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A Tale of Two Mass Gatherings: Sturgis ‘Super Spreader’ Bike Rally vs. Black Lives Matter ‘Fiery but Mostly Peaceful’ Protests — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on September 15, 2020

Whatever the answer, it is rather remarkable that just as the BLM protests were breaking out across the country, at a time when churches, businesses, sporting events and political rallies were being shut down, a number of leading doctors were telling the locked up public that the ‘mostly peaceful’ protests were more important than protecting citizens from a pandemic.

That is not only remarkable, it is simply unbelievable.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/13/tale-two-mass-gatherings-sturgis-super-spreader-bike-rally-vs-black-lives-matter-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-protests/

Robert Bridge
 

Judging by the way the media and medical authorities are reprimanding public events organized by right-leaning organizations, it appears beyond doubt that the coronavirus outbreak is being used as a political weapon to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

In early August, an estimated 460,000 motorcyclists took part in the annual pilgrimage to South Dakota. The Sturgis Biker Rally, which has been a major draw since 1938, is a 10-day event that generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, much of it made on alcohol-fueled fun and revelry. In other words, as the party poopers would say, the ideal conditions for a deadly virus to sweep through a broad swath of the population, leaving behind incalculable loss of life in its wake.

So now that the coronavirus has surpassed its Sturgis incubation period, how many reckless bikers lost their lives for not honoring social-distancing protocols at crowded hotspots for multiple days and nights on end? You may want to have a seat, this will shock you. The current death rate stands at just one (1) person. That’s right, as USA Today reported, the unidentified victim was a “Minnesota man…in his 60s and had underlying health conditions.” In other words, not exactly the sort of outcome one would expect under a code-red pandemic.

Nevertheless, a study by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics (which receives its funding, oddly enough, from Deutsche Post) has described the biker rally as a coronavirus “super spreading event” that led to an estimated $12.2 billion in public health costs. I repeat, $12.2 billion dollars all on a single Covid-related fatality. While not denying that all lives matter, that seems a bit over the top. So how did it happen?

Well, the authors of the study, using the latest location-tracking technology from SafeGraph Inc., received a digital readout of bikers congregating in Sturgis before getting back on their Harleys and taking their viral stowaways on a joyride around the country; a bit like the Black Death teaming up with Hell’s Angels. This noxious combination, the researchers say, accounted for 266,796 new cases of Covid-19. At this point, however, the authors take some real liberties with the figures.

“If we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then these cases represent a cost of over $12.2 billion, based on the statistical cost of a COVID-19 case of $46,000…,” they wrote. In other words, the assumption is made that all of the 266,796 individuals who contracted the virus required lengthy hospital care in order to recover from their illnesses. Yet considering that the majority of people who have COVID are asymptomatic, or are able to recover at home without medical attention, the $12.2billion dollar price tag for the biker rally appears immediately suspicious.

 

Indeed, in the very next line (page 30, second paragraph of said study) it is admitted that “[T]his is by no means an accurate accounting of the true externality cost of the event, as it counts those who attended and were infected as part of the externality when their costs are likely internalized (i.e. their recovery was paid out of pocket, assuming expenditures were required).”

The authors continue: “However, this calculation is nonetheless useful as it provides a ballpark estimate as to how large of an externality a single superspreading event can impose, and a sense of how valuable restrictions on mass gatherings can be in this context.”

Don’t you just love it when esteemed researchers use the word “ballpark” in their studies?

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a leading epidemiologist with no apparent political ax to grind, told the Daily Beast in an interview that the study’s estimate that the additional cases cost billions of dollars was “absurd.” Yet few people are likely to ever hear that professional opinion; instead, what will stick in their mind is the screaming headline that Sturgis was a ‘super spreader event’ with a $12.2 billion dollar price tag.

The other messages being reinforced is that mass gatherings at a time of a pandemic are verboten and, furthermore, the authorities now have the ability to digitally trace people by accessing their cellphones wherever they go. Yet that disturbing knowledge only draws further attention to the elephant in the sick room: ‘Why are left-leaning protest groups, like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, not getting tagged as ‘super spreader’ events as are church gatherings, motorcycle rallies and, perhaps most tellingly, Trump rallies? Indeed, Twitter blue checks have been nothing but kind and courteous to the ‘peaceful protestors.’

 

By way of experiment, do a Google search for ‘black lives matter covid super spreader.’ The result shows one article after another asserting that the months-long protest movement, which continues to see random acts of violence flare up across the country, did nothing to contribute to an uptick in Covid infections. In fact, the third offering by the search monster is an article by The Colorado Sun with a headline declaring ‘Black Lives Matter protests may have slowed overall spread of coronavirus…’ The story focuses on the only study to date that examines the correlation between BLM protests and the transmission of Covid in the population.

Relying on cellphone tracing technology similar to the Sturgis study, the team of economists (not epidemiologists, mind you) came up with a shockingly different conclusion from that of Sturgis: “We find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case or death growth after more than five weeks following the onset of protests. We conclude that predictions of population-level spikes in COVID-19 cases from Black Lives Matter protests were too narrowly conceived because of failure to account for non-participants’ behavioral responses to large gatherings.”

 

Now had the BLM researchers really wanted to, they also could have performed the same numbers magic trick with the data that the Sturgis researchers did. After all, the whole notion as to exactly who is a COVID ‘carrier’ has become almost meaningless, or at the very least open to all sorts of speculation. The way the mortality figures have been manipulated around the country – with ‘COVID’ being stamped on the death certificates of people who died from completely different causes, like motorcycle crashes – naturally makes any study less reliable.

Moreover, a number of medical authorities actually came out in defense of the Black Lives Matter protests, arguing it was more crucial for the public to take a stand against ‘systemic racism’ than to protect the public from the scourge of a pandemic.

