Confirm RFK Jr. to HHS

 

The nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr to the office of Secretary of Health and Human Services opens this nation to a couple of positive and truly revolutionary potentials; not to mention it proves we were well advised to elect Donald Trump President. Keeping his word on this is a very big deal.

Robert Kennedy Jr., seems, to me, to be the most informed and seemingly well intention-ed advocate for the vigorous health of the America people on the current national stage. They try to slur him about vaccines from long ago, but it doesn't matter. When you listen to his expansive erudition on the subject you realize that slur is at worst a tiny wavelet compared to the veritable tsunami of knowledge and dare we say it, wisdom, he brings to the discussion about our national crisis of chronic disease. I expect him to be as good as his word, and sincerely work to empower us to greatly improve our national health.

While we can be pretty sure he will be resisted in his efforts by the most sluggish, corrupt and disobedient bureaucracy in the history of failing empires, that actually opens up the potential for truly revolutionary action when Robert Kennedy Jr. does become the head of HHS. If Secretary Kennedy produces some obviously beneficial policies (as I think, hope and expect he will ) a great many more than the 51% of the people who voted for this administration will probably favor the implementation of these policies as soon as possible. Especially if someone as persuasive as a Secretary Kennedy is making the case. Or going further, playing the role of a conductor of an orchestra of citizen activists.

Then, the revolution can really start. We simply empower the people, especially the people who interact with the bureaucrats as clients, by keeping them up to date on the latest policy edicts from the Secretary. Every recipient of services can be encouraged to know and assert their rights in dealing with a government employee or agency, and be empowered to identify agencies or individuals who seem to be tardy or lax in adhering to new directives from the secretary. In other words, we, the people can play a role in enforcing these new policies from the bottom up, if we have a mind to, and even more if the Secretary's office was helping coordinate bottom up enforcement. We could then deal with the state, as individuals, with the power of the state on our side for once. Then, with pressure for reform being exerted from both above and below, it is feasible that a corrupt center of a dying empire might possibly, this once, get beaten back by an aroused populace. Non-violent revolution indeed.

Which brings up the second revolutionary potential; being that his confirmation as Secretary of HHS will probably will be a positive development we, the people, should step up as one at this time to make sure he is confirmed. Consider this: Even before he joined with the Trump campaign, many people on both sides regarded Kennedy as a good, but impossible to elect, second choice. Almost every one who listens to him acknowledges he could do a lot of good in the areas of health and nutrition.

If everyone who in their heart agrees with Bobby Kennedy; agrees with him that it is past time we stand up to Big Pharma, would actually write their senator asking them to confirm him, he would win easily. All it will really take is for a lot of well meaning progressives to drop their unthinking resistance to every aspect of the incoming administration. Get over that paralyzing mind bias. Sure, Donald Trump won, and is going to have a lot of power, and that might be hard to take. So what?

The important thing at this point is to realize a lot of that power President Trump wields has to be delegated by him to the various secretaries of the various departments. Much real power is in the hands of those secretaries. In a lot of ways, we should think of it as though Robert Kennedy Jr. is running for President of the Department of Health and Human Services. Anyone who thinks he would make a good president of that department has one more chance to vote for him, and that is by writing a letter to each of your senators telling them your opinion. Especially if you are dyed deep in the wool blue in an ocean blue state. Any word from you in favor of Mr. Kennedy's confirmation will carry tremendous weight. Thus, the overwhelming influence of Big Pharma might actually be resisted and broken. That would also be revolutionary, in a good way.

These senators are under heavy pressure from their Big Pharma donors, and the only way to overcome that pressure from above is even greater pressure coming from below. Everyone, and that means every ding dang one of us has to contact their senators. If everyone who stands to benefit, or hopes to benefit, by Robert Kennedy Jr. being the head of HHS will make their voice heard between now and the confirmation hearings, it will be a truly revolutionary move because he should then easily win confirmation.

While that might seem an over confident assertion, consider how Mr. Kennedy has, in the last few months, improved American politics by re-inventing them., More accurately, he did it by re-introducing a long lost element of American politics; which is maneuvering across party lines with real working coalitions.

He started this cycle a Democrat, then went independent, and then threw his support (and supporters) to Trump with the understanding he would be named head of HHS. With that agreement and Kennedy's endorsement, the health issue swung in their direction in the hearts of (especially) White women. I do think the coalition of MAGA and MAHA is why Trump won, and it bodes well for our future.

For decades it has been loudly lamented by some that we don't really have meaningful political coalition building in our system, and because of that defect maybe a parliamentary system would be superior. That is an understandable but incorrect analysis because our system has, historically, been a cauldron of competing and combining coalitions. For some reason we stopped, for the most part, doing that kind of coalition building sometime in the 1930's

Many competing coalitions was certainly normal at the time of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Allen White, and many other Progressive characters. Minor parties would bargain with both major parties for accommodations and guarantees. The same held true during the era of the Whigs dying and the GOP being born. There was a convoluted, writhing mass of competing and cooperating coalitions, small parties and special interests.

Probably the central malfunction in our system of government for the last seven or so decades is that we have gotten trapped between these two permanently competing but completely moribund political coalitions. Our vaunted two party national divide. The political moves of both Robert Kennedy Jr. and President-elect Donald Trump have combined to break that trap and present us with a new/old way of doing politics. We would be wise to move into such a mode; wherein interest groups cohere within themselves enough that they can move, in a coordinated way, between the major parties. That way of doing things will tend to give more power to smaller voices, and put a premium on debate and persuasion. We can, as a people, endorse and further that mode change in our politics by getting Robert Kennedy Jr confirmed to be Secretary of HHS

So it has come to this, our true moment of revolution.

At this time, we the people must make our voices heard in the halls of congress. Anyone who is already convinced by having heard Mr. Kennedy speak regarding health, nutrition, and chronic disease, it is time for you, for once in your life, to send an actual letter to your senator. Both of them in fact, because all senators will vote for or against his confirmation.

For those of you who have never heard him speak to the issues, by all means find some of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s speeches online. I am confident most of you will come to agree with almost everything he says. When you do find yourself in agreement with him, then you also, for once in your life, should make your voice heard in the halls of congress. Write a senator or two.

Finally, let me further emphasize this point. Actually writing a letter (call, text, email X whatever, Make contact !!), at this time, on this one issue, is probably more important than any vote you have ever cast or will ever cast. There are some terrible and powerful forces arrayed against Mr. Kennedy, undoubtedly the most evil forces in history, well known to the Kennedy family. This is a real chance to defeat them, possibly the first and last chance we will ever have. If what Mr. Kennedy espouses is true, and it sounds logical and feels true to me, then we absolutely must reverse the chronic decline of our nation's health if we are to survive. Happily, Robert Kennedy Jr. is just the person to get that reversal accomplished.

Getting him confirmed gives us the first real hope we have ever had that we might get out from under the thumb of Big Pharma. Plus, it could move us into a coalition building mode, a much better mode, of American governance. Kennedy's only real protection against the onslaught of evil he faces, and thus his only real prospect of confirmation, is us; our prayerful, collective, vigilant, intentional and active participation as citizens of this blessed nation.

Write a letter. Confirm RFK Jr to HHS.

How 2 Undivide U.S.

 

I woke up with a sudden realization about our dire, and worsening, national problem of division. Considering we are supposed to be the United States of America, this problem of becoming ever more divided is a serious threat to our national existence. We will fall if we can't get past our great divisions and reunite as a people.

This flash of insight came, as such flashes often do, as a result not of bad pizza, but rather from a couple of things I watched last night before going to sleep, and which fermented in my mind all night.

Today is October 17, 2024, and last night I watched Brett Baier interview Kamala Harris on Fox News. She brought up the problem of divisiveness, and rhetorically laid it all at the feet of the ugly, insulting words spoken by Donald Trump. While former President Trump does say some things that deeply offend some folks, I remember divisive words uttered by Democrat presidents and leaders long before that. For instance, in 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama describing (in what was supposed to be a private meeting) conservative mid-westerners as “bitterly clinging to their guns and bibles.” That was divisive and insulting speech long before Trump entered politics.

After watching and digesting the interview, I slipped a DVD in to watch a movie, as is my habit many nights. Last night I watched “God's Not Dead 4, We the People.” Good movie.

One of the points this pro-home-schooling movie made was that one of the major reasons many Christian parents choose to home school is because the public schools insist that the children be taught moral relativism. That is the notion that there is not really any objective right or wrong.

I laid down with these ideas swirling around in my sleepy brain, and snapped awake this morning with a certain understanding that I had discerned the cause of our growing national division. It is not some politician hurling some vile insults. We have always had those, and never let them so divide us before. No, our great division has obviously grown out of the moral relativism which our children have been indoctrinated with lo these many years; at least thirty years by my reckoning, maybe more like fifty. This mindset divides us at the molecular level of society, causing each individual to be in it for themselves, answerable only to whatever rationalizations they concoct to justify their actions. This individualistic divisive mindset prevents almost any unifying sentiments from ever gaining traction.

This is a great crime we have allowed to be perpetrated on our young. In ancient Israel, in the various episodes when things were falling apart, one of the signs of total social collapse was that “men did that which was right in their own eyes.” In other words, they embraced moral relativism, and radical individualism, as both a cause and effect of national decline.

Our case is worse, because at least those ancient Israelis started out with objective moral standards, which they then rebelled against. Our young people seem to not even be aware there is such a thing as objective morality, (or think the concept is laughable) and are thus rendered almost incapable of the cultural unity necessary for self government. It is kind of like trying to make rice crispy squares, leaving out the marshmallow needed to hold the treat together, and wondering why, no matter how hard you press them, the individual grains won't stick together.

The one concept the young are taught as universally applicable is tolerance, amended by self esteem thinking, but that is not a glue to hold things together, rather it works as a sedative to allow us to feel okay about living in an increasingly crumbling society. If the next generations are going to sustain as a self governing republic they will have to do the hard work of finding some objective moral standard around which to adhere. They need to add some warmed marshmallows to the recipe to make the rice crispy squares edible.

While daunting, the task is not impossible because previous generations have dealt with the same problem, and came up with (more like inherited) a solution agreeable to all. We used to call it the “Golden Rule,” and it was taught in all our public schools. Simply stated, it goes like this. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

While at first blush this seems similar to the tolerance and self esteem taught these days, the difference between the two mindsets is profound. Tolerance and self esteem boils down to, at best, treat other people the way they treat you. So if folks are nice, be nice back. But if they are mean, it is okay to be even meaner back so as to stop them from being mean to you next time. With that philosophy guiding them, the gang and revenge violence so common today makes sense. Social life is put on a downward sliding spiral. One can often hear the young, in person and on the internet, justifying some random act of violence with the idea that the victim should not have said that, or been there, or should have known better. Thus our social matrix comes to resemble the world of Nietzsche's will to power. Whoever prevails must be the one in the right.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” boils down to “treat other people the way that you would want to be treated if you were them.” With this philosophy as a guide, the status of the other person, not my own desire for self indulgence, becomes the guiding thought. Social life is thereby put on an upward trending spiral. The individual tries to treat people better than they were treated. Consideration, not just tolerance, (sincere consideration of others necessarily includes tolerance) becomes foundational, and then we have a built in basis to stand up for the weak and defenseless. With this basic attitude, this social glue, instilled in the young from their earliest days, it becomes possible to freely come together in unity.

So the young have some work to do, if they want to remain a free nation going into the future. Those of us who are older need to do some changing too. I remember, more than twenty years ago now when I was painting custom T-shirts. I made one that said, “Love your neighbor as yourself: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.”

I thought it was kind of clever, riffing on an old public service announcement about the speed limit. I happily wore it around the streets of Denver. A neighbor, a nice lady, a boomer like me, objected one day, asking “whose law?” Even though she was of an older generation, and had been educated with the Golden Rule, she had come to embrace moral relativism.

My response was that it is God's law, or stating it in a secular way, it is a natural law of the universe, much like the law of gravity. It can not be repealed, and is foolish to ignore. Which is why it has been taught, in various forms, in every culture on earth until these recent generations. Only in the last few decades has any culture moved away from this teaching, and now in our culture, as we reap the divisive whirlwind we have sown, we pretend to not understand how we have become so divided as a people.

The beginning to finding a remedy to our great cultural divisions is to reject the seemingly benign but actually slyly wicked idea of moral relativism, and once again embrace the basic moral foundation all great societies have always taught. Let us determine to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It really is as simple as that, but that then brings up one last point.

I grew up with the idea that we should always vote and work for a better society, and that one way of voting is to realize we vote every time we spend a dollar. In our day we must also realize that we cast a vote for the kind of society we want every time we share something on the internet.

I am so disappointed in my fellow Americans about this, because, hard as it is to believe, no one ever shares any of my brilliant writings. Some like my stuff, and tell me so, but still no sharing. Why not?

I figure it is because those who like my stuff are not sure others will like it, so they keep it to themselves. It is like someone at a public meeting and the speaker calls for a show of hands of those who agree. Some courageous hands might shoot up, but many others are looking around to see what their friends are doing first. They will stand for the truth, but only if they think others will stand with them. They are not sure enough of their own ability to know the truth to bravely stand alone.

So if you think it would be a good idea for us to reject the teaching of moral relativism to the young, and instead we should once again teach them the Golden Rule, simply share this blog. If not, quit pretending to care about our great national divisions.

Obama right on this

 

Former President Barack Obama held forth in his typically inspiring way a while back at the Democrat National Convention. He recalled to our hearts the truth that we are a nation founded on political ideals, not on ethnicity. This IS our heritage, and this IS what makes us the exceptional nation.

When he went further however, and asserted that this heritage is why we all must come together, right now, and give power to the central (possibly global) government to solve our problems, he went too far. This is all overtly implied by his support of the Harris/Walz agenda and it is all way off the rails of historic American political thought. Rather than allowing some self anointed set of experts to concoct “solutions” which they then impose on the public, the American alternative is for us to return to the form of government, what I term Local Community Moral Self Government, with which we previously governed ourselves. Not only would this plan enable us to preserve our political ideals, but it is probably the only way we will be able to accommodate and digest the unprecedented cultural diversity we are facing (as President Obama also mentioned) and yet do it while maintaining those precious political ideals,

The Constitution frames and empowers a system of government which gives some very few, narrowly defined powers to the federal government, and then reserves all other powers to the states, or people generally. Much of the time that resulted in most powers of government being executed at the county and or local levels. The concept is that since any government exercises some powers, the closest, and hence most accountable level of government is the safest place to invest most of those powers.

By re-establishing these powers, the powers of Local Community Moral Self government, we would return to ourselves, in our communities, the powers to regulate corporations. We would also be returning to local communities the powers and responsibilities to deal with all the infrastructure, social, and medical issues that communities might face. This alone will restore much civic mindedness.

The most pertinent, to this discussion, reason for restoring LCMSG to modern America is that this kind of community self determination, with the limits set in the Constitution, is by far the most likely way for us to absorb, digest, and assimilate all the demographic changes we face. Our system was always designed to handle this kind of thing, we just never included everyone before. It worked great for the White people who were included the first time. And it will work for us all again, if we work the system the way it was designed to be worked.

When we get it up and running, all the animosities from the old world might still smolder, but instead of violent attacks, which the federal government is rightly empowered to prevent, the competitions between every ethnicity, religion, and culture will mostly boil down to a contest to see which cultural style produces the happiest, most prosperous, and contented people. That is a competition we should all want to join in, and when we do, and as a result learn much from each other, we will find we have developed a system that can actually solve some of our perennial issues. Which the Democrat party only (perennially) promises to deal with.

The Democrats remind me (and this is a generous analogy) of a big old Buick stuck in the snow on the side of a wintry road. The driver is pressing down on the accelerator while the tires squeal up a stinking smoke, spinning an ever deeper hole in the ice. The driver shouts out that they urgently have to get over to the other side of the valley, miles away, so no time to argue about how to do it, they continue to spin their wheels and get nowhere. .

The Democrats remind me of that Buick because even though their big government programs have never succeeded in solving the problems of poverty, family breakdown, homelessness, addiction, crime and violence, they continue to double down, proposing ever more of the same failed ideas. Are prices too high, impose price, and wage, and rent controls. Build more public housing crime centers. Continue to dumb down public education while increasing federal control of education.

Just like the driver of the stuck Buick, the only way they can imagine to make up for their past misuse of power is to misuse even more power. Obviously, the sound way to get the car unstuck is to first of all stop spinning the wheels. Maybe even turn it off, get out, and look the situation over. Then calmly back up out of the rut, and turn in a slightly different direction to go forward. Easy peasy.

In the political realm, the analogy would be to stop incessantly concocting new federal powers and programs to make up for previous failed federal policies. Instead, let us imagine how we can devolve the powers of government that were usurped by the federal government, and invest them (one sensible step at a time) back in the states, if not in the county and local governments.

Recovering Local Community Moral Self Government (LCMSG) will almost certainly move us toward unity, since every individual will be able to live their freest best life in the community they choose, be ensured a fair voice in that community, and also have the right to travel to other communities. That social environment is guaranteed to get the old “Melting Pot” of mutual cultural assimilation going again.

As we get our system of LCMSG going again, we will find that we have given ourselves the real power. Then we can see how we can actually achieve some of those goals, like health care for all, or a decent economic life for anyone willing to work for it. All of that and more can easily be achieved if we restore our republic, thereby restoring real power to local communities. If we can get back to that original system, and work the system the way it was designed, adding modern modifications as we decide to, we will find that we have put our government back on a short leash which we, the people, control.

Then, once the power to charter corporations is again in local community hands, we can put business, the corporate world, back on that same short leash of community accountability. Then we will find that many more of our healthy economic dreams can be realized.

Finally, with big business once again domesticated and serving the public, we can go a lot further in getting science and the entire industrial revolution on a shorter leash, ensuring that the advance of technology empowers the people generally, and is not miss-used to establish tyranny.

So then, having started with a word from Barack Obama, we come full circle to the coming election.

In this election, Americans are faced a with choice. Do we want to become just another district in a global governing coalition which is not elected, and which can exercise minute, unaccountable powers over individuals. Because that is where it honestly seems the Democrats (whoever is actually in the driver's seat over there?!) are taking us. While this over-seeing progressive force is usually benign, verging on benevolent, sometimes it can become hostile and draconian. If the system the Democrats are selling us in 2024, with its' un-elected candidate; open censorship; possible show trial atrocities in J6 hearings; coordinated, politically motivated lawfare against the prime challenger; selective enforcement of the laws; and the usual cover-ups of traditional family corruption were to accidentally become tyrannical, people would have no recourse short of armed rebellion.

The Republicans, in feeble response, are selling us a half assed rendition of old America, a hollow flag so to speak, because they are terrified of saying or doing anything which might offend the corporate sponsors. So nothing about corporate personhood, or a whole lot of other issues, is allowed for discussion. Which means that the version of America they are presenting is one which is still under corporate control. Corporatism, which I understand even Mussolini admitted is just another word for Fascism.

No THANK YOU VERY MUCH.!!?!

The republican message should be, but it isn't, that we should stop for a moment, consider how we are governing ourselves today, realize we are not using our system of government the way it was designed to be used, and realize that is what has gone so wrong. The obvious solution is the organic battle cry of all true republicans, “Restore the Republic.” Anyone who will not take up that battle cry is not, properly speaking, a republican, even though they might belong to a so called Republican party.

The reason this revival can work is that all the divergent groups that have been and are coming to America do so largely for one reason. They want to live in a nation dedicated to establishing liberty and justice for all. Sure, there are a few who come here for the wrong reasons, but the vast majority come here for the freedom.

Furthermore, and what is more, it is time for us to wake up and stop fighting the last war. In this case I am referring to the cultural wars, and warning that we must frame our ideals to appeal to the demographic of this nation at it is becoming, and not as it once was. If we want to revive our republic (I do, which makes me a republican) we are forced to do it with a much more diverse populace than we had the first time around.

The wonderful hope of this American moment is that such a re-founding of our political foundation is possible in this country precisely because, as Barack Obama says, our nation was not founded on any particular ethnic or racial basis. All can gather equally around that torch of liberty.

Another reason for sober hope is the fact that almost all of the newcomers, whether legal or illegal, really did come here looking to find freedom, often having little idea about the Constitution that liberty is built on. As folks learn for the first time, re-learn for the first time and seriously think about what Liberty entails, it is not unreasonable to expect that leaders will quickly arise in all the various American communities, old and new, who will recognize and be eager to seize the historic opportunity we all have, together, to get our system of government functioning properly again. This would greatly benefit all Americans and every community.

We can, if we are brave enough to see our way to it, be the new founders of a second American revolution. This still open window of opportunity is likely to close if Kamala Harris is elected, and especially so if the Democrats were to gain control of both the House and the Senate.

In that worst case scenario, the Democrat agenda of packing the court and eliminating the filibuster is back on the table. Combine that with the Progressive embrace of censorship, deep state politicizing of federal agencies, open borders and open voting, using government funded lawfare against political opponents, selective enforcement of laws against political violence, embracing international agreements which cede national sovereignty to an un-elected world government body, and many more depredations, and their complete control of the courts will give them control of all three branches of government. By using the powers just mentioned, whether legally or not, a potential tyrant could cling to power for decades if not centuries.

Not saying Kamala Harris is planning anything of the sort. I am saying a vote for Harris/Walz is a step toward a world where that scenario becomes more possible.

Deep 6- J-state

 

In all the fuss and confusion of the last decade of American political life, some important issues seem to be slipping through cracks in our awareness. Two of those issues, which time has ripened into clarity, are the existence (and threat) of the Deep State, and just exactly how much of an insurrection January 6 actually was.

The existence of the Deep State is easily demonstrated, to any open minded investigator, by taking a closer look at the Hunter Biden laptop fiasco.

It is generally understood that the computer shop owner, upon opening the hard drive, realized what a hot potato he had, and after making some judicious copies of the hard drive, handed it off to the FBI. This was around December, 2019.

The FBI did nothing with it, even though the hard drive contained evidence of multiple federal crimes. Not absolute proof, but evidence well worth investigating.

Then later, as the election of 2020 neared, it is reported that FBI agents intimidated social media companies like Facebook into reducing the exposure and distribution that the Hunter Biden laptop story got on social media.

While I can understand (but still condemn) how the Biden administration might put a thumb on the scales of DOJ justice to protect the first son once Biden was in office, in both of those aforementioned instances Donald Trump was still president. The issue that brings up, the question we should all want answered, is: Who were those agents, who was giving them their orders, why were they following them, and under what authority were these actions taken?

Other questions come up from even earlier in the fiasco; who decided to do nothing for a year with Hunter Biden's incriminating laptop? Was it just incompetent stupidity, or run of the mill bribery, or was this the result of intelligent planning by some hidden cabal, illegally operating with government resources to control the thinking of the American people by preventing us from learning the truth? I believe that when we identify the agents and scrutinize their reasoning, we will start to see a dim outline of the Deep State.

The mere existence of such a thing, a Deep State, in our ostensibly democratic republic, is a clear threat to that republic no matter how small it is. The mere existence of such an entity must motivate us to find out how big it really is. Is it nothing more than some rogue agents playing games, or is it big enough to have already engaged in domestic political mischief? How far has this bureaucratic coup gone? For that matter, how long has it been going on?

Let's stop pretending that the Deep State doesn't exist, admit that at least some few bad actors are giving and following unauthorized orders and then let's resolve to work together to find out how big it really is so as to eliminate that cancer for good.

