Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

The left has been insisting we define ” Woke” lately. It’s actually very easy and I shall do so here using my favorite example within.

Woke comes in four stages:

Stage 1: Delusional:

Mr. Shellhammer: But… but maybe he’s only a little crazy like painters or composers or… or some of those men in Washington.

Miracle on 34th street 1947

The first stage of woke is delusional. In this respect “delusional” is defined as believing something that is blatantly false.

This is the most common stage and the one where you can function in society normally. If one is deep into this state the delusional person may act on this delusion but only in their private life. It’s worth noting that most delusional people aren’t woke, but ALL woke people are delusional.

Example: If you believe you’re the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, you’re delusional.

Footnote: At this stage except in casual conversation it’s nobody’s damn business and unless brought up in conversation they should be left alone to think what they want. That’s freedom.

Stage 2: Crazy

Babe Heffrom: Crazy Joe McCulsky

Wild Bill Guarnere: What?

Babe Heffrom: This guy who used to hang at the front of Delancy’s you know and just stare at people.

Band of Brothers Bastonge 2001

The 2nd stage of woke is crazy. In this respect “crazy” is defined as acting on this delusion in your public and personal life to be noticed. This person can function in society to a degree but will always attract looks and stares. It is also the stage where their employment options might be limited as they can be at best disruptive and at worst destructive in the wrong job, particularly if such a job involves interaction with the public or one that requires decision making that effects others.

This can also be the most complicated point. Not only do you see people doing this to themselves but if this involves a group of people there are also those who might go into this stage to fit in. If this involves someone you love or care about this is the place to intervene to try and shake the delusion before it becomes dangerous, but if the person declines, the default position must be to respect their right to make bad decisions for themselves.

Again not all people who are crazy are “woke” but ALL woke people are crazy.

Example: If you believe you’re Napoleon Bonaparte, and then dress like Napoleon, speak like Napoleon and or get your self surgically altered to be Napoleon you’re crazy.

Footnote: This is the point of greatest danger to society in the sense that there are those who will go along or even affirm this person’s crazy delusion thinking they are being “kind” or “tolerant” or loving. What you are actually doing is at best being indifferent and at worst cowardly because you are enabling someone’s self destruction either because you don’t care or don’t want to get involved.

Stage 3: Batshit Crazy

The Joker: As I was saying since every fish in Gotham now bears my famous and frankly fabulous face I should get a profit from every fish product sold. Let’s say a nickel per fish sandwich, fifty cents for sardines. Millions of dollars a day to finance my happily hedonistic lifestyle. So which of your copyright forms do I fill out first? You may speak now.

G Guy Francis: No one can copywrite fish, they’re a natural resource.

The Joker: But they share my unique face. Colonel what’s his name has chickens and they don’t even have mustaches!

G Guy Francis: I can’t help it, it’s the law.

The Joker: Oh trying to cheat the Joker are you? We’ll see who has the last laugh. You have until midnight to change your mind Francis or you’ll be the poorest fish of all

Batman the Animated Series The Laughing fish 1993 adapted from Detective Comics 475 Feb 1978

The 3rd stage of woke is batshit crazy. In this respect “batshit crazy” is defined as demanding that others not just tolerate your crazy delusion but acknowledge it as fact rather than delusion. At this stage the person will use everything from, intimidation to violence to force you to acknowledge a reality that isn’t true. This can be the most dangerous of all the stages in the sense that people who do not actually believe the batshit crazy person’s delusion might decide said person can be manipulated and their batshit crazy delusion used and weaponized against their foes for the sake of power and wealth. There will also be a fair amount of joiners who see this manipulation as a way of personal advancement or will be too afraid to speak out. Such batshit crazy people can only function in society within the woke bubble and will do all they can to create and expand the woke bubble to preserve their delusion.

Example: If you believe you’re Napoleon, and then dress like Napoleon, speak like Napoleon and or get your self surgically altered to be Napoleon and demand that people acknowledge you publicly as Napoleon Bonaparte you’re batshit crazy.

Footnote: Under no circumstances should the person at the batshit crazy stage of woke be affirmed! Not only is it an offence against truth but you will shortly discover that simple affirmation is never enough. If this is not stopped and defeated here then it invariably goes to the final stage

Stage 4: Fully Woke

Jesus Christ: I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.

John 16:1-3

The 4th stage of woke is fully woke. In this respect “fully woke” is defined as using the full power of an institution, the law and the state to not only affirm their batshit crazy delusion as fact but to crush anyone who refuses to do so or publicly calls out their batshit crazy delusion for what it is and encourages others to have the courage to do so. The Batshit Crazy woke person can’t get to this stage without allies or acolytes or immense personal wealth. And because their allies are gaining wealth power and prestige from this batshit crazy delusion there is no limit to the steps they will take to silence you once this state is reached. They will destroy you economically, socially or even physically and do it while proclaiming how virtuous they are being in doing so. They will further demonize any bit of society, an institution, a city, a state, that does not go along with the Woke Batshit crazy delusion because the greatest threat to them at this stage is actual reality. Furthermore if you are a member of the fully woke society you will find that any deviation from the Fully woke batshit crazy delusion, however slight, will cause you to be expelled and considered a non-person.

Example: If you believe you’re Napoleon Bonaparte, and then dress like Napoleon, speak like Napoleon and or get your self surgically altered to be Napoleon and demand that people acknowledge you publicly as Napoleon Bonaparte and use the power of the state and the law to punish and/or oppress any who refuse to shout: Vive L’Empereur!  when you walk by, you’re fully woke.

Footnote: The fully woke person can’t be reasoned with, can’t be debated, they can only be defeated and when defeated must be defeated utterly

Addendum: On very rare occasions a person hitting the fully woke stage or even the Batshit Crazy stage might find themselves shocked into reality. These persons are the greatest threat to the Fully woke and are hated by them even more than those who fought them from the start.

While Glenn Youngkin was running for governor, there were more than a few skeptics that said he was going to be super-squishy on a lot of issues. That was not an unfair criticism, given how poorly so many Republican politicians turned out to be on issues of real importance. Thankfully, Youngkin has turned out to be pretty darn good.

Governor Glenn Youngkin Waves at Crowd at ITAC (Industrial Turnaround Corporation), May 31, 2023. Official Photo by Christian Martinez, Office of Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Yesterday his efforts finally hit the news when he removed the bachelor degree requirements for nearly 90 percent of state jobs. That’s a big deal. Bloated job requirements are a nuisance and make it difficult to hire and fill positions. Most of these positions are better served by someone with a credential instead of a degree. It’s also important to note that our higher education system tends to lean Democrat, so this should make it easier for Republicans that chose to not subject themselves to 4 years of Democrat indoctrination to obtain meaningful employment.

Sadly, more than a few trolls at Instapundit are simply saying this will make it easier to insert particular demographics into government. I seriously doubt it. Combined with his assault on DIE institutions and rules, this should open up jobs to constituents everywhere, and this move in particular was viewed favorably by a few Democrat lawmakers.

It doesn’t end there though, because Youngkin is addressing hundreds of individual issues. He passed legislation making it easier to adopt children. If you recall, that’s an area where losers in the system make it hard for good couples to adopt by making them jump through hoops that normal parents would never be subjected to. It’s a real issue I’ve discussed before, so its nice to see the governor care enough to work to fix it.

On top of that, Youngkin has signed good budgets, mental health initiatives, and credentialing plans to make it easier for people to transfer credentials into the state without additional testing. These don’t tend to make the news, but for the average Virginian, they are issues that affect them every day, so they make a difference.

I’m glad he’s doing this. We’ve had a fair share of Republicans that run on big issues like abortion and Second Amendment, but then ignore the normal day-to-day issues that aren’t big news. While its great to say you “fought the woke mob,” at the end of the day, I also want my day-to-day issues to get better. Passing sound budgets and making Virginia a state desirable to live and work in affects my family directly. Hopefully with more success we’ll have other Republicans wake up and take similar efforts in their states.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

By John Ruberry

We’re approaching the two-month mark of the Bud Light boycott, which of course began when transgender social media, utilizing his–yes his–goofy 1950s-sitcom ditz schtick to recklessly promote Bud Light beer

Immediately, I was confident that this boycott had staying power, despite the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media telling its dwindling audience it did not. As Da Tech Guy himself explained, Anheuser-Busch’s problem is that Bud Light is too easy to boycott. Coors Light, Miller Lite, which taste similar–assuming that light beers have a distinguishable taste–are usually available in the same liquor stores, supermarkets, bars, and restaurants. And they are all priced about the same. 

American megabrewers are selling image and personality. Beer? Not so much. And in a few days, Bud Light, after partnering with Mulvaney, torched its macho brand-building work of four decades in just a few days. “Fratty” is the word used by the now-on-leave marketing head for Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid. Anheuser-Busch’s non-apology from its CEO only fanned the flames. 

Bud Light’s slogan is, “Easy to drink, easy to enjoy.” And it’s easy to boycott.

I have to reach back to Monty Python’s Flying Circus to find a worse marketing campaign. 

Boss (John Cleese character): Now, let’s have a look at the sales chart (indicates a plummeting sales graph). When you took over this account, Frog (Eric Idle character), Conquistador was a brand leader. Here you introduced your first campaign, “Conquistador Coffee brings a new meaning to the word vomit.” Here you made your special introductory offer of a free dead dog with every jar, and this followed your second campaign “the tingling fresh coffee which brings you exciting new cholera, mange, dropsy, the clap, hard pad, and athlete’s head. From the House of Conquistador.”

Yeah, I know, Bud Light’s Mulvaney campaign hasn’t been, so far, as awful for Anheuser-Busch as it was for the fictional Monty Python coffee brand. But sales of the beer continue to slide. Last week, by way of a $15 mail-in rebate, A-B started giving the beer away, because, unlike wine and hard liquor, beer has a brief shelf-life. 

So, yes, boycotts can be effective. 

But we were told by the mainstream media that boycotts don’t work.

Here a few examples of that wrongness:

Six weeks ago, ABC News’ Max Zahn and Kiara Alfonseca cautioned us about boycotts, “However, the campaigns rarely succeed in hurting a company’s sales or influencing its decision making.”

Around that same time, Patrick Coffee (no relation to Python’s Conquistador Coffee) of the Wall Street Journal, while citing other experts, opined that about the Bud Light boycott that “such campaigns often have failed to deliver a meaningful blow.” (Paid subscription might be required to access the link.)

Citing “research,” and of course falling back on “experts,” Becky Sullivan of NPR warned us “that other social media-fueled boycotts were short-lived.”

So where are the finger-waving fact-checkers? Why haven’t these articles been revised?

Meanwhile, Target is facing a boycott over its prominent promotions of “tuck-friendly,” that is, male-genitilia-hiding, swimsuits, as well as arguably promoting the trans agenda to children. It has lost $10 billion in market valuation since a boycott began against Target. 

Such a move is now called “Bud Lighting.”

This won’t be the last time that I say, when you get woke you go broke.

And it won’t be the last time I point out instances where the mainstream media was wrong.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Boycotts are a weird thing. Companies make hundreds of decisions, and large companies have hundreds if not thousands of employees that make decisions all the time. Every decision risks alienating or otherwise pissing off one group or another. For example, I went to a local restaurant with my two youngest kids once on a quiet Saturday morning, and after sitting for 25 minutes with no waiter taking our order or even bringing us water or coffee, I left in frustration and vowed never to return. I took my business to a competitor and for the next year went out of my way to not have a meal at the offending restaurant. Could it have just been a bad day, a mistake by a server, or even a disgruntled employee that was later fired anyway? Don’t know, and don’t care, because it spoiled my morning and I was determined to economically ensure my wrath was felt in the restaurants pocket book.

If that restaurant repeatedly treated customers like this, over time more and more would lose patience and go elsewhere. This is really important with restaurants because normally there are hundreds of venues in even a small city. When you have a myriad of choices, you don’t have to tolerate bad service.

Which brings me neatly to Bud Light and Target.

Remember Gillette? I used Gillette razors in the past and even introduced my wife to their female brand. Gillette could have remained the razor company for everyone, but it dipped its toe into the “toxic masculinity” bandwagon. Big mistake, because when you have options, you can go elsewhere. As analyzed here, it took a hit, potentially on the order of $350 million. I personally subscribed to Jeremy’s Razors and never looked back, and I suspect others did too.

Bud Light has always been the cheap beer choice of party goers everywhere. Need a non-offensive beer that is sure to please the limited palates of both college sororities and aging Boomer men at the local bar? Then order a Bud Light, because you can’t go wrong. That is, until you decide to insult a large portion of your customer base when they can easily pick another beer brand.

Budweiser is suffering the same fate as Gillette. What happens when its customers discover there are plenty of non-patronizing beer brands happy to serve you a fine brew without all the woke silliness? Once they get hooked, do you think those people are coming back, no matter what sort of American flag/military colors/Clydesdale commercials you run after? Not happening. That might have worked before the microbrewery revolution, but that strategy is no longer viable.

Target seems to have joined that group. You can get away with a lot when you’re quiet about it. Target had a small boycott scare once with its bathroom policy. Honestly, had it simply changed its policy on its website and stayed relatively quiet, I’m betting most people wouldn’t have cared much. But its latest pride month clothing line, conveniently right before the rush to buy summer clothes, was too big to ignore. The first day of the boycott was interesting, but when your stock plunges to the lowest price this year during a time its supposed to be high…that’s bad news.

It seems conservative customers are finally waking up to the notion they have real choices. It’s not hard to find clothing stores without rainbows in June, beer that actually tastes good, or razors that don’t lecture you while you shave. Perhaps the next big test will be in June. What if conservative voters choose to not eat or purchase items from places displaying a Pride flag? A month is a small amount of time to boycott, but its long enough for a company to see damaging results, and enough damage will make even a die-hard executive scale things back.

You don’t have to protest, post on Twitter or even tell your friends, because the simple act of no longer spending your money in these places tells the foolish executives is always going ring much louder than any letter or social media post.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Speaking of making choices, why not buy the author’s book and donate to DaTechGuy?