COMMENTARY / OPINION
Oh No, The Liberal Sex Strike! LOL [14:03] JP SEARS November 26, 2024
[Ed.:
Time to Cut the Cord: Why Public Broadcasting No Longer Deserves Our Tax Dollars
NOV 26, 2024 anonymous – The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 should be repealed. Why should American taxpayers continue funding a relic of the past when today we have unlimited access to diverse media options at our fingertips? With more than 1,000 television channels, streaming services, and endless online content, is there really a need for publicly funded broadcasting in this modern landscape? What was once seen as a necessary initiative for diversifying the media landscape has devolved into a relic of an earlier age—a $2 billion handout benefiting only a small, elite audience. When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation, Americans faced a scarcity of options: four television channels and limited radio programming, often constrained by corporate interests or regional limitations. There was an argument to be made that there was a public need for diversified and educational content. Fast forward to today, the notion of scarcity is laughable. Americans enjoy an overwhelming array of choices, from the internet and streaming services to podcasts, YouTube channels, and digital news outlets—all of which have replaced the once-venerated public broadcasting model
And yet, here we are, funding a bloated Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that receives approximately $525 million annually from the federal government, sending most of it down the bureaucratic chain to National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and roughly 1,500 local affiliates. For instance, local stations often receive funding that must then be funneled back to NPR or PBS to cover the costs of syndicated content, leaving little room for truly local programming or innovation. This results in a top-heavy structure where national priorities overshadow community needs, and creativity is stifled by bureaucratic constraints. These taxpayer funds support an organization that’s become little more than a publicly subsidized echo chamber for liberal ideas—a taxpayer-funded sandbox for the rich, white liberal elite who can comfortably afford alternative sources of information. Statistically, the audience for public broadcasting is disproportionately affluent, overwhelmingly white, and markedly liberal, with fewer than 17% of viewers identifying as Republicans. This means that 80% of America—including those struggling to make ends meet, those from minority communities, and those who don’t share a progressive worldview—are effectively subsidizing the content consumption of a privileged minority.
The ‘public’ spirit behind public broadcasting has clearly eroded. As audience demographics shifted over the decades, so too did the programming, drifting away from the balanced ideals that once defined it. This shift starts at the top, with leadership steering the ideological course. Take for example NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher, who has previously stated that ‘her biggest obstacle in her fight against disinformation is the First Amendment in the United States, which makes it a little bit tricky to censor bad information and the influence peddlers who spread it.’ Such perspectives from top leadership reflect and perpetuate the current direction of public broadcasting. During the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, shows like “The McLaughlin Group,” “Firing Line,” and “MacNeil/Lehrer Report” actively cultivated an environment of political balance. William F. Buckley Jr. debated liberals with eloquence and vigor, while Jim Lehrer ensured his news programming gave equal weight to both sides of every political coin. This was public broadcasting at its finest: genuine dialogue, real debate, and a respect for the full spectrum of American thought. Fast forward to today, and that ideal has been abandoned. Conservative voices are persona non grata in the public broadcasting realm. The transformation culminated with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, which seemed to shatter the public broadcasting model’s already fragile pretense of impartiality. Republican perspectives were deemed dangerous, and even the mere platforming of a Trump supporter was anathema. Public broadcasting became, and remains, an exclusive club for ideological uniformity.
Consider the case of Uri Berliner, a veteran journalist who dedicated 25 years to NPR, serving as a senior business editor. In April 2024, Berliner authored an essay titled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust,” where he criticized NPR for adopting a progressive worldview and lacking viewpoint diversity. He cited instances such as the handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the origins of COVID-19 as evidence of bias. Following the publication of his essay, Berliner was suspended for five days without pay for failing to secure approval for outside work. Subsequently, he resigned, stating he could not work in a newsroom where he felt disparaged by the new CEO. This incident underscores the intolerance for internal dissent within public broadcasting. The message was clear: there is no room for dissent. If public broadcasting cannot uphold even the pretense of ideological diversity, why should it continue to be funded by taxpayers who don’t share its worldview?
Moreover, let’s scrutinize the opaque and convoluted way in which federal dollars flow through public broadcasting. The CPB receives around $525 million from the government, and this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Additional funding filters in through the Departments of Commerce and Education—amounting to another $500 million. These funds then disperse across various entities, obfuscating the total expenditure. What eventually trickles down to the American viewer is a complex web of grants, subsidies, and donations that ensures NPR, PBS, and their affiliates remain flush with cash. Yet, even with this largesse, their ratings remain woefully anemic, with only about 20% of Americans tuning in. Of those, the majority belong to the same cohort of wealthy, liberal, and overwhelmingly white individuals who already have the means to afford premium news subscriptions. This isn’t public service; it’s public indulgence.
We must address the crux of the issue: why should taxpayers continue to fund a platform that serves such a narrow slice of America, particularly when that slice doesn’t represent the nation’s full diversity—neither demographically nor ideologically? Public broadcasting could easily adapt, were it forced to stand on its own two feet. It could charge subscription fees like HBO or Peacock. It could run more advertising, sell more memberships, or, heaven forbid, even trim its bloated budget. Defunding public broadcasting doesn’t spell the end of NPR, PBS, or their affiliates. It simply removes the unfair burden from those who receive nothing in return. In a market-driven landscape, those who value the service could sustain it, and those who don’t wouldn’t be compelled to pay for it.
Public broadcasting defenders often argue that this is about protecting the cultural commons—ensuring that educational and high-quality content is accessible to all. But this argument is no longer tenable. In today’s digital age, there is no shortage of educational content. If anything, the challenge is sorting through the deluge of material available at our fingertips. Podcasts, YouTube channels, MOOCs, and countless other platforms offer educational programming across every conceivable discipline. If you want to learn, you can, and without a government handout.
I speak not from ignorance or disdain but from disappointment. I once supported my local public broadcasting station. I contributed to my PBS affiliate, valuing the balance and thoughtfulness that public broadcasting promised. But that promise has been broken. Now, each time I tune in, I’m met with bias, with narrative-driven content that caters not to truth but to ideology. The federal government should not be in the business of funding media—especially not media that functions as an arm of a single political faction. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 had its moment in history, and it served its purpose. But times have changed, and so must we. Public broadcasting as we know it today is unworthy of the American taxpayer’s dollar. Let the marketplace decide its fate.
Neil Oliver Interviews Edward Dowd – They’ve created a monster!!! [1:02:51]
Jonathan Pollard: The TORTURE of Eli Feldstein and Myself in Prison [33:20]
November 25, 2024 Machon Shilo – Watch Jonathan Pollard & Machon Shilo’s Rabbi David Bar-Hayim discuss how Israel can defeat the Hezbollah:
Military Expert Notices Something UNIQUE About Israel-Hamas War That NO ONE Noticed [VIDEO 6:54] Rabbi Pinchas Taylor
Nov 25, 2024 – Nick Freitas explains the Psychology of Hamas and how they use Civilians as Human Shields.
Jonathan Pollard: CEASEFIRE with Hezbollah: What’s Driving Netanyahu? [22:24]
November 25, 2024 Machon Shilo – Jonathan Pollard & Machon Shilo’s Rabbi David Bar-Hayim discuss how Israel can defeat the Hezbollah.
[Ed.: “Jewish blood is cheapest in the Land of IINO” – quoting myself.]
Why Palestinians Will Not Have New Leaders by Bassam Tawil
November 25, 2024 at 5:00 am
- For the past three decades, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have systematically targeted political activists, journalists, social media users, students, professors and human rights activists as part of an ongoing campaign to silence critics and deter others from speaking out against the lack of democracy and freedom of speech.
- Torture included beatings, solitary confinement, feet-whipping, threats and taunts, and forcing detainees into various painful positions for extended periods. [Human Rights Watch] commented that “the habitual, deliberate, widely known use of torture, using similar tactics over years with no action taken by senior officials in either authority to stop these abuses, make these practices systematic.”
- This abuse has transformed the PA-controlled areas in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip into Palestinian dictatorships similar to those that have long existed in most Arab countries. In addition, it has resulted in the suppression of the emergence of new leaders capable of leading the Palestinians towards security, stability and prosperity.
- Palestinians still remember how political activist and human rights defender Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of corruption in the Palestinian Authority, was beaten to death by PA security officers in Hebron in 2021. Until today, no one has been punished for the killing of Banat.
- The family of the slain political activist was naïve enough to believe that the ICC or any other international agency would serve them justice.
- The ICC does not care about crimes committed by Palestinians against their own people. Instead, the court’s antisemitic prosecutor is busy searching for ways to punish Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for daring to fight back in a war that was launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
- Palestinians have not only been deprived of a large portion of the international financial aid — stolen by corrupt Palestinian leaders — but also of the right to elect new leaders and representatives through free elections.
- Those who are hoping that a new (and pragmatic) Palestinian leadership will take over one day are in for a disappointment. Even after 89-year-old PA President Mahmoud Abbas is gone, his cronies and inner circle will continue to run the show. They will not, under any circumstances, share the cake with other Palestinians.
- The same applies to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian will agree to play any role in the administration of the Gaza Strip after the current Israel-Hamas war, as long as the Iran-backed terrorist group and its friends are still around. That is why it is necessary to eliminate Hamas completely and make sure that it loses its military, political and civilian capabilities in the Gaza Strip. This could take a few more months or years, but it is far better than ending the war in a way that keeps Hamas in power.
Palestinians still remember how political activist and human rights defender Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA), was beaten to death by PA security officers in Hebron in 2021. Until today, no one has been punished for the killing of Banat. Pictured: Plain-clothed PA security officers beat a man in Ramallah on June 26, 2021, during a demonstration to protest Banat’s killing. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinian leaders have a long history of cracking down on their political rivals and opponents. For the past three decades, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have systematically targeted political activists, journalists, social media users, students, professors and human rights activists as part of an ongoing campaign to silence critics and deter others from speaking out against the lack of democracy and freedom of speech.
Why Iran Murdered a Chabad Rabbi in the UAE [51:50]
November 24, 2024 JNS TV | JLMinute – The Jewish world woke up to the tragic news that Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an Israeli-Moldovan Chabad emissary in the United Arab Emirates, was kidnapped and brutally murdered by an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed revenge, but what will happen next and why was Rabbi Kogan murdered?
Join JNS CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief Alex Traiman and Middle East correspondent Josh Hasten as they unpack this story and more, including the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; the U.S. vetoing a U.N. ceasefire proposal for Lebanon; and Washington withholding more arms from the Jewish state.
The international system is broken beyond repair Caroline Glick
The Soviets were convinced that by laundering Palestinian Arab terrorist propaganda through the U.N. system,, they would weaken and divide the Western alliance. Today, Israel is on trial for the crimes Hamas and its supporters carried out against the State of Israel. Opinion.
Nov 24, 2024, 4:32 AM (GMT+2) (JNS) The announcement by the International Criminal Court on Thursday that it is issuing international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant indicates that the bottom has fallen out of the international system.
The institutions formed in the wake of World War II to create and preserve a liberal, international rules-based order never worked the way they were supposed to work. But today, they are no longer simply feckless, corrupt and dysfunctional. They are malign and dangerous. Rather than advance freedom, human rights and life, they serve tyranny, terror and murder. The system is beyond repair.
In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis and Jews around the world were stunned to see the international response to the atrocities of the day. They expected the nations of the world to stand with Israel in revulsion and rejection of the Palestinian’s quest to annihilate the Jews. Instead, millions took to the streets of the West’s major cities marching in support of the Palestinian Arab murderers, rapists and kidnappers who tortured, raped mutilated, immolated and murdered 1,200 Israelis that day and kidnapped 251 more.
After a couple of weeks of crocodile tears and declarations of solidarity with Israel, Western leaders began warning Israel not to commit war crimes, and demanding that it feed and care for the very people who had just committed a one-day Holocaust.
Jews from Tel Aviv to Berkeley to Sydney wondered aloud, “How have things come to this?”
On the face of things, it made no sense. But if we had paid closer attention in the decades leading up to Oct. 7, we would have recognized the pattern. Palestinian Arabs massacre as many Jews as they can get their hands on because the more Jews they murder, the more richly the international system rewards them.
Most observers choose Nov. 10, 1975, as the date the worldwide system began its decline from mere fecklessness to malignity. That day, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 that designated Zionism—the Jewish national liberation movement, and the foundation of Jewish peoplehood and Judaism for the past 4,000 years—a form of racism. It didn’t happen in a vacuum though. It was the culmination of a years-long process that saw Palestinian Arab murderousness reach what was until then unprecedented depths of depravity, followed by the beginning of the U.N. system’s embrace of the Palestinian Arabs, and their goal of annihilating the Jewish state and its citizens.
Following the PLO’s massacres of children in Kiryat Shmona and Ma’alot in 1974, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution legitimizing Palestinian Arab terrorism. It then invited PLO terror chief Yasser Arafat to address the body. During his infamous “Gun and Olive Branch” speech in November 1974, Arafat threatened to continue his terror onslaught if the worldwide community failed to embrace his goal of destroying Israel. Shortly thereafter, the General Assembly passed a resolution giving the PLO observer status to the United Nations.
The following year, the PLO carried out two more sensational terrorist attacks. The U.N. General Assembly responded by passing Resolution 3379, and so declared Israel and its people illegitimate.
‘Anti-Americanism at heart of anti-Zionism’
Far from being a deviation from the norm, the international system’s decision to stand with Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs following Oct. 7 followed a half-century of precedent. The more Jews the Palestinian Arabs murder—and the more gruesomely they murder the Jews—the more support the Palestinian Arabs receive from the international system.
Arafat, his henchmen, heirs and state sponsors all understood two basic things. First, they understood that Europeans were tired of feeling guilty about their history of genocidal Jew-hatred. The Palestinian Arabs tapped into a deep-seated European desire for expiation for the crimes the continent committed against the Jews both during the Holocaust, as well as in the centuries of organized European persecution and murder of Jews that preceded it.
By accusing the Jews and their state of committing the crimes the Europeans had committed against the Jews (and that the Palestinian Arabs sought to continue committing against the Jews), the Palestinian Arabs permitted the Europeans to feel comfortable—even good—about their murderous past.
The second thing the Palestinian Arabs and their Soviet state sponsors realized was that by making Jew-hatred socially acceptable again, they would tear apart the West. The European embrace of the Palestinian Arabs against the Jews would drive a wedge between Europe and the United States. And that, in turn, would force the United States onto the defensive for its support for the Jewish state and its people.
In The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, Walter Russell Mead documented how American support for the Jewish state preceded the establishment of the modern-day state of Israel by nearly 200 years. It was borne of the founding fathers’ desire to form a New Jerusalem. The “Liberty” in which the United States was “conceived” was the liberty of the laws of Moses that mandated the establishment of limited government of man ruled by God’s Divine laws.
For those Americans, the re-establishment of the Jewish commonwealth in the Promised Land would be a fulfillment not only of God’s promise to the Jewish people but proof of the justness of the United States of America, which was modeled on that commonwealth.
The Soviets were convinced that by laundering Palestinian Arab terrorist propaganda through the U.N. system, the Palestinian cause would weaken and divide the Western alliance. Under pressure from Europeans and European-influenced American elite, anti-Zionism would undo America’s sense of its own morality and weaken its social cohesion to the point where Americans would be driven apart. Some would internalize the anti-Americanism at the heart of the anti-Zionism, and others would refuse to do so.
In short, Palestinian Arab terrorism and its concomitant propaganda and political warfare made Jew-hatred socially acceptable again for Europeans; it engendered anti-Americanism in Europe and among the Eurocentric American elite, splitting American society apart.
From 1974 when the Palestinian Arabs were first rewarded for massacring Jews with observer status at the United Nations until 2024, when Israel’s war for survival against Palestinian Arab mass murderers was declared a war crime and a crime against humanity by the ICC, the Palestinian Arab cause of genocide gradually took over the U.N. system, and its associated agencies and satellite organizations like the U.N. Human Rights Council and the ICC.
The only thing blocking its complete takeover and attendant moral and strategic destruction of the post-war system was America’s refusal to join in the fracas. In other words, the international system was perpetually just one change in U.S. policy away from being devoured completely by Jew-hatred.
Enter the Biden administration.
‘Hostile, unlawful acts against Israel’
Since Oct. 7, the outgoing Biden administration has been playing a game of footsie with the U.N. system. While paying lip service to Israel’s right to self-defense, President Joe Biden and his advisers have enabled and emboldened the world body and its agencies to side with Hamas by refusing at every turn to take any action against agencies siding with or aiding and abetting Hamas.
Consider UNRWA. On Oct. 7, UNRWA employees in Gaza participated in the atrocities. As the weeks and months passed, it became apparent that UNRWA was Hamas’s diplomatic and welfare arm. Its infrastructure was enmeshed in Hamas’s terror infrastructure. Its personnel were Hamas personnel. And this was by design.
UN Watch revealed this week that in 2017, then UNRWA head Pierre Krähenbühl met with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror commanders in Beirut and pledged to work with them in full partnership. Krähenbühl , who now heads the International Committee for the Red Cross, emphasizes the “spirit of partnership” between UNRWA and the terrorist organizations. He urged them to keep the cooperation private to avoid angering UNRWA’s donors and endangering its funding.
Although the administration cut off funding to UNRWA after its employees’ involvement in the Oct. 7 atrocities was exposed, the U.S. State Department has repeatedly extolled UNRWA, promised to restore funding and threatened Israel with arms embargoes if it cuts off the U.N.’s in-house terror group. So the administration’s actual policy is to support UNRWA even as its terrorist activities have become undeniable.
Then there is the International Court of Justice. Two months after Oct. 7, the ICJ began to adjudicate South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the scandalous allegation, the ICJ agreed to hear the case. So today, Israel is on trial for the crimes Hamas and its supporters carried out against the State of Israel.
While decrying the trial, the Biden administration did nothing to intervene on Israel’s behalf with the ICJ. It placed no pressure on South Africa to withdraw its case.
By taking no action against the ICJ or South Africa, the Biden administration indirectly but clearly supported their decision to place Israel on the dock.
Last week, the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism revealed that the South African government and African National Congress (ANC) governing party are bankrolled by Hamas, and its state sponsors Iran and Qatar. So in effect, South Africa is acting as their agent. The actual party accusing Israel of genocide is Hamas, which actually continues its war of genocide still today.
Finally, we come to the International Criminal Court. For the past 15 years, the ICC has been working with Palestinian Arab terrorists to build a legal fiction where Israel, which is not a member of the ICC and over whom the ICC has no jurisdiction is a terrorist organization; and the terror-infused, PLO-controlled, and Hamas aligned-Palestinian Authority is a sovereign state empowered to give the ICC jurisdiction over Israel.
Recognizing the threat the ICC posed not only to Israel but to the United States itself, during his first term, President-elect Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that required sanctions be imposed on ICC staff in the event the institution issued arrest warrants against U.S. military personnel or U.S. allies, including Israel.
Upon entering office, Biden canceled the Executive Order. He refused to reissue it following ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement last May that he intended to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. When the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill legislating the sanctions that appeared in Trump’s executive order, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) blocked it from being launched in the Senate.
Through its actions, the administration actively protected the ICC—and indirectly encouraged the ICC in its hostile, unlawful acts against Israel. And, just to be clear, the act in question is kidnapping. Netanyahu and Gallant have committed no war crimes and no atrocities. The ICC is acting without legal authority, outside the bounds of international law, with no evidence of any crime save claims from terrorists who are themselves war criminals. Its decision to issue international arrest warrants under the circumstances renders the ICC nothing more than a kidnapping ring. And every ICC member nation that agrees to execute the warrants is a member of the ring.
By enabling the international system to escalate its war against Israel and its people, the Biden administration completed the process initiated 50 years ago at the United Nations. Although Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have repeatedly protested their commitment to protecting the liberal world order, their actions in office have transformed the U.N.-based system into a mechanism for the advancement of the genocide of Jews and the destruction of the Judeo-Christian civilization.
These institutions are now beyond repair. They cannot be reformed, only dismantled. To this end, Israel, the Jews and the world are lucky that Trump has the courage to clean up the mess his predecessor is leaving and dismantle the now-broken international system that is Biden’s legacy.
Caroline B. Glick is the senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate and host of the “Caroline Glick Show” on JNS. She is also the diplomatic commentator for Israel’s Channel 14, as well as a columnist for Newsweek. Glick is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington and a lecturer at Israel’s College of Statesmanship.
My Answer to a Question From a Democrat: Why Do You Think Trump Won? By Rod Martin
November 24, 2024 at 8:00am The Western Journal – A Democrat friend, perhaps more introspectively than most, writes to ask why I believe Trump won. Her question:
“Good morning, my sweet friend. I have always trusted you to be someone I can have conversations with and, if you’d be willing, I’d really love to hear about how/why you think Trump/Red won so handily in this election.
I didn’t vote Trump, but I’ve been, shall we say, less than thrilled with where most Democratic policies have taken us here in Denver.
I worry I am falling into an echo chamber because I didn’t really see this coming on the federal level (even though I track state politics daily! Lol), and I am trying to understand.
I welcome your insight, but no pressure. Regardless, I hope you are doing well and please know I am sending you all my love, always!”
The following is my response:
It is always delightful to hear from you. Thank you for your kind words.
There were a number of factors that led to Trump’s victory , certainly including the effect of inflation on the vast majority of regular people, widespread upset regarding the border, and so on.
But nothing turned out to be as important as the sense that when Harris and others accused Trump of being a totalitarian they were projecting.
Two aspects of this particularly stand out, and we heard them again and again from people like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan (not to mention RFK and Tulsi Gabbard), not one of which is historically anything in the ballpark of “Republican”.
1. The ever-growing number of political prisoners. Lots of senior Trump advisors were jailed for things no one or virtually no one else has ever been jailed for (“contempt of Congress” topping the list), “crimes” which the other side not only blatantly committed but which the media made into heroic causes when they did.
There is an overwhelming sense among many regular people that they have become second-class citizens, that government can and will target them any time it feels like it, and that if they only had different political beliefs they could get away with literally anything.
I don’t want to get deeply into the details of any of these cases because that completely misses the point. But the Trump documents indictment is a perfect example.
Biden literally kept classified documents in his garage; Clinton had all the secrets of the US State Department on an unauthorized server in her basement; Sandy Berger got caught smuggling classified documents out of the National Archives in his shoes , and NOTHING HAPPENED to any of them. Nothing.
But Trump’s home gets raided by federal agents authorized to use deadly force.
I’m not opining on whether Trump was right or wrong, though I believe the President’s power to declassify is absolute, that there’s no good reason to believe he didn’t declassify anything he kept, that the Presidential Records Act covers everything he did, and that none of those things apply to any of the other three people I just named.
All that is true, in my opinion, but irrelevant. That’s not why most normal people got mad, or scared.
They got mad, and scared, because of the selective prosecutions. Justice that isn’t equal is absolutely unjust, and you don’t need a law degree to know that in your gut.
So that’s the bigger of the two, which leads me to:
2. Mass censorship. Leading Democrats absolutely horrifying repudiation of the First Amendment — which, like the prosecutions, was nevertheless highly selective — was already bad enough before Labor won the general election in Great Britain.
And then, all of a sudden, Starmer’s government was releasing violent criminals from the prisons to make room for people who posted memes the government didn’t like.
Oh, and threatening to extradite Elon .
Did they retract that last bit? Yes. Does that mean they wouldn’t try it tomorrow? No, as evidenced by the CEO of Telegram getting arrested in France (again, don’t get caught up in whether you like or don’t like Telegram: that’s not the point).
Add this to the church closings during COVID while strip clubs and casinos were allowed to stay open, and the overwhelming documentation of the media’s suppression of important stories as “disinformation” which later turned out to be true — and later turned out to be known to be true by the government before the suppression took place — and this became rightly terrifying to many.
Basically, what I’m describing sounds a lot like Venezuela, from the mouths of people who call themselves Socialists and mouth slogans previously used by Castro, Chavez, Maduro and Ortega.
So I refer you back to RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, as well as people like Bill Maher who still endorsed Harris but have been highly critical of the current Administration on all these points.
There came to be a growing sense that we are on the brink of losing “Our Democracy” (a phrasing which has come to be seen as highly condescending by half the country), but that the people threatening it were actually the Democrats themselves.
Who wants to close your church (but not the things your church opposes)? Who wants to censor your internet posts and (if Europe is our example) possibly jail you for them? Who wants you to show an ID for absolutely everything except voting? Who actually jails their political opponents?
Not the Republicans.
And on that last note: Trump made a lot of hay with the “Because you’d be in jail” line in the 2016 debate:
But we don’t have to wonder who he is or what he’d do, because he’s actually been President. And once actually in office, he refused to allow a prosecution of Hillary Clinton precisely because it was a Third World kind of thing to do.
All of which suggests to normal people that his rhetoric was making the point that she did things that were wrong, but not that anyone should use the full power of government to silence and imprison the opposition.
The economy mattered. Demonizing half the country as fascists and Nazis and deplorables and “garbage” mattered. Telling working class people that it doesn’t matter if they lose their jobs because they should just “learn to code” mattered. Lots and lots of things mattered.
But all that condescension was crystallized in the unequal “justice” and the censorship, and the sense that under Harris it would not just get worse, but go far past the point of no return.
People who hold you in utter contempt are likely to do literally anything to you, especially when they’re telling you at least some of the things they’re planning.
Bernie Sanders is correct: this is a self-inflicted wound. Democrats lost the working class, and men, and a lot of minorities, including nearly half of Hispanics, because they hold all those people in open, vocal contempt.
Disgust, really. It doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t be.
But even more essential than stopping the demonization of half the country is giving up the weaponization of government against domestic political opponents. America rightly ran Nixon out of office for a great deal less.
“Our Democracy” requires no less.
[Ed.:
Vladimir Putin LIVE I Putin Address In English; Russia’s Direct Attack On U.S, UK I Biden | Trump
November 21, 2024 Hindustan Times – Watch live as Vladimir Putin announces Russia’s successful test of the new Oreshnik hypersonic missile system on targets in Dnipro, Ukraine. This unprecedented attack marks the first known use of an ICBM in the ongoing conflict. The missile strike, launched from Russia’s Astrakhan region, demonstrates advanced capabilities with speeds reaching 10 Mach. The attack comes amid escalating tensions, following Ukraine’s recent use of US and British missiles on Russian territory. Putin’s announcement coincides with Russia’s revised nuclear doctrine, potentially lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use. The strike damaged industrial facilities in Dnipro, while Ukrainian forces successfully intercepted multiple incoming missiles.
[Ed.:
