0 comment Friday, December 5, 2014 | admin
A while back, I read something about this new law, Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), which was passed quietly (as most laws are) last year and which came into effect last week or so. I paid scant attention to it, but I've just read about one curious feature of this new law, after Laurel Loflund posted about it at the Kinism forum. The article to which she linked was in the City Journal:
The New Book Banning
byWalter Olson
It�s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children�s products, the federal government has now advised that children�s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing�at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.
The problem is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), passed by Congress last summer after the panic over lead paint on toys from China. Among its other provisions, CPSIA imposed tough new limits on lead in any products intended for use by children aged 12 or under, and made those limits retroactive: that is, goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) if they don�t conform.''
Laurel also linked to Gary North's piece on this law
Children's Books in Dumpsters: Washington's Madness Continues
Here is the new reality, one week old. If you can still find any pre-1985 books, it is because the thrift store's managers don't know they are breaking the law and could be fined or sent to prison if they persist.
[...]
The bureaucrats are now enforcing the letter of the 2008 law. Congressmen will feign ignorance. "Gee, how were we to know?"
Too late. The books are in landfill.
But why? "Stop dangerous lead paint!" Right. The lead paint in pre-1985 kids' books in minuscule traces. There is no known example of any child being injured by lead paint from a book. No matter. The law's the law.
This seems insane, but it is the relentless logic of the State: "Nothing is permitted unless authorized by the State."
The Federal government has authorized abortion on demand. But, once a parent allows a child to be born, that parent is not be allowed to buy the child a pre-1985 book. Such books are too dangerous for children.
This is the logic of Washington. This logic is relentless. It will be extended by law into every nook and cranny of our lives until it is stopped.''
Now, most of the criticisms I've since found of the law are concerned with the minutiae of it, or about other aspects of it, like the banning of certain clothing items like buttons or snaps which may contain toxic materials. But from my perspective, the most troubling thing about it is that it seems, beneath the surface, to be concerned with what our rulers consider 'toxic ideas', not lead in ink or in items of apparel.
Our government has different ideas of what is 'dangerous to our health' than my own idea. To them, it seems anything which comes from the pre-politically correct era is toxic. Our school textbooks and popular histories, in book form or on TV or the Internet, have been 'corrected' to conform with the present ideas of acceptability. We are all familiar with disputes between educators and parents, and complaints by ethnic agitators over 'racist' and 'xenophobic' words, images, and ideas in old textbooks and literature. I don't for a moment believe that the government would not like to wave a magic wand and cause all pre-PC books, movies, and recordings to disappear forever. Anything that would further that cause, even if only incidentally, would be just fine with them.
Some time back, I blogged about the 'cleansing' of old books from public libraries nationwide, and the overall dumbing down of libraries, usually under the guise of ''updating" and digitizing and changing the emphasis to electronic media. If some old, pre-PC books happened to be casualties of the march of progress, then -- oops, too bad, what a shame.
Most people don't question this; we have this ingrained idea that newer is better and that progress is inevitable and unstoppable, and that overall, all changes are part of progress and therefore we just have to accept it with a shrug. But I think we may lose a great deal of our heritage and history in those old books that are being unceremoniously thrown out or dumped in landfills, and what is being left in its place is not an improvement.
As a society, we no longer value the old in general, and every day it seems another article appears somewhere about the coming demise of the printed word. Books in general are valued less than ever before, as people passively accept that the book will soon be a relic of the past, of no use to us in the computer age. And old books generally are regarded as irrelevant if not downright backward and harmful to our delicate PC sensibilities.
This commentator understands the importance of what is happening.
...It used to be that the older the book, the more it was treasured as part of the collection. Now the opposite seems to be true: the most recent interpretations of human affairs are valued, while the older ones are discarded. Instant and untested knowledge trumps the wisdom of the ages.
Western civilization (or any other civilization worth its name) depends on written texts for its preservation, perpetuation, and development. Dead civilizations are studied through archeology, live ones are reanimated by reading books.
[...]
The removal of a sizeable percentage of books published before the 1960s truncates the memory of the present generation. If a significant chunk of interpretations of culture committed to paper is removed from easy circulation, the culture built on these interpretations will eventually wither. This was predicted by Marxists like Antonio Gramsci who wrote in the 1930s that it is not necessary to engineer bloody revolutions to change political systems and affect a transfer of power: it is enough to change culture to affect such a change. The massive removal of old books from university libraries is a small step in this direction. While many steps have to be taken to bring Gramsci�s vision to fruition, one should not ignore the small steps.''
I agree; the 'small steps' often go unnoticed but they are not insignificant.
The New Book Banning
byWalter Olson
It�s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children�s products, the federal government has now advised that children�s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing�at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.
The problem is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), passed by Congress last summer after the panic over lead paint on toys from China. Among its other provisions, CPSIA imposed tough new limits on lead in any products intended for use by children aged 12 or under, and made those limits retroactive: that is, goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) if they don�t conform.''
Laurel also linked to Gary North's piece on this law
Children's Books in Dumpsters: Washington's Madness Continues
Here is the new reality, one week old. If you can still find any pre-1985 books, it is because the thrift store's managers don't know they are breaking the law and could be fined or sent to prison if they persist.
[...]
The bureaucrats are now enforcing the letter of the 2008 law. Congressmen will feign ignorance. "Gee, how were we to know?"
Too late. The books are in landfill.
But why? "Stop dangerous lead paint!" Right. The lead paint in pre-1985 kids' books in minuscule traces. There is no known example of any child being injured by lead paint from a book. No matter. The law's the law.
This seems insane, but it is the relentless logic of the State: "Nothing is permitted unless authorized by the State."
The Federal government has authorized abortion on demand. But, once a parent allows a child to be born, that parent is not be allowed to buy the child a pre-1985 book. Such books are too dangerous for children.
This is the logic of Washington. This logic is relentless. It will be extended by law into every nook and cranny of our lives until it is stopped.''
Now, most of the criticisms I've since found of the law are concerned with the minutiae of it, or about other aspects of it, like the banning of certain clothing items like buttons or snaps which may contain toxic materials. But from my perspective, the most troubling thing about it is that it seems, beneath the surface, to be concerned with what our rulers consider 'toxic ideas', not lead in ink or in items of apparel.
Our government has different ideas of what is 'dangerous to our health' than my own idea. To them, it seems anything which comes from the pre-politically correct era is toxic. Our school textbooks and popular histories, in book form or on TV or the Internet, have been 'corrected' to conform with the present ideas of acceptability. We are all familiar with disputes between educators and parents, and complaints by ethnic agitators over 'racist' and 'xenophobic' words, images, and ideas in old textbooks and literature. I don't for a moment believe that the government would not like to wave a magic wand and cause all pre-PC books, movies, and recordings to disappear forever. Anything that would further that cause, even if only incidentally, would be just fine with them.
Some time back, I blogged about the 'cleansing' of old books from public libraries nationwide, and the overall dumbing down of libraries, usually under the guise of ''updating" and digitizing and changing the emphasis to electronic media. If some old, pre-PC books happened to be casualties of the march of progress, then -- oops, too bad, what a shame.
Most people don't question this; we have this ingrained idea that newer is better and that progress is inevitable and unstoppable, and that overall, all changes are part of progress and therefore we just have to accept it with a shrug. But I think we may lose a great deal of our heritage and history in those old books that are being unceremoniously thrown out or dumped in landfills, and what is being left in its place is not an improvement.
As a society, we no longer value the old in general, and every day it seems another article appears somewhere about the coming demise of the printed word. Books in general are valued less than ever before, as people passively accept that the book will soon be a relic of the past, of no use to us in the computer age. And old books generally are regarded as irrelevant if not downright backward and harmful to our delicate PC sensibilities.
This commentator understands the importance of what is happening.
...It used to be that the older the book, the more it was treasured as part of the collection. Now the opposite seems to be true: the most recent interpretations of human affairs are valued, while the older ones are discarded. Instant and untested knowledge trumps the wisdom of the ages.
Western civilization (or any other civilization worth its name) depends on written texts for its preservation, perpetuation, and development. Dead civilizations are studied through archeology, live ones are reanimated by reading books.
[...]
The removal of a sizeable percentage of books published before the 1960s truncates the memory of the present generation. If a significant chunk of interpretations of culture committed to paper is removed from easy circulation, the culture built on these interpretations will eventually wither. This was predicted by Marxists like Antonio Gramsci who wrote in the 1930s that it is not necessary to engineer bloody revolutions to change political systems and affect a transfer of power: it is enough to change culture to affect such a change. The massive removal of old books from university libraries is a small step in this direction. While many steps have to be taken to bring Gramsci�s vision to fruition, one should not ignore the small steps.''
I agree; the 'small steps' often go unnoticed but they are not insignificant.
Labels: Big Government, Books, Censorship, Congress, Freedom Of Thought, Libraries, Orwellian, Political Correctness
0 comment | admin
Many of you read AmRen. I read it, though I don't post there. But I am finding the quality of comments over there of late to be deteriorating.
First, I have heard that comments there are heavily moderated, and apparently many posts never make it, being culled out for whatever reason.
That's fine: I would actually prefer to read a moderated discussion from which the profane and illiterate posts are excluded, along with the obviously trollish and disruptive.
However I wonder what the policy is there, as regards which comments make it past moderation and actually get posted. I have noticed that the mod or mods are tolerating a lot of comments which are openly hostile to Christianity, from one poster in particular. He manages to work in some kind of dig at Christianity on just about every thread he posts on, regardless of the topic being discussed. For example, on a thread about the financial crisis and the 'subprime mortgage' situation, he gets in a shot at Christians.
If there were similar criticisms and slams of other religions, it might not be so noticeable, but on the many threads about, say, Somalis or Moslems per se, I recall seeing few criticisms of the Islamic religion. Christianity alone is fair game, it appears. Yet I don't recall this being the situation when I first began reading AmRen.
In addition to the anti-Christian comments, there is the commenter who repeatedly urges people to return to Europe. I mentioned him before; actually, it appears that there is more than one such poster, though they may be the same person under different names. The commenter always mentions that all his friends, or "many" of his friends, are relocating to Europe and blending right in there. The whole story seems implausible to me; what are the odds that an individual would know 'many' people emigrating to Europe? The rare person might know one such friend, but 'many'? I suppose it could be that he is living in an ethnic enclave and has many friends whose ties to the 'old country' have never been broken, and hence they've decided to return to their ancestral country. Still, the man seems to be on a mission to convince as many as possible to follow their example and go 'back to Europe.' Now, if he were making the argument that a certain country needs immigrants and welcomes them, it would make more sense, but he isn't making a pitch for a particular country or locality, just 'go back to Europe' where you will fit right in. It all seems odd to me, and the comments are repeated almost word-for-word on many threads over there, as if he is cutting and pasting.
And last, I've noticed that a certain leftist commenter has been dominating certain threads with digs at Protestantism, as well as slurs against the realists who make up most of the commentariat there. Why he is allowed to post repeatedly on certain threads and spew his nonsense is more than I can understand. I know that AmRen states that they 'reserve the right to hold critics to a lower standard' when it comes to comments, but there should be some limits to that policy.
I suppose I am just saying that I don't understand the moderators' standards for approving comments there. If the idea is to drive away people who are sympathetic to AmRen's cause, it might just work. Or if the idea is to provide a platform for obnoxious leftists and anti-Christians to spout their poisonous ideas, then they are certainly accomplishing that.
I think AmRen serves a useful purpose especially for people who are finding themselves opposed to political correctness and multiculturalism, and looking for answers, but I am disappointed with the direction they seem to be taking over there. It does seem as though the commenting standards have lowered, or changed. Does anyone else perceive it that way?
First, I have heard that comments there are heavily moderated, and apparently many posts never make it, being culled out for whatever reason.
That's fine: I would actually prefer to read a moderated discussion from which the profane and illiterate posts are excluded, along with the obviously trollish and disruptive.
However I wonder what the policy is there, as regards which comments make it past moderation and actually get posted. I have noticed that the mod or mods are tolerating a lot of comments which are openly hostile to Christianity, from one poster in particular. He manages to work in some kind of dig at Christianity on just about every thread he posts on, regardless of the topic being discussed. For example, on a thread about the financial crisis and the 'subprime mortgage' situation, he gets in a shot at Christians.
If there were similar criticisms and slams of other religions, it might not be so noticeable, but on the many threads about, say, Somalis or Moslems per se, I recall seeing few criticisms of the Islamic religion. Christianity alone is fair game, it appears. Yet I don't recall this being the situation when I first began reading AmRen.
In addition to the anti-Christian comments, there is the commenter who repeatedly urges people to return to Europe. I mentioned him before; actually, it appears that there is more than one such poster, though they may be the same person under different names. The commenter always mentions that all his friends, or "many" of his friends, are relocating to Europe and blending right in there. The whole story seems implausible to me; what are the odds that an individual would know 'many' people emigrating to Europe? The rare person might know one such friend, but 'many'? I suppose it could be that he is living in an ethnic enclave and has many friends whose ties to the 'old country' have never been broken, and hence they've decided to return to their ancestral country. Still, the man seems to be on a mission to convince as many as possible to follow their example and go 'back to Europe.' Now, if he were making the argument that a certain country needs immigrants and welcomes them, it would make more sense, but he isn't making a pitch for a particular country or locality, just 'go back to Europe' where you will fit right in. It all seems odd to me, and the comments are repeated almost word-for-word on many threads over there, as if he is cutting and pasting.
And last, I've noticed that a certain leftist commenter has been dominating certain threads with digs at Protestantism, as well as slurs against the realists who make up most of the commentariat there. Why he is allowed to post repeatedly on certain threads and spew his nonsense is more than I can understand. I know that AmRen states that they 'reserve the right to hold critics to a lower standard' when it comes to comments, but there should be some limits to that policy.
I suppose I am just saying that I don't understand the moderators' standards for approving comments there. If the idea is to drive away people who are sympathetic to AmRen's cause, it might just work. Or if the idea is to provide a platform for obnoxious leftists and anti-Christians to spout their poisonous ideas, then they are certainly accomplishing that.
I think AmRen serves a useful purpose especially for people who are finding themselves opposed to political correctness and multiculturalism, and looking for answers, but I am disappointed with the direction they seem to be taking over there. It does seem as though the commenting standards have lowered, or changed. Does anyone else perceive it that way?
Labels: Blogosphere, Free Speech, Political Correctness
0 comment Thursday, December 4, 2014 | admin
Here's a rather interesting situation: author Orson Scott Card is the cause of some liberal handwringing among librarians. It seems he is being given an award by the American Library Association, but this can't be, because the 'library community' (liberals love that word community, don't they?) is in a tizzy over his homophobia. What to do?
This is a difficult issue, as librarians (supposedly) believe that information, in all of its forms, should be available to everyone, regardless of how repugnant we may personally or politically find it to be.
Especially in academic libraries, it behooves us to select things with which we disagree on occasion. The question then becomes, what message does giving Card this award send? I've drawn a couple of conclusions from this whole thing.
1) It is vitally important, when deciding to give someone a really big award, to know as much about that person as possible. Remember, in this case, the award was given to the person, not the work. Librarians involved in this particular award didn't do their homework, which has caused some serious problems for them, as well as a major public relations hit for ALA.
On the other hand, we cannot know that the committee would have decided any differently with the information in hand. 2) Awards for children's and young adult literature are particularly thorny, because there is always a struggle between those who wish to protect children from "bad things" in the world, and those who acknowledge that "bad things" exist, and wish to help their children navigate them through reading and discussion. These two groups, often, also disagree rather violently about which things are defined as "bad."
3) Card's internal, personal feelings about homosexuality are not necessarily the issue; his public statements condoning hatred of homosexuals are. As Karen Schneider pointed out, if Card's statements about homosexuals had replaced the word "homosexual" with any number of racial epithets, there is no way that Card would EVER have been considered for the award. Period. While I try very hard to separate the person from the work when I can, and often do read fiction by folks who are politically different from me, in this particular case, I admit I am less than enthusiastic about the prospect of picking up one of Card's books to read. On the other hand, I firmly believe that his materials belong in our SFWA Collection, if only so that some scholar might, 20 years from now, write a lovely dissertation about this whole event, and how it relates to his work.''
Another liberal librarian blog tsk-tsks over Card's 'homophobia':
Jolly and righteous teen author, Orson Scott Card, is the topic of much discussion as honor bestowed by the ALA�s YALSA has brought to general attention Card�s views against tolerance for homosexuals.
Card is quoted as follows:
We Latter-day Saints know that we are eternal beings who must gain control of our bodies and direct our lives toward the good of others in order to be worthy of an adult role in the hereafter.�Orson Scott Card''
Here is Card writing about tolerance:
Tolerance is not the fundamental virtue, to which all others must give way. The fundamental virtue is to love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength; and then to love our neighbor as ourself. Despite all the rhetoric of the hypocrites of homosexuality about how if we were true Christians, we would accept them fully without expecting them to change their behavior, we know that the Lord looks upon sin without the least degree of tolerance, and that he expects us to strive for perfection.�Orson Scott Card
I am sure this is especially confusing for the poor dears in the 'library community' because Card otherwise hews to all the politically correct shibboleths when it comes to race and immigration. Oddly, or perhaps not so, considering Card's Mormon beliefs, he has nothing but tolerance for tens of millions of illegal 'immigrants', while withholding 'tolerance' toward homosexuals. The rather surly piece Card wrote in defense of illegal immigration was titled 'Ethnic Cleansing or ''Amnesty'', if that hints at his beliefs.
I hate to link to the source of this insulting piece by Card, but here it is.
Read it, if your blood pressure can stand it.
I suppose, as always, race trumps everything. If white Canadians were hopping our Northern border in droves, I suspect Card would be in favor of deporting them en masse, but because illegals are overwhelmingly non-white, they are automatically to be given special consideration.
Here is an excerpt of Card's hit piece on old-stock Americans Needless to say the 'liberal' seems to represent the sanctimonious Card:
"So lawbreakers don't deserve to live here. Have you ever had a speeding ticket?"
"I'm an American. And I pay my traffic fines."
"But you broke the law."
"I was born here."
"But your ancestors weren't," says the liberal. "Your ancestors, somewhere along the line, were born somewhere else."
"But they came here legally."
"No sir, they did not," says the liberal. "I knew we'd get to this point, so I had your genealogy researched. Here's a list of your German ancestors who broke the law of their German-speaking state by emigrating."
"Those weren't American laws, so they weren't criminals here."
"And here are your Puritan New England ancestors, who came here as criminals because of their defiance of the laws concerning religion in England."
"They wanted freedom of religion."
"But they broke the law. And look � here are your Scotch-Irish and German ancestors who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina without getting legal title to their lands. They were all law-breaking squatters, and they kept getting caught farming on other people's land and had to move on."
This, quite honestly, infuriates me. Religious dissent is quite different than breaking and entering, and living a life of chronic lawbreaking as most illegals do. Every day, their whole way of life involves lying, defrauding, and otherwise deceiving, exploiting, and plain old stealing. To compare our ancestors with these unprincipled people, who often commit quite egregious crimes in addition to illegal entry and fraud, is insulting to our forefathers.
Card purports to be a religious man and Mormons protest that they believe in the Bible. Where is his honoring of his fathers and mothers? Card, as a Mormon, must know his own family ancestry; Mormons are quite obsessive about genealogy. Does he consider his ancestors as lawbreakers, on a par with the drug-smugglers and sneaks who enter via our Southern border? Apparently so. Apparently he has no honor for his ancestors, or he foolishly (and quite unbibilically) believes that all 'sin' is equal in the eyes of God; he thinks that people who commit crimes such as smuggling and drug dealing are on a par with people who do not worship as their government insists that they should. He is a moral illiterate if he believes such things.
But let's go back to his nasty little rant against patriotic Americans:
It was wide-open country then, and the laws were different �"
"And look � here are your ancestors who crossed over the Appalachian Mountains like Daniel Boone, into areas that the federal government absolutely declared off-limits to white settlers. Then when the Indians attacked them for illegally trespassing, they demanded that the US Army come and kill Indians so your ancestors could keep their illegally occupied land."
"I know the Indians were badly treated, but �"
"In fact, through most of the territory of the US, the first settlers were illegal immigrants, weren't they? US treaties supersede all other laws except the Constitution. So what about it? Do you favor the expulsion of all these white illegal immigrants to restore the land to the legal titleholders by US treaty?"
I am sick beyond description of this lie that the first settlers were 'illegal immigrants'. How can a supposedly educated, intelligent man promote such rank nonsense? To say that the first settlers or colonists were 'illegal' is idiotic; in order to be illegal, they had to be in violation of some legal code or in defiance of some ruling authority -- which did not exist.
I just want, frankly, to slap people upside the head when they say such imbecilic things; the very fact that they say these things indicates that they are not capable of reason and common sense. You may as well reason with a mule. The only response to idiocy like this is a slap upside the head.
Whose permission did the colonists or settlers need to obtain before immigrating? There were a lot of squabbling tribes and clans scattered across the continent; there was no centralized ruling authority, no king (despite what you read in history books about various Indian chiefs who styled themselves 'Kings'). There were no codified laws. What 'laws' did the settlers break? Who had the authority or the power to forbid them to come here? Whose permission should they have sought, and how, considering that there was no means of communication by which to ask? Could they have written a formal request? To whom? To Indian tribes who had no written language and who, in any case, spoke no English? So all this talk of illegal immigration in that context is just ignorant and obtuse, probably willfully so.
And if Card wants to talk about 'illegal' settlers, my settler ancestors who came to Texas were INVITED by first, the Spanish and then the Mexican officials to settle. They had an invitation. They had paperwork and official documents. There was nothing remotely illegal about their presence in Texas.
And by the way, Mr. Card, whose permission did the Mexicans' ancestors obtain to settle in what is now Mexico?
Whose permission did the so-called 'Native Americans' who came from Asia obtain before they took up residence in North America? If you want to play this game, we are all 'illegal' if you go back some generations. Nobody is really indigenous to their present countries. Not even the hallowed Native Americans. When there was no organized government, whoever was strongest took possession.
But in Card's tendentious diatribe on amnesty, this is supposed to be his blockbuster zinger at the end, with which he thinks he can mortally wound the xenophobe racists:
No, sir, you are the traitor. You're the one who declared that America was no longer a nation built around an idea, which accepted all who embraced that idea. Now it's just like any other nation on Earth. It stands for nothing except for holding on to what we've got and making sure there's no room for the people most desperate to come and join us."
Here we go: the old 'nation built around an idea' nonsense. No, America was not a nation built around an idea. It was a nation built around a group of English colonists, who possessed certain ideas as part of their culture and part of their heritage. Somehow, though, the foolish notion became widespread that we could bring people from many peoples and cultures together and pretend that the 'idea' was all that mattered, and that anybody could be 'American' by giving lip service to that 'idea'. But as it turns out, that hasn't worked at all well; the people who cling desperately to the 'America as an idea' are people, generally, not of the original stock, and because they feel no kinship to the founders of this country, they insist that the Idea is everything. The 'idea' is become an idol for them; the proposition is an empty substitute for kinship to the founding people of this country. Blood is thicker than ideas.
But the 'idea' around which this nation was supposedly built is never clearly defined by these liberals; is the hallowed 'idea' supposed to be freedom? Democracy? Equality?
If we bring together people from drastically different cultures and heritages, we will have many conflicting definitions and interpretations of what 'freedom, democracy, equality' mean to them. To the Latino illegals, 'freedom' means the freedom to sneak into our country and demand special treatment and privileges, paid for by American taxpayers. Freedom seems to mean, to them, their right to disregard the laws of the land, and to trespass on others' property as they trample the border areas. Freedom means the right to speak Spanish and demand that we provide interpreters at our expense and learn their language.
Moslems, in their turn, have their own definitions of 'freedom', as Andrew Bostom points out.
So it's foolish and vain to try to make this country a country based on an idea. What idea? Whose idea? Whose definition? Whose interpretation? We have the Babel situation all over again, when we try to unite the whole world and erase borders. If Card reads and believes the Bible, he knows that God confounded the language of the human race after the hubris of Babel. We now no longer speak the same languages, in more ways than one. Interpreters and translators all do an imperfect job of bridging the linguistic gulf between us. The language barrier only reflects the differences in thought and perceptions among various peoples.
And when we talk about linguistic barriers and thought barriers, Card's diatribe only reminds us of the fact that even among ourselves, we have been divided hopelessly, and our language confounded. When Card talks about 'tolerance' and sin and virtue, it's obvious that those of the liberal persuasion, especially those liberals who are obsessed with re-creating the Tower of Babel in the West, speak a different language that only sounds like English.
I can certainly understand their meaning, although I find their ideas dishonest, spiteful towards their own people, and sanctimonious. However I am convinced that liberals do not understand our side. They have completely rejected the old meanings of words and the traditional understandings underpinning those words. They no longer speak the language of their forefathers, of all the past generations. This is made abundantly clear by the way in which they condemn the morality and the ways of thinking of the past. They have made themselves orphans and strangers in the West because they have disowned the past and their forefathers.
Only by having done so can Card and all others who think as he does believe that wanting to preserve our nation is bad and sinful. Only by cutting themselves off from tradition can they convince themselves that they are the moral betters not only of their traditional contemporaries and countrymen, but the moral superiors of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who assuredly believed in 'America for Americans', and who believed -- imagine! -- that borders were essential to a nation, and that wholesale violation of laws was not acceptable.
Still Card is in an odd position; on the one hand, the liberal PC police are about to haul him in for failing to hold the correct beliefs on hallowed homosexuality, but on the other hand, how can they condemn him for being a 'right-wing bigot' when he is clearly on their side as regards that other hallowed victim group, illegal 'immigrants'?
I suppose this must cause considerable cognitive dissonance on the part of the orthodox leftists, who studiously follow the party line on who is owed deference. To be a liberal in good standing, one has to truckle to homosexuals but also to people 'of color.' Card is not being consistent.
On the other hand, I think there are quite a few politically correct Christians who think much as Card does: homosexuality bad, but illegal border-jumping good.
But if the leftward trend continues, these little dilemmas will be solved, as the liberalizing churches decide that homosexuality is just another lifestyle choice, just as illegal invaders are making a lifestyle choice in seeking a better life by lawbreaking.
But I can't help feeling a little smug schadenfreude about Card running afoul of the pharisaical PC brigade. He is really a friend, if they but knew it, but for now, he's a transgressor. PC bites.
Forum comments here.
This is a difficult issue, as librarians (supposedly) believe that information, in all of its forms, should be available to everyone, regardless of how repugnant we may personally or politically find it to be.
Especially in academic libraries, it behooves us to select things with which we disagree on occasion. The question then becomes, what message does giving Card this award send? I've drawn a couple of conclusions from this whole thing.
1) It is vitally important, when deciding to give someone a really big award, to know as much about that person as possible. Remember, in this case, the award was given to the person, not the work. Librarians involved in this particular award didn't do their homework, which has caused some serious problems for them, as well as a major public relations hit for ALA.
On the other hand, we cannot know that the committee would have decided any differently with the information in hand. 2) Awards for children's and young adult literature are particularly thorny, because there is always a struggle between those who wish to protect children from "bad things" in the world, and those who acknowledge that "bad things" exist, and wish to help their children navigate them through reading and discussion. These two groups, often, also disagree rather violently about which things are defined as "bad."
3) Card's internal, personal feelings about homosexuality are not necessarily the issue; his public statements condoning hatred of homosexuals are. As Karen Schneider pointed out, if Card's statements about homosexuals had replaced the word "homosexual" with any number of racial epithets, there is no way that Card would EVER have been considered for the award. Period. While I try very hard to separate the person from the work when I can, and often do read fiction by folks who are politically different from me, in this particular case, I admit I am less than enthusiastic about the prospect of picking up one of Card's books to read. On the other hand, I firmly believe that his materials belong in our SFWA Collection, if only so that some scholar might, 20 years from now, write a lovely dissertation about this whole event, and how it relates to his work.''
Another liberal librarian blog tsk-tsks over Card's 'homophobia':
Jolly and righteous teen author, Orson Scott Card, is the topic of much discussion as honor bestowed by the ALA�s YALSA has brought to general attention Card�s views against tolerance for homosexuals.
Card is quoted as follows:
We Latter-day Saints know that we are eternal beings who must gain control of our bodies and direct our lives toward the good of others in order to be worthy of an adult role in the hereafter.�Orson Scott Card''
Here is Card writing about tolerance:
Tolerance is not the fundamental virtue, to which all others must give way. The fundamental virtue is to love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength; and then to love our neighbor as ourself. Despite all the rhetoric of the hypocrites of homosexuality about how if we were true Christians, we would accept them fully without expecting them to change their behavior, we know that the Lord looks upon sin without the least degree of tolerance, and that he expects us to strive for perfection.�Orson Scott Card
I am sure this is especially confusing for the poor dears in the 'library community' because Card otherwise hews to all the politically correct shibboleths when it comes to race and immigration. Oddly, or perhaps not so, considering Card's Mormon beliefs, he has nothing but tolerance for tens of millions of illegal 'immigrants', while withholding 'tolerance' toward homosexuals. The rather surly piece Card wrote in defense of illegal immigration was titled 'Ethnic Cleansing or ''Amnesty'', if that hints at his beliefs.
I hate to link to the source of this insulting piece by Card, but here it is.
Read it, if your blood pressure can stand it.
I suppose, as always, race trumps everything. If white Canadians were hopping our Northern border in droves, I suspect Card would be in favor of deporting them en masse, but because illegals are overwhelmingly non-white, they are automatically to be given special consideration.
Here is an excerpt of Card's hit piece on old-stock Americans Needless to say the 'liberal' seems to represent the sanctimonious Card:
"So lawbreakers don't deserve to live here. Have you ever had a speeding ticket?"
"I'm an American. And I pay my traffic fines."
"But you broke the law."
"I was born here."
"But your ancestors weren't," says the liberal. "Your ancestors, somewhere along the line, were born somewhere else."
"But they came here legally."
"No sir, they did not," says the liberal. "I knew we'd get to this point, so I had your genealogy researched. Here's a list of your German ancestors who broke the law of their German-speaking state by emigrating."
"Those weren't American laws, so they weren't criminals here."
"And here are your Puritan New England ancestors, who came here as criminals because of their defiance of the laws concerning religion in England."
"They wanted freedom of religion."
"But they broke the law. And look � here are your Scotch-Irish and German ancestors who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina without getting legal title to their lands. They were all law-breaking squatters, and they kept getting caught farming on other people's land and had to move on."
This, quite honestly, infuriates me. Religious dissent is quite different than breaking and entering, and living a life of chronic lawbreaking as most illegals do. Every day, their whole way of life involves lying, defrauding, and otherwise deceiving, exploiting, and plain old stealing. To compare our ancestors with these unprincipled people, who often commit quite egregious crimes in addition to illegal entry and fraud, is insulting to our forefathers.
Card purports to be a religious man and Mormons protest that they believe in the Bible. Where is his honoring of his fathers and mothers? Card, as a Mormon, must know his own family ancestry; Mormons are quite obsessive about genealogy. Does he consider his ancestors as lawbreakers, on a par with the drug-smugglers and sneaks who enter via our Southern border? Apparently so. Apparently he has no honor for his ancestors, or he foolishly (and quite unbibilically) believes that all 'sin' is equal in the eyes of God; he thinks that people who commit crimes such as smuggling and drug dealing are on a par with people who do not worship as their government insists that they should. He is a moral illiterate if he believes such things.
But let's go back to his nasty little rant against patriotic Americans:
It was wide-open country then, and the laws were different �"
"And look � here are your ancestors who crossed over the Appalachian Mountains like Daniel Boone, into areas that the federal government absolutely declared off-limits to white settlers. Then when the Indians attacked them for illegally trespassing, they demanded that the US Army come and kill Indians so your ancestors could keep their illegally occupied land."
"I know the Indians were badly treated, but �"
"In fact, through most of the territory of the US, the first settlers were illegal immigrants, weren't they? US treaties supersede all other laws except the Constitution. So what about it? Do you favor the expulsion of all these white illegal immigrants to restore the land to the legal titleholders by US treaty?"
I am sick beyond description of this lie that the first settlers were 'illegal immigrants'. How can a supposedly educated, intelligent man promote such rank nonsense? To say that the first settlers or colonists were 'illegal' is idiotic; in order to be illegal, they had to be in violation of some legal code or in defiance of some ruling authority -- which did not exist.
I just want, frankly, to slap people upside the head when they say such imbecilic things; the very fact that they say these things indicates that they are not capable of reason and common sense. You may as well reason with a mule. The only response to idiocy like this is a slap upside the head.
Whose permission did the colonists or settlers need to obtain before immigrating? There were a lot of squabbling tribes and clans scattered across the continent; there was no centralized ruling authority, no king (despite what you read in history books about various Indian chiefs who styled themselves 'Kings'). There were no codified laws. What 'laws' did the settlers break? Who had the authority or the power to forbid them to come here? Whose permission should they have sought, and how, considering that there was no means of communication by which to ask? Could they have written a formal request? To whom? To Indian tribes who had no written language and who, in any case, spoke no English? So all this talk of illegal immigration in that context is just ignorant and obtuse, probably willfully so.
And if Card wants to talk about 'illegal' settlers, my settler ancestors who came to Texas were INVITED by first, the Spanish and then the Mexican officials to settle. They had an invitation. They had paperwork and official documents. There was nothing remotely illegal about their presence in Texas.
And by the way, Mr. Card, whose permission did the Mexicans' ancestors obtain to settle in what is now Mexico?
Whose permission did the so-called 'Native Americans' who came from Asia obtain before they took up residence in North America? If you want to play this game, we are all 'illegal' if you go back some generations. Nobody is really indigenous to their present countries. Not even the hallowed Native Americans. When there was no organized government, whoever was strongest took possession.
But in Card's tendentious diatribe on amnesty, this is supposed to be his blockbuster zinger at the end, with which he thinks he can mortally wound the xenophobe racists:
No, sir, you are the traitor. You're the one who declared that America was no longer a nation built around an idea, which accepted all who embraced that idea. Now it's just like any other nation on Earth. It stands for nothing except for holding on to what we've got and making sure there's no room for the people most desperate to come and join us."
Here we go: the old 'nation built around an idea' nonsense. No, America was not a nation built around an idea. It was a nation built around a group of English colonists, who possessed certain ideas as part of their culture and part of their heritage. Somehow, though, the foolish notion became widespread that we could bring people from many peoples and cultures together and pretend that the 'idea' was all that mattered, and that anybody could be 'American' by giving lip service to that 'idea'. But as it turns out, that hasn't worked at all well; the people who cling desperately to the 'America as an idea' are people, generally, not of the original stock, and because they feel no kinship to the founders of this country, they insist that the Idea is everything. The 'idea' is become an idol for them; the proposition is an empty substitute for kinship to the founding people of this country. Blood is thicker than ideas.
But the 'idea' around which this nation was supposedly built is never clearly defined by these liberals; is the hallowed 'idea' supposed to be freedom? Democracy? Equality?
If we bring together people from drastically different cultures and heritages, we will have many conflicting definitions and interpretations of what 'freedom, democracy, equality' mean to them. To the Latino illegals, 'freedom' means the freedom to sneak into our country and demand special treatment and privileges, paid for by American taxpayers. Freedom seems to mean, to them, their right to disregard the laws of the land, and to trespass on others' property as they trample the border areas. Freedom means the right to speak Spanish and demand that we provide interpreters at our expense and learn their language.
Moslems, in their turn, have their own definitions of 'freedom', as Andrew Bostom points out.
So it's foolish and vain to try to make this country a country based on an idea. What idea? Whose idea? Whose definition? Whose interpretation? We have the Babel situation all over again, when we try to unite the whole world and erase borders. If Card reads and believes the Bible, he knows that God confounded the language of the human race after the hubris of Babel. We now no longer speak the same languages, in more ways than one. Interpreters and translators all do an imperfect job of bridging the linguistic gulf between us. The language barrier only reflects the differences in thought and perceptions among various peoples.
And when we talk about linguistic barriers and thought barriers, Card's diatribe only reminds us of the fact that even among ourselves, we have been divided hopelessly, and our language confounded. When Card talks about 'tolerance' and sin and virtue, it's obvious that those of the liberal persuasion, especially those liberals who are obsessed with re-creating the Tower of Babel in the West, speak a different language that only sounds like English.
I can certainly understand their meaning, although I find their ideas dishonest, spiteful towards their own people, and sanctimonious. However I am convinced that liberals do not understand our side. They have completely rejected the old meanings of words and the traditional understandings underpinning those words. They no longer speak the language of their forefathers, of all the past generations. This is made abundantly clear by the way in which they condemn the morality and the ways of thinking of the past. They have made themselves orphans and strangers in the West because they have disowned the past and their forefathers.
Only by having done so can Card and all others who think as he does believe that wanting to preserve our nation is bad and sinful. Only by cutting themselves off from tradition can they convince themselves that they are the moral betters not only of their traditional contemporaries and countrymen, but the moral superiors of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who assuredly believed in 'America for Americans', and who believed -- imagine! -- that borders were essential to a nation, and that wholesale violation of laws was not acceptable.
Still Card is in an odd position; on the one hand, the liberal PC police are about to haul him in for failing to hold the correct beliefs on hallowed homosexuality, but on the other hand, how can they condemn him for being a 'right-wing bigot' when he is clearly on their side as regards that other hallowed victim group, illegal 'immigrants'?
I suppose this must cause considerable cognitive dissonance on the part of the orthodox leftists, who studiously follow the party line on who is owed deference. To be a liberal in good standing, one has to truckle to homosexuals but also to people 'of color.' Card is not being consistent.
On the other hand, I think there are quite a few politically correct Christians who think much as Card does: homosexuality bad, but illegal border-jumping good.
But if the leftward trend continues, these little dilemmas will be solved, as the liberalizing churches decide that homosexuality is just another lifestyle choice, just as illegal invaders are making a lifestyle choice in seeking a better life by lawbreaking.
But I can't help feeling a little smug schadenfreude about Card running afoul of the pharisaical PC brigade. He is really a friend, if they but knew it, but for now, he's a transgressor. PC bites.
Forum comments here.
Labels: American History, Freedom Of Expression, Illegal Immigration, Liberalism, Open Borders, Political Correctness
0 comment Wednesday, December 3, 2014 | admin
This story, of the abortionist arrested in Philadelphia, is generating discussion around the right-wing and pro-life blogs.
The photos of those arrested, including Gosnell and his wife, are at the link. What a cast of characters.
Readers will have noticed that I don't blog much about abortion. It seems an exercise in futility, given that both sides are hardened in their positions. Just about everyone has strong feelings one way or the other on that subject. But the feminists and leftists and some on the ''right'' insist that women have a 'right' to choose -- though they don't agree on what a woman is 'choosing' when she goes to an abortionist. To pro-life people, what she is choosing is ending the life of her child, ending a human life, the life of a boy or girl, who would have grown into a man or woman with a name and a personality and a soul. The pro-aborts (who insist on styling themselves 'pro-choice') deny to themselves and to others that a 'fetus' or 'embryo' is fully human. I don't want to spend futile hours trying to convince people otherwise; they simply 'choose' to deny the humanity of the aborted children, and they won't be convinced.
This gruesome story out of Philadelphia should convince people that abortion is cruel, a dirty business. Instead, though, what I think the pro-abortion people will do, in true leftist fashion, is to use this as an argument for government health care (''then there would be more oversight and better conditions," etc.) or they will argue that if abortion were not legal, this kind of thing would be universal, with 'back-alley butchers' providing abortions to poor women in 'need' of their services.
As it is, some of the articles I've read emphasized that these people 'targeted' minority women and immigrants. So it is being implicitly tied to race. That is a bad tactic for lots of reasons.
First of all, it's evident from the pictures that many of the principals involved, the people whose pictures are shown in the Daily Mail article, are not White, apart from three of the women. It seems more than absurd to make this a case of 'targeting minorities and immigrants.'
And yet, I am sorry to say, there is already considerable anti-abortion propaganda promoting the notion of a 'black holocaust', a concerted effort to abort black babies in particular. I blogged about that misguided campaign a couple of years ago, and it seems to be gaining momentum. On various newspaper comment sections on this news story of the abortion clinic, people are repeating the stories of black children being the target of a campaign to reduce their population. The 'g' word, 'genocide', is even being used.
I was actually working on a post about that issue over the last couple of days. It seems to have been put on my heart, as it were, to speak out against that.
Herman Cain, the new idol among the Free Republic faithful, has said
"I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood -- not because I don't believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people," he notes. "People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No -- it was a sham to be able to kill black babies."
The meme that is circulating is that Margaret Sanger, the feminist who was the foremother of the 'Family Planning' movement, was part of a plot to eliminate the black race via family planning/abortion. A quote is being passed around (with no link to back it up; I have searched for it and it does not turn up on the web) which has Sanger mentioning this diabolical plot, as if to admit it. Something does not quite ring true about it, but it seems to appeal to many on the right, as it fits like a glove with this talking point that ''liberals are the REAL racists", and of course Sanger and Malthus are arch-villains among many Republicans.
The quote from Sanger seems to be drawn from a biographical work written by Ellen Chesler
Yet all the evidence is that Sanger was not a 'racist' by any standard definition; she apparently was friends with, and worked with W.E.B. DuBois and other prominent black leaders. Sanger is certainly not a heroine of mine, but there is no evidence that she had genocidal plans towards nonwhites or anyone else. If anyone has a link showing the quote or the context, it would be appreciated.
As far as wanting to discourage reproduction by certain people (the poor, criminally inclined, and mentally impaired) this was commonplace in Sanger's day, and the fact is much of the effort at encouraging sterilization was aimed at White people, too, as witness all the literature written at the time about 'backwoods' families like the pseudonymous Jukes and Kallikaks, who were White people with criminal proclivities, mental aberrations or chronic alcoholism.
The idea that these proponents of eugenics were out to eliminate blacks or other minorities is far-fetched, except to those who see 'Whitey' as being genocidal by nature. Apparently some Republicans have no scruples about promoting that idea -- as long as it is liberals who are being labeled as genocidal racists.
This is just wrong. If I am to believe liberals want to eliminate anybody, I would say it is European-descended people, not minority races. To say otherwise is to turn reality on its head.
A number of people have been promulgating this idea; examples here. And it isn't just the liberal Christian clergy; a Republican congressman from Arizona introduced a bill (which did not pass) which insinuates some kind of racial plot in the abortion industry, using the term 'race selection abortions.' From that bill:
2) RACIAL DISCRIMINATION FINDINGS-
[...]
(C) A 'race-selection abortion� is an abortion performed for purposes of eliminating an unborn child because the child or a parent of the child is of an undesired race. Race-selection abortion is barbaric, and described by civil rights advocates as an act of race-based violence, predicated on race discrimination. By definition, race-selection abortions do not implicate the health of mother of the unborn, but instead are elective procedures motivated by race bias.
(D) No State has enacted law to proscribe the performance of race-selection abortions.
(E) Race-selection abortions have the effect of diminishing the number of minorities in the American population and therefore, the American electorate.
(F) Race-selection abortion reinforces racial discrimination and has no place in a civilized society.''
However, the Guttmacher Institute which keeps statistics on these kinds of things says:
This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Antiabortion activists, including some African-American pastors, have been waging a campaign around this fact, falsely asserting that the disparity is the result of aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minority communities.
The Issues4Life Foundation, for example, is a faith-based organization that targets and works with African-American leaders toward achieving the goal of "zero African-American lives lost to abortion or biotechnology." In April, Issues4Life wrote to the Congressional Black Caucus to denounce Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its "racist and eugenic goals."
The group blamed PPFA and abortion providers in general for the high abortion rate in the African-American community�deeming the situation the "Da[r]fur of America"�and called on Congress to withdraw federal family planning funds from all PPFA affiliates.
These activists are exploiting and distorting the facts to serve their antiabortion agenda. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women�black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.
Black women are not alone in having disproportionately high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. The abortion rate among Hispanic women, for example, although not as high as the rate among black women, is double the rate among whites. Hispanics also have a higher level of unintended pregnancy than white women. Black women's unintended pregnancy rates are the highest of all.''
I would think that if there were any suspicion that there is a racial agenda in abortion the Guttmacher Institute would be the first to denounce it, being as liberal as they seem to be.
I fear that there is an eagerness on the part of the pro-life groups to find some strategy that works to combat abortion. Perhaps they think they can grasp this race-baiting issue and turn people against abortion on the basis that it is directed against blacks. I think this is an ill-advised tactic to use, although I fear that many of today's Christians have become so politically correct that they actually believe that there is such a plot against blacks, immigrants, or other such oppressed groups.
To believe this, however, is to believe the worst about our people. And despite all the anger I may direct towards leftists, I cannot bring myself to believe that they are plotting against blacks or immigrants, or that Whites are in general so diabolical that they would concoct such a plot on a wide scale. Considering how Afrocentric our society has become in my lifetime, it beggars belief to say that there is some huge conspiracy to practice 'race-selection' by abortion.
I think it is an ill-conceived propaganda effort to try to discredit family planning and abortion. And although I oppose abortion, this is an immoral way to try to combat it. It amounts to accusing people with very flimsy evidence, or no evidence at all. It is attributing motives of which there is no solid proof. It may very well be 'bearing false witness' which we are enjoined not to do, as Christians.
Given the fact that minority groups have many ongoing rumors about some plot against them by White people (for example, AIDS was supposedly invented to target blacks and gays, etc.,) it is reckless and irresponsible to foment yet another rumor of machinations by Whites against blacks.
This could easily get out of hand and cause great damage.
And for White ''conservatives'' to stoop to accusing fellow Whites of these horrendous plots is troubling. We have enough division and conflict over racial matters without White people accusing each other of heinous plans and deeds, fueling more animosity and mistrust.
I have just about zero respect for leftists; those who are 'useful idiots' for the progressive cause, I occasionally feel pity for. However I will not recklessly accuse my kinsmen, absent any real proof of the charges. I will not have this on my hands, if these rumors cause harm to others.
The photos of those arrested, including Gosnell and his wife, are at the link. What a cast of characters.
Readers will have noticed that I don't blog much about abortion. It seems an exercise in futility, given that both sides are hardened in their positions. Just about everyone has strong feelings one way or the other on that subject. But the feminists and leftists and some on the ''right'' insist that women have a 'right' to choose -- though they don't agree on what a woman is 'choosing' when she goes to an abortionist. To pro-life people, what she is choosing is ending the life of her child, ending a human life, the life of a boy or girl, who would have grown into a man or woman with a name and a personality and a soul. The pro-aborts (who insist on styling themselves 'pro-choice') deny to themselves and to others that a 'fetus' or 'embryo' is fully human. I don't want to spend futile hours trying to convince people otherwise; they simply 'choose' to deny the humanity of the aborted children, and they won't be convinced.
This gruesome story out of Philadelphia should convince people that abortion is cruel, a dirty business. Instead, though, what I think the pro-abortion people will do, in true leftist fashion, is to use this as an argument for government health care (''then there would be more oversight and better conditions," etc.) or they will argue that if abortion were not legal, this kind of thing would be universal, with 'back-alley butchers' providing abortions to poor women in 'need' of their services.
As it is, some of the articles I've read emphasized that these people 'targeted' minority women and immigrants. So it is being implicitly tied to race. That is a bad tactic for lots of reasons.
First of all, it's evident from the pictures that many of the principals involved, the people whose pictures are shown in the Daily Mail article, are not White, apart from three of the women. It seems more than absurd to make this a case of 'targeting minorities and immigrants.'
And yet, I am sorry to say, there is already considerable anti-abortion propaganda promoting the notion of a 'black holocaust', a concerted effort to abort black babies in particular. I blogged about that misguided campaign a couple of years ago, and it seems to be gaining momentum. On various newspaper comment sections on this news story of the abortion clinic, people are repeating the stories of black children being the target of a campaign to reduce their population. The 'g' word, 'genocide', is even being used.
I was actually working on a post about that issue over the last couple of days. It seems to have been put on my heart, as it were, to speak out against that.
Herman Cain, the new idol among the Free Republic faithful, has said
"I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood -- not because I don't believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people," he notes. "People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No -- it was a sham to be able to kill black babies."
The meme that is circulating is that Margaret Sanger, the feminist who was the foremother of the 'Family Planning' movement, was part of a plot to eliminate the black race via family planning/abortion. A quote is being passed around (with no link to back it up; I have searched for it and it does not turn up on the web) which has Sanger mentioning this diabolical plot, as if to admit it. Something does not quite ring true about it, but it seems to appeal to many on the right, as it fits like a glove with this talking point that ''liberals are the REAL racists", and of course Sanger and Malthus are arch-villains among many Republicans.
The quote from Sanger seems to be drawn from a biographical work written by Ellen Chesler
Yet all the evidence is that Sanger was not a 'racist' by any standard definition; she apparently was friends with, and worked with W.E.B. DuBois and other prominent black leaders. Sanger is certainly not a heroine of mine, but there is no evidence that she had genocidal plans towards nonwhites or anyone else. If anyone has a link showing the quote or the context, it would be appreciated.
As far as wanting to discourage reproduction by certain people (the poor, criminally inclined, and mentally impaired) this was commonplace in Sanger's day, and the fact is much of the effort at encouraging sterilization was aimed at White people, too, as witness all the literature written at the time about 'backwoods' families like the pseudonymous Jukes and Kallikaks, who were White people with criminal proclivities, mental aberrations or chronic alcoholism.
The idea that these proponents of eugenics were out to eliminate blacks or other minorities is far-fetched, except to those who see 'Whitey' as being genocidal by nature. Apparently some Republicans have no scruples about promoting that idea -- as long as it is liberals who are being labeled as genocidal racists.
This is just wrong. If I am to believe liberals want to eliminate anybody, I would say it is European-descended people, not minority races. To say otherwise is to turn reality on its head.
A number of people have been promulgating this idea; examples here. And it isn't just the liberal Christian clergy; a Republican congressman from Arizona introduced a bill (which did not pass) which insinuates some kind of racial plot in the abortion industry, using the term 'race selection abortions.' From that bill:
2) RACIAL DISCRIMINATION FINDINGS-
[...]
(C) A 'race-selection abortion� is an abortion performed for purposes of eliminating an unborn child because the child or a parent of the child is of an undesired race. Race-selection abortion is barbaric, and described by civil rights advocates as an act of race-based violence, predicated on race discrimination. By definition, race-selection abortions do not implicate the health of mother of the unborn, but instead are elective procedures motivated by race bias.
(D) No State has enacted law to proscribe the performance of race-selection abortions.
(E) Race-selection abortions have the effect of diminishing the number of minorities in the American population and therefore, the American electorate.
(F) Race-selection abortion reinforces racial discrimination and has no place in a civilized society.''
However, the Guttmacher Institute which keeps statistics on these kinds of things says:
This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Antiabortion activists, including some African-American pastors, have been waging a campaign around this fact, falsely asserting that the disparity is the result of aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minority communities.
The Issues4Life Foundation, for example, is a faith-based organization that targets and works with African-American leaders toward achieving the goal of "zero African-American lives lost to abortion or biotechnology." In April, Issues4Life wrote to the Congressional Black Caucus to denounce Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its "racist and eugenic goals."
The group blamed PPFA and abortion providers in general for the high abortion rate in the African-American community�deeming the situation the "Da[r]fur of America"�and called on Congress to withdraw federal family planning funds from all PPFA affiliates.
These activists are exploiting and distorting the facts to serve their antiabortion agenda. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women�black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.
Black women are not alone in having disproportionately high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. The abortion rate among Hispanic women, for example, although not as high as the rate among black women, is double the rate among whites. Hispanics also have a higher level of unintended pregnancy than white women. Black women's unintended pregnancy rates are the highest of all.''
I would think that if there were any suspicion that there is a racial agenda in abortion the Guttmacher Institute would be the first to denounce it, being as liberal as they seem to be.
I fear that there is an eagerness on the part of the pro-life groups to find some strategy that works to combat abortion. Perhaps they think they can grasp this race-baiting issue and turn people against abortion on the basis that it is directed against blacks. I think this is an ill-advised tactic to use, although I fear that many of today's Christians have become so politically correct that they actually believe that there is such a plot against blacks, immigrants, or other such oppressed groups.
To believe this, however, is to believe the worst about our people. And despite all the anger I may direct towards leftists, I cannot bring myself to believe that they are plotting against blacks or immigrants, or that Whites are in general so diabolical that they would concoct such a plot on a wide scale. Considering how Afrocentric our society has become in my lifetime, it beggars belief to say that there is some huge conspiracy to practice 'race-selection' by abortion.
I think it is an ill-conceived propaganda effort to try to discredit family planning and abortion. And although I oppose abortion, this is an immoral way to try to combat it. It amounts to accusing people with very flimsy evidence, or no evidence at all. It is attributing motives of which there is no solid proof. It may very well be 'bearing false witness' which we are enjoined not to do, as Christians.
Given the fact that minority groups have many ongoing rumors about some plot against them by White people (for example, AIDS was supposedly invented to target blacks and gays, etc.,) it is reckless and irresponsible to foment yet another rumor of machinations by Whites against blacks.
This could easily get out of hand and cause great damage.
And for White ''conservatives'' to stoop to accusing fellow Whites of these horrendous plots is troubling. We have enough division and conflict over racial matters without White people accusing each other of heinous plans and deeds, fueling more animosity and mistrust.
I have just about zero respect for leftists; those who are 'useful idiots' for the progressive cause, I occasionally feel pity for. However I will not recklessly accuse my kinsmen, absent any real proof of the charges. I will not have this on my hands, if these rumors cause harm to others.
Labels: Political Correctness, Pro-Life Movement
0 comment Tuesday, December 2, 2014 | admin
Apropos of our discussion the other day about the roots of the counterculture and also the subject of advertising propaganda, I was looking through some old images and found some interesting ones.
The first is an Insurance Company ad, above, from 1952. The text is not legible in this smaller-sized image, so I will quote it here:
There are moral alternatives to war. We do have a choice. We can choose plowshares over swords...and thereby diminish the danger of a final and all-destroying war.
Most of the world's people -- nearly two-thirds of the human race -- are hungry. Remove this hunger and we remove most of the explosive possibilities in the world.
We, here in America, have crossed the threshold into the world of plenty. In the past ten years we have had twice as much new food as new people -- and our population has grown at a rate faster than that of India!
This American pattern of plenty gives us a platform from which we, in decency and humility, can help build a true brotherhood of man, living together peacefully in a prosperous world. Now, for the first time, we can help a hungry world feed itself. We will achieve peace only if we carry out this moral responsibility -- wholeheartedly, with the same vigor with which we have waged wars. It is up to us.
If we start now -- in politics, in economics, in social organization -- we can make abundance blossom for all the world.
Let us embark on the crusade toward creating PLENTY -- Pattern for Peace.''
The above is said to be ''From a recent address by Murray D. Lincoln, President of Farm Bureau Insurance Companies.''
I can understand how, in 1952, war-wearied Americans might be eager for some proposal or policy which would guarantee that there would be 'no more wars.' But is it true that poverty and hunger cause all wars, or that 'feeding the world' would guarantee peace? Did World War II happen because of poverty or want? Or World War I?
So, since this ad was printed, we've had more than half a century of trying out these utopian do-gooder policies. I wonder how many billions we've spent on 'foreign aid' or hunger relief efforts via the UN since then? And how much good has it done? Have our efforts and our dollars ended hunger or brought stability and peace?
Look at the picture in the ad. Back in 1952, few Americans would have proposed bringing the world here for us to feed them in our land, but does the picture not seem to imply that we will all cohabit together in America? The White man at the plow looks as though he's the one in harness to do all the hard work.
This picture, with its 'we are the world' motif, reminds me very much of the picture below, which actually appeared 9 years later, on the cover of the April Fool's Day 1961 version of Saturday Evening Post.
Everybody knows Norman Rockwell as the quintessential American heartland painter. He was particularly known for his magazine covers, most notably the Saturday Evening Post covers. We always associate him with rather corny middle American nostalgia, with his images of freckle-faced, red-headed boys and girls, the kind who used to be called 'all-American boys' and girls. (Today, of course, Barack Obama and the exotics who appear in our commercials are held up as truly American.) But when I first saw this illustration, called 'The Golden Rule', by Rockwell, I was rather taken aback, because it seemed so out of step with the work we associate with him. I wondered if it was not painted during the early 70s, when the diversity obsession set in. But no, it was painted in 1961, during an era in which America was still very American. Remember, the 1965 Immigration Act was still four years in the future when that picture was painted.
And of course, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' is the Golden Rule, but at some point, the politically correct commandment became do unto The Other at the expense of your own. Open your gates and doors wide to the entire world, no questions asked.
Here we are, 47 years on, and America is starting to look very much like that 'Golden Rule' painting, with those famous 'all-American' Rockwell faces surrounded by people from the four corners of the globe. Was this a prophetic painting? Or a prescriptive one, like the Farm Bureau Insurance Ad?
Was this 'pattern for peace' or a pattern for PC?
In any case, it seems this campaign to change our thinking about ourselves and our role in the world has been going on for a long time; it's only accelerated recently and become more obvious to us.
Labels: Advertising, Globalism, Mass Immigration, Multiculturalism, One World, Political Correctness
0 comment Monday, December 1, 2014 | admin
...the liberal world, at least.
Here is David Thompson on the Ron Rosenbaum Slate article praising white guilt. I've read a lot of commentary on the Slate piece, and this piece by Thompson is possibly the best. Read it all; it's to the point. But be warned of some annoying liberal posturing in the comments following.
David's piece is called Phantom Guilt, Revisited.
I like the phrase 'phantom guilt'. I like how Thompson seems to perceive the obvious falsity of the displays of guilt on the part of many of the liberal handwringers:
To publicly rend one�s garments over some vicarious, borrowed sin is not to affirm conscience or poignant human feeling, but to parody those things and to indulge in emotional pantomime and moral masturbation. Rather like this:
But was slavery not immoral? Was not the century of institutionalised racism and segregation that followed the end of slavery a perpetuation of "flawed values" that the nation should feel an enduring guilt over? Should we abolish the history and memory of slavery and racism just because they're no longer legally institutionalised?
Again, note the car crash of non sequitur. I�ll paraphrase for clarity:
Slavery was immoral. It was abolished. Therefore we must still feel guilt, or pretend to � all of us, indefinitely and forever. And those who don�t pretend to feel this way are abolishing history.
Assertions of this kind are, very often, for the benefit of a sympathetic audience and thus, ultimately, for the benefit of the performer. As I�ve argued before, saying, very loudly, "it�s all my fault" is only a notch and a half away from saying "it�s all about me."
I think there is a lot of truth in his observation that what liberals display is not real guilt, but a simulation thereof, a mimicry of guilt.
I've written a lot here about liberal guilt, but when we really think about it, liberals do not feel guilt because they presume that they are, by virtue of their superior liberal sensitivity, free of the guilt they try to induce among their less liberal racial brethren. They are, as I've said, like the Pharisee praying loudly to thank God that he is not like other men -- not a sinner. They are good at finding motes in others' eyes while ignoring the beam in their own eyes.
Guilt -- just as Leona Helmsley supposedly said about taxes -- is for the 'little people', one's inferiors.
Liberals see themselves as the moral aristocracy of the world; they pride themselves on their superior consciences, but somehow their consciences only find the sins of others.
As for that comment section, notice the liberal woman slapping down someone for saying that whites abolished slavery -- whites must not get credit for that; whites did NOT stop slavery, she says, only SOME whites did.
So unless all whites equally contributed to ending slavery, they deserve no credit. Yet oddly, all whites are made to carry the blame for what some did. And I don't mean slave-owners vs. virtuous abolitionists, or Southerners vs. saintly Northerners, or even rich, evil whites vs. poor, noble whites. I mean primarily today's whites being asked to pay, endlessly, for what whites (some, all, whoever) did hundreds of years ago.
At some point we will have to deal with the issue of slavery, over whether the slavery as practiced here in this country was the greatest ever human evil, comparable perhaps only to Hitler's crimes according to most people. This subject seems to be used as the ultimate weapon against us; we have no rejoinder except the rather liberal one of saying ''but...but we abolished it; don't we deserve praise for that?"
This guilt game will go on and on until we find some way to break this cycle, and that will not be easy.
Doing so will require a lot of re-thinking on our part, and a general determination to find some new way to look at the guilt-producing historic episodes that are being used against us so successfully. We can only say 'mea culpa' so many times.
Here is David Thompson on the Ron Rosenbaum Slate article praising white guilt. I've read a lot of commentary on the Slate piece, and this piece by Thompson is possibly the best. Read it all; it's to the point. But be warned of some annoying liberal posturing in the comments following.
David's piece is called Phantom Guilt, Revisited.
I like the phrase 'phantom guilt'. I like how Thompson seems to perceive the obvious falsity of the displays of guilt on the part of many of the liberal handwringers:
To publicly rend one�s garments over some vicarious, borrowed sin is not to affirm conscience or poignant human feeling, but to parody those things and to indulge in emotional pantomime and moral masturbation. Rather like this:
But was slavery not immoral? Was not the century of institutionalised racism and segregation that followed the end of slavery a perpetuation of "flawed values" that the nation should feel an enduring guilt over? Should we abolish the history and memory of slavery and racism just because they're no longer legally institutionalised?
Again, note the car crash of non sequitur. I�ll paraphrase for clarity:
Slavery was immoral. It was abolished. Therefore we must still feel guilt, or pretend to � all of us, indefinitely and forever. And those who don�t pretend to feel this way are abolishing history.
Assertions of this kind are, very often, for the benefit of a sympathetic audience and thus, ultimately, for the benefit of the performer. As I�ve argued before, saying, very loudly, "it�s all my fault" is only a notch and a half away from saying "it�s all about me."
I think there is a lot of truth in his observation that what liberals display is not real guilt, but a simulation thereof, a mimicry of guilt.
I've written a lot here about liberal guilt, but when we really think about it, liberals do not feel guilt because they presume that they are, by virtue of their superior liberal sensitivity, free of the guilt they try to induce among their less liberal racial brethren. They are, as I've said, like the Pharisee praying loudly to thank God that he is not like other men -- not a sinner. They are good at finding motes in others' eyes while ignoring the beam in their own eyes.
Guilt -- just as Leona Helmsley supposedly said about taxes -- is for the 'little people', one's inferiors.
Liberals see themselves as the moral aristocracy of the world; they pride themselves on their superior consciences, but somehow their consciences only find the sins of others.
As for that comment section, notice the liberal woman slapping down someone for saying that whites abolished slavery -- whites must not get credit for that; whites did NOT stop slavery, she says, only SOME whites did.
So unless all whites equally contributed to ending slavery, they deserve no credit. Yet oddly, all whites are made to carry the blame for what some did. And I don't mean slave-owners vs. virtuous abolitionists, or Southerners vs. saintly Northerners, or even rich, evil whites vs. poor, noble whites. I mean primarily today's whites being asked to pay, endlessly, for what whites (some, all, whoever) did hundreds of years ago.
At some point we will have to deal with the issue of slavery, over whether the slavery as practiced here in this country was the greatest ever human evil, comparable perhaps only to Hitler's crimes according to most people. This subject seems to be used as the ultimate weapon against us; we have no rejoinder except the rather liberal one of saying ''but...but we abolished it; don't we deserve praise for that?"
This guilt game will go on and on until we find some way to break this cycle, and that will not be easy.
Doing so will require a lot of re-thinking on our part, and a general determination to find some new way to look at the guilt-producing historic episodes that are being used against us so successfully. We can only say 'mea culpa' so many times.
Labels: American History, Hypocrisy, Liberalism, Political Correctness, Racial Guilt, White Guilt
0 comment | admin
A few bloggers have been writing about the Southern Baptist Convention's embrace of anti-White political correctness.
Hunter Wallace:
(1) In the first move, the African-American pastor Fred Luter Jr. of New Orleans was elected Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention as part of an ongoing effort impress The New York Times by "promoting diversity." Next year, Luter is expected to leap frog to become President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Richard Land told The New York Times, "About 30 years ago we were virtually all white � by intention, sadly but true." At their recent meeting, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted "sweeping measures" to "give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention, and particularly ethnic diversity" in committee appointments.
(2) If that were not enough, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted another resolution in Phoenix which calls for "a just and compassionate path to legal status" for illegal aliens, essentially a plea for amnesty in the name of Southern Baptists � the largest Protestant denomination in the United States � who overwhelmingly oppose "comprehensive immigration reform."
James Edwards predicts:
...the churches will see the same kind of White exodus as those New Orleans neighborhoods did if the SBC is successful in luring in Black members. This will be the death of many Southern Baptist churches, they�re just too stupid to realize it.
And, as always, I marvel at the elation that many of these White pastors are experiencing over the election of a Black. If race is a social construct, as they pretend it to be, then aren�t we�re all just one big mass of humanity? And if that�s true, then what�s the significance of electing a Black? Wouldn�t they be viewing his election based on the color of his skin?''
Good questions.
I have relatives who are lifelong Southern Baptists, and this goes back generations. I think that many of them will go along with this because it seems to be the trend of the day, and they will follow along with what their preachers tell them, which is not at all the way it should be. But the fact that few Christians are 'Bereans' now is a big part of the reason why we have an apostate church today, and why so many of us find it hard if not impossible to find a faithful church, which practices the Christianity of our fathers. The churches seem to have become part of spiritual Babylon.
Speaking of political correctness infiltrating the churches, now the Mormon Church is endorsing some form of amnesty. Church leaders say that immigration is a 'moral and religious matter' and warn against 'mass expulsion.'
Now, perhaps these church leaders can find some justification in their Mormon writings for their stance, and I'm not versed in their scriptures, so I can't speak to that. I just mention this news story because every now and then, someone on the ethnopatriot blogs insists that Mormons are pro-White or 'implicitly White.' That's just not factual. It is a fact that at its inception, the Mormon church was mostly made up of Anglo-Saxon Americans, many of them from New England. Some of my distant New England cousins were among the early church members and emigrated to Utah and points west, as Mormons. Despite those origins, though, the Mormon hierarchy seems to have embraced multiculturalism, and their latest proselytizing efforts are being directed at Latin American illegals and assorted refugees. So the Mormon Church is part of this 21st century Babel movement, just like the mainline Christian groups.
I have to say I like the fact that Hunter Wallace, in his piece on the Southern Baptists, offers a defense of Christianity, noting that this obsession with 'racism' is a product of leftist influence, not of Biblical teaching or Christian tradition. This is important to note, and to point out to those who try to blame Christianity for all the ills of our people.
Another blog that does a great job of presenting Christianity from a traditional point of view is Faith and Heritage, and I particularly recommend this piece which is a response to the increasingly liberalized church and its 'judge not', milquetoast version of Christianity. It is really this perversion of Christianity which is at the root of much of what is wrong with the West today.
Hunter Wallace:
(1) In the first move, the African-American pastor Fred Luter Jr. of New Orleans was elected Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention as part of an ongoing effort impress The New York Times by "promoting diversity." Next year, Luter is expected to leap frog to become President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Richard Land told The New York Times, "About 30 years ago we were virtually all white � by intention, sadly but true." At their recent meeting, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted "sweeping measures" to "give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention, and particularly ethnic diversity" in committee appointments.
(2) If that were not enough, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted another resolution in Phoenix which calls for "a just and compassionate path to legal status" for illegal aliens, essentially a plea for amnesty in the name of Southern Baptists � the largest Protestant denomination in the United States � who overwhelmingly oppose "comprehensive immigration reform."
James Edwards predicts:
...the churches will see the same kind of White exodus as those New Orleans neighborhoods did if the SBC is successful in luring in Black members. This will be the death of many Southern Baptist churches, they�re just too stupid to realize it.
And, as always, I marvel at the elation that many of these White pastors are experiencing over the election of a Black. If race is a social construct, as they pretend it to be, then aren�t we�re all just one big mass of humanity? And if that�s true, then what�s the significance of electing a Black? Wouldn�t they be viewing his election based on the color of his skin?''
Good questions.
I have relatives who are lifelong Southern Baptists, and this goes back generations. I think that many of them will go along with this because it seems to be the trend of the day, and they will follow along with what their preachers tell them, which is not at all the way it should be. But the fact that few Christians are 'Bereans' now is a big part of the reason why we have an apostate church today, and why so many of us find it hard if not impossible to find a faithful church, which practices the Christianity of our fathers. The churches seem to have become part of spiritual Babylon.
Speaking of political correctness infiltrating the churches, now the Mormon Church is endorsing some form of amnesty. Church leaders say that immigration is a 'moral and religious matter' and warn against 'mass expulsion.'
Now, perhaps these church leaders can find some justification in their Mormon writings for their stance, and I'm not versed in their scriptures, so I can't speak to that. I just mention this news story because every now and then, someone on the ethnopatriot blogs insists that Mormons are pro-White or 'implicitly White.' That's just not factual. It is a fact that at its inception, the Mormon church was mostly made up of Anglo-Saxon Americans, many of them from New England. Some of my distant New England cousins were among the early church members and emigrated to Utah and points west, as Mormons. Despite those origins, though, the Mormon hierarchy seems to have embraced multiculturalism, and their latest proselytizing efforts are being directed at Latin American illegals and assorted refugees. So the Mormon Church is part of this 21st century Babel movement, just like the mainline Christian groups.
I have to say I like the fact that Hunter Wallace, in his piece on the Southern Baptists, offers a defense of Christianity, noting that this obsession with 'racism' is a product of leftist influence, not of Biblical teaching or Christian tradition. This is important to note, and to point out to those who try to blame Christianity for all the ills of our people.
Another blog that does a great job of presenting Christianity from a traditional point of view is Faith and Heritage, and I particularly recommend this piece which is a response to the increasingly liberalized church and its 'judge not', milquetoast version of Christianity. It is really this perversion of Christianity which is at the root of much of what is wrong with the West today.
Labels: Apostate Christianity, Multiculturalism, New Age Christianity, Political Correctness
0 comment Friday, November 28, 2014 | admin
Another good post from Iron Ink . It's well worth a read.
Talking about Race in modern America is the equivalent of talking about sex in the Victorian age. Most people have some experience with it but don�t want to talk publicly about it, and when it is brought up by somebody people either begin to blush or they go silent. Historical White America, if you don�t start learning how to intelligently but directly talk about race issues without either being intimidated or crude you�re culture is going to be decimated racially, ideologically, and financially. Historical White America, if you don�t start learning how to intelligently but directly talk about race issues without being either intimidated or crude your culture and your God is going to be replaced.''
Read the entire thing at the link.
Talking about Race in modern America is the equivalent of talking about sex in the Victorian age. Most people have some experience with it but don�t want to talk publicly about it, and when it is brought up by somebody people either begin to blush or they go silent. Historical White America, if you don�t start learning how to intelligently but directly talk about race issues without either being intimidated or crude you�re culture is going to be decimated racially, ideologically, and financially. Historical White America, if you don�t start learning how to intelligently but directly talk about race issues without being either intimidated or crude your culture and your God is going to be replaced.''
Read the entire thing at the link.
Labels: Anti-Christianity, Blogs, Political Correctness, Racial Division
0 comment Thursday, November 27, 2014 | admin
...just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo! - Mark Twain
On the other hand, Twain also said "A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't."
Still, I am a partisan of banjo music; readers of this blog will know that I love old-time string-band music and its offspring, bluegrass.
So, over at Winston Smith's Blog, I was delighted to see that he has a post on building a fretless mountain banjo.
Now, I am not looking to build a banjo but I love to read about how craftsmen build these things. Back in simpler times when music was something that was often homemade, not something you bought in a store and consumed passively, people knew how to make instruments with which they made their music. It is good to know that it is not a forgotten art everywhere.
I think of the humble "banjer" as a quintessentially American instrument, and Winston Smith has some thoughts about its origin:
There's a myth that the banjo (the "gourd banjar") is a Negro invention, and it came to America with Negro slaves. The implication us that our beautiful Appalachian and Bluegrass music is the child of Africa. B******T! In the first place, instruments like the banjo - strings over a stretched hide - have been in China, non-Negroid Egypt, the Caucasus, Near Asia, and many other places for thousands of years. Negro Africans may have developed such an instrument (highly improbable), but they didn't "invent" it. In the second place, the banjo existed in regions of Appalachia long before our excellent mountain kin folk had ever laid eyes on a Negro. Thirdly, if Negros invented it, then why did they abandon it?''
Those are questions I've wondered about, and posed to other people as well, so it's good to see that I am not the only one asking.
Some people have asked me why it even matters to me who 'invented' the banjo. It matters to me not only because I love the banjo, but because I think the truth matters. In recent years, as I've written so often about on this blog, we've been subjected to an all-out campaign to rewrite history and to take credit away from our people, assigning it, rightly or wrongly, to others. Why? To build others' fragile self-esteem? To diminish our own confidence and pride in our people? To make the gullible think that America was always a multicultural society and a melting pot in which we are only one minor ingredient? I think it's all of the above, and if there are any other possible reasons I am open to considering them.
This source is typical in crediting Africans with influencing Appalachian music and with introducing the banjo -- and the writers get extra PC points for tying the instrument to Islamic origins as well:
ONE of the greatest influences on Appalachian music, as well as many popular American music styles, was that of the African-American. The slaves brought a distinct tradition of group singing of community songs of work and worship, usually lined out by one person with a call and response action from a group. A joyous celebration of life and free sexuality was coupled with improvisation as lyrics were constantly updated and changed to keep up the groups' interest. The percussion of the African music began to change the rhythms of Appalachian singing and dancing. The introduction of the banjo to the Southern Mountains after the Civil War in the 1860s further hastened this process. Originally from Arabia, and brought to western Africa by the spread of Islam, the banjo then ended up in America. Mostly denigrated as a 'slave instrument' until the popularity of the Minstrel Show, starting in the 1840s, the banjo syncopation or 'bom-diddle-diddy' produced a different clog-dance and song rhythm by the turn of the century.
[...]
The instrumental tradition of the Appalachians started as anglo-celtic dance tunes and eventually was reshaped by local needs, African rhythms, and changes in instrumentation.''
Winston Smith mentions that the banjo is associated with the old minstrel show tradition, and yet blacks, since the 1960s era, have disclaimed this tradition as being an offensive racial stereotype. I've also heard that such entertainment was something that many blacks feel their ancestors were ''forced'' to do by Massa, and that it was demeaning to them. I have noticed that there are very, very few blacks who play the banjo today. If it was 'their' instrument originally, it seems they've abandoned it.
It does seem, too, that there are no home-grown analogues to the banjo in Africa, no apparent antecedent that I'm familiar with, and I do know a little about world music. There are, however, many related instruments in the Western tradition, making it much more plausible that the banjo was a European-derived instrument, probably being developed to its present form in our country, among our people.
I think it's important for us to take credit for our own traditions. The politically corrected cultural history has just about taken away every American folk tradition from us and credited it to blacks -- traditions such as buck-dancing, flatfoot dancing, and later traditions such as rock 'n roll music.
Anyone who is familiar with the dance traditions of the British Isles recognizes that buck dancing and flatfoot dancing, as well as clogging and 'square dancing' are derived from traditions that came with our early English and Scots settlers.
If we're to believe the popular historians of today, we have no culture of our own; blacks had to teach us everything when they came here from Africa. And this idea fits with the current demeaning stereotype of Whites as being mere blank slates with no innate character or culture to speak of. This is particularly said, maliciously, about White Americans. So it's important for us to confidently claim our own traditions back again, and to refuse to let ourselves be stripped of our traditions, however humble they may be. They are part of us.
Read the rest of Winston Smith's post at the link.
On the other hand, Twain also said "A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't."
Still, I am a partisan of banjo music; readers of this blog will know that I love old-time string-band music and its offspring, bluegrass.
So, over at Winston Smith's Blog, I was delighted to see that he has a post on building a fretless mountain banjo.
Now, I am not looking to build a banjo but I love to read about how craftsmen build these things. Back in simpler times when music was something that was often homemade, not something you bought in a store and consumed passively, people knew how to make instruments with which they made their music. It is good to know that it is not a forgotten art everywhere.
I think of the humble "banjer" as a quintessentially American instrument, and Winston Smith has some thoughts about its origin:
There's a myth that the banjo (the "gourd banjar") is a Negro invention, and it came to America with Negro slaves. The implication us that our beautiful Appalachian and Bluegrass music is the child of Africa. B******T! In the first place, instruments like the banjo - strings over a stretched hide - have been in China, non-Negroid Egypt, the Caucasus, Near Asia, and many other places for thousands of years. Negro Africans may have developed such an instrument (highly improbable), but they didn't "invent" it. In the second place, the banjo existed in regions of Appalachia long before our excellent mountain kin folk had ever laid eyes on a Negro. Thirdly, if Negros invented it, then why did they abandon it?''
Those are questions I've wondered about, and posed to other people as well, so it's good to see that I am not the only one asking.
Some people have asked me why it even matters to me who 'invented' the banjo. It matters to me not only because I love the banjo, but because I think the truth matters. In recent years, as I've written so often about on this blog, we've been subjected to an all-out campaign to rewrite history and to take credit away from our people, assigning it, rightly or wrongly, to others. Why? To build others' fragile self-esteem? To diminish our own confidence and pride in our people? To make the gullible think that America was always a multicultural society and a melting pot in which we are only one minor ingredient? I think it's all of the above, and if there are any other possible reasons I am open to considering them.
This source is typical in crediting Africans with influencing Appalachian music and with introducing the banjo -- and the writers get extra PC points for tying the instrument to Islamic origins as well:
ONE of the greatest influences on Appalachian music, as well as many popular American music styles, was that of the African-American. The slaves brought a distinct tradition of group singing of community songs of work and worship, usually lined out by one person with a call and response action from a group. A joyous celebration of life and free sexuality was coupled with improvisation as lyrics were constantly updated and changed to keep up the groups' interest. The percussion of the African music began to change the rhythms of Appalachian singing and dancing. The introduction of the banjo to the Southern Mountains after the Civil War in the 1860s further hastened this process. Originally from Arabia, and brought to western Africa by the spread of Islam, the banjo then ended up in America. Mostly denigrated as a 'slave instrument' until the popularity of the Minstrel Show, starting in the 1840s, the banjo syncopation or 'bom-diddle-diddy' produced a different clog-dance and song rhythm by the turn of the century.
[...]
The instrumental tradition of the Appalachians started as anglo-celtic dance tunes and eventually was reshaped by local needs, African rhythms, and changes in instrumentation.''
Winston Smith mentions that the banjo is associated with the old minstrel show tradition, and yet blacks, since the 1960s era, have disclaimed this tradition as being an offensive racial stereotype. I've also heard that such entertainment was something that many blacks feel their ancestors were ''forced'' to do by Massa, and that it was demeaning to them. I have noticed that there are very, very few blacks who play the banjo today. If it was 'their' instrument originally, it seems they've abandoned it.
It does seem, too, that there are no home-grown analogues to the banjo in Africa, no apparent antecedent that I'm familiar with, and I do know a little about world music. There are, however, many related instruments in the Western tradition, making it much more plausible that the banjo was a European-derived instrument, probably being developed to its present form in our country, among our people.
I think it's important for us to take credit for our own traditions. The politically corrected cultural history has just about taken away every American folk tradition from us and credited it to blacks -- traditions such as buck-dancing, flatfoot dancing, and later traditions such as rock 'n roll music.
Anyone who is familiar with the dance traditions of the British Isles recognizes that buck dancing and flatfoot dancing, as well as clogging and 'square dancing' are derived from traditions that came with our early English and Scots settlers.
If we're to believe the popular historians of today, we have no culture of our own; blacks had to teach us everything when they came here from Africa. And this idea fits with the current demeaning stereotype of Whites as being mere blank slates with no innate character or culture to speak of. This is particularly said, maliciously, about White Americans. So it's important for us to confidently claim our own traditions back again, and to refuse to let ourselves be stripped of our traditions, however humble they may be. They are part of us.
Read the rest of Winston Smith's post at the link.
Labels: American Culture, American Heritage, Folk Arts, Folkways, Political Correctness, Traditional Music
0 comment Wednesday, November 26, 2014 | admin
''A multicultural society is one that is inherently prone to conflict, not harmony. This is why we see a huge growth in government bureaucracies dedicated to resolving disputes along racial and cultural lines. These disputes can never be resolved permanently because the bureaucrats deny one of the major causes: race. This is why there is so much talk of the "multicultural" rather than the more precise "multiracial." Ever more changes and legislation are introduced to make the host society ever more congenial to racial minorities. This only creates more demands, and encourages the non-shooting war against whites, their civilization, and even the idea of the West. '' - Frank Ellis, Multiculturalism and Marxism
But is it still a 'non-shooting war'?
The news story of the four police officers killed in Oakland has been much discussed in the right-blogosphere, though crimes like this are under-reported in the old media. The CofCC has a piece on the black radical group which organized what amounted to a celebratory march in honor of the killer, Lovelle Mixon.
Uhuru/APSP is one of several extremely militant anti-white groups thriving in black communities across the United States. Uhuru openly celebrates violence against white police and authority figures. They also denounce Obama as a tool of the "white power establishment."
The group is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and actively holds rallies and demonstrations in about a dozen cities. The leader goes by the name "Chairman Omali Yeshitela." The group claims a kinship with ZANU, the political party of violent Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe. It also claims to be allied with "revolutionary forces" in South Africa and other nations. Uhuru calls itself the "American front of the international African liberation movement."
It's an old story that the mainstream media treat groups like this as harmless and as 'civil rights' or 'activist' groups when they cover them at all, whereas we know that a White counterpart, if such existed, would be shrilly denounced as a 'hate group' or worse, and would probably by now have been raided and mass arrests carried out. But we all know that the double standards exist, and that nonwhite radical extremist groups will be handled with kid gloves and/or treated with exaggerated respect by the powers that be.
Another distressing aspect of the event and the old media coverage of it is the tendency to make the killer just one of the victims. This kind of thing is standard these days, especially when the perpetrator is of a 'victim group'. But this trend is an affront to the actual victims and to their families and friends. It is the ultimate in moral obtuseness.
I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly earlier this evening, and in his usual fashion he declared that the vast majority of 'African-Americans' deplore crimes like those committed by Mixon and that the majority do not support the march in support of the killer/rapist. Of course O'Reilly had nothing to back up that assertion, and I see no evidence of it in real life. I have to wonder if O'Reilly mixes and mingles with the ''African-American community'' enough to know what the majority there thinks or feels. I suspect his experience consists mostly of mingling with the blacks who work in the media or in other related positions, people like Juan Williams, who usually adopt a more moderate tone.
Surely, though, we can look back some years to the O.J. verdict and see how most blacks reacted to Simpson's acquittal (no doubt with the aid of sympathetic black jurors). Or we can go back a little further and remember the L.A. riots after the Rodney King incident. How many 'African-American leaders' expressed shock or dismay or chagrin over what they saw during those days? None, that I can recall.
Similarly, with Katrina, how many 'African-Americans' stood up to deplore what occurred there in the aftermath of that natural disaster? From what I recall there was much race-baiting, and accusations of purposely delayed evacuations, actual claims of conspiracies (levees being blown up, and so on) and charges of 'racism' in general from the national leaders.
Few or no blacks denounced the hysteria and the race-baiting, except for an occasional lone voice.
O'Reilly is like most media figures in that he leans over backwards to insist that it's only a 'tiny percentage' of blacks who commit heinous crimes and an only slightly less tiny percentage who excuses or even celebrates the criminals. However he is going to have to come up with something to back up these assertions if he insists on making them. But we know he will never do that; he will never have to. Most people are eager to simply let those statements pass or even to blindly assent, without any evidence of their accuracy. And we know why this is: political correctness.
Inevitably even those who recognize the dishonesty in statements like O'Reilly's will acknowledge that, and then proceed to justify the PC 'white lies' by saying ''oh, well, he has to say that, if he wants to keep his job. He can't tell the truth."
Yet O'Reilly is the guy who calls his TV program the 'No-Spin Zone', the man who claims to be so blunt and honest in contrast to the mealy-mouthed spinmeisters elsewhere in the media. He trades on his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is persona, and he is blunt enough when it comes to the safe topics, but when it comes to race, he is little better than any of the other PC-fied media minions.
So why does he make these silly PC statements about how 99 percent of blacks don't agree with the extremists, when the evidence to the contrary is everywhere? Why do many others do the same? We also see the same thing with those who insist that there are 'moderate Muslims' who are the peaceful majority, and only a minuscule number who actually support extremism and terrorism. Whenever the subject is the behavior of some minority group, there are the eager apologists who rush into the conversation to insist that ''but the majority are not like that! We can't blame all of them; it's just a few that cause problems. The majority are good people."
Perhaps it's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that makes people feel compelled to deny that there is a problem and that it does involve a great many people, not just a few troublemakers. Acknowledging that there is a problem and that it is more widespread than political correctness would admit would imply having to deal with the problem in some way, and many people prefer to avoid that.
And then there are those for whom PC is their quasi-religion; these people have to 'feel good about themselves' and these days, what better way to do that than to take a benevolent and all-tolerant attitude towards minorities who behave badly?
But these are people with their heads in the sand, believing that if they deny the problem, it will somehow evaporate on its own.
Maybe O'Reilly himself, who is so often accused of being 'racist' or 'fascist' is more sensitive to that criticism than he lets on. Despite his blustering tough-guy image, I think he cares very much about being seen as 'fair-minded' or unbigoted, even if it means denying obvious truths.
The media of late have gone all-out, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, to show us falsified images of blacks in positions of authority, wise, noble, kind, friendly, accomplished blacks, probably in an all-out effort to counter the crime stories or the evidence of our own senses from everyday life. The news channels and the media generally like to present us with blacks who belie the stereotypes and it has worked like a charm, apparently, for most people. However as I've always said, one exception, or the occasional aberration, does not disprove the rule.
Again, Frank Ellis said
A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bertoldt Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men.''
But we still, if we are honest and realistic, have to look at the overall statistics and the realities, without the rose-colored glasses provided by the media propaganda.
Political correctness kills; when I first said that on a forum some years ago, I was angrily challenged for it, but every day in the news we get more examples of how it can be fatal. I have to wonder to what extent PC affects law enforcement policies when 'interacting' with people in the ghetto or the barrio. I have to wonder how many people's lives are put at risk by this foolish insistence on believing in PC fairytales.
But is it still a 'non-shooting war'?
The news story of the four police officers killed in Oakland has been much discussed in the right-blogosphere, though crimes like this are under-reported in the old media. The CofCC has a piece on the black radical group which organized what amounted to a celebratory march in honor of the killer, Lovelle Mixon.
Uhuru/APSP is one of several extremely militant anti-white groups thriving in black communities across the United States. Uhuru openly celebrates violence against white police and authority figures. They also denounce Obama as a tool of the "white power establishment."
The group is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and actively holds rallies and demonstrations in about a dozen cities. The leader goes by the name "Chairman Omali Yeshitela." The group claims a kinship with ZANU, the political party of violent Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe. It also claims to be allied with "revolutionary forces" in South Africa and other nations. Uhuru calls itself the "American front of the international African liberation movement."
It's an old story that the mainstream media treat groups like this as harmless and as 'civil rights' or 'activist' groups when they cover them at all, whereas we know that a White counterpart, if such existed, would be shrilly denounced as a 'hate group' or worse, and would probably by now have been raided and mass arrests carried out. But we all know that the double standards exist, and that nonwhite radical extremist groups will be handled with kid gloves and/or treated with exaggerated respect by the powers that be.
Another distressing aspect of the event and the old media coverage of it is the tendency to make the killer just one of the victims. This kind of thing is standard these days, especially when the perpetrator is of a 'victim group'. But this trend is an affront to the actual victims and to their families and friends. It is the ultimate in moral obtuseness.
I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly earlier this evening, and in his usual fashion he declared that the vast majority of 'African-Americans' deplore crimes like those committed by Mixon and that the majority do not support the march in support of the killer/rapist. Of course O'Reilly had nothing to back up that assertion, and I see no evidence of it in real life. I have to wonder if O'Reilly mixes and mingles with the ''African-American community'' enough to know what the majority there thinks or feels. I suspect his experience consists mostly of mingling with the blacks who work in the media or in other related positions, people like Juan Williams, who usually adopt a more moderate tone.
Surely, though, we can look back some years to the O.J. verdict and see how most blacks reacted to Simpson's acquittal (no doubt with the aid of sympathetic black jurors). Or we can go back a little further and remember the L.A. riots after the Rodney King incident. How many 'African-American leaders' expressed shock or dismay or chagrin over what they saw during those days? None, that I can recall.
Similarly, with Katrina, how many 'African-Americans' stood up to deplore what occurred there in the aftermath of that natural disaster? From what I recall there was much race-baiting, and accusations of purposely delayed evacuations, actual claims of conspiracies (levees being blown up, and so on) and charges of 'racism' in general from the national leaders.
Few or no blacks denounced the hysteria and the race-baiting, except for an occasional lone voice.
O'Reilly is like most media figures in that he leans over backwards to insist that it's only a 'tiny percentage' of blacks who commit heinous crimes and an only slightly less tiny percentage who excuses or even celebrates the criminals. However he is going to have to come up with something to back up these assertions if he insists on making them. But we know he will never do that; he will never have to. Most people are eager to simply let those statements pass or even to blindly assent, without any evidence of their accuracy. And we know why this is: political correctness.
Inevitably even those who recognize the dishonesty in statements like O'Reilly's will acknowledge that, and then proceed to justify the PC 'white lies' by saying ''oh, well, he has to say that, if he wants to keep his job. He can't tell the truth."
Yet O'Reilly is the guy who calls his TV program the 'No-Spin Zone', the man who claims to be so blunt and honest in contrast to the mealy-mouthed spinmeisters elsewhere in the media. He trades on his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is persona, and he is blunt enough when it comes to the safe topics, but when it comes to race, he is little better than any of the other PC-fied media minions.
So why does he make these silly PC statements about how 99 percent of blacks don't agree with the extremists, when the evidence to the contrary is everywhere? Why do many others do the same? We also see the same thing with those who insist that there are 'moderate Muslims' who are the peaceful majority, and only a minuscule number who actually support extremism and terrorism. Whenever the subject is the behavior of some minority group, there are the eager apologists who rush into the conversation to insist that ''but the majority are not like that! We can't blame all of them; it's just a few that cause problems. The majority are good people."
Perhaps it's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that makes people feel compelled to deny that there is a problem and that it does involve a great many people, not just a few troublemakers. Acknowledging that there is a problem and that it is more widespread than political correctness would admit would imply having to deal with the problem in some way, and many people prefer to avoid that.
And then there are those for whom PC is their quasi-religion; these people have to 'feel good about themselves' and these days, what better way to do that than to take a benevolent and all-tolerant attitude towards minorities who behave badly?
But these are people with their heads in the sand, believing that if they deny the problem, it will somehow evaporate on its own.
Maybe O'Reilly himself, who is so often accused of being 'racist' or 'fascist' is more sensitive to that criticism than he lets on. Despite his blustering tough-guy image, I think he cares very much about being seen as 'fair-minded' or unbigoted, even if it means denying obvious truths.
The media of late have gone all-out, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, to show us falsified images of blacks in positions of authority, wise, noble, kind, friendly, accomplished blacks, probably in an all-out effort to counter the crime stories or the evidence of our own senses from everyday life. The news channels and the media generally like to present us with blacks who belie the stereotypes and it has worked like a charm, apparently, for most people. However as I've always said, one exception, or the occasional aberration, does not disprove the rule.
Again, Frank Ellis said
A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bertoldt Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men.''
But we still, if we are honest and realistic, have to look at the overall statistics and the realities, without the rose-colored glasses provided by the media propaganda.
Political correctness kills; when I first said that on a forum some years ago, I was angrily challenged for it, but every day in the news we get more examples of how it can be fatal. I have to wonder to what extent PC affects law enforcement policies when 'interacting' with people in the ghetto or the barrio. I have to wonder how many people's lives are put at risk by this foolish insistence on believing in PC fairytales.
Labels: Anti White Racism, Crime, Cultural Marxism, Hate Crime, Media Bias, Old Media, Political Correctness
0 comment | admin
Travelers going ahead with plans despite vice president's gaffe, swine flu concerns
Pigs can�t fly yet, but the swine flu is still a reason to stay out of the sky.
At least, that is, if you ask Vice President Joe Biden. And most Southwest Floridians aren�t. Nor are their travel agents. Or their airlines. Or the rest of the federal government.
"I would tell members of my family � and I have � that I wouldn�t go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC�s "Today" show Thursday morning.
Only problem is, Biden�s advice is not in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official message, which is for citizens to only avoid non-essential travel to Mexico. Pundits quickly tacked the comment up as another off-the-cuff remark, which Biden has a reputation for, but travel industry officials were decidedly more upset, with one saying the comment bordered on "fear mongering."
"To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke," said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines.''
I suppose a spokesman for American Airlines just couldn't have a bias, could he? Or a conflict of interest?
Either way, though, a possible Biden gaffe wasn�t going to keep Shari Munger of Sarasota from visiting Chicago on Thursday out of Southwest Florida International Airport. Munger, who said she was in her early 40s, said she felt the whole swine flu thing was being blown out of proportion.
"Not at all worried," Munger said. "I think the media has a tendency to exaggerate things."
But there are people taking precautions, feeling, like Biden, that confined spaces result in pandemics.
"It�s not just going to Mexico, if you�re in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said, adding that other transportation options may be worth a look.''
Just for perspective, let's see what information is out there on air travel and contagious illness. There's this:
Airborne illness and air travel simply go hand in hand, and anyone that travels often will tell you so. The problem with air travel is that you are talking about thousands and over the course of a year, millions of people who travel in the same aircrafts. Simply put, there are germs everywhere in an aircraft and it doesn�t matter how well the crews clean them, these germs cannot be removed because they are not just on things, they are in the air.
Every year millions of people come down with the flu or common colds after traveling on an aircraft. Though a good number of these people may not correlate the two, the likelihood that they picked up their cold or flu bug on the aircraft is very high. The problem with airplanes is that many people get on and off them all the time. Some of these people may be sick, some may just be recovering, and some may be sick and not even realize it.
[...] Obviously, when you are talking about an aircraft you are talking about a small place where the air is just recycled over and over again, allowing the germs the perfect environment to meet up with bodies that are just waiting to get sick! Air travel is one of the easiest ways to get sick, and for many, there is no way around it!
An obvious way to avoid the airborne illnesses on board an aircraft is just to stay away from them! Though, for many this isn�t really an option, as they have to travel for business or personal reasons. So, the best thing you can do is avoid air travel when you are recovering from an illness or any time you feel as though your immune system may not be at its best. Any time your immune system has already been compromised, you are even more likely to contract an airborne illness.
[...]
In addition to fighting off the airborne illnesses, you might want to think about everything you touch on board the aircraft. If there are germs and bacteria in the air, you can bet all the surfaces are contaminated as well.
And this:
Airplane Air makes People Sick
Former flight attendant now health activist, Diana Fairechild, has formed a nonprofit foundation to educate people about airplane air. She mentions a number of added hazards that may be present, resulting from things like hydraulic fluid gases.
Here�s what she says:
"The problem is apparently complex. A number of environmental factors in the aircraft cabin are being blamed, including low oxygen in recycled air, low humidity that puts a strain on the respiratory tract, and pesticide residues from systematic sprayings. Now a new problem is at the forefront of potential causes. Toxic chemical vapors originate from hydraulic spills�and the resulting cabin fumes are now being directly linked to incidents of flight attendant illnesses."
And further:
Could a pleasant and enjoyable flight be the cause of a serious infection? Can airplanes be transporters of diseases? As you settle down in your seat, is a deadly infection already lurking amidst the carpeted and cushioned interior of the plane? Airplanes �Ticket to Infection?
[...]
Little did such thoughts enter our mind until the bird flu, SARS, hit our planet this millennium. In fact, air travel and communicable diseases have a hand in glove association; especially air borne infections.
A major cause attributed to the spread of infections within flights is the recycled cabin air. Till the 70�s, 100% fresh air was pumped into the cabin of airplanes every 3 minutes. But, anticipated increase in fuel costs during the late 70�s prompted research into methods of cutting down on fuel consumption and thereby, the cost. It was found that circulating fresh air within the cabin of an aircraft used up more fuel; so, since the 80�s, its percentage was cut in half. The reduced fresh air coupled with re-circulated stale air creates an environment conducive for many a health problem ranging from headaches, dizziness and nausea to various infections.
A study by Boeing and Pall Cabin Filters Brochure in 1999 showed that a cough produces 100,000 particles that can be dispersed over 20 rows in the cabin!
When infected passengers cough, sneeze or talk, droplets are released. It is in these droplets that the bacteria or viruses nestle until they gain entry into another victim. The unsuspecting, otherwise healthy passenger inhales the circulating recycled air that contains some of these droplets. Thus, the infection spreads among vulnerable passengers.
According to the Boeing Flight Manual, recycled air within an aircraft usually consists of 50% fresh and 50% stale air. Under such conditions, airborne germs are free to float around and the notorious ones include-
Common Cold Tuberculosis Influenza (flu) Measles Mumps Chicken pox
Risk of tuberculosis - Kenyon T.A. et al (1996) proved that tuberculosis could be transmitted to passengers through the air conditioning. A study on 'the transmission of infections diseases during commercial air travel� reported in March 2005 in 'The Lancet�, adds further proof to this finding. Researchers found that healthy passengers sitting within two rows of a contagious passenger for a flight, longer than eight hours, were at risk of contacting the disease.
SARS Infection - An outbreak of SARS on board a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing showed that passengers seated as far back as seven rows from the infected individual were affected.''
The article also mentions other conditions like skin infections, malaria, and even gastrointestinal illnesses being spread via air travel.
Interestingly, here is what the CDC has to say on air travel health hazards, from its own website:
In-Flight Transmission of Communicable Diseases
Concern has been increasing about the possible spread of communicable diseases during air travel. In certain circumstances when an infectious person or someone who is suspected of being infectious has traveled by air, public health authorities require passenger information for contact tracing and follow up. This information is collected from the passengers or the airlines and handled in a confidential manner. Information is available regarding in-flight transmission of a few diseases, including tuberculosis, Neisseria meningitidis, measles, influenza, SARS, and the common cold.
Tuberculosis
Only one investigation has documented transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) from a symptomatic passenger to six other passengers who were seated in the same section of a commercial aircraft during a long flight (>8 hours) (4). These six passengers were identified by conversion to a positive tuberculin skin test (TST); none had evidence of active tuberculosis. Driver et al. (5) investigated the potential for TB transmission by a symptomatic airline crew member over a 6-month period (5). They found that evidence of infection (i.e., TST positivity) among other crew members increased markedly during the period when the index case was most infectious and was associated with having worked >12 hours with the index case. Evidence suggested the potential that TB had been transmitted to passengers who had flown when the index case was most infectious.
[...]
People known to have infectious TB should travel by private transportation, rather than a commercial carrier, if travel is required.
[...]
Influenza
Influenza is highly contagious, particularly among people in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces. Transmission of influenza is thought to be primarily due to large droplets and has been documented aboard an aircraft, with most risk being associated with proximity to the source. (See Chapter 4 and http://www.cdc.gov/flu for more information.) The 1979 airplane-associated outbreak of influenza in Alaska, during which 72% of passengers became ill with influenza-like illness, does not reflect what generally happens on commercial flights. In this situation, the airplane experienced engine failure prior to takeoff and remained on the ground with the ventilation system turned off. The cabin doors remained closed, and many passengers remained on board for hours (10). In terms of understanding seasonal influenza transmission dynamics on a commercial airline, a potentially more useful influenza outbreak investigation associated with an aircraft is the 1999 outbreak reported in Australia, during which most of the infected passengers were seated within three rows of the index case, and all the people seated in the same row were infected (11).
Since 1997, a new strain of avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been shown to cause infection in humans, primarily associated with direct contact with birds and with no sustained human-to-human spread to date. Because influenza viruses are very adept at changing, there is concern that this strain could eventually to spread among humans and thus would impact air travel. See http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel for more general information and up-to-date, specific guidelines for travelers and the airline industry.''
There is more at the website. Please note that the article I excerpted above was posted in June 2007, and not updated since then. Care to bet whether the CDC will have to update this page to make it conform to the current 'nothing to worry about' blather from the administration?
This travel forum contains some posts going back to April 22, warning of respiratory illness in South and Central Mexico.
I notice a number of posts appear to have been deleted since then. Why? For fear of hurting the travel industry? If the posts I linked to about the illness are no longer there when you click the link, they will have been removed by the website.
Has everybody forgotten this story from 2007 in which an American lawyer who had drug-resistant TB was quarantined after he defied doctor's orders and took a plane flight?
It is the first time since 1963, that the CDC has issued an order for a patient to be quarantined. Usually, such decisions are left to the states, but this case involved international and interstate travel, so the federal government stepped in.
The CDC is concerned about passengers seated in rows near the infected man on a May 13, Atlanta to Paris, Air France 385 flight and another Czech Air 0104 from Prague to Canada on May 23.
[...]
There have only been a few cases of people acquiring highly infectious diseases on long flights. Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society says exposure � even at close proximity � doesn't usually result in infection.
[...]
This man was advised not to travel and did. Why?
You're dealing with human behavior. We know that, dating back to the earliest of times, there are people who, for selfish reasons, for unclear purposes, will in fact do whatever they please. In this case, this is where public health has to battle the issue of individual rights and privacy with that of the greater health good. This was a collision that was bound to happen sometime and will happen more often in the future.
Shouldn't there be more stringent rules preventing them from doing whatever they please?
This individual had been compliant with public health action. It was only with the advent of his wedding in Europe that he decided that he wasn't going to be. There was actually an order issued before he left the United States, but [public health officials] were unable to serve it on him. This just points out that you have to have extreme measures for the very, very small number of people who just won't be compliant.''
Which brings me to another point: our derelict and irresponsible officials, so worried about the political and economic consequences of this flu outbreak, have repeated, despite what Biden said, they do not advise anyone to avoid air travel or public places --- except "those who are sick.''
But as the last paragraph in the quote above tells us, human behavior can be perverse; people can and do defy common sense and common courtesy and will go out in public, callously exposing others to whatever illness they have. The idea that all people who are infected, or who might be infected, will segregate themselves out of concern for the rest of us is foolish. The case of the TB-infected lawyer willfully exposing others to his drug-resistant malady on two long flights illustrate that fact. If we cannot trust a highly-educated and supposedly conscientious professional man to obey the rules and avoid exposing others, how can we expect that of people at large, perhaps people who are not capable of understanding the seriousness of the disease or the means of contagion?
And here's another story from a year ago, of a woman who caught TB from a fellow passenger on a New Delhi-Chicago flight.
So for anyone to chastise Biden, of whom I am no admirer, by the way, for a 'gaffe' about the risks of air travel or mass transit, is absurd, and it shows how people are so easily dissuaded from common-sense knowledge that was taken for granted not long ago.
Biden's statement, far from being a 'gaffe', was just politically incorrect, and now, in the effort to defend the administration's official story, officials are making him out to be a fool, and the FReepers are ridiculing Biden. But nevertheless, there are risks involved in taking mass transit, especially airplane flights, even though those in the travel industry or anyone with vested interests are now trying to downplay or deny that.
I find it creepy how easily people can be persuaded one way or the other, based on what their political authorities are saying.
And I find it sinister how people in high positions apparently have wanton disregard for the safety of the citizens of this country, choosing politics and economic interests above the life and well-being of their own countrymen.
I realize that some of the perpetual cynics on the right have an interest in denying that there is anything to this flu outbreak, but surely it's better to be safe than sorry. It is not a choice between denying that there is any danger at all and panicking. There is a sensible middle ground here; being vigilant and prepared is better than a knee-jerk denial of whatever the other side is saying.
Even if this outbreak proves to be nothing serious, and just another type of flu, the flu is no joke. I've been noticing for at least the last decade or so that there are much nastier and harder-to-shake kinds of respiratory viruses going around every year. To me, even if this thing is just 'ordinary' flu, it's well worth it to avoid it if at all possible, and it's irresponsible to laugh this thing off, especially this early in the game.
That being said, those in positions of authority seem to be contradicting themselves; I hear some people saying that the authorities are trying to cause panic, such as by raising the outbreak to pandemic level, while at the same time, these pathetic officials are telling us there is no need to close any borders or to quarantine anyone or even to avoid public gatherings and mass transit. The fact that they are now contradicting themselves, as the CDC is doing, based on their information from 2007, makes little sense. I don't see them creating panic; they seem just as equally committed to fostering a cavalier or passive attitude about this. What is going on? Are they trying to merely confuse people by repeating contradictory and conflicting messages?
All they are doing, as far as I am concerned, is discrediting themselves and showing themselves to have no real concern for us, the people they are supposedly sworn to serve.
By the way, see Tanstaafl's take on this here.
Pigs can�t fly yet, but the swine flu is still a reason to stay out of the sky.
At least, that is, if you ask Vice President Joe Biden. And most Southwest Floridians aren�t. Nor are their travel agents. Or their airlines. Or the rest of the federal government.
"I would tell members of my family � and I have � that I wouldn�t go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC�s "Today" show Thursday morning.
Only problem is, Biden�s advice is not in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official message, which is for citizens to only avoid non-essential travel to Mexico. Pundits quickly tacked the comment up as another off-the-cuff remark, which Biden has a reputation for, but travel industry officials were decidedly more upset, with one saying the comment bordered on "fear mongering."
"To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke," said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines.''
I suppose a spokesman for American Airlines just couldn't have a bias, could he? Or a conflict of interest?
Either way, though, a possible Biden gaffe wasn�t going to keep Shari Munger of Sarasota from visiting Chicago on Thursday out of Southwest Florida International Airport. Munger, who said she was in her early 40s, said she felt the whole swine flu thing was being blown out of proportion.
"Not at all worried," Munger said. "I think the media has a tendency to exaggerate things."
But there are people taking precautions, feeling, like Biden, that confined spaces result in pandemics.
"It�s not just going to Mexico, if you�re in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said, adding that other transportation options may be worth a look.''
Just for perspective, let's see what information is out there on air travel and contagious illness. There's this:
Airborne illness and air travel simply go hand in hand, and anyone that travels often will tell you so. The problem with air travel is that you are talking about thousands and over the course of a year, millions of people who travel in the same aircrafts. Simply put, there are germs everywhere in an aircraft and it doesn�t matter how well the crews clean them, these germs cannot be removed because they are not just on things, they are in the air.
Every year millions of people come down with the flu or common colds after traveling on an aircraft. Though a good number of these people may not correlate the two, the likelihood that they picked up their cold or flu bug on the aircraft is very high. The problem with airplanes is that many people get on and off them all the time. Some of these people may be sick, some may just be recovering, and some may be sick and not even realize it.
[...] Obviously, when you are talking about an aircraft you are talking about a small place where the air is just recycled over and over again, allowing the germs the perfect environment to meet up with bodies that are just waiting to get sick! Air travel is one of the easiest ways to get sick, and for many, there is no way around it!
An obvious way to avoid the airborne illnesses on board an aircraft is just to stay away from them! Though, for many this isn�t really an option, as they have to travel for business or personal reasons. So, the best thing you can do is avoid air travel when you are recovering from an illness or any time you feel as though your immune system may not be at its best. Any time your immune system has already been compromised, you are even more likely to contract an airborne illness.
[...]
In addition to fighting off the airborne illnesses, you might want to think about everything you touch on board the aircraft. If there are germs and bacteria in the air, you can bet all the surfaces are contaminated as well.
And this:
Airplane Air makes People Sick
Former flight attendant now health activist, Diana Fairechild, has formed a nonprofit foundation to educate people about airplane air. She mentions a number of added hazards that may be present, resulting from things like hydraulic fluid gases.
Here�s what she says:
"The problem is apparently complex. A number of environmental factors in the aircraft cabin are being blamed, including low oxygen in recycled air, low humidity that puts a strain on the respiratory tract, and pesticide residues from systematic sprayings. Now a new problem is at the forefront of potential causes. Toxic chemical vapors originate from hydraulic spills�and the resulting cabin fumes are now being directly linked to incidents of flight attendant illnesses."
And further:
Could a pleasant and enjoyable flight be the cause of a serious infection? Can airplanes be transporters of diseases? As you settle down in your seat, is a deadly infection already lurking amidst the carpeted and cushioned interior of the plane? Airplanes �Ticket to Infection?
[...]
Little did such thoughts enter our mind until the bird flu, SARS, hit our planet this millennium. In fact, air travel and communicable diseases have a hand in glove association; especially air borne infections.
A major cause attributed to the spread of infections within flights is the recycled cabin air. Till the 70�s, 100% fresh air was pumped into the cabin of airplanes every 3 minutes. But, anticipated increase in fuel costs during the late 70�s prompted research into methods of cutting down on fuel consumption and thereby, the cost. It was found that circulating fresh air within the cabin of an aircraft used up more fuel; so, since the 80�s, its percentage was cut in half. The reduced fresh air coupled with re-circulated stale air creates an environment conducive for many a health problem ranging from headaches, dizziness and nausea to various infections.
A study by Boeing and Pall Cabin Filters Brochure in 1999 showed that a cough produces 100,000 particles that can be dispersed over 20 rows in the cabin!
When infected passengers cough, sneeze or talk, droplets are released. It is in these droplets that the bacteria or viruses nestle until they gain entry into another victim. The unsuspecting, otherwise healthy passenger inhales the circulating recycled air that contains some of these droplets. Thus, the infection spreads among vulnerable passengers.
According to the Boeing Flight Manual, recycled air within an aircraft usually consists of 50% fresh and 50% stale air. Under such conditions, airborne germs are free to float around and the notorious ones include-
Risk of tuberculosis - Kenyon T.A. et al (1996) proved that tuberculosis could be transmitted to passengers through the air conditioning. A study on 'the transmission of infections diseases during commercial air travel� reported in March 2005 in 'The Lancet�, adds further proof to this finding. Researchers found that healthy passengers sitting within two rows of a contagious passenger for a flight, longer than eight hours, were at risk of contacting the disease.
SARS Infection - An outbreak of SARS on board a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing showed that passengers seated as far back as seven rows from the infected individual were affected.''
The article also mentions other conditions like skin infections, malaria, and even gastrointestinal illnesses being spread via air travel.
Interestingly, here is what the CDC has to say on air travel health hazards, from its own website:
In-Flight Transmission of Communicable Diseases
Concern has been increasing about the possible spread of communicable diseases during air travel. In certain circumstances when an infectious person or someone who is suspected of being infectious has traveled by air, public health authorities require passenger information for contact tracing and follow up. This information is collected from the passengers or the airlines and handled in a confidential manner. Information is available regarding in-flight transmission of a few diseases, including tuberculosis, Neisseria meningitidis, measles, influenza, SARS, and the common cold.
Tuberculosis
Only one investigation has documented transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) from a symptomatic passenger to six other passengers who were seated in the same section of a commercial aircraft during a long flight (>8 hours) (4). These six passengers were identified by conversion to a positive tuberculin skin test (TST); none had evidence of active tuberculosis. Driver et al. (5) investigated the potential for TB transmission by a symptomatic airline crew member over a 6-month period (5). They found that evidence of infection (i.e., TST positivity) among other crew members increased markedly during the period when the index case was most infectious and was associated with having worked >12 hours with the index case. Evidence suggested the potential that TB had been transmitted to passengers who had flown when the index case was most infectious.
[...]
People known to have infectious TB should travel by private transportation, rather than a commercial carrier, if travel is required.
[...]
Influenza
Influenza is highly contagious, particularly among people in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces. Transmission of influenza is thought to be primarily due to large droplets and has been documented aboard an aircraft, with most risk being associated with proximity to the source. (See Chapter 4 and http://www.cdc.gov/flu for more information.) The 1979 airplane-associated outbreak of influenza in Alaska, during which 72% of passengers became ill with influenza-like illness, does not reflect what generally happens on commercial flights. In this situation, the airplane experienced engine failure prior to takeoff and remained on the ground with the ventilation system turned off. The cabin doors remained closed, and many passengers remained on board for hours (10). In terms of understanding seasonal influenza transmission dynamics on a commercial airline, a potentially more useful influenza outbreak investigation associated with an aircraft is the 1999 outbreak reported in Australia, during which most of the infected passengers were seated within three rows of the index case, and all the people seated in the same row were infected (11).
Since 1997, a new strain of avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been shown to cause infection in humans, primarily associated with direct contact with birds and with no sustained human-to-human spread to date. Because influenza viruses are very adept at changing, there is concern that this strain could eventually to spread among humans and thus would impact air travel. See http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel for more general information and up-to-date, specific guidelines for travelers and the airline industry.''
There is more at the website. Please note that the article I excerpted above was posted in June 2007, and not updated since then. Care to bet whether the CDC will have to update this page to make it conform to the current 'nothing to worry about' blather from the administration?
This travel forum contains some posts going back to April 22, warning of respiratory illness in South and Central Mexico.
I notice a number of posts appear to have been deleted since then. Why? For fear of hurting the travel industry? If the posts I linked to about the illness are no longer there when you click the link, they will have been removed by the website.
Has everybody forgotten this story from 2007 in which an American lawyer who had drug-resistant TB was quarantined after he defied doctor's orders and took a plane flight?
It is the first time since 1963, that the CDC has issued an order for a patient to be quarantined. Usually, such decisions are left to the states, but this case involved international and interstate travel, so the federal government stepped in.
The CDC is concerned about passengers seated in rows near the infected man on a May 13, Atlanta to Paris, Air France 385 flight and another Czech Air 0104 from Prague to Canada on May 23.
[...]
There have only been a few cases of people acquiring highly infectious diseases on long flights. Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society says exposure � even at close proximity � doesn't usually result in infection.
[...]
This man was advised not to travel and did. Why?
You're dealing with human behavior. We know that, dating back to the earliest of times, there are people who, for selfish reasons, for unclear purposes, will in fact do whatever they please. In this case, this is where public health has to battle the issue of individual rights and privacy with that of the greater health good. This was a collision that was bound to happen sometime and will happen more often in the future.
Shouldn't there be more stringent rules preventing them from doing whatever they please?
This individual had been compliant with public health action. It was only with the advent of his wedding in Europe that he decided that he wasn't going to be. There was actually an order issued before he left the United States, but [public health officials] were unable to serve it on him. This just points out that you have to have extreme measures for the very, very small number of people who just won't be compliant.''
Which brings me to another point: our derelict and irresponsible officials, so worried about the political and economic consequences of this flu outbreak, have repeated, despite what Biden said, they do not advise anyone to avoid air travel or public places --- except "those who are sick.''
But as the last paragraph in the quote above tells us, human behavior can be perverse; people can and do defy common sense and common courtesy and will go out in public, callously exposing others to whatever illness they have. The idea that all people who are infected, or who might be infected, will segregate themselves out of concern for the rest of us is foolish. The case of the TB-infected lawyer willfully exposing others to his drug-resistant malady on two long flights illustrate that fact. If we cannot trust a highly-educated and supposedly conscientious professional man to obey the rules and avoid exposing others, how can we expect that of people at large, perhaps people who are not capable of understanding the seriousness of the disease or the means of contagion?
And here's another story from a year ago, of a woman who caught TB from a fellow passenger on a New Delhi-Chicago flight.
So for anyone to chastise Biden, of whom I am no admirer, by the way, for a 'gaffe' about the risks of air travel or mass transit, is absurd, and it shows how people are so easily dissuaded from common-sense knowledge that was taken for granted not long ago.
Biden's statement, far from being a 'gaffe', was just politically incorrect, and now, in the effort to defend the administration's official story, officials are making him out to be a fool, and the FReepers are ridiculing Biden. But nevertheless, there are risks involved in taking mass transit, especially airplane flights, even though those in the travel industry or anyone with vested interests are now trying to downplay or deny that.
I find it creepy how easily people can be persuaded one way or the other, based on what their political authorities are saying.
And I find it sinister how people in high positions apparently have wanton disregard for the safety of the citizens of this country, choosing politics and economic interests above the life and well-being of their own countrymen.
I realize that some of the perpetual cynics on the right have an interest in denying that there is anything to this flu outbreak, but surely it's better to be safe than sorry. It is not a choice between denying that there is any danger at all and panicking. There is a sensible middle ground here; being vigilant and prepared is better than a knee-jerk denial of whatever the other side is saying.
Even if this outbreak proves to be nothing serious, and just another type of flu, the flu is no joke. I've been noticing for at least the last decade or so that there are much nastier and harder-to-shake kinds of respiratory viruses going around every year. To me, even if this thing is just 'ordinary' flu, it's well worth it to avoid it if at all possible, and it's irresponsible to laugh this thing off, especially this early in the game.
That being said, those in positions of authority seem to be contradicting themselves; I hear some people saying that the authorities are trying to cause panic, such as by raising the outbreak to pandemic level, while at the same time, these pathetic officials are telling us there is no need to close any borders or to quarantine anyone or even to avoid public gatherings and mass transit. The fact that they are now contradicting themselves, as the CDC is doing, based on their information from 2007, makes little sense. I don't see them creating panic; they seem just as equally committed to fostering a cavalier or passive attitude about this. What is going on? Are they trying to merely confuse people by repeating contradictory and conflicting messages?
All they are doing, as far as I am concerned, is discrediting themselves and showing themselves to have no real concern for us, the people they are supposedly sworn to serve.
By the way, see Tanstaafl's take on this here.
Labels: Corporate Media, Government, Health Care, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Public Health
0 comment Monday, November 24, 2014 | admin
It appears that the story that was going around, regarding Jamie Foxx playing Frank Sinatra in an upcoming movie, was just a joke which the media ran with.
Was this really a joke, or was it a set-up? In today's insane media universe, almost anything is possible, especially where far-fetched racial ''statements'' are contained in much of our purported entertainment.
The rumor was not all that hard to believe, considering that modern treatments of the Robin Hood story place blacks in Sherwood Forest, not to mention Moslems, and a recent Oliver Twist production was to have a black ''Nancy''. What next?
Is this just another example of lefty multicultists trying to 'push the envelope' with the racial agenda? It seems as if nothing is to be left untouched by the politically correct meddlers, who feel the need to administer the diversity makeover to any and every part of our culture.
The recent Star Trek movie seems, from what I have read and heard, to be pushing the racial envelope too, but then the series always did that, even way back in 1966 when it first began. Of course then it was a little more low-key, with the underlying message being 'isn't it wonderful that in the future, we will all get along and work together as one united people under a unified global government.' Of course now we have had a glimpse of that possible future, and it is not the utopia some of us wanted to believe it would be.
The one ironic twist to the cozy little Star Trek multicult universe is this: if the idea is that the future will be egalitarian and colorblind, with racial harmony prevailing, why then are there still identifiable races and nationalities? Why aren't the people in Starfleet all of the same color and of similar features and hair texture? Why are there still hideously White people like Kyle or Janice Rand or Nurse Chapel or McCoy? Obviously the racial blender broke down, or something, between our age and the enlightened future.
The idea, though, that so many people were willing and able to believe that Jamie Foxx would play Frank Sinatra shows just how bizarre our racial politics have become. It appears that many people have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that ''race is just a social construct'', or that it's in the (racist) eye of the beholder only.
So maybe it is not so far-fetched that a White icon might be played by a black actor in a movie. If it is not real today, it probably will be at some point, tomorrow or next month or next year. That's the direction in which we are going.
The whole surreal situation reminded me of a movie I saw some years ago. It was a 1993 movie called 'Suture.'
I've mentioned it and I've never encountered anybody who actually saw it, so I might be tempted to think it was all just a strange dream, but no, here it is at IMDB.com, being discussed by the liberal-leaning commenters there.
The plot of the movie, as best I can describe it, is that two brothers or half-brothers meet, after which one is killed, and his identity stolen by the second brother. The twist is that one brother is black, the other is White. Yet in the movie everybody believes the identity switch. The fact that the brothers were of two different races and resembled each other not at all is not noticed by anybody.
What could the point be? That race is not important? That if we, the audience, noticed the racial difference, we are racist? Who knows? The commenters don't even know, and the tone of their comments amuses me:
The concept of all reality being a facade and prey to the unexpected warpings of fate, accident and whimsical doom-laden coincidence is a fundamental aspect of noir. With the twist of no one actually making the obvious connection between the brother's difference and Dennis Haysbert's character Clay gradually absorbing the life of his (not) dead brother without incident, the surreality of the film is magnetically compulsive and as noirish as some of the best films of the 1940s and 50s in dreamy, menacing atmosphere. I found myself deeply caring what happened to Clay on his odyssey towards a (false) identity and finally claiming it.
The whole cast is good, but in this film Dennis Haysbert shows the gravita s and dignity and vulnerability that makes him the real star of the excellent TV thriller '24'. A landmark film of the '90s gone unnoticed!
[...]
The first time I watched "Suture", in 1994, it ripped through me like some kind of high speed extra-terrestrial spacecraft, and I found myself asking, "What was that?" A year later I watched it again and the whole thing began to make sense. This film is unapologetically bizarre, mysterious, and aesthetically engaging -- almost everything I desire in a film. It is more like a piece of music, becoming more enjoyable with each viewing. One reason for the films superb milage is that it can be enjoyed on so many different levels. It is both a mirror image of contemporary society and a message from some alternative universe. The Surrealists made the point that the transcendent is found in the mundane, and "Suture" wallows in the mundane.
[...]
Viewers will not find themselves concerned with such trivia as performances, costumes, cinematography or sets, but rather issues, questions and statements. Issues such as self-awareness, questions such as: "Can we become someone else?", and statements such as: "Skin colour has no relevance to the identification of self". In their black and white feature, McGehee and Siegel fail to differentiate between and African/American man and a man of European descent. We're concerned not with the physical here, but the meta-physical.
As for the answers to these conundrums, one can only reach one's own conclusions. For me though, the personal soul is unchangeable and cannot be interchanged for another's. We may take someone's place, but we cannot become who they are.''
It's strange to see these people dancing around the issue of race while not really touching it. It's as if they have an unspoken agreement not to notice the racial issue.
Only one comment on that page raised the obvious question:
So, some scrawny old balding guy decides to kill his brother who is this big black guy. He slips his magical, indestructible drivers license into the black guy's wallet, and proceeds to blow him up. The dental records won't survive, but the ID card certainly will!
The black guy survives, but has amnesia. But somehow everyone mistakes the black guy for the white guy... Apparently, being in an explosion gives you black skin, African facial features, a full head of hair, and a different voice and personality.
Despite how insanely ridiculous this movie idea is, somehow the film continues to be completely predictable throughout. It's boring to boot.
If anyone can give me one good reason this film exists, please do.''
That last comment is very like the little boy in the Andersen fairy tale ''The Emperor's New Clothes.'' He is the only one who breaks the taboo and points to the obvious, while the others are blinding themselves. This is very much the state of our society, with a large segment of our White population agreeing to ignore the obvious, and to admire something which is not there, something which is only a construct of their minds.
Race-blindness is a social construct.
When I saw ''Suture'' back in 1995 or so, I found it absurd, but now it is becoming more and more plausible. In the context of today's willful race-blindness, in a world in which Ralph Kramden has become black and Morgan Freeman fits into medieval England, anything is possible, including a black Frank Sinatra.
Was this really a joke, or was it a set-up? In today's insane media universe, almost anything is possible, especially where far-fetched racial ''statements'' are contained in much of our purported entertainment.
The rumor was not all that hard to believe, considering that modern treatments of the Robin Hood story place blacks in Sherwood Forest, not to mention Moslems, and a recent Oliver Twist production was to have a black ''Nancy''. What next?
Is this just another example of lefty multicultists trying to 'push the envelope' with the racial agenda? It seems as if nothing is to be left untouched by the politically correct meddlers, who feel the need to administer the diversity makeover to any and every part of our culture.
The recent Star Trek movie seems, from what I have read and heard, to be pushing the racial envelope too, but then the series always did that, even way back in 1966 when it first began. Of course then it was a little more low-key, with the underlying message being 'isn't it wonderful that in the future, we will all get along and work together as one united people under a unified global government.' Of course now we have had a glimpse of that possible future, and it is not the utopia some of us wanted to believe it would be.
The one ironic twist to the cozy little Star Trek multicult universe is this: if the idea is that the future will be egalitarian and colorblind, with racial harmony prevailing, why then are there still identifiable races and nationalities? Why aren't the people in Starfleet all of the same color and of similar features and hair texture? Why are there still hideously White people like Kyle or Janice Rand or Nurse Chapel or McCoy? Obviously the racial blender broke down, or something, between our age and the enlightened future.
The idea, though, that so many people were willing and able to believe that Jamie Foxx would play Frank Sinatra shows just how bizarre our racial politics have become. It appears that many people have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that ''race is just a social construct'', or that it's in the (racist) eye of the beholder only.
So maybe it is not so far-fetched that a White icon might be played by a black actor in a movie. If it is not real today, it probably will be at some point, tomorrow or next month or next year. That's the direction in which we are going.
The whole surreal situation reminded me of a movie I saw some years ago. It was a 1993 movie called 'Suture.'
I've mentioned it and I've never encountered anybody who actually saw it, so I might be tempted to think it was all just a strange dream, but no, here it is at IMDB.com, being discussed by the liberal-leaning commenters there.
The plot of the movie, as best I can describe it, is that two brothers or half-brothers meet, after which one is killed, and his identity stolen by the second brother. The twist is that one brother is black, the other is White. Yet in the movie everybody believes the identity switch. The fact that the brothers were of two different races and resembled each other not at all is not noticed by anybody.
What could the point be? That race is not important? That if we, the audience, noticed the racial difference, we are racist? Who knows? The commenters don't even know, and the tone of their comments amuses me:
The concept of all reality being a facade and prey to the unexpected warpings of fate, accident and whimsical doom-laden coincidence is a fundamental aspect of noir. With the twist of no one actually making the obvious connection between the brother's difference and Dennis Haysbert's character Clay gradually absorbing the life of his (not) dead brother without incident, the surreality of the film is magnetically compulsive and as noirish as some of the best films of the 1940s and 50s in dreamy, menacing atmosphere. I found myself deeply caring what happened to Clay on his odyssey towards a (false) identity and finally claiming it.
The whole cast is good, but in this film Dennis Haysbert shows the gravita s and dignity and vulnerability that makes him the real star of the excellent TV thriller '24'. A landmark film of the '90s gone unnoticed!
[...]
The first time I watched "Suture", in 1994, it ripped through me like some kind of high speed extra-terrestrial spacecraft, and I found myself asking, "What was that?" A year later I watched it again and the whole thing began to make sense. This film is unapologetically bizarre, mysterious, and aesthetically engaging -- almost everything I desire in a film. It is more like a piece of music, becoming more enjoyable with each viewing. One reason for the films superb milage is that it can be enjoyed on so many different levels. It is both a mirror image of contemporary society and a message from some alternative universe. The Surrealists made the point that the transcendent is found in the mundane, and "Suture" wallows in the mundane.
[...]
Viewers will not find themselves concerned with such trivia as performances, costumes, cinematography or sets, but rather issues, questions and statements. Issues such as self-awareness, questions such as: "Can we become someone else?", and statements such as: "Skin colour has no relevance to the identification of self". In their black and white feature, McGehee and Siegel fail to differentiate between and African/American man and a man of European descent. We're concerned not with the physical here, but the meta-physical.
As for the answers to these conundrums, one can only reach one's own conclusions. For me though, the personal soul is unchangeable and cannot be interchanged for another's. We may take someone's place, but we cannot become who they are.''
It's strange to see these people dancing around the issue of race while not really touching it. It's as if they have an unspoken agreement not to notice the racial issue.
Only one comment on that page raised the obvious question:
So, some scrawny old balding guy decides to kill his brother who is this big black guy. He slips his magical, indestructible drivers license into the black guy's wallet, and proceeds to blow him up. The dental records won't survive, but the ID card certainly will!
The black guy survives, but has amnesia. But somehow everyone mistakes the black guy for the white guy... Apparently, being in an explosion gives you black skin, African facial features, a full head of hair, and a different voice and personality.
Despite how insanely ridiculous this movie idea is, somehow the film continues to be completely predictable throughout. It's boring to boot.
If anyone can give me one good reason this film exists, please do.''
That last comment is very like the little boy in the Andersen fairy tale ''The Emperor's New Clothes.'' He is the only one who breaks the taboo and points to the obvious, while the others are blinding themselves. This is very much the state of our society, with a large segment of our White population agreeing to ignore the obvious, and to admire something which is not there, something which is only a construct of their minds.
Race-blindness is a social construct.
When I saw ''Suture'' back in 1995 or so, I found it absurd, but now it is becoming more and more plausible. In the context of today's willful race-blindness, in a world in which Ralph Kramden has become black and Morgan Freeman fits into medieval England, anything is possible, including a black Frank Sinatra.
Labels: Entertainment Media, Liberals, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Race Denial
0 comment Friday, November 21, 2014 | admin
Further thoughts relating to this thing called political correctness, some of them sparked by reactions to my previous post on the subject:
If there is something about Anglo-Saxons that fosters the attitudes embodied in political correctness, why did that something not appear in earlier centuries, or at least, not in the lethal form in which it appeared in the mid-20th century?
Another question: it's often asserted that Anglo-Saxon peoples, more than other European peoples, display weak ethnic identity or ethnocentrism. This is given as the reason why Anglosphere countries, particularly the UK, Canada, and America are being overrun by immigrants and opportunists, with the complicity of the native people. Yet at the same time, Anglo-Saxons have always been the recipients of sharp criticism by other ethnicities for being too exclusive, too dominant, too Anglocentric. This whole damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't, line of criticism is reminiscent of the similar contentions made about Christianity: that Christianity has always been militant, crusading, intolerant, and a cause of bloody conflicts, and at the same time, it is said to lead to universalism, pacifism, and sentimentality towards the world's losers.
It would seem, in the case of the criticism of Christians, as well as Anglo-Saxons, that something happened which resulted in a marked change by the mid-20th century. I don't accept that the liberalism which is supposed to characterize Anglo-Saxon peoples and Christians in general is intrinsic to those groups. I think it is obviously a recent development, or perversion.
Secondly, I see that the discussion is causing discomfort on the part of some of my readers. I don't see how I could write an honest post on the subject without making some uncomfortable, although that was not my intention. As I wrote before on this subject, I feel compelled to follow the truth where it leads, insofar as that is possible, and if that steps on someone's toes, I can only say it's unfortunate. I cannot, in good conscience, decree certain groups to be exempted from examination or criticism. If I did so, I would only be yielding to the political correctness I so often deplore and rail against -- which would make me something of a hypocrite.
As I've said, civility and reasoned arguments are essential; make a civil, reasoned, argument, and your views will generally be allowed. If any object to those views, answer them with civility and reason. Refute them if you can. That's the best way, not flames or hurt feelings or offense-taking. So far, this has been the tone of the comments, with mature attitudes predominating.
I think those of us who see that our country, and Western Christian civilization are under siege and in danger realize that will never be equal to the task of defending our heritage if we are offended or made uneasy by criticism of certain groups, whichever they may be. Nobody should be above criticism or questioning. If some are not able to accept my approach, so be it. I have long since learned it's impossible to please everybody while pursuing truth and honesty.
Our society in the West is drowning in dishonesty and cant; I won't participate in it. I will tolerate a lot of things but I will not bow to the dishonesty and cant of political correctness. I have to repeat again what my kinsman (one of the non-liberal WASP New Englanders) wrote:
I never hated anything in my life except two things: dishonesty and the appeasement of evil. These I hate with every fiber of my being. I would rather face controversy and bitterness indefinitely than surrender to either one.'' - Carleton Putnam, Race and Reality
Political correctness has made liars and hypocrites of too many of us. We have made certain classes of people to be near-saints, while we ourselves are cast into the role of the perpetual villain, responsible for all the world's injustices and woes. Enough is enough.
Our founding ancestors sought to shed many of the habits of the old world, such as the belief in an aristocracy of birth. Certain people, by virtue of their birth, were entitled to greater respect and privilege and flattery. Political Correctness merely created a kind of upside-down aristocracy, in which the underdogs become the exalted class. I won't participate in that injustice any more. If all men are truly equal under the law, then no group or class, past history of suffering notwithstanding, has a right to be above criticism.
Some still cling to the habit of making excuses for the protected victim classes, maybe in a show of noblesse oblige, or maybe in an attempt to allay a conscience that feels guilt at saying 'mean-spirited' things about the victims of the world. But we are under siege; we are on the ropes. We don't have time to worry about the victims and the laggards and the losers of the world; we have to worry about us and our children and our children's children -- if we can last that long. And we will not be able to if we are still prone to take everybody's side but our own. To those of you who still have guilty consciences or tender feelings towards the others, what can I say? Sacrifice yourself and your children if you must, but don't hold the rest of us back, and don't try to impart your guilt feelings or your sanctimony to the rest of us. We can't allow ourselves to be hampered by foolish altruism when we are in trouble. Our misplaced altruism and concern for the world has put us in this dire predicament.
I notice that one or two of the bloggers who link to me are attempting to edge away and distance themselves as I post some of these controversial pieces. So be it; I can understand that some don't want to be tainted by association, even if only through a link on a blogroll, to someone who is pushing the PC envelope. If any of the faint-hearted want to de-link me, that's fine. My ancestors didn't shrink from controversy or opprobrium, and I don't either. I have to say what I have to say, and if I say it to an audience of a few, or nobody at all, so be it. I won't go along to get along, and I won't try to please or flatter anybody at the expense of truth.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
I will not hide my tastes or aversions...If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.''
I suppose the very fact that I feel the need to say these things in regard to political correctness shows that even the PC scofflaws, like myself, feel constrained to offer justifications for our rebellion. And it shows that people who are ostensibly on the same side are still unable to tolerate speech that walks too close to the edge and defies the very powerful taboos.
At least this discussion will sift us, and help us decide who is who, and who is where. Examining reality honestly is never a loss.
For now, I'm considering a post on our politically incorrect founders and forefathers. Too often we are presented with a whitewashed view of the Founding Fathers and other great leaders, which bowdlerizes many of their politically incorrect statements. This is a distortion I would like to see rectified.
If there is something about Anglo-Saxons that fosters the attitudes embodied in political correctness, why did that something not appear in earlier centuries, or at least, not in the lethal form in which it appeared in the mid-20th century?
Another question: it's often asserted that Anglo-Saxon peoples, more than other European peoples, display weak ethnic identity or ethnocentrism. This is given as the reason why Anglosphere countries, particularly the UK, Canada, and America are being overrun by immigrants and opportunists, with the complicity of the native people. Yet at the same time, Anglo-Saxons have always been the recipients of sharp criticism by other ethnicities for being too exclusive, too dominant, too Anglocentric. This whole damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't, line of criticism is reminiscent of the similar contentions made about Christianity: that Christianity has always been militant, crusading, intolerant, and a cause of bloody conflicts, and at the same time, it is said to lead to universalism, pacifism, and sentimentality towards the world's losers.
It would seem, in the case of the criticism of Christians, as well as Anglo-Saxons, that something happened which resulted in a marked change by the mid-20th century. I don't accept that the liberalism which is supposed to characterize Anglo-Saxon peoples and Christians in general is intrinsic to those groups. I think it is obviously a recent development, or perversion.
Secondly, I see that the discussion is causing discomfort on the part of some of my readers. I don't see how I could write an honest post on the subject without making some uncomfortable, although that was not my intention. As I wrote before on this subject, I feel compelled to follow the truth where it leads, insofar as that is possible, and if that steps on someone's toes, I can only say it's unfortunate. I cannot, in good conscience, decree certain groups to be exempted from examination or criticism. If I did so, I would only be yielding to the political correctness I so often deplore and rail against -- which would make me something of a hypocrite.
As I've said, civility and reasoned arguments are essential; make a civil, reasoned, argument, and your views will generally be allowed. If any object to those views, answer them with civility and reason. Refute them if you can. That's the best way, not flames or hurt feelings or offense-taking. So far, this has been the tone of the comments, with mature attitudes predominating.
I think those of us who see that our country, and Western Christian civilization are under siege and in danger realize that will never be equal to the task of defending our heritage if we are offended or made uneasy by criticism of certain groups, whichever they may be. Nobody should be above criticism or questioning. If some are not able to accept my approach, so be it. I have long since learned it's impossible to please everybody while pursuing truth and honesty.
Our society in the West is drowning in dishonesty and cant; I won't participate in it. I will tolerate a lot of things but I will not bow to the dishonesty and cant of political correctness. I have to repeat again what my kinsman (one of the non-liberal WASP New Englanders) wrote:
I never hated anything in my life except two things: dishonesty and the appeasement of evil. These I hate with every fiber of my being. I would rather face controversy and bitterness indefinitely than surrender to either one.'' - Carleton Putnam, Race and Reality
Political correctness has made liars and hypocrites of too many of us. We have made certain classes of people to be near-saints, while we ourselves are cast into the role of the perpetual villain, responsible for all the world's injustices and woes. Enough is enough.
Our founding ancestors sought to shed many of the habits of the old world, such as the belief in an aristocracy of birth. Certain people, by virtue of their birth, were entitled to greater respect and privilege and flattery. Political Correctness merely created a kind of upside-down aristocracy, in which the underdogs become the exalted class. I won't participate in that injustice any more. If all men are truly equal under the law, then no group or class, past history of suffering notwithstanding, has a right to be above criticism.
Some still cling to the habit of making excuses for the protected victim classes, maybe in a show of noblesse oblige, or maybe in an attempt to allay a conscience that feels guilt at saying 'mean-spirited' things about the victims of the world. But we are under siege; we are on the ropes. We don't have time to worry about the victims and the laggards and the losers of the world; we have to worry about us and our children and our children's children -- if we can last that long. And we will not be able to if we are still prone to take everybody's side but our own. To those of you who still have guilty consciences or tender feelings towards the others, what can I say? Sacrifice yourself and your children if you must, but don't hold the rest of us back, and don't try to impart your guilt feelings or your sanctimony to the rest of us. We can't allow ourselves to be hampered by foolish altruism when we are in trouble. Our misplaced altruism and concern for the world has put us in this dire predicament.
I notice that one or two of the bloggers who link to me are attempting to edge away and distance themselves as I post some of these controversial pieces. So be it; I can understand that some don't want to be tainted by association, even if only through a link on a blogroll, to someone who is pushing the PC envelope. If any of the faint-hearted want to de-link me, that's fine. My ancestors didn't shrink from controversy or opprobrium, and I don't either. I have to say what I have to say, and if I say it to an audience of a few, or nobody at all, so be it. I won't go along to get along, and I won't try to please or flatter anybody at the expense of truth.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
I will not hide my tastes or aversions...If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.''
I suppose the very fact that I feel the need to say these things in regard to political correctness shows that even the PC scofflaws, like myself, feel constrained to offer justifications for our rebellion. And it shows that people who are ostensibly on the same side are still unable to tolerate speech that walks too close to the edge and defies the very powerful taboos.
At least this discussion will sift us, and help us decide who is who, and who is where. Examining reality honestly is never a loss.
For now, I'm considering a post on our politically incorrect founders and forefathers. Too often we are presented with a whitewashed view of the Founding Fathers and other great leaders, which bowdlerizes many of their politically incorrect statements. This is a distortion I would like to see rectified.
Labels: Free Speech, Freedom Of Thought, Liberalism, Political Correctness, Victimhood
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The word ''racist'' is used a lot. A great deal. Considering that the word does not even appear in my 1936 Webster's Dictionary, that word seems to be indispensable to modern life.
What does it mean? Why did it apparently need to be invented or coined? Some credit (or blame) Leon Trotsky for the word's invention, some blame others on the left. I am not sure who first used the word, but the main thing is, what does it mean now?
If I asked several random people what it meant, I would probably get varying answers; most people would probably mention something about 'hate' since that is another seemingly indispensable word in the 21st century English vocabulary. However I think that not only would there be varying definitions among individuals, there would be different definitions according to race and ancestry. I would wager that most blacks would define the word much more broadly and inclusively than Whites, and the same would probably be true of minorities generally.
However if these following examples indicate anything, it appears the word 'racism' is becoming more and more broadly and subjectively defined. For instance, 'future time orientation' is racist, according to Seattle School Dist.
Watermelon is a symbol of racism
Mr. Potato Head is racist
"Lord of the Rings" is racist
The word ''niggardly'' is racist.
Golliwogs are racist.
Criticizing Islam is racist. Of course.
Criticizing illegal immigration is racist, as we all know, and criticizing legal immigration is even worse.
And it is true that anything which is associated exclusively, or predominantly, with White people is 'racist.'
I remember the time when the word was not in the vocabulary of most people. During the early days of the Civil Rights era, the word that was bandied about to describe those who opposed forcible integration was ''prejudiced'' or ''bigoted.''
We can split hairs on the word ''prejudice''; it means ''an opinion about someone or something that is not based on reason or experience.'' That is the standard, traditional definition, and as such, it does not include the 'realist' opinions held by older generations of Americans. Their realism was based on history, observation, real life experience, and statistics. It was not, as some would have it, based on fanciful pre-conceived notions or irrational ''hate''.
Maybe the fact that the word 'prejudice' is not truly fitting in this context led to the popularizing of the neologism, 'racism.'
It came to be established, via the constant use of this word, that a negative assessment of someone of another race was a particular and unique kind of sin or, more properly, thoughtcrime. Somehow it was deemed more immoral or 'hateful' to criticize those of another race, and even more so if one chose to associate with those of one's own group.
At first, when the word 'racism' was used, it was used to describe the most egregious behavior towards those of other races, such as harassing, threatening, or attacking them without provocation, ''just because of their skin color''. Over time, the word became more and more loosely and liberally used, so that today it is absurdly applied to all kinds of ideas or products or words or attitudes. And worst of all, it is arbitrarily and subjectively defined and applied. Since none of us can anticipate every instance of behavior or speech that will be labeled ''racist'', we cannot be sure when or if we will be ambushed with that word, and of course the accusation is always assumed to be true, once having been made. Why? Because it is a given that 'Whites are racist' and that minorities don't lie about such things -- to even hint that they are capable of it is to be ''racist.'' So if you protest or deny it, you are making your accuser a liar -- and that's racist. You cannot win. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
The news media, the entertainment media, textbooks, web pages, all of them represent the acceptable, politically correct, anti-White perspective. There are a few isolated exceptions, but the fact that most of the information and discussion in our society excludes all but the PC point of view makes it certain that people begin to buy into it. This is most true of young people, because they have not known any world other than the racially-charged, obsessively anti-White world of today. Their perceptions of the past have been manipulated by Hollywood movies, TV programming, popular books, music, schools -- everything, in other words.
Most Americans would probably agree with the statement that America had a ''racist past.'' But what exactly do they understand by that phrase? Do they mean the Hollywood version of American history, things like Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', or Mississippi Burning, or any number of other movies with a PC message? Or do they simply think it means that yes, the races were separated in the past, especiallly in the South? Quite likely they think of slavery, and are convinced that slavery was 'an abomination', as someone on AmRen (a 'race realist') said recently. Those kinds of opinions are not uncommon even there. I think it's the old White guilt thing, or perhaps the desire to 'be fair' and concede something to the other side in the name of conciliation.
In any case, whether slavery was 'an abomination' or not, it is in the past. No White American of today is guilty of keeping slaves, and no black or other American of today has been a slave.
I see no reason to yield any ground to the other side, whether to minority partisans who want to accuse and condemn, or to White 'progressives' (read: renegades) who side with everyone but their own people. It makes us look weak; it is not appreciated by the other side. They are not impressed by our attempt at magnanimity or conciliation or self-examination. They simply see it as weakness or as an admission of guilt on our part. And having found that inclination in us, they exploit it to the hilt.
So I would exhort everybody to stop the self-condemnation or accepting guilt. Some will say: ''I don't feel personal guilt, but I know our ancestors did some pretty bad things." Really? Why not give the benefit of the doubt to your forebears? None of us would probably exist today if our forebears had been as PC as many of us are. How can we judge or condemn them? They had a hard row to hoe; they faced many hard choices. Our colonist and pioneer forebears grew up in a very different time in which today's obsessions and taboos were unknown. Universalistic, sentimentalist notions about human nature did not work in their hard-scrabble world. Their world was blessedly free of the ideas of Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and other such 'founding fathers' of today's insanity.
Let's give them some credit. I believe in honoring my fathers and mothers. I refuse to cast blame on them as a way of appeasing anybody.
The next time somebody uses the word ''racist'', I think it might be a good exercise, or a useful tactic perhaps, to challenge that word, asking for a precise definition. The word ''racist'' in the beginning was applied to people who acted out against minorities, who committed illegal acts: harassment, assault, threats of harm, murder. Those things are crimes already and should be prosecuted as such. Whoever does those things is already reprehensible; we don't need a special label to describe their criminal acts. In fact, many on the right deplore the idea of ''hate crimes'', under which laws people are punished more severely for their intentions or thoughts or attitudes toward certain groups. Punish wrongdoers for their acts, as the law prescribes, but not for their thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or opinions. The idea of 'racism' is the prototype of the so-called 'hate crime' idea.
The 'race card' is mean to single out and punish certain people who hold politically incorrect ideas about certain groups of people. It is also meant to intimidate the White public at large, to demonstrate to them the dangers implicit in speaking too honestly. It's a weapon that is being used to corral us and keep us in our place. We learn to censor or to guard what we say, or to keep our mouths shut lest we incur the consequences of being a heretic on the subject of race.
I think the word 'racist' should be used to describe only people whose behavior or acts physically harm, or threaten harm to another. However, we already have laws against such behavior.
As far as using certain taboo words or displaying certain symbols, those things should not be punishable by law. In this country we have movements to ban the Confederate Battle Flag as a ''symbol of hate''. In the UK, Moslems have complained about the Union Jack and the St. George's flag, as well as the cross in general. This kind of totalitarianism had its inception in the 'race card' mentality; if one is of a protected group, one can single-handedly censor someone else, or silence them, or prohibit them from displaying certain symbols.
As for the word ''hate'' which is another favorite word in the leftist lexicon, it too is overused and abused. Every time someone criticizes or expresses disapproval of certain protected groups, the word ''hate'' is immediately called into action. I think it should fall under ''Godwin's Law"; the first person to call ''hater'' is automatically the loser in the debate. It is, like ''racism'', just used to silence and intimidate and label someone whose ideas threaten the left or their minority clients.
The word 'prejudice' is one that applies to our enemies more than to our side; likewise the term 'bigot' which simply describes a closed-minded, rigid, narrow person. Minorities, feminists, gays, are all groups who often hold bigoted opinions about straight, White Americans, most especially Christians and Southrons. Yet the professional victims cannot see these qualities in themselves, so full of their own self-righteousness are they.
I keep hearing that the 'race card is maxed out', and indeed it is; it has been for a long time, but many people are just now noticing it. The left is morally bankrupt but somehow just by inertia they seem to keep going. At some point we have to stop running, we have to stop conceding to them. We have to defend our forefathers, our heritage, and ourselves against their constant nagging, badgering, and accusing. When will we finally do that?
What does it mean? Why did it apparently need to be invented or coined? Some credit (or blame) Leon Trotsky for the word's invention, some blame others on the left. I am not sure who first used the word, but the main thing is, what does it mean now?
If I asked several random people what it meant, I would probably get varying answers; most people would probably mention something about 'hate' since that is another seemingly indispensable word in the 21st century English vocabulary. However I think that not only would there be varying definitions among individuals, there would be different definitions according to race and ancestry. I would wager that most blacks would define the word much more broadly and inclusively than Whites, and the same would probably be true of minorities generally.
However if these following examples indicate anything, it appears the word 'racism' is becoming more and more broadly and subjectively defined. For instance, 'future time orientation' is racist, according to Seattle School Dist.
Watermelon is a symbol of racism
Mr. Potato Head is racist
"Lord of the Rings" is racist
The word ''niggardly'' is racist.
Golliwogs are racist.
Criticizing Islam is racist. Of course.
Criticizing illegal immigration is racist, as we all know, and criticizing legal immigration is even worse.
And it is true that anything which is associated exclusively, or predominantly, with White people is 'racist.'
I remember the time when the word was not in the vocabulary of most people. During the early days of the Civil Rights era, the word that was bandied about to describe those who opposed forcible integration was ''prejudiced'' or ''bigoted.''
We can split hairs on the word ''prejudice''; it means ''an opinion about someone or something that is not based on reason or experience.'' That is the standard, traditional definition, and as such, it does not include the 'realist' opinions held by older generations of Americans. Their realism was based on history, observation, real life experience, and statistics. It was not, as some would have it, based on fanciful pre-conceived notions or irrational ''hate''.
Maybe the fact that the word 'prejudice' is not truly fitting in this context led to the popularizing of the neologism, 'racism.'
It came to be established, via the constant use of this word, that a negative assessment of someone of another race was a particular and unique kind of sin or, more properly, thoughtcrime. Somehow it was deemed more immoral or 'hateful' to criticize those of another race, and even more so if one chose to associate with those of one's own group.
At first, when the word 'racism' was used, it was used to describe the most egregious behavior towards those of other races, such as harassing, threatening, or attacking them without provocation, ''just because of their skin color''. Over time, the word became more and more loosely and liberally used, so that today it is absurdly applied to all kinds of ideas or products or words or attitudes. And worst of all, it is arbitrarily and subjectively defined and applied. Since none of us can anticipate every instance of behavior or speech that will be labeled ''racist'', we cannot be sure when or if we will be ambushed with that word, and of course the accusation is always assumed to be true, once having been made. Why? Because it is a given that 'Whites are racist' and that minorities don't lie about such things -- to even hint that they are capable of it is to be ''racist.'' So if you protest or deny it, you are making your accuser a liar -- and that's racist. You cannot win. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
The news media, the entertainment media, textbooks, web pages, all of them represent the acceptable, politically correct, anti-White perspective. There are a few isolated exceptions, but the fact that most of the information and discussion in our society excludes all but the PC point of view makes it certain that people begin to buy into it. This is most true of young people, because they have not known any world other than the racially-charged, obsessively anti-White world of today. Their perceptions of the past have been manipulated by Hollywood movies, TV programming, popular books, music, schools -- everything, in other words.
Most Americans would probably agree with the statement that America had a ''racist past.'' But what exactly do they understand by that phrase? Do they mean the Hollywood version of American history, things like Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', or Mississippi Burning, or any number of other movies with a PC message? Or do they simply think it means that yes, the races were separated in the past, especiallly in the South? Quite likely they think of slavery, and are convinced that slavery was 'an abomination', as someone on AmRen (a 'race realist') said recently. Those kinds of opinions are not uncommon even there. I think it's the old White guilt thing, or perhaps the desire to 'be fair' and concede something to the other side in the name of conciliation.
In any case, whether slavery was 'an abomination' or not, it is in the past. No White American of today is guilty of keeping slaves, and no black or other American of today has been a slave.
I see no reason to yield any ground to the other side, whether to minority partisans who want to accuse and condemn, or to White 'progressives' (read: renegades) who side with everyone but their own people. It makes us look weak; it is not appreciated by the other side. They are not impressed by our attempt at magnanimity or conciliation or self-examination. They simply see it as weakness or as an admission of guilt on our part. And having found that inclination in us, they exploit it to the hilt.
So I would exhort everybody to stop the self-condemnation or accepting guilt. Some will say: ''I don't feel personal guilt, but I know our ancestors did some pretty bad things." Really? Why not give the benefit of the doubt to your forebears? None of us would probably exist today if our forebears had been as PC as many of us are. How can we judge or condemn them? They had a hard row to hoe; they faced many hard choices. Our colonist and pioneer forebears grew up in a very different time in which today's obsessions and taboos were unknown. Universalistic, sentimentalist notions about human nature did not work in their hard-scrabble world. Their world was blessedly free of the ideas of Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and other such 'founding fathers' of today's insanity.
Let's give them some credit. I believe in honoring my fathers and mothers. I refuse to cast blame on them as a way of appeasing anybody.
The next time somebody uses the word ''racist'', I think it might be a good exercise, or a useful tactic perhaps, to challenge that word, asking for a precise definition. The word ''racist'' in the beginning was applied to people who acted out against minorities, who committed illegal acts: harassment, assault, threats of harm, murder. Those things are crimes already and should be prosecuted as such. Whoever does those things is already reprehensible; we don't need a special label to describe their criminal acts. In fact, many on the right deplore the idea of ''hate crimes'', under which laws people are punished more severely for their intentions or thoughts or attitudes toward certain groups. Punish wrongdoers for their acts, as the law prescribes, but not for their thoughts, feelings, or attitudes, or opinions. The idea of 'racism' is the prototype of the so-called 'hate crime' idea.
The 'race card' is mean to single out and punish certain people who hold politically incorrect ideas about certain groups of people. It is also meant to intimidate the White public at large, to demonstrate to them the dangers implicit in speaking too honestly. It's a weapon that is being used to corral us and keep us in our place. We learn to censor or to guard what we say, or to keep our mouths shut lest we incur the consequences of being a heretic on the subject of race.
I think the word 'racist' should be used to describe only people whose behavior or acts physically harm, or threaten harm to another. However, we already have laws against such behavior.
As far as using certain taboo words or displaying certain symbols, those things should not be punishable by law. In this country we have movements to ban the Confederate Battle Flag as a ''symbol of hate''. In the UK, Moslems have complained about the Union Jack and the St. George's flag, as well as the cross in general. This kind of totalitarianism had its inception in the 'race card' mentality; if one is of a protected group, one can single-handedly censor someone else, or silence them, or prohibit them from displaying certain symbols.
As for the word ''hate'' which is another favorite word in the leftist lexicon, it too is overused and abused. Every time someone criticizes or expresses disapproval of certain protected groups, the word ''hate'' is immediately called into action. I think it should fall under ''Godwin's Law"; the first person to call ''hater'' is automatically the loser in the debate. It is, like ''racism'', just used to silence and intimidate and label someone whose ideas threaten the left or their minority clients.
The word 'prejudice' is one that applies to our enemies more than to our side; likewise the term 'bigot' which simply describes a closed-minded, rigid, narrow person. Minorities, feminists, gays, are all groups who often hold bigoted opinions about straight, White Americans, most especially Christians and Southrons. Yet the professional victims cannot see these qualities in themselves, so full of their own self-righteousness are they.
I keep hearing that the 'race card is maxed out', and indeed it is; it has been for a long time, but many people are just now noticing it. The left is morally bankrupt but somehow just by inertia they seem to keep going. At some point we have to stop running, we have to stop conceding to them. We have to defend our forefathers, our heritage, and ourselves against their constant nagging, badgering, and accusing. When will we finally do that?
Labels: Cultural Marxism, Language, Political Correctness, Race Card, Victimolatry