On Friday I had the great honor of closing out the week for Rush on America's Number One radio show. It was, as always, Open Line Friday, so we had callers praising George Orwell, and abandoning Seattle, and wondering why Pelosi and Schumer are dressing up as Ashanti slave traders. Along the way we touched on the rise of Chazzistan, the new utopia of non-open borders and swift deportations, the vaporization of the Duchess of Sussex's best chum, and genetically modified mosquitoes in a wasteland of plinths. Click below to listen:
As I said on air, we're committed to helping Rush out during this difficult time. So I'm afraid today's stint behind the Golden EIB Microphone pre-empted the Friday edition of The Mark Steyn Show. But we'll be back with another episode on Monday, and I'll be right here in a couple of hours with another cracking installment of our current Tale for Our Time, The Man Who Was Thursday.
Tales for Our Time is made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. We do our best to provide you with a few digitally delivered delights while you're holed up in the hills till the zombie apocalypse passes. For more on the Steyn Club see here.
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While the wokestapo media never stops drilling home their lunatic narrative that bares no resemblance to objective reality Conservative Inc. informs us that all the negative Trump poll numbers will magically turn around on election day and the GOP will romp. One group has turned reality on it's head, the other merely denies it. Who would you bet on right now? To ask the question is to answer it.
I'm sick of all of this. Now another man is shot by police in Atlanta and he was resisting but still the narrative remains. If that guy took the officer's gun and shot them dead, he'd be a hero. No more games. The police are expected to play by the rules like a babysitter while the immature children of society get to abuse them and treat the rest of society like crap. I'm tired of this double standard of how somehow calling the police makes us privileged while the elites get bodyguards that can kill anyone and no one will complain. I know this won't end well and that's why we need to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights while we still can. If the police are going to be too scared to help us then we must fend for ourselves.
As a resident of the neighboring capitol city, I know how you feel, Brian.
On Twitter, I see lots of articles psychologically analyzing the Year Zero crowd. We get lots of (usually valid) allusions to historical analogies. We hear about how this all going to be righted in the next election.
I don't believe it. I'm sick of this academic talk.
For the first time in my life, I agree with that Progressive cliche "It's the year 2020! That's not how we do things!" All bets are off. Prosecutors don't charge riots. Rioters walk with no bail. They are protected, funded, and encouraged by all levels of the establishment: media, the government, big business, and academia.
This is not the late 1960s where a large reserve exists for a counterrevolution.
I am not comforted by future schadenfreude that the enablers of this revolution will eventually take a trip in the tumbrel. They probably will. It will do me no good.
I am not comforted by all those people who point that the USSR eventually collapsed under such a system. Yes, it did -- after confronting a major counterweight. And that system lasted for 70 years. Millions lived their entire lives in that system. Millions died because of it.
Will NATO or China work to rescue us? To ask is to answer.
I want to know what will be done physically -- to the bodies and money of the revolutionaries -- now.
Because, in the year 2020 -- not even half over -- we are rapidly creating a country of private (and not so private) death squads.
I suppose that may sound fun to some on the fringes, a chance to privately correct things. But it's war, and in war things don't always go your way. It's just bloody and terrifying.
And it won't be like the UK battling the IRA or the US battling Islamic terror (I use the verb loosely). Those conflicts were fought when the streets were clean, windows unbroken, and statues on plinths. We'll be fighting that war in ruins where even the basic amenities of civilized life won't be there.
Lake St. in Minneapolis is the sneak peek of that world. But there won't be rebuilding.
Jean Raspail died recently. The Camp of the Saint was a powerful novel. The portions I remember best were the remark that cowardice towards the weak is the most subtle and dangerous form of cowardice. He also remarked that traitors call themselves many things.
Both seem accurate in how we've enabled this revolution. And, I strongly suspect, only a dictatorship will stop it.
The Stone Killer (Chaz Bronson flick) last line
"You remember that old Roman circus cartoon? Lions everywhere.
"Christians! You're on in 5 minutes!"
Meanwhile, another black is shot and killed in Atlanta. I know nothing about the man but I will guess that he was known as a "gentle giant" who was "turning his life around" by trying to be a rapper.
That's just my guess.
