Sunday, June 04, 2023

Links - 4th June 2023 (1 - General Wokeness)

Meme - "Me and my dad at the #sosorry event today..we are #sosorry about about what our evil race has done to the blacks..we didn't choose to be white and it's something that haunts us everyday *white people tied up, kneeling and restrained like slaves*"

As mental health, addiction crises surge in cities, B.C. looks to involuntary treatment for aid - The Globe and Mail - "B.C. Premier David Eby is now pointing to involuntary treatment as a potential – though controversial – solution to the conundrum of what to do with people battling homelessness, mental-health issues or addictions, who continue assaulting strangers on city streets.  Mayors from across B.C., to Toronto to major cities in the United States are grappling with a crisis that has prompted politicians and health care providers to question whether forcibly treating people with such entrenched disorders should be re-examined decades after facilities once called asylums were shuttered because of wide-scale human rights violations...  Red Fish’s internal data show 92 per cent of patients have improved their mental health by the time they are discharged, about that same percentage of alcoholics recover during their stay and three quarters improve their substance use disorders"

Meme - "When people call you "far-right" what they are actually saying, is that you have been "so far, right about everything"."

Meme - emperor intelwave: "Just noticed all the men's S and women's XXL sizes are sold out on AOC's merch shop"

Civil servant who blew the whistle on political activism wins £100,000 payout - "A civil servant was sacked after blowing the whistle on the infiltration of political activism in Whitehall, including the exclusion of white men from a jobseekers' event.  Anna Thomas, 32, has spoken for the first time about how her career was ruined after she warned colleagues that the Civil Service’s duty to maintain political impartiality was breached by the dissemination of critical race theory in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).  Ms Thomas has received a £100,000 settlement from the Government after a three-year ordeal. During that time, she repeatedly tried to raise the alarm about how political activists have infiltrated the Civil Service, including with resources asking employees to "assume" they are racist and the promotion of a jobseekers' event for the Metropolitan Police that excluded white men. The payout comes amid growing concerns about widespread political activism in the Civil Service after Baroness Falkner of Margravine, the head of the equalities watchdog, faced an attempted coup by trans-activist civil servants... After posting her concerns on the intranet, she faced a backlash from some colleagues.  “It felt a lot like gaslighting,” she says. “Comments saying that ‘you’re taking things out of context…you’re being politically partial. That was quite disturbing to me because it’s just like, this isn’t fair, I didn’t bring this stuff in, I’m just telling you that this is not neutral at all.”  Ms Thomas says she complained to the team responsible for the resources, and to the whistleblowing team, that she believed the DWP was breaching its impartiality obligations under the Civil Service Code. She then learned that she was being investigated for misconduct, including allegations that she had said discriminatory things and was causing offence. The investigation included "fact-finding" meetings, where she claims her concerns weren’t taken seriously and investigators were trying to draw out her own politics rather than understand her concerns about political impartiality.  However, Ms Thomas’s whistleblowing complaint was upheld, and the DWP’s own behavioural science expert advised that the anti-racism hub was political and that Mr Schofield should not have gone down the road of anti-racism, she says. The DWP subsequently removed certain content from its online resources.  “By this point, I was well aware of what's now called ‘cancel culture,” Ms Thomas says. “And I was just like, OK, this isn't going too well, but this is bigger than me. This is about…a very toxic culture of politics in a civil service and the problems that could come from that [are] not great.”  Soon afterwards, Ms Thomas appeared to be right to have concerns about how the Department’s politicised approach would eventually impact the service it provided to vulnerable members of the public.  In January 2021, she was asked to promote a job-seeking event to the unemployed interested in a career in the Metropolitan Police. The event was directed at female, BAME and LGBT candidates. She says that straight white men, who made up the majority of her customers in Portsmouth, were explicitly excluded. Ms Thomas discussed her concerns with colleagues on a Teams chat that the event was discriminatory and unlawful. However, she says her worries were dismissed by her superior, who made a complaint about her comments.  Ms Thomas was prescribed antidepressants and went on long-term sick leave... She says her understanding of why she was dismissed is that she was found to have caused “upset”, “distress”, and “offence”.  Ms Thomas began a claim against the Department in 2022, with the support of the Free Speech Union. She claimed she was the victim of unfair dismissal, belief discrimination, victimisation as a whistleblower, and harassment.  After three preliminary hearings, the DWP agreed to settle and pay Ms Thomas £100,000, of which £27,500 was for injury to her feelings. It did not admit any liability.  Ms Thomas, who has retrained as a hairdresser, says she believes the DWP settled without admitting any guilt because the department fears other claimants may come forward. “I think there's a lot more where I came from…Speaking to people when I was in the department, people that I have never met, that just emailed saying they were so scared to say anything.  “You know, it’s created quite a nasty culture for people to thrive and do well. At the end of the day,  the civil service is taxpayer-funded and so our job is to be politically impartial and honest…and you can't do that if you’ve got a politicised environment. And it's going to deter really good people, good workers away from the civil service.”  Political activism appears to be alive and well in Whitehall, following the complaints and briefings against Dominic Raab, the former justice secretary, and Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, Ms Thomas says. "It [the politicisation of the Civil Service] is a problem," she says. "It only seems to trend or be popular when it is the politicians at the top, but it does happen to everyday normal civil servants that are just trying to do their job, but notice that something's wrong. I was punished for whistleblowing."  She believes that Civil Service “hubs” for political issues are inviting activism into the institution.  She also says it is “concerning” that Mr Schofield is still in post as permanent secretary after promoting politically impartial content."

