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Editor's summary: BuzzFeed, a media outlet and Pulitzer Prize finalist, obtained leaked emails from Breitbart News, some of which were published in Buzzfeed's roughly 9,000-word exposé of the site's inner workings. The article chronicles the rise of Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart's tech editor, and his relationship with Steve Bannon, the recent White House Chief Strategist who left the Trump administration and resumed his position as executive chairman of Breitbart News in August. It also details exchanges between Yiannopoulos and people such as Peter Thiel, Devin Saucier, and Curtis Yarvin, among others. The article shows how Breitbart "smuggled white nationalist ideas into the mainstream" by using Yiannopoulos as a go-between for white nationalists and others in his following, who provided him with story tips and constructive (?) criticism.
Vice Media has fired Mitchell Sunderland, an editor and writer for Broadly, Vice's women-focused site. Sunderland emailed Yiannopoulos and encouraged him to mock the feminist writer Lindy West. He also sent a Broadly video about the Satanic Temple and abortion rights to Tim Gionet, Yiannopoulos's tour manager, resulting in this story. Dan Lyons, a writer for the TV series Silicon Valley and author of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, and David Auerbach, a former technology writer for Slate, also passed along news tips to Breitbart. Auerbach has vociferously denied writing the emails.
Milo Yiannopoulos responded on Thursday, mainly taking issue with a video of him singing karaoke while Richard Spencer and others raised Nazi salutes. Yiannopoulos wrote, "I have said in the past that I find humor in breaking taboos and laughing at things that people tell me are forbidden to joke about. Everyone who knows me has seen me make jokes about some awful things. But everyone who knows me also knows I'm not a racist. As someone of Jewish ancestry, I of course condemn racism in the strongest possible terms. I have stopped making jokes on these matters because I do not want any confusion on this subject. I disavow Richard Spencer and his entire sorry band of idiots. I have been and am a steadfast supporter of Jews and Israel. I disavow white nationalism and I disavow racism and I always have. I have severe myopia, due to a congenital eye defect, as has been widely reported and as many people know or have seen from my squinting during public speeches. In a dark bar, I did not see these hand gestures. If I'd have realized white nationalist losers were hailing me as their leader, I'd have immediately walked off stage. I stand for, as always, race-blind nationalism. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm enjoying my honeymoon with my black husband."
Broadening Brush: Alt-White, Buzzfeed Exposé!
BuzzFeed has published documentation of the direct connection of Breitbart News, the alt-right movement, and Milo Yiannopoulos to white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups:
In August, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville ended in murder, Steve Bannon insisted that "there's no room in American society" for neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and the KKK.
But an explosive cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News proves that there was plenty of room for those voices on his website.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, under Bannon's leadership, Breitbart courted the alt-right — the insurgent, racist right-wing movement that helped sweep Donald Trump to power. The former White House chief strategist famously remarked that he wanted Breitbart to be "the platform for the alt-right."
The article is extensive, quoting from emails from the Breitbart organization itself.
In March, Breitbart editor Alex Marlow insisted "we're not a hate site." Breitbart's media relations staff repeatedly threatened to sue outlets that described Yiannopoulos as racist. And after the violent white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, Breitbart published an article explaining that when Bannon said the site welcomed the alt-right, he was merely referring to "computer gamers and blue-collar voters who hated the GOP brand."
These new emails and documents, however, clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the political spectrum — and clearing the way for them to enter the American mainstream.
Sometimes, it is good to know who you are lying down with, so you will know why you have fleas. And sometimes, journalists ought to "follow the money." I highly recommend reading the article, "Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream".
Liberal collusion with Alt-right! Shocking!
Now the Salon is getting into the fray, reporting on BuzzFeed's dump of Breitbart emails and pointing out that many liberal journalists are implicated.
A recently released cache of email correspondence revealed direct collaboration between popular alt-right website Breitbart and purported white nationalists and neo-Nazis. While the revelations are damning, they are not entirely surprising to those who follow Breitbart's editorial strategies. More shocking, perhaps, is that a number of purportedly liberal journalists have also secretly colluded with Breitbart over the years.
Again, this is a lengthy article, well worth the read, that goes into detail on the relations of Breitbart News to other journalistic entities, and political extremists. One example:
The surprising journalistic connections to Yiannopoulos include David Auerbach, a tech critic who has contributed extensively to Slate and has been published in intellectual left magazines like n+1, Triple Canopy, and even the Nation, one of the most esteemed voices of the American left. Auerbach once wrote a longform piece of cultural criticism for Triple Canopy exploring how the politics of anonymous online forum culture (A-Culture, in his parlance) eventually evolved into the fusion of libertarianism and racist nationalism that we now associate with sites like 4chan, 8chan and Reddit in its prelapsarian days.
Though anonymity does not play directly into the majority of the discussions on forums associated with A-culture, it is responsible—along with the written nature of the discourse—for the characteristics that have emerged from those sites. . . . Anyone entering into an A-culture forum is likely to witness a nonstop barrage of obscenity, abuse, hostility, and epithets related to race, gender, and sexuality. Anyone objecting to this barrage will immediately attract a torrent of even greater abuse. These forums maintain an equilibrium of offense designed to drive away anyone who is not sympathetic to the general libertarian mindset.
But it does seem that Buzzfeed has stirred up a hornet's nest of buzzing, the type of thing that may even attract buzzards.
Shortly thereafter, Auerbach tweeted that he had "told [Buzzfeed editor Ariel Kaminer] that this stuff was untrue. He's currently trying to put words in my mouth." Auerbach went on to speculate that "Buzzfeed might have it in for me because I criticized Buzzfeed chair Keith Lerer for hiring 4chan's founder." "I also criticized Buzzfeed's business model in NYMag," he added. "So yeah, they're probably pissed at me."
More about sexism and male privilege than racism. Or more of a cat-fight among journalists and whatever those who work for Breitbart are. As Alice said, "Curiouser and curiouser."
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 09 2017, @04:29AM (18 children)
So, kind of like being a Black Republican [wikipedia.org], say, like Ben Carson, or Herman Cain, or Alan Keyes [wikipedia.org]? As for Milo, hey, it's a living, and he does seem to enjoy the limelight. In lieu of actual talent, this is probably the best gig he could get, even if it ends up with him in a camp somewhere. Camp! Ha! Get it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday October 09 2017, @04:35AM (17 children)
Very much alike in the aspect under discussion at the moment, yes; as Ben Carson, Herman Cain, and Alan Keyes are also people who are clearly not nazis.
The regressive left seems to have become such an echo chamber that you've redefined 'nazi' to mean anyone that disagrees with you, on virtually anything, and I'm far from the first person to notice this.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday October 09 2017, @05:58AM (15 children)
Arik, you are usually not this dense, although always proportional-font challenged. There is this thing called "analogy", and in this case I was suggesting that a genetic jew/faggot supporting Nazis, is analogous to modern-day Black Republicans, who are members of a party that actively works against their interests as a minority, while benefiting them personally.
As for the "all right-wingers are Nazis", well, no. But you see, if you do not keep watch on them, or feed them after midnight, they have strong tendencies to become such. Thus it is important to see that Breitbart, and some very rich fascists in America, are trying to normalize what is just beyond the pale. Any American that advocates discrimination, even an "equal" discrimination, on the basis of race needs to be expelled. Outcast. Exiled. And all the more so those who profit off of "reverse discrimination" by being the token Blacks in the Republican party, or Milo's, um, buddy.
And you equally appear to be unaware of the actuality of Nazis in America? Did you not see any news reports of the "Untie the Right" rally in Charlottesville? I submitted a plethora of posts on this topic. Unfortunately, almost all were rejected, for some (nazi) reason, or TMB objected strenuously. But here is a link to an article and video that will show, and tell, you who was saying "Jews will not replace us. [theguardian.com]
Actual Nazis, Arik! Self-identified! And so it is not just a matter of who I disagree with. And, they just did it again, yesterday [nytimes.com].
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Big_Lebowski [wikiquote.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 09 2017, @07:08AM (2 children)
So... do you have a reason for this "suggestion"?
The unintended consequences of such a stance are delicious. My view is that that would be an incredibly stupid idea. You might even figure out why when you get expelled in turn.
So what? The best you could do was link to a protest with "hundreds" of protesters. This is quite the molehill. There have been real Nazis in the US for around 80 years. They've been a massive joke ever since the end of the Second World War.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 09 2017, @07:55AM (1 child)
Now, that expelling is what I would call a feature, not a bug.
But that's just me; I have a strong distaste living in a dog-eat-dog society when there are quite a large number of places in this world were one can "live and let live".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 09 2017, @02:17PM
I favor those sorts of places as well. Expelling people because they don't have the approved attitude is most definitely not live and let live.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday October 09 2017, @07:10AM (9 children)
I am afraid it is not I who is being dense here. I understood precisely what you were saying. This is the, I don't know what to call it, arrogance? There's arrogance involved but that's not the right word. Tribalism? There's a lot of that involved.
Let me snip it out a little tighter.
"modern-day Black Republicans, who are members of a party that actively works against their interests"
*IN YOUR OPINION.*
In your opinion, they have made the wrong political choice, they have chosen against what YOU SAY they should believe is their own interest.
They disagree. And you show absolutely no respect whatsoever for their right to disagree with you. For their right to come to their own conclusion on the matter, at least should it disagree with your own! as to what their interests are, as a minority or as anything else?
How patronizing can you be? How can you deny them agency on the basis of their skin color and not realize that you're the racist?
"As for the "all right-wingers are Nazis", well, no. But you see, if you do not keep watch on them, or feed them after midnight, they have strong tendencies to become such."
There you go, the sjw credo in a nutshell. Anyone that disagrees with the slogans we learned from the washed up old lunatics the university assigned us for daycare is not *necessarily* a nazi - but they're probably at least a sympathizer and they definitely don't deserve civil rights like us good people do.
"Any American that advocates discrimination, even an "equal" discrimination, on the basis of race needs to be expelled. Outcast. Exiled."
I can tell you very precisely where you crossed the line. "Expelled." Expelling people because they have the wrong opinion is just as unamerican as advocating discrimination. In fact, it *is* advocating discrimination.
This is the language of authoritarianism. Whether the left or the right, the psychological disorder is very similar. This is the language of hygiene. The very same language Hitler used - first against literal vermin, enforcing strict food safety laws, forcing disinfection of insect-infested links in the food chain with zyklon b. Then it was euthanasia - not legalizing it, no - they made it mandatory. Again, it was about hygiene, removing the cell that was too damaged, that could never be made whole again, so that the resources could be better used for the good of the whole organism, the nation. And then it came to the jews and the fags and the roma and whole classes of people, and again that zyklon b was used. And again, this was justified, this was rationalized, in the language of hygiene. It was removing cancer, it was cleansing the larger body.
It comes from a mindset, a mindset that occurs more often when there's great danger of contagious disease. In such a time, it has survival value, and I presume you retain the first day of biology 101. That mindset wants to contain the uncontaminated in a safe space, and it wants to keep the other, anything or anyone that is potentially contaminated, on the other side of the wall, or under surveillance and curfew, it's obsessed with cleanliness, in both literal and figurative meanings of the word.
In terms of brain chemistry, I suspect there is essentially no difference between todays SJW yelling 'nazi!' and a real historic nazi yelling 'juden!'
"And you equally appear to be unaware of the actuality of Nazis in America?"
I suspect I'm much more aware, and accurately informed, of them than you to be frank.
I never said there aren't some people on the right with some fscking insanely wrong ideas btw. Quite the contrary.
But the intolerant and regressive elements on the left that fancy themselves the answer to this problem are once again only fanning the flames, just as their spiritual forbears did in the 30s!
You want to see the equivalent of nazis take over this country? Give them what they need. Push the language of hygiene and intolerance. Push hard on the fracture lines in society, encourage one class to overturn another. Organize, take direct action, wear masks and destroy property a bit now and then.
Tell yourself you're taking effective action against those horrible people, you're doing some good, standing up to the bullies, right? But what you're actually doing is making them look good. Playing right into their hands. People get sick of that kind of crap, and they want a strong man to put his foot down and make it stop, and the next thing you know some wacky little group of nuts that never mattered to anyone before you started punching them... holy $&!^ they won the election! How did that happen?
How indeed.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday October 09 2017, @07:21AM (3 children)
So, you are not a Nazi?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Monday October 09 2017, @08:29AM
I'll give you something to be disgusted by though. I've shaken hands with nazis! IN PLURAL! HELL I PARTIED WITH THEM MULTIPLE TIMES!
Well, at least they wanted to call themselves nazis. They weren't German, and none of them was even alive when there were nazis, but you know what I mean. Stupid white kids that thought it was edgy. With my childhood, I didn't have much of a choice in the matter, so there's my excuse. There was the stage where they'd surround me so no one could see then knock me down and kick me back and forth while chanting anti-semite shit. I beat them. I moved. I found a new bunch of em and I found a new way to beat them. At the height of my involvement with them, in college, I used to have parties at my house that were positively infamous for all the racist skinheads that showed up.
But it's not quite like that sounds, I have to give you that, even as I try to shock you. My house was open to everyone. It was probably the only place those stupid white kids trying to be edgy could come and sit down with a black guy and a jew and an arab and at least two east-asians and everyone have a beer and shoot the shit like we're all people. And I could do that because even when I had to fight these guys I still treated them with respect. I still treated them as human. So in the end they could trust me.
I suspect history will bear me out in thinking that's a more productive path than 'punch a nazi.'
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 09 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)
And you call yourself a philosopher. Why can't you troll [soylentnews.org] better?
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday October 09 2017, @04:17PM
Are you suggesting that Arik is a Nazi?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday October 09 2017, @02:30PM (4 children)
> Let me snip it out a little tighter.
> "modern-day Black Republicans, who are members of a party that actively works against their interests"
No. You may not. You have snipped not just in the middle of a sentence, but *in the middle of a noun phrase*. That's just off. "Their interests" is different from "their interests as a minority", you've not just destroyed the context, you've destroyed the meaning, of the quote. And given that ari was specifically focussing on the different types of interests these people might have, that's nothing but straw-man-creating butchery.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday October 09 2017, @07:35PM (3 children)
I don't think I did that at all, I actually considered it both ways, but you're right that they are different things. And this is another example of how you load the language up to create conflict, to make it inevitable. By insisting on their interests *as a minority* what you're doing is insisting that they must adopt the same tribalistic sort of identity politics you do. They have no obligation to do so! They are fully functioning, fully capable human beings who have the right to make up their own mind, and insisting as you do here that their skin color must define who they are and what their real interests are is just as racist as any of the "alt-right" chatter. At least those guys are mostly just trying to be funny. I don't get the impression you're trying to be funny.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @04:23AM (1 child)
Ugh. No. "Being funny" makes the uncomfortable more palatable. If a neonazi makes comedically-ept racist statements, and people laugh out of uncomfortableness or humour or both, but don't reject it, then racism has been normalized.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:21AM
There's a big difference between a joke and actual racism. There's also currently only one race in the US that is universally unable to laugh at itself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:23PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 09 2017, @09:28AM (1 child)
Fine, I saw yours, and scenes to shock the eyes ears and brain.
Now you see mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7gKGq_MYpU
Go ahead, it won't hurt. More than you can bear.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 09 2017, @08:23PM
Hey! Is this where the khallow is getting all his UBI concern from? Cuckroach radio, just like in Rwanda?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 09 2017, @05:02PM
Way to miss the point, Arik.
Look, black folks in the US have a long history of voting against their best interest, and believing against it too. Any black person who is a Christian or a Muslim, for example, has a reeeeeeeeeeeal short historical memory. Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson seem to think that by adopting the beliefs and (lack of) values of their historical oppressors they can become members of "the club." And in a way they did, but the cost of entry was not only their souls but their pride.
Wanna know what "acting white" really is? It's not academic success in school. It's these traitors toadying up to the kyriarchy. THAT is race treason, not studying for good grades, because fucks like "Uncle" Clarence Thomas are throwing almost every other black person in the country under the bus. THIS is the definition of "house negro," and I wish more black folks would call them out on it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...