Bari Weiss resigns from the Times

[Loki]

She also had signed the “Harper’s” letter.

I’m all for an adult conversation played out on the merits of the piece, hoping against a flame war on both sides.

[Horace]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@Horace said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

I wasn't advocating for a different tribe to exert authoritarian pop culture power. I was advocating for pop culture to accept as a basic and important value that different viewpoints should be accepted and not canceled.

Yikes. Well, good luck with that. I have no idea how to make that happen since its virtue alone is obviously no incentive. Then again, like literary and artistic movements, maybe we'll just get bored of this shit and want to go in a different direction.

America has had in its past pop cultures that valued diversity of thought. The NYT was based on it, as she wrote in the letter. I presume that at the time, it was thought of as a cool and hip value to hold. These days, it's cool and hip to consider those values to be dog whistles for racists.

[Jolly]

@jon-nyc said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

It’ll be interesting to see how it’s covered.

Not just at the times, but by the media beat guy at the Post.

How it's covered? As a wise man once said, With a pillow, until it quits moving.

[Loki]

@Jolly said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@jon-nyc said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

It’ll be interesting to see how it’s covered.

Not just at the times, but by the media beat guy at the Post.

How it's covered? As a wise man once said, With a pillow, until it quits moving.

I’ve noticed that CNN has a way of covering an issue it doesn’t want to but not having it show up on the website on the first page. Clever.

[Horace]

jon, you're our resident CNN expert. How do they do that?

[Rainman]

I'd be happy to step in and correct you all.

But, I'm having a difficult time with the term, "pop culture."

Is there an easy, understood definition of what that means?
Assuming there are at least generalities, does it mean something along the lines of uneducated, knee-jerk reactionaries that in no way should be able to dictate to the masses?

[jon-nyc]

@Horace said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

jon, you're our resident CNN expert. How do they do that?

You misspelled 'Loki'.

[Horace]

Pop culture is the set of shared social values and ideas that causes our schools, newspapers, movies, TV, and WTF to all parrot similar to identical politics.

I think "populism" has a similar intent of meaning but I rarely hear it used to describe the ideas parroted by the groups I mentioned above.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Loki said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@Jolly said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@jon-nyc said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

It’ll be interesting to see how it’s covered.

Not just at the times, but by the media beat guy at the Post.

How it's covered? As a wise man once said, With a pillow, until it quits moving.

I’ve noticed that CNN has a way of covering an issue it doesn’t want to but not having it show up on the website on the first page. Clever.

Meh. It's incredibly easy to hide an article.

[Rainman]

Horace said:
"Pop culture is the set of shared social values and ideas that causes our schools, newspapers, movies, TV, and WTF to all parrot similar to identical politics."

Thanks Horace. I get the overall concept.

I thought it meant Elvis.

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

[George K]

McCarthyism is back. This time, it’s woke.

McCarthyism is the pejorative term liberals gave to the anti-communist crusades of 1950s-era Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. From his perch as chair of the Government Operations Committee, McCarthy launched a wave of investigations to ferret out supposed communist subversion of government agencies. Armed with his favorite question — “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” — McCarthy terrorized his targets and silenced his critics. Thousands of people lost their jobs as a result, often based on nothing more than innuendo or chance associations.

The mob fervor extended to the state governments and the private sector, too. States enacted “loyalty oaths” requiring people employed by the government, including tenured university faculty members, to disavow “radical beliefs” or lose their jobs. Many refused and were fired. Hollywood notoriously rooted out real and suspected communists, creating the infamous “blacklist” of people who were informally barred from any work with Hollywood studios. The “red scare” even nearly toppled America’s favorite television star, Lucille Ball, who had registered to vote as a communist in the 1930s.

Today’s “cancel culture” is nothing more than McCarthyism in a woke costume. It stems from a noble goal — ending racial discrimination. Like its discredited cousin, however, it has transmogrified into something sinister and inimical to freedom. Battling racism is good and necessary; trying to suppress voices that one disagrees with is not. Woke McCarthyism goes wrong when it seeks to do the one thing that America has always sworn not to do: enforce uniformity of thought. Indeed, this principle, enshrined in the First Amendment, is so central to American national identity that it is one of the five quotes inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

Weiss’s resignation letter describes numerous examples of her colleagues judging her guilty of “wrongthink” and trying to pressure superiors to fire or suppress her. She explains that “some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly ‘inclusive’ one, while others post ax emojis next to my name.” Others, she wrote, called her a racist and a Nazi, or criticized her on Twitter without reprimand. She notes that this behavior, tolerated by the paper through its editors, constitutes “unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge.”

