We Hunted The Mammoth
It’s time for another of our weekly looks at the world of “woke” — the all-purpose insult that’s the right-wing’s new version of so-called political correctness. Right-wing ideologues (and Bill Maher) are still railing about the allegedly “woke Olympics” and the evils of “woke capitalism.” But there are a few other examples that caught my eye this week.
Are Fox News hosts or guests human? It’s something I found myself wondering, and not for the first time, while watching a recent clip from Laura Ingraham’s terrible show in which she and guest Raymond Arroyo mulled over superstar gymnast Simone Biles’ decision to drop out of a number of events at the Olympics because she couldn’t get her head in the game.
Activision Blizzard, the game giant best known for its blockbuster Call of Duty and World of Warcraft games, is in turmoil amid accusations of a “frat boy” company culture rife with sexism and sexual harassment. More than 1500 workers at the company walked out earlier this week, angered by company management’s belligerent response to the accusations, detailed in a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
You don’t need a PhD in Critical Race Theory to notice that a lot of the knuckleheads talking shit about Simone Biles for dropping out of the Olympics are white dudes who couldn’t do a single cartwheel to save their lives. Piers Morgan. Charlie Kirk. Ben Shapiro.
Oh, and this dude, Doug Gottlieb of Fox Sports, who seems mad that Biles’ mental health isn’t bad enough to keep her from sports altogether.
On Tuesday, record-shattering gymnast Simone Biles, evidently rattled by an unexpectedly poor performance on the vault, decided to withdraw herself from the team event for the sake of her own mental health — and the performance of her team, which she was afraid of dragging down due to a less-than-100% focus on her performance.
And let’s not kid ourselves: she was also protecting her ow physical health. She could easily have injured herself, even broken her neck, if she hadn’t been able to keep her mind in the game.
Biles, so good at what she does that she’s single-handedly redefining what gymnastics even is, won praise from empathetic observers for taking care of herself when she most needed to.
On the non-empathetic right, not so much.
Just a couple of days ago right-wingers were literally rooting against too “woke” American athletes in the Olympics. Now somehow the righties have collectively regained their sense of patriotism — because it gives them the perfect opportunity to drag Biles for her alleged selfishness in dropping out of one event.
“There’s No ‘I’ In Team, But There Is In Simone Biles,” sniffed Kylee Zempel in the Federalist. “Sorry, Simone Biles, The Olympics Isn’t About You, It’s About America,” added Federalist editor John Daniel Davidson in a second hectoring post.
On Twitter, the abrasive, much-hated Piers Morgan launched into Biles with a couple of snooty Tweets.
Professional reactionary ideologue Charles Kirk of Turning :Point USA denounced Biles as a “shame to this country.”
“You’re representing your nation, you selfish sociopath,” he snorted. “You know who has the gold medal? Russia! … I’m not okay with that!”
Kirk also suggested that “we are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles,” as if anything about Biles could be considered “weak.”
Meanwhile the Daily Wire’s wrong-opinion-haver Matt Walsh attacked those who showed sympathy towards Biles.
From the way that Olympic gymnast Simone Biles is being praised this week, you might think that the decorated superstar put on a heroic display during the team competition in Tokyo and led her squad to a gold medal. …
It was all perhaps the most effusive praise that has ever been heaped on a quitter.
That is what Simone Biles did to earn this exuberant applause. She gave up.
Just a few days ago, you may recall, Walsh was happily rooting against the US:
The US Women’s soccer team went on to win their next game and tie a third; they’re going to the quarterfinals.
It seems to me that maybe they’re not the embarassment here, any more than Biles is. Walsh, meanwhile, humiliates himself virtually every time he opens his mouth.
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Scrolling through my various newsfeeds today and this headline from InfoWars grabbed my attention:
This week, it’s the Olympics that have the right-wingers in a tizzy, upset by small examples of alleged “wokeness” from athletes to the Olympic organizers. Indeed, more than a few right-wingers are so offended that they’re actually cheering American losses in the games. What patriots they are!
So the angry boys of the internet are angry again, this time over Netflix’s reboot of the Masters of the Universe show, directed by Kevin Smith. What happens when the angry boys get mad about movies and TV shows? They all go to Rotten Tomatoes and this happens to the audience score:
You can learn a lot about women from the fellows in the MGTOW movement, especially if you don’t mind that everything you learn is completely wrong.
