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Thought police: From Orwell to Gladwell and Back

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:17 am
by PaulSacramento
http://takimag.com/article/from_orwell_ ... z4MCHPFmAs

Relevant, always, but this part is interesting considering the debate last week:
We see some of the old-fashioned memory-hole techniques at work currently with Wikipedia.

For example, the heroine of Hillary Clinton’s debate climax, Venezuelan immigrant Alicia Machado, has labored tirelessly for two decades to make herself famous in the Spanish-speaking world. But most of the former Miss Universe’s renown has come from multiple scandals, such as being accused by witnesses of driving the getaway car when her boyfriend shot his ex-brother-in-law and then threatening the judge in their case with murder. (Here’s her amusing answer on CNN when Anderson Cooper asked her about those allegations.)

In reality, Machado is a cross between two characters on Tina Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock: Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney, a dim but relentless, publicity-seeking, aging actress doing whatever it takes to hang on as a celebrity; and Salma Hayek’s Elisa Pedrera, Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy’s homicidal fiancée who, while unknown in the U.S., is notorious in her native Puerto Rico for murdering her husband in a jealous rage.

Of course, that Machado is an utter stereotype of the telenovela actress means that it’s harder for gringo goodthinkers to understand her, since they’ve been indoctrinated that pattern recognition is wrong.

Machado’s many skeletons in the closet raise questions not only about her credibility but also about Hillary’s judgment, and, most important, about just how much vetting immigrants get. In an era when it’s easy to look people up on the internet, why was Machado, who is notoriously drawn to violent men, recently granted the vote?

Last week, you could still find on Wikipedia two of Ms. Machado’s more recent misadventures:

In 2005, Machado was engaged to baseball star Bobby Abreu. During their engagement she was on the Spanish reality show ‘La Granja’ where she was filmed on camera having sex with another member of the show. Shortly after the video surfaced Abreu ended their engagement.

On June 25, 2008, Machado gave birth to her daughter, Dinorah Valentina. She issued a statement that the father of Dinorah was her best friend Mexican businessman Rafael Hernandez Linares after Mexican news sources, quoting the Attorney General, reported that the father was Gerardo Álvarez Vázquez, a drug lord.

But mentions of these imbroglios have since been memory holed on Wikipedia. Editors have offered bizarre excuses for deleting the most interesting information about Hillary’s heroine, such as that the diva is not a “public figure,” an assertion that would surely wound the actress more deeply than allegations that she’s a gangster’s moll.



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Re: Thought police: From Orwell to Gladwell and Back

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 6:42 pm
by edwardmurphy
Machado isn't important, and really, she's not being presented as such. She's part of the discussion for two reasons -

1) Trump publicly humiliated her back when she was his employee and that fits with a decades-long pattern of misogynistic behavior.

2) When Clinton brought her up - in a transparent attempt to rile him up - Trump took the bait and spent an entire week making an ass of himself.

Trump could have said something like this:

"Alicia Machado? Wow, I haven't heard that name in a long time. You're right, I was pretty hard on her - maybe too hard. But please bear in mind that she was Miss Universe. The pageant is a business. She won the pageant, which makes her the face of the business. If my secretary put on 40 pounds I wouldn't mention it - that's her concern, not mine. But the sitting Miss Universe has to look the part. If she doesn't it hurts the business. So yes, I was harsh, but I was harsh for a reason. But if my words did her lasting harm then I apologize. That was never my intent. If she wishes to discuss it further she can give me a call and I'll be happy to sit down with her and discuss it, but right now we're here to talk about the economy, so let's get back to that."

If he had then Alicia Machado would have been out of the news in a single cycle, and no harm done. But he didn't. He lost his mind, ranted for a week, and closed it out with a 3 am tweet spaz. He knew going in that Clinton's main attack would be that he's "temperamentally unfit to be president" and he had to know that getting into a public feud with a former model would help her make her point, but he couldn't help himself. That's newsworthy. That's the story.

Re: Thought police: From Orwell to Gladwell and Back

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:09 pm
by abelcainsbrother
edwardmurphy wrote:Machado isn't important, and really, she's not being presented as such. She's part of the discussion for two reasons -

1) Trump publicly humiliated her back when she was his employee and that fits with a decades-long pattern of misogynistic behavior.

2) When Clinton brought her up - in a transparent attempt to rile him up - Trump took the bait and spent an entire week making an *** of himself.

Trump could have said something like this:

"Alicia Machado? Wow, I haven't heard that name in a long time. You're right, I was pretty hard on her - maybe too hard. But please bear in mind that she was Miss Universe. The pageant is a business. She won the pageant, which makes her the face of the business. If my secretary put on 40 pounds I wouldn't mention it - that's her concern, not mine. But the sitting Miss Universe has to look the part. If she doesn't it hurts the business. So yes, I was harsh, but I was harsh for a reason. But if my words did her lasting harm then I apologize. That was never my intent. If she wishes to discuss it further she can give me a call and I'll be happy to sit down with her and discuss it, but right now we're here to talk about the economy, so let's get back to that."

If he had then Alicia Machado would have been out of the news in a single cycle, and no harm done. But he didn't. He lost his mind, ranted for a week, and closed it out with a 3 am tweet spaz. He knew going in that Clinton's main attack would be that he's "temperamentally unfit to be president" and he had to know that getting into a public feud with a former model would help her make her point, but he couldn't help himself. That's newsworthy. That's the story.
I tend to agree with you however Trump is not a fake polished politician like Hillary is and it still pales in comparison to the the things liberals said about Sara Palin and how they smeared her but also Hillary saying that half of Trump's supporters are a bucket of deplorable's and unredeemable.Plus Hillary calling blacks super predator's and saying they need to be brought to heel.

Re: Thought police: From Orwell to Gladwell and Back

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 5:23 am
by PaulSacramento
This has ZERO to do with Machado guys.
She was just an example that was used because she was still fresh in our minds.