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A Woke Society is a Weak Society
An appearance of corrupt influence or nefarious motive, and then handed out to the vast constellation of non-profit NGOs, activist organizations, think tanks, and academic programs that subsist almost entirely on such money, where it can find a way to “inspire change.” …
This means the foundations have truly tremendous influence over public policy, because every nominally independent think tank, for example, automatically tailors its projects to attract the blessing of their funding. …
Today this means there are massive tides of woke capital hard at work changing the world. … The inertia is now immense. …
But even the foundations, despite their zeal and close relationship with government, may ultimately wield only a shadow of the influence exerted more quietly by titans of finance like the “Big Three” asset managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. With a collective $22 trillion in assets under management, and owning an average of 22% of the typical S&P 500 company, these three firms have the power to dictate corporate policy across the world …
Because these firms’ leaders are now woke (or at least see advantage in acting woke), there is now, as Vivek Ramaswamy has explained in detail in Woke, Inc., constant pressure on companies to get woke too, or face losing critical access to capital. …
20. Leviathan has a’woken. In the end, it may be that “revolution” isn’t quite the right word for Wokeness after all. Real revolutions characteristically replace one elite with another, redistributing their wealth and power. True, this is happening at the individual level, with many a white male manager finding himself suddenly replaced by someone younger and “more diverse.” But at the broader level this is a “revolution” that has been embraced wholeheartedly by the leadership of the elite, who show little fear that they will ever be replaced as a class. Indeed they seem to have adopted woke ideology as a wonderfully useful tool for reinforcing their position while punishing their inter- and intra-class rivals.
Nonetheless, the set of old ideas we call woke will fail and subside, as they always do — because they do not work. A woke society is a weak society. It will succumb to competition or conquest by non-woke societies, or change from within, just as hunter-gatherers have always succumbed to civilization.
N.S. Lyons
What’s Wrong with the World
“The home planet of an emerging technical civilization, struggling to avoid self-destruction.”
-Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death. I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was “No.”
— Galt’s Speech, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
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February 16, 2024
A Western Consensus Is Brewing
By J.B. Shurk
There have been murmurs for at least the last ten years about the potential for civil war in the United States. Polls have shown that roughly half the country believes that future conflict is likely. The intrusion of unchecked government power into every crevice of our private lives has transformed politics into a high-stakes cage match in which furious citizens fight to survive. Because government exerts so much control over citizens, winning control of government has become an existential imperative. Such zero-sum thinking has fractured society and pitted Americans against one another.
However, something fundamental has been shifting beneath our feet. If you look at how civil conflict has been discussed on websites and internet forums over recent years, a noticeable trend emerges. Talk of “civil war” between various coalitions of states transformed into calls for “independence” from tyrannical government on par with America’s 1776 founding. In turn, calls for an American-style “revolution” against government abuse have transformed into the kind of rage against a “permanent ruling class” that existed before the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
This shift is significant. “Civil war” connotes a feeling that Americans will be fighting one another. A “1776-style struggle for Independence” reflects a belief that the federal government must be brought to heel. Widespread discussions of how to rid the country of an unaccountable bureaucracy with more allegiance to fellow globalists from the World Economic Forum than to fellow citizens from America’s heartland reveal a growing recognition of and antipathy for an entrenched ruling aristocracy.
Governments don’t mind when citizens quarrel. In fact, that old “divide and conquer” scheme is Washington’s favorite tactic for keeping Americans too busy fighting one another to notice what kind of mischief is going on in D.C. Governments would prefer that citizens not speak about “freedom” or “liberty” because those ideas are antithetical to bureaucratic mandates, institutional power-grabs, and rhetorical appeals to authority. Still, so long as an Orwellian news media establishment and a Machiavellian political class can work together to impugn “liberty” as “selfish” or “hateful,” then the powers that be largely succeed in twisting the meaning of “freedom” into a love for Big Government policies or a patriotic subservience to the State. However, when ordinary people begin to set aside their differences and instead turn their fury toward those holding the reins of power, well, Katie, bar the door — trouble’s brewing!
There is an understandable tendency to look at the growth of government-directed censorship, warrantless surveillance, and political persecution as proof that Americans will soon be under the yoke of full-fledged totalitarianism. That is a real and threatening possibility. However, petulant and steel-booted policies meant to terrorize and dishearten citizens also reflect a growing fear among the “ruling elite.” You do not spend three years hunting down patriotic grandmas and selfless veterans who attended the J6 protest for free and fair elections unless you are terrified that a critical mass of people sees rampant election fraud as a Uniparty weapon for maintaining illegitimate control. You do not set up “disinformation” review boards or pretend public debate is a “threat to national security” unless you are frightened of what ordinary people have to say. You do not spy on people’s financial transactions, text messages, and social media posts unless you view every single American as a danger to the State. Rapid technological advancements have given government authorities unsavory tools for pursuing unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral policies against the American people, but those authorities would not be so openly hostile to the public or flagrantly dismissive of their constitutional obligations if they were not already afraid.
They should be. The single greatest social transformation in several centuries is occurring right now. A transnational consensus is growing among ordinary citizens that coercive government is dangerous wherever it exists.
No longer does a Cold War mentality successfully corral national populations into an “East vs. West” or “Us vs. Them” cognitive prison. Western governments that conveniently partition the world into “democracies” and “autocracies” betrayed their own distinction when they imposed COVID policies as brutally stringent as those of any communist dictatorship. No longer do our puppeteers successfully divide us into two opposing camps — one fighting unrestrained government power and the other fighting unrestrained corporate power. The illusion of self-government has been shattered, and a broader public appreciation has taken hold that recognizes the convergence of financial and political interests at the expense of democratic principles and human rights. No longer are those most eager to profit from the death and destruction of war capable of flipping a switch to turn patriotic citizens into willing sacrifices for a “ruling class” that never seems to have common people’s best interest in mind. Decades of costly wars with questionable strategic aims, battlefield betrayals, the moral ambiguity of occupying foreign lands, the resettling of millions of foreigners into our homelands, and the constantly shifting definition of which nation, group, or tribe is now the “enemy” have all produced much more discerning civilians unwilling to die for Bill Kristol’s, Hillary Clinton’s, Nikki Haley’s, or Liz Cheney’s next call to arms.null
The U.S. and other Western governments know this to be true. It is why the United Kingdom’s new “Online Safety Act” criminalizes the publishing of “false information,” unless that false information is coming from mainstream media corporations. It is why the European Union’s “Digital Services Act” seeks to stifle public debate on social media platforms. It is why the U.S. Senate is pushing through legislation ostensibly meant to protect children from online threats and to protect adults from the dangers of Chinese propaganda that will nonetheless be used to censor “politically incorrect” and un-“woke” points of view from the internet. It is why the Biden administration is funding A.I. research programs that can be used to seek and destroy government-defined “misinformation.” It is why the White House successfully pressured Amazon to suppress the sale of disfavored books. And it is why political figures across the West had a conniption fit when they discovered that Tucker Carlson was conducting a journalistic interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Such is the state of free speech in the West that a panoply of petty tyrants representing America, the U.K., and continental Europe all called for Carlson to face severe punishment for having the temerity to engage in unsanctioned journalism. The blurry line between “democracies” and “autocracies” has vanished.
This should not have to be said, but no society can be described as “free” unless that society can engage in free speech. Likewise, there can be no free speech unless the public is free to criticize and disagree with the government. Any government that claims a monopoly to determine what is true is a government hostile to dissent, debate, and democratic self-rule.
Western governments have so betrayed their duties to act as custodians of Enlightenment-inspired human rights that they have become as tyrannical as the tyrants against whom they posture. They are now little more than a collection of feudal lords using the trappings of their offices to enrich an insular “ruling class” while impoverishing and diminishing the masses.
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Through a lot of unnecessary pain and discomfort, national populations have discovered this hard truth for themselves. “Green energy”–induced inflation has cut a hole in every struggling citizen’s pocket, while “green energy”–inspired regulations have devastated the livelihoods of every worker. “Green energy” zealots have targeted Western farmers, miners, laborers, and machinists for cancelation. The World Economic Forum’s “green new world order” seeks to eliminate private property, private communications, private transportation, and private transactions. The heart of human freedom is on the line. And, increasingly, Western populations are concluding that Western governments and corporations deserve the blame.
Image: JSMed via Pixabay, Pixabay License.null
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Orchestrated Chaos
Funneling $$ to Ukraine while neglecting our own border and military is reason enough to put on trial and convict all Democrats, and most Republicans, of treason. There are so very many OTHER reasons. But this one is especially bipartisan. The Ukraine handover is so brazenly a cynical payoff, it’s a form of dark comedy. It’s hard to fathom that most Americans are either ignorant or indifferent enough to keep tolerating it all. The house of cards will all come tumbling down, as corrupt schemes always do.
Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, Michael Hurd Ph.D. on LinkedIn, @DrHurd on TruthSocial
Funneling $$ to Ukraine while neglecting our own border and military is reason enough to put on trial and convict all Democrats, and most Republicans, of treason. There are so very many OTHER reasons. But this one is especially bipartisan. The Ukraine handover is so brazenly a cynical payoff, it’s a form of dark comedy. It’s hard to fathom that most Americans are either ignorant or indifferent enough to keep tolerating it all. The house of cards will all come tumbling down, as corrupt schemes always do.
Funneling $$ to Ukraine while neglecting our own border and military is reason enough to put on trial and convict all Democrats, and most Republicans, of treason. There are so very many OTHER reasons. But this one is especially bipartisan. The Ukraine handover is so brazenly a cynical payoff, it’s a form of dark comedy. It’s hard to fathom that most Americans are either ignorant or indifferent enough to keep tolerating it all. The house of cards will all come tumbling down, as corrupt schemes always do.
Leftism and Chaos
It is impossible to understand what is happening to America — and to the rest of the West — without understanding the most dynamic ideology of the last hundred years: leftism.
We need to begin with the understanding that leftism (or “progressivism”) and liberalism are not only not the same ideologies, they are in fact opposed to each other on virtually every major issue.
Leftism and liberalism have only two things in common:
One is belief in big government, which, given that individual and societal liberty decline as the state grows, is a significant similarity.
The other Left-liberal commonality is antipathy to the Right. This is even more important than commitment to big government because it explains why liberals vote for the Left despite the fact that liberals differ with far more left-wing positions than with conservative positions.
Unlike the Left, most liberals love their country. Unlike the Left, most liberals do not believe that there are more than two sexes/genders; that prepubescent boys and girls who claim they are members of the other sex should be given hormone blockers; that girls under 21 should be allowed to have their breasts surgically removed; or that men who say they are women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. So, too, liberals do not believe that capitalism is evil, that America is systemically racist, that all whites are racist, that Israel is the villain in the Middle East and Zionism is racist.
So, then, given that those leftist positions are as destructive as they are absurd, how are we to explain leftism?
This question has preoccupied me all my adult life. It is why I was one of fewer than 10 graduate students in all of Columbia University to major in what was called “Communist Affairs.” (I was a fellow at the Russian Institute at Columbia’s School of International Affairs.) In other words, I have studied the Left all my life.
Early on, I recognized that the Left opposes liberty — the clearest example being that wherever the Left gains power, whether at a university or in society as a whole, it suppresses free speech — and that it destroys everything it touches. But while I (and many others) have always understood that the Left (again, not liberalism) has always, everywhere, been a force for evil, I needed to understand why.
How can people believe that men give birth; that a country to which more than 4 million black people have emigrated and which twice elected a black president is systemically racist; that the freest country in the Middle East, one in which millions of Arabs live as equal citizens, is the villain, while its barbaric enemies are worthy of support?
Here are some answers:
Throughout their history, Americans have had three great providers of meaning: family, religion and patriotism. Leftists lack the latter two (indeed, they seek to get rid of them), and increasing numbers of them lack the first. Since human beings cannot live without meaning — it is as great a need as food, and even greater than sex — they seek meaning elsewhere. So they create new meanings through creating secular religions: socialism, communism, feminism, environmentalism, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), “anti-racism,” anti-Zionism, LGBTQIA+ pride, and trans activism, among others.
All these are united by one overarching aim: destroying the institutions of Western civilization (e.g., religion, art, music, the nuclear family, moral norms, schools and universities, free speech, capitalism, even medicine).
Those of us who appreciate Western civilization and wish to preserve it (while, of course, correcting its flaws) cannot understand why anyone would want to destroy it. That is a major reason it is so difficult for non-leftists to understand the Left.
After decades of mulling this over, I think I have discovered one answer that is not obvious even to all leftists.
What opened my eyes are the Left’s beliefs that men can become women and women can become men; men give birth; there are more than two genders/sexes; men who say they are women should be placed in women’s prisons, women’s colleges and women’s shelters; men who say they are women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports; and children should be taken to drag queen shows.
All these positions represent … chaos.
The Left’s trans-positions are the most obvious areas of Left-induced chaos, but there are many others. These include the Left’s contempt for the ideal of the nuclear family (i.e., a married mother and father and children); its support for defunding police; its raising the dollar value of stolen goods that qualifies as a felony, which can only incentivize theft; and its support for progressive district attorneys.
Fighting crime represents order; crime represents chaos.
And why does leftism seek chaos? Because the Left hates the opposite of chaos: order. And order ultimately represents a religious view of life. Order represents divine order. The proof is that no religious people say, “Men give birth.” Not all secular people believe men give birth, there are more than two sexes, men can compete in women’s sports, children should be exposed to drag queen shows, or children should be given hormone blockers if they claim to be a member of the other sex. But only secular people believe those things. Virtually no one who believes in the Bible and the God of the Bible believes them. We believe in a God-created social order.
Chaos is the normal state of the world. The second verse of the Bible states that the world was in a chaotic state. God then made order. Which is why the Left is undoing it.
Dennis Prager
