RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/article/stop-stop-aapi-hate

America’s latest era of racial turmoil has been a boon to many organizations. Black Lives Matter is merely the highest-profile group to claim the mantle of authority on racism, while bringing in millions of dollars in contributions. Stop AAPI Hate (AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander), purporting to be the leading authority on “anti-Asian hate crimes,” has followed BLM’s model, promoting the story that America is racist toward Asians. Its motto reflects that mission: it seeks to “advance equity, justice, and power by dismantling systemic racism.”

Stop AAPI Hate’s first cause for suspicion is its loftiness. Asians in America don’t need a victimhood narrative: they are, in broad demographic terms, flourishing in the United States. This does not mean, of course, that prejudice against them does not exist. It certainly does, but AAPI and like-minded groups have little or nothing to say about its most substantive manifestations. To the extent that Asian Americans are experiencing racism, it’s either coming directly from progressive elites (as in college admissions policies that have discriminated against Asian students) or is only selectively discussed by progressive elites (as in the case of violence against Asians, which the Left is interested in blaming only on whites). What Stop AAPI Hate does choose to focus on is subjective, to say the least, and tailored to fit a desired political narrative.

Stop AAPI Hate’s selling point to the public and to its funders is its database of anti-Asian hate crimes, which documents a rise in violence against Asian Americans in 2020 and 2021. “New Data Shows that Asian Americans Remain Under Attack,” reads an August 12, 2021, press release.

The methodology underlying these data is flawed. For one, it is self-reported to the group through surveys that it administers, via its website. The alleged increase in hate crimes comes from more people reporting to Stop AAPI Hate about hate crimes. A self-reinforcing bias could be at work here: the more attention that Stop AAPI Hate and others draw to racism narratives, the more incentive people have to characterize threats against them as racist.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/11/the-dangers-of-good-intentions/

There have been many attempts to explain the ascendency of wokeness – that extreme, irrational and unreasonable ideology that has taken over our institutions. Some blame postmodern relativism. Others point to the left’s cultural turn, which has entrenched new forms of identity politics. Add to this the different mindset of newer generations – Millennials and Generation Z are accused of being more sensitive and censorious than their forebears – and the emergence of social media, which have polarised and poisoned political discourse. These explanations are okay. But another reason is seldom mentioned. The truth is, wokeness was allowed to take over.

It was allowed to happen because today’s fanatics appeared to begin with good intentions. They called for tolerance towards gay people and those who don’t conform to gender roles. They were nominally against racism. They wanted to ‘save the planet’. Who could have argued with such noble, commonplace sentiments when they were initially being uttered 20-odd years ago? Few did. It was obviously all well-meaning and nice. And that was why so many let their guard down.

Twenty-odd years later, when much woke-think has become mainstream and even enshrined in law, we must rue forgetting that old adage: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That is the lesson of history. Beware pious idealists with good on their side, boasting ostentatiously of their righteousness and compassion, for they are tomorrow’s fanatics and tyrants. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in 1883: ‘Where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate? And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?’

Wokery, including its allied movement of radical environmentalism, emerged a few decades after the fall of a genuine form of ideological totalitarianism: Soviet and Eastern Bloc Communism. From the early 1920s to the mid 1950s, this had seemed an attractive prospect to both insiders and outsiders on account of its good intentions. Yet it went bad from very early on, and it was partly allowed to do so because its crimes and misdeeds were for the ‘greater good’ and therefore excused. George Orwell became attuned to this barbaric, exculpatory mindset during the Spanish Civil War. He satirised it in Animal Farm, with its deluded cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, working themselves to death for an apparently noble cause.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-the-cowardice-of-american-scientists

Why do mRNA Covid jabs cause myocarditis and autoimmune diseases?

What is the impact of the unusual immune system changes they provoke?

Do their risks increase with each dose, and if so, does offering them to anyone now make sense?

Most of all, are the shots safe long-term?

None of these questions have quick answers. mRNA shots are hugely complex, and scientists have almost no long-term data on them. Before 2020 they were just another unproven biotechnology slowly moving through early-stage human trials.

But answers must be found. Over one billion people received the mRNAs, making them maybe the largest medical experiment ever. It is now clear the clinical trials from Pfizer and Moderna missed crucial risks and side effects, including menstrual disruption, myocarditis and other cardiovascular problems, and autoimmune crises.

Some scientists are trying to perform the crucial work that’s needed.

In only the last few weeks, researchers in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Italy have published papers suggesting mRNA-caused myocarditis is more common and may hurt the heart for longer than previously known, while South Korean cardiologists reported almost two dozen fatal mRNA-caused myocarditis cases.

Only yesterday, immunologists in Hungary reported the mRNAs over time cause people to produce more of a type of antibody that does not destroy the coronavirus, building on findings last winter from German researchers.

Meanwhile, Japanese scientists have published many studies and case reports on potential autoimmune side effects of the mRNAs, including thyroid disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-iran-envoy-to-teach-at-princeton-while-fbi-investigates-him-for-mishandling-classified-info/

One nation. Two sets of rules.

We already know what happens if you’re accused of mishandling classified information while being a conservative or an ordinary person. Here’s what happens when you’re a member of the ‘party’.

Robert Malley, an Obama campaign advisor dumped over meetings with Hamas, then brought back and elevated through the National Security Council despite a history of terrorist sympathies and a background that would give any self-respecting official in charge of national security clearances a severe fit, had his security clearance suspended while the FBI investigated the Iran envoy for alleged mishandling of classified information.

None of this was announced. Obviously. Instead, the Biden administration lied to senators to imply that Malley wasn’t taking part in negotiations because he had medical issues, and maintained an official listing of Malley as the Iran envoy even though he couldn’t properly fulfill that function. When the story leaked, there were no apologies, just the pretense that everything was completely normal.

Malley’s security clearance appears to have been suspended in late April or early May. A U.S. official said he went on a partial paid personal leave in late April. But until late June, Malley continued doing State Department work, including giving media interviews.

Malley’s changing role first drew attention from Congress when he didn’t participate in a May 16 briefing to senators.

When lawmakers’ offices asked about Malley’s absence, “We were told, ‘It’s extended personal leave’ with hints of, ‘Well, you know, it’s medical, we can’t talk about it,’” a Hill staffer told POLITICO. “It was deliberately done as a hand-waving thing.” Another congressional staffer said they received a similar response. Officials at State also told journalists Malley had taken a personal leave.