FOS discussion

[Anonymous]

Was Gary Lineker subjected to the same silencing tactics? Was his freedom to speak taken away and his job taken away?

For the person who has given a negative emoji for that comment.

My post isn’t a statement, it is a question. Was that silencing?

When is it silencing? When is it an employment contractual issue and when is it a personal choice/ right?

 

[Crisstti]

So how does any of the above relate to Morrissey over the past decade?

Is it not purely that people made their own personal decisions to stop being fans because they didn’t like what he was saying?

Isn’t that their freedom to do so or do you suggest people should be forced to continue to spend their money on an artist they don’t like any more?

I am not aware of a single feminist in the uk who has been silenced from saying they don’t think a man can change their gender. I’m not aware of any arrests relating to that either. Would you like to give evidence of that?

It isn't. Have you missed all the press articles telling people how they shouldn't listen to Morrissey anymore?

 

[Crisstti]

Odd way of looking at it. Can you explain what the consequences were for Morrissey and with “everything in their power” who is they?

I just saw statements being made by Morrissey on his own web site and in a recorded interview and then people choosing to not be fans anymore.

Interested to know what all these consequences were in your view and who they with the power were unless you refer to the rather bonkers 4 men of the apocalypse again?

Journalists, mainly.

 

[Anonymous]

It isn't. Have you missed all the press articles telling people how they shouldn't listen to Morrissey anymore?

Can you point me to a single press article that states people shouldn’t listen to Morrissey anymore?

 

[Anonymous]

Journalists, mainly.

But most people I know who don’t want to follow him anymore decided that because of what Morrissey has written and posted on his own website and what he said in the recorded interview with Der Spiegel.

I don’t know of one person who stopped listening to Morrissey because of any journalist saying they shouldn’t. It is his own words that most people have had problems with. I for one don’t even read newspapers.

You should credit people with the intelligence to make up their own minds based on their dislike of his words. I very much doubt most of his fanbase which for the most part would have been educated and intelligent would be gullible enough to be led by the opinion of any newspaper editorial. It’s an excuse pushed by someone who has always blamed someone else for his woes and taken no responsibility.

 

[gashonthenail]

Was Gary Lineker subjected to the same silencing tactics? Was his freedom to speak taken away and his job taken away?

Er, yes - his job was taken away. At least for a few days.
I hated what happened to Gary Lineker. Although that one was less clear cut a freedom of speech issue as he does work for a state owned public broadcaster whose charter commits the organisation to impartiality. It wasn't strictly speaking about freedom of speech.
You asked for examples of people being cancelled, and then when I gave them to you, you change the goal posts. Do you want names of people who have lost their jobs for not believing in white privilege? Or critical race theory? Or thinking that diversity isn't wonderful? No doubt you'll then change the goal posts again.
You'll have to ask Morrissey what he had in mind when he said freedom of speech is returning to the UK. But the gender recognition craziness in Scotland I think is proving to be the high water mark of woke. The tide is turning.

 

[gashonthenail]

Can you point me to a single press article that states people shouldn’t listen to Morrissey anymore?

You don't seem to understand the idea of seeking to destroy someone's career by imputation. Article after article, drip, drip, drip, have suggested that Moz has far right sympathies. Article after article talking about can you separate the artist from his views and mentioning him in the same breath as Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson. There have also been several comments over recent years from former fans, hungrily sought out no doubt, saying why they can no longer listen to his music. It's all totally insidious. And it has very much damaged his career, and his ability to get a record deal. To suggest that isn't the case is obtuse.

 

[Anonymous]

Er, yes - his job was taken away. At least for a few days.
I hated what happened to Gary Lineker. Although that one was less clear cut a freedom of speech issue as he does work for a state owned public broadcaster whose charter commits the organisation to impartiality. It wasn't strictly speaking about freedom of speech.
You asked for examples of people being cancelled, and then when I gave them to you, you change the goal posts. Do you want names of people who have lost their jobs for not believing in white privilege? Or critical race theory? Or thinking that diversity isn't wonderful? No doubt you'll then change the goal posts again.
You'll have to ask Morrissey what he had in mind when he said freedom of speech is returning to the UK. But the gender recognition craziness in Scotland I think is proving to be the high water mark of woke. The tide is turning.

