Archives For Leftism

Hollywood Double-Standard: Beverly Hills Officials Ban Public Gatherings Due to Violent Protests

June 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

City of Beverly Hills officials have issued an indefinite order banning gatherings of no more than 10 people in residential areas.

The ‘civil emergency order’ is a response to violent Black Lives Matter protesters disturbing the ‘peace and tranquility’ of the “home of the stars”.

The order cites, one ‘group called “Occupy” staging loud protests at night using bullhorns and loud music in residential areas’, with Vanity magazine adding that the ban also coincides with an earlier curfew put in place after ‘Beverly Hills was hit by violence, and property damage as looting began in the area, particularly around Rodeo Drive’ in May.

According to the LA Times, City officials were none too happy about Beverly Hills residents sleep being disturbed by protesters, and therefore ‘deemed it necessary to limit the use of residential neighborhoods at night to allow residents to sleep.’

Vanity’s Jordan Moreau noted, ‘silent gatherings, like candlelight vigils and private events, are still allowed, but people disobeying the order will be subject to arrest.’

The ban on gatherings came into effect on Saturday.

The decision met some resistance on social media with a number of Twitter users calling the decision hypocritical, given the large support from some of Hollywood’s elite for protesters carrying the Black Lives Matter movement’s Marxist banner.

Worse still, while George Floyd’s brother, Terrance, was calling for peace, those same Hollywood elites were chanting to the equivalent of “burn it all down.”

In May, Michael Moore encouraged rioters to burn down the police precinct, while simultaneously calling for no violence:

Ice Cube fueled the “kill whitey” flames by lending his support for violence, (which on another occasion included his use of an Anti-Semitic cartoon):

Legendary rapper and television star, Ice T, along with Miley Cyrus lent their unwavering support to the protests.

Ice T’s Twitter wall is drenched with anti-Trump rhetoric, conflating hatred for Donald Trump with the notion of “systemic racism”, celebrating peaceful Black Lives Matters protests, while giving an approving nod to any Anglo-American fans who genuflected to the BLM movement’s narrative, ridiculing those who questioned it.

Rosie O’Donnell, Bette Milder, reflected a similar sentiment, throwing up “police are racist” retweets; mixing that in with their hate Trump because love trumps hate dissonance, all in between their worship of Barrack Obama and “love is love”.

Rob Reiner also fueled the fires and fanaticism, encouraging division and ethnic tension by spamming his Twitter feed with rants accusing Donald Trump of ‘being a white supremacist’ labeling the Republican President a “racist confederacy supporter.”

The City of Beverly Hills ban is a “hell no, not here” to violent Black Lives Matter protests. There’s nothing wrong with officials maintaining law and order.

Hollywood supporters of BLM movement protests don’t get off so easy. It seems that protesters, protesting injustice against African Americans, disrupting and destroying the lives and livelihoods of those in predominately African American neighborhoods, is all still okay, just don’t do it to their neighbourhood, or on their front yard.

All of this suggests that there’s one rule for those who wish to rule us, another for those they wish to rule.

First published on Caldron Pool, 18th June 2020.

© Rod Lampard, 2020

In Hollywood, Political Theology, Politics , , , ,
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Blessed Are the Peacemakers: LEOs Respectfully try to School Indoctrinated Leftist White Liberal

June 26, 2020 — Leave a comment

Watch as both white and black police officers respectfully try to school (or perhaps its better to say unschool?) this leftist, white woman, after she accuses the white police officer of being a racist (and therefore evil) because of his shade of melanin.

One of the officers near the end nails it saying, “let me tell you something, America has a sin problem. The world has a sin problem. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” America and the world has a sin problem. That’s where racism, injustice, and hate, and anger, and violence, are coming from. It’s not about racism. Read the Bible!”

Associating evil with skin colour in the name of anti-racism, is racism. Worse, it’s demonising a complete ethnic group in much the same way the Nazis demonised the Jews, and in the same way Bolsheviks demonised the “kulaks”. The end result of this kind of thinking is bloodshed.

You can help end this before it gets to that point, by speaking truth into the falsehoods, and rejecting that trajectory as graciously as possible.

Big kudos to these lads from law enforcement.

“Blessed are the peacemakers…”

Video: Breitbart

 

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The COVIDSAFE App Does Not Give You a Magical Immunity to COVID-19, or Make You a Christian

April 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

I took some serious heat recently, after raising questions about the usefulness, function, role and consequences of using the Australian Government’s recent COVDISAFE app. I outlined two areas of concern, then was forced to address a third. My primary point was about precedent. The second concerned emotional manipulation; peer pressure, and the third, data security.

Objections to this included asinine responses such as “it’s un-Christian not too”, that I wasn’t’ “loving my neighbor” and that “people will die if I don’t” sign up for the app. The more astute arguments included “Romans 13 and how it commands us to submit to the government as an institution put in place by God.” [i]

The less astute included an outright dismissal, saying my argument was “crap.”Another ridiculed my point about the app being almost on par with taking an ersatz Hitler Oath. (Not an irrational concern, given the social pressure and hostile responses.)

Most of the reactions only served to solidify the precedent and emotional manipulation points. Once we accept as the norm, governments labeling people, places or things arbitrarily as being “hazardous to public health”, how long will it be until this new normal is applied by less benevolent forces to the Israel Folau’s of the world? Or even those, like me, who share Margaret Court’s view of marriage as being the biologically compatible, God ordained union between a man and a woman.

An app that encourages people to potentially stigmatise, be suspicious of, and distance themselves from their neighbour, on the basis of that person having or (are being suspected of having?) an illness, isn’t all that conducive to Christian love, pastoral care or freedom.

Likewise, using emotional manipulation, regardless of how unintentional, to get people to sign up for the COVIDSAFE app by unfairly accusing them of not being a Christian, loving or Christ-like.

We’ve heard this same asinine, emotional manipulative non-sequitur before during the same-sex marriage debate, discussions about Islamic terrorism #illridewithyou, abortion, transgenderism, Apocalyptic Climate Change…really, any Leftist cause.

Speaking out against the potential abuse of power, manipulation, and manipulative political processes, in standing up for civil liberties, is living out a love for neighbour.

Since when did a no questions asked loyalty to politicians, or allegiance to an ideology such as Leftism, become a yardstick for being a Christian?

Starry-eyed supporters of the COVIDSAFE app seem more in tune with those condemning Jesus for liberating people designated by authorities as unclean, than it is supporting Jesus’ care for the wounded, vulnerable, downcast or outcast.

I doubt my detractors would align themselves so quickly with any statement like, “Yo, Jesus, did ya get that app about lepers, mate? No. Why the bloody hell not? Do you want people to die!?”

If this is justifiable on a social distancing level, than why not develop an app to also report the threat of STD’s, AIDS, Hepatitis or HIV? The fact we don’t, and won’t, indicate that COVIDSAFE, and the general response to COVID-19 is more about politics, than science or authentic Christian living. [ii]

If this is justifiable, and in the interest of public health and safety, why not fund an app for non-smokers to ping off the phones of people who choose to smoke? If you wouldn’t support this, and yet are starry-eyed about the COVID-19 app, why wouldn’t you support it?

Let me be clear. I agree with responsible social distancing. I agree with temperature testing. I agree to a slow reopening. I agree with defeating this virus. I agree with better hygiene management, because this, to me, is showing genuine care for others, based on a basic common sense justified by objective morality.

Perhaps one of the silver linings of the Coronavirus is a return to more concern for our neighbour. Especially when it comes to manners, and personal hygiene – practising a level of care, long forgotten; one discarded by the inconsiderate, self-destructive abandonment of healthy Western traditions. I’d welcome this because it has to do more with collective and individual responsibility – people free before God, for God, and accountable to God, not enslaved to government-as-god ruling madly without accountability.

Contrary to the sentiment coming from most of those applauding the app, COVIDSAFE does not make people using it magically immune to COVID-19.

It does however make you susceptible to potentially being denied service and employment if you don’t have the app. The government admits this latter point in its 78 page COVIDSAFE information manual, and doesn’t appear to be discouraging any third party application from denying employment or service to anyone who doesn’t have the app.

“3.19.4 The Australian Government has also given clear indications that it will not be mandatory for any person to install or to use the App. However, there may be a potential risk of circumstances in which a particular individual does feel pressured to download the App (e.g. a supermarket insisting on customers showing that they are using the App before being permitted to enter the store; or an employer insisting that their employees demonstrate that they are using the App before being permitted to start or continue work).”

It’s worth noting a report published during October last year, where The World Heath Organisation concluded that “active contact tracing is not recommended in general because there is no obvious rationale for it in most Member States.”

We don’t need a nanny state to wipe our noses.

How long will it be until sneezing in a public space automatically triggers a COVID-19 alert? Or worse, individuals quickly come under suspicion for blowing their nose into a tissue, or simply coughing in public.

If this sounds ridiculous, look back at panic buying. Look at the irrational, ludicrous interpretations and enforcement of social distancing laws, based on hysteria, hear say, or presumption. See the mounting examples of neighbour spying on neighbour, and neighbor denouncing neighbour for suspected breaches of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Look again at the reaction against anyone opting out of getting the COVIDSAFE app. Look also at how Cory Bernardi was treated for refusing to sign up for the app. Bernardi, the only person on the Skynews panel giving a defence of civil liberties, was told by host Prue MacSween to “give himself an upper cut”, and drown his concerns about government overreach in alcohol.

On the same panel, Melbourne City Councilor, Nicholas Reece accused Bernardi of not living in the real world, of making lofty “high school arguments about liberty and privacy.” It doesn’t appear that Reece fully understood the implications of his rebuttal. By placing Bernardi’s concerns over liberty and privacy, in the realm of school boy fantasy, Reece confirmed Bernardi’s point.

On the subject of data security, signing up to the COVID-19 app is not the same as signing up for an in-store card, or in-store credit. Those involve companies that operate under strict laws concerning privacy and use of personal information. They are accountable to the government, whereas the government is accountable to no one, but their party, their political supporters, and last of all, you the people – in a very, very limited sense.

For those who think that our fuehrers always know best, and will thus follow them blindly:

As Bill Muehlenberg and Matthew Littlefield have pointed out:

1. “ACT Policing has admitted it unlawfully accessed citizens’ metadata a total of 3,365 times, not 116 as previously disclosed in an explosive commonwealth ombudsman’s report on Monday. The new disclosures include a total of 240 cases that resulted in information valuable to criminal investigations and one that “may have been used in a prosecution”.
2. “When Canberra introduced metadata laws a few years ago, we were told they would only be used to find terrorists. But greedy councils were soon demanding access so they could catch litterbugs. Facial recognition tool Clearview AI was allegedly misused by members of Australian police departments.”
3. “Governments routinely go wrong as power grabs become the norm, and technologies are regularly used for evil purposes. Indeed, one clear lesson of history is what is merely ‘voluntary’ today far too often becomes ‘mandatory’ tomorrow – all for the common good of course.”

I get the point of the COVIDSAFE app. It’s to inform people of areas that have been recently exposed to COVID-19, and tell people to get checked if they’ve been exposed. What I question is its usefulness, function, role and the consequences of handing bureaucrats more power.

It’s one thing to look out for others; it’s another to encourage a precedent where innocent, domestic citizens/places are deemed by the government to be “unsafe” based on a virus they are unsure about.

Romans 13 may carry weight in why we respect the need for good government, but it doesn’t hold us back from questioning government initiatives like the COVIDSAFE app. Nor does Romans 13 discourage us from pointing out how our politicians, on both sides, have spectacularly failed, and still are failing, to give any reassurances about civil liberties; including how they will be respected, and reinstated, after the coronavirus counter-measures can no longer be justified under the current crisis.

My point is ultimately about the precedence of citizens signing onto a Government program without question, emotive, even manipulative peer pressure to do so, and the danger it poses.

My point is about concern for people signing on to government program, run by politicians who haven’t bothered to reassure the people they represent that they are protecting civil liberties. Not one politician has done this, before or since the implementation of totalitarian COVID-19 countermeasures.

Break through the jargon, and the COVIDSAFE app is essentially an app that has the potential to monitor citizens. It allows third-parties to deny employment or service to anyone not carrying it on their phone. Throw in the reaction against those questioning it, and the fine print gives cause for real and rational concern.

We, the people are not the virus.

As I’ve said in the past, the warning of the 20th century to government’s and their people today is this: any justifiable counter moves against an enemy become unjustified if they make the government as tyrannical as the enemy it fights.

References:

[i] As far as Romans 13 goes, while I concede that it’s a fair point, let me say again, that there comes a time when it’s necessary to remind the government that they only have, because God gives.

[ii] See the brilliant briefing on COVID-19 by Dr. Erickson for more on this (Link). Unfortunately, YouTube has removed, and continues to remove all links to the Erickson briefing; more information here.

Image cropped and filtered from a photo by Fredrik Bedsvaag on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020

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Phony Equality: Minnesotan College Excludes Graduates from Ceremonies, except for LBTQIA+ students, & other minority groups

April 27, 2020 — Leave a comment

Under the already oppressive cloud of the Coronavirus crisis, graduates at St. Olaf College, in Minnesota, are currently being denied an official graduating ceremony, unless they’re part of the graduating student body who ‘self-identifies as a person of colour’, International or LGBTQAI+. Though the College’s website states that ‘due to COVID-19, 2020 Commencement festivities are postponed until late May/June 2021’, the College’s Centre for Equity and Inclusion, has sent out an email invite, saying that it will be hosting virtual graduation ceremonies for minority students.

Minnesotan based Alphanews, published a copy of the invitation, written by Dr. Maria C. Pabon Gautier (Director of the Taylor Centre for Equity and Inclusion). Delivered by email, Gautier fails to mention any consolation for non-minority graduates, but firmly outlines that there would be ‘three virtual graduations’ in May for three special groups, beginning with: ‘Multicultural Graduation (Domestic Students of Colour), International Graduation (International Students) and Lavender Graduation (LGBTQIA+ students).’

Kyle Hooten, (who also penned the more evidence based Alphanews article cited above), first raised the news on April 22nd via Campus Reform. He noted that Campus Reform checked in with ‘multiple graduating seniors at St. Olaf, [and] none said [that] they’d been informed of any online ceremony for the general student body.’

While St. Olaf’s Director for Equity and Inclusion has seemingly failed to include the majority, or even reassure them that they have not been forgotten, overlooked, or worse, segregated, some consolation did come from ‘Associate Director of Communications Kari VanDerVeen’, who ‘told Campus Reform that the school is “exploring a number of ways to celebrate the Class of 2020,” but that plans were not yet “finalized.” (Hooten)

To be fair, reasons for having, what look a lot like segregated graduation ceremonies, probably include logistical limitations, technological capability, and the ease with which smaller student numbers can be catered for in a virtual graduation environment.

This said, it doesn’t provide a total explanation for the apparent contradiction between the St. Olaf’s Centre for Equity  & Inclusivity, and the claim that official ‘Schedule of Events’ which clearly states that ‘2020 Commencement festivities have been postponed until 2021.’ Neither do these reasons explain the absence of any public information reassuring the general student body about whether their graduation will be accommodated in a similar fashion to that of these minority.

While the Lutheran college’s mission statement states a specific goal towards achieving ‘inclusivity’, its Centre for Equity and Inclusivity appears to be intentionally excluding non-minority students.

Gautier may be too distracted to care, or worse, is being derelict in her duties as director. The evidence suggests either an innocent oversight in trying times, asinine good intentions, or something more malicious. All three are likely. There’s a dissonance created by Gautier. Inequality in the name of equality exposes what Jean Bethke Elshtain called ‘phony equality.’[i]

The academic world is bogged down in a quagmire of sameness. This is the direct result of political correctness; tolerance introducing ‘equality where equality is fatal’ (C.S. Lewis) [ii]. With its perversion of Christianity – reducing its primary tenants to an ethic of niceness; the academy’s obsession with identity politics, safe spaces, and inane virtue signaling, education is replaced with indoctrination.

Special privilege is rubbed in the faces of those who are excluded for their assumed privilege; excluded because of their skin colour, heterosexuality, presumed “evil” right-wing political sympathies, and “sinful” passion for living out a no compromise, honest biblical theology.

It’s a package deal. Year by year, the academy not only continues to manifest Orwell’s, ‘all are equal, but some are more equal than others’, it normalizes the special treatment of the few, with disdain and disregard for the many – the destructive anarchist vacuum of pagan tribalism.

The general student body should expect more from the director of equity and inclusivity, who like some Republicans and most Democrats, currently appear to be willingly absent at the helm. Surely Gautier and those in her team understand that ALL of their graduates are under a lot of unexpected uncertainty and anxiety.

Those graduates face the dismal prospect of trying to fit into a job market severed to pieces by multi-level government agencies enforcing questionable Coronavirus lockdowns, its consequential suffocation of the economy, and the massive rise in unemployment. Students being told in not so many words that they don’t meet the criteria for care by their own Centre for Equity and Inclusivity, is far from helpful, it’s a downright harmful abdication of responsibility.

References (not otherwise hyperlinked):

[i] Elshtain, J.B. 1995 Democracy on Trial Basic Books, Perseus Books Group p.83

[ii] Lewis, C. 1944, Democratic Education In Walmsley, L. (Ed.) 2000 C.S Lewis Essay Collection Harper Collins p.190

First published on Caldron Pool, 27th April, 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Church, Political Theology, Politics , , , , , ,
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WATCH: Ben Shapiro cops it from Leftists, after Affirming Biological Facts

March 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

Ben Shapiro cops it from the Leftist outrage brigade, simply for speaking sense into a subject, which involves a very small minority wanting the power to determine what you think and how you speak. This was four years ago, but take note of the hate and hostility coming from those claiming Ben is being hateful.

Unfortunately, not much has changed. We’re still being told that “P” can equal “q”, and anyone who opposes this is faced with the threat of violence. Justified under the auspices of Marxism – critical theory, its perpetual revolution and the idea of Utopian reconstruction.

This is despite the fact that in the English speaking world, the letter “p” can never be the letter ”q”. A true ”q” can never be a true “p”. Displacing ”q” from its true value, will always be a false claim. In Shaprio’s terms: “fictionalised thinking”. This is because the identity and value of “q” is found in it’s relation to the truth value of “p”.

Anything outside this means we are no longer talking about ”p” or ”q”, but a distortion of relationship; a falsification that impacts, not just the value of ”q”, but also ”p”.

To confuse “p” with “q” is to undermine the meaning of both. Creating a false value; a construct that in the end, tyrannically imposes falsehood over the correct functions of both ‘p” and ”q”. This reassignment of value, doesn’t just surrender truth to an untruth, it creates confusion in communication by way of relational dysfunction and normalises the emotional disfiguration of it’s victims.

Biology is not a social construct. Demanding that the world eradicate and blur distinctions, in the name of so-called equality, diminishes the value of the biological union between a man and woman, and the commitment that marriage seals. This is an attempt at reconstruction, involving the creation of a social construct built up and imposed on society, by the very people who claim to fight against one.

What we appear to have here is a bunch of Leftists trying to dishonestly put a Jew on the same level as a Nazi. The message couldn’t be any clearer: line up, fall in, and salute, or else

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Politics , , ,
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George Soros’ Bizarre Anti-Trump Fiat: Calls for Mutiny at Facebook after Accusing Zuckerberg of being in league with Trump.

February 24, 2020 — Leave a comment

George Soros sent in a brief letter to the Financial Times, calling for the removal of Facebook’s CEO and COO, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Soros claims that Zuckerberg, who hasn’t followed Twitter in banning all political advertising, is helping Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in a ‘kind of mutual assistance arrangement with D.T.’ Soros goes on to demand Facebook take action stating, ‘Mark Zuckerberg should be removed from control of Facebook.’

The F.T. posted a copy and paste transcript of Soros’ proposition yesterday. Notably absent from the article was the lack of an introduction, and commentary from FT staff. The transcript was also published without any screenshot, or scanned image of the actual letter, which is strange for publishers who desire to maintain a rigorous level of journalism. Not validating the source of the original letter, casts doubt on its authenticity. However, if urban legend about the power of George Soros is to be believed, it’s possible this is how he intended it, and is exactly how he wanted the letter to be presented.

This isn’t the first time Soros has gone public with his desire to see the current leadership of Facebook face the business world equivalent of a firing squad.

He penned an article for the New York Times, published on the 31st January, arguing that Zuckerberg is engaged in a quid pro quo deal with Trump. As Soros sees it: the deal involves Trump protecting Facebook from government control, and in return Zuckerberg helps get Trump re-elected in 2020.

As evidence (and it’s flimsy), Soros went back to 2016, saying that ‘Facebook provided the Trump campaign with embedded staff who helped to optimize its advertising program. (Doing what Hilary Clinton’s election team declined to do).’ According to Soros, ‘Facebook gave Trump an edge, marking the beginning of a special relationship.’ He then stated that a recent meeting between Trump and Zuckerberg, ‘raised serious questions’.

The billionaire also accused Zuckerberg of only wanting to make a profit. Claiming that under Zuckerberg’s leadership Facebook was only about ‘making money’, not caring about ‘inflammatory and false content, and failing to adequately punish those who spread false information – nor does the company warn those who are exposed to lies.’

Note that Soros never mentions Facebook’s existing fact checking mechanisms when he claims Facebook isn’t doing them. Neither does Soros provide adequate examples or definitions of the terms he’s using. Perhaps what Soros means is that Facebook isn’t fact checking and blocking content that challenges his ideology, or content that he might arbitrarily consider to be false, hateful, phobic, bigoted etc.

The whole thing reeks of desperation. It’s an anti-Trump political manoeuvre. It has little to do with Facebook, and more to do with Soros’ unresolved issues over Hilary Clinton losing what was considered to be an unlosable election. If anything raises serious questions, it’s his inquisition of Trump and Zuckerberg. When a billionaire such as Soros cries victim wisdom should prompt us to ask why. There’s no doubt Soros lost money, and a special level of power because of Clinton’s election loss.

Trump isn’t protecting Facebook, Zuckerberg is. The CEO is doing what he’s paid to do. He is acting in the best interests of his customers, and company, not power-hungry would-be overlords, who think the world owes total allegiance to them, and their ideology.

Soros’ bizarre fiat shows that Zuckerberg is on the right track. This is probably why Soros wants his head. Zuckerberg is no longer buying what Soros is selling. Take for instance, Zuckerberg’s recent defence of free speech and the reforms he’s attempted to implement. They protect Facebook from the Left’s creeping arbitrary control of free speech, by labelling all opposing viewpoints as “hate speech”. Add to this the Left’s creeping arbitrary control over who is good and who is evil.

Zuckerberg appears to be diverging from the pre-approved narrative of leftism, and their zero-sum practice of achieving political goals, which only serve the interests of those who advocate political correctness, abortion, euthanasia, open borders, the imposition of new cultural laws via the LGBT religion, policing speech, thought and undermining the Biblical Christian foundation of Western Civilisation et.al.

As a result of Zuckerberg’s pro-free speech reform, Soros has called for a mutiny at Facebook. Instead of entering into a dialogue with Zuckerberg, Soros has gone behind his back in an attempt to remove him by proxy. One should ask, how this is not another coup attempt, in line with the now proven, Russian Collision hoax, and lies surrounding the attempt to impeach Trump. Soros, it would appear, is on the war path, and is seeking to take command of what he deems to be his enemy’s central communications hub.

Soros’ arrogance in presuming to control what happens at Facebook, must be blinding him to how much his reasoning and persistent demands here, confirm what many have suspected. That a) He’s too close to the Clinton’s b) He has far too much power and reach c) He funds Leftist divisive politics. Soros deliberately trying to undermine the CEO of an independent company, potentially putting that company and its employees at risk, would be enough evidence to support this.

Ironically, regardless of whether Facebook removes its CEO and COO under Soros-fiat, what he has achieved here is the opposite of what he intended. Soros has negated his questionable accusations against Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg by exposing himself as the real villain; a divisive manipulator, stamping up and down in frustration because he and others like him didn’t get their own way in October 2016. An event that, despite the lies, false accusations and hostile, undemocratic interference, coming from Soros’ own side of politics, looks set to, thankfully, repeat itself again in October, 2020.

References:

See hyperlinks embedded within the article.

First published on Caldron Pool, 19th February, 2020.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Socal Media, Western Civilisation , , , ,
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CNN all but admits wrongdoing, Settles Defamation Lawsuit with Covington Schoolboy, Nick Sandmann, after mass media vilification & bullying

January 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

Round one of consequences for the mass slandering of the Covington Catholic school boys, may have seen The Washington Post skip past go with get out of gaol free card, when a judge dismissed the lawsuit last year. Cable Network News (CNN) didn’t get off as easily.

The media giant has decided to settle with Nick Sandmann after a defamation lawsuit was also brought up against the organisation. The Washington Post’s, Paul Farhi, noted that L. Lin. Wood, lead lawyer for Sandmann was also lead lawyer in the lawsuit filed by Richard Jewell against CNN after he was ‘vilified by journalists’, (now the subject of a major Clint Eastwood film).

Sandmann was the target of mass slander, when Twitter users fuelled by the mainstream media lobbed abuse and threats at the schoolboys. All because of brief video footage uploaded to the internet, which was later proven to misrepresent the event.

Media organisations appeared to jump to conclusions, making Sandmann the poster boy for their own giddy, schoolboy, bandwagon anti-Trump hate. Reporting on the reopening of Sandmann’s case against The Washington Post, The Federalist’s, Margot Cleveland, said that they labelled the schoolboy a “smirking MAGA-hat-wearing racist”, and accused him of “blocking Native American elder Nathan Phillips’s path” to the Lincoln Memorial.”

The Hill’s, J.E. Moreno stated that Sandmann had sued CNN for $275 million dollars in ‘May over its reporting, saying CNN was “vilifying and bullying him” and had twisted the story to fit an anti-Trump agenda. In total, Sandmann was seeking $800 million in damages from The Washington Post, NBC and CNN.’ Moreno also said the ‘amount of the settlement was not made public.’

With the settlement come new precedents. Although, The Washington Post’s case was dismissed last year, a judge has reopened the case and the lawsuit is waiting to once again go to trial. What the CNN settlement with Sandmann tells the many who are culpable for leaping before they looked, is that this isn’t going away. The settlement strongly suggests that CNN didn’t want this to linger over their heads. Given their ratings, this is no surprise. Absent of a forthright open admission of wrongdoing, this is probably the best those involved can expect from the Leftist backed media organisation.

As with Rugby Australia’s settlement with Israel Folau, CNN’s settlement with Sandmann shows that politically motivated attacks on members of the public, by those in positions of power, will not go unnoticed, nor be allowed to stand without a fight, regardless of how well co-ordinated and well-funded those behind the political attacks are.

Sandmann’s win is also a strong warning to those seeking to advance by using a zero sum game against the innocent, all in the hopes of achieving fast political gain, which has about as much long lasting benefit as ordering fast-food from a drive-thru.

This settlement isn’t just a win for Nick. This is a win against the Leftist funded, political and academic establishment. Hope is seeded here. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most well-known political prisoners the Nazis imprisoned and executed, once said “the only fight which is lost, is that which we give up.” [i]

 

References:

[i] Bonhoeffer, D. cited by Bethge, E. 2000. Bonhoeffer: A Biography Fortress Press, (p.907)

Note: Since the screenshot was taken, Aslan appears to have deleted the old tweet, not without mocking Dinesh (link).

© Rod Lampard, 2020

In Political Theology , , , , ,
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