Mastodawn

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gViYo1RZYUYWNNfyNxDSbk3NzQm00Uf0L3s3NNI3w_I/edit

@stltoday Before we talk about the article, I want to provide background on what interested me about this story. Apart from the fact that recent attacks should make us ALL vigilant to protect the #trans community, and esp. trans youth, I also felt a personal connection to the story. 2 years ago, my colleague, Gabriela López, and I we’re similarly targeted by a coordinated defamation campaign. 2/

How local and national conservatives and political opportunists are changing San Francisco

How local and national conservatives and political opportunists are changing San Francisco. To take political power, right wing activists use San Francisco schools as a dog-whistle for “woke ideology” and LGBTQ fear-mongering. By Ali Collins I am an educator and parent organizer who has advocated...

Google Docs

https://youtu.be/namuJQYuKjo

@stltoday The attacks started during the wake of the COVID pandemic before anyone really understood what was going on. This was at the onset of the wave of #SchoolBoardAttacks that swept the nation to demand removal of mask mandates under the guise of reopening schools. In the process of figuring out who was behind these attacks, I came to know Dr. Isaac Kamola, an expert on dark money, the #KochDonorNetwork and the right-wing media ecosystem. 3/

Dr. Isaac Kamola talks about how the Right-Wing Media Outrage Creates National News | Just Talks

YouTube

@stltoday Being at the center of the storm, I witnessed in real time what Dr. Kamola described. Local actors create drama, often using conservative lawsuits, to generate talking points that are then amplified by national media and right-wing influencers. These stories in turn validate efforts of local politicians to enact conservative policies or legislation, backed by political operatives and astroturf (aka: “fake grassroots”) “parents rights” groups. 4/

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRWH6tQM/

@stltoday Basically, what I’ve learned is that when there is a huge outrage story about something that really isn’t a story, you can pretty much assume there is a right-wing interest (and think tank) creating and then amplifying said story.

Like an elaborate reality TV scenario, political operatives “produce” outrage and then cover it, which in turn MAKES it into real news. 🙃 /5

Ali Collins on TikTok

#greenscreen Check out the whole #JustTalksPodcast episode interview with Dr. Isaac Kamola via the link in my bio. Support my work by becoming a patron. #FakeOutrage #kochdonornetwork #rightwingmedia #rightwingmediafakery

TikTok

@stltoday Getting back to the Washington University Transgender Center Story…

We have a disgruntled case manager, not a doctor or expert in any way shape or form, fired due to poor performance incl. misgendering trans children in a trans youth clinic, who *coincidentally* teams up to file a lawsuit with a right-wing lawyer known for filing lawsuits connected to “Don’t Say Gay” laws and a Republican state senator currently pushing anti-trans legislation. 6/ https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/choice-of-lawyers-for-whistleblower-at-st-louis-transgender-clinic-taints-her-motive-critics-say/article_7b36198a-af0d-57cf-a06c-f45952b3b307.html#tracking-source=in-art

Choice of lawyers for whistleblower at St. Louis transgender clinic taints her motive, critics say

“This is incredibly ideologically-oriented,” said Rabbi Daniel Bogard who has a transgender son. “Her attorneys are involved nationally in targeting trans kids and their parents and trying to deny their

STLtoday.com

@stltoday None of this is surprising. Except for the fact that a St. Louis Today journalist (Coleen Schrappen) took the time to interview families and young adults who benefited from treatment they received at the Washington University Transgender Clinic. 7/

@stltoday Normally, when I see stories like these, they usually rely on two-sides narratives that silence those targeted (in this case doctors and clients) while validating that “someone said something” even if that something has no basis in fact.

This should not be a new idea considering information coming out of the Dominion lawsuit that revealed how Fox News deliberately elevated false news. 8/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/business/media/fox-dominion-lawsuit.amp.html

Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Trump’s Election Fraud Claims

The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.

The New York Times

@stltoday Closing out this thread… I want to emphasize that as consumers and citizens we have a right and a responsibility to call out media that run false narratives for political manipulation campaigns. As was the case when folks spoke up (on the right and the left) about coverage of horrific statements at a recent CPAC event, media does respond to public feedback. 9/https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cpac-speaker-transgender-people-eradicated-1234690924/amp/

CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism’ — and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People

“For the good of society... transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” Daily Wire's Michael Knowles told the CPAC audience.

