Earlier this week, I was having a having a meaning-of-life discussion with a group of guys when one of them started talking about his intense appreciation of nature. Trees, flowers, rivers. He talked for awhile until one of the other guys said one word: "Woodpeckers." The conversation came to a grinding halt. There seems to be a woodpecker-outside-your-window-in-the-early-morning exception to the rule that we should appreciate nature. Nature's miniature jackhammers.
I agree with Colin Wright here. I often agree with AOC, but not here. If fewer people on the left actually took more time to get to know the opinions of people on the right (instead of mocking them at a distance for being reincarnations of Hitler), we could have better conversations about HOW to teach our children about racism in our schools.
As I've opined many times, it is a terrible approach to "teaching" to divide 8-year olds into "colors," telling the "white" ones that they and their families are irredeemable oppressors while telling the "black" children that they forever destined to be victims. This deplorable approach has been documented by many dozens of first-party/whistle-blower accounts and leaked teaching materials. Whether you want to call it CRT or neo-CRT or something else, I consider this approach (which also proudly goes under the name of "anti-racism") child abuse. If you doubt that this divisive approach is being taught in many schools, check out these materials and good luck finding any "anti-racists" teachers who extol the teachings of Martin Luther King in the year 2021.
Here’s an example a good-hearted intelligent attorney who has been cancelled by fringe left-wing ideologues. This type of problem started off as a few rain drops (e.g., the case of Steven Pinker), but now we’re in a torrential storm. There are so many other stories emerging too. Many people have personally communicated to me that they are afraid to express their opinions--they are afraid to like my FB posts, even though they agree with many of them.
This is the case of Maud Maron, a Legal Aid Attorney who has had a long and stellar career in NY, but how dare she express an opinion that counters the prevailing narrative! Off with her head! She has filed suit against her office. The allegations described in this article by FAIR are extremely disturbing. Here's an excerpt from FAIR's article:
As a committed public defender with an exemplary record for over two decades, Maud has represented poor and low-income New Yorkers of every skin color in criminal court. But when she wrote an op-ed disagreeing with Robin DiAngelo’s illiberal claim that all white people are racist, her employer and union publicly attacked her in racially-charged social media posts about her alleged “white superiority,” what she must think simply because she is, in their words, a “white practitioner,” and how she participates in “white supremacy” and “oppresses” others solely because of her skin color. By claiming they are “ashamed that she works at the Legal Aid Society” and emphatically stating, “Enough is enough,” they made it clear she was no longer welcome at her job.
I know dozens of people who, for decades, have made it their daily habit to listen to NPR as their main source of information. Lately, I've heard from a couple of these people that NPR has changed. According to Matt Taibbi, the problem is bigger than the fact that NPR can't see the plank in its own eye. Taibbi's recent article is titled "NPR's Brilliant Self-OwnNational Public Radio complains about a media figure who tells people "what their opinions should be" and uses political "buzzwords." Here is an excerpt.
Yesterday’s NPR article, “Outrage As A Business Model: How Ben Shapiro Is Using Facebook To Build An Empire,” is among the more unintentionally funny efforts at media criticism in recent times.
The piece is about Ben Shapiro, but one doesn’t have to have ever followed Shapiro, or even once read the Daily Wire, to get the joke. The essence of NPR’s complaint is that a conservative media figure not only “has more followers than The Washington Post” but outperforms mainstream outlets in the digital arena, a fact that, “experts worry,” may be “furthering polarization” in America. NPR refers to polarizing media as if they’re making an anthropological discovery of a new and alien phenomenon.
The piece goes on to note that “other conservative outlets such as The Blaze, Breitbart News and The Western Journal” that “publish aggregated and opinion content” have also “generally been more successful… than legacy news outlets over the past year, according to NPR's analysis.” In other words, they’re doing better than us.
Is the complaint that Shapiro peddles misinformation? No: “The articles The Daily Wire publishes don't normally include falsehoods.” Are they worried about the stoking of Trumpism, or belief that the 2020 election was stolen? No, because Shapiro “publicly denounced the alt-right and other people in Trump's orbit,” as well as “the conspiracy theory that Trump is the rightful winner of the 2020 election.” Are they mad that the site is opinion disguised as news? No, because, “publicly the site does not purport to be a traditional news source.”
