It's the epitome of DOUBLE-SPEAK, where you think one thing, say another, then do a third. Never seen so many new words invented that mean absolutely nothing at all. "Woke" "cancel culture" "left-wing ideology" "DOGE" "lethality" "make America great again" -- mealy-mouthed bullshit without meaning, designed to appeal to the ignorant, the illiterate, those without the slightest ability to think critically about anything.
With these dishonest idiots, every accusation is a confession. Gaslighting on a popsicle stick.
How about the Log Cabin Republicans? I just checked their website again, which features DJT prominently at the top, and then talks about electing "fair minded" Republicans. Do any "fair minded" Republicans actually have a chance of being elected? The minute one sticks up their head they will be primaried by the right, unless they happen to be in a predominantly liberal district or state.
Bloody chum in the water brings sharks. They will bite anything and that is not violence. What they bite brings emotionally soothing food for the soul. There is a need for social services to address those emotionally challenged individuals that strike out with gunshots. Instead of reaching out to help, some crazed individuals torture them repeatedly with heteronormativity. This is not politics, this is abuse. Yes. This is systemic abuse and societal failure. Those are both fixable. Some do not want to fix. They want to exploit. I am disgusted by those making a living by bellowing in this type of torture chamber. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/bloody-chum?r=3m1bs
I know how they feel about it Daniel, My opinion is any black in the repub party is kidding themselves... I know that they get more attention there ..in the dem party they are just another black guy/woman...they know the truth...I knew trump was never going to pick tim scott for his VP and tim scott knew it too.
As of September 2025, the Black Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives are Byron Donalds, Wesley Hunt, and John James. They were all elected during the 2022 midterm elections.
Well put. The party that for many years decried "big government" has become Big Brother and is now thought policing the rest of us for exercising our first amendment rights. They are canceling people as they attempt to cancel our liberty.
There is no other issue where speech is 'cancelled' in the US more than criticism of Israel. This article oddly doesn't even mention this.
From deportations of green card holders, to constant firings of journalists, academics and performers, to federal and state laws effectively banning the BDS movement, speech against Israeli apartheid and genocide is as risky as ever in the US.
This was reported by The Intercept just last week:
“A US congressman is introducing a bill that could potentially be used to deny US citizens the right to travel based solely on their speech, including for criticism of Israel, the Intercept reported on 13 September.
Introduced by Florida Congressman Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the bill would grant Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to revoke the passports of US citizens in the same way he has revoked the green cards and visas of foreign nationals in the US for criticizing Israel."
Can anyone imagine anything remotely like this related to any other country?
In a first step toward a federal law punishing criticism of Israel, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive defense budget that would bar companies engaged in “politically motivated” boycotts of the country from Pentagon contracts.
The bill would effectively ban contractors boycotting Israel from tapping most federal contract dollars, since more than half of the $755 billion the U.S. government spent on contracts last year flowed through the Defense Department.
Yes. The UK. It is equally ridiculous and the Labor Government have just shot themselves in the foot by designating an entire Palestinian support group as a “terrorist organization”due to the illegal trespassing of two rogue members.
Yea, that is crazy what is happening there. The US and the UK often share very unadmirable qualities.
That law I mentioned above is in that same bat$h!t crazy category. A GOP rep is actually proposing that US citizens lose their passports for criticizing Israel?
But somehow this wasn't mentioned in a article dedicated to government censorship and 'cancel culture'.
Um, this is obviously, directly relevant to a discussion about 'cancel culture'.
Rubin mentions 'canceling' speech about “gender” or “equity”, and 'woke' culture...but somehow misses the single biggest issue people are constantly 'cancelled' for in the US....maybe because the cancelling is a bipartisan exercise.
And actually, since you go out of your way to mention it, The Contrarian has been silent about Israel for several weeks now, after a spate of articles about Israel's starvation of civilians earlier this summer. Criticism on this point (and limited to this point for the most part ) seemed to be in vogue for a few weeks in July and August in even mainstream US press...then it just stopped, even though the situation has only gotten far worse since then.
To be fair, since every day brings another authoritarian outrage, perhaps we could give everybody a little grace on which issues deserve attention at any given time. And I think there have been several articles on other topics that mention the Gaza atrocity along with so many others. I think all of our bandwidths are being stretched to an unbelievable degree.
That is true, and I appreciate the sentiment, but my comment was not about the genocide in Gaza specifically. It was related directly to the topic of 'cancel culture'.
Again for the record, The Contrarian has not said a single word in several weeks about Gaza that I have seen...even though it is far worse there than ever there, and the US is still supporting genocide there with no break.
