Category Archives: Political Correctness

There is a growing fear amongst those who make it their business to study such matters that polarization now runs so deep in the United States that we cant do those things that would help us be less divided. Nolan McCarty, for example, a political scientist at Princeton, writes that Any depolarizing event would need to be one where the causes are transparently external in a way that makes it hard for social groups to blame each other. It is increasingly hard to see what sort of event has that feature these days.

Significant to the intensifying polarization is that the United States is experiencing a demographic shift that poses a threat to the white population. The latter is projected to drop below 50 percent by 2045. Because White people have been the dominant power group, this change allows unscrupulous politicians, like right-wing Republicans to exploit White insecurities surrounding their loss of status. The latter is glaringly evident in the growing phenomenon of deaths by despair amongst middle age White people, especially men. However welcome and necessary this loss of white skin privilege is, it nevertheless contributes to the fear and rage of some whites that underwrites polarization.

But as important as race is to understanding ourselves as a deeply, perhaps fatally, divided people, it is only part of the multi-faceted polarizing dynamic that touches on the fundamental questions of identity and power. Another significant dimension is suggested by the visceral reaction that many White folks evince at a Trump rally when the ex-POTUS calls out political correctness. My sense is that for people who may already feel marginalized, disrespected and left behind in the culture wars as well as suffering their jobs being sent abroad and incomes stagnated, it is intolerable to then be judged as racist or homophobic because they oppose government policies that they interpret as favoring immigrants, Blacks and gays at their expense, and are contrary to their values.

So what can we, in our modest, everyday ways, do to help shore up our fragile democracy? As we suggested in the preceding remarks, we need to first and foremost better understand and yes appreciate where people who espouse sentiments and engage in behaviors that we find understandably objectionable are coming from. Polarization is more complex than the good guys vs bad guys morality play as it is typically represented as being because it involves real human beings.

By stretching our compassionate potential to include a more complete picture of the people we oppose, we begin to cultivate an approach where we remain true to our principles and values while eschewing our penchant for clever-by-half insults and misbegotten efforts to convince opponents of just how wrong they are. Though such an effort will be diametrically contrary to our partisan instincts, we begin to find a way to remove ourselves as one of the two essential participants to the adversarial dyad of polarization.

We can only accomplish this, however, through an expression of love for the other, not where we magically become each others new best friend, but rather one that is founded upon a recognition of and respect for the other as the fellow living being they are. We do this by being fully present and receptive to them in our encounters, exhibiting a relational expression that communicates they are worthy of our time and attention, regardless of our differences. This is a behavior that in general so many of us are starved for in our everyday relationships with one another, regardless of our politics.

The nuts and bolts of such an interaction consist of listening to what they have to say without judgmental commentary, regardless of how offensive it may be to us, while avoiding interruptions that are intended to advance our own position. This does not mean we dont take exception to their perspective, but that we do so without making it a statement about their personhood as well. When the moment is appropriate, we offer our view in a calm, succinct, equanimous, non-confrontational way, devoid of self-serving rhetoric. Our purpose is not to change minds, or win debates, but simply to connect with the other as best we can: to offer the possibility of a third way beyond the either/or dyad of polarization.

Though not a common part of our behavioral repertoire, this degree of transparency and vulnerability can be nurtured by incorporating it into our daily contacts with partners, families and friends, people with whom we feel relatively safe and comfortable, but where polarized positions can also suddenly emerge at times because of our natural differences.

There is no guarantee, of course, that the foregoing approach will have a salutary effect. Such an expectation, however, would only undermine our intentions that are best acted on unconditionally.

But by conducting ourselves in a wholesome manner, we succeed by not contributing to the wall that separates us, while providing an opportunity for the other to join us in creating a civil alternative. Modest, for sure, but potentially transformative, as well.

Tim Stevenson is a community organizer with Post Oil Solutions from Athens, and author of Resilience and Resistance: Building Sustainable Communities for a Post Oil Age (2015, Green Writers Press). The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.

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Living with the Long Emergency: Cultivating a modest alternative to polarization - Brattleboro Reformer

In the Friday, Feb. 4, Plain Dealer, two items jumped out at me. The first was Bernie Moreno, a former senate candidate, stating that he was a businessman, not a politician. Business leaders recognize patterns before they happen. (Moreno drops out of GOP race.) We should recognize this as truth. One long year ago, we the people were making strides towards equality together. Now, crime, inflation and unemployment are blocking this momentum, encouraged by our elitist politicians, not common-sense leadership.

The second was the letter to the editor regarding those who express their rage through foul language (Vulgarity has no place in our political discourse). This rage could be the result of the early 2000s political correctness, where people were encouraged to keep quiet about inequities and to speak only of a positive government. Millions of citizens have millions of opinions, and these opinions should never be discouraged. Though its encouraged, most folks dont hate.

Anne Sosic,

Aurora

Originally posted here:

Elitist politicians are the problem, hearing from regular people is the answer - cleveland.com

Islamophobia is a malicious tree whose branches are in the West. But its trunk and roots are in the East with Muslims themselves watering it and caring for it.

Islamophobia, as Nusrat Ghani, the former British Conservative cabinet member, has reminded us again, is not without a racist basis. It is absolutely inseparable from its Crusader origins. It is also a favourite tool with which the Western populist right-wing seeks to differentiate itself electorally from the left, which is preoccupied with social issues. However, all this would not have gained momentum had it not been for the terrorism industry which Muslims have bred, not only with their schools of jurisprudence, but in their public life as well.

Islams battle after liberation from the yoke of colonialism should have been directed towards reconstruction, both of the souls of Muslims and of their nations. However, the sheikhs of jurisprudence in Muslim countries managed only to provoke sedition as they were preoccupied with trivial matters instead of major issues. They acted out of a proclivity for tyranny or out of fear of it.

Islam, which should have been promoted, at least in its own societies before the rest of the world, as a religion of justice, equality and civil rights, should not have ignored the issues of poverty, corruption, social injustice and other manifestations of political and economic failure. Before worrying about the West, it should have treated its own social and economic ailments, which continued to display themselves under a succession of failed rulers.

The flaws that have spread poverty, corruption and unemployment are also the fault lines that paved the way for the emergence of terrorism as a lure for the desperate.

