Re:Cambridge Analytica psychologist advising Covid19 disinfo...
by notahacker on Saturday February 06, 2021 @09:06AM
(#26046556)
You can scroll down that group's page you linked to a video of the protest, in which a man stands and makes a speech in front of a large, professionally produced banner bearing their logo with the words "End Covid Vax" and "Take Down 5G" below the hashtagged headline #OurMovement. The son of Britain's most famous conspiracy theorist opens his headline speech by cracking a joke about "killing a couple of grannies" by breaking lockdown
Whilst I'd agree that Byline Times is not the most nuanced of sources, going to the opposite extreme of artificially charitable representations of who these organizations are and what they stand for and pretending the crazy isn't there is the way to lose an argument with them. The wider points they make are their recruitment strategy, not their raison d'etre. Makes no more sense to debate these sorts of organizations by ignoring the crazy to make defensive arguments about how the government is right than combating far-right parties by ignoring the racism and talking about the wisdom of modern economics.
I don't believe the article is doing that. It characterises one protest as "anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxer, anti-mask, anti-5G ... organised by Save Our Rights UK Ltd". I don't think the protesters thought they were protesting against 5G; I note that Save Our Rights UK doesn't list 5G as an issue [0]. And many of the issues they do list are, y'know, pretty serious. I'd consider joining a protest against sweeping legislative changes in response to the pandemic. Such changes in crisis situations tend to be really bad in hindsight.
There is a big difference between legitimate and illegitimate arguments. But I don't trust the article to fairly represent the arguments of the people it is attacking. The author should have a little bit more empathy for the people in the movements they are attacking.
Also; as a general comment it isn't reasonable to demand everyone be articulate about why they are hurting or to understand where in the system the leverage points are to relieve the pain. This is a radical time, people who aren't full time public speakers might have things they want to say. Working hard to paint them as disinformed and therefore having illegitimate concerns is a terrible strategy at many levels.
[0] https://saveourrights.uk/issues-we-face/