Left & Right Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. The first question from the producer asks about reports that Trump was ignorant of Russian payments to the Taliban to kill American soldiers. It’s no surprise to me, I say. Russians have been supporting the Taliban against US forces for nineteen years. When Russian invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the US supported Bin Laden and others against the Russians. I don’t see what the big deal is. Mark’s answer is circuitous. He talks about frequent communications between Trump and Putin, then mentions what he claims are examples of Trump’s racism like retweeting someone saying “White Power” from a gold cart in Florida. I asked what that had to do with Putin paying Taliban and Mark related what Trump aide John Bolton said about it: that Trump probably was briefed on the Russian payments but didn’t pay attention, that Bolton saw that often with Trump and his daily intelligence briefings. I bring up Trump’s July 4th speech at Mount Rushmore and outrageous mainstream media reaction to it, quoting headlines from The NYTimes and The Washington Post depicting the speech as “dark and devisive.” Mark quotes Trump saying there is a new far-left facism in corporate boardrooms.” I agree with that because corporation are kissing BLM butts and coming out in support. Mark claims 70% of the American people support BLM. I doubt that. Mark claimes: “Trump said angry mobs are tearing down statues of our founders, our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave or violence.” I ask, “You don’t agree with that?” “No,” says Mark. “What?” I say. “Have you been watching television?” It went on like that for the rest of the hour, quite contentious. See for yourself.

OUT OF CONTROL?

Who is in control? Given events of the past few weeks and months, that’s hard to say. Another question would be: Is anyone in control? In his dystopian novel 1984, British author George Orwell created the character “O’Brien” a powerful member of the Inner Party who tells Winston Smith: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

Some literary analysts claim Orwell was depicting the Nazi Party in 1984, while others claim it was the Communist Party. All agree that Orwell was portraying a totalitarian party in complete control of past, present and future for poor Winston Smith, an ordinary guy trying to figure out answers to the questions with which I opened this column.

Journalist Tucker Carlson openly claims Democrats are in control of recent events in the streets of our cities. Other conservative journalists contend Democrats support Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the hordes of anarchists who turn peaceful demonstrations into riots, and who tear down historical monuments across our country — the latter a dramatic, visible effort to control the past. We see it on our TV screens every night.

Last Saturday, Maine’s own Graham Lloyd, 37, was one of four charged with pulling down the statue of President Andrew Jackson in front of the White House. As of this writing I was unable to find where in Maine Graham lived or any other information about possible criminal or political activities in which he may have been involved locally.

Hannah-Jones with Henry Louis Gates

As a former US History teacher in Maine, I was surprised at the New York Times Magazine publication of the 1619 Project — an alternative US History curriculum contending the United States was founded not in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, but in 1619 when the first African slave was brought to Virginia. I was also dismayed to learn that it was being adopted by public schools across the country.

The 1619 Project -- another effort to control the past -- is a creation of New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones for which she was given a Pulitzer Prize. That’s curious given the dubious, racist, historical claims she’s made in the past. In a letter to the University of Notre Dame’s campus newspaper The Observer, she declared: “the white race is the biggest murderer, rapist, pillager, and thief of the modern world.” She called whites “bloodsuckers” and “barbaric devils,” and accused them of “pumping drugs and guns into the black community.”

Hannah-Jones also claimed that: “Africans had been to the Americas long before Columbus or any Europeans… [and] had the decency and respect for human life to learn from the Native Americans and trade technology with them…” She cited Aztec and Olmec pyramids as proof although historical evidence of these claims can be described as thin or none. Nonetheless, the New York Times and the Pulitzer Prize Committee consider her a respected historian.

One of the men beaten by Black Lives Matter

As a Roman Catholic, I’m further appalled that Black Lives Matter and Antifa are assaulting fellow Catholics and their statuary. When Catholics gathered over the weekend to say the rosary around the now-defaced statue of St. Louis — the saint after whom the city was named — the leftist mob beat at least three of them. I watched a horrifying video of three black men chasing down and beating a white Christian man following the rosary service but I’ll bet none of you readers ever saw it on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, or anywhere else. It doesn’t fit the “white privilege/systemic racism” narrative of our mainstream media.

Elsewhere in St. Louis, the leftist mob broke down a gate leading to a private home. In a video taken by Black Lives Matter protestors, a barefoot man was pointing what looked like an AR-15 at the mob. His barefoot wife stood beside him aiming a pistol. Both were warning the mob to leave. Thankfully it did before shots were fired. It was very tense and we can assume scenes like this are playing out elsewhere.

The Washington Post ran an article declaring: “St. Louis couple points guns at peaceful crowd of protestors calling for mayor to resign.” The homeowner, an attorney named Mark McCloskey, was interviewed by a local TV station and described the scene quite differently. He said the Black Lives Matter mob broke down a steel gate guarding the private drive leading to his house, threatened to kill him, his wife, their dog, and burn down their house. At least one had a semi-automatic pistol. He said the mayor didn’t live there.

Clearly this leftist-sanctioned violence occurring almost everywhere has reached a critical stage. Is it out of control already? One could make a serious case that it is. If so, can control be regained? By whom? Answers to these questions, or lack thereof, are likely to determine the outcome of the November elections.

Left & Right Thursday, June 4, 2020

We start with a question from the producer: "Do you agree with the generals that moving the protesters [from Lafayette Park] was a violation of their constitutional rights? Mark said he would be.motivated to demonstrate against that action if he lived in Washington, DC. I don't agree with Mattis and other generals that deploying the military to suppress violence would be a violation of the Constitution as the generals state. I don't think it's necessary to do so yet, but we're' getting close. We discuss my column for the week which denies that "systemic racism" exists. I define racism, which is a belief that race is inherently superior or inferior to another. Mark would expand that to various manifestations of what I would call discrimination. He cited discomfort whites might experience encountering a group of blacks given the high crime rates among young black men. I don't see that as racism by a white person against blacks. I see it as logical caution given known crime statistics. We go into several other topics like Twitter and the First Amendment. Mark says social media uses "platforms" and is not subject to the same regulations as newspapers and TV stations.

What The Heck Is "Systemic Racism?"

Good news: After three months, the coronavirus has been knocked off the front page.

Bad news: It’s been replaced by riots in our cities.

On Monday of last week, a horrified world watched Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin kill a handcuffed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck while he pleaded for mercy. My first question is: why wasn’t Chauvin arrested for murder until Friday?

My second question is: how does anyone know racism made Chauvin do that? Because the cop is white and the victim was black? Could Chauvin be an equal opportunity brute? Looking for evidence that he’s racist, all I could find was a Mercury News interview with the owner of a nightclub at which, ironically, both Chauvin and Floyd worked, Floyd as a bouncer. The owner said Chauvin was overly aggressive with black patrons who were fighting compared to Hispanic patrons who were.

If, as reported in multiple venues, there were multiple previous complaints about Chauvin, how did he keep his job? The police commissioner is black. The state attorney general is black. The US Congresswoman for the district is black. Leftist Democrats have controlled the city and state for decades. All have more influence on local police behavior than some nebulous concept like “systemic racism.” 

Rather than look in the mirror, they blame others. Some blamed President Trump. Minnesota Governor Walz blamed drug cartels. Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner, John Harrington blamed white supremacists. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also blamed white supremacists, organized crime, and foreign elements, then he actually cried at a press conference.

Leftist Mainstream Media blame systemic racism. On leftist Joy Reid’s MSNBC show over the weekend, author Bakari Sellers said: “This is not just about George Floyd. This is about systemic racism and systemic injustice and systemic oppression.” Also appearing was Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MIN) in whose district the riots began. She and Joy Reid nodded solemnly while Sellers blamed systemic racism. On ABC’s “This Week last Sunday, Omar said: ”There really was also many people who chose to demonstrate and not abide by the curfew, who felt like they also were terrorized by the presence of tanks, by the presence of the National Guard, and a militarized police.”

The long-time, left-wing paper called; The Nation, ran the headline: “There’s Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops.” Writer Elie Mystal claims: “The police are never going to voluntarily stop killing black and brown people… until the majority of white people in this country make the killings stop.”

Leftist public schools are teaching lessons on “systemic racism,” but what, exactly, is that? If you look it up you won’t find a definition that doesn’t employ circular reasoning. Google it, for example, and among the first hits will be Ben & Jerry’s take, entitled: "7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism Is Real." The first way is: “Racism At Every Level of Society” and it goes on listing racial disparities in wealth distribution, education, housing, and health care. All are assumed to be caused by racism of whites against blacks — circular reasoning again.

During the Obama administration, the US Department of Education started offering lessons on "systemic racism" for public schools using the same circular reasoning: ”Implicit racial bias can help us to better understand how institutional [systemic] racism and other forms of bias affect educational experiences of students from marginalized communities.” They, too, list the disparities and blame racism.

Several of our big-city police chiefs blame Antifa for turning peaceful demonstrations into riots. So does Attorney General Barr and President Trump. Meanwhile, Democrat NYC Mayor DiBlasio’s daughter was arrested for throwing rocks at police. Democrat Representative Ilhan Omar’s daughter tweeted support for rioters. Minnesota Attorney General and former congressman Keith Ellison. So did his son. All are Democrats and Keith Ellison is a former DNC Chairman.

Look around at the cities in which people are rioting. All have been run by Democrats for decades. There’s definitely a pattern here but don’t expect Mainstream Media to report on it.