Conservatives are rightly vexed by “woke capitalism,” exasperated at the ways in which big American corporations are increasingly weighing in on sociopolitical issues—invariably, it seems, in favor of the progressive left. Certainly, many businesses are under pressure to do so.
Sometimes that pressure is open and public. Indeed, it can make national news. But other times it is less so. Many Americans are likely unaware of the coordinated campaigns by shareholder activists—equity owners in a corporation interested in something other than financial gain—to insert their political priorities into those same corporate boardrooms through environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder proposals.
In hisrecent and timely bookThe Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business, Stephen R. Soukup calls shareholder proposals “the primary tool of the corporate activist”—and for good reason. Any shareholder, provided they meet certain requirements, may submit proposals to corporate management to be voted on by other shareholders at the company’s annual meeting. These are typically written in the form of a request or recommendation. Large institutional investors (index funds, public pensions, etc.) hold outsized voting power, andmany relyon third-party advisory services for recommendations on how they should vote.
Activists, keen on influencing powerful companies to adopt their sociopolitical priorities, buy shares in corporations simply to file proposals that further those priorities. Importantly, the objective isn’t always necessarily to win a majority vote. Proposals that fail, yet still receive substantial or increased support, signal momentum on a particular ESG issue and put pressure on management. Sometimes a company will elect to negotiate on a proposal beforehand to preempt such a vote.
The 2021 Proxy Preview
The 2021 proxy season—the period during which many corporations hold their annual meetings—is in full swing, and nowhere is the extent of ESG shareholder activism more apparent than in theProxy Preview 2021report (available fromPoliticohere). Considered the “Bible for socially progressive foundations, religious groups, pension funds, and tax-exempt organizations,” it details hundreds of ESG proposals filed for this year’s proxy season, with proposal statuses current as of mid-February.
The report also provides a useful overview of the people and organizations most heavily involved in progressive ESG shareholder activism. Dozens of proponents—nonprofits, labor unions, asset managers, and others—submitted proposals, many of which were in turn coordinated or otherwise supported by additional groups. The report singles out theAmerican Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees(a labor union) and four nonprofits—theInterfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility,Ceres, theCenter for Political Accountability, and the Investor Environmental Health Network (a program of Clean Production Action)—for particular acknowledgment.
One group that produced Proxy Preview 2021 was also the report’s most prolific proposal proponent: a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called As You Sow. It is probably the most well-known shareholder activist nonprofit in the country. According to a tracker on its website, as of mid-April it had filed 76 ESG resolutions with 65 public companies for 2021.
The Proxy Preview report breaks down proposals into each of the three ESG categories, along with numerous subcategories, and these provide a comprehensive elucidation of woke capitalism’s vision for corporate America. Just two of the report’s 92 pages are given over to 23 “conservative” proposals—an illustration of just how ideologically one-sided the world of ESG shareholder activism is. Most conservative proposals came from the National Center for Public Policy Research and itsFree Enterprise Project, headed by Justin Danhof, a prominent national expert on the issue.
Although readers are encouraged to browse thereportfor themselves, a brief sampling of proposals gives a good sense of what America’s public companies have been facing from ESG shareholders this year.
Environmental Proposals
Dozens of proposals were filed on climate change—the dominant environmental issue—and the report notes that the 501(c)(3) nonprofitCeres“coordinates nearly all these proposals.” At least 18 companies—including CarMax, United Parcel Service (UPS), and Domino’s Pizza—received proposals seeking a report on how each intends to reduce its “contribution to climate change and align its operations” with the Paris Agreement. Major energy producers like Chevron, Phillips 66, and ConocoPhillips were targeted by proposals on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The “biggest new development on climate change,” the report notes, is a campaign calledSay on Climate, which is an initiative supported by billionaire British hedge fund manager Chris Hohn’sChildren’s Investment Fund Foundation. It campaigns for companies to issue net-zero emissions transition plans and then submit those plans to annual shareholder review. It is an international campaign, and the U.S. effort is being spearheaded by As You Sow, whichplansto file hundreds of resolutions with public companies unless they “voluntarily adopt the initiative.”
Social Proposals
Social proposals cover a variety of different issues, but those related to race and diversity are perhaps theclearest themeof 2021. The Proxy Preview notes that the Black Lives Matter movement prompted diversity proposals to double from 2020. Some—like thosesubmittedby New York City’s public pension funds—focus on getting companies to publicly disclose employee diversity data, while othersgo furtherand “demand proof of effective diversity and inclusion programs.”
TheService Employees International Union(SEIU) and theChange to Winlabor federation (of which SEIU is a member) filed proposals at eight large financial institutionsseekinga “racial equity audit,” and similar proposals were filed at other companies. NorthStar Asset Management submitted aproposalto PayPal encouraging an assessment of (among other things) whether the company fosters a “cultural hierarchy through perceived pressure to use ‘whitened’ names . . . [or] to adopt ‘white-centric’ physical appearance standards.”
TheNathan Cummings Foundation—a $450 million private foundation—zeroed in on police support. Specifically, it submitted aproposalto Target Corporation arguing that the company’s support for local police could “adversely affect shareholder value.” Indeed,according tothe foundation, the mere fact that “Target continues its partnerships with law enforcement,” including “charitable giving to police foundations across the country,” provides “both legitimacy and funding for practices that can exacerbate racial inequity.”
