Addressing the reality of black crime in America

 

Those of you who've been reading here for a while know that I'm very far from being a racist - quite the opposite, in fact.  Nevertheless, I know that much of the critical race theory-driven drivel being spouted by progressive and left-wing administrations - local, state and national - is a tissue of lies from start to finish, particularly when it comes to blaming crime in black communities on racism.  The reality is much more complex, and much more fundamental.

As a pastor and prison chaplain, I've long seen the dysfunction in black families, particularly the lack of father figures to bring up young black men in the way they should walk.  The influence of a father is fundamental.  It can't be substituted by maternal care, no matter how good.  Its roots go deep into the human psyche, and are beyond rationalization.  I saw the effects of dysfunctional family life (or the lack thereof) in black communities in the prison populations where I served.  It's not politically correct to talk about it, but it's nevertheless real.

One pastor in Chicago appears to understand that very well - and he's doing something about it.

Blaming black crime on slavery and Jim Crow completely ignores the elephant in the room.

. . .

Corey Brooks, pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago, has spent the past few years getting his hands dirty with an “alternative explanation” that is slowly transforming one of the most violent neighborhoods in Chicago. Rather than blaming cops, he’s laser-focused on tackling urban crime at its root: broken families.

In the new documentary “What Killed Michael Brown?” Shelby Steele and his son, Eli, spoke with Pastor Brooks, who set up his church in 2000 in the heart of Woodlawn, Illinois. It’s now a congregation of 2,500.

“I believe the church is the hope of the world,” said Brooks.  “What greater place that needs that hope than a place that’s experiencing high levels of crime [and] broken families? We’ve seen a lot of young guys in the neighborhood who don’t value their lives.  A lot of it is a result of not having someone to encourage them that ‘You can do better,’ … But if you don’t have those messages going forward, it’s hard for you to value life when everybody is shooting and killing.”

That was true for ex-Black Disciples gang leader Varney Voker who, as a child, watched his mother smoke weed and deal drugs. He wanted to be like her. But he did better. Voker grew up to build a crack-heroin business that brought in $60,000 a day.

Legendary in Chicago as one of “The Bentley Twins” (he and his twin brother drove Bentleys), Voker told Steele about how he returned from an 11-year prison sentence to find his old neighborhood under new leadership. While looking for old connections to rebuild his empire, Voker’s friend told him he had to go to the church.

“I’m like, who am I meeting?” he said, recounting the story.  “Guy (said), ‘You meeting the pastor.’  I said, ‘I don’t want to talk to no pastor, bro, I just came home.  He goes, ‘No, you have to talk to him because he runs the neighborhood now.’ ”

When they finally met, the pastor said to the ex-gang leader: “OK, um, I know who you are; I heard a lot about you – glad to see you home, but I’m the new sheriff in town.”

By making himself the “biggest elephant in the room,” Brooks established a new hierarchy in Woodlawn where young blacks saw him as a father figure.  Over the years, Brooks has created an environment where young people can learn a trade, become self-sufficient, and be role models for others.  It is this painstaking cycle of creating and reproducing role models that Brooks believes will transform the neighborhood.  In fact, he wants Woodlawn to be the petri dish that will offer proof that urban areas nationwide can grow themselves out of dysfunction and close crippling disparities.

“It’s easy to say, ‘the white man, the white man’ when in reality we need to take a closer look at ourselves,” he told Steele. “We’re telling them educationally – you’ve got to get it together.  Economically, you’ve got to get it together.  Family and spiritually, you have to get it together.   And you have to take responsibility.”

It is the Corey Brooks of the world – not the Cory Bookers – who will do for troubled urban cities what trillions of government dollars, angry protesters, and pampered TV pundits have failed to do.  They ignore the elephant in the room, then make books and monuments to themselves about the problems they created and pretended to solve.

But men like Pastor Brooks stare the elephant in the eye, hammer stakes in the ground, and commit to the dirty, back-breaking labor of changing the destiny of generations of broken human beings.

If America is lucky, Brooks and people like him, just may be replicating an army of men and women in their own images.

There's more at the link.

I'm heartened and encouraged to read about such efforts to address the root of the problem.  It's long overdue.  However, it's also not happening nearly widely enough.  The apostles of racial extremism and conflict don't want to see programs like this, because they'll undermine their constituency of disaffected black youth - so they'll do their best to block and discredit them at every turn.  I applaud Pastor Brooks' efforts, but I fear for his safety, and the safety of those serving alongside him.  They're likely to be targeted by those without principles or compassion.

In my earlier article this morning, I warned that America was close to a tipping point.  People like Pastor Brooks might be the key to holding us back from tipping . . . if, and only if, their message can penetrate beyond their local communities into regional and national politics.  So far, that's not happening.  If any of us can help them accomplish that, we need to get behind their efforts - because the consequences of failure will be devastating for us all.

Peter

The consequences of a stolen election spell imminent danger for America

 

Anybody with two working brain cells to rub together knows that the November 2020 elections were stolen.  There is no doubt in my mind that the Biden administration is illegitimate, and the Democratic Party's control over the Senate is illegitimate, as a result of electoral fraud.  The evidence of that is overwhelming.  In fact, it's confirmed by the machinations of the Democratic Party and progressive political machine to prevent evidence of that fraud from being properly, honestly and effectively tested in court.  Just look at their efforts to stop or impede vote fraud investigations in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere.  If there was no fire to be investigated, they wouldn't be so frantically denying the existence of the all too visible smoke.

The trouble is, evil begets evil.  A stolen election has consequences.  Smaller crimes lead to greater crimes.  We're seeing more and more of those consequences of crime becoming reality before our eyes right now.

• The Democratic Party is desperately trying to shore up its position while Kamala Harris has a casting vote in the Senate.  Efforts to expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices depend on that - but if President Biden succumbs to his clearly worsening mental deterioration, and she takes over his office, then that casting vote is lost.  At that point, the Democrats can no longer be sure of getting their legislation through the Senate - or, for that matter, getting approval for her successor as Vice-President.  (That's probably the primary reason why she hasn't already taken over;  they can't do without her Senate vote.)  The result is that Congress and the Senate are flamingly dysfunctional, with normal procedures being circumvented whenever possible in an effort to ram through controversial legislation by any means possible.  Can the filibuster survive?  I have my doubts.
• Biden appointees are trashing and letting down the USA in so many ways it's impossible to tabulate them all.  To name just the most recent example, look at the disgraceful exhibition by our UN Ambassador on Wednesday, when she alleged that "America’s history of slavery 'weaved White supremacy into our founding documents and principles'."  She's wrong, of course;  her words and her attitude are very clearly the fruit of critical race theory, which is fundamentally Marxist in orientation and bears little or no relation to the facts of history.  When other countries see our ambassador spouting such drivel, what can they feel for us except contempt, for appointing such a lackwit as our national representative?
• The Biden administration's approach to matters such as illegal aliens, economic policy, the legal and justice system, etc. is uniformly partisan and divorced from reality.  When ideology is preferred and empowered over reality, anarchy results - and the situation on our southern border exemplifies this.  The chickens of progressive chaos are already coming home to roost.  Why do you think the progressive left is trying so hard to disarm Americans?  It's because they fear our ability, and our determination, to defend ourselves.  If they weren't planning to take steps that will require us to defend ourselves, they wouldn't be so intent on taking away our tools to do so.  Don't delude yourself about their real intentions.
• Other powers are moving swiftly to take advantage of President Biden's weakness, and the preoccupation of his fraudulent administration with strengthening its position in Congress and the Senate.  Russia is openly challenging the West over Ukraine;  China is openly challenging the West over Taiwan, the islands of the South China Sea, and influence in the rest of the world.  I won't be surprised in the least to see Russia attack Ukraine to take the rest of the territory it wants, and if I lived in Taiwan right now, I'd be doing all in my power to emigrate as fast as possible, to get out from beneath the Red hammer before it comes down.  Iran is effectively daring the Biden administration to stop its nuclear program, and is confident it can ignore US pressure.  Our military capabilities are being steadily undermined by the administration's politically correct policies, to the point where their ability to deter such aggression is dubious at best.  If I were Russia or China or Iran, I'd move fast, to take every advantage I could while my adversary was distracted, disrupted and dysfunctional.  If you think those nations aren't planning exactly that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you.  Cash only, please, and in small bills.
• The constant diatribe of anti-white propaganda inside the USA is stiffening the resolve of the white community to resist further encroachment.  BLM and Antifa may dominate the liberal, progressive cities in some states:  but it's very noticeable that they don't dare try the same tactics in more conservative areas, because they know very well what would happen to them.  Such propaganda and tactics are driving, ever deeper, a wedge between races and communities in our country.  A finer breeding ground for a fourth generation civil war can't be imagined - and I fear that's precisely what we're going to get, sooner rather than later.

We might withstand one of those pressures at a time.  We might even withstand two . . . but can our nation withstand all of them at once?  I doubt it.  That's too much to handle, even for America.

I fear greatly that our nation is in imminent danger of at least the splintering, if not the complete collapse of our national unity.  If that happens, expect international chaos and anarchy while our stabilizing influence is removed, and our gaze turns inward to deal with our own problems.  Who knows where that could end up?  Who knows how the world will look after a few short years of such destructive free-for-all conflict?

We're at a very dangerous point indeed.  Nobody knows what the short-term future will bring - but I have no doubt whatsoever that things are about to get worse.  Be on your guard, friends, make what preparations you can, and look for allies and support to help you withstand the enormous pressures that are about to be let loose.  The trouble with tipping points is, very often they tip.  I think this one is about to do so.  I expect serious trouble in a matter of months, and possibly within weeks.

I saw this coming several years ago;  it's the principle reason I moved to where I live today, west of the Mississippi and away from major cities, which are the flashpoints of conflict in America today.  I note that a lot of people with a sense of the realities of the times are doing likewise.  Good for them.  Those of us in our right minds need to come together for mutual support and protection.

If you're stuck in a conflict zone, or a city likely to become one, I can only recommend that you prepare as best you can.  This article and this one offer many helpful suggestions.  Prepare today, so you aren't caught unawares and unprepared tomorrow.

Peter

"The Radicalization of Black America"

 

That's the title of a very thought-provoking article by David Cole in Taki's Magazine.  He draws an analogy between religious intolerance and social intolerance.  (I hasten to emphasize that he's not speaking of the broad mass of Black people in America, or anywhere else:  he's addressing the radical fringe, those who prefer to riot and burn down and destroy rather than seek constructive solutions to their problems.  Sadly, that radical fringe appears to be in control in many American cities right now.)

According to Younes/Morton, imams who knew that there’s nothing in Muslim law or theology that commands believers to kill infidels who depict Mohammed, purposely spread the lie that such a commandment exists, because it was a falsehood that could spawn a deeper hatred of Westerners, a greater willingness to kill, than something banal like “Their generals are bombing some villagers.” That message is less effective because Muslims like killing Muslims, too, and different varieties of Muslims war with each other every day. But the Mohammed cartoons, that was unifying. It spoke to a common identity shared by all Muslims, be they Sunni, Shiite, Arab, Asian, black, or white.

. . .

“Something sacred to you—the thing that is the very core of your identity—is being profaned and disrespected by people who value their ‘free speech’ rights over your right to protect what is hallowed. Your identity commands you to take up arms.” That’s an argument that stirs passions and engenders hate.

. . .

Once you understand that principle, everything we’ve seen in the U.S. regarding blacks over the past few decades becomes instantly explicable. Black Americans have the highest levels of self-esteem of any racial or ethnic group in the country, yet arguably (on average) they have the fewest accomplishments to back up that narcissism. What a perfect group for leftist “imams” to target with the message that it’s your skin that’s sacred. Your holy skin makes you valuable, not your accomplishments. Those who speak disrespectfully of that skin are blasphemers; it’s your duty to eradicate them.

Essentially, blacks are their own Mohammed. They are their own sacred icon, their own holy prophet. They may be Christian, Muslim, secular, whatever. But they must all fight to protect their hallowed skin from disrespect from infidels.

This is the talking point that crafty race-hustlers are using to radicalize as many blacks as possible.

There's more at the link.

Cole followed that article with another titled "The Curse of Aaron", in which he uses a character in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to illustrate his point.

Aaron is a black guy who torments, well, everyone. He’s the lover and consigliere of Tamora, the Goth queen who marries the Roman Emperor Saturninus. Aaron is firmly in the catbird seat; he has the ear and affection of the empress, who dominates the weak and ineffectual emperor. Aaron’s got power, riches, and babes. And yet…he’s unsatisfied. Material success is not what matters to him. He despises the whites, foes and allies alike, and he’s driven by a compulsion to destroy their society. He arranges brutal rapes, horrific mutilations, and sadistic murders (he even tricks Titus into cutting off his own hand). He foments the unrest that will eventually bring down his own house. Aaron is, in the words of Titus’ brother Marcus, the “chief architect and plotter of these woes.”

. . .

Why the anger and hatred? By not answering that question, Shakespeare has inadvertently given us the most relevant 21st-century black character of any playwright in history. A character living in a society in which he is afforded all possible opportunities, while—even as he takes advantage of those opportunities—he harbors nothing but hostility toward the majority population, even if he can point to no specific reason why they deserve such enmity. His very identity is based upon hatred of whites. There’s no tidy origin story, no specific wrong that’s being avenged or injury that served as a catalyst for the rage. There’s just an angry black man who looks gift horses in the mouth and yanks their teeth for pleasure. A black man who finds more satisfaction in being at war than he does from achieving success.

A black man who feels entitled to that war, even if he cannot name a single concrete reason why he should be.

Behold the black New York Times and Washington Post and MSNBC journalists and the black Biden administration officials and the black Hollywood producers and the black athletes and academics who live lives that would make most people green with envy, yet who seem to find fulfillment only in antiwhite, anti-West rage.

. . .

For the leftist blacks, whites, and Jews who view themselves as shepherds of the black community, Aaron is the ideal, the goal of all the social engineering and propagandizing. Perpetually furious, blindly hateful, vengeful though not for any wrongs actually incurred, unmollified by opportunity or success, and obsessively focused on “tearing it down” while having no idea what to replace “it” with.

Again, more at the link.

As I said earlier, Cole is talking about the radical leaders of extremist Black movements, not the broad mass of their followers.  When it comes to such radicals, I have to agree with him.  I've seen it as a prison chaplain, and as a pastor.  Such leaders tend to whip up emotion and unthinking nihilism in their followers, using that to justify every new extreme.  Demagogues and "community organizers" know that even though their arguments have no logic or reason behind them, emotion can override that deficiency.  (I almost said "trump" it, but in today's political climate, that name would only make things worse!)

I highly recommend reading both of Cole's articles in full.  They're thought-provoking, and defy political correctness in an attempt to understand the reality behind the violence and savagery we're seeing on our streets.  They certainly shed new light on what motivates the leaders of BLM and Antifa.

