Tag: Carl Benjamin

  • Exeter Cathedral says no thanks

    Carl Benjamin told to stay away.

    Exeter Cathedral has banned a Ukip candidate from taking part in hustings for Thursday’s European elections, saying he may be a risk to public order.

    Carl Benjamin, who is under police investigation for comments he made about raping the Labour MP Jess Phillips, had been due to speak at the event alongside other candidates for the South West England region on Wednesday evening.

    But the cathedral authorities decided Benjamin’s presence ran the risk of public disorder, and invited Ukip to send another candidate to the event.

    Oh but what about his free speech?

    Ukip’s Devon chair, Margaret Dennis, said the move was “outrageous” and “an affront to democracy”.

    She told DevonLive: “The hustings are either open for the public to discuss and debate or it is an attempt to censor and restrict an opportunity to hear a range of views at this election.”

    There is “range of views” and then there is “I wouldn’t even rape you.” The latter isn’t a “view,” it’s verbal abuse.

    She said Benjamin was “an articulate and intelligent advocate not only for our party but for free speech”.

    Who has singled out a woman MP for repeated sexual taunting. That’s not “advocacy for free speech,” it’s repeated sexual taunting. Free speech is not dependent on encouraging misogynist men to taunt women MPs. Free speech can survive without Carl Benjamin’s bullying of women.

  • The weight of years and years of abuse

    Victoria Derbyshire talked to Jess Phillips about it a few days ago.

  • He is empathizing with the other side

    Victoria Derbyshire talked to Carl Benjamin this morning about his “jokes” about rape.

    “There are two sides to every question,” he says, “and I am empathizing with the other side.”

    So there are two sides to rape and he’s empathizing with the rapist?

    Probably not; he probably means he’s “empathizing” with the side that finds rape jokes funny and “empowering.” He claims that he gets survivors of rape telling him they appreciate his jokes.

    But. Even if you take that claim at face value, is that what he was doing when he made that “joke” about and at Jess Phillips? No, it was not. It was a very ordinary very familiar woman-hating dude joke aimed at a woman he wanted to bully.

    He wants comedy to come back to the UK, because the BBC is doing everything it can to kill it off.

    He says Derbyshire is inciting violence against him (milkshakes and kippers, apparently), but he hasn’t incited violence against anyone, because he was telling jokes.

    And to sum up…

  • The alternative is a world devoid of humour

    Carl Benjamin is making new enemies. I guess that’s what he wants?

    https://twitter.com/SophieRunning/status/1124449693944176640

    He gave a statement to BuzzFeed:

    Once again BuzzFeed position themselves as the progressive joke police. I stand behind David Baddiel’s justification about why any subject can be the subject of a joke. The alternative is a world devoid of humour, the essential tool we use to reduce the horror of events that are beyond our control.

    No, it is not. That’s a false dichotomy. We do not have to choose between a world devoid of humor and a world where male political candidates talk about raping female politicians, any more than we have to choose between a world devoid of humor and a world where white political candidates talk about lynching black politicians. We can say that rape “jokes” and lynching “jokes” are right out and still have a vast world of material for humor.

    Mind you, he’s got the racist “humor” angle covered too.

  • What do women have to do to end this shit

    I see this tweet from Jess Phillips.

    So I open the BuzzFeed article.

    Labour MP Jess Phillips has questioned whether UKIP’s star candidate Carl Benjamin — known on YouTube as Sargon of Akkad — should be allowed to run in this month’s European elections after new footage emerged in which he talks again about raping her.

    UKIP leader Gerard Batten has faced repeated questions about Benjamin’s candidacy for the anti-immigration party in the South West region over a tweet to Phillips in 2016.

    “I wouldn’t even rape you, @jessphillips,” the YouTuber and Gamergate leader posted in response to Phillips’ tweets about rape and death threats sent to women on the internet.

    Benjamin has since been banned from Twitter.

    You remember all that, no doubt. You probably remember the self-consciously mavericky Milwaukee skeptics group that imported Carl Benjamin to speak at its 2017 conference in defiance of all the many people who said “But rape jokes.”

    Sargon of Akkad and Thomas Smith spoke in a session titled “A discussion of socio-politics.” The session was marketed as an interview but played out as an acrimonious debate without the benefit of a moderator. Smith appeared agitated as soon as he stepped on stage and proceeded to immediately drill Sargon on a controversial tweet he sent to a British Labour MP.

    “I wouldn’t even rape you, Jess Phillips,” Sargon tweeted in 2016. Phillips has previously spoken publicly about how she was the victim of sexual assault as a young woman.

    “You have signaled to the women in the movement you don’t give a shit about using rape to bully somebody,” Smith said to Sargon on stage. Sargon maintained that his tweet was not a threat and critics have misunderstood or mischaracterized his words. “The whole point was to demonstrate that I won’t do something and you say that’s a threat,” Sargon retorted. Smith called Sargon “awful.”

    “I’m not touching her, Mom!” Yes, on the literal level, “I wouldn’t even rape you” is saying “I wouldn’t rape you,” but the literal level is not the only level in play in remarks like that. Another level is saying “You’re far too disgusting for me to rape you,” and another level is saying “Rape rape rape rape hahaha rape rape I understand you don’t like rape threats rape rape rape rape hahaha rape rape.” Nobody “misunderstood”; nobody “mischaracterized”; Carl Benjamin was taunting, insulting, threatening, and bullying Jess Phillips all in one. (How threatening? Because another level is just “Haha kidding I totally would rape you, bitch.”)

    Now he’s made it explicit.

    But in new footage that Benjamin posted to YouTube on April 26 — just three days before Batten’s interview — he says he might rape Phillips “with enough pressure”.

    “There’s been an awful lot of talk about whether I would or wouldn’t rape Jess Phillips,” Benjamin says to camera. “I’ve been in a lot of trouble for my hardline stance of not even raping her.

    “I suppose with enough pressure I might cave.

    “But let’s be honest nobody’s got that much beer.”

    Gedditt? She’s still too disgusting to rape…but he totally might to it anyway. Either way, the important thing is – rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape.