Harper Lee’s death on February 19 drew the international attention one would expect given her status as the Martin Luther King of literature. Her novel To Kill a Mockingbird is annually visited on high schools everywhere with a demand for its reverence equal to the demand for unquestioned veneration of the reverend doctor himself. And yet, the mockingbird cried a complex tune last month, hitting notes not long ago thought to be beyond its range.

As expected, January’s holiday for MLK elicited the sniveling sighs of White supplication. In contrast, February’s eulogies lacked the once-anticipated chorus for Lee’s immediate canonization. The problem last month, of course, was actually the problem of last year with the sinful publication of Lee’s other novel, Go Set a Watchman. In it, Lee revealed that St. Atticus Finch was a segregationist(!)

Progressives and cuckservatives everywhere gasped! But then they remembered they control the narrative. In fact, they invented it. And they can modify it whenever the facts so require. After all, they had been claiming for decades that women never lie about rape while simultaneously Biblicizing a novel in which a woman does in fact lie about rape.

The Mockingbird mainstreamers eventually gathered themselves and saw the error of their initial shock. Unfortunately, Atticus hadn’t been immaculately conceived as they had previously believed. But he still had done right when the faith had been challenged, and if his motives had been mixed, that only demonstrated the nuanced characterization they always claimed to admire in literature. Read more

Los Angeles in 2154 as depicted in Elysium

A review of Elysium (see also “Elysium: An all too real dystopian vision of the future”

It was my misfortune to stumble upon an action movie, that like so many others, did its part in insinuating Cultural Marxist propaganda into the consciousness of young viewers. Despite my disgust, I persisted in watching it because of its blatantly obvious allusions to the issue of illegal immigration. I wanted to see how Hollywood could use a sci-fi flick to convey their “progressive” message on the subject.

The plot was a classic set-up. The rich live in a “gated community”— an opulent space station orbiting the earth—while the global poor, who in this case typically sport Hispanic names (how obvious can it get), are denied access to advanced medical care and the affluent life-style of the rich residing safely above the planet. Those who attempt entry are repelled, and the vehicles they use are identified as “undocumented shuttles,” which in one scene, are ruthlessly destroyed by the order of the head of “Homeland Security.” Again, notice that “undocumented,” the deceitful liberal euphemism for “illegal,” lives on into the middle of the twenty-second century!  I half-expected Hillary Clinton to make a cameo appearance to declare that “No one is illegal!.” The plot is summarized here (see also here):

In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium — but some in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle. The only man with the chance bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.

I wish that Garrett Hardin was alive. I would love him to take this movie’s ridiculous premise apart. Even a simpleton (but alas not a liberal) would understand that “equality” between Elysium and the many, many billions of global poor would do little to elevate the latter’s living standards. There would simply not be enough resources to go around—as is the case on earth today. State-of-the-art medical care could not be affordably dispensed to everyone (as America’s gateway states have discovered !) That would be a fact of life in this dystopian society of 2154 and it is a fact of life now. If “undocumented” intruders or their political allies in office were able to open the floodgates and extend citizenship to everyone— as they are able to do in this movie—as Hardin would put it, “Low standards of living would drive out high standards.” Read more