As IF Times

Source: The Post (2017) – Rotten Tomatoes

Observing the massive conflagration of liberal properties has been entirely amusing of late.  We refer not to the California fires of course, but to the majority of news outlets that purport to offer straight up reportage.

When I first began to make comments on the subtleties of bias that permeated most of the popular media’s offerings of news, those threads of bias were not always obvious.  As the years have passed and with the widening political divide in America, any pretext of objectivity has yielded to full blown whoppers and knee slappers on the part of many heretofore unimpeachable sources.  Like him or not, the election of Donald Trump has poked through the thin veneer of credibility of such outlets as CNN, NBC and ABC, not to mention the more foamy at the mouth MSNBC and the Washington Post.  He has exposed these outlets for their nakedly partisan skews.

It’s not that all of this now properly labeled “fake news” originates from these outlets.  Sometimes, it’s just a matter of reporting on the crackpot utterances of someone famous.  However, the fact that they give voice to the rants of the more logically challenged people of society, mainly ‘celebrities’, makes them complicit in their dissemination of fake news.  Just the other day, Chelsea Handler (who?) expressed that the massive fires in Southern California were somehow orchestrated by Donald Trump.  Of course, that’s preposterous.  We know that only Kim Jong Un can control the weather.

Recent revelations of galling hypocrisy and malfeasance within their own ranks is the most rapturous bit of schadenfreude that could be offered to the rational public, now hopefully awakened to the dangerous tilt that these outlets have all subscribed.  This tilt was recently best depicted by David Frum who recently opined in an interview that:

“…The mistakes are precisely the reason people should trust the media. Astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes or at least they never own up to them because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda…”

It hardly gets more Orwellian than that.  By the way, replace the word Astrology with Global Alarmists next time someone brings up that bit of fantasy.

It is therefore all the more galling that an upcoming film depicting the noble activities of the Washington Post will soon be offering their version of moral courage to the unwitting public. More amusingly, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, those two pillars of liberal  sanctimony are cast as the sympathetic protagonists.  That would be like a film on how Pravda provides the truth and exposes corruption to the Russian people.  It’s assured that the film will be reasonably successful, if only because of the fan base of the title stars. It will however, compete with that other blockbuster film, also in the fantasy space, only slightly less believable,  the next installment of Star Wars.

Source: Woman accuses Al Franken of kissing, groping her without consent

Under the heading of “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy” comes the most recent allegation du jour of harassment/molestation and general sexually inappropriate behavior, this time directed towards the charming Al Franken.  As if we need one more reason to dislike him.  Since the floodgates literally burst open last month with the “shocking” revelations of the real life Jabba the Hut, Harvey Weinstein, men (and those that resemble men), from virtually all corners and echelons of society have been outed like cockroaches in a kitchen when the lights come on.

From Entertainment, to Politics, to Industry, to Media, the roster of alleged scoundrels and worse is expanding so quickly that it may be easier to count those that didn’t rather than tabulate those that did.  The really shocking revelations are not the Weinsteins, Spaceys and Frankens of the world, those hardly raise an eyebrow.   But apparently even George Bush senior is a cad! George Bush!  While certainly his transgressions aren’t anywhere close to  the d-baggery exhibited by the other characters, the net of shame will likely go on to ensnare many others who may have had even a hint of impropriety expressed during their lives…even if it was 40 years ago.  However, to characterize this avalanche of bad behavior as sudden would be wrong.  It’s only the revelations that are sudden.  We can bet that opportunists will jump to portray that there are two kinds of men; those that have been outed and those that will be outed.

Oddly, while the activities of the ever increasing cast of miscreants are exposed and helping the cause of heretofore silent victims, they also create a new class of victims…. those being the vast majority of men who behave as civilized people.  Now they too will be on eggshells wondering if any or every one of their actions will be construed as some kind of assault.  Suddenly, like gun owners, all men will be cast collectively as villains because of the actions of a few.

We will see instances of even innocent interactions with vastly different contexts labelled as examples of ‘abuse’.  As an example, the vague claim of “unwanted attention”.   Most women will be the subject of attention at some point.  Whether it’s wanted or not may depend on whether it’s Brad Pitt or Al Franken.  Since there are many more Al Frankens in the world than Brad Pitts, it’s likely that most attention will be unwanted.   So, while the exposing of d-bag behavior is good, we expect that lots of innocents will be tarred as well.

The common denominator in all the cases of improper conduct is that instances of abuse are linked with disparities of power.  Someone in a position of influence by way of  station or fame feels empowered to exceed the bounds of acceptable  social behavior.  Why? Because they get away with it.  Many of the worst recently exposed miscreants are entertainers.  They have always escaped responsibility for their crassness by virtue of being ‘artists’ and have been placed on pedestals by their adoring fans.  Some may notice that no janitors or window washers have been outed for abusing co workers.  But if you live at the top of the power pyramid, you are allowed to believe that rules are for lesser folk.  That’s not a phenomenon peculiar to American society; it’s a social dynamic that  exists in all of nature.  The point of having an evolved and civilized society is that its members are expected to behave as civilized people.  Those that choose to not behave accordingly deserve to be outed.

Now that women have been empowered to speak out, maybe the best solution to keep this behavior at bay is the classic one; a good punch in the nose.