Denver Furcon removes PepperCoyote from performance schedule after he attends rally flying pro-Putin flags
DenFur has announced that furry musician, Pepper Coyote, will not be attending, or performing at their 2022 convention. This is in response to videos, and tweets made by the musician himself, that showed him in attendance at a Center for Political Innovation assembly in Chicago over the weekend of August 6th.
While describing itself as an anti-imperialist organization, the CPI led the meet by flying flags which included the infamous Z insignia that is being used by the Russian forces occupying the country of Ukraine in the current war there. The CPI Twitter account retweets regularly from sources that Twitter has denoted as Russian state-affiliated media.
Update (Aug 12): Eurofurence has also removed Pepper Coyote from their performance schedule.
Update (Aug 21): The CPI has dissolved following accusation of sexual misconduct around leader Caleb Maupin. In response, PepperCoyote has simply stated he's no longer a member of the CPI.
Concerns from the Community
Concerns were put forward that such organizations stand starkly against those in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as other groups typically targeted by authoritarianism. A statement by the CPI media director, Keaten Mansfield, in May used a Soviet created anti-Semitic trope in a disagreement with another Twitter user who stated that socialism’s basis should be to look out for the less powerful in society:
[Looking out for minorities or downtrodden] sounds like a liberal Democrat platform.
All these things, including charityism for people victim of war, are what corporatists, rootless cosmopolitans, and oligarchs encourage.
If that’s what the “basics” of socialism are, don’t be surprised the left fails.
-Keaten Mansfield, Media Director of Center for Political Innovation
The Musician’s Response
Despite losing the venue, Pepper Coyote held no regrets for going to the political gathering. By the end of his response to fandom criticism, he began to prosthelytize for the organization.
Threats have been made, I can’t go [to DenFur].
Very sorry if you were planning on seeing me at DenFur.
People are upset that I attended a conference of Socialists, and this is the world we have at the moment.
There are some lies being spread about me, and there’s little I can do to combat them other than continuing to say what is true. I attended a meeting of Communists. There were speeches that most of you would largely agree with. Zero of the speakers promoted fascism.
Footage of those speeches are already online. See what you think of them. Considering what I’m being accused of, and what actually happened, I don’t know what to say.
I still love my trans* friends, still want a world of plenty for all. I’m still me.
Haven’t heard about CPI? Here’s an example of what the think tank produces. This is “A 4 point plan to rescue the country”. Tell me what you think. I’d love to discuss it just like we did this past Saturday.
[Posts images of their 4 point plan]
About the author
Sonious (Tantroo McNally) — read stories — contact (login required)a project coordinator and Kangaroo from CheektRoowaga, NY, interested in video games, current events, politics, writing and finance
Comments
Sometimes I have said that the fandom is merely just a reflection of the world outside. But this story had a sister one that is just uncanny.
The same weekend a more mainstream musician (Pink Floyd's Roger Walters) also got blowback for taking an anti-Western stance on Ukraine:
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/3592647-pink-floyds-waters-backs-russia-ca...
How do people get radicalized like this in the first place? It boggles the mind.
Well that was not a headline I was expecting to see.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
It's spelled anti-Semitic.
Typo fixed thanks.
I mean it's not a word I've had to type too often in the past decade for this site.
If at all...
Update noted here that Eurofurence has also removed PepperCoyote from their performance schedule.
One thing about woke cancel culture is eventually they eat their own. With Denfur (their obsession with the furry raiders, their interview in the Fandom documentary) and Eurofurence, I am not surprised, both are obsessed with so called alt right furs and high up in my list of groups that will cancel any one at a drop of a hat, for any perceived offense.
One poster predicts Peper will be preforming at Free Fur All in 2024.
It is a bit disheartening how conventions are reacting to him having a particular political belief. One doesn't need to agree with it or support it (Indeed, I've been against Putin's unjustified war since the beginning and frustrated that Ukraine is basically just being left alone when we should be giving them far more support.) to understand that one should be free to hold those and profess those beliefs.
Things might be different if he had been involved in combat in Ukraine but it doesn't seem that that's the case. It might have been different if he was using Eurofurence to promote Russian propaganda but I didn't see any mention of that. He was going to be there to perform his music as he has done in the past with no issues. That he has views that are contrary to the organisers and majority of attendees is irrelevant.
Western values should include free speech and the freedom to hold diverse political opinions. We should not be going back in time to the days of McCarthyism in the US where people were sanctioned for holding the wrong political beliefs. Or going East to the autocratic regimes of Russia and China where dissent from the political mainstream results in you losing your job, prison time or worse. We are supposed to have a society which values diversity of thought and, when there is disagreement, we discuss our differences rather than try to silence those with whom we disagree.
