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Yes, this is what I was alluding to. Freedom of expression was essential for the fight against racial segregation in the US. And for the fight for homosexual ri

Yes, this is what I was alluding to. Freedom of expression was essential for the fight against racial segregation in the US. And for the fight for homosexual rights. In what way? I don’t recall police and other authorities being overly restrained from extremes of violence against civil rights demonstrators, arresting and imprisoning them, and even killing them. If anything progress was made despite the lack of any freedom whatsoever, through civil disobedience. In the case of homosexual rights in the US, it didn’t exactly kick off with a sternly worded letter, it was the Stonewall Riots.

mirimir 8y ago
Yes, some police and other authorities were not at all restrained from extremes of violence. But national mass media comprehensively reported civil rights protests. Although I'm sure that there was some censorship in local media. And it didn't take long for the federal government to intervene. Coverage by national mass media generated widespread public support for federal intervention. And arguably, federal action wouldn't have happened without it. And indeed, there's quite the contrast for the establishment of homosexual rights in the US. Because there was, for some years, virtually no coverage of the matter in national mass media. I mean, most people arguably considered homosexuality to be far more disgusting than racial mixing. It was the fight against racial segregation, and the protest movement against the Vietnam War, that set the stage for establishing homosexual rights. And increased coverage in national mass media played a huge role. So is Patreon comparable to the national mass media? I think that it is. And yes, I get that those fights for civil rights were "good fights". And that racists and Nazis are "bad people". So it's supposedly just fine to censor them. But that's a dangerous game. It's the old "whose ox is being gored" thing. Edit: Yes, I'm wrong about "didn't take long" for civil rights. It did take decades. But the main point stands. There wasn't much progress until the national mass media started covering it. And it did take maybe a decade longer for the national mass media to start covering the fight for homosexual rights.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  Yes, some police and other authorities were not at all restrained from extremes of violence. But national mass media comprehensively reported civil rights protests. Although I'm sure that there was some censorship in local media. And it didn't take long for the federal government to intervene. Your sense of how the Civil Rights movement went is... interesting. It isn’t accurate though, and seems oddly idealized. Here’s the reality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_civil_rights_movement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_civil_rights... For some context, the movement really kicked off in 1954, the famous bus boycott wouldn’t occur for another two years, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in late 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr wouldn’t give his famous speech in Washington for eight more years, in 1963, the same year Dr. King was arrested again earlier that year. The same year that George Wallace, “Calls for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inaugural address.” So no, it didn’t go quite how you think it did. “Some censorship” and “some police and other authorities,” while technically correct understates the reality. Whole regions and their entire governments fought tooth and nail, ultimately requiring the deployment of the national guard. Media helped to an extent, and the federal government acted in slow motion as it always does.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    OK, my perspective is idealized. In my defense, I didn't live in the US at the time, and local news coverage was extremely distorted ;) It did take decades. Several decades, now that I think of it. But do you think that federal intervention would have occurred in the absence of national mass media coverage? Edit: Yes, there were huge protests, both locally and in Washington, DC. But if the national mass media had not covered those protests, would there have been any action? I think not.
    - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
      Yes, because people literally marched on Washington and made themselves impossible to ignore. They didn’t exactly collect donations online so they could make videos, they marched, struck, protested, and died.

mirimir 8y ago

Yes, some police and other authorities were not at all restrained from extremes of violence. But national mass media comprehensively reported civil rights protests. Although I'm sure that there was some censorship in local media. And it didn't take long for the federal government to intervene. Coverage by national mass media generated widespread public support for federal intervention. And arguably, federal action wouldn't have happened without it. And indeed, there's quite the contrast for the establishment of homosexual rights in the US. Because there was, for some years, virtually no coverage of the matter in national mass media. I mean, most people arguably considered homosexuality to be far more disgusting than racial mixing. It was the fight against racial segregation, and the protest movement against the Vietnam War, that set the stage for establishing homosexual rights. And increased coverage in national mass media played a huge role. So is Patreon comparable to the national mass media? I think that it is. And yes, I get that those fights for civil rights were "good fights". And that racists and Nazis are "bad people". So it's supposedly just fine to censor them. But that's a dangerous game. It's the old "whose ox is being gored" thing. Edit: Yes, I'm wrong about "didn't take long" for civil rights. It did take decades. But the main point stands. There wasn't much progress until the national mass media started covering it. And it did take maybe a decade longer for the national mass media to start covering the fight for homosexual rights.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
Yes, some police and other authorities were not at all restrained from extremes of violence. But national mass media comprehensively reported civil rights protests. Although I'm sure that there was some censorship in local media. And it didn't take long for the federal government to intervene. Your sense of how the Civil Rights movement went is... interesting. It isn’t accurate though, and seems oddly idealized. Here’s the reality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_civil_rights_movement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_civil_rights... For some context, the movement really kicked off in 1954, the famous bus boycott wouldn’t occur for another two years, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in late 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr wouldn’t give his famous speech in Washington for eight more years, in 1963, the same year Dr. King was arrested again earlier that year. The same year that George Wallace, “Calls for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inaugural address.” So no, it didn’t go quite how you think it did. “Some censorship” and “some police and other authorities,” while technically correct understates the reality. Whole regions and their entire governments fought tooth and nail, ultimately requiring the deployment of the national guard. Media helped to an extent, and the federal government acted in slow motion as it always does.
- mirimir 8y ago
  OK, my perspective is idealized. In my defense, I didn't live in the US at the time, and local news coverage was extremely distorted ;) It did take decades. Several decades, now that I think of it. But do you think that federal intervention would have occurred in the absence of national mass media coverage? Edit: Yes, there were huge protests, both locally and in Washington, DC. But if the national mass media had not covered those protests, would there have been any action? I think not.
  - toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
    Yes, because people literally marched on Washington and made themselves impossible to ignore. They didn’t exactly collect donations online so they could make videos, they marched, struck, protested, and died.