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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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I haven’t seen a Kyrie Irving thread so I will start one.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34942326/nets-suspend-kyrie-irving-least-five-games-pay

Now I already canceled the NBA over the forced blm message but suspending Kyrie just makes me even less interested in watching a game. Personally I’ve played basketball 3-5 times a week for 30 years. I’ve also canceled Nike and refuse to where their shoes.

  • I don’t understand fight antisemitism movement. Jews seem to be doing fine in this country. It’s almost like everyone in blue tribe needs to make themselves a victim because otherwise they have no statue

  • Kyrie a weird guy but it’s not like on the court he’s promoting this stuff. People should be allowed to work and allowed to have their own private opinions. The stuff he promoted is bad but just let a guy do his job.

To me this Kyrie thing is scary because this regime Can target anyone - your no longer allowed to have weird opinions. Isaac Newton had some weird opinion. In the modern world he’s not discovering gravity. The weird people are necessary.

I strongly advise everyone here boycotts woke brands. It’s important that we end this culture and the only way we get back to normal is fighting fire with fire.

Also I guess Musks is having some advertising issues at Twitter because he doesn’t bow down. I strongly advise trying to support businesses that you see ads for on twitter.

I wouldn’t be shocked if blacks are the next group to join the GOP. Lots of weird opinions in that community and basically anyone middle class has some wrong think so it’s clear that culturally their not a fit with Dems.

Nike, NBA, and Disney are dead brands to me. Actually really like Star Wars and here there’s a good new series out but I can’t watch it.

I strongly advise everyone here boycotts woke brands. It’s important that we end this culture and the only way we get back to normal is fighting fire with fire.

From the rules:

*Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.

"As everyone knows . . ."

"I'm sure you all agree that . . ."

We visit this site specifically because we don't all agree, and regardless of how universal you believe knowledge is, I guarantee someone doesn't know it yet. Humans are bad at disagreeing with each other, and starting out from an assumption of agreement is a great way to quash disagreement. It's a nice rhetorical trick in some situations, but it's against what we're trying to accomplish here.

You don't get to claim that you have the unambiguous moral high ground, knock it off.

I don’t understand fight antisemitism movement.

I hope your people never face the kind of existential threat that leads to generations of people getting this defensive.

Jews seem to be doing fine in this country.

I don't understand the antiwoke movement, whites seem to be doing fine. I don't understand the AI risk movement, humans seem to be doing fine. I don't understand anti-trans folks because the straights are doing fine, but I likewise don't understand the trans rights movement because Trans people are doing fine. 'Doing fine' isn't very specific.

The stuff he promoted is bad but just let a guy do his job.

Believe it or not, part of every job is 'don't make your employer look foolish.' If you're making big public stupids and part of your job is appearing on TV in front of reporters, you may be in trouble with your boss.

I strongly advise everyone here boycotts woke brands.

Nike, NBA, and Disney are dead brands to me.

Is this cancel culture?

Actually really like Star Wars and here there’s a good new series out but I can’t watch it.

Proof that cancel culture is more trouble than it's worth. The CEOs endorsed Trump but I still wear New Balance and eat Goya. And if I could afford one, I'd certainly consider owning a Tesla even if I think Musk is an idiot.

Is this cancel culture?

Did he he manage to get these corporations deplatformed, or debanked, or is he just not buying their shit?

That's kind of how cancel culture works. It is entirely driven by the implicit threat of "if you don't cancel this person, there will be consequences to your business". Without that, you wouldn't see such caving on the part of businesses.

That's kind of how cancel culture works.

If by "that" you mean deplatforming or debanking, I agree and that was my point. Evinceo tried conflating it with boycotting, which I disagree with. Very few (if any) cancellations were a result of a successful boycott by consumers.

I don’t understand fight antisemitism movement. Jews seem to be doing fine in this country. It’s almost like everyone in blue tribe needs to make themselves a victim because otherwise they have no statue

Not hard to understand. This is what happens when your culture subscribes to slave morality.

I strongly advise everyone here boycotts woke brands. It’s important that we end this culture and the only way we get back to normal is fighting fire with fire.

Would you say it is plausible that all brands are, or eventually will be required to be, woke, since they operate under the American legal framework, Civil Rights Act and all? We're arriving at a situation where "There is no ethical consumption under wokeism".

Sometimes the complaints here about cancel culture are legitimate and real (if frequently also repetitive and tedious) and sometimes it's more like "Some idiot said some stupid shit and got backlash, but I agree with the stupid shit or I hate the people who are offended by it, therefore this is bad."

Your complaint is in the latter category.

Irving doesn't have "weird" opinions, he has inflammatory, bigoted opinions. It is not a new thing that most brands (including sports teams) don't want to be associated with people spouting outright racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry. If you were complaining about uneven enforcement (e.g. that some other player said "Kill all white people" and didn't get suspended) you could dredge up a point here, but no, you just don't think anti-Semitism is bad and you think the people who do think anti-Semitism is bad are bad, therefore it's bad for people to be punished for it.

"The weird people are necessary" - really? Is Kyrie Irving a generational talent such that basketball will suffer without him? (Genuinely don't know, I don't follow basketball.) What exactly is it about his "weird" opinions that enriches our culture or the sport? If you told me there was a brilliant physicist who's on the verge of discovering cold fusion but he just got cancelled for telling a racist joke at work, I'd agree that's stupid, but a basketball player got suspended (he wasn't even "cancelled") for being an anti-Semitic loon and you think this is damaging to the culture? Nah, man. Most employers will suspend you, at the very least, if you spout off like that in a way that damages their brand.

The fact is that people usually get cancelled, and cancelled hard, when they say something mildly antisemitic (and mostly true) like 'jews control the media'.

Meanwhile journalists and editors and publishers excrete headlines like 'X is too white', 'Dear white people...', 'Yes all white people...'...

Most of the critiques aimed at white people actually apply to jews and even more, as American jews are on average more wealthy, powerful, connected than white people.

Even the concept of a jewish genocide is somewhat racist at this point.

If jews didn't have this strange obsession with pairing up with people with comically oversized noses and ears who stay away from military service and honest work, would anybody even be able to tell them apart?

Why do jews have an inherent right to exist as a distinct people, if white people are told by endless racemixing propaganda that they do not have a right to their own country and that denying romantic advances from POC is racist?

If jews didn't have this strange obsession with pairing up with people with comically oversized noses and ears who stay away from military service and honest work, would anybody even be able to tell them apart?

Why do jews have an inherent right to exist as a distinct people, if white people are told by endless racemixing propaganda that they do not have a right to their own country and that denying romantic advances from POC is racist?

This is not the first time you've been warned that you don't get to just assert weakman arguments about your outgroup. You can believe what you like about Jews and black people, but just reciting derogatory tropes does not meet our standards of argumentation.

You aren't the only white nationalist around, but this isn't a white nationalist forum, and you have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Your frequent, deliberate testing of boundaries is running you out of slack.

The holocaust narrative is one of the most repeated ones for the last decades. Almost any messaging from jewish organizations is explicitly or implicitly underlined by 'the holocaust', ie, something bad happened to some jews 80 years ago.

Something bad happened to somebody 80 years ago or even before and after, but jews love to remind us about their unfortunate ancestors who were masturbated to death or turned into soap and lampshades.

It is a fact that there are a lot of people advocating for example for unlimited immigration to the United States and Europe, which were respectively founded by and for white people and historically white, but that a lot of the same people do not want unlimited immigration to Israel.

Here is the example of the ADL, which was called out by Tucker Carlson:

Quoting ADL on immigration to Israel:

With historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world, Jews would quickly be a minority within a bi-national state, thus likely ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would be increasingly politically – and potentially physically – vulnerable.

It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.

Source was removed from their website after getting called out by Carlson, only available in archive

ADL on immigration to the US:

ADL fights tirelessly for immigrants and refugees seeking safety and a better life in the U.S. Through legislative advocacy, amicus briefs, and public awareness efforts, we have promoted just and humane immigration and refugee protection policies throughout the decades.

We support a holistic approach to immigration policy that includes:

-a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants

-fair treatment and equal access to human and legal services for immigrants

-recommitment to our obligation to safeguard migrants in danger

-a humane border security strategy.

There cannot be genocide of the jews without a jewish people, and it is the obsession of these people with prolonging the existence of their distinctive 'jewish' people that is even creating the possibility of a genocide of the jews.

That problem could be solved within a couple generation of mating with Nigerians, Koreans, Turks, Mexicans, etc.

Here is, ironically, the ADL on the 14 words:

"14 Words" is a reference to the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

The term reflects the primary white supremacist worldview in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: that unless immediate action is taken, the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged "rising tide of color" purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews.

Let me be explicit:

The 14 words are :

We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children

The ADL on the 2-state-solution:

It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.

My conclusion is that some jews are in essence white nationalists or supremacists (as jews are seen by some goyim as white) but they are even more selective than white nationalists/supremacists, as they tailor their preference only to the jewish people, a smaller subset of the white people.

And therefore it's quite hypocritical for these people to criticize their fellow white nationalists/supremacists so vehemently.

