On the day before the election, Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a “1776 Commission” to rewrite American history. This commission was intended to refute the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which told the story of American history from the view of African Americans. It was also, allegedly, an answer to “critical race theory,” which you can be sure Trump could not define. I thought this was a bad idea, since history should be written by historians, not by presidential commissions packed with cronies and ideologues.
On December 18, with 33 days left in his term in office, Trump announced the members of his commission, all predictably conservatives and reactionaries. The group was headed by Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn, a Trump ally. I called this “absurd.”
Many thought that the commission couldn’t possibly rewrite American history in the few days allowed to them, but miraculously they issued a report just a few days ago. Presumably, it was written before the commission ever met (if it ever met). The commission said that slavery was unfortunate but it was widespread and everyone did slavery. So there.
Talk about looking on the bright side!
Ironically, the not-long-awaited report was released on Martin Luther King Day. MSNBC host Chris Hayes said it read like a sophomore year term paper by Stephen Miller, Trump’s minister of hate. He interviewed Christina Greer, a professor at Fordham University, and said that Hayes was too generous. She said it read like the term paper of a sophomore in high school.
Peter Greene, who specializes in reading horrible reports so that others don’t have to, gave the report its due: It is awful. Beyond awful. It is rightwing drivel.
The 1776 Commission released their thing today, and pardon my French, Mom, but holy shit is it bad. You knew it was going to be bad. It’s really bad. You probably didn’t know that Progressivism is on the same Challenges to American Principles list with slavery and fascism. Slavery, by the way, is addressed primarily through a massive whataboutism. 45 pages, and every one of them is filled with horrific, racist, dumb, awful awfulness (okay, pages 2 and 4 are blank). 43 pages of awful (without any footnotes or endnotes or citations or bibliography in sight for this work of ultimate scholarship). I don’t have the time at the moment to pick apart all of it (I’ll link to it, but you really shouldn’t read it on a full stomach, and empty stomach, or at the end of a hard day)...
It’s like someone managed to take the 1950s version of squeaky clean white American life and mash it up with 1950s style Soviet Commie borg-style mind-melding. No critical thinking here. This is “education” that rejects pluralism, inquiry, actual thought and scholarship, while simultaneously nodding at and minimizing injustice, asserting that victims of such injustice should stay calm and love their country because it includes people who have the right values (and the right personal circumstances).
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and may the Biden administration swiftly drop this damned thing into the deepest circular file in DC.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order last night wiping out Trump’s 1776 Commission.
, “…since history should be written by historians, not by presidential commissions packed with cronies and ideologues.”
I agree, which makes feminist revisions unreliable, as well as the critical race Theory and 1619.
So, you favor HIStory, I take it.
Neither feminism nor Critical Race Theory is monolithic, btw. Many distinct viewpoints. Do you oppose ALL feminist ideas? Do you disagree that women have been largely shut out from powerful roles throughout most of human history, from the emergence of the first city states on? that a necessary correction is taking place so that HALF the human race can contribute fully and live up its potential in every sphere of human activity? It seems to me that to deny these important ideas is to operate at the level of the Q-a-NONsense folks.
I wonder if Dean Hedges believes that women should have the right to vote.
The right to vote for women? Or the right for women to vote?
These are two wholly different ideas. The first thing one must determine is the definition of Right. For example, what would you call an unearned Right? Or say a Right which someone’s labor and sacrifices created? I would call that Privilege. Privilege is Rights Sans Responsiblities, would you agree? So if we were to look at the removal of voting Rights, what is this? The removal of a Privilege? Let’s look at what demographic has had their voting Rights taken away, as it turns out, dead people are not allowed to vote. So if we were to look at , say for example, the Vietnam conflict, in which only men were required to sign up for Selective Service, and that 58,000 lost their voting rights along with their lives, a certain perspective is due. Yes, 7 US women died in the Vietnam conflict so they too lost their voting rights, but we’re they Rights or Privileges? Most of the dead guys in world war one didn’t have voting rights. Most of the guys in the Revolutionary war which established this country didn’t have voting rights either. In fact, only 8% of the population of the new America could vote for George Washington. Some of them were women. They owned land and it was land owners who have voting rights. Martha washington owned more slaves than George, in fact. He married up, very modern for the day.
What is at issue with Feminism is it’s romantic attachment to Misandry. I can find no evidence for the Feminist claim of oppessive patriarchy. Not in human social structure and not in the social structure of any other mammal on the planet. Feminism is the mother of all Gaslighting. Men are not as bad as we thought and women are not as bad off as they think. Feminism is a flawed idiology based on a false premise. So whether or not women should have voting Rights is a diversion. The question is whether women should have voting Responsiblities.
So you must be very happy that women now serve in combat roles and have an equal chance to die in combat.
You do make some mighty big leaps in logic, lady D, as a male, I have a 4 million year history of protecting and supplying women. My musculature, my facial hair, my assertiveness, and my self sacificial tendencies are antithetical to placing women in peril. If you want to lose a war, that’s fine, put women in combat. You have lost your way in my presentation. The question is if the Right to vote does not accompany the responsiblities of the vote, it has to be decided if voting is a Privilege. I was born a few years too late for vietnam and too early for the Gulf war. I was lucky. But military fatalities are not the only way to lose voting Rights. Take workplace fatalities, for example. Men are almost exclusively the Victim of workplace fatalities @ 93% . It’s not a coincidence that the top ten safest professions are almost exclusively women’s jobs. Feminism is mighty quiet about getting gender equality in, say, dental hygienists, or court clerks. Let’s look at cancer deaths, yup, several reveal twice the morbidity in men. Oddly, breast cancer, which is considerably none lethal, receives the overwhelming majority of funding and support.
It is not surprising that by age 85 there are twice as many women still alive and still have voting rights ( Privilege?) than men.
In most States, voting Rights for convicted Felons is sanctioned. 90+% of the imprisoned are men. It’s important to point out that women convicted of the same crimes as men enjoy an average of 60% lighter sentencing, and fair much better at the appeal level. Feminism has you fooled if you think women are a disadvantaged demographic.
Actually, when I think of the many demeaning experiences I have had at the hands of men, simply because I am a woman, I realize how stupid and insensitive you are.
Or, we could just end all wars….
I am opposed to all wars. But I’m very happy we fought a war against Fascism from 1941-1945 or this would be a very different world. And I would literally be ashes, like all my relatives in Europe.
So, Mr. Hedges, it is certainly a novel reading of history that denies the existence of Patriarchal societies. ROFLMAO!
My assertion is the absence of oppessive patriarchy which oppresses women. Evolution is the biological and behavioral adaptation which has provided the best opportunity for reproductive success. So, we see that it is gynocentrism, not misogynist behavior which has evolved and is the single organizing factor in all mammals, not just humans. Gynocentrism is the source of Hypergamy. And this is the source of the Hyperagency in men and the Hypoagency in women. It’s not right or wrong, it’s the reason for the success of the species. For example, let’s look at peafowl. Why does the male peacock have the big colorful tail? What is the purpose? To attract the attention of the peahen? Sure, but who else does it attract? Predators. Peacock use their tails to distract predator from the hen. So, this exposes the peacock to peril as it’s harder to get away from the predators with that big tail. Protecting the hen at his own peril. The bigger the tail, the better for the hen. So the hen chooses the peacock. This is Hypergamy. This is Briffaults law. The hen makes the choice who and when to mate with. Is this any different in human social structure? Nope.
The problem with Feminism is that it makes appreciation of men very difficult. Yet it is men who are the peacock of human species. Men have crippled and sacrificed themselves supplying and protecting women and the Feminist narrative only see’s them as oppressive mauraders.
And it’s ideology, not idiology. Idiology is what Trumpeteers practice.
Bob,
It all makes sense once you realize that Mr. Hedges has contempt for women.
Where in any of my writing have I demonstrated contempt for women? Saying that they would lose a war is not contempt, it’s just a reasonable conclusion considering the history of war, men have the experience. It’s not a condemnation, at all.
You’re going to be reduced to name calling because that’s what Feminism has done to you. I am anti feminist, not anti women. There is a big difference. Dentists don’t hate teeth do they? Yet they drill holes and such. I drill holes in Feminism. As I told Gloria Steinem last November, I have too much love in my heart to ever be a feminist. Tell you what, I’ll make the same offer I made Ms Steinem-
I will donate$500 to the DV service of your choice if you can provide me with one example of oppressive patriarchy whereas men benefit from this oppression and that no reasonable compensation is provided. Deal?
I get to critique your example and if I cannot debunk it, I lose.
“I will donate$500 to the DV service of your choice if you can provide me with one example of oppressive patriarchy whereas men benefit from this oppression and that no reasonable compensation is provided.”
Sorry, I cannot take that bet because it is unintelligible. “DV service”? Do you mean “domestic violence”? Would this be a loss, other than the money, to you? Does combating domestic violence violate your “idiology”?
And I guess that you must believe that women were “adequately compensated,” in the past, in various times and places, for being denied equal representation or even a voice in government, the right to own property, to move about freely unescorted by men, to drive cars, to minister in churches, to get educations, and so on and on and on.
But look, I’m bowing out of this. Butting heads with a brick wall is a fool’s errand.
As Jethro Tull put it,
Really don’t mind if you sit this one out
My word’s but a whisper, your deafness a shout
I may make you feel but I can’t make you think
etc.
You are welcome to bow out, y will say this, in the year and a half I have been making this $500 wager, I have yet to be stumped. I’ve posed this to feminists, to history professors, to doctors, and to scientists. There really is no oppressive patriarchy and there never was. Why not offer up one example that you think is proof of oppessive patriarchy, and let’s take a look at it, wholly and objectively. I’m walking my talk.
You seriously need to learn a little history, son.
I’m still waiting Mr Bob. I’m willing to spend $500 for some education. Oh wait, speaking of education, 2/3 of defaults on student loans are women. This is astounding because the same age demographic is buying more homes and condos than men. ( Unmarried 20 to 30 years old). Lots of sugar babies, huh? You have to realize the truth is all the facts and all the factors. I wouldn’t be saying what I am saying without having done some research. Obviously I am still studying, and maybe you should too. Why not tell us about the white feather brigade?
As I said above, but perhaps you can’t read, the terms of your wager were not intelligible.
Bob. I will present a check for $500 to any Domestic Violence Service if you can provide me with one, just one, irrefutable undeniable example of oppressive patriarchy whereas men benefit from oppressing women, and that no reasonable compensation is provided. It’s really just that simple.
Here I will give you an example:
1. The wage gap
A. Since men freely accept taking on the dangerous jobs, and do not require women to, this is reasonable compensation.
B. Since men pay into social security yet die sooner, such that widows account for 90% of social security death benefits, this is reasonable compensation.
C. Since men pay more in personal income tax at a rate which is triple what the ” wage gap” is, this is reasonable compensation.
D. Since men, selected representation of women voted for and approved tax payer funded programs such as affirmative action, and complicit favor for hiring women owned businesses, this is reasonable compensation.
And
E. The Gendered wage gap has been debunked several times over several years and does not actually amount to anything measurable, yet these subsidizies for women continue. Such as insurance company being prohibited from charging men less in premiums, even though they draw the least in claims.
So, do you think you can stump the chump?
You need to check the meaning of “whereas.” You are using it wrong. And really, I’m sorry, I haven’t any more time to waste talking to someone so ignorant that he cannot grasp the long, long history of oppression of women. Learn some freaking history. I haven’t the time or inclination to start trying to teach you the remedial classes you need after you take get some anger management therapy for your misogyny.
Nothing I said is or shows a generalized hatred of women. Just the opposite, actually. It’s cute that all you can do is attack my grammar or spelling, yet avoid an actual intellectual conversation. Not my first picnic. Can you offer anything for me to research?
An intellectual conversation. LOL. Now that’s funny!
OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)
You can send the $500 to Wellspring House, in Gloucester, MA.
Now, seriously. I’m done here. I am not going to respond to any more of your lunacy.
Hey Mr Bob, before you go, why not say these names:
Michele Deegan
Katie Perinovic.
Mothers kill their own children more than fathers do, and kill their own sons slightly more. Yet there is no Violence Against Men Act. Men are 80% of the Victims of homicide. In domestic homicide, men average 16.5 years in jail, women average 6. That’s almost a third. Worst patriarchy ever. Huh?
49 Vice Presidents of the United States since 1789. The first woman VP is now serving.
And give me a break. Men commit almost all violent crimes, including crimes of domestic abuse.
Mr Bob, 98% of military fatalities are men. That there have been only men as president is not an indication of oppression. It is an indication of protection and supply, exactly as seen in the peacock. As I said, patriarchy is the proof of gynocentrism. Exposure to risk, for the benefit of the female. There were laws which required men to suffer and laws which minimized women’s suffering. The civil war took the lives of 10% of the entire population of america. Men signed over their properties to their wives in case they came back dead. Property owners had voting rights. Almost half of a million men died in the civil war. How many women? Just under 100. So, since it was the civil war which gave black american franchise, they earned it. Wealthy white women in the north, who were appalled at not having voting rights, made a fuss. They stamped their feet, got arrested and we’re force fed against their hissy hunger strikes. There was no battlefield, no bombardment to speak of. Voting Privilege for women was a gift. You’re welcome.
One issue with your bet, as nearly as I can understand it given how poorly it is phrased, is “Where does one begin?” There are, literally, millions of historical examples of patriarchal mores, laws, institutions, etc., that benefited men, not women. OK. Checking out of this thread.
Quite an incelent discussion, this. I bet that I’ll be the great big guy who takes care of you, honey, bit goes over really well with the women you meet. LMAO. Revolting.
Attacking my SMV says to me you have nothing to offer and resort to… wait a minute.. isn’t that Hypergamy? Competing for the hen, and reproductive opportunity? Have at it fellah. Like I said, not my first picnic. I’m always available if you decide to actually have a reasonable rational and researched discussion on gender. Did you know that the most successful kidney transplants are from Male donors to female recipients? Yup, how is that even possible in this ” oppressive patriarchy” you claim? Did you know that worldwide, diarrhea is responsible for more deaths to women and girls than men are? Yup.
Let me ask you a question? What animal on this planet provides the most extensive and prolonged supply and protection for it’s progeny?
SMV? Seriously? Oh Lord. Falling off my chair laughing.
The number of women who died at the hands of their male lovers or spouses in the US during the period of the Vietnam War is roughly equal to the number of Americans who died in that war.
89.5 percent of homicides are committed by men (2010, Department of Justice).
98.9 percent of rapes are committed by men (2010, Department of Justice).
I challenge your data. Firstly, the DOJ didn’t recognize male Victims of rape as they defined it as penetration of a female. The DOJ also report that in juvenile detention the overwhelming majority of Victims of sexual assaults boys by female staff.
If you don’t define rape as a crime men are Victims of, then there will appear to be no Victims. it’s like asking a MacDonald’s person how many people eat pizza, they will say almost no one.
If you research the RAINN publications and their footnotes,and their methodology, you can easily see that their findings are flawed. Half of their data comes from sources which did not recognize rape as a crime against men. They also relied on self reporting surveys, which have predictable gender biases which they did not factor in. Also, the false reporting of rape was not factored in and men are 99.8% the victim of false accusations. As far as DV homicide, most women are killed by someone they know. This is still a small fraction of men who are killed, whether the perp is known or not. Mothers kill their own children more than fathers do. So there is that to factor in. No guy, you are not as well educated as I am in this arena. Not even close. Your comment seems to prove my point- women’s suffering is more important than men’s suffering. Even though men are 80% of the Victims of homicide- you desensitize it by saying it’s men killing men.
Remember the school girls kidnapped by Boka Haram? All the world was outraged, right? Michelle Obama with her pouty face holding up the sign, ” bring our girls home”. Remember? Do you even know that boka Haram had already rounded up the men and school boys and immolated them? No public outcry. Almost no media attention. Try again, uncle Bob. I’m all ears
OK, I’ll bite one last time. To get started with disabusing yourself of your arrested understanding of evolution, you might start with the following superb books:
Roughgarten, Joan. Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. U. of California P, 2009.
Jablonka, Eva, et al. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Bradford, 2006.
“Roughgarten, Joan. Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. U. of California P, 2009.
Jablonka, Eva, et al. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Bradford, 2006”
Ok, two female authors. Feminists? I will research the one from california first. Do you think she is in the women’s studies department? That’s my guess. Back in a bit…
Oh Lord forbid that my comment should have led you, Would-be Dean of Misogynists, to pester actual scientists like Ms. Roughgarten and Ms. Jablonka with your crank emails. Physicists don’t need yet another fool writing them screeds about perpetual motion machines, and actual evolutionary biologists like Ms. Roughgarten and Ms. Jablonka don’t need to hear your uninformed and crackpot notions either.
But hey, congrats on getting the spelling of “Feminists” right this time.
I sent Eva Jablonka an email, so let’s see if she sends me back anything. On to your next author…
Dean Hedges,
You are a miserable misogynist.
Please stop wasting space on my blog with your anti-female bile.
I assume you did not have a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter.
If you did, I feel sorry for them.
It must be painful to go through life hating half of humanity.
Mr. Hedges, you might try READING THE BOOKS. LMAO.
Wow! A member of The Proud Boys (?) has entered this blog. All these fringe groups are really getting desperate now that FB and Twitter have cut them off and they need to find any outlet to spew their nonsense.
you have the description correct; here is a Dean Hedges who comments on Black Lives Matter.. Could he be the same one? There are a lot of pattens here… I don’t want to get further into the “trolling” by responding to him… (even if this isn’t his writing). There are so many more important things to spend time on. once we realize what the conversation is all about…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. “Dean Hedges
·Dec 19, 2020
I think if we were to look at crime and color, we would find black on black crime far larger than police crime on black. This is not to invalidate or disqualify but prioritize. I am a men’s rights guy, half of black population is men, and so it would really be helpful to me if black men were to ease up being so shitty to black men. George Floyd, did he get dead because of race? Or Gender? Face it squarely. Most racism is actually sexism in the form of Misandry.”
Dean Hedges,
I think the reason that you have never been stumped is you have given yourself the power to decide if there is “reasonable compensation”.
Bishop Steven Elliot spoke in the same sort of terms as you when he said “…what a small number in comparison with the thousands, nay, I may say millions, who have learned the way to Heaven and who have been made to know their Savior through the means of African slavery! At this very moment there are from three to four millions of Africans, educating for earth and for Heaven in the so vilified Southern States—learning the very best lessons for a semi-barbarous people—lessons of self-control, of obedience, of perseverance, of adaptation of means to ends; learning, above all, where their weakness lies, and how they may acquire strength for the battle of life.” (https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/)
The Bishop argued that exposure to Christianity along with “the best lessons for semi-barbarous people” was reasonable compensation for slavery. Somehow I don’t think the slaves would agree.
Well said, TE.
Thank you, TE, for calling bs on this bet. And you nail it, of course. This is a problem even more severe that the general unintelligibility of Mr. Hedge’s challenge, which I commented on. Virginia Woolf, who recounts in “A Room of One’s Own” her experience of being barred from a library isn’t allowed to decide for herself what constitutes the supposed recompense for this. She needs a man like Mr. Hedges to do this for her. LOL.
“…did he get dead…” reminds me of Gomer Pyle’s, “He’s gonna kill me dead.” (pronounced kee-yil mee day-yed) At least Gomer had a heart. Sheesh. I would quote the Pink Floyd lyric, “the lunatic is in the grass,” but in this case they’re out in the open.
Greg-
This MLK quote that I recently read was new to me, “The Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not…the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate.”
I think I’m wrong that this kook belongs to the Proud Boys…..he is an Incel. He hates women because they don’t/won’t give him the the attention that he thinks he deserves because he is a man.
Wrong on both. Not a proud boy, not an incel. I’m also not a name caller.
Just a plain garden-variety misogynist.
Look it up.
You are contemptuous of women.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/incels-americas-newest-domestic-terrorism-threat
You sure sound like an Incel to me!
“I am not a name caller.” Excepting “Lady D,” he is technically correct. But every sentence oozes a quality much, much worse than name calling. But this was truly the part that convinces me that this (lower case) idiot (yes, I’m name calling, very directly) aspires to be a performance “artist”: “I have a 4 million year history of protecting and supplying women.” Yet: “I was born a few years too late for vietnam [sic] and too early for the Gulf war [sic]. I was lucky. [condescendingly sick]” A “4 million year history of protecting” but “was lucky” to be “too late for [V]ietnam and too early for the Gulf [W]ar.” How convenient!
Then he makes a “wager” to assert his brilliance. Let’s see how much of a “man”—yecch, I may have to reconsider my gender if this idiocy is the standard—he is. Send in the $500 to an escrow account administered by our host. Show us your (cough, cough) manhood if you’re a standup guy. Please walk your blustery, sick talk. He claims women kill their own children, yet ignores that fact that not one woman in a position of power has ever declared an offensive war. [Golda Meir engaged in a defensive war.] And voting is a “privilege” and a “gift”! Good to know that he has no understanding of the concept of “inalienable rights.”
This is one truly damaged individual born at the wrong time and place. I’m betting he wishes he lived in age when he could rape and plunder with impunity and be honored for it.
Yeah, the “Lady D,” that was pretty bad. This reminded me of when Trump, yelling at his Secretary of Homeland Security because she wouldn’t order Border Patrol agents to SHOOT unarmed asylum seekers, kept calling her “Honey.”
And it is, of course, darkly amusing that this troll, without having read the books I mentioned, at his request, by Roughgarten (population ecologist) and Jablonka (geneticist and evolution theorist), has decided that their informed work in their fields of expertise can be dismissed as “Feminism” and is firing off emails to disprove them without actually having read their books.
I asserted my privilege as owner of this space and banished him. His misogyny is as disgusting as racism.
Thank goodness you banned him. Let him go back to the “manosphere” of 4chan or 8kun. Let him spew his hate with the Daily Stormer and the other White Supremacists. These sickos are hitting everything to try and recruit fresh weak minds that no longer have “a tribe” (QAnon is waning without Trump’s constant lies).
LisaM,
He continues to leave comments, which I delete. The last one called you a “feminazi,” one of Rush Limbaugh’s favorite terms.
he found me on WordPress and this came through on my email… Did he also post it on the blog? I thought Bob Shepherd was extremely patient in responding — I don’t have the time to waste on Hedges views …so I did not respond and will not respond to his request for “Better information.” It is only baiting … and he enjoys causing that kind of situation which takes us away from the main issues and crises…. . “Hi ms haverhill. Yes I am the same Dean Hedges. My statement about BLM still stands. Unless you have better info, it will remain.”
Sorry about that, Jean H.
None of us should be required to read the views of someone who hates women. Or blacks. Or any other group.
Which means that I hit a nerve! LOL. He is an Incel or an MRA and both groups mix in with the White Supremacy tribe. The “manosphere” is a really toxic sewer of ideology…..I’m sure his mommy is really proud SMH! I’m just glad that “Mr. Bob” showed up!
Ha, Just saw an old 40s or 50s travelogue on Turner classic Movies site
A woman was seen fishing, casting but catching nothing. Next scene saw her sitting at a table of 3 men. Narrator said: And share with the men the fish they caught that you should have cooked.
Ah, Darrell. You sum up this backward point of view admirably. There are those who would take us back to the 1940s, and there are those who live in the present, with an eye upon a future where sexism is bad memory of a barbarous time.
Bob, good morning. Do you think sexism is a bigger problem than racism? I do. But, sexism is not just misogyny. Sexism is also Misandry.
Bigger problem? Don’t know how to answer that. It’s sort of like, which would you rather die of, colon cancer or necrotizing fasciitis. Yes, Dean, one can find examples misandry. I have a friend, for example, who works for a hotline for battered men. There are such people, but their numbers are far lower than for battered women. As you know, I have written about ways in which our culture is failing our boys and have posted about that here, so you needed catalog those. But it requires a profound lack of knowledge of history not to grasp the long and horrific history of patriarchical oppression.
There are always crazy people who commit murder of family members, Dean. Nothing follows from that except the need for better mental health care and means for reporting people who have issues, such as folks who are obsessed with denying misogyny.
And I have spent far too much of my life studying African-American history, music, literature, and art to discount the pervasive and systemic nature of racism in this country from the beginning. It is, as our great new President has said, the Original Sin of this country.
Oh, and Dean, whataboutism is a particularly ineffective rhetorical strategy, except with the profoundly ignorant, when the numbers are so overwhelmingly against you. 500,000 Covid deaths by the end of February. But whatabout deaths from infections caused by pricking oneself when watering roses? Shouldn’t we have a national campaign to stamp that out!?!? LOL.
Good morning Mr Bob. Of those Covid deaths you mentioned by February, 14th, I assume you meant, from the rose bush prick reference, two things; what is the gendered breakdown of Covid morbidity? And the second thing, thank you Diane.
I think that what I meant by the rose bush reference was pretty clear, Dean, but I see that I have to spell it out, like the folks who drew pictures for briefings of Vlad’s Useful Idiot, Agent Orange. You indulge in whataboutism. Someone mentions a pervasive, omnipresent issue. You mention equate this with some weird outlier phenomenon. It’s like saying, Oh, you have Stage 4 Lung Cancer? So what? Whatabout the boo-boo where I scraped my knee? This is what Diane meant when she referred to the ridiculousness of your comments. Now, enough. I have wasted enough time with you. Go forth, son, and ACTUALLY READ those books I recommended to you.
It seems that Dean keeps coming back like daffodils in the Spring. LOL.
His comments went from the absurd to the ridiculous so I allowed him in.
I especially wanted to warn him not to trust his mother because she might kill him.
He is obsessed with infanticide.
LOL, Diane. Yes. Such people parody themselves. They are like Cadet Bone Spurs Donald Trump blundering about the stage at one of his Covid pressers talking about being a wartime president.
Funny that Trumpers love a man who was a draft dodger and whose sons never served.
Biden’s son served in Iraq.
The irony would be very funny if it weren’t so tragic.
I will never forget the sight of these supposed “Patriots” beating policemen with poles carrying American flags. Seared into my memory.
I agree. The ones who were calling themselves patriots were not behaving very patriotic. I figure if you have a good idea, and it really is a good idea, it won’t need to be presented in a bad way. I don’t know for certain but one can just imagine the negative reenforcement the guy must have endured who first suggested that there is an odorless tasteless invisible thing that would kill us if we breathe it in but we breathe it in all the time. Even to this day, and every winter, people accidentally die from Carbon monoxide.
I know what you’re thinking, Diane. That Bob Shepherd has a bad habit of taking the troll bait. Sorry about that. Getting it off the hook amuses me.
So, Darrell, you are pretty up front with your misogyny and sexism, I must say. Just put it right out there so anyone can see how ugly it is.
I would take Dr Arnn’s opinion over Chris Hayes any day. Has Peter Greene reviewed The “1619 Project” to draw a comparison? Just might be that those fabrications are greater than the ones he notes. I have not read either so I cannot offer an opinion on the content. I cannot believe that a scholarly report would be so deficient.
The 1776 report was not “scholarly.” Nothing written by a scholar is produced in a few days or weeks.
It is a diatribe intended to minimize slavery and racism.
Keep ’em coming, April. Your posts are comedy gold. Especially those final two sentences! That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!
April, the1776 Report purports to be a work of scholarship outlining an ideal US history curriculum, but it is actually, quite clearly, a partisan screen by extreme right-wingers that presents a whitewash of US history and promotes extremist rightwing, nationalist ideology. For example, the document equates Progressivism with Fascism and Communism, slanders civil servants, and parrots the vile Trump slur about a “shadow government,” or Deep State:
“Far from creating an omniscient body of civil servants led only by “pragmatism” or “science,” though, progressives instead created what amounts to a fourth branch of government called at times the bureaucracy or the administrative state. This shadow government never faces elections and today operates largely without checks and balances. The founders always opposed government unaccountable to the people and without constitutional restraint, yet it continues to grow around us.”
Of course, as we have seen, it is untrue that the civil services never “face elections.” We saw recently, all too clearly, how Trump and his idiot appointees politicized many of the agencies and department of the US federal government, including, at the cost of many American lives, the CDC.
for Lisa — this message came through my email today. “Crisis Magazine wants to take the prudent step of making sure its voice—the voice of the faithful laity—continues to be heard. So we have set up a number of alternative communications channels in addition to our existing ones, and we encourage you to follow us on those channels as well.
MeWe:
An alternative to Facebook
Telegram:
A secure messaging app. We have set up a channel on which we will post links to articles and other announcements,
Gab:
An alternative to Twitter. F
SP3RN:
An exclusively Catholic social media platform. Follow us here. (Note: You must create an account in order to view our page.)”. so they can go there
Because QAnon has been revealed as a sham to many of it’s adherents, these other, more violent and organized fringe groups are looking to recruit these weak minded souls. They are desperate for membership.
“A new film reveals how Cambridge Analytica (commissioned by a Koch-funded charity) collaborated with a software company- Gloo…”
The Intellectualist, 9-28-2020
Professor Gilbert (UK) writes about critical race theory and he extends the kindness of sending emails when we ask him questions. I am saving references in a bibliography to rebut the Heritage Foundation on their recent article…
CRITICAL RACE THEORY — GILLBORN article discussed as “HEADS I WIN Tales you lose”
“Changes to benchmark criteria [UK 2006 , 2011] were presented as an attempt to make educational success more difficult.”
“Raising of the bar is likely to widen existing race (and class, gender etc) gaps.”
Delgado & Stefanic: racism operation system is “Business as Usual”
“Pooling people in race silos is akin to zoologists grouping raccoons, tigers and okapis on the basis that they are all stripes”. Silverstein
“encoding racist beliefs into the hart of future policy and practice” is the business as usual (Gillborn)
cx. correct spelling is Gillborn. sorry about the typo on his name the first time.
https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/report/critical-race-theory-the-new-intolerance-and-its-grip-america
a part of his is coming from Pioneer Institute also and their amicus for the SCOTUS decisions on church/state (separation ) and Minnesota case. I have been trying to get that message out in MA because Pioneer Institute has strong ties to our current governor.
No surprise that this report was sophomoric, short, and unscholarly. No surprise that it was issued on King’s birthday. Is there any proof more than that release date needed to suggest the white nationalist underpinnings of the trump administration.
Stephen “Goebbels” Miller always chose his locations and dates purposefully to troll progressives.
And dog-whistle the white supremacist Trump base. But ofc most of these people would have to have the allusions explained, very slowly and carefully, to them, with lots of pictures–you know, as in a briefing of former President Donald Trump THE LOSER.
I find good articles at research gate….reference for Professor Gillborn. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0161956X.2017.1403178
YAY for Biden.
YAY for TRUTH.
YES!
I forgot to add, do you think the mother who just killed her 5 boys in west virginia is an example of Misandry? Or the mother who killed her twin 7 year old daughters in Bellingham washington state? Michele Deegan was her name. Or the Australian mum, Katie something -ovic? Mothers kill their own children more than fathers do ( up to a certain age) and slightly more often kill their own sons.
Try not to have a mother. They are killers.
There are many parallels in doctrine and ritual practice between the Shaking Quakers, or Shaker; the Hassidim; and the Sufis, though not, of course, in this matter of celibacy. Btw, I HIGHLY recommend celibacy to Trump supporters and to Repugnicans generally.
Really not interested in continuing this, Dean. Find others to troll with the bet you have rigged from the outset. Find me an example of oppression of women that was not adequately compensated [and I get to decide what adequate compensation is].
Heads I win, tails you lose. LMAO.
I bet women really appreciate having a big guy with all that musculature and protective instinct to take over this thinking and deciding stuff for them. It’s so difficult, after all.
NOT.
ausfrid@aol.com
Diane, Earlier you have an item entitled “Rachel Klein: Christian Textbooks Echo Trump Rhetoric”. I think discussion about the Christian textbooks and the 1776 Commission Report marry up very nicely.
To me, these two discussions provide a very good insight into the direction that the far right wants to take education in this country. When combined, at least in my of thinking, it the way things happened in the 1930 that lead Germany to all under the heel of the Nazis.
Educate the masses to understand what you want them to understand and then you can lead down the road as mindless robots.
“Educate the masses to understand what you want them to understand and then you can lead down the road as mindless robots.”
This is one reason why separate and unequal schools for different groups of people may result in social engineering. Public schools aspire to give all students access and opportunities.
This is a sad state of affairs, fighting against President Biden’s vitally important effort to achieve a working-together unity in our dangerously divided nation, intentionally or not.
How does seeding disunity achieve, in any way, the goals of education?
Using lies to influence the thinking of young students makes one wonder if any values, other than what they learn at home, should be taught in school until students have learned the skills of critical thinking.
Christian schools, violating Christian principles, by using deliberate untruths to teach their young students values by which they are expected to live their lives, is an insult to Christianity itself.
The fact that they are able use public education funds is a further insult, one that should be addressed by the newly appointed Department
I posted this on the other one, has somewhat of a relevance here.
Sounds like grate kurriculums for Bob’s Real Good Flor-uh-duh Skool whar you kin spend yore state voucher to git yore children taught good an not brawt up to be transgendered librul snowflake Socialists! Right now, we is using the HIS-story (praise the Lord) krurriculum wrote by my girlfriend Darlene, an it goes sumpin like this here: The Lord created the Heavens and the Earth and put Adam n Eve in a real nice garden with okra and tomato plants like you wouldn’t bulieve, but then they ait an aple they wasn’t spozed to, and so he kiked em out and said yore gonna die now and so will all yore kids from now on because steeling an aple is a VERY serius ofence and requires a lot of capitol punishment. So, back then they was this land blonged to Satan called The New Wurld, and Adam n Eve had a bunch of white childurn and that land needed savin, so they went thar and saved all the injuns by killing most of em. Then, they helped out the blacks by giving them jobs on plantations whar they wuz very happy. But then they had to rebel aginst King George cause he wanted to tax rich people, which dont make no sense because when people is rich, that trickles down n heps everbody. So, George Washington (a differnt George) got hisself a great general, Cornelius Trump, and Gen. Trump led the Continental Army n they captured the British airports, and then the white saviors turned the country into golf courses, all except Greenland, which Denmark stole from them, which just aint right so they ought uh sell it back. But this is sort a like the 1776 kurrikulum, so I dont see no reeson to replace whut wur doing.
Biden has removed the report of the 1776 commission from the White House website.
Gone like the wind.
LOL. But anyone who wants to read this WHITEwash from the Trump WHITER House for themselves can do so here: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVzW5NfySnfTk7ucdEoWXshkNUXn3dseBA7ZVrQMBfZey
cx: for himself or herself, ofc
🙂
If the word “dumpster fire” describes anything, it is the execrable attempt to create a mendacious, propagandistic school curriculum. Shame on every intellectually dishonest person involved in the creation of this garbage.
If you are in need of some JOY, check this out. The creatives are at it again.
Thank you.
@ Bob Shepard-
I spelled ideology as “idiology” to combine it with “idiot”. When I am writing about some reasonable collective POV, I would spell with the “e”. I should have explained that in advance.
Mr. Hedges, you used precisely the same spelling in another context weeks ago on this blog. Now you are making stuff up. You just misspelled it, as you misspelled feminism–that topic you know so much about (lol).
OK. Let’s take a sentence at random from the document.
“To assure such a government, Americans demanded a written legal document that would create both a structure and a process for securing their rights and liberties and spell out the divisions and limits of the powers of government.”
First, the intended word is “ensure,” not “assure.” To assure is to dispel any doubts that someone has. Second, who are these Americans who “demanded a written legal document”? These “scholars” are saying that it was Americans in general. But, ofc, it’s not as though a freaking poll were taken or that hundreds of thousands marched upon the Continental Congress demanding, “Give us a legal document now!” That they wanted such a thing is arguably so, but nothing like these was the precipitating cause of the writing of the Articles or of the Constitution. Third, that sentence leaves out a LOT of what the Constitution does, such as spell out the powers of the various branches of government as well as the limits on those powers. A little something these “scholars” left out. But ofc they didn’t leave out “limits” because their ideology is all about reducing government (except, ofc, for police and the military) to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub.
OK. I understand that this is not an important sentence from the document and that these objections are fairly trivial, but they go to the point that this is sophomoric work. It reminds me of the eighth graders whom I taught, years ago, how to write and format a script for a stage play who would write things like, “And then an airplane lands and they fly off to Hawaii.”
@ Bob Shepard-
I spelled ideology as “idiology” to combine it with “idiot”. When I am writing about some reasonable collective POV, I would spell with the “e”. I should have explained that in advance.
Dean Hedges,
Apparently you consider women as a group to be idiots.
I think the term for you is misogynist.
Why stoop to reading a blog written and curated by a lowly woman?
We know that you, being a person with a penis, is a creature of far superior intelligence, and now we know where intelligence is to be found.
Dean, you used exactly the same misspelling weeks ago on a different blog post. Oh, and Dean, in American English, the period goes inside the quotation mark, and my name is spelled “Shepherd.”
Trump? What is that and why does everyone keep writing that word with a capital letter? Never heard of it. I was reading my special history teachers edition this morning. It’s a big, leather-bound book, centuries old, millions of pages, that magically records every event in history as it happens. Strangely, this morning, the entire history of November 8, 2016 to January 19, 2021 is missing. It’s as if four plus years never happened. Imagine that. I still feel like something happened, but it’s intangible, like a bad dream. Huh. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t that important.
That’s because you looked in the wrong part of the index. See: The Idiot. 🤣
I wish. It’s going to be a long recovery from that four-year nightmare. Four years of getting up in the morning and wondering what the outrage of the day is going to be and against whom or what it will be perpetrated–women? blacks? asylum seekers? allies? the environment? poor kids getting free school lunches? the press? people with disabilities? seniors? farmers? teachers and school kids? kids with student loans? debtors? consumers? the Kurds? Danes? endangered species? Indian tribes? renters? sick people? our troops? gays and lesbians? trans people? Muslims? Democratic mayors? Moms in yellow shirts? fish? wolves? African wildlife? all but the wealthiest taxpayers? New Yorkers? Puerto Ricans? Californians?
What a catalogue of infamy.
LCT,
Here is the missing section. A very intimidating authoritarian man, with a well-established reputation as a liar, won the Presidency in 2016.
He rolled back every piece of legislation and every program that promoted the general welfare.
The members of the Republican Party were afraid of him.
They abandoned the principles of their party.
They owed ands raped the floor before their new Leader.
When he lost the election in 2020, he refused to concede.
The spineless members of his party were afraid to tell him he lost.
They repeated his lies.
He refused to admit he lost the popular vote and the Electoral College.
They repeated his lies.
He incited an open revolt against the Congress, when it was in the midst of Certifying his loss.
Terrorists broke down the doors and windows of the U.S. Capitol.
They vandalized the seat of our democracy.
They were only minutes away from taking members of Congress hostage.
Five people died, including a Capitol Police officer, who was murdered by the terrorists.
Members of Congress huddled insecure locations, hiding from the terrorists.
When the building was secure, the members of Congress came out of hiding and resumed the vote.
Most Republicans voted to overturn the election results, so fearful were they of the man who incited the riot.
Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Ted Hawley led the fight to reject the free and fair election so the Monster might gain a second term.
It was a Day of Infamy.
All of this sounds vaguely familiar, but it doesn’t stick to the brain because I am so. Done. With. The last. Four. Years.
I loved the inauguration poem. It was about emerging from the dark and stepping into the light. I’m ready to emerge now.
What a difference a week makes!
“Any guidance [to states regarding Covid19] will come from the CDC, and we will, of course, defer to that.”
Sanity returns to US governance.
That’s President Biden’s outstanding new Press Secretary, Jennifer Psaki, at the press conference yesterday.
Did I say “a week”? No, a couple days.
Very, very pleased with our new President and First Lady! We are blessed to have them in office!
And Bernie Sanders, man, thank you for being the conscience of your generation. Here, a little photo that will take you back:
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/bernie-sanders-and-i/
cx: the conscience of our generation
Hilarious, Bob!