One can ask how much of true Islam remains in place when justice is absent from society? And when sectarianism turns into an alternative identity, how much of Islam is left? And how much of Islam remains on the ground when cities turn into ruins with their demolished homes falling on the heads of their inhabitants, all so that some Islamist militias can impose their will on the rest? How much of Islam is left to flourish when armed factions kidnap entire societies and countries in the name of the faith?

Islam is a religion of love and compassion. But should we not ask if the relations of Muslims in their own communities are better than their relations with others? Have Muslims managed to live next to each other safely and in peace? One cannot forget that in wars against Muslims, Muslims themselves were at the vanguard of non-Muslim invaders.

What was initially a revolution against ignorance, became a cover for the spread of illiteracy. What was a catalyst for seeking knowledge and erudition, discouraged any form of education. What was an argument for the abolition of slavery, oppression and the violation of rights, became an excuse for new forms of slavery, oppression and abuse.

Terrorism is not a satanic seed planted by colonialism. It is a satanic plant of our own cultivation. We watered it ourselves. When it became a threat to the stability and the security of our countries and that of others, it was no surprise that it was feared and perceived negatively. When that fear was mixed with racism, "Islamophobia" became an acceptable form of behaviour especially when it complied with the prerequisites of "political correctness" which Western governments use as a cover.

Other societies and cultures are not required to understand Islam in a manner commensurate with its foundations and values, if Muslims themselves do not understand it.

Nusrat Ghani lost her job in the Conservative government because of "Islamophobia", but found support within the parameters of "political correctness" which have compelled Boris Johnson's government to conduct an investigation and perhaps eventually deliver justice to Ghani.

Many others are exposed to manifestations of racism and hatred of Muslims and may even pay for it with their lives. But the truth of the matter is that the tree trunk is within us. It produces some kind of counter-hatred or counter-Western racism, for which it finds justifications in Islamic jurisprudence itself.

I do not want to list a host of verses from the Noble Quran that forbid the killing of others unjustly and which encourage coexistence between religions. This is very much well known. However, extremist narratives have continued to thrive on widespread poverty, a decline in education levels, the preoccupation of the Muslim sheikhs of religion with trivialities and petty things as they condoned social abuse against women and children, the decline of scientific knowledge and the spread of ignorance and illiteracy.

Structural flaws in the economy, culture and education, as well as the disrespect for justice and rule of law, are what created the fertile ground for terrorism. How can Islamophobia be far behind?

Islamophobia is in the roots and trunk of the tree. The West can work to block its influence but can do nothing about the roots of the tree.

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The roots of Islamophobia | Ali Sarraf | AW - The Arab Weekly

In 2007, Boris Johnson took a shot at Hillary Clinton, then a candidate for the Democratic US presidential nomination, in his Telegraph column. He wrote that Clintons eyes put him in mind of a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital and that she represented everything I came into politics to oppose, not least purse-lipped political correctness.

He even threw in a reference to the position of poor Vince Fosters gun. Foster was a Clinton-era White House counsel, and his suicide in 1993 has fed wild conspiracy theories including that the Clintons had him murdered ever since.

When Clinton ran for president again in 2016, her opponent Donald Trump often spoke of her in similarly inflammatory terms, referring to the Foster case as very fishy. Anti-Clinton propaganda swelled online to the point where, a month after the election, a man stormed into a Washington pizzeria to investigate claims that Clinton and other top Democrats were running a paedophile ring out of the basement.

Pizzagate, as it was known, and the broader QAnon movement that believes a cabal of Satan-worshipping celebrity paedophiles control the world, has since drifted ever closer to the heart of American public life.

This brings us back to Johnson, who last week lobbed a paedophilia-themed smear at his own political opponent when he falsely suggested in the Commons that Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, had personally failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile during his tenure as director of public prosecutions. Then, on Monday, a mob of protesters harassed Starmer as he walked near the Houses of Parliament, lobbing a range of conspiratorial grievances including that he was a traitor and paedo protector.

Its not clear whether the protesters were directly incited by Johnsons words. But its abundantly clear that these sorts of conspiracy theories all swim together in the same cesspool and that it isnt possible to draw a neat dividing line down the middle of the Atlantic. What happens in America online and off increasingly influences what happens here.

The protesters who mobbed Starmer were marching in solidarity with a Canadian anti-mandate movement that has documented QAnon ties. More generally, QAnon, while still small in the UK, has been growing here, too. British adherents, along with other extremists, have previously circulated the Starmer/Savile smear online.

This is the putrid context in which Johnson smeared Starmer. Johnson has always been a keen observer of American political trends, and so it would surprise me if he didnt know about this one. As much as allies might try to defend it as normal parliamentary cut and thrust, Johnsons remark was a distinctly Trumpian act not only in its execution, but also in its reception in online fever swamps.

Comparisons between Johnson and Trump are often overblown. Trumps moves to rile his base have tended to be much more overt, representing a greater departure from conventional political discourse. And he has long stacked his inner circle with creatures of the far-right media fringe such as Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. Johnson, who is as pure a product of the London media establishment as youre likely to meet, has tended to hire spinners with ties to mainstream tabloids. His new communications director, Guto Harri, is a former BBC journalist who wasnt rightwing enough to hold down a job at GB News.

And attacking opponents with anything that might stick, of course, is a longstanding British media tradition. As a columnist for the Telegraph, Johnson made a habit of smearing his political enemies with a wink and a nod, usually before retreating to a place of plausible deniability. He did just that with his Clinton column, claiming later that it was all a big joke.

He played his Starmer line the same way, initially defending it, before clarifying that of course he wasnt referring to anything Starmer did personally, but rather his overarching role as leader of the prosecution service at the time.

It seems likely that Johnson wasnt necessarily trying to set a parade of far-right ghouls on Starmer as much as he was desperately throwing out a distraction any distraction from the scandals engulfing his government; a classic Johnsonian dead cat. That strategy has always been nasty. But our present, US-infused information hellscape makes it dangerous, too.

Government sources have told reporters that its unreasonable to see the mobs actions as Johnsons fault. But cesspools are hard to separate; when theyre stirred up, everything floats together. And, as weve learned from the Trump years, it doesnt take many extremists to seize on a leaders words for violence to ensue.

Johnson condemned the mob that harassed Starmer, but hes made it clear that he wont be saying sorry for his Savile remark or further distancing himself from it. In 2016, when he was asked again about his old Clinton attacks, he replied that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that it would really take me too long to engage in a full, global itinerary of apology to all concerned. Hes clearly not intending to set off on one now.

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Johnson and Trump arent the same, but they swim in the same cesspool - The Guardian

Loran Smith| Columnist

ATLANTA An unending treat for me when I am in our capital city is to organize breakfast at the OK Caf,located at the corner of West Paces Ferry Road and Northside Parkway, hard by I-75 North.

This popular restaurant, where you may see a lawyer in a pinstripe suit and a construction worker in blue jeans and dusty boots, has a lot of redeeming features worthy of the highest of high-fives.The one thing that sets OK Caf apart is that you order breakfast there, you get it hot.

The best breakfast on Earth is not worth a tinkers damn if it is cold even lukewarm breakfasts leaves one cold emotionally.I am big on breakfast, my favorite meal of the day.There are several places I frequent at my home base, Athens, but the one where you can always count on hot servings is the Mayflower on Broad Street.In addition to breakfast being cooked just right, if Lisa waits your table, you get a warm and friendly smile that will make your day.

More: Political correctness reigns in public, but it's another matter in private

Most Waffle Houses are committed to serving your breakfast hot.I miss the Waffle House at Five Points where the coffee was always the best and breakfasts always gave off steam when set before you.

There is a little flummox with my OK Caf routine.To beat the traffic to Atlanta, there is the necessity to leave home by 5a.m.That is not a problem in that, with a farm background and more than a fistful of birthdays, early rising comes easy. It is worth noting that 5a.m. is a magic number.Even starting 15 minutes later can monkey wrench your game plan.Traffic can back up quickly on Georgia 316 and I-85.

Honoring the departure dictum usually gets you to your destination in about an hour and a half even if the weather is messy which means that you have an hour to kill before the OK Caf opens to make your day.

That is easily solved in that all you have to do is take along a book or some reading matter to pass the time.This, too, can be a time to make or return a few phone calls.There are many who are at work by 6a.m., believe it or not.

There is one more thing in managing the time issue, and that is remembering to take along the morning newspaper.Regrettably, todays newspapers, though still surviving, have declined considerably and leave us aficionados of daily print with contrition.In our world today, if you want to go to bed with nothing on your mind, you read the daily newspaper.

When the doors open for business at OK Caf, hungry diners seem to appear from everywhere.By 8a.m., there is a wait list, but you never have to stand by very long for a table. You can also expect a short wait at lunch.Not sure about dinner.

You cant find a breakfast (or lunch) menu more varied.You can order power shakes for breakfast, or bananas and cream, buttermilk biscuits, sourdough French toast to go with your omelets.The OK Caf will say okay for most anything you might want to order, including scrambled tofu/onions, green peppers, broccoli and chestnuts everything reasonably priced for $12.99 or less.

There are hamburgers and sandwiches galore at OK Caf.You have a choice of 17 different vegetables at lunch, including potlikker.You cant get more Southern than that.There are a dozen choices of homemade desserts.Blue Plate specials are filling and fulfilling.A vegetable plate (4) costs only $16.56.

For dinner, your options include dry-rub bone-in pork chop and broiled salmon.Chitlins are not on the menu, but if you want to play stump the chef, my guess is that you cant unless you order wildebeest liver.

On many trips to Atlanta, I often find my way to OK Caf for breakfast and lunch. Nothing like a hot breakfast to start your day and a vegetable plate with four choices at lunch will easily sustain you until suppertime.

Good foodcooked down-home style is what the OK Caf is all about.And, the price is always right.I have firsthand evidence with regard to that.On a recent trip to Las Vegas, breakfast including tip which equaled the cost of breakfast at the OK Caf was north of $50.

There are two ways to lose your shirt in Las Vegas.One is at the gambling tables and the other is ordering no-frills breakfasts.

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At OK Caf in Atlanta, the food and the price are always right - Online Athens

By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press

A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits and outrage from parents and city officials made the saga of San Franciscos school board a riveting pandemic sideshow that is about to play out at the ballot box.

A special election on Tuesday will decide the fate of three school board members, all Democrats, in a vote that has divided the famously liberal city. It has also motivated many Chinese residents to vote for the first time, driven by controversial school board decisions and a batch of unearthed anti-Asian tweets.

The parents who launched the recall effort say it was born of frustration at the board's misplaced priorities, mishandling of a budget crisis and failure to focus on the fundamental task of reopening public schools during the pandemic. Most of San Francisco's 50,000 public school students did not see the inside of a classroom for over a year, from March 2020 until August 2021.

It comes down to incompetence, said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped spearhead the recall effort. The message we want to send is, if you don't do the job you are elected do your primary responsibility is to educate our children you're fired."

Opponents call the recall a waste of taxpayer money and a right-wing attack on liberal San Francisco that is part of a national movement to oust progressives from power. Both sides agree that San Francisco's school board and the city itself became the focus of an embarrassing national spotlight.

Organizers say they would recall all seven board members if they could, but only three have served long enough to face a challenge: Board President Gabriela Lopez and two commissioners, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.

One of the first issues to grab national attention was the boards decision to rename 44 of the citys public schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices. On the list were names like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and trailblazing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The renaming effort drew swift criticism for some of its targets, but also for its timing in January 2021, when public classrooms were closed because of COVID-19 restrictions. Angry parents asked why the board was focused on changing school names rather than getting children back into classrooms. The effort was also riddled with historical inaccuracies and shoddy research that drew criticisms of political correctness gone awry.

It was so poorly executed that it made a mockery of the broader push for historical reckoning in the United States, the San Francisco Chronicle said in an editorial endorsing the recall. It alienated instead of educated, and invited national ridicule.

Ultimately the plan was scrapped, after the city took the dramatic step of suing the board and school district to reopen more quickly. The lawsuit failed in court.

Then the board announced it was ending merit-based admissions at the citys elite Lowell High School as part of a broader push for equity and inclusion. It cited pervasive systemic racism" and a lack of diversity at Lowell, one of the country's top public high schools, where the majority of students are Asian.

Many Asian Americans viewed the Lowell vote as a direct attack.

It is so blatantly discriminatory against Asians, said Ann Hsu, mother of two San Francisco high schoolers. It is so apparent that the sole purpose is that theres too many Asians at Lowell.

The vote blindsided the community, and a court ultimately reversed the decision, finding in favor of a Lowell alumni group that sued the board. The group argued the board failed to place the vote on its agenda, violating California's open meetings law.

Hsu and other parents formed a group called the Chinese/API Voter Outreach Taskforce in December, which she calls the Chinese arm of the recall group. Holding voter drives and spreading word in San Franciscos Chinese-language newspapers, the group helped register over 560 new voters.

San Francisco's soaring cost of living has pushed out families for years, leaving the city with the lowest share of children under 18 just 13% of America's 100 most populous cities, according to 2020 US Census data. That made school board elections a low priority for most voters.

That's how these people got elected, because nobody was paying attention," said Hsu. But now, we're paying attention."

Collins has faced more criticism than her two colleagues, after recall organizers dug up 2016 tweets in which she said Asian Americans used white supremacist thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students, prompting her school board colleagues to strip Collins of her role as vice president.

Collins, who is Black, apologized for the tweets, which she said were taken out of context, and then sued the school district and five fellow board members for $87 million, saying they violated her free speech rights. That suit was also tossed. Collins, who is aligned with Lopez on many issues, says the recall is part of a Republican-led effort to dismantle a progressive school board, though there is no evidence to back that claim.

Collins says she is proud of trying to bring more diversity to Lowell, which dropped its admissions test for the incoming class of fall 2021 before the decision was overturned in court. The numbers of Hispanic and Black students increased this year when the change was in place, while the numbers of Asian and white students decreased.

We desegregated a school. Lowell now has the most diverse incoming class that it ever has had, Collins said in an email. I want to be on that side of history.

Collins and Lopez call the recall a waste of time and money, noting another election is just nine months away.

People want us to say we were wrong, we regret doing what we did, were sorry. And that will never be something I will do, Lopez said recently on a local podcast, Latina Latino Latinx News.

Lopez, 31, said under her leadership the board addressed long-standing issues like school renaming and the admissions process, but they blew up because of racism. She called the recall an opportunity to bring down someone who is me, a young Latina woman.

If a majority of voters supports recalling any of the three, the mayor would appoint their replacements to serve until the November election.

Sadly, our school boards priorities have often been severely misplaced, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in her endorsement of the recall. Our kids must come first.

Excerpt from:

Saga of San Francisco's school board heads to the ballot box - WRAL.com

In the olden days, which some of us remember as the 20th century, news stories and commentary tended to focus on people and their actions. The news would sometimes highlight and even debate current ideas circulating about society and politics. New stories quite often sought to weigh the arguments surrounding serious projects intended to improve things. The general tendency was to prefer substance over form.

Things have radically changed since the turn of the century. It may be related to a growing sentiment of fatalism that defines our Zeitgeist. Outside of the billionaire class, people feel powerless, a feeling that is already wreaking havoc in the world of politics. After banks that were too big to fail, we have inherited problems that appear too big to solve. Climate change and COVID-19 have contributed powerfully to the trend, but a series of chaotic elections in several of our most stable democracies, accompanied by newer wars or prospects of war called upon to replace the old ones all serve to comfort the trend.

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In the United States, this feeling of helplessness has had the unfortunate effect of turning peoples attention away from the issues and the facts that matter to focus on the language individuals use to describe them. Words that inspire aggressive emotional reactions now dominate the news cycle, eclipsing the people, events and ideas that should be at the core of the news cycle.

One reason we have launched Fair Observers new feature, Language and the News, and are continuing with a weekly dictionary of what was formerly The Daily Devils Dictionary is that, increasingly, the meaning of the words people use has been obscured and replaced by the emotions different groups of combative people attach to words.

What explains this drift into a state of permanent combat over words? Addressing the issues any issues apparently demands too much effort, too much wrestling with nuance and perspective. It is much easier to reduce complex political and moral problems to a single word and load that word with an emotional charge that disperses even the possibility of nuance. This was already the case when political correctness emerged decades ago. But the binary logic that underlies such oppositional thinking has now taken root in the culture and goes well beyond the simple identification of words to use or not use in polite society.

Last week, US podcast host Joe Rogan and actress Whoopi Goldberg submitted to concerted public ostracism (now graced with the trendy word canceled) over the words and thoughts they happened to express in contexts that used to be perceived as informal, exploratory conversations. Neither was attempting to make a formal pronouncement about the state of the world. They were guilty of thinking out loud, sharing thoughts that emerged spontaneously.

It wasnt James Joyce (who was at one time canceled by the courts), but it was still a stream of consciousness. Human beings have been interacting in that way ever since the dawn of language, at least 50,000 years. The exchange of random and sometimes focused thoughts about the world has been an essential part of building and regulating every human institution we know, from family life to nation-states.

During these centuries of exchanges, many of the thoughts uttered were poorly or only partially reasoned. Dialogue with others helped them to evolve and become the constructs of culture. Some were mistaken and bad. Others permitted moments of self-enlightenment. Only popes have ever had the privilege of making ex cathedra pronouncement deemed infallible, at least to the faithful. The rest of us have the messy obligation of debating among ourselves what we want to understand as the truth.

Dialogue never establishes the truth. It permits us to approach it. That doesnt preclude the fact that multiple groups have acquired the habit of thinking themselves endowed with papal certainty allowing them to close the debate before it even begins. Everyone has noticed the severe loss of trust in the institutions once counted upon to guide the mass of humanity: governments, churches and the media.

That general loss of trust means that many groups with like-minded tastes, interests or factors of identity have been tempted to impose on the rest of society the levels of certainty they feel they have attained. Paradoxically, internationally established churches, once dominant across vast swaths of the globe, have come to adopt an attitude of humble dialogue just as governments, the media and various interest groups have become ensconced in promulgating the certainty of their truth while displaying an intolerance of dialogue.

Dialogue permits us to refine our perceptions, insights and intuitions and put them into some kind of perspective. That perspective is always likely to shift as new insights (good) and social pressures (not always so good) emerge. The sane attitude consists of accepting that no linguistically formulated belief even the idea that the sun rises in the east should be deemed to be a statement of absolute truth. (After all, despite everyones daily experience, the sun doesnt rise the Earth turns.) Perspective implies that, however stable any of our ideas may appear to us at a particular time, we can never be absolutely sure they are right and even less sure that the words we have chosen to frame such truths sum up their meaning.

A quick glance at the media over the past week demonstrates the complexity of the problem. Theoretically, a democratic society will always encourage dialogue, since voting itself, though highly imperfect, is presented as a means for the people to express their intentions concerning real world issues. In a democracy, a plurality of perspectives is not only desirable, but inevitable and should be viewed as an asset. But those who are convinced of their truth and have the power to impose their truth see it as a liability.

On February 3, State Department spokesman Ned Price spent nearly four minutes trying to affirm, in response to a journalists persistent objections, that his announced warning about a Russian false flag operation wasnt, as the journalist suspected, itself a false flag. The journalist, Matt Lee of the Associated Press, asked for the slightest glimpse of the substance of the operation before accepting to report that there actually was something to report on. What he got were words.

Price, a former CIA officer, believed that the term was self-explanatory. He clearly expected members of the press to be grateful for receiving information that is present in the US government. Price sees Lees doubt as a case of a reporter seeking solace in information that the Russians are putting out. In other words, either a traitor or a useful idiot. Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reacted by tweeting, This is really something as an answer. Questioning the US government does not = supporting what Russia is saying.

Haberman is right, though she might want to instruct some of her fellow journalists at The Times, who have acquired the habit of unquestioningly echoing anything the State Department, the Defense Department or the intelligence community shares with them. Especially when for more than five years, The Times specialized in promoting alarmism about Russias agency in the Havana syndrome saga. Because the CIA suspected, all the cases were the result of hostile acts. Acts, by the way, for which the only physically identified perpetrator was a species of Cuban crickets.

The back and forth concerning Russias false flag operation, like the Havana syndrome itself, illustrates a deeper trend that has seriously eroded the quality of basic communication in the United States. It takes the form of an increasingly binary, even Manichean type of reasoning. For Price, its the certainty of the existence of evil acts by Russians before needing any proof and even before those acts take place. But it also appears in the war of obstinate aggression waged by those who seek to silence anyone who suggests that the governments vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions may not be justified.

This binary syndrome now permeates all levels of US culture, and not only the political sphere. The constraining force of the law is one thing, which people can accept. The refusal of dialogue is literally anti-human, especially in a democracy. But it also takes the form of moral rage when someone expresses an idea calling into question some aspect of authority or, worse, pronounces a word whose sound alone provokes a violent reaction. There is a residual vigilante culture that still infects US individualism. The willingness, or rather the need people feel, to apply summary justice helps to explain the horrendous homicide rate in the United States. Vigilantism has gradually contaminated the world of politics, entertainment and even education, where parents and school boards go to battle over words and ideas.

US culture has always privileged binary oppositions and shied away from nuance because nuance is seen as an obstacle to efficiency in a world where time is money. But a major shift began to take place at the outset of the 21st century that seriously amplified the phenomenon. The 1990s were a decade in which Americans believed their liberal values had triumphed globally following the collapse of the Soviet Union. For many people, it turned out to be boring. The spice of having an enemy was missing.

In 2001, the Manichean thinking that dominated the Cold War period was thus programmed for a remake. Although the American people tend to prefer both comfort and variety (at least tolerance of variety in their lifestyles), politicians find it useful to identify with an abstract mission consisting of defending the incontestable good against the threat posed by inveterate evil. The updated Cold War was inaugurated by George W. Bush in September 2001 when the US president famously proclaimed, Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

The cultural attitude underlying this statement is now applied to multiple contexts, not just military ones. I like to call it the standard American binary exclusionist worldview. It starts from the conviction that one belongs to a camp and that camp represents either what is right or a group that has been unjustly wronged. Other camps may exist. Some may even be well-intentioned. But they are all guilty of entertaining false beliefs, like Prices characterization of journalists who he imagines promote Russian talking points. That has long been standard fare in politics, but the same pattern applies in conflicts concerning what are called culture issues, from abortion to gender issues, religion or teaching Critical Race Theory.

In the political realm, the exclusionist worldview describes the dark side of what many people like to celebrate as American exceptionalism, the famous shining city on a hill. The idea it promotes supposes that others those who dont agree, accept and obey the stated rules and principles are allied with evil, either because they havent yet understood the force of truth, justice and democracy and the American way, or because they have committed to undermining it. That is why Bush claimed they had a decision to make. Ned Price seems to be saying something similar to Matt Lee.

But the exclusionist mentality is not just political. It now plays out in less straightforward ways across the entire culture. Nuance is suspected of being a form of either cowardice or hypocrisy. Whatever the question, debate will be cut short by one side or the other because they have taken the position that, if you are not for what I say, you are against it. This is dangerous, especially in a democracy. It implies an assumption of moral authority that is increasingly perceived by others to be unfounded, whether it is expressed by government officials or random interest groups.

The example of Prices false flag and Lees request for substance at least something to debate reveals how risky the exclusionist mentality can be. Anyone familiar with the way intelligence has worked over the past century knows that false flags are a very real item in any intelligence networks toolbox. The CIAs Operation Northwoods spelled out clearly what the agency intended to carry out. We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba, a Pentagon official wrote, adding that casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

There is strong evidence that the 2001 anthrax attacks in the US, designed to incriminate Saddam Husseins Iraq and justify a war in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, was an attempted false flag operation that failed miserably when it was quickly discovered that the strain of anthrax could only have been produced in America. Lacking this proof, which also would have had the merit of linking Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration had to struggle for another 18 months to build (i.e., fabricate) the evidence of Iraqs (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction.

This enabled the operation shock and awe that brought down Husseins regime in 2003. It took the FBI nearly seven years to complete the coverup of the anthrax attacks designed to be attributed to Iraq. They did so by pushing the scientist Bruce Ivins to commit suicide and bury any evidence that may have elucidated a false flag operation that, by the way, killed five Americans.

But false flags have become a kind of sick joke. In a 2018 article on false flags, Vox invokes the conventional take that false flag reports tend to be the elements of the tawdry conspiracy theories that have made it possible for people like Alex Jones to earn a living. So false flag attacks have happened, Vox admits, but not often. In the world of conspiracy theorists, though, false flags are seemingly everywhere. If this is true, Lee would have been on the right track if he were to suspect the intelligence community and the State Department of fabricating a conspiracy theory.

Although democracy is theoretically open to a diversity of competing viewpoints, the trend in the political realm has always pointed toward a binary contrast rather than the development of multiple perspectives. The founding fathers of the republic warned against parties, which they called factions. But it didnt take long to realize that the growing cultural diversity of the young nation, already divided into states that were theoretically autonomous, risked creating a hopelessly fragmented political system. The nation needed to construct some standard ideological poles to attract and crystallize the populations political energies. In the course of the 19th century, a two-party system emerged, following the pattern of the Whigs and Tories in England, something the founders initially hoped to avoid.

It took some time for the two political parties to settle into a stable binary system with the labels: Democrat and Republican. Their names reflected the two pillars of the nations founding ideology. Everyone accepted the idea that the United States was a democratic republic, if only because it wasnt a monarchy. It was democratic because people could vote on who would represent them.

It took nearly 200 years to realize that because the two fundamental ideas that constituted an ideology had become monopolized by two parties, there was no room for a third, fourth or fifth party to challenge them. The two parties owned the playing field. At some point in the late 20th century, the parties became competitors only in name. They morphed into an ideological duopoly that had little to do with the idea of being either a democracy or a republic. As James Carville insisted in his advice to candidate Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential campaign, Its the economy, stupid. He was right. As it had evolved, the political system represented the economy and no longer the people.

Nevertheless, the culture created by a two-century-long rivalry contributed mightily to the triumph of the binary exclusionist worldview. In the 20th century, the standard distinction between Democrats and Republicans turned around the belief that the former believed in an active, interventionist government stimulating collective behavior on behalf of the people, and the latter in a minimalist barebones government committed to reinforcing private enterprise and protecting individualism.

Where, as a duopoly, the two parties ended up agreeing is that interventionism was good when directed elsewhere, in the form of a military presence across the globe intended to demonstrate aggressive potential. Not because either party believed in the domination of foreign lands, but because they realized that the defense industry was the one thing that Republicans could accept as a legitimate highly constraining collective, national enterprise and that the Democrats, following Carvilles dictum, realized underpinned a thriving economy in which ordinary people could find employment.

Politics, therefore, set in place a more general phenomenon: the binary exclusionist worldview that would soon spread to the rest of the culture. Exclusionism is a common way of thinking about what people consider to be issues that matter. It has fueled the deep animosity between opposing sides around the so-called cultural issues that, in reality, have nothing to do with culture but increasingly dominate the news cycle.

Until the launch of the culture wars around issues such as abortion, gay marriage, identity and gender, many Americans had felt comfortable as members oftwo distinct camps. As Democrats and Republicans, they functioned like two rival teams in sport. Presidential elections were always Super Bowls of a sort at which the people would come for the spectacle. The purpose of the politicians that composed the parties was not to govern, but to win elections. But, for most of the 20th century, the acrimony they felt and generated focused on issues of public policy, which once implemented the people would accept, albeit grudgingly if the other party was victorious. After the storm, the calm. In contrast, cultural issues generate bitterness, resentment and ultimately enmity. After the storm, the tempest.

The force of the raging cultural winds became apparent last week in two entirely different celebrity incidents, concerning Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg. Both were treated to the new style of excommunication that the various churches of correct thinking and exclusionary practices now mete out on a regular basis. In an oddly symmetrical twist, the incriminating words were what is now referred to as the N-word spoken by a white person and the word race spoken by a black person. Later in the week, a debate arose about yet another word with racial implications apartheid when Amnesty International formally accused the state of Israel of practicing it against Palestinians.

The N-word has become the locus classicus of isolating an item of language that while muddled historically and linguistically is so definitively framed that, even while trying to come to grips with it informally as an admittedly strange and fascinating phenomenon in US culture, any white person who utters the reprehensible term will be considered as having delivered a direct insult to a real person or an entire population. Years ago, Joe Rogan made a very real mistake that he now publicly regrets. While examining the intricate rules surrounding the word and its interdiction, he allowed himself the freedom to actually pronounce the word.

In his apology, Rogan claimed that he hasnt said the word in years, which in itself is an interesting historical point. He recognizes that the social space for even talking about the word has become exaggeratedly restricted. Branding Rogan as a racist just on that basis may represent a legitimate suspicion about the mans character, worth examining, but it is simply an erroneous procedure. Using random examples from nearly 10 years ago may raise some questions about the mans culture, but it makes no valid case for proving Rogan is or even was at the time a racist.

The Whoopi Goldberg case is less straightforward because it wasnt about a word but an idea. She said the Holocaust was not about race. Proposing the hypothesis that Nazi persecution of Jews may be a case of something other than simple racism is the kind of thought any legitimate historian might entertain and seek to examine. It raises some serious questions not only about what motivated the Nazis, but about what our civilization means by the words race and racism. There is considerable ambiguity to deal with in such a discussion, but any statement seeking to clarify the nature of what is recognized as evil behavior should be seen as potentially constructive.

Once some kind of perspective can be established about the terms and formulations that legitimately apply to the historical case, it could be possible to conclude, as many think, that either Goldbergs particular formulation is legitimate, inaccurate or inappropriate. Clearly, Goldbergs critics found her formulation inappropriate, but, objectively speaking, they were in no position to prove it inaccurate without engaging in the meaning of race.

The problem is complex because history is complex, both the history of the time and the historical moment today. One of the factors of complexity appeared in another controversy created by Amnesty Internationals publication of a study that accuses Israel of being an apartheid state, which considered in international law is to be a crime against humanity.

Interestingly, The Times of Israel gives a fair and very complete hearing to Amnesty Internationals spokespersons, whereas American media largely ignored the report. When they did cover it, US media focused on the dismissive Israeli reaction. PBS News Hour quoted Ned Price, who in another exchange with Matt Lee stated that the department rejects the view that Israels actions constitute apartheid.

Once again, the debate is over a word, the difference in this case being that the word is specifically defined in international law. The debate predictably sparked, among some commentators, another word, whose definition has often been stretched in extreme directions in the interest of provoking strong emotions: anti-Semitism. Goldbergs incriminating sentence itself was branded by some as anti-Semitism.

At the end of the day, the words used in any language can be understood in a variety of ways. Within a culture that has adopted the worldview of binary exclusionism, the recourse to constructive dialogue is rapidly disappearing. Instead, we are all saddled with the task of trying to memorize the lists of words one can and cannot say and the ideas it will be dangerous to express.

What this means is that addressing and solving real problems is likely to become more and more difficult. It also means that the media will become increasingly less trustworthy than it already is today. For one person, a false flag corresponds to a fact, and for another, it can only be the component of a conspiracy theory. The N-word is a sound white people must never utter, even if reading Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn aloud. And the word race a concept that has no biological reality now may apply to any group of people who have been oppressed by another group and who choose to be thought of as a race.

The topics these words refer to are all serious. For differing reasons, they are all uncomfortable to talk about. But so are issues spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic, related to health and prevention, especially when death and oppressive administrative constraints happen to be involved. The real problem is that as soon as the dialogue begins to stumble over a specific word or ill-defined concept or the feeling of injustice, reasoning is no longer possible. Obedient acceptance of what becomes imposed itself as the norm is the only possible survival strategy, especially for anyone visible to the public. But that kind of obedience may not be the best way to practice democracy.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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The Language of Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg and Amnesty International - Fair Observer

For years, crypto stans have maintained that the blockchain is a powerful tool to fight censorship. You can find any number of op-eds arguing that the immutable nature of the ledger protects free speech, and, relevantly, Bitcoin bros have often deemed it a haven from political correctnessa place where cancel culture does not functionally exist. But, it turns out Web2 and Web3 have more in common than some may have thought.

A crypto DAO, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), recently booted or, to use another phrase, canceled its former director of operations, Brantly Millegan, over a tweet he made some five years ago. Millegan has played a pivotal role at the DAO since it launched last year, but he is also a self-avowed Catholic and tweeted some statements in 2016 which, needless to say, havent gone over too well in certain quarters of ENS coins investors:

Screenshot of thehomophobic tweet that prompted the controversy.Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/Twitter

The unearthing of the tweet and the subsequent scandal led to something that many in the crypto community have oft claimed was impossible: the cancelingi.e., the firing or punishment of a person based on something they said or did or believeof a crypto leader.

Indeed, after an uproar on Twitter and at the company, the community delegates of ENS voted over the weekend to remove Millegan from his role, and the DAOs non-profit, True Names Limited, officially terminated his position. Brantly has been a valued team member of TNL for the past three years. However, as a team we felt that his position with TNL is no longer tenable, tweeted Nick Johnson, founder and lead developer at ENS, on Sunday. Johnson also said that Brantly had been removed from his position as a community stewardone of the critical leadership positions within the DAO.

DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations, are a little like the crypto equivalent of cooperatives, in that theyre supposed to be democratic and ruled via consensus. But theyre also a little bit like a hedge fund, in that you have to buy in to be a member, particularly if you want influence. Often, the more you invest, the greater say you have within the organization. DAOs are said to be playing a pivotal role in the blossoming of Web3, the supposedly transformative internet movement which seeks to wed all of our online activity to the blockchain. The primary difference between a DAO and any other group working cooperatively is that a DAO can encode its rules on the blockchain, automating enforcement of the decision-making process.

Despite his exile, Millegan has apparently remained largely unrepentant, appearing during a meeting over the weekend but refusing to apologize for his views. On Saturday, he tweeted out:

In a post to Discord, the recently exiled Web3 dev also shared his perspectives on what had occurred. In it, Millegan argued that the web3 industry shouldnt exclude the many traditional-minded Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who agree with his views.

Screenshot: Lucas Ropek/Discord

Millegans claims that his beliefs represent mainstream Catholicism are... complicated. Even after progressive gestures by Pope Francis, the Catholic Church still does not look fondly on LGBTQ rights, abortion, or even, yeah, condoms, despite growing support for such things by American Catholics, if not so much in other parts of the world.

But thats really beside the point. The point is that after his tweet was dug up, the ENS community turned on Millegan. During a three-hour meeting held via Twitter Spaces on Sunday, community members chimed in to relay their emotions about the incident. Most of the people were enraged by the newly discovered tweet and said they felt betrayed by the DAO. One member, who identified as gayand trans, said that they felt the organization had to remain inclusive. We have to make a decision about what the community is, said @cult_leader_en. Either were a homophobic, transphobic company...and Im leaving or, we arent, and Im staying. Many others who spoke up on Sunday expressed similar sentiments.

But the decision to eject Millegan was also divisive, and not everybody has shown support for the decision. Tweets defending the recently outed DAO executive could be seen right up next to those standing with ENS trans and queer members:

A number of community members have also posted criticism of the decision on community forums, trotting out familiar arguments about wokeness, etc. Brantly contributed to ENS success and deserves to be here. I respect the fact that he stands by his words and doesnt pull the usual It was four years ago, Im different now, blablabla, wrote one user, in a discussion thread. Woke and cancel people are more toxic than Brantly ever could be, pure herd mentality at work.

As previously noted, crypto acolytes have long promulgated the idea that the blockchain is a shield against cancel culture.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, one such acolyte, James Poulos, argued that Bitcoin Can Immunize America from Cancel Culture. Dramatically alleging that political correctness and financially-backed cancellation means were headed towards a Chinese communist party-level social credit system, he also vaunts the claim that investing in cryptocurrency can somehow stop this momentum:

Facilitated by technology, financial companies expansion into our private lives threatens to herd Americans into a de facto social credit system that punishes them for making choices and even voicing opinions that the people at the controls dont like, Poulos writes. The fast-emerging social credit system erases the line between private and public; Americans need Bitcoin and the like in order to take back their destinies in the digital world instead of entrusting it to more private or public sector overlords.

Whether you agree or not that were being shepherded into an Orwellian culture of censorship (and that buying Bitcoin will somehow save you from that), Poulos may be correct in deducing that money often has a lot more to do with questions of cancellation than most of us would like to admit.

Controversy and pissed off customers arent particularly good for a companys bottom line, and, in many cases, now familiar denunciations about *insert moral issue* are typically not the earnest reflections of a business that has suffered through a long, dark night of the soul (corporations dont have souls) but, rather, the dead-eyed platitudes of a PR team seeking to stop its customer base from abandoning them for a competitor. Decisions to keep or lose a person based on public responses to them are thus, ultimately financially motivated. Thats why, despite the familiar calls for accountability regarding Covid-19 misinformation, Spotify hasnt canceled Joe Rogan yetbecause the cost-benefit analysis has determined hes still worth more to them alive than dead, so to speak.

Perhaps not so weirdly, a cost-benefit analysis will always exist in the cryptocurrency sphere, as well. In fact, in a world like cryptothat is openly defined by and regulated with pseudo-moneyit may matter even more. A DAO can be governed in virtually any fashionas long as the guidelines are settled at the beginning and changes are agreed upon by the stakeholders. But in many cases, some stakeholders will have a greater say than others. And if a situation represents a threat to the future of the DAO, youre going to see a similar cost/benefit analysis go into decisions to remove members that Twitter deploys when deciding whether or not to ban a user. A DAO can set up rules of governance to settle tough decisions beforehand just like Twitter has its own terms of service. A DAO can vote to go beyond its predefined rules through a vote from stakeholders just like a corporation could change its rules based on a decision by the CEO, board of directors, or shareholders. Thats not to say that members of this particular DAO were thinking with their wallets, moral priorities can also play a role in decision making, of course.

Crypto-enthusiasts might argue that putting governance on the blockchain makes everyone a stakeholder but tech CEOs at social networks also listen to user outcries, shareholder complaints, regulator concerns, and media controversies. Would you like to be a stakeholder in Twitter? One share will cost you about $36. It might not get you much of a vote but being a member of a DAO in which you get 1 governance token versus another members 1 million tokens, well its not that much different.

All of this is to say that, as is so often the case, crypto-converts are just trying to messily replicate technologies and processes that already exist. Plenty of people who evangelize for the web3 revolution are well-intentioned but over and over we just see them adding layers of work, jargon, and bureaucracy to systems without improving much along the way.

One thing that remains the same is people are making the decisions and people dont like being told they dont exist. Online or off, blockchain or not, thats the kind of thing thatll get you canceled.

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A Crypto Community 'Cancels' One of Its Own - Gizmodo

Holland will have its commissioner al #MeToo. Indeed, on Tuesday, the government of Mark Rutte appointed an ad hoc commissioner to address sexual abuse and intimidationfollowing a series of sexual harassment scandals that have rocked the Netherlands in recent times. Among them, the case of Ajax clubs sporting director Marc Overmars, forced to resign after sending inappropriate messages to several women of the staff and, above all, the dozens of allegations of sexual violence against people linked to the TV talent show, The Voice of Holland. Specifically, the Dutch police received five allegations of abuse and around twenty allegations of inappropriate and sexually transgressive behaviors by the staff of the show, suspended in recent weeks by the television network Rtl. As for Overmars, the resignation came in the past few hours: Of course, for someone in my position, this behavior is unacceptable. Now I see it too. But its too late. I see no other option than to leave Ajax, said in a statement released by the club.

Recent alleged sexual abuse scandals have raised such a fuss that last month, hundreds of people organized a #MeToo rally in Amsterdam to demand greater government action in tackling sexual abuse. Hence the initiative of the Dutch government, which has decided to take action by identifying a commissioner at #MeToo, who will have the task of addressing the issue of sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace. Mariette Hamer, a former Labor Party leader, has been appointed by the government and will present a Nazi action plan to address the issue that is causing public opinion in the Netherlands to be discussed. These are her first statements: Cultural changes are never easyHamer said.But we need to leverage this second wave of #Metoo for a structural solution.

A high government representative also spoke on the case: Recent cases in the world of sport and television show us that the origin of the #MeToo movement is still alive in our country he has declared Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science. This needs to change.We are working on a cultural change where no one looks away and where people hold each other accountable for wrongdoing. Because every victim of sexually transgressive behavior and sexual violence is one too many, he added.

The figure of the #MeToo commissioner identified by the Dutch government through a bipartisan action, prompted by the Ministry of Education, Health and Science, chaired by Robbert Dijkgraaf and of Social Affairs and Employment, led by Karien van Gennip, represents a unicum in Europe, a completely new figure that no European state had adopted until today. The question is: is such a figure really necessary? For sexual crimes, there is in fact ordinary criminal justice: in fact, the courts will determine whether the accused persons are guilty or not. What more can an ad hoc commissioner bring? New regulations that would risk being completely counterproductive? Maybe giving life to continuous summary and media trials against people who, until proven otherwise, are to date innocent? The real risk of sinking into a climate of justiceist barbarism and paranoia in the name of political correctness is just around the corner.

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Holland invents the #MeToo commissioner: he is the first in Europe - D1SoftballNews.com

Italian delis are a staple of regular shopping trips for most New Jerseyans. Not just because nearly 1 in 5 New Jerseyans are "Italian-American" but because they offer some of the most delicious food you can buy.

A quick note on the percentage of Italian Americans in the U.S.: After the 2000 census, the government dropped the designation so there are no great stats on the actual percentage. Typically, New Jersey is #2 or #3 behind Rhode Island and Connecticut, but either way, we're at the top of the list. We do hold the top spot in the country where more than half the residents are Italian in Fairfield, NJ.

Emma Fabbri via Unsplash

Yes of course I'm annoyed at the clear bow to political correctness, but that's for another article. Back to the delis.

My favorite thing to buy at any local Italian deli is the hot soppressata. Typically hanging behind the counter it's perfect for any cheese board or to add to home fries.

Gabriella Clare Marino via Unsplash

There are two great Italian delis in my area, Gennaro's Italian Market on Route 27 in Kingston and D'Angelo Italian Market in Princeton. Both offer a selection of outstanding meats and prepared meals. Plus you'll get friendly attentive service.

Producer Kristen's go-to Italian deli isJoe's Italian Deli and Restaurant in Franklin Park. She's been going there since she was a kid and remembers her grandfather taking her every week.

Our morning show board op, Kathy, recommends F & M in Mount Laurel.

(Google Earth)

Jill Myra, New Jersey Traffic South, has two Italian delis she likes to visit. The first is Porfirios Italian Market in Hamilton and the other is Dolce & Clemente in Robbinsville.

Porfirio's - Google Earth

Chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow's go-to is Erika's Cucina in Clark. He says the owner, Erika, is a sweetheart, beloved by the entire community. And she makes amazing food!

My go-to order is the grilled chicken panini, with fresh mozzarella, obligatory roasted red peppers, and incredible house dressing. The homemade potato chips alone are worth the trip. (OK, now I'm hungry...) - Dan

Erika's Cucina catering platter courtesy of Dan Zarrow

What are your go-to Italian delis? Hit me up on the free New Jersey 101.5 app and they may get a shout out on the air!

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.

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The best Italian delis in New Jersey that are actually Italian - New Jersey 101.5 FM