Corporate Governance Proposals
Diversity also plays a role in corporate governance proposals, with approximately 30 resolutions typically asking companies either to adopt a diversity policy for their board of directors or to produce a report detailing how they will increase board diversity. To be sure, a diverse board can be an asset to a corporation, but critically these proposals appear to limit the definition of “diversity” to only gender and racial/ethnic categories. This excludes the myriad other measures of human diversity (age, personal or professional background, life experience, political ideology, etc.) that likely provide more real value to board composition than superficial characteristics like skin color alone.
Finally, and in what is perhaps a glimpse of American capitalism’s ultimate destination as envisioned by ESG activists, a whole class of proposalssupportedby a nonprofit called the Shareholder Commons seeks to have companies like BlackRock, Caterpillar, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon legally recast themselves as public benefit corporations. Doing sowould allowthem to prioritize the interests of other “stakeholders” over the interests of their own shareholders, “even when it means surrendering total financial return at an individual company.” This is woke capitalism at its logical terminus: shareholders submitting proposals against those shareholders’ own financial interests.
The Conservative Path Forward
Recentpollingby Scott Rasmussen suggests a majority of Americans oppose companies taking positions on political issues. Frustrated that many are nevertheless doing so, however, some conservatives have called for boycotting the offending company’s products or services, or otherwise trying to punish them through disengagement. While the frustration is understandable—and vocally dissatisfied customers can certainly be effective—such actions in isolation may well be counterproductive over the long term.
Instead, asDanhofandothershave prominently argued, conservatives should prioritize engaging directly with companies that have drifted inappropriately and unnecessarily into politics. Shareholder votes are one avenue through which this can be done. The lopsided ideological breakdown of the Proxy Preview’s catalog of proposals—where conservative ones amounted to all of 5 percent of the total—suggests that the progressive Left has certainly embraced this approach. If the recent and varied eruptions of woke capitalism are any indication, that strategy is paying off.
Robert Stilsonis a research specialist at Capital Research Center.
“I’m not here to pick a fight with anyone, just to walk you through some of what I’ve read, my lingering questions and explain why I can’t make sense of these COVID vaccines.”
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A few friends have asked my thoughts on the COVID jab(s) so I thought it was time to write an article on the topic.
Knowing how contentious this issue is, part of me would rather just write about something else. But I believe the discussion/news is so one-sided that I should speak up.
As I always strive to do, I promise to do my best to be level-headed and non-hysterical.
I’m not here to pick a fight with anyone, just to walk you through some of what I’ve read, my lingering questions and explain why I can’t make sense of theseCOVID vaccines.
Three ground rules for discussion:
If you care to engage on this topic with me, excellent. Here are the rules. I am more than happy to correspond with you if:
You are respectful and treat me the way you would want to be treated.
You ask genuinely thoughtful questions about what makes sense to you.
You make your points using sound logic and don’t hide behind links or the word “science.”
If you do respond, and you break any of those rules, your comments will be ignored/deleted.
With that out of the way, let me say this: I don’t know everything, but so far no one has been able to answer the objections below. So here are the reasons I’m opting out of the COVID vaccine:
1. Vaccine makers are immune from liability
The only industry in the world that bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products are vaccine makers.
The COVID vaccine makers are allowed to create aone-size-fits-all product, with no testing on sub-populations (i.e. people with specific health conditions), and yet they are unwilling to accept any responsibility for anyadverse eventsordeathstheir products cause.
If a company is not willing to stand behind its product as safe, especially onerushed to market, I am not willing to take a chance on that product.
No liability. No trust. Here’s why …
2. The checkered past of vaccine companies
The four major companies who are making COVID vaccines are/have either:
Moderna had been trying to “Modernize our RNA” (thus the company name) for years, but had never successfully brought any product to market. How nice for the company to get amajor cash infusionfrom the government to keep trying.
In fact, all major vaccine makers (save Moderna) have paid out tens of billions of dollars in damages for other products they brought to market when they knew those products would cause injuries and death — seeVioxx,Bextra,Celebrex,Thalidomideandopioidsas a few examples.
If drug companies willfully choose to put harmful products in the market — when they can be sued — why would we trust any product where they have no liability?
Three of the four COVID vaccine makers have been sued for products they brought to market even though they knew injuries and deaths would result.
Given the free pass from liability, and the checkered past of these companies, why would we assume that all their vaccines are safe and made completely above board?
Where else in life would we trust someone with that kind of reputation?
To me that makes as much sense as expecting a remorseless, abusive unfaithful lover to become a different person because a judge said deep down they are a good person.
No. I don’t trust them. No liability. No trust. Here’s another reason why I don’t trust them …
3. Ugly history of attempts to make coronavirus vaccines
There have been many attempts to make viral vaccines in the past that ended in utter failure — which is why we did not have a coronavirus vaccine in 2020.
In the 1960s, scientists attempted to make an RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine for infants.In that study, they skipped animal trials because the trials weren’t required then.
In the end, the vaccinated infants got much sicker than the unvaccinated infants when exposed to the virus in nature, with 80% of the vaccinated infants requiring hospitalization.Two of them died.
After 2000, scientists made many attempts to create coronavirus vaccines. For the past 20 years, all ended in failure because the animals in the clinical trials got very sick and many died, just like the children in the 1960s.
You can read a summary of this history/sciencehere. Or if you want to read the individual studies you can check out these links:
In 2005,miceandcivetsbecame sick and more susceptible to coronaviruses after being vaccinated.
In 2012, theferretsbecame sick and died. And inthis study, mice and ferrets developed lung disease.
In 2016,this studyalso produced lung disease in mice.
The typical pattern in the studies referenced above is that the children and the animals produced beautiful antibody responses after being vaccinated. The manufacturers thought they hit the jackpot.
The problem came when the children and animals were exposed to the wild version of the virus.
When that happened, anunexplained phenomenoncalled antibody dependent enhancement, also known asvaccine enhanced disease, occurred where the immune system produced a “cytokine storm” (i.e. overwhelmingly attacked the body) and the children/animals died.
Here’s the lingering issue: The vaccine makers have no data to suggest their rushed vaccines have overcome that problem.
In other words, never before has any attempt to make a coronavirus vaccine been successful, nor has the gene-therapy technology inmRNA“vaccines” been safely brought to market.
We might assume that because the companies receivedbillions of dollarsin government funding, they must have figured out that problem.
Except they don’t know if they have …
4. The ‘data gaps’ submitted to FDA by vaccine makers
When vaccine makers submitted their papers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for theEmergency Use Authorization(which is not the same as a full FDA approval), among the many “data gaps” they reported was that they have nothing in their trials to suggest they overcame that pesky problem of vaccine enhanced disease.
They simply don’t know if the vaccines they’ve made will also produce the same cytokine storm (and deaths) as previous attempts at such products.
“Previous attemptsto develop an mRNA-based drug usinglipid nanoparticlesfailed and had to be abandoned because when the dose was too low, the drug had no effect, and when dosed too high, the drug became too toxic. An obvious question is: What has changed that now makes this technology safe enough for mass use?”
If that’s not alarming enough, here are other gaps in the data — in other words, there is no data to suggest safety or efficacy regarding:
Anyone younger than age 18 or older than age 55.
Pregnant or lactating mothers.
Autoimmune conditions.
Immunocompromised individuals.
No data on transmission of COVID.
No data on preventing mortality from COVID.
No data on duration of protection from COVID.
In case you think I’m making this up, or want to see the actual documents sent to the FDA by Pfizer and Moderna for their Emergency Use Authorization, you can check outthis, orthisrespectively. The data gaps can be found starting with page 46 and 48 respectively.
For now let’s turn our eyes to the raw data the vaccine makers used to submit for emergency use authorization …
5. No access to raw data from trials
Would you like to see theraw datathat produced the “90% and 95% effective” claims touted in the news?
Me too. But the companies won’t let us see that data.
As pointed out inthe BMJ, something about the Pfizer and Moderna efficacy claims smells really funny. There were “3,410 total cases of suspected, but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population, 1,594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1,816 in the placebo group.”
Wait … what? Did they fail to do science in their scientific study by not verifying a major variable?
Could they not test those “suspected but unconfirmed” cases to find out if they hadCOVID? Why not test all 3,410 participants for the sake of accuracy?
Can we only guess they didn’t test because it would mess up their “90-95% effective” claims?
Would it not be prudent for the FDA to expect (demand) the vaccine makers test people who have “COVID-like symptoms,” and release their raw data so independent third parties could examine how the manufacturers justified the numbers?
It’s only every citizen of the world we’re trying to get to take these experimental products — why did the FDA not require that? Isn’t that the entire purpose of the FDA anyway?
Good question. Foxes guarding the hen house? No liability. No trust.
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6. No long-term safety testing
With products that have been on the market only a few months, we have no long-term safety data.
In other words, we have no idea what this product will do in the body months or years from now — for any population.
Given all the risks above (risks that allpharmaceutical productshave), would it not be prudent to wait to see if the worst-case scenarios have indeed been avoided?
Would it not make sense to want to fill those pesky “data gaps” before we try to give this to every man, woman and child on the planet?
That would make sense. But to have that data, they need to test it on people, which leads me to my next point …
7. No informed consent
What most who are taking the vaccine don’t know is that because these products are still in clinical trials, anyone who gets the shot is now part of the clinical trial — part of the experiment.
Those (like me) who do not take it, are part of the control group. Time will tell how this experiment works out.
But, you may be asking, if the vaccines are causing harm, wouldn’t we be seeing that all over the news? Surely the FDA would step in and pause the distribution? (Editor’s note: federal health officials on Tuesdaypausedthe Johnsons & Johnson vaccine over concerns related to blood clots).
If theVaccine Adverse Events Reporting System(VAERS) — the government-run system for reporting deaths and injuries after vaccines — worked, maybe things would be different, but …
8. Under-reporting of adverse reactions and deaths
According toa Harvard study(commissioned by our own government), less than 1% of all adverse reactions to vaccines are actually submitted to VAERS.
If those numbers represent only 1% of the total adverse reactions (or .8% to 2% of whatthis studypublished recently in the JAMA found), you can do the math — but that equates to somewhere around 110,000 to 220,000 deaths from the vaccines to date, and a ridiculous number of adverse reactions.
Bet you didn’t see that on the news.
That death number would currently still be lower than the 424,000 deaths from medical errors that happen every year (which you probably also don’t hear about), but we are not even six months into the rollout of these vaccines yet.
If you want a deeper dive into the problems with the VAERS reporting system, you cancheck out thisorthis.
But then there’s my next point, which could be argued makes these COVID vaccines seem pointless …
9. The vaccines don’t stop transmission or infection
Aren’t these vaccines supposed to be what we’ve been waiting for to “go back to normal”? Nope.
Why do you think we’re getting all theseconflicting messagesabout needing to practice social distancing and wear masks after we get a vaccine? The reason is because these vaccines werenever designedto stop transmission or infection.
If you don’t believe me, I refer you again to the papers submitted to the FDA I linked to above which show that the primary endpoint (what the vaccines are meant to accomplish) is to lower your symptoms.
Sounds like just about every other drug on the market right? That’s it … lowering your symptoms is the big payoff we’ve been waiting for. Does that seem completely pointless to anyone but me?
It can’t stop us from spreading the virus.
It can’t stop the virus from infecting us once we have it.
To get the vaccine is to accept all the risk of theseexperimental productsand the best it might do is lower symptoms?
There are plenty of other things I can do to lower my symptoms that don’t involve taking what appears to be a really risky product.
Now for the next logical question: If we’re worried about asymptomatic spreaders, would the vaccine not make it more likely that we are creating asymptomatic spread?
If it indeed reduces symptoms, anyone who gets it might not even know they are sick and thus they are more likely to spread the virus, right?
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard many people say the side effects of the vaccine (especially the second dose) are worse than catching COVID.
I can’t make sense of that either.
Take the risk. Get no protection. Suffer through the vaccine side effects. Keep wearing your mask and social distancing … and continue to be able to spread the virus.
It gets worse …
10. People are catching COVID after being fully vaccinated
Talk about a bummer. You get vaccinated and you still catch COVID.
Why would I take a risk on a product, that doesn’t stop infection or transmission, to help me overcome a cold that has a .26% chance of killing me — which actually in my age range is has about a .1% chance of killing me (and .01% chance of killing my kids).
With a bar (death rate) that low, we will be in lockdown every year … i.e., forever.
But wait, what about the 500,000-plus deaths, that’s alarming right? I’m glad you asked …
12. Bloated COVID death numbers
Something smells really funny about this one. Never before in the history of death certificates has our own government changed how deaths are reported.
Why now, are we reporting everyone who dies with COVID in their body, as having died of COVID, rather than the co-morbidities that actually took their life?
Until COVID, all coronaviruses (common colds) were never listed as the primary cause of death when someone died of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, auto-immune conditions or any other major comorbidity.
The disease was listed as the cause of death, and a confounding factor like flu or pneumonia was listed on a separate line.
To bloat the number even more, the World Health Organization and the CDC changed their guidelines such that those who aresuspected or probable(but were never confirmed) of having died of COVID, are also included in the death numbers.
If we are going to do that then should we not go back and change the numbers of all past cold and flu seasons so we can compare apples to apples when it comes to death rates?
According to theCDCs own numbers, (scroll down to the section “comorbidities and other conditions”), only 6% of the deaths being attributed to COVID are instances where COVID seems to be the only issue at hand.
In other words, reduce the death numbers you see on the news by 94% and you have what is likely the real numbers of deaths from just COVID.
Even if theformer CDC directoris correct and COVID-19 was alab-enhanced virus(see Reason #14 below), a .26% death rate is still in line with the viral death rate that circles the planet every year.
Then there’s thisFauci guy. I’d really love to trust him, but besides the fact that he hasn’t treated one COVID patient, you should probably know …
13. Fauci and others at NIAID own patents on the Moderna vaccine
Thanks to theBayh-Dole Act, government workers are allowed to file patents on any research they do using taxpayer funding.
Tony Fauci owns more than 1,000 patents (seethis video for more details), including patents being used on the Moderna vaccine … for which he approved government funding.
In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — which oversees the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of which Fauci is the director —claims joint ownershipof Moderna’s vaccine.
Does anyone else see this as a major conflict of interest, or criminal even?
I say criminal because there’s also this pesky problem that makes me even more distrustful of Fauci, NIAD, and the NIH in general …
14. Fauci is on the hot seat for illegal gain-of-function research
What is “gain-of-function” research? It’s where scientists attempt to make viruses gain functions — i.e. make them more transmissible and deadlier.
Sounds at least a touch unethical, right? How could that possibly be helpful?
Mr. Fauci, you have some explaining to do … and I hope the cameras are recording when you have to defend your actions.
For now, let’s turn our attention back to the virus …
15. The virus continues to mutate
Not only does the virus (like all viruses) continue to mutate, but according to world-renowned vaccine developerGeert Vanden Bossche(whom you’ll meet below if you don’t know him) it’s mutating about every 10 hours.
How in the world are we going to keep creating vaccines to keep up with that level of mutation? We’re not.
Why, given that natural immunity has never ultimately failed humanity, do we suddenly not trust it?
Why, if I ask questions like the above, or post links like what you find above, will my thoughts bedeletedfrom all major social media platforms?
