Eat Chinese, You Racist!

I suppose it was inevitable. The coronavirus scare has now been declared to be racist, at least by Global News.

Global does not give a lot of details on the supposed racism; they feature a political cartoon showing a rat looking ill, captioned “Welcome to the Year of the Rat.” If there is racism in that, they do not explain it. It seems that it is now racist to even vaguely associate the coronavirus with China, even though it began there, and almost all of its victims, so far, are there.

Supposedly racist cartoon by the Toronto Sun's Sue Dewar.

They cite as “ignorant” and “misinformation” suggestions they find on social media that the virus is a product of Chinese food.

Of course, it is a product of Chinese food. According to the authorities, at least, the virus crossed over to humans from exotic food animals in the Wuhan wet market.

Ignorance? Misinformation? It is Global News that seems to be spreading misinformation. By the nature of the beast, social media works against this, by improving the information flow.

The striking thing is that the legacy media still do not seem to have figured this out. The news is the last to hear the news.

The core evidence of racism in the story, the core complaint, their lede, seems to be that business is down in Canadian Chinatowns. People are avoiding them for fear of the virus.

Problem: avoiding Chinatowns is probably sensible. It is obviously more likely that, in Chinatown, you could encounter someone who has recently been to China. And so, the risk of catching the virus is greater. Tough for the Chinatown businesses, but the virus is tough on a lot of businesses.

Global News’s report is giving poor health advice. “Visit Chinatown, make a point of eating there, or you are a racist.” Racism, real or imagined, is more important to them than the public health.

Worse, the report identifies common sense as racist. The obvious corollary: racism is just common sense.

It is hard to believe they are not intentionally promoting racism. I think they are, at a minimum, racist in their own thinking. As someone once wisely said, if you keep hearing dog whistles, you must be the dog.

The Trouble with Truth

The mainstream media seems not to like Bernie Sanders. He essentially was called a liar in last night’s debate—by the moderators.

He was treated unfairly in 2015 as well, by the Democratic National Committee. Then, it made sense purely on the premise that the DNC was owned by the Clintons, that they maintained great influence in the party.

This time, we need a deeper explanation. It’s not just the Clintons.

It is not that Sanders is feared ideologically and in terms of electability, for being too far to the left. For they have given the same sort of blatantly biased treatment to Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, with somewhat different platforms. Either would probably better appeal to independents that the candidates the MSM and DNC support.

The clue is in what they just publicly accused Sanders of: lying.

They accuse Gabbard of something similar: of not really speaking for herself, but of mouthing lines fed to her by the Kremlin. Of insincerity.

This is more conspicuous because the big draw for Bernie’s supporters is that he seems so sincere. He has been consistent in what he says, pretty much throughout his career. This is rare in a politician.

This is also what he shares with the two other pariah Democratic candidates: Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang also seem sincere, consistent, and to be expressing their own real views. Gabbard seems to stand on principle. She blew the whistle, for example, on the unfair treatment of Sanders last time, even though they do not closely align ideologically.

It is this very honesty that the party poobahs and the media elite fear and hate.

It is, in fact, also what they hate so much in Trump. They endlessly accuse him of lying, just as they now do Sanders. They accused him of being a Russian puppet, as they now do Gabbard. Same phenomenon. But in fact, Trump has been conspicuous in keeping his campaign promises. And, more generally, for not bending to polls or political correctness, but saying what he genuinely thinks. For speaking the truth as he sees it.

Why do these groups, the media and the Democratic operatives, so fear sincerity? Why do they actually prefer phonies as candidates?

They might and do say, of such candidates, that they are “loose cannon.” Who knows then what they might say or do on a given issue? Seems risky.

But this again is actually the inverse of the truth. Because they do not blow in the wind, because they operate on principles, we really know better how these four will react to any given new event.

The real problem is the one outlined in the Gospel of John. Those who do evil in darkness come to fear the light for its own sake, and will oppose anyone who speaks the truth.

This is why they crucified Christ.

The DNC and the legacy media—our social elites in general--are in a very dark place.

CBC Drops Its Own Bomb on the US

The CBC coverage of the Iranian missile attacks on two bases in Iraq amounted to misinformation—“fake news.” The host referred to it as an “escalation,” indeed a “dangerous escalation.” She marveled at how accurate the strikes were and that they had gotten through American anti-missile protections. “What,” she asked her expert commentator, “gave the Iranians the confidence to do this?”

This amounts to an example of the principle that, when someone has committed themselves to lying, they tend to say the opposite of the truth. The Iranian response was more like the minimum needed to save face. There were no casualties; not a sign of accuracy. And that is all they had to go on at that point. As to getting through American defenses, these bases were hastily equipped to fight guerillas with IEDs. It seems improbable that there would have been some “iron dome” set up to shoot down incoming missiles.

