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February 2024

American Spirit or Great Awokening?Bruce D. Abramson

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bruce+d.+abramson+american+spirit+or+great+awokening&i=stripbooks&crid=3DD7VMMKA8IET&sprefix=bruce+d.+abramson+american+spirit+or+great+awokening%2Cstripbooks%2C253&ref=nb_sb_noss

Two years ago, I sat down to write a column about Wokeism as a religion. I figured that it would run longer than 800 words—likely into the 2500/3000 word range.

The material kept flowing. I shared much of it with my loyal Substack readers. (Thanks!). Then I pulled it together in book form:

American Spirit or Great Awokening?  The Battle to Restore or Destroy Our Nation (Academica Press, 2024). 

It’s a relatively short book (~50K words) and intended for a general (i.e., non-scholarly) audience. 

My basic argument is straightforward:

America is suffering from a spiritual crisis, which is the root cause of our polarized politics & culture.

Wokeism is a brilliant, new, utopian religion that has arisen to meet the unspoken and often denied spiritual needs of America’s most spiritually starved people, namely our elite.

If we wish to save the country, we’re going to have to get back in touch with America’s own spiritual roots and re-inject faith and community into our culture.

I’m eager for help with reviews & publicity.  If you’ve got any clout with folks who tell other folks what to read, please help me get in touch with them. In the meantime, please buy the book, read it, enjoy it, and recommend it!

President Abraham Lincoln’ s Magnificent Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

George Washington, Our Magnificent First President from his first Inaugural Address April 30, 1789

“I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

Guy Sorman Martyr for Democracy Alexei Navalny embodied the values he championed.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/alexei-navalny-martyr-for-democracy

The death of Alexei Navalny is an unequivocal revelation of the true nature of the Russian regime. Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule is a far cry from Soviet totalitarianism. Under Joseph Stalin, Navalny’s name would never have been mentioned; he would have been deported or murdered before he could ever speak out publicly. With this in mind, it’s easy to understand Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet empire, which allowed no room for freedom of expression from dissidents, and which, strangely, enjoyed a certain international ideological legitimacy through its association with Marxism. The Soviet Union not only dominated half the world but also garnered considerable support among intellectuals, artists, and political parties across the planet. Compared with the USSR, Russia now is not totalitarian but merely despotic.

Despotism is shot with a thousand holes through which public discontent about and contempt for a regime can be expressed. Totalitarianism is based on ideology and belief; despotism is grounded only in fear of the police. It relies on the violent power of men without ideology and with neither national nor international credibility. Unlike the former Soviet Union, contemporary Russia pretends to be a normal, law-abiding government, complete with courts, trials, and attorneys. Stalin didn’t bother with these trappings of democracy. Putin, however, wants the international community’s respect, so he pretends to be a part of it.

This explains the extraordinary paradox of Navalny. After he was sent to the remotest of Russian prisons, he maintained the right to an attorney; his attorney ensured his continued access to the rest of the world. His countless trials were filmed, with the recordings widely shared on social media. These were only a few examples of many other masquerades, of course, but in Putin’s mind, they gave the impression that Russia respected law and justice.

Similarly, Putin grants interviews to western media, as Stalin never did. Above all, Putin regularly invites the Russian people to vote for their government. Given that he has no opponents, these events are meaningless, but the circus allows him to claim that Russia holds democratic elections. Once again, Stalin didn’t bother organizing elections—he led a revolution. Putin, by contrast, aspires to a prominent place among world leaders. His wars waged against his neighbors, whether in Georgia or Ukraine, are also about this goal, about a desire to be acknowledged as a great leader, comparable with those in the United States or China. Yet, despite these overblown efforts, he remains economically, militarily, and ideologically dwarfed by the true world powers.

Netanyahu Declares That Israel ‘Outright Rejects’ Possibility of Palestinian Statehood after Hamas War by David Zimmerman

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/netanyahu-declares-that-israel-outright-rejects-possibility-of-palestinian-statehood-after-hamas-war/

In a new declaration, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “outright rejects” the possibility of Palestinian statehood after the Jewish state’s war with Hamas in Gaza ends.

The prime minister announced the measure at a government meeting on Sunday, as the U.N. and Biden administration continue persuading Israel to accept a two-state solution to the conflict. According to Netanyahu, Israel should resist all foreign efforts to create a Palestinian state.

“In light of the talk recently heard in the international community about an attempt to unilaterally impose a Palestinian state on Israel, I am bringing today a declarative decision on this issue for the approval of the government. I am sure it will be widely accepted,” Netanyahu told his cabinet Sunday morning.

“Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding the permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” the declaration stated. “Such an arrangement will be reached only through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such a recognition, following the massacre of October 7, will reward the terrorism, a reward like no other, and will prevent any future peace settlement.”

While the U.S. is a close ally of Israel, President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials have repeatedly called for Netanyahu’s government to pursue a two-state solution with the Palestinian people who live in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while visiting Israel and the larger Middle East region earlier this month, proposed the idea again as part of a cease-fire deal with Hamas.

During Blinken’s visit, Hamas proposed a three-phase process in which Israeli troops would withdraw from Gaza, the terrorist group’s remaining 100 hostages would be released in exchange for the freedom of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and a massive humanitarian and rebuilding effort would be provided to the embattled Palestinian territory. Netanyahu rejected the counterproposal, calling Hamas’s demands “delusional.”

“There is not a commitment – there has to be a negotiation, it’s a process, and at the moment, from what I see from Hamas, it’s not happening,” he said hours after meeting with Blinken. The prime minister added that Israel wants nothing but “complete victory” in Gaza, where he believes the conflict will end in “a matter of months.”

Biden’s Lies on Top of Lies on Top of Lies A pathological prevaricator. Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-lies-on-top-of-lies-on-top-of-lies/

In the last week, Joe Biden had flat-out lied in the most egregious fashion in so many ways.

In his disastrous press conference of last week, he claimed that special counsel Hur’s report exonerated him. Anyone who read the findings concluded exactly the opposite.

According to Hur, Biden would have been indicted for his willfully unlawful removal of classified documents except for two reasons: one, the Department of Justice protocols apparently prohibit indicting a sitting president; and two, Biden suffers such cognitive decline that the special counsel believes a jury would more likely pity him into acquittal than convict him of what he is certainly guilty.

He lied that Hur brought up his son’s death (“How in the hell dare he raise that?”). In fact, Biden as is his serial wont, raised it, and does on a regular basis, usually deliberately and further lying that his son died while on military duty in Iraq (he died six years subsequently as a civilian in Walter Reed Hospital), and always contorting the death to enhance his own greater sense of grieving.

He lied that he notified authorities when he discovered that he unlawfully had taken out classified documents to various residencies (perhaps for over some 30 plus years during his senatorial and Vice Presidential tenures). In fact, Biden only admitted that he had apparently for decades unlawfully removed classified files in 2017, to his ghostwriter in a recorded tape, and then he hid that fact and kept quiet for five years—until his administration’s special counsel began to investigate Trump for the same thing. Note the worried ghostwriter erased the tape of Biden’s confession as soon as he learned there was an appointment of a special counsel. (Destroy evidence much?)

He lied that the files bore no classification marks. In fact, they did and do.

Fraud Allegations and Financial Fiascos: The Saga of Trump’s Legal Battles Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/18/fraud-allegations-and-financial-fiascos-the-saga-of-trumps-legal-battles/

Donald Trump is facing a wall of legal trouble. It’s possible that with all these darts being thrown, one will stick and he will be brought down. More likely, I think, is that he will prevail.

How do you spell “persecution?” How about “D-o-n-a-l-d T-r-u-m-p?” It sometimes seems that the entire judicial apparatus of the state has been mobilized against the man.

According to my abacus, he faces some 90 counts on four separate indictments in four states. And that doesn’t count the suits brought by the aging fantasist who claims that 30, 35 years ago—she can’t quite remember—Trump assaulted her in a dressing room in the swank department store Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan.  There were no witnesses. She can’t say what year the assault was supposed to have occurred, let alone what month or day.  Moreover, the entire scenario was straight out of an episode of “Law and Order,” one of her favorite television shows. She displayed a Donna Karan blazer dress that she says she was wearing when assaulted. Problem: That garment did not exist at the time. The whole case was ridiculous, and Trump said so, which is how he got caught up in a surreal defamation case and was hit with an $83.3 million fine.

$83 million of the crispest. For saying that the wackette in question was off her rocker and, not to put too fine a point on it, that she was lying. Most experts believe that Trump will not have to part with anything like $83 million, if indeed he winds up owing the accuser-in-chief anything at all, at the conclusion of his appeals.

But the case of E. Jean Carroll, for that is the name of the decrepit aspiring bimbo, is just an hors d’oeuvre or appetizer in the great Get Trump Sweepstakes.  On Friday, Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York Supreme Court found Trump guilty of fraud because he had, said the Justice, overvalued some of his real estate assets when applying for bank loans.  The banks looked over the applications, found them in order, and were pleased when Trump paid them back in full and on time.  Result?  That marvelous contingency, a victimless crime.  Nevertheless, Donald Trump is the Emmanuel Goldstein of “Our Democracy™.”  No expedient is too extreme. He must be stopped.

Indeed, Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, actually campaigned on the promise to Get Trump and shine a “bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.”  That was six years ago.  Now Justice Engoron, part judge, part jester, has hit Trump with an eyewatering $355 million judgement and forbidden him or his evil spawn, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, from running their companies in New York for a period of three years.

A Tale of Two Presidents By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/a_tale_of_two_presidents.html

President-In-Name-Only Joe Biden finally decided to visit East Palestine, Ohio — the community that last year endured both a toxic train derailment and the government’s questionable decision to burn the spilled hazardous chemicals and poison the region’s air.  Given Biden’s obvious cognitive decline, it’s impossible to know whether PINO mistakenly thought he was heading out to provide aid and comfort to Palestinian terrorists in their war against Israel or whether he wanted to belatedly feign love for blue-collar Americans before demanding their votes in November.  Either way, Dementia Joe made the trip late in the day on a Friday so that coverage of his visit would disappear with the rest of the administration’s conveniently flushed news.

For their part, the good people of East Palestine were quick to declare with numerous signs that PINO Biden’s arrival was “Too Little, Too Late.”  As Wandering Joe stood anxiously behind him and fidgeted in his coat pockets, the village mayor thanked the White House’s nursing home patient for his “long-awaited visit” while “acknowledging this disaster should have never happened.”  Unlike Biden, who arrived a year late and brought only note card–scripted empty promises, President Trump visited this community in the midst of the tragedy and brought truckloads of bottled water for the victims.  He also cast a giant spotlight on the environmental disaster as it was unfolding and expressed concern for the villagers’ health.  Decrepit Joe — the guy whose administration invests heavily in “green energy” scams that fleece the American people — showed through a calendar year of radio silence that environmentalism is pointless unless it pays.  Maybe if the blue-collar workers of East Palestine had ponied up 10% from their cleanup collection fund for Quid-Pro-Quo Joe’s campaign or family coffers, the federal government would have felt that the catastrophe deserved more urgent attention.

Of all the jeering cardboard signs mocking PINO Joe for his un-timely visit, perhaps the most pointed were in the hands of two smiling schoolgirls.  One said loudly, “Resident — NOT — President,” while the other begged the Oval Office chief, infamous for creeping on little girls, “Don’t Sniff Me!”  It is common to find children carrying signs in political protests that are almost certainly designed by their parents.  However, in this instance, the mischievous grins on those girls’ faces revealed that they understood what a sad, cringe-worthy punch line Biden has become.  When nearly 90% of Americans believe that Child-Sniffer Joe is mentally unfit, kids get the joke.  Joe Biden’s “presidency” is too defective for anyone to take seriously.  

CHAPTER 6: “An Unaware and Compliant Citizenry” Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is [upcoming release April 2024] by Linda Goudsmit

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27557/chapter-6-an-unaware-and-compliant-citizenry

goudsmit.pundicity.com   lindagoudsmit.com 

We have discussed the weaponization of education in American schools and its sinister political objective to eliminate high literacy, individual agency, and independent intelligence. Dr. Dennis Cuddy, historian and political analyst, wrote an extraordinary article published on NewsWithViews, April 26, 2021, “An Unaware and Compliant Citizenry.”[i]

Cuddy documents the seismic shift in public education’s mission, from teaching basic skills and foundational knowledge to teachers acting as agents of social change and teaching political activism. The following are excerpts from the article:

The Clintons’ and others’ efforts to “produce an unaware and compliant citizenry” began with the National Education Association (NEA), whose President Catherine Barrett wrote in the February 10, 1973 edition of SATURDAY REVIEW OF EDUCATION:

“Dramatic changes in the way we will raise our children in the year 2000 are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling…. We will need to recognize that the so-called ‘basic skills,’ which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one-quarter of the present school day…. When this happens—and it’s near—the teacher can rise to his true calling. More than a dispenser of information, the teacher will be a conveyor of values, a philosopher…. We will be agents of change.”

Via values clarification techniques, the values of students were to be changed to situation ethics…. In the 1980s, Hillary Clinton along with David Rockefeller, Jr. and others became Board members of Carnegie’s National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), with Mario Cuomo chairman and N.C. Governor Jim Hunt vice-chairman. The president of the NCEE was Marc Tucker, who right after Bill Clinton won the presidency in November 1992 wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton saying this would give them a chance to implement their “cradle-to-grave” plan for all Americans.

The following year, at the July 2–5, 1993 NEA’s national convention, President Clinton addressed the delegates and thanked the NEA for “the gift of our assistant secretary,” referring to long-time NEA activist Sharon Robinson, who became U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Education Research and Improvement (OERI, where I had worked in the Reagan administration). President Clinton went on to say that he believed his goals for America closely parallel those of the NEA, further stating: “And I believe that the president of this organization would say we have had the partnership I promised in the campaign of 1992, and we will continue to have it…. You and I are joined in a common cause, and I believe we will succeed.” On December 15, 1993, EDUCATION WEEK reported that “Debra DeLee, the former director of governmental relations for the NEA, has joined the Democratic National Committee as its executive director.”

How I learned to stop worrying and oppose a Palestinian state The world does not need yet another genocidal terrorist entity. Benjamin Kerstein From December 2023)

https://benjaminkerstein.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and

“I used to care,” Bob Dylan once sang, “but things have changed.”

I’m afraid that I’m feeling much the same these days regarding the prospect of Palestinian statehood. Up until Oct. 6, I felt that while a Palestinian state would be problematic in many ways, we still had an obligation to adhere to the same right we demand for ourselves—self-determination. I also believed that demographic issues and the corrosive effect of continuous occupation left Israel no option but the two-state solution.

As a result, I supported the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza because I felt those arguments still held despite multiple Palestinian refusals of peace and their continuing embrace and promotion of terrorism.

I must admit that I was wrong. Things have changed. A generational trauma will do that sort of thing. At the moment, “the day after” this war is a matter of complete indifference to me. I do not know what the political future of the Palestinians will be. I also don’t care. I care solely about preventing another Oct. 7 or worse. If that means a Palestinian state must never be established, then so be it.

I believe this for two reasons. The first is a matter of principle, the second is wholly practical in nature

First, though I still believe that all peoples have a right to self-determination, I do not believe that the Palestinians have the right to determine themselves upon the destruction of Israel. Oct. 7 made it clear that this is precisely what they have done and intend to keep doing. Statehood would only further this ambition, and this cannot be morally justified under any circumstances. In fact, to do anything that would further such an ambition would be, by definition, not only immoral but anti-moral.

In practical terms, it is now very clear what the nature of a Palestinian state would be. The Gaza withdrawal was often described at the time as an experiment. On Oct. 7, we received the results. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a Palestinian state would be a genocidal terrorist entity, likely of a theocratic nature, with the ultimate intention of aiding in the establishment of a global Islamic tyranny. The world already has several states of this kind—most notably Hamas’ ally Iran—and certainly does not need another one.