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Billy Bragg nicely skewers Neil Oliver’s attention-seeking alt-right bile:

““For me, it's all and only about freedom" declares Neil Oliver at the start of this clip from his GB News show and then goes on to reveal that he means his own personal freedom and damn anyone else. Looking straight into the lens of the camera, he earnestly states that he's prepared to infect other people with covid "for the sake of freedom".

Makes me think of another sake that begins with 'F'.

Oliver seems like a clever guy who knows his history. I can't believe he's unfamiliar with what John Stuart Mill said about the limits of personal freedom: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others".

I understand the civil liberties argument about the response to covid. In normal times we should always be looking to strike a balance between individual freedom and the common good. But under the current circumstances, the notion of the common good has to take precedence, until we are all of us free to exercise our individual liberties in an environment where the threat of infection is manageable.

And for an historian to have such a weak grasp of the effect that the Second World War had on individual liberties is shocking. Oliver constantly refers to that conflict without recognising that it required the whole population of the UK to put up with having their personal freedoms curtailed in order to defeat the threat of nazism.

For some, this meant having to tolerate the rationing of food and clothes, but for others it meant enlisting into the forces, being told what to do and where to go for several years and, for some, making the ultimate sacrifice. Is there any greater example of the notion of the common good?

By seeking to dress his wreckless individualism up in the uniform of those who served in the Second World War, Oliver has betrayed the sacrifices of that generation and shamed his own profession.


Quote lifted from Facebook.
 
Billy Bragg nicely skewers Neil Oliver’s attention-seeking alt-right bile:

““For me, it's all and only about freedom" declares Neil Oliver at the start of this clip from his GB News show and then goes on to reveal that he means his own personal freedom and damn anyone else. Looking straight into the lens of the camera, he earnestly states that he's prepared to infect other people with covid "for the sake of freedom".

Makes me think of another sake that begins with 'F'.

Oliver seems like a clever guy who knows his history. I can't believe he's unfamiliar with what John Stuart Mill said about the limits of personal freedom: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others".

I understand the civil liberties argument about the response to covid. In normal times we should always be looking to strike a balance between individual freedom and the common good. But under the current circumstances, the notion of the common good has to take precedence, until we are all of us free to exercise our individual liberties in an environment where the threat of infection is manageable.

And for an historian to have such a weak grasp of the effect that the Second World War had on individual liberties is shocking. Oliver constantly refers to that conflict without recognising that it required the whole population of the UK to put up with having their personal freedoms curtailed in order to defeat the threat of nazism.

For some, this meant having to tolerate the rationing of food and clothes, but for others it meant enlisting into the forces, being told what to do and where to go for several years and, for some, making the ultimate sacrifice. Is there any greater example of the notion of the common good?

By seeking to dress his wreckless individualism up in the uniform of those who served in the Second World War, Oliver has betrayed the sacrifices of that generation and shamed his own profession.


Quote lifted from Facebook.
In his book Fear of Freedom, Erich Fromm distinguishes between freedom from and freedom to. Freedom from is the freedom from the authority of social conventions and institutions while freedom to is the freedom to become a integrated and creative individual.

Fromm warns us that when we are able to exercise freedom from authority, we are often left with feelings of helplessness similar to that seem in child development

Neil Oliver seems to be talking about freedom from Covid restrictions, but in his hopelessness can only see the freedom to be a selfish, inconsiderate twat for which there should be no excuse in a grown up
 
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Indeed. Sainsbury’s acted slowly and one needs to question why they were advertising on a far-right channel given they profess to believe in equality, LGBT rights etc, but it goes to show that this sort of pressure is highly effective. All that is needed is to prove that a company is paying good money advertising somewhere that will actually lose them customers, as this did. It swiftly moves from being a moral decision to a core business one. If I ran Sainsbury’s I’d actually be looking to sack whoever made the decision to advertise there in the first place, and whoever took a week to react to customer pressure. Halfords, Kelloggs, Now, and Compare The Market need to consider their position. I never realised meerkats were racist shits.
 
Led By Donkeys/StopFundingHate/customer pressure has got Sainsbury’s to pull their advertising from GB “News” and funding Farage’s racist bile (Twitter). Good. I hope the few remaining advertisers follow that lead.

