Mediaboss Marketing

In his recent article, Oliver Kamm made a link between supporters of Brexit and the increasing number of lockdown sceptics, who are cropping up in the comment pages and broadcast studios to attack the governments infringements of their liberty. The extraordinarily close crossover between Brexiters and opponents of public-health shows up, Kamm says, in an inherent suspicion of expertise.

Many obvious figures fall into this category: Nigel Farage, Daniel Hannan and crackpot conspiracists such as Piers Corbyn and David Icke. The latter two are in this argument irrelevant; both base their esoteric ideas on the notion that the state created coronavirus. Farage and his coterie on the other hand, while prone to spouting conspiracies, see the lockdown as a chance to stoke the culture wars that have engulfed America and threaten to divide Britain.

The establishment, as they see it, is the voice of the government and its scientific advisors. Therefore the establishment must be challenged, and that means all lockdown measures are attacked. Their opinion is not derived from questions of liberty, or from a horror at the lives ruined by the economic consequences of lockdown. It is merely another way of extending the anti-establishment contest, which was set off in the Brexit debate.

Unfortunately, Kamm and those who find themselves backing the lockdown groupthink as well, form the flip side of this unhappy contest. The odious Faragists are so prevalent that all lockdown sceptics are smeared with the same invective. To oppose the lockdown is to express an anti-public health sentiment. To hold such a view it to ignore the experts and to leave the old to fend for themselves.But the idea that in opposing the Prime ministers edicts I was hastening their end cannot be substantiated.

This idea, that the matter of opinion in this lockdown is merely one of lives versus the economy or vice versa is profoundly damaging, and derails any chance of serious debate. Consider the tens of thousands whose lives will be shortened by delayed cancer treatments, missed GPs appointments, and the families of those people who died, having been discouraged from attending A&E departments. Should we chastise those who oppose the measures which brought these tragedies about as being ideologues who fail to recognise the truth, and who are guilty of intellectual obscurantism? Fallaciously told that there was a binary choice between saving lives and keeping jobs, it is no surprise that the majority of the country have stuck firmly to the first offering.

As winter approaches and Hancock and Co. show little sign of letting up on their new programme of provincial immiseration by stages, the two sides of the culture war are reemerging in the form of this new division. Pitted on the one side are the fanatics who supported Brexit, and on the other are the Remoaners, who support the lockdown consensus of Johnson and No10. This factionalism can only damage the argument, and take it away from the real point which is that lives are at risk.

Mr Kamm will no doubt be aware of Christopher Hitchenss saying that, The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. I may be unsettled to be holding the same opinion as Toby Young and Peter Hitchens on anything, but I would also hope that such a coincidence should never bar me from holding an opinion. Fervent Remainer I may be, but Brexit has little to do with our present woes. I do not have an innate suspicion of experts in any field, but I know that to tackle this virus and save lives it takes far more than the advice of epidemiologists alone. I happen to agree with Dr. Sunetra Gupta and thousands of others who have challenged the accepted narrative. I happen to think that continuing with much of the measures we are under will cut down many more years of life than coronavirus ever did, and that much of the damage is yet to be done.

To be such a lockdown sceptic does not require a hatred of expertise or a right-wing ideology, and or any particular identity at all. When arguments start to forget the real points and descend into the stock phrases to which we have become so accustomed herd immunity, exponential growth, let the virus rip then we know that new, more treacherous ground has been reached. This path leads down into the quagmire of identity, and of culture war where all those who disagree are thrown onto the same ignominious heap.

Read more:
On lockdown and Brexit: a response to Oliver Kamm - TheArticle

The chants come after the FBI foiled a plan from a group of men who plotted to kidnap the governor.

NORTON SHORES, Mich. President Donald Trump visited Muskegon County Saturday in a push to rally Michigan voters with just a few weeks left until the election. The rally was held by FlyBy Air at the Muskegon County Airport in Norton Shores.

Twice at the rally, the president referenced Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the crowd responded by chanting lock her up. While originating during the 2016 campaign cycle, these chants are especially pointed since federal officials recently announced the governor was the target of a kidnapping plot.

You got to get your governor to open up your state, he said to the first round of lock her up chants. And get your schools open. The schools have to be open. Most of Michigans restrictions have been relaxed, and schools can be open for in-person, hybrid or remote learning.

The president then referenced the kidnapping plot: I guess they said she was threatened, and she blamed me.

The FBI foiled a plan to kidnap the governor, storm the Michigan Capitol and instigate a civil war. Fourteen men are charged in these plots. Several members of the group talked about murdering tyrants or taking a sitting governor, a criminal complaint said.

Eight of the men are facing state charges related to terrorism, and six others are facing federal charges.

Whitmer has said Trumps rhetoric is dangerous. In April, he tweeted LIBERATE MICHIGAN, encouraging protesters who were upset with COVID-19 restrictions. While Trump was still speaking, Whitmer retweeted a clip of the crowd chanting lock her up, saying this is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop.

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, a Republican who attended the rally, denounced the chants Saturday night in a tweet.

"Trump didn't chant 'lock her up' about our governor. But others did and it was wrong. She was literally just targeted. Let's debate differences. Let's win elections. But not that," he said.

The president spoke for about 90 minutes, using the stage to talk about some of his administrations accomplishments from the past four years, culture wars topics and a few mentions of Michigan.

Trump also mentioned the Friday decision by the Michigan appeals court to block a 14-day extension to accept and count absentee ballots. State law says that ballots need to be received by election day to be counted, but Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for an extension because of a record number of people voting by mail this year.

We just won a huge victory for voting rights in Michigan, Trump said.

A couple thousand people attended the rally, which is only the fourth time a sitting president has visited Muskegon County.

Julie Dagen, who is from Ravenna in Muskegon County, said she has never attended a political rally before Saturdays but believes this election is extra important. Living in the area, she said it means a lot for the president to visit Muskegon County.

This is a working-class community and there used to be a lot of industry here, and he has brought back industry, Dagen said.

Kari Hibbard, who attended the rally with her family, thinks that Trump will win Michigan again, after eking out a victory in 2016 with less than 11,000 votes. Hibbird is from Norton Shores, where Muskegon County Airport is located.

Its a small, little city and it just feels very honoring that our president chose to be here to come and talk about police too, she said. Hibbard said her husband works in law enforcement.

At Heritage Landing, a Democratic event was held at 4 p.m. to counter Trumps rally. Muskegon County Democratic Party Chair Jennifer Barnes said earlier this week, they planned the event one hour before the presidents rally because they want to keep momentum going.

"I thought it was important to show the contrast, that Democrats are a force here in Michigan as well," said Julie Bratton.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Muskegon County by a thin margin of 1,177 votesmaking it one of only two counties in West Michigan to vote Democratic. Before that, Muskegon County had a solid track record of voting blue, with President Barack Obama getting 59% of the vote in 2012, and 65% in 2008.

Both Trump and Biden have put Michigan in their sights. Biden stopped in Grand Rapids two weeks ago and held events on the east side of the state on Friday. This is Trumps second rally in Michigan in the past month. And both candidates have also sent surrogates to campaign in the state in recent weeks.

The president ended his speech by encouraging people to vote and submit their ballots on time. Michiganders can register to vote online and via mail through Oct. 19. After that, individuals can register to vote in person at their local clerk's office.

The general election is on Nov. 3.

Watch the full rally here:

Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.

Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

See the original post:
Crowd chants 'lock her up' against Whitmer at Trump rally - 10TV

Where to next for the National Party? Ben Thomas reviews the post-election wreckage.

The National Party is undertaking a review of its campaign. Presumably this will not be to determine the cause of its historic defeat.

The cause is well known. The cause screams out from the pages of The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald. The cause haunts the dreams of Nationals vastly reduced caucus of 34. The cause is Jacinda.

More specifically, it is the relationship the prime minister formed with the public during the first lockdown, and the promise of stable and secure leadership through three years of unknown dangers as Covid continues to wreak havoc on the worlds economy and population.

Instead, it must focus on how National could have done better and, perhaps, where to from here. Already debate has begun about how to reframe the partys policies.

Its findings will highlight certain obvious logistical and management issues. It appeared candidate advertising had either sloppy or no sign-off from the central campaign. The leaders itinerary was a moveable feast, one which the rest of the campaign struggled to keep up with.

The review will probably conclude that walkabouts should happen in busy areas where voters are free to speak, not on windswept streets with the cast of a Tory Westworld making rote conversation. It may find its possible to argue the state should not have a role in regulating the interaction of personal choices with social and environmental factors, without insulting fat people. Depending on its thoroughness, it may finally answer the question who was Todd Muller anyway?

The review will have to address the issues of caucus composition and diversity. One possible outcome of the election failed to materialise: the much discussed conservative caucus within National which in the past year or two has come to mean those MPs with very socially conservative views based in religious belief has not become more dominant as a result of the loss. Instead, its numbers have thinned dramatically. Christopher Luxon in Botany is the only addition to this very loosely conceived group, assuaging fears that the party will recede away further from urban liberal centre voters, and swelling the ranks of identikit bald white men to record highs.

Former conservative caucus members Harete Hipango, Alfred Ngaro, Paulo Garcia and Agnes Loheni are gone. That list of electoral casualties also illustrates another problem facing National: its notable lack of diversity. The religious bloc was also the diversity bloc, in relatively strong positions on the list (with the exception of Ngaro, who had alienated key party figures with increasingly strident social media posts), but now wiped out.

The future of veterans Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee is under scrutiny after both lost their seats. But the reality is that their retirements would do nothing to reinvigorate the caucus. The next cabs off the rank as listed above were none too stellar performers for the party in government.

For National to bring in the candidates who represent the future of the party to join the handful of accomplished new candidates like Nicola Grigg in Selwyn it must somehow convince armies of has-beens and never-weres to step aside and make way for Tania Tapsell, Megan Hands, Emma Mellow and Katie Nimon. Its likely an impossible task.

That should focus the party on the real question: knowing the tide was going out, did it bring in enough new talent, from different backgrounds? The answer is almost certainly no.

These are issue for the board and the successor to president Peter Goodfellow to deal with. The parliamentary National party must play the hand its been dealt.

Judith Collins and Gerry Brownlee lead out the National caucus after their selections as leader and deputy, July 2020. (Photo: Robert Kitchin-Pool/Getty Images)

There are big decisions ahead. Chief among them is whether, or more likely when, Judith Collins is replaced as leader. The days of major party politicians being given two campaigns to win an election are a distant memory, although the recent experiences of both Labour and National (twice) with leadership churn while in opposition have been decidedly mixed.

Luxon has been touted as the next John Key by no lesser personage than the previous John Key. The former Air New Zealand chief executive stands out for his high level management experience, and for being the only National caucus member caught on camera smiling on Monday. His business credentials are catnip to National activists, and he has been busy networking throughout the campaign.

However, he remains entirely untested in national politics, and was poor in media appearances during his ill-judged and overhyped candidacy launch last year. The unfortunate experiment of Todd Muller will give caucus pause before they stuff another CV in a suit and present it as the next prime minister.

Former defence minister and security firm owner Mark Mitchell remains in the mix, but his public profile and record of scoring hits on the government doesnt yet match his ambition.

Simon Bridges, the former leader, has publicly demurred from taking back the leadership, which probably means he is waiting to be begged, in the manner Collins was. He is clearly much more comfortable in his own skin now, but the yak-renaissance remains a mostly online phenomenon, and his previously formidable majority in the blue chip seat of Tauranga was slashed by almost 75% on Saturday. National is running out of warm bodies to replace Collins.

If she is to remain, however, she must realise there is no future in the culture wars into which she dipped a little toe in the preceding months. Firstly, because National is a broad church party, which means it must have diversity of voices. There is of course nothing wrong with religious MPs Chris Penk is a valuable caucus member and a strong rule-of-law advocate, for example. But New Zealanders have shown an admirable disdain for US-style culture wars based on scratching itches around abortion and gay rights that should have been left behind in the 1970s.

Secondly, because the issues affecting the New Zealand electorate for the next three years will be decidedly materialist, not cultural. There is a recession, there is still poverty, there is shit spilling onto the streets of the capital from ancient sewerage infrastructure. Theres a pandemic and theres climate change. Theres the chilling spectre of corruption at previously unknown levels in New Zealand, with gangs co-opting border staff to facilitate drug deals.

The good news for National is that this means the battle for its soul (which may strike some as an oxymoron) can be parked until much later in the term.

Polls at the beginning of 2020, approximately 3,000 months ago, had National poised to win the election. It was a position based purely on the governments lack of delivery to that point, helped by excellent opposition work from the likes of Collins in highlighting failures on (in particular) Kiwibuild, light rail and gangs, and other promises.

Although Ardern and Grant Robertson seem to have learned their lessons about over-promising and under-delivering, new challenges arise all the time, requiring new and untested government responses. Labour excelled at this in 2020. There is no guarantee they always will, or that the solutions wont cause problems of their own.

Months ago, economists were predicting house prices would fall. Now, thanks to the wash of low interest cash coming from the Reserve Bank, prices are skyrocketing, and the housing crisis is back in the public mind.

The National Party of October 2020 has no idea how those issues will pan out yet, or what kind of response will be required in 2023.

The review could find, simply by doing a word cloud of 2020, that we live in unprecedented times, and sometimes its good to have the luxury of opposition to wait and see.

The Spinoff Weekly compiles the best stories of the week an essential guide to modern life in New Zealand, emailed out on Monday evenings.

See the original post here:
For National, umpteen tough questions and one small ray of light - The Spinoff

Over the next 200 years, this scientific and intellectual lengthening of the time span we could imagine paved the way for great strides in our understanding of ourselves and the planet. It allowed Darwin to propose his theory of evolution, geologists to carbon-date the true age of Earth, and physicists to simulate the expansion of the universe.

Our awareness of deep time was here to stay, but thats not the same as paying attention to it. The 18th-century European contemplation of a long, bright future was not to last. Periodically, perspectives would shorten, often through crises such as the French Revolution. Hlscher argues that you can see this transformation in writing from the late 1700s into the dawn of the 1800s: optimistic, far-reaching predictions about the world gave way to more circumspect descriptions of the future, focused on next steps and nearer-term improvements in standards of living. A similar contraction, he contends, took place with World War I, following the hopeful future-gazing of the early 20th century.

According to historian Franois Hartog, the author of Regimes of Historicity, we are in the midst of another shortening right now. He argues that at some point between the late 1980s and the turn of the century, a convergence of societal trends took us into a new regime of time that he calls presentism. He defines it as the sense that only the present exists, a present characterized at once by the tyranny of the instant and by the treadmill of an unending now. In the 21st century, he writes, the future is not a radiant horizon guiding our advancing steps, but rather a line of shadow drawing closer.

On the scale of civilization, it is difficult to test empirically the assertions of those who say we are living in a short-termist age. Future historians may have a clearer view. But we can still perceive the lack of longer-term thinking from which our society suffers.

You can see short-termism in business, in populist politics, and in our collective failure to tackle long-term risks like climate change, pandemics, nuclear war, or antibiotic resistance.

You can see it in business, where quarterly reporting encourages CEOs to prioritize short-term investor satisfaction over long-term prosperity. You can see it in populist politics, where leaders are more focused on the next election and the desires of their base than the long-term health of the nation. And you can see it in our collective failure to tackle long-term risks: climate change, pandemics, nuclear war, or antibiotic resistance.

These risks make it increasingly important to extend our perspective beyond our own lifetimes; our actions are rippling further into the future than ever before. But as the Oxford philosopher Toby Ord has argued, this power to shape the future is not yet matched by foresight or wisdom.

There may be multiple forces fostering a short-termist mindset in our age. Some point to that often-blamed scourge, the internet. Others lament the intersection of 24-hour news media and politics, which encourages decision-makers to focus more on headlines or polling than future generations. Hartog blames the capitalist, consumerist norms that came to dominate Western culture by the late 20th century. During this period, technological progress kept forging ahead, and the consumer society grew and grew, he writes, and with it the category of the present, which this society targeted and, to an extent, appropriated as its particular trademark.

As with many ailments, there is probably no single cause: rather, the convergence of many is responsible. But we need not despair. If this account is correct, then short-termism is an emergent property of the cultural, economic, and technological moment. It need not last forever, nor is it totally out of our control. The assumption that things must always stay the way they are today is actually itself a form of presentism. But if we understand some of the psychological pressures that nudge us toward short-termism in daily life, we can find ways to combat them.

During a recent fellowship at MIT, I investigated how our psychological experience of the future can change. I was curious about what role the far future plays in our day-to-day lives, if any. I also wanted to know what psychological pressures might cause us to lose sight of the long term in everyday decisions. I call these pressures temporal stresses.

Some themes surfaced again and again, to which Ive given the convenient acronym SHORT:

S SalienceH HabitsO OverloadR ResponsibilityT Targets

First, salience. Striking, emotionally resonant events tend to dominate our thinking more than abstract happenings. Its a facet of the availability heuristic, a cognitive bias that means people are more likely to imagine the future through the lens of recent events.

This means that slow, creeping problems like global warming dont pop up on the attentional radar until something is burning or flooding. Before the covid-19 pandemic, even disease scientists were more focused on the salient dangers of Ebola and Zika, rather than coronaviruses.

Entrenched yet invisible habits play a role here. Its harder to overcome the shortening effects of salience when we are doomscrolling on our phones through political controversy, crime, culture wars, disasters, or attacks. These events, while important, populate our imaginings of the future to a disproportionate degree.

See original here:
Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking. Heres how we escape. - MIT Technology Review

Margaret Cho is sitting in her Los Angeles home. The five-time Grammy and Emmy nominee looks maybe half of her 51 years and is attended by a small devoted dog named Lucia Katharina Lawlor Cho. Lockdown has not been easy for the lively, outspoken comedian, actor, designer and singer-songwriter.

This is a sad time for America, she says. Its really difficult but its something we have to deal with. I havent done stand-up comedy for a while, which is really hard. But Im here with my dog. And were safe.

Cho first came to prominence as the quintessential 1990s stand-up heroine, a Joan Rivers for the grunge generation who took the world of comedy by storm at a moment when comedy was the new rocknroll. She was barely in her 20s when she featured on a Bob Hope special, became a regular on The Arsenio Hall Show and was the opening act for Jerry Seinfeld. Her no-holds-barred style has touched on race, bisexuality and the sexual abuse she experienced as a child. Recent tours have examined everything from menstruation to colonics.

I think comedy is still the highest art form, says Cho. Im glad I decided to be a comedian. I still love it even though I dont have the ability to do it right now. It is both cheap therapy and a way to get paid. But its also good to figure out what to think about and how to think about things and then to think about things so that I can work out what I want to say to my actual therapist.

Cho, who worked as a phone sex operator and a dominatrix in her teens, was an early, characteristically vocal proponent of sex positivity during the culture wars of the 1990s. Speaking in the days after the Trump administration has requested to reinstate medication abortion restrictions, she expresses alarm over ongoing developments at the US supreme court. Sex in America, she notes, is politically charged.

Its so uncomfortable right now, she says. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is barely dead and we are doing the things that she did not want. Amy Coney Barrett is the worst person you could put forward for that job. And she could possibly sit on the supreme court for 50 years.

Its a worst-case scenario for womens rights in America. We are looking at going backwards to the time before Roe v Wade. Well be living in The Handmaids Tale. Im terrified for the future of America and American women.

Everything is riding on this election. We have a terrifying situation in America at the moment. Of course the pandemic has made the world a very scary place in general. But we are also looking at a supreme court possibly overturning a lot of things theyve been really important in terms of womens rights, gay rights and immigration.

Rodney King was in 1994 and we are still having the same conversations about race. And being queer or being a queer ally is very important and political right now. We want change. We need change.

The fierce Cho isnt necessarily the first person one thinks of when it comes to family entertainment, but she has a history with younger audiences and animation, having lent her voice to Pound Puppies, The Mr Peabody & Sherman Show and now Over the Moon, a major new release for Netflixs ascendant cartoon catalogue.The very old-school fairytale musical from Disney veteran Glen Keane and Oscar-winner John Kahrs recasts the Chinese moon goddess Change in a contemporary adventure about belief, bereavement and blended families.

Its an ancient story and its about family and about grief and loss, says Cho.But its also about saying goodbye and hello. I think its really beautiful and its great for kids of all ages. Its a very old-fashioned classic story. I think people will love it. Im really so excited to be a part of it.

Arriving on heels of Searching and Crazy Rich Asians, Over the Moon is the latest studio film to feature an all-star Asian cast, including Cho, Ken Jeong, John Cho, Sandra Oh, and Hamiltons Phillipa Soo.

Its incredible that we have an all Asian-American cast, says Cho. And the calibre of talent is really amazing. These people are such big stars. Everybody was so excited to be a part of this. So its a really special project and were proud to be in it. I think we are experiencing a moment of wanting to be seen and realising that we can be seen.

Cho, of course, was seen earlier than most. Born in a Christian Korean family in San Francisco her grandfather was a minister who ran an orphanage in Seoul she largely grew up in the gay bookstore her parents bought when she was six. (Her first HBO Comedy half-hour features an impersonation of her old Korean mother asking: What is ass master?) Her father wrote joke books and a column for a Seoul-based newspaper. The family business was next door to the comedy club where Cho first took up a mic aged 15.

In 1992 she was cast in the short-lived Golden Girls spin-off The Golden Palace alongside Betty White, Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty, Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin. She made TV history in 1994 as the title character of All-American Girl, a semi-autobiographical sitcom rooted in her stand-up routines, and the first primetime network show about an Asian-American family. Guest stars included Oprah Winfrey, Jack Black and Chos then boyfriend, Quentin Tarantino.

Fortunately, I got pretty successful right away, she recalls. I was able to make a fairly good living as a stand-up comedian. By the age of 19, I was living on my own and I had my own apartment and a car. My parents were like: oh, shes got a job now; I guess we have to be proud.

So that was good. I do think I missed out on a lot of things. I do sometimes think I wish I had spent more time in school. I wish I had memories of spending time with kids my own age. Because from early on I was spending time with successful people who were a lot older than me. So I missed out on a lot. But thats okay. Comedy is still the best decision I ever made in my life.

Shes delighted, she says, to be working at a moment when representation is a big deal.

It was weird because we had to explain why it was necessary, she recalls. There was just never any call for representation. People would say, I dont know why we need this. And we had to explain to a world that wasnt calling for representation why we needed representation.

That was really hard to do. It was weird to even bring questions of race up. Its strange and disconcerting when youre too early to the party.

She has subsequently worked with a wonderfully wacky array of talents, including directors Greg Araki (The Doom Generation) and John Woo (Face/Off), RuPaul Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio (Hurricane Bianca), Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Harry (on the True Colours Tour), Awkwafina (Green Tea), and Weird Al Yankovic (on the Happy parody, Tacky). She has appeared on Sex & the City, cult animations Duck Man and Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, and played Kim Jong-Il in an Emmy-nominated recurring role in 30 Rock.

Anybody who wants to hang out with me can hang out, says Cho of her starry collaborators and chums. But I have been really lucky to hang out with all those people. I enjoy their work. And I got really lucky with the friends I have.

Over the Moon is on Netflix from October 23rd

See the original post here:
Margaret Cho: Comedy is still the best decision I ever made in my life - The Irish Times