To Everyone Looking For “Denunciations”

The other day, a “progressive” – a onetime prog-blogger, who seems to have gone to intellectual seed just a bit – snarked at me on social media; “I haven’t seen your resounding denunciation of the Nazis”. (A lesser light who started his political life well in the “To Seed” camp asked me a parallel question – “Did you ever vote for David Duke?”).

You’d think you progs would be more aware of the history of rhetoric like “did you denounce them with satisfactory fervor? Hm? No? What does THAT tell us?” Orwell wrote a book about it. Stalin held show trials over it. Millions disappeared from this earth over it. (Did you ever denounce that? Send the cite, please).

But what the heck. Let’s put it on the record.

If you’re member of any group that inflicts violence – literal or rhetorical – on people over their race, religion, preference, worldview or other aspecf of humanity? Klan, Nazi, “Anti”-Fa or Philly fan?

Go to hell.

And if you are one of those sanctimonious virtue-signalers who theatrically demand (“when did you stop beating your wife?”) show-trial denunciations?

You go to hell too. I’m not saying you’re a totalitarian. Merely that totalitarians need lots of people like you to have a chance of taking over a society.

That should take care of it.

Posted

August 17, 2017

Culture War, Slander Files

Mitch Berg

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Comments

46 responses to “To Everyone Looking For “Denunciations””

nerdbert

August 17, 2017

It would be interesting to see whether that ex-prog-blogger made a sufficient denunciation of Hodgkinson, the GOP shooter. I suppose you could go back through the tweets you have to see if any was made. Sadly, somehow I think nothing more than a passing reference to gun control was made.
Joe Doakes

August 17, 2017

The demand for ritual denunciation offends me. Why must I denounce your pet peeve? Who are you to tell me what I must denounce, and in what manner?

Anyone who has not sufficiently abased himself denouncing the Annexation of Schleswig-Holstein is a hater. I don’t answer to haters.
Ian in Iowa

August 17, 2017

These folks would have been a good fit in the Soviet Union under Stalin or North Korea under any of the Kim family. They are essentially demanding anyone to the right of them give a loyalty oath. Put them in an auditorium, get one of them to “courageously” denounce Nazism, then watch what happens to the poor fellow who’s the first to stop clapping.
mjb003

August 17, 2017

Before Trump was president, we still had these types of fringe groups. What was different was that everyone else ignored them. The media, the left, the right. These people who belonged to these fringe groups existed amongst us, lived, worked amongst us. Yes, their ideas are scary and I hope very few of them ever act out any violence against any person they seem to hate. But, if the groups are growing it’s because of the hysterical publicity they are getting. The media is no longer ignoring them. That has to be empowering. The left is angry and afraid of them. That has to be empowering. This whole, “if you don’t denounce them, you’re with them” thing is ridiculous. Of course the majority of people don’t agree with them, whether we denounce them or not. But obsessing over fringe groups like this does not solve any problems. Let them have their 15 minutes, let them have their little rallies around the country. Let’s all just yawn and look away.
justplainangry

August 17, 2017

Let’s all just yawn and look away.

Not as long as there is way to exploit them for your end, no matter how violent the means.
mjb003

August 17, 2017

JPA- Almost added a similar sentiment to the end of my post, but your words were a lot more clear than what I was starting to type.
justplainangry

August 17, 2017

but your words were a lot more clear

Hey, there is a first for everything! Thank you.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 17, 2017

Sixty-two percent of Americans want to keep confederate statues:
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/poll-62-americans-favor-keeping-confederate-statues
Imagine just how insane you have to be to believe that 62% of your fellow Americans — people you are expected to govern with — are no better than Nazis.
And yet, they won’t leave. If I believed that 62% of Americans were no better than Nazis (or Stalinists) I would be out of here real fast.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 17, 2017

I am looking forward to Emery explaining to us that Islam had nothing to do with the Isis attack in Spain today that killed twelve people.
bikebubba

August 17, 2017

Personally, I like how the Washington Post gave Trump a “pants on fire” for repeating the story about Pershing and pig’s blood. While Trump did reference a story that historians consider dubious, it is a fact that Pershing’s correspondence does reveal that he used pigs to dissuade the rebels–just perhaps not in the way we tell the story.

So “not absolutely proven” means “liar liar pants on fire” if the Post is writing about a conservative, and probably means “mostly true” if they’re writing about a Democrat. No double standard there.
Emery

August 17, 2017

Woolly, I’m waiting now for Trump to condemn (and affirm) both sides in Barcelona.
Mr. D

August 18, 2017

Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.
Joe Doakes

August 18, 2017

Emery, that’s the sort of false moral equivalence beloved of Liberals and despised by thinking people. It’s what makes ordinary citiens vote for guys like Trump.

Keep up the good work!
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

Emery on August 17, 2017 at 9:41 pm said:
Woolly, I’m waiting now for Trump to condemn (and affirm) both sides in Barcelona.
What would Trump condemn and affirm on the non-killer side? That they had a right to live? That they were making a legitimate point by doing nothing to anyone?
That’s an amazing bit of false equivalency you’ve got going there, fella.
justplainangry

August 18, 2017

MP, give eTASS a break. He could not find anything to copy and paste and so had to shove the foot further into his throat. Besides, he is too busy looking to prove his statement “Bannon, Miller and Gorka are white supremacists” is true and not a lie. You know, eTASS never tells a lie… or repeats one…
Emery

August 18, 2017

Woolly, Trump wasn’t factually wrong to call out the violence on both sides. He was completely tone-deaf, and doesn’t understand the role of the President. The most important note to strike was to condemn everything that the white nationalists had to say, because a President can never support those who seek to divide the citizenry. Only the president can do that, and he must do it. Then, having said that, he could have gone on to support the governor, the mayor, and the chief of police for handling the violence, and warn that demonstrators who bring clubs or guns to rallies are enemies to democracy who will be dealt with harshly, no matter their political affiliation. If Trump was a competent communicator who understood his job, he could have sent both those messages clearly. And he would have been better than Obama, who would have skipped the second message. Instead, Trump blurs the two messages and ends up looking like a white nationalist supporter. The man is far to confused politically to be a white nationalist. To be an extremist of any sort requires a level of consistency of which Trump is not capable.
golfdoc50

August 18, 2017

All this denunciation BS reminds me of the passage in The Gulag Archipelago describing the unending applause produced by audiences of Party members listening to a speech by one of the higher ups. Seems that whoever stopped applauding first was liable to be accused of disloyalty to the State and be the next one on trial. And then shot. We haven’t arrived at the shooting part, except in a figurative sense.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

I think Emery visits fringe left web sites and swallows whole whatever crazed, shabby ideas they spout. There is no critical thought behind the accusations that “white nationalism” is any part of the Trump administration. You saw that the other day when Emery claimed that Trump had said that all Mexicans were rapists, and all Muslims were terrorists. When I called him out on it, he retreated fast. The claim that all members of a race or ethnicity have crimes to answer for is repugnant, and it is readily and eagerly embraced by the modern American Left — meaning all of our cultural and educational institutions.
But Emery probably still believes that there is evidence that Trump said such things.
I’ve seen this madness before, on both the Left and Right, but never so much as is sourced from the Left now, and never before have I seen it reach so high into the ranks of the ‘respectable opposition.’
Good God, if you think Trump is bad, just think of what the country would be like if these antifa lunatics were in charge. Widespread censorship, show trials, the open embrace of the idea that your political rights as an American depend on your ethnicity . . .
Emery

August 18, 2017

I think the Democrats will move left, continue to lose elections, then reverse, perhaps after a Trump re-election. The Republicans are stumbling towards their populist future, but much of the money behind the party will do what it can to hold them back. Wall street and the Fortune 500 don’t want to support either populist Republicans or leftist Democrats. In 5 years, after moving left and losing, I think the Democrats will take the money and become more Macron-like, business friendly, socially liberal, open to trade, etc. In the mean-time, I fully expect more political violence, and with the Republicans in power, it will more likely come from the left.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

In 5 years, after moving left and losing, I think the Democrats will take the money and become more Macron-like, business friendly, socially liberal, open to trade, etc.

More like Hillary Clinton?
The Clinton’s centrist DLC was dissolved years ago. It’s demise was an important event in politics (it signaled a return to the far Left in the D party), but it went almost completely un noted in the media, probably because the media were moving further left as well.
I don’t think the center-Left can win anymore in the Democrat’s party politics, Emery. The Dem base, meaning the activists who become delegates, are hard-wired to be labor and grievance group activists in the D party (unlike the GOP, the Dems have quotas). If the typical delegate to the Republican National Convention is a business man/business woman, the typical delegate to the Democrat National Convention is a public employee union member and a member of a racial and/or sexual minority. They hate the America that actually exists. Hillary moved towards Bernie’s positions, Bernie didn’t move toward Hillary’s positions.
Emery

August 18, 2017

We are seeing a shifting of axes in American politics, which brings with it much confusion. Both the right and the left are fissioning, spawning radical and often ugly sub-groups. Many on the right are disgusted with Trump, and would never support white supremists. Many on the left would never support groups that bring clubs to demonstrations and beat on their opponents. Is the right best represented by Trump, Mitch McConnell, or Paul Ryan? Is the left best represented by Bernie Sanders, Chuck Shumer, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi? All of these political names generate more negative responses that positive, and all are disliked by some in their own party.

I think we will see a continuing and growing series of violent demonstrations by interest groups who do not feel their voice is being heard loudly enough through normal democratic channels, like the period 1965-1975. Lots of bombings and domestic terrorism. I think at the same time we will see a political re-alignment that will not involve any of the above figures (most of them baby boomers). The new political axes have yet to be defined, and it is not clear whether the two parties will still be labeled Democrat and Republican (probably). I think one is likely to be socially liberal, fiscally conservative, lowish tax, and open to the outside world, while the other is socially conservative, populist, and profligate. For the Democrats to become the first, they need to reject Bernie fans, and for the Republicans to become the second, they would lose Pence and Ryan. So it’s not necessarily going to happen, and it won’t happen quickly. During the years when that re-alignment is happening, groups that feel rejected by the two parties will be the ones acting outside of normal democratic channels, loudly and violently.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

But where will these Left & Right extremists go, Emery?
Defusing the extreme right isn’t difficult. Return to a more federalist style of government, with the people of wherever deciding which statues they want int heir public places (w/o fear of the JD taking over the city/count/state government).
How do you defuse the radical Left? They are in control of the media, the education system, and the bureaucracies of the federal government. No one can vote them out of office. Where I work, one of the universities we have as a client just decided to spend nine million dollars per year on an office of inclusion. It will have 30 staffers. This is a taxpayer subsidized public college, a branch of the UC system with < 30,000 undergrads, in a time when per-student state subsidies are in decline.
Emery

August 18, 2017

Note that with the previous re-alignment, the Democrats had to excise the McGovernites and the southern segregationists, and the Republicans had to excise the Rockefellerites and embrace the southern segregationists before the new axes were clear. McGovern and Ford had to lose elections to drive home the point. It wasn’t until 1980 that the transformation was complete. That process took 15 years, and this one could as well; we’re not 5 years into this one yet.
bikebubba

August 18, 2017

The Republicans “embraced” the Southern segregationists by voting Civil Rights into law and the Constitution, Emery? I know, I know, the “Southern Strategy” mythology has been a big part of Democratic Party lore for a long time, but doncha think that maybe, just maybe, you ought to test that hypothesis with data?

Maybe….you could notice that it was a couple of decades after the Civil Rights Act was passed that Southerners actually started voting Republican? That the party of Jim Crow and the KKK, the Democrats, actually kept the secesssionist wing except for a blip with the Dixiecrats, and it was the children who grew up in integrated schools who started voting Republican?

Honestly, Emery, aren’t you tired of repeating that idiot slander?
Emery

August 18, 2017

The Republicans collapsed first in 1964, which allowed the Democrats a majority to make changes, changes that would doom it politically. The Republicans recovered first and dominated in the 1980s while the Democrats were still figuring out their new identity, which allowed them to make changes even when they didn’t have full control of Congress.

There was never a bipartisan consensus in Congress, or not since WW2 at least. There are periods where one party is ideologically and/or electorally dominant. The Republicans are electorally dominant now, but ideologically incoherent. So they could make changes, but aren’t. It could be a while before a party has both the power to make changes and the vision to know what changes to make.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

I think that you make a fundamental mistake, Emery.
How much of today’s GOP endorses segregation: (hint: 0)
How much of today’s Democrat Party endorses McGovernism: (hint: 90%)
In the late 60’s the Democrats purposefully and clearly changed their alignment to hard Left by changing the rules that selected delegates to the national convention. The GOP has done nothing similar. The GOP is more fractured than the Dems (who brook no dissent). As Mitch has mentioned (IIRC), the GOP is a three-legged stool: white working class patriots, Randian capitalists, and social conservatives. The social conservatives and the white working class were abandoned by the Democrats post ’68. They moved to the GOP in the 70s because the GOP was weak and in disarray following Watergate.
Pre 1968 the GOP was seen as pro business and the Democrats were seen as pro labor. Neither party was seen as more pro-American or pro-Military than the other. When I tell young people that both Nixon and McGovern were decorated officers in WW2, and that neither of them made a big deal about it in the ’72 election, they have a hard time believing me.
Loren

August 18, 2017

When did Al Gore Sr become a Republican? Ditto Al Gore Jr.? Sr. voted against the Civil Rights Act. Hence by Emery’s theory, he became a Republican.
justplainangry

August 18, 2017

Hey, eTASS. While you were moving the goalposts to Cleveland, did you come up with the proof that Bannon, Miller and Gorka are white supremacists? Because you know, every time you tell a lie, it is kinda hard to read anything you spew to take seriously. Chop, chop! But please, we all need a laugh once in a while at someone’s stupidity and inanity, so thank you for the opportunity. Carry on.
Emery

August 18, 2017

Bannon is out, please try and keep up.

While most presidential terms are characterized by their accomplishments and policies, the Trump White House will be characterized by its missteps, mistakes and little pieces of wreckage left in its wake.
justplainangry

August 18, 2017

Bannon is out, please try and keep up.

Huh? This somehow proves Bannon is a white supremacist and you were not lying? Riiiight… I cannot even suggest you to stop digging – you cannot fall further. But I am sure you will try. So keep trying, snowflake and keep on bringing us joy of laughter.
bikebubba

August 18, 2017

Yes, Emery, Bannon is out. However, that does not let you off the hook for slandering him by quoting others who slandered him, Lobachevsky.
Emery

August 18, 2017

It would appear Trump’s Chief of Staff won this battle. I expect Republicans will now claim that with Bannon gone, Trump will normalize, pivot and become an acceptable leader.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 18, 2017

I expect Republicans will now claim that with Bannon gone, Trump will normalize, pivot and become an acceptable leader.
Don’t count on it. The #nevertrumper’s are too heavily vested. It will be their democrat-light party or Trump’s party. If it reverts to the party of the Bushes, that leaves one heck of a lot of votes out there for either a D or R candidate to pick up.
Alt-Good Swiftee

August 18, 2017

Saw today that the reprobates have turned their ISIS fetish worship in destroying historical monuments towards Stone Mountain.

I predict that if they actually move to destroy it, there will be blood on the soil.

The carving on Stone Mountain is the largest bas relief carving in the world. It also memorializes three honorable men who mutually pledged to each other their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor.

They lost the war, one lost his life and all lost their fortunes…but none lost their sacred honor in any part. Not then, and not now.
Emery

August 18, 2017

Woolly, Bannon’s goal was and is to destroy the Republican establishment. That goal may be within sight. Just putting Trump in the White House advances this goal significantly. But Bannon also advances two issues particularly divisive within the Republican-conservative partnership. These are the two big insurgent issues: the rise of China as an existential threat to American dominance and the long struggle with Radical Islam. His critique that the American foreign policy establishment has led a failed military crusade to defeat and contain Islamic radicalism for almost two decades now resonates with perceived outsiders (and others). These issues look to be hardy perennials over on the nationalist right for years to come and will completely separate that wing of the conservative movement from the internationalist-minded Republican business community and moderates.

There is another development to mark as August turns towards September. Mr Trump now owns the Middle East and Afghanistan. These are the ultimate no-win swamps on the American political landscape.
Joe Doakes

August 19, 2017

Trump now owns the Middle East and Afghanistan? Well, sort of – in the way that I own the family car when the tow truck drops it off after the teenager borrowed it for the evening and the tow truck driver says to me: “It’s your problem now.”
Emery

August 19, 2017

For all the complaints about Iraq and Afghanistan, the next war is in the works in the Far East. No one seems to be the wiser — or worse — seem to care. But we can’t be worried about that now. Not when most of our forces are finally trained and configured to fight the wars we are currently losing. What are you thinking Joe?

Calling the Afghan war the “right war” in 2008 was a big mistake but no one called Bush on it. So, given the past apathy, I assume that the American public won’t even react to a decision to stay and introduce more troops. I mean did you see what happened on the Bachelorette, OMG, like wow, too crazy.

In Afghanistan, winning is not possible. And the only “end” for the United States is to decide to pack up and go home.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 19, 2017

The person who is president of the US (and his policies) will have far less an affect on ME-American relations (and relations between the US and the Islamic World) than US energy independence.
I rarely make predictions, but I will make an exception for this. You can see this already. ME Turmoil and terrorism is rarely mentioned, these days, in the context of oil prices.
Emery

August 19, 2017

Afghanistan is suffering from America-Pakistan partnership that has led to this never ending Afghan war and the misery of its people.

As with it’s predecessors, Trump’s America does not want to go after the root cause of the Afghan problem safely ensconced in a nuclear-armed Pakistan. So the only way left for Trump’s America to prevent Pakistan from installing its puppet Taliban rule is permanently stationing US troops in Afghanistan just like in South Korea.
Mammuthus Primigenius

August 19, 2017

Afghanistan and its Taliban would have been a regional issue if it hadn’t spawned 9/11. No reason it could not become a regional issue again, if we would exercise a little control over who we allow into the US.
Emery

August 19, 2017

If America starts thinking that mortgaging their great-grandchildren’s future for more ‘failure to win’ isn’t worth anything good we may get out of Afghanistan.

Does HR McMasters have the balls to say and do the right things? He was great at looking at them in the rear view mirror.
How about the front windshield?
Emery

August 20, 2017

Woolly said: “The #nevertrumper’s are too heavily vested. It will be their democrat-light party or Trump’s party. If it reverts to the party of the Bushes, that leaves one heck of a lot of votes out there for either a D or R candidate to pick up.”

Most likely, Bannon will be explosively divisive for both the White House and the Republican party as Bannon channels the populist anger that put the reasonably unified Republican party into the White House and now turns that power into divisive insurgent warfare against the Republican party. A motivated group of disrupters will stand ready to wreak havoc in Republican primaries in 2018 and 2020. Every strategist will have to give consideration to the nationalist wing. All those proper and Protestant Main Street Republicans will stand aghast as Bannon’s ‘motorcycle gang’ rides into town.

Bannon to date has been good at targeting, has an eye for theme, but is sloppy and poisonous in execution and messaging. For example, the Muslim travel ban was flawed in concept and incredibly incompetent in execution.

Overall, the choice of the term “globalists” to describe the elite “them” that he is targeting is shrewd and potentially effective. It tells the audience who “they” are. The term “globalists” also ties into popular resentment against trade, immigration, and rising discontent with endless wars that seem to accomplish nothing. And economically, Bannon identifies with the cohort being “left behind” and therefore he is simply running against Washington “powers that be” and other figures of the commanding heights. They will also be easy pickings for an insurgency-themed political movement.

Trump’s problem is that Bannon was and is the leading person “of the base” — the person who mediates the message — while Trump has just been an expression of it. When Trump quits expressing its angers and resentments, he loses the base. And he has no other visible signs of major support. So Trump winds up being left to do “the right thing” under the guidance of a bunch of Washington establishment wonks who have “captured” him, led by all the dubious Goldman Sachs subordinates, etc. So Trump will be doing things during the day under the direction of “The Democrats” and tweeting something else out at night in an effort to stay connected to ‘The Anger’.

Bannon may create a virtual Breitbart Donald Trump that the nationalists thought they were electing and then compare this idealized Trump to the fumbling braggart actually in the White House under the control of “The Democrats.” The White House Donald Trump will be a complete creation and under the control of Jared Kushner and his cabal in Bannon’s new world view. This would create dissonance and anger within the base. The Donald Trump behind the White House podium becomes The Big Sellout.

There will be a Washington establishment view of the world, and an opposing Bannon view of the world which sees China as a rising, existential threat to Washington and Radical Islam as an implacable foe. The Bannonistas will be screaming “appeasement” at every turn as they see themselves as the reincarnation of Paul Revere and the sacred mission of The Midnight Ride.

The Congressional Republicans will watch this media-based civil war between the White House and the base with horror as it tears apart cherished concepts of unity and constantly re-emphasizes division on fundamental policy, between cosmopolitan internationalism and nationalist nativism. Visually, it’s a fight between the limousines and the Harley Davidsons.
justplainangry

August 20, 2017

My, my, my. Bannon, bannon, bannon. And yet, no proof that he is a white supremacist as you have categorically stated earlier, eTASS. And if you cannot prove your earlier statement, what are we to think of your follow up screeds. Nothing but, that you know nothing what you copy and paste about, and that anything you say is lies and innuendo and nothing but piss in the wind. You are your own worst enemy.
Emery

August 20, 2017

Are you able to provide a link to your claim re: “white supremacist”?
justplainangry

August 21, 2017

Oddly enough, I have never made that claim. But you have. You gotta try harder, troll.
Emery

August 21, 2017

Drop 🎤