Can’t you see I’m in a hurry?

I'm doing to Mike and Martin from V what the OG Star Trek girlies did to Kirk and Spock <3

I am posting and responding to this ask anonymously as I don't want anyone harassing its sender. This has already been communicated with the person who sent the ask.

I just want to thank you for being a light in the darkness of anti-semitism, especially on this website. I have found I am on this site a lot less ever since it was made clear that other leftists here are more anti-semitic than we ever knew possible, using very specific wording of our own trauma against us (i.e. saying stuff like "colonialism", "genocide/ethnic cleansing", and calling JEWISH PEOPLE Nazis). It feels like, at best, they know Hamas ≠ All or even most Palestinians, but think that they think all JEWS = Bibi; and at worst, agree with Hamas and think of him as some sort of "freedom fighter". So, thank you from one leftist Jew to another, just trying to keep afloat here. ❤️

You are very welcome; it's certainly been overwhelming, and I'm glad this can be a safe space for you.

I do want to push back on some of this ask, though. Specifically in regard to terms such as "colonialism," "apartheid," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

The use of these terms is not inherently anti-Semitic. For a lot of people, these terms are the best ones they have access to describe what they are seeing. I do think such terms as “colonialism” and “apartheid” are overly simple in regard to the last ~3000 years of Jewish history, and that they cast the situation into an alien historical context which dilutes and uncomplicates the all the historical realities at stake, but I truly do not think that all who use these terms do so to cause Jewish people pain.

Further complicating the picture is that terms like "colonialism" aren’t completely wrong. Modern Zionism arose in the context of mid-nineteenth century European large-scale movements towards nationalism (ie, the creation of nation-states) and away from the multi-national empire. Jews—a subject of anti-Semitism and fifth columnist suspicions within those emergent European nations—reacted to all this by joining the nationalism game.

What’s ironic, is that those European Jews who founded contemporary Zionism were reacting to the exclusion and racial hatred with which Gentile Europeans treated them, and then once they had some settlements in Palestine, they deployed similar variants of racial hatred at both the Palestinian Arab population, and Middle Eastern Jewry.

The existence of a distinct people and ethnic group in Palestine before the aliyot were not something the first generation of Zionists were concerned with. Because they were part of the same shitty, white supremacist, pro-imperialistic intellectual European tradition to which they were responding as victimized parties. As time went on and Zionist thought spread across Ashkenazic communities, we can see some variants. Some forms of far-left Zionism in twentieth century Poland, for example, actively built the presence and rights of Palestinian Arabs into their ideology, some of them actively stating that Zionism could not be a success if it necessitated transforming Palestinian Arabs into a group of secondhand citizens and a cheap source of labor in their own home.

Those leftist strands of Zionism tended to be Socialist/Communist in nature, and centered around the idea of life in Eretz Yisrael as one of a series of self-sufficient communes. Thus when the 1930s hit and things start to go bad, the Zionists we see fleeing to Palestine tended to be of the more centrist and far right variants. The left wing, socialist movements, already operating as a collective, had a membership uncomfortable with fleeing to safety while the rest remained behind.

And that same socialist/communal attitude, is why those variants of Zionist thought never made it into the Israeli political mainstream; most of their members and proponents were murdered in the Holocaust in part because they refused to leave their comrades behind. The General Zionists and Zionist Revisionists who rode out the years of the Holocaust in Palestine therefore already had access to the avenues of power which would become important in 1948, when the British Empire shrugged off its responsibilities towards the regions it colonized and destabilized.

Now, as for ethnic cleansing. I can’t sugar-coat this: that’s what the Naqba was. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homes to make way for the Jewish State. The manipulative shit (but still somehow extremely prestigious) youth group I was in taught us that Arabs call it Naqba because they hate Jews and therefore existence of Jews in the Southern Levant was a tragedy, as was the fact that Hitler didn't finish the job.

That’s garbage: it’s called the Naqba because it was ethnic cleansing. And that's not the fault of the Holocaust survivors who made their way to Mandatory Palestine/Israel in the late 1940s--they lacked political power, and were often looked down upon by those who did; the Holocaust as part of Israeli National Mythology wasn't an immediate Thing.

If you spent your formative years around older Jewish folks of A Certain Generation, whose trauma has pretty much placed a permanent block on their ability to see some of what went down in 1948 for what it was, I can’t blame you for having that gut/cognitive dissonance reaction to the use of “ethnic cleansing” in the context of Israel and Palestine. I know those older folks. I loved them. They’re mostly gone now, and I miss them terribly. But their trauma-induced view of everything lives on in the ability of some younger Jews to properly name and understand what it is that happened in 1948.

It was ethnic cleansing.

Further, not only were Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed, but the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Jews who were forced by their governments to flee their homes of thousands of years and seek refuge in Israel throughout the second half of the twentieth century…the Western and Central European Jews in control of Israel and its institutions treated them like shit too. Hadassah actively stole the babies of Yemeni Jews, told the parents that their children were dead, and rehomed them to Ashkenazic couples. There were death certificates. Members of the Ethiopian Jewish community were forcibly sterilized, and their ongoing treatment by the State is racist and generally atrocious. And this analysis of the relationship between the Israel State, MENA Jewish populations, and different Ashkenazic groups in Israel is horribly short and overly simple.

