Re:The Westminster Declaration
by dragonwriter on Tuesday October 31, 2023 @06:46PM
(#38092409)
> Coming from the left, right, and centre
Really? Now, I don't recognize all the names there, but most of the once-left-associated names I do see are people who have shifted to full-throated advocacy of right-wing substantive positions [0] (or full-time attacks on everyone from the center-right and further left, which amounts to the same thing), occasionally using left-flavored rhetoric, especially the selective advocacy of “free speech” that focuses on exactly those cases where the right-wing pretends to care about it, but none of the places where the actual left is complaining about restrictions on expressive rights.
Its especially noteworthy that with governments throughout the West working to shutdown protests calling for a Middle East cease fire being one of the biggest immediate and eidely shared speech issues of the left, its mentioned nowhere among the examples, all of which are things the Right has complained about (and at least one is not about a speech, but not treating a Right-populist ex-leader as beyond accountability.)
Seems to me this is more across the spectrum of the open right, the people playing centrist to advance right-wing propaganda, and the people playing leftist to advance right-wing propaganda.
[0] A shift which in many cases occurred right around the same time it became clear that Russia was escalating influence operations in the West and focussing them largely (thougj not entirely) around focussing on using right-wing nationalist causes and movements as their leverage for division.
Really? Now, I don't recognize all the names there, but most of the once-left-associated names I do see are people who have shifted to full-throated advocacy of right-wing substantive positions [0] (or full-time attacks on everyone from the center-right and further left, which amounts to the same thing), occasionally using left-flavored rhetoric, especially the selective advocacy of “free speech” that focuses on exactly those cases where the right-wing pretends to care about it, but none of the places where the actual left is complaining about restrictions on expressive rights.
Its especially noteworthy that with governments throughout the West working to shutdown protests calling for a Middle East cease fire being one of the biggest immediate and eidely shared speech issues of the left, its mentioned nowhere among the examples, all of which are things the Right has complained about (and at least one is not about a speech, but not treating a Right-populist ex-leader as beyond accountability.)
Seems to me this is more across the spectrum of the open right, the people playing centrist to advance right-wing propaganda, and the people playing leftist to advance right-wing propaganda.
[0] A shift which in many cases occurred right around the same time it became clear that Russia was escalating influence operations in the West and focussing them largely (thougj not entirely) around focussing on using right-wing nationalist causes and movements as their leverage for division.