As the explosive scandal sparked by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein rocks the film industry, normal Americans are bearing witness to the morbid spectacle of the Left accomplishing what conservatives have claimed to be pursuing for decades: destroying the Left.
It should be no surprise that we had to wait for the perverts who run Hollywood to implode–while they kept abusing women and children the whole time–when conservative leaders have made it clear that they have no intention of challenging Leftist cultural dominance. The only thing conservatives want to conserve is the cultural Marxist status quo.
Some of you are still in denial or a bleary state of Netflix and football-induced hypnosis, so to drive the point home, I’ve prepared a little thought experiment. For your consideration, here’s what it would look like if conservatives fought to preserve our culture as hard as the Left fights to destroy it.
When Democrats are in control of the levers of power, they have no qualms about weaponizing the IRS against their political enemies. This is the most effective tactic on the list. As John Marshall said, the power to tax is the power to destroy.
And as Glenn Reynolds points out, Hollywood has a specific and easily exploitable weakness in this regard.
The first such proposal would be to restore the 20 percent excise tax on motion picture theater gross revenues that existed between the end of World War II and its repeal in the mid-1950s. The campaign to end the excise tax had studio executives and movie stars talking like Art Laffer, as they noted that high taxes reduced business income, hurt investment and cost jobs.
The movie excise tax was imposed in response to the high deficits after World War Two. Deficits are high again, and there’s already historical precedent. Of course, to keep up with technology, the tax should now apply to DVDs, downloadable movies, pay-per-view and the like. But in these financially perilous times, why should movie stars and studio moguls, with their yachts, swimming pools and private jets, not at least shoulder the burden they carried back in Harry Truman’s day — when, to be honest, movies were better anyway.
For extra fun, they could show pictures of David Geffen’s yacht and John Travolta’s personal Boeing 707 on the Senate floor. You want to tax fat cats? I gotcher “fat cats” right here! Repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!
Repealing Hollywood’s outdated 20% tax break should be a no-brainer for congressional Republicans (but I repeat myself). Why have there been no calls to restore the motion picture excise tax since evidence emerged of the industry’s complicity in Weinstein’s predations?
If the film industry’s debauchery isn’t sufficient motivation for conservatives to act, Hollywood’s nosediving profits definitely should be. After all, conservatives might not care about art, but they’re downright fanatical about money, right?
Not when it comes to money plays that involve risking their reputations with the lefty arts crowd. Roger L. Simon notes that conservative investors now have a once in a lifetime chance to buy out the whole film industry in one fell swoop. But they won’t.
If conservative investors had any courage, this would be the time to make a hostile takeover of the movie business. Unfortunately, they don’t. I know this from bitter personal experience. Wealthy conservatives are delighted to support the Philharmonic, but when it comes to popular culture they turn away, as if afraid to get their hands dirty.
That this is a huge mistake should be obvious. They have abandoned the culture — and our children — to the creepiest people imaginable. What is going on in Hollywood is far from being just about Harvey. It’s approaching a pandemic. So many previously silent assaulted or raped women are coming out of the woodwork, it seems like a long-belated remake of “Cheaper by the Dozen.” No one knows who will be next or if it will stop at Harvey.
It won’t stop at Harvey, and the self-styled moral conservatives who could have stopped it will incur a share of the blame.
If officials at the highest levels of law enforcement were serious about protecting our children (how often have we been told to “please think of” them when our betters want to further erode our liberty?), they’d leave no stone unturned in the hunt for the perpetrators of Hollywood’s systemic abuse culture. Unfortunately, law enforcement’s track record in this regard features a string of Roman Polanskis and Woody Allens.
Thankfully, the prosecution of Weinstein and his accomplices might be the one aspect of this sordid affair that Republicans act on. Although in fairness, it’s President Trump who reportedly lit a fire under the FBI to investigate Weinstein. And as establishment Republicans love to point out, Trump isn’t a conservative.
You can tell because he’s actually using the powers of his office to protect American citizens from Lefty scumbags for a change.
Although it is not yet known if Sessions gave the direct order or if Trump requested the investigation, Trump said he wasn’t surprised by the sexual harassment and assault claims made against Weinstein.
Trump said shortly after news of the shock report on Thursday: ‘I’ve known him for years. I’m not surprised.’
Weinstein was a big donor for Hillary Clinton, who finally denounced her longtime friend in a statement on Tuesday and said on Wednesday that she would donate all his contributions to her campaign to charity.
The SJWs defacing pop culture have it made. Lacking appreciable artistic talent, they only need to check the right political and identity boxes to receive plush sinecures in Hollywood, the comic book industry, and traditional publishing.
Making a living in the arts has always been difficult. It’s become diabolically so since the conservatives–or at least political neutrals–who used to run the film and publishing industries gave away the farm to cultural Marxists.
Make no mistake. The expulsion of non-Leftist content creators from these industries is the result of a concerted and deliberate effort to squeeze thought criminals out of pop culture. The Left has been allowed to carry out their purge unopposed for so long that the process is all but complete.
The most obvious answer to this problem on the part of wealthy conservatives who complain about the corruption of popular entertainment would be to fund non-Leftist art projects themselves. But again, as Roger Simon mentioned above, conservative donors will gladly support the converged arts but not projects that might upset the Leftists they strive to impress.
If conservatives were as serious about saving the culture as they claim, then wealthy conservatives would fund non-Leftist films, TV series, comic books, novels, video games, and other popular media projects–regardless of whether they turned a profit. Converged companies like Tor Books and Marvel Comics are perfectly willing to take major losses in the service of their crusade to destroy Western culture. Wealthy conservatives’ “What’s in it for me?” and “I got mine” mantras betray the fact that they don’t really believe in the value of Western civilization.
To the struggling non-Leftist creators out there who just wanted to make art and be left alone: No one is coming to help you. We’re on our own since, unlike the cultural Marxists working night and day to drive us from the market, our self-professed supporters in business and government are lying about having our back.
It’s up to us to help each other sharpen our skills, strengthen our brands, and build audiences. The #PulpRev and the Superversive literary movements are good examples of fledgling mutual support networks of allied artists.
With or without support, continuing to create original, entertaining content is indispensable to salvaging something of Western culture.
I wouldn’t ask anyone to do what I’m not willing to do myself. That’s one reason why I’ve been creating fun, lecture-free stories for the past couple of years. If you’re starving for unique, thrilling, apolitical science fiction, give my award-winning Soul Cycle novels a shot.
Brain great article. Ok since the So called conservatives are vulgar Gramscians. How do we deplorable create our own parallel structures to develop our own hegemony?
I get that the internet makes it easier bit human are social and relational.
xavier
"Vulgar Gramscians" I love it! You, sir, have got the Boomerservatives' number.
As for creating parallel institutions, I am but a humble typewriter monkey who knows how to produce content but is unlearned in the ways of organization-building.
Recent attempts to create alternative services and platforms to circumvent the Leftist tech and media monopolies have stalled due to internecine factionalism. A solid first step would be to somehow curb our side's radical individualistic impulses.
The more I look at the problem, the more I'm convinced that a major contributing factor to the infighting that's hamstrung dissident institution-building is a lack of serious leadership. Unlike the Left, the Right has a conspicuous dearth of leaders who are primarily committed to the cause with little or no concern for personal fame and/or profit.
You'll have that in the early stages of any popular movement, though. The serious guys will show up when things get more serious. Then it's on.
Brian:
Thanks. It's a riff of vulgar Marxists of the 70s. 🙂
Leadership. Well that's going to be tough as it's something cultivated not grown or given.
It's too bad we're secularized as I'd propose a confraternity with chivalry overtone.
xavier
Deus vult!
I just heard about crtv.
https://www.crtv.com/
Anybody else?
It would be nice to see a major movement from the right to take back the ground that has been lost.
In the meantime, all some of us can do is continue the #PulpRev movement and wait for the rest of the right to show up to support us.
They'll come around eventually. It may take a while, though.
Richard
You raise a fundamental issue:
Who are we?
What we stand for?
How will we do it?
We need to be a loose coalition that shares the same vision and stragey even if tactics differ. I'm very leery of 5hose who want to embrace the enemy's worldview and use it against them I don't want that
xavier
xavier,
I agree, but I would like to clarify a point (if I misinterpreted your point, I apologize):
I don't see anyone embracing the enemy's worldview. But I see no problem in embracing the enemy's tactics and ramming them down their own throats until they realize how horrible it tastes. Mind you, I only advocate using tactics that the enemies themselves put into play.
Schoolyard 101: The dirtiest player dictates the rules of the game. Appeals to virtue and principle and honesty only work on the virtuous, the principled, and the honest.
I hate to disparage other human beings this way, and I am not a mind-reader, but a lot of these SJWs have betrayed who they are by their actions. They are hypocrites who talk a good game about peace and love and tolerance but are fanatic, irrational, intolerant, and often violent monsters underneath the lofty rhetoric.
That said, defining who we are, what we stand for, and how we will do it, is important. Right now, let's keep putting out good stuff, finding our audience and giving them what they want, and growing the movement.
Great inputs xavier; I enjoy your comments here and elsewhere.
Alex
Thanks for your coment. No you haven't misunderstood your point. I understand your point about using the enemies tactis against him. Yeah given they play dirty but should do likewise? I have no qualms about buying up Hollywood and reboot the intellectual properties with pulp or superversive or noblebright themes. I personally tnink it would be better to create those really fun RKO short movie serials.
I concour that the left's mask has fallen through the Weinstein scandal. My hope is that a reckoning and cleansing happen. We dhould press yhe advantage with the disarray
Brian,
Here's an amusing link about traditional publishing delusions vis a via Netflix and Facebook. I think that this is related indirectly to the Weinstein scandal insofar that perpetually lying to yourself and then hectoring others about your delusions and their attachment to reality is harmful to mental and spirtual health
https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/10/12/publishing-industry-thinks-facebook-netflix-doomed/
xavier
Not to mention, it was Trump who initiated a feud with the press and with the NFL and has actually threatened to take away tax subsidies from the NFL.
Interestingly enough, Democrats, who claim that billion-dollar corporations are "the enemy", are fighting to defend BOTH the NFL and Planned Parenthood. Naturally, as both the billion-dollar corporations are doing their bidding. But so-called "conservatives" aren't doing a thing.
That's why I'm generally more inclined to vote Libertarian. The GOP politicians have proven to be inconsistent and don't do a damned thing when culture is threatened. Libertarians are at least "getting there".
OTOH, there is significant reform within the GOP right now to change that and I'm loving what I am seeing in Alabama with Roy Moore and in Missouri with Austin Peteresen.
"it was Trump who initiated a feud with the press and with the NFL and has actually threatened to take away tax subsidies from the NFL."
Good points.
Re: the major parties' stance on life issues, if Republicans had been serious about ending abortion, they would have introduced amendments at the state level defining abortion as murder, which is already against the law. Problem solved.
I'd flirted with the LP a while back, but they now seem dead set on becoming the Democrat-lite party. Moore, Petersen, Nehlen, King, and the League of Extraordinary Candidates show that we all Republicans now!
Yeah, I'm thinking going either Independent or Republican again…
It seems most of the good Libertarians are all ditching it for Independent or Republican. Ron Paul left it in the 90s and became a Republican representative. Rand Paul is also GOP.
Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) recently directed funding toward abortion…
I live in Illinois. Cucks like Rauner are a major reason I'll be leaving Puerto Rico North as soon as possible.
It's frustrating, because if you dug a moat and turned Cook County into its own island district on Lake Michigan, Illinois would be the reddest of red states.
Thanks to Chicago, we've never had a real Republican party. Obama's presidency is entirely the fault of the IL GOP for pressuring Ryan to quit his senate race over a nothingburger sex scandal based on court documents the Democrats obtained illegally. That's not just spinelessness. That's complicity.
Why do you think Arizona only gets McCain? Because we make certain that no one is allowed to run against him in the primaries and even though absolutely NONE of the GOP orgs here in Arizona support them and in fact, they OPPOSE him, he gets elected over and over and over again.
I've been waiting for a REAL GOP before I decide to float over to it….What amuses me is that these leftists do not get the complete and utter rage that GOP constituents have toward these fake Republicans who ruin the country. How many people from the GOP actually cared enough for Romney to beat Obama in 2012? None of them.
Katherine Timpf was commenting on the GOP and what exactly it was during the Obamacare curfuffles this year saying "I don't even know what the GOP is any more! You're like supposed to be small government and then you go for big government solutions!"
Oh, yes…somewhat related…
Planned Parenthood is now no longer denying siding with the Devil…
http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/11/planned-parenthood-teams-up-with-satanists-to-repeal-missouri-abortion-laws/
As Katherine Timpf would say, "I feel like I'm living in banana land." Or something like that. I was too busy living in banana land to pay attention to the actual quote.
Banana Land, Clown World…six of one, a half dozen of the other.