You are certainly correct that 'every day brings another authoritarian outrage'. One of the many reasons I think its important to not forget about Gaza in the deluge of bad news is, for one, in the US, attacks and persecution of critics of Israel has become a testing ground for persecution of other political critics.
The awful attacks on anyone who says anything critical of Kirk (like, quoting his own words) are following the same line of attack that has been practiced against pro-Palestinian activists for some time...
Beyond that, just in the last 24 hours, an independent United Nations inquiry had determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza...almost immediately after that, Israel began a full ground invasion of Gaza....there is big news happening right now.
We can't sideline this abomination , especially since the US is directly involved and culpable. The nightmare in Gaza has already taken a back seat in US media, again
I have a hard time accepting your argument given the political realities. To begin with you are talking about proposed legislation that will not be passed and if it is passed. It will not be signed by Trump, and in the unlikely chance it is signed by auto pen so he can distance his sharpie from contact with reality, it will not be given any effect.
I don’t see any Israeli protestors being arrested by ICE, threatened with deportation for expressing their views, or held in detention awaiting deportation.
I don’t see or am not aware that the U.S. is arming Palestinians or contributing to their national defense as we do in the case of Israel; nor am I aware that the U>S. has curtailed its arms shipments to Israel, despite its actions in Gaza or the West Bank. Trump talks tough but like a cheap suit, he seems to fold whenever. Netanyahu or Putin ignores him.
Put bluntly I don’t see your point or how it relates to the issue of ‘cancel culture’.
For one thing, the second bill I listed above already passed the House, and could very well pass the Senate and be signed. This first bill might not pass, but only after there has been real pushback....the fact that it was even proposed is outrageous.
For another, at least 38 states have already passed laws specifically targeting BDS movement. There have been several bills passed in the House and Senate in the past, although none have become federal law yet.
'I don’t see any Israeli protestors being arrested by ICE, threatened with deportation for expressing their views, or held in detention awaiting deportation.' is just a completely, utterly false statement.
Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri, Ranjani Srinivasan, Alireza Doroudi, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, and others? You must have not read the news at all for several months to not have heard of these cases. Even The Contrarian wrote a number of pieces about this, especially about Mahmoud Khalil's case.
'I don’t see or am not aware that the U.S. is arming Palestinians or contributing to their national defense as we do in the case of Israel; nor am I aware that the U>S. has curtailed its arms shipments to Israel, despite its actions in Gaza or the West Bank.' - I have no idea how this comment has anything remotely to do with what I wrote.
And, there are years and years worth of examples of people in the US being fired, doxxed, de-platformed, and otherwise 'canceled'' for support of Palestinians.
Where to even start? Just in the past year, professors across the country have been fired regularly. Students have had their diplomas withheld, been suspended or expelled.... musicians have had concerts cancelled or had their visas cancelled...reporters fired...I mean, do I seriously have to list them all? This happens all the time, and didn't start after October 2023 either, although it has ramped up considerably since then.
People in the US that speak out about Israeli genocide and Palestinian rights are cancelled, constantly, across all aspects of our culture. This is undeniable.
Your first paragraph was conjecture but likely not entirely true (there is certainly a good chance the defense budget bill will pass with the anti BDS addition), your second paragraph was 100% false, as I outlined above, and your third paragraph was entirely irrelevant and wouldn't add to the point you were trying to make anyway.
Not sure I follow..my point was the cancel culture in the US related to criticism of Israel...which is also happening in the UK. I wasn't discussing Israel itself directly.
But of course, Israel has massive censorship and cancelling of criticism too of course...there it goes beyond firings to outright jailing people regularly for social media posts. This is of course far worse for Arab citizens in Israel, and is not even considering the violence against journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, but there are also cases where even Jewish Israeli citizens have been imprisoned for public criticism of the state of Israel.
I pointed those examples out to my brother in-law who complains about "cancel culture" all the time. I don't know yet if it had any effect. It's only "cancelling" when the "woke mob" does it.
"MAGA Republicans use “cancel culture,” like “woke,” as an all-purpose invective selectively directed against Democrats and institutions the right dislikes."
Since these terms are very flexible in meaning, if they really have any at all, they should be abandoned along with all of the rest of the namecalling. In persuit of regaining a more civil society, these dividing terms need to be stopped.
Getting to Charlie Kirk, nobody should be killed for only speaking out, as unpleasant their comments. Were that so, Trump should have been put down long ago. Elevating his position with half-staff flags and terms like assassination was uncalled for. A rabble-rousing podcaster deserves no such honor. His death was also a diversion for the remembrance of 9/11 and a distraction from the Epstein files, budget, economy, and the horrible ballroom.
