Grant Napear’s firing and Václav Havel’s greengrocer parable
Grant Napear, longtime announcer for the Sacramento Kings, learned the hard way what is unacceptable speech in today’s America:
Grant Napear resigned as the Kings’ TV play-by-play announcer and was fired from KHTK radio in Sacramento on Tuesday.
Napear was previously placed on administrative leave after he tweeted “All Lives Matter… Every single one.” His tweet was in response to former Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, who asked Napear for his take on the Black Lives Matter movement amid worldwide protests stemming from the death of George Floyd.
KHTK’s parent company, Bonneville International Corporation, said in a statement that Napear’s comments “do not reflect the views or values” of the company, and the timing of his tweet was “particularly insensitive.”
So apparently Bonneville International Corporation does not subscribe to the idea that all lives matter. Some lives matter much more than others. Note duly taken.
And the people who espouse this sort of thing consider themselves righteous. I believe – although I have no way of knowing – that Martin Luther King would be extremely saddened.
A phrase – “Black Lives Matter” – that one would think might mean something like “we need to pay attention to black people’s lives every bit as much as anyone else’s, because all lives matter” – has morphed into a sacred slogan. Calling attention to the human worth of everyone – all created equal – is now a racist insult rather than a nearly universally agreed-on statement of the basis for American liberty.
As I said, duly noted.
The situation we are in today is becoming more and more like that of , Václav Havel’s greengrocer, a story I just learned about today (hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit). The parable can be found here:
The Power of the Powerless was originally written by Havel in October 1978…
Havel biographer, John Keane, describes Havel’s definition of a post-totalitarian world: “Within the system, every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state’s governing instruments…themselves legitimated by a flexible but comprehensive ideology, a ‘secularized religion’…a labyrinth of influence, repression, fear and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it, at the very least by rendering them silent, stultified and marked by some undesirable prejudices of the powerful…”
Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite!. Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it. Havel returns repeatedly to this motif to show the contradictions between the “intentions of life” and the “intentions of systems”, i.e. between the individual and the state, in a totalitarian society.
An individual living within such a system must live a lie, to hide that which he truly believes and desires, and to do that which he must do to be left in peace and to survive.This is comparable to the classical tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
…they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system…
Individuals at each level within the bureaucracy must display their own equivalent of the grocer’s Workers of the world, unite! sign, oppressing those below them and in turn oppressed by those above. Against this public lie is contrasted a life lived in truth, a title suggested by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his essay Live Not By Lies. Havel argued that the restoration of a free society could only be achieved through a paradigm based on the individual, “human existence,” and a fundamental reconstitution of one’s “respect for self, for others and for the universe”; to refuse to give power to empty slogans and meaningless rituals, to refuse to allow the lie to oppress oneself, and to refuse to be part of the lie that oppresses others. By doing so individuals illuminate their surroundings revealing to others that they have power.
At the moment in the US, strangely enough, it’s not the central government enforcing this – although that could certainly change soon enough with a change of administration. It’s the leftist mob that frightens people into submission, and the corporate entities and academic administrators who fire people for statements such as that of Napear.
Please read the whole thing; it has come to be more and more relevant in America today. And unfortunately, it may become even more so as time goes on.
[NOTE: Perhaps you have noticed, as I have, a host of emails from various companies you’ve dealt with (even tangentially) in the past, claiming their solidarity with the demonstrations and their renewed commitment to fight the rampant racism that infects our whole society. I cannot recall this sort of mass political mailing happening before. Perhaps it did on 9/11, but I don’t think email was quite as ubiquitous back then and I certainly don’t remember it happening. At any rate, it seems to me that most companies are very much feeling the need to put that greengrocer’s sign in their own windows.]
[ADDENDUM: See also this on the struggle sessions.]
BLM (a group fully as thuggish as Antifa, yet receiving little criticism from those members of the conservative establishment who are terrified of being called racist) was founded on two lies (concerning Trayvon and Ferguson), and it has inspired both numerous homicides and many examples of lawless and disruptive behavior, not to mention its support of a hard-left “list of demands”, the original manifesto (full of praise for violent black revolutionaries and contempt for the traditional family) having vanished from the internet.
The short-term power of this stuff can’t be denied but the long-term futility of it should also be noted. Look at what it did to the people of Russia and how the brokeness of the population came to the fore when the Soviet Union collapsed.
You can break people. You can get them to say there are five lights when there are only four. But what you’re left with is ruined individuals who aren’t much good for anything, including all the little jobs and responsibilities needed to maintain a functional society.
Mike
BLM supports BDS which hopes to eliminate Israel. That sucks and anyone who supports BLM antisemites is a useful idiot. It really is amazing how many useful idiots there are out there lately.
I believe there was an essay written on this subject. Obviously the democrats misses it.
“Live Not By Lies” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Everyone must agree with BLM/Antifa-and those that are not for BLM/Antifa movement are coming under huge pressure to negate their silent beliefs and agree publicly with BLM/Antifa at their jobs and at school. Unless you are very strong in your beliefs, or unless you are a very strong person, I suspect many are succumbing. I know of two large companies whereby employees are being “asked” to sign petitions in agreement and the companies plan to publicly espouse these beliefs, as well as several grad departments at prestigious universities. Previously, if you wanted to just get by and not expose yourself, you could simply be quiet. Now the new mantra is that if you are silent then you are against BLM and you will regret it.
I regularly and increasingly observe this at LinkedIn, which – at an increasing rate – has become a platform for virtue signalling and social approval by both corporations and academic institutions, and, individuals.
It’s routine at this point.
Examples:
A recent post by Melinda Gates encouraged support of Black Lives Matter.
As of 1 June, this post had nearly 25,000 “likes”.
Another asked for support of the Police, displaying a black & white American flag bearing a blue central stripe.
As of 2 June, this post had 4 “likes”. (All from middle-aged men, I might add.)
MBunge: You’re entirely correct. But, the people implementing this ideology – chillingly reminiscent of the old Soviet Nomenklatura – (Angelo Codevilla’s “Ruling Class”) – don’t care. For by “virtue” of their economic status, professions, and social networks, they’re exempt and quite immune from the consequences.
They do not care if men and societies are broken.
Follow Emerson, insist on telling the Bold Truth, wear The T-shirt: “Chicago, because BLACK LIVES splatter”
Well it looks like some are serious about this:
http://www.citypages.com/news/minneapolis-city-council-members-consider-disbanding-the-police/570993291
Well it looks like some are serious about this:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy…”
It’s funny you should mention Havel’s parable of the greengrocer today – I was just thinking of it the past few days as I’ve received email after email from random companies full of virtue signaling many of which include #blacklivesmatter in the text. Meanwhile anyone who quibbles in the slightest, or even fails to agree with the proper wording and enthusiasm soon finds themselves without a job and the object of internet hate. These truly are scary times.
I work for a large corporation that usually doesn’t get too involved in politics. So I was particularly disheartened to receive internal emails from mid-level management on Tuesday with black lives matter and social injustice slogans embedded in the email signatures.
I’ve already decided that being forced to sign any petitions and publicly state support for political policies that I don’t support is the line that I will not cross – even if it costs me my job. Taking a page from Havel I will live my life “within the truth” rather than “within the lie”. Luckily for me I’m in a good enough place financially that I can afford to pay the cost of this. Others are not so lucky.
By the way Havel’s essay is a good read – don’t let the Wikipedia abstract summary of it put you off. You can read the full essay here – https://medium.com/@bruces/the-power-of-the-powerless-by-vaclav-havel-84b2b8d3a84a. Havel truly understood human nature and how totalitarianism works at the personal level. It’s scary and saddening to see the same dynamics he described in communist Czechoslovakia in the 70s being played out in modern American society.
Maetenloch:
I guess humans are humans the world round.
I don’t know how brave I’d be if my livelihood depended on putting the sign in my window. Luckily, like you (at least so far), I can say what I want.
I wear my Covid mask as little as possible!
Does that count?
Within five years, especially if Democrats win the presidency, I imagine that African-Americans will no longer face punishment for breaking the law. That’s where this is all heading. There are already hate crime laws being passed to criminalize anyone making a 911 call regarding an African-American that does not result in the arrest of said African-American. None of these inflammatory incidents between “unarmed black men” and police would have taken place if they were not being arrested for some transgression and subsequently resisted arrest. If the police were forbidden from arresting black people, these situations would no longer arise. That will be their reparations, that the law no longer applies to them. I’ll leave it to the lawyers how to figure out if someone is “black” enough to avoid arrest (invest in those geneology testing companies now!).
I wish people would march for BLM with pictures of blacks killed by gang in drive-by shootings, like kids killed sitting in their bedrooms. At the end of the march, they should ask, “What can we do about it?” Make BLM finally tackle the hard problems.
So if I understand this correctly:
– Native American Lives Don’t Matter!
– Asian Lives Don’t Matter!
– Arab American Lives Don’t Matter!
– Hispanic Lives Don’t Matter!
– Black Lives Matter!
Matt Yglesias has a tweet out…
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1268560411789529092
…where he says “I stand by a lot of my criticisms of the anti-PC discourse of five years ago. But I wrongly thought the most egregious excesses of campus activists would stay on campus when they have instead spread as people age into other roles.”
Yglesias’ only virtue is being the perfect blend of entitled arrogance and even-more-entitled cluelessness where he can’t help but blurt out the truth without realizing it’s what he’s doing.
That tweet is literally saying “I recognized the illiberal totalitarianism at work on college campuses and was content to let it run wild but never dreamed it would spread into the world where I live and work. This could now affect ME!”
Mike
Canceled my Amazon Prime membership this morning after opening my account and seeing their banner “Black Lives Matter. Amazon stands in solidarity with the Black community”.
Maybe I am cutting off my nose to spite my face; or maybe it is a manifestation of my endemic racism. Nevertheless; I am fed up with sanctimoniousness. On the whole I am a little troubled by Amazon’s burgeoning power. I am wrestling with the decision as to whether to sell my stock as well. I don’t have much of a voice; but, I do have choices. This is the second commercial tie I have severed.
Admittedly, it is not a singular motive driving my decisions. I have taken note of late that, convenience aside, I often pay considerably more at Amazon than I would elsewhere; and I have had pangs of conscience about not supporting local businesses. There were also various motives that coalesced in the other decision.
Despite the obligatory pro forma expressions of regret on Amazon’s part, I know that no human will take notice of my leaving; still, there may be others for whom the blatant pandering will be the final straw. We hear much about the “woke” generation; but, it could be that recent events will awaken a sleeping giant.
“His tweet was in response to former Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, who asked Napear for his take on the Black Lives Matter movement amid worldwide protests stemming from the death of George Floyd.
KHTK’s parent company, Bonneville International Corporation, said in a statement that Napear’s comments “do not reflect the views or values” of the company”
But he was asked to give his views and did, I’m assuming on his private account. He wasn’t asked to give Bonneville’s views. Now he’s not only reprimanded for having an opinion, he’s destroyed.
As BLM and other professional influencers rail against oppression, we are more and more oppressed, more and more confined – by the discussion. I saw pictures yesterday of troops, police, white people all being exhorted to kneel in the name of….solidarity; in recognition of their…..privilege. But in many cases, the activists were not kneeling. So: Who is the Oppressed? Who is the Oppressor? I’m appalled that people are so malleable and so unable to articulate their own views, so quick to bend themselves into the views of others.
I haven’t had any problem taking my business to other providers who believe their products come before their politics.
Well to be fair being relatively affluent allows you the luxury of being virtuous and principled to a certain extent. So I don’t claim any special courageousness.
The truly brave are people like Havel who had nothing and paid a large personal cost to freely speak their mind. He was imprisoned for several years, and then forced to work in a brewery and forbidden from writing or staging any plays for decades.
Many of his writings including his essay, The Power of the Powerless, were written in secret and passed from person to person until they made it outside of the iron curtain. It would been so easy for him to submit, mouth the party slogans, and lead a normal life.
I belong to a few Facebook groups for online business. One of them is operated by a woman who has a course on making your blog into a profitable business. She’s been very successful.
But yesterday, this FB group blew up BECAUSE SHE HADN’T SPOKEN OUT AGAINST systemic racism in the country, nor said Black lives matter in her emails, or in a post on FB.
She then posted that the group rules specifically said (and always had) that politics and religion were not topics allowed to be discussed, and that while she condemned what happened to George Flynn and did not support racism in any way. She was subsequently vilified, insulted, told she was part of the problem because she didn’t speak up, suffered (of course) from extreme white privilege, and on and on.
It was horrible. When she said she needed to educate herself to better understand, a black woman told her it’s not black people’s job to tell white people how to treat them. I mean, it was all over the gamut. Made me sick.
Like Neo said in her post, I have received so many emails about how wonderful all the companies are, how they stand against this that and the other thing. Like they have to.
@Aggie-kneel to masters? There is an internet video I saw of a black man demanding a white woman kneel and apologize to him for her white privilege. She does so. WTF?
Wrong on so many fronts. All these comments above bring out at a hodge podge of intrusive thoughts. So, if you are white you have the original sin. So, what if you are a recent immigrant and have nothing to do with any of this? Or what if you are not “white”, but not “black”? Or what if you are a very light black–does that make you sort of “evil” and “privileged”? Certainly in Louisiana, colorism has traditionally been a big deal. Being high yellow was a “privilege” in that “black” community and they did assortative mating. And if you one of your many ancestors was a slave owner-so what? Is our ancestors sin inherited? And somehow swept under the rug are all of the other past cultures who have had slaves-and some, like some Middle Eastern/African or muslim cultures which still do. Finally, the call for reparations-sheesh. Seems like part of our society has been taking a disproportionate amount of $ in terms of government largesse, as well as extra police forces for decades… I guess if someone is the son/daughter, or grandchild, or even great grandchild of a slave they may have really been impacted by slavery; so fine, pay them reparations. The rest…they are cheats. Finally, I leave you with idea that will said reparations be based on how much “black” you are genetically?
“At any rate, it seems to me that most companies are very much feeling the need to put that greengrocer’s sign in their own windows.” – Neo
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/06/03/antifa-and-their-enablers-in-the-press/#comment-2499077
“Monday morning the neighborhood was thoroughly posted with signs:”
“Maybe I am cutting off my nose to spite my face;”
You, sir, are a revolutionary. Freedom is fundamentally the power to say “No.” People not only existed but had incredibly full lives before Amazon or any internet-based business existed. One of the things propping up the current state of affairs is that great part of the population, both the conservative-leaning and the non-voting, has refused to be as politically demanding as the Left.
Mike
Maetenloch:
Yes, that’s enormous courage.
What often amazes me, though, is how few people show even a tiny bit of courage. I encountered that in academia years ago, where the stakes were lower. People who agreed with me about certain things were afraid to speak up because they thought it would affect their grades. And this was so many years ago that there really wasn’t so much chance of that at all. It never stopped me at the time, and my grades never suffered.
Now, of course, the consequences are much worse in academia for speaking against the prevailing dictates of the left or the PC dictators.
And I have been working so hard trying to see the content of the character of my fellow Americans, rather than the color of their skin!
The Champagne Socialists are tedious and increasingly dangerous in their relentless efforts to squash dissenting or even diverse opinions. So I’ll lift a glass to Mr. Napear and salute him as a thoughtful man.
I come from a long line of English non-conformists, people who thought for themselves and read both the Old and the New Testament carefully, seeking the inspired word of the Bible and trying to live the teachings of Christ. This episode has some revolting aspects, and Mr. Napear is honest and innocent.
All lives matter.
Received a we-support-BLM as well as suggested reading list from the Spokane Public Library. Obviously, neither Heather McDonald nor Thomas Sowell were included. I’m composing a letter to the board of trustees, not that it will do any good.
“I imagine that African-Americans will no longer face punishment for breaking the law.”
I imagine Chesa Boudin in San Francisco would have a tough time sending any black person to prison. Kim Foxx in Chicago wants to empty out Cook County jail. Keith Ellison in Minnesota has a little list. People in these locations elected all these “folks”.
This situation has really disturbed me. Particularly the number of Christians that have embraced as truth the lie of “white privilege”. My take is that this is akin to the Jews being the scapegoat of the Nazis. To suggest that my grandfather, father, uncle and brother by virtue of their skin color and now my husband and sons are responsible for wrong or evil behaviors perpetrated by individuals–behaviors that have been manifest down through the ages and have been declared unacceptable for many,many years now is the height of racisim in my mind. Willful blindness? Lack of courage? Or just stupidity. Hard to say.
Not just Russia and Eastern Europe, but also post-1949 China until Deng put a stop to it.
If you were not sufficiently radical, or if your background was one of the ‘stinking nine’, your life could be in danger. Some Chinese did stand up to it, often at the cost of their health or their livelihoods or their lives. And one’s family was guilty by association.
Napear and Drew Brees are, sadly, only harbingers of what can happen when it’s all about social justice and not individual accountability.
We truly live in an Orwellian world now where embracing the language of our Declaration of Independence gets one fired for being beyond the pale.
MBunge on June 4, 2020 at 4:32 pm said:
Matt Yglesias has a tweet out…
* * *
Well, he HAD a tweet out. It’s a 404 now.
Anyway, how did that saying from last century go…
First they came for the college professors, and I said nothing, because they deserved it….
Relevant post,speaking of colleges and PC –
https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/02/we-shouldve-killed-the-deconstructionist-monster-decades-ago/
“Well, he HAD a tweet out. It’s a 404 now.”
Ha! All the dumb stuff he says and that’s what he has to take down. It is unfortunate because it was such an unintentionally revealing admission.
It’s like the hysteria over Trump. I think a lot of the people fanning it are either ignorant or in denial of what’s happening but there are some I am sure know exactly what they’re doing and keep fanning those flames anyway. THOSE are the worst. Ignorance can be enlightened. Denial can be dispelled. What can you do with those who knowingly indulge evil?
Mike
gina on June 4, 2020 at 3:13 pm said:
.. Previously, if you wanted to just get by and not expose yourself, you could simply be quiet. Now the new mantra is that if you are silent then you are against BLM and you will regret it.
* * *
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” – Trotsky
…or words to that effect – it’s at the end of the wiki, but I found it worthwhile to look at the thoughts of one of the progenitors of our current breed of anarchists
— remembering that Trotsky was kicked out by the Stalinists and assassinated for deviating from the Soviet party line —
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky
He promoted socialism as a governing principle, but had no illusions about it.
“In a country where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation. The old principle: ‘who does not work shall not eat,’ has been replaced with a new one: ‘who does not obey shall not eat.’ ”
* * *
By his definition, Antifa really is, in their lights, anti-fascist, because they also want to destroy the bourgeoisie — that is, about 75% or more of all Americans, including most of us on this board.
“The genuine basis (for fascism) is the petty bourgeoisie. In Italy, it has a very large base — the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany, likewise, there is a large base for fascism.”
However, Trotsky knew that the middle-class were not themselves the source of fascism, only its (sometimes) tool, and revealed another thing that he knew:
“Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena. In many of their features they show a deadly similarity.”
* * *
This next observation is actually true, but its extension AFTER the war & the Civil Rights Acts to every white and black person in America reverses the roles of shackler and shacklee.
“(On the American Civil War) “History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!” ”
* * *
You can attach this to all political parties, once they have their Establishment in place to reap their privileges:
“The Soviet bureaucracy is like all ruling classes in that it is ready to shut its eyes to the crudest mistakes of its leaders in the sphere of general politics, provided in return they show an unconditional fidelity in the defense of its privileges.”
* * *
And finally, there is enough ambiguity in these statements to suggest that perhaps it’s not wise to start a coup against people who own most of the guns in the country, aren’t cooped up in failing cities and dependent on corporations or welfare, and who are slow to anger, but quick to defend themselves and their families.
“In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.”
“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”
MBunge on June 4, 2020 at 2:55 pm said:
The short-term power of this stuff can’t be denied but the long-term futility of it should also be noted. Look at what it did to the people of Russia and how the brokeness of the population came to the fore when the Soviet Union collapsed.
You can break people. You can get them to say there are five lights when there are only four. But what you’re left with is ruined individuals who aren’t much good for anything, including all the little jobs and responsibilities needed to maintain a functional society.
* * *
On the other hand, if that dysfunction is the ultimate goal….
BTW – who wants to bet that most of the anarchists torching the cities and clamoring to destroy “the system” have absolutely no understanding about how that will affect their personal lifestyle when the electric grid goes down, the water stops running, and food stops arriving in the grocery stores where THEY shop.
The pandemic shut-downs didn’t affect most of the day-to-day survival of any of them, I suspect.
“What can you do with those who knowingly indulge evil?” – MBunge
There is an obvious answer.
Sharon W on June 4, 2020 at 5:36 pm said:
This situation has really disturbed me. Particularly the number of Christians that have embraced as truth the lie of “white privilege”. …. Willful blindness? Lack of courage? Or just stupidity. Hard to say.
* * *
I think Christians are very susceptible to this kind of moral blackmail.
Evil is strongest against Christians when it comes in the “pity me” persona, with a side order of “It’s all your fault.”
There was a discussion on another thread of what it meant, in practice, to turn the other cheek — many people think it means “never resist anything being done to you no matter how evil” but that is doctrinally incorrect.
Christians are encouraged to be generous, kind, and tolerant — and usually that is good, and makes society better — but there is a Jewish saying that should also be considered: When you are kind to the cruel, you become cruel to the kind.
Or, to coin a phrase, Christianity is not a suicide pact.
Holy crap. Just to put a cap on it, Matt Yglesias has now deleted his entire Twitter history before roughly 5 pm central time. That’s 12 years of tweets GONE. He wanted to preemptively stop the mob from combing his feed for further wrongthink and just flushed it all.
And, of course, he then just keeps tweeting like nothing happened.
Mike
Neo: ” I cannot recall this sort of mass political mailing happening before.”
well.. probably not ‘recall given when..
but did you not remember that we had our own period like this under FDR?
So just think it over. You have got a whole lot to decide. You have got to decide whether to put NRA signs up or not. I am going to put an NRA sign up in my window, but i am going to say, “Here come across for the soldiers, too”
United States Congressional Serial Set, Volume 9807
As the NRA started to function in the summer of 1933, many busnesses hurried to agree on codes of fair competition. This allowed them to display the symbol of compliance, the NRA blue eagle, and gain the customer support that followed. Eerwhere newspaper ads and store windows featured the NRA blue eagal and the slogan, “We do our part”. In New York, a fifth ave parade to demonstrate support for the NRA drew a quarter million marchers
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain
=====================================================
AesopFan on June 4, 2020 at 6:58 pm said:
“What can you do with those who knowingly indulge evil?” – MBunge
There is an obvious answer.
yes.. and i remember it from this..
Handbook of Psychopathy, First Edition
edited by Christopher J. Patrick
https://tinyurl.com/y8rxf734
the Yupic speaking Eskimos have a name kunlangata for the:
man who, for example, repeated lie lies and cheats and steal things and dwos not go hunting and, when other men are out of the village takes sexual advantage of the women — someone who does not pay attention to reprimands and who is always being brought to the elders for punishment
on Eskimo among the 499 on their island was called kunlangeta.
when asked what would have happens to such a person traditionally, an Eskimo said that probably someone would bush him off the ice when no body else was looking p(1026)
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” – Trotsky
Trotsky was a plagiarist. I prefer Pericles.
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. ”-Pericles
Is anyone else becoming terrified at these events?
We are entering into our very own Cultural Revolution – see MAO’s Chinese version. Political correctness is a powerful first step toward that.
I urge people to read up on that in Chinese history.
If we don’t resist this now, we are doomed.
Seriously.
Francesca (7:50 pm): “Is anyone else becoming terrified at these events?”
Believe me, I am.
As someone posted somewhere, the people embracing college campus political correctness with its speech codes and kangaroo courts etc., have long since graduated and are spreading their pee cee poison throughout the country. There are just too many of them. They’ve got Facebook and Google and Hollywood and so much more. Big bucks for me and “I see five fingers when it’s plain there are only four” for thee.
Often attributed to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
These days when I watch a classic action flick and Indiana Jones looks the evil villain in the eye and mocks him, “Oh, yeah? Sez who? I’m an American.” That sort of thing. I don’t quite believe it anymore.
I used to.
Yeah. I know it’s just the movies, but still…
I became aware of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution when I was listening to a book on tape as I was driving across country. “Life and Death in Shanghai”. It was riveting and unbelievably frightening. I NEVER imagined I would be seeing something approaching that here in America. I have forgotten the author, a woman whose husband, children and life was completely destroyed. I will try to find the author.
Author is Nien Cheng. Available on Amazon.
For those who are scared… its WAY TOO LATE…
it was probably too late when everyone was yelling about my long posts
I even said once its easy for everyone to see or a majority, its way too late to run for high ground… even pointed out how fast it can change.. deaf ears…
the ones who are early are seen as crazy, the ones who are late desperate
this has nothing to do with precognition, it was very clear where we were heading for 25 years… but no one wanted to oppose what groups and things they had to oppose to prevent where we are going…
reach a very high level, you only need enough)
self loathing as a norm…
the scared are finally WOKE…
now that the men are not pursuing families what is their goal?
now that the women cant find mates and as nightingale says, dictator in the social realm… what is an acceptable goal for men that is allowed?
its comical…
……for countless thousands of years men’s purpose was passed on to them, either in the service of their country/community or in their service to their family. This purpose was always rooted in survival and prosperity, for the survival of the country or the prosperity of the country, for the survival of the family or the prosperity of the family…..
[snip]
Yet men woke up one day and things had changed. Wars started being measured by the number of men who died per gallon of oil, purpose was replaced by greed. Women wanted a different sort of marriage, one based on partnerships rather than roles. Workplaces changed, politics changed, almost no stone remained unturned. Farmer and hunter were replaced by machines. Builder and provider are no longer the solely male roles. Protector and Warrior became synonymous with killer, rapist and plunderer. Job by job, role by role, society cut loose the original purpose of men.
[snip]
In casting off the purpose handed a man at birth, women set men adrift, no longer tethered to the shore, cursed us to not knowing the ground beneath our feet.
and rather than make his own purpose (as the original article said)…
===========================================================
REVOLUTION tearing down the society that did that is a purpose…
Isnt it? even more so when the ladies seem to want it, so progressive they are
when they wanted white picket fences, they called it a happy gulag
now they want revolution and you dont know why the men are making it?
the infinite goof of comedy…
===========================================================
and those men who have no family or future, or skills…
can be quite competent in destruction!
the men in antifa have purpose!!
where else are they allowed to have purpose?
where else are they allowed to have purpose?
not in the family, where they are evil… kicked out… disenfranchised from the kids
or turned into an ATM machine for someone who is gone…
not in business… if they succeed there, they displace women, and again, become evil for succeeding..
not school, where there are 400 scholarships for women vs 50 for men, where there is no reward for THEIR excellence..
there is no respect in the dirty jobs, or being fireman, or even police officer..
but in revolution… they have purpose…
to build a new society, and maybe the ladies will love them again for it
better than sitting around being blamed and wallowing in self loathing norms
big problem… the old men are committing suicide, the young men are murdering the society before they get to that point.. not that anyone cares, which they clearly know is true (given the response or help they are allowed)…
more and more there is less and less..
the revolution seems quite appealing…
a place they can excel, be heroes, even die a good death..
part of the only cause that will have them
they been kicked out of everything else…
“this has nothing to do with precognition, it was very clear where we were heading for 25 years… but no one wanted to oppose what groups and things they had to oppose to prevent where we are going…” – Artfldgr
The problem that all prophets (or just observant people) face is that, when the evil is small enough to stop easily, no one believes it exists at all, generally because most people really don’t understand that there are people who WILL DO those bad things, and do it to them to boot.
Of course, that gives evil the advantage twice over:
(1) the clear-sighted can’t get enough people to believe them and take action early;
(2) but somehow the evil people convincingly portray any actions that are taken to thwart their evil as signs of impending doom.
I’ve been re-reading Isaiah the last few weeks.
I’m starting to understand the process a bit more.
Present day optics are not encouraging.
Re oldflyer’s and Aggie’s push back against evil or virtue signaling companies.
I do the same when I can. Stopped buying Gillette razors after their “Toxic Masculinity” ad. Bics work well enough for me. Also dropped as many of their parent company Proctor and Gamble’s products as I can. Sent Gillette a message to let them know.
Patriot Mobile instead of AT&T. Use as little of Google brands as possible.
Use as little of Amazon as possible (sorry Neo) but if I do, I use Neo’s link, then go to Amazon Smile (smile.amazon.com). If you sign up with them you can designate a charity which Amazon will donate a % of your purchase to. Neo will still get her %; I verified this with Amazon. I believe that a lot of money was raised for the Second Amendment Foundation this way.
I feel the angst expressed here, but let not your hearts be troubled. The Lord is on his throne and in control. Let us be salt and light to the world. I pray that a Silent Majority will have the wisdom and courage to do the right things.
A few posts from Ricochet today — the thought -police are everywhere.
https://ricochet.com/764248/linkedin-and-articulating-the-uncomfortable/
https://ricochet.com/764664/dispatches-from-the-front-lines-of-the-knitting-wars/
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/04/the-struggle-sessions-are-here-and-theyre-not-going-away/
I talked to AesopSpouse about Nancy B’s comments regarding neighborhood window signs and what she should do — giving in is repugnant, but the sign-grifters are perfectly willing to ruin her life if she doesn’t.
We hope not to be in that position (our neighborhood is not upscale or markedly political — there’s a Trump window sign at one end and a Union-member poster at the other, but nothing in-between).
This tactic is also not new.
We all recognize the Nazi and Communist parallels, but the White Feather campaign in WWI Britain — shaming young men who for whatever reason chose not to volunteer for service* — shows that even the “good guys” can use the same kind of intimidation we deplore from the “bad guys.”
And all bad guys think they are the good guys. It’s built in.
*See the story of the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn.
Have not I commanded thee?
Be strong and of a good courage;
Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed:
For the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
–Joshua 1:9 [KJV]
______________________________________
I was once sitting in a San Francisco cafe and a man ordering coffee at the counter was wearing a t-shirt with this verse written on the back. I was struck by the words, wrote them in my journal and asked him about it, but he had gotten the shirt for free at a picnic and had never read the lettering.
Too bad. It’s a fine teaching. It appears many times in the Bible — sometimes as instruction for not fearing the world and sometimes for when an angel or Jesus appears.
I’m not much of a Christian these days. I like to think I’m taking a breather on the bench and God will call me up when it’s time. Maybe it is.
Whatever happened to me in my sojourn with Jesus, Joan of Arc and the various Christians I ran with, it put a faith in my spine that never went away.
Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it.
“Hey Seth, Bob! This guy won’t wear a ribbon!”
“Who!? Who doesn’t want to wear the ribbon!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv2PgWmQ1Lo
Interesting. I just heard a sermon on that verse this past Sunday.
God commanded Joshua to lead the Israelites to go in and take the land from the pagans-child sacrifice among some of their terrible deeds. The Israelites were terrified. Go and read what happened. Great stuff.
Joshua 1
Jimmy: I know that one!
Once upon a time not long ago a liberal TV show like Seinfeld could get away with that and even liberals laughed.
But the SJWs ended Kramer’s career and Jerry Seinfeld won’t perform at colleges any more.
Throughout 2019 my husband and I prayed regularly for “courage” in the Church. (Still do, but focusing on “confidence” this year.) When I mentioned this to our son’s father-in-law, a Pastor, he pointed out that in the book of Revelation, the first mention of those to be thrown in the lake of fire are cowards. It really is surprising to see that listed before murderers or thieves. But when one imagines the courage it took to withstand Nazism and the like, it drives home the tremendous cost and sacrifice that courage can require. Even at a phase such as we are experiencing now, fighting off disappointment, fear, upset, loathing, depression takes courage and fortitude. It truly is a virtue.
Not THAT rainbow, the original one.
https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bee-to-have-rainbow-logo-for-month-of-june-to-remind-god-not-to-flood-us-again
Francesca: My memory of Joshua is dim beyond the blowing of trumpets at Jericho. However, clearly it is an exciting story — one might say, cinematic — complete with an appearance of the Ark of the Covenant for us Indiana Jones fans.
As to child-sacrifice in Canaan, the historical evidence is that Carthage was founded by Canaanites. Carthaginians spoke Canaanite, their religion was based on Canaanite religion, and the Carthaginians did indeed practice horrific child sacrifice.
“Did The Canaanites Really Sacrifice Their Children?”
https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2016/05/13/did-the-canaanites-sacrifice-their-children/
Ooo. I’m an open-minded, modern sorta fella, but I draw the line at child sacrifice.
Are the BLM-sign-grifters going to ask this pastor to put one in his window?
He might give them a sermon they don’t want to hear.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/chicago-pastor-this-weeks-violence-has-set-our-black-community-back-decades/
Sharon W.: As Sean Connery (Malone) said to Kevin Costner (Eliot Ness) in “The Untouchables,” after all the knife-gun fight stuff:
Well, the Lord hates a coward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFWfOBfTQLg
Then Connery gives up his quiet life for the quest to bring down Al Capone.
***
I love this alternate line from the Episcopalian Eucharist service:
Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only and not for strength…
Amen.
Today I looked at the home page of my Kindle and unsurprisingly saw that the ‘top left above the fold’ item was a WaPo article titled “Trump’s threats fit a longtime pattern.” Next I had been gifted a book titled “The Pig Did It” so I searched for it in my books by typing in the word ‘pig’ and the first item was from the Amazon store and was entitled “A Pig in the Whitehouse” with a caricature of Donald Trump on the cover.
Recently Neo or one the commenters characterised what we are seeing as like a fireworks celebration becoming continuous as it nears its climax and that we can expect this level of intense anti Trump propaganda through the election…and beyond if he wins.
I don’t know and don’t believe I can tell through any conventional means if Trump will be reelected in November. Polls, for example, are useless. I remember the 60s riots and the realization among some African Americans that they had destroyed their own neighborhoods. From my perch in Australia, I have no way to know what is going on in the souls of Black folk, or White folk for that matter Hispanic and Asian folk or anyone else. Trump’s election showed that there is a perturbation in American culture and politics at a deep level – a disruption in the Force – if you will. There is a specialized $2 word for this process which I think is useful to introduce here.
Enantiodromia is a principle introduced in the West by psychiatrist Carl Jung. In Psychological Types, Jung defines enantiodromia as “the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time” – Wikipedia
All the fireworks are an attempt to stop this natural, but under the radar, process. The concept of enantiodromia shows that the fireworks are profoundly reactionary. Sometimes such attempts to reinstate the status quo ante succeed, sometimes they don’t. But to cut to the chase this situation has happened before and is memorialised in the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Some socio-political changes are irreversible and it is worth noting that another nursery rhyme – Tweedle Dum and Tweedle dee arose in Anglospheric tradition in the late 18th century. In 2016 Hillary versus Jeb would have constituted a perfect Tweedle Dum Tweedle Dee moment. Something else happened, as we know, and we still have no idea how it will end. But the argument between Alice and Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carol’s Through the Looking Glass is…er…instructive
Again from Wikipedia:
Alice remarks that Humpty is “exactly like an egg,” which Humpty finds to be “very provoking.” Alice clarifies that she said he looks like an egg, not that he is one. They discuss semantics and pragmatics[26] when Humpty Dumpty says, “my name means the shape I am,” and later:[27]
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’?” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
QED
huxley – our child sacrifices are done in Planned Parenthood abortion clinics.
We even have ritual adulation of the procedure, and women publishing accounts “celebrating” their murders, and telling how much killing their children has improved their lives.
“Baal heard my prayers and blessed me.”
Not quite so exotic as a brass sculpture with a fiery brazier, but far more efficient.
@AesopFan lucid points..
as you can tell this wasn’t prophecy, this was calculation and logical
If we dont do X by time Y, then Z will happen
right now, foreign press, like Australia is reporting that if Trump loses the election the united states will cease to exist as it is…
Something with that level of momentum cant be stopped
the women won long ago, and boy oh boy are they going to HATE the prize they get… its a booby prize, because they didn’t win, they won for a force that controls them.. they were the used people… the unpaid army designed to take advantage of their differences that were denied and facilitate the end of the social structure they were lied to about and taught to hate… (and the more miserable they get the harder they work at being more miserable). Its almost comical that everything they fought against exists in higher levels in droves comparatively… objectification? ever watch twitchy as young girls try to make money mashing their boobs? or the sex industry being so rife, that very young girls make a living masturbating on camera? how about the clothing worn in the street, almost makes you want to say “Nice camel toe ladies”… how about mates? they dont earn enough and they are freezing eggs for future men who are never going to be there for a plethora of reasons ranging from they dont want what they made available, to whats available dont want them, as not wanting them has them debase themselves (anal leakage articles in Teen Vogue? yeah, 1960s feminists would do what if they could have looked into a crystal ball and seen THAT was the result of their liberation)…
i could of course go on… but to what point.
there are 5 freedoms in the 1st amendment, how many of them are foundational to the things that this crew believes in? oh, well, we dont need freedom of speech… ok.. sure… what happens to your ability to protest if you cant talk? what happens to your ability to assemble if you cant arrange it? what happens to the press? what happens to the ability to petition the state against things you dont like?
oh… its going to be an interesting hot time in the igloo..
you think riots will stop when biden is in office? the buffoon will not know what to do with such things… he poses not acts… he will do the wrong predictable thing because that is what he has learned SHOULD work…
oh… and if you think biden scares the chinese and russia from conflict…
i would ask how?
so you can be sure our daughters will surely look really dumbfounded when they realize they are up for the draft and there is no alternative than to be blown apart and mutilated like the men… which Hillary said isn’t as bad as being home anyway.
Somewhere in the above is a really really tongue in cheek article..
@gina from 6/4: I am so glad I am retired. My employer (R&D lab) for 30 years was always focused on work, never politics. Then we got new management about 2005 and things changed quickly. We started celebrating our diversity. We had clubs for all the favored groups and honored all the appropriate History Months. We had a Diversity Newsletter to keep us informed. As I was on my way out I felt that remaining quiet was less and less an option. People were starting to notice who was cheering and who wasn’t.
The difference between prophets or just observant people is the prophet makes a singular declaration, and has no more knowledge of how or why or method… the observant can point out the details, show why, where its leading, but not to a mind that isnt receptive that denies facts or conclusions by alternative means… ie. observant people are completely undone by more common unobservant people who have great mental defense mechanisms to make up for what they lack otherwise.
People that see a conflict betwwen “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” are looking for a conflict.
Remember the third grade bully? (Could be fourth or fifth… everyone runs into at least one in elementary) When he picked a victim, it didn’t matter what was said, he’d find some way to take offense.
Same situation.
Be prepared. Right now, we’re at the shoving stage. The sucker punch is coming.
Some of the best people I follow on twitter are farmers. Farmers live a lot closer to reality than most of us in today’s society. They are used to not being in control of crucial things like the weather, so they have a natural humility along with a hardy self-sufficiency. They tend to have an extremely strong work ethic.
One of the farmers I follow on twitter happens to be black. Terren Moore. He tweeted something yesterday that I really liked (I’ll provide the link and the text):
You do not have to tell me my life matters. You don’t have to feel pity on me for being a black man in America. I am a child of God, I know I am loved. I love y’all and I love my country! #Gratitude #EndlessOpportunities
https://twitter.com/MooreTerren/status/1268366443206381569?s=20
I’m sharing this for two reasons. One, just to cheer people up. Here’s someone who agrees with us about judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and exemplifies what that means.
The other reason, though, underlines neo’s point. People seem to be afraid to share this tweet! 2800 people have hit “like” on the tweet but only 143 have retweeted it. Sad.
“but only 143 have retweeted it” – Sarah
You are assuming that Twitter is not putting their thumb on the scale.