When I saw that Kathy Hochul had called in the National Guard to patrol and search people's bags, my instinctive reaction was that she had chosen a fascist solution to try to solve the problem. Rather than focusing on arresting, charging, and jailing criminals to keep them from hurting people on the NYC subway, she's going to harass all subway riders by making them run the gauntlet of a police state.
It’s hard to imagine a governor more inept than she is. Want to stop violence in subway cars? Ride the cars and arrest the perps. But checking bags? Really? How does that stop violence? Large perp attacks soft target with hands and fists. Most people getting on subways will have those. And the precedent of prosecuting people for defending against attackers will prevent anyone from acting. If I might dare to plagiarize a line, it’s “a stupid and futile gesture.” * And an expensive one.
The presence of cops and security (or even National Guard) is only useful as a deterrent if they can actually arrest people who commit crimes and those people will actually face jail time. Until that happens this is all a futile gesture that just reinforces what a mess they've created.
Crystal, IT’s AN ELECTION PLOY, and as soon as the WOKE Progressive Democrats get Biden and other Democrat minions reelected, THEN they can go back to business as usual!
The irony is when Tom Cotton suggested doing EXACTLY THE SAME (as Hochul) in 2020, during the “Summer of Love” riots, looting & destruction (MOSTLY peaceful protesting) the Left went rabid!!!
Anyway, the perps who jump the turnstiles will easily avoid these bogus bag inspections, just as they avoid paying the fare. Easy peasy. Only the fare-paying, law, abiding citizens will end up standing in these lines and being inspected. How ridiculous.
I've never ridden a subway, so I don't know the drill. Or where the troops will deploy.
If it were Russia, whatever replaced the KGB would prolly handle violators by pushing them onto the tracks. I don't think we could get away with that here.
She should have allowed the gangs and criminals to check bags. Then they could steal what they want and not have to beat people up. Much less violence all the way around.
Months ago, I wrote Hochul to suggest that she call out our National Guard. But how she's proposing to use them is not at all what I meant.
I meant that they should be deployed during riots -- mostly peaceful demonstrations my foot! -- and particularly in areas where our deranged loiterers, illegal immigrants, and gangstas cause chaos although their presence elsewhere would not be unwelcome. And to get busy being a presence, thereby calming them down, or throwing them into jail.
Hochul says anyone who injures a person in the subways should be forever barred from entering the subways. How's she gonna do that? With thousands of subway entrances? How about anyone who injures another person anywhere goes to jail or an institution for the criminally insane?
For God's sake, bring back Creedmore (kinder and gentler) -- and solitary.
Liberal on some things I might be, but a society that tolerates physical violence against unsuspecting peaceful people going about their daily chores is no society at all.
I have returned from my semi-annual Southern vacation. Charleston is still gorgeous and largely pristine at least in the several neighborhoods spouse and I always amble in, but Savannah, in recent years on the brink, was a bit of a mess, including zonked-out derelicts and the requisite idiot demonstration accompanied by chants of "Free, free, Palestine!"
Not all Democrats are dishonorable. (I am not a Democrat.) Not all blacks are criminals or believe in BLM. Not all Southerners are racists. Not all Italians are in the mafia. See how that works?
Another of today's topics was paying children to be indoctrinated social justice warriors.
This is right out of the Lenin/Marxist play book. When I call the Democrats communists, I am not some glassy eyed right wing nut case, I am stating a fact supported by the actions of the left, the Democrats.
California is goofier than I thought. But is doesn't surprise me.
As if paying the teachers to indoctrinate kids in school is not enough - now they are paying the kids directly. I am not sure if the history teacher quoted was really surprised that the program was not helping "our students find their voice" or if he was worried about the competition to the Teacher Union.
Isn’t that the point though? The long march through the institutions is not aimed at the working class, but rather at the elite, who will have the power to make such policies into laws.
All she has to do is fire and replace Alvin Bragg, the Soros prosecutor. The mayhem on the subways is caused by a known group of recidivists whom Bragg refuses to prosecute.
Precisely right. The mayhem in our streets and the shoplifting in our stores are also perpetrated by the usual suspects. These too need to be arrested and held without bail. If the majority of us New Yorkers weren't so law-abiding, by now we'd be throttling miscreants with our bare hands, we're so fed up with the state of things.
Vote!, we're told. But we're too gerrymandered to oust the progressive-socialists who run the city.
But some of us don't cut and run. My family stuck out the late 1960s - 1990s, when things got much better, and I don't propose to abandon my home or my family's graves quite yet.
Extremists choose extremes. On the one hand, they disrupted a system that HAD been working. It worked prior to David Dinkins, and it worked under Rudy Guiliani, and it only stopped working when insane solutions were created to respond to imaginary problems. When, in other words, the system was broken by bad ideas proposed by bad people who lied about everything.
So, as an extremist, the logical flop is to treat EVERYONE as a criminal, rather than just those who look like and are acting like criminals, or who are in fact identified criminals who have broken laws and should be in jail but aren't.
The motto might as well be "Anything BUT moderation and the tried and true."
"Extremists choose extremes" <-- You hit the nail on the head.
Yesterday I saw a comment somewhere in passing that described a technique for gaining power. It involved *causing* (but blaming on someone else) the very problem you propose to solve if you're given power.
It's interesting to watch Democrats doing that very thing in real time with the border situation. It's as if they think we don't have the receipts that show how they caused the problem. But their media lapdogs are happy to print their lies.
They've been talking about this on "conspiracy" websites for some years now. The bulk of Leftists are complete morons, but the top isn't. They are simply cynical and evil. I suppose you could call that stupidity too, but they are not OPERATIONALLY stupid, even if they are Life Stupid.
Most of our world would be better if hysterical moralists of all varieties just shut their mouths and left the rest of us alone.
One of my suspicions is that, despite the Supreme Court ruling, some states will go so far as to leave Trump completely off of the ballot, which will be printed too late for them to be reprinted before Election Day.
Observe what they did in Maricopa County in 2022, generating "technical issues" at expect-to-go-red polling places, effectively discouraging Republicans in those areas from voting at all.
And they've probably worked a lot of the kinks out of manipulating mail-in ballots without being caught.
If worst comes to worst, I expect that Trump will be assassinated. Perhaps even on Election Day itself, which would allow the shutting down of polling places on any premise (such as "avoiding violence") they choose.
But at this point, I don't have a lot of "tea leaves" to go on.
“New York governor Kathy Hochul plans to deploy the National Guard on New York’s subway system to check bags and patrol platforms. Or, as Tom Cotton put it on X, ‘send[ing] in the troops to restore law and order.’”
______________________________
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I’m sorry, I’m still laughing too hard to come up with an articulate comment.
I remember when the left was constantly complaining about those stop and searches after 9/11. Now not only are they on board...they are also the cause of needed to do it in the first place :)
For these people, from Bush's Homeland Security to Fauci to Hochul, every crisis is just another excuse to impose more state control over the people and creating a police state. I don't believe anymore they care at all about solving the problems of imminent threat to the public,
What will the National Guard be allowed to do with the criminals they encounter on the subway? Will they be prosecuted if they intervene to protect the passengers?
Presumably they will be searching people's bags for guns, even though most of the violence on the subway is committed without firearms. Also notice that they will be patrolling subway *stations,* not on the trains themselves, so the criminals who attack people inside the cars will be able to continue unmolested.
I'm guessing that ordinary citizens who are caught carrying anything for their own defense that's forbidden by NYC law will be charged to the maximum extent possible. Carriers with criminal backgrounds will be tossed over to Alvin Bragg, who will quickly put them back out on the street.
If the NYC DA actually prosecuted perps instead of letting them go and putting them back on the streets, (Think of the undocumented Democrats that savagely beat NYC cops.) then maybe the governor wouldn't have to deploy the storm troopers, national guard,
Vote Dem/Soc. You will not only support Hamas but you will vote for anarchy.
You know, this "social justice" nonsense has been in overdrive since Obama took office. In an outcome that should surprise no one, the conclusion the Left reached, after we elected our first black President, was that racism was overwhelming and increasing. That is the precisely wrong conclusion, isn't it? Obviously?
Here are my two questions:
1) If you are a typical rich Democrat who very much wants to be perceived as caring about Persons of Color, when was the last time you ate fried fish at a ghetto restaurant with ghetto people at 45th and Broadway? Most of you would be terrified to go into the neighborhoods where you demanded the police be defunded. Wouldn't you? Be honest.
2) What good has been done the average black person since 2008? Are their schools better? Jobs more plentiful? Two parent families more common? Crime down, and sense of safety up?
This whole thing is a solipsistic hallucination. It is completely self absorbed people living in hermetically sealed worlds doing and saying things that make no sense, and which in general make the lives of ordinary black folks--and for that matter just about everybody else, including women and members of the LGB world--WORSE.
If these people did NOTHING but play video games or smoke weed, or pull the wings off of butterflies the world would be a better place (other than for the butterflies).
I will add this thought, too: there is a profound difference between nurturing a sense of grievance and providing and implementing actual improvements.
The Left Wing Agitation Propaganda of the sort Saul Alinsky learned from Lenin and which was taught to and embraced by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is only concerned with nurturing grievances. It is getting people angry enough that they get organized in groups, and act and vote in groups, which in turn benefits the person or people USING them to get power.
There is nothing wrong with being angry about bad situations, and with being treated unfairly. But being mad is not an end in itself, is it?
And yet it IS an end in itself for professional manipulators, because their true end goal is not fixing anything, but installing themselves in power in perpetuity. What they want is to make people infuriated, get them pointed in a particular direction, then get them to turn off their minds, and stop expecting solutions. They want unreflecting rage machines.
In an ideal "Community Organizer's" world everyone stays angry and mobilized forever, but never, ever asks where the benefits are, that their anger was supposed to secure.
Everyone stays mad; nothing ever gets better; nobody ever gets wiser--this is the world the Left has built in this country, in most black communities.
It is the opposite of Social Justice. It is a cruel and evil joke.
The Right also practices grievance politics. It's nearly Trump's entire brand. So we've devolved into a binary, "You're stupid/wrong." "No you're stupider/wronger" back-and forthing and nothing gets done because we won't sit down and listen to each other. We've become so convinced about the rightness of our positions, it's so much a part of our identity, that we have lost the ability to truly listen to each other. If we did, we woudl probably have a better chance of working things out.
For all his warts, Trump is the anti-grievance candidate. Just get back to work and family. Stop hectoring and separating people and start exercising some judgment and common sense. Being against shipping American jobs and treasure overseas, opening our borders and subverting our justice system is hardly pushing "grievance."
Beg to differ here. I have invested a lot of hours studying the roots, the philosophy, that drives the Left. I don’t agree with it, but I understand where it came from. And I have attempted to talk about it with people on the left and was met with a brick wall, scoffs, even insults.
How many lefties have done the same kind of reading to understand conservatism? My guess is zero. Being uncurious is a trait of most lefties. So is cowardice. I say “most” because I am seeing some lefties have epiphanies, Bret Weinstein for example, but it takes guts and a willingness to lose everything to speak out.
So Bari, how about conversations between lefties and righties? We have seen what Douglas Murray did to Malcolm Gladstone. By all means, let’s have more.
What I have long said is that I cannot HELP but understand what the Left believes. I am surrounded by it. I have to work consciously to get out of that particular matrix. So none of us are really in doubt about what the Left believes or why. Why, of course, is because that is what they were told to believe.
It is because, as you have stated in other commentary, one side of the equation places the individual as the root of civic power and the other cedes power the ruling body. Once government passes the necessary function stage it becomes unwieldy and unmanageable. At the expense of the individual. A David versus Goliath scenario. And this government, and some state and city governments, is/are so massive, bloated and unwieldy as to be analogous to the plant in The Little Shop of Horrors screaming "Feed Me!!!!!!" as it consumes everything and everyone in sight.
Trump doesn't practice "divide and conquer" grievance politics, but he clearly is trying to represent the entire American public in order to unite us and break down the influence and control our politicians and lobbyists have over our system. He will relentlessly attack other politicians and bureaucrats, and that's okay with me, but he has never attacked the public. Then there's Nuremberg Biden, attacking half the country. I'm reminded of the slaughter in Rwanda and 1930's/40's Germany. We've seen the beginnings of this danger in the murders and destruction during the BLM riots, the attacks on women by Big Trans activists, and the harassment of Jewish students on some college campuses. Contrast that with what we saw on 1/6 (whether you agree or not agree with their tactics), voters were putting the politicians on notice, not attacking in the name of any race, sex or other "group."
Your statement that "he has never attacked the public", I think, is something not enough people have paid attention to. Whereas Barry Soetoro claimed rural America was "bitterly clinging to guns and religion" and Hillary was sure we were a "basket of deplorables", The Bad Orange Man said there were "good people on both sides". His attacks HAVE BEEN personal (and sometimes petty), against those who deserve it - Nancy Pelosi, the corpse occupying the White House, POS Schiff... His attacks on Ted Cruz's wife were not necessary, but by and large, he is focused on the individual politicians not the electorate.
Not enough people pay attention because that is not how it is reported in the press. There is an excellent series I am watching on Netflix called Trump. It goes back to when he was 28 or so. It has a lot of old footage. The part I have seen so far leads me to believe that the die with regard to the current national struggle were cast long ago when Trump, in his abrasive style, ruffled Mayor Ed Koch's feathers and embarrassed him. The body language in some of the footage is pretty telling as it was before the time when image consultants scrutinized every image prior to release. (Well and when the press just covered the news without taking sides.) I think Trump's early experience with Democrat officials, even though he himself was a Democrat, laid the groundwork for what is playing out now. No surprise really, New York has had an outsized impact on national politics since the Civil War.
Many of Trump's verbal attacks on other politicians and bureaucrats have been brutal, but that indicates to me his ruthlessness when it comes to representation of the voters. He does not care about niceties.
Are you listening to me? What I said is that the "social justice" movement is regressive, and I stated why I believe that. I believe that because nothing is improving in the black community that I can see--at least over and above the rising and in recent years lowering tides to which we are all subject; that most of the people opining on this issue have no personal understanding of the people or issues; and that the whole goal seems to be engineering compliance by people who are being tricked into supporting things that are contrary to their interest.
Those are specific claims. They are not generic claims. If you want to claim to be better than personality politics, would it not make sense for you to be able to debate the actual issues?
Put another way, would your post have varied in any way if we were talking about Global Warming, the War in Ukraine, or immigration? I can't see how it would have.
You, sir, are wrong. And that is a big problem with those of you on the left. You spend zero time trying to understand your opponents, and all your time labeling them to ease your goal toward achieving total defeat.
Trump does not tell you how to live your lives; requiring you to buy insurance you neither want nor need; what kind of light bulbs to buy and cars to drive.
Trump is reactionary to your need to rule over us and dictate how we are to live.
Show me the grievances…. Biggest difference is a conservative knows government policy never changes people, right up until it involves their children being forced to call Johnny Jane. That’s literally something one group did do to another, and it is just one example.
Excellent analysis. If one is told endlessly that he or she is in a group that can't get a fair shake, it separates people even more and generates more rage, like a perpetual motion machine. Whether the "group" is blacks, women, white males, cross-dressers, etc., the listeners revolve around their grievances (real or imagined) and see the out groups as the enemy. Mission accomplished.
I feel like Free Press is "right-wing talking points addressed by centrist Democrats in a moderate way... plus some occasional original reporting." Most media simply will not cover these stories.
That is well said. The FP is polite and most articles are reasonably well written. But it is still far from an objective media outlet. Individual biases show through too often for me and there is little real diversity of thought. And if it were not for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, there would be close to none.
It's the plantation where the slaves choose to remain because massa has convinced them that he really cares. He provides everything they have, does he not?
There's a bizarre (and effective) dynamic of inversion at work. After we elected our first black President, racism was somehow endemic ... and after Hamas' massacre on 10-7 (literally before the blood was dry), keffiyeh-clad protesters with Palestinian flags flooded the streets accusing Israel of genocide.
What we're seeing is a philosophical attack under the guise of politics. It's as if our country was being attacked from within. And so my question is: what would we do about it? and how else are we being attacked? And would we recognize other signs of an attack: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/september-11th-and-menticide#details
45th and Broadway is the theater district, not the "ghetto." It is overrun with tourists, not "ghetto people."
Defund the police was a disaster and NYC has gone downhill precipitously. You don't have to make things up to make the case, though. Just read the NY Post.
There is a 45th and Broadway in most large cities, isn't there? Would 21st and MLK Jr. Drive have made it more clear?
I would say I have spent at least a week in at least 30 cities. I'm speaking generally, but reasonably accurately.
And I will just address directly the likelihood that that sort of language would be viewed as racist by some, by repeating a simple question: have you had Dine-In fried chicken or fried fish in a majority black neighborhood in the past year? I have, numerous times. In our local ghetto there are a few places I really like. It's interesting.
It seems to me anybody who might be offended by that really hasn't spent much time driving around in the places filled with people on whose behalf they have arrogated the right to speak.
I use it a lot, because I see it daily. A synonym is "there is no there there", which Gertrude Stein may or may not have said in reference to Oakland, but which is fantastic, wherever it came from.
I don't think Obama was the genesis of it, although his administration certainly helped pushing it. The wheels were in motion for idpol since the mid-90s at universities (really you could trace it back sooner), the leftist insanity in the online world/schools started in the early 2010s, and the real extremist jump of the media and corporate world (eg world of the elites) happened circa 2015.
Unpopular opinion: Teenage social activism is irresponsible and anti-democratic. Doesn’t matter which side the kids are fighting for.
The thing about teenage brains is that they think in black and white and they have a penchant for the dramatic. This is science, but also, anyone who knows teenagers knows it’s true.
So why the he** would we encourage these people to take a position, dig in, and go fight for it? Teenagers don’t actually know anything about the issues they fight for. These issues are complicated and multifaceted. Their black-and-white brains can’t comprehend the nuance and complexity. Adolescence is the time for kids to be LEARNING about the world, not taking positions and committing to them through emotionally charged demonstrations.
We shouldn’t be encouraging teenagers to “find their voice.” Find their voice to say what, exactly? They don’t know anything! We should be encouraging them to LEARN about complex controversial issues. We should be teaching them to consider the issues from multiple angles. We should be teaching them to be flexible thinkers who can incorporate new information into their understanding of something, NOT cheering them on in rigid commitment to their meme-level understanding of issues that PhDs disagree about.
I agree, but of course the reality is the kids are not finding their voice: they are being told what to think and say by the mostly childless weirdo teachers running the social justice classes.
“Our agenda is not hidden and is simple: we want the Long Beach Unified School District to be a place where every student is represented honestly in classrooms and curricula, and where they are safe to be in critical dialogue supportive of democratic participation across differences.”
The mission statements are carefully worded to ward off skeptics like us who dare to question virtuous concepts like:
Honesty
Safety
Democratic
Their plan is to indoctrinate a million “Greta Thunbergs” to hatefully scream and shout down any peers or elders who don’t ascribe to their brainwashed agenda. I’m so sick of this and I know many people who have had enough. This is nothing but a mission to draft an army of obnoxious kids to taunt and provoke others.
You are so right. I alternate between two very different interpretations of this phenomenon:
1. That this is all political, and these youngsters are being trained to be an American version of the Mao’s Red Guard for the coming revolution, or
2. The far more cynical possibility that this is positioning these kids within the quasi-corporate structure of what I call “Activism, Inc.™️” to be the useful idiots of the plutocrats.
Teens eventually get to vote. So why wouldn't a savvy party try to rope them in young? Get them nice and brainwashed before they have had any experience to help them temper the bullcrap you are feeding them. You have to remember, people that want power don't seem to often have integrity. They don't care if they create generations of useless dependent lifelong children whose main skill is whining loud enough so that someone else will fix it (after abdicating their own freedoms to give those people the power to do it).
Of all the things the elites have done, getting in to our school systems to manipulate children is probably one of the worst.
Dept of Education need to be destroyed. Just completely wiped out. Teachers Union destroyed. All rebuilt from the ground up. There should be no unions in the public sector.
To make matters worse, these are the jobs Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden claim were created. Jobs for people who create nothing, and as we can prove, make matters worse. In the nation's 3rd largest city, 4/5 largest employers are government agencies.
Absolutely right. But only the Department of Education needs to be rebuilt, perhaps as a source of model programs and teaching resources with a control board of randomly selected parents of school age children. Teacher’s unions, as currently constituted, belong in the dustbin of history.
Too late. Do a deep dive into your state’s — any state’s — standards. Everything has an activist bent. Check out the mission statement from the National Council for Social Studies. NCSS is instrumental in shaping not only state standards, but curriculum choices and professional development for social studies/civics teachers.
Just followed your link. So glad my husband (a wonderful history teacher) retired in 2012. He chose to leave the profession he loved because he couldn't fight the changes being imposed by the Feds, state of California, and his district. He tried, but the effort was met with hostility and punitive actions he was powerless to resist.
"New York governor Kathy Hochul plans to deploy the National Guard on New York’s subway system to check bags and patrol platforms. Or, as Tom Cotton put it on X, “send[ing] in the troops to restore law and order.” (NYT)"
Unless they can remove violent, deranged vagrants it will amount to nothing "Governance" by liberals consists of little more than slogans, grand gestures and wasting our hard earned money.
I think some are actually trying to do things. They just can't admit that central planning rarely works out. So they implement something, it has unforeseen (and often totally foreseen) consequences, they try another thing to fix that, which causes more issues and so on. Eventually someone else gets put in charge, fixes it all back up, and then the people vote another moron back in to tear it all down.
Regarding TFP debate, I don't see how you can hold a respectful, serious debate with Ann Coulter and Cenk Uygur. For the sake of TFP, I hope I'm wrong.
Ann Coulter was abhorrent to the left from the 9O’s all the way up until she spoke out against Trump. Now she can join the company of Dick Cheney (and his daughter) who was once worse than Hitler to them.
Yes, it's a very weird situation. I laugh at Democrats who are suddenly into Liz Cheney, and even good old Darth. I'm an evil neocon from the 90s, myself.
Could someone explain to me what happened with Ann Coulter.
If someone told me that it was determined she's fallen victim to an 'invasion of the body snatchers' thing I'd probably believe it (or at least, feel it made more sense than anything else).
Inventions like "social Justice seminars" by the up-'emselves educational Wokerati will hopefully have the effect of further driving many parents towards homeschooling...... which is already on the rise ever since the "covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” Most inflammatory has been the ‘gender studies’ fads that leaked from academia’s Social Justice petri-dishes a few years back into the media mainstream and thence into the nation’s public schools." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Does Suzie think celebrities and “stars” ie actors, need to be anything more than those who can read lines and make you think they are that character? That is way more preferable to them spouting off on topics of which they know nothing other than the narrative. In real life, most of them if they had an original thought it would die for lack of company.
I didn't read her whole thing, but it came off as a very "I want more Enquirer stories!". Basically Suzie wants the hot goss. Which frankly is part of the issue with so many modern celebs. We know too much about them and thus they think that we should all know their deepest dumbest thoughts. We have a whole culture of people (I am willing to be sexists and suggest that it is majority women) who care more about the drama and trappings of fame than the actually skills of those people. Look at the Taylor Swift stuff....I almost NEVER hear about her music being great (could be for all I know), but for some stupid reason, I know who she is dating and when she is at a football game and whatnot.
She is a phenomenon though. But my impression is that she became one because she is rooted in pretty traditional values. And as far as I can tell she sends a pretty wholesome message. All the hoopla about her endorsing a candidate and when she finally put out a pre-Super Tursday message it was just get out and vote for the people who speak for YOU. I think that is good advice.
She is a creation of her promoters. She is a phenomena that is like the ‘bread and circuses’ of Rome. The difference is govt didn’t need to create her our culture of worshipping idols did that.
I'm not intended to rag on her as a whole. Its more about how the media and some of the fans consume her. Just that so much of the news around he is basically gossip rather than people talking about what she should be most known for: music.
Also, I have no doubt that there are places with people having those discussions. They just don't seem to be in the mainstream.
It continues to blow my mind that everyone is worried about political violence from Trump voters. January 6th, for all the noise the media makes about it, was barely even a riot. The side that consistently uses ACTUAL violence and destruction while "protesting" is almost always the extreme left: BLM, Antifa (look what they did to Portland) and lately the pro-Hamas demonstrators. I'm not saying there aren't some far-right loonies out there who are prepping for a civil war, but they are TINY in numbers compared to the actual violence that's already been perpetrated year after year by these large and well-funded left wing radicals.
None of this... NONE of this is about reality. The media "noise" is carefully constructed, and will continue to ramp up - what did Biden say about Trump will have our servicemembers's blood running in the streets of Europe? Yes, the ONLY president in forever that DIDN'T get us into some war.. Reality is not only beside the point; it's a threat to their bullshit. The media is an extension of the Biden campaign - they are not there to report on reality. They are there to lie and maniuplate.
The new crop of actors? They are sexless, androgynous place keepers. Chalomet as an action star? Seeing him makes me want to bully him, he looks so wimpy!
I generally think the same but thought he was good in dune 2. He’s perfectly cast for the role - young royalty who’s boyish in appearance but becomes a messianic figure through psychedelics
If you would poll the term social justice, how much of the general public would have a favorable view of the term? Too often, in battles with the modern left, there is a general misperception between the terms they use and the substance they teach.
To a middle-class suburban Mom, fighting for social justice is great. Attacking the stupidity of these people is essential and easy, but what kind of philosophy do you supply as an alternative to Social Justice? But it's not just how to remove the movement's moral authority that is essential but what philosophy you replace it with.
I keep returning to the theme of Colemen Hughes's book ( I have to buy and read) of color-blind individualism, educating with Wisdom, temperance, moderation, and justice. Justice in the traditional sense is being honest and truthful in your interactions with others, treating people with respect and fairness, and standing up for what you believe is right. This debate wins more minds than the gobbledygook nonsense that is spread by the modern left. It's a battle worth having to save the culture. Excellent reporting today, Free Press.
Why should we even care about what High Schoolers think? They DON'T think, by and large. They emote, they repeat, and they are empty vessels waiting to be filled. True, there ARE a few who do not fit this role, but MOST do!
The ability to "think" come later in life, somewhere past the age of 25 or so. Up until that time they are weather vanes, subject to the prevailing winds.
I believe that thinking comes with experience. That is why you can have someone quite young actually be able to think (although it is rare). Learning to take things you 'know' and then compare that with experience to generate wisdom. But most young people have experienced very little so the lens of their thinking is narrow and easily manipulated.
Thst is ordinarily true I think about the adolescent mind. But this article is about an unrelenting gale force wind bring applied. And my guess is this is just one such wind.
I care because I was never paid for simply going to High School. If offered this sweet deal (back then), maybe I would have pocketed the money and then snickered at the activists. However, I sense this is an effort to recruit fresh ANTIFA rogues or modern day Brownshirts to do the bidding of radicals.
I always think of The prime of Miss Jean Brodie -- 'Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.'
Of course she was heavily influenced by Mussolini fascists who also operated under this assumption.
There are reasons why the UN Human Rights declaration forbids indoctrination of school children by governments. (It is covered by the 1st amendment in the US)
Yes -- of course Mussolini was the father of Fascism -- Fascism comes from Latin( bundle of sticks and used in Roman times to denote power) and first emerged in Italy pre WWI.
It is all about power and control and young minds can be moulded.
I am surprised the inherent dangers were not immediately obvious to the various public school boards.
Dangerous for a school board if they get sued for violations of the 1st amendment for an establishment of a state sponsored religion/philosophy. One wonders if they would hire an Evangelical Christian group to do the same, trying to give students a 'voice'.
I do agree that certain organizations see this as opportunities, aided and abetted by administrators who don't fully understand the philosophical nature of the groups. It doesn't mean that course of action is not without danger for the school board if they ignore the rule of law.
Because they either are or about to be 18 and eligible to vote. There is a concerted move to register them. I have witnessed first hand the impact of these first time Vote Blue, No Matter Who voters and it is not pretty. In an age of razor thin margins their influence is, or can be, significant. I think it is a very effective stopgap until the newcomers can be registered.
News The Gleeful Media Loves To Repeat Ad Nauseum:
“Nikki Haley Refuses To Endorse Trump.”
For now anyway.
After pulling out of the race she said;
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that”.
Sounds like she’s hoping he wins in November.
But the media will continue to portray her as the Never-Trump, new face of the Republican movement. More false praise for an opposition candidate who, if she was the GOP nominee running against Biden, would be tossed in the pit with all the other hard right Hitlers of the GOP they abhor.
Please Democrats, stop pretending you’re fans of Haley. We don’t believe you.
When I saw that Kathy Hochul had called in the National Guard to patrol and search people's bags, my instinctive reaction was that she had chosen a fascist solution to try to solve the problem. Rather than focusing on arresting, charging, and jailing criminals to keep them from hurting people on the NYC subway, she's going to harass all subway riders by making them run the gauntlet of a police state.
It’s hard to imagine a governor more inept than she is. Want to stop violence in subway cars? Ride the cars and arrest the perps. But checking bags? Really? How does that stop violence? Large perp attacks soft target with hands and fists. Most people getting on subways will have those. And the precedent of prosecuting people for defending against attackers will prevent anyone from acting. If I might dare to plagiarize a line, it’s “a stupid and futile gesture.” * And an expensive one.
* Just in case: Animal House.
The presence of cops and security (or even National Guard) is only useful as a deterrent if they can actually arrest people who commit crimes and those people will actually face jail time. Until that happens this is all a futile gesture that just reinforces what a mess they've created.
Crystal, IT’s AN ELECTION PLOY, and as soon as the WOKE Progressive Democrats get Biden and other Democrat minions reelected, THEN they can go back to business as usual!
The irony is when Tom Cotton suggested doing EXACTLY THE SAME (as Hochul) in 2020, during the “Summer of Love” riots, looting & destruction (MOSTLY peaceful protesting) the Left went rabid!!!
Well, Hochul is just the sort to perform such a gesture. Although she is utterly without the humor or timing of the Animal House crew.
Anyway, the perps who jump the turnstiles will easily avoid these bogus bag inspections, just as they avoid paying the fare. Easy peasy. Only the fare-paying, law, abiding citizens will end up standing in these lines and being inspected. How ridiculous.
I've never ridden a subway, so I don't know the drill. Or where the troops will deploy.
If it were Russia, whatever replaced the KGB would prolly handle violators by pushing them onto the tracks. I don't think we could get away with that here.
These people carry guns and knives (and thermoses - thermi?) openly as weapons. No bags needed.
She should have allowed the gangs and criminals to check bags. Then they could steal what they want and not have to beat people up. Much less violence all the way around.
Don't give them any ideas.
What a great idea.
You and Deb working together?
No but we think alike.
Months ago, I wrote Hochul to suggest that she call out our National Guard. But how she's proposing to use them is not at all what I meant.
I meant that they should be deployed during riots -- mostly peaceful demonstrations my foot! -- and particularly in areas where our deranged loiterers, illegal immigrants, and gangstas cause chaos although their presence elsewhere would not be unwelcome. And to get busy being a presence, thereby calming them down, or throwing them into jail.
Hochul says anyone who injures a person in the subways should be forever barred from entering the subways. How's she gonna do that? With thousands of subway entrances? How about anyone who injures another person anywhere goes to jail or an institution for the criminally insane?
For God's sake, bring back Creedmore (kinder and gentler) -- and solitary.
Liberal on some things I might be, but a society that tolerates physical violence against unsuspecting peaceful people going about their daily chores is no society at all.
I have returned from my semi-annual Southern vacation. Charleston is still gorgeous and largely pristine at least in the several neighborhoods spouse and I always amble in, but Savannah, in recent years on the brink, was a bit of a mess, including zonked-out derelicts and the requisite idiot demonstration accompanied by chants of "Free, free, Palestine!"
Poor, beautiful Savannah.
Savannah is run by liberal Democrats
democrats are dishonorable.
There you go.
Not all Democrats are dishonorable. (I am not a Democrat.) Not all blacks are criminals or believe in BLM. Not all Southerners are racists. Not all Italians are in the mafia. See how that works?
You are risking the wrath of the all knowing.
Ha ha. But it landed on you. Only took 15 minutes.
That you Oliver.
Well, that would definitely be a threat to the "not at all knowing."
it doesn't work that way at all.
democrats are utterly unlike those other groups. democrats only exist because of voting, and voting for evil means only one thing for that voter.
Or willfully ignorant.
But what about Jews controlling the weather? Forgot about children, blood & matzah!
A person becomes a democrat through voting.
let us know when a person can join the group of blacks or southerners - or Jews, since your interest is in that group - by voting.
Haha. Most dogs and cats are saner than people.
Would that be Creedmore the asylum or Creedmore the rifle round? They need more of both.
If you have 6,938 apples
And 570 are rotten
Do you have "mostly good" apples?
Yes or No?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
Even one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel.
Didn't ask that though, did I?
Answer. Yes or No?
Cue The Jackson Five (with a very young Michael)!
Another of today's topics was paying children to be indoctrinated social justice warriors.
This is right out of the Lenin/Marxist play book. When I call the Democrats communists, I am not some glassy eyed right wing nut case, I am stating a fact supported by the actions of the left, the Democrats.
California is goofier than I thought. But is doesn't surprise me.
As if paying the teachers to indoctrinate kids in school is not enough - now they are paying the kids directly. I am not sure if the history teacher quoted was really surprised that the program was not helping "our students find their voice" or if he was worried about the competition to the Teacher Union.
The smart capitalist kid takes the money and tells the instructor to fuck off with this bullshit.
It did surprise me that it was Long Beach. There are zero allegedly oppressed poor kids there — way too expensive.
Isn’t that the point though? The long march through the institutions is not aimed at the working class, but rather at the elite, who will have the power to make such policies into laws.
Remember Hilary’s “it takes a village”? This is what she meant.
Yeah, the village of Evil.
All she has to do is fire and replace Alvin Bragg, the Soros prosecutor. The mayhem on the subways is caused by a known group of recidivists whom Bragg refuses to prosecute.
Precisely right. The mayhem in our streets and the shoplifting in our stores are also perpetrated by the usual suspects. These too need to be arrested and held without bail. If the majority of us New Yorkers weren't so law-abiding, by now we'd be throttling miscreants with our bare hands, we're so fed up with the state of things.
Vote!, we're told. But we're too gerrymandered to oust the progressive-socialists who run the city.
Vote with your feet.
But some of us don't cut and run. My family stuck out the late 1960s - 1990s, when things got much better, and I don't propose to abandon my home or my family's graves quite yet.
No need to hold without bail, start requiring CASH bail.
The drug-pushing gangs have plenty of money to get their members out.
Extremists choose extremes. On the one hand, they disrupted a system that HAD been working. It worked prior to David Dinkins, and it worked under Rudy Guiliani, and it only stopped working when insane solutions were created to respond to imaginary problems. When, in other words, the system was broken by bad ideas proposed by bad people who lied about everything.
So, as an extremist, the logical flop is to treat EVERYONE as a criminal, rather than just those who look like and are acting like criminals, or who are in fact identified criminals who have broken laws and should be in jail but aren't.
The motto might as well be "Anything BUT moderation and the tried and true."
"Extremists choose extremes" <-- You hit the nail on the head.
Yesterday I saw a comment somewhere in passing that described a technique for gaining power. It involved *causing* (but blaming on someone else) the very problem you propose to solve if you're given power.
It's interesting to watch Democrats doing that very thing in real time with the border situation. It's as if they think we don't have the receipts that show how they caused the problem. But their media lapdogs are happy to print their lies.
They've been talking about this on "conspiracy" websites for some years now. The bulk of Leftists are complete morons, but the top isn't. They are simply cynical and evil. I suppose you could call that stupidity too, but they are not OPERATIONALLY stupid, even if they are Life Stupid.
Most of our world would be better if hysterical moralists of all varieties just shut their mouths and left the rest of us alone.
Such a shame MAGA torpedoed the bill.
You mean the bill that leaves the border open, allows 5,000 illegal immigrants in/day, and sends $60b to Ukraine?
The real shame is you still get your news from The View
Lol. Wrong.
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/no-the-senate-immigration-bill-does-not-allow-5000-people-to-illegally-enter-the-us-daily/
This is too easy :)
The real shame is that you're so stupid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
as far as I know nobody has accused hochul of possessing intellect.
What, pray tell, does your wisdom and reading of tea leaves tell you how Democrats plan on stealing the election this time around?
I am not sure, actually.
One of my suspicions is that, despite the Supreme Court ruling, some states will go so far as to leave Trump completely off of the ballot, which will be printed too late for them to be reprinted before Election Day.
Observe what they did in Maricopa County in 2022, generating "technical issues" at expect-to-go-red polling places, effectively discouraging Republicans in those areas from voting at all.
And they've probably worked a lot of the kinks out of manipulating mail-in ballots without being caught.
If worst comes to worst, I expect that Trump will be assassinated. Perhaps even on Election Day itself, which would allow the shutting down of polling places on any premise (such as "avoiding violence") they choose.
But at this point, I don't have a lot of "tea leaves" to go on.
“New York governor Kathy Hochul plans to deploy the National Guard on New York’s subway system to check bags and patrol platforms. Or, as Tom Cotton put it on X, ‘send[ing] in the troops to restore law and order.’”
______________________________
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I’m sorry, I’m still laughing too hard to come up with an articulate comment.
Wasn't the Cotton op ed in the former "paper of record" the reason Bari Weiss left the NYT?
Yes, that’s correct Lynn. Bari resigned from the NYT about 1-month after Cotton’s op ed was published. Here is her resignation letter:
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
Thank you.
I remember when the left was constantly complaining about those stop and searches after 9/11. Now not only are they on board...they are also the cause of needed to do it in the first place :)
For these people, from Bush's Homeland Security to Fauci to Hochul, every crisis is just another excuse to impose more state control over the people and creating a police state. I don't believe anymore they care at all about solving the problems of imminent threat to the public,
Oh, and another thing, don't you have to have a warrant to search somebody?
Lol. Thought you liked stop and frisk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
What will the National Guard be allowed to do with the criminals they encounter on the subway? Will they be prosecuted if they intervene to protect the passengers?
I wondered that too.
Presumably they will be searching people's bags for guns, even though most of the violence on the subway is committed without firearms. Also notice that they will be patrolling subway *stations,* not on the trains themselves, so the criminals who attack people inside the cars will be able to continue unmolested.
I'm guessing that ordinary citizens who are caught carrying anything for their own defense that's forbidden by NYC law will be charged to the maximum extent possible. Carriers with criminal backgrounds will be tossed over to Alvin Bragg, who will quickly put them back out on the street.
Celia, only the thugs carry, say, knives for so-called defense. Or guns.
I carry a long, stout leather string. Sometimes. Sometimes it's in the wrong jacket. What makes me think I could garrote an assailant? At my age?
My thoughts exactly. Well put!
PS
If the NYC DA actually prosecuted perps instead of letting them go and putting them back on the streets, (Think of the undocumented Democrats that savagely beat NYC cops.) then maybe the governor wouldn't have to deploy the storm troopers, national guard,
Vote Dem/Soc. You will not only support Hamas but you will vote for anarchy.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Hope that fascism never comes to the airline industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
Spot on!
You know, this "social justice" nonsense has been in overdrive since Obama took office. In an outcome that should surprise no one, the conclusion the Left reached, after we elected our first black President, was that racism was overwhelming and increasing. That is the precisely wrong conclusion, isn't it? Obviously?
Here are my two questions:
1) If you are a typical rich Democrat who very much wants to be perceived as caring about Persons of Color, when was the last time you ate fried fish at a ghetto restaurant with ghetto people at 45th and Broadway? Most of you would be terrified to go into the neighborhoods where you demanded the police be defunded. Wouldn't you? Be honest.
2) What good has been done the average black person since 2008? Are their schools better? Jobs more plentiful? Two parent families more common? Crime down, and sense of safety up?
This whole thing is a solipsistic hallucination. It is completely self absorbed people living in hermetically sealed worlds doing and saying things that make no sense, and which in general make the lives of ordinary black folks--and for that matter just about everybody else, including women and members of the LGB world--WORSE.
If these people did NOTHING but play video games or smoke weed, or pull the wings off of butterflies the world would be a better place (other than for the butterflies).
I will add this thought, too: there is a profound difference between nurturing a sense of grievance and providing and implementing actual improvements.
The Left Wing Agitation Propaganda of the sort Saul Alinsky learned from Lenin and which was taught to and embraced by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is only concerned with nurturing grievances. It is getting people angry enough that they get organized in groups, and act and vote in groups, which in turn benefits the person or people USING them to get power.
There is nothing wrong with being angry about bad situations, and with being treated unfairly. But being mad is not an end in itself, is it?
And yet it IS an end in itself for professional manipulators, because their true end goal is not fixing anything, but installing themselves in power in perpetuity. What they want is to make people infuriated, get them pointed in a particular direction, then get them to turn off their minds, and stop expecting solutions. They want unreflecting rage machines.
In an ideal "Community Organizer's" world everyone stays angry and mobilized forever, but never, ever asks where the benefits are, that their anger was supposed to secure.
Everyone stays mad; nothing ever gets better; nobody ever gets wiser--this is the world the Left has built in this country, in most black communities.
It is the opposite of Social Justice. It is a cruel and evil joke.
The Right also practices grievance politics. It's nearly Trump's entire brand. So we've devolved into a binary, "You're stupid/wrong." "No you're stupider/wronger" back-and forthing and nothing gets done because we won't sit down and listen to each other. We've become so convinced about the rightness of our positions, it's so much a part of our identity, that we have lost the ability to truly listen to each other. If we did, we woudl probably have a better chance of working things out.
For all his warts, Trump is the anti-grievance candidate. Just get back to work and family. Stop hectoring and separating people and start exercising some judgment and common sense. Being against shipping American jobs and treasure overseas, opening our borders and subverting our justice system is hardly pushing "grievance."
Beg to differ here. I have invested a lot of hours studying the roots, the philosophy, that drives the Left. I don’t agree with it, but I understand where it came from. And I have attempted to talk about it with people on the left and was met with a brick wall, scoffs, even insults.
How many lefties have done the same kind of reading to understand conservatism? My guess is zero. Being uncurious is a trait of most lefties. So is cowardice. I say “most” because I am seeing some lefties have epiphanies, Bret Weinstein for example, but it takes guts and a willingness to lose everything to speak out.
So Bari, how about conversations between lefties and righties? We have seen what Douglas Murray did to Malcolm Gladstone. By all means, let’s have more.
What I have long said is that I cannot HELP but understand what the Left believes. I am surrounded by it. I have to work consciously to get out of that particular matrix. So none of us are really in doubt about what the Left believes or why. Why, of course, is because that is what they were told to believe.
It's a very unequal dynamic.
Yes, but it goes back to Nietzsche and Marx. Envy and grievance. All the way back to Cain and Abel.
It is because, as you have stated in other commentary, one side of the equation places the individual as the root of civic power and the other cedes power the ruling body. Once government passes the necessary function stage it becomes unwieldy and unmanageable. At the expense of the individual. A David versus Goliath scenario. And this government, and some state and city governments, is/are so massive, bloated and unwieldy as to be analogous to the plant in The Little Shop of Horrors screaming "Feed Me!!!!!!" as it consumes everything and everyone in sight.
Yes, government passes its "sell buy" date every single time -- except maybe Great Britain, so far, anyway.
Trump doesn't practice "divide and conquer" grievance politics, but he clearly is trying to represent the entire American public in order to unite us and break down the influence and control our politicians and lobbyists have over our system. He will relentlessly attack other politicians and bureaucrats, and that's okay with me, but he has never attacked the public. Then there's Nuremberg Biden, attacking half the country. I'm reminded of the slaughter in Rwanda and 1930's/40's Germany. We've seen the beginnings of this danger in the murders and destruction during the BLM riots, the attacks on women by Big Trans activists, and the harassment of Jewish students on some college campuses. Contrast that with what we saw on 1/6 (whether you agree or not agree with their tactics), voters were putting the politicians on notice, not attacking in the name of any race, sex or other "group."
Your statement that "he has never attacked the public", I think, is something not enough people have paid attention to. Whereas Barry Soetoro claimed rural America was "bitterly clinging to guns and religion" and Hillary was sure we were a "basket of deplorables", The Bad Orange Man said there were "good people on both sides". His attacks HAVE BEEN personal (and sometimes petty), against those who deserve it - Nancy Pelosi, the corpse occupying the White House, POS Schiff... His attacks on Ted Cruz's wife were not necessary, but by and large, he is focused on the individual politicians not the electorate.
Not enough people pay attention because that is not how it is reported in the press. There is an excellent series I am watching on Netflix called Trump. It goes back to when he was 28 or so. It has a lot of old footage. The part I have seen so far leads me to believe that the die with regard to the current national struggle were cast long ago when Trump, in his abrasive style, ruffled Mayor Ed Koch's feathers and embarrassed him. The body language in some of the footage is pretty telling as it was before the time when image consultants scrutinized every image prior to release. (Well and when the press just covered the news without taking sides.) I think Trump's early experience with Democrat officials, even though he himself was a Democrat, laid the groundwork for what is playing out now. No surprise really, New York has had an outsized impact on national politics since the Civil War.
Many of Trump's verbal attacks on other politicians and bureaucrats have been brutal, but that indicates to me his ruthlessness when it comes to representation of the voters. He does not care about niceties.
Are you listening to me? What I said is that the "social justice" movement is regressive, and I stated why I believe that. I believe that because nothing is improving in the black community that I can see--at least over and above the rising and in recent years lowering tides to which we are all subject; that most of the people opining on this issue have no personal understanding of the people or issues; and that the whole goal seems to be engineering compliance by people who are being tricked into supporting things that are contrary to their interest.
Those are specific claims. They are not generic claims. If you want to claim to be better than personality politics, would it not make sense for you to be able to debate the actual issues?
Put another way, would your post have varied in any way if we were talking about Global Warming, the War in Ukraine, or immigration? I can't see how it would have.
You, sir, are wrong. And that is a big problem with those of you on the left. You spend zero time trying to understand your opponents, and all your time labeling them to ease your goal toward achieving total defeat.
Trump does not tell you how to live your lives; requiring you to buy insurance you neither want nor need; what kind of light bulbs to buy and cars to drive.
Trump is reactionary to your need to rule over us and dictate how we are to live.
You ever try reasoning with the last three generations of college students?
"We" who?
Thank you, David.
Show me the grievances…. Biggest difference is a conservative knows government policy never changes people, right up until it involves their children being forced to call Johnny Jane. That’s literally something one group did do to another, and it is just one example.
Excellent analysis. If one is told endlessly that he or she is in a group that can't get a fair shake, it separates people even more and generates more rage, like a perpetual motion machine. Whether the "group" is blacks, women, white males, cross-dressers, etc., the listeners revolve around their grievances (real or imagined) and see the out groups as the enemy. Mission accomplished.
I agree. But it is so short-sighted and ultimately destructive of the concept of an American identity. Who benefits from that?
The comments are the best thing about the FP. But that’s not enough for me to renew my subscription.
I feel like Free Press is "right-wing talking points addressed by centrist Democrats in a moderate way... plus some occasional original reporting." Most media simply will not cover these stories.
That is well said. The FP is polite and most articles are reasonably well written. But it is still far from an objective media outlet. Individual biases show through too often for me and there is little real diversity of thought. And if it were not for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, there would be close to none.
It's the plantation where the slaves choose to remain because massa has convinced them that he really cares. He provides everything they have, does he not?
A co-worker who is also a retired police captain told me that his job became MUCH more difficult after 2008. I wonder why...
There's a bizarre (and effective) dynamic of inversion at work. After we elected our first black President, racism was somehow endemic ... and after Hamas' massacre on 10-7 (literally before the blood was dry), keffiyeh-clad protesters with Palestinian flags flooded the streets accusing Israel of genocide.
To add insult to injury - funded by taxpayers money.
"Mao's America" by Xi Van Fleet. Ordinary woman who has lived through the same 'revolution' twice.
What we're seeing is a philosophical attack under the guise of politics. It's as if our country was being attacked from within. And so my question is: what would we do about it? and how else are we being attacked? And would we recognize other signs of an attack: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/september-11th-and-menticide#details
I believe you just described Oliver Wiseman.
Be nice
Why? He's insipid.
45th and Broadway is the theater district, not the "ghetto." It is overrun with tourists, not "ghetto people."
Defund the police was a disaster and NYC has gone downhill precipitously. You don't have to make things up to make the case, though. Just read the NY Post.
There is a 45th and Broadway in most large cities, isn't there? Would 21st and MLK Jr. Drive have made it more clear?
I would say I have spent at least a week in at least 30 cities. I'm speaking generally, but reasonably accurately.
And I will just address directly the likelihood that that sort of language would be viewed as racist by some, by repeating a simple question: have you had Dine-In fried chicken or fried fish in a majority black neighborhood in the past year? I have, numerous times. In our local ghetto there are a few places I really like. It's interesting.
It seems to me anybody who might be offended by that really hasn't spent much time driving around in the places filled with people on whose behalf they have arrogated the right to speak.
I had to look up solipsism ….its been fifty years since I used that word. The definition made me laugh! Thanks
I use it a lot, because I see it daily. A synonym is "there is no there there", which Gertrude Stein may or may not have said in reference to Oakland, but which is fantastic, wherever it came from.
I don't think Obama was the genesis of it, although his administration certainly helped pushing it. The wheels were in motion for idpol since the mid-90s at universities (really you could trace it back sooner), the leftist insanity in the online world/schools started in the early 2010s, and the real extremist jump of the media and corporate world (eg world of the elites) happened circa 2015.
Obama got racism "...overwhelming and increasing." Just what he wanted.
👍💯
Unpopular opinion: Teenage social activism is irresponsible and anti-democratic. Doesn’t matter which side the kids are fighting for.
The thing about teenage brains is that they think in black and white and they have a penchant for the dramatic. This is science, but also, anyone who knows teenagers knows it’s true.
So why the he** would we encourage these people to take a position, dig in, and go fight for it? Teenagers don’t actually know anything about the issues they fight for. These issues are complicated and multifaceted. Their black-and-white brains can’t comprehend the nuance and complexity. Adolescence is the time for kids to be LEARNING about the world, not taking positions and committing to them through emotionally charged demonstrations.
We shouldn’t be encouraging teenagers to “find their voice.” Find their voice to say what, exactly? They don’t know anything! We should be encouraging them to LEARN about complex controversial issues. We should be teaching them to consider the issues from multiple angles. We should be teaching them to be flexible thinkers who can incorporate new information into their understanding of something, NOT cheering them on in rigid commitment to their meme-level understanding of issues that PhDs disagree about.
I agree, but of course the reality is the kids are not finding their voice: they are being told what to think and say by the mostly childless weirdo teachers running the social justice classes.
You are right Mark.
“Our agenda is not hidden and is simple: we want the Long Beach Unified School District to be a place where every student is represented honestly in classrooms and curricula, and where they are safe to be in critical dialogue supportive of democratic participation across differences.”
The mission statements are carefully worded to ward off skeptics like us who dare to question virtuous concepts like:
Honesty
Safety
Democratic
Their plan is to indoctrinate a million “Greta Thunbergs” to hatefully scream and shout down any peers or elders who don’t ascribe to their brainwashed agenda. I’m so sick of this and I know many people who have had enough. This is nothing but a mission to draft an army of obnoxious kids to taunt and provoke others.
You are so right. I alternate between two very different interpretations of this phenomenon:
1. That this is all political, and these youngsters are being trained to be an American version of the Mao’s Red Guard for the coming revolution, or
2. The far more cynical possibility that this is positioning these kids within the quasi-corporate structure of what I call “Activism, Inc.™️” to be the useful idiots of the plutocrats.
Maybe it’s both.
Teens eventually get to vote. So why wouldn't a savvy party try to rope them in young? Get them nice and brainwashed before they have had any experience to help them temper the bullcrap you are feeding them. You have to remember, people that want power don't seem to often have integrity. They don't care if they create generations of useless dependent lifelong children whose main skill is whining loud enough so that someone else will fix it (after abdicating their own freedoms to give those people the power to do it).
Of all the things the elites have done, getting in to our school systems to manipulate children is probably one of the worst.
Worked for Hitler as I recall.
And Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot.
Red Guards.
Reminds me of The Byrds’ My Back Pages. I too was, “so much older then, I’m younger than that now”.
Seems like most folks think that way not just teenagers
So true! Kids can’t come up with this stuff on their own. And now we have China feeding them ideas all day via TikTok.
Dept of Education need to be destroyed. Just completely wiped out. Teachers Union destroyed. All rebuilt from the ground up. There should be no unions in the public sector.
Absolutely agree. It was created in 1979. 45 years to descend into the madness that is modern education.
To make matters worse, these are the jobs Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden claim were created. Jobs for people who create nothing, and as we can prove, make matters worse. In the nation's 3rd largest city, 4/5 largest employers are government agencies.
Absolutely right. But only the Department of Education needs to be rebuilt, perhaps as a source of model programs and teaching resources with a control board of randomly selected parents of school age children. Teacher’s unions, as currently constituted, belong in the dustbin of history.
I don’t think we need a Dept of Education. Education has suffered since its inception
No tax dollars should be used to turn kids into parroting activists that ultimately harm the people they pretend they are trying to help.
Remember Acorn? Supposedly a "Get Out the Vote" operation. When it was found to be much more than that, Federal funding was actually pulled.
Seems that funding for this program should be pulled as well.
Too late. Do a deep dive into your state’s — any state’s — standards. Everything has an activist bent. Check out the mission statement from the National Council for Social Studies. NCSS is instrumental in shaping not only state standards, but curriculum choices and professional development for social studies/civics teachers.
https://www.socialstudies.org/about
Which is where government, formerly known as civics, classes are taught.
Just followed your link. So glad my husband (a wonderful history teacher) retired in 2012. He chose to leave the profession he loved because he couldn't fight the changes being imposed by the Feds, state of California, and his district. He tried, but the effort was met with hostility and punitive actions he was powerless to resist.
Tax dollars are already being used to manipulate minds.
"New York governor Kathy Hochul plans to deploy the National Guard on New York’s subway system to check bags and patrol platforms. Or, as Tom Cotton put it on X, “send[ing] in the troops to restore law and order.” (NYT)"
Unless they can remove violent, deranged vagrants it will amount to nothing "Governance" by liberals consists of little more than slogans, grand gestures and wasting our hard earned money.
I think some are actually trying to do things. They just can't admit that central planning rarely works out. So they implement something, it has unforeseen (and often totally foreseen) consequences, they try another thing to fix that, which causes more issues and so on. Eventually someone else gets put in charge, fixes it all back up, and then the people vote another moron back in to tear it all down.
Regarding TFP debate, I don't see how you can hold a respectful, serious debate with Ann Coulter and Cenk Uygur. For the sake of TFP, I hope I'm wrong.
I also do not find it likely that the scheduled lineup will produce an edifying outcome.
Cenk is just a dope. Ann is a diva who will take every opportunity to tell us how much she hates Trump.
Which is super funny, because Ann adored Trump for a few months. It's as if she's just bonkers.
Ann Coulter was abhorrent to the left from the 9O’s all the way up until she spoke out against Trump. Now she can join the company of Dick Cheney (and his daughter) who was once worse than Hitler to them.
Remember when Trump was a Democrat and all the celebs and Dem politicians loved him and no one called him racist and a Nazi??
I do!
Yes, it's a very weird situation. I laugh at Democrats who are suddenly into Liz Cheney, and even good old Darth. I'm an evil neocon from the 90s, myself.
Could someone explain to me what happened with Ann Coulter.
If someone told me that it was determined she's fallen victim to an 'invasion of the body snatchers' thing I'd probably believe it (or at least, feel it made more sense than anything else).
Inventions like "social Justice seminars" by the up-'emselves educational Wokerati will hopefully have the effect of further driving many parents towards homeschooling...... which is already on the rise ever since the "covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” Most inflammatory has been the ‘gender studies’ fads that leaked from academia’s Social Justice petri-dishes a few years back into the media mainstream and thence into the nation’s public schools." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Does Suzie think celebrities and “stars” ie actors, need to be anything more than those who can read lines and make you think they are that character? That is way more preferable to them spouting off on topics of which they know nothing other than the narrative. In real life, most of them if they had an original thought it would die for lack of company.
