The Left is Now the Right - "In August, 2005, Rolling Stone sent me to cover a freak show. In a small Pennsylvania town called Dover, residents contrived to insert a sentence about teaching “intelligent design” into the curriculum, and fought for its right to do so in an extravagantly-covered trial in the “big city” capital of Harrisburg... Especially in 2005, which felt like the dawn of a new thousand-year reign of Bushian conservatism, liberal audiences jumped at any opportunity to re-create the magic of one of their foundational knowledge-over-superstition parables, the Scopes Monkey Trial.Fifteen years later, America is a thousand Dovers, and the press response is silence. This time it’s not a few Podunk school boards under assault by junk science and crackpot theologies, but Princeton University, the New York Times, the Smithsonian, and a hundred other institutions.When the absurdity factor rocketed past Dover levels this week, the nation’s leading press organs barely commented, much less laughed. Doing so would have meant opening the floodgates on a story most everyone in media sees but no one is allowed to comment upon: that the political right and left in America have traded villainous cultural pathologies. Things we once despised about the right have been amplified a thousand-fold on the flip. Conservatives once tried to legislate what went on in your bedroom; now it’s the left that obsesses over sexual codicils, not just for the bedroom but everywhere. Right-wingers from time to time made headlines campaigning against everything from The Last Temptation of Christ to “Fuck the Police”... Today Matt Yglesias signing a group letter with Noam Chomsky is considered threatening. Moreover a lot less than booking a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit can get you in the soup – a headline, a retweet, even likes are costing people jobs. Imagine how many movies Milos Forman would have had to make if Jerry Falwell had been able to get people fired this easily. This is separate from the Democratic Party “moving right,” or in the case of issues like war, financial deregulation, and surveillance, having always been in lockstep with the right. This is about a change in the personality profile of the party’s most animated, engaged followers.Many who marched against Dick Cheney’s spy state in the early 2000s lost interest once Donald Trump became a target, then became full converts to the possibilities of centralized speech control after Russiagate, Charlottesville, and the de-platforming of Alex Jones, with even the ACLU wobbling. (Some of the only left media figures to be consistent on this issue work at the World Socialist Web Site, which has gone after woke icons like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over Internet censorship). Support for the “radical transparency” concept that made Wikileaks famous receded in favor of a referendum on the political and sexual iniquity of Julian Assange: many activists today are more concerned with who than what and find nuance, contradiction, and double-meaning repulsive. Bad person = bad idea!... the definitions of “whiteness” sound suspiciously like lazy suburban white stereotypes about Black America, only in reverse... Once, the right couldn’t see or comment upon its own absurdities, and instead spent most of its time whining about being frozen out of the media at the exact moment its messaging was becoming hegemonic, e.g. when we weren’t even able to watch a football game without someone trying to shove Rush Limbaugh or Dennis Miller onscreen. Now the left has adopted the same traits (the NBA restart played on a “Black Lives Matter”-emblazoned court is going to make those old Monday Night Football broadcasts seem chill), with a major difference: it has the bureaucratic juice to shut down mass media efforts to ridicule its thinking. These are the same pontificating, stereotyping busybodies Republicans used to be, only this time, they’re winning the culture war."
Why Panera’s experiment with pay-what-you-want dining failed - "In 2010, Panera’s nonprofit arm launched a new experiment: It opened a cafe in St. Louis that looked exactly like the company’s other restaurants, but customers could pay what they wanted for the items on the menu, or not pay at all. Ron Shaich, Panera’s founder and CEO at the time, had volunteered at food banks and wanted to offer a better experience for people who were struggling to eat. The new nonprofit restaurant, called Panera Cares, was designed to sustain itself by nudging middle-class consumers to pay a little extra for their meals.“In many ways, this whole experiment is ultimately a test of humanity,” Shaich said in a TEDx talk later that year. “Would people pay for it? Would people come in and value it?”In January 2018, the St. Louis location closed. A location in Dearborn, Michigan, which also opened in 2010, closed in 2016. Locations in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago also failed. Only one cafe, in Boston, is left. Though the concept was designed to be self-sustaining, the restaurant operated at a loss... many consumers didn’t want to eat next to homeless people, and complained about the atmosphere. People who were food insecure also didn’t like it... Conscious capitalism–a philosophy that Shaich and many other business leaders subscribe to–suggests that consumers will do good if given the opportunity. But that’s an unproven theory, Dobscha says, and it wasn’t borne out at the cafes. At the door, greeters explained the nonprofit concept; some consumers said they felt pressured into making donations. Others admitted that they used the restaurant to underpay even though they could afford more... Some similar restaurants have survived... Dobscha suggests that it makes sense for companies to focus on solving the social problems they directly create–Facebook should work on data privacy, for example, and the carbon footprint of its servers, among other things–but perhaps not attempt to work on peripheral social problems. “To me, it’s misplaced resources,” she says. “It’s probably not going to get you the results you want, and it lets governments off the hook, too.”"
