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Former neo-con and speech writer for G.W. Bush, David Frum, has a fine article in The Atlantic on how guns make people less safe. Like the rogue Marine in Florida, the family in Houston, and the good 'ol boy in Athens, Georgia, not to mention America's Capitol. All these Americans, making America safe! Here's what David says:

When the coronavirus pandemic struck last year, people throughout the developed world raced to buy toilet paper, bottled water, yeast for baking bread, and other basic necessities. Americans also stocked up on guns. They bought more than 23 million firearms in 2020, up 65 percent from 2019. First-time gun purchases were notably high. The surge has not abated in 2021. In January, Americans bought 4.3 million guns, a monthly record.

Last year was also a high-water mark for gun violence—more people were shot dead than at any time since the 1990s—though 2021 is shaping up to be even worse. There was one bright spot in 2020. When Americans self-isolated, mass shooters were denied their usual targets. But as America began to return to normal, so did the mass shootings: 45 in the single month between March 16 and April 15.

Of course, those above are just from one day.

They were not buying weapons for hunting. Only about 11.5 million Americans hunt in a given year, according to the latest Department of the Interior survey, fewer than the number who attend a professional ballet or modern-dance performance.

Nor were they buying weapons to play private militia. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans amass arsenals of five weapons or more. And for all the focus on assault rifles, they make up a small portion of the firearms in private hands: approximately 6 percent of all guns owned.

And the safety dividend?

The weapons Americans buy to protect their loved ones are the weapons that end up being accidentally discharged into a loved one’s leg or chest or head. The weapons Americans buy to protect their young children are years later used for self-harm by their troubled teenagers. Or they are stolen from their car by criminals and used in robberies and murders. Or they are grabbed in rage and pointed at an ex-partner.

The record shows case after case of guns escalating ordinary disputes into homicides or attempted homicides. In March 2020, a man was fatally shot in the head after an altercation over a parking space at an Atlanta shopping mall. In August 2020, a 75-year-old Nashville homeowner reportedly shot and wounded a landscaper for not properly hauling brush from his property. In November 2020, a gun owner shot and killed a teenager for playing music too loudly in the parking lot of the motel they were both staying at, police said.

Cannot but think that Rand Paul got off easy with the spraying clippings onto his neighbor's property. If his neighbor had chosen to stand his ground, it would have been a massacre at Mowling Green.

Altogether, about 500 Americans a year die from unintended shootings. That’s four times the rate of deaths from unintended shootings in peer nations. Yet this grim statistic still understates the toll of Americans fooling around with weapons. Unintended shootings tend not to be lethal. They account for only about 1 percent of all U.S. gun deaths. But they account for more than one-third of American gun injuries—injuries that can leave people disabled or traumatized for life. A majority of gun owners fail to store their weapons safely, according to research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That’s why the annals fill with so many heartrending stories of children shooting themselves or others.

It's the toddlers shooting their unvaccinated parents that always strikes me as the most tragic Walmart scenario.

Above all else, guns are used for suicide. In any given year, twice as many Americans die by suicide as by homicide. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults, behind only accidents. The good news is that suicide is highly preventable. Most suicide attempts are impulsive, an act of depression or panic. If a person survives an attempt, he or she will almost certainly survive the suicidal impulse altogether. A gun in the house massively raises the likelihood that a suicide attempt will end in death.

At least there is some bright side!
But time for an apt analogy.

Drunk driving has been illegal in the United States since automobiles became commonplace. Yet laws against drunk driving went lightly enforced until the 1980s. Police and courts treated drunk drivers leniently. The offenders seemed so remorseful. Had they not suffered enough?

That practice of leniency began to change in 1980, with the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving by one determined woman, Candy Lightner, who had lost her daughter to a repeat hit-and-run driver. From Fair Oaks, California, MADD spread across the nation. Before it pressured politicians to amend laws, before it persuaded courts and police to enforce those laws, it enabled those reforms by working directly on public attitudes. MADD convinced American drivers that they were not weak or unmanly if they surrendered the car keys after drinking too much. MADD empowered the families and friends of those drivers to insist that the keys be surrendered.

That kind of cultural change beckons now. The mass gun purchases of 2020 and 2021 have put even more millions of weapons into even more hands untrained to use and store those weapons responsibly.

Gun nuts are like the old drunk drivers of the pre-seat belt days! All we have to do is shame, and prosecute, and shame, and force these gun nuts to go where the drunk drivers have all gone. Easy peasy! Thanks, David!

Yes, due to overwhelming demand, and mod-banning, we are back to the nefarious campaign against Critical Race Theory, now with extra "race" to wind up the racists.

OK, since our last episode, Nell has been tied to the railroad tracks by Snidely Whiplash, or khallow, I forget which. We examined the flow of money to front organizations that pretended that CRT was a thing being taught in primary and secondary schools, and that it made rich white people look bad. Well, none of that was true, but you know what they say in show biz! What? You don't? OK, LBJ once suggested to his campaign manager that they start a rumor that his opponent had sexual intercourse with livestock. Yes, this is now known as the "Runaway gambit". The adviser said, "But no one would believe that!" To which LBJ replied, "Doesn't matter, I just want to hear him deny it!". Damage done, mischief managed.

      So now we have a piece that connects the anti-CRT to a certain conspiracy mind-set, anti-semitic, anti-intellectual, at once both very American and very right wing German of a former party. So I present to Soylentils,

Critical Theory Opposes the Right Wing's Cancel Politics

History News Network seems to be a network of actual historians, which is interesting, since they deal with facts and evidence, rather than opinions about how fact checkers are all biased and how the victors write the history, and how Hitler did some things right. I guess being defeated by the Allies was not one of them? But, on to the article itself.

Although right-wingers like Rudy Giuliani argue that left-wing cancel culture is dangerous to free speech, the ongoing right-wing movement to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) from school curriculums fits into the right’s long history of attacks on progressives’ free speech. The Texas Senate bill removing Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Native American history, and the history of white supremacy from public school curriculums may be blocked from passing right now, but it has made waves throughout the internet. This bill comes amidst nationwide right-wing outrage over CRT, which Fox News reportedly mentioned nearly 1300 times between March and June this year.

Rather dense, excuse me if I do not replicate all the links.

We continue:

This hysteria reached a boiling point last month when a Virginia school board meeting was shut down by right-wing protestors over a curriculum that allegedly promotes CRT, although Loudoun County Schools officials publicly stated that CRT is not part of their curriculum. The ongoing distress over CRT is fueled by a massive, right-wing media-backed movement to control school curriculums. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, for example, recently called for teachers to wear body cameras to monitor CRT teaching, despite previously arguing in favor of free speech on campuses.

Sorry, these are liberal scholars, so there are so many links and citations. Apologies to those who are functionally illiterate.

The main point of our Fine Article, however, is how the anti-CRT "movement" is part of a much older and even more stupid conspiracy theory among rightists, The Frankfort School!

The panic over CRT may seem to have come out of nowhere, with media coverage of it skyrocketing in recent months, but progressive movements in academia have caused alarm for decades. This began with conspiracy theories about critical theory (CT), a method of systemic critique which was the predecessor of CRT. These conspiracy theories focus on the developers of CT, the Frankfurt School thinkers, who were mostly Jewish, and claim that they infiltrated American universities with the goal of destroying Western culture and implementing “Cultural Marxism.”

As Mr. Universe said in the movie "Serenity", been seeing these memes all over lately, and its high anti-semite.

While these theories may seem far-fetched, they are still promoted today by right-wing thinkers like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson. Frankfurt School historian Martin Jay traced these conspiracy theories back to LaRouche movement writer Michael Minnicino’s essay that relies on little to no source material to make false, exaggerated claims. Minnicino claims, without evidence, that “the heirs of Marcuse and Adorno completely dominate the universities” and teach their students “’Politically Correct’ ritual exercises.” The essay reduces the Frankfurt School’s complex “intellectual history into a sound-bite sized package available to be plugged into a paranoid narrative,” according to Jay. Despite the suspicious beginnings of this conspiracy theory, right-wing thinkers like Jeffrey A. Tucker and Mike Gonzalez continue to blame the Frankfurt School thinkers for today’s attacks on free speech, going as far as to suggest executive action to prevent their influence.

But the conclusion of the authors is that the Frankfort School was far too diverse to have ever been the basis of a universal Marxist plan to infiltrate American hotdogs with Critical Race Theory microchips, and throw the 1919 World Series for the Reds.

I will close with reference to a recent SN journal on the topic of "fact-checking". It appears that the tendency toward conspiracy theory is a powerful influence in Conservative thought today. Set aside the "Stop the Steel" or the "Playtpusses Run Everything!" conspiracy theories. Is is enough to believe that truth is relative, and that "cultural Marxism", or "My Little Ponies" could be a foul plot to infiltrate and destroy the beliefs in guns and white superiority that are the bedrock of conservative American delusions. No, the Frankfort school was not that unified, and many of them fled the Nazi regime to come to America. And Gramsci's ideas of a "organic intellectual", working class woke people, is not a artificial thing. Capitalism requires people to work together, and this increases social capital and technological know-how (also capital), so the observation that this is happening can in no way be countered by a propaganda campaign funded by rich right-wing foundations, and not too bright media personalities.

And this is why the anti-CRT program is doomed to fail. It is just another conspiracy theory, very close to the old John Birch ones, generated out of a conservative fear of intellect. But, as was said in "Space Balls": "Good will always win, because evil is stupid!" Perhaps I versed that, but, I did see him playing with his dolls.

Party on, Soylentils! I am still mod-banned, and roving gangs of mod-bombers are still about! Stay safe, and don't eat no horse medicine. "Cocaine is for horses, not for men. "

Only now, at the end, do you realize the true power of the Dark Side!
Citation from Eratosthenes Journal

Re:Text of emails (Score: 0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 24, @11:38PM (#1170706)

Anecdotal evidence, much? Single occurance? Definitely the cause! Post hoc, ergo propter hoc!
Reply to This Parent

        Re:Text of emails (Score: 2)
        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge Friend of Friend on Wednesday August 25, @12:40AM (#1170725) Journal
        Aristarchus - YOU IDIOT. You do realise that you have just compromised this Anonymous Coward comment! You should give this game up - you are not very good at it! Go back and inspect everything connected with that comment.
        --
        It's always my fault...
        Reply to This Parent

                Re:Text of emails (Score: 2)
                by FatPhil (863) Friend of Friend on Wednesday August 25, @12:53AM (#1170729) Homepage
                When people are cornered, they panic. When people panic, they start making sloppy mistakes.

                However, you're a very naughty boy for *alledging* that that Aristarchus-supporting AC comment was actually posted by Aristarchus himself. No-one non-admin could possibly have known that, and I'm certainly *not* going to confirm it, because I'm not a naughty boy, and I support Ari's right to post as AC, no matter how silly he is.
                --
                I know I'm God, because every time I pray to him, I find I'm talking to myself.
                Reply to This Parent
                Re:Text of emails (Score: 0)
                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25, @01:05AM (#1170731)

                Are you claiming that aristarchus posted that AC comment? Did you just abuse admin privilege and expose a soylentil who, for whatever reason, wished to post AC? I take that as a breach of Etiquette and IT Admin professional ethics. The Mighty Buzzard would never have done such a thing.

                Remember, posting as AC is not sock-puppeting. It is a founding right of every soylentil. At least until this becomes the Green place.
                Reply to This Parent

                        Re:Text of emails (Score: 2)
                        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge Friend of Friend on Wednesday August 25, @02:07AM (#1170745) Journal

                        I am currently standing in the corner facing the wall and whipping myself with branches of thorns - but enough about how I spend my own time...

                        I partly apologise for my action - but I did so to make the point that even when Aristarchus thinks he is masking what he is up to he is not. I have not compromised his identity - indeed I do not know it nor have I a wish to know. ACs who are more knowledgeable about the internet can manage their comments with ease, but there are many who make simple schoolboy errors or pretend to be more than one person. If he is logged in and posting under the name of Aristarchus why would he go to the length of switching to AC to make a particular comment? I can explain why:

As close as we will ever get to an apology by janrinok? He is prone to pointing such out. As he says in the IRC #editorial as of Aug. 25:

[07:33:01] [janrinok] This is as close to an apology from AzumaHazuki as we will every see: https://soylentnews.org https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=44527&page=1&cid=1170626#commentwrap
[07:33:03] [systemd] ^ "03SoylentNews Comments | Reduction. ( https://soylentnews.org )
[07:35:56] [janrinok] At least she had the decency to make it.

https://logs.sylnt.us/%23editorial/2021-08-25.html

But he has not yet apologized to aristarchus, for falsely accusing him of "collusion, sock--puppetry, or moderation abuse. I await your apology, janrinok, but I expect you to turn tail, as you did when I challenged you to a duel on the field of honor. C?️ie la vie!

We pleblian Soylentils have long suspected that our anominity was not as real as it seemed. We all have the option of posting under AC instead of our username, unless we, or someone using our or a common IP, has been doing "bad posting". I have never found out what "bad posting" was, other than that I apparently was doing it.

But that is not what I am here to talk about today. I am here to talk about the War, and the Draft, and admin abuse in SoylnetNews.

As you can see from the exchange above, janrinok quite explicitly identified myself as the author of an AC posting. Lots of people claim to be able to identify me posting AC, by my distinctive literary style, or vast erudition, but here janrinok identified be because he had admin privileges, and evidently could see that the ID of the AC post, and my IP were the same. Now, I ask you, what is the point of posting AC, if a random admin can just come along and say, "Oh, that AC is actually Joe Bleu"? It is a violation of the code of system admin to out a user! Privacy of information is one of the first principles. I remember when involved in a labor action against an organization, the union said we all needed non-company email addresses for communications. The IT department took umbrage, and said they would never release the content of private communications to management. We hoped they were principled, but we understood that they could be put in a hard spot, if it came to that. At least they asserted their professional principles.

SoylentNews, on the other hand, is run by amatuers. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But it does lead to some lapses in ethics, as the above one by janrinok. The Mighty Buzzard, whatever his flaws, (and they were many), never lowered himself to such a violation of principle. He often threatened to, or suggested he could identify ACs or even find the actual IP of any Soylentil. But all just talk of violations. Here, we have an actual case.

As a rectification, I would suggest that all punitive measures against my account be lifted. Some may think this is not fair, but given the "unexplained" mod-bans placed upon me, of many years, the attempted censorship of my account, which led to the #Freearistarchus!! tag, I believe it is only fair.

If only we had a tag for disinformation! Or Republican talking points! Oh well, we will do what we always do. Follow the money. Good advice to Woodward and Bernstein, and still good advice. Funny how it so often applies to Republicans.

But we have a very nice article, which I would have submitted to the front-page, except I knew it would be rejected, and janrinok would have suggested I put it into a journal, so here we are. Yet another CRT journal. I know this will cause some conservative heads to explode, since they thought this was already a done deal, and Democrats would loose the mid-terms. But there are uncomfortable trails into big pockets, and attempts to overthrow American democracy. These need to be exposed.
So, first, The Fine Article: from Popular Information.

Critical Race Theory (CRT), once a little-known academic concept, is now at the center of the national political discussion. CRT is discussed incessantly on Fox News. It is featured in campaign advertisements. And legislation banning it is advancing in statehouses around the country.

This didn't happen on its own. Rather, there is a constellation of non-profit groups and media outlets that are systematically injecting CRT into our politics. In 2020, most people had never heard of CRT. In 2021, a chorus of voices on the right insists it is an existential threat to the country.

A Popular Information investigation reveals that many of the entities behind the CRT panic share a common funding source: The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

The Thomas W. Smith Foundation has no website and its namesake founder keeps a low public profile. Thomas W. Smith is based in Boca Raton, Florida, and founded a hedge fund called Prescott Investors in 1973. In 2008, the New York Times reported that The Thomas W. Smith Foundation was "dedicated to supporting free markets."

More information about the foundation can be gleaned from its public tax filings, which are called 990-PFs. The Thomas W. Smith Foundation has more than $24 million in assets. The person who spends the most time working for the group is not Smith but James Piereson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. According to the foundation's 2019 990-PF, Piereson was paid $283,333 to work for The Thomas W. Smith Foundation for 25 hours per week.

Ok, we have some hard figures on monies paid, and favors granted. So we go on.

Piereson was also paid $140,000 in 2019 as an independent contractor for the Manhattan Institute, where Thomas W. Smith is a trustee. While Thomas W. Smith avoids public comments, Piereson is prolific. And Piereson's writings provide insight into what is motivating the foundation's grants.

The people and groups behind anti-CRT hysteria claim that there is a radical new theory being taught in schools that seeks to make white people hate themselves and define everyone exclusively by their race. None of this is true. But Piereson provides an insight into the underlying ideology that explains why so much effort is being put into perpetuating these myths.

Piereson has made clear that he opposes efforts to increase racial or economic equality, even if these efforts are financed by private charities. Piereson described his views in a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Examiner:

[C]haritable foundations have felt the great sustained pressure to “pay up” for alleged sins against the ideals of racial and economic equality. It started out as pressure from a few vocal activists banging on the doors of large foundations. It's turned into a movement in which philanthropic leaders are falling over themselves to throw money at their critics in hopes of mollifying them...

And, Rufo implicated. Not for the weak of racist heart, here.

The Thomas W. Smith Foundation has donated more than $12.7 million to 21 organizations attacking Critical Race Theory

Between 2017 and 2019, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation has granted at least $12.75 million to organizations that publicly attack Critical Race Theory, according to a review of tax disclosures by Popular Information. The foundation's grants for 2020 will not be disclosed until late-2021.

The Manhattan Institute

The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, has recently been at the forefront of the crusade against CRT. It is also the top recipient of cash from The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

In recent months, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the organization, has gained notoriety for spurring anti-CRT panic, describing CRT as an “existential threat to the United States.” Last year, Rufo appeared on the Tucker Carlson show and insisted that Trump must “immediately issue” an executive order “abolishing critical race theory trainings from the federal government.” Trump quickly took his advice.

Most recently, Rufo published an op-ed in the New York Post falsely claiming that CRT is centered around “race essentialism, collective guilt and state-sanctioned discrimination,” adding that the “war against critical race theory is a war worth fighting.” He also accuses public schools of “pushing toxic racial theories onto children.”

Yet, as Popular Information previously explained, Rufo is misrepresenting CRT for political purposes. In March 2021, Rufo acknowledged that he is simply using CRT as a vessel to capture concepts he thinks are politically unpopular. As Sarah Jones of New York Magazine recently wrote, Rufo “takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances.”

Rufo's own tweets confirm his tactics. “We have decodified [CRT]…and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans,
  . . .
The Thomas W. Smith Foundation donated $4.32 million to the Manhattan Institute between 2017 and 2019.

And, to complete the funding of the "CRT as something it is not" tableau, we have a list of contributors:

The Heritage Foundation

The right-wing Heritage Foundation, which previously employed Rufo, also receives substantial support from Thomas W. Smith Foundation. According to tax filings, the Heritage Foundation has received at least $525,000 from The Thomas W. Smith Foundation between 2017 and 2019.

Of course they did, it's Heritage (white).

ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that has been hosting webinars to help lawmakers draft legislation banning CRT, has received at least $425,000 from The Thomas W. Smith Foundation since 2017. In December 2020, ALEC hosted a workshop in partnership with the Heritage Foundation on “Reclaiming Education and the American Dream...Against Critical Race Theory's Onslaught.”

And!

Other recipients of funds from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation include:

        The American Enterprise Institute has received $1.1 million since 2017. In May 2021, an AEI research fellow published an op-ed titled “Ban Critical Theory now,” arguing that “CRT amounts to institutionalized racial hatred.”

        The Alexander Hamilton Institute (AHI), a conservative educational organization, has received $150,000 since 2017. In March 2021, the organization celebrated the appearance of an AHI alum on the Tucker Carlson show "to expose the use of Critical Race Theory to indoctrinate employees of Cigna."

        The American Ideas Institute, a right-wing organization that publishes The American Conservative, has received $10,000 since 2017. In June, The American Conservative published an op-ed by its senior editor in which described CRT as “the acid that will dissolve America.”

        The Center for American Greatness, a right-wing organization, has received $125,000 since 2017. On June 25, 2021, the organization published a piece titled “Canceling Critical Race Theory,” with the tag “Greatness Agenda.”

        The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, has received $100,000 in 2019. In June 2021, a fellow at the Institute published an op-ed describing CRT as a conspiracy theory.

        The Daily Caller Foundation, parent organization of the right-wing news outlet co-founded by Tucker Carlson, received $100,000 in 2019. In the last week alone, the Daily Caller has published more than a dozen stories attacking CRT.

        The Federalist, a conservative publication, received $150,000 in 2019. The Federalist has published dozens of stories opposing CRT. It recently published a column from a woman who says she is considering pulling her kids out of "one of the highest-rated public school systems in Pennsylvania...because of critical race theory."

        Heterodox Academy, a coalition of academics that seek “viewpoint diversity on college campuses,” has received $250,000 since 2018. In February 2021, affiliates of the Heterodox Academy published an op-ed attacking CRT for "blaming and shaming individuals."

        The Independent Women’s Forum, a right-wing public policy group, has received $125,000 since 2017. The organization claims CRT is a “pernicious ideology that rejects the goals and objectives of the American civil rights movement by encouraging people to think of each other, first and foremost, not as individuals, but as members of distinct racial categories.”

        Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation, has received $150,000 since 2017. The organization has described CRT as a “totalitarian assault on children.”

        The State Policy Network (SPN), a network of conservative think tanks that focus on state-level politics, has received $3.57 million since 2017. SPN works closely with The Heritage Foundation to promote opposition to CRT.

        Turning Point, a conservative youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, has received $400,000 since 2017. It promotes social media optimized anti-CRT content. One recent headline: "Critical Race Theory DESTROYED By Illinois Dad."

        The National Review, a conservative magazine and website, has received $45,000 since 2018. The site publishes multiple anti-CRT articles daily. One recent column warns that CRT is an effort to "brainwash the next generation into thinking everything is about racism."

        PragerU, a right-wing media company that produces popular videos, received $100,000 in 2019. A PragerU video from April 2021, which has been viewed 1.5 million times, asserts that CRT will "change the nature of America and the way you live." The video compares CRT in the United States with Nazism in Germany.

        The Real Clear Foundation, which supports investigative journalism conducted by Real Clear Media, has received $200,000 since 2017. A recent "investigation" supported by the Real Clear Foundation suggests CRT "encourages discrimination and other illegal policies targeting whites, males and Christians" and asserts that it "will erode the nation’s anti-discrimination law as it has developed since the 1960s."

        The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank, has received $200,000 since 2018. A commentary published by the organization in May asserted that CRT harmed "everyone—not just the white kids who are categorized as oppressors, but children of color, who, like every child, deserve a civil, harmonious society."

        The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, has received $210,000 since 2017. Last month, the magazine published an article that described CRT as a mechanism for "extremist indoctrination in America’s schools."

        The Federalist Society, a right-wing legal organization, has received $720,000 since 2017. The introduction for a recent panel discussion suggested CRT "contains racial stereotypes, assigns blame to individuals based solely on their race and sex, and imputes race discrimination as the reason for all disparate outcomes in society."

        Young America's Foundation, a conservative youth organization, has received $200,000 since 2017. The organization recently published a piece describing CRT as "a warped ideology that seeks to divide Americans and relitigate the sins of the past by pinning White Americans against Black Americans." The organization is soliciting tips from students that are "facing critical race theory indoctrination."

Well, I just did not want any right-wing nut-job organizations to feel left out. Turns out, that big bucks mean big votes, or at least enough to steal the vote. Too bad that Charlie Kirk's sugar daddy died, or he could have been much more influential, for a Community College drop-out.

Sorry for the deletion of many insightful and supporting comments, but 80 spam posts made it hard to read them. Please reconstruct, if possible.

Not a big fan, but Bill Maher hosted a session much needed by some Soylentils. Ben Shapiro explains CRT, correctly, but then Malcolm Nance takes him down appropriately. I will not get into details, and I ask that everyone only comment after they have viewed the clip. We will all be more rational, that way?

Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance on Critical Race Theory | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Be nice.

AND PLEASE VIEW THE CLIP BEFORE COMMENTING!! (Only 9:32 long, and I asked nicely.)

Former Nazi Guard, Age 100, to Stand Trial in Germany
Rejected submission by aristarchus at 2021-08-02 23:42:13 from the Get 'em while they're young dept.
News

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

For some crimes, there is no statute of limitations, and there is universal jurisdiction. From The Wall Street Journal (NewsCorp):

World Europe

        Former Nazi Guard, Age 100, to Stand Trial in Germany
        Rights groups say all Nazi perpetrators must be brought to justice, with prosecutions serving as warnings to present and future offenders
        A man who once worked as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp will soon stand trial.
        Aug. 2, 2021 2:34 pm ET

        BERLIN—A 100-year old man will be tried in Germany on charges of aiding and abetting mass murder while working as a concentration-camp guard, making him one of the oldest defendants in a case brought against alleged Nazi-era perpetrators.

        The centenarian was charged with complicity in the murder of more than 3,500 inmates at the Sachsenhausen camp on the outskirts of Berlin. He is alleged to have worked there between 1942 and 1945 as a member of the SS Nazi militia.

        The man, who hasn’t been named in line with German privacy laws, was found to be sufficiently fit for trial despite his advanced age and will be able to spend around two hours a day in the courtroom after the trial begins in October, said a spokeswoman for the Neuruppin court where the process will take place.

        Historians and rights groups say the case, likely one of the last of its kind, is a reminder that all Nazi perpetrators must be brought to justice irrespective of their age in what should serve as warning to present and future human-rights offenders across the world.

You may find yourself in a similar situation, or you may know someone in a similar situation, and there is only one thing to do, walk in, sing a bar of Alice's Restaurant , and walk out. Whatever you do, do not join the anti-wanking all men's group and storm the Reichstag, M'kay?

Good synopsis of the history. And some data!

From FiveThirtyEight, where they do numbers. And, they answer Fusty's question! Will he accept a factual answer?

In the 1960s and 70s, conservatives were waging a war against what they considered an existential threat infiltrating America’s public schools. Pamphlets were circulated by the John Birch Society, a right-wing extremist group, declaring it a “filthy Communist plot.” And then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California decried it as a “moral crisis” that needed to be eradicated. What was poisoning the minds of America’s youth? Sex education.

These days, sex ed is more widely accepted, especially following the HIV/AIDS epidemic (though conservatives have still managed to beat back more progressive school curricula when it comes to sexual health), but the Republican Party’s habit of identifying a bogeyman in America’s education system hasn’t wavered.

Then it was sex ed. Now, it’s critical race theory.

Hm, John Birch, founded by the Father of the Koch Bros!

And, Evolution!

One of the oldest education battles revolves around the teaching of evolution. It’s one that until recently didn’t have clearly drawn partisan lines. After all, the most famous example of a legislative attempt to prohibit teaching evolution in schools was actually introduced by a Democrat: a 1925 Tennessee state law to ban teaching evolution in schools. That law was later challenged in a showy court case (complete with chimpanzees) that same year, where it was upheld, and ultimately not repealed until 1967. (It was also a Democrat who introduced a 1981 bill in Louisiana’s state legislature that mandated the teaching of “creation science” — which presents religious beliefs as alternative scientific theories — whenever evolution was taught. The Supreme Court has since banned states from requiring creation science to be taught, but it has remained a popular conservative cultural flashpoint.)

No doubt soon the Republican party Christian coalition will seek to outlaw the teaching of heliocentrism! Not the first time, let me tell you!

            But on to who is spreading the "outrage".

Many Americans still don’t know what the debate over critical race theory is really about at this point. Just 24 percent have heard “a lot” about it, 25 percent know “some” and 51 percent know little or nothing at all, according to a June Morning Consult/Politico poll. But tellingly, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to have seen, heard or read a lot about critical race theory, 30 percent versus 21 percent. What’s more, those Republicans familiar with critical race theory overwhelmingly dislike it — 78 percent have a negative opinion of it compared to 7 percent of Democrats. When asked to describe critical race theory in that same survey, one Republican respondent called critical race theory “a farce,” while another said it was a “Marxist proposal.”

And "Marxist" means furrin! 78%? Nearly as many as believe in faith-healing and Bigfoot - - I mean, Supply side economics and Dick Cheney's foreign policy. So the people with the negative opinion have the least understanding? Just like with sex-education!

Considering how much more exposure Republicans have had to it — a Media Matters analysis shows Fox News has mentioned critical race theory 1,300 times in less than four months, and a query of data on the social media tool CrowdTangle from researchers at Miami University and Wright State University found that the share of posts that mention critical race theory on the Facebook pages of local Republican parties has risen exponentially — the blowback among members of the GOP is not entirely surprising. It’s also not just the volume of coverage: The conservative media’s coverage of critical race theory is overwhelmingly negative, too, as it’s decried by some on the right as anti-white.

Republicans have long fought specters within education that they claim threaten the American way of life. The current blowback against critical race theory follows in that tradition, but it also represents a broader transformation of the GOP into a populist party focused on waging culture wars. Though it may seem like a misguided crusade-du-jour, the tumult around critical race theory is both a reflection of the Republican Party’s past — and a glimpse at its future.

Yep, prepare for the coming Trump Geo-centrism! And SN needs to up its game! Fox News has us beet in frequency. The original fine article contains a lot more very interesting information.

So we are on to the third, no, fourth? Possibly the Fifth aristarchus journal entry on Critical Race Theory. I don't mind, I am not proud, or tired, or deterred by alt-right riots, so here we go, with yet another expose of the Republican attempted demonizatin of academic knowing stuff. Texas! Eyes are upon you!

So now, we have a few more entries on the Critical Race Theory Abomination. Wait for it!

Part One: Coin for the Witcher

The engineered conservative panic over critical race theory, explained. Yes, this is it, from CNN, which will burn you FauX News idiots into the ground! Because, they are correct.

Spare a thought for critical race theory. It wasn't always a conservative bogeyman.
Especially over the past several months, Republicans have distorted CRT -- an academic frame that scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw have been using in graduate-level courses for decades to interrogate how the legal system entrenches racism -- into a catchall to describe things they don't like.

In this bastardized telling, CRT is whatever Republicans want it to be; it comes in many guises. "Black Lives Matter" is one name for CRT. "Social justice" is another. "Identity," yet another. "Reparations." "Ally-ship." "Diversity."

I am recently thinking, spare a coin for the Witcher, 'cause he will slay the Republicans. But that is fanatsy. Not real politics. Unless the Republicans have seriously gone that far.

But to linger on what CRT is, or isn't, is to miss the more pressing concern: Why have Republicans latched onto a decades-old academic term?

" 'Strung together, the phrase "critical race theory" connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American,' " explained Christopher F. Rufo, one of the conservative activists who -- with the help of Fox News, a network that's become its own language -- engineered the panic over CRT.
Because so many Americans don't know what CRT is, it's the perfect tool for scaring White conservative voters with made-up problems -- for mobilizing them against the racial awakening of the past year. Here's how we got here:

Break here. In past journals, I have pointed out how the objection to Critical Race Theory has precursors in the sequestor of debate on race-based slavery in the 1830's Congress. And how the attempt to ban CRT is related to the Scopes Trial of the 1920s. But now we have a connection to the 1960's, and Tricky Dick Nixon. Hang on to your MAGA hats, Republicans!

The backlash to CRT echoes the 1960s
The panic over CRT is hardly the first time that the US has seen such ethnonationalist fearmongering.
In a recent Twitter thread, Pomona College politics professor Omar Wasow argued that one way to understand the anxiety over CRT is as "a reactionary counter-mobilization."
Wasow, who was previously at Princeton University and whose research focuses largely on protest movements, said that he was struck by how the present-day backlash to CRT echoes the dynamics of the 1960s.
"What we saw in some cases in the '60s was that, as the civil rights movement was able to capture the moral high ground in a national conversation on race, that knocked pro-segregation forces on their heels," he told CNN. "There was a period of trying to regroup and find an issue to mobilize around when, nationally, being pro-segregation became highly stigmatized."
Republicans sought to reframe the world. For instance, they heeded the cruel logic of "law and order," a dog whistle used against the civil rights protests of the era. This maneuvering was part of what University of Arkansas political science professors Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the "Long Southern Strategy," a series of decisions on race, religion and feminism that Republicans made starting in the '60s to court White conservative voters in the South.

Ah, yes, the Nixonian "Southern Stategy". When you have lost the moral high ground, and your policies suck, you need to create some kind of diversion, an issue, a bogey.

"We saw Donald Trump try to run on 'law and order' and lose. It didn't seem to have the same punch that it did in the '60s, when Nixon invoked 'law and order' and won the White House. So, there's been this process of searching for a new issue," Wasow said. "There was a period when leading Republicans were complaining about 'cancel culture,' how Dr. Seuss was supposedly being canceled. But it never seemed to stick. So, I think that we're seeing this kind of elite process of trying to find an issue to mobilize around for the 2022, and maybe even 2024, elections. And CRT is one that's really hit a nerve."

The nerve? Not sure if it is going to stick, but it certainly is being pushed!

Part Two: Religion

Religion News Service reports another story, about a one-man Crusade.

(RNS) — Russ Vought believes in fighting racism — as long as it is defined properly.

A former Trump administration official and Wheaton College graduate, Vought defines racism as “personal prejudice that flows from ignorance and treating people differently as a result of that prejudice.”

By contrast, he said, proponents of critical race theory see racism as a systemic problem — not an individual one — that has infected every part of society. That’s led Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, to become a behind-the-scenes leader in the battle over CRT being fought in churches and school boards around the country,[sic]

In an interview with Religion News Service, Vought said his organization does not object to discussions of racism or discrimination. But CRT advocates go too far.

“They don’t want equality of opportunity, they want equality of outcomes,” he said. “That is problematic because then you have no ability to ever live in a colorblind society. And it’s the rejection of a colorblind society that we find so problematic.”

Sounds like Russ got the same talking points that Runaway1956 did. Funny, that. And, given the source, this is not about elementary school white children being forced to confess their racism and cultural inferiority, it is also happening in churches!

Vought said his organization has mostly been involved in efforts at the local school board level but has consulted with state legislators about anti-CRT bills. He is also concerned teaching about CRT has made its way into churches.

People in the pews want unity, he said, and reject any form of racism. But that is not good enough for what he called “woke” celebrity pastors.

“Many of the most senior, well-known, celebrity pastors have been beating down people with a woke theology, and almost bullying people from the pulpit,” he said. “That’s why there is such a reaction to it — because many of those pastors have been misusing the pulpit for the last 10 years.”

That's all they want, Unity, which is why Christians invented the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Auto d'fe. Such nice, white people. Moving on from Tricky Dick's Southern Strategy, to a more recent racist movement:

Writer, speaker and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali sees parallels between the anti-CRT movement and the anti-Shariah movement prevalent in conservative circles. That movement painted Muslims as threats to America’s Judeo-Christian values and way of life, claiming Muslims and liberals were attempting to impose Islamic law in American schools and communities.

This was, of course, before the White Supremacists figured out they could have their own White Sharia that would allow them to keep their women covered up and submissive. But that was only a passing meme. The anti-muslim movement was much more xenophobic and serious.

The anti-Shariah movement, which rose to national prominence about a decade ago, focused on local politics, especially on zoning boards and community meetings where anti-Shariah activists showed up in force to oppose the construction of new mosques or alleged signs of Shariah in schoolbooks. Several states passed laws, written by anti-Shariah organizations, designed to ban Shariah or other foreign laws from U.S. courts. Presidential candidates and pastors warned of the threat of an Islamic “cultural Jihad” as the greatest threat to the American way of life.

In a recent Daily Beast column, Ali argued that anti-CRT activists are drawing from the same playbook as the anti-Shariah movement. He repeated the same concerns in an interview with Religion News Service.

Soon, undoubtedly, the liberal elite smart-people teachers will be trying to shove Critical Race Shariah down our childrens throats! Are you not scared? Ok, the whole thing was fake news, there was no danger, just a bunch of not-too-smart folks falling for the rabble-rousing.

Both movements have taken a concept few Americans understand and turned it into a boogeyman, he said. And both groups have found a news hook to rally people to their cause. For anti-Shariah activists, it was the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, a proposed Muslim community center near the fallen World Trade Center buildings in New York City, and a “mega-mosque” near Nashville, Tennessee. For anti-CRT activists, it’s the 1619 Project from The New York Times, which retold America’s founding from the date slaves first arrived in the American Colonies.

Oh, yes, I remember it well! The Ground Zero Critical Race Theory Mosque and University, trying to undermine the American way of fear of foreigners and general stupidity. Not to mention the subversive SBC! (Southern Baptist Convention) Not very Christian of them.

Part Three: Tom Cotton

And now, after we have covered CNN, and religion, time to turn to politics. And, the military. And Arkansas. Things are about to get weird.

In an Op-Ed in The Washington Post the author takes issue with the dumbest Senator. No, it is not Ted Cruise, he was in Alaska, since there was no A/C at his home in Texas. Read on!

Sen. Tom Cotton is calling for the firing of a U.S. Air Force Academy professor after she admitted to discussing critical race theory with cadets. But even a cursory look at the Arkansas Republican’s slimy argument shows how full of holes it really is.

This episode sheds light on a larger absurdity about this whole debate. Republicans keep telling us the mere discussion of such topics risks weakening our country: If people are told the military is a “racist” institution, they won’t join, or they’ll be so overcome with shame about their country that they won’t defend it.

This is often simply asserted as fact, but it’s plainly absurd on its face, and Cotton’s broadside provides a particularly illuminating example.

That's funny. I seem to recall that it was the experience of black soldiers in a segregated military in non-racist countries in WWII that created the leaders of the civil rights movement, and Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which ordered the integration of the US military, an EO upheld by President Eisenhower. Of course, Cotton is something of a pinhead, don't know much about history.

Cotton and other Republicans are unloading over this op-ed piece in The Post by Lynne Chandler García, an associate professor of political science at the Air Force Academy.

In it, García says she teaches critical race theory as an “academic framework” to analyze the fact that the founding and its documents harbored a “duality” between ideals of equality and realities of inequality and slavery. She also uses it to better understand “structural racism” that “has been endemic in American society,” and employs it for “deconstructing oppressive beliefs.”

This is all anodyne stuff. The idea that the founding harbored that “duality” doesn’t seem controversial. The op-ed does not describe the United States as fundamentally irredeemable. It treats prejudice as something that can be overcome and institutions as subject to improvement, through analysis and understanding.

Ah, Colorado Springs! That den of faux christianity and right-wing prayers! And Grills with guns? Space Farce Jewish Space Lazers?

Yet Cotton sees it as a firing offense. Cotton said this:

We should not be teaching and indoctrinating our cadets to believe that our military is a fundamentally racist institution. Who exactly is going to want to raise their hand and take an oath to defend our Constitution if you believe what Professor Garcia is teaching about it?

Similarly, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) also called for García’s firing, insisting that if we “denigrate the very principles” of the founding, it will make servicemembers “ashamed of their country.”

This is a strange argument. One assumes most people defending the Constitution today do so in the full understanding that it had to be amended a bunch of times to improve on some of its original defects, a capacity for rebirth and renewal that they see as a positive, one that makes it all the more worth defending.

Do they really need to be shielded from any discussion of those original defects?

The author of the Op-Ed concludes:

But come on, this latest controversy is an utter joke. Cotton can’t possibly believe our cadets are such snowflakes that this op-ed will cause them and their morale to melt into puddles of shame. Can he?

Tom Cotton is not the sharpest tool in the shed, I would guess he can. Or he is intentionally insulting the US military, something that Tucker Carlson has this down to a science.

Part Four: Sex Education

OH, we need something from the /The New York Times!

Seems a sex education teacher has been hounded out of selective private schools in New York, and it has something to do with CRT. Not much, but a petition was posted on Instagram and then covered by the New York Post (not an actual newspaper), by an organization that usually does anti-CRT stuff.

The Post’s parent and student sources were anonymous, and it is unclear how many people directly connected to Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School and the Dalton School complained to administrators about Ms. Fonte.

But the complaints, however few or many they were, appear to be part of a broader clash in education.

The Post linked one of its sources to an Instagram account called @SpeakUpCGPS, which was created in May and has more than 100 posts targeting “diversity, equity and inclusion” and critical race theory. Earlier this month, the account’s Instagram bio included a link to a petition for parents, students, donors, trustees, alumni, faculty and staff at the school.

The petition complains about “programming that uses the oppressor-oppressed narrative and that employs collective guilt to shame white students.” It claims that employees of Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School are laying the “groundwork” for “a race-focused ideology.” As evidence, the petition points to anti-racist statements posted in classrooms, as well as the creation of an Equity Day and affinity groups.

Hegel's "Master-slave dialetic" from Phänomenologie des Geistes? Wow, these anti-CRT folks are better read that I thought. But they do not seem to understand how that dialectic turned out. Probably the Kojève interpretation. However, a professional right wing lobbyist seems to also be involved.

The @SpeakUpCGPS Instagram account appears to be one example of a broader culture war over how and whether racism should be taught in schools and universities.

In another example, in June, trucks plastered with billboards circled several private schools in New York City, including Dalton, where Ms. Fonte was still employed at the time, carrying statements like: “Diversity Not Indoctrination” and “Woke School? Speak Out.”

The group that claimed responsibility for the mobile protest is Prep School Accountability, which on its website says it is made up of “concerned parents.” Behind the group is the Center for Organizational Research and Education, a nonprofit led by Richard Berman, who in the past has led campaigns against the Humane Society and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Now I know from my teaching experience that many students do look upon a classroom as primarily a place to be asleep, but they also tend not to learn very much. Berman must have been one of those students. Started out working for Tobacco companies.

To sum up, we first compared the panic over CRT to the pre-Civil war Congressional agreement not to discuss slavery, and they compared it to the Scopes Trial, and panic over Evolution; now we have a comparison to Nixon's "law and order" Southern Strategy, and the panic over Sharia law. And finally, a comparison to sex-education, with the same conservative approach: if we just don't talk about it, then children will not have sex.

• Fresh Air with Terry Gross

• Beware ‘Smokescreen Trolling,’ Trump Followers' Favorite Tactic from WIRED

• Our New Postracial Myth by Ibram X. Kendi in The Atlantic

And

• From Oshkosh, a kerfuffle in Winnebago Republican Party reported by the Oshkosh Northwestern.

First off, when you end up on Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, and you have made the Big Time. But finally we have what all the right-winger morons have been asking for! A definition of Critical Race Theory. Read carefully, Conservatives!

Tyler Kingkade, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let's start with the basics. What is critical race theory? TYLER KINGKADE: Hi, Terry. Thank you for having me. Critical race theory is really a legal academic concept that was developed in the '70s and '80s. Derrick Bell is considered the father of the concept. Kimberle Crenshaw is often one of the most frequently credited scholars responsible for honing it in the 1980s. And essentially, a short way to boil it down is it's a way of studying systemic racism and its impact on society and how it permeates many aspects of society. It's a way of looking at things.

OK, now that this is done, we move on to the Conservative boogie man of CRT! CRT is in your closet! Under your bed! Your kids could be on CRT! Oh, the horror, the fear, the unwhiteness of being scared white. And the Plan of Steve Bannon!

GROSS: Yeah. Let me let me quote what Steve Bannon said on a podcast. He said, "the path to save the nation is very simple. It's going to go through the school boards." So expand a little bit more about what it would mean to have conservative-leaning school boards, what it would mean for conservative politics and politicians. KINGKADE: Yeah, and to an extent, like, conservatives have already tried to get on school boards and have been on school boards. In some of these cases, these are school districts that already have people who self-identify as Republicans. But, you know, you can go back and look at a lot of debates over what kind of textbooks will be used in school boards. You know, they can have some influence - if not directly on the curriculum as the school board, then over the superintendent - in limiting what is taught or what is approved to be displayed in school districts.

No coming back from that, even if you are not a Public Radio listener. And, for a party of individual freedom and responsibility and total control and survelliance, we have a proposal from Nevada:

GROSS: The Nevada Family Alliance proposed putting body cameras on teachers to make sure that they weren't teaching critical race theory. What was the reaction to that? KINGKADE: Yeah. That idea of putting body cameras on teachers is something that, as you said, has been proposed in Nevada by a conservative group. That's also something that's gained steam on certain corners of social media - on Facebook, on YouTube, where conservative commentators have said, let's put body cameras on teachers. And I think, really, the idea of that is sort of reflective of what has been going on over the last year.

You know, true, that. You drop your kids off at school, but you can never be sure what they are teaching them! Because you can't read, and never talk to your children. Teacher body-cams are the only way to be sure those liberal teachers are not brainwashing your children with things like "history" and "literature" and "science"!

Part Two

But as well, we have a piece from WIRED, on the recently christianed "smokescreen troll": Beware ‘Smokescreen Trolling,’ Trump Followers' Favorite Tactic

Some of the claims coming out of the Trump camp in recent weeks are laughable: that Joe Biden is the Hamburglar, that Democrats are conspiring to take away the Chick-fil-A sauces of “real” Americans, that socialism is making your burritos more expensive. Some are much more serious, but just as demonstrably false: that the 2020 election was stolen, that Democrats are guilty of widespread voter fraud, that the January 6th insurrection wasn’t an insurrection at all. Others are couched in fears about “critical race theory” (even among those who can’t seem to define it), and the concern that liberals are woke Harry Potters roaming the countryside, indiscriminately casting the spell expecto cancellation.

Shouldn't that be tabulae novae expecto? Sauces of "real" Americans? Whatever. But there is a method to the madness.

I call it “smokescreen trolling”: flooding the zone with (bull)shit and lighting the fuse to every moral panic possible, while obscuring the underlying assaults against pluralistic, multiracial democracy. (WNYC’s On the Media recently described a similar dynamic as an “authoritarian mullet”: culture wars in the front, attacks against democracy in the back.) To win the ideological war, Trumpists have been effectively weaponizing smokescreen trolling. The only surefire way to counter it—and the widespread, coordinated attacks it cloaks—is through strong voting rights legislation. But in the meantime, this battle is being fought on the rhetorical front. How pro-democracy voices respond matters.

Yes, the response is what matters. But first we need to be clear about what the tactic actually is.

I’ve argued over and over again against using “trolling” as a broad behavioral catchall. For one thing, when the same word is used to describe harmless mischief and white supremacist attacks, it makes the really terrible stuff seem like a subset of internet play. It also has the tendency to cordon “real life” from “just the internet,” which has always been a false distinction but is especially inappropriate when describing things like racist violence.

Or how some people are intolerant of "different" opinions. This is not normal.

But in this case, Trumpist politicians have earned the label by adopting the exact strategies and tactics that 4chan’s trolls perfected throughout the aughts. These strategies include driving wedges between groups, sowing distrust in institutions, and undermining good-faith civic discourse through tactics like over-the-top provocation, tricking people into repeating sensationalist claims, gaming algorithms and keyword search, weaponizing hot-button cultural issues, organizing false outrage campaigns, coordinating targeted harassment (often by directing a “personal army” against a chosen victim), and generally gaslighting.

Like CRT, you know. But the point is to NOT feed the trolls.

When confronted by such sleights of hand online, the first thing to remember is that, however argumentative a claim might seem, smokescreen trolling is not an argument. When Trumpists post wild accusations to social media, they’re not open to having their minds changed, and they will be impervious to whatever facts you think they might be missing. They will, however, be very pleased by your efforts to try.

So, what to do? This!

Don’t help them do that. Instead, refuse to play their game, and insist on a different one entirely—an approach that also helped counter subcultural trolling. As cognitive linguist George Lakoff has suggested, reframe the discussion away from what the Trumpists want you to talk about and toward the deeper truths buried within the stories that must be talked about. Describe the specific actions they and other officials in their state have undertaken to suppress the vote, reinforce white supremacy, and threaten citizens’ freedoms. Particularly if a story is already trending, responses that call attention to what strategies and tactics are being used and why they’re being used can help others understand how they’re being manipulated, where they should be directing their attention instead, and what is at stake.

Like voter supression. Which is why Critical Race Theory. It is making whites feel guilty for trying to keep minorities from voting. That is racist! Thank you, Whitney!

Part Three

The main feature in this journal entry, however, is an essay by Ibram X. Kendi in the Atlantic entitled, Our New Postracial Myth: The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced. Starting out with the facts:

The signposts of racism are staring back at us in big, bold racial inequities. But some Americans are ignoring the signposts, walking on by racial inequity, riding on by the evidence, and proclaiming their belief with religious fervor. “America is not a racist country,” Senator Tim Scott said in April. Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies. Roughly a fifth of Native Americans and Latino Americans are medically uninsured, almost triple the rate of white Americans and Asian Americans (7.8 and 7.2 percent, respectively). Native people (24.2 percent) are nearly three times as likely as white people (9 percent) to be impoverished. The life expectancy of Black Americans (74.5 years) is much lower than that of white Americans (78.6 years). White Americans account for 77 percent of the voting members of the 117th Congress, even though they represent 60 percent of the U.S. population.

None are so blind, though, as those who refuse to see, and instead lie through their teeth.

And yet, some don’t want the American people to stop and see. They don’t want our kids to learn about the racism causing racial inequity. They are trying to ban teaching it in schools; Florida passed the latest such ban last Thursday. They can’t acknowledge racial inequity because to acknowledge it is to discuss why it exists and persists. To discuss why racial inequity exists and persists is to point to the libraries of nonpartisan studies documenting widespread racism in the United States. To say that there is widespread racial inequity caused by widespread racism, which makes the United States racist, isn’t an opinion, isn’t a partisan position, isn’t a doctrine, isn’t a left-wing construct, isn’t anti-white, and isn’t anti-American. It is a fact. But in recent years, some have reduced a host of facts to beliefs. “I don’t believe that,” Donald Trump said in September when a reporter asked him about the existence of systemic racism.

It's like Covid-19: If you don't believe it, or test for it, it doesn't exist! Brilliant! But it is not just this.

This is a precarious time. There are people tired of quarantining their racist beliefs, anxious about being held accountable by “wokeism” and “cancel culture,” yearning to get back to the normality of blaming Black inferiority for racial inequity. The believers are going after these people with disinformation. They are putting words in the mouths of Black Lives Matter activists, critical race theorists, the writers of the 1619 Project, and anti-racist intellectuals—and attacking the words they put in our mouths. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina claims that we believe “people with white skin are inherently racist.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claims that we believe “all our institutions are bankrupt, and they’re illegitimate.”

Ron really knows what Black folk think! And:

We’ve heard this before. “America is not a racist Nation” is the new “America is a postracial nation.” We are witnessing the birth of the new postracial project.

Yep, despite all evidence to the contrary, America is no longer racist! It is kind of like how America declared victory in Vietnam, and then left. Thanks, Obama!

And, you see, Ibram is a Doctor, a PhD, a professor. Took him a while to get there.

I devoured books and essays on Black life, racism, anti-racism, and history. I had studied these topics for years. But nothing prepared me for the intensity of doctoral studies. Nothing prepared me for the precision and collisions of the sharp minds around me. Nothing prepared me for writing practically a book a semester in the form of multiple 30-page research papers. Nothing prepared me for the total life immersion of study. In fact, I was readying myself to join a guild of intellectuals with expertise on the structures of racism. This guild studies, diagnoses, and strives to eliminate racism. The believers call us “race hustlers,” but they would never call oncologists “cancer hustlers.” They’ll do anything to delegitimize our training and expertise, which veils their absence of training and expertise, which legitimizes their postracial fairy tales.

Cancer hustlers. Economy khallows! But this is the main point of CRT and American conservativism: the equality of stupid.

Because everyone, apparently, is an authority on damn near everything. I can tell an astrophysicist that she is wrong about the existence of extrasolar planets, and she can tell me that I am wrong about the existence of racism. Humility is dead. Expertise is losing out to the world of make-believe, where everyone knows it all, where the climate isn’t changing, where vaccines aren’t saving lives, where teaching our kids the truth is harmful, where anti-poverty programs aren’t better crime fighters than cops, where assault rifles aren’t used to commit mass murder, where Nikole Hannah-Jones doesn’t deserve tenure, where the 2020 election wasn’t legitimate, and where the original postracial project didn’t produce the infernal Trump presidency. To use W. E. B. Du Bois’s words, “lies agreed upon” are king. Ignorance preyed upon is king. Patriotism as racism is king. The conspiracy theory is king.

Mass psychosis? Or the sort Freud found in the Germans before WWII? This is what we are talking about here, smokescreen trolling, privileging of ignorance, racism that can't stand to be called racist. Hmm.

Anyone can diagnose their nation as “not racist.” In the world of make-believe, who cares whether they can’t define what they mean by that? Who cares about definitions? Who cares about the vulnerability of kids to racist messages? Who cares about education? Who cares whether GOP state legislators are attacking the recognition of racism as they institute racist voting policies to maintain their power? Who cares about democracy? Anyone can be interviewed and listened to and taken seriously when they claim that racism doesn’t exist, when they vilify the 1619 Project, when they demonize critical race theory, when they slander anti-racism—when they wholly disregard racial inequity and injustice and violence. Anyone can participate in the new postracial project.

But, really, it's Republicans, mostly.

Part Four

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, racists try to parody CRT, with epic fail. From Winnebago County Republican Party posts Facebook meme showing 7 traits of white supremacy, including 'literacy'

What are the 7 traits of superior whites?

OSHKOSH – The Winnebago County Republican Party is facing criticism after sharing a Facebook post Monday about critical race theory and white supremacy. The post, originally posted under the name Doug Charette, shows a photo of a man who is white with the message, "Know the warning signs of WHITE SUPREMACY: 1. Full time employment 2. Literacy 3. Professional or technical degree 4. Regular church/temple attendance 5. Auto insurance 6. Good credit rating 7. No criminal record." Within four hours the meme garnered more than 100 responses, with most disagreeing with the post. "This is absolutely inappropriate," one comment stated. "Who thought it was ok to post this? I am Republican and this is not OK to post. Very ashamed that you would post this."

At least some of the members of the Party of Lincoln realize that racist dogwhistles is not what they should be. But some others,

In a series of responses to the criticism, an unidentified person using the local party's Facebook account said their intent was to start a conversation about critical race theory and claimed the concept promotes racism by teaching about white privilege. "I learned about it this weekend at the Republican Convention and how the Democrat is asking schools to implement it in our local universities and public schools by attaching money to the implementation of it," the person wrote. The post did not explicitly connect the seven "traits" to critical race theory, but in the comments, the person falsely claimed that's what it teaches without providing any evidence that any schools using the concept make such connections or that the claims in the post were in line with academic literature on critical race theory.

Following the reciprocal, we can see that non-whites are "1.unemployed 2. Illiterate 3. Have no Professional or technical degree 4. Irreligious 5. Uninsured 6. Bad credit rating 7. Criminal record." Why? Well they must just like being that way, or are not constitutionally capable, because white people are supreme. Yes, this is your old fashioned white supremercist racism. More and more it seems, that if you protest Critical Race Theory, as Jeff Foxworthy might say, "You might be a racist."

Part End

The entire manufactured panic over CRT just keeps getting more interesting! Ted Cruz! Ron deSantis! Pat Robertson even spoke up recently, saying that CRT is contrary to the bible (and the letter his father sent objecting to desegregation).

"Pat’s father, Sen A Willis Robertson (D-VA), signed the Southern Manifesto, which urged southern legislatures to ignore Brown [v Board of Education] and maintain segregated institutions," Kruse tweeted. "It’s no shock Pat doesn’t want us to think too hard about how officials used state power to entrench racism."

But as I suggested before, they may have entered the Paradox of power, where the attempt to ensure an outcome ends up being precisely what precipitates failure. Don the Junior seems to have recogized this, and gone back to "Hunter's laptops". Or, he is just really high.

Critical Race Theory: The theory that just keeps giving!

History News Network: Experts Beware: Is America Headed for a Scopes Moment over Critical Race Theory?

In a recent debate over a law to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, Tennessee legislator Justin Lafferty (R) explained to his colleagues that the 3/5th Compromise of 1787, used to determine a state’s representation in Congress by counting enslaved people as “three fifths of all other Persons,” was designed with “the purpose of ending slavery.” Lafferty had his facts spectacularly wrong, but that did nothing to derail the law’s passage.

Anti-Critical Race Theory laws like the one passed in Tennessee – as well Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Florida -- are not just aimed to push back against the heightened awareness of the nation’s history of racial injustice in the wake of the popularity of the 1619 Project and last summer’s massive protests over the murder of George Floyd. They are also attacks on educators -- and on expertise itself. As Christine Emba explained in a recent Washington Post article on conservatives’ current obsession with Critical Race Theory, “disguising one’s discomfort with racial reconsideration as an intellectual critique is still allowed.” Not only is it allowed in these public debates, it is an effective strategy to curb movements for social change. It is also not new.

As with my journal a couple back, this article looks to historical precedents for the Critical Race Theory controversy. Turns out it was not just prohibiting debate about race-based slavery in Congress in the 1830's, but it also was illegal, and I mean Illegal, to teach evolution at some points in America's past. And the "right-wing outrage campaign" was disturbingly similar.

A century ago a similar right-wing outrage campaign was launched against the teaching of evolution in public schools. The 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” remains a touchstone of this era of conservatism. When John Scopes, a substitute teacher in Dayton, Tennessee was charged with violating a new state law against teaching evolution, the case became an international story. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.

The Scopes Trial’s legacy rests perhaps too comfortably on defense lawyer Clarence Darrow’s skewering of the anti-evolution hero William Jennings Bryan in that hot Tennessee courtroom, memorialized in the play (and film) Inherit the Wind. Darrow’s withering questioning made Bryan appear ignorant and incurious. In response to Darrow’s questions about other religious and cultural traditions, Bryan acknowledged that he did not know about them, but added that he did not need to know since through his Christian faith, “I have all the information I need to live by and die by.”

Cue the music! "Don't know much about history, " etc., etc.. But of course, such ignorance is not a bug, it is a tactic!

The legacy of these tactics is on full display today. As David Theo Goldberg wrote in the Boston Review recently, Republican critics of Critical Race Theory “simply don’t know what they’re talking about.” Goldberg is correct of course, but their ignorance is not a hole they are looking to fill anytime soon. It is rather both a shield and a weapon used to go on the offensive against the experts themselves. What the experts “know” about the 3/5th Compromise or the history of racial injustice generally (or climate change, or the dangers posed by COVID-19, or the outcome of the 2020 election) threatens their beliefs in how American society should look and function.

And, the tactic of any violent revolution is to attack democracies at their weakest point, the dog-catcher elections, and, school boards. More from History News Network:

A booby-trapped billboard. A list of demands. A conservative media frenzy.

Jeff Porter, superintendent of a wealthy suburban school district in Maine, had no idea that his community was about to become part of a national battle when in the summer of 2020 a father began accusing the district of trying to “indoctrinate” his children by teaching critical race theory.

To Porter, the issue was straightforward: The district had denounced white supremacy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, but did not teach critical race theory, the academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.

But the parent, Shawn McBreairty, grew increasingly disgruntled and soon connected with No Left Turn in Education, a rapidly growing national group that supports parents as they fight against lessons on systemic racism. That action turned a heated conflict with the school board into one that soon drew national attention, mobilized by a new, increasingly coordinated movement with the backing of major conservative organizations and media outlets.

It’s a movement that has amped up grassroots parental organizing around the country, bringing the lens and stakes of national politics — along with the playbook of seasoned GOP activists — to school boards.

“I was very naïve at the beginning of the year,” Porter said. “I thought it was a concerned parent who had taken it a little too far. I didn't understand this until recently, but these were tactics from national organizations to discredit the entire district.”

Well, yes, professional right-wing nutjob agitators. What did you think was happening.
But now as well, we have January 6th level riots at school board meeting. Amazing.

So here is a result of a search on DDG:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/06/04/loudoun-county-parents-rally-to-recall-school-board-members-pushing-critical-race-theory/
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/05/11/fight-for-schools-launches-recall-effort-against-virginia-school-board-members-over-critical-race-theory/
https://www.london.k12.oh.us/
https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/23/recall-launched-against-school-board-members/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/12/loudoun-county-parents-try-recall-school-board-ove/

Notice anything about the URLs, outside of the third one? Yes, concerted conspiracy to concatenate a cabal of counter-educational insurrection.

But, there is much more. Too much. CRT has hit NPR, PBS, and even Fox News.

Some suggest positive effects, Critical race theory sparks activism in students, over at The Conversation.

Meanwhile, In Florida!

Florida Man and Governator, Ron DeSantis, has signed into law a Florida Bill that will require faculty and students to be "surveyed" on their political positions. What could possibly go wrong?

Tampa Bay Times

TALLAHASSEE — In a push against so-called cancel culture, the Republican majority in the Florida Legislature is ready to pass legislation that would require public colleges and universities to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints.

The survey is part of a broader measure that would also bar university and college officials from limiting speech that “may be uncomfortable, disagreeable or offensive,” and would allow students to record lectures without consent to support a civil or criminal case against a higher-education institution.

The objective, according to the bill sponsors, is to protect the “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on state campuses. But university faculty members worry the proposal, House Bill 233, is likely to send a chilling effect on their freedom of speech.

“I worry that this bill will force a fearful self-consciousness that is not as much about learning and debate as about appearances and playing into an outside audience,” said Cathy Boehme, a researcher with the Florida Education Association.

Such legislation could also pave the way for politicians to meddle in, monitor and regulate speech on campus based on university survey results, Democratic lawmakers charge.

“Don’t you think it is dangerous for us to have all the data on personal opinions of university faculty and students?” Sen. Lori Berman, D-Delray Beach, asked during last week’s Senate floor session.

Not to worry if you have nothing to hide! Oh, and there are Communist agents in the State Dept.

Boing-boing's coverage:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new bill that requires state colleges and universities to survey students, faculty, and staff at Florida colleges and universities to register their political views with the state, reports Raw Story. From the article:

"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said, justifying the legislation. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."

        DeSantis didn't offer any specific examples of that repression but instead claimed he "knows a lot of parents" who are worried their children will be "indoctrinated" with ideas they don't support, and a pair of state legislators complained that Florida colleges and universities had become "socialism factories."

DeSantis is apparently hellbent on destroying the value of a Florida college education. But no matter, it's precisely the kind of move that will convince the GOP to nominate him as their presidential candidate.

"We had to destroy freedom of speech to save it, or to make sure people have the Right kind of freedom of speech, and don't get cancelled." Fake quote of the Florida House Committee on Un-Republican Activities.

And, Joy Reid destroys the alleged creator of the CRT panic.

Watch Joy Reid takedown the architect of the critical race theory culture war in epic debate. Not really that epic, Rufo is a lightweight.

And for dessert, there is this, what with the impalements and throat-slitting, and total absense of any Critical Race theory:

‘Redneck Rave’ Descends Into Throat Slashing, Impalements, and Mass Arrests

Perchance have the Republicans overstepped? Have they hyped the CRT to the point where they become the William Jennings Bryan of the current century? (He was portrayed as the "Cowardly Lion" traipsing down the "Yellow Brick Road" [Gold standard] in The Wizard of Oz. Cowardly Turtle? Or could Josh Hawley be the new Scarecrow?

I look forward to all the good-faith intellectual discussion on this attempt to gaslight the American public, much like we have had previously. Carry on, my feisty Soylentils!

Addendum
Everyone enjoys a nice cartoon!
Daily Kos. Everybody, mandatory fun, by order of the Florida government!