Tuesday, June 20, 2017



Happy couple



Husband with Gal Gadot, who plays Wonder Woman in the movies.  Incorrect?






The Left were the guardians and champions of segregation -- and they still are

Separate but Equal: How Regressives Are Reviving the Racist Segregation Movement

"Cultural appropriation" is the new bugaboo, and it's resulting in greater segregation along racial lines.

In August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke these immortal words: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’” Under recent academic meddling, however, this dream has little likelihood of coming true. Not because we didn’t have Brown v. Board of Education (1954-school integration) or Loving v. Virginia (1967-interracial marriage), but because there exists an entire political movement that judges people not by “the content of their character,” but “by the color of their skin.”

Bent upon regressing toward a separated, stratified society, this group continues to fan the flames of suspicion and division across racial lines, all under the guise of “sensitivity,” “openness” and “diversity.” Calling themselves “Progressives,” in actuality, they progress toward nothing, but only regress backwards to a racist, suspicious and violent time in our nation’s history. Using the terms “cultural appropriation” and “unity among the African Diaspora,” the Regressives seek to separate our nation into piles, as with dirty laundry. For in doing so, they break the collective power of the people to bind together and to positively effect change. They have found a way to disenfranchise the citizen’s voice in order to grant themselves the awe-inspiring task of ideological control.

Experts define cultural appropriation as adopting parts of a culture or ethnic group without the permission of the originating culture, thereby “violating” their collective intellectual property rights. It has now become a popular way for a person to claim “rights” to fashion, customs, food and culture. Yet, claiming “rights” to customs, transforms us into tribalistic groups that refuse to acknowledge the reality of our blended world: that for all time, we have shared and borrowed ideas, thoughts and traditions to which no one owns the patent or trademark.

Recently, Kooks Burritos, a Mexican food truck in Portland, Oregon, was forced to close because opponents claimed that the two white woman owners “appropriated” the recipes from Puerto Nuevo, Mexico. The two women traveled to Mexico on vacation, asking the cooks how they made their burritos and watched them through the windows. They used these recipes to make their burritos for their food truck. However, under the pressure of the community, they stopped their business.

In the case of Kooks Burritos, the cultural appropriation police did not clearly define their terms. Would this have been different if the owners were Mexican or Mexican heritage? What if they had received the recipes from their friend’s grandmother? Perhaps in order to sell ethnic food, you need to be of that ethnicity.

By this standard, Julia Child, the American chef whose monumental work, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which brought hidden French recipes to the American market, would be counted among the worst cultural appropriators in modern times. Her autobiography, “My Life in France,” tells of how she made friends with French people, went to their cooking school and learned their methods — only to turn around and (gasp!) write a cookbook and start a cooking show. Yet everyone applauds Child’s cookbook not as cultural “stealing” but rather cultural sharing that benefits everyone.

Another recent example took place at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. In March of this year, the wall of free speech, where students can write whatever they want, read, “White girl, take off your hoops!!!” This statement referenced hoop earrings, which, according to the artist of the statement, belonged exclusively to non-white people. She stated in an email thread sent to the entire student body that “white people have exploited the culture and made it fashion.” She fails, however to note that hoop earrings have historically been worn by Roman women in the first century, as well as Russian and Swiss women in the 18th century.

In addition to the emphasis on cultural appropriation, the Regressives have revived segregation (yes, really). Recently, the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter hosted a “black only” Memorial Day party. Harvard hosted a black graduate school graduation initiated by black members of the class of 2017, to celebrate the achievements of black students and those from the “African Diaspora.” Several universities across the country including California State University, Los Angeles; University of Connecticut; University of California, Davis; University of California, Berkeley; and University of Colorado, Boulder now offer segregated black dorms as “safe” and “protected” spaces.

The Regressives do not have to separate people based on race, but rather have cleverly convinced people to separate themselves. In that separation and isolation, there exists no unity on basis of family, faith or patriotic values but rather a unity in the hatred of those who disagree — unified in the hatred of dissidents, all in a disingenuous effort to be “sensitive.” In reality, we are now seeing the true colors of the diversity movement that assumes ethnicity determines ideology while denying people the freedom to think on their own, to unite with others and to be citizens for a positive future.

SOURCE






The Left Was Wrong: Trump Did Not Produce Anti-Semitic Hysteria

Dennis Prager   

As I document in my book, “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph,” which is an explanation of Americanism, leftism, and Islamism, hysteria is a major tactic of the left.

If you think about it, there is never an extended period of time—one year, let’s say—during which society is not engulfed by a hysteria induced by the left.

The mother of them all is global warming, or “climate change,” as the left has come to call it (because the warming was not quite enough to induce widespread panic).

Hysterics like billionaires Al Gore and Tom Steyer, along with virtually all the Western news media, warn us that the existence of life on Earth is threatened by carbon emissions.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can't be done alone. Find out more >>

But in its longevity, global warming is almost unique among left-wing hysterias. In general, left-wing hysterias last for much less time, from a few months to a year or two.

And when they end—because the hysteria is widely recognized as fraudulent—they’re immediately dropped and completely forgotten. The left never pays a price for its hysteria.

Take, for example, the hysteria the left created by charging President Donald Trump’s election with the unleashing of unprecedented amounts of anti-Semitism and racism in America.

Being attuned to the left’s use of hysteria, I knew it was hysteria at the time. In the March 7 issue of the Jewish Journal, I wrote a column titled “There Is No Wave of Trump-Induced Anti-Semitism or Racism.”

It was all a lie. That’s why you hardly hear anything now about an alleged wave of racism or anti-Semitism in the country.

What rankles those who have a passion for justice is that the mendacious fomenters of the hysteria have gotten away with it.

So, as a Jew who understands how much damage left-wing Jews have done to the real fight against anti-Semitism, some of these people are worth mentioning.

Perhaps the individual who most spread the lie of Trump-induced anti-Semitism was a previously unknown man named Steven Goldstein, executive director of the previously unknown Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in New York.

They became famous for a few months when the media had to trot out a Jew with an official title—and no Jewish title is as sacrosanct as one with the name Anne Frank on it.

Goldstein has publicly commented on “the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration.” He said: “Make no mistake: The anti-Semitism coming out of this administration is the worst we have ever seen from any administration.”

And he said to Trump, “The most vicious anti-Semites in America are looking at you and your administration as a nationalistic movement granting them permission to attack Jews, Jewish institutions, and sacred Jewish sites.”

Almost as hysterical about anti-Semitism in America was Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of a considerably more significant Jewish institution, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL.

As reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in December:

Anti-Semitic rhetoric in the United States has reached levels unprecedented since 1930s Germany, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt warned a gathering of Israeli lawmakers in Jerusalem on Monday.

“Anti-Semitism has wound its way into mainstream conversations in a manner that many Jews who lived through Nazi Germany find terrifying,” he said at the Knesset meeting, which was convened to discuss the plight of American Jewry under the incoming Trump administration.

(Note Haaretz’s inflammatory description, “the plight of American Jewry under the incoming Trump administration,” made six weeks before there was a Trump administration.)

Aside from fomenting hysteria about an almost nonexistent outbreak of anti-Semitism, all Greenblatt’s allusion to Nazi Germany did was diminish the evil of Nazism and the Holocaust.

In December, Greenblatt told NPR, “We found it so deeply problematic when some of the images and some of the rhetoric seemed to evoke longstanding anti-Semitic conspiracies.”

And Greenblatt repeated this charge in February in an op-ed he wrote for The Washington Post. He said:

Trump could have said he condemns anti-Semitism and takes incidents, such as the dozens of threats made to Jewish Community Centers, seriously. But instead, he lashed out against those asking the question. …

Last year, we watched as the Trump campaign repeatedly tweeted and shared anti-Semitic imagery and language, allowing this poison to move from the margins into the mainstream of the public conversation.

Well, guess what. It turned out that Trump was entirely right: There was no eruption of anti-Semitism in America, let alone one emanating from the White House. Furthermore, “those asking the question” did indeed deserve to be “lashed out” against.

And why aren’t we hearing any more about Trump-induced anti-Semitism in America?

Because law enforcement officials reported that a disturbed Israeli-American Jewish teenager in Israel was the source of nearly all the threats against Jewish community centers—and that a handful of other threats to them came from an angry, obsessive black radical trying to frame an ex-girlfriend.

Will any of those who spread the lie and hysteria about Trump-induced anti-Semitism now apologize?

I wrote the answer to that question about 35 years ago: “Being on the left means never have to say, ‘I’m sorry.'”

But the greatest lesson is this: Next time the left gets hysterical, just assume the hysteria is fraudulent. There has been no exception to this rule in my lifetime.

And that includes the hysteria about Trump campaign “collusion” with Russia.

SOURCE






2 Cases Threaten to Shut Down Public Prayer. Why the Supreme Court May Need to Act

Two federal appeals courts are considering whether elected leaders throughout the Midwest and mid-Atlantic regions must abandon the 200-year-old practice of opening local meetings with an invocation. Both cases could end up before the Supreme Court by Christmas time.

In one case, a self-described pagan sued the board of commissioners of Jackson County, Michigan, arguing that its tradition of beginning monthly board meetings with an invocation violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, the First Amendment provision disallowing government from establishing an official religion.

In 1983, the Supreme Court in Marsh v. Chambers examined Nebraska’s practice of employing a salaried Christian chaplain who offered the Legislature’s invocations for 16 years, and held that “legislative prayers” at policymaking-body meetings are constitutional.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can't be done alone. Find out more >>

The court noted that the first Congress wrote the Establishment Clause in the same week it passed laws to create a House chaplain and Senate chaplain, whose public duties included offering invocations every day that Congress is in session.

Over the next three decades, some lower courts and academics speculated that Marsh might be a one-off exception to normal Establishment Clause rules. Some argued that invocations must be generic, and therefore mentioning Jesus Christ or making other sectarian references would be unconstitutional.

In 2014, the Supreme Court addressed this confusion by taking another case concerning a New York town where the invocations are offered by local volunteer clergy—all of whom were Christian.

In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court held that these invocations, too, are constitutional, even if all the prayer-givers happen to be Christian and include sectarian content from a single faith.

But litigation persisted, now focusing on the identity of the prayer-givers.

Plaintiffs argued that invocations given by government officials are unconstitutionally coercive because they might imply that lawmakers will use their official powers against those who refuse to participate in the invocations.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit rejected that argument when a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 for the government in Lund v. Rowan County, North Carolina.

However, the Richmond-based appeals court reheard the case in March in a rare en banc proceeding in which all 15 judges participated. It is very possible the en banc court will invalidate Rowan County’s invocations in the next few weeks.

The opposite situation is currently unfolding in Michigan in the case of Bormuth v. County of Jackson.

There, a Clinton-appointed district judge upheld the county’s practice of allowing each of its nine commissioners to rotate having an opportunity to deliver an invocation, each according to his or her personal faith.

Because all nine commissioners are Christian, the plaintiff argues that the resulting Christian invocations violate the Establishment Clause.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling in a divided 2-1 decision, ruling that such practices are unconstitutional.

But on June 14, attorneys with First Liberty Institute will present arguments as all 15 judges of the Cincinnati-based appeals court rehear that case en banc.

It is very possible that by late this year, a “circuit split” situation could occur between en banc appeals courts.

If that happens, one or both of these cases will become prime candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear in 2018 as a major religious liberty case.

Legislator-led invocations fall within a broad historical tradition going back to the founding of the republic. The Town of Greece decision made clear that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted consistently with what the framers of the Constitution understood to be establishing religion.

Because these invocations do not establish an official religion, as “establishment” has been historically understood, and because the invocations do not require or coerce anyone to participate, they are perfectly constitutional.

If the Supreme Court means to enforce its decision in Town of Greece that centuries-old prayer traditions do not violate the Establishment Clause, then these cases may be at the forefront of a fundamental restoration of religious liberty in America.

SOURCE





Think ... don't just groupthink

Inconsistent, irrational, illogical, downright silly -- and often with disastrous consequences. That just about sums up almost every idea being slavishly adopted by today's youth. When did we forget that maybe we should try 'think' rather than flow with populist rhetoric?

Multiculturalism is just one example of another cult-like idea championed by almost all young people across Western schools and universities around the world. Yet how many of those youth know what multiculturalism truly is in reality? Those who have seen the true results will know --Yugoslavia, Lebanon and Sri Lanka are perfect examples.

Yet its advocates maintain that diversity and equality of cultures is the quintessential nature of multiculturalism. But when was modern Western culture -- which is so often the focus of hate from its own youth -- not diverse?

Like most other cultures, we have borrowed aspects from others because that culture is more effective and efficient at performing a certain task. Take paper (Chinese), numbers (Arabic) or the thousands of foreign-sourced words in the English language (myriad countries).

That is why cultures evolved and developed throughout the centuries: because they interacted and learnt from each other. Western civilisation is not so strictly white and discriminatory as many multiculturalists claim -- it is made of influences from at least 100 cultures.

Of course there is never a case for discrimination. But there is no logical case to give other cultures priority over our own Western culture. If there were, we may as well revive Roman culture, Ottoman culture ... even Canaan culture.

There is always a clear distinction between what sounds good and what actually does good. Sadly this is ignored by the fad followers, who -- with their feeling of moral superiority as they 'save' the masses -- disregard reason and logic.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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