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
In addition to excellent commentary on the Woke Caliphate™, it was great that Mark let rip on systemic Democrat racism - from slavery, to Jim Crow, to the Great Society (and don't forget You-Ain't-Black intersectionality) - and the innumerable forgotten black victims of serious crimes (perpetrated by blacks). The recirculated 2014 viral video of Milwaukee's then chief of police, Ed Flynn, telling assembled "journalists" that a staggering 80% of homicide victims in that city are African American is worth watching. Needless to say, the MSM is not interested when reality doesn't fit the official narrative.
"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story written by C.M. Kornbluth in the 1950s, in which an advertising executive from the 20th Century is preserved in cryogenic sleep and awakens in a future where, because intelligent people had few children and stupid people had many, the average IQ of humanity has fallen drastically. The few smart people of the future enlist the ad man's help in conning the stupid people to volunteer to emigrate to Venus. The title is based on the notion that if you lined up all the people in China in a marching formation 5 men wide, you could have them march off a cliff but the normal rate of human reproduction in Chona would perpetually replenish the marching people.
Of course China tried to reduce their population growth rate with their draconian One Child policy. Because most families wanted their one child to be a boy and not a girl, there atr now some 30 million men of marriageable age in excess of the number of women in their age cohort. This is creating a population deficit that will have continuing impacts on China's economy and political stability.
Was that book the basis for the movie "Idiocracy", Raymond?
Even since Mark posted this, even more useful idiots and fellow travelers have joined the parade of pushovers. This would include all nine members of the Washington State Supreme Court who have signed a letter condemning "systemic racism" and themselves, e.g. "As judges, we must recognize the role we have played in devaluing black lives."
But who are the shadowy drum majors keeping them all in line, and where are they all heading? I'll repeat the clue I've mentioned elsewhere. It was Stokely Carmichael, the brilliant and notorious 1960s radical leader later to rename himself as Kwame Ture, who coined the expression "institutional racism," with which "systemic racism" is synonymous. Carmichael also coined the phrase "Black Power" and for a time led the Black Panthers. He's known to have always answered the phone with "Ready for the revolution!" Catchy, right?
Yes, 50-plus years later, it seems everybody who is anybody is mouthing communist propaganda, America is clearly in dire need of "fundamental change," and Joe Biden is just the front man for the job. Kwame Ture was a man just a little ahead of his time. I think deep down it's just that simple.
Happy Weekend!
Autonomous Zone?? I thought they established an "erogenous zone."
Never Mind
Where is Rosanne Rosanadanna when we need her?
Does the title of this post echo C. M. Kornbluth's classic sci fi story "The Marching Morons?"
That would be an awesome selection for Tales for our Time.
Has Lady Antifa already been taken? Maybe Lady Antebellum could use that name.
Come to think of it, if Chaz really is an independent autonomous nation wouldn't that put our relations with it under the exclusive purview of the President as chief diplomat and author of foreign policy? If the perimeter around Chaz really is a border with a foreign country wouldn't the President have sole authority to deploy the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE around it?
It doesn't matter what the mayor of Seattle or the governor of Washington State calls Chaz. They have declared themselves a foreign country, so the mayor and governor have no authority to dictate how the United States deals with it.
Makes sense to me.
Logan Act!! Quick, get the FBI on the phone!
Governor Inslee may not have heard of Chaz but maybe he knows it as Antifastan.
As a card carrying Constitutional fetishist, I would point to Article IV, Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.
What part of Washington's government is a Republic with due process for its citizens?
With respect to the Democrats' opportunistic showboating while culturally appropriating African garb, one thing is certain: If it has been Republicans the MSM (Democrat Propaganda Steno Pool) would have roused themselves to learn that the scarfs were from a slave trading African tribe.
Completely appropriate.
I can't help but notice that the so-call autonomous zone isn't truly autonomous at all until Seattle cuts off electricity, gas, water, garbage collection, street maintenance and other services its taxpayers provide and that the insurgents are simply taking as given. If the Antifa Blackshirts want to be autonomous they should have the whole mugilla experience, otherwise it doesn't count.
You're absolutely right David and it doesn't reflect well on Seattle's feckless mayor. She has gone beyond tolerating the establishment of this so-called autonomous zone and is now aiding an abetting the occupation by providing portable toilets, etc. A truly effective mayor and governor would have given the occupiers exactly what they have given the city, a hard border patrolled by armed border guards with a single checkpoint in and out of the autonomous zone. Call it Checkpoint Chaz.
We've come a long way since Frank Rizzo used a bulldozer to extricate the MOVE organization from their headquarters in West Philadelphia. Even the first black mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Goode, literally dropped a bomb on MOVE headquarters a decade later, taking out a full city block in the process.
I'm glad Mark has this paying gig. How many days since anything at all happened on the Michael Mann lawsuit? Can we have a clock?
I read a news dispatch from the PR of CHAZ that its citizens have started "guerilla" vegetable gardens in the parks from donated seedlings. As a backyard gardener myself, I hope I do not offend when I say looting is easy, gardening is hard. Like no troublesome child or pet, a plant will defy even the best of intentions. I have never faced a more intractable foe than a pea seedling.
One of the gardeners quoted in the story, a black man, cited the history of black people being disenfranchised from the land; this project marked a kind of reparation for past wrongs. He reminded me of the almost certainly apocryphal story in the TV series The West Wing, when one of the characters recounts: "In the '60s, during the Newark riots, you could hear the looters shouting, 'That was my 40 acres, I'll be back for the mule.'" Again, no offense intended, but vegetable gardens and "guerilla" anything are not a good match. Take the forty acres and sell them to a developer for the highest offer, but pass on the mule. If you think pea seedlings are stubborn...
The Chazians planted their "guerrilla" vegetable garden in potting soil dumped on top of the grass in the outfield of the national baseball diamond. If I were them, I would not cancel my deliveries of fresh arugula.
Great show! Thanks for your words and energy. When all the right goes into hiding, it's nice to hear your pushback.
I just wanted to add 1 country to your list of countries who didn't do a lock-down: Taiwan! It ranks 15th in terms of GDP in the world, so it's not big, but not small either. But it's an interesting country (where I've been living for almost a quarter of a century now), because it's the democratic, western friendly version of the PRC. And they've done a great job about COVID19. Less than 450 cases and just 7 deaths, even though it's located just next to China and a million Taiwanese work and travel frequently to China!
Taiwan did 3 things that explain why there was no lockdown:
1. Taiwan didn't believe Chinese lies about this virus.
2. Because of this distrust, and because it's not part of the WHO, Taiwan monitored the situation in China on its own. As soon as December 31st, 2019, Taiwan issued a the first warning to the WHO about the outbreak in Wuhan.
3. With this knowledge, Taiwan put a very early stop to Chinese visitors and Taiwanese coming back had to stay isolated for 14 days. So, it controlled its borders effectively and early, something that other nations are loath to do, because they don't recognize the benefit of a border: keeping unwanted people outside.
For all these reasons, Taiwan didn't experience a lock down and its GDP is still expected to grow, albeit slower, in 2020!
"For all these reasons, Taiwan didn't experience a lock down and its GDP is still expected to grow, albeit slower, in 2020!"
For all those reasons... and more! Taiwan was very proactive and very early in ensuring those 450 cases were detected and contained, disproving predictions that Taiwan would have the world's second-highest death count.
No lockdown! - yet self-described lockdown opponents don't recognise Taiwan (in line with China/ WHO) for some reason; maybe the contrast highlights the unseriousness of the West, and the glaring public health failures on early measures such testing/ isolation, transmission surveillance and source control (eg. masks on packed public transport at the start of an outbreak).
While Taiwan remained open for business (and normal life), the revered "Swedish model" of no early measures followed by late self-imposed shutdown resulted in a 7% (so far) economic contraction.
It's amazing to see the lessons learned by Asian countries after SARS-1 being dismissed by the West after SARS-2. With lab leaks - or worse - of bioengineered pathogens a "known known", watch this space!
If any of you want to get into CHAZ, I can help. You see, I've discovered the secret signal that will get you in and past any check points. When confronted, raise both your hands to about shoulder height and spread a little wider than your shoulders. With your palms pointed towards the challenger, hold your arms still while rapidly waving your hands sideways. This is their secret signal. Honest.
What, you never heard of CHAZ hands?.
Har-de-har-har!
Come on baby let's trash the town
And all that CHAZ
I'm gonna take a knee and pull a statue down
And all that CHAZ
Come on baby now and don't be late
We're gonna party like it's 1968
Until the food's all gone
And then we'll just move on
From all that CHAZ.
The declaration by the occupiers of CHAZ that they jave seceded from the United States means that the city of Sestyle. King County and the State of Washington are inable to exercise civil authority over the city of Seattle. There is no reason to believe that the occupiers will not try to expand their dominion. Seattle includes facilities operated by Federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency. Army Corps of Engineers, etc. It also includes facilities of national imporyance, including Boeing aircraft assembly plants. In the Seattle Metro Area, the Navy bases nuclesr powered aircraft carriers and nuclear ICBM launching submarines. The United States' national security cannot allow an. UK ndurrection in the Puget Sound area. Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, an hour south of Seattle, is a major military air transport base supporting US forces in Asia. And houses thousands of troops ready to deply anywherr in the world on minimal notice. Since the civil authorities csnnot maintain law and order in the face of a criminsl.insurrection, President Trump has statutory authority to declare martial law in Seattle and send a battalion from Fort Lewis to take back control of Seattle and arrest the insurrectionists under Federal law.
In the alternative if self-help secession is now acceptable, the easyern hslf of Washington. East of the Cascades, is ready to secede from the State of Washington and apply for admission to the Union as the State of Franklin. We would love to secede from the Seattle Socialist Republic.
This week, it's been impossible to keep up - not only with the destruction of civilisation, but with Mark Steyn's coverage of it: The Woke Caliphate ritual beheadings - not to worry, they're already-dead white men - don't provoke any pushback from conservatives (who caved to Islam in nothing flat).
The silent majority adhered to the blasphemy laws of identity politics for years: "We're all metaphorically taking a knee".
#TooSupineToSurvive
PS. Looking forward to a binge-listening back through the week that was... a veritable Steyn-fest!
I'll only take a knee in one circumstance: the name of the person I'm addressing must begin with King or Queen and they MUST address me as Sir. A little tap on the shoulder with ceremonial sword would be a nice touch.
I'm somewhat relieved that at least one other member finds the symbolism of be-heading statues of white men more than a bit troubling. Kate I hope you don't mind if I steal your moniker since I couldn't possibly come up with a better one. Those six blocks in downtown Seattle are now the sovereign homeland of the Woke Caliphate. Our military has in effect warned our President to stay out of it. Even Fox News hasn't really covered what is happening on that front which in some ways scares me more than the Caliphate at least at present. Conservatives are running for cover as never before and for once they have good reason to fear these people. Today the NFL and NIKE issued a joint statement urging that Juneteenth be declared a national
holiday. I'm pretty sure it's not a joke. #TooSupineToSurvive? No question about it in my mind.
It is very disturbing, Roy, because it's obvious where this will lead: the past is being destroyed with a view to a new future. And, as always, the parallels between the Left and Islam are obvious: blasphemy (and censorship), taqiyya (and its secular equivalent)... not to mention intimidation and violence directed at non-believers. I really wish I'd said it, but "Woke Caliphate" is Mark's coinage (used on-air in reference to "Chazistan")...feel free to use it!
It's the predictable product of the education system in recent decades, as you recently noted, and the chickens have come home to roost: America is now "One Giant College Campus".
PS. I think it would be good to hear Mark in conversation with Bret Weinstein - and their shared insights - based on the 2017 "Maoist insurrection" at Evergreen College (amongst others) which foretold the mainstreaming of this nightmare. A cut-and-paste quote by Weinstein from the conclusion of the excellent three part documentary on YouTube: "This isn't about free speech [per se] and it's only tangentially about college campuses: this is about the basic breakdown in the logic of civilisation, and it's spreading. And college campuses may be the first dramatic battle... but, of course, this is going to find it's way into the courts; it's already found it's way into the tech sector; it's going to find its way to the highest levels of governance if we're not careful. And it actually does jeopardise the ability of civilisation to continue to function. [...] These ideas were wrong when they first took hold in the academy, and instead of shutting them down we created phoney fields that act as a kind of analytical affirmative action where ideas that do not deserve to survive are given sustenance. These ideas are so toxic and so ill-conceived that to the extent that they are allowed to hold sway - as if one truth is equal to every other truth [...] - to the extent that that idea is allowed to pervade other institutions on which civilisation depends, civilisation will come apart. So we have to fight this."
Sadly, one gets the impression that society gave up the fight - in support of truth, and against political correctness - long ago.
And on a different note, someone's checked out the Guardian's reporting during the War of Northern Aggression. They supported the South. This is getting interesting.
The Emancipation Proclamation was hurried into existence to make certain no European nations came to the aid of the CSA. London or Paris surely saw direct trade opportunities with the CSA if New York, Boston and others out of the picture no doubt.
I'm not an American, I hold citizenship in two of Her Majesty's realms, but I'm a bit of a Confederate buff as well. 1776 was a supreme tragedy.
I quite like Kevin Philips, The Cousins' Wars, as a way of viewing it. The good guys lost all three, but hey ....
I always name Jeff Davis as my second favorite President, after Calvin Coolidge and ahead of Ronald Reagan. Davis exposed the essentially hollow nature of the US Constitution, the fact is that states had an absolute right to secede, and Lincoln had to subvert the Constitution to get his way. The very existence of West Virginia is obviously illegal under the Constitution, and apparently Nevada's a bit dicey as well.
Another forgotten point is the question: which European country gave the North the strongest diplomatic support?
The answer will surprise you: Tsarist Russia.
The reason was quite simple: there was a rebellion in Poland going on at the same time as the War of Northern Aggression, and the British and French were playing around with the Poles, offering them false hopes as they did with the South.
Russia and the North got together and said to each other: OK. You screw your rebels and we'll give you as much diplomatic support as you need.
So ... conspiring with the Russians against the Poles... remind me which side's closer to the Nazis again?
No the confederate states did not have an absolute right to secede. Let's ignore the fact that the title of the original document forming the US government is Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union—1777. We'll also ignore that the Constitution sought to "form a more perfect union," rather than superseded what had gone before. We still have the problem of the so-called "right to revolution" clause in the a Declaration of Independence. Most people only refer to the part that says people have a right to alter or abolish a government that has become abusive. But there's another requirement: subjecting their reasons for separation to the "Opinion of Mankind." That is, proving the revolution is morally justified. On this score Lincoln wins his argument that the southern states were unjustified. The Civil War occurred over expansion of slavery into new states and territories under the mechanism of popular sovereignty—an attempt to maintain the political pro-slavery hegemony set up by the 3/5ths compromise. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln repeatedly insisted his opponent must first prove slavery was right in a moral sense. This pro-slavery apologists Northern and Southern Democrats could not do. Failing that there is no "right" to do wrong, and the full requirements of the Declaration's "right to revolution" are not met.
I've actually come across anecdotes on the west coast of people who don't realize it's a separate state and call it Western Virginia. Likewise those on the east coast that don't know New Mexico is part of the US...(for now.)
The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in those states under rebellion. Slavery continued in several nominally Northern states and Lincoln did nothing about it. Washington smothered the agricultural southern states with high tariffs and taxes on agricultural products that disproportionately impacted southern states. No taxation when you're always in the minority to vote against it pretty soon seems without representation...as will our current federal government if Democrats run all three branches of government for a decade or more.
A year before I was born my father Dr. Demont Fredrick took his friend Morris Burke, who was an elderly
watchmaker owner of a tiny jewellery shop, on the longest trip of Mr.Burke's life. The journey involved
a trip from a small hamlet on the south shore. of Lake Ontario south to a rural community in Pennsylvania
north of the Maryland state line.. The Pennsylvania village was Gettysburg' and the occasion was the 75th
Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Mr. Burke's father not only fought in the Battle for a NY regiment and survived-43,000 didn't— but his actions
in rescuing a wounded general from the front lines resulted in Pvt. Burke being awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor.
It has been claimed that on the last day of the encampment, there was a recreation of Pickett's Charge. The
barefoot teenage boys that carried the Stars and Bars— now in their 80s—marched up the slope towards
the frightened Federals. But this time the Rebels were met with cheers of embrace, not cannon and rifled
musket fire.
I often think of Pvt. Burke and the men he fought with and against. They seemed to have character and
maturity lost in the passage of time.
Thank you for this memory, Dr. Oyer. As one of the kids playing in the sandbox, I appreciate hearing from someone so thoughtful.
Was able to listen to you on Rush today for the second hour - you so nailed everything in your usual brilliant way - I want to savor everything you said ... where can I find your transcripts for Rush fill-in? With reference to your comment about the root of this being education and the Republicans allowing "that" to happen ... that's not all the Republicans "let slide" over the past 40 years ... we now also have a massively funded and coercive public health system with its surveillance/tracking for behavior modification and there is no dialing back on that - it's too late - all because they, the Republicans and Conservatives, lust for public health as much as anyone else and because of their love affair with modern science ... everybody get ready for your covid vaccines because everything in your life (work, education, travel, medical care, etc.) will be dependent you and your family getting it.
These planned and orchestrated riots are the greatest crime in American history.
The second greatest crime in American history is the Chinese Corona pandemic.
Actually, the biggest crime against humanity is the forced medicine that is being sanctioned and enforced upon us by WHO, UN, CDC, DHHS, and ALL governments
Indeed. The evidence for Covid-19 being laboratory-created is considerable, despite claims that the virus is a big nothingburger. Bret Weinstein (biologist) was one of the first to draw attention to the investigative work of biotechnologist, Yuri Deigin, a few months ago: "Labs around the globe have been creating synthetic viruses like CoV2 for years. And no, its genome would not necessarily contain hallmarks of human manipulation: modern genetic engineering tools permit cutting and pasting genomic fragments without leaving a trace. It can be done quickly, too: it took a Swiss team less than a month to create a synthetic clone of CoV2." ("Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research" - Y Deigin, Medium - April 23rd.) A recent podcast discussion between the two - including thoughts on Covid-19 as "the ultimate trial run" in the use of chimeric biological pathogens - is also an eye-opener.
Chinese scientists make new viruses, but US scientists can't make basic tests to detect them. (Maybe the CDC, since SARS-1 in 2003, was too pre-occupied by diversity and equity to concentrate on actual science.) Perhaps 100,000-plus Americans killed by a hypochondria hoax is just "part-and-parcel" of the world we live in, and any vestige of scientific curiosity and innovation died with them.
#TooUnseriousToSurvive
Perhaps SARS-3 will provide legitimacy, given that people were unimpressed with SARS-2.
Once the science is settled, it's settled. You know that.
This is how the world goes, not with a bang but with a death rattle.
When the Taliban destroyed the standing Buddhas in Bamyan, Afghanistan, they were not being art critics. They were trying to erase an idea from history. BLM, Antifa and their friends are doing exactly the same thing today. They have already created a generation of people who know nothing about the past, so if they erase the physical reminders, they have erased the ideas. Good ideas or bad ideas, they are part of history, and you can't keep the bad ideas from coming back if no one remembers why they were bad.
The Taliban used artillery and rockets and, eventually, high explosive charges to destroy the Buddhas at Bamiyan, but the niches are still there and they are pretty gigantic niches. The statues are gone, but the memory does persist. It's said that, throughout the time when the USSR's second city was called "Leningrad," its inhabitants called it "Petya," or something along those lines: a diminutive of "St Petersburg" - I think the Russians have diminutives for just about everything, including other diminutives. In other words, erasing the past isn't as easy as the "Year Zero" crowd like to imagine.
Here in the UK, the teaching of history in state schools is a disaster. Most school-leavers could not tell you when the First World War happened. Yet there is a huge market for history, with zillions of history books published every year. People know they were cheated at school and want to catch up. The communists may be over-confident, if they believe that doing a Bamiyan job on formal history teaching will turn everybody's mind into a tabula rasa.
"They understand nothing but themselves. They understand nothing but their moral purity ..."
I question whether they understand anything. I think they are driven by their appetites, which are beyond their control, let alone understanding. Much like an infant. They are the product of two generations of public school therapeutic indoctrination. Morality to them is nothing more substantive than approval by their peers. As individuals, they can't deal with any form of opposition, verbal, written, or physical, because dealing with that alternative view of reality threatens to sever their link to group approval. It goes without saying that they must choose their group carefully. They seem to be unaware that the unionized police they so despise operate under the direction of the politicians they have elected to their city and county governments. This only makes sense if you postulate that America is a fatally flawed experiment that is beyond governance. Hence the need to rip it to shreds. Mao thought similar thoughts in the 1920s. That led to 60 million deaths of his countrymen in the 1950s and 1960s. Look for similar solutions with this group of idiots.
Sure, they understand two things: #1, the Confederacy was the ultimate evil, the worst thing literally ever; and #2, if you don't like how the country is going, just secede from it.
Well said.
President Trump should immediately fire Esper and Milley. Who cares if the Republican party is not on board? They need to be swept into the dustbin of history right after the Democrat party. Fire them, Mr. President, and send SEAL teams to wipe out the CHAZ insurrectionists. This is the moment. Take it, Mr. President, or you, and the country, will be the ones to be swept away.
Never before in my lifetime has a current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ever addressed his Commander-in-Chief in this manner no matter how indirectly. This was a direct threat and I highlight those four frightening words in his letter conveniently leaked to our Trump hating press - "We will not allow"......Trump got the message, Same goes for our Defense Secretary. I feel as you do but Trump stands alone now lacking even wide spread support from his own party. The military across the board has made it's position very clear. It's over King.
Looking at the Chazistanians... I don't think it will take a Seal Team.
I thought Chazz was an actor in Bullets Over Broadway, The Usual Suspects and A Bronx Tale. Can't keep up with this stuff.
I wonder what the words or phrases of the year will be? Social distancing I imagine. Any other nominations?
I nominate "flattening the curve".
I think adding "in these challenging times" to the beginning of each sentence we say, or at the end.
"Shame about Joe (Biden)."
I'm going with "useless Prime Minister."
How about "mostly peaceful protesters"?
Another great day. I do feel like I can understand Mark's wistfulness (?) at being called to help. I used to celebrate Mark's rare appearance, now I'm a bit ambivalent, for obvious reasons.
I loved the discussion of Orwell and Huxley. I have said before Orwell was my favorite George; in reality, he's no higher than 4th, behind my son, my dad, and my grandfather.
How about your favorite Eric? Or does Mr. Idle own that perch?
Almost two years ago, I realized that the setting of Orwell's "1984" (i.e. the year 1984) was as far in our past (then coming on 35 years) as it was in his future when he published it (1949). That seemed significant to me somehow, and I set about re-reading the book (with some thought to writing something for the occasion), as well as reading other of his works that I had neglected. I admit at the time I was heavily into watching old Christopher Hitchens speeches and appearances, during many of which he hailed Orwell as a vital man. Indeed, he wrote the book: "Why Orwell Matters".
Two things derailed my venture. One, how many insightful articles and books have been written about Orwell, and not just by Hitchens (a brilliant Victor Davis Hanson article alone nearly blew my poor effort out of the water). Two, Orwell himself. When I finally sat down to read "Homage to Catalonia", his memoir of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, I found I was reading the rough draft of "1984". It was all there: the boundless deceit; the meeting of hope and hopelessness; there in fact lay the makings of his novel to come. A couple of essays, particularly "Politics and the English Language", further clinched the point. Orwell didn't have to imagine 1984; he had already lived it a decade earlier. It just took him that long to process the experience.
Me, I lost out on an essay I might have submitted for publication. But I gained enough insight to share in a comment here. (Or so I hope.)
Excellent stuff, Josh. I need to ruminate bit before commenting further.
Josh, you might enjoy Stephen Koch's, "The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles"
Dos Passos briefly encountered Orwell in Barcelona during that war.
Great comment. Orwell was a one-time communist, but commies have an infinite capacity for schisms. When they split over ideological questions, they do so murderously. Orwell experienced that in Spain, when the fringe outfit in which he served, the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, was purged by the the more powerful Partido Comunista de España. The PCE was backed by ideologues, film crews and commissars, most of whom, incidentally, were shot either in Spain, or on their return to Russia, but not before wiping out the POUM. More to the point, the PCE had a heck of a lot of Soviet hardware.
During WWII, Orwell had to work with fanatics who literally wanted him dead. They had accepted the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, by which, according to Moscow and Comintern, the national socialists became the Good Guys. On the 22nd of June, 1941, the Germans became the Bad Guys again, with lots of marxists madly washing their brains out.
There was a bizarre situation, in which people who had declared themselves "conscientious objectors," suddenly decided to help the war effort. That, however, meant allowing avowed Stalinists an extraordinary level of control over BBC broadcasting; nearly all the real patriots were fighting. I think Orwell was a real patriot, probably too unwell to serve in a front-line unit, better able to use his great talents on the Home Front, but finding himself surrounded by Stalinists, whose ideology was far away from the aspirations of the British people. The BBC of WWII would become his "Ministry of Truth."
The novel tackles the Stalinist purges, but is really more of a satire on British propaganda in WWII. Orwell's wartime insights created a dystopia, in which Lewis Carroll's Looking-Glass world has gone from surreal to utterly nightmarish.
Orwell seems to have committed suicide by tuberculosis. TB was common in post-war Britain. My mother's cousin and her husband-to-be both survived it in those years. Orwell isolated himself on Jura, I think, where he was far away from the treatment which might easily have saved his life.
Right about the TB, Owen. And even if post-war Britain was short of antibiotics at the time, America had an ample supply. Hitchens makes the point that Orwell's American admirers implored him to come to the USA for treatment. He declined. And then he declined.
"March of the Morons" is pretty close to the mark. I view it a bit more as "Attack of the Pod People," a reference to the 1978 movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Those who've seen the movie know that the pod people aren't interested in debate, nor are they open to persuasion. When they detect a human - a non-conforming entity - they unleash a shrieking scream that summons the mob of pod people to assist them. That's what we are dealing with now.
Unfortunately, the movie doesn't tell us how to defeat the pod people. (They win.) But, at least with regard to Chazzistan, recent history provides an instructive example. Wilson Goode. He was the mayor of Philadelphia in the mid 80s. He was a Democrat - and a black man. He ordered the firebombing of the house where resided the small violent black radical cult called MOVE, a remnant of lefty radicalism from the 60s. Several of the MOVE members were killed. They were martyrs for about a week, and then forgotten. Hopefully, President Trump takes the hint. Three Navy SEAL teams should do it.
They need to call it the CHAZ-a Strip.
The muslim brotherhood would love to demolish the pyramids, along with every other Pharaonic relic and everything built by the Macedonians, Romans and Copts. There is, in fact, no evidence that the pyramids were built by slaves. Archaeological evidence indicates that the operation was extraordinarily sophisticated, with very skilled craftsmen supported by a remarkable supply chain and even impressive medical services.
The assumption that Old Kingdom Egypt could not build the pyramids without slaves is pretty racist, when you think about it, but BLM-types aren't into thinking. The Sharpton types like to claim that the ancient Egyptians were black (they weren't, other than in Nubia, not that that even matters), but they are trying to turn a civilisation from more than four thousand years ago into a poster case of racism. Yet they want the Fourth Dynasty rulers to be black and their oppressed workers also to be black, with the latter enslaved, somehow, because of their skin pigment.
Living an almost safe distance from downtown Seattle, we've watched the persons in positions of power fall over each other in virtue-signaling ecstasy. There seems to be no limit to the types or numbers of ordinary citizens they are willing to hurt to keep from hurting the latest trending oppressed minority grievance group.
I wish no one ill, but I am interested to see if the Communists and the Black Lives Matter crowds come to blows over this anti-social series of events.
All the best to Mark and Rush.
Great show! Apropos of national anthems, I will be sure to belt out "Oh Canada, I take a kneel for thee" on July 1.
Given what we've come to know about the history of the Ashanti people will it be de rigueur to take a knee should the Ghanaian national anthem be played at the Olympics next year?
" ... should the Ghanaian national anthem be played at the Olympics next year?"
No. There should be 6 dancing Ghanaians with Astronomia playing in the background. It would help if they were carrying a coffin.
The behavior of General Milley and Mr. Esper is not hard to understand. In my view, they believe for one reason or another that Trump will not win re-election in November. The public mea culpas are designed to get them back in the good graces of what they think will be the new regime come November. No, I don't expect the dems to honor the transfer of power period if they should manage to drag Biden's wizened husk across the finish line on November 3.
Matthew - General Milley's behavior of late has me much more concerned than many on this web-site seem. Just yesterday he goes on cable (not Fox News obviously) and laments his accompanying the President on that walk to the historic church that was set afire by the mob. I can scarcely believe that the most powerful military man in America would undercut and insult his Commander-in-Chief in that manner. In his earlier letter to his commanders that was leaked to the press the four words that chilled me to the bone were - "we will not allow". Is it really necessary to state that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs should never be talking about the president in those terms? Apparently so because almost no one on the right reacted to his letter. The press loved it of course and General Milley is their new hero.
This is what is so depressing. It genuinely appears that, but for Trump, the fix is in for the entirety of United States government. It seems as though every elected official and every bureaucrat (federal state and local) are eagerly anticipating the day when elections will no longer matter in any meaningful way, and they can get on with the business of ruling the country as they see fit. And that day is surely coming. If not this November then almost certainly in November 2024 because the bench is empty after Trump.
Senator Cotton understands this point.
I missed the first 25 minutes, but I will listen to it now. At the end when you said that BLM didn't have a corporate structure, etc. I decided to look again since I thought BLM Foundation Inc existed. I found that BLM donations go to ActBlue Charities which is a 501(c)(3) connected to the Democrat Party. So, I think, BLM is a front for the Democrats. When you click on the BLM donation button, you'll see the connection. Now I will look to see if the Democrat office holders are in violation of any election laws connected to all this. I have some snooping and reading to do. Great show for the part I heard, I'll listen to the rest now. I am confident I won't be disappointed.