I have been running the Oscar website AwardsDaily.com since 1999. I was one of the leaders pushing for inclusion and diversity starting back in 2001 when Halle Berry became the first black actress (and since, only black actress) to win in the category. It is hard to overstate just how hard it it was for actors, writers and directors to p…
I have been running the Oscar website AwardsDaily.com since 1999. I was one of the leaders pushing for inclusion and diversity starting back in 2001 when Halle Berry became the first black actress (and since, only black actress) to win in the category. It is hard to overstate just how hard it it was for actors, writers and directors to penetrate the white wall. I felt it was my moral duty to change that. But then Trump was elected. Then the community and the left became locked in a kind of mass hysteria. For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed. To them, it had to be about race because everything on the left was about race. We watched the witch hunts start on Twitter, then go after people who had done things, then go after people who had said things, then go after people who thought things. Now we are - in total collapse. I have shifted my own coverage (inspired by Bari Weiss) to push back, to speak out, to teach others not to be afraid of the mob and to encourage Hollywood to do the same. This industry cannot survive this moment. Art cannot survive outrage culture. It is killing everything all in the name of social justice. The Golden Globes being canceled was one of the most chilling things I have ever lived through. None of my colleagues would even acknowledge the winners, which trickled out on social media without an audience, without a show.
I myself have been chased around Twitter, called a White Supremacist and had my business threatened. I have a little Netflix show right now that people have tried to get me fired from - all because I speak my mind. It is like the Red Scare which morphed into the Black List which morphed into the McCarthy trials. Eventually it took Eisenhower to stop the madness.
The fear is palpable everywhere you look, and visible in every single one of their films because the ones that push back on that fear don't even their foot in the door.
Those who control the Democratic Party have the same problem as Hollywood right now. They don't realize that they have become an insulated, isolated aristocracy that uses race and social justice as a way to absolve themselves of the crime of success and privilege (like the Catholics before the Reformation). And in so doing is forced to label more than half the country that doesn't support them, racists.
I keep telling people that this, like all episodes of mass hysteria will end. Make sure when that happens that you were on the right side when the worst of it came down. History will not be kind.
Woke is just the latest Marxist incarnation. It, just as all things created using Marx's ideas will destroy everything it touches just as Stalin killed both opponents and supporters alike once they had outlived their usefulness or stepped one step outside his orthodoxy. Even Yezhov was killed once he knew to much. This is what will happen to "Wokewood".
"For the mostly educated" who are actually mostly braindead and clueless, Hillary Clinton "deserved" to take Bernie's nomination and "deserved" to be the first woman president. Think about that for a moment. I still am amazed that "educated" people can't see that Trump was a symptom, not a root case.
Thank you for this outstanding comment--and mostly thank you fighting the tide. I'm sure there are others like you in Hollywood. Hang in there. The artists will be the ones who save us.
"For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed.": -- Excuse me @Sasha Stone - what makes you think the moral puritans on the left are "educated"? I have met many of them all over the country and throughout the years. They are generally uneducated or quasi-educated, with little understanding of history and absolutely no understanding of economics and barely any of the sciences. They have no knowledge of rigorous philosophy, except for the popular stuff they read in literature.
To call these people "educated" just goes to show that they are good in masquerading and pretending to be knowledgeable individuals. They are anything but. Let's not insult people here by calling the typical leftist or worse the typical woke "educated".
I'll add that, in spite of their Ivy League cargo cult, they are also virtually innumerate, and most have never taken an actual college-level hard science class of any kind
Despite the polls, most people I know who despise illiberalism are well educated --masters, Ph.D.s., at least college. But so do my electrician and plumber. They count, too. Part of the problem is use of words like "elite." The activist class construes it literally and clearly -- comically -- thinks itself superior. Are radical identitarians really an "aristocracy"? The endless stream of vin ordinaire commenters, anchors in name only, and one-dimensional activists? More apt appellations are Party hacks, conformists. The Big Cheese propagandists are commissars. Education has become confused or synonymous with indoctrination --the latter virtually never a sign of a superior intelligence, which resists same.
Great insight. I wonder if it's time for a new alternative entertainment industry centered somewhere in "flyover country" that serves the silent majority of the country that is fed up with the BS from Hollywood. I would pay for that.
Hollywood produces whatever sells. Always has, always will. So, tell me, what movies do "flyover country" want to see that Hollywood refuses to produce?
I wish. I'd be rich. I'm asking because Mr. Block claims that Hollywood doesn't make films the "silent majority" in "flyover country" would enjoy. So I asked him to detail what kind of films he thinks Hollywood should make that "flyover country" would enjoy, but doesn't. I've lived in "flyover country" all my life and believe I am well served by Hollywood's offerings. But he's welcome to show me all the movies I've been missing.
I hate to even visit the idea upon you, but...have you ever read The Gulag Archipelago? What we are seeing here is a dress rehearsal. It begins with lies. You tolerate the lies. Then you repeat the lies. Then you lie to yourself.
Let's see, what level of question is that? Hmm...sort of like, "Mr. Cassidy, do you still beat or wife?" or maybe "Mr. Cassidy, does your mother know that you are stupid?" I am talking about the current Wokie logic that allows a far too significant group of Americans to continue to believe that trans men should be allowed to destroy womens' sports and/or that there is some genocide perpetrated on minorities from police officers.
“For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed.”
And that was their blinders. Thinking all educated people hated Trump and only stupid people liked Trump. The news really was that black and white on that view.
