Note: Normal people might find some of this offensive. (We hope. Dear Lord, please!)
“Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.” -- Chairman Mao
It’s only a couple weeks after Charlottesville and the left is hammering away at American history. Alt-left idiots are ordering the removal of Civil War monuments from Baltimore, Maryland, to Austin, Texas, and trying to change place names, as well.
But this fight has little to do with those monuments. As a result, the alt-left has targeted Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and even Joan of Arc. This isn’t a movement. Or even a purge. It’s a cultural revolution.
But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s consult with Angela Bonner Helm who wrote a piece for The Root, one of Haim Saban’s insane Univision properties. It was headlined: “What White Men Fear Most Is Coming to Pass ... They’re Being Erased. Isn’t That Ironic?”
“Erased.” No multiculturalism to that word. It’s full-on honesty. Imagine if a conservative wrote of erasing liberal people of color. America’s pretend journalist class would go berserk, typing madly into Twitter, hot take after hot take.
Bonner is thrilled by the change. “And I am all for it, while it occurs to me that with this seeming wave of a million and one about-faces, the very thing that white men fear is coming to pass. This is the ‘thing’ that allegedly drove them to form the Tea Party after Barack Obama’s presidency; or to commit suicide in greater numbers than ever before; or to jump up against Mexicans and Muslims; or to back the frothing, foaming anger that drove Donald Trump into the presidency,” she wrote.
Just in case you think that all overstates the case, Helm wrote that white men are fearing “the primal, existential fear of erasure—just as their ancestors literally and figuratively erased so many others throughout history.”
Again, she’s happy about that, too. White men are in the way. “Frankly, white boys are going to have to move aside for the others who have not been elevated but who played just as significant a role in the formation of this country and its culture,” she added.
Like I said, cultural revolution. (I imagine it won’t surprise you that Bonner is a journalist. She has “held editorial positions at AOL, The Village Voice, and amNewYork” and runs an editorial consulting company that serves clients that include The Root, according to Muckrack.)
Now, cultural revolution doesn’t have to be awful, but it typically is. China went through one in the 1960s and ‘70s -- ordered by none other than Mao himself. So let’s refresh ourselves with that era and why I think it seems so familiar.
The cultural revolution overturned the status quo. In the words of The Economist: “But what made the Cultural Revolution so unusual was its assault not only upon the lives but also on the values and norms by which people had lived for centuries. One of its core purposes was to accelerate the eradication of the ‘Four Olds’: old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas.”
Eradicating (or erasing a culture) happens a lot of ways. In America, Hollywood and academia are two of the greatest examples. We watch as Hollywood tells fewer stories of American heroes and those typically depict America as bad and the heroes as always people from some victim group. Anti-heroes rise and true heroes fall or are rarely used, like American Sniper.
Academia rewrites history to focus on the negatives of the Founders. George Washington goes from being the hero of the Revolutionary War who turned down a chance to be king to simply a “slave-holder” or an “old white man.” History texts lower their emphasis on people who did impactful things and focus on “social history” that leaves out key events, dates and people.
Both Hollywood and academia join in a collective dumbing of the society. Only that’s not enough.
In China, remnants of the past had to go and the Red Guards embraced their role as destroyers. “They destroyed thousands of manuscripts, ancient stone tablets and other “feudal property”. Of the 6,843 officially designated places of cultural and historic interest in Beijing, Red Guards vandalised 4,922,” continued The Economist.
Sound familiar? The hateful scumbags at the Southern Poverty Law Center tallied about 1,503 “symbols of the Confederacy in public spaces” in the United States. But there’s more. “For the final tally, the researchers excluded nearly 2,600 markers, battlefields, museums, cemeteries and other places or symbols that are largely historical in nature,” the SPLC added. That’s more than 4,000 monuments from the Civil War alone.
Only they aren’t alone. America is filled with monuments, battlefields, roads and places named after heroes of our past. The left has put us on notice that some, many, most or all are under threat. Sure, the occasionally PC historical figure will survive. Sacagawea who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition will likely survive a cultural purge. Lewis and Clark who helped America’s Manifest Destiny will not.
It didn’t end up going well for China. Things, well, escalated -- into cannibalism. One last quote from The Economist: “In a nightmarish confluence of class hatred and reversion to primitive custom, it is claimed that victims in Guangxi, a province in southern China, were eaten according to rank. In ‘The Cultural Revolution: a People’s History’ (see article), Frank Dikötter quotes a local account asserting that ‘leaders feasted on the heart and liver, mixed with pork, while ordinary villagers were only allowed to peck at the victims’ arms and thighs.’”
That takes the liberal expression, “Eat the rich!” to its logical conclusion. The alt-left might find this difficult to swallow, that their political opponents here are better armed.
Still, the cultural revolution is in full force, which takes us to this week’s insanity:
Yep, The National Anthem Is Next: Alternet took readers on a Byzantine trip through history to pretend the national anthem is also bad. Here’s the headline: “It Is Time to Examine the Words and the Origins of Our National Anthem, Another Neo-Confederate Symbol.”
Got that? “Neo-Confederate” song from a the War of 1812, nearly a half century before the Civil War. Why? Because ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was lobbied by Southerners into its exalted status.”
Hard to say that’s not cultural revolution garbage. Actual quote: “For example, observing Memorial Day and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” are uncontroversial patriotic gestures, yet there is no disputing that neo-Confederates developed these rituals.” The term “Neo-Confederate” is now used to define anyone that the alt-left doesn’t like.
Now not the qualifiers: “That doesn’t necessarily mean the holiday and the national anthem should be jettisoned, along with Robert. E. Lee statues, only that their historical roots should be recognized and taught.” Not “necessarily.”
As a Baltimore native, I am tempted to write something here that might include salty language. But Alternet isn’t worthy of my anger. It’s like a lunatic raving in a darkened room claiming that aliens put transponders in our food. It’s worthy of our pity.
Until this effort gets serious. Then I guarantee I’ll be angry.
Why Report The News When You Can Make It Up?: Donald Trump is about to resign. I read it online or maybe it was a bathroom wall. Oh darn, it was less credible than that. I read it on Bustle. Here’s how their crazy story began: “As usual, the internet is roiling with speculation about the nation's 45th president — this time about whether or not he will resign. …”
Bustle then linked the whole story to a theory from Tony Schwartz, “Trump's Art of the Deal ghostwriter,” like that matters. But for all the alt-left hates our president, they also hate his vice president. Actual quote: “Pence, a more conventional and conservative Republican, would be unlikely to have the same problems — which could turn out dangerous for those who don't want him to be able to enact his right-wing, Christian agenda.”
This is the point where I remind you this is a just allegedly a standard women’s website. “BUSTLE IS FOR & BY WOMEN WHO ARE MOVING FORWARD AS FAST AS YOU ARE,” according to its about page. It’s not. It’s just one more piece of the alt-left.
That’s why the story actually treats this rumor seriously. “If Schwartz is right, you won't have to speculate for long; if Trump were to resign in a similar way that Nixon did, he could announce it and then be gone the next day,” it concludes. This is another reason sane people no longer trust journalism. It’s not about truth or proof. It’s just agenda written by people with the political acumen of a toothbrush.
Don’t You Dare Say That!: The alt-left continues its 1984-esque march through our society -- looting and burning the language like barbarians roaming through a library. The whackjobs at Alternet gave us: “These 5 Common Phrases You Might Use At Work Are Actually Highly Offensive.” It added: “Don't be that guy.” They must be bad, am I right? Only awful expressions really get banned by the thought police. Right?
So here are the five: 1) “Low-Skilled Labor” 2) “Urban” 3) “You Guys” 4) “Handicapped” 5) “Ghetto.” You aren’t supposed to say: “You guys will discover it only takes low-skilled labor to roam through some urban, liberal ghetto like Berkeley and find the morally handicapped people who oppose free speech.
Actual quote for “Low-Skilled Labor”: “Well, the term suggests that these jobs don’t require any brain power—which means the people holding them aren’t intelligent.” No, it means they have low skills. Like picking up garbage in a stadium. If it’s not nailed down, it’s garbage.
Actual quote two, for “You Guys”: “This phrase is so common that it can be difficult to stop using. However, it’s a damaging one. When you’re speaking to a mixed-gender group, saying ‘you guys’ puts the attention solely on the men. Do you want to do that? Of course not!” Or, you could work with intelligent women who know it’s just a figure of speech and aren’t triggered. For the millionth time, this is how you got Trump.
Please follow me at @dangainor on Twitter. I’d like to hear from you.
