Just remember, the Ethics Alarms position is to strive as much as possible to remain unbiased regarding a performer’s art regardless of his or her demonstrated political orientation or revealed personal character flaws. I enjoy Bradley Whitford as an actor.
But only an unethical, bullying asshole would write a tweet like that.
This is an unusual Comment of the Day by Chris Marschner (on the post,“As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn”), but it makes an important point, indeed, the crucial point that exposes the intellectual dishonesty of the Times’ “Think of the Children!” campaign to demonize Israel as it tries to defend its right to exist.
***
I reworked the original Times story to reflect a similar situation in the mid-20th century. All I did was change the name and the players. If the Times had written its report this way, then the Brits, the French, the Poles, the Czecks and others would be goose-stepping to their new bosses and Israel would not exist.
It is obvious to any rational thinker that when a nation faces existential peril from zealots who believe they are the rightful heirs of the entire region and that no one except the devout believers of Mohammed may live peacefully there, that when they are attacked they must eliminate the immediate as well as the long term threat in order to minimize civilian losses. We did this twice in the Pacific and Europe when despots saw opportunities for empire building.
My NYT rewrite:
Today the Times published another in its continuing reporting efforts to demonize Israel, encourage anti-Semitism, support the unconscionable Biden -Harris pressure on Israel to agree to a ruinous cease-fire, and to validate Palestinian terrorism. The Ethics Alarms commentary on this piece is essentially identical to what appeared in its predecessor, As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With “Think of the Children!” Porn…which stated in that the Times report…
“…can evoke no possible response from typical semi-attentive and easily manipulated readers than “Think of the children! The Jews are monsters! Cease fire now! The Gazans have suffered enough! Justice for Palestine!”
And this is exactly the end result that Hamas sought when it launched its cease-fire shattering surprise terror attack on Israeli civilians, including infants, on October 7.”
Just because I would vote for a Muppet before I would vote for Kennedy, he accurately described not only why he has abandoned the corrupt and undemocratic Democratic Party, but why any Democrat with integrity should.
Ann Althouse chose basically the same excerpt from the speech that I would have, so I’ll give her the pointer on the official Ethics Quote of the Week:
1. Item: PBS. During a Monday night segment of her PBS News program, long time progressive hack Judy Woodruff said, “The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign.” It was a total fabrication. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office immediately denounced Woodruff’s reporting, and Netanyahu’s office released a statement denying an Axios’ report about a phone call between the prime minister and Trump about the Gaza hostage and cease-fire deal that the outlet claimed happened on August 14. Trump also denied both reports.
Woodruff subsequently issued an apology and retraction on Twitter/X, explaining that her false statement was “was not based on” her “original reporting,” and that she was only “referring to reports” she had read in Axios and Reuters. She was apparently lying about that, too. Nobody can locate any items either in Axios or by Reuters that Trump urged Netanyahu not to “cut a deal.” And, as several have pointed out, the Woodruff retraction was on Twitter to the fools who follow Woodruff, a far smaller group than the millions who inexplicably watch PBS news.
Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” are “baseless, you know. The people who are trying to rig this one say so.
The instant ethics train wreck, courtesy of The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck, The Ferguson Ethics Train Wreck, The George Floyd Freakout, the Obama Administration Ethics Train Wreck, the DEI Ethics Train Wreck and The Great Stupid, is described by Campus Reform, thusly:
A primarily black student group at the University of Missouri was recently forced to change the name of that it is planning on hosting. The Legion of Black Collegians reportedly intended to name [a back-to-school barbecue event] the “Welcome Black BBQ,” but was forced to change the name by the university administration. The event, which is scheduled to be hosted on Friday, will now be called the “Welcome Black and Gold BBQ,” a reference to the school’s colors. The group wrote in an Instagram post on Aug. 16 that it is “heartbroken” at the name change.
Ugh.
Having gagged on the last Ethics Quiz completely, I have to clear my palate with a second try.
Those canny Democrats tried to trick young voters into watching Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night by feeding their propaganda agents (that is, the U.S. news media) a fake rumor that pop super-star Beyoncé was going to show up in Chicago, perform at the convention’s finale, and thus endorse KAmala Harris.
“Beyoncé to perform at Democratic convention: Sources,” stated the headline at The Hill. “Did White House political director just drop major hint about Beyoncé DNC appearance?” coyly insinuated NBC Chicago. “BEYONCÉ PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” claimed TMZ. “🚨🚨SHE’S THERE!!!!!!”announced the Twitter/X account @beyoncepress at 7:16 p.m. Central time, alongside a video of a black SUV driving through Chicago’s River North neighborhood escorted by a motorcade.
All false. Harris finished her speech, balloons came down from the ceiling, and no Beyoncé. Figures aren’t in, but I assume that the planted rumor “worked,” making it “good” as the late Harry Reid will confirm if you track him down in the Lake of Fire.
“It’s a bad move to trick people into staying tuned and then denying them what they thought they’d get,” opines Ann Althouse today as she disagrees with Harry, though I don’t know what she means exactly by “bad.” Unethical? Unfair? Likely to backfire (meaning it didn’t “work”)? Columnist Laura Bassett tweeted that “teasing a huge surprise guest and leaking that it’s both Beyonce and Taylor swift just to get people to tune in is actually kind of funny.” Not unethical. Funny. Bassett is a former HuffPo pundit who now hangs out at MSNBC and CNN, so you can guess what her ethics alarms are like.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this…
The case of “genocide” is a classic in the annals of deliberate linguistic manipulation for unethical goals.
A detailed essay in the New York Times explains the machinations around the word, which is similar to what we have seen recently in other cases, like that of “women,” “racism,” “lying,” “ad hominem” (in a debate here on Ethics Alarms), “fascism,”and “insurrection,” to name just a few of many. The proliferation of this Orwellian process should set off not just ethics alarms but evil alarms.
As the article correctly explains, international law addressing genocide was aimed at extreme and unequivocal examples where a nation sets out to exterminate an entire race or ethnic group for no other reason than that group’s existence. It is the ultimate hate crime, and thus was labeled a “crime against humanity.” The Holocaust was the prime example: nothing describes genocide more indisputably than a group of experts, military officials and government leaders sitting around a table and deciding on a “Final Solution.”
But as the article relates, mission creep has invaded the anti-genocide brigade, for example with the United States being accused of genocide in its treatment of Native American and because of the actions of the KKK and others during the Jim Crow era, and now, with Israel being vilified by the genocide label for being determined to eliminate a terrorist organization pledged to commit genocide against Israelis.
Naturally, the United Nations is complicit in this process, and, naturally, so is the I.C.J., the U.N.’s top court. The U.S., among other nations, supports the Geneva Convention but doesn’t accept the authority of the I.C.J. The article doesn’t explicitly explain why, but the reason is obvious: the court is subject to political motives and bias. It can’t be trusted.
“Genocide” has been slowly made a synonym for “human rights violations,” and wars are by definition human rights violations. Thus the U.N. can always use a politicized definition of “genocide” to declare any war, even one triggered by a nation’s right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens, as “genocide”—particularly if the nation waging the war is Israel.
By the standards being weaponized by the protesters at the Democratic National Convention, the U.S. ending World War II with two atom bombs would qualify as genocide.
This is the unethical—but effective—process:
1. Identify a nation, group, individual, or leader that you want to demonize.
2. Find a word universally regarded as describing conduct that is heinous and unforgivable.
3. Redefine that word so that the policies, conduct or stated position of that nation, group, individual, or leader can be described by it.
4. Repeat that word in association with the nation, group, individual, or leader’s policies, conduct or stated positions so that the word itself is defined by those policies, conduct or stated positions, rather than the other way around.
The average member of the public—you know, morons—won’t know the difference.
What makes this tactic so effective, diabolical, and impossible to stop is that there are many examples of pejorative words that should be used and understood to apply beyond their most narrow definitions. Child abuse. Indoctrination. Propaganda. Totalitarianism. Conflicts of interest. The distinction, perhaps, is whether the expanded definition is made in good faith, or it it is only aimed at a particular adversary to achieve strategic political gains.
The article, “The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of ‘Genocide’” is here for you to read, freed from the paywall.
There has never been a U.S. political party with so little integrity or a convention so thoroughly confused about its values, direction, who it wants to appeal to, and what its culture is.
The fact that the Convention prominently features vans giving out free abortions and vasectomies (it’s Planned Parenthood, not the party proper, but it doesn’t matter) sends as militant an anti-family message as it would be possible to send. Then there are the all-gender bathrooms, making up 5% of the facilities at the convention hall, which about 1.6% of the population have a “which bathroom do I use?” problem. More...
1. Talk about rank incompetence: the official platform approved by the Democratic Party had never been edited to remove references to “Biden’s second term,” which appeared 19 times. How can anyone trust a party to run a government/agency/ lemonade stand that is this careless? Apparently Democrats are beyond embarrassment.
2. And speaking of the platform, here is a section that defies parody:
What does “acknowledgement” even mean in this context except as blatant virtue-signalling to another aggrieved minority group? “We care, but we’re not giving you your land back!”? “Time immemorial” is historical nonsense: the tribes weren’t here as the Earth cooled, they came here from other places, almost always displacing—killing—other groups of people who were here before them. Facts Don’t Matter to this party.
3. No sitting President in modern history has been treated with such disrespect by his own party as President Biden, whose address to the convention was shunted along to well past prime time. By any previous standard, the current, retiring President would be guaranteed the most prestigious slot, but Biden’s shambling condition reminds non-cultish voters that this party lied to them for a year or more, so the fewer who saw Joe speak, the better. Used to push Joe’s address past 11 pm. EST was the babble of Kamala Harris’s childhood friends, among others.
3. To be fair, Joe justified the decision to minimize his visibility, ad-libbing, “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” “Those protesters” carried Hamas flags and were substantially in favor of killing Jews. The level of Democratic Party analysis of the war in Gaza is that “innocent people” are being killed, so war bad, soooo let Hamas survive until its next terror attack on Israel. BUT the Biden-Harris administration stands faithfully behind Israel, except when it doesn’t. Got it. It makes sense if you are stupid and not capable of paying attention.
4. Did you know Donald Trump lies all the time? Biden again repeated the false narrative that Trump called white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people.” It doesn’t matter how many times and how many sources have pronounced this false, the Democrats continue to repeat it. That is the essence of a Big Lie strategy….but they do it to save democracy, see, so channeling Goebbels is okay.
5. They started chanting “Lock him up!” during Hillary’s speech. How ironic—and again, telling. Locking Trump up has been the theme of the Democratic Party’s efforts to avoid the electoral defeat they have so thoroughly earned. Democracy! Again again, this is a party incapable of shame or embarrassment.
I woke up in the middle of the night to check something and found this rant on my Facebook feed:
So, just so we’re clear- I get it, you don’t like Kamala or Tim. Not your first choice, etc., etc.So, I ask you this as you hem and haw: cut into the only chance this country has to rid itself once and for all of an openly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, incompetent tyrant who has given a voice to the worst parts of our culture; to keep this rapist and felon from returning to power, this time with people who are focused on carrying out his Agenda – Whatever might happen if we’re to have a Harris/Walz presidency, how in any possible way is that worse than what four more years of this man and what he represents can bring? HOW?To vote otherwise (Republican or Independent), to criticize to the point of damage, to abstain, is nothing more than serving one’s ego.By 2028 the world will gladly continue on after slicing up what remains of the United States of America, and while I understand every single one of your arguments regarding the history of this country – and agree with a good many of them – for all the reasons you want to see a future that has better things than the past, put down all your grievances, or at the very least anything that will prevent this duo from taking the reins and JUST GET THEM THERE.We can rightly start to work when we are sure there’s something left to work with, because if you don’t know that the alternative will leave us with less than nothing (and not for long at that), you’re complicit in a way that can not and will not be forgiven by history, your families and very likely, because chances are you are someone with a decent heart who gives a shit, yourself.Blue. That’s it. That’s all. Right now. Do it.
The writer is a much closer friend and of longer duration than the one I discussed in yesterday’s Ethics Quiz. He’s also in professional theater, but, believe it or not, is a lawyer—you know, the profession that supposedly reveres precision analysis. Another interesting wrinkle: he’s Jewish, and promoting a Presidential candidate who wants to impose a “permanent” cease-fire in Gaza. You may remember, and I’m certain he does, how the last supposedly permanent cease fire in Gaza ended, on October 7, 2023.
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