Month: May 2016

A much abused term: Antisemitism.

A much abused term: Antisemitism.

The problem on the left is not antisemitism or racism. The problem is the same all over: a reliance on poorly researched factoids, a faulty grasp of history and a general intellectual laziness. In this they are not unique. Unfortunately this is typical of most people.

But let’s be clear: criticising the actions of the state of Israel and it’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and its endless blockade of the Gaza strip is not the same thing as racism against Jewish people. People who use the term antisemitism to describe this criticism are conflating two completely different things and debasing the value of that word.

Israel was built on the back of European guilt about the Nazis and the Holocaust. This has made their policies very difficult to discuss without falling into various traps. But Israel is in reality a fairly typical state which remains to this day dominated by a highly nationalistic political doctrine. This has often led them to enact racist policies against its Arab minority and against the stateless Palestinian population.

It is not racist to point this out. It is in fact clearly anti-racist. 

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/02/labour-is-not-rife-with-antisemitism-but-i-do-wish-ken-would-shut-up?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=170098&subid=16790678&CMP=ema_632

The new study documents how, in the wake of the 2013 Snowden revelations (of which 87 percent of Americans were…

The new study documents how, in the wake of the 2013 Snowden revelations (of which 87 percent of Americans were aware), there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.’” People were afraid to read articles about those topics because of fear that doing so would bring them under a cloud of suspicion. The dangers of that dynamic were expressed well by Penney: “If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.”

As the Post explains, several other studies have also demonstrated how mass surveillance crushes free expression and free thought. A 2015 study examined Google search data and demonstrated that, post-Snowden, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the U.S. government” and that these “results suggest that there is a chilling effect on search behavior from government surveillance on the internet.”

The fear that causes self-censorship is well beyond the realm of theory. Ample evidence demonstrates that it’s real — and rational. A study from PEN America writers found that 1 in 6 writers had curbed their content out of fear of surveillance and showed that writers are “not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.” Scholars in Europe have been accused of being terrorist supporters by virtue of possessing research materials on extremist groups, while British libraries refuse to house any material on the Taliban for fear of being prosecuted for material support for terrorism.

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship/