Home » Open thread 12/1/21

Comments

Open thread 12/1/21 — 31 Comments

  1. This half hour discussion about COVID is not really about the virus but about vaccine mandates and lockdowns and where we are going as societies in the west. Unherd is an interesting site that is not easily labeled and this interview is a good example.

    I don’t agree with it all and especially the claim that the people against mandates and lockdowns are seeking ‘religious meaning’ when I think it is the exact opposite. The people constantly shouting ‘SCIENCE’ are in fact the ones substituting science to fill a spiritual void.

    Anyway, it’s an interesting discussion about the bigger picture.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uAwsVn10Y

  2. Stuff like COVID, CRT, and the Afghanistan debacle are important but don’t lose site of what’s probably the biggest problem facing people right now.

    My weekly spending on just groceries and gas is probably $10 more than it was last year at this time. For people with bigger families or lots of kids, they could be spending even more.

    It’s been over 30 years since Americans experienced this. If “President” Biden and the Dems don’t get it under control, we could be looking at a mid-term election that makes 1994 look like a political hiccup.

    Mike

  3. Neo,

    Perhaps you might wish to craft a post or two on these questions.

    I have raised the issue of what liberal voters are actually thinking when they vote for Democrats. Your take (and correct me please if I got it wrong) based on your friends and family is that they are mostly tribal in their support and that they don’t really understand the issues or the import of the policies and politicians they vote for. From my own friends and family that vote D, I would describe them as either: 1) totally bamboozled (radicalized) by the narrative pushed by news media and schools; or 2) simply raised in a family where Ds were the “good guys” and Rs the black hats and every issue or story has been interpreted through that filter throughout their lives, or some of both.

    For example, they believe global warming is real because that is only story they’ve ever heard from every conceivable institution, AND they love feeling like they are saving the planet. (I sometimes wonder how much cheaper it would be to simply give them each a cape and some superhero pajamas.)

    But Ds have injected a lot of nastiness over the last quarter century (ever since the Clinton election debacle in 1994 and the news media realized they needed to save him). So, some questions now that the D narratives have gotten so ugly and vile:

    1. Do liberal D voters really think that white supremacy runs rampant in America? Where is the evidence?

    2. Do they really believe that cops roam the streets looking to gun down innocent black men? Or that BLM/Antifa riots were peaceful protests? Or that smashing, looting and burning down minority neighborhoods and small businesses is acceptable?

    3. Do they really believe that George Zimmerman deserved to have Trayvon Martin try to kill him because Zimmerman got out of his car in his neighborhood?

    4. Do they really approve of giving nukes to Iran so that the mullahs can annihilate Israel as they have vowed?

    5. Do they ever contemplate why Trump was able to make such enormous gains among blacks and Hispanics? Or would such thoughts cause too much psychological pain?

    6. Do they really think that a failed border is good for America?

    7. Why do they meekly accept all the Covid craziness from govt? Shouldn’t actual evidence start to matter at some point?

    8. And why the embrace and support for censorship?

    I guess there are dozens such questions. I know that they generally view people who work for corporations as selfish and evil and those who work for government or as honest, charitable public servants. And I know that evidence is irrelevant (and that some psych studies show that contradictory evidence actually strengthens ideological resolve).

    I guess I’m having a very difficult time understanding why there aren’t more liberals waking up to the evil that is woke. More like Dave Rubin, Greenwald, Taibbi, Maher (a wee bit), Berenson (in process). Even the Weinsteins, while apparently retaining their hatred for the right and commitment to the left, have become convinced that the woke Dems are corrupt and malevolent.

  4. MBunge,

    I totally agree but in the case of COVID it is the main driver of inflation right now and if there are more restrictions here or abroad it will only make it worse. I have very little fear of the actual virus at this point (personally never had any fear for myself) but it is the response of government that scares me.

    It feels like we have the sword over our head at all times just waiting to be dropped.

  5. The most toxic form.of cultural appropriation is manifest in what has been taking place in so-called ” Country Music” in the last generation or two.

    It is characterized by a sing-song melodly-less whiny pantomime performed by gender blurred and deracinated members of an exurban lumpenproletariat
    The formula: Take an unemployable moron, put a cowboy hat on him, and tell him to whine to a never changing undulation while mimicing a vaguely southern accent.

    I had the misfortune to have heard about an hour of this tuneless crap while at the farm recently. As it was over the holiday, intended only as background for domestic preparations, and other families were involved, tolerance was called for.

    Almost as bad was listening to an endless loop of 15 sham Christmas songs repetitively played by a radio station just down the dial. Some piece of unbearable ccccshit sung by Gloria Estefan (SP?) took the prize. She wants to see Christmas through my eyes. I want to see her – whoever she is – drowned in a canvas bag filled with alley cats.

    However in order to prove to me that space aliens generating debilitating noise presenting as music while they appropriate cherished cultural themes for their subversive and demoralizing purposes is nothing new, the station played “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, almost as frequently. That one dates I believe, from the days of the first flying saucer invasion.

    Evil is nothing new, apparently. Nor are passive victims.

  6. Boys and girls doing what we do best: dance together.

    We want, we want, more cultural appropriation.

    Nice or is it Ok? (no pun intended)

  7. My weekly spending on just groceries and gas is probably $10 more than it was last year

    But Medicare has less outlays with expanded benefits for some, and progressive prices for others. Planned parent/hood and redistributive change.

  8. sdferr,

    Wow! Thank you for the link to that speech.

    Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Austria…

    My kids have citizenship to an EU country through my wife. One lives in Europe now and another has lived there. To my surprise there is a lot of nationalistic fervor in the young, especially males. Of course there are also a lot of “woke” youth.

    Europe is getting “interesting.” Let’s just hope it doesn’t get 1914 or 1939 interesting.

  9. n.n.

    “Cultural appropriation” is another term we have nearly ceded to the Left.

    Cultural appropriation is the source of tremendous good in the world. We need to stop being shy about using the term, or stating the term. Own it. Be proud!

    Different cultures mixing freely and openly is anathema to the division and hatred the Left stokes to instill fear and hatred.

    Rosemary Clooney had it right, Try an enchilada with a fish baccala!”
    https://youtu.be/9prJXEhNhPA

  10. n.n.

    As the maid, Annie says in It’s a Wonderful Life:

    “Boys and girls and music. What do they need gin for?”

  11. Speaking of cultural appropriation, Neo has probably seen references to “woke” ballet companies revising the “Chinese Dance” section of The Nutcracker in order to avoid “offensive stereotypes” of Asians: “Ballet companies have shaken up the festive season classic ‘The Nutcracker,’ in an effort to make Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale less offensive to Asians and more in tune with modern racial sensibilities. . . . the Boston Ballet has gone to new lengths to ensure the production won’t offend anyone, including by introducing a Chinese ribbon dance-inspired pas de deux number.

    ‘Everybody learned a lot this year, and I just want to make sure there’s absolutely nothing that could ever be considered as insulting to Chinese culture,’ Mikko Nissinen, artistic director of Boston Ballet, told the Times.”

    https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/541786-nutcracker-ballet-asians-china/

    For comparison, here’s the Mariinsky Ballet’s insult to Chinese culture:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiyx1m44nMM&ab_channel=Ovation

  12. I’m sorry, what am I missing here? Wherein does the cultural appropriation in the video lie?

    stan,

    Perhaps only on a subconscious level, the whites who vote for the democrats have accepted the left’s most basic, if implied meme; the only way whites can atone for their ancestral sins is for the white race to commit cultural and racial suicide.

  13. Tweet of the Week IMO
    https://twitter.com/NancyTracker/status/1465891574668271617
    Nancy Pelosi Portfolio Tracker
    @NancyTracker

    On the 1st day of Maxwell’s trial…

    The CEO of twitter resigned
    The CFO of CNBC resigned
    The CFO of Walmart resigned
    The CFO of Goldman Sachs resigned
    Chris Cuomo was fired from CNN

    Hat tip to whoever linked this site a couple of days ago; I’ve read all his reports to date.
    https://patriotone.substack.com/p/in-search-of-justice-the-first-day
    The First Day of the Maxwell Trial November 29

  14. sdferr,

    Re: “It’s why we must take back our sovereignty, abandoned to European technocrats and judges, who rob the French people of the ability to control their destiny in the name of a fantasy – a Europe that will never be a nation.” Malmesburyman’s translation of Eric Zemmour speech announcing his candidacy for President of France

    Apparently Zemmour has yet to realize that those who make up the E.U.’s governing elite have no intention of Europe becoming a unified nation. Western Europe’s elite are accolytes of the Transnational Movement. Which posits that national borders are the core dynamic that is responsible for wars.

    No more nations = no more wars. Eliminate cultural distinctions and there will be just the human race… and the primary obstacle to achieving that state is the cultural distinctiveness of Western Nations. All of which have dominant white cultures.

    That is the core tenet of George Soros’ ” Open Society Foundations” and “Open Borders Society”.

    That wars happened long before there were nations is just an… inconvenient truth. Best dismissed by choosing truth over facts.

  15. Zemmour is calling for France to be France. His own family, Jewish Algerians, have assimilated.

  16. Cultural appropriation, anyone?

    The best thing about those Moiseyev ‘appropriations’ is that they’re superb parodies. And they do it to their fellow Russians without blinking, although it’s possible they did it more to show their collectivist ‘intellectual’ leaders what cretins those unwashed kulaks could be.

    At least, unlike most collectivist manifestations, they had a sense of humor.

  17. I liked seeing “rock’n’roll” in the Russian title:

    Pok-H-po/\/\

    (The Cyrillic looked good in the edit window, but appeared as question marks on the page. So I made English substitutions.)

    The Cyrillic “P” is “R” and “H” is “N”. The sorta-pi character is “L”.

    Though there didn’t seem much rock’n’roll music or dancing. I would call the latter modern part swing and jitterbug.

  18. Kind of interesting that in doing something looking a bit like a Lindy Hop they look more like Russian ballet dancers than anything else! I guess they never learned how to swing when doing their thing.

  19. @ Geoffrey > “At best, months left before the charade collapses.”

    I know that, idiomatically, the phrase means “less than a lot,” but there are “months left” to Valentine’s Day, and also to next Thanksgiving.
    And even to the next century.
    Do you have a specific number in mind?

  20. AesopFan,

    That is an effective sign. I see so many poignant and effective anti-government images and memes these days. Powerline Blogs week in pictures is always a good rundown.

    Regarding the sign’s sentiment; along with sowing fear our government also seems to be in the business of creating problems that it then has to save us from.

  21. AesopFan on December 1, 2021 at 4:52 pm said:

    For those interested in the campaign speech by Zemmour, Powerline has the full video and transcript.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/will-france-save-the-west.php

    He is in favor of having the French practice some cultural appropriation of their own heritage.

    Which links to this observation:

    Is it a coincidence that Zemmour released this video today, which happens to be Churchill’s birthday?

    Do watch some of this, and ponder also the use of the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony,

    The use of that movement as background … half symphonic dirge, half an ascending call-to-arms, or at least resurrection, it recently saw use in a viral YouTube homily delivered by a tradition minded Catholic priest … who it appears was as a result stripped of his parish duties by his bishop.

    Another Beethoven’s 7th Use

    Watch for this symphonic movement soon catching the ever searching eyes of the blue haired whale group, the 56% mentally disturbed white progressive female class, as well as all the rest of all the 57 progressive genders. And being labeled a “dog whistle” anthem of the right.

    Likely to be the first piece of classical music to be banned from the public airwaves.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>