Tuesday, October 06, 2015

None of our heroes are safe from the SJWs


Author of new James Bond novel Trigger Mortis reveals all the sexism was edited out of the famous spy novel because his wife was ‘quite angry about it’
Horowitz was a strange choice to write a new Bond novel. His TV series Foyle’s War is one long campaign to “demystify” and diminish the men and women who fought the Nazi’s and gave Britain her Finest Hour.

Over the course of the series, he betrays a collection of sympathies that are peculiar, even perverse. In Foyle’s War the Americans are the bad guys more often than they are valuable allies. British leaders are craven, cruel, and deceitful. Leftists are sympathetic even (especially?) when they are communists.

In short, Horowitz appears to yearn for the Popular Front days that created the sowed the seeds for the Cambridge traitors. He and his wife seem like the sort of people who make excuses for Anthony Blunt and take pity on “poor old Guy Burgess’. (There are quite few of these types in the British media).

Horowitz probably thinks he is on the side of the angels in his reworking of the Bond image. (Or maybe he just is deathly afraid of the SJWs who run his little world.)

We might not want an updated ‘modern’ Bond, but the author will damn sure give us one. Realism! Science! Magic History Fairy!

What we are witnessing is the SJW version of the old Hollywood Production Code. The Bad Old Code said that sex outside of marriage must not be glamorized and that criminals must come to a bad end. The Great New SJW Code says that “sexist” men must not be presented as attractive to women or as self-confident heroes.

Once again, we see that the totalitarian streak in SJWs. When it comes to rules, the only thing that matters to them is “Who, Whom”.

Friday, October 02, 2015

Even more on point now


From Mickey Kaus back in January:

Give Brats a Chance

Journalists love to publicly complain about the influence of money in politics — it’s one of those safe causes that doesn’t compromise your objectivity. But when it comes time to campaign, journalists do the donors’ dirty work for them by refusing to cover candidates who aren’t backed by lots of money. Those candidates are deemed “non-viable” oddities and not worth telling voters about.

There’s no excuse for this: 1) It’s a self-fulfilling prediction. Of course fringe or underfunded candidates won’t be ‘viable’ if they can’t get press (“free media”) to catch the voters’ attention; 2) Even if long-shot candidates stay on the fringe, covering them would have entertainment value. Newspapers cover obscure TV stars these days. Political candidates are often — I’d say, usually — more colorful than actors. The premature winnowing by self-satisfied journalistic pros drains democracy of much of its exuberance, presenting voters with a sharply limited array of options. No wonder they feel alienated. Then the pros scold them for low turnout.

Thursday, October 01, 2015

A new,old Cold War mystery


Who was Rupert?

Never Trust a Checkist

Meticulous counterintelligence work, including rummaging through archives, reviewing yellowed case files, and interviewing the elderly, slowly revealed the identity of “Rupert.”

He was a prominent American who indeed did serve in U.S. Army intelligence in the Pacific during World War Two, achieving field-grade rank. And he was indoctrinated for a wide range of SIGINT secrets. U.S. intelligence files never hinted that he was a traitor, but he had been a hardline Communist before the war, though never an actual party member (often Soviet spies were told to steer clear of the Community Party, which was closely watched by the FBI).

After the war, however, “Rupert” had a change of heart and transformed into a Cold War liberal with anti-Communist views. His Bolshevism was a youthful indiscretion, and by the 1950s he was part of Washington, DC power circles and a friend to presidents, none of whom had any inkling of his secret past. .
I respect Schindler for keeping secret the results of confidential investigations.

OTOH, if "Rupert" was influential in DC in the 1950s, his dabbling in Communism and his brush with KGB spies  is, potentially, an important part of history.