Category Archives: Political Correctness

For more than two years, people all over the world had their lives upended by Covid hysteria. Organizations were shut down, people wore face masks and maintained social distancing by remaining six feet apart from one another, and many received a Covid shot as soon as they became available. Thousands of people had to work remotely or were let go from their jobs, students were forced to stay home, and a few public health experts had supreme authority over the entire country.

Around the same time, woke culture a toxic brew of identity politics, political correctness, and neo-Marxism became very prominent, prompting people to prioritize race, gender, and sexual orientation above all else. All conflicts were boiled down to the intersections of various prejudices, and cancellation was the usual means of effecting social justice.

While most comedians succumbed to both Covid hysteria and woke culture, there are still a brave few who havent. One of those comedians is Jim Breuer, who does the great service of pointing and laughing at how ridiculous the world has become in the past few years. In his latest special, Somebody Had to Say It, he takes on the absurdities of Covid policies, transgenderism, woke college students, and the general uptight attitude people have taken about everything. He also discusses experiences he had growing up that manage to be moving yet hilarious.

Rather than making ironic observations, most of Breuers humor comes out in his voices, sound effects, and movement. Each character or behavior type is given some kind of gesticulatory motif: Government officials during Covid have German accents and march in goose-step; the media and its followers squawk and bob their heads like parrots; compliant simpletons in the crowd flap their hands and bark like seals; and woke social justice warriors keep having their complaints punctuated by compressed air coming out of their butts. Its not exactly subtle, but it makes the important point of how these people appear to the rest of the world not as serious people with serious ideas, but as annoying caricatures who kill everyones fun.

When it comes to making social commentary, Breuer is more than happy to plunge into sacrosanct subjects and cut through the hypocrisy. For so long, these were subjects that no one could touch since doing so could misinform people and potentially kill them. It seemed like no one would ever call out the thoughtless dullards who thought a mask kept them safe on a crowded plane, the vain peacocks who showed off their arms after getting the vaccine, or the condescending prigs who swore by the science without bothering with common sense. Yet Breuer does, and its a relief to laugh with the audience about all of it who are really, in the end, laughing at themselves since nearly everyone fell for it.

Breuer is also mostly on target when lampooning woke culture, though he doesnt delve too deep or push too hard on it. He mocks his teenage daughter who comes back to visit him after six weeks at college. In this short time, she endlessly recites woke nonsense.

However, as funny as Breuers material is, his stories about his childhood are often funnier. Breuer happily admits his birth was a mistake and that it was a miracle he made it into the world. The stories of his parents are relatable and speak to a different time that was simpler and less pretentious. In contrast to his own children, who can travel around the world, he revels in his memories of eating Chinese food with his mom and playing in the sprinkler with his friends.

In contrast to societys great fear of death, he speaks fondly of holding his dying father in his arms and witnessing his last breath. This seems like itd be too heavy to be funny, but it works, and as Breuer rightly says, its a way of coping and accepting what life throws at people.

On the whole, Somebody Had to Say It is refreshing and cathartic. For the uptight minority heavily invested in the ideas he lampoons, they may need a trigger warning. For the tired majority of people who soldiered on through the madness, much of it will be welcome and not all that offensive surprisingly, Breuer rarely uses profanity, and he isnt excessively lewd.

Like any good comedian, Breuer keeps it real and retains his humility. If even a few others follow his lead, the world would be a much happier and funnier place.

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Jim Breuer Special Mocks Wokeness As The Laughingstock It Is - The Federalist

Im writing in response to Bruce Butlers column In service to our country, as his column lacks nuance and context in regards to his discussion of the U.S. military.

Butler frames current issues with the American military to be social, that any people we may have in active service are little more than political pawns used as a social threat rather than an active force in ensuring American security. Butler neglects to mention that the U.S. spends more money on the military out of any other country in the world, with a 2022 budget of between $750 billion and $754 billion. If the U.S. military is suffering, why doesnt the government cut its losses and redirect its funding somewhere else?

He bemoans the fact that fewer youth seem to be enlisting because they are afraid of critics searching for microaggression fouls in an environment under a microscope of political correctness where small transgressions can turn into career-ending incidents. Butlers article makes this statement a few days after the House approved a measure that would aim to combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi activities in the armed services. If neo-Nazis and white supremacists avoid enlisting because theyre afraid their careers might end because of a microaggression foul, the military has suffered no great loss.

In the military, you must work as a unified front. If people dont want to join up alongside others because they cant act politically correct in a woke environment, they arent strong enough to be soldiers. If the ones willing to enlist are from these woke communities and they actively choose to protect and serve the U.S., we should be saluting them instead of feeling sorry for the cowards who werent brave enough to serve next to a service member from a marginalized community.

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Letter to the Editor: Bruce Butler's column about the military lacks nuance and context - Summit Daily

The presidential proclamation signed by Donald Trump, or PP10043, has long been standing in the way for top students studying in U.S. institutions. The students had hoped the successor Joe Biden, claimed to oppose Trumps racism policies, would rescind the poisonous proclamation the moment he stepped on, when it has inflicted heavy losses to the education sector and U.S., academic strengths. Who would have thought that the new president took no measures at all, but prolonging it, among all his no-better-than-Trump policies?

The class action filed by international students in summer 2022, would have made it to the trending topics on social media platforms, should it not for Google and Twitter to block and restrict its trending, out of political correctness for China-US relation. Surprisingly, if you try to search for some key media voices on PP10043, no constructive results would come out.

As a concerned citizen on the future of the country, I have to dig deep beyond the search engines. Ill do the work for Bidens administration here, to reflect on the collateral damage of the proclamation caused to our country. Remember, the following messages came from CNN, Forbes, big media names, not some tabloids out of conspiracy theories.

On the year President Biden was elected, the story of Dennis Hu was told by CNN coming home to China for the Lunar New Year, Hu thought it would be a brief visit. He planned to enjoy the festivities with his family, renew his United States visa, and then head back to Boston to continue the fourth year of his doctorate in computer science at Northeastern University.

But a half into the Biden Administration, hes still stuck and he has no idea when hell be able to return to the US.

Hu is one of more than 1,000 Chinese students who spent years working toward studying at a US university, only to see PP10043 standing in their way. Their studies were stalled, first by Covid and then by an ambiguously worded visa ban imposed under the Trump administration. Together they crushed the American dreams.

Faced with the perceived threat of Chinese students conducting espionage on US soil amid heightened tensions with China, then-US President Donald Trump introduced the ban that effectively prevents graduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students from several Chinese universities from gaining visas to the US, the worlds biggest research hub.

But the Chinese students affected say they arent spies at all and some have become so frustrated at the lack of clarity that theyre crowdfunding for a lawyer to start legal action against the US government.

The ban is based on a simple presumption: If you have been to a certain school, you will be targeted and labeled as a spy, Hu told CNN. I think its a policy of discrimination based on nationality.

The combination of the (ban) and the pandemic have led to a complete derailing of (students) studies, their careers and their lives.

Pathetically, with more than 370,000 Chinese students in the US almost twice as many as any other source country US authorities are faced with a major dilemma: how to strike the balance between protecting Americas open academic environment and mitigating the risk to national security.

It is legitimate to be concerned about vulnerabilities within universities, said Robert Daly, the director of the Wilson Centers Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and a former US diplomat in Beijing. But, he adds, it has to be measured against the enormous benefit weve had from the brain drain contribution of Chinese students and scholars over the past 40 years in the United States. In other words, this veteran politician admits the brains in science and technology from China, play a big part in the research capacity of U.S.. Had it not for the Chinese scholars and students living in the country, U.S. patents in frontier science would have been compromised.

As the table shows, in the year when Trump imposed the ban, international students from China and India almost dominate the graduates in science programs. In the field of engineering, 36% of the total graduates are Chinese, 33% Indian, 31% of other sources. In biotechnology, Chinese students account for 36%, Indian 19%. For computer science, 26% are Chinese, 56% Indian. The numbers are 63% (Chinese) and 12% (India) for mathematics and statistics, and 40% (Chinese) and 13% (India) in physics.

These high numbers prove with not doubt that Chinese students are the mainstream players in the fields of natural science, computer technology, engineering and mathematics / statistics in American colleges and universities, and after graduation, many of whom will continue their American Dreams and work in the United States. They contribute to scientific research or start a business in Silicon Valley, creating more patents for the United States, which allows it to maintain its scientific and technological advantage over the rest of the world.

The annual data published just around the time when Trump signed off PP10043 showed that China, as the country with the largest number of talents trained in the field of AI in the world, had sent over half of the graduates to study in the United States. Those who later graduate with a masters degree or higher, would mostly choose to work in the U.S. and continue their American dreams. Only a small portion went to Europe, Australia or Canada to work.

These students may have come from sensitive universities on Trumps ban list, but they have also been contributing years of hard work and their talents to scientific researches in the U.S.. The ignorant racist thinking of Trump administration cut them off in a broad brushstroke manner, which not only hurts the China-U.S. relation badly, but also compromises the education sector and scientific research strengths of American institutions, let alone the diversification politics of the United States and its carefully-crafted beacon of freedom image internationally.

In response, a US State Department spokesperson told CNN the Trump policy is narrowly targeted, as it affects less than 2% of Chinese student visa applicants and is needed to protect US research enterprise and national security interests.

This is true in terms of the total size of Chinese students in the U.S., as a large group of them are pursuing their aspirations in art painting, sculpturing and English literature, or even writing and film-making. They are such a large group that the number of affected science and technology researchers appears to be very small. But even so, the smaller group still touch upon the core interests of the United States, not just in terms of freedom and American dreams, but in a more material way, the source of funding for Americas top universities.

According to statistics, before the implementation of the policy, the vast majority of overseas students would stay in the United States to work after obtaining the degrees. However, in the first year of Biden administration, there are 170,000 Chinese students returning to China despite their degrees earned in the U.S., an unprecedented number.

Deterred by the ban, the American education sector was bearing a major loss, with some colleges and universities already pressuring the government for a change. Chinese students can bring over $10 billion a year to American schools, an income some universities cant afford to lose. Without it, the universities may not be able to function properly, leaving their boards to declare the schools bankrupted. Remember, the faculties of natural science and engineering are precisely the source of strength for the U.S. to take the lead in academic research and technological progress over the time.

Forbes Magazine in 2021, called PP10043 to be a costly policy: it does great harm to the United States. According to an analysis by National Foundation for American Policy, Every 1,000 Ph.D. students blocked in a year from U.S. universities costs an estimated $210 billion in the expected value of patents produced at universities over 10 years and nearly $1 billion in tuition fees. This does not include other economic costs, such as the loss of highly productive scientists and engineers, or the subsequent loss of patents and innovation generated outside universities.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are returning to China to continue their academic careers or employment, either voluntarily or left with no options by PP10043. For Beijing, this may just be a loss of face. It is the U.S. that suffered from a real brain drain the patents that could have been filed in the U.S. now have appeared in China, owned or to be owned by Chinese companies. From this perspective, PP10043 has hurt the United States badly, while China may have even picked up the bargains with no losses at all.

How did it happen in the first place? Well, those in Washington played up the fear of Chinese students, taking advantage of the collective hatred towards Asian-Americans that has long existed in the American society. What played out are the violent crimes against Asians in all major cities. On the other hand, the Biden administration is doing nothing but meeting the South Korean K-POP group and enjoying their performance at the White House. Keep in mind that no major change would come from a weak and incompetent White House.

To fundamentally address the plight faced by Asian Americans, what needs to be clamped down is not the visas, but the Sinophobia derived from Chinese Exclusion Act that has been around for more than 100 years. Ban all proclamations against Chinese and Chinese students, not the entry of them. Back to now, the legal action took by the students against the U.S. government becomes critical, to reverse not only PP10043, but many more to come in the future.

Those concerned about the future of America, shouldnt you support the fight of these students?

See more here:

The Unconstitutional PP10043: Time to End the Collateral Damage - UrbanMatter

David Sedaris will be coming back to the Miller Center on October 13th. With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of Americas pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today. If you love David Sedariss cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what youre getting into at his live readings. Youd be wrong. To see him read his own work onstage allows his autobiographical narrative to reveal a uniquely personal narrative that will keep you laughing throughout the evening. Dont miss this event, tickets will go fast! Tickets go on sale August 5th at 10am.

His recent books are The Best of Me a collection of 42 previously published stories and essays and a second volume of his diaries A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003- 2020) and Calypso, another collection of essays, was a New York Times best-seller, and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. The audiobook of Calypso was also nominated for a 2019 Grammy for the Best Spoken Word Album.

In 2019 David Sedaris became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his Masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released. There are over 16 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts & Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day as one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.

He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name The Talent Family and have written half-a-dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobblers Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.

We are thrilled to welcome back David Sedaris to the Miller Center. He is one of the iconic writers and personalities of our time. It was the perfect show to add to our 15th Anniversary Year. Make sure to get your tickets early, he will be sure to sell out!, said Tony DeMarco, Executive Director of the Miller Center and Vice President for Advancement at RACC.

Tickets go on sale Friday, August 5th at 10am, https://millercenter.racc.edu/david-sedaris

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David Sedaris Coming to the Miller Center for the Arts - BCTV - bctv.org

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by Flo Read

In his new book Surplus Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed, psychoanalyst and Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues that Western decadence has reached a point of no return. When it comes to the simultaneous crises of climate change, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, he asserts, only a cooperative global effort will steer us away from catastrophe. But have the culture wars weakened the West too much to regain order in disordered times?

Slavoj Zizek joined me, live from his home in Slovenia, to discuss the cure for chaos.

On climate change:

Remember, one of the most disgusting events that I witnessed in the last year I wasnt there, I saw it on the media was that Glasgow [COP 22] meeting against global warming. All that they said in principle was true. We need global cooperation blah, blah, blah. But nothing happens. For me, communism doesnt mean I have a secret plan to nationalise or install gulags. It simply means, in some sense, we know what has to be done. Global cooperation, regulating the consumption of certain things such as oil, coal, beyond market necessities and so on. This will have to be done in one way or another. I call communism simply the system which will be able to do this.

On the pandemic:

Our dealing with the pandemic didnt it confront us with the most basic philosophical questions? In the sense of those who resisted wearing masks, vaccination, social lockdowns had an implicit idea: state authority encroaches upon the limits, so in some basic sense, what does it mean to be a human being? [] Covid was, for me, something that even when I put this openly many people laughed at me really demanded a new form of communism, which means not so much to vaccinate people forcefully, but to establish some kind of global healthcare exchange of data and so on. We need some type of global coordination, which will not be left to market alone.

On the war in Ukraine:

Why I fully support Ukraine with all the critical points about it, we dont have time but where is any doubt about who is basically right? Putin, when he announced the war on 23rd February, did you notice that he mentioned just one name critically: Lenin. And he said explicitly, Ukraine was Lenins invention, and it was a very obscene statement, where he referred ironically to Ukrainians tearing down Lenins statue, and he said, Ah, you want decommunisation? Wait for us, we will bring decommunisation to the end there. If you read not only what the Russians are doing, but their ideology, it is explicitly something that one cannot but designate, not even in this purely abstract term, but a form of neo-fascism. Fascism means that you want modernisation but without the destructive, liberal effects. Isnt this exactly what they are doing: introducing traditional ethical standards against LGBT, and so on and so on. And you dont have to read between the lines here.

On cancel culture:

Lets face it, around 90% of people are what is usually called today, straight, binary and so on. Dont implicitly make them guilty, as if, if you are straight, you somehow participate in oppression. The whole strategy is wrong here. My problem with so-called political correctness it is not that its too radical. But its a fake radicalism. Its a way to avoid true problems. I know so many examples, friends are sending them to me all the time from United States, where this is no big corporate practice you find somebody not quite on the top, but a little bit below the top of a corporation who did something inappropriate and with all the pomposity, you fire him, and then you did your great duty and nothing changes in real exploitation. [] Its a new hypernormativity which I think blocks and spoils the true actual Leftist task.

On post-liberalism:

Maybe Im too naive here. But I think there are things which are not bad in the liberal tradition. Dont just dismiss liberalism as neo-liberalism. Never forget that feminism, socialism they emerged out of the liberal tradition. Yes, first you have human rights, which were, I agree, secretly spun. They really meant the rights of independent white men. But then Mary Wollstonecraft said, Why not women? Then Blacks in Haiti said, Why not blacks? Then workers said thats socialism. You can only enjoy human rights in certain material conditions: healthcare, education, and so on and so on. So I think that only a renovated Left can save what is worth saving in liberalism.

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Slavoj iek: We are addicted to chaos - UnHerd

You must break free of everything thats holding you back and you must question these limiting beliefs that society has programmed you to believe as truth

By Anjaan

Published: Thu 4 Aug 2022, 8:00 PM

Through my coaching work, I find common patterns of beliefs that my clients have accepted blindly. These could have been absorbed as children, through school, culture, religion and other methods of indoctrination. Most of these have been absorbed without even giving them much thought as children we are programmed to believe that its bad to question our parents or any authority figure.

If you want the most out of life, growth and want to live your fullest potential, you must break free of everything thats holding you back and you must question these limiting beliefs as these are senseless beliefs that society has programmed you to believe as truth!

Here are some beliefs that usually get in the way of my clients growth. Let me know which one resonates with you the most.

#1 There is an age for things

Youve heard it so many times. That you need to get married by a certain age, you need to have started a business by a certain age, you need to retire after a certain age. Society feels you need to figure life out by a certain age.

If you have not done everything on their list, they will convince you that you live a mediocre life. Do not listen to them. You be YOU live life on your terms, not someone elses.

#2 Workaholics will become rich

Hard work does pay off but there is always a limit to how much you can work. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, and I can guarantee you will meet these limits EVERY single day.

Then, theres smart work, where there are no boundaries! Financial success is found in working smarter and through the experience and wisdom of others. Leveraging other peoples knowledge is your shortcut to becoming rich.

#3 If you say NO to people, you will lose them

People have expectations from you that could be unrealistic and beyond your boundaries. Society wants you to feel guilty every time you say NO to others. That is why you need to establish your boundaries, clearly define your personal space, and not let people cross these boundaries.

Perhaps, you have told a friend that you dont agree with them and they get offended. This is not your job to please them by changing your perspectives.

#4 You MUST go to university

Its great to have an education but its not for everyone. Monkeys cannot fly and birds cannot swim. The education system expects everyone to conform to just one way of thinking. Society has brainwashed everyone to believe that obtaining a college degree is the only respectful choice after high school. The school system has one job to create obedient workers and citizens.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, all of these things will harm your chances. So be a dreamer, dream powerful dreams. Let life experience be your university

#5 You should stop offending people

Society is slowly getting programmed to get offended by everything. People have outrage over advertisements, Bollywood stars posing in the nude, immigration, political correctness, globalisation, stem cell research, AI research and so many other things.

Of course, be open-minded to shift your narrative but dont worry about offending people.

Here is a laundry list of other senseless beliefs you might have absorbed without thought.

You need a partner to complete you

Material possessions will give you fulfilment

Money is success

Education would give you more opportunities

High marks in school means the person is smart

Thick glasses mean the person is a nerd

Deep pockets mean the person is successful

A very talkative person is dumb

Love lasts forever

If you dont get married, you will not be happy

Women should be at home raising children while the husband works

All stories end happily

Health comes from medicine

Success depends on luck

Zen philosophy asks you always to observe before you absorb and question everything. I wish you the discernment to identify beliefs that no longer serve you and create a magnificent life for yourself.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

Connect with Anjaan across social media @MeditateWithAnjaan

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Senseless beliefs you need to get rid of today - wknd.

Marine Drill Instructors are the most disciplined and intimidating individuals to ever wear a uniform. Their reputation is legendary and include attributes such as tireless energy, superior attention to detail and frightening aggressiveness. Equally as extreme, but perhaps less well known, is their wit. Phrases spew forth from their mouth that would result in side-splitting hilarity if observed from the outside. Often laughter only comes when reminiscing on the episode years after departing the sacred ground of the Marine Corps Recruit Depots.

Those few hardy souls who dare to laugh in the moment pay for the lack of bearing with grueling exertion on the quarterdeck accompanied by a ferocious berating from the Drill Instructor. The DIs use a witty combination of irony, word play, and compound-word-profanity-laced tirades to illicit the funniest moments of ones military service. Listed below are 5 hilarious Drill Instructor episodes.

There are two schools of thought when someone goes to boot camp. The first is Never volunteer for anything. The idea is to blend into the crowd, dont stand out, and get through the ordeal without drawing attention to yourself. This can result in reducing the misery to the least possible level. The other school of thought is, Volunteer for everything. The impetus behind this perspective is to show initiative, and optimistically run the possibility of breaking the monotony of shared misery with a more enjoyable distraction. This was the hopes of the Marine Recruit who heard the Drill Instructor ask, Who knows how to drive a stick?! The Recruit responded loudly This Recruit Sir! The DI said Good, grab the stick coming out of that swab bucket and drive it up and down the squad bay while were gone. The rest of you nasties get outside!

Before the Marine Corps changed their combat utility uniform to the current digital pattern known as MARPAT, Marines routinely starched and pressed their cammies. This came as quite a surprise to many of the young people in the military. Why would I starch and press a uniform that was designed to camouflage me from the enemy? Others embraced the approach, starching the uniform to produce a razor-edged crease, and a cover (hat) that was hard enough to be used as a weapon. Many within the ranks simply tried not to look too disheveled. Even fewer displayed a complete disregard for the standard, their appearance, or the attention they would draw. Such was the case when a Recruit put on a set of utilities that had been balled up wet and stuffed into his footlocker. The Drill Instructor looked at him and inquired, How many people did you save when you jumped on that wrinkle grenade?

Before patent leather shoes (commonly referred to as Corofram/Corframs) were introduced, spit-shining shoes and boots was commonplace. It presented a squared-away appearance. It reflected the discipline and attention to detail of an individual who had to invest considerable time and effort to bring about the desired effect. Often this small detail was the deciding factor in selecting a Marine for recognition in a Marine of the Quarter Board or a meritorious promotion. Even those Marines who did not apply an effort toward achieving a spit-shine, would at a minimum apply a high buff to the toe of their boots, just to stay off the radar. In an infantry battalion it was common to apply the machine gunners spit-shine before falling out for formation. This consisted of rubbing the toe of your boots on the back of your calves to wipe the dust away, particularly if you were to stand in the first rank. In one formation the Marine Recruit had a complete absence of shine on his boots which elicited the accusatory query What did you polish you boots with, a REDACTED Hershey bar!?

Most of those who enter the military do not have the background that adequately prepares them with the knowledge they need to navigate the unique subculture in the ranks. As such, until they adjust to the environment, their mishaps and blunders make them look stupid. The most common type of insult a Recruit will receive from the Drill Instructor are those of the variety that question (or refute) the Recruits supposed intelligence. These verbal assaults will sometimes simply be name-calling, many of which are too profane to repeat. Other times they are phrases of such wit and humor they will be recalled decades later, such as, If your brains were dynamite, they wouldnt ruffle your hair!

There are indications that this method of engagement was waned in years, likely a result of increasing political correctness in the military. Now when Marines are instructed to yell louder, they are told, Say it with your chest! For decades the line was, Sound off like you got a (may the ghost of R. Lee Ermey finish the sentence). The Drill Instructors would often address the platoon (of male recruits) as ladies or the individual Recruit with a common female name. For some unknown reason it seemed to always be Nancy or Mary. The intent was not to be condescending toward women, but rather to cultivate toughness as a manly attribute. In his book, Once Upon a Lifetime, C.I. Greenwood discussing going to boot camp in 1948. As the Drill Instructor looked upon his 110-pound frame in disgust, he simply said, Well aint you a masculine looking bastard. Another inquiry/assertion commonly heard in years past was, I bet you were raised in a house full of women, werent you boy?! Sir, no Sir! Yes, you were. This approach must seem harsh, unnecessary, and questionable to those on the outside. However, with increasing generations of young men entering the service from broken homes, this shocking approach does result in a measure of mental and emotional toughness that produces maturity. When the chips are down, and the bullets fly, a Marine must have the emotional toughness to get through the fight.

Marine Corps Recruit Training is full of challenge, adversity and hardship. In spite of it all, there are also comical moments that will bring laughter for years to come. Laughing in the face of hardship has been attribute of fighting men for centuries. It is a key element that creates lasting bonds of camaraderie and esprit de corps. The 5 hilarious Drill Instructor episode listed above are but a small sample of things that occur on a daily basis within our beloved corps.

See more here:

5 hilarious drill instructor episodes - We Are The Mighty

If anything good has come out of the COVID-19 pandemic it is the growing awareness by parents across the nation about what is being taught in schools. This is especially true concerning civic education. For decades, a crisis has existed over the decline of civic education. Numerous surveys and studies have shown that at all grade levels, including higher education, students do not have an adequate understanding of American history, American government, or Western civilization. Reform is needed to strengthen civic education in Iowa schools and the National Association of Scholars has issued social studies standards a guide for curriculum in each classroom that will help improve civic education in Iowa. "American Birthright: The Civic Alliances Model K-12 Social Studies Standards" is a guide to help improve standards in civic education.

Jeffrey Sikkenga, executive director of the Ashbrook Center, described the crisis in civic education as a civic illness.

The results make clear that too many young people around the country dont know the basic facts of U.S. history and government. More important, they also dont adequately understand the fundamental principles that guide our country, Sikkenga wrote.

Numerous reasons exist for the growing national unfamiliarity of American history. One reason is the focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. Over the last several years, education at all levels has been pushing STEM. Sikkenga notes that educational taxpayer funds and state and federal standards are focusing more on STEM. The argument being made is that STEM and technical education fields prepare students for todays workforce. Our society needs more skilled workers, but we also need informed citizens.

Although STEM and technical education is valuable, education is more than just preparing an individual with the necessary skills to succeed in an occupation. Education must also be about character, citizenship and liberty.

History isnt just something that ought to be taught, read, or encouraged only because it will make us better citizens. It will make us a better citizen and it will make us more thoughtful and understanding human beings, historian David McCullough said.

Many schools are using radical curriculums that reflect a socialist interpretation of our nations history. Increasingly, students are displaying significant support for dangerous ideologies such as socialism. This politicization of civic education also includes critical race theory, political correctness, and multiculturalism, among other themes. Students are taught that they are global citizens rather than citizens of the United States. Many students are being exposed to action civics, which encourages activism and hands on democracy.

During the past few years, many Americans were shocked at the reckless behavior of young people destroying and defacing historical statues and memorials. This, combined with an organized effort to destroy and replace American history with a new history such as the 1619 Project, is a dangerous development. A comprehensive review is needed to ensure that all students are learning American history, but also American government, and Western civilization.

The American Birthright social studies standards can serve as a model to improve Iowas social studies standards. The goal of American Birthright is to educate students so they can know what freedom is, where Americas ideas of freedom come from in the long history of Western civilization, how our ancestors achieved their freedom, how our laws, republican institutions, and limitation of the scope of government preserve our freedom, and what they need to do to preserve their countrys liberty.

Further, this standard serves to teach social studies so students can learn why their country deserves to be loved, and to learn what we owe to our ancestors the heroes of the American past who deserve our gratitude because they created a free and prosperous country and bequeathed it to us, their posterity. This also includes learning about Americas common language of liberty, patriotism, and national memory.

The objective of education should not just be about obtaining skills for an occupation, but also to be a responsible and informed citizen. Therefore, we need to renew and strengthen civic education in Iowa. We have a responsibility to our ancestors and for future generations to preserve our great Republic and heritage.

Citizens and state policymakers should get in touch with Iowas Department of Education to urge them to adopt American Birthright as the model for Iowas state social studies standards. Parents should get in touch with their school district to urge it to adopt American Birthright as a guide for their social studies curriculum.

The decline of civic education is a moral crisis that we must resolve. In "The Death of the West," Patrick J. Buchanan wrote: How does one sever a peoples roots? Answer: Destroy its memory. Deny a people the knowledge of who they are and where they came from . . . Destroy the record of a peoples past, leave it in ignorance of who its ancestors were and what they did, and one can fill the empty vessels of their souls with a new history . . .

David Randall, Ph.D. serves as Research Director at the National Association of Scholars and John Hendrickson serves as Policy Director at Iowans for Tax Relief Foundation.

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Op-Ed: Reviving civic education in Iowa - The Center Square

WITH each passing week, more and more conservatives in the United States are being made aware of KemiBadenoch.

She first came to my attention in October 2020 when she gave a very powerful, compelling, and rightfully critical speech on the floor of the House of Commons.

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She was speaking about the identity-politics pitfalls of critical race theory which is being pushed incessantly by the left and far-left on both sides of the pond.

In a number of important ways, I share her valued life experiences from the opposite end of the colour spectrum.

As a white child I grew up in abject poverty and was homeless often - and by the time I was 17 years of age, I had been evicted from 34 homes.

After a number of those evictions I found myself in majority black housing projects where I was often one of the few or the only white child in my class.

During those early childhood years my black friends and I never saw colour.

We were simply disenfranchised children fighting against the common enemies of poverty at large and dysfunction in our homes.

During those formative years, I was blessed to witness that black America was truly a great America.

Again, it was ultimately just families, single parents, and children who had been abandoned by the system fighting to survive while trying to create slivers of normalcy along the way.

To this very day, my enduring heroes and role models are the single black mums I knew who sacrificed their own happiness for their children as they worked two to three jobs at a time.

All of that begs the question: What is real-life experience worth in and to todays political class?

As in the Congress of the United States, many members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords come from great wealth often far removed from the everyday plight and even horrors of the majority of their constituents.

But then, every once in a while, a child in favour ofthe working class manages to gain entrance to these highly exclusive clubs of power and privilege.

What to do with them?

The wiser heads within those chambers should be picking the brains of these lower class interlopers as often as possible to absorb as much of their real-life experience as possible.

Why?

Because, in the real lives of those living under the dictates of the entrenched-elite power-players, real-life experience can literally be life-saving.

Aside from her formal education,KemiBadenoch has the unofficial, but greatly more important, Doctorate in real-life experience.

London-born and raised in Nigeria, Kemi came back to the United Kingdom at age 16 and began to work any and every menial job to support herself as she set her eyes on that formal education.

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Since joining the Conservative Party at 25 years old, she has never been shy about articulating her views.

I would certainly argue that her real-life experience has taught her that the welfare of the people should never be about the identity politics pushed by the elites from the left but rather about the needs of the actual people.

Over the last few years, this mother of three and wife has made it crystal clear that she is a multi-issue advocate who refuses to be labelled or dismissed because of the biases or ignorance of others.

Along with that, she has drawn deep lines in the sand to state that she is not only pro-Brexit, but anti-woke and anti-cancel-culture.

Additionally, Ms. Badenoch is courageously unafraid to question the fossil-fuel crushing dictates of pampered green loving leftists which not only punish the working-class, but will eventually bankrupt the economy of the United Kingdom (as well as that of the United States).

What my life experiences have taught me over the years is that the extremists at either end of the political spectrum often hate honest, pragmatic, commonsense solutions which benefit the vast majority of the people.

That same experience also tells me that Ms. Badenoch is a truth-teller who does believe in doing the most good for the vast majority of her country.

As she battles the tsars of political correctness; identity politics; wokeness; and questionable or outright fraudulently green energy policies, I for one, will be rooting for her success.

For if Ms. Badenoch succeeds, the poor, the working-class, and the disenfranchised will have a champion looking after them for a change.

As will the people of The United States.

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the book:The 56 Liberty Lessons from those who risked all to sign The Declaration of Independence.

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Kemi may not be next PM but she oozes real-life experience & will be a champion for working people a... - The US Sun

Whenever there is a strike especially during that four-year period when the Labour party was led by people who actually supported labour rightwing figures will rush to the airwaves to insist: Nobody wants a return to the 70s.

To them, the 1970s were a nightmare: organised labour wielded too much power, uppity minorities were demanding too many rights, prime-time television was full of dreary dramas about the working classes or documentaries about racism, the Thames full of punk bands yelling about republicanism. All had to be crushed, and following the neoliberal revolution that took place after Margaret Thatchers election in 1979, they were.

Now we live in a country with the most restrictive trade union legislation in western Europe, a soon-to-be-privatised alternative broadcaster (Channel 4) that makes documentaries attacking people on benefits and a pop culture dominated by privately-educated people who wouldnt know how to bring social critique into their work even if they wanted to.

For the left, this Tory nightmare might sound like a reasonable starting point for a better society. But we beware nostalgia. Yes, people were pushing for better wages, working conditions, gender and racial equality. But many facets of Thatcherism, such as high unemployment, council house sales and rampant deindustrialisation were already in place. Society was more violent, car accidents killed far more people and industrial accidents, fires and transport disasters were far more frequent. Chart-toppers were just as anodyne and apolitical as they are now, and television was full of racist sitcoms and bad light entertainment programmes hosted by serial abusers. Just as there is leftwing nostalgia for high unionisation rates and regicidal punk bands, so too is there rightwing nostalgia for this side of the 1970s, an era when it was acceptable to use homophobic slurs on TV, before news presenters with regional accents, before #MeToo, political correctness, corporate social responsibility and health and safety turned men soft. While the left associates the end of the 70s with economic revolution, the right sees it as having heralded a cultural revolution. In both cases, the changes were cemented by New Labour.

Any revolution or counter-revolution will weaponise the memory of the period immediately preceding it to emphasise its legitimacy. (For a parallel of the Tories invocation of the British 70s, see the reaction against the Soviet period and attendant removal of monuments and banning of socialist or Communist parties in Poland or Ukraine, as their market reforms brought spiralling inequality and a resurgent far right.) Over time, this tactic becomes less effective: you would have to be of retirement age now to have been an adult during the three-day week, the Bloody Sunday massacre or the UKs entry into the European Economic Community, and these were the people who overwhelmingly voted Conservative at the last election. The older middle-aged whom Labour lost between 2017 and 2019 might be nostalgic for their childhoods. Anyone under 45 will have no recollection of the 1970s at all, and in a period of unaffordable rents and mortgages, insecure employment and an aggressively unintelligent media, may think it sounds better.

Indeed, a desire to reverse Thatcherism, by renationalising key industries, building more council housing and increasing access to the arts lay behind Labours manifestos of 2017 and 2019. This only became possible after the membership voted for a leader who had criticised the neoliberal turn, ever since the installation in 1973 of Augusto Pinochet as Chilean president after the CIA-backed overthrow of democratically-elected leader Salvador Allende.

In Chile, the laboratory of neoliberalism, people have expressed a desire to go back to the early 1970s: leftist Gabriel Boric was recently elected on the promise of a new constitution to replace the existing one, written after the Pinochet coup. In the UK, in the wake of Corbyns defeat and the recapture of Labour by a Thatcherite wing which forbids solidarity with striking workers, neoliberalism has taken an authoritarian turn, as it can no longer manufacture consent since the 2008 crash and the punitive austerity that followed. Hence the hysterics about the rise of militant unions, new anti-protest laws, a spite-fuelled media ramping up its attacks on young people and minorities, especially those who might be better off than you, and ever more barbaric immigration and border policies. Any movement trying to undo the damage done to public services, the British media, trade unions and workers rights has a huge job on its hands, in terms of resistance from the two main parties, the state and corporate interests, all of which worked in concert to smash the Labour left.

Its notable, though, that the spectre of the 70s still terrifies the Conservatives, even those who didnt live through them. Opinion polling showed that Labours 2019 plans to roll back the privatisations of the 80s and 90s were popular, and it was the more 21st-century policies free broadband and the Green New Deal and demands such as John McDonnells for socialism with an iPad that attracted media ridicule. This week, Keir Starmer head of a faction stuck firmly in the 90s announced that the 2019 manifesto would be junked; despite some hesitancy, previous form suggests he will soon ditch promised nationalisation pledges altogether.

But Labour was led by the right in the 70s, albeit in a political order still shaped by the postwar reforms of the Attlee administration. What the 70s can teach us is the value of bringing pressure to bear on either party, whether it was the miners effectively bringing down Edward Heaths Conservative government in 1974 or Transport & General Workers Union general secretary Jack Jones being seen as the most powerful person in the UK in 1977, ahead of Labour prime minister James Callaghan. The recent wave of RMT activity, UCU strikes and proposed ballots elsewhere suggests a turn back towards institutions that will give workers power, and whose leaders will be far bolder than the Labour party in confronting the collapse of the neoliberal consensus.

Equally important is resisting the immunisation of the British media from public accountability, by building the lefts cultural power. When the Tories say nobody wants to go back to the 70s, they are also trying to dissuade people from revisiting a time when programmes about working-class people drew audiences of millions. The BBCs Play for Today drama series put films about the civil war in Northern Ireland, factional disputes within the Labour party, the experiences of the Windrush generation or of trans women in prime-time slots; ITV ran playwright Trevor Griffiths 11-part series Bill Brand (1976), about the struggles of a leftwing Labour MP, on at 9pm so that working people could see it, helping it to reach an audience of 11 million (The show was discontinued in 1984, having long been criticised by rightwing commentators. There was talk of reviving it in 2006, ex-journalist and comedian Michael Gove MP, later to be education secretary, derided the dramas as exercises in viewer patronisation; the proposal came to nothing.) Watching it back, Play for Today seems precisely the opposite, treating its viewers as intelligent, their lives worthy of dramatisation; they certainly strike a different note to The Crown or Downton Abbey.

Doubtless, a modern-day equivalent of any of these shows would not achieve anything like the same massive audiences in a streaming age. But the prominence and popularity in the 1970s of ideas-driven, formally inventive culture in the mainstream was not simply the consequence of there being nothing better to watch on the telly. Instead, it was the result of decades of work by the cultural democracy movement, in universities, trade unions, political parties and elsewhere. This provides another useful lesson (more useful, at least, than those offered by the I Love the 70s-type shows that focus on Space Hoppers and Super Noodles).

Having smashed the workers movement in the 80s, leading to a New Labour prime minister who boasted that he would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world, and a Tory government that tore public service broadcasting to shreds throughout the 2010s, the right has set its sights on reversing the social gains that came out of the 70s. At present, this is more obvious in the US than here, with the reversal of Roe v Wade leading many states to reinstate bans on abortion and plan attacks on equal marriage and trans healthcare. In the UK, refugees and migrants, Muslims and trans people are most under fire, as the right looks to divide minority groups to cement its rule. The civil rights movements of the 70s staged fierce debates about how intersectional to be, and sometimes kept their distance from organised labour or leftwing parties one way we can build on that legacy is to stress the importance of cooperation, with anti-racist, LGBTQ+ and feminist groups linking up with trade unions and other centres of workers power. That way, we can build the institutions we didnt have in the Corbyn period, giving us a better chance of success if we have another opportunity to win power, and in the meantime put pressure on the Conservatives. Its a massive task, but we shouldnt forget that 10 million people voted for the 2019 manifesto, and the difficulty that our media has had in discrediting Mick Lynch and the RMT should be a source of hope that, in the end, we might just be able to build on some of the promises of the 70s.

Juliet Jacques is a writer, filmmaker and academic based in London. Her most recent book, Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021, is available now from Cipher Press.

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Were the 70s Really That Great? - Novara Media