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On Friday, one of these newspapers published an official letter of thanks to the Party functionary set up as the executive of the company. Pretty quick, these guys.
It's hard to translate, but the letter immediately brings to mind a classic commie-era comedy that satirizes this kind of sycophantism. The only catch is, you know, back then it was about the commies, so it's kind of, no John, you are the zombies. One wonders how could they not feel the cringe.
So, comes the question, what exactly is this Cultural Marxism they fight? Well-functioning government? Insufficience of corruption or nepotism? Not enough degenerate state socialism? Clearly, it is not the homosexual menace (although I'm sure they'll get to it in time).
Joe Biden confirmed to be elf
That, or he tossed one at least on one occasion in his life.
Gerrymandering simulator lol
I was actually here the 14th and I meant to post;
Can we please agree the whole made up "Office of the President-Elect" thing is kind of dumb.
Let me explain this theoretically:
Journalists lean severely liberally and editor's rooms reflect that and amplify it, creating an echo chamber that kicks danged Bari Weiss and Kevin Williamson out. Taking that machine down and replacing it with a right-wing or even actually centrist cultural language makes sense.
I don't want to get into a whole thing, but there was a time this June-July when all the major corporations suddenly spoke with one voice in regards to Black Lives Matter, and over the last two years nobody not Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax said a major positive thing about Donald Trump or Republicans in general (unless it was a Trump vs. Republicans story).
If you're in power and still can't control the cultural narrative in general (not just in terms of cultural marxism, but the whole language spoken and how it is spoken), that's a major problem for you because it'll certainly get you demolished.
The pretense of "the media represents free speech" becomes super obviously wrong when you stand on the side nobody wants to write properly about.
For examples this week; Richard Grenell was accused of working with modern German Nazis this week in the BBC a year after he became the first US Ambassador to Germany to lead a major Holocaust vigil/procession, Betsy DeVos was smeared as having tried to leave sychophants in the Department of Education when the whole way her speech was reported was just wholly incorrect.
Meanwhile, Vanity Fair published a puff piece about Now Seriously Officially Under Investigation Hunter Biden. No one with the last name Trump would ever get that type of favorable coverage.
Breitbart had to set up it's own fashion section to cover Melania Trump's looks because nobody else would dare do it.
In reality, I don't know that the Polish government's goals are these I've discussed here.
This week Conservatives v. Prostitution and Adult Film came to quite a head. It started about two weeks ago when an NYT opinion article brought to light how P**nHub/MindGeek frequently leave up videos of under-18 performers, most non-consensual, on their site due to the sheer volume of uploads and lack of any oversight.
"Lack of oversight" involving things like girls actually pleading for months for the things to be taken down and not really being paid attention to.
So after the typical threats from it's revenue streams, MindGeek scraped the site of half it's content.
Meanwhile, conservatives on twitter (mostly, not The Federalist, as I've explained) talked about how yes, this was horrible, but so is adult film in general and most especially OnlyFans' exploitative model during this time. In addition, it's often unclear if any adult film performers have been trafficked and the general lifestyle that leads to many more deaths of despair than anywhere near typical.
At some point, since this is a conflated issue, this came to involve prostitution, and how it's "real work" and etc etc. Some big liberal account actually found it incredulous to believe visiting a prostitute was not Cool and Alpha Chad and by that point it was clear things had gotten out of hand.
A-ny-ways, later on, a Real Life gay adult film star (who yes, I had heard of beforehand) weighed in with a big conservative account, and by George did he weigh in.
From what I read of his tweets (at least, what he says), he suffers from dyslexia, discalculia, and another learning disability I cannot remember. He began performing in adult film (and the prostitution side-work since the internet cheapened adult film*) when his partner was diagnosed with some condition he wouldn't specify (but it's not HIV/AIDS) and he needed to help with his costly treatments (though the guy is British and so you'd think this were covered under the NHS).
From his perspective, this was all to prove that adult film actors and prostitutes are marginalized. In service of this, he used the fact that he was always scared of being assaulted or killed when he went on an escort call.
When I read all of this, I felt really, really sad. I mean he was diagnosed with learning disorders but never helped out by those who diagnosed him, and I'm not sure why he couldn't do a trade, but that's irrelevant. He's where he is now.
The guy has been in the industry for half a decade, and so I wonder how much the whole Sex Work Positive and Marginalized view have influenced him continuing with it (though he did mention the stigma that comes along with the role influencing other possible work, but it probably doesn't stop him becoming a personal trainer or checkout shop guy).
Anyways, in addition to this there's from guys who have just flamed out on heroin (it's always heroin and I'm not sure why), and there's one big deal guy who for years just violently, publicly oscillates between the studio he works for and what seems like a cultish offshoot of the Mormon church.
This all makes me just feel really terrible about the whole adult film industry, especially the gay stuff with the teenage Czech boys from small towns with zero money and creepy old agent guys ready to pounce on them and make them "stars".