We haven’t yet reached the stage of village burning and slaying their inhabitants in retribution for fighting back against the Occupiers. The Trump Regime, faithfully committed to following the NAZI playbook from the 1930’s, will undoubtedly find a technique that mirrors that. The Red Cancel Culture and Second Amendment Death Cult MAGATs (Make America Great Again Troops) feel positioned to punish. They hate the “uppity”: the educated; people of color; people who are different; people who don’t support a national religion; people who consider patriotism as paying your taxes, obeying the law that is color blind; or people who believe guns should be regulated. These are not the actions of a political party. This is the end of democracy.
James, I am afraid you are right. I had hope we could turn this around, but after the grief, not just here, but worldwide and half staff flags, memorials,disturbing address by the charlie wife, body escort on AF2 By VP etc. I can no longer be positive. I had no idea so many young people LOVED charlie...this is a VERY bad sign.
I’m a bit more optimistic and hopeful that 250 years of constitutional government will win in the end- though I take to heart Keynes’ admonition about the long term - but these are worrying times and while it is right to decry assassination and killing, it is equally troubling to see the hagiography that is building about a man, who was anything but a meek and humble laborer in the fields of the Lord. This regime, however, will make use of his death. If that wasn’t clear from Trump’s unhinged initial response, it became evident with yesterday’s WH broadcast of his podcast by Vance.
I’d like to be optimistic as well, but I also believe that we have seen an incredible disassembly of the Constitution we thought was the law of the land. I believe we will have to put better, stronger guard rails in place because we have seen there is always motivation to overcame these restraints for power, self enrichment, social privilege, and so forth. Of course, we expect the laws to be fair and executed wisely. I have also come to realize that the times that seemed good to me may have been terrible for someone else. Our vision of a good life has to be more inclusive and based on tenets such as a real education, health care, freedom from want and privation, freedom from fear snd intimidation, etc., etc.. People can be weak and corruptible, but that, along with government by kings and lords, is a failed idea of the past.
Absolutely correct in most of what you say, particularly the failure of feudalism to produce a viable society except for the few, and I have received several critiques from friends over my optimism (as qualified as it may be). However, I try to locate it within our history which has repeatedly gone off the rails before a steadier hand took the tiller. Overlooking (which we shouldn't) the colonial history the late 18th-early 19th century was just as divided between the Federalists and the National Republicans with a press that was wild and rabid, but Monroe was able to bring an Era of Good feeling. The 1850s and Bloody Kansas were divisive and erupted in a Civil War which Lincoln brought to a successful conclusion for the nation. Had he lived, Radical Reconstruction might have had a much different ending. The Gilded Age brought wealth and income inequalities, problems with immigration, the right to unionize and plenty of pit ched battles but with TR's Square Deal and Wilson, the progressive vision, however moderated, began to make changes. The Roaring Twenties erased a great deal of the progress but not the progressives of their day and even the Depression and World War II, which saw the rise of American fascism gave way to FDR and the New Deal. RThe Cold War'sa onset gave us McCarthy who seemed to reign supreme until he didn't and we could take this journey up through the Reagan years when inequality started to widen, Newt Gingrich and 9/11 gave us the double whammy of economic ansurity and the Global War on Terror. I don't mean to belabor the point but I noting that we have had eras where everything seemed to be going to hell, unless you were well to do, but we always seem stop at the edge, pull back and start to build whether it was Pecora in the 1930s, or the Church Committee that pulled us back from Nixon's criminality, Senator Feinstein's Report which put an end to enhanced interrogation. We seem to be going through another phase with a wannabe King, whose actions are lawless, unconstitutional and threaten the Democratic order. Thus it seems up to us, the citizens, to put an end to this. Enough is enough. You've laid out the issues which should help us get there. So I remain optimistic, I'm over 80 and would like to believe that this new generation of Americans can do what earlier generations did - move forward to a more democratic future.
While it is up to the next generations to pull the US back from the abyss somehow the older generations (I’m 81) seem to be the ones to bring such an historical perspective and experience that encourages and implores others to stand up to this tyranny.
Perhaps the future holds a revised constitution, devoid of all the pratfalls this trump has revealed. Starting with hard rules for the conduct of the senate...stupid each congress can make their own. And of course elemination of the electoral college.
I laud your optimism. I would’ve given up writing everyday on different sub stacks if I was without hope. The elephant in the room in my opinion is computer driven technology. This includes its use in business, warfare, social media, etc., as well as the meteoric development of automation and AI. These are 24 X 7 tools for use to do good and evil. Social Credit Systems, for example, like that of China, are human leashes to control right down to daily life. Every country, I suspect has surveillance capabilities far granular than we know. And even in the US the first thing that Musk did under the auspices of the illegal agency DOGE was to loot the US Government of its data and now he and Peter Thiel, thru the company Palantir, are building a system for the US Government to track immigrants. Think of it as a beta test for a future citizen wide tracking / surveillance system - they have the US Gov’t data to do it. The ability of tech oligarchs to take over the Government indirectly points to eventual building of a global corporate state where we will see business lords and peasants. This is more like science fiction than history, but the rotten core is still there: power and domination. The incredible computer is what makes me believe this fight is dangerously different from history. Think about what you would have to do to live anonymously, is it even possible now?
