The Amygdala Struggles (updated 10mar19)

George Rebane

Peggy Noonan (8mar19 WSJ) draws a useful parallel between Mao’s 12-year Cultural Revolution and the present-day antics of the Blue Mobs on campuses and our streets.  Both roilings have involved pre-intellectual young people, mostly students in each country’s academe.  And both sought/seek to banish politically incorrect traditions, customs, learning, behaviors, and thinking.  Mao’s revolution followed a devastating famine, brought on by his extremely ignorant economic policies, which reportedly killed Chinese in the high tens of millions by several post-Mao accountings.  (Liberal media have since sought to reduce that number down to the low millions.)

And today as then, both types of ‘gatherings’ with shouting throngs of young people were directed to identify and publicly shame those politically incorrect who sought to speak, comment, write, or attend in places their betters identified as being out of bounds.  These ‘struggle sessions’ (Chinese term), conducted by the youth who became the Red Guards, would take place in streets, conference halls, legislative chambers, classrooms, administrative offices, and wherever else such targeted people could be found, hounded, transported, or summarily executed.  As then, today the so-accused also have learned to quickly admit their guilt in the attempt to limit added opprobrium.  Leading the currently accused by the hard-Left are self-deprecators from the ranks of Democrat politicians like Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Biden who have quickly pled ‘guilty as charged’ and recanted.

For generations since Marx, these reactions by devotees of the Left have expressed the fear of ideas that are difficult for them to debate in public forums.  The Left’s perennial reaction has been to simply silence or eliminate the source of such countering ideologies.  Today the manifest fragility of these junior leftists has earned them the sobriquet of ‘snowflakes’.  Veteran readers of these pages may remember that some years back I cited clinical research done at the University College London (here) which showed that liberals and conservatives use different parts of their brains to reason about socio-political problems and issues.  This gave some comfort to people of my ilk to explain away the strikingly different modes of reasoning peculiar to each side of such a political spectrum – there actually was a repeatedly observable difference in how we processed stuff between our ears.

Well, not to be outdone, the Left has now returned the favor with a ‘study’ that correlates the size of a person’s amygdala (the self-preservation, fear center of the brain) with their political leanings.  As reported in the WaPo (here), this study conducted at Yale, concluded that conservatives have larger amygdalas than liberals, and therefore they fear more things more easily, and therefore they are conservatives.  The report by psychologist Prof John Bargh, one of the principal investigators, then goes off the rails claiming how to turn conservatives into liberals through various psychological ruses of imagining secure and fearful situations (which presumably don’t change the size of their amygdalas).  But the bottom line of this research is twofold – 1) our political orientation has a neurological basis, and 2) having a more developed ‘fear center’ makes you subject to wrong ideologies and bad political decisions.  I won’t insult your intelligence by describing their added claim to change you into a proper liberal without messing with your amygdala, you can do that yourself.

(BTW, one local worthy in The Union (here) even connected amygdala size to explain the election of Donald Trump.)

What should be amazing, but isn’t, is the hubris of progressive science be it in global warming or brain-based choices of wrong socio-political thought.  One could more plausibly argue that given their purely clinical results from brain imaging, the greater fear evinced by conservatives is actually a prudent reaction to preserve productive social orders from abrupt (revolutionary?) changes.  Humans have known for millennia that the fear response in children is poorly developed and has to be inculcated by parents and culture.  It is well-known that brains change as a person matures to about his mid-twenties.  Perhaps a more persuasive hypothesis that needs examination is that an under-developed amygdala portends liberal thought of the kind that has made them historically and fearlessly adopt public policies that have subsequently delivered death and disaster.

In any event, all of us are indeed organically different along every imaginable attribute and dimension.  And that itself should lead reasonable people to examine more conducive ways of assembling their social orders.  One size definitely does not fit all.

[10mar19 update] The conversation in the comment stream below has turned to fears dominant in the represented ideologues.  The Left has left us a rich and documented legacy of all their fears in the laws and regulations they have passed across the land restricting and limiting almost every imaginable behavior from speech through property rights, family prerogatives, public behaviors, gun ownership, school curricula, …, to the practice of religion.  In sum, the Left fears citizens who are free, independent, enterprising, and seek to preserve America as a strong and exceptional nation-state with minimally regulated markets and a minimally intrusive government.

The Right has its own fears, some of which were succinctly summarized by Richard Lamm, former three-term governor of Colorado, in a speech he gave nearly 20 years ago, and again presented in a 2006 Washington Examiner op-ed piece (here).  I reprint it below for your edification because its contents have been much discussed in these pages over the years, and it points out my own fears with which I have had to learn to live as I witness the implementation of this plan to destroy America.

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white-bread, too self-satisfied, too rich … then let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do.

History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that "an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide." So here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual/bicultural country. History shows ... that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. …
2. I would then invent "multiculturalism" and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal ... there are no cultural differences that are important ... and the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.
3. We can make the United States a "Hispanic Quebec" without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: "… the apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethno-centrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together."
4. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor … I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. …
5. I would then get the big foundations and Big Business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. ... I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.
6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would "celebrate diversity." … It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other … when they are not killing each other.

A diverse peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia. ... Dorf’s World History tells us the [ancient] Greeks believed they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature and worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games in honor of Zeus and venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors … local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions … .

7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits and make them taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to "heretic" in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like "racist," and "xenophobe" halt argument and conversation. I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws.

I would develop a mantra: because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good.

8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book, "Mexifornia." This book is dangerous. It exposes my plan to destroy America. … This guy is on to my plan.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

It would be interesting to have team lefty explain the littlest commiecongress-critters fear mongering about it all being over in 12 years unless we destroy the economy for global warming (she should talk to Al I invented the internet Gore about those kind of prognostications).

Talk about being wrong on so much so often for 40 years!

;-)

[scenes]

To be fair, I think it's built into the human condition to some extent.

The Blue Mob makes me think of a kind of 21st C. flagellant. The fact that you see mass manias in both China and in Europe tends to remove culture as a cause.

Maybe it's just simply a result of overpopulation. John Calhoun's mouse experiment writ large.

[George Rebane]

Of course it's built into the human condition, and there's plenty of fear mongering to go around. No one specializes in it as much and to the magnitude than the Left. DonB's reminding us of the global warming sky falling in 12 years is an excellent illustration. And then look at all the safety and environmental regs put in place by the Left motivated by nothing than abject fear of manufactured bogeymen. The WaPo report is bullcrap, pure and simple.

[Scott O]

The left is all about fear. Scary black guns! Booga booga! Never mind the average American is more likely to be killed by lightning. We're going to run out of petro and everyone is gonna starve! Settled science from 2 or 3 decades ago. The fact they are wrong never slows them down.
It must be pointed out that the left loves to project fear into everything they disagree with conservatives about. Their fav suffix is 'phobic'. It's the left's way of ending the conversation without having to provide facts or reason.
The only 'fear' I have is seeing history repeat itself with the latest batch of ignorant fools. It's the 'fear' of seeing the 2 year old with a Ming vase. It won't end well.

[fish]

Posted by: Scott O | 09 March 2019 at 05:21 PM

The left is all about fear. Scary black guns! Booga booga! Never mind the average American is more likely to be killed by lightning. We're going to run out of petro and everyone is gonna starve! Settled science from 2 or 3 decades ago. The fact they are wrong never slows them down.

That's why they self identify as progressive......no sooner then their latest terror has been debunked they progress to a brand new boogie man and it's off to the races yet again.

[Scott O]

fish - But scary black guns and we're all gonna die seems to be working just fine for now.

[Gregory]

They'll need to get rid of all the icky guns before the famines caused by disrupting commerce in a desperate, heroic attempt to save the world... starving people with guns isn't all that easy.

[Robert Cross]

What about all of the scary rapists, murderers, and other bad hombres gathering at our border to take over the country who will illegally vote for Democrats? Now that is really something to fear, right?

"scary black guns and we're all gonna die seems to be working just fine for now." yes it is working....on conservatives who are afraid of anyone who is not old and white and male.

[Steven Frisch]

BTW, their love of guns can in many cases be equated with the same as stated above.

[George Rebane]

RobertC 907am - I was going to say, 'You're not serious, right?', but then I recalled who I was responding to, and instantly concluded that you are serious. More evidence of the Great Divide.

[Billy Tozer]

Reducing fear:
I have been kicking around an idea that may be controversial, but it’s worth a try. Since the caravans are in large groups and all are good people and most are bringing their children with them.....why not just turn a blind eye when a groups of a 100 or so are found on the US side of the border. What I am proposing is to not pick them up or process them. They all have contacts with friends and family in Cleveland or Chicago or New York and the children are with the parents. They will be fine. No family separations. Their contacts can pick them up. Some have plane tickets already and most all have phone numbers to call.

That will free up resources to check more vehicles at the legal points of entry were the drugs come in. The Border Patrol is not a travel agency or a medical facility. Just do the ole blind eye and wave to groups and keep driving. That will save precious resources and elimate any fear of bad hombres. That will save court costs and elimate the need for more immigration judges and housing. I fear our we are spending too much. I fear building more housing for Border Patrol agents is bad for the environment. I fear that the Border Patrol buying more buses will hasten the hockey stick.

And my plan would eliminate or reduce fear. Like, El Paso is on the border and they can walk to the nearest bus depot and be on their way. Or hitchhike. Ride sharing. They can walk, in the safety of the group, to Yuma. That would save any expense of processing them and driving them all the way to Phoenix. The carbon footprint of busing folks all the way to Phoenix must be stopped. Our planet will be destroyed in 11.9 years anyway, so my plan will also reduce fears of Climate Change. Reduce, not eliminate fear. Its worth a try.

Busing folks to Phoenix is bad for our environment. Climate Change is real. I fear the caravans will not show up to their hearings. If we elimate processing folks and stop giving them any paperwork, we save on trees and cannot charge them for failing to appear. My fears will be reduced.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/03/08/ice-drops-off-dozens-migrants-greyhound-bus-station/3106269002/

[Robert Cross]

More evidence of the Great Divide.--

That's right George, I am not afraid to go out of my door for fear of being accosted by women and children seeking asylum from violent countries and banana republic dictators with their American trained and armed death squads. What people, such as yourself, fail to acknowledge is that those refugees coming to American come from countries with a history of American intervention in the form of coups that over threw legitimately elected governments that happened to be socialist leaning. Perhaps if the CIA hadn't interfered so often in South American politics the US wouldn't now have this so-called problem. We should welcome these people with open arms as it has been our failed foreign policy that brought them here in the first place. Do you know how the term 'banana republics' originated? Hint Chiquita.

[George Rebane]

RobertC 1038am - Ah yes, the evil America must now suffer retribution from all those countries it has ruined, countries which without our interference would have flourished with their traditionally strong cultures providing their citizens peaceful and productive homelands in which to abide and raise their families. Now instead, it is time for payback - let them all in and show the rest of us how a real country, sensitive, diverse, inclusive, ..., should be run.

[Gregory]

Sorry Bobbie, but in the United Fruit glory days, Democrats were in charge of policy in the USA.

In essence, what you're saying is that Cold War machinations mandate unrestricted immigration of undocumented Democrats now.

Viva Che!

[Bill Tozer]

Ah, here’s that word fear again.

“Both of those pieces can’t be right. There’s manufacturing a crisis, then there’s ignoring one for fear of conceding anything to Trump.”

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61643-yes-theres-a-crisis-at-the-border?fbclid=IwAR34xT5ImnWrUWycSGZYdPlx4Z4rq_X1mq5lgPLuL9nyk3EK8DYBCv9dyP0

Re: the Union column. Well, that was an interesting read. Glad the liberals are the cool, calm, collected ones. They rise above the pettiness of raw emotion and approach each situation with the coolness of a cumcumbet. We right wingers have a bigger fear nuggie in our craniums.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1-JdsBXkHs8

A gay man!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMJkI8p-3t8

Care for some dessert, sir?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8126e73JdM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LiFgdi6mH8A

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGO2fz1KlSc

[Todd Juvinall]

I bet BoobieC thinks those Aztecs that Cortez tossed out were just some peace loving people too. My goodness, what is it about these self-destructive lefty saps that makes them that way?

