The horrific massacre of at least 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo should be a wake-up call to the nation: Racism is a poison in our nation’s bloodstream. People were doing their shopping and were mowed down by a white supremacist who drove for hours to kill Black people. Proud of what he was doing, he live-streamed his monstrous actions. Only 18 years old, but his heart was already twisted and warped by racism. The early reports say he avidly consumed racist social media. He absorbed the Great Replacement Theory, the fear that white people like him were losing control. So he murdered innocent people in a supermarket.
There was a time, however briefly, when white supremacists hid under a rock and kept their loathsome views to themselves. But then Trump told them that “political correctness” was dead. It was okay for them to spout their venom, and he encouraged them.
It didn’t start with Trump; racism has been part of our nation’s history for hundreds of years. Our history is full of lynchings, massacres, systemic cruelty to a people whose only “crime” was their skin color.
And yet we dared to hope that racism was a thing of the past. In the 1960s, with elected officials passing laws to punish it, and the courts upholding those laws, we imagined we had driven it out of our social fabric and delegitimized it. We did not.
Racism is not in the past. It never went away. It is out in the open, supported by white supremacists like Tucker Carlson, by FOX News, and by racist social media. Racism is legitimated by the states that passed laws banning “critical race theory” (that is, discussions of racism) from their schools and universities. It is openly endorsed by states banning the teaching of “The 1619 Project,” which explores in painful detail the history of racism.
How can we begin to understand what happened Sunday in Buffalo?
Read “The 1619 Project.” Engage wholeheartedly in critical race theory. Read and discuss the systemic racism that encouraged an 18-year-old man to strap on battle gear and go in search of innocent black people to kill. Vote against the legislators who have tried to suppress knowledge of and teaching about racism.
Search your conscience. Ask why so many states are banning books about racism, preventing teachers from talking about it, preventing students from learning about it, and criminalizing the study of its roots.
This mayhem will not stop until we white people look honestly at our history and into our mirrors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just Another Day In America
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10 More Victims of the Republican Death Cult
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Unfortunately, this is not an exaggeration, Jon.
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This is what they call ‘Free Speech’. Sadly, today’s Supreme Court seems ideally composed to agree.
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This is free speech?
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They call it that, Flerp. Not my definition (I believe in the ‘fire in a crowded theater’ ruling as being a more sane interpretation….. Also, to me, speech and money are not the same thing).
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Sorry, maybe I’m being dense, but who calls a mass killing free speech?
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Who calls speech that foments violence and hatred by lying about people “free speech”?
It is perfectly legal to yell “fire” in a crowded theater IF THERE IS A FIRE!
But when the person is lying about there being a fire, it isn’t legal.
And it isn’t enough for someone to say that she believed there was a fire because “she heard” from someone that there was. It isn’t enough for her to point to lying murderous person who told her there was a fire and have them both absolved of any responsibility because the murderous person who told her there was a fire claims he didn’t know she would go shout it in a crowded theater, and the person who shouted fire and caused the death of many children didn’t know the person was lying.
I get that the Nazi ideology was to really believe that by annihilating every Jewish man, woman, and child they were protecting their country from some great evil that they were told those Jews were responsible for.
But in the days when truth was valued, those who justified killing based on lies were not absolved, and the people who amplified those lies did not get to say they weren’t responsible because they didn’t know the people who believed those lies would act on them.
Before the Republicans cowed the so-called liberal media into abandoning journalistic standards, those who used lies to demonize and foment violence were called out.
Now, they have an entire propaganda arm that has convinced even some folks on the left that when it comes to the evil done because of the lying, inciting Republican party, no one is to blame. Except the Democrats.
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I expect if you askRepublican leaders about what happened in Buffalo, they will answer either “shortage of baby food” or “inflation.”
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What was the gendered breakdown of the victims? ________________________________
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I have no idea what the gender of the victims was.
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7 women, three men – mostly they were older black people just out shopping.
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I do not agree at all with this totally demoralized position which offers absolutely no way forward to fight against racism. Most American workers, black, white, and immigrant are horrified and do not agree with the actions carried out by this shooter. NO, racism is not in the American bloodstream or DNA, as stated by the 1619 project but is consciously promoted by a reactionary ruling class, both Democrats and Republicans who have been engaged in endless wars and violence all over the world. It is a system that has allowed 1 million to die from Covid in the US and that now threatens mankind with a nuclear holocaust. All of this is being done to defend the profit interests of a tiny minority of society. This is the class that your comments speak to and not the teachers and students who have been victims of the school reopenings promoted and supported by the union. It is the working class that will put an end to racism, national chauvinism, and the danger of another war by uniting along class lines. This is clearly a policy you oppose and want to prevent by the insistence on elevating race above its class basis in society.
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I think Helen has really misunderstood and misread what Diane has stated, to put it mildly.
Helen said: “……..school reopenings promoted and supported by the union.” Which unions have supported school reopenings in a big country like America? Any documentation for that?
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Following the election of the Biden administration, the NEA supported the reopening of schools and more Americans have died under this administration than under the Trump administration. The schools were a major vector of transmission.
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So, you say, capitalists and unions wanted the schools open, but true socialists/communists/what’re-you-are wanted them closed? That’s a good one.
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Helen, the NEA (One Association) did not call for the willy-nilly going back to in-person instruction. It’s stance was/is very nuanced: quote from the NEA – “We cannot lose sight of the fact that school-related transmission can still pose serious risks,” says NEA president Becky Pringle. “Truly, no one wants to get back to in-person instruction more than educators – but we must do so safely.” In any case, whether a school district goes back to in-person learning is up to the individual school district, its school board, its superintendent and school administration, not the NEA. The NEA does not run the schools. Helen’s remark about the NEA was misleading and false.
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Given that right now the white working class is drawn to racist leaders, why should we believe anything in this comment?
Violent white supremacists don’t condemn both parties. They hate Democrats. They show up at rallies for Republicans and run their candidates in Republican primaries.
So when Helen Halyard makes this post to normalize the favorite party of the white supremacists by blaming their favorite party — the Republican party – and the party that white supremacists hate – the Democratic party – equally, she is simply pushing far right propaganda. Whether it is witting or unwitting is unknown, but I suspect she is a troll and not just a useful idiot.
She hates America.
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The identity politics of the Democratic Party, a right-wing capitalist party based on the military and intelligence apparatus, is not a progressive alternative to the promotion of fascist and right-wing forces. It is only by uniting black, white, and immigrant workers that racism can be defeated. Please bear in mind that there are two America’s, that of the majority of working people and that of a tiny percentage who own and control the wealth.
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And you think that the murderer in Buffalo killed 10 people in a supermarket in a black neighborhood in Buffalo because he was an aggrieved member of the working class, not a racist?
You are spouting the party line. It’s a hard line to follow, with so many twists and turns. Now that you don’t get the line from the Politburo in Moscow—which has turned hyper-capitalist—where do you get it?
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Republican leader Elise Stefanik — who recently tried to foment violence against Democrats by saying that Dems and their friends the “pedo grifters” caused the baby formula shortage — ALSO embraced the hate of “White Replacement Theory” in her Facebook ads to get re-elected.
Anyone surprised one of the right supremacist who adores the Republican party and their leaders who spew hate and condone violence would be drawn to the type of ugly, hateful rhetoric like the things that Elise Stefanik spews.
Stefanik’s ugly rhetoric and other ugly racist rhetoric appeals to white supremacists. One of them wanted to gun down as many non-white people as he could yesterday.
The Democratic party does unite workers and middle class Americans of all backgrounds. If some white workers who are drawn to the racism of the Republican party that condones violence and guns and spews hate almost every single day are the problem, there isn’t a lot the Democrats can do.
Unlike you, I don’t want the democrats to copy the Republicans. I don’t want Dems to spew the violence and hate, and provide scapegoats for people for whom that is appealing the way the Republicans do.
Dems don’t need voters who don’t mind racism or violence to get their way. Once Dems start to spew the same ugly, violent rhetoric of hate that the Republicans do to appeal to white workers, democracy is over anyway. If you think Nazi Germany was nice because workers felt listened to, then you should vote for Republicans.
Elise Stefanik tells her Republican followers there are “pedo grifters” out there. She traffics in hate and makes sure there is easy access to assasult weapons for the Americans who listen to her and express their hate in the way that Elise will deny she intended. She just wanted them to feel extreme hate for Democrats, and she wanted them to have access to assault weapons.
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We’ve got to hit this QAnon garbage head on and not speak in riddles that can be manipulated. Stefanik’s remarks coupled with the line of questioning at the Brown confirmation hearings demonstrated that appeasing this vile lie will require a new word in the lexicon. Quisling doesn’t even come close.
My advice: if the press will not immediately push back and ask for detailed explanations of what they mean and challenge them on the spot, and not way after the fact, then Dems in the room must do this every time and make a public, consistent show of it. Immediate questions demanding detailed answers like: To whom is the Congressman referring? What acts are you implying guilt for? Do you understand how vile, destructive, and just plain disgusting those accusations are? And so on.
This must be immediate outrage and calls for account, followed by consistency everywhere, followed by ridicule like: “Can you imagine if…” “Do these accusations make the parents, families, teachers, and friends proud of you?” “What stops us from accusing you of worse?”
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Democrats should countermand any of the lies that the right ascribes to them. Ignoring false claims will make Democrats targets of more lies if unanswered.
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The killer said he was a white supremacist. If he was killing based on class, why didn’t he kill white people in an affluent neighborhood?
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In my obsession with political language, I realized that “white supremacy” is also a loaded misconception. If you are secure in your supremacy, why do the “other” make you feel insecure? Supreme to what? And we also need to replace the “white” part. While it is certainly a majority of American whites, there is a substantial minority who actively abhor and oppose what they stand for. If anything they are representative of a particular shade of white impotence.
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Helen,
on your covid comments.
Do you even teach or work in schools?
PRESIDENT Biden didn’t reopen the schools.
THE EX-PRESIDENT IGNORED SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, BLEW IT OFF, MADE IT POLITICAL, WAS MORE INTESTED IN BLAMING SOMEONE, HAD TO BE THE EXPERT and PUSHED BLEACH — — AND GOP intelligent (?) legislators SAID NOTHING.
Go back and rewrite those 4 months and 1 million would not have died
And, no, the unions didn’t: They advocated and hit the pavement for nurses, social works, PPE, and ventilation.
Don’t know where you live but our ATTORNEY GENERAL SUED SCHOOL DISTRICTS THAT HAD MASK REQUIREMENTS.
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Helen,
on your covid comments.
Do you even teach or work in schools?
PRESIDENT Biden didn’t reopen the schools.
The “SYSTEM” didn’t fail.
THE EX-PRESIDENT IGNORES “SYSTEMS”
THE EX-PRESIDENT IGNORED SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, BLEW IT OFF, MADE IT POLITICAL, WAS MORE INTESTED IN BLAMING SOMEONE, HAD TO BE THE EXPERT and PUSHED BLEACH — — AND GOP intelligent (?) legislators SAID NOTHING.
Go back and rewrite those 4 months and 1 million would not have died
And, no, the unions didn’t want schools opened arbitrarily. They advocated and hit the pavement for nurses, social works, PPE, and ventilation.
Don’t know where you live but our ATTORNEY GENERAL SUED SCHOOL DISTRICTS THAT HAD MASK REQUIREMENTS.
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Helen Halyard
Let me see if I get this. Since Bacon’s Rebellion the elites and the oligarchy have used race to divide the working class. Having an “Iron Heel” on the neck of the working class. That would be 1676 , near 350 years, okay322 years since White indentured servants were given privilege and racial laws that codified chattel slavery were enacted.,. So in 322 years many if not most of those working class American have not shed the chains that have been used to hold them down and united as workers.
Enough of the nonsense.
The Socialist Author whose title I quoted above is one of my favorite writers sadly as pro worker as he was, as intuitive as he was about the failures of the Union movement to effect change.And the reasons for it. His advocacy only extended to the White Working Class. London was a blatant racist and a White supremacist.
Now as for the deaths under Biden the Vaccine was free and available to all Americans since May1 of 2021. By June every adult American could have been vaccinated. Anyone who refused to take it and died did so by choice. Only 60% of Americans are fully vaccinated today. Most of the EU is 80%+ Vaccinated. Italy 67% boosted. Tell your story walking.
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Well, Helen, sorry to say that your theory about the Buffalo Massacre was wrong. The man with the gun admitted he targeted Black people. Not because of their class, but because of their race.
https://apple.news/Az5-Ikh67TZKdStWcPtMMmw
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American politicians serving the interests of the oligarchs who write checks to them have long used race to divide the working class in this country. It was precisely when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., went to support the striking garbage workers that he was murdered. He had developed into what the oligarchical class and their bobbleheads and action figures feared most, someone with the stature and charisma and articulateness and intelligence and moral courage to unite poor blacks and poor white workers in common cause. This they had to destroy. But anyone who thinks that racism isn’t in the DNA of this country doesn’t know its history and hasn’t been paying attention and almost certainly isn’t a person of color and certainly isn’t a poor person of color. Such a person’s picture should be next to the word cluelessness in dictionaries.
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I’ve seen enough of workers’ revolutions to know where those end up. I would settle for reparations for the long history of economic injustice toward black people in America; equitable funding of public schools for everyone, rich and poor; Medicare for all; tax incentives for employee stock ownership plans; the abolishment of so-called right to work laws; worker representation on corporate boards; the codification of abortion rights; a minimum wage with a COLA; a steeply progressive tax system; parental leave; immigration reform; right to vote legislation; abolishment of the Electoral College; equal funding of legal defenses; and actual enforcement of our antidiscrimination and antitrust laws.
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I have always wondered how we would figure reparations. We would probably need to pretend that color was never a factor and that they came like all other immigrants: some fleeing religious persecution (only to come here and persecute anyone not like them), some criminals, some indentured servants, some wealthy “younger sons” here to make their fortune, some fleeing famine or war,… We would have to assign a percentage of blacks to each category of immigrant we identified and determine the relative success of each group over time. Then perhaps we could figure an average compensation figure based on the difference between the average wealth of a black family today and that of each group we identified. We might want to consider Native Americans and Asians in that calculus, too. We could only consider this proposition using broad criteria because individual stories on all sides would “muddy the waters.” I think how we try to make amends for the past sins of this country is an incredibly complex problem. I don’t disagree with the need for some sort of reconciliation, but I see it as much easier to fight for the rest of your agenda which deals with now and going forward, but fairly remunerating people for centuries of past harm seems like an impossible task.
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I cannot even imagine what it was like for those innocent shoppers going about their normal quotidian affairs only to be met by some deranged shooter, spraying death in every direction. Hideous beyond words.
The same people who want to ban abortions will fight to the death the right to own these semi-automatic death machines. This country is saturated, marinated with guns and yet when someone suggests the mildest of gun control laws, the mewling and yowling from the right wing is deafening.
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Other countries have racists, psychopaths, sociopaths — what makes America exceptional is …
We Arm The Insane !!!
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“We Arm The Insane !!!”
Exactly!
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Excellent, Jon. We not only arm the insane in our own country, we do it around the world.
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To be fair, on that score we are less exceptional, though definitely a contender.
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Since this is not the narrative the Republicans want to push, it will be barely mentioned by the so-called liberal media, but there was a “good guy with a gun” and he couldn’t stop this heavily armed murderer because this mass murderer was also wearing body armor.
So much for the “good guy with a gun” theory. Arming teachers won’t work, so now Republicans will probably require all students from age 4 to 18 to be wearing heavy body armor.
THAT is something Republicans can support! A mask to save the lives of other people during a pandemic must never be used, but forced wearing of body armor to protect American’s right to own assault weapons of mass murder is a policy that Republicans will likely embrace.
The Republicans have succeeded in mainstreaming hate and violence.
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Who needs Lewis Carroll when NYCPSP’s third paragraph suffices? Jabberwocky as political creed.
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Nice to see you back here Greg.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aaron-salter-security-guard-tops-supermarket-shooting-buffalo_n_6280fdf4e4b0c7c10774918d
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GregB,
Thank you, that link absolutely proves my point about how any stories that don’t support the right wing narrative are simply made to fit the right wing narrative — even by the so-called liberal media!
The entire framing of the story in that link is this:
“We don’t know what he prevented. There could have been more victims, if not for his actions.”
And not this:
Good guy with gun not only failed to stop a mass murder with an assault weapon, but also got killed in the process along with the additional 9 victims who died because America falsely believes that a good guy with a gun can stop gun nuts with assault weapons. Instead, good guy with a gun dies, too, and 10 people die for “free-dum”.
Or as the Supreme Court would say, states may not restrict the “free-dum” of a man with an assault weapon but may restrict the freedom of a woman over her own body.
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Completely agree. The shoddiness that passes for journalism these days doesn’t know how to include why in the five Ws of a lead as well as the H, how, in the story. And probably wouldn’t know how to find it in the first place. There are probably dozens of them in this story, but the most important one that won’t be addressed is: Why should people who are minding their own business and grocery shopping ever have to fear for their safety and lives? What makes that possible? Is there really no way to change that?
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GregB
I can think of one way to change that but I dare not post it.
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The corollary of systemic racism is white privilege, which most white people deny. In an odd way, extreme, horrifying incidents like this give white folks an out: “I’m not like that,” they take comfort in saying.
The insidious power of racism is in the mundane, everyday subconscious. Racism is not the same thing as overt prejudice or blatant hatred. It is embedded in our economic system, our social conventions, our cultural biases and our misunderstanding of human intelligence. Thanks for your good heart, Diane.
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I totally agree, Steve. It may be more than an infection passed to us from our European ancestors (although they’re a prime example). According to some, it’s an inherent need to ‘separate’ from ‘others’ that’s found in many other cultures. Some of the people who formed our country (say, Thomas Paine) believed that people could overcome that flaw if they just used their ‘reason’ and tried. Sadly, Old Thom not only failed during his lifetime, but it now seems that since then things have only gotten worse.
I think the most telling statement by John McCain was, “I hate Gooks, and I always will”.
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About Elise Stepfanik (R- N.Y.)
“Rep. Stefanik’s ‘replacement theory’ ads criticized after Buffalo shooting” and “Stefanik under fire for holding event with anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist.” Stefanik (conservative religious) has an A+ record on forced pregnancy legislation. Ironic, considering her type of rhetoric evidently stokes mass murder.
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George Conway called Elise Stefanik “vile.” She tweeted the other day that Democrats are “pedo,” taking a page from QAnon.
I assume she is not Catholic or you would have said so. What is her religion?
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Uh oh,…according to Wikipedia she is Roman Catholic!
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So be it.
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Rhetorically, is there a preference that Stepanik not be an anti-Muslim GOP Catholic? She’s also a Harvard grad.
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Whatever she is, she is vile and bigoted.
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The only modern pedo in politics today is Matt Gaetz, and he’s an ultra right wing defender.
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There is a sect of Catholicism called Opus Dei. They are the “originalists” of that religion. Adherents include Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr and there are ties to these members of the Supreme Court: John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett.
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Hey, once you’re out of the womb, you are fair “game.”
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Hey, once you’re out of the womb, you are their game (many meanings to that last word: sports match, victim, instrument…). And it ain’t fair! (to be read with Bugs Bunny inflection)
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I was thinking more of the hunting analogy given the gun culture.
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YIKES!
Helen from above… seriously? You are going to rationalize this?
BOTTOM LINE:
If the ex President hadn’t been elected – we’re not having this conversation.
Would there still be mass shootings based on race, rage, ANTI-GOVERNMENT (McVeigh), and more?
YES
Would it be NORMALIZED – blown off (no pun intended) – rationalized – “yeh, but” statements – even DEBATED?
NO.
The NRA will always be the NRA. The new version of the KKK and others would definitely exist. The internet would allow them to spread their spew. HOWEVER – UNTIL THAT MAN WAS ELECTED, WE DID NOT HAVE A CULTURE OF GUNS, HATE, DISTRUST OF THE MEDIA, GULIBILITY OF THE OTHER MEDIA.
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Truly evil.
Hatred, freely available guns, and high-capacity magazines is a terrible cocktail.
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Thank you, Diane. Well said.
Here we are. This is the world that Trump and Carlson and their ilk have created.
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Is it convenient to only look at ‘the other’ (Trump/Carlson)? Why are you looking away from Israel when you blame racist activity? Who was in power when the ‘real Whites’ kicked out the Slavs in Ukraine? It wasn’t Trump.
We have a serious, systemic racism problem. Trying to blame the Republicans is way off the mark.
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WTF does Israel have to do with Nazis in the U.S. murdering innocent black people? Sorry, I cannot comment further because what I would have to say isn’t the kind of language allowed here.
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“Whataboutism”
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Trump and Carlson are both directly responsible for mainstreaming White Replacement Theory among morons in America, and that’s what the little murderous punk himself wrote that his action was all about.
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WRT is a lot like CRT. Nobody really knows the details. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who ought to understand the insidious, pernicious hold on our culture. By pointing the finger, one only attempts to deflect attention from themselves. As JC once said (rough translation), “Before criticizing the splinter in your neighbor’s eye, first attend to the log in your own”.
On another note, let’s not call people we disagree with ‘morons’. I have a degree in Astronomy, so I know that so many ‘learned people’ have turned out to be ‘mistaken’. They weren’t ‘morons’, a term invented to define a ‘mental deficiency’, but which quickly became a derogatory word (I’m smart, you’re stupid… in reference to ‘the Other’)
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Flerp, these Nazis are not informed or rational. This shooter wrote a 108-page manifesto that he posted just before the shooting, describing his weaponry and arguing that white people were being replaced in America and had to take up arms to end the replacement.
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Sorry, Daedalus, but I think that American neo-Nazis are morons. I have yet to see a counterexample to this. I’m simply reporting, there.
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Yet, we support neo-nazis in Ukraine? Are we supporting morons? And, what, exactly, do you mean by the term ‘moron’?
Many of these neo-nazis have a military background. Are we creating ‘morons’ in the military, or do they simply gravitate to military service? Why are we spending almost a trillion dollars a year on a system that creates morons?
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No one is supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It’s breathtaking that you simply swallow the party line of the little Chekist mass murderer in Moscow.
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That system, Daedalus, is what has stopped Putin from overrunning Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union. I think that a very good thing, so you and I are just going to have to disagree about this. What a surprise.
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I am going to get myself in trouble with this comment, but I think I read a mainstream media report that the remaining military force in Mariupol (?) is composed of a right wing militia. I am sure I am not reporting this assertion totally accurately, and I don’t know if anyone has asserted that they are neo-nazis.
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Yes. That’s true. The soldiers inside the factory compound are members of the Azov Battalion, which is a rightwing, nationalist organization that has some members that are neo-Nazis. Here’s are some things to bear in mind: The Azov people were heavily involved in the unrest of the Maidan Revolution, and they have fought the Russian incursion into the Donbas, so that’s why they have support, so much so that they are an official Ukrainian National Guard. So, many Ukrainians, the vast majority of whom hate Nazis, nonetheless know that when the country needed them to turn back Russian aggression, the Azov people showed up. They are the Ukrainian equivalent of the Minutemen. Unfortunately, these rightwing nationalists have given Putin his ludicrous talking point that Ukraine is a Nazi country and that his unprovoked, illegal, murderous invasion is for the purposes of de-Nazifying. But calling Ukraine a Nazi country is like calling the U.S. one because it has a few people like Peyton Gendron in it.
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Thank you, Bob. Sounds like an example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
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The regiment holding out in Mariupol is the Azov Regiment. They are nationalistic and have been called neo-Nazis. I don’t know whether that’s true.
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And what on Earth does Israel have to do with some American neo-Nazi punk kid murdering innocent black people? That makes no sense. None. None.
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Racism is the same, everywhere. I’m surprised you don’t see the parallel.
The Israeli military shot a reporter (Palestinian-Amerjican, as a matter of fact) in the face, and then disrupted her funeral with batons. Clearly, they hate Palestinians. This White guy clearly hated Blacks, and so he shot them. One could say that the Zionists only killed one (in this case), however that is, of course, a huge lie in toto. Have ‘American White supremacists kill as many people as has Israel (with our almost 4 billion dollar subsidy) killed in Palestine? Is one racism more ‘acceptable’ than another?
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Yes, there is a rightwing extremist problem in the rank and file of the US military. It’s not widespread, but it’s there, and the Biden administration is doing something about that instead of encouraging it as the Trump administration did.
And here we go about Israel again, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Peyton Gendron’s act of mass murder.
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Daedalus,
This is not a good analogy. The context is different. Not all killings are interchgeable.
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All killings are interchangeable to the dead.
Racism prompted the Buffalo mess. Racism prompted the bombing of Gaza. Racism allowed the slaughter of Native Americans at Wounded Knee. We (Homo Sapiens) must either address this problem, or resign ourselves to endless conflict with ‘the other’, even within our ‘country’.
