Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 01-Jun-2021 World View: Investigating the pandemic is inevitable, necesssary and dangerous

Here is another article that describes the situation. It makes the
same point that I made in my article -- that China's shrill attitude
is the result of the dictatorship of Xi Jinping:

https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-s-w...601-p57x1a

In reality, a guilty conscience is not the only plausible explanation
for Beijing’s response. The broader difficulty is that China’s
reaction to any criticism in the outside world seems to be a toxic mix
of threats, shrill rhetoric and secrecy. This applies whether the
topic is Xinjiang, Taiwan or COVID-19.

This style of “wolf warrior” diplomacy is frequently
counter-productive. But it is also an inevitable product of a
domestic system that demands sycophancy towards President Xi – and
which enforces that demand with censorship and repression.

It is unrealistic to expect a system that is closed and paranoid at
home to be flexible and open in its engagement with the outside world.
A lot of aggressive messaging from China’s diplomats may even be
primarily intended for ordinary citizens or bosses back home. The goal
is to show that the Xi government is standing up for China. ...

The stakes for China are very high. Over the past year, China has
succeeded in changing the narrative over COVID-19. After initially
reeling under the impact of being the first to be hit, Beijing has
managed to highlight China’s success in containing the disease,
compared with the high death tolls in the west.

The news of the fresh US inquiry suddenly puts Beijing on the spot
again. Faced with this immensely difficult situation, China will need
all the friends it can find. But the Xi administration and its
wolf-warrior diplomats have spent the past year alienating potential
partners.

The latest blow was the European Parliament’s decision to freeze the
ratification of a major investment agreement between China and the EU
– following Beijing’s imposition of sanctions on European officials
and institutions, which was itself a response to EU sanctions imposed
over Xinjiang.

Relations with India have also taken a steady turn for the worse over
the past year. For New Delhi, the turning point was China’s aggression
in the Himalayas last year – which resulted in the death of troops on
both sides. Senior Indian analysts believe that the pressure that
Beijing was feeling over COVID-19 in the summer of 2020 may have been
a background factor in the decision to escalate tensions.

There is a clear risk that if China feels newly cornered over
COVID-19, it will once again respond with aggression – or with the
search for some kind of international diversion. The drive to
understand how the pandemic began is inevitable and necessary. It is
also dangerous. -- Financial Times, Australia

[John J. Xenakis]

** 02-Jun-2021 World View: Loveable China

This is really hilarious. Xi Jinping wants China to become
"credible, loveable, and respectable."

Quote:> "In strategy shift, Xi tells cadres to project ‘loveable’ image of China

>

> By Eryk Bagshaw
> June 2, 2021 — 12.43pm

> Singapore: Xi Jinping has told China’s top political leaders they
> need to master international communication and create a “loveable”
> image of China as diplomatic pressure mounts on Beijing.

> In a sign of a communication strategy shift at the top of the
> Communist Party, the Chinese President told the Politburo on
> Monday afternoon his country was getting “closer to the centre of
> the world stage” and that it was necessary to widely publicise
> China’s wisdom and its plans.

> “We shall grasp the tone, be both open and confident as well as
> humble and modest, and strive to create a credible, loveable, and
> respectable image of China,” he said. ...

> The Foreign Ministry has been criticised in Europe, Australia and
> the United States for its more assertive brand of “wolf-warrior
> diplomacy”, which has resulted in frequent barbs being exchanged
> between Beijing, ministers and ambassadors."

> https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/in-str...57xcb.html

This will be fun to watch.

[pbrower2a]

Not so lucky if you happen to be a mouse, sparrow, gecko, grasshopper, or goldfish.

[Tim Randal Walker]

I have noticed YouTube videos that indicate that tensions are high between the Greek and Turkish governments. Including military preparations. Does anybody know where those countries are in the cycle?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 07-Jun-2021 World View: Greece and Turkey

(06-03-2021, 03:54 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: > I have noticed YouTube videos that indicate that tensions are high
> between the Greek and Turkish governments. Including military
> preparations. Does anybody know where those countries are in the
> cycle?

Tensions between Greece and Turkey have always been high, ever since
Helen's face launched a thousand ships. Greece and Turkey tensions
were also the reason that Truman announced the Truman Doctrine, making
America the Policeman of the World.

Most recently, Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads over
drilling for oil in the waters around Cyprus. And let's not forget
that Turkey sent millions of refugees from Syria into Europe through
Greece.

Nonetheless, both countries are members of Nato, and a military action
by one Nato country against another would bring in other Nato
countries, so it's unlikely that anything will happen at the present
time.

Greece's last generational crisis war was World War II.

Turkey's last generational crisis war was World War I, and the
destruction of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey is one of a handful of
countries on the WW I timeline (Mexico, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia
and Russia) that are in a Fifth Turning, since the Fourth Turning has
passed without a new crisis war.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 07-Jun-2021 World View: The Future

I want to thank all the people who posted kind words and good wishes.
It means a lot to me. Despite ignoring the "medicolegal" warnings on
Friday, I seem to have survived the weekend. Unfortunately, at my
advanced Methusalean age, I seem to have a brand new problem du
jour every day, and sooner or later they will all catch up to me.
It all seems so pointless.

Sunday was 77th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 1944, when more than
156,000 allied troops landed by sea and air on the beaches of Normandy
in France, facing massive fire from Nazi snipers. About 4,300 people
were killed, wounded or missing in action that one day. There were
22,442 soldiers under British command who died on D-day and the
subsequent Battle of Normandy in the next two months.

• The British Normandy memorial in Ver-sur-mer, France (Getty)

I watched the services in Ver-sur-Mer in France on Sunday at a
beautiful new British Normandy memorial to those 22,442 soldiers,
whose names are engraved in stone. There was a separate memorial to
the French soldiers who died. The ceremonies were attended by a small
number of veterans who had fought at Normandy, and were still alive.

The speeches, led by Prince Charles, were sad and extremely touching,
and described how young boys had raced to sign up, but then got shot
dead by snipers in Normandy. The speeches talked about their bravery,
their willingness to fight for freedom, and how their heroism saved
their country and the world.

These commemorations always make me very emotional and sad, not just
because of the loss in the past, but also because I know something
that most of them don't know -- that they're talking about the future,
probably the near future. There will be new D-Days, not necessarily
in Europe, but possibly in Taiwan, Japan, California, Israel, and
elsewhere. The D-Day commemorations are presented as being about the
distant past, but they're just as much about the near future.

There was one journalist on tv who was rattling on and on about the
commemoration, and the importance of D-Day, when he said the
following: "If it hadn't been for D-Day, then today all of Europe
would be Communist."

Well, that's a strange statement. Did he mean that all of Europe
would be Fascist, or did he mean that without D-Day, Stalin would
have moved in and conquered all of Europe?

Either way, it's not true. We can already see this from the history
of Eastern Europe. At the end of WW II, the countries in Eastern
Europe were all Communist, behind the "Iron Curtain." But within 2-3
generations, everything was almost back the way it had been before the
war, except for a small border change or two. In particular, Germany
was reunified in 1991.

So we can commemorate D-Day, and talk about the heroes -- and they
were heroes -- who saved the world in World War II, but in the end,
all that fighting and slaughter accomplished nothing except to kill
off enough people so that the survivors would have enough food.
That's important, but otherwise it all seems so pointless.

Today, this is the darkest time in America in my memory.

We have a president, Joe Biden, who lived at a time when Democrats in
the KKK were raping pretty young black girls, and were torturing and
lynching black boys. That's what Democrats did at that time. Biden's
idolized mentor, Robert Byrd, was a KKK leader with the title Exalted
Cyclops. Biden and Byrd probably raped a few girls, or at least they
had friends who did. Because of Byrd's position of authority, he may
even have organized or approved of some gangbangs. And Byrd and Biden
must also have approved of lynchings of black boys.

These rapes and lynchings are hard to believe in America, but the
facts are not in doubt. The Democrats, especially in the south, were
White Supremacists who joined the KKK so that they could rape black
girls and lynch black boys. The Democrats did that because they were
completely pissed off and infuriated that they had lost the Civil War,
and that Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans had freed the slaves.
The desire for revenge runs deep. After the Civil War, the Democrats
created the KKK and the Jim Crow laws to make sure that blacks would
never be successful, and would live in poverty in ghettos.

This was just a few decades after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. On June 1,
1921, hundreds of White Supremacist Democrats in the KKK looted and
burned and killed the black Greenwood section of Tulsa. The violence
and destruction continued for 18 hours before it ceased. In the wake
of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins. There were 300
deaths, 800 injuries, and some 6,000 displaced from their homes, and
now homeless. These kinds of ethnic attacks are common in other
countries, but it's almost impossible to believe that they actually
could occur in America. And yet, they did.

So last week there was a commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre and Joe
Biden, who himself as a boy had supported the KKK and Robert Byrd and
massacres of blacks, said the the following at the commemoration of
the Tulsa Massacre:

Quote:> "As I said in my address to the joint session of
> Congress: According to the intelligence community, terrorism from
> white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today.
> Not ISIS, not al Qaeda — white supremacists. (Applause.) That’s
> not me; that’s the intelligence community under both Trump and
> under my administration."

Democrats today frequently describe all Trump supporters as terrorists
and white supremacists, so the purpose of Biden's statement is to
incite violence against Trump supporters. Many Democrats have already
done that, with the worst offender Maxine Waters, who was possibly
raped by a White Democrat when she was a girl, and certainly knew
other black girls and women who had been raped by White Democrats.
Biden is also inciding antifa-blm fascists to attack Trump supporters.

So we have Joe Biden, himself a White Supremacist as a boy, now
expiating his guilt by inciting violence against Trump supporters.

Nobody, not even most Democrats, could possibly believe the bilge in
Biden's statement, but it does appeal to his base, people with
Gruber-like stupidity like AOC and her millions of followers, who are
apparently even stupider than she is. Along with antifa-blm fascists,
anti-Semitic AOC and her followers are exactly the people that Biden
was speaking to when he incited violence against Trump supporters.

This comes after Democrats have set up a Stalinist censorship regime
specifically targeting Trump supporters. This is the worst thing I
have seen in America in my lifetime.

So to expiate his guilt at being a White Supremacist most of his life,
Joe Biden has turned into the most viciously hate-filled bigoted
president in the history of the United States, and is encouraging his
most bigoted, hate-filled followers to be the same. He's still pissed
off that the Democrats lost the Civil War and the Republicans freed
the slaves, and apparently has no fear of inciting a new civil war.

How will all this end? There have been plenty of postings in this
thread about how America is "finished."

I've answered this question many times. The way it will end is with a
"regeneracy event." This is a concept in generational theory,
referring to an event that regenerates civic unity for the first time
since the end of the previous crisis war. It's an event that presents
a strong existential threat to the nation or society, and forces all
sides to put aside their political differences and unite behind the
leadership for the common survival.

In 1941, it was the Pearl Harbor attack and the Bataan Death March.
FDR had been an extremely divisive president, but those regeneracy
events unified the country behind him.

Today, it might be a missile attack on an American city, or it might
be a major military disaster overseas. Today, it's most likely going
to be whatever event triggers war with China. But America is not yet
"finished."

---- Sources:

-- ‘France is for ever grateful’: Normandy memorial for British D-day
troops unveiled
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/j...er-sur-mer
(Guardian, London, 6-Jun-2021)

-- 1921 Tulsa Massacre / The Attack on Greenwood
https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/192...-massacre/
(Tulsa History)

[pbrower2a]

Excellent until you got to this part:

Quote:Today, this is the darkest time in America in my memory.

We have a president, Joe Biden, who lived at a time when Democrats in
the KKK were raping pretty young black girls, and were torturing and
lynching black boys. That's what Democrats did at that time. Biden's
idolized mentor, Robert Byrd, was a KKK leader with the title Exalted
Cyclops. Biden and Byrd probably raped a few girls, or at least they
had friends who did. Because of Byrd's position of authority, he may
even have organized or approved of some gangbangs. And Byrd and Biden
must also have approved of lynchings of black boys.

These rapes and lynchings are hard to believe in America, but the
facts are not in doubt. The Democrats, especially in the south, were
White Supremacists who joined the KKK so that they could rape black
girls and lynch black boys. The Democrats did that because they were
completely pissed off and infuriated that they had lost the Civil War,
and that Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans had freed the slaves.
The desire for revenge runs deep. After the Civil War, the Democrats
created the KKK and the Jim Crow laws to make sure that blacks would
never be successful, and would live in poverty in ghettos.

This was just a few decades after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. On June 1,
1921, hundreds of White Supremacist Democrats in the KKK looted and
burned and killed the black Greenwood section of Tulsa. The violence
and destruction continued for 18 hours before it ceased. In the wake
of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins. There were 300
deaths, 800 injuries, and some 6,000 displaced from their homes, and
now homeless. These kinds of ethnic attacks are common in other
countries, but it's almost impossible to believe that they actually
could occur in America. And yet, they did.

...and you are still lynching negroes. That's an old Commie smear against America.

I compared the Greenwood riot to Kristallnacht with few reservations. Obviously there was no nationwide organization as with Kristallnacht; blacks were not carted off to concentration camps and prison. Of course there is no real difference between the KKK and the NSDAP in ideology -- just in what they got away with. The KKK imploded after a scandal involving a big leader just before the Great Depression hit, and the Nazis were able to exploit the mass distress about the economy. Nazis found a model majority that most people did not fully understand and cast onto it everything that the German people hated about themselves. 

Model minorities are particularly vulnerable in a time of economic and political distress, and what may save them is that there are multiple model- minority groups different enough but wise enough to see that what happens to another model minority is dangerous to them.  Consider that Jews practically founded the NAACP when very few blacks were yet high-achievers.  

Quote:Democrats today frequently describe all Trump supporters as terrorists
and white supremacists, so the purpose of Biden's statement is to
incite violence against Trump supporters. Many Democrats have already
done that, with the worst offender Maxine Waters, who was possibly
raped by a White Democrat when she was a girl, and certainly knew
other black girls and women who had been raped by White Democrats.
Biden is also inciding antifa-blm fascists to attack Trump supporters.

Before the election, Democrats underestimated the level of right-wing terrorism in America. Extremists thrive in non-Christian countries with huge disparities of economic result, at most short democratic traditions, and huge numbers of ill-educated people. Of course, seventy-five years is not a short time in which to establish a democratic tradition, but at this point I have more faith in democracy in Germany, Italy, and Japan than in the USA. 

The Michigan plot should have been a fair warning to us all. Democracy does not come at gunpoint except in rare cases  in which the Armed Forces turn against a dictator. (OK, that was slow in Romania, but Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu had to go, and they were only going to leave at gunpoint). We have elections and rules for deciding who wins for deciding who wins the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The inte nsity of fe3eling or the certitude of one's rightness does not makes one's vote or a group of votes more valid. If it is the intensity of feeling or their personal certitude, Trump wins. One wobbly vote for Biden counts as much as one fervent vote for Trump. 

Quote:Nobody, not even most Democrats, could possibly believe the bilge in
Biden's statement, but it does appeal to his base, people with
Gruber-like stupidity like AOC and her millions of followers, who are
apparently even stupider than she is. Along with antifa-blm fascists,
anti-Semitic AOC and her followers are exactly the people that Biden
was speaking to when he incited violence against Trump supporters.

This comes after Democrats have set up a Stalinist censorship regime
specifically targeting Trump supporters. This is the worst thing I
have seen in America in my lifetime.

You cannot speak for most Democrats. I recognize Republicans such as  Representatives Fred Upton and Pete Meijer in my state (Michigan) who wish that Donald Trump would simply go away. Did you recall people shouting "Hang Mike Pence"? The Capitol Putsch had remarkable similarities to the Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace in Petrograd in 1917. To be sure, the ideology of the Capitol Putsch isn't 'socialist', but it is certainly reactionary. If you are going to bring a gallows or a noose to a political rally, then make sure that the object of hatred is someone like Saddam Hussein who really did deserve a nasty end for his serial mass murders. 
The hallmark of extremists is that they find that anyone who falls short of their intended paradise must be eliminated. Non-extremists have no desire to scare those who dissent with them. 

The insurrectionist rioters attacked police officers and disrupted a lawful political process that people ordinarily recognized as a banal formality. That is contrary to over two centuries of political tradition... and for good reason. Rioters rifled through Congressional desks, which can be assumed as an egregious breach of national security; all Representatives have classified information. Stealing the laptop of the Speaker of the House? That laptop surely has a wealth of information that (if a hostile power could crack it) would be the biggest leak of national secrets in American history. Less damaging but more offensive was their use of symbols such as the US flag as weapons... and leaving behind many partisan statements (Trump banners) and even Confederate flags in the Capitol. 

Quote:  How will all this end? There have been plenty of postings in this
thread about how America is "finished."

I've answered this question many times. The way it will end is with a
"regeneracy event." This is a concept in generational theory,
referring to an event that regenerates civic unity for the first time
since the end of the previous crisis war. It's an event that presents
a strong existential threat to the nation or society, and forces all
sides to put aside their political differences and unite behind the
leadership for the common survival.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear as simply and as completely as possible that Joseph Biden had been elected President and Kamala Harris had been elected President with terms beginning on January 20, 2021. That is what it took. Joe Biden did not yet have the formal power to put an end to the attempted coup. The Armed Forces do. 
Can you understand why most Democrats see Donald Trump as a singularly-awful President? Sure, he has fanatical supporters -- just as Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe had. Think of how bad things would be if Trump were re-elected or remained President through some subterfuge. America would be ungovernable except by dictatorship. Trump or a Pinochet-style junta? If you think that Joe Biden is bad, then just think of what happens when a secret police of the type starting to appear at anti-Trump protests can crush any protest. Donald Trump is the closest that we have had to a despot as President -- by far! 

I'm not ready to predict the legal consequences for insurrectionists. I do not ordinarily predict the results of criminal trials or civil litigation. The last time that I predicted what the Supreme Court would do was on same-sex rights about six years ago because the legal bans on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and bans on same-sex couples having custody of children had little defense. I revived a thread from the old Forum for what I considered educational purposes. Sure, I had a stake -- I had been gay-bashed, and I did not think it my responsibility to prove to a bigot that I am straight; the problem isn't that some fool thought that I was gay, but instead that that fool thought it acceptable to beat someone for real or imagined homosexuality.  But back to the Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace... excuse me, the failed Putsch of January 6: most Americans regret that it happened, and never want to see anything like this again. We survived eight years of Dubya and mercifully only four of Donald Trump.    Dictatorship does not exit of its own accord.

[Tim Randal Walker]

It has been nearly 80 years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor-a lifetime ago. Soon World War II vets will all be gone.

[pbrower2a]

(06-07-2021, 06:29 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: It has been nearly 80 years since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor-a lifetime ago.  Soon World War II vets will all be gone.

Figure by now that all Pearl Harbor (and Bataan) survivors are now either centenarians or near-centenarians.

[Tim Randal Walker]

The youngest ones being in their 90s. In a few decades the Silent will be gone, and that Crisis period will be gone from living memory.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 07-Jun-2021 World View: Kristallnacht and White Supremacy

(06-07-2021, 06:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I compared the Greenwood riot to Kristallnacht with few
> reservations.

Actually, the Tulsa massacre and Kristallnacht had nothing in common
except that they were both senseless organic ethnic violence.

As I'll explain in more detail at a later date, the 1921 Tulsa
massacre is explained by the "58 Year Rule" of Generational Dynamics.
It says that when an event is so catastrophic that it affects the
entire population, then 58 years later there's a generational panic
out of fear that the catastophe will recur.

So the Tulsa massacre was a panicked reaction 58 years after Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. This will require further
explanation at a later date.

The 1963 March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were
bitterly opposed by Robert Byrd, Joe Biden, and other Democrats
(except Lyndon Johnson), because it meant the end of the KKK and the
free perks of raping young black girls with impunity. Today, the
Democrats do the same thing another way -- destroy black families
through welfare by throwing fathers out, making the mothers available
to Democrats for rape with impunity. Rape is a big part of the
Democrat culture. That's why Biden and other Democrats supported
Hillary, probably the most rape-supportive candidate in history. And
the KKK violence has been replaced by mass slaughter of young blacks
on the streets of Chicago and other cities run by Democrats. For
Democrats, the KKK is still here in a different form.

To Democrats, the Civil Rights Act was like losing the Civil War all
over again. All the hopes and dreams that "The South Shall Rise
Again!!" ended. It was an event that was just as catastrophic to
Democrats as the "War of Northern Aggression" had been.

Today, it's 58 years later, and it's the Tulsa Massacre all over
again, with Biden and the Democrats supporting antifa-blm fascists and
inciting violence against the 75 million people who voted for Trump,
by calling them White Supremacists and comparing them to terrorists
like al-Qaeda, when Biden is the worst White Supremacist of them all,
and may yet become the worst terrorist of all.

By the way, you have a lot of balls to tell me who I can and can't
criticize, after you've spent five years excreting endless,
meaningless garbage attacking Trump and Trump supporters, which
continues with your latest post.

[David Horn]

(06-07-2021, 07:33 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 07-Jun-2021 World View: Kristallnacht and White Supremacy

(06-07-2021, 06:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   I compared the Greenwood riot to Kristallnacht with few reservations.

Actually, the Tulsa massacre and Kristallnacht had nothing in common except that they were both senseless organic ethnic violence.

As I'll explain in more detail at a later date, the 1921 Tulsa massacre is explained by the "58 Year Rule" of Generational Dynamics.  It says that when an event is so catastrophic that it affects the entire population, then 58 years later there's a generational panic out of fear that the catastophe will recur.  

So the Tulsa massacre was a panicked reaction 58 years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.  This will require further explanation at a later date.

The 1963 March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were bitterly opposed by Robert Byrd, Joe Biden, and other Democrats (except Lyndon Johnson), because it meant the end of the KKK and the free perks of raping young black girls with impunity.  Today, the Democrats do the same thing another way -- destroy black families through welfare by throwing fathers out, making the mothers available to Democrats for rape with impunity.  Rape is a big part of the Democrat culture.  That's why Biden and other Democrats supported Hillary, probably the most rape-supportive candidate in history.  And the KKK violence has been replaced by mass slaughter of young blacks on the streets of Chicago and other cities run by Democrats.  For Democrats, the KKK is still here in a different form.

To Democrats, the Civil Rights Act was like losing the Civil War all over again.  All the hopes and dreams that "The South Shall Rise Again!!"  ended.  It was an event that was just as catastrophic to Democrats as the "War of Northern Aggression" had been.

Today, it's 58 years later, and it's the Tulsa Massacre all over again, with Biden and the Democrats supporting antifa-blm fascists and inciting violence against the 75 million people who voted for Trump, by calling them White Supremacists and comparing them to terrorists like al-Qaeda, when Biden is the worst White Supremacist of them all, and may yet become the worst terrorist of all.

By the way, you have a lot of balls to tell me who I can and can't criticize, after you've spent five years excreting endless, meaningless garbage attacking Trump and Trump supporters, which continues with your latest post.

Wow!  Just... wow!

[John J. Xenakis]

** 08-Jun-2021 World View: Corrupt Marxist Fascist Black Lives Matter

**** Rashad Turner / Founder of BLM Saint Paul: ‘I learned the ugly truth’

https://www.lawofficer.com/founder-of-bl...gly-truth/

• Rashad Turner

Rashad Turner described how he became a founder of Black Lives Matter
in St. Paul, but he soon came to realize that caring for black lives,
black children, and black families was the least of the group’s
concerns. ...

“In 2015 I was a founder of Black Lives Matter in St. Paul. I believed
the organization stood for exactly what the name implies, black lives
do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they have
little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less
about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis.
That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools,
alongside the teachers’ union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter,
and I learned the ugly truth: the moratorium on charter schools does
not support rebuilding the black family, but it does create barriers
to a better education for black children.”

In the “What We Believe” section of its website that has since been
deleted, BLM Global Network Foundation declared its goals to “fight
for freedom, liberation, and justice,” can only be achieved through
the disruption of the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
...

“But I didn’t quit working to improve black lives, and access to a
great education,” he asserted. “Today, I serve as the president and
executive director of Minnesota Parent Union. We’re dedicated to
helping parents move their children from failing schools to successful
schools.”


**** BLM profits from ‘their names’ -- but won’t even talk to their families

https://www.lawofficer.com/blm-profits-f...-families/

Grief-stricken mothers continue to accused Black Lives Matter—aka the
Black Lives Matter corporation—of profiting from the deaths of their
sons. The co-founder of the movement Patrisse Cullors, who seemingly
went from a hashtag to millions of dollars announced that she was [1]stepping
away from the organization last week and many see that has only a way
for her to continue to profit without accountability. ...

Samaria Rice is not impressed with BLM or Cullors. She told The Post
that she first sought out Cullors to enlist the group’s help in
re-opening a federal investigation into her son’s 2014 death. She
exchanged a few emails with Cullors over the years, but had never
managed a face-to-face meeting.

“They are benefiting off the blood of our loved ones, and they won’t
even talk to us,” said Rice, who has also blasted activists Shaun King
and Tamika Mallory.

In March Rice joined with Simpson, the mother of Richard Risher, to
blast BLM for, as Simpson put it, “raising money in our dead sons’
names and giving us nothing in return.”

BLM’s Los Angeles chapter raised $5,000 for her son’s funeral, but
Simpson claimed she never received any of it.

Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead in a
police raid at her home in Louisville, KY, said the movement also
failed her.

“I have never personally dealt with BLM Louisville and personally have
found them to be fraud (sic),” Palmer wrote in an April 14 Facebook
post that was quickly removed. Palmer did not return The Post’s
repeated calls.

Simpson said flat out that Black Lives Matter failed her. She started
her own Foundation to raise funds for her own protests when she said
BLM activists failed to help her.

“They called me an agent provocateur, a liar and crazy,” she said.
Simpson also added that she would regularly show up at LAPD Commission
meetings to demand justice for her son. “I am the boots on the ground
in this fight, not Black Lives Matter.”


**** Patrisse Khan-Cullors / Marxist BLM leader buys $1.4 million home in ritzy LA enclave

https://nypost.com/2021/04/10/marxist-bl...a-enclave/

• Marxist BLM leader Patrisse Khan-Cullors and her mansions

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, the leader of Black Lives Matter and a
self-described Marxist, recently purchased a $1.4 million home in an
exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood where the vast majority of
residents are white, according to reports.

The home, which features three bedrooms and three bathrooms, is
nestled in Topanga Canyon and has a separate guesthouse on the
property, according to a celebrity real estate blog which reported
the transaction last week.

The property, which is about a 15 minute drive from Malibu beaches,
features bamboo floors and vaulted ceilings, according to the listing.

**** BLM Founder Branded "Fraud" After Buying Million-Dollar Home In Mostly-White LA Enclave

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/blm-...la-enclave

But what is most interesting is that the BLM co-founder chose to live
in Topanga, where less than 2 percent of the population is black.

Sports journalist Jason Whitlock, who’s himself black,
sarcastically called out Cullors for her blatant hypocrisy.

“Black Lives Matter founder buys $1.4 million home in Topanga, which
has a black population of 1.4%. She’s with her people!” he tweeted
Friday.

Quote:> Black Lives Matter founder buys $1.4 million home in
> Topanga, which has a black population of 1.4%. She’s with her
> people!

> — Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) [8]April 9, 2021

Whitlock's tweet was removed by the Twitter police and his account
suspended...

Others on Twitter also pointed out the hypocrisy.

Quote:> For somebody that claims to love Black people, it's
> kinda strange that she chose a place to live that's practically
> devoid of Black people

> — Sheikh Judd Hashisho (@glubokiy_boy) April 9, 2021

This backlash is reminiscent of when former President Barack Obama -
who perfected the art of sowing racial division - purchased an $11.8
million mansion on a sprawling 29-acre property on Martha’s Vineyard,
which is only [15]3 percent black.

Some on social media said Cullors exploited the Black Lives Matter
movement to enrich herself.

Quote:> She capitalized on that “Injustice against Black
> People” bag. They’ve been scamming since day 1

> — Ryan Lee (@LTM_RBG_321) [17]April 9, 2021

> [/quote] Not only that. Why is she getting rich off BLM
> movement? Shouldn’t this money be going to black neighbourhoods
> and struggling black families?

> — •FATE• (@meloncollie46) [18]April 9, 2021[/quote]

Quote:> Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors
> just purchased a million dollar mansion. She pimped the murders of
> Black folks, especially Black men and boys to get that
> mansion. BLM founders are after the bag. They don’t care about
> Black people. That’s why it’s time to purge

> — Quinton Blanton (@blanton_quinton) April 9, 2021

Black Lives Matter said it raked in a staggering [20]$90 million in
donations last year.

However, there’s mounting criticism that the movement — which fomented
riots across the United States — has not shared its massive haul with
the black community.

Last month, the father of Michael Brown — whose 2014 shooting by a
police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, was the catalyst for the 2016
BLM riots — demanded that the group fork over [21]$20 million to him.

Quote:> What is Black Lives Matter doing with all the money
> they’re accumulating if not helping their local chapters and
> Black-owned businesses to advance?

> They seem to be fundraising for the sake of fundraising.

> All talk, all woke.

> — JD Rucker (@JDRucker) March 4, 2021

Similarly, BLM chapters nationwide have demanded more transparency
from the centralized umbrella organization for the group.

In a December 2020 statement, the local chapters said:

Quote:> “Since the establishment of [Black Lives Matter Global
> Network Foundation], our chapters have consistently raised
> concerns about financial transparency, decision making, and
> accountability … we believe public accountability has become
> necessary.”

The local chapters also said the Black Lives Matter Global Network
Foundation appointed Cullors as its executive director against their
wishes and without their knowledge, rendering her leadership
illegitimate.

Quote:> “We, the undersigned chapters, believe that all of
> these events occurred without democracy, and assert that it was
> without the knowledge of the majority of Black Lives Matters
> chapters across the country and world,” the statement read.

> “Patrisse Cullors … became Executive Director against the will of
> most chapters and without their knowledge.”

Considering how much havoc BLM wreaked nationwide over the past few
months, you can only imagine how ugly the group’s in-fighting will
get.



**** Andy Ngo reacts to becoming Antifa target, leaving US: 'Not safe anymore for me'

https://www.foxnews.com/us/andy-ngo-anti...-interview
EXCLUSIVE: He might be the most hated man in the room depending on
where he goes, but Andy Ngô has undoubtedly amassed a tremendous
following for his experience covering the ins and outs of [1]Antifa.

The born-and-raised [2]Portlander and second-generation Vietnamese
American, a conservative journalist who serves as the editor-at-large
of The Post Millenial, is now a New York Times bestselling author
thanks to his recently published tome, "Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s
Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy."

In "Unmasked," Ngô explores not only the history of Antifa both in and
outside the United States, but also his own experiences covering what
he describes as an organized community of radical, left-wing
anarchists. ...

Opponents tried to stop the book from being published, Ngô, 33, wrote
on Twitter. Even when it was released, some took issue with the book
being sold in stores, according to reports. Portland's famed shop
Powell's Books opted not to sell the work after union employees
protested Ngô "and everything he represents," reports stated.

Over the course of years, Ngô has endured physical attacks from
people in crowds while covering Antifa or radical events, and even
unwanted visitors at his and his parents’ homes, Ngô wrote in his
book.

But everything came to a head earlier this year when Ngô left the
country amid threats of violence and "an escalation of safety
concerns," he told Fox News.

"It was just not safe anymore for me. I had already been on borrowed
time," he said when reached by phone. ...

Ngô was a student journalist at Portland State University tasked with
working on election night in 2016. He said what he saw shocked him.

He described how rioters descended upon downtown Portland, with their
faces covered and "dressed head-to-toe in black." They carried bats,
crowbars and hammers and were "just destroying the he-- out of the
place." ...

"That was shocking then, and I say that now and it’s kind of, that’s
just another, any day in Portland today," he said. "The response from
the public at that time was to excuse it. They thought that it was [a]
completely legitimate response because of fear and anger over what
they thought was not a legitimate election."

He described hearing at the time that Trump’s election "was the first
step toward ascendant fascism and the rise of a totalitarian regime in
the U.S."

"These extremist, radical, unfounded ideas were given space to
propagate in our papers of legacy, in our homes and... through
broadcast and radio, and of course to online news sites," Ngô said.
"That helped to really radicalize the left, in my opinion." ...

"I was challenging the narrative that they had, the dominant narrative
that they had within both the local press and therefore in the
national press, as well," he said.

In 2019, he was attacked by a mob of masked Antifa members and had to
be hospitalized, where he learned his brain was hemorrhaging, he wrote
in "Unmasked."

[John J. Xenakis]

** 08-Jun-2021 World View: BBC's hidden documentary: Detained in America

Last Thursday (6/3) I was watching the BBC news and was just about to
switch channels, when a BBC documentary came on, "Detained in
America." The announcer said that it was about children who are
coming across the southern border, but are being treated abusively.

I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The BBC is wholly captive by the
Democrat Party, since they receive substantial funding from PBS. I
know personally that they simply lied about what was happening in the
Ukraine impeachment hearings. I doubt that anyone reading this
watched the Ukraine impeachment hearings, but I did. I actually
watched the hearings, working at my desk with the tv on, and I know
that every bit of testimony was completely refuted by Republican
cross-examination. But the mainstream media, with the BBC falling
obediently in line, lied and described the testimony against Trump as
"explosive."

The main witness, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, orginally announced that
his testimony was in line with the president, but he was forced to
change his testimony to lie for Adam Schiff when Oregon Democratic
Rep. Earl Blumenauer called on antifa-blm and other activists to riot
and threaten Sondland's family and businesses. The Republicans
brought this out in cross-examination, but it was censored by the
media and the BBC.


*** 03-Dec-2019 World View: Civil war and impeachment hearings
*** http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?...678#p48678

*** 14-Dec-2019 World View: Impeachment and violence
*** http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?...827#p48827

If you read through those two articles, you'll see that the BBC, along
with other mainstream media, simply made up a story and lied, as
commanded by the Democrats.

The Biden administration have been falling over themselves with one
idiotic lie after another to cover up the catastrophe happening the
southern border.

First they said that any problems were imaginary. Then they blocked
all news reporters from visiting refugee sites. Then they kept saying
it wasn't a "crisis," when it obviously was. Then they said the
border was closed, when Fox News was showing one video after another
of illegal immigrants pouring across the border. Then Kamala Harris
was appointed "border czar," but she has made a completely fool of
herself over and over, including with Tuesday's farcical visit to
Guatemala, and her ridiculous giggling response when asked why she
hasn't been to the border.

There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants pouring across
the border, from 170 different countries. It's likely that some
terrorists are included.

So I wanted to provide all the above information as background, so
you'll know how shocked and surprised I was as the subject of the BBC
documentary.

The BBC documentary was devastating, much more devastating than, for
example, the reports on Fox News, which are bad enough.

Here are some of my notes from the documentary:

• The Biden administration blocked them from interviewing
  detained children, so the BBC went to a lot of trouble to track down
  children who had left the detention facilities.
  
  
• There were children locked up in "iceboxes" in numerous secret
  detention centers across the country.
  
  
• The children were sleeping on top of each other in many of the
  facilities. They were covered with filth and lice, Covid was
  spreading. The children slept next to each other because of the
  crowded conditions and because the "iceboxes" were cold.
  
  
• The detained children were taken to the airport in a bus in the
  middle of the night, and not told where they were going, as they were
  sent to secret detention centers around the country.
  
  
• The children were threatened with punishment if they "made a
  mess."
  
  
• There was evidence of sexual abuse.
  
  
• The children didn't have a chance to shower for weeks.
  
  
• The BBC found one of the detention sites in San Antonio, which
  had previously been used to house animals. There were allegations of
  sexual abuse there. They found another secret detention site in San
  Diego.
  
  
• Hundreds of teen boys were packed into a detention center in
  Dallas. The staff and private contractors had to sign secrecy
  agreements. However, the BBC interviewed one person on camera (facing
  away) who was willing to speak because he was so disturbed by what was
  going on. He said that the boys are locked up for 45 days straight or
  long, with no sunlight, no going outside, not enough to eat, no chance
  to shower. Lice and scabies were spreading.
  
  
• Children had to be kept on suicide watch.
  
  
• Democrats had criticized Trump for separating children from their
  parents. But the BBC found that the Biden policy was worse, since
  most children were accompanied by other relatives -- grandmothers,
  sisters, aunts, uncles, etc. -- and the Biden administration separates
  them from the children and deports the relatives. They had some audio
  of a child crying and screaming "Daddy!"
  
  
• The BBC also had some video of the inside of the detention
  centers, without explaining where they got it.

OK, so I postponed writing this article for a few days, because I
wanted to wait until the documentary was available on the BBC web
site.

Well guess what? The documentary is only available in the UK. It's
blocked in the United States.

Here are some relevant links:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wvq3

Quote:"Detained in America

> The BBC uncovers allegations of filth, lice, sickness and neglect
> in a vast system of mostly closed-off camps, scattered across the
> US and holding over 20,000 migrant children.

> The US has a vast system of mostly closed-off camps scattered
> across the country, holding more than 20,000 migrant children. In
> a special investigation, the BBC has uncovered allegations of
> filth, lice, cold temperatures, sickness and neglect through a
> series of interviews with children and staff.

> Children are coming across the border in record numbers, in the
> hopes being welcomed into President Biden's America. Many are
> travelling alone."

There's a link that says "Watch now," but if you click on it, you're
told that it can only be watched in the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fvhs...des/player

This is the list of "The Documentary" episodes. Recent "Documentary"
episodes do appear here, but "Detained in America" is mysteriously
missing.

The situation of the border is an absolute disaster that is getting
worse every day, despite the idiotic denials and cover up by the Biden
administration. I don't know how that BBC documentary ever got made,
but it's clear that now the BBC is fully on board with the coverup.

Fortunately for me, I've saved my own recording of the BBC documentary
on TV, in the form of a video file. So I can see the documentary
whenever I want, but unless you're in Britain, you can't. Haha.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 08-Jun-2021 World View: Blaming the blacks

Gone Wrote:> Like blacks who left the south in the 1920s and moved to Detroit,
> Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Guest Wrote:> All of which they destroyed.

I totally disagree with this. The blacks did not destroy any
of these cities. Blacks are hard working and entrepreneurial,
and when allowed to do so, they are an asset to any city.

We saw this discussed with respect to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.
The White Supremacist Democrats in the KKK chose Tulsa's
Greenwood district because it was a vibrant, successful business
district known as "Black Wall Street". It's the White Democrats
who destroyed Tulsa, not the blacks.

The same is true today of Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia. It's the
White Democrats who have destroyed and are destroying those cities by
destroying the black family. As I explained in a previous post, the
White Democrats still have the KKK today in another form, in the form
of black kids without fathers killing other black kids, and black
mothers without husbands being raped with impunity. This is no
accident. This is the policy of the Democrat party, just as the
Democrats a century ago were freely raping black girls and lynching
black boys. This is what the Democrat party is all about.

This is also why White Democrats were so furious at Trump for lowering
black unemployment, creating opportunity zones in black neighborhoods
and funding black colleges, making the black unemployment rate the
lowest in history. Democrats do not want blacks to be
successful. [Paragraph added.]

We've got to stop letting Democrats off the hook. They pretend to be
so nice and caring, but they're bitter and angry because they lost the
Civil War and the Republicans freed the slaves, and they're trying to
destroy the country by destroying black families, flooding the country
with illegal immigrants, freeing all the violent criminals in jail,
defunding the policy, and destroying the economy. Apparently they
believe that if they can start a new Civil War, then they might win
the next one, and then the Democrats can re-enslave the blacks, like
the Chinese Communists are enslaving the Uighurs.

Please put the blame where it belongs, and stop blaming innocent
hard-working blacks for the intentional destruction wrought by the
Democrats.

[pbrower2a]

(06-08-2021, 09:08 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 08-Jun-2021 World View: Blaming the blacks

Gone Wrote:>   Like blacks who left the south in the 1920s and moved to Detroit,
>   Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Guest Wrote:>   All of which they destroyed.

I totally disagree with this.  The blacks did not destroy any
of these cities.  Blacks are hard working and entrepreneurial,
and when allowed to do so, they are an asset to any city.

In practice, Southern blacks moving north did as internal immigrants what prior immigrants did, taking over the jobs and housing that others had cast off as undesirable. The problems for them were (1) they were all too visible -- unless they 'passed', and (2) they were the last to start over at the rock bottom for a very long time. Like other immigrants they came to their 'new' homes and occupations nearly penniless. Sure, they  had a culture and could occasionally profit from it... but they of course got the cr@ppy jobs.   

Quote:We saw this discussed with respect to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.
The White Supremacist Democrats in the KKK chose Tulsa's
Greenwood district because it was a vibrant, successful business
district known as "Black Wall Street".  It's the White Democrats
who destroyed Tulsa, not the blacks.

Unlike the big cities Up North, Oklahoma was one of the last frontier areas in America, and frontier areas lacked (or were free from) the economic 'structure' that one associates with ethnic hierarchies. Note well that Oklahoma had achieved statehood only in 1907, and the rush of settlers at the foundation of Oklahoma as something other than a  collection of Indian reservations had begun only in 1889. Forty-two years. On a frontier, entrepreneurial opportunities are typically open to practically anyone irrespective of origin. 

What "Black Wall Street" did wrong, in the eyes of many white losers was to succeed, in which case they would not be obliged to defer to the manifold expressions of racism. In 1921, blacks were still largely associated with the Party of Lincoln, the Party that had liberated African-Americans, at least on paper, from subjection by slave-owning planters. Populist resentment toward successful business targets anyone somehow different who is more successful -- and visible. It is commonplace that the worst exploiters do everything possible to cultivate resentment to direct it someone other than themselves.

Most people fail to understand that the typical small business owner rents his share of a building and sells goods on consignment. The gap between wholesale and retail is the living for the business owner and his family.  I wish that more American kids understood commerce as an American institution as they are expected to understand the legislative process. If you want economic, technological, or even political progress, then you will need profits as a reward for effort, imagination, self-denial, resource management, and competent decisions in the operation of the only institutions: businesses.     

Quote:The same is true today of Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.  It's the
White Democrats who have destroyed and are destroying those cities by
destroying the black family.  As I explained in a previous post, the
White Democrats still have the KKK today in another form, in the form
of black kids without fathers killing other black kids, and black
mothers without husbands being raped with impunity.  This is no
accident.  This is the policy of the Democrat party, just as the
Democrats a century ago were freely raping black girls and lynching
black boys.  This is what the Democrat party is all about.

The KKK is a clique of largely-irrelevant fascist pigs who have no chance of taking over anything except in some fantasy world. The dangerous Second Klan, to be sure, was active in much of America, including Tulsa. It had many of the characteristics of Mussolini's Fascists and what would be Hitler's Nazis. We all know how that works: it starts small as a melding of a bad business and a popular movement. It is safe to assume that the Democratic Party of even the early 1960's is very different from what the Democratic party is today. Start with the obvious: blacks came to recognize FDR as the "Second Lincoln" in those parts of America in which blacks had some right to vote. 

The partisan identification of America is very different from what it was even as late as the 1950's:

 

Quote:When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. To compare ISIS to Fidel Castro is completely unfair to Fidel Castro, a gentleman by contrast to ISIS. 

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.


 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once 

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

The electric eel is loose! What?  Republican Eisenhower and Democrat Obama? They did win much the same states in their elections (Obama not getting the High Plains states or the Intermountain West aside from Colorado and New Mexico). OK, the political culture of America in 2008 and 2012 is far closer to that of the 1950s than partisan identity would indicate -- it is just that the partisan match to the political cultures of the states are mostly opposite in partisan identity. 

So what changed in in American politics between 1952 and 2012? Let's start by saying what did not change. Eisenhower cultivated the Mormon vote for the GOP to get it to start identifying with conservative politics. Trump has some chance of blowing that. Ranch country is as strongly R now as it was in 1952, I do not want to go into the details on how ranch-area and farm-area politics differ; Iowa has voted D in all but two Presidential elections beginning in 1988, and Kansas has voted R in every Presidential election since 1968. Demographic realities have given California, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico large Hispanic minorities, and such now favors Democrats in statewide elections.

But note well: Eisenhower and Obama did very well with well-educated people, winning decisive majorities among both. Stevenson, McCain, and Romney did well with not-so-well-educated people -- and such makes a big difference. People with much trust in formal education as a necessity for the Good Life voted for Ike -- and Obama -- at least as the states suggest. The states with the lowest standards of formal education went for Stevenson (D) but against Obama (D). Ike won three states usually tough for Republicans even in good or great years, winning the states (Massachusetts and Minnesota) that were the sole states that hapless McGovern and Mondale won in 49-state landslides for a Republican, and Rhode Island, the only Northern state other than Massachusetts to vote against Herbert Hoover in 1928. Ike won all three twice, and no Republican has won all three once in any other election since 1924.     

OK, what about the Hispanics? Sure, many are poor, and recent immigrants might be ill-educated people who hold onto cr@ppy jobs. They insist that their kids do well in school so that they don't become a permanent under-class in America. In the 1950's such people would have gone for Ike. Today they hold Trump in contempt for an anti-intellectualism that reaches far beyond the usual wayward professor to the K-12 teacher. Note well that the Catholic Church has no use for the young-earth creationism that so many Protestant fundamentalists endorse. "Believe it or burn!"

.....

The ideal antithesis of Trump is an Eisenhower (if one is a conservative Never-Trumper) or Obama (if one is a moderate liberal) The two are more similar than one might expect. Obama elections are closer to those of Eisenhower than to anyone else -- even other Democrats. The political cultures of the states are essentially as they were in the 1950's, with biggest changes in demographics (the biggest one: the rapid growth of the Hispanic populations as shares of the electorate). Blacks have not gained as a share of the electorate, and Asians are heavily concentrated in states that are 'sure things' in recent years. Technology has changed, but that has more effect upon journalism than upon economic reality aside from the disappearance of many industrial jobs. (But industrial workers of an earlier era are getting warehouse and delivery jobs instead. If they are not involved in pressing records or assembling televisions they are handling them in a warehouse or delivering them to customers.    

The main change between the 1950's and now is that the Democratic and Republican Parties have largely switched constituencies. Eisenhower won the college-educated vote -- big -- and so did Obama. The constituencies for "Eisenhower" and "Rockefeller" Republicans, conservatives in style and personal life but progressive on civil liberties and the environment, have gone Democratic. Meanwhile the whites of the Mountain and Deep South have gone largely Republican. Asian-Americans have gone from Republican (concern about Communism) to Democratic (concern about the anti-intellectualism within the Republican Party).

OK, Republicans still have the plutocrats and executives and still have a hold over ranchers and Mormons as did Eisenhower. Democrats still have a strong hold over Jews, Mexican-Americans, and blacks. 

MY OPINION:

I see Donald Trump as a political failure at the least, unable to add fresh support to the votes from  the constituencies that he needed for a bare election. Generational change in the electorate as younger votes who are much more Democratic than Republican supplant older voters who are slightly more Republican than Democratic die off. President Trump will need new support to win re-election in 2020 just to offset an electorate becoming more Democratic. Most people already recognize that Trump's economic agenda demands great suffering on behalf of existing elites of ownership and management. The Trump economy is a raw deal -- prosperity only for a few for which we are all expected to be grateful. 

It's hard to measure political failure at this stage, as we have never had a President with such pervasive corruption as this one. Americans have shown tolerance of political corruption only in local machine politics, but not at the state level and not even at the level of the congressional district. Scandal is political ruin, but it is hard to measure it against an economic collapse that Trump has not yet inflicted upon us (and might not). [/quote]

Yes, as different as their curriculae vitae may be, Obama and Eisenhower were similar in temperament and in attitudes toward legal formalities, diplomatic precedent, and the rule of law. Someone has to be more like Obama than anyone else, and they even fit the pattern of "mature Reactive" types more likely to promote incremental change than pervasive or violent revolution.  By speaking of a "mature reactive", what do I mean by an "immature Reactive"?



Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: أَبُو مُصْعَبٍ ٱلزَّرْقَاوِيُّ‎, [i]’Abū Muṣ‘ab az-Zarqāwī[/i], Abu Musab from Zarqa; English pronunciation (help·info); October 30, 1966[1][2] – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (أَحْمَدُ فَضِيلِ ٱلنَّزَالِ ٱلْخَلَايْلَةَ, [i]’Aḥmad Faḍīl an-Nazāl al-Ḫalāyla[/i]), was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war".[3] He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".[4]



Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Arabic: أَبُو بَكْرٍ ٱلْبَغْدَادِيُّ‎, romanized: ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī), born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai (Arabic: إِبْرَاهِيمُ عَوَّادِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَليِّ مُحَمَّدِ ٱلْبَدْريِّ ٱلسَّامَرَّائِيِّ‎, romanized: ʾIbrāhīm ʿAwwād ʾIbrāhīm ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Badrī as-Sāmarrāʾī; 28 July 1971[1] – 27 October 2019), was an Iraqi terrorist and the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from 2014 until his death in 2019.

Baghdadi would become directly involved in ISIL's atrocities and human rights violations. These include the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq, extensive sexual slavery, organized rape, floggings, and systematic executions. He directed terrorist activities and massacres. He embraced brutality as part of the organization's propaganda efforts, producing videos displaying sexual slavery and executions via hacking, stoning, and burning.[13][14] Baghdadi himself was a rapist who kept several personal sex slaves, .[15][16]




Alphonse Gabriel Capone (/kəˈpoʊn/;[1] January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.



Ferenc Szálasi (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈsaːlɒʃi]; 6 January 1897 – 12 March 1946) was the leader of the Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" (Nemzetvezető), being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" (Nemzeti Összefogás Kormánya) for the final six months of Hungary's participation in World War II, after Germany occupied Hungary and removed Miklós Horthy by force. During his brief rule, Szálasi's men murdered 10,000–15,000 Jews.[1] After the war, he was tried and executed by the Hungarian court for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II.




Mátyás Rákosi ([ˈmaːcaːʃ ˈraːkoʃi]; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892[1][2] – 5 February 1971[3]) was a Hungarian communist politician who was the de facto leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. [4][5] He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945–48) and later holding the same post with the Hungarian Working People's Party (1948–56).

An ardent Stalinist, his government was very loyal to the Soviet Union, and Rákosi even set up a personality cult of his own modeled on that of Stalin. He presided over the mass imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian people and the deaths of thousands.[6][7] He orchestrated show trials modeled on those of the USSR, among the most prominent victims of which was his former lieutenant László Rajk. His policies of collectivization and mass repression devastated the country's economy and political life, causing massive discontent. After the death of Stalin in 1953, Rákosi was partially demoted at Moscow's behest and the reformist Communist Imre Nagy became the new Prime Minister. However, Rákosi was able to use his continuing influence as First Secretary to thwart all of Nagy's attempts at reform and ultimately force the latter out of office in 1955.

.....

Not the sorts of people whom you like if you could imagine wearing something like this:

  or this 

In view of the map overlay between Presidential elections involving Ike and Obama both had to win big chunks of similar parts of electorates in the various states. That does not happen so blatantly over fifty years with Presidents from supposedly-opposite Parties. To be sure, few people voted in both 1952 and 2016... but if you have ever read David Hackett-Fischer's Albion's Seed, then you will find that even if the partisan identification of ethnic, religious, and vocational communities change, their political values rarely do.    

Quote:We've got to stop letting Democrats off the hook.  They pretend to be
so nice and caring, but they're bitter and angry because they lost the
Civil War and the Republicans freed the slaves, and they're trying to
destroy the country by destroying black families, flooding the country
with illegal immigrants, freeing all the violent criminals in jail,
defunding the policy, and destroying the economy.  Apparently they
believe that if they can start a new Civil War, then they might win
the next one, and then the Democrats can re-enslave the blacks, like
the Chinese Communists are enslaving the Uighurs.

Please put the blame where it belongs, and stop blaming innocent
hard-working blacks for the intentional destruction wrought by the
Democrats.

Well, just look at West Virginia, which has gone from the sort of state that reliably votes D in all but R blowouts like 1928, 1956, 1972, and 1984 to one of the states that most reliably votes R -- perhaps even in the next election in which Democrats get over 400 electoral votes (there has been no such election since 1964). This has nothing to do with race, but instead with a Democratic machine that relied upon the United Mine Workers' Union getting out the vote for Democrats who simply sponsor pro-union legislation while underinvesting in education, highways, and public health. Who needs public health when most people have good health coverage from the UMWU? That worked well until the coal seams started to play out and coal miners started losing lots of jobs. West Virginians after about the mid-1990's started to be more likely workers in Wal*Mart or MacDonald's than in coal mines. One need not be much of a high-information voter if you work in a coal mine -- but one needs practically no information to work for Wally World, Chez Mac, or some convenience store. Trump does well among such workers so long as they are white. 

Republicans started making elections closer in West Virginia and then picking off one election after another until the state has only one high-level official who remains a Democrat. Senator Joe Manchin will either retire or lose his next re-election bid, at which time the Democratic Party will look as if it might as well shut down like some coal mine with no remaining coal seam. The question is whether the Republicans will make things any better than the Democrats did... I doubt it. If they can win elections by keeping people cowed or by having so fcuked-up an economy that anyone with any ability or ambition will leave for better in America, the GOP machine will be able to rely upon ill-educated, immobile (the roads are still among the worst in America) people in poor health to not vote for any threat of change. Just don't take away welfare, lest things start to look like Romania in 1989. 

Democrats should have been putting some money into schools, roads, and hospitals when they had the chance and attracting new employment when they had the chance. Byrd at least got much of the federal bureaucracy to relocate to West Virginia, but that was far from enough.      

... Note well that the damage that happened to African-American communities in the 1960's relates to the demise of manufacturing jobs. White boomers with any talent at all rejected the factory as a place of employment unless to supplement their funds for a college education and then preferred more 'relevant' work even if a mere clerk. It became more attractive to off-shore manufacturing as American quality got shoddier (yes, even the mind-numbing drudgery that is assembly-line work is best done if some people in the factory actually have some skill and talent). The jobs that educated white people rejected vanished, and so did the manufacturing jobs that ill-educated black men performed also disappeared because there just weren't enough people to do those jobs.

Know well: the most reliable way to get people out of poverty in large numbers has typically been the factory, whether the garment factories of New York, the auto plants of Michigan, the steel mills of Pittsburgh, the giant breweries of Milwaukee and St. Louis, or the tire plants of Dayton.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 12-Jun-2021 World View: 2020 Election Forensic Audits

The Democrats are moving as quickly as possible to do as much damage
to the country as they can -- flood the country with illegal
immigrants from 170 countries, flood the country with Chinese fentynal
and meth, let violent criminals out of jail, defund the police,
destroy black families, encourage the murder of thousands of young
black men by other black men in Democrat-run cities, destroy America's
energy independence, teach racial hatred in school (critical race
theory), censor political opposition, etc. [Paragraph updated]

One reason that they're moving quickly is that they know that polls
indicate that Americans are turning against them, and they're likely
to lose control of Congress in the 2022 elections.

Another reason is that they're enormously frightened of the 75 million
people who voted for Donald Trump. They bitterly advise the Republicans
to dump Trump and move on, but that's not happening. And Trump will
be holding election rallies this summer for candidates he supports.

Another reason is that 2020 election forensic audits are gaining steam
in many states. The latest Rasmussen poll indicates that a majority
of American voters now believe that Democrat cheating affected the
outcome of the 2020 elections:

Quote:> "Our polling indicates 51%, a majority of U.S. likely
> voters, believe cheating impacted the 2020 election results, up
> from 47% just after the November election. Legacy media spends
> 24/7 demonizing any questioning of the 2020 results. Public trust
> in them is demonstrated below – pic.twitter.com/FxWv8ZVQ6v

> — Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) June 7, 2021

>

• Rasmussen poll results

The above poll indicates that 30% of Democrats believe that the election
was stolen, and 75% of Republicans do, and that's been steady since
November 19. What's changed is that independent (unaffiliated) voters
increasingly believe that the Democrats rigged the election.

The result is there are forensic election fraud audits being conducted
in a number of states, and we can expect a number of bombshells over
the summer. This probably panics the Democrats more than anything
because they know that they rigged the election and that the
mainstream media may not be able to protect them for long.

The Democrats and the mainstream media have been doing their best to
describe any claims of election fraud as masturbation fantasies of an
unhinged Donald Trump, but the forensic audits are proceeding anyway.

In fact, the Democrats have been showing how frightened they are by
hiring armies of lawyers to do everything possible to stop the audits.
The audit farthest along is the one in Maricopa Country Arizona, and
this army of lawyers, backed by corrupt government officials, were
able to stop the audit for a couple of days at one point, but the
court ended up approving the audit, and so it continued. However, the
corrupt Arizona government officials are refusing to respond to
subpoenas. Of particular concern are the Dominion voting machines,
which the corrupt government is refusing to turn over to the forensic
auditors, despite subpoenas.

Here is a summary of the 2020 elections that all but proves
election fraud:

• Election Summary (TierneyRealNews via Redstate)

The following article was posted on Friday:

-- A.U.D.I.T. of Elections: Hot and Getting Hotter!
https://redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2021/06/1...er-n394861
(RedState, 11-Jun-2021)

It describes in great detail the progress of forensic election audits
in Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, along
with a number of additional comments about foreign interference in the
elections.

It's these audits that pose the greatest threat to the Democrat Party,
and explains why they're so panicked to get their destructive agenda
implemented as quickly as possible.

The Democrats through the KKK were still lynching young black boys and
raping young black girls when Joe Biden was young, and he may have
participated in or approved of some of these activities, along with
his mentor, Robert Byrd. Biden is on the record making extremely
hate-filled racist remarks as late as 2007, just before Obama
nominated him as vice-president. And now, in the last week, Hunter
Biden's tweets show the depth of hatred that the entire Biden family
has for blacks. I believe that this hatred of blacks and bitterness
at Republicans for freeing the slaves is a primary motivation for the
destructive agenda of the Democrats.

[pbrower2a]

Proof that Democrats cheated?

Uh no. 

The 81 million-74 million difference in votes between Trump and Biden relates to Democrats winning handily in the urban areas (and much of Suburbia is legitimately urban), which reflected that well-educated people of practically every identifiable ethnic or religious group and practically all non-white, non-Anglo  majorities went against Donald Trump. Biden may have won fewer counties, but Trump did very well in rural areas that often have shrinking populations. 

As for Ohio -- as all of Ohio's cities except Columbus are in deep decline, the rural vote in Ohio becomes far more important in shaping the electoral result. Iowa is less  decrepit, but Iowa has no large area of urban growth. Too bad. Except for the fire-and-ice climate and the poor scenery, Iowa is a good place to live. Want your kids to be well educated? Iowa is a good place for that. Florida? Republicans had  classic Red-baiting ads targeting Cuban-Americans that said that Joe Biden was a pinko Commie-enabling leftist, connecting him to Castro and Maduro. 

Let's remember: the 477 counties that Biden won have the bu8lk of the American population. (I'm not sure that you are counting "independent cities in Virginia; Virginia has lots of them).

In 2008, the New York Times had an interactive tool that allowed people to figure how Obama won. It turns out that 70 or fewer communities were enough to give Obama the majority of the vote. 

Yeah, yeah, yean... I look at the county map in which Harris County (containing Houston) and Kenedy County (I spelled it right) have similar area. One has a giant population and one probably has more rattlesnakes than people (it is ranch country with few towns, none over 1000 people). Biden won Harris County by a gigantic number. Trump won Kenedy County handily. 


 


The Electoral College does distort the vote some, so as in 2000 and 2016 Democrats could run up the popular vote in a few states and get a clear majority of the vote while Republicans won more of the 'close' states. That came close to happening in 2020. Still, a vote in Philadelphia is as valid as a vote in the very right-wing, thinly-populated area of Pennsylvania's Appalachians. 

I'm not going to argue here what a horrid President Trump is, as I have said enough on this topic before. So what did Donald Trump have to offer urban poor people? How did he offend the vast majority of people with college degrees? Even in the landslide  loss of Barry Goldwater in 1964, "AuH2O" still managed to get a bare majority among college-educated people. I'm guessing that well-educated people are less likely to trust their visceral feelings. College grads gave the majority of their vote to Ike in 1952 and 1956 and to Obama in 2008 and 2012. Yes, Biden in 2020.

To be sure, holding a college degree was much more a sign of being part of the social and economic elite in the 1950's. The more relevant comparison would be between the high-school diploma (yet to become a majority achievement) in the 1950's and a college degree in more recent times. When the dumb and disadvantaged did not get high-school diplomas, Ike won the majority of people with high-school diplomas.       

Trump won the people who vote on visceral concerns. Biden won the thinking person's vote. The latter makes governing easier and more effective.

....OK. Let's show how the maps can distort the vote. This is New Mexico:



A split by territory is almost even. Still, Joe Biden won the state by just over 10%. Outside of Greater Albuquerque, New Mexico is quite R. A vote in Albuquerque means no more or less than a vote in Clovis.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 13-Jun-2021 World View: Election fraud audits vs Cuba

Trevor Wrote:> I consider it dangerous when you can't trust an election outcome
> and many people don't. I'm a little suspicious, but far from
> absolutely convinced. However, it's a bit rich for the people who
> spent four years saying that Trump stole the election now turn
> around and say questioning the election is treason.

The Trump supporters are increasingly angry about the election rigging
and the massive censorship of conservative voices.

The Democrats are increasingly desperate. They've already sent an
army of over 100 lawyers to Maricopa Country Az to stop that audit.
And now the Justice Dept is launching a full-scale attack on the audit
process with the full force of the Biden administration.

*** Garland charts DOJ collision course with Maricopa County election audit
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...tion-audit

The results of the Maricopa audit are expected in early August. If
the DoJ finds a way to stop the audit, then there will be a furious
reaction from the 75 million Trump supporters, and there will be
aggressive changes at the state level - which is already occurring
anyway.

thinker Wrote:> John something I think you and others are missing is that the
> democrats know that these audits can not only flip the presidency
> but also can have large effects on the house and senate.

If the audits prove that Trump should have won, it will be a political
disaster for the Democrats, but it will not flip the presidency, since
the results have already been certified.

thinker Wrote:> Another problem that the democrats did not count on is that the
> states have started to take back their power and have begun to
> pass laws closing all the avenues that they used to steal this
> election as well as passing laws to strengthen the 1st and 2nd
> amendments ( for the 1st look at laws curbing the power of big
> tech).

This is a huge strength of America's federal system, and one of the
reasons why America's constitutional government is possibly the most
stable in history. Obviously, this is a big contrast to Cuba and
China.

thinker Wrote:> For example I have noticed that the supreme court has been giving
> the right some very important wins lately including a decision on
> a gun rights case where the court's decision was for upholding gun
> rights by a vote of 9 to 0. I think that is the justices trying to
> signal to the populace that they screwed up and that they are
> trying to make up for it. I know some will say that the justices
> don't care about anything but the rule of law and the constitution
> but they are human beings and not robots so things like the mood
> of the populace will play a part in their decisions and all the
> elites know that the populace is really pissed right know.

According to Jonathan Turley, the Supreme Court has scheduled a series
of cases where they have a 9-0 vote, in order to show the leftist
loons that they have nothing to gain by packing the Supreme Court.
However, there are some really big split decisions expected in the
next week.

thinker Wrote:> A couple of other things, critical race theory is also being
> attacked and removed. There are now people that were not
> politically involved before that have now become very politically
> involved. I see it in my regular life and it can be seen online as
> well, for example the videos of parents going to school board
> meetings and taking them over and starting to get rid of things
> that the school boards have been implementing for years.

This is again an advantage of America's federal system. Critical race
theory is an indocrination system like the ones used in Cuba and
China, but now people at the local level are turning against it.

One of the ironic results of the pandemic is that it closed down the
schools and forced at-home learning (for people who can afford it).
So what happened is that parents were able to watch the online
sessions with their kids and see what was actually being taught, which
they found shocking. Some school districts tried to pass "laws"
making it illegal for parents to watch along with their children, but
that didn't work. Tsk tsk.

thinker Wrote:> I immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. When Castro and the communists
> took over they got rid of guns. This is a problem the communists
> in this country have had from the start and I think it is a
> problem that they still haven't been able to figure out. Every
> time they try to move on firearms the population just goes out and
> buys more guns and ammo thereby making their problem even more
> difficult to solve. These truly are some interesting times we are
> living in.

Yeah, that's really funny. Obama used to be called the greatest gun
salesman in the world.

[pbrower2a]

(06-13-2021, 02:28 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 13-Jun-2021 World View: Election fraud audits vs Cuba

Trevor Wrote:>   I consider it dangerous when you can't trust an election outcome
>   and many people don't. I'm a little suspicious, but far from
>   absolutely convinced. However, it's a bit rich for the people who
>   spent four years saying that Trump stole the election now turn
>   around and say questioning the election is treason.

The Trump supporters are increasingly angry about the election rigging
and the massive censorship of conservative voices.

The Democrats are increasingly desperate.  They've already sent an
army of over 100 lawyers to Maricopa Country Az to stop that audit.
And now the Justice Dept is launching a full-scale attack on the audit
process with the full force of the Biden administration.

*** Garland charts DOJ collision course with Maricopa County election audit
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...tion-audit

The results of the Maricopa audit are expected in early August.  If
the DoJ finds a way to stop the audit, then there will be a furious
reaction from the 75 million Trump supporters, and there will be
aggressive changes at the state level - which is already occurring
anyway.

The Trump supporters are increasingly angry about the due to their perception of election rigging and the massive censorship of conservative voices.

Conservatives are not silenced if they stay clear of the provocative language suggesting conspiracy theories . Conservatives can still promote 'gun rights', condemn abortion, promote tax cuts, seek to eviscerate labor unions, and sponsor regulatory relief as before. They would be wiser to put more attention on these than on the personality of Donald Trump. If Biden is as harmful as Republicans say he is, then Republicans can wait him out and expect a change in the Presidency far more to their liking in 2024.  People who promote the idea that the 2020 election was rigged and that America must accept the belief of Trump's most vehement supporters that he won and must be recognized as President. A firm hold onto a false belief does not make the belief any more valid. 

As for the 'audit' in Arizona: it is destroying the evidence.

Quote:

thinker Wrote:>   John something I think you and others are missing is that the
>   democrats know that these audits can not only flip the presidency
>   but also can have large effects on the house and senate.

If the audits prove that Trump should have won, it will be a political
disaster for the Democrats, but it will not flip the presidency, since
the results have already been certified.

OK, so at least you accept that barring undeniable, material fraud that an electoral result must be accepted as such. (Material fraud? That would be as in the Philippine Presidential election in which votes cast for Corazon Aquino ended up in a stream before anyone had a chance to count them. Such caused the armed forces to turn against Ferdinand Marcos.

thinker Wrote:>   Another problem that the democrats did not count on is that the
>   states have started to take back their power and have begun to
>   pass laws closing all the avenues that they used to steal this
>

Quote:

Quote:  election as well as passing laws to strengthen the 1st and 2nd
>   amendments ( for the 1st look at laws curbing the power of big
>   tech).

This is a huge strength of America's federal system, and one of the
reasons why America's constitutional government is possibly the most
stable in history.  Obviously, this is a big contrast to Cuba and
China.

The federal compromise is that (1) States run the elections, but (2) they do not get to cheat. 

There were proposals that State legislatures could nullify popular results that the Governor or State Legislature disparaged. The Voting Right Acts, which are among the literal expressions of the empowerment clauses of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution:

Quote: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Other questionable measures to distort the vote will also be precluded. 

The difference between the US and China and Cuba goes far beyond form.  As for stability, the political order in China is now approaching 72 years. Stability can arise from repression. As for the language of a US-style Constitution protecting human rights, most of Stalin's 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union is a plagiary of ours (if with plenty of weasel words and phrases that gut human rights and civil liberties). How well our Constitution protects our liberties and fair process depends upon how willing our top leaders are to accommodate the Constitution. Contrast Donald Trump with Gerald Ford on that.   

Quote:

thinker Wrote:>   For example I have noticed that the supreme court has been giving
>   the right some very important wins lately including a decision on
>   a gun rights case where the court's decision was for upholding gun
>   rights by a vote of 9 to 0. I think that is the justices trying to
>   signal to the populace that they screwed up and that they are
>   trying to make up for it. I know some will say that the justices
>   don't care about anything but the rule of law and the constitution
>   but they are human beings and not robots so things like the mood
>   of the populace will play a part in their decisions and all the
>   elites know that the populace is really pissed right know.

According to Jonathan Turley, the Supreme Court has scheduled a series
of cases where they have a 9-0 vote, in order to show the leftist
loons that they have nothing to gain by packing the Supreme Court.
However, there are some really big split decisions expected in the
next week.

9-0 indicates that the Supreme Court leaves no doubt about what the decision means.  

Quote:

thinker Wrote:>   A couple of other things, critical race theory is also being
>   attacked and removed. There are now people that were not
>   politically involved before that have now become very politically
>   involved. I see it in my regular life and it can be seen online as
>   well, for example the videos of parents going to school board
>   meetings and taking them over and starting to get rid of things
>   that the school boards have been implementing for years.

This is again an advantage of America's federal system.  Critical race
theory is an indocrination system like the ones used in Cuba and
China, but now people at the local level are turning against it.

One of the ironic results of the pandemic is that it closed down the
schools and forced at-home learning (for people who can afford it).
So what happened is that parents were able to watch the online
sessions with their kids and see what was actually being taught, which
they found shocking.  Some school districts tried to pass "laws"
making it illegal for parents to watch along with their children, but
that didn't work.  Tsk tsk.

I've been a substitute teacher. I do nothing shocking.

Quote:

thinker Wrote:>   I immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. When Castro and the communists
>   took over they got rid of guns. This is a problem the communists
>   in this country have had from the start and I think it is a
>   problem that they still haven't been able to figure out. Every
>   time they try to move on firearms the population just goes out and
>   buys more guns and ammo thereby making their problem even more
>   difficult to solve. These truly are some interesting times we are
>   living in.

Yeah, that's really funny.  Obama used to be called the greatest gun
salesman in the world.

If "gun-grabs" are the cause of dictatorial regimes, then consider that there were more "gun rights" in the Soviet Union than in Britain under Margaret Thatcher. Hunting is very much a part of Russian culture and remained so even in Soviet times. If one lives in bear country, then one needs a firearm. Thatcher did not bring back "gun rights".

The problem is not that people don't have guns. In Cuba, the Commies have the guns. In the Third Reich, every Nazi in good standing was expected to own a firearm. Jews were prohibited from having guns... and even dogs... in Hitlerland. Dogs scare burglars, robbers, and rapists.  

America has few Commies; it has far more fascists (which includes neo-Nazis and KKK groups, neither of which I would trust with my civil liberties). So long as gun laws are not discriminatory they pass Constitutional muster.