RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2024/06/237388/

The Hon. Tony Abbott was Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015

With most conservative parties split between populist and establishment wings, and with the West challenged in ways not seen in almost a century, John O’Sullivan’s Sleepwalking into Wokeness: How We Got Here‘s collection of essays is both timely and instructive. Indeed, there are few better placed to reflect on the travails of the Anglosphere than O’Sullivan, who has been a key conservative intellectual for over four decades. He was Margaret Thatcher’s speech writer at the time of her Bruges oration that marked the beginning of a credible Brexit movement. In America, he edited National Review for a decade. In Canada, he helped to found the National Post newspaper. And in Australia he edited Quadrant for two years. He now runs the Danube Institute in Budapest (where I am a visiting fellow), a think-tank bringing conservative perspectives to economic, social and strategic issues; striving, in particular, to reconcile economic liberalism with social conservatism in ways that “unite the right”. 

This compilation of essays testifies to a depth of insight and consistency of purpose, as well as being a good commentary on many of the big issues since Thatcher’s time. O’Sullivan brings a well-stocked mind and a genial temperament to everything he discusses. As Rod Dreher writes in his foreword, he “has a conservative’s capacity to perceive the severity of the problems about which he writes, with an Englishman’s ability to maintain good humour and sound judgment when everyone else around him wallows in despondency”. As well, he’s great on memorable quotes. A couple of examples: from Disraeli, he gives us the injunction to “read biography, for that is life without theory”; and from Thatcher, this riposte: “Reactionary? Well, there’s a lot to react against.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/08/solzhenitsyn-and-the-life-of-truth/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

What The Gulag Archipelago still teaches, 50 years later

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s deteriorating health leads his family and friends to expect that he may soon suffer the fate of Alexei Navalny.

A patriot, freedom fighter, and dissident, Navalny died in February in a remote Russian prison north of the Arctic Circle. Whether directly or nearly directly killed, his life ended under the brutal conditions of his unlawful imprisonment. Navalny fiercely criticized and opposed Vladimir Putin’s illegitimate government, including its political repression, its deep corruption, and its unjust war on Ukraine.

A successful man of means, Navalny could have chosen a comfortable life. He could have benefited financially under or quietly complied with Putin’s dictatorship — or permanently left Russia. But he wanted a better future for his country: one that would be free, democratic, and happy. He became an opposition leader. For the better part of 20 years, he endured arrests, detentions, prison stays, frequent harassment, curbs on his speech and movement, and permanent damage to his eyesight from acid thrown in his face. His response while recuperating in Germany after being poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok: “I will not give Putin the gift of not returning to Russia.” He knew that returning to Russia would mean immediate arrest, fabricated charges, a show trial, and unjust imprisonment. Navalny left his wife and children — safely, he hoped — in the West and returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested, underwent a show trial, and died of “natural causes” at the age of 47 in the infamous penal colony IK-3.

Kara-Murza, 42, also stands against Putin’s regime. The son of a journalist who was an outspoken critic of Leonid Brezhnev and later Putin, Kara-Murza is, among other things, a historian of Soviet-era dissidents. Like Navalny, Kara-Murza cheated death and still suffers the ill effects of poisoning at the hands of the Russian state, in his case on two occasions. Like Navalny, he left his wife and children — safely, he hopes — in the West and returned to Russia to work for civil society, freedom, and democracy. Like Navalny, he knew that a denial of due process and a lengthy prison sentence awaited him.

In spring 2022, many pleaded with Kara-Murza not to return to Russia after he spoke the truth about its invasion of Ukraine: “These are war crimes that are being committed by the dictatorial regime in the Kremlin against a nation in the middle of Europe.” For years, he had been speaking the truth about the Kremlin — from Putin’s nonconstitutional retention of the presidency and aggregation of political power to the regime’s chronic violations of human rights to the mounting number of its political prisoners. Each instance enlarged the target on Kara-Murza’s back. Yet, as he recently explained, “if you call on people to stand against the authoritarian regime, you cannot do it from a safe distance — you have to share the risks with your compatriots.” The current place of residence for this Russian-British citizen with three American-born children is Russia’s Penal Colony No. 7, where he is serving a 25-year sentence for the fabricated crime of treason.

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27834/chapter-22-what-is-social-justice

The inherent child abuse in Drag Queen Story Hour described by Charlotte Cushman in Chapter 21 is part of the greater Marxist social justice campaign that is attacking America through politicized education in both public and private schools. Cushman defines social justice and explains its political objective in the social justice link[i] on her Authentic Montessori Education[ii] website:

What Is Social Justice?

Social justice is grounded in Marxism, the ideology of communism. Marxists seek to destabilize society so that they can take power. They want an unstable population so they create an educational system that keeps the population uneducated and weak. Then they create constant conflict which results in revolutions. The conflict created is over the issue of oppression. Marxists hold that society is divided into two classes, the oppressed and the oppressors, and seek to take from the oppressors to give to the oppressed. They attempt to make the “oppressors” feel riddled with guilt so that they will cooperate more easily when discriminated against.

Social justice claims that certain groups are inherently evil. For example, they claim that all people that are white are racist. It places groups higher than individuals, and holds that all groups should be equal. If there are any disparities in group outcomes, it is attributed to discrimination and group injustice rather than individual choices and actions, and therefore the more successful groups need to be punished. This results in groups constantly fighting with each other. Currently, social justice sees America as inherently racist and it therefore holds that our country must be dismantled (also known as the Great Reset).

The American ideal of individual justice is equality under the law regardless of group affiliation—such as race, sex, religion, etc.—whereas social justice seeks to reward or punish individuals based on their group affiliation. Actual justice means that every individual must be judged for who he/she is and treated accordingly. If individuals work to earn their living, they can keep the fruits of their labor. If individuals violate the rights of others (stealing, murder, etc.), it means the violators go to jail.

Justice applies to everyone. Therefore, to add the concept “social” is an attempt to change the meaning of justice from equality under the law to equity, equity meaning everyone has a right to something whether or not he has earned it. That requires the use of force to take from one person for the benefit of another. This is racist and the very antithesis of justice. The real purpose of social justice in education is to change innocent children into racists. This will assure class (group) struggles and conflict.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/how_the_west_was_lost_at_oxford_university.html

Once upon a time, we were told that the peoples of the Western world — which includes countries like Australia and New Zealand, although located in the Eastern Hemisphere — are heirs and trustees of Western civilization, imbalances and excesses included.  Often referred to simply as “the West,” Western civilization is a broad concept used to understand the cultural, social, political, and economic norms, traditions, values, and institutions that originated in or are associated with Europe.  It has its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome as well as in Christianity, humanism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. It values rationalism, democracy, and individual freedoms and rights.

Later on, Marxist and otherwise far-left historians argued that the history of the West is marked by exploitation and conflict among different social classes, from feudal lords and serfs in the Middle Ages to capitalists and workers in the modern era.  Marxists, in particular, introduced the concept of cultural hegemony, formulated by Antonio Gramsci to describe ideological domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.  In other words, according to this type of approach, the dominant cultural norms and values of Western civilization serve to maintain the power of the ruling class.

As of now, the left-wing narrative is that Western civilization is an illusion.  Postmodern and deconstructionist historians have claimed that the West is a late invention of the 18th-century philosopher. Skeptical of the grand narratives that have historically been used to describe Western civilization, such as progress, enlightenment, etc., they argue that these narratives often oversimplify complex histories and marginalize alternative perspectives.

It is in this context that the new book How the World Made the West, written by Josephine Quinn, professor of ancient history at Oxford University, needs to be read.  It’s aimed to bring to fulfillment the goal and the dream of legions of leftists the world over and from time immemorial.  Quinn’s purpose is not to trash what generations of schoolchildren and college students have been taught to take pride in as Western values and achievements.  Rather, she wants to demolish the underlying concept of what she calls “civilizational thinking,” which suggests that there is no such thing as “Western civilization.”  By the way, as she puts it, this “civilizational thinking” provided the cultural rationale for western European supremacy during the 19th century, enabling colonial expansion and racial hierarchies.

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27820/chapter-21-montessori-and-drag-queen-story-hour

For readers who may be under the impression that private schools are exempt from the humanitarian hoax of whole child education and its sociopolitical intent, I have included an informative article written by retired Montessori educator Charlotte Cushman, published online in American Thinker[i] and on her website, Authentic Montessori Education,[ii] on January 21, 2023.

Charlotte Cushman taught the Montessori Method for over 40 years, and co-owned and operated two Montessori schools. She is appalled by today’s woke (Marxist) trend in Montessori, and advocates a return to authentic Montessori and its founder’s principles:

Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom, a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear. ––Maria Montessori

The Real Purpose of Drag Queen Story Hour

By Charlotte Cushman

Those who have voiced concerns about the dangers that drag events, such as Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), pose for children (namely, sexualization and grooming) have been told that those concerns are baseless, that the events are harmless, that it is all just entertainment and fun, and that attending drag events is a way to understand the gay culture.

On January 25, 2021 an academic paper entitled “Drag pedagogy: the playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood” was published online in Curriculum Inquiry, an educational journal. The paper, recently called out by James Lindsay here and here and also by Christopher F. Rufo here, was written by Harper Keenen and Lil Miss Hot Mess (a founder of DQSH), who describe themselves as “a genderqueer drag performer/scholar and a trans scholar.” (p. 443)

Right off the bat, the abstract tells us the purpose of DQSH:

Ultimately, the authors propose that “drag pedagogy” provides a performative approach to queer pedagogy that is not simply about LGBT lives, but living queerly. (p. 440)

Then the authors state,

Through this programme, drag artists…[are] positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education. We are guided by the following question: what might Drag Queen Story Hour offer educators as a way of bringing queer ways of knowing and being into the education of young children?

https://townhall.com/columnists/horacecooper/2024/06/01/living-in-a-free-society-is-not-a-passive-endeavor-n2639748#google_vignette

For years, the progressive Left, ambitious self-serving politicians, and the elites of the administrative state have chipped away at the American dream, the promise of opportunity, and the shared reverence for the founding principles of our society that once propelled our success. Though it may seem like America is beyond saving, the best days of America are yet to come, says George Landrith, all we have to do is let freedom ring…again.

George Landrith III’s “Let Freedom Ring… Again: Can Self-Serving Truths Save America from Further Decline?” is an exceptionally compelling work that portrays the uncertainty of America’s future and the urgency with which we must act to save America from its current trajectory into darkness. The book, filled with insightful thoughts from Landrith, skillfully diagnoses the problems afflicting American politics and the Left at large while also providing carefully crafted solutions that offer hope for a better future.

Throughout the book, Landrith accurately exposes the Left’s parasitic relationship with their voters. From enticing welfare programs to failing schools, “Whenever leftists propose a solution to society’s problems, they make themselves more powerful and/or they make the people more dependent,” says Landrith.

This intentional feat of Leftist policy is best seen in California, where not so long ago Governor Gavin Newsom passed California’s AB5. In an effort to “protect workers,” California essentially banned independent contractors, forcing small businesses to hire people they can’t afford, putting gig workers like independent truckers out of the job. Indeed, since its inception, AB5 has destroyed self-employment, making exodus or welfare the only option for many Californians.

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27806/chapter-20-in-their-own-words-the-sexual

Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com 

Planned Parenthood[i] is the instrument of “transformative sexual change” in the United States. Marketed as scientificand evidence-based, transformative sexual change advocates changing restrictive laws that hinder the exercise of reproductive rights, and transforming social norms that perpetuate prejudices on reproductive rights. Over 40 percent of the organization’s revenue comes from your tax dollars in the form of government reimbursements and grants. Planned Parenthood (PP) is a political organization that disguises its political agenda as health education. My last book, The Collapsing American Family: From Bonding to Bondage (Chapter 10, “The Scheme and the Schemers Determined to Reeducate America”), exposes Planned Parenthood’s infiltration of the classroom, and its catastrophic Marxist agenda.

In an August 20, 2020, Daily Signal article, “Problematic Women: Planned Parenthood Ideology ‘Killing the Family,’ Ex-Volunteer Says,”[ii] Monica Cline, former volunteer and “comprehensive sex educator” at Planned Parenthood, is quoted. She explains how children were being pressured and deliberately sexualized in school because no adult was offering them the alternative of abstinence.

At one point she asks a group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, “Guys, do you realize you don’t have to have sex? You don’t have to have oral sex, vaginal sex, or anal sex. And if you don’t, you never have to come in contact with someone else’s body fluids.” A little girl raised her hand and said, “Ma’am, no one has ever told us that.” That was the turning point for Monica Cline. She finally and fully understood:

There is a “huge movement to normalize childhood sex.” The sex education program of Planned Parenthood is “encouraging children to dehumanize themselves and each other, making them sexually active at a young age, normalizing every sexual behavior…. By doing that those children become dependent on getting condoms and contraceptives and getting treated, and yes, even getting abortions. And so, once that dependency occurs, and the parent who is purposely left out of the picture, there’s no one else who’s really guiding those children…. They empathize with them and say, “Oh, yeah. Your mom and dad would probably be really mad to know you are sexually active. But we know it is perfectly normal, and we’re here to help you.” … It sounds so positive. But what they are really doing is creating a barrier between a family and their child, the guidance of a parent.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From former New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles, a look at how some of the most educated people in America lost their minds—and how she almost did, too.

As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco  neighbors and friends—until she started questioning  whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on the wrong side of history,” Bowles did what any reporter worth her salt would do: she started investigating for herself. The answers she found were stranger—and funnier—than she expected.

In Morning After the Revolution, Bowles gives readers a front-row seat to the absurd drama of a political movement gone mad. With irreverent accounts of attending a multiday course on “The Toxic Trends of Whiteness,” following the social justice activists who run “Abolitionist Entertainment LLC,” and trying to please the New York Times’s “disinformation czar,” she deftly exposes the more comic excesses of a movement that went from a sideshow to the very center of American life.

Deliciously funny and painfully insightful, Morning After the Revolution is a moment of collective psychosis preserved in amber. This is an unmissable debut by one of America’s sharpest journalists.