Mark Steyn, Richard Dreyfuss, & multiculturalism

 

Jaws image seen on SteynOnline

Mark Steyn’s column yesterday was in part a renewed pitch for his book America Alone The End of the World as We Know It.  Having read the book some years ago, I can highly recommend it.  But it’s Mr Steyn’s reaction to actor Richard Dreyfuss that prompted the column. Here’s some of it:

American conservatives on the Internet are abuzz with the recent interview given to Glenn Beck by Richard Dreyfuss, star of Jaws, Mr Holland's Opus, American Graffiti and many more. Mr Dreyfuss has given up acting to save his country:

@RichardDreyfuss tells me he gave up acting "ONLY for something I loved as much, which was saving my country...It infuriates me that people don't understand what this place means."

SteynOnline regulars will not be surprised by this development. Mark and Mr Dreyfuss have met only once, very briefly, two decades back at the memorial tribute in Montreal to their mutual friend Mordecai Richler. But seven years ago it emerged that the actor was one of many who had read Steyn's bestselling book. As Mr Dreyfuss put it in a three-part theopolitical dialogue with Susannah Black:

Mark Steyn, a writer with an irritating case of the smart-alecs, has written a book I urge you read called America Alone. Just the first few chapters are a geo-political wake-up call, and he is not someone I agree with very much. But he quotes bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." And he quotes Donald Rumsfeld: "If we know anything it is that weakness is provocative."

We are on a clock we don't see or comprehend. We will not survive this century unless civic virtue is revived. We can discuss its origins all day—if we have the right to speak at all, and aren't dead under jihad.

Seven years after that observation, "the right to speak at all" is increasingly imperiled, in ever more areas - even for those as celebrated as J K Rowling, and even in Richard Dreyfuss's own field, the arts. As Mark mentioned on his first post-heart-attack appearance, he ran into an actress friend, a lifelong leftie, who nevertheless has grasped the essential fact of our time - that western civilization is sliding off a cliff. And, as Steyn put it, once that is seen it cannot be unseen.

Mark's book was never Harry Potter boffo, but it kept selling year on year, and picking up new fans en route, including from Hollywood. For a tome by an irritating smart alec, America Alone proved somewhat prescient, but its warnings went unheeded by the presidents and prime ministers in a position to do something about them.

. . .

Non-judgmental multiculturalism is an obvious fraud, and was subliminally accepted on that basis. After all, most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don't want to live in anything but an advanced western society. Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched tribal dirge for the school "holiday" concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society. It's a quintessential piece of progressive humbug. . . . Multiculturalism was conceived by the western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb.

For the rest of it, click here.

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WEF: Masters of the Future

Image seen at Blazing Cat Fur

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is underway in Davos.  Here’s part of Libby Emmons’s report at The Post Millenial:

The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting opened in Davos on Monday, with founder Klaus Schwab making a call for attendees to "master the future."

. . .

Though it sounds like a mantra from a paperback self-help book, the phrase "master the future" is in line with the plans the WEF has for global society. The WEF identifies several combined concerns that they intend to tackle with one, unifying philosophy, and that is collective globalism essentially without national borders, democracy, or self-governance. Instead, the WEF views the world as a collection as something to be controlled and mastered, and they intend to do so by 2030.

"But what is more important," Schwab continued, is that we approach the future with a positive spirit. With a spirit which reflects human creativity and ingenuity." It was in this spirit that Schwab introduced artists to the stage, who undoubtedly are on board with the WEF's ideas for a utopian future where everyone will own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy.

. . .

In other words, the plan is to harness these simultaneous crises, as Schwab elucidated, and use them to gain control, drive a new world view, and demand compliance from both private and public actors on the world stage.

One of the key areas of discourse is climate change, which has been used as a cudgel by wealthy governing nations in the west to control populations, their use of energy, ability to travel, reproduction, and overarching ethos. As part of the undertaking of the Annual Meeting this week, WEF leaders and partners intend to address fuel and food supply through the lens of creating new systems for "energy, climate and nature."

. . .

Many global leaders are in attendance at the Annual Meeting, so that they can figure out how they'd like to bring about these massive changes in their own countries, and most of them flew in on private jets to do it. In 2022, more than 1,000 private jets flew into Davos to address how to tell other people to deal with climate change.

The full list of US representatives who are in attendance are: Climate Czar John F. Kerry, Biden's trade rep Katherine Tai, Biden's secretary of labor Martin Walsh, along with FBI head Christopher Wray, US Director of National Intelligence  Avril Haines, Samantha Power of the US Agency for International Development, Governors Brian Kemp, Gretchen Whitmer, JB Pritzker, and a handful of congressman, including Senators Christopher Coons, Maria Cantwell, James Risch, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. House Reps from California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are also in attendance.

Never let a crisis go to waste. And apparently, the more crises, the better. Read the rest here.

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Commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

MLK statue in DC

MLK sculpture in Boston 

Today honors the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  And Daniel Greenfield observes the occasion by weighing in on the newly unveiled bronze sculpture on Boston Common:

The Sculptural Degradation of Martin Luther King Must End
When leftists aren't tearing down noble statues,
they're putting up ugly ones

Forget tearing down the statues of American historical figures, if they really wanted to humiliate them, they would put up new statues of them.

Just ask MLK.

The D.C. MLK memorial was bad enough. Not only does it look more like Mao than MLK, and maybe carving the most prominent black man in the country out of white rock was an odd choice, but the $10 million Boston MLK memorial decided that it could do better.

Titled “The Embrace,” it’s a nightmarish image that looks like a collaboration between M.C. Escher and H.R.Giger. There’s nothing ennobling or dignified about this artistic statement about the sculptor’s love of curves and circles. It goes beyond being meaningless to being actively ugly and offensive, a tangle of arms that embrace themselves. When leftists aren’t tearing down noble statues, they’re putting up incredibly ugly ones. . . .

Mr Greenfield closes:

Putting up something like the $10M MLK memorial in Boston is its own act of artistic vandalism and, in its own way, shows the degeneracy of a culture that tears down statues but can’t manage to create one.

The full commentary is at Front Page Magazine here.

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Atmospheric interference: The climate crazies are dangerous

 

Back in July, under the title “An Alternative to Blowing Up the Sun,” this blog linked to reports of some demented climate change warriors who suppose they can fix allegedly man-made climate problems by “Dimming the Sun.”  Now it’s actually happening.  Someone writing under the name 'Raw Egg Nationalist' just published an analysis at The National Pulse about actual atmospheric interference -- interference that is so irresponsible and idiotic that it’s hard to believe it’s true:

Corporates Have Begun ‘Geoengineering’ The Climate,
With Basically No One’s Consent

The deployment of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere
is one of the ways the climate change lobby
are considering manipulating the weather

An American startup firm has admitted to releasing reactive particles into the atmosphere in an attempt to alter the climate. The move has attracted widespread criticism, and marks a potentially dangerous new stage in the intensifying response to Earth’s “climate crisis”.

Just before Christmas 2022, the firm ‘Make Sunsets’ acknowledged it had launched weather balloons containing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The launches took place in April 2022, in Baja California, Mexico, months before the company was even incorporated.

When quizzed about it, the company’s CEO, Luke Iseman, was unrepentant. “It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this”, he said, adding that it’s important “to do this as quickly and safely as we can,” because of the threat of man-made climate change.

Critics, including geoengineers, say Make Sunset’s efforts are dangerous, not only because the field is very much in its infancy, but also because they could have wildly different effects from those intended.

“The current state of science is not good enough… to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement” solar geoengineering, said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, which seeks to impose restrictions on geoengineering projects. “To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea.”

Other scientists believe this unannounced and unmonitored release of chemicals into the atmosphere could set the science back, disrupting its funding and leading to public calls to restrict research. The move has been compared to other reckless innovations, including the use of CRISPR gene-editing technology by a Chinese scientist on human embryos, without proper evaluation of the safety and ethics of doing so. . . .

Mr. Raw Egg N concludes:

Given the pace of change, and the determination of our leaders – and now captains of industry – to reshape the world with or without our consent, we need to find ways to make our voices heard, fast. We must realize that it makes no difference to withdraw consent retroactively, especially when what’s done cannot be undone.  

Read the complete analysis here. 

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Ceding American sovereignty

More AF Branco cartoons at Creators Syndicate

The other day, this blog posted the link to the White House Declaration of North America, which effectively cedes American sovereignty and constitutional values to global communism, partnering with Mexico and Canada.  David Strom at Hot Air has a follow up, and he somehow managed to have some fun with the Declaration, more than this blog could manage.  Here’s an extract:

. . . America has a new DNA, I guess. Liberty used to be in our DNA, but apparently Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been injected into the country using a new mRNA vaccine or something.

