New Rule: A Woke Revolution | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[mania]

I just saw this & thought it was quite good.

I don't watch TV or this guys show but saw it on the internet today

 

 

[save the frogs]

i don't like bill maher at all.

just watching him speak for a few minutes makes me more cynical about the world.

i wonder if that's what his intention is.

woke-ism nonsense is being blown out of proportion by fake media idiots like this. 

do you need bill maher to tell you what's right or not?

why not just go listen to some relaxing music?

you'll feel better than listening to this idiot.

[mania]

6 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

i don't like bill maher at all.............

 

woke-ism nonsense is being blown out of proportion by fake media idiots like this. 

Ive never watched him before but agree with what he said in that video

 

Also what little I had heard of him was I thought he was a left wing liberal type so it seemed odd for him to

speak out against what I thought started as a radical left BS deal ????

 

As to being blown out of proportion trust me in the USA its nuts

That whole cancel culture is disgusting & that is basically what he was talking about with that teacher & that banjo player examples.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by mania

[save the frogs]

5 minutes ago, mania said:

As to being blown out of proportion trust me in the USA its nuts

That whole cancel culture is disgusting & that is basically what he was talking about with that teacher & that banjo player examples.

I don't pay attention to cancel culture.

I think it's all nonsense and fake news. 

Go read a good book or listen to some good music. It's timeless and no one can cancel it. 

 

[KhunLA]

Divisive media ... partake or ignore.  You have choices.

 

I'd rather watch the squirrels, birds, cows, lizards from my veranda.   Or the wife doing the dishes, or building the greenhouse.

[dxrdxr]

Bill Maher is a comedian/commentator who for decades has built a reputation of intentionally saying outrageous things to create controversy (enough that the network canceled his Politically Incorrect show). His positions are known to shift with (against?) the every changing cultural tides. Whatever gets viewers!

 

Specifically to all things “woke” I have to ignore it because I can’t find 2 people who can give me the same definition of what it means! Especially if the 2 people are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. So all the arguments are even about the same thing.

 

 The most accurate definition of “woke” that I have been able to determine is “something that I disagree with”. Works for both the left and right, but obviously meaningless. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

Been a fan for some time and can see why his juxtaposition of talking points and examples can seem attractive. I am finding him lately though a bit too smug and convenient.

The first example isn't bad but like to hear the full story of what the University Professor did. A brief search indicates there is more to it.  Universities do not, and have not for many years, represented in a political sense the wider community. Maybe that is a problem. 

The Mumford example relates to his praise of a book Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy that according to the LA Times 'wildly and dishonestly' inflates the role of Antifa. His fanbase pushed back. I accept his right to read what he likes but you have to cop what comes at you if you support such a controversial tome. Especially if your supporters tend to be young progressives. 

The Atlantic article is an opinion piece that suggests separating sports by gender doesn't make sense. It is the opinion of the one author. Many disagreed. Bill disagreed. The Atlantic is a respected magazine that has all sorts of opinions. Not sure how one person expressing an opinion is on par or similar to the horrors of the cultural revolution where people could not express their opinion. 

These are the best examples he has? Trite. A bit boring.

He is tending to compare the flaws of the right with the left which may seem sensible. I think it has limited worth. A reason is that the right he criticises and lampoons is far more mainstream amongst Republicans while the left is mainly the young and in Universities and not nearly as mainstream or powerful. 

I still watch him though as his past work, and some of his current work, can be worthwhile.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Fat is a type of crazy

[allanos]

The more egregiously "progressive", whatever that means,

the more defining of "woke" something is, it seems to me.

 

There appears to be some sort of competition, from the

those one identifies as members of the "liberal-left-

loony establishment, to outshine each other with more and

more far-out pronouncements and edicts.

 

Mr Biden was quick to identify this movement early in his

presidency, to show that he "get's it", and America will

suffer the consequences. And woe betide if he is followed

by Kamala!

 

Personally, I don't like Maher either; he's a bit of a political

opportunist and swims with the tide.

[kingstonkid]

Wokeism is a more radical version of flower power and the left right world.

The major problem is that if you disagree with a liberal person you are a racist is the bi argument.

 

It is a huge problem in the u.s. because it has removed the ability to have a conversation and discussion.

Note that universities now have snowflake rooms.

A good example is the hockey player that didn't agree with LGBTQ and said for religious reasons he would not wear a pride jersey or rainbow tape.

 

 

 

 

[AgMech Cowboy]

Yes, Bill Maher, has started using his brain and is mocking the idiots.  Many good points. Thank You for sharing!!

[blazes]

8 hours ago, save the frogs said:

I don't pay attention to cancel culture.

I think it's all nonsense and fake news. 

Go read a good book or listen to some good music. It's timeless and no one can cancel it. 

 

While I agree with your sentiments, I find, as a lover of classical music, that while it is "timeless" (and lasts centuries longer than your average rock <deleted>) the fact is many symphony orchestras all over North America (less so in Europe) are dumbing down their concerts so as to make them more "accessible" to the modern breed of illiterates that our schools and universities are now producing.

They have to be "tempted" into the symphony concert with some kind of assurance that it is a safe space, even though it is produced in the main by (gosh) white middle class people who have actually reached their position as musicians through lots of hard work and by MERIT.

 

If posters here want a definition of woke, one aspect of it can be found in the numerous examples in modern life of people being promoted, not on merit, but on factors covered by the hateful term "diversity."

[OneMoreFarang]

9 hours ago, mania said:

Also what little I had heard of him was I thought he was a left wing liberal type so it seemed odd for him to

speak out against what I thought started as a radical left BS deal ????

It sad that for many people there is just black and white.

For many on the right everybody on the left is a radical woke idiot.

And for many on the left everybody on the right is a neo-Nazi.

 

It must be surprising for some people that there are all kinds of shades. And some people think some ideas of the moderate right are good and at the same time some ideas of the moderate left are good.

A good part of us, I am sure the majority, could live happily together if the media and politicians wouldn't try to radicalize us all the time.

 

I saw lots of short videos with Bill Maher. I think most of the time it is funny, and he describes reality pretty good. He talks to people from all political sites. He doesn't like the radicals on both sides. Great.

 

Maybe we should all look more for things we have in common than things about we think differently. That helps to live in peace together.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by OneMoreFarang

[save the frogs]

9 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Divisive media ... partake or ignore.  You have choices.

that was exactly my point.

but you put it more eloquently and succinctly.

[save the frogs]

9 hours ago, mania said:

trust me in the USA its nuts

compared to where? Haiti? where people don't have access to medical needs?

its only 'nuts' because the media is always adding fuel to the fire and riling people up and because you allow yourself to be manipulated. 

and if the US erupts into you-know-what, you can thank bill maher and all these other media folks for riling people up for years and years. 

turn off the news.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by save the frogs

[Walker88]

4 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Been a fan for some time and can see why his juxtaposition of talking points and examples can seem attractive. I am finding him lately though a bit too smug and convenient.

I'm a longtime fan of Maher, but I do agree with some of your points.

 

He has a platform, and he uses---maybe even abuses it. I think his main thrust is that while the size of the crazies on the right far exceeds the size of the crazies on the left, the right is adept as using the extremists on the left to paint broad brushstrokes of the entire side. Maher knows the right has no ideas (lots of slogans, though) other than maintaining power and demonizing those who might wrest power from them. Also, Maher has been pretty good at seeing how bizarre ideas fester, progress, multiply and become a plurality over time. Maher was the first public figure I know to see an environment coming where a willfully ignorant, vicious, vindictive, fascist, self-serving clown like 45 could take the stage. He was spot on from 2016 in his belief 45 wasn't going to just accept defeat and go away quietly.

