Demasculinization and the Mob

One of the most eye catching posts on Twitter regarding the pandemic was this one:

We were so afraid of dying that we forgot to live.

The announcement that the statue of Teddy Roosevelt would be removed from the American Museum of Natural History in New York was one of the most significant actions by the Radical Left in their zeal to tear down all of America’s historical markers.  TR exemplified American masculinity.  Robust, swashbuckling, intelligent, fearless, Roosevelt was probably one of the most accomplished Americans of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  Among his many accomplishments, he established the National Park system, a man devoted to “green” before it was cool.  In addition to his deep intellect, Roosevelt was a big game hunter and lived the life of a cowboy and demonstrated his courage in the Spanish-American War.  His prodigious life was masterfully captured in Edmund Morris’s biographies.  Roosevelt was a true American, and a man’s man—the kind of man the Radical Left cannot tolerate.

Indeed, “toxic masculinity” became one of the pet vacuous phrases concocted  by the Radical Left to undermine American society (along with “social justice,” “the patriarchy,” “privilege,” “racial justice,” and the litany of phobias designed to put hard working, family oriented Americans on the defensive). 

Masculinity has been attacked with a number of tactics, many of which have been enormously successful in feminizing our population: We have labelled energetic boys as ADHD and drugged them.   Normal sexual advances that are at all persistent are now harassment, and any physical contact with a woman without express consent is considered sexual assault (attempting to steal a kiss from a girl like Jimmy Stewart did in so many films will get you bounced out of almost every college campus).  Colleges have shifted the burden of proof and removed due process across the country. 

Institutionalized demasculinization is occurring earlier and earlier.  Little boys are disciplined for showing “finger guns” in school.  Games like dodgeball have been removed from recess (if you even have recess). Drag Queen Story Hour, aimed at young children, has been implemented in libraries across the country.  Combat sports are being attacked.  Most disturbingly, the American Psychological Association recently put out statements that contended that traditional masculinity was harmful, linked to homophobia and misogyny (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/american-psychological-association-links-masculinity-ideology-homophobia-misogyny-n956416).  In other words, the "experts" have determined that being a man is a disorder. 

We now see with real clarity what has been behind this push against manhood.  Because men resist.  Men take risks.  Men will defend their nation and their families.

This is all relevant now because we are nearing a time when men will need to step up.  The Radical Left has exploited our federal system and has been able to ally with feckless mayors to cause havoc in a number of our cities.  The real men of our country have been doing what they always do--- go about their business, obey the laws, work, help provide for their families.  So far, they have left the job of defending the country to those whose job it is to do so- through the function of government.  So far, that is failing.  The police aren’t policing.  Republicans in Congress have been meek and timid.  Even the boastful Donald Trump has done little more than Tweet in all caps.

Despite the fecklessness of our politicians, and despite the decades long effort at demasculinizing our society, I would not do too much gloating if I were on the Radical Left. 

If I were going to send a message to Antifa/BLM terrorists, it would be this:

You’ve had your run of the table so far.  You’ve had your easy early victories, enabled with winks and nods by leftist mayors.  You’ve torn down some statues and you’ve wrecked some businesses.  And you’ve been able to do so without incurring any costs.  You undoubtedly feel that the wind is at your backs right now. Enjoy the moment.

Because it’s about to get tougher.  A lot tougher from here on out.  Think of this like the NCAA basketball tournament.  You have just made it through the first couple of rounds.  But conversations are occurring.  And men are quietly preparing. A man will not jeopardize his safety to save a statue in the park, but if his family or nation are seriously threatened, the stakes will get higher.  And the risks will get higher for you if you insist on going down this progression. 

And there are now some red lines.  So far, you have been careful not to cross them, but you keep inching toward them.  If you are smart, you will stay away from them.  I can’t tell you exactly what those red lines are but I suspect we both know at least some of them.  You would be wise not to pee on that electrified third rail.  American masculinity is not dead, despite your best efforts, and if you do cross those lines, you will see it in all its glory.  It will not flinch.  It will not hesitate. It is not afraid of death.  And, yes, it will become toxic to you if you go too far.

Perhaps no other image of the week exemplified our current state as the film clip of the scrawny guy with the man bun screaming at the impassive black cop towering over him.  Whatever insults Mr. Man Bun threw at him, the cop just stood his ground with perfect discipline.  The image was striking because you know that if that cop unleashed his fury on Mr. Man Bun, the confrontation would be over within 45 seconds. 

The Radical Left needs to be very careful not to unleash that fury. 

It is silently but firmly lying in wait.

black lives matter

I must give credit where credit is due.  Ilhan Omar and Black Lives Matter are incredibly efficient and organized, much more so than our lumbering and ossified republic.  Ilhan Omar, reviled by conservatives, immersed in controversy about fraudulent transactions with regard to her immigration and campaign funding fraud and blatant anti-semitism was able to turn Minneapolis into Mogadishu in 3 short years.  That is no mean feat.  I am even more impressed with Black Lives Matter   With the use of a mere label and brand, Black Lives Matter has been able to create a smokescreen and impenetrable forcefield around itself.  True marketing genius.

I and others have publicly excoriated Pope Francis for, among other things, his handling of the sex abuse scandals, his leap into politics, his secret deal with the Chinese Communist Party, his harsh criticism of Donald Trump while maintaining silence on the CCP.  None of this is met by a vituperative response.  Try that with BLM and your career and/or your company will face ruination. 

BLM has done an excellent job of building allies.  The NFL is kneeling before it.  The CEO of Chick-fil-A is shining your shoes.  National guard is submitting to you.  My email box is full of odes to BLM, with corporate breast beating and vows to do better.   Corporate America is showering millions upon it, without regard to where it goes or exactly where the money is flowing into.  It doesn’t matter to them. It’s protection money.  

At great risk to my own person, and whatever career I have remaining, I oppose Black Lives Matter categorically, unconditionally and without reservation.  Of course black lives matter (all lower case), and we all should remain committed to ensuring that black lives and all lives matter.

But Black Lives Matter is, well, another matter. Let’s scratch under the surface a bit.  You don’t actually have to look much beyond the label to see Black Lives Matter is all about.  My first exposure to Black Lives Matter was a few years ago when BLM marchers were in downtown Chicago, chanting “Pigs in a blanket. Fry ‘em like bacon,” and  “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.”  That’s hardly a way to persuade me to jump in on your side.  I’m sympathetic to disparate treatment, if that can be shown, and I am sympathetic to protesting overreaching government agents.  You lost me immediately upon the call for violence.

If you relabel BLM for what it really is, the label would read something like Blacks for a Marxist and Reverse Apartheid Future.  If you listen to what its founders have said and read what it purports to be, that about captures it.  It seeks to abolish capitalism, the traditional Western family (with a 75% illegitimacy rate, it’s well along its way), do away with the police and defeat Donald Trump.  The name itself is fraudulent. 

We know this from the symbols it has chosen to denigrate.  Over the past two weeks we have seen erase figures of black achievement. It pressured Netflix to remove Gone With the Wind, and with it, the first black Oscar winner, Hattie McDaniel.  It forced Quaker Oats to rid itself of Aunt Jemima, the model for which was an amazing story of a woman that went from slavery to one of the first black millionaires.  Most perversely, they vandalized the memorial to the 54^th Massachusetts, the incredibly brave and inspirational Union Army regiment popularized by the film Glory.

While denigrating black success, the movement has chosen to lionize black criminality.  While George Floyd’s death was a gross and gruesome overreach of state power, Floyd himself was hardly a pillar of society. He was so bad that society said he needed to be removed from it for 5 years.  He apparently didn’t get the message and continued to engage in criminal behavior after his release.  None of this justifies his death at the hand of officer Chauvin, but the fact that he was given a larger hero’s funeral than Neil Armstrong had a couple of years earlier says something about the priorities of BLM.  Likewise, ABC News perversely claimed that Rayshard Brooks was to be “remembered for hard work and dedication to family” while he was jailed for beating his family.  Neither Brooks or Floyd deserve any adulation.

But BLM elevates criminals while tearing down actual black successes.

Then, of course, there are the black lives that should matter most---the young people of the black community.  It was ironic at the time of all the mayhem, Chicago had its bloodiest day.  The Chicago Sun Times posted pictures of the 18 people murdered in a 24 hour period, most young blacks, children really.   The shooting deaths of 16 year old Simeon cheerleader Akiera Boston and beautiful young Kaylyn Pryor affecting me so much that I blogged about them.   And as I write this, 9 people were killed over Father’s Day weekend, 4 of them children, including a 3 year old and a 13 year old girl.  Yet, BLM is more concerned with the deaths of criminals than the murders of so many beautiful young people in their communities.  Why do I seem to care more about the slaughter of the innocents than BLM?  Even more perversely, Planned Parenthood, the abortion provider of choice for the black community tweeted out its support of Black Lives Matter.  BLM is conveniently silent about the future of black America being slaughtered in the womb.  And if they make it out of the womb, they are slaughtered in the streets.

These are blunt, uncomfortable things to talk about.  BLM does nothing to help black success, improve black lives in any respect.  In Chicago, the looters started their dastardly deeds on the South Side, wrecking black businesses, destroying stores where African Americans shop and fill their prescriptions, and further obliterating job opportunities for blacks.

And this brings me to my view.  Many of my personal heroes have been black.  Willie Davis, who just passed away was a personal hero from the time I was about 8, first as a Green Bay Packer, then as a University of Chicago MBA and successful businessman.  Bill Curry’s description of him as a leader is inspirational and I urge you to watch it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRT6kjsIfC0 )     Alan Page of the Vikings and Bears, had a great second career in law and became Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.  Two great highlights of my life were having an opportunity to meet the great Minnie Minoso, the first black player for the Chicago White Sox.  And then meeting the descendant of the great Frederick Douglass, Kenneth B. Morris, right after reading David Blight’s masterful biography of Douglass. We need more Willie Davises and fewer Nikole Hannah-Joneses (author of 1619 Project).

My message to BLM is this:

I know who you are and what you represent.  You may be able to fool some people with your clever label, but I know what you are.  You have done a good job of organizing to burn and destroy.  But you know nothing about growing and building.  Your actions damage actual black lives, especially young black lives.  You have learned your trade from Hamas. You hold yourself out as an advocate for the improvement of black lives but in reality, you are a Marxist terror and shakedown organization, with expertise in ruining people like U of C economics professor Harald Uhlig for daring to question you.  The funds that have poured into your coffers will only improve the black lives of those in a position to pilfer them.  I will oppose you and the chaos you seek to cause at every turn.

Actual black lives matter little to Black Lives Matter. I put my title in lower case because you can simultaneously believe that black lives matter and spurn Black Lives Matter.

To My White Friends

The social discord has become personal now, and demonstrates why we need to cool off, and soon.  This week, I received a nasty, caustic email from a family member (for which this person later apologized.  And then I received an email from a very old friend (whose name will remain anonymous) and is reprinted below.  I did not respond immediately to it, but its content and condescending tone set me back on my heels.  My face turned purple and it took all the discipline at my disposal to refrain from ripping a sharp reply.

Instead, I will attempt a more measured and rational, and do it here, publicly, and unashamedly. 

Dear J.:

I am writing in response to the email you sent to me last week, and, presumably to a number of people on your contact list.  To be perfectly frank, I found your letter demeaning, condescending and patently offensive. 

It bludgeoned me right from the beginning.  It began with “To My White Friends” which immediately took my breath away.  You see, my friend, I do not have white friends.  I do not have black friends.  I do not have Hispanic friends.  I do not have Indian friends.  I simply have friends.  I do not see them in that dimension.  I am sorry that you do.  If it is important to you to segment friends along that dimension,  I suspect you have issues around that that you might wish to work out.  I simply do not.  White people are not a monolithic group, and neither are black people.  I actually have a number of friends of Indian descent, and I’m not quite sure where they fit into your classification system.

Your letter lacks self-awareness.  Shockingly, it asks, "Do I remark in admiration, but not a little surprise, at how "articulate" that black man was."  Perhaps you are unaware that was exactly how Joe Biden (the fellow you are going to vote for in November) referred to Barack Obama.    Or have you conveniently forgotten?  Will these blatantly racist words cause any hesitation to vote for him, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's storybook, man?"  Or has that quote been erased from history like so many Christopher Columbus statues?

Your letter speaks of a “turning point” because of the protests, but conveniently omits the lawlessness, vandalism, destruction of property, and, yes, the destruction to black lives, black employment and black owned businesses. The upshot of your letter demands that I engage in some sort of critical self examination regarding how I treat black people.  You ask that I do a thorough examination of my behavior [towards blacks]:

“I think each of us can make a difference by taking the tough step of examining ourselves and correcting where we fall short, by calling on our friends and neighbors to change themselves, and by refusing to sit by silently while racial injustice occurs around us.”

What I find most offensive about this demand to do a self examination is a baked in assumption that I do not do this.  Most Christian sects and Jews already have a well established set of guidelines on how we are to treat other people, regardless of race.

Further, I am a Catholic.  As a Catholic, we do self examinations under two circumstances:

1.      To prepare for confession.

2.      To check for testicular cancer (or breast cancer, if you are a woman).

That’s it.  As to the former, Catholics have a well-established, set of guidelines for treating other people, regardless of color.  If we breach any of those, it’s called “sin” and we have an entire process devoted to admitting guilt, confessing it, asking for forgiveness, and doing penance.  That process is so vital to our faith, it is elevated to the status of sacrament. 

Your last line in your letter belies what this is all about.  It reads:

“If I prayed, I’d pray that every one of us accept that challenge.”

And herein lies the issue.  The connotation is that you don’t pray, that you don’t practice a religious faith.   Yet you implore me to practice whatever pseudoreligion you ascribe to when mine already has taught me how to treat others.

I believe in reciprocal arrangements.  I won’t try to convert you to Catholicism and you don’t try to convert me to whatever religious practices that you adhere to.  I won’t make assumptions about your behavior.  And you don’t make assumptions about mine.

After two weeks of burning, looting, and rioting, your demand that I examine ways in which I alter MY behavior displays a special kind of chutzpah.

________________________

Friends,

You are receiving this email because I care deeply for you and because I have been deeply troubled, as I’m sure you have. I hope you will grant me a few minutes of your time.

    

We have all watched the events of the last two weeks unfold almost in slow motion. I suspect most, if not all of you, have watched as I have – in horror, starting with the video of George Floyd’s murder, followed on by countless videos of abuse of many peaceful protesters by some in law enforcement and the opportunistic actions of rioters and looters who defile the memory of George Floyd and others before him – but also in admiration, at the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who have taken to the streets across our country to demand change.

As the protests continue, some have suggested this could be a turning point for our country, that it could be a catalyst propelling us toward the promise our nation has always had, but which has consistently eluded many of our countrymen. I agree that it could be that. I certainly wish it. But it won’t happen on its own. And it won’t happen if the only people seeking to effectuate change are those taking to the streets. Because protests tend to eventually stall and ultimately to stop entirely, until the next provocation that brings people back out demanding change. Also, it won’t happen if the only voices demanding change are those in the communities most at risk.

I submit that change can happen in each of us without waiting for that provocation. I also submit that lasting change can only happen if those of us who happened to be born white contribute our voices. Loudly or softly. Publicly or with friends, family, neighbors, and acquaintances. And we need to do it today, tomorrow, and in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

A starting point should be an examination of our own prejudices. It can be uncomfortable to do it, but we need to ask ourselves tough questions. At a minimum, I would propose we each ask ourselves what it is we do that perpetuates, or at exposes our complicity in, damaging racial stereotypes. Do I lock my doors when I drive through a black neighborhood? Do I assume that the chain wearing young black and Latino men hanging out in the neighborhood are “thugs” and criminals whom I should avoid because they no doubt mean to do me some harm? Do I clutch my bag a little tighter when I pass the black teenagers on the sidewalk but not do the same for the white teenagers? Do I assume that the young black guy in the fancy car is an athlete or a drug dealer? Do I assume that the black guy in the white neighborhood, or the group of black teenage boys in the store, is up to no good? Do I remark in admiration, but not a little surprise, at how “articulate” that black man was? These are just a few of the innumerable examples of pernicious racism that even the most enlightened among us engage in, often unconsciously, on a regular basis.

I think each of us can make a difference by taking the tough step of examining ourselves and correcting where we fall short, by calling on our friends and neighbors to change themselves, and by refusing to sit by silently while racial injustice occurs around us. I’m still optimistic enough that I think we can each make a difference. Individually and collectively, we can chip away at the yawning gap between the promise of our country and the reality that many of its citizens live on a daily basis.

In closing, if you have not read the open letter that Lee Pelton, the president of Emerson College, penned a few days ago, I’d recommend that you take the time to do so. I’ve included it below. It delivers a powerful message that cannot be repeated often enough. In that letter, President Pelton lays down a simple challenge I think can help move the needle in wiping out systemic racism. Systemic racism in our society won’t disappear overnight, but I think we can each make a start by answering the question President Pelton challenged us to ask:  “What changes will [we] make in [our] own life”?

If I prayed, I’d pray that every one of us accept that challenge.

Your friend,

Kristallnacht II

This week was a week like no other I have experienced in my adult life, and it will be hard to fully capture all of the swirling events in a single blog post.  But I will pick out a few observations that I think are relevant to the discussion.

As we know, Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, occurred on November 9 and 10, 1938 when Nazis torched Jewish businesses, synagogues, homes and schools, killed about 100 Jews and arrested some 30,000 Jews and sent them to concentration camps.  This week, in New York, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, NY, and many other cities, looters went on a rampage following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.  With elements of Antifa mixed in, mobs trashed, burned and looted for days, turning New York into something out of a futuristic dystopian sci-fi film. 

Most revolting was that the looters clearly had targeted symbolic edifices.  Kristallnacht II was much wider.  Jews were a subset of the repression this time around.  Churches and synagogues were looted and defaced.  In Chicago, a church was vandalized, a Catholic bookstore was looted and in LA a Jewish neighborhood was targeted for destruction.  Ironically, in New York, police were dispatched to close down Jewish funeral and on the very day of the rioting, Jewish moms and kids were shooed off of a playground.  That same night, no police officers were in sight as Macy’s was trashed and looted.

In addition to religious symbols, the mob defaced American symbols.  The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the College Football Hall of Fame.  They even vandalized the memorial to the 54^th Massachusetts , the statue of Gandhi, and Winston Churchill in Great Britain.  Virginia is taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee, but you know it won’t stop there.  Washington and Jefferson will be next.

NPR posted a message that we need to “de-colonize our bookshelves, actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long.”  Out with Gordon Wood.  In with the 1619 Project.  Our with Emerson, Thoreau and James Fenimore Cooper.  In with Ta Nehisi Coates.  If you object, you are a racist, a bigot, a xenophobe. 

Perhaps no other symbol carries more meaning than the mask, which we have been all forced to wear for months.  Dehumanizing, suffocating, it serves many purposes.  Under the guise of a barrier to pathogen transmission, it removes your individuality.  It makes it harder to breathe.  It makes it more difficult to talk.  They want you gagged and suffocated. 

This is how you know that this is not a protest.  It’s an attempt at a hostile takeover.  They go for symbols and intend to eradicate America’s glorious past completely. 

It began gradually a long time ago, but has picked up momentum with George Floyd as the accelerant. Prayer in schools was the first to go, then the pledge of allegiance.  What started with sex education morphed into Drag Queen Story Hour.  Study of the Declaration of Independence was replaced by LGBT history.  Instead of honoring the American flag at sporting events, the NFL will now defile it.   All of this is  is happening at a much faster, much more violent clip now.

ISIS and Al Qaeda knew the power of symbols.  ISIS destroyed precious, irreplaceable Buddhist statues.  Al Qaeda famously went for the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  What we are seeing now is no different.

Silver Linings II

Last week, I wrote about the silver linings that may arise out of the COVID19 pandemic.  I enumerated our awakening to China as a geopolitical threat, rather than a responsible trading partner, the shift of supply chains away from China, the skepticism with which we must view models that purport to tell us what our climate is going to look like in 100 years, and the possible restructuring of our education system as issues that will likely gain momentum thanks to this little microbe.

But it turns out I have missed a few potential silver linings.

-        National  preparedness.   We were not fully prepared for this pandemic.  Our unpreparedness is a bit surprising because it was widely known that several countries had active bioweapons programs.  Additionally, we have been warned by a number of people that a pandemic was possible and, indeed, likely at some point.  Laurie Garrett’s 1996 book The Coming Plague spelled that out.  We should have had a game plan ready to execute. Yet we seem to have been caught flatfooted, perhaps because we assumed that a pandemic was a Black Swan event.

      

      Obviously, we continue to be under a potential nuclear threat from North Korea, but there are other threats that demand our attention.   The threat from the EMP (electromagnetic pulse), i.e., a single nuclear device detonated high above the U.S. could fry all of our electronics.  One task force estimated that an EMP attack would kill 90% of the population of the United States.  Similarly, a cyberattack on our electrical grid would have similar consequences.  Ted Koppel spun this all out in his 2015 book Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. 

      Fortunately, we are beginning to address this vulnerability.  Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order regarding the hardening of our power grid.  Work needs to be done but it is at least a step in the right direction.  Follow up needs to be done as well as a review of how vulnerable our internet is.  We need to assume adversaries may launch multiple attacks (i.e. bioweapon plus cyberattack)

-        Tapping Creativity.   With the abrupt shutdown of all face to face businesses, many had to get creative to survive.  Restaurants quickly switched menus and went to curbside only service.  Cultural institutions quickly offered streaming events and exhibits.  Zoom became the preferred platform of “face to face” business meetings overnight.   With supply chains in food disrupted, some college students began to figure out how to get product directly from the farm to consumers.  Many workers figured out how to work remotely pretty quickly.  We will undoubtedly see some very creative ways to conduct business in light of the pandemic and some of these business methods and applications will be useful long after this recedes.

-        Time of re-examination.  One friend of mine reacted to the “shelter in place” order this way, “What’s the hurry to get out….to make 1 more widget?”  In a simplistic way, he drove home a point.  Americans have become a driven, frantic, exhausted people.  Many of us work constantly, with few vacations.  The pandemic was sort of a forced time out, to consider whether the trajectory we are on is the right one, to perhaps read some good books, to plan the next phase of our lives, to evaluate our relationships, to rewrite goals.  Instead of running on the gerbil wheel every day, we have an opportunity to slow it down, to go from playing fast break to a more normal pace, to be able to stop and hear birds, pay attention to the raindrops, to focus on the music on the radio, to take a little time to read deeply.   In some respects, this pause has been a hidden gift.

Sure, this harm caused by COVID19 has been enormous, and I don’t mean to minimize it in any way.  But there have been strands of silver linings.  And it is those things that keep us going.

Silver Linings

I just received a phone call from a friend of mine in the restaurant/deli business, probably the hardest hit of all sectors.  Having a number of friends in this line of work, I can tell you it is not a business I would want to be in under normal circumstances.  The hours are horrific.  It’s hard to get reliable and honest help.  And the tax and regulatory burden is awful.  And now the lockdown threatens to put many out of business.

Ten weeks in and while things look like they are loosening up, it’s hard to be optimistic with 30 million unemployed and many businesses just hanging on.

But on this Memorial Day weekend, I’m going to try to put forward some things to be optimistic about, and some of the positive side effects of COVID19.

China.  As a society, we have been willfully blind to the malevolence of the Chinese Communist Party and its long term designs.   We permitted our manufacturing base to be supplanted by the Chinese.  We assumed that the Chinese government perpetrated the Tiananmen Square massacre miraculously had an epiphany and, while it still evidenced some rough spots in its behavior, it would eventually become more benign.  As several foreign policy scholars have noted, the mask is off now.  The lies and cover up of the outbreak has exposed this regime for what it really is and we have been slapped awake.  We have finally woken up to the fact that many strategic items and pharmaceuticals are manufactured by China and that the regime would not hesitate to hold us hostage.  And in the midst of the pandemic, China continues to assert itself in the South China Sea, has now reneged on its commitment to permit Hong Kong’s autonomy, and is threatening Taiwan.  Better to know this all now.

Supply Chains.  The open belligerence of China will trigger the movement of supply chains, and the benefit of this migration should accrue to us.  As Peter Theil has pointed out, our innovation has occurred mostly in the realm of bits and not of stuff.  Although I think he overstates his case, especially when it comes to energy (think horizontal drilling and fracking), the way to innovate in making stuff is to actually make it.  Bringing much of this back home will allow us to do more of the innovating.

Climate Change.  The COVID19 models that were used to shut down the economy, throw 30 million people out of work and ruin hundreds of thousands of businesses were flawed and many of the “experts” were wrong on a number of counts.   The data inputs were flawed, the death rates were overstated, and hospital have had layoffs.  The temporary treatment centers, like Chicago’s McCormick Place have been shuttered.  One positive development is that the hysteria over climate change and the models predicting where the weather will be in 100 years will be discredited, along with the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).  Can you really look at us with a straight face now and tell us that the IPCC will be less biased than WHO?  One positive outcome in all this is that we will likely shrug off the draconian measures that these bodies would impose on us.  We the people, not scientists in the bubble, should decide how we would like to live.

Education.  The positive effects on education will likely come in two layers.  In the K-12 levels, we are learning that for some people, homeschooling is a more viable option, and this will erode the power of union infested, indoctrinating public school system.  This is exactly why the “experts” at Harvard are pushing to bar homeschooling.  In higher education, the financial shakeout is long overdue.  Again, I defer to Peter Theil, who has been talking about the education bubble for a long time and that restructuring is long overdue (https://www.thecollegefix.com/peter-thiel-predicts-reformation-of-higher-education-in-speech-to-student-journalists/).  Universities have gotten fat and happy with foreign students and government subsidized student debt.  Consequently, we now have a layer of administration and disciplines that aren’t disciplines (gender studies) pervading our higher ed system.  Michigan has something like 50 highly paid “diversity officers” doing what exactly, no one knows.  The hit to university budgets will force some tough choices and will wash out some colleges.  Further, we will be less keen on educating Chinese students as our relationship with China gets realigned.  I see a move to more lifelong learning and a migration to community colleges and HBCUs as an alternative to our expensive, bureaucratic university system.  COVID19 will hasten the pop of the education bubble.

Liberty.  I also see a renewed in interest in the genius of the Founders.  Upon the election of Donald Trump, the Left screamed that Trump was a fascist, and compared him to Hitler and Mussolini.  But in the pandemic, Trump has largely deferred to the states in practice.   And in the states, we have seen governors and mayors seizing a little power, and not hesitate to abuse it.  Gretchen Whitmer, Bill De Blasio, Lori Lightfoot, JB Pritzker, Ralph Northam, Andrew Cuomo, among them ran roughshod over the Bill of Rights, while reserving certain privileges for themselves.  Lightfoot got a haircut while others could not.  Whitmer had a graduation party for her kid, while others were barred.  De Blasio went to the park while others were restricted from doing so.  JB Pritzker sent workers from Illinois to work on his home in Wisconsin and sent his family to Florida, violating the stay at home order, causing me to name Pritzker “Maduro Lite,” although there is nothing light about Pritzker.  We now know what our “benevolent leaders” will do with a bit of power.  Sean Penn at a rally, admonished Chicagoans to “trust your leaders” last week.  We learned that if we want to retain our liberty, we should trust none of them and keep a watchful eye on them always.

While we have all suffered greatly under the pandemic, we have learned a number of lessons and if there is good to come out of this, we should make sure that they remain etched in our minds.  For this education has been expensive.

Identity Theft

In the technological age, we all worry about it.  Some notorious actor snatches your social security number and obtains credit in your name, screws up your credit which takes years to remediate. 

But there is a more pernicious kind of identity theft going on, and it is being perpetrated by the radical left.   It is stealthy and gradual, and it is being accelerated by COVID-19.  Our past, present and future selves are being slowly erased so that, if we do not resist, our individuality will inevitably melt away into an amorphous mass, as if you had tossed an ice cube into the ocean.  Let me explain how this is happening and what it means for our basic humanity.

We are planning animals, and as Americans, we are doubly so.  We are an optimistic and forward-looking people.   It is in our nature.  We set goals, priorities, obsessively keep calendars and to-do lists.   We budget and project.  We can suffer through a long, brutal winter if we know that spring will eventually come.  The initial call from government was to stay at home for 30 days to “flatten the curve,” and not overtax our health care system.  In several states (mine included), that has been extended almost indefinitely.  Under the Illinois 4 phase plan, there is no definitive end, and, therefore, our ability to plan has been completely obliterated. 

The second pilfering of our identity comes with wearing a mask.  One of the cultural aspects of Islam that I reject entirely in the West is the wearing of a face covering by women.  In the West, we are a free and open society.  Our facial expressions are an integral part of our identity.  That is exactly why many were calling for face coverings to be outlawed with respect to Antifa.  Now, with COVID19, face coverings are being mandated—again, for an indefinite period of time---even though scientific evidence that face coverings prevent transmission is scant.  The face covering in Islam is highly symbolic, that of  submission, and many Americans are chafing at this requirement.  It turns us into faceless beings, unrecognizable to one another.  The other day, for instance, I was in the grocery store and I thought I recognized a woman but wasn’t sure at all (it turned out not to be who I thought it was) because of her face covering. 

Indefinite lockdown steals our ability to plan—our future identity.   Masks steal our present identity.  And now the rewrite of history is stealing our past identity.

The identity theft of our past is vital to us as Americans.  Because we are a polyglot nation, a melding of different nations and cultures, we are held together by a philosophy and history.  That history gives us a common anchor, a touchstone that we all share no matter where our ancestors came from.  As Bono put it, “America is more than just a country, it’s an idea.”  The creation of America was embodied in our foundational documents: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.  Books about our founding carry titles such as “The Glorious Cause,” “Miracle at Philadelphia,” and “Empire of Liberty.” Two of our initial leaders—George Washington and Thomas Jefferson willingly gave up public office and yearned to be private citizens. 

Gradually, the Radical Left has attempted to eradicate our past.  It began with the tearing down of statues of confederate leaders in the South, and continued with the renaming of buildings in higher education that had any connection with slavery.  Yes, slavery was a blight on our history.  The Founders knew it, although it took almost a century to eradicate it. But it was not why the nation was formed.

But now comes the 1619 Project, which attempts to distort and rewrite the history of our Founding, by claiming among other things, that the Revolution was fought to preserve the institution of slavery.  No established scholars of the period were consulted with respect to the 1619 Project, and many, like Gordon Wood, have criticized it harshly as being without merit.  Yet, it won a Pulitzer Prize, which is the legitimization it needs to be taught in our school systems.  Our past is a vital part of our identity and it is being stripped away and rewritten.  And, instead of portraying our Republic as a guardian of liberty and the worth of the individual, it is being recast as a perpetrator of heinous crimes (while simultaneously looking the other way on the crimes of Communist China).

Finally, I must say a word about the Transgender Movement.  This is not to be confused with transgender individuals, because there is separate and apart a movement that has crept into many facets of public life in an attempt to gain intellectual currency.  While transgendered people account for a tiny fraction of the population (.03-.06%), the Transgender Movement has gained an outsized voice and influence in public life. 

The underpinning of the Transgender Movement is that gender is a social construct.  It seeks to blur the distinctions between men and women and attacks gender norms and gender identity.  Most notably, the Transgender Movement has attempted to destroy this aspect of personal identity through restroom conventions separating men’s and women’s facilities, allowing biological boys and men to compete in girls’ and womens’ athletics and access to their locker rooms (currently being litigated), and demanding adherence to their social conventions (preferred pronouns).  It has sought to normalize “gender fluidity” through early indoctrination with “Drag Queen Story Hour” throughout the country in the library systems.

Our gender is an important aspect of our identity, and always has been.  But the Transgender Movement demands that we forsake it.   It demands that the 99.5% of us that are not hazy about our gender identification adhere to their social norms and conventions.  If you do not, you are vilified as “transphobic.”  The Transgender Movement is politically allied with the Radical Left, and has the backing of the ACLU.

Recently, the American Writers Museum featured a presentation by trans activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, but accompanied by comedienne Kathy Griffin.  When I inquired why Kathy Griffin was featured, I received a milquetoast reply about Griffin being a “friend” of Boylan's

My response to their membership renewal request was as follows:

Thank you for your reply, which is disingenuous. We all know why Kathy Griffin has gained some public notoriety and it has nothing whatsoever to do with American Literature.  I have been unable to find a coherent paragraph that she has written. 

It is sad to see a new institution whose programming initially featured the work of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frederick Douglass, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemmingway decide to feature Ms. Griffin and slide into political agenda pushing of the most grotesque kind.

I joined AMW as soon as it opened and promoted it among my contacts.

Count me out.

The Transgender Movement (again, separate from transgendered persons) does not seek a seat at the table, but is a rent-seeking organization that wants to run the table and push its interests ahead of everyone else’s.  It is most personified by PA health director Rachel Levine, who moved her mother out of a nursing home just as she issued the order to introduce COVID19 infected seniors in.

I write this so that you will pay attention.  The Radical Left is opportunistic.  It seeks to empower the State by eroding our identity, our uniqueness as individuals and as a country.  It wishes to extend the lockdown to turn our future into chaos.  It seeks to erase and rewrite our past.  It wishes us to be faceless and genderless.

Don’t let them do it.  It is identity theft.