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Ruth King

Magazine Maoists successfully push writer Andrew Sullivan out of his job By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/magazine_maoists_successfully_push_writer_andrew_sullivan_out_of_his_job.html

Andrew Sullivan calls himself a conservative, although his politics could more accurately be described as “not socialist.” Despite his lean to the left, though, Sullivan made the same discovery that the New York Times’s Bari Weiss did: Unless you embrace completely the Marxism that is now the norm in media outlets, today’s young fascists will force you out.

On Friday, Sullivan explained why he was leaving New York Magazine. According to him, the magazine’s management had been great to him. The problem was that the magazine’s other employees are so far to the left that they cannot tolerate the slightest deviation from the party line. To the extent that Sullivan periodically deviated, they put pressure on the publisher to jettison him. So it was that, when Vox media, which owns New York Magazine, had to fire 6% of its staff because of a drop in revenue, Sullivan was on the chopping block.

In his farewell article, Sullivan explained that he perpetually offended the leftist writers and editors at the magazine, an offense that they internalized as actual physical violence, that he was no longer considered a viable writer:

A critical mass of the staff and management . . . seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here.

Margaret Thatcher: Retired, but Far from Retiring John O’Sullivan

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/06/margaret-thatcher-retired-but-far-from-retiring/

Margaret Thatcher embarked on 1989 at the height of her political authority at home and abroad. She was the recipient of Ronald Reagan’s last message as president, as she had been his last official visitor in November 1988. That visit had been a nostalgic celebration of their joint stewardship of the Anglo-American special relationship. She was the guest of honour at dinners given by Reagan and his successor George H.W. Bush and at a farewell lunch given by Secretary of State George Shultz. As a former Thatcher aide living in Washington, I was invited to the last of those occasions, which was bathed in an atmosphere of warm affection. She and Shultz had generally been on the same side in diplomatic rows and even inter-agency disputes within the administration—and to amused applause he gave her a large expensive handbag as a parting gift.

Most observers assumed that the British Prime Minister would continue to enjoy the same warm personal and political alliance with the first President Bush. They had been friends during the previous eight years, liked each other, and were on the same broad ideological wavelength. But the expectation of another Anglo-American partnership unravelled quite quickly.

Bush spent early 1989 conducting a review of foreign policy. The first smoke signals from it suggested that the Bush administration would be tougher than Reagan on the Soviets. That might have helped Thatcher, who since Reykjavik had worried that US policy was dangerously flexible on nuclear weapons. Soon, however, a different mood music began to be heard: the Brits were too obstructive not only on NATO but also on European integration; Germany was the leading economic power in Europe and US policy should reflect that; and Thatcher, though admirably brave and principled, could sometimes be rigid and preachy; and not least, Kohl, a loyal ally, needed NATO’s help to stay in office on the issue of medium- and short-range nuclear weapons in Europe, which Germans feared might one day be landing on both sides of their East-West border.

As Charles Moore makes clear in the third volume of his superb biography of Thatcher, it also became clear by degrees that though Bush liked Thatcher, he wasn’t comfortable or easy with her. He was too much the gentleman to say so. But his aides were not averse to taking her down a peg.

Xi Jinping’s Gambit: Not So Inscrutable Mervyn Bendle

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/china/2020/07/xi-jinpings-gambit-not-so-inscrutable/

What’s really behind the sudden belligerence of the Chinese Communist Party? Why is it so intent on picking fights with countries that are neither a threat to it nor wish to be? Why would a country so dependent upon overseas markets for its cheap consumer goods seek to alienate many millions of customers and force those markets to look elsewhere for supplies? Similarly, why would it alienate nations that are its principal suppliers of essential raw materials, and force them to look for new markets? And why would it want to destroy economies in which it has a very substantial capital investment? What might explain this seemingly self-destructive change in behaviour?

One explanation is that the CCP genuinely believes America is now a ‘paper tiger’, that China is now in pole position to become Global Hegemon, and that it can finally throw its weight around. In Australia’s case, it may be that we are being made an example to test both our national resolve and that of the West more generally. Clearly, the CCP believes it now has us tightly in its grip, and that its control of much of the Left, especially in Daniel Andrews’ Victoria, as well as the allegiance owed to it by most of Australia’s academic elite (buttressed by 13 Confucius Centres), along with its many agents of influence in the corporate world, the media, and key bureaucracies, means that we’re impotent to resist its demands and will ultimately do as we are told.

