Self-Destructive Illusions of ‘Social Justice’

Posted on | October 26, 2019 | Comments Off on Self-Destructive Illusions of ‘Social Justice’

Christine Douglass-Williams reports at Jihad Watch:

A stunning finding about American Jews polled in the U.S. on the threat of antisemitism: more Jews believe that the “extreme political right” poses a bigger threat than Islamic “extremism,” according to an American Jewish Committee (AJC) poll:

Almost 90 percent of Jews who responded said that the extreme political right presents an anti-Semitic threat. Less, though, said the same about “extremism in the name of Islam” — only 85 percent said it represents an anti-Semitic threat in the United States.

This despite the fact that Islamic antisemitism has had a huge impact, all the way up to Congress. Even a Washington Post article identified Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar as open antisemites. Their partnership with “vicious antisemites” who also aim to destroy Israel is well known.
In reality, there is no organized “extreme political right” today. The entire Palestinian resistance is based on obliterating Israel “from the river to the sea,” and the movement has managed to gain worrying traction over the decades, a movement which began in 1948 among surrounding Arab nations, as the Jewish state declared its nationhood. Yet still denial prevails.

Why this paranoid fear of the “extreme political right”?

Start here: American Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats. For example, in 2016, Jewish voters chose Hillary Clinton (71%) by more than a 2-to-1 margin over Donald Trump (23%). This leftist tendency among Jews has long been remarked. Despite their higher-than-average incomes, Jews continue to vote as if they were impoverished immigrants. “Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans,” Milton Himmelfarb said. The cultural roots of this political bias were examined in Norman Podhoretz’s 2009 book, Why Are Jews Liberals? My conservative Jewish friends are often exasperated by this tendency among their fellow tribesmen, particularly because of a circular logic that the Jewish-Democrat alliance often employs: Whatever cause is currently supported by Democrats must “good for the Jews,” and therefore Republican opponents are motivated by anti-Semitism. This tautology has been employed for decades, and arguably originated with the Communist Party during the “Popular Front” era of the 1930s. Because Republicans were generally opposed to U.S. intervention in Europe, this was portrayed by the Communists (and their various front groups) as indicative of pro-Nazi sympathies in the GOP. This libel persisted even after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, whereby Stalin formed an alliance with Hitler to carve up Poland between them, a cynical agreement that should have permanently disillusioned anyone who ever imagined the Soviet Union represented a “progressive” ideal (e.g., “the right side of history”).

After World War II, when it became apparent that Communist infiltration was a national security threat, Communists responded with a propaganda campaign smearing their antagonists as “fascists” motivated by anti-Semitism. This propaganda yielded a distortion that has warped the teaching of Cold War history. Even though Stalin was, in the final years of his dictatorship, engaged in anti-Semitic purges in the Soviet Union, and even though many Jews (including ex-Communists) were active in the anti-Communist cause, nevertheless “McCarthyism” is portrayed as anti-Semitic. A simplistic formula seems to have taken root among liberal Jews: Because the Nazis were a “right-wing” phenomenon, therefore all right-wingers were Nazis and, by logical obverse, all left-wing movements were good for the Jews. This formula of pas d’ennemis à gauche (“No enemies to the Left”) was more or less explicitly codified in Herbert Marcuse’s 1965 essay “Repressive Tolerance.”

The Republican Party has never been able to undo the damage of this old Communist libel, in part because I don’t think most Republicans have ever studied the problem in depth, but mainly because of the general incompetence of Republicans when it comes to cultural politics. The mythology of Republicans-as-Nazis has by now become so deeply embedded in liberal Jewish culture that we are shocked by any Jew who forthrightly rejects it. And this myth is inescapably intertwined with a specifically Jewish form of “social justice” ideology, expressed by the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam (“repairing the world”). Without presuming to write a thesis on this subject, I’ll just say that tikkun olam seems to result in a stark binary division of mankind into two groups: On the one hand are the oppressors and on the other, the victims of oppression. White people oppress black people (“racism”), men oppress women (“sexism”), straight people oppress gay people (“homophobia”) and so forth, with no uncertainty as to the pervasive nature of oppression as the most meaningful fact of human existence. From this uncritical belief stems a tendency to view any social or political conflict as the result of oppression; merely figure out which side of the conflict represents victimhood, and you thereby know which side to support, with their opponents being automatically demonized as oppressors.

