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Iconoclasm in America

News Class Struggle In The USA Recommended Links Kavanauch witch hunt Bait and Switch  Divide and conquer strategy
Hillary Clinton faux feminism Bill Clinton, the founder of "Vichy left" Identity politics as divide and conquer Predator state  Deception as an art form Neoliberal Propaganda: Journalism In the Service of the
Inside "democracy promotion" hypocrisy fair The Deep State The Iron Law of Oligarchy Elite Theory Leo Strauss and the Neocons  
Obama: a yet another Neocon Mayberry Machiavellians John Dilulio letter Pope Francis on danger of neoliberalism "F*ck the EU": State Department neocons show EU its real place Fifth Column of Neoliberal Globalization
Neoliberalism as a New form of Corporatism The ability and willingness to employ savage methods Neocolonialism as Financial Imperialism Color revolutions   IMF as the key institution for neoliberal debt enslavement Powerful Few
American Exceptionalism Corporatism Hillary "Warmonger" Clinton      
Ethno-linguistic and "Cultural" Nationalism as a reaction to Neoliberalism induced decline of standards of living  From EuroMaidan to EuroAnschluss Big Uncle is Watching You Divide and conquer strategy Politically Incorrect Humor Etc

“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Iconoclasm is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of images or monuments for religious or political reasons. People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts.  Iconoclasm - Wikipedia

The fall of Communism in 1989-1991 was also followed by the destruction or removal of statues of Vladimir Lenin and other Communist leaders in the former Soviet Union and in other Eastern Bloc countries. Particularly well-known was the destruction of "Iron Felix", the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky outside the KGB's headquarters. Another statue of Dzerzhinsky was destroyed in a Warsaw square that was named after him during communist rule, but which is now called Bank Square.

The Taliban destroyed two ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan in BamyanAfghanistan in March 2001.[103]

Now the USA experience another epidemic of similar type.

During the George Floyd protests of 2020, protesters pulled down several statues which they considered symbols of the Confederacy, slavery, segregation, or racism, including the statue of Williams Carter Wickham in Richmond, Virginia, and the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol in England.[113][114] And further political strife in the wake of the George Floyd protests has resulted in the removal of the John Breckenridge Castleman monument in Louisville, Kentucky; plaques in Jacksonville's Hemming Park, renamed in 1899 in honor of Civil War veteran Charles C. Hemming, which were in remembrance of deceased Confederate soldiers; the monumental obelisk of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument and a statue of Charles Linn in Linn Park, Birmingham, Alabama; a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Montgomery, Alabama; and, in Alexandria, Virginia, the Appomattox statue, leaving the monument's base empty yet intact.[115] Furthermore, multiple statues have been vandalized, including a George Washington and Thomas Jefferson statue, both founding fathers of the United States, as well as statues of Winston Churchill in London, England, a statue of Pim Fortuyn, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a statue of Piet Hein, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and a statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston, MA which was beheaded.[116][117][118][119] Not only statues were affected, but also museums such as the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands that was smeared with paint and street names in Tilburg were crossed out as well.[120][121]

Funny thing about "Black Lives Matter till November 2020" color revolution is that  around 80% of protesters are white students (only one in six is black) brainwashed by identity politics. It looks more and more like a reincarnation of Mao's cultural revolution with the new Red Guards in charge. "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

At some point such a movement typically becomes difficult to control (as in French quote by Jerome de Angers "Appetite comes as soon as you start eating the meal") and bites the hand that feeds it. Which in our case means Neoliberal Democrats in November.

Mao solved this problem by promptly exiling all hongweibing to the countryside, when they performed their role of weakening opposition to his cult of personality and became dangerous.

There were many similar "erasing the past" movements in in Germany (with book burning), the USSR (with iconoclasm and churches burning, as well as statues toppling) , communist China (Mao cultural revolution which turned into a huge tragedy), and several xUSSR and Eastern European countries after conversion from the discredited Soviet version of state capitalism to neoliberalism in 1990th (mostly communist past and WWII monuments toppling).

Part of those "topplings" are non-objectionable (many communist regime statues were plain ugly), part led to the destruction of a valuable pieces of art. Please note the most of them were less then 100 years old. When older statues are toppled, the question about sanity and morality usually arise. Idiotic excesses plays quite an opposite effect painting protestors as vandals.

Moreover "woke" movement might well grossly overplaying the racist card and that might backfire like was the case with McCarthyism , which lasted five years or so and then became the dirty word. They are really lucky that Trump proved to be such a despicable coward.

The accusation of being racist now sounds exactly like accusation of being a "bourgeois element" under Stalinism. It invites repressions, especially in academia.

While the whole thing is more like farce than tragedy , if we use Marx famous quote (Black lives matter till November elections only), it is still pretty scary.

Another witch hunt, an increasingly strident and intolerant political culture of racial 'wokeness' as a smoke screen on excesses of financialization, outsourcing/offshoring and deregulation.

Some people now discuss whether this is a color revolution (let's say stage three of Purple revolution against Trump with Russiagate and Ukrainegate as two previous stages), or not.

I would suggest to look at the following analysis from UNZ ( https://www.unz.com/ishamir/donald-trump-vs-the-deep-state-revolution/  ):

...Do not bother with racism or anti-racism. It is a faux-agenda, like gay or homophobe, like fem or trans, like toilet gendering. Real people aren’t interested in this sort of nonsense. Blacks are not interested in anti-racism, either. It is mainly White Wokes that are, and they will follow whatever the newspaper tells them to follow.

Seattle has very few blacks but many Wokes, that’s why it is the centre of the ‘anti-racist’ campaign. Even if Trump went around kissing the sneakers of black youngsters, he wouldn’t change anything. Blacks are not hostile to him, not at all, but people who speak for them, the Dem Wokes, definitely are.

...President Trump does not send troops to meet the rioters, he does not arrest the mayors of the cities who told him to buzz off, he does not depose the generals who apologize for taking photos with him, and he does not take action against the corporations that support the rioters.

The popular satirist C. J. Hopkins argued in his column in the Unz Review that this is smart. Trump refused to play the role of Hitler, and didn’t give his opponents any reason to remove him and seize power.

Yea, he won’t make a convincing Hitler. But he will do an excellent Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who was afraid to act against the colour revolution instigated by the State Department lady, Mrs Nuland, and in the end was forced to flee to the Russian city of Rostov.

Opponents of Trump do not pull any punches. Read their headlines.

But Trump is folding and retreating. They told him – how dare you to stage a rally on June 19? After all, this is a holiday for Black Americans, the day when Lincoln freed the last slaves. On such a holy day, it is impudent of Trump to show his face in public. And Trump retreated, shifted the rally to the June 20, although there were ostensibly thousands of requests for the rally.

I’m not a conservative, no way; I am not a supporter of the current regime. I think that a revolution – even the fake one, organized by Soros out of the GayLib crowd, lightly sprinkled with Africans for colour – will do some good for America and the world.

The American troops are already leaving Germany after only 75 years of occupation. There are more than 100 major bases overseas that can be evacuated if the revolution persists. Fine and dandy.

... ... ...

Our colleague Andre VItchek suggested we should not describe the process going on in the US, as a ‘colour revolution’. Firstly, the protesters shouldn’t be discouraged, let alone ridiculed. Secondly, all these revolutions are different, he says. These are weak arguments.

First, I endeavour to understand and explain events, and I leave encouragement to others. Second, colour revolutions are revolutions made for the benefit of oligarchy. They remove the ruler who is too strong-willed or social-minded for the billionaires’ liking. And they utilise legitimate grievances of the people. They ride on the people like a rider rides a horse.

It means that a colour revolution can shift and turn into the real thing, like a horse can throw down the rider and gallop away, but this is not the usual turn of events.

The Mask Revolution in the US has too strong a support from corporations to be anything else but a colour revolution. “Black Lives Matter Receives $100 Million from Foundations, in addition to more than $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement from George Soros through his Open Society Foundations”, says Policemag (the article was removed but can be accessed via archives.com.)

It can’t be decoupled from the Covid pandemic, or rather, from the lockdowns. These unusual means of disease control are deadly for small businesses and for free-lancers. Big corporations survive and even grow fat; small ones die. Control over the population increases. Free-lancers are forced to join the regular labour force and work for a large corporation; or die. The actors of the revolution will be destroyed by the success of their enterprise. We shall know the revolution became a real one, when the revolutionaries fight the corporations. Likewise, the enemies of the colour revolution should not fight Blacks and minorities; they should fight the corporations that use the Blacks as their cannon fodder.

This is clearly "divide and conquer" style event as it alienates a large part of population about symbols that in most cases  clearly "fell into obscurity" and historical memory about them is fuzzy for probably 90% of population. 

Identity politics is tolerated and even promoted because it does not make any substantive changes. It does not affect economic relations, much less take money out of the financial oligarchy pockets.

Actually nationalists are noted fighters with icons of the past. They want their own version of history and can't accept any alternatives.  That confirm the saying that that history is the future overturned into the past.

 Iconoclasm and Race Wars

Jun 22, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Pulling statues down or calling for the removal of "problematic" portraits isn't motivated by a desire to forget the past, Michel Foucault argued. It is a way of returning to it and reigniting its conflicts . Blake Smith in The Washington Examiner : "What we are in the habit of calling 'identity politics,' and particularly political movements based on (somewhat contradictory) appeals to racial solidarity and anti-racism, depend on a 'certain way of making historical knowledge work within political struggle.' So argued Foucault in Society Must Be Defended , a 1976 book based on a lecture series about 'political historicism.'

Many on the American Right hold Foucault, along with his French postmodernist contemporaries, partly responsible for the emergence of identity politics. It would be more accurate to say that Foucault was one of the first, and sharpest, analysts of the way identity-based political movements appeal to history and ignite what he called 'race war.' . . .

Hiding their crimes with myths, the oppressors have made the oppressed forget who they are and what they have suffered. But the signs of that historical violence are all around us -- in statues, place names, and everyday language. Purging the culture of these signs is not so much an ethical demand that the past conform to present values as it is a way of plunging the present back into past conflicts, which the oppressed now stand a chance of winning."

Peter Hitchens makes a similar point in a short piece on iconoclasm in England in First Things : "It is the Rhodes statue that is controversial. But this is no longer really about Rhodes. In the last few days it has been under police guard. Not long ago a large demonstration, wholly ignoring supposed rules about avoiding viral infection, gathered beneath it while shouting about decolonization, as if Britain still had an empire. Perhaps they wish it was so. People need enemies, and dismantled empires are nothing like as good for this purpose as living, breathing ones . . .

And all over Britain, statues of forgotten politicians, merchants, generals, and admirals (and now the blue plaques that commemorate them) are being investigated, to see if they in some way celebrate a wicked past. Even the looming sculpture of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square has been first scrawled on by protestors (who also defaced a nearby monument to Abraham Lincoln) and then hidden in a box by Greater London's feeble authorities.

This is a good indication of the state of modern Britain, teetering on the edge of a cultural revolution so severe that its greatest modern figure has lost his power as a unifying force and memory."

 


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[Jun 19, 2021] Churchill and 'Woke Totalitarianism' by James Freeman

Notable quotes:
"... James Freeman is the co-author of "The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival." ..."
Jun 18, 2021 | www.wsj.com
Another statue is vandalized.

It seems that the wokesters who claim that they are "anti-racists" still can't tolerate the memory of a man who defeated history's most murderous racist. The Thursday defacing of a statue in Canada is the latest effort to cancel Hitler's implacable foe.

Jeff Labine reports in the Edmonton Journal:

A Downtown statue of Sir Winston Churchill has been vandalized after someone dumped red paint all across the replica of the former British prime minister...
Churchill, who served as prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, is seen as a national hero for his leadership during the Second World War but held many views that would be deemed racist.

Perhaps the 20th century's greatest adversary of communist and fascist dictatorships, Churchill has of course been found wanting by today's dictators of political fashion. This week's vandalism follows several such instances over the last year involving a U.K. statue of Churchill in London's Parliament Square. In Canada, Mr. Labine reports:

Elisebeth Checkel, the president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Edmonton, said this is the first instance of the statue being vandalized that she's heard of and was disappointed to see it happen.
She said Churchill has a complicated legacy and believes it is important to look at him in a balanced way.
"If we look at any historical figure, we will find the same thing," Checkel said. "If we look at almost any person from the 1880s, we would find their views were if not repugnant to us nowadays, we would find they were disagreeable for sure. If you look at Churchill's later actions and life as he grew, as we all hope to do, his views did change. The balance should be celebrated because without Churchill we would not even have the right to protest in this country."

Licia Corbella writes in the Calgary Herald that this week's vandalism of the statue is "another act of woke totalitarianism." She adds:

Mark Milke, president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Calgary, says it's chilling to contemplate what the world would be like now had Churchill not been there.
"Imagine if Churchill hadn't been there and the United Kingdom either did a peace treaty with Hitler or fell during an invasion," said Milke...
"Nazi Germany would have controlled much of Europe... with the Soviet Union controlling the other half and Imperial Japan raping Asia. Canada and the U.S. would have been pretty much alone in the world..."
"Churchill is not a Civil War general from the South fighting to protect slavery. He's not Joseph Stalin or Chairman Mao or Adolf Hitler," continued Milke.

No he's not. In fact Churchill was a stalwart opponent of the ideologies promoted by all three of the 20th century's most infamous mass murderers. "For the historically illiterate who like to throw paint on statues," Ms. Corbella notes the bloody legacy of Churchill's enemies and adds:

What never seems to get mentioned is these statues are works of art. This destruction is not unlike the Taliban destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001. These woke folk are Talibanesque.

As for Churchill, Ms. Corbella asks: "If we allow his legacy to be torn down, whose, pray tell, can stand?"

Fortunately Ms. Corbella is not standing alone. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney tweets :

People should continue to debate Churchill's complex legacy & record, but vandalizing public property like this is shameful.
No member of the greatest generation can meet the standards of contemporary wokeness. But we should still honour those who secured our peace and freedom.

Canadian Parliament member Pierre Poilievre adds :

Don't schools teach history anymore?
Now the woke warriors attack the statue of Winston Churchill--the greatest anti-fascist of all time. He beat Hitler and Mussolini for crying out loud.
Do these vandals wish he had lost?

Coincidentally it was on this day 81 years ago when Churchill addressed the British House of Commons after the German army had overrun France. Said Churchill:

I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

If wokesterism could last for a thousand years, would it ever result in a great civilization?

***

James Freeman is the co-author of "The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival."

***

Follow James Freeman on Twitter .

Subscribe to the Best of the Web email.

To suggest items, please email [email protected].

(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)

[Jan 03, 2021] Racialist campaign in Boston culminates in removal of statue of Lincoln and emancipated slave

Jan 03, 2021 | www.wsws.org

This is a parody on Bolshevism, is not it ?

Jacob Crosse

[Dec 01, 2020] Who Funds the Statue-Topplers- - The American Conservative

Dec 01, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he fallen Christopher Columbus statue outside the Minnesota State Capitol after a group led by American Indian Movement members tore it down in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 10, 2020. (By Tony Webster/Flickr)

DECEMBER 1, 2020

|

12:01 AM

DECLAN LEARY

In the general chaos of the summer of 2020, it was a typical moment. At the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, a band of activists -- primarily from indigenous-rights groups -- had slung ropes around the neck of a statue of Christopher Columbus and pulled it down by force.

The moment meant different things to different people. For the woke left, it was another culture war victory in the age of 1619 and BLM -- a small and long-delayed comeuppance for the colonial oppressors. For the right, it was the latest advance in the onslaught of the cultural arsonists -- as cities were burning and statues falling down, it seemed that little would survive the spontaneous rage inspired by the death of George Floyd in that same city just two weeks before.

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But it was hardly spontaneous, and it had little (if anything) to do with the death of Mr. Floyd. The destruction of the Columbus statue on the Capitol grounds -- installed by Italian immigrants in 1931 as a pushback against discrimination -- had long been an explicit goal of the region's American Indian activists. The eruption of riots in the early summer simply provided an excuse. As destruction reigned, Twin Cities native activists decided to join in, taking the opportunity to follow through on something they had wanted to do for decades.

It's actually fairly representative of what happened in major cities across the country this summer: local activists had an axe to grind, and the superimposition of a national narrative gave them all the cover they could ever need. (Any outburst of disorder that happens to have occurred after late May is qualified in the media as a "protest following the death of George Floyd" -- a carefully crafted non-descriptor.) It's representative, too, of the interplay among the unholy trinity of the modern activist left: grassroots radicals, big-money donors, and the big money itself -- concentrated in funds where the donor foundations invest their dollars.

The St. Paul statue-toppling was organized by a man named Mike Forcia, a member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Forcia is also the chairman of the Twin Cities branch of the American Indian Movement (AIM), and of AIM Patrol.

AIM -- the most prominent network of indigenous activists in the country -- is commonly billed as a grassroots organization. In some ways this is true. AIM was founded in Minneapolis more than half a century ago, as the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 and other federal policies geared toward assimilation created sizable urban communities of Indians drawn away from reservations. Over the years, much of AIM's public profile has been shaped by scattered bands of activists engaging in highly visible stunts, such as the occupation of Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971.

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https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.426.0_en.html#goog_1649891056 00:00 / 01:00 Loading Ad

Even today, the national network remains fairly decentralized -- sometimes ostentatiously so. After Forcia's arrest, AIM's national president Frank Paro "was adamant that the rally was not sanctioned by A.I.M. or associated with the organization," according to court documents . Paro even went so far as to assert "that Mr. Forcia is not affiliated with the National AIM organization" -- an interesting claim, given Forcia's identification as chairman of AIM of the Twin Cities.

It's certainly possible, though -- AIM's decentralization leaves a door open for false claimants, and even the recognized national organization underwent a schism in 1993. Whether or not Forcia is associated with Paro's national AIM organization -- and regardless of who has the strongest claim to the trigram -- it is certain that he is extensively connected in the activist movement of the Twin Cities. The Facebook page he runs for the region under the AIM banner has over 12,000 followers. As of 2010 he was vice chair of the Minneapolis American Indian Center, one of the city's most important hubs of native activity (political and otherwise). He revived and sustains AIM Patrol -- a sort of neighborhood watch on steroids, founded to limit police presence in the urban Indian community -- which had been dormant for decades. And at the very least, he commanded enough influence in the community to organize and execute a protest which drew no small crowd and successfully destroyed a public monument that had been standing for nearly a century. Mike Forcia is no mere unlovable rogue; he is a key player in a network that remains as lively and robust as it was when Minnesota's first Indian radicals began to organize three generations past.

But it would be a mistake to think that the Twin Cities' indigenous activism remains "grassroots" in any meaningful sense. In fact, the cause is supported by some of the region's biggest philanthropic organizations, which in turn support themselves by extensive activities in finance capitalism.

The most notable of these is the Bush Foundation, founded in 1953 by Archibald Bush, a childless executive at 3M. At his death in 1966, Archibald Bush left his fortune to be put toward good works, with no political caveats. Over the intervening decades, the Bush Foundation has shifted ever leftward in tandem with the philanthropic establishment at large; under current president Jennifer Ford Reedy, the foundation has gone fully woke . Institutional connections have been made with the flagship establishments of far-left big money, such as Borealis Philanthropy and the mother of all wokeries, the Tides Foundation. But the Bush Foundation is especially known for its contributions to indigenous causes -- totaling just under $100 million from 1982-2019, with most of that total concentrated in the last few years as the foundation amped up its focus on the cause. This includes over $1 million to the Minneapolis American Indian Center, where Mike Forcia was vice chair.

Another of Bush's biggest beneficiaries is the Minneapolis Foundation, a sizable organization whose scope is limited to the local community, and the recipient of over 40 Bush Foundation grants. Interestingly, the Minneapolis Foundation's Director of Impact Strategy, Economic Vitality -- as well as director of grant-making and special projects, according to her LinkedIn -- is a woman by the name of Jo-Anne Stately who is active in indigenous affairs herself, including a six-year stint as vice president of development at the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. (The ILTF is another recipient of over $1 million in Bush Foundation funds.) In 2013, the Bush Foundation provided a grant of $100,000 to the Minneapolis Foundation to support the Northside Funders Group, a third impact investment organization where Stately happens to serve as co-chair. (Whether Ms. Stately is any relation either to the late Elaine Stately, co-founder of AIM and namesake of its Peacemaker Center in Minneapolis, or Angel Stately, associate of Mike Forcia and prominent witness to the death of George Floyd, remains unclear.) What is clear is that the indigenous activist network of the Twin Cities (and likely elsewhere) has moved far beyond the ragtag band of urban Indian change-makers in the first decades after relocation.

Of course, like big philanthropy in general, these organizations aren't drawing their funds from static coffers. Archibald Bush left the foundation endowed with just about $300 million, a number dwarfed by current assets of more than three times as much. The Bush Foundation, and the Minneapolis Foundation, and Tides and countless others, all rely on investment to sustain and grow their resources. The Bush Foundation's 990 disclosures show just how extensive that reliance is, including substantial investments in Sequoia, one of the nation's leading venture capital firms. Such relationships are sure to raise questions about the dependence not just of progressive groups on capital, but of capital on progressive groups. How long could firms like Sequoia survive without groups like the Bush Foundation underwriting them? That's a question that must be asked, and the exact same question should be directed at the radical groups that this relationship enables, like those who took down Columbus in St. Paul.

The lesson here is not that there's some massive, shady conspiracy behind the people who destroy our cities. It's that no conspiracy is necessary. All that's required is a seemingly innocent, and entirely unguided, process. Money falls into the wrong hands: the hands of the woke, or even the merely progressive. Sustained by the kind of mega-scale investment that now defines our economy, that money allows so-called community organizations to function without any real dependence on the community, and thus without accountability to it. The connection to such national networks also seems to muddy the mission of such organizations, folding them into a broad and ever accelerating progressive agenda.

And when the cultural green light goes live -- this time George Floyd flipped the switch -- the combined power of big money

[Sep 15, 2020] Much of today's intelligentsia cannot think by George F. Will

Notable quotes:
"... Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today's lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed, stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to Lincoln to Churchill , to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America's grossest injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia. ..."
"... Today's cancel culture -- erasing history, ending careers -- is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: "I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am superior to U.S. Grant, so there." Grant promptly freed the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy. Nevertheless . . . ..."
"... Today's gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the "mass man." ..."
"... A barbarian is someone whose ideas are "nothing more than appetites in words," someone exercising "the right not to be reasonable," who "does not want to give reasons" but simply "to impose his opinions." ..."
"... The barbarians are not at America's gate. There is no gate. ..."
Jun 26, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

A nation's gravest problems are those it cannot discuss because it dare not state them. This nation's principal problem, which makes other serious problems intractable, is that much of today's intelligentsia is not intelligent.

One serious problem is that the political class is terrified of its constituents -- their infantile refusal to will the means (revenue) for the ends (government benefits) they demand. Another serious problem is family disintegration -- e.g., 40 percent of all births, and 69 percent of all African American births, to unmarried women. Families are the primary transmitters of social capital: the habits, dispositions and mores necessary for flourishing. Yet the subject of disorganized families has been entirely absent from current discussions -- actually, less discussions than virtue-signaling ventings -- about poverty, race and related matters.

Today's most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a significant portion of the intelligentsia -- the lumpen intelligentsia -- cannot think. Its torrent of talk is an ever-intensifying hurricane of hysteria about the endemic sickness of the nation since its founding in 1619 (don't ask). And the iniquities of historic figures mistakenly admired.

An admirable intelligentsia, inoculated by education against fashions and fads, would make thoughtful distinctions arising from historically informed empathy. It would be society's ballast against mob mentalities. Instead, much of America's intelligentsia has become a mob.

Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today's lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed, stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to Lincoln to Churchill , to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America's grossest injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia.

Its expansion tracks the expansion of colleges and universities -- most have, effectively, open admissions -- that have become intellectually monochrome purveyors of groupthink. Faculty are outnumbered by administrators, many of whom exist to administer uniformity concerning "sustainability," "diversity," "toxic masculinity" and the threat free speech poses to favored groups' entitlements to serenity.

Today's cancel culture -- erasing history, ending careers -- is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: "I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am superior to U.S. Grant, so there." Grant promptly freed the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy. Nevertheless . . .

The cancelers need just enough learning to know, vaguely, that there was a Lincoln who lived when Americans, sunk in primitivism, thought they were confronted with vexing constitutional constraints and moral ambiguities. : Too much learning might immobilize the topplers with doubts about how they would have behaved in the contexts in which the statues' subjects lived.

The cancelers are reverse Rumpelstiltskins , spinning problems that merit the gold of complex ideas and nuanced judgments into the straw of slogans. Someone anticipated something like this.

Today's gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the "mass man."

In 1932's " The Revolt of the Masses ," the Spanish philosopher said this creature does not " appeal from his own to any authority outside him . He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is. . . . He will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions, appetites, preferences, tastes." (Emphasis is Ortega's.)

Much education now spreads the disease that education should cure, the disease of repudiating, without understanding, the national principles that could pull the nation toward its noble aspirations. The result is barbarism, as Ortega defined it, "the absence of standards to which appeal can be made."

A barbarian is someone whose ideas are "nothing more than appetites in words," someone exercising "the right not to be reasonable," who "does not want to give reasons" but simply "to impose his opinions."

The barbarians are not at America's gate. There is no gate.

Read more from George F. Will's archive or follow him on Facebook .

Read more :

Read letters in response to this piece: This is an inflection point for America

Gary Abernathy: What matters more, white apologies or real change?

Alexandra Petri: If we'd just given up on other things the way we have on the coronavirus

Megan McArdle: Where do we draw the line in tearing down statues?

[Jul 15, 2020] Iconoclasm in St. Louis by E. Michael Jones

Jul 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. Nothing proved the truth of Marx's claim better than the farcical battle over the statue of St. Louis in, yes, St. Louis which followed hot on the heels of the tragedy of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The battle over the statue began as an exercise in identity politics, and before long it degenerated into an example of identity theft. The main protagonist in this story is Umar Lee, who was born Bret Darran Lee in 1974 to a southern Presbyterian family and grew up in Florissant, Missouri just outside St. Louis. Lee may or may not be Black, which is an ideological marker based upon but independent of biological fact, because he claims, according to The Jerusalem Post that he "has two younger siblings who are half African-American." [1]

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown Jr., an 18-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, leading to extensive rioting . After the death of Michael Brown, Lee got involved with the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, and was arrested on two occasions and, in his words, "locked up." After getting fired from his job as cab driver, Lee became a full-time, but little known activist. In 2015, Lee noticed that statues started coming down in St. Louis, largely because of agitation on the part of St. Louis Jews. At some point during this period, Lee made contact with Ben Paremba, an Israeli restauranteur who was "passionate" about promoting Israel and other Jewish causes. At this point Paremba was as little known to locals as Lee, but all of that changed after the Jewish press took notice of their petition to remove the statue of St. Louis and began promoting them as social justice crusaders, if you'll pardon the term.

In a series of tweets, Lee tried to establish his position as an aggrieved Muslim, bringing up the Crusades as the cause of his grievance, but the underlying source of his complaint was inspired by a group of Jews, who were incensed that the city where they had come to study had erected a statue in honor of a king who had burned the Talmud.

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Once Lee mentioned the term "anti-Semitism," the Jewish press began carrying stories which lionized Lee as a crusader for Jewish rights. Because of his philo-Semitism, Lee soon found himself lionized in the Jewish press. Writing for the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Ben Sales described Lee as "a local activist who started the petition and also took part in a successful drive to remove a nearby Confederate monument in 2017. Lee, Sales continued, "is not Jewish but started the petition because of Louis IX's anti-Semitism." [2] Because Lee's petition called St. Louis a "rabid anti-Semite" who "inspired Nazi Germany," it began "drawing Jewish support" from St. Louis Jews like Rabbi Susan Talve, "the founding rabbi of the city's Central Reform Congregation, who said taking it down would help advance racial justice in the United States." According to Talve, St. Louis Jews have "been talking about that statue for a long time." Talve then added that removing the statue would be "a very important part of reclaiming history, reclaiming the stories that have created the institutionalized racism that we are trying to unravel today. If we're not honest about our history we will never be able to dismantle the systems of oppression that we are living under."

"Susan Talve hated Cardinal Burke," according to one Catholic familiar with the local scene. He went on to say that Burke told him that Talve had "an animosity toward me for reasons that I don't understand." Blinded by over 50 years of the failed experiment known as Catholic-Jewish dialogue, his eminence was evidently incapable of seeing that Talve's animosity toward him was based on her ancestral animosity toward the Catholic Church, which he led in St. Louis at the time. Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Talve's animosity toward the Catholic Church has turned her into an advocate of Lee's attack on the statue.

St. Louis Catholics were determined to ignore the ethnic animosity behind the struggle. America Needs Fatima, a front group for the Brazilian cult Tradition, Family, and Property joined the fray, criticizing "limp-wristed politicians" who were giving in to "revolutionary extremists." ANF Protest Coordinator Jose Ferraz, claimed that "American Catholics" who were "strong in their faith" were being "pushed around by anarchist revolutionaries," but without identifying any of the actual players in the dispute.

After local activist Jim Hoft announced that a group of Catholics associated with his website Gateway Pundit was going to defend the statue, Lee issued a statement describing what he clearly knew to be a group of Catholics as "White Nationalists" along with "those on the alt-right such as those who held the infamous and tragic rally in Charlottesville."

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Hoft then responded by claiming that Lee deliberately misrepresented the Gateway Pundit rosary group as white racists: "We are Christians and Christian allies who believe we still have the freedom to practice our religion in America. We are organizing a prayer rally with Catholic and Christian men. And now we are being threatened -- In America. We will not apologize for our Christianity. Not in St. Louis."

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The leader of a local rosary group, taken in by Lee's propaganda, began to suspect that local Catholic activists at the rosary protest "might be backed by white supremacists" and warned his group off. He then retracted his first tweet after he learned that the Rosary rally was being sponsored by local activist Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit and TFP-America Needs Fatima. Neither group talked about the Jews. As a result, neither group was able to discuss the conflict's most significant player. Both groups as a result became proxy warriors in an exercise in street theater which kept the true dynamics of the conflict hidden.

In his article, Sales found a local Catholic who made a valiant attempt to defend the city's eponymous saint, only to be shot down later by Talve, who opined that "Asserting that your way is the only way I think is always wrong" with no sense that this was precisely the gist of what the local Jews and their Muslim front man were imposing on the citizens of St. Louis.

Hoft called Lee's claim that "those on the alt-right such as those who held the infamous and tragic rally in Charlottesville," were responsible for the demonstration defending the statue "a lie," and added "There is no one from the Charlottesville rally or linked to the Charlottesville rally or who promoted the Charlottesville rally who will be at the prayer rally (that we know about)."

Lee's determination to turn the statue battle into a racial conflict began to generate opposition from the Black community on Twitter, inspiring one observer to write "Fuck Umar Lee's Bitch ass. He got fired for taking a company video to start racial tension. He's white. Not Black. Sorry POS."

Activist, Author and Ex-Cabbie Umar Lee

By now it was obvious that the Black population of St. Louis, in spite of being dragged into Lee's ad hoc coalition, had no dog in this fight. St. Louis, it turns out, never owned slaves. Once the racial element disappeared from the conflict, its religious dimensions began to emerge. The battle over the statue was a religious war between Catholics and Jews, in which both sides were eager to cover over the conflict's true ethnic configuration. Both Lee and Hoft were determined to obscure the identity of their opponents as well as the identity of their backers. As one local observer put it, "Jews end up being in a win-win situation. Either Lee succeeds in toppling the statue or Hoft succeeds and becomes the gay-married, pro-Zionist hero to the local bishopless Catholics who are too fearful to organize on their own. Nowhere do Catholics, or Blacks, or Muslims get a win out of this. Being pro-Zionist on some level probably gives Hoft permission to misbehave sexually, since Jews are the authors of gay rights as a movement. It's his way of paying them back, even though he is deeply conservative, like a typical Iowa farm boy, raised Catholic, in all other areas."

Even after the Catholic-Jewish nature of the conflict became apparent, Lee continued to portray the pro-statue crowd as white racists. In the days leading up to the Saturday rally, Lee tweeted a picture of the blonde-haired Hoft with this text by way of explanation. "This is the guy behind the White Nationalist rally on Saturday at noon on Art Hill. This is why it's important for us to show up at eleven. . . . Jim Hoft and the Gateway Pundit were absurdly wrong." [3]

A few hours later, Lee tweeted: "I will never allow Nazis, racists, and White Nationalists to hold rallies in St. Louis without a response even if it's just me." [4] Hours later, Christine Eidson Christlieb tried to set the record straight when she tweeted "The people praying the rosary every night at the statue aren't white nationalists. That's just false. They are Catholics." [5]

Ignoring Christlieb's tweet, Lee continued to promote identity theft, tweeting on June 24 that "White Christian Nationalists and the alt-right have announced a rally on Saturday at the Louis IX statue. Please RT and share. We need to counter. Calling all Catholic and Christian Men and their Allies." The bogus request for Catholic support when Lee knew it was Catholics who were on the other side of the protest saying their rosaries exposed the hidden grammar of Lee's strategy, which involved denying his opponents their actual identity and turning them instead into "white nationalists," a group which could then be deprived of their constitutional right to free speech and assembly. I discussed this ploy in my article comparing the Arbaeen march in Dearborn, which was considered legitimate because of its religious sponsorship, and the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, which was illegitimate precisely because the protesters were "white," a designation which deprived them of any constitutional protection. Lee knew he was dealing with Catholics, but he insisted on calling them white supremacists because that was the category that would demonize them.

Lee's tweets throughout the period leading up to the June 27 protest gave a clear indication that his real animus was against St. Louis's Catholics, not white supremacists or nationalists. Lee tweeted "Mel Gibson is probably the most prominent traditional Catholic and critic of the modern church known to most Americans. He is also a raging anti-Semite who beat his wife. The Twitter army defending Louis IX I'm sure are huge fans of his."

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Umar Lee is not your typical Muslim. He said nothing about the plight of the Palestinians who were about to lose control over the West Bank. He failed to mention the connection between the knee hold which presumably killed George Floyd and ADL sponsored seminars which introduced Minneapolis police officers to Israeli instructors in Chicago in 2012. Instead he claimed that "Bringing down the Louis IX statue won't be the [first] time Muslims and Jews coordinated in St. Louis to stamp out evil." Then combining two contradictory tropes, Lee described his opponents as "alt-right Catholic fascists," whose "favorite hobbies" were "burning and looting Jews and impaling heretics." Instead of defending the statue of St. Louis IX, Lee felt that his Catholic foes could better spend their time studying Jewish history and volunteering "to help the many thousands of sex crimes victims in the church."

Statues are a sign of hegemony. They help you identify the ruler, and if not the real ruler, the man those in power would like to have as their ruler. In a revolutionary era, the statues of the former ruling class must come down. The most striking instance of this was the statue of Stalin in Prague, which came down as soon as Communism collapsed in the period from 1989 to 1990. The removal of Stalin's statue left an empty pedestal in its place, but just as nature abhors a vacuum, so pedestals will not remain empty. The first occupant of the empty Stalin pedestal was a statue of Michael Jackson, who brought his own statue to Prague when he played a concert there. He was the hegemon of the 1990s. The last time I was in Prague that pedestal was occupied by a weird crane-liked gnomon which moved in sync with some unheard rhythm of the spheres, making it seem like a metronome keeping time to an unknown melody.

The battle in Charlottesville in 2017 was ultimately a conflict over a statue, in this case a statue of Robert E. Lee, which celebrated the "redemption" of the South which occurred a generation after the Civil War, when the South drove the last remnant of Yankee soldiers from their soil. The Lee statue was erected, as were many others celebrating Confederate soldiers, to celebrate the new regime.

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During the revolutionary spring of 2020, numerous statues were deposed. Not surprisingly, the statue of Lenin in Seattle escaped the mayhem which visited that city unscathed, as did the most recent addition to statuary in South Bend, Indiana, the statue of Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, president of Notre Dame University and civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. The latter statue expresses better than any other the system of control which it symbolizes. The short-hand explanation of that system of control is the civil rights movement, which celebrates breaking laws with some higher purpose in mind. A recent article noted that 60 percent of people in their 20s believe it is okay to break the law for a good cause. Of course, who gets to determine whether the cause is good did not get mentioned in that article. That is why the Hesburgh-King statue is important. It was based on a photo taken in Chicago in 1966 (most often erroneously stated as 1964). When Martin Luther King arrived in Marquette Park, one of Chicago's many ethnic neighborhoods, the Lithuanians living there greeted him with a hail of rocks and bottles, one of which staggered King as he got out of his car. Needing help to prosecute the ethnic cleansing of Catholic neighborhoods in Chicago, King gave Hesburgh a call and together the two icons sang "We shall overcome" at a rally at Soldier Field that summer.

The statue is, in other words, a celebration of two of American history's most famous proxy warriors. As a pawn of Jewish money and Quaker organizing, King obliterated the traditional Black power structure in Chicago, symbolized by Bronzeville, which was the Black ethnic neighborhood. As a pawn of the Rockefellers, Hesburgh betrayed fellow Catholics in Chicago in order to get funding from their foundations, especially the Population Council run by John D. Rockefeller, 3rd. So the South Bend statue is in no danger of coming down because the descendants of the oligarchs which turned King and Hesburgh into political icons have found a new set of proxy warriors in Antifa and Black Lives Matter, who have arrogated the civil rights mantle to themselves in a bid to stamp out the last remnants of representative government in the United States. Pedestals will not remain empty. Prepare yourself for a Jeff Bezos statue. Just as King and Hesburgh were proxy warriors of the oligarchs in collaboration with each other, so Lee and Hoft are proxy warriors of the oligarchs in opposition to each other.

In the spring of 2015, the iconoclasts of St. Louis succeeded in getting the Jesuit-run St. Louis University to remove its statue of Pere Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Belgian Catholic priest who worked as a missionary to the Indians in the Mid-West and western sections of the United States of America. [6] The Jesuits caved in to pressure from "a cohort of students and faculty" who complained that the De Smet sculpture "symbolized white supremacy, racism, and colonialism," [7] at least according to this news account, which and alumnus disputes, claiming:

Saint Louis University did not get rid of the statue of Father DeSmet. They moved it to the newly renovated Saint Louis University Museum of Art (SLUMA). There, the statue is prominently shown quite beautifully along with other artifacts and artwork from the early founding of St Louis and its Catholic heritage. One could argue that they removed it from its outside area because of the pressure that the university faced to remove it, but there was never a "cohort of faculty and students to remove it." During my four years as a student from 2006 to 2009, I never heard one comment about the statue. I attended the university with a lot of people from various ethnicities who never mentioned it once. We would also pass it by on a daily basis. I personally think that this "cohort" was made up and that no one ever had a problem with it, whether liberal or not. It was made into a problem by those who would like to destroy Catholicism. The Jesuits should have left it where it was but at least they had enough sense to keep it and showcase it prominently in their museum, which I will repeat, is beautiful.

Protestors Argue at the Statue of St. Louis

Two years later, St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson caved in to the same sort of pressure when she removed a Confederate statue from the same Forest Park neighborhood where the statue to St. Louis is located. [8] The statue of Columbus was also removed in 2017, largely at the behest of Rachel Sender, a graduate student in biological anthropology at Washington University who claimed that Columbus "represents racism, colonialism, slavery and white supremacy and should not be given any honorable remembrance or be a symbol of Tower Grove Park." [9] In attempt to give some background on Lee and his petition, local Catholic activist Jim Hoft described Rachel Sender as "some idiot . . . from New Jersey." Sender, however, was much more forthcoming than Hoft in describing both her identity and motivation in wrecking that city's statues. Buoyed by the iconoclasts' success in removing the Columbus statue, Sender jumped on the bandwagon to remove the St. Louis statue, tweeting that "St. Louis was a crusader known for persecuting Jews. This is also the only city I've experienced [sic] blatant anti-Semitism. His legacy should not be honored! Lyda Kewson, City of St. Louis, Change the name of St. Louis. Sign the petition." [10]

Lee was lionized in the Jewish press because even though Lee calls himself a Muslim, he not only talks like a Jew, he also got the idea of tearing down the St. Louis statue from Jews. In a recent interview, Lee told The Jerusalem Post "that he became aware of the statue's history when Rabbi Hershey Novack of the Chabad on the Campus at St. Louis University held a Tisha B'Av gathering by the Louis IX statue to remember the atrocities he wrought on Jews in France." [11] Lee was in effect only doing what he was told, after Novack and local Israeli restauranteur Ben Parembo said, "Hey, that statue needs to come down. Jewish kids going out with their parents to [park's] [sic] art museum don't need to be looking at this anti-Semite."

Lee may be the only Muslim in the world who is not upset about the United States moving its embassy to Jerusalem, thereby making it the capital of Israel. In fact he's planning a trip to Jerusalem, where he plans to "do a little dance. . . to commemorate the fact that loser [i.e., St. Louis IX] never made it to Jerusalem." In the meantime, Lee "will be drafting a letter to @Pontifex asking for the decanonization of King Louis IX." On June 21, Lee informed his twitter followers that he was "working on Lindbergh too. Must go. No Nazi named streets in St. Louis Couny [sic]!" In addition to being a descendant of Robert E. Lee, Umar Lee did time for some unspecified crime. It was during his stay in prison that he became aware of Jewish history and the fact that St. Louis "burned Talmuds and embarked upon two crusades." He also learned that St. Louis was "a Catholic town," a fact which led him to embark on a career as a reformer of the Catholic Church, forcing him to oppose "some hateful pre-Vatican II trends that are being repopularized." At some point during his study of Jewish history, Lee discovered that "a group of Jewish students from Washington University and a rabbi gathered at the statue [of St. Louis] on Tisha B'av" [or this ninth of Av, the day on which the temple was destroyed]. [12] From reading the article, Lee also learned that King Louis "organized the burning of 12,000 Jewish manuscripts in Paris, reasoning that the Jewish manuscripts might corrupt his good Christian soldiers." [13] The book burning was small potatoes compared to the destruction of the Temple, but the statue gave local Jews a reason to feel aggrieved and test the local political waters to see how much clout they had. Lee discovered that Jewish clout had increased considerably over the past 11 years, and that, during the revolutionary spring of 2020, the time was ripe to press the issue.

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Knowing that the Jews were itching for a battle with that city's Catholics, Lee engaged in identity theft by claiming that the Catholic protesters were white because religion was a category which still afforded constitutional protection. Recognizing that any conflict between Catholics and Jews, with Muslims and Blacks playing minor roles, was unwinnable, Lee attempted to drag the mayor into a fight against "white nationalists" knowing full well that enlisting her in a battle against that city's Catholics, a group which made up 26 percent of the population would have meant political suicide. Hence, Lee's persistent efforts to turn the rally into something which it was not, as when he wrote: "Does St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson have a problem with alt-right White Nationalists having a protest at the Louis IX statue on Art Hill this Saturday?" Lee's tendentious formulation of the issue bespoke a combination of identity theft and moral blackmail. The two issues are, of course, related and the link was America's Civic Religion, otherwise known as the Civil Rights Movement, otherwise known as the Black-Jewish alliance. Anyone who had the Black-Jewish alliance on his side occupied the high moral ground and was on his way to winning the argument by default, because his opponents lacked a moral leg to stand on. Because of Hollywood and public education, support for the Civil Rights movement had replaced the ten commandments in America's mind as the source of moral guidance.

But, as Anne Hendershott pointed out in her book The Politics of Deviance , deviance is constant. That means that for every precept of the moral law you subtract from your behavior, you have to add a precept of political correctness by way of compensation. Sexual sin is the usual motivation for subtracting precepts of the moral law from your conscience. The public school system in America as well as higher education has as one of its main goals the sexual corruption of every student unfortunate enough to enter its doors. The moral vacuum that education creates is filled by tales of the Civil Rights Movement, which proposes Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks as role models. The sense of grievance and contempt for the positive law which King and Parks stoked found fulfillment in the homosexual movement which invoked their name to stoke contempt for the natural law.

So one way to calm your conscience because of the abortion you had is by becoming a fanatical member of Antifa or a supporter of Black Lives Matter. The Civil Rights Movement of the '60s was in many ways moral compensation for the adoption of contraception among Protestant sects. Unsurprisingly, 1964 was the year of both the pill and the Civil Rights Act. This is not a coincidence.

The battle over the statue served as an update on the Triple Melting Pot. Protestants were nowhere to be found in this conflict. Their place had been taken by Muslims, who were still negligible in terms of political power or cultural presence, but they could become significant if they allied themselves with the Jews, the part of the Triple Melting Pot which was still negligible in terms of numbers but whose cultural and political power had increased enormously over the past half century. St. Louis is the home to 60,000 Bosnian Muslims, who harbor animus against Jews that is now common in the Islamic world, largely because of how Israel has treated Palestinians. Umar Lee is the exception that proves the rule. Thanks to the state of Israel, Muslim antipathy to Jews is a widespread phenomenon, but it is not the case in the drama surrounding the state of St. Louis. If Umar had come out in favor of the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement holding Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinians, he'd still be driving a cab.

Jim Hoft @gatewaypundit

What began as an exercise in identity politics soon devolved into a case of identity theft. After Lee called the Catholics white nationalists, local Catholic activist Jim Hoft responded by calling Lee's Jewish coalition "Marxists." When it came to the battle of the St. Louis statue, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was missing in action. Archbishop Robert Carlson, ordinary of the archdiocese of St. Louis, defended the statue, but his comments had little effect on public opinion because he is on his way out the door. His appointed successor, auxiliary bishop Mitchell Rozanski of Springfield, Massachusetts, had nothing to say on the issue. As a result, Hoft became defensor fidei by default, in spite of the fact that Jim Hoft's relationship with Catholicism is even more troubled that Umar Lee's relationship with Islam.

Hoft was born and raised in Iowa, but he got his start in local politics in St. Louis after he established a national internet presence by founding the Gateway Pundit website, which took the typically conservative line on issues as other websites began to engage in liberal waffling. Conservative, at this moment in time, had less to do with the Republican populism of St. Louis native Phyllis Schlafly, and more to do with the Neoconservatives who took over both the party and the movement over the course of the 1990s. Specifically, that meant that Hoft was rabidly pro-Israel, even to the point of posting a picture of him and Bibi Netanyahu on the Gateway Pundit masthead, and disallowing any criticism of Israel or Jews from its combox. Hoft's loyalty to Israel has earned him Jewish friends, such as film producer Michael Rudin, who featured Hoft in a 2019 episode of the TV Series The Conspiracy File s and who is also featured in Hoft's masthead.

Hoft and Jezreel Morano

In keeping with an even more recent trend in Republican-style conservatism, Hoft announced that he was a homosexual after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando because he "just had to." Not long after coming out of the closet, Hoft married a gay Filipino in what purported to be a Catholic ceremony at the rebel St. Stanislaus Church in St. Louis. Not content to keep his sodomy private, Hoft took out an elaborate wedding announcement complete with picture of him and the boy, who is about a foot shorter than Hoft.

Hoft's Gateway Pundit has gone on to become a fact-checker's dream, with article after article in mainstream outlets like the Washington Post describing Hoft and his website as retailers of conspiracy theories and fake news, but Hoft continues in his role as the Jews' favorite dumb goy. Hoft's fanatical, pro-Israel chest-thumping Catholicism is a compensation for homosexuality, and a manifestation of what we might call the Michael Voris syndrome. In addition to being useful to the Jews whenever they need someone to make the Catholic Church in St. Louis look ridiculous, Hoft has become defensor fidei by default because in St. Louis, as elsewhere, nature abhors a vacuum. Archbishop Robert Carlson's defense of the statue was weakened by his status as a lame duck. [14] The Archdiocese issued a statement defending St. Louis as "an example of an imperfect man who strived to live a life modeled after the life of Jesus Christ" and a "model for how we should care for our fellow citizen." His defense was further weakened by the fact that he did not identify the group responsible for wanting the statue removed. Catholics, as a result, were once more engaged in cultural shadow boxing against enemies they could not identify.

That means that the fate of the statue rests in the hands of Carlson's successor, Archbishop-elect Mitchell Rozanski, who will be installed as St. Louis's new ordinary on August 25, which is, not coincidentally, the feast of St. Louis IX. The fate of the statue rests of Mayor Lyda Krewson, who is both a Catholic and a liberal Democrat, which means she is pulled in two opposite directions. She has come out in favor of retaining the statue, but some Catholics are not sure she can withstand the political pressure pulling her in the opposite direction, since she has already presided over other acts of public iconoclasm. As a Catholic mayor presiding over the fate of the statue of a Catholic saint in a city with a large Catholic population, Krewson finds herself confronted with a revolutionary situation during an interregnum. The driving force behind that revolution is the Jewish revolutionary spirit. Because of that fact, the impending arrival of Mitchell Rozanski is not cause for optimism. Rozanski grew up in Baltimore and is a protégé of Cardinal Keeler, who is the patron saint of Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the United States and author of a document on Catholic-Jewish relations that was so heretical that even the notoriously philosemitic United States Conference of Catholic Bishops refused to publish it. On June 18, 2009, the USCCB took the unprecedented step of condemning its own document on Catholic-Jewish relations, warning unsuspecting readers that Keeler's "Reflections on Covenant and Mission should not be taken as an authoritative presentation of the teaching of the Catholic Church. In order to avoid any confusion, the USCCB Committee on Doctrine and the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs have decided to point out some of these ambiguities and to offer corresponding clarifications." [15]

Archbishop-Elect Mitchell Rozanski

In an interview with Rozanski which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter , Keeler was described as "a legend in the field of Jewish-Catholic dialogue" and "one of Rozanski's mentors." [16] Eventually Rozanski succeeded Keeler as moderator for Catholic-Jewish relations. On February 24, 2017, Rozanski wrote a response to the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in his capacity as U.S. Bishops' Chairman on Interreligious Affairs, expressing "deep sympathy, solidarity, and support to our Jewish brothers and sisters who have experienced once again a surge of anti-Semitic actions in the United States. I wish to offer our deepest concern, as well as our unequivocal rejection of these hateful actions. The Catholic Church stands in love with the Jewish community in the current face of anti-Semitism." [17]

In an article which appeared in the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican , Rozanski was quoted as saying, "I fear that the current level of demonizing anyone of a different opinion sadly will only lead to even more levels of violence and affronts to our fellow human beings, created in the likeness and image of God." [18] The article went on to say that the suspected shooter in the attack referred to Jews as "children of Satan," which the paper described as an "anti-Semitic social media posting" with no indication that the term came from Jesus Christ in a confrontation with the Jews portrayed in the Gospel of St. John. I make the claim that there is a historical continuity between that confrontation in the Gospel and 2,000 years of revolutionary ferment on the part of the Jews in my book The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.

Unlike Justin Rigali and Raymond Burke, "whose legacies remain divisive," Rozanski plans to deal with the polarized situation in St. Louis by promoting "more dialogue, more understanding, more study of the way that police deal with different situations. And what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis was totally, totally unacceptable, totally beyond the pale of whatever should be done to anyone who is being taken into police custody."

There are, of course, Catholics in St. Louis who can provide a cogent defense of retaining the statue, but they are currently in hiding, fearing repercussions from Rozanski, whom one "local Catholic in a very sensitive position that requires him to remain anonymous" described as their "new super-ecumenical and politically correct Archbishop." As I have said many times before, the Church can have good relations with the Jews, or she can have unity, but she can't have both. Rozanski's good relations with the Jews is a sign that local Catholics are in for a hard time if they try to contest the anti-Semitism label which has been imposed on them by Umar Lee and his Jewish backers in their defense of the statue. One such Catholic provided the following defense of the statue, while at the same time declining to give his name:

Saint Louis IX was a devout follower of Jesus, who was scrupulously honest, humble, a generous and unfailing lover and benefactor of the poor, and a peacemaker and unifier of factions within his kingdom. It is for these and other virtues that he was canonized by the Church. Just as we don't eliminate the name and statues of Martin Luther King because he was a womanizer and a plagiarist, nor should we dishonor St. Louis because of his policies toward Jews and his crusading ventures. These need to be understood in their historical context of medieval Christendom – very different from today's secularized world. We're told his statue is "offensive" to Jews and Muslims. Tearing it down would be deeply offensive to hundreds of thousands of Catholics in this area, and to quite a few others as well.

As the intensity of the conflict surrounding the rosary vigils increased, the author of the above statement began to wonder if it had been strong enough in stating the case for St. Louis. When a local priest attempted to debate with the protestors, a shouting match ensued with no conclusive outcome. The author then brought up the issue of the Crusades by contexualizing it with a discussion of Zionism:

It's a pity the priest leading the rosary and the other Catholics there didn't defend St. Louis from the charge of being "genocidal" and a "murderer." The Crusades were basically a defensive movement against constant Muslim encroachment on the west and Christendom, which they vowed to conquer and destroy, and to regain the Holy Places in Palestine which they had seized after the Holy Land had been under Christian control for over three centuries before the Muslim invasions of the 7th century. What prompted King Louis to embark on a crusade was that in 1244 Muslim forces invaded Jerusalem, massacred many Christians there and desecrated churches and holy places. So it wasn't "Islamophobic" or "genocidal" for a Christian king to want to defend them! How can Jews condemn Christians for seeking to reclaim lands formerly under Christian control when they themselves (or at least the great majority, who are Zionists) justified their takeover of Palestine in 1948 for the same reason, namely, that it belonged to their ancestors until foreigners (the Romans) conquered it and dispersed them?

He then addressed the issue of burning the Talmud:

St. Louis was following the precepts of Lateran Council IV and the popes of his time in having copies of the Talmud banned and burned after it was found out that this volume (only then recently translated from Hebrew) contained repulsive blasphemies against Jesus and the Blessed Mother. Regarding Mary, "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters" (Sanhedrin, 106a). As regards Our Lord himself, he is said to be now in hell, being boiled in "hot excrement" (Gittin, 57a). Why? "Jesus the Nazarene . . . and his disciples practiced sorcery and black magic, [and] led Jews astray into idolatry" (Sanhedrin, 43a). "He was sexually immoral, worshipped statues of stone. . . was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness, and refused to repent" (Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah, 47a). He "learned witchcraft in Egypt" (Shabbos, 104b). [19]

Jonathan Greenblatt

Missing from this discussion is the role Jews play in getting people they don't like de-platformed from social media, which is the modern day equivalent of burning the Talmud. On the same Saturday as the protests at the St. Louis statue, all of my books were removed from Amazon at the behest of the ADL, the main organization promoting Jewish censorship of the media. Unlike the ADL, the Inquisition gave the books it burned a fair hearing. Now, because of Jewish concepts like "hate speech," anyone can lose his livelihood without trial or explanation at the hands of the same people who take umbrage at burning the Talmud. The only thing necessary is mention of the magic word "anti-Semitism," which ends all discussion and leaves the accused person guilty without any possibility of clearing his name. St. Louis, according to our author:

was no "anti-Semite" (which properly speaking is a racial prejudice, like that of Hitler); but he was indeed anti-Jewish, i.e., against Judaism as a religion, for the reason that Jews bitterly hated Christianity (as the Talmud demonstrated) and often worked to undermine the faith of Louis' Christian subjects, whose eternal salvation he sought to protect. The consistent position taken by the medieval popes was the Jews were not to be molested, and their worship was to be tolerated, provided they didn't work to oppose or undermine the faith of the Christian majority. When punitive measures were implemented or authorized by the Church, it was because the Church judged that Jews were not abiding by that condition.

As his final point, our author points out that if the Jews had power over Christians to implement the Talmud which St. Louis ordered burned, Christians would have died. That's because Jews only believe in tolerance when they are a powerless minority, and they believe in it only as a strategy to undermine the coherence and unity of the dominant culture until they get the upper hand, at which point they become ruthless persecutors of those who are weaker than they are. Israeli treatment of Palestinians is a good indication of how Jews act when they get the upper hand. Bolshevism in Russia is another example. Once the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, the Jews who controlled that movement turned the instruments of state power against the Russian Christians whom they saw as their ancestral foes by creating instruments of terror like the Cheka, which was invariably a Jewish-run operation because Russians were reluctant to torture and murder other Russians, whereas the Jews who made up the majority of that organization had no such compunction. "St. Louis's medieval methods," our author continues:

were not such as we would find acceptable today, when a much greater degree of religious toleration and emphasis on individual rights has been a part of Western culture now for centuries; but we have to understand St. Louis and other great figures of Christendom and U.S. history in their own historical context. The idea of a religiously "neutral" or secular state was unheard of anywhere in the world until after the French and American Revolutions more than 500 years after St. Louis lived. No religion in those days gave much emphasis to religious toleration. The Jews themselves (never mind the Muslims!) would have been very oppressive to Christians if they had been in power, as the Jewish laws set out in the Babylonian Talmud make clear, even though most of them couldn't be implemented. For instance, "If a gentile hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed" (Sanhedrin, 58b); "When a Jew murders a gentile there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep" (Sanhedrin, 57a). Indeed, gentiles are dehumanized: "All gentile children are animals" (Yebamoth 98a); "Gentile girls are in a state of niddah [filth] from birth" (Abodah Zarah, 36b). If this, and the vitriolic Talmud slurs against Jesus and Mary cited above, are not "hate speech," what is?"

As some indication of the parlous state which Catholic-Jewish dialogue has created in the Catholic Church, America Magazine turned to a Jewish Lesbian convert to Catholicism, who explained the situation in St. Louis to its readers in the following way: "King Louis IX, whom Catholics know as St. Louis, ordered the burning [of the Talmud] after a rigged 'disputation' in which a Jewish convert to Christianity debated a rabbi about whether the Talmud was blasphemous." [20] So are the above passages blasphemous? Are they in the Talmud? If the answer to those questions is yes, in what sense was the disputation rigged? Eve Tushnet, who is the author of this article as well as the author of Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith, never gets around to answering that question. Nor does she tell us whether the statue should be taken down or left in place, nor does she tell us in what sense someone who describes herself as a Jewish lesbian has converted to the Catholic faith.

The fact that the author of this eloquent defense of St. Louis chose to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from that city's incoming bishop is a good indication that the violence will increase. America is now in the middle of a full-blown revolution because largely Jewish revolutionaries broke the Motion Picture Production Code in 1965 and inundated the country with pornography and other forms of sexual subversion, which left subsequent generations weakened, demoralized, and incapable of sustaining their own culture and institutions. The year 1965 inaugurated the failed experiment known as Catholic-Jewish dialogue as well. More than anything else, the sort of Catholic-Jewish dialogue which the incoming bishop learned at the knee of his mentor Cardinal Keeler crippled the Catholic Church's ability to defend the moral order in American society. Repurposed as our "elder brothers" and friends, Jews qua Jews became the unopposed sponsors of virtually every subversive movement in American culture from abortion to gay marriage, from race-baiting political correctness to family destroying feminism, from warmongering neo-Conservatism to brutal shoot-the-protesters-in-the-back Zionism, alienating people who should have been America's friends because of Israel's barbarous behavior. The Jews have never abandoned their ancestral commitment to revolution, and now revolution has arrived at the gates of the Gateway, as the Black revolutionaries who have always been the Jews' proxy warriors, from the founding of the NAACP to the infusion of George Soros money into the coffers of Black Lives Matter, broke down the entrance to a gated community two blocks from the St. Louis statue and continued the march which began after George Floyd died. Threatened by what looked like a home invasion and abandoned by the local police, who had been told to stand down by that city's feminist mayor, Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey stood their ground on the front porch of their house brandishing the weapons that they were forced to exhibit because the cops refused to come to their assistance when called.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BzisEHLq_Zc?feature=oembed

The rally at the statue ended up being much more violent than anticipated as brass-knuckled Black Lives Matter thugs beat up elderly Catholics who had come to say the Rosary. [21] Some of the Black Lives Matter demonstrators arrived with firearms. All of the Catholic demonstrators were unarmed. According to various reports, Black Lives Matter protesters attacked Catholics praying near the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue in St. Louis. And why did they do this? Were the Black thugs who took the cane away from a 60-year-old Catholic praying the Rosary and beat him with it upset about Louis IX burning the Talmud or his position on Albigensianism? I doubt it. You can view that attack at the link in this footnote. [22] Umar Lee's portrayal of Catholics as white supremacists, fresh from Charlottesville, is responsible for that Catholic's injuries. Lee is guilty of incitement. If he and the man who carried out the attack go unpunished, we can expect more violence.

In reaction to the violence at the statue on Sunday, the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis issued a stunning rebuke to Umar Lee in a statement on Tuesday, June 31, saying that removing the statue of St. Louis "will not erase history." The Islamic group went on to say that they remained "committed to work on interfaith relationships based on honest dialogue and mutual respect." It did not recommend taking down the statue of St. Louis. Instead it was saying there were voices of reason in the Islamic community in St. Louis and that Lee's campaign had no support among the people who did speak for Islam in that city. As one local Catholic put it after reading the Islamic group's report, "The Jews have overplayed their hand."

Mr. Greenblatt's attempt to use the ADL to resurrect the Black/Jewish alliance has created problems of its own. With Israel's annexation of the West Bank looming, the ADL is concerned that the backlash that the annexation is sure to cause, might spread to its proxy warriors in Black Lives Matter, as in fact did happen in England [23] :

The "stakeholders analysis memo," which was issued by the ADL's Government Relations, Advocacy, and Community Engagement department and marked as a draft, warns that the group will need to find a way to defend Israel from criticism without alienating other civil rights organizations, elected officials of color, and Black Lives Matter activists and supporters. The memo suggests that the group hopes to avoid appearing openly hostile to public criticism of annexation while it works to block legislation that harshly censures Israel or leads to material consequences, such as conditioning United States military support. [24]

The ADL was not the only Jewish organization supporting Black Lives Matter. According to a a report in the Jewish Telegraph Agency, "More than 400 Jewish organizations and synagogues in the United States have signed on to a letter that asserts 'unequivocally: Black Lives Matter.'" [25] Those groups represented a broad spectrum "of religious, political, gender, and racial identities. The list of signatories -- from small congregations to major Jewish organizations -- represents millions of Jewish people in the United States, the organizers," according to the statement.

The problem in cities like Seattle, Chicago, and St. Louis can be laid at the feet of those cities' lesbian and feminist public officials, a group which is incapable of enforcing the law because they see the law as a manifestation of patriarchal oppression. This encourages anarchy because it allows Jewish-funded thugs like Antifa and Black Lives Matter to act with impunity. It also encourages political opportunists like Umar Lee to mount assaults on the social order because they can blackmail those officials because of the guilty conscience which arises from abortion and sexual perversion. The Church is complicit as well when it appoints bishops who are known for their skill in appeasing Christ's enemies.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-9&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1277435223412805638&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fejones%2Ficonoclasm-in-st-louis%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=500px

The video of Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey's confrontation in St. Louis garnered over 16 million views in less than 24 hours, not because violence ensued, but because violence was averted, at least for the time being. [26] But the assault on the McCloskeys continues as a signature petition to disbar them is wending its way to the Jewish head of the local lawyer's disciplinary board. Planning to fight fire with fire, the McCloskeys have hired a Jewish lawyer to defend them.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-10&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1277439214813052929&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fejones%2Ficonoclasm-in-st-louis%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=500px

As of this writing, St. Louis Circuit attorney Kim Gardner is considering filing charges against the McCloskey's for defending their home. Gardner was elected in 2017, with the help of George Soros money. [27] In addition to supporting Gardner, Soros also funded the Ferguson riots. [28] During Gardner's tenure as Circuit Attorney, felony prosecutions dropped dramatically. Of the 7,045 felony cases which the St. Louis Police Department brought before the circuit attorney in 2019, only 1641 were prosecuted, despite claims of significant evidence to prosecute presented by the police union. [29] After reducing the cash bond for numerous offences, or removing it altogether, Gardner announced that she was no longer going to prosecute "low-level" marijuana possession cases. At this point, Gardner declared war on the State of Missouri. In February 2018, Gardner indicted Missouri Governor Eric Greitens. [30] Three months later, the governor's office filed a suit against William Don Tisaby, the ex-FBI agent Gardner had hired to investigate Greitens. Gardner then went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court to block the appointment of a special prosecute to investigate her handling of the Greitens investigation but lost. That grand jury also brought charges of misconduct against Gardner but ultimately failed to hand down any indictments.

In 2019 Gardner pleaded guilty to repeated campaign finance violations dating back to her time as a Missouri State Legislator, but avoided conviction by reaching "an agreement with the Missouri Ethics Commission to pay a settlement of $6,314 in lieu of a $63,009 fine." [31]

In January 2020, Gardner filed a civil rights lawsuit against St. Louis City and St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department on the basis of the Fourth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1865 alleging a racist conspiracy. The City of St. Louis called the case "meritless," and Jeff Roorda of the St. Louis Police Officers Association called it "the last act of a desperate woman." [32]

On June 3, 2020, Gardner released all 36 of the rioters who had been arrested in the wake of the George Floyd protests. [33] Gardner is sympathetic St. Louis's revolutionaries because ever since her election, she has been involved in her own attempt to overthrow the government. The fate of the McCloskeys, who have been told that the rioters are planning to return to their house, now rests in the hand of this woman and the police force she has beaten into submission with the help of George Soros.

Whether violence prevails in the future, no one can say at this point, but the best indication of its likelihood can be found in the fate of the statue which represents that city's patron saint, and the fighting spirit it inspires in those who are determined to resist the Jewish revolutionary spirit, as St. Louis did in Paris eight centuries ago.

Footnotes

[1] https://www.jpost.com/international/muslims-jews-petition-to-remove-statue-of-st-louis-crusader-namesake-632256

[2] https://www.jta.org/2020/06/26/united-states/should-st-louis-take-down-the-statue-of-its-anti-semitic-namesake-activists-say-yes

[3] https://twitter.com/UmarLeeIII?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[4] https://twitter.com/UmarLeeIII?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[5] https://twitter.com/UmarLeeIII?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[6] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/05/st-louis-university-removes-statue-of-jesuit-priest-because-hes-white/

[7] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/05/st-louis-university-removes-statue-of-jesuit-priest-because-hes-white/

[8] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/06/breaking-st-louis-removes-historic-civil-war-statue-offer-local-museum-houwsblog/2009/07/29/down-with-king-louis-ixse-falls-apart/

[9] https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2020/06/15/petition-calls-for-removing-columbus-statue-in-tower-grove-park

[10] https://twitter.com/SenderRachel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[11] https://www.jpost.com/international/muslims-jews-petition-to-remove-statue-of-st-louis-crusader-namesake-632256

[12] https://www.riverfronttimes.com/ne

[13] https://www.riverfronttimes.com/ne

[14] https://kmox.radio.com/articles/news/st-louis-archbishop-robert-carlson-retiring-rozanski-picked

[15] http://www.usccb.org/about/doctrine/publications/upload/note-on-ambiguities-contained-in-reflections-on-covenant-and-mission.pdf

[16] https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/new-st-louis-archbishop-connects-pope-who-connects-dots

[17] http://www.usccb.org/news/2017/17-046.cfm

[18] https://www.masslive.com/living/2018/10/springfield_bishop_say_soul-searching_needed_in_aftermath_of_horrific_shootings.html

[19] The last three Talmud citations here were accessed 6/26/20 on the Jewish website http://www.noahide.com/yeshu.htm, where they are quoted with approval in an article arguing Jesus was a "false prophet".

[20] https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/07/06/dont-hide-sins-st-louis

[21] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/next-thing-know-coming-actually-knocked-catholic-victim-brutal-beating-st-louis-statue-speaks-horrific-incident/

[22] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=277907943450021

[23] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/01/controversial-blm-leader-remains-defiant-support-ebbs-away/

[24] https://jewishcurrents.org/adl-formulates-response-to-annexations-critics/

[25] https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/over-400-jewish-groups-and-synagogues-sign-on-to-letter-supporting-black-lives-matter

[26] https://heavy.com/news/2020/06/mark-patricia-mccloskey-st-louis-couple-guns-video/

[27] https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/st-louis-circuit-attorney-candidate-defends-accepting-super-pac-campaign-money-from-liberal-billionaire/article_11036aaf-4b1

[28] https://themissouritimes.com/soros-gets-involved-in-st-louis-circuit-attorney-race/

[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Gardner

[30] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Gardner

[31] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Gardner

[32] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Gardner

[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Gardner


Pure Coincidence , says: July 14, 2020 at 4:42 am GMT

Turns out the McCloskeys, attacked by the mob in St. Louis, have been feuding with the synagogue next door for years.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/st-louis-couple-who-aimed-guns-at-protesters-had-run-ins-with-local-synagogue/amp/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&__twitter_impr#comments

jbwilson24 , says: July 14, 2020 at 5:13 am GMT

Great article, I had no idea of the background behind these various incidents. I saw each clip on various media channels, but never knew that they were all connected.

Couple of comments:

1) Jewish-Catholic dialogue appears to be a one way shouting match. I have yet to hear of Jews altering the Talmud to remove the anti-gentile and anti-Christian passages from that turgid tome.

2) "nor does she tell us in what sense someone who describes herself as a Jewish lesbian has converted to the Catholic faith." She's obviously an infiltrator, like several of the major participants in Vatican II. I'm no Catholic, so I'm not about to lecture anyone on Church history, but there are a few volumes out there on the founding of the Jesuit order and how gentiles and jews battled for control of it over subsequent decades. Infiltration of Christian churches is as much of a Jewish tradition as Purim.

3) It was from your work that I finally gained a better understanding of Jesus and his criticism of the Pharisees. Shame to see it disappear from Amazon, but I fear anything that even remotely offends Jewish sensibilities is going to be hard to find in future. I believe they even banned Jewish historian Leni Brenner's book on the transfer agreement.

Exalted Cyclops , says: July 14, 2020 at 6:37 am GMT

Interesting to know about the fake-negro and fake-Muslim Umar Lee or Talcum XX. There's already a fake-negro from KY who's known as Talcum X. He's the one who is stationed at Haaaavaaahd who collects 20K a pop for speeches advocating that all non-black portrayals of Christ and Mary be destroyed and churches burned. His BLM followers seem to have been busy in the past week. Perhaps E. Michael Jones should do a follow-up on this noxious clown. This was a very informative article with a lot of insightful background provided.

Interesting to note that the first ones to show any resistance to this atrocity were some Brazilian Traditionalist Catholics. Most of the ones from Murika are too busy fellating the BLM (Black Looming Monster) created and funded by nice folks like George Soros, who isn't even a fake Nazi but an actual Nazi employee who (along with his father) aided the famous Adolf Eichmann in the asset-looting of Hungarian Jews in the wake of the Nazi overthrow of Admiral Horthy's regime.

Horthy's government refused to send the local Jews to Hitler even though they were allied with the Germans in fighting the USSR. Isn't there a special division of the Juctice Dept. devoted to hunting down folks who were involved even slightly with the Hitler regime?? Guess when you buy citizenship in the Rotten Banana Empire (Soros' was via a special act of Congress – the finest money can buy), the fearless Nazi-hunters shy away.

Priss Factor , says: Website July 14, 2020 at 6:48 am GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8dkGkwFQn6M?feature=oembed

One of the worst things Giuliani did was bring back urban revival. If DEATH-WISH-style NY had continued, America would have been far more conservative.
All that urban renewal and wealth made the city slickers more cosmo and snotty.

This time, please let NY go to hell.

Emily , says: July 14, 2020 at 10:53 am GMT

The USA is now so wracked with immorality, perversion and identity politics – its difficult to see that it has a future.
And having read about Lee and Holt, Talve and Gardner I was instantly reminded of the thread from yesterday. 'Who Should be Shot?'.
With the infestation of pure evil which is ripping apart the society and internal peace of the American people – are there no patriots left .?
When there is no law, no protection for decency, fairness and justice – the time must come when citizens need to defend themselves.
Obviously in St Louis that time has come ..
But the brainwashing now is so deep seated, so professional and so ugly but well financed – it seems to me that the USA will be consumed from within, without the white population even turning off their TV sets until the killing, raping and looting hits their actual front doors.
And it will.
The barbarians are no longer at the gates – they are destroying and 'cleansing' all the concept of history and any 'American dream'from inside the very heart of the country.
Karma – perhaps.

Gast , says: July 14, 2020 at 11:33 am GMT

Since E. Michael Jones endorses Christianity, it is appropriate to remind him that Christians destroyed the holy places of their rivals, destroying statues and libraries of antiquity, bringing down holy oaks of Germanic tribes etc..

And you Americans did it in Germany not too long ago, even destroying completely unpolitical statues of Arno Breker and other artists.

So it is all a bit hypocritical.

Nota bene: I don't endorse this destruction in America, and I even lament this, because I see it as a sign of weakness of the White race, and I identify as a White man, and I see those who are bringing those statues down as my enemies. But a bit more self-reflection would certainly be appropriate, if you want someone to sympathize with you.

Emslander , says: July 14, 2020 at 11:53 am GMT

I guess it surprises me less that Jesus Christ is still being persecuted by the old Jewish remnant than that the remnant has found so many allies at this point in our history. I'm equally unsurprised that a much more effective coalition is thereby being formed to oppose the remnant. Satan, being a liar from the beginning, always makes the same mistakes. He/She turns a series of small victories, like rampant pornography and an army of weak, duped Christian leaders like Hesburgh, into a conflagration that demands a response from God, like the Resurrection.

Joseph Doaks , says: July 14, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT

"But the brainwashing now is so deep seated, so professional and so ugly but well financed – it seems to me that the USA will be consumed from within, without the white population even turning off their TV sets until the killing, raping and looting hits their actual front doors."

I see no evidence that you are wrong. And Trump fiddles while America burns.

Anonymous [330] Disclaimer , says: July 14, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Gast

And you Americans did it in Germany not too long ago, even destroying completely unpolitical statues of Arno Breker and other artists.

Breker was artist to the Third Reich, which was a political movement and hostile to Christianity. While Jones thoroughly condemns all aspects of Nazism he does believe the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich is attributable to Bolshevism.

Anonymous [330] Disclaimer , says: July 14, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT
@Gast .'

E. Michael Jones, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History (South Bend, IN: Fidelity Press, 2008), p. 750

Father Coughlin , says: July 14, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT
@Jake rfs promoting Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Fortunately the cultural record of the 20th century is quite full and easy to access. And what I see is, until the 60s, Catholics getting along just fine.

The Motion Picture Production Code, before that the Hays Code, certainly pre-Lambeth, when Protestants and Catholics worked together, America was a paradise, compared to today's Godforsaken mess.

They could have kept things that way. But the Jews gained game-changing power after WWII. And since you couldnt name them, you couldnt fight them. And since you couldnt fight them, you lost. Father Coughlin , says: July 14, 2020 at 2:42 pm GMT

@Gast

appropriate to remind him that Christians destroyed the holy places of their rivals, destroying statues and libraries of antiquity, bringing down holy oaks of Germanic tribes etc..

Nope. They Christianized them. Pulled out of them what was true, noble and beautiful and modified what was error.

Chu , says: July 14, 2020 at 2:46 pm GMT

Jacob Lew under Obama wanted to get Andrew Jackson of the $20 and replace it with Susan B Anthony.

Agent76 , says: July 14, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT

Jul 12, 2020 Tyrants HATE This 500 Year Old Trick for Ending Tyranny

The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, the 16th century treatise on tyranny and obedience by Étienne de La Boétie. James and Keith highlight some of the book's key insights and detail how they apply every much to our situation today as they did when they were written.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cMlK1EM_UO8?feature=oembed

Agent76 , says: July 14, 2020 at 3:01 pm GMT

Jun 29, 2020 Armed Couple Facing BLM Mob SPEAK OUT "We Were In FEAR OF OUR LIVES The Agitators WERE WHITE"!!!

When an angry and unruly BLM mob trespassed onto private property homeowners Mark and Patricia McCloskey armed themselves to protect their lives and their property after the mob uttered threats that they would kill them.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KtB2eBLD-z8?feature=oembed

August 22, 2017 The racist origin of gun control laws

Congress demolished these racist laws. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill of 1865, Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Civil Rights Act of 1870 each guaranteed all persons equal rights of self-defense. Most importantly, the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, made the Second Amendment applicable to the states.

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/347324-the-racist-origin-of-gun-control-laws

Chu , says: July 14, 2020 at 3:28 pm GMT
@Chu N – In a letter to the American people, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today announced plans for the new $20, $10 and $5 notes, with the portrait of Harriet Tubman to be featured on the front of the new $20.

Secretary Lew also announced plans for the reverse of the new $10 to feature an image of the historic march for suffrage that ended on the steps of the Treasury Department and honor the leaders of the suffrage movement -- Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul. The front of the new $10 note will maintain the portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

Gast , says: July 14, 2020 at 3:32 pm GMT
@Father Coughlin

This is a very stupid and uneducated reply. There is so much evidence of wholesale destruction of "pagan" heritage by Christians. No serious Christian scholar denies this. Read a bit on the topic.

Pure Coincidence , says: July 14, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Jake

It is amazing to me how adding that X-factor to the equation seemingly always makes the incomplete picture make perfect sense. Tucker led his show with the McCloskey story last night, but he can't say outright many of the hidden variables. He does a better job than anyone in the MSM by far at leading the horse to water, but will they drink?

Abdul Alhazred , says: July 14, 2020 at 4:12 pm GMT

An important 'Tour de Force' .

though it should be remembered that our Republic was founded upon people saying no to unjust laws and compacts, hence the Declaration of Independence!

Thus Martin Luther King Jr promotion of non-violent opposition to injustice should not be condemned, for it is part of the greater important tradition in this country, and it was precisely the fork-saluting weather underground marxist maoist thugs abetted by funding through the Ford Foundation, etc to Soros of this day, that wanted to stop King, through murder, to launch violence and race war as that strategy of divide and conquer is now being deployed once again.

For it should be remembered that King, like Trump today, was calling out against the Vietnam war, as Trump was the only antiwar candidate in 2016 against the Obama Bin Bush Bin Clinton Bin Bush perpetual war machine, where the call for Trump's assassination is by those who want to stay in Afghanistan, saw nothing wrong with destroying the African nation of Libya by a black President Obama, the destruction of Syria, etc and are hell bent on stopping cooperation for world development upon the McKinley American System Model which the Belt and Road and New Silk Road initiatives were modeled.

Trump unfortunately is in bed with some very poisonous elements, but some of those elements even understand that no one will survive a nuclear war very much on the table and being provoked by various elements .

[Jul 11, 2020] Under pressure from the NAACP, this one is also being exiled

Jul 11, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Under pressure from the NAACP, this one is also being exiled.

I have always liked this one because it is a very accurate depiction of an Army of Northern Virginia rifleman just as they embarked on the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863.

On the pediment is inscribed "Leesburg to her sons who fought for constitutional government."

Slavery is not mentioned. pl


LambeauF , 10 July 2020 at 11:00 AM

The revolution continues. The tactics never change.

Catholic philosopher Ed Feser (professor, Pasadena City College, CA) has an amazing blog post "The popes against the revolution" where he cites papal encyclicals from late 19th and early 20th centuries condemning every aspect of this revolution we're currently seeing in America. From the destruction of cultural artifacts being a common tactic of communists to how police protection and punishment of criminals is necessary for social order to how socialism and communism are intrinsically evil.

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-popes-against-revolution.html

The Church condemns anarchism and socialist revolution

[A] deadly plague is creeping into the very fibres of human society and leading it on to the verge of destruction We speak of that sect of men who, under various and almost barbarous names, are called socialists, communists, or nihilists, and who, spread over all the world, and bound together by the closest ties in a wicked confederacy, no longer seek the shelter of secret meetings, but, openly and boldly marching forth in the light of day, strive to bring to a head what they have long been planning – the overthrow of all civil society whatsoever. (Pope Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris 1)

[T]he most disastrous national upheavals are threatening us from the growing power of the socialistic movement. They have insidiously worked their way into the very heart of the community, and in the darkness of their secret gatherings, and in the open light of day, in their writings and their harangues, they are urging the masses onward to sedition; they fling aside religious discipline; they scorn duties; they clamor only for rights; they are working incessantly on the multitudes of the needy which daily grow greater, and which, because of their poverty are easily deluded and led into error... (Pope Leo XIII, Graves de Communi Re 21, 25)

Read the rest here: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-popes-against-revolution.html

HARRY C , 10 July 2020 at 12:31 PM

If they're tearing down Frederick Douglass, there's not much left to say about it. Erased, like Carthage.

PRC90 , 10 July 2020 at 12:57 PM

'Slavery is not mentioned'. It would not matter if it was, because the current era Red Guards do not care about slavery or about rewriting history.
Like all socialists or useful idiots they have only an eye on the great and glorious future, or as the delightful Kshama Sawant concisely states .. 'a world based instead on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality – a socialist world.' To that end the falling statues have included those of emancipationists and Liberals, purely for the purpose of demonstrating the relative powerlessness of stood down law enforcement, rubbing their own willpower in the face of the middle class, and pushing the psychological boundary of normality.
The latter is of great significance to them. After the statues, place names, particular words and designated reactionary organisations are neutralised, they can then begin to enact legislation, in activist Democrat enclaves, once seen as absurd but lately seen as expected and deserving of acquiescence. Have a listen to AOC's thoughts on the matter of this never ending revolution (which we know does end like all revolutions, after various stages of chaos).
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1275633659291136001
'We will not stop'(and then we're going to keep pushing anyway).

Diana Croissant , 10 July 2020 at 02:06 PM

It's quite embarrsssing and also frightening how stupid and uneducated our supposedly educated young people are.

It's the result of our failing educational systems.

A. Pols , 10 July 2020 at 02:51 PM

We have a similar Rifleman statue in Charlottesville and the pediment has an inscription "Confederate Soldiers, defenders of States' Rights". Although in downtown Charlottesville's Court Square, it's on Albemarle County property and not subject to Charlottesville's City Council whims.

nbsp; turcopolier , 10 July 2020 at 03:49 PM

A. Pols

Is that the one that has "Love makes memory eternal?" inscribed on the base? A French Army friend visiting with his wife read that and wept saying we have nothing like this. At Gettysburg he told his wife on Cemetery Ridge "Le General de Brigade Armistead etait blesse a mort just ici avec sa main sur la bouche d'un cannon." (Brigadier General Armistead was mortally wounded here with his hand on the muzzle of a cannon.)

Jack , 10 July 2020 at 04:15 PM

Diana,

This could be the problem. Not just schools but attitudes to learning.

https://twitter.com/lanceroberts/status/1281563655784587271?s=21

What percentage of Americans could name all the states, let alone identify them on a map?

chris moffatt , 10 July 2020 at 07:51 PM

Diana:

after 40 years of the long march through the institutions (look it up) the education system is producing what the marxists who took it over want it to produce. If we can ever start it will be a long road back.

Babak makkinejad , 10 July 2020 at 11:42 PM

LambeauF

I do not believe that the Catholic Church is sketching out a credible economic program.

Socialism and Communism, in my opinion, are rooted in the ideas and ideals of a (Christian) Commonwealth.

Christian Thinkers abandoned dabbling in economic theory, it seems to me. Pious appeals to charity were useless in 1934 and are equally useless today.

You need men like Bismarck and FDR, who advanced the cause of Commonwealth in Germany and in the United States.

Phillip e Cattar , 10 July 2020 at 11:44 PM

Loudin County Va,Leesburg,is the birth place of my Great,Great grandfather,William Henry Andrews born in 1811.He married Elizabeth Goff and they moved to Monticello ,Jefferson County Florida in 1833 when it was a territoty.............Both the city and county name was in honor of Thomas Jefferson.............William Henry's first son,my great grandfather,John Slicer Andrews, enlisted in the 50 th Ga Regiment "The Santlla Rangers" in 1862.........This regiment eventually was assigned to the ANV under Lt General James Longstreet.They were involved in the battle of Gettysburg and on July 4th 1863 John Slicer Andrews was captured at Cashtown PA.He spent about 19 months in Union prisons .He died years later of "consumption" which his doctor said was a result of his prison stay..........One of John Andrew's son was responsible for the Florida Legislature to pass a bill giving Confederate widows a penson.

PRC90 , 11 July 2020 at 04:08 AM

Diana, would that long road back start at the door of the Education Secretary, an appointment currently held by Betsy deVos ? Although the powers of that appointment are limited by the US Constitution, it would seem to be the ideal coordinating office for the redress of the decline that you describe.
Betsy DeVos herself does not seem up to that task, and those who appointed her would not seem to have that intent. She seems a lovely and comfortable sort, devoid of any need to overwhelm those who would at least be ideological opponents.

English Outsider , 11 July 2020 at 06:00 AM


Colonel - reading the article above, and the comment, I think as I think so often "Is there anywhere he hasn't been and anyone he hasn't met?"

It really is quite important to get those memoirs out.

On the subject of your article above, I'm sorry about those statues and memorials. We live in such bloody silly times.

nbsp; turcopolier , 11 July 2020 at 08:49 AM

English Outsider

I see in the Richmond Times Dispatch today that the wokies now running the commonwealth have decided that the way to get the bronze Lee down is to cut him in three pieces.

Barbara Ann , 11 July 2020 at 10:36 AM

George Santayana's aphorism; "Only the dead have seen the end of war" seems inadequate for a time in which the effigies of soldiers are mutilated. For me, the wokies' lack of respect for the dead betrays their faux concern for the living.

[Jul 11, 2020] The second assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Notable quotes:
"... This campaign is now concentrated on desecrating and destroying the statues of figures who led the American Revolution and the Civil War. ..."
"... Young Mr. Lincoln ..."
"... Abe Lincoln in Illinois ..."
"... Lincoln Portrait ..."
"... New York Times' ..."
Jul 11, 2020 | www.wsws.org

One month after the killing of George Floyd, the mass multi-racial demonstrations against police violence are in danger of being hijacked and misdirected by reactionary political forces who are attempting to promote racial divisions, sabotage the unity of working people and youth, and undermine the development of the class struggle against capitalism. This campaign is now concentrated on desecrating and destroying the statues of figures who led the American Revolution and the Civil War.

It is difficult to find words that adequately express the sense of revulsion produced by the monstrous attacks on memorials that honor the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the United States' greatest president, who led the country during the Second American Revolution that destroyed the Slave Power and emancipated millions of enslaved African Americans.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, less than a week after the surrender of the main Confederate army, which brought the four-year Civil War to an end, Lincoln was shot in the head by the pro-slavery actor John Wilkes Booth. Nine hours later, at 7:22 on the morning of April 15, Lincoln died of the wound inflicted by the assassin. Standing beside Lincoln's death bed, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton famously declared: "Now he belongs to the ages."

Lincoln's martyrdom produced an outpouring of grief throughout the United States and the world. The working class recognized that it had lost a great champion of democracy and human equality. Karl Marx, writing on behalf of the International Working Men's Association, wrote in the days after Lincoln's assassination that he was "one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great, without ceasing to be good."

Abraham Lincoln was an extraordinarily complex man, whose life and politics reflected the contradictions of his time. He could not, as he once stated, "escape history." Determined to save the Union, he was driven by the logic of the bloody civil war to resort to revolutionary measures. In the course of the brutal struggle, Lincoln gave expression to the revolutionary-democratic aspirations that inspired hundreds of thousands of Americans to fight and sacrifice their lives for a "new birth of freedom."

Every period of political upsurge in the United States has drawn inspiration from Lincoln's life. Since its opening in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC has been the site of some of the most important moments in the struggle against racial oppression and for equality. In 1939, when Hitler's Nazis were on the march in Europe and fascism had many sympathizers among the American ruling elite, the famous African American contralto Marian Anderson was denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall. So instead she sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of 75,000.

In 1963, at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at the same location as he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, calling for equality and racial integration before a crowd of 250,000. Later in that decade, tens of thousands of youth protesting the Vietnam War assembled at the monument.

It is not coincidental that the working-class upsurge of the 1930s was associated with many great artistic depictions of Lincoln, including the films Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940). Aaron Copland's beloved orchestral-narrative masterpiece, Lincoln Portrait (1942), concludes with the declaration that the sixteenth president of the United States "is ever-lasting in the memory of his countrymen."

But now, 155 years after the tragedy at Ford's Theater, Lincoln is the subject of a second assassination. This one must not succeed.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington DC's nonvoting delegate to Congress, said she will introduce a bill to remove the famous Emancipation Monument from the Lincoln Park in Washington, DC. The race-fixated protesters have declared their intention to tear down the monument, which was paid for by former slaves and movingly dedicated by black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1876.

"The designers of the Emancipation Statue in Lincoln Park in DC didn't take into account the views of African Americans," Norton stated in a Tweet. Democrats assert that the statue demeans "the black community" because it depicts Lincoln freeing a slave crouched in a runner's pose, which the sculptor intended to symbolize the liberation of the Civil War.

Norton's reactionary effort is being supported by Democratic Party officials in Boston, who will hold hearings in the coming weeks to entertain demands for the removal of a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in that city.

Lincoln is not the only leader of the anti-Confederate forces to be targeted. In San Francisco last week, a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, the great general of the victorious Union army and later president of the United States, was torn down.

An even filthier example of the racialist campaign is the desecration of the Boston monument honoring the legendary 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 54th Massachusetts, led by abolitionist Robert Gould Shaw, was the second all-black regiment organized in the Civil War. Protesters object to the fact that the 54th, famously depicted in the film Glory (1989), was commanded by a white officer, Shaw. Holland Cotter, the New York Times' co-chief art critic, slandered the monument as a "white supremacist" visual for its depiction of Shaw leading his African American battalion.

Another Union monument, a statue of abolitionist Hans Christian Heg (1829–1863), was pulled down Tuesday night in Madison, Wisconsin. The statue was beheaded before being thrown into a nearby lake.

A Norwegian immigrant, Heg led the 15th Wisconsin regiment, known as the Scandinavian Regiment, against the Confederacy. Prior to the war, Heg, a member of the Free Soil Party, fiercely opposed slavery and headed an anti-slave catcher militia in Wisconsin. He was killed at the age of 33 at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects all the lame liberal excuses and justifications that are offered to legitimize the desecration of these memorials. Actions, whatever the motivations ascribed to them, have objective significance and very real political consequences.

The assault on Lincoln monuments and other memorials honoring the leaders of the American Revolution and Civil War are political provocations aimed at whipping up racial animosities. Such provocations are well-known forms of communalist politics, which resemble the burning down of Muslim mosques by Hindu fanatics or Hindu temples by Muslim fanatics. Here in the United States, the statues are being attacked as examples of "white" rule.

The attacks on the statues are the outcome of a campaign by the two capitalist parties and various reactionary elements in the upper-middle class to racialize and communalize American politics. The growing intensity of this campaign is a response to the upsurge of working-class militancy, which is seen as a threat to capitalism. Far from welcoming the interracial unity displayed in the demonstrations against police brutality, the ruling elites and most affluent sections of the middle class are terrified by its political implications.

In the promotion of racial politics, there is a division of labor between the Democratic and Republican parties. Trump and the Republicans pitch their appeal to the most politically disoriented elements in American society, manipulating their economic insecurities in a manner intended to incite racial antagonism and deflect social anger away from the capitalist system.

The Democratic Party employs another variant of communalist politics, evaluating and explaining all social problems and conflicts in racial terms. Whatever the particular issue may be -- poverty, police brutality, unemployment, low wages, deaths caused by the pandemic -- it is almost exclusively defined in racial terms. In this racialized fantasy world, "whites" are endowed with an innate "privilege" that exempts them from all hardship.

This grotesque distortion of present-day reality requires a no less grotesque distortion of the past. For contemporary America to be portrayed as a land of relentless racial warfare, it is necessary to create a historical narrative in the same terms. In place of the class struggle, the entire history of the United States is presented as the story of perpetual racial conflict.

Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, efforts to create racial foundations for contemporary communalist politics were well underway. The New York Times , the principal voice of corporate and financial patrons of the Democratic Party, concocted the insidious 1619 Project, the central purpose of which was to promote a racial narrative. The main argument of this project, which was unveiled in August 2019, was that the American Revolution was undertaken to protect North American slavery and that the Civil War, led by the racist Abraham Lincoln, had nothing to do with the ending of slavery. The slaves, so the new story went, liberated themselves.

The purpose of lies about history, as Trotsky explained, is to conceal real social contradictions. In this case, the contradictions are those embedded in the staggering levels of social inequality produced by capitalism. These contradictions can be resolved on a progressive basis only through the methods of class struggle, in which the working class fights consciously to put an end to capitalism and replaces it with socialism. Efforts to divert and sabotage that struggle by dissolving class identity into the miasma of racial identity lead inexorably in the direction of fascism.

Through the promotion of a racial version of communalism, all factions of the ruling class seek to divide the working class so as to better exploit it and ward off the threat of revolution. It is no coincidence that when American society is straining under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 120,000 people and sparked an economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression, the Democrats are ever-more ferociously seeking to make race the fundamental issue.

The alternative to the politics of racial communalism is the socialist politics of working-class unity. This is the program of the Socialist Equality Party, and those who agree with this perspective should join our party.

Niles Niemuth and David North


Kris8 days ago

This is an excellent piece. I in no way consider myself a socialist, but I do believe that politicians and the media and all around bad people have bastardized and driven a wedge between what could be.

animalogic11 days ago

Great article.
"An even filthier example of the racialist campaign is the desecration of the Boston monument honoring the legendary 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 54th Massachusetts, led by abolitionist Robert Gould Shaw, was the second all-black regiment organized in the Civil War."
This attack demonstrates the utterly anti-historical, politically relativist nature of the current "protests". These protesters hate reality, & wish nothing less than to bend history to their own short-term, selfish & impulsive demands. They do NOT represent working people, the 99%.
"The attacks on the statues are the outcome of a campaign by the two capitalist parties and various reactionary elements in the upper-middle class to racialize and communalize American politics. The growing intensity of this campaign is a response to the upsurge of working-class militancy, which is seen as a threat to capitalism. "
Absolutely correct. Dozens of multi-billion dollar corporations are jumping on this racialist bandwagon. Their presence should arouse the suspicion of even the most stupid of "useful idiots".

Maricata • 12 days ago

"The assault on Lincoln monuments and other memorials honoring the leaders of the American Revolution and Civil War are political provocations aimed at whipping up racial animosities."

Correct and is something fascists would do.

Patrick • 13 days ago

If you think Lincoln cared about Black people, then please read the Lincoln v Douglass debates. Thank you.

OL Patrick12 days ago

We know of this, he evolved, and Frederick Douglass recognised it : https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

Otherwise, how do you explain the inauguration of the statue by Douglass ?

lee le brigand13 days ago

when i read Lincoln, and when i read Trotsky these days, i know in my heart that that they consciously spoke to future generations as much as they did to their contemporaries -- they knew the struggle to be fierce and long, and so the imperative to speak to future generations -- when i read Lincoln and Trotsky, i am not reading a history book, i am listening to a man speak directly to me about the times i live -- they want to tell us what they learned, they want to guide us and strengthen our spine for the battles ahead ! a hundred, a hundred-fifty years since they lived ? they understood that, the length of the struggle, and this is why they speak so clearly to us, like a hammer ringing on a blacksmith's anvil ! they live in our hearts and continue to lead us, they are beloved of the workers in this world

joad14 days ago

Vital and important piece. Share share share share....

Adrian • 14 days ago

Obama's second term was seared by civil unrest over the multiple murders of young black men by racist cops... but no 'rainbow CIA color revolution' against Obama was required at that point so the carnage was glossed over and the protests suppressed. This year however the CIA Democrats need to harness identity politics to destabilise Trump's regime in time for November (to get war with Russia back on track); furthermore American oligarchs are petrified at a class uprising after Lockdown so have instructed their mass media to seize on the the George Floyd killing, lionise the spontaneous protests, and spin them (with billionaire-funded NGOs like Black Lives Matter) to create a largely state-sponsored worldwide 'reaction'... to channel real class anger into the deadend of racial division.

R_O Adrian13 days ago

Not sure how others see it but I see the mass protests that erupted (that saw democrats and trump both attacking, the former attacking the multiracial character especially) as a different thing to what is taking place now at the sites of these statues of Lincoln, Grant etc. I believe the media are trying to treat them as part of the same thing while even admitting there is only the tiniest fraction of the numbers at the statues I mentioned above compared to the numbers demonstration before. The latter is about shifting everything into race where there was a real fear of class gaining expression in the mass demonstrations.

EnlightenedScum14 days ago

Excellent article.

Francis Walsh, JR.14 days ago

When the unions know, and the transnational corporations more than know, and the workers of the world all know and how that tens of thousands of workers are infected with the Corvid-19 virus and thousands upon thousands are dead or in the process of dying of it under
a forced labor pogrom, but the American people aren't told and the workers are bullied and threatened not to bring it up, evidently, and lied to about the figures, thereby take to manipulating and degrading the Black Lives Matter banner and movement by using them like Trojan horses bloated with divisive racialist and identity politic of the Democratic Party-- the capitalist antebellum slaver class potty and the complicit Nationalistic anti-labor unions whom we got the skinny on and know of here and now-- in order to divide, confuse, isolate and decimate the working classes and swallow up what's left of the middle class medium and small indie businesses -- while, in tandem, the Republican Potty mops up the rest. WORKERS LIVES MATTER!

R_O Francis Walsh, JR.13 days ago

That's the healthy slogan: workers lives matter.

Francis Walsh, JR. R_O12 days ago

Credit of coinage is David North's...

Irandle15 days ago

I agree that the goal of the government and media is to delimit, or kettel, the substance of these demonstrations to race...by submerging the multilpicity of issues at stake under an incessant, obsessive racial narrative. They know its about much more than that and so do the people in the streets.

Sarastro9215 days ago

Yes. Identity politics were designed to subvert working class solidarity.

Irandle15 days ago

Thank you!!!!!

Youri15 days ago

Lincoln was an advocate of slavery as long as it wasn't expanded, he wanted to make the US a whites only country like Edmon Barton of Australia later did with his constitutionally connected self governing colony, and Lincoln while "freeing slaves" continued enslaving and murdering Native Americans. I hold no anger to those who wants to target his monuments and remove them.

Kit M. Youri10 days ago

Can you put this into the context of what the article is about, namely that the racialist narratives being promoted seek to divide the working class today?

vector56 Youri13 days ago

Western culture (which includes America) is built on a foundation of so many lies and half truths that any objective critical examination causes it ti crumble like a house of cards. Hero worship and symbolism die hard in the minds of the "symbol minded" (Carlin).

Youri vector567 days ago

thanks vector56 I appreciate your comments and your pushback, and the defense of my "controversial" views it seems lol.

Youri vector5613 days ago

spot on comrade and Rest in power to George Carlin along with Bill Hicks and Frank Zappa one of the finest dissident artist, truthtellers and mythbusters. Carlin was the Miles Davis and Picasso of stand up comedy, the older he got, the better :)

kaline Youri13 days ago

https://www.wsws.org/en/art... WSWS obituary for Carlin

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς Youri14 days ago

This is revisionist propaganda. It should of been deleted.

Francis Walsh, JR. Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς12 days ago

...maybe not so much to delete right away, but let it hang there for a while...

Youri Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς13 days ago

haha! your against tearing down monuments that glorify and engage in half truths and propaganda and instead of engaging in dialogue you want the censorship? wonderful!

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς Youri12 days ago

Your propaganda is not dialogue and Lincoln's Emancipation Memorial should not only stay up but be guarded against revisionist like yourself.

vector56 Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς13 days ago

Yes, dissenting opinions should never see the light of day here?

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς vector5613 days ago

If it's propaganda, like your comment about Lincoln being a white supremacist, yes, in my humble opinion but than again I actually studied history most my life so I'm not going to make up things to justify why the world is the way it is today. That's why the SEP is a principal party based upon scientific Socialism unlike you who uses his emotions as facts.

vlp1730 Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς13 days ago

He is on record as saying he did not agree with blacks and whites as equals and living in close quarters. He said that the white race was superior to the black race. It is on record.

https://www.history.com/new...

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς vlp173013 days ago

Wow! It's on the hitler... I mean history channel. Good job cherry-picking though!

Andy H Youri15 days ago

You are a historical falsifier. You are taking certain incidents out of their context, and ignore the process of history. Your worldview is superficial and reactionary.

Youri Andy H14 days ago

I'm what you call an inconvenient truthteller and mythbuster much like this outlet, and its ok to not always agree with authors and what I said about Lincoln is historical fact, sticks and stones Comrade.

vector56 Andy H15 days ago

Why is it that we want our designated heroes to be two dimensional? Lincoln like most of the Founding Fathers by his own admission was a White Supremacist in the strictest sense. They all believed and expressed in their writings that the White race was superior to the rest of humanity (Blacks, Asians, Natives, Hispanic....).

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς vector5613 days ago

If Lincoln was a white supremacist, what would you call John Wilkes Booth? As for the founders expressing superiority in their writings, I'd like for you to prove that it against "Hispanics", seeing the term was created in the 1970's. You don't even know what you're talking about yet you try to revise history. Read a book and you might learn something.

vector56 Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς13 days ago

Nice try at misdirection, but the Founding fathers have openly expressed many times in multiple correspondences that they believed that the White Race was naturally superior to all other races on the face of this planet. It's not hard to find and they were not shy about saying it out loud so I suggest you take your own snarky advice and read a few books yourself. Also, I used the term "Hispanic" which is now Latinx (?) to include peoples in their time who were a mixture of Spanish and Native who actually did exist in their time. Note that the term "White Supremacist didn't exist in those days as well but the Fumbling Fathers clearly fit the description.

Sτrάtοs Θaλaσsιoς vector5613 days ago • edited

You still didn't provide any correspondence because they don't exist so who's really misdirecting. Also I was responding to your misinformation about "Lincoln, by his own admission was a White Supremacist in the strictest sense", and I said prove it but you can't because you only know how to read NYT propaganda. The Hispanic part of your comment is the most ridiculous. I guess the fumbling fathers, pathetic and infantile insult, must of had a time machine to travel to the future and oppress people that were just called Mexicans back during their time. I'd tell you to grow up but grownups don't troll.

SocialistBrit vector5615 days ago

Lincoln didn't believe that. His placing into law the right for black people and freedmen to vote showed he no longer held even a whiff of prejudice and Douglass said as much. Lincoln was not a racist and certainly not a White Supremacist which was the ideology of the confederacy. He was a heroic revolutionary who stood firm while others folded.

vector56 SocialistBrit13 days ago

First of all Lincoln was a man not a two dimensional heroic fictional caricature like you put forth. In many correspondences he like most White men of his time saw the Negro and Natives as inferior. As far as being exceptional I say John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison and the Quakers fit that description. They could rise above convention and see humanity objectively.

Calgacus vector5615 days ago

No, what WSWS and anybody reasonable wants is for people to study history and describe and quote people accurately, not repeat absurd slanders or recite carefully edited quotations. (Always the same ones)

Blatant falsehoods like "Lincoln was an advocate of slavery.." or pulling down a statue of Lincoln are exactly the kinds of stupid, self-destructive act that agents provocateurs lead movements and dupes like Eleanor Holmes Norton into doing.

The deepest point of the attack, why it is so crucial for these Bad Guys to attack Lincoln et al is because:

(a) Lincoln was on our side. He was on the side of the slaves, the downtrodden, the working class, black or white. and
(b) Lincoln was a rare, great and heroic leader. He - and we - succeeded in the real world . Most others - say Garrison, by his own admission - would have failed.

It's easy to spout the correct slogans and positions. Infinitely harder to put them into practice, to lead a whole country into saying them. Lincoln did. Lenin did. No matter where or when, such leaders are the supreme target of the pro-slavery forces, who do anything to blacken their name and falsify their memory, who endlessly work to split us.

Their supreme aim by this is to demoralize us and convince us that we have NEVER succeeded once, that we cannot win. No, if one studies Lincoln and the Civil War we can learn - we did win then. So we can win now.

vector56 Calgacus13 days ago

Should all critics of the website's prevailing wisdom be lumped into one category? You use the term "Bad Guys" to describe people who question convention (a term Dick Cheney & the "Intelligence Community" frequently deploys) or as you put it "attack Lincoln." As an atheist I have no Messiahs and very few heroes. Lincoln was a human being like you and I.

The North won the Civil War because A.) they had more fighting men. B.) they had a greater manufacturing capacity to make weapons of war. If the circumstances had been reversed the South would have won. Trial by combat where good always conquers evil only happens in the movies. Personally, I am not pro-human slavery be it ancient Egypt, Rome or America, but I am pro-facts; even if said facts don't neatly fit into one's heroic narrative.

Calgacus vector5612 days ago • edited

Should all critics of the website's prevailing wisdom be lumped into one category?
I did not and did not intend to. By "Bad Guys" I meant the ruling class and their agents provocateurs. I was not including you or anyone else here necessarily in that category. But people who spread blatant lies or contrive to get statues of Lincoln or abolitionists pulled down for malicious purposes.

I was trying to explain why there are so many peddlers of crap history about Lincoln etc., explain their ultimate aims and how this is an effective tool of oppression. And noting that they have seriously misled, divided and damaged left/liberal/progressive forces. They appear to have fooled you and Youri in this thread.

As for Garrison, whose objectivity you praise, what was his objective, final estimate of the living Lincoln? A few days before the assassination Garrison gave a rousing speech to tumultuous applause - briefly mentioned above - where he repeatedly said "I will not hear a word said against Abraham Lincoln" . Garrison said that Lincoln showed himself a wiser strategist and better abolitionist than he, Garrison, because he had succeeded at the enormously difficult and absolutely necessary task of leading public opinion - to win the war, to eliminate slavery everywhere in the South. Garrison before the war had sometimes merely aimed at eliminating slavery in the USA by - Northern seccession. As Garrison knew, Garrison could preach to the converted. But Lincoln didn't have that luxury - but still succeeded.

So my point is again that the anti-Lincoln narrative is the one that doesn't fit "the facts", that requires prejudice and contorted arguments and politically edited revisionist history. Not the "heroic narrative" - which the facts, warts and all, happen to fit far more neatly into.

vector56 Calgacus11 days ago

What you refer to as a "anti-Lincoln narrative is just people like me pointing out that bases on Lincoln's own words he was a White Supremacist. The question seems to be is it possible for a confessed White Supremacist to fight a war and strategically free the slaves? Yes.

Francis Walsh, JR.15 days ago • edited

We'll get this before the people, and
then tell the people all, and, while we are at it, ask

the working class if those who don't
mind at all might take some time off to recall the Union

Army as our Second Amendment is now
half empty as we're needing to finish ,for once and for all, Reconstruction restarting
from where Lincoln's murder left off!

cjk Francis Walsh, JR.15 days ago

what?

jet1685 • 16 days ago

" The purpose of lies about history, as Trotsky explained, is to conceal real social contradictions."
False consciousness, as Engels wrote to Mehring, is the underclass thinking and acting a role written by the ruler. Such is racialism.

Emily R • 16 days ago

Hi! Thanks so much for writing this! I totally agree that we can't let anything divide the working class – we've got to stay united if we want to win this fight. Thanks for advocating for us. I'm a little confused about where the author wants that unity to come from, though. Is the author saying that we should ignore all of the things that specifically black folks have faced (namely, slavery, explicitly racist torture at the hands of vigilante groups and the state, subtler practices like redlining that were still clearly predicated on race rather than just class) and expect them to join us in the fight? Isn't it our job, as a class and as a movement, to make sure we are advocating for ALL working class (and poor) folks? Don't we want to unite all people against the ruling class? Isn't that where our power comes from? I guess I'm just not sure why Black folks would want to join the movement if we don't address the inequality they've disproportionately faced – if they join, and we don't address these things, and we win, then the socialist society that comes after is still full of folks who have benefited from racism, and internalized the subtleties of white supremacy (I am not saying that anyone in our group is a racist. Just that our society was built by white folks to cater to their own needs, while Black folks were enslaved, and our systems still live in that legacy. White folks consider majority-white spaces the norm. We turn a blind eye to the over-policing of Black neighborhoods because it is easy to buy into the idea – one that our ancestors passed down to us – that Black folks are inherently more likely to be criminals. But Black folks are dying at much higher rates that while folks. We don't notice it because it feels normal to us. But Black folks do. Don't take it from me, though- are there Black folks within the movement that could potentially speak to this?). I am wondering why it is not our job to advocate specifically for justice for Black folks – if our goal is equity, and the Black working class has less of it than the white working class, why does fighting for that equity undermine the movement? Isn't justice for all what we're fighting for? Why would anyone join us if we are not paying attention to the specifics of their struggle? Any clarity you have would be so helpful – thank you in advance!

Kit M. Emily R10 days ago • edited

Racism was invented to divide the working class. Social equality cannot be achieved under capitalism--that is an oxymoron. Reforms addressing racial issues will not do away with this underlying contradiction under capitalism. Marxism needs to be taken into the working class to all workers. Workers need to understand they are part of the historical process. You said, "our society was built by white folks to cater to their own needs, while Black folks were enslaved". This is a wide generality; "white folks" obscures the class nature of society. All workers are still enslaved. To paraphrase Engels, the difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery is that the slave is sold to a master all at once and is his individual property; the wage slave must sell himself piecemeal, by the hour etc. and not to an individual but to the ruling class as a whole. Thus wage slaves cannot get free until they do away with the class structure.

John Kelly Emily R11 days ago

Good comment.

gooddoctor Emily R15 days ago

Actually, two remarkable events happened before I fled the responsibility of party building before your parents were born. The predecessors of this party circa 1974 when the working class wave , now gathering , ebbed. Mind you graduate school and profiitable careers were available, unlike now. Until then, I answered a lot questions like your , just before Feminism gathered force and Black Nationalism turned into Black Capitalism. You know, mayors, policemen, nasty capitalists. That red hot revolutionary Eldridge Cleaver opened a Better Get a Gun fashion outlet in Beverly Hills no less. There are shameless opportunists who discovered their race as their most important contribution now beside you on the streets.

One more things, just as all the comrades left for grad school , the Trostkyists of SEP built a socialist youth movement among black youths in New York for which a comrade was murdered. Not only that, but SEP as Workers League relocated to Detroit where it had a base in the black working class among auto workers. One thing though, we are not all alike and should just get together. It took rivers of Trotskyist blood to drill that in, and every attempt to ignore it met with disaster.I am a supporter. Join.

R_O Emily R15 days ago

You make it sound like there's no black workers already in the socialist movement. These advocates of racialism are not your average black working class, some instances they're not even black. What they are primarily drawn from are upper middle class, privileged layers despite all their yarns about white privilege, who advocate this stuff precisely to block class unity and class consciousness. And when you get down to our level, there really ain't that much difference. Plenty of enough white workers getting harassed and murdered by the State. I say don't let the upper middle class speak for workers

Anna Maus Mod hollywoodjeff15 days ago

For real?

https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

Most police murders are of poor and working class whites. Most everyone in the US is terrified of the police.

Anna Maus Mod Anna Maus13 days ago

The comment I replied to claimed that "white" people are not killed in traffic stops nor do they experience police terror.

Emily R R_O15 days ago

Also, could you explain more about what you mean by "there really ain't that much difference?" Thanks again!

R_O Emily R15 days ago

Just that. The guys I work with who happen to have varying shades of skin color and we all discuss from serious matters to the inane and joke together, it's all the same stuff. Same worries, same troubles, same concerns. We all know there's racism, each of us whatever our background take offense to it because we know it's an attack on all of us at the end of the day. Plus we all know Obama was a fraud, that it doesn't change anything for us putting more black people in boardrooms or the police - we all still get attacked and screwed around. And we all take offense when these self appointed representatives of race start telling us that our real enemy is each other rather than those destroying our livelihoods with job cuts, speed ups, austerity, attacks on rights and war.
White workers, black workers, Latino workers, male, female, straight, gay whatever - can be won to socialism without having to resort to adapting to the middle class advocates of identity - in fact, if that's what the wsws and SEP were to adapt to, it wouldn't win over any workers; it might win over very reactionary elements of the middle class though who would use this as platform to get more privileged positions.

Emily R R_O15 days ago

My mistake - did not mean to imply that Black folks are not part of the movement. Now that you mention it, though, my experience within the movement has been with mostly white men - do you happen to know if the party has significant Black membership? Not rhetorical, seriously wondering!! If you have the time, I'd also love to know more about these proponents of racialism - in my experience, many of the activists leading the charge in the current moment Black folks from working class or poor backgrounds (pointing to some of the national and local organizations who are doing work right now - naarpr/caarpr, for example, a lot of local youth-led orgs leading the charge in Chicago). Would you be able to send me more information about the upper middle class background of this movement? Thanks!

Carolyn Zaremba Emily R14 days ago • edited

Yes, there is significant black membership in the SEP and the ICFI. Always has been since before I became a part of it. A major section of the ICFI is in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankans are South Asian and yet they are a part of the Trotskyist movement and have a long history within it. True socialists have never been racists. Also see:
https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

Shannon Wright Emily R14 days ago

Principles matter, not skin color.

R_O Emily R15 days ago

Also I have just recently read this. This was 1997 but still addresses the main points.
https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

R_O Emily R15 days ago

Kaline below has given some links, I would also suggest searching for as much background information as possible from the wsws on the efforts of the ruling class, media and academics to racialise matters. In fact I would suggest the book on pseudo left and the Frankfurt school and postmodernism. This isn't just about racialising but the whole effort of postmodernism to deny the working class the tools to study history and formulate a class perspective.
On that score I won't say no black worker can't get caught up in racialism, just as no white worker can't get pulled behind white supremacists - great efforts are made to subordinate different sections of the working class to various middle class organisations, perspectives etc. But what I'm trying to convey is these things we're seeing (not the mass protests but pulling down statues of historically progressive figures), while they may involve worker elements, are formulated and given full vocalisation first and foremost by the upper middle class. These are not spontaneous attitudes that the mythical black community just pops out with (and it is mythical: Obama, Powell, Beyonce etc are not part of what George Floyd, Trevon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Gardner etc are). Where the socialist movement has been attacked, pushed back and betrayed by so called socialist forces (who incidentally began spouting the same identity politics and attacking class conceptions) obviously sections of the working class have come under middle class influence. But to tackle that one has to ruthlessly expose this identity politics and be somewhat bold in it recognising and having confidence that identity politics isn't some bottom up, natural expression or reflection of the real state of affairs. That's revealed very quickly when engaging in discussion with other workers of all different stripes. Of course the first stage is understanding where identity politics comes from, how we got to be here and what identity politics expresses.
Apologies I'm replying quickly between shifts.

kaline Emily R15 days ago

Here is some good background. It might be good to contact the Socialist Equality Party directly to engage in more comprehensive discussion about your concerns. https://www.wsws.org/en/art... https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

Rod • 16 days ago

aristocracy. Our party is a part of the same milieu, not of the basic exploited masses of whom the Negroes are the most exploited. The fact that our party until now has not turned to the Negro question is a very disquieting symptom. If the workers' aristocracy is the basis of opportunism, one of the sources of adaptation to capitalist society, then the most oppressed and discriminated are the most dynamic milieu of the working class..

R_O Rod15 days ago

Always liked how the politics of racialism is the first to silence and attack black workers and deny their existence within the socialist movement, just as feminists silence women workers and Zionists silence workers of Jewish descent.
Are you a member of the socialist equality party?

Gracchus16 days ago • edited

An historically important perspective. I would like to extend my most profound thanks to David and Niles, and the editorial staff of the WSWS as a whole, for the incredible work they have done in preparing the ground for the struggle against these aptly called "lame liberals."

The attacks on the Great Emancipator remind me of Goya's painting of Saturn eating his children at birth on the off chance they might overthrow him.

Two paragraphs in this article strike me as being worthy of serious study:

"The purpose of lies about history, as Trotsky explained, is to conceal real social contradictions. In this case, the contradictions are those embedded in the staggering levels of social inequality produced by capitalism. These contradictions can be resolved on a progressive basis only through the methods of class struggle, in which the working class fights consciously to put an end to capitalism and replaces it with socialism. Efforts to divert and sabotage that struggle by dissolving class identity into the miasma of racial identity lead inexorably in the direction of fascism.

Through the promotion of a racial version of communalism, all factions of the ruling class seek to divide the working class so as to better exploit it and ward off the threat of revolution. It is no coincidence that when American society is straining under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 120,000 people and sparked an economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression, the Democrats are ever-more ferociously seeking to make race the fundamental issue."

One of the most revolting things about contemporary liberalism is how incredibly fascistic it is. It seems impossible for the Democrats to mention anything without turning to the fetishistic zoological Idealism of Race with a capital R. While liberals might not (yet) be fascists, they certainly think like fascists.

In November, the state-sanctioned choice - and by extension the only choice presented to the American people by the state mouthpieces in the corporate media - will be between a military junta under the "auspices" of the CIA Democrats/latter day Maoists or a quasi-fascist regime under Trump. Democracy in America - specifically bourgeois "democracy" - is on its last legs. Only the intervention of the working class, led by a genuine socialist leadership, can avert a catastrophe that will threaten all of humanity.

David Zinder16 days ago

It's uncanny how the arguments presented above concur with those set forth by Ross Douthat in today's NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/202...

Nick Barrickman16 days ago • edited

On Holmes Norton's comments:

"The designers of the Emancipation Statue in Lincoln Park in DC didn't take into account the views of African Americans. It shows. Blacks too fought to end enslavement."

First, the statue was funded by donations from freedmen, gathered by members of the Western Sanitary Society, an abolitionist-run organization. The impetus for the monument came from a freedwoman named Charlotte Scott, who declared in the wake of Lincoln's assassination:

"Colored people had lost their best friend on earth I will give five dollars of my wages towards erecting a monument to his memory."

At least $16,000 was raised, including from African American Union soldiers who had fought at some of the key fronts in the Civil War.

A description of the artist's design for the monument states: "In the original the kneeling slave is represented as perfectly passive, receiving the boon of freedom from the hand of the great liberator. But the artist has justly changed all this by making the emancipated slave an agent in his own deliverance. He is represented as exerting his own strength, with strained muscles, in breaking the chain which had bound him."

As the WSWS states, the reactionary interests of those bound up with the destruction of these monuments today must, by definition "require a no less grotesque distortion of the past."

This monument was created in 1876, at the height of the revolutionary-democratic upswell known as Reconstruction. In attacking this monument, representatives of the ruling class today, including its nominally "liberal" representatives, are seeking to topple the legacy of a genuine multi-racial upsurge of the population against racial hatred and discrimination. In today's case, it is to fundamentally hide the fact that the root cause of racial oppression and racism lies in the depths of poverty and social inequality, and militarism on a massive scale, that happens to characterize capitalism today.

In tearing down this statue, they will attempt to complete what the remnants of the slave masters failed to do in the time of Reconstruction. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest would be proud.

Carolyn Zaremba Nick Barrickman16 days ago

Thank you, Nick.

Rod • 16 days ago

Has anyone in the party actually read trotsky's writings one the black question?

Carolyn Zaremba Rod16 days ago

Only everybody.

Rod Carolyn Zaremba16 days ago

Trotsky: I believe that the first question is the attitude of the Socialist Workers Party toward the Negroes. It is very disquieting to find that until now the party has done almost nothing in this field. It has not published a book, a pamphlet, leaflets, nor even any articles in the New International. Two comrades who compiled a book on the question, a serious work, remained isolated. That book is not published, nor are even quotations from it published. It is not a good sign. It is a bad sign. The characteristic thing about the American workers' parties, trade-union organizations, and so on, was their aristocratic character. It is the basis of opportunism. The skilled workers who feel set in the capitalist society help the bourgeois class to hold the Negroes and the unskilled workers down to a very low scale. Our party is not safe from degeneration if it remains a place for intellectuals, semi-intellectuals, skilled workers and Jewish workers who build almost isolated from the genuine mass. Under these condition our party cannot develop -- it will degenerate.
We must have this great danger before our eyes. Many times I have proposed that every member of the party, especially the intellectuals and semi-intellectuals, who, during a period of say six months, cannot each win a worker-member for the party, should be demoted to the position of sympathizer. We can say the same in the Negro question. The old organizations, beginning with the AFL, are the organizations of the workers' aristocracy. Our party is a part of the same milieu, not of the basic exploited masses of whom the Negroes are the most exploited. The fact that our party until now has not turned to the Negro question is a very disquieting symptom. If the workers' aristocracy is the basis of opportunism, one of the sources of adaptation to capitalist society, then the most oppressed and discriminated are the most dynamic milieu of the working class.

Don Barrett Rod16 days ago • edited

Trotsky was writing as always to to align the subjective consciousness of the working class with objective reality. The words you quote were written in April, 1939, when support for mixed marriages was in the low single digits, when the experiences of integration in the wars just about to begin had not yet occurred, when less than a quarter of the Great Migration had concluded and thus few blacks and whites had yet had the opportunity to sort out common cause in the great industrial struggles, as had already been illustrated in the Flint sit-down strike where workers chose their only black fellow worker, Roscoe Van Zandt, to lead them out of the occupied plants in a victory parade. Gallup would not even poll to measure acceptability of a black presidential candidate for another 19 years, when the number was a mere 38%.

That's the objective reality at the time with which Trotsky was seeking to align the subjective consciousness of the working class to forge a political instrument.

Are you maintaining that the objective reality is unchanged today?

Rod Don Barrett15 days ago

No that is not what I'm suggesting at all. Obviously much has changed since 1939.. we no longer have sharecroppers and it's no longer the case where a major section of blacks work as servants.. but it also easy to think that 1939 was "so long ago" and that these words no longer hold any relevance. The black working class remains even today one of the most oppressed sections of the working class and today large sections of this population are entering into the class struggle. I think the party should consider the best way under TODAYS CONDITIONS to recruit and educate those workers. Bring them under the banner of the 4th international. Immigrant workers are a very similar case, and similar conditions exist for unskilled workers compared to the various "professionals" and skilled labor. This era was birthed from the yoke of the last. The working class is much more unified along race lines as you have pointed out. That means we as revolutionaries we are in an even more favorable situation to this work. It does not mean that the work is unneeded. This article states the growing movements are under danger of being hijacked by reactionary petite bourgeois forces and that is true but only as true as the revolutionary proletariats failure to bring these working elements entering struggle under our banner. I do not suggest we adopt any program from the 30s and 40s. I do however think the party could benefit from Trotsky's suggestion of a 6 month worker recruitment rule.

jet1685 Rod16 days ago

Though not a party member I recommend George Breitman's writings on American Black nationalism--as distinct from the narrow cultural nationalism of too many Black Panthers, the New Black Panthers especially--expounding on and integrating pertinent thoughts of Malcom X and Trotsky. Recently Vladimir Zhirinovsky suggested Blacks be assigned three states bordering Canada as a homeland and/or go to Liberia. Needless to say such sweet revenge dreams of Russian elites for the very real dismembering of their lands by Washington's ethnic cleansing pot stirring a la Yugoslavia/Syria ad nauseam coming home to roost may approach reality as the US rich find it hard to bottle their race genie.

Joshua16 days ago • edited

"Before exhausting or drowning mankind in blood, capitalism befouls the world atmosphere with the poisonous vapors of national and race hatred...

An uncompromising disclosure of the roots of race prejudice and all forms and shades of national arrogance and chauvinism, particularly anti Semitism, should become part of the daily work of all sections of the Fourth International, as the most important part of the struggle against imperialism and war. Our basic slogan remains: Workers of the World Unite!"

- The Transitional Program

Joe Mount16 days ago

This article is critical in countering the dangerous communalist agenda of the social layers seeking to prop up the Democratic Party and prevent the working class from achieving its political independence. This is part of a trend that's taking place on every continent. Our movement is leading the way in opposing this attempt to derail the emerging revolutionary movement of the international working class.

The toppling of statues of progressive figures such as Lincoln is part of a broader attack on rational thought. At stake is the entire progressive heritage of the Enlightenment and the centuries-long struggle for social equality that, since the birth of scientific socialism in the 19th century, has been embodied in the Marxist movement -- -today the Trotskyist movement.

What do the forces who toppled the Lincoln statue have to say on pressing contemporary issues such as imperialist war, climate destruction, extreme social inequality, etc. that cannot be understood through racial theory.

Why is it that Abraham Lincoln was a symbol of the fight for equality and social justice across the world? Why, during the American civil war, did workers' display such heroic solidarity in enduring the cotton famine -- -which paralysed much of the cotton industry due to the collapse in trade? Why did workers' in 19th century Manchester in northern England collect the money to build a statue of Lincoln in their city? This article explains this: How the British workers' movement helped end slavery in America .

In Britain, the IYSSE (UK) saw that identity politics and the historical falsification associated with it was a direct attack on Marxism and workers' class consciousness that had to be countered. We polemicise against the pseudo-left in their attempts to promote a postmodernist re-writing of history motivated by the defence of their social privilege against the long-term interests of the working class.

We attacked the "Decolonise Education" movement, which is raising its head again today in the article The racialist agenda of the "Decolonise Education" movement . We explained their slogan "Why is My Curriculum White?" as follows: "The classification of philosophers based on their skin colour, rather than their place in the historical development of human thought, is combined with an attack on the entire progressive tradition of the Enlightenment."

Obviously Cecil Rhodes can't be compared to Abraham Lincoln, but the same reactionary social forces are at work here as we analysed: The origins of the Oxford University "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign .

I strongly encourage all class-conscious workers and young people to take up an active study of history and the theory of Marxism which is essential to orient oneself in today's complex and rapidly-changing world political situation

Hector Cordon16 days ago

The campaign by the Stalinists against their opponents, Leon Trotsky constituting their greatest enemy, involved the greatest wholesale destruction of history ever seen. The banning of books, the murder of an entire generation of genuine Marxists and the greatest crime, the assassination of Trotsky in 1940. Photos that included Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev--pretty much anyone who fell afoul of Stalin and the bureaucratic interests he defended--were airbrushed out history with the intent to obliterate their role in the October revolution. Their books were destroyed, any positive mention of them were eliminated and they were slandered as "fascists", "Mensheviks", "counter-revolutionaries". No lie was too outrageous in defaming Stalin's victims.

Vadim Ragovin, the great Russian historian once said that the "Russian people did not only not know their future, they did not know their past." This falsification of history went far in eliminating the Trotskyist alternative to Stalinism and enshrining Stalin--the gravedigger of the revolution, the antithesis of Lenin--as the supposed incarnation of Bolshevik/Leninist resoluteness.

The present campaign against Lincoln, Grant and others, is remarkable for the fact that they are targeting revolutionaries. Bourgeois revolutionaries, but none-the-less, revolutionaries. Those revolutionists carried out the greatest destruction of wealth, slavery, to that point in history. No monuments to capital, such as the infamous Charging Bull in front of Wall Street, (my city has a stack of oversized coins as a monument to capital) have been the target of such vilification, vandalism or destruction by the instigators of racialist politics. They indeed know what class they are oriented to.

Eric Sommer16 days ago

My favorite Lincoln story took place shortly before his assassiation when the great liberation army had captured the confederate capital of Richmond. Lincoln visited the city shortly thereafter and walked around to have a look. An older Black man recognized him on the street and ran up to him declaiming "The Messiah has come" and bowed down. Lincoln asked the man to stand up saying: "Get up man. As long as I am president you don't need to bow to anyone but God."

Martin Eric Sommer15 days ago

Sounds like a man who would probably agree to having his statue replaced by a statue of an immigrant meat-packer.

Calgacus Eric Sommer15 days ago • edited

Yup. That one and and another one on the same trip.

In reference to you, colored people, let me say God has made you free. Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am, and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are ...

Both are cited at:
Entering Richmond

This is the man that malicious deluders contrive into an enemy of freedom and black people and capitalist pawn. And there are dupes aplenty pulling down statues and presenting the same old predigested delusional arguments, prepared for them by capitalist slavocrats, even here.

Yeah, right.

stown16 days ago

Division does not have to be sewn into the working class. It is there as it has been for centuries. "The color line" remains the border of divide between white workers and those of color. What is most important is that millions of white workers have joined the struggle.

I too condemn the desecration of the statues and yes the identitarians and the Democrats are riding the tide, attempting to bring the ships into the the harbor of electoral politics, however equating this movement as "racial- communalist" is just as dangerous. The cops are doubling down and people of color will remain the usual suspects. I have to think that the 32% of Trump supporters who supported the burning down of the police precinct in Minneapolis were from it's working class wing. That is way significant.

Participation in the movement should always be critical but using the "racial- communalist" term not good

Pompeii stown16 days ago

The Democrats and the pseudo-left seek to undermine the legacy of the Civil War and the related abolitionist and Underground railroad conductors precisely because it shows workers (and middle class) collaborating across racial and ethnic "lines" towards positive change, which helps solidify, rather than break up, an increasingly militant and working class, which is increasingly coming into conflict with the whole capitalist system, which the Democrats and pseudo-left rabidly defend. Workers of all races are shown daily working together in protests against the police violence of the capitalist state, exploding daily the myth of the "racist white working class". It is the duty of the socialist to oppose these racial-communalist attempts to divide the working class by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois.

Skip16 days ago

What's gonna happen as the economy continues to go down? It seems the ruling class did all it could to send the working class down various blind alleys....now it's gonna come back, through reactionary methods, to haunt everyone.

Skip16 days ago • edited

This is what I have to say about it all.....we asked the capitalist ruling class nicely to make meaningful changes, the ruling class said they would. Nothing changed because they lied.

So now, the working class is taking the matter into its own hands.....and it ain't gonna look pretty. Heads are gonna roll.

Vast amounts of the working class have, over their lifetime, been manipulated by the capitalist class.....so the working class is mostly confused and is in the process of lashing out in all directions.

As hard as the wsws tried to fight against the liberal classes 1619 disinformation project, many in the working class were not reached. That is the strength of anti working class propaganda. And what Socialists are constantly fighting against.

As with the ethos of Capitalist Realism , it's easier to see the end of the world than to see the end of capitalism.

fm • 16 days ago • edited

This is an enormously important statement that deserves the widest possible international readership. Particularly important is the section explaining the division of labor between the capitalist parties. The fascistic filth emanating from the White House, scripted by Stephen Miller and similar elements, is being "answered" by equally reactionary communalist backwardness. The New York Times is the most consistent and determined purveyor of this, and there seems to be no limit to how low they are prepared to go.

Another passage in this article that should get special attention is the timing of the current campaign against Lincoln and others, "It is no coincidence that when American society is straining under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 120,000 people and sparked an economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression, the Democrats are ever-more ferociously seeking to make race the fundamental issue."

They are desperately working to divert the progressive but limited response to police murders into the Democratic Party. They need to whip up as much tension and confusion within the working class as they possibly can, precisely because they know what is coming over the next few months, as millions confront additional mass layoffs, evictions and other attacks. The more that workers and youth are fixated on "race" the less they are able to unite against these threats of the pandemic, economic devastation and the threat of dictatorship.

grok16 days ago

There's nothing like taking critical events and acts completely out of their essential context... it's an art. (Maybe even COINTELPRO art, at root.)

Joshua16 days ago

Targeting "anti-Confederate" forces is just what you'd expect from the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and now the no less despicable identity politics, not to mention it being the oldest capitalist party in the world.

Tony Williams16 days ago

I can understand (but certainly not sympathize with) the twisted logic used against statues of Grant and Lincoln but why Heg? Was it because he was white? I recall one of the funeral rants of the Reverend Al Charleton about racism as "the DNA" in the American character revealing the dangerous influence of the 1619 Project that may soon become mandatory in colleges and schools.

Carolyn Zaremba Tony Williams15 days ago

Al Charleton??

Tony Williams Carolyn Zaremba15 days ago

This is a play on the surname of that well-known FBI informant Sharpton though I misspelled it. Should have been "charlatan"

Francis Walsh, JR. Tony Williams14 days ago

Maybe Sharlaton wldve woked better better for ya Doc!

gooddoctor Tony Williams16 days ago • edited

Jesus is on the manline, tell him what you want.

StuA16 days ago

Divide & conquer, the oldest tactic in the authoritarian playbook.

Democrats will pose as "allies" even as they engage in racialist misdirection to sow disunity among the working class whom they fear.

Elliott Vernon16 days ago

Regrettably, there are otherwise sane people who genuinely argue that any statue depicting any person who had white skin and a penis has to be taken down.

Francis Walsh, JR. Elliott Vernon15 days ago

Fact is tho that they're really not all there.

grok Elliott Vernon16 days ago

Some, not so sane.

Ed Hightower16 days ago

What a fantastic writing! The fight against communalism takes center stage for socialists. The SEP is the the only genuine socialist tendency, defending historic gains as an indispensable part of building a new working class counteroffensive. Please share this document widely! Perspective is critical! Not one inch to the "lame liberals" and no adaptation to racialist politics!

Styx Ed Hightower16 days ago

On the subject of "building a new working class counteroffensive", if I may:

The protests since May 25 have often begun peacefully only to be taken over by well-trained violent actors. Two organizations have appeared regularly in connection with the violent protests -- Black Lives Matter and Antifa (USA). Videos show well-equipped protesters dressed uniformly in black and masked (not for coronavirus to be sure), vandalizing police cars, burning police stations, smashing store windows with pipes or baseball bats. Use of Twitter and other social media to coordinate "hit-and-run" swarming strikes of protest mobs is evident.

What has unfolded since the Minneapolis trigger event has been compared to the wave of primarily black ghetto protest riots in 1968. I lived through those events in 1968 and what is unfolding today is far different. It is better likened to the Yugoslav color revolution that toppled Milosevic in 2000.

America's Own Color Revolution

By F. William Engdahl

Region: Europe, USA

Theme: History, Intelligence, Police State & Civil Rights

https://www.globalresearch....

Alan MacDonald16 days ago • edited

Niles and David, as you note, "Whatever the particular issue may be -- poverty, police brutality, unemployment, low wages, deaths caused by the pandemics -- it is almost exclusively defined in racial terms."

And as you note of Trotsky, " The purpose of lies about history, as Trotsky explained, is to conceal real social contradictions."

Which is exactly why this meta-causal cancer of the under-diagnosed Disguised Global Crony Capitalist Empire must be fully exposed, expunged, and/or surgically and peacefully 'excised' in a Third American "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin du Rivage] by 'we the American people' firing a; loud, public, sustained, 'in-the-streets', but totally non-violent "SHOUT (not shot) heard round the world" to ignite a Third American people's peaceful and complete "Political/economic & socialist Revolution Against Empire" to lead the world toward socialist democracy as our first one did in 1776 and our second one did in 1861 -- but without the muskets.

Ed Bergonzi16 days ago • edited

One can only react with disgust and hatred for those in and around the Democratic Party, who hiding behind the phrase "fight racism" are doing the exact opposite. The article is spot on in exposing the sinister motives behind the attempt to erase from historical memory any vestiges of this country's revolutionary past. As workers are risking their lives in the assembly plants and warehouses, it is obvious whose interests are served by these outrageous acts and proposals. Young people must reject those who spurn history. You must draw a line in the streets against those who would do these things, and instead break out of the straight jacket imposed by both capitalist parties and the media to keep these protests fixated on the questions of "race".

Sebouh8016 days ago

Fellow Comrades the liberal bourgeois establishment in America are intentionally using racial Communalist politics in order to divert the public from the growing class antagonisms. Now one group is using ultra nationalism and authoritarianism as the only way forward while the other one is using race and gender ideas as part of their orientation in this upcoming elections. Basically they are both seeking to divide the working class along reactionary slogans and agendas.

superdave Sebouh8016 days ago

They are both working together to perpetuate the system and divide the people. They know what they are doing. They are diverting any thought about changing the laws that allow the oppression to begin with, here and abroad. We are doomed because the majority of people are under their spell and have no desire to think critically.

I hope I am wrong.

BG Mod • 16 days ago

This is a moving and brilliant defense of the revolutionary democratic foundations of the United States, which provide an impulse today for the working class to carry out the third American Revolution--the socialist revolution to put an end to capitalism as part of the world socialist revolution. The American bourgeoisie very long ago repudiated the revolutionary democratic ideals that inspired the American Revolution and the struggle of Lincoln and the North in the Civil War. That repudiation finds expression today in the denigration and attack on those revolutions and the figures who led them. As the Perspective explains, there is a division of labor in this assault between Trump/Republicans and the Democrats, but both have in common the fact that they utilize racialism to do its traditional dirty work of seeking to divide the working class and undermine the class struggle against capitalism.

Of particular importance, as noted by other commentors, is the following observation:

"This grotesque distortion of present-day reality required a no less grotesque distortion of the past. For contemporary American to be protrayed as a land of relentless racial warfare, it is necessary to create a historical narrative in the same terms. In place of the class struggle, the entire history of the United States is presented as the story of perpetual racial conflict."

Further down, the statement asserts: "Efforts to divert and sabotage that struggle by dissolving class identity into the miasma of racial identity lead inexorably in the direction of fascism."

In that connection, there is a parallel between the struggle being led by the SEP, WSWS and ICFI against the promotion of racial-communalist politics and accompanying falsification of history in the US and the struggle our movement has been and continues to wage in Germany against the rehabilitation of Hitler and the Nazis by the ruling class and the falsification of German and world history to declare the source of all the evils and catastrophes of the 20th century to be the October Revolution and establishment of the Soviet Union.

John Upton BG15 days ago

BG, the form in which these mass eruptions take in the states is, and has to be, different than that of European and other countries.
Statutes have been desecrated and toppled elsewhere. Some deservedly without doubt.
For the mass of youth whose knowledge of historical events is one of great distortion and one sidedness.
In their eyes, statues in major squares and other prominent places represent powerful and powering pillars of the establishment. Hence the "senseless" vandalism.

Only those divorced from and hostile to the revolutionary aspirations of today's youth fail to perceive and grasp that.

hhalyard16 days ago

Thank you Niles and David for this excellent perspective. As you explain, a section of the ruling class is attempting to hijack what is a progressive multi-racial movement opposing police brutality and other forms of social injustice to promote reactionary racial and communal politics in a desperate attempt to maintain the capitalist order. I strongly encourage all of our readers to carefully study the material produced by the WSWS on the 1619 project. Understanding this history is critical in orienting ourselves to answer these new racial attacks. Permit me to quote from the end of our analysis of the NY Times reply defending the project to five historians, "As Marxists, we understand and have settled accounts with the limitations of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. We know very well the difference between ideological rationalizations and historically determined realities. But those who are not inspired by the world-historical and universal ideals proclaimed by Jefferson's immortal Declaration and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address are neither socialists nor revolutionaries. Those who glibly surrender positions won through the shedding of blood in the past will never conquer new ones."

"The uncompromising defense of the progressive heritage of the first two American revolutions is necessary for resisting intellectual retrogression and political reaction, educating the working class, and, on that basis, building a powerful American and international socialist movement."

Here is a link to the entire article - https://www.wsws.org/en/art... . The pamphlet is available at www.Mehring.com

Red16 days ago

What a wonderful article about our surreal times. I keep dreaming that I'm in a movie theatre again and again which is strange because we can't go there anymore, at least not at the time being. These times are so strange. For a memorial of Abraham Lincoln to be under attack... this is something I could have never imagined a few years ago. Thank you Niles Niemuth and David North for providing historical background about the statue, even a little bit of history is such a profound thing and of course history is repurposed time and time again to serve anyone's political agenda. Rage is not a particularly rational thing and takes on incomprehensible forms.

"The Democratic Party employs another variant of communalist politics, evaluating and explaining all social problems and conflicts in racial terms. Whatever the particular issue may be -- poverty, police brutality, unemployment, low wages, deaths caused by the pandemics -- it is almost exclusively defined in racial terms. In this racialized fantasy world, "whites" are endowed with an innate "privilege" that exempts them from all hardship."

I think this is wrong. The Trump movement is defined by prejudice (banning muslims, scapegoating immigrants, anti-black racism etc.) so for us to have a president right now, a con artist (I'll emphasize the black community) who began his entire campaign by saying the first Black president was not born in America, talking about how a black lives matter protester attacked at his rally "should have been roughed up" in 2015, playing footsies with the KKK, called Africa a "shit hole", Mike Pence comparing Donald Trump to Martin Luther King Jr. etc. all of this snowballing into today of course people of color and anyone who empathizes is outraged. Every day of this has been a dangerous embarrassment for the black community.

Yesterday:

Fired Wilmington cop: "We are just going to go out and start slaughtering them f -- -- ni -- –. I can't wait. God, I can't wait."

This kind of thing is going on all over the country. The most tangible issue is certainly class in the sense I think it's the most practical thing for us to focus on, at least it's all we can focus on because there's no rational way to end the racism that exists between people, but at the same time, to think that any amount of money, healthcare, or well-being for this person and his family would stop him from being prejudiced doesn't make sense. There is a long history of racism and we are at a moment where America is undergoing a radical shift in its diversity.

"In this racialized fantasy world, "whites" are endowed with an innate "privilege" that exempts them from all hardship."

There have been 44 white male presidents.

Again, of course amongst white men class supersedes the identity group, but that being said certainly there is such a thing as white privilege, in so many different ways, this country was built to revolve around property owning white men. Donald Trump's presidency is defined by this. If President Obama had done even one of the things Trump does on a daily basis he would have never been president. That is white male supremacy. We went from Republicans being critical of Michelle Obama for showing her shoulders as first lady to having an ex-centerfold as first lady. The double standard couldn't be more apparent.

We have a republican party who yes have constituents who have suffered under the aegis of neoliberalism but not disproportionately in comparison to the people who vote blue. Their political movement is defined by prejudice. This is not a "racialized fantasy world" people are under attack.

I agree that class is the salient issue but also at the same time as we're seeing with the trump movement prejudice can be used to get people to vote blatantly against their own interests in supporting a con artist. So how can class be addressed without first acknowledging racism? I don't have the answers for this question, no one does. Hatred is a bulwark which swaddles capitalism.

Alan MacDonald Red16 days ago

Both class and racial warfare are only in the interest of this damn EMPIRE.

EMPIRE is the cause -- where as divisions by class and race are only the 'symptoms' of the causal meta-cancer of EMPIRE.

Peter Turner Alan MacDonald16 days ago

If you think class warfare is wrong, you are in the wrong website and have missed the point of the article. When class war is initiated by the working class, liberation is on the agenda.

gooddoctor16 days ago

As I remember in my earliest political days

We're black and white together we shall not be moved, (2x)
Just like a tree that's standing by the water
We shall not be moved

It's an old union song from the spiritual in the thirties, It began the "The Union is behind us/ We shall not be moved."

This is how it looked in 1963

The Freedom Singers perform
"We Shall Not Be Moved" at the March on Washington

www.youtube.com › watch

Then the ruling class took notes, black capitalism, black
police, black mayors, black careerist cricuses

We Shall Not Be Moved": CBI's MLK, Jr.
Celebration 2016 ...
www.youtube.com › watch

and this

Are white people at Black Lives Matter protests helpful, or a ...
www.washingtonpost.com › outlook
› 2020/06/02 › w...

justanavgjoe216 days ago

Every time I think I cannot be more disgusted with the Democrats, I am wrong. There is a certain slime that is all over the Democratic Party that eeven the Republicans cannot match. I guess it never occurs to any of the protesters that destroying your history is creating a form of collective amnesia. No notice is taken that what is happening witht this wonton destruction of history sure looks a lot like what happened in Iraq during the U.S. Invasion when many historical treasures of what was the cradle of civilization were either destroyed or looted. Just a complete erasure of history and, of course, if you do not know who you are because your memories, your history, have been erased, then how will you move forward? You are a tabula rasa at that point so the future can only be met unprepared and with trepidation.

That, as today's perspective explains, is exactly the point. Figures like Jefferson, Grant and Lincoln (Lincoln!!!!) are shat upon and denigrated. No effort is made to understand them as historical figures in the context of their epoch and the giants they are in world history. What can we learn from them and other historical figures and do right where they went wrong? I guess if history's destroyers have their way we'll not be able to learn anything at all. Just as intended. I say let the statues be and down with the CCOOTs (Criminal Capitalists Of Our Times)!

FireintheHead16 days ago • edited

''This grotesque distortion of present-day reality requires a no less grotesque distortion of the past. For contemporary America to be portrayed as a land of relentless racial warfare, it is necessary to create a historical narrative in the same terms. In place of the class struggle, the entire history of the United States is presented as the story of perpetual racial conflict.''

A very profound encapsulation of what we are seeing going on now. As others have commented , history does not travel on some moral straight line. Lincoln could not escape the powerful contradictions of his time, he could only guide the progressive forces where he could.

It is not for us to idealise Lincoln, nor for those who do so in the negative. When push comes to shove the reactionary essence of the racialists is that they offer no way out for black or white . The ''purity of their outrage'' is nothing but a case of bad wind, and it is not an accident that it comes from those orbiting the Democrats.

Armchair rev FireintheHead16 days ago

Good point about racialists offering no way forward for the whole working class, nationally and internationally. How could the constricted racialist narrative, by dividing as opposed to uniting, have anything to lend to progressive change, which can only be accomplished through the unity of the working class and socialist revolution? How can the legacy of racial oppression and discrimination, effecting most acutely the black masses as opposed to the affluent African American layer, be overcome with this regressive co-option of a progressive mass struggle that erupted in the past month?

robertmontgomery16 days ago • edited

Unmentioned in this critical call to arms by David and Niles is the role of the pseudoleft in actively promoting this racialist campaign of vile and reactionary iconoclasm.
The pseudo-Trotskyist "Left Voice", co-thinkers of the Argentinian Morenoites, is spearheading an attack from within the New York DSA against "class reductionism" purportedly represented by Jacobin Magazine. This attack recently led to the cancellation of a live streaming event featuring African American scholar, Adolph Reed. Reed, one of the scholars interviewed by the WSWS in the campaign against the 1619 Project, was charged with "class reductionism". The identity politics sensitive DSA, a club within the Democratic Party, capitulated to the internal attacks and cancelled the event just as it was to begin.
Another pseudo-Trotskyist Facebook page yesterday attacked the WSWS and the SEP for its "Hands off the Monuments" call. The Trotsky's Armored Train and rolling Pizzeria (?) Facebook page, featured a screen shot of the WSWS with a warning to "Please stay away from the WSWS and the SEP!" Site members followed with a lengthy thread of scurrilous attacks on both the WSWS and the statues, especially the Jefferson Memorials. Jefferson is dismissed as a rapist for his inter-racial relationship with the slave, Sally Hemings. This writer fought a rear guard action on this site to combat the slander of the WSWS and to set the historical record straight. Obviously these poseurs are very much afraid of the class perspective of the WSWS.

Armchair rev robertmontgomery16 days ago • edited

Very interesting, especially concerning the "Left Voice" intervention in the New York DSA and the DSA response. Well, Dr. Reed likely wouldn't have been much appreciated by that bunch anyway, though he was
(along with all the learned, honest historians who came forward to conflict with the 1619 Project) greatly appreciated by WSWS readers. However, it would have been good if any leftward moving workers and youth in attendance had some exposure to real history, including a class based perspective. But, of course, the pseudo-socialst Dem club wouldn't want that! By the way, my wife and I really found your contribution to the discussion of the previous related Perspective by Tom and Niles of a few days ago quite enlightening on the plight and response of the European indentured servants (slaves in all but name) on the Tidewater tobacco plantations.

Harvey Simpkins robertmontgomery16 days ago

Yes, the "Jefferson was a rapist" trope is the common thread of the pseudo-left, fitting right in with their support for MeToo and hostility to Julian Assange.

gooddoctor robertmontgomery16 days ago

My goodness, not Moreno. So they are still about wouldn't have thought. He was, of all things for Che Guevera, but not Castro, and led many youths to the early grave. Actually, the Pabloists were big on Castro but not old Moreno who thought that Castro had Che killed and the famous picture of Che's corpse on his ill-fated adventure doctored. Castro was not amused and the Pabloists stopped dropping by/ He was allied with a dude called Posadas who eventually got obsessed with inter-galacting communication from Bolsheviks in Outer Space. I actually read article defending that nonsense in the Jacobin. The obscurantist have again pushed themselves to the front.

SocialistBrit gooddoctor15 days ago

I find at least Posadas was amusing in his somewhat more innovative ideas about intergalactic travel and talking with dolphins. At least it follows a historical materialist line which would say that productive forces can not be unleashed to their full potential until the constraints of private mode of production, classes are abolished. Aliens, theoretically and scientifically would and could exist given our own existence. Intergalactic travel would be surely one of the most pressing issues of a worldwide socialist republic after addressing earthly needs.

John Upton • 16 days ago

During the Russian Revolution peasants took to burning down the huge houses of the local rich landowners.
The Bolsheviks had to intervene and patiently explain that these were now the property of the working masses.

The peasants were of course almost universally illiterate.

It is probably more true to state that those that are desecrating and destroying statues of Lincoln and others are miseducated.
This article is one of a series published by WSWS attempting to rectify these backward destructive measures.

gooddoctor John Upton16 days ago

I don`t want to be annoying. It was bitter opponents of Lenin and the Bolsheviks , the Social Revolutionaries, SR who led the peasants. The Bolsheviks had nothing to do with the burning of mansions, and had no intention to stop the burning of mansions and seizure of land. They formed strategically the worker-peasant alliance, but had insignificant influence and numbers at this first stage of the revolution.. There were lot of troubles with the SR`s-- and the peasants after.

John Upton gooddoctor16 days ago

I was not aware of suggesting the Bolsheviks had anything to do with the burnings. My comment, bad grammar included, stated the Bolsheviks intervened to stop the arsonists.
The vast majority of peasants knew nothing of Bolshevism at the time.
It was the Bolsheviks agrarian program, which none of the bourgeois parties -- Cadets, SR -- could match in any shape or form, won the multimillioned peasantry to Socialist Revolution under Lenin and Trotsky.
The vast majority of demonstrators across the global have not heard of WSWS or even the ICF, yet alone be aware of its program. Dissemination of our program is a precursor to proletarian revolution.

gooddoctor John Upton16 days ago • edited

OK,got you wrong. I have been waiting for the masses of late. Stay tuned

gooddoctor John Upton16 days ago

You are right,

H Jowsey John Upton16 days ago

You miss the point. They are not so much miseducated as representing a definite social layer. They reject the class basis of this racialist campaign, which is led by the New York Times and Democratic Party to divide the working class. These forces seek to turn the democratic sentiments and anger of young people in a reactionary form.
Note that they don't put forward any social demands, against the ravages of the lives of all working class people created by the Pandemic and the economic crisis of the past decades.
Let us all get this article around as widely as possible, to wage a struggle against this communalist attempt.

John Upton H Jowsey16 days ago

BLM demonstrators are heterogeneous in terms of race ethnicity, religion, age, but undoubtedly predominantly youth. Every photograph has elucidated that.
I do not think I miss the point.
The pent up frustrations and anger following years of police violence, austerity, insecure jobs, poor education and opportunities for youth is expressed in every street disturbance -- what the bourgeoise press calls senseless violence.
Undoubtedly elements amongst them are conscious of their actions, but for many the opportunity to fight all that is perceived to be "part of the repressive state" cannot be missed.
Being part of millions strong demonstrations has its own momentum. That scares the ruling elite.
Destruction of statues is not just a US phenomenon, it is global.
It's not pretty, but it could be the opening shots of World Socialist Revolution.
We cannot impose our own values upon the masses.
What this and previous articles have set out to achieve, I believe, is to educate these millions not to be mislead. Learn the lessons of history, lessons that capitalist education has denied them.
WSWS has to intervene and direct these revolutionary stirrings away from identity politics and to advance under the banner of the ICFI.
decades of undermining of class politics by Social democracy, trade unionism, Stalinism make this a difficult task; difficult but not impossible.

Carolyn Zaremba John Upton16 days ago

What do you think the WSWS does every single day?

gooddoctor H Jowsey16 days ago • edited

That social layer is also well-organized and well-funded in varied salaried political formations , including Black Lives Matter and those who would "occupy" space. They come out of nowhere, disorient and as quickly disappear into profitable progressive Democratic Party beds. Mayakovsky called them in a failing Russian Revolution under Stalin--" Bedbugs". Great play..And so they are.

Steve16 days ago

Please read this article and share widely. There is developing a tendency by the Democratic party and Republican Party, for a fascist movement, in the US, and elsewhere around the world. Only the working class can stop this rot, lead by the ICFI, SEP and wsws.org .

thucydide16 days ago • edited

This is one of the most direct and important WSWS perspectives I have ever read. It is both a historical corrective and an impassioned warning to the working class in defense of history, equality and any kind of democratic rule.

The freed slave depicted by Thomas Ball's statue "Lincoln the Emancipator" has the likeness of Archer Alexander, a real slave who never actually met Lincoln, but freed himself and was separated from his family in order to warn Union troops of Confederate sabotage. His act of courage, and the hundreds of thousands of slaves who risked their lives during the war, are also memorialized by this statue. It was commissioned based upon donations by liberated slaves. Some of Alexander's descendants today oppose tearing down this statue, whose complex history also reflects the struggles of Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Within privileged layers of academia, the distortion of history and misrepresentation of contemporary suffering by the global working class has become a major industry. Some students, including those with genuine democratic intentions, are being seriously miseducated and encouraged to participate in racially divisive politics. Students and workers need to study history now more than ever, and it is no accident that America's leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War have sided with the WSWS in its defense of historical truth (see the WSWS's writings on the 1619 project). The political perspective needed to end police brutality and economic injustice requires an accurate appraisal of past struggles for democratic rights, and today a unified struggle by not just the American but also the global working class. Students and workers should take note.

John Layton16 days ago • edited

"I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill." - Socrates.

Be nice to see some goodwill from capitalist politicians but alas, it is anathema to them. What's a statue to them in their scheme of things?

[Jul 07, 2020] Statue for black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in NY state beyond repair after it was ripped down by vandals (PHOTOS) -- RT USA News

Jul 07, 2020 | www.rt.com

Statue for black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in NY state beyond repair after it was ripped down by vandals (PHOTOS) 6 Jul, 2020 00:04 / Updated 14 hours ago Get short URL African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (c1818-1895) © Global Look Press 268 7 Follow RT on RT A statue for Frederick Douglass, a former slave who became a prominent civil rights advocate, has been torn down from its pedestal in Rochester, New York. The damage to the monument is reportedly too significant to repair.

The statue was vandalized over the July 4th weekend, Rochester police told local media on Sunday.

Photos from the scene show an empty spot where the statue used to stand in Maplewood Park, as well as its debris scattered in the vicinity. The statue was lying 50 feet from its pedestal when officers found it.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1279872373999775745&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F493881-fredirick-douglass-statue-vandalized%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

The statue "had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence," police said in a statement, as cited by The Democrat and Chronicle daily.

Carvin Eison, director of the 'Re-Energizing the Legacy of Frederick Douglass' project, said the monument is beyond repair and will need to be replaced.

"It's particularly painful that it happened at this time," he said.

Dozens of statues have been knocked off their pedestals across the country in a monument-toppling spree championed by Black Lives Matter activists, which see it as a way of reckoning with the nation's troubling legacy of slavery and racism. While the initial targets of the protesters were Confederate generals, later vandalism, which met little resistance from law enforcement, saw the statues of Christopher Columbus and other historical figures being removed as well.

ALSO ON RT.COM Dem Sen & Biden's possible VP says she's open to removing George Washington statues, but backpedals after backlash

It's so far unclear who was behind the Douglass statue incident.

The monument, inaugurated in 2018 to mark Douglass' 200th birthday, is part of a city-wide installation consisting of 13 statues – all replicas of a larger statue of Douglass, which was unveiled in Rochester's Highland Park neighborhood in 1899. The statues were placed throughout the city in places of significance to the abolitionist's life in a bid to bolster his legacy.

In a speech in 1852, Douglass made a case against celebrating July 4th by African Americans, saying: "The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1279385481038434305&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F493881-fredirick-douglass-statue-vandalized%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

It's not the first time the installation has been targeted by vandals. In December 2018, two students from Rochester's St. John Fisher College were arrested and charged with misdemeanors after they were filmed dismantling one of the statues and stealing it. The students claimed they were drunk and later apologized, calling what they had done to the statue "a terrible thing," and offered to help repair the monument.

[Jul 07, 2020] Ohio Town Proclaims Itself A Statuary Sanctuary City -- For Outcast Historical Figures

Jul 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Alex Nitzberg via JustTheNews.com,

As protesters target statues around the nation, one town is becoming a statue sanctuary city for monuments honoring select figures.

Newton Falls, Ohio City Manager David M. Lynch has signed a proclamation that states that the city will accept and display spurned statues of people including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and certain other prominent figures.

"A Proclamation declaring that Newton Falls is a Statuary Sanctuary City and declaring a general amnesty for George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Patrick Henry, Francis Scott Key, Theodore Roosevelt and Christopher Columbus as represented by the statues of these great leaders, and volunteering to accept these statues that have been removed throughout the USA and place them in a location of honor in our community," the proclamation says, according to a copy posted by 21-WFMJ .

"They founded our nation, they ended slavery, and established and protected our national parks," Lynch said, according to Fox 8 .

"Yes, they had warts but they laid the foundation for what we have today," he said.

Protesters in Baltimore, Maryland on July 4th toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus and dumped it into the city's Inner Harbor.


[Jul 05, 2020] Watch: Protesters Pull Down Christopher Columbus Statue In Baltimore, Dump In Harbor

Looks like the most powerful complain for re-election of Trump
Jul 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The statue, dedicated in 1984, is the latest monument to be destroyed in what President Trump dubbed the "left-wing cultural revolution" by "angry mobs."

According to the Baltimore Sun , the Columbus statue has been the site of a wreath-laying ceremony right before the annual Columbus Day parade, which, in 2019 was replaced with the Italian Heritage Festival.

Republican state delegates and Italian-American activists held a press conference at the statue last month to ask Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young to preserve and protect the memorials , following activists' comments about pulling down the monuments themselves and the introduction of a City Council bill this week to rename one of them in honor of victims of police violence.

The downed statue is one of three monuments to Columbus in Baltimore. - Baltimore Sun

https://twitter.com/i/status/1279588928736104449

erhaps some thoughts by Matt Taibbi are worth repeating ( via SubStack ):

Much of America has watched in quizzical silence in recent weeks as crowds declared war on an increasingly incoherent succession of historical symbols. Maybe you nodded as Confederate general Albert Pike was toppled or even when Christopher Columbus was beheaded, but it got a little weird when George Washington was emblazoned with "Fuck Cops" and set on fire , or when they went after Ulysses S. Grant , abolitionist Colonel Hans Christian Heg , " Forward ," (a seven-foot-tall female figure meant to symbolize progress ), the Portland, Oregon " Elk statue ," or my personal favorite, the former slave Miguel de Cervantes , whose cheerful creations Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were apparently mistaken for reals and had their eyes lashed red in San Francisco.

Was a What the Fuck? too much to ask? It was! In the space of a few weeks the level of discourse in the news media dropped so low, the fear of being shamed as a deviationist so high, that most of the weirder incidents went uncovered. Leading press organs engaged in real-time Soviet-style airbrushing. Here's how the Washington Post described a movement that targeted Spanish missionary Junipero Serra , Abraham Lincoln (a " single-handed symbol of white supremacy ," according to UW-Madison students), an apple cider press sculpture , abolitionist Mathias Baldwin , and the first all-Black volunteer regiment in the Civil War , among others.


lockandload , 52 seconds ago

BLM thugs have already started going after patriots. They ambushed our governor at the small town of Ackley Iowa. They were stalking her as she visited companies providing essential services during the pandemic. Her driver refused to stop, likely saving her life. One BLM thug was hit but not seriously injured. They are not waiting to run out of statues. We ordinary Americans must be heavily armed at all times now. Midwest states are full of illegals, who serve the left as an army. Open civil war is upon us whether we would have it or not.

warsev , 3 minutes ago

What these malicious rioters don't realize is that they are handing the November election to DJT and Republicans for senate and house. Average Americans look on the footage that accompanies this article with revulsion; for the ideas and the people behind them. Trump will walk away with 2020. Just keep it up, loony lefties.

vic and blood , 4 minutes ago

We have been in a race and culture war with multiple factions for some time. The presumed winner is not overtly participating.

Most white people are oblivious, though that is changing. Too bad we are demographically doomed.

SolidGold , 1 minute ago

Divide and conquer. Who creates that genius?

NumberNone , 12 minutes ago

Was in downtown Baltimore less than 2 years ago, it felt like you were one person away from someone that wanted to rob you. The downtown had all the usual suspects of faux high end shopping but the vibe was one of John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit...it had all the look and feel that was supposed to make you happy but it was rotten to the core.

Whoa Dammit , 13 minutes ago

We can't keep coddling these stupid brats. It's time to start making their parents pay for the mess and destruction that their ill raised offspring cause.

GoldRulesPaperDrools , 17 minutes ago

Protesters == pavement apes

House of Cards , 17 minutes ago

Terrorists you mean

Watt Supremacissss , 16 minutes ago

Crybullies.

GoldRulesPaperDrools , 15 minutes ago

Redundant but accurate ... +100_000

Silver Savior , 17 minutes ago

Columbus was a dickhead anyway.

NumberNone , 9 minutes ago

So we tear apart the country for a guy that held a gun to a pregnant woman's stomach...if you're gonna pass judgement and replace other people's icons you might want to make better choices.

Blackdawg7 , 43 minutes ago

I've never been a fan of Christopher Columbus but witnessing these know-nothing sanctimonious twits destroy public property while virtue signalling makes my blood boil.

Workdove , 44 minutes ago

Not worth the 10 years in jail...

vic and blood , 50 minutes ago

History's losers are terrorizing, and soon to be tyrannizing us because Caucasians are too civilized and docile.

Every race and tribe is programmed by God to attempt to dominate.

As an adherent of the non-aggression principle, I don't care for the binary choice, but accept it.

Either dominate or be dominated. Only cucks believe in co-existence. I assure you our rivals do not believe in peaceful co-existence.

unionbroker , 1 hour ago

Christopher Columbus sails out into the unknown where no man has gone before. What the **** has BLM done. Put the statues back up and throw BLM in the water

[Jul 04, 2020] Typically monuments are only desecrated, defaced, toppled or destroyed by the enemies of those who built them like happnedwith post Soviet states; woke mob is irrational and is an exception; in no way they try demolishe neoliberlaism in the USA

They probably can pus a smartphone instead of demolished monuments. Their view of police as a brutal occupying force is naive, because police is just a muscle, and it is not "white supremacy" that is behind them. They are fighting sypmtom, not the root case.
Jul 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Submitted by GEFIRA,

We all remember those shots. American troops are entering Baghdad. A tank stops somewhere in the city, cautiously, in the vicinity of a Saddam Hussein monument. After a few minutes of apparent inactivity, a crowd is beginning to form around the monument. The crowd is not all that big. It rallies around the figure of Iraq's president. Soon an American soldier climbs the monument and puts an American flag on it. An Iraqi intervenes, so the flag is replaced with the Iraqi one. And then, then some individuals begin to climb the statue, a crane arrives from somewhere, a steel rope is attached to the monument and the crane drives slowly back, taunting the line and gradually slanting the president's image to its feet. Eventually the figure drops to the ground and the cheering people dance around it, deliver it kicks and carry some of the pieces that fell off in the process away.

The alien forces have conquered the capital city of the enemy and performed an age-old ritual that victors used to perform in the presence of the vanquished: Americans demolished the material symbol of the enemy's sovereignty and by doing it they also humiliated the routed nation.

In the nineties of the 20th century we could all see angry Russians in Moscow, but also angry Poles in Warsaw and equally angry residents of other European capitals tearing down monuments from the communist era, especially those of Comrade Felix Dzerzhinsky, the notorious head of the Cheka (from: Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, i.e. Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya = The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission).

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Since the dawn of history monuments would be put up and torn down. Either act reflected a huge political, social, religious or demographic change. Monuments are erected by common consent of the majority of a given (national, social, religious, political) community, in which case they are wanted as a tribute to or a memory of the community's most cherished heroes or values, or they are enforced by occupying forces, in which case they are hated by those against whose will they have been put up.

Monuments are only desecrated, defaced, toppled or destroyed by the enemies of those who built them. Americans in Iraq and a part of Iraqi nation was against Saddam Hussein; a rather large part of the Russian nation nurtured bitter memories concerning the henchmen of their ancestors like Felix Dzerzhinsky, so they vented their anger on his images the moment an opportunity presented itself. The divide between those who put up the monuments and those who hated the sight of them was in each case insurmountable. What was dear to the former, was abhorrent to the latter.

Recently a huge wave of monument desecration and monument removal has swept the United States and to a much lesser extent Europe. It is mostly the heroes of the American South – generals of the Army of the Confederate States – that are targeted, but not only. Also abolitionists, 1) fighters for American independence of other nationalities, 2) Christian missionaries 3) and even Jesus Christ himself. 4) John Wayne may not be spared the same fate either 5) so much so that a monument to a Portland elk – his ancestor was presumably a slave owner and the elk – a confirmed racist – fell victim to the rage of American iconoclasts. 6)

If Americans torch their national flag, then US needs no enemies.

All this is taking place amid riots caused by the death of a frequent prison inmate who was caught by the police while suspected of paying with counterfeit money. The activists of the Black Lives Matter movement, supported by Antifa 7) and heavily sponsored by the powers that be and spurned on by the democrats performed the usual acts of protest: burning cars and looting shops. This time two qualitatively new elements have been added: one is the toppling or desecration of monuments and the other is forcing the police officers to knee to the rioters. All this is happening because it is wanted by at least a significant part of the establishment, democrats in the first place, who having failed to impeach Donald Trump, having stopped America's and the world's economies due to the so called pandemic now are playing another trump card in yet another effort to thwart the president incumbent from being elected for the second term.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890 Shamelessness as a revolutionary act ( which see )

The democrats have decided to use American blacks to create chaos and make a distressing impression on US citizens who should come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is not capable of running the country. History provides ample examples when a part of the elites willing to topple the current ruler would resort to the help of the masses in order to force the ruler's abdication or resignation. Such was the case in France in the run-up to the French Revolution, such was the case in Russia in the run-up to the Russian revolution. In France it was the so-called third class that was used for the purpose, in Russia it was the proletariat, now in the United States it is the easily excitable blacks. History teaches us that a genie let out of the bottle cannot be put back at a moment's notice. Either the democrats have not been attentive during their history classes or their hatred of Donald Trump is so intense that they don't care.

What a splendid alliance!

What is happening now in the Land of the Free makes the whole world wonder. It fits the definition of a cultural revolution – modelled on its Chinese or Bolshevik predecessors – or a colour revolution known from the streets of Belgrade, Tunis, Cairo, Tbilisi, Kiev and many other places. If the latter is the correct interpretation then the question arises whether this time the process was initiated – as usual – by the CIA or whether it is the boomerang hitting back the thrower. Be that as it may – power struggle apart – the events reveal a few important things.

[1] Americans are not a uniform, coherent nation and never will be: it is always blacks against whites, though the discrimination laws are a thing of the past, how much more slavery. Assimilation or integration – so much propagated in Europe in view of the influx of the people from the Third World – does not work in the least. The two races share the same terrain, language and religion and still remain far part.

[2] Monument desecration and removal is a fight against memory. Memoriae damnatio or the Orwellian black hole is a well-known historical phenomenon. Invaders of Egypt necessarily obliterated the images of pharaohs; Arab conquerors smashed images of ancient heroes or Christian saints; Christians would destroy pagan idols; Byzantine iconoclasts raised their hands against paintings depicting Jesus Christ and saints; protestants would do the same a couple of centuries later in northern and western Europe; French revolutionaries would even stoop down to extracting corpses of the long-dead French kings – Capetians, Valois, Bourbons – and desecrating them; Bolsheviks in Russia would do the same with the remnants of the tsarist past; even worse: factions of Bolsheviks would delete from very recent memory yesterday's comrades.

[3] The BLM movement is racist to the core. It is aimed against whites and whites alone. It is strong because it is supported by the democratic party and its adherents and a number of foundations. That it is anti-white is evident. White actors have been discouraged from impersonating or even voicing characters of colour, which, however, is not the case when it comes to black actors who are increasingly frequently cast in typically white roles. It is only and exclusively whites who are accused of being racist.

[4] Humiliation of the white population and especially of the police. The pictures of white people kneeling to blacks and of the policemen – armed to their teeth – to the rioters have been spread worldwide. It is an act of humiliation pure touted of course as an act of interracial reconciliation and mutual respect.

[5] As usual, whenever a black gets killed in a squabble or a scuffle African-Americans, Antifa and the mainstream media are quick to pass judgement without waiting for the court sentence, which runs counter to the well-established procedure that no one is deemed guilty until proven. The pressure exerted by the rioters and the media without doubt negatively affects the decision of the judges who later deal with the case.

[6] What is happening is certainly wanted by a large part of the establishment or else it wouldn't have been happening. Black rioters know that they can enjoy a lot of leeway and they act accordingly, looting and burning and showing disrespect for the law and the police. Many a mayor or police chief – usually a democrat and a black – under the pretext of deescalating the conflicts withdraws the law enforcement units from parts of the city that they are in charge of. Consider the so-called autonomous zones in Seattle and New York held for a time by rioters. The powers that be could suppress the riots within 24 hours if they only wanted to. As it is, they are using irascible black communities (agitated by Antifa activists) to create turmoil and thus to achieve political goals. Just picture to yourself a rally of genuine Nazis raising their hands in the Roman salute: how long would they hold a public space?

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Fist was the emblem of Communists , South African black fighters and the anti-Miloshevich Otpor movement in Serbia.

People occupying parts of the city called autonomous zones remind the Kiev Maidan protesters. They spend days and nights doing nothing, but somehow they do not go hungry. In both cases the police are either inactive or indolent. The Maidan riots in Kiev brought about the change of the government. The powers that be must be counting on the same in the Dis-United States of America.

How do we know that the riots are instigated, sponsored and used by the powers that be? Precisely because of the inactivity and indolence of the police, because of the inactivity and indolence of local; authorities, because of the media's condoning tone towards the events. Lastly, history teaches us that revolutions, are made by means of popular protests and these protests are paid by very rich individuals. Professional revolutionaries whose task it was to destabilize Russia at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries were in the pocket of Alexander Parvus (born: Israel Gelfand) and Jacob Schiff. Individuals that later became the driving forces of the coup d'etat – Leon Trotsky (born: Lev Bronstein), creator of the Red Army – did not have to bother about their living.

The deletion of historical memory and the renunciation of the heroes of the past paves the way for replacing the United States of America with something new. Maybe the Union of Soviet States of America? At present it is the images, effigies, and monuments that are beheaded, trampled upon, kicked and drowned. Tomorrow it may very likely be people. Such are the dynamics of any revolutionary movement.

Toppling of monuments ushers in a new era.

References:

1. Hans Christian Heg was an abolitionist who died trying to end slavery, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel .
2. Rioters vandalise statue of Polish-US hero Tadeusz Kościuszko as violent protests erupt across America, The First News .
3. Junipero Serra statue toppled in downtown L.A., Los Angeles Times .
4. Shaun King: 'STATUES of the White European They Claim Is Jesus Should Also Come Down', Black Enterprise .
5. Democrats want John Wayne Airport renamed after 'I believe in white supremacy' interview resurfaces, CNN.com .
6. Iconic Portland elk statue removed from downtown after fire set during protest, The Oregonian .
7. What's Antifa and its role in Black Lives Matter protests? TRT World .

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[Jul 03, 2020] Tucker: Woke movement ignores the fact that Christover Columbus was not involved in detaining of Floyd

Pandemic of hysteria and other interesting thing happening in the USA
Jul 03, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Streak 264
, 17 hours ago (edited)

The world has gone batshit crazy.


Lucky Sniper
, 4 hours ago

"At any moment millions of human beings may become smitten with a new madness" - Carl Jung. Psychoanalyst


Zulu Zulu
, 5 hours ago

Cancel every holiday in America. Everyone needs to be working 24 hours a day to fix this country.

[Jul 01, 2020] A Single-Handed Symbol Of White Supremacy-- Wisconsin Students Demand Removal Of Abraham Lincoln Statue

Jul 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Saying that Lincoln is the "symbol of white supremacy" has about as much foundation as saying Harvey Milk is the symbol of militant heterosexuality. Both were great leaders who were killed at the height of campaigns for equality. As I discuss below, there are aspects of Lincoln's legacy that are worthy of condemnation but even John Wilkes Booth would dispute the claim of Lincoln as the embodiment of white supremacy.

[Jun 28, 2020] Woke mafia puts John Wayne on the chopping block next as Cali Dems demand airport renamed

Notable quotes:
"... Statues of Confederate generals have been taken down or vandalized, and President Donald Trump has responded with an executive order promising harsh punishments for those who continue committing the acts. ..."
Jun 27, 2020 | www.rt.com

Democrats are calling for John Wayne Airport in Orange County to be renamed in protest of the long-dead actor's alleged racism, making him the latest historical figure being judged by today's cultural standards. "There have been past efforts to get this done and now we're putting our name and our backing into this to make sure there is a name change," said Ada Briceño, chairperson of the Democratic Party of Orange County, following a resolution being passed calling for the airport to be be given the simple name: Orange County Airport.

Wayne's specific transgression are "racist and bigoted statements" made during a Playboy interview in 1971, eight years before The Duke passed away at the age of 72. The airport was named after the actor the year he died.

Woodrow Wilson faces woke revenge at Princeton University for 'racism.' Is Roosevelt next?

In the infamous interview with Playboy, Wayne made comments that have long been controversial, though admittedly harsher and more extreme than in other public conversations.

"I believe in white supremacy until the Blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people," the 'True Grit' star said at one point.

If we're looking to name airports only after people who were without sin, then we'd better drop all their names and let them be known simply by their three-letter IATA codes. John Wayne was no saint, but he still contributed in a positive way to American pop culture history. https://t.co/l5KD5kXuGg

-- Max Q (@vox_independens) June 27, 2020

The Western star also made derogatory comments about Native Americans.

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. [O]ur so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival," he said. "There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."

The resolution from Democrats fully acknowledges the removal of Wayne's name is part of a larger effort to axe "white supremacist symbols and names [that are] reshaping American institutions, monuments, businesses, nonprofits, sports leagues, and teams."

As protests against police brutality and racism rage across the nation in the wake of George Floyd's death, more and more historical figures with monuments and landmarks memorializing them have been targeted.

Statues of Confederate generals have been taken down or vandalized, and President Donald Trump has responded with an executive order promising harsh punishments for those who continue committing the acts.

As has been the case with other figures of the past being held to today's standards, some questioned the logic of targeting Wayne decades after his death.

"Of course, John Wayne was racist. By the hyper sensitive standards of today, just about every person who has ever lived was racist," conservative journalist John Hawkins tweeted .

[Jun 26, 2020] The demand to have statues paintings of 'White Jesus' torn down has made BLM an Iconoclast movement, not just a Marxist one by Guy Birchall

BLM are not Marxists. they are Maoists and toppling statues is a natural thing for them, much like it was for "Red Guards" during China "cultural revolution"
Notable quotes:
"... "gross form of White Supremacy." ..."
"... The Last Supper ..."
"... "No one would seriously argue that the Pieta or the Last Supper should be torn down or painted over," ..."
"... "Shaun King is just being ridiculous and provocative, and writing an article about his mad claims is just legitimising them," ..."
"... Like this story? Share it with a friend! ..."
Jun 26, 2020 | www.rt.com
Guy Birchall, British journalist covering current affairs, politics and free speech issues. Recently published in The Sun and Spiked Online. Follow him on Twitter @guybirchall Guy Birchall, British journalist covering current affairs, politics and free speech issues. Recently published in The Sun and Spiked Online. Follow him on Twitter @guybirchall 24 Jun, 2020 07:35 Get short URL A leading activist's remarks that all "statues, murals, and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother" represent "gross white supremacy" shows that radical, racialised politics has no limit to its targets. The problematic statues row has now taken a turn from political iconoclasm to literal iconoclasm with depictions of "white Jesus" next on the hit list for some of Black Lives Matter's more hardcore proponents.

Activist Shaun King has called for all the statues, murals, stained glass windows and paintings depicting the Messiah as having European features to come down because they are a "gross form of White Supremacy." To illustrate his point, King makes the perceptive observation that when Jesus, Mary and Joseph went into hiding while Herod engaged in a spot of infanticide in 1 AD Judea, the family hid in Egypt, not Denmark, so they would " blend in. "

This is exactly the sort of mission creep many people worried about when the whole statues issue started to pick up steam last month. It began with slave owners, and one can see the argument there for taking them down, but it is worth noting that the statues themselves were not erected for their services to the Transatlantic slave trade.

Then in America, they moved onto their national heroes, like Washington and Jefferson, again because they owned slaves. Again, one can understand the argument that they shouldn't be venerated because of this fact, but they aren't praised for being slave owners but for founding the United States of America.

Read more 'No exceptions!' Trump orders the arrest of anyone vandalizing monuments, warns they face up to 10 years in prison 'No exceptions!' Trump orders the arrest of anyone vandalizing monuments, warns they face up to 10 years in prison

Before we knew it, we were at Ulysses Grant, who lead the Union Armies in the Civil War to end slavery, but because he married into a slave owning family, he too must be torn down. Defeating the Confederacy wasn't enough to save him. Then Theodore Roosevelt was next on the list because of white supremacy, (although he wasn't the Roosevelt who actually interred Americans in camps based on their race in World War II, that was FDR).

But even with the pace with which this movement has declared former icons persona non-grata, to jump from Teddy Roosevelt to Jesus is extraordinary. Were Mr. King's demands to be met, and "all statues of the White European they claim to be Jesus" to come down, that would amount to the destruction of some of the finest works of art in existence.

Michelangelo's Pieta, gone, Da Vinci's Last Supper, erased, Raphael's Transfiguration, wiped, Donatello's Crucifix, torn down, and that would be just if we targeted artists who share their names with turtles who know karate. And the Sistine Chapel? Razed to the ground, along with the smashing of the stained-glass windows of virtually every church and cathedral in Europe.

This erasure of history would make the destruction of the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries in 16th-century England look like child's play.

The simple fact of the matter is that Jesus has, throughout history, been portrayed as looking like any number of races, and those usually reflect the race of the artist. Black artists have portrayed him as having African features, Asian artists have done something in their image, and so European artists obviously portrayed him as looking European. Which is kind of the point of Jesus: all his followers are supposed to be able to see themselves in him. As a result of living in the Western world, that means, to Western eyes, he has more often been portrayed as looking like a white European.

Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went?EGYPT!Not Denmark.Tear them down.

-- Shaun King (@shaunking) June 22, 2020

Yes. All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form white supremacy. Created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down.

-- Shaun King (@shaunking) June 22, 2020

There is also the fact that for a large chunk of history, Europe is where Christianity blossomed. In the Middle East, where yes, Jesus was born, a very different religion, with a very different view on depicting religious figures arose, which perhaps goes some way to explaining the paucity of paintings of Christ in this part of the world. The fact that Jesus plays second fiddle to Mohammed in Islam and is regarded as a false prophet in Judaism, might explain why there are fewer depictions of him in the immediate vicinity of the Sea of Galilee.

One also has to have quite a conspiratorial mind to conclude that 'white supremacy' was top of the agenda for the likes of Da Vinci and Raphael. Couldn't they just be artists painting and sculpting their interpretation of what Christ looked like? Could the depictions of him as looking more European not just be down to those being the kind of people they hung around with?

I mean, if we're getting into the weeds about this, it's probably quite unlikely that the historical Jesus had a rippling six pack and sinewy biceps as he is so often shown as having. Can art not just be appreciated as art without having the artist's motivation impugned four, five or six centuries after the fact? Given that the Transatlantic slave trade didn't begin until the 17th century, it seems baffling to tear down art made in the centuries before.

It also raises the question of how exactly is it acceptable to depict Jesus from now on then? Given that he was a Palestinian Jew, it seems equally unlikely that he looked like the African man he was portrayed as in Madonna's Like a Prayer video, as he would look like the dirty blonde haired European in Da Vinci's The Last Supper . (Gosh, it's painful equating these two very different pieces of culture in the same sentence).

Read more CHAZ protesters reinforce barricades & form human chains as Seattle mayor vows to dismantle anarchic encampment (PHOTOS, VIDEO) CHAZ protesters reinforce barricades & form human chains as Seattle mayor vows to dismantle anarchic encampment (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

This may seem like a fringe issue that is never going to happen, and it could easily be dismissed as the ramblings of someone on the extreme left. "No one would seriously argue that the Pieta or the Last Supper should be torn down or painted over," some might say. "Shaun King is just being ridiculous and provocative, and writing an article about his mad claims is just legitimising them," they may add.

This may be true, but ask yourself – in 2010, how much money would you have put on statues of Washington and Jefferson being torn down in America? What odds would you have got on the bookies of Churchill's statue having to be boarded up in London? I don't think you'd have even put a quid on it.

There has to come a point where a civilisation just says "enough, stop," otherwise these movements pick up steam. Several American states have shown themselves incapable of defending their founding fathers. With Christianity dwindling year by year in the West, how long will we be able to make a defence for these priceless works of art if they too are decided to be contrary to the prevailing ideology of the day?

Ugly civilisations torch their history, others learn from them. Let us not become the former, just because the other side is shouting louder than we are.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Jun 26, 2020] A Country Not Salvageable by Fred Reed

Jun 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

What fun, what entertainment. And rare: One seldom sees the collapse of a landmark society in a rush of wondrous idiocy. Would I could sell tickets. Don't look at it as a loss, but as a show, an unwanted but grand amusement.

The coup de grace in our ripening decadence is the current uprising purportedly, though implausibly, over racism. But never mind. The causes don't matter. The deal is done.

Still, it is interesting to recognize that the protesters are, perhaps deliberately, confusing the incapacity of blacks with systemic racism. In truth, America has made the greatest effort ever essayed by one race to uplift another. Reflect: In 1954 an entirely white Supreme Court unanimously ended segregation. Later it found the use of IQ tests by employers illegal because blacks scored poorly, then found "affirmative action," racial discrimination against whites, legal (hardly oppression of blacks, this). An overwhelmingly white Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act the next year. A white President sent troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation. There has been an enormous flow of charity to blacks: Section Eight Housing, AFDC, Head Start, hiring quotas, set-asides, sharply lowered standards in police and fire departments. We now have free breakfasts for black children, then free lunches, in addition to outright welfare. In aggregate they resemble a distributed guaranteed basic income. Which is interesting.

These measures sprang from the best of intentions. Most I think should continue. I for one do not want to evict blacks from public housing or have their children go hungry. Yet none of these programs has had its desired effect. The crucial academic gap has not closed, crime remains horribly high, illegitimacy verges on universal. This is a great shame. Blacks are decent enough people, likable if they don't hate you, and phenomenally talented. But it hasn't worked.

Nothing has worked. There is no indication that anything will. The great black cities are in something approaching custodial care.

You cannot solve a problem without knowing what it is. This we dare not know. Democracies, however approximate, cannot deal with chronically underperforming minorities.

They cannot even try. Anything that might help is politically impossible, and anything politically possible won't help.

So, after the riots:

Social division will worsen after the riots. Racial hostility from blacks will not decrease because their conditions will not change. The rioters are getting their way now, and rule, but at the price of sowing hatred. At best we will have many decades of ugly rancor. At worst, we are winding the spring for another outburst.

Multiculturalism has not worked, quite apart from race, and will not. White Americans are not one people. The poor communications and bad roads that once allowed them to live almost separately no longer exist. In its writ-large form, trying to force West Virginia to accept the culture of Massachusetts will produce only anger.

The likelihood of amity between races is proportional to their agreement on values important to them. For example, the Chinese share (what once were) the white values of study, work, courtesy, and obedience to the law. That they eat with chopsticks and celebrate New Year on the wrong day doesn't matter.

However, again for example, a culture that believes in female genital mutilation and utter subjection of women cannot live amicably with a culture that abhors these things. Black ghetto culture and white are immiscible in so many fundamental values that they will not live well together.

Some cultures can assimilate, for example East Asian and American white, Latino and American white. But, in addition to sharply different cultures, too many blacks live in sprawling, racially isolated urban centers with almost no contact with the outside world other than television.

Censorship will intensify, not just of communications and office chitchat but of books. Tom Sawyer will be pulled from bookshelves or -- Amazon being the continental shelf -- or bowderlized to remove the Nigger Jim and Injun Joe The Nigger of the Narcissus may survive because none of the blacks and few of the whites will ever have heard of Conrad. At least for the foreseeable future, firings for anything imaginably redolent of racism–saying "All lives matter," for example–will be snatched at in a mixture of passive aggression and schadenfreude to result in firings. This is unlikely to have a happy ending.

Schooling : Watching great universities become sandboxes for unpleasantly righteous dimwitted brats galls, or does if one lets it. I don't. Most of the protesters seem recently to have erupted from the drains of an educational system that has been in sharp decline for decades They, including the intelligent among them, appear historically not just ignorant but carefully misinformed, culturally pathetic, and intellectually laughable. (For example, a protestress interviewed by a British reporter as to what she thought of Churchill said she couldn't really say because she hadn't met him. How many in BLM can spell "Confederacy"? A statue of Ulysses Grant was pulled down in the belief that he was a Confederate general. May God preserve us.)

The, uh, redaction of culture will not stop with books. Classical music is too white, the sciences too white, mathematics a tool of oppression (meaning that blacks cannot understand it) and so on. We have created a nation of pampered and imbecile peasants.

Schooling will continue its plummet. Science departments probably will not be abolished. However, because they are too white, schools will recruit hopelessly unqualified black students and professors, standards will fall yet more, and mathematics will be played down even in astrophysics (this is being done). Extirpating racism will replace scholarship, already degraded by the retirement or death of those professors who knew what education meant. This will inevitably result in lowered American technological competitiveness and prosperity. There is no hope of preventing this.

The replacement of learned professors by aging detritus from the Sixties antagonistic to scholarship is not surprising. America has had strong anti-intellectual undercurrent since its inception. The degradation will not be noticed by the young as they have never lived in a world different from their own, with Harry Potter and Toni Morrison thought to be literature. A liberal education was once the mark of the cultivated, being deep in languages, literature, philosophy, the sciences, history, mathematics,. Universities once had, at least among the better students, a love of open minded curiosity, thought, and debate. No more. Future historians will notice the shift, but those within it will not. We are left with a nation of morons who will not know they are morons.

This too cannot be prevented. Jejune herdthink is now warmly espoused throughout the academy with children in grade school being primed for it.

The most -- I dare not say "entertaining" for fear of lynching, but, well, perhaps "interesting" reforms will be those of the police, whether abolition, defunding to shift money to youth outreach and rehab (which don't work) or replacement of police by warm and caring adults, will result in increased crime. We need not concern ourselves with whether and to what extent the police have been culpable in which cases. The changes will come anyway.

An intriguing question is what the nonviolent, non-racist, warm and fuzzy pseudopolice will do when they encounter violent criminals. Counsel them on social justice? I would love to watch.

Our system of governments has proved itself weak, feckless, and unable to govern. The chaotic response to the coronavirus is a prime example, there being no national policy and the states being told to do as they see fit. The other major example was the inability or unwillingness to prevent looting and arson.The widespread destruction was unopposed, protected by the media, and celebrated by the many corporations that have fallen over themselves to truckle to the unwashed and to give them money. If our rampaging anthropoids can loot once, there is no reason to think they cannot do it again.

Many cities are routinely out of control, with seven hundred homicides in Chicago and three hundred in Baltimore every year. Increasingly criminals are released without bail and small crimes, such as evading subway fares, are ignored when committed by minorities. The hordes of derelicts grow, the New York subways become a homeless shelter. These are not problems seen in civilized countries. Which America no longer is, to the astonishment and amusement of the world.

Perhaps this was to be expected. The American practice of choosing its leaders every two, four, or six years by popularity contest worked, after a fashion anyway, in a sprawling continental country in which government had very little local influence. In a world far more complex, with little ability to plan when those in charge change with paralyzing rapidity, and everything intensely regulated by people unfamiliar with problems, results are poor. America's competition with large countries having intelligently authoritarian and stable governance will prove a losing proposition proposition. The inevitable decline in standard of living, already well underwater, will promote unrest. Here we go again.

We have done what Marx couldn't: Achieved communism, a true dictatorship of the proletariat, of a rabble jacquerie of much noise and no wit, the rule of the unfit. It is a rule only of the culture. The moneyed would not grant it power over anything else. Yet rule it is. We shall hear much of the authenticity of the illiterate, the purity of ghetto urges, the wisdom of the people, the need to lay low the pretensions of the mansion.

Yet the catastrophe has its consolations. It is amusing for those amused by the end of empires. The Soviet Union spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but lived under the dictatorship of a gray aristocracy. America speaks of the rule of the people, a horrible idea, and seems to be getting there.

Think of it as the Cultural Revolution by suburban hobbyists. There are the same raging untermenschen, the same desire to destroy anything they do not know, or cannot understand, or be bothered to learn.

As a philosophic emollient one may reflect that all empires and civilizations must end, and ours is. America will remain as a place, a military bastion, a large if declining economic force. It will never again be, even by the low standards of humanity in such things, a relatively free and vigorous society. The world will not again credit its charades of moral leadership. The rot, the tens of thousands of derelict people living on the sidewalks, the looting and fire setting, the censorship, are now visible to the entire earth. Oh well. It was a good thing while it lasted.

Write Fred at [email protected] Put the letters pdq anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, not always answered due to volume.

Nekkid in Austin

Amazon review: "Essays on America, life, politics, and just about everything. The author chronicles among other adventures an aging stripper in Austin, dressed in a paper-mache horse, who had with her a cobra and a tarantula like a yak-hair pillow with legs and alternately charmed and terrified a room full of cowboys sucking down Bud and . Fred was an apostle of the long-haul thumb during the Sixties and saw many things. He tells of standing by the big roads across the desert, rockin in the wind blast of the heavy rigs roaring by and the whine of tires and dropping into an arroyo at night with a bottle of cheap red and watching the stars and perhaps smoking things not approved by the government. He tells of..well, that's what the book is for. Join him."


james wilson , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 5:43 pm GMT

The American system worked decently enough when, and only when, a quarter of the adult population was eligible to vote. That was when democracy was a thing and not "our" thing.
john cronk , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 5:57 pm GMT
Well said. The only thing I disagree with is your opinion that handouts and special favors should continue.
Gordon K. Shumway , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 6:14 pm GMT
I'm glad to have spent my youth and middle age in a mostly sane America. I do not look forward to what's coming at me in my dotage.
SteveK9 , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 6:17 pm GMT
'America's competition with large countries having intelligently authoritarian and stable governance will prove a losing proposition proposition.'

I might still generally agree with this, but our insane 'lockdown' policy in response to an epidemic that posed no real serious threat was copied from the Chinese!!

botazefa , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 6:47 pm GMT
Thank you so much for checking in Fred.

You made our horrible times sound not so bad.

As a result I felt upbeat enough to feel like ordering your 'Nekkid in Austin' paperback from Amazon. $20 and change with tax. Hopefully at least some of that makes it into your pocket.

ASimpleHistory , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 7:45 pm GMT
Re: "In truth, America has made the greatest effort ever essayed by one race to uplift another."

You say nothing about any other country on the planet. What the US has done without the context of the rest of the world is somewhat empty. What about Canada? What about the UK? There are countries outside of the US.

I see no mention of the black history of June Nineteenth or of Tulsa Black Wall Street. Is that not consequential? It's a silent form of discrimination.

How many blacks can spell "confederacy." There is some implicit bias there. Did you think about mentioning the lead content of public water in some inner cities and what affect that might have on development of black children?

I'm not ever sure you fully understand the history of Ulysses S. Grant. You may not have seen this earlier piece written from the UK.

It wasn't a mistake to pull down the statue of Ulysses S Grant
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ulysses-s-grant-statue-san-francisco-soldier-politician-a9580091.html

They thought it was relevant because for those following the Black Lives Matter movement, it's more than just about Black lives. There is an acronym floating around you also may not be aware of. Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). For further information see: https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-bipoc.html

Is it hopeless? Perhaps.

Regards,
ASimpleHistory

Oliver Elkington , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 7:45 pm GMT
Sad to see America and the west in general turning out like this, what frustrates me is how hard it is to get normal based white people to organize, the left can get nearly 100,000 people in several cities across America and Europe tearing down statues, shouting abuse at western European culture and it's defenders and the right barely manages to get a couple of thousand people to gather in central London while thousands of left anarchists were scrawling graffiti on Churchill and other monuments. I know left wingers have the advantage of living IN the major cities but most are still surrounded by millions of ordinary middle class people who i am sure are aghast at what is happening. The fact that it is so hard for them to get of their asses and drive 100-200km to meet one another is depressing.
Bragadocious , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 7:59 pm GMT
Only Fred Reed could opine that the biggest threat facing higher ed is the dumbing down of curricula.

There's a little flu going around that's going to remake all of higher ed, with the prospect of hundreds of schools filing for bankruptcy or eliminating whole departments now very real.

Reed's so out of touch with America that it's just laughable. But I can see why he doesn't mention Covid, since Mexico is now in a full-blown pandemic, just as I predicted 2 months ago. (How'd the "siesta and a cerveza" policy from AMLO work out?) The deaths are increasing, curves aren't being flattened and the sick little buggers are scurrying like rats across the border to get hooked up to gringo ventilators at our expense.

Evidence continues to mount that spikes in Covid cases in U.S. border states are due to successive waves of infected people fleeing Mexico's dysfunctional and overwhelmed hospitals to get American medical care. https://t.co/aifN8575IW

-- Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) June 24, 2020

Yep, Mexicans seem to be causing the new wave of infections in Southwest border states.

ruralguy , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 8:02 pm GMT
A two minute conversation with a typical American will quickly show you that their thoughts never dwell on anything noble. Rather, their thoughts are adrift in emotional nonsense. We have a vast underclass of 160 million immigrants from failed-3rd world countries and their US born children, since 1965. The new Americans and our black underclass don't like white people and the old America. We are now a nation of George Floyds, Homer Simpsons, and an obese Walmart shoppers. There is nothing noble in America. It's not a pretty picture. Who cares if it fails? There isn't anything worth saving.
Charlemagne , says: Website Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 8:27 pm GMT
Fred,
Brilliant. Many thanks.
Charlemagne , says: Website Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 8:28 pm GMT
@james wilson James,
Universal suffrage is the death of a republic.
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 9:05 pm GMT
This is funny. We are looking at what a deeply corrupt, predatory system of government (look at the Dem-Woke-Rats) has achieved, the rule of the super-rich, which has achieved huge levels of homelessness, a country that has zero hospitals, zero medics, except for the rich, that is unique in that, and no education except for the rich, saddling the rest with deep debts, this mad rule of the rich waging economic war against countries that outstandingly look after their people, such as Cuba, a system wholly about predation and so with astronomical military expenditure but that forcing the poor to pay for it -- and here we have an article about the resulting anarchy, prattling on about side effects but ignoring the cause.

And comments on the rule of the people versus the dictatorship of the proletariat! When there is no such thing as a Congress critter who is not a millionaire but still must pander to supermillionaires.

A joke. A very nasty joke.

follyofwar , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 9:21 pm GMT
@Charlemagne Is democracy even a good thing? Last summer I read "The End of Democracy" by a Belgian named Christophe Buffin de Chosal, and I'm now convinced that it is not.
Chris Mallory , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 9:35 pm GMT
@ASimpleHistory

What about Canada? What about the UK?

Both of which have black populations at right about 3% of their populations. Not the 13% the US is burdened with.

I see no mention of the black history of June Nineteenth or of Tulsa Black Wall Street. Is that not consequential?

Neither are very consequential. The freeing of the slaves was worse for whites than it was good for blacks.

I'm not ever sure you fully understand the history of Ulysses S. Grant. You may not have seen this earlier piece written from the UK.

Yes, an essay written by a leftwing Jew. I am sure it is fair and balanced.

Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)

Three groups that are little better than stone age savages without the blessings of White civilization bestowed upon them.

neutral , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 9:43 pm GMT
When the Soviet Union ended it could fall back into various nation states, America has no such thing. This makes its collapse incredibly more dangerous, all those nuclear weapons it has, what is going to happen to them?
EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 10:23 pm GMT
"Reflect: In 1954 an entirely white Supreme Court unanimously ended segregation. Later it found the use of IQ tests by employers illegal because blacks scored poorly, then found "affirmative action," racial discrimination against whites, legal (hardly oppression of blacks, this). An overwhelmingly white Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act the next year. "

Except that did not end segregation nor did it shift the imbalance of educational resources as whites have been the most benefited population from these supposed investments. There isn't a measure that whites have not managed to accrue the major benefits from.

And I think, I could down your list and demonstrate just how failed those supposed remedies ave been applied to the black population of US citizens, if not for the redundancy of effort.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

I am not sure how to respond to nonsense such as Section * housing as if section * housing was a program unique to blacks. I would love o bemoan the ignorance of anyone who dis not know General/President Grant was a Union officer and a intense advocate for equity, at least for a while, when the person decrying their ignorance thinks that the Civil Rights era was unique for black citizens.

One might expect some level of ignorance for Pres. Grant by the uneducated, but the level of ignorance on display by the educated is only compounded by the fact that same individual making the complaint wants to continue more immigrants, who are the second largest winners of the civil rights changes but have managed o to convince people like Mr. Reed that

Cinco De Mayo should be celebrated as a US Holiday.

follyofwar , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 10:39 pm GMT
When Fred wades into Multiculturalism he speaks of FGM being incompatible with our values. But, as most Americans do, he neglects the other half of the story. MGM, aka circumcision, sanctioned by our backward society, is an equally barbaric crime.
Beb , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 10:51 pm GMT
Yes, Fred. It was a good thing, while it lasted.
Gordon K. Shumway , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 11:14 pm GMT
@follyofwar Not even close. Unlike victims of FGM, circumcised males can still enjoy sex.
Freda Lipshitz , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 11:51 pm GMT
Recently, I briefly touched on why I think the United States of America is done and dusted after almost 244 years of existence. Fred Reed, who is so much more eloquent with words than I, thinks so as well in A Country Not Salvageable!

IT IS INTERESTING AT THE OUTSET TO OBSERVE THAT THE MAIN REASON THE UNITED STATES FINDS ITSELF IN AN IRREDEEMABLE DIVE IS BECAUSE IT IS IN THE DNA OF THEIR CITIZENS. YEP – THAT'S RIGHT – THEIR DNA!

[MORE]
FOR MANY DECADES, IF NOT ALMOST 2 1/2 CENTURIES, THEY HAVE INCORPORATED RACISM, SEXISM, BULLYING, WAR MONGERING AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN THEIR DNA TO MENTION BUT A FEW. THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THIS PROBLEM IS AS FOLLOWS:

After almost 244 years in existence, 221 of which have been spent at war, the United States of America can no longer find a way to extricate itself from a situation which has been many decades in the making. It has become painfully clear that the 3 branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) so proudly exhibited as effective and meaningful checks and balances no longer works. The military/industrial complex, now joined by the political/media complex, has made it impossible for anyone to Make America Great Again!

No one can see the United States extricating themselves from this unbelievable mess without dropping nuclear bombs on themselves and other nations around the world. Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is not a solution as they have discovered on many, many occasions throughout their history. But there is one solution, and probably only one, which could work given help from other nations.

As everyone knows, everywhere one looks and everything one looks at in America is in serious difficulty – most of which will never be corrected without major and prolonged surgery. Take a few examples only such as debt, education, infrastructure, immigration, constant war mongering, racism, irreparable political divisions, a disappearing middle class, sexism, wealth in fewer and fewer hands, debilitating unemployment, a dismal trade imbalance, gun control along with associated deaths and injuries, a non performing and dishonest judiciary, catering to one country in the Middle East, lobbying, a weakened electorate, an out of control media, a dangerous religious fervor, a bullying approach to everything, prison incarceration rates, non stop political campaigning, a rapidly falling life expectancy, obesity due to fast foods along with a couch potato syndrome and a constant interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations, little or no respect for the ravages of climate change and dropping out of signed agreements and treaties. And this is to only name a very few issues as they now have managed in addition to become the absolute laughingstock of the world. A very dangerous and emotional one to be sure – but a laughingstock nevertheless for which a few people now feel pity.

So let's cut to the chase even if it brings on yet another civil war. And this is where the help of other nations will be most critical. It is time to employ some 'outside the box' thinking which could bring benefit to the entire North American continent, let alone the world. The citizens of the United States of America and the world have become frustrated at the lack of progress on any and all of the issues in play – and there are a whack of them.

Guess what? The reasons for the American Civil War (1861-1865) point the way to the solution and eventual benefits to everyone concerned. As you undoubtedly recall, the reason for the Civil War in the first place was the South's insistence on the continuation of slavery with secession from the Union. That's right – the USA needs to be divided along roughly the same lines demanded by the secessionists some 150 years ago! In other words, the North made a serious error in not letting them secede and the entire country has been paying for it ever since.

The proposal is a very simple one in reality. Take all of the what we will call the RED states, which are really the most southerly ones, and give them to Mexico. The country could be renamed RED-NEXICO as in rednecks and Mexico. Into this melting pot of death, destruction, convoluted thinking, religious fervor, gun addicts, right wing societies (NRA, Born Again Morons, white nationalists, etc.) pro-life ning nangs, Nascar addicted, arrogant, stupid and the hopeless people of America, most of the unemployable, poorly educated folks, rapists, paedophiles, violent criminals, most rednecks and other ne'er-do-wells will number about 300 million people when all is said and done. It is a perfect fit if one looks at what constitutes the current country of Mexico (that is, soon-to-be RED-NEXICO) because they will get back all of the territory they claimed was stolen by the U.S. from them and then some. Almost all illegal immigrants speak Spanish as do the folks in the U.S. south and the Mexicans. Throw in California which will soon fall into the Pacific Ocean in any event and we have a us a convoy!

Now what should be done about the remaining northern states or what we will refer to the green states? Quite simple really. Give them all to Canada and rename the country CAN-AMERICA. With them go the wealthier states with better employment figures and opportunities along with most of the top class universities which will go undergo a seismic change over the next quarter century, no world wide income tax, a corporate tax on profitability or flat tax which must be paid, no lobbyists, severe penalties for moving manufacturing offshore, lower teen pregnancies, racism and sexism to be dealt with severely, no sub prime mortgages, most of the fresh water, an abundance of hydro electric power, sufficient oil and gas reserves to last well into the next century, minerals galore, oodles of room, strict and honest banking regulations, bilingualism, much less violence, severe firearm controls, more attention to global climate change and other similar world problems, no Nascar, lower divorce rates, domestic violence and so on. Think about it for a moment. The list of benefits are inexhaustible.

It is a win/win for both sides of the equation except for one vital but missing ingredient. With it comes the most important caveat – all citizens in CAN-AMERICA will have the right to vote in person or by post/internet in a national referendum which could affect them. The political power will rest with the people and not the politicians, one of the clearest failings of the United States form of republic.These referendum issues could include, but are not necessarily limited to, a declaration of war, debt, immigration, expulsion of criminals, complete gun control, mosques, military, industrial, political and media complexes, trade, currency, prisons, joining and contributing to stem winding world organizations, infrastructure repairs, a mandatory health system at lower cost and effectiveness, reducing military expenditures by 90%, etc. etc. This will blunt political power and politicians at every turn when they try to do anything – and they always will – which is not in the best interests of the new country.

CAN-AMERICA can really make an impression on the rest of the world with +/- 250 million people by taking a much more critical view of whether to belong to various groups or organizations which have clearly outlived their usefulness. NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund immediately come to mind but there are many, many others which increase the income tax burdens of people unnecessarily.

Many naysayers will insist that such a geographical and political division in North America will not work but Europe is a showcase of how it does. In fact, many could foresee the eventual fusion of CAN-AMERICA into a worldwide economic trading block of which it would be a dominating member along with China, Russia, India, etc. On the political side, it will see the demise of the two party system along with the republicans and democrats under their new regimes.

Now for the clincher which is an updated version of the current U.S. president's call for a wall dividing countries both south and north of the U.S. border. There will be a strip of land measuring 100 kilometres wide separating RED-NEXICO and CAN-AMERICA. It will be electric fenced to 10 metres on all sides and be patrolled electronically 24/7 and by drones. Dense forests will be planted which, with proper husbandry, will flourish eventually to the benefit of both countries. Anyone entering or caught within these 100 kms will be eliminated immediately whether they come from CAN-AMERICA or RED-NEXICO. The cost of building, maintaining and patrolling no woman or no man's land will be shared equally between the the two countries. Any immigration from one country to another will have to go through official channels as there will be no borders to cross except for the 100 kms which means no one would make it. It would kill tourism between the new countries for many years but who really wants to travel to RED-NEXICO in particular!

Unknown to many Americans who are living in the U.S. at the moment is the fact that many of their fellow citizens are surrendering their American nationality in disgust. It has moved from a trickle 25 years ago to where it has become a flood today. Most embassies are inundated with requests – so much so that waiting periods of up to 2 years are not uncommon and growing more expensive every year. Of course, anyone wanting to do so must have another passport to fall back on as well.
This is a very abridged version of a much more detailed proposal but the drift is clear – the United States is slipping quickly and inexorably into third world country and 'shit hole' country status to utilize the current president's description. In many opinions, it is already there! Let's all jettison this cancer in the world so the rest of us can get on with our lives!

EVEN IF THIS SEPARATION/SECESSION SHOULD BE ACCEPTED (AS IN FORCED DOWN THEIR THROATS), THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN BE SAVED IN THE PROPOSED FORMAT GIVEN THE LIST OF ISSUES WHICH HAVE ACCUMULATED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II 75 YEARS AGO!!!

P.S. Any input which will enhance any aspect of this proposal which is more than a matter of detail is sorely welcomed as implementation will be something requiring great skill! Criticisms are also warmly encouraged as long as they are not simply more bleating about how unfair it would be, how civil war will break out, how the 300 million guns will be used to shoot their way out of this, how the political slop will stop it and so on. America is doomed as it is now and saving the best parts is paramount.

IN THE WELL KNOWN LYRICS OF THE SCAR STRANGLED BANNER, IT USED TO BE KNOWN AS "THE LAND OF THE BRAVE AND THE HOME OF THE FREE!" NOW IT IS KNOWN AS "THE LAND OF THE FAT AND THE HOME OF THE FEARFUL!"

BORDERING ON STUPIDITY

MEXICO & CANADA

Freda Lipshitz , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 11:54 pm GMT
Recently, I briefly touched on why I think the United States of America is done and dusted after almost 244 years of existence. Fred Reed, who is so much more eloquent with words than I thinks so as well in A Country Not Salvageable!

IT IS INTERESTING AT THE OUTSET TO OBSERVE THAT THE MAIN REASON THE UNITED STATES FINDS ITSELF IN AN IRREDEEMABLE DIVE IS BECAUSE IT IS IN THE DNA OF THEIR CITIZENS. YEP – THAT'S RIGHT – THEIR DNA!

[MORE]
FOR MANY DECADES, IF NOT ALMOST 2 1/2 CENTURIES, THEY HAVE INCORPORATED RACISM, SEXISM, BULLYING, WAR MONGERING AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN THEIR DNA TO MENTION BUT A FEW. THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THIS PROBLEM IS AS FOLLOWS:

After almost 244 years in existence, 221 of which have been spent at war, the United States of America can no longer find a way to extricate itself from a situation which has been many decades in the making. It has become painfully clear that the 3 branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) so proudly exhibited as effective and meaningful checks and balances no longer works. The military/industrial complex, now joined by the political/media complex, has made it impossible for anyone to Make America Great Again!

No one can see the United States extricating themselves from this unbelievable mess without dropping nuclear bombs on themselves and other nations around the world. Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is not a solution as they have discovered on many, many occasions throughout their history. But there is one solution, and probably only one, which could work given help from other nations.

As everyone knows, everywhere one looks and everything one looks at in America is in serious difficulty – most of which will never be corrected without major and prolonged surgery. Take a few examples only such as debt, education, infrastructure, immigration, constant war mongering, racism, irreparable political divisions, a disappearing middle class, sexism, wealth in fewer and fewer hands, debilitating unemployment, a dismal trade imbalance, gun control along with associated deaths and injuries, a non performing and dishonest judiciary, catering to one country in the Middle East, lobbying, a weakened electorate, an out of control media, a dangerous religious fervor, a bullying approach to everything, prison incarceration rates, non stop political campaigning, a rapidly falling life expectancy, obesity due to fast foods along with a couch potato syndrome and a constant interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations, little or no respect for the ravages of climate change and dropping out of signed agreements and treaties. And this is to only name a very few issues as they now have managed in addition to become the absolute laughingstock of the world. A very dangerous and emotional one to be sure – but a laughingstock nevertheless for which a few people now feel pity.

So let's cut to the chase even if it brings on yet another civil war. And this is where the help of other nations will be most critical. It is time to employ some 'outside the box' thinking which could bring benefit to the entire North American continent, let alone the world. The citizens of the United States of America and the world have become frustrated at the lack of progress on any and all of the issues in play – and there are a whack of them.

Guess what? The reasons for the American Civil War (1861-1865) point the way to the solution and eventual benefits to everyone concerned. As you undoubtedly recall, the reason for the Civil War in the first place was the South's insistence on the continuation of slavery with secession from the Union. That's right – the USA needs to be divided along roughly the same lines demanded by the secessionists some 150 years ago! In other words, the North made a serious error in not letting them secede and the entire country has been paying for it ever since.

The proposal is a very simple one in reality. Take all of the what we will call the RED states, which are really the most southerly ones, and give them to Mexico. The country could be renamed RED-NEXICO as in rednecks and Mexico. Into this melting pot of death, destruction, convoluted thinking, religious fervor, gun addicts, right wing societies (NRA, Born Again Morons, white nationalists, etc.) pro-life ning nangs, Nascar addicted, arrogant, stupid and the hopeless people of America, most of the unemployable, poorly educated folks, rapists, paedophiles, violent criminals, most rednecks and other ne'er-do-wells will number about 300 million people when all is said and done. It is a perfect fit if one looks at what constitutes the current country of Mexico (that is, soon-to-be RED-NEXICO) because they will get back all of the territory they claimed was stolen by the U.S. from them and then some. Almost all illegal immigrants speak Spanish as do the folks in the U.S. south and the Mexicans. Throw in California which will soon fall into the Pacific Ocean in any event and we have a us a convoy!

Now what should be done about the remaining northern states or what we will refer to the green states? Quite simple really. Give them all to Canada and rename the country CAN-AMERICA. With them go the wealthier states with better employment figures and opportunities along with most of the top class universities which will go undergo a seismic change over the next quarter century, no world wide income tax, a corporate tax on profitability or flat tax which must be paid, no lobbyists, severe penalties for moving manufacturing offshore, lower teen pregnancies, racism and sexism to be dealt with severely, no sub prime mortgages, most of the fresh water, an abundance of hydro electric power, sufficient oil and gas reserves to last well into the next century, minerals galore, oodles of room, strict and honest banking regulations, bilingualism, much less violence, severe firearm controls, more attention to global climate change and other similar world problems, no Nascar, lower divorce rates, domestic violence and so on. Think about it for a moment. The list of benefits are inexhaustible.

It is a win/win for both sides of the equation except for one vital but missing ingredient. With it comes the most important caveat – all citizens in CAN-AMERICA will have the right to vote in person or by post/internet in a national referendum which could affect them. The political power will rest with the people and not the politicians, one of the clearest failings of the United States form of republic.These referendum issues could include, but are not necessarily limited to, a declaration of war, debt, immigration, expulsion of criminals, complete gun control, mosques, military, industrial, political and media complexes, trade, currency, prisons, joining and contributing to stem winding world organizations, infrastructure repairs, a mandatory health system at lower cost and effectiveness, reducing military expenditures by 90%, etc. etc. This will blunt political power and politicians at every turn when they try to do anything – and they always will – which is not in the best interests of the new country.

CAN-AMERICA can really make an impression on the rest of the world with +/- 250 million people by taking a much more critical view of whether to belong to various groups or organizations which have clearly outlived their usefulness. NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund immediately come to mind but there are many, many others which increase the income tax burdens of people unnecessarily.

Many naysayers will insist that such a geographical and political division in North America will not work but Europe is a showcase of how it does. In fact, many could foresee the eventual fusion of CAN-AMERICA into a worldwide economic trading block of which it would be a dominating member along with China, Russia, India, etc. On the political side, it will see the demise of the two party system along with the republicans and democrats under their new regimes.

Now for the clincher which is an updated version of the current U.S. president's call for a wall dividing countries both south and north of the U.S. border. There will be a strip of land measuring 100 kilometres wide separating RED-NEXICO and CAN-AMERICA. It will be electric fenced to 10 metres on all sides and be patrolled electronically 24/7 and by drones. Dense forests will be planted which, with proper husbandry, will flourish eventually to the benefit of both countries. Anyone entering or caught within these 100 kms will be eliminated immediately whether they come from CAN-AMERICA or RED-NEXICO. The cost of building, maintaining and patrolling no woman or no man's land will be shared equally between the the two countries. Any immigration from one country to another will have to go through official channels as there will be no borders to cross except for the 100 kms which means no one would make it. It would kill tourism between the new countries for many years but who really wants to travel to RED-NEXICO in particular!

Unknown to many Americans who are living in the U.S. at the moment is the fact that many of their fellow citizens are surrendering their American nationality in disgust. It has moved from a trickle 25 years ago to where it has become a flood today. Most embassies are inundated with requests – so much so that waiting periods of up to 2 years are not uncommon and growing more expensive every year. Of course, anyone wanting to do so must have another passport to fall back on as well.
This is a very abridged version of a much more detailed proposal but the drift is clear – the United States is slipping quickly and inexorably into third world country and 'shit hole' country status to utilize the current president's description. In many opinions, it is already there! Let's all jettison this cancer in the world so the rest of us can get on with our lives!

EVEN IF THIS SEPARATION/SECESSION SHOULD BE ACCEPTED (AS IN FORCED DOWN THEIR THROATS), THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN BE SAVED IN THE PROPOSED FORMAT GIVEN THE LIST OF ISSUES WHICH HAVE ACCUMULATED SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II 75 YEARS AGO!!!

P.S. Any input which will enhance any aspect of this proposal which is more than a matter of detail is sorely welcomed as implementation will be something requiring great skill! Criticisms are also warmly encouraged as long as they are not simply more bleating about how unfair it would be, how civil war will break out, how the 300 million guns will be used to shoot their way out of this, how the political slop will stop it and so on. America is doomed as it is now and saving the best parts is paramount.

IN THE WELL KNOWN LYRICS OF THE SCAR STRANGLED BANNER, IT USED TO BE KNOWN AS "THE LAND OF THE BRAVE AND THE HOME OF THE FREE!" NOW IT IS KNOWN AS "THE LAND OF THE FAT AND THE HOME OF THE FEARFUL!"

BORDERING ON STUPIDITY

MEXICO & CANADA

IvyMike , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:10 am GMT
Fred used to sharp, funny, and very politically incorrect, now he is a bitter old racist, the perfect mascot for the continuing descent of Unz Review.
Daemon , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:57 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway Spoken like a true foreskin-donor.

I'd suggest educating yourself on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/FCuy163srRc?feature=oembed

Red Pill Angel , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 1:03 am GMT
@john cronk Fred's right, it's too late, but two things spelled our country's doom: colleges became factories for feminist propaganda which discouraging bright women from marrying and having children while they were young and fertile; then welfare was used as a tool to outsource childbearing and rearing to the poor. What could go wrong? Stir the pot for 75 years, voila! the evening news.
bluedog , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 1:11 am GMT
@ASimpleHistory Of course its hopeless just read what you posted that's the drivile that got us where we are,Canada's history with the Native Tribe are worse then worse, as the schools use the young native girls for their own pleasure.If blacks can't spell simple words then they are only to blame for they don't want to learn, for they learned how to play the blame game and the rest is history .
haha , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 1:31 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway Maybe, but why is little Willie tampered with for no reason. And without the owner's consent. Now don't come back with penile hygiene, penile cancer and other yesterday arguments. Countries with soap and water can keep little Willie clean and cancer free without chopping off its skin. Circumcision is an American tradition just as FMG is of others. Let us call a spade a spade.
LCBozo , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 1:41 am GMT
@Daemon Be kinder to our women. Circumcision is not on the level of female genital mutilation. Losing some skin is not comparable to losing the sexual sense organ. Just another SJW trying to impose their values on others.

https://www.webmd.com/cancer/cervical-cancer/news/20110106/male-circumcision-cuts-womens-cervical-cancer-risk

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/circumcision/about/pac-20393550

Charles , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:06 am GMT
It is also true that the things we take completely for granted – harnessed electricity, clean potable running water, OTC medicines (to name a few) – will become less common, then rare, then un-heard-of. The people we see rioting cannot build, create, or maintain, they can only destroy. But we cannot KNOW the future. As absurd as it may seem (and its very absurdity makes me think it's possible), what if the Old World comes to the rescue, so to speak, of the New? Yeah I know, we're much more likely to be colonized by China, but still
Awash , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:23 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway I am against FGM, but how do you know African women don't enjoy sex? I read few days ago in the Cosmopolitan magazine that the g-spot doesn't exist. It concludes that intimacy is what makes women happy. Also it's not clear who enjoys sex more: the circumsized man or the uncircumcised.
Barb Dwyer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:29 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway ALF!
R.C. , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:36 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway

"I'm glad to have spent my youth and middle age in a mostly sane America. I do not look forward to what's coming at me in my dotage."

Exactly!
Also, excellently witty, informed and entertaining article.
R.C.

Daemon , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:41 am GMT
@LCBozo Being against circumcision doesn't mean I'm automatically for FGM, you know. And no, considering 90% of the nerve endings are "inside" the part of the foreskin removed (and removed for the EXPLICIT purpose of denying pleasure from intercourse) – it is exactly the same as FGM.

And watch the video, the host debunks the supposed "health benefits" of cutting off a natural piece of your body. It's literally bronze age blood sacrifice for the modern era.

Anonymous [234] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 2:41 am GMT
Want to see the Sissy!Cops meet a violent offender? Go rent DEMOLITION MAN.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 3:05 am GMT
I wonder .

if these people are so hostile to supremacism, why aren't they attacking Israeli consulates, protesting ADL & AIPAC, burning Israeli flags, and denouncing the Zionist 'genocide' of Palestinians?
Why aren't they denouncing Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, and others for their support of supremacist state of Israel?

I hear that this is an attack by the 'left'. If so, why is this 'left' so silent about the plight of Palestinians and other victims of US imperialism that is directed by Jews?

It's not about the Left. It's about punks and hoodlums serving as Janissary to Jewish Supremacist Power.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 3:34 am GMT
@follyofwar It's mad, totally mad, to call the American system of government a democracy. The rule of the super-rich is not the rule of the people, only the rule over the people.
Lee Lepanto , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 3:48 am GMT
Pretty good piece.

Deduct points for the umpteenth "Marry Latinas, White men. Some are pretty and their smartphones are set to English."

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:13 am GMT
@neutral Negros with Nukes. What a comforting thought.
Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:20 am GMT
Farrakhan and Nathanael have come up with a solution:

Segregation on Steroids:

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=209240

usNthem , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:20 am GMT
Phenomenally talented at what? A few sports and some entertainment. Oh, and they do hate us, Fred. Rest assured of that.
Escher , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:21 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse Few democracies actually reflect the will of the voting public in the way they they are administered. The power elite runs the show.
Human society is inherently hierarchical, unless we revert to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:30 am GMT

and phenomenally talented.

That's not the same as employable.

Nothing has worked.

Nor have they. For 400 years. That's a helluva long time for a subsidy.

Roppenheimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:33 am GMT
@neutral Not to worry. Most likely, very few of the US nukes are still operational. However, we lack the testing capacity to determine which are still functional and which are duds. Deterrence is based on fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:35 am GMT
@Charlemagne Agree that universal suffrage voting is crazy-town. Women, on average, are not evolved for protecting the frontiers, and vote with emotion. There are always exceptions of course. Minority races tend to vote as a block.

Mosley seems to have come up with a solution that is lost to history:

Basically, voters vote on subjects they are qualified for. Corporate state does not mean corporatocracy, which is what we have now in the U.S.

________________________________________________

https://www.oswaldmosley.com/the-corporate-state/

Governments are elected on the strength of their appeal to passion or to sentiment. Once in office they promptly resign their effective power in favour of the great interests within the State, but yet superior to the State, who exercise their power in secret. The increasingly technical nature of all problems in an economic age has made it difficult or impossible to explain the real issues to the electorate as a whole. The division between daily politics and the reality of Government has become ever greater.

The technician has become ever more enchained by the passion, the prejudice and the folly of uninstructed politics. By such a system as we advocate, the technician, who is the architect of our industrial future, is freed for his task. He is given the mandate for that task by the informed franchise of his colleagues in his own industry. A vote so cast will be the result of experience and information. Is not this in fact rationalised democracy? Is not this system preferable to the solemn humbug of present elections, which assumes that the most technical problems of modern government, ranging from currency management to the evolution of a scientific protective system, can be settled by a few days' loose discussion in the turmoil of a General Election?

The ordinary man would greatly resent such treatment of the facts of his daily industry and life. If someone strolled into an engineering shop and, after five minutes' cursory examination of an intricate process which the engineer had studied all his life, proceeded to tell him how to do it, the engineer would quickly tell the intruder he was a presumptuous ass . Yet these are the methods which our present electoral system applies to that most intricate and technical of processes, the government of a civilised State.

Rationalised democracy, as well as rationalised industry, has become an imperative necessity. The Corporate State provides the only known solution to the problem. Our electoral system has become a farce, worse even than in the days of bribed elections and pocket boroughs. As it is organised at present, our system of government lacks the calibre to carry us out of trade depression and set Britain again on top of the world.

Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:42 am GMT
@Freda Lipshitz

10 metres

Get real. Even Canucks only use "metres" when they have to.

reducing military expenditures by 90%, etc. etc.

We did the opposite in 1917 and 1942. Stupid us

gun control along with associated deaths and injuries

Well, you've got that right.

Eric Novak , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:43 am GMT
@follyofwar Infectious dick cheese is barbaric, not its prophylaxis.
Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:45 am GMT

In its writ-large form, trying to force West Virginia to accept the culture of Massachusetts will produce only anger.

Who the hell is suggesting that? A tour of the radio dial would show that the influence goes the other way. Where are the Arthur Fiedlers and Leroy Andersons when we need them?

Eric Novak , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:47 am GMT
@Daemon It's literally as much bullshit as a video about the benefits of eating an all vegan diet of lawn trimmings.
Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:53 am GMT
It is always immense pleasure to read Fred Reed.

Here is his statement of century.

We can't solve the problem if we don't know what it is.

northeast , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 4:58 am GMT
Good column Fred, but blacks are "phenomenally talented" is an interesting statement. Aside from some basic talent with song & dance and athletics blacks are in general dismal.

I'll give them this: they know suffering mostly self-inflicted. It's a tragic situation for them and us.

Rahan , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:18 am GMT
@SteveK9
I must disagree with the concept that the US lockdown was "copied from the Chinese".

While in no way do I support the current thoughts gaining popularity that "democracy doesn't work" (works well enough in sane places like Japan, Korea, Slovakia, and such), this precise example–the handling of the novel coronavirus–showed Beijing in a quite OK light.

(The complaints how "they should have sounded the alarm half an hour earlier this would have changed everything are only voiced by place that were too moronic to react properly in time, unlike all of East Asia, which did)

What China did is lockdown ONE city (Wuhan), and sever connections between various other cities and counties, in order to check the spread. And thus, they checked the spread. In 90% places there was even never no "mandatory social distancing" or "mandatory mask wearing", what people did they did because they felt they should, through grassroot peer pressure.

The whole Eastern Asian approach, China included, was:
1) Clamp down instantly on hot spots
2) Sever connections between suspect counties
3) After 1-2 viral cycles open up again

What the US and UK did was first go with the "nothing to see here" model, and then go into "incompetent overreacting mode" when it was already far too late. This is NOT "the Chinese model" that we saw.

RichardTaylor , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:19 am GMT
But we're importing all the spiffy Latinos that Fred loves so much. We should be getting better!

These headlines are hyperbole. America isn't going to "collapse". It still has far more power than any other country. I don't know what will happen in the future and the state of White Americans is a problem. But the country isn't going anywhere.

Hang All Text Drivers , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:29 am GMT
""""A statue of Ulysses Grant was pulled down in the belief that he was a Confederate general."""

Most sources agree grant owned a single slave during the CW. His wife had a bunch of them.

Many UNION generals were slaveowners during the war. Which show how dishonest it is to say the war was fought to free the slaves.

Hang All Text Drivers , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:33 am GMT
"""Our system of governments has proved itself weak, feckless, and unable to govern. The chaotic response to the coronavirus is a prime example, there being no national policy and the states being told to do as they see fit. """"

What's wrong with that? The FF took states rights for granted. That's why they wrote the tenth amendment and that's why the federal constitution says the federal govt cannot by itself amend its constitution. Only the states can.

Hang All Text Drivers , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:40 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse ""It's mad, totally mad, to call the American system of government a democracy. The rule of the super-rich is not the rule of the people, only the rule over the people.""

Democracy is dead not because of the rich but because of the Supreme Court. Those 9 unelected old goats appointed for life have granted themselves final say on every issue in america. They write the laws even though the constitution says "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the united states."

Miro23 , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT

The world will not again credit its charades of moral leadership. The rot, the tens of thousands of derelict people living on the sidewalks, the looting and fire setting, the censorship, are now visible to the entire earth. Oh well. It was a good thing while it lasted.

The biggest contrast between the US and successful societies seems to involve the concept of citizens rights and obligations.

If Americans had a strong concept of citizenship it could guide them through many difficult issues. For example the world's longest running democracy (Switzerland) puts a heavy list obligations on its citizens, such as military service, active regular participation in local meetings/ issue based elections, and makes it clear to them that they are a part of a historical society with no opt outs.

Americans have few or no obligations towards their founding history. They aren't required to study it, respect it, or see themselves as part of it – in fact, to contribute in any way at all. Rather, the Jewish media encourages them to demean it, and they are defined as "consumers" (something that feeds and shops) rather than citizens.

Agreed that the US continues on its fast downward track, and it will involve more serious financial and social crises.

On a basic level, US society is hopelessly uncompetitive with places like modern China (great unified national projects in education, industry, infrastructure and national development) while it papers over the cracks with debt, and pushes its ZioGlob SJW agenda.

Just another serf , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Yes, there may be no future for this society in white European terms. But it can still be a magnificent place for people of color. The African population is expected to swell to more than 45 billion in the coming years. Why not open up this unoccupied land and these existent cities to these populations? There is a similar population spike ahead in Mexico and areas of central and South America. These individuals are skilled farmers and they can make the U.S. flourish with new crops.

If these new immigrants can build on the wonderful democratic ideals of the disappearing white population, we may see a terrific future for mankind, also womankind.

jack daniels , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 5:49 am GMT
The author seems to think the actions of rabble arise spontaneously. But they are just chess pieces in a campaign to destroy the traditional Christian America. Money c0ntrols our politics by owning the media and in effect the political parties and academe. The flow and flux of opinions is in the hands of very bright people who unfortunately hate us.
Wood Stove , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:02 am GMT

What fun, what entertainment. And rare: One seldom sees the collapse of a landmark society

Imagine thinking you're not standing in line to the slaughter.

I wonder if you'll still be thinking this once BLM militarizes. And they will, just look at the sort of "donations" they are getting from the fortune 500. BLM is bigger than both parties, and they are gearing up for a 1917. That means red terrors, the abolished police replaced by NKVD style outfits that will abduct, torture, and murder the people you love, it means mass executions,

The writing's on the wall; the anti-white hate speech, 1619, the statues being toppled, the kneeling and appeasing, the more demands, the more fanaticism, the more hatred in this racial rendition of marxism the proletariat are non-whites and the bourgeoisie are whites. Watch out. There will be ZERO mercy if you're white. No matter how much you kneel, it will never be enough.

It's not hard to imagine; a second wave of clownvirus to scare white people into lockdowns, a chinese cyber attack to black out everything, then suddenly a red terror of crazed and armed BLM mobs universally activated to slaughter the white sitting ducks in an Esther style genocide which the jewish media will absolutely love. Interestingly this covid hoax was launched around Purim.

Be very afraid.

The Germ Theory of Disease , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:03 am GMT
@Freda Lipshitz Have you found the Yellow Sign?
Anonymous [237] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:11 am GMT
https://www.unz.com/freed/a-country-not-salvageable/#respond

"America speaks of the rule of the people, a horrible idea, and seems to be getting there."

Do not think anyone can know

Their speech is restricted so we cannot know what they think

Their freedom to associate is restricted so they cannot organize with those of a like mind

Their freedom to live as they will is restricted by federal legislation and nine judges

They are forced to pay for others bad decisions and to bail them out

They are robbed of their money to be told how they can spend it and with whom

The rule of a free people would cause others to rise to the level of those who do best to out do them if they were free to do so. It is the lack of freedom to do so, not that a people being free does not make the best rule

Anon [383] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:31 am GMT
Worldwide the depths of ignorance amongst the dark races is mind blowing. In South Africa after 25 years of black rule which includes the control of state run schools and their curricula, an acceptable pass rate is now 30%! Knowing 3 out of every 10 things is acceptable. I mentioned to one of the anthropoids the other day about the excesses of the Ottoman empire in Eastern Europe and Greece to be told "I don't care what Otto did", there is literally no hope. The barbarians are in the city.
Richard B , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:36 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

countries that outstandingly look after their people, such as Cuba

I can say from extensive first hand experience and the testimonials of family, friends, etc. that not one country in Latin America looks after its people.

And that most definitely includes Cuba.

But keep dreaming.

Anonymous [291] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:38 am GMT
@Daemon Well, you still replied to a comment opening, in our time of violently, unworthily, cultural legal and social female privilege, with "Be kinder to our women."
Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:40 am GMT
@SteveK9 Maybe you can stop hating the Chinese and read the guidelines on how to deal with pandemics.

Maybe, just maybe you will learn something.

Richard B , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:40 am GMT
@follyofwar

Last summer I read "The End of Democracy" by a Belgian named Christophe Buffin de Chosal, and I'm now convinced that it is not.

Just curious. Did the author offer a definition of Democracy?

If so, could you share it here?

Thanks.

Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 6:48 am GMT
Putting the foot down would work. I think the hand outs are at least partly responsible for the uselessness of the blacks. Enabling is a pretty dangerous thing when done over 8 decades.

Take away the gravy train, it just might force them out of their stupor.

But who knows. It might also push all blacks into open revolt.

So, take your pick

Biff , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 7:16 am GMT

Schooling will continue its plummet.

I think George Carlin described this the best "the owners aren't interested in people capable of critical thinking – it's not in their interest. They only want obedient workers "

Dumbo , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 7:19 am GMT
The problem in America is not black people, it's white people. Take a look at current pop culture which is basically homos and race-mixing 24/7. Take a look at the issues that worry Americans (nooses and bathrooms for transexuals). Look at American celebrities, the Kartrashians. Look at whom they want to vote, Senile Joe Biden or Trashy Trump (which is the less bad alternative). Look at all the morbidly obese people moving around in scooters to buy even more sodas and fast food.

It's too far gone.

obwandiyag , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 7:31 am GMT
You fucking asshole. You think A. blacks are rich because they get welfare, and B. only blacks get welfare.

You are a fucking idiot asshole. And, oh, by the way, wrong. Dead wrong.

Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 7:39 am GMT
@Priss Factor

It's not about the Left. It's about punks and hoodlums serving as Janissary to Jewish Supremacist Power.

Exactly!

And Fearless Freddie knows it. Of course when Fred sees this pointed out to him he pretends not to notice -- like with so many others, it's much safer for him to go after the puppets, not the (((puppet-masters))).

(Although Janissaries were highly respected elite troops -- not exactly what we see here.)

Jiminy , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 8:00 am GMT
I keep thinking of an old cartoon by Leunig showing a family visiting the museum of lost manners. The boy is interested in a diorama of a man giving up his chair for a lady. I feel the same could happen to all of the toppled statues, the only difference is that they will end up in a museum for lost causes. Every weekend families will visit and sadly reminisce of a past lost.
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 8:17 am GMT
@Charlemagne Universal suffrage is a problem, turning into a popularity contest where only the rich can compete, but it's that, that it's so easily corrupted, and is, that's the problem.

With election by lot there would have been no world wars.

Felix Keverich , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 8:20 am GMT
@neutral

When the Soviet Union ended it could fall back into various nation states

Soviet Union did not "fall back into nation states", because no such states even existed before USSR. Soviet Union disintegrated in line with its administrative division, the equivalent would be America's 50 states going their separate way.

Stephen Allen , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 9:26 am GMT
The author forgot about Flynt and other such cities. Also, is it the dictatorship of the proletariat bombing other nations, notably Arab nations, not quite black, yet close, into oblivion.
Stephen Allen , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 9:32 am GMT
@Chris Mallory Nazis roaming the Web.
Emily , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 9:46 am GMT
Very interesting article, thanks.
However it has one great deceit aand deficit.
quote
'The Soviet Union spoke of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but lived under the dictatorship of a gray aristocracy.'
No Fred.
It was not a 'gray' aristocracy.
It was a Jewish one.
The jews created and controlled the USSR for years.
Murdering millions of actual Russians.
Read Solzhenitsyn .
Imprisoning them, torturing them and enslaving them.
The falling of the Berlin wall freed the Russian people more than anyone else, it can be argued.
It kept the Russians IN – in one almighty Jewish controlled prison.
But even then – a druncken corrupt Yeltsin was placed in charge – a USA/Jewish puppet.
And the takaway plunder of Russia and its people began – obscene plunder which Putin is reclaiming as he can.
Many jews then fled.
Not only Fred, did you miss the Jewish connection with Russia – you have managed to ignore the Jewish connections with BLM and the current racial turmoil.
You seem to have a poor opinion of minorities fair enough – most of us would agree with what you write.
But you are very coy about the minority with all its financial power and dual citizenships behind the USSR, and the corruption and breaking of western nations today.
Why?
Um!
animalogic , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:11 am GMT
Excuse me, I feel the need for a quibble:
" a true dictatorship of the proletariat,". The rioters etc are not the "proletariat", they are the "Lumpen-proletariat". The Proletariat are working people. They usually have families, mortgages, car payments. They struggle with health insurance. They may even dream of their kids going to college. The ultimate challenge with these people is to encourage them towards class consciousness -- which means roughly, a consciousness of their own interests as a group.
The "Lumpen-proletariat" are basically social riff-raff. They are the odds & sods. They tend to live outside or unevenly connected to the "everyday" world. They may not be "bad" people. Indeed, they may be "respectable". However, they will rarely have a consciousness of social & political realities, even as they apply to themselves.
ShogunMike , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:23 am GMT
@Oliver Elkington We cannot organize as every time we do the SPLC labels anything white as racist and in comes the corrupt federally bums of in cognition to throw whites in prison. The writer is correct, We Are Doomed.
Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:25 am GMT
@Emily

But you are very coy about the minority with all its financial power and dual citizenships behind the USSR, and the corruption and breaking of western nations today.
Why?

Because behind Fred's leather-jacket-Brando-Wild-One alter-ego, he's just plain scared.

Scared of Jews -- just like Brando was.

Pathetic, but he's got lots of company.

orionyx , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:29 am GMT
@SteveK9 The Chinese response toCovidwas not insane, it was rational.

Having experienced several suspicious plagues among their food animals in recent months, the Chinese feared they were facing bio-warfare, and made the only rational response. With recent flareups, they probably fear they're facing phase 2 – and they probably are.

America, on the other hand, destroyed its economy to preserve the banks – setting fire to the house to keep the furniture warm. And now the rabble, fantastically talented at burning things, are burning the furniture.

Goodbye America.

Thomasina , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:31 am GMT
@bluedog Canada is gone. No glue. Started downhill about the same time as the U.S. – in the 70's/80's. Yes, they treated the natives terribly, but from what I read at Unz and elsewhere, the natives did their fair share of raiding and slaving. Such is man, unfortunately.
Moi , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:40 am GMT
@Gordon K. Shumway Unfortunately, the American people are the only people so stupid as to have opened their doors wide to an influx of immigrants to the point they'll soon become a minority in their own country. What used to be our core culture is fast disappearing. English is no longer the lingua franca, but we are now a bi-lingual English and Spanish speaking country. Say bye-bye America and go back to sleep. It's over, thanks to our "leaders'–an unbroken line of dumbshit, sellouts!
neutral , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:43 am GMT
@Felix Keverich Russia and the Baltic states existed before, the stans had some clearly identifiable ethnic groups they belonged to. I don't want to go into the usual impenetrable and pointless debates about Belarus and Ukraine, but for most part the states that came out of the Soviet Union were more natural nation states that came out of the Africa post colonialism, the US states are not close to anything like nation states from the USSR.
Hartnell , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:44 am GMT
@Oliver Elkington I think it is simply all down to levels of comfort on both sides. For the left, they are protesting and rioting because the state supports them. There will be no consequences and ultimately they can return back to their lives as the smoke clears problem free. For the right, they too are also comfortable and do not want to lose this comfort over fighting back for what is right. Instead they'd rather 'protest' on the internet. It will take dwindling levels of comfort to get the right to truly start organising.
Moi , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:44 am GMT
@obwandiyag Blacks suffer from post-slavery PTSD–many minorities don't see racism everywhere or blame their problems to racism.
gotmituns , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 10:52 am GMT
@IvyMike Reed is not a "racist," he's a racial realist like me – there's a difference.
Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:07 am GMT
@Oliver Elkington A few years ago some locals in my community had organized a family picnic for residents to come and celebrate a day of European heritage. All were invited to celebrate, there were certainly no color restrictions or anything of the sort. This area is heavily Italian, Polish, Irish and Welsh, all descendants of immigrants who came over to work in the coal mines. We're talking a day of middle-aged people enjoying ethnic European foods and games for the kids, tomato casseroles, pierogis and kielbasa.

Then all the Jewish gestapo groups suddenly appeared, denounced it as a day of white supremacy, SPLC of course weighed in against it, the local politicians caved to the pressure and finally saw that the park permit for the picnic was pulled. At the time, I found all the negative reactions to this picnic hard to believe.

But here we are now, denied the right to peaceful assembly while anti-white forces have full freedom to promote hatred, physical violence, looting and arson.

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:08 am GMT
Here's your happy ending:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/r8fkrPP_0qA?feature=oembed

Whitewolf , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:19 am GMT
@RichardTaylor

I don't know what will happen in the future and the state of White Americans is a problem. But the country isn't going anywhere.

The US is circling the drain. The last I heard over a billion dollars was donated openly to BLM by big corporations as a reward for instigating riots and looting across the country. The rulers aren't even bothering to pretend to care about the future of the US.

Whitewolf , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:24 am GMT
@Hartnell The two sides aren't left and right. They are the oligarchs who run the country vs everyone else.
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:32 am GMT
@Freda Lipshitz Brilliant, Freda! I found myself laughing out loud on reading your Red-Nexico.

You are right. Good idea. Let the South secede.

Except, why shoul they fuse with Mexico? They could be independent of both.

The basic American problem is the rule of the rich, which is predatory rule, and the gift America gives them, a tiny few, is vast wealth all in one country. If that wealth was divided up, part in the Confederacy as an independent country, part in New England as an independent country, part CA and a few of the nearby states ditto, part WA ditto ditto, Hawaii shunted off, independent, flyover states picking the nearest of those others to join, the rule of the rich would be over! Prey on what?

Think. The rule of the super-rich over Cuba? It that why Cuba has free health care? Free education? No-one in debt? Though under beastly US sanctions for decades?

Split the US up into a few medium-sized countries and SO many problems would be solved.

Smithsonian_2 , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:35 am GMT
@follyofwar

Is democracy even a good thing? Last summer I read "The End of Democracy" by a Belgian named Christophe Buffin de Chosal, and I'm now convinced that it is not.

You need *some* method to get rid of failed politicians that doesn't involve large amounts of physical destruction.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:40 am GMT
@IvyMike Racism is not the problem, Mike. I always appreciate a writer that states the truth, and Mr. Reed has done a bang-up job in stating the truth about the situation here. (It's the other 95% of his columns in which he has lots of truth but always some piece of his stupidity thrown in, that make me comment so much in the threads thereunder.)

About the only minor detail I disagree with in this one is that, even though it's true that having a complete democracy* with anyone being able to vote HAS been a bad thing, that's not the Communism. The proto-Commies are the antifa idiots pulling down the statues. The world has seen this before just over a century ago in Russia, over 70 years ago in China, etc. Many of us either don't know any history or don't want to open our eyes to recognize this.

No, they haven't read Marx and Engles, and no, they don't have Mao's little red books. Just the same, it's the exact same mentality of wanting to tear down traditional society completely that makes these antifa the modern Commies. Don't get me wrong, they'll be bulldozed into ditches later by the ones in charge just the same, if this effort is completed in America, but they don't know that yet. Useful idiots abound right now.

.

* The country was originally organized as a Constitutional Republic, NOT a democracy.

GMC , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:42 am GMT
The Zionist Plan or Deep State Plan or NWO Plan { take your pick } is working 100%. The populace is confused and programmed, and the "NWO Plan " has gotten filthy filthy Rich , while leaving the people so dumbed down – that they are blaming one another or some puppet government people for all the shit going down. The Plan started over 100 yrs ago and we can look back and see it – 1913 Federal Reserve, Politicians in their back pocket, WWI , WW II, CIA founded, 1965 Open and Unlimited immigration , JFK and others assassinated, the Wars, 9/11, . We know who is even doing it – but Nobody is left to Stop Them. The Top people in the Federal Gov. and the State Govs. are mostly – all in – it can only runs its course – now. Just like a Virus,
Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:42 am GMT
@Red Pill Angel True, RPA, and what Fred somewhat described, but with not much detail, is that this is part of the Long March through the institutions that has been going on since the middle 1960s. The marchers reached their destination, total control, probably 10 years ago.
sonofman , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT
The European-American is still the majority, so if America falls, whose fault is it?
European-Americans are the majority in a government whose top priorities are themselves, corporations and a foreign apartheid government. European-Americans have the majority vote and continually vote for parties and representatives who seem to have little interest in American prosperity.
European-Americans are the ones who idly stood by in silence within the herd and watched as their government facilitated Jim Crow, welfare and targeted mass incarceration against the Black African-American community, and then not understand why there is inequality
Apparently, too many European-Americans don't read history or are not interested in American heritage, because they don't seem to understand the importance of the first and second amendments, and that whosoever targets to eliminate these rights is an enemy.
Talk about IQ. Many European-Americans actually believe the propaganda of the Covid-19 hoax or that erasing one of the most important events in American history will resolve the media hyped racial tension.
And there are many European-Americans who do not seem to understand that the medical response to the "epidemic", and the policing against rioting is the responsibility of the State, not the federal government.
Why is it, that so many European-Americans do not understand that the United States is a democracy based upon freedom, moral principles and common sense, not a Marxist communist ideology.
If America fails, it is because too many Europeans don't think and act like they're Americans.
Ace , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 11:57 am GMT
@ASimpleHistory Those water systems that only send the lead contamination to our helpless black wards? Must be in the hundreds. Special valves and pipes yo!

Examples please.

Fred supplies examples of a flood of good will and mawkish stupidity showered on the diversity and you counter with some penny ante hiccup in the scheme of things to sustain the fantasy of "In it `Orrid?"

American Africans butt crackers and our precious progressive pansies will soon enough sift through the rubble and garbage of an amazing experiment and never understand the truth of the saying that the best is the enemy of the good. Or that a bird in hand is worth two in the Bush. Thinking white!

Grahamsno(G64) , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:00 pm GMT

and mathematics will be played down even in astrophysics (this is being done)

Wow is that true any sources for this vandalism?

Ace , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:05 pm GMT
@Bragadocious Sure. If not for the virus (higher) education would be achieving new heights of excellence.

Ol' Fred. So out of touch. It's sad.

EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:07 pm GMT
"Here's your happy ending:"

Laughing.

VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:11 pm GMT
Fred you're back in rare form! The irony that the country that has done the most to uplift the white mans burden, is also the most racist seems well Words can't describe.
The more blacks get, the more racist we are. Time to toss em off the gravy train. Then at least if we are to be called racist, we are'nt pissing dollar after dollar down the river!
How bout we try leaving then to their own devices, since you know, blacks are the greatest builders of civilizations in the history of man kind.
Fred you have accurately and succinctly put into words what pisses sane whites off the most, the more we give, the bigger the black middle finger at us gets.
Ace , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:13 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse Yes. Cuba, the gold standard. And care to take a guess at the proportion of state budgets that goes to Medicaid?

Ever hear of state and community colleges? Astronomical debt for junk degrees is for flower children.

Stay focused.

Truth , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:14 pm GMT
@Priss Factor Why aren't you?
VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT
@RichardTaylor Fred didn't say or imply the government would collapse. He's talking about civil society. Cultural collapse.
RoatanBill , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:20 pm GMT
@Bragadocious If someone is sick with Covid, that usually entails a breathing problem. I don't see how people with breathing difficulties are going to march through the desert for days to show up at a US emergency room.

Not plausible.

RT Rider , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT
There are still plenty of nice peaceful places to live in America. Most of the idiocy we're witnessing is in the the large urban areas. We lose sight of the geographical immensity of the US. Even in Southern California, where I live, there are huge sparsely populated areas, and even more in the north. The first amendment was supposed to allow for freedom of association, (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) and that includes who we live with and amongst, in private life. So much for that.

I see the problem more as a political organization issue. The U.S. moved away from a republic to an empire, and bled the country of resources to maintain that empire to enormously enrich the few. When the ability to plunder resources diminished, the ruling class switched to counterfeiting money on a grand scale to steal the wages of labor of the poor here, and abroad.

So it's a twofold problem. One is the collapse of the global empire, both by resistance of others (namely China and Russia), overreach, unaffordability, and incompetence. The other is the social, economic, and cultural collapse at home, caused by years of political, economic and social engineering, and outright theft by the ruling class.

In the real world (nature) entropy is a bitch. The reality is all our terms for society are the humanities terms for thermodynamics. Complex systems require a lot of energy and design to keep intact, let lone expand. The bigger the system the more required, and the more fragile it gets – particularly when run exclusively from the center. Running an empire from Washington in the modern world is about as complex as can be imagined. Far more than Rome had to deal with, and look what happened there.

To me the solution, is a redesign of America's political organization. Forget the empire and Republic, they're done. Design an organization similar to Switzerland, which is probably the only true confederation on the planet. Let's return political power back to the states, eliminate or drastically reduce the powers of the center (ie. Washington), and let the people in each state decide how they wish to be governed there, and not by Washington. We might find that there are states that don't want to belong to any larger political unit. Fine. Smaller is better anyway. Let the pieces fall and let's see what combinations come out of it.

Emily , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:36 pm GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) Proof?.
Claiming they went to the moon fifty years ago .
And now they have to buy tickets on Russian rockets .
Something has seriously deteriorated in the US space race.
Of course – a 'claim' is meaningless when you have Kubrick standing by.
Look what can be done with a few sets of boxcutters LOL
daniel le mouche , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:36 pm GMT
" In truth, America has made the greatest effort ever essayed by one race to uplift another. Reflect: In 1954 an entirely white Supreme Court unanimously ended segregation. Later it found the use of IQ tests by employers illegal because blacks scored poorly, then found "affirmative action," racial discrimination against whites, legal (hardly oppression of blacks, this). An overwhelmingly white Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act the next year." etc etc

Fred, has it ever occurred to you that this was all PLANNED, that it was all ON PURPOSE? Who in their right mind would sign a mass immigration bill? US, or World, Government would. Why? Social unrest. Cultural genocide. Divide and conquer. Chaos amongst the rabble.
And the rabble, as we clearly can see now, truly are rabble–unintelligent, thuggish, and all that. Many of their grandparents, if not all, were measured in speech and action, humble and perhaps even quite intelligent. No more. Now a great indicator of lack of if not intelligence then common sense–and true intelligence embraces common sense–is the modern university graduate.
As I've said for years, Beware the white female masters or doctorate holder!
But Fred, surely you can figure out that all these things don't just happen. Lay your cards on the table, dude.

RoatanBill , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:37 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse Gov't shouldn't even attempt to look after its citizens.

It's when gov't becomes a social welfare scheme that things go awry. The average citizen is supposed to be able to stand on his own two feet and compete in a free market. Gov't is supposed to protect that free market from interference. What we have today is gov't suffocating the free market and fostering dependency by the millions of stupid voters they pander after.

Cut off the welfare, 'free stuff' social programs, and get back to basics to change course, but at this stage that's impossible. The solution is to get rid of the entire Fed Gov to make the real cancers in the society evaporate. Get rid of the Pelosi's, Schumer's, Trump's, the Federal Reserve, laws that actually cause discrimination, etc, etc,etc.

Allow the states to become countries and start 50 experiments on how to govern. I predict that the conservative entities will rapidly fare best and the liberal holes will depopulate via voting with their feet. Within 2 years, some areas will be humming along nicely while the rest will have to reexamine their ridiculous policies when infinite funny money is no longer available to create the fantasy world they wanted to live within.

RoatanBill , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:42 pm GMT
@Smithsonian_2 "The way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of high places." – Frank Chodorov

As long as there's some asshat 'ruler' there will be corruption and eventual total decay as the US is now experiencing. I, for one, need no 'leader'. Anarchism!

Ayatollah Smith , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT
Fred, what is it about you? You write an article about the decline of America but the Americans posting comments on your article are talking about circumcision, foreskin donors and 'Willie-tampering'. That has to be your fault, something you are doing. It cannot be attributed to the pathetic imbecility of most Americans even though you point out that the dumbing-down of education will result in the pathetic imbecility of most Americans, so that means . . . Oh, forget it. You win, I lose.

This is an aside but, if I may masquerade for a moment as a pathetically-imbecilic American, I would note that god (or even, God) made an agreement with some of my people that in return for unlimited but undefined blessings (other than a glass of milk and honey which tastes like hell if you want to know the truth) they would circumcise all the males so he could recognise his "children". This 'raises' questions. I would have thought even a minor god (much less a God) could recognise his children without earthly assistance, especially that kind of assistance and, unless the people are all naked, how would he know? Would he say, "Unzip your pants so I can assess your degree of faithfulness?" I once had a girlfriend who was so inclined, but never a god (much less a God).

I know I risk divine retribution for daring to ask, but what the hell would a god have in his mind that he would choose THIS method of identifying his faithful? If I were a god (forget about God here), and wanted a way to recognise my followers, I'm not sure that 'Willie-tampering' would be my ID of choice. A tramp stamp might be okay for the girls, but for boys I think I might suggest something simple and more publicly-entertaining like castration with piano-wire and a runaway horse. But let's not lose the main point which is that any god who chooses to identify his (American and other) faithful by the contents of their pants, is somebody I want to stay far away from. As with Hillary Clinton, and for much the same reasons.

John Q Duped , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:47 pm GMT
If America does fall who is gonna be Israel's henchman? Who's gonna keep stirring the Mid East pot and the world with wars? And who's gonna protect poor Israel from their proclaimed "nemesis" Iran?
I can't believe they would let the US self-destruct (actually cause the US to collapse) because that would leave Israel all alone to defend itself.
Jeff Stryker , says: Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:48 pm GMT
@ASimpleHistory Because middle-Americans don't travel and regard a country on the border of Michigan as a foreign country, many posters have no clue about Canada. I grew up 40 miles from Ontario and know it well.

Natives in Northern Canada are so dangerous that you would not want to walk around a small Northern Ontario town. Going into a bar would be like going into a South Chicago project. Natives in Canada don't have access to firearms or you would have 700 shootings a year. The Canadian bush is actually more dangerous than Canadian cities. They're no different than Aztecs in Phoenix, really.

Canada also has underclasses the US doesn't have. The idea of being mugged by an East Indian in America would seem absurd. In Brampton it is not uncommon.

[MORE]
Worse yet, Canadian syndicates-like the IRA once was-are linked to political terrorism. Tamil Tigers and Sikh Separatists flooded Canada in the seventies and eighties and used drug dealing to fund their movements back home-which created a horrendous problem with middleman money laundering.

Chinese have assumed control of Vancouver. They've flooded the streets with heroin from China and East Vancouver has the highest rate of AIDS in North America.

Because most Americans don't travel to UK I'll run down the situation there. Pakistanis are ruthless and their gangs as bad as Bloods or Crips. Guns and grenade launchers and M-14's are common in UK and unlike the US, British criminals are more likely to shoot a police officer.

The idea that there are no guns in Canada or UK is a joke. The cities of Toronto and London are full of gun-toting ethnic cartels. Albanians and Russian pimping syndicates are armed to the teeth in UK with firearms which would make a Crip green with envy.

Crime in London and Canada is more multicultural. In the US, blacks and Mexicans rule the streets. No other gang can get into street level crime. In Canada and UK there are dozens of street-level gangs of thugs battling it out for drug sales territory, while the Albanians handle the high-class pimping.

I don't know why, but Pakistanis in America just cannot get into the grooming game. Maybe its police response time. Tahir hangs around a middle school in the US and the cops are there in 30 seconds. Or possibly little white girls in the US are culturally programmed to like the black Alpha pimp-stud and some greasy Pakistani doesn't appeal.

Similarly, gypsies in the US go straight because on the street the blacks would simply rape the begging little gypsy girls downtown to death. Or they would be shot.

Another aspect is prison. US prisons are so appalling that about 30 years ago the classic white offenders-cat burglars, chop shop operators, bank robbers-simply stopped committing crime because of the sexual torture by blacks in prison. Any probation officer will tell you this.

In Australia, the Italian syndicates in Melbourne are actually more violent and brazen than in New Jersey. In the US, the Italians are no longer really into violent crime. They're into white-collar crime. Down Under, some of the Italians still are.

But the bottom-line is that UK blacks are Afro-Caribbean and West African. While it has been noted that many of the Jamaicans are bad and riots have occurred, there is not the density of black crime of the US inner-cities in UK. Its bad, of course, but mostly in London.

Its been theorized that US blacks interactions with macho Irish and Scottish sheepherders in the US South somehow made them more culturally worse than Africans, but this is only a theory.

Similarly, Canada has also always had Afro-Caribbean crime. Haitians and Jamaicans brought pimping and AIDS to Canada.

It was not actually the small number of US blacks who immigrated to Canada who brought the scourges of pimping and crime but actually the Afro-Caribbeans.

Stryker knows the streets of the world. I've been on all of them.

Interestingly, Spain is a nice country. Much is made of its purported Arab influence, but it seemed like France to me. Nothing like the Cholos of Phoenix.

Anyhow, for American posters who are so unworldly that they have not been to Canada that is the rundown.

Larry Romanoff , says: Website Show Comment June 25, 2020 at 12:54 pm GMT
15.neutral says:

"When the Soviet Union ended it could fall back into various nation states, America has no such thing. This makes its collapse incredibly more dangerous . . ."

Yes, although not primarily due to the left-over nuclear missiles. There is something much more fundamental here. You touched on it, but I'm not sure how well you appreciate your insight.

The issue is this: If France dissolves, the French people are still French. If America dissolves, Americans are nothing.

[Jun 26, 2020] 'Black people don't give a damn about statues' BET founder mocks woke whites toppling monuments to assuage racial guilt

So why saying generally right things about toppling of statures this billionaire wants reparations. As any billionaire is a potential criminal who obtained his wealth at the expense of common people what share of his wealth he will contribute?
And slavery in the USA was not the unique exception in the world in XIX century. Arab countries get rid of slavery only in XX century and no completely. It was reinstalled in Libya recently thanks to the USA topping of the regime of Colonel Gaddafi .
Jun 26, 2020 | www.rt.com
It's not going to give a kid whose parents can't afford college, money to go to college. It's not going to close the labor gap and it's not going to take people off welfare or food stamps ."

It's tantamount to rearranging deck chairs on a racial Titanic. It absolutely means nothing.

Also on rt.com If black lives matter, then why are African leaders with a different take on Covid-19 being taunted?

Johnson took a similarly dim view of removing shows like " The Dukes of Hazzard " or films like " Gone with the Wind " from circulation and firing professors for saying " all lives matter " instead of " black lives matter ," suggesting these moves are " an attempt by white Americans to assuage guilt by doing things that make them feel good " and don't help black people at all.

" Black people laugh at white people who do this ," the BET founder said, pointing out that black viewers likely made up a significant portion of the viewing audiences of the canceled shows because " they watch more TV ."

Calling performative apologetics from white celebrities on social media " the silliest expression of white privilege that exists in this country ," Johnson suggested privileged white people instead ask black people what they want and listen to their responses. " Embrace being white and do the right thing, and then you don't have to worry about being sad because you're white! "

" White Americans seem to think that if they just do sort of emotionally or drastic things that black people are going to say 'Oh my god, white people love us because they took down a statue of Stonewall Jackson' ," Johnson said before repurposing a famous quote from the now-verboten Gone with the Wind: " Frankly, black people don't give a damn. "

Also on rt.com Call for $14 trillion in slavery reparations while riots rage in US is extortion, not justice

Johnson, who became America's first black billionaire in 2001, has plenty of ideas about what black people want. He recently called for a $14 trillion reparations package for descendants of slaves, which works out to about $358,000 for every black American, and believes such a massive financial boost – not self-flagellating demonstrations from privileged white people – is what most black people would like to see emerge from the current climate of racial reckoning.

" Now is the time to go big ," he declared earlier this month, floating the massive number as protests and riots raged across the US following the police killing of George Floyd. But while a few of the Democratic presidential candidates had paid lip service to making reparations part of their platforms early in the race, presumptive nominee Joe Biden has not climbed aboard that bandwagon – yet.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[Jun 25, 2020] Smashing Culture by Linh Dinh

Jun 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

At the start of French Revolution, Bertrand Barère declared, "The revolutions of a barbarous people destroy all monuments, and the very trace of the arts seems to be effaced. The revolutions of an enlightened people conserve the fine arts, and embellish them [ ]"

Soon after, though, thousands of French statues were wrecked, and many heads tumbled into baskets. Barère, "The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants." The Anacreon of the Guillotine was lucky to escape with his own noggin.

Again, the defeated must watch impotently as their heroes are decapitated or come crashing down. At least they still have their own necks, for the moment, at least.

Washington, Jefferson, Grant and Francis Scott Key have been toppled, and even a likeness of Cervantes had red paint splashed on its eyes. "BASTARD" was scrawled on its pedestal. The woke vandal didn't know that here was no conquistador or slave owner, but a slave of five years, not to mention a seminal writer in the Western canon.

Ah, but "seminal," "Western" and "canon" are evil words now, you see, so maybe he did know, for this is, at bottom, an assault on every pillar, brick, cornice and baseboard of Western civilization. Burn it all down, for it is uniquely racist, sexist, genocidal and transphobic. I mean, for thousands of years, evil whites absolutely resisted the installation of all-gender shit holes.

Shut up already, and listen to Susan Sontag, "If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far . The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al, don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone -- its ideologies and inventions -- which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."

Later, Sontag regretted offending cancer patients with her poor choice of metaphor.

It's essential that we be exorcised from "dead white men." I remember when this idiotic term started to circulate. I had just dropped out of art school. While drinking Rolling Rock in smoky McGlinchey's in Philadelphia, I told another art fag that he should know his art history, for how can you do anything if you have no idea what's been achieved? Leering, this cipher smugly growled, "They're just dead white men, man!"

In 2015, I taught for a semester at Leipzig University, so nearly each day, I'd walk by a hideous building that crudely approximated the destroyed Paulinerkirche. Built in 1231, this church survived all the vicissitudes, upheavals and wars down the centuries, only to be dynamited by Communists in 1968. So what if Martin Luther had officiated there, and Bach was a musical director? Of course, its rich history only made it more delicious to blow up, for iconoclasm is the orgasm of "progressives," and that's why I've never identified as one.

There's one Leipzig neighborhood, Connewitz, that's famous across Germany as the center of progressive politics, most notably the antifa movement, and guess what? It is thoroughly defaced with graffiti that are often anti-cop or anti-Germany . During clashes with police that Connewitzers instigate, shop windows are gleefully broken not just at multinationals, but mom-and-pops, because, you know, once you go berserk, it's hard to stop. Reflecting on this in 2015, I knew it would only escalate and spread beyond Germany, and it has. Seeing photos of Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, I immediately thought of Connewitz .

When I wrote recently about the need for liberated zones, I meant, first of, the defense of your own communities, as happened in Philadelphia's Fishtown and Italian Market, where locals banded together to block an invasion of vandals and looters.

Here in South Korea, local monuments and mores are safe. Here in Busan, there's a huge statue honoring General Jeong Bal, who was killed by Japanese invaders in 1592. Losing with dignity is worthy of remembrance, though some contend he actually ran away. Historical debates are healthy.

More interesting to me are five sculptures of war refugees by Lee Hyun-woo, near the 40-Step Stairway. It was a shanty town during the Korean War, when Busan was a temporary capital after Seoul was overrun by Chinese and North Korean troops.

Depicted without hokiness, these are admirably realistic figures of a mother breastfeeding her baby while her naked son stood by, crying; two girls carrying water , one with a shoulder pole and the other with a jar on her head; two boys covering their ears as a man makes popcorn with a bomb-like contraption; a fedora-wearing accordionist , sitting on a bench; and two exhausted porters at rest . As public sculptures, they're perfect, for they're gracefully inserted into the environment as they dignify local history. Informative and fortifying, these bronze ghosts mingle with contemporary Koreans.

Across a Japanese-built bridge not far away, there's a statue of Hyeon In . You can sit on a stone bench next to the smiling, suited singer, and hear his songs eternally broadcast from a bible-sized speaker.

In 1949, he made every man, woman, child and dog sob with his rendition of "Seoul's Night Music." "Walking through Chungmuro under a spring rain / Tears flowing down the window panes." Oh, stop, stop! You're murdering me! I can't take it! A true legend.

As a refugee in Busan, Hyeon In wrote "Be Strong, Guem-soon." It's a message to his sister to stay strong until they meet again.

ORDER IT NOW

There is a street dedicated to the painter Lee Jung-soeb . He's known for gestural paintings of bulls, and playful drawings of boys hugging fish and crabs pinching penises . Educated in Tokyo, his brief career started just after World War II and lasted through the Korean War.

Living all over, he starved, suffered from schizophrenia, drank too much and died in 1956 of hepatitis, at age 40 and alone, in a Red Cross Hospital. His wife and kids had been sent to Tokyo to escape the fighting. Although peripheral to art history, Jung-soeb matters to Koreans, and that's enough. Meaning is local , above all.

Honoring their own culture and history, South Koreans also appreciate the finest from elsewhere. There are upcoming concerts of Saint Saen , Brahms, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams .

Rather bizarrely, Jin Ramen has a Joan Miro edition, and this made no sense to me until I noticed the Miroesque zigzags, wiggly lines and goofy shapes floating on its bright yellow packaging .

At Seomyeon Subway Station, there are reproductions of Ingres , Picasso , Modigliani , Manet , Caravaggio , Renoir , Turner, van Gogh, Monet, Canaletto and Goya . On an outside wall of a press die factory in Gamjeon-dong, a rather dreary neighborhood, there are reproductions of van Gogh , Magritte , Picasso , Mondrian and Lee Jung-seob , complete with labels to educate viewers.

The objective is not to present convincing facsimiles of great paintings, but merely to pique interest for further investigation. It's similar to a street being named after a writer, painter, composer or scientist, as happens quite routinely in Paris, for example, but almost never seen in America, a country with a long, aggressive streak of anti-intellectualism.

We're no longer talking about joe sixpacks sneering at pretentious bullshit, however. Thanks to Howard Stern, Jerry Springer, Rush Limbaugh, Honey Boo Boo, gangsta rap and antifa, etc., there is now a pandemic of cocksure loutishness, with frequent eruptions into violent barbarism. Ironically, the most militant driver of American anti-intellectualism is the academy, for nowhere else has thinking ceased more completely.

If we're in a revolution, it's one of enlightened barbarism, or woke savagery, carefully engineered down the decades. Yo massas enjoy the spectacle of y'all clawing at each other.

At Unz, there is a recent article by the Nation of Islam Research Group, "How Farrakhan Solved the Crime and Drug Problem And How the Jews Attacked Him ." Whatever its flaws or biases, it is a fascinating expose of how Jews sabotaged an effort of blacks to help themselves. Immediately, I thought of the Jewish campaign against Craig Nelse n, who, against all odds, is desperately trying to save the most troubled, and even suicidal, white youths.

Connect the dots, people, before it's too late.

Linh Dinh's latest book is Postcards from the End of America . He maintains a regularly updated photo blog .

ruralguy , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT

Ordinary people don't have any extraordinary vision, yet they shape the nation with their votes. They see the world with a jumble of inane emotional thought. The arts, sciences and philosophy mean nothing to them. Their thoughts are adrift in emotional nonsense, like our nation.

[Jun 25, 2020] BET Founder Says Black People Laugh At White People Toppling Statues

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... He pointed out that knocking over a statue will not "close the wealth gap," "give a kid whose parent's can't afford a college money to go to college," "close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid" or "take people off welfare or food stamps." ..."
"... Johnson said that whites who seek to "assuage guilt by doing things that make them feel good" would be much more reluctant to support payments for blacks. ..."
"... Referring to actions such as "changing names, toppling statues, [and] firing professors because they said all lives matter," Johnson explained that "it just shows to me that white America is continually ... incapable of recognizing that black people have their own ideas and thought about what's in their best interests." ..."
"... "Give us the belief that you respect our opinion. You go out and do something and destroy something, fire somebody because you think it hurts us. Why don't you ask us first if it hurts us before you go and say 'Oh, I gotta do something for the negroes to make them feel better.' Well ask us if we want you to do that to make us feel better," he said. ..."
"... Johnson likened white people's actions attempting to make black people "feel good" to "rearranging the deck chairs on a racial Titanic. It absolutely means nothing," he said. ..."
Jun 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Alex Nitzberg via JustTheNews.com,

BET founder Robert Johnson during a Wednesday interview with Fox News described people toppling statues as "borderline anarchists" and pushed back against the idea that black people support such behavior, suggesting instead that they "laugh" at those who knock down the statues.

"You know black people, in my opinion, black people laugh at white people who do this, the same way we laugh at white people who say we got to take off the TV shows," he said mentioning the "Dukes of Hazard," a decades-old television program that has come under fire for featuring a car emblazoned with a Confederate flag graphic.

He pointed out that knocking over a statue will not "close the wealth gap," "give a kid whose parent's can't afford a college money to go to college," "close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid" or "take people off welfare or food stamps."

Johnson said that whites who seek to "assuage guilt by doing things that make them feel good" would be much more reluctant to support payments for blacks.

Referring to actions such as "changing names, toppling statues, [and] firing professors because they said all lives matter," Johnson explained that "it just shows to me that white America is continually ... incapable of recognizing that black people have their own ideas and thought about what's in their best interests."

https://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=6167003994001

He suggested that black people should be consulted before people take actions like tearing down statues or firing someone for a comment they have made.

"Give us the belief that you respect our opinion. You go out and do something and destroy something, fire somebody because you think it hurts us. Why don't you ask us first if it hurts us before you go and say 'Oh, I gotta do something for the negroes to make them feel better.' Well ask us if we want you to do that to make us feel better," he said.

Johnson likened white people's actions attempting to make black people "feel good" to "rearranging the deck chairs on a racial Titanic. It absolutely means nothing," he said.

Johnson's comments come as debates rage across the country in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd -- in some cases protestors have defaced and toppled statues. President Trump has come out against changing the names of military installations named after Confederate leaders.

[Jun 23, 2020] Monumental Error Washington DC Mob Attacks Andrew Jackson by Jacob Heilbrunn

Jun 23, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

The police may manage to keep Jackson intact for now, but Lafayette Park and its immediate environs are in the hands of the protesters.

by Jacob Heilbrunn Follow JacobHeilbrunn on Twitter L ,

[Jun 23, 2020] Iconoclasm and Race Wars by Micah Mattix

Actually both nationalists and BLM are noted fighters with icons of the past. Especially during "color revolutions"
They want their own version of history and can't accept any alternatives. That confirm the saying that that history is the future overturned into the past.
Notable quotes:
"... And all over Britain, statues of forgotten politicians, merchants, generals, and admirals (and now the blue plaques that commemorate them) are being investigated, to see if they in some way celebrate a wicked past. Even the looming sculpture of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square has been first scrawled on by protestors (who also defaced a nearby monument to Abraham Lincoln) and then hidden in a box by Greater London's feeble authorities ..."
"... This is a good indication of the state of modern Britain, teetering on the edge of a cultural revolution so severe that its greatest modern figure has lost his power as a unifying force and memory ..."
"... IdPol is tolerated and even promoted because it does not make any substantive changes. It does not affect economic relations, much less take money out of rich people's pockets. ..."
Jun 19, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Pulling statues down or calling for the removal of "problematic" portraits isn't motivated by a desire to forget the past, Michel Foucault argued. It is a way of returning to it and reigniting its conflicts . Blake Smith in The Washington Examiner : "

What we are in the habit of calling 'identity politics,' and particularly political movements based on (somewhat contradictory) appeals to racial solidarity and anti-racism, depend on a 'certain way of making historical knowledge work within political struggle.' So argued Foucault in Society Must Be Defended , a 1976 book based on a lecture series about 'political historicism.'

Many on the American Right hold Foucault, along with his French postmodernist contemporaries, partly responsible for the emergence of identity politics. It would be more accurate to say that Foucault was one of the first, and sharpest, analysts of the way identity-based political movements appeal to history and ignite what he called 'race war.' . . .

Hiding their crimes with myths, the oppressors have made the oppressed forget who they are and what they have suffered. But the signs of that historical violence are all around us -- in statues, place names, and everyday language. Purging the culture of these signs is not so much an ethical demand that the past conform to present values as it is a way of plunging the present back into past conflicts, which the oppressed now stand a chance of winning."

Peter Hitchens makes a similar point in a short piece on iconoclasm in England in First Things :

"It is the Rhodes statue that is controversial. But this is no longer really about Rhodes. In the last few days it has been under police guard. Not long ago a large demonstration, wholly ignoring supposed rules about avoiding viral infection, gathered beneath it while shouting about decolonization, as if Britain still had an empire. Perhaps they wish it was so. People need enemies, and dismantled empires are nothing like as good for this purpose as living, breathing ones . . .

And all over Britain, statues of forgotten politicians, merchants, generals, and admirals (and now the blue plaques that commemorate them) are being investigated, to see if they in some way celebrate a wicked past. Even the looming sculpture of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square has been first scrawled on by protestors (who also defaced a nearby monument to Abraham Lincoln) and then hidden in a box by Greater London's feeble authorities .

This is a good indication of the state of modern Britain, teetering on the edge of a cultural revolution so severe that its greatest modern figure has lost his power as a unifying force and memory ."


joeo 4 days ago

I assume Napoleon is still safe? The French seem to be able to hold it togeather.
York joeo 4 days ago
I don't know about France, but here it seems to be about normalizing a new process. Gangs of thugs are being allowed and even encouraged to go into certain neighborhoods to intimidate and attack those who live there, to break, burn, and deface other people's property with impunity.

It combines Orwell's "two minute hate" with the kind of behavior we condemned when it was done by the Ku Klux Klan.

Feral Finster 4 days ago • edited
If renaming parks and boulevards and appointing blue ribbon commissions were enough to fix anything, you'd think that everything would be fixed by now.

IdPol is tolerated and even promoted because it does not make any substantive changes. It does not affect economic relations, much less take money out of rich people's pockets.

cka2nd Feral Finster 4 days ago
So many movements get sidetracked by purely symbolic actions on the one hand - "Let's rename every avenue in Harlem, and 125th Street, too!" (the black New York city councilman behind those resolutions was a joke in the local black activist community) - and corporate and elite funding whitewashed through foundations and NGO's on the other. In the 70's, affirmative action was used to build up and buy off the black middle class while working class jobs for blacks were gradually disappearing, and today it's Diversity, Inc. jobs.
Feral Finster cka2nd 4 days ago
From something that I wrote elsewhere:

The Establishment is very good at buying off some, co-opting others, assassinating a few, and marginalizing the rest, or at least waiting for them to get tired of kicking against the pricks. Judging from its track record at surviving this long, the Establishment also is very good at figuring out who gets which treatment.

Its how the activists of the Civil Rights Movement, many of whom once did genuinely brave, even heroic things, were gradually co-opted into corrupt operators of political machines. It's how fire-eating campus radicals were neutered into tenure-seekers and meek supporters of "changing the system from within".

For that matter, the history of the Tea Party is also instructive.

Connecticut

Connecticut Farmer Feral Finster 3 days ago • edited

Hey, this is America. Not Europe. In Europe at least it's about "ideas". In America it's about------------MONEY!! And celebrity.

Only in America can a race hustler/shakedown artist (and part time FBI informant) like Al Sharpton get a permanent gig on a major so-called "news network?" Only in America can a real estate developer and "reality TV host" become president. Not that the office means anything anymore (except to the Chattering Class) but, that's another story.

=marco01= Connecticut Farmer 2 days ago
Oh right, Sharpton and nearly all black people are 'race hustling' when they talk about the racial injustice they suffer.

I'm sure you would know, being a white guy and all.

Rob G =marco01= 2 days ago
Probably not a great idea to have "Sharpton" and "nearly all black people" as the compound subject in a sentence.
Rkramden66 Connecticut Farmer 2 days ago
Sharpton?! LOL. I thought you were talking about Trump!
Adriana Pena 4 days ago
HE explained it better. And was funnier Play Hide
Spacious Skies =marco01= a day ago
"Do Germans honor their ancestors who fought for the cause of the Nazis. No, they do not."

Where do you get "Nazis" from? Confederates weren't "Nazis".

Most of these statues are of Americans who saw more service in the US Army than the Confederate one. Most weren't fighting to preserve slavery. The typical southern soldier didn't even own any slaves. They were fighting an invasion, they did it bravely and honorably. We're proud of them, and we built statues to their memories, in part as proxies for the hundreds of thousands of southern soldiers and others who died during the worst war in our history.

Rod Dreher Moderator Spacious Skies a day ago
Every Christmas Eve, I light a candle on the grave of my grandmother's grandfather, who fought for the Confederacy in the Battle of Port Hudson, and elsewhere. He owned no slaves. He was fighting an invasion, as you say. I am glad that the South lost, because their cause was unjust. But I honor the bravery of my ancestor.
Victor_the_thinker Rod Dreher 18 hours ago
What you do on Christmas Eve is your own business. That’s not the same as a monument to stonewall Jackson erected in 1921 during the raise of the KKK or monuments erected in the 50’s. Clearly lots of people who are southerners don’t like those statues, particularly all those black people. They never liked them and wouldn’t have agreed to erecting them if they had a say at the time of construction. Many of these statues are now in majority black cities like the ones taken down in New Orleans. Those black people are under no obligation to honor any confederate in the public spaces they occupy. From what I’ve read, it sound like they always viewed it as a slap in the face.
PeteZilla Rod Dreher 12 hours ago
That’s fine to do so personally. But these objects in public and in government institutions is not necessary or something we should inspire.
Allington 2 days ago
"Race war" is a misnomer. Yes, there are plenty of black people in some of the mobs, but regarding "iconoclasm", the videos of the monument vandals show mostly what look like rich, overweight white kids from Scarsdale or the Upper West Side, probably using mommy's credit card to fund their window-smashing, statue-toppling, and building-burning expeditions. The toll of their destruction and violence is terrible, but I can't believe it's really that hard to catch and imprison them.

Why are they still running amok? When will the authorities act to protect and defend the people and property of their cities and states?

hooly a day ago
The people who are angry about the pulling down and desecration of Confederate statues are the same people who cheered when statues of Lenin and other Soviet dignitaries were pulled down and desecrated when the USSR fell or when statues of Saddam Hussein fell during the Iraq War II. Hypocritical much??

[Jun 18, 2020] 'Don't open, racist inside' Doctored photo of boarded-up Churchill statue shocks users online as outrage over vandalism grows

Notable quotes:
"... Some argued that complex historical figures require an honest judgment. "History is grey and while we should be thankful for Churchill's leadership during WW2 – he was far from perfect, and to many downright awful," ..."
Jun 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

People were left "speechless" after a photoshopped image of a statue of British wartime leader Winston Churchill emerged online. The monument was vandalized during protests against racism and police brutality last week. The statue outside the British Parliament building was boarded up for protection against vandalism. Now an image has been circulating on social media showing the words "Don't open, racist inside" written on the boards covering the monument.

Churchill's statue today in London. I'm speechless. pic.twitter.com/sw49kUFjsh

-- You're not meant to think the statue thing is real (@rdouglasjohnson) June 12, 2020

While commenters online were quick to point out that the phrase was digitally added to the original photo, there has been growing outrage over the treatment of the statue by protesters. While some view Churchill as a symbol of colonialism, many regard him as one of the greatest British statesmen, who led the nation to victory in WWII. "I'm speechless," one Twitter user said, commenting on the photoshopped image. "This man is one of the reasons Britain and most of Europe didn't end up under Nazi control, and this is how y'all thank him," another wrote .

Some argued that complex historical figures require an honest judgment. "History is grey and while we should be thankful for Churchill's leadership during WW2 – he was far from perfect, and to many downright awful," a person wrote online.

Officials also defended the statue. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that boarding it up was "absurd and shameful," while Home Secretary Priti Patel called for the coverings to be removed. "We should free Churchill, a hero of our nation, who fought against fascism and racism in this country and Europe," she said.

...

[Jun 16, 2020] Woke Mobs Now Destroying Statues Of Leading Anti-Slavery Figures

Jun 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Police in various American cities especially on the East and West coasts have stood down while fanatical mobs of leftists unilaterally determine which public monuments and statues should be toppled, destroyed, and in some cases beheaded -- as in the recent "beheading" of a Christopher Columbus statue at a public park in Boston .

It didn't take long for the woke mobs to target statues of the founding fathers and American Constitutional framers in the past days.

In Portland over the weekend , a large bronze Thomas Jefferson statue that was a central feature of Jefferson High School campus was pulled down after Black Lives Matter protests there.

Like others across the nation, the Jefferson statue was further defaced with the words "slave owner" and "George Floyd" spray-painted across the base.

Via local affiliate news station OPB: "A local hip hop artist named Spazz sits on the Thomas Jefferson statue that was torn down from its pedestal at Jefferson High School in Northeast Portland."

But given that increasingly even Abraham Lincoln statues are being targeted, it reveals that neither the Confederacy nor early colonial and American slaveholders are the targets, but all symbols of US history itself.

As The Federalist astutely observes :

They make no distinction between Confederate and Union, abolitionist and pro-slavery, 15th-century figures and 20th. They don't care when a monument was erected, who built it, or why. They have not come to debate or persuade their fellow citizens to relocate these statues to museums or private property. They believe the debate is over and that they have won.

Their target is not the Confederacy. It is the United States. They mean to destroy symbols of American history writ large, because to them all of American history is racist and genocidal. Their goal is not to cleanse a nation they love of monuments to Confederate traitors who tried to secede, but to cleanse their consciences of ever having loved such an evil and irredeemably racist country in the first place.

Ian Miles Cheong ✔ @stillgray

Rioters in Philly deface a statue of Matthias Baldwin, an early abolitionist who fought against slavery 30 years before it ended.

Even leading abolitionist figures from history are targeted , astoundingly :

That is why you see mobs defacing statues of abolitionists like Matthias Baldwin and Union war heroes like Adm. David Farragut and Gen. George Thomas. That is why the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution in Philadelphia was vandalized this past weekend with the words "committed genocide." That is why statues of Christopher Columbus were torn down or beheaded in three cities last week.

JamesHeartfield @JamesHeartfield

# BLM protestors vandalised the Shaw memorial - that commemorates the all-black battalion that fought for abolition in the American Civil War

195 4:16 AM - Jun 12, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy

Simply put, it now appears any white male historical figure is now "tainted" with a "racist" and "genocidal" legacy, no matter the historical record.

As another case in point from this past weekend:

ELIJAH SCHAFFER ✔ @ElijahSchaffer

BLM protestors vandalized a statue of John Greenleaf in Whittier, CA

A prominent Quaker abolitionist

Known for his anti-slavery writings

20K 5:32 PM - Jun 14, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy

A "peaceful" protest took place at Central Park in Whittier on Sunday, or so we are told. It appears that initially the statue was safe, but by the end of it the Quaker abolitionist considered key in the 19th century movement for equal rights wasn't spared by the 'woke' mob.

John Greenleaf, whose statue now sits damaged and vandalized, including with the spray-painted letters "BLM", was among the most prominent literary voices leading the fight to end slavery even decades before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 .

If even memorials to famous abolitionists won't be spared, what will?

* * *

Many commentators have noticed that the statue-destroying leftist mobs in both the US and UK have something in common with a certain Mideast terror group...

Before and after : the 6th century Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban using dynamite in 2001.

Someone Else , 16 minutes ago

The President has always been a respected figurehead no matter who he was. There were many times in my 62 years that the guy I didn't support became President. But he WAS President. And he was treated with respect and dignity.

You can't look at a newspaper today without seeing a headline like "President Lies About Russia". "Fact Checkers" call him a liar in real time before he can even finish a speech. The press openly mocks him and holds him in contempt on every issue. It seems that the only "media outlet" that universally endorses the President is fringical "Info Wars" and for it they are banned from Facebook and Twitter.

If we can't show our current elected President the respect he deserves for simply BEING our elected President - why are we surprised to discover people attack statues?

Refuse-Resist , 7 minutes ago

He may be one of the only Americans in the entire edifice.

stuvian , 22 minutes ago

peak stupidity has arrived

Someone Else , 34 minutes ago

The mistake is in thinking that these riots are principled. This is not about slavery. This is about destroying stuff. They don't want reparations out of a sense of fairness. They want reparations out of a sense of monetary gain, whatever the reason. They don't attack Apple stores and Nike stores to strike out against evil corporatists. They do it because they want free shoes, apparel and Mac Book Pros.

The poor want to destroy the rich and to take their stuff. Don't look for anything noble or righteous there. It doesn't exist.

Goodsport 1945 , 1 hour ago

This is not a movement about slavery or oppression. The intent is to destroy our nation. There will never be a one world government until living standards in the US are brought down to that of the rest of the world.

The Globalists, Liberals, Socialists and Communists who fund, encourage and protect these criminals have become the biggest threat to our freedom since the War of Independence.

Someday this will all become apparent to the majority, but by then it might be too late to avoid a civil war.

Refuse-Resist , 1 hour ago

YES. We must stand together for our children and grandchildren. Failure to do so will end them up in a North American version of South Africa.

iadr , 1 hour ago

IDK. Statues have always seemed kind of icky to me. They purport to honor the ideas/ideals of someone, but I can't see how that's true. It requires an absurd and patently obviously immature association with the corporal form of someone to represent their ideas. It was, and is, a dumb idea.

But I don't think more than a few percent of "activists" currently can reason in the way of this analysis, or even have the self knowledge to discern where their hate of power symbols arises from (an incredibly complex topic).

So there are statues and they are up. I'd leave them up, but I'm not really tied to the idea by more than the thinnest thread.

If we "win" in the long term.... do we, in 50 years leave up the statue of Rev Al Sharpton? do we leave up a statue of some cross dressing idiot because it means something to some people? Do we leave up a statue of some defender/symbol of financialization- a Ray Dalio or a Ken Griffin? Someone who represents the concentration and corruption of power in the .1% in this era?, or another era (eg. Rockefeller)?

Of current statuary, I know enough philosophy/sociology/history/ethics to rank by worthiness - in my value system , of long term defence. Conversely I see how many of the "famous" of the past are simply sociopaths who got lucky, who spotted their era's version of a cheat code .

I think the reactionary articles on the statue topic are way beneath the standard we have here at ZH, and are tabloidish.

I think the vandals should stop, yes. And that they are shallower *by far* than the people who put up the statues, but also and lastly: that maybe there's a third way besides prostrating one's self in defence of some flawed character from a wholly different era.

ItsAllBollocks , 1 hour ago

They're not destroying your statues, they're destroying your history. The crazy part is you're letting them. The question is, why?

Scipio Africanuz , 3 hours ago

As averred, there'll always be saboteurs and provocateurs amongst any mass protest, it's a feature, not a bug and why? To discredit the peaceful protesters is why.. In this case however, you have sabotage and provocation combined with illiteracy to create a volatile mix.. It's easy to observe that vandalizing anti-slavery advocates, is either illiteracy, sabotage, or provocation..

The interesting thing however, is the energetic attempts to tar all the protesters as anti-white or anyi-America..

What's going on, are attempts by political forces to discredit the grievances of legitimate protesters, and it's quite transparent too..

Unfortunately, since quite a lot of Americans no longer engage in critical thinking, they'll fail to ask the obvious questions such as who benefits from vandalizing anti-slavery monuments..

Or even that of Jefferson, from whom protesters draw the legitimacy of their protests..

Anyhow, the folks sowing the chaos on both sides, are going down hard, they've passed their best before dates of utility..

Now, they're simply parasites..

Cheers...

Sick Monkey , 3 hours ago

This is why we need law enforcement. Cull the parasites. We do it with predators when their numbers climb and start attacking innocents. The alternative is chaos. Can't invest in a society that lets predators roam free.

djez , 2 hours ago

"Unfortunately, since quite a lot of Americans no longer engage in critical thinking, they'll fail to ask the obvious questions such as who benefits from vandalizing anti-slavery monuments.."

Well said. I have just been explaining the meaning of critical thinking to my 13 year old daughter and recommended she apply it the next time one of her teachers raises the BLM subject, rather than going along with what she is being told that racism is a huge problem. It's not. We just had a black president. The issue is not racism, it's the image that social media has developed that everybody else is having a great time and long loads of assets. You sit there reading all day that everybody else has a "lovely lunch with the girls" and dripping in Cartier or "rolling with my bitches in my Mercedes" and you will crack up at why your life is so $hit.

So I say again, if they read books instead of Facebook the world would be a better place.

[Jun 16, 2020] Tearing down statues = book burning; statue s meaning can change with time and right now these statues are increasingly being targeted because they are tied to ethnic enemies of the core of these protests

Jun 16, 2020 | www.unz.com

Altai_2 , says: Show Comment June 12, 2020 at 10:33 pm GMT

I have to disagree. Small minorities taking it upon themselves to topple and destroy statues is not democracy. You may conflate the image of the toppled statue with a popular revolt but that is because we've never seen as disarmed and atomised population as we have reached now who have as yet not begun a backlash against the unending mission creep we see in this movement.

In some cases, like in towns and cities that have developed significant black majority populations, the removal of confederate monuments that was blocked by the state from happening democratically may have a case.

But the statues in Britain and elsewhere in Europe are often much older in general and not controversial. They are often prominent parts of the public space that are well-loved. A statue's meaning can change with time and right now these statues are increasingly being targeted not because they irredeemably cause offense but because they are tied to ethnic enemies of the core of these protests.

The Columbus statues are a good example. The one in Virginia was initially opposed in 1925 by Virginians of old stock Anglo settler ancestry and prominently by a politician who turned out to be tied to the KKK, causing the situation to become a national one in the US leading to pressure that lead to the statue being erected. To all parties involved this wasn't really a statue of Columbus, it was an ethnic totem. Almost 100 years later and the context of the statue being an ethnic totem for Italian-Americans is not visible to the protestors, to them it's a totem of white America and European colonisation. The context of the statue being originally placed as an ethnic marker in opposition with America's existing identity (A kind of activism very similar to what they're doing) was invisible to them. Who was right? Were the Anglos in the 1920s right? Were the Italian immigrants right? Were the local Native American groups right? Were the BLM protestors right?

In 1925, Frank Realmuto (a Richmond barber) organized a campaign to donate a statue of Christopher Columbus to Richmond's Monument Avenue; this campaign was supported by Richmond's approximately 1,000 Italian-American residents. In May 1925, the Richmond City Council rejected a proposal to donate land for the statue alongside Monument Avenue on the basis that Columbus was both a foreigner and a Catholic; most of the council members believed that putting Columbus near monuments to revered Confederate figures would be inappropriate. This decision was widely criticized in newspaper editorials published across the United States, especially when it came to light that an opponent of the statue who spoke at the meeting was a member of a coalition that included the Ku Klux Klan. In June 1925, a committee of the Richmond city council decided to allocate land near Byrd Park for the statue. Fundraising began in February 1926 while Ferruccio Legnaioli, an Italian immigrant to Richmond, was selected to design the statue. Ground was broken in June 1926.

For decades, members Richmond's Italian-American community gathered near the statue on the eve of Columbus Day to celebrate Columbus and their culture. During the 2010s, the statue was repeatedly vandalized; these vandalizations coincided with increased opposition to Columbus Day and efforts to recognize indigenous peoples. On June 9, 2020, the statue was torn down, spray-painted, set on fire, and thrown into a nearby lake by individuals protesting the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.

The destruction of these statues is basically a form of ethnic provocation and is not conductive to any kind of social solidarity that Johnathan supports. So far I've seen zero mentions of Palestine in all the hubbub about racism. Indeed, with all the noise about identity politics which often prominently includes Muslims and arabs and even a surprising number of people of Palestinian descent in the US, I don't see any mention of Palestinians.

Churchill wasn't a very sympathetic man, yet the statue of him isn't about that. He is a personification of WW2 and Britain. People who fully know all about his deficiencies and crimes walk past and feel fine or even a little comforted because it's not a statue celebrating those things or perhaps even really the man himself but the idea of him. And that is partly why the protestors want to destroy it. Nobody is really offended by it because nobody really thinks about those aspects of his character, not even the protestors. I fear the protestors are attacking it because of what it does represent.

But it goes further because this is centering an effective non-English perspective about the English perspective. You can't understand the notion of 'decolonisation' of London otherwise.

Ultimately the destruction of these statues feels very similar to the destruction of place names and monuments by the Israelis after 1948. All of this is the greatest bonfire of social solidarity the West has ever seen and all it will lead to more victories for oligarchy and neoliberalism. All of it will beat people down and make them hunker down.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment June 12, 2020 at 10:49 pm GMT
Just the title – tearing down statues, is the same as burning books, or burying scholars.

History is history – deal with it or STFU. Honestly, debate is about considering what has been, what is now, and what will or could be in the future. Without having signs to what has been, knowing what is now is difficult. And knowing how to forge the future, is a lost cause.

Brits built statues to Churchill – he was a genocidal, forgerist, drunk maniac. Germans built statues to Hitler – he was an aggressor, perhaps genocidal (to the Slavs). Russians built monument to Lenin – he wasn't genocidal, just indifferent to murdering some decent fraction of any people's to get his goal.

But those people, whether in understanding, or in failure of understanding, built statues to them. Both serve as lessons – either as a lesson to the power of propaganda, or herd behaviour. Even without those two, statues to moral decay shine a light on that condition.

'the fool is not the one who doesn't know, but the one that does not want to know' – someone else (if anyone knows! )

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment June 12, 2020 at 11:06 pm GMT
Now that I've read it – it is as if the author believes that only positive lessons, pats on the back, can serve as lessons to the individual or society.

In my experience however, error is what offers both progress. Or suffering – if the lesson from the error is not learnt.

Success is heady. Statues of heroes and heroes only bring pride, a deadly emotion. We must remember the faults of humanity, and what better way than through the errors of our predecessors? Christians put up statues to slavers, rapists, murderers. Is this not enough for reflection? Can't we stand around a statue of Churchil, and debate power by considering he wished to drop 10 million Anthrax bombs on Northern Germany in a drunken stupor? How would this be possible without the statues?

The author is a babe, an infant – that in shuttering his eyes with his hands, believes all the danger and evil disappears from the experience that is in front of him.

It doesn't.

Biff , says: Show Comment June 13, 2020 at 1:39 am GMT
Tearing down statues = book burning
RodW , says: Show Comment June 13, 2020 at 4:27 am GMT

It seems Bristol's political class today are little more responsive to the popular will than they were 200 years ago.

Bristol's political class today is full of minorities, including the mayor who is a negro, all of them much hated for their corruption, incompetence, and favouritism to their own minorities. Bristolians love their trees, but minorities don't seem to like leafy suburbs, so they have all the trees cut down. If they had cared a hoot about Colston's statue, they could have had it moved to a museum any time they wished.

The people who threw Colston in the docks appear to be largely white children, probably at Bristol University, which has become a cancer growing on the city, a vast and ravenous corporation buying up property using tuition fees from the wealthy ruling classes of other countries. Their act of vandalism was motivated by empty and ignorant slogans, impatience with actual democracy, and a total intolerance of opinion which differs from their own. Also by a pathetic urge to mimic what's going on in the US.

This lawlessness and its encouragement by the minority power holders will have been noted by hitherto law-abiding people. Nobody should be surprised if the next figure to go into the docks is Bristol's black mayor, accompanied by some brown councillors.

Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment June 13, 2020 at 5:14 am GMT

"Tearing Down Statues Isn't Vandalism. It's at the Heart of the Democratic Tradition"

Hey Jonathan Cook:

Sure!

Let's tear down ALL statues glossing over historical crimes & hypocrisy -- prioritizing the most notorious hagiography of all -- the ubiquitous idolatry of "Holocaust" industry shysters.

How about it, Jonathan?

Jonathan??

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 13, 2020 at 6:54 am GMT
@Beavertales I have read several claims, seemingly credible, that George Soros funds BLM and supports their violent rioting. It is also documented, rebellious Jewish sources, that the Jews collectively hate non-Jews and and are at war with, seek to subvert, the societies in which they, the Jews, live. It happened historically, e.g. the Cyrene uprising in the 2nd century AD whose largely successful objective was widespread massacres of Gentiles. There seems reason to believe organized subversions of society, BLM, LGTQXYZ and more have that connection.

We have here the current article by the Le Pen woman pointing out that permanent victimhood is behind BLM and the like. But that, being eternal victims and so eternally hating, is notoriously Jewish.

The Holocaust museums everywhere are central to that victimhood and it is not permitted to examine the truth of the Holocaust, though some have dared and say it's largely devoid of credibility.

So yes, you are right. One of the answers to the current turmoil plus the other things you mention, USS Liberty etc., is that the Holocaust museum in Washington should be stormed by Americans.

Disclaimer: I am not an American.

But the time is long overdue for fair and balanced and open and loud reaction to the eternal Jewish war against society.

[Jun 16, 2020] Appeasers are assuming that that the statue-removers will be placated. But exactly the opposite is true; they will be not placated, but rather, encouraged to escalate to the next kind of tear-down.

Jun 16, 2020 | www.unz.com

SafeNow , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:09 am GMT

Those who allow the tearing-down are projecting their own mindset of rationality and compromise onto those doing the tearing-down. They are assuming that that the statue-removers will be placated.

But exactly the opposite is true; they will be not placated, but rather, encouraged to escalate to the next kind of tear-down. Among those making the error is Mr. Trump, a dealmaker, who will think he has made a deal; that this is a "deal" situation. The statues are just the tip of the iceberg.

[Oct 20, 2017] Harvey Sweinstein and Hollywood's Hos

Notable quotes:
"... Liberalism and libertinism are intertwined. The more liberal a woman, the more libertine she'll be -- and the more she'll liberate herself to be coarse, immodest, vulgar and plain repulsive. Think of the menopausal Ashley Judd rapping lewdly about her (alleged) menstrual fluids at an anti-Trump rally. Think of all those liberal, liberated grannies adorning pussy dunce-caps on the same occasion. ..."
"... By nature, the human woman is a peacock. We like to be noticed. The conservative among us prefer the allure of modesty. The sluts among us don't. On social media, women outstrip men in the narcissistic and exhibitionist departments. In TV ads, American women, fat, thin, young and old, are grinding their bottoms, spreading their legs, showing the contours of their crotches, and dancing as though possessed (or like primates on heat), abandoning any semblance of femininity and gentility, all the while laughing like hyenas and hollering hokum like, "I Own It." ..."
"... men are punished when they react normally to women behaving badly ..."
"... So endemic is distaff degeneracy these days that "protesters" routinely disrobe or perform lewd acts with objects in public. Vladimir Putin is a great man if only for arresting a demented band of performance artists, Pussy Riot, for desecrating a Russian church. ..."
"... If men flashed for freedom; they'd be arrested, jailed and placed on the National Sex Offender Registry. ..."
"... haute couture, ..."
"... Feminism promises women empowerment. However, there is a pornographic side to the promise. There are legions of women trying to give the world a hard-on for attention, money, status, etc. When the world reacts, as in the story, they say, "Don't touch me what do you think I am?" ..."
"... What's the big difference between Weinstein and former president Bill Clinton except that one was the frickin president of the US? Clinton used his various positions throughout the years to intimidate women, from the days of using Arkansas state troopers to act as procurers for him to later using federal agencies to harass them into shutting up. His wife Hillary, the almost-president, ran interference for him in muzzling the various women who might have spilled the beans. The Clintons postured themselves as champions of women's rights even as the reality of this sleazy couple was really tawdry. Weinstein was just a studio boss with money and film roles to dispense to a never-ending line of wannabe actresses. He fits right in with the Clintons as part of the Hollywood celebrity and glitz crowd and Hillary would never have called him a "deplorable". Yet even now there's many people who are Clinton fans and supporters even as they hypocritically play this game of 'get the fat guy'. The Clintons are a hundred times worse. ..."
"... You do not need philosophy to explain a love for money. Whether the profiteering Kardashians or the profiteering Madonna (and a legion of her imitators), these women did the indecent, lewd, into-your-face pornographic performances for financial gains. They have been denigrating themselves (and other women, by association) for money. They wanted the money. By any means. ..."
"... That the US government has extolled the deeply amoral Pussy Riot scum tells a lot about the moral crisis in the US, including the unending and very expensive wars of aggression run by the country that has no money for a single-payer medical system. ..."
"... Yes, the culture today is far, far more crass and degenerate than say, in the 50s, when Leave it to Beaver played on America's TVs, and Norman Rockwell and all that. But what has happened to our culture? Has the race into the sewer been a consequence of loose women of America (England, etc..) driving the decline? Or, are the causes a more a top down affair? IOW resulting from the big-money producers and all those men who run Hollywood? ..."
"... women, as indeed many men, are given to fashions and peer pressure. If the prevailing culture is one of modesty and self-respect, the women's behavior will reflect that. The American women of the 1950s were of more or less the same stock of women as the gutter skanks Ilana rightfully laments today, but did women drive this downward trend, or did (a few) men? ..."
"... One thing that has been noticed, are the striking similarities between American culture today and that of Weimar, Germany. Weimar was notoriously corrupt, with sexual degeneracy and prostitution rampant. Berlin was described as a giant brothel, where the desperate German youth were exploited and debased. ..."
"... the relentless, drum-beating agenda to destroy Western values. To eviscerate the culture of 1950s America (with virtues like honor and temperance) once and for all, and replace it with a septic tank value system, where self-respect is replaced with self-loathing. Where dignity and femininity is replace with twerking with your tongue out. Where Hollywood starlets howl about how "nasty" they are, as if being a skank is a moral badge of feminine honor. ..."
"... I am nearly 60 years old. And jokes and stories about "hollywood casting couches" and how pretty young women got roles in productions have been around longer than I have. To me, this whole story is just filed under more "fake news". No, I don't doubt the stories. I don't doubt that harvey was not a good man. But, its all basically propaganda. Harvey supported a political opponent of the people now attacking him 24.7 all over the right-wing media, so now these stories that are older than I am are suddenly headline news and the big lead on right-wing sites all over the internet. ..."
Oct 20, 2017 | www.unz.com

I'd like to better understand the conservative media's orgy over Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced and disgraceful Hollywood film producer and studio executive who used his power over decades to have his way with starlets.

To listen to conservative talkers, the women affronted or assaulted by Weinstein were all Shakespearean talent in the making -- female clones of Richard Burton (he had no match among women) -- who made the pilgrimage to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hollywood Hills, for the purpose of realizing their talent, never knowing it was a meat market. Watching the women who make up the dual-perspective panels "discussing" the Weinstein saga, it's hard to tell conservative from liberal.

"Conservative" women now complain as bitterly as their liberal counterparts about "objectification."

However, the female form has always been revered; been the object of sexual longing, clothed and nude. The reason the female figure is so crudely objectified nowadays has a great deal to do with women themselves. By virtue of their conduct, women no longer inspire reverence as the fairer sex, and as epitomes of loveliness. For they are crasser, vainer, more eager to expose all voluntarily than any male. Except for Anthony Weiner, the name of an engorged organism indigenous to D.C., who was is in the habit of exposing himself as often as the Kardashians do.

The latter clan is a bevy of catty exhibitionists, controlled by a mercenary, ball-busting matriarch called Kris Kardashian. Kris is madam to America's First Family of Celebrity Pornographers. (To launch a career with a highly stylized, self-directed sex tape is no longer even condemned.) Lots of little girls, with parental approval, look up to the Kardashians.

From Kim, distaff America learns to couch a preoccupation with pornographic selfies in the therapeutic idiom. Kardashian flaunts her ass elephantiasis with pure self-love. Yet millions of her admirers depict her obscene posturing online as an attempt to come to terms with her body. "Be a little easier on myself," counsels Kim as she directs her camera to the nether reaches of her carefully posed, deformed derriere. While acting dirty and self-adoring, Kardashian delivers as close to a social jeremiad on self-esteem as her kind can muster. Genius!

Liberalism and libertinism are intertwined. The more liberal a woman, the more libertine she'll be -- and the more she'll liberate herself to be coarse, immodest, vulgar and plain repulsive. Think of the menopausal Ashley Judd rapping lewdly about her (alleged) menstrual fluids at an anti-Trump rally. Think of all those liberal, liberated grannies adorning pussy dunce-caps on the same occasion.

By nature, the human woman is a peacock. We like to be noticed. The conservative among us prefer the allure of modesty. The sluts among us don't. On social media, women outstrip men in the narcissistic and exhibitionist departments. In TV ads, American women, fat, thin, young and old, are grinding their bottoms, spreading their legs, showing the contours of their crotches, and dancing as though possessed (or like primates on heat), abandoning any semblance of femininity and gentility, all the while laughing like hyenas and hollering hokum like, "I Own It."

The phrase a "bum's rush" means "throw the bum out!" When it comes to Allison Williams, daughter of NBC icon Brian Williams, a bum's rush takes on new meaning. Thanks in no small measure to her famous father, the young woman has become a sitcom star. And Ms. Williams has worked extra-hard to hone all aspects of an actress's instrument (the body). Alison has carried forth enthusiastically about a groundbreaking scene dedicated to exploring "ass motorboating" or "booty-eating ," on HBO's "Girls."

The lewder, more pornographic, and less talented at their craft popular icons become -- the louder the Left lauds their artistically dodgy output. (The "Right" just keeps moving Left.) "Singer" Miley Cyrus was mocked before she began twerking tush, thrusting pelvis and twirling tongue. Only then had she arrived as an artist, in the eyes of "critics" on the Left. The power of the average pop artist and her products, Miley's included, lies in the pornography that is her "art," in her hackneyed political posturing, and in the fantastic technology that is Auto-Tune (without which all the sound you'd hear these "singers" emit would be a bedroom whisper).

Liberal women, the majority, go about seriously and studiously cultivating their degeneracy. If "Raising Skirts to Celebrate the Diversity of Vaginas" sounds foul, wait for the accompanying images. These show feral creatures (women, presumably), skirts hoisted, gobs agape, some squatting like farmhands in an outhouse, all yelling about their orifices.

Do you know of a comparable man's movement? If anything, men are punished when they react normally to women behaving badly .

Female soldiers got naked and uploaded explicit images of themselves to an online portal. The normals -- male soldiers -- shared the images and were promptly punished for so doing. And the conservative side of that ubiquitous, dueling-perspectives political panel approved of the punishment meted to the men.

So endemic is distaff degeneracy these days that "protesters" routinely disrobe or perform lewd acts with objects in public. Vladimir Putin is a great man if only for arresting a demented band of performance artists, Pussy Riot, for desecrating a Russian church.

If men flashed for freedom; they'd be arrested, jailed and placed on the National Sex Offender Registry.

Talk about the empress being in the buff, I almost forgot to attach an image of this celebrity, bare-bottomed on the red-carpet. Rose McGowan is hardly unique. Many a star will arrive at these events barely clothed. (Here are 38 more near-naked Red-Carpet appearances .)

Expect a feminist lecture about a woman's right to pretend her bare bottom is haute couture, rather than ho couture, and expecting the Harveys of the world to behave like choir boys around her. Fine.

Being British, BBC News anchors are not nearly as dour about the Harvey hysteria as the American anchors. A female presenter began a Sweinstein segment by saying men claim the coverage of the scandal is excessive; women say the opposite. "That's why we're covering it," quipped her witty male sidekick. She roared with laughter. That's my girl!

Look, Harvey is a lowlife. But Hollywood hos are not as the sanctimonious Sean Hannity portrays them: "naive, innocent young things," dreams shattered.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly paleolibertarian column since 1999, and is the author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (June, 2016) & Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011). Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/IlanaMercer .

whorefinder , Website October 20, 2017 at 12:22 am GMT

Agreed; most of those women are feigning shock at what happened. They're piling on now to prevent being called out as the prostitutes they are.
TheJester , October 20, 2017 at 3:57 am GMT
Thank you, Ilana, for pointing out the hypocrisy of women behaving like sluts who object to men reacting to them signaling the world that they are sluts. Is the real issue that actresses in Hollywood will only take off their clothes for hard cash and Harvey was not offering hard cash but only nebulous hints at future roles in his productions? This is important when surveying the careers of many of the actresses jumping on the bandwagon to destroy Harvey Weinstein. We know they have and will take off their clothes for the right price.

This is captured in the story of a man offering a woman a million dollars to go to bed with him. She agrees. Then, he changes the offer to one dollar. The woman objects! "What do you think I am a prostitute." The man answers, "We know what you are. We're negotiating the price."

Feminism promises women empowerment. However, there is a pornographic side to the promise. There are legions of women trying to give the world a hard-on for attention, money, status, etc. When the world reacts, as in the story, they say, "Don't touch me what do you think I am?"

So, it's about power and control, something dear to the hearts of feminists. "You can want me but you can't have me (until you meet my price)." Men have a word for these women. We call them "prick teasers". It is a dispute over price, and it makes men very, very angry to react to the signals and then be ridiculed for reacting to the signals.

Rurik , October 20, 2017 at 4:12 am GMT

who used his power over decades to have his way with starlets.

shiksas

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=shiksas&form=HDRSC2&first=1&cw=1263&ch=907

Kirt , October 20, 2017 at 4:15 am GMT
Your best column ever, Ilana! An instant Unz Review classic.
utu , October 20, 2017 at 5:23 am GMT
Chief deputy US Marshal 'had sex with multiple women in his office in exchange for prime parking spots outside his office'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4986958/Chief-deputy-Marshal-offered-parking-spots-sex.html#ixzz4w1TgYMes

If they do it for parking spots should anybody be surprised they do it for a movie career?

Thomm , October 20, 2017 at 5:26 am GMT
Cuckservatives are hardcore woman-worshipping feminists first and foremost. They will put aside any other objective when the prospect of groveling to women presents itself.
Dave Pinsen , Website October 20, 2017 at 5:40 am GMT
Ilana,

Miley Cyrus may have been an exhibitionist earlier in her career, but no scare quotes belong around "singer" when describing her. She can sing. See below.

unpc downunder , October 20, 2017 at 6:41 am GMT
Must as I hate a lot of liberal ideology, I would disagree with the argument that left-liberal woman are more libertine than mainstream conservative women. Social class, personality and intelligence have a much bigger bearing on female (and male) sexual behaviour than political ideology. And there is no evidence than liberal women tend to be more sexually explicit in their appearance than non-liberal women. The make up is thicker, the women are louder, and the skirts are shorter on Fox News rather than CNN.

Liberal women like Ashley Judd making vulgar comments to annoy religious conservatives doesn't really count. Playing up for the camera isn't necessarily an indication of real life behaviour.

Dan Hayes , October 20, 2017 at 6:49 am GMT
Ilana,

Thank you for saying what you said about more equitably apportioning the blame among males and females. Fortunately or unfortunately only a woman such as you can say such things in our PC world. In our unfair world this is the best that is possible and for this you deserve our thanks.

Wally , Website October 20, 2017 at 6:58 am GMT
Clueless 'feminists' ignore Muslim treatment of women while they protest for women's dignity, yet they say that Miley Cyrus is advancing women's dignity.

Women are legally stoned in Muslim countries and gays & lesbians are legally executed for being gay / lesbian in Muslim countries. And HILLARY took millions in 'donations' from those countries.

The Clearest Problem With Modern Feminism
Muslim Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), where are the 'feminists'?

http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/16/why-are-feminists-silent-after-revelations-of-female-genital-mutilation-in-the-us/

Something is deeply wrong when people show solidarity with Muslims who believe that women should be forced have their clitorises cut off.

Not Republican, but Muslim

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/462fa7ccc93ca6d52fda01faf34bd2e32010a23bad6541a8a3d971a959ae67a2.jpg?w=800&h=480

Seraphim , October 20, 2017 at 7:15 am GMT
In the grand times of Hollywood, before the War, an open secret was that all aspiring starlets had to pass through the couch of a personage known by the nickname of Ben Cinema or Kalkeinstein, (described as "horrible and more! ugly, old and dirty, lumbering and stupid, a real piece of garbage, in his person and in his surroundings a real vomiting forth from the ghetto").
History repeats itself
Simon in London , October 20, 2017 at 7:38 am GMT
Well I think there's a causality issue here. Weinstein & co pick on them when they're mostly very young; they become degenerate later. There is an element of truth, but the really obscene behaviour is a feature of established veterans.
The Alarmist , October 20, 2017 at 8:41 am GMT

"To listen to conservative talkers ."

There's your problem. Reminds me of an old joke:

Patient: Doctor, it hurts my head when I bang it against the wall!

Doctor: Have you tried not banging your head against the wall?

animalogic , October 20, 2017 at 9:42 am GMT
Great article. Also funny: "ho couture" well, I liked it.
Couple points:
Worth remembering that often Weinstein selected women with NO power/influence; ie those way beneath Kardashians etc. This is not to contest Illana's points about female celebrities exploiting their sexuality, merely to note that Weinstein really was a slithering predator.

Also worth noting that, although dreckification of female (actually, all) sexuality goes beyond simple commerce, there has been a rough parallel between unleashed Capitalism (neoliberalism) & unleashed sexuality. Of course, it's "old hat" that "sex sells" however, now increasing degrees of pornography are accepted, indeed celebrated as "liberated", artistic etc.

Illana is completly correct when she refers to the rank hypocracy re: male female sexuality. definitely "not equal" (unless male sexuality is considered under the heading of "gay" etc)

Greg Bacon , Website October 20, 2017 at 9:51 am GMT
How can Hollywood proclaim to always be for women and their rights, shouting they are at the front of protecting women when the movie factories in that town have portrayed many a lead actress as a prostitute?

This isn't something recent, women as prostitutes in films goes back decades. How can degrading women by showing them as money-craving whores be in any way defending women?

Renoman , October 20, 2017 at 10:03 am GMT
For thousands of years the terms Prostitute and Actress were interchangeable. Sure Harve is a douche bag but he's far from the only one. They knew what they were in for and were duly compensated.
Lara , October 20, 2017 at 12:53 pm GMT
It's not that hard to deflect unwanted male attention or to downplay your looks. When I hear a woman complain of sexual harassment, I suspect she is most likely a trouble maker and desperate for attention. There are likely exceptions, but this tends to be my first reaction. It's rarely the prettiest women who complain of sexual harassment.

I know plenty of liberal women who are not crude nor overtly sexual. I guess they just ignore that facet of the left.

UKUSA-1 , October 20, 2017 at 12:55 pm GMT
Weinstein has always defended and represented the Western Values .
imbroglio , October 20, 2017 at 1:04 pm GMT
When I was in grad school, there were some women grad students who exchanged sexual favors for the possibility of career advancement. Sometimes the women initiated the swap. Sometimes the more well-connected male (or female) faculty member or administrator initiated the swap. Some women (and possibly men) who were propositioned declined.

Query: If you said yes and got your payoff and if those who said no didn't get an equivalent payoff and if, by virtue of the payoff, you succeeded while those who declined the exchange didn't succeed, do you owe them anything? Morally.

Many who are posting #metoo on social media seem to feel that their membership in the victim class entitles them to receive benefits in exchange for sexual favors and then to recover, in attitudes of righteousness, the consideration they paid for those benefits: shaming, intimidating and threatening, under potential penalty of false or ambiguoous accusation, those who might seek to call them on their hypocrisy.

And let's not turn a blind eye to the feminized male enablers who seek women's approval by lauding this instance of having one's cake and eating it too.

Lest I be susceptible to laches (the legal term for clean hands that do the dirty work,) I was never tempted and, perhaps for that reason, recall the lady who died and sought admission to the pearly gates.

"May I have some evidence of your virtue," Saint Peter said as he riffled through her dossier.
"Indeed. I never succumbed to temptation," the lady proudly asserted.
"But were you ever tempted?"
"No," she said, fearing to lie to Saint Peter.
"Well, madam, if you've never been tempted, you get no credit for not having succumbed to it."

Anonymous , Disclaimer October 20, 2017 at 1:17 pm GMT
Excellent article, Ms. Mercer. And thanks for the puncture holes delivered to Conservative Inc. (Hannity etal). As to the, er, "ladies" who prowl about Hollywood and are now crying wolf, "what goes around comes around."
anonymous , Disclaimer October 20, 2017 at 1:28 pm GMT
What's the big difference between Weinstein and former president Bill Clinton except that one was the frickin president of the US? Clinton used his various positions throughout the years to intimidate women, from the days of using Arkansas state troopers to act as procurers for him to later using federal agencies to harass them into shutting up. His wife Hillary, the almost-president, ran interference for him in muzzling the various women who might have spilled the beans. The Clintons postured themselves as champions of women's rights even as the reality of this sleazy couple was really tawdry. Weinstein was just a studio boss with money and film roles to dispense to a never-ending line of wannabe actresses. He fits right in with the Clintons as part of the Hollywood celebrity and glitz crowd and Hillary would never have called him a "deplorable". Yet even now there's many people who are Clinton fans and supporters even as they hypocritically play this game of 'get the fat guy'. The Clintons are a hundred times worse.
Sergey Krieger , October 20, 2017 at 1:35 pm GMT
This is how feminine looks like. Note the class, the behavior and the voice of course. :

https://youtu.be/KzJgTb2sRxQ

Anon , Disclaimer October 20, 2017 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Malla

You do not need philosophy to explain a love for money. Whether the profiteering Kardashians or the profiteering Madonna (and a legion of her imitators), these women did the indecent, lewd, into-your-face pornographic performances for financial gains. They have been denigrating themselves (and other women, by association) for money. They wanted the money. By any means.

That the US government has extolled the deeply amoral Pussy Riot scum tells a lot about the moral crisis in the US, including the unending and very expensive wars of aggression run by the country that has no money for a single-payer medical system.

The pink pussies that demonstrated against Donald and for Hilary, used to be offended when reminded about Libyan tragedy ("we came, we saw, he died, ha, ha, ha ") and about the hundreds of thousands of human beings (including thousands and thousands children) slaughtered there on the Obama/Clinton watch. Did we have the pink pussies demonstrating against Obama's seven wars? – No. The pink pussies needed some brainwashing before suddenly going into a public activism phase with silly hats on their empty heads. Are pussy hats demonstrating against the impending wars of the US with Iran and Korea? – No. Nobody gave an order for and provided money for organizing the parades. These "progressive" female activists are ridiculous.

By the way, is Dershowitz cleared re his visits to Lolita Island where real underage victims were held for the pleasure of powerful sex predators?

ken satifka , October 20, 2017 at 2:21 pm GMT
I love reading Ilana Mercer's politically incorrect take on events and her brilliant use of language.. Seeing how far US society has descended since I was growing up in the 1960′s, I'm glad to be a married, monogamous senior citizen. We certainly had our problems then, with the Vietnam War at the top of the list, but at least the women were not covered in disgusting tattoos and man-hating feminism was still in its infancy.
c matt , October 20, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMT
I still don't get all the fuss about this. The wannabe starlets knew the price of fame and fortune (or if not, found out quickly), and were willing to pay it. It is just straight up prostitution. Seems to me the only ones with a claim are the ones who paid the price and didn't get the part.
Andrei Martyanov , Website October 20, 2017 at 2:36 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger

Sergey, you posted here an example of femininity of Senchina – a value long destroyed by feminism in the West–as opposed to sexuality, which is the fad. It is the same as comparing real love and real intimacy to raw sex, or porn. For former one needs a real woman, for the latter a slut will suffice.

gwynedd1 , October 20, 2017 at 2:43 pm GMT
The scandal, as I have portrayed it, was the leftist hypocrisy in their political attacks against Trump. All Trump did was describe a woman's nature around powerful men. They volunteer themselves. Weinstein was far more coercive and they said nothing all these years. Women were victimized by this , but not the ones we know. It was the women who didn't advance their careers by any means who were victims. Perhaps that is one reason why women do not draw so much at the box office. We do not get to enjoy the talent that got them there.
Rurik , October 20, 2017 at 2:48 pm GMT
Yes, the culture today is far, far more crass and degenerate than say, in the 50s, when Leave it to Beaver played on America's TVs, and Norman Rockwell and all that. But what has happened to our culture? Has the race into the sewer been a consequence of loose women of America (England, etc..) driving the decline? Or, are the causes a more a top down affair? IOW resulting from the big-money producers and all those men who run Hollywood?

women, as indeed many men, are given to fashions and peer pressure. If the prevailing culture is one of modesty and self-respect, the women's behavior will reflect that. The American women of the 1950s were of more or less the same stock of women as the gutter skanks Ilana rightfully laments today, but did women drive this downward trend, or did (a few) men?

One thing that has been noticed, are the striking similarities between American culture today and that of Weimar, Germany. Weimar was notoriously corrupt, with sexual degeneracy and prostitution rampant. Berlin was described as a giant brothel, where the desperate German youth were exploited and debased.

Perhaps it was the fault of those young Germans who, while likely starving from the wrath and rapine of the allies, (who deliberately looted the German economy dry). Or perhaps it was more the fault of the wealthy and powerful non-German men, who preyed on these young, often desperate women (and girls and boys). But the parallels are unmistakable.

which is why people are posting propaganda cartoons from back then, because the images are eerily familiar to what seems to be going on today, no?

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-01c658fd480082cc2e02392133d69190-c?convert_to_webp=true

how can you not think of Harvey Weinstein when you see those cartoons?

Perhaps Ilana is right, and the blame starts and ends with the women. But then I think of all those Mickey Mouse Club girls who turned into skanks,

[I won't post the pictures, but you can find them..]

and I notice that they were raised in Hollywood, like Miley Cyrus, who seemed to be groomed specifically as an all American type of innocent Hanna Montana who then morphs straight into the gutter skank we all wince at- for all those preteen American girls to emulate. Just like Madonna was a generation before.

I confess it seems to me that the skankification of America's young women is part of a deliberate agenda coming straight out of Hollywood. No?

Mark Presco , Website October 20, 2017 at 2:53 pm GMT
Women have been sexually exploiting Men for a living for 5 million years. Women's price for sex has always been that men provision them. There is nothing wrong with this. It helped shaped both human physical and cultural evolution and we might have gone extinct without it.

The thing that interests me is, why now. The casting couch has been a stereotype all of my life. Why the piling on at this time?

Andrei Martyanov , Website October 20, 2017 at 2:55 pm GMT
@c matt

I still don't get all the fuss about this.

The fuss is about glamour Hollywood whores trying to teach others non-stop what is good and right. Obviously they do all this form the supposition that prostitution is good and liberating. You know, lowest common denominator? Most of them are also dumb as fvcks and this goes not only to wo..sluts there, to the so called men too. Look at Clooneys and other Damons of that cabal. They should concentrate on doing what they allegedly do best–pretend to be other people. Most of them have no serious analytical skills to start with. Hey, at least Brad Pitt is in this just for fvcking chicks at the height of their hotness–at least it is honest.

Joe Hide , October 20, 2017 at 3:00 pm GMT
I first began to totally ignore the MSM's comments on Putin when he had the degeneracy of the "Pussy Riot" in a Russian Church forcefully stopped. It was great to see the Cossacks beat the beejebans out of those morally offensive hooligans trying to illegally impose George Soro's world view on others.
Ludwig Watzal , Website October 20, 2017 at 3:15 pm GMT
Every woman could have said No to Mr. "Sweinstein". Bros before hos are the name of the game not only in Hollywood. The hypocrites should not lament. It takes two to tango!
Wally , Website October 20, 2017 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Rurik

"I confess it seems to me that the skankification of America's young women is part of a deliberate agenda coming straight out of Hollywood. No?"

Here you go. From: 'The Spirit Of Militarism', by Nahum Goldmann. Goldmann was the founder & president of the World Jewish Congress:

"The historical mission of our world revolution is to rearrange a new culture of humanity to replace the previous social system. This conversion and re-organization of global society requires two essential steps: firstly, the destruction of the old established order, secondly, design and imposition of the new order. The first stage requires elimination of all frontier borders, nationhood and culture, public policy ethical barriers and social definitions, only then can the destroyed old system elements be replaced by the imposed system elements of our new order.

The first task of our world revolution is Destruction. All social strata and social formations created by traditional society must be annihilated, individual men and women must be uprooted from their ancestral environment, torn out of their native milieus, no tradition of any type shall be permitted to remain as sacrosanct, traditional social norms must only be viewed as a disease to be eradicated, the ruling dictum of the new order is; nothing is good so everything must be criticized and abolished, everything that was, must be gone."

Rurik , October 20, 2017 at 4:00 pm GMT
@Mark Presco

The casting couch has been a stereotype all of my life. Why the piling on at this time?

perhaps because of The Trumpening

perhaps now that Trump is in DC, there are forces at work that have bristled under the excruciatingly dishonest levels of hypocrisy coming out of the leftisphere.

accusing Trump of being disrespectful to women, as they rape women and girls wholesale, and the entire leftist power structure always looks the other way, so long as the rapist is a leftist himself, and will use his power for the leftist agenda.

so these serial predators like Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein all get a pass from the feminists and liberal, progressives, so long as they assist with The Agenda to destroy Western Civilization, (and the people who created it ; ).
As long as Bill Clinton hails the day when whites will be a minority in this country, (to the cheers of liberal college students), he can rape women all day long. He can sexually harass, as the most powerful man in the world, powerless girls in the White House, and all to a thunderous silence from the entire leftist, progressive (hypocritical / hatred-consumed) power structure. Because he works towards their agenda. [the same agenda, BTW - that destroyed S. Africa and Rhodesia]

But for a man like Trump, who seems to have raised daughters who respect themselves, and seem to conduct themselves with a certain dignity- that isn't what's important. What's important is what is always important

THE AGENDA

the relentless, drum-beating agenda to destroy Western values. To eviscerate the culture of 1950s America (with virtues like honor and temperance) once and for all, and replace it with a septic tank value system, where self-respect is replaced with self-loathing. Where dignity and femininity is replace with twerking with your tongue out. Where Hollywood starlets howl about how "nasty" they are, as if being a skank is a moral badge of feminine honor.

That's what's going on here. We're in the trenches of the cold culture war, turned hot culture war.

They wanted to destroy Trump and the deplorables with shrieking about how Trump was disrespectful to women. But now the cover of the giant septic tank known as Hollywood has been lifted off, for all the world to gasp at the slithering creatures and whiff the terrible stench.

I wonder if it's a kind of payback time for Hillary and her army of morally preening orcs, feasting on the flesh of young women, and smacking their liver lips with anticipation of the next young shiksa to walk though that hotel room door.

I only hope we get an investigation into Pizzagate next, with perhaps a nice expose' of Jeffrey Epstein's Child Rape Island, and all those liberal, progressive morally preening men who take so many trips there.

this might just be all a sign of the great Trumpening

unit472 , October 20, 2017 at 4:16 pm GMT
Let's be fair here. Women strut their 'stuff' same as men but in a different way. A man will buy a very expensive car or some other display of wealth or power to attract a female and females respond to these displays by highlighting their sexual desirability and availability. We are animals seeking mates after all and males have to demonstrate their dominance in nature before the female will mate with the male. Thus a Harvey Weinstein could no more have sex with an Ashley Judd than a derelict laying on the sidewalk absent some display of power and wealth that interested Judd.

The other side of this coin is that a woman cannot compel a man to have sex with her no matter how much money or power she has. Men do not sexually respond to a physically repulsive female and he cannot 'fake' an orgasm. This is why I do not believe in criminally prosecuting, e.g., a female school teacher for having sex with a 16 year old student. Fire her for improper conduct but jail her? Come on the boy was willing if he had sex with her!

mp , October 20, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT
It's like the old joke: Will you have sex with me for a million dollars? OK. What about one dollar? What kind of girl do you think I am? We've already established what kind of girl you are. We're just negotiating.
Chicot le Fou , October 20, 2017 at 5:20 pm GMT
Excellent piece, showcasing your good sense as always. I yield to no man in my hyper enthusiasm for the undraped female form but to cynically "launch a career with a highly stylized, self-directed sex tape" incites my scorn, not lust. I have been fed up for years when perusing the morning headlines seeing articles about the latest, most egregious examples of Hollyweird bimbos showing up at events more or less naked. I've long since ceased looking or caring; they just annoy me.

Putting all one's assets on constant public display destroys the allure and mystery that is woman and does not empower them, it makes them the "pieces of meat" that they've been screaming about for close on a century, especially for the last 50 odd years. Women have made quite the cottage industry of whining that guys don't understand them, "don't get it" but refuse to acknowledge the obverse. By tripping the lights fantastic with their fun bits exposed they appear to the primal great white shark which is the male sex drive as easily gotten chum; and like the Assyrian of old, we fall upon and devour them, in a manner of speaking. A rather old adage said "If it ain't for sale, don't advertise it". As for Harvey, the fascination of the hogs at the slop trough is that the revolting pig~man didn't just want to have sex with these women, but to have them observe his disgusting degeneracy. The Cities of the Pains had nothing on us.

Eric the Manager , October 20, 2017 at 5:54 pm GMT
I am nearly 60 years old. And jokes and stories about "hollywood casting couches" and how pretty young women got roles in productions have been around longer than I have. To me, this whole story is just filed under more "fake news". No, I don't doubt the stories. I don't doubt that harvey was not a good man. But, its all basically propaganda. Harvey supported a political opponent of the people now attacking him 24.7 all over the right-wing media, so now these stories that are older than I am are suddenly headline news and the big lead on right-wing sites all over the internet.

These stories have even bumped the stories about which NFL players should be lined up in front of a firing squad and shot for not maintain the proper posture during the sacred National Anthem here in the Land of the Free.

So, to me, this just more Fake News. Its propaganda and political attack using weaponized 'news'. And I don't care. If I had a daughter going to Hollywood, I'd give her the same warnings about scum-bags in the movie business and the casting couch that have been given out for a century now. Nothing new here.

Art , October 20, 2017 at 6:37 pm GMT
Strange -- it seems that Harvey had the only casting couch in Tinsel Town. Hollywood is wall to wall Jews – yet NO new Jew names are being exposed by all those brave women. Only Gentile names.

Hmm??? What could be going on? Stonewalling maybe – total fear absolutely! Say it isn't so.

p.s. Maybe Weinstein, Woody Allen, Polansky, and Weiner are the only sex obsessed Jews?

Anon , Disclaimer October 20, 2017 at 7:10 pm GMT
@druid

Hold your horses. Bill Clinton is Jewish?

Sean , October 20, 2017 at 7:57 pm GMT
@Art

As I understand it, movies is a very high stakes business, and you cannot get cast in a role by being alone with an obviously-horny-as-a-jackrabbit producer and submitting to sex acts or harassment. It doesn't guarantee anything, and they all knew it.

Casting happens though getting an agent, who sends you to an audition, where there are other people around and the acts performed are of an acting nature. The only professional film actor I know cited Ellen Barkin's acting as superlative. Barkin studied acting for ten years before landing her first audition.

Markus Aurelius Tarkus , October 20, 2017 at 8:10 pm GMT
I try to restrict devoting any of the precious time I have left on Earth to such matters. I made an exception for the Mercer column, which is spot on. 99% of the time, I merely see the unavoidable headlines and continue surfing for something worth the time to read or watch.

My one take-away from l'affaire Weinstein is this: I am enormously enjoying the internecine, riotous and indiscriminate feeding frenzy it has generated. Like Heinlein's Igli, the Left is consuming itself.

in the middle , October 20, 2017 at 8:30 pm GMT
@whorefinder

Their existence is only to provide sexual pleasure to these perverts, and they like it; however, when something goes wrong, they howl and cry, 'he raped me!" Reminds me when I was at a military base, and a friend of mine found his girlfriend screwing another guy, she claimed, well, rape! How appropriate. the poor guy was court martial-ed, and done with!

njguy73 , October 20, 2017 at 8:34 pm GMT
@wow

I am 1000X more attractive and in far better shape that Harvey Fatstein. Yet he has tapped far better poon than I can ever hope to tap.

You should have gone into show biz. If you're what you claim to be, you've have tapped more poon than Justin Timberlake and John Mayer combined. And it would have all been consensual, so no worry about lawsuits.

Anon , Disclaimer October 20, 2017 at 9:00 pm GMT
@Anon-og

Alden's response to you is perfectly correct. But you'd have a good point if you talked about MGM.

Ms. Mercer is not defending Weinstein but attacking the women who allowed this to go on for decades. I declare a half-hearted "boycott" against Hollywood every time something like this happens; alas, this is rendered without force by the fact that I refuse to pay modern ticket prices for what is likely utter trash anyway.

Beefcake the Mighty , October 20, 2017 at 10:17 pm GMT
I tend to assume by default that Hollywood producers (Jewish or otherwise) pressure actresses to have sex, so even if Weinstein was particularly egregious, I wonder what he really did to ignite this shit-storm. He obviously pissed off the wrong person(s).
ThreeCranes , October 20, 2017 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Sergey Krieger

Sergey, realistically, most women–especially the lumbering, low skill, know-nothing women of America–cannot possibly match the woman you put before us in the video above.

They can't measure up and they know it. So instead of dieting, exercising, taking voice lessons or even mastering humble talents like cooking and sewing they take the cowards way out and denigrate her. They will revile her as an unliberated woman who depends on male affirmation for her self esteem, an unwitting tool of the Patriarchy.

While they, themselves? They don't need to charm no stinking men. They themselves depend on their cohort of disagreeable feminists for their "self esteem".

gp , October 21, 2017 at 12:53 am GMT
"The conservative among us prefer the allure of modesty." I'm a fan of 1970s-1980s Bollywood, with its casts of heart-stoppingly beautiful women, like Hema Malini and Sridevi, who performed in modest attire, and were all the more lovely for it. I can't bear to watch today's Bollywood product, featuring writhing undressed wenches indistinguishable from western gangsta ho's. Decades ago, Indian film assimilation from western pop culture often yielded bizarre but charmingly cute mash-ups, but now they've mimicked the very worst of what we have. Or maybe now we have only cultural garbage left for them to adapt.

[Sep 05, 2017] Iconoclasm And Violence by Rod Dreher

Notable quotes:
"... Houston Chronicle ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Who Are We? The Challenges To America's National Identity. ..."
"... The New White Nationalism In America ..."
"... ABC News/Washington Post ..."
"... But it is plain that most Republicans do not believe Trump violated that taboo. ..."
Aug 22, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com

On Sunday night, Social Justice Warriors in Baltimore filmed themselves desecrating and damaging a 225-year-old monument to Christopher Columbus -- this, in the name of racial and economic justice:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iFSW0id36FA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Late last week, someone desecrated a statue of St. Junipero Serra in Mission Hills, Calif. The Franciscan priest is hated by Social Justice Warriors for his work in establishing mission churches in the 18th century.

In New Orleans earlier this summer, vandals spray-painted 'TEAR IT DOWN' on a statue of St. Joan of Arc standing in Jackson Square. Take 'Em Down NOLA is the name of the activist group that successfully brought down four of the city's statues of Confederate figures. The organization said that those opposed to taking down the statues was "the racist white capitalist establishment in New Orleans, seeking to preserve white supremacy". Now they've expanded their mission:

The group is seeking the removal of 13 statues in the city, including the equestrian monument to Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square. That monument, which commemorates Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, has been a particular target of the group because Jackson owned slaves and, as president, was responsible for violently forcing Native Americans off their land in what came to be known as the Trail of Tears.

The group also wants the city to rename dozens of streets, buildings and institutions. In all, there are more than 100 symbols it wants removed or renamed.

In Houston late last week, someone vandalized a Christopher Columbus statue . On Monday in Houston, police arrested a man on charges that he tried to plant a bomb next to a Confederate statue. Reports the Houston Chronicle :

Andrew Schneck, 25, who was released from probation early last year after being convicted in 2015 of storing explosives, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court, Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said in a statement Monday.

Schneck was arrested Saturday night after a Houston park ranger spotted him kneeling in bushes in front of the Dowling monument in the park, Martinez said.

When confronted Saturday night in the park, he tried to drink some of the liquid explosives but spit it out, officials said.

The ranger then asked if he planned to harm the statue, and he said he did because he did not "like that guy," according to a sworn statement submitted in federal court by an FBI agent investigating the case.

More NFL players are taking a knee instead of standing for the National Anthem, because racism. At USC, some black students and woke fellow, um, travelers are damning the name of the school's mascot, a white horse named Traveler, because it shares a name as Gen. Robert E. Lee's mount. For that matter, according to an op-ed contributor for The New York Times, enjoying college football at all is probably racist:

This attachment is less surprising when we consider that sports fans typically use their fandom as a means of telling themselves who they are. Sports fandom has become, to borrow a term from the philosopher Michel Foucault, a practice of subjectivization -- a phenomenon in which individuals subject themselves to a set of behavioral regulations, and by doing so, acquire a sense of their own identities.

Just as a practicing Christian may create and obtain new forms of self-knowledge through confession, prayer and the observance of Lent, a sports fan can come to understand himself as a particular sort of person -- a Southerner, for example, or a "real man" -- by adhering to certain rituals, like reading the sports page and watching ESPN every day to gather more and more knowledge about his team, by talking with other fans about that team in the right ways (and proving that he knows more than them), by learning and participating in the songs, chants, dress, tailgate rituals, game-day traditions and home décor choices of its fans.

The extraordinary reach of football into fans' lives makes perfect sense when we see it for what it is: the most popular mechanism in contemporary America for cultivating a sense of self that is rooted in a community. In a world of uncertainty, fragmentation and isolation, sports fandom offers us clear winners and losers, connection to family and community -- and at its best, the assurance that we are really No. 1.

Yet this "we" of fandom ought to give us pause -- perhaps just as much as the scandals, the violence and the exploitation that surround the game.

And our disease is spreading to England. The Guardian -- of course -- published someone calling for Nelson's Column to come down from Trafalgar Square , because he was a defender of slavery.

Lord Nelson, one of England's greatest heroes. My God.

Whether or not any or most of these people will succeed in their goal is not my concern here. Rather, I'm interested in what this new period of iconoclasm tells us about where we are as a society, and where we may be going.

Iconoclasm often accompanies radical, even violent, change in a society. The word comes from the Greek meaning "image-smashers," and was first used to describe a turbulent period in the Byzantine empire in which the Emperor attempted to ban the use of religious icons as idolatrous. He failed, as you can see by visiting an Orthodox church today. But the word stuck because it was useful.

Whether religious or political (e.g., French revolutionaries, militants in China's Cultural Revolution), real iconoclasts are violent. The damage Reformation-era iconoclasm did to religious art in Europe was incalculable. For example, in England:

Even now there is denial about the scale of the erasing of our medieval past. The Tate estimates we lost 90% of our religious art. It was probably even more than that. The destruction was on a scale that far outstrips the modern efforts of Islamist extremists. And it was not only art we lost, but also books and music.

We think of Henry VIII and the destruction of the monasteries, but that was not the end of the destruction, it marked the beginning. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, hailed the reign of his son, the boy king Edward VI, as that of a new Josiah, destroyer of idols. After his coronation an orgy of iconoclasm was launched. In churches rood screens, tombs with their prayers for the dead, and stain glass windows, were smashed. The Elizabethan antiquarian John Stow complained, some of this Christian Taliban "judged every image to be an idol", so that not only religious art, but even the secular thirteenth century carvings of kings in Ludgate were broken.

And:

The civil war, and the further destruction it brought, took place two generations after England had gone through what has been described as a "cultural revolution designed to obliterate England's memory of who and what she had been". There was not much of that past left. In our cultural history the Reformation is nearly always depicted as a force that opened up England from a closed minded past. But it was our knowledge of that past that was closed and if one future opened to us, we will never know what might have been, not least in art.

That's often what iconoclasm tries to do: erase cultural memory. The zealotry with which iconoclasts go after their targets has to do with their conviction that the image, and what it stands for, is so offensive that it cannot be tolerated, nor can its defenders be reasoned with. They can only be conquered by force.

In the case of our present iconoclasts, what they are attacking are aspects of what leftist academic critics "whiteness" . It is understandable why black Americans and others would object to monuments commemorating Confederate figures (though it is worth asking why all of a sudden removing these objects became an urgent imperative at this particular time). But those statues are the low-hanging fruit. As the New Orleans protesters signal, any American figure who had anything to do with slavery is on the hit list. Donald Trump was not wrong to wonder if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are going to be next. Both men were compromised by slaveholding.

The argument in favor of eliminating Confederate statues but not those of the slaveholding Founders is that we honor the latter in spite of their owning slaves, but the former have monuments built to them because they fought to preserve slavery. That's a reasonable position to take, but it assumes that reason is driving this iconoclasm. Why is Columbus under siege, both in his monuments and in his holiday (e.g., the Oberlin, Ohio, city council just voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day)? Why are vandals going after St. Junipero Serra and St. Joan of Arc?

Because they represent European culture and civilization, which entails Christianity. Because, in the minds of the iconoclasts, they represent whiteness.

This morning I picked up a book from my shelves that I haven't looked at since it came out in 2004: the late political scientist Samuel Huntington's Who Are We? The Challenges To America's National Identity. It was startling to read Huntington in light of recent events, including most of all the Trump election. It was even more startling -- and deeply dismaying -- to read Huntington and consider that the odious white nationalists might have a clearer understanding of what's going on now than respectable people. Let me explain.

Huntington, who taught at Harvard, writes that the country has been losing a sense of coherent identity for some time now. It's not that Americans were a homogeneous people, but rather that its Anglo-Protestant founding culture was able to assimilate immigrants. This has partly to do with strong belief in the "American Creed," a commonly held set of assumptions about what the nation stood for: liberty, equality under the law, equality of opportunity (if not of result), individualism, populism, limited government, and free-market economics. These ideas, Huntington said, came out of Protestant England and its reception of the Enlightenment.

On assimilation, the glaring exception, of course, were the descendants of the unwilling immigrants among us: those of African slaves, for whom the American Creed did not apply. Nevertheless:

American national identity peaked politically with the rallying of Americans to their country and its cause in World War II. It peaked symbolically with President Kennedy's 1961 summons: 'Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.'

Starting in the 1960s, writes Huntington, "deconstructionists" of national identity encouraged "individuals were defined by their group membership, not common nationality." Pushing identity politics was a time-tested strategy for colonialist regimes, for the sake of dividing and conquering subject peoples. But the governments of nation-states instead focused on uniting their disparate peoples. (Indeed, the Civil Rights Movement was about compelling the white majority to extend the promises of the Constitution and the Creed to black Americans -- in other words, to fully unite them to the whole.)

Huntington says that this did not start from below, but was imposed from the top, by American political, legal, and cultural elites. He writes, "These efforts by a nation's leaders to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history."

By 1992, the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned that all this had become "a cult, and today it treatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of American as 'one people,' a common culture, a single nation." Huntington continues, talking about how the promises of the Civil Rights movement were turned on their head by racial preferences:

This replacement of individual rights by group rights and of color-blind law by color-conscious law was never approved by the American people and received only intermittent, passive, and partial acceptance by American legislators. "What is extraordinary about this change," the distinguished sociologist Daniel Bell commented, "is that, without public debate, an entirely new principle of rights has been introduced into the polity." "Group rights and equality of condition," Belz agrees, "were introduced into public opinion as a new public philosophy that distinguishes among individuals on racial and ethnic grounds and that ultimately denies the existence of a common good."

The implications of this view were cogently stated by the Thernstroms: "Racial classifications deliver the message that skin color matters -- profoundly. They suggest that whites and blacks are not the same, that race and ethnicity are the qualities that really matter. They imply that individuals are defined by blood -- not by character, social class, religious sentiments, age, or education. But categories appropriate to a caste system are a poor basis on which to build that community of equal citizens upon which democratic government depends."

If you want to talk about racializing American society, it didn't start with Richard Spencer and his crew. Led by elites, America has been balkanizing along racial and ethnic lines since the late 1960s. Multiculturalism, that 1990s buzzword, led to colleges emphasizing ethnic studies and non-Western courses, and devaluing those in Western civilization. Huntington, quoting Schlesinger Jr:

"The mood is one of divesting Americans of the sinful European inheritance and seeking redemptive infusions from non-Western cultures." At the turn of the century, none of fifty top American colleges and universities required a course in American history.

He who controls a culture's memory controls the culture. Huntington says that if a nation "is a remembered as well as an imagined community, people who are losing that memory are becoming something less than a nation."

One of the most remarkable things about Huntington's narrative is how this disuniting of America was led by elites, despite resistance from the population. Look, from the vantage point of a nation led by President Donald Trump, at this passage from Huntington's 2004 book. The political scientist is talking about the simple demographic and political fact that whites, especially white males, are losing power and place in US society:

It should not be difficult to see that "rebellion" and the reasons for it. It would, indeed, be extraordinary and possibly unprecedented in human history if the profound demographic changes occurring in America did not generate reactions of various sorts. one very plausible reaction would be the emergence of exclusivist sociopolitical movements composed largely but not only of white males, primarily working-class and middle-class, protesting and attempting to stop or reverse these changes and what they believe, accurately or not, to be the diminution of their social and economic status, their loss of jobs to immigrants and foreign countries, the perversion of their culture, the displacement of their language, and the erosion or even evaporation of the historical identity of their country. Such movements would be both racially and culturally inspired and could be anti-Hispanic, anti-black, and anti-immigration. They would be the heir to the many comparable exclusivist racial and anti-foreign movements that helped define American identity in the past.

Huntington points out that should they emerge, "the new white nationalists" (the term is political scientist Carol Swain's) will not be like the fringe extremists. They don't advocate white supremacy, but rather "racial self-determination and self-preservation." They will reject national identity, and locate culture in race. They don't want white culture replaced by black or brown culture.

Furthermore, whites attracted to these ideas will be those sick and tired of preferential treatment policies that violate the American Creed and disadvantage them. They will, Huntington predicts (remember, he wrote this in 2004), be stirred up by the loss of jobs and widening income inequality due to globalization. And they will hate the media for using what they consider to be bias against them. Finally, immigration may make them feel that they have their backs against the wall.

Because of several sociological factors, Huntington says that middle class and lower middle class whites have come to see themselves as victims. He quotes another political scientist who says these whites feel that they have no real culture or identity, so they are embracing victimization.

Whites, in sum, will start to act like any other ethnic or racial group in America. I have to confess that reading Huntington makes me question the (yes, liberal) media narrative on this new battlefront in the culture wars. Broadly speaking, the media construe the conflict as racist whites reacting to minority progress. No doubt there's truth to that, but that is not the whole truth, or even most of the truth. What we're seeing might be thought of as the entirely predictable and normal reaction of a particular group within a pluralistic society, when members of that group come to believe that they are losing ground. In this sense, when white grievance and protest is presented by the media as solely a manifestation of racism, it allows others to justify dismissing those grievances and consider themselves morally responsible for doing so.

Huntington again, citing Swain's 2004 book The New White Nationalism In America :

The makings of serious white nativist movements and of intensified racial conflict exist in America. Carol Swain probably overdramatizes the possibility, but her eloquent warning deserves serious though. We are witnessing, she says, "the simultaneous convergence of a host of powerful social forces." These include "changing demographics, the continued existence of racial preference policies, the rising expectations of ethnic minorities, the continued existence of liberal immigration policies, growing concerns about job losses associated with globalization, the demands for multiculturalism, and the Internet's ability to enable like-minded individuals to identify with each other and to share mutual concerns and strategies for impacting the political system." These factors can only serve "to nourish white racial consciousness and white nationalism, the next logical stage for identity politics in America. As a result, America is "increasingly at risk of large-scale racial conflict unprecedented in our nation's history."

Well, that's cheerful.

It is remarkable how much Huntington focuses on the wide disparity between elites and the public on these issues, stretching over 50 years. I couldn't help but think of the recent Marist poll showing that the broader public is far more supportive of leaving Confederate statues alone than the news reporting would have us believe.

Huntington also talks about the bottoming out of public trust in government and institutions. It's been declining since 1960s. Today, only the military, police, and small business are the only institutions in whom trust has been stable or grown. Think about what that means. Aside from small business people, by far the most trusted institutions in society are those armed and charged with defending it from foreign enemies and maintaining internal order. If that doesn't tell you something about how our society is coming undone, you are ineducable.

Huntington puts a troubling question to his readers:

Because of the Creed, "many Americans came to believe that America could be multiracial, multiethnic, and lack any cultural core, and yet still be a coherent nation with its identity defined solely by the Creed. Is this, however, really the case? Can a nation be defined only by a political ideology? Several considerations suggest the answer is no. A creed alone does not a nation make."

He says that historically, American identity has involved four key components: Race, Ethnicity, Culture (especially language and religion), and Ideology. Race and ethnicity as a defining core of nation is long gone. Culture is "under siege" (even more so today than when Huntington wrote his book). All that's left is ideology -- that is, the Creed. Writes Huntington: "For the Creed to become the sole source of national identity would be a sharp break from the past."

He points out that the only other examples we have of creedal nations are the communist countries. This is not an encouraging thought. After the ideology failed and the coercive power of the state collapsed, those countries more or less came apart along ethnic lines. China is the great exception, but it held together, he says, because of the widely shared Han Chinese identity.

Huntington concludes that because the American Creed emerged from Anglo-Protestant culture, it probably won't survive its demise.

Finally, the Harvard political scientist predicted that the rise in US religious consciousness in the 1980s and 1990s would would increase. He was quite wrong about that, as we now know. At end of book, Huntington cites research showing that globally, "those countries that are more religious tend to be more nationalist." I suppose this would help explain white Evangelical support for Donald Trump. As regular readers know, I am averse to nationalism mixing with the Christian religion, because it can easily lead to Christians making an idol of the state. That said, the data Huntington cites would lead one to predict that the decline of Christianity in the US will also hasten the unraveling of the social and cultural fabric.

If Christianity, with its universalist values, is declining, then something will take its place. Something will fill the vacuum it leaves. We should not at all be surprised if this turns out to be a heightened, even militant, racial consciousness. This is the logical outcome of identity politics.

This is what I mean by constantly saying that Social Justice Warriors of the Left have no idea what kind of demons they are summoning from the Right. And American elites of all kinds have no idea what they are doing by pushing the "diversity is our strength" lie. We are seeing from this side of the Atlantic how the resolute refusal of the European political and cultural establishments to take the radical challenge from mass immigration seriously is opening up a big space for the radical right to flourish. It's going to happen here too, for somewhat different reasons, ones I've explored in this blog post.

The other day in The Atlantic , Jonathan Haidt wrote a perceptive essay about how Trump's reaction to Charlottesville violated a powerful American taboo . It begins like this:

Taboo and sacredness are among the most important words needed to understand Charlottesville and its aftermath. Taboo refers to things that are forbidden for religious or supernatural reasons. All traditional societies have such prohibitions -- things you must not do, touch, or eat, not because they are bad for you directly, but because doing so is an abomination, which may bring divine retribution. But every society also makes some things sacred, rallying around a few deeply revered values, people, or places, which bind all members together and make them willing to sacrifice for the common good. The past week brought violent conflict over symbols and values held sacred -- and saw President Trump commit an act of sacrilege by violating one of our society's strongest taboos.

More:

That torchlight march, and the main rally the next day, gave the country the shocking spectacle of fellow Americans chanting "Jews will not replace us" while making Nazi salutes and anti-black slurs. It was a rejection -- a desecration -- of the story shared by most Americans in which we are not a nation based on "blood and soil," we are a nation of immigrants who accepted the American creed. That creed includes the idea that "all men are created equal." Americans know that we do not yet live up to our aspirations, but publicly accepting the premises of the nation's founding documents is a requirement for political leadership in America. To deny those premises is blasphemy, and so white supremacism, the KKK, and neo-Nazis are by definition blasphemous.

By the way he handled the Charlottesville violence (appearing to equivocate):

In that moment, Trump committed the gravest act of sacrilege of his presidency. In that moment, the president rendered himself untouchable by all who share the belief that Nazis and the KKK are not just bad -- they are taboo.

I'm not so sure about that. The new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows broad disapproval of the way Trump handled Charlottesville, but strong approval of it among Republicans. If you go deep into the poll , you'll see that 83 percent of Americans believe it is unacceptable to hold white supremacist views. That would appear to validate Haidt's thesis. Happily, white supremacy remains a taboo.

But it is plain that most Republicans do not believe Trump violated that taboo. That is no small number of Americans. Whether you believe they are right or wrong in that assessment is not the point. The point is that on an issue of intense feeling -- a feeling that Haidt correctly likens to religious conviction -- there is no broad agreement on what constitutes violating that taboo. My sense is that among elites -- including Republican elites -- there is shared conviction that Trump touched the third rail. But that sense is not shared by the broad mass of GOP voters any more than the Republican elite's 2016 disgust by candidate Donald Trump was.

Along those lines, I would love to see polling on the extent to which whites (Southern and otherwise) see attacks on Confederate monuments as an attack on white supremacy, and the extent to which they see these attacks as assaults on them . Again, notice the ABC/Post poll, which shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans reject white supremacy. The PBS/Marist poll from last week showed that only 27 percent of all Americans believe that Confederate monuments should be taken down. The racial breakdown is: whites 25%; blacks 40%; Latinos 24%.

It is reasonable to assume that a nation in which over 80 percent of the people believe white supremacy is unacceptable, but only 27 percent believe the Confederate statues should come down, is not a nation that sees those statues as symbols of white supremacy. So what do they symbolize? And who do they symbolize? The answer is important.

In light of Samuel Huntington's book, it seems to me that the culture war has shifted into a dangerous phase, accelerated by both Donald Trump and progressive militants, who feed off each other. Our unity is fragile -- more fragile than people think. This is not the time to be iconoclastic towards cultural symbols. The fact that we are seeing iconoclasm emerge, and that it is not only unchallenged, but actually encouraged by liberal elites, is a bad sign for the future. Remember how we started this post: with a recognition that iconoclasm usually accompanies or precedes actual violence.

The disassembling of the American Creed has been a 50-year project of American elites, but we are all going to reap the whirlwind. You cannot destroy symbols of people's identity without calling forth rage.

[Sep 04, 2017] The Summer of Monumental Madness by Robert Weissberg

Notable quotes:
"... All correct, I'm sure, but let me add a less obvious but ultimately more important hypothesis: the sudden hysteria is a result of decades of pent up exasperation over failure at achieving racial equality. ..."
"... Think of the Monumental Madness as social engineering quackery -- it probably will accomplish little if anything but it feels better than doing nothing. What encourages this desperate quest for today's "miracle" is that so many past solutions, at least according to all the learned experts, were "guaranteed" to perform as advertised and all failed. ..."
"... A similar guaranteed cure was political empowerment, that is, the Department of Justice would ensure that blacks would live in cities run by black elected officials and self-government would cure everything from crime to joblessness. The upshot, of course, have been urban disasters like Detroit and Selma, AL. And let's not forget tough anti-discrimination laws that would ban employers from using racist job descriptions, and affirmative action programs that would temporarily give a leg up to those who began the race a few steps behind. ..."
"... All and all, genuine successes are rare, typically only cosmetic, and if there were a Museum of Failed Cures for America's Racial Problems, it would be the size of Washington's Smithsonian. ..."
"... What has permitted this quackery to explode is that Confederate statutes and similar hateful objects are everywhere and the cost of exorcizing the evil spirits is trivial vis-a-vis past solutions. Just compare the difficulties of purging racism from a police department with scrutinizing at a city map to find streets named after slave-owners and demanding that they be re-named. The especially good news is that this quest can be life-time employment. In 2016 the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there were some 700 Confederate statutes and monuments on public property and who knows how many schools, streets and cemetery markers similarly radiate hate ( Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2017, A3). Further add 10 Army bases names after Confederate generals. So much hate, so little time. ..."
"... The cost of this hysteria far exceeds upsetting those who cherish the Confederate legacy. Yet again the public debate will carefully dodge that Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name: racial equality is impossible, and its quest can only generate yet more Noble Lies and, worst of all, increasingly totalitarian measures that accomplish nothing other than needlessly expand government power. But then again, perhaps this is what today's madness is all about -- far easier to rave and rant about Robert E. Lee than confront a very unpleasant reality. By that standard, tearing down statutes and re-naming schools is a great investment for those intent on keeping the racial peace. ..."
"... Occam's Razor suggests a simpler explanation: After the election of a black President, and the election of a white President, who is doing nothing to roll back racial favoritism for blacks, blacks now feel that they can move to a highly visible form of white dispossession. They feel they're on top and they want to rub whitey's nose in it. ..."
"... Racial equality is off topic here. Racial hatred worldwide and at home is caused by competition between groups having gone deeply personal. The onset of this malaise is, more often than not, heritage from a Colonial past. Very stubborn to address because of it personal aspect, it still can be lessened by reducing ongoing factors which inflame it. ..."
"... "...this quest can be life-time employment." This quote explains much of this ..."
"... All correct, I'm sure, but let me add a less obvious but ultimately more important hypothesis: the sudden hysteria is a result of decades of pent up exasperation over failure at achieving racial equality. ..."
"... I think this is exactly it. It's like when a married couple gets into a big argument over some little thing around the house – it's always really about something else. And it's never an isolated incident – it's always an accumulation of resentment, not feeling appreciated, etc. ..."
Sep 04, 2017 | www.unz.com

Decades from now experts will surly debate today's Summer of Monumental Hysteria. After all, by all objective criteria -- assuming, of course, that anything can be objective if it involves race -- it should not have happened. How many Americans really can correctly identify Robert E. Lee, let along Roger B. Taney? (According to one recent survey , half the American public did not know when the Civil War happened.) Do racially sensitive African Americans even notice the names on these statutes or plaques when they encountered them? Why now since most of these offense-giving inanimate objects have existed for decades?

Most critically, is there any evidence to suggest that the very existence of a park or a school horning a Confederate dignitary has adversely affected anybody, regardless of race in the slightest way? Do black children enrolled in J.E.B. Stewart Middle School under-perform academically compared to those attending the Malcolm X Academy ? Does the Jefferson Memorial emit a dangerous racial version of Radon ? Can visitors be "protected" by having a warning: Be advised that Jefferson once owned slaves so proceed at one's own risk." Tellingly, nobody is even interested in an evidence-based argument regarding this toxicity. "Everybody knows" that anything about the Confederacy is hateful and all hatefulness has to be exorcised from American life since hate, like asbestos and tobacco, is bad. At least leftish professors don't have to invent "studies" to make this point.

Some explanations for this sudden and unexpected hysteria immediately come to mind. There are countless organizations skilled at turning almost any event into a fund-raiser while those obsessed with bashing President Trump will find any excuse to condemn him. And let's not forget all those who enjoy cheap moral highs by marching against hate and bigotry even if the source of the "hate" is a coffee mug decorated with the stars and bars.

All correct, I'm sure, but let me add a less obvious but ultimately more important hypothesis: the sudden hysteria is a result of decades of pent up exasperation over failure at achieving racial equality. In a nutshell, for at least a half-century, perhaps longer, America has struggled with its "race problem" and while proposed solutions exceed dozens, and expenditures in the trillions, progress has been scant. In fact, on at least some indicators, for example, illegitimacy and crime, race-related matters where better off in the 1950s. Not even electing a black President has cured America's race strife despite all the assurances that Obama would be a "post-racial" President that would, once and for all, bring everybody together. What we have gotten for all our efforts is Black Lives Matter and yet even more black condemnation of whites.

This accumulated frustration can be likened to a situation where a patient with a grim prognosis grows ever more desperate as one standard treatment after the next fails to reverse the illness. These frantic patients often gravitate to quacks despite the low odds of a cure. Nevertheless, the very act of visiting a faith healer or drinking a magical herbal concoction outshines passivity. And who knows, the world abounds with testimonials to quack cures and "doing something" calms the despair.

Think of the Monumental Madness as social engineering quackery -- it probably will accomplish little if anything but it feels better than doing nothing. What encourages this desperate quest for today's "miracle" is that so many past solutions, at least according to all the learned experts, were "guaranteed" to perform as advertised and all failed. Recall when the surefire cure was improved education -- ending segregation, equalizing school expenditures, hiring more black teachers and administrators, altering textbooks to make it more relevant to black youngsters, intensive pre-school (Head Start, Sesame Street) and, more recently, eradicating unconscious teacher bias and no longer disproportionately disciplining blacks. We've had Bush's No Child Left Behind and Obama's Race to the Top and countless other expensive remedies.

A similar guaranteed cure was political empowerment, that is, the Department of Justice would ensure that blacks would live in cities run by black elected officials and self-government would cure everything from crime to joblessness. The upshot, of course, have been urban disasters like Detroit and Selma, AL. And let's not forget tough anti-discrimination laws that would ban employers from using racist job descriptions, and affirmative action programs that would temporarily give a leg up to those who began the race a few steps behind.

All and all, genuine successes are rare, typically only cosmetic, and if there were a Museum of Failed Cures for America's Racial Problems, it would be the size of Washington's Smithsonian.

In other words, by the summer of 2017, the frustration over repeated failures plus the lack of any more "guaranteed" solutions on the agenda had created a perfect setting for quackery. Now, as with all serious but likely intractable problems, the marketplace supplies something to meet these needs, and to continue our parallel with those suffering from incurable cancer, taking down statutes of Confederate soldiers or re-naming buildings is the equivalent of using Laetrile among countless other bogus cures . Yes, there is no scientific evidence that past crusade against "hate" has even helped African Americans, but given the sorry record of past efforts, why not give it a try? Hard to resist anything that feels so good.

What has permitted this quackery to explode is that Confederate statutes and similar hateful objects are everywhere and the cost of exorcizing the evil spirits is trivial vis-a-vis past solutions. Just compare the difficulties of purging racism from a police department with scrutinizing at a city map to find streets named after slave-owners and demanding that they be re-named. The especially good news is that this quest can be life-time employment. In 2016 the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there were some 700 Confederate statutes and monuments on public property and who knows how many schools, streets and cemetery markers similarly radiate hate ( Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2017, A3). Further add 10 Army bases names after Confederate generals. So much hate, so little time.

This is vigilante justice and everyone, regardless of training or brains, can anoint themselves as soldiers to overcome racial inequality and win a Participation Trophy. Be a hero; just find a statute of Stonewall Jackson hidden in storage room.

The cost of this hysteria far exceeds upsetting those who cherish the Confederate legacy. Yet again the public debate will carefully dodge that Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name: racial equality is impossible, and its quest can only generate yet more Noble Lies and, worst of all, increasingly totalitarian measures that accomplish nothing other than needlessly expand government power. But then again, perhaps this is what today's madness is all about -- far easier to rave and rant about Robert E. Lee than confront a very unpleasant reality. By that standard, tearing down statutes and re-naming schools is a great investment for those intent on keeping the racial peace.

Carlton Meyer > , Website September 4, 2017 at 4:56 am GMT

When will BLM and other radicals demand a statue to honor John Brown? Of all the characters in our history, he should be their hero, but he was white! The US Navy even named a ship after the battle where US Marines (led by Robert E. Lee) crushed his violent attempt to end slavery, and executed Brown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Harpers_Ferry_(LSD-49)

Since most black American have never heard of him, they should read this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

Slavery existed for thousands of years and did not end because blacks rebelled. It ended because good whites ended it.

Diversity Heretic > , September 4, 2017 at 5:05 am GMT

Occam's Razor suggests a simpler explanation: After the election of a black President, and the election of a white President, who is doing nothing to roll back racial favoritism for blacks, blacks now feel that they can move to a highly visible form of white dispossession. They feel they're on top and they want to rub whitey's nose in it.

Next step will be explicit white-to-black transfers under the guise of "reparations for slavery."

Robert Magill > , September 4, 2017 at 9:44 am GMT

Yet again the public debate will carefully dodge that Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name: racial equality is impossible, and its quest can only generate yet more Noble Lies and, worst

Racial equality is off topic here. Racial hatred worldwide and at home is caused by competition between groups having gone deeply personal. The onset of this malaise is, more often than not, heritage from a Colonial past. Very stubborn to address because of it personal aspect, it still can be lessened by reducing ongoing factors which inflame it.

http://robertmagill.wordpress.com

LiveFreeOrDie > , September 4, 2017 at 10:47 am GMT

>>>"...this quest can be life-time employment." This quote explains much of this

Loveofknowledge > , September 4, 2017 at 1:36 pm GMT

All correct, I'm sure, but let me add a less obvious but ultimately more important hypothesis: the sudden hysteria is a result of decades of pent up exasperation over failure at achieving racial equality.

I think this is exactly it. It's like when a married couple gets into a big argument over some little thing around the house – it's always really about something else. And it's never an isolated incident – it's always an accumulation of resentment, not feeling appreciated, etc.

Blacks wouldn't feel so slighted by a Confederate monument if they weren't already feeling so disrespected, that they are seen as inferior, they have all the menial jobs and live in the worst neighborhoods, that white people don't want to be around them, etc.

But white people working ever harder to be extra nice to blacks won't work either, and the niceness will just be seen as condescending and patronizing, because it is. The problem is that white people end up being humiliating to blacks just be existing. The races are different, and the contrast is plain to see everywhere all the time.

Granted it's primarily white liberals more than blacks who are the instigators of tearing down these monuments. But that's just because white liberals feel bad for blacks given the realities, and also enjoy seeing themselves in the role of the heroes.

The problem is that everyone has bought into the mid-20th-century Franz Boas anthropology hoax that there are no genetic differences between the races. The truth is getting out though, I think it's happening right now – this might really be it. The establishment is obviously scared, hence the increasing attempts at censorship.

Acknowledgement of this truth actually provides a way to understand and be more sympathetic to the Confederates and the segregationists and other white people throughout history. They weren't evil – they thought the races were different, and they were right, and they were struggling with what to do about it.

This doesn't mean we need to agree with their conclusions – let's not bring back slavery. But I think we all need to start thinking seriously about what comes next once the truth is acknowledged and how to treat blacks as fairly as possible.

I'm hopeful that the solution will be just to stick to equality of individual opportunity and accept the unequal group outcomes, while trying to make society better for people on the low end of the IQ bell curve regardless of race. And if I'm feeling extra optimistic, maybe acknowledging the truth will actually dial down the hostility, because we won't have to be thrashing around looking for scapegoats all the time to blame for the differences.

[Aug 28, 2017] Krauthammer Shows True Colors Over Charlottesville

Aug 23, 2017 | www.unz.com

John Derbyshire August 23, 2017 300 Words 4 Comments Reply

One of the side-effects of these periodic moral panics that sweep through American society -- Trayvon , Ferguson , Charlottesville -- is that they unmask people -- bring out their inner nature.

Well, two weeks ago on the podcast I said some kind words , or at least not un -kind words, about TV talking head Charles Krauthammer. I said that while I'd written him off for years as a, quote, "cucky neocon Israel-first GOP establishment front man," more recently I've been warming to him because of the mostly sensible things he's said on Tucker Carlson's show.

Well, I'm biting my tongue. Last Tuesday on Fox News Krauthammer reverted to cucky type, acting scandalized that Trump dared suggest there is anything wrong with masked anarchists throwing rocks at citizens lawfully demonstrating.

Fortunately Laura Ingraham was there to counter him. I have, as I have often noted , a very soft spot for Ms. Ingraham. Not to be shy about it, I would walk over hot coals for her, leap the ice floes of a swollen river for her, wrestle alligators for her.

Art Deco > , August 25, 2017 at 1:51 pm GMT

So OK, I yield. I got Krauthammer right the first time: cucky neocon shill.

"Shill"? A shill is a bogus competitor employed by a casino to promote interest in the blackjack tables. Krauthammer isn't a shill.

He's had a certain political trajectory over the years: from mainline Democrat to dissenting Democrat to mainline Republican (a trajectory traversed over the period running from about 1979 to 1995). There is no indication he's ever advocated anything but what he thinks or that he favors the party he's not formally affiliated with; his antagonism to Trump is an indicator of the crevasse which separates starboard opinion journalists from starboard voters.

A real shill would be someone employed by the media to play a Republican. The WaPoo hired David Weigel to do this, but the act wasn't credible after his private correspondence was published in the Journ-O-List scandal.

Tyler Cowen, whose public writings suggest he's consumed with anxiety about status considerations in faculty settings, might be seen as a manifestation of libertarian pseudo-opposition on the George Mason payroll (since he never critiques any progtrasn sacred cows). Bruce Bartlett, the Republican whose signature is attacking other Republicans, might be considered a shill or a poseur depending on who is paying his bills.

And, of course, 'neocon' is a nonsense term.

Krauthammer is a Canadian-reared scion of a very prosperous family. He's lived pretty much all his life in New York, Montreal, Boston, and Washington. His brother spent his adult life in Los Angeles. His son lives in the Bay Area, his niece and her husband in Washington.

Between them, his parents lived in a half-dozen countries during the course of their lives before landing in Quebec. He does not have any natural affinity for the Trump constituency.

The best he can do is to attempt to appreciate it, and at that he is very hit-and-miss.

[Aug 28, 2017] ECONOMIST grinding a boot heel into the face of James Damore, the programmer fired by Google on August 7th for his internal company memo on sex differentials in suitability for software work.

Notable quotes:
"... four full pages ..."
"... The Economist's ..."
"... Many of the memo's assertions were risible, such as the idea that women are not coders because they are less intrigued by "things" than men are. ..."
"... Assertions in that category are not "risible" unless you have a strong ideological determination to find them so. The claim that men have one less rib than women could fairly be called "risible" since it is so easily disproved. Damore's claim, as stated, is of a different kind. ..."
"... To the best of my knowledge, it has not been disproved: but even if it has been, it's still not "risible," as the disproving would have involved painstaking research and lengthy debates in scholarly journals. To persons not current with all that specialized research, it is a thing that might be true . ..."
"... Google is 80% male in its most technical departments. This hiring "anomaly" cannot be blamed on the young Damore, as I doubt he has any say in hiring matters. Brin, Page and Schmidt built up the company in its present form. ..."
"... Should Larry Page be so foolish as to write the sneering epistle suggested by the Economist, he would then have a hard time explaining Google's demographic makeup as he would have thrown away many of his best arguments. ..."
Aug 28, 2017 | www.unz.com

If all this sneering and gloating were not sufficiently emetic, this issue gives over four full pages to grinding a boot heel into the face of James Damore, the programmer fired by Google on August 7th for his internal company memo on sex differentials in suitability for software work.

This was actually The Economist's second attempt to break this particular butterfly on the wheel. Their previous edition (August 12th-18th) had run a 600-word editorial and a 1,000-word article in the Business Section both arguing that Google should not have fired Damore but that his arguments about women and men displaying different interests were wrong, wrong, wrong .

From the editorial:

An unbiased eye would light on social factors rather than innate differences as the reason why only a fifth of computer engineers are women It would have been better for Larry Page, Google's co-founder and the boss of Alphabet, its holding company, to write a ringing, detailed rebuttal of Mr Damore's argument.

From the article:

Many of the memo's assertions were risible, such as the idea that women are not coders because they are less intrigued by "things" than men are.

This is just ideological enforcement. Why is it more "unbiased" to presume social factors than to presume innate differences? It's not more unbiased; it's just more CultMarx-compliant.

And why is that latter assertion " risible " ("causing or capable of causing laughter; laughable; ludicrous ")? It's not preposterous; it's in the category of things that might or might not be true. Whether it is true or not can be determined by careful empirical enquiry.

Assertions in that category are not "risible" unless you have a strong ideological determination to find them so. The claim that men have one less rib than women could fairly be called "risible" since it is so easily disproved. Damore's claim, as stated, is of a different kind.

To the best of my knowledge, it has not been disproved: but even if it has been, it's still not "risible," as the disproving would have involved painstaking research and lengthy debates in scholarly journals. To persons not current with all that specialized research, it is a thing that might be true .

Well, the four-page heel-grinding in this current issue is an attempt to write the "ringing, detailed rebuttal of Mr Damore's argument" that The Economist recommended to Larry Page in last week's editorial. It is a jeering, sneering specimen of equalist triumphalism.

Your interpretation is wrong. Your memo was a great example of what's called "motivated reasoning"!seeking out only the information that supports what you already believe.

Uh: pot, kettle?

It was derogatory to women in our industry and elsewhere. Despite your stated support for diversity and fairness, it demonstrated profound prejudice.

You should be free of ideological prejudices, pure of heart , as we are!

Your chain of reasoning had so many missing links that it hardly mattered what your argument was based on. We try to hire people who are willing to follow where the facts lead, whatever their preconceptions. In your case we clearly made a mistake.

So then wouldn't it be right to fire him?

You don't seem to understand what makes a great software engineer You clearly don't understand our company, and so fail to understand what we are trying to do when we hire.

See previous.

I shouldn't have had to write this: I'm busy and a little effort on your part would have made it unnecessary. But I know I have it easy. Women in our industry have to cope with this sort of nonsense all the time.

Yours,

Larry

My impression is that Damore put considerable effort into his memo. And again, while some of his assertions could be wrong, they are not missing-rib-level "nonsense."

But then, who's this James Damore pest, anyway? How many billion is he worth? Feugh!

Hugh > , August 25, 2017 at 4:18 pm GMT

Google is 80% male in its most technical departments. This hiring "anomaly" cannot be blamed on the young Damore, as I doubt he has any say in hiring matters. Brin, Page and Schmidt built up the company in its present form.

Should Larry Page be so foolish as to write the sneering epistle suggested by the Economist, he would then have a hard time explaining Google's demographic makeup as he would have thrown away many of his best arguments.

I share Joe Levantine's sorrow over the demise of this once great weekly. What a shame.

[Aug 27, 2017] Berkeley Cops Surrender Park To Antifa by Rod Dreher

Aug 27, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
At the planned rightist march in Berkeley today, very few conservatives or alt-righters showed up, but antifa did. From the LA Times :

Some anti-facists protesters, known as antifa, pounced when Joey Gibson, founder of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, showed up with his crew. The protesters beat one man with a shield and another person wearing an American flag.

Some of the antifa protesters also threatened to break the cameras of anyone who filmed them, including journalists. One reporter tweeted that he had been pepper sprayed in one scuffle.

Moderate counter protesters were upset with the violence. "We need to get antifa out of here," said Jack Harris, who helped break up a fight.

Andrew Noruk, who was wearing a T-shirt denouncing both the Republican and Democratic parties when two young women came up to him and started yelling at him.

"You're a Nazi," they shouted, leaving Noruk, who said he came out to protest Trump supporters, confused.

Noruk denounced the fights breaking out near the park, claiming antifa and black bloc anarchists have given Trump's supporters exactly what they wanted: footage of violence perpetrated against the presidents supporters in a historically liberal city.

"We can't keep producing this audio visual propaganda," he said. "It is recruiting for the right."

Damn right it is. Why do the police allow this? Why are they not arresting antifa and throwing the book at them? This is outrageous, the way the Berkeley police behaved. From the Sacramento Bee :

Black-clad anarchists on Sunday stormed into what had been a largely peaceful Berkeley protest against hate and attacked at least five people, including the leader of a politically conservative group who canceled an event a day earlier in San Francisco amid fears of violence.

The group of more than 100 hooded protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words "no hate" and waving a flag identifying themselves as anarchists, busted through police lines, avoiding security checks by officers to take away possible weapons. Then the anarchists blended with a crowd of 2,000 largely peaceful protesters who turned up to demonstrate in a "Rally Against Hate" opposed to a much smaller gathering of right-wing protesters.

Berkeley police chief Andrew Greenwood defended how police handled the protest, saying they made a strategic decision to let the anarchists enter to avoid more violence.

Greenwood said "the potential use of force became very problematic" given the thousands of peaceful protesters in the park. Once anarchists arrived, it was clear there would not be dueling protests between left and right so he ordered his officers out of the park and allowed the anarchists to march in.

More:

Police pulled one supporter of President Donald Trump out of the park over a wall by his shirt as a crowd of about two dozen counter-demonstrators surrounded him and chanted "Nazi go home" and pushed him toward the edge of the park. At least two people were detained by officers for wearing bandannas covering their faces.

Anti-rally protesters chanted slogans "No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA" and carried signs that said: "Berkeley Stands United Against Hate."

So an American man cannot peacefully state his support for the President of the United States without a mob of bullies surrounding him and physically coercing him?

Berkeley does not stand united against hate. Berkeley hates. Keep it up, leftists. You are doing the work of your enemies. Here's a short clip showing an antifa mob attacking a teenage boy Trump supporter and his father in Berkeley today, plus a short interview with them after the event. Warning: there's an f-bomb in the first few seconds of the crowd footage:

[Aug 24, 2017] Iconoclasm And Violence

Notable quotes:
"... I once worked with someone who always had to be Winning™, and as soon as you managed to meet one set of demands a new set popped up – just for the sake of having something to win. Because *having won* didn't matter, it was the act of winning that mattered. I think the activist left is in the hands of this sort of person, and it's going to work out about as well as you'd expect. ..."
"... "It's always struck me as strange that no one reflects that the desire of the Left, to create a true multi-ethnic, multi-cultural democratic society, has never been done before." ..."
"... The problem is the falseness of the American Creed. For minorities and there empathizers it should be discarded. For conservative whites, it creates a terrible cognitive dissonance. Why have they done all the right things: got an education, worked hard, married and still ended up in a precarious situation? ..."
"... In the meantime, the globalist, rich libertarians embedded its false ideology of "equality of opportunity" in working class whites, while simultaneously moving there factories and money outside of the country as quickly as possible. ..."
"... Sure. I prefer the Leninist term, "infantile disorder." ..."
"... Thing is, Mr. grumpy realist, the Confederate statues didn't lie us into the Iraq War, bail out the Wall Street banksters, fail to stop millions of illegals from coming here, or outsource American jobs to Indians and Chinese. ..."
"... I oppose vandalism of statues. Full stop. If we are going to waste time on more culture war nonsense it should be conducted legally. But since everyone loves arguing about this crap -- The Wikipedia article on Serra seems fair and balanced, to coin a phrase. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra ..."
"... The Confedercy killed more Americans than any foreign enemy the Republic has ever faced, and yet public statues and monuments to this vile treason, most of which were raised nearly 50 years after the war ended to commerate the (temporary) triumph of the Confederate ideology of White Supremacy, are somehow different and more noble than statues of Dzhersinsky and Lenin? Who committed crimes of the same vulgar type as the Confederate leaders (why is Longstreet not marked by statue or Beauregard? It's because Longstreet fought to defend black rights after the war, and Beauregard was creole). Now, like Communists, some good people fought for the Confederacy for good reasons (home and family in the case of your Confederate ancestor, bread and freedom in the Russian revolution. Read about some of the brutality from the Whites in the Russian Civil War. It will make your skin crawl.) So let the common soldiers be commenrated, but tear down the statues of the traitors who led them. Just as they tore down the statues of Dzhrsinsky, Lenin, and Marx after 1991. ..."
"... "Huntington's book sounds helpful but the work that continues to be even more prescient is Christopher Lasch's "The Revolt of the Elites," describing a ruling class that has severed its ties to its own cultural order as well as to the less powerful and privileged members of it. The result is incomprehension of reaction they provoke and chaos. In the short run, this may increase their illusion of control and power but the long run spells doom and replacement by more cohesive cultures." ..."
"... That's exactly the book I was thinking of in this post. He also talks about how when the "Managerial Elites" replaced the "Wasps" as the ruling class they replaced the sense of responsibility and Noblesse Oblige the Wasps had for the country w/ disregard, selfishness and greed by the managerial meritocracy. Gone is the manufacturing economy replaced by the ephemeral finance and information economy. ..."
"... Interesting interview with Andrew Young on NPR this morning ("Civil Rights Activist Argues to Keep Confederate Monuments"): "A minority cannot be provoking a racist majority that is still underemployed, undereducated, and dying faster than we are. The issue is life and death, not some stupid monument." ..."
"... I still can't get over it. Joan of Arc?!!! ..."
"... Maybe we can make a decision based on artistic merit? I mean, a lot of these statues are mass-produced pieces of sentimental kitch that make me remember the excesses of oratory during the 1890s. Is it really all that terrible if we turn them into something else? Or should we just say: "if it's a statue of some guy on a horse and has moss on it, we'll leave it alone" and impose a statuary equivalent to the legal doctrine of laches? ..."
"... If the sum total of all indicators within the context of group, racial identity and the possible demise of an anglo/protestant cultural heritage is true, then violent conflict looms on the horizon and possibly in the near foreseeable future. Yes, it will not be a fight for racial(i.e. white)supremacy but an at-all-costs battle to avoid extinction. ..."
Aug 24, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com

collin , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:31 am

But it is plain that most Republicans do not believe Trump violated that taboo.

That is because Hugh Hewitt stated that Trump has the right enemies. And for conservatives they have standing behind Trump since he pursued Birtherism against the enemy.

Justin Gregory , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:32 am
I was reflecting on this last night and had an epiphany regarding Trump's "good people on both sides" statement last week.

For over a week now I've been baffled by the president's remark. What "good" person thinks, "Hey, the KKK and the Nazis are having a rally this weekend. Sounds like my kind of party!"? But now I'm glad he said it.

What I mean is this: if you watch the videos, you'll notice a large percentage of the participants in the Charlottesville rally were young white men, probably in their early 20's. At this age, people are spending a lot of time trying on identities and figuring out what they believe. This means occasionally doing foolish and embarrassing things.

Trump has basically given these guys an escape path. "Hey, I'm not really a Nazi or a Klukker. I'm a good person who's concerned about the danger of erasing our collective history, of throwing the baby out with the racist bathwater."

I know some will snark at that, but consider the alternative, more or less embraced by everybody else. Howling, "racist" and throwing stones, both rhetorical and literal, only serves to further radicalize these guys, driving them into the welcoming arms of the national socialists. (Note the similarities between the profiles for a young white supremacist and a domestic Islamic terrorist!) "They will hate me no matter what I do at this point," is not where we want people to be.

I have no idea whether this was the president's intention or even on his radar at the time, but if you back people into a corner without a path of escape, they will get desperate, which is to say, radical and violent. "Good people," as distinct from "racist Nazis", is an opportunity to step back from the abyss.

Aaron C. , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:33 am
I am 35 years old, and I believe the country will tear itself apart in my lifetime. The forces separating us are stronger than those keeping us together, and they are not likely to be tamed with the weapons currently in our culture's arsenal (i.e., rote recitation of "Diversity is Strength").

As another commenter wryly noted, I happen to possess every quality despised by the SJWs (white, heterosexual, Christian, happily married, with four children and a dog), and their actions/words are increasingly convincing me and my family that they'd prefer not to share the same country as me.

That's fine; I'm happy to expend what little time and talent I have devising a way to peacefully (again, I repeat, PEACEFULLY) separate from those who think my very existence (aka "whiteness") is somehow a threat to their lives. At an earlier, more naïve point in my life, I thought that we, as a country, would get through this and start regarding each other according to the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. Alas, it seems that there is no interest in that type of social arrangement any longer, so I'm happy to help broker a two-state solution.

what is to come , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:33 am
"They wouldn't stop. To them, it's a possibility to destroy things they hate and feel self righteous at the same time. Or, and to get media cheering. Why would they miss a chance like this?"

It's a chance to use violence to force visible, lasting change in our shared space. To force their will on us, by violence or the threat of violence. A piece of the world that the rest of us loved or accepted or at least tolerated is smashed or removed because that's what they want. The rest of us are supposed to shut up and accept what they have done.

This won't last long. When it swings back in the other direction, as it inevitably will, many of those now watching in silent rage will cheer for the thugs who come to smash their faces in.

Pat , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:47 am

I once worked with someone who always had to be Winning™, and as soon as you managed to meet one set of demands a new set popped up – just for the sake of having something to win. Because *having won* didn't matter, it was the act of winning that mattered. I think the activist left is in the hands of this sort of person, and it's going to work out about as well as you'd expect.

dave , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:51 am
Charles Featherstone, this:

"It's always struck me as strange that no one reflects that the desire of the Left, to create a true multi-ethnic, multi-cultural democratic society, has never been done before."

That society will function is taken as a given, it seems to me. And it does, if one has enough money. But if not, there's a breakdown. And that's something I often see – some of the work I do involves economic and community development in poor communities. There isn't much to work with, and the language of the Left isn't particularly conducive to strengthening communities. Generally it is about freedoms from and rights, and rarely if ever – can't think of a recent example, actually – is it about obligation and responsibilities other than those for one's own expression and fulfillment.

I'd like to say the Right has stepped into the void, but for the most part they have not, they are just as insistent on freedoms from and a kind of a moral adjudication by the market, where struggling communities deserve to die. Dreher and a few others often write about the importance of community and the unappreciated difficulty of maintaining a civil society, but as a general rule what they write is misunderstood as an appeal to nostalgia or racism or both. Which is to say that reflecting on what makes a "multi-ethnic, multi-cultural democratic society" work is so far off the radar screen for most people that they are unable to identify a discussion about it.

Which is to say it strikes me as strange also. And then generally, Mr. Dreher, the problem I have with Huntington is that his keen perceptiveness easily clothes itself with an aura of prophesy. I don't attribute that to him, it's a thing I do on my own. But it's something I have to avoid in order to do the work I do. I can imagine numerous futures, and a part of the struggle for me is maintaining the facility of imagining one that inspires. So I repeat to myself – It need not be this way.

collin , says: August 23, 2017 at 8:55 am
What we're seeing might be thought of as the entirely predictable and normal reaction of a particular group within a pluralistic society, when members of that group come to believe that they are losing ground.
  1. In terms of history, I wish historians would state the Post WW2 Boom (1948 – 1973) was the historical oddity where we saw high increase in working class wages. And any reading of US history especially before WW1, the white race definition did not include the latest European immigrants. (Irish, German, East European and Jewish.) In many ways modern US is closer to American history than post war years.
  2. Although Civil Rights was primarily led by African-Americans, there were a significant other minorities that benefited in the long run.
  3. In terms of minority economic gains, the area of the economy where the minority gains have been the most is Tech and we have seen a huge conservative dislike of tech the last 3 – 5 years.
  4. In terms of economy, over the last 15 years the primarily hit more rural WWC towns. So it must be something and Trump ran on the Clintons free trade agreement and anti-immigrants to win the election. (I found it strange that it was not Koch Brothers or Apple fault but did not understand it until after the election.)
  5. Again it is hard to predict the future as there still things vastly better today than a generation ago. Literally nobody in 1992 stated that the US was on a verge of a historic drop in crime.
Potato , says: August 23, 2017 at 9:04 am
But there is room for all of us white people to extol what is great, and there was a LOT of great in our ancestors, while strictly denying and removing anything which seems to highlight profound injustices in the eyes of non-whites. I am now on-board. It's the christian thing to do. Let's retain all that is Christian about our ancestors, and let go all of the cultural blindness, willful or not, that resulted in slavery.

I often disagree with Seven sleepers, but this is right on.

I am also noticing that not only do we not hear from black Americans on this board, we very seldom are moved to take any account of their opinions on this matter. That's OK I guess, I think we're all white or Asian here (not African American, I mean) but I am struck by our very consistent blindness on this topic.

Let us suppose for a minute that your Southern, Confederate ancestor was not riding about on a horse. Let us suppose that he was a field hand in the slave quarters, that he had been regularly beaten (this practice has been attested to by numerous documents from the old South), his wife had been taken by the son of the plantation owner, one of "his" children was suspiciously light of skin, and several of his children had been sold away from him. These things were not rare and unusual. This was the order of the day.

So now how do you feel about this "Heritage"?

Oh well, that's OK, right? The people who have good reason to feel this way are a minority. We need not trouble ourselves too much about them. And our Christian obligation to take care of our brothers and sisters, to love them in fact, to consider their feelings as well as our own .what happened to that?

Rob G , says: August 23, 2017 at 9:09 am
"So, putting together ideas from the Clarence Thomas blog and some of Huntington and Swain's ideas here, I posit: Liberals believe in legal/economic collectivism and cultural individualism, while conservatives believe in legal/economic individualism and cultural collectivism. I'm sure somebody on this blog can demolish that hypothesis."

No, it's generally correct but it needs tweaking. The conservatives you describe are not really conservatives, they're right-liberals. Patrick Deneen is the guy to read on this.

Also, I'm not sure these "conservatives" want cultural collectivism as much as they want the freedom to reject the tyranny of left's cultural individualism. As J.W. Corrington put it (regarding a different issue), submitting to the unalterable vicissitudes of history is one thing. Being expected to genuflect to them is quite another. (paraphrase from memory).

Or to paraphase Fitzjames Stephen, you may not be able to resist being carried away by the flood, but that doesn't mean you have to sing 'Hallelujah' to the river god while being swept along.

grumpy realist , says: August 23, 2017 at 9:17 am
Huh. Iconoclasts on the left, and on the right we've got the people who want to tear down the entire political system and who are loudly applauding Trump because he "sticks it to the conventional Republicans and the Democrats."

Is there really that much difference? We certainly have enough of the latter group on these threads.

(And Joan of Arc? Really? Makes me think we've just got a plain anarchist who wants to tear down all statues, period. He'll probably go after the lions at the entrance of the NYC Public library next.)

Jon S , says: August 23, 2017 at 9:19 am
Re: the American Creed:

"equality under the law, equality of opportunity (if not of result),"

I am able to recognize that those two things are lies. No African-American is going to think they are equal under the law when the police are killing them. And no thinking American believes they have had the same equality of opportunity as Donald Trump.

The problem is the falseness of the American Creed. For minorities and there empathizers it should be discarded. For conservative whites, it creates a terrible cognitive dissonance. Why have they done all the right things: got an education, worked hard, married and still ended up in a precarious situation?

If we wanted to be a great nation, we should have adopted policies to create lots of working class jobs and filled them with Black men, so that they could support homes and families. But we didn't, instead we gave tepid support to stupidities like affirmative action. Something the white majority never supported.

In the meantime, the globalist, rich libertarians embedded its false ideology of "equality of opportunity" in working class whites, while simultaneously moving there factories and money outside of the country as quickly as possible.

And none of this is too late to fix. The country just needs the right leadership. And it won't come from Trump, the GOP, or the Democrats.

Matt , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:16 am
FYI SJWs,

The Indians who marched on the Trail of Tears took their African American Slaves with them to Oklahoma.

VikingLS , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:18 am
"Let's just put it more plainly: Trump violated another important taboo pretty much every week of his campaign. Yet Republicans still elected him. They should be ashamed of themselves."

Honestly at this point the only Republican response to statements like this is "we tried thousands of times to get the "lesser of two evils in a two party system" point across to you. NOT necessarily lesser to you with whatever values you may have, but lesser to US. If you STILL are going to try this idiotic attempt at shaming, you can go f**** yourself."

Sorry Rod but that's about the thousandth time that's come up here with these people.

Siarlys Jenkins , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:37 am
Take 'Em Down NOLA movement is demanding, among *many* other things, that Tulane University change its name because Paul Tulane, whose land donation made the university possible, owned slaves.

OK. Let's parse that one. One alt-right response to taking down statues of confederate generals was "Where is it going to stop? Shall we take down statues of Washington and Jefferson too?" And then, like many poorly-conceived self-fulfilling prophecies, infantile disordered voices came out saying, yes, indeed we must.

In between a rational voice from a man who supported taking down confederate monuments affirmed "There is a huge difference between celebrating a flawed man, and celebrating a man's flaws."

Mr. Tulane has a university named after him because he donated the land for the university, not because he owned slaves. Braxton Bragg has statues put up because he fought against the United States of American in defense of slavery. Obvious difference. I think it might be worthwhile to discuss renaming Fort Bragg -- its an outrage that soldiers in the army that defeated the confederacy receive basic training at a post named after one of the generals they defeated. I'm sure my great-great-grandfather who served in the 11th Tennessee Cavalry, United States Army, would agree.

Can we dispense with Social "Justice" Warrior? Just as a matter of accurate labeling/description?

Sure. I prefer the Leninist term, "infantile disorder."

By Jove, Melbourne was right–Cicero, Plato, Aristotle and all those gentlemen were 'pro-slavery'.

Well, that aside, I think they're all greatly over-rated. Surely someone in antiquity said things more agreeable to my seldom humble self, but his writings had not the random good fortune to be preserved for late European antiquarians to pore over.

dd: Did you miss the ellipses at the end of my sentence?

And yes, Seven Sleepers is right on target today. There is nobody so crass I can't agree with him now and then. Even Clarence Thomas gets a few things right. If Seven Sleepers is Italian, he is also correct that originally his ancestors were not accepted as "white" at all.

VikingLS , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:40 am
"I am also noticing that not only do we not hear from black Americans on this board, we very seldom are moved to take any account of their opinions on this matter."

From what I recall Baptiste and Eliminist (I think I spelled that wrong) are black. Dancer Girl is black, and all of them have weighed in on this.

TR , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:49 am
From a footnote about a statue Joyce mentions in "The Dead": In 1701 an equestrian statue [of William III] was erected in front of Trinity College. From then on, it was systematically defaced, daubed, smeared, wrecked, rebuilt, protected, and finally, in 1929 blown up, as an emblem of oppression." Irish Pat Buchanan would probably be proud of his ancestors!

I'm from Memphis, as was Nathan Bedford Forrest. I admire Forrest as a military iconoclast, but I must say I had to laugh at the picture of the statue of Forrest mounted on horse with some prankster's KKK hood draped on his head.

Truth Dough , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:55 am
Q. "So what do they symbolize? And who do they symbolize? The answer is important."

A. Whatever I say.

Art is cathartic; hopefully, it begets catharsis, if the artist or sculptor did their job. In the eye of the beholder it may appear as a "ministering angel" or a "demon" or may be "just some bloke riding horseback I didn't notice nor did I even care and could care less now because I have no connection to history or interest in it."

Imagine we had an educated collective of sovereign individuals who participated in government and kept a watchful eye we'd be in great shape with or without religion or deism. But, we don't. And because of this, the "American Creed" as you callit, is lost; none of those items or those you left out exists, none of it exists, absolutely zero.

Carl Bernstein recently said in an interview that obstructing free press is the first step toward tyranny. The Union can thank Lincoln (the tyrant) and Sherman (the tyrant's bloody hand).

Sherman to his Adjutant:
"For my part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine, for which we are all as a people responsible, viz., that any and every people have a right to self-government; and I would give all a chance to reflect, and, when in error, to recant."

And

"I am willing to bear in patience that political nonsense of slave rights, State rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, and such other trash, as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people."

Did you get that?

Freedom of the press is trash!

M_Young , says: August 23, 2017 at 10:57 am
"Monuments referring to "Savage" Indians defending their homeland are pretty damn offensive, when you think about it."

====

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

Tho. Jefferson.

Ain't Benedict , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:00 am
The right committed an act of vandalism against America that infinitely dwarfs any vandalism against old statuary. In a rejection of everything good and decent in America, they selected and then elected Donald Trump. The insult and tragedy of this act only worsens with each passing day.

And, even as Trump is actively desecrating and dismantling America's binding ideals with the eager support of most of the right, I'm supposed to fret about how the left is provoking them?!? That's so absurd it borders on obscene.

It's like a giant bully has me pinned on my back and is punching me relentlessly in the face (pausing occasionally to spit in it) and Rod is watching all this from among the gathered crowd and hollering that I just need to stop fighting back. What I need is the good people among the crowd to get this guy off of me before it's too late!

Trump's ongoing possession of power that he is terrifyingly unfit to wield and responsibility he is tragically unable to comprehend is a relentless and unbearable provocation and we all know who did it and who continues to support it. The left has almost infinitely more cause to feel aggrieved and nobody should be surprised that they latch onto whatever avenues of protest they stumble upon.

I say none of this to justify anybody's extreme actions, only to illustrate that the blame game cuts both ways and it cuts deeper when deployed against the right. People could knock down every last statue in America and it wouldn't do as much deep and lasting harm to our nation as Trump has already done and nobody knows how much worse it will get or how far the right will enable the unfolding catastrophe that they chose.

apples and worms , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:07 am
"Huh. Iconoclasts on the left, and on the right we've got the people who want to tear down the entire political system and who are loudly applauding Trump because he "sticks it to the conventional Republicans and the Democrats." "

Thing is, Mr. grumpy realist, the Confederate statues didn't lie us into the Iraq War, bail out the Wall Street banksters, fail to stop millions of illegals from coming here, or outsource American jobs to Indians and Chinese.

If the Confederate statues had done those things you might have a point. But they just sat there as they always have, not doing too much of anything, really, mostly just looking grand or sorrowful or heroic or dignified or such like.

Unlike the political establishment, which has been painting a giant DayGlo target on its capacious and diseased hind quarters for a long time.

M_Young , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:08 am
In other Baltimore news, 9 shot on a Monday! http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-park-circle-shooting-20170821-story.html
Donald ( the left leaning one) , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:16 am
I oppose vandalism of statues. Full stop. If we are going to waste time on more culture war nonsense it should be conducted legally. But since everyone loves arguing about this crap -- The Wikipedia article on Serra seems fair and balanced, to coin a phrase. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra

And it is tendentious in the extreme to say people oppose Serra because he erected missions, unless you explain why the critics think that was a bad thing. They think it was bad for a couple of reasons. First, they oppose the spread of Christianity by force. There was coercion involved and massiv cruelty. Serra seems to have fallen somewhere in the middle, endorsing some violence but opposing the more extreme versions of it.

Modern secular lefties also oppose the spread of Christianity because they see it as inherently wrong or oppressive for Westerners to try to convert native people. In practice it usually was coercive and monstrous in the way it was done and it is hard to separate the actual practice of missionary activity back then from the religion which inspired the coercion. As a Christian I think it is right to try to convert people, but if it is done via coercion than how is it any different from the more coercive versions of Islam?

This was nearly 300 years ago. Do we really have to have another culture war about religiously inspired conquest and violence that happened 300 years ago?

Q , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:29 am
Don't know if it's the nature of the moment or the nature of this blog, but it's almost always the whitey righty types that predict an imminent apocalypse, never those the occupy the space between the center and, say, BadReligion. The Paranoid Style, i'd say, unless they're all right.
"Sure, I'm paranoid but am I paranoid ENOUGH?"
Donald ( the left leaning one) , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:34 am
Rod -- " I agree that I'm in a squishy place, being against taking down monuments in principle, but also agreeing that it's very hard to defend them successfully as 'heritage not hate,' which is the point of Ryan Booth's that I was agreeing with. I must agree, though, that the iconoclastic post-Charlottesville reaction of the Left has hardened my opinion against taking down the statues."

Please don't go down that road. This happens to be one of those issues where there really is some reasonable middle ground that people of good will can occupy without necessarily being in complete agreement. For instance, you can make a good case for taking down Lee and leaving up Jefferson or you could leave Lee up but include plaques detailing his flaws or explaining the historical circumstances in which the statues were erected. There are other reasonable positions one could argue for on the merits.

But don't start down the path of saying that you want to side with one bunch of extremists because there is another bunch of extremists over there that won't like you no matter what you do. This is how we allow extremists dictate our politics. In the worst case scenario, it is how we have civil wars.

I don't usually use the word extremist in this derogatory way because on some issues one extreme is correct. But this isn't one of those issues. The extremists on both sides are wrong and we shouldn't let ourselves be manipulated by them.

fire sale , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:43 am
"He'll probably go after the lions at the entrance of the NYC Public library next.)"

Well, given that the NY Public Library lions symbolize the Lion of Judah, they will indeed have to go. They are an obvious, obnoxious allusion to the Jewish role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and of course to Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy's slave-owning Jewish Secretary of State.

Hound of Ulster , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:55 am
By this formulation Rod, the tearing down of statues dedicated to the heroes of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia was iconoclasm as well. I sense that it is iconoclasm of which you approve though

The Confedercy killed more Americans than any foreign enemy the Republic has ever faced, and yet public statues and monuments to this vile treason, most of which were raised nearly 50 years after the war ended to commerate the (temporary) triumph of the Confederate ideology of White Supremacy, are somehow different and more noble than statues of Dzhersinsky and Lenin? Who committed crimes of the same vulgar type as the Confederate leaders (why is Longstreet not marked by statue or Beauregard? It's because Longstreet fought to defend black rights after the war, and Beauregard was creole). Now, like Communists, some good people fought for the Confederacy for good reasons (home and family in the case of your Confederate ancestor, bread and freedom in the Russian revolution. Read about some of the brutality from the Whites in the Russian Civil War. It will make your skin crawl.) So let the common soldiers be commenrated, but tear down the statues of the traitors who led them. Just as they tore down the statues of Dzhrsinsky, Lenin, and Marx after 1991.

The difference between Nelson's Column and the statues of Lee et al, was that Nelson fought to save Britain from foreign conquest. Lee and co. fought to defend white supremacy and slavery. Just read what they wrote about it themselves. Anybody who can't see that is a dope.

Ben H , says: August 23, 2017 at 11:58 am
The taboo that was broken has less to do with not denouncing Nazis or political violence (things that were denounced), it's not doing it in the precise way demanded by the media. It's a denial that the media has the moral status that it claims to define the narrative and to elicit specific responses that support the narrative.

They don't get as mad when Trump subverts the narrative with a lie as when he does so with something that approaches the truth.

Anne , says: August 23, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Tearing down statues that symbolize what you don't believe in is usually a crime of vandalism punishable by law, so normally that takes care of that. But of course symbols make handy targets during disputes and rivalries, even though, to maintain the peace, the law has to hold.

Confederate statues are a separate matter, not because tearing them down unlawfully is OK !

You can still be prosecuted for vandalism if you do that -- but because their very existence threatens what we as a nation hold in common. Most were, in fact, put up as a symbol of dissent from our national creed, specifically the part that holds "all men are created equal." For most Americans, the Confederacy itself symbolizes that position of dissent, but the vast majority of these statues aren't mere leftovers from that bygone historical era;most were actually erected in the late 19th or early 20th century as symbols of the Jim Crow era when the Ku Klux Klan was at its peak and its basic philosophy of re-asserting white supremacy was riding high. Some others went up in the 1960s when they symbolized the South's opposition to the black civil rights movement. It's certainly easy for me to see why state legislatures and city councils are being asked to remove them now when white supremacists are rallying in public yet again.

Nicholas , says: August 23, 2017 at 1:03 pm
The Statues represent reconciliation. When one town can have a statue of a Union hero and another town can have a statue of a Confederate hero while still acknowledging that both towns are American, you have reconciliation.

That is what is being destroyed. The nation's wounds that took so long to bind are being ripped open.

I wonder how many Belfasts and Beruits we can endure, because it's coming.

KD , says: August 23, 2017 at 1:17 pm
Nothing good will come from removing monuments, anymore than anything good came from removing Mosques from Bosnia.

There is no line here. The Founders all owned slaves, the Constitution based on a division of powers and federalism was written by evil slave-owning white men to pursue their economic interests, and the Bill of Rights was written by Jefferson the slave owner. Everything is up for grabs.

The Left is turning into the Westboro Baptist Church, but targeting monuments not funerals (yet).

KD , says: August 23, 2017 at 1:19 pm
God hates Confederates and Antebellum American Presidents.
JonF , says: August 23, 2017 at 1:34 pm
Re: No, the progressive assault on Confederate statues is an assault on history, memory, and myth

History lives on in books, museums, and national monuments and parks of a historical sort. We are not assaulting any of those. And indeed where statues have been removed by the legal actions of civil magistrates the intent is to move them to sorts of places where history is explicitly remembered. So if this is "an assault on history" it's an utterly incompetent one.

As for myths, well, there are good myths and bad myths. No one, I hope, would suggest we keep alive the wicked old calumnies (myths in their own day) of Jews poisoning wells or sacrificing Christian children. The myth of white supremacy is of a similar sort, and it needs to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through its heart.
The Southern states meanwhile have a 400 year old history, reckoning from Jamestown (longer of course if we take Native Americans into account). There's much in that to celebrate. Why obsess about the least felicitous few years out of that history?

M_Young , says: August 23, 2017 at 1:54 pm
"why is Longstreet not marked by statue or Beauregard? " You know, Hound of Ulster, when you get your talking points from CNN you ought to independently check them. Here's a Longstreet memorial, Gainsville.(bad orientation) https://www.pinterest.com/pin/368028600772640099
Stay Put , says: August 23, 2017 at 2:16 pm
"God hates Confederates and Antebellum American Presidents."

He must hate intelligent Confederate statue smashers too, because he didn't create any.

ludo , says: August 23, 2017 at 2:50 pm
Historical iconoclasm is actually a wondrous thing, highly advanced, anticipating by millennia the universe of problems associated with present-day, technologically mediated, iconophilia, including the transcendent, generation-defining problem of Internet pornography and related dynamic image-induced mesmerizations, where the possessed image ends up gradually possessing the unguarded possessor and entrapping him/her in the "prison house" whose very walls are the projections of unguarded sight.

The phantasmata channeled by the fathomless 'mirror', volatilized and dynamized by an incomprehensible and untrustworthy demiurge, are anticipated by the hyper-real "demon-possessed" anthropomorphic statues of antiquity, not to mention the actually existing automata of that age: combining the dual extraneous potential (i.e. enchantments) of representation-enhancing technologies and the primitive, unreflective, libidinal human urge. As Plato wrote: "This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.

Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?

Anything but surprising, he replied.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den."

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.8.vii.html

Mackayla , says: August 23, 2017 at 3:05 pm
"Huntington's book sounds helpful but the work that continues to be even more prescient is Christopher Lasch's "The Revolt of the Elites," describing a ruling class that has severed its ties to its own cultural order as well as to the less powerful and privileged members of it. The result is incomprehension of reaction they provoke and chaos. In the short run, this may increase their illusion of control and power but the long run spells doom and replacement by more cohesive cultures."

That's exactly the book I was thinking of in this post. He also talks about how when the "Managerial Elites" replaced the "Wasps" as the ruling class they replaced the sense of responsibility and Noblesse Oblige the Wasps had for the country w/ disregard, selfishness and greed by the managerial meritocracy. Gone is the manufacturing economy replaced by the ephemeral finance and information economy.

Waz , says: August 23, 2017 at 3:06 pm
"liberty, equality under the law, equality of opportunity (if not of result), individualism, populism, limited government, and free-market economics. These ideas, Huntington said, came out of Protestant England and its reception of the Enlightenment"

Bull. Neither England, nor Enlightment. Voltaire and his "enlighted" ilk were sycophants of the absolute monarchies of the Prussian militarist Frederic II,forerunner of the modern totalitarian state and imperialist Catherine II, whom they idealized. Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth destroyed primarily by Prussia, resorting even to counterfeiting of the Polish currency, was the font of the values Huntington finds foundational, far ahead of England.

Statutes of Cienia enacted around the time of Magna Carta, and of essentially the same nature, were actually implemented whereas MC for a very long time remained a dead letter. Neminem Captivabimus preceded Habeas Corpus by 143 years. Citizens with full political rights were 5-6 times more numerous in Poland than in England of France.

Religious freedom was unparalleled, people flocked to Poland from all over the continent running from persecutions. It was known as the country without stakes. Free markets were on the par with England. Government was by far more limited in Poland than in any other country. No objective historian can claim that English freedoms could come close to that.

The English have been veritable the masters of Imperial propaganda down to the current cult of the Queen. Historical record of English tyranny, persecution and exploitation is glaring. It would serve Americans, especially conservatives, well, to be more discerning when it comes to their ideological heritage as formed by Protestant England. The Puritans running from English persecution were persecutors themselves. Poland and Venice are worthy of conservative reflection searching for inspiration.

Siarlys Jenkins , says: August 23, 2017 at 3:42 pm
The Statues represent reconciliation.

Unfortunately, they do not. They were mostly erected by "Redeemers" or later incarnations of triumphalist white supremacists (the real thing, not some unfortunate soul who gets tagged in a 21st century virtual replay), at a time when the northern and western elites didn't care any more, and anyone of African descent was being brutally disfranchised.

Many schools were REnamed for confederate generals as part of "massive resistance" to the final push against Jim Crow.

That is what those statues, by and large, represent. That is why a fair number of people want them to come down.

God hates Confederates and Antebellum American Presidents.

God has not given me any personal revelation on the subject, but from all the Christian education I've had, God is merciful to sinners and seeks to bring all into reconciliation with Him. He does, however, hate slavery and efforts to make war to perpetuate it. He may not have looked kindly on the annexation of Mexican territory either, but Santa Ana was no saint.

So let the common soldiers be commenrated, but tear down the statues of the traitors who led them.

That would be reasonable, but it may be a little late to do it right. We need more attention to novels like Cold Mountain, and of course to the Jones County Scouts.

Well, given that the NY Public Library lions symbolize the Lion of Judah, they will indeed have to go. They are an obvious, obnoxious allusion to the Jewish role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and of course to Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy's slave-owning Jewish Secretary of State.

Explain that to all the black churches dedicated to the Lion of Judah, considered, rightly or wrongly, to be a reference to Jesus Christ. (Separately, I note that Lion of Judah was one of the titles of the kings of Ethiopia).

Daniel (not Larrison) , says: August 23, 2017 at 3:51 pm
M_Young @ 10:57 am:

I am well aware that the Sacred Declaration says "Savage" in reference to Indians.

Just because it's in a key founding document doesn't make it less offensive.

Nor does it mean we have to rip it up.

We don't have to accept or reject everything in a document (or anything, for that matter) to find value. A thing, or a person, can have overwhellming good, but also some ugly stains.

I think it would be the height of folly to reject the Declaration because it wasn't inerrant and also folly to dogmatically accept it all as unvarnished good merely because Jefferson wrote it.

It's like when the Constitutiin was read in toto in Congress a few years back. Some Republicans didn't want the (now defunct) parts about slaves read; others wanted it read, warts and all to do otherwise they would consider "whitewashing".

And no, none of them suggested burning the Constitution, or saying we must have slavery because the original Constitution provided for it.

JonF , says: August 23, 2017 at 4:31 pm
Re: There is no line here.

The line is public opinion. Large numbers of people are on board with ditching the Rebs and race baiters. Large numbers of people are not on board with dumping the Founders. The recent failure of the ACA repeal-and-replace effort should be an object lesson of how public opinion really can prevent unpopular public actions from occurring, even when pushed by powerful and wealthy people– and in this case only a fringe gang of radicals would be pushing for what you fear.

Re: The Founders all owned slaves

All of them? Every last signer of the Declaration* and Constitution? Every officer with rank or colonel or better in the Continental Army?
Please document this!

LLLurker , says: August 23, 2017 at 4:32 pm
"The Statues represent reconciliation. When one town can have a statue of a Union hero and another town can have a statue of a Confederate hero while still acknowledging that both towns are American, you have reconciliation."

Remarkable. It's as if reaching reconciliation requires pretending that neither town contains folks who are not white. Yes we are, in a sense, finally trying to begin to deal with reconciling some old history. News flash though, it ain't about blue and gray uniforms

J Riley , says: August 23, 2017 at 4:35 pm
Interesting interview with Andrew Young on NPR this morning ("Civil Rights Activist Argues to Keep Confederate Monuments"): "A minority cannot be provoking a racist majority that is still underemployed, undereducated, and dying faster than we are. The issue is life and death, not some stupid monument." http://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545435024/civil-rights-activist-argues-to-keep-confederate-monuments
Ten Percenter , says: August 23, 2017 at 4:42 pm
A bit of an aside, but since ya'll are more knowledgeable than me Do you know if there are any statues in the South to white southerners who opposed slavery?
Craig , says: August 23, 2017 at 5:30 pm
Slavery is something like original sin, as it pertains to the founding of this country. It is a blot that stains all the good things that came out of the revolution. Clearly, the ideals that the Founders promoted were not practiced very well in the beginning. And for too long, their failure to live up to the ideals they espoused was white washed away (pun intended) by the way the white majority looked at history. Granted, the Founders were handicapped by growing up in a different world, one that was less enlightened on matters involving race and sex than the one we live in today. Progress does not happen as one instantaneous cultural step change, but rather as a more fitful series of stops and starts. Of course, that isn't adequate as an excuse for those who were on the receiving end of injustices.

Obviously, some people think that one of the outcomes of the Civil war, the freeing of slaves, which occurred at a rather high cost of lives and treasure, would have gone a long way to atoning for that original sin. But the follow through was clearly lacking, with racial resentments and overt discrimination lingering on until now. Despite our long history as a Christian nation, not enough of the mostly Christian and white majority was able to grasp that all men, not just white men, were presumably created in God's image.

So what shall we do about this?

Right now, those on the left seem to be indulging themselves emotionally by engaging in a frenzied purification of history, via the attack on historical personages and statues. In some ways, this strikes me as lazy, as it isn't clear that any of this will improve lives in struggling black communities, or solve the gang violence problems in Chicago, and other urban areas, or enable damaged young black men to have any kind of meaningful lives, regardless of who is to blame for the damage that they have suffered. In the same way, I don't see that white identity politics, the adoption by whites of the same aggrieved victim mentality, will help them advance in any meaningful way. Trump's promises to return things to the way they were are just tempting fantasies. There are no do overs in history. All sides need to check themselves and then focus on moving forward in the best way possible. That, unfortunately, seems to go against human nature. Vendetta is much more attractive in the short run.

grumpy realist , says: August 23, 2017 at 5:34 pm
I still can't get over it. Joan of Arc?!!!

Maybe we can make a decision based on artistic merit? I mean, a lot of these statues are mass-produced pieces of sentimental kitch that make me remember the excesses of oratory during the 1890s. Is it really all that terrible if we turn them into something else? Or should we just say: "if it's a statue of some guy on a horse and has moss on it, we'll leave it alone" and impose a statuary equivalent to the legal doctrine of laches?

Actually, I think getting to the point of being totally indifferent to the statues would be the most appropriate of all. After all, they are nothing more than huge hunks of metal that pigeons like to sit on.

Alex Brown , says: August 23, 2017 at 5:44 pm
Aaron C. I am 35 years old, and I believe the country will tear itself apart in my lifetime.

Trouble with separatist scenarios in the US is that they're basically unworkable, if you think at the practical level. Most people have multiple identities, and they will start resisting when purists like SJWs try to enforce their will. Besides, in the real-world identities are fluid, not fixed. Neo-Marxists are focusing on race because it's one of the most stable component of human identity. They already failed with class war, where workers decided that they have other identities. And in the real world, most people in the US may already be non-white by the old 1/16th rule, and their numbers are going up daily. As for the Left and Right divide, people are moving from one side to the next, sometimes several times in a lifetime. Should they be forced to move *physically* too, to reach an ideologically pure state? And how to even think about dividing the country economically? Militarily? It would be a complete disaster, worse than any Yugoslavia.

I think it is much, much more likely that we will remain a single country. But what is really scary is deterioration of the public discourse, the endless 'f . you!!' as a sole argument in the debates. The outbursts of physical violence. The pretense that there are *good* SOBs because they are on *our* side – looking at you, liberal media!

We may end up as, I hate to say, spiders in the can, destroying each other instead of improving our country. Think about it: where do we want to be in 30 or 50 years? There is a tremendous *potential* for science and technology for improving our lives, eliminating hard and tedious work, reducing human pain and suffering, cleaning the environment. But instead of looking forward and thinking how to improve, we're focused on zero-sum game of endless reopening of the old wounds.

Will we ever learn?

Noah172 , says: August 23, 2017 at 5:47 pm
JonF wrote:

Large numbers of people are on board with ditching the Rebs and race baiters

Recent surveys show that removing Confederate statues is a minority view.

and in this case only a fringe gang of radicals would be pushing for what you fear

You of all people should know that redefining marriage was once a fringe idea.

Law of Merited Impossibility, yet again.

Siarlys Jenkins , says: August 23, 2017 at 7:19 pm
Re: The Founders all owned slaves

John Adams is on record saying with pride "I have never owned a Negro or any other slave." McCullough's biography records that a young enslaved woman was once given to the family as a gift, but was promptly emancipated -- which is probably a better deal for her than refusing the gift and leaving her enslaved.

JRP , says: August 23, 2017 at 7:29 pm
If the sum total of all indicators within the context of group, racial identity and the possible demise of an anglo/protestant cultural heritage is true, then violent conflict looms on the horizon and possibly in the near foreseeable future. Yes, it will not be a fight for racial(i.e. white)supremacy but an at-all-costs battle to avoid extinction.
TR , says: August 23, 2017 at 7:53 pm
In Tampa, the Confederate monument now being challenged was erected c. 1912. Sure enough, someone checked the newspaper for that day and the dedication was by a white politician vowing that the South would never submit to being ruled by an "inferior" race.

Battle lost! So much for "reconciliation."

[Aug 22, 2017] Charlottesville Requiem by Philip Giraldi

This "war against statues" look like borrowed directly from Ukrainian Maydan, which was a 100% authentic color revolution. Conflict escalation is a major tool in staging a color revolution.
War with statues is pretty harmless for oligarchy, but does sharply divide the people into two camps. It much easier to remove statues, than raise wages.
The key mechanism here is that it allow escalation, necessary for color revolution to succeed -- as some as violence occurred it doe not matter who was right and who was wrong, of if both parties engaged in violence were wrong.
Notable quotes:
"... terra incognita ..."
Aug 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

The hysteria unfolding regarding events in Charlottesville reminds me of the anti-Russia madness that has made front page news ever since Hillary Clinton discovered that she had lost the presidential election to Vladimir Putin. The media train is again rushing headlong into a terra incognita with its only goal being to bring down President Donald Trump by riding a wave of anti-right wing extremist revulsion. The establishment press is essentially enforcing its own code of ethics, insisting that just because what the mainstream characterizes as morally repugnant "Nazi-scum" and white nationalists exist they are ultimately fully responsible for any violence that is required to defeat them and disrupt their activities. For the ubiquitous talking heads like Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow to believe otherwise is to posit moral equivalency between the good guys and bad guys, something that cannot be tolerated.

As far as I can determine, almost no one knows much about the specific agendas of the various parties that were involved in last week's fracas in Charlottesville. My own viewpoint extends only as far as a strong belief that the deconstruction of this nation through the elimination of select historical monuments is wrong, particularly when said monuments commemorate people who fought and died for their country. As I am a Vietnam-era army veteran I would concede that my judgment in that regard is somewhat skewed.

That aside, there are several other issues that should be of general interest that have been largely obscured by the violence that erupted and the media interpretation of the event to fit in with its own preferred narrative.

First and foremost is the free speech issue which is being conveniently ignored by a media and political class intent on punishing the white nationalist protesters no matter what rights have to be trampled along the way. As far as I can determine, the primary objective of the Unite-the-Right gathering was to protest against removing a statue, so one has to at least assume that some demonstrators were there in good faith based on that issue. And surely many of the counter-demonstrators were there to protest peacefully against some of the admittedly extremist groups marching under the Unite umbrella.

... ... ...

Alfa158 > > , August 22, 2017 at 5:03 am GMT

"The likelihood that there were paid FBI informants on both sides of the conflict leads me to believe that the federal government knows exactly what took place on August 12th in Charlottesville, but perhaps no one has either the guts or requisite integrity to be honest about it as it might be embarrassing all around. What if it turns out that the politically more acceptable counter-demonstrators deliberately provoked the violence and were allowed to get away with it?"

Gee you think?

Well there won't be any embarrassment because a) the Imperial media will never cover such a story and if it leaked out anyway; b) The Empire is inherently incapable of being embarrassed about anything.

Dube > > , August 22, 2017 at 5:39 am GMT

Charlottesville: the numbers in the field. If you don't know the numbers and deployment, you don't know the event.

Mark Green > > , August 22, 2017 at 6:28 am GMT

Based on eyewitness accounts and video footage of what took place in Charlottesville, these facts have emerged: antifa agitators came to Charlottesville impose street justice on their 'Nazi' opponents and shut down the lawful and peaceful assembly of a conservative minority.

This is not the first time that antifa activists have unleashed premeditated violence upon their political adversaries.

Antifa thugs (and their political enablers) are on a dark mission: to deny the constitutional guarantees of free speech, public assembly and free association to racially-conscious whites. This is a totalitarian agenda.

Further, the mainstream media–using biased analysis and inflammatory reporting–is enabling this pernicious pattern of antifa violence to spread.

Today, Americans are taught to celebrate the 'Jewish Community', the 'gay community', the 'black community', the 'Hispanic community'.

But never the 'white community'. That is not allowed. Never–even though Euro-Americans are the heart and soul of our extraordinary, English-speaking civilization.

Fact: white advocacy is not 'white supremacy'.

Yet our mainstream media declares it so.

This deception does real harm. Whites are divided. Ashamed.

White children are increasingly isolated and estranged from their own roots and community. Political self-loathing and downward mobility have become common among whites.

White cohesion has been declared racist and uniquely evil. This may be good news for ambitious and envious blacks, gays, Hispanics and Jews. But whites are in decline.

This worldview is partly the product of double standards. These double-standard are underhanded.

Antifa extremism is being used by the Liberal establishment to crush if not eradicate white memory and white continuity.

Please sign and circulate the petition to declare antifa a terrorist organization.

https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-declare-antifa-a-terrorist-organization

anonymous > > , Disclaimer August 22, 2017 at 7:22 am GMT

Another excellent essay. Mr. Giraldi, I would appreciate knowing what you think about one particular aspect of the stagecraft.

Having watched a few (not all, especially as some have been squelched) of the videos assembled under the parallel Cleburne article, my impression is that these so-called Uniters of The Right may have selected the forum because they, like the Establishment generally, desired a violent altercation.

The Friday night torchlight parade as filmed by Vice seems almost scripted, provocative "reality TV" to stoke fear and loathing among the American manipullati. Men who look like Haven Monohan's frat brothers chanting "Blood And Soil" (really?!), in perfect formation behind a drum major who looks like a Viking Hell's Angel, all left undisturbed by observers. Are these even the same people sent packing on Saturday from the park and down the street to be abused by hundreds of counter-protestors, as seen in the Goldy video?

Thank you.

Greg Bacon > , • Website August 22, 2017 at 10:55 am GMT

Gee, look at the positive side, at least if your part of the MIC or a TBTF Wall Street Casino. The riots helped box Trump in on the Afghanistan war thing, as he now declares we'll stay there, bombing the rubble for years to come.

That Afghan opium will keep flowing and the hundreds of billions laundered by those Wall Street gangsters will also continue to flow.

When the hate-filled Senator Graham admires Trump's Afghan war speech, you know the nation is in trouble.

tjm > , August 22, 2017 at 11:07 am GMT

"The media train is again rushing headlong into a terra incognita with its only goal being to bring down President Donald Trump by riding a wave of anti-right wing extremist revulsion".

What a load of main stream media BS!

The media is owned by the same Wall Street Zionist filth that own Trump.

This idea that Trump is an "American Firster", worked during the election, but has been seen for the lie it truly is now.

Trump has filled his cabinet with Wall Street Zionists, continued sales of weapons to terrorist states, has INCREASED our presence in Isreal's wars, and has continued to antagonize Russia, while TOTALLY IGNORING MASS LATINO IMMIGRATION.

Just like with Obama, the media is playing a role as "anti-Trump", to give Trump cover for being another Zionist puppet. When Obama was in office the ZioMedia called him the "most liberal President", even as he took away our rights, bailed out Wall Street and sold arms to third world despots.

Americans need to GROW UP, stop thinking the world is so black and white and see how we are being played for fools. Zionists rule Washington, and certainly Trump. Peter Thiel and Adleson are Trump's biggest financial supporters, are we supposed to believe THEY ARE AMERICA FIRSTERS, please, they hate America, they are Zionists.

Chris Dakota > , August 22, 2017 at 11:17 am GMT

@Anonymous Nobody died at Columbine. Boston Marathon 9/11 passengers, etc.
Its time Americans wake up to reclaim the nation.

Staging this kind of event is child's play for the CIA. For them, its part of the standard regime change profile.
Mind control technology delivers activist to the place in the space to commit overt ....acts and to take in true patsy form the untraceable source of the blame for conflict of ideas to be escalated to mayhem.
Conflict escalation [Ce} was a major tool for the Leninist plan to bring the Czar of Russia down in February, 1917 Such Ce and it has been successfully applied in the political space of many nations to bring down well like national leaders. Ce Chaos is the name of the game! Chaos is one of the dispersant that can be added to separate the people of a nation from the peace afforded to them by their political structures. Chaos unleashes abusive power the law and order prevent. Those hidden behind the scenes have a plan..but it cannot be implemented if the political and cultural structures of the target society remains strong and its principles upheld . To weaken structure: opposing interest are pitted against each other to disturb the peace and to create chaos. As the structural integrity of the target political and cultural system begin to weaken the plan is put into action.
The nations people's support for the structure is generally strong enough to keep the political and cultural structure in place(i.e.the people continue to adhere to the law and order accustomed to their national society). What destroys that structure is chaos! Chaos works because it weakens the leadership. What chaos does is to allow behind the scene take-overs, it allows to enrage the uninformed public so, that the public itself encourages legislatures to enact the kind of Draconian rules that self-generate chaos (i.e. limits on free speech, curfews, and intrusions by governments of law and use of force). My fellow Americans find themselves once again victims of a mirage staged by those who intended chaos to be generated , the tools of the chaos generating teams were used to stir to a frenzy, those who were sincere as to a heart-felt. I quote the article "radical groups .. came together to demonstrate on both sides?" just as was done in 1917 Russia!
OUTCOME: chaos disperses the people caught inside of media controlled political space.. I said to a cop a few yrs ago "Boston Marathon was a false flag" he said "Does it even matter?"
True it doesn't matter, it is taken as real and the objective is realized anyway.
Trump didn't call out Charlottesville as a false flag, he folded to the deep state and extended the war in Afghanistan.

Stephen Paul Foster > , • Website August 22, 2017 at 11:24 am GMT

"It is important to bear in mind that there is great danger in selectively endorsing politically correct Free Speech. If either the left or right is successful and we lose our First Amendment rights through "hate speech" legislation or other forms of state censorship such as have been introduced in Europe it is safe to say that we will have lost our republic."

I hate to break it to this writer but the train has already left the station, and some time ago. The left HAS been successful beyond "endorsing politically correct Free Speech". They now with little resistance enforce the ever expanding PC speech codes because they own the enforcement apparatus, i.e., the MSM, the courts, the propaganda outlets that make the shaming machinery of popular culture so efficient. They have us self-censoring. Go to any university campus and see how far free speech takes you. At your workplace just casually mention a politically incorrect fact, like black-on-white homicide statistics, and see where your career goes. Technically, yes, state censorship is not yet in place, but the left doesn't really need it that much. Plus the censorious SJWs are just one or two Supreme Court (Democrat appointed) justices in the near future, who will mop things up by upholding "hate speech" legislation that will criminalize speech that includes facts that hurt the feelings of "marginalized" people -- delayed for a bit by Trump's surprise upending of Hillary Hugo Chavez Clinton.

The left wants more than state censorship. They see the destruction of European (white) civilization.

http://fosterspeak.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-exterminationist-left-happy-trails.html

JackOH > , August 22, 2017 at 12:09 pm GMT

Philip, thanks. My local newspaper, an intelligent and literate independent, came out against neo-Nazis today. I suspect the editor was pressured into it, because the phenomenon of neo-Nazism as a meaningful political movement doesn't exist in my area. Neo-Nazism doesn't exist as a meaningful political phenomenon in the United States.

Chrissake–I'm venting here–does anyone else here see an obvious parallel between the actual historical Nazis opportunistically grasping for power after the Reichstag fire, and the Left grasping at opportunities to efface the memory of prominent Southerners using the trivial Charlottesville fracas as a pretext? What's that old saw: he who accuses, excuses. The real Nazis seem to me the other guys–the Left.

jack ryan > , Website August 22, 2017 at 12:25 pm GMT

@Alfa158 Yeah, maybe some. But, almost all of this was done by corrupt, lying folks in Virginia state and local. The Virginia governor and the (J tribe) Charlottesville VA mayor openly worked to deny the UnitetheRight their legal right to demonstrate in Lee Park/Emancipation Park and the local police and state national guard force the UnitetheRight Demonstrates to exit the park to be attacked by massed mobs of Antifa/BlackLivesMatter mobs. This was deliberate. So it wasn't all some Federal conspiracy in the Trump administration.

These college towns like Charlottesville VA or Durham (Duke) N.C. have been taken over politically and in the faculty by hard core Leftists, anti Whites – the wealthy alumni of these once solid Conservative Southern colleges generally doesn't care as long as the basketball teams do well and the College rankings stay high (rankings done by Harvard and Yale type academics).

I know the score as I went to the former Southern Conservatives University of Vanderbilt University in Nashville TN. Vanderbilt now has a J tribe Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos who was a former Leftist Law professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison – the same college town that now has an openly Castro Communist mayor who just ripped out Confederate grave stones outside of Madison.

anarchyst > , August 22, 2017 at 12:29 pm GMT

Has anyone noticed that the so-called "white supremacists" were holding brand new, recently unfolded flags and were wearing brand new, recently unfolded k kk regalia?
It is no secret that a jewish-owned company "Crowds On Demand" was advertising for (left-wing) protesters for Charlottesville on craigslist.
Sorta tells you something
The "Unite the Right" promoter Kessler was an 0′bama operative
The whole thing was orchestrated in order to further demonize whites

TheJester > , August 22, 2017 at 1:49 pm GMT

Yes, this is confusing. One day Vladimir is coming to get us he is hiding under our beds and infecting our computer systems. Disregard. The next day it is the Alt-Right hiding under our beds and infecting our water supply.

It appears that the MSM and Progressive movement, no matter how well organized, are a "one-trick pony". They can only posture one hysterical The End is Nigh meme at a time for public consumption. This in itself should raise suspicions that these are all pre-staged political carnivals theaters of the absurd. The question, Who is organizing and paying for these carnivals and to what end?

Joe Hide > , August 22, 2017 at 2:30 pm GMT

To Phillip Giraldi,
You had me laughing with some of your writings. For instance, "When Hillary Clinton discovered she had lost the election to Vladimir Putin." HA!
Also, Your style of asking questions and then giving only some of the possible answers made me do some thinking I wouldn't have done otherwise. I hope You continue with this great style in the future.

Skeptikal > , August 23, 2017 at 2:16 am GMT

@Sam Shama I don't think the Antifa protesters were "allowed" in the square.
They had no permit.
They weren't "allowed" to be anywhere around there and should have been made to disperse and go somewhere else, with force if necessary (I mean to be made to go somewhere else to hold their protest).
The police do this all the time.
"Cage" protesters to avoid problems they foresee.
So, WFT, C'ville Police???

McAuliffe definitely had a hand in this "standing down."

[Aug 21, 2017] Post Charlottesville Anti-Right Pogrom Based On Fantasy

Notable quotes:
"... Conservative HQ ..."
"... Knowing that the Antifa thugs were there with cans filled with cement, baseball bats and even improvised flame throwers why would the police stand down? ..."
"... One answer is because the Democrats wanted a riot to lay at President Trump's feet ..."
"... Angry White Dude ..."
"... The Establishment Strikes Back ..."
"... why was this not done in Virginia? ..."
"... The billionaires of America control our media so control the masses. So called "leftists" should be conducting antiwar marches, or marches for higher wages and single payer healthcare. However, the billionaires manipulate them to march against non-issues to keep workers fighting amongst each other. It was good to see Charles Barkley speak out and say black people never noticed confederate statues and don't care about them. ..."
"... This game begins when billionaires have someone propose removing confederate statues, then encourage groups of whites to protest, pay for a permit, and publicize the event. They have their paid agitators show up to hand out confederate and Nazi flags, give the Hitler salute, and start fights. They also organize leftist groups to have counter-demonstrations and send their black clad agitators to incite violence. Finally, they direct their media to provide massive coverage so that workers are distracted while they continue to loot the world. ..."
"... The System has won. The establishment got the anti-estblishmnet extreme right and the anti-establishment extreme left fight each other. It can't be any better. ..."
"... Antifa is a replay of the 1960s riots and Revolution . But there's a big difference: in the 60s the FBI and police fought the revolutionaries. Now they side with the revolutionaries ..."
"... I view the statue stuff as the summer replacement for transgender bathroom hysteria, all in the service of division and distraction. However, Ron Unz is doing people a great service by courageously publishing this proof of the corruption and suppression of journalism. ..."
"... The USA is now in the grip of oligarch-fostered mass hysteria, giving a large segment of the population – its AntiFa, 'left-libs', poor minorities etc – a thrill of momentary power over other human beings, to substitute for what they are being denied in their lives ..."
"... It is just like Mao's 1966 'Cultural Revolution', or poor Muslims led today to bray for the hanging of 'blasphemers' The oligarchs play on how common people will take the 'path of least resistance' to what makes them feel more powerful against vulnerable targets easy to hand, whom the plebs can feel 'safe' in attacking in the USA & the West generally, that is now of course the oligarch-run 'cultural Marxism' agenda against alleged 'bigots, racists' etc superbly distracting from how common people are being violated in a crony-corrupt economy ..."
"... Again, I see the statue controversy as manufactured distraction. ..."
"... But how many Americans who still rely on MSM are aware that the car reportedly driven by Fields struck another, which in turn struck a third, which then struck people in the street? If Heyer was hit by that third car – assuming this video is legitimate – then much of what is being reported via Establishment outlets is inarguably false. ..."
Aug 21, 2017 | www.unz.com

Conservative HQ concluded:

Knowing that the Antifa thugs were there with cans filled with cement, baseball bats and even improvised flame throwers why would the police stand down?

One answer is because the Democrats wanted a riot to lay at President Trump's feet

I would add that the Treason Lobby wanted a pretext to launch the next stage of their internet purge against the Right, which clearly was long planned.

Angry White Dude 's astute writer RedStaterNYC states plainly in The Establishment Strikes Back August 16 2017 what I think is no more than the truth

the Charlottesville chaos was obviously a setup designed specifically to corner the white men into violent confrontation with the Establishment's hired goons, "Antifa". Then, they would use that violence as a pretext to both suppress the rights to peaceable assembly by the white men, and then plaster the mayhem all over the airwaves to smear them as a group of unhinged, violent, "domestic terrorists".

The Establishment's muscle, the VA police, did their job, and then their propaganda arm–the MSM–went right to work hysterically demanding Trump demonize the white men

He points to the aftermath:

Since suppressing white men's right to peaceable assembly, they have now gone to fully suppressing their rights to speech and association.

All of the prominent alt-right sites have been taken offline. We are now on day three or four without most of them. They're just gone. And this is despite having DDOS-protection services in place and very smart guys on the SA side of things.

Clearly, we aren't dealing with Antifa script-kiddies, but state actors who are behind this effort to snuff this insurgent pro-white group of young men out of existence before TPTB lose any more power to them

Expect this to go federal in short order

They are clearly scared, they clearly aren't taking any chances any more and they clearly aren't going to be stopped by appeals to conscience.

This concurs remarkably closely with our "Charlottesville Survivor"s conclusion:

The American government, at every level, is waging a campaign of extermination against its own people. If you protest against it, law enforcement tries to get you killed. And if you survive that, journalists try to get you fired.

And we are told this is "freedom."

Don't kid yourself any longer . You are under occupation .

Thanks to the self-control of the Unite The Right people, Charlottesville might well have passed off without giving the Pogrom leaders the big incident they needed

... ... ...

Two long videos here and here give vivid impressions of lethal menace of the Antifa mob in Charlottesville. A week later the Boston authorities easily minimized violence by keeping the Antifa and their prey strictly apart. This highlights the key question: why was this not done in Virginia?

It was because the Left's response to to the MAGA is MAAG (Make America A Gulag). And they needed a pretext.

(No doubt I have missed useful material. Please send it in.)

Carlton Meyer > , Website August 21, 2017 at 4:33 am GMT

From my blog:

Aug 21, 2017 – Foolish Protestors

The billionaires of America control our media so control the masses. So called "leftists" should be conducting antiwar marches, or marches for higher wages and single payer healthcare. However, the billionaires manipulate them to march against non-issues to keep workers fighting amongst each other. It was good to see Charles Barkley speak out and say black people never noticed confederate statues and don't care about them.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/08/19/charles-barkley-most-black-people-havent-thought-day-their-lives-about-confederate

This game begins when billionaires have someone propose removing confederate statues, then encourage groups of whites to protest, pay for a permit, and publicize the event. They have their paid agitators show up to hand out confederate and Nazi flags, give the Hitler salute, and start fights. They also organize leftist groups to have counter-demonstrations and send their black clad agitators to incite violence. Finally, they direct their media to provide massive coverage so that workers are distracted while they continue to loot the world.

Readers may be confused why "single payer" is an important issue. Our bizarre healthcare systems cost twice as much as other modern nations and produces below average results. The great Jimmy Dore clarifies in this video clip.

utu > , August 21, 2017 at 4:45 am GMT

The System has won. The establishment got the anti-estblishmnet extreme right and the anti-establishment extreme left fight each other. It can't be any better.

It is the simplest thing to set up known by police forces around the world since the 19 century.

You want to play politics you need to learn and do your homework. Start with the class "Agent provocateurs 101."

Wally > , Website August 21, 2017 at 5:18 am GMT

More on this:

The entire Charlottesville event was a staged event, a classic strategy of provocation operation which is going to be used as psywar pushing for national imposition of martial law and the deep state coup against Trump and the remnants of the Republic.

Read on.

The facts about Charlottesville that the Zionist dominated MSM do not allow:

http://www.unz.com/article/narrative-collapse-is-charlottesvilles-james-alex-fields-the-next-george-zimmerman/

and:Proof of staging, see video: different cars, different driver than alleged driver Fields, photo shopped 'flying people' & crash backgrounds, lot's more.
It's not difficult, just open your eyes.

Charlottesville, a set-up

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/08/charlottesville_and_its_aftermath_what_if_it_was_a_setup.html

... ... ...

jilles dykstra > , August 21, 2017 at 6:30 am GMT

Seen from the other side of the Atlantic the conflict seems to be over identity, who is the real American ? American here, in the sense hated by those in S America, of USA citizen. When I visited the USA, and met USA citizens, the real Americans obviously were those whose ancestors arrived on the Mayflower, and/or signed the Declaration of Independence. Of course the ancestors of the real Americans fought on the right, that is, winning, side of the Civil War.

These real Americans thus are of NW European, preferably British descent, they are not Irish or catholic, and they are white. Immigration numerically changed the USA, catholics hardly arrive any more from Europe, but they do arrive from the South and Middle America's, speaking spanish. Muslim immigrant also get a stronger position in USA society, their advantage is that they do speak english.

Maybe it is this advantage that made Chaim Saban do anything to prevent that a USA Muslim Senator became chairman of the USA democratic party, Saban also did not want Bernie Sanders, Sanders seems to be not enough pro Israel.

So what we see now is Cold Civil War, between the voters of Trump and Deep State, and between the 'real Americans' and those who 'just' have the USA nationality, but are not seen by the Mayflower/ Declaration Americans as real Americans. What confuses these two cold civil wars further are religious issues, about homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia. The present Dutch political problem of families with three or more parents does not even seem to have reached the other side of the Atlantic.

Alden > , August 21, 2017 at 6:54 am GMT

I'm thinking of going to the Crissy field San Francisco demo next Saturday. It's on federal land, the Presidio. The city of San Francisco is trying to get the Feds to revoke the permit. "Natural conservative" high IQ Mayor Ed Lee and the rest of the Chinese politicians are really pushing to get the permit revoked.

So much for the natural alliance of hardworking high IQ Whites and Asians hoped for by the conservatives who run websites imagining a future in which Whites and Asians unite against anti White liberals.

The pro White group doing the protest is "Patriot Prayer". I don't know much about them. But patriot? I hate America as much as George Foxman and George Soros do. Prayer? I don't believe in God and the Christian churches are as anti White as the government.

If it's permitted the national park rangers will be in charge of security. Generally, neither city nor state police come on federal land.

Antifa is a replay of the 1960s riots and Revolution . But there's a big difference: in the 60s the FBI and police fought the revolutionaries. Now they side with the revolutionaries

anonymous > , Disclaimer August 21, 2017 at 10:14 am GMT

"(Look at them quickly: the way things are going they will all be shut down in a few days.)"

At least three apparently already have been. I view the statue stuff as the summer replacement for transgender bathroom hysteria, all in the service of division and distraction. However, Ron Unz is doing people a great service by courageously publishing this proof of the corruption and suppression of journalism.

joeshittheragman > , Website August 21, 2017 at 10:37 am GMT

This reminds me of the Travon Martin situation. All the main stream media came out big time against Zimmerman. The incident with the Dodge Challenger is the same, just to pat. I look for an unraveling to take place when it comes to the trial.

Brabantian > , Website August 21, 2017 at 10:40 am GMT

The USA is now in the grip of oligarch-fostered mass hysteria, giving a large segment of the population – its AntiFa, 'left-libs', poor minorities etc – a thrill of momentary power over other human beings, to substitute for what they are being denied in their lives

It is just like Mao's 1966 'Cultural Revolution', or poor Muslims led today to bray for the hanging of 'blasphemers' The oligarchs play on how common people will take the 'path of least resistance' to what makes them feel more powerful against vulnerable targets easy to hand, whom the plebs can feel 'safe' in attacking in the USA & the West generally, that is now of course the oligarch-run 'cultural Marxism' agenda against alleged 'bigots, racists' etc superbly distracting from how common people are being violated in a crony-corrupt economy

Long ago, Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945), suggested that 3 things explain much of human social behaviour:

  1. The law of dimishing returns
  2. That the inferior will tend to drive out & overwhelm that of higher quality
  3. The path of least resistance

Oligarch media has put this whole AntiFa etc purge insanity on a platter, & offered it to any miscreant who would like to power-trip over some now-vulnerable victims, formerly 'powerful' but now able to be cut down. But like any mania, this will in time burn itself out as its absurdity becomes more obvious, probably more on the time-scale of the Cultural Marxism Maoist excesses, which Mao himself declared 'over' in 1969 after just 3 years

What may be a more permanent legacy, tho, is the USA mass censorship that has begun, parallel to the Chinese & to some degree also Russian internet web forum de-platforming Big Powers Agree, control those interwebz!

anonymous > , Disclaimer August 21, 2017 at 10:56 am GMT

I have another comment awaiting moderation, but have now watched the last (Faith Goldy) video which appears to have captured in real time the automobile horror.

Again, I see the statue controversy as manufactured distraction.

But how many Americans who still rely on MSM are aware that the car reportedly driven by Fields struck another, which in turn struck a third, which then struck people in the street? If Heyer was hit by that third car – assuming this video is legitimate – then much of what is being reported via Establishment outlets is inarguably false.

WorkingClass > , August 21, 2017 at 11:48 am GMT

The Mayor, the Governor, the cops and Soros' new Pinkertons. All of them criminal scum.

War for Blair Mountain > , August 21, 2017 at 11:59 am GMT

Richard Spencer has to start throwing the "Nazi" charge back at the Antifa, the Clintons and Obama. Point out that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton gave the direct order to organize and fund a Neo-Nazi Coup in the Ukraine that caused the death of 15-20 Conservative Russian Christians in the Eastern Ukraine .

Then Point out the fact that Hillary Clinton created Al QUEDA and ISIS ..

Then point out that the Antifa voted for the WAR CRIMINAL NeoNazi enablers Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

Spencer must be unrelenting and obsessive on these points .every day every minute denounce Obama and the Clintons as indictable WAR CRIMINALS!!

Judge Dredd > , August 21, 2017 at 12:35 pm GMT

Conspiracy theory: the Deep State is behind this and they are preparing for a coup.

Think about it.

1. In 1930s Germany, the old order collapses. The Nazi party is on the verge of splitting apart then one faction purges the other, leaving only one left.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007885

Alt-right purged = SA purged by SS.

2. The other day, Secretary of Defense Mattis was in Silicon Valley – traveling to Google. His excuse was something like "not wanting soldiers to be disadvantaged by technologies on the battlefield." Does anyone buy that? Does that even make sense?

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1276698/secretary-of-defense-jim-mattis-visits-google-headquarters/

3. Youtube "adpocalypse" happens. Google uses this as an excuse to curb dissenting political opinions. They announce that they will be shadow-banning content they disapprove of even if it does not violate their terms of service. Many videos, and entire channels, are mysteriously demonitized without explanation. Notoriously left-wing anti-free speech organizations including the SPLC and the ADL, along with several foreign government NGO fronts, are providing the information to Youtube on what channels/videos to ban.

Other Social Media follow suite: Facebook, Twitter, etc.

4. Then a potential false flag happens (Charlottesville = Reichstag fire).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

Dissenters purged from government (Steve Bannon = Hitler's enemies within the government).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

5. Then an enabling act happens in the wake (Internet Purge by Corporations = Enabling Act).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933

Website potentially purged due to a long essay with videos alleging that the police colluded with antifa to attack protesters: http://www.occidentaldissent.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi

Alternate media outlets allowing for dissenting opinion are shut down or come under attack: Hatreon, Gab, etc.

6. Hysteria sweeps the nation.

"White Supremacists everywhere." http://www.unz.com/forum/censor-white-supremacy/

Tearing down confederate symbols, desecrating confederate graves = "Jews have betrayed the nation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

6. Trump under constant attack by leakers and traitors. Paving the way?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg

7. Wars and rumors of war on the horizon: North Korea, Russia, Iran = Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia.

Reveal > , August 21, 2017 at 12:45 pm GMT

The website referenced in this piece, Occidental Dissent, seems to have been purged shortly after the publication of this piece: http://www.occidentaldissent.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi

Is there something they don't want you knowing?

WHAT > , August 21, 2017 at 1:21 pm GMT

@utu Left IS the estabilishment, open your goddamn eyes. In what world exactly antifags working hand in hand with pigs constitutes adversity?

iffen > , August 21, 2017 at 1:22 pm GMT

Which UTR groups came "combat ready" and which did not? It would be instructive to know why some did and some did not. Were some groups better informed?

War for Blair Mountain > , August 21, 2017 at 1:25 pm GMT

Richard Spencer point out that the black racist organization BLM .it's leadership .made many trips to the Obama Whitehouse where they plotted with Valerie Jarrett to racially harras White Americans across the US .Point out the role of BLM in the post-Ferguson race riots and the murder of White Police Officers across the US .Also point out that the SPLC was-is openly endorsing the black racial identity politics of BLM and their enabler Valerie Jarette

Wizard of Oz > , August 21, 2017 at 1:32 pm GMT

@Judge Dredd Why would it be to difficult to set ip an Alt- Google by crowdfunding?

jacques sheete > , August 21, 2017 at 1:41 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer

However, the billionaires manipulate them to march against non-issues to keep workers fighting amongst each other.

The verity of that concept is so glaringly obvious that it's a pity it has to be stated so clearly.

If one really looks at the causes of WW2, that concept applies as well. Note that it was a mass slaughtering of Christians vs Christians to a great degree. Since they haven't been able to stir up enough hate against Muslims, I guess they'll just make up any excuse to stir the pot. It's all against all and through it all the banksters keep rubbing their greasy grubby hands and raking in the moolah.

Linh Dinh, in another excellent article stated it thus

Slitting each other's throat, we can't even see that our common enemy is the American Israel Empire, or what the Saker calls the AngloZionists. (Emphasis mine.)

- Linh Dinh, Siurana, Charlottesville and Barcelona

http://www.unz.com/ldinh/siurana-charlottesville-and-barcelona/#comment-1977614

Michael Kenny > , August 21, 2017 at 1:54 pm GMT

I'm intrigued by the expression "historic American nation". What does it mean? Who is part of it? Who isn't? Who decides whether someone is "in" or "out"? Clearly, the word "nation" is not being used in the European sense.

Joe Hide > , August 21, 2017 at 1:59 pm GMT

The primary question is, what are the psychopaths that are losing control of us, trying to hide with these created distractions? It must be so horrific as to boggle the mind, as these distractions have become ever more violent, insane, and inhuman

jacques sheete > , August 21, 2017 at 2:00 pm GMT

@WHAT

Left IS the estabilishment, open your goddamn eyes.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

In the '30s, after the establishment quit bashing Commies, it became all the rage, indeed fashionable, to support them and the establishment backed the Reds to the hilt.

Once their usefulness expired, it was back to bashing "Commies" again.

These things shift and the establishment backs what it thinks will do its bidding best. The reason(s) they keep flip-flopping is(are) usually not too hard to discern.

wayfarer > , August 21, 2017 at 2:07 pm GMT

I'll admit it. I'm racist. I hate the entire human race.

Today, I'd like to point a hateful middle finger at the demagogue Israel as it actively engineers zionist-nazism within and zionist-communism beyond, its borders.

Their deceptive false flags abound, including 9/11 and Charlottesville Virginia.

Couldn't help but think of the self-serving Israel and their "friendship" with the U.S., while watching this particular video.

War for Blair Mountain > , August 21, 2017 at 2:17 pm GMT

The Alt Right position on the economy:Our goal is for the Historic Native Born White American Working Class to control-the means of production Google Microsoft the internet belongs to OUR PEOPLE!!!

War for Blair Mountain > , August 21, 2017 at 2:26 pm GMT

@Michael Kenny Whose out? Greater China's GENELINE in California Greater India's GENELINE in California .Greater Korea's GENELINE in California .anyone serving in the IDF Muslim Michigan .and this is just for starters

The nonwhite majority Democratic Party Voting Bloc in California is biological warfare against The Historic Native Born White American Working Class

Socialist Labor Leaders Denis Kearney and Samuel Gompers had the right idea in 1888 .

Greg Bacon > , Website August 21, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMT

Here's the REAL enemy, Boston Antifa, who wants to destroy the Constitution. Next Stop, a FEMA Gulag Comrade!

"No room for capitalists, conservatives, libertarians, "classical liberals" or supporters of the US constitution in our city"

jacques sheete > , August 21, 2017 at 2:44 pm GMT

@Michael Kenny

I'm intrigued by the expression "historic American nation". What does it mean?

"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- "
Alice in Wonderland

[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.

Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

- Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"

! Samuel Adams, Letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776

Wally > , Website August 21, 2017 at 3:22 pm GMT

@Judge Dredd Hilarious.
You largely rely on two sources for your "facts". Both notorious for their easily debunked lies, Jew supremacist hatred of white gentiles, and their redneck Zionist control.

The US Holocaust Theme Park and Wikipedia.

Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139189

Science, rational thought, & logic simply demolish the 'holocaust' storyline.
And that's why there are Thought Crime Laws that imprison those who engage in free speech about it.
Truth is hate to those that hate the truth.

[MORE]
There were the 'Nazis' with the mythological '6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers' and there were the 'Nazis' without the mythological '6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers'.

The '6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers' are scientifically impossible frauds.
see the 'holocaust' scam debunked here:

http://codoh.com

No name calling, level playing field debate here:

http://forum.codoh.com

And who is it that demands massive immigration into Europe and the US, but demands that non-Jew immigration be prevented into "that shitty little country"?

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

SolontoCroesus > , August 21, 2017 at 3:25 pm GMT

@jacques sheete h/t to you for spotlighting Linh Dinh's concise statement of who the adversary is.

The "Jews will not replace us" chants were jarring -- they made me cringe and made my well-mannered Sunday-go-to-church self feel embarrassed.

But a revolution is not a tea party.

And the reality of Charlottesville is that Jews -- more appropriately, the Anglozionists -- are replacing Charlottesville's old-line, Jefferson-loving culture and elites.
Charlottesville and the DC-to-Charlottesville corridor has experienced a major increase in federal government institutions, including outfits that monitor geospatial satellites. This in turn draws private sector entrepreneurs in highly specialized highly-educated data and intelligence gathering fields to the area: these are fields Israelis/Jews have traditionally been very interested in.

If Blacks, in Charlottesville or anywhere else think that changeover will make Black lives better, they should check their reality meters.

RobinG chides me for saying so, but imo it is also appropriate to have "Nazis" represented in the UTR coalition. I say this because, as many of us here know, any alternative narrative of the wars in Europe that does not comply with the Jewish narrative is censored. Therefore, the full story has never been told; our children are taught lies, about themselves first and foremost. The full and honest history of the era of the world wars -- the Anglozionist wars -- needs to be told.

In addition, those who study the means by which the three groups that Lindbergh cited -- the British, FDR, and Jews -- ginned up hatred of Germany/Hitler/Nazis, beginning from the very earliest days of the 'Hitler counter-revolution,' recognize that almost exactly the same pattern is being played out today.

The fact that the same behaviors that eventuated in war in Europe and in an alleged holocaust of Jews is being repeated today, almost step-for-step, apparently with the same goals -- to gin up war to perpetuate Anglozionist dominance, implies either that

a. the first holocaust did not occur as claimed; or
b. Anglozionists are so bent on killing masses of goyim that they are willing to -- or eager to cull their own ranks as well, and are setting up the conditions for another holocaust; or
c. that Anglozionists are so stupid that they think the same behaviors will produce a different outcome.

SolontoCroesus > , August 21, 2017 at 3:34 pm GMT

@jacques sheete


Left IS the estabilishment, open your goddamn eyes.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

In the '30s, after the establishment quit bashing Commies, it became all the rage, indeed fashionable, to support them and the establishment backed the Reds to the hilt.

Once their usefulness expired, it was back to bashing "Commies" again.

These things shift and the establishment backs what it thinks will do its bidding best. The reason(s) they keep flip-flopping is(are) usually not too hard to discern. David Horowitz and Ron and Allis Radosh are the poster children for this sort of opportunistic, playing-both-sides switcheroo.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?427125-2/interview-david-horowitz

Alden > , August 21, 2017 at 3:42 pm GMT

@anonymous "(Look at them quickly: the way things are going they will all be shut down in a few days.)"

At least three apparently already have been.

I view the statue stuff as the summer replacement for transgender bathroom hysteria, all in the service of division and distraction. However, Ron Unz is doing people a great service by courageously publishing this proof of the corruption and suppression of journalism. I agree confederate statutes are the next artificial cause after transgender bathrooms. I wonder what the next cause will be? Probably something cooked up at Soros central. I predict the 2018 elections will be a sweep for the Republicans. The radical democrat candidates will repel everyone but lunatic radicals. The non White and moderate democrats will stay home. The normal sane people will elect republicans. And the republicans will as always betray the Whites who vote for them.

Anon > , Disclaimer August 21, 2017 at 4:49 pm GMT

"You largely rely on two sources for your "facts". Both notorious for their easily debunked lies"

Those "sources" are themselves sourced by dozens of other sources. Wikipedia has also been found by recent studies to be about as accurate as most professional sources of information. In any case, it's the point that matters, not the details. Ironically, you didn't bother to counter anything he said. All you did was attack the messenger.

WHAT > , August 21, 2017 at 5:49 pm GMT

@Greg Bacon It`s very likely a parody account. There are many like that, I think I`ve subscribed to Beverly Hills Antifa even.

Alden > , August 21, 2017 at 5:51 pm GMT

@Reveal I'm not a southerner but I used to read occidental dissent a lot. They often had confederate flag demonstrations. The demos were all peaceful, just a few Whites with the confederate battle flag, no police, no counter demonstaters, just a peaceful little demonstration of the confederate heritage . They also had larger demonstrations against the chicken and meat packing plants that hire nothing but illegal Hispanics. Good for them.

utu > , August 21, 2017 at 6:11 pm GMT

@WHAT Why are you so shortsighted? I am afraid that when the time comes you might be the first to be manipulated and used as a useful idiot just as the left is being used right know. Let's suppose you and your buddies on the right will learn that we are going to attack, say Venezuela, because, say they sunk our ship. How many from the right, i.e. your buddies will show with flags and start flag waving and how many on the right will be protesting the war? Are you sure you and your buddies will be on the right side? The identity politics was exactly invented to keep the left going after issues that in larger scheme of things are irrelevant to the establishment. This is to sow the discord only. It is a perfect distractor from all kinds of stuff that is wrong in this pathetic country of pathetic people. Do not be like the stupid carp in the park pond that always takes a bait and goes through infinite number of catch and release cycles.

Anon > , Disclaimer August 21, 2017 at 6:20 pm GMT

@Wally Seriously, could you explain this "redneck Zionist" thing you keep banging on about? Zionists, i.e., Jews, are notoriously urban in their habits and culture. Thus, "redneck" would seem to be oxymoronic.

Chris Bridges > , August 21, 2017 at 6:34 pm GMT

@jilles dykstra Jilles
You know nothing about America. The American Civil War was fought on both sides by people of the same British and NW European background. Further, there was no "right" side, you fool. Slavery had existed all over the USA and New Englanders brought the slaves here, not Southerners. Slavery was just one cause of the war.
As for South Americans resenting the term "American", tough. We are not called USA citizens. We are Americans. We won that name on the battlefield 40 years before the Latin Americans ceased being Spanish subjects.
My advice to you is to study our history before you open your mouth.

anonymous > , Disclaimer August 21, 2017 at 6:52 pm GMT

Whatever "proof" this author may provide, one truth remains crystal clear, for those who can see all apologists for the klanscum, and other assorted naziscum, are simply soulless zombies. You know, sort of.

On a somewhat related note, I hear most of them zombies, are fervent pagan polytheist human worshippers and that too a presumed white human. After all, "heaven forbid" worshipping a "coloured" man, yeah?

A batshit deluded faith well suited for the likes of them.

RobinG > , August 21, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMT

@SolontoCroesus " RobinG chides me for saying so , but imo it is also appropriate to have "Nazis" represented in the UTR coalition."

Umm, no.

First, 'chide' is not accurate. I razzed you for suggesting that I should accost my neighbor in the same (aggressive, accusatory) manner that you routinely confront Sam Shama.

Second, I've said nothing about 'appropriateness' of Nazi representation. My only stated position is agreement with ACLU. (And, less directly, that the whole debacle was manipulated, color revolution style. N.B., I said manipulated, not fake.)

Third, this misattribution of words and thoughts to me, does nothing for your status as an analyst. Sorry.

Sherman > , August 21, 2017 at 8:29 pm GMT

@SolontoCroesus Hey Chuck-

What was that part about your parents teaching you to respect Jews?

Sherm

SolontoCroesus > , August 21, 2017 at 8:30 pm GMT

@RobinG whatever

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