Daily Archives: September 19, 2020

Whatever Clara Kraebbe may do with the rest of her life, the 20-year-old Rice University student wont outdo the publicity shes received since her recent arrest by the NYPD for felony vandalism. Reading in the New York Post about young Clara, who lives with her father, a child psychiatrist, and her mother, an architect, in a $1.8 million Upper East Side luxury condo and a pre-Revolutionary War Connecticut mansion, I asked myself: Whom does this girl remind me of?

And then it came to me. Of course: shes a modern-day Jane Fonda.

While Clara is a Manhattan princess, Jane was Hollywood royalty, daughter of one of the great actors of the movies golden age. While Jane was a poster girl for the hordes of well-off kids who protested the Vietnam War and looked down their noses at hardhats, Clara is the face of BLM/Antifa rioters who sneer at cops and other inferiors.

Raised in privilege, the beneficiaries of capitalist success, both these young women turned against the system that had given them so much. Clara trashed downtown Manhattan businesses and, according to reports, wanted to commandeer upper-class New York apartments of the sort she lives in and hand them over to the poor. Its not quite up there with climbing on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, as Jane did back in 1972, but itll do for these days of diminished expectations.

What motivates such extreme acts of rebellion? To ask the question is, at once, to challenge it. For neither Clara nor Jane is a real rebel. Clara might want to play Robin Hood with other peoples properties, but not, I suspect, with her familys. The same goes for Jane, who, while singing the praises of Communism in North Vietnam, had no intention of staying there and living under the system; she had, after all, just won an Oscar for Klute and had a career in pictures to get back to.

Not that either Clara or Jane was entirely play-acting. A charitable interpretation of their conduct would be that both womenraised in wealth but innocent of the laws of economics, and perhaps insufficiently conscious of just how exceptional their own lives weresimply found it unfair that everybody couldnt live the way they did. Having, presumably, been pampered since infancy, moreover, perhaps neither possessed sufficient humility to recognize that her efforts to undermine the American system of government might be immodest, if not ill-advised. (As Jordan Peterson would say, learn to make your bed before you try to change the world.)

The parallel with Fonda occurred to me in part because she has been in the news a lot latelynot for acting, but for activism. Jane has not given up the fight. Indeed, you cant really call Clara the young Jane Fonda because the old Jane Fondashes 82 nowis still, in heart and mind, the young Jane Fonda. Which is to say that she hasnt learned a damn thing.

This has come through clearly in the interviews shes done to promote her new book, What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action. Uniformly, she has been treated like an oracle. Timothy Noah told her: Youve been causing . . . good trouble for the better part of fifty years. Howard Stern praised her level of commitment.

But for first-class superstar slathering, you had to turn to Maureen Dowds 4,500-word puff piece in the New York Times Magazine. Though Dowd is a purportedly serious political columnist for what was once considered the nations Paper of Record, she, like Noah and Stern and others, refused to engage seriously with Fondas lifetime of politically themed performance art.

On the contrary, Dowd piled on the superlatives, describing Fonda, in her opening sentences, as a glam Forrest Gump who has popped up on the front lines of culture, fitness, politics and Hollywood for more than half a century. Dowd held out to readers the tantalizing prospect of a full-bore profile of Fonda, from bad vibes over Hanoi Jane to good vibrators.

The North Vietnam episode, in this formulation, is simply a matter of bad vibes and is, in some way, of a piece with the octogenarians current battery-fueled sex life. Unlike Henry Fondawho, we learn here, told Jane, to his credit, If I ever find out youre a Communist, Ill be the first to turn you inDowd gives every impression of viewing even the most appalling chapters of Fondas life, from her gushing praise of Ho Chi Minh to her calumnies against U.S. troops, from her involvement with the Black Panthers to her friendship with Angela Davis (the judge-killing conspirator and Lenin Prize winner), as a series of colorful escapades in the life of this ever-fascinating intergalactic sexpot.

Living in a cultural bubble in which screaming about climate change is a mark of virtue, Fonda considered herself an environmentalist before this year, but she hadnt, in her own words, really put my body on the line for it. Then she heard Greta Thunberg speak and read a book by Naomi Kleinand devised a stratagem. Shed stride into the Oval Office with Pam Anderson, Sharon Stone, and a few other beautiful, sexy, smart, climate-interested women, and kneel and . . . plead and beg Donald Trump to change his environmental policies. Hed be so popeyed by the sight of these luscious dames on their knees that hed rewrite the laws right then and there.

She even proposed the idea to Ivanka Trump, who laughed.

