Last night on HBO‘s Real Time with Bill Maher, the topic of China came up a few times, considering the recent news that a Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana. During his opening monologue, he mentioned how people have been “freaking out” over the balloon’s presence.
“Now they know where we keep the cows,” Maher quipped. He noted the Chinese are denying that the balloon is being used to spy on us. “That’s what TikTok is for.”
The host disagrees with those who want to shoot it down, suggesting we pause. “We have to watch til it crashes and burns,” he said. “Like we’re doing with Kanye”
Later during his New Rules segment, Maher criticized the woke movement for attempting to alter the way human beings behave. He again mentioned China and its Red Guard movement, where people would attack those accused of not falling in line with ideologies, making them wear dunce caps and publicly shaming them.
Maher said it proved that screaming at things in an attempt to change them doesn’t work and is exactly what we’re doing here in the US.
He cited a couple of examples, including the story of Jason Kilborn, a University of Illinois Chicago School of Law professor accused of engaging in behaviors that offended some students of color. Kilborn alluded to two racial slurs on an exam in a hypothetical question about a black female worker suing an employer. After several complaints were lodged, he was banned from campus, had to undergo sensitivity training as well as write five self-reflective essays.
Maher compared that to what the Red Guard was doing. “If you can’t see the similarities between (Kilborn) and that, the person who needs reeducation is you,” he said.
He also mentioned Winston Marshall, the former banjo player of Mumford & Sons, who was forced to step away from the band and issue a cringing apology for endorsing a controversial book.
“Pain from a book?” Maher asked. “Not unless he hit the drummer over the head with it.”
Maher compared that situation to John Lennon’s song “Revolution,” which criticized people who carried pictures of Chairman Mao, and “ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”
“There was a guy who understood how good intentions could turn,” Maher said.
Also appearing on this week’s installment of Real Time was Minneapolis police chief Medaria “Rondo” Arrandondo, who agreed with Maher that what happened in Memphis to Tyre Johnson was bad.
On the panel was New York Times columnist Brett Stephens and Arizona Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego, who discussed the government’s decision to end emergency pandemic measures in May, which impacts topics such as immigration.
