Monday, June 19, 2017






UK: Please stop exploiting the dead of Grenfell Tower

Some Labourites are using the Grenfell disaster to score political points

We don’t even know how many souls perished in the Grenfell Tower inferno, and yet already they are being marshalled to party-political ends. Already Labour-leaning commentators and campaigners are using them, using the freshly dead and the unspeakable horrors they experienced, to make milage for their party, to brand the Tories evil and Jeremy Corbyn saintly.

In the 20 years I’ve been writing about politics, I can’t remember a national tragedy being exploited for party-political gain so quickly. The time between a calamity occurring and the use of it to harm one’s political enemies and fortify one’s political allies is shrinking all the time. It’s now mere hours, minutes even, courtesy of social media. What has happened to us?

In the 24 hours since fire engulfed that tower in west London, the blame game has been intensifying. There’s a feverish hunt for the one person or the one thing – or the one attitude, primarily uncaring Toryism – that we might pin this horror on. The landlords didn’t care enough. Theresa May’s new chief-of-staff ‘sat on’ a report about tower-block safety. Tories, including rich Tories with double-barrelled surnames (awful creatures), voted against a proposed new system of fines for landlords who let down tenants. Boris Johnson, when he was mayor, made cuts to fire services. Even worse, during a debate about the cuts in the London Assembly he told a Labour rival to ‘get stuffed’. That detail is appearing everywhere, because the true aim here is not to work out what went wrong at Grenfell but to say: ‘Tory scum.’

Social media is awash with Tory-bashing. This party, May herself, is to blame. How? Why? Did they light the flames? Fan the flames? No, it’s because they do not care. They are wicked and they emit this wickedness. They ‘love money more than life’, tweeters say; they have unleashed the ‘horror of austerity’; they are still the ‘nasty party’ and their nastiness kills.

The speed and ease with which legitimate questions about what the managers of Grenfell allegedly failed to do have crossed the line into the blackening of certain Tories’ names, and the indictment of the entire culture of Toryism, suggests this is driven less by an instinct for thorough investigation than by an urge for retribution. There’s an old-world feel to it: something dreadful has happened and so we need someone, some thing, to punish for it, to project our grief on to, to transform into the human embodiment of this sin so that he or she might be cast out and our society cleansed.

This compulsion to blame is a central feature of 21st-century life. Every accident or awful thing that happens is followed by now almost instant demands for heads to roll. We seem incapable of accepting that sometimes horrendous experiences cannot easily be blamed on an individual or a group or a party. Like medieval communities who burnt witches when their crops failed – someone just had to be held morally responsible for the awful consequences of crop failure – today we point a collective or at least media finger at ‘uncaring’ individuals and institutions every time a tragedy occurs.

This is not to say there isn’t a discussion to be had about Grenfell. Of course there is, and a very serious one indeed. Specific issues, about the building’s cladding and its weak fire-alarm system, must be addressed. And far broader questions about the failures of house-building and the corresponding warping of the housing market, and how these things impact on house prices and on the moral value we accord to social-housing residents, must be asked too.

James Heartfield raises these broader questions on spiked today, and spiked will publish more on this next week. But the blame game, today’s sometimes hysterical retributive instinct, doesn’t address these issues or questions. In fact it can distract from them. Its preference for condemnation, for the collective chiding of evil individuals, for finding the person or thing we can all round on and get a kick from destroying, elevates the narcissistic moral needs of the media mob over serious analysis of Britain’s broad and complicated economic and social problems.

‘But the Grenfell disaster is political’, the people exploiting it cry, somewhat defensively. And they’re right. It is. Social housing and gentrification and the eco-approved application of cladding to tower blocks are political issues, or at least public issues, and we should talk about them. But these people aren’t treating Grenfell as political; they’re treating it as party political.

They’re using it to demean Toryism as evil, and big up Corbyn as the leader Britain needs right now. He cares, you see, unlike them. He is Good, they are Bad. This isn’t politics – this is a culture war, where the horrors experienced by the working classes of North Kensington are used to underpin the binary moralism of a Corbynista worldview of the right as wicked and the left as decent. They are building their political movement on the corpses of the poor, and no amount of radical-sounding lingo can cover up just how cynical, opportunistic and depraved that is.

SOURCE





Sharia UK: Two Arrested for Burning Qur’ans

Yes, 29 people were killed in recent jihad attacks, but…burnt Qur’ans!

The UK’s Mailonline reported the horrifying news Thursday: “Police have arrested two people on suspicion of racial hatred after a video appeared online showing a man burning a copy of the Koran.”

Well, that’s a relief. The British police are to be congratulated, and we all owe them a debt of gratitude, for getting riffraff like this off the streets and into jail where they belong, before more innocent Qur’ans are harmed. After all, twenty-two people were recently murdered in Manchester and seven in London by Islamic jihadis who were incited to violence by the Qur’an, but look! The “far-right” is just as much of a threat as the jihadis, as Britain’s “counter-extremism” Quilliam Foundation claims! Two Qur’ans were burned!

That’s what these arrests of Qur’an-burners are all about: shoring up that sagging narrative, and buttressing the claim that the racist, xenophobic “far-right” constitutes just as much of a threat to Britons as Islamic jihadis. A couple of charred copies of a book of which literally billions of copies exist next to twenty-nine dead is a sad exercise in moral equivalence, but it’s all the British authorities have to work with, and so they’re running with it.

Meanwhile, Sky News reported that in a raid of a safe house that the London jihad attackers used, “investigators found an English-language copy of the Koran opened at a page describing martyrdom.”

One might almost get the idea that the Qur’an had something to do with inciting the London jihad mass murderers to commit their great jihad, if we didn’t have learned imams such as British Prime Minister Theresa May to explain to us that jihad terror is a “perversion of Islam.”

In May’s view, which is, of course, the view of the entire British establishment, jihad terror has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, and Muslims constitute a race different from that of non-Muslim Britons, such as to insult them – by, say, noticing that Islamic jihadis justify violence against Infidels by referring to clear texts of their holy book -- is to commit an act of “racial hatred.”

That’s what these Qur’an-burners were arrested for: “suspicion of racial hatred.” Is it “racial hatred” to burn a Bible in the UK? Why, of course not. Christians are not a special protected class in the UK; only Muslims are. Theresa May and her cohorts know that Christians will not leave their Bibles open to pages praising martyrdom and go off to kill as many of their countrymen as possible. May also knows that if someone burns a Bible, no Christians are likely even to care, much less to riot in the streets.

And that’s why May and the British political establishment have started their nation down the path of Sharia compliance, by arresting people for violating Sharia blasphemy law regarding the disposal of the Qur’an.

In reality, as opposed to the British legal system, is it “racial hatred” to burn a Qur’an? No. The Qur’an is not a race, and neither is Islam; there are Muslims of all races. This arrest is just another example of the British government’s exaggerated solicitude for Muslims, which stems from the false assumption that jihad violence is the result of the “marginalization” of Muslim communities.

The May government has staked the future of Britain on the idea that being nice to Muslims, and moving swiftly and strongly against violations of Sharia blasphemy laws such as the burning of Qur’ans, will end the jihad against Britain.

May’s government takes no notice at all of what the burned Qur’ans really signify: the frustration and anger of an increasing number of Britons at the political establishment’s supine response to the jihad threat. I am not in favor of burning books myself, and would prefer people read and understand what is in the Qur’an rather than burn it, but no one can miss the source of the burners’ frustration. And with these arrests, that frustration is only going to get worse.

This attempt to appease Muslims so as to prevent them from waging jihad will, of course, fail, as will May’s drastically weakened new government, and the entire British political class. The Sharia supremacism they have not only tolerated but encouraged will turn its full force upon its benefactors, and Britain will, before too very much longer, be awash in blood.

SOURCE



      

ESPN Host Says NFL Injects Politics ‘By Playing The National Anthem’

ESPN “First Take” co-host Max Kellerman said during Thursday morning’s show that the NFL injects politics “by playing the national anthem and putting pressure on you to stand for it.”

Kellerman made the statement during a segment that compared NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick to world renowned boxer Muhammad Ali during a discussion with Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett.

Kellerman said that neither Ali nor Kaepernick went looking for a protest. The protest came looking for them.

“He was asked to stand for the national anthem,” Kellerman said. “You do not have to stand for the national anthem, and even if it was a rule that you did, is that Colin Kaepernick injecting politics into the NFL? No, that’s the NFL injecting politics.”

“I’m very patriotic. I stand for the national anthem proudly,” Kellerman added. “The reason I am patriotic is because you do not have to stand for the national anthem.”

Fellow “First Take” co-host Stephen A. Smith responded by discussing the public setting of the protest.

“Let’s be real about something here. There is such a thing as consequences … so you got to know what you’re sacrificing,” Smith said. “Muhammad Ali knew exactly what was going to happen to him. It appears that Colin Kaepernick did not know that.”

“If you’re Colin Kaepernick, what we have to point out is even though his intent may have been honorable because he wanted to bring attention to racial injustices and beyond taking place in this country the fact of the matter is it appears as if he had no plan,” Smith added. “And when you have no plan, there’s nothing to execute.”

Ali refused to fight in the Vietnam War because of his Muslim beliefs despite being drafted. He was arrested for committing a felony and stripped of his world title and boxing license, making him unable to box in his prime for several years. The Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction.

Kaepernick did not stand during the national anthem for all of last season when he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said.

He is currently without a team.

SOURCE





Petition Calls For An End To ‘White Conservative Hiring Spree’ At MSNBC

A petition on CREDO Action is calling on NBC executives to stop their initiative to make the news outlet more “centrist.”

“Tell NBC executives: Stop the white conservative hiring spree at MSNBC,” the petition demands.

The only executive specified in the petition is Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC and MSNBC. It claims that Lack “has a history of replacing Black on-air personalities wherever he goes,” citing a Huffington Post article that strongly insinuates that Lack has a racist streak.

The HuffPo article captions a photo with Lack, Brian Williams and Matt Lauer: “Not pictured: non-white people.” The story discusses Lack’s relationship with the MSNBC staff because of the “perception that Lack has eviscerated nonwhite talent.”

“This past spring, Lack reportedly asked a black senior producer if she could connect him with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates,” the article reads.

“It was like Trump asking April Ryan to hook him up with the [Congressional Black Caucus],” one employee told HuffPost.

As for the petition, it identifies Nicole Wallace, George Will, Hugh Hewitt, Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren as “hard-line extreme conservatives,” and notes that Melissa Harris Perry, Alex Wagner, Touré Neblett, Dorian Warren, Michael Eric Dyson, Adam Howard, Jamil Smith, Jose Diaz-Balart and Tamron Hall have left the network.

It claims that “with Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O’Donnell in the lead, MSNBC is beating FOX News in the ratings for the first time.”

Now for what ratings, the petition doesn’t specify. TV Newser provides a daily update on where outlets like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and HLN rank on various different things, and the statistics change from day to day.

The scoreboard released on Tuesday show that Fox News had the most viewers for the entire day. As for the entire week of June 5, Fox News still had the most prime time viewership with 2,384,00. MSNBC fell behind with 1,862,000 viewers.

“Fox News was the most-watched basic cable network in total day for the 23rd consecutive week, and the most-watched basic cable network in prime time for the 3rd consecutive week, per Nielsen.”

But MSNBC has shown significant improvements in viewership, according to data collected from the first quarter of 2017, and it has topped cable news in the news demographic at various times recently.

“Fox News finished far and above its competition in the ratings for the first quarter of 2017, with the network putting up the highest-rated quarter ever in cable news history in the total day viewership measure… [and] despite finishing third, MSNBC definitely has reason to celebrate. The network grew its viewership by 55 percent in total day viewers and 40 percent in the key demo compared to quarter one of 2016.”

So the petition claim that MSNBC is beating Fox News in the ratings isn’t necessarily accurate.

The petition concludes “But the clear evidence of powerhouse ratings for progressives combined with sharp public pressure could make Lack reconsider his conservative approach, so we must speak out.”

It has received 178,047 of the requested 200,000 signatures, in addition to advertising assistance from actor Mark Ruffalo.

SOURCE






Some satire

How do feminists say the word "blueberry"?

Jerry Wang

The word blueberry is a very sensitive topic for feminists, just like most other things in the world.

Let’s split the question into two parts. Blue and berry.

The word blue has many negative connotations, especially regarding said fruit. Blue is usually seen as a colour for the male gender, however we cannot assume the gender of said object and it would be insulting if we called him a boy instead of Apache Helicopter, which it might identify as. Feminists strongly believe that the berry can identify as whatever it wants to, and by calling it a blueberry you might insult it if it identifies as green.

Likewise, they must be very careful with misgendering other berries as a strawberry can easily identify as a blueberry and strawberries deserve the utmost respect from society, according to feminists. They are very careful to ask the strawberry about its gender before consuming it.

Berry also forces the food into a specific genre of food while they can identify as another one. If the fruit was created as a berry but wanted to be a vegetable, then we must call it a bluevegetable. It it was a fruit, then it becomes a bluefruit. By using the word berry, we are inherently assuming the type of food of the blueberry without asking what it identifies as.

Therefore, since the word blueberry makes many assumptions about the fruit and generalizes all members into one species, feminists do not use this word.

Instead, they use the word rainbowfood to talk about blueberries because it neither assumes its colour or its genre of food.

Please, stop using blueberry. It is plainly just disrespectful to assume the characteristics of a blueberry without asking for its identifications.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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