In Defense of Multiracial Americanism

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To broaden its assault on traditional American culture and values, and to account for the large and growing number of conservatives that are not “white,” the Left has now come up with a new concept, “multiracial whiteness.”

This term sprang into prominence with a guest column by Cristina Beltran published in the Washington Post last month. Beltran acknowledged that Trump’s performance over Latino voters actually improved between 2016 and 2020. She also acknowledged the “clearly Latino or African American” faces showing up in the January 6 incident at the U.S. capitol. Everything Beltran claims in her column is designed to further castigate “whiteness,” while acknowledging there are significant percentages of nonwhites that, as she puts it, “fervently backed the MAGA policy agenda, including its delusions and conspiracy theories.”

For example, one of the favored targets of the “anti-racist” movement in the United States are the Proud Boys, who Beltran describes as a “neo-fascist” group. Their leader, Enrique Tarrio, is Afro-Cuban, which makes him Beltran’s prime example of so-called toxic “multi-racial whiteness.” She claims the appeal of multiracial whiteness to nonwhites is “politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.”

This sort of message isn’t restricted to leftist academics anymore. Cristina Beltran, a professor of “social and cultural analysis” at New York University, and her cohorts throughout academia, now have the entire weight of America’s establishment institutions behind them.

A notorious and very recent example of institutionalized corporate anti-whiteness is a training seminar that Coca-Cola posted for its employees, featuring tips on “how to be less white.” One of the slides (since taken down) stated that to “be less white” urged Coca-Cola employees (the white ones) to do the following:

“Be less oppressive, be less arrogant, be less certain, be less defensive, be less ignorant, be more humble, listen, believe, break with apathy, break with white solidarity.”

To review this list, one must immediately ask why these characteristics are “white.” One might also wonder why this list of behaviors wouldn’t be something everyone would be encouraged to adopt. Finally, it begs the question, shall nonwhites be oppressive, arrogant, certain, defensive, ignorant, and so on?

Coca-Cola is hardly unique. “Being less white” is just the latest mutation in a diversity industry that has made thousands of consultants and authors rich, and provided phony moral fodder for leftists across the full spectrum of the American Left, ranging from grassroots Antifa militants to the biggest corporations on the planet. But by moving from mandating “equity, inclusion, and diversity” to actively denigrating “whiteness,” the diversity industry has exposed an inherent contradiction in its message.

A recent poster, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution as part of their “talking about race” project, since removed from their website (available here), defined the following “aspects and assumptions of whiteness” in the United States: self-reliance, objective and rational thinking, hard work as the key to success, respect for private property, delayed gratification, punctuality, reverence, precise use of language, being polite, and so on.

So which is it? Is “whiteness” all of these virtuous traits that any sane individual would hope they could emulate and would hope they could teach their children to emulate, or is “whiteness” merely a culture of “aggression, exclusion and domination?”

Since there is an astonishing amount of money to be made in the diversity industry, intelligent, slightly mad scholars are doing their utmost to square that circle. Consider the movement towards “math equity” in America’s public schools and universities. In this convoluted but very sophisticated con, teachers and administrators are encouraged to deny the validity of fundamental concepts in math. If you read their material, they don’t always come right out and say that. It would almost be better if they did. Instead, imagine being an elementary school teacher required to fill out this 82 page “Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction.” What about just teaching kids in primary school to memorize multiplication tables? Might that not prepare them for life more than receiving instruction from a cowed teacher who is desperately trying to tiptoe their way through an expansive, tedious, microscopically obsessive, mandatory curricula that sees “white supremacy” embedded in every equation, and obscures its myriad contradictions by using weird, invented terminology and byzantine complexity? Kafka would be proud.

The battle being fought, and so far being won, by the pro-diversity, anti-whiteness movement, is not going to uplift people of color. But it may succeed in tearing down American and Western culture. It is telling that the formative motto of the Proud Boys was never oriented to “whiteness.” Instead they have called themselves “western chauvinists.” Just exactly how toxic is this? Where does “pride” overflow into “supremacy.” According to the anti-whiteness movement, there is no distinction. They cancel it all, as soon as it crops up, without explanation or appeal.

But there is a distinction. The values of Western Civilization, helpfully identified by the Smithsonian Institution as “whiteness,” are the values that enabled the ascendancy of Western culture, including breakthroughs in science and individual rights that have made Western nations including America the most desirable places in the world to live, and have bequeathed to all humanity the most transformative and beneficial innovations the world has ever seen. Is recognizing this fact an act of pride, or chauvinism?

You don’t have to be a fan of the Proud Boys to embrace pride in western culture and want to be part of it. The list of black activists and scholars that are aggressively pushing back against the patronizing and destructive message of the pro-diversity, anti-whiteness movement is long and growing. These activists don’t have to be labeled as members of some supposedly toxic “multiracial whiteness” gang of alleged reactionaries. They can be more accurately classified as promoting “multiracial Americanism.”

Here are expressions of American pride from some of these rising leaders, in their own words:

From Byron Donalds, member of the U.S. House (Republican, Florida’s 19th District): “Today, Florida honors the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and radio legend, Rush Limbaugh. His legacy on and off the radio will live on forever.”

From Austin Chenge, candidate to become the next Governor of Michigan, “I will cancel Black History Month in Michigan. It’s offensive, unfair, maybe illegal… Americans from all backgrounds deserve a revered history. I’ll declare American History Month.”

From Jevon Williams, member of U.S. Virgin Islands Board of Elections, “Nikki Haley misread the political tea leaves. Donald Trump is going nowhere! We will take our country back!”

The incomparable Candace Owens, with this gem, “If a corporate company sent around a training kit instructing black people how to ‘be less black,’ the world would implode and lawsuits would follow. I genuinely hope these employees sue @CocaCola for blatant racism and discrimination.”

Or from the streetwise Kash Lee Kelly, posted on January 7th, “This isn’t an end for us and changes nothing. We are a new type of American and will always stand and fight when necessary. Stand ready patriots.”

These quotes are the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of black Americans that aren’t merely part of the populist conservative, pro-Trump movement, but are leaders in this movement. And tens of thousands more are stepping up. Here, in no particular order are profiles of just a few:

Jamarcus Dove, Joel Patrick, David Harris Jr, Kimberly Klacik, KingFace, Mike Nificent, Mind of Jamal, Old School Patriot, Peggy Hubbard, Project 21 Black Leadership Network, Robert Patillo, Shekinah, That Guy T, The Conservative Circus, The Officer Tatum, Unite America, First, White House Brief, Diamond & Silk, Wayne Dupree, The Hodgetwins, Adventist Hermes, Jesse Lee Peterson, Pastor Mark Burns, Patricia Dickson, Stacy Dash, Star Parker, The Right Brothers, Malcolm Flex, Christian Deron, Major Williams, Errol Webber, Unhyphenated America, Inaya Folarin Iman, Kmele, The Christian Conservative, Carol Swain, Larry Elder, Some Black Guy, Terrence K Williams, Antonia Okafor, Bryson Gray, Chandler Crump, CJ Pearson, Common Sense Conservative, Conservative Nation,

These leaders, all of whom happen to be black, are not part of some dangerous “multiracial whiteness” phenomenon. They are part of a new movement, slowly and inexorably attaining seismic, irresistible strength, that can be described as multiracial Americanism. The danger they present, if you want to call it that, only applies to the leftist careerists, the corporate whores, the political hacks, and the anti-American fanatics who are bent on destroying everything that makes American great.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Questions for California’s Next Governor

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The Recall Gavin campaign announced on February 25 that they have now collected 1,825,000 signed recall petitions. This means that if 82 percent of these signed petitions are validated by the county registrars, there will be a special election to see if Gavin Newsom remains in office as California’s governor. The proponents aren’t slowing down, however, nor should they. Lead proponent Orrin Heatlie, reached for comment on this latest milestone, was unequivocal. “The work isn’t done,” he said, “we need to secure greater numbers than are required in order to beat the rejection rate and we are still looking for two million signed petitions. If we can keep up the pace we’re at, we’ll make it.”

Heatlie, a man of extraordinary determination that has surprised every political expert in the state, now commands a statewide volunteer army of over 5,000 seasoned activists. His committee is joined by a parallel committee led by Anne Dunsmore, a veteran political consultant whose grit equals Heatlie. Dunsmore threw her energy and experience fully into the recall effort when nobody else would. The synergy generated by these two committees, with complementary strategies and skill sets, has made political history. With the finish line in sight, neither of them is about to slow down.

If there is a special election, the recall ballot will have two questions. The first will be “do you support removing Newsom from office, yes or no?” The second question, on the same ballot, will be “if voters remove Newsom from office, who do you vote for to replace him?”

Who steps up to run as Newsom’s replacement is the biggest political question in California today. How that slate of candidates is constituted will influence Newsom’s chances of surviving question one, as well as who ends up running California if Newsom is rejected by voters.

California’s Democrats are split on how to handle this, with a narrow consensus holding so far that considers the best strategy is to not support any Democratic candidates on the ballot under question two, and emphasize instead their support for Newsom. Their rationale is based on a concern that if an alternative Democrat is on the ballot, it will harm Newsom’s chances of surviving the recall since it will give California’s disaffected Democrats – and they are plentiful – a reason to vote to recall Newsom.

That may or may not stop some Democrat from throwing their hat into the ring, and for Republicans, that is a double-edged sword. On one hand, having a Democrat alternative to Newsom will make it more likely that Newsom does not survive the recall. But on the other hand, if there is only one prominent Democrat offered as a replacement for Newsom on question two, facing two or more prominent Republicans, the Republican candidates will split the vote and the Democrat will win.

The nightmare scenario for Republicans goes something like this: The declared Republican candidates, John Cox and Kevin Faulconer, are joined by one or two other prominent Republican candidates, then Lorena Gonzalez, currently one of the most radical members of the California State Assembly, jumps onto the ballot to run as the sole Democratic alternative. Gonzalez then becomes the next Governor of California because the Republicans have split the anti-Gonzalez vote three ways. Gonzalez could never win state office in a normal election. But she could win the jungle recall.

Then again, the metaphor “jungle” is appropriate. Under current California election law, almost anyone can get their name on a recall ballot. Who will jump in? In 2003, there were 135 candidates. Will Larry Elder run? Will Richard Grenell run? What about another celebrity like Schwarzenegger? Why not? There are a lot of animals in the California jungle.

If there are a lot of candidates in the recall, there is still a way that one candidate can excite the electorate to stand out from the pack and beat the odds. That is not by attacking the other candidates, or even by emphasizing the failed leadership of Gavin Newsom and by extension, the entire Democratic party in California. It is by emphasizing solutions to the challenges Californians are facing. To that end, here are some questions for candidates that aspire to become the next governor of California:

Are you willing to direct California’s attorney general to fight to overturn Jones v. the City of Los Angeles, the flawed court ruling that requires homeless people be offered free “permanent supportive housing” before they can be removed from their public encampments?

Are you willing to build state-run encampments where able-bodied drug addicts can be hauled off and given the help they need for pennies on the dollar, or are you going to allow the Homeless Industrial Complex to keep on raping taxpayers and solving nothing?

Are you willing to tell the truth, that we ought to drill for more natural gas here in resource-rich California to create jobs since we import so much of it anyway? Will you prevent the destruction of California’s natural gas distribution infrastructure?

Are you willing to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open? Will you support mining California’s abundant lithium deposits so California’s EV battery suppliers don’t have to import these raw materials from slave states?

Are you willing to stand up to the teachers’ unions and fight for school choice via universal vouchers where the money follows the student, and/or massive improvement in the ability to open and keep open independent charter schools?

Are you going to fight to bring back logging to 1990 levels (triple what it is today) so we can thin the overgrown forests and at the same time the timber companies will clear around the power lines and maintain firebreaks and fire roads like they used to, at no charge?

Will you tell the truth about open space, that we are not running out of it, and will you fight to bring back streamlined permitting for subdivisions on open land along the major freeway corridors up and down the state?

Will you spend public money on water infrastructure—reservoirs, aquifer storage, desalination, sewage reuse—instead of putting Californians onto water rationing?

Will you invest in widening and extending California’s roads and freeways instead of wasting money on high-speed rail? Do you understand that smart cars and passenger drones are just around the corner, making roads the most versatile transportation investment?

Will you tell the identity politics warriors and social justice warriors they’re barking up the wrong tree, that California is not “racist,” and that if they truly want to help they can encourage individuals to take responsibility for their lives?

These are bold positions that, if translated into policies, would make a positive difference in the lives of ordinary Californians. Explaining the compelling rationale for these policies will build consensus among voters. This means an articulate, uncompromising new governor could bypass California’s corrupt state legislature and take every one of these positions to the voters in the form of state ballot initiatives.

Forcing Newsom to defend himself in a recall election is going to be a tremendous accomplishment, but it is only half the battle. Offering a coherent alternative to what Newsom and the Democrats he represents have done to Californians is the vital other half of this struggle.

Even in the event of a nightmare outcome, the replacement of Newsom with someone like the even more extreme Lorena Gonzalez, there is a silver lining. Californians will experience, to the extent they haven’t already experienced it, the full weight of one-party rule by leftist fanatics, environmentalist extremists, social justice “woke” warriors, public sector unions, corrupt business special interests, and the billionaire oligarchs that pull the strings. It will be a clarifying experience.

If things go from bad to worse in California, and voters have to endure a doubling down of failed leadership from Democrats, they will be ready to vote for ballot initiatives and reform candidates that offer new policies to an electorate that is finally paying attention.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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Huge Waiting List for Orange County Classical Academy

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In the 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, there is an unforgettable scene, where parents and children anxiously await the results of a lottery. A lucky few will be able to enroll their children in a charter school. These New York City schools only have capacity to admit one in twenty of the applicants.

Charter schools are public schools and receive public funds, but they have the freedom to design innovative curricula. As documented in Waiting for Superman, as well as in more recent studies, charter schools on average deliver better academic results for less money. And since every charter school attracts students based on parental choice, underperforming charter schools do not last.

Across California, where barely ten percent of K-12 public schools are charters, the Waiting for Superman scenario plays out year after year. A new charter school in Orange County, the Orange County Classical Academy, offers yet another example. The upcoming 2021-2022 academic year will only be this primary school’s second year of operation, but they have over 500 applicants on their waiting list with only 60 slots available.

The Orange County Classical Academy opened last fall with 360 students, comprised of two 30 student classes at each grade level from kindergarten through fifth grade. Their plan is to add a grade level each year in order for the existing students to advance all the way through 12th grade while staying at the school. Hence for 2021-2022 they will add two 6th grade classrooms and grow the student body to 420 students. Their retention rate is nearly 100 percent. While five students disenrolled, it was because their families moved out of state.

“Our curricula is something many parents are desiring,” said Semi Park, headmaster at OCCA, who acknowledged the need to open more schools to accommodate the demand. But doing that is a tough battle. Charter schools face a hostile political climate, due to unrelenting opposition from the teachers’ union.

When OCCA’s charter was approved, pro-charter members held a 4-3 majority on the board of the Orange County Unified School District. In a contentious meeting back in January 2020, opponents of the school chanted “we will remember in November.” They made good on their promise, since in November 2020 the union backed candidates, grossly outspending the pro-charter candidates, clawed one seat back. The district now has a 4-3 anti-charter board of directors.

According to the Orange County Register, opponents of OCCA on the school board claimed “the projected enrollment is overly optimistic.” That clearly wasn’t the case. But other objections made by opponents to OCCA reveal a teachers union – and progressive mentality in general – that may be sharply out of touch with what parents want.

One of the board members at Orange Unified who expressed concerns about OCCA was Kathryn Moffat. Her remarks might typify how opponents view charters in general, and OCCA in particular.

Quoting from the Orange County Register: “Kathryn Moffat, the school board’s vice president who voted against the petition, said she is concerned given the school’s curriculum is developed by Hillsdale College, a private Christian college in Michigan, it will have a religious and cultural bias. Given the school will be publicly funded, it’s inappropriate for the board to accept the petition.”

Echoing rhetoric that spews nonstop from California’s leftist teachers unions, Moffat went on to say that after researching the curriculum, she found “the focus to be on western civilization, and Judeo-Christian concepts, values and beliefs to the exclusion of others.”

But there is a difference between adopting a curriculum that emulates time-tested classical education techniques that were in common use until just a few decades ago, and putting an inordinate “focus on western civilization.” Similarly, there is a difference between teaching values based on Judeo-Christian concepts, and operating a religious school.

When headmaster Semi Park was reached for comments regarding the curricula at OCCA, the overall impression she conveyed was that “classical education,” which the teachers union attempts to stigmatize as “exclusionary” is actually a well rounded, practical course of study.

“Classical education has a different mission,” she said, “our goal isn’t just to get students into a great college, our goal is to raise them into virtuous citizens. Virtue is one of the most important aspects of classical education, and it isn’t just the religious aspect. Aristotle defined virtue as the highest form of happiness. Classical education teaches moral virtue and intellectual virtue. But you must teach moral virtue first. As our students learn to be honest and responsible, they are then able to develop their intellectual virtue.”

Park described the study of intellectual virtue as having two parts, human and nonhuman. “The human is when students learn about themselves and their relationship with others,” she said, “the nonhuman is learning about the world.” She described how the curriculum involves recitation and memorization, where the students are not only graded on memorization, but they are also graded on their posture, tone, confidence, and voice level.

As for practical content, the students study a broad range of subjects, including literacy (learning how to read), literature (reading good classic novels), writing, grammar, math, history, geography, science, art, music, and Latin. As Park put it, “there is no time to get bored.”

Objective data on how OCCA’s student body will perform on standardized academic achievement tests will be available sometime this summer, although the tests being administered this May are less comprehensive than normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Which segues into the topic that no report on a K-12 public charter school can ignore; how did OCCA fare during the pandemic?

Schools that remained open in California for in-person classes, which would be most nonunionized schools (which are mostly charter and private schools) were required to offer distance learning to parents who preferred that option. At OCCA, according to Park, 98 percent of the parents wanted their children to attend in-person classes. OCCA followed all of the guidelines regarding cleaning and disinfecting, masks, etc., and there have been only 10 cases of COVID, five of them asymptomatic and the other five mild cases. This certainly compares favorably to rates in the general population, i.e., there is no evidence keeping OCCA open for in-person instruction resulted in any excess infections.

As OCCA prepares to enter its second year, and supporters of OCCA consider how to cope with a political environment that overwhelmingly favors the agenda of the teachers’ union, the fact that more than twice as many children want to attend OCCA than the number of slots available is the most telling variable. Classical education develops the whole person, preparing them to succeed in life. Unsurprisingly, that’s what parents want for their children.

As Semi Park put it, “We are very humbled and grateful to see such a high demand.”

Waiting For Superman has come to Southern California.

This article originally appeared on the website of the California Globe.

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The Origin and True Agenda of “Anti-Racist” Politics

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With President Biden and Kamala Harris steering the American ship of state, there isn’t much left at the federal level to stop “woke” politics from encroaching even further into all aspects of American society. In every federal agency including the military, in corporate America including sports and entertainment, throughout the colleges and universities, and even into the K-12 public schools, “woke” ideology now permeates the culture. It is a seductive, divisive philosophy that emphasizes group conflict over individual competition and achievement. If it isn’t stopped, it will destroy everything that has made America great.

To appreciate how far this ideology has progressed, a good example comes from Christopher Rufo, writing for City Journal, who describes a public elementary school in California that “recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”

Third graders. And this is happening all over America.

A few graphics borrowed from the woke movement can summarize the progression of woke ideology in America. The first one, found on Wikipedia with multiple citations under “whiteness theory,” traces its origins all the way back to 1996. It is an early attempt at popularizing the now ubiquitous notion of “intersectionality,” the idea that intersecting identities define a persons position on a continuum that ranges from oppressed to privileged.

 

A logical corollary to intersectionality is the concept of implicit bias. The National Museum of African American History and Culture has produced a lengthy online resource for educators called “Being Antiracist.” Included in this guide, which asserts that “To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives,” there is a graphic produced by the “National Equity Project” to illustrate “implicit bias and structural racism.”

It is impossible to briefly explain this convoluted concept. Its power comes by building on the assumption of an intersectional dominance hierarchy, and proposing that this hierarchy is self-perpetuating. The historical inequity creates ongoing “inequitable outcomes and racial disparities,” which in turn creates “implicit bias” against oppressed groups.

If these concepts – intersectionality, and implicit bias/structural racism – form the foundation of identity politics, what’s new and unprecedented are the extremes to which the American Left is now trying to combat its effects.

One might argue, with cause, that Americans have valiantly tried to institutionalize anti-racism for the last sixty years. The civil rights act. The attempts to desegregate schools. The strict laws against housing discrimination. Affirmative action, hiring preferences and quotas, race-based preferences in government contracts, welfare, public housing. What was all of this, if not institutional anti-racism?

But despite all these efforts, or perhaps because of them, disparities in group achievement still exist between whites and people of color. Again, never mind the extraordinary achievements of Americans of Philippine, Indian, or Nigerian descent, all three of which are examples of people of color who, as a group, outperform whites in America.

But these arguments fall on deaf ears. For the woke warriors, if a disparity exists, racism exists. Their remedies have now moved beyond merely attempting to enforce aggregate equality across groups, which itself is an absolutely futile, horrible strategy. Now, in parallel with a more aggressive than ever call for equality in outcomes – more quotas, more forced integration through “inclusive” residential zoning laws, and “reparations” – they have turned to denigrating white culture itself.

A notorious example of this is a chart entitled “Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture,” briefly published and distributed by the National Museum of African American History (a museum that is part of the prestigious Smithsonian Institution), before taken down after withering criticism. But the fact that this chart didn’t survive on this website does not diminish its value to explain just how absurd the woke mentality has become. This chart, and others like it, survive on websites promoting woke values all over the United States. From one of them, here it is:

It’s difficult to review this chart without wondering how else a society is supposed to be organized. One might simply say, again with cause, that these values define American society and the optimal course of action for anyone joining American society would be to emulate them, as Filipinos, Indians, and Nigerians have assuredly done. But why wouldn’t everyone, in any healthy society, want to adopt these values: hard work, strong families, the scientific method, precise language skills, competitiveness, respect for private property, or being polite?

Among the true believers among the woke, the rejection of these values rests on one immutable fact: people of color, blacks and Hispanics in particular, have lower group achievements than whites, and therefore white racism is to blame. To cure this racism, practical steps to enforce equal outcomes is not enough, “whiteness” itself has to be called out as inherently toxic, and whites must be reeducated.

A very recent example of how far this has come is in the next chart, dreamt up by Mark Federman, a New York City high school principal. It’s fair to wonder at this point if these guys are just trolls, playing an easy game in exchange for 15 minutes of fame. But let’s take Federman at his word, since, sadly, what he’s come up with is not extraordinary, but a typical example of where the woke mob is taking this country.

As reported in the New York Post and elsewhere, Federman sent to the parents of his students a handout asking them to “reflect on their whiteness.” The material described “The Eight White Identities,” as developed by Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. The graphic accompanying Federman’s handout is displayed below. At one extreme, in the red zone, is the “White Supremacist.” At the other extreme, in the virtuous green zone, is the “White Abolitionist,” i.e., the fully woke white person who is committed to “changing institutions, dismantling ‘whiteness,’ and not allowing whiteness to reassert itself.”

Where is all this leading, and what’s really going on? Matthew J. Peterson, editor of The American Mind, in an essay published during the height of the nationwide BLM/Antifa rioting last summer, described the true agenda of the “woke” movement as follows: “A complete overhaul of the principles of our justice system to put group ‘identities’ above equal individual rights, the erosion of private property and private education, and the destruction of traditional families and moral culture.”

Peterson, writing for the initiated, only mentions “oligarchs” once in his essay, which instead focuses on the Marxist roots of the contemporary woke movement. But the funding of violent leftist radicals is not coming from grassroots communists. It is coming from global corporations and leftist billionaires. The intent is to destroy the sense of shared identity that defines America. By doing this they will eliminate unified opposition to their agenda, which is to remake America into a mere economic unit where the vast majority of residents are of limited means and dependent on government entitlements, the middle class is wiped out, and the upper class exists to serve an elite oligarchy.

America’s ruling class of oligarchs are well on their way to achieving this goal. Their strategy is to import tens of millions of unskilled and semi-skilled immigrants into the nation, most of them nonwhite, relying on them to drive down wages and vote for bigger government. At the same time, they wage a relentless campaign to convince America’s roughly 40 millions citizens descended from African slaves that they have no hope of success against “systemic racism” and must instead depend on government handouts and mandates. It takes extraordinary individual character for anyone, no matter what their heritage may be, to resist these incessant lies.

To assure this process continues, America’s public schools refrains from offering immigrants useful, marketable educations so they can achieve economic independence and assimilate into the population. Instead they indoctrinate these immigrants to resent anyone who is white as having unwarranted privilege based on a legacy of oppression, and to consider themselves to be victims of that oppression. Immigrants that do well in the United States, and there are many, do so in spite of everything they consume in the public schools or mainstream culture.

To the whites that speak out against their loss of national identity, sovereignty, economic freedom and prosperity and try to expose the exploitative roots of it all, they are ruthlessly suppressed as hateful racists. It’s that simple. And it’s working.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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The Choice Facing Libertarians

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If you want to find a Libertarian party organization that has achieved relevance, look no further than Georgia. That’s where Shane Hazel, running for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, garnered 2.3 percent of the vote in November. Hazel’s showing may have been insignificant, but the Republican candidate, David Perdue, only needed 0.3 percent more votes to have avoided a runoff, where he lost.

America’s political system today, with rare exceptions, is a two party system. All that Perdue needed was for one in seven of Hazel’s voters to choose him instead, and the GOP would still control the U.S. Senate. In a two party system, it doesn’t take much to be relevant. Hazel now intends to run as a Libertarian for governor in Georgia in 2022.

Libertarians, to their credit, do not operate with the same level of lies and hatred as leftist Democrats. They also tend to be more willing to stand on principle, although this may be more a function of their status as spoilers. The actual challenge of governing requires compromises.

On the Libertarian Party of Georgia’s website there is a chart entitled “Common Sense on the Issues” that thoughtfully outlines their positions on issues. It compares them to Democrats and Republicans, showing areas of agreement and disagreement. This chart bears examination, both for its assumptions as well as for what it leaves out.

Libertarians object to the Left’s positions on regulations, “UN led US military actions,” eminent domain for private gain, taxpayer funding of government charities, and higher taxes. Libertarians object to the Right’s positions on “government regulated morality,” nation building, the war on drugs, the surveillance state, taxpayer funding of faith-based charities, stricter immigration laws, and corporate welfare.

Most of this sounds pretty good. Maybe we should all be libertarians. But this chart underscores the luxury libertarians have that governing parties do not have. It’s all theoretical. A look at the center of the chart, “libertarian positions,” makes this clear.

Libertarian Principles – A Reality Check

These core positions of Georgia’s Libertarian Party are as follows: “government should just defend our rights,” the U.S. should “stop nation building” and instead pursue “peace through trade and diplomacy,” end the “war on drugs,” legalize marijuana, champion civil liberties, “protect personal privacy, support small business, entrepreneurship and free markets,” and offer an “easier pathway to citizenship.”

In every one of these cases, there is a monstrous gap between writing a principled bullet point, and operating in the real world. It may be useful to contrast how differently Republicans vs Democrats handle some of these issues. And even more to the point, it might be useful to contrast how Trump attempted to handle these issues, since he encountered opposition from members of his own party. “Defending our rights” would be a good place to start.

During the summer of 2020, did Democrats defend the rights of property owners and business people, as mobs funded by Democratic donors rampaged through American cities? Did Democrats defend freedom of speech, as leftist communications monopolies silenced thousands of online accounts? Are Democrats defending the 2nd amendment, now that they’re in control in Washington DC? And what about the property rights of people who want to build homes, or harvest timber, or drill for natural gas, or operate a manufacturing plant, as the “green new deal” rolls out, thanks to Democrats?

As for “nation building,” at what point did President Trump do anything apart from trying to extricate the U.S. from “nation building?” How many new wars did Trump start? And what exactly does “peace through trade and diplomacy” mean? How long can the U.S. continue to sustain a $400 billion dollar per year trade deficit with China, a powerful rising nation? How long can the U.S. continue to sell trade secrets in exchange for what limited access its companies do have to Chinese markets? China is a nationalist superpower. For the CCP, the libertarian “principle of nonaggression” is a joke.

And what about ending the the “war on drugs.” Hardly anyone still thinks people in jail for possession of marijuana (and nothing more) should stay in jail. Trump worked hard to fix that, unlike most Democrats or Republicans. But when it comes to the war on drugs, we aren’t just talking about marijuana, which like alcohol, destroys lives but isn’t worth an ongoing prohibition. What about fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine? Have libertarians seen the consequences of tolerating use of these drugs? Tens of thousands of overdose deaths every year, ruinous addictions, and entire cities given over to lawless filth? This is no exaggeration. How do you cope with hard drugs? How do you cope with homeless drug addicts? It’s fine to say the cure of criminalization is worse than the disease of drug use. But answer the tough questions. How do we help addicts? How do we take back our cities?

This challenge feeds into the next libertarian plank, “protect personal privacy.” Who would argue with this? But as with everything in governance, there are infinite examples of nuance. Where does the right to privacy collide with the need to prevent terrorism? Where does the right to privacy collide with the need to get a feces encrusted, rat infested “private” tent encampment moved off of public property? And then there’s “support small business.” During the pandemic, which U.S. States shut down every small business while keeping the big box stores open? Which states stayed mostly open? Weren’t the states ran by Republicans more likely to support small businesses? And now, with Biden’s Democrats in charge, what does support small business really mean? That if you can check off the right race and gender boxes, you can get into the front of the line for government handouts?

Finally, there’s “free markets,” covered earlier, and an “easier pathway to citizenship.” What does citizenship mean to a libertarian? You have to start with that basic question, because whether they deserve it or not, libertarians are stereotyped as being for open borders. So if that’s false, what criteria should be set for admission to the U.S. and attaining citizenship? This is a messy question, but if you’re going to govern, you have to answer it. Will libertarians support more border security? Will they support merit based immigration, so people who can support themselves without government assistance get priority?

Libertarians Must Recognize How They’re Being Used

Support for individual liberty and economic freedom isn’t helpful if it splits into pieces the voters who favor those ideals. The only individual liberties that Democrats still seriously care about is legalized drugs. They are overtly against economic freedom. The Democratic party is controlled from above by global corporations and billionaires, and from below by militant collectivists, “anti-racists,” and climate change zealots. Democrat voters will never be seduced into supporting Libertarian candidates at nearly the rate as Republican voters.

This is why a Libertarian candidate enabled the Democrats to take control of the U.S. Senate last month, and this is why Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian presidential candidate, quite possibly delivered the presidency to Joe Biden. But it isn’t merely as spoilers in close elections between Republicans and Democrats where libertarians have become tools of America’s corporate establishment.

Across a host of vital issues, libertarians exert just enough influence to be useful when it suits the Left, while they are otherwise ignored and irrelevant. Libertarian mega-donors fund think tanks and political action committees to pump out countless studies, write op-eds, publish newsletters; they hire lobbyists and support candidates. Here’s an example of how all this work just plays into the hands of the Left:

What Libertarian Think Tanks Are Doing to America

Destroying Suburbs: Libertarians are having a decisive influence on densifying America’s cities through “infill,” but are ineffective when it comes to preventing taxpayer-supported subsidies for the new construction, or enabling development via urban expansion onto open land.

Preventing Needed Infrastructure: Libertarians successfully oppose government-funded infrastructure projects “on principle,” which stops new freeways from being built but does not stop construction of subsidized light rail or high-speed rail; or stops new dams and desalination plants but does not stop water rationing and mandatory purchases of new “water conserving” appliances that cost a lot, don’t work very well, and break down often.

Enabling Lawlessness and Corruption: Libertarians successfully oppose laws that might get drug addicts, psychopaths, and vagrants off American streets, but cannot prevent compassion brigades from providing them free amenities which only attracts more of these unfortunates, nor can they prevent opportunistic developers from coming in to build tax-subsidized “supportive housing” for them at a cost of over a half-million per unit.

Expanding the Welfare State: Libertarians support “free movement of peoples” on principle, but have no impact whatsoever on the growing welfare state that is a magnet for economic migrants to come to the United States.

Killing American Jobs: Libertarians support “free trade” without first insisting on reciprocity.

Supporting Censorship: Libertarians have stood on the sidelines as left-wing billionaires in the Silicon Valley used their online communications monopolies to manipulate what information Americans had access to in order to destroy a sitting president. Because “on principle” these companies are privately owned.

There is a common thread to all of these policy outcomes: multinational corporations, international banks, and billionaire investors do well. Ordinary Americans do not. Libertarians have not adequately confronted the fact that their economic “principles” are put to good use when they serve the agenda of corporate globalists, but are indeed irrelevant when they do not.

Don’t Destroy the Republican Party, Fix It

If Libertarians, from Georgia to California, are serious about what they believe, they’ll value the results that come from hard work and compromise. It is easy to be a spoiler. It is easy to build a website, have meetings, and even run candidates for office. Because by comparison, reforming an established political party is very, very difficult. But that is the task at hand. It is the only way to win.

Obviously the Republican party has let a lot of people down. Obviously the Republican party does not live up to the pure ideals of libertarians, and it never will. But the allegation that Republicans are no better than Democrats, when it comes to individual liberty and economic freedom, is a preposterous delusion. It isn’t even close.

Instead of running for governor as a Libertarian, which guarantees that the next governor of Georgia will be a Democrat, Shane Hazel is invited to run in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary. Doing that might not be nearly as much fun. He would probably lose, although he’d likely attract a higher percentage of votes than he would attract running in the general election as a Libertarian. And in losing, if that ended up happening, Hazel would still have accomplishments to build on: He would have held the incumbent accountable. He would have served notice to the Georgia GOP: If you don’t support more libertarian principles, we will primary your candidates. He would inspire and attract other libertarians to join and influence the GOP, and he would inspire GOP voters to reemphasize libertarian principles. He would have needed to think more comprehensively about how his ideals translate into actual policies. And last but not least, he would demonstrate to himself and voters around the nation that he is a serious human being, instead of a troll who finds concern about what he’s done to be “delicious.”

There is a war for the future of America being waged right now, and so far, Libertarians are not helping. They need to recognize the threat of tyranny, whether it’s a softer “Brave New World” style tyranny or a harder “1984” version of tyranny, is coming from the Left, far more than it’s coming from the Right. This is an existential battle. Siphoning off voters from the side that’s fighting the hardest to preserve individual liberty and economic freedom is not principled. It is nihilism.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Newsom Recall Still Needs Donors and Signatures

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While the chances that Gavin Newsom will face a recall election are greater than ever, those chances are diminished whenever anyone says the signature gathering campaign has been successfully concluded. It is not done yet, and without ongoing financial and volunteer support in these final three weeks it could still fall short.

Even supporters of the recall have succumbed to premature optimism. On February 12, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley tweeted to his nearly 40,000 followers “It’s official. 1.5 million signatures.” Kiley knows better, as his subsequent tweets indicate. Nothing is “official” until 1.5 million valid signatures are certified by the California Secretary of State. To ensure that 1.5 million signed petitions are checked and confirmed as valid, proponents need to collect up to 2.0 million signed petitions.

As of February 17, the recall committees announced that 1,689,000 signatures had been collected. That’s encouraging to recall supporters, since it suggests they collected 189,000 signatures in five days. But they still could be as many as 300,000 signed petitions short of the safe zone, which means they’ll have to maintain this pace over the next few weeks in order to be certain the recall qualifies.

Lead proponent Orrin Heatlie put the latest petition numbers into context, stating “we believe 1.8 [million] gets us there, 1.9 puts us in the comfort zone, and 2.0 would remove all doubt.”

Heatlie’s committee, RecallGavin2020, which started the recall effort, has organized over 5,000 volunteers to gather signatures. To-date they have collected about 1.1 million of the signatures gathered so far. This is the biggest volunteer driven signature gathering effort for a ballot initiative in American history. But they’re not done.

Anne Dunsmore, whose committee, Rescue California, has raised nearly $3.0 million to fund a direct mail and professional signature gathering effort, was cautiously optimistic, saying “We have pulled the trigger on what it takes to cross the finish line but we still need the signatures and the money to get there. If you don’t cross the finish line you don’t win the race.”

If the leaders of the committees working to recall Gavin Newsom are not certain of success, it isn’t stopping candidates from already launching their campaigns. Former mayor of San Diego and GOP establishment donor darling Kevin Faulconer has already launched an exploratory committee which allows him to fundraise, and has begun campaigning up and down the state. Businessman John Cox, who successfully rose to the top of the heap in the 2018 jungle primary, and challenged Newsom for governor in the 2018 general election, is actively campaigning – attacking Newsom and Faulconer – with statewide television ads.

Faulconer and Cox both know that if the recall fails, they can still use its momentum to build visibility for their 2022 campaigns for governor. But while these two men, and their donors, lavish money on their early campaigns, the recall effort still urgently requires funding to finish the job.

Another strong potential candidate for governor to replace Newsom is Richard Grenell, whose most recent political experience was to serve in President Trump’s cabinet as acting Director of National Intelligence, and before that, as Ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration. Grenell also worked for the George W Bush administration.

When reached for comment, Grenell, who has not declared his candidacy for governor, was unequivocal. “It’s annoying that the opportunists want to jump in before the hard work is done of gathering signatures,” he said, “and it is shameful that the national media that ignored the recall for so long are suddenly telling everyone it is over and Newsom will be recalled. They are creating a moral hazard of people thinking the recall is done.”

Grenell expressed admiration for the recall movement, saying “this organic movement of activists have worked hard and gotten small dollar donations from people who believe in the cause and have done this without any of the so called experts and elites.” He also expressed additional caution regarding the ultimate count, noting that “we’re up against a one party system in California that is going to control the counting and verification of ballots.”

While the recall committees face what is certain to be a rigorous, if not overwrought process of petition validation by California’s election bureaucrats, it presents an opportunity as well. It exposes a monstrous double standard. Why is it that California’s election officials carefully scrutinize ballot initiative petitions, checking the signature, checking that the signer is a currently registered voter, that the address is correct, that there are no duplicates, and so on, yet they display far less concern over the validity of votes cast in general elections?

When asked about this double-standard, Heatlie said “if they applied the same standards they use for signed initiative petitions to ballots cast in general elections we would see a fundamental cleanup of the voter rolls.”

In the context of the recall Newsom signature gathering campaign, is interesting to wonder who will run for governor, and it is interesting to speculate as to how California may finally be compelled to clean up their voter rolls and restore confidence in election integrity. But such speculation is premature. The deadline for signature gathering is March 17, and as Heatlie put it, “we will be gathering and processing signatures right up until the last day.”

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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California Agencies Fail to Submit Timely Financial Data

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With Californians about to enter their second year of restricted economic activity, and with all the resulting financial anxiety and hardship, it’s unfortunate that accurate and timely financial information isn’t available for the vast public sector. While public sector budgets and projections abound, actual audited financial data for recently completed fiscal years is subject to unnecessary months, if not years, of delay.

One of the few areas of excellence in California’s vast public sector bureaucracies is its public pay database. Initiated under former California State Controller John Chiang and continued by Betty Yee who replaced Chiang in 2015, this “Government Compensation in California” website offers an unvarnished and detailed look into how much we pay our public servants. That’s a look worth having, especially for 2020, a year that saw private sector workers and small business owners watch their income and wealth slip away. But don’t hold your breath.

The raw data the state controller makes available can be sorted by agency, it includes a record for every full or part-time state or local public employee, and for each record there is considerable detail, including base pay, overtime pay, “other” pay, deferred pay, health insurance, pension fund contributions, and more. To be sure, the data isn’t perfectly consistent or complete. Pension fund contributions may or may not include the payments to reduce the unfunded liability, despite the fact that the unfunded pension payment is now usually twice as much, or more, than the so-called normal pension contribution. The data also doesn’t include the cost of prefunding retirement health insurance benefits, or include any attempt to put a value on the unusually generous paid vacation, personal, and “9/80” (salaried professionals that work 9 hours a day for 9 days, then take every 10th day off with pay) benefits afforded California’s public servants. Nonetheless, it is an extraordinary window into the biggest line item expense in California’s state and local governments, personnel costs.

Using this data, which is updated yearly, the California Policy Center produced a series of summary reports in 2020, showing average pay and benefits for various classes of full-time public employees in 2019. In July they produced an analysis of City and County worker pay, and in November, when that data came available, they produced an analysis of State worker pay. But what about California’s system of K-12 public education?

It turns out, as disclosed on the state controller’s summary page for K-12 payroll data, only 26 percent of the school districts have reported so far for 2019. This compares to 481 cities reported (there are only 482 cities in California, that’s 99.8 percent reporting), and 57 counties reported (that’s all of them, the “city and county of San Francisco” reports as a city). So what’s holding up these school districts? But when it comes to sluggish financial reporting, the public education bureaucracy, which has maintained full employment despite a harrowing reduction in services, is just the tip of the iceberg.

None of the financial reporting by California’s public sector comes even close to what is routinely expected of publicly traded corporations. Public sector accounting, in general, is a mess. Payroll data, because it is so straightforward, ought to be available within a month or two of year-end. Why can’t public agencies report their payroll data to the state controller at the same time as they issue W-2 forms to their employees, something that has to be done by the end of every January? Why can’t these files be consolidated and available for downloading within days after they’re submitted to the state controller’s office?

Why aren’t we already analyzing 2020 pay and benefits for California’s public sector workers? Why is the relatively “prompt” reporting of California’s cites, which requires us to wait until July, considered acceptable?

In terms of timely reporting, public sector financial statements just as bad, if not worse. Setting the standard for poor performance is the state itself, which proudly released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report in late October, 2020, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. It took the state controllers office nearly a year-and-a-half to publish a report of their financial performance. This means that at best, any in-depth detailed financial information about the State of California is well over a year out of date. By the time the fall of 2021 rolls around, even if it’s a normal year, information about the financial performance of state agencies will be well over two years out of date. This same dismal performance afflicts nearly every city and county in California.

Similar delays occur with financial reports for the pension systems serving California’s public employees. At first glance, the nearly six month lag between the fiscal year-end for CalPERS and the release of their Comprehensive Annual Financial Report seems to be not so bad. It compares quite favorably to the state’s performance which takes almost three times longer. But why can’t California’s pension systems release these reports within 60 days of their fiscal year-end, which is a legal requirement for large publicly traded corporations?

Moreover, the “only” half-year lag between the fiscal year end and the issuance of CAFRs for California’s public employee pension systems is misleading. One of the most critical variables in the financial status for these pension systems is the calculation of their unfunded liability, which is the difference between the total value of their invested assets, and the total actuarial liability which is the present value of the pensions the system will eventually pay to their current and retired employees. For CalPERS, and this is typical, that calculation, updated yearly, lags a full year behind the financial statements. Which is to say the “Actuarial Accrued Liability” for the CalPERS pension system, as first reported on November 20, 2020, was not showing that value as of June 30, 2020, but for June 30, 2019 (ref. CalPERS CAFR page 126), an entire year earlier.

The significance of this delay in reporting such a critical variable is not diminished because it’s so abstruse. Hundreds of billions of dollars are in play. By the time the Fall of 2021 rolls around, and we’re all trying to figure out just how far in the hole the COVID-19 pandemic has put our public employee pension systems, we will still be relying on calculations that were updated over two years earlier, before any of these economic storms were even on the radar.

Public sector compensation. Agency financial statements. Pension fund statements. In all these areas, California’s public agencies are providing financial information that is only available months, if not years, later than the reports required of publicly traded companies. Blame normal public sector bureaucratic inertia, not helped by the need to run everything past government unions. And compared to other states, when it comes to providing public sector financial information in a timely manner, California is at the back of the pack.

Here in California, the epicenter of high-technology and the information revolution, the expectations we place on our public sector financial professionals are rooted in the middle of the last century. We can do much better.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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California’s Multibillionaires Intend to Conquer the World

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As the oldest man in American history to ever be elected president begins his administration, his immediate blizzard of executive actions suggest the energy of someone much younger. The reason for this is obvious. Joe Biden is not running the country. He is a president in name only. The edicts coming out of the Oval Office, along with the imminent legislative initiatives, are being ran by the American equivalent of a soviet politburo, and the political and financial power behind this politburo is coming from California.

The political actors occupying key roles include Kamala Harris, whose role the tie-breaker that presides over the U.S. Senate makes her the most powerful vice president in history, and Nancy Pelosi, who presides over the U.S. House of Representatives. These two politicians are only the most visible Californians among a group that includes cabinet secretaries, administrative appointees, and what is by far the largest state Democratic congressional caucus.

More significant is the fact that Californians also provide the financial power behind the Biden politburo, as well as the cultural power that propels the Democratic narrative. This would include the well documented trillions in Silicon Valley wealth, the monopolistic power Silicon Valley wields over online communications, and the considerable influence of Hollywood – still the epicenter of America’s entertainment industry.

All of this Californian power is deployed in support of the ongoing “reset,” a titanic, historic transformation, imposed through manufactured consent, executive edicts, biased court rulings, and overwrought regulations emanating from the partisan bureaucrats that control federal agencies. This entire establishment, merely slowed down during the Trump years, has now gone into overdrive. But what is their vision?

To understand what the establishment, of which Biden is a mere figurehead, has in mind for America, one must understand California. This is where the so-called “reset” has advanced the furthest, in a series of shifts that began well before the COVID-19 pandemic provided the excuse to massively accelerate the process. At the heart of these shifts was an epic cultural transformation. Californians, apart from a sizable and growing minority, now support massive reductions to their quality of life in order to supposedly fight racism and climate change. So thorough is their indoctrination that they do not merely support these “resets,” but militantly oppose anyone who disagrees with them.

While California’s demographics are often cited as the factor most responsible for its transformed culture, this is misleading if not wholly inaccurate. It is true that California’s population is now entirely multiethnic. Only 25 percent of high school age Californians are non-Hispanic white. In the general population, Hispanics are 39 percent of the population, whites are 37 percent, Asians are 15 percent, blacks are 6 percent, and 4 percent are multiracial. But if its ethnic makeup is responsible for California’s politics, why is it that the most powerful political influencers in the state are all white?

The reality in California, as in the rest of America, is that nonwhites are being used by whites to advance a specific set of policies. They are being conned in the same manner, and for the same reasons, that white voters are being conned. California’s political economy is designed to serve an oligarchy that obscures its self-interest and secures its popular support via rhetoric designed to divide the races and foment panic over climate change. It is rhetoric invented by whites and designed to consolidate the political and economic power of an oligarchy that is predominately white.

For these reasons, the cultural transformation in California that embraces radical anti-racist and radical environmentalist ideology cannot be attributed to California’s ethnic composition. That is a myth. Abandoning that myth is the first step towards turning the tide. To believe ethnic transformation equates to inevitable support for these radical policies is to succumb to the manipulative race-centric narrative as thoroughly and as usefully as those it has convinced.

In a normal and free information environment, both of these obfuscating lies – “systemic racism” and the “climate emergency” – would be easily debunked. America is the most nonracist multiethnic nation in the history of the world, and the costs to adapt to whatever climate change occurs is far less than the costs being proposed to supposedly arrest the process. The oligarchs know this. They don’t believe their own lies. So what’s really at work?

To the extent there is a moral justification for what California’s best and brightest have already done to California, and have in store for America and the world, it starts with something like this: America’s per capita consumption of energy is four times greater than China’s, and more than ten times greater than India’s. As nations develop economically, from China and India to those throughout burgeoning Africa, worldwide energy production will have to massively increase. How will this be accomplished?

The charitable answer is to explain that renewable energy and draconian conservation mandates are part of an all-of-the-above strategy to maintain economic growth until breakthrough energy technologies such as fusion power are commercialized. That might be believable if Biden’s executive orders haven’t already declared war on fossil fuel production in America. There is no “all of the above” strategy. By making Americans pay more for conventional energy, renewable energy and energy management technologies become economically competitive. The primary beneficiaries of fossil fuel suppression, at least in America, are companies based in Silicon Valley. Which leads to the next plank in the political agenda of California’s oligarchy, which is their relationship to the rest of the world.

A recent essay by Hudson Institute senior fellow Lee Smith should be required reading for anyone trying to make sense out of American politics today. Entitled “The Thirty Tyrants,” the premise of this 7,000 word essay which goes into extraordinary detail is simple: America’s ruling class has declared war on ordinary Americans, and “they are happy to rule in partnership with a foreign power that will help them destroy their own countrymen.”

Attempting to summarize the many examples and key points in Smith’s superb essay would not do it justice. Read it. Smith’s description of Chinese tyranny, and the power and flexibility it gives to their ruling elites, is something the American oligarchy envies. And again, the Chinese model finds its nearest expression in the one-party state of California. As these Californians, clearly aligned with their counterparts in the rest of America, work to consolidate one-party rule across the nation, again look to California to see what they’re really up to. And there is nothing moral about it.

When multibillionaires impassively evaluate the direction of humanity on planet earth – and that is the sort of mega-picture imagining of which multibillionaires have both the time and the money to indulge – what do they see? The panorama before them is deeply troubling. On one hand, they see privileged Western nations, voraciously consuming a far greater than proportional share of the world’s resources. On the other hand, they see over 7 billion additional humans, living in non-Western nations, on the cusp of achieving the capacity to industrialize and consume resources at comparable rates to the nations in the West. How can this go on, they wonder?

At the same time as they contemplate the challenge of accommodating the aspirations of what within their lifetimes will be over ten billion humans on planet earth, they realize the medical research they fund is on another cusp of another breakthrough, that of achieving the tantalizing holy grail of medicine, life extension. And finally, to top off this trilogy of troubling insights, these multi-billionaires know that cusp number three is nearer than ever – the ability to totally automate an economy and run it with robots.

So what on earth will these multibillionaires do with all these useless people? Here again China comes into the picture. This is a nation that could not care less about the fate of its inhabitants. Mao Tse-tung used to boast about his absolute indifference to losing hundreds of millions of his countrymen in a nuclear exchange with the United States. Since Mao, China has produced spectacular wealth in its transition from communism to fascism, but its indifference to human rights hasn’t changed one bit. So where will California’s multibillionaires, which today are joined at the hip with their Chinese counterparts, ultimately go in their relationship with China?

It is unlikely their one-sided, lucrative love fest with the Chinese can go on forever. For starters, the Chinese know exactly what they’re doing, and have no intention of continuing their dalliance with Western multi-billionaires once it is no longer to their benefit. Once they’ve bought everything they can buy, and stolen everything they can steal, and compromised every human asset they possibly can, they’ll drop the love mask like a stone, and reveal what everybody already knows about the CCP but cannot say – they intend to dominate the world.

As for what might come next on the day China drops the act and abandons their suddenly obsolete proxies, one may only speculate that the American deep state is locked and loaded, with classified weaponry that will make a war with the Chinese short and decisive. On the other hand, why have a short war? Once the multibillionaires have finished furnishing their blast bunkers, stoking them with years worth of food, oxygen, medical supplies, and robots, what better way than a nasty, costly war to reduce the surplus global population?

The most likely truth is that most of these multibillionaires, even those Californians who preen at the vanguard of futurism, haven’t thought that far ahead. But the agenda of the Biden administration, from canceling fossil fuel development, to cramming people into dense cities, to admitting millions of unskilled immigrants, or mandating reeducation seminars on the topic of white guilt – all of this and more – can be understood in terms of what American multibillionaires, whose epicenter and base of operations is in California, envision as an appropriate future for humanity. That vision, if not literally genocidal, is nonetheless dark. Apart from the elite few, humanity will be reduced to livestock in pens, policed by robots, pacified by virtual reality.

These elites do still have a choice. They can allow economic development around the world, hoping that innovation will continue to stay ahead of Malthusian checks and hoping that adaptation and stewardship will protect both the environment and humanity from potential threats such as climate change. That is the moral choice, and it is an eminently possible, hopeful scenario for humanity. There is no indication they are making that choice.

From the censorship of early stage COVID treatments, to the relentless demonization of a president that championed innovation and adaptation while caring about his own constituents, the multibillionaires are making a very different choice. They appear to have no intention of sharing this world with ten billion little people, all of them clamoring for everything from air conditioning and automobiles to life extension therapies. Understanding what’s running through the minds of these Californian multibillionaires and their far-flung accomplices is the first step towards stopping them.

There is a populist movement around the world that ordinary Americans are becoming part of. It transcends race and in many respects transcends ideology. It has two predominant features. The first is the desire for nations to retain their sovereignty and culture, and determine their own fate. The other, equally significant, is a growing faith and respect for the power of the individual, and the power of human creativity, to successfully address the challenges we all face without war, and without succumbing to the tyranny of oligarchs – whether they’re living in California or Beijing.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Koch Proxies Threaten to Destroy Conservative Populism

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A recent guest column in the Dallas News offers new evidence that Conservatism Inc. is bent on destroying conservative populism. As well it helps confirm the primary streams of money in American politics: Trillions flow to progressives, billions flow to libertarians, and millions – on a good day – flow into the conservative populist movement.

The column is entitled “By supporting Trumpism, the GOP is in danger of losing libertarian support,” with the subtitle adding that “Many libertarians split from the party to vote for Biden.” The authors of this column are Daniel Smith, an Associate Professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University and director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Alexander Salter, an associate professor of economics at Texas Tech University and a research fellow at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute. But these two professors are not some random intellectuals. They are part of a billion dollar machine, built to produce paid for ideas.

As disclosed on its own website, the Political Economy Research Institute was established with initial seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation. Per a 2016 investigation by the Texas Observer, the Free Market Institute is “largely bankrolled by the Koch network and other conservative interests and individuals.”

To be clear: This column is not an analysis. It is a threat. Not because Libertarians will ever become a viable political party, but because Conservative Inc., backed by libertarian billionaires, has decided that Democrats are preferable to “Trumpist” Republicans.

The column starts out by claiming Republicans are blaming libertarians for Trump’s electoral defeat, then immediately confirms that in fact libertarians were responsible for defeating Trump, writing “The libertarian problem is much bigger than Republicans realize. The official libertarian vote exceeded Biden’s margin of victory in several key states.”

In this the authors are correct. The libertarian vote exceeded Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and came within one-tenth of one percent in Pennsylvania (the state where Biden-friendly judges conveniently expelled the Green Party candidate from the ballot). Of nearly equal significance, U.S. Senate candidate Shane Hazel, one of the most obnoxious symbols of libertarian arrogance in American history, threw the Georgia election into a runoff, which ultimately cost the GOP control.

Smith and Salter go on to acknowledge that “Libertarians, a cantankerous and individualist bunch, do not share a coordinated electoral strategy. Rather, their political tactics have been a mixed bag of not voting, voting for the capital-L Libertarian Party with practically zero chance of success, or voting Republican.” They go on to claim that this time, libertarians didn’t just reject Republicans, they voted Democratic. How they explain this, to the extent their arguments aren’t simply incoherent, reveals just how aligned libertarians are becoming with progressives.

In terms of incoherence, Smith and Salter claim that libertarians are “deeply concerned about the detrimental effects of regulation, taxation and a hike in the minimum wage on economic growth and prosperity.” But how do they translate any of these concerns into a vote for Biden over Trump?

Equally incoherent is the authors’ concern that Trump “would not accept the results of the election.” How does this square with the massive, coordinated efforts by every major American institution to deny Trump victory, an effort backed by thousands of militant thugs who burned down American cities, and encouraged by countless politicians that openly proclaimed their intention to not recognize a Trump victory?

What’s going on here? These are libertarians. They’re supposed to be smart. They’re supposed to have integrity. They’re willing to vote for hopeless candidates because they hold their principles so dear. So why are the authors displaying such obvious double standards? Why such willful denial that the Leftist juggernaut that was activated to oppose Trump was far more dangerous and far more odious than Trump, his tweets, or his policies? Why are Smith and Salter throwing paragraphs into their column that could have been at home on a CNN teleprompter?

The answer to this speaks not to incoherence, but to the calculated alliance that is growing between libertarians and progressives, an alliance that is cemented by billions, if not trillions of dollars of corporate power. Consider this penultimate paragraph:

“If Democrats embrace important libertarian concerns, such as criminal justice reform, drug legalization, ending cronyism, and ceasing foreign interventionism, they could have a real shot of persuading marginal libertarians. And if the left retreated from their destructive economic policies, so much the better.”