“In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus,” tweeted Jennifer Nuzzo in early June. No, Miss Nuzzo is not a fervent member of some activist group, like BLM or Antifa, for example, but is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

At the same time, Dr. Tom Frieden, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, said something equally disturbing when he tweeted, on the very same day as his above colleague, “The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust…”

It sounds like some people are sharing talking points at a very high level. But why?

Whatever the answer, it is rather remarkable that just as the BLM protests were breaking out across the country, at a time when churches, businesses, sporting events and political rallies were being shut down, a number of leading doctors were telling the locked up public that the ‘mostly peaceful’ protests were more important than protecting citizens from a pandemic.

That is not only remarkable, it is simply unbelievable.

© 2010 – 2020 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Whose Lives Matter?

Posted by M. C. on September 13, 2020

First, we ask, if all lives do not matter, which are the ones that are not precious?

Second, this dilution business.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/september/12/whose-lives-matter/

Written by Walter E. Block

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To say that “Black Lives Matter” has been in the news of late would be the understatement of the year, if not the decade. Maybe, even the century. This phrase is on everyone’s lips, on front yard signs, placards, billboards and even, in very large letters, on the streets of not just a few cities. It is the rare newspaper that appears without commenting upon this phrase each and every day.

In order to make sense of this phenomenon, let us consider a few distinctions.

First, there is the plain old ordinary declarative phrase “black lives matter.” Of course they do. Only the most hateful, despicable people would deny this; would say instead that black lives do not matter. Had this phrase been prevalent before the July 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February 2012 when it became popularized, it would have been met by all men of good will with the ho hum response of, “Of course black lives matter. All lives matter, and black lives are part of all lives.” End of story. No problem here.

But in the aftermath of that event, buttressed into the stratosphere with the death of George Floyd, a second interpretation of BLM came into being. Here, it might be defined as black lives matter especially, and particularly, since they are amongst the most vulnerable groups in the country, and, likely, in the entire world. No problem here, either. BLM is eminently sensible in this regard, too. In my view, the main reason for this sad state of affairs is not police brutality focused disproportionately on that community. The evidence suggests, rather, that the reason for their more than proportionate death at the hands of the constabularies is the greater proportionate crime rate of African Americans.

Instead, the immediate cause for their plight is black on black murders. That accounts for the lion’s share of African American deaths. If the people concerned with needless black deaths (everyone should be) really wanted to stop them, or, at least, greatly reduce their incidence, they would focus not on cops killing them, but, rather, on members of this community murdering each other. But they do not. Instead, they concern themselves, almost totally, with black people shot by law enforcement agencies. Witness the concern of members of the National Basketball Association.

What are the causal elements in black on black homicide? There are myriad of them, including family breakup due to a princely welfare system, drug prohibition featuring turf fights, and minimum wage laws which lead to unemployment, all disproportionately affecting young black males, the main perpetrators and victims of this conflagration.

Then, third, there is the undisputed fact that the official BLM is a Marxist organization (don’t believe me? go look at their webpage), which advocates the elimination of capitalism, and its replacement with the economic system that has served so well in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, the USSR, Eastern Europe, China (before they embraced large swathes of free enterprise). Under this system we can only say that black lives, along with those of everyone else, will not fare too well.

A fourth definition of BLM is that only black lives matter. How do we know that? This is due to the fact that there are various instances, inside academia and without, in which people who have averred that All Lives Matter only to be fired, condemned, ostracized, etc. A similar treatment is meted out, perhaps even worse, to those who maintain that White Lives Matter, or Blue (police) Lives matter, or, even Babies Lives Matter (a new motto of the anti abortionists). Why? This is due to the claim that all these copycat lives matter maxims dilute from BLM in this fourth and eminently reasonable interpretation, namely that black people lives are more endangered than those of anyone else, and thus deserve special consideration.

We have two criticisms to offer against that defense.

First, we ask, if all lives do not matter, which are the ones that are not precious? Those of whites? Asians? To say this of course is to drive right off the moral track. If there is anyone who maintains that some lives do not matter (I abstract here, from mass murderers such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.), he is as wicked as those who say that black lives do not matter in the slightest. Logic teaches us that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. Black people are “part” of the human race. Thus, if all lives matter, they are certainly included.

Second, this dilution business. Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass and suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were for a long time allies (both wanted access to the vote), and even friends. But then the “dilution” charge came up. Each accused the other of undermining the case of the other. Their split weakened the prospects of both. The BLM in this good fourth sense ought to learn a lesson from history if they want to boost their chances for success. All lives matter, certainly including those of African Americans.

From a logical standpoint, saying you agree with point A and then asserting that point B is also correct (so long the two are not self contradictory) does not necessarily mean that the message about point A become less important or meaningful. Besides, since when has “message dilution” become a fireable offense?

I want a cure for cancer. Should I be upset at those who at the same time want to remedy Covid, heart disease, diabetes, poverty, alcoholism? Should I try to get them fired? Should I hurl denigration at them? Obviously, that would be more than just a little bit silly. But this is precisely what the “dilution” criticism amounts to.

Background material:

https://www.nps.gov/articles/comrades-in-conflict.htm

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/the-great-schism/246640/

BLM web page: https://blacklivesmatter.com/

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Calling Chomsky Out: The Riots Are a Full-Fledged Attack by the Hard Left To Topple American Society – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on September 12, 2020

The charge of systemic institutionalized racism against black people is completely false (see here, here and here). The only form of institutional racism that exists in the United States is discrimination against whites and Asians in education and employment.

Please make no mistake. The specious charge of anti-black racism is a mere cover for unleashing violence dressed up as a “social justice movement” whose real purpose is to destabilize our society and bring about the Hard Left’s extra-electoral coup d’état.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/vasko-kohlmayer/calling-chomsky-out-the-riots-are-a-full-fledged-attack-by-the-hard-left-to-topple-american-society/

By

Professor Noam Chomsky, formerly of MIT, has the distinction of being the most frequently quoted academic and is arguably the best known public intellectual in the world. He recently gave an interview in which he spoke, among other things, about the BLM sponsored riots that are taking place across the United States. This is what he had to say on this subject:

“The Black Lives Matter protests which is a huge, incredible development: the biggest social movement in American history. A huge number of people involved spontaneously, solidarity black and white together, constructive goals, develop good programs, really great things happening… At the fringes they are people who are breaking windows, intimidating somebody at the restaurant… Things like this shouldn’t be happening, but that’s not what’s going on. What’s going on is a massive, non-violent, constructive social movement.”