The main complaint, instead, is that:
By only covering specific stories that bolster the conservative agenda (such as… polarizing ones about race and sexuality issues)… readers still come away from The Daily Wire's content with the impression that Republican politicians can do little wrong and cancel culture is among the nation's greatest threats.
NPR has not run a piece critical of Democrats since Christ was a boy. Moreover, much like the New York Times editorial page (but somehow worse), the public news leader’s monomaniacal focus on “race and sexuality issues” has become an industry in-joke. For at least a year especially, listening to NPR has been like being pinned in wrestling beyond the three-count. Everything is about race or gender, and you can’t make it stop. . . .
Taibbi then lists a few of NPR's recent reports:
“Billie Eilish Says She Is Sorry After TikTok Video Shows Her Mouthing A Racist Slur.” Pop star caught on tape using the word “chink” when she was “13 or 14 years old” triggers international outrage and expenditure of U.S. national media funding.
“Black TikTok Creators Are On Strike To Protest A Lack Of Credit For Their Work.” White TikTok users dance to Nicky Minaj lyrics like, “I'm a f****** Black Barbie. Pretty face, perfect body,” kicking off “a debate about cultural appropriation on the app.”
“Geocaching While Black: Outdoor Pastime Reveals Racism And Bias.” Area man who plays GPS-based treasure hunt game requiring forays into remote places and private property describes “horrifying” experience of people asking what he’s doing.
“Broadway Is Reopening This Fall, And Every New Play Is By A Black Writer.” All seven new plays being written by black writers is “a step toward progress,” but critics “will be watching Broadway's next moves” to make sure “momentum” continues.
“She Struggled To Reclaim Her Indigenous Name. She Hopes Others Have It Easier.” It took Cold Lake First Nations member Danita Bilozaze nine whole months to change her name to reflect her Indigenous identity.
“Tom Hanks Is A Non-Racist. It's Time For Him To Be Anti-Racist.” Tom Hanks pushing for more widespread teaching of the Tulsa massacre doesn’t change the fact that he’s built a career playing “white men ‘doing the right thing,’” NPR complains.
Glenn Greenwald Tweets"
MSNBC's lawyers argued - and a court agreed - that Maddow can't be sued for defamation, even when she accuses an outlet of being "literally paid Russian propaganda," because nobody takes her seriously. No liberal outlet will mention this even as they *constantly* say it about Fox
Follow the thread for details and yet another example about how there are two news teams out there. I think of them as two separate types of "News Filters."
Greenwald comments that the left leaning media team constantly thrashes a comparable case with a comparable argument made on behalf of Tucker Carlson, but when it comes to Maddow's own case, it's crickets:
[T]hose most guilty of being unreliable liars and propagandists are those in the media and even Maddow's own MSNBC colleagues who repeatedly cite this court ruling to delegitimize Carlson without ever mentioning that Maddow’s lawyers successfully used the same arguments in her defense.
Here is an excerpt from the Court's Opinion adopting the arguments of Maddow's own attorney and dismissing the case against Maddow:
Here, Maddow had inserted her own colorful commentary into and throughout the segment, laughing, expressing her dismay (i.e., saying “I mean, what?”) and calling the segment a “sparkly story” and one we must “take in stride.” For her to exaggerate the facts and call OAN Russian propaganda was consistent with her tone up to that point, and the Court finds a reasonable viewer would not take the statement as factual given this context. The context of Maddow’s statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be her opinion. A reasonable viewer would not actually think OAN is paid Russian propaganda, instead, he or she would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles. Anything beyond this is Maddow’s opinion or her exaggeration of the facts. In sum, when the total context surrounding Maddow’s comment is considered, the Court finds that the context weighs towards a finding that the statement constitutes opinion and rhetorical hyperbole protected under the First Amendment.
. . .
By protecting speakers whose statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact, courts “provide[ ] assurance that public debate will not suffer for lack of ‘imaginative expression’ or the ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ which has traditionally added much to the discourse of our Nation.” Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20 (quoting Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 53–55 (1988)). That is the case here.