Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart editor, intellectual featherweight and fascist star turn adored by the alternate right who till yesterday saw him as a warrior king in their battle against “political correctness” and perceived left-wing censorship, has finally come spectacularly undone.
To the point where his followers (amongst them the likes of Rita Pahini, Chris Kenny and Andrew Bolt in this country) who have thus far endorsed his foul outbursts against Muslims, Jews, women and transgender people as an exercise of the right to free speech, have found themselves in unlikely and uncomfortable moral confusion over Milo’s positive attitude towards pedophilia, and overt sympathy for perpetrating catholic priests.
Yiannopoulos was to have given the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference later this month, and yesterday (a bad day for Milo) organisers felt compelled to withdraw their invitation.
Breitbart News, whose former editor-in-chief Steve Bannon is now President Donald Trump’s lead strategist, is reportedly considering dumping Milo. At least we now know the alt-right’s bottom line: slander anyone on grounds of race, ethnicity, sexual preference and gender, but don’t publicly advocate pedophilia. There’s honour even amongst morality’s dregs, apparently.
Publishing house Simon and Schuster yesterday dropped Milo, terminating their contract to publish his forthcoming book. They stood by him while he slandered Jews, Muslims, women and transgender people for money and spectacle, but apparently a line was crossed with his sympathetic stance towards pedophilia.
It’s gratifying to witness the extreme right writhe in unaccustomed moral anguish when confronted with speech even they cannot accept. Who knew there was such a thing?
Yiannopoulos attempted to defend himself: “My book has been canceled” he wailed on Facebook (Twitter having banned him some time ago) in baffled outrage, getting the spelling wrong in his time of extremity as anyone might.
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange then rushed to Milo’s defence from his lounge room in the Ecuadorean Embassy, tweeting that poor Milo is the victim of “politics disguised as morality” and, god help us, he’s been censored!
Well, Assange is wrong: Milo hasn’t been censored. Any publisher can publish him, he can self-publish, and any organisation is free to extend him an invitation to keynote. If they choose to ignore him that is not censorship, you’d think Assange, of all people, would understand that.
What Milo is experiencing are the consequences of free speech. He remains free to say whatever he wants, in the US at least. Others have equal freedom to decline to listen and disseminate his speech. Refusing to listen and disseminate is not censorship, it’s exercising the agency and the right to decline to listen and disseminate.
Many among us have experienced the refusal to listen, and to disseminate our points of view, not a few of us from the very groups Milo has singled out for discrimination and contempt. He’s had a good run. Now his masters are done with him. You can’t go round advocating the rape and molestation of young boys, even amongst the alt-right, it seems. Who knew they had standards?
Update: Milo resigns from Breitbart:
And this is just for fun:
No Place For Sheep 
Good riddance. Trump threatened a university’s federal funding after they cancelled Yiannopoulos’ appearance last month. Perhaps the President will attack the conservative thinktank over this censorship? (sarcasm alert)
Interesting to note is the letter to the NY Times signed by 33 psychiatrists:
“We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.”
and this differing view of his actions – not mad, but “a world-class narcissist” – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-on-trumps-mental-state.html
– are hardly reassuring.
Yiannopoulos is a minor irritant, and now severely shot in the foot. Trump is a catastrophe.
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I don’t care that much about Milo, DQ, what’s interesting in this is the corner he’s forced the conservative free speech crowd into. Finally they find speech they don’t want to be free. LULZ
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Conservatives don’t find much trouble with hypocrisy, Jennifer. They have their alternative facts, unlike the great second President John Adams:
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
– and inclinations, wishes and dictates of passion are substituted willy-nilly for the facts.
Wishing won’t make it so, and there will be a reckoning.
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This man Milo has forever dirtied the name of my good upright Jack Russell, who shares it…
Luckily he also responds to Milos, Miloshki….