It’s the idea that smart people live on the coast and stupid hicks live in-land.
Trump is an embarrassment and anyone who supports Trump is reviled for not being embarrassed. These are Bobos in paradise, Bourgeois Bohemians, good taste is their cultural currency.
I know he says he is a conservative but that’s a platitude, kinda hollow. NYT needs too feign diversity of opinion, he is fully committed to their Overton window, what Wesley Yang calls the “Vertically integrated messaging apparatus “.
Unfortunately, they wouldn't know good taste if it jumped up and bit 'em in the ass. That's what's so pathetic--the ultra-lame parochialism of how they view the world. They remind me of listening to the utter inanity of aristocrats, commenting on the world around them with zero understanding.
Because they are all so poorly educated (in spite of their "pedigrees"), they know nothing about anything worth knowing: they substitute snark for wit, they label any POS as art, they can't write, they have no empathy because they've never done a lick of real work, with real people. It's an entire generation where vapid horseshit is the only product. All their precious races and genders, etc all crapping in a big funnel that releases only toxic sludge.
Even on the coasts - at least half of 'my circle' is Ivy League or Seven Sister...Smith, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, Tufts, Brown, Johns Hopkins...and they voted TRUMP...yup.
Thank you. That's encouraging. Try to find the book, written by two CNN employees, called The Great Revolt. A great experiment to try to understand the Trump voter.
One thing for sure, the Democrats, The Progressives, Leftists,etc still don't 'get it'. Just read the front page of The NYTimes (I for one have cancelled it after 35 years). It's as if they are putting their fingers in their ears. Trump supporters and the issues that drove them to the polls have not gone away.
You were (and are) far more a part of the problem than you realize, even today. You have not abandoned the beliefs whose consequences you complain about.
Well it's a complicated thing. I don't think pushing for inclusion back when I was doing it, around 2011, was wrong. It never made sense to me that there was such a white wall that could not be penetrated. And it didn't matter how much I wrote about it the general public was starting to notice and when Twitter came around the complaints against them got louder. I don't regret my contribution to making change. Some of that change has been a positive for the Oscars and for Hollywood. Times were changing and the Oscars had to change with them. But it went too far. Now it has gone too far. So I'm trying to do my part to bring things back. It might be too late. This movement was happening all over the country in 2013 and 2014 on college campuses and everywhere else. The Oscars were a sitting duck, like every other institution in this country, with or without my coverage.
Identity politics cannot have good results. So long as you diagnose "racism" via simple bean-counting rather than by scrutinizing methodology, you will contribute to similar problems. Wokeness is not a fluke; it's the only way identity politics can ever end.
If you think a specific black performer lost an award to an inferior white performer in a specific instance, speak against that injustice. That could be valid. But to say "there are too few black winners!" can never have good outcomes. If you don't realize that yet, then you will remain part of the problem.
Well with due respect, I'm not sure you understand fully what I think. I was telling you what I thought previously and that I do not regret that. Ultimately I am not a supporter of equity. Even in the past I advocated for films I thought were good enough but that were not getting the recognition they deserved because of baked in bias, which is obvious, especially when people win who do not deserve to win. I've been covering the Oscars for 20 years and I can give you plenty of examples of how it's a popularity contest more than it is anything else. Films win for a variety of reasons that don't necessarily mean the best film won. In general the Oscars themselves have tried to vote for movies they believed told a righteous message, like even Crash or Driving Miss Daisy. I have never advocated for someone to win because they were black. Winning is about gaining a consensus and gaining a consensus is often about falling in love with a person for a season. This has been true throughout Oscar history. What I saw were better performances go overlooked to favor the white actors again and again and again and again. You see that enough times and you begin to feel frustrated. Right now I don't feel that way, though I do think one black actress winning in 94 years of Oscar history is, um, shall we say kind of a glaring problem. But what we're talking about is different from what this piece here by Bari Weiss is about. It isn't about picking winners for the Oscars. It is about the entire industry losing its mind to a fundamentalist religion. If you think I am part of the problem then so be it. I've been on both sides of the issue and I have never exactly had a huge amount of respect for film awards. Not ever. Most of the time I've been covering them I do so knowing that the best do not win. It is a bigger picture than you make it out to be. It isn't just about what YOU think deserves to win. It is about what thousands think. Do I think they should vote based on woke doctrine? No. But do I think hardly any black actors would win if they didn't? Probably. I've written enough about this subject going on 15 years now. I don't really want to write much more here but just to say - my conscience is clean. Doesn't mean I don't want to encourage people to speak out, be honest and make good art again. I do.
Sasha, my 2 cents is that if both extremes hate you, you're probably doing something right.
Ideally, you want the woke left to think you're a fascist, and the MAGA right to think you're a communist. That's the best indicator that you're sticking with "Common Sense", as Bari puts it.
Liberal agrees with far righter. And the sky turned to fire . . .
Inclusion is always better. But since most institutions do not change until forced--the military wasn't integrated until Harry Truman ordered it so--how do you propose to get them to be inclusive voluntarily?
I know the difference. Liberals want to use government *appropriately.* That can be zero, minimal, maximal, or something in between, depending on the situation and need.
Minimize or eliminate it in some cases--we have 50 state departments of education, no reason to have a federal one. Maximize it in others--ensure taxes are collected from everyone who owes them, ensure criminals are prosecuted, ensure corporations do not break our laws in their natural pursuit of profits--i.e., Enron, Wells Fargo, and the S&L industry.
