Bayou Renaissance Man

 

Yesterday, in an article titled "Looks like interesting times ahead for city business districts", I highlighted the crisis in commercial real estate, and warned that it was going to get worse.  In the comments to that article, reader pyotr forecast:

"I wonder what it will be like to be in a downtown full of abandoned high rise buildings."

Bad. Squatters camping in them, fires. Eventually one will collapse, not neatly, and 'there goes the neighborhood'. Clearing the streets will cost too much. Later rinse repeat.

Possibly, before that starts happening, there will be a resettlement - cities are where they are for reasons - and the old structures will be minded for resources.

He's right.  We can already see that happening in some inner-city areas in the USA, and it's common enough in collapsing Third World states.  As an example, here's a city where I lived for eight years, Johannesburg in South Africa.  Well over a hundred buildings in its central business district are now derelict, overrun by squatters, ruled by urban gangs who extort payment from anyone wanting to live there - and able to do so because there's nowhere else to live.  They're very dangerous places, not least because nobody has any sense of what's safe or acceptable.  Last year a fire killed 77 people in one such building.  Police have just arrested a self-confessed suspect in that case.

As for Johannesburg as a whole . . . I spent eight years of my life there.  It used to be a First World city.  In less than two generations, it's cratered to Third World standards, and fairly low Third World standards at that.  According to friends who are still there, parts of it now resemble the worst slums in Haiti.  I can examine satellite images of the area where I used to live, and see the quite incredible urban decay around my former home.  It's sickening to see.

Here's a longer documentary about life in Johannesburg these days.  I don't like its style or narration, but it does convey the reality of day-to-day existence there.  I'm glad I no longer live there, and I grieve to see places I lived and worked brought so low.

As for those who think that can't happen here in the USA, it already is.  Back in 2019 I highlighted a three-part documentary series from station KOMO in Seattle, Washington.  The final report was titled simply, "Seattle Is Dying".  In case you missed it then, here it is again.  Click through to the earlier report to see the first two parts in the series.

Seattle's not alone in that.  Just last month I noted a TV documentary from Minneapolis titled "The Fall of Minneapolis".  Click through there to watch that video, if you can stomach it.

Friends, you may not want to believe it, but that is quite literally what's coming to many major US cities within the next decade.  The influx of millions of Third World immigrants under the Biden administration guarantees it.  They aren't going to be magically converted to First World citizens by crossing the Rio Grande.  No, they're bringing their Third World attitudes, habits and behaviors with them - and we're already seeing them in action, to the detriment of the places they're being settled.  That's going to continue, and increase.

Get out of big Democrat-controlled cities now.  Don't delay to squeeze the last penny in value out of selling your home;  don't be tied down by family connections;  don't wait until it's too late.  Leave now, and take your loved ones with you.  If any of them won't leave, that's on them, not you.  Your primary responsibility is to your immediate family, your spouse and children.  If you and they decide to stay in our big cities, you've just seen what's coming your way.  On your own head be the consequences of that decision.

Peter

 

That's how PJ Media correspondent Kevin Downey Jr. describes the documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis".

As scary as it is to see the Marxist politicians, news media bootlickers, and street-thug brown shirts work in lockstep to destroy a city — and spread violence across the nation — we are better off knowing that We the People have evil cancer running through our nation now while we still have a chance to carve it out.

"The Fall of Minneapolis" is a documentary about how the Marxists in the United States twisted the death of George Floyd to fit a narrative and light a powder keg.

I won't give it all away because this documentary is too important to miss. Reading my crib notes cannot suffice. But here are some not-so-shocking highlights.

There's more at the link.  It makes grim reading, but I recommend it for its depth of detail about the George Floyd case and what appears to be a wholesale, colossal miscarriage of justice over his death.

I highly recommend watching the documentary.  It's almost two hours long, but it describes political machinations that have become all too common in our "big blue" cities, those with liberal/progressive justice systems that are more focused on ideology than on justice.  You can read background information on the documentary at its Web site, and also watch the video there if YouTube and other social media sites take it down.

If you live in such a city, or a left-wing/progressive-governed state, move out.  Now.  Because things are going to get a lot worse there, before (if ever?) they get better.

Let's also remember that there had to have been a staged, ready-to-go organization or plan, just waiting for a suitable "cause" to swing into action and achieve its political ends, behind the George Floyd imbroglio.  Things moved far too fast, and were far too well organized right from the get-go, for it to have been spontaneous.  That plan and/or organization undoubtedly still exists, and is being readied for the next suitable "spark to a flame" to come along (or be manufactured out of whole cloth).  We should all be aware of that, and prepare ourselves accordingly.  Seen in that light, "The Fall of Minneapolis" can be regarded as an advance briefing of enemy intentions based on their past patterns - invaluable intelligence for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Peter

 

I was very pleased to read the latest Supreme Court decisions, ruling that President Biden's administration does not have the right in law to arbitrarily override the obligation of student loan recipients to repay their loans, and that First Amendment rights override any attempt to force individuals to endorse or echo speech with which they have a disagreement in conscience.

I hasten to add, I'm not pleased because those decisions happen to coincide with my own views.  Rather, I'm pleased because they stand firmly in the line of previous jurisprudence, and uphold Constitutional norms that have long been recognized in this country.  "Woke" state and national government policies had sought to modify and/or override them, or get around them by claiming spurious and exigent circumstances that demand immediate action.  SCOTUS has consistently (and, this week, yet again) ruled that the Constitution is the bedrock of our laws, and cannot be ignored or overridden.

It's going to take ceaseless vigilance to guard against such attempts.  They've been common throughout the history of this country (remember President Lincoln's efforts to ignore and/or override habeas corpus during the Civil War?), and they'll doubtless be at least as common, if not more so, in the future.  If we are to be a nation of laws, we need to defend that heritage - even if we disagree with some of the court decisions thus produced.  It's not about what we want.  It's about upholding the law - and ensuring that the law(s) uphold and defend the Constitution.

Peter

 

Back in 2019, I mentioned a video report from a Seattle station titled "Seattle Is Dying".  It was pretty harrowing to watch it back then, and it looks as if other West Coast cities like Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA are following in Seattle's footsteps.

Now we learn of a video report from Canada titled "Vancouver Is Dying".  It shows precisely the same pattern of drug- and homelessness-fueled urban decay.  It makes grim viewing.

A Canadian writer claims that this collapse is a deliberate attempt by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to destabilize, and destroy from the inside, urban culture and society in the USA.  I'm in no position to verify that, but Elizabeth Nickson's claims are disturbing.

[Vancouver] is now a cesspit of crime, drugs, human trafficking, child sex and money laundering. We launder most of the drug money in North America. The city has been taken over by a consortium of cartels, Asian and Mexican, who own through their funding of a proliferation of social justice activist groups, members of the city council, the judiciary, as well as members of the provincial and federal government, particularly those in immigration who rubber stamp the papers of the worst criminals from across the Asian world. They are all here now. The pickings are just too good. You are next on their list.

In Canada, our sleepy political class just woke up to the fact that the CCP had infiltrated our government and they are making vain, lazy, attempts to show they are up to the task. They aren’t. First of all, they don’t understand it, they don’t take on board just how much the CCP wants to dominate Canada, and the lengths to which they have bribed everyone they needed to bribe and compromise a long long time ago.

The public is told China is “interfering” and “must be stopped”. But how are they “interfering”? They are interfering by exporting fentanyl and Asian crime gangs, which plan to infiltrate throughout America. How they are “interfering” is by destroying people, families, cities and economies, through wholesale criminal activity.

Because this is happening across Canada.

In the US, all CCP criticism is limited to the populist right. And called crazy. That’s just how profoundly foolish our politicians are. They stumble around luxuriating in a peace that someday will just be ….. gone and they will wake up a wholly owned subsidiary of the CCP.

The CCP funds the social activist organizations who have shifted the criminal justice system, effectively destroying it. The city’s streets are littered with the dying, half dressed, smeared with shit, needles still in their arms. This is allowed because our leadership wants to destroy the middle class. Do you know what losing a teenager to hard drugs does to a family? It destroys that family forever.

. . .

The police are helpless in the face of it. They can investigate and arrest and the criminal is back on the streets, the same day. The judiciary is corrupted, almost all socialist, almost all compromised. Recruitment is down. No one wants to be a policeman now. It is suicide. Stewart called the police force, “racist”, despite 60% being people of color. There is no pro-active policy. Just let them die, let them kill. Bonnie Henry, the province’s health officer stated that if you are an alcoholic, you can have treatment. If you are a drug addict, there is none. Just die. Die faster. Take some rich people with you.

Vancouver pioneered the first legal injection site, and recently we legalized all hard drugs. You can buy cocaine at a vending machine. A new business just received permission to manufacture legal cocaine. This would “erase stigma”, said the activists and the stupid-beyond-belief system agrees. We have the second biggest port on the west coast of North America and through it the Asian cartels, allowed by the CCP, import the compounds from China that make up fentanyl. The Americans have insisted over and over again that the CCP stop. It doesn’t, it only increases. The chemicals to manufacture Fentanyl come into our port, is made up, and sent south to the States. Fentanyl is so addictive that despite the fact that we supply addicts with up to 40 Dilaudid a day, they sell those pills and buy fentanyl.

Thousands die every month, swept up like garbage and burnt to ash.

. . .

In the 80’s and 90’s, greens effectively shut down the resource economy of the region. All the money from logging and mining paid for health care and education. That money vanished. The cartels saw opportunity, bought off the right government officials, including those in Immigration, and now, today, we are a massive hub of sex trafficking, child prostitution, organ harvesting, and of course, drug addiction.

This is the model they are going to follow in every city in the U.S. and Canada, all regions which allow their economies to be assaulted and ruined by green activists. Crime, addiction and misery replaces resource use everywhere. Our citizens, lazy, disengaged, drugged to the gills by prosperity, its foundation built by Christian families who believed in service to others, allowed it to happen.

There's more at the link.

As I said, I'm in no position to verify what Ms. Nickson claims;  but I daresay some of my readers are.  If you can shed additional light on what she says, please do so in Comments.

As for China's being behind the drug problem, there's abundant evidence that fentanyl and other hardline drugs are being exported from there to drug cartels in Mexico and other countries.  Whether or not that's actually being done by the CCP, it can't possibly be unaware of it.  Its failure to use its law enforcement agencies to crack down on such crime is, in itself, an indication of guilt.

On the other hand, the CCP probably doesn't care.  China still remembers, with extreme anger and resentment, the forced export of opium to that country by Britain and other nations in the 19th century, causing millions upon millions of addicts and massively disrupting its internal economy.  Two "Opium Wars" were fought, and lost, over that issue.  The "Unequal Treaties" further compounded the colonial-era exploitation of China.

Some years ago, talking about narcotics such as heroin and LSD that plagued American forces in Vietnam, a Chinese prison inmate told me quite baldly that China did to America in Vietnam what the West had done to China only a century before.  He regarded it as entirely justified, based on that Western precedent, and actually looked forward to seeing the same thing in Western Europe and North America in due course.  He felt it would be no more than poetic justice, and justified his own involvement in illegal narcotics on those grounds.

Are we now seeing the bitter fruits of that almost two-century-old crime?  "What goes around, comes around".  That may be Vancouver's fate now . . . and many US cities, too.

Peter

 

A few days ago, Murtaza Hussain of the Intercept tweeted:

He's absolutely right, of course.  We saw in World War II how some of the most "civilized" nations on earth degenerated into murderous slaughter machines, killing millions on the grounds that they were "subhuman" or "degenerate".  Those states' "civilization" was no more than skin deep.  We've seen the same from US servicemen in Vietnam and elsewhere.  When enough pressure was applied, they forgot their upbringing and their oaths, and behaved like rabid hyenas.  Fortunately, there weren't that many of them, but that's cold comfort to those who became their victims.

We're seeing the same thing in our inner cities right now.  We've discussed it in these pages several times.

The amoral violence and blind outrage is mind-boggling

"Be prepared to kill a child"

Just in case you weren't listening earlier...

Apropos of all the crime...

Self-defense warning: the "knockout game", a.k.a. "polar bear hunting", is back

Ask Philadelphia grave-diggers about crime figures...

Every one of those headlines is another indicator that our civilization - in inner-city America, at least - is slowly but surely coming apart at the seams.  No civilized society would permit or tolerate such crimes, but here the authorities merely bleat about social justice and equity and reparations, and refuse to do anything meaningful to stop them.  The result is that our cities' society is becoming less and less civilized.  "Defund the police" might as well be renamed "Destroy the foundations of our society".

The inevitable consequence is that the threat of vigilantism is becoming more and more real.  People won't go on allowing others to victimize them.  Sooner or later, they'll take matters into their own hands.  I think that's a terrible idea, but then, allowing the criminals to continue to get away with their crimes scot-free is an even more terrible one.  Certainly, if it comes to ensuring my safety and that of my wife in a high-crime environment, I already know my answer to that conundrum.

If you add to all those stresses unaffordable fuel/energy, limitations on food availability, and a general breakdown of the economy - all of which are looming threats right now - then I think you can imagine how things will go.

The veneer of civilization is very, very thin right now, particularly after all the stresses and strains of the past few years.  If this goes on, it'll develop tears, gaps and holes so large that in large parts of our country, it'll effectively cease to exist.  In parts of Europe like the worst of the banlieues of France, and in a number of large American inner-city ghettoes, that's already happened.

Get out of "hive" cities.  Join smaller communities that will band together to keep out the rats and the cockroaches, and maintain civilized standards.  Prepare.  The hour grows very late, and time has almost run out.

Peter

 

That's how Tucker Carlson sees homelessness in America right now.  It's hard to disagree with him.  Here's part of the conclusion from the transcript of his opening segment last night.

It's not complicated at all. It couldn't be simpler. Politicians are making it much easier to be a homeless drug addict in the United States, and much harder to be a law-abiding member of the middle class. What's the effect? Well, let's see. The middle class is dying, and we now have record numbers of drug-addicted vagrants.

What does that tell you? It tells you that incentives work. If you destroy the nuclear family, which they have; if you decriminalize drugs, which they have; if you hand out tents and needles to addicts, what do you think's going to happen? You're going to get more addicts living in tents.

Again, it's not complicated. This is not a vexing public policy question that requires the Brookings Institution to investigate. It's not like fixing Social Security.

And the solution is as simple as the problem. Here's a solution: Stop putting up with it. Say no. No, you can't smoke meth in the park. You're not allowed to crap on the sidewalk. Pull up your pants and get the hell out of here. Go somewhere with lower standards. Head for a place where politicians don't care about their people because we do care. And that's why we're hauling your tent to a landfill and cutting off your checks today. You are a drug addict. Get a job or leave. This is our city. You are not allowed to wreck it. You didn't build it.

Now, that’s not hard. That works. We know it works because that's how societies function for about 2,000 years. If you're an unmarried man with no job, you were not allowed to destroy things. It wasn't your right.

By the way, this is how successful families still operate to this day in the privacy of their own homes when the NGOs aren't watching. Parents reward good behavior, and they do not tolerate bad behavior. Why? Because if you let your kids smoke weed at the breakfast table, they will. So you don't let them. So why not apply the same standard to the drug addicts at Penn Station? Because what we're doing now isn’t compassionate. It's an attack on civilization.

There's more at the link.  I highly recommend reading the whole thing, or watching the segment in the embedded video below.  If it's taken down from YouTube, you'll find another copy at the link above.

Part of me would love to see Tucker Carlson run for elected office, but he probably has more sense than to do that.  He's seen how independent voices are treated by the establishment on both the left and the right of US politics - and his strong views and logical, rational reasoning through our problems outrages both sides.  Can you imagine what he might get up to as a Senator, even a President?  Sadly, that'll probably never happen.  At least his strong voice hasn't been removed from the public arena - yet.  Let's treasure it, and him, while we may.

Peter

 

A profoundly disturbing article uncovers the spread of "wokeness" and so-called "anti-racism" in the medical profession in America, and how it threatens patient care, research and many other critical elements.  Here are a few excerpts.

This dogma goes by many imperfect names — wokeness, social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism — but whatever it’s called, the doctors say this ideology is stifling critical thinking and dissent in the name of progress. They say that it’s turning students against their teachers and patients and racializing even the smallest interpersonal interactions. Most concerning, they insist that it is threatening the foundations of patient care, of research, and of medicine itself.

. . .

I’ve heard from doctors who’ve been reported to their departments for criticizing residents for being late. (It was seen by their trainees as an act of racism.) I’ve heard from doctors who’ve stopped giving trainees honest feedback for fear of retaliation. I’ve spoken to those who have seen clinicians and residents refuse to treat patients based on their race or their perceived conservative politics.

Some of these doctors say that there is a “purge” underway in the world of American medicine: question the current orthodoxy and you will be pushed out. They are so worried about the dangers of speaking out about their concerns that they will not let me identify them except by the region of the country where they work. 

“People are afraid to speak honestly,” said a doctor who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union. “It’s like back to the USSR, where you could only speak to the ones you trust.” If the authorities found out, you could lose your job, your status, you could go to jail or worse. The fear here is not dissimilar. 

When doctors do speak out, shared another, “the reaction is savage. And you better be tenured and you better have very thick skin.”

. . .

“Wokeness feels like an existential threat,” a doctor from the Northwest said. “In health care, innovation depends on open, objective inquiry into complex problems, but that’s now undermined by this simplistic and racialized worldview where racism is seen as the cause of all disparities, despite robust data showing it’s not that simple.”

“Whole research areas are off-limits,” he said, adding that some of what is being published in the nation’s top journals is “shoddy as hell.”

. . .

One prominent organization, White Coats for Black Lives, was formed by medical students in 2014 and now has at least 75 chapters all over the U.S. In addition to publishing a Racial Justice Report Card that grades medical schools, the group encourages medical students to make specific demands of their institutions, including that medical schools and hospitals end all relationships with local law enforcement.

. . .

As another example of the generation gap, an ER doctor on the West Coast said he sees providers, particularly younger ones, applying antiracist principles in choosing how they allocate their time and which patients they choose to work with.  “I've heard examples of Covid-19 cases in the emergency department where providers go, ‘I’m not going to go treat that white guy, I'm going to treat the person of color instead because whatever happened to the white guy, he probably deserves it.’”

There's much more at the link.

Never forget, this is the same poisonous, treasonous ideology that motivated the theft of the November 2020 elections through electoral fraud, and continues to justify that as necessary to get rid of populist voices in favor of those that are politically correct.

We're going to have to actively work against "wokeness" in every field of society.  It's a fight we dare not lose, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of the country we're leaving to our children.

Peter

 

Full marks for creativity to the artist who designed this brooch.  A tip o' the hat to Phlegm Fatale for sending me the link.

It's certainly original.  I can think of all sorts of situations where a lady might wish to wear something like that, to display her contempt for proceedings, but in a non-verbal and artistic way.  As one commenter said of it, "[I] want it implanted in my forehead".

The Three Percenters logo has long since been branded as "racist" or "extremist", so it's fallen out of favor.  Perhaps this might serve as the foundation for a suitable replacement?  It could be produced as jewelry, in camo sew-on or velcro patches, etc.  It would simply and eloquently express its wearers' opinion of "woke" culture and politics.

Peter

 

That's the chilling title of an even more chilling article, subtitled "Wealthy 'progressives' are shaping political life through a dense web of interconnected NGOs" (non-governmental organizations).  It's a long article and dense with detail, making it hard to excerpt small portions to gain a sense of what's going on:  but that very detail makes it extremely valuable.

If you want to know how the progressive left came to dominate last November's elections, and put so many of its extremist candidates into Congress, this article explains it better than anything else I've read.

Here are a couple of excerpts to give a taste of what it contains.  They are not comprehensive, and should not be treated as such, but rather read in the context of the entire piece.

As the founder and operator of a pro-democracy civil-society organisation, I’ve often been astounded at calls to give NGOs a greater say in rule-making, more visibility during negotiations and privileged access to decision-makers. Because I know what few people do – that small, member-driven, self-funded NGOs are relatively rare.

Instead, the kind of organisation that tends to drive the political agenda is generally billionaire (or at least multimillionaire) funded.

. . .

And that is exactly what we’re going to do here: just wonder at the concentration of power behind a bazillion different brand names and hope people understand how it affects their lives ... Many of these funds fund other funds. That fund other funds. That fund other funds ... One could write not just a book, but an entire encyclopaedia on this topic. However, for the sake of brevity, let’s focus on a few of the groups that receive funding in this convoluted manner, because as we shall see they form something like a political conveyor belt, covering all aspects of the political process.

. . .

The ‘engineered’ aspect of many of these social-change organisations comes through in myriad ways. For example, members frequently refer to ‘how-to’ manuals and books for creating social change (of any kind) according to a fairly technical blueprint. In addition, some organisations are supported by other organisations with the same funders. For example, Sunrise members specifically credit Momentum (which is also part of the NMV investment portfolio) with training them.

In an hour-long webinar posted on Momentum’s webpage, Sunrise members Sara Blazevic and Will Lawrence, together with Momentum members Cicia Lee and Lissy Romanov, explain the ins and outs of this training. The talk included references to the need (also frequently referenced by Extinction Rebellion) to activate 3.5 per cent of the population for environmental change, and featured such statements as ‘Momentum taught us that movements don’t happen by accident’, and that they needed to ‘prepare in advance a movement to go viral’. Speakers stressed the need to become ‘the dominant political alignment’ which ‘defines the common sense of society’ and ‘directs social and economic policy’. Having realised that this would require ‘tak[ing] over the entire United States and all the institutions in it’, they began ‘finding and developing our first leaders’. This involved moving activists into ‘dorm-style Sunrise Movement Houses for three to six months’ in order to create leaders who had a deep level of commitment ‘for everything that would come afterwards’.

. . .

... the entire impression is of a very steered, technocratic process that attempts to achieve theoretical concepts (‘3.5 per cent mobilisation’, ‘dominant political alignment’) through a kind of brute-force factory production. It is an impression that is heightened when you realise that Sunrise isn’t just powered by a spontaneous coming together of the minds, but gets its core funding and support from ‘angel investors’.

. . .

On one level, it is great that young people are taking part in politics. But on another level it is incredibly fake. The youthful participants aren’t so much being empowered as instrumentalised. After all, they are part of the portfolio of an investment fund that is using them to ‘shift power’, with part of the strategy being to shame politicians for not being nice enough to hysterical children.

So, is power being shifted?

The Sunrise Movement credits itself with pressuring representatives into agreeing to a Select Committee on the Green New Deal, as well as contributing to getting a Green New Deal passed for the state of Maine. Its website also claims that the group contacted ‘over 6.5million voters in the primaries and Presidential Election’, which helped to elect Joe Biden.

While the results are certainly mixed, I think it is fair to say that Republican efforts to eliminate limits on political spending may have backfired and that ‘progressives’ may have overtaken them in the ‘tactical funding’ department.

There's much more at the link.

The article goes into depth on not just NGO's and their funding, but also how they seek to manipulate public information, engineer public discussion along lines favorable to their perspective, select and elect candidates who will do their bidding, and work together to achieve their goals.  As the article notes (bold, underlined text is my emphasis):

These organisations constantly cite each other’s work, recycle the same personnel and fund, ‘support’ and ‘partner with’ each other’s projects on multiple different levels. Moreover, perhaps the most startling thing for me in conducting this impromptu investigation was how many people I knew who were on the boards, steering committees or staff of these organisations. And I don’t mean know of. I mean, personally, know. Because that’s how far-reaching and yet incestuous this sector is. It’s virtually impossible to be politically active without running into them, yet they stick together like a highly-funded clan.

. . .

And, while we’re at it, let’s abandon the pretence that these funders are keen on deconstructing their own power. No, they have created an end-to-end web of political institutions, and a dependent hand-out culture, where nothing happens without money and a tsunami of gushing praise for those brave enough to ‘speak truth’ to the power that pays their salary… and continues to do so.

After all the screaming about the Koch brothers’ insidious influence on politics, it turns out that, for some, the near naked exercise of oligarchic power wasn’t the issue at all. It was that the wrong people were doing it. As much as they shouted about a commitment to democracy, they were only really ever committed to getting their own way. And they have – proudly – out-oligarched their enemies.

With a twist.

The old villains, like the Kochs and Murdoch, First of His Name, were seemingly concerned with self-enrichment. Essentially self-absorbed, they pursued politics to get what they wanted (more money), hurting other people in the process. By contrast, ‘philanthropists’ like Omidyar and Murdoch II are set on changing your life for ‘the greater good’. They have convinced themselves that, since they are on a holy mission, everything they do and all the money they expend in pursuit of those goals is somehow justified. The ruthless businessmen of yesteryear are being replaced by priests of higher morals who just happen to be phenomenally rich. The oldies pursued their interests selfishly – the newbies are convinced that their interests are your interests. And they are spending a great deal of money trying to convince the rest of the world of that, too.

The entire article, although long, is more than worth your time to read it.  It shows clearly that Big Brother is no longer exclusively to be found in the corridors of the Capitol or the White House, or in corporate boardrooms.  Big Brother has expanded to take over networks of influence throughout civil society, all funded by those with an agenda and determined to impose it on the rest of us.

It goes without saying that this is antithetical to democracy;  yet it's a real and present danger that threatens to overwhelm democracy and replace it with a faux sense of community support, entirely manufactured and without real societal foundation or acceptance.

I can only suggest most strongly that you need to read the whole article, and then think about it, and re-read it more than once.  It shows more clearly than anything else I've read recently how last November's elections were stolen, and democracy in America overturned;  and it shows very clearly the huge job ahead of us to restore that democracy.  Those who'll try to stop us are very well organized and very well funded.  It's going to be an uphill battle . . . but it has to be fought.

Peter

 

Reports like this one highlight the danger your kids face today if you send them to government schools.  They aren't all as bad as Seattle's, but the trend is nevertheless nationwide.

Seattle Public Schools recently held a racially charged teacher-training session that convicted US schools of committing “spirit murder” against black kids and demanded that white teachers “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgment of [their] thieved inheritance.”

According to whistleblower documents from the session that I’ve ­reviewed, the trainers began by claiming that teachers are colonizers of “the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People.” Later: “The United States was built off the stolen labor of kidnapped and enslaved black people’s work.” The image of a black-power fist removed any lingering hope that the presentation might ­involve a modicum of nuance.

. . .

The main message: White teachers must recognize that they “are assigned considerable power and privilege in our society” because of their “possession of white skin.” To atone, they must self-consciously reject their “whiteness” and become dedicated “anti-racist educator[s].”

Any resistance, no matter how well-argued or factually grounded, was dismissed as a reflex of white teachers’ “lizard-brain,” which makes them “afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism or any kind of ‘ism.’ ”

In the most disturbing portion, teachers discussed “spirit murder.” Schools, according to “abolitionist” pedagogue Bettina Love, who invented the concept, “murder the souls of black children every day through systemic, institutionalized, anti-black, state-sanctioned violence.”

What’s the goal here? Simply put, to transform Seattle schools into activist organizations.

At the conclusion of the training, teachers had to explain how they will practice “anti-racist pedagogy,” address the “social-justice movements taking place” and become “anti-racist outside the classroom.” They were told to divide the world into “enemies, allies and ­accomplices” and work toward the “abolition” of whiteness. They must, in other words, abandon the illusion of neutral teaching standards and get in the trenches of race-based activism.

. . .

Sadly, if past is precedent, the ­racial fever gripping Seattle schools will soon spread to the nation.

There's more at the link.

Have you been asking why so many millennials and young people support Black Lives Matter, or Antifa, or - for that matter - Joe Biden and the Democratic Party?  Look no further for an explanation.  The course described above is basically taking the extreme left-wing, progressive, socialist wing of the Democratic Party and forcing it down the throats of teachers, and - through them - of their students.

It's coming to the point where, if you want to raise your kids as normal, healthy, well-balanced adults able to think for themselves, you dare not send them to government school.  Private schools - that you've made sure aren't infected with the politically correct, SJW disease - or home-schooling are becoming the only realistic options.

In the latter case, I know several families that have taken a conscious decision that one spouse will stay at home and help educate the kids, as well as look after the house, while the other is the bread-winner for the family.  It means they have less money, to be sure, but the quality of their family, both as a group and as individuals, is immeasurably enhanced.

Peter

I'm very glad I don't have to put up with this crap when selecting a restaurant.  The New York Post reports:

The joys of food and cooking no longer matter much in establishment perceptions of the culinary arts. Good luck trying to learn how to tell one tomato from another. The discourse increasingly resembles a college curriculum built on “intersectionality” and the evils of American capitalism.

. . .

Eater.com recently posted a “socially conscious shopper’s guide” to coffee and tea and noted, “Our daily cup owes everything to our colonial, slave-built economy.”

San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho banned from her vocabulary any number of innocuous words that might be taken as “microaggressions” — for example, “addictive” for anything delicious, because it might somehow offend minorities for who knows why.

The most unforgivable sin is “cultural appropriation.” If you’re a non-Guatemalan who dares to cook Guatemalan, you’re dead meat.

Last year, the well-meaning, non-Chinese owner of a small Chinese cafe downtown saw her career ruined by the woke mob. Eater.com accused her of “racist positioning” over the wording of an ad about lo mein. The Twitter mob piled on. Her apologies weren’t enough to save the restaurant.

The editor of Conde Nast title Bon Appetit was forced out this year over a 16-year-old photo that purportedly showed him wearing “brownface” at Puerto Rican-themed costume party. He denied he had altered his face color, but a staff mutiny sealed his fate.

The mob next struck the mag’s popular test-kitchen video site over a pattern of “cultural insensitivity” that allegedly included underpaying nonwhite contributors. Heads rolled. Bon Appetit’s new digital restaurant editor writes that it isn’t enough to talk about “the intersectionality of food, politics, race, class and gender” only when it’s “convenient.” Intersectionality must be made a primary theme.

The great chef Thomas Keller was excommunicated for calling it an “honor” to be named to the White House’s Economic Council for Restaurants, formed to support the coronavirus-ravaged industry. There was much chortling when the pandemic forced him to close his Hudson Yards restaurant TAK Room. While Eater.com critic Ryan Sutton was careful not to cheer its demise, which caused “scores of hardworking people . . . losing their livelihoods,” he wrote that it “shouldn’t have opened in the first place.”

Chefs who are in vogue tend to be political and racial provocateurs. New Orleans-based Tunde Wey, whose stunts have included charging white customers twice as much as nonwhites, recently posted an Instagram essay in which he rooted for the death of the whole restaurant industry for its “racist” practices.

There's more at the link.

What a load of culinary codswallop!  The only important thing about a chef, a restaurant or a cuisine is that he/she/it produce food worth the eating.  Tastes differ, but quality always shows.  I don't give a damn about the chef's personal politics, or where he/she stands on issues of the day, just so long as I find their food appetizing and interesting.  That's what I'm paying for, after all!

For the benefit of the terminally politically-correct and race-conscious, let me close by admitting that I generally prefer brown gravy to white gravy.  Nevertheless, I'm an equal opportunity masticator.  I chew on them, digest them, and dispose of their remains without discrimination.  Does that make me a saucy SJW?




Peter

I continue to shake my head in disbelief at how extremely liberal/far-left-wing/progressive moonbats can find something ideological in anything and everything they see.  It's as if they look at the world through spectacles designed to show reality only in politically tinged colors.

The latest example may be found in the Guardian, where an article postulates that President Trump's preference for classical architecture is actually a form of endorsement for patriarchal, authoritarian societies.

Modernism took the advances of the technological revolution, then tried to make a clean break with the styles of architecture that had preceded it. Its practitioners were designing for the masses, imagining egalitarian utopias and rejecting what had come before.

Neoclassical architecture, on the other hand, harks back to a time when European nations were more powerful on the world stage, more homogeneous – and derived no small part of their power from the subservience of racial minorities and women.

. . .

In short, the call to return to classical beauty often masks a desire to regress to a uglier place in the recent past where diversity was a vice and subjugation a virtue. Modernity and globalisation, and their material expressions, are the enemy.

The far right operates by inciting fear about forces that threaten to topple white supremacy. Conspiracy theories, such as the “great replacement”, imagine that white Europeans are under threat from Muslim migration and the falling birth rates of emancipated women. Classical architecture, with its invocation of white power, is a visual and psychic balm for those anxieties.

. . .

Traditional narratives depict imperial Rome as a bulwark against invading barbarian hordes, an image that has clear appeal for the contemporary right. It was also a slave-owning society, and one where women’s power was limited to the home, since they were unable to vote or hold public office.

History, both ancient and more recent, is a place of refuge only for a select few. If you’re not white, or not a man, the chances are that the past would not be such a beautiful place to return to. Aesthetic time travel is far more appealing to those who see classical architecture as a comforting symbol of their former power. Eulogising these styles without confronting their complicated history is a mistake.

Diversity – in a society and in architecture – must be defended. Architects should be free to build brighter futures through their work, not forced to mirror a compromised past.

There's more at the link.

I've seldom seen so much bulls**t compressed into a single article.  The author appears both tone-deaf and reality-blind.  She literally can't conceive of a world in which some of us value artistic expression in architecture, as opposed to soul-less brick bunkers and blockhouses.  Somehow we're "subjugators" and "white supremacists" and "clinging to our former power", merely because we find classical architecture more beautiful and inspiring than the proletarian, utilitarian dreck inspired by Karl Marx and his disciples.

I don't suppose there's any help for people like that.  They've sat in their ideological chairs for so long that the iron has entered their souls.  They no longer have any relationship with reality unless it's been filtered and processed through the ideological fortresses with which they've surrounded themselves.  I'd almost feel sorry for them, except that they insist on thrusting their ideas upon the rest of us.

Oh, well.  If war is the final argument of kings, this can always be our final argument against modernist architecture.




Peter

I've been as disgusted as anyone by the deliberate trashing of the Star Wars mythos by Disney's final three movies in the franchise.  Their social-justice-warrior, liberal-progressive focus has been blindingly obvious, and box office results have confirmed that many fans have seen through the smokescreen to the reality beyond.

Others have seen it as well.  Bill Whittle gave a concise breakdown of the scale of the problem in a recent video discussion that he called "The Unmaking of Star Wars: Why Progressives Killed It and How".  I highly recommend it.




John Nolte discusses "11 Ways Kathleen Kennedy Killed the ‘Star Wars’ Golden Goose".

To understand just how big of a failure this is, you have to remember what the original plan was: to turn Star Wars into the next Marvel, to expand the Star Wars universe into two blockbusters a year, all of which was more than possible. After all, we are talking about the most beloved film franchise in history — one with endless possibilities and a devoted fan base that includes a talent pool of some of the best filmmakers and storytellers in the world.

Most of all, though, there was all that goodwill. Millions and millions and millions of fans wanted this franchise to succeed… Do you know how rare that is?

And they squandered it.

Well, not they…

She.

She, as in Kathleen Kennedy, the producer in charge of Star Wars and all things Lucasfilm.

Boy, did she blow it.

Before we get started, it’s important to first dispel a myth going around — this myth that Star Wars fans are hopelessly divided, that the fans now live in two different camps and can never be brought back together. You see, one camp is filled with toxic fanboys who only want their nostalgia G-spot rubbed. The other camp wants more affirmative action for Mary Sue characters like Rey and Rose Tico, more superfreaks like Solo’s pansexual (I don’t know what means and I don’t want to know) Lando Calrissian.

This myth is part was created by sycophants in the entertainment media to defend and excuse Kennedy, to pretend there was nothing she could do to satisfy everyone, so none of this failure is her fault.

Do you want to know what proves that myth a lie?

The Mandalorian.

Everyone loves The Mandalorian, the Disney+ TV show. Which means…

Guess what? The fans are not forever divided.

So here’s a list of the main things that Kathleen Kennedy got so horribly wrong.

. . .

But everything boils down to one thing... Through a divisive political agenda delivered with a heavy hand, Kennedy squandered all that goodwill. It’s gone now, and so is the golden goose.

There's more at the link.

As all long-time Star Wars fans know, there were (and are) three true Star Wars movies:  Episode IV – A New Hope, Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (to many fans, the best of the original three films), and Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.  All the others have been false starts, disappointments, and a mishmash of everything the original Star Wars movies were not.  For most fans, they simply don't count.  For us, they're not part of the canon.

Frankly, thanks to the disaster Disney has inflicted on us with the last three Star Wars movies, I won't bother to subscribe to the Disney+ streaming service, no matter how good The Mandalorian may be and how much I'd like to watch it.  I'll wait until the DVD's come out, or it's available elsewhere (perhaps on someone's DVR?), then friends and I will enjoy them together.  We'll make sure to lend them to others as well, so Disney's revenue from their Star Wars blunder will be minimized.  That seems like appropriate revenge to me for their dumping this crap upon us, and destroying a beloved franchise.

Peter

One can argue until the cows come home about politics and partisanship.  Today the latter appears worse than ever, although I'm sure that's because we can't go back in time and see how bad it was in earlier generations.  Nevertheless, the "pressure groups" trying to influence society and politics are particularly active, and particularly vocal, at present.

Vilified by many people because of his perceived right-wing politics (which are often exaggerated and distorted by his critics), Vox Day has nevertheless been proved by events to be a very accurate observer of the extremist left wing of politics and culture.  He's just published a new book, "Corporate Cancer: How to Work Miracles and Save Millions by Curing Your Company", describing how they're trying to infiltrate and control corporations, as an extension of their political activities.




The blurb reads:

The corporate cancer of social justice convergence is costing corporations literal billions of dollars even as it drives both productive employees and loyal customers away, destroys valuable brands, and eats away at market capitalizations. From Internet startups to entertainment giants, convergence is killing corporations as they focus on social justice virtue signaling at the expense of good business practices, sales, profits, and retaining loyal customers.

In CORPORATE CANCER, Vox Day explains how you can fight social justice convergence in your own organization for both personal and corporate profit, and why you must do so if you want to keep your job.

Considering last week's headlines concerning Chick-Fil-A and its charity sponsorships, it's a pity the book has only just been published - otherwise that company's management might have learned something from it!

The book joins Vox Day's two previous analyses of how so-called "social justice warriors" operate.  Both have proved to be accurate so many times that it's almost superfluous to call them seminal analyses of what's wrong in our society.  Click on each cover image to learn more about the book.






I don't agree with Vox on some issues, but I've always found him to be approachable, incisive and clear when discussing topics of mutual interest.  I'm not interested in the mud that's been thrown at him, or in attempts to vilify or defame his fans by association with him.  He can argue very cogently for what he believes in, and whether or not anyone agrees with him, that's his right and his privilege.  (There's also the very salient point that one may know a person by the quality of their friends - and their enemies.  He's made enemies of so many of the "politically correct" that he must be a very superior sort of opponent!)

The three books mentioned above are all relatively inexpensive, whether in e-book or print editions.  I respectfully suggest they belong in the libraries of anyone who's trying to understand modern political, social, economic or cultural interaction.  Their accuracy is their chief selling point.

(No, Vox isn't compensating me in any way for promoting these books.  I'm doing so because I've found them to be accurate far more often than not, and I've benefited from reading them.  That's why I recommend them.  I do have a professional association with him, through Castalia House, his publishing firm, producing some of my books in paper format, but that hasn't influenced my recommendation at all.)

Peter

One wonders whether the San Diego City Council has ever heard the expression, "a contradiction in terms".  Its housing policy appears to exemplify it.

A San Diego committee took a preliminary step Wednesday toward placing a $900 million housing bond on the November 2020 ballot.

. . .

The measure was designed to help San Diego secure a greater share of state money devoted to homelessness and affordable housing by providing local matching funds typically required for such assistance.

Supporters say evidence the bond is necessary includes city estimates that San Diego needs more than 5,400 additional housing units geared for homeless people.

Councilman Mark Kersey, who voted “no” along with Councilman Chris Cate, said the subsidized housing units the bond would pay for are too expensive for him to be comfortable asking voters to pay higher property taxes.

He said the average cost for a subsidized unit is typically higher than $400,000.

“You’re now asking San Diegans to subsidize the construction of units that are nicer and more expensive than the ones they themselves live in,” he said. “I think this is going to be a tough sell.”

There's more at the link.

So, in a city where there's already a shortage of affordable housing, you plan to make housing less affordable, by making it more expensive to own, by raising property taxes?  Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .

As for a cost of $400,000 per subsidized housing unit, that's just plain insane!  What are you building for the homeless - five-star catered accommodation?  There's an old saying that "beggars can't be choosers".  By all means provide basic accommodation, but luxury housing?  Why the hell should the city - or any other government entity - have to provide that?  This is touchy-feely do-goodism gone mad!

I think the "Conestoga hut" approach is a much more effective first step - and vastly more economical.




You can read more about Conestoga huts here.  They seem like an outstanding idea, and at $2,500 apiece, you can buy 160 of them for the cost of one of the subsidized housing units being proposed in San Diego!  Sure, there are issues of sanitation, etc. to be sorted out, but communal bathrooms can be erected at a very reasonable cost per user, and the huts can be erected on vacant lots and/or outside town, if necessary.  Feeding arrangements, etc. are a matter of organization.  Having worked with the homeless in South Africa, and being familiar with the challenges involved, there would be no insurmountable problems that I can see in setting up a Conestoga Hut village at relatively low cost.

Proponents of a San Diego-style approach will doubtless argue that the Conestoga Hut solution is short-term only, and can't compare to a permanent home.  They're right - but what makes it a city government's problem to provide permanent homes?  Why should our taxes pay for other people's housing, except on an emergency or short-term basis?  I'm certainly not going to tolerate that where I live, and I'll apply all my energy, if necessary, to defeating any politician who advocates it.  Besides, if it comes to that, providing a new Conestoga hut every two to three years to a permanent resident is still a damned sight cheaper than other alternatives - and one could always build them out of longer-lasting, more durable materials, for not much greater expense.

This entire nation is built upon individual responsibility, not communal.  Sure, there are those who will never be able to exercise much in the way of individual responsibility, due to illness, or accident, or whatever;  and we should certainly help them.  That's part of being socially responsible, and it's why I've volunteered to help many community efforts (including helping the homeless) over the years.  Nevertheless, the help we provide should be affordable and sustainable.  $400,000 "free" (i.e. taxpayer-funded) housing units are neither!




Peter

Australian reader Snoggeramus brings us another example of bureaucrats living in a dream world - that backfires on them.

Two social workers at Melbourne's controversial safe injecting room are facing drug trafficking charges.

A 49-year-old man and 36-year-old woman were arrested on Thursday, along with six others, following raids at North Richmond Community Health and several homes.

The centre has been the site of Victoria's first safe injecting room since 2018, as part of a two-year trial.

The pair, who work as counsellors, are accused of supplying drugs to addicts who use the service and have been stood down following their arrest.

Those living in the area say the neighbourhood has become a notorious crime hot spot since the safe injecting room opened.

There's more at the link.  Here's a TV news report.




I worked with the homeless in Cape Town, South Africa as a volunteer at a Church-run shelter for a while.  I had more exposure to it in the USA during visits to such shelters, and ran into the consequences of some such places during my service as a prison chaplain.  In all of them, there was a common denominator.  If you set up a place where substances can be legally abused, with the police turning a blind eye to them, criminals will take advantage of the opportunity.  It's just about a gold-plated guarantee.

As for the "community service workers" who were arrested, who ran the background checks on them?  I'm willing to bet that some bleeding-heart social justice doofus decided that former drug abusers would be perfect for the job, because they'd "understand" the challenges facing those still abusing them.  Talk about an open door for further abuse!

Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .




Peter

Bill Whittle lays it out in this video clip.  It's well worth your time to watch it.




That's why our society appears to be infested with liberal idiots, democratic socialists, Antifa, radical feminists, and the like.  They're almost all the product of the tarnished, propagandistic, left-wing-hijacked American educational system.

For the love of God, if you have children or grandchildren, please see to it that they're given enough food for thought to counteract this inadequate preparation for life and progressive brainwashing!  Home schooling is a good start, for those in a position to provide it.  A solid family life (including extended family) and exposure to the practicalities (rather than esoteric theories) of life from an early age goes a long way, too.  Sending them to the latest superhero movie, or providing them with a smartphone or tablet from an early age, does nothing for them.  It merely exposes them to more of what Bill Whittle portrays.  Break that cycle.  Teach them to be well-rounded, well-grounded human beings first.  The rest will follow - and they won't fall into the progressive trap.

Sadly, of course, that means they need well-rounded, well-grounded human beings from whom to learn about reality, and who are willing to exert the required effort to impart that.  There aren't enough to go around, these days.  I can see that very clearly in the children of my friends.  Some are a delight, even in their early years;  well-disciplined without being subdued, playful yet polite, the usual childhood naughtiness but tempered with awareness of what is and isn't right, interested and inquisitive about life without being pests.  Others . . . not so much.

Peter

From an article by Simon Black, here's a classic illustration.  Click the image to see a larger version.




The artist left out the "fear, hatred and loathing" synapse (activated whenever anyone disagrees with the SJW), but apart from that, I reckon it's more accurate than not!




Peter

A new report draws racial inferences from pollution - and uses them as a rationale to propose additional restrictions and controls on society.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

A study published Monday in the journal PNAS adds a new twist to the pollution problem by looking at consumption. While we tend to think of factories or power plants as the source of pollution, those polluters wouldn't exist without consumer demand for their products.

The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans' consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.

"This paper is exciting and really quite novel," says Anjum Hajat, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study. "Inequity in exposure to air pollution is well documented, but this study brings in the consumption angle."

Hajat says the study reveals an inherent unfairness: "If you're contributing less to the problem, why do you have to suffer more from it?"

. . .

While more research is needed to fully understand these differences, the results of this study raise questions about how to address these inequities ... Diez Roux thinks that stronger measures may be necessary.

"If want to ameliorate this inequity, we may need to rethink how we build our cities and how they grow, our dependence on automobile transportation," says Diez Roux. "These are hard things we have to consider."

There's more at the link.

I think any racial angle in the study is almost certainly grossly overstated.  All over the world, poorer people of any and every race live in less desirable, less pristine, more polluted and/or overcrowded neighborhoods than those with more money.  Poorer people also buy less than more affluent consumers.  To try to insinuate that exposure to pollution is therefore a racial problem, because whites consume more than blacks or hispanics, is (IMHO) stretching things way too far.

However, as always with left-wing talking points, note the sting in the tail.  Just like alleged anthropomorphic climate change, if this is a problem, then obviously we must do something to fix it:  and the way to fix it is to impose greater controls on society.  To hell with free choice - it's for the chiiiiiiiiillldren!  We must order people around and restrict their independence!

Funny how often moonbats come up with that answer, isn't it?




Peter

Received from two readers, origin unknown:




Yep.  The number of people still taking degrees in gender and/or ethnic studies, underwater basket-weaving and the like never fails to astonish me.  What's more, when they finally graduate (weighed down with student loans totaling tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars), they bitch and moan and whine about having to repay the loans, and default at the slightest opportunity.  I know of several who've appeared overseas, teaching English in third-world countries, who openly and defiantly state that they refuse to go back to the USA because that would entail accepting responsibility for their student loans and repaying them.  The attitude of "I'm entitled!" is astonishing - albeit hopelessly naive, of course.  So much for our advanced society!

Is it any wonder that so many illegal aliens flood across our borders, intent on obtaining the same benefits (?) for themselves?  After all, they (or at least some of them) must surely reason, if Yanquis themselves can get away with such behavior, why can't they?




Peter