As for genocide. I honestly don’t know. I do know many people, who are very much not Anti-Semites, who are calling what’s happening in Gaza right now genocide; many of these people are also Jewish. I know many others who refer to the experiences of Palestinians between 1948 and now as a slow genocide. Many of these people are also actively not anti-Semites, and many of them are Jewish.

So these terms, as uncomfortable as they may feel for people within the very specific Jewish generational background I believe we share, are not deployed as anti-Semitic weapons. Nazi comparisons? Yes. Swastikas superimposed over the Star of David? Yes. Very specific hook-nosed Jewish caricatures in relation to Israelis? Yes. Blood libel shit? Yes. These are all anti-Semitic, and are deployed to hurt and retraumatize Jewish people. But the rest are not nearly that simple.

And I didn’t learn this from like, Bad Evil Post-Modern Academics at Columbia University Who Hate Jews; I learned this from doing graduate-level work in the field of Modern Jewish History, and working in Jewish archives; this did not come from outside the building.

Now, as for Hamas as freedom fighters…that’s ignorant at best. Hamas’ charter clearly calls for the global destruction of the Jewish people [ETA: they edited this part out in 2017 for PR purposes], and their actions as rulers are horrifically, violently, homophobic, and seem to be more abut provoking Israel than they are about governing and protecting their people. But as you said, Hamas isn’t all Palestinians, and it’s also not all Palestinians who consider themselves freedom fighters. (A second reader of mine had the following commentary on this paragraph: "Might need a bit more complication around Hamas? I know that's not your area of expertise but it's worth mentioning that they were basically set up to undermine the PLO and what would become the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. You're right that they aren't representative of all Palestinian thought and resistance, and that they are on some fuck shit.")

So while I’m so glad that blog is a comfort to you, I encourage you to also take a step into some of your discomfort, and ask yourself where it comes from.

No one reading this post has my consent to use it to silence other Jewish people who are in different stages of their journey towards understanding how generational trauma has impacted their ability to grasp all of this. Further, if you choose to attack me for gently calling my people in, you're a piece of shit and I will be mean to you.

Ordinary Palestinians want to build a prosperous, functioning society. Hamas, in its obsession with annihilating Israel, doesn't care about that. It wishes only to bring about a genocidal Islamist dystopia. It is Hamas, after all, that holds Palestinians hostage in Gaza, setting up military installations in — and launching rockets from — civilian areas in the full knowledge that counterstrikes will kill innocent people. It is Hamas that impoverishes Palestinians by stealing humanitarian aid to fund its terror. This is what 'by any means necessary' truly signifies: supreme callousness towards Palestinian life. If you genuinely want to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, or more generally between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East, then Hamas should be your enemy. And even if — like many in the West, as we can now see — you don't care at all about Israeli or Jewish lives, even if you care only about the lives of Palestinians, Hamas is still your enemy. After all, Hamas ruthlessly persecutes any Palestinians who disagree with it: a 2022 U.S. State Department report found that, among other abuses, Hamas detained and assaulted critical journalists. It is especially hostile to public figures associated with its rival Fatah, the Palestinian party voted out of office in Gaza in 2006, but which still runs the West Bank. Hamas harasses its own dissidents, and has invaded the home of at least one young critical activist, telling his parents to keep their son under control — or else. As a Dutch MP in 2004 and 2005, I travelled to the West Bank and met Palestinians. In public, they spouted all the usual lines about Israel being their 'oppressor'. But once the cameras were switched off, they spoke more truthfully. They complained bitterly about their treatment by Hamas and other radical groups, and told me how money meant to feed the people was being taken to fund those organisations' activities and their leaders' luxurious lifestyles. Arabs and Palestinians alike told me how fed up they were with conflict, and how ready they were for peace. Hamas, like other Islamist groups, has done its best over the course of decades to stomp all over those wishes. And it has been successful. The shocking rise in anti-Semitism in the West owes much to the entrenched Islamist networks that have spent years stirring up this ancient hatred. Europe must now wake up to these fifth columnists who shamelessly celebrate violence and bigotry, promoting hatred of the Jewish minority in Europe. The West must also wake up to the moral corruption of its own Hamas supporters, from Left-wing university students to flag-waving street thugs. Meanwhile, elite human-rights organisations need to do far more to name terrorism when they see it. It is horrifying to see Amnesty International claiming that one of the 'root causes' of the crisis is 'Israel's system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians'. Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, should do more than merely equivocating in its insistence that no injustice can justify another. This is not to argue that Israel should be immune from criticism. My point is that much of the criticism is at best misguided and at worst thinly veiled anti-Semitism. Hamas, like Lebanon's Hezbollah, Isis in Syria and Iraq, Nigeria's Boko Haram, Somalia's Al-Shabaab and several other groups, are fighting not for the liberty and prosperity of Muslims but, ultimately, for the annihilation of Israel and the imposition of an Islamic state. If Palestinians and other Muslims have to suffer for that aim, then so be it.

Full article

The emphasis are mine.

"Doctor Martin, why are you an atheist?"

