Remembrance of chads hanging

Naomi Wolfe was an Al Gore presidential campaign advisor in 2000. She instructed him (among other things) on not ‘presenting’ as a Beta male. This was impossible, but Al was desperate.

Wolfe has been red pilled. She’s been mugged by the Overton Window, which, true to form, framed a much more sane view in 2000. She has detected the shift. I subscribe to her Substack.

She remembers the 2000 election controversy very well.
“Happy Indictment Day!” – Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf

I am experiencing considerable inner turmoil at the spectacle of President Trump’s indictment, as well as at the almost animalistic glee that this spectacle has triggered in the solid bloc of Democrats that currently surrounds me.

I am extraordinarily sad — at the thickheaded ignorance of history that those who are celebrating tonight, reveal; and at what has become of our country.

Don’t people understand — much as they may hate this fellow — that this is exactly what coup leaders in every banana republic, do? Seek to imprison their political opponents?

Especially while the political opponents are on the campaign trail?

Another reason for my discomfort and misery is that I have a guilty conscience, because of what I experienced two decades ago and what I know — things that not that many people have experienced or know, and things that seem to be generally forgotten. These memories bear directly on current events…

I am having relentless flashbacks to where I was and what I was doing in late 2000, when I was a consultant for Vice President Gore’s campaign for the Presidency.

As I’ve written elsewhere — and as I am trying desperately to remind everyone who will now listen, on every podcast that will have me — I was advising from a distance, and looped in, intermittently, to discussions within the campaign that were both public and private, about exactly the same issues that are now apparently criminal offenses even to entertain, let alone to mention in actual words.

So were almost all of the lawyers, campaign consultants, advisors and staffers of Gore 2000. So was the candidate himself, visibly.

RTWT

Plus ça change,

…plus c’est la même chose.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Here is an excerpt from an Ayn Rand speech delivered live at the Ford Hall Forum on December 16, 1962. She’s talking about JFK’s ‘Camelot’ statism.

This bit speaks of Newton Minow, JFK’s Chair of the FCC. Who used primitive versions of the same screws the Feds applied to Facebook and Twitter on newspapers, radio, and television.

Formatting is a little funky. I don’t know why some of the hyphens are there. Maybe indicates a pause. It’s from a transcript

The Fascist New Frontier

“Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by the government—and nothing else. It does not mean the right to demand the financial support or the material means to express your views at the expense of other men who may not wish to support you. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one’s own antagonists. A “right” does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort. Private citizens cannot use physical force or coercion; they cannot-censor or suppress anyone’s views or publications. Only the government-can do so. And censorship is a concept that pertains only to governmental action.

Mr. Minow is trying to reverse that concept.

Mr. Minow has announced officially that any television or radio station which does not satisfy his unstated criterion of an unspecified “public service,” will lose its license, that is: will be silenced forever.

This, Mr. Minow claims, is not censorship. What is censorship, then? Believe it or not, censorship is a sponsor’s refusal to finance a television program, or a station’s refusal to broadcast a program, or a publisher’s refusal to publish a book—and it is the government’s duty to “protect” us from such infringements of our “freedom.”

Such is the “protection-racket” from the other side of the New Frontier:-the views, the ideas, the convictions, the choices of private individuals-on the use and disposal of their own material means—of their own property—are censorship. What, then, is non-censorship? Mr. Minow’s edicts.

This is a clear illustration of why human rights cannot exist without-property rights, and how the destruction of property rights leads to the destruction of all rights and all freedom. If the New Frontiersmen suc-ceed in obliterating in people’s minds the difference between economic-power and political power, between a private choice and a governmentorder, between intellectual persuasion and physical force—they can then establish the ultimate collectivist inversion: the claim that a private action is coercion, but a governmental action is freedom.

