CULTURE WATCH VIII

CULTURE WATCH VIII: IS THE HALLMARK CHANNEL THE FIRST CASUALTY OF THE  2020 ELECTIONS? (POSTED 12/01/2000)

   It has been a while since we have done a Culture Watch segment. Perhaps it is the election year and the tumultuous nature of 2020. But, as we have said before, if we lose our culture it makes no difference who we have for President.

   And, as I have repeatedly stressed before, the number one issue in our Culture Wars is not just the morality (or lack thereof) of what is being presented to us by our popular culture. It is the more fundamental question of “Why are they doing this type of presenting (of how our children should be doing their sex acts) in the first place?” And why do such Cultural Elitists feel it is their business to be doing this type of presenting in the first place? It is not.

   As I once put it in my work The Confused Generation, “And yet society is at a role reversal here.

   The universal prescription was to have an intact family dealing with the sex acts business while everyone else stayed out of it. Now, everyone and his kid brother is constantly engaging in the sex acts business with our children EXCEPT for there being an intact family to deal with it. Thus, it is time for both 1) the return of the traditional family unit AND 2) the exit of everyone else from the sex acts business. Or we will continue to have the Confused Generation as we have it today.” End Quote.

  But, unfortunately, and in a way that you would not expect it to happen, my criticism today is not aimed at the Cultural Elitists but at – incredibly – the Hallmark Channel. As we have said before, we are not hypocrites, we play no favorites and we simply call it the way it is. So, what is behind my reprimand of Hallmark (of all people!)

   It is their recent capitulation to the Homosexual Lobby. This is the blunt, unnuanced way to put it. But, as our regular readers know, we understand nuances and we do not broad-brush stroke everyone into the same category. We stand by our previous statements that we, in no wise, condemn people simply for practicing homosexuality.

   We merely believe, that just like a lot of the rest of us, they have an un-Biblical practice that is ongoing in their lives. And that like every one of the rests of us, you need to put these practices behind you when you do get involved in un-Biblical behavior. Thus, we have no worse criticism of people practicing homosexual behavior than of anyone else who has an un-Biblical practice in their lives. But what we do condemn, and vehemently so, are the people who keep trying to orchestrate this lifestyle onto all the rest of us. Or, to use the blunt terminology, the Homosexual Lobby.

  A second matter that concerns us (about this group) is the viciously non-tolerant strain of leftism in the country. And the most Stalinist of these are the people who have become the self-anointed “gay rights” advocates. In a previous Culture Watch segment, we chronicled the ‘tolerant’ crowd’s inability to just let The American Idol be The American Idol. This was our first Culture Watch segment of ours and it pretty much laid down our markers for what we really stand for. (For those with an interest in the matter the link is The Idol Wars.)

   But why has Hallmark done its apparent capitulation? (Specially: they have just done their fourth pro-homosexual movie in less than a month’s time. Why should someone tune into Hallmark to watch two homosexual males lip locking each other? People who watch Hallmark don’t do it to see things like that).

   I think that there are three possible factors for why The Hallmark Channel (at least for the moment) has capitulated to the ‘tolerant’ crowds. (That will knee you in the groins if you do not agree to every one of their ‘tolerant’ views).

 

POSSIBLE REASON NUMBER ONE

   1) We have been aware, for some time, that the ‘tolerant’ crowds would make a move against the Hallmark Network for not playing ball with them. My fears increased when I heard how Lori Loughlin (a central part of Hallmark’s acting crew) wound up with legal problems. Our fear is that they may have taken advantage of Lori Laughlin’s legal problems to use it as a part of the pressure campaign. While I do not condone some of her behavior, it was a far stretch from being unlawful behavior, and I feel it was embellished beyond what she was truly guilty of doing. But why do I bring up the ‘tolerant’ crowds here?

   One reason is that we have been following, in this column specifically, the type of people who use their positions in power to do politically motivated prosecutions. The prosecutors that have been working the college admissions scandals fall in this category. While there was no grand conspiracy involving Lori Loughlin (and Hallmark whom she was a major actress for) once she came to their notice then we believe the following may have happened:

   They love a ‘big fish’ to fall into their nets. Also, because she has been prominent in the Wholesome Entertainment movement (which is now somehow a bad thing rather a good one) it was more of the same. Many federal prosecutors are rife with political motivations and political animus’s against other people in how they do their jobs.

  Next, the ‘tolerant’ crowd may well be using her situation as a warning shot over the bow to others. Essentially, if you do not play ball with them then you had better live a totally sinless life – or you could find yourselves in trouble. This is especially true because most of the prosecutions (not all but most) of the admissions scandal are based on a very nebulous legal theory.

   Namely, that if you are a rich person who gets special favors then that is, in and of itself, an act of grand larceny. With a wide-open legal theory like that in play, it leaves virtually no one safe and is certainly leaves a lot of room to do intimidation. Combine that with many federal prosecutors who also double as political hacks and it is a recipe for disaster. Once who have a wide open enough legal theory to use for prosecutions – and you have prosecutors who are more than happy to double as political hacks – then it is so much for the rule of law. Time does not permit a prolonged dissertation on this, but it is one of our concerns.

   To do a repeat of a prior point: I have always known that a move would be made against Hallmark (and others who have not played ball with the Homosexual Lobby and other PC movements). When I saw Loughlin’s problems being turned into a crusade, I became concerned that it might wind up as something to put the move against Hallmark (and others like them) into play. I do not know for sure how much of this has happened, but it concerns me.

 

POSSIBLE REASON NUMBER TWO

   I do not think that a particular new development is a part of Hallmark’s recent behavior but there is a new development. Hallmark has developed economic ties with the Lifetime Channel which is not so fastidious about just giving people straight entertainment. Hopefully, Hallmark would not comprise its mission of just providing quality entertainment (and staying out of the indoctrination business) just over economic ties. I do not believe this to be the case, but Hallmark needs to be more forthcoming to its viewers as to why there has been a sudden change in their entertainment philosophy.

 

POSSIBLE REASON NUMBER THREE

   Trump may wind up leaving the White House. And, normally, politics would not be so important but …

   The first thing that the homosexual rights movement has done (after Biden has started to look like the incoming President) is to press for what amounts to sheer blasphemy. Basically, they asked the (possibly) incoming people to decertify all parochial and private schools that do not play ball with their agenda. In short, that you can only be private or religious as they define it for you to properly be. This Stalinist type of politics would not be a problem with a Trump administration (or even with a Democrat one before now) but it is a (possible) problem now.

  There is an entire wing of the Justice Department that is (effectively) a criminal organization. It is the SDNY – the Southern District of New York. They deliberately engage in political prosecutions just for politics’ sake. It has now become something of a norm to criminalize political differences.

   And it has become increasingly easy to do this through their increasing use of novel legal theories to make things prosecutable. If you 1) make every possible act a human being can do become prosecutable through novel legal theories and then 2) prosecute only the people that annoy you then 3) you are now successfully the dictator of the world.

   People are already afraid to speak their minds from mob behavior becoming a new norm. Once political prosecutions become the new norm then everyone will have to tow the line of the latest political movement that is in charge. While, technically, you would still not be risking prosecution for simply resisting political correctness the actual reality would become much more intimidating.

   Suppose, for example, you get a real high profile for not conforming to these new norms. Then, just as a hypothetical, someone invents the latest new novel legal theory makes you prosecutable for picking up your newspaper without the proper attire on. And then, finally, you get a prosecutor who also doubles as a political flunky.

   Don’t you now have to add, say, being careful how you pick up your newspaper onto the list of things you now need to be doing? Or should you simply acquiesce to the PC crowd – so you will no longer be on someone’s target list?

 

CONCLUSION

    Now I do not know, precisely, why Hallmark has gotten sidetracked onto the wrong course. Its previous course was correct. They portrayed premarital sex in neither a good light nor in a bad one. They just stayed out of the matter altogether, just stuck to being an entertainer and left it up to the parents of the world to raise their children – and to be the ones to mold people’s values.

   Hallmark has not been involved with any hot button issues about your gun rights, abortions, Donald Trump and/or Barrack Obama, etc. And this is also correct. They have, traditionally, just stuck with being an entertainment company and stayed out of the “tell you how to think” business. And, in my opinion, rightly so.

   Similarly, Hallmark had never said anything – one way or the other – about homosexuality. They have never said, portrayed or insinuated that you should not do it. Nor had they ever, until now unfortunately, said, portrayed or insinuated that you should. This was, again, the correct entertainment philosophy.

   In Hallmark’s case it can be said, in a friendly way, to “Go back where you came from!” Because where they came from was right. And the way that they are going now is wrong.

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