Friends, one year has passed and so it's time to reflect on the legacy of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Floyd's clearest legacy is the vast political movement that he helped spawn, led by Black Lives Matter and its offshoots. Their activism, in turn, while it didn't abolish the police, certainly cowed them. And that Pyrrhic victory over policing led, inexorably, to a rise in crime that -- you guessed it -- has killed literally thousands of Americans, many of them black. If you like irony, you'll love this: BLM is, whether it realizes it or not, exacerbating and accelerating the murder of black people in this country. Only when BLM crawls back under its rock, and the police are given freer rein to enforce the law, will black communities see relief.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-what-one-year-has-brought
Some of you will consider this non-news: Donald Trump, all things being equal, would like to be president again! Of course, four years is a long time, so we'll have to wait and see if conditions are propitious in 2024, but if I were a lefty I'd be a little worried. Maybe lightning could strike twice?
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/trump-2024-president-health/2021/05/27/id/1022997/
Facebook has lifted its ban on posts that claim that COVID-19 was manufactured in a lab. Well well! Does this mean that Facebook's labeling of previous posts along these lines as "misinformation" was itself...misinformation? Maybe! And this is just one of many problems with censorship: it presumes the infallibility of the censors, when, as we all know, "the truth" is a slippery concept and our understanding of it "evolves", as Facebook puts it. No kidding!
Colleges are already coming pretty close to requiring their faculty, staff, and students to subscribe to leftist doctrines surrounding issues of "diversity and inclusion". Once upon a time, creating an environment wherein everyone was treated equally might have been sufficient. No more. Now you must foster an atmosphere in which the victimhood of certain categories of people is constantly referenced, and the fault of whites must be incessantly acknowledged. Failure to comply will elicit the harshest penalties. To put it another way, if you're not "with" the Left, you're against it. What's next? Woke loyalty oaths?
https://freebeacon.com/campus/ohio-college-will-assign-diversity-scores-to-faculty-applicants/
In other Orwellian news, USA Today will allow opponents of transgender orthodoxy to voice their opinions, BUT it also reserves the right to edit their words to avoid offending male women and female men. Nice!
This is a story worth pondering. There are many ways to silence and destroy your enemies. Censorship in the media and social media is one. Another is to deny organizations and companies of which you disapprove the ability to borrow money, transact deals, or do business in a normal way. Just imagine how hard life would be if no bank, credit card company, or insurance company would give you the time of day... In the future, whole industries may suffer this fate, possibly whole political parties, and certainly proscribed individuals. The sky's the limit. The Left loves to shun people. Trust me -- it's only getting started. When it's done, some of us won't even be allowed to talk to ourselves.
First, no one on the left is worried about Trump succeeding in 2024. For one thing, Trump has too many legal issues to worry about. For another, he wouldn't be able to win.
ReplyDeleteSecond, as for de-banking, in a capitalist system, if a bank thinks having a particular client hurts its bottomline (due to the client's public image), except for length of contract issues, they are not required to keep the client around.
Rod, as usual, you dismiss Trump at your peril. He's a walking abomination, according to you, and he came within 40,000 votes of winning in 2020, even after you and your establishment pals did everything in your power to rig the outcome. I don't regard Trump as our strongest potential candidate in 2024, but I don't regard him as the weakest either. He brings s lot to the table.
ReplyDeleteSo debanking is technically legal...and that makes it okay? Just wait until some of these stratagems start to be used against people, organizations, and causes near and dear to YOU, Rod. You'll be singing a different tune.
Nick, first, the Dems didn't rig anything. That's part of the Big Lie that is destroying this country.
ReplyDeleteSecond, Trump has lost a chunk of his support and he already lost by 7 million votes. So, even if he is not in prison by 2024, he's a loser.
Third, I am not crazy about what banks may do, but I am amused about how people who support capitalism wet their pants when capitalism is put into practice.
Dr. Nick
ReplyDeleteWhen Carveth's Marxist beliefs are put into full practice, he will be shitting his pants on a daily basis.
The BLM is The Black Panthers reborn, plain and simple. Nothing complicated about this, it's been brewing for about 50 years.
ReplyDeleteColleges and Universities started heading Left during the 1960s. Nothing was done to stop this "trend" regardless of who was in The White House. This was done in every state in the union, and regardless of who was in power politically in any given state.
ReplyDeleteFor those who actually know history, colleges and universities were quite conservative in the 1960s, having purged liberals in the 1950s. That was at root of the student movement.
DeleteThe mass expansion of colleges and universities to accommodate the volume of baby boomer students meant colleges and universities had to hire many more faculty, including more liberals. In addition, conservatives with advanced degrees started gravitating more to business and STEM while liberals with advanced degrees moved into liberal arts and social sciences.
Finally, there was nothing constitutional to limit this "trend." As states are about to find out, trying to limit the teaching of Critical Race Theory (of which no legislator has demonstrated the least bit of knowledge) is similarly unconstitutional.
Colleges and universities BECAME very Left beginning in the 1960s when the "Hippie" movement kicked in, and especially after the U.S. became heavily involved in the Vietnam War. Actually the process began in the wake of the McCarthy hearings during the 1950s and the "Beatnik" surge. That so called "purging" was basically ineffective. In any event, the words "conservative" and "liberal" mean absolutely nothing now, and particularly because original, true Liberals have embraced Marxism and Neo-Marxism. Most state universities are solidly Left now, and have been for at least 30 years, if not 40 years.
DeleteHey Rod,
DeleteI am a "baby boomer" and went to college "back in the day" and most of the professors when I got to graduate school were BIG TIME LEFTISTS. I had to put up with their Marxist b.s. in order to survive. Yes, I KNOW history.
The Left has always believed in total control of every aspect of society, any society. Even with the Republicans in The White House again, and in control of both houses of Congress, real control of the country remains in The hands of the Left in education, religion, science, sports, film, media, high tech and so. That's reality!
ReplyDeleteFrankly speaking, we live in a really asinine society. Millions of dingbats running around all over the place. A real shit pile.
ReplyDeleteRod, there are many ways to "rig" an election. You presumably would say that requiring voter ID or shortening the period of early voting would be "rigging" an election. I would say that changing the rules by which mail-in voting occurs, in violation of statute, is "rigging" an election. You would probably say that Stacey Abrams is the rightful Governor of Georgia because she was cheated in 2018. But don't worry, Rod -- we won't report you to the FBI as an "insurrectionist". We enjoy your posts way too much to do something like that. :)
ReplyDeleteAs you know, the popular vote doesn't elect the president -- the electoral college does. If you're happy with your 20k, 12k, and 10k margins in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, then great! Sit on those massive leads. Pass all the radical legislation you can. Spend us into bankruptcy. The GOP is dead and gone, after all. You have nothing to fear!
"Debanking" fossil fuel companies IS NOT capitalism. They're profitable companies which have as much right to do business as any other company, and pay their fees and pay interest on their loans just like you and me. Debanking them is the product of the politicization of EVERYTHING, which is what wokeness and neo-Marxism demands.
Ray, I agree that the (political) right has been incredibly complacent as the (cultural) Left has expanded its power and entrenched its domination in almost every sector. Conservatives still control the purse strings in many of our states...so why aren't they imposing some kind of idelogical discipline on the education system that they fund? It's a mystery. I suppose, in the end, we right-wingers take our devotion to decentralization and "freedom" seriously -- maybe too seriously for our own good.
Rod, you say lefties went into academia, while rightists went into business. Maybe, but if so why is corporate America kneeling before the shibboleth of wokery? The truth is that the Left increasingly dominates ALL professions and elite institutions...and no, that's not because all smart people are Marxists.
Rod has a point that the banning of "critical race theory" may be unconstitutional. Critical race theory is a broad and vague concept. Merely defining it in legislative terms would be immensely difficult. Forcing people not to talk about it is a non-starter, if you ask me. The same views would simply by repackaged and relabeled.
Ray is right that, often, when we use the terms "liberal" and "conservative", we're working at cross-purposes and referencing completely different concepts. Certainly the ways those words are used now would be largely unrecognizable to someone from, say, the 1960s.
"A real shit pile" -- yeah, I guess. Take a good look at Victorian England, or the Persian Empire, or the Incas, or the Australian Aborigines, and I dare you to conclude that their societies were any less "asinine". Maybe a little more in touch with human nature (they hadn't forgotten how to procreate, for instance), but equally subject to flights of fancy. Welcome to the human race!
I was referring to the "shit pile" Left.
DeleteNick, in 2016, Trump won PA by 68K, AZ by 95K, GA by 211K, WI by 21K and MI by 11K. In 2020, Biden won PA by 81K, AZ by 10K, GA by 12K WI by 20K and MI by 150K. In other words, swung the votes on those states by 675K. Those are the more important numbers -- in each of those states except WI, Biden picked up at least 105K.
ReplyDeleteDebanking is very much capitalism. If a bank thinks a corporation is a bad risk, it can get rid of the company. A bad risk may be merely profit or loss, or it can be from a bad reputation. Why do you think that banks don't want to deal with Trump's companies? It is a combination of past bankruptcies and a toxic reputation.
Oil companies have a right to do business. They do not have a right to have a bank support them. That's a bank's decision in a capitalist society.
Nick, there is no such thing as neo-Marxism. It's a term conservatives place on studies that examine the effects of race or gender, and they connect to the term Marxism because Marxism has such a negative connotation. The fact is Marxism proposes that the economic elite exploits an oppressed working class by denying them a fair share of the fruits of the proletariat's labor. In reality, struggles of blacks or women is still an economic struggle. You can be black or female and a billionaire and thus part of the bourgeoisie. There is nothing inherent in being black or female that oppresses you (though those are the main tenets of race and gender studies. That's also why Critical Race Theory is not Marxist). It is the exploitative mode of economics and the structural factors (laws) supporting the bourgeoisie that oppress.
Red states ARE trying to impose their reactionary cultural thinking, as evidenced by their passing laws against Critical Race Theory (without having a clue as to what it is). But, that type of pursuit will get knocked down in the courts. Red states would be better off by assigning the public money that funds schools to the actual student, so the money would follow the student to whatever school that they go to. That would be constitutional (presuming nothing in their state constitutions prohibit it). But, doing so is not nearly as appealing to the Trump base as trying to prevent the 1619 Project from being mentioned in schools.
Hi Rod
ReplyDeleteMarxism has a "negative connotation" BECAUSE it is a negative ideology with atheism at its core, for starters.
Marxism is not a negative ideology. What Marx brought forth in Das Kapital was a very extensive economic history that demonstrated that if the proletariat ever developed a class consciousness such that they realized that they were being exploited that they would rise up and seize the means of production from the bourgeoisie. In that, Marx was correct. Where he was not correct was his vision of a stateless society based on the concept of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Marx' stateless utopia was never realized because a state would always develop -- thus swapping one elite (economic) for another (political). Just like with the false consciousness created in capitalist economies, political elites had to put into place a mechanism for creating false consciousness of its citizens. Thus, economic oppression was replaced by political oppression.
ReplyDeleteSo, Marx was correct in identifying the problem, but his ultimate solution was far too pie in the sky. Having a stateless utopia might very well be a nice place to live in.
Marx was less an atheist (more likely an agnostic) as he saw religion as part of the economic structures that kept the proletariat in its place. In addition, while Marx' statement "Die Religion is das Opium des Volkesis (Religion is the opium of the masses) is more famous, the more accurate quote of Marx about religion would be "Die religiöse Welt ist nur der Reflex der realen Welt" (The religious world is but the reflex of the real world).
Dr.Waddy from Jack: My answer to Rod is this: Best to judge a principle by the results of its application. Applied and enforced Marxism? Results?: Utterly dysfunctional economies; spasmodic, totalitarian and subhuman efforts to force results running against all reason and reality! A reasoned defense of any aspect of Marxism is as impossible as one of Naziism!
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason in the world that the ultimate outcomes of Marxism are dysfunctional economies, and totalitarian governments. One of the basic tenets of Marxism is that it would be stateless, thus not replacing an economic elite with a political one. Unfortunately, we tend to replace systems with ones that are quite a bit like the ones that were there before.
DeleteOf course, when it has looked like a socialist system might work, the U.S. has worked to overthrow it. The U.S. backed a coup to topple the freely elected Christian socialist government of Juan Jose Arevaio and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, replacing it with a series of military dictatorships friendly to the U.S. -- and allowing the exploitation of farm workers for the benefit of United Fruit.
Then, of course, was the U.S. overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran because 1) he initiated a number of social reforms (for which the U.S. accused him of being a communist) and 2) nationalized the British oil industry in Iran after the British refused to negotiate a fairer deal with the Iranians. This led to the Shah's long, brutal rule, and, eventually, the hostage crisis in 1979.
Then, finally, there is Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist, a fact that the U.S. wouldn't stand for. Allende's ouster led to the deadly military rule of Pinochet.
So, there have been three times when workable socialist states have been in existence only to have the U.S. (along with the UK in Iran's case) work to undermine them.
Rod from Jack: You often argue effectively; how do you explain this:Naziism; it took but one dose of Hitler's consummate evil to completely discredit his principles, which are today embraced by a powerless miniscule faction. But Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mengistu - all of them as murderously accomplished as Hitler: their expressed doctrine, Marxism, is widely apologized for, often with the caveat that it simply was crudely applied and should be tried again. Would any sane person suggest this for Naziism? Well, of course not. Then why Marxism?
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy et al from Jack: The U.S. has not interfered with socialist regimes in the U.K.,France and Scandinavia and some third world countries. If we disabled proven , expected, previously FULLYdemonstrated murderous oppression of farm workers in S.America then we did much good. What was the Chilean military to do? "Allende is a declared Marxist; Marxists are fully historically proven murderous totalitarians. Free electorates have unwisely empowered totalitarian monsters. We have the power to stop this reasonably to be expected monster. What, do you say we shouldn't use it against Allende and his cadre? The force we use will in no way be equal to that customarily used by Marxists against tbeir unfortunate populations". Mossadegh was very friendly to the Soviets, who Truman had had to order out of Iran with the bomb to back him. How long before Iran became the Persian SSR? What consummate totalitarian Marxist oppression would have obtained in Iran then? Worse than the Shah you say, really? And that warm
ReplyDeletewater port so c!ose to the Med.? The Brits would surely have reacted to that and had they failed, why then us for sure. After WWII how could any nation or alliance with the power to do so, shrink from the totalitarian threat?
Dr.Waddy et al from Jack: Above I should have added "... fully demonstrated Marxist oppression of farm workers , for whom Lenin ,Stalin andMao in his empowered days, displayed murderous disdain . . .
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are no socialist regimes in the UK, France or Scandinavia. All are capitalist countries. The industries are not run by workers, but by private industry. Having a publically run health care system does not make a country socialist.
ReplyDeleteMosaddegh was NOT friendly with the Soviets. That was the propaganda the CIA spread in the plot to overthrow him -- the fear that he would ally with the Soviets when the British forced its allies not to purchase Iranian oil. Had the British been willing to negotiate a fairer deal with Iran, then Iran under Mosaddegh would have become a far more democratic country, one partnering with the U.K. and the U.S. rather than be an adversary. We screwed the pooch on that one.
Allende was a Marxist, but a democratically elected one. Plus, during his first year, he was quite successful. Production was up, unemployment was low, land reform was continuing and inflation was dropping. Of course, we could not a successfully running government led by a Marxist, so through a combination of onerous economic sanctions, and then a political coup, we swapped Allende for the murderous Pinochet. We screwed the pooch there as well.
Finally, none of these totalitarian regimes of Stalin, Mao, etc. were Marxist. Marxist societies would be stateless. All those regimes had states.
I also don't advocate for Marxism. I think Marxism works in a groups the size of large communes, but no larger. It's hard to envision most countries being stateless. That being said, there is nothing about Marxism that says that totalitarianism is inevitable.
Rod, all your numbers prove is that the key states were super-close in 2016, and they were again in 2020. If that says "Biden landslide" to you, then your math isn't very math-y.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you're right, Rod, that banks have the right not to do business with bad actors. But when the "bad actors" are the very companies literally keeping the lights on IN THE BANK, you have to scratch your head.
Rod is of course correct that CRT is not conventional Marxism -- it's reimagined Marxism with "race" substituted for "class". Non-whites are the new proletariat, Rod, at least for some. That's not so hard to understand.
And I totally agree that we should be pushing for school choice. MAXIMUM school choice. Why no red state has instituted it, in the fullest sense, is beyond me.
Rod, another error of Marx was to assume that conflict arises out of objective material circumstances. It doesn't. It arises out of PERCEPTION, almost without regard to material circumstances. No people has ever been LESS oppressed or deprived than modern Americans, for instance, but that doesn't prevent us from being hopping mad about it.
Rod's analysis of "socialist" states that we've torpedoed is interesting, but without a definition of "socialism" it doesn't clarify much.
Jack makes a good point: why Nazism and fascism are completely discredited, and yet Marxism is alive and well, intellectually, morally, and politically, is a mystery. Fascism is at least rooted in the reality of our "tribal" psychology. Marxism is rooted in fantasies about equality and human perfectibility that can only lead to heartache and violence.
And I agree with Jack: I'd take the Shah over the Ayatollah any day! The Iranians should have stuck with the "reign of terror" we gifted them.
Rod, if your definition of a "Marxist" regime is one without a state, then no regime that has ever been called "Marxist", or called itself "Marxist", WAS Marxist...and we're talking in circles. Surely, you can't propound a definition that goes against 99% of real world experience. Well, you can. And, if you do, you might fit in great with your fellow airy-fairy leftists... Carry on!
Nick, I never said that Biden won by a landslide. But, the numbers showed that he turned a significant number of votes in he swing states away from Trump.
ReplyDeleteYour interpretation of CRT being reimagined Marxism just demonstrates that you have never read CRT -- certainly not from the original sources.
A regime being called Marxist does not make it Marxist. Jack thinks that a public health option makes a country Marxist. A Marxist state, at the very least, owns the means of production. Theoretically, a Marxist regime would not have a state. That was my argument -- regimes are wrongly called Marxist regimes because people have never read Marx.
Finally, we have had regimes that have been led by Marxists or implemented socialist reforms that never got a chance to demonstrate their success because our country and our allies would not allow it.
Dr.Waddy et al: above when I said "worse than the Shah. . . I meant: could ANYTHING, even the authoritarian rule of the Shah, come close to the totalitarian evil promised by all Marxist regimes?
ReplyDeleteAll Marxist regimes? Allende and Arbanz prove that's not true.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy et al from Jack: post 1945 Britain was governed by those who purposed the nationalization of all productive industry in Britain. They were stopped only by the Churchill led Conservatives and later by Madame Thatcher. OK, the National Health Service survived but not the body of the yes, arguably Marxist, Labor agenda. France? How about Mitterand? Third world?Show me a leftist regime which has advanced its cou ntry beyond the luxuries usurped by Marxist fronting players!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy et al from Jack: How could the brief regimes of Allende and Arbenz prove anything?What, compared to Russia, China, Cambodia etc.?Should the civilized world have waited for their assured development into Marxist inspired hell holes? What about Russia in the 1920's? Stalin tolerated the somewhat humane New Economic Policy for awhile until he knew he had the power to enact his subhuman collectivization campaign. What about Mao and the insane "Great Leap Forward"which starved millions, some credulous, Chinese. Was the free world supposed to simply tolerate regimes which promised tne same?
ReplyDeleteThat's the point. The Arbanz regime (which was a continuation of a regime that was doing pretty darn well for the previous 10 years) and the Allende regime were not given the opportunity to exist because we toppled them. We had no business messing around in their countries, though that has never stopped us (see Vietnam, 55,000 U.S. deaths).
DeleteRod, I readily concede that there is plenty of ambiguity in the term "Marxism", but I still maintain that the essence of Marxism is the division of society into two groups: the virtuous downtrodden, and the diabolical elite. If you believe that the purpose of politics must be to overthrow the latter and empower and glorify the former, whether your obsession is class, or race, or gender, or something else, I say you're a Marxist, at least of a sort.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right that democratic Marxism/communism has never really gotten a fair shot. You can blame the Marxists for that, though, just as much as the evil capitalists.
Rod, you say we had "no business" interfering in other countries' internal affairs during the Cold War. Legally speaking, you're right. Practically speaking, both superpowers meddled as they saw fit. So did plenty of other powers. Probably the closest thing to an unobstructed, independent Marxist experiment in those days was Yugoslavia, which wasn't entirely hellacious, as I understand it. It wasn't vaguely democratic either. Is it merely a coincidence that Marxism has never spawned democracy or respected individual rights? Maybe, but it's a coincidence repeated so many times as to be more than a little suspicious!
Dr.Waddy et al from Jack: Was Hitler not really a Nazi because he failed to achieve his goals? Nazis are as Nazis do;Marxists are as Marxists do. The commies constantly invoked Marx, they plastered his picture all over the place; some of them even believed he was right. Marx's prediction that the state would wither away was insupportable, impossible nonsense. Nevertheless, untold millions were enslaved or killed by openly declared, yes, Marxists . If it talks like a Marxist and DOES the evil they always end up doing, unless prevented, then its a Marxist. The book Lenin's Tomb provides graphic, still almost incredible, accounts of the hellishness just of the journey to the Gulag for those Marxists saw as objects, not humans. Marx bade the world discard traditional views of justice and gave Marxist sociopaths a convenient rationale forthe incalculable, catastrophic wrong they did the innocent. Give them another chance? That is utter madness; what, shall we chance another 100 million lives ruined by their own governments? Of course not! Today's American far left lacks only the means, not the will, to impose their obvious Marxism's proven consummate injustice.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy et al from Jack: America was the only force capable of preventing Marxists from taking over the world. Hitler taught us the folly of allowing totalitarian subhumans to nickle and dime us. Our fight in Vietnam was against the existential threat of world communism . Its military success in Vietnam was prevented by the ignorance, arrogance, naivete and ingratitude of far too much of the boomer generation. Yet, finally, American determination ,the heroism of Saint John Paul II, Lech Walesa and Boris Yeltsin, together with the inherent insupportability of Marxistcontempt for human nature, DID destroy this worst of all human mass failings.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy et al from Jack: So if "nationalized" ownership of the means of production was a step toward the assured withering of the the consequently unneeded state, why were Russia, China,Cambodia, Cuba etc. very good examples of the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian states, eg. as posited by Jeane Kirkpatrick: authoritarian governments want your incidental cooperation; totalitarians want to control all,even the most miniscule, aspects of public and (formerly) private life. One certainly did not see much "withering" in those luckless lands, except of human well being, that is.
ReplyDeleteJack, I agree 100% (as I tend to). "Marxism" can only be understood in reference to the people who have called themselves "Marxists" and done "Marxist" things. Rod can pretend that the 100 million people killed by communism are not on the "Marxist" account, but that would be like saying that fascism had nothing to do with the Holocaust or World War II. But, again, it's not surprising that Rod takes the position that he does. He has to conjure the bloodbath(s) perpetrated by his co-leftists out of existence somehow. Pure theory to the rescue!
ReplyDeleteThe atrocities committed in "Marxist" countries are NOT due to Marxism. They are due to murderous tyrants. There is nothing about Marxism itself that would produce murderous tyrants, just as their is nothing about capitalism that would call for dragging out people from African nations in chains and enslaving them.
ReplyDeleteBTW, in all cases where there were revolutions (Russia, China, Cuba), there were prior murderous regimes. Thus the revolutions did not come about because labor found their consciousness. They came about because folks were tired of dying under dictators, and they exacted their revenge. It's no surprise that people who lead such bloody revolts tend to be murderous tyrants.
Well, technically you're right, Rod: an idea never killed anyone. I guess, for that reason, you'd agree that fascism, white supremacism, homophobia, and misogyny are equally harmless. I mean, technically, it's possible to be all four and not kill anyone!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we got this settled. :)