MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Black lives matter’

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

New Evidence: Key Fans Unhappy With Sports Leagues Kowtowing to Black Lives Matter | The American Spectator

Posted by M. C. on August 1, 2020

While 38 percent of Blacks are more likely to watch sporting events that promote the BLM movement, an astounding 28 percent of Blacks indicated that they are “less likely” to do so. That 28 percent is exactly the same percentage of Whites who indicated that they too are less likely to watch sporting events promoting BLM. But racial differences are apparent in the low percentage of Whites (only 19 percent) who indicate that they are more likely to watch sporting events that promote BLM.

https://spectator.org/black-lives-matter-protests-sports-fans-rasmussen/

by

If anyone was hoping that the return of the long-awaited Major League season would lift our spirits and bring us together, they had to be disappointed to learn that we are more divided than ever over the National Anthem kneeling debate. And although President Trump has not chosen to join the burgeoning #BoycottMLB movement on Twitter, the president has joined a growing number of disheartened baseball fans who are unhappy that their favorite teams are taking the knee. Even before the start of the season, President Trump tweeted that he was “looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!”

This is not a small issue. Rasmussen released a new poll of 1,000 Americans which indicates that “Americans are sending more negative signals than positive ones over the decision by many professional sports organizations to promote the controversial Black Lives Matter movement.”

The poll, released on July 31, revealed that more than 30 percent of American adults are less likely to watch sporting events that promote Black Lives Matter versus 21 percent who are more likely to do so. It is even worse for those “frequent watchers” who follow professional sports on television, in person, on the radio, or online once a week or less. Roughly 35 percent say they are less likely to watch events that promote the BLM protests.

Although 43 percent of all respondents say such promotion will have no impact on their viewing habits, a deeper analysis of the demographic data reveals that sponsors of these sporting events will be especially unhappy to learn that when the coveted target demographic group — young male beer drinkers — are also the ones more willing to say that they are less likely to watch. Forty-three percent of men under 40 years old indicated that they are less likely to watch sporting events that promote the Black Lives Matter movement, and only 2 percent of men under 40 are more likely to watch sporting events that promote BLM. And even though 22 percent of women under 40 years old indicated that they are more likely to watch sporting events that promote the BLM movement, far fewer women watch sports at all. Forty-two percent of all women polled claim to watch sports “rarely or never.”

Not surprisingly there are some differences by race, but the differences are not as significant as one might predict. While 38 percent of Blacks are more likely to watch sporting events that promote the BLM movement, an astounding 28 percent of Blacks indicated that they are “less likely” to do so. That 28 percent is exactly the same percentage of Whites who indicated that they too are less likely to watch sporting events promoting BLM. But racial differences are apparent in the low percentage of Whites (only 19 percent) who indicate that they are more likely to watch sporting events that promote BLM.

The most dramatic demographic differences emerge from political party affiliation, as 43 percent of all Republicans are less likely to watch sporting events that promote BLM, compared with only 19 percent of all Democrats indicating that they will be less likely to watch.

All of this could have been easily predicted based on historical data collected since the earliest days of the Colin Kaepernick kneeling protests. Even the NFL, after making feeble attempts to blame the ratings dips on the “attention around our presidential election,” had to admit that the Kaepernick kneeling protests were negatively affecting viewership and attempted to address the problem. But, all of that has been forgotten in the current racial climate.

Continuing its commitment to exacerbating the controversy, the New York Times has published an article with the headline: “The Anthem Debate Is Back. But Now It’s Standing That’s Polarizing.” Claiming that “today, athletes may have to explain why they chose to stand, not kneel, during the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ ” John Branch, the Times writer, suggested that “the difference in 2020 as sports begin to emerge from their pandemic suspensions, is that nearly every professional athlete will be forced to choose a posture.” The Times built its argument on an interview with Charles Ross, a history professor and director of African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, who said, “You cannot sit around now in this post-George Floyd period we’re in and say ‘We’re going to continue to take this safe position.… Either you have an issue with racism or you do not.”

Some sports fans disagree. In fact, it is likely that most sports fans just want to enjoy sports again and would prefer to end the polarizing debates on the fields of play. The NFL found this out in 2016 but obviously has decided to revisit this debate yet again. League commissioner Roger Goodell recently showed support for the Black Lives Matter movement and reversed his statements on player protests, telling Branch, “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.”

In the meantime, professional athletes like 25-year-old Rachel Hill, a player with the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Red Stars, who choose to remain standing and honoring the flag, are shamed. When attacked on social media, Hill responded that she chose to stand “because of what the flag inherently means for my military family members and to me, but I 100% support my peers.… I support the black lives matter movement wholeheartedly. I also support and will do my part in fighting against the current inequality. As a white athlete, it is way past due for me to be diligently anti-racist.”

Hill’s explanation wasn’t good enough for Branch, who concluded his article with the criticism that “Hill tried to have it both ways.… There is little room for such posturing.”

It is difficult to predict whether baseball fans will indeed be “less likely” to watch. In a sports-starved world still recovering from the COVID lockdowns, it is possible that fans will continue to crave the comfort of a good ball game and begin to overlook the politics. But it is also clear that these are perilous times for athletes and for fans.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Why Marxist Organizations Like BLM Seek to Dismantle the “Western Nuclear Family” | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 28, 2020

What would this new social arrangement look like, according to Engels?

The care and education of children becomes a public matter. Society cares equally well for all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the “consequences” which now forms the essential social factor – moral and economic – hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man.

In this we see early echoes of the modern left’s current refrain attacking “patriarchy” and the nuclear family as essentially capitalist and private property–based institutions.

https://mises.org/wire/why-marxist-organizations-blm-seek-dismantle-western-nuclear-family

One of the most oft-cited and criticized goals of the Black Lives Matter organization is its stated desire to abolish the family as we know it. Specifically, BLM’s official website states:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

This idea isn’t unique to BLM, of course. “Disrupting” the “nuclear family” is a commonly stated goal among Maxist organizations. Given that BLM’s founders have specifically claimed to be “trained Marxists,” we should not be surprised that the organization’s leadership has embraced a Marxian view of the family.

But where does this hostility toward the family originate? Partly, it comes from the theories of Marx and Engels themselves, and their views that an earlier, matriarchal version of the family rejected private property as an organizing principle of society. It was only later that this older tribal model of the family gave way to the modern “patriarchal” family, which promotes and sustains private property.

Clearly, in the Marxian view, this “new” type of family must be opposed, since the destruction of this family model will make it easier to abolish private property as well.

Early Family Units in Tribal Life

Frederick Engels’s 1884 book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State provides a historical perspective of the Marxian view of the development of the modern Western family unit and its relation to property rights. (Engels, of course, was the longtime benefactor of and collaborator with Marx.)

In reconstructing the origins of the family within a Marxian framework, Engels traces back to the “savage” primeval stage of humanity that, according to his research, revealed a condition in which “unrestricted sexual intercourse existed within a tribe, so that every woman belonged to every man, and vice versa.”

Under such conditions, Engels explained, “it is uncertain who is the father of the child, but certain, who is its mother.” Only female lineage could be acknowledged. “[B]eing the only well known parents of younger generations,” Engels explained, women as mothers “received a high tribute of respect and deference, amounting to a complete women’s rule [gynaicocracy].”

Furthermore, Engels wrote, tribes were subdivided into smaller groups called “gentes,” a primitive form of an extended family of sorts.

These gens were consanguineous (i.e., included people descended from the same ancestor) on the mother’s side, within which intermarrying was strictly forbidden. “The men of certain ‘gens,’ therefore, could choose their wives within the tribe, and did so as a rule, but had to choose them outside of their ‘gens,’” Engels explained. And “marriage” at this stage was a “communal” affair, meaning that multiple partnerships between men and women was closer to the rule than the exception.

Because mothers were the only parents who could be determined with certainty, and the smaller gentes were arranged around the mother’s relatives, early family units were very maternal in nature and maternal law regarding rights and duties for childrearing and inheritance were the custom.

Transition to the “Pairing Family”

This was the state of affairs for thousands of years, according to Engels. Over time, however, there emerged what Engels referred to as the “pairing family,” in which “A man had his principal wife…among many women, and he was to her the principal husband among others.” This was in no small part due to the “gentes” within tribes developing more and more classes of relatives not allowed to marry one another. Due to these increasing restrictions, group marriage became increasingly impossible and ever more replaced by the pairing family structure.

Under this structure, however, the role of mothers was still dominant. Quoting Arthur Wright, a missionary among the Seneca Iroquois tribe, Engels notes, “The female part generally ruled the house….The women were the dominating power in the clans [gentes] and everywhere else.”

The fact that women all belonged to the same gens, while husbands came from separate gentes “was the cause and foundation of the general and widespread supremacy of women in primeval times,” Engels wrote.

“In the ancient communistic household comprising many married couples and their children, the administration of the household entrusted to women was just as much a public function, a socially necessary industry, as the procuring of food by men,” he added.

As society evolved, as Engels described it, from “savagery” to “barbarism,” an important evolution was man’s development of weapons and knowledge that enabled them to better domesticate and breed animals.

Cattle and livestock became a source of wealth, a store of milk and meat. “But who was the owner of this new wealth?” asked Engels. “Doubtless it was originally the gens,” he answered, referring to a collective, or group ownership over the sources of wealth. “However, private ownership of flocks must have had an early beginning.”

“Procuring the means of existence had always been the man’s business. The tools of production were manufactured and owned by him. The herds were the new tools of production, and their taming and tending was his work. Hence he owned the cattle and the commodities and slaves obtained in exchange for them,” Engels explained. This transition marked an early passage from “collective” property to “private” ownership over property—particularly property in productive resources.

Such a transformation, Engels noted, “brought about a revolution in the family.”

Part of that revolution involved a shift in the power dynamics of the household.

“All the surplus now resulting from production fell to the share of the man. The woman shared in its fruition, but she could not claim its ownership,” wrote Engels.

The domestic status of the woman in the house, which had previously involved control and distribution of the means of sustenance, had been reversed.

“Man’s advent to practical supremacy in the household marked the removal to his universal supremacy,” and further ushered in “the gradual transition from the pairing family to the monogamic family” (what we would consider the nuclear family).

With the superior status acquired, Engels wrote, men were able to overthrow the maternal right to inheritance, a move he described as “the historic defeat of the female sex.”

The family unit’s transition to a male-centered patriarchy was complete, according to Engels. Much of the blame for this can be attributed to the emergence of private property and men’s claim over it.

How to Overcome the Patriarchy?

In the Marxian view, therefore, the modern nuclear family runs counter to the ancient “communistic” household Engels had earlier described. It is patriarchal and centered on private property.

“In the great majority of cases the man has to earn a living and to support his family, at least among the possessing classes. He thereby obtains a superior position that has no need of any legal special privilege. In the family, he is the bourgeois, the woman represents the proletariat.” The family unit, rather than the collective tribe, had become the “industrial unit of society.”

The overthrow of this patriarchic dominance can only come, according to Engels, by abolishing private property in the means of production—which he and those steeped in Marxist ideology blame for the patriarchy.

“The impending [communist] revolution will reduce this whole care of inheritance to a minimum by changing at least the overwhelming part of permanent and inheritable wealth – the means of production – into social property,” he concluded.

What would this new social arrangement look like, according to Engels?

The care and education of children becomes a public matter. Society cares equally well for all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the “consequences” which now forms the essential social factor – moral and economic – hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man.

In this we see early echoes of the modern left’s current refrain attacking “patriarchy” and the nuclear family as essentially capitalist and private property–based institutions.

In this, BLM is no different from other Marxist groups. The organization’s goals extend far beyond police abuse and police brutality. The ultimate goal is the abolition of a society based upon private property in the means of production.

Author:

Bradley Thomas

Bradley Thomas is creator of the website EraseTheState.com, and is a libertarian activist and writer with nearly fifteen years of experience researching and writing on political philosophy and economics.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Are Universities Finished? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 23, 2020

Maybe that is a good thing if we can start over from scratch.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/07/lew-rockwell/are-universities-finished/

By

Higher education in America today is in a crisis. The diversity thought police pounce on anyone who offers the slightest resistance to them. Here are a few examples “Students at pricey Marymount Manhattan College are demanding a veteran professor be fired for allegedly falling asleep during an anti-racism Zoom meeting. Students at the Upper East Side school claim Patricia Simon, a theater arts associate professor, took a snooze during the virtual town hall last month, and have collected 1,800 petition signatures. Petition organizer Caitlin Gagnon said ‘action has only capitalized on a pattern of negligence and disrespect that Patricia Simon has exhibited over and over again.’ Gagnon included a photo of the 30-year prof, and also accused her of enabling ‘sizeist’ staffers.” A ‘sizeist,’ by the way, is someone who discriminates against people because of their physical size, e.g., requiring an obese person to pay for two seats. Of course, it doesn’t matter if the heavy person occupies two seats. If you charge more, you are still a sizeist.

If you dare to challenge the Black Lives Matter terrorists, you are dead in the water. “A longtime UCLA professor has been placed on leave after facing backlash over his response to a student’s request to postpone the final exam for African American students, considering the impact of George Floyd’s death. Gordon Klein received the email on June 2, and rejected the request. UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where Klein has taught since 1981, said Klein’s classes have been assigned to other faculty, saying the following in a statement on Wednesday: ‘The lecturer is on leave from campus and his classes have been reassigned to other faculty.’”

Even if you like Martin Luther King, you can still get fired, if you say the wrong words. Look what happened to Ajax Peris: “In a virtual class lecture, Peris read a portion of King’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ which contains a couple of uses of the ‘N-word.’ On June 2, one UCLA student tweeted a video of Peris reading a passage from King’s letter, declining to omit the epithet, and expressed outrage at his uncensored reading and called for his termination. In short order, UCLA’s College of Letters and Science referred the matter to the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for review, and Peris’ department chair sent a letter to departmental faculty condemning his reading of the passage and noting that he had referred Peris to UCLA’s Discrimination Prevention Office. The chair also faulted Peris for showing portions of a documentary that included graphic images and descriptions of lynching, as well as narration that, the chair wrote, ‘quoted the n-word in explaining the history of lynching.’”

At Princeton, the situation is even worse. Matt Taibbi notes that “on July 4th, hundreds of faculty members and staff at Princeton University signed a group letter calling for radical changes. . . Much of . . . the letter read like someone drunk-tweeting their way through a Critical Theory seminar. Signatories asked the University to establish differing compensation levels according to race, demanding ‘course relief,’ ‘summer salary,’ ‘one additional semester of sabbatical,’ and ‘additional human resources’ for ‘faculty of color,’ a term left undefined. That this would be grossly illegal didn’t seem to bother the 300-plus signatories of one of America’s most prestigious learning institutions.”

When Joshua Katz, a classics professor at Princeton, protested against the letter’s demands, “University President Christopher Eisengruber ‘personally’denounced Katz for using the word “terrorist.” Katz was also denounced by his Classics department, which in a statement on the department web page insisted his act had ‘heedlessly put our Black colleagues, students, and alums at serious risk’ while hastening to add ‘we gratefully acknowledge all the forms of anti-racist work that members of our community have done.’”

One last example: BLM thugs are trying to oust the outstanding Austrian economist Walter Block from Loyola University in New Orleans, based on a demonstrably false claim that he supports slavery: “Walter Block is a professor in the Business school at Loyola University New Orleans. He has publicly stated that he believes slavery to be wrong because it goes against Libertarianism, not because it is morally wrong. He has justified women being paid less than men (see his book Building Blocks of Liberty) He is allegedly an ableist, too. While it is important to have professors with different views and opinions and beliefs, racist and sexist beliefs should not be a part of this. It is harmful to any non-men and any Black people to be taught that slavery isn’t morally wrong, to be taught that women don’t deserve to be paid and treated equally.
Fight racism, end racism, fire the racists. Fire Walter Block.”

As if this weren’t bad enough, universities are taking advantage of the phony Covid-19 pandemic to offer worse service for about the same astronomical tutition: “After the sudden closure of college campuses across the country in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fate of the fall semester was suddenly placed into question. All eight schools in the Ivy League have announced fall 2020 decisions as of early July.  Penn, Brown, Cornell, Princeton, and Yale will all have hybrid modes of fall instruction, while Harvard will be completely online for the entire academic year. Each school has different decisions regarding which class years will come back to campus and where they will be housed during each school’s modified fall calendar.”

Professors have used the situation as an excuse to destroy already weakened academic standards. “As COVID-19 has forced classes online, colleges have eased up on graded assignments – even at the prestigious Ivy League schools. With professors and students advocating for automatic A’s or to be given passing grades at the minimum, many college administrations have surrendered highly generous grading policies to give students a break as coronavirus has taken its toll on the country”.

The crisis in higher education would not go away, even if we could get rid of Covid-19 and the PC thought police. Higher education has been in trouble for a long time.  As the great economist Walter Williams has pointed out, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, only 37% of white high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 70% of them. Roughly 17% of black high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 58% of them. A 2018 Hechinger Report found, ‘More than four in 10 college students end up in developmental math and English classes at an annual cost of approximately $7 billion, and many of them have a worse chance of eventually graduating than if they went straight into college-level classes.’

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, ‘when considering all first-time undergraduates, studies have found anywhere from 28 percent to 40 percent of students enroll in at least one remedial course. When looking at only community college students, several studies have found remediation rates surpassing 50 percent.’ Only 25% of students who took the ACT in 2012 met the test’s readiness benchmarks in all four subjects (English, reading, math and science). Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Young white woman killed by BLM thugs simply because she spoke the TRUTH: “All Lives Matter” – NaturalNews.com

Posted by M. C. on July 15, 2020

“To top it off after the 2 young people continued their walk and then turned back, that is when the multiple black Blm assailants came out of hiding and shot JESSICA in the head.

“Why isn’t anybody outraged about this?” Snavely added. “Is it that BLM was involved or that it was white young adults that [were] the victims?”

Or both.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-07-14-young-woman-killed-blm-thugs-truth-all-lives-matter.html

by:

 

Image: Young white woman killed by BLM thugs simply because she spoke the TRUTH: “All Lives Matter”

Have you heard any of the wall-to-wall coverage of the young white woman who was killed by Black Lives Matter thugs after she dared to challenge them with the truth — that “All Lives Matter?”

What do you think about all of the nationwide protests, massive demonstrations, rampant destruction, wanton looting, and violence directed towards police as a result of that murder?

What are your thoughts about ‘ALM’ activists now intimidating and attacking black people, toppling and defacing monuments to Martin Luther King Jr. and painting murals saying, “All Lives Matter” across the street from Barack and Michelle Obama’s homes in Washington, D.C. and Martha’s Vineyard?

You don’t have an opinion on any of these things, no doubt, because they haven’t happened and they aren’t going to happen.

And yet, a young white woman was killed by BLM thugs along the canal in Indianapolis, Indiana over the Fourth of July holiday specifically because she told them All Lives Matter.

Outside of local media and a few independent news sites, few Americans have heard this heartbreaking story — because it is ‘anti-Mainstream media narrative’ and does not comport with the Democratic Marxism of the ongoing culture war against our founding.

Fox59 reports:

An Indianapolis mother was shot and killed along the canal early Sunday, marking the second homicide on the canal in a week.

According to the victim’s family, the shooting started over some racially charged language. 

The victim, Jessica Doty Whitaker, leaves behind a little boy.

“She shouldn’t have lost her life. She’s got a 3-year-old son she loved dearly,” said her fiance Jose Ramirez.

According to Ramirez, he and the victim and two other people were hanging out along the canal when someone in their group used a slang version of the N-word.

That led to a confrontation from a nearby group of black males who, you know, never call each other the “N” word (except that they do, and they celebrate it in rap music as well).

At one point, Fox59 noted, someone in the shooting suspect’s group shouted, “Black Lives Matter,” prompting a response from Whitaker or someone in her group, “All Lives Matter.” (Related: Marxist BLM terrorists cut down memorial to 9-11 firefighters in New York: This isn’t about George Floyd anymore.)

The local station says that eventually both groups realized each other were armed so they “fist-bumped” and separated. But then, according to Ramirez, as he walked with his fiancee, someone from the other group ambushed them from a bridge and ran off.

Whitaker, 24, was struck in the head and leg, according to reports.

“It was squashed and they went up the hill and left we thought, but they were sitting on St. Clair waiting for us to come under the bridge and that’s when she got shot,” said Ramirez, who admitted he returned fire but did not hit anyone.

“It’s hard to tell him his mom is in heaven and if you want to talk to her you have to look up and say, ‘I love you mom,’” he said.

Whitaker’s response — ‘All Lives Matter’ — was confirmed by her family in interviews with The Gateway Pundit’s Cassandra Fairbanks.

According to her report, the victim’s grandfather wrote on Facebook that she was attacked by “multiple black assailants.”

“How is it that 2 white young people are out for some alone time they drop her 3 year old off at her grandmas house expecting to have an evening to reconnect, but all they got was terrorized by multiple black BLM assailants on the canal in downtown Indy,” the grandfather, Dale Snavely, wrote.

“To top it off after the 2 young people continued their walk and then turned back, that is when the multiple black Blm assailants came out of hiding and shot JESSICA in the head.

“Why isn’t anybody outraged about this?” Snavely added. “Is it that BLM was involved or that it was white young adults that [were] the victims?”

That’s a great question.

Sources include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

Fox59.com

NaturalNews.com

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The New ‘Systemic Racism’ That Is Coming – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 11, 2020

No, again. Asians are 73% of the incoming class because they excelled
on the admissions tests in math, reading and science, and on the
essay-writing assignment.

They won admission to TJ not based on their ethnicity or race but
their academic excellence as demonstrated in standardized tests taken by
students all over Fairfax and surrounding counties.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/07/patrick-j-buchanan/the-new-systemic-racism-that-is-coming/

By

Before our Black Lives Matter moment, one had not thought of the NBC networks as shot through with “systemic racism.”

Yet, what other explanation is there for this week’s draconian personnel decision of NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde.

According to Conde, the white share of NBC’s workforce, now 74% and divided evenly between men and women, will be chopped to 50%.

Persons of color — Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and multiracial folks — are to rise from the present 26% of NBCUniversal’s workforce to 50%.

What does this mean?

White men will be slashed as a share of NBCUniversal’s employees from the present 38% to 25%, — a cut of one-third — and then capped to ensure that people of color and women reach and remain at 50%.

White men can fall below one-fourth of the workforce, but their numbers will not be permitted to go any higher.

To impose race and gender quotas like this on the workforce at NBCUniversal — half women, half persons of color — would seem to trample all over the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Why is Conde doing this?

“(W)e have a unique responsibility to look like and reflect all of the people of the country we serve,” he says.

But whence comes this responsibility, the realization of which means active discrimination against new employees because they are the wrong gender or race: i.e, they are unwanted white men?

America has succeeded as a meritocracy where excellence was rewarded, be it in athletics or academics. Our Olympic teams have triumphed when we send the best we had in every event.

This egalitarian and ideological revolt against excellence is also arising in Fairfax County, Virginia, at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which, concedes The Washington Post, “often ranks as the top public high school in the United States.”

Why does TJ have a problem? Writes the Post reporter, the school is “notorious for failing to admit black and Latino students.”

Does TJ discriminate in its admissions against Blacks and Hispanics? Is the school a throwback to the old days of “massive resistance”?

Of 486 students in the freshman class this fall at the school, the number of Black students is tiny, smaller even than the 3% of the class that is Hispanic. Is this yet another example of “white privilege” at work?

Hardly. Whites make up only 17% of TJ’s incoming class.

The problem, if it is a problem, is Asian Americans. Three in 4 members of the fall freshman class at TJ are of Asian heritage.

Why do Asian American kids predominate? Are they being admitted on the basis of their race or ethnicity?

No, again. Asians are 73% of the incoming class because they excelled on the admissions tests in math, reading and science, and on the essay-writing assignment.

They won admission to TJ not based on their ethnicity or race but their academic excellence as demonstrated in standardized tests taken by students all over Fairfax and surrounding counties.

Thomas Jefferson principal Ann Bonitatibus says of her school, “We do not reflect the racial composition” of the Fairfax County Public School System.

No, it does not. But so what, if Thomas Jefferson ranks among the top STEM schools in the entire United States?

And Bonitatibus’ comment raises a legitimate question:

Is it possible to reflect the “racial composition” of Fairfax Country and to remain “the top public high school In the United States”?

A related issue is up in California. In 1996, in a state referendum, Californians voted 55-45 to embed a colorblind amendment in their state constitution:

“The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Clear, coherent and colorblind.

The Democratic legislature, however, wants to be rid of this amendment as it outlaws the kind of racial and ethnic discrimination in which Sacramento wishes to engage.

An amendment is on the November ballot to repeal the colorblind amendment and allow California to start discriminating again — in favor of African Americans and Hispanics and against Asians and white men — to alter the present racial balance in state university admissions and the awarding of state contracts.

If this passes, more Hispanics and Blacks with lower test scores will be admitted to elite state schools like UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, based on race, and fewer Asians and whites. Practices that were regarded as race discrimination and supposedly outlawed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will henceforth be seen as commendable and mandatory.

There will be racial and ethnic discrimination, as in the days of segregation. Only the color of the beneficiaries and the color of the victims will be reversed.

And that is the meaning of the BLM revolution, which might be encapsulated: “It’s our turn now!”

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

How the Left Exploits Antiracism to Attack Capitalism | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 8, 2020

For example, in an article titled “Black Politics and the Neoliberal Racial Order” authors Michael C. Dawson and Megan Ming Francis are quite clear that an attack on neoliberalism is no mere limited attack on an international elite of central bankers:

We define neoliberalism as a set of policies and ideological tenets that include the privatization of public assets; the deregulation or elimination of state services; macroeconomic stabilization and the discouragement of Keynesian policies; trade liberalization and financial deregulation.

Neoliberalism is any movement in the direction of less government intervention in the everyday lives of business owners, entrepreneurs, and households. To be a “non-neoliberal”—and thus ideologically correct—is to be in favor of Keynesian policies, trade controls, and more government regulation.

https://mises.org/wire/how-left-exploits-antiracism-attack-capitalism?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=b8b3373a63-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-b8b3373a63-228343965

Joseph Schumpeter once observed, “capitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets.” Capitalism is to be condemned no matter what, even if the executioners have yet to settle on the specific reason for its condemnation.

The forces of anticapitalism have long morphed into whatever form best suits them for taking advantage of the zeitgeist. Whatever the latest injustice may be—from a polluted environment to poverty to racism—the solution is always the same: the destruction of markets and market freedom. As Ralph Raico has noted:

In earlier times, they [i.e., the anticapitalists] indicted capitalism for the immiseration of the proletariat, inevitable depressions, and the disappearance of the middle classes. Then, a little later, it was for imperialism and inevitable wars among the imperialist (capitalist) powers….

Capitalism was charged with being unable to compete with socialist societies in technological progress (Sputnik); with promoting automation, leading to catastrophic permanent unemployment; both with creating the consumer society and its piggish affluence and with proving incapable of extending such piggishness to the underclass; with “neo-colonialism”; with oppressing women and racial minorities; with spawning a meretricious popular culture; and with destroying the earth itself.

At the moment, the Left has apparently settled on racism as the justification for the latest round of anticapitalist invective. Indeed, if we delve into the Left’s narrative underpinning of the current Black Lives Matter movement we find a sizable undercurrent of anticapitalism. This isn’t to say antiracism has nothing to do with the controversy. Clearly it is an element of the movement. Moreover, it may certainly be the case that most of the movement’s rank and file—those who demonstrate in the streets—are animated simply by a desire to end mistreatment by government police. But when it comes time to formulate policy responses to the current crises of police abuse, we’re likely to discover that the Left is demanding a “solution” that goes far beyond merely holding abusive cops accountable and will focus instead on further dismantling what’s left of the market economy.

“Neoliberalism” as White Supremacy

While the connection between police abuse and the evils of capitalism may not be readily apparent to some, the indictment of capitalism as the ultimate culprit will flow naturally from the fact that the Left has long attempted to connect racism to market economies. We find the evidence in countless leftist-authored books and articles which claim capitalism and racism are inseparable. The vocabulary used here employs the usual pejorative term for capitalism employed by the Left: neoliberalism.

Although many free market liberals (i.e., “classical” liberals) and conservatives have tried to reassure themselves that attacks on neoliberalism are merely benign attacks on globalist elites, this is a naïve view. The Left has consistently used the term “neoliberal” to describe nearly any ideology or policy agenda that is even moderately procapitalist. In their minds, neoliberalism is simply market capitalism.

For example, in an article titled “Black Politics and the Neoliberal Racial Order” authors Michael C. Dawson and Megan Ming Francis are quite clear that an attack on neoliberalism is no mere limited attack on an international elite of central bankers:

We define neoliberalism as a set of policies and ideological tenets that include the privatization of public assets; the deregulation or elimination of state services; macroeconomic stabilization and the discouragement of Keynesian policies; trade liberalization and financial deregulation.

Neoliberalism is any movement in the direction of less government intervention in the everyday lives of business owners, entrepreneurs, and households. To be a “non-neoliberal”—and thus ideologically correct—is to be in favor of Keynesian policies, trade controls, and more government regulation.

The anticapitalism is apparent when researcher Felicia Rose Asbury concludes: “Black Lives Matter…operates as both a byproduct and site of resistance to the material and ideological manifestations of neoliberal projects.” This, of course, makes perfect sense if neoliberalism is inextricably linked with racism, and thus Asbury goes on to describe neoliberalism as being characterized by “exclusion and erasure” of nonwhite groups, which its “structural manifestations of violence” perpetuate. Consequently, it becomes necessary to “create a black future beyond the neoliberal paradigm.”

Dawson and Francis similarly lament the “the intertwined history of white supremacy and capitalist economic structures,” and this is especially alarming to them, because, in the anticapitalist narrative, free market capitalism is the dominant ideology in the world today. The story behind this is a familiar one for anyone well-versed in the Left’s historical narrative around neoliberalism. Specifically, as Dawson and Francis describe it:

Neo-liberalism is a set of policies and an ideology that has led to the transformation of government, starting under President Ronald Reagan, from New Deal – type social policies to policies that not only would be dictated by market principles but also would seek to have market values dominate every sphere of human existence from entertainment to science, from education to the arts. Reagan and his contemporaries Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany were mostly successful in waging war on the Keynesian social contract by attacking the social safety net, labor and its organizations, and any argument or policy that favored, even if ever so slightly, those who were not members of “the 1 percent.”

Moreover, in the mind of the typical anticapitalist intellectual, the story of the 1980s and 1990s is one in which capitalists moved from victory to victory in overturning the old paradigm of the New Deal, which valued egalitarianism and social justice. An almost laissez-faire economic order has been the rule ever since.

Yet to anyone who has been paying attention, this narrative is clearly absurd. Whether we look at tax receipts, government spending, government employment, or the regulatory burden, state control of the economy—at least in the United States—is far larger today than at any time in the past. The economy has not been “deregulated” and the Keynesian paradigm has not been scaled back. Yet the narrative remains immensely powerful. Both leftists and conservatives believe it, which is why even conservatives will claim that “market fundamentalists” dominate the the entire government apparatus.

“Racial Capitalism”

The centrality of racism to capitalism is further reinforced by the relatively recent term “racial capitalism.” The term is employed by Dawson and Francis, who define racial capitalism as “the system that is produced by the mutually constitutive hierarchical structures of capitalism and race in the United States.” This sentence may be difficult to understand for those unfamiliar with the Left’s view of capitalism: capitalism is inherently hierarchical and characterized by top-down and bottom-up conflict between the social classes. In this view, capitalism is fundamentally inseparable from state coercion, which must must be employed by capitalists to keep workers in their place. Capitalists then employ racial divisions to reinforce this hierarchy.

Numerous examples of this theory are fleshed out in Walter Johnson’s new book The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States. Although Johnson focuses on the city of Saint Louis, the book is really his history of how capitalists nationwide have used racism to exploit the middle and working classes over the past two centuries. It is a history of how “racial capitalism has been one in which white supremacy justified the terms of…capitalist exploitation.” Johnson makes it clear he views the promotion of racism as a necessary tactic in perpetuating capitalism at the expense of the workers. For Johnson, it is possible to control racial and ethnic minorities with shows of physical force. But the numerically superior white workers require a different strategy: specifically, “white supremacy is necessary to control the white people.”1

Consequently, in Johnson’s view, we find that capitalism rests on a shaky foundation in which racism is not just part of the capitalist framework. Racism must be perpetuated by capitalists in order to maintain the capitalist status quo. The conclusion becomes obvious: destroy capitalism and we destroy racism.

It’s easy to see, then, how a well-meaning opponent of bigotry might conclude that the cause of decency must necessary demand the destruction of capitalism. According to the Left’s intellectuals, not only is neoliberalism (i.e., capitalism) inextricably linked with racism, but the neoliberal order is the dominant one. We might then conclude that the injustices we see around us—presumably a product of the status quo—can only be fixed by overturning that dominant ideology. Moreover, the current ruling class—the ascendant capitalists—employ racism to prop themselves up at the expense of everyone else.

Who wouldn’t want to strike at the capitalists after accepting this narrative?

The problem with all this, of course, is that capitalism is certainly not the dominant ideology of the status quo. If it were, Paul Krugman would not be a media darling, and the US would not be running trillion-dollar deficits each year, funded with government-printed money. Moreover, capitalism has long been the enemy of caste systems, which tend to find the most support in noncapitalist traditionalist systems of privilege and protectionism. It’s no coincidence, of course, that the slave drivers of old vehemently slandered capitalism at every opportunity.

But even if we were to win that argument, the anticapitalist narrative would simply switch to environmentalism or the moral turpitude of consumerism. This year, the popular anticapitalist narrative is about race. Next year, it may be something else entirely. The evidence presented at capitalism’s trial will change. But the presumed death sentence will remain.

  • 1. It should be noted that Johnson did not invent this theory, although he employs it extensively. Martin Luther King, Jr., hinted at a similar theory in 1965 when he claimed: “The segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land.” The “Bourbon interests” were the Bourbon Democrats of the late nineteenth century, who were notable for their support of hard money, decentralization, and market capitalism in general. The most famous Bourbon Democrat was Grover Cleveland of New York, probably the last true economic liberal in the White House.
Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

 

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Black Lives Matter Co-Founder in 2015: ‘We Are Trained Marxists’

Posted by M. C. on June 23, 2020

“Trained Marxist” is an interesting turn of phrase.

Is one trained to be a democrat, republican or libertarian? Trained like a doctor or carpenter?

I thought one’s philosophy of life was based on things like experience, reflection and/or personal values.

I suspect “trained” is a euphemism for “programmed”.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/22/black-lives-matter-co-founder-in-2015-we-are-trained-marxists/

by Kyle Morris

A short, but wide-ranging, 2015 interview with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors revealed that many of those within the movement, including Cullors, consider themselves to be “trained Marxists.”

In a moment of discussion regarding the lack of ideological direction within the movement, Cullors argued that the movement does “have an ideological frame.”

“Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular are trained organizers,” Cullors said in an interview with the Real News Network. “We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories.”

“We don’t necessarily want to be the vanguard of this movement,” Cullors continued. “I think we’ve tried to put out a political frame that’s about centering who we think are the most vulnerable amongst the black community, to really fight for all of our lives.”

Cullors went on to say in 2015 that she believed “we have some clear direction around where we want to take this movement,” adding at the time that she did not believe “it’s going to fizzle out.”

The question regarding a larger ideological presence within the Black Lives Matter movement was asked of Cullors in response to criticism from Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, a prisoner who, along with two others, was convicted of killing two police officers in Harlem in 1971.

Muntaqim, who has received little support from many members within the movement, said he believed the movement would fizzle out.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Shaken Down and Exhausted | The American Spectator

Posted by M. C. on June 21, 2020

Store after store had up signboards saying, in big letters, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” Every kind of store, especially ones selling expensive toys like classic cars.

By total chance, I happened to be with a man of color, whose name is
not important. “They have to do that or they get looted or vandalized or
burned down,” he said sadly. “It’s come to this. And then they get hit
up for money. The money is for ‘protection.’ It doesn’t go to any kind
of charity. It goes to a few thugs who run the local Black Lives Matter
organization.”

Frightening. It reminded me of newsreels about how in 1930s Germany
stores had to have up Swastikas to show they were pro-Nazi. Otherwise
the Brownshirts would vandalize the stores and beat up the owners, or so
the documentaries say. It’s come to this. You have to show homage to a
completely bu–s– outfit that does nothing, absolutely zero, to help the
black people of America.

https://spectator.org/shaken-down-and-exhausted/

Hollywood’s new arrangement with Black Lives Matter.
by

Friday

I awakened to a blizzard of emails from my anorexic nutcase, former top model and actress “friend.” She wants to commit suicide. She slit her wrists two nights ago but it wasn’t enough and she’s healing rapidly. She has heard there are books telling her how to kill herself with pills. Would I be so kind as to get that sort of book for her?

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Not a chance.”

“Will you come and see me?” she asked. “And make me barbecued chicken?”

It was fantastic. Store after store had up signboards saying, in big letters, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.

“Honey, I haven’t seen you since Bush 43 was President. Do you think there might be a reason?

“Is it because I’m too fat?”

“What are you now? Size zero — is there a smaller size?” I asked her.

“I’m fat,” she said.

“Okay. Don’t kill yourself for two years and I’ll make you barbecued chicken. How’s that?” I suggested.

“I’ll try,” she said.

“Should I call the Malibu Sheriff’s station?” I asked her. “Are you serious?”

“No, don’t call them. I’ll have an Ensure.”

“Great. Call me when you’ve done that and not before.”

Then off to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with my friend Glenn Miller. (His real name.) We sat by the pool. I had a chopped salad. It was called a “McCarthy Salad.” Not named for “Tailgunner Joe,” alas, but for a chef. It was dizzyingly expensive but really, really good. We could use Joe McCarthy now. Compared with today’s politicians, he’s Socrates and Abe Lincoln rolled into one.

Then a long nap, and then a trip to the Pavilions Grocery in gay West Hollywood. It was fantastic. Store after store had up signboards saying, in big letters, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” Every kind of store, especially ones selling expensive toys like classic cars.

By total chance, I happened to be with a man of color, whose name is not important. “They have to do that or they get looted or vandalized or burned down,” he said sadly. “It’s come to this. And then they get hit up for money. The money is for ‘protection.’ It doesn’t go to any kind of charity. It goes to a few thugs who run the local Black Lives Matter organization.”

Frightening. It reminded me of newsreels about how in 1930s Germany stores had to have up Swastikas to show they were pro-Nazi. Otherwise the Brownshirts would vandalize the stores and beat up the owners, or so the documentaries say. It’s come to this. You have to show homage to a completely bu–s– outfit that does nothing, absolutely zero, to help the black people of America.

And white people are scared and angry about this. A dear friend from Yale used to say, “People don’t like to get pushed around.” Brilliant. Black people did not like being pushed around and now white people don’t like being pushed around.

I called a close relative in New York City from my car. She said she was exhausted. “The whole situation is exhausting. The Covid, the looting, the tension. It’s all exhausting.” To me, nothing is more exhausting than seeing the media and the Democrats in Congress kiss the ass of people who promote looting and arson. Fear is exhausting. Watching the greatest nation in history laid low by gangsters is beyond exhausting.

Oh, by the way, the would-be suicide called me as I was writing this to tell me she had spent the day at the beach working on a perfect tan.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Try Libertarians’ Souls – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 19, 2020

On the one hand, the libertarian position on oceans, rivers, lakes and all bodies of water is to privatize them. But is this Chinese initiative a move in this direction or not? I think the answer is yes, but it is a close call.

On the bad side, state ownership of anything is a move away from private propertarianism. The People’s Republic of China is certainly a government, so we must count this on the debit side. On the other hand, before this initiative of theirs, the ruling doctrine was freedom of movement on the seas, alternatively known as “Freedom of Navigation Operations.” But that is the exact polar opposite of the libertarian doctrine of privatization.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/walter-e-block/try-libertarians-souls/

By

According to that old aphorism we owe to Thomas Paine: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Well, these are the times that try libertarian’s souls too. Here, I do not refer to Covid, to Black Lives Matter, to the riots, to vast unemployment, to the U.S. imperialistic system, etc. Nor, even, to issues on which libertarians disagree: immigration, abortion, voluntary slavery, anarchism, reparations, etc. Rather I have in mind a series of episodes about which libertarians are, if not indifferent, then at least ambivalent. What is ambivalence? It is, according to the dictionary, “the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something…”

So which events engender in us this reaction?

1. Strikes by public sector unions

Who is in the right when a public sector union strikes against the government? Who do we as libertarians “root for?” The difficulty here is that at least for the anarcho-capitalist division of libertarians, all of government is illegitimate, and, anytime anyone attempts to undermine this institution, we strongly tend to incline in that direction. And, certainly, the teachers union, the civil servants union, the firemen’s union, the post office workers union, the police union, the municipal clerks union, etc. are all in effect destabilizing governments with their gigantic salaries and fringe benefits which lead to bloated budgets and subsequent risks of bankruptcy for statist entities. On the other hand, libertarians naturally look askance at all unions, certainly including these examples, since they do not limit themselves to mass quits. Rather, they engage in threats and actual violence against “scabs,” against anyone else who stands in their way.

One way to resolve our ambivalence about this occurrences is to favor the weaker of the two, on the ground that the stronger is to that extent more of a threat to liberty. This is akin to when the Nazis fight the Communists. We support both, unless one of them is clearly winning. Then, our support transfers to the other side.  On this ground, we would be inclined in the direction of preferring public sector unions. Ugh!

2. Defund government police

Government police are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they are funded through compulsory taxation, which is certain one strike against them. On the other hand, sometimes they do good work in the direction of liberty: stopping murderers, rapists, thieves, etc., or, if not preventing these occurrences, at least, sometimes, catching the miscreants afterwards and imprisoning them. On the third hand, to say nothing of every once in a rare while stepping on the neck of a handcuffed prisoner and murdering him, they attack victimless criminals such as those engaged in “capitalist acts between consenting adults” (in the felicitous phraseology of Robert Nozick) regarding sex, drugs, gambling, etc. But, then, they comprise a “thin blue line” protecting us not from “anarchy” but from criminal savagery.

So, should the police be defunded or not, in our view? Well, as I say, that is a difficult question. Ideally, they should be replaced, holus bolus, with private cops. But that is not the question on the table. As to that one, we are, gulp, at least somewhat ambivalent.

3. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)

This bit of real estate has been taken over by what can best be characterized as Maoist Cultural Revolutionaries. A white member of this take-over crew is demanding that “All white people must pay black people $10.” Can reparations from all whites to all blacks be far behind? This is not, exactly, the Rothbardian vision of privatization.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied, this group of Antifas, Black Lives Matter people and other such folk are to be congratulated for in effect seceding from the dreaded, evil, monstrous U.S. government. Pretty much nothing that does that can be considered all bad.

So where oh where are libertarians supposed to stand in this matter? No doubt more commentators will soon be piling on, but as of the time of this writing I am aware of only two responses to this challenge; one at least vaguely supports this move, the other decidedly does not. I do not propose to answer all of these questions. My goal here is mainly to point to instances of libertarian ambivalence.

4. Chinese ocean encroachment

The Chinese government has been converting semi-submerged sandbars into small islands, all over the South China Sea. Then, they claim a twelve-mile extension into this body of water as their sovereign territory. Do we favor or oppose this initiative of theirs?

On the one hand, the libertarian position on oceans, rivers, lakes and all bodies of water is to privatize them. But is this Chinese initiative a move in this direction or not? I think the answer is yes, but it is a close call.

On the bad side, state ownership of anything is a move away from private propertarianism. The People’s Republic of China is certainly a government, so we must count this on the debit side. On the other hand, before this initiative of theirs, the ruling doctrine was freedom of movement on the seas, alternatively known as “Freedom of Navigation Operations.” But that is the exact polar opposite of the libertarian doctrine of privatization.

Imagine if there were such a natural law as “freedom of movement on the land.” That would mean, if the analogy holds, that everyone would be free to wander wherever he wanted to: onto someone else’s farm, factory or, indeed, private residence. Under such a ruling, there would be no such thing, any more, as private property. Water is just fast moving land (some of it moves slowly: icebergs); land is just slow moving water (e.g., mudslides, volcanic ash). Libertarian principles apply, and equally so, to both.

So, I give the nod to China, but it is indeed a close call. At least that country is undermining this water socialist rule that ships may wander wherever they please.

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Twilight Zone USA – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 19, 2020

Escaping from behind the Iron Curtain, I thought I was done with
twilight zones for good. But as I watched in amazement the events of the
last three weeks, I saw something happen that I would have never
dreamed possible: The United States has descended into a twilight zone
of its own.

As with every twilight zone, America’s also came into existence as
the result of a false narrative. This narrative runs thus: The United
States of America is a racist country in which black people are
oppressed and where systemic racism prevails. In America every non-black
person is racist. This applies even to those who have never done or
said anything that could be conceivably construed as racist. The racism
of such people is unconscious – they simply cannot see it due to their
white privilege.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/vasko-kohlmayer/twilight-zone-usa/

By

Growing up in a communist regime was like living in a twilight zone where everything had gone topsy-turvy. If you’ve never been to a twilight zone, it is a most curious phenomenon. It comes into existence when in a certain country or a geographic location a blatantly false narrative takes hold of the collective psyche.

The narrative of the twilight zone of my youth went roughly as follows: Socialism was the greatest socio-economic system ever devised while capitalism was very, very bad. The Soviet Union was a paradisiacal land of freedom, opportunity, prosperity and happiness. The United States, on the other hand, was a country of exploitation and oppression where most people were bound, destitute and miserable. This official narrative was constantly and relentlessly promulgated from every quarter of our twilight zone: television, radio, textbooks, arts, newspapers, magazines, etc. Needless to say, the narrative ran in complete contravention of reality. The actual truth was that socialism was no good. On the other hand, most people in the United States were free, quite prosperous and reasonably happy while the Soviet Union was pretty much an all-around hellhole.

Those who attempted to point out the truth or question the authorized storyline were promptly silenced, suppressed and punished. As a result of the swift and efficient censorship the false narrative prevailed and took a deep hold on the societal mind. And because it served as the paradigm for reality, it distorted and turned upside down almost every aspect of life: the good was bad and bad was good; white was black and black was white. The values and ethics in the twilight zone became inverted.

Escaping from behind the Iron Curtain, I thought I was done with twilight zones for good. But as I watched in amazement the events of the last three weeks, I saw something happen that I would have never dreamed possible: The United States has descended into a twilight zone of its own.

As with every twilight zone, America’s also came into existence as the result of a false narrative. This narrative runs thus: The United States of America is a racist country in which black people are oppressed and where systemic racism prevails. In America every non-black person is racist. This applies even to those who have never done or said anything that could be conceivably construed as racist. The racism of such people is unconscious – they simply cannot see it due to their white privilege.

As with the communist narrative of old, the claim that the United States is systemically racist and oppressive toward black people is completely false. This is something that should be readily obvious to every reasonable person. (In case there is doubt, we have discussed this matter at some length here.) Rather than being oppressed, black people in this country are given protections, resources, privileges and preferential treatment that the majority do not have. No society in world history has, in fact, done more for the advancement and upliftment of black people than the United States of America. And this includes all of the black countries and systems that ever existed. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »