In the West, we used to enjoy being able to speak our minds. Now we have cancel culture. Unless we share the pernicious and depraved ideology of the ruling class, we either keep our mouths shut or recite lies, lest our lives be destroyed by woke lynch mobs. This is for the best, according to academia:

“Cancel culture” has its benefits, according to an online anti-racism course being taught to over 100 British academics.

“Union Black,” a class being taught by The Open University, teaches professors that “In relation to racial/social justice, cancel culture has been shown to realize benefits.”

What else would you expect of the “Open” University in the land of George Orwell?

These benefits, according to class materials, include “holding people or entities accountable for immoral or unacceptable behavior” and “promoting collective action to achieve social justice and cultural change through social pressure.”

In other words, the benefit is that silencing dissent allows leftists to impose leftism. That is now the purpose of education — which could be why cancel culture is so prevalent on campus:

The College Fix … recently identified nearly 200 cases over the past academic year in which professors, students, mascots, paintings, honorary degrees and the like were either canceled or protested on campus. To date, The Fix’s Campus Cancel Culture Database has collected over 1,500 examples of cancelations or attempted cancelations.

Not even academia is more adamantly opposed to freedom of speech (i.e., freedom of thought) than woke globalist corporations like Santander Corporate & Investment Banking:

The Open University began the course in 2021 and it is now taught in 90 UK universities including schools in Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, and Imperial College London.

The course is backed with 500,000 pound investment by Santander investment.

We may as well be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party for all the tolerance the liberal establishment has for dissident opinion.

On a tip from ABC of the ANC.

The Cardiff Philharmonic had an all-Tchaikovsky concert scheduled for next week. It won’t happen, because the legendary 19th century composer has been canceled for being Russian:

The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has removed Tchaikovsky from its programme of its upcoming concert ‘in light of the recent Russian invasion’.

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was due to be included in the orchestra’s upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert at St David’s Hall on 18 March, but it was considered by the orchestra ‘to be inappropriate at this time’.

When they come for Prokofiev and Shostakovich, I really will be pissed.

Why should they stop at music? If cultural custodians want to be fair, they should signal their virtue by canceling great writers too. Hide away your Dostoevsky and Chekhov before Democrats pass legislation.

Our current society is dominated by a series of hysterical lynch mobs, lurching around with pitchforks and torches, looking for something to burn so as to showcase their righteousness. If people don’t stand up to them, our heritage will be lost.

After everyone from the past has been canceled, we will be left with modern composers. Imagine trying to sit through a concert of the crap composed nowadays. Maybe they could have a cat perform the complete works of John Cage by walking back and forth on a piano. Give the cat enough downers and it could play Morton Feldman.

But resistance to the mob does come at a price:

Conductor Valery Gergiev has been at the centre of the news lately, having refused to condemn the Russian regime and the rule of his friend Vladimir Putin. He has been dropped by management, festivals and concert series, and has lost roles at the Munich Philharmonic the Edinburgh International Festival.

If conductors have to pass political purity tests to ply their trade, Putin isn’t the tyrant we need to worry about. We have tyranny closer to home to deal with.

On tips from Varla and Wiggins.

At age 91, Clint Eastwood may be the last remnant of a Hollywood that reflected American culture rather than trying to replace it with a contrived culture more to the taste of moonbats. The liberal mob has inevitably demanded that he be canceled.

The thought police excavated an ideological infraction from an awards show that took place half a century ago. Via Fox News:

The clip in question comes from the 1973 Academy Awards in which actor Marlon Brando famously refused to accept his award for best actor in “The Godfather” and instead sent a Native American activist on stage to lament Hollywood’s treatment of American Indians by the film industry.

“I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you, in a very long speech — which I cannot share with you presently because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards — that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” the activist, Sacheen Littlefeather, said on the podium. “And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry, and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”

Eastwood had been starring in some excellent Westerns. Before giving out the award, he made a harmless joke in reference to Littlefeather’s moonbattery:

“I don’t know if I should present this award, on behalf of all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford Westerns over the years.”

In light of the remark, this Hollywood icon ought to be erased from movie history, according to progressive activist Rafael Shimunov, who denounces Eastwood as racist.

For once the mob might not get its way:

The campaign against Eastwood appears to have fizzled out with many of the commenters on the thread defending the 91-year-old “Cry Macho” director.

Sooner or later, the worm will turn. A few will show courage, then a few more. Before long, the cancel mob will find itself canceled.

On a tip from Dragon’s Lair.

Thanks to accountability cancel culture, it isn’t easy for kids to enjoy Halloween. They have to incorporate identity politics ideology into their choice of costume. Otherwise, a photo of them in a politically incorrect outfit might crop up 20 years later and serve as a pretext for the woke mob to ruin their lives. This limits options for white kids, as Caucasian role models become ever scarcer in what the liberal establishment presents to us as popular culture:

Social engineers probably hope that if they make Halloween difficult enough, we will drop it altogether, like the Seattle school that declared it to be racist. Halloween is an aspect of American culture; therefore, it must be eradicated before utopia can be imposed.

On a tip from Mr. Freemarket.

Back in its golden era, rock was rebellious. Some classic rockers maintain that spirit even now. Eric Clapton is reviled by the liberal establishment for failing to toe the line on Covid tyranny. Others were probably only posing all along, and consequently have aged less gracefully. Rather than risk the wrath of the cancel mob, the Rolling Stones have canceled one of their own songs:

The Rolling Stones announced Tuesday the rock band will no longer perform the hit song Brown Sugar amid accusations the 50-year-old classic is linked to the subjugation of slaves.

The lyrics are about the sexual abuse of slaves in centuries past. Obviously, the song does not endorse this abuse, yet it drew the attention of an idiot mob desperate to find something else to cancel. It is their second most-performed song after “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

Keith Richards wrote the song with Mick Jagger.

“I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is,” Richards, 77, said before asking his critics: “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery?”

Yet they took it off the playlist anyway. Someone seems to be lacking stones.

Paul Joseph Watson weighs in:

On tips from KirklesWorth, Dragon’s Lair, and TCS III.

The military has always been a bastion of conservative values; progressives have attacked it from within by installing leftists like Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin in key positions. Now moonbats get a taste of their own medicine, as they are attacked from within their most secure redoubt — the entertainment industry. Nikki Minaj has doubled down on her rebellious stance.

First, she enraged the liberal establishment with a commonsense tweet advising those unsure whether to get the Covid jab as Biden demands to “pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied.”

The mob came at her like a swarm of flying monkeys. Admirably, she chose not to cower and apologize like most do these days, but to stand her ground and denounce leftist cancel culture, aptly comparing it to the totalitarianism imposed by the regime in communist China:

This illustrates why the country used to function and doesn’t anymore. No doubt there is plenty that most conservatives would disagree with Nikki Minaj about, but we can respect each other because we are all Americans who agree on the importance of fundamental freedoms like free speech and bodily autonomy. Liberals used to agree too — but not anymore, which is why Nikki Minaj has set their hair on fire.

On tips from KirklesWorth and StephaneDumas.

The cancel culture mob is so desperate to find faux victims of racism on whose behalf they can bully the rest of us that they have stooped to defending the white people their own ideology demonizes. Due to the supply of racism falling far short of demand, the Irish have become honorary BIPOCs so that moonbats can denounce Notre Dame’s leprechaun mascot.

Woke scolds like pencil-necked sports weenie Max Kellerman proclaim the Fighting Irish’s mascot to be an anti-immigrant ethnic slur — i.e., a thought crime — and demand that it be canceled.

Squeaks Kellerman,

“Pernicious, negative stereotypes of marginalized people that offend, even some among them, should be changed.”

Leprechauns are said to have been used by the English to disparage the Irish in generations past.

Maybe that is why a survey determined Notre Dame’s pugnacious leprechaun to be the fourth most offensive mascot in college football. The mascots regarded as even more offensive represent Indians, who will soon be completely erased from popular culture so that liberals won’t have to feel offended on their behalf.

When the Cleveland Capitulators canceled Chief Yahoo, the days became numbered for all anthropoid mascots. Once they are all gone, woke bullies will become offended on behalf of animals.

On a tip from Varla.

No one can be woke enough to avoid denunciation by the moonbat mob, not even the guy who made the Founding Fathers black and Hispanic. Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame used minority actors to play characters like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. This is to be encouraged, as pretending that they weren’t white may be the only way to spare the titans of American history from erasure. Now the woke police have attacked Miranda for his casting in another production:

[W]hile most of the cast of “In the Heights” is Latino and one of the leads is African-American, there aren’t many (any?) Afro-Latino actors involved. Thus did a major triumph of minority representation onscreen become an occasion for Miranda to issue the latest groveling, half-sincere apology for being exclusionary.

It isn’t true in the sense that he meant it, but Obama’s wingman Eric Holder was right when he said that America is a “nation of cowards” on the subject of race. Read in horror as Miranda, who may have done more than anyone ever to get more nonwhites on the theater stage, begs forgiveness of a mob of thugs for not doing enough to advance identity politics:

Veteran Puerto Rican entertainer Rita Moreno dared plead with the mob to leave Miranda alone, but then promptly backed down and issued her own sniveling apology.

Have cowards like Miranda, Bob Brenly, Chris Harrison, et al. no self-respect at all? Obsequiously groveling before woke thugs is so disgusting, even other leftists must be getting sick to their stomach. They just don’t have the guts to admit it publicly. The exception to this rule is Bill Maher:

“This is why people hate Democrats,” says Maher. Well, one of the reasons.

You know the country has gone off the rails when Bill Maher sounds like the voice of reason.

Totalitarianism happens when people apologize to bullies instead of telling them to go to hell.

On tips from Varla and TCS III.

Before the disgusting spectacle of athletes kneeling in obeisance to black supremacist terrorists who were engaged in widespread political violence forced me to swear off baseball, I was a fan of Bob Brenly. He is a likable guy who managed the Arizona Diamondbacks to a World Series championship in 2001 and more recently has done a great job as color man for the team’s TV broadcasts. Unfortunately, he turns out to suffer from the same deficiency that has killed the MLB in the eyes of former fans: a gelatinous spine.

On Tuesday, Brenly made a tepid joke about the du-rag worn by Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman. Via Breitbart:

“Pretty sure that’s the same du-rag that Tom Seaver used to wear when he pitched for the Mets,” Brenly joked.

Uh oh. Stroman is a sacred Person of Color, and therefore must not be poked fun at in even the mildest way, according to the official religion of professional sports, wokism. Stroman denounced Brenly on Twitter for his “racist undertones.”

Now comes the horrifying part. Instead of showing some courage and serving as an inspiration to others, Brenly dropped to his knees and whimpered the following:

“During last night’s game, I made a poor attempt at humor that was insensitive and wrong … I apologize to Marcus Stroman and have reached out directly to share those thoughts. I have had several conversations with the D-backs, and we agree that seeking sensitivity training is an important step so I can continue to learn from my mistakes in order to be better in the future.”

At age 67, Brenly has had a long and distinguished career. The worst that could have happened if he had stood up to the bullies is that this career would be over. His self-respect, and the respect of fans, would still be intact. It does take extra guts to be the first guy to show courage on a sinking ship of cowards, but people have done braver things than say, “It was just a harmless joke and I’m not going to grovel over it, much less subject myself to humiliating indoctrination.”

He could have been the Tanner Cross of baseball. Instead, he is just another simpering, hand-wringing coward of the kind that has made America’s precipitous decline from greatness possible.

Prior to his managing days, Brenly played for the San Francisco Giants, who have now incorporated rainbow colors into their uniform to promote homosexuality. That’s how bad it gets when no one pushes back.

On tips from Wiggins and Mr. Freemarket.

Where moonbattery prevails, the renaming never stops, because few names can be woke enough to avoid offending the perpetually offended. Woke Forest University went only 19 days after renaming a building before agreeing to rename it again:

On May 7, Wake Forest University announced it would rename its Wingate Hall to “May 7, 1860 Hall” to mark the date it sold 16 slaves about 161 years ago.

“May 7, 1860, is the date Wake Forest sold at auction 16 human beings that a slave-owning benefactor bequeathed to the institution through his estate. By renaming this building, the University acknowledges participation in slavery, recognizes this aspect of its history and remembers those who labored at the institution against their will,” the university said in a news release at the time.

It seems our entire civilization now revolves around slavery, which existed throughout the world for millennia, and ended in this country going on 2 centuries ago.

Washington Manly Wingate, fourth president of Wake Forest, had to be erased for defending slavery in the mid-19th century. Wingate has been canceled, because blacks find him offensive.

But the new name offended blacks too. So the educrats obediently agreed to rename the building again. At last word, they were trying to come up with something blacks will tolerate. George Floyd Hall and Huey Newton Hall have already been suggested.

What fun it would be to be an aggrieved black student. You could proclaim that you find it traumatic and offensive that educrats don’t wear their underpants on their heads whenever they appear in public, and threaten to riot if they don’t comply.

On a tip from R F.

Fisher Stevens is haunted by guilt to this day over having some innocent fun playing an Indian computer scientist who was a little goofy in the 1986 comedy Short Circuit. Stand by for the nuclear meltdown when liberals discover Soul Man, which came out the same year.

Less humorous is interracial violence, which is rarely inflicted by Caucasians, to the media’s immense disappoint. Young lives destroyed by the vicious and demented Cancel Culture mob — e.g., Caleb Kennedy’s — aren’t that funny either. But Mark Dice keeps our spirits up anyway:

On tips from KirklesWorth and ABC of the ANC.

Progressives are serious about erasing Western Civilization in toto on the grounds that it is racist according to critical race theory. Even Sir Isaac Newton, the Father of Physics, may face cancelation as curricula are decolonized:

Newton has been labelled as a potential beneficiary of “colonial-era activity” in draft plans to “decolonise” the engineering curriculum at Sheffield University. …

The plans form part of the engineering faculty’s efforts to “challenge long-standing conscious and unconscious biases” among students to tackle “Eurocentric” and “white saviour” approaches to science and maths, and promote “inclusive design”.

Maybe Newton can survive total cancelation if they balance his discoveries with the delusional beliefs of dysfunctional savages who lived at the time.

Newton, who lived until 1727, laid the foundations of modern science with his theory of gravity, in the seminal Principia, and theories on light, time, colour and calculus.

His equation for universal gravitation, written in 1666 when he was 23, helped overthrow more than a thousand years of Aristotelian thinking.

Newton ranks among the greatest scientific minds of all time. But he was a white guy, so he will be lucky not to be erased — especially since he lived at a time when Western Civilization was raising the standard of living of the entire world by expanding through colonization.

Newton’s opinion of slavery is both irrelevant and unknown. However, he owned shares in a company that was involved in the slave trade. He lost a fortune when the company tanked, but that hardly expiates the sin of having participated no matter how tangentially in a practice that had been common throughout the world since the beginning of recorded history.

Other shareholders at the time included 462 members of the House of Commons and 100 members of the House of Lords.

Cancel them all!

If the Jacobins running British universities can cancel classical music in the name of critical race theory, they can cancel anything, even Newtonian physics. It would be blasphemy to suggest that the law of gravity might still be in force even after it has been repealed for being racist, because that would imply that the universe is not centered on historic black oppression.

Remarks Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union,

“Newton famously said, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Everyone studying maths or engineering deserves to stand on Newton’s shoulders so they, too, can see further, regardless of their ethnicity.”

But the woke don’t need to see. They already know all there is to know. All that remains for them is to eradicate everyone living or dead who might contradict them.

On a tip from R F.

No moonbat is beyond the reach of cancelation. Yesterday’s hero of the left is today’s nonentity, to be frog-marched to the memory hole. Not even prominent atheist Richard Dawkins was safe; he has been stripped of the 1996 Humanist of the Year award by the American Humanist Association for deviating from transgender orthodoxy.

Exhibit A for the prosecution:

Not good enough. Men who pretend they are women are women period or you are canceled.

Also, Dawkins noted that it is “oppressive nonsense” to demand that employees sign a statement averring that “trans women are women.”

Then there was this:

Discuss? We don’t discuss anymore. Left-wing maniacs shriek pernicious nonsense and the rest of us nod our heads submissively. Otherwise, we get canceled.

When the mob set upon him for that last tweet, Dawkins tried to mollify it with a bigoted denunciation of “Republican bigots in US now exploiting this issue.” Too late; Dawkins has been canceled.

On a tip from Lyle.

Most countermoonbats would agree that it would be nice to avoid buying anything from the obnoxiously woke Procter & Gamble. But who to buy from instead? For toothpaste and dish soap, alternatives to Crest and Joy are offered by Colgate-Palmolive — which like P&G promotes transsexualizing children. For shaving products, in place of man-hating Gillette, there is Harry’s — which has joined the leftist cancel culture lynch mob, as Michael Knowles reveals:

The entire corporate establishment is rotted through with extreme moonbattery. German communist Rudi Dutschke called for a “Long March Through the Institutions.” At this point, there are few if any institutions left to be marched through. Normal people are now the underground.

On a tip from KirklesWorth.