Note: Normal people might find some of this offensive. (We hope. Dear Lord, please!)
Back in August, I warned that the left was engaging in a cultural revolution similar to the one in China in the 1960s-’70s. Sports fans now know what I mean.
The left isn’t at war just with statues. Or just with the Founders or police officers or Trump or even the NFL. The left is trying to overturn everything it doesn’t like about America, all at once.
Here’s the thing, the left doesn’t like America. Many alt-lefties actually hate America and everything our nation has done or stands for. Remember, the left is an amalgam of victim groups who feel The Man (™) has kept them down.
Sean Diddy Combs tweeted out a video of one athlete explaining why he was protesting. Here’s an actual Diddy quote: “This shit breaks my heart that mother fuckers want to keep their foots on our necks!!! God bless you brother and thank you for your candor.” Yes, Diddy thinks someone(s) are keeping their feet on his neck.
Diddy is worth $820 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Michael Thomas, a New Orleans Saints safety who was in the video, is set to earn $1,797,000. Admittedly, that’s not Diddy numbers, but it’s still about equal to what 33 whole households in the U.S. earn. And Buffalo running back LeSean McCoy, who said, “our president is a asshole” and did stretching exercises during the anthem, has a net worth of $14 million and a contract worth $41.55 million.
I don’t actually resent any of that money. (Especially McCoy, who helped me win the MRC fantasy football league last year.) But multimillionaires complaining about how hard life is when their fan base struggles to pay for tickets is outlandish. Waiting on the book, “NFL Players Are From Mars … And Fans Wish They’d Stay There.”
But the hell with the fans, right? The alt-left wants more protest. It wants the white players to protest the anthem and flag as well. And the reason they don’t? “White privilege.” According to HuffPost contributor Jesse Benn, “White Athletes Still Standing For The Anthem Are Standing For White Supremacy.” Jesse is, of course, “currently working on his Ph.D and as a teaching assistant in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.” (Note to self, don’t interview job candidates from the University of Wisconsin -- Madison unless they apologize about going there.)
Actual quote: “See, for white athletes the anthem and American flag do represent freedom, liberty and whatever other amorphous American values one might ascribe these symbols. So, from their view, kneeling would be disrespectful to the privileges a white supremacist nation affords them.”
Let’s be honest here. If Jesse wants to talk privilege, there is no more privileged group in the world than celebrities -- actors, entertainers, athletes and, yes, politicians. They all have power, money, fancy homes, groupies, influence and fame that ordinary people can barely imagine. That applies to celebrities of all races and genders.
Would ESPN’s Jamele Hill still have a job if she were a white conservative guy named Curt Schilling? Nope, ESPN fired him. Would Beyoncé, Lena Dunham, Demi Lovato or George Clooney have been sought out by the Hillary Clinton campaign if they didn’t have fame and cash that would aid her? Nope. Again, stars often worked hard for that fame. But don’t pretend it doesn’t put them in an elite category. Don’t pretend that they are doing anything other than talking down to America like the rest of us are the great unwashed.
Which takes us to this week’s goodies:
Haim Saban’s Staff Learned A New Dirty Word: No matter what part of Hillary Clinton top donor Haim Saban’s nutty online empire you look at, it’s an embarrassment. No, not an embarrassment of riches, just an embarrassment to journalism.
This time, we get Deadspin senior editor Diana Moskovitz’s story: “Stop Asking This Shithead Bad Questions Poorly.” The classy Moskovitz was talking about Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Apparently, even woke liberals don’t like seeing a White House filled with powerful women who dare disagree with them.
Actual Moskovitz quote about Trump: “the leader of the United States is in every sense that matters a white supremacist, elected on a white-supremacist platform, and working to make that platform a reality.” That means his press secretary is the enemy of the people or some such nonsense. Moskovitz even called her “a paid liar.”
Actual quote two: “Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as White House press secretary, has one job: Take whatever these reporters ask her, dismiss it, and then turn it into a chance to throw a piece of anger-infused hate bait at Donald Trump’s base while, if she can, also making reporters look like idiots.” Other than whining, what Moskovitz is really doing is complaining that Huckabee Sanders is doing her job holding the press at bay.
Ultimately, the article is one long whine that the press corps can’t seem to outwit Huckabee Sanders. Rather than credit a fellow woman for doing her job (Deadspin is sister site to wacky, feminista site Jezebel.), Moskovitz just seems bitter she didn’t ask all the questions herself.
Because you know she’s smarter than everyone, which is a good time to remember her headline, shake your head and chuckle.
Wonder Woman Was Too Pretty: This is odd. Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot was celebrated across the political spectrum. Liberals were thrilled to have a female superhero who starred and kicked butt. And conservatives liked the beautiful Israeli actress who even did action sequences while pregnant in real life.
But there’s always some idiot who wants to spoil the party. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Avatar’s director James Cameron. To Cameron, she was too pretty. Here’s an actual quote: “"I mean, she [Gadot] was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting. She's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.”
Yeah, that will get you in trouble in Hollywood every time -- being too beautiful. But he wasn’t done because after all, it’s not on message. "To me, that's not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the '60s. It was all in a context of talking about why Sarah Connor - what Linda created in 1991 -- was, if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time,” he continued.
Cameron, who is one of Hollywood’s reliable lefties, seemed disappointed “they think they have to appeal to 18-year-old males or 14-year-old males.” It’s awesome seeing someone who made Dances With Wolves in Space getting criticized from the left. But that is the alt-left. You can never be liberal enough for them.
200 Gallons Of Urine On The Wall: Thankfully, that phrase has not replace 99 Bottles of Beer, but it has replaced actual art. The performance artist Cassils has a new show called Monumenta. Here is Out’s description: “the show centers around "#PISSED," the gender nonconforming artist’s latest work, which is a response to the Trump administration’s rollback of federal guidelines that instructed schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.”
I wouldn’t write about goofy … crap doesn’t seem like the correct word here, but you know what I mean, without cause. Cassils is a Guggenheim Fellow, as long as you don’t take that second word too seriously. “Listed by the Huffington Post as ‘one of ten transgender artists who are changing the landscape of contemporary art,’ Cassils has achieved international recognition for a rigorous engagement with the body as a form of social sculpture.” (Pictured another Cassils work from this bizarre video.)
Naturally, “Cassils uses plural gender-neutral pronouns (they, them, their) and a single name (as opposed to first and surname.” Sort of like a transgender Cher. Here is Out’s description of the actual art, if anyone sane can call it that: “Consisting of 200 gallons of urine in a modernist glass cube – every drop that Cassils has passed since the day in February when the Trump administration announced the rollback—"#PISSED" is a powerful visualization of the literal burden that this move inflicted (and continues to inflict) on vulnerable trans children.”
Remember when art was a painting like Van Gogh’s Shoes? (For the record, this image in no way represents how great this painting is. In real life, it looks three-dimensional. Van Gogh’s talent is so great that you can’t represent it in a photo.) The problem with shoes, is they aren’t as woke as 200 gallons of urine. There’s no politics there. It’s just talent.
This is good to remember as we move into another week of liberals screwing up football. They don’t care about the sport. They only care about politics.
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