Suckers!

Are you a feminist in the 21st century?  Sucker!

Every once in a while, the curtain is momentarily pulled back and we catch a glimpse of the sordid underbelly of Leftist politics.  Just this happened during the campaign for DNC chair.

Everybody understands First Wave Feminism.  Women should have the vote, they should be able to make contracts, inherit property, and so on.  Adult female citizens should have all the rights (and the obligations, with the possible exception of military service) of adult male citizens.  So, "Yes" to First Wave Feminism.

Second Wave Feminism seemed like a fraud from the start.  It's the lies, you see.  Betty Friedan was never the house-bound house-frau she claimed to be.  Feminists still man the barricades for equal pay even though equal pay has been the lay of the land for at least the past 30 years.

Or, how about domestic violence?  Remember when Super Bowl Sunday was the most dangerous day of the year to be a woman?  No?  That's good, because it ain't so.  But feminists made up this lie and successfully promoted it for years before it finally died a slow, painful, and long delayed death.

My personal favorite is the Rule of Thumb.  Legacy systems of weights and measures arose organically.  The inch is approximately the width of a man's thumb at the first knuckle, a foot is a man’s foot, a yard is his stride, a grain is actually a grain of wheat or barley, a stone is a stone, and so on.  To this day horses are measured as so many "hands" high at the shoulder.  So, a carpenter marking off wood might in some cases naturally use his thumb for an approximate measure---the Rule of Thumb.

So, the Rule of Thumb seemed an obvious, and innocuous, concept until the feminists explained that Medieval Common Law allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.  According to the feminists, the Rule of Thumb was a limiting concept, a first effort of a barbaric society to limit the brutality of men (who are still brutal and something should be done about them, like taking away their Super Bowl).

Except it ain't so.  The Rule of Thumb means exactly what you think it means, and nothing else.  Feminists just made up the rest.  (Really, they took a Medieval joke and dressed it up as a modern truth.)

Why all the lies?  Because feminism, the Second Wave stuff, is not about women.

David Horowitz, author, publisher, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and former far-Left radical, explains it this way:  “The cause is never the cause.  The cause is always the revolution."  Feminism is not about women, racial justice and the BLM movement are not about Black people, gender dysphoria is not about gender, immigration is not about foreigners, etc.  All these seemingly disparate things are really about one and the same thing.  They are about the revolution.  The socialist revolution.  And to implement any revolution, first you have to tear down the Existing Order.  That is why the Bolsheviks shot dead the Tsar and his entire family.

In the 21st century, the single greatest impediment to the socialist revolution is the spectacular success of Western Civilization, so that has to go.  And to tear it down, you have to undermine its foundations.  That is what Antonio Gramsci’s “Long March Through The Institutions” is about.

To undermine the West, you have to undermine democracy, undermine the family, even cast doubt on the biological reality of men and women.  And, you have to find allies.  Here is an icon of Western feminism finding an ally in a representative of the greatest oppressor of women in the modern world, "Gloria Steinem Endorses Keith Ellison for Democratic national Committee Chair."

And here is a socialist finding an ally in a representative of the greatest retrograde force in the modern world, "Join Bernie Sanders and Support Keith Ellison for DNC Chair."

Birds of a feather flock together? You bet! And enemies of the people make common cause.

The Truth Is Not Enough

Alan Dershowitz is a great champion of Israel, and here he is arguing that Truth is a powerful weapon in Israel's defense.  I like Alan Dershowitz, and I agree that Truth is a powerful weapon.  But, like any weapon, it has to be used correctly, and Dershowitz is not doing that.  Consider the First Sino-Japanese War (1895) as a counter-example.

China and Japan fought the first modern naval battle in the western Pacific, for control of Korea.  Both sides bought modern ships from the Europeans but the smart money was on China.  However, the Chinese admiral was an old cavalry officer, and in the decisive battle of that war he brought his ships out line-abreast, like a cavalry charge.  The Japanese blew them to bits, and all of Korea became a slave-labor camp for the Japanese, culminating in the "comfort women" of WW II.

Admiral Ding Ruchang indeed had a powerful weapon at his disposal, but he did not know how to use it.  Disaster followed.

Alan Dershowitz is not an old cavalry officer, he is an old trial lawyer and a professor of law who uses the truth like a defense attorney.  But, just as Ding Ruchan was not in a land battle,  we are not in an American courtroom (or in the Oxford Union).  We are in a global propaganda war.  In a propaganda war, if you play defense you will lose.  Israel has been losing the propaganda war for 40 yrs.

In a propaganda war, the only winning strategy---not the best strategy, the only strategy, if you want to win---is attack.  To paraphrase Georges Danton, in a propaganda war it is "l'attack, encoure l'attack, toujours l'attack!"  Or, as we might say in English:  Attack!  Attack!  Attack!

The other side says we eat babies for breakfast?  Alan Dershowitz says, "No, we don't."  He lost that battle.  And, if you lose enough battles, you lose the war.

When the other side says that Jews use the blood of Muslim children to bake Purim pastries (the Blood Libel is very much alive and well in Muslim lands) the only effective response is to say that Muslims bugger little girls.  And then produce photographs, videos, testimonials, etc.  It's the truth.

If the other side organizes an annual Israel Apartheid Week, we organize a monthly Apartheid Week.  In January it is Saudi Arabia Apartheid Week, in February it is Pakistan Apartheid Week, in March it is Iran Apartheid Week, etc., for every month colleges are in session.  And we show pictures and videos of women being stoned, 12 yr old girls getting married, gays being thrown off roofs, Christian girls being kidnapped and raped, etc., etc., etc.

In 1967, Israel was the darling of the global community.  Today, it is a pariah.  How did that happen?  The Muslims and anti-Semites have been winning the propaganda war for 40 years.  We must figure out how, and learn the lesson.  And they do not even have Truth on their side, but they attack, attack, attack.

I would bet most of you reading this hate my suggestion.  You are wondering how will we ever make them our friends.  Do not worry about being their friends.  Let them worry about being our friends.  Get over yourselves.  This is not about you and your delicate sensibilities.  We are in a real war.  Real people really are dying and propaganda is an essential part of that war.  The only question is:  Do you want to win?

Yes?  The rest follows.

I leave you with that awesome introductory speech by George C. Scott in the movie "Patton". At one moment, Patton says,

Some of you boys are wondering if you are going to chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.

After 40 years of losing the propaganda war, surely we know what to do.  And we had better get to it.

Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited

I have been reading the fascinating "Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisted."  Emmett Scott is revisiting the question of what destroyed the classical Greco-Roman civilization in Europe and brought on the Dark Ages.

A lot of credible people have long held that it was the barbarian invasions that ultimately took down Rome.  It turns out, however, there are some pretty good reasons to think it was not that simple, and that other factors were at work.  Mohammed's name in the title suggests where the argument is going.

However, I was troubled.  On the one hand, "Mohammed and Charlemagne" has the look and feel of a scholarly work.  It is well written, the arguments feel right, and there are plenty of citations.  However, I can find nothing on the author.  The book gives no university affiliation, an internet search brings up little beyond describing the man as "a historian," and the book is published by New English Review Press, not an academic publisher, so far as I know.

Part of my concern is that I have read other books with the look and feel of true scholarship that yet turned out to be bunkum.  A famous modern example is "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews," by the " Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam." "Secret Relationship" is a clever work, sophisticated and with lots of citations.  If you knew nothing about the Atlantic Slave Trade you would be persuaded.  In fact, the book is a superb instance of how to lie with facts.  Yes, Jews were part of the economic life of England and Holland but were they the driving force behind the Atlantic Slave Trade?  Not even close.  So, being troubled by Emmet Scott's lack of scholarly pedigree, I was going slow with the book.

To pick up the slack, I started reading "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise."  This is a wholly different case.  Dario Fernandez-Morera is associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University and the book is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.  OK, ISI is not Oxford University Press, but they are a known, credible organization.  The book, itself, is extensively researched and beautifully written.

In his introduction, Fernandez-Morera explains the controversies and motivates the need for a revisionist history of "al Andalus."  On page 9, paragraph 2, he writes,

   Some recent scholars in the English-speaking world have done excellent work, but with the exception of Emmet Scott they have either concerned themselves mainly with the Jewish experience or not adopted the approach of the present book, which looks at these cultures synchronically and comparatively..."

Bingo!  I now have a credible scholar credibly referring to Emmet Scott as a credible scholar.  I have established what the Muslims call "isnad", the chain of authority, and I can now proceed with "Mohammed and Charlemagne" with confidence.

So, if you are interested in the subject, you should feel free to get the book.  I will let you know what I think, in due course.

Betsy DeVos (redux)

A word about my attitude regarding Betsy DeVos.

Our schools have been in a state of constant reform for over a century.  John Dewey published "The School and Society" in 1900.  Public education went on steroids with massive IV money infusions in 1957 with the Sputnik scare.  In 1968 the teachers organizations transmogrified from professional associations into trade unions.  And in 1983 the commission empanelled by President Reagan issued their report, "A Nation at Risk."

President Reagan's commission delivered at least two famous phrases:  the "rising tide of mediocrity" phrase and the "act of war" phrase.  I quote,

(a) The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people,
and
(2) If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

That was 1983.  Thirty-four years later, the public schools are in much worse condition.  At this point in our historical development, we can fairly say they have collapsed.

This collapse is not an "act of G-d".  It does not arise from drought or flood or earthquake.  There is no actual war or widespread starvation or social disruption.  And there is no mysterious "Invisible Hand" (pace, Adam Smith) that works against us.

Rather, our public schools are the necessary consequence of policies and practices that have been knowingly and intentionally implemented by individuals known to us, mainly the education schools professoriate ("The Ayatollahs of Education") and the leadership of the teachers unions, to whom I refer collectively as "The Education Mafia".  They have massive political power, they have been in charge of our schools for generations, and they are responsible.  It's all on them.

And, they cannot be persuaded.

Friends, there are only two possibilities left to us.  Either the Education Mafia remain in charge, and nothing happens until educational collapse leads to societal collapse, or we prise their death grip off the throat of public education.

The only important thing about Betsy DeVos is that she is not of the Education Mafia.  All the rest of what you read about her, in the NY Times and the Washington Post, is irrelevant shit.

Yeah, Whatever.

The NY Times does not like Betsy DeVos, President Trump's nominee for secretary of Education.  Yeah, whatever.

The president should close the U.S. Department of Education (or, as I like to call it, the Dept of Public Education, "DOPE"), which was Jimmy Carter's pay off to the teachers unions for their support in the 1976 elections.  There is no indication that Betsy DeVos, if confirmed, will do that, so meh.  On the principle that the alternative will probably be worse, however, DeVos should be confirmed.  A word on what "worse" means.

Let's not mince words, American public education has collapsed.  The numbers are grisly, and the underlying reality is much worse.  You must remember that most of the numbers we have, to weigh and measure public education, come from the Education Mafia themselves, and they have been cooking the books for three generations.

For example, any right thinking person will groan in despair when learning of the enormous gap in high school graduation rates, between White students and Black students.  At 47% graduating nationwide, an absolute majority of Black males will not graduate at all, giving rise to a nearly 30% gap from their White peers.  So, that's bad, but the reality is worse, and it is worse in at least two dimensions.

First, the average Black student who does graduate high school reads and calculates at the level of the average White 8th grader.  How and why this happens is your homework assignment, but it should be immediately obvious that, bad as the graduation rate is, reality is much worse.

Second, this terrible problem has existed for generations, so the Education Mafia is well aware.  And yet, knowing that many students, Black and White, fail to graduate or graduate with inadequate skills, they do nothing about it leaving these large numbers of students woefully unprepared for life.  Oh, the Education Mafia work really hard a remediation, but consider carefully what that means.

Remediation means they force students to remain in an endeavor for which they have amply demonstrated the lack of interest or aptitude or both, never mind that it patently does not work (we have been at it a while, you know).  Remediation is mainly a harbinger of educational failure.  What about something else?  Vocational training, anyone?  Nope.  Oh, there is some.  Not remotely enough.  Why?  Why not a lot more vocational training or something else, anything else, just not the same old, tired, failing program that has afflicted us all our lives?

The people who have been in charge of our schools for the past 60 to 100 years (depending on how you count), the architects of this disaster, the people whom I affectionately call the Education Mafia, are prisoners of their own ideology.  If you read their literature, which I have done as penance for my sins, there is not a hint of an alternative to the Existing Order.  To the contrary, they circle the wagons against any possibility of reform, hence their animus towards Betsy DeVos.  The Education Mafia are incapable of reform.  With the Education Mafia firmly in charge, the public schools are unreformable.

(BTW, I am talking about true reform.  It is easy to tell when you do not have it.  If any proposed reform ends up leaving the same people in charge, and the same people are doing the same things in the same ways, you have not achieved reform.  Contrariwise, when the Education Mafia scream like banshees, you know you are on to something different.)

So, if we are not going to close the DOPE, the next best thing is to bring in an outsider, somebody who has not drunk the Kool-aid of the schools of education, someone who is not a votary of the "ayatollahs of education", as I like to call the education school professoriate.  This person should bring in the experts, both the ed school ayatollahs and the serious critics of the ayatollahs, of which there are a few.

We need a person who is able to look at the problem with new eyes.  Let this person listen to the arguments on both sides.  Let him, or her, consider the track record of the Education Mafia, and let him proceed accordingly.

Is Betsy DeVos that person?  Probably not.  By all accounts, DeVos is, herself, slave to an old idea, charter schools, that has an uninspiring record nearly 30 yrs long.

So, if President Trump will not close down the DOPE and Betsy DeVos is not the reformer we so desperately need, then <<<YAWN>>> pardon me while I go get a cup of coffee and sort out my sock drawer or something.  Oh!  Will ya look at the time...

Don't Open That Door (Or You'll Be Sorry)

In his February 2 op-ed, Charles Krauthammer explains former senator Harry Reid's mistake, "Thank God For Harry Reid."  Thinking that the ends justify the means, Harry Reid took steps that the Democrats are now bitterly regretting.

The moral of the story is that process matters.  A lot.  I am reminded of the 1973 SCOTUS decision, Roe v Wade, which the Leftists and Democrats may come to regret in the same way they are already regretting Harry Reid.  Allow me to explain.

Before 1973, abortion was governed by state law, and legality was a matter of degree.  Nowhere was abortion totally illegal.  Every state allowed abortion for some reasons, like rape, incest, and the life of the mother.  The main problem was abortions of convenience.  About 15 states, including NYS, were quite liberal about abortions of convenience, and many other states not so much.  Although this, too, was a matter of degree.  Women could travel for an abortion.  Yes, I get it, it is a hurdle.  For some women less of a hurdle and for some, more.  For some, an insurmountable hurdle.

It remains that abortion was more or less available to a lot of women.  And---very important---the trend was towards more liberalization of abortion laws.  However, this was a slow process and the Leftists were impatient.  Roe v Wade was the short cut through the state legislatures, and the Leftists may come to learn the meaning of that old saying, "Short cuts make for long journeys."

Two types of people object to Roe v Wade: Christians and conservatives.  The two are frequently, and wrongly, conflated.  Lots of Christians are not conservative (with rare exception, anytime you make somebody else's personal business your business, probably you are not a conservative), and lots of conservatives are not Christian.

For the Christians, the issue is the life of the child, an issue not to be lightly dismissed.  Conservatives have another problem altogether with Roe v Wade.

The argument for Roe v Wade is that abortion is a Constitutional right.  The problem is that the Constitution is entirely silent on this topic.  The Constitution is a miraculous document, but it is silent on very many things, abortion among them.  If the Constitution is silent on your pet idea, then you cannot escape the heavy lifting of talking to your fellow citizens, trying to persuade them, and making law.  A long, slow process with no guarantee for success.

So, if the Constitution is silent on the subject, on what was Roe based?  Penumbras.  In the 1965 Griswold case involving Planned Parenthood, the precursor to Roe, Justice William O. Douglas "stated that the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights have penumbras "formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance," and that the right to privacy exists within this area."

Penumbras?  Emanations?  Really?  Is this law?  What does it mean?  I think, penumbra means that the law says whatever I want it to say.  And there's the rub.  Leftists are not the only people who can see penumbras.  Donald Trump can see penumbras.  The justices he appoints to the SCOTUS can see penumbras.

As a conservative, I'm telling you that once you open that door, you may not like what walks through.

I feel very sure that Democrats are already regretting Harry Reid and his "nuclear option."  That is Krauthammer's point.  Neill Gorsuch is a sure thing for the SCOTUS.  And, if President Trump gets one or two (or three) more appointments, Democrats may well come to regret constitutional penumbras.

PS:  Leftists, don't hold your breath.  If President Trump builds that wall, or anything like it, he will be a two term president, and penumbras will be the fabric of your nightmares.

You should not have opened that door.