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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Links - 16th March 2024 (2 - Critical Race Theory)

What Marxism, 'Critical Race Theory,' and Tucker Carlson Share - The Atlantic - "Because Austen herself was very interested in capitalism, patriarchy, and psychology—though she wouldn’t have used any of those terms—these varied ways of reading could reveal new aspects to the story. Still, one also learned how to maintain some distance from all of the theorists, especially those who claimed unique access to truth. It was important to stay well away from bad Marxist scholars, for example, the kind who insisted that their way of reading Pride and Prejudice was the only way to read Pride and Prejudice. That attitude led to many dead ends: In the Soviet Union (where bad Marxist scholars were eventually the only scholars allowed to publish anything at all) literary scholarship, like scholarship more generally, became not just dull and boring but actually dangerous for anyone with a different point of view... General Mark Milley endorsed the underlying philosophy of Lit 130, which also happens to be the underlying philosophy of a liberal education: Read widely; listen to everybody; make your own judgment about what’s important. Here is how he put it: “I do think it’s important actually for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read.” The phrase widely read means that you can and should read things you disagree with. You can definitely read Marx without becoming a Marxist. You can read critical race theory without becoming a “critical race theorist,” however you define that. Doing both will help you become an educated person—or, as in Milley’s case, an educated soldier... The Carlsons, Ingrahams, and other culture warriors who now dominate the world of conservative infotainment seem now to believe that the study of American history—the knowledge of what actually happened on the territory that lies between the two shining seas—should be forbidden.  The Republican-controlled state legislatures and school boards that are currently seeking to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” have this same intention. Most of them seem not to have a very clear idea of what the phrase means, and so invariably the ban will be interpreted broadly and clumsily: Schoolchildren should not be taught the history of racism in America; they should not learn about slavery; they should not be allowed to think about the long-term consequences. That, apparently, is now the consensus in a segment of the Republican Party.
Given that post-Marxism dominates schools, the academy and elite circles (e.g. people want to put trigger warnings on conservative op-eds), we are urged to "decolonise" the curriculum (i.e. throw out the old stuff and bring in only the CRT perspective), that so-called anti-CRT laws don't do what the author claims they do, and that Milley claimed he wanted to understand "white rage" and wanted CRT texts in military reading lists without contrary views, the author is either naive or disingenuous

Meme - Rita Panahi @RitaPanahi: "When did Sesame Street turn into CRT for toddlers?"
Diana S. Fleischman @sentientist: "This clip raises several questions about muppet racial categories, muppet dialects, muppet inequality and the history of muppet colonization."

Meme - Wilfred Reilly: ""Leftist mental illness" is an almost perfect description of Wokist formulations like: "Speaking Japanese in Japan is an unfair 'privilege.""
Asian Dawn @AsianDawn4: "The Japanese aren't falling for it. School districts are now targeting anyone attempting to teach this "theory" in Japanese schools. They specifically call it "leftist illness""
"These people are trying to bring here this weird logic that is considered a huge social problem in in America. They are trying to bring the social chaos in America to Japan"

Rutgers professor calls white people 'villains' - "A professor at New Jersey’s Rutgers University said she believes that white people are historically “committed to being villains” — and that her unfiltered solution to addressing white supremacy would be to “take them out.”  Brittney Cooper, a professor of women’s and gender studies and Africana studies, addressed the history of colonialism during a discussion last month about critical race theory with the Root Institute.   “I think that white people are committed to being villains in the aggregate,” Cooper said during the online conference.  She said white people don’t trust society to redistribute power to diverse groups of people “because they are so corrupt.”  “You know, their thinking is so murky and spiritually bankrupt about power that they … they fear this really existentially letting go of power because they cannot imagine another way to be,” she said...   “The thing I want to say to you is we got to take these motherf–kers out,” she said, though she quickly added that she “doesn’t believe in a project of violence.”...   She argued that white people are already “losing,” noting the rising cost of living and that demographics are shifting.  “White people’s birth rates are going down … because they literally cannot afford to put their children, newer generations, into the middle class … It’s super perverse, and also they kind of deserve it,” she said.  She said only future generations may see an end to the so-called culture war.  “‘Kids actually can grasp critical race theory because the issue that the right has, is that critical race theory is just the proper teaching of American history,” she said."

The Right Wang Podcast - Posts | Facebook - "What is Critical Race Theory and why is it complete nonsense! A legal and political framework that originates in American Law schools back in the 1970s, it attempts to tackle the issue of race-related inequities by critiquing the existing legal and political framework. What they came up with wasn't pretty. By asserting that all existing framework outside of CRT only helps the majority peoples, it is a racially motivated system designed to perpetuate racism so that the majority can maintain its' hold on power. None of these claims were ever proven, and they don't need to, since facts and research only serve to protect the majority's claim on power, this creates a vicious feedback loop of not ever needing to prove anything. To further solidify this notion all systems outside of CRT only perpetuate racism, CRT proponents encourage storytelling as a mechanism to internally validate CRT's claims. If enough minority peoples tell enough stories of lived experiences of racism, this will serve to prove CRT is a valid framework to view society with. Put aside the fact that stories can be embellished, incorrectly remembered, wholly forgotten, and sometimes outright lies, the main problem with this method of assessing the world is the way it deflects any criticisms by framing it as either a personal attack (since the stories are usually personal) or framing it as a racist attack (because, remember, all your treasured beliefs are racist), proponents of CRT believes this makes them immune to outside criticism. Contradiction is not persecution, even in academia, where scholars are meant to be in an open market of ideas and free to challenge any of them, CRT-based assertions soundly reject all criticisms by saying such "attacks" (all criticisms are attacks) are racially motivated to maintain the majority races' hold on power.  In the CRT worldview, there are no singular instances of racism, all racist actions are in fact reinforced and embolden due to the state's actions and policies. In the CRT worldview, the majority race is benefiting from this racist system, thus imbuing them with privilege, whether or not they are conscious of this fact. In the CRT worldview, it is not enough that anyone with such privileges is just simply not racist because their inaction means they are condoning and justifying the state's racist system, and must actively be an "anti-racist" to show their support for oppressed minorities.  In the CRT worldview, we are just automatons with no agency, we are blind puppets with strings dancing to the tune of the racist state, if you are part of the majority you must be racist, if you are part of the minority you must be oppressed. CRT is flawed, but also dangerous, minorities are taught to believe every member of the majority race is out to oppress them, to actively keep them from attaining success due to the colour of their skin. I hope this comic will highlight what CRT is and bring a greater understanding of why this belief system is so dangerous."

The War on History Is a War on Democracy - The New York Times - "These Russian policies belong to a growing international body of what are called “memory laws”: government actions designed to guide public interpretation of the past. Such measures work by asserting a mandatory view of historical events, by forbidding the discussion of historical facts or interpretations or by providing vague guidelines that lead to self-censorship. Early memory laws were generally designed to protect the truth about victim groups. The most important example, passed in West Germany in 1985, criminalized Holocaust denial... A hundred years after the Tulsa massacre, almost to the day, the Oklahoma Legislature passed its memory law. Oklahoman educational institutions are now forbidden to follow practices in which “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” on any issue related to race"
There's so much to unpack in this article. I like how it's dangerous to not teach kids to hate each other based on their race. Plus, the left gets upset when exploring nuanced views of history that depart from the party line (e.g. that slavery was not entirely bad), and they want to ban "hate speech" and "harmful speech". And it's rich to go on about how criticising the 1619 project is dangerous at the same time as complaining about "a mandatory view of historical events".
The left keep claiming they feel "unsafe" when they hear views they disagree with, yet the writer claims "History is not therapy, and discomfort is part of growing up" (using a very imaginative interpretation of anti-CRT laws - comparing the actual text of the Oklahoma law) reveals that the author is lying about it, since the law forbids "any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex" being a *concept* that that's part of a course

Critical Witchcraft Theory - "CRT is based on the claim that an insidious, pervasive, but invisible force inhabits all Americans and American institutions. This invisible force exists outside the conscious experience of those who harbor it. Those purveyors of systemic racism are its hapless servants who believe in their own innocence as much as poor Sarah Good did when she got her chance to testify at the Salem trials. (“I’m no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink,” said Sarah when found guilty—the detail around which Nathaniel Hawthorne constructed The House of the Seven Gables.)  Denying one’s complicity in witchcraft, of course, was expected of witches. Their denials meant nothing in the ensuing trials. But in some ways the courts in Salem were less inclined to impetuous judgments than many of the advocates of today’s critical race theory. Cotton Mather, consulted after the first wave of Salem executions (Tituba, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Bridget Bishop) warned that “there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil’s authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us.” Cotton Mather was, however, still in favor of “the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious.” His view lay not far from how Ibram X. Kendi views systemic racism: “one of the fastest-spreading and most fatal cancers humanity has ever known . . . There is nothing I see in the world today, in our history, giving me hope that one day antiracists will win the fight, that one day the flag of antiracism will fly over the world of equity.” Kendi’s perspective, consistent with Puritan theology, is that this world has been given over to the corruptions of the infernal powers. No doubt enough ink has been spilled and pixels deployed by critics of Kendian “antiracism” to establish the circularity of his reasoning. Failure to endorse his edicts, in Kendi’s views, is itself racist. His message has been redoubled by Robin DiAngelo, and a host of others who seem to believe that they have been handed a profound insight into how our world works. Superficially this is a sociological insight, but to the extent that sociology is a real discipline dependent upon careful and critical analysis of empirical evidence, “systemic racism” is not a sociological theory. It is theology, or more precisely it is a demonology: a theory of witchcraft. It has no proof that “systemic racism” exists in modern American society. All it has is a Salem-esque panic based on the pseudo-authoritative declaration that it exists. We cannot, of course, prove that systemic racism does not exist, any more than we can prove that witches don’t exist... Systemic racism, by contrast, serves perfectly well as a realistic description of some societies, such as the antebellum states in which slavery was permitted. But today’s theorists of antiracism are faced with the difficulty that real systemic racism has disappeared from America. Individual racists can be spotted, i.e. people who loathe or at least dislike other people on the basis of race and behave towards those people with prejudice. But “systemic racism,” involving the complicity of law, the approval of society, the power of economics, and the reinforcement of culture is just gone. It was officially undone generations ago and we have since vigorously cleaned out its vestiges.   That leaves the proponents of systemic racism chasing after spectral evidence. They may not be able to see systemic racism with ordinary human eyes, but they “know” it is there and they have special magical eyes to see through its myriad disguises to the ugly truth beneath. William Stoughton and Cotton Mather would be proud of them.   The rise and widespread acceptance within elite institutions of the theory of systemic racism may surprise many Americans who pride themselves on their secular rationality...   “Climate change” is perhaps one part science to 10 parts hysteria. The COVID-19 pandemic was real but was bundled and rebundled in lies, rumors, hocus-pocus, medical myth-making, and statistical illiteracy. There are probably very few widely attested beliefs among Americans that are not, in some significant ways, grounded in shared illusions. Few of those illusions, however, are as destructive as systemic racism, which invites America down a path of social division that makes old-fashioned witch trials look like the wholesome models of judicial restraint.   I put Americans at the center of that last paragraph, but as an anthropologist who has read broadly in world ethnography, I will gladly forfeit any idea of American exceptionalism when it comes to readiness to credit the existence of witch-like malevolent powers. The power of invisible forces to torment mankind is a cultural universal. The exact forms of witchcraft accusations, protections against the hidden powers of undisclosed enemies, methods of discovery, punishments, and reprisals vary among sub-Saharan African societies, Inuits, Amazonians, Sri Lankans, and so on, but not the suspicion that sinister powers are at work. Atheistic societies are far from immune. Stalin and Mao had their equivalent imaginary categories of unseen wreckers and cultural traitors.    Thus folks like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo are tapping into something very old and very human: our seemingly limitless capacity to project our fears onto monsters in the dark—monsters that wear the faces of our family members, friends, and neighbors—and worst of all, our own faces in the mirror. Perhaps that last element owes something to the legacy of Sigmund Freud, who warned us to beware the beast that lurks within. But even that idea has plenty of folk precedents in the ideas about possession by demons and the involuntary transformation of men into werewolves and the like. Kendi has given us the up-to-date theory of American werewolvery, with white people, one and all, cast as Canis lupus... Systemic racism allures because it grants an all-purpose excuse for the failures, disappointments, and unhappiness of American blacks, and it allures whites who long for the rewards of contriteness and penitence, which are no less real. Nor should we forget the opportunists of all races who see the chances of financial gain, social status, and political influence that come from indulging the new cult.   Witchcraft crazes never end well—not for the accused, seldom for the accusers, and certainly not for the society that has permitted this temporary descent into madness. Where today is our William Phips, the governor who had the sense to put a stop to the orgy of hangings in a 17th-century New England village when the leading intellectual authorities would not? He has not stepped forward yet, but we can be confident he will."

Do No Harm: Critical Race Theory and Medicine
Weird. We keep being told that CRT is only about the law. Yet it pops up in the medical system too. And we have previously seen how it's invoked where schools are concerned too

Is "Critical Race Theory" the Wrong Term? - "Some time ago, the word came down in media circles that we should begin capitalizing the “B” in “black.”... Less than a month after these pieces, the Washington Post came out with, “Why ‘White’ should be capitalized, too,” arguing: “No longer should white people be allowed the comfort of this racial invisibility; they should have to see themselves as raced.”  In a flash the bulk of the business dropped their righteous reservations about using Stormfront style guide, and began employing capital Ws all over. I’ve since gone back to lower-casing everyone. People just make these things up on the fly, reveling in the overthrow of prevailing attitudes, even if the overturned standards are ones they themselves set ten minutes ago. It’s fashion, not politics... The Republicans’ inability to define their target is a problem because conventional wisdom’s official position on “critical race theory” is that it doesn’t exist. The nebulous academic concept is said to be just a phantasm, a fascist fantasy... There are two mainstream poses on this topic. One shrugs in would-be bewilderment, as if not understanding what conservatives could be upset about. The other points an accusatory finger back and insists Republicans cooked up the term as a stalking horse to prevent teachers from telling the truth about American racism. “Critical race theory,” said the Washington Post’s Colbert King, “is simple truth-telling.”... writer Wesley Yang penned a series of tweets about the “new language of power throughout the non-profit sphere,” giving it a name: the “Successor Ideology.” The author of The Souls of Yellow Folk created an umbrella term to explain everything from whatever the hideous moniker “cancel culture” means to purges of classics and STEM disciplines in universities, to the new move toward segregated “affinity spaces,” to “intent doesn’t matter,” to the spread of workforce training sessions that ask white employees in both the public and private sectors to focus on things like “undoing your own whiteness,” to a dozen other things. What Yang went on to describe in a series of articles and appearances isn’t narrowly about race, or trans issues, or feminism, or American history, but a much wider concept that argues that our foundational notions about everything are wrong and need to be overturned... Attempts by conservatives or even critics on the left to question any of this are usually described in news accounts as efforts to clamp down on something uncontroversially right and necessary, e.g. “educational discussions about race.” This ignores the fact that the movement seems also to be about things like ending blind auditions for orchestra applicants, or redefining mathematics to discourage a focus on “getting the right answer,” to classics teachers canceling the classics, and many other bizarre things... In some instances it pleases intellectuals to argue that all of these things are and must be connected — that the opponent of police brutality must also stand in opposition to everything from the Harper’s Letter to the young adult novels of Amélie Zhao and EE Charlton-Trujillo. Sometimes, as in the case of the response to latest Republican backlash, the argument is not only that none of these things are connected, but that there’s nothing to connect."
The woke are obsessed with constantly-changing terminology because it's a way to signal their status - not everyone is up-to-date with the latest approved vocabulary
Weird how the left believe so many mutually exclusive things about CRT

Black father tells board CRT keeps racism on 'life support', moments later they vote to ban it - ""I am a direct descendant of the North American slave trade. Both my parents are black. All four of my grandparents are black, all eight of my great grandparents, and all 16 of my great greats. On my mother's side, my ancestors were enslaved in Alabama. On my father's side, we were enslaved in Texas," father Derrick Wilburn said during a board meeting last week.   "I am not oppressed. I'm not oppressed and I'm not a victim. Wilburn went on to say that "racism in America would by and large be dead today if it were not for certain people and institutions keeping it on life support."  "Sadly, one of those institutions is the American education system."    The father of three went on to say that he "can think of nothing more damaging to a society than to tell a baby born today, that she has grievances against another baby born today, simply because of what their ancestors may have done two centuries ago."... Wilburn went on to say in the video that his three children "are not oppressed, either, though they are victims."  "I taught my children they are victims of three things: Their own ignorance, their own laziness and their own poor decision making. That is all," he said."

Kansas math teacher resigns over CRT training and renewed mask mandates, gets fined - "A Kansas elementary school teacher resigned from his job following a mask requirement for unvaccinated teachers, coupled with its recent critical race theory push, and was subsequently fined by the district.   "That was my final straw," Josiah Enyart said, referring to the Shawnee Mission School District sending an email renewing its mask mandate for all students and unvaccinated teachers on July 25...  In 2014, the school announced a $20 million technology update that gave every student Ipads or Macbooks, which had Enyart questioning, "Why do we need all of this?" Then, the district implemented the Deep Equity critical race theory training for teachers. The district spent $400,000 on the training, which told teachers to "reject and resist any parents who disagree with" critical race theory, the Sentinel reported.   "It’s all critical race theory stuff," Enyart said. "That was kind of the start where I realized, they’re really trying to bring this in and make it something."  "I can’t believe the lack of transparency with curriculums, teacher trainings, in class activities based on the trainings, and top-down regulations used as indoctrination tools"... "As a teacher, I can see these things, but after talking to hundreds of parents, they can’t. Why wouldn’t the public school system want the parents to know everything that their child is being exposed to?  Why aren’t the parents being asked before these decisions are being made?  And when they do, why do the board decisions not match the data on the surveys? As a district that prides itself on being ‘data driven,’ they do not seem to be following any real data on any of the issues."  He also voiced displeasure with how the school handled teaching students during the pandemic, lamenting that while teaching remotely, "district leaders did not give parents or teachers a sense of control or accountability where we could help students succeed."  "I couldn’t do anything but give them no grade," Enyart said. "What a 12th grader has to know and get done to graduate is what a 5th grader had to do 40 years ago," he added."

Ban Critical Race Theory Now - "When Paul Rossi, a high school teacher at Manhattan's Grace Church School, objected to CRT at his school, the lead teacher admitted: "We're demonizing white people for being born." Robin DiAngelo, author of the bestselling White Fragility, argues that all whites are inherently racist. Bettina Love, an education professor, has written in Education Week that "white teachers need a particular type of therapy" to address their "white emotionalities" and to undo "whiteness" in education. Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of The New York Times' CRT-infused "1619 Project," has plainly stated that her project's deepest ambition is "to get white Americans to stop being white."  Anyone who doesn't immediately understand how morally abhorrent this all is need only swap the races and/or epithets used in these statements. Can you imagine if school leaders admitted that they were demonizing children for being born black? If bestselling authors insisted that all blacks are inherently vicious and must work on their Black Instability? If teacher magazines suggested that black teachers need therapy to address "black emotionalities?" If curriculum designers explained that their goal was to get black kids to stop being black?... CRT, however, defines itself explicitly against traditional civil rights. According to Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, CRT is "unlike traditional civil rights discourse" in that it "questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law."... Robin DiAngelo has declared that it is "dangerous" to say that you try to treat people equally, regardless of race. Teacher magazines like Educational Leadership insist that teachers must "challenge racial 'colorblindness.'" Teacher support books recommended by the Department of Education declare that when teachers try to be color-blind, they are actually creating an "unsafe environment" for students.  Indeed, Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist and arguably the most influential CRT public intellectual, has issued a clarion call on behalf of racial discrimination... In the context of education, this is a call for teachers to racially discriminate against white children as a supposed remedy for past racial discrimination against black children.  It's no wonder, then, that CRT practices are the mirror images of some historic practices that horrified us when we learned about them in school (or, for many older Americans, witnessed them firsthand). For instance, in Evanston, Illinois, a school separated staff by race for training, offered racially segregated "affinity groups" for students and parents, told teachers to treat students differently based on race and publicly shamed white students based on their race. This is all obviously illegal, and the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights had declared it, properly, to be so—that is, until the Biden administration officially suspended that decision, suggesting that all of this might be totally acceptable.  No one could possibly doubt that if a school district shamed black students based on their race, told teachers in writing to discipline black students more severely or offered "whites-only" professional development opportunities, that Biden's Office for Civil Rights would force them to stop.  Unfortunately, the Biden Department of Education has clearly gone "woke." When Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was Connecticut's commissioner of education, he declared, "We need teachers behind this wave of our curriculum becoming more 'woke.'" When Deputy Education Secretary-nominee Cindy Marten was superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District, she oversaw training that told white teachers that they were "spirit murdering" black students. And last month, the Department of Education issued a proposed regulation for federal civics grants that name-checked the "1619 Project," Ibram X. Kendi and a book by education professors advocating against "colorblindness."  State-sanctioned racism is, of course, not a new phenomenon in America. It is only the group being intentionally victimized and the institutions endorsing (or even enforcing) racism that have changed... today, it is becoming clear that, when it comes to education, the federal government is not exercising its authority to protect all students. Therefore, it is time for state legislatures to step forward and ensure that the Civil Rights Act is vigorously enforced.  Critics of proposed state laws addressing CRT in schools contend that these proposals constitute "censorship." While the details of these proposed laws vary—and matter greatly—this charge is, by and large, bogus.  No teacher today is free to say things like "black students are ignorant and therefore I decenter, disrupt and dismantle blackness in the classroom." Such rank bigotry is (properly) illegal under the Civil Rights Act. Only by abandoning Enlightenment rationalism and the avowed neutral principles of the rule of law—as CRT affirmatively encourages its adherents to do—could one argue that stopping what is obviously "illegal discrimination" when applied to one race becomes "un-American censorship" when another race is the target instead. Anyone arguing in good faith against state laws addressing CRT in schools must argue against what these proposed laws actually say. For example, Idaho's recently passed bill to ban CRT in the classroom declares that no educational institution "shall direct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm" that "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin is inherently superior or inferior [and/or] that individuals should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin." Therefore, the Idaho law's critics must argue that schools actually should tell students that certain races are inherently superior or inferior, and that individuals should be treated differently based on their race.  This, as we have seen, may well be what leading CRT activists actually believe. But it is not what everyday critics of such laws typically contend. They'll make arguments about censorship or the First Amendment, or claim that these laws will hurt efforts "intended" to address racism"

Helping by Setting Yourself on Fire / Arabs inciting the Nakba / Palestinian Child Soldiers


*Aaron Bushnell self-immolation* Ralph from the Simpsons: "I'm helping"


"ARAB LEADERS WHO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT WAS ARABS WHO CREATED THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE ISSUE

"The withdrawals were carried out pursuantto an order emanating from Amman. The withdrawal from Nazareth was ordered by Amman; the withdrawal from Safad was ordered by Amman; the withdrawal orders from Lydda and Rale are well known to you. During none of these withdrawals did fighting take place. The regular armies did not enable the inhabitants of the country to defend themselves, but merely facilitated their escape from Palestine. All the orders emanated from one place ... "
Jamal Husseini
Palestinian representative to the United Nations
A clash of destinies: The Arab-Jewish War and the founding of the State of Israel. New York: Praeger. pp. 232-233

PALESTINIAN ATTEMPTS TO REWRITE HISTORY WILL NEVER ERASE QUOTES LIKE THIS"

Of course, the replies to someone who posted this were just accusations of lying (with no proof, since terrorism supporters almost always have none).


"Palestinian/Hamas War Crimes: Hospitals, Schools, Residences Used As Military Bases

Hamas Militant: "IT'S A LITTLE GAME CALLED HIDE THE ROCKET!"

GAZA SCHOOL: *destroyed*

World Collusion Drives These War Crimes

Albums of Facts to Know and Share

Children Raised as Soldiers and Weapons of War: More Casualties, the Better the Optics"

Links - 16th March 2024 (1 - Women)

Meme - "Him: why don't you like me nutting on yo face no more?
Her: *Lisa Simpson with red eye*"

Meme - "Anonymous: My wife's credit score dropped significantly from 711 to 540 because she co-signed for a car for her brother, which eventually got repossessed. When she asked me for advice before making this decision, I strongly advised against it but she went ahead anyway. Fast forward two years later and my wife needed a new car after the motor of her current one gave out. She wanted to purchase a brand new 2024 Camry, however due to her low credit score she was only approved for an older model a 2021 Toyota Camry to be exact. She was pissed because I wouldn't co sign for her. Even though I have a 812 credit score and we've co signed for each other in the past I was showing her that she has to be held accountable for her poor decision. This led us both into another argument about our differences regarding how much risk is acceptable when helping family members financially by cosigning large purchases like cars. I told her that she was gonna have to settle with her 2021 because she didn't take my advice initially. Was I wrong? Would you have given into helping her out? She told me that I was a selfish son of a witch. All comments are welcomed. Thoughts???"

Meme - "Men create unrealistic beauty standards for women"
"It ain't us. We'll fuck anything that walks"

Meme - "The new GTA has a female lead? I thought the whole point of the game was being able to drive?"

Meme - "I'm not a squirter, but I tell guys I am so they'll work harder."

Meme - ">be me
>have a female coworker
>not attracted to her at all
>find out we live in the same building
>It's dark out, so I offer to walk home with her. She accepts
>we go home after work a couple times, she did 90% of the talking and it was nice
>again, still not interested in her
>out of the blue, another coworker tells me that she's lesbian and taken
>find out that said coworker told him to tell me
>we never walk home again together
I'm not mad at her, I'm just confused how she equated walking home together with romantic interest. I thought I was just being kind"
Luckily, she didn't accuse him of sexual harassment

Meme - "A woman apparently drew up this list of rewards to encourage her husband to do household chores for her:
The sad legacy of Skinner and Pavlov
Sexual Rewards
Wash Dishes = Hand Job + Put Away
Look After kids for a whole day (includes feeding, doing nappies + putting to bed) = blow Job
Hoover House = Touch Fanny
Fold + Put away washing = kisses
Cook dinner + clean kitchen = anything you want
2 or more jobs in one day = SEX!"