For whatever reason. I’ve just seen your comments and there is no disagreement that the real purpose of DOGE was to access that data for the benefit of Thiel and Palantir and it could well produce the surveillance state that is a different challenge one of king than what has existed before in our history. It is well to note that democracies and republics have been the exception not the rule for forms of governance. I still believe though that between our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, we have created a country based on an idea of social Justice and human rights not an ethnocentric-national based on blood and soil. It seems the two are in conflict and the result of that conflict will determine our future. I’d like to think that I am leaving my grandchildren and great grandson a better world then the one we inherited from the ashes of the Depression and World War II. We started down the right path but seem to have lost our way. Now is the time to find our way back. I note that many of my former colleagues - all in our 80s have not lost heart and that at least is a start.
Assassination is generally reserved for government officials and possibly people of high merit. Kirk was neither of these. He was just killed, or murdered.
What’s wrong with being “woke”? Certainly better than being “asleep”! Wasn’t the Renaissance, I.e. “the Age of Enlightenment” better than “the Dark Ages”? Yet….the Dark Ages lasted for hundreds of years!
Democrats should push back hard here and point out the utter hypocrisy of blaming folks for exposing the unAmerican screeds of Kirk…while still insisting that his death was wrong. Allowing the right to go apeshit over this with few powerful and public counter-statements is dangerous to every American non-MAGA. We elected these people to represent us, and all have them had better PICK IT UP!
Projection. The MAGA Voodoo Cult projects on others what they are. It's a symptom of mental illness. Way beyond hypocracy. Forty percent of Americans appear to have a serious mental disorder caused by Commander Cupcake and the Disease in DC.
Absolutely! They do heinous things and then scream that their "enemies" are doing them! Hypocrisy, mental illness, whatever you want to call it is erasing whatever good this country used to stand for. When MAGA wants to make America "great", they mean it wants to bury the US while it is still trying to stay alive. We must RESIST!
and they want to turn back the clock to a time when women stayed home ... when people of color "knew their place" ... when white men ran everything with no competition from anyone who wasn't a white man.
Well said. I totally disagree with calling Kirk’s murder an assissination. That term is usually applied to an elected official or one who is running for an elected office. It is also applied to someone in a high position such as a police officer or higher ranking officer or the head of clergy such as the pope. Kirk is none of the above so why should he be elevated to having that distinction? Why should flags on public buildings be at half staff? Why should he be treated like a saint? We can all condemn his murder without elevating him to a position that he does not belong to.
I thought the hypocrisy meter was shattered 10 years ago. Enthusiasm for Authoritarianism and white privilege has peaked in red states—maybe Canada will adopt the rest of us.
The problem underlaying their cancel culture is the demonization of all things which they disagree with. I truly believe they would institute Newspeak (from 1984) if they could. Who knows - maybe they can pull it off.
The Republican Party is the epitome of hypocrisy.
They want to take your first amendment rights with their second amendment rights.
It's the epitome of DOUBLE-SPEAK, where you think one thing, say another, then do a third. Never seen so many new words invented that mean absolutely nothing at all. "Woke" "cancel culture" "left-wing ideology" "DOGE" "lethality" "make America great again" -- mealy-mouthed bullshit without meaning, designed to appeal to the ignorant, the illiterate, those without the slightest ability to think critically about anything.
With these dishonest idiots, every accusation is a confession. Gaslighting on a popsicle stick.
A contrarian would ask Tim Scott, and all the Black Republican officeholders how they feel about it?
How about the Log Cabin Republicans? I just checked their website again, which features DJT prominently at the top, and then talks about electing "fair minded" Republicans. Do any "fair minded" Republicans actually have a chance of being elected? The minute one sticks up their head they will be primaried by the right, unless they happen to be in a predominantly liberal district or state.
Bloody chum in the water brings sharks. They will bite anything and that is not violence. What they bite brings emotionally soothing food for the soul. There is a need for social services to address those emotionally challenged individuals that strike out with gunshots. Instead of reaching out to help, some crazed individuals torture them repeatedly with heteronormativity. This is not politics, this is abuse. Yes. This is systemic abuse and societal failure. Those are both fixable. Some do not want to fix. They want to exploit. I am disgusted by those making a living by bellowing in this type of torture chamber. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/bloody-chum?r=3m1bs
I know how they feel about it Daniel, My opinion is any black in the repub party is kidding themselves... I know that they get more attention there ..in the dem party they are just another black guy/woman...they know the truth...I knew trump was never going to pick tim scott for his VP and tim scott knew it too.
