An assertion with no proof, please cite your evidence for that being the cause rather than what he stated? (We are big on proof in this thread, you know....)
No, of the assertion you made...oh, rather call me a fanboy than admit you don't have any? That's compelling.
Why couldnt he win? Purely from the boycott side of things? Anyone still advertise with him? If so, surely thats commercial suicide? Ah, ok undersand now. Pretty much the same here in UK So the Freedom Of Speech thing was pretty much all a smokescreen?
To some level that argument could be made, and would be valid. Yet we also protect each others right to speak freely....as I would never support a law to prevent Glenn Beck from broadcasting his show...no matter how repulsive I find it. I'll never /listen/ to his show, and I'll argue against every point he makes (well, every point he has made...who knows, there is some small chance I'll agree with him on something some day. I hope not..but it is there). The delta here is that a world-wide group of supporters squashed the only daily broadcast user driven show in the US about the sport...they did so proudly claiming such support from fanclubs and the board of directors at the club, and thus imposed their viewpoint upon others. I didn't agree with Steven, and as I've said in this thread I emailed him to tell him such. However, once the formal apology of the 16th of July was published, in my view this moved past justice and into the realm of persecution. A fine example is Mel demanding the emails from Steven...which he is legally bound not to give out during any investigation as they are evidence. Then using that to continue the boycott....as if it were a choice Steven made. What it all boils down to, to me, is that the boycott removed MY right to chose who to listen too. I can still go listen to Glenn Beck....but I can't listen to WSD. I see that as an injustice, you see it as a victory.
I know that all comparisons with 9/11 immediately sound ridiculous and hyperbolic, but bear with me please. Imagine that Beck had said multiple times on his show that the firefighters who died in the World Trade Center had a hand in their own deaths because they didn't do a good enough job controlling the fires. And that he did all of this on the anniversary of the tragedy. And that he made a joke about the FDNY milking a cow vs. milking a tragedy. Do you think Beck would still have a show? It's one thing to say ridiculous things like Beck does, but it's a whole other issue when you start talking about a tragedy that way.
Ok, there's no proof per se, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. 1.) Cohen claimed he was receiving death threats weeks before the show came to an end. If the show ended because he no longer felt safe, why did he wait so long? 2.) Paying for two hours a day on Sirius is very expensive. It gets harder to pay for when the vast majority of your sponsors leave, and Steven admitted that the boycott had hurt him financially. Also, considering his clearly casual relationship with the truth, people on the other side of the boycott from you are predisposed to not trusting him. I know you disagree with us and that our assumptions about him aren't provable, but at least try to see where we're coming from in that regard. If he'll lie about one thing (repeatedly), what's to stop him from lying about everything else?
If people stopped listening to him, then fine. I wouldn't support a boycott against anyone who advertises on his show...that's not going to change any minds and would be imposing my view upon others. Boycott's are fine against institutional problems, but against individuals they are an effort to silence another persons voice....I'm not for that, even if I dissagree with the person. Voltaire said, "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it" He would have a right to speak as long as anyone was willing to listen to him....not as long as the boycott let him remain on the radio. Perhaps I'm a nut for thinking this way...who knows.
I stand corrected, though both versions work! "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too" Voltaire
By his own words, he didn't leave because of threats he received weeks or months ago, but because of threats his stepchild and her friend(s) received. That is the difference! It was scary when he was being sent those threats yet expected, but when his family gets contacted directly with same threats he had to to rethink his priorities as any sane person would. Surely you have never lied about 1 thing in your life right? So if you lie about one thing, are we to assume that everything you say is a lie? The train of thought on the LFC fans side seem to be that the worst offense in the world is lying about Hillsborough, so if someone lie about that, they will undoubtedly lie about even their kids getting threatened. To me as bad a tragedy and all, I can see Cohen lying about Hillsborough (he's not a big fan of LFC), but lying about his own family is a whole other level specially considering the guy just got married a week ago; or is he inventing that wedding story as well? Considering that his wife would have to accept him lying and using her children (his stepchildren) for his own cause. I mean I read an article about LFC's owner's family receiving death threats from fans! How is it so unlikely that Cohen's family has been contacted the same way?
So, Glenn Beck & Limbaugh. Who advertises on their shows? What keeps them going financially? That racist one, Beck? Surely anybody advertising on his show would be committing economic suicide?
