With particular attention to religious, ethnic and sexual matters. By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)
This document is part of an archive of postings on Political Correctness Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written.
This is a backup copy of the original blog
September 30, 2022
Why I voted for Giorgia Meloni
Rocco Loiacono
As an Italian citizen resident abroad, I have the right to vote in Italian elections and referenda. While in past elections the options available may not have filled me with great enthusiasm, this time I was eager to put my cross over the centre-right coalition headed by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) and its leader, Giorgia Meloni.
Over the last thirty years, Italy has been in decline. In 1992 and 1993, the tangentopoli (bribe city) scandal rocked Italy’s political system to the core. It all started when a Socialist Party (PSI) member of the Italian Parliament, Mario Chiesa, was arrested after taking a bribe from a cleaning service company. At the time, the Socialist Party was the second largest party in Italy’s governing coalition, after the Christian Democrats.
Within a couple of months, the Milan branch of the party was under investigation (which was called mani pulite – clean hands) and the net was closing in on its leader, Bettino Craxi, himself a former Prime Minister.
The scandal then proceeded to engulf the Christian Democrats, in particular leading figures such as Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, themselves having held the office of Prime Minister several times.
The political class of the time, which had governed Italy since 1948, was decimated.
Unfortunately, the tangentopoli scandal, while sweeping way the old political class, didn’t lead to any real improvement in Italy’s governance. The country has essentially been stagnant ever since, and the politicians that took over, as it were, have proven themselves (with a couple of notable exceptions) to be completely inept and probably more corrupt. In Italian we call them iene (hyenas) and sciacalli (jackals). Many of them are former members of the old Italian Communist Party (PCI), which for years had a stench of illegal funding from the Soviet Union surrounding it. But of course, none of that was investigated as part of tangentopoli and mani pulite, but that is another story!
These iene were able to expertly adopt, as I have alluded to before in these pages, the mentality of the Gattopardo (the Leopard), that is to ensure that any change is paradoxically implemented so as to preserve their power and privilege. Despite the obvious need for serious economic and structural reforms, the country is prevented from enacting them, principally as a result of this mentality.
One of these leopards is outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi. He was appointed prime minister by President Sergio Mattarella in February 2021 to head an ‘emergency government of national unity’ after Parliament had failed, as often happens, to find a prime minister from among its ranks. Draghi is a former President of the European Central Bank, ex-managing director of Goldman Sachs, and chief inventor of ‘quantitative easing’ or Magic Money Theory. He is, therefore, the ultimate ‘Leopard’, which explains why his government imposed the most brutal vaccine passport regimes in the world.
Draghi, in fact, was President of the ECB in 2011 when a sovereign debt crisis was engineered to justify removing the last democratically elected prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and install a bunch of euro-friendly technocrats to ‘save the single currency’.
Draghi was feted as ‘Super Mario’, the ‘great reformer’ who would relaunch Italy’s stagnant economy. However, his legacy is that he increased national debt by €30 billion and Italy will experience the slowest economic growth in the EU bloc next year, at just 0.9 per cent, owing to a decline in consumer spending due to rising prices and lower business investment – a result of rising borrowing and energy costs, as well as disruptions in the supply of Russian gas.
Italy’s anaemic economy has led to, among other things, a generation of brain drain – a new wave of young, mainly professional, Italians leaving the country, looking for a better future elsewhere. Governments to address this have encouraged immigration, but Italy is on the front line of a wave of illegal migration that started in 2015 and never fully stopped. Of course, the EU has not lifted a finger to help, and neither have its member states. I have cousins that live in the town of Ventimiglia, near the French border on the Riviera. They tell me that any illegal migrants that manage to cross the border simply get taken back to Ventimiglia by the French police, leaving Italy to deal with them.
Fratelli d’Italia was the only major party that refused to join the Draghi government on the not unreasonable grounds that it is illegitimate given his unelected status.
What is more, Fratelli d’Italia was the only party that opposed not only Draghi’s brutal vaccine passport regime, but the draconian lockdowns as well.
Yes, the political elites, the iene, and sciacalli, are the ones who fear Meloni the most, and they will do whatever they can to bring her down. EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, as Italians went to the polls, that Brussels would ‘punish an Italian government that violates the EU’s social policy consensus’. There is an Italian expletive which readily comes to mind in response to such insolent arrogance.
Day after day Meloni has been called a fascista, and the legacy media is writing the most disgraceful garbage, accusing her, believe it or not, of engaging in identity politics! Probably because in a famous 2019 speech, she declared:
‘Please answer me these questions … why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening?
‘Everything that defines us is now an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves.
‘And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity.
‘I must be citizen x, gender x, parent one, parent two … I must be a number.
‘We do not want to be numbers … we will defend the value of the human being.
‘I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m Christian, I’m a mother, I’m Italian, they won’t take that away from me.’
As Greg Sheridan wrote in The Australian, if we’re going to be forced to endure identity politics then there is nothing wrong with Meloni declaring proudly that she is a woman, a mother, a Christian, and an Italian. As she declared: Difenderemo Dio, patria e la famiglia che fanno tanto schifo a qualcuno! (We will defend God, country, and family. These things that disgust people so much!).
Moreover, as Sheridan, among others, also notes, Meloni’s program is a perfectly legitimate centre-right amalgam. She wants more police, less crime, cost-of-living relief, control over illegal immigration, lower taxes, reassertion of traditional Italian identity, support for moderate conservative social values and more independence from the dictates of the EU. She wants to address the energy crisis in part by increasing the supply of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
That is why I voted for Giorgia Meloni. Viva l’Italia!
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/why-i-voted-for-giorgia-meloni/
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Biology will defeat feminism
Unhappy, screechy, metal-laden, neon-coloured, masculine, overweight women are leading the ‘feminist’ charge.
At least, they think they are.
But is their brand of ‘empowerment’ actually feminism, or are they eroding the unique power that women wield in the world by prioritising victimhood as a virtue and vulgarity as desirable?
The answer may lie in the success of their adversaries who are young, attractive, conservative, well-spoken, good-mannered, accomplished, highly-educated, working women who manage to assume positions of power while keeping their high heels and short skirts. American politics, in particular, has seen many examples grace our screens.
They are a generation of women who don’t fear walking past a magnet and might even give a cheeky wink and flick of the hair if a tradie manages a wolf-whistle from their ute at 6am. (Tell me again when verbal affirmation of attractiveness became offensive?)
These women know that embracing femininity does not mean abandoning power.
This is disastrous news to those women who were fooled by social media and university ‘action’ groups into ruining their looks as a means of rebellion against the patriarchy.
What started as a few boxy-shouldered suits in the 90s became a trend where women donned masculine attire in an attempt to mimic men. Boyish haircuts, deliberately ugly makeup, and androgynous fashion were all symptoms of a gender finding its feet in a land of corporate equality. Most women settled back into the new world without the safety blanket of faux masculinity, but the weaker fringes latched onto their ‘identity’ as a substitute for merit.
It’s sad, really, to watch a generation of thirty-something activists age poorly. What looked ‘edgy’ when they were teenagers is terribly cringe in 2022. Their youthful anger is stretching thin in an unflattering way – like a tattoo slowly deforming as the wearer lets themselves go – leading to bizarre social media rants.
Although it must be pointed out that at least the physical damage these women have done to themselves can be reversed with a few weekend spa retreats (mostly). The same cannot be said of those who subscribed to the surgical fad of they/them. There will be no going back for the youngest converts of Woke.
Biology has a funny way of correcting social politics. To that end, what we are seeing emerge, slowly but inevitably in the West, is a resurgence of conservative values.
No matter how much propaganda is put out there, men are more likely to be swayed into marriage by a traditionally beautiful, competent, and mentally stable woman. As Richard Dawkins likes to say, our genes are selfish. Men’s genes are telling them that well-presented women are a better option for raising children than someone who doesn’t know who they are and spends the weekends shouting about a non-existent apocalypse.
Deep down, the Woke know that desirable women have been a constant throughout history – a tried, tested, and successful template for a flourishing civilisation. Beauty and danger are two prizes that nature routinely rewards. The problem is, competing takes self-control. Instead of expending the effort, some women have fashioned a lazy rebellion against attractiveness. These revolutionary sisters look a bit like the back streets during the fall of Rome as they partake in an ideological arms race to see if there is a limit to human depravity.
Five minutes on a social media platform such as TikTok will disabuse you of the notion that this type of progressive ‘feminism’ offers any benefit to humanity. It is little more than a narcissistic binge that serves no one except perhaps the psychiatry industry who must be rubbing their hands together at the growing pool of lifetime clients. This is not a comment intended to be cruel, but a genuine observation that extreme activist ideologies appear to be manufacturing a mental health crisis – and they’re busy dragging children into it.
True equality (and true feminism) will be measured by what the next generation of women create. Are they destined to add value to the fields of science, literature, art, politics, mathematics, and music? Do they have the same ruthlessness as their male counterparts? Absolutely… But it is unlikely any of these fields will be enriched by the activist class.
Watching the swift decay of society, even if only through the female lens, is fascinating.
However depraved, lost, and woeful the narrative of ‘feminism’ becomes, we must always remember that ‘life finds a way’. Women are among the most competitive creatures on Earth and some have seen a niche – a crack, shall we say – in the chaos of Woke.
Now it’s up to men to decide which side of this feminist war they want to see win.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/biology-will-decide-this/ ?
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The fake food craze
A sign of the times emerged from a most unexpected place recently – my local butcher. The oxtail I was after had disappeared, replaced by a new range of ‘Paleo’ sausages. A staffer helped me find the oxtail and explained that the new kinds of sausages contained liver, heart and other offal; they were provided for the mainly female vegetarians and vegans who had been diagnosed with nutritional deficiencies, but who found dealing with the actual organs just too yucky. So much for the so-called ‘healthy’ alternative of plant-based diets.
Liver is the ne plus ultra of superfoods, much richer in nutrients such as vitamins A, all B vitamins and iron than steak; lions usually ignore the muscle meat of their prey and go straight to the chest, to feast on the heart, liver, kidneys and other offal. Flesh meats simply don’t contain the range of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients found in organs, traditionally offered in Anglo cultures as crumbed brains, lamb’s fry, steak and kidney pie, tripe and others.
But organ meats have fallen off our menus of late, and most under-50s regard the idea with revulsion. Vegetarianism has won the trend wars, with red meats painted as cancer-inducing, eggs and other animal fats blamed for heart ailments, and plant-heavy diets framed as more sustainable for the planet and kinder to our animals.
But what passes for science in one era can be debunked in the next. An old friend who has been vegan for decades looks like a wraith; he survives on regular vitamin B12 injections. I have just watched my one-year-old granddaughter gobble down raw oysters and prawns. A relative and occasional vegetarian shared an oxtail dinner at my place recently, to surprising effect. After chewing on the collagen and fat-rich meat and gristle, she got a strange gleam in her eye and fell upon the pot with an almost clumsy haste, gobbling down her fill. That was a food deficiency visibly being met. I cannot claim any special cleverness here, but as a one-time vegan who developed a vitamin B12 deficiency I know something of which I speak. Any diet that fails to provide all of our required nutrients is defective.
Try telling that, however, to the growing numbers of Aussies who are abandoning meat altogether, never mind offal. Around 10 per cent of Australians are estimated to be vegetarians, and around half a million vegan, but both categories are rising, as the expanding tiers of plant-based foods in your supermarkets will tell you.
Political crusaders are entering the arena too. A German animal rights group has urged a sex ban on meat-eating men, as well as a 41 per cent meat tax, while UK anti-dairy activists recently blocked access to supermarket milk racks, and drilled truck tyres to disable milk deliveries (#plant-based future). The green controllers are forcing their emissions-curbing preferences on all of us, even as they sneak away for their Paleo sausages and B12 jabs.
The irony, of course, is that large-scale monocropping of grains and vegetables is notoriously toxic to natural ecosystems, dousing fields with chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides, compacting soils with heavy machinery and leaving a lifeless wasteland behind. Grazing animals on pasture is positively Elysian by contrast.
And then there’s ‘ze bugs’. The 2013 post-apocalypse movie Snowpiercer had a horror reveal in which proles’ food was exposed as jellied black cockroaches, while the elites dined on luxury meats and greens. What was then a shock scene is now real life, with Silicon Valley ‘philanthropists’ shovelling money into the ‘cultivated meat’ industry and other lab-created and insect-derived foods, including, yes, a variety of cockroaches.
Cricket flour is becoming big as an additive, already being fed to Australian schoolchildren as chips. In July the World Economic Forum promoted ‘10 eco-friendly foods’, including Air Meat made from microbes, a fake avocado made from broad beans and oil, solein, a ‘protein-rich food made from electricity, air and water laced with bacteria’, fake eggs made from ‘pea protein, salt and algae-derived acids’, and lab-grown meats. A 3D-printed steak, looking like the real thing, recently trended on Twitter. Bloomberg predicted last year that the plant-based proteins market could hit $162 billion by 2030, up from $29 billion in 2020.The Washington-based global ‘alternative protein advocate’ the Good Food Institute reported rapid acceleration in 2021, with 107 new start-ups and an unprecedented jump in monies raised. The Aspire group says it’s building the world’s biggest cricket farm in Ontario, to produce 13 million kilograms of crickets annually for human and pet consumption.
Meanwhile existing food supplies are in jeopardy. We’ve seen the Dutch farm protests at savage, government-ordered livestock cuts, and the riot- and starvation-inducing Sri Lanka organic food mandates. Supply chain issues are looming. Some would add the string of mysterious fires destroying dozens of food plants across the US.
Should a food crisis manifest, globalists will use it to turbocharge their new era of Frankenstein foods. Cheap! Tasty (given the right chemicals)! Available! And above all, green, requiring less water, land and other inputs, and generating fewer emissions. These foods might look like steaks, wheat flour, eggs and avocados but what they will be made of and whether they will be good for you is anybody’s guess. Your health is not the priority here.
As the old saw goes, you are what you eat. Slapping ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ labels on industrial sludge won’t make it any healthier. The US pioneered denatured, factory foods, created for industry’s ease rather than consumer health. Alas, the US is now also a global leader in ill-health. The CDC says 6 out of 10 adults have a chronic disease, and 4 of 10 have multiple chronic diseases – the highest rates in the world, despite having the highest healthcare spend per capita. Their obesity is legendary. US life expectancy is now falling after peaking in 2015 and many nations now surpass it, including China. Correlation not causation, you say? Maybe. Whatever the US is doing, it ain’t working.
I’ll trust farmers and gardeners and unprocessed traditional foods over lab-coated technicians, zealous greenies, fake foods and industrialists every time.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/10/meat-versus-greens/
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Misleading uses of the word "democratic"
When it comes to political analysis, Shakespeare may not get the credit he deserves.
One of his most memorable lines was delivered by Queen Gertrude in Hamlet when, in response to the overacting of an actor in a play created by Hamlet, the Queen says, ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’
When it comes to protesting too much, the left wing of politics are the standard bearers and do it better than anyone.
There are far too many individual examples to consider in a short essay like this, yet one stark instance is in the use of language which implies that representative principles are employed by leftist totalitarian regimes.
Countries that use the words ‘democratic’, ‘peoples’, or ‘republic’ are generally the least likely to be genuinely democratic, for the people, or actual republics.
Arguably the most famous example of such a generous use of these terms is East Germany, which existed from 1949-90 and was officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The GDR was formed after the second world war by the Soviet Union, when communist leaders were installed to govern half of the German nation using a planned economy controlled by a totalitarian regime.
The Potsdam Agreement committed the Soviets to supporting democracy, however the Soviets’ understanding of democracy was limited to naming rights only as outside the use of the words ‘democratic’ and ‘republic’, the GDR showed few signs of any such traits.
Today we have the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, which ranks 167th of a possible 167 countries assessed by the Economist in its 2021 Democracy Index.
The DPRK is another totalitarian regime in which people are repressed in every aspect of their lives, including voting rights, freedom of speech, travel, employment, and religion. The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea for three generations. There is nothing ‘democratic’ about the DPRK.
At rank 166 there is the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by another ‘democratic heavyweight’ in the Central African Republic which comes in at number 165. Also, let’s not forget the People’s Republic of China qualifying at number 151.
It is as sad as it is ironic that ‘Democratic Republics’ have turned out to be among the most authoritarian and the least democratic of all countries.
The leaders of these ‘Democratic Republics’ certainly doth protest too much. The President of China Xi Jinping once said, ‘We must uphold the principle that all power of the country belongs to the people.’
This slippery use of language also extends to left-leaning political parties in the West such as the Democratic Party in the United States. Founded in 1848, the Democratic Party’s website states that, ‘As Democrats, we believe that every person in this nation should be treated with dignity and respect.’ Yet the Obama Administration reportedly planted spies inside the Trump campaign to drum up false accusations of President Trump illegally interfering with the 2016 election. Doesn’t sound very ‘democratic’ to me.
From the Russian collusion hoax and the impeachment scam to blocking and frustrating the Trump Administration in critical announcements and culminating with the Democrats’ appalling silence regarding the Antifa/BLM riots across the country, it’s hard to see how they treated the United States, or the office of the President, with anything vaguely resembling dignity or respect from 2016-20.
In addition, the Democrats have the gall to call for unity following Joe Biden taking the whip hand in the Presidential race. We all know that by unity they simply mean compliance with their agenda.
The so-called party of democracy has seen fit to be at the centre of most of the unedifying conduct during the previous Presidential term culminating in some very undemocratic conduct during the 2020 election.
The Democrats have mastered the art of accusing ‘…the other side of that which you are guilty’. In essence, a form of political gaslighting on a grand scale. This quote is attributed to Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, and sometimes even modern leftist icon Saul Alinsky and succinctly sums up how the Left operate.
They love to call Republicans racist for banning Critical Race Theory, yet prior to the 2020 election, Joe Biden said, ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.’ Furthermore, Democrats incessantly claimed Russian interference in the 2016 election, but upon Biden’s victory in 2020 they suddenly insisted that elections were foolproof.
In Australia, we see the same trend emerging from the Left on a routine basis.
Left-wing media outlets are fond of describing themselves as ‘independent’, despite being deeply ideologically motivated by collectivist attitudes. Leftist publications often seem to view themselves as being the ‘alternative’ or the ‘resistance’ despite often toeing the same lines as massive woke corporations and Hollywood.
In relation to energy policy, we see Labor and the Australian Greens vigorously protesting for the need for carbon neutrality, yet when offered virtually emission free energy in the form of nuclear power, they throw up their arms. A clear example of how ‘progressive’ policies prove to be regressive.
For all the Left’s protests about emissions, their energy policies have nothing to do with emissions reduction and everything to do with ideological zealotry regarding renewables dependent on government subsidies.
Accusing the other side of that which they are guilty of and then protesting too much – hypocrisy and political gaslighting, it’s in the Left’s DNA.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/political-gaslighting/
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September 29, 2022
Price Controls Have Failed for 4,000 Years
In 1892 the French archaeologist Henri Pognon made a historic discovery a few dozen miles northeast of Baghdad: a massive tell that held the ruins of the ancient city-state Eshnunna.
Though it was not excavated until decades later by another archaeological team led by Dutch Egyptologist Henri Frankfort, the tell was one of the great finds of the century, revealing secrets of a Mesopotamian city that had been hidden for millennia.
Among the secrets discovered on cuneiform tablets was that Eshnunna used price controls, a discovery notable in that it appears to be the oldest historical record of humans fixing prices. (I’ve attempted to verify this fact with economic historians, and will let you know if I get a response.)
1 kor of barley [she’um] is (priced) at [ana] 1 shekel of silver;
3 qa of “best oil” are (priced) at 1 shekel of silver;
1 seah (and) 2 qa of sesame oil are (priced) at 1 shekel of silver. . . .
The hire for a wagon together with its oxen and its driveris 1 massiktum (and) 4 seah of barley. If it is (paid in) silver, the hire is one third of a shekel. He shall drive it the whole day.
Eshnunna’s price controls edge out by a couple centuries the Code of Hammurabi (1755–1750 BC), a more famous record from ancient Babylon that was a “maze of price control regulations,” as the historian Thomas DiLorenzo put it.
This might explain why the First Babylonian Empire fizzled nearly a thousand years before the Greek poet Homer told the story of the Trojan War. Price controls don’t work, and an abundance of history (as well as basic economics) proves it.
A Brief History of Price Controls
The Ancient Greeks may have given us Homer and his wonderful stories, but they suffered from the same economic ignorance as the rulers of Eshnunna when it came to price fixing.
In 388 B.C., grain prices in Athens were out of control—largely because Athenian rulers had an incredibly complex set of regulations on agriculture production and commerce, which included “an army of grain inspectors appointed for the purpose of setting the price of grain at a level the Athenian government thought to be just.”
The penalty for evading these price controls was death, and many grain traders soon found themselves on trial facing such a punishment when it was discovered they were “hoarding” grain during a (man-made) shortage.
The Athenian Empire was history by the time Rome attempted its own price control scheme seven hundred years later on a much larger scale. In 301 A.D. the Emperor Diocletian passed his Edict on Maximum Prices, which set a fixed rate on everything from eggs and grain to beef and clothing and beyond, as well as the wages of laborers who produced these items. The penalty for anyone caught violating these edicts was—you guessed it—death. Traders responded exactly as one would expect to these regulations.
“The people brought provisions no more to market, since they could not get a reasonable price for them,” one historian wrote. Not coincidentally, Rome’s empire soon went the same way as that of the Athenians (though the eastern half would survive another thousand years).
And then there’s the British colony of Bengal, located in northeast India. Few people today remember the Bengal Famine of 1770, which is astonishing considering an estimated 10 million people died, roughly a third of its population. What’s even more astonishing is how little attention the event attracted at the time, at least in the London press.
While many attributed the famine to the monsoons and drought that plagued the region in 1768 and 1769, Adam Smith, writing in The Wealth of Nations, correctly observed that it was the price controls that came afterwards that likely turned a scarcity of food into a full blown famine.
“The drought in Bengal, a few years ago, might probably have occasioned a very great dearth. Some improper regulations, some injudicious restraints, imposed by the servants of the East India Company upon the rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that dearth into a famine.
When the government, in order to remedy the inconveniencies of a dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes a reasonable price, it either hinders them from bringing it to market, which may sometimes produce a famine even in the beginning of the season; or, if they bring it thither, it enables the people, and thereby encourages them to consume it so fast as must necessarily produce a famine before the end of the season.”
And let us not forget the French Revolution, where in 1793 leaders paused their head-lopping to pass the Law of the General Maximum, a set of price controls passed to limit “price gouging.” (Henry Hazlitt had it right when he called the law “a desperate attempt to offset the consequences of [the leaders’] own reckless overissue of paper money.”)
The American historian Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), a cofounder of Cornell University, explained the consequences of the policy.
“The first result of the Maximum [price law] was that every means was taken to evade the fixed price imposed, and the farmers brought in as little produce as they possibly could,” White wrote. “This increased the scarcity, and the people of the large cities were put on an allowance.”
Important Market Signals
Fortunately, today we have the advantage of not just history but the science of economics to show us that price controls don’t work.
Basic economics teaches that prices are important market signals. High prices might be an aggravation for consumers, but they signal to producers the opportunity for profit, which leads to more production and investment. They also signal to consumers that the good is scarce, which encourages people to use less of it.
Take gasoline. When prices are $7.50 a gallon, people drive less than they would if the price were $1, $3, or $5 per gallon. Meanwhile, the high price also signals to producers an opportunity for profit, which encourages investment and production, which ultimately leads to lower gasoline prices. As economists will sometimes say, the solution to high prices is high prices.
https://catalyst.independent.org/2022/09/13/price-controls-4000-years/?omhide=true
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'I've gone from children's author to truck driver - all because I stood up for JK Rowling'
Having manoeuvred her 32-tonne lorry into a lay-by and joined her fellow HGV drivers for a bacon roll in the nearby greasy spoon, Gillian Philip couldn't help smiling at the stark contrast with her previous career.
As a successful children's author, the last work lunch she had enjoyed had been in a swanky London restaurant. That was another life entirely — one in which Gillian wore stilettos rather than steel-capped boots. But, two years ago, she had been unceremoniously dumped by both her literary agent and the company that had commissioned her to write books for more than a decade.
Her crime? Certainly not lack of talent or diligence — her books sold well. Yet that counted for nothing when she fell foul of the Twitter mob for expressing support online for fellow author J. K. Rowling.
Gillian, 58, couldn't have foreseen that, within a month of publicly backing the Harry Potter writer's criticism of a proposed change in law — one which would allow transgender people to self-identify as male or female — her literary career would be over.
'I know it's a controversial subject that evokes a lot of strong emotion, but in my worst nightmares I couldn't have predicted the devastating fall-out from adding the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to my Twitter bio,' she tells me.
'It started with online messages threatening to kill and rape me, moved on to emails being sent to my publishers demanding my sacking and ended, a day later, with me losing my livelihood.
'It was such a scary time. I was worried about mine and my children's safety.'
Unsurprisingly, the story attracted much media interest. But what Gillian didn't reveal at the time was that this all happened just six weeks after her husband, Ian, died.
Bosses at the publishing firm were aware of her family's tragedy and the fact it had left her as sole supporter, both emotionally and financially, of her teenage twin son and daughter.
Opening up for the first time, Gillian says: 'I didn't feel strong enough to talk about my husband's death at the time — I'd have become very emotional — and also I didn't want people thinking I was playing the sympathy card because I'd been widowed.
'This was a bad thing to happen to me even if I hadn't just lost my husband. 'With the perspective of distance, however, I'm horrified that they could have dropped me at that point. At the time, I couldn't see things clearly.'
Gillian's comments come in a week when the publishing industry is embroiled in another clash over free speech. Writer Kate Clanchy, who was last year accused of racism in her award-winning memoir, has said she's become a scapegoat for the entire publishing industry. In a letter to members of the Society of Authors, Clanchy accused Chocolat author Joanne Harris, the society's chair, of calling her 'ignorant, cruel and patronising'. She has also hired private investigators to look into the social media activity of Harris and several others.
In a statement made to those in receipt of the letter, the Society said the document 'made serious allegations about the chair which should be fully investigated', adding: 'Joanne Harris strongly denies these allegations.'
Reflecting on this latest spat, Gillian says: 'When authors can't even rely on their own 'trade union' to defend them, it's no wonder free creative expression is in danger of becoming a historical relic — and in the industry that should champion it most.
'I'm sometimes asked if I miss publishing. I do miss writing, and meeting readers, and of course I miss my pay, but it's a relief to be outside the industry. From my new vantage point, it's even easier to recognise the genuinely nasty atmosphere that prevails — especially in children's publishing.
'Writers are cowed by the vindictive rhetoric of small but over-powerful cliques; few dare to speak their minds, and even fewer dare to write them.'
Gillian is a strong, resourceful woman, but in the days immediately after her own ordeal, she couldn't drag herself out of bed. During one low point, her teenage son had to hold her up when her legs gave way.
She had been employed by Working Partners as an author on a freelance basis for more than a decade. The company produces series of books for children and young adults — among them Beast Quest and Rainbow Magic — and the books Gillian wrote, under the collective pseudonym Erin Hunter, with her real name credited inside, were published by HarperCollins.
Not only did she pen seven books in the series Survivors, which is about dogs, and seven in the Bravelands series, about African wildlife, with a contract to write two more (now cancelled), she also regularly toured the U.S. and Europe, addressing audiences of young readers as the face of Erin Hunter.
So great was Gillian's loyalty to the company that even when her husband had a mini stroke in 2018, and her mother became very unwell with Alzheimer's in February 2020, she finished the U.S. tours — organising care for her loved ones — so as not to leave her employers, and young readers, in the lurch.
She had been married to Ian, who was 26 years her senior, for 30 years when he died in May 2020, after a series of mini strokes which led to vascular dementia.
Working Partners sent her a beautiful bouquet, with a message of condolence and a note telling her to take the time she needed to grieve.
This meant a lot. In the early months of the pandemic, it was difficult for family and friends to rally round, and Gillian and her twins, who were then aged 19 and home from university, were each other's only solace.
'Any compassion intended had clearly evaporated six weeks later when, on June 26, the firm took away my livelihood,' says Gillian. 'My agent broke the news that Working Partners had ended my contract, under instruction from HarperCollins.'
Few writers dare speak their minds
At the time, the publisher stated: 'HarperCollins UK does not have a contract with this author, we have no direct relationship with her and we have not sacked her.'
Meanwhile, Working Partners has said that the decision not to continue working with Gillian was 'not in direct response to the nature of [her] personally expressed views', but rather because she had 'associated the Erin Hunter pen-name with her personal views on Twitter'.
A couple of weeks after her contract was ended, Gillian was dropped by her literary agency and 'all mention of me removed from their website, effectively ending my writing career'.
'I felt betrayed. And even though I knew the people sending messages were trolls, having so much hatred and venom — and those awful threats — levelled at you takes a serious toll.
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Liberal author says the family unit is 'a terrible way to satisfy... love & care,' calls to abolish it
Feminist theorist and author Sophie Lewis was the subject of an article on Friday in the UK’s The New Statesman website publication following her new book "Abolish the Family."
Historian Erin Magalaque discussed Lewis’ book which described the family unit as "a terrible way to satisfy all of our desires for love, care, nourishment" and was highly critical of suggestions otherwise.
"The family isn’t actually any good at creating intimacy, Lewis argues; the family creates, in fact, a dearth of care, with shreds and scraps of intimacy fought out between overworked parents and totally dependent kids, hidden behind the locked doors of private property," Magalaque wrote.
Magalaque complimented Lewis’ efforts to mock what she called "inevitable knee-jerk" reactions to calls to abolish the family unit.
Sophie Lewis referred to the family as the "narrowly bourgeois love of biological parenthood."
Sophie Lewis referred to the family as the "narrowly bourgeois love of biological parenthood." (iStock)
"Lewis is clear-eyed and witty about the inevitable knee-jerk reaction to calls for family abolition. (‘So! The left is trying to take grandma away, now, and confiscate the kids, and this is supposed to be progressive? What the f**k?’) And it’s true that family abolition, like other abolitionist movements, presents certain discomforts. Maybe you love your family! Or maybe you just like cooking in your own kitchen. Lewis acknowledges these discomforts, and asks us to imagine beyond them," Magalaque wrote.
Magalaque noted the feminists like Lewis also frame the family unit through a communistic lens, referring to families as the "narrowly bourgeois love of biological parenthood" and communal relationships as a red love, a social love.
"The family, Lewis and other abolitionists and feminists argue, privatises care. The legal and economic structure of the nuclear household warps love and intimacy into abuse, ownership, scarcity. Children are private property, legally owned and fully economically dependent on their parents. The hard work of care – looking after children, cooking and cleaning – is hidden away and devalued, performed for free by women or for scandalously low pay by domestic workers," she said.
Although the article had some criticisms against Lewis’ arguments, Magalaque suggested that the "revolutionary" ideas she posed could be necessary following the economic issues today.
"Burned out from pandemic parenting, facing immense childcare shortages and costs, women are leaving the workforce in record numbers, and in the U.S., forced birth and baby formula shortages are making crisis-parenting the rule, not the exception. The call for a revolutionary way of reconfiguring how we care for each other is more essential than ever, and Lewis’s manifesto is an irrepressible spark to our very tired imaginations," Magalaque described.
The New Statesman promoted this article on its Twitter account on Saturday, leading to backlash from social media users.
Conservative columnist Chad Felix Greene tweeted, "They tell you exactly what they believe."
"If only this sort of unsurpassable foolishness wasn't taken inexplicably seriously by such a significant number of people in a position to bother the rest of us with it," author Helen Joyce wrote.
"Almost by definition, you have to be extremely damaged and abnormal to write something like this. It's like arguing that people should murder their pets for fun or force their children to eat feces. It's just bizarre," Right Wing News Founder John Hawkins tweeted.
Club for Growth senior analyst Andrew Follett wrote, "Restart the ‘Lib Academic Demands Something Deranged Because They're Human Disasters’ clock!"
Lewis previously published an article on The Nation following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade that women should embrace the fact that abortion is the justified killing of an unborn life.
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Peta Credlin says Australians are being treated as if 'we're all but racist' if they don't support the Aboriginal "Voice to parliament"
Australians are being 'morally shamed' into voting for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a conservative columnist argues.
Peta Credlin, the former chief-of-staff for Liberal prime minster Tony Abbott, said the proposed Voice will be a race-based body that is more about 'power than recognition' but this is not how it is being sold.
'It will be pitched to voters in oversimplified terms: as being for or against Aboriginal people,' Ms Credlin wrote in The Australian.
The Voice is a proposed body of representatives from First Nations peoples across Australia that will advise federal parliament on matters concerning Indigenous people.
Its creation will require a change to the Australian Constitution that will have to be brought in by a successful referendum vote.
As an example of 'oversimplification' Ms Credlin pointed to the launch this week of what she called the 'big business' campaign for a 'yes' vote, which is backed by the Uluru Statement Group.
The ad features Indigenous playwright and actor Trevor Jamieson telling rapt children the hopeful story of how First People are allowed a 'say' in matters affecting them, which they haven't had.
'The "feel-good" yarning to children around a campfire, is a sign of things to come,' Ms Credlin wrote of the minute-long commercial, which will be mainly targeted at online audiences.
She noted that for previous referendums the federal government had funded campaigns both for a yes and no vote, but Ms Credlin doubted that would be done this time by the Albanese government.
'Labor will rely on big corporations to deluge us with the Yes message and hope, without the millions to match them, that no one picks up the arguments of the No side,' she said.
Ms Credlin accused those pushing for a Voice of being deliberately vague about what the body will do.
'The voice has to make a difference or what's the point of having it?' she wrote. 'Yet that difference can't be spelled out without almost certainly dooming it to defeat, hence the lack of detail.'
Ms Credlin believed Indigenous people already have a substantial say in the nation's affairs, pointing to the number of MPs who identify as Indigenous.
'Why establish a separate Indigenous voice to the parliament when it already includes 11 individual Indigenous voices that were elected in the usual way, without any affirmative action or race-based selection criteria?' she wrote.
'Why give one group of people, based on race, a special say over the actions of our parliament and our government that's denied to everyone else?'
She argued the Voice was really a grab for power. 'There's abundant reason to be cautious about entrenching in our Constitution a race-based body that even Malcolm Turnbull once described as a third chamber of the parliament,' she wrote. 'It’s easy to see where this could end up going – down the path of co-governance.'
Ms Credlin said the Voice had not really been 'thought through' and the danger is that Australians would be morally shamed into voting a 'race-based' Voice 'based on a vibe'.
'A couple of decades ago, we would have marched in the streets about a race-based body in our Constitution,' she wrote. 'Now we’re told we’re all but racist if we don’t support it.'
Will Australians vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament?
A poll by the Australia Institute in July found strong support for the Voice to be added to the Constitution.
The poll found 65 per cent would vote yes, up from 58 per cent when the same poll was run in June. Some 14 per cent said they would vote no, with the other 21 per cent undecided. Support was highest among Greens voters, but even 58 per cent of those Coalition aligned would vote yes.
For a referendum to succeed, a majority of the states must also vote yes, but the poll showed that was also easily covered.
All of the four biggest states had comfortable majorities with Victoria on 71 per cent, Queensland 66 per cent, WA 63 per cent and NSW 62 per cent.
Support was highest at 85 per cent for Australians aged 18-29 but those over 50 were still above 50 per cent yes.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has indicated the Voice referendum question is likely to be: 'Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?'
Three lines would be added to the Constitution to create the advisory body; one stating it may 'make representations to parliament' on issues concerning Indigenous Australians; and that Parliament may legislate how it works.
To succeed a referendum must both get an overall majority of votes and a majority of voters in the majority of states.
Polls conducted in July indicated Australians strongly support the Voice to parliament with 65 per cent of respondents saying they would vote yes.
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28 September, 2022
A new "Iron Lady" -- in Spain
When Isabel Díaz Ayuso recently spoke out against high taxation, it came as no shock to those who have followed her for years. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the president of the Community of Madrid has championed liberty to empower her fellow Spaniards.
Back in 2020, the “Iron Lady of Madrid” refused to lock down her city and impose excessive COVID-19 mandates, stemming the tide of government overreach that had overtaken other European countries. At first, Díaz Ayuso took action against the coronavirus, closing shops and non-essential businesses to stop the spread of the first viral wave. But, as the second and third waves came, she resisted the urge to impose unnecessary stay-at-home orders.
By the end of 2020, Madrid was buzzing. Bars, cafes, and restaurants filled up, while offices and schools opened. The regional economy hummed, and it remains healthy today. In August 2022, the Community of Madrid reported a more than 25 percent decline in unemployment since 2021—the largest year-over-year drop in history. Over the last 12 months, joblessness has dropped across all age brackets and productive sectors.
And that’s not all. As of September 2022, the Community of Madrid has recovered nearly 99 percent of the economic output lost during the pandemic—well above the national average. Last year, Madrid’s gross domestic output rebounded by 6.5 percent, outperforming the 5.1 percent for Spain writ large. The recovery continues now, with annual economic growth still exceeding 5 percent heading into 2023.
In Madrid, entrepreneurship and private-sector innovation are alive. Businesses are opening and staying open, while consumers are contributing to the market economy. It’s a model not only for the rest of Spain, but also for cities around the world. Before enacting new taxes and regulations, policymakers in the likes of New York or San Francisco can learn a thing or two from the pro-market policies of Díaz Ayuso and Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, her Cabinet Minister of Finance and Civil Service. Despite pushback from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s socialist government, Díaz Ayuso’s leadership has shown that freedom and liberty are the safest and surest bets for sustained economic prosperity.
So, when Díaz Ayuso speaks out against government mandates today, people need to listen. As she recently put it, “Madrid is recognition of a job well done and respect for work and encouragement. It is a matter of political will, respect for the efforts of the taxpayer and effective management of public resources. Collecting is not governing. To govern is to manage.”
That is the role of government—to oversee, not to exploit. The proper place for political leadership is in enabling the free market to work its wonders, fostering an environment where employers and employees can truly thrive. Political leaders should incentivize entrepreneurs to innovate, rather than erect barriers in their way via mandates.
One example is high taxation, which Díaz Ayuso has consistently rolled back since coming to power in 2019. Under her leadership, Madrid citizens have saved an average of nearly $6,500 in taxes per person. That money can now be spent, saved, or invested. Judging by Madrid’s growth rate, the money is already going to work and strengthening the private sector.
From lower taxes to other policies, Díaz Ayuso is leading by empowering her fellow citizens, trusting the people of Madrid to bounce back from COVID-19 and fuel an economic recovery that lasts long after the pandemic.
Looking across the pond, Americans can only hope that U.S. policymakers take a page or two from the Iron Lady’s playbook. The power of freedom and liberty is universal—from the Plaza Mayor to New York, San Francisco, and beyond.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/madrids-iron-lady-shows-american-leaders-true-leadership_4757747.html
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The U.S. Is Running Short of Land for Housing
In the Sunbelt, the hottest commodity isn’t oil, copper or gold. It is land. And rancher Robert Thomas has plenty of it.
Mr. Thomas’s family owns about 11,000 acres of ranchland northeast of Tampa, Fla. His grandfather, who owned newspapers and ran a minerals-exploration business, bought much of it for 10 cents an acre in 1932. Since then, the population of the Tampa metropolitan area has exploded to more than 3 million. The Thomas family’s ranch is now surrounded by communities of single-family homes.
Home builders, hungry for land, have offered to buy Mr. Thomas’s land. The family sold part of its holdings last year to a developer for about $70 million, or about $20,000 per acre, according to property records. Developers are now offering more than twice as much for some of his remaining land, Mr. Thomas said.
Tampa-area land prices are “booming right now like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And I’ve been in charge here for 44 years.”
The United States, a country of wide open spaces, is short on land.
Or at least land where people can live. Land-use restrictions and a lack of public investment in roads, rail and other infrastructure have made it harder than ever for developers to find sites near big population centers to build homes. As people keep moving to cities such as Austin, Phoenix and Tampa, they are pushing up the price of dirt and making the housing shortages in these fast-growing areas even worse.
In the Sunbelt, the average price of vacant land per acre more than doubled in the past two years through the second quarter, according to Land.com, a land-listing website owned by real-estate firm CoStar Group.
The Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation might bring prices down. Higher interest rates and construction costs are already weighing on the land market, brokers say, and other parts of the real-estate market are starting to slow. While land prices haven’t fallen, there are fewer bidders on deals. Some landowners worry about a downturn similar to the 2008 financial crisis, when home and land values plummeted after years of debt-fueled excess.
Still, the lack of supply and the strong demand mean land prices will likely continue to rise in the long term, economists and investors say.
Even in cities such as New York and San Francisco, where populations shrank during the pandemic, land is far more expensive today than it was decades ago. U.S. residential land alone is now estimated to be worth more than $20 trillion, according to Morris Davis, a professor of finance at Rutgers Business School who studies land values.
This historic land boom has provided a windfall for homeowners. Land now accounts for 47% of U.S. home values, estimates Mr. Davis. That is up from 38% in 2012 and less than 20% in the early 1960s. The rising value of land is responsible for almost all of the surge in home values in recent decades, he said.
Few places have seen land values rise more sharply than Tampa’s exurbs. When Mr. Thomas’s grandfather bought the family ranch during the Great Depression, he was the only bidder. “It didn’t have a tree big enough for a bird to build a nest in,” Mr. Thomas, 66, said. “It was just a chunk of sand in a godforsaken wilderness in Florida.”
According to family lore, the bank that oversaw the ranch on behalf of an estate was so desperate to get rid of it that a banker urged Mr. Thomas’s reluctant grandfather to make an offer. “He said 10 cents an acre, and the banker slammed his fist on his desk and said ‘sold! You could have had it for a nickel,’ ” Mr. Thomas said.
Even after factoring in another $5 an acre in back taxes owed on the land, it was still a bargain, Mr. Thomas said.
Over the years, the family bought additional land around the ranch. Today, much of the property is densely forested. Cows laze in the shade of moss-covered oak trees while white-tailed deer pass through the bushes.
Increasingly, it is a green oasis surrounded by construction sites. As Mr. Thomas drove down a road near his ranch in his pickup truck on a recent Thursday, he could see dozens of two-story homes rising in neat rows. “You can reach out your window and tap on your neighbor’s window,” he said.
Asking prices for homes in these new communities go as high as $900,000, in part because the land underneath is so valuable. That has a lot to do with land-use regulations.
Tampa’s zoning rules prevent developers from building anything larger than a single-family home in much of the city. When officials for Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, adopted zoning regulations in 1950, they said the measures were necessary to prevent overcrowding and traffic jams and would preserve the neighborhood character, all “with a view to conserving the value of buildings,” according to the regulations.
Not only did these restrictions help maintain home values, they boosted the price of developable land. Because developers can’t stack homes on top of each other, they need more land for each housing unit. That is driving demand for land, pushing up prices.
It is also forcing builders to look for lots farther away from the city, where they run into new restrictions. Hillsborough County in late 2019 put a moratorium on the rezoning of land for housing in some areas in a bid to rein in new development. The move followed antidevelopment protests from residents who said local infrastructure couldn’t keep up with the region’s growth.
Pasco County, to the city’s north, in 2021 also put a moratorium on rezoning to multifamily use in some areas.
Between early 2021 and early 2022, home prices in the Tampa metropolitan area rose by 35%, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index, the fastest increase of any of the 20 metro areas tracked.
Because much of the Thomas land, which is only a half-hour drive from downtown Tampa, is already zoned for housing, it is in high demand. Builders are competing for a piece of it. “I get letters, I get emails, I get calls,” Mr. Thomas said. “Somehow people got my cellphone number.”
Since 1932, the value of the Thomas family’s land, adjusted for inflation, has increased almost 200-fold, based on the price of last year’s sale. That is about 10 times the inflation-adjusted growth of the S&P 500 stock market index, which increased about 20-fold during that period.
Inadequate infrastructure is also boosting land inflation. In Nashville, for example, commutes have been getting longer as the population grows and traffic jams worsen, U.S. census data shows. A lack of public transit means commuters often have little choice but to inch down clogged roads. In 2018, voters rejected a proposal to build a light-rail system and expand bus service. That is putting a premium on scarce land close to the city center.
Lisa Maki, a principal at commercial real-estate brokerage Avison Young in Nashville, said her team last year arranged the sale of two lots in the city’s booming Gulch neighborhood to a real-estate investment firm for $7.1 million. The seller, a family from California, had bought the properties for $1.1 million in 2011.
The number of vacant lots zoned for residential use in Nashville fell by 43.5% between 2016 and 2021, according to an analysis of public property records by real-estate data, technology and services firm Altus Group for The Wall Street Journal.
A shortage of development sites and surging land prices, plus high construction costs, mean developers haven’t been able to build enough housing to keep up with demand. Apartment asking rents in Nashville rose 31% in the year ending in June, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin. The same phenomenon is playing out across the Sunbelt.
Five years ago, building apartments in the hottest Sunbelt markets was pretty easy, said Ryan Williams, executive chairman of real-estate investment firm Cadre.
“Now, almost across the board, you’re fighting for land,” he said. Bidding wars for vacant sites in cities such as Atlanta and Austin are common. Cadre recently looked at a lot in Tampa but didn’t have time to get a bid in because another investor snapped it up without even visiting it, he said.
Increasingly, the company competes not just against other developers, but also against investors looking to buy lots and flip them for a profit or keep them unused, he said. “It’s a literal land grab,” Mr. Williams said.
Wealthy investors, including billionaire distiller Tito Beveridge and golfer Phil Mickelson, have started buying up land in the Sunbelt in recent years. Some investors keep land vacant for years, betting values will keep rising and taking advantage of favorable tax treatment for undeveloped land.
Land wasn’t always so expensive. Until the second half of the 20th century, America’s population was far more spread out, living where land was cheap. But as more people moved to a small number of cities with abundant office jobs, and municipalities passed stricter zoning codes that made it tougher to build housing, land prices and housing costs surged.
Land values in Manhattan barely increased between the 1880s and 1970s after adjusting for inflation, according to calculations by Jason Barr, an economist at Rutgers University-Newark. But between 1977 and 2019, they grew at an average annual rate of about 13%.
Most economists say municipalities need to relax zoning rules and other restrictions to bring down land inflation and build more housing. But these changes are often unpopular with homeowners, who benefit from rising land values and make up around 65% of U.S. households. Adding more housing also often requires costly investments in roads and other infrastructure.
People are still moving to Sunbelt cities, and zoning restrictions are unlikely to disappear soon. Remote work has given Americans more choice, but economists say most young professionals continue to flock to a small number of cities. Some think the Sunbelt could see the same kind of stubborn land inflation that has haunted New York and San Francisco for decades and made them among the country’s least-affordable cities.
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-u-s-is-running-short-of-land-for-housing-11664125841
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Judge Orders Unvaccinated New York City Police Officers Reinstated
TrialSite News has been covering the mandates imposed on New York City’s municipal workers since former mayor Bill de Blasio first put the rules in place in November of 2021. The former mayor’s vaccination requirement for NYC workers was widely criticized by unions representing the municipal employees who run the city on a day-to-day basis. Lawsuits soon followed. Now one of those legal actions has had the effect the municipal workers were seeking.
Judge Orders Fired NY Cops Reinstated
In a late ruling this past Friday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank ruled New York City’s vaccine mandate on the NY Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA) was invalid “to the extent it has been used to impose a new condition of employment” on the union.” The judge ruled the police officers who were fired for not being vaccinated were to be reinstated. “The mandate was also invalid because it issued enforcement beyond ‘monetary sanctions’ prescribed in the law,” Frank wrote. The judge added, “To be unequivocally clear, this Court does not deny that at the time it was issued, the vaccine mandate was appropriate and lawful. But the city hadn’t “established a legal basis or lawful authority for the DOH (Department of Health) to exclude employees from the workplace and impose any other adverse employment action as an appropriate enforcement mechanism of the vaccine mandate.”
In a statement, the president of the PBA, Pat Lynch, said, “This decision confirms what we have said from the start: the vaccine mandate was an improper infringement on our members’ right to make personal medical decisions in consultation with their own health care professionals.” New York City’s law department immediately appealed the ruling, which will keep the mandate frozen in place during the appeal.
Fire Fighters Demand Reinstatement
“It was only a matter of time before a common sense Judge concluded that the Covid-19 vaccination mandate was never a condition of employment,” said FDNY (Fire Department of New York) Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro and FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Lt. James McCarthy. In a statement, the two fire fighter’s unions said, “The Uniformed Firefighters Association and Uniformed Fire Officers Association will send a letter to the Fire Commissioner demanding the reinstatement and remuneration of all FDNY members terminated or placed on leave without pay due to the vaccine mandate.” As TrialSite has reported, the New York City mandates have been opposed by firefighters and municipal workers from the inception of the ruling. Since taking over from Bill de Blasio, Mayor Eric Adams has been inconsistent with the city’s mandate policy. Adams lifted mandates for professional athletes and performers and then rolled back the vaccine mandate for private sector workers and student-athletes. But Adams never lifted the mandate for NYC’s employees. Perhaps the new ruling in favor of the New York City Police Department will give the mayor of New York City some clarity.
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Conservative Australian senator calls out a Muslim whiner
Pauline Hanson has been labelled a 'scumbag' in the Senate for refusing to withdraw a tweet telling Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to 'p*** off back to Pakistan'.
Ms Hanson doubled down on her attack on Tuesday, offering to take Ms Faruqi 'to the airport' after she tweeted saying she could not mourn the Queen's death.
The One Nation leader's offer shocked politicians with Greens senator Jordon Steele-John shouting 'you scumbag' across the chamber.
Ms Faruqi moved a motion to censure Ms Hanson, saying 'I have the right to talk about this issue (the Queen and the empire) without being racially vilified'.
Ms Faruqi had originally moved that the Senate (a) condemns all racism and discrimination against migrants and people of colour;
(b) assures all migrants to Australia that they are valued, welcome members of our society;
(c) affirms that, if Parliament is to be a safe place for all who work and visit here, there can be no tolerance for racism or discrimination in the course of parliamentarians’ public debate;
and (d) censures Senator Hanson for her divisive, anti migrant and racist statement telling Senator Faruqi to 'piss off back to Pakistan', which does not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people.
Labor later amended the motion, changing the first and last parts to condemn all racism and discrimination 'in all its forms'.
The government also removed the censure of Ms Hanson in particular to broaden it to 'calls on all senators to engage in debates and commentary respectfully, and to refrain from inflammatory and divisive comments, both inside and outside the chamber at all times'.
During a heated debate on Tuesday, Ms Hanson would not retract her comment, which followed a tweet from Ms Faruqi calling the Queen 'a leader of a racist empire' on the day of her death.
'Condolences to those who knew the Queen. I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples,' Ms Faruqi posted.
'We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic.'
Speaking in the Senate, Ms Hanson said: 'As I have explained myself, I will not, NOT retract what I've told Senator Faruqi or any other Australian that's come here for a new way of life, to disrespect what is Australian to me.
She then referenced her previous comment telling Ms Faruqi to go back to Pakistan if she did not support the Queen. 'And she can do and go where I've said,' she added on Tuesday. 'I make the offer, also, to take her to the airport'.
Mr Steele-John then roared 'you scumbag' at Ms Hanson.
Ms Faruqi had previously slammed the British empire for 'enslaving millions of black and brown people around the world'.
Ms Hanson, who once moved a motion in the Senate that it was 'OK to be white', fired back at the Greens politician by suggesting she get out of Australia and that she had taken advantage of everything the country had given her.
'Your attitude appalls and disgusts me. When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country,' Ms Hanson said.
'You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It's clear you're not happy, so pack your bags and p*** off back to Pakistan.'
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27 September, 2022
Relax, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers aren’t fascist
Only in Italy could the first female prime minister come from a party, which she herself founded, called Brothers, an allegedly far-right party that is, paradoxically, the most pro-American significant political grouping.
The apparent election to government of Giorgia Meloni at the head of Brothers of Italy is an earthquake in European politics but probably a minor earthquake. First, this label of far right. It’s increasingly meaningless.
As a young person, Meloni was a member of the Italian Social Movement, which was set up by people who had been fascists in World War II. It then gave birth to the National Alliance. Meloni, as part of that, was a capable minister in a Berlusconi government a decade ago. In 2012 she founded the Brothers of Italy, a name she took from the Italian anthem.
Ever since the second world war, Italy’s so-called post-fascists have behaved democratically and according to all the rules. The party Meloni now heads has been through several evolutions. She and her colleagues say the Italian centre right has “handed fascism over to history”. She condemns absolutely anti-Semitism and any breach of democratic rights.
That the most powerful European and American media continue to label parties such as Meloni’s as far right indicates double standards and an intensely illiberal desire to eliminate from public debate all the issues Meloni and her colleagues raise. The German Social Democrats emerged out of more extreme Marxists. Half the parties on the French left have communist roots but they are never labelled far left. Sinn Fein is the biggest party in Northern Ireland and will furnish the province’s chief minister. Only a few short decades ago it was directly supporting terrorism. Mind you, its opponents, the Democratic Unionist Party, a few decades before that, were in strong support of anti-Catholic persecution.
Democratic politics relies on accepting that extreme movements can become moderate and mainstream. If they obey all the rules for decades in a row then they should be evaluated on the basis of contemporary policies rather than historic associations.
Meloni’s program is a perfectly legitimate centre-right amalgam. She wants more police, less crime, cost-of-living relief, control over illegal immigration, lower taxes, reassertion of traditional Italian identity, support for moderate conservative social values and more independence from the dictates of the EU. She wants to address the energy crisis in part by increasing the supply of fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Meloni looks a fascinating character. Certainly at times she makes populist statements. Like much populism, though, there is truth in much of what she says. In a famous 2019 speech she declared: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m Christian, I’m a mother, I’m Italian, they won’t take that away from me.”
That sounds, and is, a declaration of independence from woke ideology. Generally I don’t like identity politics, but if we’re going to be forced to endure it then there is nothing wrong with her declaring proudly that she is a woman, a mother, a Christian and an Italian.
On another occasion Meloni described the EU as “nihilistic global elites driven by international finance”.
Sometimes the words international finance can be code for anti-Semitic hang-ups. That doesn’t seem to be the case here.
She has endorsed the idea of the “Great Replacement”. This holds that Europe is being intentionally flooded with immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East to change its demographic and cultural identity forever.
That line of thinking also can be dangerous if it sees behind chaotic immigration mismanagement a sinister conspiracy by George Soros or international finance or the World Economic Forum. That sort of thinking is silly.
However, it is perfectly sensible for Europeans, and their political parties, to want their nations to reassert control of their borders and to implement coherent policies about who comes into their nations.
The EU has indeed been extremely foolish in attempting at times to force European countries to take immigrants they don’t want. European voters hate this. It has been an abject failure of European politics, in which the EU bears a huge portion of blame, that many European nations have been unable to control immigration from North Africa and the Middle East.
I have always believed a good immigration program benefits the recipient country as well as the immigrants who come to that country. But I’ve always also believed a national government has the right, and the obligation, to control its borders and make its immigration program orderly. John Howard is the standout example of this. Both his left-wing critics, and his right-wing supporters, however, tend to ignore the central fact that Howard re-established control of Australia’s borders and then increased the size of the immigration program.
Britain’s whole Brexit project was driven in part by a desire among British voters for their government to control the nation’s borders. European courts and bureaucracies, which under Brexit ought to have no influence on British law, are still interfering with Britain’s efforts to do this. But it’s fascinating that the new British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, wants to increase skilled migration. She can do this because, notwithstanding the interference of the EU, Britain has mostly re-established control of its borders.
Rich countries ought to be generous to refugees and host a sizeable refugee intake. But it is unrealistic, and at the level of the real world actually in my view immoral, to suggest that the whole of the population of Africa and the Middle East which would rather live in Europe is free to do so, provided they can physically get there. That is the practical outcome of an open-borders approach.
Meloni’s election slogan was: “God, homeland and family” and this probably was more acceptable coming from a younger woman rather than just another of the aged male suits that normally dominate Italian politics.
Meloni is sensible on geo-strategic issues. She’s a strong backer of the US, of NATO and of Ukraine. Unlike her coalition partners, Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini, she hasn’t fallen for the cheapjack nonsense of supporting Vladimir Putin, as though the neo-Stalinist Russian despot was a champion of Western values.
Of course, Meloni’s party won only a quarter of the votes but her three-party coalition looks as though it will have a parliamentary majority. All Italian governments tend to be short-lived. Nonetheless, there are lessons for conservative politics in her victory.
Conservatives don’t prosper by surrendering to woke. They can actually lead a counter-reformation against the zeitgeist. All political victories are temporary. But they are still victories.
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FBI Agents Raid Home, Arrest Pro-Life Advocate in Front of Wife and Children
Very Soviet
Mark Houck, a pro-life advocate and father of seven, woke up Friday morning to a team of FBI agents raiding his home in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, told Life Site News that 25-30 FBI agents entered their home around 7 a.m.
“The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” Ryan-Marie Houck told Life Site News about her husband’s arrest, which she and her children witnessed. She says her husband pleaded with the FBI agents to be calm, referencing the couple’s seven children.
“They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” Ryan-Marie Houck told the pro-life news outlet.
Catholic News Agency reports that the FBI confirmed that Mark Houck was arrested outside his home “without incident” Friday morning.
According to federal court documents, Houck was arrested on the charge that he assaulted a 72-year-old volunteer, whose name is not provided, at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center abortion clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, twice on Oct. 13, 2021.
The District Court in Philadelphia investigated and dismissed the charge earlier this summer, Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, told Life Site News. She said that her husband sometimes brought their eldest son with him. She added that on multiple occasions that a “pro-abortion protester” would say “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things” to their 12-year-old son, such as “your dad’s a fag” and other vulgar slurs.
Her husband repeatedly told the man to stop verbally harassing his son, Ryan-Marie Houck explained. But the man didn’t stop. On one occasion, the man “kind of came into [the son’s] personal space,” Ryan-Marie Houck said. “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back… He didn’t have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark.”
Brian Middleton, a friend of the Houck family, told The Daily Signal that “[Mark] was defending his son from a man who was verbally abusing his son. He stepped between them and asked him to stop. The man continued to lean in and verbally abuse. Mark extended his arms to get the assailant away from his son.” Middleton added: “Mark will not be available until further notice under advice of counsel.”
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, released a statement following Houck’s arrest. “The continued weaponization of the FBI and persecution by Joe Biden’s DOJ against ordinary Americans is an outrage,” Mastriano wrote, adding:
This morning, a heavily armed SWAT team of dozens of FBI agents raided the home of Mark Houck of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and terrified children inside over a case that was long thrown out by the District Court in Philadelphia. Mark and Ryan-Marie Houck’s seven children were traumatized and in tears as they witnessed their parents held at gunpoint and their father hauled away in handcuffs.
After his Friday arrest, Houck appeared before the U.S. Eastern District Court in Pennsylvania. He was indicted for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate, and interfere with anyone because that person is a provider of reproductive health care,” the Eastern District of Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a Friday press release.
Authorities released Houck later that day, but he now faces felony charges. If convicted, Houck could have up to an 11-year prison sentence, and fines of up to $350,000.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts tweeted Saturday: “As I’ve said, the Mar-a-Lago raid isn’t just about President Trump—it’s about all of us.”
“Saying that doesn’t make someone an insurrectionist—if anything, it’s the DOJ that’s ‘threatening democracy,’” he added.,
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Is America too Christian?
To say the founding of the United States reflects biblical Christianity is to state the obvious.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution incorporated many fundamental precepts of the Reformation, and these precepts long have been recognized by American statesmen and jurists.
From overt assertions that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” and are entitled to the liberties of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” to the more subtle acknowledgement of the birth of Jesus Christ in Article VII of the Constitution, biblical Christianity was absolutely central to the American founding.
What’s more, 46 states explicitly mention God in their own constitutions, according to a report from Pew Research Center.
Clearly, Christianity remains central to our national character today.
Such observations ought not be controversial, but saying what is true can get you in big trouble these days. In this instance, the media outlet Politico is sounding alarms over some Republicans self-describing as Christian nationalists, while others are talking about formally declaring the United States to be a Christian nation.
Calling America a Christian nation today might be debatable; a 2021 poll by Pew found that the number of Americans who describe themselves as Christian fell to 63%, down from 78% in 2007.
But our national founding and ongoing civic philosophy are unquestionably Christian. President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, said it most succinctly in observing, “America was born a Christian nation.”
Wilson is by no means alone in his recognition of the Christian roots of America and the absolute necessity of biblical Christianity in the United States.
President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, said: “The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed.”
President Herbert Hoover, a fellow Republican, echoed Roosevelt by saying: “The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life.”
President Harry Truman’s observations of the importance of the Bible to America stretch back to the Old Testament.
“The fundamental basis of this nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul,” Truman, a Democrat, said.
The House of Representatives was clear in its declaration of the American character. A House Resolution from May 1854 stated: “The belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ” was vital to the American system of government.
Presidents, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and many others long have recognized the role of the Bible and Christianity in the United States, both in terms of the nation’s founding and its continuation as a global beacon of liberty.
So why is it that in 2022, some are denying history and encouraging their fellow Americans to forsake our national legacy?
It’s no secret that a lot of people want an American future that is radically different from its past and present. The 1619 Project, critical race theory, and other vehicles that are built from the ground up to revile the United States and its founding are symptomatic of a deep enmity toward our nation. But these attacks also validate the truth of Christianity’s powerful influence on society, both here and across the world.
Biblical Christianity enshrines liberty and informs good government. Adherents of Marxism, socialism, communism, and other authoritarian structures know this too. They are well aware that the imposition of tyranny is far more difficult when the society they seek to subjugate believes in the truths of biblical Christianity.
That is why the political Left and its acolytes are so focused in their slander of the faith. The marginalization and destruction of Christianity is the necessary precursor to forcing despotism on Americans.
To claim that declaring America a Christian nation amounts to the establishment of a state religion is silly. If people of other faiths wish to live here in peace, they are and always have been welcomed and protected in the practice of their faith; the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of religion is an outgrowth of the Reformation.
But America and its founding don’t cease to be Christian just because a small number of political and cultural elites cast themselves as deniers of history.
Today’s attacks on Christianity are not new. They’ve been going on since the first century and will continue apace, just as Jesus Christ told his disciples. Today, these assaults are being propelled into our political discourse and only will increase.
Christians, indeed Americans of all faiths, must not permit the whitewashing of our history and the continued erosion of the liberties articulated in biblical Christianity.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/09/22/actually-america-is-too-a-christian-nation/
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Facebook reverses permanent ban on ads from conservative children's book publisher
Facebook opted to reverse a 'permanent' ban on ads from conservative book publishing company Brave Books after Fox News reached out to the Big-Tech conglomerate to see why the ban was imposed in the first place.
Brave Books is a Christian children's publisher that produces 'pro-God, pro-America and anti-woke values.'
Trent Talbot, the founder of Brave Books, called the suspension an 'existential threat' to the company, which, like many small and mid-size businesses, relies on Facebook and Google ads for a significant amount of its traction.
The initial message from Facebook to Brave on Thursday said the platform was banning the company's ad accounts without explanation, and called the decision 'final.'
However, when Fox News inquired about the ban, the company confirmed that the ad account remains active.
'This is a prime example of big tech today. They shut down small companies who say anything contrary to their woke agendas. They may reinstate accounts only when they are hit with bad PR, only to throttle those same accounts to make them ineffective,' said Talbot
Talbot says a similar suspension from Google was also lifted earlier this year after Fox News reported on it.
The most recent ad run by the account was promoting Fox News anchor Julie Banderas' contribution to the Brave arsenal: Fiona's Fantastical Fort, a book about a girl named Fiona who exemplifies the trait of perseverance as she struggles to build a fort for her friends.
Banderas, who said her enthusiasm for working with Brave Books stems from the Christian values of the company and the lessons that Brave Books puts into their lessons, tweeted that Facebook's attempt to shut down Brave's ad account was 'another attempt to cancel conservatives.'
'The lessons Brave Books is putting into their Freedom Island Series are what I want my kids to embody. The lessons include a sanctity for life, unconditional love within the home, the harmfulness of critical race theory — and more,' Banderas said during an interview with her employer about the book.
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26 September, 2022
INSIEME PER L'ITALIA
Giorgia Meloni has been called "Far-right" and connected to prewar Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. And her slogan above (Together for Italy") is rather like a Fascist slogan. Fascist parties did indeed promote a "one big happy family" future for their countries.
But if Meloni is Fascist, what are we to make of Hillary? Her slogan, with its stress on "stronger" is even more Fascist. It sounds very much like Mussolini.
The solution to the puzzle is that historic Fascism was Leftist. It was only Soviet disinformation that branded it as Rightist. And that disinformation is still the norm. So by historical standards, Hillary is indeed the heir of Mussolini.
Meloni's policies are, by contrast, clearly conservative: She focuses on defending national borders, national interests and the “traditional family.” She has always been staunchly anti-drugs and anti-abortion, although she insists she would not ban abortion. And Trump, another clear conservative, also appealed to national interests
So appeals to national interests can come from both the Left and Right and Meloni's appeal is clearly NOT to Fascist-type national self-interest. She is a conservative patriot. We can leave the Fascism to Hillary and her supporters
Far-right election winner Giorgia Meloni has vowed to govern for all Italians as she is set to be announced as the country's first female Prime Minister - and its most right-wing leader since Mussolini.
Meloni, head of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, said voters have given a clear mandate to the right to form the next government and called for unity to help confront the country's many problems.
She added: 'If we are called upon to govern this nation, we will do so for all Italians, with the aim of uniting the people, of exalting what unites them rather than what divides them. We will not betray your trust.'
As polls in the run up to Sunday's vote indicated her as the likely winner, Meloni has moderated her far-right message in an apparent attempt to reassure the European Union and other international partners.
She said 'this is the time to be responsible', before describing the situation for Italy and the EU as 'particularly complex'.
It comes after an exit poll for state broadcaster RAI said Meloni's Brothers of Italy, in alliance Matteo Salvini's League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, had won between 41 per cent and 45 per cent of the vote.
Despite Salvini's and Berlusconi's parties lagging behind, between them the Conservative bloc appear to have won enough seats to secure a majority in both houses of parliament.
The result must still be confirmed but risks fresh trouble for the European Union, just weeks after the far-right outperformed in elections in Sweden.
Meloni will face huge challenges, with Italy currently suffering rampant inflation while an energy crisis looms this winter, linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite her euroscepticism, Meloni strongly supports the EU's sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, although her allies are another matter.
Berlusconi, the billionaire former premier who has long been friends with Vladimir Putin, faced an outcry this week after suggesting the Russian president was 'pushed' into war by his entourage.
According to the poll, the closest contender, the centre-left alliance of former Democratic Party Premier Enrico Letta, garnered as much as 29.5 per cent.
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Registered Democrats are sick of the radical left—and some are switching sides
After living half of his life as a registered Democrat, Justin Roth, 42, re-registered in 2016 as an Independent — and then switched sides entirely to become a Republican in 2020.
“The reason I registered as a Republican has more to do with the Democrats than it does with Republicans,” said Roth, a single Staten Islander who teaches English as a second language. “I still consider myself liberal in a lot of ways, but I’m no longer a registered Democrat. They’ve just really gone off the rails for the past several years.”
As he’s watched the left wage cancel-culture wars and push for extreme political correctness, Roth said the Democrats have turned their backs on the issues that matter most to him.
“My top priorities right now are actually kitchen-table issues — inflation, the price of housing, food and gas. As a voter I really care about things that affect my life personally and the lives of my family members more than any of this culture war stuff.”
Roth is in good company. The social justice obsessed, ultra-progressive, increasingly illiberal Left is even alienating liberal celebrities. Once feted as a progressive darling, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in May that he can no longer support the Democrats.
“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” he wrote. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.”
In June, he followed through on that promise by voting for Texas Republican Mayra Flores in a special House of Representatives election. Flores won in a massive upset, becoming the country’s first Mexican-born US congresswoman.
YouTube podcaster Dave Rubin resigned from his post in 2015 at The Young Turks, a popular left-wing news channel, after his own political awakening. He now dubs himself the “Why I Left the Left Guy.”
In a YouTube video that has garnered more than 15 million views, he made his position clear: “Today’s progressivism has become a faux-moral movement hurling charges of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia and a slew of other meaningless buzzwords at anyone they disagree with. The battle of ideas has been replaced by a battle of feelings, and outrage has replaced honesty. Diversity reigns supreme unless it’s that pesky diversity of thought. This isn’t the recipe for a free society, it’s a recipe for authoritarianism.”
In November last year, HBO host Bill Maher echoed these same thoughts when he told Chris Cuomo on CNN that the Democratic Party was “toxic” because it had become “the party of no common sense.” He said he expected the Democrats to get “thumped” in the midterm elections this year.
He might just be right. According to an Associated Press report in June, more than 1 million voters in 43 states have left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, especially in the suburbs, where swing voters can sway election results.
Meanwhile, almost half of registered voters consider themselves Independents, compared to just more than a quarter who identify as Democrat or Republican.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/24/some-registered-democrats-sick-of-the-left-are-switching-sides/
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Groom who jilted his fat bride on their wedding day is rookie Gwent police officer... and he WON'T apologise to his ex-fiancée
Fat is a relationship killer
A groom who jilted his bride on their wedding day is a rookie Gwent police officer - and still will not apologise to his ex-fiancée.
Kayley Stead, 27, discovered she wasn't going to marry her partner of almost four years Kallum Norton, 24, the morning of her wedding.
It has now emerged that Kallum is a newly-qualified PC with Gwent Police who passed out from training just days before the big day. When asked by The Sun newspaper if he would apologise, Kallum said: 'I don't want to talk about the article.'
His ex-fiancée responded: 'I don't expect anything different, but I do expect someone to own their actions and be responsible for what they did.'
Despite the heartbreak, Kayley, who lives in Portmead, Swansea, Wales, decided to go ahead with the lavish £12,000 reception party, surrounded with her loved ones around her, on September 15 at Oxwich Bay Hotel in Gower.
Brave Kayley punched off the top tier of her wedding cake, and spent her first dance with the groomsmen, her brothers, and dad Brian, 71. She even entered the party singing along to Lizzo's 'Good as Hell' with her bridal party.
Now living alone, with her honeymoon cancelled, Kayley is pleased she still had the party - so money and effort didn't go to waste.
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Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard reflects on her blistering 'misogyny speech' 10 years on
Amusing. Omitted below is that the views she criticized were widely held among Australian men. So her popularity among male voters dropped to only 10%, fatal for the next election. So her own party then booted her out of the PM job
The former Australian Prime Minister - the first and only woman to hold the role - famously delivered a blistering speech on sexism in Australian politics during a session in parliament in October 2012.
The comments sparked a debate that reverberated around the world.
A decade later, the 60-year-old says that she did not realise at the time how significant her words would be.
'Giving the speech, I didn't have any sense of the impact it would have' Gillard tells this week's issue of Stellar Magazine.
'If you'd asked me 30 seconds after I sat down, "How is the press gallery going to report this? How is it going to reverberate?" I would have said, "I don't see that this is going to reverberate in the world." So I didn't have that sense about it.'
Within minutes, Gillard realised the true impact of her rousing words. 'Even by the time I'd walked back to my office from the chamber – which is only a two- or three-minute walk – there were starting to be calls and a reaction beyond Canberra' she tells the publication. 'So I got an early inkling from that, that it was going to have some sort of emotional resonance beyond the confines of Parliament House.'
Gillard believes her speech resonated with women around the world who shared her experiences.
'I think its power has been that there are millions of women – and I feel like I've met millions of them – who have lived through sexist experiences, misogynistic experiences' she said.
Julia served as prime minister from 2010 to 2013. In 2012, she was praised for her strong stance on sexism in government during a heated debate on the parliamentary speaker's text scandal.
Gillard spent 15 minutes attacking leader of the opposition Tony Abbott before the Australian House of Representatives during a debate over a motion to sack the Speaker of the House, Peter Slipper after a series of text messages he sent to his male assistant referring to women in a derogatory way were made public.
She accused Abbott of sexism, addressing the former Liberal prime minister throughout her speech.
Among her comments she said: 'I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will nota nd the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.
'If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror.'
Gillard was widely praised for her speech, with New Yorker Magazine even suggesting at the time that then-American President Barack Obama could learn a thing or two from Gillard in politics following the heated debate.
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25 September, 2022
Jews are still not safe, even in NYC
And the authorities ignore most of the attacks. Why? Because of racism. But it's not racism against Jews. It's racism in favor of blacks. The attacks are almost solely the work of blacks. Blacks tend to hate Jews.
Why? For the age-old reason: Jewish success as a minority. Blacks can see that Jews expose the fact that their lack of success cannot be blamed on their minority status. And political correctness requires the minimization of bad behavior by blacks
New York politicians are at least talking about waging a more serious response to the frequent acts of violence and harassment targeting the city’s Orthodox Jews. Last week, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, N.Y.-15, called for a federal probe of New York’s failure to prosecute suspects in anti-Jewish hate crimes, which have become so routine a feature of life in Orthodox communities that only the most egregious incidents ever become known beyond community media or the Twitter feeds of local politicians. On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams promised that assaults on Jews “won’t be tolerated.”
Attacks on Jews in New York are often treated as a parochial problem, not as a phenomenon with implications for broader civic and social health. Even if that changes, and even if decision-makers and the general public begin treating these incidents as an active civic crisis, the problem elides any easy political fix because it reflects a deeper corrosion. America’s most populous city prides itself on being a special place of safety and tolerance for the diverse peoples of the world, but the pace of attacks on visible Jews, along with the general indifference toward this shameful reality, reveal this to be a self-serving myth. New York is increasingly chaotic, violent, and small-minded, and its official and even semipopular fetish for equity and multiculturalism seems to have translated into even worse treatment of certain minority groups.
Over the past month alone, we found 13 reported incidents of violence or harassment against Jews in New York that appear to have been antisemitic in nature. It is a staggering number, proof that in New York City there is a sense of impunity for attacking people who look a certain way, along with a widespread desire to take advantage of the opportunity. The conditions are favorable for would-be tormentors of Jews in New York, even despite the statements of Torres and Adams. On Wednesday, three men who pleaded guilty to bludgeoning two Orthodox Jews on a Shabbat afternoon in May of 2021 for refusing to say “free Palestine” during an ongoing escalation between Israel and Hamas learned they wouldn’t have to go to jail.
Indeed, the past month’s blotter is a record of social breakdown that has been allowed to become utterly normal:
August 21: Two Hasidic men, ages 66 and 72, were sprayed with a fire extinguisher around 6 a.m. in separate incidents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. The second and older victim was punched in the nose. Both attacks were caught on camera, and did not appear to have any robbery motive.
August 22: Three teenagers stole a kippah from a 13-year-old boy in southern Staten Island in an almost poignantly brutish act of ethnoreligious bullying.
August 30: A crowd of teenagers surrounded a Hasidic man in Williamsburg; one of them punched him in the face as bystanders failed to intervene. Naturally, the entire confrontation was captured on a cellphone camera by someone who also did nothing to stop the attack.
September 1: A strangely calm-sounding man with a megaphone greeted the students of Queens College with antisemitic conspiracy theories, the most mild of which had to do with Israel using Holocaust reparations to destroy Germany. The man had apparently showed up on campus on multiple days that week, and had yelled similarly horrific things about Muslims, Christians, and Black people.
September 4: A 40-year-old Hasidic woman and her 20-year-old son came under fire from a BB gun wielded by someone traveling in a car near Wythe Avenue and South 10th Street in Williamsburg. The drive-by attacker said nothing during the incident, meaning the motive will remain a mystery as far the NYPD and prosecutors are concerned—assuming the shooter is ever charged or even caught.
September 7: A young man chased a member of the Crown Heights Chabad community down Eastern Parkway, yelling antisemitic invective and threatening to kill him.
September 8: A moped driver who slammed into a car driven by a Jewish man began attacking the motorist, who had left his vehicle to offer help. While this was not an antisemitic attack per se, it was nevertheless a possible example of how visible Jews are in greater danger than others during relatively innocuous incidents like this one.
September 12: Another likely BB gun-type attack on a Hasidic woman in Williamsburg—this time the pellet lodged in the woman’s sheitel, protecting her from injury.
September 13: A man in his mid-30s sucker-punched a 58-year-old Jew on the boardwalk in Far Rockaway.
September 15: In what has become a pattern across the city, almost the criminal version of a meme, a man on a bicycle slapped the hat off of an Orthodox Jewish passerby in Borough Park.
September 17: In a similar incident in the same neighborhood, a woman punched a shtreimel and kippah off of a man’s head in Borough Park.
September 19: Four 10th-graders were heading home from a Monday night event at their yeshiva in Flatbush when a man pulled over, rolled down the window of his car, whipped out a gun, and told them to “run home.” This explicit threat to shoot Orthodox children for having the nerve to show their faces in public after dark—or maybe at all—went practically unreported in most city media.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/hate-crime-a-day-keeps-the-doj-away
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U.S. Airforce discriminates against normal men
The United States Air Force Academy recently circulated promotional information among its cadets for the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which specifically bans 'cisgender men' from applying.
The email sent on September 14, encourages cadets to apply to the program, which states: 'If you are a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you.
'If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you...but we encourage you to check out our spinoff programs, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program.'
A concerned Air Force cadet shared the email because, he told Fox News, 'It's a little worrying that we have more briefs about D&I than briefs about foreign adversaries, emerging technologies or current events across the world.'
The fellowship, which has existed since 2017, commemorates the late Owens - a pilot and space policy expert - who died at the age of 35 of breast cancer in 2016.
The program provides young people, who are not cisgender men, with paid internships and executive mentorship at top aviation and space exploration companies.
The email also arrived as it has become clear that the US Army is facing major recruitment issues. In fact, this month, the Army revealed it was just 52% of the way to its recruitment goals for the fiscal year, which ends on September 30.
The US Air Force Academy, which is comprised of roughly 71% men and 29% women, came under fire recently for a diversity and inclusion presentation in which it instructed cadets to shy away from the usage of gendered language in everyday speech.
Cadets were encouraged to swap out the words 'mom' and 'dad' for 'parent' or 'guardian.' 'Boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' were encouraged to be exchanged for 'partner,' and so on.
At the time, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) - a Green Beret and veteran of the Afghan War - said that the school's focus on 'woke' concepts of language justice is 'absolutely destructive to morale, to unity, to everything that I know from a military, that by the way, integrated way before the rest of the country in 1948.'
As opposed to focusing on small-scale wording faux pas, he said 'the Air Force should be worried about the macro aggressions against America that are happening all over the world.'
In 2021, the US Air Force Academy made headlines for announcing a Diversity and Inclusion Reading Room, specially designated with curated books and described in a release as a 'treasure trove of big ideas and a safe space for open discussion.'
'We need to foster an understanding about the challenges of diversity, racism and injustice, promote a wide-range of perspectives and be respectful of people we agree and disagree with,' said Mark Jensen, president of the Academy's faculty senate and a philosophy professor.
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Florida Issues Forceful Threat Against 'Credit Card Companies Who Target the 2nd Amendment'
Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis is responding to the decision some credit card companies have made to use a special sales code for gun and ammunition sales.
Visa, Mastercard and American Express will all be using the code as a way to track consumer credit card purchases for these items at United States gun stores.
Patronis has released a statement in which he said Florida will take action against the credit card companies using the code in the state of Florida.
“The second amendment is foundational to our American way of life. The idea that law-abiding Americans would be put on some kind of corporate watchlist is disturbing.
“Our rights come from our Creator, not the government, and especially not big corporations. It is clear that the actions by these credit card companies are part of a larger effort to curtail God-given constitutional rights of Americans.
“It is also symptomatic of the virus known as ESG, which is part of a global effort to socially re-engineer the country that we love so much. There is no way we are going to allow that to happen in the free state of Florida,” Patronis said.
“If we come to the legislative session and companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express are generating these reports to create a chilling effect against the purchase of firearms, then I’ll work with the Legislature to pass a law penalizing businesses who are targeting the right to bear arms,” Patronis said.
He added, “We’ve seen a groundbreaking ruling come out of the Fifth Circuit limiting corporations’ ability to curtail American’s constitutional rights, so we are on solid legal footing to pursue a bill protecting Floridians 2nd Amendment Rights.
“We can also take it a step further by barring these companies from doing any business with the State of Florida. We will send a message out to these large corporations that if you are interested in doing business with Florida, you need to make sure that you’re protecting Floridians right to arm and defend themselves.”
Patronis is not alone in his decision to reject the merchant code. There are attorneys generals from a total of 24 states who are not in agreement with credit card companies using the new merchant code.
They have sent a letter to CEOs at American Express, Mastercard and Visa arguing that the move will not protect public safety. They believe it will just provide a list of gun buyers that may be used inappropriately, according to WLOX.
Attorney generals in New York and California have publicly expressed their support of the new code, as well as Dem. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, according to CNBC.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has expressed its opposition to the new merchant code, indicating on its website that the collection of the information, “amounts to surveillance and registration of law-abiding gun owners.”
The NRA further believes that “it should be assumed that the goal of this program is to share all collected firearm retailer MCC data with government authorities and potentially private third parties that may include gun control organizations and anti-gun researchers.”
The NRA also indicated that it believes the tracking system has great potential for “political abuse,” and would also interfere with the First Amendment rights of gun owners.
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Transgender worship
It is commendable that the Australian Football community embraces former North Melbourne player and coach Dani Laidley. But it is nauseating to see that embrace transformed into mindless fawning.
It should be possible to accept Dani Laidley as a person without turning the famous footballer into a transgender icon.
Laidley, who admitted to being a deeply troubled person, is trying to rebuild a life after drug abuse and facing criminal charges for stalking and breaking an AVO.
Laidley now identifies as a woman.
Like I said, no one begrudges 55-year-old Dani Laidley happiness, nor the right to live as they choose.
But wanting the best for Laidley is not reason enough to blind ourselves to reality.
Dani Laidley is a biological man – who pleaded guilty to stalking a woman – who has now appropriated womanhood.
The football media would have you believe Dani Laidely is Cinderella.
And no, I’m not exaggerating. That was literally how The Age newspaper described Laidley’s appearance in a long white dress at the Brownlow Medal ceremony on Monday night.
‘Dani Laidley’s Cinderella moment steals the show at the Brownlow,’ the newspaper reported.
The Daily Mail went further, reporting that Laidley ‘brought a touch of old Hollywood glamour to the carpet’.
Both newspapers went into great detail about Laidley’s dress, shoes, makeup, and handbag.
Laidley wore a ‘stunning off-the-shoulder white gown’ and ‘was all glammed up for the outing, her makeup palette consisted of dewy foundation and a smoky eye’ reported the Daily Mail breathlessly.
Seven Network presenter Emma Freedman gushed that Laidley was the highlight of the Brownlow Medal red carpet.
Many said Laidley ‘stole the show’, suggesting that Laidley looked better in a dress than the women.
Of course, the media coverage insists that Laidley is a woman.
But the public is not so easily convinced, and the backlash on social media was enormous.
People are prepared to quietly accept grown adults living as they please. What they are not prepared to do – or not yet anyway – is to be gaslighted by Woke sporting organisations or journalists.
Many people questioned Laidley’s invitation to the Brownlow Medal ceremony considering Laidley had never won the award and was not a current player or a coach. Invitations to the black tie event are strictly limited.
Perhaps the AFL invited Laidley as a gesture of goodwill, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Again, it’s commendable that people go out of their way to include a much-loved former player who has lost their way.
And Dani Laidely can wear whatever Dani Laidley wants.
But for the AFL, the Seven Network, and major news outlets to pretend Laidely is a glamorous woman, bringing style and glamour to the event as if Laidley were some kind of later-day Grace Kelly is just silly.
And for the public to then be chided for failing to play along is sillier still.
Women’s rights campaigner Sally Grover wrote:
‘To be honest, I can’t imagine a man getting a “Cinderella moment” after drug, stalking and DV charges *unless* he claimed he was a woman, and therefore is “stunning & brave”.’
Grover is right, of course. If Laidley had still identified as a man it is highly unlikely there would have been an invite to the Brownlow, even if Laidley did qualify with on-field deeds.
The double standards of the media and the AFL are as obvious.
You have to feel for Laidley’s former teammate Wayne Carey. Carey, regarded by many as the greatest player the game has seen, was kicked out of a Perth casino last month after he was found to be in possession of white powder.
Carey has insisted he was not carrying any illicit substances, and that it was an anti-inflammatory drug to help manage pain.
Nevertheless, he has been dumped from a radio role, his regular column in The Age has gone missing, and a recent speaking engagement at the annual St Kevin’s Old Boys grand final luncheon in Melbourne was cancelled at the last minute. Perhaps he should have gone in a dress…
If that comment seems nasty, it’s not intended to be. Many people on social media made the connection. It’s the obvious conclusion from watching the carry on around Dani Laidley; a carry on that invites incredulity.
Dani Laidley deserves compassion because Dani Laidley is a fellow human being and none of us are immune to the vicissitudes of life.
But compassion that demands everybody lie, and that chides those who don’t, is no longer compassion; it has become something else altogether.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/the-brownlow-cinderella/
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23 September, 2022
Now Dilbert is racist! Popular comic strip is canned by 77 newspapers after artist Scott Adams began incorporating anti-woke plotlines
A popular comic strip has been canned by 77 newspapers after its creator Scott Adams started incorporating anti-woke plotlines, including a black character who identifies as white.
Adams' much-loved 'Dilbert' comics have been in circulation since 1989 and frequently pokes fun at office culture, but he announced he was sensationally dropped by publisher Lee Enterprises.
The media company owns nearly 100 newspapers across the country - including The Buffalo News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Arizona Daily Sun - and has been publishing Adams' jokes about the corporate ladder for years.
One of his most recent controversial comic strips included a black worker, who identifies as white, being asked to also identify as gay to boost his company's environmental, social, and governance ratings.
Dave, his reoccurring character, replies: 'Depends how hard you want me to sell it,' before the boss responds: 'Just wear better shirts.'
Adams, 65, is believed to be worth nearly $70million - a fortune he amassed thanks to the popularity of his characters, as well as his non-Dilbert related works.
Another satire, posted on Monday, showed the same character in charge of the fictional firm wondering how he can open a new factory without contributing negatively to the environment.
As a solution to stop him being bashed by 'woke' commentators, the boss concludes that he'll add a non-binary worker to his board to increase diversity.
Adams' satirical strips feature in newspapers across 57 countries, and in 19 languages - and there are over 20 million Dilbert books and calendars in print.
The character Dave, named after the creator's brother, is a prankster who messes with his boss, Adams said.
He told Fox News that some newspapers voiced concerns after receiving complaints about his comic content.
But he could not say for sure if that had anything to do with the removal of 'Dilbert.'
Adams said: 'It was part of a larger overhaul, I believe, of comics, but why they decided what was in and what was out, that’s not known to anybody except them, I guess.'
The Daily Cartoonist reported that the comic strips 'Baby Blues,' 'Red and Rover,' 'Mutts' and 'Bizarrro' were also cut.
Cartoonist Dan Piraro, who created 'Bizarro,' spoke about getting the axe.
'Lee Enterprises, a newspaper group that is majority-owned by a large investment firm, stopped running ‘Bizarro’ and many other comics in their papers this past week,' Piraro wrote on his webpage.
The removal of the strips has had a 'significant' financial impact on Adams, but it's unclear how much money he was making from the partnership to begin with.
Responding to claims that Lee Enterprises were just making changes to their syndication, the cartoonist added: 'Do you think they flipped coins to decide what to keep and what to delete? It wasn't about popularity or cost. (That I know.)'
'But it could have been a normal business decision of another type that is a huge coincidence. All possible.'
In another of his anti-woke comics, one boss told workers: 'We are replacing traditional performance reviews with a wokeness score assigned by human resources.'
They explain the idea that 'the more woke you are, the more you will get paid.'
But one confused worker buts in, saying: 'That feels too subjective.'
And the boss bites back: 'That'll cost you two points off your wokeness score, bigot.'
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Sorry, trolls. Most viewers SUPPORT the casting of black actors as elves, dwarves and other fantasy characters in The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones spinoffs
Fans of hit fantasy television shows by wide margins support the casting of black actors as elves, dwarves and other characters — rebuffing online racist trolls who kicked up a fuss about such moves, a survey shows.
The poll comes in the wake of controversies over the casting of actors of color in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and black actor Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon in the Game of Thrones prequel, The House of the Dragon.
Morning Consult pollsters found that half of respondents supported casting black and brown actors in Hollywood movie and television roles typically associated with whites, while 28 percent were opposed.
Significantly, those who read works by JRR Tolkien and George RR Martin — the novelist creators of the two fantasy realms — were even more supportive of casting actors of color in traditionally white roles.
Some 55 percent of readers of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga, and 59 percent of readers of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, backed the casting of black and brown actors, even when it ran counter to the source material.
The diverse casting moves in those shows sparked an ugly backlash from online trolls, who said the shows’ creators were deviating from the original texts. They harassed actors on social media and posted negative reviews about the adaptations.
‘It turns out those fans are part of a noisy, but very clear minority,’ Morning Consult said in a posting about their survey of some 2,200 U.S. adults, which was carried out earlier this month.
‘Majorities of self-identified readers of The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire support diverse casting, even when that source material explicitly states the characters as white.’
Actors connected with the two fantasy shows and other celebrities have in recent weeks spoken out against the racist trolling.
Toussaint, 57, who plays the leader of the House Velayron in the Game of Thrones prequel series, remarked that angered fans were able to handle 'flying dragons' in the HBO Max show but not 'rich black guys.'
Rebuffing his critics, Toussaint said he's taking it all 'in stride' and feels 'sanguine' about the whole thing, adding that 'for every toxic person, there have been so many others who have been so supportive.'
The show was adapted from a portion of Martin's 2018 book Fire & Blood and takes place 172 years prior to the events in the original show. It dives into the history of the iconic Targaryen House, the then power brokers on the fictional isle of Westeros.
Likewise, the debut of the first two episodes of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power earlier this month brought trolls out of the woodwork, with several cast members of color receiving mean-spirited messages.
The series features actors of color cast in lead roles, including Ismael Cruz Cordova as the elf Arondir, Sophia Nomvete as the dwarf Princess Disa and Nazanin Boniadi as the human Bronwyn.
There has been speculation that racist trolls have also been 'review-bombing' the show and lowering the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a ratings website.
In response, actors from the original movie trilogy Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd took to social media, wearing garb with slogans written in the fictional Elvish language Neo-Sindarin that means 'You Are All Welcome Here.'
The show's official Twitter also sent a message, which began, 'We stand in solidarity with our cast #YouAreAllWelcomeHere.'
'We, the cast of Rings of Power, stand together in absolute solidarity against the relentless racism, threats, harassment and abuse some of our castmates of color are being subjected to on a daily basis. We refuse to ignore it or tolerate it,' the statement read.
'JRR Tolkien created a world which, by definition, is multi-cultural. A world in which free peoples from, different races and cultures join together, in fellowship, to defeat the forces of evil. ‘Rings of Power’ reflects that,' the statement continued.
'Our world has never been all white, fantasy has never been all white, Middle-earth is not all white. BIOPIC belong in Middle-earth and they're hear to stay.'
Those surveyed by Morning Consult were even more supportive of broader efforts to get actors of diverse ‘races, ethnicities, religious beliefs and sexual/gender identities’ appearing in film and television.
Some 66 percent of those surveyed said diverse casting was important, against 20 percent who said it was not so. Black respondents and readers of the Tolkien and Martin books favored diverse casting more strongly still.
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‘My Blood Still Boils’: Father Recalls School’s Secret Attempt to Transition Daughter
At the beginning of this year, Wendell Perez got a call that no father ever wants to receive—his elementary-aged daughter had attempted to hang herself in the school bathroom. Perez and his wife rushed to the school, where their daughter was whisked away by a police car to stay in a mental institution for a week.
Searching for answers, the couple found out from school administrators that their “son” had been struggling with “his” gender identity. On top of that, the school had remained quiet about the issue as the student was concerned that “he” would not be accepted at home because of the family’s faith.
It was only until the child’s second suicide attempt in a matter of two days that Perez and his wife were informed of the situation. The school was secretly transitioning the young girl into a male identity, without the parents’ knowledge or consent.
At the recent Pray Vote Stand Summit in Atlanta, Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon hosted a panel on Perez’s story, featuring the Florida father himself and his lawyer, Vernadette Broyles of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign.
With difficulty and a quivering voice, Perez shared his experience. “I’m going to be honest with you,” he told the room. “My blood still boils up to this day.”
From the outside, the Perezes are a normal family—a devout Catholic home with two parents and a 12-year-old in the Clayton County school system. According to Perez, there was “no indication at home” that the girl was “questioning her biological sex.”
He cites the religious discrimination of the school as a reason that the parents were kept in the dark. “Our faith was used against us. They decided [for us] that our faith—because we have a Christian faith—that was not safe for our daughter.”
“After that, we had to pick up the pieces and start a very painful healing process as a family,” Perez continued. “And part of that process was that we file a lawsuit against them for the violation of our parental rights and other constitutional rights. And that lawsuit is still active in federal court.”
Child and Parental Rights Campaign’s Broyles is representing them in their lawsuit, despite Clay County School District dismissing the allegations and requesting that the judge drop the case. She maintains that both the United States and Florida constitutions protect parents’ rights.
According to Broyles, Perez’s case is one of many instances of schools breaching parental rights and transgender ideology being forced upon children. Many parents across the country have found themselves as plaintiffs fighting school administrations that have helped their children begin quietly transitioning, such as a mother in California and a couple in Tallahassee, Florida, with similar situations. Other instances across the country have included the emergence of “gender transition closets” in communities and schools.
Kilgannon, who is senior fellow for education studies at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “It takes special grace to be able to function beyond a crisis in your family. The Perez family’s faith blesses us all by their example and by their lawsuit, which will protect other families from activist school policies. We need to pray for them, for our schools, and all other families struggling through a gender crisis.”
While the Biden administration attempts to redefine Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity, several elected officials are siding with parents through bold advocacy and legislation. This past week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, released the state’s 2022 model guidelines upholding a parent’s right to their child’s education above all else. Virginia’s Loudoun County has notably made headlines with sexual orientation indoctrination scandals and school boards usurping parents’ agendas.
Additionally, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has made friends among many parents and enemies among other citizens with his Parental Rights in Education bill.
“This is a spiritual battle that knows no geographic bounds … it’s coming everywhere,” Kilgannon told The Washington Stand. She maintains that if something like this can happen to the Perez family, no one is safe from transgender ideology targeting their kids.
As the power struggle persists across the country between parents and their local school boards, Perez is using his voice to speak out on behalf of parents who have daughters like his own.
“As a parent, I am so grateful to Wendell and his family for taking legal action,” Kilgannon concluded. “This happened in Florida, after the Parental Rights Law went into effect. Wendell is a practicing attorney, who is active in his church. His family practices their faith. So if this can happen to Wendell’s daughter, it can happen to anyone.”
Editor’s note: The Daily Signal reached out to Clay County District Schools for comment and received this comment by email from Terri Dennis:
“The district has performed a thorough and complete investigation into this matter as it was presented to us and has determined that the allegations made by this out-of-state organization are completely false, fabricated, and appear to be intended solely for the purpose of inciting the public. All employees of the district consistently work to ensure that the best interests of all students are served. The district will have no further comment on this matter.”
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"Truth" and Australian Aborigines
There are certain expressions which, although ridiculous, serve a useful purpose in alerting readers that what follows is fallacious gibberish. Phrases such as “hate speech”, “white privilege” and the insufferably smug “wrong side of history” are just a few examples.
Now a new word has emerged in the vernacular of the virtuous. It is time, they will say, that this country undergoes the process of ‘truth-telling’.
The aim of this, we are told, is for the good of the nation and to bring us together. “When we think about the effect that a national truth-telling process would have on Australia, it’s remarkable,” said Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney in July at the Garma Festival in north-east Arnhem Land. “I see this as, you know, a thousand flowers blooming.”
As to what is supposedly stopping Indigenous Australians from telling their stories about the effects of colonisation in the absence of the proposed Makarrata commission, Burney did not elaborate. Nevertheless, a mostly compliant media has adopted the term, referring to it with respect and even reverence. So much for journalists avoiding loaded terms.
It was a subject that featured last week on ABC’s Q+A. “When it comes to truth-telling, these are going to be really difficult conversations,” said Wiradjuri and Wailwan lawyer Teela Reid. Perhaps so. But if you serenely proclaim the transgressions of others warrant your truth-telling, be ready for a few unpleasant facts yourself.
We can start with Reid’s comments about the one match suspension of NRLW Indigenous player Caitlin Moran for gleefully referring to Queen Elizabeth II as a “dumb dog” on the day of her death. “Free speech isn’t free in this country, particularly for First Nations people,” said Reid. “I think we really need to make sure that when First Nations women are speaking out, we’re not being overpoliced. I mean, this is, you know, just shocking to me.”
She has a point. Just ask Country Liberal Party senator and Warlpiri/Celtic woman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price about the abuse and threats she cops from Indigenous activists when she calls out violence in Aboriginal communities. It is a truth that Indigenous women and girls are 31 more times likely to be hospitalised due to domestic and family violence related assaults compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts.
Last month Northern Territory Supreme Court judge Judith Kelly lashed out at terms such as “systemic racism” and “institutional racism,” telling a group of female lawyers there was a “cultural component” to Indigenous violence.
“There is the culture in some communities that tolerates violence against women and others that blames the victim and prioritises the interest of the male perpetrators over the female victims,” she said. “That, in my view, can only be changed from within those communities.”
But these domestic killings would receive virtually no publicity if not for a prominent judge deciding to do a little truth-telling about Indigenous culture. To quote Bundjalung, Yuin and Gumbaynggirr man Nyunggai Warren Mundine: “Don’t these Black Lives Matter?” Or are he and Price in the category Reid referred to last week when she sneeringly observed that “colonisers will always cherry-pick a black voice that suits their agenda”?
If Reid and other activists want truth-telling, bring it on. It is true to say the homicide rate in some NT towns is nearly twice that of the United States. It is also a truth that Indigenous youth suffers disproportionately from parental neglect. And is true that only 41 per cent of Indigenous children attend school 90 per cent or more of the time compared to the national rate of 70 per cent.
This is not to distract from the reality that colonisation had a devastating effect on the Indigenous population. Nor do I deny the massacres that took place or the attitude that the original inhabitants were a doomed people, the colonial administrators believing their obligation was simply to “smooth the dying pillow”. Those shameful aspects are already part of our history curricula, as they should be.
But if we to have truth-telling, then enough of the exaggerations and outright falsehoods. Eighteenth century explorer Captain James Cook was not a conquistador. Rather, he was a decent and enlightened man as well as one of history’s greatest navigators. It is also true he is fundamental to this country’s history, and that his vilification and obliteration have nothing to do with tolerance and everything to do with imposing a revisionist ideology.
It is an unfortunate truth that Australian students are taught the claims of Bruce Pascoe, an author who is to Indigenous history what John Pilger is to journalism. It is also a truth that a gullible media not only failed to scrutinise his ludicrous conclusions, but also treated them as an article of faith.
And it is a truth that governments devote enormous resources to addressing Indigenous disadvantage. As a federal parliamentary report noted in 2019: “Over the last decade, the Productivity Commission’s Indigenous Expenditure Reports … have consistently shown that total Commonwealth, state and territory government per capita expenditure on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is approximately double the per capita expenditure on non-Indigenous Australians”.
It is also true to say that many of the so-called progressive commentariat and Indigenous activists loudly decry governments for the state of these communities but refuse to acknowledge the root causes other than blaming racism and colonialism.
And it is true there is such a thing as an Indigenous bandwagon. The 2021 census recorded that 812,728 people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, an increase of 25 per cent from 2016. And it is a truth that many of these arrivistes are motivated by a rent-seeking industry that mandates everything from holding so-called welcome to country ceremonies to employing ‘cultural safety’ officers.
It is also a truth that the mere act of elaborating these truths can see you hauled before a human rights commission or anti-discrimination tribunal. It is also true that the truth of one’s assertions is not an absolute defence to such action.
It is a truth that no matter how many treaties are signed, or how many truth commissions are held, the intention is not to reconcile but rather to reinforce a permanent sense of guilt in mainstream Australians. And it is a truth that in the wretched Indigenous settlements little will change as a result.
But you know what isn’t the truth? Claiming whitey is the source of all Indigenous misery.
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22 September, 2022
The Ottoman legacy is more toxic than Britain
Almost everyone from the transnational Woke elite and their tribalist proxies has had their say regarding the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the history of Britain, and the Commonwealth at large.
Despite their ‘diversity’, these critics display an ideological homogeneity shaped by post-colonialism and identity politics. Their consensus? The British monarchy and Commonwealth nations are uniquely wicked legacies that must be made to pay for their allegedly terrible existence.
Incidentally, the existence of Britain is the reason these awful people have been able to enjoy political freedom and the highest standard of living known to humanity.
These critics are so comfortable living within their colonial framework (and the nations Britain shaped) spewing bigotry that they have no intention of emigrating to a country more aligned with their worldview. Even if the opportunity were offered, none would skip over to Russia, Cuba, China, or Venezuela.
The bile from such figures need not be mentioned here in great detail. They have attributed to the Royal Family things they could not have humanly done, just as they have slandered British and Anglo-Saxon people for things they had nothing to do with (except the sharing of a skin colour). If anything, it underlines that the most vocal of ‘anti-racists’ are often guilty of the accusations they level at others.
And what of the history of other nations?
Mehreen Faruqi, born in Pakistan, has said some truly awful things about Britain and the Queen but remains quiet about the sins of her home country.
Pakistan is a nation where antisemitism is normalised along with a high degree of intolerance for religious minorities and oppression of a number of ethnic groups within the country. Many of the most vile hate speech directed against Jews and Armenians (despite Pakistan having little to no presence of either) originates from Pakistan-linked accounts on social media.
Pakistan, also an ally of Azerbaijan and Turkey, would be a clearer candidate for the most openly racist country in the world ahead of increasingly diverse Anglosphere nations.
In addition, Turkey not only actively denies the Armenian Genocide, but funds denial of it abroad and has captured swathes of high-powered political figures to its side in the West.
Last year, a video captured a passer-by on a Turkish street calling for the murder of Armenians. Similarly vile social media posts are a regular occurrence on Turkish and Azerbaijani social media, and also among their Diaspora communities. Most recently, a Turkish politician likened Syrian refugees to garbage. A case can be made that Armenians are one of the most racially abused and threatened group of people on social media, subject to degrading and dehumanising language on a regular basis.
Astonishingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, none of this vile hate speech draws condemnation from the West’s extensively-funded multicultural and anti-racism industries.
This comes as no surprise given that many involved in this industry turn out to be peddlers of bigotry and hate, such as one recent beneficiary of Canada’s anti-racism funding programs.
Many of those purporting to be vocally against racism and Islamophobia have been similarly exposed, along with their links to dubious foreign regimes who see the industry as an open door to interference in Western politics.
Erdo?an’s Turkey, along with Qatar and Pakistan, have keenly taken advantage of this system.
The awful legacies left by the Ottoman Empire would easily dwarf any negatives left by the British and other European empires.
Similarly, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union which succeeded it, also left a toxic legacy along with virulent racial prejudice manifesting itself in Russia’s attitudes towards neighbouring countries showcased on Putin’s propaganda media outlets. Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine encapsulates this dehumanisation, which is especially evident in the rapes and murders of young Ukrainian women by Russian soldiers. And their justification? Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans must be subject to ‘denazification’, using much the same language the Western Left uses against its opponents.
Racism against non-Russians was a feature of life in the Soviet regime, just as it has been a feature of life in post-Soviet Russia. South African jazz musician and anti-Apartheid icon Hugh Masekela discovered on a tour that Soviet Russia was in fact more racist than South Africa, which must have been a shock given Soviet support for the ANC and ‘anti-racism’ causes globally.
The Soviets created much of the anti-Western propaganda in our societies today to divert attention from this and from the atrocities of communism generally.
In post-Soviet Russia, racist attacks and murders of migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia have drawn some attention, and highlight the prevalence of racial prejudice against non-Russians from Russia’s former colonies.
Much of the modern debate on race relations in the Anglosphere focuses on colonial legacies and non-white and indigenous peoples. But the alleged racism against them positively pales in comparison to the toxic legacies left behind by Ottoman and Russian imperialism, manifesting itself in a far more violent, hateful, and degrading treatment of ethnic groups from lands colonised by them.
Just ask the Armenians, Assyrians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles about that.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/the-ottoman-legacy-is-more-toxic-than-britain/
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Forget multiculturalism
British culture and Christianity are a cultural treasure worth defending.
The best of British culture has been on display these past ten or so days. We can use words like pomp and pageantry, ceremony and tradition… But this is all British culture and it’s worth preserving and promoting.
Its enemy is multiculturalism.
No, you flaming racists (those who accuse others of racism for nothing more than patriotism), I didn’t say other cultures are the enemy of British culture. I said multiculturalism, as an ideology, is the obvious enemy of any cultural constancy or single unifying cultural event.
Multiculturalism means we should invite the fabric of our national identity to be woven with more and more random threads until the pattern and design of a nation is unrecognisable. Nations lose their identity and its people lose their heritage. Multicultural is to dilute that which makes us who we are by the grace of God until the remaining flavour is bland and indistinct.
Why should every culture other than British culture be carefully preserved and curated for future generations? There is no insistence on multiculturalism in most other nations. Of course, cultures must be capable of embarrassment and maturation, but not at the cost of sacred identity.
When one leaves their homeland and settles in another, one must not expect the host nation to change to accommodate one’s own culture – unless one brings an army to conquer and colonise. If you are a guest and welcomed as a resident or even citizen, you must adapt and change, not your host.
I am Australian. Australians are British. My culture is not mere centuries old. My laws are not begun in 1901.
My culture is millennia old.
My laws are older than Magna Carta. My civilisation civilised the world and brought the finest of music, arts, government, science, industry, and civil administration that the world has ever seen.
The withdrawal of the British administration is often marked by the advent of corruption, incompetence, and instability.
Of course, Englishmen should be embarrassed by the worst of the Empire’s greed and brutality, a global history not peculiar to whites. But because we were embarrassed, we matured, and ushered in an era of unprecedented stability, peace, and liberty no other civilisation on record.
When I speak of a culture’s capacity for embarrassment, I mean its capacity to shake off its backwardness, injustice, ignorance, and incompetence. In many historical examples one culture has learned from another and advanced. But the only perfect culture we can and should safely emulate and calibrate to is Kingdom culture, the will and ways of the only true Sovereign, Jesus Christ.
Part of the British Crown Jewels and of immense significance in the coronation of our Kings and Queens is the Sovereign’s Orb. They are reminded when given the globe topped with the Holy cross:
"Receive this orb set under the cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer."
Their oath is to ‘maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel’, and to rely on help from God to perform and keep their promise.
What a tragedy to consider setting our wonderful culture adrift from the anchors of political humility and accountability represented in oaths and allegiances to our Monarchy. God save us from a politicians’ republic like France or America!
British culture and Christianity are a cultural treasure worth defending. Every nation should promote its own culture, balanced with the capacity for reformation and constant recalibration with the Kingdom of God. Multiculturalism and humanism, however, are the enemy of stability, peace, justice, and liberty.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/forget-multiculturalism/
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The U.S. Government’s Vast New Privatized Censorship Regime
One warm weekend in October of 2020, three impeccably credentialed epidemiologists—Jayanta Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff, of Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard Universities respectively—gathered with a few journalists, writers, and economists at an estate in the Berkshires where the American Institute for Economic Research had brought together critics of lockdowns and other COVID-related government restrictions.
On Sunday morning shortly before the guests departed, the scientists encapsulated their views—that lockdowns do more harm than good, and that resources should be devoted to protecting the vulnerable rather than shutting society down—in a joint communique dubbed the “Great Barrington Declaration,” after the town in which it was written.
The declaration began circulating on social media and rapidly garnered signatures, including from other highly credentialed scientists. Most mainstream news outlets and the scientists they chose to quote denounced the declaration in no uncertain terms. When contacted by reporters, Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins of the NIH publicly and vociferously repudiated the “dangerous” declaration, smearing the scientists—all generally considered to be at the top of their fields—as “fringe epidemiologists.” Over the next several months, the three scientists faced a barrage of condemnation: They were called eugenicists and anti-vaxxers; it was falsely asserted that they were “Koch-funded” and that they had written the declaration for financial gain. Attacks on the Great Barrington signatories proliferated throughout social media and in the pages of The New York Times and Guardian.
Yet emails obtained pursuant to a FOIA request later revealed that these attacks were not the products of an independent objective news-gathering process of the type that publications like the Times and the Guardian still like to advertise. Rather, they were the fruits of an aggressive attempt to shape the news by the same government officials whose policies the epidemiologists had criticized. Emails between Fauci and Collins revealed that the two officials had worked together and with media outlets as various as Wired and The Nation to orchestrate a “takedown” of the declaration.
Nor did the targeting of the scientists stop with the bureaucrats they had implicitly criticized. Bhattacharya, Gupta, and Kulldorff soon learned that their declaration was being heavily censored on social media to prevent their scientific opinions from reaching the public. Kulldorff—then the most active of the three online—soon began to experience censorship of his own social media posts. For example, Twitter censored one of Kulldorff’s tweets asserting that: “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older, higher-risk people and their caretakers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Not children.” Posts on Kulldorff’s Twitter and LinkedIn criticizing mask and vaccine mandates were labeled misleading or removed entirely. In March of 2021, YouTube took down a video depicting a roundtable discussion that Bhattacharya, Gupta, Kulldorff, and Dr. Scott Atlas had with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in which the participants critiqued mask and vaccine mandates.
Because of this censorship, Bhattacharya and Kulldorff are now plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden, a case brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, as well as the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which is representing them and two other individuals, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Jill Hines. The plaintiffs allege that the Biden administration and a number of federal agencies coerced social media platforms into censoring them and others for criticizing the government’s COVID policies. In doing so, the Biden administration and relevant agencies had turned any ostensible private action by the social media companies into state action, in violation of the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has long recognized and Justice Thomas explained in a concurring opinion just last year, “[t]he government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly.”
Federal district courts have recently dismissed similar cases on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove state action. According to those judges, public admissions by then-White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki that the Biden administration was ordering social media companies to censor certain posts, as well as statements from Psaki, President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas threatening them with regulatory or other legal action if they declined to do so, still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action. Put another way, the judges declined to take the government at its word. But the Missouri judge reached a different conclusion, determining there was enough evidence in the record to infer that the government was involved in social media censorship, granting the plaintiffs’ request for discovery at the preliminary injunction stage.
The Missouri documents, along with some obtained through discovery in Berenson v. Twitter and a FOIA request by America First Legal, expose the extent of the administration’s appropriation of big tech to effect a vast and unprecedented regime of viewpoint-based censorship on the information that most Americans see, hear and otherwise consume. At least 11 federal agencies, and around 80 government officials, have been explicitly directing social media companies to take down posts and remove certain accounts that violate the government’s own preferences and guidelines for coverage on topics ranging from COVID restrictions, to the 2020 election, to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Correspondence publicized in Missouri further corroborates the theory that the companies dramatically increased censorship under duress from the government, strengthening the First Amendment claim. For example, shortly after President Biden asserted in July of 2021 that Facebook (Meta) was “killing people” by permitting “misinformation” about COVID vaccines to percolate, an executive from the company contacted the surgeon general to appease the White House. In a text message to Murthy, the executive acknowledged that the “FB team” was “feeling a little aggrieved” as “it’s not great to be accused of killing people,” while he sought to “de-escalate and work together collaboratively.” These are not the words of a person who is acting freely; to the contrary, they denote the mindset of someone who considers himself subordinate to, and subject to punishment by, a superior. Another text, exchanged between Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and another CISA employee who now works at Microsoft, reads: “Platforms have got to get more comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain.” This is another incontrovertible piece of evidence that social media companies are censoring content under duress from the government, and not due to their directors’ own ideas of the corporate or common good.
Further, emails expressly establish that the social media companies intensified censorship efforts and removed particular individuals from their platforms in response to the government’s demands. Just a week after President Biden accused social media companies of “killing people,” the Meta executive mentioned above wrote the surgeon general an email telling him, “I wanted to make sure you saw the steps we took just this past week to adjust policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation, as well as steps taken further to address the ‘disinfo dozen’: we removed 17 additional Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts tied to [them].” About a month later, the same executive informed Murthy that Meta intended to expand its COVID policies to “further reduce the spread of potentially harmful content” and that the company was “increasing the strength of our demotions for COVID and vaccine-related content.”
Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter and a prominent critic of government-imposed COVID restrictions, has publicized internal Twitter communications he obtained through discovery in his own lawsuit showing that high-ranking members of the Biden administration, including White House Senior COVID-19 Advisor Andrew Slavitt, had pushed Twitter to permanently suspend him from the platform. In messages from April 2021, a Twitter employee noted that a meeting with the White House had gone relatively well, though the company’s representatives had fielded “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” to which “mercifully we had answers”
About two months later, days after Dr. Fauci publicly deemed Berenson a danger, and immediately following the president’s statement that social media companies were “killing people,” and despite assurances from high-ups at the company that his account was in no danger, Twitter permanently suspended Berenson’s account. If this does not qualify as government censorship of an individual based on official disapproval of his viewpoints, it would be difficult to say what might. Berenson was reinstated on Twitter in July 2022 as part of the settlement in his lawsuit.
In 1963, the Supreme Court, deciding Bantam Books v. Sullivan, held that “public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against” booksellers who carried materials containing obscenity could constitute a First Amendment violation. The same reasoning should apply to the Biden administration campaign to pressure tech companies into enforcing its preferred viewpoints.
The question of how the Biden administration has succeeded in jawboning big tech into observing its strictures is not particularly difficult to answer. Tech companies, many of which hold monopoly positions in their markets, have long feared and resisted government regulation. Unquestionably—and as explicitly revealed by the text message exchanged between Murthy and the Twitter executive—the prospect of being held liable for COVID deaths is an alarming one. Just like the booksellers in Bantam, social media platforms undoubtedly “do not lightly disregard” such possible consequences, as Twitter’s use of the term “mercifully” indicates.
It remains to be seen whether Bhattacharya and Kulldorff will be able to show that Fauci and Collins explicitly ordered tech companies to censor them and their Great Barrington Declaration. More discovery lies ahead, from top White House officials including Dr. Fauci, that may yield evidence of even more direct involvement by the government in preventing Americans from hearing their views. But Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and countless social media users have had their First Amendment rights violated nonetheless.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/government-privatized-censorship-regime
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21 September, 2022
Don Lemon squeezed! CNN host is stunned into silence when royal commentator says African kings - not British royals - should pay reparations for slavery
CNN anchor Don Lemon was at a loss for words after a royal commentator told him slavery reparations are necessary - but said they should be paid by the descendants of 'African kings' who sold their own people into slavery.
Lemon interviewed Hilary Fordwich on September 13, following Queen Elizabeth II's death, and suggested the British royal family should pay reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
In the interview, which went viral on Twitter this week, Fordwich responded by arguing that African leaders were responsible for supplying millions of enslaved people to European slave traders, saying that reparations should come from African nations.
A stunned Lemon responded that it was an 'interesting discussion' and quickly concluded the interview.
From the 16th to the late 19th century, at least 12 million African men, women and children were enslaved and transported to the Americas, where they were traded as chattel property primarily by Europeans and Euro-Americans.
While many Africans resisted the slave trade, others did actively participate in it by capturing and enslaving other Africans and bringing them to slave castles on the West and Central African coast to sell to European traders.
In in interview, Lemon had asked Fordwich: 'Well, this is coming when... all of this wealth, and you hear about it, comes as England is facing rising costs of living, a living crisis, austerity budget cuts, and so on.
'And then you have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism, and they're wondering, you know, $100 billion, $24 billion here and there, $500 million there.
'Some people want to be paid back and members of the public are wondering, why are we suffering when you have all of this vast wealth? Those are legitimate concerns.'
Fordwich answered: 'Well, I think you're right about reparations in terms of if people want it though. What they need to do - is you always need to go back to the beginning of a supply chain, where was the beginning of the supply chain?
'That was in Africa, and when it crossed the entire world, when slavery was taking place. Which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery? The first nation in the world to abolish it, it was started by William Wilberforce, was the British,' she said.
In fact, Haiti was the first country to legally abolish slavery, which was banned there from the country's foundation in 1804, following a revolt against the French colonial government.
But despite the legal prohibition, slavery and human trafficking by criminal organizations remain prevalent in Haiti today, with an estimate 59,000 people there still living in modern slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index.
Britain in 1833 passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies.
Fordwich continued: 'In Great Britain, they abolished slavery. Two thousand Naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people, they had them on cages waiting in the beaches, no one was running into Africa to get them.
'And I think you’re totally right. If reparations needs to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, ‘who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages? Absolutely. That’s where they should start.
'And maybe, I don’t know, the descendants of those families where they died at the in the high seas trying to stop the slavery, that those families should receive something too I think at the same time.'
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration of people in human history, involving human suffering on an unimaginable scale.
Some African leaders and traders did play a role in enslaving other Africans, usually from other ethnic groups, and selling them to European traders.
Because Europeans were often unable to penetrate very deeply into the African continent, they instead built a network of slave castles on the coastline, and engaged local middlemen to bring them new victims.
Historians say that many of enslaved victims were captured during warfare between rival African groups, though some of them were kidnapped and sold purely for profit, according to an article from the College of Charleston.
In 2019, Nigerian novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani wrote a thought-provoking guest essay in the Wall Street Journal about the issue of African complicity in the slave trade.
'Europeans oversaw this brutal traffic in human cargo, but they had many local collaborators,' she wrote.
'The anguished debate over slavery in the U.S. is often silent on the role that Africans played,' the author added. 'That silence is echoed in many African countries, where there is hardly any national discussion or acknowledgment of the issue.'
Royal commenter Fordwich is a global business consultant and a regular media contributor, according to her Women's Media Center profile.
Fordwich is 'a national Royal Watcher' for networks, including Sunday Morning, CNN and CBS. She has covered every royal wedding since William and Kate.
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Feminist academics at universities tell how their views on trans issues have led to them being overlooked for jobs, physically removed from events and facing 'continuum of hell' from online abuse
Feminist academics have told how they are self-censoring because their views on trans issue have led them to being overlooked for jobs, physically barred or even removed from events, and facing a 'continuum of hell' from online trolls who have made death and rape threats.
Laura Favaro, a researcher in gender issues at City, University of London, interviewed 14 feminists who believe that men and women have biological differences which are 'binary and immutable'.
The so-called 'gender critical' feminists claimed that they have been the targets of abuse, intimidation, no-platforming, smears and 'lost career progression opportunities, including being blocked from jobs' in the world of academia for their views on sex and gender.
Some described being physically removed from events and even being the recipients of incitement to murder online.
One criminology scholar described her experience as 'a continuum of hell' while others in the early stages of their careers admitted 'it would just be too terrifying' to make their views public because of the fear of being 'ostracised' - and instead choosing to 'hide in the shadows'.
Writing for The Times Higher Education, Miss Favaro said the interviewees warned of the near-total control of academic freedom - deciding what can be discussed in departments or included in scholarly journals - by supporters of 'trans-inclusive feminism'.
One academic said: 'It feels so alienating because academia should be about discussing and exchanging ideas, and it's not. It's not in our context.
'It's also incredibly anxiety-provoking because I don't want to lose my job and I don't want to put my kids at risk - I know they could be put at risk.'
Miss Favaro wrote: 'Of course, I fear harms to my career and more for instigating, as interviewees repeatedly put it, ''difficult conversations'' - not least as an immigrant early career scholar with a family to support.
'But, at the same time, why would I want to work in academia if I cannot do academic work? Much more terrifying than being hated is being gagged.'
It comes after a barrister who won a tribunal against her chambers after they discriminated against her for her beliefs on gender rights has resumed her battle with a controversial LGBT charity.
Allison Bailey, who is friends with Harry Potter author JK Rowling - herself the target of hatred for her views - had accused Garden Court Chambers of withholding work from her and trying to crush her spirit.
She said it happened after she criticised Stonewall's trans policies including recommendations to change pronouns from 'she and he' to 'they and their'.
Ms Bailey - who is a lesbian - believes sex is biological and cannot change, and that the word 'woman' is defined as 'adult human female'. She won £22,000 in damages from GCC after winning part of the discrimination case. But she lost part of her case in her claim that Stonewall had instructed or induced the treatment by the chambers.
Today she announced she had appealed against part of the tribunal's ruling.
Within minutes of the ruling, the Harry Potter writer tweeted: 'Allison Bailey is a heroine to me and innumerable other feminists for refusing to abandon her beliefs and principles in the fact of intimidation and discrimination. Congratulations', adding: 'And I couldn't be prouder of my friend'.
In December 2018 Ms Bailey complained to her colleagues about the chambers becoming a Stonewall Diversity Champion, saying that Stonewall advocated 'trans extremism' and was complicit in a campaign of intimidation of those who questioned gender self-identity.
She founded the LGB Alliance group, which argues there is a conflict between the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, and transgender people - and opposes many of Stonewall's policies, including the assertion that 'trans women are women'.
The tribunal found that GCC discriminated against Ms Bailey by publishing a tweet saying it was investigating her and by upholding a claim by Stonewall arguing that two of her tweets 'were likely to breach (The Bar Standards Board's) core duties'.
But allegations that it discriminated against and victimised her through withholding of instructions and work in 2019, causing the claimant financial loss, a claim of indirect discrimination by GCC, and a claim that Stonewall instructed, caused or induced GCC to discriminate against her, were dismissed.
In December 2018, Ms Bailey complained to her colleagues about GCC becoming a Stonewall Diversity Champion, claiming the group advocated 'trans extremism' and was complicit in a campaign of intimidation of those who questioned gender self-identity.
In October 2019 she was involved in setting up the LGB Alliance advocacy group to resist 'gender extremism'.
Her tweets opposing trans rights campaigns led to tweets and complaints being sent to GCC, alleging her opinions were transphobic and damaged GCC's reputation.
The tribunal held that her gender-critical belief that Stonewall wanted to replace sex with gender identity, that the absolutist tone of its advocacy of gender self-identity made it complicit in threats against women, and that it eroded women's rights and lesbian same-sex orientation, were beliefs protected under the Equality Act.
A reserved judgment handed down upheld her claim that GCC discriminated against her because of her belief, when it tweeted that the complaints would be investigated under a complaints procedure, and when it found in December 2019 that two of her tweets were likely to breach barristers' core duties.
GCC was ordered to pay her £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, plus interest of £4,693.33.
At the time the chambers said it was 'reviewing the judgment carefully with our legal team with a view to appeal' but has not done so.
A Spokesperson for Stonewall said 'The recent decision by the Employment Tribunal found that Stonewall had NOT instructed, caused or induced Garden Court Chambers to discriminate against Allison Bailey.
'We have not been notified by the Employment Appeal Tribunal of any appeal by Allison Bailey, but should we receive this, we will defend ourselves robustly.'
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Progressives push to capture New York Court of Appeals
Radical progressives are looking to turn the state’s highest court into a rubber stamp for their agenda. The nakedly ideological drive is an assault on the independent judiciary, a bulwark of democracy.
On Wednesday, City & State reported that a top gay Democratic club wrote Gov. Kathy Hochul to condemn the openly gay judge who now serves as acting chief on the Court of Appeals. It’s just part of the unseemly effort to muscle Hochul into nominating a lefty to replace departing Chief Judge Janet DiFiore.
“Although Judge [Anthony] Cannataro is openly gay, he does not represent our values,” wrote Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club prez and LGBTQ activist Allen Roskoff. That clearly means he’s not guaranteed to ram the entire lefty agenda, from handcuffing cops to mandating children’s “right” to gender-transition surgery to protecting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, down the public’s throat.
From the moment DiFiore announced her retirement, progressives rushed to denounce her and the high court’s so-called “conservative” majority, which quite rightly stood by the trial-court judge who struck down state Democrats’ blatantly unconstitutional gerrymander. Their gripes extend to other cases where the court didn’t make the “right” decision in cases involving tenants, immigrants, criminal defendants and the green agenda.
The chief judge leads the seven-member appeals court and oversees the operation of the entire state court system. It’s expected that Hochul will nominate a permanent replacement for DiFiore this year, once the Commission on Judicial Nominations submits its list of seven candidates.
It’s not just advocates like Roskoff attacking Cannataro as the “wrong” kind of gay. (That’s a habit for the Owles club, which is also pushing to get Ed Koch’s name off the Queensboro Bridge.)
For example, 20 state Senate Democrats, led by Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, recently wrote the judicial commission urging it to recommend progressive and culturally diverse nominees with a background in “advocacy” work (e.g., criminal-defense attorneys, tenant lawyers, etc.) That’s an implicit threat to shoot down Cannatoro if Hochul nominates him for the job.
The high court is already utterly dominated by Democrats, by the way. But the party’s growing far-left isn’t satisfied. It wants a judiciary that will smile on even blatantly unconstitutional laws, and indeed impose its agenda without the need to pass legislation.
Indeed, progressives see a chance to translate their current power in Albany into a force that will last even if (when, we hope) the voters reject their agenda.
The New York County Lawyers Association issued a statement denouncing the effort to turn the selection process into “a brazenly political one” to fit the “result-oriented political views” of “Senator Gianaris and others.”
Judges are supposed to be independent of politicians. They’re charged with deciding on the substance of a case under the laws and Constitution of New York State.
For once, instead of stalling with her finger to the political winds, Hochul ought to show some spine and publicly reject this ugly effort to politicize New York’s highest court. .
https://nypost.com/2022/09/18/progs-hateful-push-for-hard-left-new-york-court-of-appeals/
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Europe detransitions: Australia left behind as Europe distances itself from extreme gender affirmation
An Australian obstetrician first warned the world of the dangers posed to unborn babies by the (then) widely prescribed maternal anti-nausea drug Thalidomide. Australia was relatively slow to halt its use – with devastating consequences still being felt decades on.
Today, despite warnings from clinicians in Australia and abroad, Australia risks repeating the same mistake over the medical treatment of children questioning their gender identity or suffering from gender dysphoria.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, and Maple Leaf House Transgender and Gender Diversity Clinic for children were all scrutinised by committee chair Greg Donnelly in the Budget Estimates Hearing for Health last week.
Donnelly rang the alarm: ‘What we have in plain sight is an absolutely scandalous situation playing out in real time.’
Such warnings are not new. In 2019, the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists backed a call by paediatrician Professor John Whitehall and 257 other doctors for then federal Health Minister Greg Hunt to hold an inquiry into paediatric clinical interventions for gender dysphoria.
Since that unheeded call, the UK’s Cass Review into gender identity treatments for children, led by eminent paediatrician Dr Hillary Cass OBE, found puberty blockers have ‘unknown impacts on development, maturation, and cognition if a child or young person is not exposed to the physical, psychological, physiological, neurochemical, and sexual changes that accompany adolescent hormone surges’.
The UK’s Tavistock children gender clinic is now facing imminent closure as its service model was found by Dr. Cass to be fundamentally failing to provide appropriate care. Finland, France, and Sweden are urging extreme caution, with the renowned Karolinska Institute so alarmed by serious adverse effects and physical deformities in youth three to four years after the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that they have discontinued their use outside of strict clinical studies.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid strongly reacted to the revelations of the Cass Review: ‘I’m deeply concerned about the approach to gender identity services for children.’
‘It’s already clear to me from her interim findings and from the other evidence that I’ve seen that the NHS services in this area are too narrow, they are overly affirmative, and in fact they’re bordering on ideological.’
‘As Health Secretary, I was determined to protect vulnerable children from being failed by gender identity services at the Tavistock. This is welcome news and absolutely the right decision based on the independent evidence gathered by Dr Hilary Cass.’
Last week, Minister Hazzard responded by simply dismissing bilateral radical mastectomies being performed on young girls in NSW as ‘complex’, quibbling over party politics and belligerently jousting with Committee member Mark Latham.
Hazzard is typical of those supporting or taking a path of least resistance to the transgender narrative – signalling Woke credentials to avoid the ire of gender ideologues and the rabid left media. Raising concerns about these experimental interventions attracts narcissistic projection from trans-activists who demonise, deplatform, and destroy. I should know, I have first-hand experience.
Both here and overseas, the absence of evidence of the long-term safety or efficacy for these experimental treatments, along with the mounting body count of detransitioners, is alarming. Australian gender clinics, modelled on the Tavistock, are continuing to persist with the ‘affirmation pathway’ to permanently alter the minds, bodies, and genitals of children and young people.
Active Watchful Waiting, a new network of Australian health care practitioners formed to share information on the harms being done to minors from so-called ‘gender-affirming care’, said normal scientific protocols have been overridden due to ideological pressure, and that young people with gender dysphoria or confusion should be helped with active, compassionate, respectful, and exploratory therapy.
Despite a serious three-year mental health history, Jude Hunter’s child was denied this approach by NSW Health. Jude says she declined a referral from John Hunter Hospital for her 17-year-old mentally unwell daughter to the ‘multi-disciplinary team’ for testosterone treatment. But, she has claimed, that the discharge summary from John Hunter Hospital falsely recorded that she had consented. Jude’s daughter was prescribed testosterone after two appointments, and has recently returned home after a three-year estrangement from her family, suicidal with regret over irreversible changes to her body.
Jude and her husband desperately pleaded for help from the multi-disciplinary team now located at Maple Leaf House, but says they were turned away after being told it was not a crisis service. Jude now funds her daughter’s therapy. ‘This is a medical scandal, my daughter should never have been prescribed testosterone as a mentally unwell teenager.’
Maple Leaf House continues to claim puberty blockers are reversible and should be started young. They fail to disclose puberty blockers are contested, experimental, and have not been tested on humans for adolescent gender dysphoria. The three animal studies conducted found harmful impacts including increased anxiety and despair-like behaviour.
During questioning, Minister Hazzard championed the pro-trans charity ACON saying ‘they are doing a very good job’, and ‘I am certainly not going to insert myself into the most complex of complex issues for youngsters who might be suffering from gender dysphoria’. ACON receives an annual special grant of $12 million directly from the NSW Minister for Health with a further $8 million announced this year, partially for establishing a new gender clinic for children at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst.
ACON runs a website, Transhub, targeting minors and parents for social, medical, and surgical interventions. It claims puberty blockers are an ‘effective and safe part of the hormone therapy toolkit for young trans people’. Several pharmaceutical companies are ACON sponsors, including AstraZeneca Pty Ltd, manufacturer of Goserelin sold as Zoladex, used for puberty suppression in male children, and promoted on Transhub.
Given that medical negligence litigation is being prepared both here and overseas, political apathy and the influence of a taxpayer-funded charity should not be the reason we continue to sacrifice children on the altar of an ideology that sells a false panacea of affirmation, pharmaceuticals, and surgery as a cure for distress.
Donnelly urged a more careful, considered, and multi-disciplinary approach, ‘It will remain to be seen what detailed responses will be forthcoming.’ Let’s not wait until Hazzard is enjoying his taxpayer-funded parliamentary pension in retirement before we get an answer.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/europe-detransitions
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20 September, 2022
FBI insiders say White supremacy threat overblown as Biden opens summit about racists, extremists
White supremacists are just a boogeyman dreamed up to distract attention from the real haters on the Left
President Biden will convene a forum Thursday at the White House aimed at confronting what civil rights groups, local officials and academics say is an explosive rise in extremism and White supremacy that threatens the core of America’s democracy.
The “United We Stand” summit builds on the administration’s push to root out racially motivated domestic violent extremists. The threat sparked a sweeping strategy that included the creation of a specialized Justice Department unit to combat domestic terrorism. Mr. Biden will deliver the keynote address to highlight the administration’s response to hate and “put forward a shared vision for a more united America,” officials said.
Current and former FBI agents tell The Washington Times that the perceived threat has become overblown under the administration. They say bureau analysts and top officials are pressuring FBI agents to create domestic terrorist cases and tag people as White supremacists to meet internal metrics.
“The demand for White supremacy” coming from FBI headquarters “vastly outstrips the supply of White supremacy,” said one agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We have more people assigned to investigate White supremacists than we can actually find.”
The agent said those driving bureau policies “have already determined that White supremacy is a problem” and set agencywide policy to elevate racially motivated domestic extremism cases as priorities.
“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” he said. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”
The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field showing a timber rattlesnake and the words: “Don’t Tread on Me.” It is often used as a symbol of liberty.
The FBI denies targeting groups or people based on their espoused political views and says the bureau focuses only on those “who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security.”
“The FBI aggressively investigates threats posed by domestic violent extremists,” an FBI spokesperson said. “We do not investigate ideology, and we do not investigate particular cases based on the political views of the individuals involved. The FBI will continue to pursue threats or acts of violence, regardless of the underlying motivation or sociopolitical goal.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/sep/14/biden-host-white-house-summit-combat-racism-violen
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'If I were president, they wouldn't have sat me back there': Trump MOCKS Biden for being sat 14 rows back at the Queen's funeral
Yes. Who could take Biden seriously
Donald Trump has mocked Joe Biden for being sat 14 rows back in at the Queen's funeral and said if he was president he would have been moved closer to the front of the audience of 2,000 mourners.
The former President said on Truth Social that it showed there is 'no respect' for the United States anymore - and insisted it was a good time for Biden to get to know 'leaders of certain Third World Countries'.
Trump did not attend the service bidding farewell to Britain's longest reigning monarch - as invites were limited to current heads of state.
However he has paid multiple tributes to Her Majesty, including a moving piece for DailyMail.com praising her grace, charm, nobility'.
In his first reaction to the funeral, he noted Biden's position in Westminster Abbey behind the Polish president.
'This is what's happened to America in just two short years. No respect! However, a good time for our President to get to know the leaders of certain Third World countries.
'If I were president, they wouldn't have sat me back there—and our Country would be much different than it is right now!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11228909/Trump-MOCKS-Biden-sat-14-rows-Queens-funeral.html
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The moment that showed the madness of gender ideology
By Debbie Hayton (who is trans)
Homosexuality was legalised in England and Wales 55 years ago. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 permitted homosexual acts between two consenting adults over the age of 21. Arguably that – and subsequent liberalisations – really only benefited men; sex acts between women were never criminalised.
But what does it mean to be a lesbian in 2022? This week Kate Harris – a lesbian and co-founder of the charity LGB Alliance – broke down in court under cross-examination from a male barrister. Michael Gibbon KC, counsel for the charity Mermaids, put it to her that ‘lesbians can include someone who is a woman as a result of gender reassignment.’
That statement encapsulated everything that is wrong with gender identity ideology, and it happened in a court of law.
Let’s be clear, gender reassignment is a legal term that does not necessarily involve ‘sex-change’ surgery. All it requires – according to the Equality Act 2010 – is ‘a process’. In the minds of those who think that men and women are defined by how they feel inside, a man can put on a dress and call himself a lesbian.
As a result, lesbians see themselves under threat, and rightly so. When she composed herself, Harris is reported to have replied:
‘My good friend Allison Bailey said the word lesbian is taken. The word is taken by us. I’m going to speak for millions of lesbians around the world. We love other women. We will not have that stolen from us.’
Well said, and I say that as one of the people who Gibbon may have had in mind. I might have transitioned – and I have certainly changed some of my sexual characteristics – but sex is immutable. Transwomen cannot be lesbians because transwomen are biologically male, and lesbians are defined by their sexual orientation: they are females who are attracted to females.
As disturbing as that exchange was though, the context was even more chilling. Harris was in court because the LGB Alliance’s charitable status is currently being challenged by Mermaids, another charity that works with people in the LGBT sector. It is a battle between two worldviews. Are men and women distinguished by their biological sex or their gender identity? And is a charity that says the former even allowed to exist?
There is profound disagreement between individuals and between organisations on this point. The LGB Alliance and Mermaids are at loggerheads over the impact on children. Mermaids believes that, ‘transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children deserve the freedom and confidence to explore their gender identity.’ On the other hand, the LGB Alliance claims that, ‘evidence suggests most of those concerned will otherwise grow up LGB.’
Surely in a democratic society Mermaids should resort to persuasion rather than litigation? Different opinions are put forward, and the public can then make up their own minds. But that’s not the way Mermaids sees it, and that is why the LGB Alliance is in court. Charitable status confers credibility on an organisation and Mermaids would like the LGB Alliance to lose theirs.
We hear a lot about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion these days but this action from Mermaids is more like Authority, Conformity and Exclusion: conform to our way of thinking, or we will call on the authorities to exclude you. And if a lesbian is brought to tears in court as a result, then so be it.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/the-moment-that-showed-the-madness-of-gender-ideology/
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Your bureaucracy will not protect you. (Their priority is to protect themselves)
A Tasmanian mother whose child has been living on a property with a man alleged to have sexually assaulted her two other children has been reunited with her child, after what she says is years of inaction from child protection authorities.
Ashley* signed her children into her mother's care about 12 years ago, when she was experiencing severe health issues that saw her go into a coma. "I basically signed them over because child protection came in and said, 'If you don't, we're going to have to put them into foster care'," she said.
About two years ago, one of Ashley's children disclosed her step-grandfather had been sexually abusing her for about a decade. Since then, Ashley says another one of her children has made a similar disclosure, and reported it to police.
Those two children came back into Ashley's care but her third child still remained at the property. Ashley said she had been contacting Tasmania's Department of Communities about her concerns for the third child's welfare since April 2020 but no action had been taken.
In June, she told the ABC that child safety officers had decided not to act because the step-grandfather was no longer living at the home. He had instead moved into a caravan parked on the property.
But soon after Ashley shared her story with the ABC, the department started investigating the grandmother and the child was returned to Ashley and her ex-partner's care.
"I went to the media. They only reacted and they only got involved again because [of it]," she said. "I wouldn't have got a call back at all if I didn't bring this to the media's attention."
Ashley said although she had been advised by a child protection worker that her case had been closed, she held "a lot of anger" that the department "didn't step in" sooner.
The Department of Communities said it was "inappropriate to discuss individual case matters relating to specific children and families".
More than 1,000 people from across the country came forward as part of a major ABC investigation into child protection failures this year.
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19 September, 2022
The new Puritans
Those of us who have taken a critical stance on the culture war in the hope of hastening its demise have often been misinterpreted as attempting to prolong it. For a considerable period of time, most people were happy to dismiss such matters as the niche obsessions of trolls prowling the dark recesses of the internet, or over-zealous students hankering after a cause. In the green days before the coronavirus lockdowns, it was tempting for commentators to hold fast to the received wisdom that the culture war was merely a distraction advanced by unscrupulous politicians. My appearance on The Big Questions took place a month before the global chain reaction of coronavirus lockdowns, and three months before the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests. Were the debate to be replayed today, it is unlikely that my perspective would be deemed marginal. Few would now deny that the culture war has exploded into the mainstream, and all of us are implicated, whether we like it or not.
The question of whether or not ‘wokeness is the new religion’ is unlikely to feature as a topic for debate these days. For all its flaws, the analogy is now commonplace and many pundits speak freely of ‘the religion of social justice’ without any need for further qualification. Culture warriors of all stripes have become increasingly doctrinaire and sectarian. Many of them favour slogans as a substitute for thought, almost as a form of holy writ. They have their own esoteric language, originating in largely outdated postmodernist jargon, and enshrined in foundational holy texts by the likes of thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, or the intersectional theories popularised by Kimberlé Crenshaw. And although heretics are unlikely to be burned at the stake, their inquisitors are convinced that non-believers must convert for their own good.
All of this amounts to the legitimisation of bullying on a grand scale. American physicist Steven Weinberg famously remarked that ‘with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion’. When the puritans descended on churches across the United Kingdom in the mid-seventeenth century, destroying paintings, statues, stained glass, and any other images deemed offensive to their creed, they were not necessarily doing so out of a juvenile relish for vandalism. Many believed that they were undertaking God’s work, and that their values should be imposed on the populace for its own sake.
So too our latter-day puritans, who are happy to demolish the problematic monuments of the past, and scour social media for prey, like so many vultures circling their barely breathing lunch. They are the clergy for the digital age, an elite class that claims to know what is best for the unlettered plebeians. The trouble with all such righteous causes is that they attract the bullies who seek an approved outlet for their baser instincts. Some don the sacerdotal robes out of a sense of duty, others as a disguise.
Social media is the playground turned battlefield for these online crusaders. Here they pontificate to the masses, berate those who fall short of their moral expectations, and endlessly trawl through old tweets or Facebook posts in the hope of discovering a misjudged phrase or sentiment that could justify a campaign of public shaming. In their eyes, there is no possibility of redemption. The most vicious remarks you will find on social media come from the racist far right and intersectional activists. They are two faces of the same chimera. Identitarians on the right and left have an interdependent relationship; each one nourishes and sustains the other.
That is not to suggest some kind of moral equivalence. One of the most tragic aspects of this movement is that many of its acolytes are well-meaning. Yet unlike the culture warriors of the far right, who are universally despised in civilised society, the ‘woke’ religionists have positioned themselves as being ‘on the right side of history’ and therefore enjoy major institutional support. In spite of being capable of the most horrendous dehumanising behaviour, many of them believe themselves to be ‘the good guys’. With this paradox in mind, the prospect of putting an end to the culture war seems Sisyphean. How does one tackle a bully who bullies others in the name of love?
These cultural revolutionaries are engaged in an ongoing collective effort to destabilise and reorganise society around their ideological principles, underpinned by the conviction that the powerful – defined solely by group identity – are unaware of the structures that they unwittingly perpetuate. In this battle, however, the chief antagonists consider themselves to be under siege. In this perverse formulation, the defence of liberal principles is taken as an attack. This is why those who object to these radical and divisive societal upheavals are so often accused of ‘starting a culture war’, when they are simply responding to it. The new puritans are brawlers with a persecution complex, wildly throwing punches at strangers and then blaming them for the bloodstains on their hands.
We hardly even know what to call the movement, because this culture war is largely being waged through the subtle – and sometimes not-so-subtle – redefinition of language. The new puritans have become adept at the reapplication of existing terms that deviate from their widely accepted meanings. Phrases such as ‘social justice’, ‘anti-racism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘whiteness’, ‘violence’, ‘safety’, and endless others, now bear connotations that are understood only by a minority of activists. They have apparently taken their cues from Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass (1871). ‘When Iuse a word’, he says to Alice, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’.
When most of us say ‘social justice’, we mean the concept of equality under the law, opposition to prejudice and discrimination, and equal opportunities for all. When social justice activists say ‘social justice’, they mean an emphasis on group identity over the rights of the individual, a rejection of social liberalism, and the assumption that unequal outcomes are always evidence of structural inequalities. When most of us say that we are ‘anti-racist’, we mean that we are opposed to racism. When ‘anti-racists’ say they are ‘anti-racist’, they mean they are in favour of a rehabilitated form of racial thinking that makes judgements first and foremost on the basis of skin colour, and on the unsubstantiated supposition that our entire society and all human interactions are undergirded by white supremacy. No wonder most of us are so confused.
For the logomachists of the new puritanism, the ambiguity is the point. Where there are no shared definitions there can be no possibility of discussion. This strategy of destabilising language and its meaning enables the well-versed to befuddle the layman with jargon, thereby giving vacuous theories the impression of substance. Moreover, the ambiguity can act as a get-out clause to make statements that are otherwise bound to be interpreted as hostile. This is why the Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal can write phrases such as ‘Abolish whiteness’ and ‘White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives’, and then blame those who are offended for being insufficiently schooled. That is not to suggest that she is insincere in her views, but one can appreciate from this example how such buzzwords can be readily exploited by those with an agenda.
So it has come to this. Liberalism is akin to Nazism. Words are violence. Debate is a fetish. We have somehow found ourselves in this mystifying scenario in which self-declared ‘liberals’ are advancing an illiberal agenda, ‘leftists’ are failing to stand up for left-wing ideals, ‘social justice’ means the opposite of what it says, and ‘anti-racists’ are creating a more racist society. The old definitions no longer apply. Culture warriors of all political affiliations play high-stakes word games, and truth and rationality are the casualties. We are dealing with a rapidly developing religion, albeit one of the secular kind, whose abstruse language and peculiar rituals are as incomprehensible to us as the miracle of transubstantiation must have been to a medieval congregation. This is a contemporary form of hocus pocus: we are tasting wine while the clergy assures us it is blood.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/how-the-culture-war-became-a-crusade/
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Communism and Fascism were never really defeated
The proof is everywhere. Schools have become transmission belts for self-loathing propaganda. Teachers’ unions indoctrinate children through required-reading textbooks, anti-capitalist teachings, critical race theory and the vilification of Western society. Indoctrination has replaced informed discussion.
Degeneracy and promiscuity have become accepted as ‘normal, natural and healthy’. Pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV are part of everyday life. Censorship is reserved for politically incorrect ideas and expressions.
Social religion has largely replaced Christianity. The Bible is discredited and its believers mocked for needing a ‘religious crutch’.
History is being rewritten by cancelling the past and creating ‘national myths’ for guidance rather than relying on the ‘barren intellectualism’ of science and rational thought. George Orwell’s assertion that, ‘Who controls the past controls the future’, has never been more true.
Courts have been politicised with judges weakening legislated intent with technical decisions based on human rights and victimhood.
Much of this post-war success has been prosecuted through the media. Ideological control of editorial writing, book reviews and student newspapers has been achieved. Key positions in radio, television and film are now filled with sympathetic presenters, actors and producers. Today’s mainstream and social media, along with Hollywood and the arts, are dominated by activists.
And, after 60 years of insidious cultivation, the ideological takeover of the bureaucracies is all but complete. They have become self-serving, inward-looking, collectives pursuing political agendas for which they have no popular mandate. Accountability is inversely proportionate to the size of government.
Even the military has been captured.
While Marxism has been the main driver, Australia’s socialist march now has fascist overtones. The state panders to minorities at the expense of the white majority. Corporate Australia has become increasingly subservient to the state through the enforcement of environmental, social and governance protocols. The labour market has become a legal construct.
China’s fingerprints are everywhere. Encouraged by a complicit West, President Xi Jinping has bought, charmed and bullied his way into global institutions like the United Nations and the World Health Organisation. Australia has not escaped his attention. Many prominent Australians are on Chinese payrolls and Beijing actively funds and supports fifth columnists whose intentions are inimical to Australia’s unity and prosperity.
According to President Xi Jinping, ‘Economic globalisation (Chinese hegemony) is the trend of the times. Though countercurrents are sure to exist in a river, none could stop it from flowing to the sea.’
While President Xi may claim to be a Leninist, he actively fosters the cult of personality, promotes Han superiority, persecutes minorities, controls business and finance and belligerently projects China’s military might. Under the guise of reunification he seeks to annex Taiwan. These characteristics make him more Mussolini and Hitler than Lenin and Marx.
Xi has cultivated elites like Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate change supremo who once lauded China as a ‘constructive leader’ on climate policy. Yet it is difficult to reconcile her words with Beijing’s construction of 43 new coal-fired powers stations and its upping coal production by 300 million tonnes a year.
Beijing is equally dismissive of its World Trade Organisation obligations and, despite its appalling record, is a member of the Human Rights Council.
Xi’s fascist ally, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, along with many world leaders and billionaire elites, have seized on Covid-19 as the catalyst for ‘the re-imagining of capitalism’. They are recruiting brainwashed youths to perform the role of Hitler’s Brownshirts.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/the-elites-united-will-never-be-defeated/ ?
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JK Rowling condemns masked pro trans mob after violent clashes in Brighton at 'Let Women Speak' event
The Left very quickly resort to violence
JK Rowling has slammed pro-trans protesters for 'throwing smoke bombs' and 'howling abuse at lesbians' after police arrested two people over clashes at a 'Let Women Speak' event.
Kellie-Jay Keen, who founded women's rights group Standing For Women, was due to give a talk in Brighton today as part of her countrywide speaking tour.
Ms Keen, also known as Posie Parker, has frequently attracted the ire of pro-trans activists over her views on gender rights.
Her talk today was disrupted by protesters from the Reclaim Pride Brighton group, who vowed to 'bring flags and noisemakers' while advised to 'cover their faces'.
It led to a clash between pro-trans and women's rights supporters, with pictures showing police dragging two people away from the scene.
A line of police officers had to separate the rival groups, with many wearing black masks.
Ms Rowling, who has repeatedly come under fire for her public views on trans issues, today slammed the pro-trans group for the clashes.
She tweeted: 'I see the Be Kind brigade are once more hiding behind their black masks, throwing smoke bombs, screaming "scum" at women speaking up for their sex-based rights and howling abuse at lesbians for not doing d**k.'
Police made two arrests during the clashes after smoke bombs were let off in the crowds.
One person remains in custody on suspicion of assault and a second on suspicion of obstructing an officer.
The Harry Potter author, 57, since she mocked an online article in June 2020 which used the words 'people who menstruate' instead of 'women'.
She has been targeted by trolls after making critical comments about the transgender lobby - including protesters standing outsider her home with placards after her address was posted online last year.
Ms Keen, meanwhile, told MailOnline earlier this month that her events had been hit by a number of threats and warnings.
She spoke out after officers from Sussex Constabulary were alerted to a number of menacing messages against her.
They included many branding Ms Keen - who is also known as Posie Parker - a TERF and urging people to 'Fight her by any means you see fit'.
She told MailOnline: 'I have been called a Nazi for saying I don’t think women have penises. Once you can portray someone as the most heinous person in society – a Nazi – I guess anything goes.
‘I have had a lot of threats over the years, I have been told about how they hope my children get cancer.
'Sadly, it’s not unusual for trans activists to issue threats about women wanting to talk about our rights – JK Rowling is a prime example of that.
‘We are subjected to a wide range of menacing messages.
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Diversity "training" -- aka brainwashing
It is not just young and impressionable university students who are being compelled to attend virtual re-education camps before being permitted to proceed with their degrees, but also older and considerably less impressionable members of society whose university days are but a distant memory. Apparently, you can never be too long in the tooth to have your thinking checked.
It has recently come to light that volunteers at the State Library of Western Australia have been on the receiving end of a passive aggressive email which ‘encourages’ them to take part in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultural awareness training module. If for any reason, said volunteers decide to decline the offer, their names will be put on a list of troublesome dissenters, and they can expect a phone call asking them to explain why it is they are bigoted racists.
According to the recipient of the communication, this is not the first woke imposition that staff have had to endure. The question is, how long will it be until the library does what the Art Institute of Chicago did last year, which was to shut down its volunteer program and fire more than 150 white unpaid staff in the name of ‘equity and diversity’?
As it turns out, this kind of coercion is quietly taking place within numerous Australian organisations. Staff at the Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet, Gold Coast Health, the Fair Work Ombudsman, Libraries Tasmania, City of Melton, and the Royal Life Saving Society have also been compelled to undertake an Indigenous Cultural Training module developed by the SBS Inclusion Program.
A few of the model’s components will teach you how to ‘recognise the importance of spirituality in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures’, to ‘grasp the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ and to ‘comprehend the trauma felt by the Stolen Generations and the intergenerational trauma still being felt today’. Finally, it will you give you the ‘tools to move forward in the reconciliation process as both an individual and a business’. This module it seems, works wonders. It promises that in just half an hour, you will be transformed from a knuckle-dragging, cultural philistine into a fully enlightened and culturally proficient human being.
Clearly however, the Royal Life Saving Society has decided that half an hour of cultural competence training simply won’t do the trick. Under the guise of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’, it directs interested parties to a LinkedIn page which is a veritable smorgasbord of identity politics, critical race theory and radical gender theory. Among the offerings are six hours and thirty minutes of ‘Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging for all’, 28 minutes of ‘unconscious bias,’ 55 minutes of ‘using gender inclusive language’, 15 minutes on how to fight gender bias at work, and 3 hours and 52 minutes of ‘how to engage meaningfully in allyship and anti-racism’. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
It goes without saying that not one of these training modules is designed to teach you how to swim, spot a rip or develop techniques in advanced resuscitation. They are specially designed to train you to think in a different way, to alter your attitude and to question your beliefs. They are, to all intents and purposes, meant to brainwash you. This is a recalibration, designed to shift your loyalty from one moral code to another through hours and hours of relentless, mind-numbing ‘training’.
In his book A Time to Build, Yuval Levin puts forward a theory that when institutions fail to fulfil their essential roles in society and instead focus on trivial matters outside their remit, trust in them declines. The basis for Levin’s thesis is a distinction between formative institutions serving a social role and performative institutions that only provide a stage for partisan politics. As Levin notes, ‘When we don’t think of our institutions as formative but as performative – when the presidency and Congress are just stages for political performance art, when a university becomes a venue for vain virtue-signalling, when journalism is indistinguishable from activism – they become harder to trust. They aren’t really asking for our confidence, just for our attention.’
The revelation that Ambulance Victoria spent $760,000 on diversity officers while 33 Victorians died because there were not enough people to take emergency calls makes that particular institution very hard to trust indeed.
There has not been a push by the Victorian public for Ambulance Victoria to spend countless hours on obscure theories about gender, power, and race. Rather, the orders to pursue the woke agenda have come from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, which was handed down in March this year in a diabolically lengthy Volume II of its ‘Workplace Equality in Ambulance Victoria’.
The reason why employers are pursuing this agenda so vigorously is because they have the full support of the permanent political class occupying government agencies and departments. There is no way that Ambulance Victoria would be focusing on ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘diversity and belonging’ if the government was not leading by example.
Australian governments ought to be the custodians of a rich liberal democratic tradition of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality before the law. The federal government has also expressed its commitment to these values in international law, by becoming a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 of the ICCPR outlines a signatory’s commitment to protect the right of individuals to think freely and entertain ideas and hold positions based on conscientious, religious, or other beliefs.
This entails protection against brainwashing or indoctrination. Agencies such as the Australian Human Rights Commission have been specifically established to uphold these values.
But instead of defending the civil and political rights of individuals, the AHRC has become one of major proponents of radical and divisive ideologies which have become the established norm in the public service, and are now taking root in the private workplace.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/quick-somebody-call-a-diversity-officer/
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18 September, 2022
How ‘social justice’ is corrupting science
Nature Human Behavior, one of the most prestigious journals for social-science research, recently published an editorial, “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans,” that generated tremendous pushback among academics and intellectuals concerned about the spread of social-justice ideology into science.
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for one, said the journal was “no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed.”
In short, the editorial took the position that scientific truth should defer to politics. The journal now considers it appropriate to suppress research that “undermines — or could reasonably be perceived to undermine — the rights and dignities” of people or groups, as well as “text or images that disparage a person or group on the basis of socially constructed human groupings.”
Researchers are urged to “consider the potential implications of research on human groups defined on the basis of social characteristics” and “to contextualize their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere.” Anything that could be perceived as disparaging is now fair game for rejection or retraction.
The implications for scientific inquiry and truth-seeking are clear. As the journalist, Jesse Singal observed, an empirically flawless study could be retracted under the guise of social justice: “What’s most alarming is that unless I’m missing something, research that is perfectly valid and well-executed could run afoul of these guidelines.”
But such behavior already occurs. Sometimes, studies that offend social-justice orthodoxy are assigned a “flaw” of some kind — usually, one that would be treated as minor had the results been different — and rejected on that pretextual basis.
The psychologist Lee Jussim has coined the term rigorus mortis selectivus to describe the widespread practice among social scientists to denounce research one dislikes using criteria that are ostensibly scientific but never applied to politically congenial research.
Other times, studies that manage to penetrate the literature are seized upon by observers who scrutinize every aspect of the research using unreasonable criteria. Because no study is perfect, it is always possible to find some limitations to justify a cancellation campaign. Consider two recent examples:
One 2020 study suggested that junior female scientists benefit from collaborating with male — as compared with female — mentors. The publication of this article in Nature Communications (another journal in the prestigious Nature franchise) brought a social-media firestorm and angry demands for retraction. Under growing pressure, the authors caved and “agreed” to retract the article on methodological grounds.
As psychologist Chris Ferguson noted, the issues discussed in the retraction note were limitations “typically handled in a comment and response format, where critics of the article publish their critiques and the authors can respond.” The authors of the mentoring study had published an earlier study in the same journal showing evidence that “ethnic diversity resulted in an impact gain” for scientific articles. This un-retracted study used a similar methodological approach to the retracted one, but nobody objected.
A 2019 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found no evidence of anti-black bias in police shootings. Initially, the PNAS editors were unwilling to entertain calls for a retraction or even a correction. But after a critique in Science, they relented and published a reply-and-response debate.
The problem had to do with a poorly worded “significance statement” — a public-facing research summary appearing outside the body of the article itself — claiming that “White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” Following additional scrutiny, including a WashingtonPost op-ed, PNAS published a correction in which the authors admitted to misleading language in one part of the significance statement but stood by their research findings.
But in the feverish summer of 2020, and following extensive citations by CityJournal’s Heather Mac Donald, the paper became dangerous and had to be eradicated. More than 800 academic luminaries, including Susan Fiske, a Princeton psychologist and wife of the relevant PNAS editor, signed a petition attacking the paper, causing the authors to agree to retract the paper that they had vigorously defended.
The PNAS editors admitted that their concerns were political: “The problem that exists now, however, is outside the realm of science. It has to do with the misinterpretation and partisan political use of a scientific article after its publication.”
Why was the wording of the significance statement such a big deal? The authors themselves had already acknowledged that the summary statement overhyped the results. If this is sufficient to retract a paper, then the wider body of social science research is in danger.
Consider a recent sociological study linking dog walking to neighborhood rates of violent crime. Published in a top journal in the field, the study is entirely correlational and does not provide causal evidence. Yet this did not stop the press release from declaring that dog walking helped reduce street crimes.
In the words of a scientist and commentator, the Nature Human Behavior editorial codifies policies “that most social science journals already have.” In his 2014 book “The Sacred Project of American Sociology,” Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith laments the discipline’s unwillingness to come clean with the reality that pursuing specific kinds of social-justice goals is its central mission. As regrettable as the new editorial guidelines of Nature Human Behavior may be, at least they express honestly how contemporary social science is actually practiced.
Indeed, scientific journals cannot afford to remain neutral — but they need to take a strong stand for the pursuit of truth, not for any political cause. Like democracy, the scientific inquiry does not happen by default; it requires unwavering commitment among its participants to play by the rules. It is not acceptable to retract or suppress a methodologically sound study simply because you don’t like the results.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/16/how-social-justice-is-corrupting-science/
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Liz Truss is something not seen for 30 years: a Conservative Prime Minister who is a conservative
Politics is necessarily and rightly in the sidings just now, awaiting a suitable time following the late Queen’s funeral when it will re-emerge, get back on track and begin the long run-up to the next general election.
Appropriately enough, that long campaign will kick off in a frenetic way, with a mini budget on Friday, September 23, followed immediately by Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool and the Conservatives’ gathering the following week. It’s almost as if the political melodrama of the summer, culminating in Boris Johnson’s removal from office, then followed by the Queen’s death, has not only cleansed the political pallet of the electorate but has reset the battlefield itself. On one side at least.
Barely a week ago, Britain had a female head of state and a male prime minister. In two short days that was reversed. This feels like a new page, a pivotal moment in our political story. The question is whether the two main parties can rise to the challenge of presenting visions fresh enough to meet the country’s new expectations. More of the same just won’t cut it.
Much to her opponents’ uneasiness, Liz Truss has enjoyed a better start than expected, despite her relaunch of the government being somewhat knocked off course by events of the last week. At least for now, she seems to have brought a clear philosophy back to government, a philosophy that, however opposed it might be in some quarters, is at least recognisable. It differs from the politics of the previous regime in that it is distinctly Conservative: small state, low tax, less nanny statism.
We’ll see how it goes in the medium and longer term. You have to admire the chutzpah of a new chancellor floating the idea of scrapping the EU-wide cap on bankers’ bonuses in order to attract more financial talent to the city of London. As one political reporter commented, it’s as if Truss is embracing anti-populism. Yet, setting aside the risk of critical headlines, the motivation and long-termism embraced by Kwasi Kwarteng is at least clear and sound. In a post-Brexit world, there is much to be gained in making London the world’s most attractive capital in which to conduct financial business.
As for the so-called war on obesity, the PM will enjoy no shortage of adulation from many in her party for sticking up for the rights of people to make their own choices about what lifestyle they choose to pursue and what they choose to eat. There’s that word again: “choose”. We’ll be hearing more of that in the months ahead.
Personally, I have no objection to having calorie counts on restaurant menus, provided I’m still allowed to order whatever I want. But there may be some political gains ahead for a party that maintains the truth that we are each of us responsible for our own diet and our own size; much as I’d like to blame the government (the Scottish one, preferably) for my own weight, I must accept that no one forces me to eat pizza or Mars Bars; those are my choices, made by an adult with the full knowledge of the consequences. To assume that other, mostly poorer citizens have no such agency strikes me as unforgivably patronising.
And what is the Labour Party’s response to all of this? More to the point, must we limit our expectations to no more than that – a response?
Keir Starmer, according to the polls, still looks on course to be headed to Number 10; no other Labour leader since Tony Blair has enjoyed such a long and consistent poll lead. That in itself is an impressive achievement, and the fact that some on his party’s Left are agitating for his removal speaks more to their determination never to be reconciled to an electable Labour Party than anything else.
What worries Labour strategists is that the arrival of Liz Truss in Number 10 has still to filter through to the electorate. After an internal contest in which she was patronised and ridiculed by both her own party and the opposition, she had much work to do to prove that she is a substantial politician with a unique vision for government. Our national mourning has served to delay, if not neuter completely, that fresh start for the government.
But in the next week or two, as politics returns to normal (or our best guess at what “normal” looks like) we will be hearing much more from the prime minister and her ministers and will be able to flesh out what her vision actually is. The important thing to bear in mind is that, whether we agree with it or not, Truss does have a vision. She is an ideologue, which comes with advantages as well as disadvantages.
It may not be enough for Labour simply to play the same old tune on its one-note guitar, that the Tories only care about the rich, that everything they say and do must be opposed for opposition’s sake. Oh, and let’s have a windfall tax on the energy companies.
The economy, of course, may be the government’s downfall, with or without the help of the Labour Party, although the latter will be the chief beneficiary of such a circumstance. But oppositions have come to grief more than once by waiting for recessions and inflation to do the job they’re meant to do. For example, if the government successfully tackles the problem of the costly link between electricity prices and global gas prices, Labour, which has said little on the issue, will find that no one wants to hear from them anyway.
The bottom line is that Labour needs now to start forming a platform for government, not just for opposition. And, like Truss, Starmer needs to develop a philosophy, an ideology that says much more than “We will not be the Conservatives”. For now, that seems to be all he has. And poll lead or not, it just isn’t enough.
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New Disease Erases Democrats’ Memories of Their Post-2016 Attack on Democracy
Strategic amnesia is a new syndrome that lets Democrats forget their being guilty of the same behavior for which they demonize Republicans—especially when the GOP is innocent as charged.
Strategic amnesia is, essentially, what happens as psychological projection ripens over time.
Strategic-Amnesiac-in-Chief Joe Biden embodied this neurosis during the Snarl Heard ’Round the World—his corrosive, divisive Sept. 1 speech from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
Biden vilified “MAGA Republicans”—that is, President Donald Trump’s 74 million voters. “They refuse to accept the results of a free election,” Biden shouted, in remarks translated here from the original German. “They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth, but in the shadow of lies.”
Biden shook his fists at the MAGA Republicans and added that “they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights … .”
Just as it has addled his fellow leftists, Biden’s strategic amnesia befogged his memories of how Democrats handled Trump’s 2016 triumph over Hillary Clinton.
To recollect the anger, chaos, lies, and violence that Democrats unleashed after Nov. 8, 2016, Biden and his Kameraden should consult “Rigged.” Mollie Hemingway’s first-rate chronicle of the 2020 election recaps what happened when Clinton blew an election that she supposedly had locked up.
The Democrat Non-Acceptance Caucus denounced Trump as a faux president.
“I know he’s an illegitimate president,” Clinton declared.
Former President Jimmy Carter told NPR: “Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016.”
“The Russians participated in helping this man get elected,” said the since-deceased Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
Lewis boycotted Trump’s swearing-in ceremony, as did at least 66 other House Democrats. They collectively spat on the peaceful transfer of power, a hallowed tradition of U.S. democracy.
Next, the Democrat chaos campaign targeted the Electoral College. Martin Sheen, Noah Wyle, and other actors starred in ads for Americans Take Action. They urged Republican Electoral College members to ignore their voters’ will and, instead, dump Trump.
Sharon Geise, Robert Graham, Ash Khare, and Rex Teter were among Trump’s electors whom Clinton’s supporters bombarded with thousands of abusive phone calls, emails, and even death threats. Michigan elector Michael Banerian told CNN: “I’ve had people talk about putting a bullet in the back of my mouth.”
During January 2017’s election-certification ceremony, seven House Democrats challenged Trump’s electors from 10 states, including Alabama and Wyoming, which he carried by 28.3 and 47.6 percentage points, respectively. The Constitution and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 enabled these Democrats to object, just as those documents empowered Republicans to oppose pro-Biden electors on Jan. 6, 2021.
After Clinton lost, her supporters clogged streets from coast to coast. Some bawled. More carried placards that read, “We don’t accept the president-elect.”
Others weren’t saying, “Give peace a chance.”
“In Oakland, rioters set trash cans, cars, and a building on fire,” Hemingway recalled. “They smashed store windows, hurt police, and blocked a freeway.”
That Nov. 9, a Chicago mob attacked David Wilcox, yelled, “You voted Trump!” at him, carjacked his Pontiac Bonneville, and then dragged him along its side.
Three days later, while riding a Bronx subway train, MAGA hat-wearing Corey Cataldo endured an attacker’s attempted strangulation for being “another white Trump supporter.”
Others soon learned that MAGA hats attract fists.
Terry Pierce, Bryton Turner, Gunnar Johnson, Jonathan Sparks, Hunter Richard, Eugenior Joseph, and Jahangir Turan are among the MAGA hat-wearing Trump lovers whom Trump haters eventually attacked—often drawing blood.
Radical film director Michael Moore instructed leftists to “disrupt the Inauguration.”
Message received.
“On Inauguration Day, more riots erupted in Washington, D.C.,” Hemingway wrote. “Hundreds were arrested as black-clad rioters set cars on fire, threw bricks, and injured police.”
While Team Biden’s strategic amnesia obscures these facts, the right should use them to expose their leftist sins.
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Should minorities be angry at the Queen? The Australian case
ABC journalist Stan Grant is furious. He is part Aboriginal and apparently grew up among them. Some excerpts from his comments follow below after this note.
Since the Queen was a-political it is pretty dumb to blame her for ANYTHING Blame the governments of her time maybe but she had no part in their decisions or actions.
But the big problem with the sorrow he expresses below is that Grant assigns NO responsibility for what blacks underwent to Aborigines themselves. He attributes all the woe felt by Aboringines to British colonialism.
But look at another colonized group. The people of Hong Kong were until quite recently a literal Crown Colony. So how do they feel about the Queen and the British legacy? The mourning there for the Queen was epochal. It was at least as great as the demonstrations of feeling in Britain itelf. They loved the Queen.
Clrearly it was not colonialism that was bad for the colonized. It has to have been something else that caused grief to Aborigines.
And what that was is no mystery. The people of Hong Kong are Chinese and, as such, the inheritors of thousands of years of civilization. So they were well equipped to thrive under Britain's civilizing influence. So they appreciated the opportunities that Britain brought and vigorously grasped those opportunities to their own great benefit
Aborigines, by contrast, come from the most primitive type of culture -- a hunter/gatherer culture. They had none of the mentality, customs, attitudes and skills that the Chinese do. Aborigines have traits and abilities that equip them well for their ancestral lifestyle but those same traits tend to be a hindrance rather than a help in adjusting to modern civilization.
No doubt both Aborigines and Hong Kongers were at times badly treated by their respective governments but the Aborigies did not adapt. They simply lacked the ability to do so. And from that the rest of their experience flowed. They simply could not help themselves and others were slow to come forward to help them. And now that many attempts have been made to help them there are still many who seem unhelpable. Given their origins that will continue
I called my mother this week and she told me the story of her childhood brush with royalty over again. I have thought about mum and dad and all of my family, of my people — First Nations people — who die young and live impoverished and imprisoned lives in this country.
We aren't supposed to talk about these things this week. We aren't supposed to talk about colonisation, empire, violence about Aboriginal sovereignty, not even about the republic.
We've skirted around the edges of the truth of the legacy that the Queen leaves in Australia, a reign that lasted almost a third of our colonial history.
I'm sure I am not alone amongst Indigenous people wrestling with swirling emotions. Among them has been anger. The choking asphyxiating anger at the suffering and injustice my people endure.
This anger is not good for me. It is not good for my mental health. It is not good for my physical health. I have been short of breath and dizzy.
But that is nothing compared to what too many other Indigenous people go through day after day. Those languishing in cells. Those who take their own lives. Those who are caught in endless cycles of despair.
This past week, I have been reminded what it is to come from the other side of history. History itself that is written as a hymn to whiteness.
History written by the victors and often written in blood. It is fashioned as a tale of progress, as a civilising mission.
As historian Caroline Elkins writes in Legacies of Violence, her history of the British Empire, for hundreds of millions of people "the empire's velvet glove contained an all too familiar iron fist".
From India to Africa to Ireland, the Pacific, the Caribbean and of course here, Australia, people from the other side of history have felt that fist.
It is not a zero-sum game. There are things in the British tradition that have enriched my life. But history is not weighted on the scales, it is felt in our bones. It is worn on our skin. It is scarred in memory.
How do we live with the weight of this history? How do we not fall prey to soul-destroying vengeance and resentment, yet never relent in our righteous demand for justice?
At times like these I struggle with that dilemma. Because Australia has never reached a just settlement with First Nations people.
But again, we don't talk about that this week.
I have felt a sadness at feeling adrift, estranged from friends and colleagues. Sadness at knowing that at times like these there is a chasm between us.
I have watched as others have worn black and reported on this historic event, participated in this ritual mourning. And knowing I cannot.
They come to this with no conflict. I cannot.
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17 September, 2022
Disinvited
Below is the opening blast of an article by Phyllis Chesler, a very feisty Jewish lady in her 80s who is a lesbian these days and describes herself as a radical feminist. Many of her causes are however ones that conservatives could agree with. She is these days critical of what she calls the "transgender cult" and that has seen her cast into outer darkness by some
The leadership of New York’s West End Synagogue is too committed to the ever-changing progressive party line to suffer a radical feminist like me
As we know, a virulent, often vicious and increasingly intolerant “cancel culture” has permeated our campuses and much of the media—but it has also infested some of our synagogues. I now have firsthand experience of what this means.
Being disinvited is not a new experience for me. I’ve been disinvited from engagements before because my radically feminist views were not politically correct; because I dared to expose feminist hypocrisy among the sisterhood; and because I defended the truth, and thus defended Jews, Judaism, Israel, and post-Enlightenment values. I’ve also been disinvited because my academic studies about and activism against honor killing, face-veiling, female genital mutilation, Islamist terrorism, and an Islamist version of cancel culture (think Salman Rushdie) was seen as “Islamophobic.”
Here’s the story. In early May, a retired City University of New York (CUNY) professor, Susan Prager (a woman whom I do not know and have never met) invited me to deliver a lecture about antisemitism and feminism to the West End Synagogue (WES), a Reconstructionist congregation near Lincoln Square, possibly via Zoom, perhaps in person.
And now I’ve been disinvited. Why? Apparently, my alleged views on transgender and LGBTQIA people are key—even though this wasn’t the topic of my lecture—but such views rendered me unacceptable as a speaker on any other subject. I was also accused of possibly being a racist as well.
Are we living in the 1950s, and is this yet another version of McCarthyism? Have we plunged into Huxley’s Brave New World?
What would someone’s views about the transgender issue have to do with antisemitism and the survival of a demonized Israel? Moreover, are differences in opinion more important than freedom of thought and speech? Intellectual and political diversity? I guess they are in some circles.
Of course, the Talmud preserves both majority and minority opinions. For centuries, in fact, totally opposite views have lived side by side, a glorious example of tolerance and civility among those who take ideas seriously.
The good news: A number of WES congregants have written letters to the synagogue’s president, Harvey Weiner, and to the board of directors demanding that I be allowed to speak. I’ve been told that a handful of couples have already exited the synagogue; others have promised not to donate money to the annual appeal on Yom Kippur.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/disinvited-west-end-synagogue-phyllis-chesler
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European Parliament says Hungary is no longer a 'full democracy'
Those who live in glass houses .... The EU is not much of a democracy either. Power in it lies with the bureaucracy, with the parliament being largely a rubber stamp
Hungary is no longer a "full democracy" and the EU needs to do everything to bring it back into line with European values, the European Parliament said Thursday.
MEPs voted 433 in favour, 123 against to now describe Hungary, ruled by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who maintains close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, "a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" in "serious breach" of EU democratic norms.
The vote was largely symbolic and does not change the course of EU decision making, which requires unanimity of all 27 member states -- including Hungary -- to adopt major issues, such as sanctions on Russia.
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‘Wholly Inadequate’: Federal Agencies Have No System To Check Whether Remote Employees Are Actually Working
Several federal agencies have no system in place to monitor whether remote workers are actually clocking in for the job—a fact one Republican senator said is "unacceptable and baffling" as the Biden administration pushes to expand telework options for its growing number of federal workers.
Four federal agencies told the Washington Free Beacon they have no specific oversight of remote employees: the Department of the Interior, Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agencies said their usual productivity measurements are adequate to track employees who shifted to remote work at the start of the pandemic. Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) received a similar response from the Department of Labor when he asked about the agency's telework policies—and said this justification is "wholly inadequate and non-responsive."
"Taken together, this evasiveness does not inspire confidence that the Biden administration even cares whether the federal workforce is, in fact, working while remote," Burr wrote in an August letter to the Office of Personnel Management, which manages federal telework policies.
Burr justified his push for transparency on telework policies by citing a Free Beacon report in June that found at least a quarter of remote employees at the Department of Health and Human Services failed to log on to their agency's software suite, which includes their email, video conference calls, and other applications needed to perform remote work. HHS did not respond to letters from Burr nor a Free Beacon request for comment on how it plans to address the lack of activity from remote workers.
The Biden administration this year has pushed to make lenient pandemic telework policies permanent as agencies prepared to return to the office. The White House plan is backed by House Democrats, who in June advanced a bill that would require agencies to notify Congress and the Office of Personnel Management if they want employees to return to the office.
The Free Beacon reached out to all 15 federal agencies about their telework accountability policies. The Department of Energy directed requests to the Office of Personnel Management. A spokesman for the State Department told the Free Beacon the department has a range of tools to assess workers who fall short of expectations or engage in misconduct regardless of whether those employees are in office or work remotely. The remaining nine agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
Kiran Ahuja, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in a July subcommittee hearing that she was unaware of the Free Beacon report on HHS remote work but said she would look into the matter. She added that expanded telework can "enhance productivity." Her office has yet to respond to follow-up questions Burr sent in August and did not respond to a request for comment from the Free Beacon.
As remote work grew more popular since the start of the COVID pandemic, companies deployed technology to track employees' online behavior through their emails, browser activity, and use of other online work software. A survey of 1,250 employers in the United States last year found that 60 percent of respondents use some version of this online monitoring software for remote workers—and another 17 percent were considering adopting one. Roughly 15 percent of the federal government's 2.1 million employees worked remotely last month, according to a Labor Department survey.
The leaked HHS memo tracked the online activity of remote employees through their Microsoft accounts and virtual private network. Burr said the Department of Education is the only agency that when requested provided these data, which showed that employees averaged seven Microsoft Teams calls per day. But the other five agencies that responded to the Free Beacon and Burr said the data are unnecessary to track productivity.
Nearly half of federal employees worked remotely in 2020 when then-HHS chief of staff Brian Harrison commissioned a report on online activity at his agency after he noticed poor office attendance and overall productivity. A whistleblower later leaked the memo to the Functional Government Initiative, which shared the report with the Free Beacon. Harrison said other agencies need to measure this online activity, which he fears may show similar results.
"The American people deserve complete transparency on whether they have been paying thousands of federal employees billions of dollars not to work," Harrison told the Free Beacon.
The Internal Revenue Service, which is set to more than double its workforce through President Joe Biden's climate and tax bill, did not respond to requests for comment on how it monitors remote employees.
Peter McGinnis, the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, said he hopes to see Congress hold HHS accountable for its incompetence amid the pandemic.
"Shockingly, the federal agency directly responsible for responding to the global pandemic appears to have rarely, if ever, been working at full strength," McGinnis told the Free Beacon.
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Conservatives: Why are you still living in the city?
I’ve asked myself and friends this question for the past couple years. Why are you still living in the city?
Usually, I get the same type of responses; “I can’t afford to move”, “my kids are in school here”, or “I can’t leave my job”. These are all reasonable and understandable responses. Reasonable in normal times; but these aren’t normal times, are they?
Major cities are overrun with leftist ideology. We have sanctuary cities, where undocumented criminals are embraced. The police are defunded while violent protests destroy public and private property at alarming rates. Crime is rampant while leftist policies are fueling inflation and sadly, common sense is long gone. If that isn’t enough, there is a poop “pandemic” in several of these cities. You’re not even safe in your home because criminals know law enforcement lack the resources to take them down. Hell, that’s why “smash and grab” is the latest shopping phenomenon.
Now, even Hollywood (the honey hole of leftism) is under attack.
Yesterday I was watching Tim Pool cover a story (watch video here) where the crew of an Apple TV show in production (Lady in the Lake) staring Natalie Portman (a proponent of BLM’s “defund the police” movement) ran into an issue involving 2 major drug dealers and their attempt to extort $50,000 from the production company.
In the video Tim Pool also covered a story from The Post Millennial where Andy Ngo wrote of violence that broke out on the streets of Portland during one of Antifa’s “street occupations”.
“At one of the street racing takeovers on Sunday night near the Expo Center attended by hundreds, an elderly man in a van appeared to be caught in the road before being violently attacked by an armed mob. Video posted on social media shows that as he desperately attempted to reverse and drive away while being attacked, he backed into a car. A man in the crowd then fires at least 18 rounds at his fleeing van. A follow-up video shows the crowd catching up with the elderly man who had stopped on a patch of grass. He appeared to be in shock and was bleeding heavily.”
To me, these stories are wild.
But they are indicative of the bad times we currently live in. Like it or not, this is what we’ve got. Even worse, these stories are tame compared to others; and there are so many more of them. I haven’t even gotten into the crazy stories coming out of public schools. Just this morning, The Officer Tatum released a video highlighting a woman exposing teachers pushing gender indoctrination homework onto kindergarteners.
Lawrence Johnson recently explained how we’ve gone from the basic two genders we grew up understanding to 72 genders! Our schools are attacking our youngest learners. Yet we keep sending our children to them to face the evils of the world head on while we are at work rather than working with our friends and family to home school our kids. Or showing up at the school board meetings in droves so big our demands for change can’t be ignored. Either way, something must be done!
Let me calm down and lower my blood pressure…
Just a few miles from where I live, there are quiet country roads, neighbors that know your name (and are just as armed as you are), fresh air, woods, and on and on. The crime and violence found in cities just isn’t out there on a regular basis. However, when it shows up (it will of course), you aren’t viewed as a criminal for defending your family or your property.
I get it, making changes to your life can be difficult. However, at some point you have to ask yourself if the risks in the city are worth the convenience of keeping things the way they are. Outside of making sure everyone in your family, that is eligible, votes to get the right people in office that can affect change; there isn’t much else you can do other than move out of the criminal infested cities.
https://theblacksphere.net/2022/09/conservatives-why-are-you-still-living-in-the-city/
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September 16, 2022
California sues Amazon, alleging its policies cause higher prices everywhere
What a lot of nonsense. It's a feeble attempt to deflect the blame for inflatiom from where it really lies -- the Biden administraton. Inflation occurs when monetary growth outpaces productivity growth. That's it. And Biden has been spending new money at a great rate. He can't finance his big new spending out of taxes so he HAS to print money to pay for it all
California sued Amazon on Wednesday, accusing the company of pushing sellers and suppliers into anticompetitive deals that lead to higher prices, including at rival online stores.
The lawsuit, filed by state Attorney General Rob Bonta, focuses on the way Amazon — the largest online retailer — deals with third-party merchants, who account for most of the sales on the platform.
California alleges that Amazon penalizes sellers and suppliers that offer cheaper prices elsewhere on the internet, including Walmart and Target, for example by displaying their items lower or less prominently or outright blocking their new postings.
"Amazon makes consumers think they are getting the lowest prices possible," the lawsuit alleges, "when in fact, they cannot get the low prices that would prevail in a freely competitive market because Amazon has coerced and induced its third-party sellers and wholesale suppliers to enter into anticompetitive agreements on price."
California's antitrust lawsuit is among the biggest legal challenges to Amazon in recent years, as lawmakers and regulators in the U.S. and abroad have investigated the retail giant for potential anticompetitive practices.
Amazon has denied any antitrust violations. Its representatives did not immediately comment on Tuesday's lawsuit.
California also accuses Amazon of creating a "vicious anticompetitive cycle": Sellers view Amazon as a must; Amazon charges them higher fees to be able to sell on its platform; Sellers, in turn, raise their Amazon prices. And, even though it costs them less to sell on other websites, Amazon's policies push sellers to raise prices on those sites, too.
"Through its illegal actions, the, quote, "everything store" has effectively set a price floor, costing Californians more for just about everything," Bonta said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Earlier this year, a judge dismissed a similar lawsuit that was filed in Washington, D.C., though the city's attorney general has appealed.
In that case, Amazon argued its deals with merchants were meant to prevent shoppers from being overcharged, and punishing Amazon would hurt consumers.
Amazon has separately proposed a settlement with European antitrust regulators, who charged the company with violating competition laws. Their key allegations accused the company of using data it collected from third-party sellers to its own benefit.
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Conservative anti-immigration leader claims victory in Swedish elections
A coalition of right wing parties have claimed victory in the Swedish elections, ousting the centre left bloc from power.
Jimmie Akesson, who leads the nationalist and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, said his party would be "a constructive and driving force" in rebuilding safety in the country, adding it was "time to put Sweden first".
The populist grouping of Sweden Democrats, the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals appears to have won a small majority now most of the votes have been counted - with 176 seats in the Riksdag, compared to 173 for the centre left group.
But while Mr Akesson's party seems to have the biggest slice of the vote with 20.6%, it will be the Moderates' Ulf Kristersson who will lead the new government, as the coalition partners will not back the Sweden Democrats leader due to his party's far right roots.
Mr Kristersson, whose party appears to have secured 19.1% of the vote, said: "I will now start the work of forming a new government that can get things done, a government for all of Sweden and all citizens."
The current Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has already accepted defeat, saying "the preliminary result is clear enough to draw a conclusion" she had lost power.
But she said she understood concerns about the victory of the former fringe party, adding: "I see your concern and I share it."
Ms Andersson became Sweden's first female PM in 2021 and led the country in its bid to join Nato after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. She said: "The four right-wing parties appear to have received just under 50% of the votes in the election, and in the Riksdag, they have gained one or two mandates. A thin majority, but it is a majority.
"Tomorrow I will therefore request my dismissal as prime minister and the responsibility for the continued process will now pass to the parliament speaker and the Riksdag.
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The For-Profit D.C. Firm Staging America’s ‘Grassroots’ Movements
Behind the closed doors of an unassuming philanthropic consultancy in Washington, D.C., is one of the most powerful lobbying forces in the United States. The Atlantic has called it “the massive progressive dark-money group you’ve never heard of” and “the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money.” The Washington Post believes its potent lobbying arm is reason enough for Congress to enact forced donor disclosure laws, while Politico labelled it a “dark-money behemoth.” “The system of political financing, which often obscures the identities of donors, is known as dark money,” wrote The New York Times, “and Arabella’s network is a leading vehicle for it on the left.”
Meet Arabella Advisors, the brainchild of ex-Clinton administration staffer Eric Kessler and the favorite tool of anonymous, billionaire donors on the progressive left. Since 2006, the Arabella hub has overseen a growing network of nonprofits—call them the “spokes”—that collected $2.4 billion in the 2019-20 election cycle, nearly twice as much as the Republican and Democratic national committees combined.
These nonprofits in turn manage and supervise a vast array of “pop-up” groups—mainly political attack-dog websites, ad campaigns, and “spontaneous” demonstrations staffed by Arabella’s network of activist professionals who pose as members of independent activist organizations. These groups—such as Fix Our Senate, the Hub Project, and Floridians for a Fair Shake—typically emerge very suddenly in order to savage the political opposition on the policy or outrage of that particular day or week, then vanish just as quickly. The pop-ups do not file IRS disclosures or report their budgets, boards, or staff. In most cases, their connection to Arabella goes unreported. Many of them have offered sympathetic ordinary voters the opportunity to donate to whatever the “grassroots” cause happens to be, when in fact the money feeds back into Arabella’s enormous dark-money network.
The relatively novel and innovative model of political activism perfected by Arabella, which was founded 2005, went more or less unnoticed until 2018, when I was reporting on the activist groups that attempted to prevent the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Among the sea of picket signs outside the court in July 2018 was the name of an unfamiliar group: Demand Justice. A search of the IRS nonprofit archives showed the name itself wasn’t listed. What did turn up in an online search was a downtown address on Connecticut Avenue shared by dozens of other organizations, including the Arabella “spoke” that appeared to be running Demand Justice, Sixteen Thirty Fund.
It isn’t uncommon for political groups to share expensive D.C. office space, especially when they’re affiliated, like the Center for American Progress (CAP) and its lobbying arm, CAP Action. But Arabella’s arrangement is unique: A for-profit consultancy (Arabella Advisors) is the central hub; four (perhaps five) tax-exempt nonprofits (New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, and possibly North Fund, all founded and led by Arabella leadership) are the spokes; and countless ephemeral pop-ups branching out from the nonprofits.
In early 2019, the Capital Research Center (where I work) released a report on the network. Since then, my colleagues and I have collected large amounts of data on Arabella’s origins, lobbying, pop-up campaigns, board connections, and donors, which helped lay the groundwork for later reporting on Arabella in mainstream outlets like The Atlantic and New York Times—which have since acknowledged that the political “left” has outraised and outspent the political “right” using dark money in recent years by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.
And yet today, the vast majority of American voters remain unaware of Arabella’s existence, even as it promises to play an increasingly central role in American politics, and as the culture wars and fight for control of federal institutions reaches a fever pitch in the fall of 2022.
Before Arabella Advisors, there was Eric Kessler. Today he is the company founder, principal, and senior managing partner, and at one point served as a board member for four of the Arabella network’s five nonprofits. Kessler is considered by many in Washington to be a leading expert on philanthropy and foundation-giving.
Kessler’s career began over 30 years ago not in philanthropy but in grubby political activism. In 1990, he was a student at the University of Colorado where he met David Brower, founding director of the Sierra Club and a population-control advocate who created the environmental groups Friends of the Earth and the Earth Island Institute, among others. Over Tanqueray martinis, according to the Earth Island Journal, Brower convinced Kessler to hitchhike to San Francisco as an Earth Island volunteer focusing on water conservation problems in Siberia.
In 1993, Kessler became national field director for the League of Conservation Voters, a powerful environmental lobbying group—also founded by Brower in 1970—that spends heavily on boosting Democratic turnout each national election cycle. In 1996, following successful campaign work, Kessler was appointed to President Bill Clinton’s Department of the Interior under Secretary Bruce Babbitt, an aggressive regulator who had run the League of Conservation Voters from 1988-93. From 1999 to 2005, Kessler was senior manager of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, which promotes a progressive vision of democracy in developing countries (he now serves on the board).
The crucial turn in Kessler’s life came in 1998, when his family sold its fifth-generation auto parts company in Chicago, Fel-Pro, for a reported $750 million. At 26 years old, Kessler had become quite wealthy. He got involved in his family’s charity, the Family Alliance Foundation, a modest grant-maker to health care research whose board still includes him and his parents.
In 2005, Kessler left the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs to found Arabella Advisors. While it remains unclear exactly what inspired it, the company’s current business model—a for-profit hub that directly controls a series of nonprofit spokes—was visible at the beginning. Almost immediately after Arabella was formed, Kessler started the 501(c)(3) Arabella Legacy Fund, now called New Venture Fund, the largest nonprofit in the Arabella network.
The Arabella hub has since added three more spokes—the 501(c)(3) Hopewell and Windward Funds and 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund—and perhaps a fifth, semirelated (c)(4) sibling, North Fund, which shares common characteristics. All except North Fund share the same address. (It’s perhaps worth noting that in 1630, when the Puritan John Winthrop and his followers departed England for Massachusetts, a new venture that led to the founding of Boston, they traveled aboard the ships Arabella and Hopewell. “Windward” is likewise a nautical term.)
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Tribalism and Electoral Politics
Humans have always lived and worked in groups and instinctively seek to cooperate with others in their group while viewing people in other groups with hostility. People in the same tribe work together for their common good. People in other tribes are potential predators or potential prey.
Those tribal instincts have stuck with us in modern times, often in socially harmful ways. Tribal instincts are the basis for racism and lay the foundations for nationalism. Modern societies have developed institutions to channel tribalism in non-destructive ways, such as organized sports. Rather than going to war with those of another tribe, we play games against them, giving us the satisfaction of battling another tribe while minimizing the death and destruction that accompanies other types of battles.
Electoral politics also plays on tribal instincts. We choose sides, and it is us against them. How sides are chosen is, at least partly, up to the politicians who are up for election.
The 2016 presidential election offers a good example. In a contest that pits “us” against “them,” Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables,” clearly placing Trump supporters in the “them” category. Meanwhile, Trump was critical of Mexicans, Chinese, and illegal immigrants who were rapists and murderers.
One interesting aspect of these appeals to tribal instincts is that Clinton put many potential voters, the Trump supporters, in the “them” category. Trump put foreigners who don’t vote, in the “them” category. He included all Americans as a part of the “us” group.
As Trump framed it, we Americans, who could vote in the election, were a part of his group, whereas as Clinton framed it, some Americans were in her tribe but others were not. Trump’s framing pitted Americans against foreigners. All voters were in his “us” group. Clinton’s framing pitted some voters against others.
We are seeing Clinton’s brand of tribalism play out again, as President Biden has labeled MAGA Republicans as semi-fascists. Why would a politician want to alienate such a large proportion of potential voters? Would it make more sense to try to unite voters against a common enemy rather than branding perhaps half of potential voters as the enemy?
The more inclusive message would seem to make more sense if the object of tribal rhetoric is to win over undecided voters or convince potential voters to switch to the speaker’s side. Trump’s strategy says that we Americans, who vote, are all in this together against a common enemy–foreigners who do not vote.
However, not that many voters are genuinely undecided, and even fewer who have already chosen a side will defect to the other side. Electoral politics is more about turnout. Voter turnout tends to run about 50% in mid-term elections, so the road to victory must be fueled by getting “our” supporters to show up and vote while discouraging “their” supporters from voting.
A charitable way to view the tribal strategies of Clinton and Biden is that casting their opponents in an undesirable light will encourage Clinton and Biden supporters to turn out to vote against the deplorables and fascists. They’re acting to motivate their base.
Still, this seems like a poor strategy because it has the potential to motivate their opponents’ base at least as much as their own. Suppose you are one of those people who are being called deplorable and fascist. In that case, you might be motivated to strike out at those who are making those accusations.
My guess is that by deliberately trying to alienate a large share of voters, the Clinton-Biden tribal strategy costs more votes than it gains, because it motivates the “them” voters more than the “us” voters. Trump’s approach of including all Americans in the “us” group against foreigners in the “them” group seems like better electoral politics. Trump did attack Clinton, calling her “lying Hillary,” but he didn’t attack Clinton’s supporters.
President Biden was his party’s choice in the presidential election of 2020 partly because he was viewed as a more moderate Democrat who could appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. After he was elected, he presented himself as a president who wanted to unite America. It appears that he now has chosen a different political strategy–a strategy that may have kept Clinton out of the White House rather than his old strategy that may have put him in the White House.
Humans still have those tribal instincts, and politicians can play them differently by defining who they include in their “us” group and who they define as “them.” Their strategies are fully intentional. President Biden’s characterization of MAGA Republicans as semi-fascists was fully intended to play on the tribal instincts of his base, but likely will have a bigger impact on the tribal instincts of those outside his base. You don’t have to be a MAGA Republican to be offended that the president would label a large proportion of Americans as semi-fascists.
https://blog.independent.org/2022/09/07/tribalism-electoral-politics/
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September 15, 2022
The troubled history of the Kohinoor diamond – a jewel controversially owned by the British monarchy
Britain should offer to return it to any of the four claimants on it if they all agree among themselves about who should have it. Getting the governments of Pakistan, Iran, India and Afghanistan to agree could be amusing. It won't happen of course so the stone will remain blamelessly where it is
Following Queen Elizabeth II’s death last week, critics have renewed calls for the British government to return artifacts looted by the British Empire, among them the Kohinoor diamond – one of the world’s most famous, controversial gems.
Housed today in the Tower of London as part of the Crown Jewels collection, the diamond is subject to claims of ownership from multiple countries. It is rumored that it will be worn by Camilla, now Queen Consort, at the coronation of King Charles III.
Originally about 186 carats uncut, the Kohinoor, or “Mountain of Light,” was likely mined in South India in the 13th century. Some Hindus believe it to be the Syamantaka gem from the Bhagavad Purana tales of the god Krishna.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, the stone first appears in the written record in 1628, when it formed the glistening head of the so-called “Peacock Throne” of the Mughal Shah Jahan. Despite its impressive size, the Kohinoor played second fiddle to the Timur Ruby, as Mughal culture preferred colored stones.
After a century in Mughal hands, the diamond was subsequently captured by the Persian and then Afghan empires. It was finally returned to India in 1813 by the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In the book “Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond,” historians Anita Anand and William Dalrymple note Ranjit Singh’s acquisition as a major turning point in the gem’s history.
“It was not just that Ranjit Singh liked diamonds and respected the stone’s vast monetary value; the gem seems to have held a far greater symbolism for him,” they write. For him, it represented the conquest of the Sikh Empire against the Afghan Durrani dynasty.
The diamond’s almost mythical potency appealed to Britain’s East India Company, which began its plunder of the Asian subcontinent in the early 19th century. Even so, the diamond remained in India until 1849, when Ranjit Singh’s son Maharaja Duleep Singh signed the Treaty of Lahore. Only a child at the time, Duleep was forced to acknowledge the British annexation of Punjab – and turn over the diamond.
Lord Dalhousie, the Scottish governor-general of India, oversaw the stone’s export to England, where it was unveiled at the 1851 Great Exhibition. Viewers were originally scandalized by the Kohinoor’s dull appearance; to avoid more public outcry, Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert had it recut and polished.
Around this time, rumors also started spreading that the famous gem was cursed. Whispers circulating that any man who wore the diamond would experience great misfortune, or that it spiritually saturated with the bloodshed of historical conquests.
Perhaps in part because of the rumors, the Kohinoor never became a star of the royal collection. Worn occasionally as a brooch by Queen Victoria, it was eventually set in the crown of Queen Alexandra and then in that of Queen Mary. In 1937, it was refashioned as the central diamond on the crown of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.
The Kohinoor crown last appeared in public in 2002, when it was placed on top of The Queen Mother’s casket at her lying-in and funeral.
Meanwhile, the Indian government has been demanding the diamond’s return almost the entire time the stone has been in British hands. The country entered a formal complaint upon gaining independence in 1947; it was followed up upon Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. The governments of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan have lodged similar claims.
The British government has historically rejected the idea of returning the Kohinoor. In 2013, then-Prime Minister David Cameron said “They’re not getting it back.” Three years later, the Indian Culture Ministry insisted that it would make “all possible efforts” to see the diamond back in India.
Now, as the death of Queen Elizabeth brings renewed criticism of the dark history of the British imperial project in Asia and beyond, social media users are rallying to put the Kohinoor issue in the spotlight.
“If the King is not going to wear Kohinoor, give it back,” wrote one Twitter user.
Speaking to NBC, Danielle Kinsey, a professor of history at Carleton University, says it is only a matter of time before the diamond is returned.
“At some point the monarchy will understand that keeping the diamond is more of a public relations liability for them than an asset,” she said.
“I think the same is true for many, many looted artifacts in Britain today and the institutions that house them.”
Indeed, the Kohinoor is far from the only foreign treasure lingering on British soil. Not only does the Crown Jewels include several other controversial gems – including the Timur Ruby, the same stone that formed part of the Peacock Throne with the Kohinoor in the 17th century– but the country’s museums are overflowing with looted goods.
While the British Museum remains locked in a famous feud with Greece over the Elgin marbles, other institutions are becoming more willing to return what was never theirs. In August, the Horniman Museum and Gardens vowed to return 72 Benin bronzes to the Nigerian government.
Despite the small progress being made, British-Indian author Sauruv Dutt, told TIME that he doubts the Kohinoor or its peers will be back in their origin countries anytime soon.
Describing how the monarchy is “married to this romantic version of empire, even though it is long dead, and has lost its power,” Dutt said the diamond would be impossible for them to surrender. “[The Royals] would essentially be eviscerating themselves.”
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Senator on Democrats’ Same-Sex Marriage Bill: ‘We Have to Fight Back on This’
Passing a bill enshrining same-sex marriage in national law would put the existence of religious nonprofit ministries at risk and send “a pretty strong message that religious beliefs don’t matter,” a Republican senator has said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed Wednesday to bring a bill decreeing that all 50 states must recognize same-sex marriages to the floor “in the coming weeks.”
Schumer needs 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster—which he may find by tying the controversial redefinition of marriage bill to a measure to keep funding the government after Sept. 30.
Some Republicans “just want to get this thing behind us, and the faster we can do that, the better. And the best way to do that is to simply give them the votes they need to pass the bill,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Wednesday.
“That would be a terrible mistake,” he said. “I don’t believe there are 10 Republicans that will fall for that.”
Feedback from Christian voters has already impacted Senate Republicans’ stance on the bill. “I’m hearing from North Dakotans, which matters most to me,” Cramer told Perkins. “Overwhelmingly, they oppose this legislation. People are reading it, they’re hearing about it, and they see it for what it is.”
The bill, which Democrats dubbed the Respect for Marriage Act, passed the House of Representatives last month with 47 Republican votes, including House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
“Fortunately, the August recess came along in time for us to go home and hear from our constituents—hear from our priests and our pastors and the praying men and women of our churches,” said Cramer.
Regardless of the clerical or lay status, senators are hearing the same concern: “[T]he potential attack on religious liberties once a bill like this would pass,” Cramer stated. “In many respects, passing a bill like this really sends a pretty strong message that religious beliefs don’t matter.”
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., agreed, writing in The Washington Stand that the bill “erodes their religious liberty by elevating the ‘right’ to same-sex marriage above the constitutionally-guaranteed right for people to live according to their faith.”
Lawsuits targeting Christians who will not participate in same-sex marriages have already cost elderly florist Barronelle Stutzman her business, hauled Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips to court twice, and subjected Christian adoption agencies to legal harassment for assuring their children’s adoptive homes have a mother and a father, among dozens of others.
“The Respect for Marriage Act will further usher in this new era of oppression” toward faithful Christians and observant Jews, the Conservative Action Project wrote to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
If the proposed bill passes, the IRS “will then come straight at every nonprofit that believes in traditional marriage,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Perkins in July. LGBT activists, possibly with the help of the Biden administration, will threaten the tax-exempt status of religious nonprofits—including church food banks, soup kitchens, Christian adoption agencies, and other social ministries.
The Obama administration signaled the coming legal assault in 2015: The solicitor general who argued Obergefell v. Hodges told the Supreme Court, “It is going to be an issue.” The left plans to use the proposed law “as a weapon” to “crush anyone that opposes [their] belief in gay marriage,” Lankford said.
Grassroots Christian conservatives have gotten through even to the most vulnerable politicians. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who originally said, “I see no reason to oppose” the bill, now tells Axios, “I wouldn’t vote for it because of all the issues raised about religious liberty.”
A handful of Republicans have endorsed the legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and retiring Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. But the vast majority have taken no opinion.
“A lot of them are making a political calculation” that Christian churches are “asleep,” Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., told Perkins in July. The massive response by Christian registered voters—and recent election results—suggest their strategy is misguided. Numerous candidates who support natural marriage prevailed over socially liberal candidates in this year’s Republican primaries.
Senate Democrats hope the bill will give them a political win and energize their voting base before the 2022 midterm elections. Some justify the bill by citing a concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas asking the Supreme Court to revisit Obergefell and other opinions based on a controversial legal theory. But the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision specifically states that it does not impact Obergefell.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh separately wrote that Dobbs “does not threaten or cast doubt on” the 2015 decision inventing the right to same-sex marriage.
“A vote on the Respect for Marriage [Act] is necessary,” claimed Schumer this week. But since all 50 states have already changed their marriage laws, and granted those who identify as homosexual the benefits available to married couples, legal analysts say the bill is superfluous from a legislative standpoint.
“Absolutely nothing would change in terms of policies, benefits, and substantive rights for same-sex couples currently in civil marriages,” noted Roger Severino, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ civil rights division under President Donald Trump.
While the legislation would have limited or had no effect on state laws, it would potentially hamper the ministries of religious groups that feed hungry people, and “do it in a way that’s compassionate, unlike the federal government,” Cramer told Perkins.
The North Dakota senator feared that may be part of the Democrats’ design.
“If you didn’t have faith-based organizations doing all of these things, the alternative is the government. And that’s really what liberals want: They want the government to replace the church, to replace the body of Christ, to replace your compassionate faith-based services,” Cramer stated.
Unfortunately, some in the church welcome their replacement by the welfare state. Some clergy “liked the idea that the government would feed hungry people, that they would clothe the poor, that they would visit the sick. And I always like to tell my colleagues: The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t delivered to the democracy or to the Congress. It was delivered to the disciples in the church and the congregation. And I just don’t want us to lose either that responsibility or that obligation as faithful people.”
Many argue that revoking the tax-exempt status of religious nonprofits, which often operate hand-to-mouth, or even suing them would greatly reduce their ministry and their ability to share their goods with the needy in the name of Jesus Christ.
“We have to fight back on this,” Cramer concluded.
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‘Woke’ Department of Defense equity chief Kelisa Wing has history of anti-white Twitter posts: report
The self-described “woke” chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer in the Department of Defense’s education branch has a history of calling out white people on social media, according to a report.
The tweets by Kelisa Wing, an Army veteran and the current DEI chief at the DoD’s Education Activity, were first reported by Fox News. When the outlet contacted her for comment, her Twitter account was made private and she declined to respond.
“I’m exhausted with these white folx in these [professional development] sessions,” Wing, who oversees curriculum at DoDEA, tweeted in June 2020, according to Fox.
“[T]his lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that black people can be racist too… I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS… [W]e are not the majority, we don’t have power,” the diversity chief continued.
“Caudacity” is a portmanteau referencing audacity expressed by white people.
“[B]eing antiracist means being active against racism… you will NEVER arrive… stop centering this on whiteness,” Wing said.
In another post, Wing responded to another user who criticized an article she had written that claimed “racism is ingrained in the very fabric of our country,” and called on teachers to dismantle “racial oppression,” Fox reported.
“Bye Karen,” Wing wrote, dismissively.
She’s additionally called former President Donald Trump the “whole boy version of a Karen” and his former secretary of education Betsy DeVos as “the queen of Karens.”
The DoDEA and DoD did not immediately respond to Fox’s requests for comment regarding Wing’s tweets.
Wing has additionally co-authored several children’s books concerning race. In 2021, she wrote along with Leigh Ann Dickerson as part of the Racial Justice in America Series “What is White Privilege?”
The book says that “White privilege hurts a lot of people. If you are White you might feel bad about hurting others or you might feel afraid to lose this privilege.”
“Overcoming White privilege is a job that must start with the White community,” the book says.
The book was one of many removed for review by a Florida school district, a nonprofit group that monitors banned books reported, according to Fox.
“Honored to be involved with work that causes good trouble,” Wing said on Twitter in response to the report.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/dod-equity-chief-kelisa-wing-has-history-of-ant-white-posts/
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Social Justice and the end of civility
The recent outpouring of rancour and bilious accusation at the death of Queen Elizabeth II has brought out predictable justifications for incivility in the name of social justice: ‘It’s okay when we do it; if you criticise us, you’re an oppressor too.’
Last Thursday, a Nigerian-born university professor at Carnegie Mellon tweeted her hope that Queen Elizabeth’s pain on her deathbed would be ‘excruciating’, excusing her crudity by referring to the Queen as the ‘chief monarch [sic] of a thieving, raping, and genocidal empire’.
Professor Uju Anya is not a historian – she has a PhD in the academically unserious discipline of second-language theory while also exploring ‘applied linguistics as a practice of social justice and translanguaging in world language pedagogy’. It is highly unlikely that she could go toe-to-toe with a genuine historian on the facts of the British Empire’s alleged atrocities.
Throw-away denunciations (not of the Mongol and Ottoman empires, only the British) are common currency on Twitter, and within most university classrooms today. Nobody would have cared if Anya had denounced the British Empire; what raised eyebrows was the gratuitous nastiness of her wish for the Queen to die an agonising death.
When her tweet provoked criticism and was ultimately deleted by Twitter, Anya argued that the Queen had ‘supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family’ (in reference to Britain’s alleged role in supplying arms to the Nigerian government during the country’s three-year civil war in the late 1960s) and engaged in oft-obscene exchanges with her detractors.
She told NBC News in interview:
‘I take deep offence at the notion that the oppressed and survivors of violence have to somehow be deferential or respectful when their oppressors die.’
No one ever said that Anya had to be deferential… But a reasonable person might have expected some restraint considering Nigerians, both during the civil war and generally in the more than 60 years since the country was granted independence, have done a good job of massacring, displacing, and reducing the life possibilities of other Nigerians.
As a result, there has been a mass exodus from Nigeria by individuals like Anya, many of whom have fled to Great Britain as well as to other English-speaking countries where they have been able to live in security and plenty unimaginable to the vast majority of their former countrymen.
If the English-speaking empire is so evil, why choose to continue living in it?
The professor was not without support. MSNBC opinion columnist Zeeshan Aleem defended her statements as ‘undeniably stemming from a place of personal hurt and political opposition to the imperial history and legacy of the British monarchy’.
Oni Blackstock, whose Twitter bio identifies her as an MD, tweeted:
‘“Speak no ill of the dead” is a weapon that’s levelled against the oppressed to silence them, to lionise oppressors, and to sanitise their history.’
She went on to call Anya ‘a truth-teller’ then added, ‘And we know what happens when people speak truth to power.’
Contrary to their stated fears, nothing is happening in retribution for Anya’s claimed ‘truth-telling’. Quite the opposite. Mellon has come under fire from progressive journalists for distancing itself from her vulgar statement.
Moreover, no one is preventing criticism of the dead or the living. No one is suggesting that a postcolonial critic cannot make arguments about the alleged harm done by the British Empire. Anya is perfectly free to analyse the perfidy of the British in Nigeria’s past or to critically evaluate Queen Elizabeth’s role in Nigerian decolonisation.
Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American radical feminist, alleged that rudeness is a political strategy by which formerly colonised and oppressed peoples resist the ‘white, Christian values’ that have allegedly been violently imposed in order to pacify them. Practising ‘radical rudeness’, according to Eltahawy, is a liberatory strategy of anti-imperialism.
Pursuing the same theme, Valeska Griswold tweeted:
‘The notion of radical rudeness is an excellent framework to analyse the complaints of alt-right movements against POC and “the libs”. It helps to have a name for the things that form organically in subaltern and oppressed communities to deal with their marginalisation.’
Such puerile theorising has a long and depressing history in academic thought, but anyone interested in a concise statement of one of its points of origin should read political theorist Herbert Marcuse’s 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance.
In his exposition in favour of intolerance and aggression by the oppressed, Marcuse, pre-eminent intellectual and godfather of the New Left, alleges that the oppressed can and must live by rules different from those that bind others. In fact, he asserted it was inhumane to remain calm when confronting the actions and discourse of alleged oppressors.
Tolerant speech, according to Marcuse, ‘offends against humanity and truth by being calm where one should be enraged, by refraining from accusation where accusation is in the facts themselves’.
The statement is on its face nonsensical. If ‘accusation is in the facts themselves’ then why would more accusation be necessary? Is it not more useful to be calm in one’s rage, if rage is called for, than to be uncontrolled and frenzied?
Marcuse believed that to maintain self-control was in some way to allow oppressors to get away with their evil and to enforce cognitive and psycho-social bondage on the oppressed: ‘The tolerance expressed in such impartiality serves to minimise or even absolve prevailing intolerance and suppression.’
As the inheritor of a long tradition that celebrated righteous rage, Marcuse suggested that a calm, fact-based approach to civic engagement was itself a form of capitulation to one’s enemy and a betrayal of victims. A true champion of the oppressed, Marcuse suggested, would not hesitate to dehumanise the oppressor.
There are striking parallels between Marcuse’s claims and those of Anya and her supporters who advocate ‘radical rudeness’.
In Repressive Tolerance, Marcuse appeared to condone violence in principle, distinguishing between what he called ‘revolutionary violence’, which he cautiously approved as a necessary measure by the oppressed to end injustice, and ‘reactionary violence’, which he condemned as a means to maintain oppression.
English-speaking countries have been relatively good places to live for a long time precisely because, amongst other reasons, of its ‘white, Christian culture’ which emphasised non-violence and placed a high value on civility, self-restraint, and calm rationality. It did so not only out of Christian conviction, but also in the recognition that visionary violence always exceeds its aim, harming the innocent and the powerless.
People schooled in little other than post-colonial resentment and lavishly rewarded for toxic ranting, evidently do not care about the civil order they threaten. Their glib, destructive posturing exposes the rot at the heart of academic social justice ideology.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/social-justice-and-the-end-of-civility/
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14 September, 20222
New study reports that diet cola could increase your risk of heart disease
Nonsense. This study had NO CONTROL GROUP. The authors did not have data on people who drink sugar-sweetened drinks. So there is no way of knowing that the disease noted was due to the sweetener
The reason why big drinkers of diet Coke had more heart disease could be because of the caffeine in the drink, and probably was. Caffeine is a stimulant that can overwork hearts. And the fact that different sweeteners were involved makes it unlikely that the sweeteners were at fault. The various sweeteners are quite different chemically
The academic article is here
Supermarket shelves are lined with ‘diet’ and ‘lite’ options of our favourite beverages – but are we really making the right choice by opting for the seemingly “healthier” option?
A new study claims that diet cola drinks may actually be just as bad – if not worse – for you than a good old fashioned “normal” cola.
Scientists at the French National Institute for Health say consumers should not assume that drinks with artificial sweeteners are a safe swap for sugar.
In a trial published in the British Medical Journal, which spanned 12 years and involved 103,000 people, researchers found that total artificial sweetener intake was associated with increased risk of fatal conditions such as heart disease and stroke.
According to the study, less than a can a day could be enough to cause serious health damage.
“The findings from this large scale prospective cohort study suggest a potential direct association between higher artificial sweetener consumption (especially aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose) and increased cardiovascular disease risk,” wrote Dr Mathilde Touvier, lead author on the study.
“Artificial sweeteners are present in thousands of food and beverage brands worldwide.
“However, they remain a controversial topic and are currently being re-evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority, the World Health Organisation and other health agencies,” she wrote.
The study reported that 77.6mg of sweetener per day was the average for a “high consumer” and 7.5mg per day was low.
This would mean that as little as half a can of diet cola could have negative effects on health.
The data collected from 130,000 French citizens found that a third of people consume sugar-free alternatives – which contain aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame potassium – regularly.
“The harmful effects of added sugars have been established for several chronic diseases, leading food industries to use artificial sweeteners as alternatives in a wide range of foods and beverages,” Dr Touvier said.
“These food additives, consumed daily by millions of people, should not be considered a healthy and safe alternative to sugar.”
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Google, IBM Quietly Backtrack on Race-Conscious Fellowships
Google and IBM are quietly backtracking in the wake of Washington Free Beacon reports about the companies capping the number of white and Asian students whom universities can nominate for prestigious research fellowships, which required that half of each school’s nominees be underrepresented minorities.
Both companies dropped the caps after lawyers told the Free Beacon that they likely violated civil rights laws. The fellowships, which provide graduate students with generous stipends and mentorship opportunities, still ask schools to nominate a diverse pool of candidates, but no longer limit how many whites and Asians can apply.
Just two weeks ago, Google insisted its nominating criteria for the Google Ph.D. Fellowship were legal, describing them as "extremely common" and maintaining that they followed "all relevant laws." Since then, however, the tech giant has replaced its diversity mandates with suggestions. "If more than two students are nominated," the new nominating criteria state, "we strongly encourage additional nominees who self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability."
The original language stipulated that if a university "chooses to nominate more than two students … the third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability."
IBM, meanwhile, quietly dropped a requirement that half of the nominees for its Ph.D. fellowship program be "diversity candidates"—after the Free Beacon contacted IBM for comment—and replaced it with a request that schools "consider a diverse slate of candidates."
The original criteria posed legal problems for Google, IBM, and participating universities. Civil rights lawyers told the Free Beacon that the fellowships likely ran afoul of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans race discrimination in contracting, and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans race discrimination at federally funded schools.
Asked whether the company had scrapped its diversity requirement over legal concerns, a Google spokesperson, Courtenay Mencini, attributed the change to a desire to "clarify our nomination criteria," adding that the company stands by its original statement.
A few schools have already been hit with civil rights complaints over their participation in the Google fellowship. On August 24, emails obtained by the Free Beacon show, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights received complaints against Harvard University, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, New York University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
The complaints allege that these schools are discriminating based on race and sex by nominating students for the fellowship, and ask that each one apologize for the "sexism and racism it has engaged in."
Google and IBM’s reversals come as other corporations face blowback for their own discriminatory policies, some of which are now the subject of major lawsuits. In the past two months alone, Amazon and American Express have both been hit by class action complaints alleging anti-white discrimination. Other companies like Coca-Cola have scrapped race-conscious policies amid legal threats from shareholders.
Some Fortune 500 companies are nonetheless standing by programs that many lawyers say are illegal. The Free Beacon reported in August that Pfizer bars whites and Asians from applying for its prestigious "Breakthrough Fellowship," which Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, called a "clear case of liability" under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When more outlets picked up the story, Pfizer followed Google’s lead and insisted it hadn’t done anything wrong.
"All of our actions comply fully with all U.S. employment laws," the pharmaceutical giant told Fox Business. "We create opportunities for people without taking them away from others."
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Good news out of Canada!
James Allan
I’m a native-born Canadian. When it comes to politics I virtually never say, ‘Look at the good news coming out of Canada!’
The left-wing Liberal Party has dominated Canadian federal politics for most of the last century. Recent national Conservative (nickname ‘Tory’) party leaders have been inept; they’ve been afraid of being conservatives or of voicing any conservative policies; they have seemed to function without any value-based anchors (think Scott Morrison); they have regularly adopted the Textor approach to politics for conservatives, which is to park your party a centimetre to the right of the left-wing main party.
All up it has been a disaster electorally as the left side of politics in Canada wins and wins and wins again.
Last weekend, the Conservative party selected a new leader in Pierre Poilievre. This MP would have had zero chance of winning the leadership in Australia because many of his fellow MPs (mostly ‘moderates’) would rather have eaten broken glass than vote for him. But some time ago, the decision of who would be party leader was wholly taken out of the hands of the partyroom and given to the paid-up party membership.
On Saturday, the party membership decision was announced and Poilievre received over two-thirds of the vote. His nearest rival, the establishment ‘moderate’ aka ‘don’t rock the boat’ candidate won just 16 percent of cast ballots.
The first thing Poilievre made clear is that he will not now pivot to the centre.
He has said the Governor of the Bank of Canada will be fired on the first day after he wins an election because of his money printing incompetence these past three years.
Poilievre then repeated his attacks on the bias of the CBC (which is actually a tad more balanced than our ABC). The new Tory leader said he would significantly defund the national broadcaster and that it is not remotely balanced (which is a true statement). Poilievre even went down into the detail of the sort of commentators the CBC brings in and noted they almost all just parrot the left-wing Liberal worldview. Half of the country that disagrees should not have to pay for this.
After winning a few days ago, Poilievre stated that he expected the CBC to come after him – for marching with the truckers whose civil liberties were taken away; for articulating clear conservative policies; and for making clear that the national broadcaster will face financial repercussions from a Conservative government led by him. The strategy is perfect if you believe that the national broadcaster is going to attack any real conservative party and leader anyway.
To quote Shakespeare, Poilievre is making a virtue of necessity.
His other policies include a promise to wind back the regulatory state, to get oil and gas pipelines finished, and to take real steps against politically correct, Woke bureaucracies and even companies.
To say that he has painted the biggest target imaginable on his chest is no exaggeration. And isn’t this splendid… As it happens, the Liberal Party is petrified of Poilievre. He is an adopted baby who grew up with no wealthy parents or any noticeable life advantages. His wife is an immigrant from South America (who has the political advantage of being extremely pulchritudinous).
So, he hates Woke cancel culture. He dislikes the regulatory state. And he is prepared to engage in a front-on battle with the public broadcaster, making that plain before the next election.
Poilievre, despite the name, grew up in Alberta (the most conservative of Canada’s provinces) and only learned French later in life. But his name and now excellent language skills make him a big threat to the Liberals in Quebec. His willingness to stand up against the lockdownistas is now starting to pay significant benefits – he does not concede that the welding people in their homes strategy was a good one.
Friends I know back in Canada who have despondently but correctly predicted a left-wing Liberal win, one after another after another, say that the Tories will win the next election. They are starting to make real inroads into the working class vote. This is the political realignment that benefited both Trump and Boris and that is happening throughout the anglosphere and democratic world.
Rich people now vote left, in general terms. The upper-middle-class, university graduate caste is about the most Woke and left-leaning part of the electorate there is. And another sign of how fighting on values works is that the Green party in Canada is now imploding. You can’t get better news than that.
Anyway, even though Justin Trudeau leads a minority government the other left-wing parties have pledged to prop him up so it could be over two years till the next election. No one knows what will be happening then or who will win. But the omens are good for Conservatives in Canada for seeing a real Conservative party led by a real Conservative win office at the next election. And I cannot remember when I last said that.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/good-news-out-of-canada/
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Another Leftist Attempt to Rewrite Election Rules Goes Down in Flames
Another left-wing attempt to rewrite election rules has gone down in flames. This time, liberals attempted to put a measure on the November ballot to gut election safeguards and skew voting rules in the influential swing state.
But if the left thought it could buy its way onto the ballot, it was wrong. In its rush to “save democracy,” the group pushing the measure—euphemistically named Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections—failed to follow state law.
That’s why a coalition of groups committed to preserving election integrity came together to challenge that effort in court. On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed: Proponents did not turn in enough legal signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Cue the predictable liberal anger. Almost immediately the left began lashing out at Arizona’s courts for “suppressing democracy.”
In reality, liberal anger is far less principled and far more partisan. The 26-page initiative was a left-wing wish list of loose voting laws. The proposal gutted voter ID and eliminated safeguards against noncitizen voting.
Key protections for mail ballots would have been eliminated, and vote trafficking by political operatives would have been given the green light. It would even have raised taxes to fund politicians’ campaigns.
The measure took all the worst parts of HR 1, Democrats’ failed legislation to launch a federal takeover of elections, and brought them to Arizona.
Arizonans can rest easier knowing they have avoided an election integrity nightmare, but all Americans should take notice. The left is desperate to stop election reform and to instead impose lax rules on the states. But Democrats in Congress failed to pass their partisan election power grab, and states like Georgia, Texas, and Florida have all enacted commonsense laws in the face of left-wing smear campaigns and corporate boycotts.
States are taking the slack out of elections through stronger voter ID laws, cleaner voter rolls, stiffer penalties for abusive vote trafficking, and greater transparency and accountability in elections.
Ballot measures are one of the few avenues open to advance the left’s goals, and it knows it. Already this year, Missouri saw a massive push to remake the state’s entire election system into a complex scheme known as ranked-choice voting that critics point out adds complexity and risks disenfranchising voters.
And in Michigan, a group called Promote the Vote is pushing, among other things, to permanently enshrine weak voter ID laws and mandate insecure drop boxes that can be used in the dead of night.
So far, these ballot measure fights have come to a quick end in Arizona and Missouri. The fate of the Michigan measure remains undecided. But even if all three fail to qualify, the left will keep trying in more states. There are simply so few other options to advance its agenda—particularly in conservative states.
And when a measure eventually does make the ballot, the campaign to pass it will not be a forthright attack on voting safeguards.
After all, polling plainly shows that laws like photo ID requirements are overwhelmingly popular—especially among black and Hispanic voters. They can’t win on the issues, so progressives will claim they are defending elections even as they sell the public on policies to weaken, undermine, or eliminate all the rules that stop fraud and prevent chaos.
The left will not stop, but neither will we. And as this victory in Arizona proves, those committed to preserving the rule of law and the integrity of our elections are winning the fight to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.
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13 September, 2022
A few years ago, I attended what is commonly known as the “Arizona Black Rodeo” in Scottsdale, AZ. This was a well-known and heavily attended annual event, drawing crowds even from out of state
It was presented in recognition of the black cowboy throughout history. Although this event was held every year, this was my first time. While there were a lot of things to see and do, as well as many references to its history, I could not help but feel uncomfortable with the title of the event. I wondered why not (to avoid issues) name the rodeo after, say, Nat Love; aka, Deadwood Dick- the most famous black cowboy of all, or one of several different options?
Obviously, that was not the priority in mind.
In any event, after several hours of various attractions, great food, and fun with my wife, I didn’t even think about it. Towards the end of the day, I began receiving comments regarding the pictures I’d posted on social media. Though most of the responses were positive, one in particular gave me pause. “I know you are a great person,” it read. “I don’t understand how there is, without talk a “black rodeo?” If it were a white rodeo, wouldn’t there be talk?” He was right, and I knew it. Not for a moment did I do the, “It’s only a name,” thing, or excuse it by going into America’s history on slavery and racial issues as a rationale. Nor did I defend the “necessity and value concerning a celebration of the black cowboy in America”; those were not the points or even his points.
Honorable? Certainly. Worthy of a celebration? Absolutely. Harmless? Maybe not.
What if it were an all-white rodeo? Granted, even if an argument could be made for it being representative by-and-large of the times in the 1800’s, excluding white cowboys based on the color of their skin was just as wrong then as it is now. Somehow, someway, based on skin color, we overlook it. As I said before, the lines become blurred when color is involved.
Oddly enough, despite what many profess, it is as though blacks in America suddenly have amnesia when it comes to their own history. Somehow, someway, many of us have made excuses for our frailty through what some simply call, ‘reverse racism.’ History reminds us of those hundreds of solemn-faced black men of the 60’s- each draped in A-boards, bearing the words, “I AM A MAN.” History reminds us as well of the bloody 1965 attack on hundreds of civil rights activists at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. History cries out still when 6-year-old Ruby Bridges crossed from segregation to de-segregation in 1960, and when four black college students dared to risk their lives to sit at Woolworth’s segregated lunch counter later that same year.
Were these individuals seeking Affirmative Action? Equity? The removal of Aunt Jemima, Ms. Butterworth, and Uncle Ben from our nation’s kitchens?
No. These brave souls fought for no more than the salient distinction of being recognized as equals, bearing the same rights and privileges allowing some to become Miss America, some to win Academy Awards, while others still became President.
Unfortunately, we have couched ourselves in the dangerous position of thinking that addressing our racial differences by ‘reversing’ the attack somehow rights what is considered a wrong. Even in theory, this is a failed concept on its face. As a wise man once said, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth only leaves us blind and toothless.” Regardless of any justification, the term ‘reverse racism’ is an oxy-moron; there can be no reversal-there is only racism.
The simplicity of Martin Luther King’s words still ring true and have stood the test of time. There is indeed a danger inherent in judging by the color of one’s skin rather than the content of one’s character. Yet those profound words will be of less effect until those for whom they were spoken take full and unadulterated advantage of their value. Until the day black America recognizes the many avenues where we have overcome, we will continue to bask in a never-ending sea of obscurity, falling short of the fruition of Dr. King’s dream.
https://theblacksphere.net/2022/09/when-racism-is-ok-a-deeper-look/
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Biden's Pentagon Makes Shameful Suggestion to Troops Struggling to Feed Their Families
The U.S. army is recommending soldiers apply for SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, to help cover their rising costs from inflation.
The U.S. Army cites the higher prices on a range of goods because of inflation in its recently released official guidance.
“With inflation affecting everything from gas prices to groceries to rent, some Soldiers and their families are finding it harder to get by on the budgets they’ve set and used before,” the guidance written by Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston reads.
“Soldiers of all ranks can seek guidance, assistance, and advice through the Army’s Financial Readiness Program.”
The guidance points soldiers to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and links them to the federal welfare program’s website.
“SNAP is a U.S. government program that provides benefits to eligible low-income individuals and families via an electronic benefits transfer card that can be used like a debit card to purchase eligible food in authorized retail food stores. Service members and their families may be eligible,” the Army guidance reads.
“To determine qualification, visit the SNAP website or call the SNAP information line at 800-221-5689.”
Food insecurity for troops is not a new problem, but the recent surge in inflation has put service members in an even tougher situation.
“Based on the Pentagon’s own data, 24% of enlisted personnel are food insecure,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
“While food stamps are a Band-Aid, they’re also an admission that basic pay for enlisted troops and their families is too low — further exacerbated by unyielding inflation causing paychecks to shrink more.”
Federal inflation data released in August shows that food prices have risen at the fastest rate since the 1970s.
“The food index increased 10.9 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending May 1979,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The food at home index rose 13.1 percent over the last 12 months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending March 1979,” BLS said. “The index for other food at home rose 15.8 percent and the index for cereals and bakery products increased 15.0 percent over the year.
“The remaining major grocery store food groups posted increases ranging from 9.3 percent (fruits and vegetables) to 14.9 percent (dairy and related products).”
Eaglen said the answer is to increase pay and be more realistic about how inflation affects service members.
“A better solution is to abandon rosy inflation assumptions, boost basic pay, and request a defense topline above inflation each year so forces and families have predictability and stability,” she said.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/pentagon-troops-not-paying-enough-feed-apply-welfare
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Texas teacher who was FIRED for telling students 'don't judge people for wanting to have sex with 5-year-olds'
A Texas teacher has been fired after she was caught on tape instructing students not to use the word 'pedophiles', but instead use the term 'minor attracted persons'.
Amber Parker, 53, who taught English at Franklin High School in El Paso, was sacked from her job after making the comments in class which were captured on video and subsequently shared to social media.
During the 18-second long clip that was posted to TikTok, the teacher can be heard telling students: 'Stop calling them that.
'You're not allowed to label people like that. Stop it, Diego. We're not gonna call them that.'
Parker can be heard instructing her English students in the clip: 'We're gonna call them MAPs, minor attracted persons. So don't judge people just because they wanna have sex with a five-year-old.'
The term minor attracted persons allows people to escape the 'stigma' attached to the word pedophile.
The school district was immediately informed of the incident, which occurred last week - and an investigation was launched, initially leading to Parker's suspension.
El Paso's Independent School District board of trustees, led by Superintendent Diana Sayavedra, then unanimously voted to fire Parker following her controversial remarks.
Liza Rodriguez said Friday: 'After a thorough investigation was conducted, on September 6, 2022, during a Special Board Meeting, the Board of Trustees approved a decision to notify a Franklin High School teacher of proposed termination.
'Any allegation of potential misconduct is investigated thoroughly, and the safety of our students is a top priority.'
It wasn't clear in what context the discussion had been taking place, however students have said it was all part of a class debate as they prepared to read The Crucible.
Some students and parents were quick to defend the teacher - who believed that the clip did not represent Parker's beliefs and the conversation was taken out of context.
But others blasted her for her words. And after an investigation, school authorities also concluded that her conduct deserved further punishment.
Parker is now on paid administrative leave pending termination, it's understood.
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Librarians go radical as new woke policies take over: experts
Marian the Librarian, the prim, bespectacled love interest of con artist Harold Hill in the classic musical, “The Music Man,” wouldn’t recognize her profession today.
Libraries, for decades the ultimate safe spaces, have become ground zero in the ongoing culture wars, with battles over banned books, drag queen story hours and free access to porn raging all over the country — from Louisiana to Idaho to Washington State as well as cities like New York and LA.
“The average person has no idea of this but librarians have been targeting children in recent years and trying to turn them into political activists,” said Dan Kleinman, a self-described “library watchdog” from Chatham, NJ, who has run a website called “Safe Libraries” for more than 10 years. He said he has documented the alarming radicalization of the nation’s libraries, including what he says is readily available porn in library computers.
“Librarians see themselves on the front lines on what it takes to bring revolution to the US. You need soldiers in the revolution so they are teaching kids to be little antifa activists who hate their own country and will act as a collective to bring about change.”
Many activists point to the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library organization in the world, as the driving force behind what they say is too radical an agenda.
The newly-elected head of the ALA — a self-described “Marxist lesbian” named Emily Drabinski — said she rose through the ranks the old-school way, from “looseleaf legal filer to library director.” But her mission is deadly serious.
“So many of us find ourselves at the ends of our worlds,” Drabinski said during her campaign to become ALA president. “The consequences of decades of unchecked climate change, class war, white supremacy, and imperialism have led us here. If we want a world that includes public goods like the library, we must organize our collective power and wield it. The American Library Association offers us a set of tools that can harness our energies and build those capacities.”
After Drabinski won, she posted on Twitter: “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!”
The influential Chicago-based Fobazi Ettarh, 32, who was most recently a librarian at Rutgers, is another example of what many call a modern “radical librarian.” Ettarh, who is also an educator and writer, says she represents “librarianship, education, activism, and all the intersections in between.”
“People that say what librarians do in their own time, out of the library, is their own business. As if white supremacy is something you only do on weekends,” she wrote on her “WTF Is a Radical Librarian Anyway?” website.
“It is time to stop being shocked. [People of color] have been telling you this forever. Trans people have been telling you this forever. The disabled. The queer. Librarianship is not the last bastion of democracy. It is not inherently good and sacred. It is an institution. And like other institutions it is riddled with white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and so on, and on, and on… This is who we are.”
Supporters of so-called “woke” libraries say they simply want their facilities to be more diverse and inclusive when it comes to gender and race ideology. Opponents say that young children should not be exposed to books like Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay,” (a current No. 1 bestseller on Amazon), “Genderqueer” and “Lawn Boy,” which they say depict too-graphic illustrations of gay sex and are freely available to youths at public libraries.
Drag Queen Story Hour, which was launched in San Francisco in 2015, has become a mainstay for children at libraries all over the US and the UK. Drag queens in full regalia perform for children as young as two and three. Though at least two registered sex offenders were found to have been among the drag queens performing at a Houston public library in 2019, the program is still going strong.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/10/librarians-go-radical-as-new-woke-policies-take-over-experts
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12 September, 2022
UK: Class background remains a barrier to accessing opportunities in later life, even among those who are successful, new research has found
This is about averages only. Smarter people may be able to rise in life despite a poor start. But there is no doubt that money is only a limited help in conferring social prestige in Britain. Members of the hereditary aristocracy can sometimes be rather poor but will still be prestigious in Britain. And people from a poor background who have somehow made a lot of money will often be dismissed as "nouveau riche". You can win the biggest lottery in the land and still be "common"
So is there any way to acquire social prestige and the advantages that brings in Britain? There are two but neither can be put on like a coat. Essentially you have to BE the sort of person that an upper class person normally is.
The best-known of those avenues to high acceptance in Britain is that old old method: Education. But not just any education. You have to have had most or all of your schooling from a prestigious private school. Eton and Harrow are the leading names there but there are rather a lot of private schools in Britain and there are quite a few who will give you the education you need to fit seamlessly into upper-class life.
Such schools will ensure (for example) that you have "a good seat" (can ride a horse well) and can shoot (with a shotgun). Even the children of the "nouveau riche" could gain acceptance if they went to a "good" school.
There is also a smaller cohort who just fit in naturally despite a humble background. As Toby Young has pointed out, the higher social echelons tend to be on average more intelligent. So what comes naurally to an upper class person will largely be the same as what comes naturally to a high IQ person.
I benefited from that during my year in Britain. I didn't try for it but my high degree of social acceptance would be the envy of most upwardly ambitious strivers in Britain. I even had an aristocratic girlfriend, which is not a bad index of acceptance. More on that here.
A study of 8,118 professionals and higher-level managers found that those who came from a prosperous background were much more likely to move around the UK, and ended up in richer areas when they did move, than those with working-class parents.
Moving to a richer area meant better access to well-paid jobs and better schools, which meant that people from poorer backgrounds were “unable to close the gap” on their peers.
In an article to be published this week in the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology, Dr Katharina Hecht, of Northeastern University, in Boston, US, and Dr Daniel McArthur, of the University of York, said that it was likely that wealthy parents had more resources to help their children buy a house.
The two researchers carried out a longitudinal analysis of census data about people born between 1965 and 1981 who were working in higher managerial and professional occupations by the age of 30 to 36.
They examined whether people had moved home over a distance of at least 28km from when they were aged 10 to 16, and compared the occupations of their parents, how often they moved home and the level of affluence of the local authority district they moved to.
Of those with higher managerial and professional parents, around 60% made at least one long-distance move, while only 30% of those whose parents’ occupations were classed as “semi-routine” or “routine” had moved areas.
“Among higher managers and professionals, those with advantaged backgrounds lived in more affluent areas as children than those from disadvantaged backgrounds,” said McArthur and Hecht, who was formerly based at the Politics of Inequality research centre at the University of Konstanz in Germany.
“This area gap persists during adulthood: when the upwardly mobile move, they are unable to close the gap to their peers with privileged backgrounds in terms of the affluence of the areas they live in – they face a moving target.
“Therefore, even when the upwardly socially mobile – who grew up in less-advantaged places and are less likely to move long-distance – do move area, they are unable to close the gap to their intergenerationally stable peers who started out in more affluent areas.”
The researchers say that for women in higher professions, differences in family background correspond to the difference between “living in economically mixed areas on the south coast, such as Portsmouth, and living in affluent areas of the London commuter belt, such as Brentwood”. The difference was less dramatic for men.
“Geography shapes access to opportunities to accumulate wealth including the highest paying jobs, higher house prices, and opportunities for entrepreneurship,” they said.
“Affluent parents will be better able to facilitate … moves to high cost but opportunity-rich areas such as London or the South-East.
“The children of higher managers and professionals are likely to have wealthier parents and hence receive larger transfers of wealth. They will be able to afford houses in more expensive areas, net of income, than their counterparts from less advantaged backgrounds. As a result, wealth is likely to play an important role in explaining why those from advantaged backgrounds move to more affluent areas than the upwardly mobile.”
The head of the Social Mobility Commission, Katharine Birbalsingh, has said there should be less focus on getting poor pupils into Oxbridge and more moves to improve people’s lives in smaller steps.
In her first report as commissioner, she said that occupational mobility had been fairly stable for decades and that it was not true that social mobility had been getting worse on all counts.
Research by the Sutton Trust earlier this year found that social mobility had become much more limited, with those who lived in rented accommodation as children now far less likely to own their own homes in later life.
It found that many people now had a greater chance of falling down the class structure than moving up.
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State Dept. Moves to Global Push for 'Gender-Affirming Care'
Is the U.S. State Department about to classify Sweden, Finland, and the U.K. as human rights abusers? According to an internal memo from Secretary Antony Blinken (leaked to me by an officer in the department’s Foreign Service) and circulated among employees last week, the answer might be yes.
The memo represents an effort by Secretary Blinken to carry out President Biden’s Executive Order 14075 from last June. That order instructs agencies of the federal government to do what they can to stop “conversion therapy” for “LGBTQI+” people. Following its release, Biden appointed Jessica Stern as Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons, a position created by the Obama administration but left unfilled under Donald Trump. Stern, who goes by “all pronouns,” had previously served as executive director at OutRight Action International, an advocacy organization with a permanent presence at United Nations headquarters in New York.
OutRight has borrowed arguments against “conversion therapy” for sexual orientation (where the evidence against the practice is strong) and applied them, unscientifically, to “gender identity” (where studies have consistently shown that cross-gender identification in children is, for the vast majority of those who experience it, a passing phase). This strategy of piggybacking off public ignorance about the difference between homosexuality and transgenderism is by now familiar. And lest it be thought that politicians know better, Biden himself seems unable to differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Biden administration has defined “conversion therapy” as any effort to “suppress or change an individual’s . . . gender identity.” The Blinken memo cites as an authority the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, an organization that, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, has fallen victim to capture by a small but vocal and well-organized group of ideologues, among them Jack Turban. The memo relies on the United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, to clarify that “conversion” means only efforts to change a transgender identity into a “cisgender one.” Thus, a hypothetical scenario in which a child is put under intense pressure to become trans, even if this means medicalization, would technically not count as “conversion.” At the first signs of a child’s gender distress or confusion, the only legitimate, “human rights”-respecting outcome of treatment, according to the Biden administration, is social transition followed, in most cases, by body modification.
Predictably, the Blinken memo contains no evidence or arguments for its claims about “conversion therapy,” but instead defers to “every major medical and mental health association in the United States.” In fact, however, medical groups like the AAP and AACAP have not followed the science on this issue, instead allowing activists to dictate policy positions based on pseudoscientific claims, egregious mischaracterizations of available studies, and, in some cases, outright fabrications of data. Anyone with above-average intelligence, a basic grasp of scientific methods, and enough time and patience to master the literature on this issue will easily come to the same conclusion. Medical authorities in Sweden, Finland, and the U.K. have already done so, as has Florida. France and Australia may soon follow suit.
Ominously, the Blinken memo defines “conversion therapy” to include not only “electric shock” and “corrective rape” but also “talk therapy.” That’s right: using psychotherapy to help a child in distress about her changing body feel more comfortable in it rather than undergo expensive, risky, and irreversible hormonal and surgical interventions is, according to the State Department, no different from electrocuting gays and lesbians in order to “liberate” them from their innate sexual attractions.
The problem, for countries like Sweden, Finland, and the U.K., is that medical authorities in these places have concluded over the past two years that the evidence for pediatric “gender affirming care” is extremely weak and that, as a result, hormonal and surgical interventions are (as Finland’s COHERE put it) “experimental.” Sweden and Finland are now instructing clinicians who deal with minors to utilize an approach that emphasizes talk therapy as the first line of defense and “affirming” drugs only in extreme situations, if ever. Sweden has banned gender surgeries for minors—surgeries that are practiced in the United States, notwithstanding the repeated gaslighting of gender clinics and left-of-center media outlets.
The Blinken directive effectively turns American consulates and embassies into global “gender affirming” spies. Embassies are instructed to “submit robust information on the so-called ‘conversion therapy’ practices” of host countries “as part of the annual Human Rights Reports.” Jessica Stern’s office will then devise an “action plan to combat the practice across foreign policy and foreign assistance lines of effort.”
The harms from the new policy will be tangible. First, bullying countries into not providing talk therapy to youth in distress over their developing bodies will, if successful, harm gay youth. Gender nonconformity and associated distress are very common phases of gay and lesbian youth development, as confirmed by research, clinical experience, and many firsthand accounts. If not allowed to talk about their feelings, these teenagers will be pumped full of synthetic hormones; some will find themselves under the surgeon’s knife. In Iran, being gay is punishable by death, but the condemned can avoid this fate by agreeing to “sex change” procedures. It is a sad irony that under the new Biden-Blinken policy, the Ayatollahs’ attitude toward homosexuality is now considered more in line with human rights than Europe’s most progressive welfare states. The Biden administration’s manipulation of American public solicitude for gay people in the interest of radical gender policies is nothing short of cynical.
Second, making “gender affirming care” a foreign policy requirement will dilute the moral authority of America’s broader commitment to human rights. Are foreign leaders now to believe that China’s persecution of its Uyghur minority, Venezuela’s use of arbitrary detentions and torture against regime dissidents, and the Taliban’s systematic oppression of women and girls are all on par with, say, Sweden urging its psychologists to help kids feel comfortable in their own bodies? Transgender activists will argue that ending “conversion therapy” and pushing back against other state-sponsored abuses are not mutually exclusive, but of course they are—and pretending otherwise will empower critics of the United States to argue that our understanding of human rights is absurd.
Third, even taking at face value the Biden administration’s own goal of promoting the wellbeing of transgender-identified people, it is hard to see how the new directive accomplishes that. What happens when an impoverished Sudanese teenager begins hormone therapy or gets a mastectomy and serious complications arise, as they so often do for these procedures? Medical services in many developing countries are notoriously subpar, and if risk of serious complications from specialized and as-yet experimental hormonal and surgical interventions is high in the United States, that risk is compounded where transitioned minors have no access to specially trained doctors with adequate medical equipment. It’s hard to see how rushing kids to experimental gender transition in countries without proper medical infrastructure serves their health needs.
Further, for countries with deep suspicions toward the West—countries, in other words, likely to be the most intolerant of transgender-identified people—the association of cross-gender identification with American foreign policy enables traditionalists to frame social change as cultural imperialism. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, youth medical transgenderism is a worthy goal, it defies reason that American soft power can aptly promote it.
https://www.city-journal.org/state-dept-launches-international-gender-pressure-campaign
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‘Don’t Tread on Our Kids’: Brittany Aldean Faces Pushback for Conservative Opinion
Last month, country music wife Brittany Aldean made ripples online when she took a strong social media stance against allowing children to go through gender transitioning.
In the openly conservative influencer’s words, her comments that were “taken out of context” were labeled “transphobic” by multiple mainstream media outlets and progressive country music counterparts.
After Twitter backlash from singers Cassadee Pope and Maren Morris, the latter of whom referred to Aldean as “Insurrection Barbie” in a critical tweet, Aldean responded by releasing Barbie-inspired merchandise reading, “Don’t Tread On Our Kids.” Proceeds from the apparel will benefit Operation Light Shine, an organization fighting child exploitation and trafficking.
To the negative reactions, she responded on air, “I’ve never had a conversation with either of these people. This is simply based on opinion and political status.”
The beauty influencer went on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Sept. 1, where she made herself clear, “I’m advocating for children.”
“I think that children should not be allowed to make these life-changing decisions at such a young age,” Aldean told Tucker Carlson. “They are not mature enough. They should have parents that love them and advocate for them regardless. We have ages on everything, right? We have it for cigarettes, we have it for driving, we have it for military, voting. Yet for some reason people think that we can let a child choose their gender so young? It’s very baffling to me.”
Aldean went on to describe the irreparable harm that early gender transitions can cause, stressing that these actions have “huge consequences … children are too young, not mature enough, to make those decisions and they’re life-changing, like you said. They may not be able to have children one day, there are so many consequences to doing that at such a young age. And us as parents, us as a society—regardless of political status—should be able to sit back, speak our minds about it, and fight for these children.”
According to Aldean, the support for her outspoken statement has been overwhelming.
So much support, especially [from] people that have children. … [Y]ou have the other side of that, too, and that’s fine, people are entitled to their opinions. But that’s just it. We as conservatives have a very hard time having an opinion, especially in society today, in the media, in relationships, in the workplace, and it’s very, very sad. But, a lot of support within Nashville and just friends and family.
In coincidental time, TheGreenRoom PR Firm dropped her country star husband, Jason Aldean, after years of working with the “Dirt Road Anthem” singer. In a statement to Billboard, it claimed:
Music has always been and remains The GreenRoom’s core focus, so we had to make the difficult decision after 17 years to step away from representing Jason. We aren’t the best people for the gig anymore, but will always be big fans of his music—he is one of the greatest live entertainers in country music.
With 10 albums and multiple CMA Awards and nominations under his belt, country sensation Aldean himself has been vocal about his conservativism, with a late 2021 Instagram caption reading, “I will never apologize for my beliefs or my love for my family and country. This is the greatest country in the world and I want to keep it that way.”
Historically, Hollywood has not been friendly toward right-leaning celebrities. Conservatives who have chosen to be outspoken on supporting Republican candidates, or on issues such as life and gender, have faced backlash or cancellation.
“Grown Ups” actor Rob Schneider, a frequent Adam Sandler co-star, recently told TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck that he would gladly be outspoken about his conservative beliefs at the cost of his career, a statement met quickly with internet mockery.
Actor and comedian Tim Allen has professed the difficulties of being a conservative in the spotlight.
Other notable cancellations such as comedian Dave Chappelle and author J.K. Rowling have faced angry online mobs for deviating from the politically-correct narrative surrounding transgenderism.
Christian Toto, editor of HollywoodInToto.com, told The Washington Stand that the backlash against the Aldeans is no surprise.
The modern left will use any excuse to ‘cancel’ those who don’t agree 100% with their worldview. A singer shouldn’t be punished for something his wife says, regardless where one stands on the comments. Plenty of Americans agree with Mrs. Aldean’s stance. Should they lose their professional connections next? They just might.
However, according to Toto, the cancellation of conservative celebrities provides an opportunity for innovation that breaks away from the Hollywood and Nashville norms.
“There is an upside here, though,” Toto told The Washington Stand. “Free-thinking creators are finding new success by going solo. Free speech platforms like Rumble video, along with services like Patreon, allow independent-minded artists to pursue their careers without industry gatekeepers. John Rich raced up the iTunes charts with a protest song, ‘Progress,’ without any mainstream media or industry support.”
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Rogan, Rowling and Chappelle prove the online mob has no power
Why is anyone still listening to the Wokesters? They’re not a majority — or even close to being one. They have no Army, Navy or Air Force. They don’t even matter in the marketplace. The only power they enjoy is the power the rest of us have chosen to give them.
We should stop.
As the events of the last six months have neatly demonstrated, almost everything that the woke demand can be dismissed with a single word: “No.” To be effective, wokeness requires its targets to fold at the first hurdle. If we refuse to acquiesce, there’s no Plan B.
For years now, non-woke Americans have chosen to cower beneath their desks when presented with an ever-more-absurd set of demands, unaware that we could have lopped off the belligerents’ knees with a single, well-timed demurral. At long last, that seems to be changing.
Take J.K. Rowling, who has been lambasted for claiming that biological women and trans women are not exactly the same. A steadfast holdout against Internet bullies, the author has not merely refused to bow to the loudest voices within transgender movement; she has begun to make hay out of their attempts to cancel her. Rowling’s latest novel, “The Ink Black Heart,” is a murder mystery about an artist who is “persecuted by a mysterious online figure” for being a transphobe (sound familiar?). Upon release, the book went straight to the top of the best-seller list.
Or take comedian Dave Chappelle, who also ruffled feathers with his jokes about transgender people in his Netflix show “The Closer.” At no point since the online mob began its relentless assault against him has he elected to apologize. Instead, he has said, “I don’t give a f–k, because Twitter is not a real place.” Which, of course, is correct.
Online, Chappelle is a bête noire. In the “real place” — i.e., in the real world — Chappelle’s supposedly “controversial” shows have been such a smash hit that Netflix has just picked up four more of them. “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth,” Netflix wrote in a recent memo to staff, “Netflix may not be the best place for you.”
Another point scored for the real world.
Slowly, but surely, “No” seems to be catching on. Among the other institutions that have recently learned to push back is George Washington University, which told students who called for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be fired from his lecturer position that the college supports “the robust exchange of ideas and deliberation” and that “debate is an essential part of our university’s academic and educational mission.”
The Dallas Cowboys flatly refused to back down from a partnership with Black Rifle Coffee Company, which uses gun names in its products. And Spotify successfully resisted a month-long, all-hands on deck attempt to defenestrate its star podcaster, Joe Rogan.
How weak is Big Woke becoming? Consider that Larry David — the least politically correct man in America — has been nominated for one of this year’s Emmys. Earlier this year, David was asked why he hadn’t been canceled yet. “I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s a very good question.”
At this rate, he’ll never find out.
At times, it has been tempting for Americans who have grown exhausted by the woke onslaught to conclude that the best way to fight back against the trend was to produce content that is explicitly anti-woke. That conclusion was wrong. Charles Krauthammer once quipped that Fox News had “discovered a niche market in American broadcasting: half the American people.”
So it is with mass entertainment. Most consumers like choice more than scarcity, prefer quality to political correctness, and dislike being told what they can and can’t enjoy based on nothing more noble than what a handful of self-appointed tastemakers currently happen to be “offended” by. It is no accident that the biggest movie of this year — indeed, of the last few years — “Top Gun: Maverick” is fun, patriotic, and apolitical. That’s the sweet spot at the box office.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/10/rogan-rowling-and-chappelle-prove-the-online-mob-has-no-power/
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11 September, 2022
I’m a Feminist, but Women are Part of the Problem
Teresa Roberts
She cannot understand Republican-voting women. She does not consider that traditional roles might be largely inborn. Despite her early Christian background, she also seems to have no idea of the redemptive power of Christianity and its often powerful effect on behaviour.
She is right however in saying that women are very good at stabbing one-another in the back (metaphorically). She seems to see it as common and universal but I see it as especially true of feminists. The "sisterhood" is a myth
She is herself a real feminist as she sees good relationships between men and womens as "bedfellows with the enemy". So it is rather refreshing that she sees feminism as having limited appeal. I am amused to see that she rages at that. I suspect that she was just born angry
As time moved on and more and more women were earning better pay, building strong careers, having fewer children, getting married later in life, living with their partners outside of marriage, getting divorced if they weren’t happy, and some even choosing not to have children at all, I watched and approved.
I watched many of my peers become more interesting, independent, and better able to take care of themselves. Bravo!
More and more women were able to support themselves, pursue degrees, and develop strong interests and hobbies. I now number my female friends as far more interesting than most men I know. Women have definitely caught up with men in many areas of American culture and often surpassed them.
Yet, just about the time that I think we’ve won our independence, that the battle is over, and it’s time to get on with living our best lives, the rumblings of discontent start to get louder.
Unfortunately, the rumblings come from both men and women.
Just as my foremothers were not terribly supportive to me when I left the church and set out to live a life filled with freedom of choice, opportunities, and personal independence, women today are sabotaging not only my freedom but that of my daughter and granddaughter.
That makes me mad.
There are women like Jacky Eubanks, a legislative candidate in Michigan, who wants to see birth control banned in order to get Americans to comply with God’s moral law. You know, no sex before marriage. No birth control even in the marriage bed. Women should be having babies.
Suddenly, I’m back!
Back in the cult. I’ve been triggered big time. So much so that I literally feel nauseous. I’ve been betrayed by my own gender. It ruins an entire morning for me. I’m filled with fear for my daughter and granddaughter. How can this be happening? We’ve come so far. For the first time in history women have autonomy and personal freedom only to be betrayed by a woman. And, get this! Jacky isn’t an old woman either. She’s young.
Frankly, I find myself in the same spot I was in when I was a mere child, looking at my own gender with disdain. You see, I can understand what has driven men for centuries to deprive their wives, mothers, and daughters of the same opportunities that they believed belonged to all husbands, fathers and sons.
Nobody is anxious to give up their power. It’s a glorious place of privilege.
And, since most societies always have a pecking order, who in their right mind would volunteer to be at the bottom of the heap. Definitely not men. They are going through life with eyes wide open. If their power is threatened, they’ll brandish guns and knives, whatever it might take to keep the position their forefathers passed on to them.
Yet, there’s this other very strange phenomenon.
The downtrodden, those who are relegated to the bottom of the heap often will betray one another. I’m not a psychologist but I betcha a psychologist could explain this social aberration for lack of a better word.
What makes those who should unite in order to progress from the bottom of the heap in society to an equal position with those at the top often betray one another? What makes them vote against their own best interests? Why would they want to return to the Dark Ages, a grim time when their kind were without hope?
I don’t get it. Women do it all the time. Trust me, they will stick a knife in a sister’s back without blinking an eye.
I have to admit, when I see these women voting republican, cheering for the downfall of their own sisters, even willing to give up their own freedoms in order to become strange bedfellows with the enemy, I lose faith in humanity altogether.
There is a resurgence of this kind of woman.
They’re far more dangerous to me than the men with whom they are sleeping and forming an unholy alliance. These women can not be trusted. I wouldn’t turn my back on them for one minute.
Fortunately, they’re still a minority, but they think they’re invincible because their backing the big boys.
I’m done with them. I will never again befriend a woman who would feed me to the wolves. Never again. I will not offer them lenience nor try to find a way to extend a friendly hand to their kind.
They are dangerous.
The day of accountability has arrived for women. No longer will I allow women to use the victim card. They need to put on their big girl panties and step up to the plate. We’ve come too far and know better now. If you’re supporting, in love with, or have given your mind and body to a man who wants to muzzle and hold all women down, then you’re part of the problem.
You’re the biggest part of the problem.
https://teresawriter.medium.com/im-a-feminist-but-women-are-part-of-the-problem-a8d46acd632
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Why 'Educated' Liberal Women Are the Real Threat to Our Republic
When last Thursday night Joe Biden told America, "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans" "threaten the very foundation of our republic," he missed the mark. The real threat comes from the unlikeliest of suspects: educated liberal females, or "ELFs" for short.
These are the women who will proudly vote Democrat regardless of soaring inflation, rising gas prices, rampant crime in the streets, the unchecked flood of illegal aliens, and oppressive COVID policies that have irreparably damaged all children, the poor most notably.
If NBC's polling from April is to be believed, this is the only demographic cohort more favorably inclined to Democrats in 2022 than in 2018. Unable to sell these women on his accomplishments — there are none — Biden last week appealed to their paranoia. What made this pitch strategic is his target audience's proven susceptibility to fear-based propaganda.
At the core of the ELFs' vulnerability is their ignorance, if not at the top, certainly among the masses. This should not surprise. Everywhere and always, men have performed better on political knowledge tests than women (just as conservatives routinely outperform liberals and independents). Researchers exploring this particular gender gap long ago gave up on questioning whether this was true and have focused instead on why.
Avoiding the obvious answer — namely, that men and women, being different, have different interests — researchers have spent millions of your tax dollars on the improbable and irrelevant. Among the more popular hypotheses is that women are more risk-averse than men and thus, on tests, are less likely to "guess under conditions of uncertainty." For some reason, it is more acceptable to stereotype women as "risk-averse" than as "politics-adverse." In fact, women, writ large, are likely both.
A survey of 10,000 individuals across ten nations by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) offers a more sobering analysis. What most surprised researcher James Curran of the University of London was that "gaps in political knowledge are wider in countries that have done the most to promote gender equality." Curran noted that women's scores in the U.K., the U.S., and Canada were more than 30 percent lower on average than men's, a significantly greater gender gap than in Greece, Italy, and Korea.
The ESRC data suggest that formal education may actually increase the knowledge gap between men and women. There are reasons why this is so. Historically, married women have tended to vote more conservatively than their unmarried peers. Spousal influence plays a role in their voting, but so does the added awareness of real issues that comes with raising a family and owning a home.
Today, however, more than a third of college-educated women are childless. Then, too, marriage rates among the educated continue to decline as they have over the past 40 years while the age of first marriage continues to increase. In 2021, the average age for a female's first marriage was 28.6, roughly nine years more than 60 years prior.
In the not too distant past, women attended college with the expectation of finding a spouse. Today, they would have much better luck hanging out at a construction site. As late as 1970, there were five men for every four women in America's four-year colleges. By the fall of 2021, there were almost two women for every man.
Once in college, the progressive grooming that began discreetly in high school now publicly and proudly moves to center stage. A study of faculty voter registration at 40 leading U.S. universities showed a more than ten-to-one ratio of Democrats to Republicans with the numbers skewing higher in liberal arts and among young faculty. In some fields, there are no Republicans at all.
Lacking a male counterpoint in their lives and often majoring in subjects with a social justice agenda, college women enter the political arena not so much uninformed as misinformed. Given that communications/journalism faculty members skew 20 to 1 Democrat, the media these young ELFs consume will only reinforce the biases nurtured in college.
The ELFs fail to see how they have been propagandized. They read the New York Times and other establishment media, thinking them gospel. Those ELFs less keen on reading rely on media outlets even more biased than the Times. As to friends and family who offer alternative points of view, there is the knee-jerk fallback, "Where did you hear that? Fox News?" ELFs don't want to know about the border crisis or the recession or Hunter's laptop, and their media oblige them. If their social media allow alternative voices to bleed through, the ELFs are the first to demand that those voices be silenced.
The danger that ELFs pose to constitutional government became all too evident in the Black Swan year of 2020. With the onset of COVID, ELFs quickly found themselves in the grip of what Belgian psychologist Dr. Mattias Desmet calls "mass formation psychosis." Writes Desmet in his surprise bestseller, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, "It is, in essence. a kind of group hypnosis that destroys individuals' ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically."
Devoid of ethical self-awareness, it was the ELFs that emerged as our "Karens." What made them truly annoying was their belief, given their education, that they knew more than the people they were hectoring. They didn't. If proof were needed, a study of 35,000 U.S. adults by Franklin Templeton-Gallup revealed that a shocking 41 percent of Democrats believed that 50 percent or more of those who contracted COVID ended up in the hospital. The correct answer was 1–5 percent.
Through their control of the teachers' unions, ELFs have outsized influence on Democrat party politics. Deeply misinformed about COVID's impact, ELFs used their influence to lock down schools as long as they possibly could. Schoolkids, especially the less affluent, will never recover.
In her essential book, The Bodies of Others, Naomi Wolf reveals how her "affluent, liberal 'tribe'" behaved during the COVID years. It wasn't pretty. These "new authoritarians" resisted information outside approved channels and smugly oppressed the "working people" who dared question the orthodoxy du jour. Wolf documents in lived experience what Desmet describes as a "profound intolerance of dissident voices and pronounced susceptibility to pseudo-scientific indoctrination and propaganda."
In May 2020, as the joke goes, people had to take down their COVID decorations to prepare for George Floyd season. My office in Kansas City overlooked the staging area for the "largely peaceful protests" that would ravage our city. On that first day, I watched young men with out-of-state license plates unload heavy backpacks from their cars. They knew what they were doing.
The ELFs didn't have a clue. That evening, driving home, I passed the park where the protesters were gathering. To my surprise, the crowd was overwhelmingly white and female. The unintentional death of a chronic felon at the hands of four police officers of three different races in a progressive city in a Democrat state was indicative of nothing. George Floyd did, however, cry out "mama" at the end, and that was prompting enough for the ELFs to get swept up in one more self-destructive mania.
The men would do most of the damage in the streets — $2 billion of it nationwide — but the ELFs would do the lasting damage to our institutions. Those with access to Fox Nation would do well to watch Tucker Carlson's interview with Nicole Levitt, a liberal family law attorney in Philadelphia. In the immediate wake of Floyd's death, her organization, like others everywhere, showed its commitment to social justice by creating what Levitt calls "a racially hostile work environment permeated with discriminatory insults and stereotypes."
Levitt had the courage to blow the whistle on this Maoist nonsense. None of her colleagues would back her.
Women may, in fact, be as risk-averse as researchers suggest. How else to explain, for example, the silence of so many female Ivy League swimmers forced to compete against a male? Here too, "pseudo-scientific indoctrination and propaganda" overwhelmed common sense. And this is just one recent mania out of many.
In November, Biden needs the ELFs to vote en masse. This will happen only if they remain ignorant of the things that should worry them — the border, crime, inflation — and scared silly of things that need not. Something tells me that the producers of Biden's Nuremberg-style spectacle knew what they were doing.
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The strange effort to ‘decolonize’ global health
Peter W. Wood
“Global health” has emerged in the last decade or so as one of the growth areas in the medical and quasi-medical world. The CDC has a Center for Global Health which “works to protect Americans from dangerous and costly public health threats, including Covid-19, vaccine-preventable diseases, HIV, TB and malaria — responding when and where health threats arise.” Global Health “is a collaborative effort by technologists and researchers from leading international institutions to build a trusted, detailed and accurate resource of real-time infectious disease data.” The Global Health Corps is “a diverse community of health equity leaders.” It has just announced that “Safe Abortion is Essential Healthcare” and “is committed to protecting and advancing bodily autonomy as a pillar of health equity for all people.”
My discipline of anthropology was an early enthusiast for global health studies, and it is easy to find not just courses but whole degree programs in the field. Case Western Reserve University, for example, offers a one-year intensive master’s degree program in “Anthropology and Global Health.” I suspect that my fellow anthropologists took up this topic initially as a way of capturing undergraduate pre-med students who were looking for courses that would augment their med-school applications. But the field has burgeoned and taken on a life of its own.
And what an interesting life it is. Global health studies has made friends with post-colonialism. Which is to say, the advocates are intent on “decolonizing global health.” They wish to rid the globe of “various forms of colonial vestiges — ideologies and practices,” that “target the fundamental assumptions of global health.”
Perhaps when you think of “global health” you imagine campaigns to eradicate diseases through vaccination, sanitation and nutrition. That wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but such steps frequently interfere with local beliefs and practices — and their imposition reeks to high heaven of colonial authority.
Global health in its more up-to-date manifestation is unctuously eager to respect the wisdom and priorities of people who start from non-Western premises about the causes and treatment of ailments. This entails making sure that Western assistance avoids certain forms of overreach. It should not “build capacities to increase channels for imposing donor control,” or encourage “researchers who conduct research to instigate racial or ethnic disputes at the expense of the population they study,” or introduce “practitioners who deliver healthcare in a way that further cripples the local healthcare system and make the people more dependent on external help.”
If this sounds a bit vague, it is because “decolonizing global health” in practice means fostering techniques that probably end up causing a great deal of misery and death. Midwives can do a lot of good, but maternity wards can too. Native pharmacology indeed captures some useful knowledge about effective treatments, but it has never proved especially effective against malaria or river blindness.
Why do I bring this up? Because we live in a topsy-turvy world. Western medicine went tremendously far in advancing the health and longevity of humanity across the world. Yellow fever, for example, was cured in no small part thanks to America’s imperialist project in Panama. One after another the scourges of mankind were largely conquered by Western medical advances, carried on the palanquin of arrogant Western imperialists. It turns out that global health can’t be disentangled from the imperial mission. Colonial medicine saved millions of lives. That’s a bit awkward.
We should at least acknowledge that the life-saving doctors and missionaries of the past (often one and the same) tended to look down on the local practitioners, and their condescension has left a legacy of resentment. I am ready to believe that public health and imperialism were, and still are, intertwined endeavors.
That’s perfectly evident in light of the ministrations of Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and the whole crew at the CDC. The highhandedness of Western public health authorities is no long acceptable in Kenya or Gujarat, but it is thriving back at home. The imperial attitude reigns and we citizens now are cast in the role of benighted savages who must be made to comply with the magic spells and mysterious jabs of the white-robed savants who have assumed power over us.
I will spare my readers my nativistic wrath against the impositions of rags over our faces and sometimes heart-stopping djinns pricked into our blood. I just wish those who are seeking to “decolonize global health” would spare a thought for the new targets of techno-spookery who aim to deny us control over our own medical destiny. Or failing that, that they send us an old-fashioned Dr. Livingstone, rather than these Dr. Frankensteins manqués.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/the-strange-effort-to-decolonize-global-health/
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Cash is King -- and it should be
Nicola Salvi’s Baroque Trevi Fountain sits in the centre of Rome. It is a relatively modern addition, built on the bones of the 19 BC original where it honours its ancient surroundings with dramatic Travertine figures. They watch over the tourists who are busy littering the fountain with cash.
If you throw one coin into the water, you will return to Rome. Two coins destine you for love with an attractive Italian. For three coins, you will marry them.
I took a coin in my right hand and tossed it over my left shoulder into the Trevi. No, I wasn’t keen on lashing myself to an Italian beau, but I wouldn’t mind walking through Rome’s streets again.
It is romantic to think of my coin remaining there, beneath the unusually blue waters, but every night the coins are swept from the fountain and used to help the poor. What is the value of a wish? €3,000 a day or €1.4 million a year.
How fitting that the capitalism of wishes and market of dreams reside within a city that helped secure the notion of freedom from the State using the power of coin. People do not intend to buy charity, but it is a consequence of their fleeting, selfish desire – as it is with every economy held together by millions of private purchases.
Cash is not merely the currency of the poor rattling onto our streets in front of buskers and beggars. As the German economist Lars Feld said, banknotes are pieces of ‘printed freedom’ that the citizens of a nation remain entitled to because they offer an ‘escape’ from all-out State control.
Instinctively, people understand that there is something special about cash even if they don’t use it every day. Fighting to protect cash will be the social war of the century. Once it is gone, the State will never allow its people that kind of private commerce again. Human laziness and the false allure of ‘convenience’ has gotten us halfway to this promised economic dystopia.
Why is cash ‘liberty’?
There are several reasons, one of which being the inherent anonymity former IMF Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff begrudgingly refers to when ‘neither buyer nor seller requires knowledge of its history’ meaning that purchases remain private and beyond the sight of the State.
This explains why Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter has written about the widely-held inclination to abolish cash and replace it with a central banking digital currency that promises to give governments increased economic power.
Governments meddling in the economics of the free market is the very last thing we need after our two-year preview of reckless, dogmatic, financially illiterate, coercive, cruel, and dictatorial behaviour demonstrated by every level of the political class. If anything, economic power needs to be taken away from the State, like putting police tape around the scene of their Covid crimes against the economy.
In today’s world, a cashless society does not mean a switch to paying via phones and credit cards. Instead, it provides the ability for the government to attach ‘conditions’ to transactions, such as identity, environmental carbon credits, social licences, or behavioural-based social credits like we see in China.
Purely digital systems represent the limitation of tender at the behest of the State – a devaluing of currency by wrapping it up in a political and ethical equation much like social media manipulates the news with shadowy algorithms.
Conor Friedersdorf was right when he said:
‘To eliminate cash is to say to hell with financial privacy. An end to cash would mean that every financial transaction is exposed to a third party.’
That third party would be the government through its Trusted Digital Identity policy in which it has clearly stated its intention to insert itself between every private business transaction, with the power to veto a purchase on the base of a customer’s identity.
What is to say that the World Economic Forum’s Digital Identity project, when paired with a cashless society (as is the stated goal of Australia’s Digital Economy Strategy 2030), wouldn’t result in invalid vaccine passports locking citizens out of the economy? It’s one thing to be shouted at by a tri-masked Covid lunatic, but quite another to be digitally excommunicated from the entirety of civilisation.
Cash is the only means by which citizens retain some level of independence from totalitarian commands. It represents the security of the free market as the solution to government wickedness.
There are those that complain (disingenuously – and including former Prime Minister Scott Morrison) that removing cash is about cutting out crime. What rubbish. As someone who personally cracked a credit card fraud ring worth tens of thousands, I can assure you that criminal activity will exist in every medium humanity has available to it.
One might point out that the sale of art is one of the largest money laundering enterprises around, and yet I don’t hear economists calling for a bonfire made of Monets, Picassos, Brett Whiteleys, and Rembrandts. Commerce is a closed system. You can no more easily defraud the tax department with cash than you can with card because the seller’s stock goes walkabout either way and must be accounted for. That is why we have audits.
No. The government has long desired minute oversight into who is buying what. It doesn’t need this information to balance its taxes, it wants it. Once it has the information, a league of bureaucrats will set about devising ways to exploit our purchasing behaviour. The eco-fascists will try to stop us buying meat. The health nuts will curb our sugar intake. And the psychos will punish consumers who fail to comply.
Cash is not the facilitator of citizen crime. Cash gives citizens protection against the crimes of the State.
Learn it. Repeat it. Spread it.
Economic control is like the State’s first coin tossed into the fountain. It is the lesser of its wishes when it comes to the abolition of cash. First and foremost, this is about the power of the State. Let us return again to Rome and the founding families that served as the necessary counterbalance to the government.
Cash (along with its partner ‘privacy’) form the dividing line between ‘public’ and ‘private’. Families were the strongest units in the ancient world. Taking Rome as the example, private laws sat above public law. Family groupings operated like mini kingdoms that accumulated property, armies, and treasure. When large tribes (comprised of these families) collected together in an area, they created a city. Cities forged empires.
The hierarchy of family groupings into their collective tribes is where we get the definition of ‘publicas’ or public from. It is why ‘the State’ is interchangeable with ‘the public sector’ in modern politics. Christianity, and thus Western Civilisation, added a layer beneath the family for the individual, which has become the most important level.
All private entities compete with the State for power. A family with wealth to rival the government often replaced it on the throne. It was this fear that kept the State’s behaviour controlled.
Wealthy individuals and rich companies of today have significant influence. Governments often choose to fund these entities to turn them into dependents – parasites of the state – mediating their power. Public money weakens their competitive influence and lessens their desire to challenge the hand that feeds them. The same is true of governments with generous welfare systems, actively disempowering the populace by making them reliant on its favour.
Economic dependency is the root of collectivist control. It is why these regimes demonise capitalism and free markets. They ruthlessly object to competitive forces out of fear of being usurped. The very last thing collectivists want is for the individual to be prosperous.
Western Civilisation has a great many rich businesses (some with fortunes larger than nations) supported by the richest civilisation of individuals and families that has ever lived. The people, in theory (if they were smart enough to realise) hold extraordinary power over the State.
Weakening private economics has been a consequence of our Covid communism. We can see this reflected in our recent elections where the recently impoverished are increasingly choosing leaders that promise ‘free stuff’. It is a dangerous unravelling of our national psyche.
But what does the government do with all the billionaires? Their wealth increased during Covid.
Our modern Caesars have told the powerful families of ‘Rome’ (and all the peasants) that they can keep their capitalist wealth on the proviso it is held in the Senate treasury where it can only be accessed through the goodwill of the State.
That money is now worthless as a mechanism of power. It belongs, in theory, to the State. Digital economies represent the capture of private wealth by the State in an instant.
I am sure, given the intellectual decrepitness of our political class, many Australian MPs have no idea what the consequences of their push for a cashless future entails. These creatures are not students of history. Instead, they spend their days listening to the whispers of greedy banks and international socialist bureaucracies spinning lies about ‘safety’, ‘trust’, ‘recovery’, and ‘inevitable technological evolution’.
Even after watching Canada misuse the digital economy to lock the bank accounts of citizens over their political viewers – Australia has done nothing to safeguard its people from policies already waiting in line for approval.
Europeans are not abandoning cash as their governments hoped. Jaded by the behaviour of their governments in the past, there has been a resurgence in cash across the European Union. Australia, locked in the shallow waters of political infancy, has raised no objection to the government plotting to steal all its coins.
Crypto is not the answer when the government controls your means of access to the digital world. Cash, like burying gold bars in the ground, is the only true weapon citizens have to maintain economic autonomy. Hang onto cash if you want your country to survive the next hundred years with its dream of liberty intact.
What does a post-cash world look like? I leave you with Kenneth Rogoff:
‘Getting rid of physical currency and replacing it with electronic money would … eliminate the zero bound policy interest rates that have handcuffed central banks since the financial crisis. At present, if central banks try setting rates too far below zero, people will start bailing out into cash.’
Negative interest rates are the best way to erase private savings and ensure that the World Economic Forum’s promise really does come true: you will own nothing and you will be happy. Or at least, if you refuse to look happy, the State will lower your social credit score.
If cash is king the question we must ask is, who gets to be the new king once it is gone?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/cash-is-king-for-now/
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9 September, 2022
The view from Moscow: USA on the brink of a new civil war
Written by: Sviatoslav Knyazev
The results of a survey conducted by the University of California show that 50.1% of US citizens believe that a civil war will begin in their country in the next few years. And this is not surprising. Against the background of the reforms carried out by the liberal elites, the mutual intolerance of supporters of different political forces in America is constantly growing.
Currently, 72% of US Republicans believe members of the Democratic Party are "more immoral" than the average American. On the other hand, 63% of Democrats think the same about Republicans. Just six years ago, the level of such negative "cross-party" ratings in the US was is almost twice as low.
Among registered voters, 42% consider their ideological opponents to be "openly evil", and 40% say they would be angry if their child married a supporter of the other party. Eighteen percent of Democrats and 13% of Republicans already openly talk about the justification of violent methods of struggle if the party they support does not win the elections.
The strengthening of divisions is also clearly visible in the election results in certain constituencies. If in 2004 in only 6% of districts one of the presidential candidates won more than 80% of the votes, then in 2022 the number of such districts has already increased to 22%.
Hysteria regarding the inevitability of a new civil war in the USA is actively pumped up by the leading liberal media, such as the American New York Times and the British Guardian, which on their pages transform light-skinned conservatives into existential enemies of the "brave new world".
International speculator George Soros, who represents one of the most prominent leaders of the global liberal elite, published an article in which he wrote that "the biggest threat to the USA is not Russia and China, but internal enemies who can transform American democracy into a repressive regime".
He also predicted the overthrow of democracy in the US by "right-wing extremists", in which he includes "Trump's Republicans", and even the justices of the US Supreme Court.
"The Supreme Court used to be one of those US institutions that enjoyed special respect. "Recent decisions by the extremist majority have dropped his approval rating to an all-time low, and disapproval of the court has reached a new high," Soros said.
The speculator, apparently, has in mind the decisions of judges in cases where they refused to support the initiatives of liberals - in particular, depriving federal authorities of the right to restrict abortion on their territory
By the way, US Vice President Kamala Harris once surprised the world public by comparing the mentioned decision of the Supreme Court with slavery.
"Our country has a long history of owning human bodies," Kamala Harris said in her comment.
George Soros is not alone in his conclusions. "When I left the Pentagon after 28 years in uniform, I never thought I'd say this, but what's happening in America today in the political arena is a far greater threat than any our country has faced in my career, including the Soviet Union. And that's because that threat is, here and now, directly in our house, and it comes from within ourselves. I think the irony is that the great nation - the only force that can break you - is yourself," popular New York Times analyst Thomas Friedman quotes his acquaintance (allegedly a former US Army officer) as saying.
An important moment in the Democrats' campaign to scare the public has the "issue of guns". The Republican leaders, referring to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution of 1791, are in favor of guaranteeing citizens the right to keep and bear arms. The Democrats, on the other hand, are in favor of restricting in this area at the federal level.
The liberal media likes to point out that half of Republicans and only 21% of Democrats have firearms in their homes. In addition, right-wing conservatives actively form, at the local level, "volunteer militia" associations. In this context, liberal publicists remind how American "patriots" managed to defeat better organized British soldiers during the American War of Independence. And they assume that in our time something similar can happen between the right-wing "militia" and the army. Especially since volunteers like to play paramilitary games in remote corners of their countries.
"We are in a very precarious position. A large part of our citizens has taken an anti-government position, which is fueled by our former president and his henchmen. Racism is now out in the open, as evidenced by the rants of diversity advocates at raucous school board meetings across the country. The country is armed like never before, and thousands of these citizens are in organized militia," wrote one of the authors of the New York Times recently.
In doing so, liberals implicitly inspire their electorate with the idea of ??their exclusivity, talking about the fact that Republican districts are unfairly strongly represented in parliament, even though Democratic states
At the same time, American liberals do not like to talk about the fact that the main wish of conservatives is that all-knowing "progressives" do not enter the life of their families and their communities. And it is precisely the advocates of "diversity" who, with the force of Nazi raiders, are trying to immediately impose their views on the entire country on life.
Here is a banal example. Democrats are now trying to introduce "combined" toilets for children in schools for the sake of promoting progressive ideals. As such, they will not encroach on the rights of students who "do not fit into the gender dichotomy" or are "not yet determined". They were among the first to react to such " newspaper" Republicans from Florida, promising that they will not allow anything similar in their state.
It is obvious to any sane person that what the Democrats are trying to introduce will strengthen the unhealthy "sexualization" of minors and inevitably lead to a sharp increase in crimes on this basis. But ordinary people and their rights mean nothing to the "progressives", the main one is the "big ideas" and minority rights that liberal elites turn into something similar to Hitler's "Aryan race".
Another example of a wild social experiment is the drastic softening of the criminal code, which has the effect that, for "humanitarian" reasons, cases of violent crimes in large "democratic" cities are locked up en masse, and even convicted criminals are released shortly after trial.
"Perhaps the most disturbing manifestation of the current rise in crime in New York are the robberies. I can rob anyone. Recently, for example, an employee of the mayor's press service was robbed on the street. They are especially scared on the richest Upper East Side. Rumor has it that criminals operate there simply and efficiently. They don't enter the main door where the porters are, rather the service entrance for delivery and building employees, where no one is there, and the door is usually open due to American inattention. Lifotm climb to the upper floors, ring any doorbell and, threatening the hosts with weapons, steal valuables. Then they take the elevator down, exit the building and enter the subway.
Sometimes the metro is not even needed - guided by the high principles of social justice, urban planners located projects almost all over the city. You can buy an apartment for a few million, but there will still be a project within a three-minute walk... A few months ago, it was said that a citizen caught intruders on the spot: they removed the wheels from his car or from the neighbor's car. They carefully sprayed him with pepper spray, handcuffed him, calmly finished the job and left. He was happy to be alive," the author of the Telegram channel "From the banks of the Hudson" describes the New York reality.
The homicide rate in 20 major US cities is 40% higher today than just a few years ago. However, it doesn't matter to official Washington. The main thing is - shared toilets and quotas for minorities in company boards. Therefore, if someone in the service industry dares to refuse, for example, to fulfill the order of a representative of a "non-traditional" orientation, citing their religious beliefs as a reason, they will surely be dragged to the courts for that...
And in fact, it is very easy to avoid another civil war in the USA. And, at the same time, unrealistically difficult. It is enough for "progressives" to learn to respect the rights and beliefs of other people. And also - to stop using "politics" to cover up open crime, as was the case with the repeatedly convicted criminal George Floyd.
Ah, yes, for the sake of peace in the USA, we should stop mass mail-in voting for the Democratic candidate by people who have long since died, and not allow illegal immigrants who have never had US citizenship to go to the polls.
The only problem is that if these simple recommendations were followed, the chances of the Democrats winning the US elections would be practically zero. That is why the threat of a new civil war will only grow there. And the liberals are already preparing their electorate for that.
"The beginning of the civil conflict in the USA will not be a formal struggle of armies for territory... The resistance is just beginning, but it is also taking shape: if you are rich and want to continue living in democratic conditions, the time has come to open your wallet." If you're an engineer, it's time to get organized. The output is not defined at all. Neither side has an absolute advantage. Neither side can win easily. But it is an obvious fact that the battle has begun and will be fought everywhere," Stephen Marsh eloquently writes.
https://www.magazin-tabloid.com/casopis/index.php?id=06&br=527&cl=24
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The Left decline into Fascism really easily
In what can only be described as the most astonishingly hostile and divisive attack on his fellow American citizens ever delivered by an American president Joe Biden on September 1, 2022 delivered remarks on what he called “the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”
The dark bloodred lighting, the prominent placement of Marines on the stage and the viciously hostile words of Biden’s remarks conveyed a dark and ominous threat against anyone who might disagree with the Democrats’ Far Left, anti-constitutional agenda.
Rather than taking inspiration from the great presidential speeches of the past – the humility of George Washington’s first inaugural address, the unifying message of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the paean to America’s foundational principles in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms Speech,” the call to fight the spread of Communism in John F. Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you” inaugural address, and the can-do, upbeat challenge “to dream heroic dreams” of Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address, Joe Biden appeared to be inspired by a darker spirit, foreign to the respectful disagreement that has characterized our political discourse prior to the present age.
I am not the first or only observer to see dark parallels between Biden’s “the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” and the infamous Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” in which German filmmaking genius Leni Riefenstahl used non-verbal image-making and the words of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders to dehumanize and justify the persecution of the opponents of the National Socialist movement.
One of the most effective techniques Riefenstahl and Hitler used was to place opponents outside the privileged group of the Nazi Party, and to place them under threat by juxtaposing Hitler’s words with images of the military, then firmly under the control of the Nazi Party.
So, we see the same technique of “othering” when Biden attacks “MAGA Republicans” against a bloodred background while flanked by stern-faced Marines.
A picture is worth a thousand words and Biden doesn’t have to say, “I’m coming for you,” it is clear from the picture.
However, Biden is much less subtle than Hitler in identifying those who disagree with him as enemies
Hitler says quite clearly at some point in the future every “loyal German” must be a National Socialist: “...the goal must be that all loyal Germans will become National Socialists.”
Biden put that concept in the negative. You can’t be an “insurrectionist” or a “MAGA Republican” and be an American, loyal to the Constitution.
And there was another interesting parallel between the two speeches.
The Nazis were infamous for redefining words and concepts to fit their ideology. Thus, “justice” didn’t mean achieving a fair result based on evidence, it meant achieving a result that advanced the ideological goals of the Nazi Party.
Biden’s speech was full of similar dramatic ironies.
Starting the day Donald Trump was inaugurated, Democrats and their Far Left allies spent 2016 to 2020 attacking police stations and committing arson to the tune of over $2 billion in damages, and reacted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by burning crisis pregnancy centers, but Joe Biden said: “There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever.”
After Democrats and their Far Left allies fomented riots that caused the death of at least 31 police officers while they excused some 600,000 assaults on police officers, Joe Biden complained: “We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th.”
And after not one of the organizers of that political violence was charged, let alone prosecuted for that violence, Joe Biden said with a straight face: “We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster. Now.”
Is comparing Joe Biden’s “the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” to Adolf Hitler’s “The Triumph of the Will” a stretch?
I don’t think so.
The point of both was to dehumanize opponents, to put those who disagreed with the party line outside the “mainstream,” and to redefine truth, justice, the rule of law, violence and loyalty to fit the ruling Party’s ideology. And in that regard Joe Biden was considerably less subtle than were Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl.
https://www.conservativehq.org/post/joe-biden-s-triumph-of-the-will
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'25,000 dead registrants': Why legal nonprofit is suing Soros-backed Michigan elections chief
Following a recent win in his legal battle to compel Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to purge 25,000 deceased voters from her state's rolls, Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams explained his suit on the "Just the News, Not Noise" television show on Friday.
After the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan last week denied Benson's bid to dismiss the legal nonprofit's suit against her, Adams decried the George Soros-backed election official's unwillingness to update her rolls despite PILF's documentation of the dead voters.
"Yeah, 25,000 dead registrants on the active rolls in Michigan — like 4,000 of them had been dead for 20 years," said Adams, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney. "We had pictures of their gravestones in the complaint. We sent Jocelyn Benson ... notice about these dead people before the 2020 election. She didn't do anything.
"We finally sued. She still hasn't done anything — tried to get the case dismissed saying we aren't allowed to sue" for lack of standing, "and she lost. So the case is gonna go forward. Every state that's faced these kind of lawsuits eventually settles with us. Let's see if she does."
Adams explained how blue states have sought to evade responsibility for maintaining voter rolls, opening the door to mistakes and mischief.
"[B]lue states in many cases — New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maine, I could go down the list — are run by sort of ideological state election officials who are opposed to list maintenance," he said. "It was part of [Democrats' voting overhaul bill] HR 1, if you remember a year ago, that they were going to ban all this maintenance as a matter of federal law. That failed, of course, and they are against list maintenance.
"They would rather have polluted voter rolls than mistakenly remove somebody who should not be removed — they'll tell you that's what they think ... the problem is, when you have a system that is now so heavily vote-by-mail, when you have all of these automatic things going to homes, polluted voter rolls is step one to problems — and that's what happened in Nevada, that's what happened in Michigan, Pennsylvania. Judith Presto, remember the name Judith Presto. She got registered to vote, voted by mail, and she was dead."
Adams was asked his opinion of the Biden Department of Justice under the controversial leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"Well, I guess I lived in the coal mine, and I was the canary back in 2010, with the New Black Panther case," replied Adams, who after stepping down from the DOJ accused the department of racial bias for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. "And I saw unequal enforcement of law up close over a decade ago. And the Civil Rights Division is always the first place where crazy starts.
"And now what's happening throughout the entire department? Why aren't they involved in our Michigan case? I thought they believed in enforcement of federal [National Voting Rights Act] law. They're not, of course — they'll probably take the side of Michigan if they did. The point is that DOJ has always been problematic in the Civil Rights Division. Now, it's across all the divisions."
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‘Critical Social Justice Is Anti-Semitic at Its Core,’ Says Attorney for Abuse Survivors
A family law attorney representing domestic violence victims at Women Against Abuse (WAA), Nicole Levitt has brought suit against her employer, alleging the nonprofit organization created a racially hostile work environment and censured her for simply raising concerns about anti-Semitism.
Co-author of a paper with David Bernstein and Daniel Newman in 2021 called “How Social Justice Extremists Spawned a Generation of Progressive Anti-Semites,” Levitt believes the social justice training at her workplace is part of a larger movement that is anti-Semitic.
“Critical social justice is anti-Semitic at its core. Why? Because … it divides everything into a binary of black and white, oppressor versus oppressed. And those aren’t categories that Jews fit into,” she said during an interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” Program.
“So, discrimination against [Jews], it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. They have power, they have privilege,” Levitt said. “And the end result is there’s a huge argument on Twitter over whether Anne Frank had white privilege.”
Levitt cites an incident prior to her lawsuit when her colleague tried to circulate an article addressing the anti-Semitism in the social justice movement and Levitt sent an email saying she hopes it will be included in WAA’s reading materials.
“That just set off a firestorm of controversy. And I got back a ton of, let’s say, disapproving emails that accused me of furthering white supremacy, taking the spotlight away from black and brown people, saying that anti-black racism is so much worse than anti-Semitism,” she said.
Levitt wanted anti-Semitism included in the conversation about social justice because “we were being asked to espouse a very specific ideology of oppressor versus oppressed. And the way that they characterize Jews is on the side of oppressors; everything is black-and-white in a binary. And I have found it and scholars have found it to be pretty anti-Semitic.”
Black Lives Matter (BLM)
In addition, BLM endorsed Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, a movement to sanction Israel in any form of investment, including teaching, that’s “very anti-Semitic,” said Levitt.
“There were a few BLM leaders that actually traveled to Israel and met with some Palestinians, and included in the group of people that they met with were some known terrorists,” she said.
The Epoch Times reached out to BLM for comment.
The ideology of “anti-racism” gained more followers during the “racial justice” protests in the summer of 2020 often led by BLM to protest the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. Critical race theorists claim that because of the history of black enslavement and segregation, America’s social, legal, and economic systems are inherently racist and argue that its institutions must be dismantled and, as Marxists teach, wealth redistributed.
“The power inequities that exist in an abusive relationship mirror centuries of white supremacy and racism, in which power is reserved only for a few. WAA believes ‘all forms of oppression must be ‘dismantled,’ reads the non-profit’s website.
“And it came to a point where I felt the training [sessions] were all relying on stereotypes, discrimination, [and] scapegoating,” said Levitt.
The Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV) has set up a defense fund to support Levitt’s case against WAA, which is currently before the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
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8 September, 2022
Newsom Paves Way for $22/Hour Fast-Food Minimum Wage
This will hit the poor. Because it is good value, fast food is heavily relied on by the poor. A McDonalds' cheeseburger, for instance. But this proposal will undoubtedly hit the poor with higher prices
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill Monday establishing a council empowered to raise the minimum wage for the state’s fast-food workers to more than $20 per hour.
The Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (AB 257), passed by the state Legislature a week prior, orders a 10-member Fast Food Council to appropriately create wage, working conditions, and training standards for fast-food restaurant employees. The law allows the council to impose a minimum fast-food wage of up to $22 per hour in 2023.
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“Today’s action gives hardworking fast-food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table to set fair wages and critical health and safety standards across the industry,” Newsom said Monday.
California currently requires businesses with more than 25 employees to pay them at least $15 per hour, a standard scheduled to rise by 50 cents an hour in 2023.
The Fast Food Council must feature two representatives each of fast-food restaurant employees, employee advocates, franchisors, and franchisees, the new law orders. It also reserves single spots for representatives of the state Industrial Relations Department and the Governor’s Business and Economic Development Office.
Prior to the act’s signing, fast-food restaurant franchisees expressed concerned it would spur operating cost and consumer price increases, according to the The Business Journal.
“The state of California has rigorous rules and regulations regarding wage and hour, regarding franchising, regarding the relationships between franchisor and franchisee, the relationship between the employer and employee,” Eagle Management Business Consulting President and Deli Delicious Franchising Executive Vice President Ali Nekumanesh said, the outlet reported. “Therefore, we think this [AB] 257 is shortsighted and the focus on quick-service restaurants is very puzzling to the eyes of the beholder.”
A representative for Newsom referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to his Monday press release about the law’s signing.
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Could Liz Truss be the thickest ever UK prime minister?
I reproduce below a post from quora.com. It is rather crushing to the questioner
Truss got into Oxford to study PPE (from a comprehensive school), qualified as an accountant and worked for ten years as a management accountant and economics director in the energy and telecoms sectors. She has been in government for ten years in a number of positions including Chief Secretary of the Treasury.
Just to expand on her degree - PPE is one of the most applied to courses at Oxford, which is itself a globally ranked university. In 2023, minimum entry qualifications at A level are AAA, ideally including Maths and History. Roughly 1 in 8 students gain those grades or higher across all A levels. I believe the entry process would also involve an interview. Across the university, the proportion of qualified applicants who gain a place is 20%, though it might be lower for PPE. Suppose that four in five school students went on to A levels. This means that Truss was assessed as being within the top 2 % of UK school students. (0.125 * 0.2 * 0.8 = 0.02). That indicates an IQ score of above 130.
Recall that she did this from a comprehensive school, in competition with kids from private schools - with all their resources, expertise and contacts. Neither did she come from a particularly wealthy, powerful, connected family (her father was a maths professor and her mother a nurse). In my view that could well justify putting her in the top half of her group - so top 1% of her school cohort.
According to the journalist Alison Pearson, Truss initially gained her place to study mathematics. Maths is widely seen as being one of the hardest subjects. So Truss gaining a place in maths rather negates the idea that PPE students are not all that when it comes to quantitative analysis (not that I agree with it anyway).
The economist (and Undercover Economist author) Tim Harford has tweeted about sharing tutorials with Truss on the university’s fiendish Mathematical Logic course, which requires that students master Cantor’s Diagonalisation Proof and Turing machines (I have no idea what these are).
Anyway, gaining a place on that course at that university means that Truss was assessed by the selection system as being one of the students with the most potential in the UK and beyond. Having gained her place, she was then able to meet the demands of the course. I believe Oxford uses a tutorial process which involves students writing essays and defending them on a weekly basis. That builds the ability to conduct a reasoned argument - and there is no evading the sustained, intense, one to one scrutiny of the logic of that argument by a subject expert.
Truss was Deputy Director of the think tank Reform and she’s recruited people from the world of think tanks to her leadership campaign. She’s worked in a range of government departments including the Treasury. She co wrote a policy book (Britannia Unchained) and gives every sign of being able to think through policy for herself. She’s been a success at the Foreign Office (where Boris struggled). Civil servants have noted her persistence and determination. She stood up to Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She seems to have out manoeuvered Sunak and his Treasury backers in the leadership contest.
So no, I don’t believe she is hard of thinking and neither did her teachers at school, professors at Oxford, employers at Shell and C&W, fellow economists at Reform, electors of her Norfolk constituency and colleagues when she worked at the Treasury. As for the reasoning abilities of the person who asked this question, the jury is still out.
Postscript: Its not just the questioner. Looking at the comment thread, the belief that ‘anyone who doesn’t agree with me must be thick’ is quite prevalent. I’ld suggest that belief is not itself an indicator of particularly high intelligence.
https://www.quora.com/Could-Liz-Truss-be-the-thickest-ever-UK-prime-minister
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My Baby and I Found Love and Care at This Pregnancy Resource Center
The Christian alternative to abortion
They gave me a truck. They gave me food. They gave me a warm bed. They helped me find a job. They loved me when I felt no one else did. And they asked for nothing in return.
One might start contemplating what wealthy relative I stumbled upon to receive such luck and gifts, or maybe what company treats their employees so generously. It was neither.
This was my experience with a local pregnancy resource center when I found myself in a crisis situation, nearly nine months pregnant.
I never expected to find myself at a pregnancy resource center. I never even had heard of one before, despite there being over 2,700 nationwide, serving nearly 2 million people in 2019 alone. But I’m so glad I did.
Coming up on nine months of pregnancy, the father of my child was sent to jail and I found myself homeless. I had no job and was without family or friends to lean on for support. I learned about So Big Mountain House in Indianapolis at a doctor’s appointment and knew I needed to visit.
Four days after the Mountain House staff welcomed me through their doors, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Legacy, who to this very day is the greatest joy and gift of my life.
But I quickly found myself unprepared for this new role. The small task of giving my newborn a bath seemed so simple, yet to a new mother it was equally challenging and daunting. Without hesitation, the women at Mountain House stepped in to help me and have been at my side ever since.
Having those women with me at that moment assured me that I had the support and love I needed to raise my child. I stayed at Mountain House for a little over a year, developing close friendships with the mentors there and other women in similar situations as me, and receiving encouragement beyond my wildest expectations.
They threw me a baby shower and provided me with everything from diapers to clothes to formula. Due to credit issues, I struggled to acquire a vehicle, so they gifted me with a truck. I took financial classes, through which I learned how to create a budget that I still use today. I also took parenting classes to learn how to stay afloat in these new uncharted waters.
The women of Mountain House helped me secure a job despite my felonious background, and never once treated me differently because of my past.
I now had my wonderful daughter and a tremendous support system, but I didn’t feel whole just yet. While my stomach was full of tasty food and my heart full of love, the women at Mountain House knew that I needed more to face the world.
Their kindness and generosity were nothing short of God’s own love shining through them, and with their help I started attending church. I eventually was baptized and realized that the goal of Mountain House was to care for the whole woman–her mind, her heart, her soul, and her child.
Looking back now, I can say confidently that my year at Mountain House was the best year of my life. I grew so much in my time there and would hardly recognize the nine-month pregnant woman who walked through the doors just two short years ago.
I now have a great job and my own place to live, and the women at Mountain House who were once my role models are now my friends.
It wasn’t a family member who supported me during a difficult time. It wasn’t a company that felt obligated to care for an employee. It was a group of complete strangers who took me in, supported me, and loved me.
They had nothing to gain from their generosity. There was no large check at the end of the day, no grand prize. But rather, they live knowing that their work supports women and changes their lives for good.
Although Mountain House is wonderful, it is not unique. Thousands of places like this exist all over the country to ensure that no woman ever has to be alone while pregnant, nor in the months afterward.
No matter your past or even your present, pregnancy resource centers work to ensure that not only do you and your child have a future, but that it is one full of hope, promise, success, and, most importantly, love.
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The ACLU’s latest step to becoming just another progressive scold — at civil liberties’ expense
The American Civil Liberties Union last week applauded President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student-loan debt, which it describes as “a racial-justice issue.” That puzzling position encapsulates how far the venerable organization has strayed from the mission reflected in its name.
Under Biden’s new policy, borrowers earning up to $125,000 a year will be eligible for $10,000 in debt relief, or twice that amount if they qualified for Pell Grants as students. The 43 million or so beneficiaries include many affluent people who could readily afford to pay off their loans, while the cost, which is projected to be at least $300 billion, will be borne by taxpayers, including Americans of relatively modest means.
Some of the people picking up the tab never attended college, while others struggled to do so without borrowing money or have already paid off their loans. But in the ACLU’s view, that seemingly unfair redistribution of resources is what racial-justice demands.
“This debt burden falls heaviest on black Americans — especially black women,” the ACLU says. “Student-debt cancellation will help secure financial stability and mobility for people of color — particularly black Americans — who are disproportionately burdened with student debt, while providing immediate financial relief and peace of mind for millions of Americans.”
Whatever you might think of that argument, it has nothing to do with protecting civil liberties. The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, but it does not promise to eradicate racial disparities in educational or economic success.
As the ACLU sees it, however, any such disparities result from “centuries of structural inequities and racism.” The federal government therefore has a duty to ensure equal outcomes, which requires wide-ranging interventions, including welfare programs, education spending, job training, affirmative action, public housing, tax credits and state-subsidized health care.
To give you a sense of how far afield that cause takes the ACLU from the defense of constitutional rights, the organization argues that “broadband access for all” is a racial-justice issue because people without broadband access “are disproportionately black, Latinx, Indigenous, rural or low-income.”
The ACLU describes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which it urged the Supreme Court to uphold, as “a great civil rights law,” because “it is not possible to fully participate in the economic, social and civic life of our nation without stable health coverage.”
If “stable health coverage” is a prerequisite for fully participating in “the economic, social, and civic life of our nation,” so is stable housing, stable employment and a stable supply of food, clothing and transportation. Such reasoning expands the ACLU’s mission to include pretty much any domestic-policy issue.
The ACLU’s embrace of a broad progressive agenda alienates potential allies who do not necessarily agree with that agenda but support vigorous advocacy for civil liberties. It also weakens the ACLU’s commitment to the goals that once defined the organization, including the defense of First Amendment rights.
According to an internal staff memo that was leaked in 2018, ACLU attorneys who are thinking about defending a potential client’s right to express opinions they find repugnant — the sort of function that the organization has proudly served through most of its history — should consider how that might conflict with “other values” supported by the ACLU. “Speech that denigrates [marginalized] groups can inflict serious harms,” the memo warned, “and often will impede progress toward equality.”
A case the Supreme Court will hear during its next term further illustrates how the ACLU has lost its way. The organization argues that a Colorado woman who has religious objections to gay marriage should nevertheless be forced to apply her artistic talents in designing websites for same-sex weddings, notwithstanding the First Amendment’s restrictions on compelled speech.
A consistent defense of civil liberties is the ACLU’s raison d’etre. But as the organization becomes increasingly indistinguishable from myriad progressive advocacy groups, it is sacrificing the principles that made its work worthy of wide support.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/02/the-aclus-latest-step-to-becoming-just-another-progressive-scold/
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Who do the high priests of cancel culture most resemble?
We are living through a time in which unproven accusations are once again enough to see a person damned.
Charges of ‘racism’, ‘homophobia’, ‘transphobia’ and even ‘fascism’ are commonplace and no evidence is required to secure a ‘cancellation’. People have had their careers destroyed and personal relationships ruined simply for expressing unfashionable opinions.
It will be oddly familiar to anyone who has seen Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. In the 1953 dramatisation of the 17th Century Salem witch trials, our tragic hero John Proctor cries out: ‘Is the accuser always holy now?’
The trials of Salem, a Puritan community in Massachusetts, lasted a little over a year, from February 1692 to May 1693. In that time, more than 200 people were accused, 19 hanged, five others had perished in jail and one, farmer Giles Corey, had been pressed to death with boulders for refusing to enter a guilty/not-guilty plea.
And their tormentors? A group of children who had stumbled upon the means to become the most powerful members of the community. Their histrionic accusations could see fellow citizens executed on the basis of ‘spectral evidence’ alone – what we might today refer to as ‘lived experience’, the phrase used by the likes of Meghan and Harry.
And today, just like in Salem, those who attempt to apply reason and logic, who dare to stand up for the accused, make themselves vulnerable by doing so.
As Miller’s anti-hero says, ‘the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom’ safe in the knowledge that those who cross them are the next to be condemned.
For those of us who have found ourselves caught in the culture wars of the present – and I have often been vilified for having created a satirical character, Titania McGrath, the ‘radical intersectionalist poet and Twitter activist’ – the parallels are obvious.
Such patterns recur wherever reason is abandoned and fear prevails, be that during the 1950s McCarthyism that inspired Miller, or the ideological capture of today’s institutions and the trickle-down orthodoxies that followed.
THE new religion of ‘wokeness’ now dominates all of our major cultural, educational, political and corporate bodies.
Its high priests make grand claims of moral purity and brook no dissent, a mindset which has led to the development of today’s ‘cancel culture’.
They seek to control public discourse by deeming certain terms ‘problematic’ or supporting legislation against ‘hate speech’. They require no concrete evidence of sin in order to detect and denounce the sinners in our midst.
Phrases such as ‘social justice’, ‘anti-racism’ and ‘equity’ mislead people into believing that those who utter them are on the right side of history. What we are witnessing is the march of online zealots destroying people’s livelihoods and reputations, all the while proclaiming their own virtue, using hashtags such as #BeKind.
Like the Salem Trials, they inflict their punishments while claiming to be on the side of the angels.
Although today’s ‘heretics’ are unlikely to be burned at the stake, their inquisitors are convinced they must convert for their own good. It is the legitimisation of bullying on a grand scale.
Significantly, many are troubled by the rise of the movement – a recent import from the US – that would see us deny the biological reality of sex differences, confess to ‘white privilege’, or to perpetuating ‘systemic oppression’.
They are rightly concerned about the relentless attacks on free speech and how anyone who dares question the new orthodoxy is mercilessly subdued.
These culture war revolutionaries, whose existence is often denied by its chief antagonists, must be challenged. For they are determined to dismantle Western ideals, to return us to a pre-Enlightenment state of ignorance.
Theirs is a world in which private feelings are allowed to trump evidence and reason. A world in which right and wrong are reduced to a battle of wills. This is a battle that, ultimately, the mob will win unless we stand up and resist it.
The impact is felt in all walks of life. For instance, after the seismic events of the summer of 2020 following the killing by a white policeman of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, an actor friend of mine was contacted by her agency because she had not posted anything on social media in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. She was told she must do so immediately if she wanted casting directors to consider her for roles.
I have heard many such anecdotes, but invariably they are communicated privately. There is a strong general feeling that to publicly object to the prevailing dogma is to jeopardise one’s career and social standing.
I have lost count of the number of emails from academics, artists and media figures who have contacted me to express solidarity for my criticism of this new ideology, but admit they could never endorse my sentiments in public for fear of being targeted. It is a circular problem that can only be resolved if sufficient numbers speak out.
This is the sad reality of most present-day working environments, where to utter a forbidden opinion, to misspeak, or even to fail to show due fealty to received wisdom can be an impediment to future prospects.
As a former teacher, I am still in contact with ex-colleagues who are troubled by the sudden revisions made to curriculums and pastoral policies. Many are being forced to undergo ‘unconscious bias’ training, even though there is overwhelming evidence such schemes are unreliable and ineffective.
To raise a complaint is taken as proof of the kind of prejudice that the tests seek to expose. After all, surely only a witch would deny the existence of witchcraft...
Sometimes the obsessions of these cultural revolutionaries are extreme. Last year, the body in charge of elementary and secondary schools in Ontario authorised the ritualistic burning of books for ‘educational purposes’.
In what they described as a ‘flame purification’ ceremony, almost 5,000 books were destroyed or recycled if they were judged to contain outdated racial stereotypes. In this new religion, some words are deemed harmful, even if written many years ago.
This is why the estate of Dr Seuss will no longer publish six of the author’s books that they now consider ‘hurtful and wrong’.
It’s why Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was republished with all the racial epithets removed, even though the book is explicitly critical of the slave trade.
It’s why school libraries have removed Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), following complaints about ‘racist, homophobic or misogynistic language and themes’.
The attack on The Handmaid’s Tale is especially odd, given that it is well known as a mainstay of contemporary feminist literature.
The novel depicts a dystopian future in which women are reduced to broodmares for the ruling class. They are forced to live according to the perverted ideology of those in power, and have no freedom to speak the truth.
It is no accident that it is set in New England – Atwood described The Handmaid’s Tale as her ‘take on American Puritanism’. But not even its feminist credentials have saved The Handmaid’s Tale from the all-consuming lunacy of this new purity culture. Atwood’s interest in the era comes from a family connection. Her novel is dedicated to Mary Webster, an ancestor who was hanged for being a witch in 1683 but survived the execution.
The New Puritans of today may not be hanging people who fail to conform, but they certainly embody the ideological fervour The Handmaid’s Tale explores.
The Puritans of the 17th Century sought to refashion society in accordance with their own beliefs, but they were deep thinkers who were aware of their fallibility.
By contrast, the New Puritans seem to go about their business with a narcissistic lack of self-doubt. They have simplistically divided the world into sinners and saints, and presumed they ought to be grouped among the latter.
Then, as now, bad ideas are propped up by elites. We are living through a frenzy of conformity, in which the opinions of a minority of activists are falsely presented by parts of the media, political and corporate classes as though they reflect an established consensus. Some politicians and academics may struggle to define the word ‘woman’, but who among us does not understand the differences between males and females?
Worse still, these modern witchhunts blind us to an obvious truth: that economic inequality is the most glaring social injustice.
This used to be a priority for those claiming to be on the Left, but the movement has become infected with identity politics. ‘Social justice’ is a game played by the affluent, just the latest way to maintain their power in society.
To uphold liberal values in this climate has become a risky endeavour, but it is only the silence of the majority that makes it so.
Even after his experiences in the Soviet gulags, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was able to reflect on the possibility that, had more people spoken out, the atrocities might have been avoided. ‘Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself,’ he wrote.
This was also a key concern of Arthur Miller during the McCarthy years – that powerful people remained silent so as not to be themselves accused. When bad ideas spread unchecked, they take on an illusion of incontrovertibility, and when figures of authority are captured by dangerous ideologies, resistance becomes a feat of courage few attempt.
The first to be hanged at Salem was Bridget Bishop. As she stood in court, the girls accusing her writhed and screamed as if possessed, claiming Bishop ‘did oftentimes very grievously Pinch them, Choak them, Bite them, and Afflict them’.
One girl, Susanna Sheldon, insisted she had witnessed Bishop suckling a snake. Other villagers testified that she had urged them to sign the Devil’s book. Ridiculous claims, even to a God-fearing community like the Puritans of New England. Yet few dared to challenge them. The New Puritans are the clergy for the digital age – an elite class that claims to know what is best for unlettered plebians.
They scour social media for prey, such as the author J.K. Rowling.
And as the New Puritans gain momentum, and as their power increases, it has become apparent that to ignore them will allow their dominance. They will deny biological reality and threaten anyone who doesn’t acquiesce.
They will bully people in the name of compassion, promote division and call it progressive, and rehabilitate a new form of racism under the guise of tolerance. They will insist on fabricating realities that correspond with their own emotional states and couch their nebulous theories in obfuscation.
They will use inflammatory language to misrepresent others’ concerns, accuse them of ‘erasing’ people’s existence, or committing acts of ‘violence’ through speech.
They will claim there is no objective truth, but demand we all acknowledge the truth of their ‘lived experience’.
They will carry on feeding the far Right by elevating identity politics and claim to be opposing fascism through authoritarian methods. And if anyone suggests their demands should be subject to discussion or debate, they will not hesitate to brand them a bigot.
When this happens, it is our responsibility to restate the case for liberal values. It will be a long, uncomfortable, but necessary process, like setting a broken bone. Along the way, we should defend those targets of bullying, whether they are attacked for what they have said or what they refuse to say. We should never be intimidated.
The desire for a quiet life is understandable, but surely we have reached the point where the keys of the kingdom must be wrenched back.
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7 September, 2022
Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?
It may be one of the most surefire findings in all of social psychology, repeatedly replicated over almost five decades of study: American conservatives say they are much happier than American liberals.
They also report greater meaning and purpose in their lives, and higher overall life satisfaction. These links are so solidly evidenced that, for the most part, modern social scientists simply try to explain them. They’ve put forth numerous possible explanations.
There are a couple clear contributors to point out first. Marriage tends to make people happier, and conservatives are more likely to be married. Religious belief is also linked to happiness, and conservatives tend to be more religious.
But these explanations don’t account for the entire gap, which equates to about a half-point on a four-point scale, a sizable happiness divide.
Social psychologist Jaime Napier, program head of psychology at New York University-Abu Dhabi has conducted research suggesting that views about inequality play a role.
“One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it,” she told PBS. “That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.”
To paraphrase, conservatives are less concerned with equality of outcomes and more with equality of opportunity. While American liberals are depressed by inequalities in society, conservatives are OK with them provided that everyone has roughly the same opportunities to succeed. The latter is a more rosy and empowering view than the deterministic former.
Two other studies explored a more surprising contributor: neuroticism, typically defined as “a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.” Surveyed conservatives consistently score lower in neuroticism than surveyed liberals.
In 2011, psychologists at the University of Florida and the University of Toronto conducted four studies, aiming to find whether conservatives are more “positively adjusted” than liberals.
They found that conservatives “expressed greater personal agency, more positive outlook, more transcendent moral beliefs, and a generalized belief in fairness” compared with liberals.
They added:
The portrait of conservatives that emerges is different from the view that conservatives are generally fearful, low in self-esteem, and rationalize away social inequality.
Conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, in general … report better mental health and fewer mental and emotional problems (all after controlling for age, sex, income, and education), and view social justice in ways that are consistent with binding moral foundations, such as by emphasizing personal agency and equity.
Liberals have become less happy over the last several decades, but this decline is associated with increasingly secular attitudes and actions.
There have been a few studies that attempted to rain on conservatives’ happiness parade. In one, scientists proposed that conservatives might simply be more inclined to provide socially desirable answers to surveys than liberals. Society expects you to be happy, and so conservatives say that they are.
In another, researchers found that while conservatives certainly report being more happy than liberals, liberals tend to display more signs of happiness, as evidenced by uploading more smiling photographs on Linkedin and posting more positive tweets on Twitter. So, maybe conservatives just think they’re happier, or judge happiness differently?
Regardless, the gap remains. So, if you need some cheering up, maybe turn to a conservative friend, rather than a liberal one.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/30/why-are-conservatives-happier-than-liberals/
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Vegan Restaurant Flops, Owners Left with No Choice But to Close Down and Begin Selling Meat
Moral posturing in food choices sounds fine on paper, but it turns out it doesn’t exactly pay the bills — at least not at a well-known British vegan restaurant.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, The Mango Tree, in the English town of Taunton, about 150 miles southwest of London, is closing for a bit of renovation. When it opens back up in the fall, it won’t just be the space inside that will change.
The menu has also been renovated — and it now includes meat.
Yes, heresy. As the Daily Mail notes, “those who loved the plant-based values have hit out saying ‘selling meat is worse than closing.'”
However, the restaurant explained that it had no choice but to adapt, given the circumstances.
The change became a matter of contention after a Facebook post by the restaurant on Aug. 27 that didn’t explicitly mention the addition of meat to the menu.
“Our final day as The Mango Tree is approaching fast, before we close our doors for a little while, ready to open our new restaurant in the autumn — same location, same team and including some of our renowned plant based dishes, alongside exciting new menu options and a brand new vibe!” the post read.
The post added that, when the restaurant reopens, it “will be serving a variety of dishes to accommodate a wide variety of dietary needs and preferences.” This includes meat, obviously.
Vegans were horrified.
“I’m very saddened to hear this as someone who put so much energy into your restaurant I understand entirely why you are doing this but from a vegan standpoint I would see this as unethical practice,” one user wrote.
“The non vegans will probably be happy to see this but sadly I think you may have lost my business from now as I cannot support this decision wishing you the best.”
The restaurant responded by saying “continuing as a purely vegan restaurant has not been sustainable for a considerable amount of time as there are simply not enough customers supporting us in our current format.”
And, as for those who were whining about the ethics of meat-eating, management asked them to consider the ethics of putting people out of work.
“The only other option was to close permanently,” the restaurant wrote.
“Ethics extend to the jobs and welfare of our wonderful team, to whom we owe a great deal, and another chance.”
But for these carpers, the only life that matters is animal life.
“Veganism isn’t a business venture. It’s an ethical philosophy that does the best for the animals, the planet, and public health,” one user wrote.
“Introducing animal products to a menu in a town that has so many other restaurants makes no sense. It immediately increases the environmental footprint. It means that the restaurant immediately starts to support animals going through hell again.”
Not that one restaurant will change the environmental footprint — and it’s eminently clear that there aren’t enough actual humans willing to follow Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum down the primrose path to a plant-based diet.
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I've been called a Nazi for saying women don't have penises'
A women's rights campaigner says the pro-trans lobby has branded her a Nazi and made sick slurs about hoping her children develop cancer.
Kellie-Jay Keen, who founded Standing For Women, told MailOnline her events had been hit by a number of threats and warnings.
She spoke out after officers from Sussex Constabulary were alerted to a number of menacing messages against her.
They included many branding Ms Keen - who is also known as Posie Parker - a TERF and urging people to 'Fight her by any means you see fit'.
It came ahead of a planned Let Women Speak event in Brighton on September 18, which is billed as a 'Speakers' Corner tour'.
Ms Keen - a mother-of-four - has frequently attracted the ire of pro-trans activists over her views on gender rights.
She told MailOnline: 'I have been called a Nazi for saying I don’t think women have penises. Once you can portray someone as the most heinous person in society – a Nazi – I guess anything goes.
‘I have had a lot of threats over the years, I have been told about how they hope my children get cancer.
'Sadly, it’s not unusual for trans activists to issue threats about women wanting to talk about our rights – JK Rowling is a prime example of that.
‘We are subjected to a wide range of menacing messages.
‘I think the whole social media thing depersonalises people as well. We have been dehumanised by the term TERF. There are some quite disturbed people within that group, like others I guess.
‘It’s a very effective campaign that we are supposed to believe that men that want to call themselves women are the most vulnerable group in society.
‘When I was a bit younger I could walk to Tesco with my children and some man would tell me what they thought of my appearance. We as women sadly have become used to these regular infringements. I think the whole identity politics issue is a poison.
‘The event will go ahead. We have sent Sussex Police information on how many people are expected to attend. They have been really good actually.’
This is the latest development in a continuing debate over biologically born women's rights compared to those who have transitioned from a different gender.
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Federal Court Ruling on Gender Identity Upends Civil Rights Law
Leftists will make a law say anything they want it to say
In a shocking and first-of-its-kind reading of a more than 30-year-old disability law, a federal judge ruled that the distress that results from a person feeling that he or she is the wrong sex is a disability that must be accommodated under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If the opinion is left to stand, it would open the door for those who consider themselves transgender and feel clinically distressed to receive public accommodations in bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, same-sex housing, and more.
U.S. Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the majority opinion for the divided three-judge panel in Williams v. Kincaid, holding that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, gender dysphoria is a “disability.” Judge Pamela Harris joined Motz’s opinion to form the majority.
The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and in places that are open to the general public (public accommodations).
So, what is the practical impact of this decision? It means that those with gender dysphoria—an “incongruence between (someone’s) gender identity and assigned sex” that results in “clinically significant distress,” as the American Psychiatric Association defines it—are not only protected from discrimination because of that so-called disability, but they are entitled to reasonable accommodations for it.
In the case of former Fairfax County, Virginia, prisoner Kesha Williams, that “reasonable accommodation” should have, according to the court, included sending Williams (a biological male) back into the women’s prison. Williams had filed a disability discrimination claim against various prison employees alleging mistreatment while incarcerated.
However, in order to reach this conclusion, the majority had to clear one very big hurdle: the language of the ADA itself, which explicitly excludes:
(a) Homosexuality and bisexuality For purposes of the definition of “disability” in section 12102(2)?[1] of this title, homosexuality and bisexuality are not impairments and as such are not disabilities under this chapter. (b) Certain conditions Under this chapter, the term “disability” shall not include— (1) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders.
Because the statute clearly eliminates disability protections for “gender identity disorder,” Motz engaged in a contorted legal analysis to determine that gender dysphoria was not actually a gender identity disorder. To reach that conclusion, she did not look to the statute’s language at the time of its enactment, but to a much more recent change on gender-related psychiatric diagnoses—one not envisioned, anticipated, or incorporated by the ADA’s original drafters in 1990.
Motz relied heavily on a change made by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, or DSM-5, in 2013. The DSM-5 is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States.
At that time, the APA replaced “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria.” Because the change focused the diagnosis on the distress that some people who consider themselves transgender experience (and for which they may seek psychiatric, medical, and surgical treatments) instead of on a desire to be a gender other than the one they were born to, Motz determined that such a change was good enough to stretch the ADA well beyond the limits of what Congress determined it ought to originally bear.
She wrote:
In sum, the APA’s removal of the ”gender identity disorder” diagnosis and the addition of the ”gender dysphoria” diagnosis to the DSM-5 reflected a significant shift in medical understanding. The obsolete diagnosis focused solely on cross-gender identification; the modern one on clinically significant distress … Put simply, while the older DSM pathologized the very existence of transgender people, the recent DSM-5’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria takes as a given that being transgender is not a disability and affirms that a transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.
In sum: If you’re “distressed” about being transgender, then you’re entitled to all the accommodations you’d like in public life, whether in bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, or same-sex housing. The illogical conclusion, of course, is that transgender individuals who might be perfectly at ease with their underlying biological sex are not entitled to accommodations at all. As to how this will play out in modern America, one thing is for sure: It will be messy.
The court has not only established the possibility that employers, schools, prisons, hospitals, and other entities will have to make judgment calls on when an accommodation is required and when it isn’t, it also creates a loophole for those who consider themselves transgender who might want to demand future accommodations but who may not, in reality, experience any distress at all.
In his well-reasoned dissent, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum pointed out that the case was really a matter of simple statutory construction, and that the majority’s ruling wasn’t supported by the law’s text when it was enacted.
He wrote:
As Williams notes, some organizations have removed the phrase gender identity disorder from their publications altogether and clarified that distress and discomfort from identifying with a different gender from the gender assigned at birth constitutes gender dysphoria, not a gender identity disorder. But even if Williams is correct about such changes in understanding, linguistic drift cannot alter the meaning of words in the ADA when it was enacted. And at that time, the meaning of gender identity disorders included gender dysphoria as alleged by Williams … Under basic principles of statutory construction, Williams’ ADA claim should be dismissed … [W]hen the ADA was signed into law, gender identity disorder was understood to include what Williams alleges to be gender dysphoria.
While the decision only directly covers those entities within the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and West Virginia), the court’s opinion has fanned the flames of controversy over transgender rights on a greater scale. It is also a prime example of why textualism—the interpretation of the law based on the ordinary meaning of the words as they were understood at the time of the law’s enactment—matters.
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Texas Rangers Only Baseball Team Standing Strong, Refusing to Host ‘Pride Night’
There’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is, the Major League Baseball Texas Rangers “have come under enormous fire from powerful LGBT groups for not giving in and having a Pride night,” National Review’s Nate Hochman said on “Washington Watch.”
Wait a minute, you’re thinking, that sounds bad. How is that good news? Well, it’s good by comparison to the bad news: Every other MLB team (29 out of 30) has hosted a Pride night, and many do so “every single year.” Way to go for the Texas Rangers’ courageous stand against the tsunami of corporate wokeness.
Hochman “spent the last couple of weeks digging into exactly what kinds of LGBT activist groups and medical clinics MLB franchises and teams were funding under the auspices of these LGBT-themed pride nights.”
What he found makes a drag queen story hour seem like “Sesame Street.” For 20 out of the 29 teams, these Pride nights were “funding groups that were either promoting sex changes for children as young as 12 years old, or … actually providing them themselves.”
Nothing says baseball like permanently sterilizing children.
Hochman writes:
At least six of those teams promoted or funded organizations that lobby against restrictions on youth sex-change surgeries and for policies such as ‘gender-affirming’ curricula for elementary-school children and ‘trans-inclusive’ K-12 sports.
Five other team Pride Nights promoted or funded groups that provide resources for, and often actively encourage, youth sex changes. Four promoted or funded groups that write referrals for, or partner with, clinics that perform medical gender transitions—either via hormone-altering drugs, sex-change surgeries, or both—on minors.
And finally, five teams have promoted or funded clinics that do drug-induced or surgical youth gender transitions themselves.
Adding insult to injury (or, more precisely, mutilation), Hochman warns, this transgender slush money is coming straight from ticket sales. It would be bad enough if millionaire athletes dropped a few thousand dollars here and there to terrible political causes. We all expect that. But we don’t expect it when America’s most popular teams from America’s pastime siphon “tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars” straight from ballpark patrons.
Hey, dad, if you bring your son to 20 games this season, we’ll be sure his classmate gets a double mastectomy at 16 for free!
This has got to stop, but how? “Obviously, Major League Baseball is not advertising this,” said “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm, which implies that it’s vulnerable to pressure. In fact, pressure from the transgender lobby forced it into this unconscionable behavior to begin with.
“Essentially, the LGBT mafia comes and says, ‘Unless you give us money, we’re going to ruin your reputation … but if you give us money, then we’ll just go away quietly,’” suggested Backholm. That character assassination is now targeting the Texas Rangers, the final holdout.
Hochman added that MLB executives could feel pressure from both sides. “Like a lot of corporate leaders, they’re not necessarily far-left ideologues. They’re just driven by incentive structure.”
Currently, their incentives are telling them to fund LGBT groups and Pride nights. “From their perspective, they’re going to get a ton of grief … get threatened by their sponsors … get threatened by powerful activist groups,” he added. “They just figure that it’s less of a headache to fund it.”
The LGBT lobby may have the bases loaded, but conservatives can still escape a blowout by finding a way to end the inning. “It’s up to fans … who basically make up the revenue stream for the MLB, to actually push back and say that this is unacceptable,” Hochman advised. “This is America’s pastime.”
Major League Baseball is “getting away with” this “partially because I think a lot of fans just don’t have time to pay attention.” But the choice is clear: Either fans pay attention, or they’ll inadvertently pay to fund gender-transition surgeries on minors.
Hochman suggested a second prong to operate alongside fan-based pressure, to help restore MLB to its senses; namely, politics. “Ron DeSantis in Florida … demonstrated to Disney that there are going to be political consequences if they try to inflict this stuff on Florida’s children.” Stuck between political and social pressure, baseball teams might just return to playing ball.
The idea is “turning this into an actual movement,” Hochman explained, “that changes the incentive structure for organizations like the MLB, so that they realize that they’re actually going to get more grief from the right and from conservatives than they are going to get from the left and from progressives.”
Building a movement takes time, commitment, and a lot of persuasion. But it’s possible. And, to save a generation of young people from permanent, bodily harm, it’s essential.
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6 September, 2022
Insane female supremacy in Canada
Janice Fiamengo
The moment I knew we had passed over into complete Covid infantilisation occurred last May 2021, when Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s chief health officer and a much-celebrated ‘woman who led us through the pandemic’ announced that she was mulling a special British Columbia Hug Day. Those of us who had supposedly been waiting throughout the previous 14 months for government permission to hug were to be grateful for Dr. Henry’s ongoing, compassionate guidance.
For well over a year we had been instructed non-stop about distancing, self-isolating, quarantining, sheltering in place, masking, sterilising, following arrows in stores, and keeping within our ‘bubbles’. We had been sternly lectured against holiday gathering with more than 5 or 6. Some adult children kept away (or were kept away) from their parents for months, waving to them through a window pane or leaving care packages at the door; many people suffered and died alone in consequence.
Where we lived on the Fraser River in New Westminster, the city set up a taxpayer-funded ‘path monitor’ to direct foot traffic on a narrow part of a popular outdoor walkway so that no one would pass face-to-face. British Columbia health authorities even went so far as to advise using ‘glory holes’ for safe sex.
Now we were to be told when and, presumably, how we might embrace in government-approved fashion.
In the end, BC Hug Day was quietly shelved for reasons that were never made clear. It wasn’t because BC residents responded with jeers of derision, telling Covid Leader Henry to butt out of our personal decisions. At least some number of British Columbians were triggered by the announcement, fearful of being hugged without their consent and so traumatised by the pandemic that they preferred to wait months longer, if not years, before they would be psychologically ready for such contact. Their concerns were respectfully reported in a local paper.
It’s possible the government was concerned that any uptick in Covid cases would be blamed on an increase in sanctioned hugging, and thus BC’s record of stern but motherly caring would be tarnished.
Whatever the thinking, the discussion about hugging, coming on the heels of the previous 14 months of warnings, scoldings, tearful and quavering-voiced announcements, and praise of Canadians’ compliance made it crystal clear that whatever autonomy we might once have thought we possessed was a thing of the past. And this is not even to touch the state-sponsored hate-mongering, fantasies of exclusion, and mass punishments that erupted over vaccine passports a few months later.
If Covid was a war, as it was frequently depicted as being, it was one in which none of the typical masculine virtues required by war were in evidence. Gone was the valorisation of stoicism, courage, forgetfulness of self, rational risk assessment, and the curtailment of emotionalism. In their place came generalised anxiety, self-righteous vindictiveness, and the longing for (an unattainable) safety at all costs.
In his book United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis, American psychiatrist Mark McDonald noted the disappearance of men from the Covid state as a key factor in our descent into social psychosis. Of course men remained in existence, but their roles were reduced to enthusiastic compliance with even the most trivial of health rules.
As a psychiatrist with extensive clinical experience, McDonald was uniquely positioned to diagnose some of the underlying causes of Covid panic. He notes in the book that women, evolved to be hyper-attentive to the needs of infants and simultaneously aware of their own vulnerability as maternal caregivers, tend to be far more susceptible to anxiety disorders than men. Women evolved over millennia to look to men for protection of themselves and their children (p. 30-31), and men evolved to provide it.
Yet as Covid experts encouraged us all to worry about the safety of our families, with daily case counts and endless updates on (de-contextualised) death numbers, ‘men failed […] dismally in their duty to provide a sense of safety and security for the women in their lives’ (p. 41). When some women insisted fearfully on rules to protect themselves and their loved ones – even irrational rules such as outdoor masking and limitations on how children played together – men, whose traditional role has been to ‘calm and ground women’s fears’ (p. 39), either did nothing or went along. Some men, of course, led the charge.
The emasculation of men had been prepared for a long time, and under Covid it came to fruition. Men could not reassure the women in their lives or stand up to the infantilising Mother State. They could not speak out to put the Covid threat in perspective. Most of them couldn’t even decide independently whether to go to work in the morning. McDonald is well aware of the social forces that have contributed to the feminisation of men – he notes especially how ‘healthy expressions of masculinity […] have all been redefined as universally unhealthy’ (p. 52) – but even he does not fully understand the depth of the anti-male attack that prepared the ground for Covid-enforced male passivity.
For decades now, with the advent of no-fault divorce, mother-favouring custody laws, the determination to stamp out (subjectively defined) alleged sexual harassment, and the mandate to ‘Believe Women’, it has been made clear to men that their lives and careers remain intact entirely at the pleasure of feminist ideologues or potentially vengeful ex-wives. One wrong move, an inappropriate comment, a gaze that is too intense, a tone-deaf request for a date, a sexual encounter where the woman is left unhappy, or merely having married the wrong woman, can lead – and too often does lead – to the ruination of a man’s reputation, a forced psychiatric evaluation, the garnisheeing of his wages, imprisonment on false charges, and the judicial kidnapping of his children.
Scholar Stephen Baskerville has extensively documented the injustices in his devastatingly compendious Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family and his more recent The New Politics of Sex: The Sexual Revolution, Civil Liberties, and the Growth of Governmental Power. For a heartbreaking and fully researched personal account, see Greg Ellis’s The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law.
For well over 20 years, it has been made more and more difficult for men to respond as men once did, firmly and unplacatingly, because many men now know that everything they have built in their lives – and their ability to continue to build, to contribute their gifts, to live a normal life, to be a father to their children – now hinges on their avoiding the fury of a state-supported complaining woman. It is this bedrock vulnerability, the reality that even guiltless men can be imprisoned on a woman’s word and can lose their life savings and children, that more than anything else has silenced and paralysed many decent and brave men.
Of course, messaging during Covid built on this reality, reminding men every day of their status as potential wrongdoers held up for public scorn. Countless articles and reports during Covid berated men for failing to take the pandemic seriously enough, for allegedly having poor hand hygiene, for having a weaker immune system than women and thus dying or being hospitalised in higher numbers, for endangering others with their alleged carelessness. It was seen as the height of selfishness for men to want to keep their business open during lockdowns. Men (and women, though it was primarily men) who protested the lockdowns were dismissed as Yahoos by an (allegedly pro-business!) Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Over and over, Covid policies struck at the heart of masculine authority and being. It denied men the fundamental opportunity to work, to lead their communities, to make decisions for their families. And the regime wouldn’t have been so successful if it hadn’t already been the case that any man who has been paying attention over the past decades knows that he no longer controls his own life.
The pandemic demonstrated that even for a virus posing a minimal threat to the general public (see the infection fatality rate here), the new dispensation would elevate government-defined ‘safety’ as the sole good and would insist on control and compliance, eliminating individual autonomy, demonising (and in some cases criminalising) forms of dissent (even alternative forms of caring such as feeding soup to the poor), and ensuring near-total reliance on the Mother State.
Despite the tears in their eyes and the tremors in their voices, the all-caring Covid Mothers such as Bonnie Henry evince a highly selective compassion and an unabashedly partisan sense of social justice that is willing to destroy those it deems a threat.
If this is our female future, it is grotesque and terrifying to behold.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/from-canada-with-madness/
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Biden Democrats Are Not The Workingman’s Friend
In the age of Donald Trump Democrats became, not the party of the American working man, but the party of get-out-of-jail-free cards for criminals, free stuff for young urban professionals and special rights for LGTQ++ and illegal aliens.
Rather than protect American workers from low wage illegal alien competition, President Joe Biden has opened the southern border to a record number of illegal aliens.
Border Patrol agents have made about 1.82 million arrests at the southern border so far in the government’s fiscal year, which runs from October to the end of September. The number beats the record set last fiscal year, which was 1.66 million apprehensions in the year ending September 2021.
With about two months left in the agency’s fiscal year, full-year arrests are expected to break the two million mark for the first time, analysts said according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
And leading Democrats, such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have called for the abolition of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency – which would make Biden’s de facto open borders policy a permanent reality.
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has long-advocated debt-free college and the Democrats’ most influential members of Congress, such as New York Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have made free college and Medicare for all, including illegal aliens, hallmarks of their legislative agenda.
Recognizing that taking such an unpopular vote would be a suicide pact for congressional Democrats Biden is trying to use presidential emergency powers to accomplish most of that agenda. Biden’s $10,000 student loan “forgiveness” order for college-educated debtors with incomes of up to $125,000, proposed to be accomplished without a vote in Congress, tramples the Constitution and spits in the eye of working Americans who chose not to go to college or who worked to pay their loans on time.
As Kimberly Amadeo explained in an article for The Balance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics only counts people without jobs who are included in the labor force for the “U-3 rate,” that’s the “unemployment rate most often reported by the media. To be included in that calculation a worker must have looked for a job in the last four weeks to remain in the labor force.
The real unemployment rate (U-6) includes the underemployed, the marginally attached, and discouraged workers. It's usually much higher than the U-3 unemployment rate - the rate most often reported in the media. The U-6 real unemployment rate is a broader definition of unemployment than the official U-3 rate. The U-6 was 6.7% in June 2022, down from the rate of 7.1% seen in May 2022.
Millions refuse to even look for a job—resulting in a labor force participation lagging substantially below the already low pre-COVID-19 levels and forcing under-staffed businesses to hobble along while facing soaring costs. The drop in participation relative to pre-pandemic represents more than 3 million people absent from the workforce, reported Joel Griffith in a report for The Heritage Foundation.
And let’s not forget the Democrats’ war on energy jobs.
“Killing 10,000 jobs and taking $2.2 billion in payroll out of workers’ pockets is not what Americans need or want right now,” Andy Black, president and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipelines, said when Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline on day one of his administration.
Biden Democrats Are Not The Workingman’s Friend
Over the past few Labor Days, we have pointed out that while Democrats once presented themselves as the party of the working guy; pro-union, pro-American manufacturing, pro-infrastructure and anti-communist, today’s Democratic Party looks nothing like the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy.
In the age of Donald Trump Democrats became, not the party of the American working man, but the party of get-out-of-jail-free cards for criminals, free stuff for young urban professionals and special rights for LGTQ++ and illegal aliens.
Rather than protect American workers from low wage illegal alien competition, President Joe Biden has opened the southern border to a record number of illegal aliens.
Border Patrol agents have made about 1.82 million arrests at the southern border so far in the government’s fiscal year, which runs from October to the end of September. The number beats the record set last fiscal year, which was 1.66 million apprehensions in the year ending September 2021.
With about two months left in the agency’s fiscal year, full-year arrests are expected to break the two million mark for the first time, analysts said according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
And leading Democrats, such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have called for the abolition of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency – which would make Biden’s de facto open borders policy a permanent reality.
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has long-advocated debt-free college and the Democrats’ most influential members of Congress, such as New York Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have made free college and Medicare for all, including illegal aliens, hallmarks of their legislative agenda.
Recognizing that taking such an unpopular vote would be a suicide pact for congressional Democrats Biden is trying to use presidential emergency powers to accomplish most of that agenda. Biden’s $10,000 student loan “forgiveness” order for college-educated debtors with incomes of up to $125,000, proposed to be accomplished without a vote in Congress, tramples the Constitution and spits in the eye of working Americans who chose not to go to college or who worked to pay their loans on time.
As Kimberly Amadeo explained in an article for The Balance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics only counts people without jobs who are included in the labor force for the “U-3 rate,” that’s the “unemployment rate most often reported by the media. To be included in that calculation a worker must have looked for a job in the last four weeks to remain in the labor force.
The real unemployment rate (U-6) includes the underemployed, the marginally attached, and discouraged workers. It's usually much higher than the U-3 unemployment rate - the rate most often reported in the media. The U-6 real unemployment rate is a broader definition of unemployment than the official U-3 rate. The U-6 was 6.7% in June 2022, down from the rate of 7.1% seen in May 2022.
Millions refuse to even look for a job—resulting in a labor force participation lagging substantially below the already low pre-COVID-19 levels and forcing under-staffed businesses to hobble along while facing soaring costs. The drop in participation relative to pre-pandemic represents more than 3 million people absent from the workforce, reported Joel Griffith in a report for The Heritage Foundation.
And let’s not forget the Democrats’ war on energy jobs.
“Killing 10,000 jobs and taking $2.2 billion in payroll out of workers’ pockets is not what Americans need or want right now,” Andy Black, president and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipelines, said when Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline on day one of his administration.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America called Biden’s decision “both insulting and disappointing to the thousands of hard-working members who will lose good-paying, middle-class family-supporting jobs.” All-in-all some 839,000 jobs have been lost in the energy sector and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline alone cost 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 good paying union jobs.
On the national level Democrats have put stopping “climate change” ahead of jobs for coal miners – once the bedrock of the Democratic Party in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
The Biden administration proved Republicans right when announcing aggressive climate change executive actions in January 2021, with special climate envoy John Kerry using the timeworn line that “the same people can do those [green energy] jobs, but the choice of doing the solar power one now is a better choice.”
The problem is that no one is building new “green energy” facilities in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Southeastern Ohio and Wyoming coal country, leaving union miner and oil worker families little opportunity in their hometowns devastated by Democrat policies.
In almost every sector that has traditionally provided a comfortable middle-class lifestyle to America’s working families employment has plummeted.
But that shouldn’t really be a surprise, because as our friend Stephen Moore documented in an April 2021 column, to appease Democrat politicians, rank-and-file union workers are being sold out by their bosses:
Last week, the United Mine Workers of America endorsed Biden's Green New Deal. Yes, you read that right. The coal mining union bosses have embraced a proposal that outlaws coal mining.
This is about as dumb as the Pipefitters Union endorsing President Joe Biden. He repaid them with his first act as president: killing the Keystone pipeline. So, now we have the Pipefitters Union against pipelines and the coal miners union against coal.
Did anyone bother actually to ask the rank-and-file members what they thought? Can they get their union dues back?
They should. The livelihoods of more than 50,000 coal miners just got sold down the river by their union bosses.
And for what? So these miners can be given Biden welfare checks or so mining jobs, which typically pay $75,000 a year, can be replaced with solar panel installation? Ask any miner about that trade, as I have, and they will laugh in your face.
UMWA President Benedict Arnold (his real name is Cecil Roberts) conceded that his union members "may lose a few more jobs here." Still, he defended his capitulation to the Biden anti-coal radicals by saying, "We're trying to insert ourselves into this conversation because a lot of coal miners in this country and their families have suffered already some traumatic losses."
So, his solution is to make the trauma a whole lot worse thanks to the Neville Chamberlain appeasement with the green enemy fanatics of the industry.
To compound the problem, as noted above, Democrats have become the party of the illegal aliens and unlimited immigration that has suppressed the wages and destroyed the quality of life for millions of America’s working families.
More here:
https://www.conservativehq.org/post/biden-democrats-are-not-the-workingman-s-friend-1
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The freedom to uphold an unpopular opinion
by Jeff Jacoby
LORIE SMITH is a graphic artist and Web designer in Colorado who wants to expand into the field of custom-made wedding websites. Under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, such a business would be considered a "public accommodation," which may not refuse to serve customers on the basis of sexual orientation. As Colorado officials interpret the law, if Smith offered her services for weddings between men and women, she could not lawfully refuse to do so for same-sex weddings.
That's a problem for Smith. She opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and does not want to design websites promoting something she believes is wrong. Colorado acknowledges that she "will gladly create custom graphics and websites" for LGBTQ+ clients and that she objects only to using her talents to create content that violates her religious beliefs. The state maintains, however, that she may not pick and choose: If she wishes to design websites for traditional weddings, she must be willing to do so for gay and lesbian weddings.
Smith's case is now before the Supreme Court. The justices have agreed to settle a question they ducked four years ago in a similar Colorado case, that of specialty baker Jack Phillips, who was punished because he declined to design a cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. In a 7-2 decision, the high court ruled in Phillips's favor, but the opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy was very narrow. It avoided the free-speech issue, and focused instead on the overt hostility shown by Colorado officials toward Phillips's religious beliefs.
Now the court seems ready to squarely face the hard questions: Under the First Amendment, can artists and custom designers be compelled, on nondiscrimination grounds, to express a view of which they disapprove? More broadly, when an individual's right to free speech conflicts with a compelling government or social interest, which takes priority?
Though the First Amendment was ratified in 1791, it was only 80 years ago that the Supreme Court began to grapple with such questions in earnest.
In 1942, the state of West Virginia enacted a law requiring teachers and students in all public schools to regularly salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Refusal to do so, the law stipulated, would be "regarded as an act of insubordination, and ... dealt with accordingly."
Such mandates were popular — the nation was at war and patriotic sentiment was intense. There was widespread, often vicious, hostility toward anyone unwilling to pledge their loyalty to the flag. But for Jehovah's Witnesses, a nontraditional Christian sect, saluting the flag was not possible: According to their religious understanding, doing so was tantamount to idolatry. When children from Jehovah's Witness families declined to salute the flag, they were expelled from school. Officials threatened to send them to juvenile reformatories. In some cases, the parents of such children were prosecuted for causing delinquency. Witnesses' houses of worship, called Kingdom Halls, were burned. Individual believers were beaten, mutilated, or lynched.
It was against that background of intolerance that Walter Barnette, a Jehovah's Witness from Charleston whose daughters had been expelled from school, challenged the flag-salute law in federal court. The Supreme Court had previously upheld such laws as constitutional, but now it had a change of heart. Overruling its precedent, it struck down the West Virginia law as unconstitutional — not on the grounds of religious freedom but of free speech. In an epic decision, Justice Robert Jackson declared that the protection of conscience and the right of dissent went to the very core of the First Amendment — above all when the stakes were greatest.
"Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much," Jackson wrote. The real test of that freedom "is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
Then came one of the most lyrical and stirring passages ever penned in defense of free speech:
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
With those now-famous words, the Supreme Court established what scholars call the "compelled speech doctrine" — the principle that government cannot force someone to express or endorse an opinion unwillingly. Nor can the state penalize citizens for refusing to articulate or affirm a view with which they disagree.
West Virginia v. Barnette was the first great landmark in the court's compelled-speech jurisprudence. Another was the 1977 case of Wooley v. Maynard, which involved a New Hampshire couple (also Jehovah's Witnesses) who objected to displaying their state's motto, "Live Free or Die," on their license plates. When George Maynard covered up the offending words on the license plates of his family cars, he was arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to prison.
Eventually the case reached the Supreme Court. New Hampshire was ordered to stand down. "The First Amendment," declared Chief Justice Burger's majority opinion, "protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster ... an idea they find morally objectionable."
If that was true when it came to words on a license plate, a standardized text that no one would take for the personal views of a car's owner, surely the First Amendment's protection is far stronger when it comes to the uniquely expressive work of an artist, author, or custom designer. There are plenty of off-the-shelf options available for couples who want to set up a wedding website with a minimum of fuss and expense. What Smith wishes to offer is very different: websites individually tailored to each engaged couple that reflect the creativity, expression, and artistry of Smith herself. Can Colorado force her, as a condition of entering the wedding website business, to employ those talents in a way that violates her religious convictions? No more than Barnette's daughters, as a condition of attending school, could be forced to salute the flag.
If anyone was sympathetic to the competing interests at the intersection of antidiscrimination law and the right to free speech, it was Justice Kennedy. He was the author of the court's opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that the right to same-sex marriage is guaranteed by the Constitution and may not be denied by any state. Nonetheless, his decision stressed that those "who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here." He went on to underscore that the First Amendment rights of Americans who disagree with same-sex marriage must be "given proper protection" by government.
Gallup reported this month that support for same-sex marriage is now at 71 percent, an all-time high. Smith is part of a shrinking minority, her views on marriage increasingly disfavored. But the First Amendment is not in the Constitution to shelter popular opinions. It is there to make sure that people with unpopular opinions are never forced by government to deny those opinions or express a view against their will.
Colorado may disagree with Smith's ideas. But it has no right to compel her to recant. It's now up to the Supreme Court to make that clear.
https://jeffjacoby.com/26262/the-freedom-to-uphold-an-unpopular-opinion
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Trust the Science … Except Biology
From kindergarten classrooms to human resources offices to elite academic institutions, pressure is growing for Americans to ignore what’s in front of them in favor of a new version of reality that is more “inclusive” and “updated.”
Public discourse now centers on debates about whether men can become pregnant and how to define a woman. The trend is to deny scientific reality in favor of the new wave of gender ideology.
The Biden administration has taken up the torch of this ideology by trying to redefine the word “sex” to include “gender identity” in various federal statutes, including the Affordable Care Act and Title IX, causing catastrophic effects for many groups, not the least of whom are medical professionals and female athletes.
Some doctors in Texas, though, are fighting the Biden administration in court, trying to stop this reinterpretation of “sex” in the Affordable Care Act that would force them to perform harmful medical procedures on patients seeking to alter their biological sex.
Because the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, draws some of its vital language by incorporating Title IX, the law that regulates school athletics and bans discrimination “on the basis of sex,” it necessarily affects Title IX and female athletics. That, in turn, led a group of female athletes to file a brief in support of the doctors’ case opposing the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine sex in federal law.
Doctors and female athletes have good reason to be worried.
Reinterpreting “sex” in these federal statutes would erode the basic biology that forms the foundation for science and medicine. For instance, forcing doctors to pretend that a patient cannot have prostate cancer because the patient identifies as a female will put health care professionals in an impossible situation.
And remember, this is not about ensuring access to particular procedures—some doctors do that willingly. This is about the Biden administration’s forcing doctors to get in line with an extreme political agenda, even if it means violating their conscience and forsaking their medical judgment.
And, as many now know, gender ideology also is changing the landscape of women’s sports. In 1972, Congress created Title IX to provide equal opportunities for women in education. Title IX then paved the way for women to have their own sports teams, and the next 50 years led to generations of women holding their own in sports competition.
College athlete Maddie Dichiara is one such woman who has benefited from Title IX. She has joined the growing chorus of female athletes who are concerned that the Biden administration is threatening the very existence of women’s sports.
Dichiara plays soccer for the University of Houston on a full scholarship. But the recent shift to include gender identity in the definition of “sex” already has begun to threaten the benefits that Maddie and thousands of other women enjoy.
The devastating consequence of allowing men to compete in women’s sports was probably most strikingly visible when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas handily won the women’s 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Division I Championships.
Thomas, who used to swim for a male team, beat two former Olympians in the same race. Some observers said Thomas hardly tried. But the women in the pool knew they were racing for second place.
Chelsea Mitchell, a Connecticut high school track standout, faced a similar situation when she was forced to compete against two males. Mitchell was one of the fastest women in the state and secured eight state championships. She would have won 12, if not for the males who breezed by her to come in first place.
It’s personal for Mitchell and Dichiara, who both joined the legal effort to support the doctors’ case in Texas. Allowing males to compete in women’s sports strips women of the opportunity to be champions.
This harmful gender narrative doesn’t affect only doctors and athletes, though. It endangers private female spaces. Once New Jersey agreed to house inmates according to how they identify, a male who identified as female impregnated two female inmates.
Or take homeless shelters that house women who have escaped from sex trafficking or have been abused by men. Redefining “sex” and allowing men to access a delicate, women’s-only space can endanger women mentally and physically. That threat almost materialized in Anchorage, Alaska, but for legal action by Alliance Defending Freedom.
Until a few years ago, everyone could agree on at least a few basic truths. Now, Americans are being told to ignore reality and the basic biological differences between males and females.
The Biden administration’s radical gender ideology agenda will endanger medical professionals, destroy women’s opportunities, and silence opposing viewpoints. Thankfully, female athletes such as Maddie Dichiara and Chelsea Mitchell are taking the lead to return us to the reality that this administration won’t acknowledge.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/30/trust-the-science-except-biology/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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5 September, 2022
Where the modern concept of "Patriarchy" comes from
Most traditional societies are patriarchal. The formal authorities in such cultures are usually older men, and to some extent men generally. Modern Western feminists have adopted the term out of a belief that authority in our societies is similarly based, even though the concepts and values of modern society are very different. And feminists condemn what they think they see
Their objections to it would be incomprehensible in traditional societies and not well accepted even in some Southern European societies. So it is remarkable that something so strongly embedded in human society generally can be found to be obnoxious.
So is the modern western concept maladaptive? We have to suspect so. It is at least a large exaggeration of what happens in our society. Relationships in our society are very different from the traditional model. And is that an advance? Perhaps not. Traditional societies could have something to teach us about human relationships. A feminist minority may not be giving us a reliable guide to the good life
Feminist theory is based on Western cultural ideas. The ideas of equality, and power and human rights stem directly from Thomas Aquinas and John Mills and Elizabeth Cody Stanton. These are distinctly Western ideas. Other cultures emphasize different values about tradition, responsibility and duty.
This is a trend in Western History. We assume that our cultural values are Universal. That our ideas and values should apply in indigenous cultures, and that we have the right, or the duty, or the Manifest Destiny to spread our culture globally.
Patriarchy exists only as an American political narrative. Pushing our politics on indigenous cultures, or worse assuming that indigenous cultures exist to validate American political values is disrespectful.
Smashing the Patriarchy and indigenous cultures
Most politically liberal Americans now condemn the practice of Indian Schools. I think most people know that Indian schools existed in the United States and Canada in the 1800s. But no one is brave enough to consider what they were really about.
Indian schools were created to eliminate parts of indigenous culture that troubled progressive White people. Part of this was to eliminate polygamy.
300 years ago many indigenous cultures in North America and elsewhere practiced polygamy where adolescent girls were given to established (generally older men). Assuming you accept that these indigenous societies had functional and meaningful cultures, you have to accept that their customs were appropriate within this cultural environment. This is not acceptable in Western culture, but Western standards aren’t global truths.
You no longer hear about polygamy among Native Americans. Indian schools, as much as they are now hated, were a success at eliminating a practice we White people find troubling.
“Smashing the Patriarchy” means eliminating traditional cultural practices. This is fine if we want to demolish established cultural norms in our own culture.
Are you really comfortable smashing the Patriarchy when it comes to indigenous cultures?
The problem with global truth
Western culture is the dominant culture. We have successfully destroyed cultures and we are still pushing our values as if they represent some absolute truth that will save the world.
Being the global savior gets weird. White feminists see themselves in the odd position of protecting indigenous women from indigenous men. We have wiped out indigenous cultures who had their own ideas and values. And now we will save them with our values we see as more enlightened.
I am happy to have a discussion about the evils of whatever you are calling “Patriarchy” in our own culture. Probably these discussions are appropriate in the US, Australia and any other English-speaking former colony of the British Empire. We share a history. We share ideas. And, we share a legacy of domination and colonization.
But for God’s sake, leave indigenous cultures out of it. You don’t have a right to pass moral judgement on these cultures that you don’t really know anything about. And these cultures had their own beliefs, values and practices that were valuable in their own right.
https://medium.com/@max.dancona/the-patriarchy-versus-indigenous-cultures-5497deeef156
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Chileans resoundingly reject insane far-Left new constitution
With 99 per cent of the votes counted in Sunday's vote, the rejection camp had 61.9 per cent support compared to 38.1 per cent for approval
Conceding defeat, approval camp spokesman Vlado Mirosevic said "we recognise this result and we listen with humility to what the Chilean people have expressed."
The rejection was widely expected as pre-election polls showed that Chileans had grown wary of the proposals.
The draft constitution was drawn up by a constituent assembly in which a majority of delegates were not affiliated with a political party.
Carlos Salinas, a spokesman for the Citizens' House for Rejection, said the majority of Chileans saw the rejection as "a path of hope."
"We want to tell the government of President Gabriel Boric … that today you must be the president of all Chileans, and together we must move forward," he said.
Despite the broad expectations of defeat, no analyst or pollster had predicted such a large margin for the rejection camp.
The proposed document was the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates.
However, critics said it was too long, lacked clarity and went too far in some of its measures.
Proposals included characterising Chile as a plurinational state, establishing autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritising the environment and gender parity.
"The constitution that was written now leans too far to one side, and does not have the vision of all Chileans," said Roberto Briones, 41, after voting in Chile's capital, Santiago.
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America’s Marxist-Left Has Disturbing Nazi Socialism Parallels
The Democrats are brainwashed under a liberal umbrella that just keeps sinking them deeper into what is termed mass formation psychosis. It really ramped up in America under Obama’s watch, but it all dates back to a powerful and evil little dude named Adolf Hitler.
Remember, the majority of German citizens were also brainwashed by Hitler’s propaganda, and after WWII, the rest of the world wondered how all these German citizens, many of whom were highly educated, got so brainwashed and apathetic toward the Holocaust during the Nazi reign of terror. How did it happen?
Simple answer: They were under the spell of mass formation psychosis. They agreed that killing off certain races/creeds/quality of humans would cleanse the world and heal the ailing German economy. The main targets were Jews, Blacks, gays, autistic children, the elderly and anyone with a handicap.
Similarly, the liberal youth of today, coupled with the adults who watch CNN and read the newspaper, are the epitome of the fully-brainwashed extremists who would gladly watch Republicans and Conservatives who voted for Trump be slow-walked into the gas chambers or shot in the head twice for being “fascists,” or “white supremacists,” or whatever other scapegoat name they slap on us all.
It’s a cultural tyranny and there’s no way to talk these folks out of their psychosis, because the media has told them the same lies for so long, they all believe them wholeheartedly.
Most democrats today are EXTREME liberals, even if they don’t identify themselves as such. They believe Trump is a terrorist who sent his minions to Washington DC and the capital building on January 6, 2020, to hang Mike Pence if he did not push for an election investigation and electoral college accountability review. These extremist also believe everything the CDC lied about regarding the Fauci Flu. They are all under complete and utter hypnosis, and nothing any conservative person or organization tells them gets processed or internalized whatsoever by them. Their brainwashed mind is made up.
The extreme Left (nearly all Democrats today) are a huge cult that’s been trained to hate America, hate white people, hate straight people, hate all Russians, hate all Republicans, hate anyone without a COVID mask on, and hate anyone who criticizes the violence and hatred projected by BLM and Antifa. To them, we are all “white supremacists” and “conspiracy theorists” who want “dictator Trump” to rule the country like a tyrant.
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Fascism: Those who live in glass houses ...
The other day, President Joe Biden accused voters of the opposition party of turning to “semi-fascism.” This is probably the first time in American history a president has openly attacked the opposing party’s constituents in this way.
Then again, Biden, who once alleged that the chaste Mitt Romney was harboring a desire to bring back chattel slavery, is prone to stupid hyperbole.
And it’s true that most people who throw around the word “fascist” fail to do so with much precision.
These days, the word “democracy,” like “fascism,” has lost all meaning. According to Democrats, asking someone to show ID before voting is an attack on “democracy,” but so is the Supreme Court’s handing back power to voters on the abortion issue.
When you have no limiting principles of governance, anything that inhibits your exertion of power is seen as anti-“democracy.” If students have loans to be repaid, “forgive” them. If you can’t pass a bill, the executive branch should do it by fiat. If the court stops it, pack it.
Power is only to be limited when the opposition holds it.
A microcosm of this confused thinking can be found in the recent spate of hysterical media pieces about alleged Republican “book banning.” The use of “ban” by the media is more than a category error; it’s an effort to paint parents who use the very same exact democratic powers the left has relied on for decades as book burners.
Public school curricula and book selection are political questions decided by school and library boards. Neither have a duty to carry every single volume on racial identitarianism or sexually explicit material simply demanded by some busybody at the American Library Association.
Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes that fascists “believed that multiparty democracy weakened the nation, and that competitive capitalism was wasteful and exploitative. Their alternative was a one-party state that guided the economy through regulation and sector-based accords between labor and business.”
Well, is it not the left that champions government intervention in the economy, with never-ending regulations, subsidies, and mandates that effectively allow for controlling the means of production?
Leftists—some incrementally, some less so—are the proponents of nationalizing the health care system, the energy sector, and education. Again, if progressives have any limiting principles when it comes to intervention in our economic lives, I’d love to hear about them.
Are the most vociferous defenders of “democracy” not the ones who sound suspiciously like they want a one-party state? Modern Democrats have stopped debating policy or accepting the legitimacy of anyone who stands in their way.
They will pass massive, generational reforms using parliamentary tricks, without any input from the minority. And they don’t merely champion their work as beneficial; they claim these bills are needed for the survival of “democracy” and “civilization”—nay, the survival of the planet.
Anyone who opposes saving Mother Earth is surely an authoritarian. There is nothing to debate. The villainization of political opponents isn’t new, but we are breaking new ground.
Some may find it a bit fascist-y that the FBI feels free to instruct giant rent-seeking corporations to censor news to help elect their preferred candidate, as it did with Facebook. Or that the White House is in the business of “flagging” “problematic posts” and threatening corporations to “root out” “misleading” speech or be held accountable.
One wouldn’t be off-base seeing a “Disinformation Governance Board” that sifts through speech the administration dislikes or a Justice Department that treats those protesting authoritarian school boards as “domestic terrorists” as “semi-fascist.”
It is curious, as well, that the same people who control basically all major institutions in American life—academia, media, unions, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, trade associations, public schools, publishing, the entire D.C. bureaucracy, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, not to mention the presidency and Congress—claim to be victims of budding authoritarianism.
The only major institution free of progressives’ grip right now is the Supreme Court. And the left is engaged in a systematic effort to delegitimize the court for doing its job and limiting the state’s power.
None of this is to say that the right is innocent. I often find myself debating the populist right on issues ranging from the free markets to the role of the state.
Abuses of the Constitution should be called out, no matter who engages in them. However, progressivism’s crusade to destroy the separation of powers, its attacks on religious freedom and free speech, its undermining of civil society, its binding of the economy to the state, and its fostering of perpetual dependency and victimhood are far bigger long-term threats to the republic than Trumpism—and far closer to the definition of “semi-fascism” than the Republican agenda.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/09/02/who-are-you-calling-fascist-mr-president/
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The jackboot trampling Australians
George Orwell once wrote: ‘All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.’
He was someone who knew intimately the danger he was warning against, and also rightly said – even more ominously – via 1984:
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.
Sadly this is no longer just the stuff of fiction and dystopian novels. Our Orwellian overlords have done extremely well in keeping the masses under their jackboots by hyping up fear, panic, and paranoia over a virus. Two years of lockdown hell – especially here in Melbourne – has taken its toll. Many broken lives, and many lost lives – due to suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, business collapse, and so on – have been the ugly result.
I never want to go through all that again, as would be the case with all freedom-loving citizens who have had a gut-full of the Big State doing its best to emulate Big Brother. Thankfully, it is more or less over – or so it seems. But just as a rapacious carnivore wants ever more, after having gotten a taste for blood, so too our statists have loved the power and control they so easily were able to get over the past few years.
They do not want to give it up. Indeed, they want more.
A whole new era has been ushered in, and it is not just most politicians who love it so. Plenty of folks at the top of the food chain have been rubbing their hands with glee as they see their new world order so nicely coming about. It has been a dream run.
Here down under our power-hungry premiers are still intoxicated by their newfound powers. They not only want to stay in complete control over the masses but they want to punish any and all recalcitrants who have dared to not bow down and worship them and their draconian edicts.
Consider two recent examples of this. This is what the tyrants in Queensland are now up to:
Queensland’s Education Department is docking the pay of 900 school staff who did not get the Covid vaccine, saying that ignoring the mandate put others at risk. Staff members including teachers, teacher aides, administration staff, cleaners and school officers will have a ‘small-scale temporary reduction of one increment of pay’ for 18 weeks, the department said.
‘Approximately $25-$90 per week gross, proportionate to the normal pay that a staff member receives,’ a spokesperson from the department said. ‘The disciplinary penalty imposed on staff are individualised to each person’s circumstances.’ The staff received a letter this week informing them about the decision, however a 20-week period had been flagged with them.
The letter stated the action was ‘appropriate’ for the severity of the matter and hoped staff would follow future directions. A direction from the state’s Chief Health Officer required school staff to be vaccinated against Covid from November last year, but the decision was revoked in June and staff have since returned to the workplace.
Talk about dictatorship in action: ‘You will be punished for refusing our orders. You will be made an example of. You will suffer for this.’ As if they have not suffered already. Thankfully, there has been a little bit of pushback to this.
The article also says this:
Teachers Professional Association of Queensland secretary Tracy Tully said impacted teachers had been informed earlier this year they would face disciplinary action for not complying. ‘Whilst they were on suspended leave without pay, they received a letter saying that they are advising that there would be some disciplinary action, but they weren’t sure what it would be,’ she said.
‘By doing that, it actually puts people into a high state of alert and fear.’ Ms Tully said the teachers had already been penalised financially. ‘The teachers have already been disciplined by being stood down without pay,’ she said. Ms Tully said some teachers would appeal the decision with the Industrial Relations Commission.
University of Sydney social scientist specialising in vaccines Professor Julie Leask said the reduced pay policy was from a time when high vaccination coverage was crucial to reduce transmission but was now ‘outdated’. ‘It is unlikely to achieve what these policies should be trying to achieve, which is either to encourage vaccination or to ensure that others are protected from transmission,’ she said. Professor Leak said these policies only ‘alienate and drive mistrust’. ‘This policy appears to be more of an anger-based policy than an evidence-based,’ she said.
But another state is also getting in on the persecution, making life even more difficult for all those rebellious lepers there. As one news item reports:
WA Police say more than 50 officers are facing disciplinary action over their refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19 – as a legal challenge against the state’s vaccine mandates by one of their own was comprehensively rejected by a WA Supreme Court judge. Ben Falconer has spent almost nine months fighting against the mandates issued by WA Police to all its workers late last year – a battle that took so long that the mandates were lifted in the meantime.
That battle was lost on three fronts on Tuesday, when Justice Jeremy Allanson methodically picked apart arguments around irrationality, proportionality and bodily integrity. ‘It was not, in the words of counsel for the applicant, a maelstrom in a petri dish. The measures that were taken are undoubtedly extraordinary, but that does not establish that they lacked rationality so as, for that reason, to be beyond power,’ Justice Allanson said.
More Statist thuggery in action. As one social media mate of mine said:
Now that Ben Falconer lost his case, they want to punish everyone who didn’t agree to be force vaccinated. Disgraceful to ever mandate a vaccine, let alone a total blunder that doesn’t even prevent transmission, let alone everything we’ve learned since even then, but to go after them at this stage is just shameful. Let’s just keep making the wound bigger even after the threat has passed, and make sure our law enforcement officers know that their value is 0. Total shambles.
Quite right. All dictators thrive on fear, intimidation, and bullying. These Labor premiers – and others like them – have become experts in this. And the really scary thing is what we are seeing down under is no different from what we see in Communist China with its social credit system: good behaviour and good thought (as determined by the State) will be rewarded; bad behaviour and bad thought will be punished.
China and Australia are much closer than we thought – and in more ways than one.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/where-the-jackboot-never-fades/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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3 September, 2022
How common is crime committed by blacks?
Steve QJ, writing below, is a black writer who is generally well-informed. He makes a point below that most conservatives would applaud: That people should be judged as individuals, not as members of some identity group. What he fails to note, however is where the identity group obsession mostly comes from: The political Left. It is the Left who lump people into groups and fail to allow for individual differences.
Sadly, to rebut Leftist generalizations, conservatives often have to talk in the same terms. Leftist thinking is dominant so Leftist generalizations are often accepted and used, if only to rebut them.
Steve himself has to talk in such terms to make his basic point: That blacks make up a large PERCENTAGE of serious crimes but the NUMBER of blacks who commit serious crimes is relatively low. Most blacks do not commit serious crimes.
Incessant media coverage of violent crime creates the impression that it is common. It is in face relatively rare. And that includes crimes committed by blacks
It’s hard to imagine a more polarising cultural moment than the OJ Simpson murder trial.
A beloved black celebrity stands accused of murdering his blonde-haired, blue-eyed wife and her “friend.” A hotshot black lawyer steps up to defend him. A racist detective stands as a key witness in front of a majority black jury. And the whole thing unfolds less than 3 years after the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King half to death.
OJ’s trial sat right at the intersection of lingering questions about race, justice, class and fame. By the time the verdict was announced, most of the public seemed to forget that two people had been murdered.
Instead, it became a proxy war between black and white America.
A Los Angeles county poll (which closely reflected sentiments nationwide) found that, despite the evidence, 77% of African American residents agreed with OJ’s not-guilty verdict. Only 28% of white residents felt the same way.
Writing for the New Yorker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. quotes Wynton Marsalis, who compared the divide to sports fans arguing about their favourite teams:
You want your side to win, whatever the side is going to be. And the thing is, we’re still at a point in our national history where we look at each other as ‘sides.’
But Dave Chappelle, as he often does, summed it up best in this skit from Chappelle’s Show:
Lawyer: Mr Chappelle, are you suggesting that because one of the detectives is a possible racist, and because there may have been some minor oversights in the investigation, it completely lets OJ off the hook?
Chappelle: EXACTAMUNDO! The defence rests sir.
Lawyer: Mr Chappelle…will you at least admit that OJ more than likely killed his wife?
Chappelle: …sir, my blackness will not permit me to make a statement like that.
Black people are used to being seen as a monolith. At times, it was even useful to see ourselves this way.
Black-owned banks offered loans to black people when no others would do so. Black communities pooled their resources to help each other survive during segregation. Black residents banded together to fight discriminatory practices in their cities.
Black solidarity has served as a refuge from the sense of being an outsider. A support in times of strife and hardship. A defence, as John Dilulio Jr put it, against the fear generated by every young black male not wearing a tie or handcuffs.
So it’s uncomfortable when somebody challenges the instinct to cover for each other, as Barrington Martin II does in this Twitter thread:
I’m gonna go ahead and say it…there is a certain sect of American blacks in our country that do most of the crime and cause most of the crime we see everywhere […] There are types of these people within EVERY race but this specific group is the most problematic (based on statistics).
However, [because] our society is so obsessed with race, especially race relations of the past, this group is cloaked by the entire American black race when they shouldn’t be & they are lumped in with the rest of the American blacks, when they shouldn’t be.
This is a bold statement to make publicly in 2022, but it isn’t a new one.
Chris Rock famously made the same point 26 years ago in his Bring the Pain comedy special:
There’s like a civil war going on with black people. And there’s two sides; there are black people, and there’s ni**as. And ni**as have got to go. […] I love black people, but I hate ni**as.
Tupac made it 28 years ago in this interview for BET:
The main thing for us to remember is that the same crime element that white people are scared of, black people are scared of […] Just ‘cos we black, we get along with the killers or something? We get along with the rapists ‘cos we black and we from the same hood?
The comments beneath Martin’s tweet too, are littered with people who recognise the problem. But if you’ve spent any time following mainstream racial discourse, you’ll notice that hardly anybody dares talk about it. Some claim that even acknowledging the existence of “black crime” is “loaded and controversial”.
But let’s think about this.
If you have spent any time following racial discourse, you’ll have heard that black people, who make up roughly 14% of the U.S. population, commit around 51% of the homicides. In 2019, that equalled a total of 4078 homicides by black people. But even if each of those murders was committed by a different black person (i.e. if there were no repeat offenders), that’s only 0.008% of the 46.8 million African Americans.
As Barrington points out, this tiny minority is being cloaked by all the black people in America. And worse, thanks to decades of stereotypes and TV shows about black criminality, this minority is treated as if it represents black people as a whole. And so, most progressives simply pretend it‘s not happening.
But do you know who can’t pretend it’s not happening? The black people who live in those communities. The parents of the children who are being killed by that 0.008%. The people for whom black lives matter regardless of who pulls the trigger.
But the tragedy is that their voices get lost in the noise. Because we’re still at a point where we look at each other as “sides.”
There’s nothing wrong with community. There’s nothing wrong with “reppin’ for your team.” There’s nothing wrong with solidarity.
But there are no gangsters in my community. There are no murderers on my team. I feel no solidarity with people who kill innocent black men, women and children, regardless of the colour of their skin.
Because there’s no such thing as “black” crime. There’s just crime. And the belief that it’s racist to talk about it only makes sense of you think crime is a “black” problem.
Yes, some black people, through no fault of their own, are practically born into a life of crime. Yes, poverty and disenfranchisement lead people of all “races” toward crime. Yes, some people will use any mention of a black person committing a crime to claim that black people are criminals by nature.
But does that mean we should say that the 99.99% of black people who made better choices, despite facing similar obstacles, just got lucky? Should we say that the actions of a tiny percentage of criminals are a reflection on the millions of decent, law-abiding black people? Should we say that it’s more important to give cover to criminals than to give a voice to the victims of their crimes?
Sorry, my blackness will not permit me to make a statement like that.
https://steveqj.medium.com/the-illusion-of-blackness-e3ddf57cf3e0
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Homeland Security’s ‘Equity Action Plan’ Doubles Down on Discrimination
As many federal agencies under the Biden administration have done, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented a so-called Equity Action Plan.
Pursuant to Executive Order 13985—“Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government”—the DHS Equity Action Plan includes a number of provisions that fly in the face of anti-discrimination laws, to say nothing of human decency.
The equity plan agenda serves to discriminate based on skin color, among other things. The sort of discrimination and divisiveness inherent in race-based and other so-called equity-based policies are a violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” and the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition of “discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”
The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security is at the helm of making sure this agenda is implemented the way the Biden administration desires.
That office is supposed to counter discrimination, not encourage and incite it. It says it supports “the Department’s mission to secure the nation while preserving individual liberty, fairness, and equality under the law” and that “CRCL builds in civil rights and civil liberties practices into all of the Department’s activities … .”
Its current role and actions say otherwise, and amount to not only a complete dereliction of duty, but the furthering of an agenda in opposition to the civil rights they were intended to protect.
The seven “key program areas” in the Equity Action Plan continue to play out in discriminatory ways.
“Applying for Naturalization” is one of the areas under which DHS has been throwing away already limited resources in favor of “gender markers” projects.
“Gender markers on USCIS forms and secure documents, including the Certificate of Naturalization and the Certificate of Citizenship” to “incorporate the use of inclusive language that respects gender identities, including gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals” is one of the top seven priorities for DHS “equity.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has an 8.5 million case backlog, yet at the expense of those applicants, many of whom have been waiting for years, the agency is using its time and effort to add various gender options to immigration benefits paperwork at the direction of the DHS.
“Bidding on DHS Contracts” is an area in which the department’s plan reveals its habit of giving an unfair leg up only to preferred businesses or organizations.
It unabashedly “[focuses] additional outreach efforts on underserved communities” with an “aim to address the identified barriers by improving awareness of available opportunities and navigating the contracting process in general, particularly for underserved communities … .”
The DHS is openly holding the hands of potential contractors of its choosing and, in its own words, “navigating the contracting process” for them.
The DHS should not be prioritizing particular groups in such a way that elevates them above others and gives them an unfair advantage in bidding processes. True civil rights and civil liberties are about fair and equal treatment, not special treatment for minority groups.
“Countering all forms of terrorism and targeted violence” is one of the seven areas in which the DHS does not simply elevate certain groups unfairly, but targets groups negatively in a disproportionate way.
It states in the plan that “[domestic violent extremists] are motivated by various factors, including racial bias, perceived government overreach, conspiracy theories promoting violence, and false narratives about unsubstantiated fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”
“Among DVEs, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, including white supremacists … will likely remain the most lethal DVE movement in the Homeland,” it says.
This hyperfocus on white supremacy is nothing new. President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, among others, continually say that domestic violent extremism, and specifically white supremacy, is the “most lethal terrorist threat” to the homeland, despite the evidence showing otherwise.
We know federal agencies have no problem identifying various innocent, patriotic sayings and symbols as indicators of “violent extremism.”
The DHS is clearly targeting those it labels as “white supremacist threats” and ignoring the most obvious, disastrous threats to the homeland, such as the open-border crisis.
Despite being intentionally out of touch with reality, the DHS has no problem touting its equity plan. In fact, the department is proud of it.
It tracks “DHS Equity Accomplishments,” has a DHS Equity Task Force, and holds public feedback and stakeholder engagement listening sessions, during which it prides itself on the “progress” it has made and excitedly brags about how much more it plans to do to drive stakes of division deeper into our institutions.
The left doesn’t care about equity when it comes to the nation’s capital blocking 40% of black children from attending school over their failure to get the COVID-19 vaccine, or when biological women’s rights are infringed by transgender “women” because those civil rights complaints and violations don’t fit its narrative.
But just as it did with the since-abandoned Disinformation Governance Board, the Biden administration has no problem politicizing federal agencies and task forces to achieve radical political outcomes and to further divisive, strong-arm policies.
The Biden administration must end its divisive, damaging, and discriminatory “equity” agenda.
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China hysteria
Could I be the model communist shill? Consider these facts: I was born and raised in China. I speak and read Chinese. Some question my English accent, almost suspiciously posh given that I didn’t speak a word of the language until the age of ten. Before the pandemic, I visited China regularly. My podcast, Chinese Whispers, often explains the Chinese government’s way of looking at things. I studied at Oxford and now work at the heart of the British establishment. Am I not ideally placed to advance Beijing’s agenda?
When I started my career, this was all a joke. Now it’s less of one. The atmosphere in Britain towards China has soured. Over the past seven years, the government has gone from David Cameron’s kowtowing to Beijing to Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss jostling to out-hawk each other. Some of our political class are now applying a new test: will you condemn China at every turn? If not, you’re probably an apologist. There seem to be only two categories: hawk or shill, with no shade in between. The S-word is thrown around with alarming frequency. It doesn’t matter whether you’re actually working for the Chinese Communist party; the point is, you may as well be. As Oxford’s Rana Mitter, perhaps Britain’s foremost academic expert on China, puts it: ‘We’ve gone from complacency to panic without the intervening stage of knowledge.’
I don’t deny that China poses a real challenge. In fact, on this I’m probably aligned with Steve Bannon, who said that the West should be more concerned about Beijing than Moscow. The CCP does plant shills. MI5 is right to warn about politicians taking dirty money from individuals linked to the United Front, which works to capture foreign elites and overseas Chinese. We also need to be clear-eyed about the lobbying efforts from major Chinese companies such as Huawei and question the role played by CCP-funded organisations such as Confucius Institutes.
But that makes it even more important to understand China properly, which is different from empathising or excusing. We need to know the answer to questions such as: how does the Chinese government work? Who are the major influencers within the CCP? What do the Chinese really think? Yet some of us trying to answer those questions – rather than just campaigning against the CCP’s evils – fail the ideological purity test.
Take the Great Britain China Centre, an arm’s-length body of the Foreign Office founded in 1974 which supports liberal minds in China to push through legal reform. It has also been crucial in helping British politicians and civil servants learn about China. It regularly hosts experts to explain, for instance, what Beijing is doing in Xinjiang or how Chinese propaganda works. Officials from the Chinese government are sometimes guests, offering rare opportunities for our politicians to speak to – and challenge – their elusive CCP counterparts.
But as was revealed in June by The Spectator’s Steerpike columnist, the Great Britain China Centre may have to close, because Liz Truss has refused to renew its funding in one of her final acts as Foreign Secretary. The official reason given is ‘budget cuts’. It’s true that it never quite made sense to finance this Belgravia thinktank from the overseas aid budget, but it was only asking for £500,000 and some other pot of money could have been found. Those close to Truss tell me the real reason is that she sees it as a ‘China shill organisation’. It is too cosy with Beijing, says Team Truss, pointing to the meetings with CCP officials as evidence.
Here again is the insidious S-word. Calling someone a ‘shill’ means you don’t need to engage with their arguments. No matter that the centre has always been funded and directed by the Foreign Office (as well as other governments in the Five Eyes group, and corporate sponsors such as HSBC). Or that its director, Merethe Borge MacLeod, spent a decade in Beijing running a Swedish NGO specialising in human rights. She left at a time when foreign charities were increasingly targeted by Xi Jinping’s regime. She is more capable than most of pointing out China’s transgressions.
Anyone who writes about China is used to a little name-calling. I don’t usually mind it. I think it good banter to joke with people I know about how I’ve just received the day’s orders from the embassy. They don’t really think I’m a spy – or at least, I don’t think they do. But it’s no longer funny when real China experts are pushed out and their impartiality questioned just because what they say doesn’t fit a certain worldview.
In the Cold War, Whitehall was filled with spies and Russia experts. It was recognised that it was important for Britain to understand the USSR. People such as Alan Bennett and Michael Frayn were taught Russian during their military service. ‘Know thy enemy’ is surely one of the fundamental maxims of international relations, yet at this critical moment, Britain simply doesn’t understand China.
Last year, The Spectator revealed that there are just 41 diplomats in the Foreign Office who speak fluent Mandarin. A recent study found that, in the UK, there are only 300 graduates of Chinese language each year, a number that hasn’t risen since 1999. Who would train in China Studies if there were no jobs at the other end of it? If China is Britain’s number one threat, as Sunak puts it, then we should be doubling, even tripling the funding for organisations like the Great Britain China Centre. Even Tom Tugendhat, who has been sanctioned by the CCP, has written to the FCDO to protest the centre’s closure.
John Gerson, who was Margaret Thatcher’s adviser on China, told me his theory of the ‘Tiger Woods trap’: ‘When you fall asleep at the wheel and wake up to find traffic coming head-on, a massive overcorrection will land you into the nearest tree.’ Gerson doesn’t think Westminster is there yet, but I’m afraid I see some serious swerving. I just hope there’s still time to steer back.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/id-be-the-perfect-communist-shill/
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UK: Jacob Rees-Mogg axes more than 250 ‘woke’ Civil Service training courses
Jacob Rees-Mogg has ordered more than 250 “woke” training courses to be scrapped after launching a crackdown on Civil Service “indoctrination”.
The Cabinet Office minister has axed 60 per cent of the wellness, inclusion and diversity courses available to civil servants in his department, and has written to other ministers urging them to do the same.
The courses scrapped include motivational sessions entitled “Find Your Mojo”, “Give Me Strength” and “Buddy to Boss”. They also include courses Mr Rees-Mogg claimed were “indoctrinating” civil servants with “divisive ideological agendas” such as instruction in micro-aggressions and micro-behaviours.
A course delivered by the Behavioural Insights Team – also known as the Nudge Unit – entitled “De-biasing Decision-making” has also been scrapped.
An online description says it “enables participants to use behavioural insights to counter cognitive biases in government and make better calibrated decisions and judgments, ultimately resulting in better project planning, delivery and policy outcomes”.
But Mr Rees-Mogg dismissed the courses as a waste of taxpayers’ money and civil servants’ time, telling The Telegraph: “We cannot make taxpayers pay for civil servants to take courses with names like ‘Find Your Mojo’, ‘Buddy to Boss’ or ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’.
“Courses like this are being scrapped so that civil servants can develop genuinely useful skills instead of being indoctrinated in the divisive ideological agendas that have permeated some of these courses.”
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2 September, 2022
Free inquiry gives way to ideology in annals of science
Last month, one of the world’s leading science journals, Nature Human Behaviour, issued a decree stating that scientific research would be suppressed at the journal if it had the potential to harm the public.
The new guidance, titled “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”, was announced on Twitter on August 23 by chief editor Stavroula Kousta, who issued the chilling edict: “Some argue that we should evaluate such research only on the basis of its scientific soundness and merit. I disagree.”
The guidance states: “Although the pursuit of knowledge is a fundamental public good, considerations of harm can occasionally supersede the goal of seeking or sharing new knowledge, and a decision not to undertake or not to publish a project may be warranted.”
It is less than 100 years since the last Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books) was issued by the Catholic Church, the greatest project in censorship the world has known.
For 400 years, the Vatican suppressed knowledge that its cardinals deemed immoral and potentially harmful to the public, including knowledge such as the heliocentric model of the solar system and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.
The church’s index of banned books was so extensive that it encompassed the complete works of classical philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, the literary treasures of Homer and Virgil, indispensable works of history by Thucydides and Edward Gibbon, and foundational philosophical and scientific texts by Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Pascal, Bacon, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Spinoza, Hobbes, Erasmus, Hume, Milton and Locke. The church finally stopped issuing its index in 1948. And 74 years later, few people could have predicted the project of censoring knowledge would be taken up by scientific journals themselves.
We expect our scientific institutions to implement policies and procedures to minimise possible harms to participants who are directly involved in scientific research. And strict rules exist to protect research participants, and have existed for decades. Oversight of research is conducted by ethics committees that are attached to every university and organisation that produces peer-reviewed research.
Yet this new guidance from Nature takes the approach of harm minimisation to a new frontier – arguing potential harms to the public must be prevented also. And the gatekeepers who will decide which knowledge is harmful to the public are the journal editors themselves.
“People can be harmed indirectly,” the guidance enjoins: “research may inadvertently stigmatise individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic.”
Elsewhere in the document, Nature lists the gender identities that must be respected if a research paper wishes to have Nature’s imprimatur, including, but not limited to, “transgender, gender-queer, gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, genderless, agender, nongender, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman, trans masculine, trans feminine and cisgender”.
It will not escape a young scholar reading this decree that they will have to genuflect to unscientific concepts to have a successful career as a research scientist today. Publication in a journal such as Nature opens doors for young scholars, and can put them on the pathway to tenure and job security. In reading this decree, however, a young scientist will realise that if they want a successful career in the profession, they must subordinate their science to ideology.
The historical precedents for such a development should give us pause. While the church tried to stifle the spread of knowledge after the invention of the printing press, the Soviet Union’s censorship of science in the 20th century made the church’s efforts look like child’s play.
Under Joseph Stalin, science was not published if it was considered idealistic or bourgeois, or if it contradicted historical materialism. When the understanding of genetics – based on the principles of natural selection – was determined to be “bourgeois science”, any scientist who refused to renounce genetics was dismissed from their posting and left destitute. It is estimated that more than 3000 biologists were imprisoned during Stalin’s era, and some were sentenced to death for being “enemies of the state”.
But it was not just the scientific profession that suffered from this censorship. False ideas about agriculture promoted by Trofim Lysenko (ideas that could have been corrected by an accurate understanding of genetics) are thought to have played a direct role in famines that killed tens of millions of people in the Soviet Union as well as China. The Great Chinese Famine, which occurred after China adopted Lysenkoist agricultural policy, is estimated to have killed between 15 million and 55 million people. In other words, the suppression of accurate scientific knowledge in the 20th century was responsible for more deaths than the Holocaust.
The relatively recent cultural conventions of liberal democratic societies have allowed for open inquiry and free thought to flourish. But, ever since the Enlightenment, science and reason have come under attack from ideologues of all stripes. Whether those zealots be religious or political, the battle for science and reason never ends. And now the fight must be taken up with the ideologues within scientific institutions themselves.
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UK: A crucial victory over family court secrecy
The chilling story of how a young couple were befriended by a ‘duplicitous and manipulative’ neighbour, who through a web of lies managed to gain custody of their two-year-old son, defies belief.
While masquerading as an avuncular figure and regularly babysitting the toddler, Colin English, 62, was simultaneously making false allegations to social services that the boy’s mother was unfit to look after him.
Despite the fact he had once been charged with murder and without even consulting the child’s parents, East Sussex social services swallowed this vile deception.
On their recommendation, a family court awarded custody to Mr and Mrs English.
It would be months before the mother got her son back, after a second court hearing in which the judge was scathing in her criticism of both English and the social services.
That was six years ago. Yet it is only now, thanks to a legal battle by the Daily Mail, this troubling story can be told.
The mother had wanted to make her ordeal public in the hope lessons might be learned but she had been gagged by a court order.
Our lawyers challenged the decree on the grounds that this was a case of vital public interest. To the mother’s joy, we succeeded.
Although there have been efforts to make our notoriously secretive family courts more transparent, this appalling saga shows there’s a long way to go.
Yes, the vulnerable must be protected but reporting restrictions should never be used to cover up negligence and injustice.
With their failings exposed, East Sussex must now explain publicly what new safeguards have been put in place.
Furthermore, there is surely evidence of criminal behaviour by English yet Sussex Police have taken no action. Why not?
This paper doesn’t underestimate the complexity of family cases or the need for discretion. But wrongdoing and incompetence must be exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight.
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Should the U.S. Overtly Pledge to Defend Taiwan?
Short answer: no. The Chinese tantrum at Pelosi’s ill-timed visit to Taiwan hides systemic Chinese weakness. Taiwan just needs to be strong enough to run a “porcupine strategy” against any possible Chinese attack. And that we can help with, without tipping the world into global conflict in the Pacific.
The recent gross overreaction of Xi Jinping, China’s autocratic communist dictator, to Nancy Pelosi’s mere visit to Taiwan has raised fears and hackles in the U.S. foreign policy establishment—with calls to overtly pledge to go to the aid of Taiwan if China attacks the island.
For decades now, to encourage Taiwan to accept being reunited with the mainland, a rising China, with increasing heft in global affairs, has tried to shut Taiwan off from the external world diplomatically by getting it removed from world forums, while still maintaining economic relations with the island. In the 1980s, as China properly concentrated on freeing up its economy to turbocharge growth, Deng Xiaoping, then-leader of China, ran the more patient policy of reunion with Taiwan—“one country, two systems”—which allowed Taiwan autonomy with the objective of eventually giving the island economic incentives to reunite with the mainland.
“One country, two systems” is still the official policy of China, but as China’s economy has grown rapidly, the policy, under Xi Jinping, has turned more assertive toward Taiwan, with more threats of reunification by force, culminating in its recent overwrought military exercises surrounding Taiwan in response to Speaker Pelosi’s visit.
Yet such a Chinese tantrum hides Chinese weakness. Xi has reversed China’s course from Deng’s somewhat more enlightened era by significantly tightening the communist party’s control over the mainland’s economy and politics. Such draconian interventions recently have been demonstrated by Xi’s lock down of major Chinese cities because of COVID. However, these measures likely will not be the only thing dragging the Chinese economy in the future. Xi is also tightening the party’s control of Chinese business; China has state-owned, state favored, and party monitored corporations. In the case of the latter, Xi has put communist party hacks on the boards of purely private companies to see that they do not stray from the interests of the state. Such heavy state intrusion may make recent Japanese economic stagnation look mild, especially when such interventionist policies are combined with the high debt of China’s creaking state-owned companies to its state-owned banks.
That the Chinese economy is struggling then makes Xi weak politically just ahead of China’s party congress in which he tries to get an unprecedented third term as president. Thus, the massive exercises surrounding Taiwan, with missile firings near Japan and one over the island, in response to Pelosi’s visit is in part to show strength externally to offset weakness at home prior to the party congress.
Although a Pelosi more astute in foreign affairs (that is not her primary job) probably should have realized that Xi’s sensitivities would be at their peak and chosen another time to show her support for Taiwan, China should not be allowed to dictate who visits the island.
However, does that mean that the United States should boldly state that if China attacks Taiwan, the United States will come to its defense? The current deliberate policy ambiguity of what the American response would be in that event had the purpose of not encouraging Taiwan to recklessly declare its independence, thus triggering an apoplectic Chinese response. Yet on several occasions, President Joe Biden has gone off script and pledged or implied a US defense of Taiwan, with aides rushing to walk that back by saying that U.S. policy toward Taiwan had not changed.
In fact, the United States should be headed in the opposite direction: helping Taiwan to become strong enough to run a “porcupine strategy” against any possible Chinese attack. Taiwan would not need to be able to defeat a much larger Chinese military but merely to deter it from attacking by being able to inflict unacceptable damage to it. Even the policy of U.S. ambiguity has encouraged Taiwan over the years to buy too many sexy, high-tech weapons, such as fighter aircraft, at the expense of the glue that holds militaries together and makes them effective fighting forces. That glue would be better mobilization of Taiwanese society for defense and improvements in for example, military training, logistics, electronic warfare, cyber defense, and command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I). In addition, Taiwan needs to be able to threaten vulnerable Chinese surface warships with more investment in mine warfare, anti-ship missiles, fast patrol ships, and diesel submarines.
Finally, instead of U.S. hysteria over a possible Chinese attack, Americans should realize that the Chinese military may have made the same mistake as the Russian and Taiwanese militaries by developing or buying high tech systems while neglecting more important “glue” items. After the Russian debacle in Ukraine, if Xi has any sense, he should be fearful that the formidable-looking Chinese military also could be a Potemkin village when the shooting starts—especially if it tried to conduct an amphibious assault, which is one of the most difficult military operations to master.
Thus, the United States should not be hysterical about the Chinese threat to Taiwan and rush to pledge to defend the island. Instead, U.S. policy should concentrate on helping a military reform-minded Taiwanese leader, Tsai Ing-wen, to convince a stodgy Taiwanese military that it should prepare to actually fight a war instead of being mesmerized by high-tech toys. Ukraine’s success against Russia should be an inspiration.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14259
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Boxing Legend Mike Tyson Reveals He's Gone from 'All-Out Liberal' to 'A Little Conservative' Because of 'Common Sense'
In a recent interview, boxing legend Mike Tyson explained why he has gradually moved to the right with his political views.
During the interview with conservative outlet Newsmax, Tyson initially expressed hesitations about discussing his political views. “Listen if I start talking politics, my friends are not going to like me,” Tyson said. “Hey, let’s just not do that, okay? Let’s just not do that. “My family gets mad, my friends get mad when we talk politics.”
Yet after a bit of goading from host Greta Van Susteren, Tyson decided to open up just a bit about his views. “Now listen, when I was younger, I was all-out liberal,” Tyson said. “But as I get older and I look at my children and I see what’s out in the world, I get a little conservative.”
Perhaps even more surprising than Tyson’s declaration about becoming more conservative was his explanation for doing so.
“It’s common sense, looking at the world at the stage it’s in right now,” Tyson said. “You want safety.”
Van Susteren mentioned Tyson had moved to Florida, which is home to two of the most notable conservatives — Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. Tyson stopped short of giving his opinion on either of those politicians.
“Hey listen, I can’t name…I can’t talk about no politicians,” Tyson said. “It’s just last time I put my hat in the arena and gave my opinion, wow, did they give me a beating.”
While Van Susteren suggested not many people could “give Mike Tyson a beating,” he said the press was a powerful entity.
“I’m gonna stay away from politics and religion,” Tyson said. “They stole my freedom of speech.”
In September 2020, Tyson announced he would vote for the first time ever in the 2020 presidential election.
“This election will be my 1st time voting,” Tyson wrote in a tweet. “I never thought I could because of my felony record. I’m proud to finally vote. Go to usa.gov/register-to-vote to register.”
Tyson is a convicted felon, but Nevada passed a law in 2019 allowing felons to vote after completing their prison sentences, The Hill reported. Tyson lived in Nevada at the time of the election, but he has since moved to Florida.
The boxing legend has not publicly shared what candidates he supported, but this new interview continues a trend of once-liberal celebrities moving to the political right.
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1 September, 2022
A great mistake that modern women are making
Feminist beliefs have caused them to pursue men who are unlikely to commit to them in any way
A recent article has fired up the mainstream misandry* machine. Titled, The Rise of Lonely Single Men, its thesis is that men are entirely responsible for being single due to their general uselessness and toxicity.
But what of women – is it possible they are responsible for their own singledom? Is it feasible that women are ever at fault in 2022, or are men always to blame? Perhaps it’s worth dissecting the last few years to discover how we got here.
So let’s go way back.
It’s a tough truth, but from Jesus and his disciples to golf trips, men have preferred the company of men. It’s the reason barbecues were invented.
For generations, women were forced to take a back seat to male relationships. Mates always came first. This was the unspoken tenet by which men lived their lives and it forced women to put up with the un-put-up-able.
A little over two decades ago this started to change. Women began looking around and realised they didn’t have to tolerate being the insignificant other.
No better was this shifting current crystallised than in Sex and the City; where four independent professional women would run their own lives. More significantly, whereas in the past they would rely on their unreliable man, now they would find their emotional backbone in each other.
In a commentary on the alleged rise of said single men, journalist Jana Hocking wrote, ‘You see, while they were bed-hopping, ghosting, breadcrumbing, and doing all sort of mind f**kery to us women folk, we were quietly and subtly embracing this ‘self love’ culture that started to emerge.’
Women were forming pacts. It would be chicks before dicks.
They had paved a new road. It was feminism at its best. For years women wanted genuine independence. Yes, their financial independence. But the real breakthrough was a newfound emotional independence. And they had discovered it in each other.
In many ways this was preferable: women now had a strong support network, and if required, dildos.
And that’s exactly what men became. ‘F#ck buddies’ to use. Women know, and had learned, that men are sexually exploitable.
Well now they found themselves in a world where they could unleash this ‘pussy power’ without consequence. It was liberating.
Women became hunters. They would discard, treating men with the same contempt men had. They’d play emotional games. Girls became the new guys. Amy Schumer’s character in Trainwreck provides good reference.
It had been driven into women via a feminist mainstream media that women could not rely on the intrinsic goodness of men. Now they could concentrate on their careers, focus on their friendships and if they needed a shag, they could get one whenever they liked. But if there was no such thing as a ‘good man’ then how were men to be assessed? Superficially. Brutally. As they had been.
So was founded the ‘Single Use Male’, or ‘Fuckboi’, a useful term and justified twist on the deeply unfair derogatory ‘slut’ women had been disgracefully called forever.
The message to men seemed clear, women are independent and don’t need men other than for sex. They responded in kind. This explains the rise of the dick pic, pun 100 per cent intended.
But which men are actually benefiting from this? The answer is a tiny percentage.
A 2019 experiment with Tinder found that the top 78 per cent of women are competing for the top 20 per cent of men. But an engineer for the dating website Hinge, analysed the share of ‘likes’ that went to the most-liked people of each gender. He found that inequality on dating apps is stark, and that it was significantly worse for men. The top 1 per cent of men get 16.4 per cent of likes, the top 5 per cent get 41.1 per cent, the top 10 per cent get 58 per cent, the bottom 50 per cent get 4.3 per cent. The conclusion was that when women initiate contact it ‘is only going to be for a really attractive guy’.
William Costello is a Ph.D. studying Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Texas who, along with a few others, has spent years conducting world-first research into the shifting modern dating economy.
He states: ‘From 2013 the top 20 percent of men had a 25 per cent increase in the number of mates, the top five percent of men had a massive 38 per cent increase.’
As a consequence, we’re effectively moving toward a polygamous society where women have access to a high-quality mate that they will have to share, but ‘women tend to not want that’.
‘We’re more likely to see a rise of singlehood and kind of this atomised sexual culture with less long-term commitment.’
He goes on to suggest that realistically this is not great for men ‘but for women that is just awful’.
And the impact on children is even worse, because children benefit from a two-parent household.
‘In the long run, there’s going to be a lot of miserable people.’
For a highly evolved species we haven’t gone far: so it is in Attenborough docos that the Alpha males win as they do in modern dating.
If women were allegedly happier with this arrangement then these elite men were ecstatic thanks to obligation-free casual sex with multiple partners.
But regardless of who women chose to sleep with, deep down this man-mimicry grated against a woman’s self-esteem, and arguably, instinct.
Now every modern sexual misadventure carries the real possibility of a court appearance. This is in part due to defensive blame avoidance, but also the retaliatory element of the latter stages of the initially necessary #metoo movement.
Young men are very, very aware of these forces, so unease between the sexes ferments.
All this of course runs parallel with the vengeful nature of identity politics which has thoroughly captured all academic institutions.
The American Psychological Association (APA) has now issued guidelines to help clinicians improve the health of boys and men, declaring aspects of ‘traditional masculinity’ harmful, with traits such as competitiveness labelled as ‘toxic’.
So plenty of these young men opted out of society, and relationships altogether.
A study in 2020 found that sexual activity among young American men has declined sharply since 2000, with nearly a third reporting no sex with a partner in the prior year.
So came the rise of the ‘Incels’, short for ‘Involuntary Celebate’ – men who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.
These ‘lonely, single undateable’ men, are full of resentment at being considered undesirable whilst wishing to be and have been the focus of the narrative that was swallowed whole by the mainstream. The aforementioned piece written by couples psychologist Dr Greg Matos argued that dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.
Because men were yet to ‘step up’ there was a supposed deficit that ‘men need to address’ if they wanted a healthy relationship. And when women eventually want the same, who are they setting their sights on?
After bedding down their careers, women look for not just a loving stable partner, but perfection.
Young girls are taught to believe they’re princesses in their own fairytale and should wait for their ‘prince’.
Adult women are taught not to fully commit until they find their ‘Mr Big’ as SATC put it.
Modern career women discriminate on looks, career, wealth, status, height and age and that’s fair enough, but they must realise that with each discriminator the pool gets incrementally smaller until it is infinitesimally shallow.
But here’s the bigger problem: the guys being pursued are too busy with every other girl who is pursuing him.
Costello states: ‘There’s now a mismatch of highly educated and selective women versus economically unattractive men,’ because the female mate preference for a high-earning partner remains.
As such a minority of men are monopolising the attention.
‘We see a lot of facts and figures that illustrate that point, and when you have a minority in any sex ratio they call the shots in terms of sexual behaviour.’
So if there’ s a minority of women in a society men are more keen to commit long-term. Whereas if you have only a minority of eligible men then they call the shots and they’re reluctant to commit.
These highly sought after ‘respectful studs’ as Hocking puts it, whose phones are burning in their pockets with dating app dings think ‘Why the hell would I settle down?’
So now women have become more disposable than ever by the only men they ironically consider ‘worthy’. It’s the same princesses who are actively sabotaging their own ‘they lived happily ever after’ fairytale ending.
Perhaps it is worth pausing to understand this current dynamic is not exclusively the fault of either sex. But more importantly, the greater issue is that no one is happy.
The reality is that we’re all hardwired to be in love. But we’ve found ourselves in a place where we are all denying ourselves the chance to form a loving, monogamous relationship.
A core tenet of the article was a 2020 study that found loneliness is greater in men than in women. But the sample sizes were small and the differences between sexes were almost negligible and in contrast to a 2018 study cited in the paper.
So the whole basis of the conclusion that exclusively men are lonely is false.
In fact, those part of Incel culture are single yes, but lonely no. What’s alarming is the sense of brotherhood and community this incel subculture has generated, raising the possibility of lifelong membership.
The four questions asked in the study were: Do you feel a lack of companionship?, Do you feel left out?, Do you feel isolated from others?, and Do you feel in tune with people around you?
It’s fair to say that in each case modern women could confidently answer ‘no’ because they have a strong network of friends, and good luck to them.
But is this what women, or anyone really wants? Deep down we all want the same thing. To be loved. The healthiest manifestation of this is a loving, committed relationship.
Certainly, most men want a family of their own. He wants to kick a footy with his son and shake his daughter’s first boyfriend’s hand just a little too hard.
And as much as men love male company we’re rubbish without women. Our lives rapidly descend into chaos without them. Men need women. They make us better people. They help point our moral compass and they smell nice.
And the reality is that women secretly enjoy male company. Partly because there’s always a level of tension in groups of women that does not exist amongst men. But now with a taste of power can women admit that they might actually be fond of men and have gone too far?
Previously it could have been said that men were too stubborn to admit that they’ve disrespected women in the past, but in recent years there’s been a clear genuflection on the part of men.
Perhaps it’s time for women to do the same and publications Mamamia and her ilk to turn down the heat and stop teaching young women that man equals bad.
Because as much as we’re told that we’re currently witnessing the ‘Rise of Lonely, Single Men’, the opposite is true.
Investment bankers Morgan Stanley recently released a forecast saying that by the year 2030 they predict that 44 per cent of working-age women will be single and childless.
In many ways, women have always been better workers. They’re more diligent, professional, better with detail. Morgan Stanley have clued into this.
Costello states that, ‘It’s great for them having the access to a lot of worker drones. But it’s not clear that working a 60-hour work week at Morgan Stanley is that liberating compared to starting a family.’
Western cities are currently filled with women in their late thirties and early forties still looking for their soulmate and wanting to start a family.
I know several who have left it too late and it’s heartbreaking.
Tragically, biology trumps hubris. The worst and most irresponsible thing is to allow the cycle to repeat in the next generation of women.
Because feminism has sold women two disgraceful lies:
1. That they are all princesses and deserve nothing less than their perfect prince.
And far worse:
2. That concentrating on their careers would make them happy and that having a family would not.
The former point is understandable if not naïve. The latter is an appalling lie.
Something needs to be done, because young women are being told men are the enemy and young men are being taught they’re toxic. Both rightly sense this isn’t true and they’re confused.
It seems if the earth’s population is roughly 50 per cent made up of men and women we might at some point want to get along and perhaps meet halfway?
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No Whites Allowed: Pfizer Fellowship Flagrantly Violates the Law, Lawyers Say
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer offers a prestigious fellowship that bars whites and Asians from applying. Trumpeted on the company’s website as a "Bold Move" to "create a workplace for all," civil rights lawyers are characterizing it in a different way: as a blatant violation of the law.
"This Pfizer program is so flagrantly illegal I seriously wonder how it passed internal review by its general counsel," said Adam Mortara, one of the country’s top civil rights attorneys.
Pfizer’s "Breakthrough Fellowship" offers college students multiple internships, a fully funded master's degree, and several years of employment at the pharmaceutical giant. It also restricts applications to "Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native American" students, the fellowship requirements state.
In a Frequently Asked Questions brochure about the nine-year program, Pfizer asserts that it is an "equal opportunity employer."
Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, described the fellowship as a "clear case of liability" under federal law: a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans racial discrimination in contracting, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in employment.
"Major corporations seem to have forgotten that there’s such a thing as law," said Heriot, who is also a law professor at the University of San Diego. "They seem to think that as long as they’re woke, they’re bulletproof."
As a legal matter, that view is questionable. Some companies have scrapped race-conscious programs in the wake of discrimination lawsuits, which—when they involve overt racial quotas—typically succeed. Even the threat of a lawsuit can pay dividends: Last year, for example, the American Civil Rights Project sent Coca-Cola a letter demanding that it drop a requirement that law firms working with the company staff at least 30 percent of their teams with "diverse lawyers." In a memo to shareholders in February, Coca-Cola announced it was backing away from the policy.
Every lawyer contacted by the Washington Free Beacon said the case against Pfizer was open-and-shut. David Bernstein, an expert on civil rights law at George Mason University School of Law, said the Breakthrough Fellowship was "obviously illegal." Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, called it a "very facial violation" of Title VII. Jonathan Berry, a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, said it was "hard to see any way" the program was legal.
Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment.
The pharmaceutical giant is not alone in flouting anti-discrimination law. From Uber to NASDAQ to JPMorgan Chase, a kind of casual lawlessness has descended across corporate America, with C-suites using—and publicizing—illegal racial quotas to achieve their diversity goals. That trend is especially acute in Silicon Valley: Google, for example, restricts the number of white and Asian men that universities can nominate for a prestigious Ph.D. fellowship, a policy that effectively encourages schools to violate civil rights statutes.
The Breakthrough Fellowship is part of a larger push within Pfizer to "embed DEI into our DNA," per the company’s 2021 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in 2020 made "equity" one of the company’s four "core values" alongside excellence, courage, and joy. "We don’t just talk about the importance of equity," Bourla said at the time. "We put our words into action."
Central to those actions has been the use of diversity targets—concrete, legible benchmarks the company can measure. "By having a clear overarching DEI vision," Pfizer’s 2021 annual review reads, "we’re able to outline distinct DEI roles and accountabilities, align our therapeutic areas and divisions with our vision, and assess our progress against measurable outcomes."
While not a formal quota system, this metrics-based approach has nonetheless produced dramatic—and disproportionate—results. In 2021, the ESG report states, "72% of summer interns surveyed identified as representing an underrepresented group or disadvantaged background, far exceeding our goal of 50%." For comparison, non-whites make up less than 40 percent of the U.S. population.
The Breakthrough Fellowship appears to be contributing to that skew. The program’s first cohort was "55 percent female and 45 percent male," according to the annual review, "with a diversity breakdown of 40 percent Black/African American, 40 percent Latinx/Hispanic and 20 percent two or more races." Pfizer plans to have 100 Breakthrough fellows by 2025.
Asked about the company’s claim to be an equal-opportunity employer, Berry, the Boyden Gray attorney, used the term "doublespeak."
"If you close off certain employment opportunities to the ‘wrong race,’ you’re not an equal opportunity anything," Berry said. "You’re a bigot."
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Men are hauled over the coals in feminist war on barbecues
The Frenchman’s right to command the barbecue is an evil that must be curbed for the sake of the environment and women, according to a new feminist campaign.
Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent Green MP, opened the “barbecue war” by branding the outdoor grill as a ritual that reeks of virility, male meat-eating compulsion and power over women. “We have to change mentalities so that eating an entrecote steak cooked on a barbecue is no longer a symbol of virility,” she told a gathering in Grenoble of her party, Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV).
The latest foray from Ms Rousseau, an “eco-feminist” university lecturer with a reputation for controversy, provoked anger from conservatives, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp and also from traditional male leftists. It came only a week after the Greens, which are part of the main opposition bloc in parliament, suggested banning private swimming pools.
Éric Ciotti, a senior figure in the conservative Republicans, called Ms Rousseau “grotesque”, while Nadine Morano, another prominent party member, tweeted: “That’s enough. Stop blaming boys for everything. Stop ‘deconstructing men’.” Le Figaro, a conservative newspaper, published an attack on Ms Rousseau, 50, saying that feminists wanted to ban barbecues “as the last surviving little ritual of a virility that has been mercilessly pulverised everywhere in our culture”.
Julien Bayou, leader of the Greens, defended the anti-barbecue brigade, calling the outdoor grill an undeniable symbol of virility. Men carried a heavy responsibility for climate change, he said. “It has been very much proven. Eating meat is more polluting and men eat twice as much red meat and charcuterie as women, so, yes there is a gendered approach to behaviour with food,” he said.
The Greens’ ally, the radical left Unbowed France party, also weighed in against men and barbecues. Clementine Autain, 49, one of its leaders, denounced the barbecue for its “virilisme”. Sociology explained that there was a very big difference between the sexes over meat eating, she said.
In a break with left-wing solidarity, however, the Communists, the traditional working-class party, which is also a member of the left-wing bloc in parliament, mocked Ms Rousseau. “You eat meat according to what you have inside your wallet, not inside your underpants,” Fabien Roussel, the party leader, said. He invited left-wingers to ignore the Greens and join him for the Communists’ annual barbecue in Paris next month.
Dissent also came from Michel Onfray, a celebrity philosopher who veers between hard left and hard right. “It’s ridiculous to say that when you’re having a few mates around for a barbecue it’s phallocracy and a return to the Stone Age,” he said. “This lady is a university lecturer. It’s appalling.”
Libération, the left-wing daily, sympathised with Ms Rousseau. “It may displease the haters but the entrecote at the barbecue is well and truly a totem of virility which it should be possible to put into question, especially after a summer that has been disastrous from the climate point of view,” it said. It forecast a new division in society “between meat eaters and those who refuse to wallow in the consumption of a food that is cruel and polluting”.
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Ex-transgender Teen Recounts ‘Horrifying’ Experience of Transition, Surgery
Chloe Cole was 15 years old when she agreed to let a “gender-affirming” surgeon remove her healthy breasts—a life-altering decision she now deeply regrets.
Her “brutal” transition from female to male was anything but the romanticized “gender journey” that transgender activists and medical professionals had portrayed, she told The Epoch Times. “It’s a little creepy to call it that,” she said.
Cole, who is now 18, feels more like she’s just awoken from “a nightmare,” and she’s disappointed with the medical and school system that fast-tracked her to gender transition surgery.
“I was convinced that it would make me happy, that it would make me whole as a person,” she said.
Although she feels “let down” by most of the adults in her life, she doesn’t blame her parents for following the advice of school staff and medical professionals, who “affirmed” her desire for social transitioning, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery.
Most of the medical professionals did nothing to question or dissuade her or her parents, she said.
“They effectively guilted my parents into allowing them to do this. They gave them the whole, ‘Either, you’ll have a dead daughter or a live son,’ thing. They cited suicide rates,” she said. “There is just so much complacency on the part of educators—all the adults basically. I’m really upset over it. I feel a little bit angry. I wasn’t really allowed to just grow.”
Her parents, though skeptical, trusted the medical professionals and eventually consented to their daughter’s desire for medical interventions, including surgery, which was covered by their health insurance policy.
“It shouldn’t be put on adolescents to make these kinds of decisions at all,” she said.
Transgenderism
Transgenderism, while widely celebrated in popular culture and on social media in recent times, is a much more divisive issue than people may think, Cole said.
Today, Cole is one of a growing number of young “detransitioners” who reject current trends in transgender ideology and oppose the “gender-affirming” model of care being pushed by progressive lawmakers at state and federal levels.
She recently testified against California Senate Bill 107, proposed legislation authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), that would shelter parents who consent to the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgery on their children from prosecution in other states that view such actions as child abuse.
“I think that is really dangerous for families across the U.S. It can tear families apart,” said Cole, who is expected to testify against the bill again this week.
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