As the tennis great John McEnroe used to say to wayward referees, “You cannot be serious. You just cannot be serious, sir.”

Professor Chomsky has made a career of calling out lying and hypocrisy. Today we must call out his own.

Below are some news pieces Professor Chomsky may want to read at his leisure.

From a Fox News report of June 29:

“Nationwide, Floyd related protests and riots lasted 3 weeks in 140 U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., New York; Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. By June 4 at least 40 cities in 23 states had imposed curfews. High-end boutiques in Beverly Hills and New York like Gucci and Chanel were looted, luxury stores in Santa Monica and big box retailers like Target and Macy’s across the US have suffered tens of millions in losses.”

And this:

The costliest civil disorder in U.S. history: That’s what insurance experts and city officials say the riots and demonstrations following the death of George Floyd are shaping up to be. From police overtime to losses from fire – as well as theft and other destruction – costs of the unrest are adding up. And for the first time since statistics were collected in 1950, the insurance industry has labeled this a “riot and civil disorder” catastrophe in multiple states. In Minneapolis, where some 400 businesses were damaged, owners and insurance experts estimate costs of the damage to exceed $500 million, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

A quote from another news item: “From police injuries to financial losses from looters, the aftermath from weeks of cross-country protests is bringing some cities to their knees.”

And here is an assessment of those peaceful and constructive protests by an insurance industry journal:

“The civil disturbance that started in Minneapolis after the killing by police of George Floyd spread to 20 other states — an unprecedented property insurance catastrophe that will likely impact policy renewals and could even persuade some insurers to exclude coverage for damage caused by riots, executives for Verisk’s Property Claim Services said. In the U.S., there has been no precedent for a riot catastrophe like this,” Tom Johansmeyer, head of PCS.”

And should we not mention Portland which has been burning for over one hundred days running and New York City which has been essentially hollowed out?

Some people on the “fringes breaking windows?” Is that really what’s happening, Professor?

The above reports are from weeks ago. The damage has only grown much worse since. There can be little doubt that when all is said and done the cumulative costs and losses will run into hundreds of billions of dollars. And that’s if we are lucky enough not to disintegrate in the process.

This catastrophic destruction is not the work of some far-off fringe. After all, how could a small minority on the periphery wreak such immense havoc? No, this kind of violence is the thrust and focus of this criminal enterprise which is being disingenuously portrayed by the Left as a “social justice” movement.

Do you want to know who is on the fringes of this campaign? They are those gullible enough to show up at the protests believing that there will be peaceful marching. These people are what Lenin used to call “useful idiots.”

The real heart of this “peaceful movement” are the violent vandals who have done an excellent job indeed. They have wrecked half the country.

“Constructive” and “non-violent?” Did you really say that Professor Chomsky?

What exactly is “non-violent” about all this terrible violence?

And what is “constructive” about a crusade launched under false pretenses? A sham claim is made – that the US is a racist country – and violence is let loose. This movement is not constructive – it is destructive. The whole travesty is based on a bogus allegation and conducted under a fake guise.

Since he is someone who has always portrayed himself as a scholar of complete intellectual honesty and integrity, we call upon Professor Chomsky to retract his statements about the situation on the ground which run in complete contravention of reality.

It is difficult to believe that anyone in his right mind would describe these devastating riots “non-violent” and “constructive.” But this is what leftists do, for they are masters of reality inversion. To listen to the leftist-speak is to enter a Twilight Zone. To them white is black and black is white. To them a violent insurrection is a gentle demonstration. To leftists a man is a woman and a woman is a man, and if you do not agree to their insanities you get cancelled and fired. And then you get threatened and you have to run for your life. This is the Left’s modus operandi, which is not surprising since psychologically and ideologically they hail from the same root as tyrants and totalitarians. We have shown this in the graphic called the Ideological Pedigree Table of Values and Views. Please do take a look if you have time.

Here is what is happening before our eyes: With America mired in a multi-prong crisis – which, sadly, is largely of our own making – the Hard Left has sensed that our society has been weakened to the point where it can be toppled. Taking advantage of the present weakness, the radicals are now trying to achieve their goal. From the very beginning, they have done all they could to encourage the vandals on the streets who have risen to the task by unleashing brutality that has caused heavy damage on many fronts and levels and shook America to its core. The army of wreckers have beaten and injured countless people, destroyed thousands of businesses and brought ruin to a number of cities. Rowing gangs of looters have terrorized and demoralized large swathes of the American population. The violence and chicanery have shaken this country deeply, pushing it to the brink. These domestic terrorists have been all along cheered on and protected by their enablers and shills in the media, in academia, in the courts and in the Democrat Party. What we are witnessing right now is nothing other than a full-fledged, coordinated assault against America by the elements of the Hard Left. The objective of this attack is the overthrow of our society.

These are no civil rights protests to bring justice and equality to an oppressed minority. The charge of systemic institutionalized racism against black people is completely false (see here, here and here). The only form of institutional racism that exists in the United States is discrimination against whites and Asians in education and employment. Just recently the US Justice Department found a leading IVY League university guilty of gross discrimination against white and Asian applicants whereby such applicants had a ninety percent lower chance of being admitted than black candidates with comparable scores. From a US Department of Justice press release:

“The Department of Justice today notified Yale University of its findings that Yale illegally discriminates against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The findings are the result of a two-year investigation in response to a complaint by Asian American groups concerning Yale’s conduct.”