There’s a lot to chew on here. Criminal justice reform, for starters, was accomplished under a Trump administration, and for many conservative populists, it is a dubious accomplishment. But it wasn’t Biden or the Democrats that pushed the First Step Act through Congress, it was Trump. And then there’s “drug legalization,” a libertarian fantasy they share with progressives, presumably involving hard drugs since marijuana is pretty much already legal. But letting criminals out of jail and legalizing drugs have consequences. Smith and Salter are invited to spend a few nights in Venice Beach, California, so they may experience first hand the impact of their principles in action.

And then there’s “ending cronyism, and ceasing foreign interventionism.” Really! Because the foundation of Democratic party power, public sector unions along with private sector unions that are borderline communist, has not created a nexus of politically connected corporations and public sector power brokers that’s not destroying every Blue State in America? Who do these guys think they’re kidding? As for “ceasing foreign interventionism,” how many times do Never Trumpers have to be reminded that the supposed horrible dictator did not start new wars, strengthened America’s military deterrent, and brokered historic peace agreements in the Middle East and in the Balkans?

Finally, they write “And if the left retreated from their destructive economic policies, so much the better.” They just sort of throw that in. As if that’s an afterthought. But it isn’t an afterthought. It’s the heart of the choice between Trump and Biden. Regulations. Higher taxes. A hike in the minimum wage. The Green New Deal. “If the left retreated from their destructive economic policies.” Reality alert. They’re not. The Left is not going to “retreat from their destructive economic policies.” The authors must know this. But apparently indulging populist progressivism is preferable to populist conservatism.

Smith and Salter are producing paid for ideas. It’s part of their job. Just as it would be an unthinkable, career ending move for a progressive columnist to question the climate change narrative, for Smith and Salter to acknowledge Trump’s contributions could be problematic for their professional futures.

It isn’t conservative populists who need to do the soul searching in the wake of Trump’s defeat. It is these libertarians who need to decide what they want to do when they grow up. They can keep on taking money from globalist billionaires, and write columns that are in equal measure incoherent or regurgitations of progressivism-lite, or they can face reality. Trump, notwithstanding his bombastic personality, was a pragmatic moderate, whose crime – if you want to call it that – was to care about the working men and women of this nation.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Los Angeles Times Discredits Itself With Biased “Investigation” Into Newsom Recall Effort

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Whether or not Gavin Newsom’s performance as governor has sunk to a level that justifies a recall campaign is a legitimate topic for debate. But rather than engage in serious analysis, where Newsom’s actions can be considered objectively and various perspectives can be shared, California’s newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Times, has produced a hit piece.

Written by Anita Chabria and Paige St. John, an opening paragraph offers the following premise: “A Times investigation found that recall campaign leaders, seeking to capitalize on the darkening public mood, allied with radical and extreme elements early on to help collect signatures. Those included groups promoting distrust of government, science and medicine; peddlers of QAnon doomsday conspiracies; ‘patriots’ readying for battle and one organization allied with the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys.”

If the recall effort succeeds is qualifying for the ballot, and it probably will, expect this sort of reporting to characterize the opposition. But it is a one-sided attempt to delegitimize expressions of genuine and broad based opposition to Newsom’s actions as governor. For such distorted material to emanate from Newsom’s political supporters in a campaign to defend him, or in an opinion column, is to be expected. But for it to take the form of a supposedly objective analysis by investigative journalists is a sham.

If the Los Angeles Times wants to function as a messaging operation for the Democratic Party, that’s their prerogative, but the investigative piece they’ve published is profoundly misleading. The article is designed to convince the reader that the recall movement is propelled by radical extremists, but fails to address a fundamental contrary fact: If the movement is so extreme, why is it that the committees have already collected over 1.5 million signed petitions and raised nearly $4 million in donations?

The answer to that contradicts the premise of the article: The overwhelming majority of people supporting the recall of Governor Newsom are normal, level-headed Californians that are fed up with his numerous and profound failures of governance. Newsom and his Democratic Party have made life miserable for ordinary Californians. Across every policy area – housing, homeless, energy, transportation, education, AB 5, unemployment benefits, forest management, the pandemic response, and more – there is a record of failure.

Instead of acknowledging the vast majority of recall activists as normal people having an appropriate reaction to an extreme set of problems, Chabria and St. John devote nearly 2,500 words to establishing a tenuous collective guilt by association to a small minority. Because a few extremists are allegedly involved in the recall, the recall movement is extreme. This is dishonest reasoning.

There is an even bigger fallacy informing the Los Angeles Times investigation into the recall Newsom movement, a double standard that has informed nearly all media reporting over the past several years and more than ever in recent months.

Quoting from the article: “Many supporters of the recall are not extremists and may not be aware of the far-right groups involved with the effort. But with the violent insurgency at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, organizers are grappling with the consequences of their alliances.”

These two sentences, packed with implicit bias, invite several challenges. When has the Los Angeles Times ever characterized the nonstop rampages that terrorized dozens of American cities all summer long as violent insurgencies? Why not? As federal buildings, ICE facilities, courthouses, police stations, churches, businesses and homes were burned, vandalized, and occupied, as dozens of people were killed and billions in property damage was inflicted, where was the Los Angeles Times? Weren’t these rioters extremists? Wasn’t this an insurgency?

Throughout the article this double standard is evident. The authors describe an event held last month in Sutter County as a recall Newsom rally even though the recall is not even listed among the seven topics to be discussed at the conference. They then describe some of the people attending this event: “thick-muscled men in tactical vests protected those attending with an arsenal of pepper ball guns, pepper rifles and Tasers.”

That’s pretty evocative. But the writers of this article, and all of the reporters and editors that we depend on to get reliable news and information are invited to cite how many times they have offered similar evocative descriptions of Antifa and BLM members. These mobs equip themselves with similar gear, they are far more numerous and far more organized, and they have repeatedly used these weapons in pitched battles with police and anyone else who stands up to them.

Why not describe these black clad formations marching down the streets of every city in America? Why not produce alarming reports on their activity? Why not connect their activities with the Democratic party, whose interests they clearly served all through the presidential election season? Why not create a similar guilt by association?

The writers express concern over “strident language” being used by some of the recall supporters, explaining how rhetoric can incite violence. They include a quote from a UC Davis professor of history, who said “If you really believe your political opponents are Satan-worshiping pedophiles, you can be justified in using any weapon against them.”

While extreme rhetoric is indeed a cause for concern, it is yet another example of a shameful double standard. Are the writers familiar with the phrase “punch a Nazi“? Have they watched and reported on the many videos showing Antifa gangs beating the hell out of people on the streets all over America? Are they familiar with the avalanche of demonizing rhetoric that has been directed at anyone who supported President Trump, or has conservative or Christian beliefs, or even merely fails to militantly endorse the pieties of the Left?

At another point in the article, outrage is expressed over comparisons recall proponents have made between Newsom and Hitler. Fair enough. But calling right-of-center conservatives Nazis, an obvious Hitler reference, is commonplace. Funny how that fact is unacknowledged.

Imagine the Los Angeles Times conducting a useful investigative report that targets both sides on the continuum of extremists. Imagine mainstream newspapers conducting an aggressive, incriminating investigation into Antifa and BLM. Imagine them conducting honest investigations into concerns about vaccination, or, amidst the nonsense, the many embarrassing facts being uncovered by the digital army stigmatized merely as “Q conspiracy theorists.” Engaging in suppression and obvious misrepresentation of what often includes reasonable concerns only serves to lend credibility to the more outlandish claims.

The article concludes by quoting Mike Madrid, “a former state Republican Party political director who co-founded The Lincoln Project.” According to Madrid, extremists and conspiracy theorists have “become mainstream Republican politics.” But does Mike Madrid have any credibility at all? This is a man who marketed himself as a Republican who was morally compelled to oppose President Trump, in order to help Joe Biden become president. Apparently Madrid is still making himself useful, helping Gavin Newsom stay in office.

By publishing articles like this, the Los Angeles Times proves it is not a newspaper. It is a propaganda outlet for the California Democratic Party. A far more productive investigation would be to explore the actual reasons for the recall, because it is a nonpartisan, wholly justified, populist rebellion against a governor and a political party that have abandoned the people they were supposed to serve.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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