Mainly, I just really felt sorry for the one British guy.
By the way, just to be clear fourteenwings is a pure pure angel who does not watch adult film and all of these stories about gay adult film stars come secondhand from the gay mafia or from a "friend". That guy's obsessed.
*Oh yeah; everybody says adult film is cheap and I guess the main production sites are constantly offering "$8/month for LIFE!!!" discounts but the typical sticker costs for joining a major site appear to be like $150-300 dollars so as much as I feel really really bad for everybody in gay adult film suddenly and disagree with theri life choices they are also probably totally getting stiffed in a way that's not in their contracts.
They have had the state television for the last five years and they've turned it into the shit not seen since 1989, if you know what I mean. There are three TV stations (I'd say channels but each of them are like a bunch under a common banner) of primary importance here: one is public, one is anti-current government, one is kinda-sorta on the fence. The public was supposed to be BBC, is Pravda now. The "anti-" is owned by an American company, so every time the Party tries anything funny, the embassy sets them in place, and while there's always much barking, ultimately they grudgingly let it be. The on-the-fence is owned by a local guy, who seems to have struck some sort of a deal with the Party behind closed doors, judging by the fact the news service mellowed out about the time he got a new yacht or something; also, while the Party can't lay a finger on the Americans, they can lay a finger on him.
In addition to that, they have two friendly or fellow-travelling TV channels and at least one radio channel, and a bucketload of newspapers and magazines.
So they have the state media, now a bunch of local media titles is state media in all but name, and they also have a bunch of media titles that are friendly to them.
But, yes, the Party does seem to have a huge complex over the fact that a part of the media sphere is not buying them uncritically, one it's been harbouring since, like, the nineties. It appears to be a psychological issue. If I am to follow that way of thinking, then, indeed, I'm inclined to say you explained to me what cultural marxism is.
Good you're out of the closet on this.
But I don't think that's a thing this world will be getting any time soon.
To be fair, though it's widely seen as a myth, conservatives seem to have personalities that have no idea how to do non-elaborative-how-the-world-works media.
In addition, the whole conservative game seems to involve being as blunt about what you're doing as possible, rather than making it sound any good.
What I'm trying to say here is that they can't craft narrative and have no desire to, and then obviously their product sucks. Even a 1-hour news show needs flow and narrative, and obviously budget.
I do genuinely have a problem with media being so partisan, but the only solution those with the wads of dough seem to have is making it even more partisan.
Actually, I'm kind of wrong here.
Old guard conservatives are certainly this way, but there's a lot of good coming out of the newer style. However, Europe's conservatives are the men and women of old, trying the same playbook over and over. I think that owes to Europe's tighter party systems, where growing in rank is quite important.
A great illustration of this is when Charlie Kirk (TPUSA) threw what was essentially a MAGA Kegger in Florida last week which, as expected, he was given quite the smarting for from several conservative accounts.
Charlie Kirk is also not above using Our Sacred Ladies of Almost Naked Instagram to grab eyeballs, which also gets him
Which I mean, yeah, but the sanctity of sex is kind of not our biggest deal right now? When the anti-objectification movement leaves you with a bunch of exotic dancers eager for a job and an audience of guys barely younger than Kirk you grab the moment.
I know this sounds weird to say after I just ragged on prostitution and adult film, but whilst I would like those practices kept to a minimum in wider society and seen as undesirable professions, nobody ever batted their eyes at race-car girls or cheerleaders before the 2010s (as long as they didn't take off their clothes at public events). We're just humans, after all. Eye-candy=/=OnlyFans.
There was a lack of understanding that the culture and one's overall style was important with the old guard, but the newer guys are picking the game up pretty fast.
Though not really in Europe.
Didn't we already discuss this (albeit vaguely) re:Newsweek?
Oh, I assure you they have all three.
Look, Fred, if you're going to argue that people should appreciate the living more while they're still alive, as opposed to only eulogizing after they're dead, I agree with that, but this is definitely not the way to do it.
On the other hand, if you're thinking of the pandemic as a political football, you can go shove your foot further down your throat.
Hey @glennmagusharvey, it does turn out that there was a case of Maya Forstater "misgendering" someone! That person was Phillip Bunce, who appears to be a professional gender troll (or, at most, a weekend crossdresser) who weaseled his way onto an all-women's Top Finance Whatevers list for inclusion purposes.
It'd be hilarious if she didn't then get fired. Though like, it still is Monty Python-adjacent funny.
Oh I do have a funny story about this whole shebang: There's this saying that if you think for yourself, you'll never belong to a party.
This isn't about Donald Trump signing that glurgey "Relief" bill (which was bad, like his overall spending record has been).