Sullivan’s reason for departure is less clear — though he said it is “self-evident.” He had publicly supported Weiss, writing: “The mob bullied and harassed a young woman for thoughtcrimes. And her editors stood by and watched.”

In other words, both Weiss and Sullivan — like so many others — seem to have left their jobs because they were targeted for refusing to conform to its ideas of right thinking. Do you now or have you ever thought that Donald Trump might make a good president? Congratulations, president of Goya Foods: Your company is boycotted. Are you now or have you ever been willing to publish works from a conservative U.S. senator that infuriated liberal Twitter? Former New York Times editor James Bennet, the bell tolls for thee.

The mob even sacrifices people whose only crime is familial connection on its altar. The stepmother of the Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, Melissa Rolfe, was fired from her job at a mortgage lender because some employees felt uncomfortable working with her.

Such tactics work best when they force people to confess to seek repentance for the crimes they may or may not have committed. McCarthy knew this, and so he always offered lenience to suspected communists who would “name names” and turn in other supposed conspirators. The woke inquisition uses the same tactic, forcing those caught in its maw to renounce prior statements they find objectionable. NFL quarterback Drew Brees surrendered to the roar while noted leftists such as J.K. Rowling and Noam Chomsky are being pilloried for their defense of free speech.

McCarthy was enabled by a frightened and compliant center-right. They knew he was wrong, but they also knew the anti-communist cause was right and were unsure how to embrace the just cause and excise the zealous overreach. It wasn’t until McCarthy attacked the U.S. Army that one man, attorney Joseph Welch, had the courage to speak up. “Have you no decency, sir?” he said as McCarthy tried to slander a colleague. The bubble burst, and people found the inquisitorial emperor had no clothes. The Senate censured him in 1954, and McCarthy died in 1957, a broken man.

It won’t be as easy to defeat the woke movement. There isn’t one person whose humiliation will break the spell. This movement is deep, decentralized and widespread. But it can be beaten if someone’s courage can awaken the center-left as Welch’s did for the 1950s center-right.

Can Joe Biden be that person? If elected, he might have to as the frenzy shows no signs of abating on its own. But if a man who says he’s running to save the soul of America cannot defend America’s heart and soul, millions will have the right to ask him Welch’s immortal question: Have you no decency, sir?

[Doctor Phibes]

What we need is genuine leadership to find a way out of this mess, without making it any worse.

What we're offered is anything but, by either side.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

What we need is genuine leadership to find a way out of this mess, without making it any worse.

What we're offered is anything but, by either side.

I really can't imagine a scenario in which Joe Biden would stand up to this. He's Mr. Appeasement. At least Trump isn't. And Trump being president does embolden 'Murricans not to put up with this "inclusivity minus yourself of course" B.S. That's at least something.

I have no respect at all for the orange Cheeto, but who else is available?

[Horace]

I feel it necessary to concede that the only leader America will fully accept is a black person. I feel strongly that the right should proceed to elect one.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

What we need is genuine leadership to find a way out of this mess, without making it any worse.

What we're offered is anything but, by either side.

I really can't imagine a scenario in which Joe Biden would stand up to this. He's Mr. Appeasement. At least Trump isn't. And Trump being president does embolden 'Murricans not to put up with this "inclusivity minus yourself of course" B.S. That's at least something.

I have no respect at all for the orange Cheeto, but who else is available?

You're given a choice between appeasement and dickhead, each representing the more "outspoken" members of society. Neither is likely to improve things.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@Aqua-Letifer said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Bari Weiss resigns from the Times:

What we need is genuine leadership to find a way out of this mess, without making it any worse.

What we're offered is anything but, by either side.

I really can't imagine a scenario in which Joe Biden would stand up to this. He's Mr. Appeasement. At least Trump isn't. And Trump being president does embolden 'Murricans not to put up with this "inclusivity minus yourself of course" B.S. That's at least something.

I have no respect at all for the orange Cheeto, but who else is available?

You're given a choice between appeasement and dickhead, each representing the more "outspoken" members of society. Neither is likely to improve things.

Yeah but at this point I trust the Trumpists more than I do the woke crowd. The former wouldn't spend a ton of effort taking me down publicly for my whiteness. The latter absolutely would if I was deemed important enough to vilify.

[Horace]

I do not find the equalization of crazy and dangerous between Trumpists and the woke to be a well considered argument. I think people confuse Trump with his voters. But there is no confusion between a mob and members of it.

[Doctor Phibes]

I must admit if I lived in CA I might see things rather differently.