The other issue that could use some clarification is the charge of “insurrection” that has been hurled indiscriminately at seemingly anyone who even walked by the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. According to Webster's unabridged dictionary (1983), “insurrection” is a rising up of individuals to prevent the execution of the law, by force of arms.

One presumes that such an accusation could be applied to some few individuals on January 6, but very few. Most were there (foolishly trespassing) to voice their objections to what they saw as a fraudulent election. Preventing the execution of any law was not on the minds of most of the people there that day.

What's more, by noon of the next day, January 7, 2021, it was clear that there was no ongoing effort to prevent the enforcement of any laws, or to somehow overthrow the American government. Yet many American citizens are still being held, without constitutional due process, because of that word “insurrection” being used to invoke the Patriot Act, with its' deprivation of constitutional rights.

The truly crazy making aspect to all this is that there had been many instances of far more clearly insurrectionist activity all over the nation much of the preceding year. At almost every one of the nightly riots in the summer of 2020, individuals were rising up to prevent the enforcement of the law, routinely using some kind of arms.. Every time some Antifa black block group moved in to prevent the police from arresting some rioter, they were committing insurrection. Every time a group of protesters moved past a police barricade to occupy some space or building, they were breaking the law and preventing it from being enforced.

In fact, the most clear instance of insurrection in that whole time period, far worse than J6, was the self named CHAZ enclave in Seattle. This, if you will remember, was the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where the legal authority of the city, state, and national governments was denied, and police were not allowed to enter to enforce laws. It was openly, defiantly and proudly an insurrection, and was intended to get ever bigger, only things didn't work out that way.

The difference between CHAZ and J6 is obviously political.

Those on the left, and the Deep State is likely a part of that, are happy to call for and aid in the downfall of the American republic whenever it suits their purpose, and they are also more than willing to portray themselves as lovers of our democracy, the last true patriots, who have been forever scarred by the horrible carnage of J6.

So wave the flag on Monday, and burn it on Tuesday. It makes no difference. It is the progressive way. Whatever advances the cause of international socialism. By any means necessary.

Woke Az Nazis

 

I must beg forgiveness for what follows, because I know this is the most over used analogy in the world, but it suddenly dawned on me that the whole woke agenda is very much like what the Nazis intended to do.  Let me explain.

Most folks don't remember, but the Nazis were way worse than just vicious racists.  They had a whole plan worked out, and every human being on earth was to be put in their place based on that plan, that agenda, that hierarchy of values.

Most of this can be seen by a close examination of the Nazi name.  It is an acronym in the German language which stands for National Socialist Party.  Nationality Socialist Party would probably be a more accurate translation, because the Nazi program called for everyone, every human being, to be divided up along ethnic and nationality lines.  The Nazis were in favor of socialism, even international socialism, but they insisted that different racial and ethnic groups were properly suited to carryout specialized roles within that socialist system.  They advanced a socialism based on nationality and race.

Thus they asserted that the Aryans should be the executives and directors.  Slightly inferior stock, such as the French, were to hold managerial positions.  Even more inferior nationalities were to be manual workers and mechanics, with the darker skinned peoples relegated to chopping wood and hauling water.  The Jews, who Nazis considered abominations, were to be eliminated.

In the same way, the modern Woke intersectional pyramid has an anointed elite with a plan (always secret and always being changed) to draw lines around people, and assign them their place in society based on those intersectional lines.  Most of this amounts to nothing more than someone's opinion about who is the most pitiful and marginalized. 

Even more disturbingly, among some of the more extreme elements of the Woke intelligentsia, with their demands for the elimination of “Whiteness”, is clearly heard murmurings of genocide.

So that's it.  That's all I want to say here.  I just had this flash of insight that there is a strong resemblance between our modern Woke ideology and some of the deeper, more loathsome Nazi thinking.  I thought it would be a good thing to point out.

Presidential Debates

How 2 Cure Racism

 

We can heal ourselves of racism quite easily.  We have merely to agree on and start using an honest definition of the social disease known as “racism.”  Trying to solve racism by using a racist definition of racism, which we have been doing for decades, is like using an oil soaked rag to try to clean up an oil stain on the floor of a garage. It is an approach doomed to failure.

If we are to agree to a new definition of the word, and thereby start solving the problem of racism (which we must do) we first must realize that racism is a mental problem, a glitch in our thinking.  With that understanding, racism should be defined as thinking that the genetic, ethnic heritage of any participants in any action, whether as victim, perpetrator or bystander, should be taken into consideration when determining the moral worth of their actions. Granted, this new definition of racism is a little wordy and hard to understand at first, but we will get back to explore it in a few paragraphs.

First we should take a closer look at the old definition we have been using for so long, and how badly it has served us.

Today, 6-13-24, a piece from Bari Weiss in the Free Press, with an interview of Sheryl Sandberg, had a most powerful point that crystallizes the perils of using the old definition of racism. 

 

Bari Weiss- “I think polarization is a big issue.  There is a worldview that's taken hold on a large part of the left that insists that people's identity determines whether or not we judge their actions as moral.  And if a group has been decided- in this case, Palestinians- that they are victims, then everything is permissible.  And when it is decided that a group is the victimizer, nothing is permitted. And once you have that lens on the question of Gaza/Israel or Israel/Palestine, everything flows from that , and therefore Israel  can be basically guilty of everything, and the Palestinians can be guilty of nothing.”

 

Identitarian politics, which Ms. Weiss here crystallizes for all to see, and which culturally dominates Western culture today, is merely our old, wrongheaded (at best long obsolete) definition of racism, writ large and grown existentially cancerous.  Constantly dividing and categorizing people in this manner is extremely unlikely to heal racism.  Especially so since mis-definition of racism is being powerfully used as a cudgel to oppress and divide the people.  Consequently, this abuse will probably continue for a long time, or at least until the greed of the greedy rulers who are using it is totally satiated.  In other words, not real soon, if we leave things as they are.

The first time I heard the old definition of racism I heard it from Dr. Cornell West, but I am not sure it is his originally.  Regardless, I am glad that since that first encounter with Dr. West's thinking I have come to greatly appreciate some of his perspective because I  instantly and adamantly disagreed with his definition, the old definition, which is something along the lines of,

“Racism is racial or ethnic intolerance wielded over some victim people by those who have power.  Only those with power over others, legal, social, economic, and cultural power, can be racists.  All people can be prejudiced toward those of another group, but if they are not a member of the group in power they can not be racist.  Racism is the combining of prejudice with power.”

I first read this definition in the early 1990's, and was shocked to learn it carried legal weight. Still am shocked.  From the very first encounter, I foresaw all the political mischief potential in this warped definition.

While it can be conceded that this concept might have been a constructive tool back in 1955, when there was an accepted legal imbalance based on racist thinking, even then it missed the essence of the problem of racism.  More importantly, it should have been abandoned as obsolete with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when we as a nation undeniably moved away from a racially imbalanced legal matrix.

Among many other abominations generated by this definition and its descendant derivatives over the years ( In addition to the recent rationalization of rape as a war tactic spotlighted by Ms. Sandberg in the interview mentioned above) is the absurd notion that Blacks, or African Americans, or Negro Americans, can not possibly be racist.  This because the grandees of intersectional identity politics have deigned that Black people have been and still are so deprived of power that they can never be racist.

This falsehood of Black American immunity to the sin of racism ran abroad in the culture the last forty years or so while slowly combining with the world wide revulsion about the racist matrix White America imposed on Black America for more than a hundred years after the abolition of legal slavery.  When those two factors were combined, we, as a people came to the dubious conclusions that racism is the sin of all sins, the one failing that can be righteously judged and condemned.  Additionally, we as a nation came to a further conclusion, a truly dangerous and ugly one, which asserts that only White people can be racist.

That is our modern American foundation, if we will be honest about it..  Racism is the sin of all sins, and only White people can be racist. The entire intersectional pyramid of privilege, how it is to be extended, and to whom, is built on this foundation.

This obvious falsehood has long stood in the way of truly productive reconciliation in race relations in America.  It puts us all in different categories and prevents us from all answering to the same moral code.  Such continued social imbalance perpetuates the dysfunctional social dynamics of the slavery and Jim Crow eras.  When the acts of members of one group can be punished as hate crimes, while mirror image acts from members of another group are considered legitimate and legally ignored, intimate social relations between the two peoples become rare and strained.  Few people will willingly submit to patently unfair treatment.

Thus our long held mis-definition of racism has morphed into the excesses of woke-ism and from there into an awkward and illegitimate attempt at a counterfeit judgment day.  These people, mortal people who breath and poop and die just like you and me, have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate who is owed what from who from forever ago.  It is beyond dispute that the wisdom requisite for such an exalted task is far above the pay grades of any of the “expert” class, even though they have collectively anointed themselves to it. The wannabe conductors of some kind of secular judgment day.  We ought not be foolish enough to buy this line of baloney and let them try.

Instead, let us consider adopting the new definition of racism, the one which says it is racist to weigh anyone's moral actions based on their ethnic or racial heritage.  The truth of this definition is demonstrated by applying it to historic actions which we all agree were racist.  First of all, the holding of African peoples as slaves was justified because of their race.  The deprivations of rights, even to those of African heritage who gained freedom, was justified as not immoral because of the ethnic heritage of the victims.

On the other side of the ledger, many of the crimes of the slave owners  (rape, murder and theft among them) and those of the later landlords/ terrorists, was adjudicated as acceptable because of the ethnic heritage of the perpetrators.  “After all, they were White men, so it was okay what they did to the darkies.” was the honest to God thinking.

All of this thinking fits precisely within our new definition of “racism.”  In every instance, the moral content of an act was determined by considering the ethnic heritage of at least one of the people involved in the action, whether as victim or victimizer.

Now think about how this definition could be used in today's world.  If everyone who has issues accepting ethnic differences (basically all of us) would just be honest and sincerely try to stop thinking in ethnically biased ways (and that can include different faith groups), we would quickly be much better off.  We would find ourselves in much more of a positive minded meritocracy, in which each of us has every reason to perform as well and virtuously as possible.  No longer would social connections matter so much, so instead of nurturing up our wealth producing networks, we could be free to focus more on merit, nurturing up our souls, talents, and families.  And hence, our organic community.

When one stops to think about it, this definition of racism is a very granular one, focusing on small, common instances of racist thinking.  Many small moments, in traffic, at church, shopping, in a park, and many other situations; It asks the question, how do we think of the people we meet for the first time?  What is it that causes us to think less or more of someone, what about their demeanor or presence do we feel comfortable or uncomfortable with. Is it their eyes, the set of their lips. Is it their skin color? If the ethnic heritage of the stranger figures high on that decision tree, we ought, as an individual, look at oneself.  Because we all could be better off if we had a much more meritocratic society.  Merit is what we should recognize and reward, not any kind of accident of birth.  It is how to return to a virtuous, merit based society, one small, granular thought at a time.

This granular definition is also how we can see that the old definition of racism was a racist oily rag, incapable of cleaning an oil stain.  Since racism is thinking that race determines moral worth, any thinking that posits that we should establish an entire intersectional hierarchy (based on an inscrutable ordering of all ethnic and identity groups) is, in every instance, severely racist.  Small wonder we haven't made much progress toward inter racial harmony during our decades of using that constantly worsening but always false definition.

What's more, no one should object that use of this granular definition of racism is in any way intended to dodge White American responsibility for the horrors of state sanctioned racism.  On the contrary, this analysis will better enable us to accurately diagnose the spiritual disease of racism.  However, the first step in this process is for us all to admit that we are all susceptible to this disease, much like the common cold. 

This is a very important point because while racism is a disease, it is primarily a spiritual disease, which means it is highly contagious.  Because of that, many people on the receiving end of racist malice are prone to hatred and judgmental thinking, rendering them vulnerable to being attacked by those self same spirits.  And then the abuse and stupidity tends to multiply with mindless group revenge, back and forth for God only knows how long. 

So we all must first admit some fault, and then we can start looking at the problem of racism through that granular lens.  I don't know for sure what all we will see when we honestly do that work, but if my lived experience is any indication, I think we will find that White America, still today, practices a great deal more racist thinking and habits than almost any other group on Earth, with, in my opinion, the Chinese coming up a close second.  Certainly, in my experience,  African America has much less of that problem, even though there are some virulent racists in the African American community.  It is axiomatic that to be effective, this remedy to racism must be applied whenever a case appears, no matter which community it is in.  Employing the same dispassionate rigor with which we defeat any other disease.

Virulent is the exact word to describe the strain of racism that has infected America since before we were born as a nation.  America has endured the worst, the most virulent, case of racism the world has ever seen.  Our case was already severe when it was rendered the worst ever by the lies used in the South to reconcile the Declaration of Independence with chattel slavery.  They felt philosophically driven to the point of denying the very humanity of an entire group of humans.  Humans they could talk with, interact with and love.

It is as though we purposely called down a demonic principality on our head so as to empower ourselves to retain the peculiar institution.   Hopefully, a demonic principality which has been summoned is a demonic principality which can now be exorcised.

While some of the early Southern founders bear much blame for this great mistake, I recognize as an always Northerner that we went along with most of that Southern racism, and were happy enough to do so too.  So America has had a terrible case of racism, and it still does. White America most especially.

Now while we're saying this, look at all those other nations and peoples around the world, watching us, laughing and pointing, thinking they are all that.

Pathetic !!  Because this racism stuff really is a problem for the whole planet.  The only reason those other folks all over the planet think they are better than us on this issue is because they have not had to deal with all the cultural mixing that we have.  It is our destiny and our burden to E Pluribus Unum, that is to take many and make one.  The rest of the world should be hoping we work it our here, because then maybe they can too.  While it is true that America has (or at least had) probably the most virulent strain of racism in history, that should be no comfort to the others, because the planet as a whole has a very acute strain of the same disease, and the patient's condition is worsening.

The best thing we could do, as a country and as a planet, is to adopt this much more workable definition of racism, and then start honestly working it, to no longer weigh anyone's moral worth based on ethnicity or identity, both in America and in the wider world