Category Archives: Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

UPDATED: Conservatives and Lefties United Against The Beauty Ideal

Aesthetics, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda

Radio mouth Laura Ingraham ventured into the “Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest,” i.e., “The O’Reilly Factor,” to promote leftist feminist thought: Laura whined that Sports Illustrated promotes a certain body image in women.

No, moron. The magazine is responding to a certain consensus about beauty, extant across most civilized societies. Like high intelligence, such perfection is uncommon. We can’t all possess the assets these thoroughbred beauties possess.

But like lefties, conservatives do not acknowledge that people are not created equal. (Come to think of it, lite libertarians are pursuing the same “thought,” but about that another time.)

The most Laura can do is take comfort in the fact that these gorgeous girls are, mostly, as dumb as bricks and will age, but there is nothing she can do to demote their coveted advantage and promote the “self-image” of her presumably uncomely kids. Nobody wants to see Gabourey Sidibe, “the mountain of human flesh that stars in the film ‘Precious,'” on the coveted cover of Sports Illustrated.

UPDATE (2/22): My comments from Facebook thread:

Someone said that beauty is like art. I agree. We are drawn to looking at lovely things. Less evolved sorts prefer what I call the porn aesthetic (see column for examples). However, I can tell you that I saw some of these beauties on Charlie Rose last night. They only have to open their mouths to spout stupid, banal, political platitudes, and wave their hands affectaciously—and I cringe. I looked on a bit, out of appreciation, then I “fled” the channel.

Btw, yammering about “diversity” is of a piece with being brain washed. We don’t have to “care” about diversity. Pursuing/practicing these political concepts is a hallmark of a propagandized people.

UPDATE II: Russia And The Pussy Riot Press (Pussy Rioting Again)

America, Feminism, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Russia

“Very little of the US media’s reflexive demonization of Russia and the Sochi games should be trusted,” we cautioned, on Feb. 8. “The trashing began well before the games and came from the usual menagerie of media morons, who, from studios in the US, were able to attest to everything from the availability of toilet paper to the overlapping dangers of terrorism and toothpaste.”

Now the left wing of the “Legacy Media” has awoken to the fact of systematic bias against Russia in US media. The blanks are filled in most ably by Stephen F. Cohen, writing in the February 11, online edition of The Nation:

… a general pattern has developed. Even in the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, news reports, editorials and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to traditional journalistic standards, often failing to provide essential facts and context; to make a clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to require at least two different political or “expert” views on major developments; or to publish opposing opinions on their op-ed pages. As a result, American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War. …

… Since the early 2000s, the media have followed a different leader-centric narrative, also consistent with US policy, that devalues multifaceted analysis for a relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts. (Was any Soviet Communist leader after Stalin ever so personally villainized?) If Russia under Yeltsin was presented as having legitimate politics and national interests, we are now made to believe that Putin’s Russia has none at all, at home or abroad—even on its own borders, as in Ukraine.

Russia today has serious problems and many repugnant Kremlin policies. But anyone relying on mainstream American media will not find there any of their origins or influences in Yeltsin’s Russia or in provocative US policies since the 1990s—only in the “autocrat” Putin who, however authoritarian, in reality lacks such power. Nor is he credited with stabilizing a disintegrating nuclear-armed country, assisting US security pursuits from Afghanistan and Syria to Iran or even with granting amnesty, in December, to more than 1,000 jailed prisoners, including mothers of young children. …

… Not long ago, committed readers could count on The New York Review of Books for factually trustworthy alternative perspectives on important historical and contemporary subjects. But when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, the NYRB has succumbed to the general media mania. In a January 21 blog post, Amy Knight, a regular contributor and inveterate Putin-basher, warned the US government against cooperating with the Kremlin on Sochi security, even suggesting that Putin’s secret services “might have had an interest in allowing or even facilitating such attacks” as killed or wounded dozens of Russians in Volgograd in December.

Knight’s innuendo prefigured a purported report on Ukraine by Yale professor Timothy Snyder in the February 20 issue. Omissions of facts, by journalists or scholars, are no less an untruth than misstatements of fact. Snyder’s article was full of both, which are widespread in the popular media, but these are in the esteemed NYRB and by an acclaimed academic. Consider a few of Snyder’s assertions: …

MORE.

UPDATE I: In “About Russia With Hate,” Eugene Girin exposes a cast of particularly slimy US media characters prating on about Putin.

UPDATE II (2/17): PUSSY RIOTING AGAIN.The Pussy Pukes are at it again, showing the foolish fluff women are made of.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, along with seven others, were held by police near Sochi’s ferry terminal, a popular area for fans celebrating the Olympics. Police said they were questioned in connection with a theft at the hotel where they were staying. No charges were filed. …

MORE.

READ “Will The ‘Pussy Riot’ Sisterhood Storm The Sistine Chapel?”

UPDATED: Liberals Who Loathe Obama, All Two Of Them (One More…)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

Mark Levin would be a powerful force for liberty were he libertarian. In one magnificent rant against the regime, Levin wanted to know why no Democrat had protested Obama’s overweening ways. This is not quite true. As this column often pointed out, the late, great, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was driven to distraction by Big Man Obama and said as much. Byrd, RIP, was “a stern constitutional scholar who always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.” This old Southern gentleman, whom Republicans continually berated for his past indiscretions, warned about Obama’s executive-branch power grab and the extra-constitutional creation of a number of new White-House fiefdoms: on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change.

And in 2009, “Sen. Byrd issued this warning regarding the procedural shenanigans the Democrats tried to deploy to pass the healthscare bill”:

“I oppose using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform and climate change legislation…. As one of the authors of the reconciliation process, I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose.”

The frail senator had taken to the floor of the United States Senate on October 14, 2009, “to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and voice his concerns over the possibility of a major increase in U.S. forces into Afghanistan”:

“General McChrystal, our current military commander in Afghanistan, has requested 30,000-40,000 additional American troops to bolster the more than 65,000 American troops already there. I am not clear as to his reasons and I have many, many questions. What does General McChrystal actually aim to achieve?” “So I am compelled to ask: does it really, really take 100,000 U.S. troops to find Osama bin Laden?”

MORE.

Then there is WND columnist Nat Hentoff. I know not whether he is a Democrats, but Hentoff is something of a liberal, who has accused Obama of “an unprecedented abuse of powers,” calling him the “most un-American president in the nation’s history.”

… The journalist said he doesn’t think any other president has acted so lawlessly as a matter of habit.

“So, if this isn’t a reason for at least the start of an independent investigation that would lead to impeachment, what is?”

Hentoff is baffled that Obama should escape such scrutiny when former President Bill Clinton faced impeachment just for being “a lousy liar.”

President Bill Clinton

A big part of the problem, the journalist believes, is what he calls the utter ignorance of a huge portion of the population, which is not outraged at losing its basic right to be self-governing.

And Obama “doesn’t give a damn, because he can get away with whatever he wants.”

That’s why Hentoff called this the worst state the country has ever been in, “Even worse than Woodrow Wilson’s regime, when people could be arrested for speaking German.” …

MORE.

UPDATE: Liberal constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley has also protested the emergence of the Über-Presidency in the person of BHO. MORE.

Redcoat Piers Morgan Tossed And Gored Back To Britain

Britain, Critique, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Morality, Propaganda, Republicans

As always, “Redcoat Piers Morgan” led the pack of presstitutes with a pack of lies, declaring that conservative media was covering the Chris-Christie scandal not at all.

I’m the first to criticize the interminable stupidity and corrupt complicity of the Republicans and their dedicated TV channel. But is Fox New doing due diligence to the Christie story? Very much so—although they have, appropriately, refrained from inflating the “Fat and Furious folderol” beyond its significance, as is being done on the histrionic, Hussein-oriented “news” networks.

The “insufferably pompous Piers” has made Jim Goad’s “13 Most Annoying People of 2013” list. Goad tosses and gores this “lime-farting Enemy of All Things American” straight back to Britain:

4. PIERS MORGAN

This fey, pompous, snooty, lime-farting Enemy of All Things American had the gall and fundamental lack of honesty to call Rachel Jeantel a “smart cookie” after an appearance on his show that revealed Jeantel to be dumber than a hippo basking in an African mud pond. All year long, Morgan railed against guns, racism, Americans, American guns, American racists, and American racists with guns. Here’s hoping that some meth-addled gun nuts somewhere in the American heartland devise a gun big enough to shoot Piers Morgan all the way back to England.