I didn't read her whole thing, but it came off as a very "I want more Enquirer stories!". Basically Suzie wants the hot goss. Which frankly is part of the issue with so many modern celebs. We know too much about them and thus they think that we should all know their deepest dumbest thoughts. We have a whole culture of people (I am willing to be sexists and suggest that it is majority women) who care more about the drama and trappings of fame than the actually skills of those people. Look at the Taylor Swift stuff....I almost NEVER hear about her music being great (could be for all I know), but for some stupid reason, I know who she is dating and when she is at a football game and whatnot.
My niece saw Taylor Swift live last summer and sent me a song by her. It is very good.
I searched for others, and now have a few of them on my playlist.
You might surprise yourself.
She is a phenomenon though. But my impression is that she became one because she is rooted in pretty traditional values. And as far as I can tell she sends a pretty wholesome message. All the hoopla about her endorsing a candidate and when she finally put out a pre-Super Tursday message it was just get out and vote for the people who speak for YOU. I think that is good advice.
She is a creation of her promoters. She is a phenomena that is like the ‘bread and circuses’ of Rome. The difference is govt didn’t need to create her our culture of worshipping idols did that.
I'm not intended to rag on her as a whole. Its more about how the media and some of the fans consume her. Just that so much of the news around he is basically gossip rather than people talking about what she should be most known for: music.
Also, I have no doubt that there are places with people having those discussions. They just don't seem to be in the mainstream.
I did not take your comment as ragging on her but rather celebrity culture. Which I agree with.
It continues to blow my mind that everyone is worried about political violence from Trump voters. January 6th, for all the noise the media makes about it, was barely even a riot. The side that consistently uses ACTUAL violence and destruction while "protesting" is almost always the extreme left: BLM, Antifa (look what they did to Portland) and lately the pro-Hamas demonstrators. I'm not saying there aren't some far-right loonies out there who are prepping for a civil war, but they are TINY in numbers compared to the actual violence that's already been perpetrated year after year by these large and well-funded left wing radicals.
And yet, word is DOJ is ramping up the arrests of J 6ers, even those who weren’t there.
Remember all the rioting that took place after Trump was elected in 2016? If he gets elected again....???
If he does I hope he calls in the military to deal with the leftists summarily. They’re an enemy within.
None of this... NONE of this is about reality. The media "noise" is carefully constructed, and will continue to ramp up - what did Biden say about Trump will have our servicemembers's blood running in the streets of Europe? Yes, the ONLY president in forever that DIDN'T get us into some war.. Reality is not only beside the point; it's a threat to their bullshit. The media is an extension of the Biden campaign - they are not there to report on reality. They are there to lie and maniuplate.
Pretty good post - almost skipped it when I saw the Wiseman byline.
It is called the Free Press for a reason. I may not agree but I am bound to think about my belief honestly
And I was about to say wow, no comment complaining about Oliver today!
Quick question: when is TheFP going to change its name to the "The Oliver Wiseman Blog?" Enquiring minds want to know.
The takeover has been swift. No time to change the stationary yet.
Where did he work before this gig came along? Does he have financial interests in the enterprise?
This seems to be a bait and switch from what we initially purchased
100% - Did NOT pay money for this.
The new crop of actors? They are sexless, androgynous place keepers. Chalomet as an action star? Seeing him makes me want to bully him, he looks so wimpy!
I generally think the same but thought he was good in dune 2. He’s perfectly cast for the role - young royalty who’s boyish in appearance but becomes a messianic figure through psychedelics
I am so out of current Hollywood. We need more of David Mamet (anything he creates). Just finished reading his Everywhere An Oink Oink. Wow.
If you would poll the term social justice, how much of the general public would have a favorable view of the term? Too often, in battles with the modern left, there is a general misperception between the terms they use and the substance they teach.
To a middle-class suburban Mom, fighting for social justice is great. Attacking the stupidity of these people is essential and easy, but what kind of philosophy do you supply as an alternative to Social Justice? But it's not just how to remove the movement's moral authority that is essential but what philosophy you replace it with.
I keep returning to the theme of Colemen Hughes's book ( I have to buy and read) of color-blind individualism, educating with Wisdom, temperance, moderation, and justice. Justice in the traditional sense is being honest and truthful in your interactions with others, treating people with respect and fairness, and standing up for what you believe is right. This debate wins more minds than the gobbledygook nonsense that is spread by the modern left. It's a battle worth having to save the culture. Excellent reporting today, Free Press.
I don't think it's a much reinventing the wheel but rather reintroduction of it to a population that has not gotten educated on it
Why should we even care about what High Schoolers think? They DON'T think, by and large. They emote, they repeat, and they are empty vessels waiting to be filled. True, there ARE a few who do not fit this role, but MOST do!
Because they don't stay in high school. They grow up and join the throngs of protesters blocking the streets.
Or they attend Stanford, Berkeley , UCLA or an Ivy as all search for useful idiots
T hey are being trained to obey orders. Thinking is not the objective
They are being trained to spread propaganda.
The ability to "think" come later in life, somewhere past the age of 25 or so. Up until that time they are weather vanes, subject to the prevailing winds.
I believe that thinking comes with experience. That is why you can have someone quite young actually be able to think (although it is rare). Learning to take things you 'know' and then compare that with experience to generate wisdom. But most young people have experienced very little so the lens of their thinking is narrow and easily manipulated.
Many past 25 never got that message. They are still blowin in the wind. Not unlike many elected officials who regularly check the wind direction
Thst is ordinarily true I think about the adolescent mind. But this article is about an unrelenting gale force wind bring applied. And my guess is this is just one such wind.
I care because I was never paid for simply going to High School. If offered this sweet deal (back then), maybe I would have pocketed the money and then snickered at the activists. However, I sense this is an effort to recruit fresh ANTIFA rogues or modern day Brownshirts to do the bidding of radicals.
I assume this is said with a heavy dose of irony.
I always think of The prime of Miss Jean Brodie -- 'Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.'
Of course she was heavily influenced by Mussolini fascists who also operated under this assumption.
There are reasons why the UN Human Rights declaration forbids indoctrination of school children by governments. (It is covered by the 1st amendment in the US)
Young Pioneers and Hitler Jugend also come to mind.
Yes -- of course Mussolini was the father of Fascism -- Fascism comes from Latin( bundle of sticks and used in Roman times to denote power) and first emerged in Italy pre WWI.
It is all about power and control and young minds can be moulded.
I am surprised the inherent dangers were not immediately obvious to the various public school boards.
What you see as "dangers" they see as "opportunities."
Dangerous for a school board if they get sued for violations of the 1st amendment for an establishment of a state sponsored religion/philosophy. One wonders if they would hire an Evangelical Christian group to do the same, trying to give students a 'voice'.
I do agree that certain organizations see this as opportunities, aided and abetted by administrators who don't fully understand the philosophical nature of the groups. It doesn't mean that course of action is not without danger for the school board if they ignore the rule of law.
Don’t think UN follows its own declaration.
Because they either are or about to be 18 and eligible to vote. There is a concerted move to register them. I have witnessed first hand the impact of these first time Vote Blue, No Matter Who voters and it is not pretty. In an age of razor thin margins their influence is, or can be, significant. I think it is a very effective stopgap until the newcomers can be registered.
News The Gleeful Media Loves To Repeat Ad Nauseum:
“Nikki Haley Refuses To Endorse Trump.”
For now anyway.
After pulling out of the race she said;
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that”.
Sounds like she’s hoping he wins in November.
But the media will continue to portray her as the Never-Trump, new face of the Republican movement. More false praise for an opposition candidate who, if she was the GOP nominee running against Biden, would be tossed in the pit with all the other hard right Hitlers of the GOP they abhor.
Please Democrats, stop pretending you’re fans of Haley. We don’t believe you.
I caught some of her speech and thought it was kind of waspish and ungracious. But maybe that’s just me. I was always team DeSantis.
She always struck me that way. I think of her as a Republican Hillary Clinton.
You can bet your ass if something happened to Trump and Haley became the nominee, they would go after her like a hound after a rabbit.