"the Black Republican officeholders"??? What - both of them?
As of September 2025, the Black Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives are Byron Donalds, Wesley Hunt, and John James. They were all elected during the 2022 midterm elections.
Dozens in state and local government.
In state houses - dozens out of how many hundreds?
And they’ve managed to divert the MAGA crowd away from Epstein again. It may have worked this time.
It’s way worse than that.
Things that are NOT "cancel culture":
* People making personal decisions about what products to buy, or what people with whom to associate.
* A business deciding what its policy should be towards its users, or what products it wants to sell.
* Boycotts.
----------------------------
Things that ARE "cancel culture"
* book bans
* drag show bans
* pride flag bans
* "bans" of any sort, really.
... and on and on and on
So from this Independent's perspective, I see only ONE group pushing actual "cancel culture."
Well put. The party that for many years decried "big government" has become Big Brother and is now thought policing the rest of us for exercising our first amendment rights. They are canceling people as they attempt to cancel our liberty.
and, oh, yes, being disabled. oops! i'm disabled, so am i even a full human being?
There is no other issue where speech is 'cancelled' in the US more than criticism of Israel. This article oddly doesn't even mention this.
From deportations of green card holders, to constant firings of journalists, academics and performers, to federal and state laws effectively banning the BDS movement, speech against Israeli apartheid and genocide is as risky as ever in the US.
This was reported by The Intercept just last week:
“A US congressman is introducing a bill that could potentially be used to deny US citizens the right to travel based solely on their speech, including for criticism of Israel, the Intercept reported on 13 September.
Introduced by Florida Congressman Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the bill would grant Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to revoke the passports of US citizens in the same way he has revoked the green cards and visas of foreign nationals in the US for criticizing Israel."
Can anyone imagine anything remotely like this related to any other country?
This was also reported by The Intercept recently:
In a first step toward a federal law punishing criticism of Israel, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive defense budget that would bar companies engaged in “politically motivated” boycotts of the country from Pentagon contracts.
The bill would effectively ban contractors boycotting Israel from tapping most federal contract dollars, since more than half of the $755 billion the U.S. government spent on contracts last year flowed through the Defense Department.
Yes. The UK. It is equally ridiculous and the Labor Government have just shot themselves in the foot by designating an entire Palestinian support group as a “terrorist organization”due to the illegal trespassing of two rogue members.
Yea, that is crazy what is happening there. The US and the UK often share very unadmirable qualities.
That law I mentioned above is in that same bat$h!t crazy category. A GOP rep is actually proposing that US citizens lose their passports for criticizing Israel?
But somehow this wasn't mentioned in a article dedicated to government censorship and 'cancel culture'.
trump and jared want their "resort land" in Gaza and baby yahoo is getting it for them...sorry for that and yes, it is genocide and should stop
The Contrarian has come out against what's happening in Israel. Let's make a list of every liberal position that they don't genuflect to today.
Um, this is obviously, directly relevant to a discussion about 'cancel culture'.
Rubin mentions 'canceling' speech about “gender” or “equity”, and 'woke' culture...but somehow misses the single biggest issue people are constantly 'cancelled' for in the US....maybe because the cancelling is a bipartisan exercise.
And actually, since you go out of your way to mention it, The Contrarian has been silent about Israel for several weeks now, after a spate of articles about Israel's starvation of civilians earlier this summer. Criticism on this point (and limited to this point for the most part ) seemed to be in vogue for a few weeks in July and August in even mainstream US press...then it just stopped, even though the situation has only gotten far worse since then.
To be fair, since every day brings another authoritarian outrage, perhaps we could give everybody a little grace on which issues deserve attention at any given time. And I think there have been several articles on other topics that mention the Gaza atrocity along with so many others. I think all of our bandwidths are being stretched to an unbelievable degree.
That is true, and I appreciate the sentiment, but my comment was not about the genocide in Gaza specifically. It was related directly to the topic of 'cancel culture'.
Again for the record, The Contrarian has not said a single word in several weeks about Gaza that I have seen...even though it is far worse there than ever there, and the US is still supporting genocide there with no break.
You are certainly correct that 'every day brings another authoritarian outrage'. One of the many reasons I think its important to not forget about Gaza in the deluge of bad news is, for one, in the US, attacks and persecution of critics of Israel has become a testing ground for persecution of other political critics.
The awful attacks on anyone who says anything critical of Kirk (like, quoting his own words) are following the same line of attack that has been practiced against pro-Palestinian activists for some time...
Beyond that, just in the last 24 hours, an independent United Nations inquiry had determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza...almost immediately after that, Israel began a full ground invasion of Gaza....there is big news happening right now.
We can't sideline this abomination , especially since the US is directly involved and culpable. The nightmare in Gaza has already taken a back seat in US media, again
In accordance with Trump’s ‘flooding the zone’ strategy.
Firehose of atrocities such that the honorable opposition (now ‘the enemy’) is almost always on their back foot.
I have a hard time accepting your argument given the political realities. To begin with you are talking about proposed legislation that will not be passed and if it is passed. It will not be signed by Trump, and in the unlikely chance it is signed by auto pen so he can distance his sharpie from contact with reality, it will not be given any effect.
I don’t see any Israeli protestors being arrested by ICE, threatened with deportation for expressing their views, or held in detention awaiting deportation.
I don’t see or am not aware that the U.S. is arming Palestinians or contributing to their national defense as we do in the case of Israel; nor am I aware that the U>S. has curtailed its arms shipments to Israel, despite its actions in Gaza or the West Bank. Trump talks tough but like a cheap suit, he seems to fold whenever. Netanyahu or Putin ignores him.
Put bluntly I don’t see your point or how it relates to the issue of ‘cancel culture’.
Um, huh?
For one thing, the second bill I listed above already passed the House, and could very well pass the Senate and be signed. This first bill might not pass, but only after there has been real pushback....the fact that it was even proposed is outrageous.
For another, at least 38 states have already passed laws specifically targeting BDS movement. There have been several bills passed in the House and Senate in the past, although none have become federal law yet.
'I don’t see any Israeli protestors being arrested by ICE, threatened with deportation for expressing their views, or held in detention awaiting deportation.' is just a completely, utterly false statement.
Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri, Ranjani Srinivasan, Alireza Doroudi, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, and others? You must have not read the news at all for several months to not have heard of these cases. Even The Contrarian wrote a number of pieces about this, especially about Mahmoud Khalil's case.
'I don’t see or am not aware that the U.S. is arming Palestinians or contributing to their national defense as we do in the case of Israel; nor am I aware that the U>S. has curtailed its arms shipments to Israel, despite its actions in Gaza or the West Bank.' - I have no idea how this comment has anything remotely to do with what I wrote.
And, there are years and years worth of examples of people in the US being fired, doxxed, de-platformed, and otherwise 'canceled'' for support of Palestinians.
Where to even start? Just in the past year, professors across the country have been fired regularly. Students have had their diplomas withheld, been suspended or expelled.... musicians have had concerts cancelled or had their visas cancelled...reporters fired...I mean, do I seriously have to list them all? This happens all the time, and didn't start after October 2023 either, although it has ramped up considerably since then.
People in the US that speak out about Israeli genocide and Palestinian rights are cancelled, constantly, across all aspects of our culture. This is undeniable.
I get the distict impression that we are speaking past one another .
No, I responded to everything you said.
Your first paragraph was conjecture but likely not entirely true (there is certainly a good chance the defense budget bill will pass with the anti BDS addition), your second paragraph was 100% false, as I outlined above, and your third paragraph was entirely irrelevant and wouldn't add to the point you were trying to make anyway.
Israel, maybe? But, I think the UK has some issues with this kind of thing.
Not sure I follow..my point was the cancel culture in the US related to criticism of Israel...which is also happening in the UK. I wasn't discussing Israel itself directly.
But of course, Israel has massive censorship and cancelling of criticism too of course...there it goes beyond firings to outright jailing people regularly for social media posts. This is of course far worse for Arab citizens in Israel, and is not even considering the violence against journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, but there are also cases where even Jewish Israeli citizens have been imprisoned for public criticism of the state of Israel.
I was not clear, and I apologize. I'm younger than Mr. Rather by a very little, but his thoughts and writing are much clearer than mine.
I meant that Israel does censor, not against itself, of course, but against those who criticize, and I think unreasonably.
because baby yahoo is a dictator
Remember Colin Kaepernick? The Dixie Chicks? The radical right wing has been doing this for decades.
I pointed those examples out to my brother in-law who complains about "cancel culture" all the time. I don't know yet if it had any effect. It's only "cancelling" when the "woke mob" does it.
Well said and written as usual.
"MAGA Republicans use “cancel culture,” like “woke,” as an all-purpose invective selectively directed against Democrats and institutions the right dislikes."
Since these terms are very flexible in meaning, if they really have any at all, they should be abandoned along with all of the rest of the namecalling. In persuit of regaining a more civil society, these dividing terms need to be stopped.
Getting to Charlie Kirk, nobody should be killed for only speaking out, as unpleasant their comments. Were that so, Trump should have been put down long ago. Elevating his position with half-staff flags and terms like assassination was uncalled for. A rabble-rousing podcaster deserves no such honor. His death was also a diversion for the remembrance of 9/11 and a distraction from the Epstein files, budget, economy, and the horrible ballroom.
We haven’t yet reached the stage of village burning and slaying their inhabitants in retribution for fighting back against the Occupiers. The Trump Regime, faithfully committed to following the NAZI playbook from the 1930’s, will undoubtedly find a technique that mirrors that. The Red Cancel Culture and Second Amendment Death Cult MAGATs (Make America Great Again Troops) feel positioned to punish. They hate the “uppity”: the educated; people of color; people who are different; people who don’t support a national religion; people who consider patriotism as paying your taxes, obeying the law that is color blind; or people who believe guns should be regulated. These are not the actions of a political party. This is the end of democracy.
James, I am afraid you are right. I had hope we could turn this around, but after the grief, not just here, but worldwide and half staff flags, memorials,disturbing address by the charlie wife, body escort on AF2 By VP etc. I can no longer be positive. I had no idea so many young people LOVED charlie...this is a VERY bad sign.
I’m a bit more optimistic and hopeful that 250 years of constitutional government will win in the end- though I take to heart Keynes’ admonition about the long term - but these are worrying times and while it is right to decry assassination and killing, it is equally troubling to see the hagiography that is building about a man, who was anything but a meek and humble laborer in the fields of the Lord. This regime, however, will make use of his death. If that wasn’t clear from Trump’s unhinged initial response, it became evident with yesterday’s WH broadcast of his podcast by Vance.
I’d like to be optimistic as well, but I also believe that we have seen an incredible disassembly of the Constitution we thought was the law of the land. I believe we will have to put better, stronger guard rails in place because we have seen there is always motivation to overcame these restraints for power, self enrichment, social privilege, and so forth. Of course, we expect the laws to be fair and executed wisely. I have also come to realize that the times that seemed good to me may have been terrible for someone else. Our vision of a good life has to be more inclusive and based on tenets such as a real education, health care, freedom from want and privation, freedom from fear snd intimidation, etc., etc.. People can be weak and corruptible, but that, along with government by kings and lords, is a failed idea of the past.
Absolutely correct in most of what you say, particularly the failure of feudalism to produce a viable society except for the few, and I have received several critiques from friends over my optimism (as qualified as it may be). However, I try to locate it within our history which has repeatedly gone off the rails before a steadier hand took the tiller. Overlooking (which we shouldn't) the colonial history the late 18th-early 19th century was just as divided between the Federalists and the National Republicans with a press that was wild and rabid, but Monroe was able to bring an Era of Good feeling. The 1850s and Bloody Kansas were divisive and erupted in a Civil War which Lincoln brought to a successful conclusion for the nation. Had he lived, Radical Reconstruction might have had a much different ending. The Gilded Age brought wealth and income inequalities, problems with immigration, the right to unionize and plenty of pit ched battles but with TR's Square Deal and Wilson, the progressive vision, however moderated, began to make changes. The Roaring Twenties erased a great deal of the progress but not the progressives of their day and even the Depression and World War II, which saw the rise of American fascism gave way to FDR and the New Deal. RThe Cold War'sa onset gave us McCarthy who seemed to reign supreme until he didn't and we could take this journey up through the Reagan years when inequality started to widen, Newt Gingrich and 9/11 gave us the double whammy of economic ansurity and the Global War on Terror. I don't mean to belabor the point but I noting that we have had eras where everything seemed to be going to hell, unless you were well to do, but we always seem stop at the edge, pull back and start to build whether it was Pecora in the 1930s, or the Church Committee that pulled us back from Nixon's criminality, Senator Feinstein's Report which put an end to enhanced interrogation. We seem to be going through another phase with a wannabe King, whose actions are lawless, unconstitutional and threaten the Democratic order. Thus it seems up to us, the citizens, to put an end to this. Enough is enough. You've laid out the issues which should help us get there. So I remain optimistic, I'm over 80 and would like to believe that this new generation of Americans can do what earlier generations did - move forward to a more democratic future.
While it is up to the next generations to pull the US back from the abyss somehow the older generations (I’m 81) seem to be the ones to bring such an historical perspective and experience that encourages and implores others to stand up to this tyranny.
Perhaps the future holds a revised constitution, devoid of all the pratfalls this trump has revealed. Starting with hard rules for the conduct of the senate...stupid each congress can make their own. And of course elemination of the electoral college.
I laud your optimism. I would’ve given up writing everyday on different sub stacks if I was without hope. The elephant in the room in my opinion is computer driven technology. This includes its use in business, warfare, social media, etc., as well as the meteoric development of automation and AI. These are 24 X 7 tools for use to do good and evil. Social Credit Systems, for example, like that of China, are human leashes to control right down to daily life. Every country, I suspect has surveillance capabilities far granular than we know. And even in the US the first thing that Musk did under the auspices of the illegal agency DOGE was to loot the US Government of its data and now he and Peter Thiel, thru the company Palantir, are building a system for the US Government to track immigrants. Think of it as a beta test for a future citizen wide tracking / surveillance system - they have the US Gov’t data to do it. The ability of tech oligarchs to take over the Government indirectly points to eventual building of a global corporate state where we will see business lords and peasants. This is more like science fiction than history, but the rotten core is still there: power and domination. The incredible computer is what makes me believe this fight is dangerously different from history. Think about what you would have to do to live anonymously, is it even possible now?
For whatever reason. I’ve just seen your comments and there is no disagreement that the real purpose of DOGE was to access that data for the benefit of Thiel and Palantir and it could well produce the surveillance state that is a different challenge one of king than what has existed before in our history. It is well to note that democracies and republics have been the exception not the rule for forms of governance. I still believe though that between our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, we have created a country based on an idea of social Justice and human rights not an ethnocentric-national based on blood and soil. It seems the two are in conflict and the result of that conflict will determine our future. I’d like to think that I am leaving my grandchildren and great grandson a better world then the one we inherited from the ashes of the Depression and World War II. We started down the right path but seem to have lost our way. Now is the time to find our way back. I note that many of my former colleagues - all in our 80s have not lost heart and that at least is a start.
Keep up the optimism , but remain ready to fight for our freedom and democracy!
Always.
I can't do without Jennifer Rubin
Agree. And the Kirk assassination has sure taken eyes off of the EPSTEIN FILES.
Assassination is generally reserved for government officials and possibly people of high merit. Kirk was neither of these. He was just killed, or murdered.
Steve, He was, however, their hero. Sadly, we must brace for many charlie honors to come I'm afraid
What’s wrong with being “woke”? Certainly better than being “asleep”! Wasn’t the Renaissance, I.e. “the Age of Enlightenment” better than “the Dark Ages”? Yet….the Dark Ages lasted for hundreds of years!
Thank you! I think we should reclaim WOKE as a positive attribute. I am proud to be woke!
that's right, being woke is what has always changed the status quo
Democrats should push back hard here and point out the utter hypocrisy of blaming folks for exposing the unAmerican screeds of Kirk…while still insisting that his death was wrong. Allowing the right to go apeshit over this with few powerful and public counter-statements is dangerous to every American non-MAGA. We elected these people to represent us, and all have them had better PICK IT UP!
I agree we need strong leadership right now in defense of free speech and due process
Kirk's statements are no longer unAmerican. This is the America people voted for and it makes me sad.
Yep..this is what we elected.
Projection. The MAGA Voodoo Cult projects on others what they are. It's a symptom of mental illness. Way beyond hypocracy. Forty percent of Americans appear to have a serious mental disorder caused by Commander Cupcake and the Disease in DC.
Absolutely! They do heinous things and then scream that their "enemies" are doing them! Hypocrisy, mental illness, whatever you want to call it is erasing whatever good this country used to stand for. When MAGA wants to make America "great", they mean it wants to bury the US while it is still trying to stay alive. We must RESIST!
Thank you, Jen, for speaking so clearly!
and they want to turn back the clock to a time when women stayed home ... when people of color "knew their place" ... when white men ran everything with no competition from anyone who wasn't a white man.
Wish I knew voo doo
That was a very meaningful article this morning. Thanks for putting perspective to what's going on with Charlie Kirk and the comments being made.
Well said. I totally disagree with calling Kirk’s murder an assissination. That term is usually applied to an elected official or one who is running for an elected office. It is also applied to someone in a high position such as a police officer or higher ranking officer or the head of clergy such as the pope. Kirk is none of the above so why should he be elevated to having that distinction? Why should flags on public buildings be at half staff? Why should he be treated like a saint? We can all condemn his murder without elevating him to a position that he does not belong to.
I thought the hypocrisy meter was shattered 10 years ago. Enthusiasm for Authoritarianism and white privilege has peaked in red states—maybe Canada will adopt the rest of us.
The problem underlaying their cancel culture is the demonization of all things which they disagree with. I truly believe they would institute Newspeak (from 1984) if they could. Who knows - maybe they can pull it off.
Is the Ministry of Truth far behind?
One of them literally said something like "War is peace" the other day.
Yikes. Add that to day is night, up is down, and lies are facts.
Thank you for standing up so strongly for our First Amendment rights.