At the time I had just turned 30 and had also just dropped out of college after only three semesters (it was time to pick a major and I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up), but what an eye-opening experience those three semesters were. Political correctness was everywhere, infesting everything. I actually had a professor who used the term “herstory” instead of “history.” There was the criminal justice professor who insisted we abolish prisons and enough enviro-nonsense taught as fact that I sometimes wondered what country I was living in. Nice people, just not very bright. Well, that’s exactly fair. They weren’t all dumb, but they weren’t all nice, either.

At the time I was writing a weekly column for the student newspaper. Being the only conservative and a budding rabble rouser, I’d been run through the Orwellian PC grinder more than once. Hate mail, marched into the editor’s office over this and that, suspended due to trumped up charges of plagiarism, and my crowning achievement: the threat of a protest from the Black Student Union because of my defense of Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill came to speak. Thankfully, the union was headed by a genuinely decent guy who let me appear at their next meeting and confront the racism charges head on, but as right as I was this stuff was still incredibly bruising. It’s Alice in Wonderland where you’re all alone in a world where right is wrong and up is down and you lose nights of sleep second guessing yourself. 

So it was right after a year and a half of this when I witnessed Chris Rock take the stage and just say whatever it was he wanted to say. Not saying I agreed with him, not saying he was right or wrong. But like George Carlin and Dennis Miller and Richard Pryor and Sam Kinison, Rock was his own man and that night and he laid waste to all things political correctness. And what was most impressive was the way Rock’s mind worked. That intellectual brilliance all the great stand ups share was glaringly obvious, and along with the criticism from the Usual PC-Suspects, he won a much-deserved Grammy.

I loved him for that. And that’s why I love our popular culture, it has that kind of healing power. Unfortunately, it also has just as much power to disappoint.

I’ve never seen that Chris Rock again. Never. And I’m not talking about his ripping on black people, that’s not the point, I’m talking about bravely bucking political correctness regardless of the target. And because political correctness is intellectually shallow, Rock’s brilliance has never been as apparent as it was that summer night in 1996. He does a lot of vulgar comedy, but when he veers into social and political issues it’s the usual-usual like this – about as edgy, brave, and intellectually interesting as what we see daily from Obama’s #1 Palace Guard, Jon Stewart.

And today we get this from Mr. Rock, an unbelievably vicious and elitist attack on everyday Americans who peaceably gather to protest their government:

“I actually like it, in the sense that—you got kids?” asked Rock. “Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep. And when I see the Tea Party and all this stuff, it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last—this is the act up before the sleep. They’re going crazy. They’re insane. You want to get rid of them—and the next thing you know, they’re f—-ing knocked out. And that’s what’s going on in the country right now.”

In a mere fifteen years, the future of standup has willingly allowed himself to be grinded down into just another elitist Hollywood overlord, another coward smearing a whole group of people he’s likely never met. You think Rock’s ever stepped out of his limo and attended a Tea Party? You think he’s ever escaped the posse  he’s hired to laugh at his jokes to talk to any of us?

Really, who’s the bigot here? Who sold out?

You’d think by now I’d be tired of having my heart broken by these people — and by “these people,” Media Matters, I mean the “entertainment class.”

Power to the people. Down with the Hollywood elite.

Here’s a rule to remember: someone who still thinks the anarchy symbol is an edgy sign of revolutionary bravado, is also someone who still sponges off mummy and daddy – and yet never pays for a drink. In short, they are babies.

So, yeah – tuition limits are going up to 9,000 pounds – in our money that’s $14,500. Which, as Americans can attest, ain’t much. That’s a used Jetta with 70 thousand miles. Or three hours with Ashley Dupree.

The gov also wants to scrap some subsidies for students, which will definitely cut into their hair gel.

So, how did this happen?

Well, the West is witnessing the continuation of the first real global tantrum – stretching from Greece, to France, to Berkeley, to London. The babies in every country – so used to entitlements – are now being told that the piper must be paid. But because no one taught them the basics of finance – their only reply is “wah, wah,” and “wah.”

Thanks to education fetishists, there’s a belief that there should be no price tag on classes like “Lady Gaga’s Effect on Transgender Truckdrivers,” and that the only limits to your education is your desire to be educated.

Sounds like something you’d see stuck on the bumper of a Prius, but that’s because most political views on entitlements are based on sticker sloganeering: feel good sentimentality unattached to the consequences of cost.

Anyway, they should be rioting over stuff that matters – like the doubling of cheap alcohol to curb binge drinking. I mean, what’s the point of an education if you can’t remember it?

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homophobie, anarchophobe.

Tonight: 

Brooke Goldstein!

Ryan Reise!

Father Jonathan Morris!

other stuff, too (hopefully, my mom)

It’ll tickle the back of your throat:

—–

So let me get this straight: you’re young, healthy and unemployed – and your solution for lack of health care is …THIS?

You know – There’s another option: getting off your asses, stop sponging off your parents and your government, and look for a damn job. That’s what people do in order to pay for things they want.

I mean – listen to this whine:

“For decades we were left wondering if we’d ever get covered.”

Really – you were wondering about health care before you were born? I don’t know what’s worse: your lack of initiative, your mindless dependence on handouts or your sulky expectations that obliterate any desire for achievement.

And how about this line: “What they’re really trying to do is take away our coverage. We won’t let them.”

How sadly predictable this is, that these idiots expect us to pay for their health care – rather than treat it like any other expenditure? It’s not “your ” health care to take away. It’s my money.

Something tells me these folks – despite lack of health care – still manage to have I-Phones, IPODs, tickets to Lady Gaga, Spring Break vacations, and all the beer they can throw up five days out of every week. You’re young, healthy, and boring: get your own insurance, you freeloading fools.

But you won’t – because you don’t really want it. You’re liars.

But the worst thing about this video? these tools combined two things I love – co-eds and nudity – and still managed TO BORE THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

That has to be the ugliest group of naked people I’ve seen since the Villages put on a holiday version of “Oh Calcutta.”

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homophobic wiccaphobe.

Tonght we are back with a great show:

S.E. Cupp

Imogen Lloyd Webber

Reggie Hamm 

And tomorrow we will be running the show that got bumped, which is an excellent, excellent show, I must say!

Yep, instead of joining the work force, grads are turning their Ipods up, and flip flops homeward, to sponge off mom and dad, because, according to the Times, “the work offered doesn’t match their self-assessed market value.”

Meaning, they’re special, so their jobs must be special. I mean, you can’t have a precious one-of-a-kind snowflake working in the mailroom! Snowflakes can’t open packages! Snowflakes can’t make coffee! Snowflakes are there to be appreciated, as snowflakes!

And so the job becomes another spoke in the wheel of self-fulfillment, something to accentuate the belly button ring and Asian lettered tattoo on your pelvis (which reads “stupid white person”).

You could say this is the ultimate consequence of self-love buoyed by a safety net. It’s not the kid who’s doing this, but the parents who indulge them. Kick ‘em out, they’ll find work.

But to me, by not accepting work, they’re missing out on a key part of life: having a job you hate. A rotten first job teaches you to love the better jobs that come later. Plus, they can be fun! A rotten job means you can invent new ways to pass time, i.e. drinking rum in the bathroom. And the best part: you won’t care, because the job doesn’t matter. You won’t have sleepless nights – just boring afternoons. In a real sense, taking the job you don’t want creates a freedom other people envy.

And also, it’ll get you out of the house. Which you owe your parents.

And if you disagree with me, you’re worse than Helen Thomas.

Tonight, we have John Gibson, the lovely Brooke Goldstein, the hilarious Joe Devito.

And Sharlto Copley (the star of “District 9,” and the new “A-Team”!)

So in the Monday New York Times, there’s a thoughtful piece trying to explain, quote, “the overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors.” Their shocker of a conclusion: It’s not about an obvious discrimination against conservatives – rather it’s just a silly, wrongheaded case of type-casting!

Yeah, it turns out that conservatives don’t want to be professors, the same way that men don’t want to become nurses. Righties abhor tweed and pipes the way dudes reject Dansko scuff proof clogs. One researcher calls this political typecasting – and includes journalism, art, fashion and therapy as other areas where conservatives refuse to draw a paycheck. Instead, conservatives head toward medicine, law enforcement, dentistry, the military and late night tv shows about unicorns.

Now think about that for a moment. The left gravitates toward fashion and therapy; the right toward medicine and might. What does this tell you? Well, in the former list of jobs, it’s almost impossible to create guidelines for success. Look at modern artists, and you’ll see there’s no way to predict who will make it and who won’t. But in the jobs favored by the right – standards are clearly drawn. You can gauge the difference between a good doctor and a bad one by the number of sponges left behind in your lower intestine (three by my last count).

But let’s cut to the chase. The real reason why professors are libs boils down to one word: tenure. I mean, imagine if you had a guaranteed job for the rest of your life. That means none of your ideas will ever be tested in the real world. Instead, you can blather all you want about how Bush orchestrated 9/11, how America is responsible for all that’s wrong with the world, and what a tremendous dude Che Guevara was.

The fact is, if we actually kept score on the success of liberal ideas throughout history – it just wouldn’t be fair to liberals.

And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a racist homophobe.

Tonight, the lovely Mary Walter, the sharp-as-a-tack Congressman McCotter, and the devastatingly handsome Jim Norton! ]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2010/01/18/daily-gut-tenured-tools/feed/ 112 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/12/07/next-week-on-the-history-channel-hollywood-stars-introduce-your-kids-to-marxism/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/12/07/next-week-on-the-history-channel-hollywood-stars-introduce-your-kids-to-marxism/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:08:53 +0000 Patrick Courrielche http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=273846 Children are uniquely malleable beings, readily convinced of magically colorful tales – Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are the first that come to mind. This innocence is beautiful, but it is a quality that can easily fall victim to radically foreign ideas if taught consistently and pervasively at an early age. One need only look at the birth of fascism or socialism to see a recipe for how radical ideas become ubiquitous among a nation’s youth.

Enter Howard Zinn – an author, professor and American historian – who, with the help of Hollywood and the History Channel, intends to change the way our pre-K through high school children learn American history. His current curriculum suggestions, like introducing three-year-olds to the lynching of African-Americans, or quizzing seven-year-olds on which Presidents owned slaves, should be a red flag to parents.

Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students. His controversial 1980-book The People’s History of the United States paints traditional American history as a façade – one that has grotesquely immortalized flawed leaders and is based on principles that victimize the common man. In 2004, Zinn wrote a companion book entitled Voices Of A People’s History Of The United States, which includes speeches and writings from many of the people featured in The People’s History.

These two books have now become the basis for a new documentary, entitled The People Speak, to be aired December 13th at 8pm on the History Channel. The trailer portrays the documentary as a collage of compelling one-person readings, told through the words of “ordinary” people who have struggled throughout American history against oppression. Produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Chris Moore, the documentary appears to be cloaked, ironically (given Zinn’s admitted socialist agenda), in many of the traditional ideas that were behind our founding. The verdict is still out on the doc, but it is not for the books that inspired the film as well as the educational initiative associated with it.

Perhaps due to their one-sided perspective of America’s past, Zinn’s history books have largely been limited to colleges and universities, until now. In the press release announcing the broadcast, HISTORY introduced a partnership with VOICES Of A People’s History Of The United States, a nonprofit led by Zinn that bares the same name as his companion book, to help get his special brand of history into classrooms.

Delving into Zinn’s nonprofit is where this story gets interesting, and the organization’s grade school educational ambitions concerning.

VOICES’ function is to provide live performances of readings from the book Voices of a People’s History as well as educational materials to schoolteachers. The nonprofit’s site provides teachers with resources, including a teaching guide that explains how to get students excited about Zinn’s history books. Their educational materials also includes the Zinn Education Project, a resource for teaching Zinn’s perspective of American history to – drum roll please – pre-Kindergarten through high school students! Included in the curriculum for pre-K students (that’s three and four year-olds) is “Rethinking Columbus,” which counters “the myth of Columbus.” In Zinn’s view, our pre-K children “need to hear from those whose lands and rights were taken away by those who ‘discovered’ them.”

Another teaching lesson for our three-year-old students is “One Country! One Language! One Flag!” that includes teaching ideas for “examining the history of the Pledge of Allegiance and the political milieu in which it was written.” The teaching plan suggests introducing our pre-K-ers to the lynching of African-Americans in the 1880s, and introducing the history of violence and discrimination against minority groups. It also proposes a discussion on an old “One Language!” chant allegedly used in classrooms up until 1942, and poses teachers with the question, “Why not lead kids in the original Pledge to the Flag, including the ‘One Language!’ chant and the Nazi-like salute, and then lead a discussion about the politics of the Pledge?”

This discussion is proposed for kids age three to seven?

Zinn also includes a youngster version of his influential book entitled A Young People’s History of the United States as an introduction to his untold American History. The publisher of the book highlights a review by the magazine Socialist Review, who proclaimed “Howard Zinn has adapted his People’s History of the United States for younger readers, but in no way do these books pull their punches. Zinn feels the younger reader is entitled to look at US history honestly.”

The background of the board of directors and advisers of VOICES’ can only be described as jaw dropping and begins to show a clear motive behind teaching this predominantly anti-American history at such a young age.

Made up of several notables including Zinn, Kerry Washington, and Marisa Tomei, all of whom make appearances in the documentary, the VOICES board also includes radicals who play a role in our public schools. Brian Jones, a New York teacher and actor, is a board member of VOICES and has also played the lead in Zinn’s play Marx in SoHo. You can see Jones speaking about Zinn and the play below, recorded for a performance in Greece, where he extols the benefits of this one man play as a tool to introduce people to Marx’s ideas:

Jones is also a regular contributor to Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and speaks regularly on the beneficial principles of Marxism, including this year at the 2009 Socialism Conference. He recently gave a speech on the failure of capitalism, proclaiming that “Marx is back.”

Sarah Knopp, a Los Angeles high school teacher, is also on Zinn’s Teacher Advisory Board. Like Jones, Knopp is also a regular contributor to International Socialist Review, Socialist Worker, is an active member in The International Socialist Organization, and was also a speaker at the 2009 Socialist Conference. Here is Knopp speaking about the benefits of socialism, how capitalism destroys lives, and how she advocates workers taking over their factories:

Is it becoming clearer why this group might want to teach children to think poorly of the American system?

Then there is Jesse Sharkey, a schoolteacher in Chicago. Sharkey is another of Zinn’s Teacher Advisory Board Members and, completely uncharacteristic of this group, is a contributor to… Socialist Worker.

This is the group that the History Channel is working with “to develop enhanced, co-branded curriculums for a countrywide educational initiative.” If readers choose to watch The People Speak, which we at BigHollywood encourage, keep in mind the context of the documentary’s creator and the pre-K to high school curriculum that the History Channel and VOICES could possibly create given the makeup of the board members.

I am not advocating that we spare our kids the harsh truths of American history, but I am suggesting, given Zinn’s far-left political affiliation, this project is designed to breakdown our vulnerable children’s views of American principles so that they can be built back up in a socialist vision.

Zinn’s one-man play Marx in SoHo provides an example of his attempt to reestablish the socialist ideology. The play, created in 1999, places Marx in New York after bargaining with the authorities of the after-life for a chance to come back to earth to clear his name. At the end of the cold war, Zinn felt that Marxism was unfairly discredited through being anchored to the fall of the Soviet Union. Through the play, Zinn wanted “the audience to see Marx defending his ideas against attack.” Those associated with the play have described it as an attempt to reestablish Marx’s philosophic and economic outlook – a philosophy that views capitalism as corrosive to the human condition. It doesn’t take a great leap to surmise that instilling in children a pessimistic view of the American experience could make his ideas more palatable.

Zinn’s socialist philosophy has definitely made its way into the documentary, including a speech by prominent socialist Eugene Debs. In his speech, which is a prose to the ills of the capitalist system, he speaks to a court that convicted him of sedition:

“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man, who does absolutely nothing…to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”

The promotional videos can be viewed here:

It is not surprising to me that there are groups sympathetic to Marx’s ideas throughout our country. What is surprising is that the most powerful persuasion machine in the world (Hollywood) and the History Channel would provide Zinn such a prominent soapbox to stealthily build a case for a destructive ideology to our children, and as a result mainstream his ideas with the magic of cool music, graphics, and celebrity. Groups that push Marx’s philosophy are like a virtual organism that will not die off even when stung by the undeniable historical evidence showing human behavior makes such a system unsustainable. If we let this virtual organism into our grade schools, it will take decades for our kids to unlearn the ideology.

And if there are any doubts of the intentions of Howard Zinn’s movement, I provide a quote of his in closing. When a reporter asked Zinn, “In writing A People’s History, what were you calling for? A quiet revolution?” Zinn responded:  “A quiet revolution is a good way of putting it. From the bottom up. Not a revolution in the classical sense of a seizure of power, but rather from people beginning to take power from within the institutions. In the workplace, the workers would take power to control the conditions of their lives. It would be a democratic socialism.”

It appears that Zinn’s ilk have started the institutional phase of their agenda.

And here we have a magnificent collision of two idiotic practices: tenure, which relieves professors of trying altogether, allowing them instead to pursue ideas that would fail miserably in a world of measurable achievement; and gender studies, a fuzzy field where earnest types angrily analyze the “phenomenon of gender.” Usually while wearing underwear made from hemp.

First, let’s tackle gender studies. The gist: being female is a social construct, internal sex organs be damned. The relationship between men and women is not about love, but power – a struggle between the powerless female against evil patriarchal man.

In short, I could have just said, “moogiebloogietoogie,” and it would have made more sense. I see gender studies as the post-modern dance of educational disciplines. People only enroll in it, in the end, to teach it. In that sense, gender studies is more like joining Amway, but without the delightful products cluttering up your garage. Because gender studies isn’t something that helps you do anything else but teach gender studies, it’s understandable why tenure is so vital here. What else are you going to do once people find you out?

The sad thing is, the world really needs gender studies – a truly literal version of it, however. Men don’t get women, and women don’t get men – and rather than spending so much time deconstructing phallic fantasies – we should be teaching the sexes how to respect each other during our daily lives. Do that, and you don’t just deserve tenure, you deserve some excellent toiletries.

If you’d like me to stop by, I have some anti-aging creams and serums I’d love to show you. You’ll like them so much, I bet you’ll want to sell them yourself!

And if you disagree with me, you’re probably a racist.

Tonight we’ve got Jim Norton, Jeffrey Ross, Jonah Goldberg, John Devore and a newcomer: Nicole Petallides from Fox Business Channel!

Note:  No, I do not actually think that George W. Bush was a war criminal. Even though I was undercover, I felt dirty just wearing the shirt.

But last week, as I watched the situation unfold from Studio D (a comfy perch protected by armed security) I couldn’t help but be reminded of one simple fact that led to this event: the unarmed are always vulnerable to the armed.

And that made me realize that this ship is no different than a shopping mall or college campus – it’s a place where people congregate or work – all operating under the assumption that we live in a sane world where if you just live your life, people won’t kill you.

Not always. In a free world, we forget how easy it is for thugs and psychopaths to take advantage of that freedom.

Which is why good people need guns.

I mean, how can a tanker that size – it’s a town on water – be so vulnerable to a pack of underweight thugs?

The underweight thugs had guns.

Seriously – I don’t get the argument against arming a few folks on planes, ships and campuses. If bozos like me in the media are protected by armed dudes at every turnstile, why can’t we have the same for undergrads or seamen?

I also get the argument that no employee of a company needs to risk his life to protect cargo that isn’t his. But tell that to Brinks. They drive around with far less valuable stuff – and they’re armed to the hilt. And come on – if you had a relative on a ship, or working at a mall, for that matter – you’d want to know they’re safe.

So Sunday was truly an amazing day for America and our military. But let’s try preventing this crap from happening again. A three inch 50 caliber might be a start. I hear it goes great with a cable knit sweater and a pea coat.

Tonight we’ve got Monica Crowley, Liz Wiel, comedian Joe Devito, and some other surprises!