Jump to content
Head Coach Openings 2024 ×
  • Current Donation Goals

    • Raised $2,716 of $3,600 target

The New Normal, round 2


Muda69

Recommended Posts

Mayor Hogsett announces plans to remove Confederate monument from Garfield Park

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/indianapolis/2020/06/04/mayor-announces-plan-remove-confederate-monument-garfield-park/3144181001/

Quote

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced Thursday that a monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died at a Union prison camp in Indianapolis will be removed from Garfield Park.

According to a news release, the monument was relocated a century ago from its original location, at Greenlawn Cemetery, and will be dismantled by contractors in the coming days.

“Our streets are filled with voices of anger and anguish, testament to centuries of racism directed at Black Americans,” Hogsett said in a statement. “We must name these instances of discrimination and never forget our past – but we should not honor them. Whatever original purpose this grave marker might once have had, for far too long it has served as nothing more than a painful reminder of our state’s horrific embrace of the Ku Klux Klan a century ago.

Hogsett said he has long felt the grave monument belongs in a museum, not in a park.

He added that no organization has stepped forward to assume that responsibility.

"Time is up, and this grave marker will come down,” Hogsett said.

The 35-foot monument was built in 1912 in Greenlawn Cemetery to commemorate 1,616 Confederate prisoners of war who died while imprisoned at Camp Morton in Indianapolis, according to IndyStar archives.

They died of sickness and starvation from 1862 to 1865 at Camp Morton, near 19th and Alabama streets.

An inscription on the monument reads: “Erected by the United States to mark the burial place of 1,616 Confederate soldiers and sailors who died here while prisoners of war and whose graves cannot now be identified.”

Officials said it was moved to Garfield Park in 1928 following efforts by public officials, active in the KKK, who sought to “make the monument more visible to the public."

The soldiers' remains were moved to Crown Hill Cemetery, where a new monument marks their graves.

U.S. Rep. Andre Carson took to Twitter to express his support of the decision to remove the monument.

"While we must always remember our history, we should never glorify America's history of racism," Carson tweeted. "For Black people, these monuments to our legacy of bondage are particularly painful, & further prove how much work remains to reach equality."

After nine black church members were gunned down by a white supremacist in a South Carolina church in 2015, a renewed push to remove Confederate memorials arose around the country.

Frankly I fail to see how thing kind of monument "glorifies" the south, racism, and the cause of slavery.   If anything it is a reminder that 1,616 men died due to Union neglect and negligence, not in battle.  Did they truly deserve that fate, regardless of what side they fought on?

 

  • Thanks 1
  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

HBO Max Pulls Gone With the Wind after Op-Ed by 12 Years a Slave Director

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hbo-max-pulls-gone-with-the-wind-after-op-ed-by-12-years-a-slave-director/

Quote

The HBO Max streaming service has temporarily removed Gone with the Wind from its platform after the director of 12 Years a Slave called for its removal in a Monday op-ed.

While it is not clear if the op-ed was a driving factor in the decision, director John Ridley wrote in the Los Angeles Times the HBO should consider removing Gone with the Wind temporarily because of the massive George Floyd demonstrations occurring across the U.S. Ridley’s 2013 film 12 Years a Slave is an adaptation of the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a free-born African American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana.

Gone with the Wind, long considered an American classic, has drawn controversy over its portrayal of African Americans in the antebellum South. The film depicts a far rosier view of slavery and its aftermath than is historically accurate.

In 1939, actress Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar for her role as “Mammy” in the film.

Gone With The Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society,” an HBO spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter. “When we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”

In his op-ed, Ridley wrote “I don’t think ‘Gone With the Wind’ should be relegated to a vault in Burbank. I would just ask, after a respectful amount of time has passed, that the film be re-introduced to the HBO Max platform along with other films that give a more broad-based and complete picture of what slavery and the Confederacy truly were.”

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul Krugman, professors seek top economist's removal from influential job for criticizing Black Lives Matter: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/paul-krugman-professors-demand-top-economist-lose-his-job-for-criticizing-black-lives-matter

Quote

University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers and dozens of other academics are leading a massive effort to have an senior faculty member at the University of Chicago removed from his position at the world's preeminent economics journal -- all because he criticized Black Lives Matter's push to defund police departments.

The attack on a leading academic at the University of Chicago, traditionally a bastion of free speech and no-nonsense conservative economic theory, comes as swarms of left-wing activists have successfully secured numerous firings across the country for viewpoints they deem politically unacceptable. In one extraordinary case this week, an LA Galaxy soccer player was summarily fired because of his wife's posts on Black Lives Matter.

In a petition addressed to the management of the Journal of Political Economy, the professors accuse senior editor Harald Uhlig of "trivializing the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement" and "hurting and marginalizing people of color and their allies in the economics profession." Black Lives Matter advocates for a "collective ownership" economic model, reparations, and the "immediate release" of everyone convicted of a drug offense, in addition to defunding police forces and other left-wing agenda items.

The petition goes on to falsely accuse Uhlig, the Bruce Allen and Barbara Ritzenthaler Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, of "drawing parallels between the BLM movement and the Ku Klux Klan."

The New York Times' Paul Krugman, an anti-Trump columnist who famously declared that the Internet would prove less important than fax machines, joined in on the attack, writing: "Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, a powerful gatekeeper in the profession. And yet another privileged white man who evidently can't control his urge to belittle the concerns of those less fortunate."

Wolfers, who kickstarted the petition alongside Michigan State University professor Scott Imberman, further criticized Uhlig for "disagreeing with the actions of [ex-NFL star Colin] Kaepernick." Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also opposed Kaepernick's kneeling during the national anthem, but that position has now become retroactively unacceptable in progressive circles. (Ginsburg said Kaepernick's kneeling was both "dumb" and "disrespectful.")

Wolfers did not respond when asked by Fox News whether he would seek Ginsburg's ouster from the Supreme Court. According to his biography page at the University of Michigan, Wolfers serves as a member of the ostensibly nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers. 

So revealing how eagerly these fanatics support purging and firing wrong thinkers," wrote commentator Andrew Sullivan, responding to one of the faculty members calling for Uhlig to step down. "It’s their first instinct: punish. They disgust me."

Christopher Brunet, an economist and freelance coder, told Fox News: "There are a million screeching Berkeley PhDs on Twitter, but the silent majority of economics professors aren't on Twitter -- they are buttoned up, and they overwhelmingly support Harald and freedom of speech."

The drama began when Uhlig wrote on Twitter Monday night: "Too bad, but #blacklivesmatter  per its core organization @Blklivesmatter  just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice." 

Uhlig continued: "Suuuure. They knew this is non-starter, and tried a sensible Orwell 1984 of saying oh, it just means funding schools (who isn't in favor of that?!?).But no, the so-called 'activists' did not want that. Back to truly 'defunding' thus, according to their website. Sigh. #GeorgeFloyd and his family really didn't deserve being taken advantage of by flat-earthers and creationists. Oh well. Time for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all: e.g. policy reform proposals by @TheDemocrat  and national healing."

Uhlig's posts came as the movement to defund the police gained traction this week, even though polls show Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the idea. On Monday, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender told CNN that people worried about having no one to call during a home invasion were speaking from a "place of privilege." Those comments drew widespread backlash.

By way of solutions, Uhlig wrote that police need better training.

...

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wizards Of The Coast Bans 7 Racist Magic: The Gathering Cards

https://kotaku.com/wizards-of-the-coast-bans-7-racist-magic-the-gathering-1843987502

Quote

The company behind Magic: The Gathering is apologizing for racist cards that have been part of the game for decades. Seven cards will be removed from competitive play and from the game’s official card index..

“The events of the past weeks and the ongoing conversation about how we can better support people of color have caused us to examine ourselves, our actions, and our inactions.” Wizards stated. “We appreciate everyone helping us to recognize when we fall short. We should have been better, we can be better, and we will be better.”

The affected cards are Invoke Prejudice, Cleanse, Stone-Throwing Devils, Pradesh Gypsies, Jihad, Imprison, and Crusade.

These cards are banned from all tournament sanctioned play. Their art will be removed from Wizards’s official card index site Gatherer and replaced with the following statement:

“We have removed this card image from our database due to its racist depiction, text, or combination thereof. Racism in any form is unacceptable and has no place in our games, nor anywhere else.”

.....

At first I thought this was a Onion article or something.   Good grief.  Just people looking for something to the offended by.

 

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lady Antebellum changes name to Lady A

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/06/11/lady-antebellum-definition-now-officially-lady-a/5342373002/

Quote

Country trio Lady Antebellum dropped "Antebellum" from its name Thursday, per a social media post from the Grammy Award-winning group. 

The trio behind hits "Need You Now" and "Bartender" now identifies as "Lady A," renouncing the term used particularly to describe existing before the American Civil War. 

In a statement posted to social media, the band — featuring members Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — said that when Lady A formed 14 years ago,  the group didn't consider the pre-Civil War "associations that weigh down this word," including ties to slavery. 

"We are deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused and for anyone who has felt unsafe, unseen or unvalued," the statement said. "Causing pain was never our hearts' intention, but it doesn't change the fact that indeed, it did just that. So today, we speak up and make a change." 

There's "no excuse" for the making this decision after nearly a decade-and-a-half career, the post continued. The band acknowledged its "lateness" to change, writing that "this is just one step" in addressing systemic racism. 

...

*sigh*.  Where does the PC end?   Yet another bending over by individuals because someone might be offended.  No, make that looking for something to offend them. 

The Homogenization of America: https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/homogenization-america/

Quote

On a trip to Oklahoma I arrived at the airport and was taken to a suburban retail area for a meal. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could very well have been back in any part of the United States. Wherever I go in the USA I find the same retail developments with the same cinemas, themed restaurants, and burger bars. Every town has the same big box stores, the same car dealerships, ice cream parlors and pizza palaces with the same artificial and uninspired architecture. Everything is uniform. Nothing is unique. Nothing is unusual. Even our small towns are being “restored” to look like Main Street, USA at Disney World. Our culture is homogenized.

Homogenization is the process whereby the fatty cream in milk is broken down into smaller and smaller particles until it is absorbed by the milk. It seems an apt analogy for the present state of American culture. While one of America’s strengths is that we elevate the common man, this elevation is too often at the expense of the uncommon man. We are suspicious of those who are special. We excoriate the eccentric, expel those who excel and treat as effete those who are elite. With lamentable reverse snobbery we sneer at the sophisticated and laugh at the high falutin’.

As the last thing the fish sees is the water, so the homogenization of America is invisible to us. It is evidenced in the ubiquitous artificiality of the corporate retail culture, but it also runs through our entire culture with the blind fatalism of one’s genetic code.

This indiscriminate egalitarianism feeds political correctness, celebrity culture, mass media and is further motivated by the unrelenting muscle of the almighty dollar. Everything must appeal to the widest possible audience with the widest possible spending power. A book, a film or a play is good if it sells. Political correctness eliminates all differences. Tolerance has become a tyrant. Any hint of superiority must be quashed lest someone be offended by being made to feel inferior. Education’s value is marked not by excellence, but by “good grades” which guarantee entrance to a “good college” to end up getting a “good job.”

The danger in cultural homogenization is that those who are capable of excellence are broken by the system. Rather than exalting excellence, the outstanding are told to sit down. Peer pressure them not to be different or “weird” so they abandon their gifts to fit in. Faux egalitarian ideologues, driven by sentimentality, offer equal prizes to all thereby ensuring that there are no longer such things as prizes at all. Those who gaze at the stars are accused of being stuck up while those gaze at movie stars are embraced as “one of us.”

One of the underlying drivers for the homogenization of America has been the rise of relativism. If there is no such thing as truth, then it follows that there can be no such thing as a value judgement. If there is no such thing as a value judgement, then one thing cannot be better than another. If one thing is not better than another, one person cannot be better than another, one’s moral choice cannot be better than another, and the only judgement is that there shall be no judgement. Relativism takes egalitarianism to its logical and absurd end point so that we live in a cultural la-la-land where there is no truth, nor true North, no star to steer by, no values to be held, and no standards to be met.

When all is relativized in such a way the only ones who rise to the top are those who are richest and strongest, and this is barbarism not civilization.

The imaginative conservative stands against the homogenization of culture because he believes that cream rises. He knows that value judgments are possible, that there is such a thing as truth, and that some cultures were better than others. Their philosophy was lofty, their literature inspiring and their heroes noble, true and bold. Their art was of a higher order. Their music was superior and their poetry sublime. Their architecture inspired awe, and their religion brought out the very best of the striving and searching human heart. A classical education preserves the best of the past to inform the present and build a foundation for the future.

 

  • Disdain 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fathers used to be fonts of wisdom. Now they're the punch line.: https://reason.com/2020/06/21/why-are-bad-jokes-dad-jokes-fathers-day/

Quote

Sundays are kind of sad. But the day before is a sadder day. Get it?

Yes, it's time to talk about dad jokes. Specifically, when and why did dumb puns become synonymous with fatherhood? When I was a kid, knock-knock jokes were clearly kid jokes, but so were the silly one-liners:

Why did the moron tiptoe past the medicine cabinet? He didn't want to wake the sleeping pills.

Why are elevator jokes so good? They work on many levels.

Want to hear a joke about construction? I'm working on it.

They say the drunk never writes the drinking song, so I'm sure those kiddie jokes were not written by kids. But they seemed very clearly in the rug-rat wheelhouse.

Now we're supposed to hear a joke like "I was addicted to soap but now I'm clean" and think first and foremost of fathers?

"As a dad myself, the term 'dad joke' dawned on me during Halloween," recalls Eugene Romberg, a real estate investor at webuyhousesinbayarea. (I think you can guess where in California he lives.) "I told my wife, 'There's only one thing I'm afraid of during Halloween.' She replied, 'Which is?' And I said, 'Exactly.' It was a joke I saw on Reddit." Said wife glared at Mr. Romberg for a bit and then muttered that he had just made his first "dad joke." He had to go and look it up.

Wikipedia says that dad jokes are a short joke or pun, sometimes deliberately unfunny or overly simplistic. But didn't dad used to be a font of fatherly wisdom? How did he morph into the designated doofus?

"The dad joke is old-fashioned," says Tom O'Keefe, co-host of the podcast Reel Spoilers. Middle-aged men like him grew up with one-liners: Set-up, punchline. But today's comedians are more storytellers, or observational types. As one-liners aged, so did the folks telling them, until finally they became fathers themselves. Their joke style, like their hairstyle, aged along with them.

"There's this sort of idea of the dad as put out to pasture," says Julian Velard. And he should know. The singer/songwriter appears as "Sad Dad" on Howard Stern and NPR.

"Moms are viewed as active in our culture, whereas the dad is just sort of on the sidelines," Velard says. The humor they dispense "is not considered witty. The whole idea of a dad joke is that you're giving up on trying to be sexy or smart or anything."

Except for lovable. A big except!

Dad jokes make kids smile. Mom laughs despite herself. And now you will too:

Two goldfish are in a tank. One says to the other, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

Happy Fathers Day!

 

  • Disdain 1
  • Kill me now 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Fathers used to be fonts of wisdom. Now they're the punch line.: https://reason.com/2020/06/21/why-are-bad-jokes-dad-jokes-fathers-day/

 

Kinda sexist, isn't it?  I for one am proud of reaching the "dad Joke" milestone many years ago.......

BTW -  "Derogatory" Eskimo Pies are getting renamed.......

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dreyers-retires-derogatory-eskimo-pie-name-99-years/

The brand behind the popular Eskimo Pie ice cream announced Friday that it will change the product's brand and marketing after nearly 100 years. It's just the latest in a slew of companies to announce they are changing or reviewing brand imagery as they attempt to grapple with racist histories amid global protests against racial injustice. 

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, which owns Eskimo Pie, said it acknowledges the name is "derogatory."

"We have been reviewing our Eskimo Pie business for some time and will be changing the brand name and marketing," Elizabell Marquez, head of marketing, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, told CBS News. "We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory."

Snowflakes.......😂

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

BTW -  "Derogatory" Eskimo Pies are getting renamed.......

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dreyers-retires-derogatory-eskimo-pie-name-99-years/

The brand behind the popular Eskimo Pie ice cream announced Friday that it will change the product's brand and marketing after nearly 100 years. It's just the latest in a slew of companies to announce they are changing or reviewing brand imagery as they attempt to grapple with racist histories amid global protests against racial injustice. 

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, which owns Eskimo Pie, said it acknowledges the name is "derogatory."

"We have been reviewing our Eskimo Pie business for some time and will be changing the brand name and marketing," Elizabell Marquez, head of marketing, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, told CBS News. "We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory."

Snowflakes.......😂

 

 

Yes they are.

The complete homogenization of America culture continues.

 

Edited by Muda69
  • Kill me now 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All Statues Should Be Private

https://reason.com/2020/06/24/all-statues-should-be-private/

Quote

It's difficult to evoke much concern for the removal of statues of slavery advocates from public property, but the historical revisionism hasn't stopped there, of course. As the removals have devolved from a policy debate to a mob activity, they've engulfed morally sketchy politicians, debatable public figures and, inevitably, people about whom the mob seems to have serious misconceptions. Given that bronze and stone replicas of fallible human beings seem incapable of serving any unifying purpose for people forced to pay taxes to erect them, it's time to get government out of the monument business. From now on, let private groups celebrate their fandom on their own dime, and on their own property.

First, the statue-removal brigade came after the usual Confederate suspects, for the obvious reason that the secessionists of the time were primarily motivated by the desire to continue owning other human beings. That's understandable⁠—African-Americans have every reason to resent passing public property for which their tax dollars paid only to see a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a man who not only fought in defense of slavery, but as his next trick served as the first head of the Ku Klux Klan. Much the same can be said of monuments to Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

But in an age that's reconsidering race relations and the legacy of slavery, it can be difficult to know where to stop the revisionism. The presidency was dominated in the country's early years by aristocratic southern slaveholders. That makes George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fair game in the eyes of the mob. Owning slaves isn't all they did by far, as the history books still point out, but they certainly were guilty of that sin.

Then, there's Ulysses S. Grant, who owned a slave⁠ (given to Grant as a gift) for a year. Grant later led Union forces to victory over the pro-slavery Confederacy, and presided over an administration of Reconstruction that gets more credit now than in the past.

It gets even foggier after that. Abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier was targeted by protesters who obviously had no idea who he was.

So was Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish writer who, far from being an oppressor, was himself a slave.

What all of these statues had in common is that they offended members of the public at a time when everything is up for grabs and Americans agree on exactly nothing, including the proper balance of virtues and flaws in fallible human beings. The majority of statues torn down were erected at taxpayers' expense, maintained on land paid for with money extracted from everybody's pockets, and offended (rightly or wrongly) people who resent being represented by them.

Less controversial has been the decision by the American Museum of Natural History to remove a statue of Teddy Roosevelt from its front entrance. While the statue is officially on public land, it clearly is intended as part of the museum and is seen as such. The museum is a private entity and is no longer comfortable with the way the statue represents the organizationa decision it has the right to make.

Much the same is true of the statue in Seattle of Vladimir Lenin, the communist dictator of the Soviet Union. While Lenin was a totalitarian and a thug, the statue is located (hilariously, given the subject's militant socialism) on private property, leaving its fate in the hands of its owners.

And that, in an age in which there are few shared values or heroes, is the best way to deal with monuments. We no longer agreeif we ever didon which qualities should be celebrated and what failings should be overlooked. We're increasingly vocal about such disagreements, to the point that people are willing to tear down statues that offend them, and any future images are bound to cause more offense.

A statue on private property, erected with funds only from supporters, dragoons no unwilling parties into the message it expresses. Nobody need feel that they're being forced to share in the celebration of people or ideals they oppose. A private construction can be left up as long as it pleases the owners or pulled down at their whim. And anybody who damages or destroys the monument without permission is an obvious vandal, subject to appropriate punishment.

Personally, I might raise a statue to Daniel Shays, after whom the tax revolt was named, or to James McFarlane, a leader of the Whiskey Rebellion, or to Henry David Thoreau, jailed for an act of civil disobedience in opposition to slavery, war and overbearing government, or to Harriet Tubman, who put her own life on the line to free the oppressed, or to William McCoy, the Prohibition-sabotaging bootlegger who inspired the term "the real McCoy." There are plenty of candidates whose actions I might want to commemoratethough I imagine all would rub other people the wrong way for what they did or because of flaws seen as countering their accomplishments.

People who disagree with me should, in turn, be free to erect monuments that offend me and my friendsat their own expense, of course. If I don't have to pay for it, it's no concern of mine how they choose to share their messages.

If the confinement of monument construction to a private activity sounds like we're giving up on the idea that we have much in common to celebrate, that's probably true. But agreements of the past were overstated anyway. African-Americans didn't just recently start resenting paying for statues of Nathan Bedford Forrestthey've had reason to loathe him from the beginning.

Now, the old disagreements are just more visible than ever and new ones set us ever-further at odds.

To give us less reason to fight, make all statues private projects, to be erected and maintained at the expense of the willing. Private funding of monuments won't eliminate our disagreements, but it should help keep the resulting conflicts out of the streets.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Lutheran High School athletic trainer, coach says she was fired for being gay

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2020/07/09/lutheran-high-school-athletic-trainer-coach-fired-being-gay/5396453002/

Quote

Some of Krystal Brazel’s best memories center around Lutheran High School – a place she’s no longer welcome.

A full-time athletic trainer for the school, Brazel spent five years caring for its kids – preventing injury when she could and treating it when she couldn’t. She helped coach the softball team to a state title last year — their first since 2007. And a few weeks later, she proposed to her then-girlfriend Samantha Spaeth in the batter’s box.

“I got her in the batter's box and I got down on one knee,” Brazel said. “I read something to her and it was just symbolic, that our whole relationship was about being ready to step up to the batter's box and swing for the fences.”

Spaeth said “yes” and next weekend, the women will be married in the backyard of the Indianapolis home they share.

But Brazel won’t be returning to the Lutheran softball field. She’s been banned from working, coaching or volunteering there. Because she’s gay.

....

In response to questions from IndyStar about its policies and Brazel's dismissal, Head of School Michael Brandt said the school needs "leaders of its students" committed to the values of the church in which is was founded.

"Lutheran High School of Indianapolis is founded on the doctrine of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod and expects employees who shepherd its students to respect and live consistently by these principles," he said in an emailed statement. "The school’s mission is to prepare young adults for a Christian life in a Christ-centered environment."

Lutheran High School is one of more than 1,900 early childhood centers and schools nationwide that belong to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a conservative denomination that believes that "the Bible is without error in all that it says." The LCMS is the second-largest Lutheran body in the U.S., after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Whereas the ELCA tends to be a more moderate to liberal body, the LCMS is more conservative and takes a literal interpretation of the Bible, said Paul Djupe, a professor of political science at Denison University. 

...

Well there's the problem........................

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two People Charged With a Hate Crime for Painting Over a Black Lives Matter Mural

https://reason.com/2020/07/09/hate-crime-black-lives-matter-mural-vandalism-contra-costa-county/

Quote

A man and a woman who attempted to paint over a city-approved Black Lives Matter mural in Martinez, California, on Saturday are both facing hate crime charges.

The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office charged Nicole Anderson and David Nelson with three misdemeanors: violation of civil rights, vandalism under $400, and possession of tools to commit vandalism or graffiti. If convicted, they each face up to a year in county jail.

In a viral video captured Saturday, Anderson is seen spattering black paint and using a roller to cover up a yellow Black Lives Matter sign that had been painted on the road facing the Martinez courthouse after the city issued a permit for the project. Nelson filmed.

"We're sick of this narrative, that's what's wrong," he says in the clip. "The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism, it's a lie."

Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton justified her decision to bring charges against the pair in a statement released this week. "We must address the root and byproduct of systemic racism in our country. The Black Lives Matter movement is an important civil rights cause that deserves all of our attention. The mural completed last weekend was a peaceful and powerful way to communicate the importance of Black lives in Contra Costa County and the country. We must continue to elevate discussions and actually listen to one another in an effort to heal our community and country."

But central to the Black Lives Matter movement, according to their official statement of purpose, is the notion that many of the injustices they seek to rectify are especially egregious when they come from the state. The death of George Floyd has elevated the police reform debate, though that conversation has primarily centered around how difficult it is to hold rogue cops accountable. More, still, should be devoted to bad laws and regulations and the excessive penalties that are tied up in breaking those rules.

A cause that surrounds dismantling the carceral state—the U.S. government locks up its people at the highest rate by far—can not apply that ideology discriminately. Putting the vandals in a cage for a year over a nonviolent attempt to spread some paint won't change their hearts and minds. And though it might change the police reform movement, it won't be for the better.

Also of note is the district attorney's decision to pursue hate crime charges for the paint-related incident, which carry enhanced penalties. That charge—violation of civil rights under California's penal code 422—says that no person "shall knowingly deface, damage, or destroy the real or personal property of any other person" on the basis of protected class, including disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or the association with a person who has one or more of those characteristics. Of note is that the property defaced here is not personal but is owned by the government—an important caveat when considering the road did not belong to the mural's artists.

But at a broader level, there are plenty of reasons to take issue with pursuing hate crime charges. It sometimes means that people are charged twice for the same crimes. More important to this particular discussion is that it gives the government power to arbitrarily draw distinctions between hate-based infringements and those of a more agnostic variety, which chips away at the equality we're all supposedly entitled to under law, the same equality BLM says it's fighting for.

When considering the anti-carceral motivations behind the Black Lives Matter movement, the contradictions here are on full display. Seeking maximal state-imposed retribution for a nonviolent offense does nothing to help black people who no longer want to be the victims of maximal state-imposed retribution for nonviolent offenses.

The mural has since been repainted.

Agreed.  A crime is a crime is a crime.  "Hate crimes" fly in the face of "equal under the eyes of the law.".

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oregon Politician Admits Sending Racist Letter to Himself

Oregon politician Jonathan Lopez confessed to sending himself a racist hate letter this week.

According to KOMO News, a police investigation into the letter was concluded after it discovered that Lopez “wrote the letter himself and made false statements to the police and on social media.”

In a statement, Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said, “The time spent on this fictitious claim means time lost on other matters, not to mention it needlessly adds to the incredible tension that exists in our nation today… As a lifelong resident of this diverse community, I’m disgusted someone would try to carelessly advance their personal ambitions at the risk of others.”

Lopez’s fake letter read, “Mr Lopez… Your [sic] not welcome here and will never be anything in this community or state!.. Don’t waste your time trying to become anything in this county we will make sure you never win and your family suffers along with all the other f****** Mexicans in the area!” and was signed with, “Sincerely, America!”

The letter went viral on Facebook, where it received hundreds of shares, and received media coverage before it was revealed that Lopez had written it himself.

Lopez apologized for the hoax in an interview, saying, “I do apologize for what I did I do understand and accept that it was incorrect or wrong, by no means or way did I want to gain the election.”

“I could say many reasons and of course everybody’s opinions could be different but I have no excuse for it but I can just express how I was feeling and what’s been going on through my mind and I’m not asking that that justifies what I did I’ve just been having hard time since February,” he continued.

Lopez — who deleted his Facebook page — is reportedly facing a Class A misdemeanor.

https://www.mediaite.com/crime/oregon-politician-admits-sending-racist-letter-to-himself/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Manipulators Are More Likely To Engage in 'Virtuous Victim Signaling,' Says Study: 

https://reason.com/2020/07/07/narcissists-psychopaths-and-manipulators-are-more-likely-to-engage-in-virtuous-victim-signaling-says-study/?itm_source=parsely-api

Quote

New study links virtue signaling to "Dark Triad" traits. Being accused of "virtue signaling" might sound nice to the uninitiated, but spend much time on social media and you know that it's actually an accusation of insincerity. Virtue signalers are, essentially, phonies and showoffs—folks who adopt opinions and postures solely to garner praise and sympathy or whose good deeds are tainted by their need for everyone to see just how good they are. Combined with a culture that says only victimhood confers a right to comment on certain issues, it's a big factor in online pile-ons and one that certainly contributes to social media platforms being such a bummer sometimes.

So: Here's some fun new research looking at "the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper—from University of British Columbia researchers Ekin Ok, Yi Qian, Brendan Strejcek, and Karl Aquino—details multiple studies the authors conducted on the subject.

Their conclusion? Psychopathic, manipulative, and narcissistic people are more frequent signalers of "virtuous victimhood."

The so-called "dark triad" personality traits—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—lead to characteristics like "self-promotion, emotional callousness, duplicity, and tendency to take advantage of others," the paper explains.

And "treated as a composite, the Dark Triad traits were significant predictors of virtuous victim signaling."

This held true "even when controlling for factors that may make people vulnerable to being mistreated or disadvantaged in society (i.e., demographic and socioeconomic characteristics) as well as the importance they place on being a virtuous individual as part of their self-concept," the researchers note.

They point out that virtue signaling is defined as "the conspicuous expression of moral values, done primarily with the intent of enhancing one's standing within a social group."

Meanwhile, victim signaling "may be used as a social influence tactic that can motivate recipients of the signal to voluntarily transfer resources to the signaler," they explain. More from the paper's theoretical background section:

An emerging literature on competitive victimhood documents the prevalence of victim signaling by various social groups and provides evidence for its functionality as a resource extraction strategy. For instance, victim signaling justifies victim groups seeking retribution against alleged oppressors. Retribution often takes the form of demanding compensation through some kind of resource transfer from nonvictims to the alleged victim. Claiming victim status can also facilitate resource transfer by conferring moral immunity upon the claimant. Moral immunity shields the alleged victim from criticism about the means they might use to satisfy their demands. In other words, victim status can morally justify the use of deceit, intimidation, or even violence by alleged victims to achieve their goals. Relatedly, claiming victim status can lead observers to hold a person less blameworthy, excusing transgressions, such as the appropriation of private property or the infliction of pain upon others, that might otherwise bring condemnation or rebuke. Finally, claiming victim status elevates the claimant's psychological standing, defined as a subjective sense of legitimacy or entitlement to speak up. A person who has the psychological standing can reject or ignore any objections by nonvictims to the unreasonableness of their demands. In contrast to victim signalers, people who do not publicly disclose their misfortune or disadvantage are less likely to reap the benefits of retributive compensation, moral immunity, deflection of blame, or psychological standing and would therefore find it difficult to initiate resource transfers.

The effectiveness of victim signaling as a resource transfer strategy follows the basic principles of signaling theory. Signaling theory posits that the transmission of information from one individual (the sender) to another (the receiver) can influence the behavior of the receiver. Signals can refer to any physical or behavioral trait of the sender, and are used by the senders to alter the behaviors of others to their own advantage.

Their results suggest that:

  • "a perceived victim signal can lead others to transfer resources to a victim, but that the motivation to do so is amplified when the victim signal is paired with a virtue signal" and "people high in the Dark Triad traits emit the dual signal more frequently."
  • "a positive correlation between the Dark Triad scores and the frequency of emitting the virtuous victim signal."
  • "evidence of how these signals … can predict a person's willingness to engage in and endorse ethically questionable behaviors …. frequent virtuous victim signalers are more willing to purchase counterfeit products and judge counterfeiters as less immoral compared with less frequent signalers, a pattern that was also observed when using participants' Dark Triad scores instead of their signaling score," and "frequent virtuous victim signalers were more likely to cheat and lie to earn extra monetary reward in [a] coin flip game."
  • "that a dimension referred to as amoral manipulation was the most reliable predictor of virtuous victim signaling."
  • "frequent virtuous victim signalers were more likely to make inflated claims to justify receiving restitution for an alleged and ambiguous norm violation in an organizational context."

The authors stress that they "do not refute the claim that there are individuals who emit the virtuous victim signal because they experience legitimate harm and also conduct themselves in decent and laudable ways."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Museum Curator Resigns After He Is Accused of Racism for Saying He Would Still Collect Art From White Men

https://reason.com/2020/07/14/gary-garrels-san-francisco-museum-modern-art-racism/

Quote

Until last week, Gary Garrels was senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). He resigned his position after museum employees circulated a petition that accused him of racism and demanded his immediate ouster.

"Gary's removal from SFMOMA is non-negotiable," read the petition. "Considering his lengthy tenure at this institution, we ask just how long have his toxic white supremacist beliefs regarding race and equity directed his position curating the content of the museum?"

This accusation—that Garrels' choices as an art curator are guided by white supremacist beliefs—is a very serious one. Unsurprisingly, it does not stand up to even minimal scrutiny.

The petitioners cite few examples of anything even approaching bad behavior from Garrels. Their sole complaint is that he allegedly concluded a presentation on how to diversify the museum's holdings by saying, "don't worry, we will definitely still continue to collect white artists."

Garrels has apparently articulated this sentiment on more than one occasion. According to artnet.com, he said that it would be impossible to completely shun white artists, because this would constitute "reverse discrimination." That's the sum total of his alleged crimes. He made a perfectly benign, wholly inoffensive, obviously true statement that at least some of the museum's featured artists would continue to be white. The petition lists no other specific grievances.

You might think that one of the most prominent art curators in the country—with 20 years of experience at SFMOMA—would be able to weather such a pathetically weak accusation of racism. But in the current cultural moment, it appears not. Garrels promptly resigned.

In a statement announcing his decision to step down, Garrels apologized for the harm his words caused, only slightly disputing the absurd charge against him. " I do not believe I have ever said that it is important to collect the art of white men," he said, according to artnet.com. "I have said that it is important that we do not exclude consideration of the art of white men."

Suffice it to say that this is not the language of a white supremacist. Those who say otherwise—that Garrels is guilty of racism—have stripped the word of its potency. They have shown once again that the signatories of the recent Harper's letter were entirely correct that the progressive drive to purge lofty institutions of racism and sexism has frequently gone astray, in a manner that threatens both free inquiry and common decency. The 1793 Project continues.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boeing Exec Resigns Over 1987 Article Arguing Against Women in Combat

https://reason.com/2020/07/15/boeing-exec-resigns-over-1987-article-arguing-against-women-in-combat/

Quote

Against a backdrop of cancel culture, what is the statute of limitations on being canceled for having once held opinions shared by a large majority of Americans? Boeing's top communications officer has resigned over an article he wrote for a military publication over 30 years ago. The piece argued against women fighting in combat, a position shared by 56 percent of Americans as recently as 1991.

In 1987, Niel Golightly was a 29-year-old Navy pilot. In an article for the U.S. Naval Institute's publication Proceedings, he took pains to come out in favor of workplace equality in civilian life. "A woman may have as much or more to offer in mental and manual skills as her male competitor; her uniquely feminine emotional qualities are largely irrelevent [sic], if not assets," he wrote. "Legislating equal access to those roles is imperative in a society dedicated to the free pursuit of happiness." But after running through a series of cultural and biological arguments against women serving in combat, Golightly concluded:

 

On a 5,000-man aircraft carrier where 19-year-old sailors are working 12, 15, sometimes even 20 hours a day on a blistering, howling flight deck where a simple mistake can kill even during routine peacetime operations, there is simply no room for the problem of sexual harassment, rape, prostitution, pregnancy, love triangles, and adolescent emotional crises that have plagued most Navy supply ships and tenders since the Navy began its experiment in coeducation in the 1970s.

Golightly had been at Boeing for six months when he tendered his resignation. He told The New York Times that he no longer opposed women serving in combat, a position reached by a majority of Americans in 1992, according to Gallup. A colleague of Golightly at his previous company, Royal Dutch Shell, told the Times that he "promoted female talent within the team and was an exemplary employee. … 'This is just astounding that something someone wrote 33 years ago should lead to termination like this.'"

The Times notes that Boeing has been rocked by "fallout" from crashes of two of its 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, as well as the downturn in air travel. Additionally, the company has recently dismissed "several employees" for making racist comments. David Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, told the Times that he valued Golightly's contributions but also readily accepted his resignation. "I want to emphasize our company's unrelenting commitment to diversity and inclusion in all its dimensions, and to ensuring that all of our employees have an equal opportunity to contribute and excel," Calhoun said.

Even in a world where art curators are forced out for saying they would continue to collect work by "white men," opinion writers leave plum posts complaining of hostile workplaces borne out of ideological zealotry, and leading liberal academics are attacked for being insufficiently woke, Golightly's case staggers the imagination. He no longer holds the views that led to his resignation, which can only be seen as forced. His expression of those views back during the second Reagan administration are starkly out of step with contemporary sensibilities but betray none of the rhetorical excesses one might associate with irredeemable misogyny. He has, apparently, a track record of promoting women under his supervision. Yet out of the C-suite he must go.

"Cancel culture" doesn't exist, we're told, yet we see its manifestations everywhere around us. If every thought and word ever uttered is open for reinvestigation, the present will be unlivable. Last fall, in discussing "wokeness" and politics, former President Barack Obama cautioned against creating impossible purity tests. "People who do really good stuff have flaws," he noted. Such basic wisdom has sadly gone missing, it seems.

This is more proof cancel culture does exist,  and the woke scolds of this world who champion better thoughtfully consider their own personal flaws.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even Saints Can Get Canceled

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/cancel-culture-st-louis-place-names-next-on-list/

Quote

The vandals in St. Louis have a new target: St. Louis.

The American city began as a French settlement in Spanish Louisiana. The French fur traders who set up shop there named it for Louis IX, the sainted French king whose Christian zeal and personal integrity caused him to be regarded by his contemporaries and many who came after as an ideal monarch. But the saints are fallen creatures like the rest of us, and Louis IX had pretty ugly attitudes about Jews and Muslims, along with the usual assortment of human failings. And so there is an effort under way to knock down the statues of St. Louis and — naturally enough — to change the name of the city.

 

This is an excellent idea. Having St. Louis’s name on the city is an intolerable wrong, and it should be corrected.

The city named for him became part of the French possessions in the New World in 1800 and then came under U.S. sovereignty with the Louisiana Purchase. St. Louis once was famous as “the gateway to the West,” an important commercial center on the Mississippi River, the young nation’s most important commercial waterway. At its apex, it was one of the most important American cities. In 1904, it both hosted the World’s Fair and became the first city outside of Europe to host the summer Olympics.

In 1950, St. Louis was the eighth-largest city in the country, more populous than Boston or Washington. Today, it is the 65th-largest U.S. city, with fewer residents than the Dallas suburb of Arlington or the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. It has the highest homicide rate of any major American city: At 66 homicides per 100,000 residents, it is almost twice as murderous as Detroit, more than three times as homicidal as Philadelphia, and 25 times as dangerous as Austin. Its high-school dropout rate is twice New York City’s (New York City cannot boast of a particularly low rate itself), and in some schools nearly half the students fail to graduate. 

It’s a good thing St. Louis has never really done much to acknowledge the life and career of its greatest man of letters, T. S. Eliot. If St. Louis himself today is too much for St. Louis, then Eliot will have to go, too: Like the French king, the American poet had some dreadful views about Jews, but, unlike Louis IX, Eliot did not live in the time of the Crusades — he lived into the age of Beatlemania and civil-rights legislation.

 

But there is a bigger offender than St. Louis on the American urban scene. I give you New York, the city and the state, both named in honor of the Duke of York, later King James II, who could be a pretty nasty piece of work. Why should my Presbyterian friends be forced to endure the fact that our greatest city is named for a tyrant who proposed to be harder on Scottish Protestant dissidents than Louis IX ever thought about being on Jews or Muslims?

St Louis has to go, and so does New York. The city should revert to New Amsterdam.

More broadly, why should any of our non-Christian friends and neighbors be obliged to endure all these Christian names that we have sprinkled from sea to shining sea? The phrase “wall of separation” between church and state appears nowhere in our Constitution (and neither does the concept), but I am reliably informed by my evangelical atheist friends that decency and good government require such a wall, that any public acknowledgement of any religious specificity constitutes an endorsement, and that this is oppression. We must make amends.

And so, to extend the logic of St. Louis, we must say goodbye to Los Angeles and Philadelphia (Billy Penn’s religious insinuations cannot be camouflaged in Greek!), to San Antonio, Albany, San Diego, and San Jose, to Charlotte and to San Francisco, St. Cloud, Sault Ste. Marie, Carlsbad, Mission Viejo, Sacramento, Santa Ana, Corpus Christi, Berkeley, Saint Paul, St. Petersburg, Santa Monica, San Bernardino, Santa Clarita, Port St. Lucie, Providence, Santa Fe, Santa Rosa, Charleston, Santa Clara, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree, Kings Canyon (Rio de los Santos Reyes), the San Fernando Valley, Clovis, Eden Prairie, Princeton, Saint Augustine, Santa Maria, St. Joseph, San Juan, Las Cruces, Carmel, San Angelo . . . And let’s not forget all those names plucked straight from the Bible: Antioch, Bethany, Bethel, Bethesda, Bethlehem, New Canaan, Corinth, Goshen, Hebron, Jordan, Lebanon, Mount Hermon, Moab, Nazareth, Palestine, Salem, Shiloh, Smyrna . . . Goodbye, Zion National Park.

Goodbye, Virginia. Goodbye, North Carolina and South Carolina. Goodbye, Louisiana. Goodbye, Saint Thomas and the rest of the Virgin Islands. Goodbye, Guadalupe River, Guadalupe Street, Guadalupe Peak, Guadalupe Mountains. Goodbye, Ignacio Valley Preserve and Mount of the Holy Cross. Of course, the counties have to go, too: Christian County, Ill., Christian County, Ky., Christian County, Mo., La Paz County, Santa Cruz County, Guadalupe County, Los Angeles County, Hidalgo County, San Augustine County, San Jacinto County, San Patricio County, San Saba County. . . . There are too many to list here.

This is going to take some time.

We will have to pick some new names, too. I suppose we could ignore the religious stuff and simply name everything after great figures from history, except for Andrew Jackson (Goodbye, Jacksonville! Goodbye, Jackson!) and Christopher Columbus (Goodbye, Columbus! Goodbye, Columbia!), and such imperfect men as Jefferson, Washington, Raleigh, Lincoln, Pitt . . . I don’t think Foxborough will pass muster, as much as I admire its namesake. Neither will my hometown of Lubbock, Texas, or other Texas cities: There is plenty to criticize about Houston, Travis, and Austin. Even Deaf Smith could be a bit of a brute.

Texas will have its work cut out for it. But let’s start in Missouri.

Given all the murder and ignorance and such, it is difficult to imagine that St. Louis’s namesake tops the list of St. Louis’s problems. But that relationship surely tops the list of Louis IX’s problems. Like Jack Kennedy and that godawful airport, Louis IX deserves a better monument. If the United States of America has no place for him and his kind, then so much the worse for us.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Teen Vogue to Teen Girls: Marx Good, Reagan Bad: https://spectator.org/teen-vogue-to-teen-girls-marx-good-reagan-bad/

Quote

In yet another insidious display of how leftists politicize everything, Teen Vogue is taking a timeout from fashion to teach young girls they shouldn’t like Ronald Reagan. The piece, clumsily titled, “Ronald Reagan Wasn’t the Good Guy President Anti-Trump Republicans Want You to Believe In,” went to such Reagan authorities as a Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, described as a transgender veteran of the Stonewall uprising, to inform girls that “Reagan was so wrong for the country.”

Tell that to the country that in 1984 reelected Reagan in a landslide, carrying 49 of 50 states and winning the Electoral College 525 to 13. That was an electorate with a majority of registered Democrats. Such simple data is not shared with girls perusing the pages of the intrepid Teen Vogue.

“Where to even begin?” asks the author, Lucy Diavolo, in hazarding to lay out the litany of the Reagan nightmare. “Historical revisionism is, in short, not cute!”

Not cute indeed, Ms. Diavolo. Among Reagan’s ugliness, we’re told, was that he not only helped foster AIDS but “helped exacerbate the racist injustices at the very root of our so-called justice system, helping set the stage for the Black Lives Matter protests.”

The author laments that “Reagan wrote the script” for a “mythical American exceptionalism.”

Unfortunately, the Left has done a dandy job blowing up such images of exceptionalism. Progressives want to ensure us that the nation that Reagan admired as a Shining City is anything but.

So, Teen Vogue goes after Reagan. Oh, well. For a magazine that publishes “A Guide to Anal Sex” for your 13-year-old daughter, dumping on the Gipper seems the least of its sins.

But forget Reagan. Teen Vogue recommends an alternative inspiration to young girls: Karl Marx.

That Teen Vogue gem, “Who Is Karl Marx: Meet the Anti-Capitalist Scholar,” informs girls how Marx’s “ideas can still teach us about the past and present.” Among those ideas: “There’s this myth of the free market, but Marx shows very clearly that capitalism emerged through a state of violence.

You see, it’s capitalism, not communism, that begets violence. Quite a claim for an ideology responsible for the deaths of at least 100 million people in the 20th century alone.

Such inconvenient facts about Karl Marx didn’t make their way into this terrible article. Alas, I’m here to help. In fact, I’ll narrow the focus. For the girls of Teen Vogue, here are some things you should know about the girls in the life of Karl Marx, which your friends at the magazine evidently don’t care to share. The truth is that Karl Marx didn’t exactly have a rosy track record with girls. To borrow from Ms. Diavolo, well, where to even begin?

For starters, Marx’s relationship with his daughters was, at best, complex. Marx preferred sons, after all.

“My wife, alas, delivered a girl and not a boy,” he regretted to his partner, Friedrich Engels, of his wife Jenny’s deficient birthing abilities. Marx would later lament to one of his daughters, who likewise gave birth to a girl: “I congratulate you on the happy delivery…. I prefer the ‘male’ sex among children who will be born at this turning point in history.”

Marx’s daughters lived lives of hopelessness and despair. In fact, four of Marx’s six children died before he did, including his oldest daughter. Marx’s two surviving daughters committed suicide in joint suicide pacts with their husbands.

As for the sons-in-law, that was another unhappy tale. Marx detested both, whom he viewed as idiots. He wished: “To hell with both of them!” He particularly disliked Laura’s husband, Paul, whom Marx ridiculed as “Negrillo” or “The Gorilla” because he was half Cuban and had some “Negro” blood in his veins. (Marx was a racist — another fact left out of Teen Vogue’s cheerful presentation to its readers.)

As for the other girls in the Marx household, Karl had a sexual relationship with the young nursemaid, Helene Demuth, known as “Lenchen.” She had actually long worked as a housemaid for Jenny’s family, the Westphalen family. Lenchen and Jenny grew up with one another. Jenny’s mom sent Lenchen to the Marx home in Brussels in April 1845 to help out, given that Karl (as both his wife and mother lamented) preferred writing about capital rather than earning capital.

Actually, it isn’t quite right to say that Lenchen worked for the Marx family, given that she toiled without pay, almost like an indentured servant for life, as Karl’s chattel. The champion of the proletariat never paid Lenchen a penny. The stumpy, frumpy girl gave her everything to the Marx household.

Karl, who refused to bathe, groom, and suffered from boils all over his body (including his penis), eventually bedded Lenchen behind Jenny’s back. Historians have no idea how often or the exact circumstances, including whether or not Marx’s use of Lenchen as sexual receptacle was consensual. Wrote one biographer (Robert Payne): “That she was virtually his bondslave was a matter of entire indifference to him. It was enough that she was available to serve his sexual needs…. We shall probably never know whether he raped or seduced the servant, though the large number of images concerned with rape in his later writings suggest that it was rape rather than seduction. In due course a child was born.”

In June 1851, Lenchen gave birth to a baby boy.

Karl’s long-suffering wife was crushed. He already put the poor woman through hell via his refusal to work. “Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children were safely in their graves,” Marx told Engels.

The father of communism refused to concede he was the father of this unfortunate child, and naturally refused child support. Marx shirked this moral responsibility, too. Here again, it would be Engels, who subsidized Marx and the family, bailing him out yet again. Yes, Engels, Karl’s sap and sugar daddy, claimed responsibility for the pregnancy. The kid was shipped off to foster parents and cut off from the Marx household.

As one Marx biographer (Mary Gabriel) put it, “Engels cared not a whit about his reputation, especially with regard to women,” with whom he regularly shacked up, never daring to marry. Engels refused to wed the devoted women who loved him.

Engels no doubt nodded when Marx wrote to him, “There is no greater stupidity than for people of general aspirations to marry and surrender themselves to the small miseries of domestic and private life.” Marx told Engels, “Blessed is he who has no family.”

Marx conveyed this view to his own would-be sons-in-law. Marx told his son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, a.k.a., “The Gorilla,” “If I had to live my life over again… I would not marry.” (This correspondence was related to the question of Lafargue’s prospects for marrying Marx’s daughter. Marx seemed happy to do his part to help dissuade “Negrillo.”)

Marx was never one for financial or moral responsibility. The same was true for his ideology, of course.

But nonetheless, Karl Marx has plenty of descendants today — they are his ideological children. They thrive at our universities and are recommended to our children — to young girls even — by embarrassingly clueless sources like Teen Vogue.

What a spectacle that is. And yet, my article here merely talks about Marx and girls. What about Marx and blacks? What about Marx and Jews? What about Marx and religion? (See my coming book, The Devil and Karl Marx.) What about Marx and private property? What about Marx and his ideology’s unprecedented legacy of death?

Well, all of that and much more is apparently too much for Teen Vogue to deal with. At Teen Vogue, guys like Ronald Reagan are the bad guys. Karl Marx is good.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

https://wbng.com/2020/07/21/sangers-name-to-be-dropped-from-nyc-clinic-over-eugenics/

NEW YORK (AP) — Planned Parenthood of Greater New York says it will remove the name of pioneering birth control advocate Margaret Sanger from its Manhattan health clinic because of her “harmful connections to the eugenics movement. Sanger was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood of America more than a century ago. But she has long provoked controversy because of her support for eugenics, a movement to promote selective breeding that often targeted people of color and the disabled. The clinic that had been named after Sanger will now be known as the Manhattan Health Center.

 

So now the woman Hillary Clinton "admired" and most liberals fawn over relative to abortion rights and her founding of Planned Parenthood is now a pariah to the left?   

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sierra Club to remove monuments of founder John Muir over his racist history

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/508473-sierra-club-to-remove-founder-john-muir-monument-over-racist

Quote

The Sierra Club will remove monuments of its founder John Muir over his racist history, the environmental conservation organization announced Wednesday morning.

The green group, which Muir founded in 1892, said that as the country begins to reassess the purpose and meaning of Confederate statues and memorials, “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history.”

Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Forest, made derogatory statements about Black and indigenous people. The Sierra Club said that as the “most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir’s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight.”

The organization said Muir's words "continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club."

“The most monumental figure in the Sierra Club’s past is John Muir,” it said in a statement. “Beloved by many of our members, his writings taught generations of people to see the sacredness of nature.”

The Sierra Club also called out other prominent members who were part of its troubled past. Leaders such as Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan “were vocal advocates for white supremacy and its pseudo-scientific arm, eugenics,” the organization said. 

The group said it is committing $5 million from its budget over the next year to make “long-overdue investments in our staff of color and our environmental and racial justice work.”

“We will also spend the next year studying our history and determining which of our monuments need to be renamed or pulled down entirely,” the Sierra Club said.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Froot Loops Finally Changes Offensive Name To LGBTQ Loops  

https://babylonbee.com/news/froot-loops-changes-name-to-more-pc-lgbtq-loops

Quote

BATTLE CREEK, MI—Amid public outcry, The Kellogg Company has finally removed the outdated cereal name Froot Loops, changing the sugary breakfast food's name to the more modern "LGBTQ Loops."

The move will at long last replace the controversial "Froot" with the more acceptable "LGBTQ."

"This was a long time coming," said a spokesperson. "When we introduced Froot Loops in 1963, Froot was an acceptable term. But times change, and humanity only gets more and more moral."

"We are sorry for all the hurt we have caused with the offensive term 'Froot' all these years."

The rainbow-colored cereal has long been the breakfast of choice for the LGBTQ community,  bravely showing its support for the movement with every diabetes-packed bite. Now, the name will finally reflect the stunningness and bravery of the major corporation.

d76a2a997ba8a6f1addbe3fc777380104975b228

 

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...