Does that mean imposing behavior? Sure, when the situation warrants. Speed limits impose behavior. Banning toxic waste from being dumped in our rivers imposes behavior. Arresting rioters and looters on the left and the right imposes behavior. There is nothing wrong with imposing behavior per se.
Liberals care only that the power of government and business do not abuse innocent people, who should be left alone as much as possible. At least this liberal cares about that.
Because it's not an abandonment of the toxic principles that caused the problem; it's only a complaint about their consequences. The post I replied to clearly includes a defense of identity politics, provided that they don't manifest in ways the writer finds harmful.
"Real communism hasn't been tried" isn't just a pithy right-wing retort - it's a description of the fact that the holders of toxic ideologies forever describe the inevitable consequences of their ideologies as a perversion of their ideologies rather than their natural result.
Ok you make your point well - bad ideology must be renounced not just bad outcome. That said I have a lot of sympathy for Sasha Stone’s new found realization that the well intended and laudable quest for inclusion and diversity has gone insane and begun cannibalizing itself. Baby steps I suppose.
There's a distinction between principles and ideologies. Principles can conflict, and tradeoffs need to be managed. Ideologies are primarily driven by denialism about tradeoffs.
There's plenty of room in between "real communism hasn't been tried" and "the soviet union was bad so I guess the poor can all go fuck themselves"
Your definitions of "principles" and "ideologies" are not common, nor have you actually defined a defensible distinction.
Your second paragraph is an absurdity; the notion that there is a relationship between caring about the poor and supporting communism is a communist lie.
A principle would be "income inequality shouldn't be allowed to spiral out of control". An ideology would be "when it comes to fighting inequality, the ends always justify the means"
You complaining that Sasha hasn't abandoned all her principles says more about you than her.
Do you understand that even a nuclear-strength critique of Progressive Wokeism and its endless disasters does not make one a conservative? It's just an affirmation of one's socio-political sanity.
I get that, being a centrist liberal who shit-talks wokeness constantly. Seriously devout conservatives, like JDFree, think people like me and Sasha are half-assing it by not going full-blown right wing.
"people that are full-blown right wing don't see government as the solution to social ills"
Good old anarcho-libertarianism. Abolish the military (it's part of the gov't), Defund the Police (also gov't), and get rid of those pinko commie fire departments. Even the trucks are red; dead giveaway that fire departments are a Marxist invention.
If your house catches on fire, I'm sure the free market will send someone right over to put it out.
Imagine that - using gov't as a tool to tackle shared problems. Also, if someone is behind on their payments, should a private sector fire department just let their house burn down for non-payment?
That's exactly what happened with fire brigades were private for-profits: you don't pay the annual fee, the brigade shows up to watch your house burn down.
It's why we started public fire brigades: so the entire community was protected from death and destruction, not just those with enough wealth to pay the annual fire bill.
I do not want to go back to the "good old days," because they weren't all that good for a lot of people.
I hope your optimism is justified. Major episodes of mass hysteria ended only because external factors intervened, not because they were bound to collapse.
Nazi Germany, an example of mass hysteria gripping the bulk of the German and Austrian population, as well as significant segments in France, ended only because of external forces: the Allied success in the war. Had Britain faltered in 1940, it might have reached a diplomatic agreement which left that regime in place.
Mass hysteria in China, starting with the personality cult in the 1950s did not end until the late 1970s.
Jesus, that comment on the Allied success in the WWII inevitably makes my blood boil in the same vein both Peters’ blood (presumably) was boiling about the lack of mention of the Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the role of Hollywood history (museum). The Allied forces arrived to pick a cherry on a cake after the generation of my selfless Soviet grandparents paid the butcher bill in the World War II fighting for two long years, (before the Allied arrival, and two long years after their arrival); pushing the Nazi back, while taking the stab in the back from their own government. In moments like this I feel that USA has fully deserved its fate by betraying the legacy of the Russian (Soviet) people who made the victory over Nazism possible.
The Allies in WW2 *** always*** refers to the Big Three: USSR, UK, US and was always mentioned that way in Churchill's 6 volume The Second World War.
Churchill himself described the Eastern Front as the "First Front", in comparison to the planned Second Front in Normandy. It is an unfortunate US-centricism that refers to the Allies as just US and UK, and to Eisenhower as "the man who defeated Hitler", one to which any serious history buff takes exception.
Adam Tooze's study of the Nazi economy showed the German Army had an average of 40,000 deaths /month on the Eastern Front and that in October 1941 his Armaments Minister, Fritz Todt, had a meeting with Hitler to inform him that the war could no longer be won by military means.
It was clear by mid-1943, after the Battle of Kursk, that the Red Army would be able to win the war on its own: Germany's official policy in the East became one of "strategic retreat" and Stalin toned down his requests for an Allied landing in France, as it would allow his armies to advance further into Europe.
That said, it is worth remembering that much of the Soviet losses were caused by Stalin's military ineptitude. His refusal to abandon Kiev in Sept 1941 led to 650,000 Soviet prisoners. His insistence of an wide-ranging offensive on January 5, 1942, after the victory at the Battle of Moscow, spread Soviet forces too thin and led to its defeat. In both cases Stalin was strongly contradicted by Gen Zhukov, the top Soviet (and Allied) commander of the war.
I certainly did not intend my comment the way you interpreted it, as just US and UK, and in my home we always celebrate November 19 as a great day. "Send a messenger to collect some fur gloves", Anthony Beevor, "Stalingrad".
