The “Basket of Deplorables” – Long Reign the Trumpster

“Mao then turned on Jiang Qing: ‘You're someone who has grandiose aims but puny abilities, great ambition but little talent. You look down on everyone else.’”

Roderick MacFarquhar. Mao's Last Revolution (Kindle Locations 2753-2754). Kindle Edition.

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Does this sound like another woman we all knew too well?  In reading this castigation by Chairman Mao of his crazy, radical wife during the Cultural Revolution one wonders if Hillary Clinton could have once endured a similar scolding from her President husband.  It would be difficult to render a more fitting and succinct tribute to her character and abilities.  

Case in point: on September 9^th Hillary Clinton was speaking at the LGBT for Hillary Gala in New York City on Sept. 9, 2016.  This was how the standard bearer for party of tolerance, compassion and inclusion chose to describe the rank and file of the opposition party.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables …. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it….  Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.” http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/11/context-hillary-clinton-basket-deplorables/

Well, yes, “thankfully” she had all of those NYC transgendered folks around her to keep her grounded in the real America, not like, say, the coal miners she wanted to see unemployed and were enthusiastic about a candidate who did not want to turn them into welfare clients.

In more normal times, such a scurrilous, vicious smear from a major party Presidential candidate would have reverberated across the news outlets and media channels as a colossal blunder.  But these were not normal times and Hillary Clinton was not a normal candidate.  When I say “normal” I am not speaking of the usual boundaries of personality that typically circumscribe a nationally prominent political candidate. Trump  certainly broke the mold in that regard, and to the extent that Hillary had a personality at all it is hard to imagine that it was composed of anything other than the dueling banjos of ambition and avarice.

By a “normal” candidate I mean one who operates, broadly speaking, within the traditions and norms of American politics.  Instead this U.S. election with the suborning of the FBI and the unprecedented collusion between Clinton’s campaign and the organs of the mainstream media resembled more the sort of a sleaze-filled farce of shadowy fixers and fraudsters that you would see coming out of a fake Presidential contest in Argentina or Ukraine. 

In an article “No Consequences From Media Peers for Reporters Caught Colluding With Hillary” in Observer Politics Evan Gahr wrote:

“[I]f you’re a Politico or New York Times scribe or CNBC anchor John Harwood and hacked emails emerge that reveal you outright colluding with Hillary Clinton campaign—by giving advice or providing the communications director “veto” power over what to include from your interview with the candidate or allowing campaign chair John Podesta veto power over your stories … [y]our media friends will not censure you or even scold you—in fact, they don’t bother to contact you directly. Instead, you can hide between a crafty spokesman who won’t even answer specific questions but acts like he’s the publicist for some elusive Hollywood star and that a journalist determined to ask standard pointed questions is actually pining to profile him for Vanity Fair.” http://observer.com/2016/10/no-consequences-from-media-peers-for-reporters-caught-colluding-with-hillary/

Clinton was exempt from rules everyone else had to play by, was in cahoots with the top people running the news coverage for the campaign. The so-called guardians of the “independent” fourth estate were part of the Democrats campaign team.  Some of them ended up as moderators for the television debates, Hillary stooges who gave her a pass and beat up on Trump while pretending to be journalists.  They were carrying on the Candy Crowley tradition of openly flaking for whoever was the Democrat candidate.

Here is Howard Kutz from Fox News. “Carl Cannon, executive editor of Real Clear Politics—and no Trump admirer—says that if Clinton wins, “the 2016 election will be remembered as one in which much of the mainstream media all but admitted aligning itself with the Democratic Party.”  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/25/are-media-taking-victory-lap-over-donald-trump.html

This massive display of corruption and collusion seemed to have no negative fall out for the Clinton campaign. Of course.  This was news, and the news-people were in the bag for Hillary. Did Pravda ever blow the whistle on Brezhnev?  It turns out, however, that the mainstream media organs had soiled themselves so completely that their biases and distortions no longer  resonated. To experience schadenfreude like none other, look at some of the pre-election You Tube videos with mainstream media pundits giddy in their predictions of a landslide victory for Hillary, and then the shock and horror when Hillary's  victory turned into a cruel mirage. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5nPi85x4CA) When evidence of the doom of Trump's electoral victory became certain, watching the meltdown of certified fantasist, Brian Williams, and the usually smirking Rachael Maddow on MSNBC could not be more enjoyable.
 