Rolling Stone

@stltoday The problem with right-wing outrage campaigns is if enough attention is directed at them they grow. Fake news gets validated by legacy media. When Gabriela and I were targeted by political operatives from the International Women’s Forum, Manhattan Institute, Parents Defending Education, Moms 4 Liberty affiliated groups and LITERALLY Chris Rufo, the false taking points they amplified were also shared in The NY Times and SF Chronicle.

I’ll give you an example… 10/

When Gabriela and I took over as President and Vice President, our first agenda included a carry over item approving work taken up by a community committee convened by previous Board Presidents. The resolution to rename schools was initially proposed by former Board President Matt Haney, after the murder of Heather Heyer during the Unite the Right protests in Charlottesville, VA to preserve a confederate monument there. This work began in 2016. 11/

The renaming committee composed of parents, students, educator/historians and community members (including representatives from Black Native American and Latinx communities had been had worked under the leadership of former Board President Mark Sanchez, and Stevon Cook before him. While Gabriela and I supported it, we agreed that reopening schools was a Board priority. So, one month after taking leadership we led the Board on pausing this work. Nonetheless, the NYTimes ran these headlines:

Despite the fact that The NY Times publishing multiple articles about concerns that were addressed in a subsequent Board meeting (making the “issue” a non-issue) the NY Times did not update the story until several months later… 12/

Despite this, The NY Times continued to falsely claim that parents were “frustrated by renaming, a false narrative pushed by a couple of parents, Siva Raj and Autumn Looijen, two unemployed tech entrepreneurs/political operatives who announced the recall (on the Glenn Beck show) after only living in S.F. several months prior and who didn’t even send their children to S.F. schools. 13/

The fact that it appears that neither Siva Raj nor Autumn Looijen send their children to S.F. schools had never been widely discussed. Nor did the fact that a majority of the money for the SF School Board recall came from wealthy tech venture capitalists with a history of supporting school privatization campaigns. 14/ https://capitalandmain.com/conservative-money-pours-into-heated-san-francisco-school-board-recall

Conservative Money Pours Into Heated San Francisco School Board Recall

<strong>Deluge of outside funds signals a national strategy for replacing elected officials.</strong>

Capital & Main

Nor did the fact that one of the biggest cheerleaders for the recall was billionaire tech bro, Paypall mafia and Ron DeSantis supporter David Sacks 15/ https://newrepublic.com/article/168125/david-sacks-elon-musk-peter-thiel

The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom

Like his pals Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Sacks is using his wealth and online clout to unite conservatives and former leftists in a reactionary movement against liberalism.

The New Republic

Nor did The NY Times cover the fact that one of the key voices in personal attacks against me and our Board came from a policy analyst who now works at the Manhattan Institute where Chris Rufo is leading a campaign to remove diversity Equity and inclusion under the guise of “woke ideology” and CRT. 16/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/02/whats-the-manhattan-institute-doing-in-san-francisco/

What’s the Manhattan Institute Doing In San Francisco?

Alison Collins is the leader in a fight against billionaires with ties to the eugenics movement’s attempt to destroy public education. She and her family

CounterPunch.org

The SF School Board recall was promoted right wing media and by political operators aligned with Pizzagate in D.C., antifa conspiracy theorists in Washington state, Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA, the International Women’s Forum, Parents Defending Education, Moms for Liberty, anti-affirmative action lawyer Ed Blum, and Trump lawyer Harmeet Dhillon (currently suing Kaiser to intimately undermine trans rights in California. 17/

Meanwhile, Gabriela López and I worked to get over one million meals to SF children during the pandemic and a laptop for every child to access remote learning, a feat that districts as large as NYC struggled with.

Nonetheless, the NY Times and even the SF Chronicle refused to publish even one Op Ed from Gabriela as Board President during a pandemic! 18/

So, all this to say, the work that @stltoday is doing to vet sources and discuss the validity of their claims IS NOTABLE.

We cannot allow corporate media to pander to right wing propaganda mills seeking to undermine our democracy and terrorize our educators or the trans community. Black media, independent media content creators and artists are doing brave and necessary work to hold political grifters accountable.

Support their work! And demand more from corporate media. 19/

If you want to see a play about all this, Ishmael Reed a legendary playwright wrote a satirical play based on the SF School Board recall and corporate media. The Conductor opens this Thursday, LIVE Off-Broadway at the Theater for the New City on NYC. Performances will run (and stream virtually) from March 9-26th.

Go to the following link to purchase tickets and learn more: https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-2023/

/FIN