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A couple days back, Newsweek reports:
Feminist activists on Sunday are planning to commemorate last year's Women's March, the response to the election of President Donald Trump that was widely regarded as the biggest demonstration in U.S. history.
As they do so, the so-called alt-right—an anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic movement that has struggled to recruit women—is aiming to co-opt this political moment with a series of stunts, including spreading propaganda and a counterdemonstration in Knoxville, Tennessee. This targeting of a feminist event is part of an ongoing pattern of misogynistic behavior in the movement, according to activists and a rights group that spoke to Newsweek.
[...] Trolls from 4chan, an imageboard website that is popular with the alt-right, are planning to post signs at women's studies departments on college campuses Sunday with the hashtag #mybordermychoice, a deliberate perversion of the abortion-rights slogan "my body my choice," according to a series of posts on the site and research conducted by antifascist activists.
[...] Lecia Brooks of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a rights group, told Newsweek that Heimbach [Leader of the Traditionalist Workers' Party] is "no defender of women," referring to altercations involving the opposite sex he has had at demonstrations.
Heimbach replied to that notion by saying legal abortion and illegal immigration were victimizing the unborn and women, and that "women have had their femininity put under attack by a culture that treats them as either sex objects or as mere economic cogs in the capitalist system." Heimbach is a critic of the capitalist system while also being a critic of socialism, and views a "national socialism" system that includes only white non-Jews as an alternative to both. He said the policies of his group were structured to "empower women to their God given honorable place as true equals to men in society through their unique role as mothers and wives." To be clear, he is an ardent critic of contemporary feminism.
Message received, very clear.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:17PM (5 children)
Because we don't only print those stories that you like or which support your political leanings; other people have a different point of view. But you are doing the right thing. You are giving your views in the comments which is exactly what they are designed for. So, criticise the story content by all means, but that doesn't mean shooting the messenger.
You have obviously not been following the discussion on another thread [soylentnews.org] about how we allegedly 'censor' the left wing by not posting stories seen from their viewpoint. As long as stories meet the requirements of all submissions they are considered for publication. SN does not support any particular political party or stance, and you should see the content of the many stories that we reject if you think that this one is bad. However, the reporting for this story is from another source, appears to be accurate and factual, and can generate a decent discussion if the community wishes it so to do. Resorting to taking strong political positions and mud-slinging would not be what I am hoping to see here.
I will refrain from making my own views on this topic known. My job is to put the stories out there for the community to discuss.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:48PM (4 children)
I was wondering myself but from a newsworthiness to us standpoint. We normally wouldn't cover a women's march and we normally wouldn't cover a few wannabe Nazis douching it up. What makes the combination newsworthy? Not giving you shit here, just genuinely confused.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday January 27 2018, @01:14PM (3 children)
Firstly, I think that there is very little in the political submissions that would have been covered by the 'interesting to us' umbrella. But since before the US elections many of the submissions were not 'of interest to us' but it was felt that they still should have place where they could be discussed. If the editors only posted stories that clearly fall under the older definition then we would have very few political stories at all.
Secondly, the events at Charlottesville changed the landscape somewhat, even to the extent that reporting on events in the US increased here in Europe and elsewhere. Now we have a possible documented warning that similar events might be about to take place again. If nothing happens then nothing (apart from a lot of hot air in the comments) is lost. But if something does happen then the whole world will want to know the whys and wherefores, particularly if there has been advance notification and the appropriate authorities appear to be caught with their trousers down again.
Thirdly, in some parts of Europe at least, this entire alt-right phenomenon in the US appears to be partly a product of the actions of Trump and his refusal to condemn those extremists because that might affect his voters. At Davos this week, Trump was forced to claim that he knew nothing about the background to the videos he retweeted that had originated from extreme right wing groups in Europe. As a US President many feel he shouldn't be tweeting such things from a position of ignorance, and such actions damage US standing in the world. If you want other nations to follow you, you have to act like a leader, not an ill-informed bully.
Finally, as I have already stated elsewhere, it is not SN's job to decide which political party it wants to support. It is, and should remain, entirely neutral in this regard. Whether I like the message or not is actually irrelevant - I have to serve the community honestly and impartially. This is the price of having a political nexus, and we have to live with the discussions and strong views of our community that result from it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:14PM
1,2) Fair nuff.
3) Not actually true. He just also condemned some violent leftists in the same breath. This cheesed a lot of people off but one doesn't negate the other.
4) Absolutely. I don't have a beef with covering anything that makes it over the high relevance/import bar we like to set for political news round these parts. I'm just saying let's keep the bar high.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:54PM
Political discussion moving online and free speech were always of 'interest to us' back on the green site. Before the dark times, before Facebook.
I'm not sure any of us could have predicted 2016 as recently as 2014. The last 10 years saw little new in tech while the server space fragmented into clouds and silly "frameworks". The Meltdown / Spectre stories here were perhaps the best commented since the last systemd story. The increase in politics is (I propose) due in part to the necessity of discussion as a response to polarising mainstream narratives.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:16PM
congrats. you just regurgitated a bunch of BS propaganda.