If this is not racism what is, asks Patrick Buchanan in his column The Progressive Racism Of The Ivy League. This kind of anti-white, anti-Asian racism is the common practice in academia as well as in other spheres of our societal life such as government employment and contracts. The truth is that black Americans are the beneficiaries of reverse discrimination and numerous other forms of preferential treatment.

Please make no mistake. The specious charge of anti-black racism is a mere cover for unleashing violence dressed up as a “social justice movement” whose real purpose is to destabilize our society and bring about the Hard Left’s extra-electoral coup d’état.

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Vasko Kohlmayer [send him mail] is a naturalized citizen.
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Trump’s DHS to label white supremacists as the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the US: report

Posted by M. C. on September 7, 2020

“Think about it dear reader. Is it white supremacists who have been looting and burning 400 American cities? Have you ever seen a white supremacist? Where are their organizations, their political representation, their media shills? Are CNN and the New York Times propagandists for them? You have seen them nowhere. They don’t exist.

Trump’s DHS to label white supremacists as the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the US: report

Genrick Yagoda says:

September 3, 2020 at 6:43 pm GMT

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Trump’s DHS to label white supremacists as the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the US: report

Paul Craig Roberts

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/515244-dhs-to-label-white-supremacists-as-the-most-persistent-and-lethal

President Trump needs to get on this immediately.  If this report in The Hill is correct, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is either anti-white, a moron, perhaps both, or simply unaware of what the DHS anti-white bureaucrats are up to.  While Antifa and Black Lives Matter burn and loot American cities, destroy property, attack and murder people in restaurants and on street corners, and declare their revolutionary intent, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, reportedly, is declaring a hypothetical  group that is not involved in any violence to be a “lethal threat to the US.”  The mythical group is labeled “white supremacy,” and thus easily declared a “lethal threat” as the declaration of white threat is consistent with critical race theory used to brainwash students in American schools and universities and in mandatory sensitivity indoctrination for whites in state, local, and federal government and in corporations.

Keep in mind that The Hill is anti-Trump and Chad Wolf might not be aware of the draft reports of a “white supremacy threat to the US” that his agency is preparing —https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-terror-threat-dhs-409236

The question immediately arises: What good is Homeland Security when it focuses on mythical instead of real threats? Why should Americans, hard-pressed as they are, pay for worthless “homeland security?”

Is the Homeland Security bureaucracy’s real worry that  white Americans might organize to protect themselves against Antifa and Black Lives Matter?  Is the threat perceived by Homeland Security that white Americans will not permit themselves to be dispossessed?  Is Homeland Security setting the stage to use federal force to prevent white people from protecting their lives, families, and property?  That is what it sounds like.

Where does Trump get the people he appoints to office?  Here is Trump trying to demonstrate  the difference between himself and anti-white Kamala Harris when there seems to be no difference between Homeland Security under Chad Wolf and Kamala.  Trump’s own administration is so anti-white that Trump has had to issue an executive order to stop the use of anti-white indoctrination sessions in the Trump administration—https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/09/05/president-trump-orders-a-halt-to-the-anti-white-racial-discrimination-practiced-throughout-the-us-government/   As Trump is staffed up with Kamalas, what changes if she is elected?  Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security is doing exactly what  the anti-white racist Kamala would do.

White supremacists are like Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.  They are like Iranian nuclear weapons.  They are like Assad’s use of chemical weapons. They are like Russian invasion of Ukraine. They are like Russiagate. They are like Trump badmouthing American war dead.  They are an orchestrated fiction.

Think about it dear reader.  Is it white supremacists who have been looting and burning 400 American cities?  Have you ever seen a white supremacist?  Where are their organizations, their political representation, their media shills?  Are CNN and the New York Times propagandists for them?  You have seen them nowhere.  They don’t exist.

But here is Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security declaring a fiction to be the greatest lethal threat to the US.

If The Hill report is true, Chad Wolf should be immediately fired, or we might as well vote for Kamala.

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Why DC Statehood Is a Suicidal Gamble – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on September 5, 2020

D.C. is unrepresentative of America and undeserving in any way to be raised to statehood. Since given the franchise 60 years ago, it has never voted Republican for president. Its three electoral votes have gone to the Democrats in every election since LBJ in ’64. Republican nominee Donald Trump got 4% of the D.C. vote. Hillary Clinton got 90%, a margin of 22-1.

As for D.C. public schools, the problem is not that they are named for presidents but that they produce some of the lowest test scores in the nation.

What does Joe Biden, who approved of the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers, generals and statesmen, think of D.C.’s scheme to “remove, replace or contextualize” the statues of so many men who held the office he now seeks?

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/patrick-j-buchanan/why-dc-statehood-is-a-suicidal-gamble/

By

When U.S. cities erupted after the death of George Floyd, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was in the vanguard of the protests, renaming a section of downtown Black Lives Matter Plaza, and painting the name in letters on the street so huge they could be seen from space.

Thursday, however, Bowser awoke to those same BLM protesters yelling outside her home, denouncing a “D.C. police murder of a Black Man,” and demanding the mayor fire Police Chief Peter Newsham.

18-year-old Deon Kay had been shot and killed Wednesday afternoon in an encounter with cops. While this was the fifth shooting by D.C. cops this year, it was the first fatality.

There have been 130 other homicides in D.C. in 2020, mostly of Black folks that involved other Black folks, and not the cops.

“We believe the suspect had a gun at the time,” Newsham told reporters. Witnesses challenged the chief’s claim.

But this is only the latest problem bedeviling Bowser.

While she has been blaming “outside agitators” for the mayhem in the city, the Washington Times reports that 82% of the 541 people arrested for riot-related crimes were residents of D.C., Maryland or Virginia.

On Tuesday, the mayor’s office made national news by releasing a list of monuments and memorials in Washington that should be “removed, replaced or contextualized.” Among them are the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial and Columbus’ statue at Union Station.

The name of Alexander Graham Bell should be erased from Bell Multicultural High School, Bowser’s working group said. Like Winston Churchill and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the inventor of the telephone believed in eugenics.

Presidents James Madison, author of the Constitution, John Tyler, who annexed Texas, and Zachary Taylor, who led the U.S. army to victory in the Mexican-American War, are also candidates for having their memorials and monuments “replaced, removed or contextualized.”

Woodrow Wilson’s name should be removed from Wilson high, and the names of Founding Father Ben Franklin and author of the national anthem Francis Scott Key should be erased from buildings named in their honor.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the D.C. nonvoting representative in Congress, explained that the working group formed by Bowers to look into monuments and memorials did not mean the statues were to be pulled down but that plaques should be added informing visitors that these sites are dedicated to men who had a perverted view of human rights.

Norton wants the Emancipation Proclamation statue featuring Abe Lincoln and an unshackled slave, unveiled at an 1876 ceremony attended by President Grant, at which Frederick Douglass spoke, removed. She also wants the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square removed.

Yet, it was General Jackson who saved the Union from being torn apart at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, while the defenders of Washington and the White House fled from the attacking British, letting the nation’s capital be burned in August of 1814.

D.C. officials are today running away from the plans of the mayor’s working group, but those plans testify powerfully to what an act of folly and a capitulation to political correctness it would be for the Congress to vote statehood for D.C., as Nancy Pelosi’s House did this year.

D.C. is unrepresentative of America and undeserving in any way to be raised to statehood. Since given the franchise 60 years ago, it has never voted Republican for president. Its three electoral votes have gone to the Democrats in every election since LBJ in ’64. Republican nominee Donald Trump got 4% of the D.C. vote. Hillary Clinton got 90%, a margin of 22-1.

Moreover, D.C. has a smaller population than 19 other American cities and is smaller in geographic size than 150 other U.S. cities. Rhode Island, our smallest state, is geographically 20 times the size of D.C.

The D.C. government has been in the headlines countless times for personal scandals and financial crises. One four-term mayor, Marion Barry, was sent to prison and returned to be reelected to office.

As for D.C. public schools, the problem is not that they are named for presidents but that they produce some of the lowest test scores in the nation.

More significant, as the protests, attended by riots since May, have shown, the D.C. government, a hostile province when a Republican is in the White House, is the domicile of a permanent regime of leftist and radical media, tens of thousands of federal and city bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists, all yoked to big government.

As the “peaceful protests” of June and July showed, with Georgetown sacked and statues demolished, D.C.’s government is an incompetent custodian of the nation’s historic monuments and memorials, and incapable of protecting the White House.

What does Joe Biden, who approved of the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers, generals and statesmen, think of D.C.’s scheme to “remove, replace or contextualize” the statues of so many men who held the office he now seeks?

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EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Thomas Sowell On The Reality Of Multiculturalism

Posted by M. C. on August 22, 2020

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/08/thomas-sowell-on-reality-of.html

This interview was conducted in 2013 but is even more relevant today in the age of Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, intersectionality etc.

–RW

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Black Lives Matter Gives Revolution A Bad Name

Posted by M. C. on August 17, 2020

But more alarming than their Marxist tendencies is the organization’s insistence that their plans will create paradise for black Americans through force.

How, you might ask? By abolishing prisons, transforming all schools into multicultural institutes, and providing all black Americans reparations regardless of their proximity to historical injustices—all through the government, of course.

But as history shows us, governments do not create harmony or paradise—only actual cooperation can help us achieve that vision.  But cooperation always fails when force enters the equation, which makes Black Lives Matter’s stated goals untenable for a free society. 

Black Lives Matter Gives Revolution A Bad Name

By Christian Watson

The word “Revolution” is among the most consequential gems in the english language.

History has associated the word with images of musket-wielding, ash-faced frenchmen or battle-hardened colonists soon-to-be Americans fighting for higher-order ideals of freedom. But similar to most illustrious historical concepts, contemporary politics rarely does them justice.

Enter Black Lives Matter.

The New York Times, for instance, noted that overall American support for Black Lives Matter increased “nearly as much as it had in the two preceding years.”

Of course, novelty often brings excitement. Think of the crowds that flood the streets of major cities around the world whenever a new iPhone is released– Black Lives Matter is no exception to this rule.

Indeed, TeenVogue urged Black Lives Matter activists not to allow their “revolution” to succumb to those nasty, grubby general political interests.

And the ever-so hip-to-the-left publication Vox’s Black Lives Matter apologism tied the movement’s activities to a long tradition of “American radicalism.”

The article incorrectly associates Black Lives Matter with the struggle against Jim Crow laws that resulted in the Civil Rights Movement.

Oh, yes: some actors in left-wing media are likening the goals of Black Lives Matter, the organization, with the Civil Rights Movement. And if one attacks anything resembling the struggle for Civil Rights, they can quite easily be written-off as a bad person, a racist, and so on. All while attaching Black Lives Matter to “American radicalism.”

Oh, how far we are from the promised land.

The premise of this argument quite boldly fails to understand the point of the American Revolution. The American Revolution—which had a clear, overarching principle—was both new and unique as the world hadn’t seen anything like it before. Thus, they set their own example for others to follow.

Unlike the American Revolution, Black Lives Matter, the organization, lacks a clear goal beyond their disjointed policy proposals.

Also unlike the American Revolution, Black Lives Matter rehashes old Marxist revolutionary tactics, such as the pumped fist symbolism, the goal to pour government funds into “community based” alternatives to policing, and the organization’s now redacted desire to overturn “US imperialism and capitalism.”

The list is endless. These goals would find a home among the manifestos of communist revolutionaries like Mao Zedong or Che Guevera. But in the American tradition? Not a chance.

But more alarming than their Marxist tendencies is the organization’s insistence that their plans will create paradise for black Americans through force.

How, you might ask? By abolishing prisons, transforming all schools into multicultural institutes, and providing all black Americans reparations regardless of their proximity to historical injustices—all through the government, of course.

But as history shows us, governments do not create harmony or paradise—only actual cooperation can help us achieve that vision.  But cooperation always fails when force enters the equation, which makes Black Lives Matter’s stated goals untenable for a free society.

And in this instance, the American Revolution, too, distinguishes itself from Black Lives Matter: The colonists goals addressed a legitimate danger to individual freedom. And that gave the colonists an obvious direction take their revolution.

For example, the American Revolution had a clear goal: To redress the actions of the British crown. In pursuance of this goal, seismic speeches and pamphlets like Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death or Thomas Paine’s Common Sense saturated the colonies and provided an intellectual framework for the impending American government.

Indeed, letters and correspondence between the founders and the legislative bodies of the colonies provided many of the ideas that constitute the Constitution. All of this, of course, at a time when questioning the crown was strictly forbidden.

But Black Lives Matter exists in the 21st century, in a time where African Americans are represented in media, politics, law, and other fields in large numbers. They don’t face a king trying to muffle them,  nor the inconveniences of organizing with just paper, pamphlets, and speeches—they have the internet and social media.

And yet, with all of their advantages, they lack an overarching principle which justifies their revolution. That’s a shame.

One thing is for certain: the goals of the organization Black Lives Matter, summed up, are simply anti-freedom. In contrast, the American Revolution had an overarching goal: to preserve freedom for everyone.

Even if that goal didn’t happen immediately, they gave their descendants the necessary tools to work with. Which one do you think reflects “American radicalism” better?

The rallying cry “Black Lives Matter,” which is different from the organization, has brought to light many issues pertinent to the preservation of individual liberty, such as the desperate need for policing and sentencing reform.

But the phrase’s power is lost amid the noise of a raucous Marxist militia which is concerned about fulfilling its agenda to the detriment of black lives.

If  black lives truly do matter, let’s focus on respecting individual rights, embracing freedom, and kicking Marxism to the curb.

In this era of wokeness, that would truly be revolutionary.

Christian Watson is a political writer based in Georgia and host of the Pensive Politics podcast. He can be found on Twitter at @OfficialCWatson.

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The Real World Reasserts Itself – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 12, 2020

A disproportionate number of the dead and wounded are Black Americans, and a disproportionate number of the shooters and killers are Black men.

If black lives matter, where is Black Lives Matter?

While the right backs Trump’s stand for law and order, the ultimate battle here may be between liberal Democrats elected to, and failing to, run the cities, and the radical left and Marxists who welcome their failure as they intend to kick the liberals down the stairs.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/patrick-j-buchanan/the-real-world-reasserts-itself/

By

Since the death of George Floyd beneath the knee of a cop in Minneapolis on Memorial Day, the nation has been instructed by its cultural elites that this is the daily reality that a racist America has too long ignored

Our nation, it was shouted in our faces, is a place where white cops harass, brutalize, assault and kill Black Americans regularly and with impunity.

“Defund the police!” the Black Lives Matter demand went out, to be echoed and re-echoed by BLM’s amen corner of progressive elites.

The pendulum may be swinging back, for this weekend reintroduced us to the old familiar world.

In Washington, D.C., about midnight Saturday, at a block party in the Southeast sector of the city, three shooters fired 100 rounds, wounded 20, killed a teenager and left a female police officer in critical condition.

It appears to have been an attempted massacre, a slaughter.

“More than 115 people have been slain in the District this year, a 17 percent increase over this time in 2019, which ended the year with a decade high,” reports The Washington Post.

D.C.’s numbers, however, pale by comparison to Chicago, where this weekend recorded 32 more people shot, with three dead.

According to the Sun-Times, there were 106 homicides in the city in July, a single-month body count almost equal to the toll D.C. has piled up in all of the first seven months of 2020.

A disproportionate number of the dead and wounded are Black Americans, and a disproportionate number of the shooters and killers are Black men.

If black lives matter, where is Black Lives Matter?

Rarely in these stories of shootings and killings does one read that the dead were the victims of rogue cops or white supremacists.

Indeed, the front page of Monday’s New York Times gave voice to the city’s Black and Hispanic leaders who are objecting to a proposed $1 billion cut in the police budget. The people in high-crime precincts, for whom these leaders speak, want more, not fewer, cops on the beat.

Even Portland, Oregon, which has been indulging nightly protests since the killing of George Floyd, seems to be awakening to the real world.

When the Department of Homeland Security pulled its agents out of Portland and handed the defense of the Mark Hatfield federal courthouse to the state police, the “peaceful protesters” shifted their attention to the city’s buildings and Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct.

With police personnel corralled inside, the East Precinct was barricaded with cars and wooden planks, and an attempt was made to set it afire by throwing flaming objects into the building.

Mugged by reality, Mayor Ted Wheeler seems to have belatedly awakened to the character of the protesters he has been coddling:

“When you commit arson with an accelerant in an attempt to burn down a building that is occupied by people whom you have intentionally trapped inside, you are not demonstrating, you are attempting to commit murder.”

Equally problematic: “You will be creating the B-roll film that will be used in ads nationally to help Donald Trump during his campaign.”

Portland police union president Daryl Turner was enraged at what he had seen. “I am disgusted that our City has come to this,” said Turner. “If it is acceptable for rioters to… try and burn down occupied buildings, and if this conduct is allowed to continue, then Portland is lost.”

Wheeler, having gotten the message the rioters have been trying to deliver, finally ordered his city’s police to do “what is necessary” to quell the rioting, even if it means using tear gas.

What has happened in Portland, and across much of America, was predictable, and predicted.

First, the progressives tolerate and even celebrate civil disobedience, because the cause is just and noble. Then, to hold onto public attention, the protesters march and block traffic. Next comes the cursing of cops, the throwing of trash, water bottles and rocks. Then there’s the smashing of store windows, looting and arson, and Molotov cocktails. Finally, there’s instigating violence with cops to get footage of police fighting back so the law enforcement officers can be painted by the progressive press as stormtroopers and the Gestapo.