Being one of those un-Americans in that “basket of deplorables” I have a good idea what she had in mind for all of us who are beyond redemption (the “irredeemables”) once she was in power -- the Platonic form of vindictiveness.

An unfettered Hillary Clinton in office would resemble the East German Stalinist, Erich Honecker. She had called the Republicans the “enemies she was most proud of”. (http://www.mediaite.com/online/hillary-has-no-regrets-about-calling-republicans-her-enemy-they-say-terrible-things-about-me-2/  What fetters or impediments could have possibly obstructed a President Hillary Clinton ? 

The Supreme Court?  Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg and Breyer likely had their retirement letters ready and waiting for President Clinton, and with the vacancy of Justice Scalia’s seat, in a very short time the court would have been stocked with those sort of “progressives” to rubber stamp whatever depredations Hillary had in mind. A vastly expanded application of “hate speech” to rationalize an attack on talk radio and more generally to suppress dissent would have been put into place. We would have seen efforts at consistent law enforcement to be further undermined by an officially sanctioned “implicit racial bias” (every cop a presumed racist) creating a permanent “state of war” between minority communities and local police.  More rioting anyone? More Al Sharptons?

The Republican in Congress?  First of all, there would be fewer of them as Hillary would have flooded the red states with third world immigrants, more clients and voters for the regime.  Remember when Republicans used to be able to compete for the electoral votes in California? Not since 1984.  Did third world immigration over the last three decades have anything to do with changing that?  California would have been Hillary’s model for the entire country.  The 2020 Presidential election would be a Democrat landslide of 45 or more states. 

Second of all, the Republican establishment had turned out to be less of the “enemy” of Hillary than she may have thought, preferring the certainty of her corruption to the anti-establishment Trump.  Since they stabbed Trump in back and despised the rank and file who nominated him, those deplorables (a very large chunk of Republican voters) no longer trusted them and would no longer vote for them.  Why should they have? Since the Republicans would have had no serious constituency for the Democrats to respect or fear, Hillary and her cronies would treat them with the contempt and disdain they deserve.

The Press and the Media?  We now know what to expect from this bunch – trained seals who want to be cozy with the rich and powerful. 

The universities, academia, the intellectual class committed to the pursuit of truth and the sanctity of free expression?  Just kidding.

There would have been nothing in Clinton’s path and her revenge against the “basket of deplorables” would have had two broad features.

First, with the assistance of the media, the marginalization of political opposition.  The primary instruments used would have been a stepped up the “hate” smear campaign and relentless attacks with charges of racism, sexism.  “[Y]ou name it”, as Hillary said to LGBT faithful as she rattled off the list of the standard smears.  This would have been a lot more from where that came from. 

Hillary's strategy all along was to turn all potential opposition on the right into Klansmen or Nazis, stereotyped creatures of low intelligence and primitive animosities.  People like this, of course, have no place on the political spectrum other than the far fringes where they can be alternately ridiculed or ignored, or perhaps even, punished.  Hillary and her pitchmen were constantly trying to link Trump to Klansman David Duke, notwithstanding her friendship and expressed admiration for ex-Klansman, Robert Bird, Democrat Senator from West Virginia.  See: http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/25/hillary-clinton-friend-mentor-robert-byrd-kkk/

Second, Hillary would ramp up the Progressive modus operandi of pathologizing her opponents' resistance to the massive encroachment of government into every aspect of social life and the progressive assault on religious freedom.  Homophobes, Islamophobes, xenophobes, “you name it,” as she clucked to the trained seals in her transgendered audience. 

