Nathan Phillips, character assassin: what even his critics seem to be ignoring about him
Nathan Phillips is fast wearing out his more-than-15-minutes of fame. But before he goes off our radar screen—and the next ramped-up Twitter brouhaha comes our way—I must point out something I think is important but which has been almost totally ignored even by the right and by the defenders of the Covington students.
I’ve read an awful lot about the Covington incident and Phillips’ role in it. Left and right are in profound disagreement, of course, about most of it. But there is one “narrative” about which many on both left and right seem to agree, and that is that people initially came to conclusions based on the first short video, and that the left hated Sandmann and the other boys based on people’s perceptions of that video, amplified by discussions on social media and in the press.
So even if you think the Covington teens were innocent and the rage against them obscene, you tend to think that rage was a reaction to the first video and the press and all the other viewers and tweeters who were similarly rage-filled.
The role of Phillips himself was (and still is) felt by the right to be the following: that he purposely stirred up the initial face-to-face confrontation, that he lied about his military service, lied when he stated the boys had said “build the wall,” lied when he said they had approached and surrounded him, and that he also omitted the details of the racial and other slurs the boys (and the Native Americans) had endured coming from the Black Israelites. And the media gave Phillips a forum for repeating those influential lies.
However, what’s being almost completely ignored even on the right (the NY Post is just about alone in mentioning it, and they don’t emphasize it much at all) are Phillips’ most vicious lies, told quite early in the game (I’ll get to what they were in a minute). These particular lies probably had a big role in shaping people’s perceptions of the boys and helped to spur their widespread demonization.
It was Phillips himself who quite early on, during his Saturday interview with CNN that set the original tone and was widely disseminated, gave the following description of the Covington boys:
It looked like these young men were going to attack [the Black Israelites]. They were going to hurt them. They were going to hurt them because they didn’t like the color of their skin. They didn’t like their religious views. They were just here in front of the Lincoln — Lincoln is not my hero, but at the same time, there was this understanding that he brought the (Emancipation Proclamation) or freed the slaves, and here are American youth who are ready to, look like, lynch these guys. To be honest, they looked like they were going to lynch them. They were in this mob mentality.
That is not some disagreement about who went up to whom, or whether the wall was mentioned by the boys, or what caps some of them wore. This is an extremely defamatory statement by a political agitator, designed to shape perceptions that the boys were vicious racists with a killer instinct. The language is purposefully inflammatory and of the harshest variety.
It is a lie, and unless Phillips is clinically insane and out of touch with reality (something I don’t believe is the case), it is a knowing and purposeful lie about a bunch of teenagers who were minding their own business. It is a lie so egregious, so foul, that I really lack words to describe the depth and depravity of that lie.
And as far as I can see, just about everyone is ignoring it now.
The lie wasn’t a one-off, either. This incredibly misleading article in Rolling Stone (written that same Saturday) is typical of reactions to the incident as well as to another statement by Phillips that he gave (in an interview with the Detroit Free Press) on Saturday [emphasis mine]:
“There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips told the Detroit Free-Press. “These young men were beastly and these old black individuals [the Black Israelites] was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that.”
So that saintly elder Nathan Phillips, casting himself as peacemaker, defames the boys once again, in terms designed to inflame the left into a frenzy of hatred against them as beasts preying on innocent black people. And the left (and some on the right) bought his peacemaker-against-beasts story, perhaps because of his Native American status and because his demeanor while telling the story fed into some other stereotypes that he, as an activist, was well aware they held.
Note also the literary reference (although I’m not sure how conscious it was on Phillips’ part) in speaking of “their pounds of flesh,” which is an old anti-Semitic trope from “The Merchant of Venice” that has passed into the common vernacular for describing a vengeful, bloodthirsty (and also money-hungry) person.
Why is practically no one highlighting these words of Phillips? He certainly did his bit, and then some, to set the story and release the howling Twitter dogs. Of course, people on Twitter—and especially the newspeople who pushed all of this further into the spotlight, never questioning Phillips’ statements but simply broadcasting them—were fully responsible for what they themselves did and said. My point is that Nathan Phillips was a very active and involved leader in setting the extreme tone of the demonization “narrative.”
If not for that long video that finally emerged (ironically, as a result of the Black Israelites taking it and posting it), Phillips’ pernicious and poisonous narrative would have carried the day. As it is, his narrative continues to override reality for many many people. And that is also with the assistance of the MSM, including Savannah Guthrie’s gentle, respectful later interview of him (a contrast to her challenging one of Sandmann) that failed to question Phillips on a single one of his lies. Rather, she let him continue to spread his narrative as he wished.
The evidence indicates that Phillips is an activist hatemonger who should be sued, but unfortunately he has shallow pockets and is therefore probably safe from lawsuit. I also believe it likely that someone and/or some activist group is guiding and financing him, and I hope the truth about that will be revealed as time goes on.
But my question remains: why is this portion of the story not being emphasized, even by those on the right who are highly critical of Phillips? Are they afraid of being demonized themselves for pointing out the obvious, if it reflects even more poorly on a man who’s been lionized by the left and the media? Or have they just forgotten those quotes of his because they’ve been buried in a sea of other verbiage?
Phillips escaped from the Nebraska State Pen at age 19.
And the ultra left wing LJS is mostly silent.
Last night, on his almost always worthless program, Bill Maher, who has had an entire week to learn the facts about this media-manufactured incident, managed to convey to the audience a completely fallacious and misleading account of what actually happened.
You say that Phillips is mentally capable. I’m not challenging that, but what motivates someone like him.
What does he live on?
I’m really interested if that “song” he was singing while banging his drum was coherent in any language or just some made up chanting.
What if that was “Navaho code talk” for “Young white boy, I skin you alive and decapitate the remains after…….” or worse.
You know what I mean.
Still up at https://cityofypsilanti.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=679
Posted on: January 20, 2019
PUBLIC NOTICE: Message form the Mayor Regarding Resident Nathan Phillips
Nathan Phillips, an outspoken Native American with long-term ties to Ypsilanti, was the focus of a shameful act of harassment and intimidation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nathan+phillips&oq=nathan+phi&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.2458j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The values of Ypsilanti are Pride, Diversity and Heritage. The treatment he received at the hands of young men in DC to attend a Pro-Life march are in stark contrast to those values. As Mayor of Ypsilanti, I condemn the actions of those youth in the strongest of terms.
Mr. Phillips has served our country as a Marine in the Vietnam war, and has worked during his life to uphold the values and lands of Native Americans in many ways and places. He should be held up as a model to our youth. Instead, these young men treated him with threats and harassment.
As a long time resident of our town, Nathan has spoken at protests, city council, public meetings and events. He has held Powwows in our parks, is a water protector who went to Standing Rock with his daughter, and has worked with the Native Youth Alliance locally. Sadly, he was also the target of an act of racist harassment locally as well. He has always been respectful and strong in how he manifests his values. He is a valuable member of our community and I am appalled at how he was treated by these young men.
In stark contrast to his harassers, Nathan’s response has been kind, prayerful, strong and in concert with his values and indigenous culture. He acted in the manner of a brave man in the face of threats and jeers, and he has continued that bravery in his statements and actions since then.
Ypsilanti and I are proud of Mr. Phillips for his bravery and actions.
Beth Bashert
Mayor, City of Ypsilanti
Don’t think the kids’ attorneys haven’t noticed…
As for Phillips having “shallow pockets”, it doesn’t matter. Someone needs to teach this big time LIAR a lesson he never forgets. If he barely has a penny, let the courts grab it, the way it is now done to Tawana Brawley, until the day he dies. “Beasts vs prey…” HE was the predator, not the kids.
The damage done to these kids is incalculable. They might never be able to go to the colleges of their choice, and perhaps few people in Corporate America will dare to hire them because it is all gone to PC. They will never have a fair chance.
“Thou shalt not give false testimony against thy neighbor” was set in stone within the Ten Commandments for a good reason.
Because Phillips really is an old, pathetic Native American liar, proven to be a liar, the details of his lies don’t seem to be much of the point.
However, I’m sure that they WERE the point — white kids with MAGA hats, instead of white hoods, about to lynch somebody. That’s the lie which is behind a lot of the guilt-hate by rich whites who feel guilty.
The white Democratic Party KKK members did lynch blacks, and that was terrible racism. Not all Americans, and I think no registered Republicans (tho not certain) — many Democrats were known KKK members. The Jim Crow laws were Dem Party laws.
All racism is a form of tribalism, similar to the black Hutu genocide against the black Tutsis.
The tribal-racist Dem KKK ready to lynch blacks in the 50s, has become a tribal Dem PC-Klan ready to virtually lynch any white, male, Republican. And non-white MAGA hat wearers. And non-male MAGA hat wearers.
The Dem PC-Klan wants to lynch MAGA hat wearers. So blacks can join in on the lynching side.
Because hating is fun, and digital lynching seems cool, and the Dem media & Dem academia has supported the demonization of Republicans since … Reagan, Goldwater, Nixon ’60.
Democrat Derangement Syndrome.
Dem PC-Klan virtual lynching.
Google “who founded the democratic party”
Google “who implemented the trail of tears”
Google “What was the party of slavery”
And the Covington boys wearing Republican oriented headgear is akin to hoods?
Thank you, Neo, for reminding me about these slanderous statements from Phillips on national TV. It’s disgraceful.
I am moved to go to Trump’s official site and buy a MAGA hat.
Phillips escaped from the Nebraska State Pen at age 19.
Yes, he was not in The Brig as others have written.
Phillips is a professional agitator as in the Standing Rock pipeline protest. He is paid to do this stuff.. Tracing the money in these things is impossible. We never learned who the guy paying the protesters at the Kavanaugh hearings is, either. I’ll bet their checks come from the same source.
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Wow, I hadn’t seen those remarks from Phillips! Despicable!!
Not only is Phillips a seasoned activist, but his daughter is an up-and-comer with connections to the Women’s March and the DAPL protests. She’s even given a speech at the UN. Per this twitter thread: (https://tinyurl.com/y8qlf6g5)
— Phillips and his daughter were in a documentary about the Dakota Access Pipeline, “Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock.”
— Proceeds from this documentary were used to underwrite a 1 year media fellowship for . . . Alethea Phillips.
Organizations funded by Soros, as well as Al Sharpton’s Action Network were involved in the DAPL protests, so I would not be surprised if the Phillips were planning on leveraging these activist contacts, as well as Alethea’s Women’s March friends for their “scary, white Catholic lynch mob” narrative.
Let’s not forget that Phillips and his group were taunting the boys with, “Go back to Europe; this is not your land.”
“Go back to Europe; this is not your land.”
Apparently, Notre Dame University agrees as it is covering a series of murals depicting Columbus.
Thanks for telling this story straight.
Phillips is a vicious and mendacious hustler.
The MSM is a national disgrace.
From someone in Ypsilanti, MI, where Phillips seems to live:
“Phillips is currently and has been soliciting funds for years receiving thousands of dollars of donations over the years to himself and to a non-profit that doesn’t exist. Phillips continues to receive funds through Paypal directed to him personally and the US mail via an Ypsi PO Box while fraudulently making claims about his military service as part of the soliciting and receiving those funds.
The First Amendment protects the right of someone to falsely claim military service. It is a violation of the Stolen Valor Act to make false claims of military service as part of the soliciting or receiving funds and donations.
Phillips has published online and told people they could claim tax-exempt status for donations to him and his non-profit as the Washington Peace Center in D.C. was acting as his fiduciary. Donations via Paypal and mailed to his PO Box in Ypsilanti do not pass through the WPC. Donations to individuals and non-existent non-profits not registered with the State and IRS are NOT tax deductible.
It appears Nathan Phillips has committed wire fraud, tax evasion, violated the Stolen Valor Act, and violated Michigan law for soliciting funds as well. He has repeatedly lied about his Military service, he has lied about his foster parents, lied about his family, and lied about so much more”
Perhaps we’ll be hearing more about this.
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There’s one other action by Phillips which has gotten NO attention (as far as I’ve seen). It may seem minor, but I don’t think it is.
Before he came face to face with Sandman, he was banging on his drum at elbow or waist level. Certainly below his shoulder. But—when he got close to the boy—he raised the drum above his shoulder, deliberately putting it right in the boy’s face. Anyone would consider that provocative. I know I would.
Nathan Phillips has a government retirement to go after.
He was a long time employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The article below, even has a picture of Phillips.
http://www.warrenrecord.com/news/article_c2db8156-1c9e-5488-91ca-957193fb2de3.html
“A special honor for the group was meeting Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who holds the ceremony each year. Na-Ma-Wo-Chi invited Phillips to drum with them during the ceremony.
The group gave Phillips the highest honor that can be awarded to a Native American – the presentation of Eagle feathers. In fact, Na-Ma-Wo-Chi presented Phillips with two Eagle feathers, one in honor of the veterans who gave their lives for their country, and the second for those serving in the United States armed forces today.”
Neo,
I would like to add that not only is Phillips getting a pass, but the whole Black Hebrew Israelite group was also allowed to walk away and disappear; and they were the instigators of this conflict. As to why? They’re all members of protected ethnicities. As much as the right rails against political correctness, they obey its tenets just as religiously as the left.
Clearly a case of thanking God for our enemies if I ever saw one.
Tom Grey,
At the risk of being pedantic about this, Phillips may look old, but he’s only 64 as I’ve heard. I guess the old wise man really isn’t so old…or wise.
KRB
Phillips may look old, but he’s only 64 as I’ve heard. I guess the old wise man really isn’t so old…or wise.
Drugs, booze and jail will do that to you.
Like the joke about the bum who looked like an old man on the park bench.That;’s Phillips.
“A special honor for the group was meeting Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who holds the ceremony each year. Na-Ma-Wo-Chi invited Phillips to drum with them during the ceremony.
Another Ward Churchill.