It's about LGB Alliance, who started with a clear motive ("Maybe Stonewall should focus on the same-sex stuff more?") and then turned into every other woe-is-we lobbying group ("JK Rowling NEEDS TO BE AN ALLY and so SHE SHOULD WRITE BOOKS WITH LESBIAN PROTAGONISTS").
So, uh, yeah, no?
I'm really not a fan of "render your artistic talents in service of the party".
For me, it describes a very specific endgoal ("seize the means of cultural production to control them for certain ends") that use specific methods, mainly the offshoots of Critical Theory known as Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory.
These are based in a lot of different schools of thought such as Hegel and (obviously) Marx, but the ideas of cultural marxism are primarily centered on the (modern, like 1950s-now) development of Critical Theory, which was drafted initially by the Frankfurt School, primarily by scholars like Focault.
So, it turns out a bunch of Frankfurt School members (it was not an actual school, just to be clear, but a thinking group thingy associated with a school) were Jewish, and we all know what happens when certain groups of people learn that Jewish people were involved in a thing*.
Therefore, on my part, it becomes necessary to evaluate whether somebody's claims about the "spread of cultural marxism" are actually about well... that which I've discussed (as in, ideas I think are bad, ever-expansive and damaging), and certainly not "oh goodness it's those evil [yeah I'm super not writing this ever in any context but you know what goes here]".
Considering what you've said about the "Buddhist symbols of peace" I feel this is where the main conflict between you and I was, and I hope I've resolved it somewhat.
*Actually right now I'm really surprised that the Wikipedia article didn't go for the obvious jugular of just outright calling the Polish government's inquiry the one time anti-semitic.
It's what I'd have done in terms of discrediting them if I were on the side of the LGBTInfinite Genders crowd (though to be clear I don't actually know the current Polish government's motives still) and it'd have probably avoided much of the confusion we've had.
The rest is just commentary on what exactly happened.
https://newjersey.news12.com/newark-police-no-officer-fired-a-single-shot-in-2020-thanks-to-de-escalation-program
So I don't know if this is good or not. Police only exist to stop crime and lawlessness, and if there's less of that you can definitely call it a success.
Stuff like "we took more guns but there were more shootings" doesn't play all that well.
The stat manipulation in this piece makes me want to stew in curiosity but I'll let it go for now.
based take: It turns out de-escalation results in more overall crime*.
Also BLM came off really bad in this piece, like always.
*don't freak out on me I know how manipulative this is
Domestic disturbances, and things related to drugs surely fall under "lawlessness", and traffic management certainly pertains to maintaining the law.
The only reason I'm letting wildlife slide is that you can't control animal lawlessness because animals don't know what the law is.
in short
Quick backstory: Mr. Trump has continually objected to the fact that he lost the election, claiming without evidence that he won, repeatedly, and at one point (in a recent phone call) outright asking Georgia's secretary of state to find enough ballots to put him over the top. In addition, he and a bunch of his supporters have encouraged such objections -- and taking action on them -- repeatedly.
Today, there began a joint session of Congress (i.e. the House and Senate together) to process the results of the electoral college votes as certified by each state. A number of Republicans were already expected to lodge complaints against the results of six swing states -- Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin -- so, while pointless but also totally expected, when Arizona's electoral vote was announced, an objection was lodged, and the House and Senate returned to their respective chambers to debate the objection.
As the debate on Arizona's electoral votes proceeded, a bunch of pro-Trump protesters gathered outside the Capitol building breached the entrance and entered the building. Both chambers quickly went into recess, and members of both chambers have been asked to shelter in place in their office, while randos with large flagpoles and other junk are now milling around the Capitol building.
So yeah, that's what's happening right now.
Coincidentially, yesterday saw the conclusion of two runoff elections in Georgia for two U.S. Senate seats there; Democrats seem very likely to have won both of them, which would mean a tied U.S. Senate where the vice president (currently Mike Pence (R), but soon to be Kamala Harris (D)) would be the tiebreaker.
Also, earlier, there was a report of a pipe bomb outside, so one of the office buildings was temporarily evacuated.
* some rando protester sat in the presiding officer's chair in the Senate chamber and yelled that Trump won
* protesters have broken into Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D)'s office and apparently are trying to break into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R)'s office
* people pissing on the building
* people climbing on scaffolding and other whatnot
* tear gas was thrown at Capitol police, injuring them
* tear gas was used (presumably by the police) inside the Capitol building (i have no idea what this does to the paintings and stuff, heh)
I've also heard that someone got shot.
Too little, too late, Republicans.
You've been encouraging Mr. Trump's bullshit all this time for political gain.
This is the logical result.
No, the lip service mentioning peaceful protest isn't working.
edit: no, it's in the Senate presiding officer's chair
members of Congress have gas masks available to them apparently
apparently Trump is not interested in issuing a stronger statement condemning the violence and really mad at......Pence for not overriding the electoral vote
there might be concerns regarding using the military directly because Trump himself is the commander-in-chief of the military