Death in America is acquiring new terrors.
It was already understandable if a dying Republican feared rising from their grave to vote Democrat, like a vampire harming what their life valued. (A democrat who voted “early and often” could anticipate this too, of course, but without dreading it – their undeath would echo their life.)
But now, even the politically correct must wonder what very different character they will acquire after death.
– In the 1940s, Dr Seuss author Theodor Geisel urged writers to avoid racist stereotypes, but the dead Geisel has been resurrected onto the public stage in the 2020s as a racist. His book ‘If I Ran the Zoo’ shows two visiting Africans in native African garb! What racism!!! (?) Everyone knows it is terribly racist not to portray Africans in culturally-appropriated western garb because African dress is so inferior to western, er, um, what I mean is because it’s so hurtful to remind Africans of their pre-colonial, er, well, er, that is, um, maybe I should avoid trying to explain the subtle critical race theory involved lest I travesty it – or, worse offense still, summarise it more clearly than the original.
– Sidney Poitier spent many of his 94 years defending his race – and had better cling to life because he is scheduled for resurrection as (too) white. He looked pretty black to me in ‘Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner’ but Critical Race Theory makes it hard to be black enough.
– Adam Smith wrote that slavery was ‘cruel’, slaveowners ‘contemptible’ and blacks in the Americas not innately inferior to their white owners – and taught the economic superiority of free enterprise over slavery. But his grave is the resting place of an appalling racist who despicably recorded that slavery in his day was almost universal, being absent only in the British Isles and parts of western and central Europe.
I’ll let readers decide which is the worst fate – and which of Smith’s writings, Sidney’s films or Seuss’ cartoons represents the most extreme case of “Who you gonna trust? Wokeness or your lyin’ eyes.” The doctrine that you must confess racism but can never be absolved of it no longer has a “this side of death” exit clause – and it seems to be getting more inclusive. In the old song, the corpses warn the living that no matter what they do in life, they will all look like the dead when they too are dead – just as rotting and skeletal. Likewise, no matter how hard people serve the cause or cringe to it in life, when they are dead, they will all look like racists to the next generation of woke, as past generations do to the current one – because this PC war on the past, on past authors like Geisel and past actors like Poitier and past thinkers like Smith, isn’t about the past. It’s about the future – who gets to rule, and under what terms. As ‘1984’ put it:
He who controls the present controls the past.
He who controls the past controls the future.
A decade ago, Orwell would have been unpersonned for not saying ‘She or he who…’ but that wouldn’t have saved him for not saying ‘Ze who…’ today.
The surprise is that, so far, the Dr Seuss cancellers seem to have missed ‘Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose.’
Enjoy while you can, before they cotton on to the story being an allegory about the hazards of having an open-door migration / asylum policy to those with nothing of value to contribute, and who abuse the hospitality of their hosts.
I am concerned that Niall’s post is insufficiently offensive and may not be evil enough to keep Samizdata on the wokescold warning list. So I feel I must step forward to fill the gap.
Racism – of the white people oppressing black people type – simply isn’t a serious problem in America (or Britain for that matter.) That is not to say that it is a non existent problem, merely that it has become so minor compared to the past that, a problem such as, oh, flood defences is more serious.
There, that should do it.
That “Thidwick” book is quite interesting, as is it’s omission from the current kerfluffle (perhaps it’s just already been out-of-print for awhile?). Similarly amusing to me has been the omission of any mention of Geisel’s WWII political cartoons, which not only incorporated “racist” imagery of the Japanese in particular, but enthusiastically supported Roosevelt’s policy of interning Japanese-Americans.
Though it’s worth considering that from the left’s perspective this hasn’t remotely risen to the level of “cancellation” of Dr. Seuss, and Geisel’s lefty bona-fides is likely secure. This is really just about sanitizing his past. If Geisel were still alive today, I’m sure he’d be quietly taking down all sorts of unacceptable stuff from his Twitter feed.
I think a random meme on my social media feed said it best: “They should probably take care of rap lyrics before going after Dr. Seuss”
First of all on Election Rigging – the people who did not care that the 2020 election was rigged because “it is just Trump being hit” should take note of the recent Bill passed by the House of Representatives – although it will fail in the Senate (hopefully).
No ID to vote – in any State (not just in some corrupt States as at present), unlimited “mail in ballots” (i.e. ballots that have just printed out somewhere – and may have nothing to do with actual voters), registering to vote on-the-day (so the same person could vote multiple times under different names and under different fake addresses), and an unlimited time to “count” the votes – i.e. to see how many Republican votes there were, and then to MANUFACTURE the needed number of Democrat votes.
This measure would give the United States the most Rigged Elections on the planet – forget Putin’s Russia or anywhere, the United States would become one vast Philadelphia or Detroit or Milwaukee (only more so).
How many Democrats votes against all this? One – just one. So now it is official the Democrat Party HATES democracy and wishes to have Rigged Elections for ever – so (of course) the BBC had some Deep State (CIA I believe) scumbag from “The Lincoln Project” (who would have detested Abraham Lincoln – as he was “common”, never went to college, a “Protectionist” and “Nationalist” and, worst of all from the “Lincoln Project” point of view, was not into young boys) on today – to talk about how REPUBLICANS are a threat to democracy.
This was never really about Donald John Trump – it is about making the United States just a province of the “rules based international community” (as the Economist magazine would put it) – with basic liberties such as the 1st and 2nd Amendments just a memory (and soon a FORBIDDEN memory).
A boot coming down on the human face – for ever.
The most terrifying aspect of the “woke” terror currently running rampant is the utter cowardice of its victims and the lack of any serious pushback from those with the power to do so. A dozen or so tweets and major corporations immediately fold, shove their heads up their asses, and wave white Flags. The abject fear of being ‘othered’ by total strangers is bizarre. It’s as though no one truly believes in anything having intrinsic value.
As for the Frankfurt School Marxism of the “Woke” it is a simple tactic, namely……
“Shut up and OBEY you RACIST!” (or sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, transphobe……) – even “shut up” is not enough as “silence is violence” – so it is the OBEY that matters, do what the Woke tell you to do and say what the Woke tell you to say. Or be dismissed from your job and be thrown out onto the street.
Yet Big Business supports the Marxists – quite openly so.
So who is manipulating who? Is Big Business USING the Marxists to help create the Klaus Schwab style Fascist (sorry I mean Corporate State “Stakeholder Capitalism”) system? Or are the Marxists USING Big Business – whom they plan, at some point, to destroy?
It is hard to know – or to CARE.
I do not actually care if the Fascists (Corporate Statists) of Big Business are using the Frankfurt School “Woke” Marxists they back – or whether the Marxists are using the Fascists and plan to destroy them.
It is like trying to work out why there are endless puff-piece books on leftist Americans in the local (British) supermarket – books on-by Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, K. Harris (on and on), there is nothing interesting in these books (nothing about the endless corruption, and other crimes, of these despicable people) just praise, and no one actually buys the books. But Big Business, the Corporations, has decided that these will be the books put on sale (for some reason – or no reason at all), even though no one wants to buy them round here.
Dr Johnson said that a man is seldom so innocently engaged as when he is after money – as people do terrible things for other motives. And Milton Friedman said that this is what Corporations were like – just innocently seeking a buck. It is unfortunate that he was WRONG.
Courage is costly, George. And consequently rare.
The “most absurd conspiracy theory” of the last few years is that the establishment is dominated by child sex types – I mocked this theory myself (quite harshly – I was not polite in my mocking of the conspiracy theory).
Now the establishment “Lincoln Project” turns out to be a gang of child sex enthusiasts (I just thought they were crooks, they do steal a lot of money, and “Deep State” filth connected to the CIA and so on), and “President” Biden supports “trans rights” (i.e. sexual mutilation) for EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN, and (logically enough) appoints senior members of the government who share this opinion. As for Hunter Biden – well the only defence for this Crack Addict is that he is so far gone he has no idea of the age of what he is using for sexual purposes. Remember a share of the bribe money always went to the “Big Guy” (Joseph Biden) and neither the CIA, the FBI, or any of the other agencies, gave a damn. And neither do the media.
It seems I have a lot of conspiracy theorists to apologise to.
By the way a senior FBI person, from the anti child sex division, was recently shot dead.
“Keep your mouth shut – the Bidens, and the rest, are too powerful to arrest”.
Well if, IF, they are that powerful – why should they not have you killed anyway? Even if you do keep your mouth shut.
After all no one is going to do anything – nothing at all. So “keeping your mouth shut” is no real road to safety. There is no safety.
Just wait until the Woke discover Dr. Seuss’ The Seven Lady Godivas!
https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seven_Lady_Godivas
Ah, for the simpler days, when you became a saint just by dying!
Paul:
As you say, Nancy Pelosi’s Bill HR1 does expose quite clearly the evil at the heart of the Democratic Party.
I am puzzled, however. When President Trump and his supporters were attempting, unsuccessfully, to battle the corruption which occurred in five or six swing states, we were told that the US Constitution declared that it was the states, and only the states, which had the authority in law to approve the manner of the election in each state. One commentator I read said that in theory a state could enact a law to the effect that the state legislature or even the governor could decide where that state’s electoral college votes should go. There is nothing in the USC which states that the votes for the electoral college have to be made by the people of the state.
If this is so, I do not understand how HR1 could ever be constitutional. It may be a wish list for the Democrats, and a useful means of proving their corruption and criminality, but I do not see how it could ever become law. It is plainly unconstitutional, and as such would never pass the Supreme Court.
Oh. I think I may just have spotted a flaw in my argument.
JohnK – part of the Bill is a “Code of Ethics” that would cover the Supreme Court preventing them declaring the Bill unconstitutional, but then the Supreme Court is going to get new Justices anyway (at least the Democrats hope so) – and the existing judges proved to be total cowards, who (mostly) would not even listen to evidence of Election Fraud.
“You do not have standing” but I am the candidate and I am backed by complaints from 20 State Attorney Generals, “you still do not have standing, because…. because…..because….. well because we on the Supreme Court are backstabbing scum, even two of the people you appointed are go stab you in the back because we want to be able to go to high class social events and you are VULGAR and COMMON”.
Correction to a previous comment – the Deep State (CIA I believe) scumbag the BBC had on for “Hard Talk” (the BBC interviewer had the same anti “Trump” opinions as the Deep State stooge he was talking to so “Hard Talk” was really “Soft Ball”) was not from “The Lincoln Project” – he was from another FRONT ORGANISATION called “Stand Up Republic” – but he repeated the normal lies about “insurrection” on January 6th (an “insurrection” were the only firearms were on the other side – as a small business owner from San Diego found out when they shot her dead) and-so-on.
“Hard Talk” between a member of the British establishment and a member the American establishment (both of whom should be thrown in the nearest manure store), but at least it meant the BBC took half an hour off from the endless “Megan was the victim of racism” LIES.
George Atkisson.
No one likes to have their life destroyed – and the victims of Wokeness are lied to, they are told “just apologise and you will be O.K.” – if you apologise it is NOT O.K., they tear you to pieces anyway. But once someone has started to apologise they can not turn round and say “I was lying, I am not sorry for what I said – I am just sorry that you are persecuting me for the “crime” of telling the truth”, so they carry on apologising – even as they lose their job and end up on the street (because no one else will employ them).
As for the major Corporations – what makes you think that their managers do not believe in all this Frankfurt School of Marxism stuff?
After all that is what they are taught in their very expensive schools and very expensive universities – their parents spent a fortune so their kiddies could “network” and get into “good colleges” which, like their “good schools” (when they were children) teach the assumptions of Frankfurt School Marxism. That is how they got their “good jobs” in the government and corporate bureaucracy (which are much the same now).
So why should the Corporate managers and government officials not actually believe this stuff? They have been taught it all their lives.
At some point we are going to have to accept that “the West is dying” is no longer accurate – for the truth will be (is already?) that “the West is DEAD”.
Paul Marks : If this is so, I do not understand how HR1 could ever be constitutional.
I suspect it is because HR1 deals with Congressional elections. Although Article 2 (which covers electing Presidents) leaves the manner entirely to the States (and in particular the legislatures thereof); Article 1, which deals with Congressional elections, allows Congressional override :
The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
HR1 also deals with providing federal funding for candidates, and there’s nothing which explicitly prevents Congress voting funds for that, even for Presidential candidates. And federal funds can be made conditional on States having certain rules that Congress likes.
Last but not least, there are the bits of the Constitution which require various forms of “equality”. The courts have determined that if a State allows a popular election for Presidential electors, it must do so “equally” – ie it can’t weigh one person’s vote higher than another. This is the legal basis for most of the cases about gerrymandering.
And laster, but not leaster, the federal courts can, and do, do whatever they like. Because who’s to stop them ?
Paul:
I saw a few minutes of the edition of “Hardtalk” you mention, but I did not watch any more. As soon as I saw the BBC had managed to find an anti-Trump so-called Republican, I knew he would be a stooge and it would be half an hour of soft talk.
In contrast, I did catch the edition wherein Stephen Sackur interviewed the CEO of Newsmax, and by “interview” I mean talk to someone as if they are something you find on the sole of your shoe.
Lee:
I had not appreciated that HR1 was “only” about congressional elections. However, I guessed that federal funds (ie funny money created out of thin air) would be used as the carrot. As to the federal courts, I cannot add anything you what you and Paul have said.
Lee Moore – I never typed what you quote me as typing, you are thinking of JohnK.
As for the Constitutionality of HR1 – it is unconstitutional, but the Democrats do not care about that. Actually they do care about that – they rejoice in its being unconstitutional, they take evil delight in it being unconstitutional.
I suspect that the “Lincoln Project” and “Stand for the Republic” and these other Deep State front organisations, privately, also take evil delight (glee) in the unconstitutional nature of HR1, and so much else.
These are evil people – they do terrible things, partly because that is what they like doing. Although they tell themselves it is about creating a “better world” from the ashes of the world they are working to destroy.
2020 with the covering up (indeed SMEERING) of Early Treatment for Covid 19, and the rigging of the election has shown us this. That they now want to rig every election in the future should come as no surprise at all. After all these are the same people who want to sexually mutilate eight year old children – when Senator Rand Paul asked the person who Mr Biden nominated to be the head of Health and Human Services, about this, the Dr Paul did not even get a denial.
These are not people of good will who happen to take another point of view – the establishment (government, academic and corporate) are evil people, bad to the bone.
The late C.S. Lewis wrote a book with the title “That Hideous Strength” (N.I.C.E. police and all) – I do not know about the supernatural element, but the rest of it, the deliberate effort to destroy traditional society and replace it with a totally different society, is what we face in the modern West.
The people who control the government and corporate bureaucracies (and perhaps not just in the United States) are evil – there is nothing they will not do. That is horribly clear now.
JohnK.
I caught the end of “Hard Talk” on Sunday – I recognised the person being interviewed as a Deep State creature (I have seen him before), I mistakenly thought he was Lincoln Project, but he is from another Deep State front organisation “Stand for the Republic”.
I caught the start of the same show today – it was repeated.
On the positive side – well yes they hate Newsmax. But it still exists – even though not everyone there is on the side of liberty.
Liberty is not yet dead – the forces of evil have not yet totally won.
We must hang on to hope.
PM : ….you are thinking of JohnK.
So I am. Apologies.
I saw the latest sexuality today. It is Super Straight. What a wheeze. Plus we have a census this month. Oh joy.
I actually took the time to pirate some Dr. Seuss books. NordVPN + torrents for the win.
I consider anything out-of-print but still under the shadow of the Empire of the Mouse to be fair game. (Seriously, 1917 onwards, the most interesting period in human history and you’re going to let it all rot because of rent-seeking?!) Academic papers too with sci-hub. Maybe a bit on the anarchist side, for me, but what can you do when you live in a cyberpunk dystopia?
Dr Seuss, ‘The Lorax’
This quote can be found on the book’s Barnes & Noble page, where you can also see another quote
which they attribute to Obama – but I suspect he will not be the one to care “a whole awful lot”.