Raising Political Discourse To A New Level
/If you are still wondering, "Who are the Krazy ones around here?", I have a couple of new entries today.
The Democratic Party of California just held a convention on Saturday. This is the party that is about as dominant in this state as either political party is in any state in the country. They control the governorship, and they also control both houses of the state legislature by two-thirds "supermajorities." They delivered the state to Hillary Clinton in the recent election by a margin of more than 4.3 million votes.
So how was the discourse at their convention? For starters, outgoing state party chair John Burton chose to use his speaking time to lead the crowd in a chant of "F**k Donald Trump." The crowd responded by chanting along and thrusting their middle fingers in the air. Classy! Here is a photograph of the moment, via GatewayPundit:
In its coverage of the event, the AP chose to spin the chants and gestures as "a sign of the vigor of the party’s distaste for the president." OK. AP also notes that "rowdy activists" in the crowd repeatedly disrupted the speeches of anyone the deemed "insufficiently supportive," Exhibit A being -- Nancy Pelosi!
Rowdy activists organized by the California Nurses Association repeatedly interrupted speakers they deemed insufficiently supportive. When U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for a “public option” in health care, the advocates began chanting “single payer.” State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who has previously suggested now is not the time for single-payer, received similar treatment
Meanwhile, also from GatewayPundit, and also from California, we learn that UCLA has posted job listings for a position with the title "Social Justice Advocate." The program seeks applicants to help their classmates “navigate a world that operates on whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the primary ideologies." Here is a longer quote from the online application:
The Social Justice Advocates initiative aims to empower students by developing them as conscious and critical leaders and equipping them with cultural and political capital as they navigate a world that operates on whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the primary ideologies. Social Justice Advocates will learn about systems oppression and how they intersect and build upon one another maintain the status quo. Most importantly individuals and the collective will be empowered through liberatory scholarship and practices and strengthening their emotional intelligence to create change within their spheres of influence. Social Justice Advocates will educate their peers on how they can make UCLA a more equitable space for all students and communities.
The program materials indicate that the funding comes in part from the taxpayers and in part from alumni -- they don't reveal the split.
If you are wondering how the rest of the world might be reacting to the descent into kraziness here in the U.S., you may be interested in this article from Chenchen Zhang at OpenDemocracy. Ms. Zhang reports that a new term "baizuo" (Chinese characters: 白左) has recently come to prominence on Chinese social media sites. The translation is given as "white left," and the term is said to be derogatory. Excerpt:
So what does ‘white left’ mean in the Chinese context, and what’s behind the rise of its (negative) popularity? . . . . [A]s a social media buzzword and very often an instrument for ad hominem attack, it could mean different things for different people. A thread on “why well-educated elites in the west are seen as naïve “white left” in China” on Zhihu, a question-and-answer website said to have a high percentage of active users who are professionals and intellectuals, might serve as a starting point.
The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users, which include some of the most representative perceptions of the 'white left'. Although the emphasis varies, baizuo is used generally to describe those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.
That's right, guys, the Chinese are laughing at you. A lot more Americans ought to be laughing at them as well. But then, many people find it difficult to laugh when they are being scorned and belittled, or told that they are "privileged" even as they lose their jobs or their pay doesn't increase for decades.