I’ve written about Coleman Hughes before. He’s a young man with a good mind, and I often agree with about 97% of what he has to say (he has an antipathy to Trump, however, which I’ve written about here).
Hughes is a changer of sorts, from left to libertarian, which makes him somewhat conservative at present. Here’s his explanation of his political change, which for obvious reasons I find of particular interest:
Here’s the whole thing. Worth a watch if you have a bit more time:
I don’t think so, though.
He says they all think alike.
Well, at least he didn’t say they all look alike.
Here’s the quote: “Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things.” And then, when his campaign aides tried to say he didn’t quite mean it that way, he repeated it: “Now when I mean full diversity [of the Latino community], unlike African American community, many other communities, you’re from everywhere.”
Of course, there’s some truth to the statement not in the ethnic sense but in the political sense. Black people vote almost entirely as a bloc for Democrats (often 90% and above), and Hispanics have slightly more variable voting habits (about 2/3 voting for Democrats ordinarily).
Word must have gotten to Biden – or more likely to his handlers – that the MSM firewall that protects him from having the public learn what a doofus he is has been breached. So he – and his handlers – had to issue a correction that was called a clarification:
Earlier today, I made some comments about diversity in the African American and Latino communities that I want to clarify. In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith—not by identity, not on issues, not at all.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 7, 2020
In other words, “I said the opposite of what I meant.”
I’ve retired the post asking for donations that was at the top of the blog for a little over a week. Of course, you’re welcome to contribute at any time of year.
But I want to extend a huge “thank you” to everyone who donated. You are, quite simply, the best. Without you, the readers and commenters at this blog, I wouldn’t be blogging. I deeply appreciate every single one of you.
The left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) have created a narrative of increasing racism over the last ten years:
…[T]he media’s embrace of “wokeness” did not begin in response to the death of George Floyd. This racial ideology first began to take hold at leading liberal media institutions years before the arrival of Donald Trump and, in fact, heavily influenced the journalistic response to the protest movements of recent years and their critique of American society.
Starting well before Donald Trump’s rise to power, while President Obama was still in office, terms like “microaggression” and “white privilege” were picked up by liberal journalists. These terms went from being obscure fragments of academic jargon to commonplace journalistic language in only a few years—a process that I document here in detail. During this same period, while exotic new phrases were entering the discourse, universally recognizable words like “racism” were being radically redefined. Along with the new language came ideas and beliefs animating a new moral-political framework to apply to public life and American society.
This is followed by a graph which cannot be reproduced here, so you’ll have to follow the link to see it. It tells the tale of a sharp increase in “the usage of the terms ‘racist(s)’ and ‘racism’ as a percentage of all words in four of the nation’s largest newspapers from (depending on the publication) 1970 through 2019.” You can see from the graph that the increase began around 2011 in all four papers, with the WaPo leading the way in steepness of the climb, the NY Times not far behind, the WSJ having a much more modest increase, and the LA Times somewhere in-between the WSJ and the NY Times.
It is highly unlikely that racism itself ramped up during those years; just the propaganda about it. The reporting increase predated Trump and started during the presidency of that great racial healer, Barack Obama. The mechanism came from academia, and involved defining racism as something so broad that it can consist of nearly anything:
In the absence of legal discrimination, in the post-affirmative-action era, and in light of the immense absolute improvements in the quality of life of the average Black person over the past half century, concepts like “microaggression” and “implicit bias” have been critical in cultivating the perception, amplified by the media, that America still practices a form of insidious racial apartheid. This occurs by a process of concept creep—a stretching of the terminological and normative boundaries of what constitutes racism and racist behavior. In other words: The racialization of things that weren’t previously viewed or understood through the lens of race. The upshot is that the more aspects of social life the media racializes, the more “racism” there is for the media to report on.
And like all effective propaganda, many people appear highly susceptible to it – and those people are of the white Democrat persuasion:
In 2011, just 35% of white liberals thought racism in the United States was “a big problem,” according to national polling. By 2015, this figure had ballooned to 61% and further still to 77% in 2017.
In December of 2006, 45% of white Democrats and 41% of white Republicans reported that they knew someone they considered racist. By June of 2015, this figure increased to 64% among white Democrats, while remaining at a steady 41% among white Republicans. No increases were observed for any of the nonwhite Democrat groups. In fact, what (statistically insignificant) change occurred among Black (52.7% to 47.2%) and Hispanic (41.1% to 33.8%) Democrats were actually in the opposite direction.
There’s a great deal more at the link.
Here’s another convincing defense of the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of early COVID. It’s also an indictment of those who’ve been saying the opposite:
To a media unrelentingly hostile to Donald Trump, this meant that the president could be portrayed as recklessly promoting the use of a “dangerous” drug. Ignoring the refutation of the VA study in its May 15 article, the Washington Post cited a Brazil study published on April 24 in which a COVID trial using chloroquine (a related but different drug than hydroxychloroquine) was stopped because 11 patients treated with it died. The reporters never mentioned another problem with that study: The Brazilian doctors were giving their patients lethal cumulative doses of the drug.
On and on it has gone since then, in a circle of self-reinforcing commentary…
So what is the real story on hydroxychloroquine? Here, briefly, is what we know…
The whole article is worth reading. And lest you think the credentials of the author are weak, here they are:
Steven Hatfill is a veteran virologist who helped establish the Rapid Hemorrhagic Fever Response Teams for the National Medical Disaster Unit in Kenya, Africa. He is an adjunct assistant professor in two departments at the George Washington University Medical Center where he teaches mass casualty medicine. He is principle author of the prophetic book “Three Seconds Until Midnight — Preparing for the Next Pandemic,” published by Amazon in 2019.
Among other things, I guess Hatfill can lay claim to the “I told you so” award.
However, if his name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Hatfill has another claim to fame that the bio at the article doesn’t mention:
A former biodefense researcher for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Hatfill came to the public eye after being suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, of which he was later exonerated.
Hatfill became the subject of extensive media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television cameras showed FBI agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment and then Attorney General John Ashcroft naming him a “person of interest” in the investigation. Hatfill’s home was repeatedly raided by the FBI, his phone was tapped, and he was extensively surveilled for more than two years; he was also fired from his job at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). At a news conference in August 2002, Hatfill denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said “irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks” had “destroyed his reputation”. Hatfill filed a lawsuit in 2003, accusing the FBI agents and Justice Department officials who led the criminal investigation of leaking information about him to the press in violation of the federal Privacy Act.
In 2008, the government settled Hatfill’s lawsuit with a $4.6 million annuity totaling $5.8 million in payment. The government officially exonerated Hatfill of any involvement in the anthrax attacks, and the Justice Department identified another military scientist, Bruce Edward Ivins, as the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks…
In 2004, Hatfill filed lawsuits against several periodicals and journalists who had identified him as a figure warranting further investigation in the anthrax attacks. Hatfill sued the New York Times Company and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for defamation, defamation per se, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in connection with five of Kristof’s columns in 2002. The courts dismissed this suit, finding that Hatfill was a limited purpose public figure. In 2007, Hatfill settled a similar libel lawsuit against Vanity Fair and Reader’s Digest for an undisclosed amount, after both magazines agreed to formally retract any implication that Hatfill was involved in the anthrax mailings.
Let’s just say that Hatfill has a lot of reasons to be disgusted with the behavior of the MSM.
[NOTE: Hatfill’s book Three Seconds Until Midnight suggests that we are unprepared for an almost inevitable influenza pandemic of major proportions. He was right in principle, but wrong in that detail – so far, anyway, but probably not forever. In addition, the book was published on November 1, 2019, just as COVID was starting to rev up in China.]
[NOTE: The following is a slightly changed version of a post of mine. If you follow the links in the second paragraph, you’ll find three other pieces I’ve written about the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.]
Once again it’s the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Nagasaki followed three days later, and Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.
To date these two bombs remain—astoundingly enough, considering the nature of our oft-troubled and troubling species—the only nuclear warheads ever detonated over populated areas. (I’ve written at length on the subject of those bombs: see this, this, and this.)
Oliver Kamm wrote a while back:
Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire – and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties.
This context always needs to be kept in mind when evaluating any “terrible thing”—and there is no question that the dropping of these bombs was a terrible thing.
But critics who are bound and determined to portray the West as evil, marauding, bloodthirsty— whatever the dreadful adjective du jour might be—are bound and determined to either avoid all context, or to change the true context and replace it with fanciful myth. As Kamm writes, those who want to portray Hiroshima and Nagasaki as American crimes cite evidence of an imminent Japanese surrender that would have happened anyway.
Trouble is, available information points strongly to the contrary. It’s difficult to know whether those who argue that the bombs were unnecessary and the deaths that ensued gratuitous are guilty of poor scholarship, wishful thinking, or willful lying – but most likely it’s some combination of these elements.
Truth in history is not easy to determine (see this), although it helps greatly if conventions of scholarship (sources, citations) are properly followed. Oh, the main events themselves are often not disputed – except for fringe groups – although the details are often the subject of disagreement. But it’s the motivations behind the acts, the hearts and minds of the movers and shakers, the “what-might-have-been’s” and the “but-fors” that are so open to both partisan interpretation and willful distortion, and so deeply meaningful.
It’s hard enough to determine what happened. How many died in Dresden, for example? Do we believe Goebbels’s propaganda as promulgated by David Irving, or do we believe this work of recent exhaustive scholarship? The former “facts” have reigned now in popular opinion for quite a while, and although the latter mounts a far more convincing case, how many have read it or are familiar with the facts in it, compared to those who have been heavily exposed to the former?
There’s what happened, and then there’s why it happened—the meaning and intent behind the policy. A combination of the two is what propaganda is all about. It takes a lot of time and effort to wade through facts, make judgments about the veracity of sources, and be willing to keep an open mind.
Much easier to stand in a public square (as a bunch of nodding, smiling, waving, elderly peace-love Boomers regularly used to do in a town where I lived) holding huge banners declaring “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.” Repeat it often enough, and the hope is it will become Truth in people’s eyes.
Especially in the eyes of the young, and of future generations, who don’t have their own memories to go on. It’s much harder to convince a WWII vet that Hiroshima was an unnecessary war crime than it is to convince a young person of same; the former not only has the context, he has own personal memories of the context. World War II veterans are scarce these days and getting scarcer by the minute. And propagandists from the left are more numerous, with larger platforms from which to distribute their products. They are not just interested in changing opinions in the present, they’re interested in history and the future.
[NOTE: The definitive essay on the dropping of the atomic bomb by a contemporary and a fine historian is Paul Fussell’s “Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.” And for a good discussion of all the controversy about whether Japan was thinking of surrendering prior to Hiroshima, see this. For a discussion of the idea that Russia’s entry into the war against Japan rather than the atomic bomb was the cause of Japan’s surrender, see this.]
I just had power restored after about an 18-hour power outage occasioned by yesterday’s storm. I’m more used to power outages in the winter, from ice storms, than in the summer. It’s somewhat easier to keep warm without heat than to keep cool without AC, a thought that occurred to me rather forcibly last night when I woke up sweaty and uncomfortable and had difficulty going back to sleep. And in the winter there’s less concern about the food in the freezer going bad.
First world problems, right?
And then, when the power was finally restored late this morning, the blog went down. Suddenly and inexplicably, but fortunately only for about fifteen minutes.
Actually, even though I’m not a Democrat, it makes me cringe.
This might be a good time to mention that I bet Biden’s handlers are rueing the day that Joe promised that his VP pick would be a woman. It narrows the already-narrow field down in a way that was unnecessary. The people considered at the moment to be the top contenders – Kamala Harris and Susan Rice – not only both have considerable baggage, but come across as cold and unlikable. Ah, but good old Joe has likability to spare, supposedly.
I know a lot of people keep saying that it will be Michelle Obama who ends up as the VP nominee. I’ve never thought she wanted it. But anything is possible in this extremely strange year of 2020.
A study says they are experiencing more cognitive decline than previous generations.
I can well imagine that it’s true. I think earlier generations were tougher, and the weak were winnowed out earlier. Plus, who knows what all that Boomer turning on, tuning in, and dropping out did?
Yesterday an enormously large and destructive explosion occurred in Beirut, and no one is yet certain what caused it or how many people it killed. What is known is certainly bad, and probably will get worse as time goes on and the damage is assessed.
Initial reports are that a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate were stored in the port and exploded. Here’s a Times of Israel article on that, and here’s another. From the latter:
The scale of the damage — from the epicenter of the explosion at the port of Beirut to the windows blown out kilometers (miles) away — resembles other blasts involving the chemical compound commonly used as an agricultural fertilizer.
But the compound itself typically doesn’t detonate on its own and requires another ignition source. That likely came from a fire that engulfed what initially appeared to be fireworks that were stored at the port.
So it was a chain of events, compounded by the storage of potentially dangerous substances in a highly populated area? More:
Online videos of the disaster’s initial moments show sparks and lights inside the smoke rising from the blaze, just prior to the massive blast. That likely indicates that fireworks were involved, said Boaz Hayoun, owner of the Tamar Group, an Israeli firm that works closely with the Israeli government on safety and certification issues involving explosives.
I have no doubt that other theories will be entertained.
The death toll is likely to rise well into several hundreds, with many more injured and immense property damage.
Also:
What initially started the fire at the port remains unclear. Beirut was sunny before Tuesday’s explosion, with a daily high of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi, in comments to a local TV station, made no mention of ignited fireworks but said it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014.
Based on the timeline and the size of the cargo, that ship could be the MV Rhosus. The ship was initially seized in Beirut in 2013 when it entered the port due to technical problems, according to lawyers involved in the case. It came from the nation of Georgia, and had been bound for Mozambique.
“Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses,” the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published by shiparrested.com. “The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal.”
If all of this is true – and at the moment I believe it is – what a massive failure on the part of authorities to prevent a foreseeable catastrophe.
Here.
Would would academia do without jargon?