Even worse is that Eurofurence's announcement comes just days after an assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie because he wrote something that other people disagreed with. It worries me that I see many in the furry fandom that seem to follow the extremist branch of left wing ideology that is happy to use violence as a political tool. Those people that celebrate punching others for their beliefs (however abhorrent they may be) and is happy to talk about how some key moments in the LGBT movement came from a riot, along with images of bloody bricks. It is concerning to wonder how many of those people might actually act out those violent fantasies, as we have seen with Islamic fundamentalists, to enforce their own brand of intolerance. Exclusion and violence are not the answers to disagreements.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Yes, but a convention is also a platform which enables individuals to reach many other people and spread messages to them. It's giving him a free place to try to indoctrinate people with fascism and/or bigotry. Not just that, but they were going to give him a stage and hundreds of people watching him for 2 hours. That's a helluva platform to give to a fascist. I think they did the right thing here.
"A poLitIcaL belIeF" = A really fucking stupid person's idea of a smart idea, minus cause and effect.
The effect: dead people in Ukraine suffering from war crimes in an unprovoked invasion.
Those conventions (or rather the bodies behind them) are professing their own beliefs by disinviting him
It’s called deplatforming and weak kneed progressives have been terrified of doing it for so long they let fascists move onto their backyards. Idiots supporting invasions can go scream on street corners. It is time people grow balls, stop hiding behind ten paragraphs of evasive sophistry, and face that they must deal with the paradox of tolerance. Or everything that actually deserves defending will be destroyed.
I'm sorry, this is a bad response.
"We don't call it cancelling anymore, Rakuen, we call it deplatforming now."
I mean, it's a better synonym than one Twitter user who said PepperCoyote was being 'disappeared'.
Like, no, only governments can do that, if anyone else does that, it's called kidnapping and murder.
It's better than the first reply which just made a comment that I had preemptively addressed but which provided no reason why it should brought up again.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
You haven't addressed a goddam thing and never do, you just let your mouth run like a conceited cunt.
If you remove the evasive sophistry, you remove Rakuen. Which would be a benefit to all, like blocking spam.
That's nice, still picking easy fights I see.
The easiest fight would be saying you write like a 3rd-rate wannabe reviewer for a podunk local paper who couldn't even hold that job. Hack
No, I think I can take Diamond Man.
Both Ukranian and Russian national sovereignities are a fictional social construct. People form opinions very easily, and just as easily oppose difference of opinion. Imagine how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are even stupider, regardless of where the pendulum's at in current public discourse. It is no different with people in fandoms.
I mean, there's getting red pilled, and then thinking that all of reality actually is the Matrix.
It's disappointing seeing people oppose the status quo, and still have a romanticized idea of the State as being representative of the people in it. We haven't grown much in a few hundred years, we just shifted our devotions.
Anyone who thinks Aleksandr Dugin is good news, is bad news.
I think banning his attendance might be going a bit far. Don't allow him to perform/DJ, but there's really no reason to deny him attending altogether. Even 2 Gryphon isn't banned from attendance at most cons, even ones that made it clear he wouldn't get stage time. There will almost certainly be those attending who share his political views without the notoriety. I'm not sure he'd have gone without being able to have stage time. He's kind of notorious for begging travel and lodging expenses.
On the other hand, DenFur is likely to be short staffed just like all the other cons so far this year. They may not have wanted the potential for more drama than they've already had to deal with. Ultimately it's their choice and I don't think they are going to get too much pushback from anyone they'd care about on this.
They said he'd not be attending - not that they banned him. Most bans, cons will not take publicly because there is a risk of defamation charges etc. That being said, what I know and have heard about Pepper? He won't come to a con unless his entire way is paid and covered. He's ToO iMpOrTaNt to PAY for things, don'tcha know? They aren't the only con to "uninvite" him either. Good move on their part, imo. Every time he's given a platform, he runs his mouth about something and sounds like a complete idiot. (Like when he told people to lie and cut in line to get their COVID vaccines before legitimate nurses and teachers)
People change eventually, only time will tell. Hopefully for the better of themselves.
2 weeks later: CPI finds themselves dissolved after leader accused of sexual misconduct.
My, think tanks
cumcome and go so quicklyI recently looked into the subject with RMFC and a furry raid led by his "definitely not political" Foxler. While the RMFC was still alive, it did not forbid them to be at its congress, even understanding the meaning of their behavior and form, and what terrible consequences this could lead to. Six years later, the DenFur completely forbids the presence of a person who has not even spread his ideas on this convention. Is this your proper American free speech? In my opinion, the furry community is free for all nationalities, LGBT+ creatures and all political views to be found in it. In the furry community, there should be no harassment of people for their views (of course, if these are really views that do not interfere with communication, and not open propaganda of their ideas right at furry congresses) and therefore this situation directly shows that from the methods used in Russia, American furries (or the country as a whole) do not differ much, except for tolerance towards LGBT+ people.
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