Excellent news. I sent them a polite friendly message earlier in the week to say I wouldn't be using the local store while they continued to advertise on GB News. No reply but good to know they're listening.

(I can't take complete credit obviously... ;))
 
It should be noted that Sainsbury’s tweet about this merely said that their current campaign had ended and no further ads were scheduled on GBN. They appear to have made no commitment not to advertise there in future.
 
Indeed. Sainsbury’s acted slowly and one needs to question why they were advertising on a far-right channel given they profess to believe in equality, LGBT rights etc, but it goes to show that this sort of pressure is highly effective. All that is needed is to prove that a company is paying good money advertising somewhere that will actually lose them customers, as this did. It swiftly moves from being a moral decision to a core business one. If I ran Sainsbury’s I’d actually be looking to sack whoever made the decision to advertise there in the first place, and whoever took a week to react to customer pressure. Halfords, Kelloggs, Now, and Compare The Market need to consider their position. I never realised meerkats were racist shits.
what I can't understand if its so far right how come the likes of Diane Abbott amd Vince cable have appeared on the channel? Sorry just thinking a loud
 
Indeed. Sainsbury’s acted slowly and one needs to question why they were advertising on a far-right channel given they profess to believe in equality, LGBT rights etc, but it goes to show that this sort of pressure is highly effective.

According to https://stopfundinghate.info/2021/07/25/this-weeks-gb-news-advertisers/

"It’s worth remembering that some of the advertisers listed above [including Halfords & Sainsburys] may be unaware that they have been appearing on GB News, as the agency that handles ad sales for GB News (Sky Media) also sells advertising across a range of other channels."
 
True, and this was certainly the case for many of the first companies to jump ship immediately they realised they were sponsoring a far-right channel. I find it hard to believe major brands who no doubt have dedicated advertising departments weren’t aware at this stage though.
 
True, and this was certainly the case for many of the first companies to jump ship immediately they realised they were sponsoring a far-right channel. I find it hard to believe major brands who no doubt have dedicated advertising departments weren’t aware at this stage though.

I can believe it for the smaller companies for sure. For the bigger companies, it's what they do now that matters.
 
True, and this was certainly the case for many of the first companies to jump ship immediately they realised they were sponsoring a far-right channel. I find it hard to believe major brands who no doubt have dedicated advertising departments weren’t aware at this stage though.
Given the pathetic audience figures, I’m very surprised Sainsbury’s thought the advertising offered vfm, especially with the downside risks to reputation.
 
Led By Donkeys email

Hello friends,

Great news - Sainsbury’s have pulled their ads from Nigel Farage’s TV show and GB News

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Here’s what happened:

  • Last Saturday we put up a couple of billboards in Southampton shaming Sainsbury’s for funding Farage and his attacks on heroic RNLI lifeboat crews
  • Videos of the posters racked up over 2.5m views across social media
  • Thousands of customers contacted Sainsbury’s but nobody got a reply, despite the supermarket continuing to be active on social media
  • So we took an advertising van down to Sainsbury’s HQ showing customers’ tweets on a giant screen (to the Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel..)
  • #SilentSainsburys started trending on Twitter
  • Then at 3pm Friday Sainsbury’s put out a message to the press saying “our customer’s feedback is very important to us” and pulled the ads
We had a series of billboards booked for next week and plans for escalating the campaign. But in the end together we managed to shift the country’s second biggest supermarket in a week so well done to everyone who got involved.

Biggest thanks to all of you who support Led By Donkeys, you make this all possible. If you’re not a supporter yet, you can become one here: https://secure.ledbydonkeys.org

Have a great weekend,

LBDx
 
"Ironically, Neil may have found himself rapidly outflanked in a culture war it appears he helped stoke. Before the channel’s launch, the presenter was seen as the person responsible for emphasising the channel’s “anti-woke” credentials in press interviews, at a time when other employees thought they had joined a more mainstream right-of-centre news channel.

We were told on numerous occasions to not mention ‘woke’ or anything like that” claimed one staffer. “Andrew Neil was going for the anti-woke audience while others were targeting centrist voters who were ‘tired of the Brexit arguments’. When the viewing figures plummeted, I think they decided to choose one and that’s why they doubled down on the cancel culture stuff.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...lanked-by-nigel-farage-in-gb-news-culture-war
 


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