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Wednesday, March 10, 2021

The Docent's Memo for March 10, 2021

VIDEO: "AR vs AK: One is vastly superior, but which one?"--Military Arms Channel (36 min.)

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping:

  • "Civil War 2.0: Censorship And A Change In Narrative"--Wilder, Wealthy & Wise. Things actually let up a bit in February, resulting in the civil war clock moving back a bit. But this is probably just a breather on the Left as they get things arranged for a big push later. As John notes, "One real wildcard is the coming trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.  There is a significant chance that Chauvin walks away from the trial a free man ...." Jury selection has already started for the trial. And protestors were already on hand to intimidate any potential jurors, shouting such things as "No justice, no peace."
  • I recently posted an article on why the AR-15 makes a great prepper weapon, so I suppose it is only fair to take a look at the opposing view:
    • "Why I Abandoned The AR-15 Rifle"--SOFREP. His reason for doing so, and moving to the AK system, are what he terms supportability and simplicity. As I understand his argument concerning supportability, it appears to be that because there are so many variant configurations and parts for the AR, the author cannot maintain a supply a spare parts for the system. He notes, for instance, that "[t]he buffer spring and buffer weights alone have more than a dozen different variations depending on barrel length and number of coils on the buffer spring." Thus, there is an interchangeability problem. Conversely, he contends, the AK has a single set of specifications. I don't know where to begin in response, but I will just note two things: (1) he doesn't have to store spare parts for every imaginable configuration of AR, just the one(s) he would be using; and (2) there is more variation to the AK than he thinks, the most basic being that it is available in more than one caliber just for military rifles--the 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm--not to mention all the other calibers to which it has been adopted, and the numerous different folding stock systems, most employing a rear trunnion that differs from the standard fixed stock version.
    The second factory, simplicity, revolves around how maintenance-intensive is it and the type of lubricants he can use. Maintenance issues depend heavily on a lot of factors other than the firearm. For instance, if you shoot ammo using corrosive powder and/or corrosive primers (not uncommon for Russian or Chinese military surplus ammo), or weather conditions. Overall, at least in my experience, the AK is more prone to corrosion from exposure to rain than the AR. As for lube, you can use anything on the AR that you would use on the AK. 
    • "Why the AR-15 Sucks for Preppers"--Readyman.  The author, "a 28-year Green Beret veteran (8 years boots-on-the-ground just in Afghanistan)," has a long list of things that he believes are problematic with the AR-15 platform. Some of them I think to be non-issues when compared to other rifles (e.g., he complains of the height of the sights over the bore, but weapons like the AK, FAL, etc., all have the same issue). Others have more merit, but even many of these can be avoided by first testing your weapon or periodic cleaning and lubing. For instance, if your buffer weight is out of wack, you'll know pretty quickly. Or, more precisely, you'll know that something is wrong, even if you don't know the cause. Unfortunately, the author does not give his recommendations as to alternatives.
    • "Some Preppers Are Discovering 'Military-Style Rifles Suck!' And You Probably Don’t Even Know Why"--Warrior Life. The author's argument in this case boils down to: "Nothing says, 'Please take my weapon!' like a camo’d prepper walking down main street with an AR-15!"
    • "Prepper Rifles, Past And Present" by Jonathan Kilburn, American Survival Guide. This isn't so much a critique of the AR-15 as much as it is a look at some weapons past and present that have been used for prepper rifles, and the author's thoughts on caliber. 
    • "A Few Reasons I Like The Kalashnikov Better Than The AR-15" by Nathaniel H. at The Firearm Blog. Let me preface this with the comment that I have a lot of respect for Nathaniel H.'s opinions. This article is not a criticism of the AR-15, but sets out why the author happens to like the AK (in the 5.45 caliber) better.
Of course, my purpose for writing the AR-15 rifle article is no different than any of my other articles on other survival weapons such as the CETME/HK91, SKS, etc.--to provide some information on certain weapons that are popular among survivalists and preppers, clear up some misconceptions, and discuss pros and cons; not tell you which one you need or should get. Your choice is going to depend on your situation and circumstances.  
  • "TERMINATING TERRORISTS | The Head-Shot Triad" by Bob Pilgrim, American Cop. The author suggests a head-shot first approach to dealing with terrorists with a suicide vest or explosives. To do this, however, the author says you need to be able to fulfill all three requirements of the head-shot triad. That is, you must: 
• Possess the necessary skills to consistently make both short- and long-range shots and know where to place your shot.

• Your firearm must be inherently accurate enough to accomplish this.

• Your load and bullet must be accurate enough and capable of penetrating the skull from all angles out to at least 25 yards—perhaps 50 if explosives are involved.

    This is the Head-Shot Triad that must be satisfied well before any confrontation occurs. Low-capacity personal-defense pocket guns may not cut it, but may be all you have at the moment you are caught up in such a scenario. Determine beforehand what your standoff head-shot limitations are with your concealed-carry piece and ammunition and work on extending it. Practice head shots at all distances from braced and unbraced positions, preferably from a prone stance or behind cover to avoid a potential blast wave and shrapnel.

    Shots commencing at 75 and 150 feet may be necessary to avoid a bomb’s blast radius. For a ten-pound belt of shrapnel-laced explosives, an indoor evacuation distance of 90 feet is recommended and 1,080 feet for outdoor situations. The shorter indoor standoff may be derived from blast-absorbing structures, cross-compartments, and obstacles normally found in building interiors.

    If confronting a terrorist wearing a vest that could weigh 20 pounds or more inside a building, an evacuation space of 110 feet is recommended and in open terrain, 1,360 feet.
    It’s common for folks to overlook the concealed part of concealed carry when selecting a handgun for that purpose. I’m not saying a SIG P320 or a Glock 17 is a bad idea. What I am saying is that many will find both difficult to comfortably conceal on a daily, year-round basis. If you can hide one of these handguns discretely and comfortably, then by all means. If not, there are other options.

    Of course, as handguns get smaller and easier to conceal, they become more difficult to shoot effectively. There’s a balance of concerns that must be struck. A big handgun you find uncomfortable to carry will likely not be carried. On the other hand, a small handgun that’s difficult to shoot with the same efficiency as a larger gun, might not allow you to get your hits or be adequate to stop a fight.

He discusses the pro's and con's of both rounds as well as the between the small semi-auto and revolver, and concludes:

What’s the best option for concealed carry? Given the best loads for both cartridges, I don’t think there’s enough difference to argue about; a snub-nose .38 Special revolver will deliver slightly better terminal performance, but capacity will be slightly less. The choice should be driven by concealability and comfort. Which handgun will you be able to conceal the easiest, and which handgun are you most comfortable shooting and operating? In the end you will best served by the gun you carry most often, and the choice is not so much between the two cartridges as it is between a semi-auto or a revolver. 

I use and carry both--not at the same time, but switch depending on circumstances. Sometimes the decision has to do more with the holster than the handgun. For instance, as I write this I am carrying a small revolver because today I needed to easily and unobtrusively take off and put back on the weapon and holster, and the holster I have for the revolver is more amenable to that than the one I use for my .380 pistol. In addition to what Mann says, you also need to practice with what you carry. If you are willing to carry a particular handgun but not willing to practice with it, you probably need to look at carrying something different. 

    • Related: "6 Top Notch .380 ACP Pistols for Concealed Carry"--NRA Women. The handguns mentioned are the SIG Sauer P238 (an excellent handgun, by the way, if you need something small and flat for pocket holster carry), Bersa Thunder 380, Glock G42, Kahr CW380, Ruger LC380, SCCY Industries CPX-3, and Walther CCP M2 .380. I've also found the Beretta 84 to be an excellent weapon, and it uses a 13-round magazine; and I'm sure it's single stack sibling, the Beretta 85, would also be every bit as good. I don't have experience with Bersa pistols, but I would note that in addition to the single-stack Bersa Thunder 380 mentioned in the article, the company also offers the Bersa Thunder Plus with a 15-round magazine, and it also comes in at 20 oz. unloaded. 
  • Speaking of the .380 and .38 Special, Revolver Guy has a really interesting article on the topic of "Guns in Brazil". With the assistance of a police detective in Brazil, he discusses the history of gun control and gun ownership in Brazil, how that has impacted the calibers that are common or popular there, and where things seem to be going. The short take is that guns have historically been tightly controlled in Brazil, and as part of that control, the government has often limited the power of the ammunition available for civilian use, such that small and/or low pressure calibers like .22, .25, .32, .38 S&W, etc., are common. Later, the government expanded the list to include .380 and .38 Special. Reforms over the last several years have greatly expanded the ability to purchase firearms and expanded the ammunition available to the public and the police. For instance, the detective that is the source of the article indicates that his favored weapon is the .357 Magnum, but the police there are trending toward the .40 S&W.  
  • Also from the Revolver Guy: "The Case For The Modern Defensive Revolver." The article discusses some of the advantages that the revolver has over the semi-auto pistol, even for the experienced shooter as well as offering some specific recommendations as to revolvers and methods of carry. But he also notes that the revolver has something else going for it as an emergency defensive weapon for people with little to no experience:
    These guns also make really good home defense guns where they tend to sit for very long periods with no attention or maintenance.  They excel in the “fire extinguisher” role for many people, and are easier for an untrained or under-trained family member to use in a crisis.

    A classic example of the “fire extinguisher” gun is a never-fired, 3” Colt Detective Special, that I purchased new-in-the-box for my collection.  It was originally purchased by a prominent member of the Dallas elite for his wife in 1965, after she was the victim of a criminal attack in their home.  The gun was loaded and placed in a nightstand drawer in 1965, and sat there in that condition for the next 50 years. Despite the fact that it never received any maintenance, it was completely functional with no issues.  For that lady that owned it, the revolver was a comfort, and she would have had a very good chance of being able to operate it, and have it work, if she had ever needed it–even with no training or shooting practice at all.
    I can vividly recall doing research for a Top Secret campaign I was running (the role-playing game, not the movie), and coming across info on the Vz 61 Skorpion. A pistol-sized gun with a stock that was full auto? What’s not to love?
 
    I was hooked, and PDWs became my obsession.
 
    So it’s not surprising that my “road gun” is a PDW-sized gun. I use a Gen 4 Glock 19 in a Recover Tactical Stabilizer. I found in my testing for the article that it gave me the best balance of size between the Roni MCK and the Flux Defense brace, plus the length of pull on the brace is enough that I can get a good sight picture when using a dot.
 
