The nationwide push led by Black Lives Matter to defund the police is part of a larger radical agenda spelled out on the group’s own manifesto that openly seeks no less than a revolution to topple the U.S. capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist-style government replete with universal income, collective ownership, and the redistribution of wealth.
Amid BLM’s role in the protest movement spotlighting serious and legitimate questions about George Floyd’s death, it is instructive to review the BLM umbrella charter, which also demands the abolishment of Voter ID laws that protect against voter fraud and supports the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement targeting Israel. It wants a lifetime of free education for “all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people).”
“Black people will never achieve liberation under the current racialized capitalist system. … The white supremacist, imperialistic, patriarchal systems needs not reform but radical transformation. … We must remake the current U.S. political system in order to create a real democracy where Black people and all marginalized people can effectively exercise full political power.” reads the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform
After a year-long process of convening local and national groups and only three months before the 2016 elections, the M4BL group released its radical platform which states: “ We recognize that some of the demands in this document will not happen today. But we also recognize that they are necessary for our liberation.”
The platform lays ou t “six core planks” concerning criminal justice, reparations, investment and divestment, economic justice, community control, and political power. Arguing that “Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system,” some of the platform’s radical demands include (below are exact quotes):
Remaking of the current U.S. political system in order to create a real democracy where Black people and all marginalized people can effectively exercise full political power
An end to white supremacy, imperialism and capitalism
Democratic control over how resources are preserved, used and distributed and do so while honoring and respecting the rights of our Indigenous family
Direct democratic community control of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, ensuring that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, determine disciplinary action, control budgets and policies, and subpoena relevant agency information
The platform advocates including the immediate release of “all political prisoners,” eliminating the bail system, and restoration of voting capabilities for not only released convicted felons by criminals who are inside prison.
On the economy, the charter reads like a communist treatise, calling for a “ Universal Basic Income,” universal healthcare, collective ownership of property, reparations for slavery, and a “progressive restructuring of tax codes ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth.”
The charter wants to slash military spending by 50%, end all U.S. aid to Israel and support legislation promoting the BDS Movement against the Jewish state.
Implementation
The platform is expected to be implemented over a five-year span called Project 2024: Black Power Rising , which the group claims it can achieve through strategies such as capturing clear electoral victories; recruiting electoral strategists; challenging the existence of the electoral college; engaging in local races that position them to govern; targeting congressional races to shift the balance of power federally; advising key elected officials to advance their agenda; and identifying, recruiting, and training candidates.
The group also claims it intends to align the political left across issues centered on racism and become its leading force using such Saul Alinsky-style community organizing tactics “building and engaging majorities ready to organize, resist, vote, and build alternatives.”
The charter platform ideas have been gaining momentum relatively quickly in recent days.
In a recent op-ed in USA Today , presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden echoed some of the movement’s demands despite claiming to be against completely defunding the police.
Under the title “We must urgently root out systemic racism, from policing to housing to opportunity,” Biden claims that “racism has been a fixture in our society for hundreds of years,” and states his intention to undo systemic economic racism.
He proclaimed:
“From the moment I launched my campaign, I have said that we are in the battle for the soul of this nation . We know the nation we want to be. Now we have to deliver on this moment to achieve fundamental changes that address racial inequalities and white supremacy in our country. We need to root out systemic racism across our laws and institutions, and we need to make sure black Americans have a real shot to get ahead.”
Biden spoke of institutional violence and daily injustices warranting the directing of resources to actively undo the negative effect systemic racism has had on opportunities for black Americans. He goes on to support investing in historically underfunded and historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. He also states that the abuse of police power must be addressed (though he does not support defunding police). “I’m ready to do that work, starting on Day One,” he concluded.
Biden & Sanders unity task forces
Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders recently unveiled Unity Task Forces in an attempt to bridge policy divides and seek agreements between the two Democratic camps. The task forces, which were first announced last month as Sanders endorsed Biden, are to serve as a symbol of unity between Sanders and Biden and an attempt to avoid a replay of the 2016 general election, when divisions in the party were on full display.
The task forces intend to meet in advance of August’s Democratic convention to create recommendations for the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee as well as for the Biden campaign.
The panels will explore possible policy initiatives in six areas: climate change, criminal justice reform, economy, education, healthcare, and immigration. Many of the policy initiatives closely resemble M4BL’s demands.
Sanders commended Biden for working together and unifying the party “in a transformational and progressive direction.” Sanders also stressed that “the Democratic Party must think big, act boldly, and fight to change the direction of this country….”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive firebrand , was named as a co-chair on the climate change panel. Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday addressed the controversy over the widespread call to defund the police, warning the message should not be repackaged “to make it palatable for largely affluent, white suburban ‘swing’ voters.”
She also claimed that “to defund means that Black & Brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves.”
Reuters spoke with members of the unity task force. Several people serving on “unity” task forces set up by Biden and Sanders told Reuters that they support shifting funding from policing to community services. “Everyone recognizes the centuries of systemic oppression and white supremacy and the fundamental failure of the criminal justice system,” said Linn County, Iowa, Supervisor Stacey Walker, a member of Biden’s criminal justice policy task force though not claiming to speak on its behalf. “If that doesn’t open up a new political opportunity for sweeping reform, then I don’t know what will.”
Varshini Prakash, executive director of the environmental group Sunrise Movement and a member of Biden’s task force on climate change said it was less important for Biden to carry a “cardboard sign saying ‘Defund the Police'” and more important for him to “articulate a real transformational vision.. .beyond policing and incarceration.”
In another move to utilize current events to make radical changes this coming election, Rev. Al Sharpton recently announced a Washington rally which is planned for Aug. 28, the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “It gives you a push into November, not in a partisan way [but in terms of] protecting the vote, because we’ve got to educate people on mail-in voting. We’ve got to educate p eople in terms of turnout,” Sharpton said. “In order to change laws, you’ve got to impact lawmakers and they get elected in November.” He claimed that George Floyd’s family members will lead the march.
When a movement says, “silence is violence,” it is no longer democratic, but a totalitarian movement that opposes the very essence of choice -- the right to be apolitical.
Mass movements with ostensible democratic goals start out toward benign change, but their successes only feed a hunger for greater political transformation.
Left to the streets, that hunger is attracted to the extremes as the extremists are attracted to it.
When the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who has passionately sided with the opponents of police brutality, is heckled out of a demonstration because he refuses to commit to the mob’s demand to defund the police, that is shoving someone into the theater of the absurd.
In the world of realpolitik, you build coalitions where you can find them. In street theater, you ignore political reality to shove an important ally away.
The demonstrations over the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer have descended into the absurd. Peaceful demonstrations, during the day, have been amplified by dysfunctional violence at night.
How is the quest for racial justice helped by looting a department store or burning out a black-owned restaurant already teetering on the verge of collapse, having been closed by the pandemic?
At some point, the rioters and looters will go home, leaving in their wake the burned-out rubble belonging to the lower black bourgeoise.
These black businesses will never reopen because the future insurance premiums will be too high. Already, there are complaints that the marauders on Chicago’s southside have created food deserts with vandalized groceries that no longer can operate.
Among the most important functions of breaking the barriers of de jure discrimination was the creation of a viable black middle class.
The proponents of civil rights legislation knew that social stability required the integration of the African-American community into America’s socioeconomic mainstream.
Now caught between the pandemic and the senseless violence and looting, some of that integration will be undone. The hard-fought victories of the 1960s that led to a growing black middle class are going up in flames.
Who benefits? Certainly not those who are peaceably assembling for equality under the law. Not the black communities! In this orgy of violence, the only possible beneficiaries are those who seek to destabilize society and bring down the social order around them.
The vulgar Marxists still see revolution as coming from a greater immiseration of people on the bottom.
Create economic misery and hardship and people will revolt is their belief. Uproot the struggling black bourgeoise, and you have more alienated fodder for the streets.
The struggle is no longer about George Floyd but about the destruction of society. George Floyd is the vehicle to reach a different outcome than one of social justice -- nothing less than a societal transformation, a totalitarian utopia where silence is violence, and all are told what not to be silent about.
When silence is violence, there is no room for dissent.
William Jacobson , a law professor at Cornell University, learned that. Jacobson’s blog, Legal Insurrection, is critical of Black Lives Matter, not the concept, but the organization.
Jacobson also dissects the false narrative about the shooting of Michael Brown that gave impetus to the goals of BLM.
Petitions have been circulated to get Jacobson fired because some people do not like the opinions he posts on his blog.
In a world where violence is silence, how do you say, I do not want to sign that petition? Few would manifest such courage.
So, Jacobson, like many who do not buy into the views of BLM, are being accused of having a different opinion, and their termination is being sought.
This is the mindset of totalitarian democracy , the imposition of values and opinions by those on a messianic quest that leaves no room for individual rights or individual deviation.
Silence is not violence. In a true democracy, with respect for individual rights, the minority is guaranteed the right to a different opinion and even no opinion.
In the emotional aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, it appears that some would sacrifice our tradition of liberty for a mindless conformity while destroying the black middle class.
This is a two-front war on economic integration and freedom of thought.
We let it continue at our own peril.
Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the Hyam Salomon Center. His work on the urban riots of the 1960s won a Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the Western Political Science Association.
She never said it was
the police, by the way (she
casually refused,
in an article about police killings, to place the blame anywhere), and we know
it wasn't, because the police killed about 19 unarmed black males in 2017 , and
black people killed about 2,627 —
a difference of over a hundred times. In fact, in 2018, black people killed about 2,600 black people , and
whites in general — all of us, despite being 60% of the populace — killed only
234, more than ten times fewer. The greatest danger to black people
in America today is always other black
people. Black lives matter to Black Lives Matter only when it gives
them an excuse to attack white people.
The
Complex Funding and Ideology of Black Lives Matter
Tasos
Katopodis / Stringer
11 Jun 2020 419
19:36
Political
and corporate support for Black Lives Matter has become ubiquitous over the
past week. Everyone’s email inbox is bulging with messages of support from
corporate sponsors, every website is covered with Black Lives Matter logos, and
the group has benefited from numerous fundraisers and charity sales. But, many
people might not realize that Black Lives Matter is a distinct political
organization, not just a slogan or social media hashtag, and it has both
enormous funding and a wide-ranging political agenda.
Founded by Radicals
BLM describes its own founders as “three radical
Black organizers” named Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, who
“created a Black-centered political will and movement building project… in
response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman.”
Alicia
Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — the founders of BLM (Photo source:
BlackLivesMatter.com)
BLM’s
history page proudly salutes the radical causes built into its DNA since its
2013 founding, including “liberation” politics and transgenderism.
In
fact, BLM thinks other black civil rights movements aren’t nearly radical
enough, especially when it comes to the gender politics of the hard Left:
“Black liberation movements in this country have created room, space, and
leadership mostly for Black heterosexual, cisgender men – leaving women, queer
and transgender people, and others either out of the movement or in the background
to move the work forward with little or no recognition.”
BLM
incessantly refers to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and others as
“murder,” ignoring all court decisions to the contrary, and describes police
work as “state-sanctioned violence” against oppressed populations. In the course of
explaining how it was formed, the group refers to cities like Ferguson,
Missouri, as “occupied territory” – with law enforcement cast as a brutal
invading force – and insists most other cities should be seen the same way: “We
understood Ferguson was not an aberration, but in fact, a clear point of
reference for what was happening to Black communities everywhere.”
Corporate
and foundation sponsors appear unconcerned that BLM is unclear about who runs
the movement today and commands its vast resources. The group itself claims it
has no top-level leadership at all: “The project is now a member-led global
network of more than 40 chapters. Our members organize and build local power to
intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and
vigilantes.”
The BLM founders are
involved in a sprawling network of other left-wing groups and clearly remain
influential with Black Lives Matter, although they are not held accountable as
its executives. A New Yorker interview with Tometi on June 3, for example,
treated her as a top BLM spokeswoman while noting that she has moved on to
create and manage other organizations, most recently including an immigration
activist group called the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is listed as
a “partner” by
Black Lives Matter. Another partner is the UndocuBlack Network, a
“multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented black
people.”
“We have been fighting and
advocating to stop a war on black lives. And that is how we see it – this is a
war on black life. And people understand that this system is filled with all
sorts of inequality and injustice, and that implicit bias and just outright
racism is embedded in the way that policing is done in this nation – and when
you think about it historically, it was founded as a slave patrol. The
evolution of policing was rooted in that,” Tometi said in her New Yorker interview.
Coronavirus Hypocrisy
In her interview with
the New Yorker, Tometi
said the coronavirus pandemic is yesterday’s news, and the disease – which is
said to be far more dangerous to blacks than any other demographic in the
United States – should be no obstacle to righteous activism.
“Concern
about the pandemic is high, but people are also very clear that you can sit at
home and also be affected by this illness, or you can go out and fight for a
chance to live a life full of dignity, and they are willing to risk it. I think
we have to sit with the profundity of this moment, and what it really means for
people to say, ‘You know what, we are in this health crisis yet I cannot stay
in my house. There is too much at stake. I am going to make an informed
decision, and I am going out against all odds because it is worth it and the
status quo is intolerable,'” she said.
Protesters
stretch for blocks during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd near
the White House on June 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty
Images)
This has become a common sentiment on the Left: the infections
and deaths that could result from mass protests are less important than the BLM
cause.
BLM actually has a section about the coronavirus on its website, and it makes
absolutely no mention of lockdowns, social distancing, or any of the other
draconian measures that have been imposed on the American people since March.
Instead, BLM quite accurately predicted that the pandemic could result in
“result in massive social, economic, and political upheaval as systems reach
crisis points and begin to fracture.”
This
is BLM’s six-point strategy for dealing with the coronavirus:
Immediately pass a
coronavirus relief package now that provides emergency funding assistance
to cover expenses to massively test the population in the millions and
provide emergency food and shelter to all homeless and poor.
Provide a protection
and testing plan for incarcerated people while in custody and upon release.
Expand SNAP and
unemployment for the duration of the pandemic.
Immediately legislate
fully paid sick leave for all workers.
Implement an
immediate moratorium on evictions and utility shut-offs.
Emergency funding for
family and community-based childcare for families who cannot work from
home.
SNAP is better known as
the food stamp program. None of these measures has anything to do with disease
prevention or restarting the economy after a lockdown, and would become vastly
more expensive if the massive BLM protests produce another wave of coronavirus
infections and deaths, followed by another lockdown order. The first positive
COVID-19 tests for people who participated in the protests and riots are beginning to come in .
BLM
Funding
As the Washington Times noted in 2016, Black Lives Matter (BLM)
presents itself as a plucky street-level movement with shoestring resources,
but in truth it receives millions of dollars from corporate and political
sponsors. The movement’s funding gives a hint of how far its political agenda
stretches beyond criticizing the excessive use of force by police officers.
Fortune also looked at BLM funding in 2016 and noticed its
agenda and funding streams could “help dispel the myth that the movement itself
is set on violence,” but could also “confirm the worst fears” of skeptics who
saw BLM becoming another part of the vast and protean left-wing money machine.
The machinery of BLM
funding has only grown more complex since 2016, exacerbating a problem skeptics
have warned about from the start: it is very difficult to know what each dollar
donated to the movement will actually be used for.
BLM’s major financial
supporters include:
Airbnb – $500,000 to
BLM and the NAACP
Anastasia Beverly
Hills fashions – $1 million pledged, $100,000 donated so far to groups
including BLM
Bad Robot Productions
– film studio involved in Star Trek, Star Wars, and Mission Impossible,
$10 million pledged to “anti-racist” groups. BLM among the first
recipients
BTS, a Korean pop
group – $1 million, matching donations from fans
Cisco, electronics
giant – $5 million to groups including BLM and its own Fighting Racism and
Discrimination fund
DECIEM cosmetics –
$100,000 to NAACP and BLM
Democracy Alliance –
another Soros-linked group, added BLM to its annual $500 million donor
list
Door Dash – food
delivery company, $500,000
Ford Foundation and
Borealis Philanthropy – Left-wing groups that established a $100 million
donor fund
George Soros’ Open
Society Foundation – $33 million
Glossier cosmetics –
$500,000
Pokemon Company –
owners of the popular card game and its characters, $100,000
Scopely – mobile
phone game developer, $1 million to BLM, NAACP, and Equal Justice
Initiative
Spanx – undergarment
manufacturer, $100,000 to groups including BLM
Square Enix computer
games – $250,000 to BLM, also matching employee donations
Ubisoft computer
games – $100,000 to NAACP and BLM
The Weeknd – Canadian
R&B singer, $250,000
Sources include the
above-mentioned Washington
Times and Fortune pieces, Politico , Rolling Stone , Forbes , NBC News , The Wrap , and Elle , which has a long list of fashion and cosmetics firms making
donations to BLM. ArtNet on
Monday published a list of artists and galleries holding charity sales to
support BLM.
The L.A. Times on Tuesday reported numerous companies are
implementing donor-match programs that will match individual employee donations
to Black Lives Matter with corporate funds.
As several of the above
sources pointed out, it’s not always easy to tell when donations are going to
BLM itself or its partners. The Financial Times reported that a flood of cash is pouring into
civil rights groups, many of them allied with BLM or supportive of its
projects. NBC News’ article about “corporate donations for BLM” only mentioned
a few direct donations to the Black Lives Matter organization; the rest went to
groups like the NAACP, ACLU, and Southern Poverty Law Center.
Groups like the Ford
Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, and Democracy Alliance tend to establish
large funds that are disbursed to many smaller organizations, chapters, and
individual activists. Not everyone who claims to be with “Black Lives Matter”
is a certified member of the group founded by Garza, Cullors, and Tometi.
New York Magazine published an approving article on June 4
telling readers how to donate money to the Black Lives Matter movement. The
article listed one hundred and fifteen “funds, organizations,
and individual activists” linked to BLM, and those were just the financial
intakes New York felt it had adequately “vetted” to ensure they
weren’t outright scams.
The article subdivided
these 115 recommended donation recipients based on how they pledge to use the
money they are given, “whether that’s to post bail/bonds for demonstrators
arrested at protests, to purchase protective equipment to protesters on the
front lines, to invest in rebuilding black communities where protests have
occurred, or to invest in community enrichment programs for black and brown
youth.”
In the course of a very
approving June 6 piece about the growth of bail funds, The Atlantic let slip a little hint about the difficulty
of tracing these tens of millions of dollars in donations: “Whether celebrities
– or anyone, for that matter – who donate to a bail fund believe that the
system needs a total overhaul is almost irrelevant. Their money equips
activists and organizers to do work that tangibly improves the lives of people
whom the police often target.”
In other words, money is
fluid and fungible, and donors often end up financing agendas they might not
fully agree with when they give money to a slogan. The value of
nearly-ubiquitous corporate promotion of the Black Lives Matter name over the
past week is incalculable – there is nothing that kind of full-spectrum, all
but inescapable advertising across television, print media, and the Internet
could be compared to.
The
Full BLM Agenda
From the earliest days of
the BLM movement, as the 2016 pieces cited above indicate, critics have noticed
it has a very wide-ranging agenda that reaches far beyond police issues – and,
sometimes, working against black lives.
At the time of this
writing, the top agenda item on the BLM web page is “Defund the
Police” – a position only a very small minority of Americans supports, including a very
small share of black Americans.
Black Lives Matter has a
lengthy “ What We Believe ” statement on its website that begins with highly
contentious and politicized assertions such as expressing rage at “the death of
Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman”
and moving along to “justice for Mike Brown and all of those who have been torn
apart by state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism.”
Further down the page, the
official BLM agenda wanders into support for transgenderism, a vow to
“dismantle cisgender privilege,” and some very heavy-duty plans for destroying
and rebuilding American society:
We make our spaces
family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children.
We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to
work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they
participate in public justice work.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed
nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as
extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another,
especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are
comfortable.
We foster a
queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing
ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking , or rather, the
belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose
otherwise).(Emphasis added.)
In Boston, Massachusetts,
a BLM chapter is asking that $15 million in
American taxpayer money be spent on providing summer jobs to — not Black
Americans — but illegal
aliens . Study after study has
revealed that
every ten percent increase in the immigrant share of an occupation reduces the
income of black American men by roughly five percent.
By doing business with
companies that support BLM, you might be inadvertently funding
its destructive and coercive left-wing policy agenda. Once upon a time, even
Democrats understood how radical that agenda was, as a leaked
memo from
2015 revealed Democrat Party leadership warning staffers and politicians to
keep their distance from the movement.
Hashtag
Confusion
As mentioned above, many
people think “Black Lives Matter” is a slogan, an ideal, or a grassroots
movement, not a political organization with eight figures of funding and a hardcore
left-wing policy agenda.
This is a very old game
practiced by both amateurs and political professionals. Every bill that passes
through Congress is given a name that suggests only the most heartless villain
could possibly oppose it. Many organizations on both the Left and Right claim
to speak for sympathetic constituencies, or carefully cultivate an image of
being much less wealthy and powerful than they actually are.
In the case of Black Lives
Matter, the movement’s slogan is effectively becoming the definition of
“anti-racism,” which means all disagreement and doubt are racist by definition.
This can be seen in the white-hot rage directed at anyone who dares to say “All
Lives Matter,” for example – a phrase as inherently benevolent and obviously true
as “Black Lives Matter,” but the “All” formulation has been redefined as a vile
curse, an unforgivable assault on the purity of Black Lives Matter.
That’s a very large
ideological umbrella, and plenty of other left-wing groups are jockeying for
space beneath it, some of them highly toxic. The Jerusalem Post on Sunday worried about anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel forces climbing aboard the BLM train, making an effort to “hijack
the civil rights discourse and portray Israel as a ‘settler’ state linked to
‘white supremacy.’”
“That hostility is clear
when voices such as Marc Lamonte Hill retweet a Ben and Jerry’s tweet supporting the protests with the
comment ‘we dealing with justice in illegal settlements too or nah?’” the Jerusalem
Post noted, neatly bringing together the issues of unreflective
corporate support for BLM and the effort to hook other ideologies to its
runaway populist locomotive.
More humorously, Yahoo News on Sunday found all sorts of Internet “influencers”
trying to hitch their wagons to BLM, only to be rebuffed by activists furious
at them for trivializing the movement or hijacking its themes for selfish
purposes. The line between welcome support and unacceptable exploitation of the
movement is blurry. Vegan restaurants are praised for donating money to BLM, for example, while a vegan
influencer who endorsed BLM because it’s fighting “the same fight” as crusaders
against cruelty to animals was forcefully told to keep her deep thoughts to herself. White social
media celebrities are taking some heat for trying to insert themselves into the Black
Lives Matter movement, often in ways that trivialize the issues and make the
protests seem like giant block parties.
A
viral tweet of a young woman allegedly getting her companion to take a photo of
her in front of a vandalized T-mobile store, presumably for the purposes of
posting on social media.
BLM itself feels that some
of this performative activism dilutes its message and detracts from its policy
agenda. For example, the group expressed annoyance with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser allowing
“Black Lives Matter” to be printed in giant letters on the street in front of
the White House because it was a “distraction” from “our demands to decrease
the police budget and invest in the community.”
“Bowser has consistently
been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals
while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police,” BLM
said.
What does “Black Lives
Matter” really mean? What agenda are people supporting with
their black boxes, tweets, Facebook posts, and financial donations? In this
turbulent moment, the movement is having trouble even defining what “Defund the
Police” really means, perhaps sensing that the position is so unpopular that it must be
hastily redefined as “reform the police, details to come later.” Some BLM
leaders insist they are primarily interested in sensible community policing
reforms, while others think New
York Governor Andrew Cuomo doesn’t swing far enough to the Left.
A
popular internet meme poking fun at the premise of last week’s “Blackout
Tuesday”
It seems remarkable that a
group with so little discipline, so much confusion over its agenda, and so much
money at its disposal would be allowed to effectively demand compulsory support
from the entire American public and corporate and political class, without any
deep media investigation of its finances, leadership, or agenda. Many of BLM’s
donors are signing on to a new social contract with a great deal of fine print
they should read more carefully.
What Do They Really Want?
Imani Bashir, writing for
the New York Times, says, " Living abroad is my way of prolonging my black
son's life. " It's actually the title of the
article. She says she's been living abroad for years now, in places
like Cairo and Poland and Malaysia and Wuhan (yes, that Wuhan),
and that the bills are piling up and they're eating at her
soul. Still, she won't move back to America. She sees her
son's face in every black person the police kill. She's stuck in
Florida for the moment, waiting for the borders to ease up so she can go
anywhere else.
Her husband, from
Buffalo, New York, is traveling with her, coaching American football where he
can. She says before he turned 25, 30 of his friends had been killed. They never
talked about white picket fences when they got married. They said if
they were going to make it, if their son was going to make it, they had to go
anywhere but here.
But notice they didn't
go anywhere . They went to Poland, noted for its strict
(and some say "bigoted") stances on immigration and gay rights;
Cairo, a place that just blew up a few years ago, is looking to blow up again,
and is known for its horrible treatment of women; and China, a communist
country known for locking up Christians and Muslims and honest reporters, for
not having habeas corpus , for selling the organs of political
prisoners, and for grinding its workers into the dust. It's a firm
supporter of the most oppressive, volatile states in Asia, the Middle East, and
Africa. It has a domestic surveillance system seen only in our most
harrowing classics of science fiction. Nineteen eighty-four came
almost to life, and Imani Bashir moved there instead of Schenectady.
I mention these things
because of where she didn't go. For instance, if
she can scratch out a living on the fly, why not anywhere in black
Africa? Why not the sub-Saharan region, where, as Howard French
reports in China's Second Continent , 10 of the 20 fastest
growing economies exist? Why not somewhere where the cost of living
is cheaper and where, since she says racism exists everywhere ,
there could be little to no racism against her son?
These questions deserve a
solid answer — especially if it's anything other than "I don't want to
live around black people." It should also be asked of all
the other famous black people who don't want to live around black people . Beyond this,
I think it's questionable that 30 of her husband's friends died at the hands of
the police. She never said it was the police, by the way (she
casually refused, in an article about police killings, to place the blame
anywhere), and we know it wasn't, because the police killed about
19 unarmed black males in 2017 , and black people killed
about 2,627 — a difference of over a hundred times. In fact,
in 2018, black people killed about 2,600 black people , and whites in general —
all of us, despite being 60% of the populace — killed only 234, more than ten
times fewer. The greatest danger to black people in America today
is always other black people. Black lives matter
to Black Lives Matter only when it gives them an excuse to attack white people.
My theory is that she
doesn't go to black Africa because she doesn't feel safe around black people,
and she doesn't want to be confused for them. He doesn't,
either. It's what they call a hidden bias . People
with the sort of mindset I suspect here know that a fraction of their 13% of
Americans is responsible for 50% of the crime, and they're
profiling. The fact is, they can't say it. Once they
admit it, the whole anti-racism scam is up. It means white parents,
whose children, according to the FBI , are killed twice as
often by black people than the other way around, have more of an excuse to
move their kids to Poland. It means they have a
reason to stop busing black kids to white schools, and going soft on crime, and
beating their chests, and being hard on police. But Bashir says
she's scared of us — and because she's afraid, people are
rioting. I remind you that racism means being
afraid of people for things they don't do.
The question is, what
does she want? The New York Times reports that Minneapolis,
like all the other places on fire, is one of the most liberal cities in the
nation. Surpassing even Seattle, Minneapolis has black people on the
City Council. Two of these black council members are transgender. None
of them is a Republican. Juneteenth gets a yearly parade, and the
police chief, until this week, was a black man. They're so devoted
to fighting racism that you can't zone for single-family housing anymore —
ostensibly to make the housing cheaper for blacks and to keep richer whites
from having better neighborhoods to move to.
This means that
Minneapolis and all the other left-wing cities on fire already do everything
they can to police the police — and if they go any farther, they'll have to get
rid of them altogether. The main job of the police officer, after
all, is not to stop crimes in progress (since there are too few of them to see
everything), but to show up after the fact and then sniff out a
suspect. This means everyone who fits a criminal's description in
the area will be tracked down, picked up, tied up, and locked up — and if he
refuses, probably beaten up. If he refuses too manfully, possibly
killed. In a country of 330 million people, there are going to be a
few dozen murders by cop. But you get rid of this right to track,
and you've gotten rid of the police. You get rid of profiling, and
you get rid of the concept of policing. You get
rid of the police, and you get rid of society. And Minneapolis,
where the violent crime rate was already horrible — this year, before the
riots, twice the national average , and last year three — is already too
dangerous. Thanks to Black Lives Matter blowing up the police
stations, it is about to get worse.
I ask you again — what does
Imani Bashir want? What they all want and can't say: to live
somewhere her son can't theoretically be mistaken for or hurt by a black
criminal. It's a legitimate want. We
want it for all good black people, too . But Black Lives Matter isn't finding
ways to stop the criminals. It's instead finding ways, mostly, to
punish the innocent. Bashir profiles and runs and barricades
herself, and she's a victim of racism. I just wish that she, and the
Black Lives Matter movement, and The New York Times, would respect us when we
do it, too. They won't.
The American left
does not recognize
America's
government
Thanks to the useful death of St. George Floyd of the Church
of Black Lives Matter, the execrable Ben Crump has found the best way ever to
leverage his profile and his bank account. Crump attaches himself
like a leech to high-profile black deaths and will use any means necessary to
push a narrative. His latest push is to use Floyd's family as a
means to attack American sovereignty by appealing to the U.N. to police America's
police.
Crump's made a career out of representing the families of
black men who died during interactions with the police or who otherwise had
politically useful deaths. Considering how few unarmed blacks die at police hands
(especially since Trump became president), Crump probably has to leverage cases
to make a profit. (There's profit to be had with the Floyd family,
who are now the beneficiaries of a $13.8-million GoFundMe campaign.) That
lust for fame and money may explain why Crump held his tongue when the
prosecution against George Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin's death used a fake witness to push the
narrative that Martin was a good kid, not a wannabe thug.
With Floyd's death, Crump is going beyond America and speaking
to the world. He has written an open letter to the U.N. to demand that it
step in to govern America's police departments:
The group sent a letter on June 3 to one of the
international body's working groups asking for support for the end of the
provision of military equipment and military-type training for police, the
teaching of deescalation techniques, independent prosecutions and autopsies for
"extrajudicial" police killings, and more.
"When a group of people of any nation have
been systemically deprived of their universal human right to life by its
government for decades, it must appeal to the international community for its
support and to the United Nations for its intervention," Floyd's
family attorney Ben Crump said in a press release.
A few things need to be said: first, this is an attack on
American sovereignty, something that bothers Americans but not Democrats. (I'm
not even pretending anymore that Democrats consider themselves
Americans. They see themselves as world citizens fighting the evil
that is America.)
Second, this is the same U.N. that has nothing to say about
police abuses in China, among the Palestinians, in Venezuela, or anywhere else
in the world that's not America.
Fourth, this is the same U.N. that allows Palestinian
terrorists to use its ambulances in the terrorists'
perpetual wars against Israeli citizens.
Fifth, the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights,
Michelle Bachelet, insisted that Floyd's death
was the "latest in a long line of killings of unarmed African Americans by
U.S. police officers and members of the public" and urged "serious
action." The U.N. is champing at the bit to demean America.
Crump knows that the U.N. cannot affect policing in
America. This is theater, but it's disgusting theater to see a
race-hustler appeal to an anti-American organization that has no trouble with
totalitarian organizations around the world abusing people under their control,
and that turned a blind eye for decades to its own organization's abuse of
blacks. Thinking about Crump's conduct, perhaps it's time to drag
out the Logan Act...
Chutzpah Cities: Bailouts, beggings, and food deserts, starting
with Minneapolis
Exhibit
A is Minneapolis, whose far-left mayor failed to protect
his city from a multi-night orgy of looting and rioting and now
wants a $55-million taxpayer bailout to sweep the entire mess under the
rug.
There
are a lot of blue cities out there with an unusual sense of
entitlement. We got the first whiff of it during the coronavirus
stimulus debate, as mismanaged blue metropolises demanded pension and
other unrelated bailouts from Congress from what were supposed to be
emergency response funds.
But
now in the wake of riots, they're really getting bad. They're
demanding taxpayer bailouts for riot damage after failing to protect their
cities, all so they could claim they were woke. They're
begging big box retailers not to pull up stakes and leave after
allowing them to be trashed and looted. They're complaining about
sudden food deserts appearing as inner-city shopkeepers are thrown out of
business after being robbed, burned, and destroyed and wondering why
these stores don't re-open. It all underlines an amazing failure to
recognize any consequences for bad decisions taken, coupled with a howling
sense of entitlement. Call these solid blue failures "Chutzpah
Cities."
Exhibit
A is Minneapolis, whose far-left mayor failed to protect
his city from a multi-night orgy of looting and rioting and now
wants a $55-million taxpayer bailout to sweep the entire mess under the
rug.
Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey is
ordering city officials to begin a wide-ranging query of the damage done to the
city's infrastructure from the race riots that began last week after the death
of George Floyd, planning on requesting a federal bailout for the city to
repair the damages done by "protestors."
Early preliminary estimates gauge the price tag
of property damage from the riots at more than $55 million dollars. Frey is
already working with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and representatives Ilhan Omar
and Betty McCollum on a potential bailout package for the city.
Any
apology for bad decisions? Any promise to return to rule of
law so taxpayers don't have to keep doing this to
eternity? Normally, bailouts come with tough conditions
for reform to ensure future sustainability. But Frey has
no intention of reform; he just wants you to bankroll his latest social experiment.
Reform
in Minneapolis comes not raising the price for rioting and looting
and promising to enforce law in order, but by getting rid of the
police. Frey's lashed to the mast with a rabid far-left city
council, which has enacted a veto-proof majority to de-fund the entire police
force. That'll ensure that riots and looting don't happen
again, right? Apparently, the next spray-shooter can rest easy and
fire away, as the police will be gone. It's an idea so bad that it
sounds as if an enemy dreamed it up. It can only be called
a plan for permanent bailouts, because the results will be a
disaster. The plan seems to be to make Minneapolis a second Cuba,
always looking for the next Uncle Sugar to sustain its communist failures. And
the productive members of society are supposed to go along with this, gladly
emptying their pocketbooks.
Frey,
the mayor of Minneapolis, was last seen doing some kind of chicken dance,
which gives you an idea as to how busy he's been:
He's
not the only one running a blue Chutzpah City.
How
about the mayor of Chicago, who, after failing to protect her city's big box
retailers from an orgy of looting, called upon these establishments not
to leave her city?
No
promises of no looting again ever. Just calls to stay and get looted
again. No sane business would take her up on her
offer. There are plenty of other places to go, where law and order
still mean something and where making money doesn't have to be discounted by
losses from looters. The citizens of these blue cities are
likely to go where they go as well. All of the major blue cities are
losing people, something that makes the big boxers even less likely to be able
to turn a profit. Fewer people, fewer buyers, all the result of
blue-city policies, which include high taxes and low job creation
rates. Chicago for sure is among them.
Then
there's this plaintive whine:
Brought
on by this:
What
the heck did they think would happen if they allowed rich, white Antifa
trust-fund bunnies to go out and loot struggling small inner-city businesses
with little cushion for recovery? Thomas Lifson predicted that in these pages very early . People who
work 16-hour days and operate on razor-thin margins don't recover from mob
assaults easily. Did they really think these businesses could
shake the losses from mass looting and destruction like water off a duck's
back? The hard reality is, trash your small, struggling businesses,
and there won't be small, struggling businesses. Good luck getting
the tax revenue to pay for the bloated bureaucracies.
The
whole thing underlines the ugly reality about leftists: that they lack
introspection and firmly believe they have nothing to answer
for. Kevin Williamson has an excellent piece on that here . For the left, there's no sense of making
things better with this bunch, there's just an adherence to the socialist
template, failure after failure, letting someone else pay the bill. All we see
in this wretched picture is entitlement and greed, even when they are sitting
there in the mud, the victims of their own abhorrent decisions. This is
chutzpah in the extreme, the classic phony plea of man who killed his
parents, and then told the judge to have mercy on him for he was an
orphan.
It
calls to mind that they really do need to bear the consequences of their own
bad decisions, hard as it may be. This may be the only way to halt the extreme
leftward slide of the Democratic Party. That may well be the real meaning of
President Trump's presidency, for surely he will put a stop to this, as long as
he remains in office.
Imagine
how bad it would be if Joe Biden were in the presidential
saddle instead. These blue cities, it is reported, are already
supposedly waiting or their ' Biden bailouts, refusing to cut spending , refusing to reform,
waiting for Biden to come onboard to bail them out, knowing that
Trump will see right through them and their toddler-like entitlement
and tell them no. It underlines why Biden must never be elected president. Just
say no to these spoiled brats who fail to learn from their mistakes, and like
socialists, just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over.
Video: Should Whites Kneel Down and Beg Black People for
Forgiveness?
The Left’s radical agenda takes a twisted -- but expected -- turn.
June 9, 2020
Frontpagemag.com
Brandon
focuses on: Should Whites Kneel Down and Beg Black People for
Forgiveness?, shedding disturbing light on: The Left’s
Radical Agenda Takes a Twisted -- But Expected -- Turn.
Don’t
miss it!
And make sure to watch Will
Johnson , the Founder of UniteAmericaFirst.com, discuss Where Are
the Protests for David Dorn? , where he sheds a disturbing
light on When Back Lives Don’t Matter — to Black Lives Matter.
Black
Lives Matter Managing Director Roasted for Dodging Questions on Finances,
Antisemitism
Kailee Scales
10 Jun 2020 393
2:31
Kailee Scales, managing director
for Black Lives Matter Network Action Fund and Black Lives Matter Global
Network, Inc., has been universally panned for her performance in an online
Q&A where she dodged simple questions about where donations to
the movement actually go.
Scales was
the subject of an “AMA” or “Ask Me Anything” discussion on Reddit Monday. Over
the course of 17 total answers, she explained the group’s advocacy for
defunding police departments and addressed issues of crime, violence, and the
Wuhan coronavirus as they relate to Black Lives Matter protests. However, the
reactions to many of her posts were overwhelmingly negative, with users
complaining about vague and tone-deaf answers to basic questions.
F inances was one
particular focus of Scales’ critics. Black Lives Matter has been the recipient
of millions of dollars in the past few weeks, as a string of corporations and celebrities announced massive donations for her
organization to establish social justice bona fides for themselves. “Obviously
right now BLM is getting MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars in donations,” asked one Reddit user. “Where
is all the money going and how is it allocated?”
“Yeah, I would love to see a report
about the amount of donations and for what it was used. Without this, the
organization only uses the BLM name tag to get donations,” another said in the
ensuing discussion thread.
Scales ignored these messages but
eventually answered a question on the same topic. It did not go over well.
“When people give money to Black
Lives Matter, where specifically does it go?” one user asked . “What’s financial transparency
like for your organization?”
Scales gave a terse, generic reply . “Hi — great question. Right
now, our programs are focused on civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts
& Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools,” she said.
“Please visit our website and subscribe to blacklivesmatter.com for updates and
more information to come!”
This response did not satisfy the
Q&A participants, who signaled their disapproval by “downvoting” Scales’
reply. Her post currently has -1163 net votes. The top comment on that
thread asked: “Why don’t you post actual links to where the funding goes?
This is not an answer.” Several Redditors then tried looking up tax information
for the foundation, questioning whether it is even a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Scales also received copious
criticism and downvotes on the topic of antisemitism , offering only a
rote denunciation of “hate speech or bias of any kind.” One user gave specific
examples of alleged antisemitism in the movement, asking how BLM will fight
bigotry within its own ranks:
Your organization has been accused
of anti-semitism both by its members, it’s alliances, and its reverence for
avowed Jew haters. For example, the myth that Jews were particularly involved
in the slave trade seems to be particularly pervasive and pernicious, and is
entirely fabricated by the Nation of Islam. Jews on the streets of Brooklyn
have been repeatedly targetted by black citizens in violent crimes. BLM has
turned a blind eye to antisemitism in its support of the Palestinian cause, a
cause in no way related to black equality in the United States.
It should be obvious that equality
for blacks people cannot be achieved through bigotry and subjugation of another
oppressed group.
What are you doing to fight bigotry
within BLM?
Scales flatly denied any problems
with Jew hatred in the movement: “I am not sure where you receive your
information, but BLM is a political home for all those marginalized, invisible,
and oppressed by the dominant culture,” she said. “We do not support or express
hate speech or bias of any kind.” That post currently stands at nearly -800 net
votes.
“Not surprised at all by their
non-answer,” one reply stated. “I support the protests, police reform, and
especially black lives. But if the organization can’t even disavow the many
anti-Semitic statements and dog whistles it puts out, there needs to be a
better group leading this righteous cause.”
The most-upvoted comment in the entire
discussion summarized frustrations with Scales’ evasive answers: “As a
Black woman, I’m really disappointed… this AMA has really colored me to BLM as
not having themselves together with hard and fast facts,” one user wrote. “I’m
done reading this AMA because it’s not [answers about anything]. It’s a lot of
reposting and saying going to BLM website.”
Are you an insider at LinkedIn, Google, Reddit, Facebook,
Twitter, or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal
wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his
secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at
Breitbart News.
$454
Million: Corporate America Floods Social Justice Causes With Cash Amid Floyd
Protests
Stephen Maturen/Getty, iStock/Getty
11 Jun 2020 612
6:28
Corporations
are opening up their treasuries to give money to social justice causes,
including Black Lives Matter, in the wake of nationwide protests and riots over
the death of George Floyd.
Many of the big companies are pushing their employees to do the
same.
Some
businesses are donating to controversial bail funds like the Minnesota Freedom Fund that seek to bail out
protestors and rioters.
Here is a list thus far.
Sony
Music— A
fund “to support social justice and anti-racist initiatives around the
world”—$100 million
Walmart —a new racial equity
center—$100 million
Warner
Music —campaigns
against violence and racism and social justice causes related to music
industry—$100 million.
Nike —”Organizations that put
social justice, education and addressing racial inequality in America at the
center of their work”—$40 million
Alphabet/Google —Various organizations,
starting with $1m each to Center for Policing Equity and Equal Justice
Initiative—$12 million
Amazon —ACLU Foundation, Brennan
Center for Justice, Equal Justice Initiative, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law, NAACP, National Bar Association, National Museum of African
American History and Culture, National Urban League, Thurgood Marshall College
Fund, UNCF (United Negro College Fund), Year Up—$10 million
Facebook —“groups working on racial
justice”—$10 million
Target —long-standing partners such
as the National Urban League and the African American Leadership Forum in
addition to adding new partners in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the
country—$10 million
Verizon— National Urban League,
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Action
Network, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Rainbow Push
Coalition, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund—$10 million
United
Health— YMCA
Equity Innovation Center of Excellence and Minneapolis-St Paul businesses—$10
million
Goldman
Sachs —donor-advised
fund to support “leading organizations addressing racial injustice, structural
inequity and economic disparity”—$10 million
Spotify —matching employee
donations—$10 million
Disney— organizations that advance
social justice—$5 million
Procter
& Gamble —NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, YWCA Stand Against
Racism and United Negro College Fund; also smaller organizations that mobilize
and advocate, such as Courageous Conversation—$5 million
Cisco— Equal Justice Initiative,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Color of Change, Black Lives Matter
and a Cisco fund for fighting racism and discrimination—$5 million
Lego —organizations supporting
black children and educating all children about racial equality—$4 million
Microsoft —Black Lives Matter, Equal
Justice Initiative, Innocence Project, Leadership Conference on Civil &
Human Rights, Minnesota Freedom Fund and NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund—$1.25 million
Starbucks—“Organizations promoting racial equity and more
inclusive and just communities” nominated by employees—$1.25 million
Intel —support of efforts to
address social injustice and anti-racism across various nonprofits and
community organizations; and encouraging employees to consider donating to
organizations focused on equity and social justice, including the Black Lives
Matter Foundation, the Center for Policing Equity and the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, all of which are eligible for Intel’s Donation Matching Program—$1
million
McDonald’s— unspecified—$1 million
Uber —Equal Justice Initiative and
Center for Policing Equity—$1 million
Duke
Energy –nonprofit
organizations committed to social justice and racial equity–$1 million
The
Travelers Companies– organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, the National Urban League, YWCA Minneapolis and the We Love Midway fund
established by the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the
City of St. Paul–$1 million.
Warby Parker –organizations “combating
systemic racism”–$1 million
PwC
Charitable Foundation —NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Dream Corps, American
Civil Liberties Union and Center for Policing Equity—$1 million
Glosser —$500,000 to various
organization that are focused on combating racial injustice, including Black
Lives Matter, The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and We The
Protesters; also an additional $500,000 in grants to Black-owned beauty
businesses—$1 million.
Etsy —$500,000 to the Equal Justice
Initiative, $500,000 to Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movement Fund, and
match any employee donations—$1 million.
Yelp
Foundation —Equal
Justice Initiative and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund—$500,000
H&M —National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
and Color of Change—$500,000
Levi’s —$100,000 to the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and $100,000 in grants to Live Free USA—$200,000
Lululemon —the Minnesota Freedom Fund —$100,000
Devolution to Revolution: An Already Demoralized U.S. is Now Being Destabilized
The two destabilizing events recently occurring back-to-back, the response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, and the George Floyd rioting, illustrate well how America is now institutionally incapable of making decisions in her own best interests. That is, the overreaction to the disease and under-reaction to the rioting reflect a country long demoralized.
Moreover, if that’s not troubling enough, know that this is a state of being that usually leads to tyranny.
