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The Private Eye in “The Creepy Line”

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.” — Sir Arthur C. Clarke and in the prologue of the documentary film, “The Creepy Line”

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I’m of a mixed mind on whether to post this. It’s about the whole gaggle of social media biggies and Google. They might flag it for “misinformation” and I’ll end up like Dennis Praeger or Jordan Peterson taking a timeout in the mass emptiness of internet cancellation.

Today’s film recommendation: “The Creepy Line” on Amazon Prime. The trailer is below. The title refers to the red line, once coined by Eric Schmidt of Google, that demarcates truly neutral internet platforms – like Facebook, Twitter, and Google profess to be – and censorship and manipulation of the mind. Have they crossed it? What’s happened post-2016 makes me wonder . . . a lot.

The film answers the question with a resounding “Yes”. The film proclaims that the internet giants engage in monstrous abuse of their legal immunity in Section 230c of the Communications Decency Act. Are they really “neutral” platforms or do they systematically engage in censorship and mind control through their algorithms, the biases of their staffs, and so-called policies? The film is a deep dive into Google and Facebook’s surveillance of our internet use for profit and, now, the direction of our preferences.

Their snooping, or surveillance, advances them far beyond the old Pinkerton Detective Agency, whose logo was the all-seeing eye, putting the “private” in private eye.

An even more troubling occurrence is the emerging alliance between their potential regulators, the federal government with its huge administrative state, and these tech monoliths. Press Secretary Jen Psaki let the cat out of the bag in a July 16 presser. She proclaimed, “… we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies [against “misinformation” about the vaccines] . . . . and of course promoting quality information algorithms”. Combine these comments with Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 admission before Congress that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place”. A deep bias at the service of the federal Leviathan should send shivers down the spine of any thoughtful person.

Many of us are so wedded to our devices that we blindly accept what Google, Facebook, and Twitter are flashing before our eyes. When their algorithms and interventions work both to reinforce a left-wing bias and obedience to the state, we have crossed over the red line and past the borders into Orwell’s Oceania.

RogerG

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Railroaded by 2 Percent

I’ve previously mentioned my astonishment at the sudden embrace of extremist and exotic ideologies by powerful institutions in the Western world. The spittle-laced fulminations of college social justice warriors and the terrorist-clad thumpings of Antifa groupies are now mainstreamed. What’s happened?

What makes the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Mark Milley, sound like AOC? Or corporate heads like Kimberly Boyd, Hasbro’s senior vice president of global brands, to say something really stupid to defend the removal of “Mr.” from “Mr. Potato Head”? She said,

“Culture has evolved. Kids want to be able to represent
their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists—
with the ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’—is limiting when it comes to both
gender identity and family structure.”

Everyone of any prominence is jumping on the bandwagon. Lunacy has become the new normal. It’s now everywhere. Your kids are getting it in kindergarten under the pretentious moniker “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI). Personally, I think that “Inclusion” should be moved to the middle to make for a more accurate acronym – DIE.

Soon, we’ll all be lunatics.

Once again, how did we get here? My answer: 2% runs the world. They don’t have to be talented; they just have to be opinionated. The clique is cloistered in high-rent zip codes and on Twitter and Instagram.

This came to mind when researching the relative size of the crowd on Twitter. According to the NY Post, 22% of Americans use the digital grapevine. Of that number, 10% account for 80% of the digital burps (tweets). That means that the rantings of 2% of the American population carry the potential for the jihad. (See the story here)

History confirms the dynamic. Do you think for one moment that the Russian Bolsheviks of 1917 were a popular movement? I don’t even think that they busted the threshold of 2% in popularity or even name recognition. Yet, a cadre of useful idiots and tightly organized zealots can count for more than the silent majority. It’s amazing that revolutions can be a march to ruin on so little.

RogerG

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A Big Ray of Hope

Coach Monty Williams of the Phoenix Suns with guard Devin Booker during a game on May 23, 2021. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA TODAY Sports)

In the midst of the frenzied jihad against the mythical monster of white racism with its unrestrained attacks and accusatory belittlements, there are those who’ve maintained an even keel. One such person is Monty Williams, head coach of the Phoenix Suns. His decency is a beacon in these troubled times.

