Bari, I very much appreciate the variety of people to whom you are exposing us. I do have a question for you and for Maud and for so many of the people you know. You seem to be shocked when you run up against radical extremism and lying in organizations that you used to venerate, like the New York Times or in Maud's case Legal Aid.
Many of your readers aren't surprised. We've seen this coming five, ten, even fifteen years ago and more. It is quite likely that if you heard what we were saying, you would have dismissed us as right-wing fundamentalists, extremists, racist, anti-Semitic - even deplorable. If we wait for your ex-colleagues to wake up one at a time, this country may be gone before that happens. How do we speed this up so that eyes open en masse? You are certainly doing your part as are others, but it is drips of water on a stone when we need a non-violent version of dynamite.
"But this lawyer wasn’t willing to defend Maron on the record."
This is the most disturbing sentence in this piece. Her colleagues, lawyers all, nonetheless are not willing to speak up and tell the truth. If they wondered how they would act under a totalitarian regime, now they know.
This is a very clear statement of the most important problem the U.S. is facing now. This paragraph toward the end makes a very meaningful point:
"“If you had asked me when I became a mom what I thought were the pressing concerns my kids would face I probably would have said climate change, maybe ending the Iraq war,” she said. “I am so shocked that what I worry about now is creeping totalitarianism in America.”"
I would change the last words to read: "... surging totalitarianism in America."
So let me be clear, progressives are not liberals nor do they share liberal values. The sort of thing happening to Maud Maron and her family is one of the the many "real-life, real people" situations which Bari Weiss is putting in the spotlight for the world to see. Sunshine is the best disinfectant and it'll take a lot of sunshine to rid the left of the scourge which has taken power in a variety of places.
Bari, you are doing God's work here. Which can not be said of your former employer.
As for being liberal, I offer no apologies. So yes, voting rights matter, Black lives matter, LGBT rights matter, etc etc. But I can't and won't support these false liberals who are themselves, intolerant and often flat out dishonest. And wherever they seem to find levers of power, they instantly seem to become corrupt.
Another example. Cancelling Boston Pride because it wasn't 'woke' enough? Those weren't liberal ideals at work, it was more of a "mean girls" middle school clique. And so the many who found the parade helpful to their own acceptance in the larger society lose out because. Why? For some ungodly reason, there was an offended wing which the leadership didn't adequately placate.
Over the years, I've been open about my disdain for the R party and many of its leaders. But in recent years and for the first time in my life, I now have to say some really ugly things about the left. I have to speak up, because that is the liberal thing to do.
Reading the media these past weeks, I am shocked and amazed about the characterization of opposition to “anti-racism” and critical race theory as a right-wing thing. We need more people who identify as liberal to shout that narrative down. I we need more people to come out of the shadows.
Bari, I was a Democrat for 40+ years, worked for the DFL party (aka a Minnesota Democrat) in high school and through college. Lived in PDX for the last 10 years and left the party because of this kind of intolerance and vindictiveness, which is replayed there and elsewhere. “All Republicans are racist” I heard frequently at party events. (Even Mitch McConnell started his political career working for civil rights). For a party once dedicated to tolerance it has become repressive with political positions more at home in an ivory tower than a union hall.
“The bill for that silence is coming due now.” I get it - there are mortgages to pay, children to feed, but don't think your silence will protect you. Silence will not be enough. You will soon be forced to *affirm without equivocation* or you too will endure a similar fate. The longer we remain silent out of fear that we will lose our comforts, the more dangerous this becomes. (Read Gulag Archipelago. History rhymes.)
It is always just a few people stirring things up and a lot of people going along with it. it is always under the cover of social justice of some sort, making it harder for most liberals to effectively respond. it is a classic double bind, have you quit beating your wife yet? scenario. it short circuits the ability to reason in many liberals, they don't know what to do, the social shaming element is terrifying so they just go along. Long ago, my friends and i used to talk about how if we had been in Germany we would never have gone along with what was happening then. Nearly all of them now are going along, have told me they wish they could speak up but are too afraid, they are afraid of losing their income, their jobs, their standing, their homes. so they become good Germans. It is the same old story all over again. But now both the left and right are doing it in their own way. we surely are in a mess. only if people begin taking a stand and speaking up will it begin to change. and more and more people are in fact doing so. thank you
We got here by people "keeping their heads down," especially in universities. Parents, colleagues, the press.
Bloom warned that the abuse of academic freedom, the cynical use of "racism" as a cudgel and the failure of boneless college presidents to stand up to Marxist "student" mobs who did not represent the actual student bodies would lead to academic totalitarianism, unfettered radicalism. Tyranny of the minority.
The classicist fairly shouted that radicals were closing students' minds. And what did the U.S. do? Nothing. Maybe we were so self-absorbed we didn't even care. Unchallenged Panthers and Weathermen, ex- cons, teaching in colleges, radicalizing kids, Zinn redefining and trashing the United States, became the Bible.
