Category Archives: Nihilism

Last August, Missouri voters made themselves perfectly clear when they voted to expand the states Medicaid program, passing a ballot measure with 53 percent of the vote. It was just the latest in a series of recent victorious expansion campaigns in red-leaning states, including Maine, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Utah, aimed at plugging a gaping hole in the Affordable Care Act created by the Supreme Court. While the high courts 54 ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius was, in 2012, hailed as a victory for upholding the legality of the individual mandate, there was less attention paid to what turned out to be a far more consequential caveat: that the choice of whether to extend Medicaid eligibility to cover all residents below 138 percent of the federal poverty line would be left to individual states. Several Republican-run states used their newfound leverage to win concessions from the federal government, such as lifetime benefit caps or monthly premiums that were never supposed to be part of a public safety net program intended for vulnerable patients. Many other states under GOP control took a more destructive path, refusing to change their Medicaid eligibility requirements at all and stranding some four million people without insurance; this included more than 200,000 Missourians.

Ironically, nearly a decade after the Sebelius ruling, we have come to understand that the individual mandate barely mattered at all to the law, and that Medicaid expansion accounted for far greater gains in insurance rates than tinkering with the individual market produced. We also have years worth of research on the tremendous impact Medicaid has on patients lives: Enrollees were able to access and use more necessary care; their health outcomes improved; and they experienced greater financial, professional, food, and housing security. This smorgasbord of quality-of-life gains was remarkable enough to win over large margins of the countrys most ostensibly conservative voters.

In Missouri, that may not be enough. The state Senate has voted 20 to 14 against funding the winning measure, effectively punting the issue to the courts to determine whether a cut-and-dry referendum ought to be acknowledged. Youd be hard-pressed to find a purer distillation of the Republican Partys nihilistic political project anywhere in the country.

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The War on Medicaid Expansion Exposes the Nihilism of the GOP - The New Republic

Fried Barry is deranged, repulsive, juvenile, borderline pornographic, and one of the most memorable, visually arresting, and unique movies Ive seen in ages. Hailing from music video director Ryan Kruger, the film tells the disgusting yet riveting story of a junkie in South Africa whose body is taken for a joy ride by an extraterrestrial through the nihilistic world he calls home. For most of its run time, Fried Barry is not a movie where an alien learns to love life from its human host; in fact, it is the antithesis of any wholesome alien/human narrative you can picture. A sliver of decency is found within the climax, naturally, with the nihilism only being everything preceding it, but the momentum of Fried Barry's narrative thrust is depravity, and I couldn't not watch it.

To describe Fried Barry without spoiling its contents is an impossibility, and a disservice to those with the constitution and willingness to view its mad genius. In simple terms, its like a drug-fueled descent into the heart of darkness, but Fried Barry feels steeped in the bananas art that influenced it. Simply put, its as if Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Crank, and Mandy were ground up into a powder, snorted through a straw made from the tunnel scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and into the nose of Under the Skin.

The film exposes itself from frame one, carrying the billing of A Ryan Kruger Thing in its opening titles, which prompts the question that this isn't simply a movie -- it's an experience, a night out in the clubs that becomes a nightmare at every corner. A cavalier and wanton disregard for anything sensible, the film is powered by Kruger's vision but piloted by the tremendous work of star Gary Green, who delivers the best alien-in-a-human-body performance since Vincent D'Onofrio in Men in Black.

With his first starring role, Green delivers an iconic style of movement and dead-pan comedy that delights, horrifies, and constantly feels fresh. Green is offered a brief moment of playing the actual Barry, a burnt-out ne'er-do-well with few prospects in life and seemingly no bottom to fall into, and though this set-up is necessary for what is to come, it's not where he's at his best. Once possessed, though, Green personifies this being in a man's skin with layers, contorting his face into unnatural positions and bringing a physicality that makes him seem like a master of the art.

Fried Barry is like watching something you know that you shouldnt be seeing. A television flipping channels at three in the morning between the mad programming that only appeals to anyone else who is awake at this hour, be they sober or impaired. It's dirty, nihilistic, perverted, and not for the squeamish, but those willing to buckle up and endure its boundary-defying absurdity will find something that's never not entertaining.

Under no circumstances can I recommend that everyone watch Fried Barry; its sure to offend and its frenetic style of insanity is not for all palettes, but I found it to be one of the most compelling examples of the limits of filmmaking and bad taste in years. Director and co-writer Ryan Kruger has a brain we must cherish, a style that feels fresh, and a sensibility that will make him infamous, while star Gary Green is destined to become a cult icon. Fried Barry defies all the odds by being its own type of animal, and then mutilating that animal in front of the audience.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Fried Barry will premiere on Shudder Friday, May 7th.

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Fried Barry Review: The Most Demented Movie of the Year Has Arrived - ComicBook.com

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.

Many professions are governed by a code of ethics. These codes are adopted by organizations to assist members in understanding the difference between right and wrong and in applying that understanding to their decisions. There are also avenues for legal action for the victims of those wronged by members of certain professions, as defined by the industry-acknowledged ethical codes.

Healthcare is one such notable profession. A good physician adheres to a commonly understood set of standards. The modern version of The Hippocratic Oath is inspiring. The full document can be found here. Each phrase has been crafted thoughtfully and together they contribute to a body of ideas that is vital for the safe practice of medicine. Of course, the profession is only as trustworthy as the individual health care providers that choose to adhere to these words to the best of their ability. One phrase that stood out to me is the requisite respect for the Hard won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk This sentiment promotes the idea of honoring those that have practiced medicine before you by striving to achieve their standard, or hopefully raising the bar.

Financial advisors, lawyers, counselors and many other professions are bound by a set of ethics for the protection of their clients. In my opinion, the journalism field is a profession that has lost its way in this critical objective of protecting its clients the consumers of news and desperately needs to return to a commonly held ethical standard. In 1914, The Journalists Creed was written by the first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, Walter Williams. The full body of the Creed can be found here. The first line states, I believe in the profession of journalism. As many know, I have worked in the journalism field my entire life. I desperately want to believe in the profession of journalism. But today I do not even recognize most of its members as adherents to any sort of ethical code whatsoever. The Creed also states that accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism and that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

For years going on decades, our most available news outlets are actually heading in the opposite direction by providing a criminal disservice to their viewers. There is only one truth. And if every channel is reporting something different as truth, then we have a crippling problem. Journalists are literally responsible for filling the minds of a society. That is a tremendous responsibility. And we are living the grave consequences of its failure. In the utopia in my head, the industry would be legally bound by a code of ethics, such as the Journalists Creed, and there could be a path to salvaging this crucial need in our country.

Get the truth and print it.

I believe the measuring stick of public service begins with how well a news organization deals in facts straight up, indisputable, unbiased, truth-based facts. Today it is easy, and lazy, and devious for journalists to first decide the way they want the story to be received, and then cherry pick the facts that support their end goal. It isnt journalism. It is an agenda. And it is a stain on all of those true journalists that came before us.

Journalists should be watchdogs, not lap dogs.

The Creed goes on to say that the journalism which succeeds the best is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power This ideal deserves a moment of silence and to be repeated for emphasis. UNMOVED BY PRIDE OF OPINION. Is there anyone reading this who can honestly report that their favored news organization is unopinionated? Well that my friends, is the standard set generations ago. That is the goal. And the players in this entire industry should be absolutely ashamed. A free press is paramount to a free society. Unless you find yourself on an opinion page (such as the piece you are presently reading), a journalist should never tell you how to think. Most headlines and stories are so routinely filled with opinion that the reader is becoming immune.

Opening up my computer to a headline of the day easily proves my point. Many news outlets are calling the audit currently happening in Arizona a GOP fraud fantasy. If that news organization had even a modicum of integrity, this sort of headline would never make it past the editor. But that is not the world we live in today. This fact absolutely ruins me. The industry that I love and have been so proud to be a part of is failing. It provides little worthy public service. In my opinion, the media is the sole reason our country is irrevocably divided today. Certain subjects are sensationalized. Others are ignored. The pot is continually stirred for ratings and the true purpose of the industry is gone. And the worst thing is, so many citizens are unaware, or just dont care. For the record, the news source from which this is being written, is driven to uphold the dire responsibility of reporting the truth to the best of our ability.

Can you imagine if we had an independent review board for the journalism industry responsible for holding the actors accountable to the truth? And those that fell short were removed from their duties? The victims of its crimes would regain their sight. The massive impact would transform this country in a year.

The Creed goes on to suggest that journalism is constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance is profoundly patriotic

Today, our 24-hour news cycle is largely about instant gratification. Being first to break a story is often more important than being right about the details. Brian Sicknick, the police officer who died at the Capitol protests on Jan. 6 was widely reported to have been struck by a fire extinguisher and that caused his death. Since then, it has been revealed that he actually had two strokes and died of natural causes, not blunt force trauma. But patiently waiting for the truth, doesnt fan the flames. And now that the wrong story has been portrayed it is impossible to correct the damage done.

A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting its shoes on.

The influence the media has on society today is monumental. Greater than at any time before. A phrase in the Hippocratic Oath urges to avoid the trap of therapeutic nihilism. In the medical realm, this suggests that the cure should not do more harm than good. This is squarely the space that the mainstream media occupies today. Doing more harm than good. Just look around at the society it has created. While many are busy pointing fingers at all of the reasons our country is falling apart we actually need to look no further than the talking heads from our living rooms.

Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

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Opinion: 'Journalists are literally responsible for filling the minds of a society' | ClarkCountyToday.com - clarkcountytoday.com

Heres how deeply the absurdist British panel program Taskmaster has embedded itself in my psyche over the course of the last many months: Rather than taking its classic pandemic-era form of oh no! Im in a crowd!! in public!!! and none of us are wearing masks!!!!, my most recent stress dream manifested as me waking up to a Twitter announcement that Taskmaster had been renewed for a twelfthbut final!series.

To be clear: Taskmaster, which is currently in the final stretch of its Series 11 run, hasnt yet announced anything about its inevitable twelfth series (though astute superfans have already sussed out a likely line-up)nor has there been any hint that its living on borrowed time. To the contrary, its under contractual obligation to Channel 4 to run at least through Series 15. But when I tell you the *panic* I felt, jolting awake to actually scroll through Twitter and confirm it had all been a bad dream? I mean, I could obviously survive, if the world never got a new series of Taskmaster ever again, but damn if that world wouldnt be a whole lot grayer.

Now that were in the fourteenth(?) month of the pandemic (at least here in the United States), anyone whos even a little online is likely to have heard of Taskmasterjust off the top of my head, I can recall seeing its praises sung by everyone from YA authors to lit mag editors to longform feelings essayists, to one whole Vlogbrother (the latter of whom even started a pandemic-era podcast about it with his wife). When I started watching it, I called to harangue my brother into joining me, only to find he was already a full two series in. When I told my book club to seek it out, I came back a month later to hear that at least one of thema newly minted lawyer and full adulthad been ecstatic to discover something she and her 14-year-old twin brothers could finally bond over. My parents love it. Pajama companies love it. Everyone loves it. Truly, with its endlessly flexible ask comedians to accomplish increasingly arcane tasks then defend their decisions in person premise, Taskmaster was already verging on perfect show for literally any mood territory before we were all trapped inside for a year; since then, the prospect of ending each day sinking into that same absurdist premise has become, for many, a kind of lifeline.

That said, for as ubiquitous as Taskmaster has seemingly become in these trying times, I suspect that, between it being a British panel show (innit) and only available via the programs two official YouTube channels, theres a whole ocean of potential fans still out there. (Yes, free on YouTube)

To that end, I present this Taskmaster primer. Read it; learn it; love it. Let its anti-nihilist spirit wash over you, if you can. If you cant, at least leave yourself open for the longest bouts of laughter you might have succumbed to in awhile.

