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What Were Those Red Pins Worn by Leftists at the Oscars? Virtue-Signaling Nonsense, of Course

Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File

Did you watch the Oscars? I actually caught some of the show because we were having a get-together and some of the attendees wanted to see it, but most years I would rather sit in my backyard and watch the grass grow. That is, unless Will Smith is scheduled to appear.

The 2024 ceremony wasn’t that terrible and was somewhat even watchable for parts, and it didn’t seem to have umpteen woke speeches like in previous years. That being said, I admit that I was only partly paying attention.


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We did have a betting game, and in the “Events You Think Might Happen” section, I wrote, "Some idiot will bash Trump.” My prediction came true, and said idiot turned out to be TDS-riddled host Jimmy Kimmel, who is now so predictable that you can almost mouth along with his jokes in real-time.

But it is Hollywood, where so many of the big names both in front of and behind the camera have moved so far to the left they’d make Karl Marx blush, and of course, some of them had to make a statement. It seems the memo went out to tone it down a little bit this year – because audiences were getting sick of it and the ratings proved that – but some just couldn’t help themselves and had to quietly signal their incredible virtue and moral superiority by… wearing pins.

Did they wear pins depicting the U.S. flag? No. Their accouterments featured a bloody hand, which some are saying is associated with the infamous killing of two Israeli soldiers in the Ramallah Lynching.

The NY Post editorial board went ballistic:

The pins show a raised, red open palm and are marketed under the ultra-chic “Artists for Cease-Fire” label.

But that symbol derives from an actual photo of a bloody hand:

Back in 2000, two Jewish IDF reservists mistakenly drove through Ramallah and were detained by Palestinian police — and then brutally murdered in their jail cell by a crowd of savage, blood-hungry thugs, one of whom showed his bloodied hand in a now-infamous photo. 

That is, like so much of American “advocacy” for Palestinians, the pins are a wink-wink, nudge-nudge endorsement of violent terror against Jews. 

It’s no coincidence that these stars are hard leftoids: Institutional antisemitism is now part of the American left’s core DNA.  

But the folks who wore them had a different explanation. According to them, the virtue-signaling paraphernalia worn by hard-leftist actor Mark Ruffalo and singer Billie Eilish, among others, symbolized support for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

A notable accessory on Sunday's red carpet was a red pin featuring a hand with a black heart in the middle. Celebrities like Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef and Mark Ruffalo wore the pins in support of Artists4Ceasefire, a group of advocates and artists that opposes the Israel-Hamas war.

"The pin symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza," the group said in a statement.

Interesting that the group “opposes the Israel-Hamas war.” But why not produce a pin that indicates opposition to the Oct. 7 massacres that Hamas carried out against innocent Israelis, killing at least 1,200 amid horrific sexual violence? For some reason, the voices in support of the Palestinians in Gaza – many of whom are suffering from the conflict, it’s true – always seem much louder than the voices decrying the butchering of innocent Israeli citizens that preceded it.

NPR dutifully records the death numbers in Gaza as Israel wages its campaign to root out Hamas terrorists – but they rely on numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health, a Hamas-controlled organization that has zero credibility and has been caught lying repeatedly in the past.

[Artists4Ceasefire’s] website features an open letter to President Biden and members of Congress calling for immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Gaza. The war started after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and captured about 240 hostages. Since then, Israel's military operations have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians and displaced about 2 million people in Gaza.

More than 40 artists have signed on to the letter. Many of them have simplistic, juvenile analyses like this one:

"It's a universal message of, 'Let's stop killing kids. Let's not be part of more war.' No one has ever looked back at war and thought a bombing campaign was a good idea," actor [Ramy] Youssef said in an interview with Variety

"To be surrounded by so many artists who are willing to lend their voices, the list is growing. A lot of people are going to be wearing these pins tonight. There's a lot of talking heads on the news, this is a space of talking hearts."

“No one has ever looked back at war and thought a bombing campaign was a good idea,” the noted political scientist said. 

What utter absurdity – even for a Hollywood airhead. Of course, we can actually look back on history and conclude that some bombing campaigns were a “good idea” – there are evil forces in the world, and if England and the U.S. didn’t bomb the hell of Nazi Germany, we might all be living under the Fourth or Fifth Reich right now.

I wonder how Youssef would feel about that.

The truth is, Hollywood “protests” have become altogether boring, because we know most celebs would prefer to be sipping chardonnay in Malibu rather than actually analyzing reality. They think simply slapping on a pin makes them heroes.

At this point, most people who are sentient simply tune them out. 


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