    To get an even better sight picture, I use Raven Concealment’s version of the Dueck Defense mount. That way the dot clears the side of the chassis and doesn’t require me to mill the slide to mount a sight.
 
    The more I work with this thing, the more I like it. Going six for six on a plate rack at 25 yards is a breeze, and it uses the same mags as my carry Glock 19. A Magul 21 rounder inside of magwell on the Recover Tactical gun is the same height as a 15 round G19 mag in the front. That gives me (does math in head) 66 rounds of 147 gr Federal HST to handle things, and if that’s not enough, I can easily slide in a 33 round stick into the Hazard 4 sling pack I use carry the brace in.

I loved playing Top Secret when I was a teen.

  • "Cross Draw Holsters"--Active Response Training. Greg Ellifritz notes that cross-draw holsters used to be more popular than they are now, but then moves into the pros and cons of such holsters. The primary advantage to the cross-draw holster is ease of access when in a seated position (e.g., driving or riding in a car, seated at a desk), and the primary disadvantage is poor weapon retention from the front. Read the whole thing.
  • "The Modular, Mission Oriented, Load Bearing System"--American Partisan. A look at the Russian SSO SPOSN “Smersh” load bearing system, some minor modifications the author has made to it, and how he has his set up. He also uses a couple different Condor  and survival vests to supplement the system. The author closes:
    The point of all these different vest and the belt systems is this. Tailoring your load for what you might face is important. If I’m conducting a reconnaissance, I would not wear my body armor. If I was bugging out on foot, same answer. If I was using a vehicle and wearing my gear in that vehicle, I would not use my H-harness, and would probably use my body armor, with the tac vest for the weapon I was carrying over top of it.

    Having modularity in your fighting and survival load is important. You don’t know what you’ll be up against, and having options is the difference between preparedness and having to make your “square peg” gear, fit a “round hole” situation. This system can be applied whether you have one rifle and handgun combination or ten.
  • "Holosun 507C – 6 Months And 1,500 Rounds Later"--The Mag Life. The author mounted it on a 12 gauge shotgun and figures that he has around 1,500 rounds using the Holosun 507C. He reports that "My zero has not shifted in that 1,500 rounds even a bit," even with "mag dumps" of rapid fire. And after six months of leaving the sight on (it does have a shake-awake feature so its not running full time), "there is no issue with battery life." His concluding comments: "I wouldn’t hesitate to trust the Holosun 507C with my life, and it sits on my home defense shotgun for a reason. I never thought I’d say that about a budget-grade optic made in China, but here we are."
  • "PACE-BB: Distribute Your Guns" by James Wesley Rawles, Suvival Blog. Rawles has advice on caching firearms--that is, how to split up firearms between what you have at hand and what you should keep in a cache--and recommendations on how you should record your firearms for insurance purposes. 
  • "The Complete List Of Prepper Supplies"--Urban Survival Site. The first half of the article discusses different types of disasters and why you might want to have supplies for riding out a longer term disaster. It then goes into supplies divided up into the following categories:
    • Electricity
    • Communication
    • Heat
    • Cooking 
    • Clothing
    • Bedding
    • Light
    • Water
    • Self Defense
    • Medical Treatment and First Aid
    • Tools and Hardware
    • Sanitation and Hygiene
    • Road Trip?
    • The Barter Consideration
    • Books
  • "Five Obscure Location To Find Supplies After a Societal Collapse"--Readyman. It is one of the great ironies of prepping/survival that the faster a die off occurs, the more supplies that will be left for survivors. For instance, food supplies that could support 100,000 people for three days will be able to support 10,000 people for 30 days, 1,000 people for 300 days, etc. In any event, the author of this article notes that the obvious sources, like grocery and retail stores, will be ransacked and empty of food and other supplies quickly. Instead, he suggests the following locations: (i) self-storage facilities; (ii) warehouses; (iii) shipping centers (e.g., Amazon, UPS, etc.); (iv) public or private schools; and (v) obscure pawn shops and second-hand stores. A couple comments. I would expand shipping centers to distribution centers more generally. Store chains will have or purchase from larger distribution centers in their area, as well as regional centers independent of the UPS shipping centers. Similarly, restaurant food supply chains are independent of retail grocery chains. Most likely employees will strip these places bare, but because these centers are located in warehouse and light industrial zones, they may be overlooked. 
    As for schools, I would note that at least in my area, the school cafeterias actually have very little in the way of food stockpiles because the school districts have switched over to a central kitchen/food services center, and then ship food items daily to the individual schools. The school kitchens essentially just heat and serve the food. You might want to see if this is the case in your school district. Also, don't forget college and university cafeterias and food services, or cafeterias that might be run by a large employer.

    As for fuel, I would note that any business or government agency that maintains a large fleet of vehicles will probably have on-site fueling facilities for the vehicles--think school district bus fleets, highway departments, farms, etc.  

    With an open chest wound, the victim may develop tension pneumothorax. Tension pneumothorax is the second leading cause of preventable trauma deaths on the battlefield. It is the progressive build-up of air within the pleural space between the lung and the chest wall.

