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I can think of 2 cases where cancel culture was totally bullying, absolute and "righteous". And them, lo and behold, the cancelled are totally vindicated with hindsight.

The first case was John Lydon aka Jonny Rotten. He famously inferred that Jimmy Saville was a dirty, sleazy old pedo and was promptly banned for life by the BBC.

The second was the Dixie Chicks who dared to oppose America's desire for war with Iraq. They were huge and here's a little 10min video to remind all of what happened to them. Extremely brave women who I applaud for their guts to speak out against what now, most agree, was an illegal war. Sold on the lie of WMD and was never going to make the world a safer space.
So my suggestion is perhaps think before jumping on a band wagon to help bully dissenters into submission. Free speech is pretty useless if people fear to speak out of turn because of real life repercussions.

puff 8 Oct 4
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The second Gulf war was predicated on a lie but the first Gulf war wasn't. Just because the US shouldn't have gone into Iraq doesn't make Saddam Hussein a hero. Putin invaded a sovereign nation and predicated it on a lie which you espouse. The Dixie Chicks might have been "cancelled" by FoxNews and it hurt their record sales. They weren't imprisoned like Pussy Riot was by the Russian Federation lead by a tyrannical dictator, your hero, Vladimir Putin.

I think the first Gulf war, Desert Storm, was also a sham and protested it. Our financial system was very weak at the time, largely because of the Savings And Loan scandal (which poppa Bush was involved with), so the Kuwait Sheik (who had never spent a penny on defense despite Sadam having said that Kuwait was part of Iraq and he would recover it after his war against Iran) told Bush to get Sadam out of his nation or he'd put his money into Japanese Yen. Afraid of recession, Bush did exactly that. That means our military was a pay-for-use service.

Your memory is selective re the backlash against the Dixie Chicks and was far greater than you infer. You heard any of their songs in the last 20 years on radio or anywhere else?
Illegal invasions of countries should be prosecuted, all for it. Plus also lock up the weak who were "just following orders".

@rainmanjr I recall the diplomats kid tearfully describing babies being removed from incubators which turned out to be a croc of shite at the UN. Some may call that a lie to encourage war. Australia also had it's largest protest regarding the first Gulf war, which was ignored.

@puff

@barjoe I also recall the US asking the people to rise up against Hussain, which they did knowing the US military had their back and were already in Iraq. Then they were abandoned, just like the Kurds, and olde Saddam had a bit of a purge afterwards.

Also reminds me of the old joke;
Q: Why was the US so sure Iraq had WMD?
A: They still had the receipts.

If you are able to recall even further back, you will remember Saddam was a US allie in his war with Iran, where he used gas which was no probs for the US at the time. Where did he get that technological ability from? (Just in case you don't get the joke)

@barjoe Remember the days people used to protest war?
[libcom.org]

@puff I notice you didn't have shit to say about Pussy Riot. Imprisoned for criticizing fucking Putin. It was you who posted Dixie Chicks video. The morons who like country music stopped buying there records. They weren't put in prison like Piece of Shit Putin did to Pussy Riot. What do you have to say about that? You don't have dick to say about that. Enjoy Fascist Planet because that's what you Moscow Motherfucker is going to bring.

@barjoe Putin's time has past and he should go. No, I don't condone Pussy Riot being imprisoned but they knew what they were doing and pushed boundaries purposely. Repercussions were too severe for sure. Russian justice. Different from US and Aussie justice but being a sovereign state, up to them.
If you want a "Whataboutism" about justice perhaps we should all be like Israel or Saudi Arabia. Have you heard of Julian Assange?
You want to talk fascist? Read this and weep
[ratical.org]

@puff Julian Assange belongs in prison.

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So... are you saying that there should be no repercussions for anything that anyone says publicly?

As long as they are not inciting violence or encouraging discrimination, nothing official repercussion wise no. Let the consumer decide. Freedom of choice.
The Dixie Chicks was scary and made me recall all the antiwar stances and songs during the late 60's early 70's. What a turn around.

@Charles1971 Nashville Country Music sucks. I became a fan of the Dixie Chicks after they told Dubya to go fuck himself.

@barjoe One of them, as I recall, only said that they were embarrassed to be from Texas. That was all.

@rainmanjr I knew they didn't tell President Bush to go fuck himself literally. It was a metaphor. Country Music still sucks. I liked the Dixie Chicks because they were hot AF and they didn't like George W Bush. .

I don't listen to country music and don't really recall what the Dixie Chicks said. I support freedom of speech but freedom of speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. As an example, Roseanne was free to tweet the racist comments that she posted but the consequence of doing so was that she was fired from her own TV show. I support her right to free speech but I also think it was justified for ABC to fire her.

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