I answered your points re people losing their jobs and you mentioned two people, two feminists who had issues because they were openly speaking out against transgender people whilst being a senior member of an organisation who had a policy of being supportive to transgender people.

The Gary lineker situation in reality also had nothing to do with impartiality but was related to a contract of employment in the same way.

If you have an employer and you sign a contract it is more than likely these days that said contract will have clauses in relation to things like trans gender discrimination and policies in relation to other employees.

Large organisations now have employees who are transgender and an employer will always put its employees first and this is why they have such policies. If a senior member of staff then is making statements that are contrary to the company standards and ethics and is causing offence to employees then it will always lead to contractual discussions and that is what happened in the example you gave. That isn’t about cancelling or silencing anyone.

I haven’t changed any goal post. You have been trying to get you back to the original point of the discussion which was you staying Morrissey had been subjected to organised anti freedom to speak tactics and you still haven’t answered the question on that and you just keep taking about transgender issues which is not relevant to what morrissey was saying.

 

[gashonthenail]

I answered your points re people losing their jobs and you mentioned two people, two feminists who had issues because they were openly speaking out against transgender people whilst being a senior member of an organisation who had a policy of being supportive to transgender people.

The Gary lineker situation in reality also had nothing to do with impartiality but was related to a contract of employment in the same way.

If you have an employer and you sign a contract it is more than likely these days that said contract will have clauses in relation to things like trans gender discrimination and policies in relation to other employees.

Large organisations now have employees who are transgender and an employer will always put its employees first and this is why they have such policies. If a senior member of staff then is making statements that are contrary to the company standards and ethics and is causing offence to employees then it will always lead to contractual discussions and that is what happened in the example you gave. That isn’t about cancelling or silencing anyone.

I haven’t changed any goal post. You have been trying to get you back to the original point of the discussion which was you staying Morrissey had been subjected to organised anti freedom to speak tactics and you still haven’t answered the question on that and you just keep taking about transgender issues which is not relevant to what morrissey was saying.

You're completely missing the point. Employers (quite rightly) have always policed interactions between employees and have a right to expect that their employees are free from abuse and discrimination in their interactions at work. But it's total mission creep to then sack a member of staff for simply expressing a point of view on social media or in an article. That is the point. Utter abuse of power. It is that mission creep encroaching on freedom of speech that is so concerning.

 

[Anonymous]

You don't seem to understand the idea of seeking to destroy someone's career by imputation. Article after article, drip, drip, drip, have suggested that Moz has far right sympathies. Article after article talking about can you separate the artist from his views and mentioning him in the same breath as Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson. There have also been several comments over recent years from former fans, hungrily sought out no doubt, saying why they can no longer listen to his music. It's all totally insidious. And it has very much damaged his career, and his ability to get a record deal. To suggest that isn't the case is obtuse.

You don’t seem to understand that the cause of any damage to his career is his own posts and his own words. Without those things none of the rest would have happened.

Journalists quoting him is just what journalists do but if you think newspapers have damaged his career you over simplify it.

I don’t know a single person who stopped following him because of any opinion expressed by any newspaper.

It all goes back to the Spiegel interview. He said horrific things in it which caused the backlash in the media and then he attacked that newspaper and its interviewer for misquoting him and was doing his usual media blame game and woe is me, everyone is attacking me and trying to destroy me. and then the very thing he wasn’t expecting happened, the newspaper released the recording of the interview that allowed everyone to hear the interview as it happened in his own words and everything he said he didn’t say was there for the world to hear.

The damage was then done.

There are newspapers that write commentary every day about lots of people but those people don’t claim they are being silenced.

He is to blame for a large percentage of his audience walking. For me it would have made no difference whatsoever if there had never been anything written in the NME or the guardian etc etc cause I don’t read them and I doubt many of his die hard fans would have either or be influenced by a newspaper article. His own words and his infowars posts and his open support for For Britain and his pedophile apologist comments were enough on their own. It takes a lot to come back from that.

It is easy for someone who is unwilling to accept responsibility for his own actions to lay all the blame on newspapers who were quoting him.

Can you point me to the article that compares him to Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson? I don’t think that actually exists.

There are musicians who receive bad press all the time but whose careers are very successful.

The chicken came before the egg.

This isn’t about newspapers. The issue is that the majority of his fanbase was always left leaning, educated and middle class. When you start saying and posting those views it isn’t rocket science that it would affect his fanbase.

To then start posting about Sam Smith’s satanism is just toxic and quite frankly bonkers.

It is all a pr disaster and the very reason he has no pr agent, no management.

That aside many record labels have now listened to his records and no one wants to invest in them and he and people on here say it is to do with cancel culture. A major record label in the US like Capitol don’t give a sh*t about that stuff. They like controversial bad boys if it makes money and they like the product. The truth of the matter is that the product just isn’t up to it as a business investment. His recent stuff is very mediocre compared to the back catalog. They just don’t want to spend money on it.

It’s a sad tale of narcissism, paranoia and self destruction.

 

[Anonymous]

You're completely missing the point. Employers (quite rightly) have always policed interactions between employees and have a right to expect that their employees are free from abuse and discrimination in their interactions at work. But it's total mission creep to then sack a member of staff for simply expressing a point of view on social media or in an article. That is the point. Utter abuse of power. It is that mission creep encroaching on freedom of speech that is so concerning.

I’m not missing any point. If people don’t like the employment contract they sign then they shouldn’t sign it. In the example you gave it wasn’t about he me being just an employee. She was an influential leader of a development organisation and she was using her position of influence and power to spread her message of transphobia.

I have a contract that forbids me to post certain things on social media and I signed it and accept that. You can’t be a leader in an organisation that stands for trans rights and be known to be that leader and use that platform to post trans phobic statements without it causing concern for that organisation.

You keep bringing this to a feminist trans phobic angle and I’m not really interested in it. It’s dull and tiresome to me that a small group of feminists seem to think that 1.5% of the population of minority trans people pose a threat to their womanhood. Most poling suggests most people don’t agree with that stance. But please change the subject cause I really am not interested in it and if was pushed I would always feel support for the minority so there really is no point in trying to convince me about it.

If you want to stick to freedom of speech maybe stick to the point of the whole discussion which was Moz.

 

[Crisstti]

But most people I know who don’t want to follow him anymore decided that because of what Morrissey has written and posted on his own website and what he said in the recorded interview with Der Spiegel.

I don’t know of one person who stopped listening to Morrissey because of any journalist saying they shouldn’t. It is his own words that most people have had problems with. I for one don’t even read newspapers.

You should credit people with the intelligence to make up their own minds based on their dislike of his words. I very much doubt most of his fanbase which for the most part would have been educated and intelligent would be gullible enough to be led by the opinion of any newspaper editorial. It’s an excuse pushed by someone who has always blamed someone else for his woes and taken no responsibility.

I do not think many people check his website, most people would have gotten this info mediated through numerous press articles which have had an obvious bias against Moz. This is in what is emphasized in them, in the interpretation given to what he's said, in the insistence on the idea of "can you separate the artist from the art" (with the obvious implication that you shouldn't, and why would you even need to? You simply need to accept that the artist is a person different from yourself and therefore might well have views which you don't share).
You don't even need to have read the articles, they're posted on social media and the very titles already have an effect when widely shared.

The press has been going on on the "Morrissey is racist" idea for a long long time btw, way before the Spiegel interview (before, he apparently was racist cause of waving a frigging union jack flag?), but it went overboard then, with cancel and woke culture on the rise as well.

You don't seem to understand the idea of seeking to destroy someone's career by imputation. Article after article, drip, drip, drip, have suggested that Moz has far right sympathies. Article after article talking about can you separate the artist from his views and mentioning him in the same breath as Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson. There have also been several comments over recent years from former fans, hungrily sought out no doubt, saying why they can no longer listen to his music. It's all totally insidious. And it has very much damaged his career, and his ability to get a record deal. To suggest that isn't the case is obtuse.

Yeah, I mean c'mon, those articles are everywhere.

 

[Crisstti]

Can you point me to a single press article that states people shouldn’t listen to Morrissey anymore?

Just one article I happened to read recently: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/does...nity-still-love-morrissey-despite-everything/

It’s obviously very biased all along and it’s clear the intent of the article is to say Mexican Americans should NOT love Morrissey.

There are several parts that show the author’s bias:

“In one especially cringe-y moment, he name-dropped L.A. county neighborhoods Alhambra and South Pasadena in a painfully anglicized Spanish accent”

“What’s most confounding about Morrissey’s stalwart popularity among the Mexican-American community is not that he’s British—it’s that he’s anti-immigrant.”

“On the official Tropicália poster, top-billed acts were featured as characters in the popular Mexican card game Lotería. Morrissey was portrayed as El Valiente (“The Brave Man”), but perhaps it would have been more fitting for him to take on the likeness of El Borracho (“The Drunk”): At this point, the Mexican-American community has put up with his outlandish comments the way one might a drunk uncle who won’t shut up at the dinner table. You love him, but he just won’t stop saying terrible things.”

How does he know this is how the Mexican American community feel about Moz? The evidence in that very paragraph contradicts this idea.

It’s pretty funny actually, how baffled the author is to find no antipathy towards him. He tries hard to get negative comments from the fans and the most he can come with are these:

“Noemi Barajas is a diehard Morrissey fan. She said she’d heard accusations of Morrissey being racist but really didn’t care. “I’m more about his music, not about him,” she said. “He’s an artist.’”

Another fan, Jose, made the three-hour drive down to Long Beach from Bakersfield to see Morrissey perform alongside more contemporary favorites. “Every artist is pretty problematic in their own way,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be supporting them, so it doesn’t matter.”

Jose’s friend, Diana, said that they try their best to separate the art from the artist, especially when it’s someone they loved from a young age like Morrissey. “It doesn’t mean we agree with everything,” she said, “but the music is good.”

The author’s disappointment is palpable “The thing is, I didn’t hear all that much conflict from fans. Given what I knew of the general backlash towards Morrissey’s worst comments, I expected to encounter a palpable protest to his performance at Tropicália. I expected condemnatory signs and booing. What I found instead was a crowd of music lovers clad in all black, clearly swept up in a state of nostalgia and reverie. They sang along in unison. They cheered when he spoke in Spanish. When he said he loved them, they screamed it back.”

“I suppose I expected more from Latinx people. (Why do we always expect more of marginalized people? Must the onus always be on the oppressed to be engaged constantly in acts of critical resistance?) I expected, as society too often does, for Latinx people to walk, talk, and even rock in perfect parallel with their politics.”

That last paragraph is particularly hilarious. The author assumes Latino people are necessarily all of one political inclination (left obviously) just because they are latino. And these are the people calling Moz a racist...

 

[Anonymous]

I do not think many people check his website, most people would have gotten this info mediated through numerous press articles which have had an obvious bias against Moz. This is in what is emphasized in them, in the interpretation given to what he's said, in the insistence on the idea of "can you separate the artist from the art" (with the obvious implication that you shouldn't, and why would you even need to? You simply need to accept that the artist is a person different from yourself and therefore might well have views which you don't share).
You don't even need to have read the articles, they're posted on social media and the very titles already have an effect when widely shared.

The press has been going on on the "Morrissey is racist" idea for a long long time btw, way before the Spiegel interview (before, he apparently was racist cause of waving a frigging union jack flag?), but it went overboard then, with cancel and woke culture on the rise as well.


Yeah, I mean c'mon, those articles are everywhere.

You didn’t answer the question. Provide me with one article when a journalist told people to not listen to Morrissey.

Journalists repeating his words is not the same thing.

The NME may have implied he was racist long ago but it didn’t have any effect on his career. And that is the proof in the pudding that in reality the opinion of a journalist is meaningless and not really effective at doing any damage worth speaking of.

You keep missing the point. All the articles and all the damage was done because of what he said. That came before any journalistic commentary.

If you think he was ever going to be able to say that a 15 year old child abuse victim was to blame for the abuse he suffered because he should have known what was going to happen by being in a room with an adult and that comment was never going to cause widespread media backlash and widespread condemnation from his fanbase then you are very naive.

Again most of his fan base didn’t leave because of what any newspaper wrote. They left because of what he said and what he has and has continued to post on his own page and of course his fanbase reads his website. What the general public thinks isn’t really important. It is his decades of loyal fanbase who read and heard his words direct from the horses mouth that matters and they left in their droves.

Plenty on musicians and politicians and famous people get attacked in the press consistently and they still have successful careers.

You don’t lose a loyal fanbase because a journalist prints some bad opinion about someone.

He is to blame for that. Pure and simple.

 

[Anonymous]

Just one article I happened to read recently: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/does...nity-still-love-morrissey-despite-everything/

It’s obviously very biased all along and it’s clear the intent of the article is to say Mexican Americans should NOT love Morrissey.

There are several parts that show the author’s bias:

“In one especially cringe-y moment, he name-dropped L.A. county neighborhoods Alhambra and South Pasadena in a painfully anglicized Spanish accent”

“What’s most confounding about Morrissey’s stalwart popularity among the Mexican-American community is not that he’s British—it’s that he’s anti-immigrant.”

“On the official Tropicália poster, top-billed acts were featured as characters in the popular Mexican card game Lotería. Morrissey was portrayed as El Valiente (“The Brave Man”), but perhaps it would have been more fitting for him to take on the likeness of El Borracho (“The Drunk”): At this point, the Mexican-American community has put up with his outlandish comments the way one might a drunk uncle who won’t shut up at the dinner table. You love him, but he just won’t stop saying terrible things.”

How does he know this is how the Mexican American community feel about Moz? The evidence in that very paragraph contradicts this idea.

It’s pretty funny actually, how baffled the author is to find no antipathy towards him. He tries hard to get negative comments from the fans and the most he can come with are these:

“Noemi Barajas is a diehard Morrissey fan. She said she’d heard accusations of Morrissey being racist but really didn’t care. “I’m more about his music, not about him,” she said. “He’s an artist.’”

Another fan, Jose, made the three-hour drive down to Long Beach from Bakersfield to see Morrissey perform alongside more contemporary favorites. “Every artist is pretty problematic in their own way,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be supporting them, so it doesn’t matter.”

Jose’s friend, Diana, said that they try their best to separate the art from the artist, especially when it’s someone they loved from a young age like Morrissey. “It doesn’t mean we agree with everything,” she said, “but the music is good.”

The author’s disappointment is palpable “The thing is, I didn’t hear all that much conflict from fans. Given what I knew of the general backlash towards Morrissey’s worst comments, I expected to encounter a palpable protest to his performance at Tropicália. I expected condemnatory signs and booing. What I found instead was a crowd of music lovers clad in all black, clearly swept up in a state of nostalgia and reverie. They sang along in unison. They cheered when he spoke in Spanish. When he said he loved them, they screamed it back.”

“I suppose I expected more from Latinx people. (Why do we always expect more of marginalized people? Must the onus always be on the oppressed to be engaged constantly in acts of critical resistance?) I expected, as society too often does, for Latinx people to walk, talk, and even rock in perfect parallel with their politics.”

That last paragraph is particularly hilarious. The author assumes Latino people are necessarily all of one political inclination (left obviously) just because they are latino. And these are the people calling Moz a racist...

I don’t see anything particularly wrong with that article or the opinion in it. He isn’t telling people to stop following him and if anything it completely proves my point that people don’t listen to journalism.

There is nothing untrue in relation to Morrissey in it. It is his opinion. Are you saying journalists are not allowed to write their opinions? That would be a interesting suggestion from someone who is blaming Morrissey’s problem on cancel culture to cancel people’s opinion.

There is no libel in the article so it is just his opinion.

You seem to believe that all of Morrissey’s die hard fans for decades are all stupid and all left because of the opinions of journalists. That is nonsense. Every die hard fan I know that left left because of what he said and what he posted. I should know because every one of my friends were in that boat and had been to 100s of gigs over 30 decades and have all stopped. This is at least 100 people.

There are many articles also with opinions that are contrary to these kind of opinions too like the recent spectator article saying rock and roll needs morrissey etc.

He caused the demise of his career. No one else. There are no planned and orchestrated 4 men of the apocalypse and no evidence of such. That is exactly what it is paranoia, narcissism and delusional denial.

His main issue is that no record label anywhere likes his albums after having listened to them. If you think the reason for that is because they make their business decisions based on what is in a tabloid journalistic printed opinion then again you are naive. Labels would release anything by anyone if they thought it was a good product and could make money regardless of any opinion about his views. They like controversial bad boys. The real issue with this is that they just don’t think the product warrants the investment because it’s not great.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Freedom of speech is overrated. Most of those who champion it are people with deeply disturbing and/or questionable motives. But sure, speak. But don’t cry like a baby when someone speaks up against you or when your speech has crossed the line into something that is a punishable offense.

 

[BookishBoy]

This isn't really a "freedom of speech" thing exactly but if anyone fancies reading a very smart (and long) essay about the current start of what art is (and is not) allowed to do, then help yourself to this. it's brilliant. (No mention at all of Morrissey, mostly about Philip Roth, but still.)

 

[gashonthenail]

This isn't really a "freedom of speech" thing exactly but if anyone fancies reading a very smart (and long) essay about the current start of what art is (and is not) allowed to do, then help yourself to this. it's brilliant. (No mention at all of Morrissey, mostly about Philip Roth, but still.)

I do think how all this relates to art and creativity is the central issue. Many have suggested that woke is killing the creative arts. I think that is true. It is certainly killing comedy. Restricting freedom of speech, and even more dangerously, seeking to compel speech, is totally corrosive of free thinking and creativity. We will of course never know how many books have not been published, how many movies not made, how many comics not booked, how many albums not released. We know one, obviously. But how many more are there?

 

[Anonymous]

I do think how all this relates to art and creativity is the central issue. Many have suggested that woke is killing the creative arts. I think that is true. It is certainly killing comedy. Restricting freedom of speech, and even more dangerously, seeking to compel speech, is totally corrosive of free thinking and creativity. We will of course never know how many books have not been published, how many movies not made, how many comics not booked, how many albums not released. We know one, obviously. But how many more are there?

I wish you would deal with facts and evidence rather than your speculation.

The issue over comedy isn’t new and far older than the odd invention of the lazy word, woke. You can go right back to restrictions on comedians material way back into the 70s and earlier. Back then it was even harder for broadcast comedy to be risqué on a whole plethora of topics. Comedy was considerably more sanitised in the past than it is now. There were many figures who were conservatism activists who managed to control the likes of bbc content such as Mary Whitehouse. These days comedians get away with far less restrictions although I did see a comedy show recently that did a great sketch ridiculing jk Rowling that was hilarious but it wasn’t broadcast. There are comedians who openly mention sexual words that could never have been even thought about 40/50 years ago.

Your imagination that there is another list of books, movies etc that haven’t been released because of some new recent some invention is just illogical unthought out un evidenced bull.

As for his album I repeat a huge record label like Capitol don’t follow your imagined woke bias. They release material that many would consider to be indecent and offensive. If there is money to be made then no woke sentiment would bother them in the slightest. The more likely reason is that no one likes the album and no one wants to spend huge amounts of their money on it cause they don’t rate it. It will be purely about what they feel the quality of the product is.

You are buying into the paranoia that moz is shoving into people’s heads. Unsubstantiated drivel. You only have to look at Morrissey’s more recent material to see why labels may not see it as a money maker. They are only about making profit.

Morrissey could release the album himself. He could put his own money where his mouth is and let his fans have it. But he too is all about the money and would rather have a stage to tell the world how he is being silenced. He loves being the narcissistic martyr.

 

[gashonthenail]

Freedom of speech is overrated. Most of those who champion it are people with deeply disturbing and/or questionable motives. But sure, speak. But don’t cry like a baby when someone speaks up against you or when your speech has crossed the line into something that is a punishable offense.

What a strange thing to say. Like saying freedom of thought is over-rated. If you control speech then you control thought. What deeply disturbing or questionable motives do Amnesty International have I wonder when they defend poets who have been arrested and disappeared?
Freedom of speech is certainly something that is unusual and under valued in world history. No religions value freedom of speech. For most of world history other people have tried to control what we can say, what we can read, or watch, and ultimately, what we can think. It's only 50 years since they tried to ban Lady Chatterley's Lover. And only 100 years since they tried to ban Ulysses. Previously it was the religious, then the right, now it's the left. But the principle is the same - we know what is best for you to hear and see and read.
Freedom of speech is one of those things you only really notice and value when you don't have it any more. Go and live in China or Iran and say that freedom of speech is over-rated.