Quotulatiousness

December 27, 2019

A Christmas 2.0? – Kwanzaa – December 26th – TimeGhost of Christmas Past – DAY 3

Filed under: Africa, History, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 26 Dec 2019

It is in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, that a young doctor of African studies decides to create his own holiday in California. Half a century later and this holiday has now become the nation-wide Kwanzaa.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Rune Væver Hartvig and Spartacus Olsson
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Rune Væver Hartvig
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorization by:
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

Sources:
valphotography https://flic.kr/p/6yoUEF
Emilio Labrador https://flic.kr/p/65sBT1
Robert Couse-Baker https://flic.kr/p/b2oyrr
Boston City Archives
From the Noun Project:
umoja by Travis Avery
kinara by Travis Avery
Human by Angelina

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Howard Harper-Barnes – “A Sleigh Ride Into Town”
Zauana – “Encountering the Unknown”
Sahara Skylight – “Streams of Africa”
Sahara Skylight – “Arriving in Ghana”
Sight of Wonders – “Wildlife Sunrise”

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
17 minutes ago
Today, December 26, our TimeGhost of Christmas Past looks back in the not-too-distant history – in fact into a time in history when some of us here were alive. See, in 1966, Dr. Maulana Karenga decides to create his own holiday in the midst of the holiday season, and, as you’ll see, the rest is history. Now, before some of you become all judgemental and begin shouting in the comment section, remember what Indy says in the video. Think twice before you write something, and please adhere to our community guidelines. And even if you have something controversial to say or not, we’d still like you to share some holiday cheer with us by supporting us on Patreon. It is because of our Patreons that we can fly back into the past and their contributions are vital. See you tomorrow!

Imagine John Lennon as a huge hypocrite

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

As Mark Steyn pointed out, it isn’t hard to do:

In his Christmas sermon five years ago, the Bishop of Shrewsbury described John Lennon’s ghastly dirge “Imagine” as “heart-chilling”. Here’s what I had to say about it, and about secularism and a common culture, in the Christmas issue of The Spectator a decade earlier:

At my daughter’s school this year, the holiday concert concluded with John Lennon’s “Imagine”. The school had thoughtfully printed the lyric on the program, and the teacher, inviting the parents to sing along, declared the number summed up what we were all “praying” for. Indeed. The droning vamp began, and John’s anthem for cotton-candy nihilists rent the air:

    Imagine there’s no heaven
    It’s easy if you try
    No hell below us
    Above us only sky
    Imagine all the people
    Living for today …

Ah, that’s the message of the season, isn’t it? Back in the Sixties, John opined that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, which was a wee bit controversial in those unenlightened times but which appears to be no more than a prosaic statement of fact as far as the music department’s priorities are concerned. These days, “Imagine” has achieved the status of secular hymn, no doubt because of its inclusive message:

    Imagine there’s no countries
    It isn’t hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion, too …

Hey, happy holidays!

You may say he’s a dreamer, but he’s not. A couple of years ago, it emerged that Lennon was a very generous contributor not just to organizations that support and fund the IRA, but to the IRA itself. He could certainly imagine there’s no countries, nothing to kill or die for and no religion, too, but until that blessed day he was quite happy to support a religiously discriminatory organization that blows up grannies at shopping centres in order to get out of one country and join another. How heartening to know that, though he grew rich peddling illusory pap to the masses, he didn’t fall for it himself.

“Imagine” didn’t go over wild with the parents, who mumbled along unenthusiastically. To be honest, I’d prefer John and Yoko’s peacenik dirge, “(Happy Xmas) War Is Over”, though that might be a little premature and anyway that song suffers from the disadvantage of mentioning Xmas. On the radio you can hear “Frosty” and “Rudolph” and James Taylor’s new post-9/11 version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, but anyone with young children finds themselves exposed to a strange alternative repertoire of unseasonal favourites. My friend Tammy emerged from her daughter’s kindergarten concert in a rage: not just no Christmas carols, but no “Jingle Bells”. The only song she recognized was Lionel Bart’s spectacular melisma pile-up from Oliver!, “Whe-e-e-e-ere Is Love?”, which is not designed to be sung en masse. “They sounded like they were dying,” she fumed, before going off to beard the school board, who explained that “Jingle Bells” had been given the heave-ho on the grounds that it might be insensitive to those of a non-jingly persuasion.

QotD: The perils of tax reform

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Deductions are the Cheez Doodles of tax policy: Everyone likes them; everyone who studies the matter knows they are not good for us; and nonetheless, most people will get very indignant if you attempt to replace them with something more wholesome.

This is why deductions rarely go away, no matter how stupid and detrimental to the fiscal and economic health of the republic. For example, virtually every wonk in Washington, from radical libertarian to fervent socialist, can agree upon at least one thing: the tax deductibility of employer-sponsored health insurance is a terrible idea. On the one hand, it costs the government a packet of money every year, money that has to be raised by higher taxes on someone else. On the other hand, it encourages employers to load as much compensation as possible into the health benefit package, which distorts our economy and contributes to ballooning costs. There is nothing nice to be said about this particular tax deduction, except that it undoubtedly seemed like a good idea during World War II.

And yet, when it comes time to, say, pass a major health-care reform, or reform the tax code, do our nation’s legislators start with the obvious, and get rid of this egregiously stupid deduction? I regret that there is no way to convey my hollow, despairing laugh in pixel form. Of course they don’t touch it. The very egregiousness of its immense costs, the massive distortions it has induced in American consumption patterns, mean that getting rid of it would be far too disruptive.

Megan McArdle, “Republicans Turned the Tax Code Into a Weapon”, Bloomberg View, 2017-11-03.

December 24, 2019

Remy: “The First Noel” (Ballot Access Parody)

Filed under: Humour, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

ReasonTV
Published 23 Dec 2019

Remy is creeped out by restrictive ballot access measures. Also by Prince Andrew.

——————
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a

Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.

—————-

Written and performed by Remy.
Produced and edited by Austin Bragg.
Music tracks and mastering by Ben Karlstrom.

LYRICS:

The first Noel I heard early one day
As I tried to run as a new candidate
My cheeks were wetter than Prince Andrew’s shirt
When the man spoke to me and he told me these words:

No “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
No room for me on the ballot, oh well

I looked up a party wherein
I could join but was told “There’s no room at the inn”
No bed to lay and I heard “take a hike”
Like the time I bought my wife an exercise bike

No “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
No room for me in the parties, oh well

My wish this year is to feel content
At the ballot and not—to be frank—incensed
Must it be so hard to boot folks we don’t like
But they claim it is lawful and I think that’s right, but …

No “L,” no “L”
No “L,” no “L”
Seriously, how creepy is Prince Andrew?

December 21, 2019

J.K. Rowling falls afoul of the woke zeitgeist on Twitter

Filed under: Books, Britain, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The author of the immensely popular Harry Potter books suddenly finds herself on the wrong side of a Twitter firing squad:

The persecution of women who question transgenderism has got to stop.

Standing up for women’s rights is a risky business these days. Just ask JK Rowling. She has had merry hell rained down upon her over the past 24 hours. She has been called a stupid cunt, a bitch, trash, an old woman and so fucking ugly by an army of tweeting sexists. Her crime? She defended the right of a woman to express her opinion about sex and gender without losing her job.

The witch-hunting of JK Rowling, the ceaseless online abuse of her over the past day and night, exposes how unhinged, hateful and outright misogynistic the transgender movement has become. Rowling’s sin was to tweet in defence of Maya Forstater, the charity worker who was sacked for her belief that there are two sexes and that sex is immutable. That is, a man cannot become a woman, and vice versa. This week, an employment tribunal outrageously upheld Ms Forstater’s sacking and in the process it decreed what it is acceptable for people in the workplace to think and say. The judge said the kind of views held by Forstater are “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”. This essentially gives a green light to the harassment, isolation and expulsion from the workplace of anyone who questions the transgender ideology.

Not surprisingly, this chilling diktat, this judge-led effort to outline what opinions we are allowed to hold, alarmed people who care about freedom of conscience and freedom of speech and who think that women should not be punished for holding particular opinions. There is a foul, pre-modern vibe to the idea that women should keep their filthy opinions to themselves and if they don’t they should be expelled from polite society. Trans-sceptical feminists in academia and the cultural sphere responded to the censorious persecution of Ms Forstater by tweeting their backing of her – #IStandWithMaya – and calling for freedom of speech for women who think biological sex is an actual thing. Rowling joined in. The bile she has since received perfectly illustrates the problem at hand – that it has become tantamount to a speechcrime to say there are two sexes.

[…]

There is a powerfully Orwellian streak in the punishment of people for expressing obvious truths. That you can now be sacked and demonised for saying men are men and women are women confirms that the trans tyranny is out of control. This is why Rowling’s intervention was so important. The only way this woke censorship and persecution of disobedient women will be countered is if more individuals and institutions stand up to it. Everyone must now say what has, surreally, become unsayable: that sex is real, that sex is immutable, and that if you are born male, you will die male, regardless of what you do to yourself.

December 18, 2019

Adolf Hitler’s First Steps In Politics – The Foundation Of The Nazi Party I THE GREAT WAR 1919

Filed under: Germany, History, Politics, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 17 Dec 2019

Get a free audiobook and 2 Audible Originals with a 30-day trial: http://audible.com/greatwar or text greatwar to 500 500.

Like many former soldiers, lance corporal Adolf Hitler was disillusioned with the new German Republic after the Armistice in 1918. Like man of his country men he was also in dire need of a job. The Bavarian Army provided an opportunity and soon young Adolf Hitler found himself in the ranks of an obscure political party in Munich: The German Workers’ Party.

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

» SOURCES
Dietrich Eckart, Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin.
Gottfried Feder, Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft 1919.
Fest, Joachim C.: Hitler. Eine Biographie, 1973.
Heiden, Konrad: Adolf Hitler: Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit. Ein Mann gegen Europa, 2016.
Ulrich, Volker: Adolf Hitler. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 1889-1939. 2013.
Fest, Joachim C: The face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership. 1999
Program of the German Workers’ Party, 1920 (http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/s…)
Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism 1919-1945, Vol. 1, The Rise to Power 1919-1934. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998, pp. 12-14.

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Phillip Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Markus Linke
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2019

Mark Steyn on what passes as “conservatism” these days

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It’s certainly Conservative-In-Name-Only:

In 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court mandated same-sex “civil unions”, American conservatives were outraged. By 2010, when the left had moved on to gay marriage, conservatives were supportive of civil unions but insisted marriage was an ancient institution between a man and a woman. Now, the left having won that one and moved on to transgenderism, conservatives profess to be a bit queasy about transitioning grade-schoolers.

So you can take it to the bank that by 2030 rock-ribbed Republicans will be on board with penises in the girls’ changing rooms, but determined to hold the line against whatever the left’s next cause du jour is: human cloning, the state appropriation of parenthood, voting rights for animals.

There really isn’t much point to conservatism that’s just leftism ten years late, is there? It’s like that ITV+1 satellite service they have in Britain that offers you the ITV schedule but an hour later, in case you were caught in traffic heading home. If you’re considering on which side to bestow your tribal loyalty, the left is right quicker; the right is left behind — but only for a few years until they throw in the towel. If you’re all headed to the same destination, why not ride first class on the TGV instead of the creaking, jerking stopping service? Justin Trudeau’s vapid modishness was perfectly distilled by his campaign catchphrase of four years ago: “Because it’s 2015.” But that beats waiting till 2025 to say “Because it’s 2015”.

While we’re on the subject of the northern Tories: Because the late unlamented Andrew Scheer finessed his views on same-sex nuptials as lethargically as did Barack Obama, he was flayed by the Canadian media as some fire-and-brimstone social conservative of televangical inflexibility. I wish. As I wrote the other day, he’s as unmoored from principle as Boris Johnson, but without the countervailing strengths of being able to stick it to the other guy and to pass himself off as a human being. He was particularly contemptible in the hours before my appearance at the House of Commons Justice Committee, as I may discuss in detail one of these days. Yet the never-learn Conservatives are minded to replace an entirely hollow man with someone just like him, only more so.

It is surely telling that the only issues on which the right has made any progress at all in moving the ball in its direction — Brexit in the UK; illegal immigration and a belated honesty about the rise of China in the US — had to be injected into public discourse by two outsiders, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. And indeed in the teeth of opposition by the establishment’s catch-up conservatives.

Catch-up conservatism gives the game away: The right has lost the knack of persuasion, and increasingly doesn’t even bother to try.

December 17, 2019

“Oh, shut-up. Pound sand, you scowling urchin”

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I don’t often find myself nodding along with Kurt Schlicter‘s writings, but I have to agree that Greta Thunberg’s fifteen minutes must surely be up by now?

Clearly Greta Thunberg is being exploited by her cynical puppetmasters, but equally clearly she’s a tiresome, bizarre Marxist scold whose exploitation of the hapless dummies who buy into the climate change hoax is part of what is an increasingly violent plot to undermine capitalism and freedom. Recently, the cretins at TIME, which shockingly still exists in 2019, named her “Person of the Year.” That’s appropriate, since 2019 has been a very annoying year.

In 2029, after the world hasn’t ended but her usefulness has, she’ll be a Jeopardy question and probably shacked up with an unemployed performance artist named Björn in an Oslo suburb. Fun fact: “Greta Thunberg” is Swedish for “Cindy Sheenhan.”

But today, we’re all supposed to fall over ourselves over Pippi Longnagging – at least that’s what our betters command – yet it’s unclear why. Teenagers are notoriously ignorant, and ones spewing recycled Marxism are the worst of all. But the idea is not that this tiresome truant is some visionary thinker. The idea is to leverage her youth and awkwardness to keep you from speaking the indisputable truth that she’s a weird brat who presses for an ideology that butchered 100 million people in the last century. And now, she is hinting she wants to run up that score.

Trump mocked her and a zillion pearls were clutched. How dare you … criticize the Luddite pest who presumes to tell you how to live, leveraging the full benefit of her nearly 17 years of experience to explain to you how stuff should be. How dare you!

Oh, shut-up. Pound sand, you scowling urchin.

The kid is a fanatic, and though that’s no fault of her own – she’s a victim of her pinko exploiters – she is still spewing bloodstained poison.

Bloodstained poison, really? Isn’t she just a nice Eastern Norwegian who wants a better world with love and hugging? Or is she yet another aspiring fanatic ready to kill for the kreepy kommie climate kult?

The other day, this malignant muppet “told cheering protesters … ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they fail to take urgent action on climate change.” Now, maybe her English is bad, or maybe she’s just ignorant, but then again the murder of opponents is the Marxist way.

QotD: The mass cowardice of the Baby Boomers

Filed under: Liberty, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Unlike the Beat Generation that headed off to North Africa or South America for a few weeks or months of “real” freedom before settling into permanent disaffection and (if they were lucky) early, spectacular death, boomers said, “Screw it, let’s make our own life right here.” What started as an effort to build a counter-culture soon fragmented into niche cultures that had nothing to do with, or even hated, flower power. That continued with succeeding generations to the point that today, with a big boost from technology, the average American can burrow deep into one comforting culture and/or surf across dozens of cultures with equal ease.

The mythical hippy-drippy boomer even gave birth to another myth that refuses to die, that of their conservative Millennial offspring. Considering this all started 20 years ago with a limp Michael J. Fox sitcom, it is time to retire the played out joke before it gets flipped onto the next generation. Holo-headline 2031: “Look! The conservatives have hippie kids!”

