How many stories about politics have been told through non-human animal characters?
I want freedom of speech and abhor the prosecution described here, but the Editorial Board of The Washington Post is writing in a ludicrously ignorant style (and this is no context for intentional humor):
What is so frightening and subversive about a children’s book series featuring a flock of sheep? That is a question for Hong Kong authorities, who on Wednesday convicted the books’ creators on charges of sedition....
The picture books in question, written for children aged 4 to 7, depict sheep trying to protect their village from a pack of wolves. The series contained indirect references to social issues.... Even this implied criticism was too much for prosecutors, who claimed the books “indoctrinated” readers and disseminated “separatist” ideas.....
If there were any questions remaining about how far authorities will go to silence dissent, Wednesday’s conviction offers an ominous clue: Not even illustrated children’s books are safe.
Not even? I would think the literature given to children would be the first thing you would want to control. (It's something we fight about in America.) And if turning the characters into non-human animals got you off the hook for criminal charges, all the criminals would turn their characters into non-human animals.
The problem is the use of criminal law against political speech, and this isn't a distinctively Chinese idea:
Now, Hong Kong authorities appear to be weaponizing British-era sedition statutes to stifle criticism.
Oh! Imagine taking a statute that just happens to be on the books and enforcing it. But here in America, elite writers are deploying the word "sedition" and eyeing the sedition laws that we have on the books.
Just to look in The Washington Post, here's one of your columnists writing last June: "The sedition didn’t stop on Jan. 6. It must be stopped." And there's this article from last May: "How My Hometown Produced a Jan. 6 Sedition Suspect/One writer discovers her small Virginia town’s underside of conspiracy, guns and anti-government belief." And this, from June, about a real "seditious conspiracy" case: "Proud Boys, Tarrio blast sedition charge as politically orchestrated."
ADDED: The author of the June column "The sedition didn’t stop on Jan. 6. It must be stopped" and the first person on the list of "Members of the Editorial Board" — found at the bottom of the editorial about the Hong Kong sedition trial — are the same person: Karen Tumulty.
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Coming soon to a classroom near you:
A wolf tires of dressing in sheep’s clothing and undergoes surgery to become a true member of the flock.
In the process it changes it’s pronouns to baa/baa.
‘Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime…’
The lack of self awareness on the part of the elite Left is staggering.
Yea. Anti Government.
Isn't that the purpose of the Bill of Rights? Anti Government?
The left really hates the Constitution. AOC said as much again in her GQ interview.
Hong Kong weaponizing British-era sedition statutes to stifle criticism, is just like (at the very least rhymes) with the DoJ going after Trump with the 1917 Espionage Act
In this case, the Wapo has shown that it is too stupid to have any sense of awareness. The Chinese are tyrants, but they are consistent. The Wapo supports or condemns an act based on who they want to damage. That is worse.
Actually, a Jan 6th story with animals ( being herded into a slaughter house (Capitol)) would make good reading
Part of the fantasy of the left now is that experts and big companies just happen to be cracking down on free speech--it's not really the government like in China. Anyway what they're doing in China is supposedly kind of funny--with the implication that we sophisticated people know government crackdowns don't work. In the meantime, if the private sector is the least bit slow to suppress the speech the Bidenistas want to suppress, the White House will intervene. As long as the "right people" agree, it's not really suppression. You don't see it as suppression if you agree with it.
And yes, some pretty good books have suggested that people would be less troublesome, perhaps more likely to support something like a common good, if they resembled another species like sheep. On the other hand, many people don't want to admit they are sheep. If they conform, they do so with some fighting spirit--maybe dogs rather than sheep. The Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels are wise horses, but they turn out to be more like wise and admirable human beings. The Yahoos resemble chimpanzees, were probably human beings before they declined, but they show the possibility that human beings can remain very bestial even if they make progress.
If her hometown had produced an Antifa seditionist would we really be reading about it in the Post?
I wondered if one could read The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, Peter Rabbit, The Fabulous Mr. Fox, and Winnie the Pooh as political allegories, and sure enough, there is an academic paper on "The Wind in the Willows: A New Source for Animal Farm," by noted biographer Jeffrey Meyers of all people.
My take, though, is that the other stories are "political" only in a very broad sense. The animals teach us how to be human, but don't warn us about political movements. You could probably find "political" lessons of that sort in Aesop, La Fontaine, and Kipling.
This is it. The Purge is in full swing and out in the open now with the raids on the Trump allies. I thought it wouldn't happen until '24, but they must figure they won't be able to survive the midterms. If you thought the 2020 election was rigged you haven't seen nothing yet. It turns out Biden's speech was just the kickoff. However bad you think Achilles take on this is it is far worse than that.
"I would think the literature given to children would be the first thing you would want to control."
Ann, there are library books this very day, in children's sections of our school and other government libraries, where little boys are taught, with cartoon-like pictures, how to suck each others' penis.'
Are you for, or against these types of books?
One such book, called Gender Queer, depicts child pornography and contains graphic depictions of child pornography. I will link you below to the article about how parents have so far been unsuccessful in getting this book removed from a New York library.
"Jenna Murphy, a Ronkonkoma resident who is in favor of the book being available to students at the high school library, said, “There is no reason to remove any book from a library shelf. Removing ‘Gender Queer’ should be no different. A school library, or any library, should be a place where any person can learn—learn anything, without judgment and without scorn or embarrassment. Nothing should be limited in a library and all libraries should be a safe place. My only wish is for anyone that wants to learn, can.”
LEARN ANYTHING she says. NOTHING should be off-limits, she says. NOTHING.
Should this book be banned?
https://www.suffolkcountynews.net/stories/controversial-book-under-review,90153
"I would think the literature given to children would be the first thing you would want to control."
Ann, there are library books this very day, in children's sections of our school and other government libraries, where little boys are taught, with cartoon-like pictures, how to suck each others' penis.'
Are you for, or against these types of books?
One such book, called Gender Queer, depicts child pornography and contains graphic depictions of child pornography. I will link you below to the article about how parents have so far been unsuccessful in getting this book removed from a New York library.
"Jenna Murphy, a Ronkonkoma resident who is in favor of the book being available to students at the high school library, said, “There is no reason to remove any book from a library shelf. Removing ‘Gender Queer’ should be no different. A school library, or any library, should be a place where any person can learn—learn anything, without judgment and without scorn or embarrassment. Nothing should be limited in a library and all libraries should be a safe place. My only wish is for anyone that wants to learn, can.”
LEARN ANYTHING she says. NOTHING should be off-limits, she says. NOTHING.
Should this book be banned?
https://www.suffolkcountynews.net/stories/controversial-book-under-review,90153
Well...over the last couple of days, over 50 allies of Donald Trump have been raided by the FBI. The US Government, the DoJ under Joe Biden, is working on jailing, shutting up, shutting down, his main political opponent before he can even run. It sounds so...I dunno, Totalitarian of them. So very South American.
This from the people who work with Big Tech, media, and our universities to shut down speech, change language, and encourage OneSpeak and proper thought. Perhaps WaPo should review 1984 as well and apply it to a story they can find today. I'm sure we can help them find one.
To watch American liberals weaponize sedition accusations against their hated MAGA enemies has turned them into the colonialists they claim to despise. They’ll hang your ass for sedition. Now the FBI and DOJ pigs raid homes of Trump supporters on the same grounds. They’ll ruin you financially with legal bills. Drag you to court. And ransack your wife’s underwear drawer.
The timing is to encourage fear and discourage questioning the upcoming elections fraud about to take place in the 2022 mid-terms. It’s coming again.
Sadly, we are living Animal Farm. I read it sophomore year HS as required reading. I actually read it sitting in a tree from beginning to end and understood it all. Now our pig leaders who preach equality and equity walk on two legs. They keep farmer Jones’ house at a cool 68 degrees, while the sheep in the barn have to set the thermostat to 78 to avoid rolling blackouts created by the pigs.
The pigs in NY, MA, NJ, PA, have already sent thousands of horses to the glue factory when they purposefully cross contaminated the nursing homes at the beginning of COVID. Now they are more subtle about it mandating blood clot and stroke inducing “vaccines”. Their latest glue factory tactic is to release criminals into the barn to kill innocent animals ....with cause of course.
Yes all of us American animals are equal. But the credentialed and connected pigs are more equal. And if you question how many animals actually voted for the pigs....well that is a seditious act the can get you sent to the glue factory.
American Spring? Sedition wasn't conceived, but it accelerated with an acutely phobic reaction to Trump's candidacy over 6 years ago, reached puberty 2 years ago with a congressional insurrection, and progressive enhancements not limited to WaPo misreporting and disreporting in collusion with domestic and foreign special and peculiar interests.
Karen Tumulty understands the real risks:
All around the country, she writes, Republicans "have not only embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, but are also running on promises to further undermine the electoral process."
Many of them are vying for offices that would put them in position to oversee the election machinery in their states.
OVERSEE!
That is the real risk: Non-Democrats getting inside the counting rooms to report back to the people what is actually going on in there.
That CANNOT be allowed to happen (for folks like Tumulty, who favors fake elections.)
When the country gets started hanging traitors, we could do a lot worse than starting with her.
Isn't that the purpose of the Bill of Rights? Anti Government?
It was designed to temper the evolution of single/central/monopolistic special and peculiar interests with an assumed authority backed by high capacity arms, capable of forcing extinction level events, to deprive the People and our Posterity of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. It recognizes a tradition truth: A civilized society develops with a moral religion for individuals capable of self-moderation, and competing interests to mitigate the progress of others running amuck.
Welcome, Ann. Slowly but surely, and finally, the scales are slipping from your eyes. Some of us were there too. That "cruel neutrality" a desperately needed defense mechanism even long after we escaped the academic archipelago.
Is sedition illegal in the United States?
In the US code I find a statute against "seditious conspiracy"
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both
But there doesn't seem to be any law against "sedition" per se. It seems clear from the language that a single person cannot commit conspiracy.
It also seems, though perhaps less clearly, that seditious conspiracy requires the use of force.
It may be that I am missing something. Can someone explain to me if sedition is illegal in the US?
Speaking currently. I know it has been illegal in the past. But not for 100 years or so.
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
Perhaps above instead of asking if sedition is illegal in the United States I should have asked if it is legal.
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
I plan to put on a Ben Shapiro mask and walk through my neighborhood Whole Foods.
Follow me for more acts of sedition!
A myopic Karen on the Editorial Board of a major American paper.
Karen complaining to Goggle: "Your demented and presumptuous minions have their eagle eye on my account."
Trump obviously thought he was going to win the 2020 election. In the last days of his Presidency he instituted Executive Order Schedule F which he planned on acting on during his second term. The EO would have let him replace more than 10 times the number of Federal employees than previously allowed. It would have let him strip entire layers of the beauracacy. That EO was immediately canceled by Biden.
Since that time he has been working through the steps to reinstall the EO and act on it during a '24-'28 Presidency. Many of the advisors working with him on this are the ones being raided. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's behind the recent activities of the Dem apparatus attacks on Trump. Another term for Trump would entirely disrupt the Dem control of the beauracacy.
If the midterms wind up with a Republican controlled Congress the inner workings of the intelligence community, military industrial complex and other government agencies will be held in check or neutralized if not outright exposed. With a Trump Presidency in '24 they would be completely dismantled.
If the FBI and DOJ can gather enough information through the raids they may be able to present Trump and his allies planning in this regard as sedition. If things don't fall their way in 2022 the deepstate is dead meat. You can see the reason for their desperation.
The lack of self awareness on the part of the elite Left is staggering.
Too busy watching you to have time for any introspection. The hive mind only feels and wants. It doesn't really "know", although it confuses those things with knowing.
Jeffery Ckark, Russ Vought, Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, Ed Corrigan, Wesley Denton, Brooke Rollins, James Sherk, Andrew Kloster and Troup Hemenway are among the persons working on the Trump plan it reinstate EO Plan F. Some of them have been hauled up before J6 commission already. I'd assume many of them are among those who have been raided although I don't have those names yet.
"here in America, elite writers are deploying the word "sedition" and eyeing the sedition laws that we have on the books."
Right. They are not opposed to using sedition laws to squash opponents, or using children's books to give it the proles good and hard, for that matter. But they'll shed a virtue-signaling crocodile tear for oppressed Chinese when it suits them, not that it will stop them from ordering more solar panels and batteries from the PRC.
Who, whom, is all.
Enjoy the appropriate deliciousness of her first name, made possible by WuFlu.
There's a basic problem with EO Scedule F though. While it may be a quick fix if it works, it leaves open the possibility of a future Democrat President doing the same thing Trump is planning on doing. The back and forth destruction and partisan reinstallation of the federal beauracacy would make a hash of the underpinnings of our government. I think that is the reason for the establishment Republican's pushback, and the reason for Cheney's defection.
Too many people still believe that the people who work for corporate media like the Washington Post are"stupid" "deluded" or "lack self-awareness." I don't know them personally so I can't testify to their mental state. However, I don't believe that stupidity, delusion, or lack of self-awareness are affecting their writing. I have come to the conclusion that they are fully aware that they are working to create a totalitarian state in which they are the arbiters of what can and can't be said or thought.
They are, after all, protecting their financial and cultural status and really have no problems with consigning those who threatened that status to political impotence or, if needed some Gulag.
I am so old I remember: 'Amazon has pulled all ads for Johnny The Walrus, claiming it's not "appropriate." They've also removed it from the children's category and labeled it political commentary. ..."
When I think of animals and politics I think of Pogo.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Moneyrunner wrote:
"Too many people still believe that the people who work for corporate media like the Washington Post are"stupid" "deluded" or "lack self-awareness."
I more or less agree with what followed the above sentence, but I would say they are stupid but energetic, as someone just this morning reminded me is a dangerous combination.
If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.
The present ruling class is doing this as a religion. They will hunt down heretics as enthusiastically as any Spanish Jesuit.
they are stupid but energetic, as someone just this morning reminded me is a dangerous combination.
of the four types of officers, These are THE WORST! Give me Lazy and Stupid ANY DAY
I'm far beyond hoping for Lazy and Smart
Bullies always claim to be victimized when people confront them direct and fight back.
Blogger Howard said...
Bullies always claim to be victimized when people confront them direct and fight back.
Yeah, I've noticed that. Then they accuse those fighting back as racists and "domestic terrorists."
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