Originally commissioned by the UKTV channel Dave in 2015, Taskmaster is the brainchild of comedian/musician Alex Horne, who first brought the concept for what the program would eventually become to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010. Tall, bearded, gap-toothed, and in possession of an almost tannicly dry sense of humor, Horne serves as both field moderator and studio jester for what has since become a multiple-award winning show.

That Horne is also the evil genius behind the shows signature tasks, as well as the composer of the programs clownishly slick theme music, might surprise first-time viewers, as his onscreen role is so obviously subordinate to that of the official Taskmaster, comedian Greg Davies. When it comes to the experience that Taskmaster wants both its viewers and its contestants to have, however, that kind of inversion of expectations is really the point. Think you know the best way to build a snowman without any snow? Or how to conceal a whole pineapple on your person? Think you can buy the best present for the Taskmaster, when given just 20? Unless it has occurred to you to [redacted], youll find that, noyou actually dont.

As for who Horne and Davies bring in to compete, each series panel consists of five peopleusually comedians, but also the occasional actor, quiz show presenter or Great British Bake-Off host. American audiences who watch literally any other British quiz shows will recognize at least half of the competitors (Josh Widdicombe, Romesh Ranganathan, Katherine Ryan, Nish Kumar, etc.), but people whove never even heard of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown will still recognize panelists like Aisling Bea (Living With Yourself), Asim Chaudry (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd), as well as Noel Fielding (Great British Bake-Off), Mel Giedroyc (same) and Lolly Adefope (Shrill). In general, the panels are a solid mix of established names (Frank Skinner, Liza Tarbuck, Jo Brand) and up-and-coming talent (James Acaster, Rose Matafeo, Mawaan Rizwan), with a demographic mix that generally skews 3:2 male/female and 4:1 white/not.

If the show has any real weakness, its in this latter pointKatherine Ryan was unapologetic in pointing out the unconscious sexism that put her at a significant disadvantage in various live tasks during her series, while similar instances of (honestly much less) unconscious racism in a TSA-themed task in the current series put newcomer Jamali Maddix at a similar, even more infuriating, disadvantage. That a show as otherwise all-around excellent as Taskmaster still has these kinds of flaws is disappointing, but if any show has the will to commit itself to doing better in the future, its also one as otherwise all-around excellent as Taskmaster.

Youve probably picked much of this up by now, but in plain English: Taskmaster is a competition program that asks its panel of comedic competitors to perform a series of pointless tasks over an extended period of time, all with the knowledge that Davies, as the Taskmaster, will eventually hold them each to account for their various decisions, good and bad. Some tasks are silly (Make this coconut look like a businessman), others arcane (Fill an egg cup with tears), still others so dead simple, the panelists end up certain there must be a trick. (Which is often true.) And the tasks dont end once their time in the field is donefor every episode they film in the studio (as few as six in Series 1, as many as ten in later series), the panelists are asked to open by bringing in an item for that weeks prize task (Best Chair, Shiniest Object, Boldest Belt), and end by competing head-to-head in a final live task.

Once theyve gathered in the studio, competitors are given the opportunity to commentate on their performances, after which point the Taskmaster ranks them, generally assigning scores according to how well each person has either executed the task at hand, or explained away their particular brand of failure. Generally, but not alwaysas the Taskmaster is a whimsical tyrantit means that the way he hands out points feels closer to chaos than reason. But this, too, is part of the restorative anti-nihilist heart of the show: Nothing matters, so everything matters. Thats life, baby! Or, as essayist Helena Fitzgerald wrote in a recent edition of her Grief Bacon newsletter, thats a metaphor both for our current moment and our lives more generally: we are constantly having to complete a series of stupid and absurd tasks that make no sense at all, often within a highly pressurized time limit, and then being graded on those tasks by totally unpredictable criteria that are really just one large mans whims.

Look: Everywhere else in life where were subject to this absurd formula, the best possible outcome is abject exhaustion. Here, within the surreal vacuity of the Taskmasters throne room, that same absurdity can just be soothing. It means nothing! It means everything! Embrace the nonsense!

If were talking about when new episodes of Taskmaster air on Channel 4, the answer is every Thursday evening, with each episode uploaded to the shows second official YouTube channel the following day. (Dont ask me why there are two official Taskmaster YouTube channels; some things are better left a mystery.)

If were talking when new episodes of Taskmaster are filmed, well, the answer to that is: All year! Or rather, throughout the year, whenever the competitors are available to turn up at the Taskmaster house and have Alex put them through their mundanely goofy paces. The show tries to put out two series a year since premiering in 2015, with the occasional holiday or Champion of Champions special (Part II of which is due later this year), and this has been the schedule even during the pandemic, which has now gone on long enough that two whole series (plus one New Years special) have aired with social distancing measures in place. Not that those have hurt the show much at allon the contrary, while having to conform to stricter health and safety standards might have been little more than an unhappy hurdle for other competitive reality productions (see: the most recent seasons of American Ninja Warrior and Dancing with the Stars), for Taskmaster, those same hurdles have given Horne and his team the chance to crank the task difficulty level up to eleven.

Of course, the fact that social distancing would only make Taskmaster stronger makes a fair amount of senseso much great art, after all, thrives under intense constraint. (That said, Series 3 did feature a task predicated on asking its panelists to overcome literal hurdles just to retrieve a bowl of soup from a microwave, so maybe its been working under intense constraint all along.)

In the practical sense, its filmed first on location at the Taskmaster house, a former groundskeepers cottage in the middle of a golf course in Chiswick, and then second in a studio where the panelists at last get to come together after months of competing individually to be judged on their performances and participate in the final live-task challenges.

In a streaming sense, Series 1-7, 10 and 11 are available in full across the shows two YouTube channels, while Series 8 is available on CW Seed. Series 9, at least at time of publication, is unavailable outside of the UK. (An especially huge bummer, as its the only series to date to feature three women, and just two men. That said, the shows primary YouTube channel boasts an upload history that would lead one to believe the series arrival is imminent.)

I mean, Taskmaster is, at its core, an absurdist showthe only why it has to answer is why not?

Another meta question, and possibly one only you can answer for yourself. But Alex, Greg, and the rest of the Taskmaster team have gone some distance to help you, both in publishing Taskmaster: The Board Game, and in running a Hometasking mini-series through their primary YouTube channel early in the pandemic. Interested in making your pointless pandemic tasks even more pointless (and thus, more meaningful)? Theyve got you covered!

As for how new viewers should dive in to their first time watching Taskmaster, I would say that, while you really cant go wrong just starting from Series 1, the fact that Series 4 boasts a majority of panelists who Americans are likely to recognize makes it a strong contender. Getting invested in how each person tackles the very concept of tasks is what makes the show so funmight as well give yourself every advantage in being able to make that investment stick early on.

In the meantime, Im about due for a hit of anti-nihilism myself, and just got a notification that the latest Series 11 episode has finally been uploaded. Ill see you all on the other side.

Taskmaster airs on Thursdays on Channel 4, if youre in the UK. For the rest of us, its available streaming on YouTube.

Alexis Gunderson is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. She can be found @AlexisKG.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.

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A Guide to Taskmaster, the Only Show I Want to Watch - Paste Magazine

Im usually wary of epiphanies, lightbulb moments and sweeping realisations that reorder lives. But walking home one evening earlier this year, my existence shifted with a single passing thought.

I was chronically stressed at work, overwhelmed by expectations, grasping for a sense of achievement or greater purpose and tip-toeing towards full-on exhaustion. Then it hit me: Who cares? One day Ill be dead and no one will remember me anyway.

I cant explain the crashing sense of relief. It was as if my body dumped its cortisol stores allowing my lungs to fully inflate for the first time in months. Standing on the side of the road I looked at the sky and thought: Im just a chunk of meat hurtling through space on a rock. Pointless, futile, meaningless. It was one of the most comforting revelations of my life. Id discovered nihilism.

Nihilism has existed in one form or another for hundreds of years, but is usually associated with Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher (and pessimist of choice for high school kids with undercuts) who proposed that existence is meaningless, moral codes worthless, and God is dead.

This decade its had a cultural comeback. Visiting the central tenets its easy to see why. Nietzsches argument that Every belief, every considering something true, is necessarily false because there is simply no true world feels chillingly relevant as we stumble through a post-truth reality.

While Nietzsche (and the goths you grew up with) make it all sound like a bummer, Generation Ys and Zs take on things is more upbeat and absurd. Modern nihilism has been honed through memes and Twitter jokes. It manifests as teenagers eating Tide pods, fans begging celebrities to run them down with their cars, and a lot of weird TV shows. Turns out the descent into nothingness can be pretty funny.

Are we witnessing a new, sunnier, generation of nihilists emerge? If meaning and purpose are overrated illusions, then so is any sense that you are special or destined for greater things. Its a balm for a group burning out over exceptionalism, economic downturns, performative excellence, housing crises and living your best life on Instagram.

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In her collection of essays Trick Mirror: reflections on self-delusion, New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino grapples with the culture and conditions of a post-global financial crisis America. In particular, how cults of self-optimisation and identity have left us lost and apathetic. Several reviews used the term nihilistic when discussing the book, referring to both the content and how it made them feel.

But when speaking to her earlier this year, Tolentino offered a warmer take. She admitted she found feelings of insignificance really galvanising for her writing, adding: If were here for just a blink of the eye, and in general if nothing matters, it feels like [its] carte blanche to wild the fuck out. To try a lot of things, try your best to do something because the odds are so good that none of it means anything that perversely it makes me feel free to try.

She didnt see purposelessness as a poison seeping into our lives to turn us into the nihilistic baddies from the Big Lebowski. Rather she argued it had the potential to define and soothe a pained generation: I think its the millennial condition. Its this kind of ecstatic, fundamentally ironic but also incredibly sincere, unhinged quality.

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Last year, on opposite sides of the world, two high schoolers presented TEDx talks about nihilism. Elias Skjoldborg, a junior at Hanwood Union high school in Vermont, took the stage to deliver his case for optimistic nihilism. It was aptly subtitled Or how to be a happy emo.

During his presentation he reminded the audience of fellow adolescents that: If you died right now it wouldnt make a difference, big picture. If youd never been born no one would care.

Thats the good news. That life has no meaning is not a reason ... to be sad, he said. If our lives are needless then the only directive we have is to figure out how to find happiness in our momentary blip of consciousness. For instance, he helpfully suggested his audience get hobbies, help others, solve problems rather than creating them, and just try their best.

Subverting the stereotype of a teen nihilist, Siddharth Gupta presented his talk Confessions of an existential nihilist while wearing a pink button-down shirt. The senior at Kodiakanal International school in India confessed that his belief life was worthless gave him the opportunity to find meaning in all that I do.

Unburdened by a larger mission, he was free to seek out his own: I still believe there is no inherent meaning in life, but I now believe that because of this, there is no reason not to give everything I have and try to create my own meaning in this most likely hollow existence.

One of the many criticisms of nihilism is that it opens the door to unchecked selfishness. Its a logical next step if you think theres nothing to gain from life except personal happiness and pleasure. Yet for the people who have absorbed this message, the trend isnt towards greed, but community-mindedness.

Skjoldborg urged his audience to solve problems. Gupta sought to build his own meaning. Tolentinos whole book is an argument against self-serving, neoliberal systems that crush people lower down the economic ladder than you.

In the months since discovering Im worthless, my life has felt more precious. When your existence is pointless, you shift focus to things that have more longevity than your own ego. Ive become more engaged in environmental issues, my family and the community at large. Once you make peace with just being a lump of meat on a rock, you can stop stressing and appreciate the rock itself.

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Sunny nihilism: 'Since discovering Im worthless my life ...

Has Joe Biden chosen ambition over political sustainability? Photo: Doug Mills/Getty Images

One striking phenomenon that has surfaced since Joe Biden took office is the contrast between the audacious legislative agenda that the new president and his congressional allies are implacably advancing and the anxiety that so many of them (but decidedly not Biden himself) are expressing about their narrow escape from defeat in 2020 and the probable rough electoral sledding ahead. Even as Congress accomplishes things unimaginable in the Obama administration, Democrats keep fretting about the lost opportunities that the expected 2020 landslide could have given them, the traction that many fear Republicans are obtaining with their anti-wokeness crusade, and the baleful history of midterm elections that have shattered the plans of new administrations.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl he figures there is a direct connection between the political anxieties of congressional Democrats and their audacious legislative agenda:

Majorities are not given, they are earned. This is not like 1994 and 2010

[Y]ou had to win 40 seats in 2010 I think everybody knows the majority is in play. So the reason why its different, the majority is in play. In 94 and 2010, at the beginning of those years, they didnt believe the majority was at play in the nation. I believe it is, and the Democrats, I think, believe it is too; thats why theyre going so far left, knowing that theyre gonna lose it.

So basically, McCarthy is charging that Democrats are shooting for the moon in 2021 because they understand that their governing trifecta is fragile and will likely end in 2022. Its a hostile, self-serving hypothesis but nonetheless worth considering.

Any governing party implicitly has to balance, if not choose between, the goals of implementing its desired policies and of sustaining its power by positioning itself to win future elections. Ideally, of course, such parties hope their legislative priorities are popular enough to serve as a future campaign platform. Democrats who understand how ambitious their current legislative agenda is are particularly encouraged that it is polling well so far. And as New Yorks Jonathan Chait has observed, Biden himself has adopted a presidential style that downplays the audacity of the legislation he is promoting, which helps get it enacted while giving the opposition fewer ripe targets.

But at some point very soon, Democrats may no longer be able to avoid a choice between accomplishments and political sustainability. Even if they are able to keep big policy proposals on issues like climate change, police reform, or housing supply from becoming politically fraught right away, they must take into account how they may play into Republican messaging on socialism, wokeness, or class warfare. Do they hold back on legislative audacity, then, in order to maximize the odds of hanging on to Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024? Or do they move ahead as quickly and ambitiously as they can and hope for the best? Id offer four pretty compelling reasons for continuing to shoot for the moon.

Thanks to where 2020 left Democrats in Congress, a screeching halt to their legislative progress is no further away than an unexpected death or the resignation of a single senator, a decision by one senator that going rogue is in her or his self-interest, or an adverse ruling by the unelected Senate parliamentarian on the ability of Democrats to move a major item via the budget-reconciliation process (as has already happened on the $15 mimimum wage and will probably happen soon on immigration reform). Enacting as much legislation as possible before any of those setbacks occurs could be critical, justifying any and all political risks.

Similarly, the Democratic margin in the House is so small that it may be impossible to sustain against the overwhelming historical precedent of midterm losses by the party controlling the White House especially since Republicans will have the upper hand in the decennial redistricting process, which is about to get under way.

If the Democratic trifecta is too weak to rely upon or is doomed anyway, why not get as much done as possible and hope for good luck in 2022 and 2024 and perhaps even better luck down the road?

The idea that pulling legislative punches will improve future electoral outcomes may be a vestige of a bygone era of swing-voter hegemony and plausible bipartisanship. Its not clear exactly who in the electorate will award Democrats for moderation in fully pursuing their policy goals. To put it another way, no matter what Biden and congressional Democrats do, McCarthy and the conservative-media machine are going to accuse them of going so far left. That was the great lesson of the Obama administration, in which every conciliatory gesture simply gave the GOP incentives to radicalize its demands and ramp up the volume of its protests against alleged Democratic extremism.

It also offers an alternative interpretation of the relative disappointment of Democratic underachievement in 2020. Instead of neurotically looking around to see which woke or socialist pol gave Republicans the opportunity to shriek about the terrible consequences of Democratic power, as many Democrats are doing now, it may make more sense to recognize that the Donkey Party can do nothing short of surrender that would undermine such messaging. The Republican base is clearly in a state of cultural panic that has little to do with the specter of the Green New Deal or the Iran nuclear pact or anything else Democrats say or do. Sure, Democrats can try to lower the temperature of political conflict as their chill president is doing, but they may as well use their current leverage as not. Joe Manchin will ensure that they dont go hog wild.

Intense partisan polarization isnt the only feature of the contemporary political landscape that makes caution inadvisable for Democrats. Quite obviously, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic and social by-products built a highly conducive atmosphere for the Biden administrations first bold and theoretically risky venture, the American Rescue Plan. And even if the sense of emergency fades and Biden-esque normalcy begins to reign, there could be a significant residual appetite within and beyond the Democratic Party for legislative activism after four years in which the GOP lost its already minimal interest in solving problems through public policy and submitted itself to the chaotic, often pointless rage-based leadership of Donald Trump.

Theres a lot to get done, and, among those who arent fantasizing about a vengeful comeback for the 45th president, theres just one party offering much of anything. Scary as socialism seems to many Americans, nihilism is scarier yet.

As Ron Brownstein has convincingly argued, some form of voting-rights legislation may no longer be optional for Democrats if they want to remain politically viable in the short-term and long-range future:

If Democrats lose their slim majority in either congressional chamber next year, they will lose their ability to pass voting-rights reform. After that, the party could face a debilitating dynamic: Republicans could use their state-level power to continue limiting ballot access, which would make regaining control of the House or the Senate more difficult for Democrats and thus prevent them from passing future national voting rules that override the exclusionary state laws.

Its pretty clear Republicans understand that the power to limit ballot access for Democratic constituencies is something they need to exploit to the fullest right now. If Democrats demur from pursuing every avenue to preempt Republican voter suppression via federal legislation on grounds that its too partisan, the far more cynical GOP will have the last laugh, potentially for a long time. Loyalty to the young and minority voters most endangered by voter suppression should be enough to make voting rights job one in this Congress, even if that means risky tactics like filibuster reform. But it may also be a matter of political survival.

In general, this is no time for Democrats to be afraid of taking risks; like it or not, everything they do right now is risky business. The ancient arguments between progressives and centrists on the best way to appeal to swing voters are largely moot at this moment. They had best make hay while the sun shines.

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Democrats Are Shooting for the Moon in 2021, and Thats Okay - New York Magazine

Moral Therapeutic Theism, a popular worldview amongst Christian teens about 20 years ago, has become the dominant worldview today in American churches and society at large.

In the second release of the American Worldview Inventory 2021, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that 38 percent of adults are more likely to embrace elements of Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD) than any other popular worldview, including Biblical Theism (or a biblical worldview), Secular Humanism, Postmodernism, Nihilism, Marxism (including Critical Theory) and Eastern Mysticism (also known as New Age).

In 2005, Sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton published the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, where they first named and identified MTD. The book featured national research among teenagers at the turn of the millennium as both authors identified several core beliefs that characterized the thinking and behavior of the group.

The components of MTD include:

- Believing in God despite Him being distant from peoples lives.

- People treating each other with kindness and respect.

- The main purpose of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

- There are no absolute moral truths.

- Good people go into Heaven.

- People are given very limited demands from God.

Regarding professing Christians, the AWVI 2021 survey revealed that three out of four people (74 percent) have been influenced by MTD, while 16 percent say they are actually born again by their theology.

Christians most influenced by MTD hold to beliefs that contradict the bible. For example,

- 91 percent do not believe people are sinful and need salvation through Jesus Christ.

- 88 percent look to sources other than the Bible for moral guidance.

- 76 percent believe that good people go to Heaven through good behavior.

- 71 percent do not believe the Bible is true and reliable communication from God.

The research also found that people under MTDs influence were more likely to engage in biblical faith practices than they are to hold biblical beliefs. For instance, 13 percent would conduct faith practices such as Bible reading, praying to and worshipping God, confessing personal sins, and seeking Gods will for their life. On the other hand, less than 1 percent were likely to endorse biblical teaching and follow through on those matters.

CRC Research Director Dr. George Barna, who authored the survey, described MTD as fake Christianity that is more centered on self than on God.

Young adults have grown up with a culturally adulterated version of the Christian faith, he

explained. They have adopted a softer, twisted version of genuine Christianity. The good news is practitioners of MTD are not anti-religion or anti-Christianity. They just are not willing to surrender themselves to authentic Christianitys demandsor to believe that a real faith would even make such demands of them.

AWVI 2021 was conducted in February 2021 among a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults.

Related:

Only 6 Percent of Americans Hold to a Dominantly Biblical Worldview: Study

Photo courtesy: Helena Lopes/Unsplash

Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also theco-hostsof the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.

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91 Percent of Christians Influenced By Moral Therapeutic Deism Don't Believe People Are Sinful - Christianheadlines.com

Gods standard of measurement is different. Comfortable or not, His statutes are Gods merciful, loving and absolute commandments, for our obedience to Him, and for the enjoyment of our salvation.

Many modern Christians distill the commandments of God, His statutes, down to one or two which leave them in their so-called comfort zones and with room to set their own course.

Maybe we have all done that.

I have known some whose primary obedience was no cussing and use of filthy language. Still, racial epithets were acceptably spoken in their presence, and by themselves.

One good father I knew warned his children not to lie or steal, but other pitfalls of conduct were seldom mentioned in his instruction. Many fathers of a former generation winked at and tacitly, if not openly, approved their growing sons sowing their wild oats.

That doubtless continues.

Mothers have taught their little daughters to sit modestly and keep their dresses pulled down. In their adolescence, those girls have been allowed to dress immodestly, seductively, even in church.

And mothers, too, have set the example for them, calling it the style.

Where does our faith come into all of this? What about the big commandments?

Thats where we dont want to go, most of us. Some justify killing on the devils grounds of white supremacy. Some excuse and practice adultery by another name: polyamorous relationship is a newer one. Others condemn telling lies, but eagerly spread the juiciest Facebook gossip. Some endorse the statute against covetousness, and envy their neighbors job promotion and earned achievements.

And, most serious of all, who among us can declare, with a straight face, that we have loved the Lord God with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength, all our soul? Who?

Furthermore, but of second importance, has any one of us loved our neighbor as much as we love our own lives?

The Hebrew word which the King James Version of our Bible translates as transgression literally means rebellion. Through the words of the prophets, God calls our sins with their excuses, pesha, rebellion. Hebrew has three main words for sin and this one, pesha, literally means rebellion. Hebrew Bible scholar, Dr. Ralph L. Smith, says in the Broadman Bible Commentary, The essence of sin in the Old Testament is rebellion.

This nihilistic culture, which we are immersed in, has no qualms with rebellion. It measures everything by whether it fits inside our comfort zone. All of us living now were born into a nihilistic world and worldview, ever gaining momentum.

This view of life and behavior affirms nothing of value, except our own pleasure or the pleasure of those who have consented together. Moral and religious values, still held by a diminishing few, are seen as antiquated and ignorant, old-fashioned and hyper-conservative, and therefore irrelevant and outdated.

But Gods standard of measurement is different. Comfortable or not, His statutes are Gods merciful, loving and absolute commandments, for our obedience to Him, and for the enjoyment of our salvation. More, they are Gods divine order of the creation He has made. That divine order still stands. We defy it at our peril and loss; loss of meaning, loss of purpose, even of our humanity. What we get in place of Gods divine order is nothing, the content of nihilism. Nothing. Capitalized.

Psalm 119 is filled with this wisdom and truth: from verse 54, Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage; from verse 16, I will delight myself in thy statutes; I will not forget thy word.; from verses 5, 6, 0 that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.; and from verse 71, It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might !earn thy statutes.

So be it, our Father, to Thy Glory and Thy Honor. Amen.

Thanks be to God.

Dr. Elizabeth Barnes is a retired professor emerita of Christian Theology and Ethics at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and a resident of White Lake.

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Barnes: Faith, and the big commandments in our daily lives - Elizabethtown Bladen Journal

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. George Orwell, 1984

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed on July 23, 1921, so is gearing up for the hundredth anniversary of its founding with the theme Forever Following the Party.

In preparation, the Cyberspace Administration of China has launched a hotline for citizens to report online statements that contradict the Partys official version of its history. A translation of the announcement from the Central Network Information Office Reporting Center is available on former American diplomat David Cowhigs blog:

One part of the announcement reads:

In order to avoid misleading the public with false statements, maintain a clear cyberspace and create a good atmosphere of public opinion for the centennial of the Party, the Central Internet Information Office (State Internet Information Office) illegal and undesirable information reporting center recently opened a special area for reporting harmful information involving historical nihilism on the official website, APP and other channels to specifically accept public reports.

Chinese citizens are expected to report the following offenses:

Distortions of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, the history of New China, the history of reform and opening up, the history of socialist development. Attacking the Partys leadership, its guiding ideology, guidelines and policies. Defamation of heroes and martyrs Denying the excellence of Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture.

Distortions of history refers to anything that is not the CCP-approved history of China. For example, there is the official version of what happened at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, and then there is what really happened. The official version sanitizes the militarys response and downplays the event referring to it innocuously as the June Fourth Incident. Mention of the Tiananmen Square protests as ending in a massacre would be a distortion of history according to the Party.

The prohibition of defaming heroes and martyrs is from a 2018 law, Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law, which requires everyone to honor, study, and defend people deemed heroes and martyrs by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has a database of 2 million heroes and martyrs. As if it were a dystopian mirror world of the church, the CCP even has official requirements for martyrdom.

Some analysts point out that the new hotline is a familiar tactic from the totalitarian play book, now in high-tech trappings. This is hardly the first time the CCP has solicited and incentivized Chinese citizens to report each other. In 2004 the government instituted a grid system for citizens to surveil each other. The system, led by a volunteer who is usually a retired Party member, divides a region into 300 or so families. It is still quite active and is often used to weed out people who practice a prohibited religion.

In 2017, the CCP rolled out the Safe Zhejiang app that offered discount coupons and other prizes for people who reported on their neighbors. Users received points for every person they reported. However, the app was decidedly unpopular and garnered mostly negative online reviews.

Historical nihilism, the term the CCP uses for non-Party-approved accounts of history.

Heroes and martyrs feature prominently in Mr. Xis propaganda campaigns, which often hark back to the Partys revolutionary roots. Officials have said that strong legislation is needed to promote patriotism and squelch historical nihilisman official epithet for skepticism about the partys contributions to Chinas progress. (Wall Street Journal, 2018).

Xi believes that the Soviet Union collapsed largely because of this historical nihilism, saying that differing accounts of history confused peoples thoughts and led to the military revolt against the Communist Party in the 1990s. Thus he has promoted a Party history campaign since he entered office. The campaign includes a propaganda drive and the study of Xi Jinping Thought. It emphasizes the successes of the CCP and omits its failures, including the millions that died during the Great Leap Forward (19581960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under Mao Zedongs leadership. Naturally, Xis history campaign particularly focuses on the CCPs successes since 2012 when he took office.

Reuters reports that former Premier Wen Jiabaos tribute to his late mother in the Macau Herald was censored because he mentioned her experiences during the second Sino-Japanese War (19371945) and the Cultural Revolution. While Wens article was not scrubbed from the internet, it cannot be shared on Chinese social media outlets, Weibo and WeChat and the link turns up a 404 error. An account of the substance of the tribute in the South China Morning Post notes that Whereas personal memoirs are commonplace among Western politicians, it is unusual for a retired Chinese leader to publish such a personal account because the state maintains rigid controls over all narratives relating to state affairs.

China Digital Times recounts several instances of how the crackdown on historical nihilism has affected everyday communications in China:

Most recently, last week a teenager was arrested in Jiangsu for posting insulting comments online about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. In February, seven people were arrestedand one was chased in online pursuitfor slandering martyrs, a genre of historical nihilism

In 2016, maverick journal Yanhuang Chunqiu was neutered by a hostile takeover triggered by its independent scholarship on modern Chinese history. In 2017, a bookseller was sentenced to five years in prison for distributing the book How The Red Sun Rose, an unflinching look at the CCPs first party-wide rectification campaign from 1942-1945.

Another example cited was an incident during the Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day) earlier this month. The grave of one-time high-ranking politician and political reformer Zhao Ziyang was blocked off so that people could not visit it and a security camera was installed above the grave. Zhao was removed from the Communist Party in 1989 for supporting the Tiananmen Square protests. Only people old enough to remember him as one of the highest-ranking officials even knew who he was when he died in 2005. Most people born after 1980 dont know who he was.

George Orwell (19031950) foretold this approach to history in his novel on totalitarianism, 1984:

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

As if in answer, the Chinese Communist Party is now enlisting the help of its millions of internet users to defend the history that they have been taught is true.

You may also wish to read: The age of the Wolf Warrior: Chinas post-pandemic strategy The younger diplomats take their cue from a Chinese Rambo-style movie and the rewritten history they learned at school. (Heather Zeiger)

and

Clothing retailer H&M Canceled for revealing Chinas forced labor About a fifth of the worlds cotton is grown in Xinjiang, for which Uyghur labor is conscripted, partly through the detention camps complex. The Chinese government tightly controls a huge consumer market and can simply make companies with ethical concerns disappear from it. Fast.

Continued here:

China: Snitching on Those Who Recall Non-Approved History - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

It's a movie about existentialism, self-creation, obsession, camaraderie, nihilism and a thousand other things. There's barely any dialog and it stars two musicians who don't play a single note. It's likely the only movie ever made that includes a scene where the main characters shop for GM QuadraJet carburetor parts. The whole thing is paced like a long, lugubrious bong hit, includes sequences shot at long since closed drag strips and drive-in joints, and features Richard Ruth, the fabricator who actually screwed together the lead vehicle, as a gas station attendant wearing a Glendale Speed Center T-Shirt. And 50 years ago, in anticipation of its release, Esquire published the screenplay and pronounced it to be the best film of 1971. The movie is Two-Lane Blacktop. Its director, Monte Hellman, died on April 20 after falling in his Palm Springs home at the age of 91.

"In Monte Hellman's new film, Two-Lane Blacktop," wrote Vincent Canby of The New York Times in his review, "the godhead is the crankcase of a 454-cubic-inch, high-performance '55 Chevy with aluminum heads, the car through which two young men, identified only as The Driver (James Taylor) and The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson), realize their destinies in a series of drag races in Esso country, across blacktop space and through stop-watch time."

Hellman, born Monte Himmelman in Brooklyn on July 12, 1929 and raised in Albany, was in his early forties when he made Two-Lane and was barely hanging on in the movie business. He had directed a few films for the low-budget producer Roger Corman that went by almost unnoticed. He made four films starring a then-unknown Jack Nicholson. But up until then, he was best-knownwhich means barely knownfor the western The Shooting which he shot on an $80,000 budget in 1965. In America, it had a cursory release in New York City and showed up as a late-night movie once on a local TV station. But in 1968 it opened in France to critical acclaim. A western brought back to its essence ... You must see this little film which is a big success," wrote FranceSoir, a now long-defunct Paris newspaper. French enthusiasm wasn't enough to ensure his family was housed and fed, but it put his name into the consciences of obscure film buffs. And that eventually earned him the support of Universal Studios, which reportedly put up $850,000 to make Two-Lane Blacktop.

"Essentially, the experience of filmmaking for me is one of constant discovery," he explained to Nicholas Pasquariello of Jump Cut in 1976. "If I know too much in advance, I just tend to become disinterested sooner. The ideal situation for me is working on a film like The Shooting or even Two-Lane Blacktop where there are so many unconscious things happening in the creation of it that even after finishing the editing and mixing, and the making of the final print, I can go to see the film and still find new things in it. That to me is a stimulating experience."

MICHAL CIZEKGetty Images

There's nothing slick about Two-Lane. It's filled with non-actors doing their best to non-act. They amble through scenes, stare off into the distance, and often seem completely disaffected. Hellman sought out a naturalism so natural that it seemed unnatural. The one exception being the fine actor Warren Oates, who played the constantly lying, seemingly sociopathic "GTO" with theatrical flamboyance and infinite quirks. And yes, GTO drove the second automotive star of the film, a 1970 Pontiac GTO.

Watching Two-Lane now is like trying to decipher cave paintings or hieroglyphics. What dialog there is feels as if it were ripped out of Car Craft Magazine, no character seems concerned with anything rational, and there never seems to be much of a point. There's some sort of race to Washington D.C. but no one seems too concerned about trying very hard to win it. It's all so painfully 1970s. And it ends with the film itself apparently burning away.

Michael Ochs ArchivesCar and Driver

But then there are the cars. Besides the '55 Chevy and '70 GTO, there are glimpses of street races involving a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona and dozens of small-time drag racers. All in their native environmenton the dirt lots surrounding the quarter-mile strips of places like Tennessee's Lakeland International Raceway. It's some of the only film that survives of those long ago and obscure people, places, and machinery. There are film geeks who will always cherish Hellman's work for its fearless weirdness. And car people who will always love him for having captured a moment that no other filmmaker seemed to even know about.

Two-Lane wasn't a hit. "Nobody will ever know if the movie would have been successful, because its life was cut off even before it had a chance to breathe, really" Hellman told Roel Haanen of Flashback Files in 2011. "This was just the power of one studio executive who decided he was going to stop it." That executive was, Hellman claimed, Universal's head Lew Wasserman. "He killed it the same way Congress kills the president's agenda, by not spending any money on it. He provided money to make the movie, but no money to distribute it."

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Still, Two-Lane was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2012. Not bad for a movie that was barely acknowledged in its own time.

After Two-Lane, James Taylor would take a few small acting roles, but never star in another movie. Dennis Wilson was in plenty of Beach Boys videos, but never acted in anything beyond Two-Lane. As for Hellman, he directed several more films and none of them rose much above obscurity.

However, he was an executive producer of Quentin Tarantino's breakthrough film, Reservoir Dogs, in 1992. And Hellman was still pushing his (usually frustrated) projects forward in the 21st century.

The two automotive stars of the film would have extensive careers. The GTO made it back into Universal's motor pool and for several years would show up in TV series like Adam-12, Kojak, and Beretta wearing its distinctive Keystone mags. The '55 would get some black paint and go on to portray Bob Falfa's sinister beast in George Lucas's massive 1973 hit American Graffiti.

There's no evidence that Monte Hellman ever cared about cars or car culture, but that doesn't mean he didnt leave something special for all of us to remember.

"The only person that I ever met who really understood one of my moviesthe movie was Two-Lane Blacktopwas a man who worked in a brewery, he came to me and told me what he saw," Hellman told Film Talk last year. "Now that didn't matter to me, I mean if someone had a different interpretation, that was okay too, you know. But I thought it was interesting; here you had this one guy who saw what I saw."

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Appreciating Director Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop Car and Driver - Car and Driver