Sevan Nişanyan: Press cuttings

  Those who most flamboyantly proclaim that they are fighting fascists continue to embrace and wield the defining weapons of despotism. Glenn Greenwald Feb 21 Police in Canada deployed to dislodge the final truckers and protesters from downtown Ottawa, aimed at bringing an end to three weeks of demonstrations over Covid-19 health rules. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP) (Photo by DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images) When it comes to distant   and adversarial countries, we are taught to recognize tyranny through the use of telltale tactics of repression. Dissent from orthodoxies is censored. Protests against the state are outlawed. Dissenters are harshly punished with no due process. Long prison terms are doled out for political transgressions rather than crimes of violence. Journalists are treated as criminals and spies. Opposition to the policies of political leaders are recast as crimes against the state. When a government that is adverse to the West engages in such conduct, it is not j...

  Between The World And Men Truckers, Rogan, Peterson and the revolt of masculinity. Andrew Sullivan 15 hr ago 53 (Amru Salahuddien/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) To be honest, I didn’t quite see the Canadian truckers coming. I’ve watched a lot of Canada coverage over the years (mainly via South Park, I concede) and the whole anti-vaxxer, campfire-burning, horn-tooting, macho revolt among our gentle neighbors to the north nonetheless took me by surprise. Rob Ford was a harbinger, I guess. It’s as if the ancient, manly, lumberjacky Canadian id was finally roused from its cultural slumber by a soy-boy prime minister, forcing truckers to take a jab or forfeit their livelihood. And some reports  suggest  that the vaccine issue seems just the proximate trigger for the rage, and not the real source — a rage which has been steadily building for some time, especially in the pandemic, in the most progressive-left country on the planet. And there’s something very blue-collar...

  HANANIA NEWSLETTER Women's Tears Win in the Marketplace of Ideas How belief in the blank slate plus residual gender double standards create "cancel culture," and the difficulties of fighting back Richard Hanania Feb 7 124 171 Having  mentioned the concept  a few times, many have been encouraging me to write a Substack on the feminization of political life and its connection to free speech issues. Noah Carl  beat me to it , and the idea has also been picked up by no less an authority than  Tom Edsall at the  New York Times .  I’ve already written about the overrepresentation  of women in HR.  We can understand the decline of free speech as a kind of female pincer attack: women demand more suppression of offensive ideas at the bottom of institutions, and form a disproportionate share of the managers who hear their complaints at the top. What is left to contribute on the question of how feminization relates to pathologies in our current politi...