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How Diversity Came to Mean ‘Downgrade the West’ Daphne Patai

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Editor’s note: This article is crossposted from Minding the Campus, the original article can be viewed here.

There was a time, within living memory, when the term multiculturalism was hardly known. More than twenty years ago, Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and in late July speaker at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, wrote a book with fellow Stanford alum David Sacks called The Diversity Myth: ‘Multiculturalism’ and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford (1995).

The book’s title refers to the pretense that embracing “diversity” actually promotes diversity of all types, a claim commonly heard to this day. Thiel had been a student at Stanford when, in January 1987, demonstrators defending “the Rainbow Agenda” chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s got to go!” This protest led to the infamous “revision” (i.e., suppression) of the Western Culture requirement at Stanford, replaced with a freshman sequence called Cultures, Ideas, and Values, mandating an emphasis on race, gender, and class.

In her foreword to Sacks and Thiel’s book, the well-known American historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese referred to Stanford as “a surreal world of social engineering and institutional arrogance” and highlighted the school’s efforts to wage a “campaign to reshape thought and behavior.” She noted that while the term “affirmative action” had been replaced by “diversity,” the latter term, far from actually promoting intellectual diversity, rested on “a series of interlocking attitudes and practices.”

Furthermore, “multiculturalism” did not involve greater emphasis on mastering foreign languages or carefully studying cultures other than those of the English-speaking world. Instead, work in literature and culture programs was (and still is) done increasingly in English and focused on contemporary writers. Nor did multiculturalism, any more than the word diversity, mean familiarizing students with a diversity of views. Rather, as Fox-Genovese summarized it, it meant requiring students “to agree with or even applaud views and values that mock the values with which they have been reared.” And all this, she observed, was being accompanied by rampant grade inflation.

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Tim Kaine: ‘Spanish Was the Language of Our Country Before English’ By Tyler O’Neil see note please

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

In Spanish. my mother tongue, we call an idiot a “pendejo”

In an interview on the Spanish-language show “Noticias Telemundo,” Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, the Democrat nominee for vice president, said that Spanish was the language of America before English. Kaine has often given speeches in Spanish, and on Sunday he gave a sermon entirely in Spanish at Pneuma Church in Miami, Fla.

“Latino culture is one of the most important things in our country right now because we have had Hispanic roots since the beginning. … Spanish was the language of our country before English,” Kaine told Telemundo host José Díaz-Balart on Monday, according to a translated transcript.

“It’s important to remember that, and celebrate it,” Kaine argued. “And also, the issues important to Latinos are the same: education, economic development and, especially, respect. In this campaign the question of respect is very important, because the two sides of the campaign have very different opinions about the Latino community.”

Kaine was hinting at Donald Trump’s many disparaging comments about immigrants from Mexico, which have been attacked as racist. Trump’s complaints mostly focus on illegal immigrants, as opposed to people of a particular race. The Republican nominee has not specifically disparaged Latinos, but many feel insulted and attacked by his comments, especially as many media outlets have reported them as racist.

Clinton has gone overboard in her attempts to appeal to Latinos, and even the Huffington Post has acknowledged her efforts veer into “Hispandering.” She has launched Spanish-language ads specifically targeting Latinos, especially in Florida. Nevertheless, some Puerto Ricans in that state are still on the fence about her. Nevertheless, the outreach seems to be working.

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Steve Kates Lies and Loathing 3.0

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Trump won’t accept defeat, should that be his lot on November 8, unless he is satisfied the game wasn’t rigged, which it is always is. As for Mrs Clinton, she will maintain the habit of a lifetime and surround the Oval Office with a bodyguard of lies.
The issue of issues in the third debate was Trump’s refusal to commit himself to accepting the results of the election as tallied on the day. He has, in effect, stated that an election result would not be acceptable if there is serious evidence of voter and electoral fraud. I wish he hadn’t said it since it will diminish his outstanding performance on the rest.

But what do I know about politics at that levels, since what it will do is put the spotlight on the way in which the deceased vote early and often, how voting machines are hacked and the multiple-voting that is rife across the American system.For all my misgivings, he is the one that has taken the Trump train to the edge of the White House, so we shall just have to see what happens now.

I have often thought about this issue, in particular in relation to the 2012 election: In 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, Mitt Romney got zero votes. Not one person voted for Romney, not even by accident, not even by pulling the wrong lever, not even my mis-reading the ballot paper! Not one? To quote from the above link:

The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighborhoods – clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia – fertilizes fears of fraud, despite little hard evidence.

Upon hearing the numbers, Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, brought up his party’s voter-identification initiative – which was held off for this election – and said, “We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot.”

The absence of a voter-ID law, however, would not stop anyone from voting for a Republican candidate.

Which is exactly the point. The polls showed a super-majority voting for Obama, but the polls also showed the score at 94-6. Six percent is not zero percent. And then there’s this:

The video was put up just the other day, on October 18, and comes with this caption:

In the second video of James O’Keefe’s new explosive series on the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign, Democratic party operatives tell us how to successfully commit voter fraud on a massive scale. Scott Foval, who has since been fired, admits that the Democrats have been rigging elections for fifty years.

This is an issue of immense importance in a democracy. Legitimacy is bestowed only if the system is fair and perceived to be fair. Trump is in the middle of a battle he thinks, and I think, is for the future of America and the West. What he said is that he is not going to give the outcome his prior approval before he has actually seen what has happened on the day.

And I do have to say that I was surprised that he didn’t bring up Al Gore and the disputed election in 2012. It would no doubt have crossed his mind, so you have to think Trump had sifted this on the spot and didn’t wish to change the focus to sixteen years ago. He wants this election, this year, run clean. And since this is his greatest vulnerability – an election stolen by those with a proven track record of electoral theft – he wants to keep the pressure on as best he can.

Politics is ultimately what works. Does it cost him votes to focus on voter fraud in this way? No doubt. But will it also gain him votes if he can contain the fraud? Yes again. The question really comes down to how it will play out.

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Tony Thomas: Their One-Sided Conversation

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Drawing its sustenance on the public purse, the website has become quite an empire, with international outposts and an ever-expanding staff nominally pledged to present the latest in academic research. What visitors get is an overload of green-left waffle and censorship if they dare to disagree.
In November, 2015, Islamist gunmen massacred 130 young Parisians. Academic authors at the taxpayer-supported The Conversation were quick off the mark with the site’s trademark ‘Academic rigor, journalistic flair’.Here’s a sample, from Folker Hanusch at Queensland University of Technology. It was headed: “Disproportionate coverage of Paris attacks is not just the media’s fault”.

He mounted a case straight from cloud-cuckoo land that the media ought to give equal treatment to death-dealing catastrophes no matter where they occur, e.g. in the African interior or Syria. He concluded that “journalists are not the only ones to blame for the disproportionate coverage” in Paris – audiences must “share the blame”. He suggested that if only the punters’ mindsets and empathies could be brought closer to the refined sensibilities of academics, “disproportionate” coverage of the Paris massacres could be corrected.

This patronizing PC bilge suggests why sensible people give academia a wide berth and news organisations staffed with journalism graduates are going down the gurgler. It also doesn’t say much for the nous of The Conversation’s editors. These are the same people who this month put ludicrous captions on stock pics of military mayhem:

Aftermath of a bomb attack in 2014 in Jos, Nigeria by the militant group Boko Haram. Analysts have linked Boko Haram’s rise to climatic shifts and resource shortages.

Destroyed tanks in front of a mosque in Azaz, Syria, 2012. Climate scientists have identified the 2006-2010 drought in Syria as a factor in the civil uprising that began in 2011.

Andrew Jaspan, 64, co-founder and executive director of The Conversation, was sent on forced leave last month, according to the Guardian, but not because of his site’s bizarre news treatments.

Two other factors were involved:

Letters of complaint to the board from some of Jaspan’s Australian and overseas editors about Jaspan’his style and strategy – a reprise of the Age staff revolt against Jaspan in early 2008
Top-level concern about Jaspan’s hell-for-leather expansion overseas, despite The Conversation’s shoe-string finances and dependence on taxpayers’ largesse.

As Jaspan put it with aplomb in his 2014 annual review, “Each year takes us by surprise. There’s no road map, and we are making our future as we go along.”

A few months later, the Abbott government declined to extend the Gillard government’s $1m a year grants (PM Gillard also provided a $1.5m startup grant). Abbott’s education minister, Christopher Pyne, said the previous funding was conditional on the site achieving viability by mid-2015. “It had a shelf-life of three years, at which time The Conversation is meant to be self-sustaining…They were given $3.5 million — in that time they’ve expanded to Africa, the United States and the UK, and I expect that they are in a position where they will be self-sustaining, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to expand overseas in the way they have.”

Jaspan claimed that the target date “was never achievable and The Conversation told the government that last year.” He put viability forward to at least 2017. He professed to be baffled why the conservative government was declining to fund green/left academics to undermine the conservative government on issues ranging from asylum-seeker policy to Muslim terror and continuance of coal mining.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Clinton Foundation Colombia Scam By Daniel John Sobieski

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

That the Clinton Foundation’s operations are nothing but a cash cow scam is seen in a brilliant analysis and exposé of its operations in Colombia, a country beset by internal strife and an ongoing battle with drug cartels. The truth, as reported by Ken Silverman and the American Media Institute in Fusion, a joint venture of ABC and Univision, hardly Trump surrogates, explains in part how the Clintons amassed a small fortune without holding any job or running any business:

Colombia should be the Clinton Foundation’s best case study. Ground zero for the drug wars of the 1980s and 90s, racked by uneven development and low-intensity conflict for half a century, Colombia has received more foundation money and attention than any other nation outside the United States. Bill and Hillary Clinton have visited the country often and enjoy close relationships with members of Colombia’s ruling party. Colombia has also been home to the vast oil and natural gas holdings of the man who is reportedly the Clinton Foundation’s largest individual donor, Canadian financier Frank Giustra….

Many of the Colombian “success stories” touted on the foundation’s website — the ones specific enough for us to track down — were critical about the foundation’s effect on their lives. Labor leaders and progressive activists say foundation programs caused environmental harm, displaced indigenous people, and that it concentrated a larger share of Colombia’s oil and natural gas reserves in the hands of Giustra…

We interviewed young women in the foundation’s job-training programs; female business owners who sought help from its programs; workers who toiled for the foundation’s biggest individual donor’s firms; indigenous fisherman who were promised jobs and aid; and union leaders, social-justice activists, and progressive lawmakers. Some say they lost money. Others said they were used as props. Still others simply thought that the foundation had wasted a lot of their time. “They are doing nothing for workers,” one Colombian union official told us, with disgust. “I don’t even know what they are doing in this country other than exploiting poverty and extracting money.”

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

‘Don’t Be a Puppet!’ By Henry Percy

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Hey, kids! Thinking about becoming a “violent extremist”? Don’t Be a Puppet! (Wall Street Journal article here.)

Seriously – the FBI has created a website, complete with state-of-the-art graphics from about 25 years ago, to keep our youth from becoming “radicalized.” And no, the name of the site is not an oblique admonishment to Director James Comey. This is serious business.

The home screen shows a man-cave featuring a Snap-On tool chest, computers, and papers lying all about – those extremists sure are messy. Maybe the feds could use this as a teachable moment to promote kaizen and 5S.

For the kids who are toying with “radicalization,” “a symbol can build pride or create a positive emotional connection. Symbols can also be used to create fear and to control people. Violent extremists have used various symbols over the years to fuel feelings of revenge and hatred.” Need an example? Well here’s Old Glory. Not the sword and crescent, or even the hammer and sickle, but the American flag.

The section “Who Do Violent Extremists Affect?” features four videos: Boston Marathon Bombing, Attacks of 9/11, Hate Crime Survivor, and Oklahoma City Bombing. These must all be about equivalent, yes? Consider Hate Crime Survivor Nina Timani, “a Muslim Arab American and mother of two,” who received a threatening letter. Don’t worry – nothing happened to her, because the FBI caught the person who sent the letter, but she’s still a survivor, just like the families of the other victims. Yep, I’d say that’s just as horrific a crime as the other three. See, Arab-Americans are victims, too.

We learn that “violent extremists” have attacked in several places, including the Pentagon, where 189 people were killed on 9/11. But “the Pentagon was also bombed by domestic extremists in 1972, causing flooding in the building.” Oh, 189 dead vs. flooding. Seems equivalent to me.

And don’t forget Vail, Colo., where “environmental extremists torched and virtually destroyed a ski resort.” Or 1954, when Puerto Rican extremists attacked Congress. See? “Violent extremists” come in all shapes and sizes.

So what can cause this mysterious affliction?

Social Alienation (“Consider healthy ways you can connect with others.”)
Anxiety (“Teens can be stressed by problems at home, grades, peer pressure, bullying, and other issues.”)
Frustration (“It’s natural to feel frustrated or angry when you are treated unfairly or rejected by others.”)
Painful Experiences (“Painful experiences – including physical or emotional abuse, a romantic breakup, or the loss of a loved one – can upset a person and lead to lifelong challenges.”)

I was frustrated last week when my hard disk crashed. Recovery was a painful experience. Should I be put on the FBI’s watch list?

“Conflict Resolution Tips” has advice for dealing with these issues: “Keep your voice calm. Never yell or scream,” and so on. “Where to Get Help” even has a link to www.stopbullying.gov. The FBI as therapist to our victimized, therapeutic culture. How the Federal Bureau of Investigation has fallen from the heady days when it chased the likes of Al Capone and John Dillinger.

“How Do Violent Extremists Make Contact?” The answer will blow you away:

Internet
Cell phone
Flyer

I kid you not. Must be straight from Director Comey’s desk, ’cause he’s a real straight shooter, children, and he’d never lead you astray. Director Comey says in a video, “We created this website to talk about violent extremism.” At least the Wall Street Journal quotes the video, but I cannot find it. Maybe the director had it taken down, embarrassed by what it says about his time management. After all, he was too busy to go to Hillary’s interview but found the time to make a video for this puerile website.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Clinton Foundation Colombia Scam By Daniel John Sobieski

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

That the Clinton Foundation’s operations are nothing but a cash cow scam is seen in a brilliant analysis and exposé of its operations in Colombia, a country beset by internal strife and an ongoing battle with drug cartels. The truth, as reported by Ken Silverman and the American Media Institute in Fusion, a joint venture of ABC and Univision, hardly Trump surrogates, explains in part how the Clintons amassed a small fortune without holding any job or running any business:

Colombia should be the Clinton Foundation’s best case study. Ground zero for the drug wars of the 1980s and 90s, racked by uneven development and low-intensity conflict for half a century, Colombia has received more foundation money and attention than any other nation outside the United States. Bill and Hillary Clinton have visited the country often and enjoy close relationships with members of Colombia’s ruling party. Colombia has also been home to the vast oil and natural gas holdings of the man who is reportedly the Clinton Foundation’s largest individual donor, Canadian financier Frank Giustra….

Many of the Colombian “success stories” touted on the foundation’s website — the ones specific enough for us to track down — were critical about the foundation’s effect on their lives. Labor leaders and progressive activists say foundation programs caused environmental harm, displaced indigenous people, and that it concentrated a larger share of Colombia’s oil and natural gas reserves in the hands of Giustra…

We interviewed young women in the foundation’s job-training programs; female business owners who sought help from its programs; workers who toiled for the foundation’s biggest individual donor’s firms; indigenous fisherman who were promised jobs and aid; and union leaders, social-justice activists, and progressive lawmakers. Some say they lost money. Others said they were used as props. Still others simply thought that the foundation had wasted a lot of their time. “They are doing nothing for workers,” one Colombian union official told us, with disgust. “I don’t even know what they are doing in this country other than exploiting poverty and extracting money.”

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

California Man Sentenced to 30 Years for Conspiring to Support Islamic State Anaheim resident was convicted in connection with helping co-defendant get to Syria By John R. Emshwiller

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man convicted of conspiring to provide support to the terrorist organization Islamic State was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif.

Muhanad Badawi, a 26-year-old resident of Anaheim, in Orange County, was convicted in connection with his efforts to help his co-defendant in the criminal case, 26-year-old Nader Salem Elhuzayel, get to Syria to fight for Islamic State, also known as ISIL.

In September, Mr. Elhuzayel was sentenced to 30 years in prison by U.S. District Judge David Carter, who also handed down Mr. Badawi’s sentence.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which prosecuted the two men, had recommended a 30-year sentence for Mr. Badawi. Through words and action, Mr. Badawi “demonstrated his deep commitment to the ISIL ideology and his corresponding antagonism to the fundamental values of the U.S.,” said one government court filing.

“Badawi and Elhuzayel wanted to fight for ISIL, desired to become so-called martyrs and supported ISIL’s terrorist activities. Prosecutions such as this are critically important to our national security,” Eileen M. Decker, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Mr. Badawi’s attorneys had recommended a sentence of no more than 15 years. Such a sentence “achieves the goals of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. A greater sentence does not achieve a greater level of justice,” said a defense court filing.

At a hearing Monday, Judge Carter had raised the possibility of assigning Mr. Badawi to a program aimed at “de-radicalizing” individuals who have become followers of terrorist groups. A federal judge in Minnesota has been exploring the use of such a program for defendants facing terrorism-related charges.

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Warning: This Article Is Educational YouTube thinks Dennis Prager’s videos may be dangerous.

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Tech giants like Google and Facebook always deny that their platforms favor some viewpoints over others, but then they don’t do much to avoid looking censorious. This week a conservative radio host and author is wondering why YouTube classifies his educational web clips as “potentially objectionable” material.

Dennis Prager’s “PragerU” puts out free short videos on subjects “important to understanding American values”—ranging from the high cost of higher education to the motivations of Islamic State. The channel has more than 130 million views, and the spots tend to include an expert guest and background animation. As you might guess, the mini-seminars do not include violence or sexual content.

But more than 15 videos are “restricted” on YouTube, a development PragerU announced this month. This means the clips don’t show up for those who have turned on filtering—say, a parent shielding their children from explicit videos. A YouTube spokesperson told us that the setting is optional and “based on algorithms that look at a number of factors, including community flagging on videos.” Yet it’s easy to imagine a flood of users reporting a political video—microagressed college students have a lot of free time—and limiting a viewpoint’s audience.

Here are some of the topics that are apparently too sensitive to learn about and discuss freely: Did Bush Lie About Iraq?; Israel’s Legal Founding; Why Did America Fight the Korean War?; Why Don’t Feminists Fight for Muslim Women? PragerU started a petition calling for YouTube to remove the restriction, and more than 66,000 people have signed.

YouTube is free to set its own standards, but the company is undercutting its claim to be a platform for “free expression.” If anyone there would like to brush up on the concept, Mr. Prager has a video about it.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump vs. Trump vs. Clinton He held his own on the issues, but his ego keeps getting in the way.

Posted By on October 20th, 2016

Donald Trump’s best chance to be President has always been to make the campaign about something larger than himself—reviving the economy, replacing Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, defeating Islamic State, something to make the case for change to a country unhappy with the status quo. In Wednesday’s debate Mr. Trump showed what might have been had he fought more on the issues, even as he also exposed his Achilles’ heel of a thin skin and petulant ego.

Mr. Trump is never going to out-argue Hillary Clinton on details, but for much of the debate he was able to draw a contrast on philosophical direction that is his best chance to close his polling deficit. He was effective on the Supreme Court and the right to bear arms, as well as embracing the original meaning of the Constitution.

Mrs. Clinton tried to muddy her opposition to the landmark Heller case that upheld an individual right to bear arms in the Constitution, but Mr. Trump nailed her on it. She certainly would appoint Justices who will sharply curtail if not overturn Heller.

The Republican also managed to convey the large differences between the two candidates on the economy. He’d cut taxes, she’d raise them. He’d replace ObamaCare, she’d expand it. He wants to grow incomes with a stronger economy, she wants to redistribute income. Her claim that her plan would “not add a penny to the debt” was preposterous.

We think Mr. Trump is wrong on trade and his assertions on Nafta are nonsense, but he did manage to show Mrs. Clinton’s double dealing on the issue. Mrs. Clinton said she opposed the Pacific trade agreement only after she had read the text, but the WikiLeaks documents show that she had already decided to oppose it for political reasons before it was completed.

Mrs. Clinton also ducked moderator Chris Wallace’s question on the Clinton Foundation and its “pay to play” acceptance of donations from foreigners while she was Secretary of State. Mr. Trump was right to hit her and her husband for claiming to do so much for Haiti when they have mainly helped their friends to favorable contracts.

The question is whether any of this will matter given Mr. Trump’s manifest flaws in temperament. The Clinton campaign must have done some psychological profiling of Mr. Trump to figure out that his great flaw is his inability to ignore or deflect personal criticism. His GOP opponents made the mistake of trying to take him down on substance. But Mrs. Clinton has tried to disqualify him on character, and Wednesday she continued to set one bear trap after another. Mr. Trump usually walked in.