Ponderable

ANUARY 1, 2019
The Only Privilege in America is Liberal Privilege
By Christopher Chantrill
As lefty online dictionaries showcasing their lefty words of the year to review 2018 -- such as the “toxic” in toxic masculinity, toxic culture, and toxic environment -- I redeclare the following from 2015, without fear of contradiction:

The only privilege in America is Liberal Privilege.

Item: Michelle Alexander of the New York Times. Reported by Christopher DeGroot, she writes that none of us deserve to be Americans by the privilege of “birthright” citizenship. Okay, Ms. Privileged Times Writer, then prove your bona fides by giving up your privileged job to an educated migrant.

Item: AntiFa protesters in Portland and San Francisco, reported by Kevin Williamson. There is no greater privilege than for police to stand by and fail to enforce the law while the little darlings of the ruling class destroy the property of innocent citizens that are not licensed and bonded little darlings or the ruling class. Hey, AntiFa, why not try your mostly peaceful protesting where the police actually enforce the law -- even, Gaia forbid, on mostly peaceful lefty protesters.

Item: An anti-Semitic lefty group tweeting to kick a Jewish cafe owner out of San Francisco for supporting Israel. Anyone an inch right of center-left would be kicked off Twitter for that. Hey Jack, how about cracking down on those lefty haters?

Item: Catherine Blasey Ford's cock-and-bull story about being assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh nearly half a century ago when they were both teenagers. Do not try this tactic if you are a conservative woman attacking a liberal Supreme Court nominee.

And so on.

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I'm in India right now, and back in the day, the Mughal emperors had audience halls, divans, at which they heard the petitions of the people. I don't expect that these demi-gods believed too much in the notion of justice for the people, but they knew enough to keep the natives from getting restless. They at least pretended to care.

But here we are in America 2018, and if there is one thing we know these days is that the left doesn't believe in justice for people like you and me. That's what all the rubbish about toxic masculinity and white privilege is all about. Justice is only a thing for the ruling class and its little darlings. That is the point of left-wing politics ever since Marx. There are the good guys, the activists and intellectuals, dedicated to the holy work of bending the arc of history towards justice; there are the necessary victims for whom the activists selflessly advocate and mostly peacefully protest. And then there are the bad guys, starting with the bourgeoisie, followed by the racists, then the sexists, the homophobes, and now the transphobes, the white supremacists, and the toxic fill-in-the-blanks. But don't entertain for one moment that you deplorables have the right to appear in the audience hall of your liberal lord and expect anything approaching a redress of grievances. You will notice that the rulers’ governing philosophy precludes this possibility, because they have already convicted you of toxic masculinity, white supremacy, or whatever the current activists have decided upon as the social crime du jour.

So here we have the kings and lords of old, who apparently felt that part of the art of ruling was to give their subjects the idea that their liege lord cared about hearing their grievances and even delivering equal justice under the law.

And we have our modern progressives, who do not believe that the people they have branded as toxic or as supremacist have a right to a hearing or to justice. That is because their politics has already determined who has a right to be heard and who has already been heard from too often. Simply put, activists and victims have a right to be heard, and a right to the redress if grievances; everything else is negotiable.

My line is that this attitude misunderstands the nature of justice and the nature of government. You can see it playing out in the yellow vest riots in France. The French ruling class had decided to fight climate change and was monstrously offended when the French people objected. Now, much too late, President Macron realizes he has a problem. Maybe if the president had held regular audiences -- as kings did in olden times -- at which ordinary people could air their grievances, he would not have been blindsided.

When you think about it, it is obvious that left-wing politics is fake politics. Instead of allowing the grievances of the people to develop organically, our modern elite creates an artificial politics with its activists -- who do not represent the people but are instead the bribed apologists of the ruling class pretending to be the voice of the people. That’s why I say:

The only privilege in America is Liberal Privilege.
 
