Civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti has come out in defence of disc jockey Jon Gaunt for calling Redbridge councillor Michael Stark a "Nazi" during his TalkSport radio programme.
The Independent reports today that human rights defender, Ms Chakrabarti has written a letter to TalkSport, which suspended Mr Gaunt after he made the "health Nazi" slur against Cllr Stark for a policy on banning smokers from fostering children, and has thrown article 10 of the Human Rights Act at them.
In her letter, the Independent reports, she calls his dismissal "bizarre" and "disproportinate".
I wonder: If Mr Gaunt had called Cllr Stark a "health terrorist" would Ms Chakrabarti have written the same letter of defence?
Nazi is an extremely loaded word and to deload it should cause outrage. We all know what it means, but the way some people throw the term around today - I am thinking of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone who likened a Jewish Evening Standard journalist to a "Concentration Camp guard" for asking him a question following a party at City Hall in 2005 - it seems we are in danger of forgetting.
My Radio Portfolio
3 years ago
1 comment:
it seems like while the Nazis (at least in their original form) are fading from living memory, people are becoming more prone to comparing people with the Nazis.
Bill Maher commented on this, and said people should stop comparing each other to Nazis because no-one was like the Nazis.
I don't like to encourage taboo, but it does just seem obnoxious to me. Good point to bring it up!
Plus your title says it all - "Nazi Desensitization"
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