Displaying posts published in

June 2024

Cultural Marxism: A Century Old and Thriving The Marxist notion that traditional culture is the source of oppression in the modern world is still very much with us. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/27/cultural-marxism-a-century-old-and-thriving/

In 1923, a group of professors known as the Frankfurt School came to the fore. These German Marxists—notably Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse—harbored a deep disdain for capitalism and traditional morals. Unfortunately, the professors did not stay in their homeland long. Adolph Hitler’s rise to power forced them out of Germany, and they reemerged at Columbia University in New York City in 1935.

And a century later, the malign effects of their teachings are still with us.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory (CRT), Black Lives Matter (BLM), gender indoctrination, wokeism, etc., fade in and out of the news cycle, but they have established a secure foothold in the nation’s culture, notably in our schools.

Cultural Marxism is still pervasive in a significant number of our colleges. In Illinois, legislators want to embed racial considerations into state appropriations for public universities. According to its website, Yale’s Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry faculty are told to place “DEI at the center of every decision” when making hires.

There are a few bright spots, however. Public universities in Texas, Florida, and Utah have banned DEI. However, those decisions came from state governments, not from the colleges themselves.

At MIT, a private university, President Sally Kornbluth confirmed in May that the school would “no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring.”

Also, according to an analysis from OpenTheBooks.com, the University of North Carolina spends an estimated $90 million each year on 686 employees who promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in their departments or across the system. But change is on the horizon. In a repudiation of DEI ideology, the UNC Board of Governors voted on May 23 to repeal its diversity policy.

Stop the Ukrainian Meatgrinder? The only practicable way to avoid another near-one million dead and wounded would be a settlement, however unpopular. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/27/stop-the-ukrainian-meatgrinder/

Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.

Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.

In the West, the mere mention of a negotiated settlement is considered a dangerous appeasement of Russia’s flagrant aggression. In Russia, anything short of victory would be seen as synonymous with the collapse of the Putin regime.

Yet as the war nears two and a half years this summer, some facts are no longer much in dispute.

Controversy still arises over the circumstances of the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia charges that the West engineered the “Revolution of Dignity”—an effort to westernize the former Soviet republic, to expand the borders of Europe right to the doorstep of Russia, and eventually to fully arm Ukraine as a member of NATO.

Westerners counter that most Ukrainians wished to be part of Europe and independent from Russian bullying—and they had a perfect right to ask to join either NATO or the EU or both despite anticipated escalating tensions.

After the heroic Ukrainian defeat of the 2022 Russian bid to take Kyiv, there have been few significant territorial gains by either side.

Like the seesaw bloodbath on the Western Front of World War I, neither side has developed the momentum to force the other to negotiate or grant concessions.

As nuclear Russian threats against Europe mount, NATO is seeking to regain deterrence capabilities by boosting defense budgets, incorporating robust frontline nations Sweden and Finland, and uniting over shared concerns about Russian aggression.