As I say every few weeks here at the Right Scoop, I know there are some who complain about every Bill Maher clip because he hates whatever it is you love or loves whatever it is you hate, but that difference of opinion right there is kind of the whole dang point here.
Maher and Weiss, along with Thomas Chatterton Williams, were discussing cancel culture in light of the letter they signed (along with J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, Garry Kasparov, etc) at Harper’s Magazine that sent lib woke culture into a tailspin, and Weiss’s own resignation letter from the New York Times, which was read aloud in the House hearing on Friday.
Rep. Jim Jordan read only a few lines from that letter, but included this section: “Everyone lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it’s directed at the proper targets.”
Asked if they agree, they did, and Jeff Bezos added that “social media is a nuance-destroying machine.”
First, here’s that moment from the hearing. (full clip at end of post)
Now here’s part of the long discussion from Real Time.
The fact that this is so accurate, that she says what folks like Right Scoop readers have been saying about outlets like the New York Times for years, and even more so CNN, is really really important and valuable. That’s why they’re being attacked so vehemently by their own side of the aisle.
And if you dismiss them because they “enabled” cancel culture or “helped create it” then you’re doing the exact thing you think you’re against. You’re holding them, and all liberals, as irredeemable on a tenet, and casting them out.
The three progressives talking here even went so far, in the full segment, as agreeing that politics is becoming religious in America, and that the social media mob and the woke scolds hold out all transgressors as heretics in the same way as any religious fanatic.
Y’all. That is such a huge thing for them to agree and admit to. You should see them as allies on free speech. Even if only temporary. Even if they don’t go far enough for you. They go far enough to make a difference, and that’s a big deal.
Here’s a transcript of this portion of the interview, via Newsbusters. But you really need to watch the whole episode of Real Time to get the impact. I’m telling you. Below the transcript, you’ll find the full exchange with Jim Jordan, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pinchai, and Jeff Bezos.
What I meant in that letter when I wrote that Twitter is the assigning editor, what I mean by that is in order to do our job well, writers and editors need to have a level of bravery and thick skin and fearlessness. And when you are living in fear of an online mob, all it takes is a dozen people to repeat a lie about you that you’re a racist, that you’re a transphobe, that you’re a bigot for that lie to become true and that’s extremely dangerous.
Now the thing that insulates it is when you have leaders of the top who say “We don’t care about that outside voice, we are going to stand by you and the truth that you are pursuing the matter what.” The problem that happened at the Times and it’s referenced in the letter, the Harper’s letter that Thomas [Chatterton Williams] helped shape, is that my boss got fired for running an op-ed by a sitting U.S. Senator. You might say that Tom Cotton is detestable, that you disagree with him, but I don’t want to live in a world where the views of half of the country can’t be heard in the paper of record. And that’s, I fear, where we are headed.
Here’s the entire exchange with Jim Jordan and the tech CEOs.
That exchange was important to hear, despite Jim Jordan being annoying and too aggressive, and the full segment with Maher and his two guests, which is something like 25 minutes long, is so valuable and important that you should probably just sign up for HBO and go watch it right now.
It’s worth the subscription fee to the whole channel just for that 25 minutes, and I’m not one bit pulling your leg.
If you really need to get your blood boiling first, read this travesty from the Daily Beast. When you’re done vomiting, go get the whole episode.