Posts Tagged ‘Law and Order’
Where did Wokeness come from?
Is the title of an interesting article at the City-Journal website by one Theodore Kupfer.
It may have started in the USA, but its roots are varied.
He reviews the leading theories, which I’ll summarise here:
- Idealist
“the offspring of long-gestating intellectual trends”. - Psychological
Either a quasi-religion “filling a spiritual vacuum in American life” or “a byproduct of the infantilization of young Americans”. - Materialist
“woke capital” finding money making opportunities in fads like ESG or “woke labor” – “a glut of well-educated but insecure white-collar workers use their control over corporate resources to push a political agenda that they not only agree with but also depend upon for job security”. - Legalist
“Civil rights laws intended to combat discrimination growing cancerously into a set of legal doctrines that actively promote it.”
Kupfer doesn’t think that any of these has sufficient explanatory power by itself, which I agree with. It’s all of them:
Left with a set of theories that don’t seem to work on their own but complement each other well, one could embrace a synthesis: a perfect-storm view, in which all these different phenomena happen at once.
Thus, a certain brand of overprotective parent raised a generation of kids susceptible, in an era of declining religiosity, to morally urgent ideologies.
The theory-suffused academy was happy to supply such an ideology, which these kids took up with gusto upon arriving on campus, despite its evident shortcomings.
When they graduated and started entering the white-collar work force, litigation-averse corporations – already seasoned in adjusting their behavior to comply with civil rights laws – happily indulged the political demands of this socially engaged class of workers.
And, thanks to the immense cultural power of well-educated Americans and the economic power of large companies, that ideology became increasingly visible, and eventually all but inescapable.
And as I often say, theories, fads and trends that emerge in America spread elsewhere fast, at least in the Western world. I already made reference to this in a comment on my own post about the slowly growing pushback by gays and lesbians against the Trans movement, which comment was to this link:
Shame on the British Police (again: see Will be I arrested now, or later?).
Also see this article in the British Spectator, Why are lesbians no longer welcome at Pride:
Whilst Pride became populated with floats carrying drag queens resplendent in tassels, glitter and sequins, with rollerskating nuns following behind, lesbians sought to continue to remind the world that there were real issues to be fought, such as women losing their children to violent men because of anti-lesbian bigotry in the family courts; compulsory heterosexuality and the pressure to marry men and have babies, and a total lack of understanding that women have the right to control our own sexuality.
Lesbians have had enough, as we saw from the Cardiff parade yesterday. If gay men wish to turn what used to be an honourable protest march into nothing more than a street party, and include kinksters and cross dressers in the rainbow flag, that’s up to them, but lesbians have a lot of work left to do.
As Angela Wild, a founder member of GTLO told me, they protested the march to highlight the appalling treatment of lesbians by the queer-identified crowd, and the climate of sexual coercion that lesbian have to navigate daily. ‘The way we were treated, both by the LGBT crowd and the police who refused to let us march and failed to protect us is a clear reflection of the current anti-lesbian image brought by trans activists,’ says Wild.”
Welcome to Straight World, sweetie – or should I say “Cis-gendered” World – including all the standard agitprop strategies and tactics you’ve employed for decades now. Something, something Ouroboros.
Truth vs Totalitarianism
Sure, J K Rowling is as rich as Croesus thanks to her Harry Potter books and the money from the movie spinoffs of them, so she can be more resilient in the face of the relentless trans-gender attacks on her.
But damn, this is still courageous.
From the article that Rowling tweeted:
Police have been criticised for saying they will record rapes by offenders with male genitalia as being committed by a woman if the attacker “identifies as a female”.
Police Scotland said that they would log rapes as being carried out by a woman if the accused person insists, even if they have not legally changed gender.
As you can imagine, the Twitter trans-community did not respond well and as that NotTheBee article notes:
Twitter went haywire at Rowling’s words, coming out en masse to [checks notes] defend rapists.
Of course. Nothing new here actually and she addresses it while noting the other stunts they’ve been pulling:
They’re clearly hoping that one of their number will take … what’s Antifa call it… Direct Action?
“They should have reflected on the fact that I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out. Perhaps – and I’m just throwing this out there – the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.”
I don’t know how close Ms Rowling is to being Red-Pilled, but given how much her Harry Potter stories owe to Western cannon (Greek mythology, Latin language incantations, a lot of European heraldic, folk, and fairy tales, and even a rehash of Jesus’s self-sacrifice and resurrection), she must surely be starting to get clued into the fact that’s it her side of the ideological fence that’s dragging us into this dystopia.
Meantime over in the USA are examples of girls who don’t have the power to speak up in the face of this bullshit (BTW – Outkick is one of the new Sport media sites that’s eventually going to destroy the likes of ESPN):
The second Penn swimmer to come forward was at the University of Akron Zippy Invitational where she watched
LiaWill Thomas beat fellow teammate Anna Kalandadze by 38 seconds in the 1650 freestyle. OutKick’s source described Penn swimmers on the Akron pool deck as upset and crying, knowing they were going to be demolished by Thomas.“They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose. Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got,” the source said.
“Now they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win. I think that it’s really getting to everyone.”
After just five meets and the Akron Invitational, Thomas has not just destroyed opponents. The Penn freestyle records are being rewritten by a swimmer who was second-team All-Ivy league in 2018-19 — as a male.
Yeah, I’m not going to use his new name and I will be referring to him using his deadname. That’s just buying into this Nineteen Eighty Four-type cultural coup across ideas, of which language is a key weapon.
Akron was an absolute beatdown by Thomas, but it wasn’t without disgust from fans who were in the building watching meet, pool, and school records drop one after the other.
“Usually everyone claps, everyone is yelling and cheering when someone wins a race. Lia touched the wall and it was just silent in there,” OutKick’s source said during a phone interview.
“When [Penn swimmer] Anna [Kalandadze] finished second, the crowd erupted in applause.”
Friday, Thomas set a new 500 freestyle Ivy League record. Saturday saw Thomas touch the wall in the 200 freestyle, which is now the nation’s fastest time in the event. And then there was the 1650 that left fans in disgust.
Yeah. I think that disgust and a refusal to applaud these people is the only thing that’s going to do it. Certainly we can’t rely on the officials to be decent.
OutKick’s source said that after the 200 freestyle, Thomas could be overheard bragging.
“That was so easy, I was cruising,” Lia Thomas allegedly said.
…
“I’m proud of my times, my ability to keep swimming and to continue competing. And they’re suited up times. I’m happy with them and my coaches are happy with them,”
No shame. At all. What a total fucking asshole.
I don’t think this guy has mental problems and frankly I don’t think he gives a shit about identifying as female. Like our own Mr Hubbard I think his vast ego and selfishness led him to take advantage of the “rules” and the current cultural bullshit so that he can win and get all the applause, glory and love he can scrounge from gutless officials in the NCAA (National College Athletic Association), university and the media.
The female swimmer asked to remain anonymous for fear of leftists destroying her life. Still, she told Outkick that most of the team has privately expressed reservations about allowing Thomas to be a member of the women’s swim team at the college.
…
“Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do”
Of course she’d be destroyed. She’s powerless. Note also that the varsity coach has not quit but is actually quite happy. Some supporter of woman he turned out to be: as long as his team wins, right?
Enjoy the medals and the trophies, pal. Those like you are destroying women’s sports.
Speaking of such assholes, here’s NoRightTurn who – when he’s not calculating how many wind farms need to be built to shut down the Huntly power station, and always referring only to “Aotearoa” – is right into the trans-gloating, in this case over the law passed the other day that allows people to change the sex of their birth certificate merely by saying so. Perhaps I’m stepping on to a slippery slope but I’m not that bothered by such crap. But this…
…which I guess showed us how much political support there is for terfs here: basicly none. No political party wanted to vote against this, because they’re just not that vile (alternatively, no-one wanted to be recorded as voting against it, because they know they’d be carrying that stain forever). Its also I think a sign of how far our society has moved since the hatefests over civil unions and marriage equality. Yes, the terfs were vocal on the interwebs. But its not like they could organise a giant hate-march up Lambton Quay over it. Mostly because most of those vocal internet voices are in fact bots amplifying a tiny clique of obsessive arseholes in the UK. Locally, there’s very little support for their hate, and only NZ First was sufficiently indecent to want to pander to it. And with them gone, we can finally have a better society.
He really has caught the spirit of the moral righteousness of the Medieval Catholic Church: “Arc of the Moral Universe” and all that. His fanatical, unbending, vicious, toxic Leftism is as all-encompassing as the practices of that church was, except that in his universe sins are never forgiven and the sinners are forced forever to carry the faggots as a warning of the fire they will encounter should they sin again.
I don’t know if he has daughters competing in swim teams or being at risk of being raped by a woman with a penis, but, like Lefty J K Rowling, sooner or later his own monsters are going to destroy him.
Hot Girl Rules
Ewwwwwww…..
No, not him, although we’ll get back to The Covid Rules and Boris in a bit.
No, the Hot Girl Rules are the unspoken set of protocols across the Western world that mean that if you’re a hot girl you can get away with a lot of stuff that nobody else can.
Like being the Prime Minister of a country, going clubbing until 4am and leaving your phone at home so you can’t be contacted. Which then proves awkward when your Foreign Minister tests positive with Chinese Lung Rot and your officials try calling to say that you need to quarantine because you’ve been exposed.
That’s the women we’re talking about. Sanna Marin, PM of Finland at 36 years of age. She said she didn’t get the message, which I frankly think is a lie, what Millennial would be found without a phone on them. I think she just wanted to keep on clubbing. Good on her too!
Oh, she’s apologised but that’s a formality to keep the press off her back. I’m sure that she’s not sorry at all, and again, good on her.
So perhaps I’m applying Hot Girl Rules when I say that I can laugh off this incident while also being pissed off at the number of rulers around the world who have clearly ignored the C-19 lockdown rules they’ve imposed on their populations. I’ve covered this before with the numerous and ongoing incidents, starting with Britain’s very own fear-monger, Neil Ferguson and his booty calls, as well as the stunts pulled by SF Mayor, London Breed, CA Governor Newsom, and fundraisers and parties thrown by Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, as well as the Met Ball: all unmasked Democrats, all servants were masked.
The latest to be outed is the British Tory PM, Boris Johnson, who had a very nice Christmas Party last year at the PM’s residence, No. 10 Downing Street: 40 to 50 people gathered, cheek-by-jowl with no masks. While at the same time:
… the law banned all indoor gatherings of two or more people. And though exceptions could be made for business meetings, the government’s guidance made clear that it was forbidden to hold a work Christmas party. While it is true that the Covid regulations were so fiendishly complex that at times even the authorities struggled to understand them, the no-Christmas-party rule was helpfully shared by the government’s Twitter account on the day before the Downing Street gathering.
There were a whole lot of other harsh government rules about what you could not do, that left people feeling more isolated and oppressed than they had in The Blitz. You can read the details at that link.
There was no area of life too important or trivial to escape the health minister’s glare. This was, as Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Hickinbottom put it, ‘possibly the most restrictive regime on the public life of persons and businesses ever’.
But what’s worse is video recently leaked to ITV, of another little meeting that occurred a few days after the Christmas event, which that Spike article above correctly titles:
They’re laughing at us. Literally. The PM’s former spokeswoman, Allegra Stratton, has been caught red-handed and red-faced on camera, joking about how best to deceive the public about the alleged Christmas party in Downing Street last year.
Perhaps they could call it a ‘business meeting’, she muses in the now infamous video leaked to ITV, filmed just days after the denied gathering took place. Another Downing Street aide offers: ‘It wasn’t a party, it was cheese and wine.’ ‘This is recorded’, Stratton reminds the room, before laughing again. Oh, how they laugh.
Moreover, they’re laughing at us while smashing us over the head with cudgels:
A day before Downing Street’s Christmas party, police broke up a wedding of 40 or so people in Barking. The Met Police are currently prosecuting a gathering in Ilford held on the exact same day as the Downing Street bash. The fine for larger gatherings was, at this point, a life-ruining £10,000.
Johnson has “apologised” for the video and says he’s “furious” about it. Politicians usually are when their minions so thoroughly show them up. I regard all politicians as being useful in the same way that toilet facilities are; you use them and move on. Boris was useful for winning an election and thereby executing Brexit. But that’s it. He has the same depth of belief in civil liberties and freedom that Jacinda Ardern, Joe Biden, Dan Andrews, and a host of others have. That is to say, freedom for them and their friends, not us. There’s also been press outrage but:
Now that the Downing Street party has been exposed, there has been an orgy of misplaced self-righteousness. The media cannot hide their glee at the scandal. But we know that some lobby journalists were at that party. And we know journalists have been caught out on past occasions, too. Often it has been the same journalists who spent every Covid press conference baying for harsher measures, tighter restrictions and ever-longer lockdown. They never raised any issue with the life-denying rules. They are laughing at us now, too.
Are our rulers really so certain that we live in such rarefied times that they face no prospect of being hung from a gibbet, guillotined, or just lined up against a wall and shot by the angry mob they’ve incited? Perhaps they’re that confident in their surveillance systems and informers (especially the C-19 ones), combined with the rich, lazy apathy that modern capitalism has created?
There’s one thing that they’ve certainly got in their back-pocket, at least in Britain (and likely in New Zealand as well) and that is the very public that’s now angry with Boris and company:
A ComRes poll found that 69% support vaccine passports, compared to just 10% who oppose the scheme, despite the fact that the UK government’s own study found that vaccine passports don’t work.
Co-dependency I think it’s called? Battered wife syndrome? Or perhaps there are more subjects among us than we know who crave the sting and control of a Madame Lash.
I’ll leave you with another photo of the rather lovely Ms Marin, because beauty assuages anger. Perhaps that’s why Hot Girls Rule?
TO THE DOUBTERS, THE POLICE STATE IS WELL ESTABLISHED!
Not merely disturbing, it would appear the claims of self and others about the politicisation of the once apolitical Police Corps is no longer a supposition by those dismayed at the way New Zealand is diving into a very dark place. It seems they are now proven to be an armed and government supported adjunct to the NZ Labour Party currently governing alone.
You do not need to be a supporter of Cameron Slater, creator of The Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog now defunct and replaced by the BFD News, to be seriously alarmed at the revelations on the BFD Blog this morning.
An administration very quick to call out criticisms from wherever they come as misinformation and untruths currently led by a very thinskinned front person masquerading as the Prime Minister and leader of a party that never lies and continually claims they have the sole source of truth emanating from the Podium in a no longer constant flow of Labour propaganda.
Just don your open mind if you still retain possession of one, click on the link and read the Post titled:
“Police Admit to Surveilling The BFD”
With a chilling sub header:
Ominously Named “Scanning and Targeting Team” Reported Us for “Anti Govt” Sentiment.
.
With the Media in their pocket, a Speaker so openly biased and an integral component of the scrutiny-denying in the ‘peoples’ Parliament, oppositions effectively silenced and denigrated, the Ardern outfit seem to need the Police Service (advisedly) to run a now exposed surveillance effort on their behalf. Leaves one wondering what the SIS are doing behind their legislated protections.
Note to Plod, please do not break “my” door down, it is invariably unlocked anyway and will be willingly opened should the need arise, I still consider “I” live in a civil society despite the open provocations abounding to the contrary.
“This is for your safety”
It seems to me that there are a lot of things that Police forces around the world have done in the last few years that have cost them the support of the one ideological side of the fence that had their back.
And of course when the Left decides to back the Police, you know it’s going to get bad. Think Okhrana (bad) to Cheka (good).
And so…
Double Standards & Changing Narratives
Just another in an endless list of examples of how the narratives change depending on who is in power and what objectives they’re pursuing.
The focus here being on Australia, which continues its descent into Stasi-world.
Let’s start with stuff in New South Wales, whose State government I have been assured is a “Liberal” one with more of a “hands-off” policy than all those nasty socialists…
- Children being pepper-sprayed by Police
- Children (24,000) being force vaccinated without their parent’s consent.
- Rescue dogs being shot to prevent people travelling to pick them up. (Plus minor stuff like being arrested for sitting on a piece of grass on the NSW side of the border with Queensland)
… followed by the real McCoy in Socialist Victoria.
- Police arresting Jews after they attended their Synagogue (plus “camps” for the unclean)
- With riots starting after 300 days plus of harsh lockdowns.
Plus a bit of phone app tracking of you in South Australia where you get 15 minutes to prove to the government that you are where you say you are.
Culminating in scenes like this – because even after two burly cops have smashed a 70 year old woman to the ground and broken her hip you still need to pepper spray the fuck out of her. Just to be safe. She might have Covid-19.
It’s entirely predictable where the MSM will sit on this issue. As this compare and contrast does of the Guardian’s approach to two similar events with different bad guys.
Flashback: how “Public Health advocates” felt about protests during lockdowns in 2020 America (same here in NZ incidentally)
Thus, you can guarantee which photo the likes of The Guardian would support below.
It’s almost time to start playing that game Papers Please to get into shape for the questions.
Having had numerous people in the US talking about denying healthcare to unvaccinated folk, don’t be surprised if it also becomes more than talk.
Finally, a timetable for comparison. Readers can pick where New Zealand sits on this chart – and where we’re headed over time.
Just as crazy up the coast
California continues to be the pacesetter for Leftist insanity in the USA, and since most people outside America usually pay attention to New York City and California, likely because of their enormous cultural influence around the world, it’s easy to forget the similar things are happening in other parts of that vast nation.
Oregon is next door to California, facing the Pacific. If anybody thinks of the place at all they think of forests and mist. But a lot of things have been happening there that are better guides to where Democrat rule in the US is leading than in California, which is protected somewhat by its wealth, or NYC and Chicago, Illinois, where thick layers of corruption complicate matters.
Oregon is seeing the results of its Democrat rule come fast and clear.
First up, Antifa have had a free run in the place for a long time now, to a far greater degree than anywhere else in the US. The result has been lots of violence, mostly directed at the police but occasionally at private citizens who got in Antifa’s way. The group has been especially hard on anybody who tries to film their activities, knowing the power of visual propaganda they don’t want it used against them, and also in keeping with their need to not be identified beneath their Black Bloc outfits.
The MSM has largely ignored them, leaving coverage to unaffiliated journalists like Andy Ngo, who has naturally taken the brunt of their online tracking and abuse, as well as physical attacks. But the other day a perfectly normal photographer, Maranie Staab, working for a perfectly normal outfit called “News2Share” (loves Dems, hates the GOP) made the mistake of doing some actual journalism on Antifa
This finally spurred the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) to speak up:
Assaulting journalists runs counter to the ideals of our democracy. SPJ Oregon stands by journalists’ First Amendment right to cover incidents and demonstrations and to provide clear documentation of these events to keep everyone informed.
As Ngo pointed out this is nothing new, having alerted SPJ years ago to this Portland Antifa poster, which they ignored.
The fact is that Official Portland has basically taken Antifa’s side across the board. Police have often failed to intervene when Antifa have attacked other groups – and not just their favourite boogeyman, The Proud Boys – but groups of Christians holding prayer vigils (“Where is your God now”).
Recently they chased a 65 year old man and started shooting at him. He shot back and was arrested. The Antifa shooters were not. Back in 2016, before most people had heard of Antifa, they beat up a reporter named Andy Strickland, who finally pulled a gun which got them to back off. No shots were fired but he was arrested and did 40 days in jail. His attackers were not arrested. Even though he’s been free a long time he continues to pursue the case, since he was ordered by the court to not record Antifa, which seems to me a pretty clear case of infringing his 1st Amendment rights, the thing that SPJ mentioned. As his lawyer said:
[R]ight now if you’re in the black bloc what do you think? I can harass somebody and get them arrested if they try to defend themselves.
And then they want people not to defend themselves so that they feel terrified, so that the[y] feel scared, so that they feel frightened, so that their behavior can be publicly and privately coerced. And that’s the danger. And that’s why this case is bigger than one person.
If this can happen to him here it can happen to anyone, anywhere, and it means that nobody is safe. And that’s why this case is so significant.
The MSM has simply followed along. Reporters “allowed” to cover them must give the group their explicit allegiance. They must be fellow travelers. The arrangement works just fine for Antifa. They loved the fashion spread done by The Washington Post in 2020 with dressed-up black-bloc Antifa members receiving glowing blurbs about how wonderful and virtuous they are. It was a disgusting display of gaslighting.
Antifa were also in the forefront of the Defund The Police effort, and they had some success, with the inevitable results of a massive increase in shootings and murder in Portland, plus a breakdown in the 911 system with callers waiting minutes to get through. The city did finally yield to reality and re-created the special gun-violence unit they had shut down in 2020, only to find that few cops wanted to join it. That’s the cops that remain; many have retired and not been replaced. One detective’s exit interview gave an insight as to why:
“The community shows zero support. The city council are raging idiots, in addition to being stupid. Additionally, the mayor and city council ignore actual facts on crime and policing in favor of radical leftist and anarchists’ fantasy.”
The city was recently sued by the family of Trump supporter, Aaron Danielson, who was stalked and murdered by an Antifa activist who was himself killed days later in a shootout with police trying to arrest him. The lawsuit claims that the death was preventable and was due to the hands-off policy of the city. Normally I would not expect such a lawsuit to win but in the case of Portland they’ve got a strong argument based on what city “leaders” have said and done:
Shortly before the filing of the lawsuit, Mayor Wheeler admitted the “hands-off strategies” for dealing with rioters was “not the right strategy,” Fox News reported.
“It is clear, based on the public outcry, on the media outcry, on the national front, that that strategy was not the right strategy,” the mayor said during a city council meeting last week, according to the Associated Press. “I think we can all acknowledge that. I take full responsibility for it.”
The lawsuit alleges that the police department’s Rapid Response Team, responsible for crowd control during protests and riots, was less than two blocks away from the shooting. The team was given orders to not get involved between dueling demonstrators.
A few months ago, with Trump safely out of office, Wheeler finally spoke out against Antifa:
“My good faith efforts at de-escalation have been met with ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists,…It’s time to push back harder against those who are set on destroying our community.”
Too late, idiot.
But he’s in good company. Just the other day the Governor of the state, Kate Brown, announced sweeping new mandates, masks in all indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of vaccination status, plus the now-standard vaccine mandates for paramedics and firefighters. She’s been warned as to what will happen across the state:
Williams also noted that 25% or more of the firefighters in his district would also quit to avoid a vaccine mandate. He said this would devastate the ability of the Aurora Fire Department to respond to emergencies.
…
In Baker City, the firefighters’ union rep testified to the city council that 100% of the department would resign over the mandate.
…
“We had nursing staff testify in droves. They will walk. We will not have enough staff locally to handle anything at the hospital. I have heard from two Oregon Department of Forestry offices that they will be gutted. No response crews left for wildfires. And I could go on and on about the rest of the state departments.
But it’s the small cities that are going to be destroyed. Comply with the mandate and lose all of our staff. Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars re-recruiting and training. Let people die. Or don’t comply and spend at least tens of thousands of dollars fighting it in court, and probably losing our city manager and fire chief anyway because they can’t be held personally responsible for fines. She’s killing us.”
No wonder parts of the state want to secede and join Greater Idaho.
Got ya Reductio ad absurdum right here
In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to absurdity”), is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
It can be used to disprove a statement by showing that it would inevitably lead to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion, or to prove a statement by showing that if it were false, then the result would be absurd or impossible.
If the people in that video weren’t white and speaking in Aussie accents, you’d be mistaken for thinking this was coming out of some third-world dictatorship in the Middle East or South America. Afghanistan perhaps.
I’ve seen more than a few jibes in recent days about the comparison between the Taliban and Right Wing conservatives: you know the diatribe; anti-abortion, anti-gay, etc.
But those are just the symptoms. The true hallmark of the Taliban is authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and on that front the State governments of New South Wales and Victoria, and their Police, are the ones looking more like the Taliban every day.
If you support lockdowns don’t make excuses for what you’ve just seen and don’t kid yourself that it can’t happen here in New Zealand. What you’re seeing is the entirely logical result (the post started with a quote about logic) of how governments have reacted to Covid-19, especially with lockdowns that are repeated.
I’ve added the “Post Covid-19” tag on this post as a bit of a joke. This is our post-Covid-19 world.
The Five Pillars
No, not the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the autobiographical account of the experiences of Lawrence of Arabia.
This one involves much less wisdom. So much so that it’s likely that there is no wisdom at all involved.
This is the grand plan of Chicago Democrat Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, to combat the increasing violence in Chicago this year even as the CPD find themselves on the back foot with mass retirements, funding cuts and prescriptive restrictions on how they interact with criminals.
- Empower and heal those actively engaged in violence, whether victims or perpetrators.
- Reclaim neighborhoods and safe spaces by directing resources to neighborhoods with most violence.
- Improve relations between police and communities “by developing credibility, trust and authentic relationships.”
- Consider the impact of ordinances and laws on violence and advocate for policies that will increase support for those impacted.
- Constant collaboration, proactive planning and coordinated efforts between the city and … the justice system, community groups and private companies.
So how’s this approach been working out for the city?
As expected. At best things have not improved on 2020 and may turn out worse. Clearly the city’s District Attorney, Kim Foxx, is starting to (finally) feel the heat over all those people she’s refused to prosecute on gun laws and such, although rather than front up she sent out a minion who specialises in spin. However, after starting with a bang even he had to admit the obvious:
A top advisor to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told reporters last month that it’s a “misconception” to say gun violence is skyrocketing in Chicago. “2020 did have a lot of shootings in it,” Matthew Saniie, Foxx’s chief data officer, said. “But it’s also important to put this into perspective.”
…
“2020 was a pretty gross year for murder,” Saniie allowed. “June and July were the worst June and Julies that we’ve had going back 60 years…May was the 2nd worst May. September was the sixth-worst September.
…
Saniie told the reporters that there is no reliable data regarding the number of shootings from more than ten years ago. So, he looked at murder data, which goes back several decades instead.“A good proxy for shootings is murder,” Saniie claimed.
But as the CWB pointed out:
But is it a good proxy? The city’s population has declined 25% over the past sixty years, 20% since 1970, and 11% since 1980. But Saniie did not adjust historical murder counts for population changes.
Here in New Zealand we don’t have the gun crime problems that Chicago has, but the thinking behind the Five Pillars approach is coming to New Zealand, if not already here in Andrew Little’s head. I expect it will have a similar failure.
An important election in New York
In this case the selection of the Democrat candidate for Mayor of New York City from the recent primary campaign.
Whoever wins the Democrat primary will go on to win the general election, given how corrupted and useless the NYC GOP is.
As of today the winner of the race appears to be one Eric Adams and although his lead is slim in the complex ranked voting system used, it looks like it will hold.
Now while you would think that the US Left would be overjoyed at yet another Black man rising to a prominent political position in the USA you would be wrong:
According to Lisa Lerer’s latest “Political Memo” for the NYT, candidate Eric Adams, a retired police captain, has “rejected calls to defund the Police Department and pledged to expand its reach in the city.”
Wait! What? I thought Defunding The Police was all the rage among Democrats? Well it was in 2020. But then crime rates started to climb fast in those Democrat-controlled cities that had made such proclamations – and acted on them in many cases as well as making it clear that their Police were the problem rather than criminals.
But more than that, it has become apparent that the Right’s claims that this was virtue-signalling bullshit from rich, “liberal” Whites and that it would be poor POC (People of Colour) communities who would suffer the most, turned out to be right on the money.
That’s a problem because Adams’ law-and-order appeal “adds evidence to an emerging trend in Democratic politics: a disconnect between progressive activists and the rank-and-file Black and Latino voters.”
Lerer quotes Hakeem Jefferson, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, explaining that “The median Black voter is not A.O.C. and is actually closer to Eric Adams.”
I won’t supply the link to the disgusting New York Times original but the title of their article says it all:
Progressives’ Urgent Question: How to Win Over Voters of Color.
Awwww. All the experts have told me that the Democrats have POC in their back pocket. You can see why it is so vital for the Democrats to crank up the screams about GOP racism to eleven on the scale. You can also see why there have been recent attempts to backpedal from all this with: “No, No, We never meant to defund the police”.
They’re even trying to pin it on the GOP, but even with their MSM stenographers to help I think they went in too deep on this one to escape.
No Minister 