Do Not Pass Go

Posted on January 11, 2021January 11, 2021 by thependulumswings staff

“Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the rest of the play?”

The fallout continues from the storming of the Capitol Building last Thursday. And it accelerates. The siege didn’t last very long, but the damage in so many ways was done.

And, the door to reshaping America has blown more wide open than the courtesy shown by the Capitol Police to the not so peaceful of the mostly peaceful protesters.

Cancel culture is evolving like a revolving door that lost power. Have you ever been in one when it came to a complete stop? You try not to smash your face against the suddenly stationary glass. Good luck.

Do you remember the decibel level of the media when an Oregon baker refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple wedding? That was when the media deemed it so wrong for a private business to selectively not serve a willing paying customer.

Chick-Fil-a still doesn’t open on Sundays, but it takes some damn fine chicken to survive the cancel attempts of the culture of today.

Parler might be in the deep fry, however. Surely you heard of them? They are (or were) trying to build a Twitter-like platform for the right. Amazon, Google, and Apple collectively pulled the virtual rug out from under Parler.

Every vendor for texting and email services and even their lawyers ditched them. Poof! It can be awfully dark on Al Gore’s internet in so many ways.

If you have no server, no app, and no search engine result, you have no social media business. It’s pretty simple. And, it should be pretty scary to all.

The PGA has had it with Trump too. They exercised their right to cancel their agreement to play the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminister, one of his courses. It’s their right after all.

Major corporations are running, not walking away, from members of Congress who voted against ratifying the electoral college results. Some have stopped political contributions altogether. And, altogether that might not be a bad idea.

BBR has long supported a business’s right to refuse service for any reason(s) including religious beliefs but not on prejudices.

Hate Trump all you want. Hate the right all you want. Hell, impeach him for a second time if you want. But, we better start pointing some vitriol and arrows at big tech and now.

The monopolies that they have and the power that they wield should scare us all. Try working your way down the fourth side of the Monopoly Board. Pacific, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Park, and Boardwalk are all very expensive if you land on any one of them.

The war on free speech makes the storming of the Capitol look like a bunch of misguided, misfit amateurs, oogled on by a sore loser, which it was. And both should scare all.

The right to burn the American flag has long been ruled as guaranteed freedom of expression.

You don’t have to like it. You just need to respect it.

The same should go for freedom of speech.

It’s a Dangerous Intersection

Posted on September 16, 2020September 16, 2020 by thependulumswings staff

With so many working from home you’d think the traffic would be far lighter. But, on the corner of Sports Street and Life Lane, it’s busier than ever. And once again yesterday, to make matters worse at rush hour, that damn train rolled through as well.

You know the train by name. It’s a passenger train outbound to nowhere. It’s called the Cancel Culture Express. Except for this time a passenger that The Movement was trying to throw off decided to step right in front of it and dare the engineers to hit him.

If you’re an NFL fan you’ve heard of Luis Moreno, Jr. haven’t you? He’s with the Carolina Panthers. He has been for 10 years and counting. Well. It’s ten years and counting until yesterday.

No, he doesn’t play linebacker and he doesn’t kneel when the National Anthem is played. Moreno is a Spanish-language broadcaster for the Carolina Panthers and a darn good one. He says felt pressured to leave his job because the team is upset that he is a supporter of President Donald Trump. In our “all-inclusive” society we only are inclusive if you choose to be included in the cause.

Moreno told the Charlotte Observer that he began openly supporting Trump on his personal Twitter account this Spring. Shortly thereafter he was contacted about his tweets by Eric Fiddleman, the Panthers’ radio and television affiliate manager. Fiddleman asked Moreno to delete any affiliation with the team from his personal Twitter account.

Fair enough. The Panthers clearly feel the need to be on the right side of BLM and the NFL office nowadays. It’s their brand and they should choose their messaging.

But, Fiddleman continued to fiddle. He reportedly contacted Moreno (who actually is an independent contractor for them, hence even further removed) again in the summer, but this time to tell him to stop his political tweets. “If what they want me to do is stop supporting the president, I’m not gonna do that,” Moreno told Fiddleman.

Moreno further charged that Steven Drummond, the Panthers vice president of communications and external affairs, refused to speak with him about the “issue” of his social media posts and support for Trump. Ten years of loyalty won’t help you cross the intersection these days when the ole’ Cancel Culture Express is blowing its horn.

“I’m hurt,” Moreno told the paper. “Because this has nothing to do with my performance on-air. I’m one of the best, and I’ll put myself against anybody in the country when it comes to what I do in Spanish. None of my support for the president was done on any of their social media pages, it was never done on any of the airtime. This was solely on my personal time on my personal accounts.”

Moreno added that he won’t return to work unless the team says he is free to advocate for whomever he supports politically. “I am not OK with them censoring my freedom of speech in support of the president,” he added.

And with that, he put his hand up and stopped the Cancel Culture Express before it ran over him.

“Silly him,” you say. “He’s the one out of a job,” you say.

It’s rare these days, but refreshing when it happens. Someone spoke up for common sense, dignity, and most of all freedom of speech.

Moreno was a member of the “silent majority.”

He’s not anymore. He spoke up.