The statement is a wonder to behold. And yes, that DNA reference was actually to deoxyribonucleic acid.

Today, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President Joseph R. Biden, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Mexico City for the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS). The leaders are determined to fortify our region’s security, prosperity, sustainability and inclusiveness through commitments across six pillars: 1) diversity, equity, and inclusion; 2) climate change and the environment; 3) competitiveness; 4) migration and development; 5) health; and 6) regional security.

North America shares a unique history and culture that emphasizes innovation, equitable development, and mutually beneficial trade to create inclusive economic opportunities for the benefit of our people. We are not just neighbors and partners. Our people share bonds of family and friendship and value – above all else – freedom, justice, human rights, equality, and democracy. This is the North American DNA.

What is it about government folks being so incompetent when it comes to doing anything catchy? Bad acronyms and metaphors always.

Look at the priorities. Regional security. Nice to see it came in at #6. Immigration made it all the way up to #4.

DEI, and climate change, numbers 1 and 2. DEI is actually #1!

For God’s sake, make it stop! . . .

The rest of Mr Strom’s commentary is here.  The Declaration of North America is here. It's unconstitutional and will never be subject to ratification in the Senate.  So it is just another Biden Administration give-away of our freedoms and sovereignty.  

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mRNA injections: Why aren't more doctors speaking out?

 

H.P. Smith at American Thinker brings the subject of COVID mRNA injections up to date. He’s asking the right questions of the medical profession (and implicitly the pharmaceutical corporations).  This is an anecdotal report but it will probably resonate with many readers:

. . . Very early on, I was skeptical of these new treatments.  I graduated college with a B.S. in Biology more than 25 years ago, but my career is in finance (long story)…so I understood enough about the scientific process that I was doubtful of their proclaimed “safety.”  Long term safety at that point (and still now) literally could not have been known.  It was far too early.

I researched them and quickly found people like Dr. Simone Gold (America’s Frontline Doctors) and Dr. Peter McCullough…individuals who were willing to risk their careers and reputations to get the message out that maybe we needed to slow down and learn more about the new vaccines.  To me, that was powerful, and rang very true.

. . .

That leads to the real issue here:  With what we are learning now and the rapidly accumulating evidence, how are more doctors not speaking out about this?  And why are so many still recommending the mRNA shots to their patients?  Boosters, boosters, boosters.  

I changed to a new doctor as my primary care physician recently and had my first appointment.  The doctor mentioned that he doesn’t prescribe new medications that have not been around for at least five years, so I asked him how he reconciles that philosophy with the mRNA shots.  He dodged the question three times until it was clear I wouldn’t let it go.  I finally asked him, “Is it your policy to recommend them or the hospitals?”  He said nothing, but stared straight into my eyes for a solid five seconds.  It felt very much like an admission.

He went on to say that if he doesn’t recommend the shots, he will lose his job and possibly his license.  My appointment was the first week of December 2022, and my exit paperwork is three pages…two of which are almost entirely dedicated to pushing the COVID shots.  

The first line under What You Need to Know is “COVID-19 Vaccines are safe and effective.”  They are still saying this!  This is extraordinary.  They still cannot know the long-term effects of the shots; still too soon.  Not to mention that (especially young) otherwise healthy people are dropping left and right (often of heart attacks and strokes), none more publicly than Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills last week.  Myocarditis rates, which used to be roughly 4 in 1,000,000 are now 25,000 in 1,000,000.  . . . .

Much more at the link here.  The take-away:  Is your physician willing to prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin?

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Ohio bans vaccine mandate. Good!

Amber Crawford at 100percentfedup reports:

A federal appeals court affirmed a ban on forcing workers who contract with the federal government to comply with the Biden regime’s federal vaccine mandate. This ban applies to Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Biden had implemented vaccine mandates for workers contracting with the federal government – up to 25% of the U.S. workforce – that required them to wear face masks and get COVID-19 vaccines. In November 2021, a federal judge in Kentucky blocked this mandate for his state, along with Tennessee and Ohio.

On Thursday, the panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati maintained the lower court’s ruling that the mandate was unconstitutional. . . .

Full report is here.

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