Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Les contestations autour des résultats de la présidentielle, et surtout
l'envahissement du Capitole le 6 janvier dernier à Washington, a exhibé
les fractures idéologiques béantes au sein du Parti républicain. Les
élus et un appareil militant toujours plus intransigeant incarnent deux
droites irréconciliables... auxquelles les urnes interdisent de
divorcer.
"Ça fait 40 ans qu'on entend ça. En fait, on entend ça à chaque
victoire des démocrates. Il y a vraiment un grand sens du mélodrame chez
eux".
Qu'on se le dise: interrogé par BFMTV.com, Erik Svane, membre des Republicans Overseas, ne croit pas à une explosion du Parti républicain entre pro et anti-Trump.
Sur le Brunch de l'Actu à LCI, un intervenant pro-Républicain a essayé de mettre fin à l'outrage et aux jérémiades des journalistes par rapport à "l'assaut" donné au Congrès :
99% des protestataires devant le Congrès étaient paisibles et 99% de ceux qui sont entrés dans le Congrès se sont comportés comme dans un musée — respectant même les cordes de velours dans la salle statuaire…
A cranky reader advises me to "let it go," claiming that "There was no voter fraud, Eric. Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced."
Remember George W Bush being lampooned mercilessly for twangs and goofs (real or alleged), such as the way he pronounced "nuclear"? Then came Obama who spoke of the nation's 57 states, mentioned the "Austrian" language, and confused the Malvinas (more about the Falklands below) with the Maldives.
Oh, that? said the country's — and the planet's — journalists. No big deal… And so those goofs were not, or barely, reported… Not that I disagree, mind you (that they were/are no big deal). I just think if you refrain from making a big deal about the Maldives (about as far away from the Malvinas on this planet as you can get), then you refrain from making a big deal about "nuclear"; if you make a big deal about Dubya's goofs, then you make an equally big deal about Obama's goofs. It ain't complicated…
I don't think that the filter of the media's double standards is conducive to a neutral and objective citizenry or to their, i.e., to the nation's, well-being…
Leftists claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced" — this, after the MSM that you read and watch along with the social media companies, like Twitter and Facebook, that you perhaps follow have made a conscious and deliberate decision to refrain from reporting on that very subject; a subject that is remarkably uncontroversial.
It is not Holocaust denial, after all, is it? In that case, refusal to report on that subject makes more sense. No, it is more like saying that Obama made such wonderful speeches; never a single goof in any of them. How do we know? Well, that is what the MSM reported, never mentioning a single goof.
What is also amazing about the Left — not least the very
"objective" and "neutral" "seekers of truth" and "investigative" journalists in the mainstream media that we have been speaking about so far —
is their utter lack of a single ounce of curiosity in the matter —
simple, human curiosity.
There is absolutely no controversy whatsoever to say that corruption can be found in large cities, and — as I have been repeating on French radio and TV shows this past month or two — it is no more controversial to say that voter fraud exists in Philadelphia and Chicago than to say that it exists in Marseille and Nice (Nice is especially conducive to comparisons with Chicago since the latter's father-son tag team (the Daleys) can be compared to Nice's Médecin family.)
Lately, moreover, it has emerged that the narrative that existed for the Falklands War for 30 to 40 years is false, and that contrary to 1982 media reports — repeated for over three decades — that British soldiers stationed on the island had surrendered almost immediately to Argentina's invaders, they had in fact put up quite a long (and lethal) fight.
Many many years after World War II, it emerged that the British had uncovered the German secret codes, and rather than have the Germans figure that out, Churchill (far from wrongly) let an English city be bombed (Coventry?) instead of warning its inhabitants.
More to the point, perhaps, is Eisenhower's suggestion to his vice-president that Nixon challenge the 1960 election's results; because there had definitely been fraud in Illinois (see Chicago above) and in (LBJ's) Texas.
And yet, both in Europe and in America, we are told from the get-go that no fraud whatsoever took place in 2020; belief in voter fraud is proof of absolute insanity or conspiracy theory and must be dismissed out of hand. As if it were akin to suggesting that the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico were built by ancient extraterrestrials with the help of their spaceships…
And yet: Even with the pyramids, there is no attempt to silence the news… Leading to the question, "What are they scared of?" Indeed, how can journalists in Paris or New York or even Milwaukee or Atlanta state that no fraud took place in, say, Wisconsin or Georgia? Without any attempt at investigation? And that within a week of the election? In Paris I was interrupted — almost shouted down — by, among others, a historian (!) (see three historical examples above) — all of whom (religiously) repeated the same phrase: "Il n'y a aucune preuve!"
In America, they feel a need to call the charges "baseless" again and again — even in New York Times headlines. There is no way that cheating can have occurred in 2020 and there is no way that the results of the election can be disbelieved. Although that is the exact same accusation that Democrats have been bringing for the past four years. And, indeed, bring every time a Republican emerges as the winner.
2016 was the Republican cheating with help from Russia's leader, 2000 was the Republican cheating with help from Florida's governor, and (way back) 1980 was the Republican cheating with the help of Iran's ayatollahs.
Where are the media reports (rightly) calling (at the time or in the years or decades following) Trump's Russian conspiracy a "baseless" hoax or the so-called Iranian deal with Ronald Reagan "baseless"?
Double standards, Crank. Double standards.
My all-time favorite Tea Party sign featured this message:
"It doesn't matter what this sign says, it will be called racist."
Likewise, it doesn't matter what evidence (or, rather, proof) we come up with. We will be told that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"…
What would Ronald Reagan
say about how Americans should react to the riots of the summer of 2020
and to the November election's innumerable instances of outright voter
fraud?
there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second: surrender
Although the quote about peace
is (hardly wrongly) taken in the context (indeed, in its intended
context) of the Cold War, people do not realize that the sentiment about
surrender and apologizing and submitting does not apply only to a
foreign adversary — the communists of the Soviet Union — it also applies
to domestic issues (and even within one's family — although when
dealing with a wife, wise husbands might do well to learn the phrase
"you're right, dear").
Indeed, the oath of officeholders is to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic
In that perspective, we should remember one of Abraham Lincoln's earliest speeches, his 1838 warning
against domestic foes.
(Strangely, I thought as a teen visiting Walt Disney World in the 1970s,
why would that speech be the one that the Imagineers — obviously, long
before the Disney Studios became "woke" — chose for their Audio-Animatronic Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents?)
At what point shall we expect the
approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? —
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the
Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe,
Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our
own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a
commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make
a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I
answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It
cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must
ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we
must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Brought forward 180 years, Honest Abe's message becomes, do not seek peace
with members of the Democrat Party on basic issues of policy, domestic
or otherwise, or regarding their swindle in elections, or concerning the
suicide of your Grand Old Party or the suicide of (y)our republic and
of (y)our (common) nation.
Needless to say, conservatives who
surrender, who submit, and who apologize — from John McCain to Mitt
Romney through John Roberts — are lionized in the press.
Members of the Supreme Court
as well as officials from various local stateside Republican Parties,
from Wisconsin to Georgia, have surrendered and submitted, for
ostensibly good reasons, in their minds — to prevent further riots. And
apparently because of, yes, precedent.
Conservative leaders have sought out "peace" with the Democrat Party and with its "dreamers", its drama queens,
and its mobs, rioters, and arsonists, and have engaged in virtue
signalling, i.e., have striven to appear gentlemanly. Gentlemanly in the
eyes of the Democrats, who have not an ounce of reciprocal courtesy to offer to Republicans.
Indeed,
the very fact that the Left commits voter fraud and uses "worse than
savage mobs" as a bludgeon to get their way is the very proof of their lack of reciprocal civility
that they demand from Republicans. More to the point, it is not the
path along which a republic can continue to follow if it wishes to
survive rather than committing suicide.
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now,
something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard
for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to
substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober
judgmentof Courts [the courts in the real sense; not the
cowardly courts in the Progressive era almost two centuries later]; and
the worse than savage mobs, for the
executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully
fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though
grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth,
and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. Accounts of outrages
committed by mobs, form the every-day news of the times. They
have pervaded the country, from New England to Louisiana
Nay: suicide — of one's party, of one's republic, on one's nation — is not gentlemanly.
To return to Reagan's speech, the one thing I would have added would be the following:
You can have peace in a second — surrender. To make the ignominious taste of surrender palatable, our friends on the Left would rewrite the history of the United States and of the West to make us feel ashamed, to make us the guilty party in all disputes imaginable, and to make us believe that we are the cause of all the evil and all the sins in the world.
Read the rest of Lincoln's 1838 speech
(remember, Honest Abe was only 28 at the time, which says something for
not finishing school and educating oneself at home) — especially, as
you remember the riots of 2020, the following part:
But you are, perhaps, ready to ask, "What has this to do with the
perpetuation of our political institutions?" I answer, it has
much to do with it. Its direct consequences are, comparatively
speaking, but a small evil; and much of its danger consists, in
the proneness of our minds, to regard its direct, as its only
consequences. Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers
at Vicksburg, was of but little consequence.
… But the
example in either case, was fearful. —When men take it in their
heads to day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should
recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such
transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one
who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that,
acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may,
and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same
mistake. And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set
their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with
the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus
it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the
defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden
down, and disregarded.
But all this even, is not the full extent
of the evil. —By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators
of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are
encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used
to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become,
absolutely unrestrained. —Having ever regarded Government as their
deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its
operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation.
While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility,
who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who
would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country;
seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and
their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing
in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired
of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no
protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they
imagine they have nothing to lose.
Thus, then, by the operation
of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad
in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and
particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be
broken down and destroyed —I mean the attachment of the People.
Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the
vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in
bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and
rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot
editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and
with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last.
By
such things, the feelings of the best citizens will become more
or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without
friends, or with too few, and those few too weak, to make their
friendship effectual. At such a time and under such circumstances,
men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to
seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair
fabric, which for the last half century, has been the fondest
hope, of the lovers of freedom, throughout the world.
I know the American People are much attached to their
Government; —I know they would suffer much for its sake; —I
know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they
would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding
all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if
their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are
held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation
of their affections from the Government is the natural
consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.
Mer.16 déc. de Midi à 13h30: 3è émission à Radio Courtoisie sur la fraude électorale US. TRUMP DOIT-IL PASSER A L'ACTION? Avec Erik Svane, nous évoquerons les vaccins, les juges, la collusion Biden/Chine et les moyens légaux qui restent à Trump. Sans oublier Noël.
Cliquez sur le lien pour entendre l'émission d'une heure et demie…
Precedent ain't a bad thing, we are told; it is even a (very) good thing.
However, what a lot of perfectly good people, in the law field as well as elsewhere and all the way up to the Supreme Court, do not seem to realize is that precedent, or stare decisis, as a legal principle, does not include crime and misdemeanors or, at least, was never intended to.
Crimes and misdemeanors like theft, stealing, and, last but not least, voter fraud…
In other words, precedent does not apply, or should not apply, to allowing Democrats to steal an election…
Perhaps the saddest moment in this tragedy was that only two of the
justices of the Supreme Court have been willing to offer the moral
courage and leadership which the great Lord Mansfield demonstrated in
Somerset v. Stewart (1772) when he released a runaway American slave
with these words famously attributed to him: “The air of England is too
pure for a slave to breathe; let the black go free.”
… We do not know the full extent of the disaster to the United States
and the world which may be unfolding, but Texas v. Pennsylvania (2020)
may well one day enjoy equal notoriety with that trigger of the civil
war, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).
The sad fact is that the rejection by the Supreme Court of the
extremely well-argued constitutional case presented by the State of
Texas is more likely to be based on a fear of personal consequences,
rather than the feeble technicality used to justify this.
This was easier than actually giving Texas and seventeen other states their day in court.
… seriously implausible results in the crucial background states were
achieved by secret counting in the absence of observers or, to use a
term used in other countries, “scrutineers.”
This and their subsequent neutralization are positive proof of serious malpractice.
That too many judges have refused to consider, and the mainstream
media have dismissed reams of evidence, including vast numbers of
affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury, is only a reflection on those
courts and on the corruption of the mainstream media.
Unless some of the judges, including the recalcitrant majority on the
Supreme Court, begin to behave judicially and a requisite number of
Republican representatives do their duty, the result will be that a
candidate seriously compromised by the Chinese Communists will become
president, something which will cause rejoicing in ruling circles in
Beijing but which the United States and the rest of the free world will
undoubtedly come to regret.
Above all, the very integrity of the institutions of the United
States is, as well as the very exceptionalism of the American foundation
and the nation, in issue.
As the State of Texas cogently argued, and which the majority did not
have the decency to even hear,
“Our Country stands at an important
crossroads. Either the Constitution matters and must be followed, even
when some officials consider it inconvenient or out of date, or it is
simply a piece of parchment on display at the National Archives.”
As it happens, Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule (related article by TaxProf Paul Caron) seems to have figured the psychology out (thanks to Law Professor Glenn Reynolds):
I'm surprised that I have not seen the following written anywhere,
but maybe it is so obvious that nobody has thought about it or at least thought of mentioning it.
Having said that, there is this piece of what may be extremely good news: if Donald Trump manages to pull off his nationwide presidential victory, those races in the Peach state may not as important as it seems today and Control of the Senate May Not Hinge on the Georgia Runoff in January.
Let me explain: What I mean by that is
that not only the presidency will be affected if it is decided to throw thousands of bogus votes out, to invalidate Dominion, to discount mail-in votes that arrived after a certain date, etc…
Also affected will be all the other races of November 3, from the third of the Senate to the full House through a number of governorships, not to mention a plethora of local races (mayor, sheriff, etc…). And not just in the last half dozen battleground states remaining — but, theoretically, in many, perhaps in most or in all of the 50 states.
In that case, expect a growing number of recounts (and/or lawsuits) in those other areas as well, and it may turn out that the Republicans may not only have won the House on election night, they might already be in control of the Senate.
In fact, even if Trump were to be declared the loser (God perish the thought), recounts and lawsuits for other races might still go ahead…
But agreed, for the moment all this "winning" is theoretical (even if extremely likely, given Trump's nation-wide popularity); and so, by all means, Georgians, head to the polls in January, and let us all of us keep our hopes high…
President Donald Trump delivered a speech that detailed some of the abuse and fraud in the 2020 general election,
saying: “As president, I have no higher duty than to defend the laws
and the Constitution of the United States. That is why I am determined
to protect our election system, which is now under coordinated assault
and siege.”
“After we win [the U.S. Senate], we need to pass landmark election
reform including voter ID, residency verification, … citizenship
confirmation,” he said. “They want to say, ‘He doesn’t have to be a
citizen.’ You’ve got to see who’s voting.
“It’s a disgrace that in 2020, no state in America even makes any
real attempt to verify that those who cast ballots by mail are eligible
and lawfully registered voters. The evidence of fraud is overwhelming.”
In 1904, a
couple who emigrated from Denmark to America in 1856 testified that the
reason they did so was because the dirt-poor peasants they were back
then did not want their children to grow up in "the same type of
slavery" as they had.
A Chicago pastor, reports Caleb Parke of Fox News,
who doubles as a member of the 1776 Unites group, Latasha Fields, has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
President Trump [has tweeted] that the Education Department is “looking at” whether public schools were teaching the
New York Times
’ “1619 Project,” which argues that the U.S. is a corrupt country
fundamentally built on slavery. Historians have shown in these pages why
this is false and a harmful idea, but there are also reasons for
religious Americans to reject this revision of history.
First, as a black American, I believe it
is particularly important to break away from the oppressive way of
thinking promulgated by the “1619 Project.” Slavery is an appalling part
of this nation’s history, and discrimination continues in some forms
today. But these flaws do not define the self-correcting spirit of
freedom and truth etched into America’s founding documents. They
certainly don’t define me as an individual.
My belief in individual choice and personal responsibility is
why I oppose programs that create dependence on the government. By
subsidizing recklessness and the growing effects of immorality, these
programs have subverted, undermined and unraveled the tapestry of
thriving and healthy families. Ultimately the successes and failures of
the black community come from the choices we make.
The idea that the U.S. is a racist country
predates the “1619 Project.” It’s no wonder countless
African-Americans—including many of my family and friends—have bought
this lie and vote for progressive politicians. But believing that your
destiny is determined by factors outside your control, like the color of
your skin, is demeaning. Black parents need to oppose false portrayals
of history and unite around the shared values that created the U.S.
We must hold ourselves accountable and build communities that teach
the next generation how to live meaningful lives. Parents have the
ultimate responsibility to train and educate their children. God
designed the family as an expression of his spiritual truths, to reflect
his image and fulfill a critical role on Earth. It is the mind and will
of God for parents to demonstrate morality and a practical way of
life—leaving a spiritual inheritance to their offspring. Only parents,
not the government, can ensure that this critical knowledge will be
carried from generation to generation.
More than 100 years ago
Booker T. Washington
wrote:
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of
keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race
before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living
out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of
advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly
because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his
grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
Little has
changed since.
“Evaluated honestly, the 1619 Project is a kind of performance art,” Columbia professor
John McWhorter
argued
earlier this year. “Facts, therefore, are less important than attitude.
[The project’s Nikole] Hannah-Jones has predictably dismissed serious
and comprehensive empirical critiques, as if for Black thinkers, truth
is somehow ranked second to fierceness and battle poses.”
Public schools today—like the ones using “1619” in their
curriculum—rely on one-size-fits-all secular humanistic indoctrination
to dumb down American children and drive wedges between them and their
parents. Such secularism has grown increasingly hostile to patriotism
and parental authority. Its greatest enemies are true diversity,
tolerance and the nuclear family structure. This form of progressive
education destroys and distorts God’s order and the fundamental rights
of parents and society.
The public school system in Illinois, where I live, is an
example of gross negligence in education. The system is failing to
instill time-tested values while encouraging social perversion, truancy
and violence. The results of this are most apparent in Chicago public
schools. Notably today’s education system has excised God. In doing so,
it has eliminated order and structure in society. Children memorize
letters and numbers but nothing unifies their education other than the
pursuit of grades. Meantime, their souls hang in the balance.
Fourteen years ago the Lord called my husband and me to home-school
our four children. Since then we have witnessed American culture’s
aggressive decline. We need a Judeo-Christian alternative to government
education.
Building better schools and giving parents real educational
autonomy is the way to build a better future for this nation’s children
and the means to reclaim America’s heritage. We must safeguard our
children’s innocence by opposing the false prophets of our day while
constructing a viable alternative for them. This project entails
returning to our first love, Judeo-Christian values, and our first
principles of liberty and justice codified in the Declaration of
Independence by imperfect but prescient men.
• The Departure of Bari Weiss: "Propagandists", Ethical Collapse, and the "New McCarthyism" — "The radical left are running" the New York Times, "and no dissent is tolerated"
• 1619: It takes an absurdly blind fanaticism to insist that today’s free and prosperous America is rotten and institutionally oppressive
• The MSM newsrooms and their public shaming terror campaigns — the "bullying campus Marxism" is closer to cult religion than politics: Unceasingly searching out thoughtcrime, the American left has lost its mind
• Inciting Hate Already in Kindergarten:
1619 "Education" Is Part of Far-Left Indoctrination by People Who Hate
America to Kids in College, in School, and Even in Elementary Classes
In
August of 2019, the New York Times published The 1619 Project. Its goal
is to redefine the American experiment as rooted not in liberty but in
slavery. In this video, Wilfred Reilly, Associate Professor of Political
Science at Kentucky State University, responds to The 1619 Project’s
major claims.
I can think of no book more deserving of a review in The New York Times—or less likely to receive one—than Peter Wood’s just-published 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project. More than a powerful refutation, Wood’s 1620
is a withering appraisal and deadpan skewering of the 1619 Project as a
cultural phenomenon. That ill-starred journalistic project is the
purest and most perfect example of woke. The cultural revolution of 2020
will always rightly be associated with the 1619 Project of The New York Times. Not for nothing did project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones cheerfully embrace the term “1619 riots.”
Many young Americans believe that slavery was a novelty in world
history—an exclusively American innovation. That misapprehension is
abetted by the 1619 Project. Wood thus begins with a quick tour of New
World slavery prior to 1619. Among the indigenous peoples of the
Americas, captive enemies were kept for their labor, for the sport of
torture, and in a few cases for what Wood calls “almost industrial
level” human sacrifice, not to mention cannibalism.
… Slavery was a world-wide human norm.
What, then, of the slaves brought to Virginia in August of 1619, an act which according to the Times,
“inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for
the next 250 years”? The slaves sold at Jamestown in 1619 were likely
treated as indentured servants, and would thus have been freed after a
number of years. One may eventually have become a plantation owner
himself, a Virginia black man with African slaves of his own. This
African in early Virginia renamed himself Anthony Johnson and
successfully sued one of his white neighbors in a Virginia court. The
evidence on the precise status of the Africans who disembarked at
Jamestown in 1619 is limited and disputed, but in pointed contrast to The New York Times Wood calmly and fairly assesses the arguments on all sides.
Well, so what? What’s a bit of historic license between friends?
Maybe chattel slavery actually began sometime after 1619, but the
evidence is imperfect and the symbolism of the earlier date is powerful.
By placing the origins of American slavery four hundred years before
the present—well before America’s seeming founding in 1776—and by
marking that anniversary at the commencement of a presidential campaign
deemed by the Times to pivot around the incumbent’s racism, a
bold argument could be made to
the effect that the inauguration of
slavery was America’s “true founding.” That would make American
exceptionalism shameful rather than “great.”
As part of his review of the 1619 controversy as it stood through the
summer of 2020, Wood gives us a portrait of 1619’s creator, Nikole
Hannah-Jones. A woman who styles herself “the Beyoncé of journalism”
acts the part of a diva, and more. Treated by the Times,
according to Wood, as “exempt from ordinary forms of accountability,”
Hannah-Jones didn’t deign to reply to even the most respectful and
serious scholarly criticism of her project.
She booked herself instead
into speaking venues where she was greeted as hero, prophet, or genius.
And of course, Hannah-Jones was showered with accolades, including the
Pulitzer Prize. Rudely putting down critics, falsely denying that she’d
said things she had demonstrably said, deleting tweets that showed her
in a bad light, the behavior that eventually destroyed Hannah-Jones’s
credibility was in evidence well before the final collapse. And it was
all encouraged by the Times, which treated Hannah-Jones with kid gloves and ignored her critics until its hand was forced. Even when Times
magazine editor Jake Silverstein finally answered a critical letter
from twelve historians (not the first such letter), that letter’s text
was never printed in the magazine.
Something larger is at stake here. To all appearances, Hannah-Jones
is a grown-up “cry-bully.” She embodies the movement of campus snowflake
culture into the “real world” (if the Times newsroom can be
called that). In the old days, Hannah-Jones might have been dubbed a
“spoiled child.” Pampered, self-important, lashing out in fury when
challenged, she would appear to be a product of the modern
double-standard.
… White guilt and the consequent double standard are tailor-made to produce the campus cry-bully persona.
… deep damage had been done—and rightly so—to the journalistic credibility of Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project, and The New York Times.
So Wood was a key player in the “fall” of the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones, and the Times.
Yet the struggle continues. The events of autumn notwithstanding, the
1619 Projects will still go out to the schools and will continue to
serve as a rallying cry for the woke. Meanwhile, Peter Wood’s 1620
will stand as an essential statement for those who refuse to accept
woke history and the culture it embodies. Wood’s takedown of the 1619
Project—both its substantive claims and its larger cultural
ambitions—goes well beyond anything I can summarize here. His book will
be contemplated by future historians as a record of the pushback against
the cultural revolution of 2020. I cannot think of a more deserving
institution to be on the receiving end of this pickaxe of a book than
our erstwhile paper of record. Truly, Peter Wood’s 1620 is a book for our Times.
• The Departure of Bari Weiss: "Propagandists", Ethical Collapse, and the "New McCarthyism" — "The radical left are running" the New York Times, "and no dissent is tolerated"
• 1619: It takes an absurdly blind fanaticism to insist that today’s free and prosperous America is rotten and institutionally oppressive
• The MSM newsrooms and their public shaming terror campaigns — the "bullying campus Marxism" is closer to cult religion than politics: Unceasingly searching out thoughtcrime, the American left has lost its mind
• Inciting Hate Already in Kindergarten:
1619 "Education" Is Part of Far-Left Indoctrination by People Who Hate
America to Kids in College, in School, and Even in Elementary Classes