Who's afraid of a movie about trafficking children?
Ace was not the only person who noticed how the Guardian quickly switched from being QAnon-adjascent in its concern about child trafficking to joining the media pile-on connecting Sound of Freedom with QAnon. But they themselves reported on child trafficking in Colombia, the main storyline of the movie!
I have seen some attacks on the movie from both right and left because the story in the movie is not "totally true". Well, of course. It is a Hollywood movie. This is what Tim Ballard's organization says is true and what isn't in the movie plot. Based on a true story (except for the parts that aren't.
The movie remains under attack, so it's handy to know that a summary of how much is "Hollywood" is available.
The movie seems to be having an impact in California, of all places:
California Democrats resisted a child trafficking bill - - until they couldn't
It was a perfunctory committee hearing on a day full of them in the Legislature. The measure in question on Tuesday wasn't novel, just another in a long list of attempts to reclassify a misdemeanor as a felony. Like most attempts before it, it met a quiet and undignified end.
The bill was new, but what it sought to do was not. Lawmakers from both parties had made numerous previous attempts to reclassify human trafficking of a minor for purposes of a commercial sex act as a "serious felony," which would be treated as a strike under California's Three Strikes law.
In 2007, twice in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017 and three times in 2021, legislators tried and failed to reclassify child sex trafficking. But then something strange happened after the latest effort went down.
A backlash swiftly took shape on social media. Comments ranged from "What on earth were these Democrats thinking?" to accusations that they were siding with pedophiles -- and at least one Democratic member of the Assembly Public Safety Committee that quashed the bill reported receiving death threats.
Soon the bill, which had already passed the Senate unanimously, began collecting new, high-profile allies. Gov. Gavin Newsom at a press conference expressed dismay at its failure, telling reporters that hed reach out to the bill�s Republican author, Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield. Newly seated Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat, also said he was �very much engaged� in trying to move the bill forward.
What about those outlandish QAnon conspiracy theories about children being sacrificed in blood rituals? The media is attacking the star of the movie for talking about these. Okay, so attack the BBC, too.
The Guardian joined in, back in 2005:
An unknown number of children are being trafficked from Africa and then used in ritualistic abuse and sacrifice offerings in the UK, according to a leaked report from the Metropolitan police.
The confidential report, leaked to the BBC, means police have discovered what has been known for years, African community activists say.
Many trafficked children suffer abuse at the hands of their relatives and guardians, such as the 10-year-old girl known only as Child B, whose aunt and two other adults were convicted this month for torturing her after the girl was branded a witch by church leaders.
Others, such as Victoria Climbie and the unidentified boy "Adam", whose torso was found floating in the Thames, end up dead.
The BBC reported that the latest investigation by the Met into child trafficking from Africa alleges that these children are being beaten and murdered because they are believed to be possessed by evil spirits. Other alleged uses for the children include domestic slaves and for sexual purposes, including being forced to have sex with men with HIV who believe that sex with a virgin will cure their disease.
Sections from the study included: "People who are desperate will seek out witchcraft experts to cast spells for them. Members of the workshop stated that for a spell to be powerful it required a sacrifice involving a male child unblemished by circumcision.
I'm sure that little detail came from QAnon. Don't you think?
The NEA and Gavin Newsom are coming for your kids
I'm sorry about including this clip. You may need to turn the sound down. If you click over to Twitter, you may find some interesting commentary in the thread.
Can you discern a point in her stemwinder? There are subtitles in case you can't understand the yelling.
Here's one thing that it's about:
The NEA's Recommended Summer Reading is All About Social Justice - - The classics are out, "Gender Queer" is in.
When I was a college student - a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - the so-called Western canon still carried cultural and intellectual weight among educators. Humanities departments still seemed populated mostly by professors who believed our civilization was a triumph worth preserving. Higher education was certainly in the process of being subverted by Marxist radicals back then, but it hadn't yet completely succumbed to the deconstructive madness reflected in Jesse Jackson's 1987 rallying cry at Stanford University, "Hey ho, hey ho, Western civ has got to go!"
Those halcyon days of my youthful naivete about academia's subversion of the West are long gone. The ranks of today's educators are overwhelmingly dominated by race-and-gender ideologues who are passionate not about passing down to the next generation the West's glorious legacy of "the best that has been thought and said," but about churning out a generation of students completely disconnected from that legacy and indoctrinated into social justice activism. (And not just in university classrooms; the rot has filtered all the way down now to pre-kindergarten.)
Toward that end, educators aren't spending their summer vacation refamiliarizing themselves with the ideas of Isaac Newton or the poetry of Chaucer or the dramatic storytelling of the ancient Greeks. Instead, they're wading in the shallows of contemporary pop culture, soaking up the distorted worldview of critical theory, and immersing themselves in radical pedagogy that will not open young minds but shut them tight.
Abolish teachers unions.
She's scary. They're not your babies ma'am. They're ours, and just so you know? "Education professionals" don't have special rights. Y'all just don't. You are HIRED Speech.
But as we are on the topic of never bending and being committed to a mission, we moms, including @Moms4Liberty, will not bend the knee to the NEA.
Wait! Those are the Moms on the SPLC's hate map! Should the NEA be on the SPLC's hate map instead?
Meanwhile in California: Gov. Gavin Newsom says state will provide social studies textbooks to Temecula if school board won�t
The Temecula district could be fined about $1.5 million under Jackson's bill, AB 1078, Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for the governor, said via email.
In an emailed statement, school board President Joseph Komrosky said it is "unfortunate that Governor Newsom and others have seized upon an action by the Temecula Valley Unified School expressly authorized by the California Legislature and mischaracterized not only what has occurred, but why."
It's misleading, Komrosky said, to say the board banned a textbook.
Newsom "conveniently ignored" the board's concerns about how the social studies curriculum was crafted, including whether the community had enough input and whether the curriculum "adequately addressed the needs of English learners and special education students," Komrosky said.
A revised curriculum is set to be adopted at the school board's meeting Tuesday, July 18, Komrosky said, adding the board made arrangements for every K-5 student in the district to have a textbook from the existing curriculum when the new school year starts.
"That plan is in place and can be implemented should a new curriculum not be adopted by the Board of Education," Komrosky added.
The governor's announcement Thursday marks a new phase in a showdown over an elementary social studies curriculum rejected by district trustees in a 3-2 vote in June because its supplemental materials referenced LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk, whom Komrosky called a "pedophile."
Fourth graders MUST learn that Harvey Milk was a pioneer or we will fine your district millions of dollars. But they should NOT learn that he had sex with a 16 year old when he was 33 (according to a biography). Also, they should not learn about his close political relationship with Jonestown cult leader Jim Jones, who was a bisexual sadist. (link goes to lgbtqnation)
Newsom was thrilled to find a whole bookstore full of banned books during his "Red States Are Bad" tour. So, since they're in a bookstore, they're not banned, right?
Children's Literature
A Woke Children's Literature Cabal Is Conditioning Your Kid To Be An Obedient Leftist
Having been a part of the children's book publishing industry for several decades, and as a passionate participant, I have watched in growing dismay as the children's literature, or "kidlit," world has shifted and changed, and most recently taken a drastic plummet. Parents need to understand the destructive path this industry has taken, or they will discover too late as the damage hits home.
Seeing the Shift
This shift in kidlit has been happening for a long time. About 25 years ago, novels that portrayed kids as environmental activists began to win awards. About 15 years ago, the award-winning books showed shocking, disturbing scenarios. Ten years ago, books that depicted sexualization and abuse at younger ages began to win awards. Then, five years ago, it shifted a bit more to where books focused on systemic racism and sexual identity won awards. Today, if books don't include any of the above depictions, they are rarely published by medium and large publishing houses.
And it's the medium and large publishing houses that supply schools, libraries, and bookstores.
Eight years ago, I organized a statewide writer's conference for children's book authors. We brought in several high-powered industry members from major publishing houses. One editor's words threw open the window to this shifting world.
She asked a writer at our conference, who was a leftist himself, about his story. He explained that in his manuscript, his main character learns that his hero is gay. The protagonist is troubled by this and works through his feelings to come to acceptance later in the book.
The respected editor stopped the writer mid-explanation and said, "No." She explained that in kids' books, we must present the ideal as if it already exists. There can be no "being troubled by" gayness. There can be no "coming to terms with" sexual identity. The characters in our stories must immediately accept with positive responses any representation of modern social constructs. This immediately laudatory reaction to woke ideology is now required in kidlit. If an author doesn't portray it as such, his book will not be published.
This pronouncement by the editor shocked me and many other writers there. The line had now been drawn. As writers, our hope of publication rested on our willingness to positively portray woke ideology.
Shortly after this conference, as a part of several online writers' groups, I started to see comments like this: "We have a duty to save children from conservative, Christian thought," and "It's our responsibility as writers to right the wrongs of past traditional thinking." In their minds, they were in a strategic position as writers of kids' books to influence young minds in the direction they wanted. These groups soon canceled me.
There's more at the link.
Do you see any evidence to the contrary? Where do you get books for kids?
It's a bad thing when you try to get kids away from social media and you have a hard time finding good books for them, too! Maybe it's time for them to play outdoors! Maybe you could join them, if the weather permits. Have fun!
Music
Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.
This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.
Last week's thread, Thinking Like a Liberal Supreme Court Justice - Or Not
Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.