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HBO Pulls Gone With the Wind. Well, Fiddle-Dee-Dee.

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

The movie was banned by HBO because of its portrayal of Blacks. This is ludicrous. The Blacks were treated with dignity in the movie.

There is almost no one to love in the movie, and almost no one to respect. Rhett had it right. The only person he respected was Mammy.

https://www.garynorth.com/public/21004.cfm

Gary North – June 20, 2020

Remnant Review

HBO has temporarily pulled Gone With the Wind from its streaming library. Read about this here.

I remember the first time I saw it. In the days before television got first-run movies, and long before cable TV, Hollywood would bring back its blockbusters to be shown in theaters. I saw Snow White (1938) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) this way in the late 1940’s. They brought back King Kong (1933) this way sometime around 1955. Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931) were regular re-releases.

I saw Gone with the Wind (1939) in 1954. My mother took me to see it. She must have liked the movie. As I recall, it was in the upscale Los Angeles theater, Grauman’s Egyptian. I know it wasn’t Grauman’s Chinese, because I never saw a movie there. I was 12 years old.

I don’t remember whether I liked the movie or not. Over the years, I have seen the famous blockbuster several times. Each time I see it, I find new things to hate.

Mostly, I hate Scarlett O’Hara.

LUST AND MAMMON

The movie is mostly about unrequited lust and the worship of mammon. Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler are a couple of self-centered individuals who pursue money at all costs. They also pursue each other, with devastating personal effects on both of them. But Rhett’s character, as played by Clark Gable, is likable. He is a likable cad. He had no ethics, but he had a lot of charm. There is nothing likable about Scarlett.

If you want real-life personifications of these two characters, I suggest Bill and Hillary Clinton.

We are introduced to Scarlett when she is getting ready for a party that her father is hosting at their home. All that she can think about is impressing Ashley Wilkes. But she certainly enjoys the attention of a series of lightweight college boys who are home for vacation. She will be the belle of the ball, and she knows it. She delights in it.

We are introduced to a woman who is totally self-centered. She never changes. No moral light ever dawns in her mind. No moment of self-realization ever takes place in her life.

She is the kind of woman that mothers tell their sons to avoid. This is why women’s fascination with Scarlett O’Hara is one of the great examples of cognitive dissonance in American cultural life.

It is understandable that men are fascinated with Rhett Butler/Clark Gable. Rhett gets what he wants most of the time. He breaks the rules and gets away with it. He is also self-centered. What men cannot understand is what he saw in Scarlett O’Hara. There were younger women available, better looking women available, and less self-centered women available. He could have gone after some woman who might have worshiped him at least for a few years. Instead, he went after a woman who worshiped herself from beginning to end. He was bound to be disappointed.

Scarlett never got over the fact that Melanie married Ashley. She marries her first husband out of spite. He is portrayed as a weakling. She lusts after Rhett until he finally marries her, and then she treats him badly. One saving grace of the movie is this: the two of them keep each other away from anybody morally decent.

From the opening of the movie, she sees the Civil War as a threat to her social life. Then the war impoverishes her family. It drives her father to madness. She is reduced to poverty. At the end of the first half of the movie, we see her eating roots. She vows: “I’ll never be hungry again.”

As God is my witness … As God is my witness … They’re not going to lick me! … I’m going to live through this and when it’s over I’ll never be hungry again … No, nor any of my folks! … if I have to lie – steal – cheat – or kill! As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!

This really is a vow. I cannot think of any vow in any non-Christian movie that is more self-consciously a vow before God, as described in Numbers 30. The written script makes this clear. So does the camera work. There are two highly visual-symbolic emotional-religious scenes in the movie: at the end of the first half and at the end of the movie. This scene ends the first half.

She stands, her fist still clenched, as CAMERA DRAWS BACK on the determined figure outlined against the devastation of the plantation.CAMERA PULLS BACK FARTHER AND FARTHER – revealing Scarlett standing near an enormous ruined oak, backgrounded only by the sky.

THE CAMERA FINALLY PULLS BACK TO AN EXTREME LONG SHOT

A puff of early-morning wind stirs the trees and bushes – like a harbinger of a new day.

FADE OUT

It is one of those odd twists of providence that the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church of Atlanta owns half the royalty rights to the book and its associated trinkets. Margaret Mitchell’s nephew donated this.

This vow became her confession of faith. It announced her new way of life: money-grubber. She had always been a worshiper of mammon. What changed in the story were the objects of her faith: popularity, then Ashley, then Rhett, then money, and finally land.

I cannot think of any big-screen female character in the 1930’s who is still beloved who was a greater worshiper of mammon. Jesus warned: ” No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

After the war ends, she turns into a consummate conniver. She persuades Rhett to marry her. She knows how to run a business. She uses convict labor. She builds a fortune on her own. She is relentless in the pursuit of money in order to fulfill her vow.

Yet she is a consummate loser. She loses her daughter in an accident. She loses Rhett. He walks out with his famous line, which was so crucial to the movie that the Hollywood ethics board allowed the use of the forbidden word. Selznick convinced them that without this, the movie could not be faithful to the book. This was accurate. They let it stand.

Rhett walks out the door. This leads us to the consummate scene of the entire movie.

At this point, she shifts from the love of money to the love of land. She will go back to Tara. We hear the voice of her dead father, Gerald.

Suddenly on the sound track we hear Gerald’s voice:

GERALD’S VOICE Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O’Hara, that Tara doesn’t mean anything to you?

Scarlett’s sobbing quiets. She starts to lift her tearstained face slowly.

GERALD’S VOICE (continues) Why, land’s the only thing that matters – it’s the only thing that lasts.

ASHLEY’S VOICE Something you love better than me, though you may not know it – Tara!

RHETT’S VOICE It’s this from which you get your strength – the red earth of Tara.

Scarlett’s face lifts a little higher as she listens.

GERALD’S VOICE Why, land’s the only thing that matters – it’s the only thing that lasts.

ASHLEY’S VOICE Something you love better than me, though you may not know it – Tara!

RHETT’S VOICE It’s this from which you get your strength – the red earth of Tara.

Once again we hear the three voices repeating the same lines. The volume is still louder, the space between them still less, the speed of their repetition still faster:

GERALD’S VOICE Why, land’s the only thing that matters –

ASHLEY’S VOICE Something you love better than me –

RHETT’S VOICE The red earth of Tara.

CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY UP to a LARGE CLOSE UP of SCARLETT’S FACE as we hear:

GERALD’S VOICE Tara!

ASHLEY’S VOICE (louder than Gerald’s) Tara!

RHETT’S VOICE (louder than either) Tara!

A beautiful smile of hope crosses Scarlett’s face as the realization comes to her that she still has Tara.

SCARLETT (lifting her face) Tara! Home! … I’ll go home – and I’ll think of some way to get him back.

She lifts her chin higher. We see the stuff of which Scarlett O’Hara is made, and we thrill with the knowledge that she won’t be defeated for long.

SCARLETT After all, tomorrow is another day!

As the speech progresses, we see and hear her strength return – her voice accelerates in power and volume and we must believe completely that what Scarlett O’Hara wants to do, she can do.SLOW DISSOLVE TO:

FULL SHOT – TARA LANDSCAPE – SUNSET

With the huge tree where Gerald has spoken to Scarlett. From behind the hill comes the silhouetted figure of Scarlett until she stands outlined along the sky. She turns halfway and stands looking over the broad acres. Wind blows her skirts slightly.

CAMERA DRAWS BACK as we once did on Scarlett and Gerald, until the tiny silhouetted figure of Scarlett is outlined against Gerald’s Tara.

FADE OUT

The quest for land has been the supreme category of mammon worship in man’s history. This is no longer the case. That began to end around 1800 as the Industrial Revolution began. We have finally come to our senses. Knowledge is vastly more valuable than land. The old categories of classical economics – land, labor, and capital – are slowly being replaced by knowledge, innovation, and entrepreneurship. That’s where the categories of economic theory should have been. But mammon worship, in whatever form it appears, is always a threat to the souls of men.

Scarlett wants only one child. Otherwise, her waist will get bigger. The extent of her self-centeredness was monumental. It is hard to think of any heroine in the history of Hollywood movies who was more self-centered. She was not representative of the old South or anywhere else.

Scarlett O’Hara was to the old South what J. R. Ewing was to Texas in the 1980’s: a self-centered schemer the public loves to hate.

At the end of the movie, all she can do is dream about returning to the land. This is salvation by land ownership.

Before the war, it was salvation by land ownership made profitable by slaves. That was her father’s faith. For her, it would be simply land ownership. We are not told how this became profitable in the South: through sharecropping. Blacks worked the land, but they got a percentage of their crops. The system worked in a region devoid of physical capital other than land. There was nothing romantic about the arrangement, but it worked well for the next two decades.

This is a movie about the old South. But one crucial aspect of the old South is missing: the Christian religion. We never see anybody go to church. Formal religion plays no part in any of their lives. The O’Haras are Catholics, but we never see a priest. Rhett has no religion. Even the slaves have no formal religion.

The only time we see anyone inside a church is when it has been converted into a hospital for soldiers.

In times of warfare, there are no atheists in foxholes, and there are few atheists among the folks back home. But in the Hollywood version of Gone with the Wind, they were all atheists.

THE RACE ISSUE

The movie was banned by HBO because of its portrayal of Blacks. This is ludicrous. The Blacks were treated with dignity in the movie.

There is almost no one to love in the movie, and almost no one to respect. Rhett had it right. The only person he respected was Mammy.

Another minor figure in the movie who deserved respect is Big Sam. He had been the lead slave in Tara’s field slaves. He puts his life on the line to save a white woman who is being attacked by a sociologically unlikely duo: a lower-class white man and a black man. He does not save Scarlett because she is Scarlett. He saves her because she is a woman in distress. He comes running when he hears her screaming. Only after he has disposed of them does he learn who she is. The closest thing to a hero in the movie is Big Sam.

David O. Selznick, who was famous mainly for having produced the movie, made this point to his screenwriter in 1937. “In our picture I think we have to be awfully careful that the Negroes come out decidedly on the right side of the ledger, which I do not think should be difficult.” That is exactly how it was written.

Mammy loves Scarlett. She loves Scarlett’s daughter. She even likes Rhett. That took some doing.

Hattie McDaniel won the Academy award as best supporting actress for that role. She deserved it.

SHALLOW WHITE SOUTHERN WOMEN

Blacks may have a chip on their shoulder about how the movie portrays Blacks. I have a chip on my shoulder about how the movie portrays upper-class white women.

The movie makes upper-class white Southern women look shallow and even empty-headed. The main exception is Melanie. (The madam who gave gold coins to help the hospital was not upper class.)

The extreme model was Aunt Pittypat. She was the white equivalent of Prissy.

We see these women at a fancy wartime ball. It was a fund-raiser for the troops. But there was no sense of sacrifice among them. In the Civil War, there was an enormous level of sacrifice by women in the South. In the film, they passed the hat for baubles. They did toss in some jewels, but that’s the extent of the wartime sacrifice of the upper-class white women that we see in the movie, except for Scarlett at Tara. That sacrifice was forced on her. She was hungry. There was no one else to run Tara. It was a matter of necessity. It was clearly not a matter of choice.

Women who see their sons go off to war are not shallow. The grim reality of that war was visible to every woman at the ball. They were reaching out to live for an evening in a world that already was gone with the wind. There was nothing empty-headed about that.

Upper-class women in this old South were made of sterner moral stuff than what is portrayed in Gone with the Wind. They proved it during the war and Reconstruction. The hotheads of South Carolina seceded in December 1860. The leaders of the South followed. The women paid the price. There were no medals or statues for them.

The women of the South would not have been silly enough to secede — not even Aunt Pittypat. They would have counted the cost.

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace (Luke 14:31-32).

INCOMPARABLE MISCASTING

Then there was the casting. It was ghastly.

There was nothing southern about Vivian Leigh. She was British. But, far more important, she was 25 years old, and she looked 30.

If this was a romance of the old South, and the college boys at the beginning of the movie were coming around to court Scarlett, then she was a cougar. Of course, they didn’t call them cougars in those days. Why would a bunch of college boys be circling around Scarlett O’Hara? I can think of only one good reason: they wanted to inherit Tara.

Then there was the actor who played Ashley Wilkes: Leslie Howard. By the time they shot the movie in late 1938 and early 1939, he was 45 years old. He was one year younger than Thomas Mitchell, who portrayed Scarlett’s father. Howard looked every day of 45. Why would this ageing wealthy man have been unmarried in 1861? His family owned a plantation. By the time the eldest son in a plantation-owning family was 45 years old in 1861, he was probably a grandfather. Furthermore, as with Leigh, Howard was British. He had a British accent.

In 1938, Clark Gable was 37 years old. He also looked it. Why was somebody his age trying to woo a southern belle who didn’t seem to have a brain in her head? In real life in 1861, she would have been half his age. To imagine that anyone who looked like Clark Gable was still single at age 37 is to imagine that Rhett was a cad, which he was.

The women in the audience loved him. They still do.

It could have been worse. It almost was worse. Selznick’s first choice to play Rhett was Gary Cooper, but Cooper turned him down. Imagine for a moment the final scene when Rhett walks out. Gary Cooper is playing Rhett. Whenever I think about this, I mentally giggle. “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a durn.”

CONCLUSION

I have never understood why Southern partisans like this movie. Or do they?

This was a Hollywood movie designed to appeal to urban women at the tail end of the Great Depression. They fantasized about being like this belle of the ball who became an independent, financially successful woman who could not get the man she wanted before the war, and who could not keep the man she accepted as a substitute after the war.

This was an unhappy woman. This was a woman who, by the standards of Christian morality, was a moral failure and a personal failure.

Scarlett O’Hara was a loser. So was Rhett Butler.

So, while I don’t like to see this movie banned, I am happy to say that I will never sit through another showing of it.

If you want to watch a movie about the Civil War in the South, watch Shenandoah (1965). It’s about a man who does not want his sons to go off to fight in a needless war. He is not a cad. It stars James Stewart.

________________________________________________As soon as the public heard that HBO had canceled the movie, people began paying Amazon $4.95 to watch it. That really upset HBO’s senior executives. So, they have relented. They are going to put the movie back online. But the movie is going to have an introduction explaining the race issue. The introduction will be presented by a black academic lady.

I don’t think most Americans will be watching that introduction. The fast-forward buttons will be in heavy use as soon as the introduction begins. I think HBO understands this. HBO can buy off annoying Black activists by editing in an introduction that nobody is going to watch for more than about 20 seconds. This is good business.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

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From Dodgy Dossiers To The Sacking of Whitlam: The British Empire Stands Exposed | Zero Hedge

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

As Gough Whitlam discovered in 1975, the real British Empire is a nasty beast, and probably one which should have gone extinct a couple of centuries ago.
Unfortunately, until this moment, history has been tainted by more than
a few disruptions of progressive leaders who sacrificed their comfort,
careers, and often their lives to resist this stubborn parasite which
would rather suck its host dry than admit that the system of
organization upon which it is based is an abomination to natural law and
morality.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dodgy-dossiers-sacking-whitlam-british-empire-stands-exposed

by Tyler Durden

 

In my last article, I reviewed the case of Gough Whitlam’s firing at the hands of the Queen’s Governor General Sir John Kerr during a dark day in November 1975 which mis-shaped the next 45 years of Australian history. Today I would like to tackle another chapter of the story.

I used to believe as many do, in a story called “the American Empire”. Over the last decade of research, that belief has changed a bit. The more I looked at the top down levers of world influence shaping past and present events that altered history, the hand of British Intelligence just kept slapping me squarely in the face at nearly every turn.

Who controlled the dodgy Steele dossier that put Russiagate into motion and nearly overthrew President Trump? British Intelligence.

How about the intelligence used to justify the bombing of Iraq? That was British Intelligence too.

How about the Clash of Civilizations strategy used to blow up the middle east over decades? That just so happened to be British Intelligence’s own Sir Bernard Lewis.

How about the CFR takeover over of American foreign policy during the 20th century? That is the British Roundtable Movement in America (created as Britain’s Chatham House in America in 1921).

Who did Kissinger brag that he briefed more than his own State Department at a May 10, 1981 Chatham House seminar? The British Foreign Office (1).

How about William Yandall Elliot who trained a generation of neocon strategists who took over American foreign policy after the murder of JFK? Well, he was a Rhodes Scholar and we know what they are zombified to do.

How about the financial empire running the world drug trade? Well HSBC is the proven leading agency of that game and the British Caymen islands is the known center of world offshore drug money laundering.

Who ushered in the Cold War? Churchill.

Where did the nouveaux riche oligarchs go after Putin kicked them out of Russia? Back to their handlers in London.

What about the creation of ‘too big to fail’ banks that took over the world over the past decades? That was launched by the City of London’s Big Bang of 1986

Who created Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel in the 20th century (as well as both nations’ intelligence agencies?) The British.

What was the nature of the Deep State that Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, and JFK combatted within their own nations?

What the heck was the American Revolution all about in the first place?

I could go on, but I think you get my point. Read the rest of this entry »

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London Mayor: Mandatory Masks Will Be The “New Normal” For At Least Another Year | Zero Hedge

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

Even America’s health tsar, Anthony Fauci, admitted as much in a 60 Minutes interview in March, where he stated, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

He was agin’im before he was fer’um.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/london-mayor-mandatory-masks-will-be-new-normal-least-another-year

by Tyler Durden
 

Via 21stCenturyWire.com,

 

One of the great impending disasters of the COVID crisis is that despite the fact that the Coronavirus is rapidly disappearing and its true Infection Fatality Rate is in the exact same range as the seasonal flu, politicians and government health officials seem determined to roll-out the globalist “New Normal” regime.

We’re continually told by health officials and the media that the primary reason for requiring face masks is to protect people from the COVID-19 airborne pathogen. There are numerous problems with this government belief system, not least of all because it assumes that every person is equally at risk of illness due to COVID-19, which is false.

The vast majority of the general population are not at risk at all, as it mainly only affects one specific demographic: over 70 years old with chronic long-term health conditions, and within that risk group the majority of complications and fatalities have been with nursing/care home residents (none of these people travel on public transport).

The other reason why this virus is not a threat to the wider population is because it is seasonal in nature; it has followed the exact same trajectory of decline in every country worldwide, and by now has all but extinguished itself in any significant form. But even beyond all of this, it has already been well-established by numerous scientific experts that masks are incapable of protecting people against this or any other respiratory virus.

This means that wearing them is more a psychological reinforcement rather than any real medical prophylactic.

The UK’s Daily Mail reports…

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said facemasks will be the ‘new normal’ for commuters in the capital for at least a year.

Protective face coverings are compulsory on public transport across England in a bid to keep coronavirus infection rates low and avoid a second wave of the deadly virus.

Free masks were handed out in their thousands on buses and trains in attempt to kick start the new laws on Monday as 3,000 more police took to the streets looking out for rule-breakers.

Those who don’t wear masks will face £100 penalty fines but confusion still reigned about how the regulations – followed by 90 per cent of Londoners on Monday – will be enforced, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Sadiq Khan told LBC: ‘This is part of the new normal. The reality is that for the foreseeable future – I predict for the next year or so – wearing face coverings is going to become the norm rather than the exception.’

Confederation of Passenger Transport Executive Graham Vidler told the BBC that those who are unable to wear masks due to a disability will be able to signal to a driver or conductor using a ‘journey assistance card’.

He said: ‘If passengers aren’t following the guidelines then other passengers might have difficulties with that and issues might arise.

‘That’s another reason we are encouraging people to use journey assistance cards to indicate that they have a valid reason for not wearing a face covering…

Continue this story at the Daily Mail…

Even America’s health tsar, Anthony Fauci, admitted as much in a 60 Minutes interview in March, where he stated, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

And despite all of that, the New Normal agenda is still being pushed through.

Be seeing you

Be seeing you

https://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/barbie-in-burkas1.jpg

Londonstan

 

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EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Just Who the Hell is Running Joe Biden’s Brain?

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/06/just-who-hell-is-running-joe-bidens.html

As Joe Biden picks up steam in the presidential campaign, it makes sense to look at which economists are advising him. One problem. It’s a secret.

The New York Times reports:

Few aspects of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign are shrouded in as much secrecy as the counsel he receives on the economy: which advisers have the most sway with the presumptive Democratic nominee, what ideas have the greatest currency, and what new policies Mr. Biden will ultimately embrace to address the racial inequities now animating protests nationwide.

Some broad contours have become clear. Mr. Biden plays down concerns about the deficit during this recession, aides say, and he has begun soliciting ambitious plans to bridge the gap in earnings and wealth between black and white Americans. His regular briefings are by a small group of liberal economists and others with roots in the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. And he sees the economic recovery as his foremost duty if he wins the presidency.

Yet the details of the policymaking process are closely held. Mr. Biden is now seeking input from more than 100 left-leaning economists and other researchers, but there is little clarity on who has true influence…A three-page document, sent last month ahead of the committee’s first online meeting, warned participants not to circulate email from committee leaders or refer to “the candidate or to the campaign” in documents.

“You are not to disclose the names of others who are involved in the committee to nonmembers,” according to the memo, which has not previously been reported.

 Members were allowed to tell friends and colleagues that they are participating, it continued, but “you should not, however, disclose your participation on social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn or in your professional bio.”

