Hollywood devotes itself to racial quotas

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s almost as complicated as the Nuremberg Laws. Please take a look:

To be eligible for best picture, a film must meet at least two standards across four categories: “Onscreen Representation, Themes and Narratives,” “Creative Leadership and Project Team,” “Industry Access and Opportunities” and “Audience Development.” Within each category are a variety of criteria involving the inclusion of people in underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and those with cognitive or physical disabilities. (Other Oscar categories will not be held to these same standards, but the contenders for best picture typically filter down to other feature-length categories.)…

The new standards will not go into effect until the 96th Oscars in 2024. But at a time of racial reckoning both for Hollywood and the nation as a whole, the academy believes the requirements provide a road map for how the industry can ensure that at least those films that compete for its highest honor reflect the diversity of the moviegoing audience and the wider world.

Sure, that’s why people go to the movies – to see them “reflect the diversity of the moviegoing audience and the wider world” in a “time of racial reckoning.” And here I thought it was escape, entertainment, or even to be moved by something (although that’s the aim of fewer and fewer movies, it still happens now and then). I haven’t gone to the movies for years except on extremely rare occasions, and I rarely even rent or stream a movie that was made more recently than twenty years ago. But the people who do go to the movies aren’t going for those reasons, I can almost guarantee.

And yet Hollywood has become obsessed with this. It goes almost without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – that this is a combination of abject virtue-signaling and fear of being called racist or homophobic or transphobic.

A sample of the actual standards:

For the 96th Oscars (2024), a film must meet TWO out of FOUR of the following standards to be deemed eligible:

STANDARD A: ON-SCREEN REPRESENTATION, THEMES AND NARRATIVES
To achieve Standard A, the film must meet ONE of the following criteria:

A1. Lead or significant supporting actors

At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group.

• Asian
• Hispanic/Latinx
• Black/African American
• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native
• Middle Eastern/North African
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
• Other underrepresented race or ethnicity

A2. General ensemble cast

At least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles are from at least two of the following underrepresented groups:

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

A3. Main storyline/subject matter

The main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrepresented group(s).

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

STANDARD B: CREATIVE LEADERSHIP AND PROJECT TEAM
To achieve Standard B, the film must meet ONE of the criteria below:

B1. Creative leadership and department heads

At least two of the following creative leadership positions and department heads—Casting Director, Cinematographer, Composer, Costume Designer, Director, Editor, Hairstylist, Makeup Artist, Producer, Production Designer, Set Decorator, Sound, VFX Supervisor, Writer—are from the following underrepresented groups:

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

At least one of those positions must belong to the following underrepresented racial or ethnic group:

• Asian
• Hispanic/Latinx
• Black/African American
• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native
• Middle Eastern/North African
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
• Other underrepresented race or ethnicity

B2. Other key roles

At least six other crew/team and technical positions (excluding Production Assistants) are from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. These positions include but are not limited to First AD, Gaffer, Script Supervisor, etc….

It goes on – and on and on – with much more. But I think you get the idea. I note with interest that having “women” as a main storyline, theme, or narrative of a film is considered to fulfill at least one of the inclusion criteria. I had no idea there was such a dearth of chick flicks that we needed affirmative action to ensure that we have more.

What a travesty. Jobs by identity group numbers – the future of America, if the left has its way. Note also that California will be voting this November on Proposition 16, which would allow the state to discriminate in employment based on race:

Proposition 16 is a constitutional amendment that would repeal Proposition 209, passed in 1996, from the California Constitution. Proposition 209 stated that discrimination and preferential treatment were prohibited in public employment, public education, and public contracting on account of a person’s or group’s race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Therefore, Proposition 209 banned the use of affirmative action involving race-based or sex-based preferences in California.

I don’t believe any of that would affect the movie industry, since it is not public employment, public education, or public contracting. But it is an indication of the determination on the part of the left to make race-based preferential quotas the law of the land, both de facto and de jure.

I didn’t leave the movies, the movies left me – a long time ago. But hiring people by the numbers is just another way for them to hurt themselves.