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Oh, I don’t know – if I had a dog I’d call it Trump. Pisses on every tree and post, leaves its turds all over the place and may well be barking mad. 🙂
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Interesting to contrast this with the catholic chruch, which has a very different policy on this particular issue.
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Don’t be too hard on Assange. The stress is really beginning to tell with him, as the Ecuadorian election that could decide his fate looms…being shut up in a room for four years would not do your sense of well being much good either. At his best he’d realise that high level jingoism is what has undone him in the first place.
As for the rest, too much cocaine, drinking and crystal meth bingeing, not enough studied, quiet reflection.
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Was I hard on him PW? I thought I was quite gentle. He has said some odd stuff lately, & his apparent support of Trump does not sit well with me.
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Well, ff’s sake, I explained why I think he is behaving as he does, you even gave my post a “like”.
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Assange is a narcissist probably only exceeded by Trump.
I really don’t know what you see in him.
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If Assange is a narcissist, you must a full blown psychopath.
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be.
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Just because we differ on a few issues there is no need for name calling. You and I see eye to eye on many issues, just not these latest ones. I’m not alone in my view of Assange – ask anyone who ever worked with him.
We can agree to differ.
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You don’t know him so shut the fuck up sometimes Doug. There is no evidence on record that he is a destructive narcissist like Trump.
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I’m not looking to fight with you PW
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He doesn’t support Trump just because he exposed Hillary’s crooked ness, why do so many sensible people think it’s either or fucking or. And why is it anyone’s business who x or y support.
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Thank you. There are times I despise his more craven posts.
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What is this protection of Assange? He is protected from commentary for some reason that has escaped me?
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Assange hasn’t had a fair go and his circumstances prevent him from defending him against his enemies.
If he is not entitled to a fair go, why are you?
Why don’t you criticise the abuse of habeas corpus law and freedom of speech involved imposed by BACTA’s (banning and censoring truth antagonists) trying to keep secret filthy acts like the Baghdad helicopter gunship massacre identified by Manning and try that instead because he can’t fight back?
Sick of the coalition of bloodthirsty vindictive so called feminists. fascist authoritarians and feeble-witted denialists.
Why do I object to the petty attacks on Assange? But because they lack proportion;are subjective and vindictive in nature. Everyone has flaws and faults, but where is the proportion, given the nature of the attacks on Julian Assange for what he attempted in the context of global bloodbaths and looting that vast numbers of innocent people have been subjected to?
What are the priorities of some here and elsewhere and what determines them? Perhaps all of us should be locked up in solitary for our foibles and quirks.
Cant believe that last comment..
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You wouldn’t pull this sort of ridiculous, hysterical nonsense on Club Troppo or Quiggin’s blog, because you know precisely the sort of response you’d get.
What makes you think it’s fine to do it here?
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PW: In the matter of Milo being *censored* Assange is wrong.
I’ve been a supporter & admirer of Assange for years, & I still am but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says and does.
I’ve even supported him against the feminists who insist he is guilty of rape even though he’s never been charged.
He hasn’t been locked up in solitary for his foibles & quirks, he’s taken refuge from people he realistically believes want to incarcerate him for life or kill him.
And in the matter of Milo being *censored* he is wrong & it’s a pretty important error, given the global confusion (deliberate & ignorant) over what censorship is and isn’t.
I’m certain Assange knows Milo hasn’t been *censored* & I don’t know what his agenda might be for suggesting otherwise. Do you?
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Fucking hell, let’s see. Swedish prosecutor set up fake ”rape” claims, Swedish prosecutor put out the first ever warrant based on no claims by anyone of any sexual assault 6 weeks after the cleared him and let him leave.
Then the US have a secret grand jury trying to have him charged with espionage, many of the MSM scum used all his work then dumped on him, he’s been incarcerated by the poms without charge for 6 years.
Is that enough fucking reason to defend him from stupidity.
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Yes and it also doesn’t make every word that falls from his mouth sacred.
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Paul is right, Jennifer is right, Marilyn is right. Everyone here is right. We are all on the same page. 🙂
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Well said, silkworm.
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If you’re referring to me, Marilyn, I don’t think anything much is either or, as you know.
If I don’t agree with Assange’s support of any particular thing I’ll say so, especially on my own damn blog.
Assange makes sure it’s everybody’s business what & who he’s supporting, he doesn’t make global announcements as a private citizen wanting to preserve his privacy.
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‘Done Marilyn..worst thread ever here.
JW does not do denial well.
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What?
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You heard.
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You, and I, dared to criticise the little tin god known as Julian Assange. His holy head is sacrosanct.
No-one is above criticism; but those who seek to criticise the host of the blog do so at their own peril.
Bob Ellis used to publicly ban the recreants; but I would simply disappear them, after this fair warning.
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Hahahah..here is the chief hero of the anti BACWAS calling out for the censoring of dissident voices.
First Assange, now me?
Who will you blame when one day they come after YOU?
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Your paranoia is showing, PW. Whose state secrets have you exposed??
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” And why is it anyone’s business who x or y support.”
Every time I supported Julia Gillard here or on Ellis blog, you made it your business, and you told me off.
I don’t care what happens to Assange, he’s just another narcissist to me, like Trump and Rudd…
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My Julian will be free to dance again some day…
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Helvi,if you had even a tenth of his guts and integrity, you’d be a credible commenter and not just another coward.
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I’m not Helvi. I’m wearing a Helvi Hair Hat… however.
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Yeah, narcissist generally want to gain something. Now Gillard supported wars Assange exposed as lies, he exposed her undermining of Rudd for years before she stole his job, he exposed the Zionist spies here like Shorten, Feeney, Gillard and co, he has gained nothing at all except years in prison.
Gillard traded and jailed babies, perverted the high court and rule of law to do it, stole income from single mothers and other atrocities like screaming joyfully in the streets as Israel bombed people to bits in Lebanon and Gaza – how the fuck can you equate that to a man who has committed no crime other than embarrassing the trash world leaders and criminals.
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I think there is some hypocrisy here. I listen to Joe Rogan fairly regularly, so had heard of this last year, and had already heard some of the Drunken Peasants stream. Seems to me that Milo’s framing of his abuse at 13 is similar to what George Takei said about his first sexual experience with a camp counselor, or “a good rape” in the Vagina Monologues. It’s obviously wrong for anyone over the age of 18 to have sexual relations with a 13 year old, but I can understand many victims re-framing their experiences to make them hurt less. That this is coming from many of the same people who defend Roman Polanski or from an outlet like Salon that tried to humanise pedophilia (since deleted) is also off.
That said, Milo is a professional troll who occasionally hit upon something valid in a stopped clock kind of way. I saw him more as a modern day court jester. I doubt this will be the end of him for better or worse. He seems to have followed the advice to always be nice to people on your way up because you’ll need them on the way down. Even Laurie Penny found him charming.
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What FA? You suspect hypocrisy in the alt-right?! Never!
I have no doubt Milo can be charming. The whole point of charm is to deceive and obfuscate, isn’t it?
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Here is the Salon piece http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/richard_dawkins_defends_mild_pedophilia_says_it_does_not_cause_lasting_harm/
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I have seen similar comments from alt-right posters on other blogs, even including the mention of Salon’s deleted article, as if the defence of paedaphilia on a supposed left-wing blog like Salon excuses the defence of paedophilia by Milo.
Milo was not reframing his early sexual experiences in order to “cope with his victimhood.” He was not using “gallows humour” to cope with his “trauma.” He was not traumatized by his experiences. He was gloating about them, and the gloating was in fact done to provoke the Left. Milo has made a career out of provoking and attacking the Left. Unfortunately for Milo, his gloating also provoked the Conservatives.
Even in his so called apology for his “misspoken words,” Milo attacked his critics, blamed the media for his downfall, and promoted his forthcoming book.
“I am horrified by pedophilia and I have devoted large portions of my career as a journalist to exposing child abusers. I’ve outed three of them, in fact — three more than most of my critics…. But let’s be clear what is happening here. This is a cynical media witch hunt from people who don’t care about children. They care about destroying me and my career, and by extension my allies.”
His apology was a fake apology.
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I agree, Silkworm. Milo is all about provocation and disturbance and attention.
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No, what annoys me is that this particular attack on Milo is incredibly weak sauce, especially when it’s joined by people who defended Roman Polanski or think 13 year old boys can’t be raped by female teachers. It’s especially annoying because there’s what should be much more damning stuff on Milo. Look at how terribly he treated his employees at The Kernel. Look at how he used Sawyer to leverage himself a voice in GamerGate. Look at how he handled the money for his ‘Privileged Grant’. Or that he virtually had the same political positions as those he rails against today only four years ago. The only part of what actually took Milo down that may have legs is that he failed to name names about what he claims to have seen in Hollywood parties. This, unfortunately, is not that unusual; see Elijah Wood and Cory Feldman.
Also, if you think the alt-right were welcoming and accepting of a degenerate, miscegenating, homosexual Jew, then I don’t know what to say to that.
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I always liked Milo. He is witty, charming, good looking and able to refute any Leftist under the sun, armed with that sunny English smile, a dapper suit, a silk tie and that rare sparkling commodity missing from most dour Leftists – a rational argument.
He was also appealing to a younger demographic under 25 who found the arguments of Milo rather persuasive. Hence the Leftist thugs who attacked any university he spoke at. Such is the power of rational argument – it scares the Left who like to keep people dumbed down with mindless PC slogans and wearing pink pussy hats.
Deep state operatives had to take him out and they did. He was warned that they had a tape on him months ago and were waiting for an opportune moment to release it. Milo chose to ignore it.
The fact that he liked black cock made me wince a bit, but you know, I’ve come along way too and like the way he was open about his sexuality. He did say he was sexually molested as a child (was it by a priest?) so I imagine most Lefties here would sympathise with his condition given the pelting Cardinal Pell got. Am I right?
His book “Dangerous” went to number One on the Amazon hit parade and that was based on pre-orders only! So, Simon and Shuster were under enormous pressure to recant and let him go. Milo won’t go away and will find another publisher as he alluded to it this morning at his press conference. I hear rumours that he is also being sought for FoxNews as a presenter. He may have to wait in line as Hannity and Tucker Carlson have that gig pretty well sewn up to very strong ratings that would make the fake news outlets like CNN blush with jealousy.
I wish him well. I know he’ll be back stronger than ever.
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Frank.
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What a load of mindless hogwash.
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Surely you see the fact that Milo has undermined his own goals by Engaging his mouth before his brain. He has been his own worst enemy. I hope that he takes the time to do some serious introspection & emerges with the objective in mind of altering his attitude to one that doesn’t bop people over the head with a huge mallet. He has talent but he needs to refine it. Like you I think he will be back.
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Comment above is for Frank LS.
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Free speech for the Right is all about white people being able to use the word “Nigger” again, out loud and in public, or “boong”, “slope”, “chink”, but in a typically friendly, joshing Australian way of course……of course.
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Anyway, enough of this doom and gloomy inter
-lectual omplicated stuff..let’s have some REAL news in this post fake news era.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cartwheels-sobriety-test_us_58ae0bc1e4b05ca474a06dc0?ropw4s4i&
Remember, girls just wanna have fu-
un.
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View at Medium.com
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https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986#.1taa77mvy
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Thanks, d24, that’s a good piece by Laurie Penny.
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Interesting to observe this morning a report that Bannon comes close to advocating wife beating..Certainly seems willing to justify it under some circumstances.
Can’t be just irresponsibility, he cant be THAT stupid. How will he be bought to book when news of the first deaths starts rolling in?
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