We’d had pandemics before — ones causing more death, especially when adjusted for population — but we’d never before embraced lockdowns, a cure worse than the disease.
But at least the disease was a relative unknown; riots are not. People the world over know how to deal with riots, and this isn’t by letting them metastasize so thugs can run wild, hurt the innocent and destroy the nation. Yet our “leaders” fiddled while the country burned, motivated by moral confusion and weakness, and some, most certainly, by ulterior motives.
You may recognize “demoralization” and “destabilization” as the first two steps in the process of communist subversion, explained well by late Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB agent who fled to Canada in 1970. Bezmenov stated in the mid-1980s already that the process of demoralization — an undermining of a target nation’s morals that makes it ripe for revolutionary takeover — was “basically completed already ” in the United States. But a money line is what he said about demoralized people:
“[D]espite…the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country. It’s a great brainwashing process….”
Sound familiar, maybe a bit like people who can’t figure out how to handle rioters and why it’s necessary? How about people who think eliminating ICE, borders and the police are positive measures (I refer to the actually sincere individuals)?
Bezmenov also said that demoralized people “are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern; you cannot change their mind.” Sound familiar, perhaps like people who react to truthful statements by reflexively shouting “racist!” or “white supremacy!”?
One more familiar sentiment: Bezmenov also stated, “A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information — the facts tell nothing to him.” Just think here about how many today will react to air-tight, fact-based, logical arguments, not with assent or even open-minded pondering, but with angry rejection.
Note here that numbness to Truth is nothing new. British satirist Jonathan Swift observed hundreds of years ago already (I’m paraphrasing) that you “cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.” The difference is that the process of demoralization in question yields large numbers of people egregiously detached from reality in a way that serves a specific agenda, and who are virtually impossible to change.
Our thoroughly demoralized state can best be understood by grasping how our society actually demonizes the elements of morality — virtues — while elevating vices. Chastity is called prudishness while sexual depravity is normalized and lust is branded “lifestyle choices.” Emphasizing diligence and its fruits (e.g., punctuality, hard work) is called “white supremacy” while sloth is rewarded with handouts. Prudence (wisdom) is branded bigotry while foolishness is called “wokeness.” Faith is deemed fantasy while secular cynicism is thought sophistication. Actions reflecting courage are called cruelty and cowardice is called compassion. Humility is considered weakness while pride is labeled “high self-esteem.” Patience is devalued while acting on wrath is called activism. Kindness is lacking while envy is euphemized as a desire for “social justice” and “equality.” This is a time of moral inversion.
The result? Spoiled brats have access to supermarkets abundantly stocked with food, free time to fritter away on frivolity (including mindless protesting) and are awash in luxury goods — yet wail that they’re “oppressed.”
These people, of course, are the sheep. But there are also wolves in a sheepdog’s guise who herd the sheep toward revolution. Both types, do note — the demoralized and dull (credulous) and the demoralized and demonic (calculating) — are found in government and other influential positions.
Thus do we have many prominent people doing the unprecedented: actually encouraging the rioters. The result is that the destabilization is intensifying, aided and abetted from above and via demoralization-born policy.
Consider: One thing helping quell riots is arresting rioters and keeping them locked up until matters cool down. Recently enacted “bail reform” laws (in NY, for example) make this impossible, however, because they’re leading to rioters and looters being immediately released. Add to this George Soros -“installed” district attorneys who won’t prosecute rioters , and the picture is clear:
The powers-that-be are keeping these left-wing insurrectionists on the street, giving them free rein to destabilize society further.
Some of what’s occurring today is orchestrated by well-funded “astroturfing” puppeteers behind the scenes, but this isn’t new, either. Remember, Democrat operatives were caught on hidden camera in 2016 confessing to how they were fomenting violence at Trump rallies. One of them, Scott Foval, actually said , “We’re starting anarchy here.”
Yet the mainstream culture has become so demoralized that much of this aid is overt. Just consider all the corporations that support, and even donate money to , Black Lives Matter and other similarly disposed groups. Cisco, for example, gave $5 million to BLM & Co.
When a country’s destabilization becomes severe enough, it can move into subversion’s next stage: crisis. This period only takes weeks and is when a revolution occurs that can sweep the puppeteers into power. This absolutely is the goal of the most Machiavellian authors of our destabilization.
Obviously, our country isn’t in this sense in crisis yet, but there are many disturbing developments. One, for example, is that ex-generals have been speaking out against President Trump. Emboldened by this, Stalin-enabler The New York Times encouraged the military to disobey the commander in chief and a University of Chicago law professor actually called on the generals to depose and jail the president.
The last stage of subversion is “normalization.” This is a euphemism for stamping out all dissent and cementing control post-revolution.
Really, though, we’ve been experiencing this culturally, hence the term (not my favorite) “cultural Marxism.” Why, what do you think “cancel culture” involves? It’s about using extreme social pressure and the threat of career destruction to stamp out opposition to our politically correct cultural revolution.
For example, Sacramento Kings play-by-play announcer Grant Napear just lost his job for tweeting “All lives matter…Every single one!” while Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player Aleksandar Katai was axed over sentiments relating to the riots his wife posted to social media .
In contrast, L’Oreal just rehired black “transgender” model Munroe Bergdorf three years after firing him for disgorging racist sentiments such as how white people need “to admit that their race is the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth.” L’Oreal saw the graffiti on the wall.
So what’s happening is plain: Just as how the Iron Curtain-era Hungarian Marxists made clear that you could be Christian, sure — but they wouldn’t allow you to be Christian and successful — the leftists controlling our culture have made acceptance of their ideology a prerequisite for career success.
Now you know why cowardly quarterback Drew Brees folded like a tent after expressing patriotic sentiments; and why prominent people coast to coast have pledged obeisance to Black Lives Matter, essentially a terrorist group, on bended knee. They want to stay prominent and hope they can buy mercy by groveling.
I’ve been warning for years about how, due to moral decay (demoralization), our culture drifts “left” no matter who is in office. And politics being downstream of culture, we can’t lose ever more control over the culture-shapers — the media, academia, entertainment and, increasingly, big business — without ultimately losing the political sphere completely and irretrievably. FACT: Unless we can change our cultural trajectory, tyranny will be our lot. It’s just a matter of time.
The solution to demoralization is, of course, moralization (sense 3 ), the cultivation of virtue in the people. We can’t MAGA unless we MAMA : Make America Moral Again. We also can’t fight evil if we won’t even speak against it. Silence equals submission. Remember, too, that with every passing month the price of dissent becomes greater, the consequences for not registering it more obvious, and the odds of having an impact slimmer.
Right now speaking Truth may cost you money, but the price of cowardice and moral corruption today is that, tomorrow, it may cost you blood.
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