Month: January 2019

In their zeal to impeach President Trump on phony charges of collusion and corruption, the Democrats have allowed radical socialists to gain a foothold in the party and in the case of one, media sensation Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they have created a monster that is about to devour them.

AOC has become the Lady Gaga of Marxism and thanks to the media turning her into a superstar, the 29-year-old taco bar revolutionary has built a formidable social media following after exploding onto the scene last summer when she unexpectedly won the Democrat primary in New York’s 14th congressional district.

Despite only being in Congress for a few weeks, Ocasio-Cortez has become the king or queen maker for whoever emerges as the 2020 nominee who will have to kiss her ring.

That according to Fox’s Laura Ingraham:

Via The Hill, “Laura Ingraham: Dems ‘are all going to have to kiss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ring’”:

Laura Ingraham on Thursday declared that Democratic lawmakers “are all going to have to kiss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ring” due to what the Fox News host says is the party’s move to the left and the freshman congresswoman leading that effort.

“The [Democratic] base that we pointed out last night, it’s moving everybody to the left,” said Ingraham. “You have a few moderates, Steny Hoyer and a few others, but not many. They are all going to have to kiss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ring. In one way or another, they’re going to kiss the ring, and she’s only been in town for seven days. That’s pretty amazing.”

AOC derives her power from millennials like her who according to a recent study by the Victims Of Communism Memorial Foundation along with research from Gallup polling, are taking to socialism/communism like ducks to water.

https://t.co/XpbQvClfBR Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds #feelthebern pic.twitter.com/ciJ8WAc6s7

— bernie sanders (@BernieSNewschan) August 16, 2018

She is the perfect saleswoman to seduce clueless young people – and ambitious Dems – into embracing an ideology that has proved to be murderous and oppressive everywhere that it has ever been implemented.

Call me a hard-hearted, mean-spirited conservative if you will, but I am not bleeding from the heart over the plight of most of the furloughed federal workers. While I am certain that some of them have not bothered to accumulate savings, and thus are running out of money with which to pay important bills, the rest of us in the private sector have had to live with the possibility of our incomes being cut off for our entire careers. Moreover, federal employees, especially in the lower ranges of the income scale, make out like bandits compared to the rest of us with the same skills and responsibilities.

(source)

Kristin Tate elaborates in The Hill:

Federal workers receive pay that is 17 percent higher than private sector employees on average performing comparable work. That is on top of putting in 12 percent fewer hours. Furthermore, a Princeton University study found that when “taking differences in employee characteristics into account,” federal workers actually earn 34 percent more than comparable private sector workers.

They receive “cadillac” federal employees health benefits, 75 percent of which is subsidized. These plans includes medical plus vision and dental benefits. On top of that, federal retirees are eligible for covered health benefits at 57 years old, a rare luxury in the private sector. They also have generous pension plans and Social Security benefits. Such payments are three times higher than private sector 401(k) and Social Security benefits.

It is also worth noting that federal workers face a 0.2 percent chance of getting fired in a given year. That is more than 45 times lower than their private sector counterparts. In some cases, it takes the effort from four different agencies to fire federal employees, and the process often takes years, even in simple cases. This shield protects public employees who are cited for malfeasance or incompetence. Meanwhile, a Brookings Institution study found that 65 percent of federal employees think job security is more important than helping the public, while only 30 percent think their organization does a good job disciplining poor performers.

Moreover, the entire media narrative that essential employees are “working without pay” is a lie. They are guaranteed to be paid after the shutdown, so they are working for deferred compensation. And, those non-essential employees are getting a paid vacation! The need to finance a few weeks (or, depending on Democrats, months) of income every few years, secure in the knowledge that the income will be paid on a delayed basis, is a tradeoff that I would gladly make in return for guarantees of a job paying much higher than in the private sector, and with gold plated perks.

If I am going to feel sorry for people furloughed, I will save my pity for the coal miners thrown out of work by President Obama’s plan to bankrupt coal mines, or for General Motors workers at Lordstown, where the factory will be closed, among many other private sector workers who are exposed to risks that federal workers can blissfully ignore. Or even more, for workers in the “gig economy” where they get no secure paycheck.  

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Call me a hard-hearted, mean-spirited conservative if you will, but I am not bleeding from the heart over the plight of most of the furloughed federal workers. While I am certain that some of them have not bothered to accumulate savings, and thus are running out of money with which to pay important bills, the rest of us in the private sector have had to live with the possibility of our incomes being cut off for our entire careers. Moreover, federal employees, especially in the lower ranges of the income scale, make out like bandits compared to the rest of us with the same skills and responsibilities.

(source)

Kristin Tate elaborates in The Hill:

Federal workers receive pay that is 17 percent higher than private sector employees on average performing comparable work. That is on top of putting in 12 percent fewer hours. Furthermore, a Princeton University study found that when “taking differences in employee characteristics into account,” federal workers actually earn 34 percent more than comparable private sector workers.

They receive “cadillac” federal employees health benefits, 75 percent of which is subsidized. These plans includes medical plus vision and dental benefits. On top of that, federal retirees are eligible for covered health benefits at 57 years old, a rare luxury in the private sector. They also have generous pension plans and Social Security benefits. Such payments are three times higher than private sector 401(k) and Social Security benefits.

It is also worth noting that federal workers face a 0.2 percent chance of getting fired in a given year. That is more than 45 times lower than their private sector counterparts. In some cases, it takes the effort from four different agencies to fire federal employees, and the process often takes years, even in simple cases. This shield protects public employees who are cited for malfeasance or incompetence. Meanwhile, a Brookings Institution study found that 65 percent of federal employees think job security is more important than helping the public, while only 30 percent think their organization does a good job disciplining poor performers.

Moreover, the entire media narrative that essential employees are “working without pay” is a lie. They are guaranteed to be paid after the shutdown, so they are working for deferred compensation. And, those non-essential employees are getting a paid vacation! The need to finance a few weeks (or, depending on Democrats, months) of income every few years, secure in the knowledge that the income will be paid on a delayed basis, is a tradeoff that I would gladly make in return for guarantees of a job paying much higher than in the private sector, and with gold plated perks.

If I am going to feel sorry for people furloughed, I will save my pity for the coal miners thrown out of work by President Obama’s plan to bankrupt coal mines, or for General Motors workers at Lordstown, where the factory will be closed, among many other private sector workers who are exposed to risks that federal workers can blissfully ignore. Or even more, for workers in the “gig economy” where they get no secure paycheck.  

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

If there are any among you that maintain the illusion that the Silicon Valley tech giants aren’t promoting an anti-American agenda then this story is for you.

Twitter – which is in the midst of a purge of conservatives – sent a warning to activist and blogger Pamela Geller that one of her tweets that was critical of anti-Semite Linda Sarsour was a violation of Pakistani law and that she should seek legal counsel?

WTF?

Geller is a longtime critic of Radical Islam and has been the target of censorship, accusations of racism and even physical peril after extremists upset with her “Draw The Prophet Mohammad” cartoon contest (which as attacked by terrorists) upset fundamentalists.

ISIS devotee who plotted to behead Pamela Geller faces life in prison https://t.co/5cUn3tLhJU

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 18, 2017

Now Twitter has sided with the terrorists with the insanely un-American demand for her to lawyer up to which she replied:

Twitter has sent me notice “to consult legal counsel” because the tweet below “is in violation of Pakistan [sharia] law.” You bloody cowards can kiss my free ass.
I am an American. You are an American company. Act like it, sniveling slaves. https://t.co/HqY7RVDVE2

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) January 17, 2019

Via Big League Politics, “Twitter Tells Pamela Geller to Lawyer Up for Breaking SHARIA LAW”:

According to Pamela Geller, who has been speaking out against the dangers of radical Islam for decades, Twitter has told her to seek legal counsel for breaking Pakistani law.

“Twitter has sent me notice ‘to consult legal counsel’ because the tweet below ‘is in violation of Pakistan [sharia] law.’ You bloody cowards can kiss my free ass. I am an American. You are an American company. Act like it, sniveling slaves,” she said on the platform.

Pakistani law is Sharia Law, practiced by radical Islamists, under which women are considered property, and both adultery and apostasy – leaving the faith – are grounds for death by stoning. Other charming Sharia practices include giving the closest living relative of a murder victim the right to kill the murderer, and 100 lashes for premarital sex.

“Sweden: Muslims who wanted to ‘kill as many as possible’ over Muhammad cartoon to be released from prison: Madness. These terrorists have threatened violence to staff and other prisoners during their prison sentence, with one requiring isolation after…” said the original Tweet for which Geller was flagged.

Sweden: Muslims who wanted to “kill as many as possible” over Muhammad cartoon to be released from prison: Madness. These terrorists have threatened violence to staff and other prisoners during their prison sentence, with one requiring isolation after… https://t.co/v6QzMIbPXy pic.twitter.com/34KeBc7rLy

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) December 28, 2018

It’s a pretty damning testament as to the longterm goals of the left that the world’s largest micro-blogging platform is calling for an American to bow to foreign law.

Ecuador is drawing flak for shutting its doors on fleeing Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

According to Reuters:

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador is setting up new units to check Venezuelan immigrants’ legal status and may tighten entry requirements after a Venezuelan man murdered his pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend, President Lenin Moreno said on Sunday.

The killing in the northern city of Ibarra is the first reported murder perpetrated by a Venezuelan immigrant in Ecuador since hundreds of thousands have arrived there after fleeing an economic crisis in Venezuela.

“I have ordered the immediate setting up of units to control Venezuelan immigrants’ legal status in the streets, in the workplace, and at the border,” Moreno said on Twitter.

The Venezuelan reaction, even from non-communist, anti-dictatorship Venezuelans, was critical:

Realmente imperdonable https://t.co/GZ9JgwbHzT

— Diego E. Arria (@Diego_Arria) January 21, 2019

Here’s a quick Microsoft translate that looks clear enough:

Really unforgivable.

Very serious that a head of state generates a xenophobic communiqué. I was a prosecutor for 17 years and hundreds of Ecuadorians were prosecuted for various crimes in Venezuela. We never generalized, nor persecuted our brethren in that country for what a few committed, rectify!

Both sides have some merit in their reactions.  Ecuador has taken in hundreds of thousands of fleeing Venezuelans without any proper identification and is getting overwhelmed.  A bad murder probably isn’t the full issue here.  Communism with its attendant poverty has always corrupted a lot of people, and as any post-USSR Russian can tell you, a number of them become criminals.  They emigrate to other countries and continue criminality.  There are probably a lot more crimes being inflicted upon Ecuador than just this one bad murder being cited as a threat to peace.  And the Ecuadorean response seems to be mild compared to the popular response to a similar incident in Brazil, where angry locals ran all Venezuelans out of town after a shopkeeper was beaten and robbed by a Venezuelan migrant, then burned the Venezuelans’ encampment and set up a wall of burning tires at the border to keep the migrants from coming back.

Obviously, these countries are stressed.

It’s also true what the Venezuelan has to say – Venezuelans have taken in lots of Colombians and Ecuadoreans back when they were refugees, so there’s a sense that maybe there should be some quid pro quo.  Back when I was in Colombia, I recall Colombians observing that once upon a time, they had been maids to the Venezuelans, but now the Venezuelans are maids to them.

So yes, some debts are owed.  But at the same time, nothing matches the scale of this mass movement of refugees, and that makes the price to these countries higher.  Part of me wants to say, “Tough it out.  You tolerated and succored Hugo Chávez, who created the situation.  Now you can live with the inevitable result.”  But another part wants to say that all mass floods of refugees or migrants looking for something better in someone else’s country are magnets for criminal elements.  We see this clearly with the caravans making their way up from Central America.  Democrats deny this as they seek to allow all migrants in without vetting and oppose a border wall in the name of capturing the Latino vote, but human nature is going to remain human nature, and the fact of the matter is, criminal migrants who get in without passports or vetting are always going to be creating victims of the locals.  The fact that the migrant movement is irregular and disorderly makes it an absolute certainty that criminals are going to get in and infiltrate the mass movements.  

Ecuador seems to know this and is shutting the door.  One can only hope this will, instead of provoking bitter feelings, put the spotlight where it belongs: on the regime in Caracas.  Maybe if Ecuador would couple this move with an absolute refusal to recognize the regime of Nicolás Maduro – as Brazil has done – will balance the act and make it less about hating on refugees and more on getting rid of the reason why there are refugees.  That would be a minimum move.  Better still, maybe Ecuador will start pushing for the regime change Venezuela most desperately needs and start committing resources, as well as supporting Venezuela’s beleaguered democrats and egg on Venezuela’s army to move.  That would get rid of the negative feelings among the Venezuelans.  Nobody wants to be a refugee unless there’s absolutely nothing else he can do.  Slash that problem at its root, and the unvetted refugees will stop coming.

Image credit: Osmar Rodríguez via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Ecuador is drawing flak for shutting its doors on fleeing Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

According to Reuters:

QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador is setting up new units to check Venezuelan immigrants’ legal status and may tighten entry requirements after a Venezuelan man murdered his pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend, President Lenin Moreno said on Sunday.

The killing in the northern city of Ibarra is the first reported murder perpetrated by a Venezuelan immigrant in Ecuador since hundreds of thousands have arrived there after fleeing an economic crisis in Venezuela.

“I have ordered the immediate setting up of units to control Venezuelan immigrants’ legal status in the streets, in the workplace, and at the border,” Moreno said on Twitter.

The Venezuelan reaction, even from non-communist, anti-dictatorship Venezuelans, was critical:

Realmente imperdonable https://t.co/GZ9JgwbHzT

— Diego E. Arria (@Diego_Arria) January 21, 2019

Here’s a quick Microsoft translate that looks clear enough:

Really unforgivable.

Very serious that a head of state generates a xenophobic communiqué. I was a prosecutor for 17 years and hundreds of Ecuadorians were prosecuted for various crimes in Venezuela. We never generalized, nor persecuted our brethren in that country for what a few committed, rectify!

Both sides have some merit in their reactions.  Ecuador has taken in hundreds of thousands of fleeing Venezuelans without any proper identification and is getting overwhelmed.  A bad murder probably isn’t the full issue here.  Communism with its attendant poverty has always corrupted a lot of people, and as any post-USSR Russian can tell you, a number of them become criminals.  They emigrate to other countries and continue criminality.  There are probably a lot more crimes being inflicted upon Ecuador than just this one bad murder being cited as a threat to peace.  And the Ecuadorean response seems to be mild compared to the popular response to a similar incident in Brazil, where angry locals ran all Venezuelans out of town after a shopkeeper was beaten and robbed by a Venezuelan migrant, then burned the Venezuelans’ encampment and set up a wall of burning tires at the border to keep the migrants from coming back.

Obviously, these countries are stressed.

It’s also true what the Venezuelan has to say – Venezuelans have taken in lots of Colombians and Ecuadoreans back when they were refugees, so there’s a sense that maybe there should be some quid pro quo.  Back when I was in Colombia, I recall Colombians observing that once upon a time, they had been maids to the Venezuelans, but now the Venezuelans are maids to them.

So yes, some debts are owed.  But at the same time, nothing matches the scale of this mass movement of refugees, and that makes the price to these countries higher.  Part of me wants to say, “Tough it out.  You tolerated and succored Hugo Chávez, who created the situation.  Now you can live with the inevitable result.”  But another part wants to say that all mass floods of refugees or migrants looking for something better in someone else’s country are magnets for criminal elements.  We see this clearly with the caravans making their way up from Central America.  Democrats deny this as they seek to allow all migrants in without vetting and oppose a border wall in the name of capturing the Latino vote, but human nature is going to remain human nature, and the fact of the matter is, criminal migrants who get in without passports or vetting are always going to be creating victims of the locals.  The fact that the migrant movement is irregular and disorderly makes it an absolute certainty that criminals are going to get in and infiltrate the mass movements.  

Ecuador seems to know this and is shutting the door.  One can only hope this will, instead of provoking bitter feelings, put the spotlight where it belongs: on the regime in Caracas.  Maybe if Ecuador would couple this move with an absolute refusal to recognize the regime of Nicolás Maduro – as Brazil has done – will balance the act and make it less about hating on refugees and more on getting rid of the reason why there are refugees.  That would be a minimum move.  Better still, maybe Ecuador will start pushing for the regime change Venezuela most desperately needs and start committing resources, as well as supporting Venezuela’s beleaguered democrats and egg on Venezuela’s army to move.  That would get rid of the negative feelings among the Venezuelans.  Nobody wants to be a refugee unless there’s absolutely nothing else he can do.  Slash that problem at its root, and the unvetted refugees will stop coming.

Image credit: Osmar Rodríguez via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Michelle Alexander, a new New York Times columnist, was given front page Sunday Review real estate for her 2,300-word screed offensively linking civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. to the Palestinian cause against Israel, in “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine — Martin Luther King Jr. spoke bravely on Vietnam. We must do the same to meet this moral challenge.”

After a history lesson of MLK’s activism against the Vietnam War, she voiced the hope that she and others would be as brave and not silent on “one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine.”

Both Congress and college campuses have been complicit, evidently, in squelching anti-Israel views (could have fooled us).

….Our elected representatives, who operate in a political environment where Israel’s political lobby holds well-documented power, have consistently minimized and deflected criticism of the State of Israel, even as it has grown more emboldened in its occupation of Palestinian territory and adopted some practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States.

….

Similarly, many students are fearful of expressing support for Palestinian rights because of the McCarthyite tactics of secret organizations like Canary Mission, which blacklists those who publicly dare to support boycotts against Israel, jeopardizing their employment prospects and future careers.

Canary Mission actually finds anti-Semitic postings by college students on Twitter and spotlights them.

And so, if we are to honor King’s message and not merely the man, we must condemn Israel’s actions: unrelenting violations of international law, continued occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, home demolitions and land confiscations. We must cry out at the treatment of Palestinians at checkpoints, the routine searches of their homes and restrictions on their movements, and the severely limited access to decent housing, schools, food, hospitals and water that many of them face.

Alexander attempted to argue that somehow anti-Israel voices don’t get time in the media, which is instantly undermined by a perusal of a random issue of the New York Times.

Not so long ago, it was fairly rare to hear this perspective. That is no longer the case.

….

After one “by the way” paragraph that admitted anti-Semitism was a real thing, she cheered the virulently anti-Israel and often anti-Semitic “BDS” movement.

Even in Congress, change is on the horizon. For the first time, two sitting members, Representatives Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, publicly support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement….

Yet Omar and Tlaib have both been accused of anti-Semitic comments and actions.

None of this is to say that the tide has turned entirely or that retaliation has ceased against those who express strong support for Palestinian rights….

….In November, Marc Lamont Hill was fired from CNN for giving a speech in support of Palestinian rights that was grossly misinterpreted as expressing support for violence. Canary Mission continues to pose a serious threat to student activists.

And just over a week ago, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, apparently under pressure mainly from segments of the Jewish community and others, rescinded an honor it bestowed upon the civil rights icon Angela Davis, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and supports B.D.S.

But that attack backfired….and an alternative event is being organized to celebrate her decades-long commitment to liberation for all.

Tamar Sternthal at Camera knocked down Alexander’s mythology of victimology:

But Lamont Hill was fired not for calling for his support of “Palestinian rights,” but for calling for “resistance,” which in the parlance of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups is a clear call for violence including for terrorism. He also called for “a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which is tantamount to the elimination of the Jewish state. Alexander’s depiction of Angela Davis’ anti-Israel activism is likewise a whitewash. Davis has called for the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including terrorists convicted of multiple murders, such as the aforementioned Marwan Barghouti….

Also: Alexander’s description of Davis as having a “decades-long commitment to liberation for all” is a sad joke, even on the tilted leftist terms of what “liberation” might mean, given her vengeful hostility toward political prisoners of the Soviet regime.

Simon Plosker at Honest Reporting pointed out a weird detail regarding Alexander’s mention of the “well-documented power” of the Israel lobby: “At this time of writing, the hyperlinked source is, believe it or not, the homepage of the Washington Post.”

Should all works – past, present, and future – by artists caught in the #metoo trap be banished forever?

One really wonders if that’s what it’s coming to, because Harper’s columnist Lionel Shriver, in an essay adapted for the New York Post, has noticed a problem:

 For reasons that escape me, artists’ misbehavior now contaminates the fruits of their labors, like the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. So it’s not enough to punish transgressors merely by cutting off the source of their livelihoods, turning them into social outcasts, and truncating their professional futures. You have to destroy their pasts. Having discovered the worst about your fallen idols, you’re duty-­bound to demolish the best about them as well.

Shriver cites the distributor pullings of works by “great” artists such as Louis C.K., Roseanne Barr, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, and others of the Hollywood ilk. I recall reading that Lady Gaga said she got rid of some tape she made with another one credibly accused of sex harassment, so I guess we can add him. ‘Great’ (which shows up in the headline) can probably be argued about some of these guys, but that’s actually irrelevant, they’re all quite talented, and most important, a precedent has been set.

Shriver talks about why that’s such a problem:

What artists of every stripe care about most is what they have made. The contemporary impulse to rebuke disgraced creators by vanishing their work from the cultural marketplace exhibits a mean-­spiritedness, a vengefulness even, as well as an illogic. Why, if you catch someone doing something bad, would you necessarily rub out what they’ve done that’s good? If you’re convicted of breaking and entering, the judge won’t send bailiffs around to tear down the tree house you built for your daughter and to pour bleach on your homemade pie.

For artists, the erasure of their work may be a harsher penalty than incarceration or fines. Eliminating whole series from streaming platforms, withdrawing novels from bookstores and canceling major gallery retrospectives constitute, for those in the creative professions, cruel and unusual punishment.

Stalin used to like to make people into ‘non-persons’ for their political transgressions. Today we are seeing the same thing being done to artists no matter what the public wants. Flawed actor, caught sex-harassing? Erase his memory!

And I can add that this is being done no matter how many innocent people it hurts. Remember the actor who was mocked for being seen working at Trader Joe’s? Recall that he was a refugee from the Cosby show erasures, getting no royalties for his work and reduced to retail work. Apparently, the iconclasts smashing and pulling these collective works of art with a flawed star couldn’t care less about all the other artists whose work also get erased.

Here’s the bigger problem: With a precedent set, don’t think that such erasures of art won’t spread much further than the Hollywood miscreants.

Anybody remember Caravaggio? The man was a thug, a true, bona fide thug, constantly getting into knife fights, constantly losing the trust of his patrons, and dying a miserable death after yet another knife fight on a Mediterranean beach of infected wounds while on the lam from the law. He hung out with whores, took other people’s girlfriends, and seemed as well to have a taste for little boys and was once chased out of a school for his excessive ‘gazes‘ at the kids. Rest assured, it’s quite likely he was a pervert.

And he was also one of the most magnificent artists who ever lived. His work is utterly breathtaking.

Any student of art is always left wondering how a thug could be so guided by angels in the depth and breadth of his beautiful masterpieces. Yet those paintings weren’t done by angels, they were done by a thug. And we can still appreciate them – as well as look on in wonder at the paradox of the flawed personality of the artist and the output of his work.

It’s not just Caravaggio, he’s just the one who leapt out. Chekhov had a mistress, that’s sexist enough in the #MeToo era, do we get rid of him, too? And all of this comes in the context of a broader censorship already going on. There are writers whose work is being erased because of the ignorant misreading of their author’s intentions – think: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. There are also statues that are being taken down because leftists don’t like the heroes depicted or the thinking of those who erected those statues. It’s not enough to disagree, the work itself must be destroyed. It all constitutes an amazing effort to obliterate history, same as Pol Pot sought to do, and start with a Year Zero, as the French revolutionaries tried to do.

It never ends well. Shriver is persuasive and he is very right: This crap with the television artists needs to be nipped in the bud.

 

Should all works – past, present, and future – by artists caught in the #metoo trap be banished forever?

One really wonders if that’s what it’s coming to, because Harper’s columnist Lionel Shriver, in an essay adapted for the New York Post, has noticed a problem:

 For reasons that escape me, artists’ misbehavior now contaminates the fruits of their labors, like the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. So it’s not enough to punish transgressors merely by cutting off the source of their livelihoods, turning them into social outcasts, and truncating their professional futures. You have to destroy their pasts. Having discovered the worst about your fallen idols, you’re duty-­bound to demolish the best about them as well.

Shriver cites the distributor pullings of works by “great” artists such as Louis C.K., Roseanne Barr, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, and others of the Hollywood ilk. I recall reading that Lady Gaga said she got rid of some tape she made with another one credibly accused of sex harassment, so I guess we can add him. ‘Great’ (which shows up in the headline) can probably be argued about some of these guys, but that’s actually irrelevant, they’re all quite talented, and most important, a precedent has been set.

Shriver talks about why that’s such a problem:

What artists of every stripe care about most is what they have made. The contemporary impulse to rebuke disgraced creators by vanishing their work from the cultural marketplace exhibits a mean-­spiritedness, a vengefulness even, as well as an illogic. Why, if you catch someone doing something bad, would you necessarily rub out what they’ve done that’s good? If you’re convicted of breaking and entering, the judge won’t send bailiffs around to tear down the tree house you built for your daughter and to pour bleach on your homemade pie.

For artists, the erasure of their work may be a harsher penalty than incarceration or fines. Eliminating whole series from streaming platforms, withdrawing novels from bookstores and canceling major gallery retrospectives constitute, for those in the creative professions, cruel and unusual punishment.

Stalin used to like to make people into ‘non-persons’ for their political transgressions. Today we are seeing the same thing being done to artists no matter what the public wants. Flawed actor, caught sex-harassing? Erase his memory!

And I can add that this is being done no matter how many innocent people it hurts. Remember the actor who was mocked for being seen working at Trader Joe’s? Recall that he was a refugee from the Cosby show erasures, getting no royalties for his work and reduced to retail work. Apparently, the iconclasts smashing and pulling these collective works of art with a flawed star couldn’t care less about all the other artists whose work also get erased.

Here’s the bigger problem: With a precedent set, don’t think that such erasures of art won’t spread much further than the Hollywood miscreants.

Anybody remember Caravaggio? The man was a thug, a true, bona fide thug, constantly getting into knife fights, constantly losing the trust of his patrons, and dying a miserable death after yet another knife fight on a Mediterranean beach of infected wounds while on the lam from the law. He hung out with whores, took other people’s girlfriends, and seemed as well to have a taste for little boys and was once chased out of a school for his excessive ‘gazes‘ at the kids. Rest assured, it’s quite likely he was a pervert.

And he was also one of the most magnificent artists who ever lived. His work is utterly breathtaking.

Any student of art is always left wondering how a thug could be so guided by angels in the depth and breadth of his beautiful masterpieces. Yet those paintings weren’t done by angels, they were done by a thug. And we can still appreciate them – as well as look on in wonder at the paradox of the flawed personality of the artist and the output of his work.

It’s not just Caravaggio, he’s just the one who leapt out. Chekhov had a mistress, that’s sexist enough in the #MeToo era, do we get rid of him, too? And all of this comes in the context of a broader censorship already going on. There are writers whose work is being erased because of the ignorant misreading of their author’s intentions – think: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. There are also statues that are being taken down because leftists don’t like the heroes depicted or the thinking of those who erected those statues. It’s not enough to disagree, the work itself must be destroyed. It all constitutes an amazing effort to obliterate history, same as Pol Pot sought to do, and start with a Year Zero, as the French revolutionaries tried to do.

It never ends well. Shriver is persuasive and he is very right: This crap with the television artists needs to be nipped in the bud.

 

Lady Gaga started off her new Las Vegas residency, dubbed “Enigma,” with a political bang. The famous avant-garde singer, now A-list actress, took time out of her Saturday show to blast Vice President Mike Pence as a “disgrace” to his Christianity, and complained to the crowd about the “fucking president” not getting the government back up and running.

For an artist who spent the better part of a decade trying to be as unique as possible, she sure has ended up the same way as the rest of her colleagues: as a sour, angry, liberal.

In a particularly melodramatic and cringeworthy moment, the A Star is Born actress and “Poker Face” singer used some sappy piano ballad as a vehicle to vent her political frustrations, going after Trump. The crowd ate it up.

Gaga, dressed like a mermaid, began, “And if the fucking president of the United States could please put our government back in business … There are people who live paycheck to paycheck and need their money.” None of them were in attendance, of course. According to Ticketmaster, you need $521 to score a standing room only tickets, while actual seats range well into the thousands.

The musician’s diatribe was received by lavish applause, and she continued, choosing Vice President Mike Pence as the target for the rest of her political ire. Gesticulating wildly and echoing the same hamfisted perspective that Huffpo used in slamming Karen Pence as a “Homophobe” last week, Gaga called the vice president the “worst representation” of Christianity.

She claimed, “And to Mike Pence, who thinks it’s acceptable that his wife works at a school that bans LGBTQ, you are wrong. [Cue another ridiculous ovation] You said we should not discriminate against Christianity. You are the worst representation of what it means to be Christian.”

The self-declared arbiter of Christianity reflected on her own faith, of course finding nothing wrong with her way of living the Gospel. She asserted, “I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everyone’s welcome.” (except the Pences.)

“So you can take all that disgrace Mr. Pence and you can look yourself in the mirror and you’ll find it right there.”

Since she’s a longtime LGBTQ advocate, hating Pence makes sense. The sad thing is that her deluded opinions are amplified by her pop star status — even more so now because she has become an A-list actress. Still there’s hope that, as with most of these Hollywood types, many people are starting to see them as preening windbags whose “Christian” goodwill only extends to those to kiss their butts or spoon feed them the political worldview that they’re most comfortable with.