Is Criticism Of Goldman Really Anti-Semitism? - "Mr. KINSLEY: And - because I think there's a real problem in our politics today of umbrage. People are very quick to take umbrage at things other people say. And politician use this to, I think, make bigger deals of things than they ought to. Abe Foxman, who is the - he's the head of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, says that virtually any reference to Goldman Sachs alone in the context of this scandal smacks of anti-Semitism, because he says, you know, what about Morgan Stanley and other firms that aren't Jewish? I think that goes much too far.
CONAN: And indeed, there can be an inference that just as if some people say, well, we can't make any criticism of Barack Obama without being accused of being a racist, you can't make any criticism of Goldman Sachs without being accused of being an anti-Semite... probably the majority of people who work at Goldman Sachs may be Jewish, you say. Nevertheless, there are plenty of Jews, also, at Morgan Stanley.
Mr. KINSLEY: Right. And the previous head - before Lloyd Blankfein, who is Jewish - the previous head of Goldman Sachs wasn't. And basically, these are all ancient history, these religious distinctions.
CONAN: And today, it's a publically traded company... it's not a Jewish firm. It's a public firm...
PATRICK: I wonder if Jewish people hear these assertions about, you know, potential anti-Semitism in this situation and cringe when they hear this. I'm not a Jew, but I'm - I am highly educated and very intelligent, and I don't - I never once considered that this was an anti-Semitic situation. And I wonder if Jews that have experienced these problems in their lives - you know, anti-Semitism - cringe when they hear this because maybe it's being overused, you know? I mean, whenever you have a situation where somebody overuses a threat or a perceived threat or prejudice and they overused it, it weakens the position of anybody that has a legitimate beef about it. Do you know what I'm saying?"
Grievance mongers profit from more "oppression", so
The traditional left would have a field day with making bankers immune to criticism

How to Think About: Jewish Bankers - The Atlantic - "Rush Limbaugh brought it up the other day. He said on his radio show that President Obama may be appealing to anti-Semitism with his recent populist criticism of banks and bankers. "There are a lot of people," Limbaugh said, "when you say banker, people think Jewish." He didn't mention Goldman Sachs. Abe Foxman, longtime head of the B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League, declared that Limbaugh's remark was "offensive and inappropriate" and "borderline anti-Semitic." Limbaugh and his defenders protest that Limbaugh clearly was referring to other people, "people who have--what's the best way to say--a little prejudice about them," and not endorsing such views himself. And the transcript bears him out.  By Foxman's standard, even to mention that many bankers are Jewish is anti-Semitic (even though it's true), and attributing this view to others (while professing to be worried about it) is no excuse This may be over-the top. We live in a culture of umbrage, in which everybody seems to be taking offense at something somebody else says. Foxman is one of the nation's foremost umbragists. However, Limbaugh's supporters make too much of the fact that, read literally, his remarks took the form of defending Jews against unfair maligning. There can be something creepy about "philo-semitism," or a professed special fondness for Jews. Even when it is sincere (as it may well be in Limbaugh's case), it rests on an acute feeling of "otherness" about Jews that makes many Jewish Americans rightly uncomfortable... It ought to be possible to criticize Goldman in the harshest possible terms--if you think that's warranted--without being tarred as an anti-Semite. (Many of Goldman's harshest critics, unsurprisingly, are Jewish. Jews can be anti-Semites, too.)"
From 2010. It is probably not acceptable to say this today
Is it creepy to other "minorities" and profess a special fondness for them?

When Will the Woke Go Full Caligula? - "“Imagine if @bariweiss offered 10% of the defense she gives white supremacy to all the antifascist, Jewish-allied, Black and brown women of color she has made a career putting in danger,” it said. “NYT staff of color felt so unsafe around her that she had to resign.” Something about this tweet struck me instantly: it was completely insane. No thinking person can hold that Weiss is anything but a political moderate with no sympathies whatsoever for white supremacism and neither the power nor the desire to harm anyone.  I also understood, however, the likely motivation behind the attack: Weiss has recently emerged as a strident voice against cancel culture and the amorphous but potent phenomenon known as “Woke.” To its adherents, to be “Woke” is to be awake to the systemic injustices of American society and, by extension, the rest of Western civilization. This civilization, it is held, is a skein of oppression and genocide that must be torn down in its entirety. To impose this idea on others, the Woke use the tactics of mob harassment, public auto-de-fés, hysterical denunciation, and most of all the weaponization of cancel culture to deprive people of their platforms, livelihoods, and reputation.  Cancel culture is necessary in order to prevent the spread of racist, violent, and insurrectionary incitement. But the use of cancel culture by the Woke is quite different: it is not only an attempt to force people to assent to certain ideas in which they may or may not believe, but also ideas in which no one believes. I am quite certain, for example, that everyone in the world — including the Woke themselves — believes that Western civilization is more than just racism and genocide. Everyone believes that, while transgender people should never be subject to prejudice or violence, biological sex is nonetheless immutable and cannot be changed. Everyone believes that Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill are not the moral equivalent of Hitler. Everyone believes that, contrary to the New York Times’ quintessentially Woke 1619 Project, the United States was not founded in 1619 on the basis of chattel slavery. Everyone, in other words, is being told by insane people to adopt insane ideas.  It is worth inquiring into the nature of this madness... Rereading Caligula while writing this piece, I was shocked by the extent to which Camus had anticipated the Woke phenomenon...   The Woke wield their power through social media spectacle; but nonetheless, this power is close to absolute. The Woke can mob who they want, slander who they want, deprive who they want of reputation and livelihood and ultimately destroy them. The Woke don’t need to kill people, because they can kill everything about them that is free.  But Camus also realized something that may give us hope: any tyrant must ultimately engineer his own destruction.  There are several ways this could happen. The Woke may decide to attack someone who is powerful enough to crush them — perhaps by de-platforming them, or simply by ignoring them, exposing the absurd impotence that lies at the heart of any bully or tyrant.  It is also possible that the Woke will attempt to enforce an idea so blatantly mad or appalling that even the most cowardly will turn against them. There is even the darker possibility that their mob tactics will result in something truly heinous, provoking a wave of revulsion.   But however it transpires, the Woke will not go quietly"

Meme - "IN THIS HOUSE WE STAND FOR THE FLAG *Trans Pride flag*
WE KNEEL AT THE CROSS *Communist hammer and sickle*
AND WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS *OnlyFans*"

Why Even Nazis Deserve Free Speech - "As the famous jurist Learned Hand once said, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”... fewer than 50 percent of high school students think that people should be free to say things that are offensive to others.  The New York Times opinion page, for its part, has run three columns since April questioning the value of free speech for all, the most recent imploring the ACLU to “rethink free speech”—the same ACLU that at the height of Nazism, Communism and Jim Crow in 1940 released a leaflet entitled, “Why we defend civil liberty even for Nazis, Fascists and Communists.” The ACLU of Virginia carried on this honorable tradition of viewpoint-neutral free speech defense in the days before the Charlottesville protests. However, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that the ACLU “will no longer defend hate groups seeking to march with firearms.”  And how is the birthplace of the 1960s free speech movement faring? In the wake of the riots that shut down alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech at the University of California, Berkeley on February 1, multiple students and alumni wrote that the violence and destruction of the Antifa protests were a form of “self-defense” against the “violence” of Yiannopoulos’ speech. Watching videos of the protest, it is fortunate nobody was killed.   What’s to account for this shift? One of our theories is that this generation of students comprises the children of students who went to college during the first great age of campus speech codes that spanned from the late 1980s through the early 90s. This is when colleges and universities first began writing over-broad and vague policies to regulate allegedly racist and sexist speech. Although that movement failed in the court of law, these codes have stubbornly persisted, and the view that freedom of speech is the last refuge of the “three Bs”—the bully, the bigot and the robber baron—found a home in classrooms.  When we speak on college campuses, our explanations of the critical role the First Amendment played in ensuring the success of the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement and the gay rights movement are often met with blank stares. At a speech at Brown University, in fact, a student laughed when Greg pointed out that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was a steadfast defender of freedom of speech––as if it were impossible for a black icon of the civil rights movement to be a free-speech champion...   Most Americans claim that they venerate free speech in principle. So do most world leaders. Even censorial dictators like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan sometimes feign support for it. Despite this, it’s common for people to have their exceptions in practice: their “I believe in free speech, but …” responses. But even the “free speech, but …” responses seem to be falling out of favor. In the last few years—and especially after Charlottesville—we have observed increasing squeamishness about free speech, and not just in practice; also in principle... since the passage of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism laws in Europe, rates of anti-Semitism remain higher than in the U.S., where no such laws exist. In fact, the Anti-Defamation League found that rates of anti-Semitism have gone down in America since it first began measuring anti-Semitic attitudes in 1964.  What’s more, in the 1920s and 30s, Nazis did go to jail for anti-Semitic expression, and when they were released, they were celebrated as martyrs. When Bavarian authorities banned speeches by Hitler in 1925, for example, the Nazis exploited it. As former ACLU Executive Director Aryeh Neier explains in his book Defending My Enemy, the Nazi party protested the ban by distributing a picture of Hitler gagged with the caption, “One alone of 2,000 million people of the world is forbidden to speak in Germany.” The ban backfired and became a publicity coup. It was soon lifted.   We cannot forget, too, that laws have to be enforced by people. In the 1920s and early 30s, such laws would have placed the power to censor in the hands of a population that voted in large numbers for Nazis. And after 1933, such laws would have placed that power to censor in the hands of Hitler himself. Consider how such power might be used by the politician you most distrust. Consider how it is currently being used by Vladimir Putin in Russia.   What does history suggest as the best course of action to win the benefits of an open society while stemming the tide of authoritarians of any stripe? It tells us to have a high tolerance for differing opinions, and no tolerance for political violence. What distinguishes liberal societies from illiberal ones is that liberal societies use words, not violence or censorship to settle disputes. As Neier, a Holocaust survivor, concluded in his book, “The lesson of Germany in the 1920s is that a free society cannot be established and maintained if it will not act vigorously and forcefully to punish political violence.”  But we should not be so myopic about the value of freedom of speech. It is not just a practical, peaceful alternative to violence. It does much more than that: It helps us understand many crucial, mundane and sometimes troubling truths. Simply put, it helps us understand what people actually think—not “even if” it is troubling, but especially when it is troubling.  As Edward Luce points out in his excellent new short book The Retreat of Western Liberalism, there are real consequences to ignoring or wishing away the views that are held by real people, even if elites believe that those views are nasty or wrongheaded. Gay marriage champion and author Jonathan Rauch reminds us that in the same way that breaking a thermometer doesn’t change the temperature, censoring ideas doesn’t make them go away—it only makes us ignorant of their existence."
Yet, the left sees "Nazis" everywhere, because it fulfils a psychological need

Professor Calls For The Elimination of the Republican Party and Purging “Nazified” People From Congress, Universities, and “Regular Jobs” - "a law professor declared that even questioning the Biden electoral victory was tantamount to being a holocaust denier. One professor however has taken this call even further in declaring such supporters are worse than the Nazis and heralding the need for the same type of treatment seen with the Nuremberg trials, including the apparent elimination of the Republican Party. Smith College Professor Loretta Ross, who teaches women’s and gender studies, rejected calls for unity and instead called for punitive action against supporters in Congress, universities, and “regular jobs.”... She is not alone in that view. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin recently declared on a television program (with various media figures who made no objection) that “We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.”  Notably, such language is similar to a call recently by James Comey and is not viewed as incitement. Rubin also called for a blacklisting of Trump supporters from universities and the media, a call that has been made by Democratic figures in Congress as well as academics: “I think it’s absolutely abhorrent that any institution of higher learning, any news organization, or any entertainment organization that has a news outlet would hire these people.”  Professor Ross shows no concern for free speech or academic freedom as she calls for identifying and condemning anyone who is viewed as complicit with Trump over the last four years so that they can be “treated with the same public condemnation that the Nazis received after World War II.”   What is unnerving is that such views are now common on the Internet and increasingly common at universities. Many professors who send me such columns admit that they are afraid to speak out. There is a rising level of intolerance at universities. In over 30 years of teaching, I have never witnessed the level of intimidation at colleges and universities that we have today. Indeed, these columns are meant to normalize such calls for curtailing free speech and academic freedom.  It is an effort not just to retaliate but to use the chilling effect of such threats to silence others (including effectively barring opposing viewpoints from being published). Rather than denounce such views an inimical to our intellectual mission, some professors are rushing to prove their own bona fides by denouncing colleagues or dismissing free speech values. They are afraid and I cannot blame for that fear. However, silence or passivity in the face of such calls will come at too high a price for our colleges and our country."

Milk: The new symbol of racism in Donald Trump’s America - "If you drink milk, you may be a neo-Nazi racist.  No joke.  This week, in the Daily49er, California State University’s college paper staff writer Samantha Diaz wrote how milk has become the new symbol of hate...   If you think Ms. Diaz analysis comes out of left field, you’d be wrong. Last month, online news publication Mic.com wrote an article titled: “Milk is the new, creamy symbol of white racial purity in Donald Trump’s America.”  Why you may ask?  Well, because an anti-Trump installation at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City featured a live-stream of neo-Nazis drinking milk by the gallon."
Hitler was against tobacco. Therefore if you are against tobacco, you're a Nazi

Photographer who took ‘Nazi salute’ picture says he's ready to change his identity - "The photographer at the center of the ‘Nazi salute’ picture of junior prom kids says he is considering changing his identity to get away from the worldwide furor that his shot has provoked. Peter Gust insisted that the virtually all-white group of boys were merely waving goodbye to their parents, not making any political statement.  ‘I am very frustrated and find it reprehensible that people all over the world can snap to a judgment without knowing any facts and go ape — and it is coming from all over the world’... ‘My wife is an absolute wreck,’ he added. ‘She asked this morning if we should hire a lawyer and change our identities because of a picture of kids saying goodbye to their parents.  ‘People have contacted my son in South Carolina, my daughter in North Dakota, my son’s in-laws in Washington D.C. asking what is wrong with me.’...  a group of residents went back to the Sauk County Courthouse steps with signs of ‘Love Not Hate’ and hearts in an attempt to show the town is not a hotbed of racism.  Baraboo School District administrator Lori Mueller tweeted out a message saying: ‘The photo of students posted to #BarabooProud is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs of the School District of Baraboo.’ She said the District will ‘pursue any and all available and appropriate actions, including legal, to address.’ Even local police say they are investigating... Some Internet posts had taken a Google Earth shot of the driveway of his house which has a gold bird painted on it and tried to suggest it was a Nazi eagle emblem.  ‘That’s the thunderbird, it’s the symbol of Baraboo High School,’ he explained. ‘The school nickname is the T-birds, and I bought this house from a teacher here who was a former coach and he had painted it on the driveway.’  He said the symbol is now faded because he resealed the driveway ‘But it bled through.  ‘That is symptomatic of people who know diddly about what they are talking about.’"
When the demand for Nazis outstrips the supply
Meanwhile the "white power" sign is the ok sign

Study: Calling Other Person A Nazi Is Most Effective Way To Dialogue | Babylon Bee

The thoughtpolice can go whistle - "It’s not just whistling the Bob the Builder theme that can catch the attention of the cops. Other hate incidents recorded by police have included a drug dealer ripping off a gay man (allegedly for his sexuality), a dog pooing on someone’s lawn (apparently this was racially aggravated), and an elderly woman beeping her horn at a slow driver (also racist, allegedly). Even children’s playground insults have been investigated as non-crime hate incidents. Under the guise of tackling bigotry, the police are surveilling perfectly legal behaviour and censoring speech. The recording of non-crime hate incidents has no place in a free society. The thoughtpolice can go whistle."

London Museum Wellcome Collection closes 'racist, sexist and ableist' exhibit - "The Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library in London that "aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health," has closed an exhibition deemed to be "racist, sexist, and ableist."  The exhibit, called the Medicine Man, has been open to the public for 15-years in the centre of the UK capital and its closure has been described as a “significant turning point” for the institution.  The Medicine Man display features artefacts on global health collected by the institution's founder, Henry Wellcome, during the colonial period... A new exhibition telling the stories of marginalised groups will be unveiled in the coming years."

Spanish anti-racism stamp campaign sparks criticism - The Washington Post - "Spain’s postal service prompted widespread criticism this week after introducing skin-tone stamps — with the lightest ones being the most valuable — and promoting them as part of an anti-racism campaign. “The darker the stamp, the less value it will have,” the state-owned company, called Correos, said in a news release announcing the launch. “Therefore, when making a shipment, it will be necessary to use more black stamps than white ones. That way, each letter and each shipment will become a reflection of the inequality created by racism.”  A black stamp is worth 70 cents in the company’s online shop, while a stamp in the lightest skin color costs 1.60 euros.  Critics say the campaign reflects tone-deafness and the lack of diversity in major Spanish companies."
Grievance mongers will never be satisfied

Meme - Jonathan Mayer: "Nazis look different nowadays lol. Looking like documented Mexican gang members"
The Washington Post: "Gunman in Texas mall shooting may have had neo-Nazi beliefs"
WSJ: "Officials Probe Texas Mall Shooter's Possible Link to White Supremacy"
"MAURICIO GARCIA"

End Wokeness on Twitter - "CUNY Law School commencement speaker Fatima Mousa Mohammed: Laws are “white supremacy” and America has a “ravenous appetite for destruction and violence” Thunderous applause from the crowd"

Progressive FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried admits ethical image an act: 'Dumb game we woke westerners play' - "Progressive FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, now facing personal and legal ruin after his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed this week, appeared to admit in a new interview that his professed ethics were largely an act, calling it a "dumb game we woke westerners play."... After Piper praised him as "really good at talking about ethics" for someone who seemed to view the whole system as a game with "winners and losers," he wrote back, "I had to be." "It's what reputations are made of, to some extent…I feel bad for those who get f---ed by it. [B]y this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us," Bankman-Fried wrote... In another Times article last year, he was called "a prime example of a new kind of billionaire. In 2011, during the Occupy Wall Street protests, he was a student at M.I.T., considering becoming a physics professor and interested in effective altruism, a philosophy that supports applying data and evidence to doing the most good for the many."

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