Tag: media

Do you doubt the narrative

As I said, it’s old school versus new school; it’s all about the quarterbacks, or perhaps, what the quarterbacks symbolize.

For Super Bowl, Focus Is on Passing, Perhaps of a Torch

There was a sense of farewell to each conversation. Manning even used the past tense when asked what he had said, answering that he told Brady and Belichick that it had been an honor to compete against them.

It was an interlude that might have summed up an epoch of N.F.L. playoff football, a period that the 39-year-old Manning is about to leave behind.

Manning’s next game, fittingly in the 50th Super Bowl, will be contested in a new pro football era, and the proof of that will be found on the opposite sideline, where his counterpart on the Carolina Panthers will be the new-age quarterback Cam Newton…. The contrasts between the quarterbacks will be the main story line.

“Fittingly.” It’s all about the narrative and the predictive programming, in the end:

“I still don’t get why he has to (be criticized). And maybe there are some people out there who are concerned with who he is, which I think is terrible. I really do.You think in this time, this day and age, it would be more about who he is as an athlete, as a person more than anything else. Hopefully we can get past those things.”

“Hopefully”, the Lacedaemonians said.

Why show when there is nothing to gain?

Mike Cernovich explains why Trump has picked a showdown with Fox over the debate:

Donald Trump isn’t going to show up to the GOP debate, and the same idiots who never saw his rise are losing their minds. As one of only two people who saw Trump’s rise and predicted it, let me explain what Trump is doing.

Would you give your business competitors millions of potential customers?

Before Donald Trump ran for office, the Republican debates were snooze fests. A few people who were bored watched them.

Because of Donald Trump the GOP debates have drawn huge crowds. The latest debate had 13.5 million viewers, a record number.

Those millions of people watch the debate for one reason – Trump.

No one cares about crusty Cruz, sweaty Rubio, or sleepy-eye Jeb Bush.

When Trump shows up, his competitors have a chance to impression millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t care about them.

Trump has built up the personal brands of parasites and losers. He’s given them enough corporate welfare.

Trump did the last debates to prove a point – that he can win them.
Trump has proven his point. He won every debate.

He has nothing to gain by giving ratings to dishonest FoxNews and to share his millions of fans with the other candidates.

I could care less about the debates. But at this point, I sincerely hope Mike is right, that Trump doesn’t show up, and the ratings tank. I have to admit, it would not have occurred to me to find an excuse to blow it off and thereby take the wind out of everyone else’s sails so effortlessly.

As Scott Adams points out, once more, all they’re talking about is Trump. Once more, the only candidate’s actions that matter are Trump’s.

Trump takes on Fox

Naturally, all of the talking heads who feed at the breasts of Mother Media will angrily denounce Trump’s decision not to play along with the enemy and declare his campaign to be self-torpedoed and dead. But it’s foolish to use conventional measures to judge the effectiveness of a distinctly non-conventional campaign:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump abruptly announced here Tuesday that he would not participate in Thursday’s scheduled debate, escalating his off-and-on feud with Fox News Channel and throwing the GOP campaign into turmoil.

Trump’s assertion, which his campaign manager insisted was irreversible, came less than one week before the kickoff Iowa caucuses. He once again defied the conventional rules of politics, and used his power and prominence to shape the campaign agenda and conversation.

So far, Trump’s untraditional moves have only expanded his support, but his threatened boycott leaves him open to criticism that for all his tough talk he is ducking face-to-face confrontations with his opponents and scrutiny from the Fox moderators.

Given Trump’s past flirtations with boycotting Fox, many will doubt his declaration until they see the other candidates take the debate stage on Thursday night without him.

The Republican debates have become must-see television, in part because of the allure of Trump’s star power and unpredictable candidacy. But he said Tuesday that he thinks Fox and other television networks have been taking advantage of him by selling advertisements for their debates at a high premium…

The debate is scheduled to be in Des Moines on Thursday, and Trump said he would instead host a competing event in the state designed to raise money for wounded veterans.

It would be an unprecedented move if Trump withdrew from the debate at such a consequential moment on the primary calendar.

The media narrative is already stupid; the idea that this is a cowardly move is almost blitheringly out-of-touch; taking on the media directly in this way is far more bold and confrontational than simply showing up on stage again and subjecting oneself to the ridiculous posturing of the moderators.

Trump is actively breaking the power of the institutions and showing them to be paper tigers. Regardless of what his real intentions are, Trump’s high-risk, high-reward actions are marvelous theater and serve as an inspiring example. De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace….

Who but Donald Trump can win a debate by refusing to show up for it?

Lies about the Alt Right

Cathy Young blatantly lies about the etymology of the term “cuckservative”. And that’s just the start:

A few months ago, Trump supporters on the Internet started mocking his
conservative detractors with the bizarre slur “cuckservative.” The word
is an amalgam of “cuckold” and “conservative,” derived from a
pornographic genre in which a man is forced to watch while his wife has
sex with another man (who is often black, while the “cuckold” is white).
To the white nationalist alt-right, the “cuckservative” is a
conservative race traitor who does not prioritize the interests of
whites — who, most important, does not seek to restrict nonwhite
immigration.

As those who have read Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America know, the term does not derive from either pornography or race. That is a lie repeatedly bruited about by cuckservatives and others who fear the rise of the Alt Right.

This is just another attempt by fearful conservatives, who have conserved nothing, to discredit and disqualify. Their cry of “racist, anti-semite, impolite” is their hapless imitation of the SJWs’ “racist, sexist, homophobic, bigot”.

Conservatives are not our allies. They never were. They are surrender monkeys, and as such they are the subservient allies and handmaidens of the Left.

And if they are afraid of the Alt Right, just wait until they encounter the Mil Right….

Mailvox: SJWs in tech media

An anonymous coward provides an update:

I noticed today that someone linked to you on the LWN.net news site, and was banned.  LWN is one of the most respected Linux news websites.  However, the owner is a thoroughly SJW-amenable authority.  There is no benefit to posting there.  The mere use of the phrase SJW there can get you blocked.  Corbet (the owner) says, in all the long history of the site, this is the first time he’s drawn a line in the sand.  He is now deleting comments that discuss or refer to the SJW issue.

The VFM look like they’re doing good work on slashdot, the second most popular Linux site.  Huzzah!

Actually, this is good news as well as an indication of another opportunity. First, since LWN is already converged, that means it is vulnerable to replacement. Something to consider as the cultural war in tech gets hotter.

Second, the fact that the SJW who runs LWN is so concerned about any mention of SJW entryism and convergence that he refuses to permit its discussion, despite it being one of the most important issues in technology at the moment, means that he knows his SJW allies cannot succeed if their efforts are exposed.

National Review risks non-profit status

Justin Raimondo observes that Rich Lowry appears to have committed a serious legal blunder, as well as the obvious political one, with the “Stop Trump” issue:

The publication of a special “Stop Trump” issue of National Review was heralded in a blaze of publicity. Editor Rich Lowry appeared on Fox News and was interviewed by Trump nemesis Megyn Kelly, where he proceeded to denounce The Donald as a threat to the intellectual integrity of the conservative movement….

All well and good: there are plenty of reasons for principled conservatives (and libertarians) to oppose Trump. However, there’s one big problem with this well-publicized blast at The Donald.

In March of last year, Politico reported that National Review was becoming a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, which would enable it to solicit tax-deductible donations: “Since its launch, the magazine has operated as a not-for-profit business, even as it came to rely on more and more donations in recent years. Starting next month, it will become a nonprofit organization, which will make it exempt from federal taxes. National Review also plans to merge with the nonprofit National Review Institute, its sister organization, according to a source with knowledge of the plans.”

Rich Lowry averred that the shift would be good for the magazine, which was fighting a costly lawsuit and had never been profitable anyway. “We’re a mission and a cause, not a profit-making business,” he told Politico. “The advantage of the move is that all the generous people who give us their support every year will now be able to give tax-deductible contributions, and that we will be able to do more fundraising, in keeping with our goal to keep growing in the years ahead.’”

This anti-Trump issue of National Review is, in effect, a campaign pamphlet directed against a political candidate—indeed, the cover proclaims “Against Trump”—and, as such, is in clear violation of IRS statutes regulating nonprofit organizations.

The regulations are quite explicit that nonprofit organizations must “not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

I’m sorry, I have no cogent analysis to offer; I’m not even sure what the article said. I found it hard to pay attention after cracking up when I got to the part about “the intellectual integrity of the conservative movement.”

That’s a good one!

A mysterious change

The most interesting thing is the way that the massive global pro-immigration media blitz of last summer, complete with PICTURES OF DEAD CHILDREN only managed to reduce the German anti-immigration position by three percentage points. Clearly the clueless moderates are more susceptible, as support for immigration briefly jumped six points. Of course, you should never put much credence in polls.

We don’t need to speculate about whether pollsters manipulated their findings, because the pollsters have admitted it themselves. Survation announced the morning after the result that they had decided not to publish their own “final” poll of the campaign because – in the words of company CEO Damian Lyons Lowe – “the results seemed so “out of line” with all the polling conducted by ourselves and our peers – what poll commentators would term an “outlier” – that I “chickened out” of publishing the figures.

The social media war

Mike Cernovich puts what is already happening on Goodreads and Twitter and Facebook into perspective:

Until recently journalists loved social media, social media lined their pockets:

  •     Journalist writes a story.
  •     Readers share and discuss the story.
  •     Websites gets more pages views and journalists set the agenda.

Social media was great until a mindset shift happened.

Readers became writers. Readers began setting the agenda. Social media is the new media. Everyone in media knows this, and everyone is terrified.

This is about control of the information flow. It’s not possible to indoctrinate and propagandize when there is a sufficiently strong countercurrent, and the Alt Right is an increasingly powerful countercurrent. That’s why they are desperate to mute us.

The fight for social media is the fight for democracy.

Most people believe social media is a scrap book for your life, and if Zuckerberg has his way, that’s what Facebook will be for. The rubes and slobs can share memes, but if you share any thoughts that threaten the political establishment, you’re finished.

If Jack Dorsey has his way, the mainstream media will regain its power as gate keepers of information.

The rapefugee crisis will not be reported. The brutal beatings of women will be swept under the rug. Presidential elections will involve two sides of the same globalist coin.

Keep fighting back.

That’s what we’re discussing tonight. There is only ONE way to ensure that they can’t turn off our microphones, and that is to build our own. We need our own information flow, we can’t expect to be permitted to borrow the other side’s indefinitely.

They often talk a techno-libertarian game and proclaim their channels are for everyone, but their actions have repeatedly belied their words. It’s not a coincidence that it is always the voices on the right that are silenced and the memes of the right that are banned while the left is permitted to violate the so-called rules at will.

Mailvox: lessons in rhetoric

MJ suggests a rhetorical device:

I thought of something while last night about the immigration crisis in Europe.  We should start calling it Vichy Germany (probably could say Vichy Europe, but I feel like Vichy Germany would have more impact for most).  Merkel is acting like Germany is a Client State to the Muslim world.  They allow an occupying invasion force to abuse their own people.  They cover up Muslim crimes and avoid arresting and/or deporting known criminals that are Muslim.  They arrest the German Resistance fighters who have risen up to fight the Muslim occupiers. Multicultism is propaganda to berate the native population into submission to the occupying force.

I don’t know what the occupier-to-populace ratio was in Vichy France, but it seems like it probably is similar to the Muslim-to-German ratio in Germany right now.  Anyways, I thought of this last night and thought that you would probably be able to use it as a rhetorical device.

Unfortunately, “Vichy Germany” is not going to work rhetorically for the following reasons:

  1. It is fundamentally dialectic in nature. Anything that has to be explained is more likely to be rhetorically impotent. How many Americans or English adults even know what “Vichy” means?
  2. It doesn’t flow. That’s always important.
  3. It doesn’t move the emotions. No one has any emotions about Vichy France, except perhaps
    the French.

Now, if the Front National began referring to the two mainstream French parties
that have banded together to stop it as “L’Alliance Vichy”, that would be effective rhetoric. But it’s not going to work in the
Anglosphere because the concept of Vichy is only really applicable to the French.

Contrast with “Vichy Germany” the rhetorical device of “Invader-American”. This is effective due to the following reasons:

  1. It flows.
  2. It directly targets the hyphenated identity of the various New Americans: Chinese-Americans, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and so forth.
  3. It works directly upon the emotions. Immigrants get very upset at being called invaders, even though that is what they are. The term also links the children of the invaders to the invasion, depriving them of the ability to wrap themselves in an American sheepskin simply because they were born inside its borders. There is a reason Nimrata Randhawa Haley prefers to be called “Nikki”; it allows her to pass for something she observably is not.

And, of course, the term is quite literally true. Remember, the best rhetoric has a sound foundation in the truth. The children of those who invaded America are Invader-Americans and as such, they are distinct from native Americans… as well as Native Americans.

Ann Coulter is an expert rhetorician. It would behoove her to adopt the Invader-American term, as it would be extremely effective for her. Notice how she managed to trigger the cuckservatives of the GOP establishment with a single tweet.

    Trump should deport Nikki Haley.
    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 13, 2016

    Nikki Haley: “No one who is willing to work hard should ever be turned away.” That’s the definition of open borders.
    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 13, 2016

    Nikki Haley says “welcoming properly vetted legal immigrants, regardless of religion.” Translation: let in all the Muslims.
    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 13, 2016

    Haley: Let in unlimited immigrants “just like we have for centuries.” Has she read a history book? Coolidge shut it down for 1/2 a century.
    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 13, 2016

    Nikki Haley: “The best thing we can do is turn down the volume” Translation: Voters need to shut the hell up.
    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 13, 2016

That went well

Talk about going well beyond the call of duty:

Five Stars

Awesome book! Nail, meet the HAMMER! Great interview as well on my national show, The Financial Safari!

Coach Pete

I did an interview last night on The Financial Safari; I understand it will be broadcast in a few weeks. I thought it went rather well, but apparently it went even better than I’d thought.

Anyhow, it was very gracious of him to post a review and I’ll provide a link to the interview here when it runs.