So instead of leading a cougar assault on the White House, Fonda started taking part in Fire Drill Fridays, a weekly climate protest at the Capitol. She racked up five arrests. (Think of it: two Oscars, two BAFTAs, and now five arrests!)

Jane detects a feeling of love in the BLM protests. At this late date, is she really so obtuse? How does she square this view with the vandalism, arson, beatings, and killings committed by BLM rioters? Did she learn nothing from her enthusiasm for a Communist regime whose victory eventuated in genocide? Dowd doesnt ask.

Now an environmental heroine, Fonda boasts that these days she has only two closets full of clothes, including clothes that I wore 30 years ago. This, she notes, is a far cry from life during her 1990s marriage to CNN mogul Ted Turner, when they had 23 homes, with clothes at each place. This state of affairs obliged her to buy in bulk, so that very often at Saks Fifth Avenue, the sales girl would say Are these gifts? And Id say, No, theyre all for me.

What was she thinking back then? How did she manage to reconcile that life of cartoonish luxury with her professed radical convictions? Did it ever occur to her, as she took private jets from one Turner spread to another, that she was living a life of greater waste and self-indulgence than pretty much anyone else on the planet? Does it occur to her now, given her personal history, to be even slightly embarrassed to be preaching to anyone about consumption?

Or could it be that todays Jane Fonda, the newly minted climate queen, is, quite consciously, doing penance for her previous behavior? It doesnt seem so. Theres not a word here that even hints at such. Throughout the Dowd interview and others that shes done for her book, Fonda presents herself as a woman who, throughout her life, has been a selfless crusader for the greater good. The problem is always elsewhere.

Maureen Dowd doesnt ask about any of this, either. You dont ask Jane Fonda about such things. Nor do you hold a mirror up to the hypocrisies of Al Gore or Laurie David (Larry Davids fanatically eco-conscious ex) or any of the other rich climate scolds whose carbon footprints exceed that of a small town. To be a certain kind of child of privilege, like Jane Fonda or Clara Kraebbethat is, to be less than gifted with self-knowledge and the capacity for shameis to be above such petty calculations.

Bruce Bawer is the author of several books, including The Victims Revolution, While Europe Slept, and the novel The Alhambra.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

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Heiresses on the Barricades - City Journal

Pain will come, he is saying, and when it does, nobody wants to hear about it. Why should your pain be any more deserving of our attention than anybody elses? Bear your pain, he says in one lecture, so when your father dies you are not whining away in the corner and you can help plan the funeral.

At my fathers funeral, I sat in the front row with my hands folded on my lap. Later, at the burial site, I watched them lower the coffin into the ground. On the trip home, I sat with my head against the car window, just the way you used to do on long trips. After a few days, I went back to school and pretended that nothing had happened. I got through it. I didnt whine.

Having tried Petersons method for most of my life, I can tell you it works only as a tourniquet. You may get through the moment, the day, the week. Eventually, though, the blood stops flowing altogether, and something in you falls away.

For years, I cultivated an entire comedic persona based on withdrawal. If you ever want to see what that looks like, go watch me on one of those VH1 I Love the shows, in which talking heads reminisce about decades gone by. My segments are all totally deadpan, unsmiling, sarcastic. They were funny (if I do say so myself), but sarcasm is a form of withdrawal. I was good at it because by that point in my life, I had invested years in learning how to act as if I didnt care about anything. What you see on TV is an exaggeration of the way I lived my life, but only a little. Back then, I had so much anger that I didnt know what to do with, so I clamped down. My release was jokes. They escaped like occasional steam puffs, shaking the lid from a boiling pot.

The more successful I became doing that, the less satisfied I felt, because I knew there was something fundamentally dishonest about it. That stone-faced person wasnt me anymore. I was recently married. I had a newborn son. Within a couple of years, I would have a daughter. The person I saw on-screen, the one who never cracked a smile, didnt seem like he was ready to be a husband and a father. Maybe he wasnt ready. I began feeling a conflict between the person I found myself portraying on television and the man I was trying to become in real life. Maybe that shouldnt have mattered; after all, actors and comedians pretend. Thats the job. But it mattered to me.

I wanted to be more open and honest in my life and in my work, which meant I had to change. Which meant I had to start asking myself some hard questions about who I was and what I valued. I had to pry apart the careful persona Id constructed. I wanted to be a better husband and father. I wanted to be a better man.

I cannot recall the number of times I wiped tears from your face when you were little. I can remember the feeling of your pudgy arms around my neck as I knelt down to you, listening to you stammer out the reasons for your pain, holding you until you felt better, wiping your snot off my shirt. Coming to me for comfort was one of the greatest gifts you ever gave to me, because it allowed me to be your dad. A dad instructs and reprimands and plays. Ive done all those things too, but comforting you felt special, the gift of extending empathy. You sharing your pain with me relieved my own terror of fathering a son. In allowing me to comfort you, you comforted me.

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To My Son: Men Have to Allow Ourselves to Be Loved - The Atlantic

Cultural Marxism is a term favoured by those on the right who argue the humanities are hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Australia.

The criticism is that radical voices have captured the humanities, stifling free speech on campuses.

The term has been used widely over the past decade. Most infamously, in former senator Fraser Annings 2018 final solution speech to parliament he denounced cultural Marxism as not a throwaway line, but a literal truth.

But is cultural Marxism actually taking over our universities and academic thinking? Using a leading academic database, I crunched some numbers to find out.

The term cultural Marxism moved into the media mainstream around 2016, when psychologist Jordan Peterson was protesting a Canadian bill prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Peterson blamed cultural Marxism for phenomena like the movement to respect gender-neutral pronouns which, in his view, undermines freedom of speech.

But the term is much older. It seems first to have been used by writer Michael Minnicino in his 1992 essay The New Dark Age, published by the Schiller Institute, a group associated with the fringe right wing figure Lyndon LaRouche.

Around the turn of the century, the phrase was adopted by influential American conservatives. Commentator and three time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan targeted cultural Marxism for many perceived ills facing America, from womens rights and gay activism to the decline of traditional education.

The term has since gone global, sadly making its way into Norwegian terrorist Anders Breviks justificatory screed. Andrew Bolt used it as early as 2002. In 2013, Cory Bernardi was warning against cultural Marxism as one of the most corrosive influences on society.

By 2016, the year the Peterson affair unfolded, Nick Cater and Chris Uhlmann were blaming it for undermining free speech in The Australian. The idea has since been adopted by Mark Latham and Malcolm Roberts.

Insofar as it goes beyond a fairly broad term of enmity, the accusers of cultural Marxism point to two main protagonists behind this ideology.

The first is Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Writing under imprisonment by the fascists in the 1920s, Gramsci argued the left needed to capture the bureaucracy, universities and media-cultural institutions if it wished to hold power.

The second alleged culprits are neo-Marxist theorists associated with the Frankfurt School of Social Research. These critical theorists drew on psychoanalysis, social theory, aesthetics and political economy to understand modern societies. They became especially concerned with how fascism could win the allegiance of ordinary people, despite its appeals to aversive prejudice, hatred and militarism.

When Hitler came to power, the Frankfurt School was quickly shut down, and its key members forced into exile. Then, as Uhlmann has narrated, Frankfurt School academics [] transmitted the intellectual virus to the US and set about systematically destroying the culture of the society that gave them sanctuary.

While Soviet communism faltered, the story continues, the cultural Marxist campaign to commandeer our culture was marching triumphantly through the humanities departments of Western universities and outwards into wider society.

Today, critics argue it shapes the political correctness that promotes minority causes and polices public debate on issues like the environment, gender and immigration posing a grave threat to liberal values.

If the conservative anxieties about cultural Marxism reflected reality, we would expect to see academic publications on Marx, Gramsci and critical theorists crowding out libertarian, liberal and conservative voices.

To test this, I conducted quantitative research on the academic database JStor, tracking the frequency of names and key ideas in all academic article and chapter titles published globally between 1980 and 2019.

In 1987, Karl Marx himself ceded the laurel as the most written about thinker in academic humanities, replaced by Friedrich Nietzsche revered by many fascists including Benito Mussolini and Martin Heidegger, another figure whose far-right politics were hardly progressive.

Over the past 40 years, the alleged mastermind of cultural Marxism, Gramsci, attracted 480 articles. This compares with the 407 publications on Friedrich Hayek, arguably the leading influence on the neoliberal free market reforms of the last decades.

The Frankfurt School featured in less than 200 titles, and critical theorist Herbert Marcuse (identified by Uhlmann as a key transmitter of the cultural Marxist virus in the US) was the subject of just over 220.

Over the last decade, the most written about thinker was the neo-Nietzschean theorist, Giles Deleuze, featuring in 770 titles over 2010-19.

But the notoriously esoteric ideas of Deleuze and his language of machinic assemblages, strata, flows and intensities are hardly Marxist. His ideas have been a significant influence on the right-wing Neoreactionary or dark enlightenment movement.

The last four decades have seen a relative decline of Marxist thought in academia. Its influence has been superseded by post-structuralist (or postmodernist) thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Deleuze.

Post-structuralism is primarily indebted to thinkers of the European conservative revolution led by Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Where Marxism is built on hopes for reason, revolution and social progress, post-structuralist thinkers roundly reject such optimistic grand narratives.

Post-structuralists are as preoccupied with culture as our conservative news columnists. But their analyses of identity and difference challenge the primacy Marxism affords to economics as much as they oppose liberal or conservative ideas.

Quantitative research bears out the idea that cultural Marxism is indeed a post-factual dog whistle and an intellectual confusion masquerading as higher insight.

A spectre of Marxism has survived the cold war. It now haunts the culture wars.

Matthew Sharpe is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Deakin University.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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What is cultural Marxism and is it really taking over universities everywhere? - Scroll.in

Although eating is a fundamental aspect of life, dietary preferences are often complicated and polarizing. From plant-based to paleo to keto, the optimal human diet has been a long-contested topic. In the past few years, the carnivore diet has garnered mainstream attention and despite rigorous scientific studies showing the negative effects of this diet, anecdotal claims have inspired more people to try out carnivorism.

Proponents of the carnivore diet claim that this lifestyle is revolutionaryand contradicts conventional conceptions of nutrition science. Many advocates of carnivorism claim that this diet has drastically changed their lives the reported benefits range from stabilizing energy levels to curing autoimmune diseases. But how do these claims measure up to scientific scrutiny? Read on to learn about five celebrities who tried the carnivore diet and the impact that eating so much meat had on their health.

James Blunt was recently in the news for developing scurvy after two months on an all-meat diet. This ailment was the result of a petty vow to spite his vegan and vegetarian friends. His decision to eat only chicken and mince backfired as Blunt admitted he quickly became very unhealthy and was diagnosed with scurvy. As Azmina Govindji, the spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association pointed out, eliminating plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, and legumes can result in low levels of vitamin C, fiber, and potassium. Govindji explained how crucial these nutrients are stating, not having enough vitamin C can leave you feeling tired and lethargic, while fiber from oats and barley can reduce your blood cholesterol levels; and potassium helps your heart muscle to work properly.

Its safe to say that if a particular diet results in a disease historically associated with malnourished sailorsyou should probably try other options.

Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of the controversial psychologist and professor Jordan Peterson, has been advocating her self-titled Lion Diet since claiming that exclusively eating ruminant meat (cows and lambs) has cured her physical and mental illnesses. A couple of years ago she garnered mainstream attention when, despite having no educational background or training in nutrition, dietetics, or biology, she began to sell her expertise for $599 per year. Aside from her lack of formal education, Petersons branding for her Lion Diet has a few red flags alerting to the pseudoscientific nature of her claims. For example, all of her evidence for the success of this diet is based on anecdotal claims (most of which are personal) rather than scientific evidence. Similarly, she claims that this simple diet is a cure-all for ailments ranging from auto-immune diseases to mental illness. Many fad diets, such as Petersons, rely on pseudoscience rather than rigorous scientific research, so familiarizing yourself with the telltale signs of pseudoscience is essential.

When Mikhaila Peterson began her Lion Diet, her father Jordan and mother Tammy joined her. While Mikhaila made lofty claims that this new diet cured her and her parents illnesses, news stories of her familys health undermined these claims. In 2019, her mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer and her father attended rehab for antidepressants. So while Mikhaila kept claiming on social media that her Lion Diet cured her and her fathers health, she willfully omitted her mothers severe health struggles. Furthermore, kidney cancer specifically is linked to meat consumption, so omitting her mothers health is not only dishonest but also potentially dangerous to the people who are following her carnivorous lifestyle. Secondly, in a now deleted video, she made claims on her youtube channel that she had completely turned her fathers health around and gotten rid of his mood disorder (video can be found here at 3:44) However in February of 2020, she contradicted these claims by revealing that her father had been constantly taking medication and was now in rehab dealing with addiction to that medication. While Mikhaila might claim her Lion Diet has cured all of her health problems, the health of her parents demonstrates how misinformed she really is. In an interview with The Atlantic,Jack Gilbert, the faculty director at the University of Chicagos Microbiome Center, claimed the Lion Diet is a terribly, terribly bad idea, adding, if [Mikhaila] does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardiometabolic disease, the life I cant imagine.

Joe Rogan is a popular podcast host who has routinely commented on veganism and in 2019, he even admitted that the lifestyle is perfectly healthy. His favorable comments came after hosting a debate between James Wilks, the producer ofThe Game Changers, and Chris Kresser, an advocate of the paleo diet. Despite claiming on Instagram that Wilks knocked it out of the park in defending veganism and his film, Rogan began a carnivore diet in January of 2020. While he claims that this month-long experiment caused rapid weight loss, he also vividly details his issues with diarrhea caused by this diet (he compares it to a rainforest mudslideyeah). Rogan fails to consider that his weight loss might not be caused directly by his diet, but rather indirectly through his excessive diarrhea. This problem could be caused by a number of things. For one, meat is known to cause a host of ailments sometimes resulting from salmonella or E. coli contamination. Furthermore, the lack of fiber in the carnivore diet could result in malnourished good gut bacteria which could lead to issues like diarrhea. Aside from these gastrointestinal issues, eating two servings of red or processed meat a week is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. While Rogan only stuck to this diet for a month, the health problems could be long-lasting.

Shawn Baker is a prominent advocate of the carnivore diet and former M.D. who had his medical license revoked in 2017 due to incompetence. Despite his lack of qualifications, Baker continues to push his beliefs about the carnivore diet and, much like Mikhaila Peterson, claims that this diet is a cure-all. However, his health has been called into question several times, specifically regarding his cholesterol levels. In 2018, after 15 months on a carnivore diet, he discussed his bloodwork on Robb Wolfs podcast. Youtuber Mic the Vegan discussed Bakers blood test results in his own video. Mic points out that in the podcast Wolf concedes that Bakers total cholesterol is high (205 mg/dl), however, he conveniently neglects to mention Bakers LDL or bad cholesterol. Using a simple equation, Mic discovered that Bakers LDL cholesterol was incredibly high (149.2 mg/dl), in fact, his LDL cholesterol was about twice as high as the optimal level. Such high LDL cholesterol puts Baker at extreme risk for atherosclerosis. Not only that, but Mic points out that his blood glucose levels put him in the diabetic range and his testosterone levels were off the charts low.

While these individuals maintained an all-meat diet for the health benefits, scientific evidence demonstrates how detrimental the carnivore diet truly is. Dr. Lawrence Cheskin, who dubbed the carnivore diet the heart attack diet, has an explanation for the short term health benefits some carnivore dieters experience. In an interview for Inverse, Cheskin explains that sometimes the perceived health benefits are not from the diet itself, but simply the result of losing weight. He goes on to say that sometimes it looks like having all meat lowered your cholesterol when in fact if you had the same amount of calories but they were all red meat, then youd be raising your cholesterol.

Marion Nestle, Ph.D. and professor emeritus of food studies at NYU, believes that these carnivore dieters can think and eat whatever they want and thats fine. She is quoted at the end of the Inversearticle matter of factly, sayingIs [this diet] going to be good for them? No. But thats their choice. While technically Nestle is right that ones diet is ultimatelytheir choice, the unsustainable and unethical nature of the carnivore diet extends beyond the individual making the action.

Reducing meat from your diet is not only scientifically demonstrated to be beneficial to your health, but a meat-free diet has the lowest environmental impact. It is one of the best actions you can take as an individual to limit suffering and destruction in this world.

While the carnivore diet is extreme, even less restrictive meat-heavy diets pose a serious threat to ones health. As mentioned, just two servings of red or processed meat a week is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death (for reference, the average American eats five servings of red or processed meats a week). Take the Atkins diet popular for allegedly helping with weight loss, this diet restricts carbohydrates while increasing the consumption of proteins and fats. Research suggests that consuming large amounts of protein and fat derived from animal sources can increase ones risk for heart disease and some cancers. Similarly, the Paleo diet typically includes large servings of red meat and has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular problems, diabetes, and certain cancers.

By contrast, research has shown vegan diets to be protective against ischemic heart disease and cancer. Similarly, individuals following a vegan diet are at the lowest risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Following a plant-based diet not only has a myriad of health benefits, but you can also feel good knowing that your choices are better for the animals and the environment!

Check out these recipes for ideas on how to obtain vital nutrients from a plant-based diet!

Read more about the health benefits of a plant-based diet!

For more Animal, Earth, Life, Vegan Food, Health, and Recipe content published daily, subscribe to the One Green Planet Newsletter! Lastly, being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!

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5 Celebrities Who Got Really Sick After Going on an All-Meat Diet - One Green Planet