However, this article suggests an alternative or additional explanation: that this bellicose shift reflects not some new found confidence in the historic destiny of the CCP as Global Hegemon, but quite the opposite – that it may in fact reflect the growing re-emergence of a long-standing intrinsic weakness in the Chinese regime, one that’s been there from the outset and that might soon become apparent.

The simple fact: China is ruled as a personal dictatorship by President Xi Jinping, supported by his inner circle, relying on the de facto control of the country enjoyed by the CCP, exploiting the absence of an effective constitution. Combined with the fluidity of power and authority in the highest levels of governance, the endless manoeuvrings of various elites and claimants to power, the demands of the 90 million-strong CCP membership, and the approaching succession crisis (Xi is 67), this ramshackle arrangement ensures that endemic power struggles within the CCP might easily and quickly engulf the regime. Indeed, this may already be happening. Historically, such events led to the greatest disaster in modern Chinese history.

Iran’s Mullahs Celebrate More Rewards from the ‘Nuclear Deal’ by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16224/iran-nuclear-rewards

On June 30, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged the United Nations Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran. The Security Council was reluctant to do so. The UN Security Council’s unwillingness seems yet another indication of why the United States, having pulled out of the Human Rights Council and threatening to pull out of the World Health Organization in 2021, should finally go all the way and pull out of the whole “Club of Thugs” that the United Nations has become… At the very least, as has been suggested, “We pay for what we want. We insist [on] what we get, what we pay for. We abolish the system of mandatory contribution….”

The United Nations seems to have turned into a place that, instead of preventing war, preserves war.

“Iran is already violating the arms embargo, even before its expiration date. Imagine if Iranian activity were sanctioned, authorized by this group, if the restrictions are lifted. Iran will be free to become a rogue weapons dealer, supplying arms to fuel conflicts from Venezuela, to Syria, to the far reaches of Afghanistan.” — Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, UN Security Council, June 30, 2020.

In short, thanks to the previous administration, the Iranian regime, the top state sponsor of terrorism, is about to be legally free to buy and sell, and import and export advanced weapons across the world.

While Iran’s ruling mullahs have been celebrating their rewards from the nuclear deal — which, by the way, Iran never signed — according to its terms, the arms embargo against the Islamic Republic is scheduled to be lifted on October 18, 2020.

On June 30, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urged the United Nations Security Council to extend the arms embargo on Iran. The Security Council, however — particularly China — was reluctant to do so. The UN Security Council’s unwillingness seems yet another indication of why the United States, having pulled out of the Human Rights Council and threatening to pull out of the World Health Organization in 2021, should finally go all the way and pull out of the whole “Club of Thugs” that the United Nations has become. At the very least, as has been suggested, “We pay for what we want. We insist [on] what we get, what we pay for. We abolish the system of mandatory contribution….”

Rather than being the cure for world peace, the UN is now a major obstacle to world peace. The Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, once suggested at a meeting attended by Gatestone that if delegates to the UN are not allowed to vote in their own countries, they also should not be allowed to vote at the UN. The United Nations appears to have turned into a place that, instead of preventing war, preserves war.

The primary objective of any nuclear talks with Tehran should have been to halt Iran’s nuclear program permanently, thereby eliminating the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the region and removing the strategic threat that a nuclear armed Iran would pose to the world.

Media bias and bullying go well beyond Baris Weiss By Jack Hellner

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/media_bias_and_bullying_go_well_beyond_baris_weiss.html

The media, entertainers, educators and other Democrats claim they care deeply about bullying, diversity and women.

But they’ve shown very little support when a woman editor was bullied out of the NYT because, heaven forbid, she thought more than one opinion should be in the opinion page of the newspaper.

Bari Weiss Claims Bullying Led Her To Quit The New York Times

There is a lot of pretending going on that the reason the media is so hostile and one-sided today is because of President Trump, but they have been ripping and calling Republicans racists at least since Reagan.

