Category Archives: Political Correctness

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok is seated prior to testifying before House Committees in Washington, U.S., July, 2018.(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Remember Lisa Page and Peter Strzok?

The two were the adulterous, wildly partisan FBI agents working at the highest levels of the Mueller probe. After their visceral anti-Trump bias came to light (Strzok wrote about the need for an insurance policy to prevent Trump from becoming president) they were both sidelined and eventually left the FBI.

Well, the duo were back in the news last month. Former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, the No. 2 man at Justice until his departure last year, admitted that it was he who leaked their explosive text messages to the media before they were given to congressional investigators.

In a court case involving Strzoks lawsuit challenging his firing, Rosenstein suddenly claims he was actually trying to protect the pair from embarrassment: Providing the most egregious messages in one package would avoid the additional harm of prolonged selective disclosures.

It is astonishing that Rosenstein, a political appointee of President Trump, would show such tenderhearted concern about two disgraced agents who clearly tarred the entire FBI. In her texts, Page described Trump as an enormous douche and asks her lover, Trumps not ever going to become president, right? Strzok replies, No. No, he wont. Well stop it. Strzok later explained to congressional investigators that this text referred to the American people who would stop Trump. For her part, Page gave equally implausible answers when interviewed by Congress. One congressman noted that she had texted, God trump is a loathsome human . . . omg hes an idiot to Strzok. What did you mean by that? the congressman asked. Her reply: I dont recall.

This material is rich with irony and intrigue. Phelim McAleer, a conservative documentary filmmaker, thought it had dramatic possibilities. Last year he staged a play called FBI Lovebirds: UnderCovers that consisted solely of the secret text messages exchanged by Strzok and Page, as well as their congressional testimony under oath.

He hired Dean Cain, an actor famous for playing Superman on TV and Kristy Swanson, the actress who was the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to play the couple at a one-time-only performance at the Ronald Reagan Center in Washington, D.C.

The verbatim play was such a hit that McAleer is back for an encore. CPAC, the nations largest conservative gathering will mount a production at their annual Washington convention on February 27 at 5 p.m. In order to meet costs, the project is being crowdfunded on at FBILovebirds.com.

I attended the first performance of FBI Lovebirds and was charmed.

Playing the adulterous FBI lovers, Cain and Swanson made the most of the material. Reading their text messages from binders on stage, they played the couple as smug, immature, smirking know-it-alls, but Cain and Swanson also read aloud the couples emojis and exaggerated punctuation for added emphasis. Every reference to a text that ended with a winky face or five exclamation points was met with howls of laughter from the audience.

Playwright Phelim McAleer, who along with his wife Ann McElhinney has produced several films, isnt surprised that Saturday Night Live and other venues have ignored the FBI Lovebirds material. The Left dominates the arts to such an extent, they refuse to produce plays or movies even if they know theyll be popular and the material is gold, he told me.

But while left-wing producers wont touch the material, there are plenty on the left who will try to silence the play.

The Daily Kos calls the production absolutely sickening and has called for protestors at CPAC. Esquire magazine says that moviegoers should DixieCjick both Cain and Swanson so they dont work again. One blogger offered $100 to a fund to send one lucky Coronavirus victim to CPAC.

The best way to counter such intolerance is to support efforts like FBI Lovebirds. Its often said that satire is the most effective political weapon, and its through popular culture that the Left will be most easily exposed as humorless and suffocating in its political correctness.

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A Satire on Anti-Trump FBI Agents Is Heading to CPAC. The Left Is Threatening Retaliation. - National Review

Amil Imani The writer is an Iranian-American writer, poet, satirist, novelist, essayist, literary translator, public speaker and political analyst who has been writing and speaking out about the danger of radical Islam internationally. He has become a formidable voice in the USA against the danger of global jihad and Islamization of America. He maintains a website at http://www.amilimani.com. and wrote the book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and a new thriller Operation Persian Gulf

Dr. Tariq Ramadan is a known Islamic scholar and the grandson of Hassan al-Banna who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood Organization. On July 27, 2011, I covertly attended an Islamic fund raising at the Hyatt Regency Hotel , in Richardson, Texas, that was arranged by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and their key speaker was Tariq Ramadan.

Never mind how I managed to enter this highly guarded Islamic venue, but I witnessed their fund-raising methods and their goal to make America an Islamic land and eventually make Sharia Law accepted by elected officials without a single bullet to be fired. Yes, Tariq Ramadan encouraged Muslim attendees not to assimilate to American culture, but stealthily engage in political institutions, universities and run for political office. Then they will be in a position of power to drastically alter our way of life through what we know as Cultural or Stealth Jihad.

Tariq Ramadan was banned from coming to the US, but the Obama Administration and the Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton, had signed an order to lift the ban which allowed Ramadan to enter the countryin order to preach to his Muslim followers.

Just because violent jihad has diminished recently, especially after the demise of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and founder of the Islamiccaliphate, we should not be complacent. There is a more serious scheme in progress called stealth jihad. It is in full motion in every corner of the United States with the help ofinvaluable allies, the Democrat Party. The formula is working. America the land of the free, is under assault by the deadly ideology of Islamic subversion.

Muslim organizations have been busy and working stealthily changing America in what is called Soft Jihad, or Cultural Jihad, or Stealth Jihad in the United States. Soft Jihad is practiced where the sword of jihad is not advisable, where Muslims are not strong enough to unsheaththeir sword, where if the true nature of Islam is exposed the public would likely stamp them out.

A critical tool of soft jihad, involves penetration of the American educational system, by use of means such as Dawa-a religious duty of each Muslim to convert non-Muslims in order to strengthen the Islamic Ummah.

Many of our elected officials dont even have the courage to challenge Islam and its barbaric rules. They normally avoid any questions about the nature of Islam when speaking with their constituents or just deceive them by telling them not to worry about the horrific things that are happening on the other side of the world. If Muslims act heinously toward non-Muslims, it is just the way things are in those countries and it is hardly any of our business.

This is the same attitude that set the Islamization of Europe on a seemingly irreversible track. One European country after another is rapidly buckling under the weight of Islamic ideology.But Islam is already in America and has no intention leaving or stopping thecultural jihad. It is unbelievable that America, the greatest superpower on the planet, is gradually losing its own power topolitical correctness.

This is alarming. But regrettably, too few Americans are aware of all this, and organizations such as the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations are taking full advantage of our navet. CAIR is only one of many Islamic organizations that provides refuge to stealth jihad.

Moreover, Islam stands in stark contrast to the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and what the Bill of Rights was designed to protect: our God-given inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Understand that Sharia is very complex, and its derived from multiple Islamic sources.

As Anti-CAIR.net put it, CAIRis not in the United States to promote the civil rights for Muslims CAIR is here to make Islam the dominant religion in the United States and convert our country into an Islamic theocracy.Moreover, CAIR receives direct fundingfrom Islamic terrorist-supporting countries.

CAIRs true intention was revealed during the largest terrorism financing trial in the nations history: the 20072008Holy Land Foundationtrial.

Notice that Muslims are the only minority in the world who will never submit to the Western laws or assimilate into the culture! In fact, they are the only migrants who actively work around the clock to impose Sharia Law on everyone else. To most Muslims, the highest US authority and documents is considered a heresy. In a parallel attack, Legal Islam exploits every provision of the law in free societies to promote Islam and silence its critics through expensive legal shenanigans.

Mild Islamists may indeed be a minority in America. Yet this deadly cancer has metastasized throughout all fifty states and is attempting to devour Michigan, with Dearborn as its capital. Urgent confrontation of this advancing disease is imperative to stave it off. We must resist the intrusion of this seventh-century mentality into our country and our way of life.

Even if most Muslims seek to adopt an American lifestyle, a great many Muslims are dead-set on using violence to make America conform to their barbaric way of life. Islam is like cancer. Cancer cells are always few at the beginning, and if they are left unchecked, they keep on multiplying, eventually devouring the non-cancerous.

It is beyond the call of duty for all of us to find a pragmatic solution to stop Islam from expanding its reach to every institution, cultural and governmental agencies before its too late. We have no choice. Islam must be defeated politically and swiftly in our era, otherwise, our children and grandchildren could be engaged in a religious and ideological bloody war the likes of which has never been seen on American soil.

Islam is not really a religion, it hides behind the mask of religion to accomplish its mission of worldwide domination. We must treat Islam as a totalitarian doctrine based on the Quran, Sira and the Hadith in what Dr. Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam aptly calls theTrilogy of Islam.

Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be. Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslim's holy book, the Qur'an, in many verses.

Islam has mandates for every facet of life, and those mandates are enforced and regulated by the barbaric criminal and civil code known as Sharia. The precise definition of a Muslim becomes clear when you read the trilogy of Islam. Bottom line: you are to be an Allah-fearing, Quran-believing and Muhammad-following zealot who forces people to submit, convert, and comply with Islam and Sharia or be killed. Those are the facts.

We must stop lying about Islam. Political correctness in the face of evil is equivalent to death and decay of our Western society. One thing for sure, Islam and Muslims will never coexist with the infidels.

It is past time that we confront Islams advancement in America. But we still must try. We need to remove this scourge of humanity from this land, move away from an exclusionary, primitive, and tribal mentality to a vision of all humanity being one, with justice and liberty for all.

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Soft Jihad in America - Arutz Sheva

American liberalism is in desperate need of renewal. Its ideas too often feel stale, its nostrums unsuited to beating back the authoritarian populist tide.

Yet there is an opportunity for revival if liberals are willing to more forthrightly embrace the politics of identity.

To many liberals, such a suggestion will sound like blasphemy. Since mere days after Donald Trumps 2016 victory, an unending stream of op-eds and books have accused identity politics defined loosely as a left-wing political style that centers the interests and concerns of oppressed groups of driving the country off a moral and political cliff.

These critics accuse identity politics of being a cancer on the very idea of liberalism, pulling the mainstream American left away from a politics of equal citizenship and shared civic responsibility. It is, moreover, political suicide, a woke purism that makes it impossible to form winning political coalitions evidenced, in critics minds, by the backlash to Sen. Bernie Sanderss embrace of the popular podcast host Joe Rogan.

The idea that identity politics is at odds with liberalism has become conventional wisdom in parts of the American political and intellectual elite. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has condemned contemporary identity politics as an enemy of reason and Enlightenment values. New York Times columnist Bari Weiss argues that the corrupt identity politics of the left amounts to a dangerously intolerant worldview. And New York magazines Andrew Sullivan claims the woke left seems not to genuinely believe in liberalism, liberal democracy, or persuasion. This line of thinking is practically the founding credo of the school of internet thought known as the Intellectual Dark Web.

It is also deeply, profoundly wrong.

What these critics lambaste as an attack on liberalism is actually its best form: the logical extension of liberalisms core commitment to social equality and democracy, adapted to address modern sources of inequality. A liberalism that rejects identity politics is a liberalism for the powerful, one that relegates the interests of marginalized groups to second-class status.

But identity politics is not only important as a matter of liberal principle. In the face of an existential threat from right-wing populists in Europe and the United States, liberals need to harness new sources of political energy to fight back. This is not a matter of short-term politics, of whether being too woke will help or hurt Democrats in 2020, but a deeper and more fundamental question: what types of organizations and activist movements are required to make liberalism sustainable in the 21st century. And there is good reason to believe the passions stirred by identity politics can renew a liberalism gone haggard.

To say that liberalism and identity politics are at odds is to misunderstand our political situation. Identity politics isnt merely compatible with liberalism; it is, in fact, liberalisms truest face. If liberalism wishes to succeed in 21st-century America, it shouldnt reject identity politics it should embrace it.

All politics is, in a certain sense, identity politics. Every kind of political approach appeals to particular aspects of voters identities; some are just more explicit than others.

But critics of identity politics have a very particular politics in mind a mode of rhetoric and organizing that prioritizes the concerns and experiences of historically marginalized groups, emphasizing the groups particularity.

To understand why this kind of identity politics is so controversial and what its critics often get wrong about it we need to turn to the work of the late University of Chicago philosopher Iris Marion Young.

In 1990, Young published a classic book titled Justice and the Politics of Difference. At the time, political philosophy was dominated by internal debates among liberals who focused heavily on the question of wealth distribution. Young, both a philosopher and a left activist, found this narrow discourse unsatisfying.

In her view, mainstream American liberalism had assumed a particular account of what social equality means: that equal social status for all persons requires treating everyone according to the same principles, rules, and standards. Securing equality on this view means things like desegregation and passing nondiscrimination laws, efforts to end overt discrimination against marginalized groups.

This is an important start, Young argues, but not nearly enough. The push for formally equal treatment cant eliminate all sources of structural inequality; in fact, it can serve to mask and even deepen them. Judging a poor black kid and a rich white one by the same allegedly meritocratic college admissions standards, for example, will likely lead to the rich white ones admission perpetuating a punishing form of inequality that started at birth.

Young sees an antidote in a political vision she developed out of experiences in social movements, which she calls the politics of difference. Sometimes, Young argues, achieving true equality demands treating groups differently rather than the same. The specificity of each group requires a specific set of rights for each, and for some a more comprehensive system than for others, Young writes. The goal is identity consciousness rather than identity blindness: Black Lives Matter over All Lives Matter.

She did not like using the term identity politics for this approach, arguing in her 2000 book Inclusion and Democracy that it was misleadingly narrow. But two decades later, what she sketched out is what we understand identity politics to mean.

Youngs philosophical precision allows us to understand whats distinctive about contemporary identity politics. It also helps us understand why critics see it as such a threat.

Identity politics dissatisfaction with formal equal treatment is, in their view, fundamentally illiberal. Its emphasis on correcting structural discrimination can morph into a kind of authoritarianism, an obsession with the policing of speech and behaviors (especially from white, straight, cisgender men) at odds with liberalisms core commitments to individual rights, so the critics fret. They see college students disinviting conservative speakers for being problematic, or canceling celebrities who violate the rules of acceptable discourse on race or gender identity, as evidence that identity politics fundamental aim is overturning liberalism in the name of equality.

This approach is not only illiberal, the critics argue, but self-defeating. The more emphasis that is placed on the separateness of American social groups, the less space there is for a politically effective and wide-ranging liberalism.

The only way to [win power] is to have a message that appeals to as many people as possible and pulls them together, Columbia professor Mark Lilla writes in his recent book The Once and Future Liberal. Identity liberalism does just the opposite.

Many of these critics see themselves as coming from a relatively progressive and firmly liberal starting point. They tend to profess support for the ideals of racial or gender equality. What they cant abide is a political approach that emphasizes difference, shaping its policy proposals around specific oppressions rather than universal ideals.

It is a philosophical argument with political implications: a claim that the essence of identity politics is illiberal, and for that reason its continued influence on the American left augurs both moral and electoral doom.

Its hardly absurd for someone like Lilla to see tension between liberalism and identity politics. Young herself described the politics of difference as not a species of liberalism but a challenge to it.

But her stance notwithstanding, political philosophers have come to see the politics of identity as part of a vibrant liberalism. In 1998, Canadian scholar Will Kymlicka identified an emerging consensus among political philosophers on what he calls liberal multiculturalism, the idea that groups have a valid claim, not only to tolerance and non-discrimination, but also to explicit accommodation, recognition and representation within the institutions of the larger society.

If we examine liberalisms core moral commitments, Kymlickas consensus shouldnt be a surprise.

The quintessential liberal value is freedom. Liberalisms core political ambition is to create a society where citizens are free to participate as equals, cooperating on mutually agreeable terms in political life and pursuing whatever vision of private life they find meaningful and fulfilling. Freedom in this sense cannot be achieved in political systems defined by identity-based oppression. When members of some social groups face barriers to living the life they choose, purely as a result of their membership in that group, then the society they live in is failing on liberal terms.

Identity politics seeks to draw attention to and combat such sources of unfreedom. Consider the following facts about American life:

There is no law saying black people cant own houses, that women married to men must do the cooking and cleaning, or that LGBTQ teens must harm themselves. These problems have more subtle causes, including legacies of historical discrimination, deeply embedded social norms, and inadequate legislative attention to the particular circumstances of marginalized groups.

Identity politics focus on the need to go beyond anti-discrimination works to open new avenues for dealing with the insidious nature of modern group-based inequality. Once you understand that this is the actual aim of identity politics, it becomes clear that critiques of its alleged authoritarianism miss the forest for the trees.

It is of course true that one can point to illiberal behavior by activists in the name of identity politics: Think of the student group at the City University of New York that attempted to shout down a relatively mainstream conservative legal scholars lecture out of hostility to his views on immigration law. But instances of campus intolerance are actually quite uncommon, despite their omnipresence in the media, and the idea that a handful of student excesses represent the core of identity politics is a mistake.

One can say the same thing for social media outrages. Its certainly true that many practitioners of identity politics send over-the-top tweets or pen Facebook posts calling for people to be fired without good cause. Its also true that some practitioners of every kind of politics do these things. Holding up an outrageous-sounding tweet as representative of the allegedly authoritarian heart of identity politics is a basic analytical error: confusing a platform problem, the way social media highlights the most extreme versions of all ideologies, with a doctrinal defect in identity politics.

Merely because a liberal movement contains some illiberal components doesnt make it fundamentally illiberal; if it did, then slave-owning American founders and bigoted Enlightenment philosophers would have to be booted out of the liberal canon.

The key question is whether the agenda and aims of identity politics adherents advance liberal freedom compared to the status quo. On this point, its clear that the practitioners of identity politics are on the liberal side.

In recent years, we have seen champions of identity politics rack up impressive accomplishments victories like defeating prosecutors with troubling records on race at the ballot box, getting sexual assault allegations taken seriously in the workplace, and securing health care coverage for transition-related medical care.

These are hardly examples of woke Stalinism. They are instead victories of liberal reform and democratic activism, incremental changes aimed at addressing deep-rooted sources of unfreedom.

Time and again throughout American history, from abolitionism to the movement for same-sex marriage, members of marginalized groups have refused to abandon liberalisms promises. They put their lives on the line, risking death on Civil War battlefields and in the streets of Birmingham, in defense of liberal ideals. When they demanded change, they won it through the push-and-pull of democratic politics and political activism that constitute the heart of liberal praxis. In essayist Adam Serwers evocative phrasing: The American creed has no more devoted adherents than those who have been historically denied its promises.

Todays practitioners of identity politics are the proper heirs to this tradition. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, one of the most prominent defenders of identity politics in American public life, has devoted her post-election career to an unimpeachably liberal cause fighting restrictions on the franchise, particularly those that disproportionately affect black voters.

In a recent Foreign Affairs essay, Abrams made the case that one of the central aims of identity politics is bolstering liberalism that it is activism that will strengthen democratic rule, not threaten it. In Abramss view, the persistence of structural oppression, and in particular the Trump-era backlash to social progress, requires careful attention to identity, and in particular what marginalized groups want from their political elites.

By embracing identity and its prickly, uncomfortable contours, Abrams wrote, Americans will become more likely to grow as one.

The critics of identity politics have another complaint: that its hold on the Democratic Party can only lead to electoral perdition. Abrams, as inspirational as many find her, did lose the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race. Maybe identity politics can be defended theoretically but in practice alienates too many people to be put in practice.

Its possible to challenge the specifics of these arguments. Abrams didnt win, but it was a very tight loss in a historically red state (in fact, 2018 was the closest Georgia gubernatorial election in the state in more than 50 years). And you can point to many examples that go in the other direction at the local, state, and national levels.

But it would be myopic to tie ourselves up in these near-term (and frankly inconclusive) tactical arguments. We have a broader crisis to worry about.

Debating the interests of the Democratic Party confines the imagination; rising illiberalism in the United States is a deeper problem than the Trump presidency. To reckon with it, we need to take a longer view, looking at the beliefs and sources of activist energy that define the contours of whats possible in American electoral politics.

Since World War II, liberalism and its core beliefs about rights and freedom have served as something like the operating system for democratic politics. But in recent years, this consensus has come under severe stress. Elite failures and global catastrophes particularly the one-two punch of the financial and refugee crises have caused Western publics to lose faith in the liberal orders guardians. Illiberal right-wing populism has emerged as a potent alternative model. The Wests fundamental commitment to liberalism is coming into question.

Liberals are in the midst of war and in it, giving up identity politics amounts to a kind of unilateral disarmament. Todays political contests, in both the United States and Europe, are increasingly defined by conflict surrounding demographic change and the erosion of traditional social hierarchies. These are the central issues in our politics, the ones that most powerfully motivate people to vote and join political organizations.

The anti-liberal side has pegged its vision almost entirely to backlash politics, to rolling back the gains made by ethnic and racial minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community. The challenge for liberals is not primarily winning over voters who find that regressive vision appealing; no modern liberal party can be as authentically bigoted as a far-right one. At the same time, liberals should not write off entire heterogeneous demographic blocs like the white working class as unpersuadable. Instead, the main task of liberal politics should be mobilizing those from all backgrounds who oppose the far-rights vision knitting together in common cause a staggeringly diverse array of people with very different experiences.

The 2017 Womens March is a concrete example of how identity politics can help in this struggle.

The march was billed, at the time, as both an expression of feminist rage and the major anti-Trump action the weekend of the inauguration. Some liberal identity skeptics fretted that these goals were antithetical; that the particularism of the events feminist rhetoric would end up dividing the anti-Trump coalition.

I think many men assume the Womens March is supposed to be women-only, which is why it was a bad name for the main anti-Trump march, New York magazines Jonathan Chait wrote. There are many grounds on which to object to Trump. Feminism is one. I think [the] goal should be to get all of them together.

Chaits concerns were clearly unfounded. The 2017 Womens March was by some estimates the largest single day of protest in US history, with somewhere in the range of 3 million to 5 million people attending the various marches nationwide. Feminism, far from being a divisive theme, served to mobilize large numbers of people to get out and demonstrate against Americas illiberal turn.

But what happened next is particularly interesting: The experience of attending Womens Marches seems to have galvanized a significant number of people overwhelmingly women to engage in sustained activism for both gender equality and the defense of liberalism more broadly.

In the years following the 2017 demonstrations, Harvard researchers Leah Gose and Theda Skocpol conducted extensive fieldwork among anti-Trump activists. They found that the march helped mobilize many new activists the bulk of whom were middle-class, educated white women in their 50s or older. Following the marches, they found, clusters of women in thousands of communities across America carried on with forming local groups to sustain anti-Trump activism.

The Womens March seems to have played a crucial role in turning these women into activists who not only opposed Trump but aimed to defend liberalisms promise of equal freedom. Activists interviewed by Gose and Skocpol frequently cited a concern for the health of American democracy as a reason for their engagement. Despite being heavily white, they also worked on issues that are of particular concern to racial minorities organizing against (for example) the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and child separation.

As before throughout American history, Gose and Skocpol write, womens civic activism may revitalize democratic engagement and promote a new birth of responsive government in communities across the land.

In a recent working paper, political scientist Jonathan Pinckney took a close look at the impact of the Womens March on three metrics: increase of size in Democratic-aligned activist groups, ideology of Democratic members of Congress, and the share of the Democratic vote in 2018. He found that areas with larger attendance at the 2017 marches later saw significantly increased movement activity, left-ward shifts in congressional voting scores, and a greater swing to the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.

The Womens March itself seems to have largely petered out, succumbing to fatigue and leadership infighting. But its true legacy will be the activist networks it helped create, ones that contributed to sustained and impactful challenges to an illiberal presidency.

This kind of thing is what, in the long run, liberalism needs: a way to make its defense fresh and exciting, mobilizing specific groups toward the collective task of defeating the far right. Doing so will require meeting people where they are, engaging them on the identity issues that matter deeply and profoundly. Knitting this latent energy into a durable and electorally viable coalition will be the work of a generation, but its hard to see how American liberalism can get off its heels without trying.

Its true, of course, that the interests of members of marginalized groups are not always aligned, and that such groups also contain a lot of internal disagreements and diversity. There are always hard questions regarding building coalitions. Should Sanders have denounced Joe Rogans endorsement? Is former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigiegs dubious record on race and policing disqualifying? These are important questions, and there will be more like them. They will lead to more fights among liberals and the broader left.

But political factions of all ideologies have to make tough judgment calls when it comes time to engage in electoral politics, and theres nothing about identity politics that makes it uniquely poorly suited to the task.

While the politics of difference is attuned to the specific experiences of social groups, it also contains a universalizing impulse: a sense that all structural injustices stemming from racism, sexism, class structure, or whatever are to be opposed. Theres a core commitment to solidarity, to not only listening to the members of other groups but seeing their struggle as linked to your own.

Having to be accountable to people from diverse social positions with different needs, interests, and experience helps transform discourse from self-regard to appeals to justice, Young writes in Inclusion and Democracy.

An anti-oppression framework gives people a moral language for articulating their disagreements and perspectives, for constructing a sense of unity and shared purpose out of difference. That were having these conversations at all, and are agonizing over what exactly our liberalism should look like, is all to the good because rebuilding liberalism around anti-oppression values, no matter how difficult it might seem in the moment, is its best hope for an enduring revival.

If all of this is right, and liberalism needs identity politics not just to survive but to succeed, then an obvious question looms: How can it be adapted to take issues of identity more seriously? What might the ideals and aspirations of an identity-focused liberalism be, and how might it imagine making them possible?

One good place to start is the work of CUNY philosopher Charles Mills. Millss most famous book, The Racial Contract (1997), is a fundamental critique of the Enlightenment political tradition, arguing that racist attitudes expressed by philosophical giants like Immanuel Kant are not some alien parasite on their theories, but vital to their intellectual enterprises.

Its the kind of thoroughgoing dissection you might expect from a socialist or black nationalist, someone willing to scrap liberalism altogether. Yet at the end of his most recent book, Black Rights/White Wrongs, Mills explains that his project is not aimed at supplanting liberalism but rather rescuing it by developing what he calls black radical liberalism.

Central to black radical liberalism is the idea of corrective justice: the notion that liberalism as it has been practiced historically has fallen badly short of its highest ideals of guaranteeing equal freedom, and that the task of modern liberalism ought to be rectifying the racial inequalities of its past incarnations.

Millss approach is refreshing because it moves beyond the strange conservatism in so much liberal writing today. His work is not an uncritical valorization of the Enlightenment nor a paean to dead white thinkers; it does not aim to Make Liberalism Great Again. It is instead a harshly critical account of liberalisms history that nonetheless aims to advance liberalisms core values and secure its greatest accomplishments.

The animating force of identity politics, what gives it such extraordinary power to mobilize, is deep wells of outrage at structural injustice. Millions of people see the cruelties of the Trump administration its detention of migrant children in camps, the Muslim ban, the plan to define transgender people out of existence by executive fiat, the presidents description of Charlottesville neo-Nazis as very fine people and want to do something.

Todays liberals often focus their arguments on bloodless abstractions like democratic norms and the liberal international order. I dont deny that these things are important; Ive written in their defense myself.

But people arent angry about norm erosion in the way they are about, say, state-sanctioned mistreatment of migrant kids. By making identity politics something not outside of liberalism but at the center of it, liberals can enlist the energies of identity to the defense of liberalism itself.

Doing that successfully requires a level of Millsian radicalism. While this sort of identity liberalism would not reject the accomplishments of the past, it requires admitting their insufficiency. It means accepting that liberalism is a doctrine that has failed in key ways, and that repairing its errors requires centering the interests of the groups that have been most wronged. It means appealing to the specificity of group experiences, while also emphasizing their shared interests in the twinned fights against oppression and for liberal democracy.

This approach will require compromises from some mainstream liberals, who will need to start welcoming in people and ideas they might not like. Theyll need to get over squeamishness about student activists and their pain regarding political correctness, to recognize that their vision of balancing competing political interests wont always win out. Thats not to say they cant argue for their ideas; this type of liberal can and should be entitled to make the case for more cautious political approaches. But liberals need to stop trying to play gatekeeper, to banish ideas like intersectionality to the illiberal wilds.

Because the practitioners of identity politics are not illiberal. They are, in fact, some of the best friends liberalism has today. The sooner liberals acknowledge that, the closer we will be to a liberal revival.

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Identity politics in the Democratic Party isnt hurting liberalism. Its saving it. - Vox.com

After recent reaction to protests in support of the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs, a reader suggested I re-run a column from June 4, 2015: in the Chilliwack Times. The message is indeed just as apt today as it was then. Edited for length:

Oh no, here we go, muttered the person blind to the colonial history of Canada now that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has issued its report on the dark past of residential schools in Canada.

Why wont those Indians just put the past behind them, get a job, and start contributing to society?

That is what he said to me.

There are certain subjects usually left alone by those who should know better.

That was the past, get over it.

These are not the opinions of some bygone era. These are attitudes held by some people here and now. Present and but a scratch below a thin layer of politeness that covers our daily discourse.

Why wont those Indians just put the past behind them, get a job, and start contributing to society?

I write it again, because this it struck me as amazing. I was chatting someone who should know better. An educated, successful member of Chilliwack society.

He used the term Indians, even. No, he wasnt talking about people from India. I asked. When talking about our local Sto:lo population he said he prefers Indian over native or aboriginal.

And dont even start him on the term First Nations.

Dont talk about Indians to this guy, he joked as others joined us in the public setting where our conversation took place. Laughs.

Apparently, Ive learned, it is political correctness run amok when people suggest an objectively inaccurate term is just weird to use.

You know where India is, right? I asked.

No comment.

OK, then, you do know the Indians in this country have endured an attempted cultural genocide, right?

Get over it, was the response.

Today many local Sto:lo folks are likely grappling with Justice Murray Sinclairs report, its 94 recommendations, something that invariably will dig up the terrible wounds of what was endured at residential schools by parents grandparents and great-grandparents.

The ignorance and hatred that led to a cultural genocide, a government-church led systematic killing the Indian in the child is done. Its gone from our churches. Its gone from our cultural institutions. Its gone from our government.

But the sentiment remains, if below the surface for some, that Indigenous people should just snub out the last remnants of that language, drop the cultural practices, forget the drumming and the hunting and the fishing and the rest of it, and just be more like us.

Why cant you be more like us?

There is, among us mostly white settlers, a belligerent sense of entitlement, but even more so a disregard for any expression of culture from those who were here before us.

Political correctness is a false label for what is simply correctness.

The guy I was talking to says the term First Nations is politically correct crap and he refuses to use it. Fine, but it also just happens to be correct. These nations of people were here first.

Its really time to get our settler heads out of the sand, acknowledge the truth that some our ancestors took part in, or at least acquiesced to, very bad treatment of Indigenous people. We do need to reconcile. This doesnt meant saying we are sorry you are upset. This means more, and individuals like the one quoted above need to learn some history. Learn how children were stolen from their parents as government policy.

Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group

This is big stuff, and its been buried for too long. What we should not do is let the ignorance of the be more like us sentiment carry on.

Those today who are blind to history and what went on with the Indian School Act need to open their eyes.

READ MORE: Sto:lo protest in support of Wetsuweten shuts down busiest intersection in Chilliwack

READ MORE: Federal minister pledges to meet Wetsuweten chiefs in B.C. over natural gas pipeline

Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: paul.henderson@theprogress.com

racism

Grand Chief Steven Point, former lieutenant governor of B.C. marches with protesters along Knight Road in Chilliwack on Feb. 14, 2020 on Sto:lo day of action in support of Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs. (Paul Henderson/ The Progress)

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COLUMN: Trying to look forward while looking back - Chilliwack Progress

"The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties," Simon & Schuster, by Christopher Caldwell

This is a sweeping but insightful examination into every social, political and legal decision, movement and trend that leaves us where we are today in a polarized nation.

Author Christopher Caldwell traces the origins of today's deep discords to President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Grief that shrouded the nation after Kennedy's assassination, Caldwell writes, "gave a tremendous impetus to changes already under way." Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sworn into office after Kennedy's death, was able to push through far more ambitious civil rights legislation in 1964 than Kennedy would have been able to do. Most significantly, in the author's telling, the Civil Rights Act, and social movements that followed, were accelerated and empowered more through court decisions and government agencies than decisions by elected officials.

Although the Civil Rights Act was designed principally to ban employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, Caldwell presents a persuasive case that it provided the legal, social and cultural guidepost for advancing almost every movement since gay rights, immigration, affirmative action, fundamentalist Christianity, leveraged buyouts, political correctness, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and much more.

The citizen's band radio craze, leveraged buyouts and political correctness Caldwell fits all these topics and more into an engaging, questioning book that proceeds at almost dizzying speed. A reader feels like he has but a moment to think when Caldwell writes that "to establish new liberties is to extinguish others" before speeding off to the next topic. "Entitlement" is a fascinating read that could ignite 1,000 conversations.

Ironically, it's hard to imagine Congress passing anything today remotely as revolutionary as the Civil Rights Act. Giving our sharpening political, social and economic divisions, Congress has trouble reaching a consensus on anything. The transformational legislation that was finally to give us all an equal chance at everything ended up herding us into warring tribes agreeing on nothing.

Caldwell's analysis of our Vietnam legacy is particularly masterful but the book brims with brisk evaluations of how a confident nation became an argumentative, fragmented one.

Civil rights divided the country by region, Caldwell writes; Vietnam did the same by class.

Perhaps because he was writing as his book's natural finale crashed into the arena Donald Trump's election Caldwell is less sure-footed in a grand conclusion. What does all this mean? Where are we? Where do we go to reconnect with our better angels?

Those answers await us still.

No question though that this is a significant rendering of how America evolved since the "me generation" asserted itself in the 1960s. Caldwell offers the best analysis and theory yet as to how we perhaps unwittingly arrived at a place where we would elect a president bent on unraveling our institutions, assumptions and beliefs about ourselves and where we no longer even start with a set of accepted facts about anything.

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Review: `The Age of Entitlement' is a fascinating read - The Oakland Press

Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience(via YouTube)

Joe Rogan hosts one of the most successful podcasts in the country. On it, he talks about his passions for comedy and mixed martial arts, and about conspiracy theories. He also talks about male self-improvement and self-experimentation. Working out, doing drugs, fasting, meditation, sensory deprivation, etc., etc. Hes the kind of guy in Hollywood who will debate religion with Milo Yiannopolis in one episode, talk comedy with Dave Foley in the next, and then hell schedule Edward Snowden to come on.

He also recently gave a Roganesque endorsement for Bernie Sanders. And progressives are mad about it.

Why? Because Joe Rogan, like other comedians, rails against political correctness. He also makes jokes about transgenderism, opposes the participation of trans women in womens sports, and has entertained and ventured the usual arguments about bone density, lung capacity, and strength when arguing for the unfairness of this practice.

Personally, I think progressives are nuts to reject endorsements for the most progressive candidate in history from generally centrist and enormously popular media figures. I would bet anything that Rogans audience is full of the Obama-Trump voters across the industrial Midwest and north.

But, maybe I dont think like a progressive. Perhaps rejections like this reflect a serene confidence that progressives dont need political power to continue consolidating culture-war wins. Four more years of President Trump just means a few more executive orders to overturn. Meanwhile, taking a hard line encourages corporations, universities, and entertainment to enforce the newer cultural norms.

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On Joe Rogans Unwanted Endorsement of Bernie Sanders - National Review

My time as a Westfield Town Councilman has now passed. It was a privilege to serve Westfield in this role these past 12 years. And I am humbled more than you will ever know by your overwhelming support and trust to place me in office way back in 2008 and then honoring me by re-electing for two more terms.

There are far too many individuals that I would personally like to thank, but here I would like to thank my very special wife Lori and my incredible kids, Christopher and Carli, for their support of me in this role these past many years. Lori and I have been in town since 1994 and I know you will agree, we were so fortunate to live and bring up our kids here.

As you have heard me say many times before, when towns across the land have a vision for their town, that vision is Westfield. Westfield will remain that vision if town leadership, like during my tenure, continue to put the town first and foremost and more importantly keep political correctness and partisan politics at the doorstep.

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We need to look no further than Washington DC, where political correctness and partisan politics are rampant, to see that a swamp is no foundation for a good government.Again, I thank you all and I look forward to seeing you around town.

Most Sincerely,Frank ArenaWestfield, NJ

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Letter: Serving on the Westfield Council Was a Privilege - TAPinto.net

A Florida Parents Bill of Rights bill was overwhelmingly endorsed by the House Education Committee Thursday, securing its first advance of the 2020 session.

But the measures adoption is uncertain, with an array of education, LBGTQ and healthcare groups marshaling to oppose a bill they say would impose arch-conservative values in schools.

House Bill 1059, filed by Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, breezed through the House Education Committee in a 15-2 vote.

It comes down to philosophy: Do parents know best or does government know best? chair Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, R-Eustis, summarized. The bill does not go to extremes it protects rights of parents, involves them in education to see what their children are learning, but does not supersede what school boards are doing.

The bill moves onto the House Health & Human Services and Judiciary committees.

Grall filed the same bill last year. It passed the Education Committee, 17-0, and Health & Human Services Committee, 12-4, before dying in the Judiciary Committee.

This year, the bill has a Senate companion, Senate Bill 1634, filed by Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. It awaits hearings before the Senate Education, Judiciary and Rules committees.

Grall and Stargel also sponsored the parental consent abortion bills already advanced onto chamber floors.

HB 1059 would encode in state statute parental rights to direct the education and care of a child; direct the upbringing and moral or religious training of a minor child; enroll a child in whatever schools they choose; and review all school, medical records, among other provisions.

Proponents said the bill is needed for parents in dealing with school boards.

There are so many programs being introduced into school districts that parents are not aware of, that are extremely upsetting to parents, said Bev Kilmer, CEO of the Freedom Speaks Coalition.

Kilmer said very inappropriate sex education is being taught to preK-5 children, including gender identity in which students are told they may not be what they appear to be and that they were assigned a gender identity.

Alicia Vernon of Florida Citizens Alliance said special interests and bureaucrats are running the school system with very alarming objectives to replace God with government and replace the 10 Commandments with political correctness.

Although few opponents spoke, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, Florida NOW, the Florida League of Women Voters, Equality Florida and others have filed objections and are certain to lobby against it.

What supporters are really against is acknowledging gay people exist, acknowledging trans people exist, that trans kids exist, Florida NOW Legislative Director Melina Rayna Svanhild Farley-Barratt said.

Rep. Delores Hogan Johnson, D-Fort Pierce, called the measure a wake-up call for schools boards, but wondered if it is too broad.

Rep. Susan Valds, D-Tampa, said the bill is well-intended but steps over boundaries.

School boards have ways and policies to address these issues, she said. It feels like were doing school board work here.

Grall said it is necessary to ensure in state statute an accessible way for parents to understand their rights. Right now, the bureaucracy wears them down through layers of closed doors, unanswered phone calls, not getting the right answer.

Valds joined Orlando Democrat Rep. Bruce Antone in casting the dissenting votes. The panels four other Democrats approved the measure.

I am real passionate about this. I dont want the government telling me how to raise my children, Rep. Kim Daniels, D-Jacksonville, said.

I think you have a wonderful bill, said Rep. Dr. James Bush III, D-Opa Locka. I will be with your bill today, with your bill tomorrow and with it next year if thats what it takes.

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Florida 'Parents' Bill of Rights' bill breezes past first hearing - The Apopka Voice

On Friday evening, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was the featured guest on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher.

During the segment, Kelly and host Bill Maher covered multiple topics, including sexual harassment at Fox, how the media is broken, honesty in reporting, and cancel culture.

Regarding the movie Bombshell, which depicted the alleged sexual harassment faced by female Fox News employees under late CEO Roger Ailes, Kelly said the she sees the film as a force for good because it helps shine a light on how its done, and how women who may not be that well connected like herself and Gretchen Carlson, faced the same issue.

Maher interjected: You had that in common. You both had to twirl for Roger Ailes.

Kelly explained that the twirl, as well as worse things that happened to her, arent necessarily about the acts themselves, but about being demeaned and controlled.

Maher moved on to media, asking Kelly what she means when she says that the media is broken.

Kelly replied:

You know its true, right? The media is so messed up. Its disheartening to me, and Ive felt this way for a long time not just since Trump. And I know Trumps rhetoric is too strong enemy of the people and all that, and I know why he says it. There [are] still amazing journalists out there doing great work, but the media is completely biased.

At this point, Maher tried to claim that the media isnt really politically biased because Fox News exists, to which Kelly noted that the reason Fox grew in popularity was because it was the singular outlet that represented the other side of the coin.

Maher then claimed that the media is truly biased toward money and conflict because thats what sells. He then cited the alleged disappointment he saw in the media when the recent Second Amendment rally in Virginia turned out to be peaceful.

Thats what I think the media bias is, more than politics, Maher said.

Kelly shot back, saying that even though she believes that there was a liberal slant in the media prior to President Trump, it has developed into something much greater since he took office:

Take CNN he came in there and said, CNN is completely biased to the left, theyre lefties, theyre completely against me, and my take on it was in the beginning, he was wrong. CNN wasnt that way. I used to watch CNN all the time when I was at Fox. When I was getting ready for the Kelly File, Id have on CNN, and Id watch a lot of their shows, and I liked a lot of the anchors over there.

However, suggested Kelly, CNN has now become the thing Trump said they were, and are indistinguishable from MSNBC.

Maher pushed back, saying its very hard to cover a guy like Trump who does awful things. Kelly agreed, but then Maher added that such coverage would make anchors or networks look left-wing.

Kelly disagreed, telling Maher that one can remain journalistically non-biased even in the face of a difficult president:

I totally disagree with you. When I was doing The Kelly File at primetime 9 p.m. on Fox News, he was attacking me for nine months straight, right? Saying outrageous things. It took everything in me to go out on the set night after night and not make it personal, and not have a vendetta against him, and not be overly harsh on him because of what he was doing to me and my family but I did it. Its doable. You just have to remember, its not about you! Its about the audience and the truth.

Later in the segment, the two spoke about political correctness and cancel culture.

I was angry for you, honestly, Maher said of NBC firing Kelly after her comments about blackface. Because this cancel culture its so funny, when they do polls, they find like 80% to 90% of the people in this county hate this s***.

Maher asked: Who are these perfect people who have never made any mistake?

Kelly replied:

I mean, my own take on it is, the countrys going through something right now, you know? Marginalized groups are rising up and trying to find positions at the table, equal positions, and thats a good thing. The difference is in approach. How do we do it? And I understand this fight because as a woman and somebody whos, you know, been in the position I was in that we talked about, I have also felt marginalized at times, and like I dont have an equal footing, but the question is, do we do it with grace and humanity and understanding that people make mistakes and that were all imperfect and were gonna screw up and kindness and an understanding that were all only here for a limited time and we cant expect a perfect score?

Whats galling is that the people who hate bullying are always bullying, Maher said. If you even talk about this, itll only make it worse. Thats bullying. The people who love diversity, except of opinion. Theres only one true opinion.

Kelly noted that the Right has been saying the same thing about ideological diversity, to which Maher said that the Right engages in the snowflakery as well.

Speaking of the woke group, Maher stated: Theyre gross because all they care about is getting a scalp on the wall. They dont care if youre really a racist, which youre not. They dont care about a million things and they always want to find the worst version of what any person is.

Kelly agreed, adding that the way it used to be was younger generations taught older generations to see the world in a new way instead of having the older generations cancelled because they didnt immediately agree or start talking about the issues in the way they wanted.

We have to get back to talking to each other so theres buy-in, so people feel heard, and we allow for disagreement, respectful, kindness, Kelly concluded.

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WATCH: Megyn Kelly Talks Intense 'Media Bias' And 'Cancel Culture' On Bill Maher - The Daily Wire

An acquaintance recently emailed me, in a sense of bewilderment after following the national news for the past few weeks, and his questions prompted me to write these down. With his permission I present some of them, edited for clarity and PG-13 audiences.

He hopes that when Trump is re-elected to a second term that the liars in the national mainstream media will be fully exposed, and how things work (i.e. the coordination between the national mainstream media and the Democrat Party) will be revealed to the American public.

I raise the point that a faction of the Democrat Party has wrested control of much of the national mainstream media and academia over a long period of time, and has no willingness to allow exposure of their dishonesty.

He posits, How is it that they are so coordinated with each other that they often utter the same exact talking point phrase du jour.

They do this because they are lazy, and invested in propagating the lies that keep them in power. Another more worldly friend suggested to me that for those who espouse such virtue-signaling tripe as collective salvation the secular humanist placebo to supplant Christian teachings for them to admit that they know what they say is bunk would collapse their entire worldview, as happened finally in the old Soviet Union.

How protected do they think they (the national mainstream media liars) are that they seemingly feel nothing is wrong with such brazen coordination in pushing biased narratives? Who is protecting and directing them? Likely the answer to the second answers the first, and it probably is some of both it is the party and the media CEOs. Examine the record of CNN and MSNBC as quick samples.

How can they always line up on the same wrong side of stories? And yes, they double down when called out for their inaccuracy or bias. Even when fighting among themselves to wit, CNNs reporter asks Sen. Bernie Sanders if he told Sen. Elizabeth Warren (some years ago, in a private conversation) that a woman cannot win the presidency? He answers, No I never said that.

The CNN reporter then turns to Sen. Warren and in a perfect example of bias and dishonesty, asks her, Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?

The CNN journalist was perfectly comfortable using the loaded question format of So when did you stop beating your wife? on old Bernie Sanders, by ignoring his answer and changing it to pose the opposite as fact to Sen. Warren. Brazen doesnt even come close to describing this.

It must be understood that there are very wealthy people and organizations, both here and abroad, who revel in creating this sort of societal chaos. Some for supposedly idealistic rationales, though the overarching attitude is we know better, you will agree to let us run everything or well shame you, publicly defame you, antagonize your businesses or organizations , all with the treacle glaze of some save-the-country/savethe-planet as justification.

No, it isnt a conspiracy theory, just look at the things we have endured in this country in the past few years all because one faction has come to believe they are somehow morally superior or socially justified in refusing to accept that they lost an election, and continue to lose the support of many Americans. They openly use the term by any means necessary to reverse the results of 2016.

What do you call it when in a representative republic one political faction determines that they will refuse to acknowledge they have lost an election, and acts to undermine the duly elected candidate and party? Is it a civil society or not?

What do you call it when the same faction begins to push for the destruction of the entire voting system in order to win all elections in the future? For reference see the Democrats push to eliminate the Electoral College, force ranked choice voting into the states, eliminate voter ID laws which prevent voter fraud, allow illegal aliens to vote, and yes, even have 16-year-olds to vote.

What do you call it when a Bernie Sanders field worker advocates openly for gulags to re-educate Trump voters? This does not sound like acceptance of a representative republic to me; it reflects a desire for totalitarian control and abusive punishment.

Listening to the ignorance of this fellow in the recently revealed video is truly stunning his stupidity is remarkable, describing how gulags under Stalin really werent that bad . . . they got paid a living wage and had conjugal visits . . .. He probably thinks Solzhenitsyn is vodka. A millennial of course, and frankly I have no tolerance for ignorance of any age group, but in particular these self-righteous snowflakes.

What do you call it when another Bernie Sanders campaign worker attempts to assassinate Republican senators and congressmen at a baseball game? Is this tolerance and diversity, or an attempt to start a civil war?

What do you call it when the same party organizes and funds a campaign of smears and framing of opposition campaign officials in order to manipulate the willingly corrupt FBI and Justice Department into illegally eavesdropping on their, and other, communications? Is this a minor mistake by underlings?

What do you call it when the national mainstream media covers for the same partys involvement in numerous fraudulent stories about the president for three plus years?

When there is a blackout, looters loot. In 2019 weve had a national mainstream media controlled blackout on the truth, and the country is being looted our treasury, our sovereignty, our identity, our history all under the threat of being forever erased by propagandists and their protective force field of political correctness.

Freedom of the press is crucial to Americas existence, but it should not be interpreted as freedom from scrutiny. When the scrutinizers become mere stenographers (i.e. the national mainstream media and the Democrat Party) then it is high time to upend this system and examine who is controlling the narratives. Full disclosure. I was a Democrat voter for 30 years.

Another View is a weekly column written collaboratively by Dale Landrith of Camden, Ken Frederic of Bristol, Paul Ackerman of Martinsville, Jan Dolcater of Rockport and Ralph Doc Wallace of Rockport.

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What do you call it when - Lewiston Sun Journal