Nostalgia Merchants Vindicated – Part 1: African Americans

The nostalgia merchants sell an appealing Norman Rockwell-like picture of American life half a century ago, one in which every household was made up of stable parents, two kids, a dog, and a cat who all lived in a house with a manicured lawn and a station wagon in the driveway.  I understand that nostalgia.  I feel it myself when the world seems too much to take. - Hillary Clinton

The controversy about the 1950s has been rekindled by an article two law professors, Amy Wax and Larry Alexander, wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer.   They decry the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture and suggest that this has resulted in increase opioid abuse, homicidal violence, out of wedlock births and a general decline in human capital.  They describe these bourgeois values as:

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

They explain that, “These basic cultural precepts . . . could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities.”  However, they are being accused of being “white supremacists” and their jobs have been threatened.  Of course they have not come out and blatantly suggested whites are superior.  They are using a “dog whistle.”  The University of San Diego dean called their article, “an unapologetic paean to segregationist era America.”

Hillary continued, “There were many good things about our way of life back then.  But in reality, our past was not so picture-perfect.”   The elite concentrate on these not so picture-perfect aspects.  James Bowman wrote about the trend among historians to scrutinize the social institutions of the 1950s: “The idea is to show us how, when you rip away the Ozzie-and-Harriet facade of that decade, you reveal beneath it an ugly scene of domestic mayhem that goes far toward explaining why the phrase ‘family values’ inspires only derisive laughter among the elite.”    Newsweek magazine commented, “the `50s fantasy of mom and dad and 2.2 kids went the way of phonograph records and circle pins.”   Historian David Halberstam explained, “One reason that Americans as a people became nostalgic about the fifties more than twenty-fine later was not so much that life was better in the fifties (though in some ways it was), but because at the time it had been portrayed so idyllically on television.”

Hillary tells us to “ask African-American children who grew up in a segregated society” how perfect the 50s were, implying that they were far from perfect.  As it happens, prominent Black American have written about their experiences growing up in the segregated South.  While conditions were far from ideal, they were not as dire as progressives would portray them. 

Margaret Bush Wilson, former chairman of the NAACP, reported "I grew up in a ghetto in Saint Louis, but it was a safe and clean ghetto, if you can imagine that.  We had hardworking families living there.  We had a doctor, a lawyer, a bricklayer and a drunk on the same street.  But now those neighborhoods are gone.  Hardworking parents are losing control of their children.  The church and the family have deteriorated.  There is blood in the street.” 

Ralph Abernathy, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, described the life of his childhood in almost nostalgic terms.  His father, he said, was a farmer, “but unlike some of our neighbors, black and white, we were not struggling to survive on a patch of hard-scrabble land.  My father owned approximately five hundred acres of good, black soil.  To get ahead, he did three things: worked as hard as he possibly could; led a severely disciplined and sober life; and married well. . .

(He believed) in righteousness and self-reliance . . .  In a rural area where land was available to people who were willing to work for it, it was possible for a few blacks to enjoy both freedom and a kind of equality - one based on mutual respect and a certain standoffishness.  (In the 1980s,) as I encounter these tragic young faces (of poor blacks) all over the country, I remember the faces of my brothers and sisters and cousins of half century ago.  The faces I recall are not as bitter and hopeless as the ones I see today, if only because my father and the other adults in my family understood that economic independence, our ultimate freedom and salvation, was achievable.”

Black columnist William Raspberry recalls that a young man killed in a motorcycle accident was “the only contemporary of ours to die of any cause” during his late teens and early twenties (in the 1950s and ‘60s) Raspberry’s own middle-class children, in contrast, could name half a dozen deaths among their acquaintances, including several murders.  Conditions in poor black neighborhoods, of course, are far worse.

Today more Black Americans are murdered by other Black on a yearly bases than all of the Blacks lynched during an 87 year period.  Yet there is little protest. 

A CNN Exclusive

CNN has come up with an “Exclusive”:  Special Investigator Mueller’s team has met with the Russian dossier author, Christopher Steele.  CNN is the network whose former head, Eason Jordan wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “The News We Kept to Ourselves.”  In it he explained how CNN intentionally distorts the news.  CNN has “learned” that the FBI and the rest of the US intelligence community took the Steele dossier more seriously than they publicly acknowledged.  No more reliable anonymous sources.  They just “learned” it.  The claim that people of average or above average IQ took the “dossier” seriously is amusing.  Even Vice President Joe Biden recognized it as a fraud.   In January 2017 James Clapper claimed the intelligence community had "not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable."

CNN claimed, “the CIA, and the FBI took Steele's research seriously enough that they kept it out of a publicly-released January report on Russian meddling in the election in order to not divulge which parts of the dossier they had corroborated and how.”  If the information in this “dossier” is true, someone very close to Vladimir Putin is in serious trouble.    The article continued, “While the most salacious allegations in the dossier haven't been verified, its broad assertion that Russia waged a campaign to interfere in the election is now accepted as fact by the US intelligence community.”  Originally all 17 intel agencies agreed to this.  This was repeated ad nauseam.  Later it was revealed that only three agencies had agreed.  These three agencies were headed by known perjurers. 

The repetition technique has been very successful.  Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, stated "The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like, who paid for it? Who are your sources and sub-sources?"  One has only to look at this collection of memos to know they are bogus.  The article concludes the “Committee (is) still searching for 'any hint of collusion.”  The House, the Senate, the intel agencies, a special prosecutor and thousands of reporters hoping to make a name for themselves have been searching for any “hint.” So far we have nothing.

James Comey, James Clapper and John Brennan (all perjurers) knew this “dossier” was fake.  You don’t have to be an intel expert to know that “Sensitive Source” is never classified “Confidential.”  This is on the first page of the dossier and is a dead giveaway.  Joe Biden even recognized it as nonsense.  The FBI does “not divulge which parts of the dossier they had corroborated and how.”  If there was anything to reveal it would have been leaked already.  See the “dossier” yourself (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html).

We were constantly informed of how expensive Ken Starr’s investigation was.  If these shysters are charging $500 an hour they need to be investigated. They will have to come up with something to justify picking the lock to someone’s house and doing a KGB style raid.  Cardinal Richelieu said, “If you give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men I will find something in them with which to hang him.”  If they have access to Obama’s database they have the power to have people make false claims.  They have already revealed that committing perjury is not a problem for deep state members.

During this pre-dawn raid on Paul Manafort’s home the FBI entered with their guns drawn catching the Manaforts asleep in their beds.  This may be standard operation procedure when serving a warrant.  Searching Mrs. Manafort for weapons in her nightgown may also be required procedure.  But why the “pre-dawn” raid.  This is reminiscent of the Gestapo or KGB.  Solomon L. Wisenberg, deputy independent counsel in the investigation that led to the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton remarked, “They are setting a tone. It’s important early on to strike terror in the hearts of people in Washington, or else you will be rolled.”  Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor claimed, “This is more consistent with how you’d go after an organized crime syndicate.”

Did anyone die as a result of Mr. Manafort’s activities?  Perhaps Mueller’s resources would be better spent if he were to investigate Eric Holder’s role in Fast and Furious.   There are numerous examples of incidents needing investigation from the Obama administration.  Benghazi and the IRS scandal are just two of the many questionable occurrences.

Adios Columbus

The controversy surrounding the Columbus Day holiday is part of a culture war that includes the removal of Confederate monuments and the NFL protests.  Columbus Day is being renamed Indigenous People's Day in many locations.  The battles being fought over Columbus Day are already being fought over Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.  The very foundation of America is under assault.  Many powerful elite organizations are taking part in this attack and have been for decades.

The American Library Association issued a statement in 1990 denouncing the Columbus Jubilee.  They claimed the 1492 event “began a legacy of European piracy, brutality, slave trading, murder, disease, conquest, and ethnocide.”  The National Council of Churches passed a resolution condemning Columbus for invading America and inflicting "slavery, genocide, theft, and exploitation" on the natives.  The National Education Association’s journal, NEA Today, declared “Christopher Columbus brought slavery to this hemisphere.”  Journalist Richard Bernstein attended the 1987 convention of the American Historical Association.  He reported,   "The unvarying underlying themes were the repressiveness inherent in American life and the sufferings of groups claiming to be victims of that repressiveness.  ... The history of the United States was the history of suffering for all but the white establishment."  This critical outlook is reflected in the National Standards for U.S. and World History.

A major factor in binding a society together is a shared history.  To Americans, the Alamo is an example of heroism.  Mexicans have another view.  Heroes play an important part in a nations history.  Heroes, being human, have many flaws.  Therefore much of the accounts of their lives are based on myths.  The story of Columbus has traditionally been embellished and his flaws have been overlooked.  We are now confronting the opposite situation.  Many American heroes have undergone this transition.  People still require heroes (role models) and unfortunately many of these new heroes and rap singers, drug pushers or sports figures.

The attack on Columbus can be put in a larger context.  We are witnessing an all out assault on our culture.  The arguments used in the attack on Columbus can be used to attack the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and other holidays.  This attack is being led by members of our own “elite.”   Members of the media, academia, government bureaucracy, entertainers and even businessmen have joined in on this attack. 

Perhaps the most damaging attacks take place in the classroom.  Kennedy School Principal Anne Foley wrote, "When we were young we might have been able to claim ignorance of the atrocities that Christopher Columbus committed against the indigenous peoples.”  She continued, "We can no longer do so. For many of us and our students celebrating this particular person is an insult and a slight to the people he annihilated. On the same lines, we need to be careful around the Thanksgiving Day time as well." Bill Bigelow of the Zinn Education Project proclaimed, "If Indigenous peoples’ lives mattered, and if Black people’s lives mattered, it would be inconceivable to honor Columbus, the father of the slave trade, with a national holiday."  James Kracht from Texas A&M College of Education believes, "The indigenous population was kind of waiting expectantly (with the arrival of Columbus), almost with smiles on their faces.” Kracht envisioned them saying, "'I wonder what this guy is bringing us?' Well, he's bringing us smallpox, for one thing, and none of us are going to live very long."