. Granted, in context it appears to me after an admittedly
cursory review that the racial slur accusation may be stretching
things a little bit: however misguided and lacking in application
in the real world it may have been, Tony was apparently just
trying to lead some event attendees in an exercise to strip
racial epithets of their power by shouting them over and over and
laughing at their absurdity. But racism, like most serious
problems that selfish-help gurus so often try to address via
shocky (or schlocky) showmanship, is not that easily solved... so
it was still kind of a stupid thing to do.
Immediately following the publication of the first piece in
Buzzfeed, Robbins, not surprisingly, bit back, attacking Buzzfeed in an "open letter" on
Medium. He boasted about all of the
many millions of people -- including dead celebrities such as
Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, and various world
leaders -- whom he'd helped over the years. He acknowledged that
his "open-classroom therapeutic methods" are not for
everyone, but he denied ever behaving in the "reckless,
irresponsible, or malicious" ways that the Buzzfeed
"storytellers" alleged. He insinuated that most of the
accusations concerned behavior from decades ago and were
therefore irrelevant. But the main thrust of his response was to
attack Buzzfeed and attempt to discredit it. He accused the
reporters of engaging in unfair and possibly illegal tactics, and
insisted that they had a predetermined agenda to bring him down.
One Robbins follower, who though not explicitly named in the
first Buzzfeed story insisted that her info about an intervention
incident was misused by the reporters, has hired lawyers and threatens to sue Buzzfeed if they do not remove the content that she says relates to her. In his own "open letter" on
Medium, Robbins shared her "Tony is my hero and Buzzfeed is
unfair" vid, and he linked to her video not one, not two,
but three different times in his missive without
indicating that he was using the same source repeatedly. It was
all apparently in the service of making the anti-Buzzfeed
contingent seem larger.
Not that Tony really needed to do that. He had plenty of
reinforcements; also unsurprisingly, his fans rushed to defend
him and condemn Buzzfeed, e.g., on Twitter.
But Buzzfeed stands by their reporting. A spokesman for Buzzfeed told The Daily Beast:
“Our reporting is based on records of
Mr. Robbins berating victims of rape and domestic violence,
and the testimony of former staffers and followers who
accused him of inappropriate sexual advances. It does not
appear that Mr. Robbins read the story itself before he
published his open letter, which contains a number of
demonstrably false and defamatory claims about both our
reporting and the resulting article.”
The only news is that it really isn't
news
When the Buzzfeed story first broke it created
quite a stir not just among some of the news and entertainment
media but also among many ordinary folks, including some in my
own small social media network, who expressed shock and disbelief
that such an iconic figure could have been even remotely involved
in the alleged misdeeds. How could this be? they
wondered, and taking a cue from Tony himself, many of his fans
have simply chalked it up to more "fake news."
One friend of mine who is a fan of Robbins' work seemed to be
wrestling with the question of whether or not to remain a fan
should the allegations be true. I lamely suggested an attempt to
separate the message from the messenger, but that was actually a
silly response, and my friend Tim called me on it by noting that
manipulation, deceit, and scamming comprise the foundation of Robbins'
entire shtick. Another person on my Facebook timeline dismissed
the whole thing outright, saying that the accusers were clearly
just a bunch of jealous wannabes. (But the latter person also
thinks that pretty much all rape or sexual abuse accusations are
false, so you have to consider the source.)
To some of us, though, the Buzzfeed story came as no surprise.
This is not to give short shrift to Buzzfeed's efforts, but
c'mon, folks, there have been numerous controversies and legal issues around Robbins for
decades. Granted, Robbins himself has
seemed to put considerable effort into quashing critical content
in print and online, sometimes via litigation or threats thereof,
but he has had his share of critics who have, in their own ways,
documented much of his questionable behavior over the years. That
"squeaky clean image" that some of the current crop of
commentators insist he has maintained isn't all that clean, to
those who are paying attention anyway.
And certainly the Buzzfeed allegations that Tony berated sexual
abuse victims should be no surprise, in light of last year's
kerfuffle over his tone-deaf statements and subsequent bumbling
apologies regarding the #MeToo movement. Here is one of hundreds of accounts of that..
Beyond that, those of us who have been observing
selfish-help/New-Wage/McSpirituality luminaries for many years
know that sexual harassment and predation are some of the
worst-kept secrets in those "industries." There is so
little accountability in these fields, and there are so many
vulnerable and broken people who are on a constant quest for
validation and will gladly accept it from even the dodgiest of
sources.
Of course these problems also exist in numerous other industries
and institutions involving unequal power dynamics: boss-employee,
schoolteacher-student, film producer-actor; traditional religious
leader-parishioner/congregation member; politician-aide... you get the drift. The
temptation to take advantage of one's position of power is often
too great to resist, and when celebrity is added to the mix it's
quite often even easier to take advantage. Grab 'em by the pussy,
as someone infamously said...
This is not to deny that sometimes the "less
powerful" parties are the initiators; even minor celebrities
have groupies and obsessed fans who aggressively pursue them, and
the selfish-help industry is no exception. Women as well as men can be very
aggressive in their pursuits when they are obsessed. (As well, women in positions of
power can and do take advantage of "less powerful" men,
so don't think that I am framing this as simply a #believewomen
issue.) Nor am I overlooking the fact that many interactions are,
however distasteful or ill-advised, consensual. And I'm certainly not trying to deny that even
those who strive for lofty positions of leadership are imperfect
human beings, as Robbins described himself in his open letter, as
sort of a blanket exoneration of any of his own dickweedish
behavior. But as I've noted in other contexts, the onus is on the
"more powerful" party to avoid taking advantage of fans
or groupies or students or aides or parishioners or other
obsessed, vulnerable, or broken people.
Moreover, even absent actual sexual harassment/predation, the
egotism, arrogance, and sociopathy of many in the selfish-help
industry is pretty well documented. I've addressed some of these
issues previously on this blog; see additional links at the end
of this post.
And beyond all of that... as I mentioned in passing above, Tony Robbins is an inveterate
huckster and a serial scammer, pure and simple, and if you do not
see that by now, I am not going to expend much effort trying to
convince you. Do your own research. Suffice to say that Tony has
his huge fingers in a lot of pies; in addition to his own
progressively more pricey shticks, which you'd think that would
be enough, he also isn't above promoting the frauducts and flopportunities of far
lesser but no less scummy scammers.
