With the impending Presidential election, there are a number of hot button issues, ranging from abortion to illegal immigration. There are so many new areas that only a complete fuckwit would dredge up a topic that’s been deader than Diddy’s career. (Too soon?)
And then Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had to open his stupid mouth. For those of you not up on politics in the Windy City, Mayor Johnson is trying to kowtow…I mean capitulate…I mean negotiate with teacher’s unions to the tune of $300 million. And apparently he thinks being in favor of fiscal responsibility by telling the teacher’s union to go fuck themselves is akin to…slavery.
Fuck me sideways.
slavery
What the Left thinks it means – a dark period of American history that whites must still atone for
What it really means – a dark period of American history that is just that, history
In the annuls of human history, one thing is abundantly clear: everybody hates “Friday” by Rebecca Black. But something else that’s clear is how humans can be complete assholes to each other, which I guess brings us back to the song that is banned under the Geneva Convention because it is considered torture.
Anyway, slavery is not one of the brightest spots in human history, and America had its role in it. It’s as much a part of our history as Plymouth Rock, the Boston Tea Party, and the Cubs being mathematically eliminated from the post season. Much like hipness, it is what it is.
But Leftists can’t seem to let it go. They have used the past to bludgeon white Leftists into submission (literal and figurative, so long as there’s money involved) and made them feel responsible for the sins of the great great great great grandfathers. To Leftists, if you’re white, you’re responsible.
Of course, that doesn’t take a lot into account, but why would a Leftist care about context when it could totally destroy the narrative?
As the relative of two Civil War veterans who fought for the Union, I might have an opinion on how fucking stupid the Left is being bringing up slavery in any context almost 160 years after the end of the Civil War. The Hatfields and McCoys didn’t hold a grudge that long and hard!
Huh huh huh. I said long and hard.
Meanwhile back at the main point, slavery has a place in our history, and that place is in the fucking past. Of course, that doesn’t stop Leftists from bringing it up to discuss current conditions within the black community. Racist hack…I mean best selling author Nikole Hannah Jones gave us the pseudo-historical shitshow called The 1619 Project based around slavery. Even the United Nations sounded off on the effects of slavery on modern society.
Did I mention the end of the Civil War was almost 160 years ago?
Here’s the thing. Nobody alive today has direct ties to the slave trade. Yes, there are relatives on both sides of that awful equation, but they are waaaaaaaay back there in the mists of our history. Today’s problems have their roots not in the time frame Roots was about, but in the shit going on right now. Gang violence, drug culture, promiscuity, all of that is a modern phenomenon. No slave masters necessary.
Unless you count the Leftists, of course.
Yes, I went there.
The fact is Leftists don’t want blacks to be successful, intelligent, and empowered. To keep people under their thumbs, Leftists need them to be dependent on the largess of the government (i.e. our money that isn’t going to Ukraine or Lebanon) for basic needs.
You know, like…slaves?
That’s why I take the Left’s constant references to slavery with a Mount Everest-sized grain of salt. They want to make us feel guilty about our past and turn our heads when they emulate the slave masters of the era about which they want us to feel guilty. I’m sorry, but I’m not as morally flexible as an unethical yoga instructor, so I can’t let that slide.
Now, Leftists are bound to throw the usual “you’re a racist” bullshit at me for saying this and challenging their skewed worldview by pointing out what they do. My counter to this is simple: I want everyone to reach their full potential and want to knock as many barriers out of their way as I can. And that includes the barriers placed on them by people who give one-one-millionth of a shit about them as people.
I come from the MLK school of thought, where a person is judged by the content of his/her character more than the color of his/her skin, because it makes the most sense. Judging someone solely on race ignores the rest of the totality of a person. Just because you’re black doesn’t mean you’re a horrible person, unless you’re Diddy. (Too soon again?) Once we get to know each other, the more we can navigate the way we communicate with, think about, and tolerate each other. That transcends race and any other superficial matter that can be used to separate us. It’s just being a decent fucking person.
And that’s why the Chicago situation amuses me so much. The Mayor using slavery to justify forking over millions of dollars to the teacher’s union isn’t being decent, but it is being deceitful. The teacher’s unions aren’t being decent because they just want the money without having to actually do anything to get it. The only people who have any claim to being decent are the ones pushing back against this stupid deal, whether it be for fiscal reasons or because they’ve seen this story play out before and nothing gets better.
And for that, opponents to Mayor Dumbass… I mean Johnson’s plans get compared to slave owners because…fuck it, I got nothing. Not even the stated reasons make sense unless you’re predisposed to believe everything can be tied back to slavery, oppression, or some Leftist buzzword.
And the real kicker is no matter how much money gets loaned out to the teacher’s unions, it will never be enough. The schools will continue to fail (in part because of the unions), Leftists will continue to make people feel guilty about shit they didn’t do, and the racial elements of the controversy will get played over and over like “Baby Shark.” Until enough people tell these fuckwits to piss off, it will keep happening and the black community will continue to get screwed by white Leftists.
Kinda like the slaveholders did, only with a lot less lube.
Tag: history
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Remember when Bill Maher was Leftist Jesus..you know if they actually believed in Jesus? During Republican Administrations, Maher would consistently rail against what he saw were Republican mistakes and idiocy, and Leftists cheered. Then, when Joe Biden became President and Maher started railing against what he saw were Democrat mistakes and idiocy, the Left no longer found him to be a voice of truth. But they did find him to be a traitor.
Welcome to the party, Bill. Go grab some punch and a cookie.
The reason I brought up Bill Maher (something I try not to do much for the sake of my sanity) is he recently introduced a Leftist term I hadn’t heard before: presentism. Apparently, Leftists are applying this whenever they discuss history, and it may be coming to a history discussion near you.
presentism
What the Left thinks it means – framing historical figures and events with modern sensibilities
What it really means – holding the past up to present standards to establish modern superiority
There’s an old saying, “History is written by the victors.” Although, these days, it could be written by the Victor/Victorias, but that’s not important right now. The saying refers to how some aspects of history get ignored or forgotten because people tend only to think in terms of winners and losers. Leftists have seized upon this tendency to push for what they call a more comprehensive view of history, i.e. downplaying the “white” view of history in favor of the histories of marginalized people.
And that’s how we get Post-Modern Native American Albino Lesbian Literary History degrees.
It’s all a part of the Left’s intellectual (stop laughing!) approach to all academic fields called intersectionality. Although this could be a Leftist Lexicon entry in and of itself, the long and the short of it is every form of oppression overlaps with others, like racism and sexism. By recognizing it, Leftists hope to undo the damage by…well, they haven’t figured that part out yet, but it has lead to some interesting discussions on who is considered more oppressed in a country where they’re allowed to drive, vote, and dress like Miley Cyrus during a performance at a strip club. Or, as she calls it, Tuesday.
By framing everything in terms of oppression, the Left has created a hellscape where just about everyone is oppressed to some degree. Unless, of course, you’re a straight white male. Then, you’re everybody’s asshole. Of course, I already have a lot of Leftists think I’m an asshole, so it’s nothing new.
Presentism plays into this framework by allowing Leftists to dictate the standards by which figures of the past (i.e. straight white males) are to be held without those figures even knowing it. Because, you know, they’re dead. That gives the Left all the power to frame the past with none of the piddly little details that add a little something the Left has a love/hate relationship with called context.
When I was in college back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, Leftists at the time were up in arms over Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of the book’s use of the n-word. I won’t give the whole word for a number of reasons, not the least of which being I want to save Chris the headache of having to answer more angry emails about me than he usually gets. In their attempt to virtue signal before such a thing was a thing, they ignored a lot of context, namely the historical backdrop for the story and how Huck became the voice of those who wanted to treat blacks like everyone else. If it weren’t for people who actually read the book for comprehension rather than to find naughty words, there might be a generation that wouldn’t even know who Huck Finn was long before YouTube turned their brains into tapioca pudding.
On the other hand, it prepared them in case they ever got elected to be President of the United States.
The same attitude the Left used over Huck Finn is the same drawback presentism faces today: the lack of context. I’ll be the first one to admit human history is rife with events and attitudes that elicit shame and disappointment (like when Gary Cherone took over singing duties in Van Halen). Having said that, the people then didn’t have the advantage we have of being able to look back at the historical record. In more than a few of these dark periods of history, what happened was unprecedented because it had literally never happened before with the circumstances they had to work with. It’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in the dark blindfolded while strapped to a ticking time bomb. You’re going to make mistakes, and the results won’t always be good.
Then, there’s human nature to consider. Contrary to Leftist belief, yet completely consistent with their actions and thoughts concerning others who disagree with them, humans are assholes. We will consistently choose evil over good for whatever reason we can justify in our own heads. Hatred, lust, greed, convenience, having to listen to “Baby Shark” on repeat because your child loves it, and so on. It is only through work, thought, and determination that we overcome our base nature to be better, and you can’t regulate your way to that end.
Can you say “War on Drugs,” kids? I knew you could.
In spite of those dark periods, there are points of light that Leftists will likely overlook or disregard because of the race, gender, and sexual orientation of the ones responsible for them. Take William Wilberforce, for example. During the British slave trade, Wilberforce worked to end it at great personal expense and against the prevailing attitudes of the time. But given the Left’s current prevailing attitudes towards white men (especially Christian white men like Wilberforce), I’m guessing he’s going to be mentioned well after someone like Cardi B.
Which is to say probably never because, well, Cardi B.
The big issue with presentism for me is how easily it can be manipulated for ideological gain. And by “can be” I mean “will be.” With Leftists controlling academia, they have all the power and, since they’re around other Leftists, none of the accountability. Combine the two and you have the perfect storm of academic and historical malpractice through the revision of history in real time. It will be like Wikipedia, but with more academics signing off on it.
Of course, nothing bad will come from academics signing off on bad ideas just to fit in, right? That reminds me, how is Michael Mann’s “hockey stick graph” holding up these days?
The worst thing we can do right now is to overlook how far-reaching presentism is. We’ve seen how Common Core has fucked up math and English, and presentism will wind up no differently from where I sit. And as George Santayana once wrote, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Or was it my high school history teacher threatening summer school if I didn’t get my grades up?
Either way, we will have to be on our toes and make sure what is being presented as historical fact meshes with actual historical facts. Yes, that will require us to be honest about our past, even the dingy corners of it, because that is the only way we will have the intellectual high ground. Opting for a version of history that just so happens to fit our beliefs doesn’t achieve this. We have to be above board because we know the Left won’t be.
So, Bill Maher was good for at least one thing. Yay…I guess?
Those Who Do Not Learn from History Are Doomed to Tear Down Statues
As an Iowa boy, I’m familiar with cow-tipping. At the risk of Flyover-Country-splaining, cow-tipping is when people push a cow over so she falls. I’ve never done it, but from what I’ve heard it’s a fun activity, or at least it’s a fun activity for Iowans because we’re just now getting actual entertainment here.
Lately, though, people have taken to statue-tipping because they’re upset with the racism in our history. Some Leftists on Twitter have even offered suggestions on how to topple statutes or, in one case, the Washington Monument. As humorous as this seems, allow me to take it to Orwellian heights while attempting to sprinkle in a bit of humor along the way.
As the debate over whether statues of Confederate generals deserve to be preserved rages right now, there is an underlying issue that’s a bit tougher to overcome, although the Left finds it easy to disregard. I’m talking about American history. Like it or not, our past is full of incidents that make us look like David Duke, but it’s still our history. We fought a civil war at least in part on racial issues, and although the Confederacy lost, it’s hard for me to get past the notion they are still part of American history.
“But we’re not trying to erase history,” Leftists love to say. “History will still be taught.” Except it’s not being taught well in today’s public schools, thanks to people who agree with taking down statues of people they find objectionable. The Founding Fathers, for example, aren’t being taught as seriously because they owned slaves and, thus, aren’t worthy of study or consideration (according to Leftists). Yet, without one of these slave-owners, we might not have expressed our independence from England, nor would we likely have had a Constitution. Instead of teaching these perspectives, the Founding Fathers are being “memory-holed.”
George Orwell is holding on Line 1, kids.
This is not to elevate the Confederacy to Founding Fathers status. Instead, it’s to underscore just how important it is to consider the impact imperfect people have had on our nation. If we pretend Thomas Jefferson didn’t exist because he owned slaves (as well as getting freaky-deaky with at least one of them), we erase the positive impact he had. With Confederate generals, that argument is a much harder sell, but the point remains. When we erase history on the basis of current sensibilities, we do a grave disservice to the past, present, and future.
And that’s where the Left gets it completely wrong.
Toppling a statue of a Confederate general may be righteous in the Left’s eyes, but it doesn’t address the underlying issues that caused the statue to be erected in the first place, nor does it eliminate any good that person did. Like it or not, Robert E. Lee was a military strategist. Even if he was on the losing side, that can’t be taken away from him, no matter how many statues you wreck or history lessons you don’t teach in school. Now what? You’ve pretty much destroyed public property for nothing. Brilliant!
Now, here’s where the Left’s logic about offensive statues will come back to bite them in the backside. As with any movement, eventually the winds of change will make it obsolete and the ideals of said movement can be used to justify actions never intended by the movement to be done. Put another way, the statues you topple today may get erected again and other statues you like will get toppled tomorrow, and you have only yourselves to blame. Congratulations! You’ve not only accomplished nothing, but you’ve opened the door for others to take the same actions that will accomplish nothing. But hey, at least you owned the Right, right?
This next part is a bit of a tangent, but it relates to the matter at hand because it shows how little the Left knows about history and how little they regard context. Some of the same folks who like to topple statutes are trying to get Huckleberry Finn banned because of its frequent use of the n-word. Of course, these morons haven’t taken the time to either a) read the book, or b) understand the reason why the word was used. Mark Twain used the language of the time (of which he was familiar) to expose the idiocy of the racism shown in the book. Of the characters, Jim was by far the most noble while the white characters (including Huck for a time) were irredeemable. That’s a context you miss if you’re just looking for the n-word. Not to mention, this was tried back in the 1990s and it failed. As my old high school history teacher used to say, “Those who do not learn from history get to take it again next semester.”
It appears a lot of Leftists skipped that class the second time around as well as the first.
Other Leftists are arguing the removal of these statues on the basis of them not being art. May I introduce you to the Right and their attempts to remove the works of Robert Mappelthorpe back in the late 80s and early 90s? You guys are going to get along great!
The thing about art is it’s subjective, and the thing about being an adult is you’re not required to like everything and you can ignore what you don’t like. Hear that, Leftists? You don’t have to like everything and you can ignore it. If you get upset over a statue, first of all you have much bigger problems than just the statue, and second of all you can walk away. Tearing down monuments you don’t like is a childish solution to a non-problem. If you want to tackle racism, do it, but don’t do it by acting like a child.
That’s why the toppling of statues today (even people like Ulysses S. Grant who fought in the aforementioned Civil War) is, to borrow a Leftist term, problematic. And why it’s extremely humorous to me.
Antifa Lies
This is the time of D-Day celebrations when the US lead the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied Europe. The Left is taking this opportunity to re-write history in their twisted image with several perverted memes.
I have seen at least half a dozen of these so far this past week on Social Media. All of them are presenting a false narrative. All of them pervert history. All of them dishonor those brave soldiers who gave everything on D-Day.
Here is just one of these perverted discussing memes:
This meme and others like it want to project the notion that those brave soldiers who fought oppression in the 2nd World War were Antifa.
Including a meme that presents President Eisenhower in his General’s uniform that states Republicans were once Antifa. But none of the soldiers, or their commanders, or any Republican has ever been Antifa because of what Antifa really is all about.
Lets see who the real Antifa was during this period of history and who they are now as well. This will clearly show why the memes are false.
The original Antifa, Antifaschistische Aktion, was a militant arm of the German Communist Party in the 1930’s. They clashed on the streets of Berlin and other German cities against other Marxist groups and against the National Socialists. This group went underground after the 1933 elections which swept the Nazi’s into power.
The modern Antifa, is a direct descendant of the original. Today it is still a Leftist militant movement. That uses violence and terrorism to make its point. It is pro-communist, pro-Marxist, and anti-capitalist.
The heroes of the 2nd World War were none of these things. They are anti-Marxist, anti-communist, and pro-capitalist. Which is part of the backbone of the United States of America. They would never resort to terrorism to achieve a political aim.
Every Republican is against fascism and any other Leftist form of government or society. But never Antifa as that glorifies Marxism and communism. And the Left always wants to re-write history to make themselves out to be the hero.
This has happened in every socialist, communist, fascist, monarchist, and Islamist state that has ever been created by the evils of man. And Antifa wants it to happen here.