from NYTimes.com
In the 24-hour news cycle, tomorrow's bad news for Mel Gibson hits today: according to tomorrow's Sunday Herald Sun, Mel Gibson once had ties to the Australian League of Rights, a right-wing group well-known in Australia for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. Says the Herald Sun: "The league claims the world is run by a secret society of Jews." (Who, presumably, are responsible for all the wars in the world.)
We'll get to the particulars of the story in a moment; right now we just want to make the point that this is, once again, an examle of how this story is advancing online. I noted yesterday on the NPR blog that the news about Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirade was broken online and disseminated immediately via the internet, before traditional print outlets had the chance to do their reporting and, more importantly, before Gibson's people had a chance to react and spin accordingly (note that the tack taken by the New York Times, rather than reporting on the actual story, was more about how quickly it had spread). Here, just as the Mel-Apologized-Let's-Just-Forgive-Him-And-Move-On machinery is gearing up (here, here, and here, for example) is evidence that actually there is a precedent for these views, that he does have a history of anti-Semitism and, per his fulsome apology wherein he stated "I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot," this might throw some light "where those vicious words came from during that drunken display." That's all from a story dated tomorrow, halfway around the world. Another really good example of how the digital age is changing how news unfolds, not only in the speed with which new facts are delivered but in how that impacts the response.
Back to Mel: apparently in 1987 he campaigned for a friend, Rob Taylor, a League of Rights member who ran (unsuccessfully) in a regional election. Per the Herald Sun:
Charles Pinwill, a former Queensland state director of the League of Rights, said he knew Gibson's father, Hutton, and said Gibson was interested in the league's ideas."They were never members of the league, no. But we never really recruited members, just support. (Mel and Hutton) were interested in some of our ideas," Mr Pinwill said.
Recall that Hutton Gibson is an on-the-record Holocaust revisionist who has said that the Holocaust was "mostly fiction." Prior to last week's drunken hate-spewing DUI kerfuffle, Gibson drew criticism for not distancing himself from his father's remarks.
