David Volodzko criticized Lenin in ‘The Seattle Times.’ Now he is without a job. A story of profound intolerance in our country’s most “tolerant” city.
The problem isn't the mindless cesspool of Twitter. It's the cancerous lack of courage by editorial boards, journalists, university administrators, and CEOs who are supposed to be the adults in room and stand up to this crap.
But where was the author’s courage? He cried a river for himself! Where were and are his tears for the others who are also misaligned? He called the Europeans who opposed an open border policy “racist” without examining if there were other reasons to oppose a no filtered immigration policy. Where is his defense for those whose reputations and careers are endangered and stymied by DEI when they refuse preferred pronoun statements or openly reject the idea that they are a white supremacist? His wife , a DEI officer, is one of the administrators infamous for wielding great power and demonstrating intolerance of open debates or divergent opinions.
David watched and agreed when they came to get others, but cried about the injustice when they came and got him.
Yes, he does. You mentioned "preferred Pronouns" earlier, JoAnne, - one of the 10 Articles of Faith of the GI religion. I think it could be fought, in part, as a Separation of New Fundamentalist Post Modernist (NFPM) Church and State issue. Post Modernists have a complete lack of tolerance and they demand adherence. They cling to their scalpels and their alphabets.
Most of us did not even know we were taking our kids to a NFPM Gender Church school. And, we should not have to do so. We should not have to recite the Articles of Faith in our jobs, at school, in our bios, anything in America.
Add to the list, he learned the hard way that there is no open thoughtful dialogue when you challenge the self-righteous PC audience, using his own words- “This was about punishing a person who...pointed out that evil can also emanate from those who claim to be ushering in good.”
Perhaps I'm off base but I can't help but think that the author was happy to look the other way as others were villified/canceled. Of course, when it happens to him, then its a cause for alarm.
Aren't we all like this until we "see the light" so to speak?
I used to shame 3rd party candidate supporters as "voting for the evil republican"... till I watched my own party railroad Bernie twice, against the will of the people.
Now I am watching that process happen to friends who used to call me a silly pie-in-the-sky idealist as their minds melt while watching leading democrats try and censor a democratic presidential candidate in a congressional hearing literally titled "Hearing on Censorship and Free Speech".
We need to welcome them back into the fold with compassion. We need all the support we can get.
You must have a different version of the article than I do. I didn’t see any sort of recognition of his (or his wife’s) role in this ongoing culture war. There was no contrition. He still easily calls those with different ideas on immigration policy racists without a second thought.
He’s just mad it happened to him because he’s one of the good ones!
Ironically, he would be a very useful tool to the Bolsheviks, and be shocked like so many others when lined up against the wall after Lenin emerged victorious. Its not funny, and Im not being glib. But he must see that the evil he pushes from ivory towers affects far more innocents than the injustice that has now been visited upon him.
"What would it say about my devotion to injustice if I remain silent when it is visited upon my family? This is not an abstract problem."
Neither is the Gender Ideology takeover of our government, media, schools, and medical associations an abstract problem. There is no separation of church and state for the GI religion with its demands for pronouns and special days.
"that evil can also emanate from those who claim to be ushering in good"
Like, DEI instructors for instance.
"my wife is a DEI trainer"
I will still feel sorry for you and your wife, Josef, when your dauther is an early teen and you discover teachers have been calling her "he" at school. They will beam smugly at you and send her along for hormones, perhaps reporting the two of you to Child Protection Services if you do not jump on the affirmation bandwagon and approve of her testosterone injections and scheduled double mastectomy. It shouldn't happen to any family.
If there is one book I would suggest your wife read and order for the Seattle schools it is "Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness"
by Dr. Miriam Grossman
It all started with Dr. John Money, a depraved human being who coined "Gender Identity" and whose medical experiment on (and sexual abuse of) a pair of twin boys ended in their suicides.
This applies to the snowflake who wrote today's article. The version of a poem by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a charity established by the British government, is as follows:
"“We are striving to find a way to use all genital organs that are planned for removal in transition surgery to improve the lives of others who request this surgery and enable them to lead a normal life.”
I have been thinking about your and Lonesome's comments here. Trans/Gender Identity/Ideology is a new Fundamentalist religion. Abigail Shier explains that: https://www.thetruthfairy.info/p/little-miss-trouble It is a post modern religion that does not tolerate any other religion and, in fact, demands adherence to its 10 Articles of Faith listed at the start of Dr. Miriam Grossman's new book "Lost in Trans Nation". Many very educated and elite people cling to it. Remember when Obama said "They cling to guns or religion." speaking of Deplorables.
Well, Post Modernists cling to their scalpels and their alphabets. They have a complete lack of tolerance and they demand adherence - which struck me again as I read in Grossman's book about a dad who would not "accept" his daughter Olivia as his "son" Maddox. The hospital and CPS found him problematic already for this and when they learned he went to "Bible Church" they went over the top. They were so upset he belonged to a rival religion! But, he did not even invoke religion - just common sense and concern for his daughter (whose mother had run off on them). We need more than just carve outs for people who belong to established religions.
I think GI needs to be fought, in part, as a Separation of (New Fundamentalist Post Modernist GI) Church and State issue. I do not own a gun or go to church really myself, but I believe everyone has a right to both which should be protected and further, I do not think people like me should be forced to raise our children according to the NFPM Gender Church. Most of us did not even know we were taking our kids to a NFPM Gender Church school.
This quotation originated with Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany. It's displayed prominently at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC; it's also one of the few magnets on my fridge. What a profound everyday reminder to speak up for someone else!
Amazed and saddened that the author never examined and broaden his experience in light of what is happening to other citizens in Seattle. His experience offered a life lesson if he was willing to learn rather than whine.
He left Georgia, where his child could have benefited from living close to extended family for a place where he and his wife and their woke politics fit in. Right on, comrade!
David hopefully will be more careful and wise in choosing his next location. His homework on Seattle was deeply incorrect. All of us need to have relationships with people with whom we disagree on many subjects. LISTEN, you might learn something.
He wanted to move to seattle so his daughter could have spanish speaking friends. If thats your priority then why leave Peru for Georgia in the first place??
Not at all, unless you can provide evidence that he ever did something similar to other people, or supported doing so. If your level of analysis is “anyone left of center deserves whatever happens to them,” you’re not being serious.
There needs to be a continuing supply of those to come and get. When there are no more deplorables (remember this is Seattle, a place that almost certainly chased them all away) the beast turns to whoever is nearby. But always, always there must be a supply of poor suckers to demonize and cancel. Otherwise, what's the point of being a social justice warrior?
It reminds me of the guillotine and Robespierre in the French revolution. The bloodthirsty guillotine always needed more victims. In the reign of terror, orchestrated by Robespierre, over 10,000 people were murdered. Finally, the guillotine came for him, and he was executed as well.
Nice reference to Martin Niemöller but I think many are being too hard on the author. Maybe he hasn’t had his road to Damascus moment. He has though had a wake up call. He knows now nuance is a capital offense to the American left. They know only the sledgehammer. Give him time education is a process.
LOL m maybe being homeless in a city of lots of homeless people will suit him just fine. I am sure the is a bread line somewhere in Seattle paid for by this taxes he loves
Thank you for writing exactly what I was thinking. I'm tired of the people who helped create this woke monster running to people like us for help when the monster starts eating them. How about some contrition before you come to the people you helped hurt for support. In my view you're getting what you deserve and until you denounce the woke DEI cult that you belonged or still belong to, go cry on someone else's shoulder comrade!
Exactly, Joanne. I hope the author examines his own politics in light of the damage now being inflicted on him and his family. After the experiences of his relatives under Lenin, I was puzzled to read he considers himself in any category of "socialist". And his wife a DEI trainer??? What a huge disconnect on his part.
I've read plenty of books on history. And in every one of them, "democratic socialists (and social democrats)" were enablers of authoritarian criminals like Lenin, Stalin, Mao... But hey, if you want to be lame and try and rehabilitate their image, knock your self out.
It’s hard for people to leave that cult, but while reading this, I was hoping that it would conclude with their rejecting their DEI & socialist view points. Can’t tell if it has reformed them or not.
I was wondering the same thing. There cannot be any debate or nuanced views in socialism or DEI because to do so would smash however equity is being defined and whomever the winners and losers are. People in favor of tyranny are perfectly rational - they want (perceived) safety and are willing to shut up to have it. I do not understand this author, who expects nuanced discussions and perspective while advancing compelled equity. Equity means same way, same words, same thoughts.
A leftist is still a leftist! And when they eat their own, the "victim" comes crying to the other side, without examining their own leftist beliefs. The author is the victim here, but should we feel his pain? It would be more appropriate if he felt the pain that his own belifs inflict on others!
The article I see reveals no clear truth/fact based criticism of Mr. Volodzko, only the usual "tempest-in-a-teapot" pile on of self-righteous narcissist's bathing in the same groundless self-justifying hollow extreme robot emotionality we've all come to expect from the schizoid inhabitant's of cyberspace. Other than the author, no one involved cared what the truth or fact's were/are. At least not enough to stand by him. Now, like his Grandfather, he finds himself hunted and alone in a landscape where all individual's are criminal's and: "Everything means everything and nothing means anything."
It is an infection of the American psyche that began with the vicious broad brush feminism of the '60's that took the legitimate social concern all people's hold for the woman and child and distorted it with for profit hatred and accusation. Like all monster's they weaponized the vulnerability of legitimate love and humanity within the victim and used it against him. The vague kangaroo court fact's don't matter claim of trauma, the pile on, the whisper campaign, character assassination, shunning and social exile "cancellation" all began there.--- Then: All men are overbearing rapist, wife beating wallet's who should be removed from their home's and children and made to pay. ---Now: You are a MAGA, fascist, racist, white supremacist, "deplorable", "terrorist",etc.--- And the point is, it doesn't really matter if you are or not. Like Stalin, Hitler and Steinem, we only have to say you are.
Now, feminism has transformed itself into the industrial strength commissariat we call the D.E.I. and it gladly serves (at a profit) the fascist corporatism now undertaking the great leveling of human freedom and dignity across the world. Surveillance state euthanasia, child butchery, speech and thought crime arrest, central bank control, and the CCP modeled overlay to bring the people's of a looted world into compliance creeps closer every day. My advice to Mr. Volodzko and all present: The American Republic, its Constitution and Bill of Right's and the personal willingness of what remain's of her citizen's is the only engine of survival.
Can I like this 100 times??? And in case author is reading comments and retained any russian from his time with grandma, there is a very suitable expression "За что боролись на то и напоролись"... Google gives multiple versions in English, all much more polite then original.
When David trotted out his bona-fides, that significantly diminished the pity I felt for his situation. He and his wife have been active supporters and participants in the ideology that ended up biting him in the butt.
In instances like this, I feel a strong urge to point to a poem that David ought to be well familiar with. It includes the words, "Then they came for the Jews."
uhh...and you forgot people are STUPID!! When Jeopardy contestants are stumped when asked for opening lines of "The Lord's Prayer" and people on the street cannot name the US capital, what would make you think they would understand a comparative analysis of Hitler and Lenin? They think Pol Pot is an Asian Fusion Food Truck.
All over the nation, the Woke /PC are pulling down statues of historical figures including one of Lincoln and renaming streets but in Seattle one of the centers of left wing lunacy, they have a statue of Lenin. He was one of the biggest mass murders in history. Not only was he a murderer he set up a system that encourage mass murder in order to keep the populace in line.
It surprises me they don't have a statue of Stalin estimated to have murdered 10 to 20 million Russians. Where is their statue of Pol Pot?
Exactly. And many of the defenders of the Lenin statue in Seattle explained it away as "a joke" or "ironic." Try raising a statue of Hitler as an ironic joke. Few, quite rightly, would find the humor. How is Lenin different?
The author is right: Hitler was directly responsible for more evil than Lenin was, but Lenin's aspirations for evil were as great or greater than Hitler's. And the system that Lenin built and turned over to Stalin ended up killing 100s million more than did Hitler's nasty Nazis. So is Lenin's claim to be relatively less evil than Hitler based entirely on him being a failure? He tried to be more evil than Hitler, but simply died too soon to compete. But still, the Western left defends that animal, and others of his ilk, such as Che Guevara. Can't we just revile them all without arguing over which is more evil?
That's just sickening! Guevara was a sociopathic murderer. He would have been a killer with or without the "cause" of communism. It just gave him an excuse. That so many voluntarily ignorant people worship him is really disturbing.
Just to be fair, this statue is sitting on private land and belongs to private party, so city cannot do much about it. The original owner brought it from Czech Republic in the 90s. Which is weird, but he died since and no one wants to buy it. I hope it’s correct info.
Lenin himself was blood thirsty criminal psychopath!!! I know it bc my whole family suffered under communist regime.
if they is wanting real irony, let them put up a statue of Trump in Seattle...who I'm guessing them folks think is "literally" worse than Hitler or Stalin
What a great idea. We should all chip in and buy a plot of land and erect a large, tacky, gaudy statue of the Donald. It would drive those left wing loons nutz.
so true they had a comedy show a few years back asking people on the street questions any 10 year old would be able to answer 30 years ago most on the show just looked dazed when asked a question i was thinking it must be staged , but no it was for real people were really that uniformed
RFK has been surrounded by these despicable perverts for his entire life. His outraged rant aimed at his fellow Democrats sounds a lot like “I am shocked there’s gambling here!!” if you ask me. Or maybe it’s more like the frog asking the scorpion why he stung him.
I would prefer if he just apologized, in groveling fashion, to those of us who have souls and who have never supported Democrats, for collaborating with communists for his entire life.
When Joe Biden dies Democrats will say he died of a broken heart because of the attacks on his son. Or maybe they will say he just has a stutter and is not actually dead.
Either way, I will continue to lobby for a statue of Joe Biden and that one transvestite admiral guy to be built on the grounds of the church that Biden’s communist supporters tried to burn down across the street from the White House.
“The useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.” -Yuri Bezmenov
If the communists take over and they will with the willing help of the Democrats, the communists will execute anybody they perceive as an enemy of the state and they will indiscriminately murder thousands and maybe millions just to terrify the population and keep them in line. If you think I am nuts just look at the history of Russia, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and any other communist state.
Did you know that interview was conducted by G. Edward Griffin? I just found that out the other day. Mikki Willis has become buds with him and has the original interview.
Yes, exactly: useful idiots are sent in to destabilize societies just as described in “1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder” by Arthur L. Herman.
No - the problem is leftism, itself. It is a cancer - a dagger pointed right at the heart of America. Time to eradicate it. Like an invasive plant, it must be pulled out by its roots and burned.
The rantings and ravings of off meds, anxiety ridden bed wetters and trolls on Twitter shouldn’t be the measuring stick for quality of a story, but it is in progressive newsrooms desperate to hold onto their cool cred. Mainstream liberal journalism’s descent into irrelevance is self inflicted. Polls consistently show a steady decline in trust and credibility for good reason.
David is the journalist equivalent of a white homeowner with BLM inspired signs in the yard who had his home and property vandalized and his family threatened by the people he though he was standing in solidarity with.
YES!!! and let me add that only then do these same homeowners want the police to help them, even though they had been marching in "defund the police" mobs days and weeks earlier.
I'd only add with regard to Twitter; why do so many "news" stories consist almost solely of reprinting tweets from often anonymous random people (and bots?)?
This is not news or reporting. It is lazy clikbait bullshit.
You are so right. Twitter use has helped reporters looking for stories. Unfortunately, the ruse has provided easy-stories for the media who all read the same articles. Thus, the narrative.
At the risk of being obnoxious, I’ll once more propose my revamped MAGA: Make America Grownup Again! (And I take a somewhat perverse delight in pointing out that automatically excludes the originator of the acronym! Insert evil cackle here!)
And don’t forget superintendents in school districts who don’t stand up to book banners. It’s a fear on both sides. I’d argue an extremist is an extremist on the left and on the right. The center must hold an objective truth and courage to stand firm.
The "book banners" on the right are trying to keep pornography out of the hands of children. This stuff is so obscene it can't be published in the newspapers. You should read the books they are trying to ban before you spout off.
Yes, one good thing about Twitter is that people have posted photos of pages out of children’s books teaching kids how to perform various sex acts on each other with vivid details and drawings. Who defends that?!
Exactly! The left wants to ban Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird. The right (and a few center leftists) are just trying to keep porn out of schools .
I am taken aback at the concept that one individual is less evil than another because they had a few less million people killed. This is mind boggling to me. How could the author rationalize this concept? Alien,strange thought process from the get go.
The rest of the article is the usual “ I never thought the leopards would eat MY face; says the man who always votes for the Face Eating Leopard Party.” No sympathy or empathy from me. As an earlier post noted, did the author participate in previous Twitter mobs? He seems to believe that his extensive left wing/woke/DEI history should have spared him from the mob. Karma is a shock to him.
The book banners take the easy path and just say "oh, this is pornography, ban it" without any context or, in many cases, even having read the books they want to ban. Long before the left tried to cancel Harry Potter the right tried to do the same.
Not "the right." Small groups of Christians in isolated places and circumstances. Gleefully amplified by media to point out the kookiness of right-wingers and Christians.
The left isn't just going after Harry Potter books. It's going after J.K. Rowling, the person.
The left owns almost entirely: publishing, media outlets, pro sports, schools, libraries and universities. Not to mention the internal apparatus of almost all federal, state and local government. It has turned cancel culture into an industry (and in some place, government persecution with the cooperation of supposedly liberal companies like Apple and Google) with no signs of stopping. Hardly the same thing.
Every family has relatives they don’t like to acknowledge. It’s up to the rest of the family to keep them in the invisible background as much as possible. The overwhelming majority on the right overruled the crazies. We change the paper in their cages every few days.
If a book's contents, whether writing or illustration, are not appropriate to be shown on daytime television, printed in a mass-market magazine or newspaper, or shown in Congress, it is not appropriate for school children.
Also, not stocking a book for schools or public libraries is not banning it. If it is still printed and sold, it has not been banned. That's like saying alcohol has been banned because it isn't offered in a school cafeteria or in a public fountain.
Do you want Hustler, Playboy, etc. in the schools, or would you prefer these pubs be screened from being in K-12 libraries? If you don't want the above in K-12, that does not make you a "book banner." Are you suggesting any and all printed material be available in school libraries?
ALL the “how to sex” information is available online. Parents who object to having “picture book sex manuals” in Primary age schools are not the same as the Left banning Harry Potter! Plus, the WOKE Left went after the Harry Potter books, NOT because of it’s content, but to destroy the author!
How dare she be allowed any freedom to speak out in defense of being a woman?!
“Banning” books would mean not being able to check it out from a public library or to buy from any retailer. Selecting what is available for a 8 year old to check out at school is hardly a ban. Would you allow a picture book demonstrating acts of violence against animals in that same library?
I’m CERTAIN you mean the people rewriting Dr Suess, Mark Twain, etc… or the librarians that refuse to stock conservative children’s books. Or the insane denigration of a movie about a real-life man who rescues children from sex traffickers. No? Not your targets?
“Superintendents who don’t stand up to book banners”? What a ridiculous false equivalency. I get it - that’s all you got. But, please.
NO ONE IS “BANNING BOOKS.”
People *are* deciding that it is wholly inappropriate for a public school to (SECRETLY if need be) give children (intentionally) sexually arousing material, detailing how to lube up a dildo, lick an anus, or any of the hundreds of other “important, inclusive lessons” currently being pushed on our CHILDREN. Hyperbole? Not even a little. Here’s an article with a few very graphic examples.
There are a million examples of things the LEFT loses their mind over - canceling everything from country singers to founding fathers. Give kids books on how to operate legal semi automatic guns ? I’d love to see the hysteria.
Stop with the insane hypocrisy. They will come for you, too. (Note the article accompanying these comments.)
Tracy, “book banners” do not want sexually explicit picture books, or ANY sex education, introduced in primary schools. Do you truly believe that belief puts parents into an “extreme Right” category?
A state government deciding the state’s curriculum for use in the state run schools is not “book banning” no matter how much you want to use that word.
The editorial boards, journalists, university administrators, and CEOs (of Woke Corps) ARE Progressives, the Woke term for Marxism. These “adults” will gladly pledge their allegiance to Socialism/Marxism. That they don’t understand what this looks like in the real world is a tragedy of our educational system. But then, Marxists did an excellent job of infiltrating education early on.
"Six days after my piece was published, I was relieved when my boss told me she had reviewed the Twitter conversation and concluded I had obviously not “defended” Hitler. I was told the company had my back. I was told the paper would not stand for a lying Twitter mob coming after one of its own.
But then, just a few hours later, my boss called me and told me I was fired."
I should mention that our politics fit the bill: I am a democratic socialist and my wife is a DEI trainer. Suffice it to say, the city felt like a great fit.
——
Sorry Charlie. No sympathy and I read your whine no further. I guess you didn’t realize from your relative’s experience in Russia that the left eats its own.
Wasn't he aware of what happened in Seattle's CHAZ during the summer of 2020? It always astounds me how descendants of those who escaped a nation because of oppression, come to the U.S. and try to recreate that same oppressive society. The personal hygiene of the oppressors might be better but they still stink.
CHAZ/CHOP was just a rumor spread by right wing hate groups. Nadler said it so it must be true. Only people on the right (or center) spread mis/dis/mal-information.
What? I was there, it happened. Emergency services had to be escorted through the barrier by armed guards under the permission of the local warlord. This happened, and people died.
If you're not, I'm sure the Anderson family, whose mentally disabled son wandered into CHAZ and was shot and killed, would appreciate your take on their tragedy.
Since it's difficult for some people to tell the difference, I will use "/snark" or the wink emoji. Helps prevent a long unnecessary thread of backlash.
Same with people leaving the oppressive states. They come in to conservatively run states and still want to vote the way they did in the states they left, rather than vote for the party that’s doing such a great job it made them want to move here in the first place.
This guy is a victim of his own philosophy. This is how the left works. This is what the left is. He's as far left and as goofy as the people who attacked him and he hasn't learned a thing from it. He hasn't reflected on his own failed, tyrannical leftist beliefs. Look at him. His wife is a DIE councilor and he is a democratic socialist? Show me one socialist country, past or present that is democratic. There are none which should speak for itself.
His paper posted, “We apologize for any pain we have caused our readers, our employees and the community.” and he follows up with basically the same statement in his apology. It is in their DNA to be vicious wimps who dictate what is proper speech and their lemming followers march lock step to their flawed, vicious social philosophy.
These morons say they control speech because they don't want to hurt anybody's feeling or cause pain. They sure don't mind causing pain to those who oppose them, free thinkers, people who strongly support free speech. The author is a glassy eyed, drool on his chin leftist lemming. He is just as goofy as the West Coast left is and he will never change.
That's the thing that gets me. Playing the "who is more evil" game on Twitter wasn't helpful, but it was only a tactical error. Stand up for what you believe in and don't apologize for it. Remember that the Left regards civilized behavior not as the glue that holds society together, but as a weakness to be exploited.
The American Left was born and bred by the KGB and its predecessors, and it will probably never be able to separate mentally from that. (Note that I'm not talking about liberals here; I'm talking about leftists. Big difference.)
In Seattle people don't give a crap what you said, they care about how they feel about it. If you say a perfectly innocuous thing that offends someone unreasonable, you're expected to apologize. The other person is not expected to be reasonable.
Seattleites live in a state of constant fear of crossing invisible lines, and constant delusions of white supremacists everywhere.
I'll bet the snowflake that wrote today's article believes the above samples are wonderful and should be followed because you wouldn't want to insult or hurt anyone with your words. I don't care how you phase a statement, somebody is going to be pissed off/hurt.
Think about this for awhile. This snowflake was part of the Woke mob that destroyed peoples' lives and now his life has been destroyed by the same vicious mob. I wonder if he ever thought or thinks now he was just as vicious as his pals who just turned on him.
I wonder now if he reflexes on how amoral the PC/Woke mob is. I doubt it. I bet if given half the chance he would move with the pack to destroy a perfectly moral person who stepped outside the lines of amoral wokeness like he just did.
What's tyrannical is his paper cancelling him for a poorly written and (very) misguided Twitter post. If he is a victim of anything it his own stupid naivety when putting thoughts out in that maelstrom called Twitter. Far better to have said his Hitler/Lenin comparison at a free flowing alcohol fuelled cocktail party instead..
Hahahaha! Democratic socialist! No such thing! You sir are a socialist no matter how much you try to cover it up. Democratic socialist my ass. Get you story straight.
DEI trainers waste employees’ time with seminars wherein they are told if they are white, they are racists and privileged. They also hire unqualified people based on their intersectional score and enforce preferred pronouns. IOW, they waste the company’s time and money but keep the Board out of trouble.
Keep in mind one thing - if someone demonizes you because you're white, they're also demonizing the children you love. Are we OK with that? This is lunacy and it needs to stop - NOW.
Ya, out of trouble with the likes of Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street - asset management firms who got hold of Pension funds across the world to the tune of trillions of dollars under their control to buy stocks in targeted companies and then force those corporations to engage in DEI/ESG policies aka Bud Light, North Face, Target, instead of what they are SUPPOSED to focus on; fiduciary duty to shareholder value. They are using OUR pension investments to force their ideologies onto Corporations. If Corporations do not engage, they are given a poor ESG score and that can affect their stock price.
They spend company money to spread far left political values and morals.
They're the priest class of the Democratic Party, and their jobs should be illegal because they create a hostile work environment for anybody who disagrees with Democrats.
Not just doing weekly zooms in her PJs. She's hispanic so her role was also to get more darker skin Hispanics, "persons of color as AO Cortez has termed it" hired while "intersecting" with the blacks who are angry, and keeping the white male from advancing up the corporate ladder. Sometimes they work on a position paper for BDS or global warming.
And is it apartheid to keep out people dedicated to mass murder and the destruction of your nation, which they have demonstrated over and over by indoctrinating their kids in Hitlerian propaganda, and acted on as often as allowed to?
I lock my door at night. Is that also practicing apartheid, because I am trying to keep out unwanted and potentially violent intruders?
"A Democratic socialist and his DEI trainer moving to an area that routinely approves tax increases."
He sounds like a Socialist to me and his Grandfather is probably turning in his grave.
I had to get the hell out of Seattle due to the absurdity (and increasing danger) of how the City and State were being run and how bizarrely people were just tripping over each other in attempts to show who is more "virtuous"
And not only do those "morally superior" nit wits routinely approve tax hikes but their judges overturn the voters demand that some tax hiles be overturned (see Seattle transit tax increases)
I left Seattle because their hyper partisanship creates a community of constant back stabbing, bickering, intolerance, and the most delusional and ignorant people I've ever seen.
LOL. those tax increases ?? see if they won't help him as a homeless person.. just so he gets his moneys worth. one thing I do hope. don't move back to Georgia..
I felt guilty as I read that because I realized I was judging him just from that statement. I do have empathy for what happened to him. But it also seems like he has lived in some kind of bubble. How did he not think starting a godwin twitter post wouldn't end badly? How was he so clueless about how his side responds to those they disagree with? How can you be a journalist and not know this stuff?
Agreed. His tweet reads like it was designed to test whether cancel culture is real. He has his answer. Still, even though serving up softballs to Seattle twitter mobs does show poor judgment, it doesn’t justify firing him to satisfy the Twits.
Oh, I agree with that for sure. Firing anyone for what they do outside of work doesn't generally sit right with me. Especially since 99% of the whiners on Twitter are generally not customers anyway.
But I think most people that have gotten fired from twitter wars are not really about what happened on twitter and more about someone 'important' finding out that you believe things they find unacceptable.
BINGO. Sucks, but also totally unsurprising. DEI is pure evil, dividing and destroying organizations from the inside (I have a front-row seat, and speak up against it at my own peril).
The author is just another white, elitist, virtue signaling, self-serving poseur who would presumably stay silent and in line if this happened to one of his comrades. At minimum, it's the company he chooses to keep, which is no better. So gross.
Typical 'revolution eats its own' story, as you say, and I guess I should be moved to sympathy for the author. I feel kind of bad that all I can do after reading this is scratch my head and roll my eyes.
The "equity" portion of DEI is very communist in its essence. It's similar to "from each according to their ability; to each according their needs". Except it's more like "from each according to their ability; to each according to their skin color and gender identity"
Isn't the entire point of being against wokeness, against cancel culture, that we decry it no matter who it turns upon? Or is it OK when it's your enemies that get shot down?
I hate to be the one to break it to you, and it ought not be necessary in the pages of the Free Press, but the most important speech for us to tolerate is that with which we disagree.
there is nothing that makes me fear more for the future of any reasonable "centrist" movement than reading the comments on this site - which i'd have hoped would be a stronghold of people who share my values
its a cesspool of everything "left" people accuse their opponents of being - and in regards to what gets "liked" most, accurate
thankfully, i do come across people like you who seem to "get" the entire point of baris work
Nope, Chris. Sorry. That's not how it works here at the Free Press. 'Tis the Land of hypocrites, snowflakes and Conservative regressive virtue signaling.
Yep. Everything I've predicted has come to pass. Have yet to be disproven on anything so far.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to a "Sundown Town" song by a wealthy, white elite who lives in a mansion and flies on private jets and who grew up in the large town of Macon, GA. virtue signaling about the virtues of small-town MAGA.
Totally agree, Unwoke! It’s difficult to feel any empathy here. After traveling (and living) around the world, then settle in the United States ... my question is WHY here? Were they coming for the Freedoms our Constitution offers, or to bring & spread more WOKE Socialism ideology, which ironically OUR Constitution allows!
Seattle was the perfect fit for this Socialist journalist & his wife! And how shocked they must be (to the point of his groveling apologies) to find it is the WOKE Left, NOT the White Supremacists, who set out to Censor, Label, Cancel & Destroy him!
so your wife trains companies how to D I E YOU TO WILL BE EATEN BY YOUR POLITICS , JUST TAKE A BIT LONGER . You are part of the problem you buy into the theory you deserve shit because you were born , sorry life has never worked that way . look at all your socialist successes , in the end it is all the same the few rule the masses of slobs difference is here in North America there is a chance you can make it . Kanada with the wonderful healthcare for all sure you wait years for surgeries many times you are sent to the US because our system is so broken . Unless you are a politician sports star or super rich you sit and wait to die in a hallway if you are lucky . I have a friend that waited 8 months for cataract surgery the guy could not see he was basicaly blind for over 1 year waiting for surgery , yeah that socialist healthcare is great if and when you can get it .
Absolutely spot on, Unwoke! Nobody is safe from oppression in a ‘socialist’ society, not even the true believers like this fool. What your family did decades ago is irrelevant.
And to then write an article whining about it, seeking solace and moral support displays a mix of entitlement and ignorance that is all too common among true lefties.
I’m sorry for you and your family...but you do realize that through your political views..and possibly votes..these are the people that you brought to power in the country, right?
Yes, this is the beginning. I predict that in time to come he will look back on this seemingly terrible experience as the best thing that could have happened to him. Even so it will be very difficult for him, especially as his wife is a DEI officer.
So the author got the Moms of Liberty treatment. They, too, were "defending Hitler," when in fact it was the opposite: They said that children were indoctrinated into Nazism. And guess which Team of Useful Idiots posted that Moms of Liberty defend the Nazis all over social media?
a) "Democratic socialists"
b) Democratic socialists
c) Democrats
A few more Democrat-run straw men:
1) Jason Aldean wants to bring back lynching
2) Florida's slavery curriculum is a job-training program
3) Ron de Santis hates gays
So, knowing that this party traffics in distortions, willfully, deliberately, and its Red Guard thoughtlessly promulgates this BS, I just can't help wondering why the author expected anyone to understand what he meant. OH! I know! It's because he "identifies" with the "right" people!
The best part is when they immediately assume he's evil because he comes from Rural Georgia.
Regardless, The Seattle Times should not have fired him for "engaging online." And on that matter, I suspect that this "engagement," since deleted, probably escalated to a point where the author made a fool of himself and, in turn, The Godly Seattle Times.
Great summation. I too especially enjoyed the knee-jerk “all Southerners are evil racists!” assumption. And yet the author still doesn’t get it. He jumped with both feet into the quicksand of leftism, and now, surprised and dismayed, is yelling for someone to rescue him.
Also, David is a white male. He genuinely didn't understand how Seattle would treat him.
Racism there looks like a gentle and empathetic sigh, combined with, "oh the ignorant white male has a different perspective. He hasn't been fixed yet."
Yes. I was reading the recounting of "online engagement" and the whole time I'm thinking, you're just chumming the waters, man. Should have just kept your figurative mouth shut.
When you feel the need to qualify a statement condemning a man who killed millions of people because people on Twitter underhandedly interpret that to mean supporting another man who killed millions of people, take the loss. They're not interested in what you meant--anything you tweet can and will be used against you.
Seattle, a once beautiful city, has turned into a dystopian sh*thole. Progressive policies and a citizenry too captured to make necessary political leadership changes have created a scenario where middle and middle/lower working class families are now leaving by the thousands. Crime, declining schools, high cost of living, rampant homelessness, high property taxes, and open drug scenes lead the reasons for this exodus. Good riddance.....just please make sure to leave your progressive ideology in Seattle on the way out.....
A city of nitwits too ideologically retarded to understand cause and effect - the cancer invented by Uncle Karl has never produced anything but misery, murder, despair and oppression. "Forward" my ass.
My Seattle relatives flatly denied the two days of riots that happened there in 2020, but felt passionately that people needed to hear the false conspiracy theory that a right winger killed a BLM protestor on I5.
They dropped the subject when the driver was from Africa, and stopped caring just like they didn't care about John Shoop or any of the people who died as a result of the Floyd riots.
Seattleites are really sweet and empathetic up front until you realize most of them are there for money and ambition, and will betray anything they say or believe in a heartbeat.
Which is exactly what the author's boss did. He's seen it, he gets it now.
They arent sweet or empathetic. (Portlander trash talk incoming) Theyre known for the “Seattle Freeze”, meaning you act like best friends the first time you meet somebody, you exchange numbers with them, then ignore them and never reach out again. Its superficial and wack, like most of the west coast including my hometown.
Probably not. I started voting for Republicans after my own sister pilloried me as a racist in a very public forum, simply for saying "the facts of the Michael Brown case were inconvenient for the narrative." The cult-like behavior and wild accusations have been a problem for several years. It's so shocking that some people are only just now waking up to it.
I can relate. Someone in my family wouldn't talk to me for a week after I said that they were "foolish" for not listening to the Joe Rogan - Robert Malone interview. Contradict the narrative and you are cast out.
Me too. A close friend for 15 years wouldn't have anything more to do with me after she found out I listened to Joe Rogan's podcasts. I tolerated her left-wing rants, hatred of Trump, and adulation of Joe Biden, but she wasn't willing to tolerate my moderate right-of-center views.
It would have been better to have said, "Anyone who hasn't listened should be taxed." (I couldn't help myself! My comment is based on another comment by Robert Louis Stevenson regarding William Hazlitt's essay on walking -- "Anyone who hasn't read it should be taxed.)
I got thrown out of a car for trying to clarify what Jordan Peterson stands for to someone who demonized him without ever having engaged with the primary source.
Most people who demonize Rush Limbaugh never listened to him, not for one single minute. He used to say "give me three weeks" - if someone would listen to his show every day for three weeks, they'd often come over to his point of view and even become a fan.
The same is true of Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and so many others.
There is a huge reason why the left demonizes them. They don't want you to hear or see or read for yourself, because you might agree with them. And we can't have that.
Rush was great but a non-conservative would take a while to appreciate him. An hour or two of watching Jordan Peterson should be enough to convince anyone who isn't totally woke that he has important advice to give.
From my understanding of democratic socialism in places like Denmark it equates to higher taxes and more government services based on means testing. It doesn’t need to be censorship and purges. Of course the proof we are seeing shows that this is not what is happening in the USA. Further some of the solutions seems to be causing more harm than help such as full legalization of drugs in some cities like SF and Portland.
It works great in societies with extremely strong borders, low immigration, and 80%+ Christianity. Every other country that tries it produces poverty and concentrated power at the top.
And as we know, there aren't any more countries with extremely strong borders, low immigration, and 80%+ Christianity. Except maybe in Eastern Europe. Which, not coincidentally, learned about socialism the hard way.
I mean the subversion of civil rights, economic rights, and representative democracy is well under way in Northwest europe. See the netherlands policies against farmers, and many such examples. The destination of empowering government is always and everywhere disempowerment of the citizens. Different countries may move at different speeds, but unelected tyranny is happening in Denmark and Sweden same as the USA, which is even more inexcusable bc the power of capital is weaker there and they have higher representation per capita. But it wont stop the drift towards repression that all leftist governments (or possibly all government) engage in if given the chance.
Tolerate evil, outlaw virtue. Thats all it is. The goal of leftism/cosmopolitanism is the imposition of the devils moral hierarchy. Anti-morality IS their morality
Great article, Mr. Volodzko, and as a conservative, I sympathize with your plight. But at least you had the naivete to speak out; knowing now how this kind of thing works, you'll probably edit yourself in the future, so as to remain employable, or you will find employment with a libertarian or even conservative-leaning employer, despite your misgivings. As is becoming clear to many, the left is pushing normal, decent people rightward, not because of ideology, but because of decency. I guess that's the worst thing you can say about Seattle and the left: "At long last...have you no sense of decency?"
I keep expecting someone to say that and make it stick. Someone should say it to the editorial board - although I wonder if they would recognize where it came from or how it impacted the debate. Still, one courageous person destroyed the McCarthy poison - so maybe there is still hope.
LOL, McCarthy was right. This article is evidence of it. The exact same people who are gleefully destroying people like the author of this article, also lionize Joseph Welch. If as you say, they know who he is, which is doubtful.
But the left will never give up McCarthy. He's their perfect scapegoat. He pushed back on their giant project. Silly Joe, they said, WE own the star chamber, not you. And now you will be our poster boy.
If there is no redemption, we are all lost. Whether McCarthy was right isn't the point. His methods were personal destruction and self-aggrandizement. That is unacceptable.
Mr. Volodzko has not been destroyed. Certainly there will be a period of pain and fear. But in a few months he may be sending thank you notes to the sad people who threw him to the lions.
I agree with your first sentence. But not with your second. It is the point. It is exactly the point. The people McCarthy fought against use his methods times 10,000. Mr. Volodzko is one of their hundreds of millions of victims. I hope he learns the correct lessons from it.
I agree with your point. However politics at the end of the day is factions vying for power. “Process” is great when dealing with trivial disagreements in policy. But dealing with cataclysmic battles for the trajectory of civilization? Its about wielding power to preserve the freedom of your people, by ensconcing your faction in power. Even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for confederates. Wielding power unapologetically is necessary to save the US from communism
He knows the drill: Apology, which he has already done. Apology is rejected and just makes him look weak. Also already done. Now he needs to engage in the struggle session, where he self-flagellates. After a while, he will get a job making peanuts at the Socialist Workers' Daily of Seattle or something similar.
Perhaps, but his wife is a leftist, and pussy is undefeated. If he claws his way back to sanity then hes truly a man worthy of respect. But a woman’s scorn can keep even the wisest men from living by the truth.
You sure hit that nail on the head!. We are all dependent on our mates to keep us sane and support us.
But it could have the opposite effect - she might see his pain and support him without question. In which case I wouldn't want to be the people who caused it.
I don’t think it’s possible to hate communism more than I do, but having visited Seattle and seen the statue I think that Lenin is basically in hell. It’s in the middle of an ultra gentrified smattering of artisanal ice cream shops and trendy boutiques. If Dante had conceived of a punishment for Lenin, it would be for that monster to be frozen solid as he was forced to watch normal families enjoy capitalism for eternity.
Dante didn’t put murderers in the worst pit of hell, that was reserved for people who were cheaters and frauds against their fellow men, like the Bidens. But I do think Dante would like your idea of Lenin forced to watch forever humankind thriving under capitalism. Can we having pidgeons pooping on his head too?
The thing that stuck out for me is how expensive it is to raise a child in downtown Seattle. What better commentary on the actual policies that claim to be helping humanity?
When I used to dance at Salsa con Todo I felt both impulses, both that the statue was reprehensible and shouldn't be there, and also that it was a quirky joke showing off Seattle's weird side.
It can't last much longer. Pink elephant is gone. Seattle quirk has been replaced with corporate wealth and progressive rot.
Not to mention that Nazis were socialists: "Large segments of the Nazi Party, particularly among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), were committed to the party's official socialist, revolutionary and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and an economic revolution when the party gained power in 1933." (Wikipedia).
“Let me be absolutely clear: actually killing more people, which Hitler did, is more evil. Lenin killed 4 million people, possibly up to 8 million, whereas Hitler killed roughly 20 million”
A very odd way to defend the original statement. So 1 guy killed 4mm and the other 20mm so therefore the guy who killed 20 is worse. When talking about killing millions does it really matter?
If i say the guy who killed 4 is comparable, I get fired lol. The Left love their hierarchies.
The problem is not one of facts or scales of comparison. It is simply that he spoke of Lenin and Hitler as more alike than different, and this particular phase of radical left wing oppressive bigotrry depends on the lie that everything is justified in opposing “fascism”. If their heroes, like Lenin, are not fundamentally different, then how do they rationalize CosPlay (dressing up like Italian Fascists) and beating up and threatening innocent people i bthe street?
He messed with their hallucination, and they have little else but delusions to live for.
Had he brought up Stalin and Mao he would have been fired even faster. Let’s be honest- he wasn’t fired for complimenting Hitler- he was fired for criticizing socialism (Lenin).
With all due respect, I don't think so. With the paucity of quality education in this country, far more people understand Hitler's legacy than Lenin's.
Yes. Personally, I think some blame needs to be laid at Lenin’s feet for all the hundred million and counting bodies global Communism has called necessary for “progress”.
They call it Marxism-Leninism for a reason. Marx created the grudge, and Lenin the machinery of oppression, including what sorts if lies to tell, how to tell them, and who to tell them to.
Hitler and Lenin are more alike in their governance than different. Hitler refers to himself as a socialist multiple times. His form was different from the Soviets no doubt, but they share authoritarian viewpoints, and no protection of rights of minorities. This style of governance has led to disaster so many times that it’s frustrating to watch. Study the Holocaust, Cultural Revolution in China, Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia. Different evil villain, similar level of pain and suffering. It’s the structure that’s similar in all cases, authoritarianism.
Its worth noting too that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were allies until Hitler invaded Russia. Among other things, they divied up Poland, after invading it from bith sides, by preexisting agreement.
Stalin had a huge man crush on Hitler and refused so long to believe his friend had betrayed them he hurt their response badly, and got a lot of people killed stupidly.
I think Collectivism is the best word. And yes, the National Socialist German Workers Party and Communists were equally amoral but rival street gangs. The only reason anyone even thinks to differentiate them finctionally is propaganda based on the fact that they literally WERE rival street gangs in Weimar, and Hitler publicly hated Bolshevism, which he considered Jewish.
Hitler tolerated private ownership of companies but that was contingent on participation in the nazi command economy. And while he promoted what he thought was survival of the fittest between races, within aryans there was socialism to take care of everyone. Andrew Heaton’s Political Orphanage podcast has an episode on the economics of nazi Germany which is very educational on that little known topic.
Which is hilarious bc Lenin wasnt leader of the USSR during WW2, so he literally never did anything to oppose fascism. He didnt kill millions in parallel to Hitler killing millions more. He killed millions in a vacuum, uncompelled by any circumstance to do so, bc he wanted absolute power.
You point out the crux of the matter. Once you kill innocents, there’s no more evil to be. One is simply evil. When dealing with absurd mentalities, the answer is not more absurdity.
"I am a democratic socialist and my wife is a DEI trainer."
You're also an idiot. If this seems so very Soviet - no surprise! This is the way the Left always acts.
Time to face facts. Leftists are intolerant, hypocritical, lying thugs. If you give them power, this is the way they always behave. So the lesson is - never give them power. Fight them. Don't temporize or collaborate with them. And never forget - they are the enemy because they hate America and they hate you.
Sorry, Bruce. They outnumber you and I. You will not win and bring back sanity to this country by not collaborating with them. The writer may be an idiot (I call him naive)- but he's also a victim of the very things the Right (and me too) despises, intolerance for offending opinions that go against the progressive orthodoxy. The writer here could well become an independent - so calling him an idiot will not win him over. And conservatives in this country will need him and millions more to take it back.
Get the right candidate and many will come to you. Including the writer of this article. But getting a candidate like a Trump or a DeSantis calling all the Woke and Dems idiots will not do it. Republicans are a minority in this country. We all know that. You're gonna need the people you despise.. How do you get a disaffected Dem like me?
Get the right bloody candidate who sounds sensible, pragmatic and willing to work with the other side.
What "other side?" The diminishing number of Democrats who are still free market capitalists who believe in our Constitution? How many are in the Senate? A handful. The rest are either out and out lunatics or "lunatic adjacent. The House is worse. If you think you can work with the likes of Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, Raskin, et al. you're kidding yourself. They are enemies of everything that normal people hold dear.
So how do you do it? There will always be an opposite side. That is a truism. I can say that the GOP radicals in Congress are absolutely nuts. But they will probably be around in two years. Nothing works if people don't meet behind closed doors. You know that. And I know that.
They do not outnumber normal people. Not at all. They are, however, drawn to bureaucracy and government and administration (all the sorts of things I never once ever considered working in) so they wield a lot of power at present. So did the Politburo in the USSR.
If you, sir, expected tolerance in your Social Democrat paradise of Seattle you are completely clueless and need to take some time off from educating "the proles" with your writing and educate yourself a bit as to reality. Seattle and environs is one of the most intolerant places one could live. I am sure you felt protected by your own left wing ideology but you obviously were not once you, foolishly, engaged publically in taboo subjects. I live in the rest of Washington that gets drug along by the massive vote you cheer in Seattle of very costly virtue signaling that actually effects our lives in a very negative way. Many of us make our livings by farming or logging or mining instead of writing code and when Seattle decides to impose a useless carbon tax or buy billion dollar electric ferries or agitate to tear down the Snake River dams it is not they who bear the bulk of the cost it is those of us unlucky enough to just be along for the ride with the crazies. Maybe you should spend your time thinking about the effects of those leftist policies you so desire upon those whose lives get torn asunder on a whim instead of trying to split the hair of whether Lenin or Mao or Hitler was more evil. Hint, they were ALL completely evil and cared not a whit about those they killed and tortured! Isn't that enough to know?
it's an inconvenient truth to mention that fossil fuels are necessary to make their beloved electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, et al. (and please, completely ignore the child slave labor for those rare earth minerals!!!)
THIS is something worth writing about! there are slaves alive TODAY whose sole existence is getting minerals for solar panels. and spoiler alert: their enslavers are not white. I guess that's why we can't talk about it.
i completely agree. and my understanding is many of these slaves are children. but it's par for the course. nike got called out for child labor and soccer balls a few years back, i recall, and it was brief outrage and then silence. one can only imagine that this is more widespread but that's what happens in the shadows. nothing to see here! oh, and let me show you the latest nike offering with built-in planned obsolescence for your convenience and our profit. enjoy!
I refuse to buy anything run on electric batteries and solar panels, while they are currently being made with Child Slaves and Lots and Lots of coal. Everything made in China is made with lots and lots of coal. Much better to use natural gas and petroleum so I will keep using those until EV and Solar panels can be fully made in Developed nations with well paid workers and environmental standards.
i just saw a story that a small town in alabama is sitting on an unknown, until recently, literal goldmine of rare earth minerals for this sort of harvesting. like, they only just found out they were there. let the monopoly cash cow begin! however, even if EV and solar panels COULD be fully made in developed nations with well paid workers and environmental standards (which, would make the final products even more expensive than they already are) the more important matter that our electrical grid is in a woeful state and unable to support this push for all things being 100% electric. it can barely support the current load now! this huge push of everyone to go electric in all ways (natural gas is the newest enemy, don't you know?!) is only going to end badly.
way to go, small town in AL! Hope that pays out well for them!
They are working on getting more of these minerals processed & mined in Canada and Australia. Agree that would raise the price to be more expensive than it already is. But if it was made with good environmental & worker standards, I'd consider maybe buying it on moral grounds. I generally prefer buying very little, in general, & what I do buy is high-quality, long-lasting items from companies that I research & make sure they are paying workers well in developed countries & have high environmental standards. Most of what I buy is made in USA.
What's the deal with the electrical grid? I don't know much about that. Why is it so bad?
The entire Pacific coast is one of the most beautiful places on earth. What a shame that leftists have ruined it for everyone living there. I’ve considered moving to a more rural part of WA since my oldest son lives in Seattle, but I don’t want my life to be ruled by the whack jobs who infest that city.
My theory is that if it weren't one of the most beautiful places on earth, they couldn't have ruined it. People come in droves, then stay and endure the abuse because it is so beautiful. If it weren't, they would never have come in the first place and certainly would never have stayed.
We lived in Oregon for almost 7 years back in the 90s. It was very tempting to stay in our beautiful little mountain town. But I was experiencing abuse of a more personal sort from my crazy birthmother. So when my husband got homesick for Kansas, I was fully on board with leaving and "forgetting" to leave forwarding info.
Seeing what has happened in Oregon, I'm glad we got out.
Is there any hope for the movement for eastern counties in WA and OR to join Idaho? Are we in the 21st century political twin of the 1863 creation of West Virginia from Virginia?
Great question. There were "some other things going on" in 1863 that sort of allowed W Va to be ramrodded through. Greater Idaho will face great resistance.
A democratic socialist? No sympathy. Far Left politics demand fealty, and anyone who deviates is an ideological enemy. It's been this way for a long time. You were shot by the circular firing squad and it was inevitable. Thank you for exposing the most recent example of madness, though.
PS: the fact that a Lenin statue is standing while confederate statues are being torn is peak hypocrisy.
Disagree. Lenin statue was not put up in his own country and in his honor. Confederate statues were.
I'm for historical preservation and even more for telling people it's ok to feel offended, take it to your therapist.
But I don't see the situations as equal. And Lenin statue gets vandalized on a monthly basis, which is delightful when his hands are covered in red or he has clown makeup on.
Appreciate the comment. Lenin gets vandalized but he has his fair share of admirers, and those are typically the same people demanding the removal of confederate statues. I understand the historical context of the Lenin statue, I was trying to avoid a treatise.
I feel for the author, but bro… you moved to Seattle. You can’t go to Seattle and be surprised when you get Seattle-ed. If you set up shop in the cow pasture, you will eventually get shit on your shoes.
Exactly. Look where you are published - on a free speech news site. No big deal here to have your views aired. I can't believe such a smart and articulate guy couldn't see how intolerant and vindictive the left is.
Social cannibalism, intellectual cannibalism, has been evident for a long time, David. The Left eats its own; no one is immune. You've been "mugged by reality" to borrow a phrase. It's regrettable but predictable.
The problem isn't the mindless cesspool of Twitter. It's the cancerous lack of courage by editorial boards, journalists, university administrators, and CEOs who are supposed to be the adults in room and stand up to this crap.
But where was the author’s courage? He cried a river for himself! Where were and are his tears for the others who are also misaligned? He called the Europeans who opposed an open border policy “racist” without examining if there were other reasons to oppose a no filtered immigration policy. Where is his defense for those whose reputations and careers are endangered and stymied by DEI when they refuse preferred pronoun statements or openly reject the idea that they are a white supremacist? His wife , a DEI officer, is one of the administrators infamous for wielding great power and demonstrating intolerance of open debates or divergent opinions.
David watched and agreed when they came to get others, but cried about the injustice when they came and got him.
The author made two big mistakes: 1) He believed his dem-socialist creds would protect him. 2) He apologized.
Make that 3 mistakes, he still apparently believes that other citizens deserve to be persecuted for their non pc behavior.
Perhaps. But, that he never wrote.
He should have!
Yes, he does. You mentioned "preferred Pronouns" earlier, JoAnne, - one of the 10 Articles of Faith of the GI religion. I think it could be fought, in part, as a Separation of New Fundamentalist Post Modernist (NFPM) Church and State issue. Post Modernists have a complete lack of tolerance and they demand adherence. They cling to their scalpels and their alphabets.
Most of us did not even know we were taking our kids to a NFPM Gender Church school. And, we should not have to do so. We should not have to recite the Articles of Faith in our jobs, at school, in our bios, anything in America.
Add to the list, he learned the hard way that there is no open thoughtful dialogue when you challenge the self-righteous PC audience, using his own words- “This was about punishing a person who...pointed out that evil can also emanate from those who claim to be ushering in good.”
All evil people claim to be ushering in good. No dictator says “Im evil muahaha!” The left has such a cartoonish view of history.
he forgot that old adage. never apologize , never explain
Perhaps I'm off base but I can't help but think that the author was happy to look the other way as others were villified/canceled. Of course, when it happens to him, then its a cause for alarm.
You’re spot on. I’d bet Mr. Volodzko even participated in Twitter mob cancellations.
Karma is a bitch, and as the saying goes, “what goes around comes around”
I lost sympathy the moment I sa that his wife is a DEI trainer.
Aren't we all like this until we "see the light" so to speak?
I used to shame 3rd party candidate supporters as "voting for the evil republican"... till I watched my own party railroad Bernie twice, against the will of the people.
Now I am watching that process happen to friends who used to call me a silly pie-in-the-sky idealist as their minds melt while watching leading democrats try and censor a democratic presidential candidate in a congressional hearing literally titled "Hearing on Censorship and Free Speech".
We need to welcome them back into the fold with compassion. We need all the support we can get.
You must have a different version of the article than I do. I didn’t see any sort of recognition of his (or his wife’s) role in this ongoing culture war. There was no contrition. He still easily calls those with different ideas on immigration policy racists without a second thought.
He’s just mad it happened to him because he’s one of the good ones!
Ironically, he would be a very useful tool to the Bolsheviks, and be shocked like so many others when lined up against the wall after Lenin emerged victorious. Its not funny, and Im not being glib. But he must see that the evil he pushes from ivory towers affects far more innocents than the injustice that has now been visited upon him.
Well said. I just came to say this but you said it better. Even DEI officer wife didn’t help his cause in enlightened Seattle.
"What would it say about my devotion to injustice if I remain silent when it is visited upon my family? This is not an abstract problem."
Neither is the Gender Ideology takeover of our government, media, schools, and medical associations an abstract problem. There is no separation of church and state for the GI religion with its demands for pronouns and special days.
"that evil can also emanate from those who claim to be ushering in good"
Like, DEI instructors for instance.
"my wife is a DEI trainer"
I will still feel sorry for you and your wife, Josef, when your dauther is an early teen and you discover teachers have been calling her "he" at school. They will beam smugly at you and send her along for hormones, perhaps reporting the two of you to Child Protection Services if you do not jump on the affirmation bandwagon and approve of her testosterone injections and scheduled double mastectomy. It shouldn't happen to any family.
If there is one book I would suggest your wife read and order for the Seattle schools it is "Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness"
by Dr. Miriam Grossman
It all started with Dr. John Money, a depraved human being who coined "Gender Identity" and whose medical experiment on (and sexual abuse of) a pair of twin boys ended in their suicides.
We can no longer afford to be so naive.
On a similar note on your opening quote.
This applies to the snowflake who wrote today's article. The version of a poem by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a charity established by the British government, is as follows:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Now it's:
First they came for the Conservatives...
They already are. The FBI has already colluded with the left and illegally surveilled conservatives.
There's a pair of new lawsuits: "‘No One Has A Right To Sterilize A Child’: Two Detransitioners Sue Doctors Over Medical Interventions" https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-one-has-a-right-to-sterilize-a-child-two-detransitioners-sue-doctors-over-medical-interventions
And, check this out: "A Pioneering Approach to Sex Reassignment Surgery from a World Leader in the Field" https://reports.mountsinai.org/article/urol2021-03-a-pioneering-approach-to-sex-reassignment-surgery
"“We are striving to find a way to use all genital organs that are planned for removal in transition surgery to improve the lives of others who request this surgery and enable them to lead a normal life.”
-Miroslav Djordjevic, MD, PhD"
Normal?
I have been thinking about your and Lonesome's comments here. Trans/Gender Identity/Ideology is a new Fundamentalist religion. Abigail Shier explains that: https://www.thetruthfairy.info/p/little-miss-trouble It is a post modern religion that does not tolerate any other religion and, in fact, demands adherence to its 10 Articles of Faith listed at the start of Dr. Miriam Grossman's new book "Lost in Trans Nation". Many very educated and elite people cling to it. Remember when Obama said "They cling to guns or religion." speaking of Deplorables.
Well, Post Modernists cling to their scalpels and their alphabets. They have a complete lack of tolerance and they demand adherence - which struck me again as I read in Grossman's book about a dad who would not "accept" his daughter Olivia as his "son" Maddox. The hospital and CPS found him problematic already for this and when they learned he went to "Bible Church" they went over the top. They were so upset he belonged to a rival religion! But, he did not even invoke religion - just common sense and concern for his daughter (whose mother had run off on them). We need more than just carve outs for people who belong to established religions.
I think GI needs to be fought, in part, as a Separation of (New Fundamentalist Post Modernist GI) Church and State issue. I do not own a gun or go to church really myself, but I believe everyone has a right to both which should be protected and further, I do not think people like me should be forced to raise our children according to the NFPM Gender Church. Most of us did not even know we were taking our kids to a NFPM Gender Church school.
This quotation originated with Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany. It's displayed prominently at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC; it's also one of the few magnets on my fridge. What a profound everyday reminder to speak up for someone else!
Amazed and saddened that the author never examined and broaden his experience in light of what is happening to other citizens in Seattle. His experience offered a life lesson if he was willing to learn rather than whine.
He left Georgia, where his child could have benefited from living close to extended family for a place where he and his wife and their woke politics fit in. Right on, comrade!
David hopefully will be more careful and wise in choosing his next location. His homework on Seattle was deeply incorrect. All of us need to have relationships with people with whom we disagree on many subjects. LISTEN, you might learn something.
He wanted to move to seattle so his daughter could have spanish speaking friends. If thats your priority then why leave Peru for Georgia in the first place??
A leftist hoist on his own petard.
Remember, they’re on the far left until they’ve been mugged. He’s now been mugged - big time.
Not at all, unless you can provide evidence that he ever did something similar to other people, or supported doing so. If your level of analysis is “anyone left of center deserves whatever happens to them,” you’re not being serious.
There needs to be a continuing supply of those to come and get. When there are no more deplorables (remember this is Seattle, a place that almost certainly chased them all away) the beast turns to whoever is nearby. But always, always there must be a supply of poor suckers to demonize and cancel. Otherwise, what's the point of being a social justice warrior?
But wait, the intro to this article said (without sarcasm) that Seattle was our "most tolerant city."
Some people take forever to wake up.
It reminds me of the guillotine and Robespierre in the French revolution. The bloodthirsty guillotine always needed more victims. In the reign of terror, orchestrated by Robespierre, over 10,000 people were murdered. Finally, the guillotine came for him, and he was executed as well.
Good analogy.
Nice reference to Martin Niemöller but I think many are being too hard on the author. Maybe he hasn’t had his road to Damascus moment. He has though had a wake up call. He knows now nuance is a capital offense to the American left. They know only the sledgehammer. Give him time education is a process.
LOL m maybe being homeless in a city of lots of homeless people will suit him just fine. I am sure the is a bread line somewhere in Seattle paid for by this taxes he loves
Thank you for writing exactly what I was thinking. I'm tired of the people who helped create this woke monster running to people like us for help when the monster starts eating them. How about some contrition before you come to the people you helped hurt for support. In my view you're getting what you deserve and until you denounce the woke DEI cult that you belonged or still belong to, go cry on someone else's shoulder comrade!
Exactly, Joanne. I hope the author examines his own politics in light of the damage now being inflicted on him and his family. After the experiences of his relatives under Lenin, I was puzzled to read he considers himself in any category of "socialist". And his wife a DEI trainer??? What a huge disconnect on his part.
I was surprised too. Most people who have suffered under communism, and escape to America, are fiercely critical of communism.
I’m not a socialist, but it should be noted that some of Lenin’s fiercest critics were democratic socialists (and social democrats).
Was that before or after he put them in a Gulag
Before, for many. You could read a book or two or stick with lame quips, up to you.
I've read plenty of books on history. And in every one of them, "democratic socialists (and social democrats)" were enablers of authoritarian criminals like Lenin, Stalin, Mao... But hey, if you want to be lame and try and rehabilitate their image, knock your self out.
It’s hard for people to leave that cult, but while reading this, I was hoping that it would conclude with their rejecting their DEI & socialist view points. Can’t tell if it has reformed them or not.
I was wondering the same thing. There cannot be any debate or nuanced views in socialism or DEI because to do so would smash however equity is being defined and whomever the winners and losers are. People in favor of tyranny are perfectly rational - they want (perceived) safety and are willing to shut up to have it. I do not understand this author, who expects nuanced discussions and perspective while advancing compelled equity. Equity means same way, same words, same thoughts.
Time. He needs time to think.
Fingers crossed that they come around
This article and thread seem like everything that is up is now down. And vice versa. Language is being weaponized to make sure we are confused.
Exactly. I feel bad for the guy, but I have a hard time getting too worked up when a local commissar is hoisted on another apparatchik’s petard.
A leftist is still a leftist! And when they eat their own, the "victim" comes crying to the other side, without examining their own leftist beliefs. The author is the victim here, but should we feel his pain? It would be more appropriate if he felt the pain that his own belifs inflict on others!
Nailed it!
The article I see reveals no clear truth/fact based criticism of Mr. Volodzko, only the usual "tempest-in-a-teapot" pile on of self-righteous narcissist's bathing in the same groundless self-justifying hollow extreme robot emotionality we've all come to expect from the schizoid inhabitant's of cyberspace. Other than the author, no one involved cared what the truth or fact's were/are. At least not enough to stand by him. Now, like his Grandfather, he finds himself hunted and alone in a landscape where all individual's are criminal's and: "Everything means everything and nothing means anything."
It is an infection of the American psyche that began with the vicious broad brush feminism of the '60's that took the legitimate social concern all people's hold for the woman and child and distorted it with for profit hatred and accusation. Like all monster's they weaponized the vulnerability of legitimate love and humanity within the victim and used it against him. The vague kangaroo court fact's don't matter claim of trauma, the pile on, the whisper campaign, character assassination, shunning and social exile "cancellation" all began there.--- Then: All men are overbearing rapist, wife beating wallet's who should be removed from their home's and children and made to pay. ---Now: You are a MAGA, fascist, racist, white supremacist, "deplorable", "terrorist",etc.--- And the point is, it doesn't really matter if you are or not. Like Stalin, Hitler and Steinem, we only have to say you are.
Now, feminism has transformed itself into the industrial strength commissariat we call the D.E.I. and it gladly serves (at a profit) the fascist corporatism now undertaking the great leveling of human freedom and dignity across the world. Surveillance state euthanasia, child butchery, speech and thought crime arrest, central bank control, and the CCP modeled overlay to bring the people's of a looted world into compliance creeps closer every day. My advice to Mr. Volodzko and all present: The American Republic, its Constitution and Bill of Right's and the personal willingness of what remain's of her citizen's is the only engine of survival.
Great post, we need to stand up and be counted- our time is now!
Perfectly stated. Thank you for pointing out the hypocrisy of the left.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Can I like this 100 times??? And in case author is reading comments and retained any russian from his time with grandma, there is a very suitable expression "За что боролись на то и напоролись"... Google gives multiple versions in English, all much more polite then original.
When David trotted out his bona-fides, that significantly diminished the pity I felt for his situation. He and his wife have been active supporters and participants in the ideology that ended up biting him in the butt.
In instances like this, I feel a strong urge to point to a poem that David ought to be well familiar with. It includes the words, "Then they came for the Jews."
uhh...and you forgot people are STUPID!! When Jeopardy contestants are stumped when asked for opening lines of "The Lord's Prayer" and people on the street cannot name the US capital, what would make you think they would understand a comparative analysis of Hitler and Lenin? They think Pol Pot is an Asian Fusion Food Truck.
The contemporary ignorance of history fits in with the Left's "Year Zero" mentality. That's not the only reason it exists, but it's one reason.
interesting. Old Granny here. Year Zero reminds me of Jack Black in "Year One". They both make me laugh.
😂😂
Not only ignorant but stupid.
All over the nation, the Woke /PC are pulling down statues of historical figures including one of Lincoln and renaming streets but in Seattle one of the centers of left wing lunacy, they have a statue of Lenin. He was one of the biggest mass murders in history. Not only was he a murderer he set up a system that encourage mass murder in order to keep the populace in line.
It surprises me they don't have a statue of Stalin estimated to have murdered 10 to 20 million Russians. Where is their statue of Pol Pot?
Exactly. And many of the defenders of the Lenin statue in Seattle explained it away as "a joke" or "ironic." Try raising a statue of Hitler as an ironic joke. Few, quite rightly, would find the humor. How is Lenin different?
The author is right: Hitler was directly responsible for more evil than Lenin was, but Lenin's aspirations for evil were as great or greater than Hitler's. And the system that Lenin built and turned over to Stalin ended up killing 100s million more than did Hitler's nasty Nazis. So is Lenin's claim to be relatively less evil than Hitler based entirely on him being a failure? He tried to be more evil than Hitler, but simply died too soon to compete. But still, the Western left defends that animal, and others of his ilk, such as Che Guevara. Can't we just revile them all without arguing over which is more evil?
Che Guevara, hero of the left, was a psychopathic murder. He admitted as much in his memoirs.
And many ppl praise him and wear his likeness on t-shirts and such. Disgusting!!!
The left loves this murderer.
A cruise to Norway stopped at Tromso, above the Artic Circle, where the local museum included a photo of Che Guevara with an admiring caption.
That's just sickening! Guevara was a sociopathic murderer. He would have been a killer with or without the "cause" of communism. It just gave him an excuse. That so many voluntarily ignorant people worship him is really disturbing.
Just to be fair, this statue is sitting on private land and belongs to private party, so city cannot do much about it. The original owner brought it from Czech Republic in the 90s. Which is weird, but he died since and no one wants to buy it. I hope it’s correct info.
Lenin himself was blood thirsty criminal psychopath!!! I know it bc my whole family suffered under communist regime.
Thanks. That puts a different perspective on it.
not really. since when have communists respected "private property"
But Seattle is far, far left but not yet a communist state. It's getting there as fast as it can but it's not there yet.
But it took a guy from Seattle to buy a statue of Lenin the Czechs were trying to get rid of. Duh!
That is context we need. Thanks
if they is wanting real irony, let them put up a statue of Trump in Seattle...who I'm guessing them folks think is "literally" worse than Hitler or Stalin
What a great idea. We should all chip in and buy a plot of land and erect a large, tacky, gaudy statue of the Donald. It would drive those left wing loons nutz.
Gotta lover Freakmont!!
That’s really sad, isn’t it?
yep...and therein lies the real division in our country.
Yeah. 🤪
so true they had a comedy show a few years back asking people on the street questions any 10 year old would be able to answer 30 years ago most on the show just looked dazed when asked a question i was thinking it must be staged , but no it was for real people were really that uniformed
It’s a testament to the legitimacy of what you said that so many people are hitting “Like” because they see the sad truth of your post.
Nancy, good stuff. 🤣🤣
Then Nancy, if the populous is so stupid, democracy is a farce. Or maybe people only as smart as you should vote?
I forget Who proposed that only people paying taxes should vote? …
RFK Jr’s rant at his fellow democrats in a recent Congressional hearing should become a training video for all those spineless sheeple.
RFK has been surrounded by these despicable perverts for his entire life. His outraged rant aimed at his fellow Democrats sounds a lot like “I am shocked there’s gambling here!!” if you ask me. Or maybe it’s more like the frog asking the scorpion why he stung him.
I would prefer if he just apologized, in groveling fashion, to those of us who have souls and who have never supported Democrats, for collaborating with communists for his entire life.
When Joe Biden dies Democrats will say he died of a broken heart because of the attacks on his son. Or maybe they will say he just has a stutter and is not actually dead.
Either way, I will continue to lobby for a statue of Joe Biden and that one transvestite admiral guy to be built on the grounds of the church that Biden’s communist supporters tried to burn down across the street from the White House.
KD,
From "I would prefer if he just apologized ... " to "Either way ... "!
Nice channeling of Jack Nicholson's character, Col Jessup's enraged testimony in "A Few Good Men"!
I'm proud of you son.
Who’s gonna stop the Dems? You, Lieutenant Weinberg??
That was good, huh?
“The useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.” -Yuri Bezmenov
For more quotes from his 1984 speech: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-reason-with-a-demoralized
If the communists take over and they will with the willing help of the Democrats, the communists will execute anybody they perceive as an enemy of the state and they will indiscriminately murder thousands and maybe millions just to terrify the population and keep them in line. If you think I am nuts just look at the history of Russia, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and any other communist state.
I'm thinking the re-education camps come first....
Did you know that interview was conducted by G. Edward Griffin? I just found that out the other day. Mikki Willis has become buds with him and has the original interview.
Never mind. I just watched one on your blog. I had only seen excerpts with only him in the picture.
Griffin is an underappreciated treasure who should be better known. Willia helps rectify that in The Great Awakening.
Yes, exactly: useful idiots are sent in to destabilize societies just as described in “1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder” by Arthur L. Herman.
No - the problem is leftism, itself. It is a cancer - a dagger pointed right at the heart of America. Time to eradicate it. Like an invasive plant, it must be pulled out by its roots and burned.
The rantings and ravings of off meds, anxiety ridden bed wetters and trolls on Twitter shouldn’t be the measuring stick for quality of a story, but it is in progressive newsrooms desperate to hold onto their cool cred. Mainstream liberal journalism’s descent into irrelevance is self inflicted. Polls consistently show a steady decline in trust and credibility for good reason.
David is the journalist equivalent of a white homeowner with BLM inspired signs in the yard who had his home and property vandalized and his family threatened by the people he though he was standing in solidarity with.
YES!!! and let me add that only then do these same homeowners want the police to help them, even though they had been marching in "defund the police" mobs days and weeks earlier.
I'd only add with regard to Twitter; why do so many "news" stories consist almost solely of reprinting tweets from often anonymous random people (and bots?)?
This is not news or reporting. It is lazy clikbait bullshit.
You are so right. Twitter use has helped reporters looking for stories. Unfortunately, the ruse has provided easy-stories for the media who all read the same articles. Thus, the narrative.
At the risk of being obnoxious, I’ll once more propose my revamped MAGA: Make America Grownup Again! (And I take a somewhat perverse delight in pointing out that automatically excludes the originator of the acronym! Insert evil cackle here!)
And don’t forget superintendents in school districts who don’t stand up to book banners. It’s a fear on both sides. I’d argue an extremist is an extremist on the left and on the right. The center must hold an objective truth and courage to stand firm.
The "book banners" on the right are trying to keep pornography out of the hands of children. This stuff is so obscene it can't be published in the newspapers. You should read the books they are trying to ban before you spout off.
Yes, one good thing about Twitter is that people have posted photos of pages out of children’s books teaching kids how to perform various sex acts on each other with vivid details and drawings. Who defends that?!
Democrats?
Groomers....
Why is it that Democrats love pedophiles? Don't tell me they don't. They elected one as president.
Obama.
Biden?
Commenters on this blog who accuse the right of being "book banners."
Exactly! The left wants to ban Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird. The right (and a few center leftists) are just trying to keep porn out of schools .
Amanda, great point. The useful idiots just follow the party line with no understanding of context.
I am taken aback at the concept that one individual is less evil than another because they had a few less million people killed. This is mind boggling to me. How could the author rationalize this concept? Alien,strange thought process from the get go.
The rest of the article is the usual “ I never thought the leopards would eat MY face; says the man who always votes for the Face Eating Leopard Party.” No sympathy or empathy from me. As an earlier post noted, did the author participate in previous Twitter mobs? He seems to believe that his extensive left wing/woke/DEI history should have spared him from the mob. Karma is a shock to him.
Porn in schools is okay, as long as it's gay porn.
The book banners take the easy path and just say "oh, this is pornography, ban it" without any context or, in many cases, even having read the books they want to ban. Long before the left tried to cancel Harry Potter the right tried to do the same.
Not "the right." Small groups of Christians in isolated places and circumstances. Gleefully amplified by media to point out the kookiness of right-wingers and Christians.
The left isn't just going after Harry Potter books. It's going after J.K. Rowling, the person.
The left owns almost entirely: publishing, media outlets, pro sports, schools, libraries and universities. Not to mention the internal apparatus of almost all federal, state and local government. It has turned cancel culture into an industry (and in some place, government persecution with the cooperation of supposedly liberal companies like Apple and Google) with no signs of stopping. Hardly the same thing.
Every family has relatives they don’t like to acknowledge. It’s up to the rest of the family to keep them in the invisible background as much as possible. The overwhelming majority on the right overruled the crazies. We change the paper in their cages every few days.
If a book's contents, whether writing or illustration, are not appropriate to be shown on daytime television, printed in a mass-market magazine or newspaper, or shown in Congress, it is not appropriate for school children.
Also, not stocking a book for schools or public libraries is not banning it. If it is still printed and sold, it has not been banned. That's like saying alcohol has been banned because it isn't offered in a school cafeteria or in a public fountain.
Perfect analogy.
Great example!
Exactly, ClarabelleVonH ! Well said !
Do you want Hustler, Playboy, etc. in the schools, or would you prefer these pubs be screened from being in K-12 libraries? If you don't want the above in K-12, that does not make you a "book banner." Are you suggesting any and all printed material be available in school libraries?
ALL the “how to sex” information is available online. Parents who object to having “picture book sex manuals” in Primary age schools are not the same as the Left banning Harry Potter! Plus, the WOKE Left went after the Harry Potter books, NOT because of it’s content, but to destroy the author!
How dare she be allowed any freedom to speak out in defense of being a woman?!
It seems like it.
“Banning” books would mean not being able to check it out from a public library or to buy from any retailer. Selecting what is available for a 8 year old to check out at school is hardly a ban. Would you allow a picture book demonstrating acts of violence against animals in that same library?
Like Democrats banning "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Or do you think having books teaching 4th graders how to do a rim job is virtue?
Oh, “book banners”… what a joke.
I’m CERTAIN you mean the people rewriting Dr Suess, Mark Twain, etc… or the librarians that refuse to stock conservative children’s books. Or the insane denigration of a movie about a real-life man who rescues children from sex traffickers. No? Not your targets?
“Superintendents who don’t stand up to book banners”? What a ridiculous false equivalency. I get it - that’s all you got. But, please.
NO ONE IS “BANNING BOOKS.”
People *are* deciding that it is wholly inappropriate for a public school to (SECRETLY if need be) give children (intentionally) sexually arousing material, detailing how to lube up a dildo, lick an anus, or any of the hundreds of other “important, inclusive lessons” currently being pushed on our CHILDREN. Hyperbole? Not even a little. Here’s an article with a few very graphic examples.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-left-twists-the-meaning-of-book-ban
There are a million examples of things the LEFT loses their mind over - canceling everything from country singers to founding fathers. Give kids books on how to operate legal semi automatic guns ? I’d love to see the hysteria.
Stop with the insane hypocrisy. They will come for you, too. (Note the article accompanying these comments.)
Tracy, “book banners” do not want sexually explicit picture books, or ANY sex education, introduced in primary schools. Do you truly believe that belief puts parents into an “extreme Right” category?
A state government deciding the state’s curriculum for use in the state run schools is not “book banning” no matter how much you want to use that word.
Keeping inappropriate books out of a school library is not book banning. Those books are still available for anyone to have in their own home.
One did in Toronto and he was persecuted by the mob and comitted suicide - Richard Bilkszto
Have you read any of the books?
The editorial boards, journalists, university administrators, and CEOs (of Woke Corps) ARE Progressives, the Woke term for Marxism. These “adults” will gladly pledge their allegiance to Socialism/Marxism. That they don’t understand what this looks like in the real world is a tragedy of our educational system. But then, Marxists did an excellent job of infiltrating education early on.
"Six days after my piece was published, I was relieved when my boss told me she had reviewed the Twitter conversation and concluded I had obviously not “defended” Hitler. I was told the company had my back. I was told the paper would not stand for a lying Twitter mob coming after one of its own.
But then, just a few hours later, my boss called me and told me I was fired."
https://www.troublefreepool.com/media/my-shocked-face-capt-kirk-jpg.209/full
no, the problem is they believe the ideology. they are Leftists and no one can go against that.
I should mention that our politics fit the bill: I am a democratic socialist and my wife is a DEI trainer. Suffice it to say, the city felt like a great fit.
——
Sorry Charlie. No sympathy and I read your whine no further. I guess you didn’t realize from your relative’s experience in Russia that the left eats its own.
PS I feel most sad for your child.
Wasn't he aware of what happened in Seattle's CHAZ during the summer of 2020? It always astounds me how descendants of those who escaped a nation because of oppression, come to the U.S. and try to recreate that same oppressive society. The personal hygiene of the oppressors might be better but they still stink.
CHAZ/CHOP was just a rumor spread by right wing hate groups. Nadler said it so it must be true. Only people on the right (or center) spread mis/dis/mal-information.
What? I was there, it happened. Emergency services had to be escorted through the barrier by armed guards under the permission of the local warlord. This happened, and people died.
I think Steven was being sarcastic
Obvious troll is obvious. Don't feed it.
Steven N. I'm hoping you're being sarcastic.
If you're not, I'm sure the Anderson family, whose mentally disabled son wandered into CHAZ and was shot and killed, would appreciate your take on their tragedy.
"Nadler said it so it must be true" -- pretty clearly indicates the whole comment was meant sarcastically
I don’t know how I could have made it more clear it was sarcasm by invoking poopy pants himself.
Steven N, I was picking up what you were laying down 😂
Since it's difficult for some people to tell the difference, I will use "/snark" or the wink emoji. Helps prevent a long unnecessary thread of backlash.
I recommend the use of <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags. I have used them more than once.
why. ?
Ha! Steven! Nadler is on par with Biden
Dimwitted Jay Inslee is still waiting on confirmation that it's even real....
Same with people leaving the oppressive states. They come in to conservatively run states and still want to vote the way they did in the states they left, rather than vote for the party that’s doing such a great job it made them want to move here in the first place.
Frankly, true believers always (no, usually) have blinders on as they clop forward to the nacker’s sledge,
He wouldn't know if he only reads MSM.
True.
Well said, MayaMia!
This guy is a victim of his own philosophy. This is how the left works. This is what the left is. He's as far left and as goofy as the people who attacked him and he hasn't learned a thing from it. He hasn't reflected on his own failed, tyrannical leftist beliefs. Look at him. His wife is a DIE councilor and he is a democratic socialist? Show me one socialist country, past or present that is democratic. There are none which should speak for itself.
His paper posted, “We apologize for any pain we have caused our readers, our employees and the community.” and he follows up with basically the same statement in his apology. It is in their DNA to be vicious wimps who dictate what is proper speech and their lemming followers march lock step to their flawed, vicious social philosophy.
These morons say they control speech because they don't want to hurt anybody's feeling or cause pain. They sure don't mind causing pain to those who oppose them, free thinkers, people who strongly support free speech. The author is a glassy eyed, drool on his chin leftist lemming. He is just as goofy as the West Coast left is and he will never change.
That's the thing that gets me. Playing the "who is more evil" game on Twitter wasn't helpful, but it was only a tactical error. Stand up for what you believe in and don't apologize for it. Remember that the Left regards civilized behavior not as the glue that holds society together, but as a weakness to be exploited.
The American Left was born and bred by the KGB and its predecessors, and it will probably never be able to separate mentally from that. (Note that I'm not talking about liberals here; I'm talking about leftists. Big difference.)
Yes, there is a difference between liberals and leftists, but not much. The former enable the latter.
Yes! Thank you for saying it
In Seattle people don't give a crap what you said, they care about how they feel about it. If you say a perfectly innocuous thing that offends someone unreasonable, you're expected to apologize. The other person is not expected to be reasonable.
Seattleites live in a state of constant fear of crossing invisible lines, and constant delusions of white supremacists everywhere.
portland, oregon is exactly the same.
Increasingly, every city in America is the same.
Here is an example of the left's insanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JeiIUUBSww
I'll bet the snowflake that wrote today's article believes the above samples are wonderful and should be followed because you wouldn't want to insult or hurt anyone with your words. I don't care how you phase a statement, somebody is going to be pissed off/hurt.
Geeze!
Think about this for awhile. This snowflake was part of the Woke mob that destroyed peoples' lives and now his life has been destroyed by the same vicious mob. I wonder if he ever thought or thinks now he was just as vicious as his pals who just turned on him.
I wonder now if he reflexes on how amoral the PC/Woke mob is. I doubt it. I bet if given half the chance he would move with the pack to destroy a perfectly moral person who stepped outside the lines of amoral wokeness like he just did.
Yep. And likely remain that way all the way to the gallows.
Perfectly stated
Lonesome, he hates Lenin. That's tyrannical?
What's tyrannical is his paper cancelling him for a poorly written and (very) misguided Twitter post. If he is a victim of anything it his own stupid naivety when putting thoughts out in that maelstrom called Twitter. Far better to have said his Hitler/Lenin comparison at a free flowing alcohol fuelled cocktail party instead..
I'm sorry, Lee. I'm not following here. I don't know what you mean.
'He hasn't reflected on his own failed, tyrannical leftist beliefs.' Your words.
I was only referring to that.
Hope things are well..
I surprises me that he was surprised by the reactions of his Woke pals.
Hope things are well with you also.
In regards to the writer, he is naive beyond question - but in my experience, even the best of us can get blindsided..
Hahahaha! Democratic socialist! No such thing! You sir are a socialist no matter how much you try to cover it up. Democratic socialist my ass. Get you story straight.
100% my same thought. Sorry the leopard ate your face, bro
I laughed out loud
Charlie - I read your article, and I am sincerely asking - "What does a DEI trainer do?"
DEI trainers waste employees’ time with seminars wherein they are told if they are white, they are racists and privileged. They also hire unqualified people based on their intersectional score and enforce preferred pronouns. IOW, they waste the company’s time and money but keep the Board out of trouble.
Keep in mind one thing - if someone demonizes you because you're white, they're also demonizing the children you love. Are we OK with that? This is lunacy and it needs to stop - NOW.
Plenty of good liberal women use their children to gain points with the party. Plenty of weak liberal men allow them to do so.
Weak men create hard times....
You first.
Ya, out of trouble with the likes of Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street - asset management firms who got hold of Pension funds across the world to the tune of trillions of dollars under their control to buy stocks in targeted companies and then force those corporations to engage in DEI/ESG policies aka Bud Light, North Face, Target, instead of what they are SUPPOSED to focus on; fiduciary duty to shareholder value. They are using OUR pension investments to force their ideologies onto Corporations. If Corporations do not engage, they are given a poor ESG score and that can affect their stock price.
they waste money until the company up and D I E from stupid decisions and wasted money
That’s for his wife to discover on her own. If she doesn’t, that’s on her. I do not demand that anyone thinks as I do.
And ensure investment in their companies by the big venture capitalists Black Rock and Vanguard.
They harass work colleagues with false accusations of bigotry.
"What does a DEI trainer do?"
If we're lucky, they write customer's names on the side of a latte cup at Starbucks.
if only that were true
They spend company money to spread far left political values and morals.
They're the priest class of the Democratic Party, and their jobs should be illegal because they create a hostile work environment for anybody who disagrees with Democrats.
Not just doing weekly zooms in her PJs. She's hispanic so her role was also to get more darker skin Hispanics, "persons of color as AO Cortez has termed it" hired while "intersecting" with the blacks who are angry, and keeping the white male from advancing up the corporate ladder. Sometimes they work on a position paper for BDS or global warming.
I will note that Dei is one Latin form for God, as in Vox Populi vox dei.
Rearranged it is also DIE.
With 8 years of Jesuit education, all Latin references are appreciated!!
And don't get me started on the no-longer-Jesuits...
Yes, the DIE acronym is more appropriate.
Rearranged it's also "EDI" - and she's a terrible person.
Here is a question for you: the acronym for the most recent form of organized global anti-Semitism is BDSM. Is that an accident?
Boycott, Divest, Sanction... what does the M stand for?
Movement.
LOL!! Divesting from an apartheid state is anti-Semitism?
Everyone buckle up. Netanyahu is setting up the playbook....IDF is fixing to get buck!
So: no comment?
And is it apartheid to keep out people dedicated to mass murder and the destruction of your nation, which they have demonstrated over and over by indoctrinating their kids in Hitlerian propaganda, and acted on as often as allowed to?
I lock my door at night. Is that also practicing apartheid, because I am trying to keep out unwanted and potentially violent intruders?
And really, with respect to my question, your answer IS an answer, isn’t it? The answer is no. That acronym was quite intentional.
"A Democratic socialist and his DEI trainer moving to an area that routinely approves tax increases."
He sounds like a Socialist to me and his Grandfather is probably turning in his grave.
I had to get the hell out of Seattle due to the absurdity (and increasing danger) of how the City and State were being run and how bizarrely people were just tripping over each other in attempts to show who is more "virtuous"
And not only do those "morally superior" nit wits routinely approve tax hikes but their judges overturn the voters demand that some tax hiles be overturned (see Seattle transit tax increases)
Disclosure: I'm a right-leaning independent voter
I left Seattle because their hyper partisanship creates a community of constant back stabbing, bickering, intolerance, and the most delusional and ignorant people I've ever seen.
Phil, you sound like a “freethinker” to me! I totally agree with you!
LOL. those tax increases ?? see if they won't help him as a homeless person.. just so he gets his moneys worth. one thing I do hope. don't move back to Georgia..
those taxes goes into someones pocket and it never gets near the homeless
I felt guilty as I read that because I realized I was judging him just from that statement. I do have empathy for what happened to him. But it also seems like he has lived in some kind of bubble. How did he not think starting a godwin twitter post wouldn't end badly? How was he so clueless about how his side responds to those they disagree with? How can you be a journalist and not know this stuff?
Agreed. His tweet reads like it was designed to test whether cancel culture is real. He has his answer. Still, even though serving up softballs to Seattle twitter mobs does show poor judgment, it doesn’t justify firing him to satisfy the Twits.
Oh, I agree with that for sure. Firing anyone for what they do outside of work doesn't generally sit right with me. Especially since 99% of the whiners on Twitter are generally not customers anyway.
But I think most people that have gotten fired from twitter wars are not really about what happened on twitter and more about someone 'important' finding out that you believe things they find unacceptable.
Those were my questions, too. Instead of commenting, I knew I'd find someone else who did. Thanks.
BINGO. Sucks, but also totally unsurprising. DEI is pure evil, dividing and destroying organizations from the inside (I have a front-row seat, and speak up against it at my own peril).
The author is just another white, elitist, virtue signaling, self-serving poseur who would presumably stay silent and in line if this happened to one of his comrades. At minimum, it's the company he chooses to keep, which is no better. So gross.
I wonder how many signs this family has on their front lawn.
i suspect he's in an apartment-type building. so they are probably taped to the windows that face outward that get the most public exposure...
How is your organization being divided and destroyed?
Typical 'revolution eats its own' story, as you say, and I guess I should be moved to sympathy for the author. I feel kind of bad that all I can do after reading this is scratch my head and roll my eyes.
Don't feel bad.
The "equity" portion of DEI is very communist in its essence. It's similar to "from each according to their ability; to each according their needs". Except it's more like "from each according to their ability; to each according to their skin color and gender identity"
Isn't the entire point of being against wokeness, against cancel culture, that we decry it no matter who it turns upon? Or is it OK when it's your enemies that get shot down?
I hate to be the one to break it to you, and it ought not be necessary in the pages of the Free Press, but the most important speech for us to tolerate is that with which we disagree.
Seattle doesn't believe this. You silence the people who disagree because they are wrong, and don't speak to them again after that.
which is just like scientology and jehovah witnesses...disfellowshipping, i believe it is called? wokeness is a cult.
I’m not cancelling him as his fellow travelers are doing. I choose not to aid and abet his whining and stupidity.
You want not only tolerance but acceptance and approval. Screw that. YOU fund his gofundme page. Leave me out of it.
there is nothing that makes me fear more for the future of any reasonable "centrist" movement than reading the comments on this site - which i'd have hoped would be a stronghold of people who share my values
its a cesspool of everything "left" people accuse their opponents of being - and in regards to what gets "liked" most, accurate
thankfully, i do come across people like you who seem to "get" the entire point of baris work
Nope, Chris. Sorry. That's not how it works here at the Free Press. 'Tis the Land of hypocrites, snowflakes and Conservative regressive virtue signaling.
And then there is good old Conprof never wrong . you can do better COnny
Yep. Everything I've predicted has come to pass. Have yet to be disproven on anything so far.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to a "Sundown Town" song by a wealthy, white elite who lives in a mansion and flies on private jets and who grew up in the large town of Macon, GA. virtue signaling about the virtues of small-town MAGA.
you really do live in bizzarro world
Not as bizzarro as Aldean's virtue signaling.
Totally agree, Unwoke! It’s difficult to feel any empathy here. After traveling (and living) around the world, then settle in the United States ... my question is WHY here? Were they coming for the Freedoms our Constitution offers, or to bring & spread more WOKE Socialism ideology, which ironically OUR Constitution allows!
Seattle was the perfect fit for this Socialist journalist & his wife! And how shocked they must be (to the point of his groveling apologies) to find it is the WOKE Left, NOT the White Supremacists, who set out to Censor, Label, Cancel & Destroy him!
“Oh, the humanity!”
I started to write a comment, Unwoke. Then read yours. Precisely what I intended to say. Well done.
aha another saying that fits this bill.. lie down with dogs. get up with fleas..
so your wife trains companies how to D I E YOU TO WILL BE EATEN BY YOUR POLITICS , JUST TAKE A BIT LONGER . You are part of the problem you buy into the theory you deserve shit because you were born , sorry life has never worked that way . look at all your socialist successes , in the end it is all the same the few rule the masses of slobs difference is here in North America there is a chance you can make it . Kanada with the wonderful healthcare for all sure you wait years for surgeries many times you are sent to the US because our system is so broken . Unless you are a politician sports star or super rich you sit and wait to die in a hallway if you are lucky . I have a friend that waited 8 months for cataract surgery the guy could not see he was basicaly blind for over 1 year waiting for surgery , yeah that socialist healthcare is great if and when you can get it .
Absolutely spot on, Unwoke! Nobody is safe from oppression in a ‘socialist’ society, not even the true believers like this fool. What your family did decades ago is irrelevant.
And to then write an article whining about it, seeking solace and moral support displays a mix of entitlement and ignorance that is all too common among true lefties.
I’m sorry for you and your family...but you do realize that through your political views..and possibly votes..these are the people that you brought to power in the country, right?
Apparently not. He still clings to his “social democrat” title.
Perhaps this is the life lesson he needs.
i believe he's still too entrenched and missed the lesson. but he'll get more opportunities, especially if he remains on the west coast.
He should have stayed in rural Geogia where he could detox his belief system.
Yes, this is the beginning. I predict that in time to come he will look back on this seemingly terrible experience as the best thing that could have happened to him. Even so it will be very difficult for him, especially as his wife is a DEI officer.
Self awareness is not a trait of this writer, nor of most on the Left (as well as more than a few on the hard Right).
His whole experience is one of the purest examples of Karma one can imagine. The universe attempting balance.
If he realizes it, then his wife might be out of a job, too. Self-interest will keep them in line.
So the author got the Moms of Liberty treatment. They, too, were "defending Hitler," when in fact it was the opposite: They said that children were indoctrinated into Nazism. And guess which Team of Useful Idiots posted that Moms of Liberty defend the Nazis all over social media?
a) "Democratic socialists"
b) Democratic socialists
c) Democrats
A few more Democrat-run straw men:
1) Jason Aldean wants to bring back lynching
2) Florida's slavery curriculum is a job-training program
3) Ron de Santis hates gays
So, knowing that this party traffics in distortions, willfully, deliberately, and its Red Guard thoughtlessly promulgates this BS, I just can't help wondering why the author expected anyone to understand what he meant. OH! I know! It's because he "identifies" with the "right" people!
The best part is when they immediately assume he's evil because he comes from Rural Georgia.
Regardless, The Seattle Times should not have fired him for "engaging online." And on that matter, I suspect that this "engagement," since deleted, probably escalated to a point where the author made a fool of himself and, in turn, The Godly Seattle Times.
THOU SHALT NOT ENGAGE WITH IDIOTS.
Great summation. I too especially enjoyed the knee-jerk “all Southerners are evil racists!” assumption. And yet the author still doesn’t get it. He jumped with both feet into the quicksand of leftism, and now, surprised and dismayed, is yelling for someone to rescue him.
Also, David is a white male. He genuinely didn't understand how Seattle would treat him.
Racism there looks like a gentle and empathetic sigh, combined with, "oh the ignorant white male has a different perspective. He hasn't been fixed yet."
That was a great comment.
Yes. I was reading the recounting of "online engagement" and the whole time I'm thinking, you're just chumming the waters, man. Should have just kept your figurative mouth shut.
When you feel the need to qualify a statement condemning a man who killed millions of people because people on Twitter underhandedly interpret that to mean supporting another man who killed millions of people, take the loss. They're not interested in what you meant--anything you tweet can and will be used against you.
Twitter (n/k/a X) should have a warning: "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."
Well said, Dog L !!
Seattle, a once beautiful city, has turned into a dystopian sh*thole. Progressive policies and a citizenry too captured to make necessary political leadership changes have created a scenario where middle and middle/lower working class families are now leaving by the thousands. Crime, declining schools, high cost of living, rampant homelessness, high property taxes, and open drug scenes lead the reasons for this exodus. Good riddance.....just please make sure to leave your progressive ideology in Seattle on the way out.....
A city of nitwits too ideologically retarded to understand cause and effect - the cancer invented by Uncle Karl has never produced anything but misery, murder, despair and oppression. "Forward" my ass.
history proves you right , so far . Do´t see this changing anytime soon
...and Progressive my ass
My Seattle relatives flatly denied the two days of riots that happened there in 2020, but felt passionately that people needed to hear the false conspiracy theory that a right winger killed a BLM protestor on I5.
They dropped the subject when the driver was from Africa, and stopped caring just like they didn't care about John Shoop or any of the people who died as a result of the Floyd riots.
Seattleites are really sweet and empathetic up front until you realize most of them are there for money and ambition, and will betray anything they say or believe in a heartbeat.
Which is exactly what the author's boss did. He's seen it, he gets it now.
They arent sweet or empathetic. (Portlander trash talk incoming) Theyre known for the “Seattle Freeze”, meaning you act like best friends the first time you meet somebody, you exchange numbers with them, then ignore them and never reach out again. Its superficial and wack, like most of the west coast including my hometown.
It sucks what happened to the author, but he’s a self described “democratic socialist”.
The very policies he supports has created the system under which he was fired, not to mention the Russian and Chinese communist revolutions.
One wonders, how will he be voting in the next election? Does anything change?
Probably not. I started voting for Republicans after my own sister pilloried me as a racist in a very public forum, simply for saying "the facts of the Michael Brown case were inconvenient for the narrative." The cult-like behavior and wild accusations have been a problem for several years. It's so shocking that some people are only just now waking up to it.
I can relate. Someone in my family wouldn't talk to me for a week after I said that they were "foolish" for not listening to the Joe Rogan - Robert Malone interview. Contradict the narrative and you are cast out.
Me too. A close friend for 15 years wouldn't have anything more to do with me after she found out I listened to Joe Rogan's podcasts. I tolerated her left-wing rants, hatred of Trump, and adulation of Joe Biden, but she wasn't willing to tolerate my moderate right-of-center views.
If you can open the link I've provided, it is an essay on friendship. It has stayed with me for the past two decades. It is called Friends Revisited. https://oldcitizen.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=219
That should tell you something about who your real friends are.
Exactly!
you are probably better off for now , why waste your energy . npthing will change their view
It would have been better to have said, "Anyone who hasn't listened should be taxed." (I couldn't help myself! My comment is based on another comment by Robert Louis Stevenson regarding William Hazlitt's essay on walking -- "Anyone who hasn't read it should be taxed.)
Many remain fish asking “what is water”?
I got thrown out of a car for trying to clarify what Jordan Peterson stands for to someone who demonized him without ever having engaged with the primary source.
Most people who demonize Rush Limbaugh never listened to him, not for one single minute. He used to say "give me three weeks" - if someone would listen to his show every day for three weeks, they'd often come over to his point of view and even become a fan.
The same is true of Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and so many others.
There is a huge reason why the left demonizes them. They don't want you to hear or see or read for yourself, because you might agree with them. And we can't have that.
I still miss Rush
Rush was great but a non-conservative would take a while to appreciate him. An hour or two of watching Jordan Peterson should be enough to convince anyone who isn't totally woke that he has important advice to give.
I am sorry you experienced this from your family
Unhedged, what’s beyond ironic is yes, they will continue to vote for the same politicians!
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over & over while expecting different results!
From my understanding of democratic socialism in places like Denmark it equates to higher taxes and more government services based on means testing. It doesn’t need to be censorship and purges. Of course the proof we are seeing shows that this is not what is happening in the USA. Further some of the solutions seems to be causing more harm than help such as full legalization of drugs in some cities like SF and Portland.
How do you define it?
It works great in societies with extremely strong borders, low immigration, and 80%+ Christianity. Every other country that tries it produces poverty and concentrated power at the top.
And as we know, there aren't any more countries with extremely strong borders, low immigration, and 80%+ Christianity. Except maybe in Eastern Europe. Which, not coincidentally, learned about socialism the hard way.
I mean the subversion of civil rights, economic rights, and representative democracy is well under way in Northwest europe. See the netherlands policies against farmers, and many such examples. The destination of empowering government is always and everywhere disempowerment of the citizens. Different countries may move at different speeds, but unelected tyranny is happening in Denmark and Sweden same as the USA, which is even more inexcusable bc the power of capital is weaker there and they have higher representation per capita. But it wont stop the drift towards repression that all leftist governments (or possibly all government) engage in if given the chance.
God help us all, if Seattle is our "most tolerant" city
This whole saga is exactly how the Left defines tolerance. As in "You will tolerate anything I say or do while I condemn you for merely existing."
Tolerate evil, outlaw virtue. Thats all it is. The goal of leftism/cosmopolitanism is the imposition of the devils moral hierarchy. Anti-morality IS their morality
Great article, Mr. Volodzko, and as a conservative, I sympathize with your plight. But at least you had the naivete to speak out; knowing now how this kind of thing works, you'll probably edit yourself in the future, so as to remain employable, or you will find employment with a libertarian or even conservative-leaning employer, despite your misgivings. As is becoming clear to many, the left is pushing normal, decent people rightward, not because of ideology, but because of decency. I guess that's the worst thing you can say about Seattle and the left: "At long last...have you no sense of decency?"
I keep expecting someone to say that and make it stick. Someone should say it to the editorial board - although I wonder if they would recognize where it came from or how it impacted the debate. Still, one courageous person destroyed the McCarthy poison - so maybe there is still hope.
LOL, McCarthy was right. This article is evidence of it. The exact same people who are gleefully destroying people like the author of this article, also lionize Joseph Welch. If as you say, they know who he is, which is doubtful.
But the left will never give up McCarthy. He's their perfect scapegoat. He pushed back on their giant project. Silly Joe, they said, WE own the star chamber, not you. And now you will be our poster boy.
If there is no redemption, we are all lost. Whether McCarthy was right isn't the point. His methods were personal destruction and self-aggrandizement. That is unacceptable.
Mr. Volodzko has not been destroyed. Certainly there will be a period of pain and fear. But in a few months he may be sending thank you notes to the sad people who threw him to the lions.
I agree with your first sentence. But not with your second. It is the point. It is exactly the point. The people McCarthy fought against use his methods times 10,000. Mr. Volodzko is one of their hundreds of millions of victims. I hope he learns the correct lessons from it.
Yes, but by adopting their methods he validated them and became their poster boy.
People who practice/support/employ the methods of personal destruction can't be trusted - even by their "friends".
I hear what you're saying. However, at some point you have to fight fire with fire. Nothing else is working.
I agree with your point. However politics at the end of the day is factions vying for power. “Process” is great when dealing with trivial disagreements in policy. But dealing with cataclysmic battles for the trajectory of civilization? Its about wielding power to preserve the freedom of your people, by ensconcing your faction in power. Even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for confederates. Wielding power unapologetically is necessary to save the US from communism
He knows the drill: Apology, which he has already done. Apology is rejected and just makes him look weak. Also already done. Now he needs to engage in the struggle session, where he self-flagellates. After a while, he will get a job making peanuts at the Socialist Workers' Daily of Seattle or something similar.
"Mr. Volodzko has not been destroyed." Well bully for you. Apparently You have some immunization against unemployment, slander, scorn and hate.
Oh, and renting another U-Haul is always fun.
Perhaps, but his wife is a leftist, and pussy is undefeated. If he claws his way back to sanity then hes truly a man worthy of respect. But a woman’s scorn can keep even the wisest men from living by the truth.
You sure hit that nail on the head!. We are all dependent on our mates to keep us sane and support us.
But it could have the opposite effect - she might see his pain and support him without question. In which case I wouldn't want to be the people who caused it.
I agree with your statement the left is pushing people rightward. How many people here have that same story that are posting here?
I wonder if MSM is doing the opposite of with its nonstop attack on Trump.
I don’t think it’s possible to hate communism more than I do, but having visited Seattle and seen the statue I think that Lenin is basically in hell. It’s in the middle of an ultra gentrified smattering of artisanal ice cream shops and trendy boutiques. If Dante had conceived of a punishment for Lenin, it would be for that monster to be frozen solid as he was forced to watch normal families enjoy capitalism for eternity.
Dante didn’t put murderers in the worst pit of hell, that was reserved for people who were cheaters and frauds against their fellow men, like the Bidens. But I do think Dante would like your idea of Lenin forced to watch forever humankind thriving under capitalism. Can we having pidgeons pooping on his head too?
The innermost circle of Hell held those who betrayed their benefactors. Think about it.
If Hell is just, Lenin is living as a peon in a system identical to that which he created.
The thing that stuck out for me is how expensive it is to raise a child in downtown Seattle. What better commentary on the actual policies that claim to be helping humanity?
I lived very close to that statue for years. He deserves to stay right where he is haha.
When I used to dance at Salsa con Todo I felt both impulses, both that the statue was reprehensible and shouldn't be there, and also that it was a quirky joke showing off Seattle's weird side.
It can't last much longer. Pink elephant is gone. Seattle quirk has been replaced with corporate wealth and progressive rot.
Ahahaha!!! Love it 🤣
Apparently, the author doesn't recognize that "democratic socialism" is an oxymoron.
My thoughts exactly.
I think Dana Loesch put it pretty well: saying you’re a democratic socialist is like spraying frebreeze on a turd.
Hahaha, I think Loesch's comment is more succinct.
Not to mention that Nazis were socialists: "Large segments of the Nazi Party, particularly among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), were committed to the party's official socialist, revolutionary and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and an economic revolution when the party gained power in 1933." (Wikipedia).
Nazis did take away guns and provide universal healthcare, after all.
We know how obsessed american leftists are with trains. They wouldve loved Mussolini, his trains were always on time
The proper name and place for democratic socialism is "charity work."
“Let me be absolutely clear: actually killing more people, which Hitler did, is more evil. Lenin killed 4 million people, possibly up to 8 million, whereas Hitler killed roughly 20 million”
A very odd way to defend the original statement. So 1 guy killed 4mm and the other 20mm so therefore the guy who killed 20 is worse. When talking about killing millions does it really matter?
If i say the guy who killed 4 is comparable, I get fired lol. The Left love their hierarchies.
The problem is not one of facts or scales of comparison. It is simply that he spoke of Lenin and Hitler as more alike than different, and this particular phase of radical left wing oppressive bigotrry depends on the lie that everything is justified in opposing “fascism”. If their heroes, like Lenin, are not fundamentally different, then how do they rationalize CosPlay (dressing up like Italian Fascists) and beating up and threatening innocent people i bthe street?
He messed with their hallucination, and they have little else but delusions to live for.
And leaving out Stalin and Mao is beyond comical - even if the statue was of Lenin.
Had he brought up Stalin and Mao he would have been fired even faster. Let’s be honest- he wasn’t fired for complimenting Hitler- he was fired for criticizing socialism (Lenin).
Ding ding ding.
You are not allowed to teach or even mention the crimes of the Left.
With all due respect, I don't think so. With the paucity of quality education in this country, far more people understand Hitler's legacy than Lenin's.
Yes. Personally, I think some blame needs to be laid at Lenin’s feet for all the hundred million and counting bodies global Communism has called necessary for “progress”.
They call it Marxism-Leninism for a reason. Marx created the grudge, and Lenin the machinery of oppression, including what sorts if lies to tell, how to tell them, and who to tell them to.
Hitler and Lenin are more alike in their governance than different. Hitler refers to himself as a socialist multiple times. His form was different from the Soviets no doubt, but they share authoritarian viewpoints, and no protection of rights of minorities. This style of governance has led to disaster so many times that it’s frustrating to watch. Study the Holocaust, Cultural Revolution in China, Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia. Different evil villain, similar level of pain and suffering. It’s the structure that’s similar in all cases, authoritarianism.
Its worth noting too that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were allies until Hitler invaded Russia. Among other things, they divied up Poland, after invading it from bith sides, by preexisting agreement.
Stalin had a huge man crush on Hitler and refused so long to believe his friend had betrayed them he hurt their response badly, and got a lot of people killed stupidly.
I think Collectivism is the best word. And yes, the National Socialist German Workers Party and Communists were equally amoral but rival street gangs. The only reason anyone even thinks to differentiate them finctionally is propaganda based on the fact that they literally WERE rival street gangs in Weimar, and Hitler publicly hated Bolshevism, which he considered Jewish.
"Frustrating to watch" might be the understatement of the century.
I would say statism is a better word than authoritarianism. Authoritarianism can refer to any kind of power; statism refers to state power.
Hitler tolerated private ownership of companies but that was contingent on participation in the nazi command economy. And while he promoted what he thought was survival of the fittest between races, within aryans there was socialism to take care of everyone. Andrew Heaton’s Political Orphanage podcast has an episode on the economics of nazi Germany which is very educational on that little known topic.
This is a great clarification. Thank you
Which is hilarious bc Lenin wasnt leader of the USSR during WW2, so he literally never did anything to oppose fascism. He didnt kill millions in parallel to Hitler killing millions more. He killed millions in a vacuum, uncompelled by any circumstance to do so, bc he wanted absolute power.
You point out the crux of the matter. Once you kill innocents, there’s no more evil to be. One is simply evil. When dealing with absurd mentalities, the answer is not more absurdity.
He wouldn't have been fired if he had a different skin color.
omg, yes! just look to the recent pps school board ruling for the latest example of this.
"I am a democratic socialist and my wife is a DEI trainer."
You're also an idiot. If this seems so very Soviet - no surprise! This is the way the Left always acts.
Time to face facts. Leftists are intolerant, hypocritical, lying thugs. If you give them power, this is the way they always behave. So the lesson is - never give them power. Fight them. Don't temporize or collaborate with them. And never forget - they are the enemy because they hate America and they hate you.
Well said Bruce.
Sorry, Bruce. They outnumber you and I. You will not win and bring back sanity to this country by not collaborating with them. The writer may be an idiot (I call him naive)- but he's also a victim of the very things the Right (and me too) despises, intolerance for offending opinions that go against the progressive orthodoxy. The writer here could well become an independent - so calling him an idiot will not win him over. And conservatives in this country will need him and millions more to take it back.
Right?
First, I doubt they outnumber us.
Second, they're a freak show. Not to be feared. Only despised.
Get the right candidate and many will come to you. Including the writer of this article. But getting a candidate like a Trump or a DeSantis calling all the Woke and Dems idiots will not do it. Republicans are a minority in this country. We all know that. You're gonna need the people you despise.. How do you get a disaffected Dem like me?
Get the right bloody candidate who sounds sensible, pragmatic and willing to work with the other side.
What "other side?" The diminishing number of Democrats who are still free market capitalists who believe in our Constitution? How many are in the Senate? A handful. The rest are either out and out lunatics or "lunatic adjacent. The House is worse. If you think you can work with the likes of Tlaib, Omar, Pressley, Raskin, et al. you're kidding yourself. They are enemies of everything that normal people hold dear.
So how do you do it? There will always be an opposite side. That is a truism. I can say that the GOP radicals in Congress are absolutely nuts. But they will probably be around in two years. Nothing works if people don't meet behind closed doors. You know that. And I know that.
Nothing happens without consensus.
They do not outnumber normal people. Not at all. They are, however, drawn to bureaucracy and government and administration (all the sorts of things I never once ever considered working in) so they wield a lot of power at present. So did the Politburo in the USSR.
If you, sir, expected tolerance in your Social Democrat paradise of Seattle you are completely clueless and need to take some time off from educating "the proles" with your writing and educate yourself a bit as to reality. Seattle and environs is one of the most intolerant places one could live. I am sure you felt protected by your own left wing ideology but you obviously were not once you, foolishly, engaged publically in taboo subjects. I live in the rest of Washington that gets drug along by the massive vote you cheer in Seattle of very costly virtue signaling that actually effects our lives in a very negative way. Many of us make our livings by farming or logging or mining instead of writing code and when Seattle decides to impose a useless carbon tax or buy billion dollar electric ferries or agitate to tear down the Snake River dams it is not they who bear the bulk of the cost it is those of us unlucky enough to just be along for the ride with the crazies. Maybe you should spend your time thinking about the effects of those leftist policies you so desire upon those whose lives get torn asunder on a whim instead of trying to split the hair of whether Lenin or Mao or Hitler was more evil. Hint, they were ALL completely evil and cared not a whit about those they killed and tortured! Isn't that enough to know?
I too am a resident of the sane side of the state, am part of the ag community being punished for our fossil fuel use, and thank you for your comment.
it's an inconvenient truth to mention that fossil fuels are necessary to make their beloved electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, et al. (and please, completely ignore the child slave labor for those rare earth minerals!!!)
THIS is something worth writing about! there are slaves alive TODAY whose sole existence is getting minerals for solar panels. and spoiler alert: their enslavers are not white. I guess that's why we can't talk about it.
i completely agree. and my understanding is many of these slaves are children. but it's par for the course. nike got called out for child labor and soccer balls a few years back, i recall, and it was brief outrage and then silence. one can only imagine that this is more widespread but that's what happens in the shadows. nothing to see here! oh, and let me show you the latest nike offering with built-in planned obsolescence for your convenience and our profit. enjoy!
yes! and ... here's some more hush money through our sponsorships ... nothing to see here.
One of the many reasons we can't talk about it, yes.
Exactly
I refuse to buy anything run on electric batteries and solar panels, while they are currently being made with Child Slaves and Lots and Lots of coal. Everything made in China is made with lots and lots of coal. Much better to use natural gas and petroleum so I will keep using those until EV and Solar panels can be fully made in Developed nations with well paid workers and environmental standards.
i just saw a story that a small town in alabama is sitting on an unknown, until recently, literal goldmine of rare earth minerals for this sort of harvesting. like, they only just found out they were there. let the monopoly cash cow begin! however, even if EV and solar panels COULD be fully made in developed nations with well paid workers and environmental standards (which, would make the final products even more expensive than they already are) the more important matter that our electrical grid is in a woeful state and unable to support this push for all things being 100% electric. it can barely support the current load now! this huge push of everyone to go electric in all ways (natural gas is the newest enemy, don't you know?!) is only going to end badly.
way to go, small town in AL! Hope that pays out well for them!
They are working on getting more of these minerals processed & mined in Canada and Australia. Agree that would raise the price to be more expensive than it already is. But if it was made with good environmental & worker standards, I'd consider maybe buying it on moral grounds. I generally prefer buying very little, in general, & what I do buy is high-quality, long-lasting items from companies that I research & make sure they are paying workers well in developed countries & have high environmental standards. Most of what I buy is made in USA.
What's the deal with the electrical grid? I don't know much about that. Why is it so bad?
well, for starters its old, outdated and very vulnerable to cyberattacks and weather...
The entire Pacific coast is one of the most beautiful places on earth. What a shame that leftists have ruined it for everyone living there. I’ve considered moving to a more rural part of WA since my oldest son lives in Seattle, but I don’t want my life to be ruled by the whack jobs who infest that city.
My theory is that if it weren't one of the most beautiful places on earth, they couldn't have ruined it. People come in droves, then stay and endure the abuse because it is so beautiful. If it weren't, they would never have come in the first place and certainly would never have stayed.
We lived in Oregon for almost 7 years back in the 90s. It was very tempting to stay in our beautiful little mountain town. But I was experiencing abuse of a more personal sort from my crazy birthmother. So when my husband got homesick for Kansas, I was fully on board with leaving and "forgetting" to leave forwarding info.
Seeing what has happened in Oregon, I'm glad we got out.
Is there any hope for the movement for eastern counties in WA and OR to join Idaho? Are we in the 21st century political twin of the 1863 creation of West Virginia from Virginia?
Great question. There were "some other things going on" in 1863 that sort of allowed W Va to be ramrodded through. Greater Idaho will face great resistance.
A democratic socialist? No sympathy. Far Left politics demand fealty, and anyone who deviates is an ideological enemy. It's been this way for a long time. You were shot by the circular firing squad and it was inevitable. Thank you for exposing the most recent example of madness, though.
PS: the fact that a Lenin statue is standing while confederate statues are being torn is peak hypocrisy.
Disagree. Lenin statue was not put up in his own country and in his honor. Confederate statues were.
I'm for historical preservation and even more for telling people it's ok to feel offended, take it to your therapist.
But I don't see the situations as equal. And Lenin statue gets vandalized on a monthly basis, which is delightful when his hands are covered in red or he has clown makeup on.
Appreciate the comment. Lenin gets vandalized but he has his fair share of admirers, and those are typically the same people demanding the removal of confederate statues. I understand the historical context of the Lenin statue, I was trying to avoid a treatise.
Agreed confederate statues are similar to Lenin’s. Even if the individual confederates werent as evil as Lenin, they were still enemies of America
I feel for the author, but bro… you moved to Seattle. You can’t go to Seattle and be surprised when you get Seattle-ed. If you set up shop in the cow pasture, you will eventually get shit on your shoes.
Exactly. Look where you are published - on a free speech news site. No big deal here to have your views aired. I can't believe such a smart and articulate guy couldn't see how intolerant and vindictive the left is.
Social cannibalism, intellectual cannibalism, has been evident for a long time, David. The Left eats its own; no one is immune. You've been "mugged by reality" to borrow a phrase. It's regrettable but predictable.
The cannibalism has been going on for years. The only shocking thing is that he just now sees it.
Yup. Another stupid smart person. There’s tons of them.
yes, he saw it, but he'll get reprogrammed quickly and be blind again soon enough.
He's experienced itbut he does not see it!