On Tuesday, cereal and snack giant Kellogg’s announced it was pulling ads from Breitbart on the grounds that Breitbart is a giant racist shithole of a site and who would want to be associated with that? Granted, the Kellogg’s people were a little more diplomatic in making this point, saying simply that Breitbart isn’t really “aligned with our values as a company.”
Breitbart responded, naturally, by calling for a boycott of Kellogg’s, declaring that the company’s unwillingness to have their ads run next to stories about how birth control makes women “unattractive and crazy” somehow
represent[s] an escalation in the war by leftist companies … against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House. …
Indeed, the move appears to be one more example of an out-of-touch corporation embracing false left-wing narratives used to cynically smear the hard working Americans that populate this nation’s heartland.
Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow went on to declare, apparently with a straight face, that
Boycotting Breitbart News for presenting mainstream American ideas is an act of discrimination and intense prejudice. If you serve Kellogg’s products to your family, you are serving up bigotry at your breakfast table.
Naturally we here at We Hunted the Mammoth stand with Kellogg’s even though we’re lactose intolerant and don’t eat cereal any more but hey, we do sometimes eat other Kellogg’s products like Pringles and Cheez-its.
You can do your part in this very important cultural war by watching the following commercials for several different Kellogg’s cereals, including one that no longer exists, and also Pop Tarts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfxF_DvBnI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpl_VSLpCzA
@Mish
So circumcision matters when it’s convenient again? I wonder about how that got started. Sometimes I wonder if it amounted to a “see? I have to cut mine so…” but I don’t know that history well. I’m probably mixing my view of the past with the manipulation of the present here. My view of this stuff is pretty dismal.
Oops. I meant to copy and past your whole name Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy.
I’ve said it on Facebook, I’ll say it here.
More people are buying what Kellogg’s is selling than there are people buying what Breitbart’s is selling.
Let the market decide!
@Brony, Social Justice Cenobite,
‘Mish’ by itself is just fine 🙂
If you feel like elaborating/clarifying, I’d be interested.
fwiw, I think that male circumcision on infants/children is just wrong on any level you care to consider. But apparently that can’t be right: yesterday I saw this on Twitter (via TakeDownMRAs) – a video on circumcision that places all blame on mothers and feminists 😐
There is also a naked banana ironing a banana peel and grinning.
@Mish
As a circumcised male person I often pay attention to mentions of circumcision. I think it’s a way of punching a symbolic hole in the culture having to do with dicks (literal and metaphorical). It just spikes at you in the social space. But I really don’t suffer from it in any way. It just kind of is. It does not mean that there are not male people that do suffer because of circumcision, I just try to separate the social from the physical or medical effects. I’m sure people have physically suffered, that’s just not what social modification of genitalia seems to be about in the ways accepted by the religious traditions I experience as an an American (conservative background), and the people that type loud that criticize things having to do with women, female people and feminism.
I tend to notice the context in which people talk about circumcision. How they use it and when they use it are big ones. I virtually always see circumcision brought up specifically in response to criticism of “men” as it relates to a “male-man” historical view. Not just in response to FGM either. The “equivalence warriors” that like to functionally suppress talk of FGM are the easiest to spot form from my social perspective. A really fucked up set likes to use circumcision as a conceptual shield against rape in a functional sense (dressed in irrational “arguments” based on some sort of terror).
It’s a thing where the concept does matter because personal autonomy matters. But the physical and social realities are more about control of what we do in really messed up ways. It makes me cynical about some of our psychological make-up in a meta sense. I choose to believe this sort of instinct can be turned into a good thing in time, the current use of it tends to make me feel ill.
That video is typical of how I see circumcision USED. The intent is bandies about but that does not change the logical outcome of what the people do and their effect on people.
@Robert Walker-Smith:
Right? And at least Kellogg’s will provide you with energy and nutriment to keep your brain working. Bitefart? The opposite.
@Weird Eddie
There seems to be two types of people who voted for him; 1) those who liked his bigotry, supported it and thought it was funny and 2) those who voted for a phantasm of him that they made up in their heads, and was what they wanted him to be (and who thought his bigotry was funny).
How about the third type (who are the majority)?
The ones who disliked Trump but detested Clinton enough to let that over-ride Trumps disgusting behavior.
Saw an interesting thing today which got me thinking:
“If you are afraid of a particular person as President, consider that maybe the Presidency has too much power.”
@Shadowplay
Take your bullshit and fuck off. ‘B b but Hillary!” is not a fucking excuse for supporting fascism.
David, I can’t believe you didn’t post the Kellogg’s ad with the Monkees!
Also, I will definitely be buying some corn flakes or something bc I love serving bigotry against whiny white men at the breakfast table
@Shadowplay:
A) Yes, the Presidency has too much power. This is fairly noncontroversial, I think.
The reason why the Presidency has too much power is because every other branch of American government, from cities to states to Congress (especially Congress) is non-functional. The Executive has had to become the branch which act like adults and clean up everyone else’s mess.
You want to fix the Presidency? Start by fixing the rest of government.
B) What Dalillama said.
A chance to display a recent Kellogg’s ad which I’ve always liked. I presume Sultana Bran is the same product as the US Raisin Bran.
@EJ
One of the problems with Congress specifically is that the myth of Parliamentary Supremacy persists among far too many people both in and out of power, as if the Constitution created The Legislature and those other two subservient branches. Until we completely get rid of the idea that the legislature is the sole seat of governmental power, people who buy into the myth are going to support Congressional obstructionism of and meddling in the powers and duties of the Executive, such as withholding funds for aspects of the ACA and then holding hearings chastising Obama for not implementing those aspects, or bills telling Executive agencies the exact rules they must implement and the exact parameters of those rules with no devolution for future refinement.
So yeah, of course the President is going to have to go nuclear every now and again when Congress is pretending that it has all the power and the Executive’s sole domain is doing everything the legislature says. It’s just so surreal that the perceived power imbalance is because the branch that seems to have all the power is being obstructed so often by the branch that pretends to possess it all themselves, and that the “fix” is to actually get people to understand that Congress should be claiming less power for itself.
@Eyes on the Right: “Special KKK”, perfect.
Good for them. I hope every company with a modicum of integrity pull their ads from Breitbart.
Breitbart is essentially a cult, end of story.
@Brony, Social Justice Cenobite,
Thanks for that. There are a couple of points in your post that I need to mull over some more, but I see what you’re saying re the context: how and why the issue gets raised.
I was inspired to go and read your blog, and so there went Mish’s Friday afternoon. You have given me much food for thought.
I don’t think the presidency is too powerful. I think the Supreme Court is. The reason a Republican administration is so scary is that they put in justices and this email justices are there for decades. Recovering from 4 years of bad policy isn’t so scary. A basically omnipotent right wing court that lasts for half an adult’s lifespan is pants shittingly terrifying.
The court is why I pretty much despise anyone who enabled Trump in the White House. They literally wrecked the country for decades.
I have to say boycotting can work. It weaned the Daily Mail off supporting the Austrian would – be artist.
Secular circumcision’s social status varies with era and culture, When my father was born in the 1930’s most UK male babies were routinely circumcised as this was touted as ‘more hygienic’ – by doctors who stood to make more money by charging for the procedure.
Where Mrs Kevin (She Who Must be Obeyed) comes from in SE Asia, men are routinely circumcised and often considered insufficiently ‘macho’ if they are not.
I enjoyed a big crispy bowl o’ anti-Breitfart bigotry this morning. Battle Creek FTW!
@Alan Robertshaw: Thank you for that information. Meat lozenges sound more like real food than bouillon. Regarding your granny’s panacea, could bone broth be the new beef tea? Have you seen The Wildest Dream? The film shows Conrad Anker climbing in replica clothing, and getting up the Second Step without a ladder.
AsAboveSoBelow:
Discussion of mountaineering rations reminds me of the high calorie, high nutrition canned rations taken by Scott to the Antarctic. Ingredients included fat, processed meat, dried fruit and sugar all in the same can. In theory it was highly sustaining, but palatability proved a major drawback.
@Brony, glad to hear from you again. I hope that the stress is leveling off for you.
@Speak Centurion, if you can’t see the racism on Breitbart, you don’t know what racism is. (note that I’m conflating racism with racism advocacy, which is a valid conflation.)
@Shadowplay,
The third type indicate that they are willing to support blatant, open racism and sexism in order to fight what they see as corruption. Even though the racist and sexist candidate is equally as corrupt as the worst perspective on Clinton – this by Trump’s own admission. He took pride in saying that he bought politicians. He was happy to play the role of The Corruptor, a Source Of Corruption. By his own admission.
Equally corrupt, but one of them comes with a heapin’ helpin’ of racism, sexism, bigotry, and loathing for common humanity.
Somehow I think that pulls your “group three” into “group one” by way of the transitive property.
Is there a reason that you needed to vote in a corrupt fascistic demagogue in order to realize this? Next time, please just skip to the “we need to fight for a more democratic society” step instead of deliberately passing through the “hand off democracy to a human-despising greed machine” step first. Thanks.
@ asabovesobelow
Mmm, that sounds nice. In my pre-veggie days I used to love roasting bones to use in stock (assuming the hound didn’t intercept them first). My grandma used a product called ‘King Beef’. You got me all nostalgic so I tried to see if you could still buy it. Apparently not. Boo.
I think that film might actually be where I got the bit about how effective the clothing was. Is it the one where they go on about their boots and how they’re basically just hobnailed hiking shoes?
@ Kevin
Heh, I made some of that (pemmican?) up for an event on Dartmoor. I’d scoffed it by the time I got to the M5. A mate fits the safety equipment to RAF planes. He tells me they use a type of very unpleasant tasting chocolate in the emergency rations to ensure the pilots don’t just eat it anyway.
@AsAboveSoBelow I saw the footage that Conrad’s team shot when they found Mallory but didn’t know a movie had been made of the Mallory expedition. Thanks!
Alan Robertshaw:
You are reminding me of Selectivemploymentax now, the British mercenary in ‘Asterix the Legionary.’ In a wry Gallic dig at British cuisine, the other soldiers are amazed at what he’ll willingly eat – and like it !
Hey it is called pemmican!
https://youtu.be/STzgXXU6GpI