I’m Fighting the Left’s Culture War One Bagel at a Time
By Clarice Feldman
At first I dismissed the Democrats' subsidized street riots and vandalism, moronic election recount demands, and perfervid attacks on Trump and his supporters in the press as a demonstration of their juvenile, narcissistic refusal to accept defeat. Then I read the brilliant essay by Angelo Codevilla
It’s a bit long and I know your Sundays are busy but if you can’t read it all at once, I’ll summarize what I think are the most significant points in the hope that if the topic is of interest you’ll read it all. He traces the notion of political correctness from the 1930 Communist movement through Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” configuration to the modern Democratic Party and finds in them a familiar strain:
[A]ll progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically -- i.e., what thoughts serve the party’s interest -- were correct factually.
Communist states furnish only the most prominent examples of such attempted groupthink. Progressive parties everywhere have sought to monopolize educational and cultural institutions in order to force those under their thumbs to sing their tunes or to shut up. But having brought about the opposite of the prosperity, health, wisdom, or happiness that their ideology advertised, they have been unable to force folks to ignore the gap between political correctness and reality.
He argues that this effort is bound to fail and progressives everywhere have had the same reaction “to this failure by becoming their own reason for being.” Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their
ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the
objects of never-ending warfare.
Unlike the Machiavellian Gramscian model of attaining power through cultural hegemony and
coopting the institutions which might oppose them, the American left has chosen to go even
further and pick “fights with the common sense of people it cannot wholly control.” American
schools of education taught a version of America in which this country “was born tainted by Western original sins -- racism, sexism, greed and genocide against natives and the environment all wrapped in religious obscurantism and on the basis of hypocritical promises of freedom and equality.” These teachers created “a uniform class” which “now presides over nearly all federal and state, government bureaucracies, over the media, the educational establishment, and major corporations.”
By Clarice Feldman
At first I dismissed the Democrats' subsidized street riots and vandalism, moronic election recount demands, and perfervid attacks on Trump and his supporters in the press as a demonstration of their juvenile, narcissistic refusal to accept defeat. Then I read the brilliant essay by Angelo Codevilla
It’s a bit long and I know your Sundays are busy but if you can’t read it all at once, I’ll summarize what I think are the most significant points in the hope that if the topic is of interest you’ll read it all. He traces the notion of political correctness from the 1930 Communist movement through Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural hegemony” configuration to the modern Democratic Party and finds in them a familiar strain:
[A]ll progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically -- i.e., what thoughts serve the party’s interest -- were correct factually.
Communist states furnish only the most prominent examples of such attempted groupthink. Progressive parties everywhere have sought to monopolize educational and cultural institutions in order to force those under their thumbs to sing their tunes or to shut up. But having brought about the opposite of the prosperity, health, wisdom, or happiness that their ideology advertised, they have been unable to force folks to ignore the gap between political correctness and reality.
He argues that this effort is bound to fail and progressives everywhere have had the same reaction “to this failure by becoming their own reason for being.” Their movements are never about what they say they are. They are about gaining power for themselves and destroying any who stand in their way. Those who refuse to comply with their
ever-changing and ever more ridiculously unreal versions of nature and humanity must be the
objects of never-ending warfare.
Unlike the Machiavellian Gramscian model of attaining power through cultural hegemony and
coopting the institutions which might oppose them, the American left has chosen to go even
further and pick “fights with the common sense of people it cannot wholly control.” American
schools of education taught a version of America in which this country “was born tainted by Western original sins -- racism, sexism, greed and genocide against natives and the environment all wrapped in religious obscurantism and on the basis of hypocritical promises of freedom and equality.” These teachers created “a uniform class” which “now presides over nearly all federal and state, government bureaucracies, over the media, the educational establishment, and major corporations.”
Why does the American Left demand ever-new P.C. obeisances? In 2012 no one would have thought that defining
marriage between one man and one woman, as enshrined in U.S. law, would brand those who do so as motivated
by a culpable psychopathology called “homophobia,” subject to fines and near-outlaw status. Not until 2015-16
did it occur to anyone that requiring persons with male personal plumbing to use public bathrooms reserved for
men was a sign of the same pathology. Why had not these become part of the P.C. demands previously? Why is
there no canon of P.C. that, once filled, would require no further additions?
Because the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the American’s ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.
Because the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the American’s ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.
Hurting dissenters has become, he argues, “an addictive pleasure” because they really have no priorities beyond aggrandizing their own power.
The end result of this insult to voters was the election of Trump and the rejection, almost entirely, of the Democratic Party.
As if to underscore that the flailing left hasn’t got the message and insists it has the right to silence those who hold different opinions we have three examples this week: Kellogg’s attack on Breitbart, BuzzFeed’s attack on the Gaineses and the boycott of Goldberg’s Bagels in Baltimore. They are all on a different scale of course, but all reflect the common leftist conceit that they are the fonts of all that is good and true and the rest of us must comply with whatever is this day’s fashions -- from “global warming” to men in girls’ bathrooms, to ignoring Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal body parts.
Kellogg’s
To most of us, Kellogg's Cereal is breakfast fare (cereal, Pop-Tarts). What is less well-known is that its non-profit arm, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, funds and supports a dogs’ breakfast of unsavory leftwing operations -- from Soros’ Open Society to the odious foundation money-laundering outfit, the Tides Center.
This week, it flounced its skirts and announced it was pulling its advertising from the highly effective Breitbart site: “We regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are not aligned with our values as a company,” said Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s. “We recently reviewed the list of sites where our ads can be placed and decided to discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. We are working to remove our ads from that site.”
Breitbart regularly having challenged the orthodoxy of the mainstream media and the uniparty, every good leftist -- and I count Kellogg’s management in that category -- must do all it can to demonize it, despite the unrealistic and untrue charges against the site and Steve Bannon who was its former executive chair and now is chief strategist for president-elect Trump. (In the same manner, at a Harvard Symposium this week, the losing Clinton advisors attacked the Trump campaign for “racist dog whistles” t win the election. I suppose that’s easier than conceding they ran a dreadful campaign for a candidate who called those who opposed her “deplorables” and offered no policy reasons -- only her sex and time [poorly] served in elective office. They ought t read Codevilla for a clue.)
Chip and Joanna Gaines
Democratic candidates pay election-year homage to religious beliefs (Clinton, for example, talked about her “Methodist beliefs” forming her views). They are coopting religious organizations, inter alia, Mussolini-style by means of lavishly funding the “faith- based” NGOs which are paid per head to place unskilled, unvetted Moslem refugees on the U.S. welfare rolls in exchange for which they lobby for more such immigration. At the same it is no secret that the ruling elites make every effort to undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and attack believers.
This week’s designated target is HGTV’s “Fixer Upper couple Chip and Joanna Gaines”. In a particularly odious witch-hunting move, BuzzFeed posted that they attended a church whose pastor believes the Bible -- that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman.
Why anyone, other than the author of this piece, cares was a mystery to even the Washington Post, but if so, it’s because the Post’s writers haven’t been paying attention to the earlier successful anti-religious PC campaigns forcing wedding cake bakers and florists to serve at gay weddings or nuns to provide contraceptive coverage for their employees.
Ace of Spades Headquarters could not resist a response:
HGTV has a remodeling show "Fixer Upper" featuring Chip & Joanna Gaines. I've seen it a few times. They
appear to be nice couple and seem to do a good job. No religious overtones that I've seen.
One problem, the Gaines belong to a church where SSM is not accepted. The Gaines' have kept their mouths shut but are under pressure to state their beliefs.
So Christians who stay true to their beliefs are fair game? Right? Well, if Christians are to be held accountable for their beliefs. What about Muslims?
So if the Gaines' church and pastor can lead to their suspension and/or termination. (Stay tuned) What about a Muslim congressman?
Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) hasn't come out publicly for the exclusion of SSM. But it appears that his Imam has.
“It’s not within our paradigm, really, to change the word of God,” said Imam Makram El-Amin, leader of Masjid Al-Nur in Minneapolis. “Our religion is clear about this matter. It’s not a lifestyle that we accept as being part of the natural way of things for human beings. When it comes to that, that’s my position, and that’s Islam’s position. And this incident as tragic and terrible as it is that does not change that,” he said.
Until Congressman Ellison comes forth and denounces his Imam, his mosque and anti-homosexuality Keith Ellison is not in a position to run the DNC. Hell, he shouldn't even be a congressman. We won't even get into his Anti-Semitism and his ties to the Nation of Islam.
Goldberg’s Bagels
One problem, the Gaines belong to a church where SSM is not accepted. The Gaines' have kept their mouths shut but are under pressure to state their beliefs.
So Christians who stay true to their beliefs are fair game? Right? Well, if Christians are to be held accountable for their beliefs. What about Muslims?
So if the Gaines' church and pastor can lead to their suspension and/or termination. (Stay tuned) What about a Muslim congressman?
Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) hasn't come out publicly for the exclusion of SSM. But it appears that his Imam has.
“It’s not within our paradigm, really, to change the word of God,” said Imam Makram El-Amin, leader of Masjid Al-Nur in Minneapolis. “Our religion is clear about this matter. It’s not a lifestyle that we accept as being part of the natural way of things for human beings. When it comes to that, that’s my position, and that’s Islam’s position. And this incident as tragic and terrible as it is that does not change that,” he said.
Until Congressman Ellison comes forth and denounces his Imam, his mosque and anti-homosexuality Keith Ellison is not in a position to run the DNC. Hell, he shouldn't even be a congressman. We won't even get into his Anti-Semitism and his ties to the Nation of Islam.
If we can't have a Christian couple star in a 30 minute cable show about home fixer uppers, certainly we can't have an anti-homosexual bigot run the DNC.
But when it comes to the hypocrites left we know which religion is acceptable, don't we?
Goldberg’s Bagels
Goldberg’s Bagels is a small kosher bakery in Baltimore,
When a customer attacked pro-Trump supporters outside his store, claiming Trump was a rapist and racist, the shop owner tried to quell the disturbance by asking the woman to leave. She further insulted Trump and then his supporters. This prompted Mr. Drebin, the shop owner, to express his own support for Trump, after which his Facebook page was filled with insults suggesting Drebin approved of “anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia and alt-right leanings.” The entire PC shtick.
His business dropped by 15%.
Keep this stuff up and someday there won’t be a Democratic Party. In the meantime, I note that Goldberg’s Bagels has a website,
When a customer attacked pro-Trump supporters outside his store, claiming Trump was a rapist and racist, the shop owner tried to quell the disturbance by asking the woman to leave. She further insulted Trump and then his supporters. This prompted Mr. Drebin, the shop owner, to express his own support for Trump, after which his Facebook page was filled with insults suggesting Drebin approved of “anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia and alt-right leanings.” The entire PC shtick.
His business dropped by 15%.
Keep this stuff up and someday there won’t be a Democratic Party. In the meantime, I note that Goldberg’s Bagels has a website,
and you can order by mail. They’re very delicious, (So is Chik-fil-A, by the way.)
Let the left play the P.C. card all they want, I will fight to trump them every time.
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