Page 3 - Todd Gitlin News Today

Mattel had to make "Fascist" "Barbie" ironic adult blockbuster mocking itself with a preposterously plastic indictment of the patriarchy.

 

Anyone watching television in the last few months has been inundated with marketing for the “Barbie” movie. It wasn’t just in the movie commercials. It was in commercials for cars and other products.  It was inserted into the plots of reality shows. It was everywhere. It’s not a movie I had any interest in seeing, whether it was a movie made for grade-school girls or a satirical sendup for the angry feminists.

Competing perspectives on the activist classroom now.

In the past two decades, a new, more radical form of progressivism has taken over American social and political life, even finding its way into the White House. Fresh instances of this new progressivism appear every day. For example:

If basic income proposals are so compatible with market interests, why are they constantly beaten back?

Why campus leaders are making noises about free speech now.

In the 1980s, provocative talk show host Morton Downey Jr. traded barbs (and fists) with guests. Then he took it a step too far.

The fact remains, the most civilized community is reluctant to trust its serious interests to others than men of pecuniary substance, who have proved their…

We’re living in a rage-filled emotional dystopia. Is there a way out?