Posted on 07/08/2020 4:20:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
The online mob came for Harald Uhlig.
What terrible thing had he done? As I show in my new video, he tweeted that Black Lives Matter "torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice." Instead of defunding, Uhlig suggested, "train them better."
Hundreds of people then signed a petition to demand that Uhlig, a University of Chicago professor and head of the Journal of Political Economy, resign. Even prominent economists like Janet Yellen and Paul Krugman joined the mob. Krugman called Uhlig "another privileged white man who evidently cannot control his urge to belittle the concerns of those less fortunate."
But that's just a lie. Uhlig wasn't belittling concerns of anyone less fortunate.
"There was nothing racist or discriminatory in how he said it," says Reason Magazine editor Robby Soave, who covers the new "woke" protests. "But because he has some different views from the protesters, he must be a racist."
Uhlig was placed on leave by the journal he ran.
The new totalitarians demand that no one criticize their view of the world.
The online mob even attacks its fellow Democrats.
David Shor, an analyst at Democratic polling firm Civis Analytics, tweeted a study that concluded, "race riots reduced Democratic vote share."
That study was probably accurate. Obviously, rioting alienates voters.
But the mob attacked Shor. "Come get your boy," one tweeted.
His bosses did. Even though Shor issued a groveling apology, he was fired.
Soave points out, "There's a cruel streak in activism that says, 'If you disagree with me ... you have no right to speak.'"
"Why are they winning?" I ask. "Their argument is ridiculous."
"People are afraid to challenge them," explains Soave. "It just takes one employee at one company, to say, 'Here's the law that protects my rights to feel safe and comfortable in this workplace. If you're not making me feel safe and comfortable, I'm going to get you in trouble.'"
So cowardly corporations cave.
A Boeing executive was even forced out for opposing women's service in the military -- 30 years ago.
A Los Angeles soccer team fired a player because his wife posted racist comments.
Michigan State pushed out a physicist when a twitter mob from its "Graduate Employees Union" labeled him a "scientific racist." What racist thing had the physicist done? He "rejects the idea that scientists should categorically exclude the possibility of average genetic differences among groups," is how a Wall Street Journal column explained it.
Now "cancel culture" has moved abroad.
"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling is being smeared as "transphobic." When a tax researcher was fired for saying, "Identifying as a woman does not make a person a woman," Rowling tweeted, incredulously, "Force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"
She said she has nothing against trans people, but she's "concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition."
The Twitter mob claimed her "hate" was "killing trans people."
Some staff at Hachette, her publisher, refused to work on her next book. Actors in her "Harry Potter" movies spoke out against her.
But Rowling didn't back down. "It isn't hate to speak the truth," she tweeted.
She also mocked a charity that used the phrase "people who menstruate" instead of women, tweeting: "There used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"
That further incensed the mob. It claimed her "hate ... leads to trans women, especially teens and black trans women, becoming victims of sexual assault."
But Rowling is the rare person popular enough to be able to resist the mob. Her publisher spoke up for her, saying, "Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing."
And the University of Chicago stood up to the mob, too. The school, after a 10-day investigation, announced there was "no basis" for taking away Harold Uhlig's job. He's been reinstated.
That's how these cases should be handled.
"The solution is to challenge these people," says Soave. "We just have to speak up."
Those of us who can, must.
Speaking the truth or lying, both can get you fired...
The movie Trumbo is excellent. The left is our generation’s McCarthyites.
Modern Tech (Social Media) combines with an aberrant COVID media-scape that greatly MAGNIFIES the activist LEFT who are motivated by their continuing successes. COVID’s home-bound idleness has provided a fertile field to generate these attacks but history provides no ability to measure true significance or depth of the same.
What is lacking is the perspective on these attacks. A generation ago, it was very hard work to organize a march for redress, you had to gather people in a single locality, they had to make time from jobs and school, banners and slogans had to be made. Contact phone lists to make sure people are where they need to be at the right time.
Now, you start a twitter-storm which auto-alerts a self-identified interest group. Effort needed is negligible to organize or participate. Participants need no supplies, no signs nor banners and can be heard from anywhere they have a connection. Outrage needs no backup documentation, no history of offense and, with modern technology, the ‘crime’ can be years, even decades earlier.
Today’s storms cannot and should not (automatically) be measured against past standards. This tech environment is a very different one and the tools to measure how strong and how deep a ‘movement’ is have not been well developed.
Speaking the truth is a “hate crime” in New America.
Except for the fact that McCarthy was generally polite to witnesses in front of him (unless they were being obtuse and evasive) let them speak their piece, and overall was factual and truthful about their transgressions that brought witnesses in front of him.
None of which can be said about the Left of today.
I am reading “Black Lies Matter” by Taleeb Starkes. He wrote this 4 years ago and predicted George Flotd or some street thug dying at the hamds of the police. It was inevitable he said, and the rioting was also part of the plan of BLM.
He also showed how the Race Grievance Industry deals with those who step out of line. A similar case of a Pittsburgh Emmy winning newscaster who put a question on her facebook page as to why there was no outrage when ordibary blacks , many of them children, were not some of the black lives who mattered when they were shot.
She was fired after 20+ years of broadcasting.
When watching the movie, Trumbo, I was amazed how the antics of the rabid anti communists matched the antics of the left today.
“That’s a nice business/career you have there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.”
There is certainly some truth in what you say but it’s not the whole story or even the most important part of the story.
True technology makes it easier to mobilize “outrage”. But the left hasn’t relied solely on “keyboard outrage”. They’ve also done the hard work the old fashioned way by organizing, taking to the streets, smashing windows, burning businesses, beating and killing and otherwise terrorizing people that don’t toe their line. All this physical destruction is what makes the Twitter storms effective. It is an implied threat contained in the tweets that says this is just a warning in effect saying physical harm will come to you if you don’t do as we say.
But as I said that is not the most important part of the story. Those are just tactics that the left uses to get its way and they are just as available to us as them, but they are the only ones using them. Why is that?
The answer to that question is the important part of the story. And the answer is that the left is much more outraged by whatever “injustices” they see than we on the right are outraged by the real injustices perpetrated by the left and their useful idiots.
So In simple terms the important part of the story is that our side has a huge outrage deficit compared to the left. We are nowhere near as motivated to act or tweet as the left is and so we’re suffering the consequences.
It’s the “Triumph of the Will”
“It’s the “Triumph of the Will””
Absolutely. Where there is a will there is a way,and the left runs circles around us in that department.
And if Hitler didn’t take power in Germany, it would have been the Communists taking power, it was going to be one or the other.
Yes, when you boil it down, history is really just the story of “ultra willful” individuals and their exploits. From Alexander the great to Caesar to Washington to Lenin to Hitler to Trump, it’s been their unbending will that defined history.
And the source of will is the burning, unshakeable conviction to a belief.
Nietzsche was right about the will to power.
Now she has a hit radio show. Nice lady.
I dunno 'bout that "suffering" part. True, there's plenty of BS afoot. But not locally. I still see it primarily in dem strongholds. Am I s'posed to be "that guy" who hits 85 to Atlanta or Raleigh so I can get in amongst these idiots and end up arrested or creating their much desired photo op? I don't think so. The "good folks" of the Atlanta or Raleigh areas can take care of themselves, I'm sure.
All I've seen locally is the same little group of morons who protest "meat is murder" at the BBQ Festival every year. About a dozen or so fat girls with multi-colored hair chanting idiotic slogans while their soy-boy betas follow them around videoing and praying for someone to start something so they can cry and flop-like-flounders for the cameras all to make the evening news and a splash on social media. Tedious humans. Their cell phones seem to tax their strength enough. Let alone any "implement of destruction".
I've prematurely jumped in the mix in my younger years and felt mighty foolish for some of it. Other "missions" were principled, but useless (think Clinton years).
Given the current conditions of "excitedness" on both sides I'll hafta stick to going by what I see with my own "lying eyes". Which thus far has been the aforementioned idiots and a coupla those virtue signalling "don't beat/rob/destroy-me-cause-I'm-down-with-the-struggle" yard signs. And one Biden 2020.
At most deserving of an eyeroll or flipped "bird". I see no need for going retard... just yet. d;^)
Valid argument, thanks for the response. In that thought, what analogs to this can be found in history? Germany?
Think you are referring to Camdace Owens. She certainly is a good woman. The author of Black lies Matter is a man, Taleeb Starkes. He’s been on her show.
Would like to see a debate between Candace, and Maxine Waters, or this guy Talleb and Don Lemon.
Actually, Wendy Bell on KDKA radio now. She was a news anchor on local Pittsburgh tv.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.