In Portland, we reached the point where “peaceful protesters” tried to set a building ablaze with cops barricaded inside.

This, as the mayor said, is attempted murder.

Today, people watch their leaders in city after city fail to keep the peace and restore order as protesters riot at will, and they make plans to move out. In the suburbs and country, they quietly observe the inability of cops to quell the violence, and they buy guns.

While the right backs Trump’s stand for law and order, the ultimate battle here may be between liberal Democrats elected to, and failing to, run the cities, and the radical left and Marxists who welcome their failure as they intend to kick the liberals down the stairs.

Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever See his website.

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Flight from New York – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on August 11, 2020

Think about this for a minute. Assume you are the owner of a Minneapolis business or an outside investor considering an investment in the city. Would you want an investment in a city in which the mayor and city council, state attorney general and state governor think that the police—not rioters and looters—are the number one threat to public safety? No you wouldn’t, not unless you are crazy, but that is the way Democrats think.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/08/10/flight-from-new-york/

Paul Craig Roberts

New York City is in Serious trouble.  Indeed, all diverse US cities are in trouble, especially those ruled by Democrats.  The combination of coronavirus and unchecked rioting and looting have undermined their economies.

Working at home has taught businesses that they do not need to accumulate employees in office complexes.  Working at home saves money for businesses and employees.  With profits and raises harder to come by, dispensing with office complexes and commutes is cost effective.

High income people who no longer need to work in office complexes do not need expensive Manhattan brownstones and apartments.  They can escape to Mystic Connecticut — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-07/as-new-yorkers-flee-once-humble-seaside-town-sees-bidding-wars?cmpid=BBD080720_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=200807&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=Y1NA6MHq — or somewhere else.

On top of the depression of Manhattan office and apartment prices from the emerging work-at-home culture, we have the assault on NYC residents from the breakdown of law and order and the Democrat mayor’s decimation of the police budget in order to pay NYC hotels for housing the homeless, drug addicts, and child abusers in upper income West Side Manhattan — https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8603433/Upper-West-residents-fury-homeless-junkies-sex-offenders-moved-luxury-hotels.html .

And it is not only in New York City that people are deciding against downtown locations. In Minneapolis, the police department has publicly announced that the police are unable to protect the public from robbery and abuse.  The police advise the public that when confronted by robbers, “do as they say” — https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2020/08/02/minneapolis-police-department-advises-residents-to-give-in-to-criminals/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=todays_hottest_stories&utm_campaign=20200802 .

This might be good advice for Minneapolis citizens, but it is advice that violates the “broken windows” theory of policing, which says that disorder and visible signs of crime create an environment that encourages more crime and disorder.  We see the truth of this theory in Portland, where the toleration of disorder by city authorities has brought the city more than 70 days of disorder. Aftifa and Black Lives Matter have been given immunity by public authorities for their acts of violence and destruction.

The Minneapolis city council has compounded the city’s problem by its effort to defund and disband the city’s police department, with one member of the council arguing that the need to be protected from theft and violence is a form of privilege.

Think about this for a minute.  Assume you are the owner of a Minneapolis business or an outside investor considering an investment in the city.  Would you want an investment in a city in which the mayor and city council, state attorney general and state governor think that the police—not rioters and looters—are the number one threat to public safety?  No you wouldn’t, not unless you are crazy, but that is the way Democrats think.

Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that concerns over public safety and the future of the city’s police department have some companies looking to leave downtown — https://kstp.com/business/minneapolis-downtown-council-says-up-to-10000-jobs-could-be-lost-over-public-safety-concerns/5819417/?cat=1 .

“Almost overnight the brakes went on in downtown,” Cramer said. “The point where it all started to change was the day the City Council announced it supported defunding the police department.” Cramer said in a six-week period from that day there were 45 companies that indicated they were either moving out of downtown or were a business that was no longer moving downtown, and there were 13 companies in that group with 100 or more employees and one with 600.

Levin Lewis, executive director of the Minneapolis Business Owners and Managers Association, told KSTP that some high-end development deals have stalled because of public safety worries, and it could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Flight from Chicago will be next — https://www.rt.com/usa/497565-chicago-riots-looting-videos-police/

If we add to the problems afflicting cities, such as the breakdown in public safety and the abandonment of office building complexes, the homelessness that now afflicts high income cities such as Manhattan, Malibu California, Seattle, and San Francisco, it is obvous that urban existence is losing its charm.

There is a larger and more dangerous issue that has gone unreported by presstitutes. The “George Floyd protests” were organized multi-city acts of violence led by the largely white organizations—Antifa and Black Lives Matter—funded by Jewish and Gentile billionaires, philanthropic foundations, and corporations.  This financing has not been investigated.  I doubt it has anything to do with police violence.  What it has achieved is to worsen race relations by portraying blacks as violent, lawless, and disrespectful of others and their property. It is another wedge driven in to disunite the American people.

In Minneapolis 80% of the black population oppose disbanding the police.  Black businesses suffered along with others from looting and burning.  The “George Floyd protests” was not a black event.  It was a white event organized and paid for by whites.  This is so true that it is now satire — https://babylonbee.com/news/riotous-blm-protest-suddenly-realizes-they-dont-have-any-black-people 

We need to get to the bottom of this, but it won’t happen. The presstitutes will only cover it up.  The FBI is too busy investigating Russian media and “white supremacy” groups to look into the real fomenters of racial conflict.

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Who Profits from Militarizing the Police? | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 5, 2020

Under the circumstances and given who’s providing the equipment, you won’t be surprised to learn that the 1033 Program also suffers from lax oversight. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) created a fake law enforcement agency and was able to acquire $1.2 million worth of equipment through the program, including night vision goggles and simulated M-16A2 rifles. The request was approved within a week of the GAO’s application.

Companies in the military-industrial complex earn billions of dollars selling weapons, as well as building and operating prisons and detention facilities, and supplying the police while theoretically dealing with problems with deep social and economic roots. Generally speaking, by the time they’re done, those problems have only become deeper and more rooted.

https://mises.org/wire/who-profits-militarizing-police?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=310502e004-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-310502e004-228343965

Ever since images of the police deploying armored vehicles against peaceful demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, hit the national airwaves in 2014, the Pentagon’s program for supplying “surplus” military equipment to local police departments has been a news item. It’s also gotten intermittent attention in Congress and the executive branch.

Since 1997, the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, as it’s called, has channeled to 8,000 separate law enforcement agencies more than $7.4 billion in surplus equipment, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles of the kind used on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with rifles, ammunition, grenade launchers, and night vision devices. As Brian Barrett has pointed out at Wired, “Local law enforcement responding to even nonviolent protests has often looked more like the U.S. Armed Forces.” Political scientist Ryan Welch coauthored a 2017 study suggesting, when it came to police departments equipped in such a fashion, “that officers with military hardware and mindsets will resort to violence more often and more quickly.”

Under the circumstances and given who’s providing the equipment, you won’t be surprised to learn that the 1033 Program also suffers from lax oversight. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) created a fake law enforcement agency and was able to acquire $1.2 million worth of equipment through the program, including night vision goggles and simulated M-16A2 rifles. The request was approved within a week of the GAO’s application.

The Obama administration finally implemented some reforms in the wake of Ferguson, banning the transfer of tracked vehicles, grenade launchers, and weaponized aircraft, among other things, while requiring police departments to supply more detailed rationales describing their need for specific equipment. But such modest efforts—and they proved modest indeed—were promptly chucked out when Donald Trump took office. And the Trump administration changes quickly had a discernible effect. In 2019, the 1033 Program had one of its biggest years ever, with about 15,750 military items transferred to law enforcement, a figure exceeded only in 2012, in the Obama years, when 17,000 such items were distributed.

As noted, the mere possession of military equipment has been shown to stoke the ever stronger “warrior culture” that now characterizes so many police departments, as evidenced by the use of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams armed with military weaponry for routine drug enforcement activities. It’s hardly just SWAT teams, though. The weaponry and related items provided under the 1033 Program are widely employed by ordinary police forces. NBC News, for instance, reported that armored vehicles were used at least 29 times in response to Black Lives Matter protests organized since the murder of George Floyd, including in major urban areas like Philadelphia and Cincinnati. NBC has also determined that more than 1,100 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles have been distributed to local law enforcement agencies under the MRAP program, going to communities large and small, including Sanford, Maine, population 20,000, and Moundsville, West Virginia, population 8,400.

A report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has similarly documented the use of Pentagon-supplied equipment in no-knock home invasions, including driving up to people’s houses in just such armored vehicles to launch the raids. The ACLU concluded that “the militarization of American policing is evident in the training that police officers receive, which encourages them to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies, as well as in the equipment they use, such as battering rams, flashbang grenades, and APCs [Armored Personnel Carriers].”

Who Benefits?

Companies in the military-industrial complex earn billions of dollars selling weapons, as well as building and operating prisons and detention facilities, and supplying the police while theoretically dealing with problems with deep social and economic roots. Generally speaking, by the time they’re done, those problems have only become deeper and more rooted. Take, for example, giant weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon that profit so splendidly from the sales of weapons systems to Saudi Arabia, weaponry that in turn has been used to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Yemen, destroy civilian infrastructure there, and block the provision of desperately needed humanitarian assistance. The result: more than a hundred thousand deaths in that country and millions more on the brink of famine and disease, including COVID-19.

Such major weapons firms have also been at the front of the line when it comes to benefiting from America’s endless post-9/11 wars. The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates that the United States has spent over $6.4 trillion on just some of those overseas conflicts since 2001. Hundreds of billions of those dollars ended up in the pockets of defense contractors, while problems in the US, left far less well funded, only grew.

And by the way, the Pentagon’s regular budget, combined with direct spending on wars, also manages to provide huge benefits to such weapons makers. Almost half of the department’s $750 billion budget goes to them. According to the Federal Procurement Data System’s latest report on the top recipients of government contracts, the five largest US arms makers alone—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—split well over $100 billion in Pentagon awards among them in 2019. Meanwhile, those same five firms pay their CEOs a total of approximately $100 million per year, with hundreds of millions more going to other top executives and board members.

Meanwhile, in the Trump years, the militarization of the border has become a particularly lucrative business opportunity, with General Atomics, for instance, supplying ever more surveillance drones and General Dynamics supplying an ever more intricate and expensive remote sensor surveillance system. There are also millions to be made running privatized prisons and immigrant detention centers, filling the coffers of firms like CoreCivic and the GEO Group, which have secured record profits in recent years while garnering about half their revenues from those two sources.

Last but not least is the market for even more police equipment. Local forces benefit from grants from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase a wide range of items to supplement the Pentagon’s 1033 Program.

The True Bottom Line

Much has been written about America’s failed post-9/11 wars, which have cost trillions of dollars in taxpayer treasure, hundreds of thousands of lives (American and otherwise), and physical and psychological injuries to hundreds of thousands more. These wars have also propped up sectarian and corrupt regimes that have actually made it easier for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS to form and spread. Think of it as the ultimate boomerang effect, in which violence begets more violence while allowing overseas terrorist organizations to thrive. As journalist Nick Turse has noted with respect to the militarization of US Africa policy, the growth in American military operations on that continent has proceeded rather strikingly in conjunction with a proliferation of new terrorist groups. Put the best light on them and US counterterror operations there have been ineffective. More likely, they have simply helped spawn further increases in terrorist activities in the region.

[This is an selection from a longer essay published at TomDispatch.com.]

Author:

William D. Hartung

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

 

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