Remembrance- It's Worse Than You Think

 

I spent some time yesterday reflecting on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.  I participated in the observance of the event through the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  Later, I listened to Bari Weiss’s podcast interview with author Dara Horn, who discussed her book, “People Love Dead Jews,” a collection of essays about antisemitism.

I found it appropriate to do them together as the ceremony at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Bari Weiss’s interview with Dara Horn were perfect complements to each other.

Although I am not Jewish, I have had a strong interest in WWII, and, in particular, the Holocaust.  I have read widely on the topic, reviewed several excellent films, such as Son of Saul, and wrote a piece a few years ago in opposition to the proposed Polish law that would have made speaking of the “Polish Holocaust” or similar references illegal.

At bottom, I still seek to understand how citizens in a civilized Western country could have done such things.  And I am also seeking to relate those events to some of the things that are going on right here and now in the U.S. and wondering how concerned we should be.

The ceremony at the Illinois Holocaust Museum was appropriately solemn and dignified.  It had the Israeli Consulate General give some remarks as well as the granddaughter of one of the survivors.  Most moving was the lighting of the candles by some of the survivors and the mournful singing of the cantor.

I urge you to listen to the podcast interview of Dara Horn.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weekend-extra-why-people-love-dead-jews/id1570872415?i=1000541010284

Perhaps the most important takeaway is Bari Weiss’s assertion that “The fate of Jews and the fate of liberty are intertwined,” a statement I agree with wholeheartedly.  Some of their conversation focused on the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh three years ago, as well as the self-erasure that some Jewish institutions engage in in an effort to be more “inclusive.”

Yet, given current events, I found the ceremony and the conversation a little incomplete.  The speakers at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, while remembering the past, did not spend a great deal of time on the most worrying aspect of the current expressions of antisemitism. 

By commission and omission, the State has been an ally to antisemitic forces.  On a national level, both Ilhan Omar have made clear antisemitic statements and the House of Representatives could not bring itself to censure them.   In New York, under the pretext of enforcing COVID restrictions, authorities bullied Hasidic Jews, stopped them from having funeral services and other gatherings.  Most egregiously, they chased young Jewish mothers with their children off playgrounds—even though children have almost no risk from COVID.   And in cities like New York and Los Angeles, Jews have been subjected to random attacks on the streets by African Americans, which attacks have been widely captured on video and disseminated on social media.  The passivity of law enforcement in these cities has been particularly harmful to the Jewish community.

So, yes, we are seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism here in the U.S.

It was a mere four years ago that I saw a flyer on a public bulletin board at the University of Illinois at Chicago that proclaimed, “White Supremacy starts with Jewish Supremacy.”  Now that we are seeing signs that the State is not unequivocally and forcefully pushing back against it, and may be tacitly ok with it, we should be very worried.

Dara Horn said that she objected to Jews being viewed as “canaries in the coal mine.”   I view it a little differently.  My Jewish brothers and sisters are on the front lines of liberty.  And we need to stand with them, even when some don’t see it yet.

Preying on Youth

 

Our society seems to be being pulled apart by a number of forces—our political divisions, urban crime, Cancel Culture, Woke ideology that seems to have taken hold in nearly every institution, the corrosion of our educational system, the corruption of our media.

But there is one development that worries me the most—and that is our society’s disregard for the safety of our young people, particularly when it comes to sexual assault and sexual exploitation.  Indeed, our institutions have been complicit in the most egregious violations of their personhood.  That our institutions look the other way.

Chicago Blackhawks
As more is coming to light about the sexual assault of Kyle Beach, the more we should be repulsed by an organization that swept this awful occurrence under the rug.  The offender, Brad Aldrich,  went on to coach in high school and assaulted a 16 year old, and who knows how many others.  The Blackhawks just obtained the resignation of general manager Scotty Bowman, issued a statement and asked that Aldrich’s name be removed from the Stanley Cup.  The league pressured Coach Quennville to resign from the Florida Panthers.

Yet, this is 10 years too late and, like the Catholic archdiocese, the Blackhawks remained silent and allowed Aldrich to move on when what happened to Beach was common knowledge.

That the organization covered up for Aldrich is hideous.  Whatever sins were committed by  the mismanagement of Bill Wirtz in comparison to what occurred under the aegis of his son, Rocky.

U.S. Gymnastics
It was hard not to rage as McKayla Maroney and others testified about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Larry Nasser.  Michigan State president Lou Ann Simon resigned in the wake of the scandal and her replacement, interim president John Engler resigned after he was quoted as saying that the victims seemed to be “enjoying the spotlight.”    Most incredibly, FBI agents changed Maroney’s statements, and were slow to pursue allegations against Nasser, which enabled him to abuse more victims.

Loudoun County
We learned that a 14 year old girl was raped in the girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt.  The school board covered up the crime, transferred the boy to another school, where he molested another victim.  The school board, which recently implemented a transgender friendly policy enabling a student that self identifies as a girl to have access to the girls’ bathroom.  In its eagerness to advance its trans agenda, the board and principal showed their eagerness to trample over the safety of adolescent girls and the result was a girl brutally raped and several others assaulted.   To date, no one has resigned.

For Kyle Beach, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles and the other victims of Larry Nasser, Brad Aldrich, and the Loudoun County rapist, the assaults were defining moments  of their lives.  It was a horrible occurrence that forever changed the trajectory of their lives. 

These were outstanding young people.  In the case of the gymnasts and Kyle Beach, they were athletes that evidenced discipline to compete at the highest level of their sport. 

The outrage is not simply that these horrendous things happened to these beautiful, talented and innocent young people.   That is bad in and of itself.  But the grotesqueness of it all is that the structures and institutions PROTECTED THE PERPETRATORS, enabled them to go on to sexually abuse and exploit more young people.  These are organizations whose mission is, in part at least, to develop and showcase the talents of young people.  Instead, they actively colluded to coddle the predators.

It’s as if the people running these organizations learned nothing from Joe Paterno and learned nothing from the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church. 

These awful collusions and cover-ups are very bad indicators for our society.

MIA

 

Woody Allen famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

In the midst of multiple crises, the adults in charge simply don’t show up. 

The American people can be quite forgiving even if things go wrong if you are honest and forthright and look like you’re trying really hard to solve the problem.

In one of America’s capstone projects, the Apollo program, 3 of our astronauts were burned to a crisp in that horrible launchpad fire in January, 1967.   Two and a half years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proudly stepped onto the surface of the moon.

We overcome missteps.  But you gotta show up and own up.

Less than a year in, Team Biden has show that when the going gets tough, the tough go on paid leave.

Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis.  Harris didn’t visit the border until Donald Trump shamed her into it by threatening to visit the border first.  The only concrete Harris initiative was to stand at the podium and plea to the immigrants not to come and pledge to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration.  To date, there has been no plan put forward to fortify the border, provide for more security, or disincentivize immigrants from pouring in.

With regard to Afghanistan, as the horror show unfolded with the Afghan military in collapse, the country overrun by Taliban, and as our military scooted out, leaving equipment, Americans and our allies behind, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was unavailable because she was on vacation.  Secretary of State Anthony Blinken headed to the Hamptons.  And old Joe claimed success at the podium, turned and walked away.   Meanwhile, 13 of our service men and women were killed and Afghanis were falling from the skies after futilely clinging to airplanes, reminiscent of the Americans jumping to their deaths on 9/11.

And the latest absence is Mayor Pete Buttigieg, our gay Secretary of Transportation, who wears his gender preference like a badge of honor and has no inhibitions about using it as both a sword and a shield.  He was last seen getting out of a van loaded with his bicycle, so he could be seen as a “green” worker pedaling to work instead of using the old combustion engine.

In the midst of a supply chain crisis, with cargo ships backed up and companies unable to get important goods, it turns out that Mayor Pete is on parental leave, and has been for two months.

Now, it’s fine to have a vacation.  It’s ok to take some time to be with your new child.  But there are roles and times when it’s simply not possible.  As an attorney, I know how hard it is to completely get away from the office.  It’s sometimes nearly impossible, even when you have adequate colleagues to pick up the slack.  Most attorneys concede that it is a hazard of the profession.  Likewise, almost every business owner I know is required to handle things while they are out of the office.   A day off for farmers?  You’ve got to be kidding.   And if you are in the restaurant business, vacations or “time off” simply doesn’t happen for you.

In these jobs, in a national emergency, with peoples lives and livelihoods at stake, these people don’t have the luxury of time away.  It was abhorrent that Psaki just wasn’t around to answer question during the Afghanistan crisis.  In a democracy, she owed it to our 330 million citizens to explain exactly what was going on, and the policy choices behind it. 

Mayor Pete needs to be working 18 hour days to unclog our ports and clear these cargo ships.

