The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Google has reportedly launched an “antiracism” initiative that claims American capitalism is “white supremacist.”
Only a racist would equate capitalism–economic freedom–with white supremacy. Because when you claim that some races can flourish under economic freedom while some races cannot, you are in fact being racist. It takes an individualist–the total opposite of a racist–to embrace meritocracy and dispense with all concerns about race.
Today’s real racists are those fixated on race, the pompous and self-described progressives. They project their own racism onto people who cherish freedom and liberty. In the process, they are bringing down all freedom and ushering in a world where people of all races will suffer from stagnation, poverty and despair. It’s so utterly irrational, so wrong and so tragically unnecessary.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò describes the globalist “Great Reset,” devised by Davos billionaires and powerful politicians, as the work of Satan and “Luciferian Globalists.” Protestant American believers warn that “America is writhing in the grip of a full-scale Marxist political and cultural revolution.” Some conclude that the two movements are deeply related. As responsible citizens, Christians must certainly consider what role the church should play in seeking to hold back the progress of godless political power in their own nation.
It may seem unduly sensationalist to describe progressive current politics as Marxist, but wisdom dictates that we think seriously about how the future could pan out. Slow changes can suddenly speed up, causing us to regret not having seen a movement coming. As Mark Bauerlein, professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things, states: “One moment you’re a citizen of a well-running republic. The next moment you see that the federal government seems unable to fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”
I continue to be motivated by the serious, yet delicate, challenge of showing believers how their faith and gospel witness must be applied to this changing culture, just as Moses warned Israel when going into Canaan. He warned them to be aware of the dangers of living among people who worship false gods, citing the Lord’s judgment: They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols (Deut 32:21).
When I arrived in America for the first time in 1964, as a naive young European, I was struck at both how “Christian” and how anti-Communist America was. Now recent arrivals from China, like Lily Tang-Williams, and from North Korea, like the youthful and brilliant Yeonomi Park, warn that they see much in America that reminds them of the horrendous cultures they left behind. Ms. Park recently studied at Columbia University and was shocked to see that the Marxist ideology she was taught in North Korea was now being taught in every class at this well-respected American school. As I study Critical Race Theory and the antiracism movements of the day, I realize how ideologically Marxist these movements are; yet they are spreading throughout the culture with relative ease and increasing power—even in the country’s churches. These movements are successfully dividing American culture down the middle, in typical Marxist fashion!
Let’s be clear. The Marxist grab for social power has always sought to divide culture into antagonist segments: the oppressors and the oppressed. In Russia the divide was created between the bourgeois oppressors (land and business owners) and the proletariat oppressed (workers). In China the division was made between the “Black” (professionals) and the “Red” (under-class ) Chinese, whom Mao convinced to murder millions of fellow “Black” Chinese. In Cambodia the divide was between the intellectuals (which included anyone wearing glasses – true!) and the agricultural workers, who were roused by the Khmer Rouge and their cruel leader, Pol Pot, to murder nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population. In our time, Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory divides Western culture into the oppressors (Whites) and the oppressed (Blacks and other minorities). Some leaders of this movement have clearly stated Marxist goals.
This is not new. According to a first-hand witness, black American Manning Johnson, in his book Color, Communism and Common Sense (1958), describes a vast attempt by Soviet and American communists in 1934–35 to undermine faith in American institutions through a program that would convince the general public that America is deeply racist. Mr. Johnson signed up for this revolutionary program. The goal was to create “a common front against the white oppressors.” Johnson documents that the plot to use “Negroes as the [expendable] spearhead” of the undermining of America was created by Stalin in 1928, ten years after the creation of the Commintern (the World Organization of Communism). This was employed by “the top white communist leaders” hypocritically playing the idea of racial conflict in “a cold-blooded struggle for power” to “advance the cause of Communism” in America. The goal was “to make the white man’s system, the white man’s government, responsible for everything.” He noted: “Smear is a cardinal technique,” seeking to “divide America” that can only be called “a propaganda hoax.” “Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.” Apparently, the movement had little time for black people. Marx dismissed the black race as much closer to the animal kingdom. Finally understanding his role as a pawn, Manning abandoned the program.
As Black Lives Matter (ironically awarded the Nobel Peace prize of 2021) ultimately shows, the controversy over racism is not so much an attempt at purging real racism as it is a Marxist-driven attempt to divide our culture between the oppressed Blacks and their White oppressors, in order to overthrow civilized Judeo-Christian American culture. The accusation that police brutality is causing black genocide has been shown to be false, but BLM’s self-definition as emerging from Marxism is certain. Using racism as its cover story, Marxism pushes forward with its goal to divide America and to cause a revolution that will “upset the set-up!” An anonymous first-hand ex-participant in BLM (like Manning Johnson, years earlier) states: “I have seen this [racist] ideology up close and seen how it consumes and even destroys people, while dehumanizing anyone who dissents.” In other words, BLM’s Marxism is an essential part of the neo-Marxist revival that seeks to bring an end to traditional Western civilization by the age-old technique of antagonistic cultural division.
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracism Research was recently given a $10 million “no strings attached” grant by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. This is a clear example of “woke capitalism,” by which Dorsey uses his financial power to promote his vision of social justice while silencing opposing views on his Twitter platform, thereby undermining the democratic process. This money will help create a U. S. Department of Antiracism, with the power to overturn any law or policy at any level of government if the department determines that such policies do not contribute vigorously enough to antiracist theory. With the subjective notion of “equity” as the defining term, such a branch of government could, by fiat, redefine public morality. Fallible, omnipotent, moral busybodies will apply inscrutable rules to everyone except themselves. Nothing could be more Marxist! Ironically, Kendi, richly supported by successful businessmen and profiting hugely from the free market system, has announced that he opposes capitalism and free enterprise: “To love racism,” he states, “is to end up loving capitalism.” Equity now determines action, and we will define what it is.
Professor Bauerlein understands precisely where we now are.
It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”
Stalin had many of his dissenting colleagues shot through the head. With cancel culture, it is now, as Bauerlein perceptively observes: “No conservatives, no problem.”
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, and a careful social analyst, says, reflecting on Norway’s recent law declaring illegal speech against transgenderism, even at home: “Free speech in the United States these days is becoming described as a danger that needs to be controlled as opposed to a traditional value that defines this country as a democracy.… [F]ree speech…is under fire and may even be a minority view today.” He refers to President Biden who selected Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. “Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls, a person who rejects the very essence of free speech. He promises the “unity” of a nation silenced by government speech codes and censorship.” He is one of those who knows what equity is.
If this is true, we may be increasingly close to the situation of the German church in the 1930s. It watched the political rise of Hitler and the promotion of NAZI ideology. Individual Catholics and Protestants spoke out, but the church made no public opposition to antisemitism or to state-sanctioned violence against the Jews. After 1945, the silence and even complicity of the church during the Holocaust produced major issues of guilt and recrimination. We may ask, without any sense of superiority: What should the German church have done to stop the slaughter of 6 million Jews, a bloodbath going on right under its nose?
Now is the time to ask what our Christian response must be to a dangerous political program that seeks to the divide culture and may well end up in far more physical violence than we have yet seen. May God grant us wisdom to face such a possible cultural future, not in order to produce a “Christian nation” but out of respect for God and for those made in his image. Yet while we live in this fallen world, we must also defend biblical principles of sound living, and of fair and polite discussion. We have the blessing of a First Amendment, which we would do well to defend. We must also defend the rule of law, any policy that promotes the nobility of the individual, normative male/female distinctions, and defense of the pre-born.
Clearly, truth must speak to power, whatever response it receives—even if it is a violent one. We must preach the gospel fervently both to the oppressors and the oppressed, for we all share a world temporarily under the oppression of the Evil one. We have true peace with God only through the suffering, sacrifice, death and resurrection of our coming King. We must make known the truth about God, the good Creator, whose common grace is extended to everyone and whose special grace is shown to all who will hear and respond to the saving death of his Son, which will produce the redemption of the entire creation (Romans 8:18–21), for God’s final glory—and for perfect, divinely defined, equity.
Loyalty is a rarity. Why? Because integrity is a rarity. And loyalty depends on integrity.
The deeper issue: Most people are not true to their values; they’re not true to themselves. Most people, in my experience, don’t know what their values even are. Because they don’t know, they tend to look to others for guidance. They look to dominant family members, to dominant people in the culture, to church, to other organizations, or even to the government.
They want others to tell them what to do, even though they rarely listen to those directives. They are rudderless.
They don’t know what they think. So they let others do their thinking for them. This all gets in the way of loyalty. You can’t be loyal to a friend or a loved one — not consistently — if you don’t know what YOU believe in, what YOU think, what YOU know, and why.
That’s why so many friends and other loved ones betray each other, disappoint each other or even turn on each other. They’re too busy trying to look the way they think they’re supposed to look, in the eyes of others. Thirty-three years of being a therapist has taught me just how deeply and how often people betray each other.
The most trustworthy person you can find is a person of unbreached integrity, or unbreached self-esteem. I know your response: We’re told this is impossible, unrealistic and perfectionistic. Notice that it’s the disloyal, untrustworthy types usually saying that integrity isn’t possible. But trustworthy people are out there. You’re the only person with yourself 24/7. You know how true you are to what you believe, or whether you even believe or think anything at all.
The most important thing is to distance yourself from and reject people who don’t display loyalty and integrity. You are better off alone, or with a good book, or with a loyal pet than in personal relations with people who don’t have strong selves. When you engage in personal relationships with people who are disloyal and toxic, you bring yourself down. They don’t add to your life; they take away from it. You become like them. Don’t spend time on anyone who doesn’t add to your life, in some important way.
It’s not accurate to say, “Disloyal people are selfish. If they were more selfless, you could trust them.” The exact opposite is true. The least trustworthy people are the people with no sense of self. They have no principles, they have no standards, and they betray themselves every moment of the day. If they routinely betray themselves, how can you expect them never to betray you?
Joe Biden should not be allowed to resign to escape punishment for he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. He must be impeached.
Even American allies agree.
In the British Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, MP and decorated former British officer who fought in Afghanistan, said, “This week has torn open old wounds. We have demonstrated that we, the West, abandoned our allies.” Hinting at Biden, he added, “We cannot rely on a single leader.”
Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of UK Forces in Afghanistan alongside local Afghan forces, insists that Biden, as Commander in Chief, should be court-marshaled, the military version of an indictment.
Add treason to the charges of a necessary impeachment.
Biden threatened, in the depth of his self-induced chaos, “Any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with a swift and forceful response.”
When his warning was answered with a suicide bombing outside the gates of the airport that left 13 US servicemen and women, and an estimated 170 Afghanis, dead, plus tens of other American soldiers badly maimed, Biden abandoned his commitment to remain until every American in Afghanistan was home.
Instead, he cut and ran, keeping to a self-imposed arbitrary deadline. The American President deserted his countrymen and women, leaving them to their fate in enemy territory.
The death of those outside the Kabul Airport’s perimeter was preventable. The Taliban had offered America full control over Kabul until August 31. Biden refused. This negligent act gave Kabul to the Taliban and, with it, full control of the city including all the access roads to the perimeter fence of the commercial airport.
As Commander in Chief, Biden is solely responsible for this asinine decision and everything that resulted from it.
Biden claims his military commanders told him to abandon Bagram Airport. General Mark Milley denied this, stating from the Pentagon that his instructions were to protect the US Embassy in Kabul and control the capital airport for imminent troop withdrawal. The limited forces at his disposal did not allow him to protect the embassy, the airport, and Bagram.
Biden said nobody predicted the chaos. Not true. A State Department memo in mid-July warned of Kabul’s collapse. Additionally, the transcript of Biden’s conversation with Afghan President Ghani shows Ghani warning Biden that Afghanistan’s collapse was imminent collapse if US forces made a hurried, unconditional exit.
Biden told the American people and the world that Kabul and its airport were safe, and Americans and their allies would be protected. In the end, none of that was true.
On August 18, Biden appeared on the “Good Morning America” TV show and said, in a clear voice, “If there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay and get them all out.”
That was another lie.
Any doubts that the Biden Administration had utterly deserted Americans were removed when Ron Klain, Biden’s White House Chief of Staff, said on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ program in early September that the administration was “hopeful” that Americans may be able to get seats on departing Qatari flights out of Kabul. “We’re obviously going to look to see if Americans can be part of those flights.”
Now, trapped Americans must depend on other countries such as Qatar, to get them out of Afghanistan. That is unless the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS, don’t get to them first. After all, the Biden State Department, led by the feckless Anthony Blinken, admits giving the Taliban the biometric details of all Americans and their allies left behind in the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
On TV, Blinken begged the Taliban to accept his ransom money and allow Americans to leave. He knows they are in danger. On August 31, this was the travel advisory that Blinken’s State Department gave to trapped American citizens: “Make contingency plans to leave when it is safe to do so that do not rely on US government assistance.”
This is the ultimate US Government betrayal of American citizens abroad. This is treason by the Commander in Chief who once admitted that the buck stops with him.
Instead of taking responsibility, Biden became a Taliban spokesman when he spoke to the nation on August 31, the last day, saying, “The Taliban made a public commitment broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave including those who worked alongside Americans.”
That was a lie. We already know some of the things the Taliban is doing.
Human Rights Watch reported that the Taliban had taken 44 people from their homes in the towns of Spin Boldak, Kandahar, and executed them. All 44 had received amnesty from the Taliban. How many others have been exposed and murdered?
The most sacred American promise is to leave no one behind. Biden broke that oath and that is the ultimate reason to impeach, indict, and sentence him.
Biden must also be impeached for threatening American national security.
Former Defense Secretary under President Obama, Leon Panetta, said “There is no question that our national security has been threatened by what has happened. Afghanistan will become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, ISIS and for other terrorists to be able to reorganize and strengthen themselves again and potentially use Afghanistan as a base for attacking not just the United States but other countries as well.”
As Steve Hilton said on his ‘Next Revolution’ program, “Biden has betrayed his allies, broken his sacred trust, brought shame and humiliation on the presidency and on America. But our contempt for this despicable man is not enough. He must be held accountable. Biden must be impeached.”
If impeached, Biden can bring evidence implicating others, Generals Milley and Austin in particular.
Perhaps in a Special Counsel investigation, we’ll learn that Susan Rice and her West Exec Advisor executives, Anthony Blinken and Avril Haines dictated Biden’s decisions. They were intimately involved in the Benghazi disaster when an ambassador was brutally murdered and his security team members killed.
Finally, if it was legitimate to impeach President Trump over a phone call to the Ukrainian President, it is equally legitimate to impeach President Biden over his phone call to President Ghani in which, according to the official transcript, Biden pressured Ghani to lie about the dangerous circumstances that Afghan was in at the time of his July call. That was a clearly impeachable offense.
There are increasing calls for a 9/11-type Commission on the Afghan withdrawal. This may precede a formal Special Counsel investigation but, whether impeachment comes first or later, the Commander in Chief should step down pending the outcome of such a tribunal.
Biden has left the world more dangerous, which is not an American-only issue. America’s allies demand legal clarity as a prelude to effective action preventing Afghanistan from exploding in our capitals and America’s major cities.
The man who didn’t want to target Osama Bin Laden in 2011 sacrificed US soldiers in 2021. Biden surrendered Americans and an air force base with $83B of the finest military equipment to the terrorists who protected Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the ones who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001.
The next generation of jihadi terrorists may now be in America, rushed there on planes that should have carried the American citizens who were frantically waving their passports through the closed gates of Kabul Airport, with the State Department ordering we ignore them. Unverified single, Afghan men took their places.
It is vital that we act against Biden now and get the truth before the next 9/11.
Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
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The murderers at West Chester Hospital in Cincinnati would rather patients die than to treat them with Ivermectin. This is how crazed and brainwashed the Medical establishment is. A judge had to intervene to force the hospital to give Ivermectin treatment to a dying patient. In America to get competent medical treatment requires wining a court case.
The corrupt public health authorities protecting Big Pharma profits use the excuse that people desperate for Ivermectin but unable to get Ivermectin for humans are harming themselves by taking large doses in formulations for animals. This, of course, is not a justification for banning the use of doses formulated for people.
Ivermectin Suppressed Covid in Africa where it is used against River Blindness
In an earlier article I pointed out that in malaria-infested countries where the population has traditionally taken HCQ weekly to ward off infection, Covid cases are rare as HCQ is also a covid preventative and cure.
Now evidence arises from Japanese researchers that in countries in Africa where Onchocerciasis or River Blindness is endemic, Ivermectin is distributed to the population to prevent or cure infection. In these countries, there is practically no Covid.
Researchers divided Africa between countries that have Ivermectin programs for control of River Blindness and those that don’t. The countries without Ivermectin programs had 4.3 times more cases and 5.7 times more Covid deaths despite having a 220,000,000 smaller population.
The study concludes:
“Conclusions: The morbidity and mortality in the onchocerciasis [River Blindness] endemic countries are lesser than those in the non-endemic ones. The community-directed onchocerciasis treatment with ivermectin is the most reasonable explanation for the decrease in morbidity and fatality rate in Africa. In areas where ivermectin is distributed to and used by the entire population, it leads to a significant reduction in mortality. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254377v1.full.pdf
In view of these hard facts, it is not only dishonest but also intentional murder when medical authorities and presstitutes assert that HCQ and Ivermectin are unsafe, untested, and recommend against, and actively prevent, their use to control Covid.
Both HCQ and Ivermectin have been in wide use for decades and are so safe that in most countries they are available as over-the-counter purchases with no prescription required.
The evidence is overwhelming that the mRNA “vaccines” do not protect, produce harmful side effects including death, and spread the virus. Therefore, the only reason to give booster shots is to worsen and spread the infection. In every country that has a majority of its population vaccinated, the vast majority of the new Covid cases are among the vaccinated. How can more vaccination be the solution? Is it really possible that public health officials, doctors, and hospital administrators are so brainwashed that they are incapable of thought? How can they be blind to the clear overwhelming evidence that the Covid vaccination program is a health catastrophe?
The medical authorities and presstitutes know the facts. Why do they suppress them?
Why do they lie and falsely assert that the new covid cases are a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” when the most vaccinated countries have the most new cases and most of the new cases are vaccinated people? This cannot be a mere mistake on the part of medical authorities and the media. If the vaccine provides immunity why are booster shots needed every few months as Fauci now declares? Each round of booster shots produces new variants immune to vaccines. This is a policy for pharmaceutical profits and mass sickness and death.
Yet this is what our own government and medical system are doing to us.
I find the audacity of the intentional lie to be extraordinary as the available information makes the lie completely transparent. Those who are murdering people with their lies show no shame!
The indefatigable Dr. Fauci now says at least three vaccinations will be needed, in order for the so-called COVID vaccine to be complete.
Seriously? We know there will be no end to these vaccines. Not until viruses are eradicated.
Imagine if your own personal doctor told you, “Take this vaccine. It will keep you from getting COVID.” Then you get COVID anyway. Then the same doctor says, “Wear masks. And take a third dose of the vaccine.” You’re warned that additional doses may be necessary. And then, “The problem is that everyone didn’t get the vaccine. It can’t work unless everyone gets it.” After all these measures, you’re no better off than before, medically. Mentally and economically, you’re far worse off. All because you followed this doctor’s advice, which changes by the hour and usually self-contradicts.
Would you trust this doctor? Would you have any respect for him? Would you fire him or keep him? The answer seems obvious. So then why in the hell do so many keep listening to Fauci?
Professional offended guy (it seems to be his full-time job) Rex Chapman took to Twitter on Friday night to voice his outrage over the large crowd at the Virginia Tech-North Carolina game, calling it the “COVID-Bowl.” [Breitbart]
Leftists cannot stand the fact that somebody, somewhere is happy or having fun. Even for a moment. Virtue-signaling mask fascists are miserable, nasty sycophants who wish to bring the reasonable, the happy and the potentially happy down with them into their world of misery. Of course, as they seek to intimidate, mandate and enslave the rest of us, they do whatever the hell THEY want.
