But we’ve now reached a point where those with serious psychological problems are trying—and succeeding—in actively imposing their values on society. It’s one thing to wrestle with your own demons. It’s something else again to try to influence, or even force, other people’s children and families to endorse or even mimic your aberrations.
International Man: There seems to be a concerted effort to blur the lines around gender. For instance, it’s now common for schools to introduce bizarre gender theories to prepubescent children.
What is going on here?
Doug Casey: The reports are so bizarre and crazy that you’d think that they were made up, but apparently, they’re not.
Different societies throughout history have had different standards of morality and attitudes towards bringing up children and sexual morals. But at this point, in the West, the nuclear family itself, and everything that’s been considered traditional and normal, is under active attack. How else to explain Mayor Pete, the Secretary of Transportation, playing with his husband, or whatever he or she is? Or the bizarre tranny, Rachel Levine, sporting some kind of an admiral’s uniform? Or the new national Press Secretary, whose main qualification is that she’s a strident black lesbian?
However, this type of thing often happens when a society is heading towards collapse. The dissipated practices of Roman emperors like Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus, and others gradually filtered down into the common people, and the Dark Ages followed. More recently, look at the things that went on in Germany after WW1, during the Weimar Republic. Sexual debauchery and moral (as well as economic) degeneracy ruled. These things destabilized society, evidenced by street fights and riots between the Nazis and the Communists. It all resembles what’s brewing in the US between the Red people and the Blue people. History rhymes.
My personal view has always been that if somebody is gay, bi, queer, trans, or whatever, it’s their business, not mine. It’s not something that the State should be involved in either. In fact, marriage between consenting adults of whatever real or imagined genders is none of the State’s business either. The State is here to provide protection from force and fraud. Period. It’s not here to enforce views on morality or customs.
But that’s not a commonly accepted view. In today’s world, hundreds of racial and sexual groups don’t just want freedom from oppressive laws. They demand special privileges and laws forcing others to observe them. They’re very vocal, screaming that it’s not enough for people with psychological aberrations of one type or another to simply be acknowledged and left alone, which is the most that anybody can—or should—ask from anybody else.
If, for example, someone is born with the apparatus of a male, and feels (an emotion) or thinks (an intellectual belief) that he should be a female, that’s his business. He should be able to change his clothes or surgically alter his body in any way to reflect that—as long as he doesn’t force others to pay for the process. He may be a perfectly good and normal human in all other ways. But it’s clear, at least to me, that he’s suffering from a serious neurosis, which I define as a stumbling block to getting along in life. It tells me that part of his mental wiring is askew. And maybe other parts are as well. In effect, it’s a warning to others, saying, “Caution: I’m unstable.”
Most neurotics recognize they have an abnormality and attempt to deal with it to limit its adverse consequences. Some, however, don’t want to. They openly dramatize their aberrations and act irrationally. If it’s serious enough, we call them psychotics. A psychotic is, in effect, wearing a sign saying, “Danger: I might seriously harm you, myself, or others. I may be a ticking bomb.”
A thoughtful and reasonable person keeps the appropriate distance from deranged individuals or groups.
A few months later, the Georgia legislature codified Deal’s workaround into law. The NRA stunt was over, and Delta still got exactly what it wanted.
Was Delta being rewarded for backtracking, and restoring the discount? Of course not. Delta completely ignored the GOP, and in a few months they buckled anyway. In early 2019, Delta CEO Ed Bastian even took a victory lap in an interview.
They came so close. But like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, you just knew they were going to blow it.
On the final day of the 2021 legislative session, the Georgia House passed legislation that would revoke major tax exemption for Delta Airlines, after the company intervened to protest the state’s new election law. For a brief moment, embers of hope were kindled in the hearts of nationalists. Were state-level Republicans finally breaking free from their subservience to woke megacorporations that despise and ridicule them?
Alas, no. Right after the Georgia House passed the bill, the state senate declined to even take it up. The measure died, and Georgia’s legislative sessions closed that night. Delta still has its big tax break. It was all for show.
This is why Republicans always lose. Instead of making corporate power serve the interests of the state and its people, they get the relationship backwards, and beg for scraps from companies that are openly allied with their enemies.
There is nothing extreme about the Georgia election reform bill. It bans the pseudo-bribery of voters by giving free food and drinks to those who arrive at polling stations. It cuts the state’s exhausting 9-week runoff period down to a more reasonable four weeks. And most importantly, the bill requires photo ID for voting absentee by mail, which doesn’t make fraud impossible but does make it substantially more burdensome to commit.
The bill is reasonable and restrained. It is far less ambitious than the bill Republicans initially hoped to pass. No matter. Democrats have summoned woke capital to threaten the state and treat it like apartheid-era South Africa for making moderate revisions to its election laws. Coca-Cola dutifully trashed the bill on Wednesday, and Delta did the same.
WATCH: Check out Darren Beattie’s latest interviews
The only valid response to such threats is to put capital in its place. The people rule in Georgia, not woke corporations. But Georgia Republicans are too weak to do that.
Like so many states, nominally “free market” Georgia gives preferential treatment to certain powerful or favored companies. Right now, state law exempts jet fuel from the state sales tax. The exemption, which costs the state about $40 million a year, is primarily meant to benefit Delta, which uses Atlanta as its primary global hub. Delta turned a $4.8 billion profit in 2019, so there is no sensible reason to give it such a tax break, unless it is providing some exceptional benefit to the people of Georgia.
But of course, the opposite is the case. Delta has openly placed itself in opposition to their interests. In 2018, Delta showed its subservience to the left when it revoked a discount for NRA members in response to the Parkland school shooting. At the time, Georgia lawmakers were considering implementing the jet fuel tax break as part of a larger bill. In response to Delta’s behavior, the GOP House jettisoned it from the final bill.
Georgia lawmakers voted to punish Delta Air Lines Inc. on Thursday, passing a sweeping tax bill that excludes a tax break that would have saved the airline millions of dollars.
In a tweet Monday, Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he would ““kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta” unless the airline rescinded its decision to end a discount for National Rifle Association members. “Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back,” he said. [MarketWatch]
It was tough talk. But of course, the state GOP didn’t have the courage to back it up. Not even five months later, the state’s Republican leader resurrected the tax break on his own.
Georgia’s governor on Monday made good on his vow to restore a tax cut on jet fuel sales that was previously killed by state GOP lawmakers irate with Delta Air Lines for ending a discount for members of the National Rifle Association.
Republican Gov. Nathan Deal issued an executive order suspending collection of the state’s 4 percent sales tax on jet fuel beginning Aug. 1. The Georgia General Assembly could reinstate the tax when it reconvenes for the 2019 legislative session in January. [AP]
A few months later, the Georgia legislature codified Deal’s workaround into law. The NRA stunt was over, and Delta still got exactly what it wanted.
Was Delta being rewarded for backtracking, and restoring the discount? Of course not. Delta completely ignored the GOP, and in a few months they buckled anyway. In early 2019, Delta CEO Ed Bastian even took a victory lap in an interview.
In a recent interview with LinkedIn’s Daniel Roth, posted nine days prior to the anniversary of Delta’s decision to end the NRA discount, Delta CEO Ed Bastian opened up about the decision and the events that followed the controversial decision.
In the interview, Bastian referenced the fact that in the wake of the shooting, the NRA engaged in “divisive commentary.” Bastian said he did not want Delta to be seen as an advocate of the NRA and the NRA’s response to the shooting. He recalled discussing the matter with fellow colleagues, saying, “We just can’t be doing this. This just is not who we are.”
When asked by Roth about Delta’s decision, Bastian did not hesitate to explain why he and other individuals at Delta acted to end the discount. “We can’t be seen as being advocates in any way,” Bastian explained in the interview. While many saw Bastian’s decision as a stance on the gun control debate, Bastian reaffirmed that the decision was not political. “We weren’t anti-NRA,” he added.
…
While some pro-NRA flyers claimed they would boycott the airline, Bastian confirmed that the negative press and tax changes were only temporary. Georgia eventually reinstated the tax exemptions.[The Points Guy]
Bastian’s declaration that “we can’t be seen as being advocates in any way,” of course, was a lie.
On Wednesday, Bastian released a statement denouncing Georgia’s new elections bill. You might need a photo ID to board one of Delta’s flight, but needing one to vote absentee, he explained, is a crime against nature.
Last week, the Georgia legislature passed a sweeping voting reform act that could make it harder for many Georgians, particularly those in our Black and Brown communities, to exercise their right to vote. … I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values. … The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections. This is simply not true. Unfortunately, that excuse is being used in states across the nation that are attempting to pass similar legislation to restrict voting rights.
So there is much work ahead, and many more opportunities to have an impact. I want the entire Delta family to know that we stand together in our commitment to protect and facilitate your precious right to vote. …In the weeks and months ahead, we will be working with leaders across the political spectrum in states nationwide in this effort. We’re also closely monitoring legislation in Congress – named after the late Atlanta civil rights hero and Delta friend John Lewis – that will expand voting rights nationwide and working with the Representatives and Senators that represent our communities. [Delta]
Two years ago, Bastian’s line was “we can’t be seen as advocates.” But what Bastian meant was “we can’t be seen as advocates for conservatives.” Being an advocate for the corrupt ruling class of the Globalist American Empire isn’t just acceptable, it’s obligatory.
The Congressional legislation Bastian refers to, the John Lewis Civil Rights Act, would dramatically expand federal power over elections by requiring the Department of Justice to pre-clear any voting law changes at the state level. For Delta, requiring a photo ID to vote by absentee ballot is unthinkable and “does not match Delta’s values,” but stripping states of the power to make their election laws and forcing them to submit to a hostile DOJ bureaucracy is the essence of good government.
If Democrats were displeased with Delta, they might actually do something. Bastian knew Georgia Republicans wouldn’t dare touch him. They were impotent in 2018, and impotent in 2021.
Some conservatives have responded to the Georgia House’s failed push to repeal the Delta tax as a victory. This is mistaken. There is no victory at all in threatening to take action, and then doing nothing after extracting zero concessions.
Republicans could respond by vowing to raise those company’s taxes, and in the future grant preferential treatment to parties that stay genuinely neutral or side with the American people instead of the Globalist American Empire. But they did not. Most said nothing. Senator Marco Rubio at least made an attempt, but instead of seriously threatening Delta, he simply wagged his finger at them for their relationship with China.
You are business partners with the Communist Party of #China
When can we expect your letter saying that their ongoing genocide in #Xinjiang is “unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values”??? #WokeCorporateHypocrites
Rubio’s pleading will achieve nothing. Nagging corporations for their Chinese activities is useless. In China, the government will actually punish companies that try and boss them around. If Rubio wants Delta to listen, he should start rallying Republicans to do the same thing. But in America, woke capital already knows it holds all the cards.
In March 2018, Georgia’s Lt. Governor claimed that “corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.” Well, so far, conservatives haven’t fought. And until they start fighting, they’ll keep losing.
It doesn’t matter if these evil and corrupt companies are nominally “American” if their consistent policy is to side with the agenda of America’s corrupt ruling class rather than the American people. The time to bring woke capital to heel was yesterday.
Many of those who avail themselves of Zuckerberg’s invention hold the same political and cultural beliefs… Perhaps most users of these internet conveniences welcome P.C. intolerance.
From the shoes you wear to the ice cream you eat, politics has found a way to sneak into some of the most mundane aspects of our lives. The new trend of “Woke Capital,” where firms are actively promoting social justice causes, has had many free-marketers scratching their heads at how corporate America has hopped on board this wave of Progressivism.
Take for example the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s. Ben & Jerry’s has made it a point to virtue signal about the latest leftist hobby horses. It made sure to showcase its progressive credentials through its launch of a resistance-themed ice cream flavor and even went as far as to endorse the Green New Deal.
Woke Capital was also on full display when Nike decided to pull its Betsy Ross flag line of shoes thanks to pressure from former NFL player Colin Kaepernick. Now an activist, Kaepernick viewed the Betsy Ross flag as an image of racism due to its creation during the American Revolution when slavery was still present.
A similar trend of political activism gone corporate has popped up when dealing with wedge issues such as gun rights. Companies such as Salesforce recently stopped doing business with organizations that sell semi-automatic rifles and firearms accessories. This decision is part of a larger wave off corporate gun control taking place since the 2018 Parkland shooting.
Corporations are Following in the State’s Footsteps
The threat of state action has hamstrung many forms of private associations and has seeped into the culture as well. The “therapeutic managerial state” we see today functions as a public-private partnership where political correctness culture is pushed as a means of re-socializing the public. Corporate actors are now well aware of this and work to one-up their PC overlords in the entrenched DC bureaucracy by trying to be “woke” in the boardroom.
Big Tech is a great example. Last year’s social media purges of political personalities such as Alex Jones demonstrated this new form of corporate policing. However, the blunt force of the state still lurked in the background as the late Justin Raimondo previously noted during the Jones deplatforming saga:
All this wasn’t good enough for Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who demanded to know if the plan was to only take down “one web site.” No doubt he has a whole list of sites he’d like to take down. Even more ominously, it was revealed that a direct threat had been made to these companies by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who sent out a memo listing all the ways the government could crack down on Big Data if they refuse to go along with cleansing the internet of “divisive” material.
Even though no direct legislative action came out of Senator Murphy’s threats, many companies are well aware of the state’s power to modify private behavior. The administrative state’s willingness to put the clamps on allegedly discriminatory activities is well-documented. So, these companies have every incentive to be on their best behavior, and in some cases go the extra mile by being “woke” to avoid bureaucratic persecution.
Changing Corporate Culture?
It is intriguing that there hasn’t been much pushback against corporate virtue signaling from consumers. This indicates some degree of cultural tolerance from a large portion of the population. Just think about it, when’s the last time a mass conservative boycott of a company enacting “woke” policies led to its bankruptcy?
Bill Anderson’s point about how “the fundamentals of private property, prices, and profits and losses” cannot be ignored in any business operation is valid, but it overlooks one trend that has taken place during the last few decades — how much the American consumer base has been re-socialized by the managerial state and its many indoctrination mechanisms.
Paul Gottfried makes an interesting observation about both corporate titans and consumers in the twenty-first century when it relates to deplatforming:
Many of those who avail themselves of Zuckerberg’s invention hold the same political and cultural beliefs. I’m not even sure that the decisions made by Facebook and Google here and in Western Europe to kick political conservatives off their sites is a bad business practice. Perhaps most users of these internet conveniences welcome P.C. intolerance.
Gottfried also explains how entrepreneurs during the Gilded Age like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie generally held more traditional views and “were devout Protestants, and they lived in societies in which both rich and poor were expected to conform to certain bourgeois proprieties that hardly exist anymore.” In sum, there is not enough collective opposition to match the “woke” Corporate America of the twenty-first century nor the activist groups constantly pressing for more diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace.
What we see now is both corporate leadership that is either culturally receptive to social justice culture and a more apathetic consumer base that does not care about the politics of these companies enough to actually revolt against them via the pocketbook.
Some rightwing politicians have suggested additional government regulation in retaliation against these firms. But for those more inclined toward laissez-faire, consumer action and robust civil society are more important than ever. Instead of exclusively focusing on elections, free-marketers should shift their energy toward business and cultural endeavors. In these areas, there are more level playing fields. The silver lining of this new Woke Capital trend is that these kinds of battles will incentivize free-market advocates to put more skin in the game and actually build viable alternatives to current corporate structures.
For example, Amazon shareholders nixed several employee-led proposals which included a plan to tackle climate change. Similarly, Google shareholders rejected a plan to link executive compensation to diversity goals. Through shareholder pressure, those of free-market inclinations can make their voices heard. More boardroom, less ballot box.
The last thing we should do in these situations is to bring the government in to “normalize” business conduct. If anything, the last century has demonstrated that government stepping into private affairs has thrown everything out of whack. As American society becomes more polarized and the government maintains its automated growth, alternative strategies that promote political decentralization are crucial.
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