Apparently not, he's still on the air and has been for some time. I think the difference here is that Beck has a deep set of supporters who will ignore boycotts and see them as a badge of honor...so there is always a segment of the population to advertise to via his show.... WSD didn't have that sort of resources, or the resources to protect Steven's family that Beck or Stern would have....so a small group can have a larger impact, much to our shared shame.
Still dont understand the supporters thing Is his show paid for by advertising? If so, could you give me some examples of his sponsors?
http://features.csmonitor.com/polit...st-glenn-beck-will-almost-certainly-backfire/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck He has 6.5 Million listeners to his radio show....counter-boycott's can work with that sort of following. If /only/ football in the US could reach that point .
Yes. I couldn't tell you who still sponsors his show because I don't watch it, but you can read a bit about the boycott here and see who had dropped off of it: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/even-more-advertisers-leave-glenn-beck/
There are other things that I neglected to mention, like Cohen also claiming that the threats came from a member of an official supporters club with no proof, and indeed, no way of actually proving it at all. Did Cohen have access to a database of all members of US branches? Of course he didn't. He also claimed RAWK and the Facebook group dedicated to the boycott were rife with hateful anti-Semitic slurs when they weren't. Why did he have to lie about that? It seems to me that death threats would have been enough of an indictment, don't you agree? I fear that Cohen has sufficiently poisoned the well so that enough people will assume Liverpool fans are a bunch of hateful neo-Nazi thugs and will naturally feel sympathy for him. The one anti-Semitic email that he did release came from an email address about which nothing else could be found. No Facebook, no MySpace, no membership on any Liverpool forums, etc. It's very possible that it was simply written by Cohen or that he asked someone to write it to further his case against the boycott. He would have quelled that suspicion by releasing the email with long headers that would have included the IP address of the sender, but he refused to. Do you understand why some might feel they have reasonable doubts about the veracity of his claims?
Also he is on an extremely conservative new channel, FOX News and they would welcome any boycott as publicity as well as would financially back his show. They could not afford to ever let on that any boycott worked. They are shock news and very divisive leaning hard to the right. They have been accused of inflammatory programing and racism many times. They are owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Actually, the sentiment that "americans had it coming" in regards to 9/11 while certainly a minority opinion, did have a voice certainly to a lesser extent in America, but to a greater extent abroad. If we searched hard enough, I'm pretty sure we could find that sentiment expressed by a prominent footballer in merry ole' England, no less. John Terry ring a bell? John Terry, in fact, still bangs in goals for Chelsea and England even after he mocked a group of American tourists the day after 9/11. To this day, in fact, very controversial opinions that are incredibly loose with the facts about 9/11 are allowed virtual free reign in the US. And guess what? We are still here my friend. People got offended from time to time. People got upset. But, we survived. We moved on.
The only issue I see here is that some people would fight not for the cause but to feed their ego. That is what I'm feeling for the Liverpool supporters who were/are involved with the WSD closing down.
Maybe we just disagree, but I don't think any radio host would keep his job if he blamed victims of the tragedy DIRECTLY for their own deaths. Saying that the government's policies led to terrorism against the United States doesn't strike me as all that controversial, but we may live in very different areas of this country.
I reckon Cohen realised the boycott was working and threw in the death threats in an attempt to save his skin. He had already used the race card, the freedom of speech card, the terrorists jibe and whatever. The boycott was obviously working and was never a short term thing anyway. Any new sponsors would be informed of his views and asked to reconsider their advertising strategy. His miscalculated badly. Just my opinion like. Tybio, are you at UCLA?
You do realize that Firefighters do not have a reputation in other venues for destructive or irresponsible behaviour. If that was the case, then questions over their conduct would be more acceptable. LFC supporters freedom going after Cohen underscores how fragile and unorganized soccer support is in this country. But it has opened eyes and awareness. Even if your example was valid, unless the majority saw it as unacceptable, Beck would not have an issue. The view of the majority had little impact with WSD. We will see how this plays out over time (I don't know how it will).
http://wsdunion.webs.com/apps/forum...ng-back-but-as-world-football-daily?page=last So Cohen is going to relaunch his show on a subscription basis in three weeks without sponsors. Does anyone still not think it ended because of the boycott?