A section about press inquiries began, “Simply put, do not talk to the press.”

I am not expecting any sound economic policy if Biden gets elected but at this point, we don’t even know what bad direction he would go in. It might be very bad.

There is a hint that the secrecy may be because the advisers are radical left economists.

The Times again:

Conversations with policy experts close to the Biden campaign suggest that Mr. Biden has thus far leaned on a core group of advisers who roughly match his own ideological standing within a Democratic Party that has steadily moved left since Barack Obama won the White House in 2008. Mr. Biden appears to have widened that group to include some of the young and sharply progressive thinkers who drove the policy debate leftward during much of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign.

To wit: Asked over email if he was advising Mr. Biden, Gabriel Zucman, one of the architects of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposed tax on high-wealth Americans, referred a reporter to an email address for Mr. Biden’s press office. That address matched one that campaign officials sent to members of the newly formed economic policy committee, with instructions to give it to reporters in the event of questions about Mr. Biden.

It’s clear that whoever is running Biden wants the radicals in.

More from The Times:

Mr. Biden has faced pressure from progressives who have objected to his receiving advice from Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and top economic aide to Mr. Obama whom they fault over his record in areas like financial regulation and climate change.

Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a progressive group, warned against relying on what he described as the “old guard” of Democratic economists.

I have written previously about the radical Zucman :

 Cal Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez hate capitalism, free markets and the accumulation of wealth.

They are Elizabeth Warren’s two top economic advisers.

And in a post titled Krugman is Promoting Two Tax Maniacs, I wrote::

 Zucman has called for taxing private charities and philanthropic foundations, in addition to wealthy incomes.

Zucman and Saez are also the developers of Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax.

–RW

Be seeing you

 

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Senator Rand Paul Proposes National Ban on No-Knock Police Raids | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

Across the country—largely due to the failed drug war—police conduct more than 20,000 no-knock raids a year.

Breonna was murdered during one of them. Countless others are beaten, terrorized, and killed as well, and just like Breonna, cops often act on bad information.

“In theory, no-knock raids are supposed to be used in only the most dangerous situations … In reality, though, no-knock raids are a common tactic, even in less-than-dangerous circumstances,” Vox wrote in an revealing investigation in 2015. Case in point, Breonna Taylor.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/senator-rand-paul-proposes-national-ban-on-no-knock-police-raids/

by

On Thursday, in a historical move, all 26 members of the Louisville, Kentucky Metro Council voted to pass a ban on no-knock warrants, a measure known as “Breonna’s Law.” The law was named after the former EMT who was gunned down as she slept in her bed by cops raiding the wrong home. The move still needs to be approved by the mayor, but it is revolutionary in precedent.

Image1“This is one of many critical steps on police reform that we’ve taken to create a more peaceful, just, compassionate and equitable community,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said, vowing to sign the bill “soon as it hits my desk.”

While this move is certainly noteworthy and will lead to a massive shift in law enforcement procedure that will undoubtedly save lives, it is reserved solely for the people of Louisville, Kentucky.

So, after this move, Sen. Rand Paul (R) Kentucky, proposed to make this a nationwide ban in one of the most unprecedented anti-police state moves we’ve ever seen.

“After talking with Breonna Taylor’s family, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s long past time to get rid of no-knock warrants. This bill will effectively end no-knock raids in the United States,” Paul said.

As Axios reports, Paul introduced a bill on Thursday that would prohibit federal law enforcement and local police that receive federal funding from entering homes without warning through a “no-knock” warrant, which was reportedly obtained by the officers that shot Louisville resident Breonna Taylor in her home on March 13.

Why it matters: In the wake of nationwide protests against the killing of George Floyd, there’s now a bipartisan consensus that police reform is necessary.

  • Senate Republicans led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) are planning a package that would require states to provide data on the use of no-knock warrants, but Paul’s proposal goes even further.
  • House Democrats, meanwhile, have proposed their own bill that would reform police training, make lynching a federal crime, and ban chokeholds and the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases.

As many have pointed out, however, the bill proposed by Democrats is full of questionable language which could end up hindering the already difficult process of seeking transparency in policing. Rand Paul’s proposal we be far more effective at curbing police violence.

Image1 (1)The idea of ceasing the use of no-knock raids is revolutionary when it comes to policing in the United States and its importance cannot be overstated.

Across the country—largely due to the failed drug war—police conduct more than 20,000 no-knock raids a year.

Breonna was murdered during one of them. Countless others are beaten, terrorized, and killed as well, and just like Breonna, cops often act on bad information.

“In theory, no-knock raids are supposed to be used in only the most dangerous situations … In reality, though, no-knock raids are a common tactic, even in less-than-dangerous circumstances,” Vox wrote in an revealing investigation in 2015. Case in point, Breonna Taylor.

A whopping 79 percent of these raids — like the one used to murder Dennis and Rhogena Tuttle in Houston, TX in 2019 — are for search warrants only, mostly for drugs. Just seven percent of no-knock raids are for crisis situations like hostages, barricaded suspects, or active shooters, according to an investigation by the ACLU.

What’s more, the study by the ACLU found that in 36 percent of SWAT deployments for drug searches, and possibly in as many as 65 percent of such deployments, no contraband of any sort was found.

Not only do these raids appear to be mostly unproductive, but they are often carried out on entirely innocent people based on lies, wrong information, or corruption, laying waste to the rights—and lives—of unsuspecting men, women, children, and their pets.

As we’ve seen in the case of Roderick Talley, drug task forces routinely conspire together to raid the homes of innocent people as a means of justifying themselves.

Cops have been routinely caught planting evidence, lying on warrants, and raiding wrong homes, and when we attempt to question this madness, we’re accused of hating cops.

Raiding homes with no-knock warrants was proven so horrifyingly ineffective last year in Houston with the murder Dennis and Rhogena Tuttle, that Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo vowed to end them.

However, unlike the aforementioned bans at the federal and city level, this was the chief simply promising not to do them.

As we reported at the time, in a move TFTP has never seen, the Houston police department is claiming they are taking steps to prevent future scenarios like this from happening—by ceasing the use of no-knock raids.

“The no-knock warrants are going to go away like leaded gasoline in this city,” Acevedo said during a heated town hall meeting on Monday.

“I’m 99.9 percent sure we won’t be using them,” he continued.

Hopefully, this bill receives the bipartisan support it needs to pass and end this violent and destructive practice. It will take us one step closer to one of the most important solutions to ending police brutality, by chipping away at the war on drugs.

 

This article was originally featured at The Free Thought Project

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Democrats & Jim Crow: A Century of Racist History the Democratic Party Prefers You’d Forget | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/democrats-jim-crow-a-century-of-racist-history-the-democratic-party-prefers-youd-forget/

by

In the last Presidential election, Donald Trump was lauded for his performance among black voters – he scored 4 percent of female black voters and a whopping 13 percent of black male voters, the highest since Richard Nixon. This isn’t shocking. Black voters have voted en masse for the Democratic Party since the mid-60s and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the social welfare programs of the Great Society. This solidified black voters behind the Democratic Party, but they had been moving there since the New Deal.

However, it’s a historical anomaly in the United States. The traditional home of the black voter was the Republican Party, due to its historical role in ending slavery and introducing Reconstruction Acts and Amendments to the Constitution. It also did not help that the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow, a system of legally enforced segregation present throughout the American South in the aftermath of the Civil War.

What Do We Mean When We Say “Jim Crow?”

Democrats & Jim Crow: A Century of Racist History the Democratic Party Prefers You'd ForgetBefore delving further into the topic, it is important to define precisely what we mean by Jim Crow and why it is a distinct form of legal codes in United States history. While Northern and Western cities were by no means integrated, this integration was de facto, not de jure. In many cases, the discrimination in the North was a discrimination of custom and preference, discrimination that could not be removed without a highly intrusive government action ensuring equality of outcome. Northerners and Westerners were not required to discriminate, but nor were they forbidden from doing so.

Compare this to the series of laws in the American South known for mandating segregation at everything from public schools to water fountains.

No one is entirely sure where the term “Jim Crow” came from, but it’s suspected that it comes from an old minstrel show song and dance routine called “Jump Jim Crow.” Curiously, the first political application of the term “Jim Crow” was applied to the white populist supporters of President Andrew Jackson. The history of the Jim Crow phenomenon we are discussing here goes back to the end of Reconstruction in the United States.

The Reconstruction Era

Briefly, Reconstruction was the means by which the federal government reasserted control over the Southern states that had previously seceded to form the Confederate States of America. This involved military occupation and the disenfranchisement of the bulk of the white population of the states. The results of the Reconstruction Era were mixed. Ultimately, Reconstruction ended as part of a bargain to put President Rutherford B. Hayes into the White House after the 1876 election. The lasting results of Reconstruction are best enumerated for our purposes as the Reconstruction Amendments:

  • The 13th Amendment abolished involuntary servitude for anyone other than criminals. It was once voted down and passed only through the extensive political maneuvering on behalf of President Abraham Lincoln himself and the approval of dubious Reconstruction state governments in the South. It became law in December 1865.
  • The 14th Amendment includes a number of provisions often thought to be part of the Bill of Rights, such as the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause, which are, in fact, later innovations. Birthright citizenship’s advocates claim that the Constitutional justification can be found in this sprawling Amendment, which also includes Amendments barring former Confederate officials from office and addresses Confederate war debts. This Amendment became law in July 1868.
  • The 15th Amendment prevents discrimination against voters on the basis of race or skin color. This law was quickly circumvented by a number of laws discriminating against all voters on the basis of income (poll tax) or education (literacy tests). The Southern states eventually figured out how to prevent black citizens from voting while allowing white ones through grandfather clauses.

The Reconstruction Amendments were the first amendments to the Constitution passed in almost 60 years, and represented a significant expansion of federal power.

Perhaps the most important thing to know about the Reconstruction Amendments is that they were largely ineffective. Ranking public officials of the Confederacy were elected to federal government, blacks were disenfranchised as quickly as they were elected to the Senate, and Jim Crow, an entire system of legal discrimination, was erected to return black Americans to their subservient status. With the exception of citizenship for blacks and an end to involuntary servitude, the substance of the rest of the Amendments were largely discarded.

Black Disenfranchisement as a Prologue to Jim Crow

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Global Reset – Unplugged. “The Deep State” – Global Research- Centre for Research on Globalization

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

Coopted or created by the Beast(s) are also, the European Union, the Bretton Woods Organizations, World Bank and IMF, as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and – make no mistake – the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It has no teeth. Just to make sure the law is always on the side of the lawless.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-reset-unplugged/5716178

By Peter Koenig

Imagine, you are living in a world that you are told is a democracy – and you may even believe it – but in fact your life and fate is in the hands of a few ultra-rich, ultra-powerful and ultra-inhuman oligarchs. They may be called Deep State, or simply the Beast, or anything else obscure or untraceable – it doesn’t matter. They are less than the 0.0001%.

For lack of a better expression, let’s call them for now “obscure individuals”. 

These obscure individuals who pretend running our world have never been elected. We don’t need to name them. You will figure out who they are, and why they are famous, and some of them totally invisible. They have created structures, or organisms without any legal format. They are fully out of international legality. They are a forefront for the Beast. Maybe there are several competing Beasts. But they have the same objective: A New or One World Order (NWO, or OWO).

These obscure individuals are running, for example, The World Economic Forum (WEF – representing Big Industry, Big Finance and Big Fame), the Group of 7 – G7, the Group of 20 – G20 (the leaders of the economically” strongest” nations). There are also some lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham House and more.

The members of all of them are overlapping. Even this expanded forefront combined represents less than 0.001%. They all have superimposed themselves over sovereign national elected and constitutional governments, and over THE multinational world body, the United Nations, the UN.

In fact, they have coopted the UN to do their bidding. UN Director Generals, as well as the DGs of the multiple UN-suborganizations, are chosen  mostly by the US, with the consenting nod of their European vassals – according to the candidate’s political and psychological profile. If his or her ‘performance’ as head of the UN or head of one of the UN suborganizations fails, his or her days are counted. Coopted or created by the Beast(s) are also, the European Union, the Bretton Woods Organizations, World Bank and IMF, as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and – make no mistake – the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It has no teeth. Just to make sure the law is always on the side of the lawless.

In addition to the key international financial institutions, WB and IMF, there are the so-called regional development banks and similar financial institutions, keeping the countries of their respective regions in check.

In the end its financial or debt-economy that controls everything. Western neoliberal banditry has created a system, where political disobedience can be punished by economic oppression or outright theft of national assets in international territories. The system’s common denominator is the (still) omnipresent US-dollar.

“Unelected Individuals”

The supremacy of these obscure unelected individuals becomes ever more exposed. We, the People consider it “normal” that they call the shots, not what we call – or once were proud of calling, our sovereign nations and sovereignly elected governments. They have become a herd of obedient sheep. The Beast has gradually and quietly taken over. We haven’t noticed. It’s the salami tactic: You cut off slice by tiny slice and when the salami is gone, you realize that you have nothing left, that your freedom, your civil and human rights are gone. By then it’s too late. Case in point is the US Patriot Act. It was prepared way before 9/11. Once 9/11 “happened”, the Patriot Legislation was whizzed through Congress in no time – for the people’s future protection – people called for it for fear – and – bingo, the Patriot Act took about 90% of the American population’s freedom and civil rights away. For good.

We have become enslaved to the Beast. The Beast calls the shots on boom or bust of our economies, on who should be shackled by debt, when and where a pandemic should break out, and on the conditions of surviving the pandemic, for example, social confinement. And to top it all off – the instruments the Beast uses, very cleverly, are a tiny-tiny invisible enemy, called a virus, and a huge but also invisible monster, called FEAR. That keeps us off the street, off reunions with our friends, and off our social entertainment, theatre, sports, or a picnic in the park.

Soon the Beast will decide who will live and who will die, literally – if we let it. This may be not far away. Another wave of pandemic and people may beg, yell and scream for a vaccine, for their death knell, and for the super bonanza of Big Pharma – and towards the objectives of the eugenicists blatantly roaming the world – see this. There is still time to collectively say NO. Collectively and solidarily.

Take the latest case of blatant imposture. Conveniently, after the first wave of Covid-19 had passed, at least in the Global North, where the major world decisions are made, in early June 2020, the unelected WEF Chairman, Klaus Schwab, announced “The Great Reset”. Taking advantage of the economic collapse – the crisis shock, as in “The Shock Doctrine” – Mr. Schwab, one of the Beast’s frontrunners, announces openly what the WEF will discuss and decide for the world-to-come in their next Davos Forum in January 2021. For more details see this. Read the rest of this entry »

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Washington Complains: China is Doing What We Always Do! | The American Conservative

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

The U.S. has long used foreign aid as walking around money for the secretary of state. Countries with American bases have always gotten more cash, as have nations that have made peace with American allies, such as Egypt and Jordan.

America will be sorely disappointed if it believes it can convince—or compel with money and threats—its allies into following whatever policies it promulgates. Joining an American campaign against China looks suicidal to Seoul.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/washington-complains-china-is-doing-what-we-always-do/

Beijing is using threats and aid to pressure other governments to toe the line. Wherever did they get that from?

rawf8/Shutterstock
Doug Bandow

In a new official strategy of confrontation against the People’s Republic of China, the Trump administration has announced its intention “to compel Beijing to cease or reduce actions harmful to the United States’ vital, national interests and those of our allies and partners.”

Explains the strategy paper:

Given Beijing’s increasing use of economic leverage to extract political concessions from or exact retribution against other countries, the United States judges that Beijing will attempt to convert [One Belt One Road] projects into undue political influence and military access. Beijing uses a combination of threat and inducement to pressure governments, elites, corporations, think tanks, and others—often in an opaque manner—to toe the CCP line and censor free expression. Beijing has restricted trade and tourism with Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, and others, and has detained Canadian citizens, in an effort to interfere in these countries’ internal political and judicial processes.

All true. But which government pioneered the use of economic resources to reward and punish other nations? Hint: it was not China.

The U.S. has long used foreign aid as walking around money for the secretary of state. Countries with American bases have always gotten more cash, as have nations that have made peace with American allies, such as Egypt and Jordan.

In contrast, governments that have crossed Washington have lost money. In 1956, the Eisenhower administration punished Egypt’s Nasser government by revoking its offer to finance the Aswan High Dam. In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker told Yemen’s UN ambassador, “that was the most expensive no vote you ever cast,” after he voted against the UN Security Council resolution authorizing war against Iraq.

Washington has also used trade barriers to reward and punish other states. The U.S. embargoed Cuba six decades ago, and has since applied secondary sanctions that have hit other nations as well. The use of financial sanctions has become Washington’s modus operandi.

Indeed, the Trump administration has dramatically escalated economic warfare, applying “maximum pressure” to Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, hitting Cuba, Russia, and Syria with multiple new penalties, threatening to sanction Europeans if they try to avoid Iranian restrictions, and targeting Germany’s Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline to Russia. The White House treats sanctions as the default response to governments that resist Washington’s dictates.

All of these measures were imposed “in an effort to interfere in [other] countries’ internal political and judicial processes.” In fact, despite Washington’s fervent objections to Russian election meddling in 2016, the U.S. has intervened in more than 80 democratic elections in other nations, including the 1986 presidential contest in Russia.

Yet although America remains number one, China’s economic clout is significant, including with important countries such as South Korea. Indeed, without any sense of irony, Matthew Ha of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently expressed concern that China was thwarting U.S. pressure on Seoul to follow Washington’s policies. For instance, Beijing “launched an economic warfare campaign that cost South Korean companies operating in China at least $15.6 billion in losses” because the Republic of Korea deployed the THAAD missile defense system.

Complained Ha: “To placate China, Seoul eventually agreed not to deploy further THAAD systems, not to join a U.S.-led regional missile defense architecture, and not to form a trilateral U.S.-Japan-ROK alliance.” Moreover, claimed Ha, “due in part to concerns over Chinese retaliation, Seoul has not completely divested its telecommunications infrastructure from the Chinese company Huawei.” Further, “China’s hand is also evident in Seoul’s aversion to the U.S.-and Japan-led ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) initiative,” instead favoring its own policy directed at Southeast Asia.

If all this is due to a $15.6 billion hit, then Washington should take lessons. The Trump administration has caused economic damage to many countries, yet its wrecking-ball sanctions have so far failed in every case: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela all have refused to give into U.S. demands.

The president has been reduced to begging Tehran to negotiate, promising a better deal if it surrenders before November 3 to help his reelection prospects. Iran and Venezuela ridiculed Washington’s threats to interdict Tehran’s tankers. The communists still rule Cuba. Despite two summits, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is strengthening his country’s nuclear deterrent. No one believes that Russia will give up Crimea.

No doubt, South Korea worries about China’s clout, since the Chinese trade more with them than America and Japan combined. But Beijing is also a good excuse to resist U.S. demands seen as unreasonable, especially given that the current president is Moon Jae-in, a man of the left who has no natural affinity for President Trump.

China sees THAAD as part of a U.S.-directed containment system. And South Korea is not the only ally less than enthused by the administration’s demand to displace Huawei. These issues are about more than money. China will always be South Korea’s neighbor and has a long memory. The U.S.’s national government effectively bankrupt and beset with manifold other challenges, is not likely to stick around Korea forever.

The point is, contra Washington’s delusions, South Korean officials do not believe that taking part in an anti-China campaign serves South Korea’s interests. Ha writes: “Beijing’s sway over this key U.S. ally is especially risky amid growing Chinese aggression and competition with the United States. Most recently, Beijing pushed Seoul to bless China’s new national security law designed to crack down on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Seeking to avoid conflict, Seoul took a neutral position, thereby undermining the protesters and revealing an alarming inability to support the liberal democratic values that underpin the ROK-U.S. alliance.”

What evidence does Ha have that Seoul wanted to join the complaint? Most of America’s European allies and Asian friends took similarly cautious positions. Even Tokyo ostentatiously refused to join America’s statement on Hong Kong, though the former now says it wants to take the lead on the issue at the next G-7 meeting, to uncertain effect.

Moreover, the U.S. routinely sacrifices other people’s democratic aspirations and human rights for policy ends. Without shame, the administration is assisting the brutally totalitarian and aggressive Saudi dictatorship as it slaughters Yemeni civilians and denies its own people political and religious liberty. Washington stands by as the Egyptian and Bahraini dictatorships brutally crush democracy activists and protesters.

Yet Ha demands action to push—or is that force?—South Korea onto the battlefield against China. He writes: “If its China strategy is to succeed, the Trump administration must counter Beijing’s attempts to undermine U.S. alliances.” Which requires that Washington “assuage ROK concerns about Chinese coercion by committing to proportionately punish China for any attempted coercion and to provide South Korea with immediate economic support to cope with Beijing’s retaliation.”

So Washington, the world’s chief proponent of economic warfare, is going to sanction another country because it organizes a boycott, cuts investment, or restricts trade to another country? And Washington, with a skyrocketing national debt, is going to create a new dole for wealthy countries like South Korea? Imagine the long line of claimants that will develop demanding compensation for following America! But what if Washington’s friends still balk at following U.S. dictates? Will America then sanction them, making them pay for their perfidy?

This bizarre strategy is doomed to fail. Despite Washington’s presumption that it speaks for the world, its allies often disagree. Seoul currently disputes American policy toward North Korea. Unsurprisingly, South Korean policymakers want to preserve peaceful, stable relations with both the U.S. and China.

“If we antagonize China,” observed Moon Chung-in, an adviser to South Korea’s president, “China can pose a military threat to us. Plus, China can support North Korea. Then, we will really have a new Cold War on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.” Of course, some Americans don’t care about the possibility of war “over there,” as Senator Lindsey Graham famously put it. South Koreans understandably see it very differently.

When I ask South Korean diplomats whether they are prepared to allow the U.S. military to use their bases against China in a war over Taiwan, they blanch. There ain’t no way their country is going to be turned into a battleground and made an enemy of the Chinese at Washington’s command.

Washington has enough problems dealing with China without creating a new battleground with little practical benefit to America. The U.S. already is running a trade war, seeking to force compensation for the COVID-19 outbreak, and threatening Chinese concerns with sanctions tied to Iran and North Korea.

America will be sorely disappointed if it believes it can convince—or compel with money and threats—its allies into following whatever policies it promulgates. Joining an American campaign against China looks suicidal to Seoul. Demanding that South Korea choose between Washington and Beijing could wreck the alliance. Right now, hubris poses a bigger threat than China to U.S. foreign policy.

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Hysteria Based on Phony Numbers, BLM Edition – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

If you think the data says police are killing black citizens at a
higher rate than other groups it is because you are not good at
analyzing things. Which puts you in good company with 95% of the public.

Maybe 5% of the public knows the numbers you see in the media are
INTENTIONALLY misleading. For example, if you think it means something
that a higher percentage of the black population is killed by police,
you are in the 95% who are being duped by data that is misleading.

What people think they know about U.S. history or economics is downright horrifying.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/thomas-woods/hysteria-based-on-phony-numbers-blm-edition/

By

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Well, Dilbert creator Scott Adams has gone and done it now.

He just published the following Twitter thread, which I reproduce here without comment:

Today is the last day of my seven-day challenge to provide a current example of systemic racism in America. No examples yet, just conceptual takes.

One view is that racist people in a non-racist system creates “systemic racism.” For example, the justice system is colorblind by intention, but not by outcome. The reason for different outcomes is assumed to be racism, but studies can’t isolate that variable.

And here we have a new problem. If “look at the data” is an argument for ANYTHING, why are we having mass protests about police killing black citizens at a higher rate than other groups when the data says otherwise?

If you think the data says police are killing black citizens at a higher rate than other groups it is because you are not good at analyzing things. Which puts you in good company with 95% of the public.

Maybe 5% of the public knows the numbers you see in the media are INTENTIONALLY misleading. For example, if you think it means something that a higher percentage of the black population is killed by police, you are in the 95% who are being duped by data that is misleading.

Don’t trust me about the data? Good call. You shouldn’t. Trust the left-leaning people who are experts at analyzing data and statistics. They are all hiding. Hear the dog not barking. No professional data/statistics expert on the left are helping us sort out the data. Why?

You f***ing know why. They would be cancelled by their own team if they told the truth. Don’t believe me? Again, good call. We live in a world where no one is credible. So let me offer a test of my claim.

Find me the most credible and left-leaning data/statistics expert, and put that expert in a long-form interview with a well-informed right-leaning interviewer on the topic of police violence. Let’s say Ben Shapiro. This will not happen. Ask yourself why.

You know that executive order Trump just signed that creates a national database of police misconduct? Half the country is in for a big surprise if the data is deemed credible. To be fair, that surprise could go either way.

Cancel culture has forced white people to lie to black people for self-preservation. No solutions are possible when debate is effectively outlawed and the data experts are in hiding.

We are now experiencing mass protests over an issue the data can’t find, in a context of continuous race relations improvements, and everyone started out on the same side after seeing the George Floyd video. More white people than black protested.

How did we get to this absurd point in which the country is being ripped apart by AGREEMENT? Well, it wasn’t because millions of independent-minded citizens looked at the data and made wise decisions, many of them in agreement with their own side by coincidence.

The biggest red pill in the world is the realization that your opinions on politics are assigned to you by people who know how to make you believe you made up your own mind. There is probably some genetic propensity for conservatism or liberalism, but not policy details.

Most of you know I’m a trained hypnotist and I write about the techniques of persuasion. Viewed through my filter, the current upheaval in the country is predicated on something real and important-to-fix (racism), but the way we are ACTING on it comes from external persuasion.

I don’t see a public trying to find solutions. What I see is hypnotized puppets fighting other hypnotized puppets while the puppet-masters cash their checks. And no, I don’t blame George Soros. This isn’t about money influence. It’s about something far more powerful.

You aren’t yet ready for the truth. But you will be.

Now let me add:

Current controversies are far from alone in this.

So much of what people think they know is contradicted by readily available data that they don’t bother to consult or even know where to find if they did want to consult it.

What people think they know about U.S. history or economics is downright horrifying.

But rather than fruitlessly shake my fist at the institutions teaching them this crap, I built something of my own, the dashboard university I call Liberty Classroom.

If you’re a victim of educational malpractice — and let’s face it: who isn’t? — you’ll be like a kid in a candy store.

Go and absorb the knowledge:

http://www.LibertyClassroom.com

Oh, and incidentally, here’s our secret coupon code page.

Be seeing you

 

 

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True Breeze Takes a Knee – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 20, 2020

Normally I don’t pay much attention to what the entertainment industry says or does (yes, that includes sports).

But this is different.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/no_author/true-breeze-takes-a-knee/

By George M. Hollenback

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

HOST: It is our pleasure to have as our guest today True Breeze, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. True found himself in the eye of the storm regarding the kneeling controversy, but he’s changed his mind and wants to go on record stating that he himself will be taking a knee come his first game of the season. True, what made you change your mind?

BREEZE: Well, I had initially thought that kneeling was being disrespectful to our country, especially to those who gave their lives to keep our country free. But a number of players who kneel say they have family in the armed forces and respect them very much for their service to our country. Kneeling wasn’t being done to disrespect our country but to bring attention to the problems in our country.

HOST: So are you kneeling to show your solidarity with Black Lives Matter?

BREEZE: Actually I’m not. Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that black lives matter. It’s just that I have a problem with BLM’s agenda.

HOST: Their agenda. And just what might that agenda be?

BREEZE: The agenda is that the only black lives that matter are the ones that promote victimism. And some of the people they hold up as martyrs—most notably Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown—justifiably got what they had coming to them.

HOST: Okay, so what do you mean by victimism?

BREEZE: I’ll give you an example. After that video surfaced of Ahmaud Arbery being shot, LeBron James tweeted, “We’re literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step foot outside the comfort of our homes! Can’t even go for a damn jog, man!”

HOST: Yeah, I read that tweet.

BREEZE: Now do any of these names ring a bell—Christopher Lane, Nathan Trapuzzano, Dave Stevens, Karina Vetrano, Wendy Martinez?

HOST: I’m afraid I don’t recognize any of them.

BREEZE: They’re all white people killed by black people while they were out jogging. Nathan and Christopher were shot. Karina was raped and strangled. Wendy was stabbed in the neck and bled to death. Dave was hacked to death with a machete.

HOST: That’s awful!

BREEZE: More than twice as many white people are killed by black people every year than black people killed by white people, and the black population is only a fraction of the white population. Some guy analyzed the numbers and found that white people are being murdered at eight times the rate they should be by black people. You’ve seen black demonstrators waving placards around that say, “Stop Killing Us!”? Well, if anyone has a right to be waving that placard around, it’s white people. So anyway, the chances of a white person being killed by a black person while jogging are much, much, much greater than the other way around. But if you mix equal parts of ignorance and emotionalism and stir them up in LeBron’s little brain, you get this false narrative, this alternate reality in which black people can’t set foot outside their home without being killed by white people. That’s what I mean by victimism.

HOST: I see.

BREEZE: And another thing. When Christopher, Nathan, Dave, Karina, and Wendy were killed, no white celebrity spouted off in a tweet the way LeBron did. No one said anything about not being able to go out for a jog without getting killed by a black person. It would have been considered racist. But LeBron’s allowed to get away with that without being called out on it.

HOST: Sounds like you just did call him out on it. Okay, so you’re critical of BLM and think they have a victimist agenda. You don’t see Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as victims. You mentioned Ahmaud Arbery. And on the heels of that incident, we saw the death in custody of George Floyd. How do you feel about them?

BREEZE: Arbery was the victim of a very misguided and illegal attempt at a citizen’s arrest. But I honestly believe he’d still be alive if he hadn’t tried to rush a man who was holding a shotgun. And George Floyd—that video was one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve ever seen. Poor guy was definitely a victim of police brutality.

HOST: So are you kneeling for George Floyd and others like him who are undisputably victims of police brutality?

BREEZE: Well, I really don’t need to kneel for them because they’re already getting more than enough attention.

HOST: Okay, so just exactly who are you kneeling for?

Breeze unzips his jacket to reveal a T-shirt with a message that reads I KNEEL FOR THE ONE-THIRD. 

HOST: I kneel for the one-third. Okay, so who are the one-third?

BREEZE: They’re one-third of the total murder victims in our country every year. In one recent year, we had a little over fifteen thousand murders, and a third of fifteen thousand is five thousand.

HOST: Okay, but what is so special about one-third of those murders? Aren’t all murders tragedies?

BREEZE: All murders certainly are tragedies, and unfortunately we’re always going to have some murders taking place. But the thing is, one-third of the murders taking place shouldn’t be happening. So I’m kneeling for those who shouldn’t have been murdered.

HOST: Shouldn’t have been murdered? You’ve lost me. How did you come up with the one-third figure for murders that shouldn’t be happening?

BREEZE: Black people make up thirteen percent of the population but commit about forty-seven percent of the murders. Forty-seven percent minus thirteen percent is thirty-four percent. And thirty-four percent is just a tad over one-third. We would expect a group making up thirteen percent of the population to commit thirteen percent of the murders. But when that group goes overboard and commits thirty-four percent of murders on top of the thirteen percent they’ve already committed, well, that thirty-four percent just shouldn’t be happening.

HOST: So you’re saying that a whole one-third of the total murders happening in our country are all committed by black people after they’ve already committed thirteen percent of the murders?

BREEZE: That’s exactly right. And get this—eighty-eight percent of that one-third are black. And eighty-eight percent of five thousand is forty-four hundred. But we’ll just make that an even four thousand to be conservative and keep things simple.

HOST: So out of the one-third of murders that shouldn’t be happening, about four thousand victims are black?

BREEZE: That’s right. Now here’s something to think about. Suppose black people were committing only thirteen percent of the murders, like they should be, and someone else was committing that thirty-four percent of extra murders. Let’s say the culprits were some kind of stealthy boogeymen right out of the X-Files, flitting around the country and murdering people, most of those murders taking place in the inner cities. Four thousand black victims, several hundred white victims. Would anyone in their right mind be talking about defunding the police? They’d be screaming for more police. Especially black politicians and activists. They’d be whining that not enough was being done to keep their communities safe.

HOST: You seem to be implying that black people are their own boogeymen but don’t even know it.

BREEZE: They don’t have a clue. You have all this to-do about black people having “the talk” with their kids so they don’t get killed by the police. Yet the chance of a black person being unjustifiably killed by the police is but a tiny fraction of the chance of their being one of the four thousand dead that shouldn’t be dead. So why isn’t anyone having a talk about that? Why don’t those four thousand black lives matter?

HOST: You tell me.

BREEZE: The four thousand dead don’t matter because they don’t fit the narrative of black victimism. The four thousand dead mean that black Americans have to acknowledge that they are indeed their own boogeymen and come to grips with problems of their own making.

HOST: So how do they make their own problems?

BREEZE: One statistic that I came across in my reading is that underage black girls have babies at several times the rate for underage white girls and that they also have abortions at several times the rate for underage white girls. That speaks volumes about the culture in which that occurs. Why aren’t those girls being taught that letting some stupid boy get into their pants and get them into trouble is one of the worst mistakes a girl can make? And why aren’t boys and young men being taught not to go around impregnating those girls? This shows a lack of discipline and a lack of impulse control. This is how future criminals are literally bred into existence. Another statistic deals with unmarried women having babies. The rate is about twice as high for black women as compared with white women.

The circumstances under which girls and women have babies have a lot to do with poverty. Let’s say you’ve got an economically depressed area with too many people and not enough jobs to go around for those who need to be working. And then you’ve got underage girls having babies and unmarried women who can’t afford a baby having babies. You’re just creating even more people who won’t be able to find work, therefore increasing the poverty. And then we’re told that black people accumulate less wealth than white people. Well, let’s say that over here you’ve got a household consisting of a very young single working mother and her unplanned baby—she and her partner weren’t using protection—and she’s not getting any support from the baby daddy. And over here you’ve got a household consisting of a mature, young working couple with a baby they planned on having together. Which household is more likely to accumulate wealth?

HOST: I see your point. But the mainstream media always attribute black poverty and the attendant criminality to slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining.

BREEZE: The mainstream media pander to victimism like trained seals. Slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining are all water under the bridge long ago. The statistics I just cited about birthrates and abortion are relevant right now, a fifth of the way through the twenty-first century. That’s the real reason for black poverty and criminality, and only black people can change that by changing their behavior. All the millions of dollars donated through BLM is just money down the rat hole if there’s not going to be any fundamental change in behavior.

HOST: Okay, let’s wrap this up with a final statement about why you’re kneeling for the one-third.

BREEZE: What we’re going through right now is the con job of the century. Apologists for a little group that unleashes a horrific epidemic of murder on our country year in and year out has suckered us into believing that they are some kind of oppressed victims and that white people—who are being murdered at eight times the rate they should be by black people—are the oppressors. A group making up only thirteen percent of the population accounts for about forty percent of cop killings and can’t figure out why they are disproportionately killed by the police. A terrible incident such as the death in custody of George Floyd—which has to be understood in the context of some ten million arrests made each year—is blown way out of proportion as if it is routine occurrence, while the routine slaughter of the one-third goes unquestioned. I kneel to highlight the existence of the one third. I kneel to make people think about why we have a one-third. And when I kneel for the one-third, I’m kneeling for a hell of a lot more black lives than the other kneelers.

HOST: Thank you for joining us today.

BREEZE: Thanks for having me on the program.

Be seeing you

 

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