Q: If MSM Anti-Trump Propaganda Is Already This Inflammatory, What Will It Be Like In 2024?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Apparently terrified that there is a real chance their team will lose power in the 2024 elections, media pundits are abandoning all restraint already. You see, they want everyone to believe that the President who delivered that most fascist speech in American political history—that’s him above—has to be re-elected to “save democracy” from Donald Trump. The last few days have seen a wave of these screeds, and their audacity and palpable whiff or panic is remarkable. There were three especially notable ones, two from the New York Times and and one from the Washington Post. All three use Big Lie #3 from the Ethics Alarms directory, just recently updated: “Trump Is A Fascist/Hitler/Dictator/Monster.” Apparently a talking points memo went out from the Biden White House or the DNC to the Axis allies in the media as President Biden’s poll numbers have sunk to new lows (though still ridiculously high, given his performance and, well, you know). The theme in all three is the same: there is a “clear and present danger” that if elected, Trump will take over the government and install himself as a dictator. I wrote this three years ago:

David French’s primal scream in the Times, “It’s Time to Fix America’s Most Dangerous Law,” is the most insidious: his theory is that a President Trump would use the Insurrection Act, a federal law permitting the President, in a sufficiently dire emergency, to deploy military troops as a domestic police force under his direct command. The other two pieces (with suspiciously similar headlines), “Trump attempts to spin anti-democracy, authoritarian criticism against Biden” (the Post) and “Trump’s Defense to Charge That He’s Anti-Democratic? Accuse Biden of It” (NYT) spin out Big Lie #3 in more general terms. Isaac Arnsdorf and Marianne LeVine quote cherry picked “expert,” Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of American political rhetoric at Texas A&M University, for example: “Trump’s Iowa speech continues his use of fascist rhetoric: it’s us versus them, he tells his supporters, and ‘they’ are enemies who cheat. Authoritarians have a lot of rhetorical tricks for explaining away anti-democratic actions as actually ‘democratic.”

The Times piece, by Michael Gold, states, “While Mr. Trump shattered democratic norms throughout his presidency and has faced voter concerns that he would do so again in a second term, the former president in his speech repeatedly accused Mr. Biden of corrupting politics and waging a repressive “all-out war” on America.” It’s versatile of Gold to bring Big Lie #6, “Trump’s Defiance Of Norms Is A Threat To Democracy,” into the discussion, but like David French and the Post’s Biden campaign soldiers at the Post, #3 is still the weaponized lie of choice.

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From “The Country’s In The Very Best Of Hands” Files: State GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler’s Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

That song is a high;ight from the film of Broadway musical “Li’l Abner,” based on what was once the most popular political satire comic strip in the funny papers. I immediately thought of it (I’ve staged it many times in musical revues, and written parody lyrics in various decades) when I read the gob-smacking story of Christian Ziegler and his wife, which could have been made up by an evil AI bot dedicated to making Republicans look as hypocritical and ridiculous as possible.

Ziegler has been accused of sexual assault, but that’s just the tip of a very messy iceberg.

CNN obtained a search warrant affidavit from the Florida Center for Government Accountability. It indicates that Ziegler and his wife Bridget planned a “three-way” with the alleged victim and complainant on the day of the alleged assault. “When the victim learned that Bridget could not make it, she changed her mind and canceled with Christian,” the document says.

Well, that’s perfectly reasonable! Let’s not be prudes: Should kinky sex disqualify someone from being the head of a state political party that strives to appeal to conservative values? Only if the public finds out about it: call this the “Kinky Republican State Official Principle.” If you are going to engage in private conduct that will pull you down on the public’s cognitive dissonance scale, you had better make certain the fun stays private, and if you can’t, don’t do it or resign first.

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Musical Ethics Dunces: Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Guess what the two country music stars thought was an appropriate selection to croon at Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service?

They sang “Imagine,” John Lennon’s mush-brained ode to anarchy and nihilism. By the end of the performance, Rolling Stone tells us, “some of the other musicians had delicately joined in, offering choral vocals and soft piano.” Great. These are the deep thinkers who try to influence public opinion, government policies and elections.

Pundit Ed Driscoll put it well: “Because ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’ and ‘Imagine there’s no countries’ are comforting words inside the church funeral for a 96-year-old former first lady of America.”

It would have been more responsible to have sung another Lennon composition, “I am the Walrus” (GOO GOO G’JOOB!). At least that song, gibberish though it may be, doesn’t make one think of Jimmy’s foreign policy botches, which were many and varied.

The American Bar Association Reminds Me Why I Am No Longer A Member

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Ethics duncery, abuse of influence, cowardice, bias…oh, lots of things.

The president of the American Bar Association, Mary Smith, leaped onto the careering Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck on behalf of the organization she leads, issuing a statement two days after the October 7 terrorist attack on music festival attendees in Israel that said,

“The American Bar Association unequivocally condemns the attacks of Hamas on Israeli citizens that have killed hundreds. The kidnapping of helpless civilians by Hamas—including women and children abducted at gunpoint—for use in Gaza as hostages and human shields violates international laws. Brutal attacks on civilians are never a solution to disputes or a justifiable way to air grievances. Israel and the Palestinians have had long-running disagreements and differences, but that in no way justifies the actions of Hamas. The state of Israel has the right to exist, and its citizens are entitled to live in safety and peace. The ABA calls on both sides to show restraint to spare the lives of the innocent people caught up in these attacks. The ABA also calls for all hostages to be released and for all parties to stop hostilities and settle their disputes in a peaceful and legal fashion and with the rule of law.”

For a lawyer (and the supposedly most prestigious lawyer organization), that’s an astoundingly self-contradictory statement. Despite giving lip service to the obvious definition of a terror attack on civilians as unjustifiable, the statement goes on to claim that Israel has no right to respond to the attack as an act of war, calling for a “peaceful solution” while implying that any armed response will breach “the rule of law.” Then she struck again on October 17, writing that the ABA,

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The Elon Musk Car On The Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This will take some explaining.

Chapter I: The inarticulate tweet.

On November 15, someone called “The Artist Formerly Known as Eric” on X put up the tweet above. It is, like so many tweets, poorly written and inarticulate, because it was probably composed in about 5 second. When it became famous, and I read it for the first time, I finally concluded that the comment was a shot across the bow of the segment of the liberal Jewish community which had closely allied itself with with the full panoply of minority victim-mongerers, particularly the black activists who have morphed from the days of the civil rights marches into anti-white bigots. These, as we have seen in the past two months, allied themselves with the Palestinians and their terrorist supporters while placing Jews in the roles of white oppressors. His message, then, though distorted by the hyperbolic “don’t give a shit” rhetoric, was “you should have seen this coming” and “your great pals and allies have turned on you, and that’s your thanks for supporting Black Lives Matter and the rest.”

But who knows? It is, as I say, a badly conceived tweet. However, as I read it, his general point has validity. The black community has always contained an excessive number of anti-Semites who do regard the Jews as “white” (as they are), and the support the civil rights movement has received from the Jewish community didn’t substantially change that animus. Thus Black Lives Matters chapters have been announcing their support for Hamas.

My conclusion: It was not an anti-Semitic tweet, just a sloppy one. Eric was clearer in a follow-up tweet, in which he wrote, “I support Jewish people’s right to self defense literally and ideologically. But I also, as a white person, have to acknowledge that it’s been depressing to see Jewish communities not take a stronger stance against anti white dialecticism that is basically just repurposed antisemitism.”

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Brain Thoroughly Washed, A White-Guilt Sufferer Asks “The Ethicist”….

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

…a ridiculous question, and Kwame Anthony Appiah nicely tells the woman that she’s deluded.

Bravo.

” Kate” writes,

I was privileged to have been raised in a family who prized the arts, including works from cultures that were not our own. (We are of European ancestry.) Among the art in my childhood home was a significant collection of masks, statues, figurines and other objects from mostly West African cultures. My father, who acquired these pieces in the 1970s and ’80s through art dealers, has always taken pride in the idea that they were not “tourist art.” Most of the items date to the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I have come into possession of several of these items over the years, and always appreciated them for their artistic qualities. But as my understanding of the horrors of colonialism and the legacy of slavery expands, I question whether it’s ethical for me to display a Baule mask or a Yoruba dance wand — ceremonial items with deep spiritual and cultural significance. Knowing they were not created for a tourist market also leads me to believe that at some point in their history they were probably acquired via an unfair transaction.

What is my responsibility to the descendants of the people who created these objects? Some friends have suggested donation to a local museum that specializes in African art, but this would perpetuate the colonialist attitude that these objects don’t belong where they were created. Is it possible to repatriate them?

“The Ethicist,” who happens to be African himself, replied politely but curtly that,

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Quote Incompetence Of The Month: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The most incompetently-used quote is probably Dick the Butcher’s “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers” in Act IV, Scene II of William Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part II.” Quoted out of its proper context to suggest that lawyers are the bane of society, the actual quote means the exact opposite. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens explained in a 1985 decision: “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

Now our Secretary of Education has secured a niche in the false quotation Hall of Shame with his recent gaffe referring to the resources and technical assistance his department can provide state governors, “I think it was President Reagan said, ‘We’re from the government. We’re here to help.’ ” As anyone with a working knowledge of Reagan’s political philosophy and his memorable quotes—Wait, this guy is in charge of our education?— should know, the context of that quote was Reagan mocking the ability of big government to muck up anything it touched. The full quote was, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Of course, given the proclivities of the Biden administration, Cardona might have known the actual quote’s meaning, but was deliberately misrepresenting it anyway assuming most of the public are ignorant dupes

The Apparent Strategies To Overcome Democrat Responsibility For Inflation: Gaslighting And Insulting Voters’ Intelligence

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I saw “Biden’s” idiotic tweet about corporations and inflation last week and I decided it was so obviously dishonest that it wasn’t worth writing about. (That, and the fact that anyone who thinks the President actually tweets anything himself would buy the Brooklyn Bridge twice.) Then the Atlantic said, “Hold my beer…”

From the article, which is behind a paywall and I would have paid NOT to see what is available for free:

You would think, with prices as high as they are, that Americans would have tempered their enthusiasm for shopping of late; that they would have pulled back spending on luxury items; that they would have sought out budget and basic options, bought smaller packages, fewer things.

This is not what has happened. Consumer spending rose 0.2 percent, after accounting for higher prices, in October, the most recent month for which the government has data. Online shopping jumped 7.8 percent over the Thanksgiving long weekend, more than analysts had anticipated. The sales of new cars, dishwashers, cruise vacations, jewelry — all things people tend to give up when they are watching their budget — remain strong. Consultants keep anticipating a recession precipitated by the “death of the consumer.” Thus far, the consumer is staying alive.

People hate inflation, just not enough to spend less: This is one of the central tensions of today’s economy, in which things are going great yet everyone is miserable. And in some ways, Americans have nobody to blame but themselves.

That garbage elevates “blame the victim” to a fine art. It is insulting to be expected to be persuaded by such an argument, but apparently the Left’s propagandists are desperate, they really think Americans are idiots, or both.

The Ethics Alarms 2023 “It’s A Wonderful Life” Ethics Guide, With A New Introduction

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

2023 INTRODUCTION

It’s time again for the Ethics Alarms annual posting of its ethics guide to perhaps the best ethics movie ever made, Frank Capra’s now iconic “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Past time, in fact: last year I concluded that the movie really belonged in the Thanksgiving movie canon, not Christmas. However, as I wrote in the 2022 preface,

 Like George, I often feel like I didn’t achieve and experience what I could have, that my choices too often didn’t pan out, that I barely missed the breaks that I needed when I most needed them…What makes our lives successful (or not), and what makes makes our existence meaningful is not how much money we accumulate, or how much power we wield, or how famous we are. What matters is how we affect the lives of those who share our lives, and whether we leave our neighborhood, communities, associations and nation better or worse than it would have been “if we had never been born.” It’s a tough lesson, and some of us, perhaps most, never learn it…I’m not sure I have learned it yet, to be honest with myself. Intellectually, perhaps, but not emotionally.

I have to admit that I still haven’t genuinely accepted the lesson of the film. Maybe it’s time to watch it again; I haven’t since last year, and recently I’ve been feeling a bit too much like George to get up the courage. I’m posting this the day after my birthday, an all-time low for the number of friends, colleagues and relatives who remembered it (five, and my wife didn’t recall until mid-morning, with my son remembering around 10 pm), cards (one) and gifts (none). I don’t care about any of those things really, but I once believed that with as much ability and talent I had been lucky enough to be born with, and the additional advantages of wonderful parents and citizenship in the United States, I would have achieved enough that, oh, I don’t know, I might have earned a Wikipedia page by now. It’s stupid; I know it is. This is a tough time for my business and my family, and a lot of the problems are the result of my own selfish choices and mistakes as well as my hard-wired proclivity to cause trouble and not back down after the consequences start becoming clear. I’m seriously considering not celebrating Christmas this year, and we have always been a big Christmas family, because several recent disasters  require the money to go elsewhere.

And yet, as I have been musing about all of this lately, I cannot deny that I, like George, have had a wonderful life, and, frankly, one that has been a lot more interesting and varied than George’s was. My various crazy projects and eventually defunct missions have been responsible for many marriages and many children, and now grandchildren. I’ve inspired some people to take risks that panned out well for them, and have advanced the careers of several artists. I’ve made a lot of people laugh. There are some plays and musical being performed more frequently now that my theater company rescued from obscurity, and, weirdest of all, a student theater organization that I started is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary. And, of course, there is my son, who we adopted from a hell-hole in Russia and who is making the most of his opportunities in the land of opportunity.

It’s not a bad legacy. I’m not heading to the bridge, but I need to snap out of this mood…cue Cher!

I guess it is time for me to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” again….

1. “If It’s About Ethics, God Must Be Involved”

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Ethics Quiz: The Star’s Apology

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Last month, actress Susan Sarandon became a deserving casualty of the Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck after she spoke at at a pro-Palestinian rally and said that American Jews feeling threatened by the pro-Hamas protesters, demonstrators and rioters (like the Cornell students who had to hide in their dorms)were “getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.” This epically stupid comment got her dropped by United Talent Agency, whose management is Jewish. As I noted here, “the agency concluded, probably accurately, that Sarandon’s comments diminished her value to them, and perhaps having a pro-terrorism client might deter more rational artists from seeking their aid.”

Apparently Sarandon, who has progressed through her romantic lead stage into and out of her mother role stage and now is getting grandmother parts isn’t quite ready to hang up her acting spurs, and decided that she had made a potential career-ending mistake that needed fixing. So she has now issued this apology:

Your first Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of December is…

Is her apology sincere, trustworthy, and sufficient?

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