GoFundMe and How the Left Came to Despise the Working Class
The left-wing anthem “Which Side Are You On?” is no longer about whether you’re a “union man” or a “thug for J.H. Blair.” It’s about the size of your stock portfolio or when to go public with your start-up.
The oh-so-progressive GoFundMe crowd-funding site—run by about as pure a group of upscale lefty elitists as you could invent, with its CEO being a former a consultant for the multimillion-dollar drug pushers at McKinsey—has turned against those lowly 16-hour-a-day working-stiffs, the Canadian truckers, for deigning to risk their jobs and livelihood to protest vaccine mandates.
At first, calling the truckers occupiers and accusing them—without the slightest proof—of violent acts, GoFundMe essentially absconded with the US$8 million donated to the truckers through its site and peremptorily decided to distribute the money to charities of its choice (one can only imagine).
Sounds like “misappropriation of funds,” at the minimum, and possibly fraud. Don’t these people have lawyers? But worse than that, it was one of the more clueless readings of public sentiment in recent years—and there have been many.
Maybe it’s because those lefty elitists on their board don’t do much shopping on their own, send assistants to the supermarkets for food, and don’t see the empty shelves, so they think they can push the truckers around. That’s an explanation, anyway, but blowback happened fast enough that GoFundMe quickly rescinded its “charitable” decree and promised to return the money to the donors.
Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called for an investigation of GoFundMe (when are we going to start calling him “America’s governor”?), as have officials in Georgia.
Good for them, but what interests me here is how it came to be that supposedly left-leaning organizations, indeed basically the entire modern-day American left, came to be so anti-working class.
It could be a “Just So Story” in a style reminiscent of “How the Camel Got His Hump” or “How the Leopard Got His Spots,” although far less beguiling and humorous than Rudyard Kipling would have made it. (Kipling, whose stories many of us enjoyed as children, has become a particular target of those fun suckers known as the “woke.”)
GoFundMe versus the truckers may prove to be a paradigm case for our time—and it’s about class.
To understand it, you have to go back to the man who started it all, Karl Marx, who expected his communist revolution to begin in heavily industrialized Germany.
He was wrong, of course. It began in the much less developed and largely agrarian Russia. In Germany, the working class was not nearly as attracted to his theories as he had hoped. The majority rejected them.
This trend continued as communism did better in poorer countries (China, Cambodia) than it did in the industrialized West, where it was supposed to take hold.
This failure was not lost on a group of intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School, who brought their revised Marxian theories designed to succeed where the working class approach had failed—notably via the so-called march through the institutions (media, entertainment, education)—to the United States at the end of World War II.
This indeed was an intellectuals-first revolution, and it has succeeded almost completely in our university system, where their “critical theory” dominates. They also succeeded, to lesser but still powerful degrees, in turning the media and entertainment, pretty much destroying Hollywood in the process. Why would the Chinese object?
This was clearly a top-down revolution, with elites dictating to hoi polloi what they should think and how to behave. In the way of the world, those elites also became increasingly rich, richer than anyone else in the history of the human race (the likes of Bezos, Zuckberg, Gates, et al.). They knew best. (Someone should write a book about that.)
In the process, the working class, what Amity Shlaes earlier called “The Forgotten Man,” was forgotten.
Which brings us to the truckers. This time—I think, hope, and pray—these elites have gone too far. The yawning gap between them and the people they lord over has become too great. People are sickened, as they should be, by the arrogance.
Thank you, GoFundMe, for blowing it. This is a teaching moment. Let’s use it.
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Time to End Affirmative Action
More than three-quarters of Americans believe President Joe Biden should consider “all possible nominees” to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, rather than only Black women, according to a new poll.
Likewise, nearly three-quarters of Americans, including a majority of Hispanic and Black people, oppose affirmative action. They don’t want Black and Hispanic college applicants favored over other applicants who have higher test scores and grades, according to Pew Research.
A group of Asian victims of Harvard’s affirmative action are suing, represented by the nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions. The Supreme Court announced last week it will take the case.
That announcement has provoked woke outrage and predictions about the return of Jim Crow. Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler warns the Court will “take this country back to the time where straight White men ruled everything.” There isn’t a shred of truth to that warning.
Court papers document how Harvard rigs the admissions system to disqualify as many Asian applicants as possible. It systematically gives Asian teens low “personal” scores for subjective qualities such as courage and personality in an attempt to offset their higher scores on standardized tests.
A black student with a Preliminary SAT score above 1100 might get invited to apply to Harvard, but a white student from the same area of the country would have to get a score above 1310; an Asian girl would need at least 1350, and an Asian boy at least 1380. Unfair? You bet.
It’s a repeat of what Harvard did in the 1930s to keep Jews out, according to Kenneth L. Marcus, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Trump administration’s Education Department. “Just as Harvard in the 1930s thought that Jewish students lacked the character to make them good Harvard men, so today they often view Asian students as lacking the appropriate character,” Marcus said.
The Supreme Court never intended affirmative action to be permanent. In 2003, when it upheld the University of Michigan Law Schools’ use of race to promote diversity, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
Fast forward, and the evidence is clear that affirmative action failed and should be replaced by programs that give a leg up to the poor, regardless of their skin color.
When the University of California tried affirmative action, Black and Hispanic students admitted with low scores floundered and graduated at far lower rates than non-affirmative action students.
In 1996, California voters — usually left-leaning — banned affirmative action. Afterward, the University of California showed how to promote economic mobility without using race, explains UCLA law professor Richard Sanders. UC recruited at inner city high schools and counseled students on the nuts and bolts of applying to college. UC targeted teens determined to study hard and succeed, never mind their skin color.
Harvard could do the same. Only 4.5% of students admitted to Harvard come from households with incomes in the bottom fifth of the nation. Many Black students admitted are children of academics and professionals. Yet they’re pushed ahead of Asian applicants whose parents are first-generation unskilled workers.
Diversity the way Harvard and many other universities practice it is a scam. In reality, it gives privilege to Black students.
Take Biden’s two leading candidates for the Supreme Court: federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and California Judge Leondra Kruger, both Harvard College graduates, Jackson’s father is a lawyer; Kruger is the daughter of two physicians. Both women are cookie-cutter duplicates of the court’s current makeup — Ivy Leaguers who once clerked for the Court.
For real diversity and fairness, Biden should consider a broad field, including Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the District Columbia Court of Appeals, who has not only a law degree but also a business degree. That’s something none of the current justices has, though business cases dominate the Court’s docket.
It’s time for America to end affirmative action. It’s a polite euphemism for an ugly process — reverse discrimination. It hasn’t made the U.S. economically fairer, and another 25 years won’t change the results.
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/85997-time-to-end-affirmative-action-2022-02-03
***************************************************Radical liberals enjoy painting everything as racist. They play the race card at every opportunity. Most of the time, what they’re talking about has absolutely nothing to do with race
But this constant shift to a racist narrative isn’t a coincidence. It’s their strategy. Democrats and liberal progressives thirst for a racially divided America. Every time they push their racial narrative, it grows more nauseating. Millions of Americans are tired of it. It’s not true.
When Joe Biden watched his failed legislative attempt to take over federal elections get squashed, Scranton Joe went all racially nuts. Biden actually had the audacity to accuse anyone who disagreed with the liberal agenda to uproot constitutional state election laws as being racist.
In a feverish speech in Atlanta, Georgia, Biden referred to anyone advocating for election integrity as being like a “Bull Connor” or a “George Wallace”. His comments were low-blows, even for Joe. He embarrassed himself and the nation.
However, he’s at it again. Biden was in New York City recently, supposedly to address a horrific crime wave that is engulfing NYC and dozens of other cities across the nation. Like clockwork, Biden managed to infiltrate race into a situation that has nothing to do with race.
What’s even more disturbing about Joe’s racially loaded comments is that most of them are either not logical or not true. During his New York speech, Biden moaned, “I said, Mom, why are all those kids, it was then called colored, why are all those COLORED KIDS in that bus?”
Here we go again. Sleepy Joe is a never-ending bombardment of boneheaded clips and spoken blunders. Sometimes we have to wonder if Joe is lying or if he is just so far out of touch that he can’t help it.
These fiasco happen invariably when he doesn’t have a teleprompter to use as a crutch or swerves off script. Both are ill-advised for this clown. So, what can we make of Joe’s cute little “colored kids” reference? Number one, it more than likely never actually happened.
Joe’s good at making up things that never really happen. He’s an expert fabricator of the truth. To clarify his odd reference, Joe talked about “Section 8 housing”. Let’s be clear. He waxed poetically about colored kids on a bus who lived in Section 8 Housing in Scranton, PA.
There’s only one problem with that analogy. When good old Scranton Joe lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Section 8 housing didn’t exist. It didn’t materialize until 1974, long after Scranton Joe became the “Delaware Dunce”. Biden is either a habitual liar, or he’s totally lost it.
Sometimes we’re not sure which. Nevertheless, these feeble attempts to make himself appear somehow all racially conscious are pitiful. Remember, please, that this man has a documented history of being more racist than any of those he’s accusing of being “Jim Crows”.
Even his chosen running mate gut-punched him on the Democrat primary debate stage. Kamala Harris fired off a barrage of racial accusations against her eventual boss. Harris nailed Biden’s history of support for segregation and school busing. It was a bad look for Joe.
But those aren’t the only incidents of Biden’s true “colors”. Biden once shrieked that he didn’t want his children to “grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle.” When it fit his narrative, Joe insisted his home state of Delaware supported the South during the Civil War.
Joe Biden has no clue what he stands for. His racial comments are tiresome and boorish. In fact, this constant racial narrative, one used by virtually every spoiled liberal, is like a broken record. We hear it over and over again. Everything is racist for them. It’s nauseating.
Don’t they realize the incessant repetitiveness makes the underlying lie even more obvious? These self-entitled elites scream for racial justice. But their policies create violent crime waves in minority communities. They stand on a soapbox and cry racism while making racism worse.
These blowhards insist that they support minority communities while they make the lives of these people worse. Joe Biden is really nothing but a racist old coot. Worst of all, like the constant racial narrative, he’s a tired old coot who America is growing wearier of by the day.
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'JK Rowling is a gold-plated hero': Writer Anthony Horowitz blasts cancel culture and says writers are 'under siege' and should not be punished for expressing their views
Writers are ‘under siege’ from cancel culture and should be able to express their views ‘without the world falling in on you’, according to best-selling author Anthony Horowitz.
The man behind hit children’s book series Alex Rider and ITV series Foyle’s War said Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, who has been targeted by trans activists, was a ‘gold-plated hero’ who had done a lot for children’s literacy and charity.
Horowitz, 66, admitted that when writing a character who had a different ethnicity, sex or gender to his own he started ‘worrying’ what the reaction would be.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the author also raised concerns about fellow novelist Sebastian Faulks’s statement in October, in which Faulks revealed he had left physical descriptions of female characters out of his latest novel.
Horowitz said: ‘There is a sense of writers under siege at the moment and that does bother me. JK Rowling is a gold-plated hero in the world who has done an enormous amount for children’s literacy and charity, and she is under attack.
'Writers must lead the agenda, not be cowed into following it. ‘You must be free to write what you want, and to express the views you want to express without the world falling in on you.’
Horowitz, who has also written for TV shows Midsomer Murders and Poirot and novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, admitted he got nervous about causing offence.
He said: ‘There are moments when I’m writing a character, who might be from a different ethnicity to mine, or a different sex or gender or background. I start worrying about what the reaction might be because it’s so unfathomable.’
Horowitz added: ‘That is scary because writers shouldn’t be following the agenda, they should be setting it. But that’s not happening any more.’
When Faulks talked about not describing women, ‘all writers have to begin to tremble’.
He said the comments were ‘extraordinary statements
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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