I should like to quote from an article I wrote on this subject in the March 1962 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter:
“It is true, as Mr. Minow assures us, that he does not propose to establish censorship; what he proposes is much worse. Censorship, in its old-fashioned meaning, is a government edict that forbids the discussion of some specific subjects or ideas—an edict enforced by the government’s scrutiny of all forms of communication prior to their public release. But for stifling the freedom of men’s minds the modern method is much more potent: it rests on the power of non-objective law; it neither forbids nor permits anything; it never defines or specifies; it merely delivers men’s lives, fortunes, careers, ambitions into the arbitrary power of a bureaucrat who can reward or punish at whim.”

In a recent issue of Barron’s magazine (December 10, 1962), you will find factual evidence to support and illustrate my statement. “Last week,” writes Barron’s, “the bureaucrat who uses words so well [Mr. Minow] for once was speechless. For the staff of FCC, taking their cue from their outspoken leader, had been caught sending letters of alarming frankness to television stations throughout the country. Unless-they proved properly receptive to the agency’s views on the content-and timing of programs, the message suggested, they might have trouble getting their licenses re-newed. . . . The magazine Broadcasting, which exposed the whole affair, bluntly called it ‘another step toward centralized program control’ and ‘blatant coercion.’”

Mr. Minow is not the only prominent member of the New Frontier’s border patrol; there is another, older one who has been waiting for many years for a frontier of just that kind.

On July 15, 1962, The N.Y. Times carried a story announcing that: “An Antitrust panel of the House Judiciary Committee is preparing a broad inquiry on the press and other news media.” The head of that inquiry is Representative Emanuel Celler.

“We are very much aware of the First Amendment,” Mr. Celler declared. “We are also aware that the courts have said you can distinguish between the business practices and the editorial operations of newspapers.”

Apparently, Mr. Celler regarded a declaration of his “awareness” as sufficient compliance with the Constitution—because he then proceeded to announce that the inquiry will deal with such (non-editorial?) issues as the “handling of news and the impact of syndicated columns on the gathering and presentation of local news.”

Mr. Celler will also investigate the fact that in some cities one man or company owns both the morning and evening newspapers. “We shall endeavor to find out,” he stated, “whether, in those cities, the news is slanted according to the prejudice or idiosyncrasies of those common owners; whether the editorial policy is consistently politically slanted.” (A non-editorial issue?)

Does this mean that the owner of a newspaper has no right to hold consistent political convictions and that a newspaper is not entitled to a consistent editorial policy? If the owner of one newspaper possesses the right of free speech, does he lose it if he acquires two newspapers? Who determines what is “slanted” and which political views are “prejudice or idiosyncrasies”? The government?

“Also,” declared Mr. Celler, “we are interested in seeing whether or to what extent the columnists might be drying up local talent in assaying the news of the day.”

Well, it is incontestably certain that the talents of the local “High School Bugle” could not possibly compete with nationally syndicated columnists.

Here we see the essence of the antitrust doctrines—in so grotesque a form that no satirist would venture to offer it as a caricature. Yet it is not a caricature, it is the naked, brutal truth.

If it is right to sacrifice ability to incompetence, or success to failure,- or achievement to envy—if it is right to break up giant industrial concerns because smaller companies cannot compete with them—then it is right to silence every man who has acquired a national audience and clear the field for those whose audience will never grow beyond the corner drugstore.

Rand, Ayn. The Ayn Rand Column (p. 118, ff). Ayn Rand Institute. Kindle Edition.

Twitter 2.0 is definitely different

Lots of drama over this at Twitter. Elon directly involved. 27 million views and counting, despite some blockages Elon had to clear up: For example, Twitter’s head of Trust & Safety is no longer with the company.

If you can, watch today. FREE on Twitter for 24 hrs. I think that will end around 8PM today.
WhatIsAWoman?

After that, check out Elon’s interview with the Babylon Bee. Great discussion.

I’m @hershblogger on Twitter.

Transactivism is misogyny… wearing ‘womanface’

Trans Right Activists continue to ramp up their vilification of anyone who objects to the erasure of women. Males-pretending-to-be-females (MPtbF) and anti-TERF feminists encourage the silencing of women by violence. For example, attacks on Posie Parker and Riley Gaines.