Director Maria Kleinheart wasn't the sort of person who asked indirect or idle questions. She was in every way a Kleinheart, the spitting image of her grandmother. Only she wasn't staring out from a yellowed ad in a back issue of Popular Science or Woman's Day, she was staring from across desk made of polished slate.

Emil Martin didn't respond immediately. That sort of question usually came with an invitation to services or a badgering about Pascal's wager. That didn't fit what he knew about the director, though that wasn't much. An intense religious conversion would explain the rumors around her distance from the rest of her family.

"Director, is this a personal or work related question?" Emil finally asked.

"Work." She replied.

"Is that appropriate?"

"Yes. This is about security clearances."

That made even less sense. Emil decided to risk a lecture on his eternal soul and answered truthfully. "Pretty standard, insufficient evidence."

"Would you rather it be true?" She asked. "Would it be comforting to know you existed for a purpose, that someone was in charge of your existence, caring for you?"

"Not really." Emil replied. "I'm rather Hitchenisan in that regard."

"Good enough. Follow me."

-

"BE NOT AFRAID."

The words seemed to come out of the air itself. The thing was at the center of the large, expansive lab that had once been a missile silo. It was a sphere, surrounded by two rings of brass-like metal. The rings were lined with hemispherical semi-translucent white glass or crystal protrusions. The inner ring spun slowly, as did the central core, though only the faintest irregularities in its glowing blue-white corona revealed that motion.

The outer ring was held in place with steel chains, each link six inches in diameter. Two chains locked the ring to the floor, while a third latched the top to the ceiling. The cuffs the chains connected to seemed to have been welded shut around it.

"BE NOT AFRAID." It 'spoke' again. Its voice was clear and musical, but wrong and artificial at the same time. It sounded like familiar voices; his mother and father, his cousins, his old school pals, his boyfriends, even Director Kleinheart, each synthesized poorly via an AI speech simulator, all speaking in perfect time.

Every time it spoke, Emil smelled his grandfather's sweet cornbread fresh from the oven.

"That looks like an angel." He finally gasped.

"Looks like." Director Kleinheart smiled. He wasn't sure she could do that. "I knew we picked the right man."

"This is why you were asking about my beliefs?"

"Yes Doctor Martin. You see, freedom of religion is an extension of the principle of innocence until proven guilty. Once one faith is shown to be correct, all others are revealed as wrong."

"And you wanted to make sure I, what, wasn't guilty of being wrong?"

"No, the mistaken are innocent of everything except the actions they directly take." Kleinheart continued. "It's the ones who would take this to mean they were right that are fifth columnists to an unaccountable alien power."

"Oh." Emil replied. He didn't know quite what else to say.

"I want you on our team that's studying it. We need to know how it works, what it's made of, what those things its made of can be used for, you know the drill."

"BE NOT AFRAID." Again came the smell of cornbread.

"Are the restraints necessary?" Emil asked. "It is telling us we don't need to be afraid of it."

"Oh, we thought that too at first." The director said. "But we've already learned quite a bit about our little intruder here, even a bit of its 'source code' for lack of a better analogue. That message isn't meant for us."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you guess, Doctor?"

Dr. Emil Martin shrugged. "I have no idea."

"It isn't giving us a warning."

Director Kleinheart smiled for the second time in Emil's memory and spoke again.

"It's repeating its orders."

Hitler's psychological artillery was composed primarily of the weapon of fear. He had, for example, a network of fifth columnists whose main job was to sow rumors and suspicions among the citizens of the countries against which he eventually planned to fight. Instead of facing the real threat of German invasion, instead of preparing for it, all of Europe shuddered at spy stories, discussed irrelevant problems, argued endlessly about scapegoats and minorities.

Joost A.M. Meerloo, The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing

To be sure, their themes of chauvinist triumphalism aren’t so different from what we’re hearing from Israeli government ministers or Christian Zionist leaders. But unlike Benjamin Netanyahu or John Hagee, Bronze Age Zionists swim alongside (and sometimes argue with) literal neo-Nazis in the fetid, irony-drenched swamps of ultra-reactionary internet subculture. So what are nice Jewish boys like these doing on 4chan? Answering this question might offer insight, not only into the nature of contemporary Zionism but into the broader far-right.

Mimicking Bronze Age Pervert, the fascist manosphere author from whom I’ve forged their namesake, Bronze Age Zionists valorize the aesthetics of Jewish muscle, strength, virility, and warrior ethos with deliberately extravagant flair. Memes from this ecosystem show ripped, White Hebrew warriors roaring alongside a lion; wooing Roman women in some ancient marketplace; hanging their enemies, whether Nazi, Palestinian or leftist; or bullying a slovenly, pink-haired ‘soy boy’—a meme caricaturing liberal men as emasculated by consumer culture. By transforming themselves into muscle-Jews, these and other memes signal, they’ve become the Alphas of Jewish history.

This, anyway, is the ethos of 21st-century muskeljudentum or ‘muscular Judaism,’ as early Zionist theorist Max Nordau put it. And, in the wake of the humiliation of October 7, it comes laced with stone-cold retribution and an urgent need to reclaim masculine honor, glory, and pride. They share quotes from Netanyahu like “the weak crumble, are slaughtered and erased from history while the strong, for good or ill, survive.” Or they celebrate Israel as “a true Nietszchean country,” as one Bronze Age Zionist put it during Israel’s assault on Gaza in December, before indulging in a bit of Proud Boys-esque chest-thumping. “Leftoids can’t comprehend the strong willed in a world of weak men. They hate winners because they are LOSERS.” Much like Israel’s assault itself, the cruelty is the point. But amidst the unbridled Islamophobia, and celebration of “unfathomably based” Israeli soldiers mocking Gazans or issuing exterminationist orders in viral videos from the front lines, one detects the frenzied desperation of a cornered animal, lashing out at any target close at hand.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the seething contempt reserved for Jewish progressives, whom Bronze Age Zionists sometimes refer to as “Quislingsteins” or “shtetlibs.” The former term evokes an uber-nationalist siege mentality, with its obsessive contempt for perceived ‘traitors’ and fifth columnists. The latter castigates liberal Jews in the weak, defenseless and submissive mold of that imagined old-country shtetl of their East-European ancestors—the ‘ghetto Jew’ which, through guns, brawn and steel, these muscle-Jews boast of having willfully overcome.

[...]

To be sure, Bronze Age Zionists do not represent a mass Jewish movement in the Anglo world. The accounts surveyed here are perhaps a few dozen in total, many with only a few thousand followers or less. The majority of English-speaking Jews would recoil at their openly supremacist views, and find the prospect of a Magen David-Sonnenrad alliance despicable and revolting.

At the same time, these accounts reflect, in extreme form, broader trends in the political landscape. “Before Oct 7th, I was an average moderate conservative,” an account named “Kahane Disciple” explained. “Oct 7th changed everything. We saw what people really thought, and that’s when I pulled Kahane down from my book shelf.”

In their thirst for vengeance and dominance, they channel the id of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza as its terrible death toll continues to rise. Right-wing Israeli and American Jewish right-wing leaders eschew 4chan for a larger political stage—but they too seek alliances with White Christian nationalist leaders, denigrate liberal Jews, and celebrate an ethos of muscular Judaism. They have no need for a niche internet subculture, because they possess a state apparatus, and aligned institutions to propagate their ideology.

There are a lot more details on the article, including how these guys' attempts to ingratiate themselves with the neo-Nazis and Groypers are received (not well! It's pretty funny!). For a bit more of a look at the ~respectable, institutional side of this alluded to in this last quoted paragraph, and the common elements running through both scenes, Eli Valley wrote about the run-up to this a few years ago. His piece centered around how his art, which is deliberately grotesque and consciously in the tradition of what the Nazis called "degenerate art," was condoned as antisemitic and even Nazi by other Jews when he caricatured...Meghan McCain. He drew a connection there between Max Nordau's "Muscular Jew," an Israeli distaste for the diaspora, and aesthetics. This piece by Ben Lorber is the same phenomenon, just in the mode of 4chan rather than the mode of august blue checks (of yore) on Twitter: this time, the aesthetics in question lie in right-wing meme culture.

Every nationalism contains the potential for fascism, and this particular version is one that has both haunted and motivated the Israeli project from the beginning. In some ways it is obviously specific to the context of antisemitism and the Holocaust, and in other ways it's bog-standard: a similar reactionary need to prove masculinized dominance through violence has been perceived in the US Gulf War, for instance. But what is, I think, particular to this dynamic is the way it shapes relations between Israel and various parts of the diaspora - racially, institutionally, financially, geopolitically. The role of the muscular Jew psychology or construct in broader Israeli culture (including those who would never identify with it, much as white supremacy functions in the US) is not raised as often as it should be in discussions about Israel as a settler society, IMO.

The way in which ppl routinely reach for lincolns suspension of habeas corpus—a functional prerequisite for prosecuting a civil war against large rebelling swathes of your own populace—to justify the most heinous shit imaginable is interesting. It’s old, too: trotsky reached for it to justify the most nauseating excesses of the terror in the course of the russian civil war, for example.

And it’s always a terrible strategy to anyone not already fundamentally sold on the conclusion to begin with: “Well, if you object to the virtually unlimited siege and the bombing of civilian infrastructure on the faintest security pretext and the scouring of hospitals, as part and parcel of the better part of a centurys worth of killing and dispossession, do you similarly object to jailing treacherous anti-govt rioters for the duration of a civil war? You can hardly object to one and not the other!” Sure you can, the two are separated by several well defined bright lines across a distance of miles, lines which I might if I were being uncharitable speculate are difficult for you to discern bc that would require acknowledging Palestinians (or those too close to alleged fifth columnists for the Whites in russia, or whatever) as full human beings

Superman and the Notzis

For whatever reason, before any actual Nazis were featured in the comics- they had what were obviously Nazis, but were commonly called "Fifth Columnists" from "Country X". Superman, naturally, treated them as all fascists should be treated- boooooot to the noggin. These comics, most notably feature what I like to call Royalty-Free Hitlers, of which there are three.

Royalty Free Hitler #1, Reibel, the Fifth Columnist.

Seen in Superman #8 (1941), he is not actually a Hitler analogue in-story- just a sympathizer who's trying to convert Americans to his cause. Superman makes him brown his pants by taking his gun, shooting at his chest and then dabbing away.

