The left is once again embracing anti-capitalist lies, even after those lies have been proved false. This time, the tip of the spear is Mike Daisey, the actor who stars in an off-Broadway show about the life of Steve Jobs.
The controversy began when WBEZ, a left-leaning Chicago public radio station, aired a January monologue by Daisey as part of its “This American Life” series. During that monologue, Daisey concocted a story out of whole cloth about terrible working conditions in Apple’s factories in China. This past Friday, the show issued a retraction – but only after the episode, one of the most popular in “This American Life’s” history, was downloaded more than 888,000 times.
In the fairy-tale concocted by Daisey, he received photos of the factory left on his iPhone by mistake. He then visited the factories in Shenzhen, China, and met workers as young as 12 years old, as well as workers poisoned by the neurotoxin hexane. All of this was subsequently discovered to be false.
This week, however, Dailey, performing his one-man show off-Broadway, instructed his audience, “The truth is vitally important. And I think context is utterly important. But because we live in such a connected and wired world, I would ask that you not look up the controversy on the Internet while the show is actually going on.” The finale of his show received a standing ovation.
The truth is vitally important? From the man who baldly lied in order to create a firestorm? The left, is, if nothing else, consistent. From Michael Moore’s lies to the lies of Al Gore to the lies of Mike Daisey, the left selects a target, plants misinformation, and only long afterward retracts its lies. And it gets standing ovations from its friends for doing so.