I chose to work for a world where everyone has value. That’s why I became a teacher instead of a bomb-maker. I had credentials to do either and was recruited by both. I’m proud of my choice.
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And racism prompted Palestinians to blow up pizza parlors and stab innocent men and women on the street or riding buses.
Violence begets violence.
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Possibly.
However, it could also have been simply frustration at having to live in an extremely apartheid (racially based) society. Remember, the entire Palestinian society was overtaken by the British, who then turned it over to the European Zionists to do as they wished. Herzog, you know, was a great admirer of Wagner, so the Zionist movement isn’t very far removed from the idea of a ‘super race’. The current actions of Israel show that tendency.
Fortunately, there is a substantial (and growing) resistance among the American Jewish community to this abomination. Most American Jews see with fairly clear eyes, and see in Israel a mirror of the system that killed them not so long ago.
There is a rather well-identified notion in psychology called ‘projection’. Just because Zionists are racists doesn’t mean that anti-Zionists are as well. Zionism and Judaism have very little to do with each other, despite the government of Israel’s attempt to conflate the two.
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Watch “Winter on Fire,” a very prescient documentary about the 2014 revolution that ousted the Russian puppet.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80031666
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If Putin had watched this movie, he would not have invaded Ukraine.
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One great irony in all this is that the Russians fell victim to their own propaganda/disinformation campaign against Ukraine (Ukraine is a Nazi state; Ukraine committed genocide; Ukraine is not even a real country; Ukrainians want to be liberated; other b____t like that). They seem actually to have believed that they could simply roll into Ukraine and it would all be over in three days. And this always happens with autocrats like Putin. They start believing their own bs, and everyone else is too afraid to set them straight. Karma.
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Changing their mental model through propaganda blitzkrieg (?).
Little example that I have used before in another context. Professor of mine told the story of how he used behavior therapy to treat a woman’s obsessive behavior. I don’t remember the details right now but he did “extinguish” the behavior. Unfortunately, by the next day she had broken out in a severe case of hives. The behavior was eliminated, but the reason for it wasn’t. Probably the reasoning behind the multifaceted campaign against smoking. There certainly has been lots of advertising/propaganda encouraging people to quit. Over time the success has been remarkable, but it also has required massive rehab efforts to change behavior and address the physical and psychological addiction.
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Love it, speduktr. Yes, we could use government public service announcements on racism of the kind we had in the antismoking campaigns!
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Perhaps true, Bob. However Russia isn’t the only country which has become mesmerized by it’s own propaganda.
I grew up in Cincinnati. Procter and Gamble managed to sell soap by honing the cutting edge of psychology in order to sell. They were so good, in fact, that they ‘helped out in the war effort’ during WWII. This was a long time ago, however the techniques have only grown more effective since then.
Once you put the ‘advertising industry’ in a position to rule over foreign policy, or science, or ‘reason’, you have created a propaganda State, and set the stage for Trump. It’s not Trump’s fault, he’s simply using the system that’s been around for a hundred years and has been lauded by most Americans.
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Yeah, the former head of marketing at P&G, an elderly fellow, once told me, “We figured out how to use sex to sell soap.”
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This is beside the point, but I don’t even understand how “replacement theory” would lead someone to anti-black racism in America. There is no demographic surge of African Americans in the U.S.
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I doubt his social media radicalism gave him a balanced, rational worldview. Critical thinking seems to not have been his strong suit.
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A sample of that from Trump: “I think this will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning because you’re going to have people flowing across the border, you’re going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they’re going to be legalized and they’re going to be able to vote and once that all happens you can forget it,” Trump said. “You’re not going to have one Republican vote.”
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“They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” –Donald Trump
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Daedalus,
We have a serious, systemic racism problem. Trying to exonerate the Republicans is way off the mark.
Why are you looking away from Putin’s Russia and the Syrians dropping chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Shiites and Sunnis in the middle east?
There is a lot of racism in the world, but trying to change the subject from the racist innuendoes coming from the mouths of REPUBLICAN LEADERS is abhorrent.
What is wrong with you? We will never be able to address racism in this country until the one party that traffics in hate – the Republicans – is thoroughly discredited.
And instead you want to normalize them. Why?
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Daedalus,
“Search your conscience. Ask why so many states are banning books about racism, preventing teachers from talking about it, preventing students from learning about it, and criminalizing the study of its roots.”
Please stop normalizing this.
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FLERP! says: “I don’t even understand how “replacement theory” would lead someone to anti-black racism in America. There is no demographic surge of African Americans in the U.S.”
Really? There is also no demographic surge in pedo grifters.
There isn’t a surge in pedophile pizza shops.
There was no demographic surge in Jews before the right wing hater of Jews followed his “conscience” to fix what the people spewing vile hate told him was a big danger to good white Christian people like him.
What is the point of being “mystified” if an ideology based in racism isn’t based in fact??
Because the hateful deologies spewed by the right are generally based in fact?
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Again, Peyton Gendron wrote a manifesto before the murders in which he said that he was committing them because whites had to take a stand against being replaced by nonwhite people. White replacement theory was his beef, and he didn’t have to go to Nazi websites to imbibe this poison. It was right there on Fox News.
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And after the neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, shouting “Jews will not replace us,” and one of them murdered a counter protester with his car, what did Trump say about this? That there were “good people on both sides.” Murderous Nazis/white supremacists spouting replacement theory. Note: this isn’t the first time one of these mass murderers has left a replacement theory manifesto, and it isn’t just POC that the neo-Nazis fear being replaced by. It’s POC and non-Christians. Here, a report on a study of replacement fear among U.S. whites:
https://psmag.com/news/among-trump-supporters-theres-a-real-fear-of-whites-becoming-the-american-minority
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To return to the subject of this post, what poisoned this kid’s mind? Well, it wasn’t just what people are used to thinking of as extremist media–stuff from neo-Nazi organizations, for example. This white replacement theory garbage that the kid was so worked up about has been mainstreamed within the Trump Repugnican Party.
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The mainstreaming of this is so much of the problem. It was one of the reasons I tried so hard to call out and hopefully marginalize the voices in 2016 that felt that extremism and hate that helped them achieve their goal was fine. And I’m talking about the ones who claimed to be on the left and empowered one of the most vile and hate-filled leaders in my lifetime. Not only were they not marginalized, but they were amplified by the liberal media.
Even today, I see one person still normalizing the hateful, violent rhetoric of today’s Republican LEADERS that used to be abhorred by both parties. They cite Israel(?!) and Ukraine (?!) But never Russia. Never Syria.
Is it any wonder that there are still folks here who think it was perfectly fine for the leader of the birthers — a movement designed to sow hate and discredit a US president because of his race — to become president as long as a democrat who wasn’t progressive enough for them did not? Is it surprising they still won’t admit that normalizing and empowering a president who was the LEADER OF THE BIRTHERS might exacerbate America’s problem with race??
And they make their “both sider” arguments and repeating the same talking points that the right wing does.
The leader of the birther movement became president. Who is more responsible? The voters who LIKED that the leader of the birther movement became president? Or the voters who said they didn’t support the ugly racist language of that man, but they were fine with a racist being president as long as a Democrat who wasn’t progressive enough for them was defeated.
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You are right that Trump and Fox News have attempted to mainstream the idea that we are in danger as a country because white culture will be erased by a flood of nonwhite persons. This is a standard racist trope with a long pedigree. Trump, Carlson, and their ilk hate the fact that we are becoming a more diverse country. They peddled that hatred. And Peyton Gendron bought it. Then he bought his guns and body armor. Sickening. Evil.
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Here is CNN showing a few clips of Tucker Carlson talking about “replacement theory” —whites will be replaced by nonwhites, esp Hispanics
https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2022/05/15/tucker-carlson-replacement-theory-rhetoric-acostanr-johnson-intv-sot-vpx.cnn
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Very grateful for Jim Acosta. This is what journalists are supposed to do.
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BTW, this is the same sort of line that the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb wrote books about, and his books gave rise to the modern jihadist terrorist movement and organizations. Qutb’s theme: Islam is being overrun by, will be replaced by,evil Western secular culture and must be stopped by armed resistance.
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If you are black or Asian or immigrant or Muslim in the United States, you have to be asking yourself, why do these things keep happening? Why are there so many so full of hate? Well, Diane nailed it. A whole lot of people here thought that Donald Trump and his mouthpieces and enablers made it OK to be racist in America again.
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https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/05/buffalo-shooting-replacement-theory-tucker-carlson/
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Really, isn’t it fair game to first define a thing if it’s to be dealt with effectively?
So, what is racism?
Here’s what “#1 New York Times bestselling authors” Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds say racism is in their book, Stamped (for Kids) (p. 154, Kindle Edition):
“racism (ray-siz-uhm): Prejudice or discrimination toward, or systemic oppression of, a person or people, based on their race or ethnicity, particularly one that is marginalized”
This definition is event-level and one-sided. Worst, it is best fit for creating antagonists—in particular, us-Blacks-versus-them-Whites—and justifying doing so.
A few weeks ago I was in a Zoom meeting that featured three elementary school teachers in Turkey. The teachers told of their students learning and applying Systems Thinking. The children use the Iceberg to think about problems: Event-level problems (above the waterline), Patterns of Behavior-level problems (first below the waterline), System Structure-level problems (second below the waterline), and Mental Model-level problems (third and last below the waterline). The children learn the folly (my word) in always trying to solve Event-level problems, at that level, when some problems actually originate at the Mental Model level and should be solved at that level.
Racism is a Mental Model problem, not an Event problem, as Kendi, et al., so self-servingly do not understand and perhaps do not want to understand, for it they did, then they would have to see theirs is a fight against racism with racism. Hence, folly.
So, what is racism as a Mental Model problem?
Consider: Racism is an insidiously wicked competitive way of thinking that rationalizes human differences as significant, so as to produce structures for behaving with the aim to win and make others losers.
Kendi’s racism “wins” using his book, Stamped (for Kids).
Antagonized and fearful of becoming a “loser,” The Buffalo supermarket shooter’s racism “wins” using his gun.
It’s frustrating to no end seeing Martin Luther King Jr and similar others having been here become less and less relevant.
“We are being ruined by competition. What we need is cooperation,” Deming said.
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Mr. Johnson, I’ve found that often the problem lies precisely in the other direction, that people look around and try to find individuals to blame when there is an underlying systemic issue that creates the bad apples. This is OF COURSE not always the case, but I will give you an example. Suppose that you find that some high-school principals are telling their teachers to spend all their time doing test prep, whereas others are alienating their teachers by making them do test prep classes during their prep periods and after school. You could blame the principals, or you could step back and ask, what is incentivizing those principals? And you will find that school and admin grading and rewards based on test scores is the culprit. It’s a systemic problem.
What if, Mr. Johnson, this is not an either-or matter? What if racism functions at ALL these levels and in all these ways? But thank you for raising the issue, for we need to be thinking about racism at all these levels, I strongly believe.
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Bob,
Consider people who look around and try to find individuals to blame is, like racism, a Mental Model problem. And like racism, the problem generates the underlying systemic issue as a System Structure that creates bad apple Patterns of Behavior that show up as various usually problematic Events. Trying to solve the problem at any level other than its Mental Model level of origin necessarily means dealing with the problem’s symptoms, which, of course, will be the first necessary thing to do, sometimes but not always.
Unity Church puts it like this: “Thoughts held in mind, produce in kind.”
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Ed, imagine a game of Monopoly with black and white players. The white players come into the game with $3,000. The black ones come into it with $20. The white players get to start buying properties immediately and have a universal Get Out of Jail Free Card. The black players have to go around the board ten times before they can start buying, and they don’t have that card. Now, clearly, the system is rigged against the black player. We could say, well, we need to change our mental model and forget about there being black and white players. Great. But the white players still come into the game with $3K, and the black players come into it with $20. And the change in mental models has to be accompanied by a change in system rules: everyone plays now by the rules that formerly were accorded only to white players. It’s simply not the case that simply saying, well, there’s no difference between whites and blacks if there are the vast differences in the initial conditions and if the systemic problems with the rules aren’t addressed.
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Or let me approach this in another way. We say that our laws and our mortgage application systems are color blind, that they are so by law. If an 18-year-old gets stopped with joint in Indiana, she will be arrested and sent to jail for 180 days and pay a fine of around $1,000. But if the kid is black, he or she is many times more likely to be arrested for the joint, and he or she is many more times less likely to have the $1,000 to pay the fine. So, more jail time and more fines. Now, it’s easy to say, well, the people doing the arresting have to change their mental models, and that would solve the problem. But how, exactly, is that going to happen? What’s going to suddenly stop racist police officers from pulling over black teen drivers at 10 times the rate of white teen drivers, when adjusted for percentage of the population? Changing the system works. Saying, for example, that fines will be means-tested.
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First, get rid of racist police. One way to do that is to ban anyone with military training from becoming a member of the police. The military are purposely trained to think of themselves as ‘special’ and others (particularly those of ‘suspect ethnic background’ as ‘the enemy’. It appears to be easier to train someone to become a racist than to undo the damage. This approach is turning our police into a domestic army, and our founders were pretty clear about not wanting a domestic army, or a ‘standing’ one, even if it was constrained to operate overseas.
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The new approach of using officers specially trained in de-escalation, especially on mental illness and domestic calls, seems to be having great results where it is being done.
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Unfortunately, that’s not the norm. Nor, more importantly, is it the rule (of law) for the police.
I suppose I’m naive. I was once taught the the ‘cop on the corner’ was my friend. Later I learned, however, that the ‘police’ were used by big coal to beat up workers. Hmmmm… Who actually controls ‘law enforcement’, and who actually makes the laws?
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No amount of encouraging the development of a new mental model was going to stop Trump and his Dad, back in the day, from writing “C” at the top of each lease application made by a black family. This required a systemic solution–the justice department to step in and say, no, you can’t have a system that excludes black families.
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But then Trump threatened to sue the Justice Department and they settled with him.
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The Teflon Don from Day 1.
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So, and this is a real question, Mr. Johnson, what do you think the solution is to solving the Mental Model problem regarding race? I agree that race as a biological concept doesn’t exist. But racist systems certainly do. If you are black in America, you will pay a higher mortgage rate, on average, than does a white person with the same credit score. If you are black and are convicted of a crime, you will get a longer sentence than does a white person convicted of the same crime. One could go on and on in this vein. If you are black in America, the chances are that you were born into a community that was poorer, had less in property taxes to support its schools, had worse heath care facilities, and less healthy food options. And on and on and on. Systemic problems.
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Ed Johnson,
I remember some folks sounding a lot like you except they were using your kinds of arguments to discredit Jews who talk about anti-Semitism.
They accused Jews who dared to point out anti-Semitism of causing anti-Semitism by pointing it out. They said that by speaking out about anti-Semitism, Jews were attacking Christians and driving a wedge between themselves and Christians.
I don’t get how anyone feels comfortable saying that if whites or Christians decide that something is neither racist nor anti-Semitic, then African Americans and Jews better shut up and accept it.
I am glad that many younger white Americans don’t buy into your “truths”. I have learned a lot from listening to my kid. If someone tells me that something I do is racist, I consider why they said it instead of having the knee jerk reaction of “I’m white, I know what is racist, I am not racist, and anything I say is not racist no matter how it makes other people feel.”
Now, when I see people having that knee jerk reaction, I am embarrassed for them because I don’t think they realize how ridiculous it is. I hope someday they do. And invoking Martin Luther King Jr. as if he would take issue with Kendi is, at best, questionable.
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NYC public school parent,
I’m curious to understand why you called me out for mentioning MLK Jr, when I said “…and similar others…” and mentioned W. Edwards Deming, in particular? So why didn’t you call me out for mentioning and quoting Deming? Is it because Deming is White, therefore he does not matter vis-à-vis KendI’s Black racialist competitive folly?
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Ed,
I think it’s called “virtue signaling.”
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Ed, I was responding to this sentence you wrote:
“It’s frustrating to no end seeing Martin Luther King Jr and similar others having been here become less and less relevant.”
I believe Kendi and MLK Jr. have a lot more agreement than you believe.
“White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.”
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”
Was MLK being too divisive when he wrote those sentences?
Ed also wrote: “why didn’t you call me out for mentioning and quoting Deming?”
I don’t know who Deming is and I have no idea what race he is.
It’s not my usual practice to respond to your invoking someone when I have no idea who that someone is! I guess I could have googled and spent a lot of time reading about Deming and forming an opinion on Deming and then considering whether I believed your characterization of Deming was correct or not. But why in the world would I do that? I had no idea what race Deming was. And I have no opinions on his positions since I don’t know what they are!
On the other hand, it just happens that I have infrequently seen articles that talk about how MLK Jr was a lot more radical than he is often portrayed, and I believed it was pertinent to point that out.
Perhaps I should have included the MLK quotes above in my first reply to you. mea culpa.
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Ed Johnson,
My previous comment is being held up, but I have read some of your other posts and writings elsewhere and I am surprised because you seem to see Kendi as having a radically different perspective than you do. Maybe I misunderstood your first comment.
But are you sure that you are that far apart? I am no expert on Kendi, but I don’t see what he writes as divisive. I see it as the opposite of divisive. You don’t think MLK Jr. would understand the concept of being an anti-racist? Especially when – so many decades after his death – we still have a bus of college lacrosse players having their luggage and packages searched and whether or not there is justice for Black victims always seems like a toss-up with the odds still being stacked against them.
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Excellent analysis. Racism may very well be an unfortunate human trait. It worked when there were very few humans, however it’s counter-productive today.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s Nature’s way. After all, the fossil record indicates that species ‘bloom’ and then they die out (or at least, ‘back’). What makes us so special?
And (as an aside), I also find the degeneration of the promise of the ’60’s’ to be frustrating. I guess that’s what happens with age.
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One possibility? In the 60’s, white men perceived themselves to be rising economically and they were fine with black people also rising.
With the richest 0.1% of population currently holding 90% of the wealth…
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Thank you, Bob. The Mother Jones story says just what I was about to write. Carlson has to be seen as a significant contributor to the creation of this murderer.
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Remember Spartacus and those like him?
For centuries white people enslaved white people. The Romans enslaved people from every area they conquered.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is apparently an attempt to bring that form of slavery back if there’s any truth to the reports of Ukrainians, including hundreds of children, in occupied areas being carted off to vanish in Russia.
And then there is modern say slavery known as sex trafficking. The victims, numbering in the tens of millions, are mostly children and women of all ethnic groups. And there have been reports of sex traffickers preying on Ukrainian war refugees, almost all women and children since most of the men stayed behind to fight Russia.
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Horrific, all this. Forced deportations are, of course, War Crimes under the Rome Statute. There will need to be a war crimes trial when this is all done. Evil.
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Most of the men were ordered to stay by Zelensky, and only women and children were allowed to become ‘refugees’. And, as you must know, even the New York Times (famous for promoting BS in favor of war) now admits that this conflict was not initiated by ‘Putin’, but rather the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. Want to know how that went? Well, check out the ‘Odessa massacre’ for a start.
However, I’ve been criticized for making trying to put this in a larger perspective, for conflating this with ethnic killings elsewhere. Hope that doesn’t happen to you.
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The Putin-controlled government in Ukraine was overthrown by the Maidan Revolution, when tens of thousands of ordinary people went into the streets to protest day after day. The people wanted a government that was West-facing, not one controlled by Putin. Putin proceeded to invade Ukraine twice to bite off big chunks of Ukrainian territory, the largest being Crimea in 2014. He assumed that since the west complained but did nothing, he would take the whole of Ukraine, and the Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops. Clearly, he miscalculated. Zelenskyy did not run. The Ukrainian people have resisted valiantly.
Putin invaded Ukraine; Ukraine did not invade Russia.
The west and the US did not provoke Russia.
The invasion was unprovoked and the attacks on hospitals, schools, and homes is vicious.
I just watched Fareed Zakaria interview Tony Blair. Blair met with Putin many times when he was Prime Minister. He said Putin began with what seemed to be a genuine desire to join the west and the global community. The west welcomed this new era. There was talk among western leaders of inviting Russia to join the EU. But over time, Putin changed. He became nationalistic and needed to assert his power instead of being a good neighbor. Blair says Putin became increasingly isolated and listened only to sycophants.
The invasion was a terrible miscalculation. Now even neutral Finland and Sweden want to join NATO for protection against a newly aggressive Russia.
You can keep making excuses for Putin but the nations bordering Russia don’t trust Putin and are appalled by the savagery of his war of choice.
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OK….
The Maiden Revolution was a violent overthrow of an election. The fact that the leader of that time wanted closer ties to Russia is irrelevant. Zelenski was installed, and later won an election based upon his false Nixonian promise to end the Donbas War against (Russian-speaking people in that area wanted to separate). Those people had their language deemed as ‘unofficial’ by Zelensky and had, thus, been clearly designated ‘second class’ citizens. This is not exactly ‘democratic’ and , in fact was a declaration that the Eastern Ukrainians weren’t a welcome part of the ‘Ukrainian People’ Zelinsky’s electoral platform appeared to be concilliatory, but, like Nixon, proved to be a chimera) Sounds like racism to me, but, hey, racism is bad, but not in Ukraine, apparently. Then, the Russian speaking population of the Donbass area were subject to violent attacks from the Maiden ‘victors’. Lest you want a picture of the ‘peaceful’ Maiden victors, please examine the ‘Odessa massacre’.
But, all of that is typical of the Eastern European cauldron that has cooked up ethnic/racial hatred for centuries. That cauldron was involved in both WWI and WW II, and now looks to be instrumental in (perhaps existential) WWIII. So, why is the US supporting this behavior? Could it be money?
The difference in this instance is the sophistication of the propaganda.
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I think you read too much Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian people don’t want to be controlled by Russia. The Maidan Revolution was a legitimate uprising against a pro-Putin leader, who fled to Moscow. If you think the Ukrainians are longing to return to Putin’s embrace, why are they so motivated now to fight the Russian invaders?
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I think you read too much American propaganda (a well refined system). It seems that anything that tends to question ‘the official line’ is ‘Russian propaganda’, despite the obvious BS pumped out to support the Spanish-American war, the bombing of Hiroshima, the Viet Nam War, the Iraq War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and on and on.
‘Propaganda’ may be a Russian word, but it’s an American specialty.
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Please explain why the Ukrainian people are repelling the Russian Army if they want to be part of Russia.
There are many media outlets in the U.S.
There is only state media in Russia.
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Which Ukrainian People? I thought Zelensky had invited foreign mercenaries to repel the Russians.
If the ‘Ukrainian People’ were capable of driving out the Russians by themselves, why are we sending them tens of billions of dollars and tons of weapons? Why are they appealing to NATO countries for help? And, I notice that the AZOV stronghold in Mariupol has fallen.
I don’t think Russia wants anything other than a neutral Eastern Ukraine. Long ago it was agreed that NATO would not expand to the east of Germany. Clearly, American speak with forked tongue, so how can anyone trust them?
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If Putin wanted only Eastern Ukraine, why did he send his troops and armor to capture Kiev? Ukrainians are fighting valiantly. They lack the manpower and weaponry of Russia. I’m glad we are sending them weapons.
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In order to split the Ukrainian forces so that the military (not ‘Putin’) could isolate the AZOV enclave at Mariupol. The plan seems to have worked (so far).
And, the plan to engage in endless war also seems to be working for the US. Although we really don’t care about the ‘little people’ (otherwise we might have some concern for Palestinians, or Iraqis, or Yemenis, or our own poor), our government does have concern for the rich. Come to think of it, that’s been a big factor going back to the Crusades, it’s a European tradition. The rulers want more, so the peons pay in blood.
So, we give tens of billions to arms manufacturers (calling it ‘aid to Ukraine’). The average American didn’t even know where Ukraine was. They’ve been suckered (again) by an advertising campaign, similar to the way they bought into Iraq, the Spanish-
American War, the ‘gulf of Tonkin’, and on and on.
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So I assume you are hoping Putin grabs control of Ukraine, then takes back the other nations that think they are sovereign
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Actually, I hope Putin allows the people of the Donbass, who have been under assault for 8 years, to decide for themselves how to run their own societies.
Now, that’s putting a big load on Putin, however it’s blatantly clear that Zelensky was a racist (banning the Russian language, for example) and a Nazi sympathizer (taking orders from an AZOV brigade concerning ‘withdrawal’). He is a puppet, but who pulls the strings?
And, once again, don’t we have enough problems here in the US? Why obsess about Ukraine? How does it effect the supply of milk formula? How does it effect the ‘supply chain problems’ in our own system? How does it effect the potholes in our own roads, or the Buffalo shooting spree?
Russia has never invaded the US, despite American troops being involved in Russia at the time of the big Revolution. In fact, Russia has never invaded Paris. Russia only invaded Germany at the behest of the United States. It appears the the US is a far bigger threat to ‘national autonomy’ than Russia. Just ask Libya, or Nicaragua, or Chile, or … on and on…
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If you expect Putin to allow a free election in the Donbass, don’t hold your breath. Putin has never allowed a free election anywhere, certainly not in Russia. He took office in 2000 and has assured that he will remain in power until 2036. If he’s still alive, he will no doubt ask the parliament to extend it again.