This reminds me of the irony I see among certain NFL fans. If the league puts "End Hate" or "End Racism" on the sideline then these people complain about how the NFL should stay out of politics. But during the Kaepernick debacle nearly all of them felt that the league was obligated to make an affirmative stance in favor of patriotism and require players to stand. There was no way out of this controversy. Before a game Steelers coach Mike Timlin asked players if any of them planned to kneel. When a few of them came forward, he opted to keep the team in the tunnel during the national anthem to avoid controversy. This only served to piss of conservatives even more, as Tomlin was evidently obligated to make sure that everyone on the team was out there standing. I get the impression that if the NFL had suspended Kaepernick pending an apology and made a statement that a similar fate would befall any other player who refused to toe the line, this would have been greeted with enthusiasm among them.

This isn't to say that those on the left can't be equally hypocritical. After the Bruins 2011 cup run Tim Thomas didn't attend the team's visit to the White House because he didn't like Obama. One sportswriter blasted Thomas for his decision, saying that Obama invited the team, not Thomas, so it wasn't his place to refuse an invitation. When the Penguins won the cup in 2017, the same sportswriter blasted Sidney Crosby for accepting Trump's invitation and claimed that Crosby had a moral duty to refuse to attend. "Keep Politics out of Sports", like most things, is really only dependent on whether one happens to agree with the politics in question.

But during the Kaepernick debacle nearly all of them felt that the league was obligated to make an affirmative stance in favor of patriotism and require players to stand.

Status quo preference is all that is needed to defend continuing to stand during the anthem, but oppose adfing repeation of BLM slogans.

A further difference is wide of consensus exists for each of the ideas, expressed. "White supremacy is real." is a niche idea compared to "I respect my country.", thus those promoting the former and shunning the latter, are politicizing the game.

To say nothing of inconsistency of these catchphrases being employed by NFL. Mere overrepresentation of African Americans among victims of police brutality is said to be the result racism, but them being 17% of NFL QBs, 67% of all NFL players, despite constituting only 13% of the population, is by NFL seen to be unworthy of investigation.

I strongly advise everyone here boycotts woke brands.

Sure, if you can live without a bank, household items, most means of transportation, most clothing, etc. Also no computer and no internet.

I wouldn’t be shocked if blacks are the next group to join the GOP.

Never going to happen as long as the Democrats keep the money and relief from responsibility flowing.

I don’t understand fight antisemitism movement. Jews seem to be doing fine in this country.

The goal is presumably to maintain the norm that anti-semitism is unacceptable, rather than waiting until Jews are seriously considering heading for the exits before doing something.

your no longer allowed to have weird opinions.

I feel like "weird" is doing a lot of work here. Irving isn't being censured because he thinks Black NASA already landed on Europa or because he thinks the Earth is flat.

I wouldn’t be shocked if blacks are the next group to join the GOP. Lots of weird opinions in that community and basically anyone middle class has some wrong think so it’s clear that culturally their not a fit with Dems.

I would, and I find the recurring notion that any day now the black vote is going to break for the GOP absolutely baffling. I suspect it is mostly wishcasting.

African Americans are generally poor and poorly treated, and their political behavior is highly transactional as a result. Black communities may not have much cultural affinity for white liberals, but they don't have much in common with white conservatives either. As long as the liberals at least willing to pretend to take their concerns seriously and conservatives view their civil rights as a political liability, they're going to keep voting for the democratic party.

I mean it's true that Black communities have highly transactional political behavior and don't have that many interests in common with White conservatives, but they're culturally more similar than to White liberals, and they don't really have a ton of interests in common with White liberals either.

I'm not claiming they're going to switch sides any time soon, politically, but there's not any ipso facto reason that the GOP could decide they're going to offer the Black community something besides tax cuts for people who aren't them and banning abortion.

I'm not claiming they're going to switch sides any time soon, politically, but there's not any ipso facto reason that the GOP could decide they're going to offer the Black community something besides tax cuts for people who aren't them and banning abortion.

I see this line often enough, but how? They are already the anti-immigrant party. Blacks and Asians and blacks and Hispanics have horrible race relations and engage in violence intra-group (particularly black-Hispanic). That doesn't move the needle.

they're culturally more similar than to White liberals

I don't think this is true anywhere outside the rural south, where a history of racial animus overwhelms any possible cultural solidarity. The typical white conservative is a middle class suburbanite and is most similar culturally to white liberals. Though white liberals tend to be more urban, hence the overlapping interests and greater degree of exposure. (Aside: while it is true that African Americans are generally more socially conservative than white liberals, they are generally more socially liberal than white conservatives).

but there's not any ipso facto reason that the GOP could decide they're going to offer the Black community something besides tax cuts for people who aren't them and banning abortion.

