Saturday, June 13, 2020

Name calling and labeling

Why does every person of European ancestry who disagrees with Communists/leftists/progressives who for the moment vote Democrat have to be a white supremist? Why not just a white member of the teachers' union or the electricians' union; why not a white dentist; why not a white retail clerk; why not at white plumber or white farmer? Why are whites who want to save a statue of Thomas Jefferson called racists, but whites who admired Robert Byrd former KKK member and built statues and named highways for him called Democrats? Why are all people who voted for Trump lumped together in Hillary's deplorable basket the same way Democrats used to label all blacks and minorities as foot shuffling janitors and gardeners? Can Democrats discuss anything except sex and race without name calling?

Anonymous letter by a UC Berkeley Professor, part 2

Continued from Part 1

There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called 'race hustlers': hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal political entrepreneurship.
Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth, we can regard ourselves as a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically segregationist.

MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today. We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?
As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer, a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors.

And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his name to virtual sainthood. A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department, corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA, he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise. Americans are being socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist. A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species.

I'm ashamed of my department. I would say that I'm ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid, as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It's hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.

It shouldn't affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.

The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating. No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.

No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites. If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.

I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda and the Party's uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd's death and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end.

I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she is free.
/end

Anonymous letter by a UC Berkeley Professor, part 1

The Department of History at UC Berkeley has denied this is from one of their faculty, but hasn’t addressed the information provided. Any anonymous e-mail is always risky—could be from someone with a different point of view but not from Berkeley.  Bolding is from the website that published, not the author's and not mine.
------------------------

Dear profs X, Y, Z

I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely, and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job, and likely all future jobs in my field.
In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.

In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.
Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.

The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians. Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse.

A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email. Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi Coates' undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black.
Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict. This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries.

And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation that appeals to the department's apparent desire to shoulder the 'white man's burden' and to promote a narrative of white guilt.

If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it's fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. "Those are racist dogwhistles". "The model minority myth is white supremacist". "Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime", ad nauseam.

These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.

Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history, and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position, which is no small number.

I personally don't dare speak out against the BLM narrative, and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type.

The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people. There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.

No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence. This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders. Home invaders like George Floyd. For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald's and Wal-Mart. For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.

The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans, who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department. The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession.

Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention, and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter, an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately redirected to ActBlue Charities, an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates. Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat administrations.

The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence. This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent in academic circles. I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you.

The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes, carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed.

 End pt. 1

The kitchen table

Yesterday our son's home went on the market (http://altrealtors.com/) and by evening we had 2 offers. It's a wonderful starter home, or for a retired couple who don't want stairs but a very convenient location. We remember when we bought it in 2004, and over the years the wonderful improvements he made, new deck, new doors, new windows, new blinds, cross and Bible interior doors, new floors, new kitchen cabinets and appliances, new roof after Hurricane Ike, and new bathroom fixtures.
Originally, most of the furniture (and a lot of books and art) came from our home, and over the years, they were mostly replaced as he put his bachelor touches on it. We'll take back the kitchen table, now over 50 years old. I have so many photos of him and that table, with lots of the nicks and scratches that he personally put there as a toddler. Photos of him and grandpa eating ice cream, of him and Phoebe doing art projects, of him and cousins coloring Easter eggs, of him and his bride Holly at the brunch we gave them a few weeks after their wedding, of my Corbett family as we gathered for breakfast before Phoebe's wedding.

I'm not sure where we'll put it, but I'll keep that "antique."














Joe Biden compared Martin Luther King, Jr. to George Floyd, and Floyd is bigger!

I knew he was demented, I knew his followers were grasping and gasping, but I never in a million years could have believed a Democrat who lived through the glory days of the Civil Rights movement, who personally knew and approved of KKK members of Congress, who helped pass much of the legislation that has oppressed blacks for 4 decades could compare MLK with Floyd, who was high on drugs and committing a crime when he encountered a bad cop protected by a Democrat administration and his union.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Big storm June 10

Lots of excitement the evening of June 10. We must have had 50 golf carts stop by to look. Our street was the hardest hit and 2 beautiful trees were lost. Dorothy Crutchfield’s cottage. We lost power and the internet, but by noon on the 11th we were back in business.  Yes, not one was hurt and no cars were crushed, but replacing 100 year old trees won’t be easy.


On statues and political parties

"A statue of the late Senator Robert Byrd (D - West Virginia) stands in the U.S. Capitol. Some 55 bridges, highways, dams, and other facilities in Byrd’s state carry his name. These honor Byrd’s 51 years in the Senate, including 12 as Democrat leader, as recently as 1989. Byrd told the late Fox News anchor Tony Snow this about race relations in March 2001: “There are white n*****s. I’ve seen a lot of white n*****s in my time; I’m going to use that word.” Byrd led the 83-day Democrat filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and spoke non-stop for its defeat for 14 hours on the Senate floor. Byrd also was an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, for which he recruited some 150 fresh Klansmen in the 1940s. Why have Democrats not cleansed the Capitol of this former Klansman’s image, and urged West Virginians to do likewise?"

Deroy Murdock, Aug. 27, 2017.

It’s not the police

It's not the police; it's not systemic racism; it's not "white flight"; it's the Democratic administrations of our major cities. The police forces are integrated, the state and local governments are filled and often run by blacks, the education accomplishments are awesome, blacks are making bigger strides in longevity and health advancements than any other group, there are over 120 wealth transfer programs from the federal government being doled out to raise living standards, and black performers, athletes and celebrities are just as unequally wealthy as any other elite and admired group.

There's just no one left.

It's the Democrats. No matter the color of their skin, the country from which their grandpa escaped, or the God they worship, or the gender they claim, they always push bigger government as a solution to all problems.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/10/the-true-plight-of-black-americans/?

Cases going up, or more testing?

Businesses started slowly opening weeks ago around the country and some states never completely shut down. Street protests and looting have been sudden with imported rioters; many anti-Trumpers and anti-police clutches didn't bat an eye because an opportunity presented itself. They jumped right in waving their #itwasnotme signs. But which is being blamed by which group for the sudden jump in cases of corona virus? It depends on how much you hate Trump.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Systemic racism

Clever term. Very common today.

All encompassing if it's a system. That means we're all a part, even liberals and leftists . . . whether black, Hispanic, Asian and white.

Even if your 19th Irish and German ancestors or your post WWII immigrant Baltic or Jewish grandparents had no part in slavery or Jim Crow;

even if your parents came here from Nigeria or Kenya or Somalia along with a few million other African immigrants in the last two decades;

even if you live below the poverty line.

That means any one of the 130 income transfer programs--TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, housing, utilities, CSFP, school breakfast, lunch and snacks--of the last 55 years of the so-called "War on Poverty" are racist in intent, design and outcome. Both parties. They were totally bi-partisan.

If racism is systemic, that's you. Right? You haven't been living off the grid in a cabin in the Rockies with no internet, running water or electricity, not if you're reading Facebook or Twitter or the Washington Post.

So if you've been marching smugly expressing your first amendment rights while denying me mine, or posting blather banners and yard signs about racism and how much you care, pointing fingers with 4 pointing back at you--

Ask what has

  • your union,
  • your academic department
  • your "woke" corporation,
  • your bank,
  • the real estate firm you hired,
  • the church you belong to,
  • your profession,
  • your pension plan,
  • your state and local government,
  • your candidates and PAC,
  • your apartment management firm,
  • your senator or representative,
  • your gardener or house cleaner,
  • your favorite restaurant,
  • your investments manager,
  • your whole/organic market,
  • your elitist club that only the best people belong to. . .

done to contribute to the system.

Of course, to do that, you'd have to be self reflective. You'd have to toss out some of the Kool-Aid you've been swallowing from the very people who have used these programs to lie to you. There is no growing income inequality; there is no rampant racism from the police; black people are not being slaughtered by white people; and under Trump, minorities were making huge strides. You'd have to acknowledge that something or someone, call it the swamp dwellers if you wish or blame George Soros or the Communist underbelly of this country, it really doesn't matter. You've been poisoned, and it is like sepsis, and that poison is systemic, and you're doing it to yourselves if you're allowing these groups to make you grovel, wear African stoles, kneel, toss bricks and riot.

Yes, let's have that "conversation." Tell us what you have done that was racist and how you personally plan to change. I'll wait.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Good reading and research–Conservative

Our Favorite Conservative sources

George Floyd memorials

I didn't watch the memorial service for George Floyd, but I've seen clips of the speakers and singers (depending on which cable channel you watch, some are edited to throttle hate and emotions, and some to give the message of redemption in Christ). I'd seen articles about him in the Christian media--he had from all appearances, made a commitment to Christ and had tried to help others like him who had prison records. He wasn't an anarchist

It's a bridge too far for me to pretend how black Christians feel when they see a man eulogized whose crimes were against blacks, and for which he served a number of prison terms. I won't pretend to know the terror of the black pregnant woman he threatened with a gun to her belly nor understand the haters consumed by a photo of our President with a Bible, but revel when celebrates grabbed photo ops at Floyd's memorial. He was high on drugs (autopsy) when he committed his last crime, but the trial for that certainly wouldn't have been death. Like Chauvin he deserved his day in court. Neither will get that. These are crazy times.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Why they want to do away with the police

Before you decide if defunding police is a good idea, take a look at what the rioter, looters and thugs did to store owners, by-standers, reporters, police, truck drivers, homes, etc. And keep in mind that blacks are 6x more likely to be the victims of crime and need the police than whites.  Apparently those black lives don’t matter. Do you want to live or own a business in these neighborhoods?

links to rioting/attacks before the thought police delete them.

Man stomped and stoned for trying to defend a bar from being looted

https://streamable.com/xkcvkk

Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband

https://streamable.com/rvrwil

Beating and stomping guy on the ground Santa Monica

https://streamable.com/x6ue5x

Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace

https://streamable.com/ila4dh

Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him

https://streamable.com/8zk9dq

Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him

https://streamable.com/p4i3jb

Chasing guy and kicking him in the face for defending flag in Portland

https://streamable.com/ky6jyh

Police officer beaten on the streets

https://streamable.com/je4ki5

Car runs over a cop

https://streamable.com/q4nat7

Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire

https://streamable.com/sdjvfa

Throwing fireworks at the cops

https://streamable.com/7sv4a9

Looting a FedEx truck then looter gets dragged when truck tries to escape

https://streamable.com/n1azx3

Chasing and beating guy with red had

https://streamable.com/rcsmi0

Rioter sets himself on fire while trying to set a building on fire

https://streamable.com/w5wa8l

Fireworks thrown into CNN hq / Police officers

https://streamable.com/7dw6g7

Protester runs over the cops with an SUV

https://streamable.com/ttijvn

Destroying/looting/setting on fire Old Navy

https://streamable.com/oceqqg

Guardhouse in front of WH set on fire

https://streamable.com/vfopia

Dozens of cars destroyed/torched near CNN hq – Atlanta

https://streamable.com/ubjohz

St Louis neighborhood on fire

https://streamable.com/8lnd7v

Building on fire while self-proclaimed Mexicans say **** white people

https://streamable.com/yvkek4

Destroying police SUV

https://streamable.com/2b7fic

Near a torched car audio speakers propaganda that all crime is legal

https://streamable.com/t76kdn

Destroying/looting bank in Montreal

https://streamable.com/3hwkx2

Pharmacy destroyed/looted in Dallas

https://streamable.com/fl7e5z

The remains of whole neighborhood destroyed

https://streamable.com/dtptr1

Destroying stores – Dallas

https://streamable.com/hn1qng

Destroying police SUV – Austin

https://streamable.com/v8zk1e

Police SUV torched LA

https://streamable.com/61mdlo

Looting target/beating disabled person in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/oyjgbk

Future apartment building destroyed with fire in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/dxmc0w

Looting pharmacy – Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/53nl1p

Destroying business in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/5lm779

More businesses on fire in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/f1zcmy

Ransacked Target Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/b3u92p

Building burning in neighborhood Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/vh5nyu

Boy drove car into a store

https://streamable.com/nrm2pn

Post office looted/destroyed

https://streamable.com/v4vflf

Minneapolis third police precinct set on fire

https://streamable.com/o27w75

More buildings on fire Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/8au2lf

Autoparts Store getting destroyed/looted

https://streamable.com/dum1r8

Autozone on fire

https://streamable.com/vq9hrp

Looting in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/jfor5g

Adults loot with their children

https://streamable.com/m4cr5j

Cars torched – Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/mmk9gr

Looting an ATM in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/ht2oxv

Remains of destroyed/looted Cub Foods

https://streamable.com/qhzlm7

Business and stores on fire in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/jcpdvv

Brenda Lenton’s home and belongings destroyed by a fire – Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/3s9l17

Aftermath of whole neighborhood being set on fire in Minneapolis

https://streamable.com/eat2c0

Nashville city hall set on fire while rioters cheer

https://streamable.com/b3y0ep

Fox reporters chased out with projectiles thrown at them near White House

https://streamable.com/1qzyua

Attacking drivers Tulsa, Okla

https://streamable.com/ixpxh9

Setting St. John’s Church on fire

https://streamable.com/u3y4ch

Destroying/looting stores Montreal

https://streamable.com/92h4rr

Destroying/looting store in Downtown Oakland

https://streamable.com/y9s4x9

Bar destroyed/Trying to loot a safe

https://streamable.com/yzprm5

Stolen Bulldozer in Oakland

https://streamable.com/lhf5ze

Two police SUVs torched in Seattle

https://streamable.com/eketpr

Multiple cars torched in Philadelphia

https://streamable.com/13784m

Ohio Statehouse being destroyed

https://streamable.com/k13b3l

Trying to breach Justice Center/central police precinct Portland

https://streamable.com/avcfq0

Destroying/Looting Justice Center Portland

https://streamable.com/1j6fof

Looting small business in Portland

https://streamable.com/bfs08c

Destroying/looting small business Portland

https://streamable.com/adfxxt

Looting Louis Vuitton store

https://streamable.com/f4ysu9

Driving stolen cars into stores – Portland

https://streamable.com/o1w92j

Destroying Chase Bank – Portland

https://streamable.com/o1wtom

Setting Chase Bank on fire – Portland

https://streamable.com/nanakz

Destroying/Looting Apple Store – Portland

https://streamable.com/2wncgk

Looting in St. Paul

https://streamable.com/6fouwt

Looting Shoe Store

https://streamable.com/60v3xh

Looting apple store

https://streamable.com/1wzq39

Looting North Face store – NYC

https://streamable.com/ux7djn

Nike Store being looted – NYC

https://streamable.com/6sdcb3

Looting in Union Square – NYC

https://streamable.com/jiz3zd

Looting T-mobile store

https://streamable.com/ag5kwc

Shop owner saves store from looters with a firearm

https://streamable.com/5oj1jl

Business owner defends his store from looters with a firearm

https://streamable.com/pmdjkb

Monday, June 08, 2020

How will you promote racial unity?

Our pastor (on-line because UALC is still on lockdown) asked the congregation how God was leading them to promote racial unity. Here’s my response to my small group.

“I am trying to promote racial unity by publicizing that the statistics on blacks and police are false; that some form of this anti-white, or black lives matter version rolls around every 4 years, and it is now an election year. I won’t claim that God is leading me, but I will say years of being a librarian, an OSU faculty member and a liberal Democrat have certainly brought me to my views, and I hope God was in there someplace.

If you were going to look at the damage of lead paint in child brain development, you would most likely begin with a data base of children who possibly could have been exposed to lead.  Then from that subset of children you would move on to demographics and health studies.  But that’s not how the left treats crime statistics.  Instead of using a subset of people (all races) who have police confrontations because of their criminal behavior, they use the statistics of police-involved deaths and measure that against the percentage of all black males in the population—6%. Probably 99% of black males over 50 have no involvement with police, but they are factored in.  So if 25% of those shot by police are black, but 6% of the population is black, it’s called racist.  However, about 40% of the confrontations with police are with black males, and about 50% are with white males, particularly young—say, 18-30. For as long as the DOJ has been keeping statistics, blacks have a higher rate not just of violent crime, but a much higher rate of being victims than whites do. So in terms of criminals being shot by police, white criminals have a higher rate of police deaths and higher number than blacks.

This is where the media come in.  When was the last time you watched news reports 24/7 when a white man was shot by police in commission  of a crime. And yet it is much more frequent than for blacks.  The people who suffer the most from these every 4 years lies are black citizens.  After Ferguson and Baltimore, both of which ended in race riots during the Obama years, crime soared in the black neighborhoods and those black business people and home owners left as quickly as possible pulling out their values, talent, education and investments and moving to the suburbs. Blacks are then told only more government programs and voting for Democrats can save them.

So that’s what I’m posting on my blog and on my Facebook page and on the two e-mail discussion groups (managed by men I went to high school with) I’m in.  You’re welcome to disagree, but I’ve got the research. I’m not by any stretch saying there’s no racism, only that it’s being used for political gain, and you can hear the same outrageous claims  that have always fueled racial hatred, like moral depravity, born bad, etc. I’d like to present as a small piece of evidence Candace Owen’s testimony in Congress on hate crimes. https://youtu.be/xlF7z0uHolE  She’s black, conservative, pro-life and Christian.

The demands are increasing

The city council (Democrats) of Minneapolis is announcing to the world not to come there to invest, to do business, to be a tourist, to send your child to college or to have your conventions or meetings. They can't protect you from the gangs that have plagued the city or the assaults and rapes. It's just not worth it. Stay home. After many years under Democrat control the city is just a mess of racist government, racist police and racist leisure venues. It's racism with a smile, even though they've elected Somalis and blacks and women to the highest offices. It was all just a farce. The council which includes blacks, a transgender person, and females admits to systemic racism, and they, all of them, be part of the system.

Once they got police and mayors to kneel and show fealty, they upped the ante. Get rid of the police. Did liberals never read about the "show trials" (aka The Purge) of the USSR?

“The show trials were not held in secret but were, as their title suggests, in the open with foreign journalists invited and were there to prove to those in the USSR who were interested  that ‘enemies of the state’ still existed despite the ‘Red Terror’ and that state leaders such as Stalin were at risk. There is little doubt that those who faced a show trial were going to be found guilty”   https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/the-show-trials-in-the-ussr/

Driving while black

There's talk about police stopping people "driving while black." Having raised some teens, let me tell you that happens to whites, Hispanics and Asians also. Usually there is a teen driver, male, a snappy, loud car (either modified or just a bad muffler) alcohol involved, other kids as passengers as a distraction and the police may have saved some lives. We've gotten those calls after midnight to come to the hospital.

I've been stopped 3 times--got my license when I was 16 and am now 80. First when I was a teen, second when I was middle aged, and third when I was old and stupid. I was at fault all 3 times. And it's possible those are the only 3 times I really shouldn't have been doing wrong things while driving because I'm pretty careful and don't drive much. That said, I have seen hundreds of accidents while on the road and am always thankful when I see the police have arrived to help, to get the ambulance on the scene and to move ahead the gawkers and people in a hurry around the scene of destruction and death.

I say a prayer and then forget until the next time.

Sunday, June 07, 2020

I’ll never be a movie critic

The last two nights I watched movies I’d never heard of—Sex and the City (2008) and Uptown Girls (2003). I’d planned to blog about the fashions, actually.  But when I started researching them, I learned that Brittany Murphy who played the goofy nanny for Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls had died mysteriously in 2009. And also her father had mafia connections and that’s why she used her mother’s maiden name.  So I decided being a movie/fashion critic is harder than it looked. And I gave up.  It’s easier to try to figure out why anyone would vote for Joe Biden.

https://extratv.com/2019/12/20/brittany-murphy-a-look-back-at-her-mysterious-death-10-years-later/

Holy Trinity Sunday

Today is Sunday.  June 7 is Holy Trinity Sunday. I’ve checked on line and even ELCA and Episcopal church which both support abortion are providing worship at home liturgies and scripture selections. The Catholics use a different selection, and I like theirs better. Although 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 "Greet one another with a holy kiss" will jump out--we may never even shake hands again! This selection was done at least 2 years ago, but is ironic today.

Normally, I would be dressed and ready for church, as we used to call it, and I’d be one of two or three women wearing a dress or skirt. Instead, at 8:30  I was dressed in my gym clothes and ready to go to Lifetime Fitness, which opened a week ago. My church UALC is still closed.

