A must read!:
When faced with the choice between “resistance” and its meal ticket, Broadway backs down.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448574/broadway-donald-trump-obsession-julius-caesar-shakespeare-parkWhen faced with the choice between “resistance” and its meal ticket, Broadway backs down.
Quote:Two corporate sponsors have fled Eustis’s staging of the current Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar because of its undisguised Trump trolling.
In the past I have resisted and criticized boycotts and the pressuring of sponsors in regards to political expressions, but no more.
The "Trump trolling" referred to is found in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar wherein Caesar is unmistakably presented as Donald Trump:
Quote:(The play's director) Eustis even has Donald J. Caesar make a joke about murder on Fifth Avenue, in case costuming his raucous fans in MAGA caps and American-flag shirts had left any doubt about Eustis’s intentions.
Not surprisingly, corporate sponsors Delta Airlines and Bank of America felt depicting the bloody assassination of a sitting president was more artistic license than they felt comfortable paying for. The article doesn't address the decision making of the sponsors, but I understand that it was not in response to an outcry from offended consumers. If it's the case, that's great. It's nice to know that two corporations in which I own stock have a sensible executive management team that doesn't want to insult and offend half of their customer base. However if it was in response to external pressure, that's good too. The Left has been employing this tactic for years and it's been effective. Turn about is fair play.
Recently
Ace the blogger at Ace of Spades HQ (
http://ace.mu.nu/) published a column entitled "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum -- Again" or "If You Want Peace, Prepare For War--Again" for those of us who don't know latin. In it, Ace argues that the strategy of
not emulating the tactics of the Left,which he has endorsed for several years now, is not working. I totally agree.
Quote:...the current policy of "unilateral disarmament, and hope that the Monster Babies will learn from our example" is a total, dismal, catastrophic failure.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/369999.php
Apparently the recent, disgusting actions of a mob at Everygreen State College was the tipping point for him. Recall this began with students storming the classroom of a progressive biology professor Bret Weinstein because he had the audacity (more like courage) to criticize the efforts of a group at the school to have white students and faculty leave the campus at an annual event which, in the past, found black students and faculty meeting off campus for a day or two to reflect on and discuss issues of race. Weinstein also refused to leave that day and so he was challenged by a mob who hurled obscenities and threats at him. The next day the mob stormed the president's office and the same unruly, filth laden "dialogue" was held. Here's a video of the confrontation. It will give you some idea of how badly the educational system has failed these students. They are incoherent and frankly moronic and to call them uncivil is the understatement of the year. At one point, out of doors, a student displays what amounts to near illiteracy in reading some text. It's a sad and painful scene.
The college president says he wasn't in any fear during the occupation and was entirely comfortable (If that's true the man must mainline valium on a daily basis) having a "conversation" with the kids. He did add that he was "immensely disappointed" in the students who stormed Weinstein's classroom and that those involved "could be punished" (Yeah right).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO1agIlLlhg
Ace just as well might have referenced the
Donald J Caesar production in Central Park.
While there have been progressive pundits and academics who have spoken out against the clearly unacceptable trampling of free speech on campuses, most seem to have waited until their own ox was gored and in any case, the mad scientists obviously can't control the monsters they have created. What a shock! Applauding (forget about condemning) stunts like the Eustace Shakespeare production or Kathy Griffen's idiotic attempt at humor is encouraging uncivil behavior, not quelling it.
Refusal to spend money sponsoring productions in which POTUS is stabbed to death in a bloody scene of violence is not censorship. Eustace and his cast should be and are free to stage such "artful expressions," but they have no right to corporate or for that matter public funding that is somehow morally invulnerable to morality and politically based efforts to see that they don't get it. Ken Style, the author of the National Review piece, suggests that the Tony Awards were far more politically subdued than the other self-honoring events we've seen since Trump was elected and it was because of the withdrawal of funding by Delta and BOA. I didn't watch the show so I can't comment on whether or not any restraint was evident, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was and a result of the "artists" fear of the potential diminishment of their fabulous lifestyles. So many of them talk a good Marxist game at lavish penthouse parties, but upon consideration of the possibility of having to replace the Dom Perignon with Lime-a-Ritas has a way or causing the
artistes among the 1% to get a glimpse of economic reality.
Conservatives have essentially surrendered to liberals in the American Culture War and it has given a tremendous advantage to the ideology with which they strongly disagree. It's time to fight back and with some of same weapons used against us. I'm no where near the point where I would condone using the tactics of the campus mobs, but economic pressure? Absolutely.
Hit 'em where it hurts most.