[fish]

Posted by: RobertaBot | 10 March 2019 at 10:38 AM

Do you know how the term 'whiny menopausal woman' originated? Hint RobertaBot.

[George Rebane]

'Beyond Looney' newly defined. Here's an example of AOC's latest observation that where America currently resides is "garbage". Moreover, her prescriptions for America are nothing more than to take the country back to our core values, because that's where we were and from that we have strayed so far that returning to it seems radical. She's a new joy every day. But Nancy is more desperate than ever to figure out how to stick a cork in her.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/10/ocasio-cortez-where-we-are-america-garbage/

[Todd Juvinall]

AOC is the gift that keeps on giving. She is a total hypocrite of course and every yap she does proves it. The reason the press likes her is she is cute and all those press boys want to, well you know. Anyway, I hope she keeps it going and maybe that will wake up the people to her lunacy. When she starts walking, gets rid of the microwave and central heat, maybe she will make some inroads. She was a bartender and I wonder how many people are now addicted to liquor after being served by her?

[Bill Tozer]

The Red Guard. Listen to the children

In 1966, a group of middle school students in Beijing named themselves "Chairman Mao's Red Guards." Mao's support for them led to the name "Red Guard" being adopted by groups who were sanctioned by Mao and his supporters to "rebel against the system" all over China. Sworn to protect Chairman Mao and his revolutionary line, the Red Guards and other, older revolutionary rebels caused havoc and eventually turned on each other, resulting in great destruction and considerable loss of life.

Once the Red Guards had served their purpose of overturning the old order, these restive young people were exiled from the cities to be re-educated by the peasants in the countryside. Many did not return to the cities until the late 1970s; some never did.

For many people today, images of fanatical Red Guards dressed in old army jackets and wearing red armbands, waving copies of Mao's Little Red Book and chanting "Long Live Chairman Mao!", are all that remain of the complex, at times idealistic, and often violent student movement of the Cultural Revolution.

While young participants in the Cultural Revolution are commonly referred to simply as “Red Guards,” in reality, they were originally one specific group of students. These students decided to call themselves ‘Red Guards’, hong weibing; they saw themselves as soldiers (bing) who were fighting to protect (wei) the Revolution and Mao Zedong Thought (represented by the word ‘red’ or hong)............

Listen to the children. They are afraid and for good reason. When adults or teachers or parents or older people children trust tell kids their future is in serious peril, you bet they feel fear and trepidation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lu-VzZ45MwI

Confessions of a Red Guard

https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/15/asia/china-cultural-revolution-red-guard-confession/index.html

Listen to the children

Weinstein became a target of student protestors, and at one point was forced to avoid campus while they searched for him in parked cars. He and his wife, Heather Heying, also a professor of biology at Evergreen at the time, sued the college for failing to protect them. As part of the half-million-dollar settlement, both resigned from their teaching positions.....

The authors exhort the college to “require all faculty and staff to participate in on-going educational programs on cross-cultural awareness, implicit bias, institutional racism, harassment, and discriminatory behavior.” They also urge “a comprehensive reform and restructuring of the curriculum that makes the academic experience more ‘student-ready’” (whatever that means).

It seems that the trio who authored the report—a retired judge, a former college trustee, and an expert in higher education—are overthinking things. Most onlookers to last year’s events at Evergreen were simply horrified to see that an academic institution would permit the shaming and mobbing of a tenured faculty member—instead of defending his right to voice a politically incorrect (yet by all means reasonable) opinion.

As we saw in the exchange last spring between President Bridges and a mob of students holding him physically captive in the library, the inmates essentially took over the asylum. (At one point during the chaotic meeting, students actually forbade him from using the bathroom.)
https://quillette.com/2018/04/20/will-evergreen-mob-target-next/

“During the Cultural Revolution in China — which took place between 1966 and 1976 — Mao Zedong mobilized groups of devoted young people who called themselves "Red Guards" to carry out his new program.”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9a7t7ztDGLY

I’m the boss

[Robert Cross]

George 10:53 -- if the shoe fits wear it George-- you seem to be very uninformed (ignorant) about American history as it applies to south of the border.. and once again dodging the real issue of why those people are gathering at our border and deflecting it into some off the wall babble about evil America. Perhaps it is time for the American corporate interests who sponsor the banana republic dictators to pay the piper, as it were. although they won't pay.. it has been and will be American taxpayers land the poor people who live in those gross dictatorships who end up paying the real price.

Greggy 11:01 how does " dems in charge" if true as you claim, change the facts? Just another lame excuse to blame the dems screed instead of addressing the issue at hand. Didn't we just have this "dodge the question" conversation earlier?

Toad -- Cortez tossing out the Aztecs? Can you be any more irrelevant? A more relevant response would have been to talk about how Howdy Doody was really a marionette and not a real person.. or didn't you know that?

[Bill Tozer]

“These ‘struggle sessions’ (Chinese term), conducted by the youth who became the Red Guards, would take place in streets, conference halls, legislative chambers, classrooms, administrative offices, and wherever else such targeted people could be found, hounded, transported, or summarily executed.” —G. Rebane

https://www.rollcall.com/politics/trump-rally-san-jose-california-violence

[Bill Tozer]

Re: update

“America is the only country in the world founded on a belief in limited government. It is a uniquely American value. And that is precisely the problem: It is uniquely American. Very few immigrants to America bring with them a belief in limited government.”

Next time someone labels your opposition to mass immigration “racist” or “xenophobic,” tell them you are equally opposed to New Yorkers immigrating to Florida and Californians immigrating to Arizona. And for the same reason: They bring with them the very values that caused them to flee. The only difference is Latin Americans are largely unaware of what they are doing; New Yorkers, Californians and other leftists who move to conservative states know exactly what they’re doing: voting for the government policies from which they fled.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61556-new-yorkers-do-to-florida-what-latin-americans-do-to-america?fbclid=IwAR1asv6g7bv2lvLZEi49PIs4o7atyQDj8cY0g5pEMzJ1z8cnbPYQGHB143c

It can’t happen here

But city spending, up some 32 percent since de Blasio took office — triple the rate of inflation — may need to be cut deeper, these analysts add. The city’s long-term pension obligations have escalated, as well, as its workforce has soared by more than 33,000 in the last five years.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/09/new-york-city-is-edging-toward-financial-disaster-experts-warn/

[Gregory]

Bobbi 1219pm

What you had written was,
"What people, such as yourself, fail to acknowledge is that those refugees coming to American come from countries with a history of American intervention in the form of coups that over threw legitimately elected governments that happened to be socialist leaning. Perhaps if the CIA hadn't interfered so often in South American politics the US wouldn't now have this so-called problem."

... They just happened to be socialist leaning? What would Che say?
https://www.history.com/topics/south-america/che-guevara

[George Rebane]

Apparently I nailed the retribution angle with RobertC who also confirms that the evil American corporations need to now start paying reparations. And he, of course, totally ducks the impact on America of over one millions illegals coming across the border annually - all he and his are sure of is that it does not constitute a national emergency.

Would be interesting to hear one of these socialists prescribe the amount of the reparations, paid by whom, and to whom to make things right in their world.

[Robert Cross]

Greggy --"Sorry Bobbie, but in the United Fruit glory days, Democrats were in charge of policy in the USA." Did you just make that up?

Guatamala coup -- 1954--not to mention Iran twice
E Salvadore in the 1980's
Iran/contra --1980's

All these happened under Republican administrations

George -- avoiding the issue once again -- The amount of reparations is simple -- stop criminalizing these people (invaders) who are just seeking a better life than the one they were living, in extremely violent countries, most of the blame for which can be directly laid upon US intervention into their political systems and elections and US support for despot regimes. Perhaps if you had been from a South American country instead of Nazi Germany you might see things a little differently as you and your family stood at a border crossing and were told to go back from whence you came and stop tying to invade our country.

[Todd Juvinall]

BoobieC has no reading comprehension. He thinks AOC is his next fantasy date once he gets out of the Brown House. But my guess is she is too smart for that moron to even get to the dream stage.

[Bill Tozer]

To pay for reparations, does the Democratic Party intend to sue itself for damages?

