THE MASKS ARE COMING OFF

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

(A Blast from the Past from https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/08/28/the-masks-are-coming-off/ Huns, I am having a wild time looking back at what was going on in previous Augusts on my Blast from the Past days. Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme. Although I think we see it a little bit more easily now, since we’re looking.)

For years, being a conservative or — in my case — a libertarian (no step on snek) in the arts, in writing, in publishing, in any cultural enterprise was an exercise in going insane.

You knew what was going on in private, you knew how hard they could hit on what absolutely minor and ridiculous points, but the public in general was not aware of any bias, and if you complained, they thought you were paranoid.

This was particularly the case when you were small potatoes, or  when what they were doing was rejecting short stories or asking you to change your books.

Sure, I could sense the principles behind it, and how changing my books would make them say something I didn’t want to, but at the same time there was the weird feeling “um… is this true?  Or am I imagining it?  I’m a small-time writer, writing in a tiny-small-time field.  How could they possibly micromanage it to this extent?”

It was particularly hard for me because I grew up under socialist (national then international) regimes, with occasional outbreaks of outright Ocasio-Cortez er… I mean Communism.  This both allowed me to see the holes in it (no, truly, even at 13 or so, studying Marxism in five high school courses will cause you to see the holes) and, once I’d decided I was against it (I was actually fairly left, in the US meaning until my mid-twenties.  Couldn’t help being.  Young, stupid, and raised in a soup of leftists “facts”) I started seeing all the little ways the establishment — educational, cultural, arts — pushed people towards the idea of for lack of a better term “the inevitable certainty of Marxist victory.” The inevitability and echo chamber are essential, because Marxism is not particularly convincing if you look at it.  If you’re sure it will triumph, though you’ll pick up a vast majority of “the scared” (which are way more than the “convinced”)who want to be eaten last or not at all by adopting the philosophy now and being strident.

So, coming from that background, my “feelers” detected all sorts of things.

In my entire — 34? well, if you count hidden pen names and work for hire more like 40 novels, but never mind — I had very few edits.  Mostly the books get copy edited, not edited.

About 3 books were “edited” which amounted to “remove this scene, move that one” “I don’t think this sentence says what you think it does” and “this will heighten tension.”  Those were as far as I could tell very innocuous.

Only two books had rewrite requests, and both of those, had I followed through on the rewrite would have changed the books completely, in one case yeah, to fit with feminist and “race” narrative (they wanted the Masai woman from the first book to accompany the two white guys to India on the adventure because “she’s as good as they are” — which no one was disputing, though perhaps less equipped for yet another culture change — and when I objected that if we took her to India we would get into issues of Indian racism, I was told that only whites were racist), and in another case to have my character LEAD rather than oppose the future analog of the French revolution.  My refusal to do those re-writes, because then the books would say what I didn’t want them to say severely damaged, if not broke, my relationship with the respective publishing houses. (Yes, and I know some of you will recognize the book and go, “but that was… it can’t be.”  What you don’t get is that I don’t have that big a name, and that the house isn’t MAJORITY libertarian/conservative.  It just allows it and it depends on who you’re actually dealing with.)

But this was all done covertly, behind the scenes, and of course none of us could talk.  First because we’d seem like paranoid loons.  I mean, we’re complaining about things no one saw.

Second, because we would never work in that town again.

As this started to change, so did the pressure on writers become more open and more obvious.

This case is… well, let’s say I’ve known more like this than not.  Houses are actually willing to lose money as long as they can micro-manage the message.

And boy, do they micro manage.  Yep, at that level.  None of their “intended” bright future can be questioned, not even the incidental bits, like “a female president wold be the best thing ever.” or “Leftists are always wonderful.”

And no, of course they’re not doing it on purpose, in the sense that they’re not trying to consciously push every little detail of the message.  That would be exhausting, and also require them to be super-geniuses (they aren’t.) I’ve known and been friends with a lot of lefties before the current frothing times.  Haven’t dropped them, though some of them have dropped me.  It’s not that they consciously police every detail.  It’s that they are immersed in this “vision” that includes every little detail of the socialist paradise and its coming, and they absorb the latest directive from the echo chamber. So when they see something against that, they flinch and want the painful part removed.  Like, in the French Revolution book, I suspect someone looked at how I was denying that equality of outcomes was a good thing, and got very upset “no, no, she’s supposed to be supporting these.” probably even considering what I had done an error, not an intended thing.

But that’s traditional, and look, guys, I have friends in journalism and in education, and I know they get the same exact pressures.  “No, no no.  You can’t teach that.  You must teach this.”  “No, you don’t want to report that.  Or at least remove this word.  Otherwise it gives people the wrong idea.”

Heck, sometimes headlines get changed and strange assemblies to discuss some current events get caught (so much of these when kids were in school.)

So here’s the bad news: our culture has been immersed for almost a 100 years in a cohesive, monolithic narrative.  A narrative that moved steadily left, with no relenting.  This is why those of us who are older than about 35 grew up in a world where voicing a dissenting — conservative or libertarian — opinion got you labeled “crazy”and “uneducated”.  If you were denying what everyone knew, confirmed multiply from unrelated fields like news, research (oh, so easily manipulated, particularly in the soft sciences) and entertainment, then obviously you were either crazy or uneducated or, yah, stupid.  This is how leftism became a positional good.

The good news?  The barriers are coming down, the doors are blowing open, and now we know we’re not alone, we know we’ve been lied to and manipulated.  Sometimes we don’t realize the magnitude of the manipulation which, yeah, can be staggering.

And yeah, I know, some people on the right are convinced indie channels like Amazon are out to get them.  We know facebook and twitter and yeah Google are.

I contend Amazon isn’t — yet.  None of the cases I’ve seen are convincing.  Also, when it comes to indie publishing, they can hit a few, mostly on covers and titles, but they can’t do this kind of micromanagement that trad pub does.  Why?  Because they can’t.  Because they’re not dealing with 10 or even twenty books a quarter.  To police every indie novel, every story that goes up?  I would take a massive work force, and not the third-world-country-uncertain-in-English one that Amazon hires.

Won’t happen.  Not saying that we don’t need alternatives, and yeah, we’re working on that.

But that’s exactly the thing.  PRECISELY.  In exact detail.  There are alternatives. Or there will be, once things become untenable.  And as the masks come off, as each corrupt medium and source goes full turnip, people shy away from it.  Not just us, mind you, but the Muddled Middle.  How many people think CNN is reliable anymore?  The crazier they go, the more they make their agenda obvious, the shakier they get.

And when they reach a certain point, alternatives become viable.  Even when we think they can’t.  Look at journalism, which we thought was immovable.  But it’s not.

The USSR had to regulate typewriters, because they were dangerous to its stability of uniform message.  So were copiers and mimeographs.  Mimeographs, which in the west caused only a ripple of really bad fanfic could bring the ability to control information down.  Then fax machines came in and it was goodbye.

The current technology has issues, but one thing it’s doing is making it difficult for the left to maintain the unified narrative and view of the world without which it CANNOT survive.

Sure, I won’t guarantee they won’t win some elections.  Given their amazing fraud machine, they might even win most of them.  And yes, I know how dangerous that is, because it can take us into actual blood on the streets and much much worse, a reaction-regime which is not America in any recognizable way.

But in the end, regardless of how rocky it gets, we win, they lose.  Because they can only survive where every voice repeats the same and logic never intrudes.  And that’s not the world our technology is shaping.

Be not afraid!

42 thoughts on “THE MASKS ARE COMING OFF”

  1. “…when I objected that if we took her to India we would get into issues of Indian racism, I was told that only whites were racist…”

    Yeah, that’s a fantasy right there. Indians are racist against other Indians based on skin colour. Also caste, also religion, and social status over and above all of that.

    Ever notice there are zero dark-skinned Indian actors in Indian movies? Uh huh. It’s a thing.

    And by the way, if you want to see some in-your-face rejection of Diversity!!! take a look at what’s going on in Japan with immigration from “Asian” nations. They’re not having it. 200 guys show up to have “prayers” in the middle of the road, and 200 guys get arrested for blocking traffic. Then deported, or so I hear. Oh, and no welfare for immigrants. That’s a big one.

    Liked by 4 people

      1. The Japanese news media have been pretty clear on things like “Okay foreigners vs not okay,” and some of the crud that Pakistani immigrants to Japan have been pulling in astonishing.

        It is pretty much an open secret that Muslims are committing lots of arson against temples and local landmarks, as well as openly violating all the weird Japanese building codes and trying to drive non-Pakistani residents out of areas taken over by Pakistanis.

        Since the mainland Chinese CCP tourists work pretty hard to stay the most disliked among foreigners, the sudden move by Pakistanis to take over entire small towns is probably even worse than what is on the news.

        And yeah, I think we are about at the point where Japanese riot police suddenly arrest everybody and throw them into police vans.

        Liked by 3 people

          1. … “raw graveyard in the middle of a farm field”?
            Are we talking foreigners burying their dead in random fields?

            How many foreigners are dying that need to be disposed of, and is it being treated like a crime scene?

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Apparently, all the “don’t make the bodies a bio-hazard” options are against their version of Islam.

              And it is expensive to get a grave in Japan.

              So…they keep buying fields, and making illegal graveyards in them.

              Often hidden in the grown-for-human-consumption produce.

              Then tried to make themselves victims online when Japan had views on this.

              Liked by 3 people

    3. There are actually some less than pale movie stars in the South Indian film industries (there is not “one unified” Indian film industry). Search for Rajnikanth, for instance. But they tend to be lit and made up to look paler than they are.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. “Houses are actually willing to lose money as long as they can micro-manage the message.”

    With the benefit of 2026 hindsight, we can see that the publishers and Hollywood as well were more than willing to go bankrupt if that’s what it took to control the narrative.

    But then the #Left topped everybody by using a lab-grown bioweapon to steal an election. (Yep they did, you lurkers. You can scream all you want, but that’s how it went down, and now we’ve got the recipts.)

    Nobody saw anything like that coming in 2018. All the micromanagement and message control, while irksome, seemed like mere stupidity and short-sighted factionalism.

    But now we can see it for what it is. Communism, sticking it’s tentacles into every little tiny corner on the theory that if you control the message, you control the mind. You make compliance mandatory and non-compliance unthinkable.

    And it kind-of works, mostly, but not if everyone can see what they’re doing. Thanks to the Internet…

    …we can SEE you, #Lefties.

    That’s why they’re coming out as seize-the-means-of-production Commies now. They stopped owning the message when a whole NASCAR stadium started chanting “Let’s Go Brandon!” Remember that one? Yeah, that was a beauty.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I am reliably informed that everything at issue was unfortunate language used in tweets of that now ancient and barely understandable era. Besides the bumped the major release, and everyone knows going from 1.0 to 2.0 fixes everything.

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      2. “…Mostly Peaceful from a reporter…”

        Ah yes, CNN will live forever in our hearts…

        The thing I liked the most about the “Mostly Peaceful” #BLM riots in the USA and Canaduh is the way everyone knew that you couldn’t catch Covid if you were demonstrating for George Floyd.

        But if you showed up at a Canadian Tire store with no mask and a doctor’s note exempting you from wearing a mask, the security guards were allowed to beat your @ss down to the ground. And you could be arrested for running through an empty park.

        And at the very same time, weirdos had taken over Nathan Phillips Square in front of the Toronto City Hall (and were breaking all the covid rules, but still somehow being protected by police from reporters filming them) the media were telling me I should be bleaching my Amazon packages, and I couldn’t go to Home Depot. But I -could- go to Costco and Walmart. Because everyone knew you couldn’t catch Covid at Costco and Walmart.

        I’m a little salty about it even now. Okay that’s a lie, I am a LOT salty.

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        1. Hmm, I get wordy, or mention my least favorite governor, I get moderated.

          We had absurdities, like two people waiting in the store’s airlock so there’d be no more than 5 in the biggish store.

          Best were the rebels. One diner: “Hungry People Matter”. The county would not help the state be thugs. Local store in $TINY_TOWN: “Masks? Why use them?” If the state-Stasi showed up, they’d have to hitch a ride back to town. 4 flats would do it…

          Liked by 1 person

        1. “You want to ‘own the means of production’? Fine. Build your own factory, buy your own machines, own it all in common and go into business for yourselves. Nobody’s stopping you. But that would be too much work, so you want to steal what somebody else has built.”

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          1. They will tell you that it was their stolen labor — or else go through the most amazing contortions to prove it’s impossible without revolution.
            The one I liked was that they can’t increase wages because of cut-throat price competition. As if the wages were used for anything but to buy.

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    3. Even better that that, there was the true Dec 2021 incident written up in Newsweek

      “Yeah, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas as well. Merry Christmas and let’s go Brandon,” the man, who said he was the father of a 2-year-old daughter named Penelope, told the Bidens just before he hanging up the phone.

      Without missing a beat, Biden smiled and replied: “Let’s go Brandon. I agree.” The first lady chuckled.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. “Hey Buddy. You’re not allowed wear Masks in this Bar!”

    “Mask? I’m not wearing a Mask.” [Twisted Grin]

    Note, the above joke is Off-Topic, but I had to do it. [Wink]

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  4. “Houses are actually willing to lose money as long as they can micro-manage the message.”

    It seems crazy, but here’s the thing, the people in charge don’t lose money, they just move up. Look at Claudine Gay and Kathleen Kennedy. At worst they end up with a multi-million dollar compensation package at a government funded “NGO”. It’s all a game with no consequences to them.

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  5. I’m not afraid. I was born for times such as this.

    Apparently.

    Because here I am.

    And, since we have now reached the point in our Scooby Doo timeline where the mask is ripped off and we see who the REAL culprit is, we can get down to the business of fixing it.

    Since this isn’t an actual cartoon, we’ll have a job of it. But at lest we see who the enemies are.

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  6. Yup. And now we have all the garbage [polite term] in print and video culture that is poisoning the LLM searches and results, which means those of us who are not rah-rah for Communism have to work even harder to be sure that we teach the younger set how to discern the precious pearls from the growing pile of pig litter.

    Apropos of fiction, I wonder if the on-shelf popularity of non-Western fiction and cozy fantasies is in part a reaction to what’s been shoved at us for the past decade or so? They are both pretty apolitical (or well labeled with the cause de jour so they can be avoided).

    Liked by 1 person

    1. South Korean politics may be noticeable in intrusions to some of those spaces, these days.

      However, I do not start off with a level of cultural familiarity that lets me pick up on subtle political coded statemetns about Japanese, or Korean politics.

      I mean, if the co-Prosperity Sphere is split into British, French, and American occupation zones, and the Liberal-Democrats are currently supporting a Military dictatorship in the American zone, what on earth does that have to do with real world current day politics? I mean, did Hitler kill Stalin with a katana or something?

      Note that this example was carefully fabricated to be something I am pretty sure that no sane political party on this Earth would find any advantage from using as a heavy handed just so political narrative.

      Shame that there are so many and so wealthy wackjob parties, but, whatevs.

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            1. Do people using a Nodachi (rather than a Katana) trying to compensate for something? [Very Big Crazy Grin]

              Liked by 1 person

          2. Honestly, Hitler and Stalin did the world one large favour – between them, they killed more Commies than anybody

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  7.  I would take a massive work force, and not the third-world-country-uncertain-in-English one that Amazon hires.

    Except that now it wouldn’t, because AI is getting more than good enough to spot badthink, and works 24/7/365.

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    1. And if it bans a few (thousand) innocuous books that don’t actually contain any BadThink, that’s a price Amazon is willing to pay. ☹️
      ———————————
      Lord Fahrquad: “Some of you may die, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

      Who knew Fahrquad was a Democrat?

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  8. Out of curiosity, I looked up “Mental State” on Amazon. It is not available on Kindle; paperback only, one copy left, for $55.55. Bizarre.

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