Every day some facet of American culture will bear the brunt of media attention. There will be protests, and riots, and celebrities opining on the oppresiveness of whatever thing has aroused their wrath. We will discover, perhaps for the first time, or perhaps for the ten-thousandth, that someone or something is offensive. Let us take a moment and recall a few recent issues worthy of national attention. We had the terror of people who took up too much space on the subway, and after that we had to worry about oppressive gender politics in North Carolina’s bathrooms. Today, Confederate monuments are the cause célèbre.
My stance on Confederate monuments is a matter of record, and I see no reason beat a dead horse by repeating myself. It is farcical to even discuss this manufactured issue. Yesterday, nobody cared about Confederate monuments, save for a few fringe jobs who clamored on about slave ownership somehow contaminating history, as if America was somehow uniquely evil for having continued the practice for a time.
Indeed, most folks probably weren’t even aware of the existence of Confederate monuments, at least not specifically. If they were noticed, it was as passing distraction. Oh look, a statue of somebody. Presumably he’s notable for some reason. Whatever. I recently discovered that there was a statue of Lenin in Seattle when the pictured popped up in my Twitter feed. How many people even knew that? Ironically, the statue is currently for sale for the price of $250,000. Sounds like a tidy profit for some enterprising capitalist.
Nobody cares about these things. At least, not enough to take special notice of them. Lenin will not possess his statue and steal my pocket change for the proletariat. Neither will Robert E. Lee clamber down from his bronze horse and march to D.C. with an army at his back, though we can certainly wish he would. This Southerner would even sign up for raising Sherman back from the dead and convincing him to march North this time. Eventually, the paladins of Social Justice will get around to pulling down Grant’s statue, and Sherman’s will follow. After all, Grant was a phallocentric cishet misogynist drunk, or whatever buzzwords are in fashion among the SJWs, right?
It’s all manufactured outrage. The process is simple and transparent. Any man can see it for himself if he chooses to look.
First, an issue is identified by somebody with some level of popularity, wealth, or political power. The issue can be anything, you understand. Perhaps the issue will be the cultural appropriation of taco Tuesday by white Americans. Or maybe it will be how men belching is a dog whistle for misogyny. The man, you see, is demonstrating his contempt for any females within earshot when he burps. Anything can be rationalized this way. Anything can be argued to be hateful or discriminatory.
Once it is identified and pushed in some small way by someone with reach, a few genuinely angry people will protest it. Understand that for anything in the world, someone can be found to hate it. You could make your issue the color blue and be assured that someone, somewhere, would be offended enough to protest its existence.
Now, once a few legitimate protests spring up about the thing, the media will give it 24/7 news coverage. Perhaps there are only a few dozen people who hate the thing enough to come out on their own to protest it, but that doesn’t matter. Clever editing, camera angles, and constant coverage can multiply the perceived numbers and create the illusion of a much bigger movement. Note, too, that this can be used on political enemies as well as allies. When a few dozen Klansmen get together somewhere, the editors can make it appear like the Nuremberg rally.
Once news coverage is established, various wealthy and powerful Leftists can bus in supporters, pay some protesters to show up, and deliver canned protest signs and messages. Distributors of pussy hats may be found. T-shirts made in Chinese sweatshops for a few pennies will arrive, all because of happenstance, you understand. College professors will send their students to the protests, and various Left-wing organizations under the loose control of the DNC will bring in their own people who, like most folks, did not originally care about the issue, but have been convinced by the virtue signals to do so.
Now the issue is trendy. It is a hashtag, an exciting event with news cameras everywhere, a chance to be seen on TV to claim your 15 seconds of fame. Masses of people show up, more because it’s a cool, trendy thing to do than any real belief about the issue. It’s a good time at the protest, it feels nice for them to be part of a big crowd, fighting the injustice of whatever. And Madonna, or some other screeching hag trying to restore her lost relevance, will come to soak in the adoration of the crowds.
Once the protests are large enough to obscure them, bad actors soon show up to make it exciting, or to just loot some free shit and burn down a few buildings. The ritual smashing of windows and burning of trashcans commences. People in black handkerchiefs wave Soviet flags and proudly sport their all-black fashion sensibilities.
Celebrities lament the terrible tragedy of the issue, and condemn the thing as racist, sexist, homophobic, or some other buzzword of bigotry. Every media outlet runs stories on it. Perhaps Fox pushes a counter-narrative, but perhaps not, too. Most conservative politicians won’t touch the issue, and certainly won’t defend it, out of fear of being tarred alongside it. When in power, Leftist politicians will push for legal remedies for the manufactured issue, which will either involve a suspension of some liberties, or an increase in taxation. Preferably both. When not in power, the burning, screaming, and looting will continue until the Republicans cave in, or until a newer, shinier issue is presented.
As the Confederate monuments come down all across the country, remember this: in a year, few of the participants will even remember that it happened. They will be too busy tearing down the statue of, say, General Grant, or George Washington, or some other “dead white male.” Or perhaps they will lament the sexism inherent in men’s bathrooms having separate urinals, so that men can pee standing up when women cannot.
My crystal ball is fuzzy on the specifics of our future ‘issues’, but it is quite clear on the methods and tactics used to manufacture them. This tactic will be repeated ad nauseum until there are no more freedoms left, until the taxation reaches truly Marxist proportions. And when the last issue is gone, and the media has fallen silent on them, the purges will begin. After issues, it will be people. Reactionaries, perhaps, or kulaks. Like the fake issues, the specific groups of people do not matter. All that matters is that people have their perpetual two-minutes hate, for all time.
Given how scattershot the statues targeted for attack have been (a bust of Abraham Lincoln was set on fire in Chicago, and one of Joan of Arc was spray painted with “Tear it down,” in New Orleans), I almost want to joke that this whole Confederate memorial outrage is a cover for mainstreaming Islamic iconoclasm standards. They certainly aren’t behaving much at all differently from how invading jihadists would with regards to such works.
On the other hand, they do say never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. On the other other hand, just because you’re an idiot doesn’t mean you’re not also a malicious little gnat. The healing power of “and” seems relevant here.
The parallels between ISIS and Antifa are many. This is certainly one of the most obvious ones.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why these creeps aren’t really bothered by all the things they claim to bothered by as long as they occur in non-Western societies. Killing homosexuals for being homosexual, censorship, anti-semitism, misogyny, child abuse, slavery, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum …, meh.
Q. What’s the current state of transgender rights in Tehran?
A. Shut up, because North Carolina!
Weirdly, the Iranian mullahs were way ahead of the Western curve on transgender rights. Long before that particular issue was whipped up around these parts (as described above), Iranian revolutionary Islamic law allowed two homosexual men or women to marry after one of them underwent “sex reassignment” surgery.
I think it is both simpler and more sinister. Please consider that every such “outrage” occur immediately after the previous one loses steam. So it looks like all sequential “outrages” are links in a single chain.
Antifa and the other assorted leftist groups are just like ISIS,destroying history.
Also just like Lenin and Stalin- erasing history.
They continue to claim all white men are racists – and southern white men are even worse racist devils.
The fact that the statues weren’t racist during the 8 years Obama was president makes the current idiots tearing them down useful idiots and nothing more.
They didn’t think the statues were racist until they were told the statues were racist.
Now the Marxist morons want to blow up Mount Rushmore and sandblast the carving off of Stone Mountain. They obviously don’t understand what sandblasting is, because it’s not going to remove the carvings of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
The Marxist morons also want the Jefferson memorial torn down.
They will never stop. Now some are calling for anything and everything to do with Jefferson and Washington to be torn down or have the names changed.
For this current group of Marxist morons, all white people will be their Kulaks, those of us who speak out against the morons will be the next group they attack.
By the way, the myth that Grant was a drunk is just that. He wasn’t that great of a military tactician or a good leader and others thought they should have been given command of Union forces. They started rumors about Grant being a drunk.
Grant was a small man, so he easily got drunk from small amounts of alcohol.
It was after an incident in which he had a couple drinks and was seen walking unsteadily that the rumors started.
Grant was never drunk while leading union troops. Never drank while he was the commanding general.
Even if Grant was a drunk, it doesn’t matter. His record in battle speaks for itself. But I do think the rumor is grossly overstated.
Anyway, Vice’s piece on blowing up Mt. Rushmore was a tactical error on their part. They had to retract to “remove it” instead. But their original headline reveals their true desire: to erase all of American history. They don’t like America, they don’t want it to exist, and the sooner they destroy its history, the sooner they can destroy its future.
I had just read about the blow up mount Rushmore and sandblast Stone mountain before I typed my comment. It wasn’t the Vice piece, or a repost of it- it was another leftist media source which I don’t recall at the moment.
The Grant wasn’t a drunk is from several Civil War history books I’ve read. I was involved in re-
enactments for years, and we always did different battles at each venue-which we thoroughly researched beforehand.
The leftist insanity is getting worse and going to get much worse before the summer ends.
Did a remodeling job in Kent, Ohio last week close to Kent State campus.
My friend and I were called white supremacists at a downtown bar/ restaurant we went to for lunch- just because we were white guys with long hair and tattoos wearing work boots.
The left is losing it- they’ve all gone batshit crazy.
The tearing down monuments etc is only the beginning.
Dys –
Caught your comment over at Fran’s – who is obviously down a bit. He has been fighting the good fight for a long time now, and things continue to get worse.
I commented – I think your idea, perhaps coupled with Linda’s, could lead to a solution that would guarantee free thinking and free speech can beat back this horrific commie incursion into the heart of, as Rush put it yesterday, the “one country that didn’t copy any other in its founding.”
The commies’ methodology works, as Albert rightly pointed out. You are a young man, Dys, and you have a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Follow through on the things you suggested to Fran – solicit opinions and commitments. Make it happen. You’d have my support!
jb
The nonsense will stop only with (unlikely) 2×4 over the head, or (slightly more likely) Trump placing Hillary in jail, or (even more likely) they will succeed driving Trump out of the WH.
Albert –
They won’t drive Trump out of the WH. The cost to whomever would be far too great, and they know it! Besides, Donald isn’t going to put up with any such nonsense. We should be used to that much about him already.
We just have to learn to play hardball as well as the commies do – everywhere they have succeeded, the population just rolled over and gave up. Somehow, I believe (hope like the dickens, anyway!) such behavior is not in our DNA.
Our greatest danger is within the very ranks of the GOPe – the “do nothings” that only try to protect, as Bill Quick puts it – their “iron gravy bowls.” We need the electorate to vote for someone besides their local yokel whose only claim to “representation” is bringing home tax dollars to their districts. We need to start asking why our tax dollars have to be filtered through DC and these elected crooks/clowns to begin with!
There is another (the most likely possibility): the swamp just swallows him. Judging by what Bannon said recently, the presidency we won is already not here.
BTW, this might be their preferred outcome.
There exists the possibility that this will be yet another leftist event that will severely backfire on them.
Consider the following:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/the-ap-notices-democrats-may-be-making-a-mistake.php
We already know that only the far left progressive/sjw types and blacks actually want to see confederate symbols taken down – and of them, just slightly more than half for both groups. EVERYONE ELSE on the right AND the left wants them to be LEFT ALONE.
Furthermore: despite what has been stated by the MSM, the Boston event had NO KKK types and there were 33 violent events where the 30k-40k mostly bussed in counter demonstrators attacked police, including with bottles of urine.
Let’s see what happens in Phoenix next week and SF next weekend.
The only REAL problem is the GOP establishment. They make it obvious by their behavior that they are ‘great supine invertebrate jellies’ who would actually PREFER democrats be in charge. They seem quite happy at the prospect of being a permanent minority party that gets to share in the bounty of graft, corruption and influence-peddling while taking none of the risks or doing the heavy lifting that the dominant democrats would have to do (think Illinois writ large.)
For Trump to be successful, it would be helpful if we could reject EVERY SINGLE GOP senator or congressman up for reelection in 2018 and vote for either an independent or a fanatical trump supporter.
TSW,
“The only REAL problem is the GOP establishment.” That is the next real battle. In my opinion, Trump has managed to get everyone talking about the real problems and at the same time forcing the opposition out into the open (no small accomplishment in itself), but the real action will be either the reformation of the Republican Party or it’s purge. Personally I think it’s dead as a viable political force. The people of this country must reassert themselves by the remaking of the Legislative branch back to what is was intended to be. Only then will an administration have the muscle to reform the bureaucracy. Of course that holds the danger of any leader of the administration at that time could be a tyrant and not a President.
The American people have no real “party” with which to put a focus of their wants and desires, therefore with party discipline the Democrats though a minority can wield outsize influence.
This along with the understanding that the struggle will not be short (I’m guessing a decade minimum) and there will be setbacks (see Charlotte), must prepare us for the struggle. We have been conditioned to the idea that resolution should be quick, over night, etc. Well the Left has been working at this for nearly a hundred years and has made great gains, it will take time to defeat them and they will never be defeated in a complete sense, that is the nature of humanity.
Yes, replacing them in toto would be the best outcome of 2018 election. The problem is the forces wishing to do that are not organized. And to build a serious organisation takes a lot of time we might not have. Totalitarians were allowed free rein for too long and now they are solidly entrenched in every basic institution.
And replacing them ALL by 2018 can only be accomplished by force
TSW,
Well Phoenix happened and the Left again made fools of themselves. Here’s an old short clip that illustrates the Left (especially the MSM) so well when they have that fleeting moment of self doubt:
https://youtu.be/ZPiR8eX2EpU
Of course Foghorn is the MSM.
Very true, sadly. The Left loves using Outrage(TM) as a tactic. Meanwhile, everyone else is busy trying to pay their bills.
I understand that today CNN had a panel discussion where certain journalists were saying that the military should step in and convince Trump give up his office. These people’s flights of fancy are astounding. They actually believe the military and LEO are on their side.
HEY, hey! Ho, ho! That EVIL Statue’s GOT to GO!” And pulling it down will change history. NOT – the stupidity of the young budding Winston Smith’s during the Age of Trumpism boggled my mind…until I started reading the syllabi of the educrats today, as “blondeinthebellyofthebeast” at youtube has reported.
The left has screwed up badly. The University of Austin’s president removed four statutes because he was so afraid of a handful of Nazis who probably work at a pizza joint and spend most of their time online gaming. In doing so, he gave them absolute moral power. They are now Voldemort. If a bunch of dips who claim to be Nazis (this is easy at any costume store) want to march with pictures of him as their leader, or even reference him kindly, his career is done.
The left has badly overreached with moral outrage, giving the people who they’re outraged against the +6 sword of moral shaming. All any of these Nazi idiots need do is thank and revere a person and that person is done.
It’s like they handed nuclear launch codes to hyperactive retards.
If this keeps up, the only Democrat elected prior to 1970 who will be permitted a statue will be President Truman.
David,
They’ll get around to Truman too, despite his setting the example for them when he called Dewey a Nazi in 1948.
When these Antifa Brownshirts show up, people should take a leaf from the Scottish Jacobite song “Bonnie Dundee.”
To the Lords of Conventiion ’twas Claverhouse spoke.
Ere the King’s crown go down there are crowns to be broke.
The lefties intend to bring do3wn or Constitutin, which is analogous to the “king” in the song. We must prrevent that.
Crikey. That’s “bring down our Constitution.”
Perview is my fiend.
“…various Left-wing organizations under the loose control of the DNC will bring in their own people who, like most folks, did not originally care about the issue, but have been convinced by the virtue signals to do so.”
Nothing new. This is how blacks “discovered” that Negro was a demeaning term, as Afro-American became subsequently, as black became after that; and how Indians, Orientals, homosexuals, idiots, hobos, and the physically disabled “discovered” much the same thing about themselves.
The corollary to this is that the “new term” changes every 5-10 years, which is approximately as long as it takes the most clueless Democrat to divine that the new term has accrued precisely the same reputational detritus as the old, because — mirabile dictu — it describes the very same thing, and that thing itself hasn’t changed. Democrats like to pretend (and convince others) that if you want to alter the landscape, all you have to do is redraw the map.
This also explains why the term “progressive” exists — it replaces “liberal,” which those folks appropriated, dragged into the gutter, and destroyed, after having to abandon “socialist,” to which they did the same, after having coined that term to have something to call themselves instead of “looters and moochers.”