This is how, since 9/11, so many left-wing Jews have embraced the idea that “Islamophobia” is a worse danger than Islamic terrorism. Because “Islamophobia” is believed to inspire people to vote Republican, therefore Muslims are sympathetic victims of oppression, and never mind how often Islamic leaders express their hatred of Jews. According to the “social justice” mythology embraced by left-wing Jews, everything must be done to oppose the Republican/Nazi menace, even if that means supporting Jew-haters like Ilhan Omar. Thus, “social justice” becomes an ideology of mass suicide, like the Jonestown cult.

Paranoid fantasies about the “extreme political right” as the all-purpose bogeyman encourage the left-wing Jew to ignore any possibility that there are dangers far worse — and far more numerous — than a comparative handful of neo-Nazi kooks. And as with other identity-politics beliefs, one finds that it is impossible to persuade such people by rational argument. Because the appeal of this mythology is essentially emotional, no amount of facts or logic can suffice to refute it.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Islam, Racism

In The Mailbox: 10.25.19

Posted on | October 26, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Charge Of The Light Brigade
Ammo.com: The PATRIOT Act – An Impulsive Bill That Eviscerated America’s Civil Liberties
EBL: Durham Inquiry Shifts To Criminal Investigation
Twitchy: Sen. Mark Warner Really, REALLY Doesn’t Want Barr Investigating The 2016 Election
Louder With Crowder: NCAA’s “Female Athlete Of The Week” Is Transgender
According To Hoyt: Teaching Offense
Monster Hunter Nation: Target Rich Environment II EARC Out Now
Vox Popoli: Preemptive Defense, also, 800% And Rising

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Flynn Attorney Sidney Powell – FBI “Ambushed” Flynn, Deceptively Manipulated 302 File
American Power: Tulsi Gabbard Won’t Seek Reelection
American Thinker: Harrison Ford, Climate Hypocrite
Animal Magnetism: Hunting Season Totty Finale
Babalu Blog: Smithsonian Magazine Sanctifies Che Guevara
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For October 25
Camp of the Saints: On Treachery & The Praetorian Guard
Cafe Hayek: Absorbing Immigrants
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Five Movie/TV Thoughts Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Twelve Facts About The IG Investigation
First Street Journal: The Unseriousnes Of President Trump’s Primary Challengers
The Geller Report: Twitter Suspends Pam Geller For Tweeting About Depraved Dem Rep Katie Hill, also, Jew-Haters At Michigan State Destroy Sukkah
Hogewash: Mergers & Acquisitions, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Critic V. Critic – The Great Scorsese/MCU Debate, also, Lighthouse Is Perfect Pretentious Art House Cinema
Joe For America: Texas Supremes Lay Smackdown On CPS, Return Drake Pardo To Parents
Legal Insurrection: Who’ll Be The First To Flip In Spygate Criminal Investigation? also, Republican John James Tied In Michigan Senate Poll
The PanAm Post: “The Destruction In Santiago Isn’t Vandalism, It’s An Insurgent War”, also, Until Its Ultimate Conclusion Against Freedom
Power Line: More Bombshells From The Flynn Prosecution, also, Administrative Bloat & The Attack On Campus Free Speech
Shark Tank: Mucarsel-Powell, Shalala Called “Frauds” Over Venezuela
Shot In The Dark: The Life March
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Meaning Of The China Vote
This Ain’t Hell: The Real Reasons For Doing Stupid Things, also, We Few…We Happy Few
Victory Girls: There’s Nothing Right About A Parent Forcing A Child Into A Different Gender
Volokh Conspiracy: Free Speech & LGBT Rights
Weasel Zippers: Beta O’Rourke – Anyone Who Doesn’t Turn In Their Weapon, That Weapon Shall Be Taken From Them, also, Fauxcahontas Alsoa Calls For Gun Confiscation
Megan McArdle: The WeWork Story Is So Bizarre We Can’t Even Get Outraged About It
Mark Steyn: Bring On The Hologram, also, Putting The Infidel In Infidelity

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Amazon’s Halloween Store

Category: Linkagery

Kathy Griffin: ‘Orchestrated Campaign’ by ‘Older White Men’ Against Her Career

Posted on | October 25, 2019 | 1 Comment

Eric Scheiner of the Media Research Center has video of Kathy Griffin’s appearance on Los Angeles KTLA-TV news in which the comedienne, who infamously had the idea that the decapitation of President Trump would be a funny “joke,” complains: “I still do not have one single day of paid work ahead of me for the rest of my life.”

The reason for this, Griffin explains, is that she is “a 58-year-old female in comedy,” which is “a male-dominated field,” and “older white guys” are part of “a whole orchestrated campaign” against her.

Jim Treacher weighs in:

This might be the only time she’s ever made me laugh. Unfortunately for her, she’s being serious.
So there’s a conspiracy of old white men keeping Kathy Griffin from working. That’s one theory. Another theory — and I know this might sound crazy — is that Kathy Griffin isn’t funny anymore, if she ever was. Maybe she was barely tolerable even before that whole mess, and ever since, she’s just become a bitter old crank. Perhaps she’s a deeply unpleasant narcissist who finally wore out her welcome, and most people have moved on.
Just a theory!

Here’s another theory: Roughly 25 or 30 years ago, Kathy Griffin got lots of breaks in the comedy business because she is a woman, and stupidly failed to capitalize on the opportunities she had.

It is no secret that show business is full of ups and downs, and therefore anyone who enjoys early success in the business would be well advised to build their career in such a way that they can continue to earn a living after their days in the spotlight are over. Bank your fees and royalties, make shrewd investments in real estate, perhaps create a production company so you can work on the other side of the camera.

Kathy Griffin got her start in comedy by joining The Groundlings, an L.A. comedy troupe whose most famous member was Phil Hartman. She eventually appeared in several films — including a part in 1994’s Pulp Fiction — and got her biggest break in 1996 when she appeared in an episode of Seinfeld as Sally, the former college roommate of George Costanza’s doomed fiancée Susan. At that time, Seinfeld was the top-rated show on television, and to be cast for a guest appearance was a huge break. Guess how Griffin reacted?

Guest star Kathy Griffin later performed a stand-up comedy routine alleging that Jerry Seinfeld was rude to her during filming. Seinfeld was so amused by this he had it written into a later episode, The Cartoon, where Griffin would return as Sally Weaver.

Can you imagine that? Jerry Seinfeld, the star of the No. 1 show on TV, does you the favor of casting you on his hit program and your reaction is to publicly accusing him of being rude to you? And yet he then brought Griffin back on the show to do a take-off on this bit:

Kramer gets Jerry into trouble when he reveals Jerry’s dislike of Sally Weaver (Kathy Griffin) directly to her when they meet on the street. . . .
After Sally claims that Jerry has ruined her life and she’s quitting show business, Jerry confronts Kramer about his big mouth always causing problems. Kramer therefore decides to stop talking and communicate non-verbally from that point on. . . .
A bitter Sally opens her new one-woman show called “Jerry Seinfeld, the Devil” where she complains about him. Unsurprisingly, Newman becomes a big fan. But each time Jerry confronts her about it, she adds his angry remarks to her show. Jerry eventually threatens her with a cease and desist order and cuts off all communication. . . .
Sally runs into Kramer at Monk’s and is unhappy about her lack of material due to Jerry ending all communication. She prompts Kramer out of his vow of silence and he provides her with a whole new series of secrets about Jerry for her show.

So she got not one, but two guest appearances on the No. 1 television show at the time. She also was featured on Saturday Night Live, and landed a regular role on Suddenly Susan, starring Brooke Shields, that ran for four seasons. Afterwards, Griffin’s work included, among other things, four seasons on Hollywood Squares and My Life on the D-List, a reality-TV show that ran for six seasons on the Bravo cable network. For about 15 years, in other words, Griffin was working steadily on TV, to say nothing of her live stand-up shows, and while she derogated herself as a “D-List” celebrity by Hollywood standards, she was making good money.

Why is she now on TV poor-mouthing about being the victim of “a whole orchestrated campaign” by “older white guys” in “a male-dominated field,” when in fact she enjoyed two decades of remarkable (and lucrative) success in that field? Whose choice was it to make a “joke” about the decapitation of the President of the United States? Isn’t it obvious to Griffin that people who make decisions in show business understand that any program they booked her on would be automatically boycotted by the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump? “I still do not have one single day of paid work ahead of me for the rest of my life,” she says.

Yeah — #GetWokeGoBroke. Look it up, sweetheart.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

Category: Celebrities

Who Would Marry Dr. Frankenbaby?

Posted on | October 25, 2019 | 1 Comment

This Halloween season, a frightening tale has unfolded in Texas. Everyone has been following with a profound sense of horror the terrifying saga of James Younger, whose demented mother wants to raise him as a girl named “Luna.” This child-custody case from Hell went to trial and a jury sided with the mother, so the 7-year-old boy is now being ordered by a court to be brainwashed and castrated to satisfy his mother’s transgender mania. Who is this monstrous mom?

Dr. Anne Georgulas is a 56-year-old pediatrician who, in 2010, married Jeff Younger. Georgulas had previously adopted two girls as a single parent, but had never had children of her own. So in 2012, at age 49, she gave birth to twin sons. Think about that for just a minute. How many 49-year-olds become first-time mothers? It’s a very bad idea. By the time the kids are old enough to drive, she’ll be eligible for Social Security.

It turns out that these twin boys are not even biologically related to their “mother,” but rather were conceived by an IVF process using donor eggs and (we presume) her husband’s sperm. So these children are Frankenbabies, the product of experimental medical methods.

I am very dubious of the ethics of IVF using donor sperm and/or donor eggs, especially when used to create pregnancies for people who are trying to cheat nature. Like, if you wait until you’re in your 40s to try to have kids, you’re a victim of nothing but your own poor judgment, and I don’t believe the medical profession has a duty to assist you in your unnatural project of becoming a post-menopausal mom.

Ditto, I say, for homosexuals. Look, if you want to have babies, there’s a very well-known method for doing so, and if you don’t wish to engage in that activity, whose fault is it that you can’t have babies? But no, people believe they have “rights” in this regard, and so we have lesbian couples paying for sperm — as if this commodity can’t be found in plentiful supply, free of charge — and demanding that insurance pay for their insemination procedures, IVF and all the rest. But I digress . . .

The background of this Texas case calls into question the decisions that led to the birth of 7-year-old James Younger, the boy Anne Georgulas now wishes to raise as a girl named “Luna.” What kind of man, aspiring to fatherhood, would choose to marry a woman in her 40s?

Jeff Younger seems to be a shady character. According to his ex-wife, Younger lied about nearly everything, falsely claiming to be a college professor and Marine Corps combat veteran:

She testified in court in 2016 that she had learned Younger was married twice when she had been told initially of one marriage, that he “lied to her” about military experience, that he earned less income than she thought he did, that he had “taken unemployment probably several times in his life,” and that he did not have a college degree, and he was not a professor. She stated that she wouldn’t have married Younger if she had known about the second previous marriage. . . .
Georgulas testified that Younger had told her he was getting his PhD and had two degrees from a university in Dallas but later she determined he didn’t have a college degree. The court records state that Georgulas testified that she learned Younger “had been in the Marines for a very short period of time and because he was underage, he got removed from the Marines,” even though he allegedly told her he was a career Marine who had to fight in the Iraq War.
According to Georgulas, “she found out after they separated that Younger had been in the Army and was discharged due to an ‘admission of homosexuality.’” The court opinion states that the “record shows Younger testified he did not ‘mention much about the Army’ during the marriage, but acknowledged he was discharged from the Army due to admission of homosexuality.”

Whoa! “Admission of homosexuality”? That’s a pretty big red flag isn’t it?

In all the sympathetic coverage of Jeff Younger’s effort to save his son from his ex-wife’s transgender mania, has anyone asked him about this? Like, this seems rather significant, doesn’t it? And isn’t the story of his five-year marriage to Anne Georgulas rather odd? Why would this guy, who has been twice divorced, be so eager to marry this particular woman that he’d tell all kinds of lies to make it happen? Whose idea was it to do the IVF-with-donor-eggs? Did none of their acquaintances find it odd that this woman in her late 40s had suddenly discovered an urgent need to become pregnant? Isn’t it quite expensive to do it this way?

If a man wished to become a father, certainly he would best be advised to seek a partner much younger than Anne Georgulas, and the fact that Jeff Younger was ever involved with her counts as a strike against him, causing me to question whether he is acting in good faith.

None of this can be viewed as evidence in support of this deranged woman’s plan to raise her son as a girl named “Luna,” but it might help explain why family courts keep ruling against Jeff Younger.

People must consider the consequences of their choices. The path that led to this sad situation had more red flags than the May Day parade in Beijing. Every circumstance warned that the Georgulas-Younger marriage was a bad decision, and we should also question the judgment of the doctors who provided this couple with IVF treatment.

If Jeff Younger ever complains his ex-wife is crazy, the appropriate reply would be: “Yes — crazy enough to marry you.”

Category: The Transgender Cult

Florida Man Raped 15-Year-Old Girl, Posted Videos to Internet, Police Say

Posted on | October 25, 2019 | Comments Off on Florida Man Raped 15-Year-Old Girl, Posted Videos to Internet, Police Say

He also paid for her abortion:

When a 15-year-old girl’s mother found out sexually explicit photos of her daughter were online, it had been nearly a year since her family had seen her.
Police investigated and discovered nearly 60 pornographic videos of the Sunrise girl posted on Periscope, Pornhub, Modelhub, Snapchat and other websites, according to an arrest report.
In some of the videos with the girl was a bald man who police recognized as one of two men the girl was with in February when a clerk at a 7-11 in Davie recognized her. Police obtained video surveillance from the store after that Feb. 26 sighting was reported.
The video shows the girl trying to shield her face so the clerk at the store at 8630 W. State Road 84 couldn’t see her. The girl and the two men left in a black Dodge Challenger. Its tag was not visible, the report said.
Police eventually linked the Dodge to a 30-year-old Davie man named Christopher Johnson and conducted surveillance at his apartment in the 8100 block of Southwest 24th Court.
On Tuesday, when Johnson and the girl left the apartment and drove away in a black Dodge Challenger, police pulled them over.
The girl later told detectives many of the videos of her having sex with Johnson had been recorded at his apartment, according to the report.
Because of her age and the nature of the crime, the South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying the girl.
A search warrant executed at Johnson’s apartment produced paperwork from an abortion clinic.
“The victim stated that she got pregnant from the defendant and he took her to the clinic to have an abortion,” Detective Adam Granit wrote in Johnson’s arrest report.
Johnson denied having sex with the girl.
He was arrested Wednesday and is being held in the Broward Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale on a felony charge of lewd or lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 16.
A Broward judge set Johnson’s bail at $75,000.

Shouldn’t this guy be under federal indictment on child pornography charges? But this is just another case of “violence against women” that feminists will ignore, for some reason.

Category: Florida, Violence Against Women

AOC: Fossil Fuels Are Racist or Something

Posted on | October 25, 2019 | 2 Comments

White people are killing brown people with global warming:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put a racial spin Wednesday on climate change and hurricanes, attributing emissions from “predominantly white” corporations and communities for juicing recent storms that cost “predominantly black and brown lives” in Louisiana and Puerto Rico.
Even as House Republicans argued that cheap electricity from fossil fuels has helped lift more than a billion people out of poverty around the world, the New York Democrat asked a witness about whether “the Global South and communities of color” bear the brunt of climate “havoc.”
“[T]he people that are producing climate change, the folks that are responsible for the largest amount of emissions, or communities, or corporations, they tend to be predominantly white, correct?” she asked at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties.
The National Wildlife Federation’s Mustafa Ali replied that “yes, and every study backs that up I know no one is intentionally trying to kill people and hurt people.”
“My own grandfather died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria,” said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, referring to the 2017 Puerto Rico storm that ultimately left about 3,000 dead. “We can’t act as though the inertia and history of colonization doesn’t play a role in this.”
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, pointed out that the deadliest hurricane in North American history remains the 1900 Great Galveston Storm, which killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people, making landfall well before the rise of atmospheric carbon-dioxide emissions. . . .
Global climate-related deaths — those from floods, hurricanes, drought, wildfires and other “extreme weather” events — plummeted by about 95% from 1920-2018, according to data compiled by the Copenhagen Consensus Center’s Bjorn Lomborg.

Can someone please point out to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez that she is from New York City, a community wholly dependent for its existence on food and other products imported by truck, by rail and by ships? How long could New York City exist without fossil fuels? A week, at most?

The congressional hearing, by the way, was timed to coincide with, and give publicity to, the opening of a trial in New York, where the state attorney general is suing Exxon-Mobil for $1.6 billion claiming the company lied about “climate change.” A similar lawsuit, filed by the California cities of San Francisco and Oakland, was thrown out by a federal judge last year. Now Massachusetts is also suing Exxon-Mobil. In other words, all these deep-blue urban Democrat bastions are against coal, oil and natural gas — against industrial capitalism, per se.

Category: Democrats, Global Warming

Harvard Radicals Boycott the Crimson

Posted on | October 25, 2019 | Comments Off on Harvard Radicals Boycott the Crimson

Bizarre left-wing campus politics in the Ivy League:

The principal student newspaper at Harvard University is being forced by student activists to defend the standard journalistic practice of asking subjects of stories for comment.
The Crimson, according to a “Note to Readers” published Tuesday, was publicly condemned by the group Act on a Dream and 10 other student groups for seeking comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a Sept. 13 article about an Act protest calling for the agency to be abolished.
More than 650 people have signed a petition, which condemns getting comment from ICE as “cultural insensitivity.”
“In this political climate, a request for comment is virtually the same as tipping [ICE] off, regardless of how they are contacted,” reads the petition, which demands that the Crimson “reexamine and interrogate policies that place students under threat” and apologize for “the harm they inflicted” on illegal-immigrant students.
Act on a Dream also took to Twitter to “call on our peers and fellow student organizations to boycott @thecrimson and decline any interviews or requests for comment until they change their reckless policy that requires calling ICE in their reporting.”

We call on our peers and fellow student organizations to boycott @thecrimson and decline any interviews or requests for comment until they change their reckless policy that requires calling ICE in their reporting.

— Act on a Dream (@actonadream) October 19, 2019

The Crimson letter defended contacting ICE but only after assuaging some of Act on a Dream’s concerns and treating its demand for one-sided stories as serious.
“Let us be clear: In The Crimson’s communication with ICE’s media office, the reporters did not provide the names or immigration statuses of any individual at the protest. We did not give ICE forewarning of the protest, nor did we seek to interfere with the protest as it was occurring. Indeed, it is The Crimson’s practice to wait until a protest concludes before asking for comment from the target of the protest — a rule which was followed here. The Crimson’s outreach to ICE only consisted of public information and a broad summary of protestors’ criticisms. As noted in the story, ICE did not respond to a request for comment,” wrote Crimson President Kristine E. Guillaume and Managing Editor Angela N. Fu.

Meanwhile, in the pages of the Crimson, students are treated to a lecture against “cultural appropriation” in Halloween costumes, written by Harvard junior Gabrielle Langkilde, a native of Samoa majoring in “Sociology and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality” who seems to be afraid that white girls might dress as Moana for the holiday.

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved.