Conservative and Right Wing cancel culture

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We have been ranting about woke cancel culture a lot here lately, a lot of it from me. They did not invent this. It was the conservatives that wrote the book. All the wokes have done is written the updated edition.

I will be staying away from when it went beyond cancel culture to terrorism such as the KKK who by killing thousands thus canceled the reconstruction and the recent failed attempt to cancel the results of the election.

1934 - Hays code: Very strict “guidelines” for movies that in practice resulted in widespread self censorship to the point of being ridiculous like not showing married characters in the same bed. It also had racist elements such as no depicting interracial kissing or white women as slaves. The code expired in 1968.

World War II:Hollywood became a propaganda arm of the US government with racist characterizations of Japanese fighters commonplace. And yes there were those internment camps.

Early 1950s McCarthyism:Maybe the closest historical parallel to what has been happening recently. A campaign by Senator Joe McCarthy to out supposed communists in Hollywood and the State Department resulting in blacklists, firings and fear.

1966 Beatles Record Burnings:This happened after John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger that Jesus. He did not mean that was good thing. In the Bible Belt they did not take it that way.

1979 Disco Demolition Night:A promotion that turned into a riot. Fans were asked to bring disco records to a baseball game which were blown up. Disco music came out of the LBGTQ and black communities. Many of the records blown up that night were by non disco black artists. This was part of a larger backlash against disco music and culture. The week of the riot 6 of the top 10 singles were disco by September only 1 record of the top 10 was disco. Rock groups that added disco elements to songs received death threats.

1985 Parents Music Resource Center hearings: A successful attempt by Tipper Gore wife of Senator Al Gore and Treasury Secretary James Baker to have companies put warning stickers on records. It was believed Heavy Metal music had coded Satanic messaging. In fairness this was bi partisan, was not trying to cancel rock and a lot of the videos on MTV were exploitive and sexist, but somehow I felt this belonged.

During this time it was common for school districts to ban books that were considered perverted or sympathetic to socialists and communists.

2018 Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s commencement speech cancellation:Address canceled following death threats after he criticized President Trump.

2018 President of of Sonoma State University apology:Allowed black student to give a graduation speech criticizing police violence.

2021 Lauren Wolf firing:Reacting to conservative complaints The New York Times fires a reporter for tweeting that she got chills when seeing Joe Biden's plane landing for his inauguration.

You forgot the Parents Television Council. For me, it's personal against them. They go after my favorite genre of TV: animated sitcoms. To the PTC, it's as bad as porn.

Animated sitcoms (especially the Simpsons and South Park), and finding a fanbase for them, are the main reason I am trying to move to Seattle (after being priced out of NYC and the SF Bay Area, and which I've discussed in other threads).

Eh...what's life without a little hypocrisy? Or a lot of it?

Don't put the blame on conservatism for cancel culture. You can't even compare what went on back in the day to what liberals are doing these days. If you don't agree with liberals on pretty much everything--if you dare to have a different viewpoint from them--they will do everything in their power to ruin your life. Conservatives have never done that. The Hays Code? It had nothing to do with cancel culture and everything to do with keeping high moral standards in society, something that I believe is sorely lacking these days. Frankly, I'd rather live in a society that still went by the Hays Code.

...Not to mention the profound ostracization of atheists in US politics...

https://youtu.be/HjwmAJdfh7U

1954: The Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) was formed in September 1954 in response to a widespread public concern over gory and horrific comic-book content.  It named New York magistrate Charles F. Murphy (1910-1992), a specialist in juvenile delinquency, to head the organization and devise a self-policing "code of ethics and standards" for the industry.  He established the Comics Code Authority (CCA), basing its code upon the largely unenforced code drafted by the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers in 1948, which in turn had been modeled loosely after the 1930 Hollywood Production Code (subsequently the 1934 Hays Code).  This code banned graphic depictions of violence and gore in crime and horror comics, as well as the sexual innuendo of what aficionados refer to as "good girl art".  Fredric Wertham's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent had rallied opposition to this type of material in comics, arguing that it was harmful to the children who made up a large segment of the comic book audience.  The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings in April 1954, which focused specifically on comic books, had many publishers concerned about government regulation, prompting them to form a self-regulatory body instead.

Aide says Nixon’s war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies

KSL, a Salt Lake City TV station, refused to air an American adaptaton of the British sitcom "Coupling" in 2004, because of sexual content. The same station moved "Days of Our Lives" to a late night time slot because of a story line involving a gay couple.

https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/mormon-station-refuses-nbcs-playboy-club-132502/

https://web.archive.org/web/20130907015132/http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56819585-223/ksl-gay-daytime-channel.html.csp

Alabama Public Television refused to air an episode of "Arthur" because there was a gay wedding featured:

https://www.al.com/news/2019/05/watch-banned-arthur-episode-with-gay-rat-wedding.html

The moral of the story: Don't live in Alabama or Utah.

https://youtu.be/Zsv2DWczG_Y

https://youtu.be/IvETIeuo7iM

The only thing new about cancel culture is the name. Otherwise, it's been with us from the start, and is hardly a practice of just the left.

Conservatives have been channeling the Puritan spirit of morality policing, intolerance, censorship, and moral panic since they got here.

Conservative obsession with cancelling undesirables has led to untold suffering in this country. They've just been losing ground the last century on what is socially acceptable to cancel someone for and they're deeply resentful of it.

They miss the days when being queer would get you cancelled--not nowadays where hating queers gets you cancelled. They miss the days when being atheist would get you cancelled--not nowadays where being a religious fundamentalist might get you cancelled. They miss the days when being a socialist would get you cancelled--not nowadays where socialists have barely gained back a modicum of social acceptability.


That all being said, the Puritan spirit is very much alive in those left-of-center who are part of cancel culture just for the virtue signaling. I've found the more adamant someone is about cancelling others, the more they are unconsciously afraid of being cancelled themselves. They see the things that might get them as cancelled as immutable moral stains to be hidden or purged, not learned habits and beliefs that must be acknowledged to be improved upon.