Instead,  Mayor Pete and Psaki declare a “success” and called it a day.

This is why conspiracy theories start.  People aren’t stupid.  When they see that no one is in charge or the person that’s supposed to be in charge is MIA, they assume that things are the way they are because the administration wants them to be that way.  Otherwise they would have SOMEBODY in charge working tirelessly to change course.

We can differ about policies and approaches.

But you have to show up to work.

 

Fossilized Tyrants

 

At the time of his election, John Kennedy at 43 was the youngest person to hold the office of president of the United States.  While I was just a toddler when he was assassinated, Kennedy was still talked about and adored when I was in grade school.  In fact, the vestibule of my Catholic grade school had three portraits on the wall—JFK, FDR, and Pope Paul VI.   Who ranked the highest was not a settled matter.

JFK’s youthfulness, vision and energy propelled a nation in the early Cold War years.  Elected a mere 15 years after the Nazi defeat, Kennedy exemplified a forward looking and confident nation.  He faced down Khruschev in 1962 and, after the Soviets had taken the lead in the space race, Kennedy threw down the gauntlet and challenged the U.S. government to put a man on the moon within a decade, which we accomplished.

But that was the America of 60 years ago.

The leadership of America today—the people setting the tone, writing the rules, and prioritizing the challenges have quite a different profile.

President Joe Biden is an addled 78.  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House is 81 and when she’s not drunk on power, she’s just, well, drunk.   Anthony Fauci, the face of the Administrative State is 80.  Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is the young pup at 70. 

The age of our political leaders has a profound impact on their decision making and horizons.

Here are the facts.  Fauci’s life expectancy is 7 years. Nancy’s is 9.  Biden’s is about 9 ½ years.  And their timelines are much shorter when you consider how much longer each will be effectively functional—assuming you make the leap and consider Biden fully functional now.   This means that 3 of 4 of our branches of government (the Administrative State is a de facto 4^th branch) are led by individuals THAT HAVE VERY LITTLE VESTED INTEREST IN THE FUTURE.   Only one is expected to live more than a decade.

This explains a lot, and yet leaves a lot unexplained.

As we age, we necessarily become more focused on our legacy, on what we are going to leave behind, on the traditions, the structures and heritage we will leave to the next generation.  Yet this geriatric crew disconsonantly appears to be much more interested in accumulating and wielding power.   

The parallels to the waning years of the Soviet Union gnaws at me.  As the sun set on the Soviets, it would do well to recall the hoary succession of Secretary Generals that preceded Gorbachev and the collapse.  Leonid Brezhnev faded and died at 79.   Yuri Andropov lasted less than two years and died at 69.  Andrei Gromyko was still in power at age 79.  Konstantin Chernenko died at 73 after less than a year in office, prompting Ronald Reagan quip that he wanted to meet “face to face with a Soviet leader but they kept dying on me.”

Historian John Lewis Gaddis said Chernenko “was an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not.”

Many observers could say the same thing about Biden’s mental acuity.

Of all the circumstances that are swirling around, this is one that is most troubling to me. 

The Soviet Union collapsed about two years after its disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, and after being led by a crusty, ossified series of rulers.

The echo should give us pause.

Exemptions from Accountability at the Top

 Last week, I wrote about the Barbell Theory of Exemptions, how the very top and the very bottom of our society escapes accountability for their actions, performance, and behavior, and how rules don’t apply to them.

General Mark Milley can make horrendous decisions and mistakes in judgment costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars.  Barack Obama can host hundreds for a birthday bash, unmasked without vaxx passports.

You can’t.

Antifa and BLM can smash windows, loot stores, and assault people and get away without any time in jail.

You can’t.

Young gangbanger Adam Toledo, shot by Chicago police earlier this summer after wielding a weapon has a virtual sanctuary to him at the National Museum of Mexican Art.  George Floyd has murals and statues.

When you pass, you will not be so honored.

But at the pinnacle of all this are the Bidens.

The son of our current president, singularly unaccomplished, has slipped the surly bonds of accountability at every turn. 

Most recently, it was disclosed that he received a $2 million “retainer” from Libya.  Then there was the whole controversy over his board position at Burisma, even though he had no business experience in the Ukraine and no energy experience.  The Secret Service apparently covered up for his violation of firearms laws.  He fought tooth and nail to avoid child support payments for a child that he had with an Arkansas stripper that was shown to be conclusively his with DNA testing.  And then there are the leaked photos of him with apparently underage girls and an FBI that still won’t reveal what they found on his laptop.

These are things that would bring any of us to ruin.  But not only has Hunter escaped any accountability, he keeps getting rewarded handsomely.  He received a $2 million book advance for his literary talent that sold less than 10,000 books.  Wink. Wink.  And now, having attended not a single art school—no toiling at the Rhode Island School of Design, Hunter is suddenly a famous painter whose artwork fetches upwards of $500,000 from undisclosed buyers.  Wink. Wink.  His genius is having to avoid any studios and the “starving artist” part.

Any business person, lawyer or other professional that engaged in this sort of monkey business would get driven out of their profession, exiled and perhaps jailed.

All of this is covered by the Barbell Exemption for Hunter.

Then we get to the “Big Guy,” Joe himself, who apparently got a 10% cut from some of Hunter’s shenanigans.

The people behind him have the biggest exemption of all.  If you are paying attention at all, you can see with clarity that the people that are REALLY running the country have made themselves invisible, that Joe is simply a figurehead reading lines provided to him, calling on reporters whose names have been provided to him and being cut short when asked incisive impromptu questions.   Biden, Blinken and Psaki have walked off the podium rather than answer hard questions.

It’s pretty clear that it isn’t Joe doing the actual decision making and there is lots of speculation as to who it might be----Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett??  They are being cloaked to shield them from accountability for the rampant inflation, increased gas prices, shutdowns and mandates and the catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.

These people symbolize the worst of what I have called the Barbell Exempt from accountability—the very top.

Our country won’t get back on track until we ALL are accountable for our decisions.

 

The Barbell of Exemptions from Accountability

 

I think most would agree that something is out of kilter in our society right now.  It feels raw, unstable and unsettled.   Many of us don’t quite know what to make of it.   Our political system is being stretched in ways we never imagined.  COVID19 rules seem totalitarian and arbitrary.  Crime is ascendant in major cities and shows no signs of abating.  Race relations are worse than they have been in more than a half century.   The U.S. is abandoning some allies, ignoring others and coddling totalitarian regimes.

At the top of the list is General Mark Milley.  Leading a catastrophic and abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 marines and untold other Afghani allies, while leaving U.S. citizens behind, Milley still has a job.

Under Milley, a family was droned, which included 7 children, and Milley had days before considered it a “righteous strike.”  And if the reports by Bob Woodward are true, Milley subverted the chain of command and had unauthorized conversations with our principal geopolitical adversary.   In an earlier era, Milley would have faced a firing squad. 

Anthony Fauci is still employed and spouting off recommendations even though Rand Paul caught him in a flat out lie about his role in funding “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Lab.  Despite inconsistent and flawed projections and recommendations, Fauci still graces the covers of magazines and is lauded as an “expert” by the mainstream media.  In any other venue, someone with Fauci’s track record would have gotten the heave-ho long ago.

Then, there are the real sewer rats-  people like Eric Slawell and Ilhan Omar.   Slawell slept with Chinese spy Fang Fang.  Omar purportedly married her brother to flout immigration rules, funneled campaign money to her lover’s consulting firm, and made breathtaking antisemitic pronouncement.  In neither case were they held accountable in any way.

The entire F.B.I. deserves its own essay on accountability, beginning with the fabrication of the Steele dossier used to “trump up” the collusion charge with the FISA court (as an aside, there were no consequences or reforms proposed by Chief Justice John Roberts for this, either).  But worse was the F.B.I.’s handling of the sexual abuse of the Olympic gymnasts.   McKayla Maroney’s testimony last week was particularly heartbreaking as she made clear that the F.B.I. not only failed to protect these girls, but actively enabled Nasser to continue to abuse them.  To my knowledge, not a single person has suffered a consequence as a result.

At the bottom of our society, criminals are no longer accountable.   SF can’t be prosecuted for shoplifting for under $950.   In cities like Chicago, murderers are not prosecuted or are released on no cash bail.   Disturbing the peace and public nuisances aren’t dealt with at all.  Violent criminals in Chicago go free on cashless bail.  The Antifa and BLM melees last summer resulted in few arrests and even few perpetrators that spent time in prison, even though deaths, injuries and billions in property damage resulted.

The rest of us are always accountable—abiding by the law, paying our taxes, performing at work, living up to our familial obligations.    We are accountable to our employers, to all the government rules and regulations, and to our families.

But what is completely out of kilter is that the elites exempt themselves and the bottom of our society from accountability.  We cannot have a society in which the very top and very bottom escape accountability while the rest of us are held accountable.

This cannot go on much longer.   It is the stuff that populism is made of…and if things do not change, rebellions.

The Hallmarks of a Communist or Fascist Regime

 

There are demonstrable, legitimate reasons to be deeply concerned about our society at the present time.    As I discussed in my post on May 31, the radical movement that seems to have gripped the nation doesn’t look exactly like other socialist/communist movements (https://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2021/05/who-are-fascists.html).  I argued that it is more of a hybrid between a communist movement and national socialism and has borrowed features from each. 

But in any event, I believe that the radical Left that has gained control of our federal government and many states and municipalities is as dangerous as anything we’ve witnessed since the end of the Cold War.  Because the New Left doesn’t look exactly like Bolshevism or National Socialism, many are confused about it.   Here’s why you should be concerned.

Its Callous Disregard for Human Life

Like its Communist and National Socialist antecedents, the New Left has a callous disregard for human life.   James Lindsay, in his New Discourses podcast of April 23, 2021, Communism Doesn’t Know How   (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/04/communism-doesnt-know-how/) argues that the Neo Marxists are in a hurry to dismantle the current system but are vague on what is to replace it.  I would add to that an assertion that Communism Doesn’t Care (and neither does fascism). 

And it doesn’t.  Mao starved out millions, as did Stalin.  And we know about Hitler.  And Pol Pot.

Are today’s Neo-Marxists any better?  Not much.  They are evidencing a lack of inhibition about breaking a few eggs to advance their agenda.

Whatever your views on abortion, the cheering and glee that we witnessed in New York and Illinois over passing laws permitting unrestricted abortion until birth was grotesque.   Ending the life of an almost-to-be-born fetus would be a somber and serious thing, no matter what.  But what we saw were all cheers, smiles and backslapping. 

Likewise, in cities like Chicago, the violent crime rate continues to escalate.  In Chicago, 280 children have been shot so far this year.  A 24 year old bank employee was stabbed to death in the middle of the day a few weeks ago, and earlier this summer, a 31 year old woman was stabbed to death just blocks from Sears Tower.  A University of Chicago student was shot to death on his way home from his internship this summer.  A 70 year old former special ed teacher was slain on her way home from a White Sox game.  Dozens of black children have been murdered, and I have repeatedly asked the question of why I seem to care about the senseless slaughter of black children more than the black city management does.  There has been no effort, no urgency, no mandate, no personnel changes.  The Neo-Marxists in charge are apparently ok with the status quo.  The death toll is an acceptable level to advance their agenda…or they would do something different.

Similarly, the abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan cost us 13 young marines, and an untold number of Afghan allies and people that assisted the U.S.  Even more egregious, we left Americans behind.   The images of Afghans falling from airplanes that they were clinging to will be seared in our memories for a long time.  There are reports that U.S. intelligence knew of the suicide bomber and actually had him locked on with a drone but did not disrupt it because we were negotiating with the Taliban.  The photos of Biden checking his watch as he met the parents showed just how much he cared.

Marxists and Nazis simply do not care.  The loss of human life is incidental to their drive to power. 

 

Lies and Deceits

The second marker of a Communist or Nazi is the willingness to propagate  falsehoods.  And where to even start with this bunch?   From the Christmas bombing of Nashville in which the entire investigation was wrapped up in 48 hours to Anthony Fauci’s lies about funding “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Lab to the Pentagon’s claim that they had killed ISIS-K leaders when in fact, they had mistakenly droned a family, the government has gotten bigger, bolder and more brazen putting out falsehoods.

Then there are the “do you think we’re that stupid” lies like Hunter Biden selling his “artwork” for upwards of $500,000 when he had no previous history of artistic inclinations.  

Then there is the 1/6 “deadly invasion of the capitol” except that the only death was at the hands of the Capitol Police and the “insurrection” looked suspiciously more like the Reichstag Fire than and actual insurrection. 

And just today, the government announced that it was sending $64 million in “humanitarian aid” to Afghanistan, but assures us that none of it is going to the Taliban, but rather will be administered by NGO’s and not-for-profits.

Right.

The lies and deceits that are painfully obvious to anyone with a functioning central nervous system are a hallmark of communism/national socialism.

These are the things that concern me most.  I do not recall a time in my lifetime when a government evidenced such a callous disregard for human life and was so willing to look us in the eye and lie.