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June 2020

I Must Object A rebuttal to Brown University’s letter on racism in the United States Glenn C. Loury

https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism

Last week, in the aftermath of the national fury that has erupted, and continues, over the apparent killing by a Minneapolis police officer of a black man, George Floyd, while he was being taken into custody, a letter appeared in my inbox from Christina H. Paxson, president of Brown University, where I teach. The letter, sent to thousands of students, staff, and faculty, was cosigned by many of Brown’s senior administrators and deans.

“We write to you today as leaders of this university,” the letter begins, “to express first deep sadness, but also anger, regarding the racist incidents that continue to cut short the lives of black people every day.” It continues:

The sadness comes from knowing that this is not a mere moment for our country. This is historical, lasting and persistent. Structures of power, deep-rooted histories of oppression, as well as prejudice, outright bigotry and hate, directly and personally affect the lives of millions of people in this nation every minute and every hour. Black people continue to live in fear for themselves, their children and their communities, at times in fear of the very systems and structures that are supposed to be in place to ensure safety and justice.

I found the letter deeply disturbing, and was moved to compose the following response, which I shared with a colleague. I’m happy now to share it as well with City Journal’s readership.

Dear ____:

I was disturbed by the letter from Brown’s senior administration. It was obviously the product of a committee—Professors XX and YY, or someone of similar sensibility, wrote a manifesto, to which the president and senior administrative leadership have dutifully affixed their names.

I wondered why such a proclamation was necessary. Either it affirmed platitudes to which we can all subscribe, or, more menacingly, it asserted controversial and arguable positions as though they were axiomatic certainties. It trafficked in the social-justice warriors’ pedantic language and sophomoric nostrums. It invoked “race” gratuitously and unreflectively at every turn. It often presumed what remains to be established. It often elided pertinent differences between the many instances cited. It read in part like a loyalty oath. It declares in every paragraph: “We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident.”

“Let Our Hearts Be Stout”President Roosevelt on D-Day June 6, 2020

The prayer was read to the Nation on radio on the evening of D-Day, June 6, 1944, while American, British and Canadian troops were fighting to establish five beach heads on the coast of Normandy in northern France.

EXCERPTS

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

 Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Amen.

Israel – And The Sordid Side of Germany’s Moral Responsibility It’s transparently clear whose side Germany is on. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/sordid-side-germanys-moral-responsibility-joseph-puder/

The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported on May 19, 2020 that “Germany and the Palestinian Authority (PA) released a joint statement expressing ‘grave concern’ over Israel’s declared intention to begin annexing parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. The same German government has ignored Israel’s legal rights in Judea and Samaria and imposed Nazi-like sanctions on Israeli products from these Jewish communities.

Germany has been on the side of Israel’s enemies time and again. Germany was a partner in the 2015 flawed Iran nuclear deal, which Israel vehemently opposed, charging that it gave the radical Islamic Republic a clear path to a nuclear bomb. Germany has also been Iran’s major trading partner, and a leader in thwarting the U.S. imposed sanctions on the ayatollah’s dictatorship. The Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened to “wipe the Jewish state off the map.”

Germany is also opposed to the Trump administrations “deal of the century” Middle East peace plan, which Israel overwhelmingly supports. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, complained that the Trump plan required a “balanced approach.” He stated that, “Only a negotiated two-state solution acceptable to both sides can lead to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” In his apparent pro-Palestinian bias, Maas clearly ignored Mahmoud Abbas’ (Palestinian Authority President) repeated rejections of Israel’s peace proposals, including the 2008 generous peace offer by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated invitations to Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Abbas also rejected the Trump peace plan even before it was presented.

Germans are guilty of perpetrating the greatest crime in history, the industrial liquidation of European Jewry, known as the Holocaust. Germany’s history, moreover, is replete with antisemitic violence against Jews. Whether during the crusades, or the ‘hep hep’ pogroms against the Jews throughout Germany in 1819, ostensibly aimed against Jewish emancipation. Germany has been, throughout history, a leading source of antisemitism and anti-Jewish racism. Today, with the memory of the Holocaust still fresh, German hostility to the Jewish state, although hidden from view, is alive and well in Germany’s Foreign Ministry, and it is reflected in its major policies.

Killing Free Speech in Switzerland by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15859/switzerland-free-speech

ECRI’s monitoring of Switzerland, since its first report about the country was published in 1998, is an illustrative example of the organization’s persistent efforts — and considerable success — over the past two decades in limiting free speech in Europe.

Already in its first report on Switzerland, in 1998, ECRI — despite admitting that “a decrease in manifestations of racism and intolerance has been noted over the last 2-3 years” and that “overt manifestations of [racial prejudices and xenophobia] are rather rare,” told the Swiss media to promote specific narratives…

“ECRI is concerned that a climate of intolerance or xenophobia towards non-citizens and those who are different from the native Swiss population appears to persist”. No substantial documentation was offered as basis for the allegation — ECRI even criticized in the same report that “little information is systematically collected in Switzerland regarding the extent of racism and discrimination” — but none seemed to be needed, as ECRI’s motivation appeared to be political…

Throughout the years, ECRI has stressed the media’s central role in promoting specific, politicized agendas.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recently published its sixth monitoring report on Switzerland.

ECRI is the human rights monitoring body of the Council of Europe — not to be confused with the European Union. The Council of Europe calls itself the “continent’s leading human rights organization.”

ECRI was founded in 1994 by the heads of state of the Council of Europe with the mandate, among other things, to “review member States’ legislation, policies and other measures to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance, and their effectiveness”.

The organization is composed of “members designated by their governments… on the basis of their in-depth knowledge in the field of combating intolerance”. They should have … expertise in dealing with racism… and intolerance. ECRI’s members are nominated in their personal capacity and act as independent members”.

Leftism, Not Racism, Destroys Black Upward Mobility The Left feeds on the victim narrative. It is the currency of their political power. By Edward Ring

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/05/leftism-not-racism-destroys-black-upward-mobility/

The rioting and looting across the United States have been widely—though not universally—condemned. The “peaceful protests,” on the other hand, have been universally praised. But is this appropriate? Wouldn’t a broader and more balanced discussion be more constructive than praise without reservation?

Obviously, people have the right to peacefully protest injustice, and obviously incidents of murderous police brutality are more than sufficient justification for protests. But that’s as far as it goes. The scope of these protests is disproportionate to the offense, not because the offense wasn’t hideously wrong, but because there are far more dangerous challenges facing black Americans. The biggest challenge of all: leftists who indoctrinate blacks to think they are always first and foremost victims of racism.

Debunking this narrative of racism can start with the allegation that a disproportionate number of blacks are victims of police brutality, which in itself (and regardless of race) is extremely rare.

To put this into context, there are more than 800,000 sworn police officers in America, authorized to make arrests and use deadly force. Over 50 million Americans have at least one encounter with a police officer per year, usually involving something minor such as a traffic stop. Police make over 10 million arrests each year. On average, just over 1,000 Americans each year are killed by police, but nearly all of them were armed. In confrontations with unarmed people over the past decade, only between 50 and 100 have been shot per year by police, about the same number as police who are killed in hostile encounters per year.

Nobel Scientist Says Lockdown ‘Saved No Lives’ and ‘May Have Cost Lives’ By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/06/05/nobel-scientist-says-lockdown-saved-no-lives-and-may-have-cost-lives-n499574

Prof Michael Levitt, a British-American-Israeli who shared the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2013, believes the flawed models by Nile Ferguson of Imperial College, upon which most nations and states based their lockdown strategies, led to a global “panic virus” that spread to political leaders and cost many more deaths from “social damage,” including domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism. “And then you have those who were not treated for other conditions,” says Levitt.

Health analyst Richard Baehr says, “A growing share of the excess deaths are not from COVID diagnosed patients but from heart conditions, drug overdoses, suicides. We could call these lockdown deaths.”

“Excess deaths” has been all the rage with lockdown advocates who constantly point to that number as proof that the lockdown was necessary. Whether it was or not, history will decide. But what’s certain is that those who dared mention that the lockdown itself was going to take lives and were pilloried by the media — Donald Trump in particular — were spot on right.

Rasmussen: Black Voter Approval for Trump Has Surged to Over 40 Percent By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/election/matt-margolis/2020/06/05/rasmussen-black-voter-approval-for-trump-has-surged-to-over-40-percent-n499859

Despite the left’s recent efforts to paint Trump as a racist and blame him for police brutality and the riots, Rasmussen Reports says that approval for President Trump amongst likely black voters is now over 40 percent.

Trump received 8 percent of the African American vote in 2016. In August 2019, black voter approval for Trump stood at 26 percent.

I am admittedly skeptical of Rasmussens 40 percent approval number, nevertheless, the increase of 14 points from a year ago suggests that Trump’s support from within the black community is increasing, despite the best efforts of the Democrats and the media to paint him as a racist. With the economy starting to recover, that approval is bound to increase.

One retired Marine isn’t putting up with Mattis’s nonsense By Andrea Widburg see note please

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/one_retired_marine_isnt_putting_up_with_mattiss_nonsense.html

HE WAS CALLED “MAD DOG MATTIS” AND HE IS ACTING LIKE A FEMALE CANINE…..RSK

Mattis wrote a mean-spirited, factually incorrect, facile, and fundamentally dishonest attack on Trump, so a retired Marine directly attacked him for it.

Ret. Marine General James Mattis, who served as Trump’s Defense Secretary, resigned over a year ago, but has apparently been nursing a grudge since then. Last week, he took to the pages of the left-wing Atlantic magazine to air that grievance.

Mattis revealed a small mind. His facts were wrong, and his arguments foolish and simplistic. The Democrat media, of course, celebrated the article despite its fundamental flaws. Retired Marine Captain John M. Dowd, however, decided that he wasn’t going to sit there and take that nonsense, so he struck back. What he wrote is red meat for conservatives and Trump supporters.

To understand what Mattis wrote for the Atlantic, you have to know that, while he does love the Marines, he’s a leftist at heart. He supports the global warming agenda; is hostile to Israel; shied away from fights with the Mullahs; wanted so-called transgenders in the military; wouldn’t leave Afghanistan; and ultimately quit because he wanted to keep U.S. troops in Syria (reminder: the disaster leftists predicted for Trump’s pullout never materialized).

Did This Black Life Matter? Not To The Mob

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/05/did-this-black-life-matter-not-to-the-mob/

“According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading cause of death for black males from the ages of 1 to 44 is homicide. Given that there were roughly 1,000 deaths last year caused by law enforcement officers — not all of the dead were black men, not all of the killings unjustified — we know that many of the deaths among black males were in no way associated with law enforcement. For the record, all those whose lives were ended too soon by homicides in which officers weren’t involved matter. They’re not just statistics.”

Early Tuesday morning, a black man was brutally killed by an act permitted by those in authority and with influence. Where are the protests over his death?

That black man was David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired St. Louis police captain. He was killed by looters during the George Floyd riots, shot to death “exercising law enforcement training that he learned,” says St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden.

Dorn was gunned down after responding to an alarm at a pawn shop that was being looted. The authorities who allowed his death are those elected officials who loosed the rioters by endorsing their rampages and refusing to prosecute them for the crimes, and the media that have approved of the criminal acts, lending them legitimacy.

George Floyd lost his life when a man in and under authority went too far, while other men in and under authority did nothing. It was an ugly act that demands justice. But so does Dorn’s death. Where, then, are the protests on his behalf? Didn’t Dorn’s life matter as much as Floyd’s? Are national politicians going to attend his funeral, as they surely will the Minnesota man’s service? Or was Dorn’s life worth less because of the differences in the way each died?

‘Not a triumph’ and ‘not joyous’: Democrats downplay May job gains and ignore impact of reopening by Emily Larsen & Kerry Picket

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/not-a-triumph-and-not-joyous-dnc-downplays-may-job-gains-and-ignores-impact-of-reopening

The Democratic National Committee downplayed surprising May job gains and brushed off the notion that easing coronavirus lockdowns in Republican-controlled states contributed to the uptick.

“What we have in this report is a flicker of good news,” DNC Chairman Tom Perez said during a Friday press call. “We’ve gone from a Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4.9 hurricane.”

Perez compared the job losses over the last three months, 19.6 million, to the worst three-month stretch of job losses under the Obama administration, 2.3 million, in the middle of the Great Recession.

President Trump, Perez said, is “continuing to compete with Herbert Hoover to have the worst record of job loss in at least the last hundred years in the United States,” blaming the “preventable” losses on Trump failing to act to contain the coronavirus pandemic earlier.

The Labor Department said Friday that the economy gained 2.5 million jobs in May and that the un