Reaction and roundup
These days it’s hard to follow the news. Not only is it emotionally difficult to watch what I’ve called the unraveling, but it’s also technically difficult because there are so many stories that seem important to follow that, as one person, I’m not really able (or willing) to devote enough time to cover all of them in any kind of depth.
As a blogger, I’ve always had to pick and choose. But it seems more difficult now, and more dispiriting, although I try to take the more philosophical and psychological view and write posts that attempt to put the whole thing in historical perspective.
And every now and then I deal with it through roundups, quick glimpses of stories I’m not covering in depth at the moment, with links to those who are. Here’s one for today:
(1) The go-to place for reading about some of the details of the Chauvin trial is Andrew Branca’s work at Legal Insurrection. I suggest you check in every weekday. Here’s a particularly informative post from yesterday. One thing I’ve been thinking about in connection with the trial is how surprised the jurors – and anyone else following it very closely – will be by some of the evidence they probably have never encountered before in the MSM: the overdose, the previous 2019 incident that parallels that of May 2020 except that Floyd didn’t die in the first one, the fluid-filled lungs, and the fact that the hold Chauvin used was one approved of and taught by the Minneapolis PD. And there’s probably more I don’t even know about yet. What effect that will have on the jury that’s been fed anti-Chauvin narratives for the last ten months I can’t say.
(2) Now the long knives are out for Representative Matt Gaetz. We still don’t know much about truth or falsehood here, but at the moment I’m more inclined to believe Gaetz is the one telling the truth.
(3) They are cages and then there are cages.
(4) The Democrats end their attempt to overturn a certified election result in order to gain a House seat. The “optics” were bad, apparently.
[ADDENDUM: More on the Gaetz allegations here.]
Not only are Trump’s accomplishments (non-existent, of course, according to leftists) being unraveled, but the entire fabric of the republic is being undone as well. It seems no more likely that the increasingly Dis-United States can be properly re-stitched than that all the king’s men could put back together the rather corpulent Humpty after his fall.
j e:
Agreed.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the live-blogging from Mr. Branca at the trial every day. More than is good for me, I’m sure. I do find it rather interesting, but it’s really not very good for my emotions. It’s even getting into my dreams – the defense attorney showed up in one of them last night. I forget what the dream was about, but that can’t be good. I also read the Powerline synopses for comparison. It irritates me a little that so many commenters there seem so ready to second-guess the defense attorney. I think not everyone there appreciates what an awful hand Mr. Nelson seems to have been dealt and just maybe he’s doing his best to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis. Sure, this kind of life-and-death type of case may not be his bread and butter, but as someone once said, you go to war with the army you have. Unfortunately for Chauvin, he has an army of one against an actual army. I wonder if the trial has anything to do with why I’ve had a headache all day. Nah… I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Philip,
I’m also a little annoyed at the sniping against Mr. Nelson. He’s obviously picking his battles. He’s trying to stay on the good side of the judge. As an attorney myself, you don’t want to piss the judge off. Just ask that hostile firefighter chick. What a brat she is.
Regarding unraveling, I’ve been telling my friends one thing. I’m not a Chicken Little type, going around saying the sky is falling. Never have been. I’m also not a Pollyanna that does not or cannot acknowledge reality. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt more alarm and discouragement over the state of the culture and the nation than I am right now. Things are awful. Trump gave us a reprieve — and I always knew it was going to be a mere reprieve. But seeing just how rotten the “state of Denmark” is… it’s a punch in my gut, lately.
As far as I am concerned the only question is whether Officer Chauvin will receive the death penalty officially, or whether it will be unofficial.
The situation is surreal; but, I guess if you want to overthrow a system you have to take your martyrs where you find them. I suppose no one would be more surprised than Floyd at his status. Well his family, which as far as I know cared very little for his welfare while alive, certainly appreciates the windfall resulting from his death. Love to see a reality show about the apportionment of the spoils. I expect it would be entertaining.
My wife tells me not to fret too much about the country because at 85 & 84 we will be dead before it completely unravels. I think she is optimistic. We have worked diligently, as have our family, to maintain our relationships even though there is a huge political gulf. So, there is that.
I’m so glad to hear Rita Hart threw in the towel. Talk about deplorable. If I understand Sister Toldja correctly, the only thing that makes a difference in a Dem power grab, is making them pay. Make them suffer in the court of public opinion or elsewhere.
To me the endless stories tell a sad sad tale. Follow the histories of nearly all great powers. Those that were not destroyed by a challenger. Were often destroyed by their own decadence.
By any measure life here is a paradise. Not compared only with historical empires and republics. But also with any competing countries in the world today. Yet a huge section of the population has assigned its moral agency to trying to change things that are immutable. The conceit of people who believe that we can somehow stop the climate changing, or deny the basic realities of human biology. Such as the innate differences in sex and abilities of individuals. Is astounding.
And to keep this constant barrage up. We are rewarded by being governed by increasingly comical and tragically inept figures. Who are the only people who lack the self awareness to not only understand they are furthering our collective demise. But are morally vacuous enough to simply not care.
Everyone sees what is happening. The left cheers it. The “center” is generally people who do not fully comprehend what is happening. But have a strong sense something is going very wrong. And the right opposes it. But has squandered the time it had to stop it with petty squabbles and vanity projects.
What we are living through now has many parallels in history. The ancient Greeks are an easy to reference analog for what we are experiencing now. I believe this is why the left tries so hard to ignore and change history. Because if it can then the lessons we should have learned over the last three thousand years become meaningless. And continue to pave the way for their assent
I do a email blast to my fellow warriors and you are right. There is just so much news coming out, you have to pick and chose. The Matt Gaetz sex sting is right out of the Fascists playbook. An anonymous source “saw” or “heard” information about this investigation. Shades of the Ukraine Hoax. I believe it was a real FBI operation and when someone who knew the extortionist put this NYT story out to warn him off from giving the instructions for the down payment. From Clarence Thomas, Trump, Kavanaugh and now Gaetz they use the same tactic. Now he claims he has documentary proof of the attempt INDEPENDENT of the FBI. I tend to think Gaetz has got something and is willing to use it. Let us wait and see.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/huge-breaking-news-arizona-senate-republicans-courageously-announce-team-will-perform-maricopa-county-audit-good-news-america/
A great article by Codevilla, our resident societal trend guru today. It tells us that we have to look to ourselves to get out of this mess. It piggy backs off his Tablet article.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/30/as-we-look-for-others/
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/american-exodus-angelo-codevilla-oligarchy
“As far as I am concerned the only question is whether Officer Chauvin will receive the death penalty officially, or whether it will be unofficial.” -Oldflyer
Sadly this is true. I think regardless of what is uncovered during the trial. The members of the jury will vote to convict. Simply avoid the mob hounding them to their own end.
I have thought since last summer his conviction is basically a sure thing. And that his only hope is that once the furor has died down. He can possibly get it quietly overturned on appeal in 3 years or so. But even that seems increasingly unlikely.
We spent the last 200 years of our history trying to create a fairer justice system That eliminates extra judicial sentences such as lynchings. Yet the left has made a complete about face and embraced this idea wholly.
To Whit
“”So pathetic that there is a trial to prove that Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd when there is video of him doing so,”- Chelsea Handler
Matt Gaetz, hmm. I have always been very wary of him, can’t trust self-promoter showboats like that. Just because they say some things that appeal to the right does not mean we have to throw out healthy skepticism and a search for results rather than easy words. Skeezy friends and the Chuck Schumer style of running to the camera, not good. Maybe this scandal is not for real, but I have to think there are some skeletons in that guy’s closet that we will someday make us wish we hadn’t heard of the guy.
At Breitbart there’s a story that Gaetz’s father was set to wear a wire and meet with one of the people about paying the extortion then the NYT publishes and the investigation falls apart. Some leaker needs to be convicted over this but I doubt that will ever happen.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/31/report-matt-gaetzs-father-wore-wire-for-fbi-probe-into-extortion-claims/
Several here have written of a sense of sadness and/or certainty regarding the negative nature of so many current events. No matter when one lives one will live through tragedy. Mother nature is a tough mother.
I often feel guilt or shame for getting down since the circumstances of my material life are decent; I have a roof over my head, clothes to wear, food to eat. Being born in the United States of America when I was, and living through this timeline seems quite fortunate when compared with most any other time in human history. Yet, like many of you, I am more and more convinced I am watching the unraveling of the greatest nation humans have yet to devise. It is maddening and depressing. It is extremely difficult for me to witness wanton, senseless destruction. Much of it is so farcical it makes me laugh out loud; the Cuomo brothers, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chelsea Handler, Harry and Meghan, late night talk show hosts who are political shills, men who make millions to play children’s games crying about the system that made it possible, Megan Rapinoe, Bruce Jenner; and on, and on. Watching the most privileged among us demand our pity while simultaneously blaming the paying audience for not sacrificing more for their benefit is genuinely hilarious.
But when I think about what could be and what is being stolen from the young it’s not funny at all. I keep trying to stay focused on doing productive things while not letting the purveyors of negativity slow me, but I am ashamed to admit I fall far short of succeeding. It amazes me how many of you are able to dwell so deeply in the details while remaining steadfast.
Defeated Iowa Democrat: “Despite our best efforts to have every vote counted…” Noting the deliberate omission of “legal” between ‘every’ and ‘vote’. This is similar to omitting the the same word in front of ‘immigrants’. The legal vs illegal distinction is apparently beyond the moral and/or intellectual reach of most Democrats – except, of course, when it fits their power objectives.
I am Spartacus,
This from the Codevilla Tablet piece is a concise statement of where we are:
A ruling class who assume their authority through a visceral hatred of those they govern leads to an awful end.
I get what you’re saying about Gaetz, Wayne, I’m not a big fan either. But there have been too many malicious Dem hit jobs for me not to give him the benefit of the doubt until and unless something definitive comes out.
Rufus T. Firefly:
We can always compare the times we’re in to worse times. And there certainly have been much worse times than now, and worse places to be. But what’s going on now seems like the biggest unforced error in the world. The United States, a great nation with wonderful ideals that it often (not always by any means, but often) actually lived up to, is committing suicide before our eyes. This country was a refuge for those who loved liberty, and I believe those days are gone or are about to go. I have been working for 16 years to try to stop that from happening, and I feel a sense of personal failure as well, even though my role and my power is so very small.
But I’m not giving up despite those feelings. And I don’t suggest that anyone else give up.
More on the Gaetz allegations here.
This is so reminiscent of the Rodney King case. The only thing missing so far is the other cop, Melanie Singer who was ready to shoot King when the LAPD arrived and saved his life, testifying against the LAPD cops at both trials, then retiring on stress disability. I do wonder if the state can frighten one of the other cops into flipping?
Hard times make hard people. Hard people create good times. Good times make soft people. Soft people create hard times. And so it goes.
There’s a lot of ruin in this country. Look how long it took for the Roman Empire to crumble. Joe Biden and company aren’t gong to take the place down, but they are going to put us back in a stagflation reminiscent of the Carter years. I remember the Carter years. Awful times. Yet, we recovered and Ronald Reagan even arranged for the eventual demise of the USSR. Keep a stiff upper lip. Stay engaged.
ACE OF SPADES: “I imagine that is possibly a smokescreen to cover up an actual threat of blackmail, and that’s why the FBI needed Don Gaetz to wear a wire to see if these guys would explicitly say they were threatening him and his son.
The ridiculousness of the claims convinces me that my initial hunch was right, and this is all more leftwing Deep State lies.
I feel like this explains Matt Gaetz’s weirdness in refusing to fully explain the blackmail plot (or the “promise of a pardon for a ‘loan’ plot”) — he was probably worried the government would investigate him for “leaking national security secrets” if he explained the plot’s Iranian Hostage angle.”
SPARTACUS: My feeling is this. The Washington DC FBI was seeking to entrap Gaetz in a bribery plot or embarrass him to resign. The mention of Barr being briefed was the tip off to me. When the family went to the local FLORIDA FBI it was a “aw crap” moment for the DC group. The Gaetz’s aren’t playing like normal politicians. It was even worse when the wires were producing results. So the DC group leaked the investigation via NYT (FBI favored channel) to warn off the local entrapment branch.
Then the Gaetz’s produced documentary proof AND had the local FBI confirm they were co-operating in a case. So the attempt to take down an effective gadfly failed. The attempt to move the narrative away from the border crisis will fade away as this story is even more embarrassing to the deep state.
Matt likes to hang around very young people. They are barely legal but legal. He ain’t that stupid. So if he slipped up and dated a 17 year old that will be trouble for him. Let’s see how this all plays out.
Related (from “across the pond”):
https://unherd.com/2021/04/why-the-left-needs-institutional-racism/
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/31/at-last-the-myth-of-institutional-racism-is-collapsing/
And this—on the vital importance of stories (AKA “myths”, AKA “narratives”):
https://unherd.com/2021/03/jordan-petersons-most-important-lesson/
neo and j. j.,
First, neo, you have devoted a lot of time in sixteen years to recording events and diving deep into research to communicate information that our media is mostly failing or refusing to document. It is a great help to many. I personally get a lot from the information, in and of itself, but more than that it is a great comfort to be able to come here and read the writing of you and the commenters to verify I am not crazy; what appears to be happening in front of my eyes is actually happening. I am fortunate to live with a spouse who is also awake to the devastation.
j.j., Yes, there is a lot of ruin in a nation, and the future has a way of showing up in unpredictable and incredible ways; but, as I often say, even Reagan grew the federal government. One of his big policy points in his first, winning Presidential campaign was abolishing the Department of Education. In eight years he never came close. Despite his immense, unique talents; the swamp swamped Reagan. Trump, a billionaire construction magnate and popular television personality was swamped by the swamp. The country elected Calvin Coolidge a few years after Wilson, but the trend line is always in the same direction and, unlike Michael Mann’s hockey stick chart, the chart tracking federal spending, regulation and control seems to be a downward facing hockey stick and 2021 is somewhere along the blade, way past the bend at the shaft. Look at England and Europe. Not yet ruined, life goes on in its way, but what would men like Kipling and Churchill make of the Britain of today?
The importance of Narratives, continued:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/meet-russiagate-prober-who-couldnt-verify-anything-steele-dossier-yet-said-nothing-years
…and the importance of a media that would NEVER rush to judgment (because that would be so incredibly unprofessional)…unless there were, um, I guess, certain “mitigating factors”…
File under: Death, or insanity(?), by partisanship (and the Republican Perplex?)
@Rufus:
Or as Moldbug puts it: “Cthulu Always Swims Left.”
That’s a feature, not a bug of this thing we call Western Liberalism. You can retcon it or ringfence it or Straussify it, or dress it up in a Libertarian Clown Suit, but it stubbornly refuses to do anything other than Swim Left.
Barry Meislin,
I haven’t gotten to the fourth, but the first three links were very good. Let’s hope something comes of the British survey on institutional racism, however, as one commenter wrote after one of the essays (I think it was Murray’s), (I’m paraphrasing) “if they’re still whining about a gender pay gap despite all the evidence presented over the years what makes you think this report will have any impact regarding claims of institutional racism?”
Just read in the news
VIDEO: Smugglers drop 2 toddlers over border barrier, rescued by U.S. Border Patrol
https://www.kcbd.com/2021/03/31/video-smugglers-drop-toddlers-over-border-barrier-rescued-by-us-border-patrol/
Zaphod,
There’s a tradition based on some anecdotal evidence that wealthy families devolve into decadence in the third generation. The first generation grew up wanting and put in the work to build the fortune. The second generation grew up seeing that effort, but the third only knows prosperity so is unable to appreciate its ephemeral nature.
Maybe nations, like families, have similar arcs. One of the Little Fireflies (who has since come to his senses) called home and spoke with Mom during his first semester away at University. After the conversation my wife found me in another room and demanded, “You have to call your son right now. He’s voting for Bernie Sanders!” I laughed and replied, “Let me see if I understand? Our son, who we have provided everything for, is now living with twenty thousand other children whose parents also do everything for them, and they have gotten together and decided the answer to all the problems of the world is that their parents need to work harder?”
Supposedly there was a point when the Kennedy clan were all at their compound in Hyannis Port and Joe Sr. was rather upset at the lack of motivation in his offspring and demanded they spend a weekend coming up with ways they can do more to grow the family fortune. The story goes that when he assembled his progeny at the end of the allotted time and asked what they had come up with John first jokingly responded, “Dad, we’ve all met and put our heads together and have come to the conclusion that you just have to work harder.”
@FB:
Yep… this makes great clickbait for all the Wimmins when they see their morning FaceBook and Twitter feeds. Real human interest story and Cat Video clickthru revenue will take a hit for at least 12 hours.
Same Wimmins had 3 abortions, but that’s different 😛
Obviously the answer to this terrible event is to knock down the wall and proclaim a general amnesty. Think of the Children!
@Rufus:
John was lucky the Old Man didn’t have him committed and lobotomized for the impertinence.
The Chinese also have a saying about Rags to Riches in Three Generations.
I met a girl in the 1990s whose great-great grandfather had done well in exams and attained high rank in the (grossly corrupt) Mandarinate. Her father had been the first subsequent male descendant to have been reduced to the indignity of having to work a little.
For wealth preservation there’s always that old favourite, the Rothschilds. They’re not going anywhere anytime soon. 90% submerged in trusts and foundations. There are family firms in Japan which are hundreds of years old – although often they have adopted promising males in to marry daughters when the line got stale. I think I read somewhere that roughly the same 50 families have dominated Honduras since the Conquest. Once met a member of the Konoe family at a housewarming in Tokyo. The Konoe family have been kicking about for a good thousand years and through the Fujiwaras go back to the 600s.
It’s do-able. But what we get to see is more than tinged with survivor bias. Not easy to pull off at all. There’s a big market in the wealth preservation end of Private Banking to sell this perfectly legitimate dream to the newly rich. There are people who claim to offer a one stop multi-generational shop to help a family get it right. But perhaps it’s a mercy that even the most successful must die and do not need to see what a mess their descendants for the most part make of things.
Even the most successful examples of wealth preservation must likely involve pretty ruthless pruning of the tree. Mere speculation as way outside my pay grade. Still it’s interesting in way!
If we’re going to talk dynasties, the way things are going, 300 years hence one of Parker’s descendants might end up Duke of Dubuque provided the ammo stores hold out 🙂
.
.
.
*silence from the bunker*
Zaphod,
That’s why I am doing my children the favor of not passing down too great a personal fortune. It’s for their own good. 🙂
Rufus,
BUT they would make the claim that there is NO CONNECTION between huge incomes—or lots of opportunity—and “institutional racism”. That is, that the two are not mutually exclusive.
(Yep, they have all the “bases” covered…
Totalitarians—or “confused moralists” (is there a difference?)—generally do.
Except for that one sticky, awkward, cumbersome, uncooperative “base” called REALITY…)
Which means, it appears, that to defeat—to overturn—“institutional racism”, one MUST institute reverse “institutional racism”.
(The moral imperative of our times….)
Supposedly there was a point when the Kennedy clan were all at their compound in Hyannis Port and Joe Sr. was rather upset at the lack of motivation in his offspring and demanded they spend a weekend coming up with ways they can do more to grow the family fortune. The story goes that when he assembled his progeny at the end of the allotted time and asked what they had come up with John first jokingly responded, “Dad, we’ve all met and put our heads together and have come to the conclusion that you just have to work harder.”
If Joseph Kennedy actually wanted that, he should have incorporated his sons into his business or put them on a path to study business and work in other people’s businesses. Works for the Bush-Walker-Pierce clan. Instead, one of his children is assigned to run for Congress within a year of his discharge from the military and the other two are stewed through law school after their respective discharges. Neither of these, btw, have any time in ordinary law practice. One works as a prosecutor for five months and then is expected to run for office while the other works as a congressional aide (until his brother appoints him Attorney-General at the age of 35).
Related and important (…though once upon a time, it would have been considered obvious):
“Asian American judge challenges racism inherent in ‘equity’ ”
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0421/kass040121.php3
H/T Powerline blog.
An entirely accurate assessment of The Chauvin Trial:
https://anncoulter.com/2021/03/31/derek-chauvin-human-sacrifice/
If a lone juror has the fortitude, the jury will hang (rather than Chauvin).
Wonder why Cuomo’s head is now on the chopping block. After all, he has been misbehaving at least since his divorce in 2005. Even when he was installed at HUD his thuggish behavior was well known.
Nobody cared.
I would not be surprised that some powerful demokrats, for whatever reason, want him gone, and they just needed to find a good reason to enable this; his actions toward females.
Not to minimize what he has done, but it really is a mosquito bite on an elephants ass compared to his very deadly covid policies. What are they saying? – 10,000 died because of what he did.
And yet this FACT was NOT the reason that initiated the effort to have him removed from office.
Shows yet once again, that demonkrats do not care at all about how their policies affect the citizenry, whether or not it results in the deaths of thousands (or more), whether their policies impoverish large swaths of the nation, etc. etc.
All they care about is attaining and maintaining power.
This is no different than what motivated the Nazis or Bolsheviks.
The ends justify the means.
JohnTyler – Robert Barnes believes that Kama Sutra Harris is eliminating potential opponents for 2024. Newsom and Cuomo have the biggest name recognition and large Democrat pools to draw from. All Congressional critters are either too old or mentally challenged (not that she is an intellectual paragon). Obama took out Jesse Jackson Jr. and Rod Blagovich to secure his Illinois base.
Interesting supposition. Let us see how it plays out.
Your last three sentences sums it all up.
Re #1 (Chauvin)– This video showed up in a comment section last week — possibly here on Neo’s blog — that is a pretty comprehensive summary of the George Floyd events. It is done by a prosecutor who “made his bones” investigating and prosecuting police misconduct… to the point that his prosecuting some NYPD officers gathered him a lot of dislike thereabouts. It relies on the video captured by citizen devices, the body-cams of the officers, and street cams. The first segment is an open run-through of the event, the second his commentary on the events. It is illuminating. Hopefully the decision to allow full videos into the trial as evidence (instead of the state’s edited ones) will replicate this video for the jury.
https://centaurfilmworks.com/
I apologize for the repetition, for you who may have seen it earlier.
this
Rufus T., I get your point. The swamp keeps growing and seems unstoppable. It is the antithesis of what the Founders envisioned. And the USA may well be doomed as a republic. So, what’s your plan to save us? I opine that the only path forward is to keep trying to educate our fellow citizens and to continue to resist in any way possible. Shall we throw up our hands and surrender?
I cheer for Iowa on account of the Democrats’ decision to cease their attack on Ms. Miller-Meeks’ position!
I, too, am wondering what became of Parker. IIRC, last summer he stated that his wife had passed away suddenly and shortly thereafter ceased commenting.
Miss his gruff opinions and if TSSHTF would gladly share a foxhole.
HOW TO CONFRONT KOOLAIDE DRINKING Wokiee’s?
Today, I saw a University-aged couple of females in fake retro punk attire, like leather vests and Woke sloganeering such as symbols and painted line.
For example: Circlebar over a Swastika, “Say no to racism,” and “F- – K the Klan” for example.
What does one do with these ignorant but indoctrinated youths? Specifically, what am I willing to do and say to publicly reproach these morons and remonstrate against them? I wondered. Perhaps you’ll choose differently than I?
@TJ:
All Downside now. Don’t make any scenes or risk being doxed with cellphone pic and lies they will invent about what you said or did to them Save it for after season kicks off.
The problem from the inside (from July 2020):
https://medium.com/@mbreshears/wake-up-our-cultural-crisis-is-a-graduate-of-the-american-university-9bec944ddf99
H/T Ron Coleman twitter feed.
Key grafs (of many):
‘I was young and astoundingly ignorant, but after two years of college, I noticed that the prevailing ideas on campus were not merely “liberal,” nor even within the scope of what most would recognize as progressive. Confused and curious, I did some independent research. I would come to learn that the school of thought I was being unwittingly trained in was some combination of historical materialism, neo-Marxism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, and what I can only describe with any accuracy as intersectional identitarianism. While its tenets are fairly uniform and its presence in academia is not particularly new, it has yet to receive its own name. Those who wish to speak of it are reduced to doing so through a hodgepodge of vacuous jargon. This is certainly to the movement’s advantage: the inflated academic labels obscure their politics from the scrutiny of average people, and their failure to claim a singular title makes their dominance over the universities less conspicuous.
‘What most seem unable, or unwilling, to understand is that this cohort of professors and administrators who have entered and come to control the academy over the last two decades are not just unprecedented in their homogeneity, but they are distinctly more radical than their predecessors. These are not merely members of the New Left of the 1960s or your garden variety Marxists, radical feminists, or anti-globalists which have been a mainstay in academia for decades. While their belief system involves a powerful synthesis of these predecessors, it has adopted a new and potent focus on intersectional identity.
‘Their principal thesis is marked by its incredible want of nuance: American (and or Western) culture, history, and systems of government are inherently and irreparably evil.
‘This evil is ubiquitous and inextricable, and it manifests in the world most pronouncedly in patriarchal tyranny, homophobia, racism, and white supremacy. The evidence of such evils need not be clear or even present, but is so unquestionably foundational to our society, that one need only place the word “systemic” in front of any word to silence requests for supporting data. Those who fail to accept the theory on faith are treated as infidels, socially ostracized at best, and totally cast out of their institution at worst.’
“Save it for after season kicks off.”
Would that be in the “Saison” sense?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saison
Let us hope it is limited to dueling cellphones.
Molly Brown:
I agree, Parker’s comments are missed. You are correct about his beloved passing.
There’s a tradition based on some anecdotal evidence that wealthy families devolve into decadence in the third generation. The first generation grew up wanting and put in the work to build the fortune. The second generation grew up seeing that effort, but the third only knows prosperity so is unable to appreciate its ephemeral nature.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’m fourth generation, the generation which saw the third gen implode. Some of us put our lives together more modestly, others went way off the tracks and died or nearly died.
For a long time I searched for some hidden evil or genetic condition at work in the family, but now I think it was just the curse of the nouveau riche. Some families figure it out; some don’t. Ours didn’t.
Recently I watched Lindsay Anderson’s classic 1968 film, “If…” It takes place in a British public school, which is to say, a rather exclusive boarding school. The school is pretty unpleasant and oppressive — the teachers and more senior students treating the younger students terribly in a systematic way.
I’ve seen the argument made that the public schools function to instill discipline into upper-class children, so they don’t slide into indolence and entitlement, thus avoiding the pitfalls of wealth.
That’s the theory anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t something to it.
‘The evidence of such evils need not be clear or even present, but is so unquestionably foundational to our society, that one need only place the word “systemic” in front of any word to silence requests for supporting data. Those who fail to accept the theory on faith are treated as infidels, socially ostracized at best, and totally cast out of their institution at worst.’ – quoted at Barry’s comment
Being a bit redundant in my commenting, but this is such a relevant post from Widburg it belongs on almost every thread.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/to_understand_2021_watch_a_kgb_defectors_mid1980s_interview.html
Bezmenov’s interview is well-known to most long-time readers here.
Video embedded, transcript linked at the AT post.
om; AesopFan:
I remember watching that video many years ago, although not back in the 80s when it was made. In the years (10? 15?) since I first watched it, things have only gotten worse – although it was already apparent we were on that path.
Re: Bezmenov…
AesopFan, om, neo:
I’ve seen the Bezmenov interview too. It’s a fact that the USSR has been waging a propaganda/psychological war upon America and Europe from the beginning. However, that doesn’t mean it’s all a cunning plot. Sometimes it’s jumping in front of the parade and pretending to lead.
In the 80s I was active in the Nuclear Freeze and I remember conservatives going on about how we were just Moscow’s puppets. I’m sure Moscow was happy with us working for the Freeze, but the idea seemed foolish to me then and it seems foolish to me now.
Those of us working on the Freeze were concerned, to say the least, about the very real possibility of a nuclear war which could bring the hammer down on civilization and kill millions of people. Moscow didn’t have a lot to do with that fear.
Years later I ran across a different KGB defector’s memoir, name forgotten, and he laughed about the Freeze story. He said, sure the KGB took credit for it because it made the USSR leadership happy. But he knew the KGB wasn’t leading that parade.
huxley:
I have little doubt that most of the useful idiots who were part of that nuclear freeze movement were not Russia-friendly operatives. However, I hate to tell you this – but even when I was a child I was well aware that some of the most active people in the movement, both financially and otherwise, were indeed pro-Russia pro-Communist Americans.
I knew a very prominent one very very well – a close relative of mine.
Well it fit in with Carl Sagan’s new ice age theory (global cooling) and the evil senile Hollywood Chimp that would kill us all. Would the freezers have needed a whole world controlling bureaucracy to “save” the planet? IDK. Do they still want one? Seems so to me. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster some flack from the Union of Concerned Scientists came out with a TV press briefing that O-rings were used widely in Nuclear Power Plants and that O-rings had caused the failure of the Challenger solid fuel booster rocket engines (Thiokol Corp. IIRC)! Therefore Nuclear Power Plants should be shut down immediately!
That statement made it obvious to me that they were not serious or credible people.
neo:
You don’t hate to tell me anything.
I believe I acknowledged that the USSR put spin on the ball, but that’s not the same as granting that the anti-nuclear movement was simply a front for Moscow.
Nor do I buy your “useful idiots” slander. I’m not sure what the best response was to the nuclear arms race then — or now for that matter — but it was a serious threat and it was not at all foolish to be concerned.
Of course, rabid anti-communism has worked so well for conservatives.
Socialism and communism appeal to human nature for reasons that go well beyond whatever psyop plans Moscow has come up with. As I believe we’ve discussed.
huxley:
I don’t think you read my mind very well.
I do hate to tell you – because I hate the fact itself. I hate to tell myself; I hate the entire situation.
I have written about some of my Communist relatives before, and that particular person I’m referring to here was a complete Soviet-phile and he never ever wavered from it. Not even the Stalin revelations during the 50s changed his mind one iota. He was very wealthy and supported every propaganda effort of the Soviets, and was especially active in that one.
“Useful idiots” isn’t my phrase – it’s been attributed to either Lenin or Stalin or both (although who knows whether they actually coined it), but at any rate the idea is that it refers to people who supported what Communists did without realizing what the aims were. (I realize you know the meaning and use of the term, but I’m just repeating it now to be clear about why I used it). I believe it is appropriate in this case, unfortunately (and yes, I do mean “unfortunately,” because I wish it weren’t so). But I am absolutely convinced (and was somewhat convinced even back then) that the anti-nuclear movement was a pipe dream and that the Russians couldn’t be trusted. It could only work out in some ideal world that didn’t exist then and doesn’t exist now.
And I have never said or even implied that it was foolish to be concerned about nuclear weapons, either then or now. I was concerned then and am concerned now.
Also, the fact that there are many things about leftist thought that are inherently attractive to people and the fact that the Russians had a plan to propagandize America in pro-leftist fashion are not mutually exclusive. Those two things can easily work in tandem, and I believe that they have.
neo:
Well, whether I read your mind properly or not — I suggest leaving, me as in “you,” out of your rhetorical flourishes, when you’re disagreeing with me. If your point is larger than me, write it that way.
Yes, of course I know the term, “useful idiots.” Please consider the possibility I am not that far behind you, when you give me these lectures. Even if you are going to acknowledge it in a parenthetical clause.
When we disagree, we disagree as we do here.
I’m not sure how we survived without a US-USSR nuclear war. Personally I think there was a fair amount of luck to it. A future history after such a war would likely have considered it a tragic, but in no way surprising, result.
huxley:
I was addressing you and your comment, and so the word “you” was appropriate. I suppose to be utterly correct and utterly thorough I could have written something like “I hate to tell you and to tell myself and to tell everyone else or to even think that…” – but if I wrote comments that way they would be the length of legal documents. There seemed to me that there was nothing about the phrase “I hate to tell you” when a person means just that, and that there’s no need to explain that the statement is also a more universal one.
Nor was I lecturing you about useful idiots – and in fact, I even anticipated that you might think I was lecturing you or assuming you didn’t know about the term “useful idiots,” so that’s why I included, as a precaution so that you wouldn’t think that, the phrase “I realize you know the meaning and use of the term, but I’m just repeating it now to be clear about why I used it.” And yet you somehow, even after reading that, wrote the following:
You say I should please consider the possibility, and then you follow that up immediately with the fact that I acknowledged it. That doesn’t make sense to me. If I acknowledged it, I already did more than consider it – I acknowledged it. And I also explained why I had used it, which simply had to do with an effort at clarity on my part.
“(2) Now the long knives are out for Representative Matt Gaetz. We still don’t know much about truth or falsehood here, but at the moment I’m more inclined to believe Gaetz is the one telling the truth.” – Neo
Just caught up with J E Dyer’s post about Gaetz, and there are dots connected to dots connected to dots…
https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/04/01/levinson-link-in-matt-gaetz-drama-turns-up-cast-of-russiagate-spygate-characters/