This proliferation of “phobias” is by design of the left yet another way to marginalize people who disagree with them.  Phobias are a kind of mental illness, and hence irrational. Irrational people cannot be taken seriously except as threats to themselves or those around them.  If you object to unrestricted immigration from the various hellholes across the world, you are a “xenophobe”.  If you have a traditional view of marriage, you are a “homophobe”.  If you think bringing a lot of young Muslim males into the country from places like Syria and Somalia is not a good idea you are “Islamophobic.”  You do not argue, debate or reason with phobic people. You ignore them, or, if necessary, repress them.  They “thankfully” as Hillary said are “not America”, that is that social-political part of America where people get to compete in making their case for their beliefs and their way of life. By being “sick” in this intended psychiatric-phobic sense, a person loses the respect and consideration for his wishes and opinions and potentially even the legal protection of his freedom and property.  Refuse to sell a wedding cake to gay couple and see what happens. Don't want your daughters to share bathrooms and shower with guys who like to think they are girls?  This was just the beginning. 

So, rather than watching Hillary waddle into the White House totting her 30 years of documented corruption and an unrelenting hostility toward what a lot of us still believe are great American values and traditions, in stepped the Great Refusnik, the Orange Man, Donald Trump.   “Clintonism” with its 3 “Cs” – corruption, collusion, coercion -- is in the dustbin of history. Long reign the Trumpster.  

  

   

   

Islamophobia versus Christianophobia

A Thought Experiment: let us imagine that for the past 20 years or so in many and various parts of the world we see young men proclaiming their devotion to Christ and the advance of Christianity as a prelude to murdering groups of unsuspecting Muslims they encounter in public places such as airports, workplaces, night clubs, etc.  In these massacres sometimes Christians are killed as collateral damage.  These men commandeer airplanes and crash them into skyscrapers.  They invade mosques and behead elderly Imams.  They make YouTube videos of beheadings, immolations, drownings – all preceded by the cry “Jesus Christ is Lord.”  Certain groups of them are also intent on setting up by military conquest a “Christian Republic” where Christian morality will be strictly enforced with severe penalties for adultery, homosexuality as well as apostasy. Let us assume that these Christian zealots are a minority of all Christians and the majority of Christian believers are law abiding people who have made accommodation with secular society.    

Let us also assume that many of these young Christian mass murderers are being incubated in many parts of Europe where Christianity flourished in its youth, especially Italy, the Iberian peninsula, but also in Protestant enclaves in Sweden, Norway and Germany. 

How then would the politicos,  New York Times, the Washington Post and the remainder of the commentariat, from the mass media syndicates and academia to the entertainment industry, have responded after a massacre on American soil, let’s say a mass shooting of 50 gays in a Florida night club by young man claiming affiliation with one of the major Christian terrorist groups?            

Allow me to speculate how they would not have responded.  Then President Obama would not have referred to the victims as “some random folks” killed by a disturbed person. The American people would not discover that all religions have their share of fanatics and that this massacre has nothing to do with Christianity.  In reporting the story, The New York Times would not omit the fact that before open firing the young man was yelling “Jesus Christ is Lord” and reciting Old Testament condemnation of sodomy.   The NYT editorials would not refer to those individuals who talk about Christian terrorists and the problem with Christianity as “Christianophobes” and remind us that the majority of Christians are peaceful and law abiding.   The Democrats would not be encouraging the immigration of millions of Christians from those incubating European countries.  Republican leaders would not be condemning as bigots those who urge a moratorium on immigration from those countries that are breeding terrorists.  Hollywood would not be making movies that feature Muslim bigoted vigilantes who kidnap and murder innocent Christians.

The following is the more likely response.  From Barack Obama, a press conference announcing the formation of a Federal agency to combat Christian terrorism and to conduct surveillance of Tea Party and other Christian extremist groups. Christians will then be barred from Federal employment.  From the NYT editorial staff, a piece that decries the inevitable culmination of Christianity as a religion of violence, oppression and hate. The Washington Post publishes articles predicting an escalation of Christian violence and warns non-Christian readers to arm themselves in anticipation of further attacks. From the Republicans, endless apologies for having been Christians and groveling petitions for forgiveness.  University presidents across the country announce the establishment of “Christian-free safe zones,” Students on the campuses demonstrate and demand that the universities require “trigger warnings” on the syllabi of courses with content that relates to Christianity.  From the DNC a declaration that public affirmations of Christian faith should be deemed as hate speech.      

Wordnapping: The Totalitarian Left's Subversion of Language

Kidnapping: The crime of unlawfully seizing and carrying away a person by force or Fraud, or seizing and detaining a person against his or her will with an intent to carry that person away at a later time.

                                                          http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/kidnapping

Criminality is the modus operandi of the Left.  Stalin in his early Bolshevik days robbed banks to help finance the Leninist power grap.  Later when in full-satrapy the Great Oarsman stepped up his game to mass-murder (by the tens of millions), ethnic cleansing and war crimes.  The resume of any A-list Marx-inspired chieftain you care to name – Lenin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot – will be a document of extensive criminality.  

American Bolshevik, Bill Ayers in the early 1970s busied himself with bombing public buildings. His spouse, Bernardine Dohrn, was a capo in the Weather Underground, a Marxist, terrorist cell that bombed police stations and advocated killing “pigs”, aka policemen. She remained on the FBI’s most wanted list for three years.  In that same era the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, aka, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, in Germany and the Red Brigade (Brigate Rosse) in Italy bombed, kidnapped and murdered their way across central and southern Europe. 

Bill Ayers, as noted in Wikopedia, now passes himself off as “an American elementary education theorist” which suggests that the meanings of the words “education” and “theorist” have been mutilated beyond recognition. Unlike some other infamous American criminals like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Bonnie and Clyde, the Pentagon bomber managed to coast into a comfortable retirement as a “professor” from the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers). Bernardine Dohrn from 1991 to 2013 was a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn).  So much for the old saw, “crime doesn’t pay” – tenured sinecures, hobnobbing with future U.S. Presidents, and basking in the glow of ex-radical celebrity-hood are the perks for leftwing terrorist seniors.

And so with at least a hundred years of criminality embedded in the molecular structure of left-wing politicking and governance, the  pathetic grand finale of the 2016 Democrat primary for the White House should not have been a surprise.  It turned out to be a rigged contest between a simple-minded Marxist crackpot like Bernie Sanders, who captured the affection and votes of millions of (particularly young) Americans, and a corrupt, colorless harridan who promised to turn the U.S. into a Peronist-style dictatorship where the rule of law gives way to the 3-Cs of Clintonism, corruption, collusion and coercion.  Her campaign, in the crudest, reductionist terms, was a constantly expanding quest for “clients” who in exchange for their votes get more of the government favors and loot she will dole out.  She referred to the bribes she offers as “investments.”

The descent of American politics into an abyss inhabited by the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton and Black Lives Matter thugs is made possible in part by the corruption of language.  The left resorts to what I call, “wordnapping”, seizing and detaining a word and distorting its meaning to serve as a propaganda tool.  It is now possible to compile a dictionary of words that the left has stripped of their clear, original meanings and are now used exclusively to smear opposition and eliminate dissent.  Below, a few of the hostages they have taken.

Racism: Racism was once simple, clear and straight forward. A racist was anyone who believed that members of his race were superior to those of a different race.  The left, however, in a consummation of Orwellian-style word corruption, has now turned the meaning upside down: “racism” for the left is the recalcitrance of white, European-descendant peoples to acknowledge their unique moral inferiority, i.e. their continuing responsibility for the oppression and exploitation of “people of color” and their refusal to atone for “white privilege”, the vehicle and cause of the continuing pathologies that plague the black community.  To be racist today is to be a white person who is reluctant to engage in the ethno-masochism that is de rigueur in the universities and popular culture.  From “Yes, All White People are Racists and Let’s Do Something about It”, here is the typical braying from one of the many race baiters, a shakedown laced with the usual strains of condescension, calumny and abuse.

What if Americans changed the way they talk about race? What if white people tried to confront their own shortcomings, and accepted that the default presumption should probably be "implicitly racist"? Maybe then, whites would start to work harder, collectively and individually, to show their alliance with (and acceptance of) people of color — through their words, their actions, and their deeds. After all, wouldn't it be better to live in a world where white people made a constant, concerted effort to overcome implicit racism? Particularly when it lurks within themselves.  http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/yes-all-white-people-are-racists-now-lets-do-something-about-it

It should be fairly obvious from this that what we used to understand as “racism” is now a main staple of black “activism” and its extortionist methods.  (See: http://fosterspeak.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-left-masters-of-extortio.html) 

“Racism” is the left’s greatest agit-prop triumph of our time, one that even a master of “the big lie” like Joseph Goebbels would be proud to own.  It is increasingly difficult to remember what a “racist” used to be before the invention of “micro-aggressions”, the professionalization of race hustling and the reign of the “diversity” inquisitors. Racism the left wants us to believe has burrowed into every crevice of American society. Which means that its pervasiveness and insidiousness must be comprehended through the mediation of self-appointed experts who unfold its complex taxonomy and illustrate its constantly expanding mutations: “structural racism”, “systemic racism”, “institutional racism”, “individual racism”, “environmental racism”, “economic racism” “covert racism”, “subtle racism”, etc., ad infinitum.  Zeba Blay in a Huffington Post article jumps off the deep end with 11 kinds of racism including such gems as “free speech racists”, “hipster racists” and “voyeuristic racists”, an indication that the word no longer possesses any recognizable boundaries and that those who make a living charging others with it should not be taken seriously, or taken very seriously as twenty-first century versions of Der Stürmer publisher, Julius Streicher, the raging Nazi anti-Semite hanged by the Allies after WWII.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/11-types-of-racists-who-need-to-stop_us_563786e0e4b0c66bae5d088a

Recently President Obama, presumably after perusing the pages of abstruse genetics journals, announced that “racism is a part of our DNA.”  By “our DNA” I assume he means the DNA of the descendants of white slave owners.  Not clear is whether those “white folks”, as he likes to refer to that inferior race, whose ancestors were not slave owners are likewise contaminated by this moral blight, and, by having a white mother, whether his DNA is implicated.  Perhaps further research in genetics will clarify this. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-not-cured-of-racism-its-a-part-of-our-DNA-Barack-Obama-says-citing-legacy-of-slavery/articleshow/47773999.cms 

Twenty-first century “racism” emulates twentieth-century “fascism” – it has become a word empty of specific meaning, used to condemn a critic as, well … a very bad person.  In its routine applications, “racism” is the favorite big club of today’s social justice warriors, to beat up on whatever opposition they encounter in their efforts to limit free speech, rationalize and defend minority criminality and destroy traditional American institutions.  “Racism” is a broad brush assault, perhaps unique in its smearing capacity in that, unlike with other kinds of allegations of moral or legal culpability, once charged, there is no way to demonstrate that you are not a racist. It is possible to prove that you are not a liar, a fool, a rapist, a robber, and a plagiarist; you can never effectively dispute the claim that you are a racist.  No protest or evidence counts. Name one person who has ever been successful in doing it?  Being a racist now is sort of like it was to have “cooties” back when you were in fifth grade.  There was no remedy for the mysterious virus of cooties and you were deemed infected because someone decided that they didn’t like you.   

Hate: “Hatred” is another favored smear of leftwing propagandists, one they employ to remain immune from criticism. “Hatred” for them is the not the usual word one uses to describe that visceral often irrational emotion of loathing one may feel toward someone or some group.  “Hatred” for the left means disapproval. Nothing less than affirmation and approval for their programs and policies for  the 21^st century utopianists can only mean hatred.  If you object to gay marriage, you hate gays.  If you oppose affirmative action, you hate black people. If you favor lower taxes, you hate the government.  If you support the deportation of illegals, you hate Mexicans.  Leftist opponents are not reasonable or considerate, not individuals who have a different, arguable view or perspective about a controversial issue.  They are morally defective, irrational, purple-faced “haters”.  Republicans are now routinely pilloried as “haters” in contrast to Democrats who are all about compassion.

The persistent hate smear in contemporary leftist politics, however, should be understood as a stunning display of psychological projection.  When it comes to frothing-at-the-mouth emissions of visceral loathing and detestation for those of different political persuasion no one can match an aggrieved leftist. Here is New Republic writer, Jonathon Chait, completely unhinged, when having to think about George W. Bush.

“I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too….  And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more…. There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice, or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche.” https://newrepublic.com/article/67136/mad-about-you

During the Presidency of George W. Bush, writers from the “party of compassion” were offering their readership these models of dispassionate political discourse:

The I Hate George W. Bush Reader: Why Dubya Is Wrong About Absolutely Everything (The "I Hate" Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor);

The I Hate Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice... Reader: Behind the Bush Cabal's War on America (The “I Hate Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor); 
The I Hate Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage... Reader: The Hideous Truth About America's Ugliest Conservatives (The "I Hate" Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor)

Hatred for the entire field of Republican, conservative scumbags in 2004 was so popular with Democrat readers, that a publisher series was dedicated to poring out scorn and contempt.  But as we are constantly reminded, the Republicans are the party of hatred – as Chait or one of his colleagues might say, following the lead of Groucho Marx:  "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar128465.html

Intolerance: to continue with the practice of psychological projection, leftists love to talk about how intolerant their critics and opponents are on the right.  Once again, a word has been wrenched from it moorings and turned into reflexively-used smear.  “Intolerance” in its corrupted usage mirrors “hatred”.  Anything less than affirmation and enthusiasm for the leftist-defined march of “progress” makes one into a knuckle-dragging bigot.  Recall Presidential candidate, Barack Obama’s condescending sneer in 2008 about those “white folks” who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them….”  Of course!  The only reason why a white, rural voter would not vote for a black Marxist demagogue who mocks and demeans them is racial bigotry.  No other possibilities exist.

The problem is that the practice of toleration is a tricky business.  A genuinely tolerant person is someone who, even though he finds the beliefs, perspectives and life-style of another objectionable, treats that person in a way that conveys basic human respect and a live-and-let-live attitude.   No one has to be tolerant around people he esteems and approves of: it is only required for someone who confronts people who he in some way or aspect disapproves of, an accommodation of sorts, peaceful coexistence.  Of course, no one is or should be tolerant of everything and everyone, and finding those boundaries is what makes toleration such a tricky affair.  The irony that seems to complete escape the leftists is that they disapprove of conservatives and Republicans (see Jonathan Chait above) but cannot tolerate them.  President Obama and Hillary Clinton refer to them as their “enemies”.  http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/3439-obama-calls-his-critics-enemies   You do not tolerate your enemies, you eliminate or destroy them whenever you can.  Intolerance is the inevitable stance of leftist ideology because leftists, believing that they are uniquely virtuous and enlightened, view their competitors for power as corrupt and heartless, atavists submerged in bigotry and ignorance. 

In doing battle with our enemies, “the left” it is extremely important to know their “dictionary”, to recognize their subversion of language.  This will help us to resist the intimidation, refute the falsehoods and expose the hypocrisy.

The Left: Masters of Extortion

 

Make me, make me your victim,

Re.sis.tance is only a symptom…

       Of bigotry

       I am so guil.ty, so                                                      

Make me your victim.

Make me, make me your victim

Elect Hillary Clinton…

            She knows the score

            Reparations and more, so                                                        

Make me your victim.

(Parody of Barbara Lewis, “Make Me your Baby”, 1965)

Extortion = by definition: the practice of obtaining (something, such as money) from a person by the use of force or threats

Let’s begin with extortion in its crudest, most elemental form: a physical threat to get something you want – money or some other object of material value.  “Give me your wallet or I’ll knock your teeth out” – direct, easy to understand, transactional.  I get your wallet with your money and credit cards: you keep only part of what you started out with, your teeth. Obviously a better deal for me.

Now, let’s move up a slight notch in criminal sophistication to what I would call a “reputational” threat against someone.  “Give me five thousand dollars or I’ll show your wife and daughter the photos I have of you in the sack with your secretary last year.”  No physical threat but I get five thousand dollars I didn’t have to work very hard for: you hang on (at least for a while) to what you already had, your good reputation and the affection of your wife and daughter.

These examples are of individuals at work, but “give me or else…” also works well as a group exercise – protection rackets, for example.  You make regular monthly payments to some churlish local gangster who in exchange does not let any of his associates burn down your family store. Again, a nice, easy deal for him; for you, one more business expense, one you cannot even write off.

Some political regimes are extortion machines.   The Castro brothers are a splendid example. In 1959 they chased Fulgencio Batista out of the Presidential palace in Havana and off the island and proceeded to murder, imprison and exile anyone whose Leninist bona fides were suspect, some of whom had fought with them, helped to bring Batista down and naïve enough to believe Fidel’s deceitful promise of democracy and free elections.  Firmly in power, here was the extortionist deal they offered the Cuban people: “pretend you love the Maximum Lider and the socialist paradise he is building for you.  Don’t even think about criticizing the regime or mounting political opposition or openly practice your religious beliefs and ideals, and be ready to squeal on your friends and neighbors if they seem less than enthusiastic. In exchange: for you, no firing squad, forced labor camps, re-education centers or social ostracism. You may get to keep your crappy, low paying job with no future, can go to the local clinic for free when you get sick, oh, and eat rice and beans every day, sold to you cheap by the Party that loves you.  Viva la Revolución!”

Let’s, however, continue with a very sophisticated extortionist system that is currently in vogue and has been for some time, identity politics, the staple, now it seems, of the Democrat party assisted by the organs of the mainstream media.

Identity politics, no matter what the particular version you’re currently saddled with, rests on a single fundamental premise: the historical domination and exploitation of one group by another group explains every aspect of today’s disparities in social positioning, economic achievement and individual success. This gift came from Karl Marx stated in a more turgid form at the beginning of the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” 

For the romantics at heart there is something wildly exciting and extremely appealing with this formulation. It is simple, rich with drama and the promise of violence, and the potential for sweeping change, for revolution. Just like Fidel and Che, you grow a beard, pick up a gun, and take on the old, corrupt power structure. It is particularly appealing to young people perpetually out of sorts because the world does not seem to be the perfectly fair, peaceful and harmonious place they think it should be. Not surprising then that Marx’s theoretical ghost continues to haunt us all in ways we may not even realize.

For today’s Marxists “class struggle” (the workers versus the capitalists) does not begin to capture the range of the struggles and the multiplicity of domination and oppression that is the real picture of our predatory, have/have-nots world. The aggressions of the ruling class must now be measured in “micro” units “micro-aggressions” as we have come to know them, detected by “diversity” specialists professionally trained to decode the daily slights experienced by the historically underrepresented have-nots. Blacks oppressed by whites, women by men, gays and transgendered by heterosexuals, indigenous peoples by European colonialists, animals by humans, etc., each group with their own unique set of grievances and demands for redress.  And so the “history of all hitherto society”, yes, Mr. Marx, is still all about “struggle”, but it is far more complicated, persistent and extensive than you ever imagined. Your followers, though, have risen to meet the challenge. You would be proud.

Within this complex picture of domination and oppression “identity politics” was born. This world is made up exclusively of victims and victimizers and one’s search for identity becomes the task of discovering which particular victim group has a history that best captures the narrative of one’s personal grievances. Once the awful picture of the victims and their oppressors becomes clear, then the next and most important step is to know where the ongoing “struggle”, envisioned by the German prophet and the mental dwarfs who still carry on his message, is going.  The struggle has a conclusion and the good guys win.  As Marx puts it technically, “The expropriators are expropriated.”    

We are now fully immersed in the “expropriation” phase of identity politics which is where the professional expropriators (extortionists) step in and turn up the heat. First they have to sell the scam, the bogus, collectivist fable that everyone belongs to a victim community or an oppressor group. Many if not most individuals may not even realize that they are victims or oppressors.  They need to be tutored in this regard and made to understand their position in this equation of domination and exploitation.

“White privilege” is a good example of how this brainwashing works, a recent invention of racial-extortion agitprop that is now making its way into the schools, universities and workplaces.

 “White skin privilege is not something that white people necessarily do, create or enjoy on purpose. Unlike the more overt individual and institutional manifestations of racism described above, white skin privilege is a transparent preference for whiteness that saturates our society. White skin privilege serves several functions. First, it provides white people with “perks” that we do not earn and that people of color do not enjoy. Second, it creates real advantages for us. White people are immune to a lot of challenges. Finally, white privilege shapes the world in which we live — the way that we navigate and interact with one another and with the world.” (http://www.tolerance.org/article/racism-and-white-privilege)

Convinced? Ready to relinquish those “perks” and “advantages” you don’t deserve and didn’t earn and once mistakenly believed had nothing to do with that “whiteness” you’ve been flaunting around since Mom pushed you out into the hands of the nurses?  The point is, once I believe that the all the folks in my tribe have been permanently injured and you are convinced that your tribe has done it, then the “squeeze” is set up and the “marks” are primed for the plucking.  Into the room strolls Al or Barack – it is payback time. The leverage they use to extract (extort) what they want from white America is guilt. And the guilt is of what? Racism. “Please, really, I am not a racist. I swear! What can I do to convince you? Something tells me that this is not a strong bargaining position.  Here then is the deal they offer: “do what we want and someday you may be forgiven for the sin of racism.”  It sounds like extortion to me.  Please understand that “someday” is a very long way away and only they get to say when.  What do they want? Here is how it works: 

“There is an old saying that the victors of war get to write the history of the world. White privilege works this way, too. Since white folks have been in control for so long, we have determined what is valuable or interesting or useful in terms of education. Greek and Roman mythology, Chaucer, and other canonized works have been selected and revered through the ages as critical components of any “solid liberal arts education.” (http://www.tolerance.org/article/racism-and-white-privilege) 

Nothing subtle here. It’s all about power – “white folks have been in control for so long…”  There is no win-win, only winners and losers. The expropriators are about to be expropriated.

This, obviously, was written by a lobotomized white person who has surrendered himself to the extortionists.  In his pathetic world there are only victims and victimizers. Chocking on his guilt as a victimizer, he must now become a victim.  “I plead guilty: as the oppressor, my mind and heart and the my power of whiteness now belong to you, you who have been my victims. Please … make me your victim!”

Slavery, Jim Crow and segregation are all dark stains on America’s past.  Slavery has been dead for 150 years.  Jim Crow and forced segregation are fifty years past.  But for extortionists like Al Sharpton they are timeless, permanent levers of guilt.  Here is how President Obama, Mr. Eloquence, himself, recently formulated this feature of permanence.  “What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination is in almost every institution of our lives — you know, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA that's passed on. We're not cured of it.” (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/22/416476377/we-are-not-cured-obama-discusses-racism-in-america-with-marc-maron) 

Not much eloquence in this. Yes, “you know”, the “cure” will be someday, but not for a very long time.

Obama did not talk like this when he was running for President.  Remember this gem from the speech that launched his national career at the Democratic Convention in 2004? “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America.” I guess he didn't learn about DNA until later.

What happened? The community organizer was plotting to be President. He needed white votes.  Many if not most white voters would not be thrilled with a President preoccupied with racial grievances, a President who wanted to keep them on the hook for what some or even none of their ancestors had done one hundred and fifty years ago, a President who talked like every white police officer was another Bull Connor. Openly extortionist campaigners don’t make good Presidential candidates. Once in office the fake “make nice” routine dropped away and the “we’re all in it together” shtick turned into the racism “that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on.” Ok, the guy we thought was supposed to be our Nelson Mandela instead turned out to be Robert Mugabe. The candidate who was going to help us “transcend” the racial divide became the President who is close to and consults regularly with Al Sharpton, one of the most scurrilous, lying, bottom-feeding, shakedown artists to be found anywhere under a rock. This President sent three White House representatives to the funeral of a black criminal (Michael Brown) but cannot even bring himself to mention the tragic, violent death of the highly decorated U.S. Navy SEAL Christopher Kyle (two Silver Star Medals and Five Bronze Star Medals) who, you guessed it, just happened to be white.

Identity politics and its extortionist methods work because the ideological snake oil of collective victimhood and guilt has been ceaselessly peddled for so long by the cultural Marxists and has now penetrated deeply into American metapolitics and makes resistance to it nearly impossible. The hysterical, mass-slander carried out by the mainstream media against Trump and his supporters and Hillary Clinton’s recent reduction of Trump supporters to “Untermenschen” (that “basket of deplorables” who are “unredeemable”) signals perhaps some sort of endgame for traditional American politics.