What about the role of the Democratic Party in slavery, Jim Crow and the resistance to ending them? Republican President Abraham Lincoln, elected on an anti-slavery platform, signed the Emancipation Proclamation and led the North in its victory over the South at the cost of at least 620,000 soldiers dead on both sides. Democrats opposed the 13th Amendment, which freed the slaves, the 14th Amendment, which conferred citizenship on them, and the 15th Amendment, which gave them the right to vote.

During the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats, including Sen. Al Gore Sr., orchestrated a record-breaking 60-day filibuster in an attempt to block the bill from coming to a vote.

Since Democrats opposed freeing the slaves (a Democrat assassinated the Republican President who freed the slaves), were the party of Jim Crow Laws, the party of Segregation.....we know who is to blame here and who should pay reparations: The Democrat Party.

[Robert Cross]

Based on Toad's clever responses I would say he is as dumb as a box of rocks with the moral compass of an ally cat with it's balls cut off... yowl yowl yowl.. all talk. Oh and Toad, the other day you said you weighed 230 pounds... Is that just your beer gut or does that count everything? or have you lost 50 or 60 pounds lately?

[Walt]

New York just refuses to see the errrr of it's ways.
What next? A full blown exit tax?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/03/10/experts-nyc-could-go-bankrupt-first-time-40-years/
"The city’s budget deficit has reached an all-time high over the past year. New York City’s long-term liabilities— including pensions, bonded debt, and retirement benefits for city government employees— reached a record-high $257.3 billion, according to an October 2018 Citizens Budget Commission report.

"It also appears that de Blasio will not get help from fellow Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is trying to address a $2.3 billion state budget deficit by using auditors to bill wealthy residents fleeing the state for lower-tax regions."

I say just tax the rich.... oh,wait....

[Robert Cross]

And just to be fair in the box of rocks sweepstakes, let's give a shout out to little Davy from Carmichael who gets a participation trophy for coming in a close second.

[Russ]

Robert C @ 01:34PM Under your criteria one third to one half the population of South American (470 Million) are eligible to come to the US seeking a better life, how are we going to employ 158 million people? How are we going to employ the 70K a month crossing the border now, over the next ten years, 47% of the jobs in will be done by robots according to leading employment studies. Those with jobs will need special skills. The Little Hoover Commission Report was very clear California is not prepared for the transition to an automated future. If over the next ten years industry cannot employ the current work force how are we going to employe 158 million more humans? Looking forward to your solution.

[Walt]

LOL Babs!! " is as dumb as a box of rocks with the moral compass of an ally cat with it's balls cut off".
No, Babs didn't think that up on his own.. I saw the same flick on TV just the other day too.
And you blew that line here? I do believe that's called "desperation".

[Todd Juvinall]

Robert Cross | 10 March 2019 at 03:08 PM

Still jealous after all these years eh? Sorry but I got wour ex wife that weekend and I know it frosts your cookies to this day. But she said you were the worst and smelled like a turd and she had it wou. Sje said you were as dumb as a post and homely as a goat (watch out for PE). So keep tryimg with your insults even though your ex said I was way more lovely. Oh and I weigh 230 total. You are I heard at 345. Better get help.

[Todd Juvinall]

Oh and I think ally needs a e. What a dumbass BoobieC is these days.

[fish]

Posted by: Robert Cross | 10 March 2019 at 03:23 PM

Sweet of you to say RobertaBot. Now......how much of South and Central America do you plan on importing? What are these people going to do....I mean other than be hustled into voting booths?

[Walt]

Well well... Look who is trying to influence a nation's election.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/08/al-gore-brands-uk-politicians-cowards-for-not-forcing-second-brexit-referendum/
"Brussels and its supporters have form on subverting referendums which do not go in their favour, pushing through re-runs of Denmark’s referendum on the Maastricht Treaty which transformed the European Community into the European Union in 1992, and Ireland’s referendum on the Nice Treaty increased the bloc’s powers over its member-states in 2001.

Referendums rejecting the proposed European Constitution in the Netherlands and France were worked around by repackaging it as the so-called Reform Treaty, or Lisbon Treaty, amending the previous Maastricht Treaty and Treaty of Rome — and not putting it to the public in either country this time."

Just keep the people voting till you win.

[Bill Tozer]

Re: update and I never thought I would feel sorry for Comrade Bernie...but off with his head. He is old school. It ain’t about class struggle no more, it’s all about race. Race, race, race, Bernie. It’s all about RACE! Adios amigo. You ain’t woke enough, you old white heterosexual male Jew, you. What have you done for me lately?

“Sanders is currently being excoriated by a radical segment of the Democratic Party for his racial views. Despite the fact that Sanders marched with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, he is now viewed as retrograde in his racial viewpoints. That’s because he believes that socialism is a cure-all for racial discrimination. For example, Sanders refuses to endorse racial reparations, stating instead that broad-based governmental programs ought to benefit those who are lowest on the income ladder. He has likewise stated that candidates ought to be judged based on their ideas rather than their intersectional characteristics. In 2016, Sanders stated, “One of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics.”......

Proponents of intersectional politics point this out, suggesting that those racial divisions continue to dominate American life. But that’s simply not true. In reality, America is less racist now than it ever has been; laws that discriminate on the basis of race are unconstitutional; racial politics has been relegated, for the most part, to mind reading the supposed motives of political opponents. Sanders implicitly acknowledges that truth when he calls for solutions that do not take into account race as a key factor.

And for that sin, Sanders is being othered by many in the Democratic Party. He’s viewed as old-fashioned, hopeful, naive — Trumplike in his view of race, a proponent of a hackneyed baby-boomer “Green Book” mentality. He’s outdated and wrong.

Thus Sanders must be ousted for his failure to conform to the intersectional politics that now dominate the Democratic Party.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61583-the-righteous-mission-of-bernie-sanders?fbclid=IwAR2rUykrys_LihXvVDwXzmKROzDpPuJIg7EaPT611ufcySqecno6m0nqGPg

https://m.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1565430490257649/?type=3&source=48

[Ozz]

Todd 3:49-
Raising the bar here with your verbiage.
It is telling when someone who is as bright as Rebane claims to be, surrounds himself with people of your arrested development and lack of education. Birds of a feather.

[Todd Juvinall]

Ozz | 10 March 2019 at 05:24 PM
OOZE/Swallows/Pelline, you are bringing this fine blog down with your inane idiocy. Where were you raised? In a pigpen? Were your parents mentally ill and met in a sanitorium? You are a true embarrassment here with you lousy writing and juvenile attacks on your betters. Get back to your JD and leave the grownups alone little boy.

[Bill Tozer]

The goal is to tear it down. Ok.

https://www.facebook.com/PowerfulBlackStories/videos/2625574550791685/UzpfSTExODg1NTQ4MTQ6NjM5OTk1OTA2NDU1NTIz/

[George Rebane]

RobertC 134pm - "Perhaps if you had been from a South American country instead of Nazi Germany you might see things a little differently as you and your family stood at a border crossing and were told to go back from whence you came and stop tying to invade our country." I do believe you just ended our conversation.

[Gregory]

Boobie C 134pm

From FDR's time until Clinton's first midterm when Gingrich took over, Dems pretty much controlled the Congress and controlled the pursestrings. There also was a left-liberal SCOTUS.

And the Socialists winning weren't doing it only with support of the masses in their country.. they were being helped by outside monies, too. It was the cold war; to paint the USA as being responsible for all the woes south of the border is ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous.

United Fruit was started in 1899, the term Banana Republic was coined in 1901, and lives on as Chiquita Brands ... they also didn't have anything to do with the Bay of Pigs or the Cuba Missile Crisis. There was Soviet money flowing to destabilize countries that were friendly with the US just as they propped up the murderous regime in Cuba.

[l]

Two of Bobby C's popular movements have taken root in SA & CA since the Cold War ended. Both are self-styled socialist outfits. The victims? Venezuela and Nicaragua. In the latter case, Reagan blocked Ortega with an elected govt for sixteen years, but eventually Ortega found his way to power. In both places, the dictators took over, eliminated all organized opposition and turned the places into failed shithole countries where before they were comparable to their nighbors.

