Category Archives: Political Correctness

Not wanting to be politically correct or hiding my head in the sand, here are some facts.

The ANC was voted into power in 1994, and quite rightly so, by a hopeful black majority that had endured nearly 50 years of political and economic suppression.

They have failed miserably in their mandate from their electorate, who are leaving the part in droves.

This has left a political leadership vacuum in this country.

Neither the DA or the EFF, the next 2 strongest political parties, have the courage to confront what is happening, and lay a charge of treason against President Zuma, and his cohorts, the Gupta family. Instead, they are vying for a vote of no confidence in parliament, a vote they can clearly not win. They need to grow a pair.

But heres a thought, perhaps those in the ANC who have some vestige of moral character left, should lay those charges.

That would certainly put the proverbial cat among the pigeons and bring back moral leadership to the ANC, but I fear that too many of them have their hands dirty after a decade of looting the Treasury.

When is a political leader going to say, To hell with political correctness. The people of South Africa deserve to have leaders who act on their behalf, and not on behalf of a political system that is rampantly corrupt.

Who is that leader? Who is willing to step up to the plate, and has the moral and principled fortitude to oppose an evil system as Mandela and the ANC stalwarts did?

I suppose it might be too much to ask of the current band of so-called, political leaders, and so President Zuma will get off scot free and head off to his palace in Dubai.

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

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Is it time to lose political correctness in South Africa? - News24

Nothing is as it seems these days (Juan Gris, Still Life with a Bordeaux Bottle, 1919; Wikimedia, PD-Old-70)

The sources of euphemism and political correctness are too close to be seen.

The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski spent the better part of the 50s and 60s attempting to create a (Soviet Communist-) Socialism with a Human Face.Some of his more important attempts are collected in Toward a Marxist Humanism: Essays on the Left Today.The failure to square the circlewas one of the things that forcedKolakowski into exile in the West. His success in documenting the failure of real-existing socialismin his magisterial three-volume The Main Currents of Marxism made him a short-term pariah among Western Cultural Marxist intellectualswhen such a thing actually still existed.His book, along with Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago (Im surprised and disappointed to see it out of print) and The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, put the final nails in the Western Marxist economic tradition. It hasnt recovered from the defeat, but those who keep on harping about the omnipresence of Cultural Marxism seem content with chasing a ghost, rather than dealing with the present. Im happy to let them chase their specters of Marx.

The collapse of Real-Existing Socialism (Soviet Communism witha Human Face) made it look like there was no alternative after 1989. It took less than 20 years for the world to realize that there is a problem with capitalism. 2008 was a watershed moment that made many realize that a project to create Capitalism with a Human Face is all thats left to us. That is,if we refuse to countenance other working solutions, what are called the Third Ways(between capitalism and communism). Mark Fishers little manifesto,Capitalist Realism: IsThere No Alternative?,is a kind of interim report card on how the human face refuses to stick to capitalism as it refused to stick to communist-socialism:

Really Existing Capitalism is marked by the same division which characterized Really Existing Socialism, between, on the one hand, an official culture in which capitalist enterprises are presented as socially responsible and caring, and, on the other, a widespread awareness that companies are actually corrupt, ruthless, etc. In other words, capitalist postmodernity is not quite as incredulous as it would appear to be, as the jeweler Gerald Ratner famously found to his cost.

Side Note: Gerald Ratner is famous for admitting during anInstitute of Directors annual conference at The Royal Albert Hall that some of his products are crap:

We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for 4.95. People say, How can you sell this for such a low price?, I say, because its total crap.

He became a laughingstock for hishonesty and lost hisfortunein the process, only to win it back.His is an unusual case of demaskingCapitalism with a Human Face?

99.9% of the time the mask stays on? What keeps it glued to the face of capitalism? Euphemism and political correctness.Polish philosopherTadeusz Gadacz, aformer pupil of Fr.Jozef Tischner (the Chaplain of Solidarity), explains in a Gazeta Wyborcza (only my Polish readers will understand the irony of this)editorial the gluing process using the categoryof thestructural lieas developed by his master.

[I would like to describe our situation of using euphemisms for everything] by referring to a very concrete concept, which Fr. Jzef Tischner, my master, called the structural lie. We live in a structural lie. In the past it was fascism, communism, today it is the neoliberal market. It is no longer the lie of a single person who is concealing the truth. This lie applies to whole structures of life: political, social, economical, medial, and also educational. We participate in it and we make our peace with it. We do not really believe that we are able to radically change the world, so we take part in it. After all, who can presently change the principles of the neoliberal market? Nobody? And so we say there is no exploitation, theres outsourcing and economizing, there are no murders, there is ethnic cleansing. It makes it easier for us to swallow our dinner.

As my friend likes to say, We no longer have garbage men, we have sanitation experts.' We cover upour economic garbagewith euphemism and political correctness, because we do not want to admit our complicity in the structural lie. That element of self-criticism was something that was sorely missing in the Occupy Wall Street critique of the 1%. The 1% would not exist if not for the complicity of the 99%.

Whos going to write The Black Book of Capitalism: Crimes, Terror, Repression?

Capitalist Realism: IsThere No Alternative? is a pretty good place to start for now.

Bon apptit!

For more on Fr. Tischner see: Solidarity Means Carrying One Anothers Burden.

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What is the Source of Our Culture of Euphemism and Political Correctness? - Patheos (blog)

The following guest commentary was written by Lou Zako, a semi-retired doctor living in Harbor Springs. His views are his own. Email him at lrzako@gmail.com.

As a person of faith, my world view recognizes that both good and evil are ever-present in our lives. While government can at times protect from evil, it is often ineffective, and at times counter-productive. We must look to our religions, our communities, and our families to help instill good in our psyches.

The radical left, which includes a significant number in government at various levels, much of academia, and much of the main-stream media, has been remarkably successful in silencing those of us with traditional values, including love of country, through the use of political correctness.

I challenge my readers to introspectively ask themselves if the threat of being called a racist leads them to remain silent in the face of obvious bias. How many of us are willing to go to a local school board meeting to challenge the board and the administration when they unconstitutionally prohibit students from expressing their religious beliefs.

An excellent example of the intimidation of the populace into silence is the insane issue of transgender bathrooms, forced upon every school district in America by the Obama administration, in concert with big business and the New York Times. The hypocrisy of pretending to protect a person of a specific biologic gender from harassment without any regard for an overwhelming majority of children deprived of their right to privacy is stark and dramatic. In graphic terms, this policy mandated public schools to permit a teenage boy with a penis to use the girls bathrooms and showers by simply declaring that he felt like a female that day. Most of us would label such an edict insane, but it is actually much worse. It is in fact, intimidation of the citizenry to bend to the will of a tyrannical leftist government.

Almost daily we witness the radical left silencing the rest of us by using the race card. While it is perfectly acceptable to mock a Donald Trump or a George W. Bush, rather than debating specific issues, we dare not mock or disagree with Barack Obama for fear of being labeled as a racist.

A frank look at the end result of the Western European and North American elite preaching to the rest of us about the virtues of diversity and multiculturalism leads to the conclusion that millions of ordinary Americans, Brits, or Germans are tired of being human fodder for radical Islamists. The elites have their high walls and their bodyguards to protect them from terrorists, while making every effort to disarm the rest of us and leave us as helpless prey to terrorists. The radical lefts definition of diversity, interestingly enough, apparently does not include diversity of political thought. Does one need to ask oneself how many conservatives are on the faculties of the University of Michigan, Harvard, and Berkeley? How many conservatives are on the staff of the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, etc. How many climate scientists who express skepticism of the role of human activity in climate change receive funding for their studies? Even changing global warming to climate change is an example of political correctness. When radical environmentalists were mocked for their almost religious belief in the coming end of the earth through global warming by ordinary citizens who often had to don sweaters during cold weather, rather than questioning the validity of their unproven assumption that the seas would rise during our brief lifetimes and we would all fry, they changed the terminology to climate change. In Michigan the climate changes month by month. Our ancestors have endured both ice ages and ages of warming.

To silence critics, the radical left invoke the piety that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that man-made global warming is beyond discussion or dispute. These same scientists fathers and mothers asserted that energy could neither be created or destroyed until a sole maverick, Albert Einstein, proved them all wrong. True science is not about forced conformity but rather a search for the truth and a healthy degree of skepticism for any theory.

As the Western World is now witnessing terrorist massacres of ordinary people in Europe and the U.S. on a frighteningly regular basis, still our governmental agencies, the intelligence community, the FBI, the military, and the local police are forced to eschew profiling. In other words, the Detroit and Chicago police are prohibited from stopping and frisking young black males any more often than old white ladies, in spite of the fact that a disparate percentage of violent crime is committed by young black thugs against defenseless black children and black seniors. Moreover, town after town in America has had imposed on its citizenry large numbers of refugees from violent areas of the Middle East, including young Arabic males, many of whom never assimilate or take on our Western values. Ask the families of the victims of terrorist attacks at the Boston marathon or San Bernardino whether political correctness was in any part responsible for the loss of their loved ones.

The next time you meet any of your liberal/progressive/morally superior friends, ask them whether they share more concern for the safety and welfare of their fellow citizens or for undocumented immigrants, aka illegal aliens.

Note the madness of the elites of the United Kingdom. In spite of terrorist massacre after massacre the vast majority of British police are unarmed. More than 90 percent of Londons Metropolitan Police Force carries no weapons.

A majority of rational people now agree that political correctness kills.

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OPINION: Lou Zako: Political correctness is killing us - Petoskey News-Review

Does a university the size of UNLV not have an art department? A graphics department?

So UNLV revealed its new logo, which depicts an updated PC version of the previous one. While I get that we must now say, act and feel PC all the time, why not take it a step further and depict an androgynous person?

Personally, I wouldnt care if the new logo had an otter and a bottle of shampoo on it. The real issue is the cost. The school spent $50,000 in donor money. Are you serious? Does a university the size of UNLV not have an art department? A graphics department? Why not offer a prize to the winning developer and allow the students and the boosters to vote on the best one? Use the donated money to either fund scholarships or feed the thousands of hungry children here in the valley.

The cost was excessive and, frankly, Im over the ridiculous PC culture that has taken over our lives and been crammed down our throats.

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Political correctness dampens UNLV logo - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The BBC drama Three Girls, about the grooming of white teenage girls by Pakistani men in Rochdale, won critical acclaim earlier this year. Now a blistering feature-length documentary, The Betrayed Girls tells the story behind the headlines, exploring why the police turned a blind eye to systematic sexual grooming for decades.

The film raised uncomfortable questions about multicultural Britain and the failure of the establishment to protect societys most vulnerable. At its heart lay the conclusion that political correctness stopped the authorities from publicly condemning Pakistani men for fear of racist accusations.

It was only when a Muslim lawyer was appointed chief prosecutor of North West England that the abusers were brought to justice.

Political correctness was just one of the social attitudes that led to the failure of the police to prosecute numerous men, largely Pakistani, in cities including Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester. The indifference towards vulnerable, sexually active girls many of whom were in care and deemed to be deviant was also palpable.

Sara Rowbotham, a care worker in Rochdale, reported more than 100 cases of abuse to the police, but none was investigated. In the West Yorkshire town of Keighley, police dismissed reports of abuse of girls aged 12 and 13 because they were consenting even though sex with a minor is an illegal act.

Labour MP Ann Cryer tried and failed to make Keighley police take the reports of abuse by Pakistani men seriously. In the film, she blames political correctitude. Her fears that the story would be reclaimed by the far-right came true when BNP leader Nick Griffin seized on the reports to protest in Keighley against Muslim men abusing white British girls. It was a fear that also prevented Times journalist Andrew Norfolk from originally covering the story.

In another recent documentary, Channel 4s Wife Swap: Brexit Special, Leaver Pauline says she backed Brexit because of political correctness gone mad. The Rochdale abuse scandal broke years before Brexit, but at its heart lies a familiar narrative of the establishment looking after its own interests while white, working-class people are ignored.

The Betrayed Girls was unflinching in its verdict of the polices failure. Its rare to find I agree with a Daily Mail headline, but the only conclusion to draw is that the girls were betrayed by the PC cowards. Its a lesson we must all learn from.

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The Betrayed Girls: A case of political correctness gone badly, dangerously wrong - iNews

Bigotry is the heart and soul of political correctness.

One definition of a bigot is a person who disagrees with your beliefs about any social matter. One who treats others with hatred and intolerance when someones opinion differs from their own. The Urban Dictionary states, a person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own.

Just as whites can be bigots, so can blacks, browns and yellows.

I have written over time about truth, love, faith the science and purpose of genders and I have written about equality as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed equality to be, only to have the hate and venom of politically correct bigots rain down upon me.

Read the replies to my opinion pieces. Political correctness is designed to shame us into being silent if our fundamental beliefs differ from the politically correct.

We are homophobes, racists or almost any other hateful term. The person who believes in the LGBT agenda is intolerant of any person with any other view. The PC bigot. The same is true if you believe all lives matter, not just black lives. You are called a racist.

Atheists essentially believe their lack of knowledge and faith makes them godlike. Anyone who doesnt believe as they do threatens their conviction that they know all there is to know. If they dont know, no one can know. Faith is a threat to them. They are the worst of PC bigots.

PC is a bigoted strategy to impose false beliefs on others. To silence them in order to advance a special interest. Usually based on a fabricated truth.There is one bigot who claims that all white males are born into privilege. A two-edged PC statement to make white males feel guilty about being privileged when they look at issues of color and gender. What can the white male aristocracy understand about a black womans issues? If he speaks, he is called many names to reinforce the guilt and shame of being a privileged white male.

I recently wrote a personal letter to the editor in which I criticized the Solano County Board of Supervisors for ignoring the tenets of the faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

They arbitrarily declared June LGBT Pride month, without any public input. A politically correct act that ignored their constituents. I reminded the public that these same supervisors on two occasions tried to dishonestly impose taxes on the public by dressing up special taxes as general taxes, cheating the public out of millions of dollars.

I criticized the supervisors, not the practice of unnatural sex. The LGBT supporters replied with hate dripping with the venom of politically correct bigotry.

PC bigotry has been most effective in shaming and silencing the leaders of centers of faith. No one has spoken out for their fundamental beliefs. Look the other way rather than be faithful.

Atheists shame the faithful into silence. Black Lives Matter shame white males into silence. So-called feminists shame women who believe in a childs right to live into silence. Living Constitution advocates shame those who believe in the original intent of the founders into silence. They are out of the mainstream.

Shaming us into silence so that their loudly repeated lies when unanswered will take on the mantra of truth. That is the bigotry of political correctness.

In speaking what I believe to be truth, I have been cursed, hated, threatened and called every bad name possible. Just for having an opinion that did not conform to the politically correct falsehood.

I will continue to speak truth and let them call me whatever they wish. Its beginning to feel good. Would you care to join me?

Murray Bass of Fairfield can be reached at 720-5139 or[emailprotected].

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Political correctness 'shames' differing points of views - Daily Republic - Fairfield Daily Republic

In recent years, I have noted that it has been increasingly politically correct for editorial writers and members of the public to bemoan the failures of our American democracy as a perverse way to celebrate the Fourth of July. This year, in our post-2016 polarized society, this trend is even more in evidence.

For our society to continue and prosper however, polarization must be temporary for only through working together can we advance. Eventually, just as in the past, we must get beyond our divisions.

Dont believe me? How about the Civil War? It took some time, but we did it.

You wont get much of that political correctness from this writer. I was fortunate enough to live abroad as an American diplomat in many countries under various and sundry systems of government: communism, socialism, social democracy, constitutional parliamentary monarchy, authoritarianism and near-anarchy.

Living and working in these societies, side by side with citizens of these countries, gave me a real appreciation of what life was like there. Those experiences lead me to acknowledge that, while we may not be a perfect society, we are a truly exceptional one.

Americans, from the earliest days of our republic, have exercised our freedom of speech to critique our imperfect society, from our treatment of Native Americans and the abomination of slavery, to the inequities of opportunity and fairness in modern life.

Our criticism has in many cases led to a better version of ourselves. That we Americans can criticize ourselves without dire consequences only proves the essential good inherent in our system.

Others in these pages may exercise their freedom of speech to criticize and complain; in a free society all are welcome to do so. But on this eve of the 241st anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us also pause to look unabashedly at our history and recall the many positives we have inherited from previous generations of Americans.

Americans, or more properly United States citizens, are something of a puzzle to many people abroad. We are seen as naive and Machiavellian, selfish and generous, idealistic and duplicitous, friendly and phony, diverse and homogeneous, religious and salacious, often by the same people at the same time!

One thing is generally agreed upon though. The USA is somehow exceptional and unlike any other nation on the globe. For most of the 20th century and into the 21st, this nation was and remains the indispensable nation. It is enormously influential, whether looking at economic power, military might, popular culture, science and technology, diplomatic weight or what we might call moral or humanitarian values. The combination of these factors has had an undeniable overall positive influence on world development. If you deny that, kindly come up with another candidate on this planet that can claim to be the indispensable nation.

Among these positive values is a government responsive to the will of the people through free elections. Anyone who qualifies has a right to cast a ballot. Regrettably, some of our fellow citizens just dont bother to do so. But they have a right not to vote too!

We are blessed with a system of checks and balances among the three branches of our government, so that a power-hungry branch is restrained in its actions. We complain that government is too slow or that nothing gets done, but our system deliberately slows the process so that our leaders must think through their actions and not simply rubber-stamp the public opinion of the moment.

The admonition that the government that governs best, governs least attributed variously to Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau or Napoleon Bonaparte has worked rather well for most of us for nearly 2 1/2 centuries. Im in favor of keeping it.

William P. Kiehl is a retired foreign service officer who served 35 years with the U.S. Information Agency and U.S. Department of State in Europe, Asia and Washington. He was also a Diplomat in Residence at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle. He resides in Lancaster County.

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Our nation may not be perfect, but it truly is exceptional - LancasterOnline

When President Donald Trump uses the term politically correct, its meant to be an insult and not one many Americans would redirect at him.

A recent Morning Consult poll shows that a plurality of U.S. adults (45 percent) say Trump is not politically correct enough, while 55 percent say the country has become less politically correct during his administration.

But most of Trumps supporters dont see a problem: Sixty-two percent of people who voted for him in November said the presidents political correctness is about right. Among Democrats, 67 percent said hes not politically correct enough.

Forty-eight percent of women and 42 percent of men said Trump is not politically correct enough. No demographic had a plurality or majority saying Trump is too politically correct.

Polling was conducted among a national sample of 2,177 U.S. adults on June 20 and June 21, before Trump tweetedcritical remarks about MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski and her physical appearance.

As a candidate, Trump was accused of espousing anti-Muslim views, among other complaints from minority groups.On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to review the White Houses travel ban that was initiated but halted earlier this year, while allowing for a 90-day ban on travelers from six predominantly-Muslim countries to go into effect so long as it exempts people who have a close familial relationship with someone in the United States.

Public opinion regarding political correctness shifted in the recent Morning Consult poll when people were asked about the mainstream media, with 41 percent saying the media is too politically correct. Forty-eight percent of men and 35 percent of women agreed with that statement. A plurality of millennials (34 percent) say the media is too politically correct, while 27 percent say its about right and 27 percent its not politically correct enough. Pluralities of other generations also said the media is too politically correct.

Thirty-three percent, a plurality, saycorporationsare too politically correct, while 35 percent consider sports franchises about right. A Morning Consult poll conductedFeb. 2 through Feb. 4showed poll respondentswere split over corporations taking a positionon a social or political issue, but were more inclined to say it is inappropriate when a business usesits resources to make its values visible.

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Poll: Majority of Trump Voters Say His Political Correctness Is 'About ... - Morning Consult

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If youre a regular listener of Jim Gearharts podcast, or you enjoyed his 25-year stint leading New Jersey 101.5s morning show, were not telling you anything new by saying he doesnt enjoy political correctness.

But some stories, Jim says, are more absurd than others.

I just throw these out as a couple of examples of how weve gone stark raving damn mad, Jim says in this weeks installment of the Jim Gearhart Show podcast, available here, on iTunes and Google Play.

How about the story of Professor Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who had the gall to oppose the schools annual Day of Absence, or rather, this years reversal of it. Traditionally, students and faculty of color would skip out on the campus for a day and meet elsewhere, to show what life would be like when theyre not around. This year, white students and faculty were invited to step away, after minorities expressed concerns they didnt feel safe following the 2016 election.

He was a very liberal person, but he said that was going too far, Jim says. But to Jim, what was really to far was the backlash Weinstein received including threats and harassment.

This is how serious this has gotten, Jim says.

But thats not the only story hes got lined up. Check out the podcast to hear the rest. Email Jim at Jim@NJ1015.com.

The Jim Gearhart Podcast is available every week on New Jersey 101.5 and in the New Jersey 101.5 app. You can alsosubscribe with your favorite podcasting app for iPhones, Android devices or your computer:

Get The Jim Gearhart Show on Google Play

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Love podcasts? Also check out Forever 39, Annette and Megans new podcast about turning 40 and loving life along the way. This week, they explore the stresses so many of us face and how to escape them.

Also: The New Jersey Guys, Chris and Dan, are joined this week by NJ Devils legend Ken Daneyko. And in Speaking Millennial, Bill Spadea, Jay Black and Jessica Nutt proclaim (profanely) Eff the future!

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3 stories that prove political correctness has gone too far Jim Gearhart podcast - New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio

Forget political correctness; time to profile young black men | Myrtle ... Myrtle Beach Sun News If we want to put an end to the shootings in Myrtle Beach and elsewhere in the former great country of ours, we need to do one simple thing: start profiling. and more »

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Forget political correctness; time to profile young black men | Myrtle ... - Myrtle Beach Sun News