If you don’t like the reporting of Fox News (and we know they have a conservative bent), how about the Daily Beast, which is slanted in the opposite direction? Well, put together the story at the former,”CNN pundit, Women’s March organizers under siege for ‘honoring’ birthday of New Jersey cop killer Assata Shakour“, and at the latter, “Linda Sarsour echoes Donald Trump, smears CNN’s Jake Tapper“, and you get not only consilience, but a nasty picture of The Women’s March and of its most prominent face, co-organizer Linda Sarsour.
I have to examine myself when calling out things like the Women’s March, as I’m all for moral and economic equality of women. But like much of the Left, many “intersectional” feminists have developed an authoritarian strain, so that those with the loudest voices, often bullies and regressives like Sarsour, can become the voice of the movement. In Sarsour’s case, it’s particularly distressing, for she’s in favor of sharia law, demonizes people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is pro-Palestinian to the point of favoring the elimination of Israel, and, overall, is a regressive in progressive’s clothing. I see her as a theocrat who’s learned to use victimhood and her status as a Muslim “person of color” to endear herself to muddled Leftists. To me, people like Sarsour represent a degradation of the progressive Left, and so I spend more time on them than on Trumpites because a). it’s my own side, and b). calling out Republicans is not only futile, but everybody else is doing it and I have little to add.
Both Fox and The Beast agree with me that Sarsour and the Women’s March have shown notably poor judgment in extolling terrorists and convicted murderers. Further, Sarsour has started to demonize (in the characteristic Authoritarian way) CNN reporter Jake Tapper, who questioned the wisdom of extolling terrorists and murderers. Sarsour’s response was not to explain how she and the Women’s March could bring themselves to honor killers, but simply to smear Jake Tapper and then act aggrieved and persecuted. I think that Sarsour’s victimization complex (which heretofore she’s employed to great advantage), as well as her narcissism and personal ambition, are eventually going to bring her down, or at least make the Left wake up to her. So far it’s still asleep.
Here’s the story. Four days ago the Women’s March emitted this tweet:
Happy birthday to the revolutionary #AssataShakur! Today's #SignOfResistance, in Assata's honor, is by @Meloniousfunk. pic.twitter.com/V66au1dRnl
— Women's March (@womensmarch) July 16, 2017
Unfortunatly, Assata Shakur (formerly JoAnne Byron) is a convicted murderer who, as a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), was indicted numerous times for robbery, kidnapping, and murder (charges were either dismissed, she was acquitted, or there was a hung jury), and finally was convicted for assault and murder of a New Jersey state trooper in a shootout. After several years in prison she escaped, lived as a fugitive, and then fled to Cuba in 1984, where she was granted asylum. Extradition requests have failed, and she has been on the FBI’s “most wanted terrorist list” (the first woman so “honored”) since 2013.
Now I know that the police sometimes persecute black activists, and the BLA may have had revolutionary goals, but I have no truck with violence and murder, except in self-defense (Shakur’s was not). Shakur seems like a dreadful candidate to be honored by the Women’s March.
And that’s not all. One of the speakers at the Women’s March in Washington D. C. was Donna Hylton, who served 25 years in prison for kidnapping, gruesomely torturing, and killing a wealthy New Jersey businessman. Here there was no revolutionary organization involved, just pure criminality. Why are such women seen as heroes and given public platforms? Believe me, if the Right were to take as heroes women like these, the Left would be all over it like white on rice. Imagine what HuffPo would write!
The Daily Beast author Emily Shire also reports similar encomiums from the International Women’s Strike—plaudits for a woman who spent ten years in an Israeli jail for a supermarket bombing that killed two students:
[There was no criticism from intersectional feminists] when the International Women’s Strike touted Rasmea Odeh as one of its original and main organizers. Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the State Department officially considered a terrorist group, was convicted for her involvement in a 1969 bombing at Hebrew University that killed two students.
Odeh, though, has found allies in many so-called progressive groups that claim to support immigrant and civil rights. When I reached out to the International Women’s Strike in March about Odeh’s involvement, Cinzia Arruzza praised Odeh and decried “the persistent harrasmment [sic] by the US government and zionist political forces” she allegedly faced.
Just as the President and other Republican leaders are called upon to forcefully denounce the alt-right, and criticized when they fail to do so, the left needs to be held to the same standard.
Let’s face it: intersectional feminism has no problem demonizing Israel (and Jews, a historically marginalized group), as well as extolling murderers and terrorists. But I have a problem with these things.
So did Jake Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN. He tweeted this, also mentioning the expulsion of Jewish lesbians waving a “Jewish pride” flag at the Chicago Dyke March:
Shakur is a cop-killer fugitive in Cuba. This, ugly sentiments from @lsarsour & @dykemarchchi …Any progressives out there condemning this? https://t.co/rXnHLgE2hR
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 18, 2017
Sarsour, in a pattern that’s typical of offended Authoritarians, simply smeared Tapper in her response while playing the victim:
.@jaketapper joins the ranks of the alt-right to target me online. Welcome to the party.
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) July 18, 2017
Seriously, Tapper joins the alt-right for asking a question? And Sarsour didn’t let that rest, for she angers easily and extols her virtues at the same time she flaunts her victimization:
.@jaketapper please share my "ugly" sentiments? Unapologetically Muslim? Unapologetically Palestinian? Pro-immigrant? Pro-justice? Shame.
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) July 18, 2017
Your comment about @Ayaan for one.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 18, 2017
In case you forget, here’s that ugly sentiment:
As Shire noted, the “strange bedfellows of the intersectional feminist movement” are disturbing, but bullies and authoritarians like Sarsour can’t seem to stop themselves, for they bear the hubris that the movement simply must fall in line with their personal views. Moreover, they attack and then smear those—even leftists like Tapper, who was famous for calling out Trump for his racism. (Did I mention that Tapper has a Jewish background?)
Shire adds this:
Sarsour’s ridiculously weak attempt to slander Tapper as a member of the “alt-right” was not the first time she has tried discrediting negative reports about her by falsely attacking the character of those voicing them. Last week, it was reported that the damaged Jewish cemetery that Sarsour had professed to help raise money for had not, in fact, received funds. Sarsour suggested she would sue the people reporting this (another Trump go-to move) and declared that she was the “target of the right wing, alt-right, right wing zionists.” That’s a mean feat of inverted intersectionalism.
The concern Tapper raised — about progressives standing with violent radicals — speaks to a much larger problem regarding the intersectionalist approach to social justice movements. On the one hand the intersectional feminist movement has been making strange bedfellows; on the other, it has been increasingly hostile to those who question those additions.
The smearing of opponents in an attempt to write them off forever is a trait of Authoritarian Leftists, but not of Progressive Leftists, who are usually willing to defend their stands instead of engaging in ad hominem arguments.
I hope that feminists and Authoritarian Leftists come to their senses about “leaders” like Sarsour. Even the American Civil Liberties Union has fallen for her schtick–the ACLU, whom I once worked for as a volunteer and supported financially!:
The ACLU stands with @lsarsour #IStandWithLinda https://t.co/6QYWtVabw9
— ACLU (@ACLU) July 11, 2017
And Sarsour’s Twitter thread is full of threats against those who “defame” her and “lie about her”. Well, there are legal recourses to defamation, Ms. Sarsour, so avail yourself of them:
Here is a self-pitying, narcissistic Regressive who’s seen as a hero to feminists. Has the world gone mad? I’m hoping that her behavior, and the penchant of regressive intersectional feminists to ally with unsavory characters and movements, will eventually take its toll. So does Shire:
Perhaps, Sarsour’s attempt to slander a journalist at CNN for asking questions — rather than to answer the question — may be a much-needed wakeup call for feminists and others on the left about the destructive tactics that the intersectionalist left appears to be picking up from its counterparts on the alt-right.
But I’m not holding my breath.
h/t: BJ, dano
You asked “Has the world gone mad?” to which I say, yes, at least a significant proportion of it.
The world may have not gone mad (or it always has been).
But the so called left has lost its direction a long time ago. It is nowadays really hard for a sane and decent person sharing the left’s worldview.
Which “left” are you talking about?
Mainstream left unfortunately
I hope the Ctrl-left is not mainstream. I would need to see data on this, but I had thought that they are a smaller group, though very vocal and very much concerned with getting their word out in the media. They ‘sound’ bigger than they are (I hope!)
The problem is there are a lot of well-meaning PC liberals who go along with whatever the Ctrl-left says. So, I think the Ctrl-left doesn’t need to be mainstream or numerous when they have so many useful idiots.
Yes! I know a few of them. One is a psychology instructor at a community college now. Whenever I’ve disagreed with her statements (she once said that gender was a social construct), her answer is that she’s a PhD, so everyone else needs to shut up.
Sadly, however small you might think the authoritarian, regressive left is, they are loud and determined, and wield a lot of power and influence. Compare them to Islamists, within Islam. It does not matter what percentage of Muslims are ‘moderate’, Islamists have a lot of power and influence.
We see the result of this with online media (Buzzfeed, Vice, Salon, etc.) who all toe the SJW line within the “culture wars” realm. We also see the result in academia, which is actually where it started. Their ideas (based on postmodernism, anti-West, anti-capitalism, etc. motives) influence private companies, public charities, and everything in the “knowledge economy”, who treat academic studies and figures as the default. [This explains why the “satanic panic” gained a lot of traction in the mainstream media in the 1980s and 1990s – because there were ‘credible’ voices in academia backing it] They promote narrative, emotions and experience over facts and data – but only if the emotions and feelings back their agenda. This explains why the experience of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not only ignored, but denigrated.
The far right are “small” in comparison to the mainstream, but nobody suggests we overestimate them. The same should apply to the far left, and those who make excuses for them.
Further, the regressive left’s antics sully by association all Liberals.
I agree. The Authoritarian Left are not the majority. However, they are vociferous and controversial and therefore attract attention. The majority are still far more reasonable but in a country where the right is represented by Trump, it takes quite a lot to knock him out of the headlines. Sarsour achieves that.
The Ctrl-Left is loud and obnoxious, but I doubt their numbers are sufficient to elect a single congressperson, even if they were all gerrymandered into a single district.
The alt-right, on the other hand, has their Rasputin ensconced in the West Wing, whispering in the emperor’s ear.
The CTRL-Left may not be sufficient to elect a single Congress member, but I fear they will be enough to get a President elected, that is, re-elected, in 2020.
If I were a member of Trump’s campaign team, I’d take care to put Sarsour posters on vertical surfaces all across the country.
She’s Uriah Heep crossed with Joseph Goebbels.
Yeah, Uriah Heep’s been fer shit since they hit it big in Germany with “Lady in Black.” 🙂
I had forgotten about them, but I had an album in HS.
If she continues to take on the legitimate press to defend her idiotic statements I suspect that will take her down. Tapper is far too intelligent for her to be fooling with. When someone like her, left or right or middle, makes the type of public attacks on others who question her actions it cannot help but have similarity to Trump. The only difference is that she does far less real harm on a daily basis than the Trump.
The real harm that she’s doing is by invalidating the opposition to Trump. In that way, she is abetting him more effectively than members of his administration such as KellyAnn.
I do not see any real affect from the Kelly Ann types. She is not the one who is now, as of today, cutting off arms and weapons to the people fighting for freedom in Syria. That would be Donald Trump, working as always for his pal Putin.
We were already doing that under Obama, from the designed-to-fail “lets train 50 guys really super hard” strategy to the “lets give guns to the slightly more moderate rebels who will also eventually become part of the extremist coalition anyway” strategy. After all that, they basically just threw up their hands and said “fuck it.”
The strategy of giving arms to those fighting in Syria has shades of the 80’s and giving arms to the muhajideen. Like it or not, Al-Assad was as secular as it gets in that part of the world (just like Hussein was). I’m not saying we shouldn’t have been looking for ways to remove him from power before this slaughter and civil war broke it, but now that it has, his downfall would lead to a power vacuum that could suck the paint off cars in Saudi Arabia, and it would be filled by Islamists. We long since passed a point of no return, where the best option is that the fighting stops and Assad or someone with his less religious values holds power. As a pragmatic, it’s the only turn of events one can hope for at this point. But we certainly don’t want to give arms to the Islamists. thus giving ISIS an entire country as an ally in the region.
Good recap of recent events, Jerry.
It is worth noting which of the usual ugly suspects have rushed out to tell Jake Tapper he is “mistaken”, or more usually, he is an alt-right Nazi or something.
It is obvious that, just as the issue of Israel/Palestine is a “in/out” othering issue for the far left, support of Linda Sarsrour is as well. If you criticise Linda, even slightly, you are “othered” by this mob of regressive, illiberal circus freaks.
The same busybodies crop up whenever Queen Sarsour is questioned – Nathan Lean (taking a break from calling progressive Muslims, “lapdogs”, Murtaza Hussain, ** W********, Sacha “seminal work” Saeen, Sally “nothing wrong with Sharia” Kohn, Reza “Cannibal” Aslan, and a bunch of other trolls, bigots, and liars.
Shame on the likes of SPLC and ACLU who seems to have a blind spot with Linda. The ACLU defended themselves recently by same they stand for the free speech of people like Linda, which is true (they have defended the free speech of members of the alt-right), but they went further, and published a glowing article on Linda. That was endorsement!
Keep the pressure on these goons, and keep resisting!
I intend to make the ACLU aware of my disgust with their backing her. I have already done so with SPLC, but they never respond. The latter will never get another donation from me, for a number of other reasons as well. Not that they will notice.
I have already emailed ACLU twice. The world turned upside down supporting Sarsour, with her head hiding behind a Confederate flag of oppression.
I have mentioned this here before, I think, but I used to be an ACLU supporter. Several years ago they did a similarly loony left thing that had nothing to do with the first amendment per se – it was basically editorializing about the US walking out of the UN while Iran was speaking. I e-mailed various people at the ACLU and really persisted, pushing the case that this really has nothing to do with the ACLU’s mission. Finally I apparently pestered enough that someone pretty high up told me in no uncertain terms that the ACLU, in his words, “updated their charter” to take on new issues besides just the first amendment freedoms. They were now a general social justice org as far as this person was concerned. I resigned right then and there.
Yes, I have tried to contact the SPLC on various issues before, and they completely ignored me.
They are discredited, as far as I am concerned.
I can’t tell you what to do, but if you’re disgusted with this, you’ll be about 100 times more disgusted if you look up what the SPLC has been doing the last decade. Also look up their founder and how he seems to be using it as a prestige and money-printing mechanism for himself and his friends. Nobody should donate to them.
For the record, it’s not appropriate to compare FOX News to liberal news outlets. FOX News was created and run as a public relations arm of the Republican party in general, and certain Republican operators in particular. They are not conservative in any principled or consistent way.
There is no liberal equivalent to their cynicism.
Even at FOX news we begin to see breaks in the propaganda. Note that Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace are objecting to the lies and more lies regarding the Russian connections. Even the “team” is having trouble swallowing.
Vox? HuffPo?
Actually no it isn’t, for the reasons I already mentioned. Explicitly biased journalism, like Huffpo, Mother Jones, and, to a lesser extent, MSNBC, is a totally different activity from corporate partisan apologetics, which is what FOX News practices. Huffpo is probably the closest analog on the left to FOX because of its vapidity and commercial goals, but it has nowhere near the influence and nowhere near the immediate talking-point feedback loop to its chosen politicians.
Watch this if you have time: http://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com/
My parents watch MSNBC every night. If there is a Democratic Party equivalent to Fox News on TV, they are it. They lie, prevaricate, leave out crucial details to form their desired narrative, speculate as if their spouting facts, etc. The only difference is their tagline isn’t “fair and balanced.”
Sarsour & Louise Mensch have a lot in common. It’s the age of the narcissistic sociopath, I guess.
The question of whether a free society can adequately protect itself against sociopaths without resorting to “pre-crime” is an urgent and perhaps insoluble one.
Mensch did a lot of good work on the Tim Hunt case. Sadly, she’s really over-reached on the Russia stuff. Not that there isn’t any collusion/meetings that we should know about, but she’s gone way over the top.
I am totally sickened the ACLU has supported Linda Sarsour.
i saw this on Instagram and am truly shocked. First SPLC,
Now the ACLU-
Extremely disturbing-
It’s a mistake to think of Fox a news channel at all. It is instead a based-on-current-events long-form fictional narrative. It has several recurrent story lines, but its overarching theme is that besieged white Christians have been set upon on all sides by ridiculous liberals and scary minorities. The stories are meant to breed resentment and fear (with the occasional leavening by human interest pieces about the exploits of heroic white people beating back the tide). A recurrent subplot is the lone, bold minority voice willing to risk the opprobrium of their community to speak out on behalf of the noble white majority.
Recently, nonetheless, there’ve been encouraging glimmers of heterodoxy. News anchor Shep Smith (and to a lesser extent, Chris Wallace) have shown a refreshing willingness to cut through the bullshit to speak truth to insipidity. And commentator Charles Kruthhammer, though he’s yet to encounter a policy he gets right, has steadfastly called out Donald Trump’s arrant buffoonery.
Glad to see you also mentioning the glimmers in the comment above. One thing that Fox will soon learn I think in a big way. As goes the republicans, so goes their ratings and their future. I would not be buying much stock in Fox at this time.
I would. Their viewership is only in the several millions. The 25% Republican base is holding strong (as does the base on either side whenever these things happen to their candidate, as they view truth as an obstacle to winning the fight against the baddies). I sincerely doubt they will lose significant viewers for a significant time.
If Trump fired a nuclear missile by mistake Fox News would lead with some puff-piece about how sales of fallout shelters are boosting the economy. Their instinct is misdirection.
To nutshell your description of Fox, they are a propaganda operation rather than a news operation.
Yeah, that’s one way to put it, if you’re into the whole brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit thing. 🙂
Shep Smith has long been an oasis of sensibility at Fox News I remember when he called out “Joe the Plumber” during the ’08 election for being a fraud, when the GOP still thought he was the greatest little political prop ever.
Wallace is more inconsistent, but he has a far lower water carrying threshold than someone like Hannity.
Krauthammer is a hack, but he’s a hack with enough foresight to realize what the Trump Administration is doing to the GOP’s credibility long-term. Same with people like Bill Kristol, who has never been right about any political forecast in his entire life.
Yeah, if Bill Kristol isn’t the worst political prognosticator ever, he’s sure in the hunt. But he got the Donald down dead to rights.
Shep Smith stood up and called out crazy Judge Napolitano, too, when hizzoner spouted out the cockamamie claim that the Brits did “wire-tapp” on Trump.
Kristol makes me feel physically ill every time I see his smug face and hear his whiny, self-righteous voice. It sounds like someone kicked him over and over in the stomach backstage until he agreed to go on and read from the script. He’s such a pathetic shell of a man.
BBC Radio 4 has been serialising Assata Shakur’s memoirs(?) this week, so I’ve been jarred out of a stupor a few times by hearing her diatribes against “pig judges” and white people in general, as well as her accounts of being arrested and interviewed by thuggish racist white cops.
The racism black people experienced back then must have been suffocating, but sometimes people really are just arseholes, regardless of where their phenotype is located in the Great Flowchart Of Oppression.
At least Radio 4 had the good sense to invite a few people onto Woman’s Hour so that some dissenting voices could be heard(balanced by her hagiographers, who were also invited).
Many on the right shout about ‘black-on-white racism’ every time Chris Rock makes a joke about rednecks. Many on the left deny that it’s possible for a black person to be racist in the first place.
To me it takes a fair amount for the charge of black racism to be genuinely warranted – but from listening to her own words…she warrants it.
Or, put another way: it is possible to be a real slimeball *and* a victim of prejudice.
Cue the emails in which you are called an alt-right misogynyst etc. etc. etc.
Sad to read about the ACLU — the group that taught many of us to value the free speech rights of the Nazis who marched through Sokie.
That the answer to abhorrent speech is more speech, is another lesson I learned from ACLU. They would do well to remember this in regards Ms. Sarsour. When someone disagrees with your arguments, you counter with more argument, not threats. I would hate to see the ACLU defend Ms. Sarsour should she bring suit for honest reportage.
(The ACLU is already on my hrmph list because they totally botched a law suit in my state.
I have lost much respect for them due to their incompetence.)
“Hrmph list” Good one! 🙂
Wrap a piece of cloth around your head these days, and the regressive left will let you get away with murder. (Or at least with advocating it.)
Sarsour is a fan of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, an anti-semitic, black supremacist, homophobic group.
She has written comments apologizing for Saudi Arabia, promoting religious laws, attacking critics of islam and victims of muslim bigotry.
She’s a conspiracy theorist who thinks the CIA organizes fake muslim terrorist attacks to “create fear”.
And the Regressives excuse all of this.
“And the Regressives excuse all of this.”
Excuse all of this? They applaud it and think, “why didn’t I realize that?!? I guess I need to get woker.”
Odd that the SPLC would back Sarsour when she’s so affectionate toward the Nation of Islam and they’re on the SPLC list of hate groups.
Maybe they don’t know about it. Anyway, here’s the evidence:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFHrWDCUAAAiE8v.jpg:large
+ 1
the LEFT has gone insane. Its time to start a new political movement of moderates from both isles, people sick of this ‘intersectional’ garbage and its poisonous identity politics and people sick of Cleon-like characters like Trump.
I dont agree with Democrats and leftists on most things, but I would come to consensus on many if they werent bat-shit crazy.
As of right now, the left isle is the king of bat shit crazy. And also the reason why Trump was elected.
And – sorry to say – is likely to be reelected.