"A house divided against itself cannot stand." A. Lincoln
George Rebane
[This is the addended and updated transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 5 February 2020.]
The nationally prominent public figure and liberal Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave us the well-known shibboleth that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Moynihan was a man of many talents, serving as adviser to several presidents of both parties, Harvard college professor, ambassador to India and the UN, and as a four-term senator from New York. He died in 2003, a bit too early to witness the rejection and even falsification of what at first reading seems like an eminently reasonable and widely applicable statement.
Today in 2020 we have long acknowledged and adopted the existence of at least two sets of facts, held by each side of a deeply polarized country. That we do not agree on the facts which support our stands on public policies is the prime reason why we can no longer emulate that great Texas politician and 36th US president Lyndon Johnson, when he would put his big arm around an uncompromising opponent’s shoulder and utter the biblical invitation from Isaiah to “Come now, let us reason together.” But the prerequisite for reasoning together is to have some common ground that usually begins by accepting some common collection of critical facts.
The most recent confirmation of this ‘two nations in one country’ reality was on coast-to-coast display last night during President Trump’s state of the union speech. As all presidents before him, Trump touted his administration’s accomplishments, citing supportive data, none of which was accepted by the Democrat members of Congress in attendance. Their discomfort and dissent was visible to all, and visibly managed by Speaker Pelosi who sat prominently behind the President. She then underlined our pervasive and persistent polarization by standing and dramatically tearing up her copy of the speech as the president’s presentation concluded – an historical bit of kabuki that highlighted impeachment as the latest widening of the chasm which already separates us beyond anyone’s ability or even desire to bridge the break.
Both parties and their loyal constituencies have their own ‘facts’ about almost everything and every issue that describes our country. And we acquire these facts from very different sources, partisan sources that are not respected by the other party. Our mainstream media has always been left-leaning, as reported by numerous studies over the years, and is now unabashedly the voice of the progressive Democratic Party. What’s most disconcerting and divisive is that the MSM self-censors news that doesn’t support the Left’s narrative and worldview.
Examples of this abound, but a recent one is worth noting. Judicial Watch is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation that litigates and uses discovery to investigate and uncover misconduct and corruption by government officials and politicians. In a January 2020 special report (‘Illegal Alien Criminals: A Serious Threat to Public Safety and National Security’), Judicial Watch documents from cited government sources the size and impact of criminal illegal aliens in America, and the progressive programs that shield and succor them in the various sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide. The numbers will astonish you. A couple from the tip of this mountain of information will serve. From the most recent 2018 data available, Dept of Homeland Security reports that Hispanic aliens committed twice as many federal crimes as the did the white and black population segments combined. The US Bureau of Prisons reports that almost 40% of inmates in their custody are known or suspected aliens. The Department of Justice tells us that non-US citizens accounted for almost two out of three federal arrests in 2018.
These numbers are both hidden by the MSM and ignored by the Left, as it continues to promote porous border policies that invite and enable illegal entry of hordes of aliens who neither share our culture or values, and whose numbers include the thousands of criminals and terrorists in waiting who are sheltered in sanctuaries until some are caught and imprisoned, deported, or released to repeat their crimes.
We witness this daily as we see one polarized side doing its best to fundamentally transform an America that they hold to be an historical aberration of evil, and the other side fighting a losing battle to maintain the foundations of our exceptional nation that made it the shining beacon for the world. Today these are the two irreconcilable nations within common borders that chafe ever more stridently against each other.
My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively. However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Thank you for listening.
[Addendum] Another more local example of the Great Divide already present in our county is the rise of the Sunrise Movement organization as reported in the 5feb20 Union (here). Their avowed purpose is to mobilize young people (primarily high schoolers) into “Strike Circles” who will then militate against “economic equality and environmental degradation.” They vociferously support the Green New Deal as “an economic vision for the 21st century” that promises “millions of jobs across the country aiming to create, distribute and implement clean energy technology. The achievement and protection of clean air, water and food. Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and the inclusion of poor communities in America’s post-modern economy.”
This is one more of the far-Left organizations of the naïve mobilizing the ignorant. The movement’s “three prong strategy” consists of plans to “organize, vote (or promote voting), and strike.” In Nevada County they are introducing their organization and hoping to set up one a local Strike Circle of young and intellectually innocent in time to participate in their national strike on Earth Day 22 April.
Given the aggregate academic stats for California’s public school students, it is highly likely that these young people are mostly reading-challenged and innumerate. They have no means of evaluating any climate related arguments. (more here, here, and here) But they do understand and respond to simplistic slogans, especially when presented with compelling graphics. This approach has been the Left’s strategy for almost two hundred years, get them indoctrinated and signed up before they know anything about the realworld or how it works.
[6feb20 update] Here is a prime example of the polarization of facts. As these pages have archived, our liberal readers have continually countered the news and data available to all who can read that California has increasingly systemic problems with its economy, infrastructure, taxes, regulations, and an ongoing exodus of commerce and workers. The leftwing mind can parse none of these facts, and instead, substitute their own, which characterize our state as the progressive paragon for the rest of the Union with its legal residents and illegal aliens happy dancing in the streets.
This is confirmed by none other than ex-NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, on his way to buying the Democratic nomination for president, demonstrating once more that money is the mother’s milk of politics. He tells his constituents, “I think that California can serve as a great example … something the rest of the country looks up to.”
In the realworld we have ‘Stinking, shrinking California vs. fantastic, flourishing Florida – A tale of two states’ wherein Ed Pozzuoli on Fox Business provides the data that underpins and explains what’s happening in the once golden state. RR readers and most of the nation know that the source of this travesty is decades of one-party collectivist governance supported by a growing uninformed and ever more dependent electorate. Once again we see that ‘if there’s a problem, first look to government as its cause’ – a fundamental tenet of Rebane Doctrine.
[7feb20 update] Trump’s SOTUS was all lies declare the Dems led by Team Nancy. This was their purported reason for their public pout during the speech, and now they’re convincing their light thinking constituents through their own lies about the event. A more sober check of the important claims Trump made is contained in ‘Fact-checking 11 of Trump’s Claims in the State of the Union’.
Another topsy-turvy turn of facts is our progressives' spin of the ideal life in euro-socialist countries. The reality about everything from healthcare, employment, social disharmony, and disappearance of longstanding cultural icons in these lands is either hidden by the lamestream from the American public, or just blatantly misrepresented so that the all-absorbing local lefties can tell their grassroots neighbors of the happy life across the sea which the current Dem clown car of candidates promises to replicate here. A taste of this is documented in 'France Says Au Revoir to the Cafe'.
rebanesruminations.com 
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