And the last outlet has closed too
Lentil As Anything in trouble as cheapskates take advantage of restaurant’s charity - "LENTIL As Anything’s future is under threat from cheapskates taking advantage of the Newtown restaurant’s charity by paying less than $3 a meal.Since opening two years ago, the vegetarian restaurant has invited customers to pay what they can to enjoy a delicious meal, have a chat and listen to some music in a warm, safe space."
I guess the reason Annalakshmi survives isn't due to the fact that people who eat vegetarian food won't be the ones who'd stiff you
China restaurant's pay-what-you-want policy backfires as some customers pay as low as 1 yuan for meals - "A newly opened restaurant in China racked up losses of 100,000 yuan (S$20,600) during its first week of operation, after its policy of allowing customers to pay what they wanted for their meals backfired spectacularly.The music-themed eatery in Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province, had introduced a pay-what-you-want promotion to mark its opening on Oct 2... Some diners reportedly paid only 10 per cent of the bill, while others had no qualms leaving just 1 yuan (20 Singapore cents) on the table after eating... Mr Liu's relationship with the restaurant's two other owners have since gone sour after they argued over the decision to "believe in the inherent goodness of human beings".He added that they had been banking on the majority of diners to do the right thing and pay what was fair."
This in a country where people steal toilet paper from public toilets
Thomas Chatterton Williams on Twitter - "This is a new form of ad hominem criticism for me. This person (named Bari Williams of all things! Hello, are we in a simulation or what!?) states explicitly—not by the usual implication—that since my views are not hers they quite literally erase my ancestry and *make me white.*"
Apparently if you're not politically black, you're not black
Woman creates fake Tinder profile as a man and assumes it will be 'easy' to get dates - "An 18-year-old woman created a fake profile to go undercover on Tinder to see what it's really like for men on dating apps — and she was shocked to discover that it was not as easy as she imagined.YouTuber Alexander Grace teamed up with his friend Sada for the social experiment, providing her with photos of himself to use for her fake Tinder profile. Sada admitted that she thought it would be 'easy peasy' to get matches with Alex's pictures, and assumed she'd be lining up dates in no time — but she was discouraged to get fewer matches than she thought, and even more frustrated to be met with radio silence when she would initiate conversation... In addition to not getting as many matches as she imagined, she was annoyed that women wouldn't reply to her messages, or they'd stop replying after one or two responses... 'If I compared the experience that a woman has on a dating app and that a man has on a dating app, it's much different. And it's weird that I struggled so much. And if I changed my picture to a woman, I don't struggle at all.'This is not very healthy,' she said. 'I'm [feeling] down now and it's not even my damn picture.'... she has rethought what it's like for guys on dating apps. 'I just feel sorry for guys and stuff. I don't think this is good for anyone, really.She added that she thought it would be especially easy for her because she herself is a woman... Men commenting on the video and on Reddit are less confused.'Yeah dating apps are probably the most depressing experience an average guy can have'... 'She kept pointing out that he is actually attractive and educated... Imagine what "average" guys experience'... 'I'm a a straight dude who has used and often been excessively frustrated with dating apps. Despite that, I completely understand why the women ghost or don't replay: They're inundated with messages and options,' wrote one, explaining that there's simply not enough time to reply to everyone"
Female privilege illustrated
Liberalism made the Western world, but now it is destroying it - "The pursuit of the common good has little place in liberalism, for liberalism is principally concerned with the maximisation of individual freedom... Also to blame is the misplaced universalism of liberalism. Partly because much of liberal thought starts with a misconceived "model" of human nature and political organisation, liberals underestimate the cultural and institutional context and history of communities and countries.They assume we are all rational freedom-seekers, the same the world over. This leads liberals to all sorts of flawed judgments about foreign policy (think Iraq), democracy (think European Union) and immigration.Viewing countries as little more than a platform, upon which anybody from anywhere in the world can live and work with only minimal obligations towards others, liberals support mass immigration.In fact, they are often maniacally in favour of it, because for many of them, borders are a restraint on freedom, and culturally diverse countries are more likely to put irrational attachments to majority culture and identity behind them.But study after academic study shows that the more diverse a society becomes, the less trust and reciprocity there is, and less willingness to pay taxes to fund universal public services and welfare systems.Liberalism attacks the institutions and traditions that bring us together, in part because they are seen as hindrances in the pursuit of freedom. But this destructiveness is also down to the problematic relationship liberalism has with the idea of inevitable progress. Because some liberal thinkers justify pluralism and tolerance on the basis that they create trial and error that leads to an increasingly perfect society, liberalism can become illiberal and intolerant: conservatives who worry that change can bring loss and not just gain, institutions and traditions that ask us to put others first, and beliefs that seek to achieve the common good are mocked, undermined and attacked.The irony is, the more we see the full extent of the crisis of Western society, it becomes clearer that liberalism has always depended on those very institutions and traditions and ways of life it attacks.Perhaps liberalism can survive without Christian virtues and stable national identities, but we cannot yet know that for sure."
An0maly - Posts - "If you vote for Donald Trump, you are a racist. You have no wiggle room"
"Blindly labeling 62,984,828 Americans as racist is everything that's wrong with contemporary political discourse."
Edward C. Yong - "Take The Cake: Do Smaller Fat People Have Privilege?"
"the loons on the left are eating their own!
tldr version: mildly overweight woman joins a forum for fat women and is made to feel privileged cos she can get sex more easily than the morbidly obese ones."
Why the silence over the Reading attack? - "It’s been five days since the Reading attack. Five days since suspected Islamist terrorist Khairi Saadallah killed three people and seriously injured three more, as they enjoyed drinks and sun with friends in a park on Saturday evening. The killer stabbed people in the neck, under the arms, and one in the eye, according to reports. He lunged at people seemingly indiscriminately. Such was his barbarism. And yet, five days later, we’re barely talking about it... conversation has quickly turned to pubs reopening and that twat who flew a ‘White Lives Matter’ banner over Burnley.Now imagine the Reading attack had been committed not by someone like Saadallah, who is suspected, it seems, of having Islamist sympathies, but by a Tommy Robinson supporter, or a fully fledged white supremacist. Five days later, we’d be talking about nothing else – and rightly so. It would have been the bloodiest far-right attack on British soil in recent memory. By contrast, Saadallah’s alleged crimes have been treated, as suspected terrorism of this kind often is, like a horrible accident – something we briefly mourn before moving on. This enthusiasm gap was glaring on Twitter in the wake of the attack. The opinion-forming set seemed more keen to express their solidarity not with the families and friends of the three slain men, who incidentally all seem to have been gay, but with TV pundit Ash Sarkar. After she posted a photo on Saturday of her eating an ice lolly, far-right trolls, ludicrously suggesting she was mocking the attack, sent her death threats. It was appalling, of course. But that the condemnation of racist tweets seemed to outweigh that of actual murders tells us something about some people’s priorities. This is all the more strange given that the threat of Islamist violence far outweighs that of far-right violence. In the past five years, excluding Reading, 37 people have been killed in Britain in Islamist attacks, while two have been killed in far-right attacks. That’s without mentioning the Parsons Green bombing in 2017, the stabbing attack at a Manchester shopping centre last year, and the stabbing attack in Streatham, south London, in February – all Islamist attacks which inflicted awful injuries but failed to claim lives... While Islamist attacks range in sophistication, there are networks and groups, both national and international, that would-be terrorists are able to access. By comparison, as Dr Paul Stott has argued, the British far right has been ‘historically too weak to sustain an enduring terrorist group’, and the threat it poses is predominantly from lone-wolf actors... Many on the liberal-left seem to care more about their pre-fashioned narratives than the bloody reality. This is why claims that the murderous far right is on the march, ginned up by Boris Johnson and tabloid newspapers, trundle on in spite of the facts. This is why they have a tendency to ignore or downplay Islamist terror – because it raises awkward questions about integration, multiculturalism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism that they have no answer for"
laka on Twitter - "Stop adding pineapple to food and calling it “Hawaiian”. Pineapple is not from Hawaii. My grandfather worked in the pineapple fields as a child. Pineapple and it’s ties to Hawaii is a direct result from Hawaii’s colonization. Please stop perpetuating my culture’s oppression.
In many ways, capitalism and colonization worked perfectly on Hawaii. Now, when you think pineapple you think Hawaii. The whole fucking world sees a huge pineapple next to the word “Hawaii”. Educate yourself and others about multigenerational microagressions...
SO when you think about things with pineapple, and you associate that with Hawaii or anything Hawaiian, you are directly perpetuating the history of colonization and capitalism. So stop making that connection. Pineapple is NOT Hawaiian or even from Hawaii."
Officer Fired Over Facebook Post About 'Privilege' - "Critics alleged that now-former Savannah Police Department (SPD) Officer Edwin Myrick’s post was racist... “What is privilege?….Privilege is wearing $200 sneakers when you’ve never had a job,” the post read. “Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance. Privilege is having a Smartphone with a Data plan which you receive no bill for.” “Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you don’t have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table,” the post continued. “Privilege is the ability to go march against, and protest anything that triggers you, without worrying about calling out of work and the consequences that accompany such behavior.”“Privilege is having as many children as you want, regardless of your employment status, and be able to send them off to daycare or school you don’t pay for,” the message read. “Privilege is sending your kids to school early for the before school programs and breakfast, and then keeping there for the after school program…all at no cost to you….paid for by the people who DO HAVE TO DEAL WITH RISING TAXES AND COSTS!…you know, us so called ‘PRIVILEGED’ the ones who pay while you TAKE TAKE TAKE!”"
If you see this as racist, given that it doesn't mention race, you're the racist one