    As the air in the pleural space builds up, the pressure in the space increases and begins to collapse the lung on the injured side. This results in less air that can be exchanged for perfusion in the lung. Once the lung has collapsed, pressure begins to compress the heart, shifting the mediastinum (membrane between the lungs) toward the uninjured side. This shift is known as mediastinal shift.

    Although tension pneumothorax normally develops over one to two hours, it can develop rapidly. It’s 100% fatal if not treated. The only treatment when it occurs is a needle thoracostomy (needle decompression) performed by skilled medical personnel.

However, as the article goes on to explain, "Laypersons can treat penetrating chest injuries (sucking chest wounds) by the application of an occlusive dressing" (i.e., chest seal). You can use non-vented chest seals, but the author recommends vented chest seals like the Hyfin Vent. Have at least two on hand in the event of a through-and-through wound.
  • "Five Wool Clothing Tips To Keep You From Itching"--Survival Common Sense. In summary, the tips are: (i) wear a base layer under the wool clothing; (ii) select wool cleaned with hot water rather than with chemicals; (iii) try organic wool products; (iv) try products with looser, fluffier yarn; and (v) use products made from finer wool hairs such as Merino wool or Rambouillet.
  • "Wild Game Populations Are Thriving in Big Cities"--Outdoor Life. The article primarily looks at how well mountain lions, deer, coyotes and geese are adapting to urban sprawl. An excerpt:
    Found in almost every state in the U.S., whitetail deer are one of the most common species you’ll see in urban areas. With the continued expansion of cities, deer have increasingly overlapped with humans.

    “Suburban, and urban landscapes, to some degree, provide high-quality food sources for deer because people plant nutritious vegetation around their homes and green spaces,” says Jeremy Hurst, a big game biologist for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “One deer that was handled on Staten Island a couple of years ago was a buck that weighed more than 300 pounds. It’s clear deer in [most] suburban areas aren’t nutritionally limited.”

    Suburban whitetails don’t need much to survive, and as long as their nutritional and safety needs are met, they can live almost anywhere. Whitetails are browsers and will feed on herbaceous plants, acorns, berries, and other shrubs. Some of their most favorable plants are narrowed-leafed evergreen, like arborvitae and fir. According to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, hostas, daylilies, and tulips are a few of the preferred food plants frequently damaged by deer.

    In Syracuse—a major urban center in New York state—Hurst’s colleagues tracked deer in the snow to study their movement patterns.

    “It’s pretty remarkable to see the spaces deer are using,” Hurst says. “In many cases, they are traveling at night by using small habitat patches like wooded backyards and strips of suburbia wood lines to link up to larger green spaces like cemeteries, golf courses, and parks.”

 

VIDEO: "Tyrone Muhammad Checks Asian Nail Shop For Putting Hands On Black Women"--African Diaspora News Channel (20 min.). Muhammad didn't like how the owners/workers at the shop treated black women so he decided to smash out the windows by throwing bricks or rocks through them while there were still people inside.

They Really Do Hate You:

  • "Blacks and Asians"--The Bookworm Room. The author discusses the real reason that blacks attack Asians for no apparent reason, and it has nothing to do with COVID or Pres. Trump making blacks think that Asians are responsible for its spread. 
Allow me to tell you what’s really going on here: Blacks dislike Asians because they resent them. Incidentally, Asian immigrants, being incredibly racist in their home countries, despise blacks, whom they view as an inferior race.

I noticed the same attitude among Japanese when I lived there. Anyway, the author continues:

    But this post isn’t about Asian immigrants looking down on blacks or whites. It’s about why blacks dislike Asians: It’s because Asians show that the black problem isn’t slavery; it’s culture.

    Starting in the 1970s, Chinese immigrants began to pour into America. Coming from a communist country they had nothing. They didn’t speak the language (or anything related to the language) and they had no real marketable Western skills. They squeezed multiple families into cramped slum apartments and took whatever hard, dirty work came their way.

    Oh, and they demanded that their children do well in school. That was the Number 1 thing: Do well in school. And the Chinese kids did exactly that.

    After doing well in K-12, they went to state colleges and universities or, if they were super smart and very lucky, got scholarships to prestigious colleges and universities. They worked hard in higher education, aced their classes, got great jobs, and bought houses in the suburbs where they moved their hardworking parents and grandparents. They were model minorities: Minimal crime, incredible academic performances, good jobs, increased affluence.

    Things are different among blacks. Ever since the Civil Rights Movement, blacks have sneered at academia. If you want the details, read John McWhorter’s Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. In it, he details a culture in which doing well in school and staying out of trouble is “acting white” and a bad thing.

    This is the mindset BLM advances: doing math, being ambitious and punctual, working hard, being respectful — those are all signs of white, cultural imperialism being used against blacks. The fact that blacks could do those very things themselves and succeed is irrelevant. What matters is that across the activist black world, in the schools among the kids, and in the streets among the gangs, the message is relentless: Hard work and other behaviors that lead to academic and professional success are the internalized self-loathing that comes from systemic white racism.

    Put another way, the message that is now writ large across America thanks to BLM is that black failure is white people’s fault because white people put unreasonable demands on blacks. We’re told that, because of the dislocation of the slavery that ended 160 years ago, and because of the genuinely systemic racism of the Jim Crow era (which only a small proportion of people still experienced) , blacks can’t be expected to perform up to white standards. Only a racist would expect that.