Young adults fall for this malevolence because they've no foundation in the Enlightenment or the founding principles of the US, no concept of what Marxism is or what it does to people; that aside from the self- anointed rulers, who live in luxury, everyone is poor; millions dead, incarcerated in work farms, no basis for understanding how individual rights and due process are everyone's guarantee of liberty. No value on liberty itself. No understanding that doing what they choose, how they choose, is a privilege owed entirely to liberal democracy and the generations of all stripes who secured it, perfected it, and fought to protect it before them.
Irrespective of her left background, Maron is standing up to this and at risk of her career. If every single person at Legal Aid watching this assault backed her, the aggressors would lose their power. It is more than bullying- they are trying to destroy her life. Their power is in intimidating the onlookers. It is they who are the haters, the bullies, the aggressors. It is they who demand the closed fist of Power over everyone else. The left has created pathologically self- centered Frankensteins behaving monstrously toward other human beings. Time to disabuse them. They are no more important than anyone else. Clearly, the activist class believes they are.
There is a huge mis-marketing and mislabeling issue here. Calling people who actually believe in post-racial equality “segregationists” is nonsensical. Forcing people to identify themselves based on race alone - isn’t that is the actual definition of segregationist? I am alarmed about the growing number of these incidences in schools (Grace Church, Riverdale, Stuyvesant), companies and universities. Let us promote tolerance and listen to one another. Let’s make civil debate the norm, not ostracism and authoritarianism. I guess since I’m 1) middle-aged 2) not employed and 3) not famous, I can air my honest opinions with little blowback. Everyone in America should enjoy that hard-won freedom.
This is sadly the ultimate price of appeasement now increasingly being paid by liberals at the hands of their more radical cousins in the progressive/woke movement. And still, even as they see their friends being eaten alive, they don’t have the balls to stand up. It is a struggle to muster too much sympathy for the victim of a shooting when they gave their shooter the gun.
Ms. Maron would seem to be the victim of people essentially the same but more extreme than she. Only those ignorant of history are surprised by the tumbrels and Mme. Guillotine.
I seem to see a pattern here. “Liberals” are fine with the evil radical left until it affects their children or them. Other “liberals” support them, anonymously. None of them have seemingly been troubled by decades of lies and invective aimed at conservatives: “racist”, “NAZI”, etc. that was all just fine. The bill has come due.
Bari, I very much appreciate the variety of people to whom you are exposing us. I do have a question for you and for Maud and for so many of the people you know. You seem to be shocked when you run up against radical extremism and lying in organizations that you used to venerate, like the New York Times or in Maud's case Legal Aid.
Many of your readers aren't surprised. We've seen this coming five, ten, even fifteen years ago and more. It is quite likely that if you heard what we were saying, you would have dismissed us as right-wing fundamentalists, extremists, racist, anti-Semitic - even deplorable. If we wait for your ex-colleagues to wake up one at a time, this country may be gone before that happens. How do we speed this up so that eyes open en masse? You are certainly doing your part as are others, but it is drips of water on a stone when we need a non-violent version of dynamite.
"But this lawyer wasn’t willing to defend Maron on the record."
This is the most disturbing sentence in this piece. Her colleagues, lawyers all, nonetheless are not willing to speak up and tell the truth. If they wondered how they would act under a totalitarian regime, now they know.
After 64 years on the earth, I am comfortable observing that those who call others racist are quite often racists themselves.
This is a very clear statement of the most important problem the U.S. is facing now. This paragraph toward the end makes a very meaningful point:
"“If you had asked me when I became a mom what I thought were the pressing concerns my kids would face I probably would have said climate change, maybe ending the Iraq war,” she said. “I am so shocked that what I worry about now is creeping totalitarianism in America.”"
I would change the last words to read: "... surging totalitarianism in America."
I've long been and remain a liberal.
So let me be clear, progressives are not liberals nor do they share liberal values. The sort of thing happening to Maud Maron and her family is one of the the many "real-life, real people" situations which Bari Weiss is putting in the spotlight for the world to see. Sunshine is the best disinfectant and it'll take a lot of sunshine to rid the left of the scourge which has taken power in a variety of places.
Bari, you are doing God's work here. Which can not be said of your former employer.
As for being liberal, I offer no apologies. So yes, voting rights matter, Black lives matter, LGBT rights matter, etc etc. But I can't and won't support these false liberals who are themselves, intolerant and often flat out dishonest. And wherever they seem to find levers of power, they instantly seem to become corrupt.
Another example. Cancelling Boston Pride because it wasn't 'woke' enough? Those weren't liberal ideals at work, it was more of a "mean girls" middle school clique. And so the many who found the parade helpful to their own acceptance in the larger society lose out because. Why? For some ungodly reason, there was an offended wing which the leadership didn't adequately placate.