Royalty-Free Hitler #2 - Karl Wolff, Dukalian Consul

As seen in Superman #10 (1941), this chucklefuck gets humiliated by Superman, who demonstrates that they aren't the apex of this planet- that guy happens to wear spandex and has a large wiener.

Royalty-Free Hitler #3, Razkal, Supreme Dictator of Oxnalia.

As seen in Superman #15 (1942), this dipweed milhouse balsawood of a man was attempting to bomb his neighbors into hell, but instead got his knuckles broken, his entire military dismantled by hand, and tossed into jail to be dealt with by the UN.

After this, ACTUAL HITLER showed up- notably after Pearl Harbor, in an off-handed panel in Superman #20 (1943), where he is portrayed as a gibbering man-baby.

Also, canonically, as seen in Superman #22, he contracts with a bunch of weird af green... alien-demons called Squiffles who head-butt him in the balls until he agreed to let them sabotage the american war industry in exchange for a..."favor"

Said favor turned out to be joining the legions of demons already possessing his soul. What the fuck.

It seems like Russia had many periods of famine that came about following the establishment of the soviet government and implementation of their policies. How was it that the communists were able to remain in power after so many famines in such a short period of time? Shouldn’t the first one had been a sign that their ideas didn’t work properly?

It's not like failure has necessarily been a disqualifier for political leadership. Similarly, it's not like failure to produce has ever discredited an ideology on its surface, there's always a myriad of excuses that can be levied to explain away failures without impinging the core coherency and competence of the ideology.

Typically, the CPSU blamed famines and poor agricultural productivity on reactionary elements, weather conditions, and sabotage, hence why there was so much habitual misreporting of output in the Soviet Union particularly during the era of Stalin, since you could be seen as a Trotskyite fifth columnist if you failed to produce. And in fairness, Russia during the time of the Tsars also experienced periods of agricultural decline and famine, so some of Russian agricultural output is at the mercy of the elements. Not as much as scholars like Stephen Wheatcroft admit, but it is a present factor. The Soviet public was willing to believe it too, that's one of the advantages to using ideology to identify sui generis enemies is that they become a convenient scapegoat for any and every problem experienced by the regime.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

AVERAGE FIFTH COLUMNIST MEAL:

meatball SUBTERFUGE

eggs BENEDICT ARNOLD

DOUBLE AGENT bossy deluxe on a raft, four by four ENEMY style

cajun TREASONING

TRAITORADE

repost in ten other threads to drive out the fifth columnist menace. god save the queen

FACT & REPORTAGE

#MediaToo & The Crisis in British Journalism

MailOnline and The Sun Hid Serious Dan Wootton Claims – While Attacking Huw Edwards and the BBC

In the fifth part of our three-year special investigation into the private and professional conduct of GB News star Dan Wootton, Byline Times can reveal how The Sun and MailOnline have been protecting their star celebrity journalist

Dan Evans

28 July 2023

MailOnline knew of serious criminal allegations of a sexual nature about its columnist Dan Wootton in May yet failed to report them to the police and continued to publish his work on five occasions, Byline Times can reveal.

Wootton’s former employer The Sun also failed to report the same detailed allegations to the police despite knowing about them since at least 7 June 2023 – a month before running a controversial front page about a BBC presenter lawfully paying for sexual images.

The matter was reported to the publications by a former male adult entertainer whom Wootton employed to help him catfish men of sexual interest and secretly record them in their homes having sex.

A further allegation was also made, and is known by both newspapers – details of which we are unable to report at this time.

The man told Byline Times: “The Mail said they couldn’t touch the story as Wootton worked for them. They said it sounded like a very serious criminal matter, and said that I should go to the police – which I did.

“I also told The Sun about it and the fact that Wootton had paid one of my colleagues for sex work from their own accounts by pretending he was a source on a story about Amber Heard. They also told me to report it to the police. So, I did that in June.”

Neither publication has since reported at all on the three-year special investigation into the personal and professional conduct of Wootton that Byline Times started breaking 11 days ago, yet The Sun did cover Wootton’s denials in a 143-word piece on 20 July. News UK, its publisher, has since set up an internal inquiry and MailOnline has unofficially ‘paused’ Wootton’s column.

However, the failure of publishers Associated Newspapers Ltd and News UK Ltd to act sooner is attracting strong criticism, given both took aim at the BBC during the same period for its handling of the Huw Edwards affair.

“The fact that Dan Wootton’s employers and previous employers knew of allegations against him and did nothing for at least six weeks before Byline Times started reporting them means that the public interest here is not just on his alleged actions but their actions too as supposedly responsible publishers and employers,” Paul Wragg, Professor of Media Law at the University of Leeds, told this newspaper.

‘I Was Really Surprised they Didn’t Seem Interested’

Today, in the latest part of Byline Times’ #MediaToo investigation into abuses of power in publishing and broadcasting, we can reveal how the ex-adult entertainer first contacted MailOnline on 29 May amid a mounting scandal about the former ITV This Morning presenter Philip Schofield and his lawful relationship with a younger man he worked with.

In a subsequent email to MailOnline on 31 May, the man – who we are not naming for legal reasons – wrote: “After Philip Schofield, the next one on This Morning who should be investigated is Dan Wootton [the presenter previously worked on the magazine show].

