Displaying posts published in

April 2022

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When ‘white’ becomes an epithet Heather Mac Donald

By on April 24th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/conservatives-name-going-race/

‘Conservatives must rebut the equation between whiteness and evil.’

Since the 1980s, conservatives have warned about the academic left’s “deconstruction” of Western culture. The fetishization of race and sex was shrinking our inheritance to a cartoonish morality play, they alleged. Academic identity politics would not stay put; its foundational conceits would migrate into the world at large.

Such warnings had no effect. Corporations, law firms, banks, tech companies, publishers, museums, orchestras and theater troupes now routinely denounce the alleged racial oppression that is said to be endemic to the United States in particular, and to the West more broadly.

Conservatives have responded in generalized terms: “The left is dividing us! It is betraying the ideal of judging people by the content of their character!” But what is going on is more specific than a generalized strategy of divide and conquer. What is going on is a war on whites. A news story need merely point out that a CEO, say, is white to taint him as a presumptive racist. A police officer identified in the press as white is a marked man.

The same method works for institutions and even ideas. Observe that a European tradition, whether political philosophy, classical music or portraiture, has been predominantly white, and you will have damned it as illegitimate. The inevitability of such a racial balance given Europe’s demographic history does not matter. Nor does the fact that African and Asian cultural traditions are just as racially monolithic.

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EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Georgetown Law Scheduled to Host Antisemite Who Claims Israelis ‘Harvest Organs of the Martyred’ By Nate Hochman

By on April 24th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/georgetown-law-scheduled-to-host-an-anti-semite-who-claims-israelis-harvest-organs-of-the-martyred/

Georgetown Law is hosting Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and writer with a long history of antisemitic comments, on campus this Tuesday. The event, hosted by the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), features El-Kurd and Harvard Law School attorney Rabea Eghbariah discussing “the ongoing legal battle settler organizations are waging to displace Palestinian families from East Jerusalem,” according to a flyer posted on the Georgetown Law SJP’s instagram.

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El-Kurd’s antisemitic comments, which include attacking “Israeli Jews” as “nothing but spineless colonizers,” tweeting that Israel is a “terrorist, genocidal nation,” and that “Zionists . . . have an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land,” calling “Zionist settlers” “the sadistic barbaric neonazi [sic] pigs that claim to be indigenous to our land,” and writing in his book that Israelis “harvest organs of the martyred” and “feed their warriors our own,” led the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to raise concerns in a full profile of the writer on the group’s website. The ADL writes:

An analysis of his social media and his book of poetry, titled “Rifqa,” reveals a troubling pattern of rhetoric which goes far beyond criticism of Israel and into antisemitism. El-Kurd has accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians and of having a particular lust for Palestinian blood. He has compared Israelis to Nazis, negated the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, and vilified Zionism and Zionists…his willingness to employ these tropes raises serious concerns.

El-Kurd’s brand of anti-Zionism goes far above and beyond the normal criticisms of Israel — he regularly refers to Zionism in terms such as “murderous,” “sadistic,” “fascist,” and “genocidal,” and has repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany. But at times, the virulent anti-Zionist rhetoric has crossed over into outright antisemitism.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

BIDEN’S WORSENING BORDER CRISIS: SCOTT WALKER

By on April 24th, 2022

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/22/bidens-worsening-border-policies/

Arrests at America’s southern borders are surging, and the crisis is the worst it has been in decades. According to data released this week from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, border agents made more than 200,000 arrests along the border in March. That is the busiest month in the past twenty years. The United States has made more than one million arrests at the southern border since October 2021. That is the fastest pace of illegal border crossings in at least two decades.

Things will likely worsen in the next month as the Biden administration is preparing to lift Title 42 on May 23, 2022. The Trump administration implemented the policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing border agents to quickly turn away people who are arrested trying to enter the United States illegally.

Of the 1.01 million crossings this year, roughly half resulted in the person being expelled under Title 42. Biden administration officials acknowledge that revoking the policy will likely lead to a massive rise in illegal border crossings. Yet they show no signs of pulling back on their plans to lift Title 42.

Ironically, it took a federal judge to force the Biden administration to stop requiring passengers on domestic flights to wear a face mask. Yet, the same people want to open the floodgates to illegal aliens without regard to their health status.

We already see the consequences of failing to deal with the border crisis effectively. At the end of 2021, we learned that drug overdoses surpassed 100,000 last year. Nearly two-thirds of the drug overdose deaths in the past fiscal years were from synthetic opioids— primarily fentanyl.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France’s Macron wins re-election, dodges political earthquake By Mimosa Spencer , Layli Foroudi and Tassilo Hummel

By on April 24th, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/macron-or-le-pen-france-faces-stark-choice-president-2022-04-24/

Le Pen admits defeat
Macron ministers hail win, vow to listen more to voters
Macron can expect little to no grace period
Opposition turns focus to June parliamentary elections

PARIS, April 24 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Sunday by a comfortable margin, securing a second term and heading off what would have been a political earthquake.

Cheers of joy erupted as the results appeared on a giant screen at the Champ de Mars park at the foot of the Eiffel tower, where Macron supporters waved French and EU flags. People hugged each other, danced and chanted “Macron!”.

European leaders also welcomed the news that pro-European Union Macron and not nationalist eurosceptic Le Pen had won.

Pollsters projected Macron securing around 58.5% of the vote. Such estimates are normally accurate but may be fine-tuned as official results come in.

“I am very relieved – it had looked very close and populism was at our door,” 42-year old Alessandro Paleni told Reuters at the Macron rally. But he stressed the president faced a difficult task given how many votes went to the far-right.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Passover Reflection on the Ukraine War Michael Galak

By on April 24th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/ukraine/2022/04/a-passover-reflection-on-the-ukraine-war/

This year’s Passover, what Gentiles sometimes call Exodus, is being celebrated amidst fears the beginning of a third world war is playing out on Ukrain’s flatlands. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, what comes to mind — my mind at any rate — is a connection between the ancient rebellion of Jewish slaves with the struggle of the Ukrainian people against Russian aggression.

The parallels are astounding, despite a long and heated tradition of enmity between two peoples. I am acutely conscious of the blood-soaked history of Jewish-Ukrainian relations, if one can call it that. This is history drenched in Jewish blood:  Koliivshchina rebellion, Khmelnitzky pogroms, SS murders, Babi Yar massacre – to mention just some of the crimes that figure in the mind-numbing magnitude of Jewish persecution, suffering and slaughter. These masacres are condemned to live in infamy in Jewish memory no less than Auschwitz and the Nazis’ other death mills. They are indelibly engraved in the voluminous history of Ukrainian anti-Semitism and I have no right to ignore the massacres or forgive their perpetrators. Ironically, many Ukrainians recognized the value of having the Jewish community as part of Ukrainian society despite anti-Semitism being an integral part of the national psyche. This is reflected in a Ukrainian saying, Yak bida, tak do Zhida – “If in trouble go to a Jew for help”. To put it mildly, Jewish-Ukrainian relations were far from cordial for a long, long time.

And then something happened. Ukraine, traditionally anti-Semitic Ukraine, voted overwhelmingly for a Jewish man, the descendant of a Holocaust survivor, to be their president in time of peace and, as it happens, in war as well. One can argue that Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory was either a protest vote against Ukraine’s all-pervading corruption or, perhaps equally, a reflection of a newly evolved political sophistication. Be that as it may, the unwillingness of the Ukrainians to have Jews as their fellow citizens and neighbors is held by a mere 5 per cent of the population, according to a recent Pew Centre poll. This is a level of acceptance and tolerance which the same polling found to be the highest in all Europe. The same survey indicated that 13 per cent of Russians and 32 per cent of Armenians are not prepared to have a Jew marry into their families or even as a neighbor.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Black Clergy Call on Corporations to Distance Themselves From Black Lives Matter By Chris Queen

By on April 24th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/04/23/black-clergy-call-on-corporations-to-distance-themselves-from-black-lives-matter-n1592140

Since the advent of Black Lives Matter in the mid-2010s and especially since the organization went front and center in 2020, corporations have fallen head over heels for BLM.

It’s an easy way for corporations to virtue-signal, and there’s plenty of pressure on companies to show their support or face accusations of racism, true or not.

Corporations have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, but there’s a movement afoot to call on companies to back away from Black Lives Matter. A group of black clergy leaders approached some corporate headquarters in Atlanta this week, urging them to distance themselves from BLM.

“Concerned Communities for America, a non-profit led by Black clergy, delivered a pledge for signing to the headquarters of Papa John’s Pizza and Coca Cola in Atlanta on Wednesday to renounce BLM’s charity operation and the movement’s push to defund police,” reports ADN America. “The pledge asks the corporations to renounce their past support and donations to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which has been embroiled in scandals over the use of donations for lavish personal expenses.”

Leaders of this non-profit seek to make corporations aware of the difference between the sentiment that “black lives matter,” which everyone except ardent racists can get behind, and the organization Black Lives Matter, which promotes Marxism while its leaders live high on the hog and waste donors’ money.

“Woke corporations in their misguided financial support for BLMGNF have failed Black America and the movement but supporting Marxism, and anarchy on the streets and in our communities,” said DaQuawn Bruce, CCA’s executive director. “Our hope is to educate them on how they might support the communities in which they operate while uplifting those who swear to serve and protect.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Folly of English Teachers Who Oppose Reading

By on April 24th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/the-folly-of-english-teachers-who-oppose-reading/

The National Council of Teachers of English wants to ‘decenter’ book-reading and essay-writing as the fundamentals of English class. This is a mistake.  

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has proclaimed that it is time “to decenter book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” Apparently, they don’t teach irony in English classes anymore.

The argument in the statement isn’t new. At the turn of the century, John Dewey, a central figure in progressive education, argued that the industrial revolution necessitated a “new education.” Now, the NCTE argues that “as society and technology change, so too does literacy,” and so we English teachers must focus on videos, gifs, memes, and other media.

They absolutely shouldn’t, though. Society might change, but the cognitive architecture of our brains does not. We need explicit instruction, repeated practice, phonics, a broad base of knowledge, and models to read and reason clearly. As they did centuries ago, students must grapple with rigorous, thematically rich texts to develop the capacity for critical thought, just as anyone must strain against weights to build muscle.

Similarly, technology changes, but great ideas don’t. When I was a student, blogging and Myspace were the hot new technologies. Anything I could teach my current students about the use of social media or software will be outdated by the time they mature. However, the wisdom in great literature and the warnings and exemplars found in historical texts are timeless.

Ultimately, the insular focus on present issues and contemporary media within the NCTE statement is self-defeating. If anything, to face the challenges of the future, students will need the lessons of the past. If we value self-control with social media, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the perfect warning against enslavement to passions. If we want eloquence, students need models in beautiful prose. If we want them to identify bias, they must familiarize themselves with the arguments and first principles that occur over and again throughout time.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Panic at St. Vincent What did David Azerrad’s talk force his liberal arts audience to see? It helped pull back a veil, revealing that to be “antiracist” means, by the antiracists’ own tortured logic, to be anti-white. By Keith Whitaker

By on April 24th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/22/panic-at-st-vincent/

On April 9-11, the Center for Political and Economic Thought (CPET) at St. Vincent College held a conference on “Panic, Policy, and Politics.” I was an invited speaker.

When I first read the proposed schedule, I saw that nearly half the presentations focused on the panicked response to COVID. That made sense, and was a welcome correction to the one-sided embrace of COVID policy in academia and the media. My own talk was on financial panic, of the sort that hit the United States in 2008. Other presentations addressed information manipulation, Big Tech, and education in the context of madness and hatred.

I did wonder at one title, that of David Azerrad’s talk: “Black Privilege: Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America.” Black privilege, in the form of racial preferences in education, employment, and even speech, seemed to me the product of purposeful thought, activism, and indoctrination over decades, not panic. How would this talk fit within the conference theme?

As things turned out, it fit extraordinarily well. Azerrad’s talk was the only one that generated something like panic.

St. Vincent’s administration sent an armed guard to Azerrad’s presentation, and only his. After the talk, the administration hastily forbade CPET from publishing the videos of all the presentations. They relented a few days later in the face of outcries over academic freedom. Still, the college dean was required to publish a Soviet-style “regret” that more or less labeled Prof. Azerrad a bigot. One of the college’s trustees gave an interview to the local paper calling the talk “rage-inducing.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Is Running This Show, Anyway? Things boil down to a question of “Who rules”? Is it the people or a hive of bureaucratic would-be experts? By Roger Kimball

By on April 24th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/23/who-is-running-this-show-anyway/

Some people, including me, are inclined to disparage social media as an insidious and anencephalic force. Insidious it may be, but it is not entirely brainless. As proof, I offer the fact that I just learned the valuable word “quockerwodger” from a Tweet proffered by a friend. Who or what is a quockerwodger? It is, my friend observed, the perfect word to describe the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, to wit, “a puppet figure or individual whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.”

Everyone knows this. Who or what that “someone else” is remains something of a mystery. As I have had occasion to observe in this space and elsewhere, I am wont to refer to this puppet magisterium as “The Committee.” I do not know who populates this agency or even whether it is a deliberate body or merely an anonymous aggregation of shared sentiment. 

It could certainly be more expert. If it were, Joe Biden’s verbal emissions would be less incontinent and more truthful. He would not, for example, say that he had “flown over every major wildfire” in the country. The puppeteer would have pulled up on the mouth string when Biden claimed to have traveled 17,000 miles in the “foothills of the Himalayas” with Xi Jinping. 

The puppeteer could be more adroit, but no one can doubt his presence, whoever or whatever he is. 

The late political commentator Joe Sobran called this locationless body “the Hive.” Just as in a beehive, Sobran observed, members of the coven feel they are free, yet their attitudes and behavior are utterly predictable. “Liberals laugh at conspiracy theories that assume that because there is a pattern there must be some central control; but the fact that there is no central control doesn’t mean that there is no pattern.”

Sobran is especially good on the honey that coats the Hive’s often unspoken program. “By using pragmatic language for its agenda,” he notes, “the Hive misleads the general public about its ultimate goals.”

It gains power as ordinary people adopt its language without grasping the implications. After all, who could oppose such worthy causes as ‘civil rights,’ ‘a woman’s right to choose,’ ‘protecting our children’ and ‘saving the environment’? The news media use the buzzwords of the Hive so habitually that they have become virtual organs of the Hive.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

STANDING WITH DESANTIS The Stop W.O.K.E. Act has been signed into law. Chris Rufo

By on April 24th, 2022

Last December, I traveled to Florida to help introduce the Stop W.O.K.E. Act with Governor Ron DeSantis. Yesterday, I traveled back to the Sunshine State to celebrate the signing of that historic legislation, which bans schools, corporations, and government agencies from promoting race essentialism, collective guilt, and racialist abuse.

During the event in Hialeah, I delivered a speech outlining the threat of critical race theory in education and business, explaining to the predominantly Cuban audience that replacing “equality” with “equity” will lead to disaster, as many of their families had experienced in communist Latin America. Governor DeSantis praised my work, telling the audience that nobody has done more to “raise the alarm,” “educate people,” and “ make an impact” on public policy.

The Stop W.O.K.E. Act is a huge step forward in our campaign to defeat critical race theory. Governor DeSantis has proven himself to be the most effective political leader in the country and I was proud to stand beside him during yesterday’s historic events.

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