In this year’s NBA finals, the Suns lost to the Milwaukee Bucks but Williams strove over to the Bucks’ locker room minutes after the final buzzer and court celebrations to say, “I just wanted to come and congratulate you guys, as a man, as a coach. You guys deserved it, and I am thankful for the experience.”

To get an even fuller measure of the man, in 2016 he performed the eulogy for his wife who was killed in a car crash by a man driving the other car probably high on meth. Widowed with 5 children, in tear-choked words, he said,

“Everybody is praying for me and my family, and that is right, but let us not forget that there were two people in this situation, and that family needs prayer as well. And we have no ill will toward that family. In my house, we have a sign that says, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ We cannot serve the Lord if we don’t have a heart of forgiveness.

“That family didn’t wake up wanting to hurt my wife. Life is hard. Life is very hard. And that was tough. But we hold no ill will towards the Donaldson family. And we, as a group, united, should be praying for that family, because they grieve as well.”

What an inspiration. God bless him. We are in desperate need of more people like him.

RogerG

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Losing America

Last night, I was informed that the NFL will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the so-called black national anthem, before every game next year. The newest federal holiday is Juneteenth (June 19), officially dubbed the “Juneteenth National Independence Day” – close enough in the calendar to compete with July 4. With all the kneeling and disrespect to the flag and national anthem, statue toppling, and renaming of schools to shame the once-revered, we are substituting symbols of national unity and meaning with ethnic and racial anthems and independence days. We are heading to a frightful place.

Where did all this come from? It seemed to happen nearly overnight. There was no groundswell for it. All of a sudden, we’ve got players, coaches, and team owners kneeling at the national anthem. NBA players, living the lifestyle of King Midas (think Lebron James, Stephen Curry, et al), are lecturing the rest of us on our moral failings. MLB got into the act with both feet.

That’s just professional sports. The uber-rich are now linking arms with the uber-left. The Fortune 500 are routinely running shaming and indoctrination sessions for their employees. If you’re a Republican who’ll blast Trump – think Liz Chaney (R, Wy.) – your reelection coffers will be brimming with cash. Most commonly, the money spigot from the Sorors types will be turned wide open for lefties in local DA races to the top of the political food chain, Dem candidates for the presidency. Mediocrities like “Beto” O’Rourke can quickly become a player.

Big Money, Big Sports, Big Business, Big Media, Big Entertainment, and Big Government are lining up to shove down our throats an extremist ideology, one that only yesterday was relegated to the rantings of college snowflakes. America as we knew her is quickly disappearing, to be replaced by a gaggle of warring tribes.

Don’t blame the George Floyd incident for it. There’s no evidence that Chauvin was a racist; he’s just a bad cop, an equal-opportunity abuser. Blame the ubiquitous connectivity of the ever-present cell phone and its instant feed into the digestive tract of our cultural big-everythings.

But ultimately, the culpability lies with the ignorance, perfidy, status-groveling nature, and extreme social isolation of many of our cultural heavies, ensconced as they are in their gated villas and penthouses in swank, bi-coastal bastions. They’ve abandoned America, and now they are force-feeding the hot mess to the rest of us. Sad, oh so very sad.

RogerG

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Bob Dylan’s Lesson for the Young

Not long ago, after the announcement of Bob Dylan’s 2016 award of the Nobel Prize in literature, I posted this performance of his “My back Pages”. Really, the lyrics are most apt as a lesson for the young who have ventured into a love affair with socialism and race-based neo-Marxism. Many don’t have a kind word for the USA. Dylan presents for them a cautionary warning in the lyrics of the song. Applied to today’s circumstances, the message would be to think again before you protest the flag, tear down statues, shout to defund the police, and march for socialism.

“My Back Pages”, first recorded in 1964 when he was 23, expressed Dylan’s disillusionment with the 60’s youth movement. One pundit wrote, “Dylan began to be disillusioned with the idealistic narrowness that surrounded him.”

Dylan’s disenchantment is encapsulated in the song’s refrain: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.” When we’re young, everything seems so crystal clear before we get a chance to be softened by experience. Thus, we claim a wisdom of the old without having gotten there, only later to discover our profound errors.

Read the lyrics. Choice lines are found throughout, such as the following stanza sung by Eric Clapton,

“A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke their word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.”

“Self-ordained professor’s tongue” could apply to many of the denizens of our faculty lounges. “Equality”, Dylan seems to imply, is a very loose word. In today’s politico-jargon, it’s been recast as “equity”, or equality of result. Is the pursuit of “equity” even wise? How much devastation will its pursuit leave in its wake? The young didn’t consider the possible unintended effects of a blind focus on “equality” back then, and the young certainly aren’t having any second thoughts today.

Antifa march, Berkeley, Ca.

There’s much in the song’s words for adult reflection. There’s much in the words for our rambunctious social justice warriors to bear in mind.

The lyrics are below. Please read the lyrics and then play the video below.

My Back Pages (Bob Dylan)

Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I, proud ‘neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, “rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path from phony jealousy
To memorizing politics of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists, unthought of, though somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now

RogerG

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Pure Poppycock

Befuddled American voter?

Politico-speak on the stump is a crock. Not always, but it happens often enough for many to avoid politician interviews like an evasive maneuver to escape an encounter with one of the many homeless madmen wondering the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Trump prattles on about the Chinese paying “paying billions and billions of dollars” in US tariffs, apparently not knowing, or not caring, that businesses don’t pay business taxes – of which tariffs are. We do! Biden and his Democratic Party coterie babble on about the “rich paying their fair share”. It’s all just stupendous nonsense. But, apparently, a block of the public eats it up.

No more accurate indictment of the current state of journalism, the schools, and media can be found than the popular currency of pure tripe. Since Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer currently possess the lion’s share of power, their balderdash takes center stage, because they now have the reins to foist it on us. Conversely, the job of the Republicans is to stand athwart history and say “Stop!”

So, what of this “fair share” blabbering? Simply put, it ain’t true. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) numbers don’t support the popular fiction of the rich escaping the taxman while the little guy and gal gets punched in the gut by the tax code. It’s class pandering reminiscent of the kind perpetrated by Marxists – or in its newest incarnation in the race-pandering of Kendi’s or Deangelo’s Systemic Racism.

Let’s take a look at the numbers. Fact: U.S. income taxes in terms of who pays what are the most progressive in the world (Thank you, Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity). I don’t see how they can be made more progressive without the targets turning over their entire income receipts to the U.S. Treasury. The top 1 percent of wage earners account for 40.1 percent of all federal income tax receipts in 2018, and this after Trump’s so-called “gift to the rich” in the Republican tax reform bill. The Tax Foundation found that the richest of the rich – the top 1 percent – paid a greater share (40.1) than the bottom 90 percent (25.4). Average paid tax rates tell a similar story. The Dems are engaging in the old gambit of the Big Lie, and it’s that simple.

Why do they lie? Well, they share with Marxists the same hate for the rich – and like Kendi and Deangelo of CRT fame grovel in a hate of “whiteness”. The hate is tied to the Marxist flimflammery of systemic class oppression. Marx called it Scientific Socialism in the same manner of all demagogues who seek to monopolize the word “science” to magically turn their dictums into imperial truths. But if the well-to-do are in the catbird seat according to the hucksters, who are the uber-rich politically supporting? You’d be forgiven for assuming that the greater the wealth, the greater the propensity and power to bend the state to further the material interests of those who own the greatest share of the national wealth. Oh, how shocked you’d be when the reality is uncovered.

Three of the Dems’ big underwriters: Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros

Point of fact, it was disclosed in various reports. In 2020, The eat-the-rich crowd under Biden overwhelmingly got the backing of the billionaire class. According to Forbes, Trump got 133 billionaires to throw some cash his way. Biden benefitted from 230. In raw numbers from the Federal Election Commission, Biden was drowning in $1.074 billion in his basement as Trump garnered $812 million.

What’s with the super-rich? Why invest in your own demise? Many answers are possible. Certainly, Trump is a lightning rod who instills profound love in some and manifest hate in others, in equal measure. Trump-hate played a role. Also, it could be that these people are so well-heeled that they’re insulated from the consequences of their beliefs to such an extent that fantasies can be seriously entertained. But I think that something more profound is afoot.

Somehow, it’s gotten into the heads of the Zuckerberg-to-Bloomberg crowd that to be considered well-rounded smart and sophisticated means to be a lefty. Lefty is fashionable. Esteem within the group won’t be acquired if you’re driving into the parking lot of your effete soirée in a pickup truck flying the Gadsden flag. A chauffeur-driven Jaguar and the spouting of lefty drivel will earn the necessary style points.

But in the end, it’s all pure poppycock. The Marxism-without-saying-so is still ruinous. Systematized envy, the very essence socialism, is never a path to prosperity. Similarly, the never-ending hunt for white racism will never be a path to social peace any more than it was when Jim Crow was a popular socio-political menu choice. The real Jim Crow 2.0 isn’t the Georgia election law. It’s what is arising out of the growing CRT industry.

Once again, it comes down to pure poppycock, but this poppycock isn’t some knock-off little innocent thing. This time, it’s got the backing of some very deep pockets. Watch out, America.

RogerG

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A New Grassroots Movement to Combat the New Racism

Please watch this CBN report on the growing Loudon County, Va., parents’ protest.

CRT is the new racism and destroys any conception of timeless truths, like “all men are created equal”. In the Christian tradition, all souls are equal. Critical race theory and its grandpa, critical theory, seeks to erase these sacred truths from public memory and replace them with Marx’s dialectic with race, not class, as the catalyst.

L-R of Karl Marx: Elijah Muhammed, Nation of Islam; Derrick Bell, Critical Legal Studies theorist; James H. Cone, exponent of Black Liberation Theology.

Protect your kids from it. Challenge it at your school, school board, and take it to the state capitol. But first, know what it is so you can’t be bowled over by dimwitted teacher union mouthpieces and the far-too-numerous lefty educrats. Here’s where you go to get armored up to protect your kids and schools: https://heritageaction.com/crtbook.

Heritage Action will give you the goods on CRT so that you’ll know more than AFT president Randi Weingarden and NEA head honcho Becky Pringle. Don’t let them intimidate you with the charge of “racist” so they have a free hand to indoctrinate your kids in warmed-over Marxism.

Get Heritage Action’s e-booklet and go get ’em.

RogerG

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CRT, It’s Not a Theory.

Randi Weingarden gets it so wrong, and she presents herself as the uber-teacher. She has no clue about critical race theory. Watch the drivel for yourself.

The “T”, or theory, in CRT (critical race theory) is the most deceitful initial in the title. It’s not a theory. The appropriation of the word serves the purpose of creating an aura of science, of objectivity, in order to preempt opposition. The fact is, it’s more akin to a dogma, or set of dogmas, an ideology. As in a dogma, conclusions are pre-established on faith and the rest of the verbiage is used to justify the pre-ordained verdict. These acolytes of CRT think and behave more like missionaries as they propagate the faith under the taxpayer’s dime or lefty numbskull billionaire donors.

They’ve got it backwards. Instead of evidence being used to test a possible hypothesis to establish a sound theory, or explanation, these zealots already have their minds made up and will devote the rest of their efforts and resources at gaining new believers. These are doctrines and not credible hypotheses or theories.

Antifa prepares to confront Patriot Prayer group in August 2018. Look at all the white faces from middle class backgrounds in the photo.

The thought-storm begins with the doctrine of the powerful greasing the skids for the powerful. It’s a thought-commitment that preexists any other cognitive work in the thought process. This is where you find the “system” in systemic racism. All other reasons, data, and evidence is swept into the pre-ordained belief of a system of oppression. They rake in a plethora of unequal socio-economic stats by race and then in a leap of faith say, “Aha, it’s racism!”

It’s silly because so much can come between the disparate numbers and the conclusion, like the social annihilation of the Black family or bureaucratic devolution of the public schools, particularly inner-city ones – thanks to Weingarden’s proteges. Far from proof of a system of racial oppression, the additional evidence destroys the pre-ordained conclusion.

Rather, the “Theory” is essentially an ideology. An ideology has two main characteristics: a system of beliefs, or dogmas, and the powerful instinct to proselytize the creed. Integral to the spread of the faith is the capture of the centers of culture and government. The former shapes the popular mind and the latter enforces the ideological homogenization. What the schools and entertainment can’t accomplish, the state will.

NEA president Becky Pringle promises the teaching of critical race theory in the classroom and the defense of any teacher doing so. The legal apparatus of the union will be ginned up to challenge state laws banning the ideology in the classroom.

We are seeing the marriage of CRT ideology with powerful institutions from K-to-grad-school to the Pentagon. Commissars have their noses in the air for any whiff of disparate outcome to jump into feverish action. The kids’ minds are being gradually closed to any other alternative thoughts. We are breeding the minions who’ll perform assisted suicide on our cherished USA.

Weingarden is a living and breathing example of how bad things have gotten. Parents, if nothing else, shield you kids from the onslaught. Take them away from the clutches of her flunkies.

RogerG

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The Loaded Question of “Antiracism” Drivel

Previously, I questioned the common perception of a modern college degree as a visa to smartland. Let me be clear once again: it isn’t. Today, a person can be forgiven for concluding that the more time a person spends passing through college classrooms, accumulating mounds of debt, the dumber one gets.

Look at all the PhD’s gushing over the vogueish “Anti-racism” crusade, and the legions of advance-degreed consultants lining up to descend on the schools to convert school boards, administrators, staff, and the kiddies into a facetious belief system that amounts to one huge logical fallacy. Imagine a hysteria fed by an unproven assumption that is used to lead to an unprovable conclusion, by people who should know better. It’s the latest edition of the carnival barker; it’s “diversity-inclusion-equity” (DEI), “critical race theory” (CRT), and “Anti-racism”. The quotation marks means that the words are slathered with so much junk thought that they’ve lost their original meaning.

Remember the old trick question, “When did you stop beating your wife?” The query assumes that you were flogging your wife without first proving it. Any answer unknowingly accepts the assumption. That’s the loaded question; that’s CRT; and that’s how you lose your life’s savings in a lawsuit.

The hours and hours of training – aka indoctrination – being foisted on the schools and workplaces is an escapade into drivel. The nonsense begins with unequal outcomes by race: incomes, incarcerations, traffic stops, educational attainment, etc. Then abstract theorizing substitutes for hard data to attach the inequalities to . . . racism. When hard data is attempted to make the connection, it’s relationship to the conclusion is speculative and highly tenuous. In the end, the unequal incomes, for instance, are attributed to hidden, and maybe not so hidden, racist thoughts of employers. The racism is declared to be mysteriously “systemic”. However, it apparently never occurred to the geniuses that unequal incomes may have something to do with lower graduation rates, higher rates of single parenthood, and/or spotty work histories. And those factors aren’t evenly distributed in the population.

If a person was to mention any of that, the PhD-clad indoctrinator tries to gaslight the person into an admission of unconscious racism. At this point, we’ve entered the world of Orwell’s “doublethink”. By mentioning those facts as contributing factors, you would be showing your racism and the need for the penance of public shaming. The denial of racism instantly becomes an act of racism. Back to Orwell’s Oceania, the “Anti-racism” consultant becomes the brainwasher O’Brien to the target’s Winston Smith. It’s doublethink in action.

Now they’ve rejiggered the original query to “When did you become a racist?” And to think that this stuff is making millionaires of degreed blockheads. If not stopped, we’ll be well on our way to social suicide.

RogerG

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This Is Your Brain on CRT

It’s similar to your brain on DiAngelo (l) and Kendi.

Remember those 1980’s “Just Say No” ad campaigns: This is your brain on drugs? Well, watch the guru of “Anti-racism” and critical race theory (CRT), Ibram X. Kendi, stumble through a simple definition of racism. Think, this is your brain on Kendi’s “Anti-racism”. Watch it here – it begins at the 34:06 spot on the tape:

When asked to define racism by a member of the audience, Kendi says, “So racism, I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.” Any simpleton can pick up the fact that this is hooey. Let me get this straight: He uses a word in a few of its forms that he hasn’t defined in order to define it. Got that?

It’s worse than farcical logic. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of a circular firing squad.

I’ve always considered mental agility – for instance, speaking extemporaneously, off the cuff, with competence – to be a component of intelligence. Kendi is hardly coherent when forced to ad-lib. This guy is a lefty show pony.

Just think, this is the person whose book is on the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday’s recommended reading list for the ranks under his command. This is the guy who is an inspiration for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. If these Pentagon potentates are sincere, I question their mental fitness to drive a car, let alone run military operations around the world.

I’m reminded of the congressional testimony of the pre-Pearl Harbor commanders after Dec. 7, 1941. Are we about to experience more Dec. 7’s and subsequent congressional mea culpas?

Circa 1946: Adm. Husband E. Kimmel at Pearl Harbor Hearing. (Photo: George Skadding, Time & Life Pictures)
Battleship row, Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

It’s too frightening to contemplate. Watch the video.

RogerG