monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@layman,

I heard a law professor discuss this case on NPR the other day (Think his last name is "Chang") and, of course, he focused on the Redskins rather than The Slants.

In any case, he was arguing that neither the Redskins nor The Slants had their 1st Amendment rights infringed upon by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because both had been free to continue calling themselves whatever they pleased, they just weren't entitled to the protections afforded by registered trademarks. The government's attorneys made this same argument before the Court and the justices didn't buy it...and rightly so. It's a disingenuous argument at best because it's pretty clear that the Patent Office was attempting to deprive the band of using the name or coercing, through punishment, it into changing its name by depriving it of the benefits of our trademark statutes. The name is clearly "private" speech (and would not be transformed into "governmental speech" by registering it as a trademark, as the Patent Office's attorney tortuously argued) derived from a viewpoint of which the government did not approve, and that is so clearly prohibited by the 1st Amendment that the ruling of the Court was unanimous.

The professor further argued (and perhaps again he was merely restating an argument made by the government's lawyers that by protecting the use of "hate speech" through the granting of a trademark, the door was opened for individuals to get around anti-discrimination laws. In the film "The Hateful 8" the Samuel L. Jackson references a sign the owner of the cantina always had in her window and which read "Dog & Mexicans not Allowed." The Prof argued that use of such signs is now illegal, however due to the decision, a modern restaurant could register "Dogs & Mexicans not Allowed" (or something similar) as a trademark and then use it as signage and thereby get around the anti-discrimination laws concerning such signs.

First of all, I've not been able to confirm such signs are illegal. Refusing to serve Mexicans may be an illegal act of discrimination, but a sign in the window of a restaurant is not the same as a refusal to serve and it seems to me that any law banning one would be subject to a 1st Amendment challenge. I suppose a winning argument might be that the sign served the purpose of refusing service and therefore could be prohibited from use, but if this were the case, and this decision opens the door for an end run why haven't we already seen cases of such an end run? The Patent's Office's regulation against discriminatory or disparaging trademarks hasn't been in place for decades has it? I don't believe The Slants challenged a policy/reg that has been unchallenged for 50 years of more, and if I'm right, it's hard to believe a clever racist wouldn't have come up with the idea the Prof is so worried about, some time ago.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

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@McGentrix,

If you're saying he was fool for ever wanting to go to North Korea in the first place, I agree. What's there, other than insanity?

1 Reply

@layman,

That's what I'm saying. WTF is he doing there to begin with.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

I don't believe The Slants challenged a policy/reg that has been unchallenged for 50 years of more...Can anyone shed any light on this?

Quote:

The Lanham Act (also known as the Trademark Act of 1946) is the federal statute that governs trademarks, service marks, and unfair competition. It was passed by Congress on July 5, 1946 and signed into law by President Harry Truman.

The disparagement clause of the Lanham Act [(Section 2(a)] was part of the original act and not added later. Surprised it has not been challenged before now.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

The professor further argued (and perhaps again he was merely restating an argument made by the government's lawyers) that by protecting the use of "hate speech" through the granting of a trademark, the door was opened for individuals to get around anti-discrimination laws.

This guy's credentials sound suspect. The Supreme Court has long held that so-called "hate speech" is protected by the Constitution.

Someone needs to tell fools like Howard Dean that, maybe, but a law professor?

From the Slants case:

Quote:

Justice Alito wrote: “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate.”

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

North Korea and a park are galaxies apart.

But the concept of "asking for it" and "he deserved what he got" aren't.

This topic has been addressed in detail in this thread: https://able2know.org/topic/393943-1

In summary:

1) We don't know that Warmbier broke any laws, we only have the allegation of a a brutal regime that has a long history of heinous crimes and absolutely no history of a warm and faithful relationship with The Truth.

2) Warmbier was, from all we know, a 21 year old kid who wasn't particularly experienced in the ways of the world. He was foolish to visit North Korea in the first place and if he did try to purloin a poster for a souvenir then he was even more foolish, but there is no evidence that he entered the country with the intent of going on a crime spree, or as an agent of the CIA.

3) Sovereign nations are entitled to pass whatever laws they believe are necessary for the safeguarding of their people and their country, and foreign visitors are not entitled to pass judgment on the validity of those laws and violate them with impunity if they judge them invalid, but...

4) There isn't a civilized nation in the world that has determined that brutally torturing someone (let alone killing them) is an appropriate punishment for stealing a poster, and no person or nation on the face of the earth is under any obligation to accept such a punishment as anything but a heinous travesty of justice, just because of the concept of national sovereignty. (The hypocritical ghouls that have cheered Warmbier's fate don't believe this is the case for their own nation let alone any other)

5) Sick assholes like Prof. Dettwyler, who know virtually nothing about Warmbier or the facts of his case, are criticizing him solely because he is a white male of a sufficiently high enough economic status to qualify him automatically as an arrogant, brat of privilege who went through life stomping on the poor and oppressed because of the sense of entitlement he developed from being white, male and at least well off enough to afford a plane ticket to China (Actually, I don't think these people have an economic, age or gender criteria for being guilty of the sin of White Privilege. You can be a 10 year old girl walking around Appalachia in a filthy torn dress, no shoes and with an empty belly and intestinal worms, and you're guilty of Privilege, just as long as you are white. (It's the Post-Modern Era's Original Sin)

He never should have entered NK, he never should have even contemplated stealing anything, and he never should have had half of his brain destroyed by brutal torture and then shipped home to die.

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Hey, Finn and Gent (and anyone else), did you happen to watch the "Clinton Cash" documentary I posted?

It's about an hour long, which might deter many, but it's pretty good on details--none of which have been rebutted to my knowledge, despite years of the MSM trying to find something wrong with it.

1 Reply

@layman,

Gee, ;you cdertainly didn't look very hard before you claimed you couldn't find any evidence against it. I got this in thrty seconds. Now I don't have to waste an hujr on a piece of trash. This is only the index and the first couple of pages exposing his errors. It goes on for pages and pages at Media Matters. You presumably spent the hour watching the trash. Now find out why it's trash.

Quote:

Twenty-Plus Errors, Fabrications, And Distortions In Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash
Research ››› April 30, 2015 3:06 PM EDT ››› ERIC HANANOKI
Versión en español

180

Republican activist and consultant Peter Schweizer's new book Clinton Cash, obtained by Media Matters ahead of its publication date, is a trainwreck of sloppy research and shoddy reporting that contains over twenty errors, fabrications, and distortions. Schweizer pushes conspiracies "based on little evidence" that are "inconsistent with the facts" and "false"; takes quotes "badly out of context"; excludes exculpatory information that undermines his claims; and falls for a fake press release.
INDEX:
Republican Activist And Serial Misinformer Peter Schweizer Is Releasing A New Anti-Clinton Book
Schweizer's Russian Uranium Conspiracy "Is Based On Little Evidence"
At Least Five Errors Undermine Schweizer's Haiti Conspiracy
Schweizer Butchered Two Quotes To Attack Bill Clinton Over HIV/AIDS Programs
Key Evidence Schweizer Used For His Conspiracy About Hillary Clinton And India Is "False"
Schweizer Admitted He Omitted Key Information About Clinton Foundation Donor
Schweizer's Boeing Accusation Has "No Evidence"
Schweizer's Colombia Conspiracy Is "Inconsistent With The Facts"
Schweizer's Iran Accusation Is Undermined By Government 101
Schweizer Misled Readers About Bill Clinton's Charitable Donation
Schweizer's Sloppy Journalism On Ethiopian Aid
Schweizer Attacked Clintons For Accepting Donation From Businessman -- But Not Former Boss George W. Bush
Schweizer Criticized Bill Clinton For Meeting With Kazakhstan President -- But Didn't Attack Bush And Cheney For Friendship With Him
Schweizer Attacked Clintons For Associating With Rwanda President -- But Spares Former Boss President Bush On "Friendship"
Facts Sink Schweizer's FDIC Conspiracy
Schweizer Fell For A Fake Press Release
Facts Undermine Schweizer's Anheuser-Busch Influence Trading Suggestion
After ABC News Found Book Errors, Schweizer Admitted Mistakes
Republican Activist And Serial Misinformer Peter Schweizer Is Releasing A New Anti-Clinton Book
Peter Schweizer Is Releasing Clinton Cash: The Untold Story Of How And Why Foreign Governments And Businesses Helped Make Bill And Hillary Rich. On May 5, HarperCollins Publishers will release Clinton Cash. A publisher's description claims of the book: "Meticulously researched and scrupulously sourced, filled with headline-making revelations, Clinton Cash raises serious questions of judgment, of possible indebtedness to an array of foreign interests, and ultimately, of fitness for high public office." HarperCollins is owned by NewsCorp, which is headed by Rupert Murdoch and is the sister company of Fox News parent 21st Century Fox. [HarperCollins.com, accessed 4/29/15]
Schweizer Is A Republican Activist And Consultant Who Has Worked For George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, And Breitbart.com. He has also spoken at Republican fundraisers and to conservative groups. [Media Matters, 4/20/15]
Schweizer's Group Has Close Ties To A Billionaire Family Funding Sen. Ted Cruz's Presidential Run. Schweizer is the president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI). The Mercer family, which has strongly supported Ted Cruz's presidential run, has donated substantial sums to GAI. GAI has also received support from groups backed by Charles and David Koch. [Media Matters, 4/21/15]
There Are Over Twenty Reasons Not To Believe Clinton Cash. A Media Matters analysis of the book found numerous errors, fabrications, and distortions. Media outlets tore apart Schweizer's allegation that Hillary Clinton played a "central role" in approving a Russian uranium deal for Clinton Foundation donors. He made multiple errors in a section alleging Bill Clinton's speaking fees influenced State Department grants in Haiti. He cited as fact a press release that was revealed as a hoax years before. He took a former U.S. ambassador's words "badly out of context," drawing condemnation from the individual. He erred in his conspiracy about Hillary Clinton's vote on an India nuclear deal. He excluded multiple pieces of exculpatory evidence that undermine his claims. He hypocritically attacked the Clintons for engaging in the same behavior that Schweizer's former boss, George W. Bush, did. And he alleged Clinton conspiracies that, in the words of third parties who reviewed his work, have "no evidence," are "circumstantial," and have "no smoking gun."
Schweizer Has A History Of Shoddy Reporting. Prior to Clinton Cash, reporters and fact checkers have excoriated Schweizer for massive factual problems. A Media Matters analysis found at least 10 separate incidents in which media called out Schweizer for botching his reporting. The following is how reporters have described Schweizer's work: "Incorrect," "inaccurate," "bogus," "a fatal shortcoming in Journalism 101," "the facts didn't stand up," "unfair and inaccurate," "specious argument," "there was nothing there," "suspicious," "the facts don't fit," facts "do not check out," sources "do not exist or cannot be tracked down," "confusion and contradiction," "discrepancies," "admitted a mistake," "neither journalism nor history," "a polemic so unchecked ... that we can't tell the fact from the fiction," sources "have clearly used him," and "tacitly conced[ed] he was wrong." [Media Matters, 4/20/15]
Schweizer's Russian Uranium Conspiracy "Is Based On Little Evidence"
Schweizer Suggested Hillary Clinton Played A "Central Role" In Approving Russian Uranium Deal Because Of Clinton Foundation Donations. Schweizer claimed Clinton played a "central role" in approving the purchase of Uranium One by the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency (Rosatom) and speculated she did so because of money given to the Clinton Foundation and her husband:
Russia wanted the deal for commercial and strategic reasons. The Canadian investors wanted the deal because it stood to make them richer. But politics in the United States would prove critical. Because uranium is a strategic industry, the Russian purchase of a Canadian company holding massive US assets required US government approval. Playing a central role in whether approval was granted was none other than Hillary Clinton.
[...]
But however hawkish Hillary might have been on other deals, this one sailed through. The Russian purchase of Uranium One was approved by CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] on October 22, 2010. Hillary's opposition would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president. That never happened.
[...]
Still, despite a long record of publicly opposing such deals, Hillary didn't object. Why the apparent reversal? Could it be because shareholders involved in the transactions had transferred approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation or its initiatives? Or because her husband had profited from lucrative speaking deals arranged by companies associated with those who stood to profit from the deal? Could it be because Bill -- and possibly she herself -- had quietly helped build the uranium assets for the company to begin with? These questions can only be answered by Hillary herself. What is clear is that based on State Department ethics documents, she never revealed these transactions to her colleagues, the Obama White House, or to Capitol Hill. [Clinton Cash, 2015, p. 47; p. 54; pp. 54-56]
TIME: Schweizer Offered "No Indication Of Hillary Clinton's Personal Involvement In, Or Even Knowledge Of, The Deliberations." A TIME report debunked Schweizer's Rosatom/Uranium One conspiracy by explaining that it is "based on little evidence." To the contrary, the publication reported that an "official involved in the process said Clinton had nothing to do with the decision":
The suggestion of outside influence over U.S. decisionmaking is based on little evidence -- the allegations are presented as questions rather than proof. The deal's approval was the result of an extensive interagency process that required the assent of at least nine different officials and agencies. A former State Department official who participated in the deal's approval told TIME that Clinton did not weigh in on the uranium sale one way or the other, and her campaign calls the allegations in the book "absurd conspiracy theories."
[...]
The State Department's role in approving the deal was part of an extensive bureaucratic process, and the chapter offers no indication of Hillary Clinton's personal involvement in, or even knowledge of, the deliberations. State has just one vote on the nine-member committee, which also includes the departments of Defense, Treasury and Energy. Disagreements are traditionally handled at the staff level, and if they are not resolved, they are escalated to deputies at the relevant agencies. If the deputies can't resolve the dispute, the issues can be elevated to the Cabinet Secretary level and, if needed, to the President for a decisionrty seconds

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layman wrote:

Media Matters!? I was talking about reputable sources. And I was talking about factual details, not opinions.

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@MontereyJack,

As even MM notes, rather than presenting "conspiracy theories," the author asks questions, AFTER providing the facts:

your source wrote:

Still, despite a long record of publicly opposing such deals, Hillary didn't object. Why the apparent reversal? Could it be because shareholders involved in the transactions had transferred approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation or its initiatives? Or because her husband had profited from lucrative speaking deals arranged by companies associated with those who stood to profit from the deal? Could it be because Bill -- and possibly she herself -- had quietly helped build the uranium assets for the company to begin with? These questions can only be answered by Hillary herself. What is clear is that based on State Department ethics documents, she never revealed these transactions to her colleagues, the Obama White House, or to Capitol Hill. [Clinton Cash, 2015, p. 47; p. 54; pp. 54-56]

Read the NYT article. This guy isn't the only one who has researched the facts, he was just the first to do so in such a comprehensive fashion.

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@MontereyJack,

wiki wrote:

Critical reaction and actions taken

Writing for The Washington Post, academic and political activist (and brief 2016 U.S. Democratic presidential primary opponent of Hillary Clinton) Lawrence Lessig wrote "On any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption."[

James Freeman reviewed the book for The Wall Street Journal, writing that "Almost every page of the fascinating Clinton Cash... will be excruciating reading for partisans on both sides of the aisle".

Ed Pilkington, writing for The Guardian, reported that it was factually correct that "large donations to the foundation from the chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer, at around the time of the Russian purchase of the company and while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, were never disclosed to the public. The multimillion sums were channeled through a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, CGSCI, which did not reveal its individual donors."

Following publication and in reaction to areas where it said improvements were warranted, the Clinton Foundation said it would put into place some new procedures for better financial reporting and that it would limit some kinds of foreign donations. Pilkington assessed those claims made by the Clinton Foundation as unlikely to put the matter to rest: "But with Bill refusing doggedly to give up his speaker engagements – “I gotta pay our bills” – and foreign corporations and super-rich individuals still able to donate to the family charity, it looks like this controversy may run and run."...

Several weeks after the book's initial publication, HarperCollins and the author made several corrections to the Kindle edition of the book. Schweizer corrected "seven or eight" passages that were revealed to be inaccurate after the book was released.

FactCheck.org found Schweizer's assertion that Clinton, as Secretary of State, could have stopped Russia from buying a company with extensive uranium mining operations in the U.S. to be false.[

PolitiFact found the assertion that Clinton changed her views on a nuclear deal with India in response to donations to her family's foundation to be false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Cash

PolitiFact (and other purportedly "impartial" fact checkers), when it suits their purposes, likes to take compound sentences and pronounce them to be false if the disagree with any one portion of it.

For example, if you said "The sky is blue, grass is green, snow is white, coal is black, and grapes are purple," and if they disagreed that grapes are "purple" they would pronounce the entire sentence to be "false" even though the vast majority of it is not disputed.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

(I'm sure you know this too, but maybe you were feeling cranky when you wrote your response)

Well, yeah. I don't like what I see. In my state, in my country, in the world as a whole. I'm trying to understand how it got this bad and I believe that partisanship and salesmanship are partly to blame.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

What I don't understand is the vehement reaction — "pretentious"??? — yeah, okay. Jacobson is an author, not a political columnist. He expressed his reaction to the situation as it was being reported and as he understood it. The piece was more about the nature of drama — and the nature of political people. To whit, the reaction of Mr. Trump's supporters is just what the satirists were hoping to provoke.

Quote:

But their rage at the depiction of the president as the soon-to-be-assassinated Caesar is encouraging to the satirist.

I don't see anything "pretentious" here nor any reason to respond with such apparent outrage — "crock of ****"??? Someone looks at a particular story in the news and attempts to lay out a generalized statement based on his knowledge and understanding and people's blood pressure rises to unhealthy levels. I don't understand you guys at all.

Quote:

In an age of conformity and populist hysteria, [derision] creates a climate of skepticism and distrust of authority.

Gee, that's just so awful.

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Update on local politics in Chicago:

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3561676/pg1

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@hightor,

I know, right?

Quote:

a climate of skepticism and distrust of authority

He acts as if that's a bad thing.

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Quote:

President Trump will reportedly receive a report about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process following a "tense" meeting between White House senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and leaders about the issue.

The London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat reports that Kushner's meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was “tense,” according to a translation from the Jerusalem Post, and Abbas was reportedly furious at Kushner relaying the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz also reports that Palestinian officials were “greatly disappointed” by their meeting with Kushner and Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

"They sounded like Netanyahu's advisers and not like fair arbiters," a senior Palestinian official told the newspaper. "They started presenting Netanyahu's issues and then we asked to hear from them clear stances regarding the core issues of the conflict."

The rest at The Hill

Maybe achieving peace between Israel and Palestine is as difficult as people have thought over the years.

Trump skipping the traditional Ramadon Dinner probably doesn't help things. Quite a jerk.

2 Replies

@hightor,

Quote:

What I don't understand is the vehement reaction — "pretentious"??? I don't see anything "pretentious" here nor any reason to respond with such apparent outrage — "crock of ****"???....people's blood pressure rises to unhealthy levels....I don't understand you guys at all.

Heh, and you accuse me of being "thin-skinned? You see my simple observation as a "vehement reaction?" You think you see "outrage?" You think you're observing high "blood pressure" resulting in "vexation?"

If ya wanna see those kinda things, get a mirror, eh? You seem pretty vehement, outraged, and vexed by any criticism of your post citing a pompous, cheese-eating poseur, eh?

None of the criticism of this central park play has anything to do with Shakespeare's merits. Why even make such a post? You seem to have been pretty impressed by it. I wasn't. Sorry if that highly disturbs you. Maybe you should paste on a thicker skin, eh?

1 Reply

@layman,

I'm only ascribing your vexation to the tone of voice you use, little limburger brother. A more level-headed and sanguine person would have critiqued the article based on its content. You're the one who seems to want to bring everything back to the Central Park play — the author was simply using it as a springboard to make a more generalized point.

Quote:

You seem pretty vehement, outraged, and vexed by any criticism of your post citing a pompous, cheese-eating poseur, eh?

My, my, my — such a hothead! My response, cheeseface, which was addressed to Finn, hardly evinces vehemence, outrage, or vexation. You can say anything you want to about the article — I didn't write it. I just think it's funny that it would evoke such a vituperative reaction and how different the tone and content of your critique was from that of the article.

Quote:

You seem to have been pretty impressed by it.

It was simply an article germane to some of the discussions here, not the Port Huron Declaration. The only thing that really impressed me about it is the fact that it seems to have vexed you to the point of your continuing the discussion. Hahahaaaa! I'll just never understand cheese-faces.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

What I don't understand is the vehement reaction — "pretentious"??? — yeah, okay. Jacobson is an author, not a political columnist. He expressed his reaction to the situation as it was being reported and as he understood it. The piece was more about the nature of drama — and the nature of political people. To whit, the reaction of Mr. Trump's supporters is just what the satirists were hoping to provoke.

I suppose people will disagree on what is pretentious and what is not, but Jacobson's piece, IMO, is pretentious and obviously layman agrees. (2- 1, we win!) That he's an "author" and not a political pundit has no bearing on the quality of his writing.

I found no reason to believe Jacobson understood the reaction of the members of the audience who stood and called "Shame!" or for that matter if there is any reason to be certain that they are "Trump supporters" (or "Trumpists" as he described them). For all he and I know they were liberals or politically apathetic, but were protesting the excess of the production. If we want to delve into stereotypes, as Jacobson appears to, standing up and calling "Shame!" during the controversial scene is hardly the reaction one expects from a stereotypical Trumpist. As layman might comment, it sounds like something a cheese-eater would do. Given that Jacobson likely doesn't understand the reaction, he can hardly advance the notion that it is precisely the sort of reaction a satirist wants to provoke, unless he is taking the position that satirists are happy provoking any reaction and that's simply not the case. A committed provocateur may have been just as satisfied if the two men had opened up on the stage with automatic weapons, but not a satirist.

Jacobson pretty clearly wrote the article from the standpoint that he knew the nature of the reaction, and that it was one of thin skinned individuals who have fallen into the trap of worshiping a Caesar (who is not even worthy of that dictator's mantle) AND who are so uneducated and provincial that they can't appreciate "Julius Caesar," Shakespeare" drama or satire, and while that doesn't necessary render him pretentious, it certainly makes him supercilious, which is, arguably, worse.

Quote:

Quote:
But their rage at the depiction of the president as the soon-to-be-assassinated Caesar is encouraging to the satirist.

I don't see anything "pretentious" here nor any reason to respond with such apparent outrage — "crock of ****"???

"Rage" is not a word I would use to describe the emotions of the two gentlemen who stood and shouted "Shame!" Now if they had fired bullets at the cast, I would, but I wouldn't think "rage" would be automatically appropriate even if they had followed suit with Shakespeare's audiences of hundreds of years ago and thrown cabbages at the cast (A reaction of which the drama scholar Jacobson might have approved). Of course, Jacobson uses the term because it conforms to the image he wants to paint of the two men and the reaction of Trumpists in general to the production: Unthinking.

You've done the same thing by describing layman's comment as vehement outrage. I don't know about you but I'm perfectly capable of calling something a "crock of ****" without an attendant spike in my blood pressure...and often do. One can take strong objection to this production, maintain control of one's emotions, and not be reduced to a sputtering bumpkin.

Quote:

I don't understand you guys at all.

Obviously. Luckily, somehow I'm able to understand you very well.

Quote:

In an age of conformity and populist hysteria, [derision] creates a climate of skepticism and distrust of authority.

Gee, that's just so awful.

Who has argued that this is awful? You're eye-rolling derision is off the mark.

I don't know of anyone (and certainly not anyone in this forum) who has expressed an objection to this production who has done so on the basis that it ridicules Trump. I've criticized the director's hamfisted expression of derision, and his use of a play that was never intended to be satirical and doesn't work as a satire, to achieve his "artistic vision," but every president of the United States should be the target of ridicule and derision, and Trump makes himself a very ripe target. However, it is a very broad definition of "derision" that includes depictions of the target being violently assassinated, or reduced to a bloody head being held by a humorless comedian.

Trump doesn't attract thin skinned worshipers any more (and probably less) than Obama did. Not only did a great many of his followers bristle whenever he was ridiculed, a fair number of them went so far as to label it all racist. The Obama Faithful certainly didn't respond to the derision of which he was a target with healthy skepticism and distrust of authority. Most "satirists" who are having such a field day with Trump and generally had no qualms with taking on past Democrat presidents (Indeed candidate Hillary Clinton was the target of more SNL lampoons in the one year running up to the election than Obama was over the eight years of his presidency) were missing in action when artists were called upon to discharge their sacred duty to pierce the balloons of the powerful (imagine that a sarcasm font was just used here).

The issue of contention with this production, Kathy Griffin's photo, Madonna's passionate admission of wanting to blow Trump up, Johnny Depp's drunken assassination comments, etc. etc. etc. is not ridicule and derision. Jacobson obviously can't see this, and I'm beginning to think you can't either.

1 Reply

Howard Jacobson is certainly no Alex Jones.

Quote:

His 1999 novel The Mighty Walzer, about a teenage table tennis champion, won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing.[12] It is set in the Manchester of the 1950s and Jacobson, himself a table tennis fan in his teenage years, admits that there is more than an element of autobiography in it. His 2002 novel Who's Sorry Now? – the central character of which is a Jewish luggage baron of South London – and his 2006 novel Kalooki Nights were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Jacobson described Kalooki Nights as "the most Jewish novel that has ever been written by anybody, anywhere". It won the 2007 JQ Wingate Prize.

As well as writing fiction, he also contributes a weekly column for The Independent newspaper as an op-ed writer. In recent times, he has, on several occasions, attacked anti-Israel boycotts, and for this reason has been labelled a "liberal Zionist".

In October 2010 Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Finkler Question, which was the first comic novel to win the prize since Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils in 1986. The book, published by Bloomsbury, explores what it means to be Jewish today and is also about "love, loss and male friendship". Andrew Motion, the chair of the judges, said: "The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize." His novel Zoo Time won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (2013), Jacobson's second time winning the prize (the first in 1999 for The Mighty Walzer).

In September 2014, Jacobson's novel J was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

Jacobson has argued that an education in science and technology is more conducive to terrorism than an education in the arts and social sciences. Some commentators on the article suggested that theology was an even stronger motivating force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Jacobson

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