After the recent election, the question of the Working Class and Unions has been raised. Once, and still in part, a champion of Right to Work laws which prevent Unions from stealing the money of workers who don’t support them, the GOP has been becoming more friendly with Unions and antagonistic towards businesses.
Your humble author has had to live and work where there was no Right to Work law, and forcibly had money taken from a meager paycheck to pay for a Union that screwed over many of the workers in the name of “fairness”.
A reminder that this is all about the Union bosses enriching themselves and engrossing themselves with power.
This Thanksgiving, let us eschew politics for at least one day while we enjoy the company of kith & kin… and even more Thanksgiving themes shots of alcohol.
A century and a half ago, James FitzJames Stephen said something rather prescient:
People came in time to regard their rulers rather as their own agents and the depositaries of their own power than as antagonistic powers to be kept in check, and it did not occur to them that their own power exercised through their own agents might be just as oppressive as the power of their rulers confined within closer or wider limits.
— James FitzJames Stephen
It is our duty as informed citizens to be skeptical of anyone in power.
Such a misconception can be multiplied in effect by going full “Bialystock & Bloom”…
Trump promised 80% of his agenda to 100 different people like it's "The Producers"
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
When it comes to crime and punishment, we seem to go through cycles where high crime lead inevitably to tough on crime measures which lower crime… which results in the softening of anti-crie legislation, until the cycle repeats again. California, via initiative went from tough anti-crime “3 Strikes” laws to practically legalizing theft, and has now returned to more tough on crime policies. Let us look back thirty years ago when some went so far in opposing tough on crime legislation that they questioned if we needed prisons at all, with John C. Goodman, Jean Harris, Stephen B. Bright, Charles W. Colson, Pierre S. Du Pont and William F. Buckley, Jr.
“A private university in New York City is offering a course titled ‘Critical Political Ecology/Economy: From Extraction Regeneration’ that puts forward ‘(eco)feminism’ and ‘(eco)Marxism’ as ‘viable alternatives’ to current political structures.
“According to The New School’s website description, the fall course’s premise examines capitalism’s alleged failures from an ecological and economic perspective. Students will study what is ‘necessary’ to ‘substantiate viable alternatives’ to the system.
“The course’s subject matter uses several disciplines to examine how capitalism supposedly “disrupts Earth system processes.”
“‘. . . in analyzing the making of the world-system economy/ecology of Euroamerican colonial capitalist modernity, [the course] also charts the histories of alternative social ecologies,’ the description says.
“The ‘living history’ course seeks to ‘substantiate viable alternatives and transformative paradigms like (eco)feminism,(eco)Marxism; postcolonialism, decolonialism, Indigenous, post-development, degrowth, post-extractivism, and environmental/climate justice.’”
Magical healing of the planet is something that education is intended to dispel from students minds. Harvard, on the other hand, thinks saving Gaia requires confronting “structural racism”.
“The planet is sick, so says the environmentalists, but here comes Harvard University heal it.
“The Ivy League university, where freshmen need refresher courses on algebra, will now offer a concentration (fancy word for “major”) in ‘Climate Change and Planetary Health.’
“‘The idea is that we move from an understanding of planetary health to training planetary healers,’ Professor Christopher Golden told The Crimson.
“‘We see climate change as one of the most important existential threats that is affecting public health,’ the faculty co-director also told the student newspaper.
“Healing the planet includes confronting ‘structural racism,’ too.
“‘Students in this concentration will also learn about the health inequity born out of environmental degradation,’ the Chan School of Public Health description states.
“‘Structural racism and international economic policy have exacerbated the climate crisis, with communities of color, poor communities, and the Global South being disproportionately impacted,’ the website states. ‘You will be equipped to use research, leadership, advocacy, and policy to implement solutions that better serve these populations.’”
“Columbia University is offering a course titled ‘A Trans History of the United States.’
“The class covers ‘the diversity of gendered experiences across the history of the United States with an emphasis on the individuals, communities, and movements that have been interpreted as trans,’ and aims to “offer an in-depth survey of the history of trans and gender nonconforming experiences across the history of the United States.”
“The ‘key themes’ to be examined include the ‘experiences of trans/gender in relation to race and colonialism, labor, migration, medicine, kinship and sexuality, legal and carceral systems, activism, performance, media, and technology,’ as well as ‘the political stakes of trans history during times of backlash and hostility towards trans communities.’
“The class instructor, Nikita Shephard, who goes by ‘they/them’ pronouns, is currently working on a doctoral dissertation that ‘documents a political history of the public bathroom in modern America.’ His work focuses on ‘histories of LGBTQ communities, gender/sexuality and race, social movements, data and surveillance, and radical politics in the twentieth century United States and beyond.’
“His past work included research on ‘Radical Faeries,’ a group that includes ‘drag queens, leatherfolk, political activists, witches, [and] magicians,’ who get together to ‘do drag,’ ‘make love,’ ‘dance naked,’ ‘cry, sing, laugh, argue,’ ‘sew,’ ‘commit heresies,’ and ‘cover each other with mud.’”
Once upon a time, Tucker Carlson was a bowtie-wearing young man with insightful and thoughful ideas. Then, in a change of course, he began wearing a necktie and some time thereafter began speaking as a contrarian, speaking of economic ridiculousness and going widdershins from supporting the War on Terror to full blown “Blame America First” to the point beyond where even Pitchfork Pat would be aghast by defending Nazi apologia and even beyond Walter Duranty in his worship of Russia.
But that doesn’t signal true madness. Yes, there is the inevitable overreach of whatever message he’s trying to peddle, but he’s gone far beyond that by blaming everything on Satan.
This is beyond even Satanic Panic 2.0. Tucker Carlson honestly seems to believe that demonsattacked him.
Postmodernism and Marxist Critical Theory combine to create a hellish spawn, and it’s pedagogy targeted at young people. Logan Lancing examines this synthesis and what it means.
I want to discuss a paper this morning, one that helped me understand the merger of Critical Theory with Postmodernism.
Peter McLaren's "Critical Pedagogy and the Postmodern Challenge" (89')
We live in the wake of Postmodernism. PoMo argues that grand narratives (big stories about progress/history) are broken. Meaning is slippery, identity fluid, and everything fragmented. This creates unique challenges for fighting oppression.
Back when Barack Obama was President, Chris Rock said that “the president and the first lady are kind of like the mom and the dad of the country. And when your dad says something, you listen. When you don’t, it usually bites you in the ass later on. So I’m here to support the president.” Back then, Republicans and conservatives decried the idea that the government was your or anyone else’s parent.
Demonstrating that the Old Left is just the New Right, Republicans are now not only applauding the idea that government is your “Daddy”, but now giddy about that “Daddy” spanking America like a naughty little girl. Tucker Carlson (Hitler apologia defender, Putin sycophant, and “peaceful tourist” fantasist) giddily fantasizes about America being a bad girl who will be given a vigorous spanking by the coming Trump Presidency.
Tucker Carlson’s vision of a Trump presidency is that “dad comes home” and says to America, “You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking, right now. … It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”pic.twitter.com/fh25KmyYmG