“I am an ex-porn star and escort. I have worked for Dan on several occasions. The things he has asked me to do were illegal. He used to ask us to film others without their consent… He also used to pay myself and others to use our Facebooks [profiles] and message who he wanted us to encounter with. How much for a story like this? I have more information on him.”

Wootton has denied any allegations of criminality.

The complainant has since told Byline Times that his interactions with the now GB News star, left him suicidal and living a chaotic life of self-medicating drug use and mental trauma.

Communications with MailOnline continued until this Wednesday, 26 July, during which the man says he was told it could not consider reporting on Wootton because he was an employee of Associated Newspapers.

“After that, I went to The Sun and told them about Wootton and the Amber Heard stuff – evidence of which they obviously have on their own account system. After lots of calls, they just said it was for the police to deal with, not them.

“They said there wasn’t any evidence, even though I was directly involved. I even told them the name of the accounts person who dealt with it. I was really surprised they didn’t seem interested.”

Byline Times has verified the email and other communications with MailOnline and can confirm that at least eight phone calls were made to and from The Sun newsdesk between 7 June and 27 July about Wootton, who last night was still presenting a prime-time show on GB News.

The Huw Edwards Parallel

During this period, both MailOnline and The Sun broke stories about Huw Edwards, who is no longer on air for the BBC and has been receiving help, according to his wife, with “serious mental health issues”.

In a defence of its articles about Edwards, which have been heavily criticised, The Sun wrote in a comment piece on 13 July: “A desperate couple approached us with firm evidence that he was paying large sums to a young person with a spiralling drug addiction – and that the star had been sent sexual pictures.

“But police said nothing could be done and, despite a detailed complaint to the BBC, it did nothing either. What do our critics, especially Mr Edwards’ pious media friends, think we should have done? Told the family to shove off? Turned a blind eye to what appeared to be a clear abuse of power by a household name… ?”

MailOnline has been similarly critical of the BBC for posing as the “moral conscience of the nation” over the Edwards saga.

On Wednesday, its columnist Brendan O’Neill wrote: “Their authoritarian urge to elevate certain stories and diminish others robs ordinary people of the right to know what is really happening in this country. There is nothing ‘virtuous’ about it. On the contrary: these are the despotic antics of people who think they should have the power to control the flow of information itself.”

For Prof Wragg, “Dan Wootton has set himself up as a moral arbiter whose job it is to condemn others for moral flaws – and that means that his own moral flaws are a matter of clear public interest”.

“He is a man who has been instrumental in exposing the highly sensitive details of the private lives of many people in public life, including the television presenter Philip Schofield and the musical entertainer Duncan James,” he told Byline Times.

“He’s made a career out of subjecting others to vitriol but now seems to want the protection of the law as a matter of privacy and defamation now that his own alleged actions are being subjected to scrutiny.”

He added: “During this precise time-frame, The Sun was breaking a big story about the BBC News anchor Huw Edwards and it seems extraordinary that they would not have taken the opportunity to refer the serious allegations against Mr Wootton to the police themselves.

“At the very least, this inaction and the decision by MailOnline to allow Mr Wootton to continue to publish columns under its name seriously undermines the moral stance it has taken by criticising the BBC’s conduct in relation to Mr Edwards.

“It also undermines their credibility as a serious news organisation. This is a clear ethical failing that IPSO, the press complaints handler, should investigate given that it claims to uphold high editorial standards.”

Wootton has written five columns for MailOnline since the man first contacted it with his allegations.

In one column on 30 May, Wootton discussed Philip Schofield, saying: “I would have thought in this day and age that a mainstream broadcaster such as ITV ought to be seen to be doing all it can to deal with issues like this, find out where the truth lies and, in the meantime, suspend those who the rumours concern.”

Wootton also called for “the truth, this time; not the saccharin fairy-tale Schofield offered up on the sofa to an unsuspecting British public”.

In a follow-up column on 15 June, Wootton wrote of ITV’s treatment of the Schofield affair: “As a result of this cover-up and PR disaster that has followed, many loyal viewers will never trust This Morning or the channel its broadcast on again.”

Byline Times put a series of questions connected to this article to News UK and Associated Newspapers but received no response. This newspaper will update this article if it does.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “In June 2023, the Metropolitan Police was contacted with regards to allegations of sexual offences committed by a man. Officers are assessing information to establish whether any criminal offence has taken place. There is no police investigation at this time.”

Dan Evans is a former colleague of Dan Wootton’s from the News of the World. None of the sources in this article were paid for their testimony

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Earlier stories(see link below)

I don’t actually want to bully this person. That was more of an attempt at humor. I do want to show you what happens when I try to exist as an American Jewish Holocaust historian who kindly requests that people refrain from making their fifth columnist crap my problem.

And this happens to many people in my field who try to do public history.

Serious question (because I am very dramatic and hormonal rn): has my presence actually helped you guys/taught you anything? Because I don’t know why I keep exposing myself to this shit. Especially now that I have my damn book deal.

Also I’m 34 and someday you will be too. It’s fine.

I think one of the greatest contemporary schisms between Shi'as was at the time of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Shi'a Muslims never had a state throughout history, so the idea of a theocratic state has always been rejected on the supposition that only the Twelth Imam (atfs) can establish it due to his divine right as the Prophet's descendent, so when the Islamic republic was established, it led to a tremendous political split among the Shi'i Ulama (scholars) and where to stand on the establishment of a government that has no basis in Shi'i Islamic manuscripts. For some scholars, the practicality of a Shi'i government is an antithesis to the divine right of the Imams, because fallible humans are prone to error and corruption regardless of faith and Shi'as have not acknowledged any Islamic state since the time of Muhammed (sawas) and Ali (a) 1400 years ago. Tension escalated, especially among Shi'as in Iraq and Iran, whose political stance often differed on the prospect of nationalism and national interests.

Shi'as who are against the government are often accused of being fifth columnists with the sole intent of undermining the regime. Among those who criticized the government in Iran would always face severe persecution and often have their scholarly status revoked. Ayatollah Shariatmadari and Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri being the most exemplary ones. What most of these anti-IRI Shi'as holdis that the establishment of an Islamic government will only cause Shi'as outside of Iran to become increasingly demonized as well as being easy targets for extremist groups. Furthermore, there is also a noticable divination of several personalities among the Khomeinists-- Khomeini, Khamenei and the likes of Qasim Soleimani are highly revered to such a level that any form of scrutnization against them is considered a form heresy, if not apostasy altogether. This is why Khomeinists are quick to blame anti-IRI Shi'as of being mercenaries or spies. Labels such as British Shi'ism or Shirazis (named after another Ayatollah) became further popularized after many South Asian Shi'as migrated to England in the early 60's and settled a community there. In fact, Britain is the biggest hub for Shi'a Muslims in the whole of Europe. South Asian and Afghani Shi'as are known for their isolationist attitudes and often practice their own traditions, which does not often align with the interests of Iran. Traditions such as cursing (Sunni personalities) and self-immolation are highly notorious traditions among South Asian Shi'as, but a fatwa was declared by Khamenei, forbidding bloodletting by the use of sharp objects and cursing. This futher caused a rift among Shi'as as they were being constantly policed by the Iranian regime, alienating the Shi'i communities from their Khomeinist counterparts. The Islamic Republic also aim to build bridged with various Sunni countries, which did not sit well with most anti-IRI Shi'as as they found the Iranian regime to prefer geopolitical influence rather than to concern themselves with the persecuted Shi'as in these countries.

But yeah, I think it requires a bit of nuance to understand that even the current regime doesn't align with the interest of most Shi'as in the world, and the establishment of an Islamic republic has caused the greatest political schism among Twelver Shi'as, which is still prevalent even till today.

This day in history

#20yrsago danah boyd’s social networks talk from ETCON https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2004/02/11/my_etech_talk_revenge_of_the_user.html#004027

#20yrsago Harlan Ellison’s AOL/Time-Warner suit https://web.archive.org/web/20040901000000*/http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/02/9th_circuit_wro.html

#20yrsago Google is Harder Than it Looks ETCON talk notes https://craphound.com/googleetcon04.txt

#15yrsago FDR: Time-travelling destroyer of economies https://prospect.org/article/country-run-idiots./

#15yrsago Kansas Representative introduces anti-netroots campaign finance reform bill https://web.archive.org/web/20090216145249/http://seantevis.com/weblog/story/my-response-to-house-bill-no-2244-aka-the-sean-tevis-bill/

#15yrsago EFF asks the FTC to protect the public from Digital Rights Management https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/DRM/drmcomments_final.pdf

#15yrsago Neil Gaiman waxes sensible on Kindle Audiobooks and the redonkulous Author’s Guild https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/quick-argument-summary.html

#15yrsago Salmonella Peanut CEO won’t eat his own peanuts, cites Fifth Amendment https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/02/11/peanut-co-owner-refuses-to-testify-to-congress

#15yrsago Why the EVE Online industrial espionage econopocalypse is “fun” https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/02/11/the-eve-upset/

#5yrsago A short list of “all the bad things” about Uber and Lyft https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/02/04/all-the-bad-things-about-uber-and-lyft-in-one-simple-list

#5yrsago The WPA’s horseback librarians https://historydaily.org/female-librarians-on-horseback

#5yrsago The most censored Wechat topics: US-China trade war, Canadian arrest of Huawei CFO, ZTE sanctions, more https://globalvoices.org/2019/02/11/censored-on-wechat-a-year-of-content-removals-on-chinas-most-powerful-social-media-platform/

#5yrsago Freedom EV: free/open replacement firmware for your electric vehicle — including a Tesla https://github.com/jnuyens/freedomev

#5yrsago How to think about climate change and “cost-benefit analysis” https://progressivereform.org/cpr-blog/on-buying-insurance-and-ignoring-cost-benefit-analysis/

#5yrsago Artist Nan Goldin leads protests at the Guggenheim and the Met over their reputation-laundering of the Sacklers’ opioid epidemic fortunes https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/nan-goldin-leads-a-protest-at-the-guggenheim-against-the-sackler-family

#5yrsago Addressing inequality is foreign policy, not domestic https://crookedtimber.org/2019/02/11/democracy-and-inequality-as-a-global-policy-agenda/

#1yrago After Ohio rail disaster, Buttigieg is silent on restoring the safety standards Trump repealed https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

Dave Whamond :: @DaveWhamond

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 28, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 29, 2024

Today—last night U.S. time—three military personnel were killed and 34 more wounded in a drone attack on the living quarters at a U.S. base in Jordan, near the Iraq-Syria border. U.S. troops are stationed there to enable them to cross into Syria to help fight the Islamic State. There have been almost-daily drone and missile strikes on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the October 7 attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militant groups for the attack, and while no one has officially claimed responsibility yet, three officials from such groups have said an Iran-backed militia in Iraq is responsible. 

