Tuesday, September 11, 2018

New York Times Columnist: Nazis, Nazis, Everywhere—in Sweden, and on American Tennis Courts

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

The New York Times
Opinion Today
Tuesday, September 11, 2018

The New York Times

By David Leonhardt

The 10th anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse — the signature moment of our modern financial crisis — will arrive on Saturday. Media organizations and book publishers are using the anniversary to look back over the last decade, and one of the best piece I’ve read so far is in the latest issue of The New Yorker, by John Cassidy.

It is a review of “Crashed,” a book by the economic historian Adam Tooze, and Cassidy’s central point is that the main aftershocks have been as much political as economic. “We are still living with the consequences of 2008, including the political ones,” Cassidy writes. “As wages and incomes continued to languish, the rescue effort generated a populist backlash on both sides of the Atlantic. Austerity policies, especially in Europe, added another dark twist to the process of political polarization. As a result, Tooze writes, the ‘financial and economic crisis of 2007-2012 morphed between 2013 and 2017 into a comprehensive political and geopolitical crisis of the post-cold war order.’”

The latest example comes from Sweden, where this weekend’s election gave a far-right party called Sweden Democrats, which sprang from the neo-Nazi movement, its best showing ever. The party did less well than some forecasters had predicted, but it still won almost 18 percent of the vote, making it Sweden’s third largest party.

Swedish legislators now face a complex negotiation to see which political bloc can form a government. Neither the center-left party, which finished first by a small margin, or the center-right party will easily be able to do so without the other.

The Swedish result fits a trend that began in the wake of the financial crisis. Across Europe, “the bigger parties are getting smaller, and the smaller parties getting bigger,” Sarah de Lange, a University of Amsterdam political scientist, told The Guardian.



Tennis, and much more.

Martina Navratilova is one of the greatest athletes I’ve ever watched. Her period of dominance didn’t last quite as long as that of some other tennis giants. But for six amazing years in the early and mid-1980s, she won more than half of all the major tournaments in women’s tennis. By any standard, she is one of the top handful of female players of all time.

Another player on that short list, of course, is Serena Williams. Which means that Navratilova understands Williams’s professional life in a way that few other people do. Both also overcame pervasive discrimination — based on race in Williams’ case and on sexual orientation and nationality in Navratilova’s.

[N.S.: I am not aware of either woman ever suffering any sort of discrimination, “pervasive” or otherwise. If anything, Navratilova was celebrated for being a lesbian, and Williams was celebrated for being a racist black. As for Navratilova allegedly suffering discrimination, that’s ludicrous. It sounds like Navratilova is desperate for some attention, after being out of the limelight for so long.

The only problem Martina Navratilova suffered, as a young defector, was self-inflicted. She was a fatty, and didn’t start winning tennis tournaments in the West until she lost weight.

Times gang member David Leonhardt implies that Navratilova defended Serena Williams, when she criticized her. Or else he is saying that only a member of an affirmative action group can criticize a member of an AA group.

It’s no sale, either way.]

So I was not surprised to see that Navratilova has written a sharp and, to me, persuasive essay for The Times about the Williams controversy. Navratilova both talks about the discrimination Williams faces and walks through Saturday’s events to explain how things got so nasty. Navratilova asks: “I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the right way to behave to honor our sport and to respect our opponents?”

With a different perspective, Rebecca Traister of New York magazine has a strong defense of Williams, as does Salamishah Tillet of Rutgers University, Newark in The Times.

[In other words, the Times’ politburo wants to ensure the scale is weighted in Williams’ favor.]

Programming note. The news [sic] side of The Times has launched a new politics newsletter, with Lisa Lerer as the chief writer. Today’s edition includes an interview with Cynthia Nixon.



The full Opinion report follows.

[“The news [sic] side of The Times”? A new politics newsletter”? There is no “news side” at the Times. And what need is there for a “new politics newsletter,” in a rag that is all politics, all the time?]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too am unsure what discrimination the Williams "girls" face. They have had their way for a long time and are the subject of adulation really. They are talented I must admit and acknowledged for being so. So what discrimination?

Anonymous said...

Agree 100%.No discrimination vs either woman(?IF we can call them that).
Meanwhile,I wonder what kind of excuse Leonhardt could make for Rod Allen.I will attempt to write a column as Leonhardt would:
"Rod Allen understandably attacked white play-by-play man Mario Impemba last week.After many years of discrimination in the Detroit Tigers broadcast booth(we take for granted),how else could an oppressed black man be expected to react to having his chair(a favorite,I assume)taken from him.In a hostile work environment,it was most likely,Mr.Allen's only joy in working with a dago racist like Impemba.Where does a white privileged EYE-talian,get off thinking, he's earned enough respect to sit in Rod Allen's cushioned throne?His comfort seat.
Impemba is fortunate that Mr.Allen decided to allow him to live.I,for one,if I were placed on a jury,would guarantee Mr.Allen receiving my "not guilty" vote,on any felony charge against him.
Forty years from now,Impemba will be shining Mr.Allen's shoes,if liberals like myself have our way--and Impemba is lucky to attain such a job.
In the meantime Impemba,be careful!With the new black-favored society we are constructing,a lowly white man such as yourself,walks on thin ice after an altercation with a prominent black.This applies in Detroit--or ANYWHERE in these new United States of black America.I will be watching. "
I'm probably not too far off,unfortunately,from presenting his philosophy on the subject.
-GR Anonymous--I'm a white man.

Anonymous said...

Umps decide they're Howard Beale--Not Going to take Serena Williams'Tantrums Anymore.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-12/top-tennis-umpires-may-unionize-boycott-serena-williams
--GRA

Anonymous said...

CBS CANS ANOTHER WHITE GUY
(Abc news)CBS News on Wednesday fired "60 Minutes" top executive Jeff Fager, who has been under investigation following reports that he groped women at parties and tolerated an abusive workplace.

The network news president, David Rhodes, said Fager's firing was "not directly related" to the allegations against him, but came because he violated company policy. Fager said it was because of a text message he sent to a CBS News reporter who was covering the story about him.

"My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it," Fager said.
GRA:Fairness at a MSM network?Fager should have known better.
#Whiteguys must go
--GR Anonymous