Sunday, January 17, 2021



Remembering the past

The author below moans that we rarely remember the mistakes of our ancestors or the social and economic plight of minorities, two things that he asserts are interwoven. That the most persecuted minority of all -- Jews -- flourish mightily in social and economic matters, he does not take into account

He notes that we do occasionally remember the war dead of our communities and wonders why we don't remember the past deaths and suffering of minorities too. He asserts that we have actively suppressed our memories of the latter.

I have a much simpler and less conspiratorial explanation for him: indifference. Most of us spend some time thinking about our own past but the past of people unrelated to us rarely gets a thought. We all have our day-to-day concerns -- with relationships, work etc -- and that is where our mental energies are directed. Even when we do take note of community history, it only happens as a formal ceremony lasting a few minutes a year. We have to be MADE to think about the pasts of others

The author below has an obsession with the past but I think he will have to come to terms with the fact that few others share his concerns. The plight of some minorities is no doubt a worthy cause but I can't generate any personal concern about it. As Jesus said: "Let the dead bury their dead" (Luke 9:60). Let minorities make the effort to uplift themselves. Most minorities in our countries do: Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Indians etc. Those four groups are in fact high income earners on average.

So why is the author below so concerned about the less successful minorities? That's easy. Its just part of the guilt trip that the Left are always trying to inflict on us. They are themselves hate-filled and want others to hate along with them. They are anti-patriots -- unhappy people who resent the success of others and the general flourishing of their countries They want other people to hate their country the way they do and plague us with tales about our evil past to that effect. It's a sad obsession


A bell rings, and the playground falls silent. Some of my classmates clasp their hands behind their backs in earnest attempts at commemoration; others glance around furtively. I stand like a toy soldier, crumpled cardboard poppy pinned to my lapel, trying to conjure memories of trenches in which I have never stood.

It’s the 11th of November—Remembrance Day in the U.K., Armistice Day in France and Belgium, and Independence Day in Poland. I’m only seven years old, but the nation in which I live wants me to remember the 20 million people, including over one million Britons, who died in the First World War.

Compared to this riot of remembrance, Europe is conspicuously silent about its colonial past. In the U.K., the dark history of the British Empire is overlooked in schools. There is no day of remembrance for those who died as a result of British colonialism. When Black Lives Matter protesters argue that “Silence is Violence,” this is what they mean: national memory, curated by the state, is tight-lipped about colonial atrocities—despite European colonialism claiming 50 million lives in the 20th century alone.

“There’s clearly a big gap in memory,” says Aline Sierp, Associate Professor of European Studies at Maastricht University, and co-founder of the Memory Studies Association. “And there’s this big problem of amnesia when it comes to the role European states and European people played in colonialism.”

“In World War I, it was clear who were the victims and the perpetrators. It’s the same with colonialism, but European states aren’t used to seeing themselves exclusively as perpetrators. We still don’t remember the colonial project as something inherently European, which came with blatant human rights violations.”

The scale of those violations is difficult to comprehend. Ten million dead in the Belgian Congo; 35 million in British India. The Spanish conquest of South America resulted in an estimated 56 million deaths, including several million from European diseases brought to its shores. Such suffering merits remembrance for the same reason we remember war: to ensure it never happens again.

So why does Europe remember casualties of war while forgetting deaths in its ex-col­onies? Professor Santanu Das, author of India, Empire, and First World War Culture, is a leading voice in First World War studies, specialising in the memory of colonial troops. He believes it’s not possible to commemorate colonial deaths as we do for the war.

“Even though we accept the horrors of the war and the unprecedented loss of lives, the stories of camaraderie and endurance nonetheless have the power to inspire us— and so the images of the doomed generation come to us today with a sort of romantic glow,” he says.

“There is nothing of the sort in memories of colonialism. What we have are images of exploitation, and ideologies based on racist discrimination—and this retrospective embarrassment, awkwardness and anger.” If Europeans wish to commemorate colonial victims, the Remembrance Day framework of poetry, poppies and pan-European romance won’t work.

A novel that promotes insurrection

The novel was published in book form in 1978, with the neo-Nazi leader William Luther Pierce using the pen name Andrew Macdonald.The novel was published in book form in 1978, with the neo-Nazi leader William Luther Pierce using the pen name Andrew Macdonald.