Peter

The tangled web of "qualified immunity" laws

 

I note that New Mexico has abolished "qualified immunity" under state law.  Police and other state officials are now liable for mistakes, errors and misconduct committed while on duty.  It's aroused a storm of criticism, not just from law enforcement, but also from other first responders, who believe they can no longer exercise professional judgment without running the risk of being sued by anyone who didn't like the way they did that.  For example, a representative of one New Mexico volunteer firefighting district writes:

What if you called 911 and no one answered? That will start to happen very soon in rural New Mexico.

Volunteer fire and EMS (Emergency Services) departments are the one place where political parties, religious differences, and racial and age biases all disappear. We are family, and we need and depend on each other for the good of our communities. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed H.B. 4, the “Civil Rights Act” into law this week. It has the potential to shut us down and close our doors. Qualified immunity is not just a bad cop issue; it is a huge issue in so many other areas. In the fire service, fire officers make huge decisions almost daily that affect human life, safety, and due process based on the deprivation of life and property, secured rights in the New Mexico Bill of Rights.

Our training helps, but the rapid, explosive, and unpredictable nature of fire and having only the information available at that time make these decisions difficult. On wildfires, firefighters often have to write off homes and other structures for the greater good at that time. Some homes are defendable, and some are not. Sometimes we may make the right decision and know it is the responsible thing to do, yet you may not feel that way if it is your home. Qualified immunity prevents frivolous, groundless, and costly lawsuits against public servants.

. . .

We have used the qualified immunity defense on numerous occasions. Without qualified immunity, we can see a huge exodus of our volunteer firefighters, especially our invaluable, most knowledgeable fire officers ... We have consulted five attorneys regarding the result of losing qualified immunity for our volunteer firefighters. Two attorneys told us that the entity we represent could come back on the individual to recoup their losses. Who would risk all they have and all they have volunteered to be sued by someone who thinks they have been wronged and denied their rights or privileges?

. . .

The same goes for our volunteer EMTs.  59.1% of all of the EMTs in New Mexico are volunteers. We are sued on occasion and are saved from sue-happy citizens by qualified immunity. We have alleged HIPAA violations. We have triage situations and have to make the best decisions we can as to who we can save and who we cannot. We also legally have to stay with a patient until we can hand them off to someone of equal or higher medical qualifications. Often, it makes us look uncaring when we are only doing our job. Believe us, we care.

Often, we are asked to “stage” before going into a scene because of the danger involved. This leads to a delay in medical attention and opens EMTs to lawsuits. Again, without qualified immunity, we think there will be a mass exodus of these volunteer EMTs who will fear and most likely face civil suits if QI is lost. None of us can afford the legal fees of a civil suit, even if we are found not guilty. None of us can afford to repay the entity we serve if they come after us personally for all or part of the damages they had to pay, as one attorney advised could happen.

There's more at the link.

On the other hand, there have undoubtedly been abuses perpetrated by individuals and agencies that have been successfully defended under the doctrine of qualified immunity.  Examples are legion;  see, for example, those linked in this article.  Anyone in his right mind will support removing that protection from such egregious cases.  However, if doing so will put at risk other officers and agencies who are acting in good faith, that's a big problem.

There's also the discrepancy between state and federal law.  As New Republic points out:

Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that applies in federal courts when interpreting Section 1983, which is part of a federal law. State lawmakers ... can no more tell federal judges how to interpret Section 1983 than they can tell the Vatican how to read the catechism.

Again, more at the link.

That discrepancy between state and federal law is likely to prove a major bone of contention.  Individuals and agencies being sued under state law may well seek to have the case moved to a federal court on even the flimsiest of grounds.  On the other hand, plaintiffs who believe they might "get a better deal" under state law may try to remove a case from federal court and transfer it to a state court system.  I think lawyers are going to make a lot of money arguing over such nuances.

I certainly agree that qualified immunity laws need to be reformed, at both state and federal level.  The existing laws seem to me to be too broad, and protect conduct that would otherwise be classed as unlawful, injudicious or even criminal.  On the other hand, I agree that first responders - law enforcement, fire, EMS and others - do need some protection against frivolous lawsuits, or those brought by victims who disagree with the choices made by first responders in the heat of the moment.

I don't think there's any easy, universally applicable answer.  Every case is different, and requires the best judgment of all concerned.  A law is necessarily a "one-size-fits-all" approach - and we already know that doesn't work.  As the proverb reminds us, circumstances alter cases, and no law can take all the circumstances into account.

Peter

Really???

 

From Black House News, described on Twitter as "a Liberation News resource hub" (click the image to be taken to the source):

So looting, arson and general mayhem are now "acts of material liberation", are they?  Well, if they try that in my area, the perpetrators are likely to be liberated from their material bodies by irate citizens - which is almost certainly why they haven't tried it around here.  Apparently some "material" is too precious to risk "liberation" . . .

Peter

The IRS would doubtless disagree, but...

 

... one has to sympathize!  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at The Whiteboard's Web site.

At least tomorrow isn't the deadline, thanks to an extension until May 17th granted nationwide by the IRS.  However, I've still got all the paperwork to do . . .

Peter

Is the US military being deliberately undermined and subverted?

