George Rebane
Those who judge the past in terms of the here and now are doing a great disservice through their ignorance of the then and there.
The Left’s promotion of America’s new cancel culture is in full swing. We now have full scale censoring of politically incorrect content on our mass media – broadcast, internet, print, entertainment, … . This incorporates the modern version of book burning. The latest volumes to be ‘digitally burned’ and no longer available from major outlets include Justice Clarence Thomas’s ‘Created Equal’ video and , and now Dr Seuss. Dr Seuss has been an icon of Americana and children’s literature for a couple of generations now. Even an annual children’s reading day (2 March) was ensconced to recognize the birthday of Theodor Seuss ‘Ted’ Geisel (1904-1991). But today our commissars of correct culture have deemed many of his works to racist and contain “crude and offensive stereotypes in several drawings of blacks and Asian-Americans.” But those well-read in the country’s leftward lurch will recognize that such book burnings are nothing more than pages out of Stalin’s and Hitler’s playbooks to erase the old culture in order to make room for instilling their brave new world. It was ever thus. (more here)
Common culture counts. That has been a fundamental tenet of RR, and is now being adopted by many other national voices to counter the Left’s all-out assault on America’s traditional culture. Six former US education secretaries co-authored ‘America Needs History and Civics Education to Promote Unity’ (2mar21 WSJ). In there they cogently argue for a national education plan “to help teachers instill an understanding that is complete and honest but not cynical.” The 6jan21 frustration that was expressed by Americans on the Mall and in the Capitol is a harbinger that the country’s political leaders, those who truly want to promote unity, should take careful note of and respond with appropriate legislation and regulatory relief for our public schools. It’s a tall order the chances of success for which are not high given the entrenched collectivists in politics and the teachers unions. Nevertheless, the authors cite the ‘Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy’, the culmination of a 19-month project by 300+ “scholars, educators, practitioners, and students from diverse backgrounds.” (more here) In sum, a minimally common culture for a constitutional democracy “requires a citizenry that has a desire to participate, and an understanding of how to do so constructively, as well as the knowledge and skills to act for the common good.” The Roadmap provides the guidance for the several states to develop curricula that can provide such an understanding.
Joe Biden puts all his credibility chips on a Big Lie, and takes a page of bombast from Trump’s playbook. He and Team Biden, echoed in the lamestream, now trumpet the claim that he is the nation’s savior from Covid-19. Specifically, “he is staking his legacy on the lie that the pandemic was out of control until the day of his inauguration.” And a more comprehensive segue to the old days of ‘journalism’ was made possible by the former president’s CPAC speech. The hiatus is over, we can now stop having to explain (or avoid) Biden, and shift back to coverage of Trump topics that fit like an old shoe. Gerard Baker says it best (here) –
The return to the limelight of a certain former president has triggered an unfortunate but probably inevitable relapse for the Trump addicts of our news-gathering class. They’d gone cold turkey for a whole month and there were tentative, encouraging signs that the cure might be taking. Deprived of their favorite drug, some were gingerly discovering other, more wholesome pursuits: tackling the mountain of evidence that Andrew Cuomo might be a mendacious, incompetent, bullying sex pest; investigating the slight but tantalizing possibility that not all of America’s social and economic woes can be attributed to white supremacy; slowly weaning themselves off the urge to ask penetrating questions of the White House about Joe Biden’s rescue dog.
What must ol’ Bumblebrain do now to get back into an adult-level news cycle? After all, he’s still the president. Isn’t he?
[4mar21 update] A CPAC puzzle? A straw poll was taken at the recent CPAC conference at which many Republican luminaries – including former President Trump – spoke. The poll indicated that 68% wanted to see Trump run for president in 2024, and only 55% wanted to see him nominated for the office. This conservetarian doesn’t understand how the excess of the 68% would have him become a Republican candidate in 2024 without first being nominated – especially after he made clear that he would not support or start a third party. From my perch it looks like a collective brain fart. Other solutions most welcome.
The Capitol Fortress. Thousands of troops remain guarding our razor wire wrapped Capitol. Why? The Dems insist on fake intelligence reports of another imminent attempt at a rightwing ‘insurrection’ (when there never was one in the first place). The disorganized and frustrated mob that charged the Capitol on 6 January had no idea what they were doing or were supposed to do. They got in only because the on-duty Capitol police were incompetent in every aspect of operational planning and execution, or ordered to allow a politically useful penetration of the building. And the mob had nothing to do with the deaths that day, that was another fabrication by the Dems and their lamestream media. So, the whole thing today was a set-up for the Dems kabuki security theater to defend against a supposed repeat today of 6jan21. This attack was supposed to occur according to some unknown advisory from an unknown agency in our intelligence community – perhaps the FBI. In spite of today’s nothing burger, the military will continue to occupy DD for another two months – to defend against some unknown threat – at which time another fake intelligence advisory will launch the next phase of political histrionics to keep the public apprised of their assigned place under the heel of the state.
[5mar21 update] ‘A Compromise on Creationism’ – in this little 5mar21 WSJ essay (here) physician/scientist Dr Joshua Swamidass calls for reaccreditation of colleges that teach creationism as long as they also permit discussion of and courses in evolution, along with some other provisions about the transfer of creationism course credits. (He misses the reciprocal call for accredited secular colleges to also welcome speakers who counter theistically progressive narratives.) What again astounded me was the citing of a 2019 Gallup poll that “showed that 40% of American adults ‘ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years.’” (more here) Interesting to note is that 40% with college degrees believe that the evolution of Man was guided by God, which indicates a belief in Intelligent Design (here, here, and here) that for obvious reasons is purposely confused with and perfidiously equated to Creationism by our secular humanists. My own concern is that these ‘strictly creationists’ reject most of what science teaches about how we and universe function, knowledge that is also the basis for the politics of public policies. How do these religionists vote?
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