The Critical Race Theory professor and the logic of the left

The New Neo Posted on by

From William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

…Trump’s move [to end Critical Race training in federal agencies] is viewed as a mortal threat by the CRT movement. One of the leading academics on CRT, UCLA and Columbia law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, certainly is worried. Crenshaw, my former law school classmate who invented the term and ideology of intersectionality, tweeted in desperation that she wondered if CRT’s allies would come to their assistance:

“So woke up to the news that CRT is banned as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. This is McCarthyism 101. I’ve often wondered what our allies would do when they came for us. Now we’ll see.”

Cutting off funding is the same as being jailed. Oh, yeah.

But hyperbole is the coin of the leftist realm. Trump hasn’t banned CRT. Nor do I recall that he, in connection with this nonexistent banning, called it “the greatest threat to Western Civilization.” However, it actually is a threat to Western Civilization and its basic principles, as well as a device to stir up racial enmity rather than damp it down.

From Judge Richard Posner:

What is most arresting about critical race theory is that…it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories – fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal – designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today.

Critical race theory started in the law schools, and although it was somewhat after my sojourn there, I followed it with alarm. Like so many things that begin in academia, it has spread to an astounding degree throughout our institutions, including those of the federal government. Why should the government pay for the rope that will hang it – and yes, undermine the tenets of Western Civilization?

Crenshaw’s tweet is childish and self-pitying. But that’s typical of Twitter; it encourages that sort of thing in people. Lawyers know how to be precise in their use of words, so I’m going to assume that law professor Crenshaw’s misstatements and hyperbole are knowing and deliberate, an act of demagoguery. She sees herself as a victim, although this poisonous ideology has not only had a free ride for decades, but has been the recipient of handsome financial rewards.

In this context, commenter John Tyler mentions Orwell’s famous quote: “There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language.” That is something Orwell learned through his exposure to the left, and a great deal of his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four was devoted to an exploration of the way language is used by the left to shape thought as well as censor it, and to not only hide the truth but to make people believe the opposite of the truth. That is the left today.

The left has also been screaming “McCarthy” at the right for many decades in response to any attempt on the part of the right to fight back against the left’s Gramscian march. That’s one of many reasons why that march has been so successful. Once any fight against it was demonized as “McCarthyism,” many people on the right have been intimidated into passivity. Trump, of course, could not care less, and will not be passive. That’s just one of the myriad reasons the left (and the NeverTrumpers) hate him.

This is an interesting moment in time, to say the least. If Trump had come out with this directive a year ago, for example, the public might have less understanding of the nature of CRT and the seriousness of its revolutionary intent and its propensity to ignite race war. Now as a result of the riots and the greater popularity of the anti-racism movement (another Orwellian designation) the public has been at least somewhat alerted.

Is it aware enough? I doubt it. But Trump himself is now aware.

The left feels itself wounded after a long period in the ascendancy. Recently it has laid more of its destructive and nihilist cards on the table, and now there is really no reason for the left to hold back on any and all tactics to get what it wants – which is the entrenchment of its power in ways that will be difficult or impossible to reverse. Trump and his deplorables represent a mortal threat, and the left recognizes it.

NOTE: Last night, Tucker Carlson did a piece on Critical Race Theory. Well worth a look:

Remember Alek Skarlatos?

The New Neo Posted on by

He’s running for Congress. This should jog your memory. Good guy, good ad:

Entire police command staff in Rochester NY resigns

The New Neo Posted on by

Who can blame them? Another foreseeable result of treating police like dirt while simultaneously making it difficult if not impossible to do their jobs, and exposing them to great risk:

Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary said in a statement that he was honored to serve the city in upstate New York for 20 years and commended his staff. However, he said the protests and criticism of his handling of the investigation into the March 23 incident “are an attempt to destroy my character and integrity.”

The police chief is black, by the way. But his black life doesn’t matter, because it’s blue.

