No quick judgments

So many of us are quick to jump to conclusions about others.Youre vocal about supporting law and order? You must be a knuckle dragging hick or a yacht owning snob, blindly following FOX and the WSJ, and love President Trump.

Since when is supporting law and order inhumane? Since when is wanting to protect your community inhumane?

Since when did personal property ownership mean nothing?

Hysterical?

Why is it inhumane to want to live in safety?

Why is it considered inhumane to want people entering our country to have no criminal intent?

Why is it considered radical to question scientific studies?If scientific studies and beliefs were not questioned, wed still be using leeches to cure disease and avoiding eggs to promote heart health.

Who thinks believing in basic human rights is a bad thing?

Please site your reams of statistical data.

When did it become liberal to make bold assumptions about community members who are Christian? When did it become liberal to make bold assumptions about anyone disagreeing with you?

Yes, the better question is when did the very principles this country was founded on become radical?

Jackie Rohr

Chagrin Falls

Take a breath

Environmental racism is an obstacle to social justice.

Our communities of color are literally chocking to death. Studies indicate that more than 300,000 people die every single year from health issues related to air pollution. A disproportionate number of the victims are people of color.

COVID-19 deaths are higher in highly polluted areas. Climate change and weather-related disasters effects are more severe on groups that have been excluded from socioeconomic progress and get little help in rebuilding their lives. The dialog and actions toward building a more just society cannot be separate from efforts to repair and eradicate environmental injustice.

As insurmountable as this sounds, radical and immediate action must be taken to fight climate change. In 2019, a bipartisan coalition of former Federal Reserve chairs, top economic advisers to recent presidents of both parties and Nobel Prize-winning economists have endorsed a federal carbon tax, one that would distribute all of the revenue to American households. H.R. 763 Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is a bipartisan bill designed to aggressively decrease carbon emissions in the U.S. In the past couple of months, we have challenged racial injustice and changes are coming. Its time to act on climate change and take radical action. Demand Congress to act on H.R.763.

Catalina Maddox-Wagers

Cleveland Heights

Greatest Generation, indeed

This letter is in regard to Barbara Christians column about the Greatest Generation.

My father is the son of an immigrant mother and a part of the Greatest Generation, and at age 94, he is still alive. His own father was a machine gunner in WWI in Marne, France and became deaf in one ear because of it but still refused the government assistance offered him for his hearing loss because of his pride and love of nation.

Freebies were an insult to him. Fast forward to my own dad lying about his age and enlisting in the Navy at age 17 after Pearl Harbor to defend his beloved nation and then went on to serve on three submarines. Prior to that he attended the old John Adams High School and grew up across the street. His older brother Jimmy not only was a marine who fought at Okinawa in WWII but was also the very first NASCAR winner for Ford Motor Co. in Dayton, Ohio in 1950 at the Winston Cup. He even beat Richard Pettys dad Lee and greats like Curtiss Merriweather in an old Ford Detroit police car with a flathead where he emerged shirtless and the nickname Shirtless Jimmy Florian stuck and NASCAR outlawed going shirtless from that day forward. So much for the south claiming all first titles for NASCAR. Clevelands own blood has Fords first.

So I guess this is one example of a once thriving Cleveland neighborhood back in the day that is part of what truly bred the Greatest Generation. I remember playing at the school playground in the mid 1960s directly across from his childhood home but not without an adult because I was told the neighborhood was growing unsafe.How can that be? My dad grew up here safe.

But now I have to ask a serious question. Why in 2020 and for many years prior to, am I not able to drive through that very same neighborhood just to visit my own mothers grave who tragically died in 1961 along with other close relatives buried at Cavalry Cemetery without fearing for my safety or life because of the increasedcrime rate that surrounds it? I miss placing flowers and touching her gravestone along with my grandparents right next to hers. After all, men like my dad from the Greatest Generation, who grew up in that very same neighborhood including through the Great Depression by eating rice daily and were happy just to get an apple on Christmas morning, never feared like I do for their nor their family members safety back then either. Sadly, this is true of many of Clevelands old neighborhoods today.

What happened?

Perhaps we need to reexamine so-called old and outdated American family values that have become mostly extinct today for modern political correctness sake despite my dads childhood home that still stands today.

Barbara Toncheff

Chagrin Falls

Silent no more

As a member of the Silent Generation, I must be silent no more.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was not accepted by the Democrat Party as president. The Civil War ensued and was fought over the institution of slavery. Jan. 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the south followed by the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery and the 14th which gave black people equal protection under the law; the 15th amendment gave black men the vote.

In 2016, Donald Trump was not accepted by the Democrat Party as president. Following a booming economy of three years, civil unrest and rioting precipitated by the unconscionable murder of a black man, by police, ensued. This travesty, occurring in the midst of a devastating pandemic, could be crippling without strong and measured leadership. Black Lives Matter began with peaceful protests, which seemingly were hijacked by Antifa, anarchists, Marxists and paid mobsters. Perhaps the radical Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, an organization with no connection to Black Lives Matter, was involved in incitement of rioting and looting.

President Trump has benefitted the Black community promoting education and enterprise. Black unemployment was at an all time low of 5.5 percent in 2019; in 2014, it was over 12 percent. Trumps First Step Act authorized early release and rehab opportunities to nonviolent prisoners, 90 percent of whom were black. Charter schools have been granted $500 million and federal funding to black universities has been increased by 17 percent.

This man can be brash and in your face; political correctness is not his forte, accounting for the blinding Trump hate. He is leading us through daunting crises. He has instituted tax reform and cuts, provided a financial stimulus to all, discontinued harmful business regulations, reformed the VA with health accountability, secured the border, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and established fair trade rules putting America first. He led us to a booming economy and will continue this quest in spite of constant opposition and sniping through the radical lefts domination of the media, entertainment and education at the expense of the American people.

Lets make America great again.

Sheila Collins

Solon

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Letters to the editor - 07/16/2020 | Viewpoint | chagrinvalleytoday.com - chagrinvalleytoday.com

The idea of saving trees or otherwise not using paper turns out not to be such a great idea when those promoting a paperless world are seeking something they want.

As much as universities claim to be environmentally friendly, theyll never eliminate paper mailings since alumni are more likely to give in response to a U.S. mail request for donations than an online request. I receive the alumni magazine for Northwestern University and the magazine for Northwesterns Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. The magazines tend to be pretty politically liberal with such topics as climate change and social justice, which is why my donations to Northwestern go to athletics or the library rather than to the general fund where the money could be used for political correctness in the classroom. I will at least browse through those issues, reading mostly the sports and 1980s alumni news items in the schoolwide Northwestern magazine and the history articles in the College of Arts and Sciences periodical. I dont look at the Northwestern website, and while I gave them an email address in the 1990s that address is now obsolete. The only way I can read what Northwestern would like me to read is when they send me a hard copy. It includes envelopes with donation requests.

From time to time, I will copy an article or brief from one of the Northwestern alumni magazines. I did so recently with the College of Arts and Science magazine. The irony is that I had to reduce the article since the magazine was bigger than 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches so Northwestern sent out more paper than necessary.

Going paperless sounds nice for universities in many aspects, but when the universities are trying to reach alumni the paperless sphere isnt the best way to build a connection with alumni. It is doubtful that universities will eliminate hard copies of their alumni publications, and it is even more doubtful that universities will eliminate sending paper solicitations by U.S. mail.

During the primary election earlier this year, I received numerous mailings about how certain ballot measures were environmentally friendly or environmentally unfriendly. All of those mailings utilized paper. Internet political advocacy relies on a user specifically seeking a website. Paper political advocacy provides an outreach to those who would not take the initiative to use the internet. Even if voters use the internet for information, the proper keywords are required to find the specific website of a ballot issue, and the voter may find multiple sites with information and not necessarily look at only the one desired by the advocate.

The primary election also included candidates for office, and I received plenty of mailings from them. The general election will be no different. The mailings might not tell me what I need to know about how the candidates stand on key issues, but they tell me which issues the candidate emphasizes. If I use the internet to determine my vote, I will go to the website of an interest group and find how the candidates stand on that groups issues. As is the case with a ballot measure, the candidate must reach out to me. They cannot expect me to search for them. Despite candidates talking about how environmentally friendly they are, they will never eliminate paper campaign mailings.

Saving trees doesnt seem to be as important as obtaining donations or votes. The trend toward more online interaction stops when somebody is asking for something from someone who hasnt made the decision to provide it.

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at jnaiman@reedermedia.com.

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Universities and politicians don't save trees when seeking money or votes - Valley News

I would like to lodge a complaint about wearing face masks.

No one can tell if youre smiling.

You see others on the sidewalk, in the stores hand-sanitizer aisle, in the appropriately spaced fast food takeout line, and their eyes alone fail to accurately convey whether they are regarding you with suspicion, derision or warmth, if they are regarding you at all. Turns out the curvature of ones lips is a key and underappreciated element of interpersonal communication.

Other than that, I cant figure out what the big deal is. Masks help block microscopic stuff from flying in and out of your mouth and nose at a time when that seems especially important. Pretty simple.

But, we come to find out, its not simple at all.

Requiring face masks violates something in the Constitution, somewhere. Oh, here it is: My rights dont end where your fears begin. Or is that a bumper sticker?

Theres enough to be angry about in this world already without raging over 6-inch squares of fabric. Phishing scams, gang drive-bys, drunken street racers. Somehow, though, some people these days seem most exercised about masks.

Not so much in New York. A surge of COVID-19 cases overwhelmed New York Citys health care system three months ago and hospitals upstate braced for what seemed like an inevitable onslaught. They prepared to triage patients in hallways and cafeterias.

It never happened. New York health authorities say closing nonessential businesses and getting public buy-in on masks and distancing ended the crisis. If New York Citys high population density helped feed the virus 22,000 lives over a few horrific weeks, those three simple steps masks foremost among them all but starved it.

That lesson apparently has no bearing on Kern County, though. We are different here: Barely 100 deaths and an overly dramatic governmental response. What exactly makes COVID-19 worse than the regular flu?

Here, mandatory masks epitomize the wussification of America. Theyre nothing more than wearable political correctness. The ultimate nanny state overreach. Some sort of semi-secret lib armband, but for your face.

Wheres my Constitution?

Most people grasp that masks, imperfect though they may be as guards against infection, are worth the level-one hassle. Every credible medical organization, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on down, says the simple precaution of wearing a mask is the difference between a pandemic controlled and a pandemic fueled.

Yet we continue to see the smirks on unmasked faces.

Remember those doctors, nurses and medical professionals weve been hailing as the heroes of this health crisis? With resounding unanimity, they tell us the single most important thing we can do to knock back this virus is wear a mask when were out.

Way to go, Doc. Now pipe down and get back to work. Ill pay attention as soon as this overblown virus hits someone I care about.

Ignoring front-line health care professionals right now is a little like telling a World War II veteran that the Nazis were just misunderstood. But thank you for your service.

Why do some of us behave this way?

I blame the greatness of America. Literally, the traits that made the United States the most desirable place on earth to live, a singular target of aspiration and envy, a symbol of freedom and hope in a world sick of tyranny and turmoil, are the same traits that foster, at least within a distinct demographic slice of the country, a unique sort of arrogance.

A national character built on the foundation of Manifest Destiny and the belief that perseverance and fortitude can overcome any obstacle is the same one that, unenlightened by the true responsibilities of citizenship, confuses rights with privileges and license with obligation.

Cowboys dont wear masks unless the cattle are stirring up dust.

The rest of the world must look at us and shake their heads.

B-b-but back in March the medical establishment was telling us masks were of no benefit. Well, the medical establishment was wrong about that and has been saying so for months.

Face masks have emerged as one of the most powerful weapons available in this battle. As The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, growing evidence suggests that facial coverings can help prevent transmission even if an infected wearer is in close contact with others.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Journal of the American Medical Association this week that he believes the virus can be corralled over the next four to eight weeks if we could get everybody to wear a mask right now.

Well complain about restaurants and bars closing, small businesses suffering, sport leagues shutting down, and in the same breath reject the simplest protection because it looks wimpy and makes our glasses fog.

On Saturday, the Kern County Public Health Services Department reported 495 new COVID-19 cases, double the number of any previous single day.

Shut up and put on a damn mask.

Robert Price is a journalist for KGET-TV. His column appears here Sundays. Reach him at RobertPrice@KGET.com or via Twitter: @stubblebuzz. The opinions expressed are his own.

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ROBERT PRICE: Cover that smirk with a mask, pal - The Bakersfield Californian

Its never been about Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpDHS expands authority of personnel to collect information on people threatening monuments: report GOP signals Trump's payroll-tax cut in Republican coronavirus bill for now Trump threatens to double down on Portland in other major cities MORE.

Its always been about the Donald Trump voter.

To say that Donald Trump is a flawed human being is an understatement. The same could be said about the Donald Trump voter.

We are all flawed in our own individual ways. The president wears his flaws on his sleeve, which is refreshing in a strange and compelling way.

The Trump voter loves America, reflexively, even if America and its political class lets it down on occasion.

The Trump voter stands for the national anthem at the beginning of every Major League Baseball game and sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame during every 7th inning stretch. There is no ambiguity in that essentially non-political exercise.

The Trump voter sees this country as the good guy but wonders why we spend so much of our blood and treasure getting involved in foreign wars. Its a valid question that the Never Trumpers rarely ask.

The Trump voter doesnt trust the political class and is prone to believing in some outlandish conspiracy theories, some of which turn out to be true. Yes, the Obama White House did frame Michael Flynn and did try to railroad Mr. Trump out of his job.

The Trump voter has been reflexively against China, mostly because they dont like to see Americas manufacturing base and the jobs that come with them exported overseas. But, at the same time, they like buying the cheap big screen televisions that they can find at the local Walmart.

The Trump voter has a love/hate relationship with its local Walmart. They love the prices but wonder about big corporations in general.

The Trump voter likes law enforcement, but only when it keeps the peace and doesnt infringe on their own personal liberty. Many Trump voters wouldnt mind seeing the cops doing a lot less, and they are horrified by stories of no-knock warrants gone bad. The idea of defunding the cops sounds really stupid to them.

The Trump voter has given up on the national media and many of the local television news outlets as well. They get their news from Fox, because at least Fox tries to be fair and balanced. Most reporters feel free to share all of their liberal political opinions at all times, and it is annoying to the typical Trump voter.

The Trump voter wont wear a mask unless they have to, and then only begrudgingly. The president wearing a mask of the weekend wont change their basic opinions of masks.

The Trump voter probably hasnt thought that much about statues, but they certainly dont like the idea of angry mobs tearing down the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial or whatever 18th century white male figure who is standing defenseless, down the street.

The Trump voter agrees with the president that schools need to reopen this fall. They know that keeping the kids at home is bad for the kids and bad for the parents. They may like the folks who teach their kids, but they have little tolerance for the unions that are playing this virus to extort more concessions out of the spineless politicians who have unnecessarily closed the economy.

The Trump voter got exactly what they expected from this president. Somebody who would shake up the political system, who would stand up to China, who would take on political correctness and who would get the economy moving again.

They would like the president to get a better handle on the COVID-19 panic. Its a tough situation, sure, but Mr. Trump cant let the governors close down the economy again. None of us can afford that, especially not the president.

The Trump voter knows the risks of being a Trump voter. They see what happens to people who wear MAGA hats or have Trump stickers on their cars. They know what happens when they say too much on social media and they know what can happen to people who say what they really believe.

So they keep their mouths shut. But they are going to vote this fall. They cant wait to vote this fall.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at http://www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when he was majority whip and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).

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Feehery: It's about the Trump voter | TheHill - The Hill

Editor:

I support the president and disagree with NASCARs decision to ban the Confederate flag (Trump takes aim at NASCAR, Wallace, Reading Eagle, July 7). Such is akin to burning books.

When I see a Confederate flag, I do not think of slavery, racial intimidation or white supremacy. I think of the thousands of very brave men who, regardless of the right or wrong of their cause, walked into blazing Union rifle and cannon fire in the many battles of the Civil War, under the banner of the Stars and Bars. I see the Confederate flag as a tribute to those men. It should not be banned. Those soldiers were Americans, and their bravery deserves to be honored.

I believe slavery, racial intimidation and white supremacy were and are despicable. To blame the Souths banner for such is just another perversion of political correctness. The same applies to the removal of Confederate statues. Those statues describe our history, which should be remembered by all of us so that the negatives are not repeated.

In anticipation of being called a racist, I reject that epithet out of hand. Too often it is used by people who lack an effective counterargument.

Art Becker

Reading

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Letter: Allow Confederate flag and leave statues alone - Reading Eagle

Published: 7/17/2020 10:10:20 PM

Modified: 7/17/2020 10:10:09 PM

Political correctness. Cancel culture. Identity politics. To many on the political right, these buzz phrases seem to be a bigger problem than a vicious, unremitting pandemic. It is the trifecta of conservative whining.

Whether Tucker Carlson calling U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth a moron for wishing to remove offensive statues, or scores of public intellectuals fretting over cancel culture in the now-infamous Harpers letter, the so-called culture wars are boiling hot.

The complaints of the privileged extend to other snowflake issues too. Safe spaces and trigger warnings are ridiculed. Protests over smart-assed provocateurs like white supremacist Richard Spencer are just the mewling of spoiled children who should have been spanked more often. Suck it up!

The Upper Valley is clearly not exempt.

Last month, Dartmouth College removed the Baker Tower weather vane after students complained that it portrayed Native Americans in an offensive, racist manner. Perhaps predictably, the Dartmouth College Republicans called the removal a blatant attempt at pandering to a handful of community members claiming unwarranted offense.

Windsor School Principal Tiffany Riley remains in limbo after the Mount Ascutney School Board suspended her because of social media posts deemed critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. This also drew criticism as cancel culture overreach from many folks, including an organization called National Coalition Against Censorship.

In an instance more personal to me, Vermont Law School announced its intention to paint over a 1993 mural by Sam Kerson, The Underground Railroad, Vermont and the Fugitive Slave. Here, as in the Dartmouth case, students felt the images of African Americans were offensive and inaccurate. Kerson called the removal thuggery. It is personal to me, as I was the VLS administrator who facilitated the approval and painting of the mural. Kerson reached out to me last week to express his deep disappointment.

Indeed there are occasional anecdotes that reinforce the accusations of political correctness or cancel culture. Sometimes bitching really seems silly. But the rare exception does not disprove the rule: People of color, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ folks and women have every right to define the language and images they find acceptable and unacceptable. After all, they have endured the slings and arrows (oops!) of society for hundreds of years and I think we in the majority can be generous even if they overdo it now and then.

The (mostly) male and (mostly) white folks who complain about political correctness or cancel culture seem perturbed that anyone dare be so sensitive. This is a particularly arrogant manifestation of unexamined privilege the privilege to decide whether or not another person has the right to be offended. If I declare no malicious intent in using tribe, Negro, colored person or Redskin, then you have no moral authority to object. So there!

Among the qualities my wife has worked to extinguish in me, telling her how she should feel is high on the list. Im working on it. The personal can be broadly instructive. We ought to be listening more to others and not be so quick to tell them how they should feel. The National Coalition Against Censorship is in no position to determine how students of color in Windsor are affected by the principals comments. The Dartmouth College Republicans have no moral authority to declare that community members claims of offense are unwarranted. And the opinions of white people, including Sam Kersons and my own, have no standing in a debate about a murals images and their impact on people of color.

It is essentially a matter of power. The targets of offensive speech and degrading images are those who historically lack power; people of color, gay and trans people, immigrants and others. Those who use the offensive speech have the power and privilege. They are generally, not always, white. Which brings me to the final leg of the trifecta: Identity politics.

I am amused that it is nearly always privileged white people who complain about identity politics. They sharply criticize people who band together based on race, gender, sexual identification or another minority trait. They do this while enjoying the one identity that has conferred advantage for the entire existence of our democratic republic. White people have been playing identity politics forever, establishing an exclusive club that includes only those who they say are included.

The irony is deep.

Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.

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Column: The arrogance of unexamined privilege - Valley News

John Waters seventh book, Mr. Know-It-All, a funhouse mirror image of the traditional self-help manual opens with a quandary. The worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me, he writes. I am accepted.

Its the biggest imaginable shock for a man whos made a career out of his ability to subvert and scandalise. The Baltimore-born directors catalogue of video nasties from 1964 to 2004 were like a grenade attack on cinematic proprietary. He made 300lb drag queen Divine his bodacious Marilyn, introduced the world to the heathen pleasures of a rosary job (google it) and developed scratch n sniffs for cinema audiences imbued with the unholy scents of flatulence and dirty shoes. Back when Waters made the filmed-on-a-shoestring trash classic Pink Flamingos in 1972, even the most outlandish clairvoyant couldnt have foreseen that, 25 years later, the snooty cinephiles of Cannes Film Festival would be toasting the murderous shit-eating trailer-park queen at the films centre.

John Waters style drew freely from high and low culture gross-out gore flicks as well as daring avant-garde works and treated his regular collaborators like Divine and Edith Massey like the A-listers they deserved to be. Before long, actual Hollywood stars like Kathleen Turner and Melanie Griffith were clamouring to be part of Waters self-described filth empire. In the past couple of decades, though, Waters has re-envisioned himself as a kind of alternative public intellectual, Fran Lebowitz with dirtier jokes. His extensive speaking tours and meet-and-greets are a riot (he will sign anything, including a tampon). And he has infiltrated the art establishment with a welcome dose of irreverence: his 2009 installation Rush wasa gargantuan spilt bottle of amyl nitrate. In Waters warped world, even poppers can be high art.

On a perfect July afternoon, Waters telephones from the bohemian gay resort town of Provincetown, Massachussets. In fact, he used to throw a poppers party at the towns annual film festival. Ive seen movie stars and A-list critics all doing poppers! he says. Sadly, the event was a victim of its own success. Then The Boston Globe wrote about it and then the entire town crashed the party. Yet Waters, at 73, remains a mind-expanding heady high.

GQ: In Mr. Know-It-All, you speak movingly about Divines impact on pop culture. Whats your take on RuPauls Drag Race?

John Waters: Im really happy for Ru. Ive known him forever, since he started. Hes been a hard-working person for decades. Hes successfully crossed-over drag to middle America, which I never, ever thought would happen, and given careers to [so many]. Even if you come in sixth on that show, you tour eight clubs in America. Not only was he smart about it; I think another key thing is he is one of the only drag queens who has a great look out of drag. Ru is so chic. His suits are amazing. Divine was just getting there when he died, but in the beginning, he just used to walk round in overalls. In Provincetown, where I live, where theres 5,000 drag shows, the drag queens always think Im snobby. I dont know what they look like out of drag they look completely different! I cant recognise them and Divine, I wouldnt have recognised him out of drag really. I think Divine has a little something to do with it, because Divine put an edge on drag queens. When I was young, they were square. It was like they wanted to be the Queen. They didnt want to have an edge. Now, they all have an edge! Im kind of more interested in drag kings because they are really confusing to me. I think RuPaul should have a drag king version, and I also think he should have Fag Hag Race.

And who would you put as the judge on Fag Hag Race?

Well, I dont know, Im trying to think who is the ultimate fag hag? Thats a good one. I mean, they have Bear Week in Provincetown and Im always just astounded that there are bear fag hags. They look kind of like Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place. They wear lumber jackets with greasy ponytails. So Im for the niche fag hags.

In your book Role Models, you talked about your obsession with Rei Kawakubo and her clothes. How big is your Comme des Garons collection now?

Well, its pretty big. Comme des Garons never goes out of style because its never in style. So you never can go wrong. But Im also a big fan of Walter Van Beirendonck. I buy at MAC, which is my favourite clothing store in America, in San Francisco. Its one of a few places that really do carry him. I like Issey Miyake a lot. Paul Smith I like, when Im trying to look normal.

Do you have any outrageous Walter Van Beirendonck pieces?

Well, some of them are too outrageous for me, I am 73! I think the ones that make me laugh the most they arent Walter Van Beirendonck. One was, I cant even remember which [designer] it was, but its a suit that looks like it has cat hair all over it. People say Oh my god, John!, and they try to brush it off. Its quite intricate, the threads. And I have another one that looks like water splashed up on your pants. As I said in my book, my look is disaster at the dry cleaners.

What do you think is the new cinematic underground is it online?

I dont think it is. In the music industry, everybody makes a name online and on YouTube. [But] what movie has premiered on YouTube or online and become a sensation? I cant think of one. Well, Roma was a Netflix movie and it was all over the Oscars last year. Im not against that. Im for anybody that can say yes to make a movie! You know, movies survived it all: they survived television, they survived videos and now they have to survive Netflix. If its good enough, people go. I saw Quentin Tarantinos movie this weekend, and its so great to see a movie that really surprises you and has that much style. Those kind of movies will always come out and win, they just have to be good and they have to be original. [Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood] is the only movie that came out this summer that wasnt a sequel or a prequel or something.

Its true. My favourite line from one of your movies, is Edith Massey in Female Trouble where she says, the world of a heterosexual is a sick and boring life...

But she doesnt even say it right because she didnt know what it meant! She says the world of heterosexual, she doesnt say the world of a heterosexual. It was really a market-testing experiment at the time, because all gay people then applauded, so I could tell the breakdown of my audience.

What kind of politics was that sentiment powered by?

It was just trying to cause trouble. That was filmed in 1973, so, at the time, gay rights were just beginning to start. It was kind of a ludicrous version of that, to have a mother that wanted you to be gay and was really sad and disappointed that you were straight.

How was Edith Massey to direct?

Well, she tried really hard. She would memorise the lines like she was writing sentences in school. Shed write them over and over but wed get there and shed say [in Pink Flamingos] Eggs, eggs! Then shed say Edith shakes the playpen. I said No, you dont say that out loud! Thats a direction. The audiences really loved her right from the beginning when she had a tiny role in Multiple Maniacs. When Andy Warhol met her, he said: Where did you find her? She was like an outsider Gracie Allen [eccentric 1930s actress].

Theres one picture thats been circulated recently, of Divine sneering at Donald Trump at Studio 54. Were you there?

Thats completely fake! Because I know where that picture of Divine is from and he was not with Donald Trump. It could have been true because Donald Trump liked Studio 54, and so did Divine. But we would have always hated him, even though Trump was basically a liberal back then. He was nouveau riche and a bragger. You know how he decorated the White House? It looks like Jeff Koons did it without art history knowledge or intelligence.

Did you see the White Houses horrible Christmas decorations?

They were goth! They were goth Las Vegas! Which could be funny if you were in on it, but [Melania] wasnt in on it. She thought it was beautiful. Tastes can change, but I dont think anybody will ever think that the Trump decorations in the White House were influential or interesting. They were just bad in a way that was just surreal.

Do you think that Trump will get a second term as president?

I most certainly do. I dont think that we have one of [the Democratic candidates] thats strong enough to beat him.

Do you think America could be ready for a gay president with Pete Buttigieg?

Well, I like him. I would be for him, but I dont think he can win when the only thing on the first debate he got credit for was saying I couldnt get it done [relating to police reform]. Thats not exactly a bumper sticker.

You worked with Selma Blair on A Dirty Shame shes been amazing, speaking out about her MS condition. Are you still in touch with her?

I am. I think shes doing a great job. I had written to her and I just heard back from her. I show a movie every year at the Maryland Film Festival and the Provincetown Film Festival just because I love it and I showed this pretty obscure movie she made with Nicolas Cage called Mom and Dad. Its about where every parent in America decides to kill their own children. Shes great in it.

What were her giant boobs in A Dirty Shame made from?

They were latex made by the same guy who made Chucky and made John Travoltas fat suit in Hairspray. You had to put them on every day. Full naked was $5,000 a day, cleavage was, I forget, $2,000? And regular under-the-sweater was $1,000. At the end of the day, they just were used breasts that were shrivelled up. But one day they were missing! Somebody took them and we always thought it was a pervert.

Youve written many books at this point. Could you ever see yourself being a journalist?

Oh, I have been a journalist, certainly in [essay collection] Crackpot. I would love to cover a big trial.

If you were to profile a public figure, who would you like to interview?

The one Id like to get the most because nobody can get her is the defence lawyer Judy Clarke who only handles death penalty cases. She wins, and she gets you life, not death. Shes done some of the biggest ones, and the only one she lost was the Boston Bomber. Shes never given an interview and shes never allowed her clients to talk to the press. So for me, she would be the ultimate get.

In Mr. Know-It-All, you describe Polyester as a whole new level of movie-making for you. Was that the first film where you paid the cast a wage?

No, I paid everybody, even on Pink Flamingos. It wasnt much and it took years to pay back the money from people that I borrowed it from. I dont think I got a salary before Polyester.

And its shocking to read that Hairspray didnt make money until very recently.

No. I got the first cheque for profit like maybe two or three years ago. You know, I think it cost $8 million to make. What happened was, it was doing really well, but then Divine died. That puts a dampener on a comedy. But of course, Hairspray went on to have 20 more lives. I just wish Divine had had the 20 lives with it.

Ive seen some amazing fan tattoos in tribute to your films. Do you have a favourite?

I have seen amazing ones the characters from my movies. Still, my favourite one was that someone had a page of the script of Female Trouble on their leg. Thats amazing. Which scene was it? I cant remember, probably the cha-cha heels scene.

I see people posting that scene every Christmas.

I know, but drag queens still get it wrong. Cha-cha heels arent high heels! Theyre short, squashed heels to this day, most drag queens get it wrong.

Famously, Divine inspired the character of Ursula in The Little Mermaid. Now Disney is remaking it, who do you think should play the role?

Maybe Beth Ditto. But isnt Melissa McCarthy playing it? She was amazing when she dressed as Divine in People magazine.

Theres been a wave of cult gay heroes leaning right-wing recently, like Morrissey and Bret Easton Ellis. What do you make of that?

Well, Tab Hunter voted for Trump. And I actually thought Bret Easton Elliss book [White] was good. I dont agree with him, but I thought it was intelligently written. You know, I have friends that are Republicans. I dont agree with them, but as soon as we make other people feel stupid, well never get them to change their minds.

So is your point of view that we need to find something to break bread over?

Or at least, openly talk, because theyre not going to change their minds if we act like theyre stupid. You know, the insane political correctness even though its mostly correct is gonna make Trump win. Its a class issue. I promise you, in the neighbourhoods in Baltimore that are really struggling with poverty, theyre not worrying about pronoun usage. Im not saying that some dont! But its rich kids schools who are the most stringent police of it. I never understood what a trigger warning was, I thought you went to college to have your values challenged. I thought that was the point of education.

Is there a split between John Waters, the public personality, and the guy you are behind closed doors?

No. I think Im exactly like probably what youd expect. In the early days, I would go to colleges and they thought I was completely [like my films]. They had drugs for me and they thought I lived in a trailer with shit-eating drag queens!

In Mr. Know-It-All, you mention that youre in a relationship. Is it important for you to be private about the personal side of your life?

It is, mainly because my boyfriend has no desire to be in the press. My boyfriends have never been like me. I like somebody very different from me. I like him to be interested in things Im not interested in sometimes. I dont want to fuck myself!

Which of your movies do you think is the most underrated?

Cecil B. Demented. It didnt do great and its not the first one people pick, but it had funny lines in it! My favourite is when Fidget says to Melanie Griffith when theyre at the drive-in: Were beyond the critics reach.

Do you share Kathleen Turners horror in Serial Mom when it comes to white shoes after Labour Day?

Oh yes, I believe in that. Not just shoes, you cant wear white anything except winter white, which is wool. Im a firm believer in that, I pack it all away and then I see people [wearing white] and think your parents didnt tell you?. Its the only thing Im right-wing on.

This interview originally appeared in GQ Style AW19.

How Drag Race changed the world (for better and for worse)

How Drag Race turned British

Never watched RuPauls Drag Race before? After these ten lip syncs, you will

Read the original post:

John Waters on his 50+ year film career - British GQ

It may seem counterintuitive but allowing yourself to be vulnerable can boost your leadership ... [+] confidence

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Especially self-doubt.

That view is a core belief of consultant and bestselling author Alan Weiss. Hes author ofFearless Leadership: Overcoming Reticence, Procrastination, and the Voices of Doubt Inside Your Head.

In a previous column, Alan talked about the role of fear in peoples procrastination and other self-defeating behaviors (see Lead Without Fear: Mindful Choices To Stamp Out Doubt). Here he continues the focus on mindset choices that produce the best results.

Rodger Dean Duncan:We seem to be living in an epidemic of political correctness. To what extent does a fear of violating someone elses notion of whats right jeopardize candor, creative thinking, and good performance?

Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss:Political correctness is actually censorship. Its a huge example of confirmation bias, where you only want to hear what you already believe in and not other opinions.

Self-editing (self-censoring) masks talent and creates great stress and guilt. I think the fear isnt so much the potential violation of someone elses rights or beliefs as it is the potential to be labled (youre a denier) and alienated, combined with the ability of social medial to make that viral today.

Duncan:What are the best ways that fearless leadership can be modeled for team members?

Weiss:it should be discussed with the understanding that people agree to be vulnerable. A lobster has to shed its shellits exoskeletonto grow, and is vulnerable in the process. No one knows, however, how long a lobster can live or how big it can grow.

Counterintuitively, vulnerability aids growth and the shedding of fears. Teams are inherent support systems (if theyre intelligently created) and consequently can provide huge comfort to the members. Everyone has to buy in to the idea of eliminating fear, and they have to call each other on it when it surfaces.

Duncan:The philosopher Santayana said A fanatic is someone who loses sight of his goals and consequently redoubles his efforts. How does that apply to the fear that seems to drive many workaholics? And how does that fear affect their performance?

Weiss:I admire Santayana, but workaholics arent really driven by fear in my opinion. They have an addiction and are driven by a need to gain power through obsessive work. You might make a case that they fear falling behind others production, but I think true workaholism is an addiction and an illness. There is a fear of others outperforming you or gaining favor in the eyes of others, and the resultant behavior is to try to prove youre working hard, which is really neither here nor there.

People who work smart arent fearful, but people who insist on working hard often are because they feel their value is in being present for long hours, not being present with good ideas in short time frames.

The rest is here:

How Being Vulnerable Can Help You Lead Without Fear - Forbes

Were it not for double standards, the Left would have no standards. How true. In the past few weeks, we have seen uncivilized and ignorant mobs run rampant across the nation's cities (yes, including New London). Historical statues must be torn down in order to assuage the sickening illness of political correctness and historical misrepresentation. Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant's stone figures were among the vilified. Yet, even today one of two U.S. Senate office buildings still bears the name of the late Sen. Richard Russell, the ardent segregationist and racist from Georgia. And the honors still pour in for the deceased senator from West Virginia, RobertByrd, who helped organize and was a member ofthe KKK in that state. Even President Obama eulogized him at the time of his death a decade ago. But Lincoln, the emancipator and Grant, the victor over the Confederacy, needed to be defaced and removed from public view. But why expect anything else from leftist Democrats; they fail at everything except for the double standard.

Peter Wilson

Groton

More:

Left's one standard is the double standard - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

Rajesh Ramachandran

The biggest burden for the Congress party is the liberal commentariat the partys well-wishers. After having sucked dry the old, creaky bones of the Congress favour-dispensing mechanism, suddenly the Well-Wishers Unlimited finds the Gandhi family distasteful, the party feudal, the old guard manipulative, the new guard inefficient; in short, it wants someone like Narendra Modi to run the Congress. Well, Sachin Pilots rebellion in Rajasthan has done a great favour to the Congress by exposing the ideological and moral hollowness of some of the leaders and supporters of the party. The so-called guardians of secularism, pluralism and diversity were ambivalent about a leader threatening to split the party with the help of the enemy.

In times when a section of political observers liberally uses the phrase undeclared emergency, this very group has showed no qualms about their friend trying to topple one of the few Opposition governments. After all, the leader in question was their darling, who wined and dined the opinion-makers among the Lutyens elite for over a decade. For them, it was only a case of a person like us a privileged, entitled dynast getting impatient and frustrated with a representative of the unwashed masses; and not a betrayal of ideals, which it really was. Opportunism is the key to success in Indian public life where political correctness, and not political morality, is all it takes for counterfeits to pass off as radical torchbearers.

Now that the Congress spokesperson has revealed the transcript of a purported conversation between a Union minister from the BJP and a former Rajasthan Congress minister, it is safe to assume that the Rajasthan rebellion has the tacit support of the BJP. Sachin Pilot thus emerges from this sordid drama as a rare specimen in Indian politics who, despite being the guardian of the party organisation in the state as Pradesh Congress Committee president and Deputy Chief Minister, plotted to bring his own government down with the help of the rival.

After the Rajasthan rebellion got triggered, it has been endlessly compared with the defection of Jyotiraditya Scindia and, in fact, he himself has made public utterances forcing observers to draw a parallel. But Scindia was not part of the Kamal Nath government, nor was he the head of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the party and, worse, he was not even being considered for a Rajya Sabha nomination. Pilots case is completely different. It was the Gandhi familys largesse and not Rajesh Pilots legacy that has brought Sachin where he is now. He was a member of the Lok Sabha at 26, a Union minister at 31, a PCC chief at 36 and a Deputy CM at 40. This career graph is the stuff dreams are made on. Yet, he is now accused of conspiring with the BJP to fulfil his ambition to become Chief Minister.

Probably, herein lies the real story of the rot within the Congress. It is a party of opportunists with a mix of inheritors and interlopers trying desperately to secure their place at the high table, with power and pelf as their prime driving force. And they are pitted against an organisation driven by ideology. Those who bemoan the debilitating failures of the Congress and blame the Gandhi family do not realise that the raison detre of the Gandhi family leadership is the faith reposed by the greatest opportunists in Indian politics on the only winning proposition they have. Like Pilot, they would all fly away at the first hint of an opportunity; and if they are not doing so, it only means that there is no option for them apart from the Gandhi family leadership.

Congress leaders talk ad nauseam about all the old leaders coming together to take on the BJP and throwing up a new national leadership and a prime ministerial alternative. They want NCPs Sharad Pawar, Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee, YSR Congress Jaganmohan Reddy and others to be brought together on a broad platform to revive the Congress wherever it is dead and to offer a real challenge to the BJP. But even this effort would need a leadership that can balance all the mighty egos, and neither Pawar nor Mamata has shown any inclination towards such a grand venture. So far, only the Congress leadership has been successful in forging alliances with some of these very leaders and hence to expect a Mamata or a Pawar to wave a magic wand to recreate the Congress of the 1980s is a needless distraction.

The worst aspect of the current crisis was the thoughtless abdication of his responsibility by Rahul Gandhi and the mother having to succeed the son. With the entire old guard remaining clueless and the newbies trying to fly away to greener pastures, the Congress leaders havent succeeded in their search for an alternative to the Gandhi family. Even a year after the second consecutive Lok Sabha poll debacle, all that the Generation-Next could think about was to defect to the BJP or topple its own governments. The new-generation Congress leaders seem to be more greedy and feudal than their predecessors, who always used the ruse of issues like corruption to trip their competitors within the party. Pilot could not even wait for Ashok Gehlot to commit a blunder or to expose a corruption scandal before proclaiming that he had split 30 MLAs, reducing his own government to a minority.

In this context, there isnt much for the Congress to hope for apart from keeping invested in the regional satraps, who have a mass base and a stake in the survival of the organisation. The Gehlots, Amarinders, Chavans, Hoodas, Chandys and other strongmen are still the best bet for the party, provided it has a full-time president who spends time in Parliament and its committees, and plans polls meticulously. Indian democracy badly needs an Opposition.

See the article here:

The attack from within - The Tribune India

I am writing this in regard to the spineless pandering by Jerome A. Gilbert and the Marshall University Board of Governors. They voted not citizens, students, or alumni to change the name of Jenkins Hall because he was a Confederate officer and slaveholder.

This is pure idiocy to punish a Confederate officer 150 years after a war. This is political correctness over a fabricated sensitivity to history. What is next, the Collis P. Huntington statue, or maybe Justice Marshalls namesake? I am sick of this pandering so elites can feel better about their fabricated nonracist stance.

I tried to contact the board and the president with no results, no emails, no phone numbers. They destroy American tradition then hide and tell their families and coworkers how righteous and brave they are by doing their deeds of destruction in secrecy. I would say if a member of the Jenkins family were considering leaving a wealthy endowment to Marshall or PBS this would have never been up for a vote.

As a West Virginia citizen and Marshall graduate I request a public hearing on this attempt to whitewash our history by destroying our traditions.

This was a toned-down version of what I was going to write.

Original post:

Letter to the editor: Erasing Jenkins' name is too much political correctness - Huntington Herald Dispatch

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan wants to remove a portrait of Stephen Douglas from the house chambers, South Side legislators want to remove a statue of Douglas atop his tomb in Bronzeville, and residents of Lawndale want to rename Douglas Park.

Those memorials should indeed be removed, though renaming the park merits a broader discussion. And its a bit rich seeing Madigan whos made millions from a biased property tax system, and who unlike Douglas never took a political risk in his entire career wrap himself in political correctness. Acts of symbolism shouldnt take the place of real substantive change thats needed in Springfield.

Famous for defeating Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 U.S. Senate campaign and losing to him in the presidential contest two years later, Douglas believed in white supremacy, opposed the abolition of slavery and basic civil rights for Blacks, and profited from a slave plantation in Mississippi that his wife inherited from her father.

Of course, no one is suggesting erasing him from the history books. Douglas was a national political leader whose career offers insights into the way history works, including how a crisis can develop from a basic contradiction in this case, slavery versus democracy, even a highly limited version of democracy and how that can bring disparate forces into common cause.

In the decade before the Civil War, Douglas sought compromise with the southern slave states but ended up in conflict with them. And despite his racism, he didnt shy from that conflict.

As the leading northern Democrat in Congress, Douglas sponsored the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Law putting northerners in the position of slave-catchers and provoking resistance which sometimes boiled over into riots and revolts in northern cities.

A few years later, Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, leaving the question of whether the states would allow slavery up to local voters. This reflected Douglass doctrine of popular sovereignty. Slave states rejected the concept, since slave-owners were not eager to move into newly-forming states where the possibility of outlawing slavery existed.

Again, the measure failed to conciliate sectional discord. Instead it led to brutal battles between pro- and anti-slavery settlers in Bleeding Kansas, which riled up both abolitionists and northern Free Soilers, who didnt directly oppose slavery in the South but wanted it excluded from new territories in the West.

In 1857, a small group of pro-slavery Kansans passed the Lecompton Constitution establishing slavery in Kansas, and Democratic President James Buchanan accepted the constitution, declaring Kansas as much a slave state as Georgia and South Carolina. Douglas dramatically broke with the Democratic administration, calling the constitution a fraudulent submission and siding with congressional Republicans to oppose its ratification.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the odious Dred Scott decision, declaring that African Americans had no right to U.S. citizenship and that states had no power to exclude slavery from their own borders. After initially urging respect for the decision, Douglas challenged it the next year in his debates with Lincoln. His Freeport Doctrine argued states did have the power to reject slavery. Southern Democrats termed it the Freeport Heresy.

These issues came to a head in the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Southern delegates demanded a platform endorsing the Dred Scott decision and supporting legislation protecting slavery in future states. The Douglas Democrats refused to accept these demands not out of principle, but because they knew they would turn northern voters against the party. The southerners walked out and nominated a competing candidate for president. That probably ended Douglass presidential hopes.

During the campaign, Douglas warned of the danger of secession and spoke strongly against it. In North Carolina he called for hanging every man who takes up arms against [the Constitution]. By October, it was clear Douglas had no path to electoral victory, and he changed tack, travelling to Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama to campaign not for his election but against secession.

After Lincoln was inaugurated and Charleston was shelled by Confederate forces, the new president consulted his old rival over the proclamation he was issuing. Douglas said he approved every word except instead of calling for 75,000 volunteers to fight for the Union, he urged Lincoln to call for 200,000.

In contrast to northern Peace Democrats, Douglas helped bring his constituency in some respects similar to Lincolns, homesteaders and family farmers who feared competition from slave labor to support the fight against the Confederacy. Ultimately that fight required a range of forces, from enslaved people who revolted against their bondage and abolitionists to Free Soilers and Douglas-style Unionists.

All fought and died by the thousands to put down the slaveowners revolt. And we have far to go to recognize the contributions of those historymakers who werent white male generals and politicians. We also need to recognize the great tragedy of the Civil War, the abandonment of Reconstruction efforts to build real democracy in the South, which reflected the failure to overcome the ideology of white supremacy that Douglas always maintained.

For activists today, the complexity of this history may hold lessons about the path forward, and the way people with a variety of viewpoints come together in a common cause. It may well turn out that both police abolitionists and Black police officers challenging anti-reform unions along with many others are contributing to progress. There are also lessons about not settling for half measures based on outmoded ways of thinking, about pushing through to real change.

As for the memorials, the huge statue of Douglas in Bronzeville is objectionable to many neighborhood residents. At Douglas Park on the West Side, many have suggested adding an s to the parks name and rededicating it to Frederick Douglass. That has obvious appeal, but Im not sure its necessarily the best way to go.

It was, in fact, in another great Chicago park that Frederick Douglass played a prominent historical role. It was in Jackson Park that he represented Haiti, the only Black nation in the 1892 Columbian Exposition, and it was there that he gave a famous address challenging the United States to live up to its Constitution. He also collaborated with Ida B. Wells on a pamphlet exposing the exclusion of African Americans from the Columbian Exposition.

But the park is, of course, named for Andrew Jackson, another contradictory historical figure. By the standards of white male politics of the time, he was progressive, even radical, supporting expansion of the electoral franchise beyond property owners and abolition of imprisonment for debt, opposing banks and corporations, and reorienting government to serve his conception of the common man.

He was also a racist, a slaveowner, and the perpetrator of perhaps the greatest act of ethnic cleansing in American history, the atrocity known as the Trail of Tears.

But the democratic impulse he helped set in motion however limited in its original scope is credited by some historians with widening influence over subsequent decades. Northern Jacksonian radicals, including some of the former presidents top allies, launched the Free Soil Party and were a major force in founding the Republican Party.

A complex historical legacy, arguably but as an individual, Jacksons crimes and his record of cruelty are of such magnitude as to outweigh anything else. I say rename Jackson Park for Frederick Douglass. And put Harriet Tubman on the ten-dollar bill.

As for Douglas Park, perhaps it should be renamed for a great West Sider. I would suggest Richard Barnett, the legendary independent political organizer, who played a major role laying the groundwork for Harold Washingtons election as mayor in 1983. Barnetts activism started in the 1950s with a baseball league for neighborhood youth and a fight for a decent playing field in Lawndale, the neighborhood where Douglas Park is located.

And if Madigan really wants to get on the right side of history, he should address himself to what may be the single most important reform the legislature could accomplish right now: amending the state law that gives extraordinary protections to police officers accused of misconduct, and changing collective bargaining legislation to limit police unions ability to negotiate over provisions that enshrine the code of silence.

That would take some guts especially given longtime support for Madigan by the Fraternal Order of Police and it would accomplish a lot more than moving a painting.

Read more from the original source:

Stephen Douglas and the 'right side' of history - Chicago Reporter

The headline, Im done with all you Americans hating on America, on a recent Lewiston Tribune column by Jeff Sayre prompts me to advise liberals that conservatives are winning the rhetorical battles in Americas political war.

Both liberals and conservatives are using rhetoric that appeals to their bases. This is one of many reasons for todays dysfunctional polar divide.

Politicians at opposite poles dont know what rhetoric will convince voters in the middle, which both need to win elections in our times. Trying to persuade voters at the opposite pole seems beyond reach.

Consequently, both conservatives and liberals fire salvos of rhetoric that appeals only to their base without hope of inviting the consideration of citizens at the other pole.

Anna M. Kuritzkes put her finger on it in an op-ed, Liberal Rhetoric is Intellectually Exclusive, published Oct. 3, 2017, in the Harvard Crimson. She credited President Donald Trumps 2016 victory to catchphrase rhetoric that is easily digestible by his base.

Liberals, she wrote, use rhetoric that is intellectual, pretentious and inherently exclusive. Even worse, the language we use to explain identity politics can be blatantly condescending.

Yes, Kuritzkes is a liberal.

While she says liberals shouldnt resort to name-calling, like President Trump calling Kim Jon Un Rocket Man, she enjoins liberals to change their rhetoric: if liberals want to make political correctness and identity politics politically viable for the general American public, we need to find a way to condense our message. ... Otherwise, it will forever be limited to colleges where expressions such as cissexist heteropatriarchy are part of the common vocabulary.

Liberals, are you listening?

Now, back to Sayres column, which clearly demonstrates the rhetoric that wins the heart of conservatives. The president proudly proclaims that he thinks with his guts. Perhaps I should use one of President Trumps rhetorical bombs to describe how to appeal to conservatives with gut thinking.

Sayre claims that liberals hate this country.

Thats good gut vocabulary. Conservatives lap it right up. Ive never heard a liberal say conservatives hate America. Or that people who dont agree with them should leave America?

Perhaps its about time for liberals to reach deep down into their guts for rhetoric that appeals to conservatives.

Sayre anguished that he is done with hearing politicians calling criminals virtuous. Apparently hes forgotten that it was his beloved president who responded that some white nationalists and neo-Nazis involved in a United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., were very good people.

He had just condemned white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis, thus he effectively softened his condemnation.

Sayre wrote, Im done with being told our problems are systemic by people who dont know the definition of the word.

Does Sayre know the definition? Or is he just in denial that systemic racism exists in American institutions?

Systemic defines characteristics relating to an entire system. In this instance, American government and business.

The medical use describes something that relates to, or affects, the entire body.

Sayres rejection of systemic racism is a classic example of liberals problem with rhetoric. The word systemic doesnt rise from the gut. It is an intellectual word formed in the brain.

Thats not to say there arent intellectual conservatives.

There certainly are, but they dont express themselves with intestinal rhetoric: words and phrases like Stalinist Communist Party thugs, as applied to liberal Americans. A favorite is the socialist label applied to capitalistic programs like health insurance. Rhetoric is speech or writing intended to persuade. The challenge for liberals is to tone down their highfalutin rhetoric, which serves mainly to turn off the audience to whom they address.

It is irrational to address conservatives who have made it abundantly clear that they communicate from their guts with intellectual rhetoric.

Terence L. Day is a retired Washington State faculty member and a Pullman resident since 1972. He encourages email to terence@moscow.com.

Read this article:

His View: Republicans are winning the rhetorical war - Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Masks around the neck

Saw the Tallahassee Nights performance Saturday evening. All them people wearing masks around their necks, that was a fashion statement. Nothing more. The masks I saw didn't slow the virus spread one little bit. Those complaining about others not wearing masks, what good does it do to wear it around your neck?

Turning Point

Well, well. Now we have a lawsuit that confirms what we all knew. Turning Point pays addicts and drunks to come to Moultrie, bills Medicare (us) and dumps them on the streets of Moultrie for us to contend. Thanks TP and a former man of the year for the damage to Moultrie.

Their people

About the City Council Members representing their people to the exclusion of all others, Moultrie's City Council has always been that way. Many run for those seats solely to represent and help their people and only their people. That's long standing tradition in Moultrie. As common as ticks on a dog's belly. That's why I'll never live in Moultrie.

Golf carts

The point I was trying to make about the children that were on Smithwick Bridge Road was missed.

As a farm worker I was coming over a hill. The golf card was in middle of road with 4 children.

I would be the one having to live with the fact I hit 4 children. Think here Its about children.

You have options

If you don't like the fact that your barber wasn't wearing a mask, then cut your own hair!

New team name

I got it, I got it! The new name should be the Washington Social Equalizers. It's got a good ring to it.

Mask hysteria

Some of us don't wear masks because we don't believe the mask hysteria. You do as you please, likewise for me. You didn't wear masks for decades during flu seasons, now you can't understand why people will not wear a mask. I admire your political correctness. You've kissed Al's ring like a good little Democrat, now run along and play.

False history

Southern Blacks did not fight for the Confederacy. That is a myth. I know history means something different for people who still think Confederate monuments were put up to honor Southern heritage. But in the universe of facts, this is a falsehood. Thank you for the attempted history lesson though.

Roger Stone

Pelosi said Trump's commuting Roger Stone's sentence was a threat to national security. Huh? This old attorney, suddenly, threatens national security? Who knew? ... and when? Now Schiff is saying it's an impeachable offense. Seriously? Obama commuted and pardoned over 1,900 people, and none of those were impeachable nor threats to national security. Typical Democrats.

Trump doesnt help

Instead of trying to help open up schools, this President does what he always does: bully by threatening to take funding. If it is not safe, bully all you want. Do not put childrens lives in danger so he can get the economy that he wants for re-election. Our children are not for sale. Wear a mask, people. God bless!

Changing goals

Initially, the virus pandemic goal was to flatten the curve. When that was accomplished, the goal changed to increase testing, so we quadrupled testing nationwide. When that was accomplished, the goal changed to fight a second wave. At each goal's accomplishment, Democrats change the goal. Those controlling this narrative are the ones trying to control the November election.

Why now, Biden?

Why didn't Joe Biden implement his great ideas for America during his 8 years in the White House or during his 36 years as Delaware's Senator? Suddenly he wants to help America at age 78? Seriously? Did it take Joe 47 years to come up with his new economic plan, which is essentially a huge tax increase. Why now, Joe?

Gun violence

Some advocate having a conversation about gun violence but won't dare talk to shooters; they only want to talk to law abiding citizens about giving up their guns. The reason that conversation won't happen is because those people, always Democrats of course, only want the conversation started so they can take guns away. We see through liberal's game plans.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

View original post here:

Rant and Rave for July 17, 2020 | Opinion | moultrieobserver.com - Moultrie Observer

Marsh Riggs: Progressivism: Beware the future

It feels like we are near a tipping point after which our country as we have known it is no more. Cultural deconstruction and values destruction are in full swing, and submissive cowards and fools are letting it happen.

Forces under the pretext of fighting racism are operating out of control to destroy America and what it stands for and to replace it with a Marxist utopia, which actually would be a godless dystopia. The scary part is that our supposed leaders are allowing, and even supporting, the revolution.

This is especially true of disingenuous Democratic leadership and liberal media who sadly and predictably are radical leftists. Unfortunately, many Republicans also have fecklessly bowed to the intimidation by the radical protesters and rioters.

The acceptance by a gullible public of these efforts to take America down is unbelievably naive and stunning. I am shocked by the ubiquitous ignorance of what Marxism or socialism would bring. I am discouraged by the willingness to buckle under to these terrorists by congressmen, governors, mayors, CEOs, college administrators, school boards, editors and others.

It is as if the best qualities that have made America such a positive force (not at all perfect) have been swallowed up by terrorism, cowardice, political correctness, inanities, entitlement, and lack of character. It is as if the many decades of my life have been an illusion. I should have realized that all I have gained through experience and education is worthless. The true source of wisdom now comes from woke children.

Progressives beware. Your fantasized utopia may come back to bite you. For those who have some patriotism left, it is time to step up. If Democrats are allowed to gain the presidency and Control of congress in 2021, America is toast.

Marsh Riggs

Louisville

Paul Tiger: Senate race: Vote for Doane

Raymon Doane is a candidate for United States Senate in Colorado. Mr. Doane won the state primary race for the Libertarian Party, which is the third largest party in Colorado. A Denver native with a degree in management who has been working in state government tax revenue divisions, Raymon has hands-on knowledge about how Colorado deals with finances. Outside of his professional life, Raymon is a serial community volunteer.

Mr. Doane won more than two thirds of the primary vote over his opponent. This decisive margin for an African American male could have been more impressive, except that only three percent of the 37,000 Libertarians statewide participated in this historic primary. Forty-three percent of all voters supported one of the two major party candidates.

Many Libertarians were surprised to receive a ballot for U.S. Senate in a primary, while unaffiliated voters didnt see the Libertarian ballot. Few were aware that this was the first Libertarian statewide primary, or that there was a black candidate for U.S. Senate.

The lack of information could be attributed to all-encompassing negative pandemic news media. In the time of Black Lives Matter, the press is looking for more racial disparity, and here is a story not to follow. Its not a riot, but it is dramatic.