 

I've heard a number of comments from former US military officers and service personnel about what they're seeing and hearing from their comrades still in the armed forces.  In particular, it appears that any dissent from the current drive against "extremism" is being treated very negatively.  Service personnel who question why the January 6th demonstrations in Washington D.C. are treated as "insurrection" or "domestic terrorism", while the same label is not used to describe rioters in Portland or Seattle last year, are being openly silenced and their concerns dismissed.  Some have reported that they've been privately threatened with retaliation, and told that because they asked such questions openly, their careers are "over".  In so many words, it appears "extremism" is a label applied only to conservative and even centrist views - not to progressive leftist perspectives.

Sundance argues that the armed forces are being deliberately subverted into an instrument to enforce politically correct views against states and regions that don't subscribe to them.

Considering the specific examples over the past few years, I would argue the Democrats are positioning for use of the military in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act -or- by an expressed act of congress.

Following the evidence to its logical conclusion is simple.  The political apparatus of the DC state has framed a fraudulent narrative that “insurrection” against the federal government is an ongoing possibility.

Toward that end the U.S. military national guard troops have been sent to Washington DC indefinitely (current deployment extended through May).

If we consider there is a reasonable argument now surfacing about states choosing to nullify federal laws, it is not a stretch to see the insurrection narrative as a proactive assertion to support the deployment of active military against any state who would be non-compliant.

Would this violate the Posse Comitatus Act? Quite possibly, yes; it would depend on whether congress passed an expressed act authorizing military troops against specific state action.

When we consider that most of the constitutional checks and balances have been deconstructed or usurped by hardline leftist action; including the weaponization of the intelligence community, and specifically the FBI as a federal law enforcement agency; we are left to recognize that any Posse Comitatus violation would likely be supported by a leftist and aligned media arguing that the military is needed in order to stop a rebellion of states.

If my suspicions/predictions are correct, this would explain exactly why there has been a recent uptick in the visual politicization of the military; including empirical examples of emboldened U.S. military leadership openly engaged in domestic political advocacy against Tucker Carlson.

The marching of the U.S. military through the Capitol building to the offices of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene would be another orchestrated optic sending the same political message.

These are not examples of the military “woke” community advancing political correctness, instead these are examples of advanced politicization of the military (in an open context) in preparation for domestic political use.   The “insurrection narrative” is then considered a seed planted to blossom later in support of the overall agenda.

One of the data-points highlighting future intent was clearly visible and seemingly overlooked by almost all media.  It happened when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman first became a political whistle-blower against the office of President Trump.

It was not the details of the Vindman accusation that stood out, though that was the aspect the media focused on.  What was more concerning was the lack of action by the Pentagon after Vindman compromised his position as an advisor to the commander in chief ... Why did senior military leadership not remove Vindman from his post at the White House once he clearly compromised his ability to carry out his duty?  Their lack of action was stunning when you consider their primary obligation.

Fast forward to 2021 and now a very political military officer, General Russel Honoré, is appointed by Nancy Pelosi to be in charge of the military deployment around Washington DC.  When you consider the political ramifications of the military supporting a false narrative, this is more than just another data-point.  Then the military openly attacked the position of Tucker Carlson based entirely on political ideology.

The increased frequency of the military being politicized is what leads me to believe this phase is all just a public relations pre-positioning.  I fully expect to see the standing U.S. military deployed against any state who stands up against unconstitutional federal demands… the likely origination point will be federal COVID mandates.

The leftists are weaponizing COVID mandates for a political agenda.  It is only a matter of time before states start to rebel against federal COVID demands.  That, in my opinion, will be the inflection point.  That will be when the U.S. military is held as a compliance activation against any rebellious state.  It could be another issue that activates this triggering of the military (ex. state election laws), but as it stands right now federal COVID compliance seems the most likely trigger.

Bottom line… The American electorate are being positioned to accept deployment of the U.S. military against U.S. citizens, under the guise of insurrection and/or a public threat.  That is why we are seeing so much willful politicization of the military.

If you live in a region or state that values individual liberty and/or freedom, you are likely in a location that leftists consider a risk to their ability to execute their agenda.  You are likely right now being defined as a “dissident”, or possibly a “domestic terrorist.”  As a result, get ready to see this type of activity in your neighborhood.

There's more at the link.

I hope and pray Sundance is wrong . . . but I fear he's probably right.  The senior commanders of our military were, indeed, subverted during the Obama administration by the systematic weeding out of most of those with conservative views and/or combat command experience.  Instead, those with leftist sympathies and/or sycophantic tendencies were promoted.  The rank and file were systematically purged of combat veterans.  I've heard several horror stories from veterans who were told by their (sympathetic) commanders that they might as well leave and build civilian careers, because they would get nowhere in the military under its new, politically correct leadership.

I've personally experienced how a partisan military can disrupt and destroy faith in national institutions as a whole.  In South Africa, the armed forces were intended to defend the nation against external aggression.  However, opposition to that country's apartheid policies was systematically defined by the government of the day as "caused by external influences", particularly Communism, the Soviet Union and its surrogates.  Internal political movements opposed to apartheid were legally classified as Communist and brutally suppressed, forcing many of their leaders to leave the country and continue the struggle from outside.  There was zero tolerance for dissenting opinions.  As part of that, the armed forces were turned into security surrogates for the state, backing up the police - and in some cases actually performing police functions - to suppress opposition.  The result was that the armed forces no longer attracted the support of the people in defending the nation, being regarded as just another tool or instrument of oppression.

I don't want to see that happen here.  It's so destructive to the armed forces themselves that they become demoralized, cynical, divorced from their defensive mission.  If you make the armed forces into domestic bully-boys, they become the problem rather than the solution.

There's one ray of sunshine in the present situation, in that the majority of enlisted personnel and NCO's appear to be fully aware of attempts to subvert them, and are not impressed.  However, the officer corps is another matter.  One source observes:

While the military academies only produce a fraction of the total officer corps, they are a bellwether for the larger force ... Rather than focusing on being proud citizens of a unified nation, we are seeing the fruition of decades of the teaching of socialist critical theory, by which Americans have been taught to segment ourselves into groups based on race, gender, religion, economic success, and political ideology.  As intended by the proponents of this insidious political philosophy, this is tearing our nation apart. In the military, such effects can be disastrous to our warfighting preparedness and effectiveness.  At a time when we are stretched in our capability to cover global commitments, we cannot afford anything less than the most patriotic, unified, effective, and lean fighting force possible.  The “woke” cadets that are the product of the past several decades of socialist critical theory are producing officers that we are now encountering in our armed forces, whose attitudes about our nation not only flies in the face of American military history but in the preparedness of our academy graduates to effectively lead our brave men and women serving in the US armed forces.

. . .

Americans are turning against each other, driven by decades of political and societal division, all aroused and enflamed by the collision of socialist critical theory and what had been the dominant American ethic of “one nation, under God, indivisible, with unity and justice for all”.  And for the first time since 1948, race and gender identity are at the forefront of discussions in the military, rather than readiness and warfighting abilities.  Today we are told that “diversity is our strength,” but military experience and history has taught us differently.  It taught us that patriotism, competence, comradery, and an indominable spirit are all that matter.

Again, more at the link.

This is one of the most worrying developments of all under our present hyper-partisan administration.  I can't think of anything that will divide America more effectively than a military that is distrusted, even feared, by half the population.  If there's a better recipe for actual, violent civil war, where citizens feel they have no choice but to defend themselves against their own military, I don't know what it might be.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  I forgot to mention the increasing subversion of some US military academies by progressive leftist professors.  A case in point is provided by the antics of Spenser Rapone at West Point.  The subsequent investigation and fallout from the incident uncovered repeated patterns of violations of the cadet honor code, and progressive and extreme left-wing influence at the Academy.  This tends to reinforce Sundance's point, and my own.

Why is Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger interfering with a ballot audit?

 

The conduct of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appears highly suspicious, to put it mildly.  Some might say he's deliberately trying to obstruct a review of the votes cast in the November 2020 elections.

John Solomon broke the news last week.

In December 2020 ... Voter GA filed a suit against the then-chairperson of the Fulton County Board of Elections based on a sudden, implausible spike of 20,000 votes in favor of Joe Biden on election night, along with sworn testimony from hand count auditors who say they saw batches of counterfeit ballots during the county's post-election hand recount. The witnesses cite uncreased ballots, different paper stock, and ballots marked with toner instead of writing implements as reasons for their suspicions.

Based on the affidavits and other evidence, the judge in the case found probable cause to conditionally unseal the county's ballots for a forensic audit. Voter GA was given until March 25 to submit a plan to the judge detailing what the audit would look like — which experts they were going to use, where the audit would take place, etc.

Last week, Raffensperger, who is not a party to the suit, filed an amicus brief in an attempt to block the effort to unseal and examine the ballots.

. . .

In his brief, Raffensperger cites Georgia's new election security bill, signed into law by Republican Governor Brian Kemp on March 25, as allowing the "public disclosure of ballot images, but not ballots," meaning the auditors would have access to digital images of the ballots, created by the tabulation machines, but not the physical ballots themselves.

. . .

"[A]ny legal challenges to the results of the 2020 general are also moot," claims the brief, "as the results of that election have already been tabulated, audited by hand count, recounted by machine tabulation, and were certified by the secretary of state on November 20, 2020, who has the sole authority to certify election results" under Georgia law.

"The public interest would not be served by allowing Petitioners to undergo an unlawful fishing expedition into sealed ballots in their attempt to undermine the results of the general election," continues the brief.

There's more at the link.

Arguments in court yesterday about the matter proved very interesting.  The judge has agreed that the plaintiffs, Voter GA, must indeed examine images first, rather than actual ballots, as Georgia's new law provides:  but he has not ruled out examining the ballots themselves.  Voter GA's attorney made a very strong case for the latter by arguing that to use a photocopy of a counterfeit hundred-dollar bill to determine whether or not it's counterfeit is ridiculous.  The truth of that proposition is self-evident.  How can one determine whether a ballot is hand-written, or machine-produced, or a photocopy produced for fraudulent purposes, if one can't examine the original?

My response is very simple.  It's in everyone's interest to ensure free, fair and honest elections - except those who "fix" them.  The latter can be expected to put every possible obstacle in the way of those trying to ensure fairness and honesty.  The fact that the Georgia Secretary of State is doing precisely that is a bright flashing warning light that he may well be trying to sabotage fairness and honesty, rather than ensure them.

Keep an eye on proceedings in Fulton County.  If those votes are proved fraudulent, that may be enough to disqualify the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia as a whole - and may be used to call into question the Senate elections in that state in January 2021.  If those are overturned, the Democratic Party will lose control of the Senate . . . and then, ain't we got fun?

Peter

Missile technology: reverse-engineering and updating a classic

 

I was intrigued to read about a new Chinese anti-tank missile.  It reminded me of South Africa's entry into that field in the 1980's.

China recently revealed a new ATGM (anti-tank guided missile) which appears larger than earlier ones and uses top-attack warhead technology. It was later reported that [an earlier] version of this new missile had been revealed, called the ATF-11, and better photos were provided. It appears that the larger vehicle mounted missile and the new portable version are the same and are in fact a laser guided version of the American TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided). The ATF-11 was is not the first Chinese missile to use top-attack tech. That showed up in the 1980s when they introduced the HJ-8, which is nearly identical to the American TOW 2 in size, weight, range and, according to the users, performance. The ATF-11 appears to be a laser guided version of the HJ-8. There were American and Israeli laser-guided (wireless) TOW missiles but they never seemed to be worth putting into service.

. . .

The new Chinese missile was not named, but was shown mounted in a multiple cell launcher on an armored vehicle. No performance details were given but it is similar in size to TOW, and presumably capable and probably using “fire and forget” tech as well as an advanced target seekers.

China has been producing copies of Western designs for decades.

There's more at the link.

South Africa was also involved in modifying the US TOW design to produce its own anti-tank missile.  It was a long and complicated story, but briefly, its arms industry bought missile technology from Israel, including that country's not-very-successful laser-guided adaptation of the US missile, and proceeded to make it work.  The result was the ZT3 Ingwe missile, the world's first production laser-guided anti-tank missile.  It was used in combat in 1987 against Soviet-built tanks in Angola, with considerable success.  South Africa built on that foundation for its subsequent Mokopa missile (a clone of the US Hellfire weapon).

China has done the same thing, first with its HJ-8, then with the ATF-11, and now with its new missile.  Similar copycat technology is visible in missile systems of many other nations.  Once the "technology cat" is out of the bag, it's very hard to prevent other countries from getting examples of a new weapon, by hook or by crook (usually a lot of crookery), and reverse-engineering them.

That's how Russia got its Vympel K-13 short-range air-to-air missile in the 1960's, reverse-engineering the US AIM-9B Sidewinder, which was obtained when at least one Sidewinder fired by Taiwanese fighters stuck in the fuselage of a Chinese MiG fighter without exploding, and was recovered intact.  The K-13 was so exact a copy that Russian and US missiles could be loaded and fired from the same rails on Western fighter aircraft, using the same avionics and software.  Later versions were upgraded using information obtained via espionage.  Here's an interesting short documentary on the Soviet achievement.

South Africa bought a hundred AIM-9B's in the 1960's to equip its Canadair Sabre Mk. 6 fighters.  It also reverse-engineered the AIM-9B, producing the "Voorslag" demonstrator missile, which went on to blend local ingenuity and French technology to evolve into the V3A and V3B Kukri missiles, and later the V3C Darter.

Peter

A culture clash leads to airline safety complications

 

I was intrigued to read about an airline safety issue caused by different cultures and the assumptions they produced.  In this case, no accident resulted, but it highlights an important conflict.

Investigators have traced a take-off weight error on a TUI Airways Boeing 737-800 to a flaw introduced to a reservations system by international differences in the manner that female passengers are addressed.

. . .

... the programming upgrade had been carried out in a country where the title ‘Ms’ was used for adult women while ‘Miss’ referred to a female child.

When adult female passengers in the UK checked in for the flight from Birmingham using the term ‘Miss’, they were automatically classified as a child and allocated the standard child weight of 35kg rather than the standard female weight of 69kg.

The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch says 38 female passengers were misidentified as children and this meant the loadsheet generated for the flight to Palma de Mallorca, on 21 July last year, was more than 1.2t below the actual aircraft weight.

. . .

Although incorrect take-off weights were used, the thrust level employed was slightly higher than that required for the conditions.

“This meant the safe operation of the aircraft was not compromised,” says the inquiry.

But it states that the 737 involved (G-TAWG) was the first of three aircraft to depart from the UK on the same date with inaccurate loadsheets caused by the same issue.

There's more at the link.

This isn't the first time that differences between countries, standards and cultures have produced airline safety issues.  Perhaps the best known happened in Canada in 1983.

On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767–233 jet, ran out of fuel at an altitude of 12,500 metres (41,000 ft) above MSL, about halfway through its Montreal to Edmonton flight. The flight crew was able to glide the aircraft safely to an emergency landing at an auto racing track that was previously RCAF Station Gimli, a Royal Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba.

The subsequent investigation revealed a combination of company failures and a chain of human errors that defeated built-in safeguards. The amount of fuel that had been loaded was miscalculated because of a confusion as to the calculation of the weight of fuel using the metric system which had recently replaced the imperial system for use with the 767.

