Friends, today I bring you two fascinating articles. The first is a poll done for USA Today that reveals that most Americans (depending, of course, on how you ask the question) feel positively about "wokeness". Isn't that something? The word has become synonymous with stupidity, extremism, and intolerance among, well, people like us, i.e. the good guys. Tens of millions of Americans interpret the term in a completely different way, however, including many independents. To us, the Left's narrative about "systemic" racial and sexual oppression is manipulative balderdash, but, to so many of our fellow Americans, it's God's honest truth. This is, needless to say, a major problem, if we ever hope to make a political comeback and put the cultural Marxists in their place...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-war-woke-most-americans-100008176.html
Finally, it's often mortifying just how malleable "science" is these days, and how easily scientific "consensus" can be manufactured when the political, economic, and cultural elite wants it to be. COVID is a great case in point. This article includes some shocking revelations...or maybe they aren't so shocking, for those of you who understand how the elite has made "knowledge" its plaything. The dilemma for people like me, who value truth, is this: if you can't trust our leaders, and you can't trust the "experts" either, then where on earth can you go for accurate, reliable information and analysis???
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/treason-science-journals
RAY TO NICK
ReplyDeleteJust a word to thank you for your blog and all the interesting articles on it. Seriously, your comments are well written, and most importantly, believable. I bagged Jack on his style of English, but actually Jack's comments are a hell of a lot more informative than my short, and more often than not, sarcastic ones. So here's my best to you and Jack. Keep up the good work, and hoping you get a lot more people to get on your site and show their appreciation for informative articles.
When you read the TabletMag piece (TabletMag - wow. What a highly credible source!), there's no hard evidence linking Fauci to the group report that was published. There's lots of speculation -- much actually admitted by the author -- but no direct evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe right-wing character assassination against Anthony Fauci continues.
Mr. Rod,
DeleteWhich matters more?
1. The truth?
2. The source reveals the truth?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: The article cites a poll opposing "book banning" by 76 to 21 %. Many people of good will agree with the majority but as a retired librarian I know that the vigorous opposition to "book banning" mobilized by such as the reflexively and vindictively leftist American Library Association is disingenuous. All librarians know that since no library budget is unlimited, acquisition necessitates selection and selection requires standards. Naturally some potential selections are rejected and thereby denied the presence in library collections which is the consequence also of banning. I know from experience that many in the profession choose not to acquire books expressing conservative views; that is their standard and they hold it without misgiving. Some make a principled attempt at balanced acquisition but their political predjudices hamper them and usually result in token selections of works they find politically offensive. Conservative librarians who openly denounce this are castigated within the profession.I can't speak for any other profession but I think it probable that others involved with information dissemination are similarly degraded ( though not universally) by the left (academia, yes?)and blithely accomplish
ReplyDeleteroutine preemptive banning in myriad settings.These practices are indispensable in the imposition of woke doctrine.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: A prime motivator for those who promote "wokeism" is blatant, obvious and productive of the ever increasing opposition championed by such as Gov.DeSantis; it holds that in order to keep those who dare to disagree with the left on the defensive it is necessary to reinforce a popular perception of continued victimhood in order to enable limitless change and to protect the livelihoods of those who profit by this perception. This is obvious in the left's presumptuous and reflexive accusations of any of the left's vast glossary of terms, charging even "hatred" of half the human race, they
ReplyDeletethink to be condemning upon accusation. Their slick abandonment of demand for equality to that for completely subjective "equity " is equally resented by those who see in wokeism promised yet another hellish incipiently totalitarian journey toward unattainable perfection.
Rod, I'm in no position to assess the quality of the evidence in the article, but it does PRESENT evidence, which is more than can be said of many of the slanders against Donald Trump. Be that as it may, the article really isn't about Fauci. It's about how "scientific consensus" is manufactured, often by people with direct, material interests in the outcome, and whose judgement is clouded by a lot more than science. Do you deny that there was a rush to judgement about the lab origin theory? Do you deny that its suppression had the (felicitous) effect of preventing Donald Trump and Republicans from blaming China for the pandemic? Likewise, do you deny that creating maximum panic surrounding COVID-19 benefitted many economic and political interests? Are you comfortable that the manipulation of public opinion, and of "science", was untainted by ideology or self-interest? If not, my advice is to keep digging.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ray! I really appreciate that. I enjoy your comments very much, so keep them coming!
Hear hear, Jack! As you say, every library and curriculum has to make decisions about the sort of books and other materials that are worthy of inclusion...or exclusion. As we've covered here on the blog, leftists ARE seeking the removal of large swaths of our cultural legacy to speed us on our way to Marxist perfection. When they can't remove wrongthink by banning books, films, actors, etc., they start "editing" instead. In many ways, that's an even more pernicious practice than banning, because it creates the false perception that all voices throughout history parroted the leftist line, which of course is very far from the case.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: As always, the far left seeks complete power. They would use it arbitrarily, accordingto their mercurial will. To get it they blithely play whatever power games are their incidental fancy.
ReplyDelete