President Joe Biden today called the act “despicable and wholly unjust,” and he praised the servicemembers, who he said “embodied the very best of our nation: Unwavering in their bravery. Unflinching in their duty. Unbending in their commitment to our country—risking their own safety for the safety of their fellow Americans, and our allies and partners with whom we stand in the fight against terrorism.”

“And have no doubt,” he said, “we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner [of] our choosing.”

Republican war hawks have called for retaliation that includes “striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership,” as Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, or by “Target[ing] Tehran,” as Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said. Republicans are blaming Biden for failing to “isolate the regime in [Iran], defeat Hamas, & support our strategic partners,” as Representative Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, today. 

But there is, of course, a larger story here. The Biden administration has been very clear both about the right of nations to retaliate for attacks and about its determination to stop the war between Hamas and Israel from spreading. 

Iran would like that war to spread. It is eager to stop the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel, and is backing Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon—all nonstate militias—to try to stop that normalization.  

They are trying to stop what Patrick Kingsley and Edward Wong outlined in the New York Times yesterday: a new deal in the Middle East that would end the war between Hamas and Israel and establish a Palestinian state. The constant round of phone calls and visits of Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken with at least ten different countries is designed to hammer out deals on a number of fronts. 

The first is for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, which would require the exchange of more than 100 Israeli hostages taken on October 7 for thousands of Palestinians held by the Israelis. The second is for a new, nonpartisan Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza and the West Bank. The third is for international recognition of a Palestinian state, which would be eased by Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel. If that recognition occurs, Arab states have pledged significant funds to rebuild Gaza. 

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected this proposal, but his popularity is so low people are talking openly about who can replace him. Hamas and Iran also reject this proposal, which promises to isolate Iran and the militias from stable states in the Middle East.   

Behind this story is an even larger geopolitical story involving Iran’s ally Russia. As Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg retorted when Senator Wicker called on Biden to respond to the attack that killed three Americans “swiftly and decisively for the whole world to see”: “Wasn’t funding Ukraine and Israel the first, critical step in deterring Iran? We are in this place now due to the Russian fifth columnists in the Republican Party including Trump who slavishly do Putin’s bidding.”  

Rosenberg was referring to the fact that Iran is allied with Russia, and Russia is desperate to stop the United States from supporting Ukraine. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, apparently thought his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine would establish control of the eastern parts of that country in a matter of days. Instead, the invasion has turned into an expensive and destabilizing two-year war that has badly weakened Russia and that threatens to stretch on.

In the United States, today marks the 100th day that extremist Republicans have refused to provide supplemental funding for Ukraine or Israel arguing that funding to protect the U.S. border must be addressed first. On October 20, 2023, as David Frum pointed out today, Biden asked Congress for “$106 billion to aid Ukraine and Israel against attack by Russia, Iran, and their proxies.” That funding has bipartisan support, but “[f]or 100 days, House Republicans have said NO,” Frum said. “Today, Iranian proxies have killed Americans.”

Republicans’ insistence that they want border funding has proved to be a lie, as Democratic and Republican senators have hammered out a strong agreement that extremist Republicans now reject. Former president Trump has made it clear he wants to run on the idea that the border is overwhelmed, so has demanded his supporters prevent any solution. Today, on the Fox News Channel, when asked why Republicans should let Biden “take a victory lap” with a border deal, Senator James Lankford (R-OK), who has been part of the border deal negotiation team, responded with some heat: 

“Republicans four months ago would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel, and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy. So we actually locked arms together and said we’re not going to give you money for this, we want a change in law. And now it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because [it’s] a presidential election year.’ We all have an oath to the Constitution, and we have a commitment to say we’re going to do whatever we can to be able to secure the border."

MAGA Republicans in charge of the Oklahoma Republican Party showed where Trump Republicans stand when they voted on Saturday to “strongly condemn” Lankford for “playing fast and loose with Democrats on our border policy.” They said “that until Senator Lankford ceases from these actions the Oklahoma Republican Party will cease all support for him.” 

In The Atlantic, Frum noted that “vital aid to Israel and Ukraine must be delayed and put in further doubt because of a rejected president’s spite and his party’s calculation of electoral advantage. The true outcome of the fiasco in Congress will be the collapse of U.S. credibility all over the world. American allies will seek protection from more trustworthy partners, and America itself will be isolated and weakened.”

Rosenberg wrote: “If you are unhappy with Iran today, first thing you should do is come out for funding Ukraine fully. Nothing will embolden Iran more than a Russian victory in Europe.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON