Home » Open thread 8/4/23

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Open thread 8/4/23 — 26 Comments

  1. Destruction of the language and “wrong think” part 763–

    The new lefty mayor of Chicago says it’s wrong to call the 400 predominantly and perhaps all black youts (it’s hard to be absolutely sure from the videos)–the looters who stormed a 7-11, stole a lotta stuff, trashed the place, throwing food and other goods up in the air to be trampled–a “mob,” because that’s prejudicial, he says that, instead, they should have been more “appropriately” referred to as a “large gathering.” *

    * See https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/chicagos_mayor_johnson_scolds_reporter_for_calling_mass_looters_a_mob_says_large_gathering_is_appropriate.html

  2. “South African political leader calls for violence against White citizens at rally: ‘Kill the Boer, the farmer'”

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/south-african-political-leader-calls-violence-against-white-citizens-rally-kill-boer-farmer

    ***

    Most Americans were well aware of how unjust South Africa was during the Apartheid era, but how many Americans have any idea what has happened since Apartheid ended. Or what has happened since Mandela died. Long story short, the fixation on race did not end – just who decided which race-based injustices were acceptable, changed. And the remedies are no better.

    The political party that Mandela founded – the African National Congress (ANC) – is still the largest party in SA. And since his death the party now openly speaks of redistributing wealth from the white minority to the black majority in any way they can.

    BTW3 – Before Mandela’ death the ANC had already transformed the distribution of government jobs, business contracts, etc.

    The third largest party – the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – split from the ANC because the ANC was not radical enough. The EFF advocates the seizure of all white-owned farms and the nationalization of much of the economy: “We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people — at least for now”.

    BTW4 – Corruption and black violence is rampant – and white gun confiscation is a perpetual goal of the black run government.

    I choose to bring up South Africa, precisely because it is an example of a nation that does not have a homogeneous racial population, has a history of racial injustice, and experienced a “revolution” via the ballot box. And because it is not possible for the white SA population to “hide”.

    ***

    1) I traveled through Botswana, Zimbabwe, and then South Africa – coast-to-coast, overland – before Mandela died.
    • white groups of all ages recognized the injustice of Apartheid.
    • had several memorable conversations about growing-up in SA, and SA’ future – with older white SAs.
    • “At one time SA was the refuge when strife broke out elsewhere in Africa – now there is nowhere left to go, except into the ocean.”
    • as bad as things had become, there was still more apprehension about what would happen when Mandela died – he spoke out against retribution.

    • they were right to be apprehensive – thousands of whites have been killed ?^^ (and the black, Indian middle class is threatened too).
    • “fact checks” by white Westerners deny what is happening because the “official government records” do not back it up.
    • white Western society does not care about what is happening to the white SAs, and is willing to ignore or whitewash events (sound familiar).
    • I would not attempt the same trip today – now that Mandela has died.

    ^^ = met a white SA in Botswana who told me the story of her family refusing to turn in their guns – as required by SA government – and then having to fire a warning shot into the ceiling as a group of black SAs attempted a home invasion one night – the mob left, but her family realized they were only temporarily safe until all of the easier targets in the countryside have been robbed – the mob included at least one police officer.

    • I have a big interest in Architecture – and would grab every “Home Design” magazine I could.
    • besides the usual layout, kitchen, baths, etc. focus – every article would tout the security features.
    • not just alarm systems – SECURITY features: batter proof front doors, steel shutters, reinforced garage doors, security fences/ walls, etc.
    • if you had money, you built a stylish fortress – and even if you did not, you still fortified your house & subscribed to a security/ alarm service.

    2) Meant to include: “…a nation that does not have a homogeneous racial population, has a history of racial injustice, and experienced a “revolution” via the ballot box. ”
    • our history of racial injustice is our Achilles Heel.
    • and that mental weak spot of “good will” is being exploited.
    • as David and others have pointed out – BLM, Antifa, etc. do not care about racism, justice, police brutality, etc.

    3) The second largest political party is the Democratic Alliance (DA).
    • it is not just a white party.
    • many middle-class blacks and Indians support them too.
    • without the DA, there would be no checks on the ANC/ EFF corruption and draconian measures against whites, and those with means.
    • as I understand it, the DA is struggling right now – infighting between whites & blacks over leadership roles, etc.

    Lastly, we can be a nation that does not learn from the experience of others – or one that does. Even though we led the way on Democracy, I still want to be a nation that can learn from the experience of others too.

    ***
    I wrote the above in early 2020 during an email discussion with friends – and things have only gotten worse, both politically & economically.

    As hard as it is for many to understand in this country, this is going to be part of our future too – based on what has been happening since Obama was elected.

  3. Another open-thread comment about something I read.

    Arnold Kling, who might be categorized as a conservative libertarian economist, writes at a substack called “In my Tribe.” Today, Kling recommends an essay, by someone called “Tove K,” entitled “The Price of a Woman.” The essay is speculative, and some of it is likely wrong, but the contents are thought-provoking.

    Tove K starts by applying the first principle of economics, supply and demand, to the practices of bride price and dowry (husband price). She argues that bride price is closely tied to hoe agriculture, and dowry to plow agriculture. That’s just the first part of what could have been a long book. Tove K ends the essay with her thoughts on our current situation.

    Here’s a link: https://tinyurl.com/mbee8pfu .

  4. yes the democratic alliance is the old liberal party of helen suzman, the late wilbut smith

    lhttps://actforamerica.substack.com/p/stop-taxpayer-funded-border-invasion

  5. Corflour…”She argues that bride price is closely tied to hoe agriculture, and dowry to plow agriculture”…I’ll have to read that, I’ve wondered why in some societies you have to pay to get a wife & in others you have to get to find a husband for your daughter.

    In America today, we have negative dowries, in the form of student loans.

  6. I’m suprised nobody has linked the tablet magazine article about Obama. I’d never heard of the Obama biography “Rising Star” that was referenced. I’m less interested in the more salacious claims than the (alleged) antisemitic revelations.

  7. Mark Levin calls for Team Trump the petition SCOTUS for a stay – until after the election.

    He does not specify stay but strongly implies it.

    The alternative is…civil war — again he dies not use those words, but definitely implies the destruction of the Republic.

    Thus, he’s on record saying that stakes are now this high. LISTEN to his audio clip instead of rhe printed Breitbart summary.
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/03/mark-levin-trumps-lawyers-should-ask-scotus-to-stop-unconstitutional-prosecutions/

  8. Interesting comments about South Africa and about bride prices and dowries, thanks. Women in the US and other western societies should be very grateful not to be commodities.

    The “Best of the Web” at the WSJ today raises the question of why the Biden family enrichment scheme was allowed to happen.

    One of the enduring questions about the Biden family’s lucrative exploitation of the office of the vice presidency has been why the Obama administration allowed them to get away with it. In most administrations, the White House counsel’s office would have put up a goal-line stand against such conflicts of interest as were allowed in Ukraine, for example. Long before Joe Biden ever got the chance to force out a prosecutor investigating his son’s corporate patron, various government lawyers would have insisted on ethical guardrails. It’s clear that State Department officials and even one of Hunter Biden’s business partners were waving red flags when Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. So why did the man who ran the U.S. State Department—not to mention the man who ran the U.S. government—tolerate the Biden enrichment machine?

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bidens-burisma-kerry-and-obama-dfdcff01

  9. This morning I read an intriguing article about ChatGPT programs and their unfortunate propensity to “make things up.” There doesn’t seem to be a fix for this until we get true artificial intelligence.

    The current term for this phenomenon is “hallucinations,” which tickles my funny bone.
    ___________________________________

    How long [a fix] will take — and whether they will ever be good enough to, say, safely dole out medical advice — remains to be seen.

    “This isn’t fixable,” said Emily Bender, a linguistics professor and director of the University of Washington’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory. “It’s inherent in the mismatch between the technology and the proposed use cases.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/chatbots-sometimes-make-things-up-is-ai-s-hallucination-problem-fixable/ar-AA1eFxLx
    ___________________________________

    The quote I bolded is wonderful but accurate jargon.

  10. Nonapod on August 4, 2023 at 2:04 pm said:

    I’m suprised nobody has linked the tablet magazine article about Obama. I’d never heard of the Obama biography “Rising Star” that was referenced. I’m less interested in the more salacious claims than the (alleged) antisemitic revelations.
    ______________________________________________________________

    I’d like to second Nonapod’s recommendation that we read the interview of Obama’s biographer, David Garrow (https://tinyurl.com/2p8cs5mv). The interview was published August 2nd, in “Tablet” magazine.

    At “Powerline,” Scott Johnson wrote an essay praising both Garrow and the interview (https://tinyurl.com/2wcznd72). If not for the “Powerline” post, I wouldn’t have read the interview. Like Nonapod, I’d never heard of Garrow’s biography of Obama, entitled “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.” The book, published in 2017, took Garrow nine years to write, and it clocks in at 1078 pages. There’s no other Obama biography so comprehensively researched.

    Garrow’s interview is also a long one. According to “Text Analyzer” (https://www.online-utility.org/text/analyzer.jsp), the introduction and interview together add up to 17167 words and 943 sentences. That’s a long read, but I think it’s worth every minute of your time.

  11. FOAF on August 4, 2023 at 3:50 pm said:

    Dowries and “hoe agriculture”
    Be careful there
    ______________________________________________________

    FOAF:

    At my age, luck is mostly bad, but there are exceptions to the rule. One of them is not worrying about hoes, or hoes, or hoes’ hoes. For that, I give thanks.

  12. AesopFan:

    Off topic. How was the Oregon Trail history “vacation?” Any highlights or especially memorable stories?

    om

  13. that guy:

    Thanks for the comment on post-apartheid South Africa. I’m somewhat aware of the problem and sad about it.

    I do remember what a righteous cause opposing apartheid in SA became in the 80s US. The arch-MAGA-hater Steve Van Zandt wrote a song about not performing in Sun City, the SA version of Las Vegas, and bunch of music stars — Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, Pete Townshend, Hall and Oates, Herbie Hancock — piled in “We Are the World” style:

    –“Artists United Against Apartheid – Sun City”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aopKk56jM-I

    In May 1985 Bishop Desmond Tutu spoke at UC Berkeley and was a sensation, at least in Bay Area politics.

    It was such a wonderful, clean crusade with apparently no downside. Who was really for apartheid? I wager not that many white SAs were really for it, beyond worrying about what would come after.

    And now we know, but most of America and Europe would rather not ponder this new reality.

  14. om – thanks for asking, everything is going well.

    We are serving our summer mission at the Wyoming Mormon Trail Site aka Martin’s Cove, about an hour south of Casper.
    Our days are full of either guiding day-long “treks” by LDS youth groups following a particularly significant portion of the Mormon emigrants’ route, shepherding general visitors through the museum and historical buildings, or cleaning toilets.
    From the sublime to the practical all in the space of a week!

    Many visitors have fascinating stories to tell of their personal family connections to the Mormon handcart pioneers who came through this area, and others are interested in the general history of the Western Trail, as all of the emigrants came through this exact spot: Oregon settlers, California gold-rushers (and farmers), Latter-day Saints bound for Salt Lake, and the Pony Express.

    We are one of the stations for the annual re-enactment of the famed mail carriers, although today’s riders are a tad older and a lot slower. But we all have a good time when they come through.

    Just about every day has some kind of memorable experience.
    A lot of them are personal, such as discovering the odd connections we have with the other missionaries: one grew up in the “big town” closest to my childhood home and shares a lot of my memories of the time and place; one is the brother of a man who was the bishop in our first “married couple” ward in Utah; another is the first cousin of one of our best friends in the same ward.
    Small world – we don’t even have 6 steps of separation!

    Other memorable experiences come from watching people’s reactions to the story of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies, and how the freezing, starving emigrants were rescued by the men (mostly young “twenty-somethings”) who came from Salt Lake into the blizzards to find them.

    One of the high-lights is the location itself, in a small section between the prominent landmarks of Devil’s Gate and Split Rock, on the former homestead of the Sun Ranch. Spectacular sunsets, wind that will take anything loose into Nebraska, and sudden rainstorms out of nowhere.

    https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/devils-gate

    I’ve cut back on my blog and news reading (hard to believe, I know), and feel to echo Chuck from another thread, that unfortunately “I have to pay attention to politics. The curse of interesting times,” because what we are living through now is genuinely unprecedented.

    Not sure what I’ll tell my grandkids about this period in our history, when the 2024 election could be contested between two octogenarians from their jail cells.
    As Not the Bee says, “What a time to be alive!”

  15. Wow, AesopFan, that’s quite a roundup of your days in Wyoming. You’re blessed to be able to live history. Thanks for the update.

  16. “Unless there are a few issues where you at least slightly disagree with your political party, then you are not in a political party, you are in a cult.”

    — Elon Musk

  17. huxley on SA and the end of Apartheid.

    It was such a wonderful, clean crusade with apparently no downside….
    And now we know, but most of America and Europe would rather not ponder this new reality.”

    Too true. But who wants to confront Africa’s enduring tribal opportunism leading to crime?

    Look at what The Clintonista’s did for Rwanda. Extremely few because these perps are black… Magic Negro dust and all THAT.

  18. well rwanda is a particularly malicious example, the current president, for life there, ignited the genocide when he was a rebel leader in 1993, its really hard to grok how this figure who should have received the saloth sar (khmer rouge treatment) is given legitimacy 30 years later,

    the enablers in that instance were french and belgian government, that provided the weapons and training to the militias,

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