Does anyone have a reliable source supporting the claim that Phillips has ever been employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
I see just the bald statement in the Warren County Record as linked above, but I haven’t been able to find anything else that supports even an association, let alone an employee-employer relationship.
As we all know, any paper and any pundit can make a mistake. Or be lied to. Or print in haste, to repent, one hopes, at leisure.
“But my question remains: why is this portion of the story not being emphasized, even by those on the right who are highly critical of Phillips? Are they afraid of being demonized themselves for pointing out the obvious, if it reflects even more poorly on a man who’s been lionized by the left and the media? Or have they just forgotten those quotes of his because they’ve been buried in a sea of other verbiage?” — Neo
That’s just a rhetorical question, right?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/covington-bishop-to-students-sorry-we-immediately-unthinkingly-threw-you-under-the-bus
Not exactly the “sheepdogs” of the faithful.
They aren’t just disappearing; the NYT is actively rehabilitating their character (there’s a good idiomatic word for that, but it seems awkward in this context).
If anyone in the media points out the vicious lies by Phillips that Neo drew attention to here (not that any of them would want to damage Phillips’s cred with their base), then they have to talk about the “prey” and why the BHI were in absolutely no danger of being “lynched” by the Covington boys.
And they don’t dare do that.
I meant to throw this onto the comment about the bishop’s craven confession.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/covington-bishop-to-students-sorry-we-immediately-unthinkingly-threw-you-under-the-bus
AesopFan:
Isn’t that also a good description of how the Church handled the child abuse scandals? “Leaders of the Church cared more about the world’s opinion than about doing right by the young people in his flock.” That’s one of the reasons the whole thing was covered up for so long.
“Does anyone have a reliable source supporting the claim that Phillips has ever been employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs?”
I wondered about that. The Haliwa-Saponi claim to be Tuscarora, but aren’t recognized by the Tuscarora tribe in New York or on Federal level. I have no idea why someone from Indian Affairs would be dealing with them. But, I’m less Native American that Liz Warren, so what do I know?
I sure noticed the quotes neo marshals. But it was such a target-rich environment and it was such a hard push just to establish Phillips approached Sandmann and not the other way around plus other basics.
For instance, Snopes is still weaseling around with the Vietnam Vet question. Snopes mentions the Facebook video in which Phil Kerpen tweets the quote neo featured in her post on the matter, but Snopes is dishonest and replaces the damning admission, “I got honorable discharge and one of the boxes shows peacetime or, what my box says is that I was **in theater**.” with a three dot ellipsis:
In an older, rambling Facebook video that surfaced after the controversy broke, though, Phillips could seemingly be heard to say (at around the 9:35 mark) “I’m a Vietnam vet, and I served in Marine Corps 72 to 76. I got discharged May 5th, 1976 … I don’t talk much about my Vietnam times. I usually say I don’t recollect, I don’t recall those years”.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nathan-phillips-vietnam-veteran/
A piece on Phillips at the People magazine website says this about his employment history:
BTW, the Snopes characterization of the Phillips video as “Phillips could seemingly be heard to say” is pure-D cow patty. The audio is perfectly distinct.
Isn’t that also a good description of how the Church handled the child abuse scandals? “Leaders of the Church cared more about the world’s opinion than about doing right by the young people in his flock.” That’s one of the reasons the whole thing was covered up for so long.
neo: That was the first thing I thought when I read Bishop Foys statement throwing the Covington boys under the bus, apologizing to Phillips and threatening to expel the students.
After Foy rushed to condemn the boys on the first day, it took him six days to apologize. I’m sure all his guff about investigating the matter, when he realized the fuller video told the opposite story, was about running it up the Church hierarchy to see which way to jump.
At least the boys got an apology. That’s more than most Catholic kids get for their abuse.
I had a tiny moment of vindication when my godmother confessed to me it was a shame that Mother Clare, the nun who had terrorized me, my class and the rest of the school for years, turned out to be … (sigh) “mentally ill” … and had to be removed as principal. It only took ten years for authorities to figure that out and act.
ICYMI
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/covington-catholic-students-hoax-cultural-rorschach-test/
Sarah Hoyt issues a warning.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/01/26/rules-of-the-game/
Tweet thread by Doc Zero assembled into a single post.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/23/hayward-trump-fights-the-covington-culture-war-after-passive-conservatives-surrender/
(hat tip – literally – to Power Line)
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2019/01/Screen-Shot-2019-01-25-at-7.27.51-AM.png?w=952&ssl=1
So yes, Trump inevitably wades in for the Covington kids, as most prominent Democrats would do for their treasured constituencies… but as few other Republican leaders of recent vintage would do for theirs. Sure, Trump fumbles some balls, but he’s in the game.
MAGA hats off to Trump … but would his approach have worked before 2016?
If Romney had gone all smashmouth in 2012 or McCain in 2008 towards Obama, how would that have worked?
I don’t think it would have. I can buy the country-club-RINO charges to an extent, but I would argue it took eight years of Obama and the threat of eight years of Hillary for Americans to elect Trump and then, just barely.
Further back in time I’d also say there’s a good chance, if Trump had run for president, he would have run as a Democrat.
However, I do credit Trump for sensing the opening for his guerrilla candidacy, just as Obama did in 2008.
Trump needs to invite Sandman to his SOTU address and skewer his critics by pointing out the false narrative. Too many people have only heard the fake side of this story. It would be a win for both of them.
Neo, is Barnes (one of the Covington kids’ lawyers) on your site, to your knowledge? Because both your take, and the links in the comments here, would be useful to his lawsuits — Phillips may seem judgment-proof, but between his fake nonprofit and the financial backing he has surely been getting all these years, there is plenty to go after.
Nice work, Neo. I think Sarah Hoyt is close, thank you too Aesop for posting and linking. And Greg, u r so rite!! If Trump takes the lead, perhaps DOJ will FINALLY step in and reestablish the rule of law in this nation. Pathetic that nothing has happened on all the corruption, espionage, and subversion that has gone on so intensively since sometime during the Obama administration.
Kavanaugh, then Covington — is Amy Coney going to be the KKK third point of destruction? Three such strikes are too many to keep pretending that lawfulness will regain its central position under its own weight. Matthew Whitaker, stop the speeches and make arrests. William Barr, drop the hammer. What is the problem with these mutts?
Phillips was singing the song that the prog-symp media wanted to hear. No matter that every word, including “and” and “the” turned out to be lies. It doesn’t matter to the media, and admitting that he is a vicious fantasists at this point would be embarrassing to them.
Thanks Aesop. The Hoyt quote is great.
Turnabout is fair play.
Huxley,
The phrase, “Sin in earnest; repent in leisure” comes to mind.
KRB
Foy claims he was bullied intensely.
Pressured.
Coerced.
(And we’ve all heard the threats and we’ve witnessed the vituperation and we’ve seen the violence.)
Well, maybe so…. Maybe the pressure was awful. Excruciating. Couldn’t be borne. Nonetheless, do you throw your own KIDS under the bus BEFORE knowing the entire story?
Well, I guess so…when there’s a nation-wide lynch mob at your doorstep, egged on by a rabid media.
Maybe, paying emotional danegold is the least bad alternative when the issue, as you see it, is survival.
So, a little compassion might be called for here.
Since it can’t be easy (especially for those whose raison d’etre is the pursuit of peace, who seek peaceful means to deflect conflict; whose modus operandi is compassion and compromise; whose basic, elemental assumption is that they’re dealing with reasonable people); it can’t be easy to assuage those fellow citizens, those “fellow Americans” as they fundamentally transform into a savage MOB (for all the right and moral reasons, of course) baying at your doorstep for blood.
No, it can’t be easy.
Neo,
It’s like with the actual author of the UK Telegraph, against which Melania Trump has now won a defamation suit. The author – who actually create the wrongness – is not even part of the picture. It is the publisher whom we hold responsible under the law.
The lawyers for the Covington people have clearly changed their tack & style, more than once. They are being ‘corrected’ by people who know how to handle this kind of problem … better than a lawyer-business which of course has a tendency to ‘handle’ (ie, exploit) cases in a fashion designed to enhance their own interests.
Clearly, we are now seeing the legal effort being redesigned in keeping with the principles that were successful against the Telegraph (and another UK paper).
True, UK libel & defamation laws are more favorable than ours. Still, done right, we can make real progress to dissuade those who use people like Phillips to … send him back to his hometown.
Some author wrote a bunch of trash about Melania. That author doesn’t matter. And neither does Phillips
Aesop, thanks for posting.
Neo, beware. You morphed “leader” into “leaders” of the Church, nominally correct but perhaps suggesting an implied anti-Church generalization. “It” occurred and was covered up in some parishes but the huge majority of parishes have been and remain clean.
Having married priests a la Episcopalians is not an automatic solution. That denomination continues to craater.
Yes, the leadership of the Church as exemplified by some US bishops, the presidents of Catholic universities like Notre Dame and Georgetown, and Pope Francis are contaminated by coverups of homosexual priests’ malconduct, and by the appeals of Leftism. Francis is a profound problem, given his Latin American liberation theology (Marxist) contamination. He has stayed the US Conference of Bishops’ effort to vigorously deal with the problem.
It is but a short mental step to extend that negative view to the multi-million Catholics, both laity and clergy, both here and abroad, who find all that, and all those players, repugnant and repelling.
In the church of secularism, these bad acts of priests and bishops are entirely OK, having been normalized. Homosexuality is a good. Hetero, not so much. Moral relativity.
Lord Acton explained much of what we see in the Church and in politics.
Now, I am going back to my copy of “The Count of Monte Cristo.” I had not read it in several years.
Politics is too depressing.
Phillips looks and behaves like alcoholic. He has a long criminal record from age of 19 related to alcoholism. For this specific race (injuns) a complete recovery from alcoholism is virtually impossible for well-known genetic reasons. In his advanced age he must be at least partially mentally incapacitated by a whole life blighted by alcoholism.
Also, alcoholics often are compulsive, habitual liars and fabulists. They have a problem to tell their fantasies from reality. They are also totally shameless and feel no remorse or embarrassment when exposed, and being caught with a lie immediately invent a new one, no matter how unbelievable. One must always keep these things in mind while dealing with such types. I know many of them, and the picture is always the same.
Grifters gotta grift.
Nathan is and his friend are subway con-men. His friend, who claims to be native was born in El Salvador. (My wife is childhood friends with his in-laws…. the family knows he is just scam artist that likes to cause problems with Nathan at big events.)
No, it can’t be easy.
Barry, that just leaps out as the perfect epitaph for our spineless society.
Excellent post, Neo. The best reporting I’ve seen on this anywhere. I hope this, and your other writing on the subject are shared far and wide. Your efforts make a difference.
Further back in time I’d also say there’s a good chance, if Trump had run for president, he would have run as a Democrat.
It isn’t that important as both parties are in vassalage to the donors and they, in turn, are part of the globalist “dark money” power that runs western society. In this country it is mostly the billionaire tech titans who have an oligopoly along with the hedge firms that own them.
Perot would have been in the same fix as Trump had he won in 1992. The Administrative State was not as well organized, perhaps.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Thanks!
Here’s a link catalog from the past week of Native American responses to the Nathan Phillips fraud.
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2019/01/native-perspectives-on-nathan-phillips.html
It’s a Native American progressive take that started with righteous indignation at the white boys and the need for national conversation on the injustices suffered by Native Americans, then after the second video surfaced and moderates were backtracking, the take shifted to muted indignation at the white boys’ lack of respect and the need for a national conversation on the injustices suffered by Native Americans.
Heads I win; tails you lose. Whites must eat their brussels sprouts no matter what. It’s all about jamming the culture.
Until there are some real consequences for these social justice frauds, they will keep coming.
Cicero:
When I wrote “leaders,” I meant “leaders.” But saying that “leaders” did something certainly does not mean every single leader, or even necessarily the majority of leaders. It just means more than one leader. And this was true of the Catholic Church in relation to the sex abuse scandals. Many leaders, for a long time, sent accused priests on retreats and then moved them to other parishes, where many of them began their predations anew.
I have written some earlier posts about the Catholic priest abuse cases, including this and this.
It isn’t that important as both parties are in vassalage to the donors and they, in turn, are part of the globalist “dark money” power that runs western society.
Mike K: My point was Trump’s “He fights!” leadership would have been a losing strategy before 2016 and it came very close to losing in 2016.
I argue the difference is that American voters had changed enough by then to elect a Republican like Trump.
“What is the problem with these mutts?” Kai Acker
Their lack of legaly obligated action… demonstrate that they are, at the very least… collaborators.
“Maybe, paying emotional danegold is the least bad alternative, when the issue as you see it, is survival. So, a little compassion might be called for here.”
Sorry but NO. These men have declared themselves to be followers of Christ who have “picked up their cross” to follow him. As Christ’s ‘shepherds’ they do not get to betray their sheep and continue to hold office. In their refusal to resign from their office they confirm what they’ve already demonstrated; they’ve disqualified themselves. Nor is this too much to ask of them. The apostles, with their deaths demonstrated what is expected of those who take up the cross.
Ted Clayton:
I believe you are incorrect.
Authors can definitely be held responsible for defamation. However, in the US, the bar is VERY high for winning a defamation suit if you are a celebrity. It can be done, but it’s hard. In the UK, the bar is much lower, but the author must either be a UK citizen or the book must be published in the UK. The latter was the case with this lawsuit (that is, the book was written by an American but a British edition was published, and the lawsuit was against both the British publisher and the American author—an extremely famous lawsuit the plaintiff lost, by the way).
The lawsuit by Melania is against the Telegraph because they are the British publishers of author Burleigh’s work. I very much doubt there’s a British book publisher of Burleigh’s work, or that publisher would also have been sued. Whether or not Burleigh was part of the suit (which by the way has not been tried; it was settled out of court) is not clear. This article about the defamation states: “It is not clear whether Burleigh will have to pay any of the undisclosed damages in the Daily Telegraph’s settlement. ” It’s a settlement rather than a judgment in court.
But the larger principle is that authors are liable, but the publishers are the ones with the deep pockets.
Nathan Phillips would indeed be legally liable for what he says and could be sued (as could an author), but he has almost no pockets at all, so I think it’s unlikely he would be sued.
My weird Sh!t-O-Meter keeps getting pegged, as our society heads–at breakneck speed–for the edge of the cliff.
Can anyone say “decadence?”
It’s all about coming up with a “narrative” that benefits the Left, in larger terms about altering our picture of Reality, about “fundamentally transforming” and “transmogrifying” i.e. disrupting, destroying, and twisting our present but weakening/dwindling Judeo-Christian culture, it’s world-view, and value system; cultural Marxism.
As illustrative of these attempts to alter Reality, our perceptions of it, and thoughts about it, I present below a link to a story I just couldn’t resist presenting, the story of a “trans-racial” woman now calling herself Malaika Kubwa, formerly a skinny blond German, a Caucasian woman, apparently a model, formerly named “Martina Big,” who got a monstrously large boob job, and took Melanin injections until she is now coal black.
Below is the heart warming story of how she married a “trans-racial” German man, also Caucasian–and also turned coal lack by Melanin injections–and how they believe that–contrary to elementary genetics–any baby they have will, of course, be “Black” like they are.
See: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/trans-black-german-model-believes-she-can-have-black-baby-with-trans-black-husband/
And see Martina/Malaika’s Facebook page here at https://www.facebook.com/Model.Martina.BIG
“…epitaph…”
Well let’s hope it’s not an epitaph(!).
Gotta stay positive…. Too much at stake. Too many good people out there.
Where there’s trouble, there’s opportunity? Hmmm. Steeled but compassionate? Not sure how that works exactly, but onward!
Anyway, this one’s for you….
https://archive.org/details/RINGO_STARR_Its_dont_come_easy_1971
Besides, there IS good news out there (even if sometimes you gotta look real hard for it):
http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/25/washington-state-lawmaker-wants-to-ban-d
(There’s a moral in there somewhere.)
Yep, gotta stay positive, no matter how hard it may be.
H/T Instapundit…
The academics of the Frankfort School—Communists all—fled Germany in the 1930s, and settled at Columbia University. Their chief goal? To “break down traditional social ties” using their method of “Critical Theory,” so that Communism would be more readily accepted.**
And their students proceeded to infiltrate and do their subversive work throughout our educational establishment.***
Their acolytes–Adorno, Foucault, et al—taught, among other things, that there are no standards, no hard and fast rules, and if this was the case, why, then, you can alter Reality, and be whatever you want to be.
Believing that if you alter your body in some way, alter your environment, your offspring will inherit that change, was the idea of Russian scientist Trofim Lysenko, director of the Soviet’s Lenin All-Union Academy School of Agricultural Sciences under Stalin.
This idea fit in quite nicely with the Communist’s idea that, by altering economic and social structures and relationships, they could also alter human nature, thus producing a new selfless “Soviet man,” whose characteristics would be inheritable.
**See:
http://www.returnofkings.com/90815/how-the-cultural-marxists-of-the-frankfurt-school-subverted-education
***P.S.—I found this quote from KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov to be very pertinent:
“It’s a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is] demoralization; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).
The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals) are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people… the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.”
Neo, you wrote “Leaders….is”, so I took yours as a takeoff on the post that referred to the singular.
But my main point remains unaddressed: these were homosexual acts, conducts which have become normalized, even prioritized, in our PC anti-hetero, pro-abortion society.
And the huge majority of the Church, the world’s most enduring civilizing force for two millennia, is repelled and finds repugnant the acts, processes, and decisions of a rather small number, comparatively speaking.That number appears to include Pope Francis, as I earlier wrote.
Note should also be taken that the bad priests violated very few children. The victims were predominantly NOT children, and 99% were male victims of homosexual priests. Since “homo” is now normal and good, the bad priests were uniformly cast by the media as pedophiles. Couldn’t call them “homosexual predators”, could we?
It is but a short mental step to extend that negative view to the multi-million Catholics, both laity and clergy, both here and abroad, who find all that, and all those players, repugnant and repelling.
Cicero: Not that neo or anyone here went that far. Nor were you saying they did.
However, I appreciate your concern and will say that in my experience Catholics are, if anything, a cut above the average citizen. For all my complaints about parochial schools I did receive a first-rate education in those classrooms.
I sometimes think of Robert Conquest, the historian, when I think of the Church:
Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:
(1) Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
(2) Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
(3) The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Neo, Your article and comments about the lies of Phillips are great.
I linked here on my own (extremely modest) post:
https://tomgrey.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/dem-pc-klan-wants-to-e-lynch-maga-hat-wearers-dem-derangement-syndrome/
I do believe tribalism is terrible, and will destroy America. The Dems were the Ku Klux Klan, hating blacks because they are black. An honest name for them now is the PC-Klan, hating MAGA hat wearers, because they wear a MAGA hat.
The KK-Klan lynched blacks, a terrible, tribal-racist act of hatred and violence.
The PC-Klan is e-Lynching MAGA hat wearers, a terrible tribal act of hatred.
The Left has been all too good at labeling conservatives, including mislabeling. Conservatives have a small chance to give the e-Lynch mob a name — the PC-Klan. Dems have always been tribalist, and look for tribal justice. Reps are the party for individuals.
Not all Dems, not all the time, but too many suffer from Democrat Derangement Syndrome. And when Trump is off the political scene, and even sooner, there will be hate-filled outbreaks of Dem Derangement Syndrome. (Not Trump, not Bush, not Kavanaugh, not Nick Sandmann)
The academics of the Frankfort School—Communists all—fled Germany in the 1930s, and settled at Columbia University. Their chief goal? To “break down traditional social ties” using their method of “Critical Theory,” so that Communism would be more readily accepted.
Snow on Pine: True. However, I don’t understand the Frankfurt School’s success and the success generally of the left. I read Marcuse and Fromm in college and found them exciting. But I found everything exciting back then … including Ayn Rand.
There were also conservative scholars who presumably fought for their turf and the minds of undergraduates. How did they lose so badly? Were they out-organized? Was it The Pill or LSD? Was it the Beatles? (The last was my grandfather’s theory for how things got so crazy in the sixties.)
Why does leftward movement seem to be the default in our politics? Is it some general principle like entropy is in physics?
Not all Dems, not all the time,
The weak link, the Achilles heel, if it can be reached. “Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.” Bishop Foys might be thinking about John 12.
huxley:
I believe that this is the reason for the appeal of leftism. Please also see this.
Neo,
Yes for sure, you are right that Burleigh and Phillips themselves can be charged & penalized … I meant that the big payoff for our interests & goals, is to hang the onus on the major publishing platforms. Who really are the ring-leaders.
And on our side of the pond, in the Phillips case, a whole industry – not just one paper – flipped out on behalf of the Get Trump philosophy. They themselves printed the posters. “Wanted: DJT … Whatever It Takes.”
Yeah well, when ‘whatever’ puts the Fake Press in legal jeopardy, it’s time for our side to take the most effective & consequential legal action. And that’s not letting this or that Partnership strut & preen.
I mean, if we’re gonna really drain that swamp; if We the People are to prevail over an entrenched Establishment, we need … like NewNeo has recognized here, to stop looking away from the gritty calls.
Push ’em over the edge.
Why does leftward movement seem to be the default in our politics? Is it some general principle like entropy is in physics? –Huxley
On this, I believe the answer is hopeful. It is the last remaining clean-up of the last historical impulse toward the left. As we went leftward under FDR et al., but the LEAST leftward of the major nations, so the others have been unwinding from the most extreme to the least. Hence, the USSR kaput. China supposedly struggling, or so even Xi says. The European welfare states committed demographic suicide, unfortunately, but more leftism is not what is taking over there. Venezuela we all know, and here we are, with the last leftists gone absolutely loopy trying to cope with what they know, somewhere, is the death throes of their ideology. If it weren’t for the fuel of the universities and the media, they would be laughed into the Pacific. But that fuel is just young pine, flaring up and blazing for a while, then dying out just as quickly.
The Marxist impulse is through. What follows it remains to be seen, though, and we still need to avoid a Weimar fate. How I see it…. : )
Huxley–
Conservatives tend to be and want to react as individuals, not as parts of a collective. Leftists acted as a team, all working to advance the same ideology.
It appears that the attack against Conservative academics was—at first—very incremental and gradual. Those on the Left were playing a long game of boil the frog.
It may also be that many Conservative academics believed that the subjects they taught—their ideology and their beliefs—were true, self-evident, and virtually unassailable, and that their positions and their futures were very secure.
Add in that many of them were probably fairly naive, and not aware of, or ready to tenaciously fight the gradual, subterranean, and subversive tactics of their Leftist opponents.
Just as those on the Left project, and attribute all of their bad qualities onto those on the Right, those on the Right probably tended to believe that those on the Left shared many their values and would be honorable and open in their opposition, would play the game as they would, and not resort to subversion.
In other words, I’d bet that they were blindsided, and by the time they recognized the existential threat that they faced, it was just too late.
I can offer the example of my Alma Mater, Penn State, as an illustration of the creeping change that took place.
When I was earning two undergraduate Liberal Arts degrees there in the early 1970s Penn State was—by all appearances—as solid a middle of the road school as you could want.
Back then, I never observed an instance in which my professor’s political ideology ever entered into their classroom instruction, which was pretty straightforward. My professors taught their subjects, and their politics were never mentioned, nor did whatever political beliefs they had appear to steer their teaching off course in any way.
Perhaps, not so coincidentally, in the decades since then, there was Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno’s involvement with Sandusky.
Boy, Paterno sure had me fooled, as he lectured at my Phi Beta Kappa banquet about the high-minded moral code that he taught to his football players, and that he and they all lived by—morality, honesty, belief in God, truth, hard work, etc. yada yada yada.
So, it looks as if things were not as happy in Happy Valley as I had thought.
By the time several decades had passed since my graduation, the Penn State Alumni magazine was carrying articles boasting about how they had some sort of quick response teams, ready to charge into a dorm (their telephone number apparently plastered everywhere on these dorm’s walls) when some student felt that he or she had, in some way, been disrespected, or someone had said something that was not Politically Correct, and everything was just progressive and peachy keen.
Looking at an article here and there over the years—as things changed—other Alumni magazine articles added up to a very different impression/picture of the conservative, middle of the road Penn State that I had attended several decades ago.
A Penn State that has, apparently, been “fundamentally transformed,” and they’re quite happy with this transformation.
See, for instance, here: https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9874 and https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11276
neo: Thanks for the links.
I do understand the appeal of leftism — I was a leftist with some seriousness for around thirty years.
However, the right has its appeal and its propagandists too; yet it lost so badly. Especially in academia where one might have thought that the university, as the flower of the Enlightenment, might have held the line via critical thinking against the irrational excesses of the left. It didn’t.
I believe you know this Paglia interview in which she said:
The silence of the academic establishment about the corruption of Western universities by postmodernism and post-structuralism has been an absolute disgrace.
https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/
There are huge numbers of people inclined to blame society, the rich or capitalism for their problems. I get that. I did so myself to some extent. But tenured professors aren’t exactly oppressed, powerless people. Yet in aggregate they rolled right over for the left and it is an absolute disgrace as Paglia said.
Bishop Foys’ immediate response to the Nathan Phillips fraud is yet another example.
I’m not demanding answers from anyone. I’m trying to understand how that happened.
The Marxist impulse is through. What follows it remains to be seen, though, and we still need to avoid a Weimar fate. How I see it…. : )
Kai Akker: On a clear day, when I think I can see for miles, that’s how I see it too.
But in the more muddled present I remain troubled.
I do understand the appeal of leftism
ENVY.
But it is hard to take an argument for socialism seriously while they are eating rats in Caracas.
Just as those on the Left project, and attribute all of their bad qualities onto those on the Right, those on the Right probably tended to believe that those on the Left shared many their values and would be honorable and open in their opposition, would play the game as they would, and not resort to subversion.
Snow on Pine: I was on the Left and I expected the Left would play the game with honorable liberal values. Boy, I got that one wrong.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. It makes sense to me. I admit if I had been 10-20 years older and found my way into a tenured position, I might have kept my head down and hoped “the long [leftist] march through the institutions” would blow over. My impression is that academic politics without real politics is trouble enough.
Still, I had thought the high-minded claims of the academic and church leaders for their authority might have stiffened their spines a bit. I spoke my truth to leftist power and lost most of my friends and communities in the Bay Area. I’m aware of few professors or bishops who have taken such risks.
That seems to be the story of our elites these days. They have no special competence or genuine convictions. They have snagged their slices of the pie and are determined above all else to hold on to them.
But tenured professors aren’t exactly oppressed, powerless people. Yet in aggregate they rolled right over for the left and it is an absolute disgrace as Paglia said.
I think we will see the death of the residential model university. And not that far in the future. The Humanities are already dying.
This is not new, but IO have read that 3500 departments have closed.
huxley:
Allan Bloom’s book goes rather deeply into what happened at the universities in some detail. If you’ve read it before, you might want to reread it.
Here’s one quote where Bloom discusses the process.
And read a longer quote here, where Bloom describes an exchange he had with a professor back in his own student days. Here’s the most relevant section of the quote, although the entire quote is well worth reading:
Also, for even earlier influences within the university (over a century ago), see this description by Robert Frost.
In legal education, there’s a book that describes the leftist trend, called Beyond All Reason, and then there’s also the more general book about universities and teaching (particularly philosophy) called Explaining Postmodernism.
The great experiment with Liberal Education, and the University as a center of free inquiry, enlightenment, democracy, and learning–often in a sea of ignorance, violence, dictatorship, and boobery–which started in Europe many centuries ago, appears to be over, since all of that learning and erudition apparently never prepared those scholars who–combined–were the soul of the university, to take heed of Realty, to recognize their danger, and to stoutly defend their Heritage.
They just rolled over.
It does look like learning at home, on your computer, is the wave of the future.
a great parody Gillette ad.
It’;s going to be years before Gillette gets past this screwup.
neo: I realize there are tendencies, reasons and anecdotes for how academia was lost to the left. Somehow I remain mystified that academics didn’t put up greater resistance. Wasn’t that part of their job?
I don’t see how a handful of European scholars and their acolytes managed to roll that edifice unless it was already weak and generally defended by professors with no particular investment beyond their paychecks and the pleasant authority attached — pace high-minded claims of their pursuit for truth.
Admittedly I came out of parochial school and college with a low opinion of teachers and professors. At best they seemed like decent people doing their jobs who wouldn’t screw you, but as far as taking a stand for Truth or just not letting students be thrown to the wolves (this is a Nathan Phillips topic), they had other, more pressing concerns.
That’s a cynical take and perhaps it’s some of my bitterness talking. But I think it’s an important input to this equation beyond Soviet disinformation and the closed-mindedness of sixties youth.
Barry Meislin on January 27, 2019 at 9:36 am at 9:36 am said:
Foy claims he was bullied intensely.
Pressured.
Coerced.
* * *
Coercion: I don’t think he even understands what that word means.
https://www.britannica.com/list/murder-most-horrid-the-grisliest-deaths-of-roman-catholic-saints
AesopFan: Quite so.
As I read the timeline, Bishop Foy was most pressured by the concern of being late to the Two-Minute Hate for his students.
Mike K on January 27, 2019 at 8:54 pm at 8:54 pm said:
a great parody Gillette ad.
It’;s going to be years before Gillette gets past this screwup.
* * *
Serendipity is a beautiful thing.
They missed one line: “When Covington students get old enough shave, we won’t let them use our razors.”
IF I could do video editing, I would make one based on the first CNN interview Neo talks about, where Phillips is lying his head off, and intercut his own words with the footage of what was actually happening.
Neo, thanks for the link to your piece on Robert Frost. Quite interesting. He had their number all those years ago.
Mark Vonnegut, son of Kurt, wrote a hippie memoir about a commune he and some Swarthmore friends built in British Columbia in 1970. I mention this as a tangent, which sheds some light I believe on how conservatism got rolled in academia and the general culture.
For all the ascendancy of America, which reached its pinnacle in the mid-sixties, the crown lay uneasily on our heads. We had lost confidence in ourselves and our mission.
______________________________________
Looking for land in [British Columbia] was another matter entirely. Just about everyone, young and old, straights and freaks, wanted to stay up long into the night talking about that one.
Looking back on it now, what I find most amazing is how little argument we got from our parents, professors or anyone else. What few misgivings there were were vague, apologetic and usually mumbled. I think the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and war and assorted other goodies had so badly blown everybody’s mind that sending the children naked into the woods to build a new society seemed worth a try.
–Mark Vonnegut, “The Eden Express” p.9.
“Why does leftward movement seem to be the default in our politics?”
Free stuff. People like free stuff. The argument against it is complicated, involves postponed pleasure and just understanding the argument requires use of brain cells. Difficult.
I don’t think the acquisitive side of our nature is all there is to it. There are leftists who are near-ascetics, yes? I don’t think “envy” is all of it either. What about psychological insecurity (which can be what’s behind envy, sometimes, I think)? People who desperately need to believe they’re worthwhile, doing something worthwhile, recognized by others — their in-group — as doing something worthwhile, however wrongheaded it may be. People who need to feel accepted rather than being all the time afraid of rejection, and resenting it. And there are people who “are” “leftish” because, Isn’t everyone? It’s a habit, it’s what they see on the various Tubes all the time.
And there people who get off on the rush of iconoclasm, whether they use fists or swords or the written or spoken word. (Besides, it shows how brave you are, no?)
[There are people who drive other people nuts because they can’t rest unless they’re sure they’re right (correct). They tend to be always second-guessing themselves, and I suppose this makes us (I’m coming out of the closet here) seem shifty or squishy to some. But it means that if we learn we’ve made an error, however innocent, we have to admit it. People who really have to be Right spend a lot of time admitting to having been Wrong.
[But there are other people, leftish people, who will say, “At this point, what difference does it make?” I don’t think conservatives do that so much, at least not until they’ve worn themselves out apologizing and are tired of being raked over the coals, and are aware of other problems and projects that need their full attention….]
As part of that, just exactly what is leftism — that is, what do we mean by the term? I suppose some combination of factors, some combination of deeds or behaviors or actions and of beliefs and worldviews and a sense of what is “right” that conservatives and libertarianish conservatives don’t entirely share.
I just listened to Brian Lamb interviewing Allison Stanger, a prof of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. She and Charles Murray were attacked sometime in 2017 (I suppose it was). The few conservatives on the campus had invited him to speak, and she was to ask him a few questions to warm him up. The student audience practically rioted, and somebody shoved her so that she fell and ended up in the hospital with a concussion.
Apparently Middlebury is said to be the farthest left of the liberal-arts colleges. It seems that Prof. Stanger is a Dem, but she’s a believer in free speech and in America. She says she tries to teach her students that when confronted with an idea or a theory that seems inimical to them, they should forget the emotional component and analyze the thing rationally. In this way they may learn something. (One can hardly argue with that.) But she believes in Safe Spaces and Trigger Warnings, even as she believes that the students have to learn not to be afraid of others’ ideas and also not to be afraid of speaking their minds.
She sounded very intelligent to me. And distinctly rational. But she still thinks that colleges should first of all try to make the students feel safe, comfortable, at home, while still being adamantly of the opinion that they should learn something for their $ 39,000/year tuition (and she makes a big point of how many of the students have financial aid).
https://www.c-span.org/video/?435406-2/qa-allison-stanger
It seems to me that that’s fundamental to many leftists — emphasis first on easing people’s minds, and then (perhaps) on the importance of Big-“R”-Reason: Reason in the broad, old-fashioned sense of logic applied to careful attention to observations in general. In other words, logic applied to facts. Exactly the opposite of the view of our girl Alex O-C, who thinks facts have to take a second place to feelings.
The problem, alas, is messianism.
Messianism WITH a belief in God, while credited—with contingent justification—as a positive belief, CAN BE dangerous enough. Since belief in God CAN (one hopes) mitigate (though not always) the potential dangers that messianism engenders.
Because God (and/or belief in God and/or following God’s path and strictures and/or trying to discern God and understand God’s ways) has the “final say”. Acting within the context of God, generally, acts as a break to one’s own ego. Generally. Because there always is a HIGHER power.
To be sure, those who interpret God’s word in the political sphere can also wreak havoc. Thus while in theory, God serves to limit absolute power, to limit the ego, in practice, this does not always happen. (One could, of course, argue, citing much evidence, that extreme faith—extremism FOR the sake of God—has deadly consequences.)
However, messianism WITHOUT a belief in God—or rather, replaced by the belief in MAN—viz. that MAN (a person or cabal or junta or benevolent authoritarianism or dictatorship of the proletariat) can take God’s place—is almost always catastrophic.
One of the ways that the US was able to circumvent this danger—to defend itself against this threat—was to separate Church and State. To relegate religion to the private sphere even while attributing to God those positive attributes that are necessary to society.
However, the secular Church—the Church of Socialism—has cleverly and deviously succeeded in penetrating the defenses.
For who can defend himself or herself against the charge that they are NOT in favor of “improving society” of “spreading human rights” of “supporting human dignity” of “enabling prosperity”!
Of bringing heaven to earth.
And what society can so defend itself?
Especially when/if the battle—-the war, actually— over concepts, definitions, over language itself, has been surrendered to clever, even brilliant, illusionists spouting messianic principles.
“But, but, but” is not exactly a conducive argument.
And people have such short memories. And are so eager to do “Good”. To spread “Goodness” around the globe.
And to attack “Evil” (as they define it).
For Socialism’s strength is that it is extremely seductive. What could be more seductive than Doing Good? Than Helping the Poor? Than Eradicating Evil?
Even—especially—when such expressions of benevolence conceal the goal of authoritarianism and even dictatorship along with the horrors that must necessarily result.
Yes, it is The Grand Seduction. The massively successful seduction.
Perhaps, the only way to counter it is to set up educational institutions that provide the kind of education that was once so prevalent and desirable in the West.
This would have to be done privately, for the most part, funded by private donors who are aghast at what has become of education.
But that can only happen if the family—and the idea of the family—is also strengthened.
I think it’s hilarious that anyone can believe that there will be adverse consequences for Phillips or anyone else involved in this; or indeed any of the other rampant Demonrat criminality.
The march through the institutions has almost completed its work.
they should learn something for their $ 39,000/year tuition (and she makes a big point of how many of the students have financial aid).
This is why the residential university system will die in the next few years, Instapundit has commented on how law schools are more and more subsidizing students and the bar pass rate has been falling. The money will run out as more and more realize there is no return on investment. Gillette shows what happens when these undereducated fools end up in the corporate world.
Many decades ago I was offered a graduate fellowship in Medieval Chinese History by Ivy League Cornell, and went up to check out the actual terms of the offer, and Cornell itself.
Ithaca, in New York state’s Finger Lakes district, was a pretty area, and the Campus itself was also attractive looking.
To this day, a couple of things from my visit there–many decades ago–stick in my mind, and one of them is a particular image.
Approaching the large, tall wooden doors of some of the main buildings on campus, I noticed that–from a distance–they almost appeared to be covered in rippling fur and, when I got up closer, I realized that what I was seeing were tall wooden doors whose first five or six feet were covered with the remnants of untold thousands of flyers that had been stapled up on these doors and, then, ripped off, to be replaced by other flyers, and what I was seeing were the remaining corners of those many thousands of old flyers rippling in the breeze.
It seemed to me then–and now—that this was an indication of far too much attention being paid to ideology and to protests, and far too little attention being paid to scholarship–where that attention belonged.
Traveling through the town of Ithaca to get to campus, I also noticed a number of boarded up shops on the main drag, and there had been reports of some student protests, including some violence/property damage in the recent news.
For that, and for several other reasons, among them the particular course of study they proposed, and my future job prospects once I received my doctorate. I turned down what would have been a pretty sweet, close to free ride.
a great parody Gillette ad [8:54 pm]
It’s going to be years before Gillette gets past this screwup. –MikeK
Yes (and thank God for that). That video is funny! Gotta stay a great country when someone can produce that in his basement and everyone can easily watch it.
I suppose many of you have already seen this report at The Federalist about the many questions surrounding Elder Phillips’ charity organization, which is “not in good standing.”
Loved the parody too.
“Why does leftward movement seem to be the default in our politics?”
Free stuff. People like free stuff. The argument against it is complicated, involves postponed pleasure and just understanding the argument requires use of brain cells. Difficult.
FOAF: That’s where I think leftward drift is like entropy in physics.
I seem to be the only person who thinks it was no coincidence that Phillips and his posse, as well as the Black Israelites, were both present that day. I suspect they were acting in concert to stage an incident and the Covington kids were their chosen patsies.
Kai Akker on January 28, 2019 at 12:39 pm at 12:39 pm said:
a great parody Gillette ad [8:54 pm]
It’s going to be years before Gillette gets past this screwup. –MikeK
Yes (and thank God for that). That video is funny! Gotta stay a great country when someone can produce that in his basement and everyone can easily watch it.
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At least until the Democrats win a few more elections….or Google et al. quit pretending to be even-handed and non-partisan.
Mike K on January 27, 2019 at 7:49 pm at 7:49 pm said:
But tenured professors aren’t exactly oppressed, powerless people. Yet in aggregate they rolled right over for the left and it is an absolute disgrace as Paglia said.
I think we will see the death of the residential model university. And not that far in the future. The Humanities are already dying.
This is not new, but IO have read that 3500 departments have closed.
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They can join the laid-off journalists and learn to code.
Or not.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/320026/
Warning: the link at Insty goes to Twitchy.
PowerLine has a story also, and the commenters are, shall we say, less than optimistic about the ability of journalists to master coding, which requires that one be able to distinguish true from false.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/01/learn-to-code.php
Kate, you mention the article at The Federalist about Phillips’s “charity.” My machine doesn’t respond to your link, but I imagine you mean this one by Margot Cleveland, dated 1/28:
“Government Records Say Nathan Phillips’ Nonprofit Is ‘Not In Good Standing,’ But He’s Still Taking Donations”
https://thefederalist.com/2019/01/28/government-records-say-nathan-phillips-nonprofit-not-good-standing-hes-still-taking-donations/
Myiq2xu: “I seem to be the only person who thinks it was no coincidence that Phillips and his posse, as well as the Black Israelites, were both present that day. I suspect they were acting in concert to stage an incident and the Covington kids were their chosen patsies.”
I have been starting to wonder about that myself. I realized that the original deceptive video got out awfully fast and found this from an earlier Neo post:
“Just to give you the timeline, the incident with the Covington boys happened on Friday [Jan. 18], the video went viral some time Saturday [Jan 19}…”
So what was the trail of posession of the video, who edited it, etc? Yes something is very fishy here.
Pingback:Nathan Phillips – what an awful lot of people are ignoring | Something should go here, maybe later.
I wonder just how many technically savvy people or outfits, expert in agitprop–individuals, free lancers, organization, or government/military operated–there are–out in the shadows–who are using their Internet savvy and propaganda skills to manipulate the public–what they know or don’t, what they “think” they know, their ideas, to gin up outrage and action–via social media and things like this Covington video?
After all, the Internet is the greatest fertile field for propaganda there has ever been.