Monday, February 27, 2017
"La La Land" movie doesn't win best picture. I am glad of it.
Glad "La La Land" didn't win best picture award. See who the sponsors of lighting up Robert E. Lee Park were below. You will see "La La Land" listed on this poster with the same font, or very similar font, as the movie used for its name. Click on image to see all of it.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Proposal to change North Carolina constitution to allow secession
This is what happens when you have Confederate monuments and places named after Confederate leaders.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article134037589.html
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/n-c-ban-on-secession-could-be-dropped-under-bill/article_e7d42c53-19de-5cf8-8ca7-6bd2e145a9e1.html
North Carolina Republican House Representatives Michael Speciale, George Cleveland, and Larry Pittman want to amend the North Carolina constitution to remove the NC constitution's prohibition against secession.
This article as a little information about their reasons behind the proposal.
http://www.wbtv.com/story/34559979/house-bill-seeks-to-repeal-ban-on-secession-in-nc-constitution
We can expect more of this craziness when the conservative movement publishes people like Brion McClanahan. https://townhall.com/columnists/brionmcclanahan/2017/02/16/let-the-bear-flag-go-n2286464
And:
http://www.breitbart.com/author/brion-mcclanahan/
I think we can just ignore the claim by some conservative groups that they want to make America great again or claim to be patriotic when they publish persons that are sympathetic or pro-secessionist or are neo-Confederates.
This is a link to McClanahan's articles at the Abbeville Institute
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/author/brionmclanahan/
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article134037589.html
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/n-c-ban-on-secession-could-be-dropped-under-bill/article_e7d42c53-19de-5cf8-8ca7-6bd2e145a9e1.html
North Carolina Republican House Representatives Michael Speciale, George Cleveland, and Larry Pittman want to amend the North Carolina constitution to remove the NC constitution's prohibition against secession.
This article as a little information about their reasons behind the proposal.
http://www.wbtv.com/story/34559979/house-bill-seeks-to-repeal-ban-on-secession-in-nc-constitution
We can expect more of this craziness when the conservative movement publishes people like Brion McClanahan. https://townhall.com/columnists/brionmcclanahan/2017/02/16/let-the-bear-flag-go-n2286464
And:
http://www.breitbart.com/author/brion-mcclanahan/
I think we can just ignore the claim by some conservative groups that they want to make America great again or claim to be patriotic when they publish persons that are sympathetic or pro-secessionist or are neo-Confederates.
This is a link to McClanahan's articles at the Abbeville Institute
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/author/brionmclanahan/
Monday, February 20, 2017
Milo Yiannopoulos and Nathan Bedford Forrest and CPAC UPDATE1.2,3,4 & 5
UPDATE: Milo Yiannopoulos has been dis-invited as a CPAC speaker.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-cpac-milo-yiannopoulos-tape-235204
I just finished this article and the above article comes out. I wonder if any conservative will complain about "political correctness" or free speech in regards to Yiannopoulos. It seems that not everyone at CPAC was willing to go along with him being the keynote speaker. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/20/cpac-disinvites-milo-yiannopoulos-despite-his-attempt-at-contrition.html
I don't know if Yiannopoulos's career is over though. Politics has changed and what might have sunk a political career in the past may not now.
UPDATE2:
Book contract cancelled, though he has a $250,000 advance. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments
Breitbart employees are threatening to quit if Milo Yiannopoulos isn't fired.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments
UPDATE3
Milo has resigned from Breitbart. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/02/21/milo-resigns-breitbart-news/
His articles are still at the Breitbart website. Is his career over? Again I don't really know. Normally I would think it would definitely be over but then again politics and media are now all different and I have no idea what is "normal" now.
Rolling Stone has an article, "Milo Yiannopoulos Isn't Going Away." http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/matt-taibbi-milo-yiannopoulos-isnt-going-away-w468012
However, I think conservative student groups likely won't invite him to speak at their universities and so there won't be counter protests and essentially Yiannopoulos as a phenomenon will fade away, at least I think it will.
UPDATE4
There are reports that reactionary Regnery Publishing is going to publish Milo Yiannopoulos' book. It will be interesting if true. Regnery Publishing has pretensions of being a serious publisher and that evaporates if they publish Yiannopoulos' book.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/30/report-conservative-publisher-could-pick-up-milo-s-book.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl
http://forward.com/fast-forward/367594/right-wing-publisher-will-print-milo-yiannopoulos-book/
ORIGINAL POSTING FOLLOWS
Bad language quoted in the following blog posting. Given that it is about MILO it is unavoidable since his language is a significant aspect of his writings.
I hadn't paid much attention to Milo Yiannopoulos and his writings. He goes by MILO, all capital letters, and so I will use his first name in this blog posting. He contributed a lot of articles to Breitbart. This is a link to them. http://www.breitbart.com/author/milo-yiannopoulos/
The listing of his articles at Breitbart now just lists him as MILO.
However, this article refers to MILO as a Breitbart senior editor.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/02/19/milo-left-silence-us-because-they-know-they-cant-beat-us/
Condemnation of him on the Internet is widespread. He seems to be a person who just throws out a series of inflammatory statements to generate a response and he does get a response. There are protests, at least one violent, against his speaking on campuses. Also, universities try to prevent his speaking by demanding security deposits that student groups obviously can't afford. These rather transparent attempts are publicized by MILO. These attempts, some successful I think, have allowed him to focus on the issue of free speech to the obscuring of what he says such as the article in the link above.
His writing is mostly just frothing at the mouth. However, now it is announced that he is the keynote speaker at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which is a prominent conservative annual event. The publication for which he writes is Breitbart whose former head, Stephen Bannon, is now the chief of staff at the White House.
So as the star of the American conservative movement if and possibly a hero to English speaking conservatives everywhere, what he says is important. I think also it indicates some significant changes in politics and needs some review.
MILO very freely, clearly, and loudly states that he is gay and attracted to men of sub-Saharan African ancestry and is very expressive about being gay. His current speaking tour he calls the, "Dangerous Faggott Tour http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/31/milo-cal-poly-state-university-no-dead-babies/
He points to his having sex with black men as proof that he isn't racist or white supremacist.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/27/forced-glamour-magazine-admit-im-not-white-supremacist/
In the above article, MILO states, "Some kind of racist that just got railed for 18 hours in a hotel room by his black boyfriend. You fucking morons."
However, there are men with racist attitudes that are sexually attracted to African American men and sometimes that plays into to the attraction.
The thing about claiming someone is racist is that so far there is no technology to read minds. Even if a person stated they were a white supremacist they could claim 15 minutes later that they are no longer white supremacists and though you would likely think this claim as being dubious you can't disprove it. Neo-Confederates have claimed to have changed when it has suited them. In terms of racism you have to refer to actions, what a person does, what a person says, and these actions can be described as racist, that is actions in the service of racist goals.
American media is somewhat shallow about reporting on racism and to them a racist wears funny clothes and says they are a racist and MILO doesn't appear to be a member of any racist organization, doesn't make statements about racial inferiority and superiority or obvious white supremacist statements. American media doesn't seem to know how to engage him, or perhaps a critical analysis of MILO might lead to a critical analysis of other issues that would prove to be difficult for American media. Plus a critical review would take a lot of work and would be a long article.
He is self-derogatory about being gay and so I think his being gay is thus made acceptable to conservatives and my assessment is that he plays the role of being a gay person to be laughed at. It seems though it is entertainment that is very popular among conservatives as indicated by the fact that he is the keynote speaker at CPAC.
In this article MILO explains that that he would prefer to be straight.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/09/20/milo-i-would-take-a-straight-pill/
His homosexuality is in your face in some of his articles. For example this article about him having sex with a "black drug dealer" in his bedroom when he was 15 years old,"on a school night."
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/14/im-sooo-bored-of-being-gay/
In this article, link below, there is picture of a sign "Colored Served in Rear." In his article he explains his Grindr profile if "truthful" would say "blacks only" and so the meaning of the sign "Colored Served in Rear," becomes clear I think in any reasonable understanding of what MILO is trying to say with it. (Note: I looked up what "railed" means at the urban dictionary. It means to be vigorously and repeatedly penetrated by a penis. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Railed Warning, rather explicit language.) It isn't that this language would necessarily upset me, but I want to be considerate of the sensibilities of all my potential readers.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/my-grindr-profile-says-no-whites-am-i-racist/
So the keynote speaker for CPAC is a person who a man whose article makes it clear that he wants sex with African American men and has a picture of a sign to imply to the readers that this sex is anal penetration by African American men.
SO WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THIS?
First Ann Coulter must be feeling fairly down. She was a sensation in the media for her statements outraging opinion, now who is paying attention? She can't attack him since that would only help MILO. I don't think she could be anymore outrageous than MILO.
Gays and Lesbians:
I don't think that we can see it as a complete or nearly complete revolution in acceptance of gays in the conservative movement since MILO is basically playing his being gay on the old homophobic idea that being gay is inherently funny. However, it is a radical change in that he has become a conservative hero, a gay who is quite expressive about being gay and talks about his sexual desires openly. It should also be understood that part of the space created for this speech is that one of MILO's primary themes is that he is freely exercising his speech to say what needs to be said openly about race and religion and gender etc., and so critics of his being gay run the risk of being referred to as "politically correct" suppressing his speech.
Even so, even though MILO is self-derogatory as a gay person, his being the keynote speaker at CPAC as a very expressive gay man must really upset the religious right, though I don't know of any public expression by the religious right against MILO. The whole campaign against gays and Lesbians to evangelical youth is undermined by MILO being a conservative hero who has celebrity status and evidently financial success. I suppose the evangelicals can trot out their slogan, "hate the sin, but love the sinner," but I think the intention of this slogan was intended to look down on gays in a condescending way and not for a situation where a gay man, who who writes about his sex life, is cheered as the keynote speaker at CPAC.
MILO makes the religious right a sort of relic in many ways.
For the LGBT community it means a civil war of sorts. Trump is president and MILO is speaking at CPAC and the political fortunes of conservative gays will be benefited. It used to be conservative gays were closet cases and thus though they might express an opinion at a social function or bar, they weren't going to be talking to the public. Also, they were sort of worried about what the straight people might think and were sort of really negative about being gay and gay people. Other gays rejected them.
The neo-Confederate movement must be really be horrified by MILO. The neo-Confederate movement is both extremely anti-gay and against interracial sexual relations. Though it needs to be pointed out that Chronicles magazine publishes articles by Justin Raimondo who is openly gay. But Raimondo doesn't discuss it in his writings, and I don't ever think he discussed his sex life. Chronicles is really, really anti-LGBT.
Chronicles magazine does see Trump as a great opportunity for their agenda, and hasn't criticizes MILO or as far as I know commented on him. When they do we will be understand what the significance of MILO's homosexuality is the paleoconservative movement. I suppose I need to catch up in reading my issues of Chronicles. https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
The whole world of the Southern Partisan, the Abbeville Institute, M.E. Bradford and Southern Agrarians seems to have been left behind on the side of the road of the highway of history. John Shelton Reed must be as horrified as he was when he visited San Francisco and the presence of the gay male community there.
Conservative Movement:
With MILO's ascendancy in the conservative movement I think that we don't have to listen to the pretensions of conservatives to be some intellectual force. When they start talking about Edmund Burke or start quoting Eric Voegelin saying "immanetize the eschaton" we can just hold up a hand with palm facing outward, smile, and say "MILO."
It seems the conservative movement really is, as Lionel Trilling said, "... irritable mental gestures," which would be a good description of MILO's articles and speeches. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, you can just give up your pretensions.
We have always known or at least suspected that all the involved arguments about states' rights, constitutional theory, and various philosophical rationals were often just pretexts for a racial and social order where some are subordinated. It would however take labored analysis to break it down and show that these rationals were pretexts in articles or essays often read by small audiences. MILO as a rising celebrity to a national audience in almost all the media has shown and will show as keynote speaker at CPAC what the agenda of conservatism really for most conservatives is in simple direct terms. The mask has fallen off the face of conservatism, and fallen to the ground and shattered.
Confederacy:
MILO has an July 2015 article about "Why We must End 'Burial Privilege.'"
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/why-we-must-end-burial-privilege/
MILO is commenting on the effort to get remove and bury elsewhere the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a part of an effort of the city of Memphis to stop glorifying the Confederacy and not have a monument to Forrest.
MILO sarcastically informs his readers that he is obligated to inform his readers that there is a new way to "demonstrate their superiority in moral and political correctness ..."
MILO thus avoids discussing what the issues might be in monuments and historical memory and instead position it as a problem of some individuals being vainly self-righteous. MILO avoids the issue that monument monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is the whole purpose of monuments and MILO doesn't seem to understand what the purpose of a monument is.
MILO puts forth the irrelevant fact that Forrest as a commander was considered by many to be a "military genius" and Forrest's tactics are studied. However, the issue at hand isn't Forrest's ability as a military commander or whether his tactics should be studied. The issue is whether Forrest should be honored with a monument and a burial location that honors him. This is a common enough tactic to throw in items with the implication that they might justify something without explicitly saying what a specific item is supposed to prove.
Does MILO feel that there should be a monument to Forrest merely because he was a great military tactician? MILO doesn't actually say. It would seem that what Forrest fought for would be important, which is in this case was the break up of the United States to defend slavery and white supremacy. The issue of Forrest's objectives is avoided by MILO. Discuss one thing to avoid discussing another is a common enough neo-Confederate tactic.
MILO discusses Forrest's involvement in the Ku Klux Klan to exhonerate him. MILO states Forrest is "controversial" for his membership in the Ku Klux Klan and "possible leadership position in that heinous organization." MILO states that "towards the end of his life he distanced himself from the Klan." MILO uses minimizing language here. Forrest was thought to be the head of the Ku Klux Klan to give it credibility with ex-Confederates, not just any "possible leadership position."
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United Confederate Veterans thought that the Ku Klux Klan were great ex-Confederate soldier heroes and believed that Forrest was the head of the KKK. S.E.F. (Laura Martin) Rose's book, "The Ku Klux Klan or The Invisible Empire," praised Forrest as the leader of the KKK and the book was endorsed by the UDC and SCV. S.E.F. Rose became the Historian General of the UDC. Rose didn't invent this understanding of the role of Forrest as the leader of the KKK. Forrest monuments in the South were put up in a time when it was popularly understood that he was the leader of the KKK.
Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for Georgia during its 1920s revival. It does suggest but doesn't prove that Forrest II saw being a KKK leader as part of the family tradition. He probably got to be Grand Dragon based on his name and that his father was popularly understood to be the leader of the original KKK.
However, reviewing Forrest's role in the KKK, which will probably, barring some discovery of some documents, remain always unclear avoids the main issue. At the time when Confederate monuments were being erected the Ku Klux Klan was thought to be a great heroic organization of ex-Confederates by those who chose to honor the Confederacy and erect Confederate monuments.
Nathan Beford Forrest fought for the Confederacy a nation created to defend slavery and white supremacy and the fact that Forrest fought for the Confederacy and what the Confederacy's purpose was is very clear in the historical record. This isn't discussed by MILO. Neo-Confederates often like to shift the discussion to one issue to avoid discussion of another issue.
MILO then tries to distract from the issue of historical memory and race by asserting that the mayor of Memphis is expecting that the removal of Forrest from the park "will fix the lives of the citizens of predominately black Memphis." MILO brings up the rate of murder in Memphis and that it "is overwhelming a result of black-on-black crime." MILO states that Wharton "seems to value symbolism over substance."
Did Memphis Mayor Wharton say that the removal of Forrest from the park fix all or some of Memphis' problems? MILO is refuting an argument that very likely wasn't made. In debate this is know as knocking down Straw men. You assert an argument as being by the opposition and then refute the argument.
Also, this is a classic neo-Confederate tactic of making two issues as being competitive choices. The idea is that if there is any other problem in a city or county that removing a Confederate statue is denying resources to address the other problems. It sets up the situation that no statue can be removed unless all other social problems in society are gone which effectively means that the Confederate statues will be there forever. There is no reason that the city of Memphis can't get rid of Forrest and also work on other urban problems.
But in all of this MILO is avoiding the whole point of monuments, is that they exist to monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is why they are put up because the expectations is that they will work to support a historical point of view and influence people.
The Forrest monument and burial site work to glorify Forrest and the Confederacy and to define Memphis as valuing the values of the Confederacy which were white supremacy and the support for slavery.
Every Confederate monument whispers, "Racial equality might be the slogan of the day, but white supremacy is for the ages." After all if racial equality was sincerely believed in the Confederate statues would be long gone.
MILO throws in some comments about "burial privilege" and "reap culture" so that opposition to Forrest memorialization sounds sort of like something at a college or believed by liberals that Breitbart readers would hate. The term "reap culture" sounds like feminist references to "rape culture," which is an anathema to conservatives.
MILO finishes by satirically listing individuals who he thinks should be disinterred. The singer Elvis Pressley for "appropriating black culture"; Betsy Ross, "reinforcing traditional gender roles as a seamstress"; Sir Francis Drake, who "by circumnavigating the globe .. inadvertently violated dozens of safe spaces."
One of MILO's messages here is that reconsidering who we memorialize and to whom we have monuments dedicated to is frivolous and and silly.
Confederate monuments inscribe the landscape and the land as being white and define values of white nationalism. The more important message MILO is communicating to his readers need to consider is that if one white person's role in American history is reconsidered, another white person's role in history might be reconsidered. This section of his article effectively is an appeal to white nationalist panic and loss of control of the landscape to non-whites or at the very minimum having to face lose of control of the white land which makes a white nation when the landscape is contested by non-whites.
The article is a defense against non-whites this contesting the landscape. It doesn't directly make an appeal to white nationalism and even asserts that pursing the removal of Forrest body is a neglect of the interests of the the African American community in Memphis. So it wears disguises.
So is MILO a white nationalist or alt-right, I am not going to say. I don't have a mind reading machine. Is his writing in service of white nationalism and the neo-Confederate movement and the continued definition of the land as white nationlist, I think it clearly is.
UPDATE 5:
It seems that Milo might be making a comeback. This is an article about his book being a top seller on Amazon for pre-orders. Of course it might be just a one day spike in sales. I don't know how Amazon calculates these things.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/06/05/milo-book-dangerous-back-on-sale-soars-to-5-on-amazon-passes-clinton-sasse/
Checked now, and his sales is number 2.
Milo claims to have a media company, he might, I don't really know.
I don't know if Milo is important anymore to the preservation of Confederate monuments. If he defends Confederate monuments it might actually work to get them removed.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-cpac-milo-yiannopoulos-tape-235204
I just finished this article and the above article comes out. I wonder if any conservative will complain about "political correctness" or free speech in regards to Yiannopoulos. It seems that not everyone at CPAC was willing to go along with him being the keynote speaker. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/20/cpac-disinvites-milo-yiannopoulos-despite-his-attempt-at-contrition.html
I don't know if Yiannopoulos's career is over though. Politics has changed and what might have sunk a political career in the past may not now.
UPDATE2:
Book contract cancelled, though he has a $250,000 advance. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments
Breitbart employees are threatening to quit if Milo Yiannopoulos isn't fired.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments
UPDATE3
Milo has resigned from Breitbart. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/02/21/milo-resigns-breitbart-news/
His articles are still at the Breitbart website. Is his career over? Again I don't really know. Normally I would think it would definitely be over but then again politics and media are now all different and I have no idea what is "normal" now.
Rolling Stone has an article, "Milo Yiannopoulos Isn't Going Away." http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/matt-taibbi-milo-yiannopoulos-isnt-going-away-w468012
However, I think conservative student groups likely won't invite him to speak at their universities and so there won't be counter protests and essentially Yiannopoulos as a phenomenon will fade away, at least I think it will.
UPDATE4
There are reports that reactionary Regnery Publishing is going to publish Milo Yiannopoulos' book. It will be interesting if true. Regnery Publishing has pretensions of being a serious publisher and that evaporates if they publish Yiannopoulos' book.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/30/report-conservative-publisher-could-pick-up-milo-s-book.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl
http://forward.com/fast-forward/367594/right-wing-publisher-will-print-milo-yiannopoulos-book/
ORIGINAL POSTING FOLLOWS
Bad language quoted in the following blog posting. Given that it is about MILO it is unavoidable since his language is a significant aspect of his writings.
I hadn't paid much attention to Milo Yiannopoulos and his writings. He goes by MILO, all capital letters, and so I will use his first name in this blog posting. He contributed a lot of articles to Breitbart. This is a link to them. http://www.breitbart.com/author/milo-yiannopoulos/
The listing of his articles at Breitbart now just lists him as MILO.
However, this article refers to MILO as a Breitbart senior editor.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/02/19/milo-left-silence-us-because-they-know-they-cant-beat-us/
Condemnation of him on the Internet is widespread. He seems to be a person who just throws out a series of inflammatory statements to generate a response and he does get a response. There are protests, at least one violent, against his speaking on campuses. Also, universities try to prevent his speaking by demanding security deposits that student groups obviously can't afford. These rather transparent attempts are publicized by MILO. These attempts, some successful I think, have allowed him to focus on the issue of free speech to the obscuring of what he says such as the article in the link above.
His writing is mostly just frothing at the mouth. However, now it is announced that he is the keynote speaker at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which is a prominent conservative annual event. The publication for which he writes is Breitbart whose former head, Stephen Bannon, is now the chief of staff at the White House.
So as the star of the American conservative movement if and possibly a hero to English speaking conservatives everywhere, what he says is important. I think also it indicates some significant changes in politics and needs some review.
MILO very freely, clearly, and loudly states that he is gay and attracted to men of sub-Saharan African ancestry and is very expressive about being gay. His current speaking tour he calls the, "Dangerous Faggott Tour http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/31/milo-cal-poly-state-university-no-dead-babies/
He points to his having sex with black men as proof that he isn't racist or white supremacist.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/27/forced-glamour-magazine-admit-im-not-white-supremacist/
In the above article, MILO states, "Some kind of racist that just got railed for 18 hours in a hotel room by his black boyfriend. You fucking morons."
However, there are men with racist attitudes that are sexually attracted to African American men and sometimes that plays into to the attraction.
The thing about claiming someone is racist is that so far there is no technology to read minds. Even if a person stated they were a white supremacist they could claim 15 minutes later that they are no longer white supremacists and though you would likely think this claim as being dubious you can't disprove it. Neo-Confederates have claimed to have changed when it has suited them. In terms of racism you have to refer to actions, what a person does, what a person says, and these actions can be described as racist, that is actions in the service of racist goals.
American media is somewhat shallow about reporting on racism and to them a racist wears funny clothes and says they are a racist and MILO doesn't appear to be a member of any racist organization, doesn't make statements about racial inferiority and superiority or obvious white supremacist statements. American media doesn't seem to know how to engage him, or perhaps a critical analysis of MILO might lead to a critical analysis of other issues that would prove to be difficult for American media. Plus a critical review would take a lot of work and would be a long article.
He is self-derogatory about being gay and so I think his being gay is thus made acceptable to conservatives and my assessment is that he plays the role of being a gay person to be laughed at. It seems though it is entertainment that is very popular among conservatives as indicated by the fact that he is the keynote speaker at CPAC.
In this article MILO explains that that he would prefer to be straight.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/09/20/milo-i-would-take-a-straight-pill/
His homosexuality is in your face in some of his articles. For example this article about him having sex with a "black drug dealer" in his bedroom when he was 15 years old,"on a school night."
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/14/im-sooo-bored-of-being-gay/
In this article, link below, there is picture of a sign "Colored Served in Rear." In his article he explains his Grindr profile if "truthful" would say "blacks only" and so the meaning of the sign "Colored Served in Rear," becomes clear I think in any reasonable understanding of what MILO is trying to say with it. (Note: I looked up what "railed" means at the urban dictionary. It means to be vigorously and repeatedly penetrated by a penis. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Railed Warning, rather explicit language.) It isn't that this language would necessarily upset me, but I want to be considerate of the sensibilities of all my potential readers.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/my-grindr-profile-says-no-whites-am-i-racist/
So the keynote speaker for CPAC is a person who a man whose article makes it clear that he wants sex with African American men and has a picture of a sign to imply to the readers that this sex is anal penetration by African American men.
SO WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THIS?
First Ann Coulter must be feeling fairly down. She was a sensation in the media for her statements outraging opinion, now who is paying attention? She can't attack him since that would only help MILO. I don't think she could be anymore outrageous than MILO.
Gays and Lesbians:
I don't think that we can see it as a complete or nearly complete revolution in acceptance of gays in the conservative movement since MILO is basically playing his being gay on the old homophobic idea that being gay is inherently funny. However, it is a radical change in that he has become a conservative hero, a gay who is quite expressive about being gay and talks about his sexual desires openly. It should also be understood that part of the space created for this speech is that one of MILO's primary themes is that he is freely exercising his speech to say what needs to be said openly about race and religion and gender etc., and so critics of his being gay run the risk of being referred to as "politically correct" suppressing his speech.
Even so, even though MILO is self-derogatory as a gay person, his being the keynote speaker at CPAC as a very expressive gay man must really upset the religious right, though I don't know of any public expression by the religious right against MILO. The whole campaign against gays and Lesbians to evangelical youth is undermined by MILO being a conservative hero who has celebrity status and evidently financial success. I suppose the evangelicals can trot out their slogan, "hate the sin, but love the sinner," but I think the intention of this slogan was intended to look down on gays in a condescending way and not for a situation where a gay man, who who writes about his sex life, is cheered as the keynote speaker at CPAC.
MILO makes the religious right a sort of relic in many ways.
For the LGBT community it means a civil war of sorts. Trump is president and MILO is speaking at CPAC and the political fortunes of conservative gays will be benefited. It used to be conservative gays were closet cases and thus though they might express an opinion at a social function or bar, they weren't going to be talking to the public. Also, they were sort of worried about what the straight people might think and were sort of really negative about being gay and gay people. Other gays rejected them.
The neo-Confederate movement must be really be horrified by MILO. The neo-Confederate movement is both extremely anti-gay and against interracial sexual relations. Though it needs to be pointed out that Chronicles magazine publishes articles by Justin Raimondo who is openly gay. But Raimondo doesn't discuss it in his writings, and I don't ever think he discussed his sex life. Chronicles is really, really anti-LGBT.
Chronicles magazine does see Trump as a great opportunity for their agenda, and hasn't criticizes MILO or as far as I know commented on him. When they do we will be understand what the significance of MILO's homosexuality is the paleoconservative movement. I suppose I need to catch up in reading my issues of Chronicles. https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
The whole world of the Southern Partisan, the Abbeville Institute, M.E. Bradford and Southern Agrarians seems to have been left behind on the side of the road of the highway of history. John Shelton Reed must be as horrified as he was when he visited San Francisco and the presence of the gay male community there.
Conservative Movement:
With MILO's ascendancy in the conservative movement I think that we don't have to listen to the pretensions of conservatives to be some intellectual force. When they start talking about Edmund Burke or start quoting Eric Voegelin saying "immanetize the eschaton" we can just hold up a hand with palm facing outward, smile, and say "MILO."
It seems the conservative movement really is, as Lionel Trilling said, "... irritable mental gestures," which would be a good description of MILO's articles and speeches. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, you can just give up your pretensions.
We have always known or at least suspected that all the involved arguments about states' rights, constitutional theory, and various philosophical rationals were often just pretexts for a racial and social order where some are subordinated. It would however take labored analysis to break it down and show that these rationals were pretexts in articles or essays often read by small audiences. MILO as a rising celebrity to a national audience in almost all the media has shown and will show as keynote speaker at CPAC what the agenda of conservatism really for most conservatives is in simple direct terms. The mask has fallen off the face of conservatism, and fallen to the ground and shattered.
Confederacy:
MILO has an July 2015 article about "Why We must End 'Burial Privilege.'"
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/why-we-must-end-burial-privilege/
MILO is commenting on the effort to get remove and bury elsewhere the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a part of an effort of the city of Memphis to stop glorifying the Confederacy and not have a monument to Forrest.
MILO sarcastically informs his readers that he is obligated to inform his readers that there is a new way to "demonstrate their superiority in moral and political correctness ..."
MILO thus avoids discussing what the issues might be in monuments and historical memory and instead position it as a problem of some individuals being vainly self-righteous. MILO avoids the issue that monument monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is the whole purpose of monuments and MILO doesn't seem to understand what the purpose of a monument is.
MILO puts forth the irrelevant fact that Forrest as a commander was considered by many to be a "military genius" and Forrest's tactics are studied. However, the issue at hand isn't Forrest's ability as a military commander or whether his tactics should be studied. The issue is whether Forrest should be honored with a monument and a burial location that honors him. This is a common enough tactic to throw in items with the implication that they might justify something without explicitly saying what a specific item is supposed to prove.
Does MILO feel that there should be a monument to Forrest merely because he was a great military tactician? MILO doesn't actually say. It would seem that what Forrest fought for would be important, which is in this case was the break up of the United States to defend slavery and white supremacy. The issue of Forrest's objectives is avoided by MILO. Discuss one thing to avoid discussing another is a common enough neo-Confederate tactic.
MILO discusses Forrest's involvement in the Ku Klux Klan to exhonerate him. MILO states Forrest is "controversial" for his membership in the Ku Klux Klan and "possible leadership position in that heinous organization." MILO states that "towards the end of his life he distanced himself from the Klan." MILO uses minimizing language here. Forrest was thought to be the head of the Ku Klux Klan to give it credibility with ex-Confederates, not just any "possible leadership position."
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United Confederate Veterans thought that the Ku Klux Klan were great ex-Confederate soldier heroes and believed that Forrest was the head of the KKK. S.E.F. (Laura Martin) Rose's book, "The Ku Klux Klan or The Invisible Empire," praised Forrest as the leader of the KKK and the book was endorsed by the UDC and SCV. S.E.F. Rose became the Historian General of the UDC. Rose didn't invent this understanding of the role of Forrest as the leader of the KKK. Forrest monuments in the South were put up in a time when it was popularly understood that he was the leader of the KKK.
Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for Georgia during its 1920s revival. It does suggest but doesn't prove that Forrest II saw being a KKK leader as part of the family tradition. He probably got to be Grand Dragon based on his name and that his father was popularly understood to be the leader of the original KKK.
However, reviewing Forrest's role in the KKK, which will probably, barring some discovery of some documents, remain always unclear avoids the main issue. At the time when Confederate monuments were being erected the Ku Klux Klan was thought to be a great heroic organization of ex-Confederates by those who chose to honor the Confederacy and erect Confederate monuments.
Nathan Beford Forrest fought for the Confederacy a nation created to defend slavery and white supremacy and the fact that Forrest fought for the Confederacy and what the Confederacy's purpose was is very clear in the historical record. This isn't discussed by MILO. Neo-Confederates often like to shift the discussion to one issue to avoid discussion of another issue.
MILO then tries to distract from the issue of historical memory and race by asserting that the mayor of Memphis is expecting that the removal of Forrest from the park "will fix the lives of the citizens of predominately black Memphis." MILO brings up the rate of murder in Memphis and that it "is overwhelming a result of black-on-black crime." MILO states that Wharton "seems to value symbolism over substance."
Did Memphis Mayor Wharton say that the removal of Forrest from the park fix all or some of Memphis' problems? MILO is refuting an argument that very likely wasn't made. In debate this is know as knocking down Straw men. You assert an argument as being by the opposition and then refute the argument.
Also, this is a classic neo-Confederate tactic of making two issues as being competitive choices. The idea is that if there is any other problem in a city or county that removing a Confederate statue is denying resources to address the other problems. It sets up the situation that no statue can be removed unless all other social problems in society are gone which effectively means that the Confederate statues will be there forever. There is no reason that the city of Memphis can't get rid of Forrest and also work on other urban problems.
But in all of this MILO is avoiding the whole point of monuments, is that they exist to monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is why they are put up because the expectations is that they will work to support a historical point of view and influence people.
The Forrest monument and burial site work to glorify Forrest and the Confederacy and to define Memphis as valuing the values of the Confederacy which were white supremacy and the support for slavery.
Every Confederate monument whispers, "Racial equality might be the slogan of the day, but white supremacy is for the ages." After all if racial equality was sincerely believed in the Confederate statues would be long gone.
MILO throws in some comments about "burial privilege" and "reap culture" so that opposition to Forrest memorialization sounds sort of like something at a college or believed by liberals that Breitbart readers would hate. The term "reap culture" sounds like feminist references to "rape culture," which is an anathema to conservatives.
MILO finishes by satirically listing individuals who he thinks should be disinterred. The singer Elvis Pressley for "appropriating black culture"; Betsy Ross, "reinforcing traditional gender roles as a seamstress"; Sir Francis Drake, who "by circumnavigating the globe .. inadvertently violated dozens of safe spaces."
One of MILO's messages here is that reconsidering who we memorialize and to whom we have monuments dedicated to is frivolous and and silly.
Confederate monuments inscribe the landscape and the land as being white and define values of white nationalism. The more important message MILO is communicating to his readers need to consider is that if one white person's role in American history is reconsidered, another white person's role in history might be reconsidered. This section of his article effectively is an appeal to white nationalist panic and loss of control of the landscape to non-whites or at the very minimum having to face lose of control of the white land which makes a white nation when the landscape is contested by non-whites.
The article is a defense against non-whites this contesting the landscape. It doesn't directly make an appeal to white nationalism and even asserts that pursing the removal of Forrest body is a neglect of the interests of the the African American community in Memphis. So it wears disguises.
So is MILO a white nationalist or alt-right, I am not going to say. I don't have a mind reading machine. Is his writing in service of white nationalism and the neo-Confederate movement and the continued definition of the land as white nationlist, I think it clearly is.
UPDATE 5:
It seems that Milo might be making a comeback. This is an article about his book being a top seller on Amazon for pre-orders. Of course it might be just a one day spike in sales. I don't know how Amazon calculates these things.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/06/05/milo-book-dangerous-back-on-sale-soars-to-5-on-amazon-passes-clinton-sasse/
Checked now, and his sales is number 2.
Milo claims to have a media company, he might, I don't really know.
I don't know if Milo is important anymore to the preservation of Confederate monuments. If he defends Confederate monuments it might actually work to get them removed.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Geraldo Rivera resigns from Yale University post in protest over Calhoun College being renamed Grace Hopper
The following are links to articles about Geraldo Rivera resigning as a Calhoun associate fellow because of the renaming of Calhoun College as Grace Hopper College.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/02/13/geraldo-rivera-resigns-as-calhoun-associate-fellow/
http://www.newsweek.com/yale-calhoun-college-grace-hopper-556285?rx=us
Rivera tweeted:
"Been an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame."
https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/830819342531100674
In another tweet he said.
"To judge a 200 yr old early 19th century historic figure by standards of the 21st century as #Yale is doing is more Orwellian than inspired."
https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/831141630455455744
Let's unpack the meaning of these statements.
The first tweet means that an unreasonably narrow dogmatic view was applied in the renaming of Calhoun college. Though the term "political correctness" is somewhat meaningless.
It isn't as if Calhoun was a famous scientist, reformer, technologist or a person who contributed to the betterment of humanity, but he wrote one or two minor essays defending slavery or owned a few slaves. He was one of the leading defenders of slavery in the 19th century, if not the leading defender of slavery in the 19th century, and Calhoun is notable in history almost entirely for his defense of slavery and white supremacy.
The first tweet implies that rejecting a figure whose role in history was primarily, if not nearly entirely, to defend slavery and white supremacist is a concern only for those with narrow dogmatic unreasonable views such that they are "intolerant" and this concern is labeled as "political correctness." This I think says something how much Rivera values African Americans as human beings that he would see such a concern as "intolerant."
The second tweet labels the change as "Orwellian" which refers to how history was erased in George Orwell's novel, "1984."
Renaming John C. Calhoun College will not erase Calhoun from the history books. The historical record will still be there. Monuments and the naming of places after persons is to endorse them, but again the historical record of John C. Calhoun will exist as ever. The use of "Orwellian" would be consistent with a strategy to make a rejection of the name change sound like an educated high minded defense of history rather than panicked white nationalism. Rivera's criticism of the name change is bogus.
Rivera's comment about Calhoun being judged by 21st century standards fails in many ways.
It could be pointed out that Calhoun was negatively judged in the 19th and 20th century also, in particular by those who though African Americans had rights as human beings such as abolitionists and African Americans. Though these can be valid points they miss the primary point.
The primary point is that monuments are erected because a group of people have made a judgment about history or the present and want to communicate that judgment to the public to advance some set of ideas. When Yale University named the college in the 1930s it was judging Calhoun by the white supremacist standards of the early 20th century judging white supremacist Calhoun as a positive person in the history and worthy to be held up as an exemplar to persons. In short the college was named after Calhoun since this white supremacist figure of the early 19th century was judged by the early white supremacist 20th century to be a great person.
In the 21st century white supremacy has finally managed to be discredited enough at Yale University such that Yale no longer wants to judge Calhoun by the white supremacist standards of the early 20th century and instead judge him by standards of racial equality of whatever century.
The naming of buildings, streets, cities, parks, counties, etc. after pro-slavery or Confederate individuals is to racialize the landscape and define the American land as being the white territory of a white nation. With these names being challenged, it means that non-white people are having a say in authoring the landscape and deciding what buildings, streets, cities, parks, counties, etc. are named. It means that America is no longer guaranteed to be a white nation. This has resulted in a panic among many who wonder where will it all end, though not recognizing that they are having a white panic over the landscape.
As for racism or white nationalism we can't read minds. However, from a person's statements we can attempt to reason what might motivate these statements. In my opinion Rivera's statements are the logical result of white panic over a feared loss of an America understood to be a white nation. He very well might not have some reasoned through logic or really be conscious of what motivates his thinking, but his statements and resignation make sense as a manifestation of panicked white banal nationalism.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html
Of course Rivera I suppose can parade African Americans before the public as his friends and many African Americans probably can be found to declare he is not racist. I think some of this is possible because the public stereotype of racists are people wearing funny clothes and being belligerent and screaming white supremacist statements. The concept of banal white nationalism is largely unknown.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/02/13/geraldo-rivera-resigns-as-calhoun-associate-fellow/
http://www.newsweek.com/yale-calhoun-college-grace-hopper-556285?rx=us
Rivera tweeted:
"Been an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame."
https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/830819342531100674
In another tweet he said.
"To judge a 200 yr old early 19th century historic figure by standards of the 21st century as #Yale is doing is more Orwellian than inspired."
https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/831141630455455744
Let's unpack the meaning of these statements.
The first tweet means that an unreasonably narrow dogmatic view was applied in the renaming of Calhoun college. Though the term "political correctness" is somewhat meaningless.
It isn't as if Calhoun was a famous scientist, reformer, technologist or a person who contributed to the betterment of humanity, but he wrote one or two minor essays defending slavery or owned a few slaves. He was one of the leading defenders of slavery in the 19th century, if not the leading defender of slavery in the 19th century, and Calhoun is notable in history almost entirely for his defense of slavery and white supremacy.
The first tweet implies that rejecting a figure whose role in history was primarily, if not nearly entirely, to defend slavery and white supremacist is a concern only for those with narrow dogmatic unreasonable views such that they are "intolerant" and this concern is labeled as "political correctness." This I think says something how much Rivera values African Americans as human beings that he would see such a concern as "intolerant."
The second tweet labels the change as "Orwellian" which refers to how history was erased in George Orwell's novel, "1984."
Renaming John C. Calhoun College will not erase Calhoun from the history books. The historical record will still be there. Monuments and the naming of places after persons is to endorse them, but again the historical record of John C. Calhoun will exist as ever. The use of "Orwellian" would be consistent with a strategy to make a rejection of the name change sound like an educated high minded defense of history rather than panicked white nationalism. Rivera's criticism of the name change is bogus.
Rivera's comment about Calhoun being judged by 21st century standards fails in many ways.
It could be pointed out that Calhoun was negatively judged in the 19th and 20th century also, in particular by those who though African Americans had rights as human beings such as abolitionists and African Americans. Though these can be valid points they miss the primary point.
The primary point is that monuments are erected because a group of people have made a judgment about history or the present and want to communicate that judgment to the public to advance some set of ideas. When Yale University named the college in the 1930s it was judging Calhoun by the white supremacist standards of the early 20th century judging white supremacist Calhoun as a positive person in the history and worthy to be held up as an exemplar to persons. In short the college was named after Calhoun since this white supremacist figure of the early 19th century was judged by the early white supremacist 20th century to be a great person.
In the 21st century white supremacy has finally managed to be discredited enough at Yale University such that Yale no longer wants to judge Calhoun by the white supremacist standards of the early 20th century and instead judge him by standards of racial equality of whatever century.
The naming of buildings, streets, cities, parks, counties, etc. after pro-slavery or Confederate individuals is to racialize the landscape and define the American land as being the white territory of a white nation. With these names being challenged, it means that non-white people are having a say in authoring the landscape and deciding what buildings, streets, cities, parks, counties, etc. are named. It means that America is no longer guaranteed to be a white nation. This has resulted in a panic among many who wonder where will it all end, though not recognizing that they are having a white panic over the landscape.
As for racism or white nationalism we can't read minds. However, from a person's statements we can attempt to reason what might motivate these statements. In my opinion Rivera's statements are the logical result of white panic over a feared loss of an America understood to be a white nation. He very well might not have some reasoned through logic or really be conscious of what motivates his thinking, but his statements and resignation make sense as a manifestation of panicked white banal nationalism.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html
Of course Rivera I suppose can parade African Americans before the public as his friends and many African Americans probably can be found to declare he is not racist. I think some of this is possible because the public stereotype of racists are people wearing funny clothes and being belligerent and screaming white supremacist statements. The concept of banal white nationalism is largely unknown.
Benjamin McDowell threatened to do a "Dylann Roof-style attack." Anti-Semitism in the neo-Confederate movement
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article133112679.html
The above is the link about Benjamin McDowell's plan to do a "Dylann Roof style attack" on a synagogue.
Quoting the article about McDowell's Facebook postings:
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) offer this book at their online store, (at least on 2/17/2017), in their 2016-2017 Merchandise catalog, and in their Jan./Feb. 2017 issue of Confederate Veteran, their official publication. The SCV has roughly 30,000 members and the ideas that they push I think are likely to circulate in society.
Dylann Roof was inspired to massacre by what he read online at the Council of Conservative Citizens. I think with the incendiary writing that is in Conner's book, where Jewish are held up to have persecuted the South and are currently persecuting the South some unstable person is going to act. Conner calls Northern intellectual and activist Jews the South "dedicated and deadliest enemies." I this with writing like this we can expect that someone might act to massacre who they think are the South's "dedicated and deadliest enemy."