 

Maybe it's a stretch to ascribe the same threat to the rather small minority on the left that is so vocal today, but if the past is prologue, it can't hurt to point it out. That makes Maher kind of a canary, albeit one with the personality of Cassandra.

[save the frogs]

1 hour ago, blazes said:

the fact is many symphony orchestras all over North America (less so in Europe) are dumbing down their concerts

what you're describing sounds like an imagined non-problem.

the only reason that's floating around in your head is because you watch too much news.

 

this sounds pretty good to me. have a listen. 

close your eyes.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by save the frogs

[spidermike007]

As Bill Maher said recently, the things that seem important in Los Angeles, likely mean nothing in Des Moines. And how many dinner conversations do you think you will encounter in rural Ohio, about my trans child? Or my transitioning child. Or any such nonsense?

 

It is the tendency of the progressive wing of the Dems, to ask the world to acknowledge their preferences. Not me. I do not do PC. I hate PC. Do not even consider forcing your PC junk on me. I even refuse to use the description African American. Charlize Theron is African American. And so is Elon Musk. You are not. Most of them get it. A few do not. Means nothing to NOT PC Mike. LOL. 

 

My family emigrated from Russia over a century ago, to the US. Do I call myself Russian American? No. Why? There is nothing Russian about me, other than some relatively hidden DNA. 

 

I love what Clint Eastwood has to say on this topic. When asked about Dirty Harry he said: “It was far-out at that time, so I brought it to [director] Don [Siegel], and he liked it,” Eastwood recalled Sunday during a visit to the Cannes Film Festival. “A lot of people thought it was politically incorrect. That was at the beginning of the era that we’re in now with political correctness. We are killing ourselves, we’ve lost our sense of humor. But I thought it was interesting and it was daring.”

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/clint-eastwood-decries-pc-culture-cannes-weve-lost-sense-humor-1005933

[blazes]

4 hours ago, save the frogs said:

what you're describing sounds like an imagined non-problem.

the only reason that's floating around in your head is because you watch too much news.

 

this sounds pretty good to me. have a listen. 

close your eyes.

 

I was conducting Beethoven's 5th at the age of 13 , with my mother's knitting needle as my baton, so please don't patronise me like that.

 

Clearly you don't read the concert programmes for the year ahead in some city orchestras around North America.  If you did, instead of relying on YouTube, you would then see what I mean by "dumbing down." 

[save the frogs]

39 minutes ago, blazes said:

Clearly you don't read the concert programmes for the year ahead in some city orchestras around North America.  If you did, instead of relying on YouTube, you would then see what I mean by "dumbing down."

Ok, fair enough.

I don't feel like listening to folks like Bill Maher assaulting me with a barrage of problems (or perceived problems).

If you are in the orchestra domain and you think there's a problem, then by all means invest your energy in improving those situations. 

 

[Jingthing]

I like Bill Maher but I don't agree with him on everything but that's how it should be. 

It's fair game to make fun of / criticize "woke" but in my view the US faces much much more serious existential problems.

Now it looks like the Trump party will be running mostly on anti woke.

That's insane. 

[Skeptic7]

21 hours ago, save the frogs said:

i don't like bill maher at all.

just watching him speak for a few minutes makes me more cynical about the world.

i wonder if that's what his intention is.

woke-ism nonsense is being blown out of proportion by fake media idiots like this. 

do you need bill maher to tell you what's right or not?

why not just go listen to some relaxing music?

you'll feel better than listening to this idiot.

Why think everybody should be just like you? Do you need to tell others what to do and not do? Why not just listen to your "whatever" music and leave others do as they choose? I feel better already not listening to a certain other idiot. 

[Tropposurfer]

Woke a catch-cry for anyone who want to latch onto anything that serves their paranoid, oppressive, yes fascist leanings and ideologies. 

Maher does have in his monologues some solid and realistic truthful and sensible content that is to be sure.

 

The individual leaning of some around openness and acceptance of difference, has in some instances, lent so far as to have some people metaphorically 'fall over' in their actions around gender identity and opening conversation about such things e.g  I might chose to see myself as a penguin. 

I heard an interesting conversation between a little girl (maybe 5) and a woman and the little girl said something about boys n girls as being her perceived expression of choice of gender and the woman said 'it might be between two women who are married'. Now this to me seemed to show a lack of containment and a self-indulging by the woman. 

 

But lets be clear and delineate this idea of wokeism from other tropes of fascism (and it like so many other topics holding out attention today a fascist based trope).

The GOP, and a large proportion of its rights narrative is a fascist one not a 'Republic loving' one any longer so lets be very clear on that. I say this not because i am woke or a communist but a student of history and fact not ideological fantasies.

 

Presenting to people, using, and blending this idea of 'wokeism' as a cultural corrosive 'movement' is an atypical usage and ploy of fascistic tropes.

Now we see, so entirely predictably, the coming-out around individual freedom to be who we chose to be, now being blended to the trope of the Military becoming woke, along with a cabal conspiracy against the 'true citizens'.

 

Other equally predictable tropes are; If you are not woke then you can't and mustn't be 'soft' and therefore useless, a concerted and deliberate nationwide campaign to make children homosexual or transexual is another fear based trope, to teach in schools a false history around the obscene racism of the United Sates phenomenology and claim that teaching actual factual history is instead a false narrative is pure fascist based projection and total BS.

 

These narratives have within them many subtexts, these are always the same:

i.e. that we are being attacked and will be consumed by the 'other', that our socio-economic trials and struggles emanate form 'them', that we are the true example of humanity all else are 'unter-mensch', that the sick and weak are a threat and repulsive (yet another example of the disowning of ones own frailty and faults and projecting them onto the other). Trumps revulsion and cold cruel criticism of disabled veterans and a war vet and hero John McCaine are perfect examples of this revulsion. 'Real men' 'true American's true Russians' et al. must be steely and hold to the tropes lest they will betray the 'true' race, be hard and hold this as a badge of honour and sectarian pride, be unyielding, brutal, rigid in ideologies (with ourselves as well as the other).

The seeking of a saviour, a leader who embodies such ideologies (again a projection of that which we are deeply ashamed of in us because being centred, truly loving, gentle, living in equanimity with others and therefore integrated is absent and must at all cost be projected), to cover this absence/ lack of integration we attach to the rage and bitterness in our own being and thus to maintain this repression we must project.

 

Because a loathing of their own fear and frailty exists they project this outward because they simply cannot hold and reconcile these shameful parts of themselves, thus the 'other' is sought and once found held onto beyond any logic, sense, reason, fact, or humanity. 

 

We see the cracks in their suppression  and glitches in the projection with all manner of sexual, financial, and treasonous behaviours from those who are so avowed to fascism.

 

When you teach children in every way that there are different races, construct socially an all pervasive system built on and designed to procreate racism, classism and other isms, "otheration" (J Bradshaw, 1997) coined it we make blind, obedient, and willing the populace to these fascistic evil tropes. 

 

What is happening now is a 'season', a season of instead of hiding and avoiding wider social contact by those who see themselves as unique and to some social paradigms and role definitions 'differenct' openly 'coming-out' and speaking out.

As human beings they have an inalienable right to a voice and to using it. This us in complete contradiction to those who do not see these folks as human at all. Such is the level of otheration being exerted.

 

If anyone knows anything about different ideas other than those of always-rigid religious based indoctrinated ideologies then they would know and (as history clearly shows us without question) those in unusual and minority across the whole of human experience and diversity have been brutalised and 'othered' since man first stood upright to walk.

 

The age-old trope that gay people will 'turn' kids, predate on them is simply not true. To be factually clear children are far, far more likely to be abused sexually by males, and males who appear/present as heterosexual and who come from mainstream cookie-cutter shaming constrictive religious upbringings (and therefore deeply suppressed feelings and thus neurotic abberated behaviours).

 

'Wokeism' and its promotion comers directly, directly out of the age-old tropes of fascism and white supremacist evil. It is always shot-through with deep personal inadequacy, paranoia, suppression and projection.

 

If you think what I just wrote is BS then I suggest you go and do some historical research. When I say 'historical research' I don't mean listening to and quoting Carlson, or MTG or Gates of Jordan or Jones  or the extreme insane evangelical pastors proliferating such fascist ideologies under the guise of religious and spiritual doctrine.

[Skeptic7]

18 hours ago, dxrdxr said:

Bill Maher is a comedian/commentator who for decades has built a reputation of intentionally saying outrageous things to create controversy (enough that the network canceled his Politically Incorrect show). His positions are known to shift with (against?) the every changing cultural tides. Whatever gets viewers!

 

Specifically to all things “woke” I have to ignore it because I can’t find 2 people who can give me the same definition of what it means! Especially if the 2 people are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. So all the arguments are even about the same thing.

 

 The most accurate definition of “woke” that I have been able to determine is “something that I disagree with”. Works for both the left and right, but obviously meaningless. 

Wrong about Maher. He got canceled Politically Incorrect for telling the truth and it "offended" some. Networks censor and change. Politics change. Parties change. Maher hasn't changed. His message is the same as always. He calls out everybody...left as well as right. Dem as well as Rep. Friend as well as foe. He may not always be correct but he and his views, opinions and politics haven't changed. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Skeptic7

[Skeptic7]

16 hours ago, AgMech Cowboy said:

Yes, Bill Maher, has started using his brain and is mocking the idiots.  Many good points. Thank You for sharing!!

He's ALWAYS done this, regardless of party or side. You either haven't been paying attention or are not much familiar with him. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Skeptic7

[BritManToo]

18 hours ago, dxrdxr said:

Specifically to all things “woke” I have to ignore it because I can’t find 2 people who can give me the same definition of what it means! Especially if the 2 people are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. So all the arguments are even about the same thing.

Here ya go ............

Like every other totalitarian movement, what some call liberalism and others more recently often describe as Cultural Marxism has developed an ideology which its adherents use to justify the imposition of tyranny on the society they seek to overtake. The ideology of America’s contemporary totalitarian left can be called wokeism.

 

The four intellectual pillars of wokeism are:

1) Anti-white racism disguised under the euphemism social justice.

2) Rejection of traditional morality, which is primarily carried out by the promotion of sexually deviant lifestyles such as homosexuality and transgender. In a truly surreal inversion of reality, they paint traditional morality as immoral by charging it with being homophobic, transphobic, and similar terms.

3) Environmentalism based on the notion that it is desirable and possible to arrest climate change.

4) Intense hostility toward Christian religion, which they negatively paint as patriarchal, intolerant, and oppressive.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Here ya go ............

Like every other totalitarian movement, what some call liberalism and others more recently often describe as Cultural Marxism has developed an ideology which its adherents use to justify the imposition of tyranny on the society they seek to overtake. The ideology of America’s contemporary totalitarian left can be called wokeism.

 

The four intellectual pillars of wokeism are:

1) Anti-white racism disguised under the euphemism social justice.

2) Rejection of traditional morality, which is primarily carried out by the promotion of sexually deviant lifestyles such as homosexuality and transgender. In a truly surreal inversion of reality, they paint traditional morality as immoral by charging it with being homophobic, transphobic, and similar terms.

3) Environmentalism based on the notion that it is desirable and possible to arrest climate change.

4) Intense hostility toward Christian religion, which they negatively paint as patriarchal, intolerant, and oppressive.

It seems to me in an attempt not to deal with difficult or thorny topics you are throwing it all under the woke blanket.

To look at no 2, your extreme position allows you to call the gay lifestyle deviant, while you yourself take pride in a self confessed loveless transactional open lifestyle.

Your lifestyle works for you and hopefully you don't hurt anybody and do some good. Can't you give others the same respect. That's not to say the arguments around say the science of being trans should not be open to debate but debate the issue and don't automatically condemn. 

It's about balance. Being open to the possibility that the past was not perfect while not throwing out the baby with the bathwater and changing things that work or rewriting history. As I have said it is often young people at the extremes. Same as it ever was. 

In a minor way I feel Bill Maher is doing the same thing. He has always stood up for logic and common sense, and hopefully I am wrong that he is becoming a bit too black and white, in a possibly subconscious attempt to seem relevant. His covid stuff for example. Not wrong to debate but too one sided in my opinion. His latest special Adulting was a dud too.

Left comedy can of course be a dud. I find his HBO stablemate John Oliver has got boring.  He sometimes hits the mark but is a bit too far to the left.  Had a show on black women's hair and related discrimination. No thanks. 

 

[LaosLover]

He used to be funny, now he's boomer bore of the worst finger-wagging kind. I say this as an actual old character who does like to give advice: Lighten up, Bill.

 

Liberal people are often just as hysterical in their fear of an immediate Handmaiden's Tale landscape as Tucker Carlson is in pretending to worry about bisexual M+M's. It's a pile of goo-goo baby talk for spoilt brats too lazy to read a book.

 

Victimhood is a cheaper and stupider drug than sniffing glue. Everyone wants to feel that they are manfully standing up to a (conveniently) invisible force that is (conveniently) just ever so slightly off stage, happening somewhere else. You know you are talking to a complete moron when they conspiratorially reference "the narrative" -something implausible that they have made up whole cloth.

 

When I hear this crybaby posturing from lucky guys living here in cheapskate paradise, I see how privileged we all are: we get to carefully confect our own neurosis's to our exact liking. We get to complain that confederate flag-wavers or hairy arm-pitted feminists are a problem for us, or a problem at all, really.

 

We get to pretend to be serious people by pretend-worrying about it.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by LaosLover

[Slip]

48 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

It seems to me in an attempt not to deal with difficult or thorny topics you are throwing it all under the woke blanket.

To look at no 2, your extreme position allows you to call the gay lifestyle deviant, while you yourself take pride in a self confessed loveless transactional open lifestyle.

Your lifestyle works for you and hopefully you don't hurt anybody and do some good. Can't you give others the same respect. That's not to say the arguments around say the science of being trans should not be open to debate but debate the issue and don't automatically condemn. 

It's about balance. Being open to the possibility that the past was not perfect while not throwing out the baby with the bathwater and changing things that work or rewriting history. As I have said it is often young people at the extremes. Same as it ever was. 

In a minor way I feel Bill Maher is doing the same thing. He has always stood up for logic and common sense, and hopefully I am wrong that he is becoming a bit too black and white, in a possibly subconscious attempt to seem relevant. His covid stuff for example. Not wrong to debate but too one sided in my opinion. His latest special Adulting was a dud too.

Left comedy can of course be a dud. I find his HBO stablemate John Oliver has got boring.  He sometimes hits the mark but is a bit too far to the left.  Had a show on black women's hair and related discrimination. No thanks. 

 

Britmantoo has (perhaps unwittingly) kind of proved your point for you.  That definition which of course is less than complimentary seems to be taken from the web page of the Order of the Knights Templar.  I find it hard to think of too many organisations that would be more anti-"woke", the kkk perhaps?

 

https://www.knightstemplarorder.com/what_is_wokism

[LaosLover]

3 hours ago, BritManToo said:

 

4) Intense hostility toward Christian religion, which they negatively paint as patriarchal, intolerant, and oppressive.

I gotta ask: What did the Christian religion ever do for a happy old monger like you?

 

Can it die fast enough? Who here would not like to rhymes with witch-slap Jesus for all of the tedium he has resulted in?

[Fat is a type of crazy]

Funny Bill today. Decent episode I must say.