What the lockdown has taught me is I don’t need to go to church—I only have to turn on my computer, and if I don’t like the UALC selection (I never watched after the first try when I was asked to register before watching) I can find great music and dynamic speakers with a click of a mouse. In fact, their submission to the lockdown without a question has taught me I may never need to make the effort again.

After my workout, I went through the McDonald’s drive thru and got a sausage biscuit. At home I enjoyed it and sang a hymn by Horatius Bonar in my squeaky voice which used to be soprano but now is tenor:

“Glory be to God the Father,
glory be to God the Son,
glory be to God the Spirit,
God Almighty, Three in One!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory be to him alone.”

Horatius Bonar was born at Edinburgh, in 1808. His education was obtained at the High School, and the University of his native city. He was ordained to the ministry, in 1837, and since then has been pastor at Kelso. In 1843, he joined the Free Church of Scotland. His reputation as a religious writer was first gained on the publication of the "Kelso Tracts," of which he was the author. He has also written many other prose works, some of which have had a very large circulation. Nor is he less favorably known as a religious poet and hymn-writer. The three series of "Hymns of Faith and Hope," have passed through several editions.
--Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A. 1872

The Hymnary.org website use has gone up 40% since April 2019, and I think we know why.  You can support this fine service by making a donation, a tax-deductible contribution by sending a check to Hymnary.org at 3201 Burton SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546.

Defund the Columbus police?

I don’t know how many cities are going to take the demand to defund the police seriously. I just glanced at one TV channel’s report for June and found these stories. None of these stories deal with racism or race, and one story is an unsolved killing and all are at 10TV. https://www.10tv.com/article/police-17-year-old-shot-inside-vehicle-southeast-columbus-2020-jun

Do protestors and BLM activists really want no police in their neighborhood?

  • Police are investigating after a man, 39-year-old Dale Kendig, was killed in a shooting that happened Sunday morning in southwest Columbus.
  • Officers responded around 7:50 p.m. to the 5500 block of Chatterton Road on a reported shooting of a 17 year old boy.
  • Reward money renewed: James Stennies was killed on April 17, 2017 at the Miracle Car Wash in Reynoldsburg. He was shot several times. Police believe it may have been an attempted robbery, although when Stennies’ body was found in the parking lot, his wallet and cell phone weren’t taken. His car was still in the wash bay with the keys inside.
  • Three men are now facing felony charges after being accused of aiming laser pointers at Ohio State Highway Patrol aircraft. According to court records, 31-year-old Brynt Gunn aimed a laser into the cockpit of an OSHP helicopter while in his vehicle.

Because black lives matter

So the angry protesters/rioters have moved on from the myth of "systemic racism" to "defund the police." And liberal whites are helping endanger the black neighborhoods in misplaced guilt. Even those who stayed home in the comfort of their privileged man-caves, are cheering the rioters on. Oh so brave, those white liberals. The limp, weak blue boy-mayor of Minneapolis had to leave the protest in disgrace because he would NOT agree to defund the Minneapolis police, ONE of which killed a suspect who had become unreasonable (autopsy showed drugs) while trying to pass a counterfeit bill.

Let's see how that works:

  • No police when a woman is assaulted or raped.
  • No police when homes and apartments are broken into and granny's TV and cell phone are stolen in a sweep for a few dollars for drugs.
  • No police to investigate the child pornography ring preying on the most vulnerable.
  • No police to call when mom's purse is snatched while she's looking at the fruit display at the Korean market.
  • No police to stop the speeders going 90 mph near your child's school.
  • No police to rush into a bombed building to carry our survivors.
  • No police to keep the neighborhood businesses and grocery stores safe and accessible.
  • No police to call when your sister is patiently waiting in line at the bank and some goons rush in claiming her rights don't matter, only theirs.
  • No police to direct traffic and walk the perimeter of the sports or music venue so the privileged masses can pay $160 to see their favorite black athlete or entertainer.
  • No police to help rush that pregnant mom to the hospital, but who end up delivering the baby near the exit ramp.
  • No police leagues to provide a healthy outlet for fatherless boys and girls through competitive sports.

Most violent crimes are committed by whites (by the numbers there are more of them) and in confrontations with police they are killed or put out of business at a higher rate (their crime rate is lower) than black criminals. But let's just unleash them and call it “black lives matter.”

Norma