Poster Project Benefits Returning Vets

“Our culture has descended into one of ignoring the best and celebrating the least,” reads the website for GallantFew, a support network for military veterans. That means that too many of America’s best, home from war, are suffering in silence, with the result that we are losing nearly two dozen a day to suicide. GallantFew is working to change that.

Michael Broderick is a Marine Corps vet and an actor in Los Angeles [and – full disclosure – a friend of mine], with appearances on shows such as Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, The Unit, 24, and Justified, among others. He also does voiceover work on national commercials and in video games like Medal of Honor: Warfighter. He and his wife Dana Commandatore are the founders of RethinkingAutism.com, devoted to improving the quality of life of autistic people. Michael is also involved with GallantFew, and I asked him a few questions about that.

Mark Tapson:    Michael, what is Gallant Few and what’s the Poster Project all about?

Michael Broderick:           GallantFew is a veteran mentoring organization founded by retired Army Ranger Karl Monger. Their mission is to help reduce veteran unemployment and homelessness and to eliminate veteran suicide. The way they do this is to provide one-on-one peer mentoring to veterans. In other words, GallantFew will match a transitioning veteran (someone recently separated from active duty) with a veteran from their community who has already made the transition to civilian life successfully. The Poster Project is a way to raise awareness and funds for the organization.

The first time I did the Project, I purchased a collectible poster for Band of Brothers [the HBO series about the U.S. Army’s Easy Company] that had the signatures of six WWII veterans of Easy Company. I spent the next 15 months getting the signatures of 30 members of the cast and crew including Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Damien Lewis and many others. I was also able to get the signatures of two more Easy Company veterans. The Poster went to auction in 2013 and raised over $4,600.00 for GallantFew. This year, I am doing it again with a movie poster for Black Hawk Down [based on the true story of U.S. Army Rangers’ fierce 1993 firefight in Mogadishu].

MT:    And how is that going so far?

MB:    It’s going well! I’ve got three signatures so far. The first was Matthew Marsden who played “Sizemore” in the film, second was Tom Sizemore who played “McKnight” and the most current signature I got was, for me, the most exciting. First Sergeant Matt Eversmann was in Los Angeles recently and he signed the poster. As you remember, 1SG Eversmann was portrayed by Josh Hartnett and his story was at the center of Black Hawk Down. Matt also recorded a special message for the actors and members of Task Force Ranger and Delta, encouraging them to get involved in The Poster Project.

MT:    Can you talk about your own military background and how and why you became involved with Gallant Few and the Poster Project?

MB:    I served in the Marine Corps with HML/A-167 in a support role completing a four year enlistment and was honorably discharged in 1990. After 9/11 happened and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq got longer, I felt a real desire to do something to support my fellow veterans. I met and befriended Army Ranger Michael Schlitz and, like he does on so many, he had a powerful impact on me. I learned about the work that Mike and Karl Monger were doing with GallantFew and I wanted to support their mission. That brought about the idea for The Poster Project.

MT:    What kinds of issues do returning veterans face when they leave combat duty and come back home, issues that civilians can’t really grasp?

MB:    The big three issues are the ones I mentioned before: unemployment, homelessness and suicide. GallantFew attacks these by getting at the root causes. Oftentimes a big factor in these situations is a feeling of “otherness” – veterans in general, and combat veterans in particular, often have difficulty relating to their civilian peers and vice versa. This can cause feelings of separation, which lead to isolation. In speaking to my combat veteran friends, it is this feeling of isolation that can have the most detrimental effects.

Civilians, on the other hand, often buy into the “damaged PTSD veteran” narrative and are uncomfortable engaging with a man or woman who has served in combat. This can unintentionally exacerbate the problem.

Currently, we are losing 22 veterans a day to suicide. That’s simply unacceptable.

MT:    What about the recent VA scandal, the revelations of neglect and backlog?

MB:    As more and more things come out about the way the Veterans Administration has handled things, it’s clear to me that there must be major housecleaning there from the bottom to the top. This has been a long time coming. We’ve been at war for a decade and the fact that the VA is so ill-prepared leaves me dumbfounded. Even worse is the apparent dishonesty about what’s been going on there. In my opinion, it’s not simply a funding issue but an absolute systemic failure. A lack of accountability will always lead to disaster.

This is another reason that veterans are stepping up to help other veterans. At this point, there’s no more effective tactic than attacking these issues on a peer-to-peer level.

MT:    What can civilians do to better show our appreciation and understanding for any vets we might know, or even don’t know but might encounter in the course of our day? How can we help Gallant Few?

MB:    Anyone can help GallantFew at any time. Whether you're a veteran who would like to volunteer as a mentor or you would just like to support the mission with a donation, you can do that at GallantFew.org and their partners RaiderProject.org.

Your readers can support The Poster Project by visiting us on Facebook or on Twitter and helping me spread the word. Likes, shares and retweets are always appreciated.

Finally, if you know a veteran, you can simply reach out and check in with them. It really is that simple. Whether it's someone you know well, an online acquaintance or someone you don't know well at all, you can ask how they're doing. Every so often, just ask how they're doing. That's how anyone in your life knows you care, military or civilian. The key, though, is being ready to listen if and when they are ready to talk. Don't worry about having answers or solutions. Just listen. Because that's what friends do. Hell, when you're done reading this, why not check in with a veteran you know?

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/9/14)

The Campus Minefield of Consensual Sex

Thanks to the increasing hysteria about a “rape culture” we don’t have and irrational definitions of what constitutes sexual assault, sex on American campuses is becoming so fraught with bureaucratic oversight and legal landmines that students – especially males – may end up settling for celibacy.

Panicking about how to manage a rumored tsunami of on-campus sexual assault allegations, college administrators are constructing ever more layered legal protections. But cultural critic and intellectual provocateur Camille Paglia recently asserted that the “majority of campus incidents being carelessly described as sexual assault” these days are not “rape rape,” as Whoopi Goldberg put it, but merely “oafish hookup melodramas, arising from mixed signals and imprudence on both sides.”

One app developer hopes to make those mixed signals a thing of the past. The New York Post reports that Good2Go, free for both iPhones and Androids, “aims to solve the problem of date rape and sexual assault by making consent as easy as pressing a button.” Well, perhaps not quite that easy. Check out the awkward, sitcom-worthy, passion-killing process a couple using Good2Go must go through to ensure a bout of litigation-free lovemaking:

Picture yourself as a student in an intimate moment with a partner. You both sense that sexual congress, an archaic euphemism that does not refer to political sex scandals, is imminent. But first, you must break the spell to explain to him or her that you have to participate in a phone approval process to protect you both legally. Hand them your phone, on which the Good2Go app poses the question, “Are we Good2Go?” They choose a response and hand the phone back. “No thanks” is the answer you likely will get once your partner realizes you actually have an app on your phone to clear the way for sex.

The response “I’m Good2Go” is the green light – but only after your partner inputs a self-assessment of how drunk he or she is. If “Pretty wasted” is selected (although it’s not clear how a pretty wasted person can even find that button), the answer automatically switches to “No thanks,” and again, you’re out of luck. However, if “Sober,” “Mildly intoxicated” or “Intoxicated but Good2Go” are entered, then the app will ask for a phone number to confirm their identity. Then and only then can you both rest easy and get busy.

Unless you live in California, that is, where a new law, the first in the nation, states that “affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.” So the green light to get started is only the beginning. The law will lay down stiff penalties for colleges that don’t deal swiftly and seriously with accusations of sexual assault, so any misinterpretation during your frisky business could suddenly become very risky business.

Rape culture anxiety on campus doesn’t end there. The University of Michigan has expanded its definition of “sexual violence” to include such non-violence as “withholding sex and affection” and “discounting the partner’s feelings regarding sex.” Expect other overreacting colleges to follow suit.

But there is something more than just the fear of legal action going on here. Robert Stacy McCain believes that feminist academics are behind what he calls an “Orwellian project” of not only modifying student sexual behavior, but controlling the way students talk and even think about sex. Janet Bloomfield of A Voice For Men claims that men are the real targets of this misandrist agenda, as “normal relationship behaviors are pathologized and framed as abuse when MEN do them.” Meanwhile, women are trained “to interpret normal sexual and relationship behaviors as abuse and encouraged to have the young men they are partnering with sanctioned by the college.”

Whatever is fueling the rape culture mania, I agree with Camille Paglia that “colleges should stick to academics” and “real crimes should be reported to the police, not to haphazard and ill-trained campus grievance committees.” A more serious campus problem, Paglia warns, is that naïve young women no longer “understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage natures,” and thus are easier targets for seriously violent predators. Her solution? “The price of women’s modern freedoms is personal responsibility for vigilance and self-defense.”

Unfortunately, any call for personal responsibility these days is usually met with charges of “rape apologist” and “blaming the victim,” which solve nothing and perpetuate the victimization of women. Nevertheless – and this is not to absolve men of their responsibility – both “oafish hookup melodramas” and actual sex crimes could be more effectively reduced if female students avoid behaviors that put them at risk for sexual assault. That includes: not letting alcohol make you vulnerable; maintaining clear, open dialogue with their male sex partner from beginning to end; and being mentally and physically prepared to confront the “savage nature” of predators. To echo Paglia, that is the price for women’s sexual freedom in today’s hookup culture.

(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 10/7/14)

Maher & Harris Educate Affleck on Islam

I don’t usually stand with comedian Bill Maher, but last week on his Real Time program the provocateur once again was a voice of reason addressing the Islam Problem. His guests were atheist author Sam Harris, former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and actor/director Ben Affleck of the Oscar-winning Iranian hostage crisis flick Argo. As you might expect from such a lineup, the discussion swiftly degenerated into the usual stalemate between facts and politically correct defensiveness.

“Liberals need to stand up for liberal principles,” opened Maher, “freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals.” When this earned applause, he continued, “these are liberal principles that liberals applaud for, but then when you say in the Muslim world, this is what’s lacking, then they get upset.”

Sam Harris, an atheist who, like Maher, at least understands that not all religions are the same, replied,

Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy. They’ll criticize white theocracy, they’ll criticize Christians, they’ll still get upset over the abortion clinic bombings that happened in 1984… The crucial point of confusion is that we have been sold this meme of Islamophobia where every criticism of Islam is conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people, and that is intellectually ridiculous.

This brought whoops of approval from the audience, and a highly agitated Affleck took the opportunity to jump in and challenge Harris on his credentials for discussing Islam. Of course, Affleck, who had nothing knowledgeable to say about the religion himself, immediately proved Harris’ point by calling his statement “gross” and “racist” – buying into the standard progressive misconception that Islam is somehow a race. Maintaining his composure, Harris responded, again to applause, that we have to be able to criticize ideas. This was a point with which Affleck hastened to agree – until Harris dropped some truth that “Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.”

“Jesus,” a frustrated Affleck exclaimed. He practically came out of his chair a moment later exclaiming, “How about the more than a billion people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, and don’t do any of the things you say all Muslims do?” This too brought applause, even though once again he was proving Harris’ point that criticizing Islam gets unfairly conflated with a broad-brush attack on all Muslims.

“All these billion people don’t hold these pernicious beliefs?” Maher asked. “That’s just not true, Ben.” When Harris “unpacked” the concept for an impatient Affleck, explaining about concentric circles of fundamentalism, Affleck shut down listening and simply interjected, “Let him [Kristof] talk.” Nicholas Kristof defended moderate Muslims who speak out, and Michael Steele raised the point that opposition Muslim voices don’t get media coverage, to which Maher, trying to bring the discussion back to the ideology of Islam, responded that a big reason Muslims don’t speak out is fear. “It’s the only religion that acts like the mafia,” Maher said. “They will f**king kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book. That’s why Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs bodyguards 24/7.”

Affleck, unable to restrain his righteous anger, suddenly gesticulated at Harris as he began to rant irrationally. “What is your solution, to just condemn Islam? We’ve killed more Muslims than they have us, by an awful lot, and yet somehow we’re exempted from things because they’re not reeeally a reflection of what we believe in…”

When he couldn’t be reined in from this tangent, Harris condescended, “Let me just give you what you want,” and proceeded to say that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who don’t agree with ISIS and that reformers of Islam should be supported. That didn’t pacify Affleck or Kristof, who said that Harris’ point still smacked of “the way white racists talked about African-Americans and defined blacks” – proving yet again Harris’ point that criticizing Islamic ideology always raises the specter of Islamophobia.

When Affleck began another stupid rant, equating a factual discussion of Islam with racism against blacks, Maher cut him off. “It’s based on facts. I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians – they are not outliers in the Muslim world – that say like 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion. If 90% of Brazilians thought that death was the appropriate response to leaving Catholicism, you would think it was a bigger deal.”

“I would think it was a big deal no matter what,” Affleck lied, trying to sound fair and balanced. People like Affleck will defend the rights of jihadists all the way up until the blade severs their heads from their bodies, but think nothing of publicly smearing all Christians as theocratic bigots.

“I’m simply telling you,” Affleck told Harris, “I disagree with you.” Harris calmly countered correctly with, “You don’t understand my argument.”

That’s because Ben Affleck is typical of uninformed but holier-than-thou, media-empowered Hollywood actors, who substitute passion for thought and utopian ideals for reality, who reject facts for ad hominem slurs of racism, and who wear the blinders of moral equivalence because their false god is multiculturalism. Unfortunately, we can’t dismiss the influence of such smug, ignorant loudmouths on the smug, militantly ignorant sheep who constitute their audience.

“We’re obviously not convincing anybody,” Bill Maher conceded. Maybe, maybe not, but unlike nearly all of his cohorts in the media, at least Maher’s willing to try.

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/5/14)

Fashion’s Faux Feminism

Chanel’s iconic designer Karl Lagerfeld staged a mock feminist protest Tuesday at the close of his Spring/Summer 2015 ready-to-wear collection runway show in Paris. He had an entire Parisian neighborhood constructed inside the Grand Palais, with the audience lining a “Boulevard Chanel No.5” complete with pedestrian crossing and shimmering rain puddles beneath towering 19th century apartment façades. Celebrity guests included The Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann, who said, “His shows are great opera.” Indeed. But in addition to the fake boulevard and fake apartments, the feminism felt fake as well.

At the end of the show, all the models marched down the boulevard alongside budding supermodel Cara Delevingne and ultramodel Gisele Bundchen leading a protest chant with  quilted, Chanel-monogrammed megaphones (because fashion). Some models carried placards with bland slogans in French and English like “Be different,” “Make Fashion Not War,” and the perplexing “Free Freedom.” A few signs bore a feminist theme: “Ladies Rights Are More Than Alright” [sic] and “Ladies First,” for example. A couple of them took equality to a rather dubious extreme: “Boys should get pregnant, too” and “Divorce for all.”

But even the self-absorbed glamour crowd was put off by the shallowness of the faux protest. In a review entitled “Chanel’s ‘Feminist’ Protest Wasn’t All That Great for Women,” the fashion website Refinery 29 declared that “This season’s show presents protest as pure product, the irony of which we suspect Karl is both aware, and presides over with a provocative, Warholian glee.” That site also called the “empty” event “an oddly jovial fashion circus more than a statement,” and reported that the “attendees didn’t seem to know how to interpret it.” Jezebel.com was less forgiving, describing the finale as “cynical, money-grabbing” “tokenism” and “empty marketing.”

How feminist can an industry be that hinges upon a never-ending parade of very young women serving as largely anonymous, voiceless, walking clothes hangers? The French word for model, after all, is “mannequin.” Sure, those models are well-compensated, but for every Gisele Bundchen, who is on track to become a billionaire, modeling eats up and spits out innumerable eager-to-please young girls who don’t end up so much with a lucrative career as an eating disorder and a smoking addiction. Women aren’t even the most successful fashion designers. This is not to say that fashion can’t put forth a feminist vision, but fashion is not the real world.

Fashion isn’t serious. It’s fantasy, fun and style. Certainly clothes can be empowering for both men and women, but fashion fails when it takes itself too seriously, or attempts inevitably heavy-handed social statements, or waxes pretentious with artsy creations that cannot possibly be worn. Lagerfeld may have intended to set his colorful collection to the beat of the times – like the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and the climate change march in New York – but his playfulness was out of sync with the real world.

It’s hard to blame Karl Lagerfeld, he of the trademark dark glasses, snowy ponytail and starched collar, for a lack of perspective. The concerns of real women protesting real issues are not his. He is the highest-paid fashion designer in the world, having earned $58 million in the last twelve months. He inhabits a fantasy universe far removed from mere mortals like the women protesting government violence in Venezuela, or sexual violence in India, or a law permitting men to marry nine-year-olds in Iraq – and they are doing so without a quilted, monogrammed megaphone in sight.

(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 10/3/14)

The Beast Inside Adam Levine’s ‘Animal’

Maroon 5 – or rather Adam Levine, since the band’s frontman has stepped so far out front that there is no distinction between them anymore – has just released a controversial new single and video that may have done more than just stir the social media pot. It may actually drive fans away.

“Animal” is an urgent pop-rock track that tells the story of a stalker and his pretty prey, played in the video by Levine and his actual wife Behati Prinsloo. It’s reminiscent of The Police’s gargantuan 1983 hit “Every Breath You Take,” often mistakenly considered a romantic ballad (which still never ceases to perplex and amuse its songwriter Sting) – except that the stalker in “Every Breath” is never more than a yearning watcher; the stalker in “Animal” is on the hunt.

In his video, Levine is a scuzzy butcher who shadows Prinsloo, snaps photos of the object of his predatory obsession and pins them in his developing room, and even stands over her while she sleeps unaware. Almost as an erotic release, he smears himself with blood and hangs grinning alongside slabs of beef in a meat locker.

“Baby, I'm preying on you tonight,” he sings. “Hunt you down, eat you alive/Just like animals.” Sure, he’s talking about sex, and who doesn’t like passionately animalistic sex? But there’s a cannibalistic overtone here, and since there is no indication that his desire is reciprocated – indeed, Prinsloo rejects him when he approaches her in a bar – then this is clearly predatory and not consensual (and these days, one practically needs a notarized legal agreement of consensuality in order to proceed with sex): “Maybe you think that you can hide/I can smell your scent from miles.” This isn’t sexy but creepy and potentially violent, and many listeners seem to agree.

In the stalker Levine’s head, the couple has sex while awash in blood. I don’t know who would find this sexy except perhaps fans of True Blood or, in this case, a predator with a fetish for hacking meat. “I get so high when I'm inside you,” the unsubtle lyrics go, but apparently he soars even higher envisioning her as bloody prey he has tracked and killed. As Acculturated’s own Abby W. Schachter points out, the fact that the couple are real-life husband and wife adds an “astoundingly ugly” layer to this already unpleasant video.

It’s hard to follow Levine’s and/or his record company Interscope’s line of thinking here. Perhaps the man who has his own celebrity fragrance, who launched a line of clothing at Kmart, and who sits on the panel of judges on a TV talent competition felt he needed more than just sleeve tattoos to seem edgy. Perhaps he’s trying to reach the sadistic/voyeuristic demographic that enjoys torture porn movies such as the successful Saw and Hostel franchises. Perhaps the music biz demands envelope-pushing videos in order to keep artists relevant. In any case, the result is nothing short of repulsive.

The stalker element aside, “Animal” unabashedly celebrates the purely animalistic side of sex divorced (pun intentional) from any emotional or spiritual connection with your partner. This is hardly uncommon in rock music, which doesn’t deal often enough in the spiritual (but when it does, as with the best of U2, the results are spectacular). “Don't deny the animal that comes alive when I’m inside you,” Levine falsettos. “You can't deny that beast inside.”

But denying the beast inside, or at least maintaining a guarded coexistence with it, is what makes us fully human. The young Renaissance humanist Pico della Mirandella noted, in his Oration on the Dignity of Man, that mankind hangs between heaven and earth, and by our own actions we either allow ourselves to sink to the level of beasts or ascend among the angels. The tragic quality of human nature is our never-ending struggle to overcome that beast inside, not surrender to it, and to ascend, even – or perhaps especially – during sex. How much more compelling and less off-putting “Animal” might have been if Adam Levine had explored that direction.

(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 10/2/14)

A Conservative Comedian Goes Gunning for Big Government

Mixing news with a dose of comic commentary has paid off for The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. A Brookings Institute survey recently noted that he is a news source more trusted by liberals and independents than MSNBC is. “The real power to influence the left resides on Comedy Central not MSNBC,” says Politics USA. But if you’re searching your television lineup for a conservative antidote to Stewart, the field is rather limited. There is late night Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld, there is… actually, there’s just Gutfeld. Or there was until this month, when The Flipside with Michael Loftus debuted on television stations across the country.

A writer/​producer on the successful sitcom Anger Management, comedian Michael Loftus was also a co-​producer and executive story editor on the underappreciated NBC comedy Outsourced and a writer on The George Lopez Show. He has also been a regular on TruTV’s The Smoking Gun Presents…, and he created and starred in History Channel’s half-hour comedy American Wiseass, in which he presented a comic take on episodes from American history to a live studio audience. He also has his own comedy album and a one-hour Comedy Central special You’ve Changed.

Featuring some standup by Loftus, satirical segments, and interviews with lively, interesting personalities such as talk show host Larry Elder, openly conservative actress Janine Turner, and Michael Ramirez, Investor’s Business Daily political cartoonist (Loftus’ dream interview subjects include Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi and the Clintons), The Flipside with Michael Loftus  takes a right-leaning perspective on the news, commentary, and pop culture. Loftus hopes to turn the weekly half-hour (there are four episodes so far) into a nightly political satire event along the lines of Stewart’s massively successful The Daily Show. “My producers are going to get mad at me for saying this,” he says, “but nobody is making fun of the insane liberals.”

The youngest of five from an Irish Catholic family in Columbus, Ohio, Loftus’ conservatism has been reinforced by his own parenthood. “It’s weird how when you have kids you start to think about bigger things. It’s definitely changed my comedy.” Now, Loftus says, “I’m living the American dream. I had a great-grandfather who came over to this country because he was starving to death in Ireland, and now I can be onstage talking about politics.”

Last week Loftus was game to answer a few questions for FrontPage:

Mark Tapson:    Michael, it’s great to have you on FrontPage Mag, and great to have something like The Flipside out there for those of us hungry for an alternative to Jon Stewart. What are you trying to accomplish with the show, apart from fame and fortune?

Michael Loftus:      Great question. I think there are millions of people who've been waiting for a show like this; so I guess that is what I'm really trying to do, provide an alternative. Most times when you turn on the TV and a conservative is talking, he's shaking his fist and freaking out. I thought it’d be a nice change if somebody would come on TV, talk about these issues and be funny.

MT:    The Flipside isn’t so much about hammering progressives as it is poking fun at big government, which is pretty much a nonpartisan thing these days. You don’t shy away from sticking it to Republicans as well as Democrats. Would you call yourself a libertarian? Tea Partier?

ML:    Great question. I shy away from any of those labels. I used to think of myself as an Independent until they started an actual Party. I would have a hard time keeping a straight face at any “Independent” meeting; it’s like when that elf dentist meets Rudolf for the first time in that Christmas special: “Let's be Independent together.”

MT:    Have you always leaned right, or did you have a “Paul on the road to Damascus” moment?

ML:    Great question – wow, three in a row, dude, you’re on a roll! At the very least I’ve always considered myself financially conservative. I started working at a very young age and for the longest time I wanted to know who FICA was and why they were taking all my money. Now that I’m older, I know who FICA is, but I’m still wondering why they’re taking all my money.

MT:    What’s it like in the comedy circuit and working in television as a right-leaning comedian, in terms of the reaction from both audiences and other comedians?

ML:     The beauty of working in comedy clubs and television is that funny always wins. Whether you personally agree or disagree with what someone’s saying, it’s hard to argue when everyone is laughing. Because in the end, funny is funny. I can have serious discussions with other comics over a cup of coffee after the show, but during the show all I wanna do is make people laugh. And that's the great balancing act of The Flipside, so it’s my hope that funny always wins the day.

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/3/14)

A Conservative Actor’s Activism

In the wake of the recent anti-capitalist, climate change march in New York City, featuring Hollywood notables Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, it’s refreshing to be reminded that progressives aren’t the only activists in showbiz.

As a former Golden Gloves boxer, the Brooklyn-born, Italian-American actor Tony Lo Bianco is known for tough-guy, blue-collar roles on both sides of the law. Probably best-known as Sal Boca in The French Connection with Gene Hackman, Mr. Lo Bianco is an Obie-winning, Emmy-winning, and Tony-nominated actor who still performs onstage, currently in The Little Flower as legendary New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He has starred in such films as City Heat with Clint Eastwood, Nixon with Anthony Hopkins, F.I.S.T. with Sylvester Stallone, and more recently, 2011’s Kill the Irishman alongside Vincent D’Onfrio and Val Kilmer. Some of his many television credits include The Rocky Marciano Story, the miniseries Marco Polo, Jesus of Nazareth, Law & Order, Murder She Wrote, The Twilight Zone, and Get Smart. 

More importantly, His many humanitarian efforts have earned multiple awards including Man of the Year for Outstanding Contributions to the Italian-American Community from the Police Society of New Jersey; Man of the Year from the New Jersey State Senate; a Golden Lion Award; the Humanitarian Award of the Boys’ Town of Italy, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Mr. Lo Bianco recently took time to talk a bit with FrontPage Mag about his activism:

Mark Tapson:    Tony, it’s an honor to have you on FrontPage. Let’s start by asking about your participation in the protest last week against the opera The Death of Klinghoffer. What was your message about it and why did you feel strongly enough about it to speak out?

Tony Lo Bianco:     With our country facing the biggest terrorist threat, it is not the time to be looking to justify the killing of a helpless, innocent man because he was a Jew. The decision to put this opera on is not only in the worst of taste, it is insensitive and irresponsible and lacks the understanding of who our enemy is.

Freedom to express your opinion is your right, but remember your enemy can hear you. It is your obligation as an American to make sure your country is safe. We are all warriors in this war. Israel and the Jewish people are our allies.

MT:    Have you always been conservative? What’s it been like for you as a conservative during your many years in the acting game?

TLB:   Following the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the laws of the land, caring about the human race, understanding history and learning the results of it, respecting your fellow man, trusting the American people to know how to spend their own money that they have earned, working hard to fulfill your dream, protecting your family, your friends and your country and to be allowed to practice whatever religion you choose and pledge allegiance to the United States of America under God. If what I just said labels me as a Conservative, then come and join the party.

I do not like labels. I think logic, common sense, facts and history make up my party. Putting labels on someone makes it easy to be a target to the less informed. If you see what has worked in the past, why not follow that example?

MT:    You and I both know that there are more conservatives in left-leaning Hollywood than many people are aware of. Are you optimistic or not about Hollywood shifting toward more of a balance in the near future, about seeing more films and TV shows that reflect conservative values and sensibilities?

TLB:   The more despair and proof becomes evident to the people, the hope is that the light will shine and they will be able to see. Yes, there are more people not only in Hollywood, but elsewhere, that are seeing what is happening to our country, and know for sure that we are going in the wrong direction. Let us hope that results in their voting in this next election. And yes, there is a strong feeling in Hollywood of enlightenment.

MT:    These days Hollywood activists seem to focus on big progressive issues like climate change or Wall Street, but you’ve done a great deal of award-winning humanitarian work for actual people, like veterans and law enforcement and kids. Why are those causes meaningful for you?

TLB:     I guess I'm a realist. Maybe being born in Brooklyn makes me so. I'm used to seeing things from the ground up and in dealing strongly with human issues. Our veterans deserve everything we can possibly do for them, given what they have done for us. And we must help our children, for they are our future. They must be cared for physically and mentally. They must be taught the history of our country and how to restore that history for their own future.

MT:    You’ve done a lot of work in your career portraying former New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, including, most recently, your one-man show The Little Flower. Tell us a bit about that show and why you think New York, and even America, needs him today.

TLB:   He was a dreamer, a doer, a fighter, and a man who was not afraid to ride the tiger. He was a man who cleaned up this city of gangsters, crooks and especially political corruption. He was an honest man who thought of others, gave of himself and was a friend of the people. Fiorello's accomplishments in his twelve years as mayor of New York City were tremendous. What drives me to bring him to life is his vision that parallels everything that is going on in this country now. If we would only listen to history, we would be able to minimize our mistakes.

I have been able to do this show not only in America but in Russia where the American Ambassador said to me after a performance, “You have done more for our country in two hours than I have done in two years.” My goal is to perform The Little Flower in as many colleges as I can. It is extremely important to get to the young minds now.

[For more information about Tony Lo Bianco and The Little Flower, please go to tonylobianco.com.]

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/2/14)

MSNBC Panel Jokes About Beheadings

In a segment that was tone-deaf, tasteless, disrespectful to the victims and their families, and inappropriate to the gravity of the situation, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry briefly discussed Muslim-related topics including the recent Moore, Oklahoma beheading with a pair of Muslim panelists on Saturday. As you might expect, their chief concern was not the implications of the crime itself, but the specter of anti-Muslim bigotry.

“I would be remiss not to bring up the story out of Oklahoma,” Harris-Perry began, inadvertently revealing her reluctance to address a news item that might make Muslims look bad. “It is a story I read as a ‘workplace violence’ story.”

Of course she does, because to acknowledge that Islam might have motivated the alleged killer Alton Nolen would deal a blow to the progressive narrative about Muslims. The investigation is ongoing, but there is certainly enough circumstantial evidence to warrant the suspicion of a religious, specifically Islamic, motive.

After considering the crime scene, Dawn Perlmutter, Director of the Symbol Intelligence Group and one of the leading experts in ritualistic crimes, declared that “the Moore Oklahoma murder meets all the criteria of Individual Extremist Religion Homicide.” Perlmutter further noted that, “according to the Crime Classification Manual (CCM) the murder of Colleen Hufford is a textbook case of Individual Extremist Religion Inspired Homicide which describes the motivation for the murder as based on a fervent devotion to a cause or system of beliefs and to further the goals and ideas of the group.”

Harris-Perry was joined by Daily Beast writer Dean Obeidallah, who bills himself as a comedian but keeps busy hyping the mythical threat of the Brotherhood neologism “Islamophobia” in order to shift blame for Islam’s bad reputation onto good Americans who have legitimate concerns about it. He is a friend of CAIR, having performed at a CAIR banquet featuring the Brotherhood-linked, Islamophobia fearmonger Wajahat Ali and radical imam Siraj Wahhaj, who supports violent jihad. I’ve dealt with him before – he’s an intellectually dishonest apologist, preferring to spew accusations of hate speech and bigotry at critics of Islam rather than address their arguments. So he’s a perfect fit for the propagandists at MSNBC, the network rated as the least-trusted TV news source among all Americans.

They were joined in the video segment by writer and comedienne Negin Farsad, featured in Obeidallah’s documentary The Muslims Are Coming! about a troupe of Muslim standup comics touring the country, trying to enlighten all the middle-American bigots who have somehow gotten the crazy impression that there are Muslims who pose a threat. The documentary aims to show people that not all Muslims are terrorists; some of them are funny. It’s unclear how this changes the fact that many of them are terrorists and are an ongoing threat.

Harris-Perry played a snippet of press conference video in which a police official mentioned that Alton Nolen reportedly tried to convert some of his coworkers to Islam. “And then, that’s it,” she said after playing clip, while Farsad laughed. “And now, this is somehow about Islam.” Yes, it is “somehow” about Islam because Nolen himself made it about Islam, from his Facebook page praising Islamic fighters, to his proselytizing, to the Islamic phrases he may have shouted (unconfirmed) during the commission of the crime, to the beheading, which as anyone who watches the news lately knows is a favorite method among Islamic terrorists for dealing with infidels.

Obeidallah jumped in with, “It’s funny,” [emphasis added]. “You know, just so it’s clear for everyone, there is nothing in the Koran that says if you get fired, go back to your workplace and kill people,” he said, grinning while Harris-Perry chuckled – because beheadings are hilarious.

Then he expressed that the moment he learned the killer is a Muslim convert, “I knew instantly, this will be used… We’re seeing the right-wing media continuing the narrative that Muslims are here in America, they’re committing jihad.” If the right-wing media is continuing that narrative, it’s for two reasons: one, the left-wing media won’t touch it because it might expose their own multiculturalist narrative as a lie, and two, there are Muslims here in America committing violent jihad.

Obeidallah added, “There were over five hundred workplace killings last year. We don’t know about the religion of any of those murderers, but if someone is Muslim, [people think] it’s gotta be a terrorist.” This is more intellectual dishonesty. The reason we don’t know the religion of other workplace murderers is because religion reportedly wasn’t a factor in those incidents, the same way that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who did not commit his crime because the Bible told him to, cannot be considered a Christian terrorist.

Obeidallah  is also being disingenuous when he claims that Americans leap to bigoted conclusions about Muslims and terrorism. Our news media and government bend over backward to cover up Islam’s central responsibility in acts of homegrown Muslim terrorism, such as deeming the Fort Hood massacre to be workplace violence. But it’s vital for Obeidallah to push the narrative that we’re a nation of Islamophobes.

Harris-Perry went on to complain about the idea that being Muslim is “the relevant piece of information,” when in fact, as the investigation now stands, it is very relevant.

“That’s the biggest problem,” Farsad interjected. No, the biggest problem is that people like the ones on this panel insist on denying that the world has an Islam problem. She continued: “There should be a cultural paradigm shift in which it’s not okay to create that linkage immediately,” said. “We already know that it’s not okay to link all white men with school shootings.” Correct – because the connecting thread among such men tends to be mental illness, not a religious ideology that justifies school shootings. “We have gone on and on and on creating this language between Muslims and violence,” she continued, “and we need to have a counter-narrative, and we don’t. And that’s what we trying to do.”

“Muslims are funny,” Harris-Perry chimed in.

“That’s the new stereotype,” Farsad quipped. “Pass it around: Muslims are hilarious.”

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 10/1/14)

Celebrating – and Protecting - the Freedom to Read

Americans have a reflexive resistance to the idea of censoring literature and the banning of books. This is the land of free speech, after all. Certainly we’ve wrestled with it in the past, but we’re generally accustomed to titles being verboten in other, more repressive societies – the Bible in Saudi Arabia, Animal Farm in North Korea, The Da Vinci Code in Lebanon, to name three – while here we take for granted the availability of even the most historically controversial material, from Mein Kampf to The Story of O. And yet the threat of censorship still looms surprisingly near.

Recently a California charter school decided to pull Corrie ten Boom’s Holocaust memoir The Hiding Place from its library because, according to the report of a parent at the school, library staff were told to “remove Christian books, books by Christian authors, and books from Christian publishers.” The superintendent defended the removal because at the school, “we do not allow sectarian materials on our state-authorized lending shelves.”

Yes, this is one incident in one school, but it is censorship in its purest form, and the motivations for it – anti-Christian bigotry and a misguided determination to purge the state of anything to do with religion – are national in scope. Written material that proselytizes might – might – be one thing, but a sweeping ban on Christian books, authors, and publishers? There go St. Augustine’s Confessions, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and anything from the more than 200-year-old Thomas Nelson firm (publishers of the bestselling Heaven is for Real). How does this benefit the students?

The ten Boom book is the inspiring, harrowing tale of a family heroically saving the lives of about 800 Jews by hiding them from the Gestapo. The family paid the price for it in concentration camps. The book openly states that what motivated the family’s sacrifice was their Christian faith, and for that, the school has deemed the book objectionable.

Last week, appropriately, also happened to be Banned Books Week, an annual event organized by the American Library Association (ALA) to bring together the entire “book community – librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types – in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.”

The event brings national attention to the ongoing threat of censorship. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with bans or challenges in libraries and schools (as the ALA explains, “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials”). The ALA maintains a list of challenged books and authors, where the challenges occur, and what the reasons are for them. Most of the books have remained available “thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.”

The Corrie ten Boom example notwithstanding, the vast majority of challenges were initiated by parents, as you might imagine. According to these helpful Huffington Post infographics, the most commonly cited reason for challenging a book in 2013 was “sexual explicitness” – as in, for example, Fifty Shades of Grey (no surprise there, although I would prefer to see that book challenged on the basis of its offensively poor writing). “Offensive language” (such as in Captain Underpants) was a distant second, and then “unsuited for age group” (Hunger Games).

While the “unsuited for age group” category is perfectly valid – some material is simply too adult for kids, so save it for a more appropriate age of students – controversial books should be read and debated, not forbidden or destroyed. Fahrenheit 451, anyone?

(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 9/30/14)

Repubs to Dems: “Please Like Us – We’re Just Like You!”

In the wake of a second presidential election loss in 2012, Republicans went back to the drawing board looking for a more effective way to present themselves and their message. Now a brand new ad campaign has been launched which demonstrates that Republicans are even more clueless about selling themselves today than they were two years ago and four years before that. The pathetic message this disastrous ad seems to be sending on behalf of Republicans is this: “Hey Democrats, please like us – we’re just like you!”

The 97-second ad, part of a campaign from GOP strategist Vinny Manchillo, a former member of Mitt Romney’s team, seeks to dispel hateful stereotypes of the right by humanizing Republicans and presenting them as victims of liberal bullying. Here is the message at the campaign’s website, republicansarepeopletoo.com:

It isn’t easy being a Republican these days.

There are people who will stick up for Genghis Khan before they’ll defend a Republican. (“Genghis was just misunderstood.”)

We love political discourse. We encourage political discourse. But when did “Republican” become a dirty word?

Here’s the deal: before you post another bullying comment, think about this:

Republicans are people, too.

The ad itself is backed by an upbeat soundtrack of guitar and hand claps accompanying images of Republicans of all colors and walks of life – acting like Democrats. A man stands proudly beside his car, for example, with a legend underneath that reads, “Republicans drive Priuses.” So right out of the gate it’s cringe-inducing, and it doesn’t improve from there. “Republicans recycle… Republicans read the New York Times… Republicans put together IKEA furniture… Republicans shop at Trader Joe’s… Republicans use Macs… Republicans enjoy gourmet cooking.” And just when you think, This can’t get any worse, it gets worse: “Republicans have feelings… Republicans are people who care… Republicans are people too.”

Of course we do and of course we are. But the ad and the campaign reek of self-pity, weakness, defensiveness, and desperation to be liked by progressives who view us with hatred and contempt. In light of this ad, it’s no wonder they have contempt for us. The left has had the right on the ropes for so long that the only strategy we know is defense, and yet we’re too punch-drunk to do even that effectively. We’ve been reduced to begging leftist haters for crumbs of kindness and respect and mercy.

This is the same concept behind our government’s failed efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslim fundamentalists. Trying to convince people who have sworn to annihilate us that Hey, we’re really nice and maybe we could be friends! accomplishes nothing except to inspire the jihadists’ contempt and embolden them to close in for the kill. This “Republicans are people too” campaign will have precisely the same impotent effect on the hearts and minds of progressives.

Trying to convince the brainwashed left that we’re not heartless, unsophisticated, old white bigots is a very misguided strategy. First of all, we’re not simply misunderstood – we’ve been relentlessly demonized. The left has very effectively caricatured us as monsters, not people, in order to marginalize and then annihilate us. Second, pushing back against this demonization just plays into their hands. It allows them to frame the debate, set the rules, and control our response. And it is a doomed strategy because nothing conservatives can do will cause progressives to feel all warm and fuzzy about us. We are the enemy and they will make no concessions to us because they don’t need to or care to.

This is war. We must regain our self-respect, get off the ropes and go on offense. To paraphrase General Patton, who knew a thing or two about kicking the enemy’s ass, no bastard ever won a war by pleading with the enemy to be treated nicer. You win it by making the other poor dumb bastard plead with you to be treated nicer.

Instead of presenting ourselves as lukewarm Democrats so that we will be liked, let’s brazenly embrace who we are and what we believe. In addition to going for the left’s jugular with ads that expose their collectivist, racist, big government, anti-liberty philosophy, how about a 97-second ad that sells conservative qualities and ideals, and makes them so appealing and compelling that liberals and independents wish they were us? The message should be, “Proud to be conservative!” not “I can’t be all bad – I read the New York Times!” The message should be “We can make America strong and free again,” not “I drive a Prius because I’m an emasculated conformist too!”

It’s long past time for the right to snap out of our punch-drunk daze and take the fight to the progressives. We either stand unapologetically for our values and our beliefs, or surrender.

(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 9/30/14)