Find out more about Raymon Doane at http://www.doane4colorado.com and see if he might be your candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020. He is mine.

Paul Tiger

Longmont

Jen Brinker: Good news stories: There are still bright spots

Weve been living in Louisville and receiving the Daily Camera for the last 15 plus years. Many days, my husband and I will ask one another as we trade sections: Anything good in there?

We want to thank you for spreading the Good News News. With so much uncertainty and heavy news lately, its uplifting to read and learn about positive stories. Recently we read about the #BeKindLouisville mural and the story about Kevin Geberts fundraiser for the Louisville Library to get more books in residents hands that address racial equality and social justice.

Since reading the stories weve adopted a teacher through lovedani.com (the mural artist) and donated to the Louisville Library. Thank you, Daily Camera, for shining light in what can feel like dark times. Kindness is contagious!

Jen Brinker

Louisville

Colleen Sherry: Annexing Gunbarrel: Its a bad idea, but

As a Gunbarrel resident, I agree with R.M. ODea desire for Gunbarrel to remain unincorporated (June 25 guest opinion column). The Gunbarrel community would gain very little from joining the city of Boulder. There is a lack of proposed parks, libraries, and other amenities the city enjoys.

However, Gunbarrel is not so removed that it can claim to be completely independent of Boulder, and we cannot assume circumstances in the city will not affect us unless we are annexed. It is unfortunate that a significant portion of ODeas argument stems from the fear of seeing people who are experiencing homelessness or have substance use disorders in Gunbarrel.

Do not use a vulnerable population as a political scare tactic. Instead, perhaps consider donating your time or money to a cause that helps people who are struggling. Even if that organization happens to be 10 minutes up the road in Boulder.

Colleen Sherry

Boulder

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Letters to the editor: Progressivism; Senate race; good news stories; annexing Gunbarrel - The Daily Camera

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One of the most successful strategies used by the cultural-left to radically reshape society in its utopian image is redefining language to suit its agenda. As noted by George Orwell if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought; allowing words to be altered to enforce politically correct group think.

The word gay is an obvious example as activists have long since changed the meaning from being happy and carefree to describing homosexual men. Such has been the gay lobbys success that when school children sing the song Kookaburra Sits on the Old Gumtree the line Gay your life must be is altered to Fun your life must be.

Rainbow provides another example where the word and the symbol have long been co-opted by the cultural-left to refer to a broad range of environmental, neo-Marxist and LGBTIQ+ activists grouped under the heading Rainbow Alliance. The way the word gender has been redefined represents one of the more egregious examples of language control.

According to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary the word is a grammatical term used to denote whether nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter according to whether the objects they denote are male, female or of neither sex. Based on the research carried out by the psychologist John Money while at John Hopkins University during the 1950s the word was radically redefined to refer to an individuals sexual identity.

Instead of biology and Gods law determining whether a person was female or male, Money introduced the description of gender on the basis sexuality was a fluid and dynamic social construct. Moneys obituary in The New York Times describes this ground-breaking research as follows He was the first scientist to provide a language to describe the psychological dimensions of human sexual identity: no such language had existed before.

Such has been the success of transgender activists in their campaign to normalise gender dysphoria that instead of chromosomes determining a persons sexuality the prevailing orthodoxy is that there is nothing fixed or absolute. The Safe Schools Coalition booklet All of Us, found on the Commonwealth Governments Student Wellbeing Hub, defines sexual diversity as a continuum and tells students gender identity does not necessarily relate to the sex a person is assigned at birth.

The booklet Safe Schools do Better, erroneously arguing 15.7 per cent of students are same sex attracted, intersex or gender diverse or trans when the figure is closer to approximately 5 per cent, suggests a person may identify as neither male nor female, or as both.

As highlighted in George Orwells novel 1984 language determines how we think and act and controlling language is a key strategy employed by totalitarian regimes to manipulate people and enforce groupthink. In Orwells dystopian novel what is described as Newspeak leads to a situation where thoughtcrime is impossible as there will be no words in which to express it. The slogan War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength best illustrates how Big Brother subjugates citizens by radically altering the meaning of words and, as a result, controlling their ability to think rationally and independently.

Such is the insidious evil of distorting language and imposing group think

Such is the insidious evil of distorting language and imposing group think that Orwell writes The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past If he says that two and two are five well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.

Universities and government bureaucracies instead of defending rationality and reason have long since become champions of cultural-left language control and group think.University Diversity Toolkits tell staff to use gender neutral pronouns, to describe the early convict settlement as an invasion and that it is wrong to describe pre-European Aboriginal culture as primitive.

The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services organises days where staff are told gender specific nouns like man and woman or pronouns like she and he are heteronormative, homophobic and transphobic. While the cultural-lefts use of politically correct language is widespread and now dominates public and private discourse there is nothing new in using language to persuade and convince.

What is described as rhetoric has been evident since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers and sophists and includes devices such as using emotive language and euphemisms and shifting the meaning of words to suit ones purpose and shut down debate.

Where the cultural-lefts use of language is dangerous and insidious is that it is calculated to dominate and control and to overthrow what is seen as an unjust, inequitable society riven with white supremacism, structural racism, sexism and transphobia. And anyone who disagrees is condemned and vilified as Eurocentric, misogynist, heteronormative, xenophobic and worst of all Christian. So much for reasoned debate.

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Kevin Donnelly: Political Correctness and the distortion of language - The Catholic Weekly

Leave aside the political correctness that has resulted in universal condemnation of all law enforcement personnel, for a moment. In the interest of saving lives, let us return at least briefly to using our common sense.

As The Associated Press reports, a significant number of officers, deputies, troopers and agents may not understand the seriousness of making it difficult for someone to breathe. Really.

Under no circumstances can what happened to George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis be rationalized, of course. After being arrested on a relatively minor, non-violent charge, he was forced to the pavement, where a police officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd was killed, after pleading several times that, I cant breathe.

Five Minneapolis officers have been charged in Floyds death.

Outrage over their behavior is justified. It has prompted a nationwide discussion among those involved in law enforcement, let it be noted about treatment of people in confrontations with police.

Correcting a misperception among some law officers needs to a priority in that discussion.

Apparently, according to the AP, some people think that if a person in distress can talk to say, for example, I cant breathe he or she is not in danger.

Derek Chauvin, the policeman charged with murdering Floyd, responded to his pleas with, Then stop talking, stop yelling. It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk. Another officer at the scene remarked, Hes talking, so he can breathe.

Health care professionals agree that even people able to beg for their lives can be in severe, life-threatening distress. Clearly, Floyd was.

Again, there is no excuse whatsoever for what happened to Floyd.

But just as clearly, many law enforcement personnel need better education on how to handle such situations. Local, state and federal officials need to ensure it is provided and the guidance is followed. No one should die because a law officer misreads the meaning of, I cant breathe.

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What's hard to understand about 'I can't breathe?' - Minot Daily News

The most overused words in the English language today are racist and racism. Most rational adults would apply the word racist to someone who continually or habitually makes statements or prompts action that is clearly meant to demean or disgrace those of a different ethnic persuasion. Todays racist is any person, Black or White, that makes a public statement that could be construed to be anything but complimentary to African Americans. Moderate intellectuals and others who could make a compelling argument against the forces that maintain racism are afraid to speak for fear of being labelled racist. In the interim our attention seems to be riveted on vocal entertainers and sports figures, most of whom havent a clue on how to develop an appropriate strategy for racial harmony.

The entire civil rights movement has been corrupted by political correctness and the media to the point that many have lost sight of the original objective of the movement, which was to simply promote tolerance of the separate races while the necessary healing took place. The BLM movement for instance has become a hiding place for looters and rioters none of whom care if the races ever find common ground.

America has a lot of work to do if true equality is ever to be realized. Some rather uncomfortable acknowledgements must be made. Myth and conjecture must be removed from much of current policy. This work, however, cannot even begin until the rioting and looting has stopped and commitment to a sincere effort is made by all principal ethnic groups.

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The most overused words in the English language today are racist and racism. - Calaveras Enterprise

The ironies and the inconsistencies

Now that former Vice President Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee, its time to hold him and other Democratic leaders accountable for some of their outlandish statements.

First, Biden said he fears President Donald Trump will try to steal the election. This is clearly a case of the kettle calling the pot black (no racial innuendo intended), since Republicans suspected Democrats of using loopholes in California election law they crafted as a means of stealing seven House seats in 2018. Biden also expressed fears that Trump wouldnt accept the outcome of the election if unfavorable to him and would have to be ousted by military force. Since when did America become a banana republic where the Constitution is written on a dry-erase board and coups are commonplace? I would remind Biden that his base still hasnt accepted the outcome of the 2016 election.

Biden stated that 15%-20% of Americans are not very good people. Hillary Clintons basket of deplorables all over again? He also tried to delineate peoples race based on how they vote: If you vote for Donald Trump, you aint Black.

And Clinton recently said she couldnt understand why anyone with a working mind and a beating heart still supports Trump. Maybe because myriad preborn children with working minds and beating hearts, many of them Black, are aborted. The Democrats pledge to make America more inclusive applies only to those who are already born. Planned Parenthood is inherently racist, as to both its history and its impact on reducing our nations Black population.

And about this purge of statues, symbols and names associated with the Confederacy and Christopher Columbus? Weve seen it before in Russia, China and Nazi Germany when a culture is erased to make room for a new one. Whats next, renaming the nations capital the District of Political Correctness, along with the capitals of at least two states? Karl Marx took a dim view of traditions of dead generations, calling them a nightmare on the brains of the living and presumably to be abolished. Its happening!

WILLIAM A. WITTIK

Hartford

The goal of the Haverhill Entrepreneurial Encouragement Committee is to have fiber-optic network technology, the most reliable long-term option, accessible on every road and highway in town. Expanding high-speed internet is critical for Haverhill to be a more attractive community for families and businesses and to retain our youth. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced its importance for telehealth, education and working from home.

The North Country Council, our nonprofit regional planning organization, has launched a survey to gather information on the quality of broadband services in all towns in Northern New Hampshire. Currently available data is not precise enough to give us the information we need, so this survey is important. Please spend five minutes to take the survey at http://www.nccouncil.org/broadband/. If you dont have internet, you can call 603-444-6303, ext. 2014, to request a paper survey or to provide your information verbally. You can also request a paper survey by emailing mmoren@nccouncil.org.

The Haverhill Entrepreneurial Encouragement Committee, formed after the April 2018 Better Haverhill forum, conducted a business survey that identified the need for improved cellphone and broadband service, and we organized a public meeting last November at Haverhill Cooperative Middle School. The committee then proposed the creation of a town cellphone/broadband reserve fund and, at the March Town Meeting, Haverhill citizens voted to appropriate $50,000 to address this need.

Since Town Meeting, we committee members have been exploring the best options for success. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers in rural areas such as ours. Based on funding availability, the committee is focusing first on broadband while also recognizing that expanded broadband access can also benefit cell access.

Please share this message with all of your friends, especially those who live in Haverhill. The Haverhill Entrepreneurial Encouragement Committee meets monthly, usually the fourth Wednesday, at 6 p.m., and we welcome new participants.

KEVIN SHELTON and WAYNE FORTIER

Woodsville

DOUG TESCHNER

Pike

JEFF STIMSON and STEPHANIE MARSTON

North Haverhill

On Sept. 8, New Hampshire Republicans have a choice to make. We can choose a native son of our state, a former Laconia police officer who joined the Army and rose through the ranks from private to brigadier general, a decorated Special Forces commander who fought for our country and wishes to continue his legacy of selfless service as our United States senator. That man is Don Bolduc.

Or we can choose a man of considerable means who has built a law office empire in his home state of Colorado. A man who is supported by the Washington establishment. A man who has had only a vacation home in the Granite State, only moving here full-time in 2018. That man is Corky Messner.

Consider the times we are living in. Our police are under constant attack, we are experiencing civil unrest in many of our cities, our history is being defamed and the very rights that we as Americans hold sacred are being threatened.

We need to send a strong leader to Washington. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has shown herself time and time again to be little more than a sock puppet of the Democratic Party, the same Democratic Party that supports and rewards those who seek to transform our noble country into an unrecognizable socialist empire that is theirs alone to control. Republicans and clear-thinking independents need to send a fighter to defeat Shaheen and return honor and selfless service to our congressional delegation. Retired Gen. Don Bolduc is that man. The mission is critical and the time is now. Stand up for our state and our nation. Send a message of American pride and vote for Don Bolduc in the Republican Party primary on Sept. 8.

JOHN YOUNG

Sutton

I have come to the conclusion that the present-day Republican Party is a menace both to the practice of a truly democratic political process and to competent governance. I find this to be the case despite individual, often courageous, exceptions. I do not wish nor does space permit to take this occasion to present a bill of particulars. Suffice it to say that I find the words racist, corrupt and plutocratic describe this party more accurately than does the honorable term conservative. Therefore I pledge to vote for no Republican for state or national office in November 2020, nor for an indefinite period going forward.

Vermonts late senator, James Jeffords, understood the nihilistic tendencies of the Republican Party almost 20 years ago. Accordingly, he declared his independence from said party. I have come to have respect for Vermonts present governor, Phil Scott. In past election years, his efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic could have earned my vote this November, though I do not usually vote for Republicans. But, in my judgment, the menace posed by the Republican Party generally is too great to justify a vote for any Republican. If Gov. Scott were to declare his independence from the Republican Party, then he would have my vote in November.

BORIS G. von YORK

Springfield, Vt.

Lets take back our stolen democracy. The only way to do this is by voting for a new president who has at least some integrity and political experience. Also, we must vote out as many of the lying, robotic Republican senators as we can.

I fear that it will take years to clean up the financial mess that President Donald Trump has made. But we must start somewhere. We truly dont know all of the problems created and hidden in the White House by Trump and his puppets. But trust me, they will come out in time. And they will affect every one of us. Just remember, in the 2016 presidential election, about 100 million eligible voters did not even bother to vote. Shame on us. So lets make American great again, by getting all Americans to vote.

Do not listen to his campaign ads. They are full of false promises. And do not take his online surveys. Out of curiosity, I answered one just to let him know just how inadequate I thought he was as a leader. At the end it asked me for money, it and would not let my survey go through unless I pledged to donate. I tried to enter $0.00, which is exactly what I thought he was worth, but the survey form would not accept a zero. Needless to say, I quickly left the survey. To add insult to injury, he keeps sending me surveys addressing me as a supporter. I believe this is called attempting a con job.

He is also having his supporters sign waivers saying that if they catch COVID-19 at one of his campaign rallies they will not hold him, or his affiliates, liable. Please, Trump supporters, just think about his intentions here.

Its definitely time to get rid of him. Vote, vote, vote! As Americans, it is our duty.

LINDA BROWN

Springfield, Vt.

I offer the following seemingly simple math problem: Look 2 Listen plus Listen 2 Hear equals Love 4 Life.

My question is, why is it so difficult?

DIANE ROGERS

Plainfield

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Forum, July 15: The ironies and the inconsistencies - Valley News

A vengeful mob is a fearsome thing but the true monsters are its teachers.

Cynthia Ozick

Author, Critics, Monsters, Fanatics and Other Literary Essays

For those old enough to remember the riots of the 1960s following the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and the 1992 riots after the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial, the riots following the killing of George Floyd by police brought back painful memories. There were differences, however. The earlier riots occurred mostly in cities with large black minorities and targeted mostly black neighborhoods. The recent ones took place over a larger swath of America and included affluent, white neighborhoods and this time the rioters included large numbers of young whites.

Another notable difference was the apparent support for and rationalization of much of the violence from a large cross-section of the population including white academics and other white elites as well as the mainstream media. Some have described the civic unrest as a movement or a revolution. The description seems apt, with mobs taking over sections of cities like Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C., erecting barricades to keep police from entering and, in Seattles CHOP, declaring sovereignty. A unifying objective, on the surface at least, was defunding the police and drastically restructuring law enforcement.

To Northwestern Universitys Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature, there are striking similarities between what is going on now in America and what occurred in Russia just prior to the Communist revolution that overthrew the Czarist government. In that revolution, the Marxists openly endorsed terrorism as a necessary means to an end. The opposition liberal party, known as the Constitutional Democrats, did not condone terrorism but steadfastly refused to condemn it, believing it would be political suicide to do so, according to Prof. Morson. In fact, he says, they actually called for the release of imprisoned terrorists.

In an interview published recently in the Wall Street Journal, Morson said that the lessons from this are highly relevant today. People may know that acts of violence and destruction of property are wrong but feel that it might be political suicide or subject them to criticism (or worse) to say so and so they go along supporting or remaining silent about things they know are wrong. And unless some moral force emerges to stop it, the slide toward chaos accelerates. That moral force seems lacking in America today as it was in Russia then. Morson notes another analogy, saying that many of todays revolutionaries are wildly successful and privileged, citing, as examples, Colinford Mattis and Uroog Rahman, charged with attempting to firebomb a police vehicle. Both are New York attorneys, educated at, respectively, Princeton and New York University.

If we are, in fact, witnessing a revolution today, it seems important to understand what its about and where it began. Many believe that Its about much more than just black lives matter, defunding the police and restructuring law enforcement. Its about redistributing wealth and power. Its significant in this regard that many of the demonstrations now are targeting the homes of those with power and wealth. Intimidation is a powerful weapon. Its also about re-defining free speech. Revolutions cannot tolerate insightful criticism and require both a sympathetic news media and a passive policing policy that will monitor, but not prevent, violence incident to their demonstrations. Dissent must be crushed if it threatens to impede the revolution. Therefore, if you dare to criticize the actions of the demonstrators or rioters, you are not listening or you dont get it. You are on the wrong side of history and just part of the problem or not qualified to criticize because you are privileged. Revolutionaries insist that they support free speech of course, but, in practice, they do only if it supports their narrative. Otherwise, its branded a lie and needs to be suppressed.

How did this all begin? For starters, consider the widespread embrace of political correctness. And where did all that begin? It was born and nurtured on college campuses all over America where leftist ideology prevails almost unchallenged, supported by overwhelmingly liberal faculties. The rare conservative voices are often suppressed and shamed or banished from campus. Our universities have produced a generation of young socialists taught to see only the flaws and not the greatness of our nation. Most of them supported Bernie Sanders and are not enamored with the choices we have for president in November. (In the latter matter at least, I share their distress.)

If this is a revolution, will it ultimately succeed? That, of course, is squarely up to the American people. But if they are too fearful to speak their minds, it really doesnt matter what they think or want. Silence is surrender. As Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, A republic, if you can keep it. Weve kept it for nearly two and a half centuries but could we be on the brink of losing it?

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and a retired Navy Captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships and a personnel research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.

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Nation On The Brink | Opinion | coronadonewsca.com - Coronado Eagle and Journal