Tag: politics

Fake Americans, fake solutions

This article by an early Fake American conclusively proves the power of identity politics even as he attempts to “solve” the problem of them.

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973, the year the first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago—a book that demolished any pretense of communism’s moral authority—was published in the West. The ideological challenge of socialism was fading, its fighting spirit dwindling. This presented a challenge for the Left: how to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable?

No, the beginning of identity politics in the United States can be traced to the mass immigration of Italians and Irish back in the 1800s. But as students of Roman and Byzantine history know, mass immigration and the identity politics that follow from it long precede the existence of the United States.

In 2004, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published Who Are We? Huntington examined the stunning immigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and argued that it was undermining longstanding notions of American national identity. America, Huntington said, has both a creed and a culture. The creed is formulated in the founding documents of our nation and in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The culture derives from the Anglo-Protestant settlers who first peopled North America. Huntington worried about a “hispanicization” of American culture. This book was controversial, to say the least. Nor was it without weaknesses. It is hard for this descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants to accept the notion that America’s culture is monolithically Anglo-Protestant.

Every single time. And why would it be hard for Mr. Continetti to accept a basic fact of American history? Because his name is Continetti. The amusing thing is that he would probably angrily deny my claim to be a true blue Italian despite the fact that by his own illogic, I am more genuinely Italian than he is. Those who deny identity politics while clinging to their own identities will inevitably descend into self-parody sooner or later.

Identity politics is a veneer over the class politics that truly defines our society, and education is the best prism through which to view class in America today. 

Ironic, that a self-styled conservative would turn to a Marxian analysis in order to deny the identity politics that give him feelbads. Conservatives really have become yesterday’s liberals. Identity politics is not a veneer. It is the inevitable consequence of rival identities. Note that in Singapore, the leadership began consciously managing identity politics and to characterize Singaporeans by citizenship rather than national identity because its population was only 75 percent Chinese, (13.7 Malay, 8.7 Indian, 2.6 various), a percentage they felt to be too low to support genuine nationalism.

To combat identity politics, we must emphasize an American nationalism based on both a commitment to the ideals of the American Founding and a shared love of our national history and culture—a history and culture of individual freedom and religious pluralism, resistant to centralized authority and ever expanding into new frontiers and new possibilities.

Who is this “we”, kemosabe? How is this fake nationalism going to survive when it is based on a commitment that no one has to actually make and a love that is never going to be measured or held accountable? Will those who refuse to commit or simply don’t possess the love be stripped of their paper nationality and expelled? If not, then this is just more high-minded Fake American blather meant to disguise the fact that while they are citizens of the same multinational imperial state, neither they nor their ancestors were ever truly Americans.

UPDATE: So much for propositional conservatism. He has to go back.

The GOP tax bill’s bringing out my inner socialist. The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist. Donald Trump and Roy Moore are bringing out my inner liberal. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Please stop

Starting? We’re not “starting” to hate them. And the rules of the game are what they are. Kurt Schlichter very somberly warns the Left that if they don’t stop doing what they’re doing, he’s going to have to warn them even more somberly again.

Liberals have chosen to coarsen our culture. Their validation and encouragement of raw hate, their flouting of laws (Hi leakers! Hi Hillary!) and their utter refusal to accept democratic outcomes they disapprove of have consequences. What is itself so surprising is how liberals and their media rentboyz are so surprised to find that we normals are beginning to feel about them the way they feel about us – and that we’re starting to act on it. If you hate us, guess what?

We’re going to start hating you right back.

Cue the boring moralizing and sanctimonious whimpering of the femmy, bow-tied, submissive branch of conservatism whose obsolete members were shocked to find themselves left behind by the masses to whom these geeks’ sinecures were not the most important objective of the movement. This is where they sniff, “We’re better than that,” and one has to ask ,“Who’s we?” Because, by nature, people are not better than that. They are not designed to sit back and take it while they are abused, condescended to, and told by a classless ruling class that there are now two sets of rules and – guess what? –the old rules are only going to be enforced against them.

We don’t like the new rules – I’d sure prefer a society where no one was getting attacked, having walked through the ruins of a country that took that path – but we normals didn’t choose the new rules. The left did. It gave us Ferguson, Middlebury College, Berkeley, and “Punch a Nazi” – which, conveniently for the left, translates as “punch normals.” And many of us have had personal experiences with this New Hate – jobs lost, hassles, and worse. Some scumbags at an anti-Trump rally attacked my friend and horribly injured his dog. His freaking dog.

So when we start to adopt their rules, they’re shocked? Have they ever met human beings before? It’s not a surprise. It’s inevitable.

You can always tell a conservative who still hasn’t quite fully embraced the new reality. He just can’t resist the urge to issue dire warnings to the Left, desperately trying to convince them of the error of their ways or else. He still has to proclaim his preference for the older, more genteel, more civilized way. It’s tiresome. It’s tedious. Most of all, it’s pointless in a time of identity politics.

And yet, it shows that he is gradually getting where he has to go. He is starting to hate. The Alt-Right is inevitable; the ultimate success of the Alt-Right will be when the name disappears and the greater part of the 16 Points is simply synonymous with what it means to be Right.

Most of us aren’t “going to start hating” the Left. We started that a long, long time ago. I can’t even honestly say that I hate it anymore, at least, no more than I hate mold. The point is, you either get rid of the mold or you move somewhere else to get away from it. The one thing you do not do, the one thing you cannot do, is try to warn it, fix it, or coexist with it.

Conservatives simply don’t grasp that “please stop” is no more convincing than “please clap”.

Merkel fails

The rise of Alternativ fur Deutschland has prevented Angela Merkel’s CDU from being able to form a government:

On Monday morning, the German Chancellor emerged without agreement on forming a new coalition government from marathon talks, that promotes the chance of new elections. The leader of the AfD party gave his vision on the situation.

According to the head of Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alexander Gauland, the “time has come” for Angela Merkel to leave the post of the German chancellor, as she “failed” to form a new German coalition government.

This comes as earlier on Monday the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) announced its withdrawal from the coalition talks with the union of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), led by Merkel, and the Greens (prospective ‘Jamaica coalition’). The latest set of talks broke up at 4 am local time on Friday, November 17, but the preliminary negotiations on forming a coalition started on October 18. However, disagreements over such issues as migration and climate change have prevented parties from reaching a deal.

The CDU/CSU bloc could agree to form a minority government with the Greens. If no government is formed, a new parliamentary election will have to be scheduled.

It is now incumbent upon the Germans to stop supporting the destructive pro-immigrant, pro-refugee, anti-German parties. You don’t get a Hitler by evicting foreigners, you get a Hitler by permitting too many of them to live in your country.

Tactics are not objectives

Andrew Klavan points out the irony of Democrats complaining that Republicans are now utilizing their tactics:

As Roy Moore’s troubles were just getting underway, leftist CNN commentator Van Jones made what has to be one of the least self-aware and yet most revealing comments of the Trumpian Age. Targeting Breitbart firebrand Steve Bannon, who had promoted Moore, Van Jones said, “Bannon is trying to create this sense of an aggrieved identity, frankly, of a white aggrieved identity group that’s under siege by everybody. And this is that in its worse form. So, you’re not supposed to vote as a father, you’re not supposed to vote as a woman. You’re supposed to vote as a member of this identity group against the world. And if that works, that is very, very bad for the Republican Party and it’s very, very bad for our country.”

This comes from the man — from the political party — from the philosophy — that has sold absolutely nothing but aggrieved identities for the last sixty years, ever since it became clear that actual leftist policies don’t work. Blacks, women, people who think they’re women, people who pretend to be black — whatever category you find yourself in, the left has preached that you should ignore the disaster of leftism and focus only on your sweet victimhood, voting your grievances even when it’s against your best interests.

In other words, Van Jones’ only real complaint against Bannon is that Bannon has sunk to the level of Van Jones!

Ignore the whining. And don’t punch back twice as hard. Punch first, and hit them where they’re not looking when they’re not expecting it.

Identity politics are now the rules of the game. Learn to play by them or lose.

Don’t worry about setting examples or troubling precedents. The examples and the precedents are set, whether you like them or not, and whether you approve of them or not. Who cares about accusations of hypocrisy? These days, the only difference between the hypocrite and the non-hypocrite is that the hypocrite has standards, even if they are chiefly acknowledged in the breach. That is vastly preferable to having no standards at all.

However, Klavan and other conservative commentators have got to get over their irrepressible desire to fix the Left and understand that they don’t get a vote. The point is not to prove to the Left that they are wrong and that they should stop what they are doing and behave more like we do. The point is to defeat them utterly, then eradicate their ideas from Western civilization before they manage to destroy it once and for all.

Resign, Frankenstien

The Democratic wall begins to crack. Two DFL officials call for (((Al Franken)))’s resignation for sexually harassing Leeann Tweeden:

Two prominent members of Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party are calling on Sen. Al Franken to resign his Senate seat following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Although many other Democrats have called the former comedian’s actions disturbing, state auditor Rebecca Otto and Megan Thomas, president of the party’s official Feminist Caucus, say he should leave office.

The allegations were made Thursday morning by radio host Leeann Tweeden, who said Franken harassed her during a 2006 USO trip to the Middle East, before he was elected to the Senate in 2008.

Tweeden said Franken wrote a play to be performed in front of troops featuring a kiss, and then forced his tongue into her mouth after insisting on practice. A photo also shows a grinning Franken’s hands over Tweeden’s breasts while she was asleep.

Otto, a candidate for governor in Minnesota, said in a statement that “I believe it’s in the best interest of Minnesotans and of women everywhere for Senator Franken to resign, and to set an example to powerful men across America that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.”

Thomas, meanwhile, told the Washington Examiner that Franken’s misconduct was “every woman’s nightmare on a bus.” In a Facebook post, the longtime party organizer wrote that while she appreciated his progressive vote record, the fear Franken will instill in women is enough reason for his departure.

“The ‘political’ answer is to wait and not overreact. But I also know that the next time I see him in person I will, however fleeting or unneeded, be afraid because of what he is doing in that picture. No one should fear their elected representatives, so, sadly, for me, I think the Senator should resign,” she wrote.

After the initial allegations, Franken called for an ethics investigation into himself, and many Democratic colleagues called the allegations disturbing, but stopped short of demanding his resignation.

Otto’s statement was the first from a major officeholder to demand his resignation. Many state Democratic officials are standing by Franken for now, while expressing concern about the allegations.

Fish Lips Franken has to go. I don’t see any way he can reasonably survive that photograph and the credible details of the accusation by Tweeden. And, of course, there are already other credible accusers coming forward, so there will probably be more material evidence forthcoming. The difference between the Franken case and the Moore case is that Franken’s accusers have evidence and are credible, while Moore’s accusers have nothing but “evidence” that was clearly faked and are not credible.

Moreover, the accusations of Franken are consistent with his known public behavior, whereas the accusations of Moore are not.

That being said, the craven response of the Democrats, especially the female Democrats who talk such a big game about feminism and sexual harassment, is going to hurt them. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, in particularly, looks pathetic and cowardly.

The God-Emperor, on the other hand, has got this one down cold.

“The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?”

Senator Sexual Harassment

Sen. Al Franken must step down from the U.S. Senate at once for physically molesting Leann Tweeden.

As a TV host and sports broadcaster, as well as a model familiar to the audience from the covers of FHM, Maxim and Playboy, I was only expecting to emcee and introduce the acts, but Franken said he had written a part for me that he thought would be funny, and I agreed to play along.

When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd.

On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’ He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.

He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.

I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.

I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth.

I felt disgusted and violated.

Molesting a sleeping woman? Even a Kennedy wouldn’t stoop so low. Franken has to go, and go now. Let’s see if Messrs. McConnnell, Cruz, and Ryan can summon up the same outrage for actual sexual harassment 11 years ago for which there is photographic evidence as they have for the nonexistent kind that didn’t happen 40 years ago.

Nor is it likely to be the only time (((Franken))) did something like that.

During the meeting, writers are brainstorming about how to develop a sketch in which one of the actors plays “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney, who finds an empty pill bottle in his desk. According to the article, Franken’s suggestion includes Rooney saying: “I give the pills to Leslie Stahl. Then when Leslie is passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her. Or ‘That’s why you never see Lesley until February. Or, ‘When she passes out. I put her in various positions and take pictures of her.’ ”

This isn’t new and this isn’t news. Read Portnoy’s Complaint. It’s all right there, courtesy of Mr. Roth. Notice the bitter, butthurt behavior (((Franken))) exhibits after Tweeden refuses to play along with his “joke” too.

UPDATE: Once the true nature of these harassers is revealed, the floodgates tend to open:

Phil Kerpen‏@kerpen
I’ve already heard about a second Al Franken victim.

Moore will win

As long as Roy Moore doesn’t step down or apologize, he should have no trouble winning the Senate race in Alabama.

Tuesday, November 14
Alabama Senate Special Election – Moore vs. Jones FOX 10/Strategy Research
Moore 49, Jones 43 Moore +6

Translation: the full-press from the GOPe and the media dinged him a bit, but didn’t seriously hurt him. At this point, his best bet is to simply ignore any attempts to get him to address the manufactured Fake News, dismiss it as dirty tricks, and focus on running his campaign to MAGA.

The intriguing thing is that whereas a Moore win would have hurt the GOPe, a victory in the face of their open opposition has the potential to break them entirely.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the alternate reality where the GOPe still matters and conservativism conserved the ladies room, Moore  MUST DROP OUT NOW! BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

Republican Roy Moore is trailing Democrat Doug Jones by 12 points in the Alabama special Senate election, according to a poll conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee after five women accused Moore of pursuing them as teenagers.

They asked 12 Republican senators, Paul Ryan, and a homeless guy who believes the fish killed JFK.

Ted Cruz cucks again

I’m still amazed by the naivete of those who supported Ted Cruz in the primary. How they could not see him for the wretched little creature that he is was astonishing. His cucking for the GOPe’s Fake News campaign against Roy Moore, on the other hand, doesn’t surprise me at all:

Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday withdrew his support from Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore, saying allegations of sexual misconduct should be looked at by prosecutors.

“As it stands, I can’t urge the people of Alabama to support a campaign in the face of these charges without serious, persuasive demonstration that the charges are not true,” the Texas Republican told reporters, according to a Texas Tribune reporter.

“Both last week and this week, there are serious charges of criminal conduct that if true, not only make him unfit to serve in the Senate but merit criminal prosecution,” he added.

Cruz joined a number of Republican senators distancing themselves from Moore. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday led several senators in calling for Moore to drop out of the race, and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), the chairman of the Senate’s GOP campaign arm, said the chamber should expel Moore if he wins election in December.

I hope Texas voters remember what a treacherous little Fake American weasel Ted Cruz is when he is next up for re-election. I still remember one of the best quotes from the entire presidential campaign season: “I saw a video of a Buddhist monk self-immolate, and Ted Cruz still did it better.”

The fiend Roy Moore

Well, if dating a girl who is of the age of consent and not taking advantage of her over several months of dating doesn’t disqualify a man for the Senate, I don’t know what does!

Debbie Wesson Gibson says that she was 17 in the spring of 1981 when Moore spoke to her Etowah High School civics class about serving as the assistant district attorney. She says that when he asked her out, she asked her mother what she would say if she wanted to date a 34-year-old man. Gibson says her mother asked her who the man was, and when Gibson said “Roy Moore,” her mother said, “I’d say you were the luckiest girl in the world.”

Among locals in Gadsden, a town of about 47,000 back then, Moore “had this godlike, almost deity status — he was a hometown boy made good,” Gibson says, “West Point and so forth.”

Gibson says that they dated for two to three months, and that he took her to his house, read her poetry and played his guitar. She says he kissed her once in his bedroom and once by the pool at a local country club.

“Looking back, I’m glad nothing bad happened,” says Gibson, who now lives in Florida. “As a mother of daughters, I realize that our age difference at that time made our dating inappropriate.”

Now, I wasn’t there, but I will say that an older man who dates a younger woman for two to three months with her mother’s approval and doesn’t have sex with her is not the sort of man who behaves in the manner that his accuser is claiming. Especially in light of the timing, this is almost certainly politically motivated slander and Fake News.

Quite on the other end of the credibility scale, Steve Sailer just busted (((Jon Leibowitz))) for attempting to sweep (((Louis CK’s serial sexual harassment under the rug, while (((Matthew Weiner))) is the latest Hollywood Values paragon to be accused of sexual harassment.

Why is one accusation credible while the other isn’t? Compare how Moore’s behavior towards other was described compared with Weiner’s.

At times he seemed a classic bully: obsequious toward those above him, condescending and harsh toward those he perceived as having less power to help or harm him. After one confrontation, costume designer Juliet Polcsa began carrying a minicassette recorder to tape her interactions with Weiner.

And then there is this.

Matt originally hired Kater as his personal assistant. She was soon promoted to be his writer’s assistant, and by the end of that same season, Matt offered her the opportunity to co-write the season finale — a particularly important show for him as Weiner also directs the final episode of each season. Then, without requiring Kater to generate any other spec material on her own (usually required for a writer’s advancement), Matt promoted her to be a full-time staff writer for this past season. 

That’s a totally normal timeframe for advancement, right? Weiner wasn’t treating Kater any differently than any other PA/writer’s assistant/co-writer/staff writer, right? She was just so super-talented that she never worked in the industry again, right?

Foreign corruption

Imagine how much worse this sort of thing is likely to be in the USA:

Priti Patel is facing the sack today after Theresa May ordered her to cancel an Africa tour and return to the UK. The Aid Secretary’s fate appears to be sealed after two further secret meetings with Israeli officials emerged on top of the 12 that had already been revealed. The latest developments appear to have hardened the mood in Downing Street, where there had already been fury at Miss Patel’s ‘freelancing’.

No10 sources said the minister had been told to return to the UK from Nairobi for a showdown, cancelling plans for her to fly to Uganda with Trade Secretary Liam Fox. The row over Miss Patel’s extraordinary breach of government protocol while on a ‘family holiday’ to Israel surfaced last week, but erupted again on Monday when she admitted there were more undeclared meetings, including with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mrs May demanded an apology from Miss Patel and formally reprimanded her, hoping that would draw a line under the furore. However, it has now been revealed that she held two further unauthorised meetings with senior Israeli political figures which were not attended by UK Government officials. Miss Patel narrowly avoided the sack following the initial wave of revelations after the PM decided she could not risk destabilising the Government further after Sir Michael Fallon quit over sexual harassment claims last week. But Downing Street’s stance changed yesterday after it emerged that Miss Patel had tried to divert some of Britain’s aid budget to humanitarian work by the Israeli army in the disputed Golan Heights.

I wonder what would happen if the special counsel were to investigate Israeli interference with the US government with the same energy he has shown in the futile RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA probe.

I understand that Israel is in a geographically precarious position and is always looking for ways to improve the odds of its survival, but this sort of thing is absolutely the wrong way to go about strengthening one’s alliances and pretty much guarantees a backlash that could be worse than any potential benefit gained.

UPDATE: This affair may take down May as well as Patel now. Total incompetence on the part of the Prime Minister, who should have fired Patel immediately.

Number 10 instructed Development Secretary Priti Patel not to include her meeting with the Israel foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York on 18 September in her list of undisclosed meetings with Israelis which was published on Monday, the JC has learned.

Ms Patel listed 12 meetings in the statement, and the emergence of two more last night is thought to have made her sacking imminent.

But the JC understands, from two different sources, that Ms Patel did disclose the meeting with Mr Rotem but was told by Number 10 not to include it as it would embarrass the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It would be ironic as well as unfortunate if this diplomatic debacle helped Jeremy Corbyn, the avowedly anti-Zionist Labour leader, come to power.