Over the years, I've been open about my disdain for the R party and many of its leaders. But in recent years and for the first time in my life, I now have to say some really ugly things about the left. I have to speak up, because that is the liberal thing to do.
Reading the media these past weeks, I am shocked and amazed about the characterization of opposition to “anti-racism” and critical race theory as a right-wing thing. We need more people who identify as liberal to shout that narrative down. I we need more people to come out of the shadows.
Bari, I was a Democrat for 40+ years, worked for the DFL party (aka a Minnesota Democrat) in high school and through college. Lived in PDX for the last 10 years and left the party because of this kind of intolerance and vindictiveness, which is replayed there and elsewhere. “All Republicans are racist” I heard frequently at party events. (Even Mitch McConnell started his political career working for civil rights). For a party once dedicated to tolerance it has become repressive with political positions more at home in an ivory tower than a union hall.
“The bill for that silence is coming due now.” I get it - there are mortgages to pay, children to feed, but don't think your silence will protect you. Silence will not be enough. You will soon be forced to *affirm without equivocation* or you too will endure a similar fate. The longer we remain silent out of fear that we will lose our comforts, the more dangerous this becomes. (Read Gulag Archipelago. History rhymes.)
Yet still voting democrat
It is always just a few people stirring things up and a lot of people going along with it. it is always under the cover of social justice of some sort, making it harder for most liberals to effectively respond. it is a classic double bind, have you quit beating your wife yet? scenario. it short circuits the ability to reason in many liberals, they don't know what to do, the social shaming element is terrifying so they just go along. Long ago, my friends and i used to talk about how if we had been in Germany we would never have gone along with what was happening then. Nearly all of them now are going along, have told me they wish they could speak up but are too afraid, they are afraid of losing their income, their jobs, their standing, their homes. so they become good Germans. It is the same old story all over again. But now both the left and right are doing it in their own way. we surely are in a mess. only if people begin taking a stand and speaking up will it begin to change. and more and more people are in fact doing so. thank you
We got here by people "keeping their heads down," especially in universities. Parents, colleagues, the press.
Bloom warned that the abuse of academic freedom, the cynical use of "racism" as a cudgel and the failure of boneless college presidents to stand up to Marxist "student" mobs who did not represent the actual student bodies would lead to academic totalitarianism, unfettered radicalism. Tyranny of the minority.
The classicist fairly shouted that radicals were closing students' minds. And what did the U.S. do? Nothing. Maybe we were so self-absorbed we didn't even care. Unchallenged Panthers and Weathermen, ex- cons, teaching in colleges, radicalizing kids, Zinn redefining and trashing the United States, became the Bible.
Young adults fall for this malevolence because they've no foundation in the Enlightenment or the founding principles of the US, no concept of what Marxism is or what it does to people; that aside from the self- anointed rulers, who live in luxury, everyone is poor; millions dead, incarcerated in work farms, no basis for understanding how individual rights and due process are everyone's guarantee of liberty. No value on liberty itself. No understanding that doing what they choose, how they choose, is a privilege owed entirely to liberal democracy and the generations of all stripes who secured it, perfected it, and fought to protect it before them.
Irrespective of her left background, Maron is standing up to this and at risk of her career. If every single person at Legal Aid watching this assault backed her, the aggressors would lose their power. It is more than bullying- they are trying to destroy her life. Their power is in intimidating the onlookers. It is they who are the haters, the bullies, the aggressors. It is they who demand the closed fist of Power over everyone else. The left has created pathologically self- centered Frankensteins behaving monstrously toward other human beings. Time to disabuse them. They are no more important than anyone else. Clearly, the activist class believes they are.
There is a huge mis-marketing and mislabeling issue here. Calling people who actually believe in post-racial equality “segregationists” is nonsensical. Forcing people to identify themselves based on race alone - isn’t that is the actual definition of segregationist? I am alarmed about the growing number of these incidences in schools (Grace Church, Riverdale, Stuyvesant), companies and universities. Let us promote tolerance and listen to one another. Let’s make civil debate the norm, not ostracism and authoritarianism. I guess since I’m 1) middle-aged 2) not employed and 3) not famous, I can air my honest opinions with little blowback. Everyone in America should enjoy that hard-won freedom.
The Left is driving people like this to the Right.
This is sadly the ultimate price of appeasement now increasingly being paid by liberals at the hands of their more radical cousins in the progressive/woke movement. And still, even as they see their friends being eaten alive, they don’t have the balls to stand up. It is a struggle to muster too much sympathy for the victim of a shooting when they gave their shooter the gun.
Ms. Maron would seem to be the victim of people essentially the same but more extreme than she. Only those ignorant of history are surprised by the tumbrels and Mme. Guillotine.
I seem to see a pattern here. “Liberals” are fine with the evil radical left until it affects their children or them. Other “liberals” support them, anonymously. None of them have seemingly been troubled by decades of lies and invective aimed at conservatives: “racist”, “NAZI”, etc. that was all just fine. The bill has come due.