That link in the previous sentence leads to a 2010 post by my
long-time friend and blogging colleague (and now working lawyer)
Jason "Salty Droid" Jones, who has documented some of
Robbins' scams in exquisite detail. Here's a link to a list of all of his posts tagged
"Tony Robbins." I'm guessing
that Jason is one of those who was not at all surprised by what
Buzzfeed uncovered.
Another person who was completely unsurprised not only by the
Buzzfeed series, but also by the #MeToo v Tony conflict last
year, is James Fell, of the "Body For Wife" blog. In
the wake of the #MeToo flap, Fell wrote a post entitled, "Tony Robbins Has Always Been Shitty." The title sums it up quite nicely, but the post is
worth a read for it presents yet another snapshot of Robbins'
manipulative, coercive, and just plain dickweedy seminar
techniques, and his relentless and aggressive upselling. Wrote
Fell:
Guys like Tony are the worst kind of
“guru,” in that they’re only half full of shit. Also
known as telling half-truths and packaging stuff that is
logical in a mystical aura of rainbows and puppy hugs and
para-psychological nonsense with scientific-sounding names.
But it’s all just a way to suck money out of your wallet by
merging legitimacy with the miraculous. As I said, these
people will motivate you down to your last dollar. They tell
you how you’re broken, then
sell you the “fix.”
Lest you think Fell is a just another cynic about the self-help
field, you're wrong.
Does this mean all work in the field of
motivation is bogus? Hardly. It means don’t get it from a
guy pushing pseudoscience whose greatest accomplishment is
convincing millions he is great at accomplishing things.
Tony gives self-improvement a bad name. But there is plenty
of legitimate behavior change science people can use for the
betterment of their lives, and I’ve written about a lot of
it over the years, interviewing respected experts with real
PhDs from real universities. I’m personally fond of
self-determination theory and self-efficacy theory. I also
find value in the theory of planned behavior.
Alas, it’s sensationalism that sells. If you desire
self-improvement, avoid that which is popular or sexy, and
seek out the real science. It won’t keep trying to upsell
you or blast anything up your ass as you walk on fire while
wearing a bullshit pendant made from a few bucks worth of
cheap materials.
Yet another blogger, my pal Andrew
"Duff" McDuffee, wrote a series of essays on Robbins
and the "cult of aggressive positivity" back in June
2010. I've cited Duff's work previously but it's pertinent here
too. Here's a link to Part 1.
In any case, regarding the current Buzzfeed series, I think the
writer of a May 18 Quartz piece nailed
it when she wrote that whether or not any or all of the
allegations against Tony Robbins are true...
...it’s certain that Robbins now
finds himself in an awkward position. He rails against
victimization and urges followers to overcome the obstacles
of their past—whether it’s childhood abuse, rape,
poverty, or other difficult circumstances—for tomorrow’s
possibilities. That’s a central tenet of his guidance. Now
he’ll have to embrace these lessons, too: If he displays
too much self-pity over the negative coverage, he risks
seeming like a hypocrite in addition to everything else he
may or may not be.
"Seeming like a hypocrite?" I'd say
that train has already left the station. In any event it appears
that so far, Robbins isn't playing the self-pity game as much as
he is trading in faux sadness and muted outrage:
planting, with a few carefully chosen sentences that range from
the snarky to the histrionic, the seeds of indignation in the
faithful, who are taking up the mantle of his defense and
vociferously condemning Buzzfeed. The fan base seems to be doing
most of the heavy lifting for him for the time being, though I
wouldn't rule out Robbins resorting to litigation at some point.
I will say this, however, as I believe I've previously declared
here: I did like Tony Robbins in the Jack Black movie Shallow Hal. That is my attempt to be fair and balanced here.
And now that we've gotten fair and balanced out of the way, let's
be realistic. Again, this is not to undermine the efforts of the
Buzzfeed reporters, but frankly I don't really think that the
publication of their work marks any sort of turning point, or
that it will shock a critical mass of vulnerable folks awake and
that as a result they will decide never to hand over any money or
emotional currency to a selfish-help huckster again. In the
greater scheme of things, despite the shock of the seemingly
"untouchable" Tony Robbins being the target of a
critical investigation... probably little will change. The
devotees will continue to throng to Tony's expensive mega-events,
he will continue to sell and promote his own (and select others')
frauducts and flopportunities, he will continue to exploit his
own celebrity status in any way he sees fit, and, of course, he
will continue to make money hand over fist.
As I've said so many times before, quoting an increasingly
annoying but nonetheless accurate maxim: The dogs bark, but
the caravan moves on.
Related on this Whirled:
- Re sexual predation being one of the
worst kept secrets in the
selfish-help/New-Wage/McSpirituality industries; though
this long piece is slightly dated (as noted in the
disclaimer at the beginning), it still lends relevant
perspective to some of the above:
February 2016 -- The hatriarchy: musings on rape culture,
xenophobia, racism and other nasty business (especially under "Rape
culture in the New-Wage world," but other sections
are relevant too)
- Some folks say that when a guru or
idol's bad behavior enters the picture, it's still
possible to "separate the message from the
messenger." Here's why that isn't always possible or
wise, even if the "message" itself isn't also
bogus (which it so often is). In retrospect, and in light of the #MeToo
movement, I may have cut too much slack for entertainment
celebrities and politicians regarding codes of behavior, but
overall I think the message in this post is valid.
November 2009 -- The lies that blind
- Tony Robbins insists that his
"open-classroom therapeutic methods" aren't for
everyone, but that they have helped millions. But people
can be and are emotionally, psychologically, and even
physically harmed (and sometimes even killed) at LGAT
(large group awareness training) events such as those
that Robbins conducts/sponsors. The issue of regulation
in the self-help industry is still a controversial one; I
tried to offer some perspective a few years ago.
March 2010 -- Self-help regulation: necessary
safeguard or Nanny-state nonsense?
- More perspective on emotional,
physical and sexual abuse by a faux-guru, in this case,
James Arthur Ray, who is responsible for the deaths of
four people and the injuries of numerous others at his
own events.
October 2010 -- Musings on a tragedy and its meanings
- Some consider Tony Robbins to be a
"life coach." But "life coaching,"
like other segments of the self-help industry, has more
than its share of unqualified practitioners who are
playing with people's lives as well as their pocketbooks.
April 2007 -- Is the word "coaching" or
"ka-ching?"