That brings me to the next troubling problem I have with these vaccines …
16. Censorship and the complete absence of scientific debate
I can’t help but get snarky here, so humor me.
How did you enjoy all those nationally and globally televised, robust debates put on by public health officials, and broadcast simultaneously on every major news station?
Wasn’t it great hearing from the best minds in medicine, virology, epidemiology, economics and vaccinology, from all over the world. as they vigorously and respectfully debated things like:
Wasn’t it great seeing public health officials (who never treated anyone with COVID) have their “science” questioned?
Wasn’t it great seeing the FDA panel publicly grill the vaccine makers in prime time as they stood in the hot-seat of tough questions about products of which they have no liability?
It’s the FIRST Amendment, Mark — the one our founders thought was most important.
With so much at stake, why are we fed only one narrative. Shouldn’t many perspectives be heard and professionally debated?
What has happened to science?
What has happened to the scientific method of always challenging our assumptions?
What happened to lively debate in this country, or at least in Western society?
Why did anyone who disagrees with WHO, or the CDC get censored so heavily?
Is the science of public health a religion now — or is science supposed to be about debate?
If someone says “the science is settled” that’s how I know I’m dealing with someone who is closed minded. By definition science (especially biological science) is never settled.
If it was, it would be dogma, not science.
I want to be a good citizen. I really do.
If lockdowns work, I want to do my part and stay home.
If masks work, I want to wear them.
If social distancing is effective, I want to comply.
But, if there is evidence they don’t (masks for example), I want to hear that evidence, too.
If highly credentialed scientists have different opinions, I want to know what they think. I want a chance to hear their arguments and make up my own mind.
I don’t think I’m the smartest person in the world, but I think I can think. Maybe I’m weird, but if someone is censored, then I really want to hear what they think. Don’t you?
To all my friends who don’t have a problem with censorship, will you have the same opinion when what you think is censored?
Is censorship not the technique of dictators, tyrants and greedy, power-hungry people?
Is it not a sign that those who are doing the censoring know it’s the only way they can win?
What if a man who spent his entire life developing vaccines was willing to put his entire reputation on the line and call on all global leaders to immediately stop the COVID vaccines because of problems with the science?
What if he pleaded for an open-scientific debate on a global stage?
Would you want to hear what he has to say? Would you want to see the debate he’s asking for?
17. World’s leading vaccinologist is sounding the alarm
Here is what may be the biggest reason this COVID vaccine doesn’t make sense to me.
When someone who is very pro-vaccine, who has spent his entire professional career overseeing the development of vaccines, is shouting from the mountaintops that we have a major problem, I think the man should be heard.
Why the COVID vaccine may be putting so much pressure on the virus that we are accelerating its ability to mutate and become more deadly.
Why the COVID vaccines may be creating vaccine-resistant viruses (similar to antibiotic resistant bacteria).
Why, because of previous problems with antibody dependent enhancement, we may be looking at a mass casualty event in the next few months/years.
If you want to see/read about a second, and longer, interview with Vanden Bossche, where he was asked some tough questions, you cancheck this out.
If half of what he says comes true, these vaccines could be the worst invention of all time.
If you don’t like his science, take it up with him.
I’m just the messenger.
But I can also speak to COVID personally …
18. I already had COVID
I didn’t enjoy it. It was a nasty cold for two days:
Unrelenting butt/low-back aches
Very low energy
Low-grade fever
It was weird not being able to smell anything for a couple days. A week later, coffee still tasted a little “off.”
But I survived.
Now it appears (as it always has) that I havebeautiful, natural, life-long immunity— not something likely to wear off in a few months if I get the vaccine. In my body, and my household, COVID is over.
Last week President Biden announced a “full” US withdrawal from Afghanistan – the longest war in US history – by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the United States. While this announcement is to be welcomed, the delayed US withdrawal may result in Americans and Afghans dying needlessly for good PR optics back home. We all remember how many Americans died after President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt in Iraq.
The war has been a disaster from day one. So why wait to end it?
The previous Trump Administration had negotiated an agreement for the US to be out of Afghanistan by the first of May, but in its obsession with tossing out anything associated with Trump, President Biden will continue to keep US troops in harm’s way in this pointless war.
The Taliban have kept their end of the “Doha Agreement” signed under then-President Trump: no Americans have been killed in Afghanistan for more than a year. However, the US side under President Biden will formally violate the Agreement by keeping US troops in-country after May 1st. The Taliban has announced that it will hold the US “liable” for remaining in-country after the agreed-upon departure date. That means more Americans may be killed.
The outcome of the war will not be altered in the slightest by keeping US troops in Afghanistan four additional months. The withdrawal is already announced and no one paying attention expects the corrupt US-backed Kabul government to survive. It is another Saigon moment, proving that the intellectually bankrupt US foreign policy and military established has learned absolutely nothing from history. So if another American is killed, who is going to explain to the grieving family why their loved one had to remain in harm’s way for a good 9/11 photo-op?
A recent article in the Military Times lays out the massive disaster of the US two-decade war on Afghanistan: more than two trillion dollars spent – much of it going to fund crooked practices in Afghanistan and here at home. And even worse, the Cost of War Project has estimated that a quarter of a million people have been killed in the war.
We do applaud President Biden’s decision to ignore the demands of all the neocons who have flocked to support his Administration, but as is most often the case, when it comes to Washington you have to really read the fine print when something sounds too good to be true. In this case, the fine print is that the US will not actually be leaving Afghanistan at all. As a recent article in The Grayzone points out, the Afghan war will continue with US special forces, CIA paramilitaries, and guns-for-hire taking the place of US soldiers. The war is not going to end, it’s just going to be “privatized.”
My philosophy has always been simple: we just marched in, so we can just march out. As we have learned recently, that is exactly what President Trump tried to do in the final days of his presidency, only to get cold feed after his military and national security “experts” told him it was a terrible idea. When the history of the Trump Administration is written, it will sadly be filled with stories of Trumps’ excellent instincts tossed aside by his inability to demand that those working for him follow his orders. It’s tragic.
We need to be completely out of Afghanistan. Yesterday.
It has been a long time indeed since I have found myself exclaiming “BRAVO” so loudly and so frequently as I did when reading this post by a friend here on Facebook, a post which consists almost entirely of a letter from a disappointed and thoroughly disaffected parent to New York’s exclusive private school, Brearley, at which his daughter had previously been enrolled. Rarely have I encountered so brilliant an exposition and argument. In fact, I believe Mr. Gutmann’s letter should be committed to memory and shared as widely as possible.
As my friend wrote:
“This is what moral courage looks like. Bravo.
“Please read this letter. It was written by a father who took his daughter out of her expensive NYC private school because of what happened due to Critical Race Theory.”
***********************
April 13, 2021
Dear Fellow Brearley Parents,
Our family recently made the decision not to reenroll our daughter at Brearley for the 2021-22 school year. She has been at Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our children’s best interests at heart. Moreover, we no longer have confidence that our daughter will receive the quality of education necessary to further her development into a critically thinking, responsible, enlightened, and civic minded adult. I write to you, as a fellow parent, to share our reasons for leaving the Brearley community but also to urge you to act before the damage to the school, to its community, and to your own child’s education is irreparable.
It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley’s antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed.
I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died.
I object to the charge of systemic racism in this country, and at our school. Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades. Ask any girl, of any race, if they have ever experienced insults from friends, have ever felt slighted by teachers or have ever suffered the occasional injustice from a school at which they have spent up to 13 years of their life, and you are bound to hear grievances, some petty, some not. We have not had systemic racism against Blacks in this country since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, a period of more than 50 years. To state otherwise is a flat-out misrepresentation of our country’s history and adds no understanding to any of today’s societal issues. If anything, longstanding and widespread policies such as affirmative action, point in precisely the opposite direction.
I object to a definition of systemic racism, apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression. Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand. Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley’s oft-stated assertion that the school welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies.
I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley, by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of racism.
I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber.
I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors.
l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form, represents their best interests.
I object to, as we have been told time and time again over the past year, that the school’s first priority is the safety of our children. For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital! The number one priority of a school has always been, and always will be, education. Brearley’s misguided priorities exemplify both the safety culture and “cover-your-ass” culture that together have proved so toxic to our society and have so damaged the mental health and resiliency of two generations of children, and counting.
I object to the gutting of the history, civics, and classical literature curriculums. I object to the censorship of books that have been taught for generations because they contain dated language potentially offensive to the thin-skinned and hypersensitive (something that has already happened in my daughter’s 4th grade class). I object to the lowering of standards for the admission of students and for the hiring of teachers. I object to the erosion of rigor in classwork and the escalation of grade inflation. Any parent with eyes open can foresee these inevitabilities should antiracism initiatives be allowed to persist.
We have today in our country, from both political parties, and at all levels of government, the most unwise and unvirtuous leaders in our nation’s history. Schools like Brearley are supposed to be the training grounds for those leaders. Our nation will not survive a generation of leadership even more poorly educated than we have now, nor will we survive a generation of students taught to hate its own country and despise its history.
Lastly, I object, with as strong a sentiment as possible, that Brearley has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to think. I object that the school is now fostering an environment where our daughters, and our daughters’ teachers, are afraid to speak their minds in class for fear of “consequences.” I object that Brearley is trying to usurp the role of parents in teaching morality, and bullying parents to adopt that false morality at home. I object that Brearley is fostering a divisive community where families of different races, which until recently were part of the same community, are now segregated into two. These are the reasons why we can no longer send our daughter to Brearley.
Over the past several months, I have personally spoken to many Brearley parents as well as parents of children at peer institutions. It is abundantly clear that the majority of parents believe that Brearley’s antiracism policies are misguided, divisive, counterproductive and cancerous. Many believe, as I do, that these policies will ultimately destroy what was until recently, a wonderful educational institution. But as I am sure will come as no surprise to you, given the insidious cancel culture that has of late permeated our society, most parents are too fearful to speak up.
But speak up you must. There is strength in numbers and I assure you, the numbers are there. Contact the administration and the Board of Trustees and demand an end to the destructive and anti-intellectual claptrap known as antiracism. And if changes are not forthcoming then demand new leadership. For the sake of our community, our city, our country and most of all, our children, silence is no longer an option.
Joe Biden’s party must be thinking — if you call it thinking — that being psychotic isn’t enough… it’s time to go demonic! How else to explain the supernatural doings of the folks in charge of things in our nation’s capital. The casual observer might suppose that these things are spinning out of control, but you also have to wonder how much Joe Biden & Company are spinning them that way. Are they looking to start a war, for instance?
Three weeks ago, Ol’ White Joe called Vladimir Putin “a killer.” This week, Ol’ Joe called Vlad on the phone and suggested a friendly in-person meet-up in some “third country.” In the meantime, Ol’ Joe essayed to send a couple of US warships into the Black Sea to assert America’s interest in Ukraine, the failed state whose American-sponsored failure was engineered in 2014 by Barack Obama’s State Department. Turkey, which controls the narrow entrance to the Black Sea, was notified that two US destroyers would be steaming through its territory. Hours after the announcement, the US called off the ships. Then, hours after Ol’ Joe proffered that summit meeting, his State Department imposed new economic sanctions on Russia and tossed out a dozen or so Russian embassy staff. How’s that for a coherent foreign policy?
What’s going on in Ukraine, anyway? The US and NATO have prompted Ukraine to move troops and tanks toward the ethnically-Russian breakaway Donbass region. Russia countered by massing 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border. Though supplied with Western armaments, Ukraine’s ragtag and incompetent army has no ability to control the Donbass, nor do either NATO and the US have any real will to interfere there with their own troops — the logistics are insane. Mr. Putin’s elegant solution: evacuate the three-plus million Russians stuck in Donbass into Russia — which needs labor — ceding the empty territory to foundering Ukraine — soon to be an ungovernable post-industrial frontier between East and West. For a rich rundown on these matters, read Dmitry Orlov’s mordant disquisition on the subject: Putin’s Ukrainian Judo.
The lesson there is that the US has absolutely nothing to gain from continuing to antagonize Russia, and that the mentally weak Joe Biden is merely projecting the picture of a weakened and confused USA by keeping it up. Of course, a closer read might be that these hijinks are meant to distract from the more serious and consequential breakdown in relations between the US and China, currently engineered by the blundering team of Sec’y of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who went to Alaska recently to tell the Chinese delegation that they were morally unworthy of conducting trade negotiations, thereby torpedoing the trade negotiations that they went to Alaska to conduct. Smooth move fellas.
Unlike Russia, with its eleven time zones, which actually does not want or need any more territory, China is surely making hegemonic moves all over the place, not just around Hong Kong and Taiwan but in Africa and South America, while it strives to build the world’s largest navy, exports gain-of-function viruses, replaces the US in space exploration, and excels at weaponizing computer science. China’s weaknesses are a lack of sufficient domestic oil supply and food, which its current moves aim to correct. It was on its way to turning the US into a raw materials and food-crop colony when Mr. Trump came along and tried to put a stop to that. And now Ol’ Joe has cancelled that remedial action — after being on the receiving end of Chinese financial largesse in four years out-of-office. Nothing to see there, folks, says Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, while in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, with its trove of incriminating memoranda.
On the domestic front, Joe Biden’s government only seeks to turn American life inside-out and upside-down, with the move to make the politics-neutral District of Columbia into a state, strictly to furnish two more senators for the DNC, and to pack the Supreme Court strictly to advantage the same DNC. Those Bills are being rushed through the House committees but something tells me they will die in the Senate. One also must wonder what exactly the rush is all about. I’ll tell you: something is up in the shadows. Something is lurking out there that is going to bring down Ol’ Joe Biden as an illegitimate chief executive. Could be some new non-ignorable evidence of his China grifting activities, or new non-ignorable evidence about the dubious ballot-tally in last November’s election. Could be something else.
Contrary to just about everybody I communicate with, I remain convinced that former US Attorney for Connecticut, now Special Prosecutor John Durham is still putting real cases together, and I suspect that his cases exceed the narrow spotlight of the origin of the Steele dossier, and I expect that indictments will be announced soon in a way that will shock the nation. Just sayin’… though nobody else is….
Meanwhile, the Wokester branch of Joe Biden’s party makes hay with the ambiguous killings of two more criminal suspects-of-color: first, Daunte Wright of Minneapolis, busy ignoring the open warrant out for him in failing to answer a previous warrant for his role in the 2019 aggravated burglary (that is, with a firearm) of a woman. He was out on $100,000 bail, but it was revoked in July 2020 when he got caught in possession of another gun. In the commotion of his resisting arrest, he got shot, tragically for officer Kim Potter, who somehow mistook her handgun for a taser. She is now teed up on a manslaughter case, while the Wright family is teed up for an $XX-million personal injury lawsuit settlement courtesy of ambulance-chaser Ben Crump. The city of Minneapolis is teed up for a municipal auto-da-fé of lootin-burnin-and-riotin in the name of “justice” — and the Derek Chauvin trial has not even concluded.
Secondarily, out comes the chest-cam video of Chicago police officer Eric Stillman shooting thirteen-year-old junior gang-banger Adam Toledo, in possession of a handgun, in a 3 a.m. chase down a West Side alleyway. So, Officer Stillman is teed up for some sort of career-ending action and Chicago is teed up for another round of lootin-burnin-and-riotin — sure to spread to other cities all over the country as the Woke vengeance campaign moves into its Satanic phase.