Meme - "Im a female mechanic and i love scamming women and do it all the time because they think they can trust me since i'm one of them. Silly silly."a>

Meme - "I'm a lesbian, but my uterus keeps babbling about guys during ovulation.
"OMG look at those muscles!"
"Uterus, we're gay!"
"But don't we want to be impregnated?"
"No!"
"Ok I'll give you rape fantasies where they get you pregnant! :D"
"fuck no why do I like that idea? god damn it Uterus!"
"DITTO. Stupid uterus, overriding Gay Brain. It figured out somewhere along the line that my wife can't get me Pregnant, and that I can't get her pregnant. Stupid penis dreams.."
Weird. I thought gay people know their sexuality from when they are kids

OG Roland Rat ✌️🕊☮️ on X - "Liberal democracy is when your culture is so bankrupt that the closest thing available to a spiritual experience is a Taylor Swift song."
The need for religion must be satisfied

Meme - NPC: "Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched TV broadcast since 1969"
Normal person: "Perhaps the level of outrage over Taylor Swift was exaggerated then for political purposes?"
NPC: *upset*

Meme - "My Timeline
*Tiny slice* People angry about Taylor Swift at a football game.
*Small slice* People mildly annoyed about Taylor Swift at a football game.
*Huge slice* People angry about people being angry about Taylor Swift at a football game."

Meme - "BUILDS ENTIRE CAREER SINGING ABOUT HER BAD CHOICES IN MEN
ENDORSES JOE BIDEN"
Of course, it was always the men's fault, not hers

Makeup usage in women as a tactic to attract mates and compete with rivals - "Age and intrasexual competition predicted positively money spent on makeup. Age, intrasexual competition and mate value predicted frequency of makeup usage. Women who wear makeup more frequently also spend more money on and time applying it... makeup usage may have a dual evolutionary utility, serving as a behavioral tactic of both intersexual attraction –including alteration of age perception– and intrasexual competition."
Weird. We keep being told that women put on makeup for themselves

Meme - "Triple Threat 21
Student
less than a mile away
About Me: Looking to be spoiled and looking for platonic male company for all THREE of us ladies. Take us out for dinner and drinks. We guarantee you laughs and good times as friends. Must have car and stable income
WE WILL BE CHECKING CREDIT SCORE"

Meme - "zendaya??? girl?
Fingers giving sis flashbacks
*Tom Holland imitating web shooting in front of Zendaya*"

Meme - "Oh you're going to join Verizon? Are you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure?" *AT&T Lily with huge cleavage*

Meme - "Women: "Men need to stop comparing and treating us like objects"
Also Women:
Katherine Gazda @Katherinegazda: "One night with me or a PS5?" *in skimpy clothing, with legs wide open and against wall*"

Meme - "This man holds the world record for putting the most women on all fours." *Mr Clean*

Artist Alicia Framis to Wed AI Hologram Trained on Her Past Lovers - "In an era where the boundaries between the digital and the physical blur, Alicia Framis—a pioneering Spanish-Dutch artist—is set to take a bold step into the future of human-robot relationships. This summer, within the contemporary walls of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Framis will marry AILex, an AI hologram. This event is more than a ceremony; it symbolizes the dawning of a 'new generation of love,' where the heart does not discriminate between silicon and flesh."

Meme - "When she's unemployed but always on vacations and staying at expensive hotels: *woman with closed eyes and 3 corn dogs in mouth*"

Professor Michael Flood on X - "Instead of saying, “Women slept their way to the top,” We say, “Men withhold promotions until they receive sexual favours.”"
Amazing logic. As usual, women have no agency. So there's nothing wrong with offering a bribe, since you're just trying to get something you deserve but is being wrongly withheld from you. So punishing people who offer bribes is unjust.

Meme - "MY WIFE WALKED IN THE HOUSE, SLAMMED HER SH*T DOWN AND STARTED RANTING ABOUT EVERYTHING IMAGINABLE. OUR 9 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WALKS IN AND SAID, WHO LIT THE FUSE ON YOUR TAMPON?" I HAD TO STEP OUTSIDE SO DIDN'T GET SLAPPED FOR LAUGHING..."

Meme - Girl: "im having a bad day :("
Guy thinking: "when will this bitch have a good day"
Guy typing: "whats wrong"

Meme - "Men f**k anything that moves"
"Men impose unrealistic beauty standards on women"
Woman: *heavy breathing*

Woman who ‘brought nothing but grief’ to brief marriage with millionaire gets $5k in divorce - "At the age of 58, a Singaporean widower who had more than $10 million in assets met a 40-year-old woman through a dating agency in Taiwan.  He convinced her to move to Singapore and marry him here, but the marriage was short-lived.  Six months into the marriage, the woman returned to Taiwan and spent 10 months there. She flew back to Singapore after the man sent her $19,300.  After living with him for less than two months, she went back to Taiwan. He never saw her again.  The man succeeded in getting a divorce in Singapore.  In dividing the matrimonial assets, High Court judge Choo Han Teck said: “Given that she brought nothing but grief to the marriage, and added nothing to it during its brief span, there is nothing that can be awarded to her.”... As for maintenance, Justice Choo said it was fair to award the woman a lump sum of $5,000 as a “clean break”, given such a brief marriage.  “There is no evidence of what the defendant had done in her sojourn in Singapore, except that she was given $400 to $800 a month as allowance, in addition to the $19,300 that the plaintiff gave to cajole her to return to Singapore,” he said.  Justice Choo also commented on a lament the man had made in his affidavit.  The man, who has two adult children, said he had “longed for a supportive and peaceful relationship in (his) sunset years after being widowed, and this short-lived marriage has caused (him) much grief”...   The man worked as a manager and earned more than $66,000 a month. She has a degree in costume design, but did not have a known job. She did not work when she was in Singapore.  “She seemed bored, not at all keen to do any housework, and told the plaintiff so in a recorded text message,” said the judge.  On May 28, 2020, she left for Taiwan after promising that she would return to Singapore in a couple of months. She did not.   “According to the plaintiff, he wanted very much for her to return, but she wanted very much for him to buy her an expensive house in Taiwan,” said the judge...   “The plaintiff’s elation lasted three weeks. The defendant proved to be difficult to live with, persisting in finding fault with the plaintiff, and making numerous demands for money without success,” said the judge...   In his judgment, Justice Choo set out the many instances where the woman ignored the court’s directions on matters such as the filing of documents, and did not turn up for scheduled hearings"

Meme - Adam: "I want a perfect soulmate"
God: "That will cost you an arm and a leg."
Adam: "What can I get for a rib?"
God: "..."

Meme - Woman: "Babe you think my friend Sarah is hot?"
Man thinking: "That's a tricky question!"
Man: "She's not my type babe!"
Woman: "Sorry Sarah! We won't have a threesome!!!"

'My ex fed our vegan daughter McDonald's chicken nuggets behind my back - I'm livid' - "one dad who recently caved and took his daughter to get some chicken nuggets has left his ex-wife seething over his food choices - because their daughter is supposed to be following a vegan diet.  The young girl's mum said she became vegan herself after moving in with her ex because he also followed a plant-based diet, and when their daughter was born eight years ago, they also raised her as vegan and continued to do so after their split. However, the mum was left baffled when her daughter began having a "full-blown meltdown" after driving past a McDonald's - as she stated she wanted chicken nuggets like she has when she's with her dad...   The mum also insisted she's perfectly happy for her daughter to choose to ditch her vegan diet, but just would have liked to have been "made aware" beforehand."

Meme - "Alyssa Tinder Goth Girl
i thought you said you liked me
You told me you stabbed your last boyfriend
awww is someone scared
Yes"

Meme - "r/AstralProjection
u/jaylo0vin
My boyfriend has astral sex with someone every night and denies it
Negative AP Experience
We have two children together. It'd be a year (with some court related complications) but I think I should. I've approached it in an honest, straightforward, and kind way. But last night I got real proof. He denies it completely and calls me crazy. But I have videos of him talking in his "sleep" that are sexually inclined. Opinions?"

Meme - "Get a man who keeps you wet. *man walking in rain with umbrella, with woman without umbrella*"

Meme - "I'm going to tell my kids this was drag queen story hour *Michelle Obama reading Llama Llama Red Pajama*"

White Woman (Phie Udora) Explains Why She’s Got 11 Kids with 8 Different Black Men - "Other trolls ask her if she is having kids for business purposes; that is, using her dozen baby daddies to get financial support. As expected, racial undertones are also in the mix. They ask her why she chooses only Black men.  The news doesn’t end there either, for Phi has made it clear that she is not done having kids. She still wants more. In one of her TikTok videos, she has said she wants to get to 30. That is, she still needs 19 kids.  But what does she say about her decision to have many kids with different men? In another video in august ( it has now garnered 3.2 million views), she explained that she wants many different baby daddies so that her kids would never be ‘fatherless.’"

Princess vs. Countess: a topless duel over flowers - "In August of 1892, a duel took place in Liechtenstein. The two adversaries took the field armed with rapiers to take satisfaction in blood over an unpardonable outrage: a dispute over a flower arrangement. The precise nature of the disagreement has been lost in the mists of time. All we know is that Princess Pauline Metternich, granddaughter of Napoleonic-era Austrian statesman Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and Countess Anastasia Kilmannsegg, wife of the Statthalter of Lower Austria, had conflicting visions of how the flowers should be arranged at the Viennese International Exhibition of Music and Theater of 1892... Presiding over the encounter was Baroness Lubinska, a Polish noblewoman who had been sent for from Warsaw to oversee the violence. The Baroness was a medical doctor, a rarity for women at that time, and rarer than that, she practiced Listerite principles. This was an important asset for someone who might have to field-dress rapier wounds. The Baroness had seen first-hand how easily infection could set in with even superficial cuts in battle because dirty clothes would be stabbed into the wound and make it fester, so she told the male footmen and coachman to turn around and ordered the dueling parties to strip to the waist.  This was not to be a duel to the death. The aim was first blood only...   The encounter caused a sensation. It became known as the Emancipated Duel and scenes of topless women swordfighting became very popular on stage, screen and in naughty postcards.
EDIT: Darnit, too many smart people read this blog. It seems there is no hard evidence for this duel ever having taken place. The contemporary accounts were basically gossip"

Meme - "Me *man with weapon*
Fat single mothers with black kids *black panther*"

Splitting bills 'not the way to go': TikTok user highlights differences between dating Singaporean and Indonesian men - "Singaporean guys are "more practical", whereas Indonesians put in more effort in the dating phase of a relationship.  So says Indonesian-Chinese TikTok user Cassie... Bolstering her case of Indonesians being "more providing", Cassie shares how the practice of splitting bills while on a date is "not the way to go" in Indonesia.  "Whereas here [in Singapore], it is quite normal," she states."

Meme - "The FBI wants to steal my penis, can I hide it inside you?"

Meme - Woman in hijab: "Feeling proud be muslim"
*Woman in bikini*

Meme - ">go on date with guy from bumble
>he's cute and handsome
>2nd meetup, at my place
>we're on my bed talking
>I tell him that before we have sex, I need to ask if he does any of the following: listen to joe rogan, own any amount of cryptocurrency, considers himself a gym rat'
>he says yes to all three
>I tell him he has no empathy and I don't know if I can fuck him
>he just stares at me then says 'you don't have a personality,, and leaves
>get mad and call him a douchebag
>he already left my apartment
>text him and call him immature
>'message not delivered'
>this asshole fucking blocked me
why are men like this"
"You sound fat"

Meme - Ellie-Mae Green @elliemae_green: "Makes me cringe how 15 & 16 year old girls are going out, getting into nightclubs, but it’s always the guys fault if he takes one home? You're in a club for 18+ don't ruin someone else life because you think you're big and clever. When you're not. Go home."

'Sidelined' fathers face unmet emotional, sexual needs after baby arrives, study finds - "Singaporean fathers want to be actively involved in parenting their newborn babies, but they face roadblocks in doing so, a new study has found.  In the first longitudinal study observing paternal involvement and the challenges Singaporean fathers face, researchers found that new dads here had inadequate information and training by healthcare professionals, who still tend to focus on mothers.  Many fathers are also “sidelined” owing to social norms — as mothers and older members of the extended family such as the couple’s in-laws believe that they are better equipped to take care of the newborn child.  This was particularly “unique” to Singaporean and Asian fathers, said the study’s principal investigator Dr Shefaly Shorey from the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies... There is a shortage of documentation on paternal involvement during infancy in the Asian context, she added.  “There has been a lot of studies and literature done on mothers, but people forget that with changing society norms, fathers are also increasingly involved in taking care of their new-borns.”... Issues such as the lack of emotional support and unmet sexual needs of fathers surfaced later on, researchers found.  At the six-month mark, at least one father was reported to be at risk of depression, the study found.  Fathers were also found to have unmet sexual needs, with several dads having questions about when they could start having sex with their spouses again.  TODAY spoke to several fathers who did not participate in the study. Some said they found it difficult to express their emotional needs due to societal norms which expect men to be strong.  In addition, these fathers said that they were often tasked with “back-end” duties such as buying diapers, milk powder and groceries — another common experience among dads that researchers identified in their study... Recounting his experience as a new father, Mr Chong said: “In the first few months after (my wife gave) birth, sometimes… I felt quite alone. Because (all the) focus is on my wife and baby.”"

Meme - "Hill: filters can only hide so much. Stop using them
Girllll if he blacked your eye before Christmas just say dat *heart over eye*"

Janel Comeau on X - "instagram: look at my new boyfriend
twitter: I can't get a boyfriend
reddit: my [21F] boyfriend [53M] boyfriend forbids me from going into the basement and has a sock drawer full of missing women's driver's licenses, AITA for being uncomfortable? the wedding is in three hours"

Meme - "i'm not arguing with a straight man. go play with your light-up keyboard or piss all over a toilet seat or go to war or something."
"i trust the universe and i know that everyone's paths are different but seeing people my age with marriages and kids and the house with white picket fence type shit ruins my day every. single. time."

Meme - "For our 5 year anniversary, We took a re-enactment photo. *man with woman* *man with hoe*"

Meme - "Good men stopped being good men to women, when they saw women treating thugs better than they treated good men"

Meme - "Even though it cost him $2,500 it was still the best prank Steve ever pulled on his twin brother. *man proposing to woman*"

Meme - "do you play the guitar"
"yeah i do. why (:"
"this guy i wanna fuck plays and i wanna act like i know what i'm talking about"
"yeah sure i can help"
"it's not you btw. just to be clear"
"thank you for specifying"

Friday, March 15, 2024

Links - 15th March 2024 (2 - Justin Trudeau)

New Liberal 'online harms' bill make hate penalty up to life in prison - "“We know that there are powerful organizations and people that may line up against this legislation, people with money and people with influence. My message to these people and these organizations is very simple: it is now the time to work directly with us. Profit cannot be prioritized over safety.”"
Clearly no one profits by opposing "hate".
Liberals feel unsafe when they hear contrary opinions, so good luck

GOLDSTEIN: Online harms bill an assault on free speech, critics say - "The two Canadian civil liberties organizations that convinced a federal court judge the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act violated fundamental rights — which the feds are appealing — are sounding similar alarms about its new online harms bill... The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) say while the proposed legislation contains legitimate measures to protect children from online sexual abuse, cyber-bulling and self-harm, and to combat the spread of so-called “revenge porn,” its provisions to prevent the expression of hate are draconian, vaguely worded and an attack on free speech... “Justice Minister (Arif) Virani has tied these speech restrictions to defensible measures like removing images of child sexual exploitation material and revenge porn,” said CCF executive director Joanna Baron. “But don’t be fooled. Most of the bill is aimed at restricting freedom of expression. This heavy-handed bill needs to be severely pared down to comply with the constitution.” Both the CCLA and CCF warn the bill could lead to life imprisonment for someone convicted of “incitement to genocide” — a vague term only broadly defined in the bill — and up to five years in prison for other vaguely defined hate speech crimes... people and organizations will self-censor themselves because of fear of being prosecuted criminally, or fined civilly, for what is actually legal speech... The CCF warns that the conditions the bill imposes on social media companies to patrol, monitor and flag online material that may be offensive but is not illegal, suggests the government’s real goal is “aimed at encouraging social media companies to censor speech that the government cannot outlaw.”"

Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "The bill would create a new section 13(2) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It says you’re liable for anything you’ve ever posted (if you have the power to remove it now). Link here:"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "It gets worse. The bill creates a pre-crime called “fear of hate crime”. You can be put under house arrest, with an ankle monitor, forced to give blood samples, banned from talking to any person, etc. if someone “fears” you’ll say something hateful."

Justice Minister defends house arrest power for people feared to commit a hate crime in future - The Globe and Mail - "Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already... Bill C-63 is designed to curb the proliferation of hate online, but it also establishes a new hate-crime offence, which would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.  Mr. Virani said the hate-crime offence would only be applied if coupled with another crime and the life sentence would only apply in the most serious of cases – not, for example, for mischief to a garage door... Since it was published on Monday, some lawyers and constitutional experts have raised fears that Bill C-63 could chill free speech. The bill would allow people to file complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission over what they perceive as hate speech online – including, for example, off-colour jokes by comedians. People found guilty of posting hate speech could have to pay victims up to $20,000 in compensation.  But experts including internet law professor Michael Geist have said even a threat of a civil complaint – with a lower burden of proof than a court of law – and a fine could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.  Mr. Virani said as Justice Minister he has sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes freedom of expression."
When precrime and crimethink merge

Dacey Media on X - "Gaslighting: Pro Level "Truly strong leaders don't use police and military to oppress people's voices." - @JustinTrudeau #TrudeauMustGo"

EDITORIAL: Welcome to Trudeau’s cabinet. How do you like your steak? - "the Trudeau cabinet racked up more than $1 million in expenses associated with three retreats held to tackle this country’s affordability crisis. Taxpayers are struggling to pay their rents. Grocery prices are so high, many shoppers take a pass on the meat aisle. Homeowners face the grim reality of renegotiating their mortgages at sky high rates. The Bank of Canada hiked interest rates 10 times between March 2022 and July 2023, largely as a result of Trudeau’s irresponsible and inflationary overspending. As average folk suffer the result of his disastrous policies, ministers jetted off to Vancouver, Hamilton and Charlottetown and racked up bills for steak dinners and breakfast buffets. In Vancouver, the expenses included a $9,225 bill for a private dinner, where cabinet ministers dined on filet mignon, ceviche, salmon and prawn ravioli. There was also a $10,000 charge at Grain Testing Bar at the Hyatt Regency Hotel."

FIRST READING: Again called out as NATO freeloader, Trudeau says 'more to do' - "the Trudeau government has been actively cutting its defence budget even as almost all of its peer countries pursue dramatic increases to military spending as a response to rising global instability. Until at least 2026, the Liberal government has officially planned to decrease the military budget in absolute terms — making it one of the only federal departments that is officially set to become smaller... This is all happening amidst an acute recruitment shortage that is fast making the Canadian Armed Forces unable to complete even basic tasks. The most recent “results report” from the Department of Defence warned that — due to “ongoing personnel shortages” and “inadequate” repair facilities — only 43.8 per cent of the Royal Canadian Air Force fleet was meeting “training and readiness requirements.” In November, Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee even put out an official video saying that the navy was in a “critical state” and “a storm.” While the the Royal Canadian Navy has just accepted delivery of some long-awaited offshore patrol vessels, Topshee said his service was so short of personnel that they could only deploy “one at a time.” Canada’s hemorrhaging military readiness has noticeably impacted its NATO contributions. Just last summer, the RCAF was unable to participate in a major NATO training exercise because it couldn’t spare any aircraft. And while Canada has answered a NATO call to shore up the alliance’s eastern flank against Russia, the Canadian deployment is among the smallest. About 1,000 Canadian soldiers are currently deployed to Latvia as part of deterrence operations in Eastern Europe. While the operation is Canada’s largest overseas deployment, it represents only 25 per cent of the total foreign NATO troops posted to Latvia — and three per cent of the total NATO troops deployed along Russia’s western border in response to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.  Trudeau’s Poland comments are not the first time his government has made a vague commitment to increase military spending — although prior instances have all failed to alter the status quo."

GUNTER: Trudeau's Alberta trip full of imaginary enemies - "Trudeau came without informing the provincial government. That’s not exactly a legal necessity. This is, after all, his country, too. However, it is considered a courtesy for federal ministers to inform their provincial counterparts in advance. Not telling the UCP government was deliberate. Also, no provincial minister or MLA was invited to the housing announcement. Trudeau’s lone Edmonton Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, was there. So too was his old friend, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who served in Trudeau’s cabinet during its first term. But, despite the fact that both the federal and provincial governments have largely put aside their differences to cooperate on housing affordability, there was no provincial representative in sight. And while the PM had no time for a get-together with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, he and his staff did manage to find time for a 30-minute sit-down with “progressive” Edmonton podcaster, Ryan Jespersen. It was the Jespersen interview that created the greatest anger among Albertans. Trudeau was at one and the same time arrogant, delusional, dismissive and insulting. Time and again his answers betrayed his inner belief that his government’s current unpopularity isn’t its own fault. Poor polling has little to do with Liberal policies – carbon tax, EV mandate, inflation, housing and immigration – and everything to do with how others, notably the opposition Conservatives and online journalists, are being mean to them. In Trudeau’s mind, everything is a “comms” (communications) problem. You can witness that thinking in last summer’s cabinet shuffle, which changed no Liberal policies only the mouthpieces attempting to communicate them to voters. And you can see it with the recent rebranding of the Climate Action Initiative Payment to the Canada Carbon Rebate. Surely the only reason 100% of Canadians aren’t behind the Liberals’ noble scheme is that they were too stupid to recognize what the old name was when they saw it on their bank statements. Then Trudeau turned to insulting the intelligence of Albertans specifically. In a patronizing tone that lasted throughout his Jespersen conversation, Trudeau said Albertans were being fooled by their own government and by online sharpies into disagreeing with his efforts to decarbonize Canada’s economy...  Trudeau insisted oil was rapidly becoming an unprofitable commodity, so Albertans’ best chance for a prosperous future was to get behind such grandiose ideas as his net-zero power grid and his belief that pipelines are things of the past. However, the International Energy Agency expects world oil demand to grow by a million barrels a day this year and to continue to grow until at least 2040, perhaps 2050. In the working lifetimes of most Albertans, alternate energies will not provide the employment benefits of good old oil and natural gas. So who truly has Albertans’ best interests at heart? Even while insisting he wasn’t one of the “eastern bastards,” Trudeau told listeners that Albertans were being manipulated by “conspiracy theorists” and pedlars of misinformation. That’s shorthand for “Hey, you hicks. I’m smarter than you.” You need me and my government to guide you and regulate what you see online to keep you from harming yourselves, the planet and democracy. Usually, it’s the people who see invisible plots and imaginary enemies, as Trudeau does, who need the help."

AGAR: Sun setting on imploding federal Liberals - "Abacus Data writes that as of Feb. 25, “it’s been 644 straight days that the Conservatives have led the Liberals in Abacus Data polling.” Importantly, it isn’t just that the lead for the Conservatives has been long — it is wide as well... Seat projections from 338canada.com have the Conservatives winning 210 seats, the Liberals 62 and the NDP 38... There just doesn’t seem to be a glimmer of hope for the Liberals, other than the fact the election is not today and not likely to be before early 2025. That is when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s pensions kicks in and he might abandon his support of the Liberals. What have the Liberals done to attempt to regain our trust and support? Doubled down on increasing the carbon tax. Become the subject of damning investigations into their management of COVID, most noticeably how an $80,000-app – the ArriveCAN app – ballooned to at least $60 million. They also moved to regain our trust by voting not to have an investigation into that issue. Oh, and mandating that all federally regulated offices must provide tampons in the men’s room. That will do it."

GUNTER: MP works overtime to expose truth of ArriveCAN scandal - "Thank God Edmonton West Conservative MP Kelly McCauley knows a thing or two about parliamentary rules. His knowledge (and some quick thinking) may yet help Canadians get to the bottom of the ArriveCAN scandal. For months now, the Liberals and their toadies in the New Democratic Party have been using procedural trickery to shut down committee investigations into how development of the ArriveCAN app during the pandemic resulted in obscene cost overruns. The simple smartphone app should have cost between $80,000 and $200,000 but ended up costing taxpayers closer to $60 million.  How did that happen and who benefitted? While no one has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, it is hard to fathom how any project, even one from a federal government as notoriously wasteful as the current one, could go off the rails that much with someone pocketing a little loose change.  Since last fall, the Liberals have been doing their level best to keep a lid on this scandal. Last October, Calgary Midnapore Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie insisted there was credible evidence that “identity theft, forged resumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion” were rampant within the ArriveCAN project. Yet she accused the Liberals of using their control of parliamentary committees to keep opposition MPs from hearing testimony by whistleblowers and by the senior civil servants in charge.  Early this year, the Liberals tried to vote down an investigation by the federal auditor general.  When that attempt failed, just before the auditor general released her scathing report earlier this month, the Liberals (with their buddies in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois) voted to shut down a committee investigation into the scandal. Their excuse? A “scary” report from Canada Border Services Agency investigator, Michel Lafleur. The three parties voting to obstruct the committee’s work lamely explained they didn’t want parliamentary hearings to jeopardize possible criminal investigations by the RCMP, which Liberal MP Charles Sousa later admitted “may or may not be” occurring. That’s how not committed the Liberals are to finding the truth... Since the auditor’s report, the Liberals have filibustered committee attempts to call the two principles of GS Strategies to testify."

RCMP never tried to interview Justin Trudeau as part of SNC-Lavalin scandal probe, ethics committee told - "The RCMP did not interview Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a criminal offence in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, top officials confirmed in a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday. In fact, the federal police interviewed only four individuals, one of whom was former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and they did not even attempt to get Trudeau’s testimony... “In my over 30 years of experience as a defence counsel and a Crown attorney, I have never heard of any investigation where there wasn’t any attempt — whether they agree to interview or not — to interview the person of interest,” said Conservative MP Larry Brock. RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme and Sergeant Frédéric Pincince, who oversaw the investigation into SNC-Lavalin, were supposed to testify last October but the Liberals shut down the meeting because, they claimed, their appearance was confirmed at the last minute... Records made public last fall by Democracy Watch show the RCMP mostly relied on public claims made by the actors involved in the SNC-Lavalin affair to come to their conclusions and did not even apply to obtain a search warrant to access confidential cabinet documents... NDP MP Matthew Green also expressed concern about the two-year span between the time the decision was made to not pursue criminal charges and when it was shared with the main people involved, calling it “highly problematic given the timing of the politics at that time.”... Democracy Watch’s co-founder, Duff Conacher, criticized Duheme and Pincince’s testimony, saying that their failure to provide answers to many key questions shows “that the RCMP is a lapdog that rolled over” for Trudeau “by doing a very weak investigation” into SNC-Lavalin."

Mark Goldberg on X - "Ottawa to create regulator to hold online platforms accountable for harmful content: sources | @CBCNews @NaamaWeingarten @Travisdhanraj https://t.co/cICBxBTk5Z New regulator will be separate from the #CRTC #cdnpoli #cdntech"
Jonathan Kay on X - "If there’s a single person reading this who trusts the current Canadian government to decide what online content should be banned on the basis that it causes “harm,” I’d love to know. (I’m guessing the Libs’ first targets will be anyone who “deadnames” genderwang celebs)"

CBC lawsuit against Conservatives cost $400K, but cost was shielded from Parliament for years - "CBC’s failed lawsuit against the Conservative party during the 2019 election cost nearly $400,000 — but that information was kept from Parliament for nearly three years. Now, Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the Senate, is raising concerns about transparency in the federal government after his office was forced to file an access-to-information request to obtain an answer to his questions on the cost of the lawsuit submitted in the upper chamber in 2021. “The Trudeau government has just given up on its promise of openness and accountability,” Plett told the National Post. “In this specific situation, we had to go around roadblocks that were set by the government to get an answer to my questions three years ago.” “Somebody needs to be held accountable for this because we have the right to have these answers,” he added... The CBC launched a lawsuit against the Conservative party in the final days before the 2019 election, accusing the party of copyright infringement for its unauthorized use of its broadcast footage in a political attack ad on its website and on social media. The Federal Court ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, arguing that there was no evidence that the segments used for partisan purposes “reflected adversely on the broadcaster.”... Sen. Plett said he has a list of longstanding questions, some of which were submitted in 2020, that remain unanswered and is wondering if the government is deliberately avoiding them. Among them are queries regarding the cost of Rideau Hall renovations ordered by former governor general Julie Payette, contracts given to external consultants in relation to the COVID-19 response programs and workplace harassment complaints across the government. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged last week to fix the access to information system, speed up response times and release more information to favour transparency."
CBC media bias is a myth

Access-to-information has suffered 'steady decline' under Trudeau: watchdog - "The federal government’s key transparency provision has steadily eroded to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose, says information commissioner Caroline Maynard... The commissioner, who took office five years ago, said money to bolster the system has evaporated, commitments to transparency have vanished from ministerial mandate letters and it’s clear that improving transparency is not a priority for the government. “Over the course of my time as commissioner, I have observed the steady decline of the access-to-information system to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose.”"

Trudeau’s attack on BCE shows dangerous political landscape for corporate Canada - "The PM declared it a “garbage decision” and even went as far as to suggest BCE was complicit in the erosion of Canada’s democracy. It was an over-the-top reaction. But it represents an alarming trend in Ottawa. Politicians are eagerly targeting vilifying and scapegoating Canada’s largest firms as if they are pariahs. At a time when the investment climate remains incredibly challenging, it is a dispiriting development in C-suites across the country.  Take Trudeau’s assertions against BCE. If radio channels are so fundamental to our democracy, why is the federal government largely ignoring them in its own ad spending? Last year the feds spent about the same amount on LinkedIn ($2.4 million) as they did for ads on all of Canada’s struggling radio stations ($2.7 million). Should we really be outraged that a private company is choosing not to operate loss-making media assets that the government isn’t advertising on? To be sure, Trudeau couldn’t have been happy that BCE blamed Liberal policy for the layoffs. This would have put any government on the defensive.  Yet the Canadian government did change the competitive landscape last year to favour third-party resellers of BCE’s internet network.  The move happened midway through BCE’s record-setting investment push that has totalled $18 billion over four years. BCE ramped up capital spending on the premise the favourable regulatory regime—which had been in place only since 2021—would continue.  Perhaps the company’s biggest mistake was to assume the investment environment wouldn’t keep changing. The pricing regime for third-party internet service providers has switched three times since 2019.  Executives at BCE hold a fiduciary duty to spend shareholder money wisely, like every publicly traded company. Whether politicians like it or not, that’s just how things work. This imperative becomes even greater in times when the cost of capital is rising like it is now... In its 2023 financials released on February 8, BCE reported interest payments had jumped by about $300 million over the last year. This is about what BCE expects to generate in savings from the cost cuts.  This sort of context appears to be lost in political circles... Canada’s oil and gas sector—by far the country’s largest export earning industry—is under constant attack The most recent development is a private member’s bill from the NDP’s Charlie Angus that would ban advertisement by the sector like restrictions for tobacco companies. Trudeau’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault put out a statement saying the government welcomed the bill.  Canada’s banks are paying not one but two special taxes—a legacy of the last election when they became targets.  Canada’s grocery chains, which employ more than 400,000 retail workers, are being blamed for surging food prices. Late last year executives were summoned to Ottawa to find ways to fix the problem.  Summoning CEOs to Ottawa is a thing politicians like to do to show gravity. Suncor CEO Rich Kruger was brought to Ottawa late last year to explain comments he had made to investors about putting less of an emphasis on the oil giant’s longer-term energy transition.  In his testimony, Kruger had this to say: “I think one of the challenges we face here, and have faced here for some time now, is a bit of the unpredictability and uncertainty, which then, quite frankly, scares away capital.”... In its decision, the company said that it wants to put less money into assets that are exposed to the whims of politicians. Or more precisely: “It’s about reducing our dependence on overly regulated businesses,” Bibic said on his earnings call to analysts.  Trudeau’s reaction simply validates that strategy."

After more than a year of foot-dragging, the Trudeau government has finally appointed an ethics commissioner - "Anyone who follows Canadian politics knows that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (and his ministers) have found themselves on the wrong side of the ethics rules several times during his tenure. In fact, the two previous commissioners both concluded the prime minister had breached the rules on separate occasions—once over his vacation at the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas and then again over influencing then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould over SNC-Lavalin. Recent questions about a Jamaican vacation gifted to him by a friend have also raised eyebrows. The findings of commissioners do not seem to be discouraging our politicians from behaving badly. Regardless of party, naming and shaming does not appear to be working... despite the CIEC’s “independent” role and its relationship to Parliament, the appointment process has tended to be openly partisan"

The Chinese Case Against China

From 2020:

The Chinese Case Against China

Am I a traitor to my race?

According to many of the comments on my articles, in which I sometimes criticize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and call for its abuses to be checked, I am. I’ve been called a person who “doesn’t deserve to be Chinese,” who is “suffering from an identity crisis,” who has “forgotten his roots,” a “White-worshipping, Western-influenced blood-traitor.”

Funnily enough, most of these insults don’t actually come from people living in China, but from members of the Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia and Singapore, who are, ironically, bigger fans of the CCP than Chinese citizens themselves. Despite the fact that (or maybe because) they never lived under the rule of the Party, their zeal for it is fanatic. They share propaganda from Chinese state media. They rave about the supposed superiority and benevolence of the CCP over other governments. They vaunt the ability of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the “meritocracy” of the Chinese system. And, of course, they try to discredit the CCP’s critics (like me).

I’ve always found that bizarre. After all, who suffers from the CCP’s despotism more than Chinese people themselves? Since the CCP is the world’s biggest oppressor of Chinese people, in fact, the deeper your sense of “roots” and “identity,” the more Chinese you feel, the more you should repudiate it.

There are, of course, plenty of universalist reasons to condemn the CCP. Its record of abuses is long and damning. It frequently uses trade to punish countries for perceived slights, most recently Australia for calling for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. It abets kleptocratic dictators in developing countries by undercutting Western aid and loans, so they don’t have to meet minimum standards of transparency and democracy. It props up the giant prison camp that is North Korea, a totalitarian dictatorship that only survives because of it. It’s imprisoned a million Uyghurs in detention camps, often for no better reason than their ethnicity and religion.

Yet the bulk of its abuses fall upon Chinese people. The CCP threatens Taiwanese people – who overwhelmingly reject it – with the invasion and annexation of their country, a flourishing liberal democracy and a beacon of liberty in Asia. It’s trying to strip Hong Kongers of the special freedoms it promised them, prompting a million of them to take to the streets to protest these encroachments. It kidnapped and abducted Hong Kong booksellers who sold titles unflattering to it, forced them to make staged confessions, and broadcasted these confessions to terrify others into submission. It blames the opposition to its rule in Hong Kong on the fiction that the people there are “influenced by foreign agents” because that sounds better than the truth – that most Hong Kongers despise it, and don’t need to be “influenced” to despise it when it repeatedly gives them good reason to.

Worst of all is what it does to Chinese citizens on the mainland. It has long denied its people democracy and their most basic human rights – it massacred them by the thousand in Tiananmen Square for demanding these very things, and instead of taking responsibility for it, it tries to erase the massacre from history. It persecutes its best people, including Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo, for calling for reform of the Chinese system and challenging it to live up to its stated principles, the barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng, for helping poor people bring legal action against government abuses, and the doctor Wang Shuping, for blowing the whistle on unsafe blood donation practices that threatened thousands of lives, and countless other intellectuals and activists. It heavily censors its media, bombards its people with propaganda, and erects a Great Firewall around its internet to keep them from “dangerous” ideas. And it justifies its dictatorship through the pernicious myth that Chinese people are apparently so inherently bloodthirsty that they’d quickly descend into orgies of violence and anarchy if the Party’s heavy hand was ever lifted.

When I lived in Beijing back in 2013, it was possible to hope that, despite all this, China was slowly liberalizing. A Chinese friend of mine once rolled her eyes when I asked her about totalitarian elements within the CCP. “Yeah, they exist,” she said, “but it’s not as bad anymore. China is changing.” No one is likely to say that now. Since consolidating his power, Xi Jinping has made China even more repressive. He’s cracked down on even the limited spaces for free expression, and Chinese intellectual and political discourse has markedly deteriorated as a result. He encouraged a culture of incompetence, politicization, cowardice, and pathological secrecy that allowed the coronavirus outbreak to become an epidemic in the first place. Worse still, he’s rolled out a plan for a totalitarian social credit system, which aims to use big data to track every minute detail of Chinese people’s lives so the government can control them by rewarding them for doing things it likes and punishing them for doing things it dislikes, including for straying from Party orthodoxy.

Yet all this doesn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm of many overseas Chinese for the benevolent Chinese Communist Party and its godlike leader, Xi Jinping. After all, didn’t the CCP “lift 800 million people out of poverty?” Wrong. In all likelihood, it was the Chinese people who lifted themselves out of poverty through their hard work and initiative. Witness, for example, how every Asian country where people who are ethnically and culturally Chinese comprise a large enough percentage of the population, (from Taiwan to Singapore to Malaysia) has seen similar prosperity (Malaysia less so in part because there Chinese comprise just a quarter of the population and are held back by affirmative action policies favoring the Malay majority). Likewise with Hong Kong, which was ruled as a British colony separate from China for the hundred years before 1997. Consider how even in the Asian countries where the Chinese are a tiny minority, like Indonesia and the Philippines where they make up 1% of the population, they control a disproportionate share of the private economy (60% in the Philippines). If China’s government was really so fantastic at managing its economy, you’d expect its GDP per capita – that is, its GDP taking into account its humongous population – to be high. But it’s actually quite modest: at $10,262 in 2019, it’s the 70th-highest out of 193 countries surveyed – less than half of Taiwan’s $24,828, which is the 39th-highest. When you factor-in their relative population sizes, China’s economy is actually massively underperforming compared to Taiwan’s.

What of China’s much-vaunted “political meritocracy?” That notion is laughable to anyone who’s ever had to work closely with Chinese officials and scholars (as I have) – they’re ridiculously incompetent, and the system seems to reward patronage, sycophancy, loyalty to Party, and doctoring figures rather than ability.

So why do so many overseas Chinese support a regime that’s incredibly authoritarian and incompetent? Is it just a preference for muscular dictatorship as a political system, particularly at the head of a powerful country? Unlikely, since they don’t seem to rave about Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey. Why, then? The Chinese diaspora in Malaysia provides a particularly revealing example. Unlike the diaspora in, say, Singapore, Malaysian Chinese are generally thought to heavily favor democracy. Despite Malaysia’s relatively high economic growth, they largely despised the Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling party, criticizing it for its authoritarianism and incompetence, voting overwhelmingly against it, and cheering its fall from power in the election in 2018.

Yet many Malaysian Chinese (I’d estimate about half of them) support the CCP. Sometimes the same people (and in many instances I’ve seen, the exact same people) who used to deride Malaysian state media as propaganda trash, uncritically eat up the stories from Chinese state media. The same people who used to condemn the Malaysian government when it imprisoned its critics make excuses for the CCP when it does the same. The same people who used to mock the Malaysian government’s attempts to whitewash its abuses will tell you that there are no detention camps in Xinjiang, that the Uyghurs there are all happy and free, and that reports to the contrary are just “Western media bias,” even those that come from non-Western news sources (like Al Jazeera). The same people who hated the BN party for embezzling public money in the 1MDB corruption scandal cast no blame on the CCP for aiding and abetting it in its crimes and harboring one of the masterminds of the scheme. The same people who had no trouble distinguishing love for country from love for a ruling party in Malaysia seem to conflate the two in China.

What accounts for this double standard, this cult-like worship of tyranny? Perhaps a bias that Malaysian Chinese are all too familiar with – one they’ve denounced countless times before. Many of them were astonished by the fact that so many Malays supported (and still support) former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak despite the fact that he had zero charisma, was a heavy-handed dictator, and was obviously robbing the country blind and obstructing justice, for no better reason than that his government was more Malay supremacist and the opposition coalition was more multiracial. In other words, those Malays were ok with a government that oppressed and robbed them so long as the people oppressing and robbing them were other Malays, and actually preferred that to not being oppressed and robbed by a more multiracial government. Though they would never share in the spoils of his kleptocracy (in fact, he was stealing their tax dollars too), they reveled in the knowledge that “one of their own” enjoyed such power. At the end of the day, it came down to simple racism.

If overseas Chinese support the CCP primarily because of racism, though, it’s a funny kind of racism, it’s a racism that disregards the welfare of the actual people of that race. It’s a racism that calls Taiwanese “delusional” for resisting the “privilege” of being assimilated by China. It’s a racism that denigrates Taiwan’s popularly-elected government whilst venerating China’s unelected one. It’s a racism that calls even peaceful Hong Kong protestors “cockroaches” and urges the CCP to massacre them Tiananmen-style. It’s a racism that ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people in Taiwan and Hong Kong – those who actually face the prospect of being ruled by the CCP – hate and fear it. It’s a racism that professes blood-loyalty to China in one breath and derides mainlanders as dirty, cutthroat, and uncivilized in the next (though, to be fair, plenty of overseas Chinese who don’t support the CCP also say this). It’s a racism that derives a sense of pride from having the same skin color as the biggest bully on the block, that prompts them to support Xi Jinping because he’s also Chinese and he’s one of the most powerful people in the world, and so identifying with him makes them feel like they’re powerful too.

It’s also a racism that ignores the reality of life in China in favor of a utopian fantasy. At the other extreme, there are people who paint China as a totalitarian dystopia, which it isn’t, obviously. It’s a beautiful and exciting country, and its people are warm, intelligent, and actually very interesting. But it is true that their government is profoundly oppressive, and that many of them feel that. It is true, for example, that rich Chinese citizens try to shift their assets overseas and obtain foreign passports and foreign citizenship (especially from Western countries). (A friend who did his MBA at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, one of China’s premier schools, told me that when he was accepted, admissions informed him that his cohort was very international, and included many Americans, Australians, and French. On the first day of class, he discovered that almost everyone was mainland Chinese – they just all held foreign passports.) Given the choice, even China’s wealthy and privileged vote with their feet.

It’s also true that mainland Chinese certainly do not appreciate the CCP’s constraints on their fundamental rights. Note the torrent of public rage against the officials who threatened whistle-blowing doctor Li Wenliang into silence. Note how Chinese forums abound with netizens criticizing and mocking state propaganda and censorship. Note how, instead of being lauded by citizens for contributing to China’s “harmonious” society, Fang Binxing, the architect of China’s Great Firewall, is one of the most despised men in China, and when he visited Wuhan University, some students there pelted him with eggs.

What struck me most, though, were the mainland Chinese friends who told me, quietly, that they regarded state media as propaganda, and that they went on online forums to find out the truth, or that many people rejected the official narrative of Liu Xiaobo as a troublemaker and regarded him as a hero. Mainland Chinese people, I’ve learned, want the same freedoms those in democracies enjoy, they hate being condescended to and treated like perpetual children by their own government, and they’re nothing like the happy drones the CCP’s cheerleaders make them out to be. Given the choice, they’d vote to make the mainland more like Hong Kong, instead of the other way round.

Where should my loyalty lie as an ethnic Chinese?

Certainly not with the authoritarian and incompetent CCP, the useful idiots amongst the Chinese diaspora who blindly follow it, and their superficial idea of racial solidarity. The notion that you should support the Party if you love China is as absurd as the notion that you should support the despotic Malaysian government if you love Malaysia, or that you should support clown-president Donald Trump if you love America.

Rather, my loyalty lies with the Chinese people themselves. I want Taiwanese people to remain free. I want Hong Kong people to keep their special liberties, the very thing that makes their city, a city I’ve come to regard as my home (or, at least, one of my homes), so incredibly special. And I want my mainland Chinese friends to one day know these things too, to not have to read propaganda instead of news, to not have to lower their voice when they want to criticize their government. It is for their sakes that people of conscience should oppose the regime that has hijacked their civilization and purports to rule over them.

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