RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/06/peak-cancel-culture-dont-bet-on-it/

Last week it was a book by Ryan Anderson and a speech by Donald Trump. This week it is some books by Dr. Seuss. We don’t call it “totalitarianism” for nothing.

Here’s a question that I do not know the answer to: Is the current insanity of “cancel culture” cresting or just getting started? 

Last week in this space, I told you about how Amazon suddenly and without any explanation decided to delist Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment from all its emporia—audible.com and abebooks.com as well as Amazon itself. (The link I provide goes directly to the publisher). 

We published that book at Encounter some three years ago. Why did Amazon, the self-described “world’s largest book store,” finally get around to placing it on their unofficial but still very potent Index Librorum Prohibitorum? Since Amazon has thus far refused to enlighten us, I don’t know.

Yes, the retail giant flagged a new policy that permits it to refuse to sell works that are “inappropriate and offensive” or that trade in “hate speech.” But Anderson’s book is a serious, deeply researched, and humane investigation of a deeply controverted public issue. Some people might disagree with his analysis or his conclusions. Does that make it “inappropriate and offensive”? Does it render it an instance of “hate speech”?

Let’s pause here for a moment. “Inappropriate” and “offensive” describe a wide range of expressions. “Hate speech,” when you come down to it, is really just shorthand for “speech that I do not like.” A free society allows, indeed encourages, robust disagreement. Some may find your expression of certain opinions “inappropriate” and/or “offensive.” But a free society does not interdict in your expressing of them because, while it values comity and good manners, it also values free expression and open debate. 

The Way We Live Now

That said, almost everyone apart from extreme libertarians would admit that there are limits. The expression of some ideas is forbidden in almost all societies. Where are our limits? We know that Amazon thinks it is OK if people express certain kinds of inappropriate and offensive opinions because it cheerfully sells Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, anti-Semitic fantasia deriving from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and various writings by Louis Farrakhan and other anti-white writers. (This is not by any means a complete list of books that some or many consider inappropriate and/or offensive that Amazon sells.) 

Yet Anderson’s scholarly investigation of transgenderism doesn’t make the cut. What does that tell us about “the way we live now”? 

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/as-the-insurrection-narrative-crumbles

Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.

First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. “Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony,” announced CNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that “the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.”

The resulting clampdowns were as extreme as the dire warnings. Washington, D.C. was militarized more than at any point since the 9/11 attack. The military was highly visible on the streets. And, described The Washington Post, “state capitols nationwide locked down, with windows boarded up, National Guard troops deployed and states of emergency preemptively declared as authorities braced for potential violence Sunday mimicking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump rioters.” All of this, said the paper, “reflected the anxious state of the country ahead of planned demonstrations.” 

But none of that happened — not even close. The Washington Post acknowledged three weeks later:

Despite warnings of violent plots around Inauguration Day, only a smattering of right-wing protesters appeared at the nation’s statehouses. In Tallahassee, just five armed men wearing the garb of the boogaloo movement — a loose collection of anti-government groups that say the country is heading for civil war — showed up. Police and National Guard personnel mostly ignored them.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/psaki-biden-press-conference-before-end-month

AFTER 43 DAYS, BIDEN HASN’T HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday President Biden will hold a press conference before the end of the month. 

Nearly six weeks into the new job, Biden has not held a formal conference with reporters. Donald Trump took 28 days to take questions from the press, while Barack Obama did it after only 21 days in office and George W. Bush took 34 days.

Biden was not known for addressing reporters during his campaign either.

Biden has taken brief questioning from reporters in other settings, as Psaki pointed out, and given interviews to some news outlets. 

“The president takes questions several times a week. He took questions actually twice yesterday,” Psaki said. ‘’We look forward to holding a full press conference. We’re working on setting a final date for that and as soon as we do we will let you all know,” she continued. 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/06/senate-approves-bidens-19t-pandemic-relief-plan-473920

The Senate passed President Joe Biden’s nearly $2 trillion coronavirus relief package Saturday morning after a grueling overnight session, delivering on the White House’s first major legislative priority.

The 50-49 vote, entirely along party lines, came after the Senate remained in session for more than 24 hours of marathon votes. Senate Republicans sought to amend the legislation but Senate Democrats largely stuck together to defeat any major changes to the bill — one of the largest federal aid packages in history.“A new day has come and we tell the American people help is on the way,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), shortly before passage. The bill “is broader, deeper, and more comprehensive in helping working families and lifting people out of poverty than anything Congress has seen or accomplished in a very long time.”

Schumer managed to keep his 50-member caucus mostly united throughout the process, but it was not without some last-minute drama: The so-called vote-a-rama session was delayed for more than 10 hours on Friday, as Senate Democrats reached a last-minute deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the size of federal unemployment insurance benefits.

 http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/25168/fomenting-race-wars

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com  http://lindagoudsmit.com

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a binary theoretical framework rooted in Marxism, that defines individuals as either oppressed or oppressors based on their skin color. Critical Race Theory insists that white people are oppressors and people of color are oppressed. CRT is an obscene and entirely unAmerican doctrine because it views every individual through the prism of race, rather than the prism of merit.

Two notable black leaders in American race relations had diametrically opposed views on the subject. Martin Luther King advocated the American ideal of judging a person on the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Malcolm X embraced the anti-American, CRT prism that judges everyone and everything through the prism of race. What could be more racist?

The entire narrative of CRT is racist. So, why is racist CRT being taught in American schools? Why is racist CRT considered woke [enlightened]? Why did President Trump ban racist CRT, and why has Biden/Harris resurrected it? What is the point? What is the motive for fomenting racism?

The goal of Critical Race Theory devotees and their cancel-culture campaign is to foment race riots and a race war in the United States. WHAT? I will repeat. The goal of CRT devotees and their cancel-culture campaign is to foment race riots and a race war in the United States of America. How is CRT and its racist white privilege narrative designed to foment a race war?? Saul Alinsky provides the answer in his infamous tactical primer, Rules for Radicals. Alinsky instructs radicals to, “Rub raw the the resentments of the people. . . . all issues must be polarized if action is to follow.” (p.116/133 Vintage)

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/02/citing-wikipedias-leftist-bias-and-propaganda-sites-co-founder-launching-competing-free-speech-site/

“The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone”

Long understood to be a an unreliable resource by serious academics, journalists, and bloggers, Wikipedia has more recently gained a broader reputation for leftwing bias.

Indeed, one of its co-founders notes that Wikipedia entries on socialism and communism are little more than propaganda and that he is launching a competing free-speech encyclopedia site.

Once considered a somewhat viable place to get a rudimentary handle on a topic, Wikipedia has arguably become a repository of “left-wing advocacy essays.”  This change does not sit well with one of Wikipedia’s co-founders, Larry Sanger.

Fox News reports:

Big tech has faced repeated accusations of bias and censorship, but one platform has escaped much scrutiny: Wikipedia.

The online encyclopedia, which claims “anyone can edit”, is the 13th most popular website in the world, according to Alexa’s web rankings. Google gives it special placement in search results.

But critics – including Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger – tell Fox News that many Wikipedia pages have become merely left-wing advocacy essays.

“The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone,” co-founder Larry Sanger said.

“Wikipedia’s ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work,” he added.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/philip-carl-salzman/2021/03/05/lies-of-the-racism-industry-n1430366

Nothing has been more common during the last years than accusations of “racism.” President Biden has said that he is going to lead a “great battle…to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country.” This great “anti-racism” crusade is not directed at anti-Semites who despise Jews and blame the ills of the world on them. Nor is it aimed at the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslims, who hate whites and especially Jews. Yet these cases would seem to qualify as racism. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “racism” as “Belief in superiority of a particular race; antagonism between different races.” The Random House Dictionary of the American Language defines “racism” as “a belief that human races have distinctive characteristics that determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.”

But contrary to common usage as specified in dictionaries, racism has been redefined by sociologists as “prejudice plus power,” so that only white people, who are falsely claimed to exclusively hold all of the power, can be said to be racist. This is convenient for the anti-racism industry, because once racism is so defined and white people identified as power-holders, then all whites are automatically white supremacists. Now a definition cannot be said to be a lie, because it is always an arbitrary investing of meaning in a word or phrase, but it can be said to be a novel usage, deviant from common understanding, and it can be identified as tendentious, aimed at advancing a presumed conclusion prejudicial to some party. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-swalwell-sues-trump-over-alleged-role-in-capitol-assault/ar-BB1ehpJX?ocid=Peregrine

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Friday, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell has sued former President Donald Trump and some of his allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr., personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and GOP Rep. Mo Brooks, over their alleged roles in the events leading up to and surrounding the Capitol assault on Jan. 6.

In the 65-page suit, Swalwell, who was a House impeachment manager during Trump’s second Senate trial, alleges that they all directly incited the violence at the U.S. Capitol by putting out “a clear call to action” that some in the crowd responded to.

“Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol that followed and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun,” the lawsuit alleges.