    But then you have these Asian people, tiny, speaking a foreign language, navigating a completely alien culture, often living in the same slums as the black people — and damn their hides, they’re mastering the system. Their kids do great in school and the families amass wealth. It proves that, no matter the grim circumstances in people’s backgrounds, through those despicable “white” attributes (hard work in school and out), they can succeed.

* * *  

    ... When they see Asians arrive without even the advantage of speaking English and then do well, it infuriates them. Rather than confronting their Democrat puppet masters about the racist lie being used against them, they take out their rage on the nearest convenient objects. These “objects” happen to be fragile, elderly Asian people, whom they smash to the curb as the only way they can think of to lash out at an unjust system.

In January 2021, the general counsel of Coca Cola sent a letter to the law firms that represent it. The letter demanded, among other things, that these firms “commit that at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys.”

If the firms are audited and found to be out of compliance, they will be docked 30% of the fees they charged. Essentially what this letter does is require these firms to steer the business of probably one of their most lucrative clients to black associates and partners who may have previously had nothing to do with developing the business relationship or doing the legal work, along with the share of profits and/or bonuses that came with that work.

  • None of the above: "There Are 4 Kinds Of Racists: Which One Are You?" by Rebecca Stevens A., Medium. If you are interested, the four that the author postulates are (with my own examples added): (1) the empathetic racist who will march for minority rights but still likes racist jokes (i.e., the typical liberal); (2) the fetishist racists that "idolize black people and parade them in front of family and friends" but can still hate POC outside of the person or group they fetishize (e.g., people who adopt black children as a form of virtue signaling); (3) supremacist racists who believe that white people are superior to black and brown people (e.g., anyone that believes in white privilege); and (4) sadist racists who actually would like to see black people suffer and, the author believes, would engage in full-scale killing of blacks if they could get away with it. But here is the key point:

    So what do you think of the above categories? Did you recognize yourself? What category would you say you fit into? And if you don’t fit into any of these, what would you consider yourself as being? Because you see, it’s not enough to tell me you are nonracist. That doesn’t count anymore.

    You have got to be an antiracist. Nonracists are so useless, they are cowards. They don’t use their platforms to combat racism, they might as well be called complicit racists in that they let racism thrive and fester. If the world was full of them, there would be no civil rights movement, no Black Lives Matter movement. They sit around on their hands and do nothing.

Of course, to be anti-racist, you have to fully accept the assumptions and hypothesis of critical race theory (CRT) and act upon them; meaning, you actually have to be racist against white people, as the author goes on to explain:

    So the complicit racist is not an option, you must strive to be an antiracist. Antiracists work to dismantle racism altogether. They study the systems of oppression, identify their weak points and work to take them down. They work to ensure that everyone is treated fairly. They work toward a better world for humanity.

    And yes, maybe you are just about starting off or already are on that antiracism journey. You’ve got to educate yourself, you’ve got to learn to be an antiracist. And don’t ask black and brown people to educate you — put in the time, put in the work, do it yourself. Consider what you're doing as a service to humanity. 

    The reality is that civil rights and discrimination is a bait and switch. If you are like me, you grew up being taught to be color-blind. It's a small world and everyone is the same inside and all of that. You may have been shown the "blue eyes/brown eyes" exercise where a teacher taught about racism using eye color, first discriminating against students with brown eyes one day, then, the next day, the kids with blue eyes. You may have watched or read Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches. Listened to or read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech including the famous line: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Perhaps you watched Star Trek where a united humanity went out to explore the stars.  

    But after Barack Obama was elected president for no other reason than his skin color, being color-blind became another form of racism; and being born white meant you are inherently racist (see, e.g., here and here). Or, as Marley K. titled her article at Medium, "Yes My Dear, All White People Are Racists." In June 2020, CNN reported: "'If you have to ask if you are a racist, you are,' says Angela Bell, an assistant professor of psychology at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. 'And if you are not asking if you are a racist, you are.'" Even preferring to date people of your own race is racist.

    Conversely, as Peter Wood relates in this 2015 article from the National Association of Scholars:

    In January 1987, Socialist Worker published the article “The Fallacy of Reverse Racism,” in which the author wrote, “Blacks cannot be ‘racists.’ They are not in a position to oppress anyone—certainly not the majority white population of the U.S.” In 1991, Spike Lee said in a Playboy interview, “Black people can't be racist.” In 2013, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson, who had previously said black people do not have the capacity for racism, said white people needed to die in numbers equal to black people in order for racism to end.

How does that compute? Because of the changed definition of "racist" as noted by Wood (quoting from a University of Delaware document for dorm residents):

A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. ‘The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination….’ 

    This is, of course, derived from critical race theory (CRT). Critical race theory is Marxism, except switching out race for class. Marxism was stupid and evil but it at least had a certain plausibility that the rich exploited the wage slaves that worked for them (e.g., Cuomo insisting on the right to manhandle and kiss female employees) and were excessively compensated for their provision of capital versus the people that actually had the ideas or did the work (e.g., Mitt Romney). CRT lacks even that plausibility since, under CRT, a billionaire like Oprah is still a victim of oppression because of her race and some poor minimum wage white guy trying to put food on the table, notwithstanding the crappy hand he was dealt in the game of life, is an oppressor. In this regard, CRT has doubled down on stupid and evil over your run of the mill Marxism. 

    CRT has made this an extremely dangerous time. Helen Andrews explains in her article, "The Law That Ate the Constitution" at the Claremont Review of Books, civil rights laws have destroyed the Constitution, or rather, that we now have two Constitutions. "The first is the one on the books. The second arose in the 1960s and replaced the old liberties with new, incompatible ones based on group identities." From her review (underline added):

    The Civil Rights Act passed under President Lyndon Johnson was meant to address an emergency situation that most Americans, even most white Americans, recognized as a national disgrace. Over the following decades, those emergency measures would be revealed as a permanent apparatus combining “surveillance by volunteers, litigation by lawyers, and enforcement by bureaucrats.” Civil rights offered “new grounds for overruling and overriding legislatures and voters on any question that could be cast as a matter of discrimination. That was coming to mean all questions.”

    If you doubt the infinite adaptability of civil rights to any subject under the sun, consider the multifarious uses to which it has been put. Last year, the University of Missouri-Kansas City took down student art supporting the Hong Kong protests after pro-Beijing Chinese students complained it was discriminatory hate speech. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a New York ban on euthanasia violated the civil rights of patients who wanted to be euthanized by treating them differently than “similarly situated” patients who could arrange to die simply by refusing further treatment (the U.S. Supreme Court reversed). There are pavilion-sized homeless encampments on the streets of Los Angeles, employers can hire illegal immigrants with relative impunity, gay marriage is the law of the land—all because of civil rights law, directly or indirectly.

    This metastasis was contrary to the explicit assurances of the original sponsors of the 1964 law. Senator Hubert Humphrey famously promised to eat the paper on which the bill was printed if it were found to require anything as ambitious as racial preferences in hiring. He also promised that it would create only “about 400 permanent new Federal jobs.” Within ten years the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alone had more than twice that number. “The bill does not permit the Federal Government to interfere with the day-to-day operations of a business,” promised Representative William McCulloch of Ohio, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. It did not tell a bank “to whom it may or may not make a loan” or a landlord “to whom he must sell, rent, lease, or otherwise use his real estate.”

***

    Of course, the law—and its 1968 successor—did do all that, and more. ... Even in its original incarnation, civil rights law required employers to collect extensive demographic data on their workers, institute grievance procedures and performance reviews, hire human resources directors to enforce the new rules (Caldwell aptly compares them to “twentieth-century commissars”), and—most far-reaching of all—impose strict censorship on what their employees were allowed to say.

    “Political correctness,” says Caldwell, is simply “the cultural effect of the basic enforcement powers of civil rights law.” He cites Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis, who was fired in 1987 by the team he had worked for since 1943 after an interview in which Ted Koppel asked him about the lack of black executives in major league baseball. Campanis gave a thoughtful answer pointing out that team managers don’t get paid very much and well-known black players might prefer other opportunities. He then got flustered when Koppel called his answer “baloney” and “garbage,” and offered a rambling second answer that ended with him speculating that maybe black men are poor swimmers because “they don’t have the buoyancy.”

    Today we attribute outrage storms to social media, but, as Caldwell points out, organizations like the Dodgers don’t cave just because they are afraid of bad publicity. They do it because they’re afraid of lawsuits. Comments like Campanis’s, not actionable in themselves, can serve in an anti-discrimination case as evidence of a hostile work environment or covert bias. The comments need not even be made in the workplace. In a 1987 suit brought by a female English professor, claiming Boston University had wrongly denied her tenure because of her sex, her case partly rested on a speech given years earlier by the university president in which he made standard socially conservative points about working women and child-rearing. The district court ruled that B.U. had indeed acted out of sexism and ordered the school to give the woman tenure, plus $215,000.

***

    The genius of civil litigation as a method of censorship is that it puts private companies, not government, in charge of enforcement. “[T]he fear of litigation privatized the suppression of disagreement, or even of speculation,” explains Caldwell. “Because there was no statutory ‘smoking gun’ behind it, this new system of censorship was easily mistaken for a change in the public mood.” Conservative brains were scrambled by this new situation in which businesses were the bad guys, so they fell back on the tactic of pointing out horror stories of P.C. overreach, hoping that the sheer ridiculousness of these examples would drive a stake through political correctness. This tactic will never work, Caldwell insists. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous business owners consider the latest P.C. demands. As long as the law requires them to be vigilant about conduct that can be characterized as discriminatory, they are going to keep enforcing P.C. rules.

    Organizations are forced to err on the side of political correctness because civil rights law is fundamentally vague, even self-contradictory. Affirmative action at professional schools is defended on the grounds that minority populations are better served if they have doctors and lawyers who look like them. When Walgreens was found to be assigning black managers to stores in certain neighborhoods on the logic that black customers are better served by managers who look like them, the resulting anti-discrimination case cost the company $24 million to settle. When Ann Hopkins sued Price Waterhouse for sex discrimination for not making her a partner, the court found in Hopkins’s favor because the firm had ignored objective criteria, like dollar value of business brought in, in favor of subjective measures like personality. Last year, a judge upheld Harvard’s admissions policy against the lawsuit brought on behalf of rejected Asian applicants because she found that Harvard must be allowed to ignore objective criteria, like test scores, in favor of subjective measures like personality.

    Race-conscious, colorblind, subjective, objective—the less consistent the law is, the more power left-wing activists have to define what the rules really are. The result is to keep ordinary citizens in a constant state of nervous deference. Even “speculating, wool-gathering, or talking off the cuff” was now legally risky, Caldwell writes. “Americans in all walks of life began to talk about the smallest things as if they would have their lives destroyed for holding the wrong opinion. And this was a reasonable assumption.”

You will, of course, instantly note the resemblance between this and Theodore Dalrymple's famous quote about communism and political correctness:

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

Political correctness may be communist propaganda writ small, but CRT is communist propaganda writ large in neon lettering.

    An overemphasis on slave-based agriculture led Southerners to neglect industry and transportation improvements. As a result, manufacturing and transportation lagged far behind in comparison to the North. In 1860 the North had approximately 1.3 million industrial workers, whereas the South had 110,000, and northern factories manufactured nine-tenths of the industrial goods produced in the United States.

    The South’s transportation network was primitive by northern standards. Traveling the 1,460 overland miles from Baltimore to New Orleans in 1850 meant riding five different railroads, two stagecoaches, and two steamboats. Most southern railroads served primarily to transport cotton to southern ports, where the crop could be shipped on northern vessels to northern or British factories for processing.

    Because of high rates of personal debt, Southern states kept taxation and government spending at much lower levels than did the states in the North. As a result, Southerners lagged far behind Northerners in their support for public education. Illiteracy was widespread. In 1850, 20 percent of all southern white adults could not read or write, while the illiteracy rate in New England was less than half of 1 percent.

The National Park Service similarly explains:

    In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined. But while the southern states produced two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29 percent of the railroad tracks, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South did experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part it was well satisfied with its agricultural economy.

    The North, by contrast, was well on its way toward a commercial and manufacturing economy, which would have a direct impact on its war making ability. By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from northern states. The North produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32 times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South. Only about 40 percent of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as compared to 84 percent of the South.

    Even in the agricultural sector, Northern farmers were out-producing their southern counterparts in several important areas, as Southern agriculture remained labor intensive while northern agriculture became increasingly mechanized. By 1860, the free states had nearly twice the value of farm machinery per acre and per farm worker as did the slave states, leading to increased productivity. As a result, in 1860, the Northern states produced half of the nation's corn, four-fifths of its wheat, and seven-eighths of its oats.

Deirdre McCloskey noted at Reason back in 2018 that cotton was not as important to the growth of the American economy as many like to make it out to be. "But prosperity did not depend on slavery. The United States and the United Kingdom and the rest would have become just as rich without the 250 years of unrequited toil. They have remained rich, observe, even after the peculiar institution was abolished, because their riches did not depend on its sinfulness."

 

VIDEO: "Humans are a Genetically ENGINEERED SPECIES"--Felix Rex (23 min.)
Black Pigeon Speaks discusses some facts that make it statistically impossible that modern humans naturally evolved from the great apes.

Miscellany:

    Campaign donations of over a million dollars from a hospital trade association [the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNHA)] may have been behind NY Gov. Cuomo’s infamous nursing home order, resulting in thousands of Nursing Home deaths. Cuomo campaign donors

    In September 2020. In the Wall Street Journal, Bill Hammond reported that one trade association came up with and sold to Cuomo the idea for his March 25, 2020 order that caused the deaths of thousands of Seniors in nursing homes.

The article continues:

According to Hammond, it was the powerful GNHA that came up with and sold the idea to the Governor, which resulted in the lame-brained  March 25th, order which said,  “No resident shall be denied readmission or admission to a nursing home solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. Nursing homes are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 before admission or readmission.” 

    In a just world not plagued by a fake and corrupt media, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) would be on the edge of resigning his office today, not over a handful of times he allegedly got aggressive with women, but over his sociopathic executive order that required nursing homes to accept patients still infected with the coronavirus.

    That, after all, is the real scandal here, the true scandal, an act so monstrous Cuomo knew he had to cover it up, which he did by falsely blaming the order on the Trump administration and then lying about just how many seniors died as a result.

    But instead of being pressured to resign over that, he’s being hit with perfectly-timed allegations of sexual misconduct, two involving former staffers, one involving a complete stranger he met at a wedding.

    As these things go, while his alleged behavior is inappropriate (especially in the workplace), it’s nothing compared to the credible allegations against His Fraudulency Joe Biden, which involve a full-blown sexual assault allegation. Biden got away with much, much worse, so…

    So what’s going on? Why is America’s corrupt media not at all interested in some 15,000 dead senior citizens while they tar and feather Cuomo over the allegations he made three left-wing women uncomfortable?

    The answer is obvious…

    Four other Democrat governors issued the same sociopathic nursing home order as Cuomo. Four other Democrats ordered infected coronavirus patients be admitted into nursing home facilities where 1) the most vulnerable live, and 2) they’re not set up to handle an infectious virus.

    What this means is that if the corrupt media were to do the right thing (like that will ever happen) and go after Cuomo over his deadly nursing home policy, it would open a Pandora’s Box against these four Democrat governors and the Democrat party as a whole, which is something our fake media will never do.

    Democrats must be protected at all costs, even if the cost is thousands and thousands of lives.
    Officers later returned at around 5 p.m. and crowds started to grow substantially at around 5:40 p.m. SWAT team members were then activated at around 5:50 p.m., but did not respond until after 8 p.m.

    One unidentified man spoke to CBS4 saying the restrictions of COVID-19 caused the violence.

    “When we’re all caged up for months there’s going to be an explosion, and this was the explosion,” the man said.

After police deployed tear gas and a sonic weapon, the crowd became unruly and violent resulting in significant damage to the SWAT team's armored vehicle. Cue Twisted Sister's "We’re Not Gonna Take It".

“He's stressed and I am too. I told him I'm probably going to start crying. I don't know what to do for him,” France told Project Baltimore. “Why would he do three more years in school? He didn't fail, the school failed him. The school failed at their job. They failed. They failed, that's the problem here. They failed. They failed. He didn't deserve that.”

Actually, ma'am, your son did fail which is why he only has a 0.13 GPA. Is it all their fault? Probably not. Schools have become a female environment orientated toward teaching female students and unable to effectively teach male students. I would also going to point a finger at black leaders and thinkers. If such persons teach that "hard work and rational thinking" are racist, denigrate the traits and habits that lead to personal, civil and professional success, and blame white people for every failure, they have betrayed their community. Such persons are creating victims, not people that can improve their lives.
    A weird Tron video this week appeared to show Mr. Biden — looking every bit the part of Max Headroom — interfacing with House Democrats in Congress. Digitally, of course. 
 
    He droned on for a few minutes using scripted psycho-pablum, sitting alone at a table. The table was empty except for his instruction manual. As he spoke haltingly, he looked up at a giant screen from which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stared awkwardly, fake smiling.

    One could imagine the Dem droids watching from somewhere in the cybersphere nodding along obediently.

    The digital president then opened the floor for questions.

    “I’m happy to take questions,” he said, pretending for a moment to actually be the leader of the free world.

    Then he remembered.

    “If that’s what I’m supposed to do, Nance,” Mr. Biden added, using his bizarre nickname for the smiling droid staring down at him.

    Her face twitched. Mr. Biden, apparently, had failed to display proper subservience.

    “Whatever you want me to do,” he added meekly.

    Even more alarming than his failure to display proper subservience was the notion that Mr. Biden had offered to allow questions and possibly even answer them.

    The Overlords were not pleased.

    They immediately issued a long censorship “beep.” Then the Overlords cut away from the video of the man claiming to be the leader of the free world and replaced it with a test pattern of colored bars.

    There would be no questions. And certainly no answers.
    Gruesome surveillance video released on Saturday shows Estelle Davis walking through the intersection of New Lots and Van Sinderen Avenue just after 2pm on Friday as she was headed to her nursing job nearby.

    Davis appears to have her head down and is looking at either a cell phone or some other object in her hand as she walks toward the sidewalk.

    As she approaches the sidewalk, she is unaware that a large backhoe is being driven in reverse by the driver who likely did not see Davis.

    The backhoe’s shovel rams into Davis’ head, knocking her backwards.

    In the surveillance footage, several objects are seen flying from her hands.

    After she is knocked to the ground, the backhoe continues to pull out of the driveway and onto the intersection, dragging Davis’ body underneath for several feet.

    The backhoe then drives off and Davis is seen lying motionless in the middle of the intersection.
  • "The Perversion of Law as Psychological Warfare"--American Greatness (h/t WRSA). Despite self-admitted members of Antifa being on hand at the Capital incursion and encouraging others to commit property damage, "Christopher Wray, the director of FBI, testified to Congress on Tuesday that his agency has not found 'any evidence' that Antifa or other anti-Trump agitators may have infiltrated the January 6 rally in Washington, D.C., and helped to instigate the riot in the Capitol. None!" The author continues (emphasis in original):
    There is nothing accidental about what’s happening now. Former CIA Director John Brennan recently referred to an “unholy alliance” of “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians” who he lumped together as suspects in “insurgency movements” properly targeted for monitoring by the Biden Administration. 

    Is it paranoia to note the clear pattern of psychological warfare—flaunting the rigged system—when we see it confirmed consistently with other examples?

    One of the most striking of these confirmations is the demand for total, unquestioning acceptance of an almost divine purity surrounding the 2020 presidential election. It’s not sufficient to concede that there has been no solid proof of voter fraud. It is now required by America’s ruling class for everyone to deny, explicitly, there was anything suspicious or unusual at all. 
    The 13-year-old student who claimed that her teacher showed Muslim students a naked depiction of the prophet Muhammad has admitted that she was lying. This lie led to the beheading of that teacher.

    The History and Geography teacher, Samuel Paty of Paris, France, was beheaded by a Muslim radical after the story the young girl told gained international attention.
By at

3 comments:

  1. John WilderMarch 11, 2021 at 10:03 PM

    That video from BP was pretty interesting. Have to look into the chromosome thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DocentMarch 12, 2021 at 11:31 AM

      Even the idea that DNA could have naturally evolved is statistically impossible because there hasn't been enough time in the universe. Or the Big Bang theory is completely wrong.

      Delete
    2. John WilderMarch 14, 2021 at 9:31 PM

      Or . . . it was made.

      Delete

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