Category Archives: Politics on the left

Parsing “Black Lives Matter”

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We have heard the phrase for quite some time, but to tell the truth I still don’t know what the words mean, although I may be the only one who has this difficulty.

I don’t wish to be ultra-metaphysical about it, but while I can understand each of the words on their own, in combination very little comes clear.

What, for example, is a “black life”? I can see that “black” may be referring to a skin colour, but I don’t see how that works in combination with the word “lives”. Do lives come in colours? Are there any other colours in which lives come? What specifically is a black life? How does a black life differ from a life of another colour? Comes to that, what other colours do lives come in?

OK, so suppose we can find a definition of this entity described as “black lives” how do we interpret the word “matter”? What does it mean to matter? As a verb, “matter” is defined as “to be important or significant”. Fair enough, but in what way is that so? A life which is coloured black is said to be “important or significant”. To whom is it important or significant? To whom should it be important or significant? Not instantaneously clear. To an individual? Which individual? To anyone else? To whom? In what way should it matter?

According to wikipedia:

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.

Turns out that the words should not be divided but only read together and as such it is an “activist movement”. So we have this:

Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society.

Let us therefore bring “movement” into play.

A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or society with mainly political goals. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo and are often associated with a certain ideology.

Black Lives Matter is therefore an attempt by a group of people (and not necessarily just black people) to change government policy or society with mainly political goals. It is thus a lobby group.

What is its program? What are its aim? What does it seek from others? What legislation is sought? How would the world be different if they achieved their goals?

It’s all about Trump

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From There is a linkage between the coronavirus hoax and the riots:

“It’s just not what they say it is. From the moment Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, the Left has been determined to destroy not only the Trump presidency but also the very country that allowed such an enormity to occur. They — the DNC, the big media, academe — have thrown everything they have into the fight, and that they have now turned to outright violence in its late stages ought to tell you something, both about the ‘resistance’s’ history, and the future it has planned for you.”

There might have been a time when parties of the left had sensible ideas for improving personal safety and welfare, but these are long gone. They are now all in every way socialists who have no sound ideas about how to improve the welfare of the community. It is only the fact that harming business immediately harms communal welfare that constrains the actions of a government of the left. They understand nothing about wealth creation. Their only knowledge is how to convince people to vote against their interests. It is “marketing” without substance.

Bear in mind that the city in which George Floyd died is 100% governed by Democrats in a state that has been governed by Democrats since forever. The only idea they can come up with is to defund the police.

Molotov cocktails should neither be shaken nor stirred but thrown

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The interesting part is not that whoever did this screen shot had never heart of a molotov cocktail but that in trying to conjure up the correct term, headed towards an anti-semitic meme. To help our journalists who officially know nothing.

The name “Molotov cocktail” was coined by the Finns during the Winter War,[1] called in Finnish: polttopullo or Molotovin koktaili. The name was a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in late August 1939. The pact with Nazi Germany, which established that Germany would not intervene in the war, was widely mocked by the Finns.

The name’s origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that bombing missions over Finland were actually airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbours.[2] As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs “Molotov bread baskets” in reference to Molotov’s propaganda broadcasts.[3] When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the “Molotov cocktail”, as “a drink to go with his food parcels”.[4]

Alternatives are petrol bomb or in the United States, gasoline bomb. The irony is lost, but at least there would be some precision in what is being referred to.

Demanding justice

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To demand “justice” is demanding an abstraction with no concrete specifics. Let me turn to this from The Atlantic, another American lunatic left-side publication: America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic. Turns out that the Corona V was a bust as a certain means to defeat Donald Trump so the American left is off on another tangent:

After months of deserted public spaces and empty roads, Americans have returned to the streets. But they have come not for a joyous reopening to celebrate the country’s victory over the coronavirus. Instead, tens of thousands of people have ventured out to protest the killing of George Floyd by police.

Demonstrators have closely gathered all over the country, and in blocks-long crowds in large cities, singing and chanting and demanding justice. Police officers have dealt with them roughly, crowding protesters together, blasting them with lung and eye irritants, and cramming them into paddy wagons and jails.

So what’s the next step on the road to Justice? After all, some kind of practical suggestion is required to bring us closer to nirvana. Here we go:

Majority of Minneapolis City Council signs pledge to disband police department.

NRCC turns up heat on vulnerable Democrats over [Ilhan] Omar’s call to abolish police. 

NYC Mayor de Blasio plans to defund the police.

The only symptoms of disease I see are symptoms of insanity. Alas, there is no cure other than a dose of reality but by then it will be too late.

 

George Floyd cause of death

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From Just Like That, Gun Control Support and COVID-19 Died This Week, focusing on the least significant element in the politics of Black Lives Matter and the death of George Floyd.

The Purported Trigger: The Death of George Floyd

George Floyd was arrested in Minneapolis for passing a counterfeit bill. He was a big man with a record of assaults and drug use. A video of his arrest shows he was handcuffed and seems to have resisted being placed in the squad car. We see him being pinned down on the ground by Officer Chauvin’s knee. He seems to be wrestling about on the ground and talking. Soon after he stops moving an emergency medical van appears and he is removed from the scene. He was reportedly dead by the time they arrived. At least one report says the officers called for medical assistance early in the arrest when Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Is the video the best evidence of what occurred? No. The best evidence is the footage taken from the body cams worn by the four officers on the scene; evidence Minneapolis authorities have failed to disclose. If your impression from the video or Dr. Biden’s interview (the examiner hired by the Floyd family) is that Floyd was asphyxiated, the only forensic evidence shows that he was not. The medical examiner, who was the only person to have conducted an autopsy, indicates Floyd was not asphyxiated. Here are the key findings in his report.

He had

1. Arteriosclerotic heart disease, multifocal, severe

2. Cardiomegaly (540 g) with mild biventricular dilatation

3. Clinical history of hypertension

There were

“No injuries of anterior muscles of neck or laryngeal structures” and “No facial, oral, mucosal, or conjunctival petechiae” (These are tiny red marks that are important signs of asphyxia caused by airway obstruction. If there had been any, it might indicate death by strangulation, hanging or smothering. )

He also tested positive for COVID-19.

Even more striking are the autopsy toxicology findings. In his system they found:

1.Fentanyl 11 ng/mL.

2.Norfentanyl 5.6 ng/mL

3.4-ANPP 0.65 ng/mL

4. Methamphetamine 19 ng/mL

5. 11-Hydroxy Delta-9 THC 1.2 ng/ml

6. Cotinine positive

7. Caffeine positive

In sum, he was high on drugs at the time of his death. The fentanyl itself was four times the level known to cause fatalities, reports Paul Sperry, and on top of that he had speed and marijuana in his system. The arresting officer said he was foaming at the mouth and a close look at the video indicates this was so. Interestingly, none of the charges against any of the officers claim Floyd’s death was intentionally inflicted.

Interesting, of course, but politically irrelevant. Here’s just a bit more:

Given the huge drug load in Floyd’s system, we might also look at what is called “excited delirium” about which Officer Chauvin expressed concern when he restrained Floyd. Mark Wauck explains:

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine says that
“Excited delirium is characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting. It is typically associated with the use of drugs. Subjects typically die from a heart attack and the majority of the patients die before hospital arrival.”

“All accounts describe almost the exact same sequence of events: delirium with agitation (fear, panic, shouting, violence and hyperactivity), sudden cessation of struggle, respiratory arrest and death.”

Once again, the body camera footage showing the initial encounter, discussions among officers and the call to paramedics about the issue of excited delirium will be a major factor in this case.

I don’t relate these things for you to judge what happened. That’s why we have trials and why we don’t, like ancient Romans, condemn men based on their performance in the coliseum (now replaced by the media circuses). That’s the very point of our legal system. People demanding instant retribution are simply modern-day advocates for lynching. Pundits right and left calling his death “murder” might take some time to look at the autopsy report and wait for the body cam footage. These things will certainly be evidence at trial, a long time after the perfervid reporting and the response to it.

And what difference does any of this make to anyone? But now go to the link and read it all.

Led by credulous morons

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Coronavirus crisis projected to add $620bn to Australia’s net debt, PBO says.

Australia’s legacy of the COVID-19 crisis will be additional net debt of up to $620bn by the end of this decade, while the budget deficit will peak at nearly $200bn in the next financial year and will remain in deficit through to 2030, according to new Parliamentary Budget Office projections.

And if nothing else was proven today, everyone now knows with certainty that the lockdown past the first few weeks had nothing to do with public health and safety. Every political leader still enforcing the lockdown is only doing it to save them from the humiliation of being recognised as such credulous nitwits.

Classical economics and the unemployment rate in the United States

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As anyone who understands classical economic theory would understand – which might include around half a dozen people across the world today – “demand for commodities is not demand for labour”. That is John Stuart Mill’s Fourth Fundamental Proposition on Capital. The number of jobs in an economy is unrelated to the level of aggregate demand. This, I need hardly tell you, is in direct contradiction of the whole of modern macroeconomic theory. Which brings us to the latest jobs report in the United States. U.S. Economy Adds Record 2.5 Million Jobs in May, Unemployment Rate Falls to 13.3%.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the U.S. economy added 2.5 million jobs, the largest gain ever recorded and the unemployment rate fell to 13.3 in May.

Well economic good news of such a colossal dimension cannot be allowed to stand on its own so this is what the media reported on instead: Fake News: Media Rush to Decry Trump Quote on George Floyd During Jobs Report Presser – Except He Didn’t Say It

President Trump held a press conference/signing ceremony today at the Rose Garden where he talked about the good news revealed by the BLS’s report before signing a bill that will “give recipients of government small business loans during the coronavirus more flexibility in how they spend the money.”

During the speech he gave before signing the bill, Trump also talked about a number of issues including racial equality in the context of the death of George Floyd last Monday, which happened after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes.

CBS News is one of the few news outlets that actually reported Trump’s comments accurately while providing some context:

But black unemployment rose slightly from 16.7% in April to 16.8% in May, in a month the president declared a “tribute to equality” as the nation protests racial discrimination and police brutality. Mr. Trump also seemed to declare success after a week of protests that swept the nation.

“Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, color, gender or creed, they have to receive fair treatment from law enforcement,” the president said. “They have to receive it. We all saw what happened last week. We can’t let that happen. Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”

See for yourself.

Wouldn’t have mentioned it except this media lie was the first thing said to me by my wife this morning.

For added pleasure, you might also wish to read this as well: Paul Krugman Caught in Hilarious Self-Own After Furiously Spinning Conspiracy Theories About Good Jobs Report.

Disbanding the police is all the rage

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Impossible you say. Start here: Going All-In: Minneapolis City Council Considers Disbanding Entire Police Force…. Insane, right?

This “community policing” process is already taking place in many European communities the results create what are known as “no go zones.” Neighborhoods, and entire parts of cities, where local Sharia compliance enforcement officers have replaced the police force; and the rules, regulations and enforcement are detached from the larger social compact. Considering that Minneapolis has a large concentration of Somali Muslims within the local population, it makes sense this approach is now discussed for their city.

Minneapolis – […] Now the council members are listening to a city that is wounded, angry, fed up with decades of violence disproportionately visited upon black and brown residents. Various private and public bodies – from First Avenue to Minneapolis Public Schools – have essentially cut ties with the police department. Council members are trying to figure out what their next move is.

Their discussion is starting to sound a little more like what groups like Reclaim the Block and the Black Visions Collective have been saying for years. On Tuesday, Fletcher published a lengthy Twitter thread saying the police department was “irredeemably beyond reform,” and a “protection racket” that slows down responses as political payback.

“Several of us on the council are working on finding out what it would take to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and start fresh with a community-oriented, nonviolent public safety and outreach capacity,” he wrote. (read more)

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the man now in charge of the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and the Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s death, is a very well known Muslim activist and supporter of the sharia doctrine.

And then this: Australia: Muslim leader says riots an “opportunity” for Muslims to seize global leadership and impose Sharia.

Australia: Muslim leader says riots an “opportunity” for Muslims to seize global leadership and impose Sharia

Meanwhile, non-Muslim leaders in the West demand that we all accept that no Muslims, no, not one, want to impose Sharia in Western countries, and declare that anyone who thinks otherwise is a greasy Islamophobe, a “fearmonger.”

“‘We will take over’: Australian leader of extremist Islamic group says US riots are an ‘opportunity’ for Muslims to seize global leadership and impose Sharia law,” by Stephen Johnson, Daily Mail Australia, June 3, 2020:

A controversial Muslim preacher is predicting Islam will replace the United States as the world’s dominant geopolitical force.

Ismail al-Wahwah, the Australian spiritual leader of hardline Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, has suggested riots across the US would bring down the global superpower.

‘Who will take over if America fall?,’ he said a video on Wednesday night.

‘Someone can say Europe, someone can say China, speak about Russia some, but for me the message is, the one who have more values, true values, and that’s us Muslims.

‘I would be hypocrite if I say I’m not happy for what’s happening in America today.’

Mr al-Wahwah described the violent mass demonstrations across the US as an opportunity for Muslims to exploit – following the alleged murder of black man George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer.

‘It’s time to use this opportunity to stand up, and to come back and to take the leadership again,’ Mr al-Wahwah said.

‘We as a Muslim, we should take this opportunity to take the leadership again, I know it’s not easy job.

‘I know it will cost us much, but I know 100 per cent that we are able, we can do it.’

Hizb ut-Tahrir is global Islamist political party, active in 50 countries, that wants Islam imposed as a political system.

It has a goal of replacing world governments with a caliphate based on the rule of Sharia law.

The Islamist group’s ‘Draft Constitution of the Khilafa State’, a blueprint for how its caliphate would govern, advocates the killing of ex-Muslims, known as ‘apostates’.

Despite its fundamentalist Islamic ideology that endorses slavery and only allows Muslim men to rule, Hizb ut-Tahrir is claiming to be the party of civil rights and is convinced riots against police brutality would hasten the downfall of the US.

Ismail al-Wahwah, the Australian spiritual leader of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, has suggested riots across the US would bring down the global superpower

‘Do you think what’s happening in America will be the end of the Americans’ time? Yes,’ Mr al-Wahwah said….

You just wander around with your head in the clouds but there are lots of people out there with lots of plans that do not sound so impossible if you see what they are up to. Human rights. Free speech. Freedom of religion. All so last century.

Not only are the media lying to us about everything, everyone knows it

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Does anyone really believe that people supporting Black Lives Matter are not on the left? Does anyone anywhere seriously believe that the media ever say anything that would diminish the possibility of defeating Donald Trump in November? It is astonishing to witness it for myself, but everyone on the left lies.

I no longer ever have to discuss politics with anyone on the left since I know exactly what they will believe about every issue, and I will also know which issues they are worrying about at any moment in time, by watching the ABC or reading the local press. So this story is news to no one: The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots. But it’s no more noteworthy than to be told that in the middle of a battle, the other side will be aiming cannon shot at their enemies across the battle lines, and that every one of the soldiers lining up inside their trenches are one hundred percent behind their artillery.

Democracies work when both sides see politics as a contest between groups with different possible solutions to whatever happen to be the social issues of our time where both can and do contribute. Democracy does not work if those on one of the sides in a political struggle refuses to accept there is any merit at all in the proposals being put forward by the other side. That is where we find ourselves today. No one with an ounce of sense or reflection anywhere believes or believed any of the following, but everyone I know on the left will say that they do:

1) Russia tipped the scales of the American election in favour of Trump.
2) Global warming is an urgent issue that requires us to subvert our system of power generation.
3) Something happened in the Ukraine – who knows what? – that proved – again who knows what? – that Donald Trump should not be president.
4) The Chinese Virus did not originate in China, but wherever it arose, now requires us to shut down our economy until there is no longer even the slightest danger that anyone might die from its effects.
5) A black man was murdered by a white policeman right in front of large number of witnesses, many of whom were carrying mobile phones through which they could record the event, which has exposed massive racist beliefs across the United States and elsewhere that require major levels of civil disorder and rioting to achieve something, although no one exactly knows what that is.

How monstrously stupid people would have to be to believe any of this! Anyone with an IQ over around 95 is perfectly aware this is all just politics on behalf of some objective. They just want to win power for themselves and for their side. It’s all very well to demonstrate that they are wrong, but it will not the battles going on today. None of it is about reason and debate. We are into mob violence that transcends public discourse and reason.

There is no debate. The issue is to convince a vast majority they have much to lose and nothing to gain by lining up with these mobs, which are given support through institutional forces such as politicians on the left, the media and the academic world, all of whom know so far as each issue goes, the truth is not represented by what they say. They just believe there are bigger issues involved, although what they are cannot be explained.

What is essential for us is to demonstrate that those on the left have an agenda and mean to put their agenda into practice. What we must therefore do on our side is expose that agenda. All of this, from items 1 to 5 – are means for the left to achieve their ends that have nothing to do with political justice, racism or less pollution. If we neglect to highlight their agenda and continue to deal only with their tactical issues, we will be overwhelmed.

The argument must be based on explaining why are they lying and what are they trying to do? What must be the core of our own agenda is to explain why there is nothing gained for anyone by falling for the lies of the left. If they cannot see in the devastation wracking cities all over the United States that there is nothing but ruin in following the agenda of the left, then we will be swept into the dustbin of history sooner than you might ever have believed.

Remember, remember the fourth of June

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What to know about Tiananmen Square on the 30th anniversary of the ...

It may not rhyme but you should remember it all the same. These were protestors with a genuine mission, bravely seeking change in the face of a tyrannical government that sent tanks out onto the street. What they sought in China is what we already have but which so many of our own “protesters” are prepared to squander. For those on the streets in Beijing and elsewhere, this was known as the Chinese Democracy Movement. Our “protesters” here would be the ones ordering the tanks onto the streets in Beijing. They would be the ones who are trying to suppress the pro-democracy, pro-freedom protesters, no quotation marks there, in Hong Kong today. What you see below is from Wikipedia. It should be a reminder of what’s really at stake.

The Tiananmen Square protests, Tiananmen Square massacre, or the Tiananmen Square Incident, commonly known as the June Fourth Incident (Chinese: 六四事件; pinyin: liùsì shìjiàn in mainland China, literally the six-four incident), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during 1989. The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the ’89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: 八九民運; pinyin: bājiǔ mínyùn). The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the government declared martial law and sent the military to occupy central parts of Beijing. In what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre (Chinese: 天安門大屠殺; pinyin: tiān’ānmén dà túshā), troops with assault rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military’s advance into Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Set off by the death of pro-reform Communist general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes in post-Mao China, the protests reflected anxieties about the country’s future in the popular consciousness and among the political elite. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy which benefited some people but seriously disaffected others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge of legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy,[8] and restrictions on political participation. The students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech, although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied.[9][10] At the height of the protests, about 1 million people assembled in the Square.[11]

As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership.[12] By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support for the demonstrators around the country, and the protests spread to some 400 cities.[13] Ultimately, Deng Xiaoping and other Communist Party elders believed the protests to be a political threat and resolved to use force.[14][15] The State Council declared martial law on May 20 and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.[13] The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of June 4, killing both demonstrators and bystanders in the process.

The international community, human rights organizations, and political analysts condemned the Chinese government for the massacre. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China.[16] The Chinese government made widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, suppressed other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests.[17] More broadly, the suppression ended the political reforms since 1986 and halted the policies of liberalization in the 1980s, which were only resumed partly after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour in 1992.[18][19][20] Considered a watershed event, the protests set the limits on political expression in China up to the present day.[21] Its memory is widely associated with questioning the legitimacy of Communist Party rule and remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.[22][23]