Yet history will show that, for all their organizing skill and moral sensitivities, the boomers took a pass on actually changing one hellish state policy rather than have a few uncomfortable conversations with their kids. Gotta have that moral high ground even at the kitchen table, it seems. Boomers have collaborated and shamelessly switched sides on the war on drugs with full knowledge of the repercussions. If the greatest generation had landed at Omaha Beach, pissed themselves, tossed their weapons into the sea, and begged to serve as Nazi slop-boys, then you might have an equivalent act of mass cowardice.

Jeff A. Taylor, “Boomer or Bust: Reflections of a generational refugee”, Reason, 2004-12-14.

December 16, 2019

“The near-homogeneity of Silicon Valley political beliefs has gone from wry punchline to national crisis in the United States”

Filed under: Books, Business, Media, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Jason Morgan reviews Michael Rectenwald’s new book Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom:

The near-homogeneity of Silicon Valley political beliefs has gone from wry punchline to national crisis in the United States. The monoculture of virtue signaling and high- and heavy-handed woke corporate leftism at places like Google, Twitter, and Facebook was once a source of chagrin for those who found themselves shut out of various internet sites for deviating from the orthodoxies of the Palo Alto elites. After the 2016 presidential election, however, it became obvious that the digitalistas were doing a lot more than just making examples of a few handpicked “extremists.” From the shadow banning of non-leftist sites and views to full-complement political propagandizing, Bay Area leftists have been so aggressive in bending the national psyche to their will that there is talk in the papers and on the cable “news” channels of “existential threats to our democracy.”

It is tempting to see this as a function of political correctness. Americans, and others around the world, who have found themselves on the “wrong side of history” (as determined by the cultural elite in an endless cycle of epistemological door closing) have long been shut out of conversations, their views deemed beyond the pale of acceptable discourse in enlightened modern societies. Google, Facebook, Twitter — are these corporations, and their uber-woke CEOs, just cranking the PC up to eleven and imposing their schoolmarmish proclivities on the billions of people who want to scrawl messages on their electronic chalkboards?

Not so, says reformed leftist — and current PC target — Michael Rectenwald. The truth of Stanford and Harvard alumni’s death grip on global discourse is much more complicated than just PC run amok. It is not that the Silicon Valley giants are agents of mass surveillance and censorship (although mass surveillance and censorship are precisely the business they’re in). It’s that the very system they have designed is, structurally, the same as the systems of oppression that blanketed and smothered free expression in so much of the world during the previous century. In his latest book, Google Archipelago, Rectenwald outlines how this system works, why leftism is synonymous with oppression, and how the Google Archipelago’s regime of “simulated reality” “must be countered, not only with real knowledge, but with a metaphysics of truth.”

Google Archipelago is divided into eight chapters and is rooted in both Rectenwald’s encyclopedic knowledge of the history of science and corporate control of culture, as well as in his own experiences. Before retiring, Rectenwald had been a professor at New York University, where he was thoroughly entrenched in the PC episteme that squelches real thought at universities across North America and beyond. Gradually, Rectenwald began to realize that PC was not a philosophy, but the enemy of open inquiry. For this reason, and because Rectenwald is an expert in the so-called digital humanities and the long history of scientific (and pseudo-scientific) thinking that feeds into it, Google Archipelago is not just a dry monograph about a social issue. By turns memoir, Kafkaesque dream sequence, trenchant rebuke of leftist censorship, and intellectual history of woke corporate political correctness, Google Archipelago is a welcoming window into a mind working happily in overdrive.

December 15, 2019

Every time the “wrong” side wins an election…

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

… we get all the media talking about how the winner needs to tack to the left:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his first Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, 25 July 2019.
Official photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

Every single time. Whenever the left is slapped by voters like a bony Antifa moll at a street riot, “expert” analysts rush to the scene of democracy, cordon it off with police tape and announce through a bullhorn that there’s nothing to see here. Move along. They then propose that the winner is morally obliged to sideline the constituency that just elected him and heed the boutique preoccupations of the vanquished instead. Successful right-of-centre candidates must govern for All of Us. Successful leftists, on the other hand, are encouraged to give leftism to the enemy good and hard for the next few-to-several years. Possibly the first man to pull out his ‘horn following Boris Johnson’s emphatic victory is Philip Williams.

The sullen acceptance that Brexit will happen but will unleash crises that – alas – must be solved by a buffoon: check. Schools and hospitals: check. The problem of “an economy excised from Europe”: check. Williams’ piece is the Tate of tropes. But no: Johnson won’t faulter by being true to the shy nationalists who elected him but he might antagonise them by pivoting left to usher Hugh Grant’s coterie into a broader Boris marquee. Given his track record, that is very likely. Let’s not get carried away: Johnson did his Conservative duty regarding Brexit, nothing more. The question is whether or not he has the panache to hold on to his base while trying to expand it. The media will be a huge asset. They are certain to make daily sport of Johnson’s “gaffes,” eccentricities and less than squared away private life. This will endear him to everyman even more.

On the other hand, when the “correct” side wins an election, we’re assured that “elections have consequences”, the’ve been “keeping score”, and that the losers must strap in tight and hold on for dear life because we’re going further left than we ever were promised during the campaign.

Update: Related.

December 14, 2019

Livingstone announced Labour’s defeat was at least partially down to “the Jewish vote”

Filed under: Britain, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Barbara Kay on the British general election results:

Boris Johnson’s Conservatives racked up a stunning victory in the U.K. elections, with numbers so decisive — 365 of 650 seats — we will hear no more rumblings about a “second referendum” on Brexit. You can love Boris or hate him, or struggle with mixed feelings (as I confess I do), but he now has a mandate to get Brexit done.

But I have no mixed feelings about the Labour Party’s humiliating loss, at 203 seats their lowest ebb since pre-World War Two. If ever a party leader deserved a definitive smackdown, it was Jeremy Corbyn, and a victory lap is in order for democracy doing what it does best.

On seeing the results, I said to myself, “Yay!” The second thing I said to myself was, “Who will be the first to pull a Jacques Parizeau and how long will it take?” As it turned out, not long at all, and it was former London mayor Ken Livingstone who reprised Parizeau’s infamous “money and the ethnic vote” blame-shift after the Yes side’s narrow loss in the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum.

As soon as it was clear the U.K. Conservatives had crossed the threshold majority number of 326 seats, Livingstone announced Labour’s defeat was at least partially down to “the Jewish vote.” In fact, a Jewish population of 260,000 could not by itself have greatly influenced the result, but it is a mark of the anti-Semitic mindset to constantly exaggerate Jewish power.

Livingstone, who has called allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party “lies and smears,” was himself suspended from Labour in 2016 over an assertion that Hitler supported Zionism. It was by no means Livingstone’s only egregiously insensitive remark. In April, he reportedly told the group Labour Against the Witchhunt that “It is not anti-Semitic to hate the Jews of Israel.”

Disappointed progressives, of course, are handling the Labour defeat with calm resignation, patience, and a spot of rioting.

Who will “Big Dairy” push as the next Conservative leader?

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Canadian supply management system is a classic case of concentrated benefits and diffused costs … all Canadians pay more for milk, cheese, and other dairy products, but the extra profits go to those who hold the quota allotment for production. During the last federal Conservative leadership race, the “temporary conservatives” were enough to push the Milk Dud over the top to defeat Maxime Bernier — because Bernier was outspoken in his opposition to the whole supply management cartel and threatened those guaranteed profits for the insiders. The Milk Dud has announced he’s stepping down, so who will Big Dairy choose to replace him?

Andrew Scheer, paid tool of Big Dairy, chugs some milk during a Press Gallery speech in 2017. I’ve called him the “Milk Dud” ever since.
Screencapture from a CTV video uploaded to YouTube.

To my mind the defining image of Andrew Scheer’s efforts to become prime minister of Canada, which officially came to an end Thursday, comes from the 2017 Press Gallery Dinner in Ottawa. “There’s some suggestion out there that I’m beholden to a certain group within the Conservative family,” he told the crowd, grinning. And then, dimples at maximum, he took a swig from a one-litre carton of Neilson two-per-cent milk.

It’s nice when politicians can poke fun at themselves. Most are really bad at it, betraying only their own ego. Scheer’s routine, by contrast, reportedly brought the house down. The problem is that, by all the evidence, Scheer was utterly beholden to the dairy industry. And absent the effects of alcohol, that’s not really very funny.

We knew at the time that, days before, Scheer had barely beaten Maxime Bernier in the party leadership contest with help from a few thousand votes from people whom Bernier not unreasonably called “fake Conservatives” — i.e., people who had purchased memberships for the sole purpose of voting for Scheer, for the sole purpose of maintaining supply management in the dairy industry (which Bernier opposes) intact.

We came to know later, thanks to a Dairy Farmers of Canada briefing book discovered by an aggrieved delegate to the 2018 party convention in Halifax, that the dairy lobby considered Scheer a “safety net.” Regardless of any vote by the party membership that might recommend freer markets in dairy, the book alleged, the farmers had Scheer’s commitment never to undermine supply management in an election platform.

Scheer denied any such deal existed, of course. But it seemed doubtful the dairy industry’s notoriously fearsome, professional and effective lobbyists could have been so misinformed.

It ought to have been a liability from the start: Here was the self-styled middle-class alternative to Justin Trudeau, the man who knows what it’s like to plan a family budget around the breakfast table, to scrimp and save, whose parents didn’t own a car, declaring his fealty to a cartel dedicated to inflating milk prices for the benefit of wealthy businesses. Har, har, har.

December 13, 2019

We won’t have the Milk Dud to kick around any more … eventually

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

News of the moment in Canada is the sudden resignation of “Conservative” party leader Andrew “The Milk Dud” Scheer:

Andrew Scheer, paid tool of Big Dairy, chugs some milk during a Press Gallery speech in 2017. I’ve called him the “Milk Dud” ever since.
Screencapture from a CTV video uploaded to YouTube.

Andrew Scheer used money from the Conservative Party to pay costs of private schooling for his children, according to sources in contact with Global News. Some are suggesting this story might have ultimately let to Scheer’s resignation.

Scheer has since stepped down as leader of the Conservative Party, but he will not fully resign until the party has a replacement to fill the position.

According to some senior Conservative members, Scheer’s use of the Conservative Party of Canada funds was improper.

While in the House of Commons, Scheer said, “I just informed my colleagues in the Conservative caucus that I will be resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and I will be asking the Conservative Party national council to immediately begin the process of organizing a leadership contest.”

“In order to chart the course ahead in the direction this party is heading, the party needs someone who can give 100 percent.”

Dustin van Vugt, the Executive Director of the Conservative Party of Canada wrote a statement saying, “All proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people.”

Van Vugt talked about the party covering some of Scheer’s costs in the statement saying, “As is the normal practice for political parties, the Party offered to reimburse some of the costs associated with being a national leader and re-locating the family to Ottawa.”

Where, oh where will the “Conservatives” find a leader of Scheer’s “stature” to fill his dainty little shoes? Maybe Justin can spare one of his cast-offs…

QotD: Labelling matters a lot in political discussions

Filed under: Economics, Politics, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

If a nice name comes to be attached to a nefarious policy, even those people who are harmed by that policy can be misled into mistaking that policy as being one that works in their favor – or as being at least a policy that is admirably motivated or that achieves commendable outcomes for the public at large. Who, after all, dares oppose trade that’s “fair”? Who can object to “level” playing fields? Who would not want the government to prevent its citizens from being “dumped” on by foreigners? Who would applaud prices that are “too” low? These labels sneak in the false conclusion both that what is so labeled really exists as such, and that the accompanying policies actually achieve the results implied by their labels.

Don Boudreaux, “Quotation of the Day…”, Café Hayek, 2017-11-09.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress