Rod Thomson

Political correctness is a disease on the body public in America, stifling open debate, conversation and the free exchange of differing viewpoints. It dominates on college campuses like a mid-20th century tyrant, but as more graduates who have deeply imbibed the dangerous nonsense move into positions of influence, political correctness expands to more of our culture, our being.

PC is one of the driving reasons behind the launch of The Revolutionary Act. As George Orwell said in 1984, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Politically correct speech resulting in written and de facto speech codes is setting the table for a universality of deceitfulness.

So in today’s installment, we come to a pair of young USA Today reporters who went through hit songs from past years to explain how terribly offensive their lyrics are now — and of course always were but we just weren’t woke enough. Conceptually, their retroactive judgy-ness is bad enough. But, like all of PC, it is applied selectively.

In the headline to their Orwellian RightThink story, they don’t even hide it: “20 politically incorrect songs that’d be wildly controversial today.”

The indictments range from hyper-sexualized Rolling Stones songs (which, ironically, makes them strange bedfellows with conservative Christians who criticized the songs then and now) to Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder to still popular singers such as Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Because in the end, nothing will pass PC muster unless it is so vanilla it says nothing the speech police deem unsayable. Conspicuously missing from this list are any rap songs — some of the most vile filth being spewed into music today — which points to the selectivity of PC.

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Perhaps the most astonishing song on our reporters’ list is Ebony And Ivory, by McCartney and Wonder. What could possibly be so offensive in a song promoting the idea of people of different races living together in harmony? Let’s ask the PC police. Here’s their problematic lyric and explanation:

Choice lyric: “Ebony and ivory / Live together in perfect harmony / Side by side on my piano keyboard / Oh lord, why don’t we?” Why it wouldn’t fly today: McCartney and Wonder meant well with their hyper-literal interpretation of race relations. But their message of “people are the same, there’s good and bad in everyone, so let’s just get along” would be interpreted as hilariously naïve by the more woke factions of today’s cultural discourse.

Your first response is to dismiss this as the vapid nonsense coming from the hell-hole of intersectional RightThink. Resist that temptation. Because what these propagandized reporters are saying is that people are not all the same and we can’t get along. Racial harmony is naive nonsense now to the PC crowd. This is really alarming stuff. And from First Amendment-protected reporters no less!

Here’s another offender.

Song:Turning Japanese by The Vapors, 1980 Choice lyric: “I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese” Why it wouldn’t fly today: No, Turning Japanese isn’t literally about turning Japanese. Still, it wouldn’t be acceptable today to hear a group of white guys assuming the identity of Asian people.

This song was about the angst of young coming of age in a changing culture. Just basic life. It wasn’t anti-Japanese or racist in any way, as our thought monitoring journalists admit. Their problem stems from the sheer nonsense that a member of one culture cannot assimilate into or even appreciate another culture. Their philosophy rests on tribalism at its worst, which is very much revived in modern, progressive intersectionality.

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Cultural appropriation is the conceptual opposite of the melting pot that has formed America for two centuries. People immigrated (legally) to our shores from all over the world. They retained elements of their heritage and were proud, but they melted into the larger American ideal based on freedoms and rights and hope for a better life.

Identity politics and cultural appropriation force every immigrant, ethnicity, race, gender and fictional gender into separate categories. Intersectionality than ranks them by degree of grievance. All logic, rational thought and history are pitched out the window in favor of those with the most grievance. More grievance, more truth, no matter how ridiculous a statement.

Here’s one more.

Song: Illegal Alien by Genesis, 1983 Choice lyric: “It’s no fun being an illegal alien” Why it wouldn’t fly today: Its message and story are seemingly well-intentioned, detailing a Mexican immigrant’s struggle to cross the border in search of a better life. But the racist video puts the song in a whole different light, with stereotypical imagery of mariachi horns, ponchos, sombreros and oversize mustaches.

Here we have a very early example of defending and uplifting the plight of illegal aliens. Oh, but in the video, they represented a Mexican as a guy with a big sombrero and a thick mustache. Das is verboten! You see, that’s both ethnically insensitive and cultural appropriation — despite the lyrics being positive about people sneaking into our country illegally.

Here are some songs that did not make the list from the rap genre.

Nope. Can’t do it. After just minimal research, not going to print any of it. From gang rape, to graphic sex, to violence and everywhere dehumanizing women, rap is a smorgasbord of filth and degradation. Yet our USA Today reporters include none of it.

So who are these two intrepid reporters writing for the largest national newspaper in America?

Maeve McDermott is, according to how she describes herself on Twitter: entertainment writer/editor @USATODAY • very baller, very anarchist • So she comes out of a journalism school, presumably, which would be part of the problem, but certainly out of college, another problem, and proudly proclaims herself an anarchist. And USA Today thinks, We need to hire her!

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Patrick Ryan is an entertainment reporter for @USATODAY, @Cronkite_ASU ’14 grad. His Twitter banner pic says. “Manchesta by the feckin sea”

These two youngsters represent a sort of vanguard of the wave of hyper-offended, PC speech totalitarians who are pouring into journalism, the arts, the social sciences, government positions and the teaching profession.

Rod Thomson is an author, TV talking head and former journalist, and is Founder of The Revolutionary Act. Rod is co-host of Right Talk America With Julio and Rod on the Salem Radio Network.

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