Have you noticed that anyone who challenges Putin is either murdered or in prison.
Your kind of guy.
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Zelensky had 8 years after the Maiden overthrow, after he made their language ‘non-official’, and after the Odessa Massacre to allow those people to vote for separation, and nothing happened there. What makes Zelensky so much better than Putin?
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Zelenskyy is not a dictator. He was elected, unlike Putin, on a competitive election. None of the other candidates was murdered or imprisoned. Most Ukrainians speak Russian, esp in Mariupol, which was reduced to rubble by Putin
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And just why is it that Zelensky (whose native language is Russian) should have allowed the Donbass to vote to secede from Ukraine? And just who is it he is racist against?
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Well, I just apologized to Dianne…. According to ‘Wiki’, Zelensky only had 3 years to do something. The ‘other guy’ (beginning with a ‘P’, Poreshenko?) had 4 or 5.
So, yes, another guy was there (another puppet?).
Frankly, after all of the attacks by the US on other ‘people’, it’s hard to believe that we really care about Ukraine. What about Yemen, where we are in clear control (I guess). What about the mess we left in Afghanistan, or Syria, or Libya, or Vietnam, or Laos, or Cambodia, or Iraq, or…… As a famous Jew once said, ‘Before criticizing the splinter in your neighbor’s eye, first attend to the log in your own’.
Why is this Ukraine affair more important than those of oh,so many that were (and still are) under our immediate control? Could it be that someone want’s to distract our attention from our own affairs? Could it be that someone wants to make money at the expense of people’s lives?
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Second response (sorry)
As I understand it (and I’m clearly not an expert, nor to I want to become one) Zelensky has little power. I think he tried to get a section of the military to leave a certain area and was told that ain’t gonna happen. I think he wanted to negotiate at least a cease-fire and was told not to do so (US-NATO). I mean, we are talking about a TV personality with no previous political experience, so he’s good ‘on stage’, but acts his role as he is instructed.
Of course, I don’t know ‘Z’, I’m just guessing. Maybe he really cares about the ‘unity’ of the country (for some reason), but I suspect he’s being pulled by strings. Who is pulling those strings?
Now, let me give ‘Z’ some credit. As I said, he may have tried to reconcile the situation peacefully. After all, that was the platform upon which he campaigned (and was elected). Nevertheless, he couldn’t do it. Is that his fault? If not, who’s pulling the strings (once again)?
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Way to not answer the questions.
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Think I answered that. He’s a weak and obligatory puppet. But, you didn’t answer my question: ‘
Who’s pulling the strings’? Got any ideas?
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“And just why is it that Zelensky (whose native language is Russian) should have allowed the Donbass to vote to secede from Ukraine?”
“And just who is it he is racist against?”
Nope, I can’t find your answers.
Not sure why you think he is anyone’s puppet. It looks like most of Europe is remembering how they tried to appease Hitler. They allowed the Russians to take Crimea. What do you suppose has them worried now? (Hint: Not a trick question.)
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Odd. My answers were ‘posted’ on my screen, however I’m wondering if what we see hasn’t been ‘filtered’. In fact, as I go back to look for your message (so I can accurately respond), I can’t find it outside my email page…. Down the ‘memory hole’?
Hitler invaded Russia. Napoleon invaded Russia. In fact, the US sent troops to Russia to try to stop the Revolution. Russia never invaded Paris. Russia didn’t invade Washington. So, why is ‘Europe’ so concerned with Russia? Why are you conflating Russia with Hitler? Russia helped defeat Hitler, remember? It almost seems to be a rhetorical trick.
Putin is a former KGB head. That makes him as sleazy as Herbert Hoover, or GHW Bush. But, there are plenty of people to hate if you have that disposition.
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Funny how all my answers/questions are posted. So now you are claiming that yours have been “filtered?” I am sure Diane spends hours editing responses. If that is what you think of her, you don’t belong on this blog. Who knows what suspect information about education she might “filter.”
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Nothing was filtered or deleted.
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I didn’t blame Dianne, you just accused me of that without evidence. There are plenty of ways for others to hack and block on blogs.
It does seem that the number of ‘regular’ commentators is becomming a bit small. Perhaps it’s because dealing with unpleasant people isn’t that entertaining.
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I am sorry. I reacted with anger when I read your filtered comment although I believe my reaction was logical given your belief in the widespread disinformation campaign from seemingly all fronts. I can’t really identify what you do believe in other than most everyone in a position of influence/power is a bad actor.
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Please watch and learn: https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w
Zelenskyy was elected in an open, fair and free election—overwhelmingly.
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Daedalus,
You are picking and choosing which ethnic killings and killings of journalists outrage you and which ones don’t. I suggest you look at your own implicit biases.
It was outrageous that the Israeli Army killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
But it was also outrageous that Brent Renaud was killed in Ukraine. It was outrageous that 20 additional journalists were killed in Ukraine. One journalist death caused by Israel is an outrage, but dozens of journalists’ deaths caused by Russia is not. Why?
Your moral outrage is selective. Anyone who is more morally outraged at Israel and Ukraine than at Putin and his friend in Syria seems to have a bias and it isn’t toward democracy.
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Didn’t I respond to this? Well, just in case, you appear to be defending the military assassination of a journalist (American-Palestinian) by justifying it on a ‘but what-about’ argument. In a debate class, that would ring a huge buzzer.
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Our hearts go out to the families of
Aaron Salter
Ruth Whitfield
Roberta Drury
Deacon Hayward Patterson
Pearl Young (teacher)
Margus Morrison
Andrew MackNeil
Geraldine Talley
Celestine Chaney
Katherine Massey
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There’s a straight line of causation from Republican votes to Republican Supreme Court judges to the very recent, NRA-channeled, and Supremely perverted interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, to bullets in the backs of school children, church and synagogue goers, random mall shoppers, and just plain anyone who gets caught in the crossfire.
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Exactly
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Agreed.. Although there hasn’t been an appropriate push-back by Democratic leaders (who don’t want to cut off that potential stream of ‘donations’). The Supreme Court mess has been developing for decades, however the ‘Dems’ have been happy to ‘go along’ as long as there pockets were similarly lined.
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The reason that the Supreme Court is extremist is because three were appointed by Trump. If doubting Democrats had voted for Hillary in three states in 2016, the Court we now have six liberal justices, not three. Remember, Hillary (like Gore in 2000) won the popular vote by three million. Biden won it by seven million, but also won a large majority of the electoral vote. If Hillary had won both, as Biden did, we would Iive in a far far better world.
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It’s so easy to blame ‘the other’.
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Who is “the other?” If Hillary had won, if James Comer hadn’t announced on the eve of the election that the FBI was reopening an investigation into her emails, which turned up nothing, she would have been elected President. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett would not be on the Supreme Court. Instead, there would be three liberal justices. Roe v. Wade would not be endangered. Nor would the right to buy contraceptives, gay rights, gay marriage, interracial marriage, and all other decisions loathed by the religious right. The only bonus from the SCOTUS attacks on the right to privacy is that Justice Clarence Thomas’ marriage to his white wife would be dissolved.
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Republicans could block justices by threatening filibuster and tying up legislation…. Why couldn’t Democrats? What’s good for the goose, they say….
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Democrats don’t have the votes for a filibuster.
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So, how did Republicans do it when they had a very slim majority? How could they block Garland, for example?
(As and aside, I’m kinda glad Garland isn’t on the SC. I think he’d be likely to vote with Roberts. But, that’s based on his foot-dragging concerning clear unconstitutional behavior surrounding 1/6…. and, why is Biden putting up with this?)
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This is, of course, an unspeakable horror. I saw a report that there had been 200 mass shootings in the past year. I am not sure of the nature of this statistic. What seized my attention on this matter was the political nature of the motivation, and the fact that the child who did this was allowed to experiment both with insane philosophy and mass murder weaponry.
Last night two of my daughter’s closest friends were in an ATV accident. Their lives hang in the balance as I write. What is similar about these two seemingly unrelated incidents? The similarity I find is that a particular mindset in our society seems to value some types of risky behavior and abhor other types. The parents of the children who were hurt would have been loathe to allow the children to experiment with some dangerous drug, but an ATV is OK. Likewise, the shooter’s parents apparently saw nothing wrong with this child having access to automatic weapons.
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Historian Heather Cox Richardson takes the long view of the Great Replacement Theory here in this excellent post. I’m certain most of Diane’s readers agree that we ought to turn to historians if we wish to make sense of our current reality.
That theory comes out of the 1870s and was explicitly connected to voting.
In 1867, Congress began the process of recognizing the right of Black people to have a say in their government. In the Military Reconstruction Act, it called for conventions in former Confederate states to write new state constitutions and permitted Black southerners to register to vote to choose delegates to those conventions. White supremacists scoffed at the idea that formerly enslaved people and those white men willing to work with them could produce coherent constitutions.
When their constitutions not only were coherent, but made adjustments to give more representation to poorer white men than the prewar constitutions had provided, white supremacists set out to make sure voters did not ratify the new constitutions. Needing to avoid the U.S. Army, still stationed in the South to protect Black people and their white allies, the white supremacists dressed up in white sheets to look like dead Confederate soldiers (no one was fooled) and tried to terrorize voters to keep them from the polls.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-15-2022?utm_source=email&s=r
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It bears repeating over and over until the majority of American have the message and thus turn their backs on the Hate Mongers.
The USA is on a path to an Ulster scenario:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/09/is-the-us-really-heading-for-a-second-civil-war
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C’mon.
Zelensky was installed. The first thing he did was shut down a number of newspapers and broadcasters, thus severely limiting opposing viewpoints. That’s what all dictators do. Then, he was later ‘elected’ because he falsely promised to end the slaughter in Donbass. The only difference is that Zelensky is controlled by the military, whereas Putin controls the Russian military. If Zelensky suddenly decided to allow a ‘free and fair election’ regarding separation in the Donbass, he’d be gone.
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Zelenskyy has not been in office for 8 years. He was elected in 2019. He did not ban the Russian language. He did not invade Russia.
You are getting false information from a pro-Putin source.
Why don’t you rewrite his Wikipedia page?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy
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Zelenskyy’s predecessor is also anti-Putin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Poroshenko
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Who was the ‘leader’ after the Maiden Revolution?
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Not Zelenskyy. He was a TV actor and comedian until 2018.
Why do you hate him so?
As a fellow Jew, I am proud of his courage and wisdom.
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Zelenskyy did not ban the Russian language.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-language/ukraine-passes-language-law-irritating-president-elect-and-russia-idUSKCN1S111N
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I don’t ‘hate’ him. I was hoping for information.
I also don’t think it’s relevant that ‘he’s a Jew’.
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It’s relevant to me. And the absurd claims you make about Zelenskyy—that he has been in control since 2014, that he is a puppet of the military, that he censored the press, that he banned the Russian language. Why so many lies about a courageous man who is resisting Putin’s aggression? Why do you reserve your hatred for Zelenskyy and admire Putin, who has censored all media, has invaded a sovereign nation with brutal force, has destroyed hospitals, homes, and schools?
He is the guy who has been on power since 1990–and asked the Parliament to extend his term to 2036. Almost half a century of rule by one man. Ask the Finns and Swedes what they think of Putin.
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I’m getting tired of this…. I don’t ‘admire’ Putin. I think he’s the chief oligarch, and I don’t like a political system run by oligarchs. You’re insistence that I must love Putin seems way off the mark (and a possible attempt to smear what I have to say). I neither like Russian oligarchs nor American ones.
Why are you trying to divide people? This was supposed to be a site for discussing education. Why did it suddenly change?
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Putin is not an oligarch. He is a dictator.
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Not to mention mass murderer …
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Any 3 year old child ‘dictates’. In order for them to control a country, it takes more. Of course, Putin was head of the KGB, so he probably has tons of dirt on a lot of people (similar to Herbert Hoover, the transvestite guy), or, for that matter, Jeffrey Epstein. but neither Epstein nor Hoover became ‘heads of State’
But, you keep shifting the ground. Who was put in charge after the Maiden ‘revolution’? And, what does being Jewish have to do with anything?
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Having lost my entire family in Europe, I am sensitive to anti-Semitism.
Most people recognize Zelenskyy’s courage. Not you. You want to believe he’s a puppet. Why? In my eyes, he’s a hero and I am proud of him.
Putin, on the other hand, is a despicable murderer.
Seems clear to me.
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I can understand your sensitivity to the attempted German extermination of Jews (and Polish). However, that has nothing to do with Ukraine (other than the fact that many Ukrainians supported Germany, at that time). Nor does it excuse the atrocities committed by the Zionists in Palestine.
Stalin was a butcher, and deserves to be targeted as such. Putin? Well, did he bomb wedding parties in Afghanistan, or turn Libya from one of the most liberal countries in Africa into a State that sells slaves?
But, once again, after the Maiden Revolution, who was in charge of Ukraine?
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Who was in charge after Maiden Revolt? If you bothered to look, you could find several sources.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Maidan-protest-movement
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At the time of the Maidan Revolution, the president of Ukraine was an ally of Putin. You know that.
Putin is like Stalin but he hasn’t killed as many people. He did have a nasty habit of assassinating dissidents, journalists, and opposition figures.
Russia was on a path to becoming a normal nation, integrated into the global economy. Hundreds of businesses from around the world operated in Russia, supplying goods and services.
But then Putin took a gamble that he could seize Ukraine, replace Zelenskyy with a puppet regime, and the West was too divided to react.
He made a vast miscalculation.
The Ukrainians did not welcome Russian troops. They fought back.
NATO and the EU responded in unison.
NATO has never been more United than it is today, thanks to Putin’s aggression.
Finland and Sweden have asked to join NATO, abandoning their tradition of neutrality. This will vastly increase Russia’s border with NATO.
Meanwhile, Putin loves Ukraine so much that he is reducing the country to rubble.
Tens of thousands of young men from both Ukraine and Russia have died, as well as large numbers of Ukrainian civilians.
I’m baffled why you don’t care but tired of writing about it, as I understand you will turn any criticism of Putin into an attack on Israel.
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Well, I must apologize.
I think I was confusing Zelensky with whoever went before him after Maiden. Apparently, I’m not a dependable Ukrainian scholar. Truth is the ‘other guy’ had four or five years to end the Donbass war, and Zelensky only had 3.
The fact that someone before Maiden was a ‘Putin ally’ does not mean that the US should be involved in the overthrow of the Ukrainian govt. Our country needs to solve so many problems here at home before it can stand before the world as a beacon of integrity. If we want to be the ‘world leader’, then we need to accept responsibility for every single injustice created under out ‘leadership’, including the current mess in Ukraine. We need to accept that by pushing NATO into areas that were promised to be ‘off limits’, we actually bear a great responsibility for the Russian action. Also, by that, I mean that we (well our ‘leaders’, run by the wealthy) need to punish injustice, particularly if they created it. Unless they do, they reveal themselves as frauds.
Now, if that applies to Israel, so be it. In fact, many, many American Jews consider the Zionist behavior of apartheid to be despicable. I consider Medea Benjamin to be one of the best at exposing the hypocrisy, the total incoherence of the position of the Israeli government with Jewish tradition (as expressed in the Talmud). Just because the German government once herded Jews into concentration camps and starved them doesn’t mean that Zionists (or Americans) have the right to do the same thing. That cycle needs to be broken for the sake of humanity.
But, I, too, am tired. I know much more about education than I do about Ukraine, and I can’t do much about Herzog’s heaven.
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Daedalus –
If you’re looking for experts on authoritarianism and on Urkraine, I suggest going to Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa’s podcast called Gaslit Nation Chalupa is the author of the screenplay for Mr. Jones which is about the role played by the NY Times in Stalin’s Holdomor, an earlier genocide of the Urkarinan people. Kendzior is a scholar of authoritarianism. They’ve been broadcasting since before Trump was elected.
Here’s a link where you can start.
https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2022/4/6/ukraine-democracy-vs-fascism?rq=olga%20
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Thanks, Christine.
Funny thing is that Stalin was our great ally when we needed him. Odd how we accommodate, and then we forget.
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Nothing odd at all. The enemy of my enemy is my friend…for the time being. I don’t think anyone had any illusions about one big happy family after the war.
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Ha! Calling Putin an “oligarch” …
Praising with feint damnation much? …
“Dædalus” ain’t channeling the Master of Invention for nothing …
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One day posterity will judge them all ⚖️
but we have deal with our war criminals while they’re hot 🔥
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