His retirement will be effective Sept. 29, according to Rochester City Council President Loretta Scott. Scott told ABC News as of now there is no blueprint for how the city moves forward following the retirements of the command staff.

Of course not. Their only blueprint is to let chaos reign.

It’s all supposedly over the death of Daniel Prude. Here’s what the Prude family lawyer – who for a change isn’t Ben Crump – had to say:

Antonio Romanucci, the attorney representing Prude’s children, called Singletary’s departure “an important and necessary step to healing and meaningful reform in the community.”

“Clearly, the conduct of the officers in Mr. Prude’s case was inhumane, and the subsequent cover-up was unacceptable,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to securing justice for Mr. Prude and to having Rochester leaders do the hard work needed to address issues of systemic racism and training protocols in the police department.”

Sure. The black police chief is racist. A police force that is 25% black (and trying for a higher percentage but having trouble getting black people to apply) is racist. That’s the beauty of throwing in that word “systemic,” because it’s something that’s just there even for black officers. Like the ether.

More from the mayor’s rush to judgment:

“Mr. (Daniel) Prude lost his life in our city. He lost his life because of the actions of our police officers,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren [also black] said Thursday in a news conference…

Warren said some of the officers who were suspended appear on the body camera footage and others “had a duty to stop what was happening.” They are being suspended with pay “against the advice of counsel,” she said…

Prude was failed by many officials before and during the March 23 incident, the mayor said. He would have been treated different if he was White, she said.

“Institutional structural racism led to Daniel Prude’s death. I won’t deny it. I stand before it and I call for justice upon it,” Warren said.

I guess she wants Rochester to commit suicide, too. Is it even necessary to say that her statement that a white person would be treated differently has exactly zero evidence behind it?

And how did Prude really die? This way [emphasis mine]:

Prude, 41, was having a mental health episode on March 23 when his brother Joe called the Rochester Police Department for help, the family said at a press conference Wednesday.

The video provided by attorneys shows officers handcuff Prude, who was naked, in the middle of a snowy wet street, and place a covering over his head.

Several minutes later, EMTs arrive and begin to perform chest compressions, the video shows. He is then placed on a gurney and into an ambulance.

When Prude arrived at the hospital, he was brain dead, his brother said. He died a week later.

His death was ruled a homicide by the Monroe County Medical examiner, according to a copy of the autopsy report obtained by lawyers for his family. The report cites complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint as a finding. The report also cites excited delirium and acute PCP intoxication as causes of death.…

Joe Prude told police that his brother had made suicidal threats earlier in the day and had been taken into custody on a Mental Health Arrest, or MHA.

Additionally, a witness took a Facebook Live video showing Prude undressing and defecating in the street. And a tow truck driver called police to report a naked, bloodied man trying to open a locked car door, the documents provided to CNN say.

The video begins at 3:16 a.m. with Prude naked on a wet street as a light snow falls…

[During the wait for the EMTs to arrive, presumably after having been called] He yells that he has coronavirus and spits in their direction.

Three minutes after the incident begins, one officer puts a spit sock — which is designed to keep a person from spitting or biting — over Prude’s head.

Prude appears to try to stand at approximately 3:20 a.m., and three officers move in to restrain him and hold him to the ground.

He appears to stop breathing not long after that, and they call the EMTs who instruct them in chest compressions.

I literally cannot imagine anything better that they could have done differently under the circumstances. And obviously, the hood is designed to be used this way. They had to protect him and themselves, and they did their best to do so. But now they are being accused in the way we have come to expect every time these things happen.

Facts don’t matter any more, though. They certainly don’t matter to the mayor of Rochester or so many other mayors in blue cities. But there are other facts, too – riots, destruction, and loss of whatever tax base a city like Rochester (which has been the site of past riots and has been messed up for decades) has managed to maintain so far.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Mayor Warren. Once the video was in the public domain, the match was probably already tossed into the oxygenated room. She had a choice: to throw the police under the bus or defend them, and defending them might have caused even more rioting, I suppose.

But at least she would have had the police on her side. Now she and the City Council are alone in this, and the crocodile is likely to eat them, too.

Cardi B’s greatest hit

The New Neo Posted on by

If you want to read evidence of the republic’s further slide into “Idiocracy”-squared, please see this.

We’ve come a long way, baby, and it’s not in the right direction. I can’t say I’ve paid special attention to the lyrics of Cardi B’s previous oeuvre, but her recent interview with Joe Biden and the reaction to it made me take a deeper look (see the above link for what I’m talking about).

Her recent hit is called WAP. I’m not going to translate, but I’ll just say it’s not about wanting to hold your hand. It’s not just vulgar, it’s filthy, degrading, disgusting – the sort of thing you get in your spam email where the title is purposely misspelled in an attempt to evade the filter and lead you to a porno site.

I think Biden’s handlers decided that an interview with Cardi B would be just the thing because of her enormous popularity, which is hard to overestimate:

Recognized by Forbes as one of the most influential female rappers of all time, Cardi B is known for her aggressive flow and candid lyrics, which have received widespread media coverage. She is the highest-certified female rapper of all time on the RIAA’s Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking, also appearing among the ten highest-certified female artists and having the top certified song by a female rap artist. She is the only female rapper with multiple billion-streamers on Spotify. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, seven Billboard Music Awards, five Guinness World Records, four American Music Awards, eleven BET Hip Hop Awards and two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, Time included her on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cardi B has further been credited for supporting and uniting female rappers in the music industry.

The song WAP was praised for its “sex-positive” message. I suppose you could say it’s positive about sex in the same sense that any porn that is devoid of affection or love and that deals with the totally physical side of things is “sex-postive.” Those who like the song seem to think it’s just fabulous that now women are singing about sex in the same debased way male rappers have been singing about it for ages.

That’s progress, folks. Women are now free to be just as gross as men at their worst. What is especially destructive is that the market for this is teenagers. Maybe even children, for all I know. It’s probably not pitched for them, but what’s to stop them from seeing it, except hyper vigilant parents?

Cardi B says this:

In an interview with Australian breakfast radio show presenters Kyle and Jackie O, Cardi, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, has spoken out about the backlash – and it’s fair to say she isn’t too concerned.

“The people that the song bothers are usually, like, conservatives or really religious, big religious people,” the star said.

Gee, what a surprise!

More:

“But my thing is that… I grew up listening to this type of music, so other people might [think it’s] strange and vulgar but to me it’s like, really normal.”

Cardi B was born in 1992, so I suppose that’s the case. Another depressing thought.

Cardi, who has a two-year-old daughter with rapper Offset, continued: “It’s like no, of course I don’t want my child to listen to this song and everything, but it’s like… it’s for adults!”

Yes, you can put blocks on the computer, but not everyone does that, and kids know other kids with access to all sorts of forbidden things. You, Cardi B, have put this out in the world and you are responsible for it. It’s not just children who are harmed by it.

But here’s her rationalization, which I think is interesting:

The rapper said the song must be doing something right, saying “it’s what people want to hear”.

She added: “Because if people didn’t want to hear it, if they were so afraid to hear it, it wouldn’t be doing as good.”

So feeding the worst aspects of human nature means you’re doing something right. I guess you are, if you measure such things in terms of your income and fame.

And I think this final sentence of the interview is humorous, in a bitter way, considering who is speaking:

“I have a whole list of things that I want our next president to do for us,” she said. “But first, I just want Trump out. His mouth gets us in trouble so much.”

[NOTE: Speaking of “greatest hit,” there’s this:

…[W]ith 93 million, the streaming sum for “WAP” is the greatest ever for a song in its first week of release.

That’s where we’re at. The sexual revolution, feminism, family decline, the hookup culture – I could go on and on, but you get the picture.]

Why is the COVID death rate so low in Africa?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, it could just be poor statistics-taking and reporting. But apparently the death rate has not gone up, either, and a rise in that would be more noticeable. So it seems the low rate of (and/or better prognosis from) COVID in much of Africa is real.

Could it be, could it possibly be – the widespread use of hydroxychloroquine?

You’d never know from this article that such a thing is even a possibility. The Science article discusses the data from Africa – it’s even titled “The pandemic appears to have spared Africa so far. Scientists are struggling to explain why” – but nary a whisper about the drug.

Is the drug already widely taken in African countries where malaria is endemic? I’ve been trying to discover whether that is the case, and I’m hesitant to say it is because I read somewhere, months ago, that malaria in Africa became resistant to the drug some years ago and so it’s no longer all that widely used there. I can’t seem to find that information at the moment.

However, hydroxychloroquine and possibly its predecessor chloroquine certainly have been used in Africa for COVID. In fact, some countries in Africa using it for that purpose did not stop doing so even when the bogus Lancet article came out, unlike most of Europe. Perhaps that happened because in Africa they are very familiar with the drug and its risks and/or lack of risk. Also, they’re probably not so heavily invested in the business of discrediting Trump at all costs. At any rate, several made a bold decision to keep going with the drug (see also this).

There is also this practice (the article is from early April):

Despite loud appeals for caution, Africans are rushing to embrace chloroquine, the venerable anti-malaria drug touted as a possible treatment for coronavirus.

From hospitals in Senegal to pharmaceutical companies in South Africa and street sellers in Cameroon, chloroquine has fired hopes of a medicinal fix against a virus that is set to scythe through Africa’s poorly protected countries.

Chloroquine and derivatives such as hydroxychloroquine have been used for decades as cheap and safe drugs against malaria, although their effectiveness in this field is now undermined by growing parasite resistance…

…in many settings across Africa, chloroquine has been placed in the front line against coronavirus.

Its rise stems partly from desperation, given Africa’s meager capacity to deal with a pandemic on the scale seen in Europe or the United States.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon and South Africa have swiftly authorized hospitals to treat virus patients with the drugs.

Around half of infected people in Senegal are already being prescribed hydroxychloroquine, Moussa Seydi, a professor at Dakar’s Fann Hospital, told AFP last Thursday.

Every patient who was recommended the drug accepted it, “with no exceptions,” he said.

In Democratic Republic of Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi last week declared it was “urgent” to produce chloroquine “in industrial quantities”.

My guess is that their long experience with the drug makes both the medical establishment and the population unafraid of it. There is also a black market:

“Local people have been buying it, apparently without prescription, which is dangerous.”

…Alice Desclaux, a doctor at the Institute of Development Research (IRD) in Senegal, said the risks from self-medication from chloroquine were largely rooted in illegal sales.

“Chloroquine has always been on sale informally in Africa,” she said.

“It’s still used to cause abortions” and even for attempted suicide, Desclaux said.

In one backstreet pharmacy in Douala, Cameroon’s economic hub, the manager said he had run out of stock. For anyone who wished to order some, “careful, the price has gone up,” he said…

The chloroquine craze is not just affecting the black market for drugs — it is also spurring the production of counterfeit medications.

The whole article is worth reading, although it’s from an early point in the pandemic. It could explain a lot.

And this is from an article written in June:

In Senegal and Madagascar for example, COVID-19 patients on hydroxychloroquine and the herbal remedy Artemisia annua have been observed to recover faster from the disease with lower deaths. In both countries, even with rising cases, recovery rates from Covid19 are much higher – consistent with the observations in most malaria prone countries. Interestingly, malaria is not prevalent in Africa’s Covid-19 hotspots of South Africa and North Africa.

Fascinating, I think.

Why are so many blue cities committing suicide?

The New Neo Posted on by

Stories like this about New York City’s decline may cause you to say “Remind me why I should care.” But they make me sad, because I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the suicide of a city such as New York, my home town and still the putative residence of many people I know. I remember times when New York was a wonderful place to live or to visit.

I realize that the city’s current slide began with the election of unrepentant far-leftist Bill de Blasio as mayor. But still – and despite the fact that because of term limits he’s not up for re-election – his destructive moves somewhat puzzle me.

He reminds me of a homeowner who can’t pay his mortgage, and so when his house is foreclosed on he seizes the opportunity to trash it prior to leaving. Is de Blasio merely having a nihilist and vengeful fit of pique? Or is he just too stupid to know the effect of his actions?

Or – and this is my leading theory – does he think that, before leaving office, he may as well move the Overton Window as far to the left as possible (policy-wise), because he thinks that from this time forward the New York voters will never again vote the left out of office? New York has a history of doing just that, of electing a Giuliani-type when the city sinks too low. Maybe de Blasio thinks some sort of critical mass of leftist voters has been reached, in which that can never happen again.

Whatever de Blasio is doing and for whatever reason, it seems that it’s catching. New York is not the only city that seems to be committing suicide. Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle are not far behind, with Chicago in there somewhere as well. And then there’s the state of California.

Reflections on wearing 18th Century clothing

The New Neo Posted on by

Suprisingly interesting – at least to me, and to the person speaking as well. This young woman wore 18th Century clothing for five years, and she talks about the experience. The talking part starts at 2:08.

The small tattoo on her left arm is, of course, not an example of historical accuracy. However, tattooed ladies were sideshow attractions in the circuses of the 1800 and 1900s:

These “Tattooed Ladies” were covered — with the exception of their faces, hands, necks, and other readily visible areas — with various images inked into their skin. In order to lure the crowd, the earliest ladies, like Betty Broadbent and Nora Hildebrandt told tales of captivity; they usually claimed to have been taken hostage by Native Americans that tattooed them as a form of torture. However, by the late 1920s the sideshow industry was slowing and by the late 1990s the last tattooed lady was out of business.

Just in time for the practice to go mainstream.

And this post wouldn’t be complete without…

2020 America: It’s Orwell crossed with Lewis Carroll

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s become difficult if not impossible to watch those video compilations of the left’s reaction on Election Night 2016 to their dawning realization that Donald Trump has won. The videos are no longer entertaining or funny, if in fact they ever were.

The reason? They chronicle the beginning of the psychosis that has gripped half of America, and that in the minds of that half, justifies anything and everything that can be used against Trump, including the most remarkably widespread duplicity on the part of politicians, pundits, and the press. It would be hard to watch those videos now without thinking that the people in them are so determined to avoid a 2020 repeat that they will stop at nothing to prevent one.

From commenter Barry Meislin:

And if the country has to be destroyed so as to “RESTORE” to power those truly deserving to be the rulers of the country, then destroying the country thus becomes THE moral crusade of our times. THE ethical imperative of the age.

What is fascinating /curious/nauseating — and yes, scary — is that so many liberal, decent, caring, ethical, moral, bright, talented, sophisticated and intelligent people have been persuaded that this is what must be done. Have bought the finely-wrought lies, the “moral imperative” — the EVIL — of those who wish to do all this hook, line, and sinker.

Have they not read their Orwell? Have they not pondered the brutal and perverse consequences of the mass brainwashing of entire groups and countries? (Some of the most cultured countries the world had ever known, in fact?)

Well, yes, they have, actually. But everything has been turned on its head. Everything is mirror-image.
Everything is topsy-turvy.

Their reality has been totally, entirely—successfully—perverted.
(Lewis Carroll has merged with George Orwell to create everything that the Founders feared…and yet nothing really new, known as it has been since at least the times of the Psalmist.)

So that Orwell shows them — proves to them — that Trump and his supporters must be destroyed. The tragedy and destruction of the 20th century, likewise proves to them that Trump must be thwarted.

How are such gross perversions corrected?
How are the brainwashed “deprogrammed”?
How is the listing ship righted?

I have often wondered how it is that so many people I know – well-meaning, intelligent, well-educated, ordinarily kindly – have subscribed to this philosophy. My only answer is that, if the left controls almost all sources – and certainly the sources those people read – the left can say anything and be believed. And it’s even better if the people live in a blue bubble, and if alternate sources are discredited as crazy, racist, stupid, and evil.

I have learned that most people are not curious about the other side. Most people are content with keeping up with news in a very minimalist way and not questioning it.

Recently I had an exceptionally interesting discussion with a friend of mine. She’s a Democrat and can’t stand Trump. But I’ve started talking to her now and then in the last month or two about politics, because she is a person with an open mind in general. And she surprised me greatly recently by volunteering that she watched the entire GOP convention this year. She added that, when she mentioned that fact to her friends, and asked them if they had watched, every single one said the equivalent of “no – why would I be interested?”

This surprised her. “Why wouldn’t they want to know what the other side is saying?” she asked me. My answer to her was that this was the difference that made her unusual. I said that in my opinion most people don’t want to know, don’t want to hear, don’t want to have their belief system challenged by anything that could threaten it.

She is different; she wants to know. I don’t know what causes that difference, but I certainly notice it.

The MSM: playing the “confirmation via gossip” game

The New Neo Posted on by

Is there anyone out there whose vote has been changed by the current MSM attack on Trump? You know, the one that quotes four anonymous sourcing as saying that Trump called American war dead “losers” and “suckers”?

I believe that most people made their minds up long ago on how to vote in the 2020 presidential race. As for anyone undecided, those people puzzle me, and so I can’t figure out what they think. But the MSM has lost so much credibility, and anonymous sources have been wrong so many times, that anyone paying a particle of attention would write this story off.

The press is trying to inflate the story by claiming it’s been “confirmed”:

And who are these witnesses? Well, that’s the problem: we don’t know. The Atlantic refuses to say who they are. The Atlantic claims that they want to remain anonymous. Why? Because they’re afraid of mean tweets. No, I am not making this up. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic actually said this and expected to be taken seriously.

So the story smells bad from the get-go.

The smell gets worse, though, as other witnesses in that meeting came forward denying that Trump said anything remotely like what is being claimed. And one of those witnesses is John Bolton, certainly no Trump fan…

There waa a lot of silly talk on social media over the weekend that the story has been “confirmed” by various news agencies, i.e the AP, Washington Post, and even Fox News. But what does “confirmed” mean in this context? See, it’s starting to sound a lot like the Ukraine hoax where some anonymous whistleblower said something which was attested to by some other guys who, as subsequent questioning revealed, weren’t first-hand witnesses at all. So their “confirmation” was pretty much worthless.

So basically what we have are news agencies “confirming” the story by pointing at other reporting the same thing. This is not reporting. This is a circle jerk.

Well:

Now Trump has not only denied he ever said that, but he’s added tweets saying “I never called John a loser.” That last bit piqued my interest, because I thought I remembered Trump calling McCain a loser for being captured during the Vietnam War, and the Snopes article I just linked quotes Trump saying that McCain was a loser, and criticizing his being captured.

Not Trump’s finest hour, IMHO.

However, I believe that the MSM would like the reader to think that Trump called McCain a “loser” because he was captured, and that this somehow confirms their hit piece in which they say he called war dead “losers.” Yes, Trump called McCain a loser, despite his denial. But it wasn’t for his Vietnam War record. It was because John McCain lost the 2008 election to Obama.

In other words, Trump called McCain a loser because McCain was a loser in 2008. Ho hum. The reason the topic of McCain’s being taken prisoner came up in that same interview was this:

[The discussion occurred at] an appearance then-candidate Trump made at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Conservative pollster Frank Luntz asked Trump if it was appropriate for a man running for the country’s highest office to refer to McCain — a war hero and navy pilot who became a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down over Vietnam — as a “dummy.”

Trump said: “He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don’t like losers.”

When Luntz repeated that McCain was a war hero, Trump said: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

So Trump did use the “loser” designation for McCain. But it was in the context of McCain’s 2008 loss. Trump even added that it was after that loss the he stopped liking McCain: “I never liked him as much after that…” Trump himself makes no link between the “loser” accusation and McCain’s war record; the link is Luntz’s, and Trump merely says that McCain wasn’t a war hero.

I’m so sick of the MSM. With very few exceptions, they have no integrity whatsoever. As General Sherman said:

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

In 2005 I wrote a lengthy post on the history of the anonymous source, and I reposted it here. As with so many things, it began with Watergate:

As trust in the press grew, it seems that the time-honored journalistic methods of sourcing, previously acting as a system of checks and balances against the power of the press, were now considered unnecessary.

The most famous anonymous source of them all, of course, was Deep Throat of Watergate fame. He was not only a seminal figure in Nixon’s denouement (and thus a hero to liberals everywhere), but he was so renowned that he had his own nickname, taken from a popular porn flick. It turns out that Deep Throat had another claim to fame: he was the trailblazer in the practice of relying on anonymous sources, now so commonplace in today’s journalism.

I had suspected all along that Watergate might be at the heart of it, but it was difficult to document when I first tried to do some online research on the subject. I finally struck pay dirt with this article [note: the link is now dead] from American Journalism Review…It turns out Watergate was indeed a watershed in the use of this practice.

I suggest you read the whole post. But here’s another quote (from another dead link, this time to a 1998 interview with Allen H. Neuharth, the founder of USA Today) [my emphasis]:

Traditionally journalists were taught to believe in accuracy above all else. And that changed. I think it changed with Watergate, and I think the anonymous source is the most evil thing that newspapers and the media have adopted or adapted in the last 25 years [said in 1998]. It started with Watergate, (when) journalists coming off college campuses (were) determined to be (Bob) Woodward or (Carl) Bernstein. They believed that because of Watergate’s successes there was dirt under every mat in front of every office. They came out as young cynics. The journalists of my generation were taught to be skeptics. And there’s a hell of a difference between a skeptic and a cynic. All you need to do is be accurate and fair.

Neuharth said that in 1998. I wrote the original post in 2005, and the revised version in 2017. Now I would add that today’s “journalists” are neither skeptics nor cynics. They are leftist true believers, working for a cause: the installation of a permanent leftist elite authority controlling the press, the government, and everything else. They are propagandists, and that should be clear by now to every single American.

In Canada, they do it with masks

The New Neo Posted on by

At least, that’s the official recommendation:

Skip kissing and consider wearing a mask when having sex to protect yourself from catching the coronavirus, Canada’s chief medical officer said on Wednesday, adding that going solo remains the lowest risk sexual option in a pandemic.

Dr Theresa Tam said in a statement there is little chance of catching COVID-19 from semen or vaginal fluid, but sexual activity with new partners does increase the risk of contracting the virus, particularly if there is close contact like kissing.

And I think it’s fitting that the recommendation comes from Canada, because Leonard Cohen – one of Canada’s greatest exports – anticipated it all:

Trump announces that the federal government will no longer sell anti-racist trainers the rope with which to hang ourselves

The New Neo Posted on by

Interesting:

Critical Race Theory, translated into racist “anti-racism” training, is a leftist ideology that has been shown to foster more racial hatred and tension. The groups behind it are quite explicit about wanting to utterly change our system, and about their support for far left philosophies and programs. They hide themselves in the righteous cloak of being against racism, but they are among the most racist elements of society and what they preach is for the most part a highly destructive racism. I have written about the phenomenon before, in greater detail

So no, the government shouldn’t be supporting and paying for these training sessions. It is a scandal that, until now, they have been doing so.

Here’s an excerpt from the official White House announcement:

It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date “training” government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda.

For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” or where they are required to say that they “benefit from racism.” According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.

These types of “trainings” not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. We can be proud that as an employer, the Federal government has employees of all races, ethnicities, and religions. We can be proud that Americans from all over the country seek to join our workforce and dedicate themselves to public service. We can be proud of our continued efforts to welcome all individuals who seek to serve their fellow Americans as Federal employees. However, we cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.

The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions. Accordingly, to that end, the Office of Management and Budget will shortly issue more detailed guidance on implementing the President’s directive.

I wonder how successful the MSM and the Democrats will be in their Orwellian campaign to brand this move of Trump’s as racist.