There are threats to sue anyone who refuses to use TRA’s Lysenkoist pronouns. For example, from the prancing TikTok doyen (NOT doyenne) Dylan Mulvaney.

There’s even a cadre of the TRAs insisting that heterosexuals are bigots if they refuse to call themselves ‘cis.’

TRA should be BIT, Biologically Ignorant Thugs.

All is proceeding as Jordan Peterson predicted in 2016. I’ve selected a snippet that you can watch for just a minute and a half. People scoffed at it in 2016, but is now accepted wisdom in our blue cities and states, on most university campuses, is promoted by our President, and the default opinion of NBC’s talking head Chuck Todd: “Basically, it’s not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex.”

That 55 minute video has 10 million views, and you may well have seen it. It’s well worth watching if you haven’t, and worth watching again if you have. A refresher on what we were told as the BITs were initiating their assault. TWT:

I plan to snip a few more items in subsequent posts.

It’s Complex

How the Disinformation Industrial Complex is destroying trust in science
Climate Etc., Judith Curry (by David Young)

The Censorship Industrial Complex is the Revolt of the Elites
Public, Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse

Disinfo Dictionary
Tablet Editors

Hickory Tikory Tok

“The House ran out the clock…”

If it gets to the House, we can hope that’s what happens to Senate bill 686, the RESTRICT Act: Never put to a vote.

That bill is actually peripheral to this post, but is a perfect example of extending surveillance-state tentacles (which we’ll get to).

Ostensibly, the bill defends us against the CCP controlled TikTok spyware – beloved of goofy pre-teens and sinister trans-activists.

I also detest TikTok. Its CCP data gathering on our youth is unacceptable, and its transactivist influencer contingent is culturally corrosive. It should, at least, have age limitations applied to some of its more vile content, with solid parental locking capability. Knock, knock Jeffrey Marsh. We don’t have to respect you even a tiny bit. In fact, we despise you for your pride in being a groomer.

But the RESTRICT bill includes no such provisions; it is written without even reference to ““TikTok,” or parent company “ByteDance,” or even “social media.”” Much less the Chinese Communist Party. That mention could be problematic for Gretchen Whitmer, so I get why the bill can’t name China.

TikTok should be certainly be banned on government devices. In fact, any government employee so unaware of TikTok’s pedigree as to have it on their government device should be fired. It’s not like these people aren’t “woke”, of course they are, it’s that they’re not AWARE. But, ignorance is not only not an excuse, it’s a sign of national security cluelessness. Loose clicks sink ships.

Or, more commonsensically, all government devices could ALREADY be set up to prohibit TikTok installation and block any access to it. Do it by executive order, since it affects only employees – supposedly loyal.

However, there’s no surveillance-state advantage in something so simple.

The RESTRICT Act Would Restrict a Lot More Than TikTok

RESTRICT, as written, simply expands and cements the power of government to abrogate the First Amendment as described below.

We can’t shoot down a Chinese spy balloon while it’s actively, successfully spying, but we can extend state control over Americans watching their kids do silly dances on a Chinese spy app – which the government hasn’t absolutely banned on every device it owns.

—————————

The rest of this post offers links to some articles which may be too long for your interest. I post them even so because they describe, without hyperbole, an imminently serious threat to the Republic of the United States. Even if you don’t want to spend the time now, they may become a reference for you when you need to provide a Progressive you know with reasoned information about the danger to a way of life they don’t even understand as their own. I have a suggestion.

—————————
Who is doing anything about this?

Whether Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter will be successful is a question still in doubt for certain definitions of “success.” I’m looking at it as a defense of Enlightenment values, freedom of conscience being the foundational moral imperative.

I do not think the measure is whether it becomes a profitable business. Musk did not buy it for that reason.

I hope profitability eventuates, because we desperately need a continuing social media space not attached at the hip to, or gripped around the throat by, myriad US agencies forming alliances with private companies eager to subvert the First Amendment.

Significant Twitter personnel changes were a bare start in blunting the public-pirate (AKA fascist) alliance against free speech. More importantly, we have insight to the corruption from Musk’s release of internal documents (the “Twitter Files”) and source code algorithms.

The public’s glimpses into the early stages of the transformation of America from democracy to digital leviathan are the result of lawsuits and FOIAs—information that had to be pried from the security state—and one lucky fluke. If Elon Musk had not decided to purchase Twitter, many of the crucial details in the history of American politics in the Trump era would have remained secret, possibly forever.

That quote is from an important, sober – and sobering – recent history of America’s public/pirate surveillance state.

It’s also long, but if you want to better understand the stakes – and what I hope could eventually be Musk’s success – it is a must read. Incisive and insightful.
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
13000 words

Mentioned in the preceding article, a scathing in depth analysis from the Columbia Journalism Review of the mendacious “Russiagate” media coverage.
The press versus the president, parts one through 4
Part 1
6200 words
Part 2
6500 words
Part 3
4800 words
Part 4
8700 words

Running List of All Twitter Files Releases (summarized with links to detail)
? words

TOC is old enough to vote

Today is TOC’s eighteenth anniversary.

Here’s the 1st anniversary post.

February 19th, 2006 is The Other Club’s first anniversary.

145,000 words and 7,000 unique visitors later (some of whom have even returned) it has been enjoyable and intermittently cathartic. I’ve followed no template. I’ve written about what struck me as funny, or more often outrageous, on a given day. There is a necessity to this. I haven’t got a lot of time to devote here, so the writing needs to come relatively easily. I’m sure this is common to most part-time bloggers.

A plurality of the posts have involved free speech issues – ranging from the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance debacle through American Feminist attempts to suppress thought. I’ve touched on American corporations’ complicity in Internet censorship and extensively discussed the cartoon-jihad.

There’s been quite a bit about Canada’s political process and some comment on the Supreme Court and the meaning of the Constitution. There has been more than a little criticism of the Bush administration, especially on economics. The UN has been mentioned unfavorably.

Finally, there have been many posts attempting to call attention to partisan opportunism where loyal opposition was called for, especially regarding the War against Islamofascism.

Mostly, I write this blog because I like to write and I think I occasionally have something interesting to say. I really appreciate feedback and I pay attention to it. Comments and email are encouraging. I thank those who have visited, and I especially thank those who visit regularly.

I have come to know a few other bloggers via comments and email and for that I am also grateful. Several have seen fit to compliment this blog by linking to what I have written. Thank you.

So, a toast to The Other Club – Happy Anniversary!

That first anniversary post’s small optimism about the internet’s effect on Western culture now looks, shall we charitably say… naive.

Let me repeat this bit: “American corporations’ complicity in Internet censorship

I had no idea about the real shit coming. But I should have.

Eighteen years and a million TOC words later, our institutions have turned en masse on free speech.

Supreme Court justices are unable to define the word “woman.”

Our armed forces have DIE departments, where those letters stand for diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Skin color is more important than character content.

Any objection to these dogmas may entail life altering shaming. We’re all subject to scarlet lettering by the neo-puritans.

I have long term, intelligent friends making ad hominem attacks over differences of opinion spurred by “woke” issues that didn’t exist in 2005. I’m increasingly battle weary from the downward spiral.

There are 169 draft posts here I can’t seem to finish, and the link below has been hanging around in a Tab on my browser for awhile. I Tweeted it (I joined Twitter in support of Musk’s attempt to restore a semblance of free speech.) – @hershblogger.

I had also thought to comment on it here. I fear that that would make 170 drafts.

So. I’m just recommending this link, without comment beyond, “This is not the future I imagined.”

Fittingly, it’s about free speech.
Jonathan Turley: “Free Speech for Whom?”: Former Twitter Executive Makes Chilling Admission on the “Nuanced” Standard Used For Censorship.