The GOP can theoretically change its platform however it wants, but its current supporters are unlikely to approve such concessions, especially when they're unlikely to bear electoral fruit for some time (the GOP having low credibility with black voters).

The goal is presumably to maintain the norm that anti-semitism is unacceptable, rather than waiting until Jews are seriously considering heading for the exits before doing something.

This doesn't seem to be the case with sentiment and discrimination, hostile to Europeans as a whole. Mere fact that this group outperforms the average, is considered enough to deny racism against them is even possible.

So I don't think principle, similar to Stages of Genocide, is applied consistently.

I don’t understand fight antisemitism movement.

Earlier today there was a post on the front page of Reddit: Let's not forget that Meyers Leonard atoned for his hate speech by visiting the Holocaust Memorial, befriending rabbis, learning about Jewish culture, and joining basketball camps for the Jewish community.

That video shows the pitiful display of a former NBA player groveling to the Jews begging to have a career after he had a gamer moment during a Twitch stream. Reddit has forgiven him, deeming his groveling sufficient, but his career is long gone.

You can compare Leonard's groveling to Irving's defiance and see it's no surprise that Irving has been suspended for daring to insinuate that God chose the blacks as his Chosen People instead of the Jews.

the movie he promoted was pretty standard black israelite nonsense, with made up hitler quotes to boot. these beliefs are more popular than people realize considering pretty much no nba players have spoken out against him for it. kyrie probably could have skated by and have people just chalk this up as another example of his pseudo intellectualism, but he basically doubled down multiple times in interviews and his 'apology' was hilariously half assed. hell, the commissioner of the league is jewish.

the movie he promoted was pretty standard black israelite nonsense, with made up hitler quotes to boot.

That this is probably a pretty mainstream belief in the NBA is probably why they had to punish him. The NBA audience skews highly leftist and nothing would be worse for them retaining their rich, well paying, white liberal core piggybank fans than those people realizing half the league is virulently antisemetic.

Is it that widespread? Sure, there's a lot of black players, but is Black Israelism really catching on that much?

Black Israelism maybe not, but "weird beliefs about Jews" and "weird beliefs about the history of African Americans" are both incredibly widespread in the Black community.

"Catching on" is the wrong framing. It is longstanding. Louis Farrakhan rose to prominence in the 1970s. Ditto Jeremiah Wright. Explicit anti-semitism and black nationalism are mainstream black ideas. If you didn't already know that, it means you are in a pro-black-progressive-media bubble.

Nation of Islam and Black Israelites are two very different groups.

If you mean anti-Semitism in general is common in the black community, that's true, but this particular strain of it (the Black Israelite and NOI stuff) is still pretty fringe.

It's all part of a cycle. Black people blame white people for their oppression. And then one day they 'notice' that a good chunk of the white people in Hollywood, the media, running the big businesses, in academia, are Jews. Whites gentiles are under-represented, probably moreso than African-Americans.

And once they 'notice' that, then they start to wonder if they are oppressed at all. You get the idea that maybe it's just a 'mental prison'. They believe they can free themselves by simply believing they aren't oppressed. And from there they get to thinking that maybe it is the Jews that are the oppressors. This feeds into black nationalism, which feeds into blacks having their own country, which feeds into the idea that hey, maybe Israel is actually a black country. Maybe blacks are the real Jews.

As this process has played out, time and time again, over the past century, it was largely countered or overshadowed by a larger civil rights movement. But the current civil rights movement isn't asking for equality; it's asking for equity. And to get that equity, it's going to have to come from the Jews, at least partly. Otherwise gentile whites are going to be essentially pushed out of society, and that will almost certainly lead to the Holocaust 2.0.

I don't know that Holocaust 2.0 branding will catch on.

I see 'Holocaust Part Deux Again for the First Time' as catchier.

It's a larger tent for those keen on a Holocaust or Holocaust 1.0 denial.

If you didn't already know that, it means you are in a pro-black-progressive-media bubble.

Is it really a "media bubble"? As a (half-)white guy in America, I went a long time without knowing that the Farrakhan Mythos existed in the first place. I'd heard the name Malcolm X as early as middle school, but admittedly no details about "this is what the Nation of Islam actually believes." If anything, I was under the impression that even when African-Americans believed in "Black Power," it was still divorced of anything that even hinted of the anti-semitic parts of black nationalism.

Neither of those figures represents the specific movement of Black Hebrew Israelism.

No, but they are both black supremacists and anti-semites, so its a short hop and skip on over.

Im 100% against him apologizing. You don’t apologize to the woke mob. You don’t apologize for your weirdness. Enforced compliance is worse than him having weird views.

No one things blue tribe Jews are at risks. Red tribe Jews perhaps.