NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

CAN WE PLEASE DITCH THE TERM “SYSTEMIC RACISM”? As a linguist I know we can’t, but systemic racial inequities can almost never be undone by “getting rid of the racism.” John McWhorter

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

ttps://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/can-we-please-ditch-the-term-systemic?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5

The Elect are direly committed to teaching us the difference between personal racism and systemic racism. It is considered the fulcrum of true wokeness to understand that racism is systemic, with the idea that to understand this is to have achieved a maximal comprehension of sorts, a kind of pure, Kantian wisdom from which we can proceed to … well, celebrating one another for having achieved it, roasting those who seem not to have, and calling that “antiracism.”

But if the mantra is that what we need to do to solve black America’s problems is “get rid of systemic racism,” we’re in trouble. That analysis, be it explicit or tacit, is based on a third-grader’s understanding of how a society works. More importantly, that analysis does not help black people and often hurts us.

* * *

First let’s review what systemic racism means. There are inequities between whites and blacks. The reason is not that blacks are inherently less capable than whites. This presumably means that the discrepancies are traceable to devaluation of black people of some kind at some point in the pathway. This devaluation, even if not conscious, is a kind of racism, and this means that the society “is racist.” Thus the way to get rid of this kind of discrepancy is to undo the racism in the system.

But note that if we take this as a succession of logical statements rather than as a musical sequence valuable primarily because the term racism is intoned within it, then we hit a snag. Just what do we do to undo “racism” that is bound up in a complex system, and especially given that the system has a past that is unreachable to us now, as well as a present?

Here, The Elect burn to insist that, well, systemic racism exists anyway! And you the reader may want to reiterate that systemic racism exists. It does. There are indeed such discrepancies. The question is not whether they exist, but what one does about them.

“Undoing the racism in the system,” in this light, is word magic, not an intelligent prescription for change in the real world. Grouchy? Not really – just grounded. Here’s an example.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Latest Jobs Whopper Now he’s just making it up. By James Freeman

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-latest-jobs-whopper-11620685389?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

President Joe Biden’s empty boasts about his economic plan are going to make Americans long for the understatement of Donald Trump. They may already be longing for Trump-era policies on job creation.

One Trump proposal that never came to fruition is nonetheless instructive in demonstrating the modesty of the Trump economic team compared with the Biden braggadocio.

In March of 2018, the Trump White House’s Council of Economic Advisers sketched out a plan and described the likely results:

In this paper, CEA investigates the likely impacts from a comprehensive public infrastructure program. The program includes a 10-year, $1.5 trillion program of infrastructure investment as well as new administrative and regulatory policies intended to increase efficiency and speed delivery of infrastructure projects…
The President’s plan would likely result in the employment of 290,000 to 414,000 additional infrastructure workers, on average, over a 10-year window, although these employment gains may be offset by losses elsewhere in the economy.

As President, Mr. Trump did implement some valuable regulatory reforms, but never reached an agreement with Congress on new infrastructure spending. Now consider the $2.7 trillion Biden plan, which doesn’t include the Trump regulatory reform agenda and spends far more in total but less on actual infrastructure. On Thursday in Lake Charles, Louisiana President Joe Biden said, according to the official White House transcript:

Everything we’re — we’re gone through is now the, sort of — the blinders have been taken off the American people. They know how bad of shape things are in. But it creates — if we move — all the economists, including the liberal as well as conservative think tanks, point out what we’ll create when we pass this Jobs Plan — we’ll create up to 16 million good-paying jobs. Not $8 an hour or $12, not $15 — prevailing wage jobs. Wages you can raise a family on.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Appropriating ‘Apartheid’ to Bash Israel Human Rights Watch traduces the sacred memories of South African victims. By Warren Goldstein

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/appropriating-apartheid-to-bash-israel-11620663819?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

“So why the lie? Because Human Rights Watch seeks to delegitimize Israel, to portray it falsely as a state founded on the cardinal sin of racism, thereby denying it the moral right to exist.”

Johannesburg, South Africa

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of apartheid. Yet in making the accusation in an April 27 report, the group brazenly acknowledges that it has “detached the term apartheid from its original South African context.”

This is immoral. “Apartheid” has a sacred historical meaning, sanctified by the blood and suffering of millions of South Africans who were oppressed and discriminated against on the basis of race. In appropriating the word, Human Rights Watch presents a grotesquely distorted picture of both South African history and the current reality in Israel.

Apartheid was a state-enforced national system of racial discrimination that manifested in a slew of oppressive laws aimed at obliterating the human rights of an entire race—among them the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act, and the Separate Amenities Act. Black South Africans were denied the vote and equality before the law until 1994.

In contrast, within the borders of the state of Israel, all citizens—Jews, Arabs or otherwise—have the right to vote and complete equality before the law. They participate side by side in elections, and Israeli Arabs hold high-ranking positions throughout the Israeli government, including the Knesset and the Supreme Court. After the recent election, an Arab-led party holds the balance of power in the Knesset, and it was an Arab judge that convicted former Israeli president Moshe Katzav.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Afghanistan’s Terror Future Emboldened militants kill dozens of schoolgirls in Kabul.

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistans-terror-future-11620679849?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan undermines American security interests, but the humanitarian disaster may be more immediate. The attack on a school in Kabul over the weekend is a likely preview.

Even in Afghanistan, Saturday’s bombings stood out as particularly depraved. It began when a suicide bomber detonated a car at the gates of a mixed-gender school. As surviving students fled, two more bombs exploded nearby. This left more than 80 dead and nearly twice as many wounded.

The bombings were timed to ensure that schoolgirls, who attend classes on a different schedule than boys, were the primary victims. And it’s no accident that the attack took place in a predominantly Shiite Hazara part of Kabul. Religious minorities and women were among those who suffered the most under Taliban rule in the 1990s. They won’t fare any better if the group retakes control of the country.

Expect even more violence as U.S. and allied forces complete their withdrawal sometime this summer: Attacks on girls for going to school and on religious minorities simply for existing, and terrorist violence to scare anyone who thinks of resisting.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

New Scientific Scandal Shaking The Climate Alarm Industry Francis Menton

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-9-new-scientific-scandal-shakin

As readers at this site are well aware, the field of climate “science” and alarmism is subject to an extraordinary degree of orthodoxy enforcement, where all information supporting the official narrative gets enthusiastically promoted, while all information disagreeing with the official narrative gets suppressed or attacked. For just one recent example of the latter, see the Wall Street Journal editorial in the current weekend edition reporting on a bogus Facebook “fact check” of the Journal’s recent review of Steven Koonin’s new book “Unsettled.”

In this context, an article just out on May 6 in the journal Science is truly remarkable. The article is titled “Does ocean acidification alter fish behavior? Fraud allegations create a sea of doubt.” It has the byline of Martin Enserink, Science’s international news editor. Science has a long history of publishing every sort of climate alarmism, and of being an unreceptive forum for anything expressing any sort of skepticism, let alone alleging fraud in claims of climate alarm. Something serious must be going on here.

To get the significance of the recent developments, it is important to understand where assertions of “ocean acidification” fit into the field of climate alarm. The use of fossil fuels by humans generates CO2 that goes into the atmosphere. CO2 is a “greenhouse gas,” and many models project that increasing levels of CO2 will warm the atmosphere in some significant amount. Activists then assert many harmful effects from the hypothetical warming — not just hot days and heat waves, but everything from melting ice, rising seas, droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, you name it. All of these asserted effects arise from the initial step of atmospheric warming.

But what if the warming doesn’t happen, or turns out to be far less than the fear-mongers have projected? That’s where “ocean acidification” comes in. “Ocean acidification” is the one allegedly harmful effect of rising atmospheric CO2 that does not stem initially from warming temperatures. Instead, the idea is that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will somewhat increase the level of CO2 dissolved in the oceans, which in turn will lower the pH of the oceans. How much? Some projections suggest at the extreme end that average ocean pH may go down from a current 8.1 or so, all the way to maybe about 7.75 by 2100. If you know anything about this subject, or maybe took high school chemistry, you will know that pH of 7 is neutral, lower than 7 is acidic, and above 7 is basic. Thus a pH of 8.1 is not acidic at all, but rather (a little) basic; and a pH of 7.75 is somewhat less basic. The fact that anyone would try to apply the scary term of “ocean acidification” to this small projected shift toward neutrality already shows you that somebody is trying to manipulate the ignorant.

And besides, what’s wrong with a pH of 7.75? After all, pH of 7 is completely neutral — even if ocean pH went all the way down to that level (and not even the worst alarmists are claiming that it will), how could that possibly be harmful to any living thing?

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

As Biden Tries To Get the Band Back Together, Iran’s Ally Attacks By Benny Avni

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/as-biden-tries-to-get-the-old-band-back-together/9

Let’s retire the phrase “fake news.” The right word for the statements from the Biden White House, the State Department, the Europeans and the United Nations, all of whom are calling for a de-escalation of the violence in Jerusalem, is counterfactual. The fact is that the sudden escalation in violence, centered in a real estate dispute in east Jerusalem, is dictated, mostly, by Hamas.

The Gaza-based terror organization decides when to shoot and at what targets. It is in a fury because the Palestinian Authority decided to cancel a scheduled election that Hamas was predicted to win. Eventually Hamas will also decide to end the current round of hostilities and beg for a ceasefire. Israel will quickly abide. Meantime, Hamas has decided to turn its fire to Israel.

The terrorist organization hitched a ride on a confluence of events, including the end of the holy month of Ramadan; Arab unrest over a real estate dispute at East Jerusalem; Israel’s annual celebration of Jerusalem Day; and riots at the al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. On Monday, Hamas announced an ultimatum for Israel to end its activities on the Temple Mount by 6 p.m. local o’clock.

When the deadline arrived, the al Aqsa area was actually fairly quiet. Yet Hamas launched a barrage of missiles from Gaza a few seconds after the 6pm deadline. Seven missiles were aimed at Jerusalem, far beyond the usual targeting range. One missile fell in Kiryat Anavim. At the same time, several rockets were launched at Sderot and other towns near the Gaza border that are all too familiar with such attacks.

All this is unfolding amid one of the bitterest feuds in the history of parliamentary democracy — the scramble to try to form a new government. Despite this, Israeli politicians, almost to a man and woman, vowed to back the decisions to respond forcefully that are being made by the premier nearly everyone outside of Likud wants to replace, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defense minister.

DAVID'S SLINGSHOT DPS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tribalism has come to the West Hostile and polarized, today’s America reminds me of my Somalian clan Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://unherd.com/2021/05/tribalism-has-come-to-the-west/

About a decade ago, when I worked for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), I had to force myself to go to lunch with a friend. I dreaded the meeting because I knew that she was going to try to convince me to leave my job. AEI is a pro-business, conservative-leaning think tank in Washington, DC. My friend was an enthusiastic liberal.

After I had run out of excuses, the day arrived and, predictably, after a few minutes of the usual small talk, my friend launched into a tirade about the Iraq War, which several of my colleagues strongly supported.

“You don’t belong there, Ayaan,” she said.

I remember trying to steer the conversation on to actual policies. I had voted for supporting the American coalition in Iraq when I was a Member of Parliament in The Netherlands — and I started to explain why.

But she wasn’t interested in a rational discussion. She interrupted me mid-sentence, launching into a monologue about John Bolton, the former Ambassador to the United Nations and a fellow at AEI (and subsequently National Security Advisor to President Trump). Bolton, my friend insisted, was a loathsome, hateful, racist, neo-conservative warmonger. The list went on and on until eventually she said that he looked like a walrus with a moustache. You could tell by his physiognomy, she explained, that he was a psychopath.

“But what about the policies?” I responded, trying to redirect the conversation away from personalities. The more she spoke, the more I recognised her broad disposition as something I had experienced earlier in my life. Her attitude was almost entirely tribal. Two things, in particular, stood out: an almost blind hatred of a particular group (Republicans); and secondly, the use of deeply personal attacks on individual researchers to justify that hatred.

Today, ten years later, this attitude seems to be the prevailing norm. Numerous studies support the hypothesis that American life — not just politics, but life in general — has become deeply polarised. The deeply divided society we now live in increasingly reminds me of clan or tribal behaviour in Africa.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Realignment In the Middle East, Biden is finishing what Obama started. And his top advisers are all on board. By Michael Doran & Tony Badran

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/realignment-iran-bid

“Biden chose Iran, fracturing the U.S. alliance system and setting back the cause of peace. His choice also delivered a victory to China and Russia, who are working with Iran, each in its own way, toward America’s undoing. In a perverse effort to liberate itself from its allies, the United States is soiling its own nest.”

On Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan phoned his Israeli counterpart and turned back the hands of time. According to the American readout of the conversation, Sullivan called “to express the United States’ serious concerns” about two things: the pending eviction, by court order, of a number of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, and the weekend’s violent clashes on the Temple Mount between Israeli police and Palestinian rioters. The Biden administration, in other words, publicly asserted an American national interest in preventing the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, regardless of the dictates of Israeli law—just as Hamas was sending rockets and incendiary devices into Israel with the same message. This conscious effort to put “daylight” between the United States and Israel marked a clear return to the approach of President Barack Obama.

Sullivan’s call invites us to reopen an unresolved debate that began even before President Joe Biden took the oath of office. Is the new president forging his own path in the Middle East, or is he following in the footsteps of Obama? Until now, those who feared that his presidency might become the third term of Obama fixed their wary eyes on Robert Malley, the president’s choice as Iran envoy. When serving in the Obama White House, Malley helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, which sought accommodations with Tehran that came at the expense of America’s allies in the Middle East. In a revealing Foreign Affairs article, written in 2019, Malley expressed regret that Obama failed to arrive at more such accommodations. The direction of Obama’s policy was praiseworthy, Malley wrote, but his “moderation” was the enemy of his project. Being “a gradualist,” he presided over “an experiment that got suspended halfway through.”

Malley, the article leads one to assume, is now advising Biden to go all the way—and fast. But surely it is the president, not his Iran envoy, who determines the direction and pace of policy. Over the course of a career in Washington spanning nearly half a century, Biden has never cut a radical profile. Nor have Sullivan or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The presence of this pair at Biden’s side signaled to many that Malley would not drive Iran policy. Shortly after the election, a veteran Washington insider noted to a journalist that “Blinken and Sullivan are certainly from the more moderate wing of the party, and that is reassuring.”

At his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Blinken continued to reassure by expressing his intention to fix the defects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran nuclear deal is known. The following month, Foreign Policy reported that a split had opened up inside the government, with Sullivan and Blinken fulfilling the hopes placed on them. When Malley argued in favor of giving “inducements” to Iran to convince it to return quickly to the JCPOA, Sullivan and Blinken “dominated the discussion” by “toeing a harder line.”

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

There is a new way to smear Zionism – opinion Bashing nationalism is very desirable in academic circles these days, and bashing Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement is especially popular. By Moshe Phillips

Posted By on May 11th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/there-is-a-new-way-to-smear-zionism-opinion-667601

Jewish academic critics of Israel have come up with a new smear tactic: falsely portraying Jewish nationalism as being intimately tied to the evils of 19th-century “white-settler colonialism.”

That was the theme of a May 4 online program called “Baja California Dreaming: How US Settler Colonialism Shapes Jewish Nationalism,” hosted by the University of California at Davis. The featured speaker was Maxwell Greenberg, a doctoral candidate at UCLA, and the “respondent” was Sarah Imhoff, a professor at UC-Davis.

Greenberg’s remarks focused on a handful of American Jewish philanthropists in San Francisco who in the 1890s were looking for a way to save Russia’s Jews from the pogroms: the systemic, violent anti-Jewish riots of the time. These US Jews came up with the idea of purchasing some land in the Baja section of Mexico where Russian Jewish refugees could live and work.

But the plan never advanced past the point of a few discussions and a pamphlet or two. They didn’t purchase any land and they didn’t bring in any refugees. So why should anybody care about it today? Why did UC-Davis choose to feature the topic in its prestigious “New Directions in Jewish Studies” series, choosing Greenberg’s proposal from among 70 scholarly submissions?

Apparently because bashing nationalism is very desirable in academic circles these days, and bashing Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement is especially popular.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Michelle Claims to ‘Live in Fear,’ Barack Actually Does By Jack Cashill

Posted By on May 10th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/michelle_claims_to_live_in_fear_barack_actually_does.html

On Friday’s broadcast of “CBS This Morning,” Michelle Obama made the delusional claim, one among several, that “many of us still live in fear as we go to the grocery store, or walking our dogs, or allowing our children to get a license.”

Had Michelle attributed that fear to a wariness of black drive-by gang bangers or street muggers, it might have made some sense. But her fear, she implied, was of racist police.

Barack Obama knows better, but he has lived in fear as well. That fear deformed his presidency and sent the nation spiraling down a lethal rabbit hole that has benefited no one more than the Mao-loving matrons of BLM.  

Not surprisingly, as I learned in researching my forthcoming book, Barack Obama’s Promised Land: Deplorables Need Not Apply, there is no one Barack fears more than wife Michelle, his personal emissary from the world of authentic African-Americans.

In a May 2011 interview, activist professor Cornel West nailed Obama on this fear. “All he has known culturally is white,” said West. “He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.”

Obama had reason to be frightened. Following a Father’s Day speech by Obama at a largely black Chicago church in 2008, Jesse Jackson was heard on a hot mic at a Fox News studio saying, “See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based—I wanna cut his nuts out.”

Here Jackson made a sharp slicing motion with his hands and continued, “Barack—he’s talking down to black people—telling n*****s how to behave.”  In the original, as one might expect, Jackson did not speak in asterisks.

Obama had made the rookie mistake of attributing the absurd crime rate in America’s black neighborhoods to fatherlessness. Jackson, Chicago’s most prominent baby daddy, suggested that a leftward course correction was in order, and Obama cravenly obliged him.