In “The Turner Diaries,” a group of white supremacists attacks the National Capitol in an effort to overthrow the U.S. government. Dozens are killed in the assault, including members of Congress and their staffers. But in the insurrectionists’ view, the greater victory is symbolic.

“The real value of all our attacks today lies in the psychological impact, not the immediate casualties,” the 1978 novel’s narrator, Earl Turner, writes in his diary. “They learned this afternoon that not one of them is beyond our reach.”

Since its publication by the neo- Nazi leader William Luther Pierce, “The Turner Diaries” has become one of the most influential texts among white nationalists and right-wing extremists. It has inspired dozens of acts of violence, and has been held up as a blueprint for how to enact a violent insurrection.

Last week, as rioters broke into the Capitol, incited by President Trump, some saw frightening parallels with the events described in the novel. Experts who track rhetoric on the far right say the book has long been a reference point for white supremacists who see the government as an oppressive force to be overthrown.

“Many of the ideas that are central to ‘The Turner Diaries’ have turned into memes and proliferated online in right-wing media,” said Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “There are books that are required reading for people who are enmeshed in the movement, and ‘The Turner Diaries’ is at the top of the list.”

On social media and in militant chat rooms on sites like 4chan, Telegram and Stormfront, some users celebrated last week’s violence and likened it to “the Day of the Rope,” a mass hanging that occurs in “The Turner Diaries.”

Some rioters who livestreamed the assault made references to hanging politicians, and strung up nooses and erected a gallows outside the Capitol.

“The turner diaries mentioned this. Keep reading,” one user posted on Telegram in reference to the attack on the Capitol.

On Monday, Amazon removed the novel from its website. It had previously been available for purchase with a disclaimer identifying it as “a racist, white supremacist fantasy” that had inspired domestic terrorists.

“As a bookseller, we think it is important to offer this infamous work because of its historical significance and educational role in the understanding and prevention of racism and acts of terrorism,” the note said. The book also disappeared from Abe Books, a usedand rare-books site owned by Amazon.

Amazon — which also removed QAnon products and books from its site and suspended Parler from its web service — declined to comment on why it had taken down “The Turner Diaries.”

Part of the book’s appeal to right-wing radical groups stems from its seemingly far-fetched plot, in which a small group of insurgents terrorizes the most powerful people in the world with attacks that rally other white people to the cause. Though it’s a work of fiction rather than an ideological treatise or tactical manual, many domestic terrorists have tried to emulate the attacks in the book.

Over the decades, the novel has been cited as inspiration in at least 40 terrorist attacks and hate crimes, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, according to J. M. Berger, a researcher and analyst who studies extremist activities in the United States.

“We see a lot of cases where people have taken some element of the book and tried to play them out,” Berger said. “‘The Turner Diaries’ is part of the background noise that created this moment.”

Fiction has often fed into rightwing propaganda movements, said Seyward Darby, author of “Sisters in Hate,” a book about women in the white nationalist movement. In addition to “The Turner Diaries,” influential rightwing novels include Jean Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints,” a dystopian depiction of immigrants overrunning Europe, and “Hunter,” another novel by Pierce that valorizes a white supremacist who targets interracial couples and civil rights activists.

Bumble removes political preference filter after Capitol riots honeypot scheme

Women in the US are apparently using dating apps to track down insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol building last week to report them to the FBI.

Their self-reported tactics have already prompted one dating app to change its policies.

Bumble has removed its political preference filter temporarily, but claims it’s searching for Capitol rioters on the app and reporting them to authorities.

“How the f**k is reporting insurrectionists misuse, Bumble?” One Twitter user asked.

“Rest assured that we prohibit any content that promotes terrorism or racial hatred, and we’ve already removed any users that have been confirmed as participants in the attack of the US Capitol,” the company replied.

Bumble ordinarily allows people to give their political preferences (choosing between “conservative” and “liberal”, which can make it a confusing filter for Australian users given the name of our own dominant “conservative” party).

In the US, women have reported “friends of friends” using the filter to track down people who stormed the Capitol, or were at least willing to lie about it to try and impress them.

One popular Twitter account — a random but handsome user known as Caucasian James — shared a screenshot with his 1.4 million followers of a profile from a “patriot” telling “anyone who was at the Capitol ‘riots’” that they “have her heart”.

Some followers were quick to agree that it “can’t be real” and pointed to the circulating reports of “honeypotting”.

Others suggested that it was indeed the case that it was part of a honeypot style trap, while others told them not to reveal that if it is the case.

A “honeypot” is an investigatory and espionage tactic that tries to lure the target into a romantic or sexual relationship that could be used to compromise them.

Jennifer Lawrence provided a broad overview of the concept through her character in the truly awful 2018 film Red Sparrow, which is otherwise a complete waste of your time with no real redeeming features (although it did pick Ms Lawrence up an award for “Actress Most in Need of a New Agent” from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists).

The tactic is popular in spy-fiction because it looks great on screen, but has also been used by real intelligence agencies around the world.

In recent years the same name has begun being used for a cybersecurity technique, where an isolated part of a computer network is spoofed to look like it contains important data that would attract attackers and keep them there long enough to analyse and block them.

The FBI has charged dozens of people and arrested more than 100 so far in relation to the Capitol building incident and is expecting to charge more.

Why the woke will never be happy

Surely America has enough to worry about. There’s no shortage of distressing issues: 389,000 people dead from COVID; the Capitol coup in which five people died; yet another impeachment; or social media’s blocking of President Trump (while Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still gets to tweet away).

But anger is raging over a far more unlikely controversy: Kamala Harris’ US Vogue cover.

The February issue was intended to portray the incoming Vice-President as “accessible”, according to the magazine’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

Instead the magazine has been slammed as “racist” and “sexist” for displaying Ms Harris – the first black person and first woman to be Vice-President – in what critics described as a disrespectful and demeaning way.

In the photograph a smiling Ms Harris wears a black jacket and tight jeans, with her trademark pearls and Converse sneakers that became her signature on the campaign trail.

Behind her is pink and green fabric in a tribute to the colours of her African-American college sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha and the slogan reads: “By the people, for the people”.

The photographer was Tyler Mitchell, who was the first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover (the amazing Beyonce shoot in 2018) and is known for his informal and muted pictures. The feature journalist and sittings editor were also both talented black American millennial women.

The image portrays Ms Harris (whose father is of Afro-Jamaican descent and mother is from India) how she normally is, not how people want her to be seen.

But despite this inclusivity and that Ms Harris chose and wore her own clothes, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the perpetually displeased woke who called it a “mess” and “trash”.

“The choice smacks of racism and sexism,” Mary McNamara said in the Los Angeles Times.

“The cover did not give Kamala D Harris due respect. It was overly familiar,” The Washington Post’s senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan said.

Anna Murphy in The Times said it was “downright blah” and said Ms Harris had a “slightly awkward in-the-queue-at-Starbucks stance”.

Online the negative response was worse, with commenters claiming she looks like a “tired soccer mom” and that is was “bizarrely horrible”. “It looks like what some kid who really wants to work at Vogue some day would slap together,” one person tweeted.

Others conspired that discrediting Ms Harris was Ms Wintour’s main motivation, ignoring the fact that the Vogue editor did not feature First lady (and former model) Melania Trump in Vogue in the past four years.

It’s also telling that Ms Harris is, according to a source, “extremely disappointed”.

Her team allegedly agreed informally with Vogue that a different image (Ms Harris in a powder blue suit) would be the cover, according to reports.

That with everything going on in the US, they bothered to address off the record this tempest in a teacup is worrying.

Isn’t saving democracy is more important than wading into yet another confected outrage by triggered moralisers searching for the next pile on?

It’s easy to dismiss this as petty and trivial, but it signals a significant toxic trend in society.

Everything must now be judged through a filter of race, colour and (to a lesser extent) gender and nothing will ever be allowed to succeed in satisfying the liberal progressives.

And that is what is so disappointing about the Vogue outcry is that no matter how Ms Harris would be styled and photographed it would be met with a petulant tantrum from the Left.

The same people enraged that she was photographed wearing sneakers would foam at the mouth if she was in a ball gown.

If she was wearing designer clothes there would be backlash for making her look disconnected in a pandemic, just as New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was ridiculed for her Vanity Fair cover.

Put her in a pencil skirt and high heels? That’s stereotyping a powerful woman.

Have her in bare arms and there would be the same uproar Michelle Obama got.

What Ms Harris looks like or wears should not matter. What she says and does is what counts.

But that means nothing to those people who actively seek to be outraged on behalf of others.

You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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