I have been meaning to alert the Jewish community about this danger, and starting today I am writing letters. There is a lot of anti-Semitic writing out there, but what makes this book a real danger is that it defines the historical record such that Jews are defined as enemies of "Southern heritage" and this book is offered for sale by a group which unfortunately is still considered mainstream by many.
Since Dylann Roof massacred African American church goers in Charleston, South Carolina I don't dismiss as alarmism that a massacre could be done by someone inspired by neo-Confederate writings.
The following is a section from my book "Pernicious" about the neo-Confederate movement and has quotes from the book.
=====================
The above is the link about Benjamin McDowell's plan to do a "Dylann Roof style attack" on a synagogue.
Quoting the article about McDowell's Facebook postings:
“Dylann roof did what these tattoos wearing so badass is supposed to be doing they don’t give a (expletive) about their white race,” McDowell wrote on Facebook on Jan. 5, according to the complaint. “All they wanne do is stay loaded on drugs the Jews put here to destory white man and they feast on the drugs. they should be Feasting on the enemy that stole their Heritage and their bloodline and trying to run us off of this Earth.”I don't know if McDowell read Frank Conner's book, "The South Under Siege," with its anti-Semitic ideas. This is a book that argues that the civil rights movement was a Jewish conspiracy to attack the South. This book wouldn't be important by itself except that the neo-Confederates have promoted this book.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) offer this book at their online store, (at least on 2/17/2017), in their 2016-2017 Merchandise catalog, and in their Jan./Feb. 2017 issue of Confederate Veteran, their official publication. The SCV has roughly 30,000 members and the ideas that they push I think are likely to circulate in society.
Dylann Roof was inspired to massacre by what he read online at the Council of Conservative Citizens. I think with the incendiary writing that is in Conner's book, where Jewish are held up to have persecuted the South and are currently persecuting the South some unstable person is going to act. Conner calls Northern intellectual and activist Jews the South "dedicated and deadliest enemies." I this with writing like this we can expect that someone might act to massacre who they think are the South's "dedicated and deadliest enemy."
I have been meaning to alert the Jewish community about this danger, and starting today I am writing letters. There is a lot of anti-Semitic writing out there, but what makes this book a real danger is that it defines the historical record such that Jews are defined as enemies of "Southern heritage" and this book is offered for sale by a group which unfortunately is still considered mainstream by many.
Since Dylann Roof massacred African American church goers in Charleston, South Carolina I don't dismiss as alarmism that a massacre could be done by someone inspired by neo-Confederate writings.
The following is a section from my book "Pernicious" about the neo-Confederate movement and has quotes from the book.
=====================
In
the book these two groups – “Northern Jews” and “Northern Liberal” – are
referred to as separate and different. In a subsection titled, “To Gain
Civil-Rights Protection Quietly for themselves, Northern Jewish Intellectuals
Sponsor and Guide a Southern Black-Civil-Rights Movement During the Last Half
of the 20th Century,” Conner writes:
The Northern liberals
have been condemning the white South as the immoral discriminators against
blacks since the 1830s. So the post-WWII white South – with its de jure segregation --- will make the
perfect enemy in this case. The Northern Jewish intellectuals will portray the
blacks as “black Jews” a brilliant and deserving race held back from success
only by the straightjacket of Southern
white discrimination.
Conner writes, “When we read between
the lines of a number of texts written by, about, and for Jews, we see that
their reasoning in the late 1940s ran more-or-less as follows:” Conner then
asserts that “American Jews” are afraid to run a campaign “directly against the
many anti-Semites among the Northern Gentiles, it could easily backfire,
resulting in a marked increase in anti-Semitism. Some other strategy must be
found.”
This
strategy Conner explains:
First, by insisting
that in business and social activities the overall society accept and respect
and protect under the law the individual values and practices of each “victim”
group – i.e., the blacks, the Hispanics, the American Indians, the Jews, militant
women, and any other group that wants special status – the Jews then become
merely one protected dissident group of many, instead of standing out all by
themselves in lonely opposition to Gentile America.
Conner explains that this strategy will
bring down the United States but the Jews don’t care.
… The fact that if pluralism is implemented,
it will Balkanize the U.S. – destroying both its stability and productivity –
is of little concern to many Jews: they are fast on their feet; and they figure
they don’t owe the Gentiles anything.
There is another section with the
title, “Northern Jews Wage All-Out Ideological Warfare Against the White
South.”
In the chapter Conner asserts that
African Americans were incapable of a civil rights movement on their own,
stating:
Without the Northern
Jewish intellectuals/activists to provide the funding, the guidance, and
all-important media support, there would have been no 1960s Southern
black-civil-rights movement.
Besides the directly stated racism in
this book there are these indirect statements which imply that African
Americans are too stupid to have run their own civil rights movement.
The
chapter in its conclusion warns:
Look well at the
Northern Jewish intellectuals/activists, O South, for they – who by rights
should have been your closest friends – are by their own choice your dedicated
and deadliest enemy.
Conner concludes the chapter that he is
going to examine the role of Jews in civil rights “in the following three
chapters.”[i]
[i] Conner, Frank, “The South Under
Siege: 1830-2000,” Collards Publishing Company, Newnan, Georgia, 2002; quote
regarding IQ on page 393, quote differentiating “Northern liberals” from
“Northern Jews” page 397; strategy statement, pp. 396-97, no possibility of a
civil rights movement without Jews, pp. 400; deadliest enemy statement, 406;
three chapters, pp. 406. The first edition has a binding error and the name on
the binding is “The South Under Seige.”
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Warner Todd Huston, "Breitbart," pro-Confederate writings to appeal to banal white nationalism.
UPDATED 2/16/2017 Editing mostly. I am not going to change the title, but I think that the appeal to white nationalism isn't so "banal" but is more open.
Recently the city of Charlottesville, VA has voted to remove the Robert E. Lee statue from downtown by a vote of 3 to 2. The following is an article about it.
http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2017/feb/10/charlottesville-votes-remove-lee-statue/
Warner Todd Huston writing for Breitbart has had two articles on the story.
The first is here:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/07/virginia-city-removes-nearly-100-year-old-statue-confederate-general-robert-e-lee/
The title is "Virginia city removes nearly 100-year-old statue of Robert E. Lee."
It is a report on the events except at the conclusion of the article when Huston makes essentially an editorial comment:
It might be argued that Huston was complaining that the statues being removed across the South weren't being re-located into museums or history exhibits showing how at one time the cities in which they original stood to show how white supremacy dominated these cities understanding of the Civil War. If so he does not state this or indicate this.
Perhaps Huston meant to say that history was being erased across the South. However, monuments are erected to literally monumentally endorse an individual and set of values. History is learned by reading the historical record and otherwise using other historical sources such as video instruction or reading material in the archive, or visiting museums which have an accurate and contextual explanation of artifacts and records.
A lot of people bring up terms like "erasing" or "whitewashing" history to pose as high minded defenders of history and avoid representing themselves as who they really are, that is defenders of the Confederacy and possessing a sort of instinctual white nationalism. This may explain why the title emphasizes the age of the statue to make the statue a historical object to be defended.
Of course I don't know what motivates Huston and this could merely be a badly thought out article. In the beginning of the article however Huston refers to Lee as "the Confederate hero" instead of referring to "the Confederate general" or "the Confederate leader" which would be a value neutral reference. So this would rule out that Huston is complaining that the statues need to be re-located and contextualized as showing how white supremacy once dominated Charlottesville. It suggests that Huston meant "erased."
Huston's 2nd article referring to the statue removal is:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/11/after-vote-to-eliminate-confederate-statues-city-decrees-liberation-and-freedom-day/
The title is, "After vote to eliminate Confederate statues, city decrees 'Liberation and Freedom Day.'"
The article suggests opposition to the Robert E. Lee statue as being driven by "Black Lives Matter ideology" and persons who are opponents of Pres. Trump. Breitbart elsewhere has suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement is a terrorist movement.
Huston writes;
Opponents to a Robert E. Lee statue are likely not to be supporters of Pres. Trump and probably are supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement or at least sympathetic to it. It is very likely indeed that as Huston wrote "some residents" said these things. However, there has been opposition to Confederate statues for decades prior to the election of Donald Trump as president and prior to the Black Lives Matter movement. What did other residents, besides these "some residents" referred to by Huston, say to support the removal of the statue is not stated.
Huston reports that the Charlottesville Daily Progressive, a student paper, also reported that "some in the meeting" saw the election of Trump as representing racism and white nationalism. What others might have said again isn't reported.
Huston refers to residents being concerned about "whitewashing" history and "excise" it without critically reviewing these arguments.
The judgment of Univ. of Virginia professor Schmidt is questioned since she argued for removing the statue which Huston writes is "despite the town's deep civil war history." Again in the 2nd article, as in the first article, "Civil War," isn't capitalized, in this quote and in another instance in this 2nd article. Neo-Confederates reject the term "Civil War." It has to be asked what name for the Civil War would Huston capitalize?
Huston also writes:
I rather doubt that Schmidt specifically used the word "revisionism." I suspect that the concept of "black lives mater trend of historical revisionism" is a concept invented by Huston. Huston quotes Schmidt whose argument was that the statues should be removed so "we can change our history's narrative around race." Concern to have an accurate historical record in general, and in regards to race, predates the Black Lives Matter and the 2016 election. The issue of whitewashing in American history has been long understood as the obscuring of the history of race in the United States.
Nowhere in Huston's article is it reported that there was opposition to the Robert E. Lee statue because the Confederacy was an effort to preserve slavery and maintain white supremacy as explained by Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens in his infamous "Cornerstone" speech. We are told what "some residents" said, but we don't know what the other arguments presented against the statue were. Almost invariably in discussing the Confederacy the issue of the Confederacy being an effort to preserve slavery and white supremacy is brought up. The topic is missing from Huston's article.
(Incidentally, there is a new neo-Confederate argument that Stephens made a mistake in the speech. Stephens did think he made a mistake in the "Cornerstone" speech in his criticizing of the American Founders, but not the white supremacy and pro-slavery sections. Stephens gave similar speeches at other times.)
So both articles suggest or imply that opposition to Confederate statues is driven by Black Lives Matter "ideology" and persons who are against Pres. Trump. Huston positions the opposition to the Confederacy to be an opposition to Breitbart conservatism and Pres. Trump to be related and not just coincidental.
Huston then discusses the "Liberation and Freedom Day" decree supported by Charlottesville Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy. The article explains that this day, March 3rd, is now to be celebrated by the city as the day "in 1865 when the Union Army entered the city." Yes, the Union Army arrived liberated Charlottesville, just as American armies liberated Europe at the end of World War II.
Huston doesn't discuss "Liberation and Freedom Day" except one sentence to mention what it is and instead devotes much of the remaining article to attack Bellamy for things such as "his antics over 'racism.'"
Huston states that the city has "deep connections to civil war history," again avoiding capitalizing "civil war," elaborating more on his argument against professor Schmidt's reasons to remove the Lee statue, and states "federal forces invaded" the region in rejection of the idea of Union armies liberating the region and bring freedom to the region. This terminology is a rejection of Liberation and Freedom Day,This would be consistent with a mentality in which the human worth, the lives of African Americans didn't really mat
The two articles write Confederate nationalism into American nationalism and maps the struggle over the Confederacy into contemporary political struggles.
Huston doesn't directly say that he is pro-Confederate or admires the Confederacy. Instead the article represents the opponents of Confederate statues as wrong headed persons whose wrong headedness is manifest by their being supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and opponents of Pres. Trump; are enemies of history, and are really driven by an agenda against conservatism and Pres. Trump.
Huston articles work to validate the idea that opposition to Pres. Trump, Breitbart conservatism, and Confederate statues are the same. Further articles like this can effect a change such that it becomes a reality that these three things become overlaid and the same thing.
From other articles in Breitbart this does seem to be the agenda of this publication to make these three things the same thing.
Breitbart in defending the Confederacy and attacking those who are trying to get rid of the glorification of the Confederacy is pushing a white nationalist agenda and race conflict.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html
Recently the city of Charlottesville, VA has voted to remove the Robert E. Lee statue from downtown by a vote of 3 to 2. The following is an article about it.
http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2017/feb/10/charlottesville-votes-remove-lee-statue/
Warner Todd Huston writing for Breitbart has had two articles on the story.
The first is here:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/07/virginia-city-removes-nearly-100-year-old-statue-confederate-general-robert-e-lee/
The title is "Virginia city removes nearly 100-year-old statue of Robert E. Lee."
It is a report on the events except at the conclusion of the article when Huston makes essentially an editorial comment:
"Whitewashing Confederate history is ingoing effort for cities throughout those areas where civil war battles were waged 150 years ago."[Term "ingoing" in the original.]This statement doesn't make sense. The term "whitewashing" means "to gloss over or cover up" something bad. Keeping the statue of Robert E. Lee representing Lee as a hero rather as a negative figure in history who was a racist and fought for slavery and white supremacy is whitewashing. Removing the statue is putting an end to whitewashing.
It might be argued that Huston was complaining that the statues being removed across the South weren't being re-located into museums or history exhibits showing how at one time the cities in which they original stood to show how white supremacy dominated these cities understanding of the Civil War. If so he does not state this or indicate this.
Perhaps Huston meant to say that history was being erased across the South. However, monuments are erected to literally monumentally endorse an individual and set of values. History is learned by reading the historical record and otherwise using other historical sources such as video instruction or reading material in the archive, or visiting museums which have an accurate and contextual explanation of artifacts and records.
A lot of people bring up terms like "erasing" or "whitewashing" history to pose as high minded defenders of history and avoid representing themselves as who they really are, that is defenders of the Confederacy and possessing a sort of instinctual white nationalism. This may explain why the title emphasizes the age of the statue to make the statue a historical object to be defended.
Of course I don't know what motivates Huston and this could merely be a badly thought out article. In the beginning of the article however Huston refers to Lee as "the Confederate hero" instead of referring to "the Confederate general" or "the Confederate leader" which would be a value neutral reference. So this would rule out that Huston is complaining that the statues need to be re-located and contextualized as showing how white supremacy once dominated Charlottesville. It suggests that Huston meant "erased."
Huston's 2nd article referring to the statue removal is:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/11/after-vote-to-eliminate-confederate-statues-city-decrees-liberation-and-freedom-day/
The title is, "After vote to eliminate Confederate statues, city decrees 'Liberation and Freedom Day.'"
The article suggests opposition to the Robert E. Lee statue as being driven by "Black Lives Matter ideology" and persons who are opponents of Pres. Trump. Breitbart elsewhere has suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement is a terrorist movement.
Huston writes;
"During the discussion, some residents said the election of Donald Trump proves racism is alive and well and that the city needs to "transform" its history to conform to a Black Lives Matter ideology."
Opponents to a Robert E. Lee statue are likely not to be supporters of Pres. Trump and probably are supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement or at least sympathetic to it. It is very likely indeed that as Huston wrote "some residents" said these things. However, there has been opposition to Confederate statues for decades prior to the election of Donald Trump as president and prior to the Black Lives Matter movement. What did other residents, besides these "some residents" referred to by Huston, say to support the removal of the statue is not stated.
Huston reports that the Charlottesville Daily Progressive, a student paper, also reported that "some in the meeting" saw the election of Trump as representing racism and white nationalism. What others might have said again isn't reported.
Huston refers to residents being concerned about "whitewashing" history and "excise" it without critically reviewing these arguments.
The judgment of Univ. of Virginia professor Schmidt is questioned since she argued for removing the statue which Huston writes is "despite the town's deep civil war history." Again in the 2nd article, as in the first article, "Civil War," isn't capitalized, in this quote and in another instance in this 2nd article. Neo-Confederates reject the term "Civil War." It has to be asked what name for the Civil War would Huston capitalize?
Huston also writes:
"The professor also suggested that the town's history should better reflect the current black lives matter trend of historical revisionism."
I rather doubt that Schmidt specifically used the word "revisionism." I suspect that the concept of "black lives mater trend of historical revisionism" is a concept invented by Huston. Huston quotes Schmidt whose argument was that the statues should be removed so "we can change our history's narrative around race." Concern to have an accurate historical record in general, and in regards to race, predates the Black Lives Matter and the 2016 election. The issue of whitewashing in American history has been long understood as the obscuring of the history of race in the United States.
Nowhere in Huston's article is it reported that there was opposition to the Robert E. Lee statue because the Confederacy was an effort to preserve slavery and maintain white supremacy as explained by Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens in his infamous "Cornerstone" speech. We are told what "some residents" said, but we don't know what the other arguments presented against the statue were. Almost invariably in discussing the Confederacy the issue of the Confederacy being an effort to preserve slavery and white supremacy is brought up. The topic is missing from Huston's article.
(Incidentally, there is a new neo-Confederate argument that Stephens made a mistake in the speech. Stephens did think he made a mistake in the "Cornerstone" speech in his criticizing of the American Founders, but not the white supremacy and pro-slavery sections. Stephens gave similar speeches at other times.)
So both articles suggest or imply that opposition to Confederate statues is driven by Black Lives Matter "ideology" and persons who are against Pres. Trump. Huston positions the opposition to the Confederacy to be an opposition to Breitbart conservatism and Pres. Trump to be related and not just coincidental.
Huston then discusses the "Liberation and Freedom Day" decree supported by Charlottesville Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy. The article explains that this day, March 3rd, is now to be celebrated by the city as the day "in 1865 when the Union Army entered the city." Yes, the Union Army arrived liberated Charlottesville, just as American armies liberated Europe at the end of World War II.
Huston doesn't discuss "Liberation and Freedom Day" except one sentence to mention what it is and instead devotes much of the remaining article to attack Bellamy for things such as "his antics over 'racism.'"
Huston states that the city has "deep connections to civil war history," again avoiding capitalizing "civil war," elaborating more on his argument against professor Schmidt's reasons to remove the Lee statue, and states "federal forces invaded" the region in rejection of the idea of Union armies liberating the region and bring freedom to the region. This terminology is a rejection of Liberation and Freedom Day,This would be consistent with a mentality in which the human worth, the lives of African Americans didn't really mat
The two articles write Confederate nationalism into American nationalism and maps the struggle over the Confederacy into contemporary political struggles.
Huston doesn't directly say that he is pro-Confederate or admires the Confederacy. Instead the article represents the opponents of Confederate statues as wrong headed persons whose wrong headedness is manifest by their being supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and opponents of Pres. Trump; are enemies of history, and are really driven by an agenda against conservatism and Pres. Trump.
Huston articles work to validate the idea that opposition to Pres. Trump, Breitbart conservatism, and Confederate statues are the same. Further articles like this can effect a change such that it becomes a reality that these three things become overlaid and the same thing.
From other articles in Breitbart this does seem to be the agenda of this publication to make these three things the same thing.
Breitbart in defending the Confederacy and attacking those who are trying to get rid of the glorification of the Confederacy is pushing a white nationalist agenda and race conflict.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html
"Portlandia" episode showing stupidity of West Coast secessionists.
http://ew.com/tv/2017/02/14/portlandia-clip-kyle-maclachlan-portland-secedes/
The link has some clips of the show "Portlandia" where the mayor proposes secession because of outsiders taking up tables at the restaurants the mayor frequents.
Though the article implies that the episode is a satire of anti-immigration politics and Trump, I also think it ridicules secessionists and by implication California secessionists.
It also shows that secession is essentially reactionary xenophobia.
UPDATE:
Another article about the episode on secession.
http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2017/02/portland_secedes_from_the_us_o.html
The link has some clips of the show "Portlandia" where the mayor proposes secession because of outsiders taking up tables at the restaurants the mayor frequents.
Though the article implies that the episode is a satire of anti-immigration politics and Trump, I also think it ridicules secessionists and by implication California secessionists.
It also shows that secession is essentially reactionary xenophobia.
UPDATE:
Another article about the episode on secession.
http://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2017/02/portland_secedes_from_the_us_o.html
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Yale Univ. President Peter Salovey's rationalizations and a puff piece in the "New York Review of Books" are for naught
The New York Review of Books published this interview with Yale Univ. President Peter Salovey. It is a sort of nonsense that university presidents might like to spout.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/29/race-renaming-yale/
The whole thing is rubbish, and the New York Review of Books was the enabler. I think they thought this article would get everyone in academics to buy into it. It is most interesting in how it shows that the New York Review of Books is really out of touch. I got my last issue last week and I am not renewing my subscription. Basically, it seemed to me that Salovey thought that he could bribe opinion by offering all sorts of goodies to minorities on campus. Read the article and make your own judgment.
One thing Peter Salovey wasn't planning on was an African American janitor at Calhoun College suddenly deciding that he had had enough and smashed a stain glass of African Americans picking cotton.
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/15/exclusive_meet_yale_dishwasher_corey_menafee
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/black-yale-dishwasher-charges-dropped-smashing-window-article-1.2726910
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/19/yale-wants-to-rehire-window-smasher-corey-menafee.html
How disagreeable this must have been to Salovey, he had gotten a puff piece (my opinion) in the New York Review of Books, and yet there was still going to be controversy. I discuss the article in my book, "Pernicious."
Now it seems the name is going to be changed after all.
http://www.nhregister.com/20170211/yale-will-rename-calhoun-college-to-honor-trailblazing-alum-grace-murray-hopper
http://www.courant.com/education/hc-yale-changing-calhoun-residence-hall-name-20170210-story.html
https://qz.com/908436/yale-is-changing-the-slavery-laden-name-of-calhoun-college-and-honoring-grace-hopper-instead/
It seems that a petition signed by half the arts and science faculty helped clarify Salovey's thinking.
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/yale-will-rename-calhoun-college-for-grace-hopper/116859
I think this would be a good group of people to contact to ask if they want to sign a petition I am sending to Trump about the Arlington Confederate monument.
Salovey's arguments to keep the name Calhoun was widely criticized as being without sense. In my view he in the end had to change the name, but degraded his reputation on the way.
This one name change in itself has a modest impact on the credibility of neo-Confederacy. But each name change, each Confederate monument removal leaves the remaining ones more anomalous seeming and less tolerable.
This also sets an important precedent. Salovey wasn't the only university president putting out rationalizations. It might be that the nonsensical decision of the University of Texas at Austin to only get ride of one Confederate statue might be reviewed. Perhaps Princeton University will get its act together and review how they should remember Woodrow Wilson.
The example is also set to other university president that giving into pressure by reactionary alumni might not work out in the end. You will eventually have to get ride of the statue or name, the reactionary alumni will then be upset with you anyways and your excuses and rationalizations will seem foolish and stick to your reputation. Besides the cranky threats of the reactionary alumni are not that real, where might they donate their money instead? Might as well as do it and get rid of the Confederate statue, the pro-slavery name and be done with it.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/29/race-renaming-yale/
The whole thing is rubbish, and the New York Review of Books was the enabler. I think they thought this article would get everyone in academics to buy into it. It is most interesting in how it shows that the New York Review of Books is really out of touch. I got my last issue last week and I am not renewing my subscription. Basically, it seemed to me that Salovey thought that he could bribe opinion by offering all sorts of goodies to minorities on campus. Read the article and make your own judgment.
One thing Peter Salovey wasn't planning on was an African American janitor at Calhoun College suddenly deciding that he had had enough and smashed a stain glass of African Americans picking cotton.
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/15/exclusive_meet_yale_dishwasher_corey_menafee
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/black-yale-dishwasher-charges-dropped-smashing-window-article-1.2726910
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/19/yale-wants-to-rehire-window-smasher-corey-menafee.html
How disagreeable this must have been to Salovey, he had gotten a puff piece (my opinion) in the New York Review of Books, and yet there was still going to be controversy. I discuss the article in my book, "Pernicious."
Now it seems the name is going to be changed after all.
http://www.nhregister.com/20170211/yale-will-rename-calhoun-college-to-honor-trailblazing-alum-grace-murray-hopper
http://www.courant.com/education/hc-yale-changing-calhoun-residence-hall-name-20170210-story.html
https://qz.com/908436/yale-is-changing-the-slavery-laden-name-of-calhoun-college-and-honoring-grace-hopper-instead/
It seems that a petition signed by half the arts and science faculty helped clarify Salovey's thinking.
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/yale-will-rename-calhoun-college-for-grace-hopper/116859
I think this would be a good group of people to contact to ask if they want to sign a petition I am sending to Trump about the Arlington Confederate monument.
Salovey's arguments to keep the name Calhoun was widely criticized as being without sense. In my view he in the end had to change the name, but degraded his reputation on the way.
This one name change in itself has a modest impact on the credibility of neo-Confederacy. But each name change, each Confederate monument removal leaves the remaining ones more anomalous seeming and less tolerable.
This also sets an important precedent. Salovey wasn't the only university president putting out rationalizations. It might be that the nonsensical decision of the University of Texas at Austin to only get ride of one Confederate statue might be reviewed. Perhaps Princeton University will get its act together and review how they should remember Woodrow Wilson.
The example is also set to other university president that giving into pressure by reactionary alumni might not work out in the end. You will eventually have to get ride of the statue or name, the reactionary alumni will then be upset with you anyways and your excuses and rationalizations will seem foolish and stick to your reputation. Besides the cranky threats of the reactionary alumni are not that real, where might they donate their money instead? Might as well as do it and get rid of the Confederate statue, the pro-slavery name and be done with it.
Michael Phillips, author of "White Metropolis," has signed the petition asking President Trump to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.
Michael Phillips, author of "White Metropolis," a book about the racial and ethnic history of Dallas, Texas has signed the petition asking Donald J. Trump not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.
I am going to spread out postings about authors who have signed the petition to address other topics. However, a very prominent author has signed the petition and later I will have a posting about that.
We are just getting started soliciting authors to sign this petition and I am sure more will be coming.
If you would like to sign the petition this is the link.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
His web page is:
http://www.michaelphillipsphd.com/
I don't find any online videos.
I am going to spread out postings about authors who have signed the petition to address other topics. However, a very prominent author has signed the petition and later I will have a posting about that.
We are just getting started soliciting authors to sign this petition and I am sure more will be coming.
If you would like to sign the petition this is the link.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
His web page is:
http://www.michaelphillipsphd.com/
I don't find any online videos.
John Barr, author of "Loathing Lincoln" signs the petition to President Trump asking him not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument
John Barr, author of "Loathing Lincoln," a book about people who hate Abraham Lincoln has signed the petition asking Trump to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.
If you wish to sign the petition this is the link.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
After you sign please share it with others.
Barr's book is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Loathing-Lincoln-Tradition-Conflicting-Dimensions/dp/0807153834
This is Barr's blog.
http://loathinglincoln.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVl0uyGN4HA&t=16s
If you wish to sign the petition this is the link.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
After you sign please share it with others.
Barr's book is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Loathing-Lincoln-Tradition-Conflicting-Dimensions/dp/0807153834
This is Barr's blog.
http://loathinglincoln.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVl0uyGN4HA&t=16s
Euan Hague signs petition to Pres. Trump asking him not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument.
Dr. Euan Hague, co-editor of "Neoliberal Chicago," has signed the petition to Trump.
We are starting to get academics and authors to sign the petition and will be letting people know who they are when they sign. The following is the link to the petition.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
This is a link to his book:
https://www.amazon.com/Neoliberal-Chicago-Euan-Hague/dp/0252040597
Euan Hague has quite a few videos at youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=euan+hague
Click on the videos to see the whole video.
This is an interview about "Neoliberal Chicago.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s867Y32WIM
Another good video is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTd8wBRCzN0
We are starting to get academics and authors to sign the petition and will be letting people know who they are when they sign. The following is the link to the petition.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
This is a link to his book:
https://www.amazon.com/Neoliberal-Chicago-Euan-Hague/dp/0252040597
Euan Hague has quite a few videos at youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=euan+hague
Click on the videos to see the whole video.
This is an interview about "Neoliberal Chicago.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s867Y32WIM
Another good video is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTd8wBRCzN0
Thursday, February 09, 2017
Change.org petition launched asking President Trump not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.
You can go to the Change.org petition here and sign it. Goal is one million signatures. I think this is very do able.
After signing please let others know about the petition.
Simpler link for the petition. We have reached the first milestone of five signatures which means the search engine on Change.org will find it.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
You can download a PDF of the letter and also read a bibliographic resource for the letter at this link.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/sign-2017-petition-to-president-trump.html
After signing please let others know about the petition.
Simpler link for the petition. We have reached the first milestone of five signatures which means the search engine on Change.org will find it.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
You can download a PDF of the letter and also read a bibliographic resource for the letter at this link.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/sign-2017-petition-to-president-trump.html
Wednesday, February 08, 2017
Who is Stephen Bannon?
Given Breitbart's pro-Confederate writing and that its editorial policy seems to be directed by Stephen Bannon, I have been trying to learn what I can about Bannon. Bannon is in the White House in a prominent position where he can defend the Confederacy.
Breitbart isn't simply neo-Confederate. Breitbart articles regard Lincoln favorably and recently there was an article about Frederick Douglass. These are thing that neo-Confederates would find an anathema.
It might be argued that Breitbart is just a grab bag of incoherent rage, and it might be to some extent. Maybe Lincoln is respected since not to would be lethal to Breitbart's influence.
This article certainly represents how some Breitbart articles are just concatenations of rage.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/12/21/walmart-drops-black-lives-matter-bulletproof-clothing/
To review the whole article's lack of logic would be lengthy but this extract should give a good picture of Breitbart's writing.
But Michael Xavier Johnson was in no way a member of any BLM organization and it turned out that radical African American groups thought he was crazy. So Bill O'Reilly's statement that Johnson was a terrorist is very correct, but not relevant to discussing the BLM movement.
Additionally, there isn't an official BLM national organization, it is more of a movement. So the statement of a person who is "A BLM activist," without a name given doesn't mean much as an isolated incident. Even if it was an officer of an organization, we would have to see if the person was expelled from the group. Large groups often have individual members saying things that the organization rejects, sometimes these offending members are expelled or censored.
It seems that BLM is a group of people who don't want to see African Americans indiscriminately shot by law enforcement. I don't think any group would stand for that.
However, thinking of Breitbart as being completely an incoherent rage machine I don't think is correct. I think there is very likely an agenda, and possibly a very reactionary pre-modern agenda.
I have read these articles:
https://qz.com/898134/what-steve-bannon-really-wants/
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/bannon-trump-muslim-travel-ban-breitbart-generation-zero/ Jacobin is a socialist magazine, but at least it is not filled with the Democratic Party line.
Of course Quartz is the publication of the globalists and I think Politico is likely to be so.
It is proving really hard to find out who Bannon is given the extreme polarization on reporting on him.
A lot of web newsites are full of the worst junk. Slate actually published this rubbish.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/20/donald_trump_s_horrifying_signature_is_a_cry_for_help.html
Ironically Slate had in the past published an article debunking signature analysis. In this article the history of what the Slate article calls a pseudoscience is given and debunked.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2013/01/jack_lew_s_loopy_signature_how_much_can_you_tell_about_someone_from_handwriting.html
As a scientific person this is especially dismaying. With new pseudo-sciences coming into being you would hope that some of the old ones would die out. They don't.
So Slate at the present time is just grasping for anything at hand. Maybe tomorrow they will have an article about the examination of entrails and tell what it signifies for the Trump administration.
This stuff and nonsense isn't confined to the globalists. I was astonished earlier this week when a Trump supporter told me with all seriousness, that newspaper political editorials that were biased were illegal in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
Understanding Bannon's ideology is important. It is just proving to be difficult to do so. It might be that he is a believer in the "Dark Enlightenment," a neo-Reactionary, or it might not.
I see from Generation Zero movie trailer that Bannon believes in historical cycles. It is a common enough failing. There are historians who try to press history into some mold. But I am not sure this movie actually explains where he is coming from.
Perhaps figuring out who Bannon is will take some time. What I mean by this, is finding out where he fits in the political taxonomy. Or maybe I will focus on outputs, behaviors and leave it at that. I will have to see what information there is.
Breitbart isn't simply neo-Confederate. Breitbart articles regard Lincoln favorably and recently there was an article about Frederick Douglass. These are thing that neo-Confederates would find an anathema.
It might be argued that Breitbart is just a grab bag of incoherent rage, and it might be to some extent. Maybe Lincoln is respected since not to would be lethal to Breitbart's influence.
This article certainly represents how some Breitbart articles are just concatenations of rage.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/12/21/walmart-drops-black-lives-matter-bulletproof-clothing/
To review the whole article's lack of logic would be lengthy but this extract should give a good picture of Breitbart's writing.
Micah Xavier Johnson, the Nation of Islam sympathizer and former Houston New Black Panther member who gunned down 11 police officers in Dallas in July said he wanted to kill cops, especially white cops, as reported by Breitbart Texas. Johnson started shooting at the close of a Black Lives Matter protest. A BLM activist thanked the cop killer on Twitter. Bill O’Reilly called Johnson “a hater and a terrorist.”
But Michael Xavier Johnson was in no way a member of any BLM organization and it turned out that radical African American groups thought he was crazy. So Bill O'Reilly's statement that Johnson was a terrorist is very correct, but not relevant to discussing the BLM movement.
Additionally, there isn't an official BLM national organization, it is more of a movement. So the statement of a person who is "A BLM activist," without a name given doesn't mean much as an isolated incident. Even if it was an officer of an organization, we would have to see if the person was expelled from the group. Large groups often have individual members saying things that the organization rejects, sometimes these offending members are expelled or censored.
It seems that BLM is a group of people who don't want to see African Americans indiscriminately shot by law enforcement. I don't think any group would stand for that.
However, thinking of Breitbart as being completely an incoherent rage machine I don't think is correct. I think there is very likely an agenda, and possibly a very reactionary pre-modern agenda.
I have read these articles:
https://qz.com/898134/what-steve-bannon-really-wants/
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/bannon-trump-muslim-travel-ban-breitbart-generation-zero/ Jacobin is a socialist magazine, but at least it is not filled with the Democratic Party line.
Of course Quartz is the publication of the globalists and I think Politico is likely to be so.
It is proving really hard to find out who Bannon is given the extreme polarization on reporting on him.
A lot of web newsites are full of the worst junk. Slate actually published this rubbish.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/20/donald_trump_s_horrifying_signature_is_a_cry_for_help.html
Ironically Slate had in the past published an article debunking signature analysis. In this article the history of what the Slate article calls a pseudoscience is given and debunked.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2013/01/jack_lew_s_loopy_signature_how_much_can_you_tell_about_someone_from_handwriting.html
As a scientific person this is especially dismaying. With new pseudo-sciences coming into being you would hope that some of the old ones would die out. They don't.
So Slate at the present time is just grasping for anything at hand. Maybe tomorrow they will have an article about the examination of entrails and tell what it signifies for the Trump administration.
This stuff and nonsense isn't confined to the globalists. I was astonished earlier this week when a Trump supporter told me with all seriousness, that newspaper political editorials that were biased were illegal in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
Understanding Bannon's ideology is important. It is just proving to be difficult to do so. It might be that he is a believer in the "Dark Enlightenment," a neo-Reactionary, or it might not.
I see from Generation Zero movie trailer that Bannon believes in historical cycles. It is a common enough failing. There are historians who try to press history into some mold. But I am not sure this movie actually explains where he is coming from.
Perhaps figuring out who Bannon is will take some time. What I mean by this, is finding out where he fits in the political taxonomy. Or maybe I will focus on outputs, behaviors and leave it at that. I will have to see what information there is.
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Letter to President Trump asking him to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument is done. UPDATE:
The letter has gone through five drafts, but it is finished. Also finished is a reference sheet for the letter documenting sources for various statements in the letter.
I don't expect Donald Trump to read the references, but I do want it understood that the statements are substantiated by credible sources. Also, some people might find these resources of interest and we will get some people interested in the historical record.
I will be mailing the letter this week by certified mail.
There will be an online petition.
Also, as things develop updates will appear at this blog.
http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/
You can sign up for email updates for both this blog, Anti-Neo-Confederate and the Arlington Confederate Monument Report blog.
UPDATE:
Simpler link to the petition. Goal one million signatures.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
At this link you can download a PDF of the letter as well as a bibliographic resource for the letter.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/sign-2017-petition-to-president-trump.html
I don't expect Donald Trump to read the references, but I do want it understood that the statements are substantiated by credible sources. Also, some people might find these resources of interest and we will get some people interested in the historical record.
I will be mailing the letter this week by certified mail.
There will be an online petition.
Also, as things develop updates will appear at this blog.
http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/
You can sign up for email updates for both this blog, Anti-Neo-Confederate and the Arlington Confederate Monument Report blog.
UPDATE:
Simpler link to the petition. Goal one million signatures.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument
At this link you can download a PDF of the letter as well as a bibliographic resource for the letter.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/sign-2017-petition-to-president-trump.html
Saturday, February 04, 2017
My position against violence
I want to make it clear that I am entirely opposed to violence in protests.
If I am organizing a protest and you think that is your opportunity to set something on fire or break a window I want you arrested and I will demand that you be arrested.
Now let me make this very clear. You certainly have a right to protest. I participate in protests.
However, I am really opposed to the suppression of free speech. When someone says something really loathsome there are those who think that for this one case an exception might be made. Libel is the only exception and even then it needs to be carefully defined. British libel law is rubbish.
I also think that in many cases the persons committing this violence are just searching for a pretext to be vandals or be violent and also be self-righteous about it.
Also, I think that it works against whatever cause you claim you are opposing. Opponents can point to the violence and avoid the issue at hand. Also, people are sympathetic to the victims of violence as they should be. People are also concerned about free speech. They can imagine that they might have an unpopular opinion and a mob might target them to suppress their opinion.
History is full of examples of mob violence attempting to suppress opinion of those who worked for social justice, such as the abolitionists.
These violent protesters are often parasites on another group's efforts. Some group is organizing a protest and they will show up and exploit the opportunity.
These violent protesters are looking for an opportunity to be violent, to smash things, to set things on fire, but to maintain their self-image of being something other than deranged individuals they will seek out really horrible opponents which allows them to justify their behavior and have fantasies that they are some type of revolutionaries. They are conducting their own little dramas for self-glorification and to satisfy their need to gratify their desire for violence.
Also, the resort to violence represents a lack of intellectual capacity in constructing arguments against racism and other stupidities. It represents a lack of self-control and I think a deranged personality.
Also, the violence often enables the target of these protests. The racist group's activity might otherwise languish in obscurity, but with a violent protest they get publicity.
Let me be clear about this, I am talking about the ordinary life in our nation. I suppose in some disordered situation, with the break down of civil government there would be cases where it would be justified. For example a force has come to drag books out of a library and burn them or some mob has come to disrupt a professor's class lecture. Even then I would work to protect the entry way to the library or drag the persons disruption of the class out of the class and try to avoid violence. And this would be a situation where there is a break down in democratic life. That situation is not now, and no please don't give me some involved rationalization why you think this situation is present.
Finally, what could lead to the break down in society is violence. After all, if some group is violent, it would encourage their opponents to be violent. If one speaker is protested with violence, then another speaker might be opposed with violence. The whole situation would escalate.
I do think a person should defend themselves if attacked. I say this since someone might argue that I am for self-victimization.
I don't think this blog posting will dissuade the violent from being violent. They are driven by their needs to be violent and they end up in a little cult of like minded individuals.
However, in this partisan world, I think there will be those who will want to lump me in with the violent so that they can avoid the arguments I am making. I suppose this blog posting, like those I have done before against violence in this blog will not restrain them from their smears either, but it will be really clear that they are smears.
If I am organizing a protest and you think that is your opportunity to set something on fire or break a window I want you arrested and I will demand that you be arrested.
Now let me make this very clear. You certainly have a right to protest. I participate in protests.
However, I am really opposed to the suppression of free speech. When someone says something really loathsome there are those who think that for this one case an exception might be made. Libel is the only exception and even then it needs to be carefully defined. British libel law is rubbish.
I also think that in many cases the persons committing this violence are just searching for a pretext to be vandals or be violent and also be self-righteous about it.
Also, I think that it works against whatever cause you claim you are opposing. Opponents can point to the violence and avoid the issue at hand. Also, people are sympathetic to the victims of violence as they should be. People are also concerned about free speech. They can imagine that they might have an unpopular opinion and a mob might target them to suppress their opinion.
History is full of examples of mob violence attempting to suppress opinion of those who worked for social justice, such as the abolitionists.
These violent protesters are often parasites on another group's efforts. Some group is organizing a protest and they will show up and exploit the opportunity.
These violent protesters are looking for an opportunity to be violent, to smash things, to set things on fire, but to maintain their self-image of being something other than deranged individuals they will seek out really horrible opponents which allows them to justify their behavior and have fantasies that they are some type of revolutionaries. They are conducting their own little dramas for self-glorification and to satisfy their need to gratify their desire for violence.
Also, the resort to violence represents a lack of intellectual capacity in constructing arguments against racism and other stupidities. It represents a lack of self-control and I think a deranged personality.
Also, the violence often enables the target of these protests. The racist group's activity might otherwise languish in obscurity, but with a violent protest they get publicity.
Let me be clear about this, I am talking about the ordinary life in our nation. I suppose in some disordered situation, with the break down of civil government there would be cases where it would be justified. For example a force has come to drag books out of a library and burn them or some mob has come to disrupt a professor's class lecture. Even then I would work to protect the entry way to the library or drag the persons disruption of the class out of the class and try to avoid violence. And this would be a situation where there is a break down in democratic life. That situation is not now, and no please don't give me some involved rationalization why you think this situation is present.
Finally, what could lead to the break down in society is violence. After all, if some group is violent, it would encourage their opponents to be violent. If one speaker is protested with violence, then another speaker might be opposed with violence. The whole situation would escalate.
I do think a person should defend themselves if attacked. I say this since someone might argue that I am for self-victimization.
I don't think this blog posting will dissuade the violent from being violent. They are driven by their needs to be violent and they end up in a little cult of like minded individuals.
However, in this partisan world, I think there will be those who will want to lump me in with the violent so that they can avoid the arguments I am making. I suppose this blog posting, like those I have done before against violence in this blog will not restrain them from their smears either, but it will be really clear that they are smears.
Friday, February 03, 2017
Article from "Mother Jones" about Tom Price, Donald Trump's choice to head the Dept. of Health and Human Services
This is the link to the article.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/tom-price-hhs-confederate-flag-georgia
Incidentally, I am writing a letter to Donald Trump asking him to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. I sent the first draft to a colleague this morning for proofing and editing.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/tom-price-hhs-confederate-flag-georgia
Incidentally, I am writing a letter to Donald Trump asking him to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. I sent the first draft to a colleague this morning for proofing and editing.
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