My real take is that the #metoo / diversity push in the entertainment / media fields is getting closed to having crested. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is a question I'll leave up to the readers to decide, but I base that opinion on the follow three thoughts:

1. Outrage is a tough emotion to use to sell newspapers and movie tickets. For example, a year from now I doubt Keira Knightley would still be able to get top billing in the New York Times with the headlines about how much easier life would be if she had a penis. Nor will you find CNN leading with stories about a black wrestler being made to cut his dreads, over stories about Trump pulling troops out of Syria. My take on it is outrage demands a lot from the viewers, and for better or worse, people will get exhausted.
If anything we'll start seeing more stories about school teachers seducing students, or unmentioned topics more along the lines of a (hypothetical) Rosy O'Donnell type character taking advantage of young actresses, or a (hypothetical) Barbra Bush type forcing herself on a pool boy, or exposes on how some of these viral videos are basically setups. And of course once #metoo / diversity starts cutting both ways a lot of folks are going to want to drop it.

2. The accused are no longer going to run off in shame ala' Al Franken or Garrison Keillor. Just take Louis CK for an example. I think even he'd admit he's a pervert... but he's also very smart, very talented, quite capable of pointing out the hypocrisy in the people coming after him and I would also imagine very pissed off. At the end of the day entertainment and selling newspapers is a business. And if folks will pay to watch and hear what Louis CK types have to say- it's going to become increasingly hard to shout these people down if they stop slinking off.

3. Lastly I would make the point that after a year of seeing diversity in action... we all have agree black and female entertainers and news professionalists have proven they can do the job as well as white men. However objectively I would also admit that so far I don't see an wildly new perspectives to the craft film making coming from this push for diversity, that are in anyway comparable to say what black Jazz and the Blues artists did for music. Or that is say uniquely feminine in the way burlesque dancing is. If anything... it sure feels like in this past years push for diversity we saw what was a uniquely Latin genera of Fantastic Realism (Birdman, The Shape of Water) get left behind. As I said before, rightly or wrongly, if diversity doesn't bring a unique perspective that we can all point to and say it wouldn't have been possible otherwise... my guess is people are going to quickly get bored with it.
t has taught us that deny, deny, deny and lie, lie, lie works with a certain part of the electorate (GP).

. . . and you need to watch more shorts.
 
DECEMBER 31, 2018
Roaming mob of 'urban youth' terrorized Chicago's 'Magnificent Mile' in below-freezing weather, sent Asian bystander to the hospital
By Thomas Lifson
Cold weather no longer is acting as a deterrent to the marauding mobs of teenagers (of no particular demographic characteristic, according to Chicago mainstream media) roaming through Chicago's showcase shopping district along Upper Michigan Avenue around the Water Tower. News of the attack could not be ignored, because the famous Water Tower Place Mall had to be closed and because the mob sent an innocent bystander waiting on a subway platform to the hospital.

CWB Chicago, the feisty neighborhood blog that does not shy away from facing Chicago's descent toward anarchy, reports:

At least four people were injured and CTA Red Line traffic was snarled as large groups of teens and young adults brought havoc to the Magnificent Mile on Saturday evening. One arrest was made.

Alderman Brian Hopkins (2nd) tweeted at 7:47 p.m. that "Water Tower Place will be closing at 8 p.m. tonight due to mob action by large crowds of juveniles."

The latest Mag Mile mob scene began around 5 p.m. when a victim reported being battered near the Red Line station at State and Chicago. A man was arrested in connection with that attack.

At the same time, employees of a nearby McDonald's reported 50 teenagers fighting inside the restaurant at 10 East Chicago. After being pushed from the restaurant, the group headed to Water Tower Place, where a disturbance was reported on the second floor at 5:45 p.m. Police estimated the crowd to be 50- to 60-strong.

Police moved the teens out of the mall and followed the group as it headed east toward the lake and then back to Water Tower, sparking widespread reports of assaults and fighting.

By 6:30 p.m. the mob began making its way back to the Red Line station at Chicago and State. The H&M store reported being struck by a large number of shoplifters and the McDonald's again reported being overrun by the mob.

Once on the Red Line platform, members of the group began beating up people at random. Three people filed police reports for battery and an ambulance was summoned to treat the victims.

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The subway station where the attack took place.
Photo credit: Chicago Transit Authority.


Thanks to a report in the Sun-Times that was later scrubbed but preserved by CWB, we know that:

Yue Lei, 28, Chicago, was beaten by a group of teenagers about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 29 while waiting for a train at the Chicago and State Red Line station. His glasses were broken and his hand, lip and eye were injured.

As a later version of the report noted, Mr. Lei asked not to be identified:

About 7:30 p.m., the victims were waiting for a train at the Chicago station, 800 N. State St., when the teens stepped onto the platform, according to Chicago police. One of the people in the group then asked a 26-year-old man if he was recording them, which he denied.

The horde of teens then approached the man, a 29-year-old woman and her 28-year-old boyfriend and started punching them, according to police and the victims, who asked not to be named.

All three were treated at the scene for bruising and lacerations, according to Chicago Fire Media Affairs.

The 28-year-old, who has lived in Chicago for three years, said he later went to University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, where he learned that his eye socket was fractured.

Mr. Lei evidently fears reprisals. His girlfriend, who traveled half the continent to be with him, told the Sun Times that he prudently is moving:

The woman who was struck had traveled to Chicago to visit him from San Jose, California. Disillusioned by the violence, he now plans to move to a "safer area" and avoid public transportation.

Second City Cop, the Chicago cop blog also unshackled from political correctness, asks the obvious question:

[W]ait a second, was this a hate crime? Fifty against three? Damn – once again, the media fails to describe even a single offender except as a "teen."

The transit police promise close examination of CCTV footage. We'll see who, if anyone, is brought to justice.

Meanwhile, Chicagoans can look forward to (or dread) the return of warmer weather. CWB remembers what warmer weather brings to Chicago's showcase shipping district.

Other cases were reported in early May, on Memorial Day weekend, and on Thanksgiving weekend.
 
Trump Is Right to Withdraw From Syria
The U.S. military presence in Syria has not been authorized by Congress, is illegal under international law, lacks a coherent strategy, and carries significant risks.
Thursday, December 20, 2018

https://fee.org/articles/trump-is-right-to-withdraw-from-syria/

Anyone who favors a U.S. military presence in Syria should be calling for Congress to formally authorize it. That process will require making a strong public case that deployment is required to preempt an immediate threat to U.S. security and that the mission has coherent, achievable goals that clearly define what victory looks like. Otherwise, our presence in Syria is illegitimate.
 
Don't agree with everything he says, but it's an interesting read none the less...


“Stop Assuming that Everything You Feel or Think Is Right”—An Interview with Robert Greene
https://quillette.com/2019/01/01/st...ink-is-right-an-interview-with-robert-greene/

Robert Greene is the author of The 48 Laws of Power and most recently, The Laws of Human Nature. His books, which are popular with many world leaders, celebrities, professional athletes and hip hop stars like Drake, have sold more than 5 million copies and have been translated into over 30 languages. Robert’s raw, “amoral” look at history and the dynamics of power, seduction, and warfare have always been controversial—indeed, his books are banned in many prisons across the United States. This interview about political correctness, the bloody cost of the denial of human nature, and the inner-work required for rational thought was conducted for Quillette by Ryan Holiday, his former apprentice, over the phone from Austin, Texas while Robert recovers in Los Angeles from a near-fatal stroke he suffered in August, 2018. The text has been lightly edited for clarity.

* * *

Ryan Holiday: I thought we’d start with this idea of human nature itself. There are certain people who have almost come to believe that there’s no such thing as human nature. Maybe it makes them uncomfortable or they don’t like the idea. Why do you think it’s something that we need to look at with open eyes?

Robert Greene: Well, because looking at reality is always better. The people who don’t believe that human nature is something real, who believe that humans are malleable and that we make our own nature, generally want to believe that we are perfectible by some kind of government or system. It has traditionally been a kind of a communist socialist revolutionary idea. And the idea is that by creating the right kind of system or government, you can alter what corrupted us (which they maintain was done by social injustice, the rise of large civilizations, and the oppression and the accumulation of capital, et cetera.) They believe that if we go back and alter this system, we can return to that kind of pure human being. This is what I wrote about the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong—Mao wanted to recreate human nature. That’s always been the belief and it’s kind of a mix of wishes that humans were really this kind of angelic creature in the beginning and that we can return to that.

And what I’m trying to say is humans can change, we can alter, we could become something superior, but only by really coming to terms with who we are and getting over this myth of the Garden of Eden—of the fallen human being who was once so angelic just 5,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago. But I think the evidence is clear looking at our chimpanzee ancestors and the record of early homo sapiens that we do have aggressive, violent impulses, that we are pretty much irrational by nature, and that the kinds of qualities that we value can only come about through personal work, through conquest, through overcoming our tendencies that are kind of animal-like. And that rather than some government that’s going to perfect us, it’s the work of individuals being conscious and aware of who they are as opposed to being in denial. There’s a quote from Angela Carter that I’ve used in several books: “We want to believe that we’re descended from angels instead of primates.”

RH: You mentioned Mao. The track record of people who have tried to either deny that human nature exists or who have tried to change it by brute force—they’ve left a lot of bodies in their wake. haven’t they?

RG: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah.

RH: So, that being said, why do people keep trying? Why is it so hard for us to accept it?

RG: Well, it’s really coming to terms with some harsh realities. We want to believe [certain things and] we have a certain opinion of ourselves that persists to this day. You see it in newspaper articles about us and about how people respond to my book, and to writers like Steven Pinker. Pinker, who’s very well respected, will accumulate a lot of research material and statistics to try to show that we are perfecting ourselves. There is some truth to this idea. He’s not linking it to a return to the Garden of Eden, he’s linking it to this sort of progression that we’re going through and we’re becoming enlightened in technology and science and rationality and getting over religion. So we can debate his research and his statistics and his studies forever, and there will always be people who support it. But the reason people keep returning to it is that it’s extremely seductive. It holds up this sort of idealized mirror of who we are as if it’s not a matter of effort, of coming to terms with our shadow, or coming to terms with our ugly aspects of our nature, but rather through a new government or technological progress and beauties of science that we’ve all just naturally become progressive.

This is a huge part of human nature. Always wanting to take the path of least resistance. We want shortcuts to believe that there’s an easy route to something that we want. Almost like you take a pill or you just sign up to take this course, or you have a communist revolution where it federates. That’s a childlike belief, and I think it’s very dangerous and it leaves the body count, as you say, very high.

...you can finish reading the article at https://quillette.com/2019/01/01/st...ink-is-right-an-interview-with-robert-greene/
 
I misspoke in one of my posts earlier today when I said Hannity's shows rating had dropped 20% from last year. They actually dropped 19% from the November election and are down 17% on the year.

Fox News Host Sean Hannity Has Seen His Ratings Fall as Buddy Donald Trump’s Problems Have Increased
https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-h...-his-ratings-fall-buddy-donald-trumps-1272554
I stopped watching Hannity when he went into the tank for trump during the primaries.
 
t has taught us that deny, deny, deny and lie, lie, lie works with a certain part of the electorate (GP).

. . . and you need to watch more shorts.


Yes you are citing the Democratic Mantra.....and you need
to check your shorts, yours are filling up quick with
Democratic Donkey Poop.
 
Yes you are citing the Democratic Mantra.....and you need
to check your shorts, yours are filling up quick with
Democratic Donkey Poop.

So much anger and poop talk. Spanky, why do I get the idea by the end of the day your mom's going to send you bed with out your dinner again?
 
Hillary Clinton taught t everything he needs to know about politics....you need to grow a brain.

Huh? She certainly didn't teach him much about tweeting or populist rhetoric... which I'd say are his two greatest political strengths.

Although do you read his twitter feed lion? Something is going on and he's really struggling. Imagine having this great dexterity on Twitter, where you can just slay your political enemies like Lying Ted and Crooked Hillary... and then when you're back is against the wall and you really need to call on that strength it totally fails you. I almost feel sorry for him.
 
Huh? She certainly didn't teach him much about tweeting or populist rhetoric... which I'd say are his two greatest political strengths.

Although do you read his twitter feed lion? Something is going on and he's really struggling. Imagine having this great dexterity on Twitter, where you can just slay your political enemies like Lying Ted and Crooked Hillary... and then when you're back is against the wall and you really need to call on that strength it totally fails you. I almost feel sorry for him.
t, like these nutters in here, has led a sheltered life . . . both are simply unable to readily process information in a normal, human, manner.
 
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