Thank you for your long explanation, it returned my blood pressure back to normal. ;) I have a short fuse when it comes to the matters of WWII, because most of us, the Soviets grew up in the debris of that war, with every field trip starting elementary school involving the description of the Nazi atrocities on our land. So, when I arrived to the US as a scholar in 1998 and learnt what they teach here I was... shocked. I guess, I just never recovered from neither and now enter a PTSD trajectory every time I see a capital 'W' twice.... I appreciate your thoughtful attention to my comment!
I mean, the French and British weren't late to the fight (and neither were us Canadians I might add!!)
It was very specifically the Americans who were late to the party, but they tipped the scales (and don't they know it). The Nazis had to ease up on the Eastern Front once they were fighting American reinforcements on the Western Front.
That's not true: the German Army had 3/4 of its strength on the Eastern Front from June 1941 through the end of the war, measured both in men and in armor (see Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction").
Soviet T34 (and later T34-85) tanks were considerably superior to any in the US and UK inventory as well as most German designs, for which reason the Soviets requested not to receive any US or British tanks as part of Lend-Lease. Soviet armor operations, one recovered from Stalin's purges, proved more innovative than Germany's and led to massive encirclements at Stalingrad and in Bielorrussia and Ukraine; nothing of the sort happened on the Western Front.
The real Western contribution was the destruction of Germany's airforce, mainly during Big Week in Feb 1944, and the destruction of Germany's industry during the Strategic Air Offensive.
It's sobering to remember that Germany had 700,000 soldiers fighting partisans in the Balkans, 1,000,000 soldiers in France during D-Day, and 4 million soldiers on the Eastern Front.
Many popular books on the war in the East, by John Erickson, David Glantz, Richard Overy, Anthony Beevor are available. Erick Ziemcke has published a two-volume summary of the US Army study of that campaign.
An enjoyable read, for me, at least, of 6-7 of those books would definitely leave you better informed that you appear to be now.
Not true at all: the Germans started losing at the Battle of Stalingrad (Nov 19, 1942 - Jan 30, 1943).
That defeat, the greatest German defeat in recorded history since Julius Ceasar, had such an effect that for one month German radio stations could only broadcast somber music by Brahms and Beethoven.
By July 1943 the German summer offensive was crushed at the Battle of Kursk, the first time this had ever happened. After that the official German policy on the Eastern Front was "strategic retreat".
American involvement up to mid-1943 was limited to North Africa, a peripheral campaign as far as the Germans were concerned, undertaken only because Hitler was concerned about his Italian ally.
Well-read folks on WW2 in the Eastern Front are aware winter was a minor concern in July 1943 at the Battle of Kursk, where the bulk of Germany's armored force was destroyed.
After Mao's death, in other words. In our case, the half-senile gerontocracy of Biden et al. has to pass from the scene. It's the constant caving-in of the gerontocrats and older Boomers that gives this movement the momentum it has. Like the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it's not a youth movement, appearances apart. It's been engineered from the top down and by the older on the younger.
Well true but look at the Salem Witch trials and McCarthyism. Salem lasted about a year (witch hysteria much longer) and eventually ended because it just became too ridiculous - they accused the governor's wife of witchcraft. The same thing happened with McCarthyism. once he began accusing members of the military...that is when it all came toppling down. I have thought more than once that we might have arrived at the "it's just too ridiculous to last" moment but so far that hasn't happened.
And it won't happen so long as so many people don't understand woke absurdity to be the inevitable endgame of identity politics. You can't fix this problem while continuing to support its root cause.
True but even then... McCarthy tried to extend his campaign to the military and the threat that it would lead to a coup brought greater forces to defeat him. Today, the woke have taken the upper levels of the military, as one can see from the Navy recommended reading list
Salem witch trials happened around the time of the English Civil War, which had significant religious components. After the Restoration Charles II tried to defuse these with greater tolerance, leading to the end of witch burning in England and its colonies.
It's hard to see these episodes of fanaticism burning out on their own, with people realizing the insanity of their behavior.
One ray of hope is the courage of some individuals, like Bari Weiss and yourself, to take great risks against such opponents to defend individual freedom and tolerance.
I have been running the Oscar website AwardsDaily.com since 1999. I was one of the leaders pushing for inclusion and diversity starting back in 2001 when Halle Berry became the first black actress (and since, only black actress) to win in the category. It is hard to overstate just how hard it it was for actors, writers and directors to penetrate the white wall. I felt it was my moral duty to change that. But then Trump was elected. Then the community and the left became locked in a kind of mass hysteria. For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed. To them, it had to be about race because everything on the left was about race. We watched the witch hunts start on Twitter, then go after people who had done things, then go after people who had said things, then go after people who thought things. Now we are - in total collapse. I have shifted my own coverage (inspired by Bari Weiss) to push back, to speak out, to teach others not to be afraid of the mob and to encourage Hollywood to do the same. This industry cannot survive this moment. Art cannot survive outrage culture. It is killing everything all in the name of social justice. The Golden Globes being canceled was one of the most chilling things I have ever lived through. None of my colleagues would even acknowledge the winners, which trickled out on social media without an audience, without a show.
I myself have been chased around Twitter, called a White Supremacist and had my business threatened. I have a little Netflix show right now that people have tried to get me fired from - all because I speak my mind. It is like the Red Scare which morphed into the Black List which morphed into the McCarthy trials. Eventually it took Eisenhower to stop the madness.
The fear is palpable everywhere you look, and visible in every single one of their films because the ones that push back on that fear don't even their foot in the door.
Those who control the Democratic Party have the same problem as Hollywood right now. They don't realize that they have become an insulated, isolated aristocracy that uses race and social justice as a way to absolve themselves of the crime of success and privilege (like the Catholics before the Reformation). And in so doing is forced to label more than half the country that doesn't support them, racists.
I keep telling people that this, like all episodes of mass hysteria will end. Make sure when that happens that you were on the right side when the worst of it came down. History will not be kind.
Woke is just the latest Marxist incarnation. It, just as all things created using Marx's ideas will destroy everything it touches just as Stalin killed both opponents and supporters alike once they had outlived their usefulness or stepped one step outside his orthodoxy. Even Yezhov was killed once he knew to much. This is what will happen to "Wokewood".
This time it may very well not "end" in anything pretty and only recognizable in a science fiction dystopia.
and don't forget the other intersection of gender - where biological sex becomes meaningless and woman is just a feeling.
"For the mostly educated" who are actually mostly braindead and clueless, Hillary Clinton "deserved" to take Bernie's nomination and "deserved" to be the first woman president. Think about that for a moment. I still am amazed that "educated" people can't see that Trump was a symptom, not a root case.
Thank you for this outstanding comment--and mostly thank you fighting the tide. I'm sure there are others like you in Hollywood. Hang in there. The artists will be the ones who save us.
"For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed.": -- Excuse me @Sasha Stone - what makes you think the moral puritans on the left are "educated"? I have met many of them all over the country and throughout the years. They are generally uneducated or quasi-educated, with little understanding of history and absolutely no understanding of economics and barely any of the sciences. They have no knowledge of rigorous philosophy, except for the popular stuff they read in literature.
To call these people "educated" just goes to show that they are good in masquerading and pretending to be knowledgeable individuals. They are anything but. Let's not insult people here by calling the typical leftist or worse the typical woke "educated".
I'll add that, in spite of their Ivy League cargo cult, they are also virtually innumerate, and most have never taken an actual college-level hard science class of any kind
That would be because, apparently, math is now racist.
Think carefully before invoking Lebesgue's Dominated Convergence Theorem.
when race and sexuality trump talent bend over we are fucked
Thanks for this comment. It got me interested in your substack.
I, like so many others, am disillusioned, disheartened, disappointed.....disgusted by what seems to have happened to the modern Left.
Despite the polls, most people I know who despise illiberalism are well educated --masters, Ph.D.s., at least college. But so do my electrician and plumber. They count, too. Part of the problem is use of words like "elite." The activist class construes it literally and clearly -- comically -- thinks itself superior. Are radical identitarians really an "aristocracy"? The endless stream of vin ordinaire commenters, anchors in name only, and one-dimensional activists? More apt appellations are Party hacks, conformists. The Big Cheese propagandists are commissars. Education has become confused or synonymous with indoctrination --the latter virtually never a sign of a superior intelligence, which resists same.
Great insight. I wonder if it's time for a new alternative entertainment industry centered somewhere in "flyover country" that serves the silent majority of the country that is fed up with the BS from Hollywood. I would pay for that.
Hollywood produces whatever sells. Always has, always will. So, tell me, what movies do "flyover country" want to see that Hollywood refuses to produce?
I wish. I'd be rich. I'm asking because Mr. Block claims that Hollywood doesn't make films the "silent majority" in "flyover country" would enjoy. So I asked him to detail what kind of films he thinks Hollywood should make that "flyover country" would enjoy, but doesn't. I've lived in "flyover country" all my life and believe I am well served by Hollywood's offerings. But he's welcome to show me all the movies I've been missing.
It's been done. Zombies eat everyone, everywhere, and have in dozens of movies. Next idea that's been done to death?
"laugh their assess off watching the leftists offer the zombies equity."
Now this one is funny!
Same question to you, then: what movies should Hollywood produce that it doesn't?
There already is. The Daily Wire has a lot of content, including movies.
I hate to even visit the idea upon you, but...have you ever read The Gulag Archipelago? What we are seeing here is a dress rehearsal. It begins with lies. You tolerate the lies. Then you repeat the lies. Then you lie to yourself.
Are you talking about Donald Trump, the Republican Party, or both?
Let's see, what level of question is that? Hmm...sort of like, "Mr. Cassidy, do you still beat or wife?" or maybe "Mr. Cassidy, does your mother know that you are stupid?" I am talking about the current Wokie logic that allows a far too significant group of Americans to continue to believe that trans men should be allowed to destroy womens' sports and/or that there is some genocide perpetrated on minorities from police officers.
Very true, Comrade! But our Great Leader Biden will lead us to safety!
He's more likely talking about "men can get pregnant" and "hands up don't shoot".
Thank you for the support miles.
Thank you for providing your insights. Very valuable.
“For the mostly educated in this country it was a shock that people who would vote for Trump existed.”
And that was their blinders. Thinking all educated people hated Trump and only stupid people liked Trump. The news really was that black and white on that view.
It’s the idea that smart people live on the coast and stupid hicks live in-land.
Trump is an embarrassment and anyone who supports Trump is reviled for not being embarrassed. These are Bobos in paradise, Bourgeois Bohemians, good taste is their cultural currency.
You know Bobos in Paradise was the name of a book by a conservative. :)
Is David Brooks a conservative? I like him, he is quite brilliant.
As he has stated many times. Yes, good writer.
I know he says he is a conservative but that’s a platitude, kinda hollow. NYT needs too feign diversity of opinion, he is fully committed to their Overton window, what Wesley Yang calls the “Vertically integrated messaging apparatus “.
Very well put!
Unfortunately, they wouldn't know good taste if it jumped up and bit 'em in the ass. That's what's so pathetic--the ultra-lame parochialism of how they view the world. They remind me of listening to the utter inanity of aristocrats, commenting on the world around them with zero understanding.
Because they are all so poorly educated (in spite of their "pedigrees"), they know nothing about anything worth knowing: they substitute snark for wit, they label any POS as art, they can't write, they have no empathy because they've never done a lick of real work, with real people. It's an entire generation where vapid horseshit is the only product. All their precious races and genders, etc all crapping in a big funnel that releases only toxic sludge.
Have a nice day!
Good rant (great) , I enjoyed that.
Many thanks--sometimes they just come to me...;-)
Cathartic eh!
"...ultra-lame parochialism" Love it and the rest of your comment as well. You are on to something here.
Even on the coasts - at least half of 'my circle' is Ivy League or Seven Sister...Smith, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, Tufts, Brown, Johns Hopkins...and they voted TRUMP...yup.
Thank you. That's encouraging. Try to find the book, written by two CNN employees, called The Great Revolt. A great experiment to try to understand the Trump voter.
The Great Revolt - Salena Zito and Brad Todd.
Yes! Thank you.
One thing for sure, the Democrats, The Progressives, Leftists,etc still don't 'get it'. Just read the front page of The NYTimes (I for one have cancelled it after 35 years). It's as if they are putting their fingers in their ears. Trump supporters and the issues that drove them to the polls have not gone away.
You were (and are) far more a part of the problem than you realize, even today. You have not abandoned the beliefs whose consequences you complain about.
Well it's a complicated thing. I don't think pushing for inclusion back when I was doing it, around 2011, was wrong. It never made sense to me that there was such a white wall that could not be penetrated. And it didn't matter how much I wrote about it the general public was starting to notice and when Twitter came around the complaints against them got louder. I don't regret my contribution to making change. Some of that change has been a positive for the Oscars and for Hollywood. Times were changing and the Oscars had to change with them. But it went too far. Now it has gone too far. So I'm trying to do my part to bring things back. It might be too late. This movement was happening all over the country in 2013 and 2014 on college campuses and everywhere else. The Oscars were a sitting duck, like every other institution in this country, with or without my coverage.
Identity politics cannot have good results. So long as you diagnose "racism" via simple bean-counting rather than by scrutinizing methodology, you will contribute to similar problems. Wokeness is not a fluke; it's the only way identity politics can ever end.
If you think a specific black performer lost an award to an inferior white performer in a specific instance, speak against that injustice. That could be valid. But to say "there are too few black winners!" can never have good outcomes. If you don't realize that yet, then you will remain part of the problem.
Well with due respect, I'm not sure you understand fully what I think. I was telling you what I thought previously and that I do not regret that. Ultimately I am not a supporter of equity. Even in the past I advocated for films I thought were good enough but that were not getting the recognition they deserved because of baked in bias, which is obvious, especially when people win who do not deserve to win. I've been covering the Oscars for 20 years and I can give you plenty of examples of how it's a popularity contest more than it is anything else. Films win for a variety of reasons that don't necessarily mean the best film won. In general the Oscars themselves have tried to vote for movies they believed told a righteous message, like even Crash or Driving Miss Daisy. I have never advocated for someone to win because they were black. Winning is about gaining a consensus and gaining a consensus is often about falling in love with a person for a season. This has been true throughout Oscar history. What I saw were better performances go overlooked to favor the white actors again and again and again and again. You see that enough times and you begin to feel frustrated. Right now I don't feel that way, though I do think one black actress winning in 94 years of Oscar history is, um, shall we say kind of a glaring problem. But what we're talking about is different from what this piece here by Bari Weiss is about. It isn't about picking winners for the Oscars. It is about the entire industry losing its mind to a fundamentalist religion. If you think I am part of the problem then so be it. I've been on both sides of the issue and I have never exactly had a huge amount of respect for film awards. Not ever. Most of the time I've been covering them I do so knowing that the best do not win. It is a bigger picture than you make it out to be. It isn't just about what YOU think deserves to win. It is about what thousands think. Do I think they should vote based on woke doctrine? No. But do I think hardly any black actors would win if they didn't? Probably. I've written enough about this subject going on 15 years now. I don't really want to write much more here but just to say - my conscience is clean. Doesn't mean I don't want to encourage people to speak out, be honest and make good art again. I do.
Sorry, not this piece BY Bari -- I know she did not write it.
Sasha, my 2 cents is that if both extremes hate you, you're probably doing something right.
Ideally, you want the woke left to think you're a fascist, and the MAGA right to think you're a communist. That's the best indicator that you're sticking with "Common Sense", as Bari puts it.
It's funny, the woke lefties keep calling me a right-wing extremist.
Liberal agrees with far righter. And the sky turned to fire . . .
Inclusion is always better. But since most institutions do not change until forced--the military wasn't integrated until Harry Truman ordered it so--how do you propose to get them to be inclusive voluntarily?
I know the difference. Liberals want to use government *appropriately.* That can be zero, minimal, maximal, or something in between, depending on the situation and need.
Minimize or eliminate it in some cases--we have 50 state departments of education, no reason to have a federal one. Maximize it in others--ensure taxes are collected from everyone who owes them, ensure criminals are prosecuted, ensure corporations do not break our laws in their natural pursuit of profits--i.e., Enron, Wells Fargo, and the S&L industry.
Does that mean imposing behavior? Sure, when the situation warrants. Speed limits impose behavior. Banning toxic waste from being dumped in our rivers imposes behavior. Arresting rioters and looters on the left and the right imposes behavior. There is nothing wrong with imposing behavior per se.
Liberals care only that the power of government and business do not abuse innocent people, who should be left alone as much as possible. At least this liberal cares about that.
"far more a part of the problem than you realize, even today"
Must be nice to feel so profoundly insightful and knowledgeable. And they say wisdom comes from self reflection, constant questioning and humility.
Why is Sasha stones mea culpa not sufficient for you: sincere question?
Because it's not an abandonment of the toxic principles that caused the problem; it's only a complaint about their consequences. The post I replied to clearly includes a defense of identity politics, provided that they don't manifest in ways the writer finds harmful.
"Real communism hasn't been tried" isn't just a pithy right-wing retort - it's a description of the fact that the holders of toxic ideologies forever describe the inevitable consequences of their ideologies as a perversion of their ideologies rather than their natural result.
Ok you make your point well - bad ideology must be renounced not just bad outcome. That said I have a lot of sympathy for Sasha Stone’s new found realization that the well intended and laudable quest for inclusion and diversity has gone insane and begun cannibalizing itself. Baby steps I suppose.
There's a distinction between principles and ideologies. Principles can conflict, and tradeoffs need to be managed. Ideologies are primarily driven by denialism about tradeoffs.
There's plenty of room in between "real communism hasn't been tried" and "the soviet union was bad so I guess the poor can all go fuck themselves"
Your definitions of "principles" and "ideologies" are not common, nor have you actually defined a defensible distinction.
Your second paragraph is an absurdity; the notion that there is a relationship between caring about the poor and supporting communism is a communist lie.
A principle would be "income inequality shouldn't be allowed to spiral out of control". An ideology would be "when it comes to fighting inequality, the ends always justify the means"
You complaining that Sasha hasn't abandoned all her principles says more about you than her.
I think Miles first paragraph is fantastic: principle is quality, but ideology is Malthusian despotism.
MAGA-conservatives love to pile on the "I told you so's" whenever anyone to the left of Grover Norquist says wokeness is a problem.
Do you understand that even a nuclear-strength critique of Progressive Wokeism and its endless disasters does not make one a conservative? It's just an affirmation of one's socio-political sanity.
I get that, being a centrist liberal who shit-talks wokeness constantly. Seriously devout conservatives, like JDFree, think people like me and Sasha are half-assing it by not going full-blown right wing.
"people that are full-blown right wing don't see government as the solution to social ills"
Good old anarcho-libertarianism. Abolish the military (it's part of the gov't), Defund the Police (also gov't), and get rid of those pinko commie fire departments. Even the trucks are red; dead giveaway that fire departments are a Marxist invention.
If your house catches on fire, I'm sure the free market will send someone right over to put it out.
"Even the trucks are red; dead giveaway that fire departments are a Marxist invention."
We have a winner!
Yeah. Enron ran electrical utilities so much better than the public sector . . . oh, wait . . .
Imagine that - using gov't as a tool to tackle shared problems. Also, if someone is behind on their payments, should a private sector fire department just let their house burn down for non-payment?
That's exactly what happened with fire brigades were private for-profits: you don't pay the annual fee, the brigade shows up to watch your house burn down.
It's why we started public fire brigades: so the entire community was protected from death and destruction, not just those with enough wealth to pay the annual fire bill.
I do not want to go back to the "good old days," because they weren't all that good for a lot of people.
posts
multiple
across
replies
my
spread
don't
I
least
At
Your subsequent comment about communism and the poor suggests that you are the one whose radicalism is the problem here.
Thank you Sasha Stone for your informed and insightful posting. I am glad to see there are some sane voices left in the industry.
"all episodes of mass hysteria will end"
I hope your optimism is justified. Major episodes of mass hysteria ended only because external factors intervened, not because they were bound to collapse.
Nazi Germany, an example of mass hysteria gripping the bulk of the German and Austrian population, as well as significant segments in France, ended only because of external forces: the Allied success in the war. Had Britain faltered in 1940, it might have reached a diplomatic agreement which left that regime in place.
Mass hysteria in China, starting with the personality cult in the 1950s did not end until the late 1970s.
Jesus, that comment on the Allied success in the WWII inevitably makes my blood boil in the same vein both Peters’ blood (presumably) was boiling about the lack of mention of the Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the role of Hollywood history (museum). The Allied forces arrived to pick a cherry on a cake after the generation of my selfless Soviet grandparents paid the butcher bill in the World War II fighting for two long years, (before the Allied arrival, and two long years after their arrival); pushing the Nazi back, while taking the stab in the back from their own government. In moments like this I feel that USA has fully deserved its fate by betraying the legacy of the Russian (Soviet) people who made the victory over Nazism possible.
The Allies in WW2 *** always*** refers to the Big Three: USSR, UK, US and was always mentioned that way in Churchill's 6 volume The Second World War.
Churchill himself described the Eastern Front as the "First Front", in comparison to the planned Second Front in Normandy. It is an unfortunate US-centricism that refers to the Allies as just US and UK, and to Eisenhower as "the man who defeated Hitler", one to which any serious history buff takes exception.
Adam Tooze's study of the Nazi economy showed the German Army had an average of 40,000 deaths /month on the Eastern Front and that in October 1941 his Armaments Minister, Fritz Todt, had a meeting with Hitler to inform him that the war could no longer be won by military means.
It was clear by mid-1943, after the Battle of Kursk, that the Red Army would be able to win the war on its own: Germany's official policy in the East became one of "strategic retreat" and Stalin toned down his requests for an Allied landing in France, as it would allow his armies to advance further into Europe.
That said, it is worth remembering that much of the Soviet losses were caused by Stalin's military ineptitude. His refusal to abandon Kiev in Sept 1941 led to 650,000 Soviet prisoners. His insistence of an wide-ranging offensive on January 5, 1942, after the victory at the Battle of Moscow, spread Soviet forces too thin and led to its defeat. In both cases Stalin was strongly contradicted by Gen Zhukov, the top Soviet (and Allied) commander of the war.
I certainly did not intend my comment the way you interpreted it, as just US and UK, and in my home we always celebrate November 19 as a great day. "Send a messenger to collect some fur gloves", Anthony Beevor, "Stalingrad".
Thank you for your long explanation, it returned my blood pressure back to normal. ;) I have a short fuse when it comes to the matters of WWII, because most of us, the Soviets grew up in the debris of that war, with every field trip starting elementary school involving the description of the Nazi atrocities on our land. So, when I arrived to the US as a scholar in 1998 and learnt what they teach here I was... shocked. I guess, I just never recovered from neither and now enter a PTSD trajectory every time I see a capital 'W' twice.... I appreciate your thoughtful attention to my comment!
I mean, the French and British weren't late to the fight (and neither were us Canadians I might add!!)
It was very specifically the Americans who were late to the party, but they tipped the scales (and don't they know it). The Nazis had to ease up on the Eastern Front once they were fighting American reinforcements on the Western Front.
That's not true: the German Army had 3/4 of its strength on the Eastern Front from June 1941 through the end of the war, measured both in men and in armor (see Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction").
Soviet T34 (and later T34-85) tanks were considerably superior to any in the US and UK inventory as well as most German designs, for which reason the Soviets requested not to receive any US or British tanks as part of Lend-Lease. Soviet armor operations, one recovered from Stalin's purges, proved more innovative than Germany's and led to massive encirclements at Stalingrad and in Bielorrussia and Ukraine; nothing of the sort happened on the Western Front.
The real Western contribution was the destruction of Germany's airforce, mainly during Big Week in Feb 1944, and the destruction of Germany's industry during the Strategic Air Offensive.
It's sobering to remember that Germany had 700,000 soldiers fighting partisans in the Balkans, 1,000,000 soldiers in France during D-Day, and 4 million soldiers on the Eastern Front.
I heard 2/3 of men on Eastern Front, and materiel were held back because of the new American threat on the Western.
"I heard 2/3 of men on Eastern Front"
Is this some sort of negotiation?
Many popular books on the war in the East, by John Erickson, David Glantz, Richard Overy, Anthony Beevor are available. Erick Ziemcke has published a two-volume summary of the US Army study of that campaign.
An enjoyable read, for me, at least, of 6-7 of those books would definitely leave you better informed that you appear to be now.
Not true at all: the Germans started losing at the Battle of Stalingrad (Nov 19, 1942 - Jan 30, 1943).
That defeat, the greatest German defeat in recorded history since Julius Ceasar, had such an effect that for one month German radio stations could only broadcast somber music by Brahms and Beethoven.
By July 1943 the German summer offensive was crushed at the Battle of Kursk, the first time this had ever happened. After that the official German policy on the Eastern Front was "strategic retreat".
American involvement up to mid-1943 was limited to North Africa, a peripheral campaign as far as the Germans were concerned, undertaken only because Hitler was concerned about his Italian ally.
Well-read folks on WW2 in the Eastern Front are aware winter was a minor concern in July 1943 at the Battle of Kursk, where the bulk of Germany's armored force was destroyed.
Give some credit to General Winter
After Mao's death, in other words. In our case, the half-senile gerontocracy of Biden et al. has to pass from the scene. It's the constant caving-in of the gerontocrats and older Boomers that gives this movement the momentum it has. Like the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it's not a youth movement, appearances apart. It's been engineered from the top down and by the older on the younger.
Well true but look at the Salem Witch trials and McCarthyism. Salem lasted about a year (witch hysteria much longer) and eventually ended because it just became too ridiculous - they accused the governor's wife of witchcraft. The same thing happened with McCarthyism. once he began accusing members of the military...that is when it all came toppling down. I have thought more than once that we might have arrived at the "it's just too ridiculous to last" moment but so far that hasn't happened.
And it won't happen so long as so many people don't understand woke absurdity to be the inevitable endgame of identity politics. You can't fix this problem while continuing to support its root cause.
Some people think it's peaking. Let's hope Kotkin is right. http://www.newgeography.com/content/006888-peak-progressive
True but even then... McCarthy tried to extend his campaign to the military and the threat that it would lead to a coup brought greater forces to defeat him. Today, the woke have taken the upper levels of the military, as one can see from the Navy recommended reading list
https://libguides.usna.edu/c.php?g=410502&p=8208901
Salem witch trials happened around the time of the English Civil War, which had significant religious components. After the Restoration Charles II tried to defuse these with greater tolerance, leading to the end of witch burning in England and its colonies.
It's hard to see these episodes of fanaticism burning out on their own, with people realizing the insanity of their behavior.
One ray of hope is the courage of some individuals, like Bari Weiss and yourself, to take great risks against such opponents to defend individual freedom and tolerance.