Again, more at the link.  For aviation fans, here's a 30th anniversary retrospective video about the so-called "Gimli Glider".

I'm glad to hear the most recent issue has been resolved without incident, but it highlights an ongoing problem.  If software is outsourced to and coded in nations with different cultures, what impact might those cultures have on consumers in the nation using the completed system?

Peter

A long overdue reform to our tax laws

 

Wolf Richter reports on a proposal by Janet Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve.

Large corporations – and there are only a few dozen to which this would apply, according to the proposal – should pay income taxes on the inflated and puffed-up income they report to their shareholders under ... GAAP [Generally Accepted Accounting Principles], rather than paying no taxes, or even getting paid tax benefits, on the losses they report separately to the IRS under the tax code.

Small corporations ... use the same accounting principles for earnings and for taxes, or vice versa, and we have no illusions, and there is no reason to inflate income.

But Nike reported $4.1 billion in pre-tax income to its shareholders over the past three years and had a three-year effective tax rate of minus 18%, meaning the IRS paid Nike large amounts of money, the so-called “tax benefits,” instead of collecting taxes from Nike, according to a report by the Institute of Taxation and Policy. There were 55 companies of this type in the report.

. . .

If large corporations have to pay 15% minimum income tax on their profits as reported under GAAP, it could possibly bring some honesty and reality to financial reports because, under the 15% minimum tax on book income, companies that inflated and puffed up their income would have to pay 15% taxes on that inflated and puffed-up income. This would be a costly disincentive to inflate and puff up income.

It would make CFOs think twice. In theory, GAAP financial statements could become more honest, policed by the threat of having to pay 15% in taxes on puffed-up income. And that could be a game changer – when there are suddenly tax incentives to be realistic with financial reporting. And that’s why Wall Street will fight furiously to sink this thing.

There's more at the link.

This is long overdue.  Big corporations have "bought" the tax code for decades, using lobbyists to pressure politicians to pass amendments that favor them at the expense of all other taxpayers.  That's how most major corporations pay minimal or no tax on their billions of dollars in annual profits.  However, they all effectively use two sets of books:  one they present to their shareholders, usually showing very healthy profits, and the other that they send to the IRS, showing tax losses in every direction thanks to the convoluted intricacies of the tax code.

If corporations are forced to pay tax on their claimed profits, the Treasury will be much better off, and we as a nation will be able to afford a much better balanced budget.  However, as Richter points out, those corporations will kick and scream and protest to the heavens, and do their best to prevent such a tax from being implemented.  Will our politicians force them to pay up, or will they succumb (yet again) to corporate bribery in the form of "contributions to their re-election fund"?  Your guess is as good as mine . . . and mine's not very hopeful.

Peter

"Nothing the Democratic Party advocates for is more dishonest than gun control"

 

That's the opinion of Tucker Carlson.  In this case, I entirely agree with him.  I strongly urge you to watch the 16-minute segment below;  or, if you don't have time to watch it, or prefer to read, click here for a transcript of what he said.  It's important information, and right on the money.

Mr. Carlson concludes:  "They're not trying to control guns. They're trying to control you."  Again, he's absolutely right.  This isn't about guns.  This is about control - of the populace and the country, and the suppression of any and all ability by the people to resist that control.  An armed populace can't be suppressed.  A disarmed one can.  It's as simple as that.

L. Neil Smith put it in a nutshell years ago.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician -- or political philosophy -- is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend -- the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights -- do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil -- like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician -- or political philosophy -- is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun -- but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school -- or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway -- Prussian, maybe -- and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him?

There's more at the link.  Essential reading in the gun control debate, IMHO, and highly recommended.

For those who, even today, argue for "compromise", for meeting the gun-grabbers halfway . . . we've done that for years, and it's gotten us nowhere.  My friend Lawdog settled that argument in fine style several years ago.

I hear a lot about "compromise" from your camp ... except, it's not compromise.

Let's say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with "GUN RIGHTS" written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, "Give me that cake."

I say, "No, it's my cake."

You say, "Let's compromise. Give me half." I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake.

Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934.

There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, "Give me that cake."

I say, "No, it's my cake."

You say, "Let's compromise." What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what's left of the cake I already own.

So, we have your compromise -- let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- and I'm left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake.

And I'm sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again.

This time you take several bites -- we'll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders -- and I'm left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you've got nine-tenths of it.

Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!)

I'm left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you're standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being "reasonable", and wondering "why we won't compromise".

I'm done with being reasonable, and I'm done with compromise. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been "reasonable" nor a genuine "compromise".

Again, more at the link, and very important reading.

Nothing in President Biden's gun control proposals and edicts will solve the problem, because - as we've pointed out all too often, most recently just a few days ago - the problem is not guns.  It's people who have evil intentions, and act on them.  If they don't have a gun, they'll use something else - but the evil is in them, not in the instruments they use.

By disarming innocent people, all one accomplishes is to render them unable to defend themselves effectively against rampant evil.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 53

 

Here's last week's harvest from the Internet.  Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter