Give Peace A Chance
Mar. 16th, 2019 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenVery recently, I finally got around to buying the Beatles album "Hey Jude" when I realised I didn't have a copy. I've been listening to it over and over, and it's got me thinking. And in the light of the Christchurch attack, I thought I'd post my thoughts.
People think of "peace, love, hippies" as old hat, a naive nostalgic thing of the past. But when the Beatles were creating songs like "Revolution" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko", it wasn't old hat, it was something brand new, something revolutionary. Something that had not been done before. Okay, okay, I'm not saying that pacifists didn't exist before then, of course they did. But sending acorns to 50 world leaders? Using one's fame to promote peace for the world? That was daring.
So when I see someone on twitter speak out against the hate speech in our media and our politicians, speak out against the normalization of hate and violence, and then see someone else say "naw, it'll never happen", and of course all the other voices raving on about "free speech" and "censorship", I want to hit those haters and cynics with a dead fish.
Yes, yes, it is well to be wary of the power of censorship. But we already have laws against hate speech. Unfortunately, they have no teeth. Andrew Bolt, a widely read columnist, was convicted under those laws. He got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and he is still spewing his hatred to this day.
Hate sells newspapers. Hate buys votes. Love... is not to be encouraged. Love and kindness and generosity do not sell newspapers.
Not that anybody has tried. Much.
So if anybody is going to complain about censorship... maybe love-speech is being censored.
People think of "peace, love, hippies" as old hat, a naive nostalgic thing of the past. But when the Beatles were creating songs like "Revolution" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko", it wasn't old hat, it was something brand new, something revolutionary. Something that had not been done before. Okay, okay, I'm not saying that pacifists didn't exist before then, of course they did. But sending acorns to 50 world leaders? Using one's fame to promote peace for the world? That was daring.
So when I see someone on twitter speak out against the hate speech in our media and our politicians, speak out against the normalization of hate and violence, and then see someone else say "naw, it'll never happen", and of course all the other voices raving on about "free speech" and "censorship", I want to hit those haters and cynics with a dead fish.
Yes, yes, it is well to be wary of the power of censorship. But we already have laws against hate speech. Unfortunately, they have no teeth. Andrew Bolt, a widely read columnist, was convicted under those laws. He got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and he is still spewing his hatred to this day.
Hate sells newspapers. Hate buys votes. Love... is not to be encouraged. Love and kindness and generosity do not sell newspapers.
Not that anybody has tried. Much.
So if anybody is going to complain about censorship... maybe love-speech is being censored.
