Free speech just twenty years ago
One of my favourite movies is Bull Durham, the story of a Triple-A baseball catcher, “Crash” Davis, who “gets sent down to the bus leagues” (Single-A) so that he can teach a wild young pitcher, Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, how to pitch well enough to get to the Majors.
But also in the mix is Baseball groupie Annie Savoy, who’s also trying to teach Ebby how to grow up.
It’s a romantic sports comedy and while YMMV on the actors Kevin Costner (“Crash”), Tim Robbins (Ebby) and Susan Sarandon (Annie) they had chemistry together, plus a nice backup of other characters, a good story and smart dialogue. The movie got critical raves and did well at the box office when it was released in 1988.
Then, fifteen years later, the movie was back in the news:
In 2003, the Baseball Hall of Fame planned a celebration to honor “Bull Durham’s” 15th anniversary. The two-day event, slated for April 26-27 in Cooperstown, N.Y., got canceled due to recent, anti-war remarks from the film’s co-stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.
Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey made the call, fearing the stars would turn the event into an anti-war screed. He alerted the duo, then a romantic couple, via a Fed Ex’d letter.
“There was a chance of politics being injected into the Hall during these sensitive times, and I made a decision to not take that chance,” Petroskey, who once served as White House assistant press secretary under President Reagan, said at the time.
I could kind of understand that, given how hot feelings were running about the war at the time, and certainly Robbins and Sarandon had already got a lot of hate and are both very left-wing, so there’s no doubt Petroskey’s concerns were real.
But it was still bullshit and Robbins understandably hit the roof:
“You belong with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame Indeed, you offer a vision of free speech that is deeply incompatible with the concept of “uninhibited, robust and wide open” debate – a concept that is basic to our democracy. In essence, your fundamental position seems to be that criticism of the President should be suspended in times of war. You suggest that, because of these “sensitive” times “in our nation’s history”, criticism of the President is irresponsible in that “it undermines the U.S. position” and exposes “our troops to even more danger.”
Your claim, however, ignores the possibility that criticism of the President in times of war might have a mediating effect which limits executive overreaching and might even save lives of Americans and Iraqis, combatants as well as civilians. The impact of dissent during times of war is, at the least, a debatable issue. But, there can be little debate about the kind of society in which we would be living if, indeed, there were no discussion and no dissent and if, instead, we all marched lock-step off to war in a paroxysm of patriotic fervor. It is not the kind of society that we would wish for ourselves or our children.”
Robbins is definitely not one of your typical, “dumb” actors, and neither is Sarandon.
But two decades on from that I can’t help thinking that they got huge support from within Hollywood and around the nation as much for being Leftist opponents of a GOP-led war, as for free speech.
Would the same happen today if Robbins and Sarandon took on the Biden Administration, especially about the C-19 measures still being imposed in 2021 and 2022, given the overwhelming Left-wing support for those measures? To be fair to Robbins he has proven more consistent when it comes to free speech. He did initially embrace the government’s pro-lockdown policies at the start of the pandemic, but later he began questioning their value.
Still, there was no outpouring of support for him from fellow progressives on that, as there had been in 2003. Free speech is just not valued as much in Hollywood/Left circles nowadays – in fact in many cases it’s the exact opposite.
Long-time Lefty journalist, Matt Taibbi, sees it as well:
“Yeah, it’s funny, I mean, I was raised in a traditional ACLU liberal, I believed in free speech all my life. That was one of the things, frankly, that attracted me to the Democratic Party when I was a kid, the idea that we were the party that believed in letting everybody have a say, and we’ll just make a better argument, and that’s how the system works,” Taibbi said.
“Apparently, something very dramatic has changed in politics in America, and there’s been a shift. There’s no question about it anymore, that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they read these issues.”
Courage under fire
The Nashville Police have released bodycam footage of their officers taking on the woman who invaded a school and shot three adults and three little kids.
It’s an incredible six minutes from the time Officer Engelbert drives up to when he puts down the woman shooter. The last part includes footage from one of the other officers who also fired on the woman.
It’s also a massive, if implicit and unstated rebuke to the gutless Uvalde Police who loitered around for literally hours while little kids were being shot in that school and they talked of the need for body armour. You’ll not that these officers went in without it, knowing the risks but also knowing that time was of the essence.
Actually it’s also a silent rebuke to our crowd who stood around at Albert Park last Saturday watching the Trannies get their rocks off assaulting woman.
As this article makes clear however, the MSM are the same in the USA as they are here in supporting the Narrative of the age, which is apparently uncontested support – I would say worship – of Trans Activists.
While the motive is still being investigated, unfortunately Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media are already doing their thing in blaming the right and their respect for the Second Amendment along with the alleged “hate” they have for transgender persons, as evidenced by ABC News “reporter” Terry Moran’s heavily biased report pointing to legislation passed by the Tennessee legislature and signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Bill Lee that heavily restricts drag queen shows and in essence outlaws gender-affirming healthcare services for minors.
Relatedly, the Washington Post disgustingly tried to link Rep. Andy Ogles to the Nashville mass shooting (which occurred in his Congressional district) because he once posted a Christmas photo of him, his wife and children holding firearms.
Of course they did.
UPDATE:
ALAS NOT ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL.
During WW2 air operations and to a lesser degree surface shipping was developing and coming to terms with counter measures in dealing with a new technology called radar.
Some claim the failure of the Luftwaffe to demolish all the installations that gave considerable early warning of Bombing raids incoming from occupied France, was a very pertinent factor in the Battle of Britain thwarting a planned invasion of Britain by the Wehrmacht.
Later in the war when allied planes took the airwar to Germany radar was by then very useful in the defence of the German homeland.
In an effective counter the allies developed “Window” where foil strips of a length to maximise the effect were scattered in the air to “Jam” the enemy eyes via Radar.
Of course once visual contact was achieved it made no difference and airwar resumed.
Now being a conspiracy theorist from long past I am wondering if the very convenient Mt Albert Park (mainly peaceful) Riot left to fester and erupt in the mystifying absence of an Police reaction until a final intervention to escort Ms Parker, aka Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, safely to the airport and away from NZ , was not a welcome diversion from all the other shite enveloping the Mad Magazine cover boy, Chipkins?
“Window” had a degree of success but not total in all circumstances, so when the dust begins to settle will the marama mysteries return to any degree of prominence,
Her Outburst at Mt Albert Park in reference to male born whites being responsible for all sexual violence, Minister outside Cabinet for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, as well as holding the Associate Housing portfolio stated “I am a prevention violence minister [sic]. I know who causes violence in the world, it is white cis men. That is white cis men who cause violence in the world.
Is that acceptable for a Minister outside Cabinet, you Yell at us, IMHO it was just one of many contributing factor in the eruption of serious violence where women some older ones who were assaulted as The Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull speaking tour was shut down in a violent counter riot.
Now who can in all sincerity accept that apparent blatant conflict of interest, it seems Mad Magazine c2023 frontispiece can?
Ahoy Chippy you might be able to magic up a bunch of thugs to silence a public display to protect women, it was also a bit strange that the Police seemed to be far too busy to prepare to deal with a mainly peaceful counter demonstration and the total abdication of any support of “Free Speech” as a basic human right, However old Chap the publicity being generated across the worlds media might just be running into serious status for The Country that has endowed you with a very rare opportunity to find a place in History, how sad indeed should you end up alongside your immediate predecessor in history, who incidentally seems to have disappeared behind a dump of Window.
Anything that is grievance-based leads to violence and death.
A transgender shooter killing Christians shows us: “The potential for aggression and even violence in victimhood movements is much larger than in the general public.” “Anything that is grievance-based leads to violence and death.”
– Psychology Professor Sam Vaknin
Watch the short video. The nazis were a victimhood cult based on Versailles and the communists made the proletariat victims. The TRA misogynists are a victimhood cult. Men thinking they can be better women than women themselves. Deeply evil.
NZ now looks to join AUKUS!
Andrew Little says that New Zealand may look to join AUKUS – albeit in a non-nuclear capacity:
“We have been offered the opportunity to talk about whether we could or wish to participate in that pillar two [non-nuclear] aspect of it,” said Andrew Little, the New Zealand defence minister. “I’ve indicated we will be willing to explore it.”
In a welcome move, Gerry Brownlee has also walked back his idiotic comments on Australia joining AUKUS:
Last week, the New Zealand opposition foreign affairs spokesperson, Gerry Brownlee, raised his own concerns about whether Aukus might make it harder for Anzac forces to operate together. On Tuesday, he walked back his comments, saying he was “certainly not” trying to criticise the deal. “Australia will make decisions for Australia,” Brownlee said.
It’s good to see some sense being brought to the table in NZ. Our defence force is already woefully behind our allies in terms of equipment, capability and technology.
Helen Clark is maintaining her out of date criticism of all things military. Good thing she got the boot in 2008 – she has been irrelevant every since.
I’ve been a bit preoccupied with some other matters lately, so I haven’t posted as much as I would like. But I have to give credit where it is due – Air Marshal Short announced last week retention bonuses for all NZDF staff (who are staying in) as a partial rectification of pay and conditions falling so far behind. Army has managed to get some additional targeted payments as well to particular trades, ranks and location. Whilst it is simply reallocating the under-spend of the personnel budget (thanks to record-breaking attrition of over 17%), it is welcome.
The timing of the announcement just so happened to coincide with the new minister touring the camps and bases:
The Twitter Files – an Index
I haven’t covered this at all and I should have considering how big a story it has been.
Suffice to say that the MSM have almost completely ignored it, but to me that just demonstrates how increasingly out of touch they are with the public and how they’re being left behind by Internet news sources like Substack and others.
What the series of reports over the last couple of months has proven is that a group of US government agencies, Leftist NGO’s and private sector Social Media corporations, all worked together over the last few years to push US government misinformation – aka lies – on to the public while at the same time silencing any voices that tried to speak up against this.
While the primary social media proof comes from Twitter – thanks entirely to new owner Elon Musk opening up the guts of the old corporate to examination by journalists like Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss and others – there’s no doubt that similar efforts were also underway involving Facebook, Google and other such corporations.
It’s a massive and likely ongoing breach of the 1st Amendment by the US government and it seems to have been led less by the politicians than bureaucracies that report to the President: the CDC, NIAID, NIH being the primary malefactors in the C-19 area, with the FBI the main one on the 2020 elections (especially with Hunter Biden) and the the January 6 Capitol riots, but the CIA is there as well.
The subjects on which this combination of censorship and propaganda have opearated have ranged from C-19 lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates, to Hunter Biden’s laptop and the 2020 US elections.
Racket News have set up an website that indexes all of the Twitter files produced to date and updates them constantly (the latest as of this writing is Twitter #19 on March ) and also provides a summary of each one. I’ve added it to the Sidebar here under the Reference / News label.
The originals were all published first on Twitter, undoubtedly because Musk wants the traffic. But Twitter is of course not a good forum for long-firm articles, which is why the others have steadily transferred them to better formats. Unfortunately the index goes only to the original Twitter threads.
To me the most biggest ones are as follows:
- TF 10 (Zweig), TF 13 (Berenson) & TF 19 (Taibbi) – Rigging the Covid-19 debate
Including outright lies. Twitter personnel who’d liaised with Biden administration officials who were “very angry” that Twitter had not deplatformed more accounts. There were “countless” instances of Twitter banning or labeling “misleading” accounts that were true or merely controversial. A Rhode Island physician named Andrew Bostom, for instance, was suspended for, among other things, referring to the results of a peer-reviewed study on mRNA vaccines.
Stanford University worked with four think-tanks (several the recipients of state awards) and multiple government agencies to create a cross-platform JIRA ticketing system called the Virality Project (VP) for seven major Internet platforms, including Twitter, Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Medium… “seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices” like Facui’s “leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.” Therefore, people need to be shielded from difficult truths.
SURELY THE TUMBRILS WILL ROLL THIS TIME?
Nashy has done it again so we can expect another final final final final warning.
If there was a shred of credibility in the Main Stream Media, surely there must be one call for an under fire Prime minister to actually attempt to be the Nation’s elected leader?
Don’t hold your breath even though tuesday the 28th of March 2023 has to be a candidate for a worst day ever?
Thee only possible smidgen of opportunity remaining for Chippy from Mad Magazines Front Page is right there?
One question remaining will Nashy accept his fate, somehow I have doubts?
IS THAT A FACT?
Now I am not certain of the timeline but if Davidson was involved with the Handlebar before her outrageous original statement re white cis males being the perpetrators of all violence towards women there might be a slim chance she was in a degree of shock, however the later reiteration as she gaily waltzed along a street repeating her racist tirade then it becomes rather weaker as an explanation.
Then when we switch to Chipkins disastrous word salad attempts to rationalise why he had no involvement in disciplining her appalling racist outburst the whole charade becomes a calamity for the New Zealand brand that for years has underpinned much of the tourism bonanza that all but evaporated with the Rona conniptions, some are claiming a recovery up to around 50% numbers pre the mismanaged response. That will not even pay the fricken rent.
Davidson is just another part maori who is in the clique trying to monetise racial advantage, not for anyone who might have a bit on the side genetics, mainly only the elites who head straight to the Bmw dealer with their newly acquired riches.
Posey Parker had every lawful and human right to make her voice heard at Albert Park last Saturday, the rabble who sought to deny her that right along with the rights of everyone who wished to hear her had nothing approaching any such right to violently shut her down.
Minister (Outside the executive) Davidson should at the very minimum be stood down while a fuller investigation into her attitudes and statements, along with Minister of Immigration Wood’s inflammatory response to those who would cancel her out of hand. followed by a complete admission by Commissioner Coster, his Auckland area Commander and any contact between Ginny Anderson and any of the police HQ hierarchy that is relevant.
I am a white male who has always been decidedly male, the unfolding events last Saturday were a total embarrassment to me, Posey Parker had every right as a fellow human being to call for an automatic safe zone for females in all situations where they might feel intimidated by males whatever their body might display. She also had an inalienable right to canvas for children to be protected from any and all attempts by adults to fulfil personal beliefs around sexual development as their bodies mature from infancy to post puberty adulthood, and the third plank that I understand to have been the focus of her intended speech was given a welcome and long overdue rationalisation by Lord Sebastian Coe with the latest declarations around Trans Males desiring to become world ranked in women’s competitive sports by recognising the well documented advantages of a Male body over a woman’s body where strength, stamina, lung capacity, musculature, all have a measurable advantage.
The mysterious Police response that needs an immediate and total explanation should be the focus of elected officials across the country.
So many questions that will never even be addressed let alone answered.
His posture toward adversaries was one of reflexive appeasement…
… He seemed to equate passivity in the face of provocation with Christian virtue.”
That’s from an essay reviewing Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. It also contains links to other essays on the subject.
But it sounds very familiar.
I guess you were sick the day they taught law at law school
It’s an old staple of comedic movies and TV shows to have a lawyer character who just isn’t very good at law, usually because they just don’t know much law. Think Dennis Denuto in The Castle (“It’s the vibe of it”)
In every case you’re always left asking how that could possibly be, since law schools are so tough and passing the bar exam is, in some ways, even tougher.
But there are law schools…. and then there are law schools like Stanford:
Stanford Law School is requiring all students to attend educational programming on free speech after protesters interrupted a speech by a conservative federal judge earlier this month. The law school will hold ‘a mandatory half-day session in spring quarter for all students on the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession,’ Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez said in a public letter to students Wednesday.
Excuse me? Shouldn’t people have been taught something about the 1st Amendment in Introduction to the Constitution 101 or whatever it might be called? And who will be the speakers? Will the students listen?
Will the students learn?
I think the answer is that they know very well what the 1st Amendment is and they just don’t give a shit. But judging from the following perhaps it is just pig ignorance:
That guy is already a judge, Judge Kato Crews, and he’s the Biden nominee for the US District Court for the District of Colorado. Actually that Twitter thread has a collection of other Biden legal nominees with the same problem, “Article five is not coming to mind” (neither did Article II).
Who would hire such people? Aside from Democrat Party administrations of course, for whom it is only necessary to be a rubber stamp for whatever the party decides.
No Minister 