The hullabaloo among the liberal cohort over Carlson's interview with Putin unveils that those who label communists as tankies and authoritarians are well-aware of the necessity to suppress divergent viewpoints.
It emerges that freedom of expression is limited to ideas that align with the liberal narrative; when faced with opinions they deem detrimental, liberals demand cancellation, imprisonment, or even death for the proponents.
The real disagreement liberals have with communists is over what set of ideas has merit. When liberals screech about authoritarianism what they’re really saying is that it’s their ideology that’s being suppressed.
The amount of times in my life I was told I was not allowed to critisise the US or the Military because "they are the reason you have your rights that no one else in the world has, like to criticize your government or the military" is unreal.
Tucker interviewing the leader of a country: libs losing their minds
NYT interviewing an Israeli mercenary training death squads in the Congo and spreading lies about sexual assault to justify the genocide of brown people: libs sleep
Isn't Carlson a fascist? Dude has been using his platform to lie and spread hatred for years and now everyone is hailing him as a hero for doing an interview that didn't really reveal anything new if you already didn't believe Western media's lies?
Like yeah libs are hypocrites and that's obvious, but this framing of this interview like it's some groundbreaking thing is confusing me.
I don't like Carlson at all, he is no better than any other liberal when it comes to the rampant sinophobia, he just happens to be more reasonable on one specific issue. On the other hand he didn't really say a whole lot, and brought a large audience in to see it. His presence was basically a nonfactor, outside the spy advocacy there at the end.
I don't think the interview was groundbreaking for anyone with a rudimentary undertanding of russian history and geopolitics, but that is probably a very small percentage of the USian audience. So in that sense, it was valuable. Though I wonder how many people actually listened and how many people just go "No, Putin must actually want more land". Most of us here probably didn't hear anything that was particularly new whatsoever.
I think it’s a “big deal” due to this interview being available for western English speaking audiences without a paywall or any kind of barrier. It’s by a “famous guy” and is made accessible. When interviews with Putin are covered by western news sources its only in bits and pieces, sure you can probably find the full talk online but most people aren’t going to look for it or when they do they might not stick around due to the language barrier (even with translators). You probably already know this so I apologize for repeating information. I do agree with you though, I feel conflicted about this whole thing. I’m glad it happened in terms of getting more people to watch, but the fact that it was Tucker Carlson really sucks… He came to Canada recently to spread his bullshit so I can’t say I’m super thrilled with his involvement. I really do wish it was someone else…
Edit: Yeah, the YouTube comments of the interview have an uncomfortable air (some are just explicitly bad), Carlson’s audience will follow him wherever he goes so seeing hero worship is inevitable…
The interview was rather tame- and yes, Tucker is a fascist (though still props to him for stepping up to the chopping block all the same, I can respect that).
I suspect the real groundbreaking things to come will be Tucker's metaphorical crucifixion to come, by the infinitely worse neocon fascists.
Fascism’s not that different from liberalism, so it doesn’t matter too much, but he does endorse “great replacement theory” among other fascist talking points.
Is it hypocrisy? Pretty sure libs are fully aware of what they're doing. Even made up a funny name for it - "intolerance of the intolerant".
And the more maskless libs would say it's just evidence Biden is a commie. Coz, ya know, only dem auto-ree-tareen commies do suppression, not like true FEEEDUM loving folks
I mean whether they do it consciously or not, they demand holding others to a standard they don't hold themselves to. No amount of rationalizing on their part changes this fact.
Genuine question: will Carlson be sanctioned or face legal repercussions for this interview? I remember reading about how a Canadian professor, Radhika Desai, was at Sochi and asked Putin about the Nazi parliament situation and people went fucking insane on her. I guess because of her being there she herself could face legal consequences due to Russia being sanctioned by Canada. If you buy certain things or interact with Russia in a certain way you could get in big trouble!
Dr. Desai doesn't seem to be facing dismissal over this yet, but I do worry about if they will try to get her with anything…
I don't think they will sanction him in US because he's too much of a celebrity at this point, and this would raise a lot of questions with the public. Specifically, the west keeps insisting that it's not at war with Russia. And if that's the case, then it's going to be a bit difficult to explain why a journalist going to Russia to interview the president is being sanctioned. Carlson would obviously jump on that too, since it plays into his narrative.
So far, all the controversy they created over this seems to just act as free promotion for the interview. Cynically, you could almost think US wanted it to happen and is now promoting it in a backhanded way. If US is trying to get out of the war, this will likely go a long way shifting public opinion in that direction. The dems can blame the republicans for ending funding for the war, and extricate themselves from the whole thing.
Dr. Desai will likely get pressure in Canada over going to Sochi, hoping it's not going to end up being too much hassle for her.
So far she’s standing by what she did/said (it wasn’t even bad but people here freak out over everything) and doesn’t seem to be deterred. The university also has made comments about not firing her so that’s good. Another professor in another university came at her pretty aggressively but we’ll have to see if he tries anything. I hope nothing bad happens, it’d be an honour to study under Dr. Desai one day.