And it is hard to see how the attack showed any growth in Iranian confidence. Everyone could see they were obliged to do something, or lose face.

Then I switched to RT—the Russian government propaganda channel. Just for comparison. Russia is supposedly an erstwhile ally of Iran; they have recently been conducting joint military exercises. And they have no free press.

Yet Russian Television told it straight.

That’s a pretty damning indictment of our mainstream media, and our taxpayer-funded network.

What can explain this?

There is an inevitable temptation in news to sensationalize. That could account for the talk of World War Three being imminent. But RT would have the same temptation. And that cannot explain the bit about the missiles being so accurate and getting through the US defenses.

It has to be anti-Americanism of an extreme, even unprincipled, sort.

Fake Fake News News

National Post has published a piece from Bloomberg News taking umbrage over Trump's “Fake News” Awards.

The piece is, alarmingly, presented not as opinion, but straight news. But get this for a nice, balanced, objective lede: “President Donald Trump announced the recipients of his so-called Fake News Awards, on Wednesday, his latest attack on the press that has drawn objections from within his own party.”

Near the top, it notes “Trump’s announcement came as two senators from his own party excoriated him for his incessant attacks on the free press.”

“The free press”? Why this qualifying adjective? Is there another press in the US, well-known to readers, large and worthy of mention, that is not free?

No. Surely the implication is that any criticism of the press, or any part of the press, is an attack on press freedom.

If you think so, and want to argue so, you do not believe in mere freedom of the press. You believe in dictatorship of the press.

It then complains that Trump has called on journalists to be fired for “minor” mistakes.

Doesn't calling the unspecified mistakes “minor” there sound like an expression of opinion more than objective reporting? Shouldn't it be substantiated in some way?

The article then asks:

The “Fake News Awards” announced on the Republican National Committee website and touted by President Donald Trump pose a conundrum: Does it really count if the news organization admits error?

Everyone makes mistakes – and the point is not to play gotcha. News organizations operate in a competitive arena and mistakes are bound to be made. The key test is whether an error is acknowledged and corrected.

Since they ask, yes, it does count. It would be worse, no doubt, if the error were never acknowledged. But people rely on the media, the press, to be authoritative. They are supposed to have layers of editors and fact-checkers to ensure that it is. That is what the people are paying their quarter, or their dollar, for—that reliability. Otherwise they could get all their news on the streetcorner. If an error nevertheless gets printed, that is certainly worthy of condemnation, just as if GM put out a car that burst into flames when the brake was applied. A later recall does not erase the fault.

Moreover, if the error is something that any layperson would expect to have been caught by even a cursory fact-check before publication, we have the right to suspect it was a deliberate case of fake news. The danger is that, at best, the papers no longer check the factuality of assertions they agree with. Then they will run a correction if (and only if) they are caught out. Oops. But no matter—the damage is often already done.

The National Post piece then gets down to specifics. It objects that the story of Trump removing a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office—an event that never happened—was not fake news, because “This is is reference to a tweet by a reporter – which was quickly corrected. Do tweets really count as ‘news’? This did not appear as a news article.”

This rebuttal is itself fake news. The assertion was not only in a tweet; it was included in a pool report at the time, and in Time magazine's own news article. Time's own website writes: “A TIME story that included the error was corrected.” And here is the actual correction:

Correction: An earlier version of the story said that a bust of Martin Luther King had been moved. It is still in the Oval Office.

So let's see: how did the present author manage to know something that was just not true? How did Bloomberg never fact-check? How did the National Post, in turn, never fact-check? One begins to get suspicious.

The notorious koi story is a similar case. CNN released a video showing Trump dumping food into a koi pond, and this was widely reported as boorish behaviour. The video did not show that Trump was simply following the lead of Japanese PM Abe.

The NatPost piece's defense, again, is that this was “just a tweet.”

However, a quick trip to Snopes shows that actual news stories were indeed filed with this fake news:

The Guardian: “Trump dump: president throws entire box of fish food into precious koi carp pond.”

Jezebel: “Big Stupid Baby Dumps Load Of Fish Food On Japanese Koi Pond.”

CNN's one headline was “Trump feeds fish, winds up pouring entire box of food into koi pond.”

It certainly sounds as though they are making dumping the entire box the focus of the story.

The NatPost commentator insists CNN is off the hook because they added, down in the fifth paragraph, “Abe, who actually appeared to dump out his box of food ahead of Trump.” But buried this deep, and contradicting their own lede, it looks like it was only there to cover butt if necessary.

And the CNN news story includes the deceptively edited clip. It was not just a tweet; it was both a tweet and a full news story.

Evidently the legacy media have no thought to reform. They are determined to go down with all hands on deck and with all guns blazing.

It is a magnificent thing to watch.

Trump on the Civil War

Old Hickory in old age.

The latest nonsense from the press is a criticism of Trump for saying Andrew Jackson might have prevented the US Civil War.

One can disagree with Trump on this. But it is a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

Yet all the coverage is along the lines of “Trump is ignorant of history”; “Trump does not understand the Civil War”; “Trump gets it wrong.” Please.

CNN: “Trump gets Andrew Jackson and Civil War totally wrong”

The Guardian: “Trump voices confusion over US history: ‘Why was there a Civil War?’”

New York Times: “With Civil War remark, a president who does not go by the (history) book.”

Washington Post: “Trump’s totally bizarre claim about avoiding the Civil War.”

Here, so far as I can tell, is exactly what Trump said:

"I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this.' People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?"

The mainstream media’s objections:

1. Andrew Jackson died fourteen years before the Civil War.

Does anyone really believe Trump was saying Jackson was in charge during the war? It was a hypothetical.

Jackson was certainly aware of the tensions between north and south, since they had been around since before the War of Independence.

2. Andrew Jackson did not have a big heart. He was a slaveowner and made the Cherokee Indians move to Oklahoma.

While we may find these policies heartless, it is also true that Jackson had a reputation as a kind commander and a generous slaveholder. When one of his slaves was apparently beaten to death by an overseer, he pressed hard to have the man charged with murder. “Big heart” can also mean courageous, and Jackson certainly had a reputation for that.

It seems to me a bit unfair to condemn anyone running a plantation in the US South for owning slaves. The problem was systemic. If you owned a plantation and did not keep slaves, given that others would, you would soon go bankrupt. You could not compete, given your higher labour costs.

The Anaconda Plan. Basically the North's war strategy.

3. The reason for the Civil War is well known. It was to abolish slavery.

This presupposes that the only way to abolish slavery is through war. An odd claim. Yet the British Empire abolished slavery many years before the US, with no war. In fact, slavery is abolished everywhere, and it seemingly never required a war anywhere but the US. Why is it unreasonable then to think war could have been avoided?

As to slavery being the cause of the Civil War, even this is debatable. Abraham Lincoln, for one, denied it. He said that it was to preserve the union. He said that if he could have kept the union together by endorsing slavery, he would have done so. And the South abolished slavery themselves before the war ended. It seems more as though slavery was a symbol to the South of their right to self-rule.

4. The Civil War was inevitable, and no leader could have prevented it.

This seems at base a Marxist view of history: dialectical materialism produces historical inevitability, leading of course in the end to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the communist utopia at the end of time. The school of history that believes people actually have free will also has some intellectual credibility. Did Churchill not matter? Gandhi? Martin Luther King? Lincoln? Washington? Newton? Aristotle?

In fact, Jackson faced a southern attempt to leave the union during his presidency—the South Carolina nullification crisis—and managed to nip it in the bud. This seems reasonable grounds for presuming he could have handed it the next time around.

5. Andrew Jackson would not have prevented the Civil War, because he was a slaveholder.

This is a non sequitur. It makes no more sense than arguing that Lincoln could not have fought the Civil War because he owned no slaves. Being a slaveholder himself might have given Jackson the credibility to get the South to compromise.

What compromise? How about what the British did: financial compensation to slave owners for their loss of property.

Note that US Grant, top Union general during the Civil War, himself owned slaves, or at least one slave. Robert E. Lee, top general for the South, opposed slavery. This did not seem to make their tasks impossible.

It may not be that the world has gone crazy, but certainly the press has. What they print has no necessary relation to objective fact.

The Media Cocoon around Trump

Trump supporter with cocoon.

I have now seen a couple of times, from those who list to the left, the argument that the rise of Donald Trump is due to the collapse of mainstream media. Now, they say, it is possible to read the news only from sites sympathetic to Trump, and never hear a counter-argument. We are all in our little news cocoons.

This is wrong. They can only think so because they get all their news from sites sympathetic to Clinton.

The truth is that the mainstream media is coordinating with the Clinton campaign—we know that from the Wikileaks material. Any alternative media on the left is likewise anti-Trump. But only those who never see the right-wing media could think that it is pro-Trump. Many of the established voices on the right are anti-Trump as well: the National Review, the Weekly Standard, Megyn Kelly on Fox. Nobody is giving him a free pass, it seems.

It might be possible, by careful selection, to avoid all news sources that are anti-Trump. But to do so would require a prior knowledge of who is pro or anti-Trump. And the only way to know that would be by listening to everything. It is not predictable by political ideology. You would have to know all about the matter you are supposed to be ignorant of.

In any case, if you stop and think for only a moment, the argument is saying that a generally wider access to information and to differing opinions, thanks to the improved technology of the Internet, is causing people to become more ignorant. That is like assuming that rain falls up.

Why are the old mainstream media dying? Surely it is not because nobody has discovered them, and many have not heard what they have to say. It is because they have heard, and made up their own minds that the product is biased and unreliable. They have flown the cocoon, not spun one.