Evidence is coming out in the courtroom, although not in the US media, that Officer Chauvin’s arrest was based entirely on “camera perspective bias,” as I previously reported. As the police videos demonstrate, Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s shoulder blade and not on his neck.
My opinion is that evidence will play no role in the trial. If evidence mattered, Chauvin would not be on trial. I hope I am wrong. But if Chauvin is acquitted, “All Hell Will Break Loose,” and this fear will produce a guilty verdict. The utterly corrupt Minnesota Democrats will sacrifice an innocent person in order to appease the ignorant mob. Consider, if you were a juror, would you acquit Chauvin when you know that your name will be leaked and Antifa and Black Lives Matter will burn down your home in your police-defunded city? Americans so easily scared silly by the Covid propaganda haven’t the stamina to stand up to an angry mob.
How NOT to make an important life decision: “Let me check out what everyone else is doing. If everyone else is doing it, it must be right. If nobody else seems to be doing it, then it must be wrong.”
How to ACTUALLY make an important life decision: “What are the facts? What logically follows from all the facts I know? What are the different arguments offered for the possible courses of action, pro and con? Which conclusion do I accept responsibility for accepting?”
Never try to escape the responsibility of independent, rational judgment. It’s lazy, and it’s cowardly. It harms yourself, most of all. And yes, it’s bad for society too. Because if everyone is looking at what everyone else is doing, then NOBODY is making a rational decision. We all become a bunch of sheep, led to the slaughter because of our own refusal to THINK.
Would you pay more than 100 million dollars for a single deli in rural New Jersey that had less than $36,000 in sales during the last two years combined?I know that sounds like a completely ridiculous question, but the stock market apparently thinks that deli is worth that much. On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 34,000 for the first time in history, and investors all over the country cheered.But this financial bubble is not real. It is a giant mirage that is built on a foundation of fraud.
Investors have lost all touch with reality, and in this sort of euphoric environment a small deli in rural New Jersey can literally be valuedat more than 100 million dollars…
The Paulsboro, New Jersey-based Your Hometown Deli is the sole location for Hometown International, which has an eye-popping market value despite totaling $35,748 in sales in the last two years combined, according to securities filings.
“Someone pointed us to Hometown International (HWIN), which owns a single deli in rural New Jersey … HWIN reached a market cap of $113 million on February 8. The largest shareholder is also the CEO/CFO/Treasurer and a Director, who also happens to be the wrestling coach of the high school next door to the deli. The pastrami must be amazing,” Einhorn said in a letter to clients published Thursday.
For young people getting ready to graduate from high school and go to college, don’t waste your time.
Just open up a small deli and go public.
Soon you will be a multi-millionaire.
Alternatively, you could start a fake cryptocurrency as a joke and watch it become worth billions of dollars.
The digital currency Dogecoin surged by more than 85 percent so far this week in thrilling scenes for fans of the bizarre coin. Launched in 2013 and created by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus as a joke, the cryptocurrency has never seen the highs of rival coins like bitcoin, which is currently worth $63,531.49. But a growing fanbase has helped kickstart the meme coins value, and today has seen the prices skyrocket.
Looking at it objectively, I don’t know why any rational investor would ever put one red cent into Dogecoin.
But in 2021, rational investors are being left in the dust, and those that foolishly rush in are getting filthy rich.
Coinbase was briefly valued at as much as $100 billion in its Nasdaq debut Wednesday, a landmark event for the cryptocurrency industry. The stock closed at $328.28 per share, valuing Coinbase at $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.
Don’t you wish that you would have been the one to launch Coinbase?
Of course all of these absurd valuations are just temporary.
This bubble will inevitably pop, and those that did not sell at the top of the market will be kicking themselves.
In the financial markets, enormous fortunes are being won and lost all the time, but none of this is real.
What is real are the riots that are happening in our streets on a nightly basis.Last night, rioters“waved a pig’s head”at police officers in Minnesota…
DAUNTE Wright protesters waved a pig’s head at cops as chaos again erupted in Brooklyn Center, with hundreds storming the police station.
Demonstrators came out for the fourth night in a row since Wright, 20, was fatally shot by police officer Kim Potter during a traffic stop on Sunday.
A prominent activist who supports the Black Lives Matter movement has appeared to support violent protests, arguing that rioting and looting are ‘a legitimate, politically-informed response to state violence’.
Bree Newsome, 35, made the passionate remarks in a series of tweets this week, arguing that police are not limited to non-violence, and that a violent response to injustice can be appropriate and justified.
Homeless men lie on the sidewalk while others wearing blankets and rags loiter on a street strewn with garbage, feces, and drug paraphernalia along the notorious Kensington Avenue drag in Philadelphia.
Video posted online on March 10 shows people living out of suitcases on the sidewalks in the area adjacent to the entrance to the Somerset train station along the Market-Frankford train line while others openly brandish needles.
Cardboard boxes with trash bags stacked on top of them lie feet away from the entrances to various pawn shops, check-cashing stores, delis, and bodegas.
The financial bubble that we are experiencing right now will go away, but the problems on our streets are not going away.
But if you don’t want to believe this, go ahead and pour your life savings into Hometown International or Dogecoin and see what happens.
You only make money in the markets if you get out in time, and time is quickly running out for those that have put their faith in this financial bubble.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 