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Spectator openly shares its wet dream of mass-murdering people who oppose genocide

The Spectator has long been a dishonest, racist, far-right rag. It has openly normalised hate. And the political and media establishment have barely batted an eyelid. But as the desperate elite defence of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza continues, it seems the word police are out in force again.

The Spectator

So we might want to take a look at how the Spectator just published a piece saying:

And now let’s bomb Glastonbury

It also added Brighton to the list for sinister measure.

The pro-Israel BBC has faced the wrath of genocide-apologists simply for showing a concert where an artist called said “death to the IDF” – a brutal settler-colonial army that has murdered one child every hour in Palestine since late 2023. So surely, the Spectator will also face a big backlash for inciting hateful violence against a peaceful gathering of music-lovers. Right? … Right?

We’re not holding our breath. And we also believe in free speech. So while we totally disagree with the Spectator on… well… everything, we think that actions matter more than words. We understand that Bob Vylan is unlikely to go and join the resistance to IDF war crimes, and the Spectator‘s Rod Liddle is unlikely to actually rally establishment forces to ‘evaporate’ peaceful festival-goers with a “small yield nuclear weapon” (though they probably have many a wet dream about doing so).

Anger is something we all experience. And words help to externalise our anger. But there are different types of anger. We on the left get angry because we don’t like fucking genocide, and because we want to live with peace and dignity. People over at the Spectator, on the other hand, get angry because we don’t quietly submit to their dystopian vision of billionaires squeezing every last ounce of sweat out of us while they proudly help war criminals bomb children abroad.

Our anger will build a better world

The government isn’t going to ban the Spectator or Liddle. Lobbyists aren’t going to hound them around the clock. And the mainstream media isn’t going to hold them to account. Because they’re all in the same, cosy club. The propagandists, the blue corporate politicians, the red ones, the fascist Thatcher-coloured ones. It’s like a Diddy party. And we’re the ones getting fucked.

Nigel Farage’s Reform gang are the most likely to benefit if this bullshit continues: right-wing hate spreading like wildfire and left-wing reaction facing cynical state suppression. Sky‘s Beth Rigby, for example, was just at the Spectator‘s summer party, and she said Reform figures there expressed their excitement about a new left party because it would take support away from the red wing of the corporate party.

On the left, it’s clear to many that “state-driven cancel culture” torpedoed the electoral chances of socialism under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. So we absolutely must champion free speech. We will find a lot of it utterly disgusting, and it will be a challenge to cut through it. But we should practise our arguments, and get better at speaking to others about the world we want to build, because millions of people in this country want that world too.

We absolutely should get angry too. Because Tory-Labour governments and their corporate sponsors have been squeezing the life out of ordinary people for too long, while backing genocide abroad. But we can and must channel our anger. It’s a precious resource, and it can be just the fuel we need to build the better world we’re so desperate to see.

Featured image via screengrab

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.