They intentionally bury stories that don’t fit the agenda and will even endlessly attack and run stories, without evidence, to destroy Republicans.

All that seems to matter is getting more power for leftist Democrats and push for bigger government and less freedom for the people.

Most of the media sought to destroy Judge Brett Kavanaugh, with no evidence, while they intentionally buried true stories about Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton. A few stories, such as these, ran. But they got no wall-to-wall coverage the way Kavanaugh did.

Top 16: ‘Worst President In American History’ Trump Has ‘Rivers of Blood On His Hands’ Geoffrey Dickens

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2020/07/16/top-16-worst-president-american-history-trump-has-rivers-blood

Yikes! Lefty reporters and hosts went nuts over the last few weeks as they attacked Donald Trump as the “worst president in history” whose anti-pandemic efforts have left him with “rivers of blood on his hands.” 

Liberal journalists also distorted Trump’s patriotic speech at Mount Rushmore (that “grandiose symbol of U.S. imperialism”) as an attempt “to weaponize the anger and resentment of some white Americans for his own political gain.”

The following is a top 16 countdown of the most vicious anti-Trump attacks from the ultra-left media over the last few weeks: 

16. President Gets an “F”

Host Wolf Blitzer: “How badly is he [Donald Trump] failing right now in dealing with this spiraling crisis? 

Correspondent Nia-Malika Henderson: “He’s doing terribly. I mean, the President gets an ‘F’ in terms of the handling of this global pandemic.”

—  CNN’s The Situation Room, July 14. 

15. Like “George Wallace,” Trump Pursuing Voters Who Think Wrong Team Won the Civil War

Fake News Becomes a Way of Life By Michael Brendan Dougherty

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/media-fake-news-becomes-a-way-of-life/

The media has decided there’s more emotional satisfaction in failure than in performing the function with which the public entrusts it.

In December 2016, Ben Smith, then BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, wrote a memo to his staff that was meant to be a kind of charter for the dawning of the Trump Era. In truth it spoke to and aimed to speak for the entire mainstream media. Smith would eventually move on to the New York Times, which elevated him to a role as the supervisory voice of conscience for the whole media. But that December, he warned his staff of the danger of fake news, and the need of the media to be accurate and factual:

The information environment itself will become even more central to our coverage:

Fake news will become more sophisticated, and fake, ambiguous, and spun-up stories will spread widely. Hoaxes will have higher production value. It is, for instance, getting easier and easier to create video of someone saying something he or she never said — a tool both for fake news and false denials.

And powerful filter bubbles will drive competing narratives from parallel universes of facts.

The Times and The Atlantic have minted tens of thousands of new subscribers from across the nation since Trump’s election, readers who want to keep informed, even as their local newspapers shrivel into nothing. The importance of these institutions has lately been increased substantially by their ability to survive, grow, and set trends across a more tightly concentrated media environment. Their staffers have largely defined themselves as part of a resistance to Trump’s administration.

So how is the “information environment” now, three and a half years after Smith’s memo?

Gov. Noem’s advice for states dealing with COVID-19: Trust your citizens, don’t ‘lay down mandates’ The South Dakota Republican governor says her constituents ‘stepped up”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/kristi-noem-covid-governors-trust-people-dont-lay-down-mandates

U.S. governors should put their faith in the residents of their states and forgo stringent coronavirus mandates, South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem said Friday.

In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Noem told host Steve Doocy that her state is “doing really good” following President Trump’s Fourth of July visit, noting that cases “continue to decline.””I think what we did here in South Dakota is really remarkable because we gave people their freedom,” she said. “We let the businesses stay open, we let people go to work, we told them to be smart, and we also asked them to be personally responsible. And, we’re seeing benefits of that each and every day in South Dakota.”

On Thursday, the South Dakota Department of Health reported four new COVID-19 deaths, bringing the death toll up to 115. There were also 42 new cases confirmed — raising the state’s total to 7,694 — and hospitalizations are now at 757.

According to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there are now over 3.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States and more than 138,000 deaths.

However, whereas pandemic-ravaged states like Texas and California are home to millions, the U.S. Census Bureau shows Noem’s state at just over 884,000 residents.

“We did, in fact, we according to the national experts, did everything wrong,” she said. ” We did what the people on the ground saw. We aggressively addressed those situations, and came out better for it.

“So, I really think the people of South Dakota stepped up. They did the right thing and they trusted me. I trusted them and they made the right decision,” Noem stated.

Race and Equality A conversation Glenn Yu and Glenn C. Loury

https://www.city-journal.org/conversation-on-race-and-equality

On June 24, amid great cultural upheaval and unrest, Glenn Yu reached out to Glenn Loury, his former teacher, to record his thoughts about the current moment. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Glenn Yu: I’ve asked to speak to you because I find myself in the awkward position of being at once uncomfortable with the liberal stance on race that seems to deny the underlying reality of the black experience today while also being uncomfortable with conservatives who seem to disdain the George Floyd-related protests in a manner that makes it hard for me to believe that they have any empathy for the problems. I am also confused about whether it’s even my place to talk about these issues.

Glenn Loury: Well, I can’t exactly answer that question, but I happen to be suspicious about the assertion of authority based upon personal identity, such as being black. Let’s take this example. Were the actions we’ve all seen of the police officer in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, expressions of racial hatred? I happen to think that we have no reason to suppose that about him, absent further evidence. There are plenty of alternative explanations for his actions that could be given, from negligence to him just being a mean son of a bitch. Sure, we could project a motive onto him, onto the expression on his face, onto his smirk; we could feed thoughts into his head that make him symbolically emblematic of a certain trauma or sickness in American society, and this all may or may not be true. It might be true. But it might not be.

You may or may not have an opinion about that, but suppose the question were to arise in the dorm room late at night. Suppose you have the view that you’re not sure it’s racism, and then someone challenges you, saying, “you’re not black.” They say, “you’ve never been rousted by the police. You don’t know what it’s like to live in fear.” How much authority should that identitarian move have on our search for the truth? How much weight should my declarations in such an argument carry, based on my blackness? What is blackness? What do we mean? Do we mean that his skin is brown? Or do we mean that he’s had a certain set of social-class-based experiences like growing up in a housing project? Well, white people can grow up in housing projects, too. There are lots of different life experiences.

I think it’s extremely dangerous that people accept without criticism this argumentative-authority move when it’s played. It’s ad hominem. We’re supposed to impute authority to people because of their racial identity? I want you to think about that for a minute. Were you to flip the script on that, you might see the problem. What experiences are black people unable to appreciate by virtue of their blackness? If they have so much insight, maybe they also have blind spots. Maybe a black person could never understand something because they’re so full of rage about being black. Think about how awful it would be to make that move in an argument.

RISK- BY SYDNEY WILLIAMS

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Risk is confrontation with fear. Seventy years ago, my wife, as a young girl, would put on her roller skates and, with her older brother, sail down paths in New York’s Central Park. They went unaccompanied. At the same time, on a rocky farm in southern New Hampshire, I would get on my horse, along with a brother and/or sister, and gallop off along trails through the woods, also unaccompanied by an adult. Any concern our parents may have had, they kept to themselves. They loved us as much as we love our children. We were told to be careful; we respected their advice. Nevertheless, we took risks.

Immigrants, from the early 17th Century to today’s migrants, did and do take risks. The earliest immigrants had no idea what they would find when they set sail across an unmapped sea, yet they were willing to take a chance that a better and freer life could be had than the one left behind. Social media, communications and government largesse have mitigated those risks, but emigration is still a leap into the unknown.

Success is impossible without risk. Entrepreneurs take risks, as do writers, musicians and artists. However, in all societies, risk-taking is never ubiquitous. Success comes to the talented and the aspirant – and those willing to take risks. The result is a society unequal in outcomes, but a fair one. What makes for a fair society are equal opportunities and the willingness to take risks, to grab the ladder’s rungs and make one’s way up, step by step. Consider the obstacles overcome by Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Clarence Thomas. At birth, neither had material advantage. Both were born in rural poverty. What they had was diligence, a desire for self-improvement and a willingness to take risks. They both recognized that victimhood was not the answer. While they were endowed with aspiration, dedication and intellectual talent, they knew they had to take risks and work harder than their peers.