- The Buzzfeed reporters wrote about the
carefully structured physical and emotional environment
at Tony Robbins' intensive events, citing several factors
from uncomfortable room temperatures to long grueling
hours, all of which were crafted to make attendees more
vulnerable to manipulation. These factors are hardly
unique to Robbins, though. The folks who ran current
Scammer in Chief Donald Trump's bogus
"university" were working from the same
playbook, as do lots of other hucksters.
May 2016 -- Donald Trump's Scamworld playbook isn't
unique
* * * * *
Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit
card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank
you!
The world LOVES a comeback story!
And I’m not speaking about your comeback theoretically. I’m
speaking from painfully lived experience, so I know how to help
you regain what you had through the crisis.
~ Convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray, aka The
Scumback Kid, who hasn't yet been
able to make his own successful comeback
Isn't it a pity that one little itty-bitty
teeny-weenie mistake can ruin your reputation and business and
maybe your whole entire life? James Arthur "Death" Ray -- motivational guru, star of the infamous moviemercial
The Secret, and
convicted killer who served less than two years in an Arizona
state prison for negligently homiciding three people in a phony sweat
lodge -- feels your pain. And he can
guide you right on through it with one of the newest offerings on
his menu of desperate comeback attempts services,
"Crisis Coaching."
Ray recognizes the profound unfairness of it all. The world, as he has learned the hard way, is so unforgiving:
One mistake and no one recognizes everything
that you’ve brought to the table.
Crisis Coaching® brings you back to
your pedestal, brings back your life, and brings it back with
grace.
You’ve worked hard for your name. You’ve put in more
hours than you can possibly count.
And you’ve contributed way more than most to the world.
But one PR explosion, one big error or misstep, and no one
remembers any of the good you did.
Take back your life and everything that you’ve worked for.
Now
Regardless of what they’re trying to do to you and your
career.
I’m James Arthur Ray and I coach the biggest and best
through, back from, and beyond crisis.
Whether they’re accusing you of sleeping around, taking
something that wasn’t yours, substance abuse, or spilling
oil in the ocean, I help public figures, athletes, and
high-powered execs just like you pull through the storm that
envelops you.
With Crisis Coaching, your business and legal team will most
likely have the tools to manage ruthless media with finesse
and suave. So you can get back to what life is really
supposed to be like again.
Yet, while they have you in front of a firing squad, you
still have to manage your own mental toughness, emotional
strength, family and friends (and everything and everyone
that seems to come at you when you’re at your lowest); and
you have to manage them with confidence, prowess, and power.
I help you do that.
I'm just wondering which one of his coaching
clients spilled oil in the ocean.
Death Ray warns that you should not trust such a profoundly
important mission to people who haven't been where you are. Trust
it instead to Ray, who has been through hell and back himself.
After having built a multi-million
dollar brand, I was drawn and quartered because of
unfortunate incidents that took place during a retreat I and
my company conducted.
As the leader, I lost everything.
But I have since rebuilt my empire.
And I want to make sure you rebuild yours.
"Unfortunate incidents..." So that's
how he describes the deaths of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz
Neuman, each of whom spent thousands of dollars for the
once-in-a-deathtime opportunity to be cooked alive during
Ray's "Spiritual Warrior" weekend in Sedona in October
2009. Notice how he spreads the blame around a bit to include
"my company."
And as for rebuilding his empire... well, let's just say that
despite his continuing efforts, it seems to be an egregiously downsized scampire at best, and that the downsizing does not appear to be
at all voluntary.
But never mind that. If you are a sleep-arounder, a taker of something that
wasn't yours, a substance abuser, an oil spiller, or even a
killer -- and it's affecting your emotional health and, most
egregious of all, your income -- Crisis Coaching might be just
the ticket for you; accordingly, James has thoughtfully included,
at the bottom of the Crisis Coaching promo page, a handy
assessment form for you to fill out. Even if you haven't done
something awful, I get the feeling that James will be glad to
hear from pretty much anyone, so if you happen to be a loved one
of one of his victims, or you were a victim yourself of his well-documented emotionally abusive and/or physically
injurious and/or reckless behavior over
the years... or even if you're just really, really sick and tired
of his adamant refusal to take responsibility and his constant whining
how awful things have been for him... go ahead and fill
out the form. Pour out your heart. That's what the form is there
for.
And here's an even better idea, if you're at all tempted to give
money to James Arthur Ray for any reason: Give it instead to a
worthwhile organization, such as, say... Seek Safely, which was founded by Kirby Brown's family to guide
consumers and make self-help practitioners more accountable for
their actions through legislation. (Here is
the link to donation info.) So far,
more than 160 leading lights in the industry have been invited to
sign the "Seek Safely" promise... and not
one of them has yet done so. In all
fairness, some of them are now dead, such as Louise Hay and Wayne
Dyer. But as for the rest... well, the invitation has been open
for years, but nobody who's anybody in the industry seems very
interested. That should tell you something.
* * * * *
Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit
card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank
you!
On my previous post I wrote about
a frivolous defamation lawsuit from a whiny-boy US congressman,
Republican Devin Nunes, who is miffed at Twitter, a fake cow, and
a few other assorted parties. I also riffed a bit on the general
hypersensitivity of conservatives who sure can dish out the
harassment and bullying to their perceived "enemies"
(liberals, progressives, Democrats), but can't take it when it's
dished back. Right-wing/conservative (and, in the US., Republican
or libertarian) whining is an issue that has received a bit of
attention recently, because contrary to what the tough guys and
gals fighting "political correctness" would like us to
believe, it is actually a thing.
An 18-liter bottle of aggressive red whine was recently uncorked by Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, alt-right/alt-health fear crapitalist and
rabble-rousing Trumpian. On a Natural News screed posted on March 22, 2019, Adams gripes at length, and not for the first time,
about how the tech giants -- Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
and all the usual suspects -- are systematically censoring and
shadow-banning conservatives and any speech that is
"pro-Trump, pro-Christian, pro-America," in favor of
"granting artificially high visibility to pro-Democrat,
pro-socialism, pro-communism and pro-Islam speech."
If you told me five years ago that I
would wake up one day in America and have Facebook, YouTube,
Twitter and Google all banning natural health news, and that
the entire U.S. Congress and President of the United States
would do absolutely nothing about it, and that there
wouldn’t be a single prominent voice on the political Left
who would speak out against the scourge of censorship, I
wouldn’t have believed you.
Yet that’s where we are right now in America. Actually,
it’s even worse. Our Brighteon.com free speech video
platform is under such intense threats and assault from
upstream internet infrastructure providers that we are now
being forced to implement outrageous limitations on speech in
order to avoid the entire platform being annihilated (new
announcement to come soon). Certain ISPs in New Zealand have
now blocked the entire domain of
Brighteon.com, even after all the mosque
shooting videos were removed from the platform under threat
from other infrastructure providers. (New Zealand and
Australia are now essentially Communist China in terms of
internet censorship, with NZ rapidly becoming a new Islamic
state that celebrates hijabs, a symbol of the oppression of
women and gays.)
So... non-Muslim women in New Zealand donning head scarves to
express solidarity with Muslim victims of white nationalist
terrorism... that's the
problem? What a putz.
And it isn't just political and religious oppression that Captain
Murica is fighting. He is also bravely standing up against the
tech giants' suppression of "the truth" about vaccines,
cancer cures, and all manner of things that, in the words of
imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, they don't want
you to know about. Warns Adams:
We have now reached the point where the
tech giants are banning all questions about vaccines… where
“anti-cancer” content is being stifled on Facebook and
Google… where any opinion that opposes the authoritarian
left-wing techno-tyranny is silenced into oblivion.
But he can't help himself: he brings it back to
politix in the next part of the paragraph:
Our elections are no longer fair and
free, given that Democracy depends entirely on public
knowledge and public debate so that citizens who vote might
decide for themselves which candidates and policy decisions
to support, yet we now find ourselves in a world where tech
giants like Google and Twitter are now deciding
all future elections by silencing
conservative, pro-Trump, pro-Christian, pro-America speech
while granting artificially high visibility to pro-Democrat,
pro-socialism, pro-communism and pro-Islam speech.
And so on. Actually -- to address one of the
points with which Adams led -- "the Left" has
spoken out about censorship, and so have the mainstream media
(aka the "fake news" in Trumpian parlance), sounding an
alarm every time Donald Trump bullies his critics and frames that
bullying in threats to the free press
and to freedom of assembly and to other First Amendment and civil rights. Trump's re-election campaign is now even reaching out to TV
producers and trying to get them to blacklist certain prominent
Democrats for "lying to the
American people" about the Mueller Report and the
Trump/Russia scandal. Millions of us are hugely concerned about this. The rest of the world has also taken notice of the
"Trump effect" on our freedoms.
But apparently our frequently expressed collective outrage is not enough for
Adams. He is only focused on preserving freedom of speech for his
kind, much like his idol Trump, who is fresh from signing an executive order to "protect
free speech" -- at least
conservative speech -- on college campuses.
And as for Adams' claim about Google and Twitter "deciding
all future elections," presumably in favor of "the
Left"... Hello!?? Russian interference, anyone?
Of course, the tech giants played a starring role in that debacle
too, and they've been faced with
growing demands for accountability since then, but you don't
notice Adams complaining about the results of the 2016 US
presidential election, do you? Clearly he is only afraid of the
Interwebs driving current and future voting trends leftwards.
Obeying Godwin's Law, Adams goes on to claim that what the tech
giants are doing today to the conservatives "is far worse
than the book burning of the Third Reich." Here he gets a
bit rambly, as he is wont to do. (I know, I have no room to talk
about rambling.)
It’s not just books that are under
attack today, of course: It’s all human
knowledge which runs counter to the insane,
deranged narratives of the political Left.
We are now being told that biology no longer exists and that
gender is “fluid.” Despite the fact that this insane idea
violates the basic sciences of physiology, this is now such
an ingrained position in the minds of the tech giants that
anyone who opposes the gender fluidity delusion is labeled as
being engaged in “hate speech.” Facebook has even
announced it will no longer allow advertising companies to
market to women or women by gender selection, claiming there
is no such thing as biological gender. (Yes, Leftists now
literally believe there is no such thing as a “man” or a
“woman.”)
We’re also being told that carbon
dioxide is a “pollutant”
and that the world will end in 12 years if we don’t shut
down all combustion engines and fossil fuel consumption (the
“Green New Deal”). This is pure insanity on its face,
especially given the fact that India and China are the
world’s largest producers of CO2 by far, and they would
obviously not be stupid enough to collapse their entire air
travel, agriculture and transportation industries in order to
appease some insane, deranged Democrat from New York whose IQ
is so low that is strains the very definition of
“intelligent species.”
I don't want to waste too much time and space
unpacking this mishmash of alt-right conspiranoia, but I do want
to address a few points in passing. The "insane, deranged
Democrat" with the "low" IQ is, presumably, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose IQ, education level, and accomplishments so far
in her young life far outstrip most of her critics, probably
including Adams himself, despite his very lengthy boasts on his
own sites about his amazing intelligence and impressive
accomplishments. Adams' comment about "Leftists" as a
group completely disavowing the existence of biological genders
is really too stupid to address at length here. Suffice to say
that there is a wide range of beliefs and opinions about these issues
on both the left and the right, but
clearly neither Adams nor his target audience are fans of nuance
and complexity. As for Adams' anti-environmentalist grousing
about the carbon dioxide issue, basing his gripes on the fact
that because plants need CO2 to survive there's no
such thing as too much CO2, that's bollocks.
Too much of a good thing is... well... usually a bad thing. It's a pretty simple principle.
The "only way to avoid a civil war"
Adams projects that if the online oppressors aren't stopped PDQ,
there will be "civil war" as a result of the tech
giants having designated all "pro-America forces" -- in
other words, people who think like Adams and his conspiranoid
audience -- as "terrorists." To preserve their good
name as well as their freedom, these brave patriotic Muricans
will have no choice but to engage in a civil war with the Left,
and one of the very first things they'll have no choice but to do
is seize control of all online platforms, including and
especially Google and Facebook.
Seizing control over these assets and
forcing a restoration of First Amendment freedoms for all
Americans would be one of the most urgent priorities for
pro-America forces. At the boots-on-the-ground military
tactical level, this would be made difficult by the fact that
tech giants tend to reside in left-wing Antifa-ridden areas
of the country where anti-America forces would fight any
patriots, National Guard troops or military forces that
attempt to halt the Left’s Fourth Reich crimes against
humanity via speech oppression.
It’s worth noting that the tech giants really are engaged
in crimes against humanity. Silencing the speech of human
beings in the way now being conducted by the tech giants is
an assault on human dignity and basic human rights...
Absent civil war, what is Adams' proposed
solution to the "censorship" that he says is destroying
America? It's something that any sane person would see as
tyranny: He wants Donald John Trump -- the man whose butt-cheeks
have, for the past few years, been the virtual repository of
Adams' smug nose and probably much of the rest of his face as
well -- to "seize the domain names" of the tech giants
and hold them hostage until they stop their oppression.
The “ace in the hole” in all this
would be a conservative president declaring a national
emergency and seizing the domain names of
Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
other tech giants. By declaring these tech companies to be
engaged in an active insurrection against the United States
of America — and operating in open complicity with Antifa
terrorists and Mexican drug cartels that engage in human
trafficking across the open border — the President could
demand those domains be seized by the U.S. State Department
and prohibited from operating...
...On the flip side, a left-wing President could exercise the
same power against conservatives sites and seize domain names
such as Infowars.com or ZeroHedge.com — two independent
media websites which are already targeted and largely
de-platformed by leftist tech giants. Control over the domain
space is the ultimate control over online speech, and
that’s exactly why President Trump needs to give the tech
giants this ultimatum:
If you will not halt your
oppression of human rights and your censorship of
Americans based on political and religious bigotry as
well as active election meddling, you will no longer be
allowed to operate as the dominant “public square”
content controllers...
...Believe it or not, any President of
the United States has the power to seize corporations if they
are engaged in treason against America. It is time to
exercise that power and restore a level playing field of free
speech for all Americans...
If I'm reading this correctly, the Health
Ranger is declaring that the tyranny of a right-wing prez is a
far, far better thing than the tyranny of a left-wing leader. So
Trump has a mandate to tyrannize while the tyrannizing is good.
This is not the first time that Mike Adams has endorsed Trumpian
tyranny. I've written about that a few times on this blog, such
as on this October 2018 post
(scroll down to the sub-head, "Elsewhere on the conspiranoia
front: martial law is okay as long as it's alt-right martial
law"). Back in May 2016 I also mentioned the matter (scroll down to the sub-head, "The Health Ranger
is also a major Trumpian"). In both instances I cited Adams'
endorsement of Trump declaring martial law in order to whip the
country into shape. And in July 2017, I wrote about
Adams' endorsement of "burn(ing) the leftist-scripted
newspapers," which segued into another one of his tributes
to Trump. See under, "Little Hitler strikes again" (I
am not above obeying Godwin's law myself).
Unfortunately Adams doesn't seem to be alone in his wish that
Trump would just take matters into his own fat orange hands and
totally remake the United States according to the MAGA wet dream.
At a recent event held by gone-but-not-forgotten Trump aide Steve
Bannon, an
angry Trump supporter expressed a wish for Trump to become a
dictator and "crush Congress"
-- and she was applauded by both Bannon and the audience.
That's pretty scary stuff.
Nothing could be finer than to block a little
whiner...
Meanwhile, in the conspiranoia outback, where the
traffic and the Facebook "likes" and the retweets are
much lighter than they are around the Natural News scampire,
cancer quack/fake doctor/neo-Nazi/ridiculous little hater-man
Leonard Coldwell (who is a fan of both Trump and Mike Adams) has bottled his own
third-rate whine. He is upset about having been thrown in Facebook jail for 30 days...again. The graphic on his blog post about the matter,
employed without any apparent trace of irony, depicts a Nazi, and
the clear message on the graphic is that Lenny was
Facebook-jailed for posting anti-vaccination info.
But we've heard that song before. More than likely Lenny was
reported for hate speech, as has
happened so many, many times before. There's more than a hint of
this on his main English-language Facebook page, in what appears
to be his last post under his own name before Facebook took
action. One of Lenny's alter egos, "Eyn Rand," had to
take over the whinery on that Facebook thread.
As you'll see if you take a closer look at the
screen grab, "Eyn" couldn't just leave it at bitching
about Lenny being "censored." He also had to post a
link to a video offering "proof" that the horrific mosque shootings in New Zealand were a "hoax."
For those of you who might be wondering why I keep spending (or
perhaps you think "squandering" is a better word) time
and energy writing about these crackpots, it's simple, apart from
the fact that they're low-hanging fruit and I am still a lazy
blogger. It's also because Mike Adams is undoubtedly an
influencer of sorts, about which I'll have a bit more in the next
section. And though Coldwell is a far lesser influencer, except
in his own mind -- yes, even though he is so nearly irrelevant
that even the UK blogger Longdog, who has devoted his entire blog
solely to Coldwell's hatefulness and stupidity, has grown bored
with him -- Lenny nevertheless reflects the nuttiest conspiracy
narratives, the most toxic right-wingnut hatreds, and the most
egregious medical and scientific misinformation, and all of these
things have become all too mainstream. My philosophy is that as
long as Coldwell continues to make blatantly stupid and hateful and
wrongheaded public statements, he should continue to be held up
as an example of blatant stupidity and hatefulness and
wrongheadedness.
Just the (anti)-vaxx, ma'am
Mike Adams and Leonard Coldwell, like numerous
others harvesting the fruits of the alt-health whinery, are
chronic complainers that "natural health" information
is being ruthlessly censored by Big Pharma and the medical
industry and the Rothschilds and the Killuminati and, of course,
Big Tech. As a result, they insist, untold numbers of people are
surely getting sick, and many are even dying, because they are
being deprived of this life-changing, life-saving health
information. I have spilled more than my share of words about
this false narrative, one example being this August 2014 post. It's long. I'll wait.
One of the focal points of the alt-health brouhaha -- and
certainly a perennial pet issue for both Adams and Coldwell -- is
the anti-vaccination or anti-vaxx movement, about which I've also written a few words before. This matter has received a lot of renewed attention
lately due to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the US and numerous other spots across the world.
There's also the story of Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky, who became one of the latest heroes of the anti-vaxx
movement after he announced that he had deliberately exposed his
nine (!) children to chicken pox rather than having them
vaccinated. He presented it as being all about personal choice re
vaccinations, but at least one opinion writer believes that Bevin's "choice" was informed by
darker cultural and religious forces,
and she may very well be right.
One of the latest developments that got the anti-vaxxers all
fired up again was Facebook's announcement earlier this month of a plan to
rein in anti-vaxx conspiracy theories.
The company didn't say it would actually remove the
anti-vaxx groups and pages; it will simply wipe these pages and
groups from its recommendations, and it will stop allowing
advertisers to target people whom Facebook's algorithm identifies
as being interested in "vaccine controversies." But in
the views of the anti-vaxx fanatics, that's
"censorship" and as such it allows them to whine a
little bit louder.
Ahead of its announcement, Facebook had lamented the seemingly
infinite reach of the anti-vaxx misinformation machine,
insinuating that it was going to be exceedingly difficult to
handle the problem. But as a writer on The Atlantic site noted:
...while Facebook’s scale might as
well be infinite, the actual universe of people arguing about
vaccinations is limited and knowable...
...While there is no dearth of posts related to vaccines, the
top 50 Facebook pages ranked by the number of public posts
they made about vaccines generated nearly half (46 percent)
of the top 10,000 posts for or against vaccinations, as well
as 38 percent of the total likes on those posts, from January
2016 to February of this year. The distribution is heavy on
the top, particularly for the anti-vax position. Just seven
anti-vax pages generated nearly 20 percent of the top 10,000 vaccination posts in this
time period: Natural News, Dr. Tenpenny on Vaccines and
Current Events, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, March Against
Monsanto, J. B. Handley, Erin at Health Nut News, and
Revolution for Choice.
And here we run into our old friend the Health
Ranger again.
Among the most prominent anti-vax pages
is Natural News, an Infowars-like conspiracy site sprinkled
with tumeric powder and the essence of chemtrails. The site,
which has 2.9 million likes
and comes up high in a variety of search results about
vaccines and vaccination, runs stories with headlines like
“Left-Wing Media Run by Actual Demon-Possessed
Anti-human EVIL Entities … Watch This Stunning
Mini-documentary” as
well as “Tech Giants’ Censorship Is an Online ETHNIC
CLEANSING Campaign, Equivalent to Intellectual Genocide.” According to a list of the site's popular
stories, the two most popular posts are both about vaccines.
Natural News has kept up a steady drumbeat of posts about how
the site is going to be “silenced” or “censored” by
the tech platforms. The site’s owner, Mike Adams, has
claimed that Apple (among other tech companies) is defending
“satanism” by asking Natural News to make changes to its
app in the App Store. “This is the first time that a
dominant tech company has overtly come out in defense of
Satanism while threatening to censor a prominent publisher
that exposes the evils of Satanic influence,” Adams wrote in a recent post. He refers to the tech companies as “techno-fascists.”
Natural News -- and this will probably come as
no great surprise -- did not respond to a request for comment.
In any case, it is clear that Facebook and other tech giants such
as Google seem to be making efforts to stem the tide of
misinformation about vaccines, as well as misinfo on any number
of other topics. And just a few days ago, GoFundMe announced that anti-vaxxers can no longer use their platform to raise money. Other
platforms such as Pinterest, YouTube, and Amazon have acted in
various ways to curb anti-vaxx content. How this will all play
out is still uncertain, but it's a pretty sure bet that strident
conspiranoids will continue to cry foul at even the mildest
efforts to rein them in, while others will say that the tech
giants aren't doing enough to stop dangerous
misinformation.
Marketplace of ideas, or menacing monopolies?
Like millions if not billions of other people all
over world, I have a love-hate relationship with the tech giants,
particularly social media such as Facebook. I've never claimed
that they're above reproach. Among numerous other issues, they have been playing fast and loose with users'
personal information and they should
not be let off the hook for that.
More to the point of this post, and as I mentioned in my previous
one, a poll taken last year by Hill.TV and American Barometer
showed that a majority of the respondents believed that there's a
sytstemic bias against conservative views in social media. But the poll was heavily divided along party lines.
And the view that conservatives are unfairly being targeted is not a universal one by any means. It's just that these days, the conservanoids seem to
be doing the loudest whining about being grievously wronged (with
the Whiner in Chief leading the
charge, especially now that he has been fake-exonerated by his
hand-picked AG's coy letter "summarizing" the Mueller
investigation).
Many who decry any form of Internet "censorship" paint
the online world as a "marketplace of ideas," where
virtually anything goes, or should go. Others say that parties
hosting or providing content have an ethical if not a legal
responsibility to ban or at least control content such as hate
speech and misinformation -- although then we get into the
quagmire of deciding what exactly determines "hate
speech" and "misinformation." It's not always
clear. These are topics far too large and complex for this little
Whirled; I mainly wanted to acknowledge, as I have previously,
that I am aware that there are some serious issues with the tech
giants, and that these issues are both more significant and more
nuanced than, "Mike Adams is a putz" or "Leonard
Coldwell is a whiny little hater-man."
One issue is the question of whether the tech giants need to be
taken down a notch or two via antitrust enforcement, since
companies such as Facebook and Google represent virtual
monopolies in their respective realms. The Verge ran a thoughtful piece about this matter last
September. And a January 2019 piece on the GovTech site drives home the point that monopolies are bad for
innovation. These are real and serious issues that affect nearly
all of us.
But none of the above is even remotely a
suggestion that Donald John Trump should "seize" the
tech giants and remake them into a tool to further elevate
himself and the hateful, fearmongering blowhards whose vitriol
has already left an indelible stain on the public conversation. I
don't want Donald Trump or Mike Adams or Alex Jones or even
Leonard Coldwell "censored." But the swill they
distribute should be called out for what it is, and for what it's
worth, I will continue to do just that. And I am glad to know that
I am not alone.
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I'm probably only the four-millionth or so person
to mention this, but have you noticed a certain hyper-sensitivity in many of the conservative/libertarian manly men (and a
few proud and defiant women) -- you know, the ones who are
currently infesting the political and cultural landscape with
their bright red caps and fact-devoid social media memes? Have
you observed, as I have, that they seem to have awfully thin skins --
especially when you consider their derisive sneers about the
oppressive, America-threatening "political correctness"
of the left, and their screeds about wimpy liberals (aka
"snowflakes") who are hypersensitive to
"triggers" and have an insatiable need for "safe
spaces?"
I have previously danced around the theme of
right-wing snowflakery, e.g., in this May 2016 post (trigger
warning: contains nekkid Donald Trump picture). But it's a matter
that has captured my attention more fully in light of rabid Republican "strategist" Devin Nunes'
comic $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, a made-up mommy, and
a fake cow. (And I'm probably only the
four-millionth or so person to publicly write about this, but I
never claimed to be a groundbreaker.)
Anyway. From the Vox article linked to just above:
A member of Congress since
January 2003, Nunes is perhaps best known nationally first
for his involvement in the Benghazi investigation and second for his dogged defense of Donald
Trump, upon whose transition team
Nunes served. It was Nunes, for example, who wrote the 2018 memo on wiretapping that many Trump supporters believed
would permanently damage special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. (It didn’t.)
So it stands to reason that Twitter users less enthralled
with Trump would tweet things about Nunes that were perhaps
less than cordial — like calling him a “presidential
fluffer and swamp rat,” for instance. (In fact, a tweet
using those very words was included in the lawsuit.)
But in the 40-page complaint filed on Monday, Nunes argues that tweets like
that and the two parody Twitter accounts were not merely
examples of Twitter being Twitter. Rather, he argues that the
social media platform served as “a portal of defamation”
by permitting parody accounts of his mother and his imaginary
bovine to exist on the platform.
The operative word, seemingly missed by Nunes
and his lawyer, is "parody." Which, you know, is protected in the United States by the First Amendment and whatnot. Parody and other forms of sometimes unpopular speech are not protected everywhere, of
course. In Russia (to name but one example of other places in the
world where freedom of expression is not exactly a sacred cow), a
person might, thanks to a new law recently signed by Trump's dom
bromantic partner Putin, conceivably be
prosecuted for parody, since it is by its nature disrespectful,
and if your parody or satire disrespects Putin or the Russian
government, well, then, shame on you, Господин
or девушка
Smarty-Pants.
But the US isn't Russia... not yet, anyway.
Here
is the direct link to the fake farm animal's Twitter account, which has more Twitter followers than the real Devin.
Goodness, that must trample on his ego. If you're on Twitter and
haven't done so already, why not go ahead and follow that cow?
I've herd that she's very nice, the crème de la crème.
Who feels more "hard done by": libs or
cons?
Defamation cases are nearly always about hurt feelings, and a sense of being hard done by, as much as they are
about actual damages. (A tip of the hat to an ancient post on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which I've cited here before, for the "hard done
by" theme. Ah, "that sweet crack pipe of moral
indignation.") For me, this latest legal looniness brings up
an argument that has been going on for a few years regarding who
is in fact more hypersensitive: liberals/left-wingers or
conservatives/right-wingers. TheTylt.com -- to name but one
of countless examples -- has tackled this matter, running two
surveys that I know of a couple of years ago -- this one and this one. Spoiler: the
right-wingers won the sensitivity sweepstakes both times.
But the core sensitivity of so many crass loudmouths and
blowhards on the right should come as no big surprise anymore,
particularly since #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump is such a thin-skinned type himself. For instance, just this past weekend he got in a lather about a rerun of the Christmas 2018
episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live, suggesting once again that SNL and other media he
doesn't like should be investigated by the Federal Communications
Commission and the Federal Election Commission.
Moreover Trump is apparently making good on the promise/threat that he spewed forth in his recent two-hour-plus rant to the Conservative Political Action
Conference: a vow to sign an executive
order that would punish colleges and universities that "do
not support free speech" by denying them federal research
funds. The initial promise was a direct response to a February
19, 2019 incident on the campus of the University of California
Berkeley in which a man who was not a Berkeley student was on
campus expressing his support of Trump, whereupon another man,
who was not a Berkeley student either, punched him. The punchee,
one Hayden Williams, was paraded around by Trump as a hero at the
CPAC rant, the poster child for liberals' oppression of
conservatives on campus.
Never mind that Berkeley was, in fact, already providing a solid
platform for conservatives and pro-Trumpsters. In this case, the
conservative org Turning Point USA was, with the university's
permission, recruiting students to the cause. And never mind that
many universities already have free-speech guidelines
and policies that allow non-liberal expression on their campuses. Those inconvenient facts didn't stop the right-wing
whining following the punching, and didn't stop Trump from his
subsequent grandstanding.
Also never mind the fact that, according to the Chicago Trib
article I cited a couple of paragraphs ago, "it's unclear
what type of free speech limitation could trigger a loss of
federal research funding. White House officials declined to
provide specific cases of free speech suppression." The
guiding sentiment behind the EO seems to be that by golly, it's
time that someone stepped up and protected (conservative) free
speech!
Here's an opinion piece,
published on March 4, 2019 in the wake of the CPAC rant,
explaining why Trump is missing the point, once again.
...Because almost across the board
institutional missions center on scientific discovery,
knowledge and learning, institutions of higher education are
a key mechanism for fostering democratic education. Campuses often subscribe to John Stuart Mill’s notion that a
university is a “marketplace of ideas,” where educators
offer “balanced perspectives” so that students can “hear
the other side” on every issue.
However, academic freedom guidelines specifically say that
faculty members need not always cover “the other side” if
the standards of the discipline deem that other side to be
untrue. When topics seem to be settled, with a right answer
having emerged through science and ethics, faculty can focus
on the knowledge produced. A white nationalist view, for
example, does not merit debate within the campus marketplace
of ideas.
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Va.,
tragedy, these
disagreements have taken on a deeper significance, as those
of us who work within higher education navigate increasingly
polarized contexts for teaching, learning and research.
Public discussions of these issues have been dominated by legal analyses of the First Amendment, without sufficient
attention to philosophical discussion of disagreement, truth
and the democratic purposes of higher education.
College faculty and campus leaders are caught between wanting
to be nonpartisan and promoting their institution’s
missions, which often prioritize excellence and truth...
On the other hand, if colleges and unis are
mandated by executive order or law or whatever to allow free
speech, religious schools such as Liberty University, which also
receives federal research funds, might have to allow satanists
and abortion-rights advocates to speak on their campuses. So
there's that. Could be interesting.
Misusing the courts to capitalize on being hard done
by
It's not unusual for thin-skins who have the resources to try to
use the legal system to fight back against real and imagined
slights, generally via multi-million dollar
"defamation" lawsuits. Trump is one notable and obvious
example; a few of those defamation lawsuits are listed in this article,
though the piece also covers some of his other infamous and
yuuugely expensive legal dramas.
Another recent example is the "Covington kid," the
MAGA-cap-sporting Catholic school student Nicholas Sandmann, whose parents sued the New York Times for $250 million and, more recently, CNN for $275
million, for the news outlets' initial coverage of an incident in
which their kid confronted an elderly Native American activist
and some shouting Black Hebrew Israelite cultists. (Never mind
that the NYT and CNN and most other mainstream outlets revised
their stories as new info came to light.) Part of the plaintiffs'
argument was that the media are biased against Donald Trump and
conservatives. Ah, snowflakes. No two are alike, and yet at some
level they all are.
And now there's Devin and that fake mama and that bogus bovine
and, of course, that very real social media platform, the latter
of whom possesses the actual deep pockets that Devin and his
legal team hope to mine.
If you want a good laugh, read the lawsuit. I have been
trying to find a dowloadable PDF of the document that includes
the filing/court stamps, indicating that it was actually filed
and the date and time that this occurred. The document to which I
linked does not seem to be that, but it was uploaded to Scribd by
Fox News on March 18, and seems to be the reference point for all
of the chatter about it. It begins by trying to lay out the case
that Twitter has been purposely defaming
poor Devin and continues to do so, and that furthermore Twitter has it out for all Republicans.
1. Twitter is an information content
provider. Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or
in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit
censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by
shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by
knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly
abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice
and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby
facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely
ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by
allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and
(e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its
so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially
refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying
the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and
Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the
libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this
action.
2. Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this
case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct,
imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a
publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political
operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon. Twitter knew
the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen
because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive:
Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a
portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence
in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of
the Republican Party...
And so on, and so forth, adding up to yet
another fine red whine. Alas, poor Devin, and oh, those poor,
put-upon Republicans.
This bit, which occurs towards the end and wraps up the counts
for which the plaintiff is demanding so much money, made me
chuckle.
COUNT IV – COMMON LAW CONSPIRACY...
... 54. Beginning in February 2018 and continuing through the
present, Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow,
acting as individuals, combined, associated, agreed or acted
in concert with each other and/or with one or more
“clients” or other donors, non-profits, operatives or
agents of the Democratic Party (whose identity is unknown at
this time) for the express purposes of injuring Nunes,
intentionally and unlawfully interfering with his business
and employment as a United States Congressman, and defaming
Nunes. In furtherance of the conspiracy and preconceived
plan, the Defendants engaged in a joint scheme the unlawful
purpose of which was to destroy Nunes’ personal and
professional reputations and influence the outcome of a
federal election.
Nunes is asking for a minimum of
$250,000,000 for the alleged attempts to destroy his reputation,
but is certainly open to the idea of receiving much more, should
it please the court. On
his monologue on March 19, 2019, Stephen Colbert said that Nunes' legal team came up with that figure by
applying a scientific legal formula: they took the dollar amount
that Nunes' reputation is actually worth, and added $250,000,000
to it. That sounds about right.
Colbert and gang felt inspired by the hoopla to create another
parody Twitter account, Devin Nunes' Skin. The opening (and so far only) tweet:
Devin
Nunes' skin @devinnunesskin
Still thin.
Less than 24 hours after being launched, that
account had more than 30,000 followers. And although as of this
writing the account still contains a solitary tweet, the
following is making its way steadily to 44,000.
I am well aware that there is an ongoing debate
about several issues related to social media, and one of these
issues is the question of whether or not platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter are indeed biased against conservatives. A poll taken late last year by
Hill.TV and American Barometer indicated that a majority of American voters
thought that the social media giants have a systemic bias against
conservative views. Unsurprisingly, the poll was heavily divided
along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to view
tech companies as being biased against conservatives. Media
bias is a perennial issue that is
worthy of exploration and analysis, but frivolous defamation
lawsuits by whiny politicians and other public figures are not
helpful at all.
Conspiranoia strikes deep...again
All of the talk about conspiracy to defame reminds me very much of
another defamation flawsuit from a few years back, one in which I was the top-named defendant. It didn't
make the mainstream news, of course, and was barely a blip in the
blogosphere, but if you think I am going to pass up an
opportunity to sneer about it, you are very much mistaken. As you
may know, the suit did not go very well for the plaintiff, Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell,
aka LoonyC, the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld; his
attorneys advised him to drop the case, and he did. Nor did his previous attempt to sue a critical blogger (my pal
and co-defendant in the aforementioned case, Salty Droid) go very
well; his rent-a-lawyer in that one
dropped out of the case early on, and the whole thing was
dismissed because LoonyC never showed up for any hearings. Yet he
has continued to boast about his powerful legal team and about
his steadfast willingness to fight and defeat anyone who dares to
"defame" him.
Arguably the majority of defamation lawsuits fail, at least in
the US. It's complicated, and I don't
claim to be anything remotely resembling an expert on these
matters. But it seems that more than likely, Devin Nunes doesn't have a very strong
case, in part because he is a
politician and a public figure, and America has a long history of
protecting those who make fun of our politicians. Also, Twitter
is merely distributing, not creating, the offending content. But
some have warned that even if Nunes loses the lawsuit and the
probable appeal, he is creating an opening for the Supreme Court
to reconsider its previous rulings on defamation and public
officials. As a lawmaker, Nunes is in a unique position to
introduce legislation that could very well have a chilling effect
that would make Putin proud.
For now, it seems nothing will stop either Nunes or his
detractors from... oh, you knew this was coming, didn't you?...
milking this matter for all it's worth. But it's worth noting
that last year Nunes was a co-sponsor of HR 1179, the
"Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act." Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing made sport of this (as well as the now-defunct fake-mama Twitter account).
Nunes is upset that he was called a
"herp-face," and is really upset about a human centipede meme that depicted Nunes, Trump and Putin as
generic, labeled stick-figures with their mouths grafted onto
one-another's anuses. This tweet may just be the greatest
exhibit ever filed in a lawsuit.
It's a very good thing to have a little comic
relief in the midst of the horror and chaos that is swirling all
around us, but let's hope that the right-wing snowflakes don't
have the last laugh.
Addendum, 5 April 2019:
Republican strategist Elizabeth "Liz" Mair, who besides
Twitter is actually the main defendant in Nunes' silly complaint,
wrote a serious editorial about the real threats to free speech
for all of us. It was published in USA Today. Here 'tis.
Related on this Whirled: Vintage whines from
conservative conspiranoid snowflakes
* * * * *
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