Tag: culture war

Go With The Flow

Kevin Creighton
Kevin Creighton
2211
 

“Never bet against the side that’s having the most fun in a culture war.” – PDB

Politics is downstream from culture, said Andrew Breitbart, and he was 100% correct. Politics can try to dictate culture, but a counter-culture soon pops up and forms a resistance. This was true in Soviet Russia, it was true with the hippies in the 60’s and it’s true today. Thanks to crowdsourcing and multiple streaming platforms, everyone can watch what they want to watch, and support the artists who produce the content that they want to see. The deer now have guns, and we’re darn near everywhere. For example, I spent hours in my youth scouring the bins of Zia’s Record Exchange and Eastside Records, looking for rare import tracks from my favorite artists. Now pretty much everything is available on YouTube, Last.fm or other platforms. Animé, (or as I knew it, japanimation), was a rare thing indeed in my younger years. We’d spend $75 or more (in 19080’s money) to watch a poorly dubbed VHS copy of Nausicaä, now there are entire film festivals dedicated to Miyazaki’s works. 

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City Journal's 10 Blocks

Are Culture Wars a Policy Issue?

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On this special episode of 10 Blocks, Manhattan Institute fellow and City Journal contributing editor Charles Fain Lehman is joined by the Cato Institute’s Emily Ekins, The Spectator’s Ben Domenech, and National Review’s Nate Hochman to discuss the public-policy implications of cultural disputes.

Find the transcript of this conversation and more at City Journal.

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Top 9 Disney Rebrands for Earning Back Parents’ Trust

David Deeble
David Deeble
16101837
 

Parents form an important part of Disney’s customer base. Who knew? Apparently not Disney. Having said that, I’m glad to see that the Happiest Place On Earth is doing its part to reassure parents that Disney is again all about wholesome family-friendly entertainment rather than whatever gender ideology happens to be in vogue at any given moment.

Below are nine of Disney’s latest attempts to restore trust. Is Disney still captive to the more wild-eyed elements within its ranks? You decide.

The Matterporn 

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Contra Robert George

Kephalithos
Kephalithos
78
 

Madison’s Notes is a good podcast, and the latest episode is an interesting one — interesting not so much for its content, but for what it reveals about the conservative intellectual establishment. What it reveals is, of course, futility.

This particular episode is a recording of an event held in September and sponsored by Princeton University. The event, which featured back-to-back talks by Robert George and Ryan T. Anderson, was titled “The Baby and the Bathwater: Toward a Recovery of the American Idea” and was pitched as a rebuttal to the growing contingent of post-liberals on the right: the likes of Sohrab Ahmari and Patrick Deneen. The right shouldn’t throw aside the small-l liberal constitutional tradition, argue George and Anderson. We must “stay the course” and “keep the faith.”

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Member Post

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
35237
 

Summer days are slower times. People go on vacations and otherwise take breaks from many routines. People tire and move on from cable news to sports (go England!) and movies, which are slowly coming back. All good. There are exceptions, and our current culture war is one. Just ask Loudoun County, Virginia, parents. Or parents elsewhere. Preview Open
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We Are in a War for our Constitutional Republic in Every State

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
3118
 

Red Green AZ Jump PointArizona is a swing state that has swung hard left in key offices and will likely go entirely woke if Arizonans do not fully mobilize the working class against the real upper class. We must do so in every state for the sake of ourselves, the rising generations, and our constitutional republic. We are late in the game, as the Arizona Department of Education has already shown.

Before you reflexively roll out the usual line about “conservative” and how “class” is a leftist concept, read this excerpt from “A Modest Proposal for Republicans,” then go read the whole article after this post.

Yeah, yeah, “class” sounds Marxist, class warfare and all that, you’re supposed to be against that kind of thing, right? Wrong. Economic class warfare is Marxist, but here in the US class isn’t a purely economic concept. Class is also about culture. You’re already doing class warfare, you’re just doing it blindly and confusedly. Instead, do it openly, while using the words “class” and “classism”.

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Walk-Ins Welcome w/ Bridget Phetasy #112

Kmele Foster Doesn’t Care About Breaking News Explicit

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Hosted by Bridget Phetasy

Kmele Foster is a partner at Free Think, a media company that tells stories about the people and ideas that are changing the world, he’s also a co-host of The Fifth Column podcast. He and Bridget discuss the weirdness of signs like “Black People Welcome Here,” and how they give him a Get Out sort of feeling, what he would teach kids about media literacy right now, why he prefers lukewarm takes over hot takes, and the worrying trend that violence has become a clear attribute of our politics recently, that it isn’t going away, and isn’t only coming from one side. They cover using ridicule as an effective weapon, how easy it is to become what you hate, encouraging people to be brave, and wonder happens in a society when people don’t trust each other and are being trained to hate each other. Check out The Fifth Column podcast here.

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Love Thy Neighbor

Aaron Miller
Aaron Miller
2212
 

It is when we have the most cause to hate and reject our neighbors that we most need to remember the command to love them. Yes, my fellow Christians, it is a command and not merely an invitation. Though no challenge could be so difficult to fulfill, it is the foundation rather than the pinnacle of Christian love. It is a challenge not reserved only for the holiest saints but rather put to every one of us. Our Lord and Creator doesn’t even stop there. “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

A philosophy professor and friend once caught me off guard by claiming that the Golden Rule is nothing special. Any person raised in a good home knows not to mistreat others as oneself doesn’t want to be abused.

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Member Post

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
23
 

President Trump continues to take real steps to fulfill his promises and effectively counter-attack in the Culture War. Friday, September 25, he acted to protect the most vulnerable, newborn infants. If you remember from 2016, he had an electric moment in a debate with Hilary Clinton, where he spoke more forcefully against late-term “partial birth” […]
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Another Real Advance in the Culture War Counteroffensive

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
1912
 

Scale justice TrumpPresident Trump just went from ordering the federal government not to peddle woke lies to leveraging existing law and policy to force all federal contractors to toe the same line. This means no more defense contractors putting their white male employees through reeducation sessions. For a moment, I was worried when I saw the title. Then I started reading and remembered why I voted for Donald J. Trump four years ago, and why I will be working to re-elect him this year. Read and enjoy, emphasis added.

Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping
LAW & JUSTICE Issued on: September 22, 2020

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 40 U.S.C. 101 et seq., and in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal contracting, to promote unity in the Federal workforce, and to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating, it is hereby ordered as follows:

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Front Seat Cat
Front Seat Cat
2211
 

Over 200 rare and very valuable books that were stolen over three years ago, were recovered under a floor at a Romanian house in recent days. Some of these books included first editions by Sir Issac Newton and Galileo. They were stolen from a postal transit warehouse in West London en-route to a Las Vegas […]
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Walk-Ins Welcome w/ Bridget Phetasy #97

Felecia Killings Discusses Her Vision for Conscious Black Conservatism Explicit

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Hosted by Bridget Phetasy

Felecia Killings is the founder and visionary of the Conscious Conservative Movement which wants to empower people who are looking to expand the authentic conservative space, and to go back to the principles of conservatism and spiritual understanding. She and Bridget delve into the complex topic of Black Conservatism, what it looks like today, why Felecia was primarily getting attacked by black conservative influencers, the fact that the black community is not a monolith, and that a lot of people in that community are politically homeless at the moment. They discuss the history of the Republican Party and black voters, where Felecia thinks opportunities are being missed to reach black communities, why fellowship, knowing history, and asking questions that leave aside the talking points is a better way to do things than the current strategies, and why people on the fringes of both parties are the ones that get the attention and the platforms. Learn more about the movement and Felecia’s body of work at feleciakillings.org.

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Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson, Roy Moore … and the Culture Wars

MartinKnight
MartinKnight
911
 

The usual names that come up when a Conservative thinks about Cancel Culture or the Culture Wars in general: Saul Alinsky, Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Gramsci, etc.

My thoughts on Cancel Culture made some other names pop up in my head; Roy Moore, Ed Stack, Brett Kavanaugh, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Breitbart, Stanley Kurtz, Thomas Jefferson, Jared Polis, Michael Corleone, John Roberts, Heather Mac Donald, Ronald Reagan, Michael Lind, etc.

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The Fairfax County School Curriculum, Cancel Culture, and Why You Should Care

MartinKnight
MartinKnight
2814
 

I think conservatives are starting to understand – in practical terms – exactly what Andrew Breitbart was getting at when he said “Politics is downstream of culture.”

“Cancel Culture” is the direct result of the Right’s elite class turning up its collective nose at the culture fight. Cultural battles, they sniffed, were a “distraction” from the “real issues” … like reforming the Alternative Minimum Tax.

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Antonino Lucido
Antonino Lucido
85
 

Looking around our country today you maybe asking yourself what the hell is happening to my country? For some of us who have been aware and tracked our major institutions malfeasance for the last 5 years and beyond for older conservatives. This is enraging, but not necessarily surprising. Politicians from the national and local scene […]
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Walk-Ins Welcome w/ Bridget Phetasy #66

Meghan Daum Believes We Have Lost the Ability to Sustain Complex Arguments Explicit

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Hosted by Bridget Phetasy

Meghan Daum is the author of The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, in which she examines her own cognitive dissonance as a liberal and a feminist, and her feeling of alienation in today’s cultural climate. She and Bridget discuss how society has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, the gulf between Gen X and Millennials, coming of age in a culture where there’s a conversational chokehold happening and what the effects might be, and the death of cultural gatekeepers. They dive into the minefield of being writers in the age of social media when a provocative piece can get you cancelled, reminisce about growing up reaping the benefits of the feminist movement that came before them, explore why learning to stick up yourself is such an important skill for a woman to have, and wonder what happened to the “life isn’t fair” philosophy that they were raised with. It’s a fascinating conversation between two women on the front lines of the culture war who still believe that nuance is something that should not be vilified.

Full transcript available here: WiW66-MeghanDaum-Transcript

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Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
3513
 

Either Poles are too dumb to understand what’s ridiculous about a pornographic butter-churning contest, or they’re not. I’d bet they’re not, and they know a parody of eroticism when they see it. Too bad The Imaginative Conservative doesn’t. Apparently, there’s at least one writer out there lacking the imagination to recognize a parody when he […]
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Attorney General Barr Speaks up for Religious Liberty

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
1512
 

AG BarrOn Friday, 12 October 2019, Attorney General Barr spoke at Notre Dame Law School. Notre Dame Law School advertises itself as America’s oldest Roman Catholic law school:

At the nation’s oldest Roman Catholic law school, students of diverse backgrounds are encouraged to broaden their social, spiritual, and personal lives while honing their intellectual and professional skills to serve the good of all.

Attorney General Barr took them seriously, and used the forum to deliver a call for defense of Christianity in the public square in the face of all-out attacks from militant secularists. I am pleased to see that the whole text of his remarks is posted on the Department of Justice website [emphasis added]:

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Walk-Ins Welcome w/ Bridget Phetasy #35

Michael Malice Explains How Culture is Created and Opposing Progressivism Explicit

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Hosted by Bridget Phetasy

According to Michael Malice, The New Right is a loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion based on egalitarian principles dedicated to world domination via globalist hegemony. He wrote the book on it, because he watch it develop. He and Bridget discuss the push-back against progressivism and the four different tactics the New Right is considering in response, the audacity of the word “should,” how the tide is turning and the Right is starting to win the culture war, and the actual definition of the term “red-pilled.” They also cover Michael’s affinity for anarchy, the reality of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” how conservatism is just progressivism driving the speed limit, and why public figures who aren’t informed about specific topics should shut their mouths when asked about them. Click the links to find Michael’s books The New Right and Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.

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