Zombie Children

 

There is a horrible, gruesome scene at the end of the classic horror film, Night of the Living Dead in which the little girl that has been bitten by a zombie comes back to life and while her mother begs her sweet little daughter for her life, repeatedly stabs her mother to death with a trowel with screeching sounds in the background in a scene reminiscent of the shower scene in Psycho.  The dissonance of the murderous scene is jarring to us as a child turned cold murderer, so devoid of humanity that she brutally stabs her mother.  The little girl later goes after the film’s hero.  He is able to fend her off, toss her aside, and barricade himself in the farmhouse basement.

That film, which recently turned 50 (both actresses that played the daughter and mother are still alive, ironically) was prescient and is a metaphor for what is happening on our streets today.

Children in certain areas of our cities have turned into zombie-like soulless killers, with no regard for human life and are stalking us.  Our law enforcement and criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with them.  

In November of 2019, little Tessa Majors, a freshman at Barnard College was stabbed to death by a 14 year old in Manhattan.

The two girls that coldly murdered Mohammed Anwar in DC last month were 13 and 15.

The knife wielding Ma’Kia Bryant was shot and killed in Ohio as she raised the blade fully intending to stab her victim to death as she announced her intent to do so.   Bryant was 16.

Also in Ohio a 13 year old girl stabbed another 13 year old to death.

Right here in Chicago, 13 year old Adam Toledo was shot and killed by a Chicago cop, a split second after he dropped a gun after a foot chase down a dark alley.  The officer had responded to a call that someone was shooting up cars.   Young Toledo had been given the nicknames “Li’l Homicide” and “Bavy Diablo,” clues to his “innocence.”

Chicago also has had some 2,000 carjackings from January 2020 through today.  Many are done by armed youngsters as young as 10 years old.

These incidents are not one-off occurrences.  They are happening every day, primarily in large metropolitan areas of blue states.

The Woke Left blames society at large, law enforcement, or, more absurdly, the victims themselves.  When Tessa Majors was murdered, the MSM put out the claim that she was in the park trying to buy pot.   When Mohammed Anwar was murdered, Mayor Bottoms tweeted (since deleted) that car owners needed to be more careful guarding their autos.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, blamed all of society for the death of young gangbanger Adam Toledo.  “We failed Adam,” she exclaimed, then promptly ordered the police department to cease chases unless the officer received permission from his supervisor.  A social justice warrior fund (Chicago Community Bail Fund)  posted bail for the gangbanger that provided Toledo with his weapon.  In the case of knife wielding Bryant,  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki immediately talked about race and proclaimed, “She was a child.” 

These juvenile terrorists are proliferating in a society that seems increasingly pathological.   It is a problem that is mostly confined to minorities, where the illegitimacy rate is 70%, or where there is little or no parental oversight.  

Ma’Kia Bryant had been placed in a foster home.  Adam Toledo’s mother did not report him missing for 72 hours.  One has to assume that the killers of Tessa Majors and Mohammed Anwar have similar unstable backgrounds.  Yet Black Lives Matter proudly proclaimed that the destruction of the nuclear family was one of its basic tenets (since removed from its website), and we are now seeing the fruits of the destruction of the family and the downgrade of religion.

The question remains – what to do about these child killers and terrorists.   Pandemic has kept them out of school.  Gangs know that the criminal justice system will go soft on them. 

The Supreme Court last week ruled 6-3 in Jones v. Mississippi that a juvenile may be sentenced to life without parole without a showing that the child is incorrigible.  In that case, a minor brutally murdered his own grandfather, stabbing him multiple times—so viciously that he broke the knife.  Laurence Tribe remarked, “it gutted the just and decent treatment of juveniles.”

But what is the just and decent treatment of juveniles that are so lacking in behavioral inhibitions that they would commit such heinous crimes?   Even with therapy and a structured environment, what does the future hold for the soulless little killer of Tessa Majors, or the two girls that coldly killed Mr. Anwar and were seen on video obsessed with finding their cell phones, while Anwar died in a crumpled heap?  Is there any doubt that if Adam Toledo had slipped away that he would have eventually taken the life of someone else, if he hasn’t already?  The answer cannot be 6 months with a social worker and turn them loose on society again. 

Our society is now so ill that it has bred a whole legion of feral children—zombie-like creatures, like the little girl in Night of the Living Dead, directly out of a Steven King novel, that will stalk and terrorize us while the New Left points fingers at law enforcement officers that are struggling to protect us against them.

Think for a moment of the officers that were faced with the awful choice of pulling the trigger on Bryant or Toledo and what they now have to live with, attempting to keep them from destroying the lives of others.   These events represent the essence of Critical Theory—to place a decisionmaker into a no-win situation.  In Toledo’s case, if the officer doesn’t shoot, he may be killed.  In Bryant’s situation, if the officer doesn’t shoot, the victim will likely be killed.  In each case, the officer is in an awful position—and must decide in a split second.

We are experiencing Night of the Living Dead in real life.

Conspiracy Theories

 

Tucker Carlson was slammed by the Antidefamation League last week for asserting that Democrats are attempting to replace the population with immigrants (legal or not) that would be more likely to vote Democratic in future elections.  He has been vilified on social media for being a “white supremacist” and a “conspiracy theorist.”   He contends that demographic change is the key to the Democrats’ political ambitions.” 

I actually think he’s understating the problem.  It would be hard to dream up a better and more insidious plan to cement one party rule over the country than is being executed now.  It is so wonderfully Stalinist, yet much more stealthy and sophisticated than the brute Stalin could design, or even Adolph for that matter.

Adolph asserted sovereignty for his vision by seeking liebensraum for the German peoples.   His political adversaries, the Bolsheviks, were jailed, beaten and murdered.  Jews were rounded up into ghettos, humiliated and ultimately deported to the camps on boxcars for extermination.   Stalin engaged in similar tactics, although he was not quite as systematic, efficient and industrial as the Nazis.  He starved out the Ukrainians and deported Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians to Siberia to exert control over those lands. 

Today’s Leftists in America are a bit more nuanced (although I suspect that if Plan A ran into roadblocks, they would become less so).   But they are engaging in a form of ethnic and political cleansing no less ambitious than what Hitler and Stalin engaged in.   

If you wish to take over a country and assert sovereignty over it, what do you do?   First, you take over the cities.   That is what armies have done for hundreds of years.  Our armed forces most recently asserted control over Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah and Mosul.   In Afghanistan, we went for Kabul and Kandahar.   World War II in Europe wasn’t settled until we took control of Berlin.  The American Left knows that these major cities are the nerve centers and they wish to have complete control over them.  Make no mistake, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, LA, Portland and Seattle are already under control and the deportations have commenced.

What?  What deportations?  Believe me, they are happening.

The American Left is much more sophisticated than the 20^th century tyrants.  They rely much more on subterfuge than their 20^th century counterparts.   Barack Obama and Susan Rice are much smoother than Old Uncle Joe Stalin.  They are engaging in ethnic cleansing and deportations by simultaneously making these cities unlivable for the existing professional, entrepreneurial and working class and making them very attractive for illegal immigrants and the underclass.  

Aided by the COVID19 pandemic, these cities are no longer livable for most people.

Unlike Stalin and Hitler who herded people into boxcars, working people are self-deporting.  The boxcars are not necessary.

The most important factor is safety.  Murder and sexual assault rates have skyrocketed.  Cashless bail and failure to prosecute has led the “Criminals Gone Wild.”   Illinois just signed into law its criminal reform bill forbidding police to even give chase to criminals.  Carjackings are a routine occurrence now.  You have to be able to go to work every day and enjoy the cultural aspects of a city relatively free of fear of physical harm.   Even after pandemic recedes, citizens are going to be very reluctant to go into the city in the evening for a symphony concert, opera or a play.  New York’s mayor DeBlasio took over several hotels on the Upper West Side and placed homeless, drug addicts, and sex offenders.   Hundreds of them are now wandering around the once middle class vibrant neighborhood, defecating in in the street, harassing and assaulting people at outdoor bistros, and masturbating in the open.   Illinois just passed a criminal reform act and human rights acts, putting restrictions on police (i.e. prohibiting them from chasing perps) and putting burdens on employers (prohibiting them from “undue” discrimination against job applicants with criminal convictions).  In Illinois, landlords cannot make inquiries of prospective tenants about their prior criminal history.  All this is to make urban areas less safe, less livable and more accommodating to criminals.

Taxes.   Illinois and New York continue to raise taxes.  The progressive tax failed in Illinois but they will try again.   New York is raising its top tax rate.  California’s is at 13.3%.   Property taxes in Illinois are the 2^nd highest in the country.   The bottom line is that these places are no longer places where a person can reasonably hope to build a net worth.  The state will confiscate it.

Education.  Pandemic highlighted the state of education in these places.  Unions in Chicago are blocking teachers from going back to work.  And when they do go back to work, the schools have become little more than indoctrination camps.  In Illinois, “Culturally Sensitive Education” and LGBT history (whatever that is) are mandated by state law.  Since these cities are sanctuary cities, your children have to take a back seat to the children of illegal immigrants.

Adding this all up and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that certain segments of the urban populations are actively being driven out.  And because of the largesse from Washington, showering these mayors with federal dollars, they really don’t care much if their tax base flees.   They are being pushed out by implied threats of violence, the confiscation of wealth, and an education system that is not viable.  To rub salt in the wound, the cities are tearing down the edifices of our culture.  

The message is clear—your presence is no longer desired here.

But the politicians running these places are not quite as bad as those that ran 1930’s Germany.  They’re letting you decide to leave on your own.

For now.

If You Check Signatures We Will Leave

 

While it’s been awhile since I’ve been in business school, there are still a few things that I remember from my marketing and strategy classes.  I do remember a few of the maxims of the late great consultant, Peter Drucker, who famously asserted that “the purpose of a business is to create a customer.”   Other classes taught us about market segmentation, the acquisition costs of a customer and how to build brand loyalty.  I have clear memories of an excellent Harvard Business Review article on the Boston Red Sox, who, despite a long World Series drought, were able to build a tremendous brand and fierce brand loyalty.

Major League Baseball, in particular, has some real challenges.  Its core fan base is aging out.  Younger fans perceive the game to be slow and boring.  And it has lots of competition for entertainment dollars. 

Yet last week MLB was compelled to jump into politics and announce that it was moving the Midsummer Classic from Atlanta to Denver in response to Georgia’s election law that requires a photo ID.   MLB moved the All Star Game to Denver despite the fact that Atlanta has a 51% black population vs. Denver at 9% and the move would disproportionately hurt black businesses in Atlanta.  To rub salt in the wound, Hank Aaron, the man that broke Babe Ruth’s home run record as a Brave, and an African American that suffered racial abuse as a result, died this year.  The game would have also served, in part,  as a celebration to his life and achievements.  Twitter erupted with charges of hypocrisy. The move was to a state with a black population of only 9% and it cost black businesses millions in revenue.   The usual slow-footed Marco Rubio skewered MLB commissioner Rob Manfred for not giving up his membership at Augusta.   But MLB marched on.

MLB had another choice—do nothing, say nothing.  Simply carry on.  But MLB felt compelled to react and thereby offend a nonsignificant segment of its customer base. 

Businesses go through a great deal of work to learn about customer preferences, and how to keep customers and sell those customers other things.  I fail to see how MLB’s decision does any of that.   From what I can gather from the reaction of fans on social media, baseball will likely suffer some level of drop off as did the NFL and NBA after their leap into politics.

Certainly, the move by MLB created quite a kerfuffle and there is some logic to the notion that “there is no such thing as bad publicity” but that only goes so far.  

MLB joins a lengthening list of companies that have gone Woke. The president of Coca-Cola chimed in with his criticism of the Georgia election law (only weeks after it was disclosed that their implicit bias training urged employees to “stop being so white”), as did Delta Airlines.  United Airlines announced that it was going to apply affirmative action to pilot training and hiring.  Demonstrations of Wokeness heated up a couple of years ago when Nike deep sixed the Betsy Ross flag sneaker.

Perhaps the personal wealth of the CEO’s of large corporations is too insulated from risk these days.  Even if they are fired, most get severance packages larger than the GDP of most developing nations.  In a bygone year, CEO’s burnished their images by taking high level board positions in civic institutions.  Today, I suppose it is more important for them to make visible demonstrations of their Woke bona fides.  But I am stunned by the fact that they are willing to do it at the expense of their customer base and their  shareholders.