In the case of Nicaragua, it is the second-poorest country in the hemisphere after Cuba and the people so defeated they can't even join the great migration. Think about it, clown. L

[L]

As far as the "Banana Republic" interventions, those pretty much ended in 1954. The forcible removal of Noriega in Panama was about drugs, not politics.

And finally, why is Costa Rica such a striking contrast to the rest of CA? Same ethnic group, opposite result. Hint: Costa Rica has no interest in socialism.

[L]

Correction: "second poorest after Haiti."
L

[Todd Juvinall]

Boardman is now telling us the older Americans believe fake news than even the yougins of the country. Fake news from fake polls again. The left is shameless.

[Todd Juvinall]

conservative Americans.

[AVMan]

Posted by: George Rebane | 10 March 2019 at 09:17 AM - re: the implementation of the plan to destroy America

,,,I was going to say “You’re not serious, right?,,,and then I recalled...

[Robert Cross]

George 6:26 -- you apparently missed my point. My point was that your family went through an extremely horrible situation and struggled to get to America.. Not too different from the caravan people though your situation was probably far worse. No one told you to go back that you weren't welcome. You looked to America for a better life just like these people are. My point was you were welcomed with open arms, these people are being rejected. Why them now and not refuges like you were then?

[George Rebane]

RobertC 1221pm - the reasons are legion if you're familiar with the sane immigration policy America had until things started unraveling about 1970. I have described in detail the process that the Rebanes and hundreds of thousands of other WW2 refugees had to go through to be admitted unto these shores. And we all assimilated instantly. For you and yours not to see what is happening to the country now as millions of illegals are pouring in through our porous southern border (and continue violating our laws) simply boggles minds when we think of you as patriotic Americans, and then again it makes perfect sense when we think of you otherwise.

[Scott O]

Bobby C at 12:21 - Do you lefties possess even one brain cell?
What part of ILLEGAL don't you morons get?
George and his family followed the rules.
The US didn't let just anybody come to this country after WWII even if they were in a bad way.
There is no vetting any more at the border. Your leftie sob story about all the poor folk at the border being refugees from certain death are false. It's catch and release and they very seldom, if ever show up for the hearings. More illegality. Then it's "oh well - they're here so let's just give them citizenship and skip all the other stuff that the folks that followed the rules had to do."
If they are fleeing violence then they should present themselves at the proper place and time to the authorities. But no - they just come across with an attitude of "to hell with your rules!"
Those are not the kind of people I want in this country.

[Bill Tozer]

Combining Peggy Noonan’s column with Saturday Night Live.

Trapped in bubbles and fearful of repercussions, boardrooms and newsrooms have demonstrated plenty of responsiveness to the online left. But if growing exasperation leads to more commentary like SNL’s, it’ll help bolster everyone’s ability to stand firm in the face of silly smear campaigns, reassuring decision-makers their bottom line won’t be affected by a lame hashtag.

So keep it coming, Lorne. When they inevitably come for SNL, you’ll benefit too.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/12/snls-mocking-woke-twitter-indicates-emerging-consensus-callout-culture/.

Now excuse me, but it’s time I meet up with the neighbors and watch the mandatory Two Minutes Of Hate.

[Bill Tozer]

Letter from a true believer in prison from Stalin’s “Golden Boy of the Revolution”

—My sweet Anushka! My Darling!

I write to you on the eve of the trial, and I write to you with a definite purpose, which I emphasize three times over: No matter what you read, no matter what you hear, no matter how horrible these things might be, no matter what might be said to me nor what I might say – endure everything courageously and calmly. Prepare the family. Help all of them. I fear for you and the others, but most of all for you. Don’t feel malice about anything. Remember that the great cause of the USSR lives on and this is the most important thing. Personal fates are transitory and wretched by comparison. A great ordeal awaits you. I beg you my dearest, muster all your strength, tighten all the strings of your heart, but don’t allow them to break.

Do not talk carelessly with anybody about anything. . . .

“There you have it. Bukharin feels compelled to say that the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is “the most important thing.” And be careful, oh, so very careful, what you say to anybody. Political correctness on steroids. That’s socialism in a nutshell for you.

No doubt the stated intentions are oh-so-pure and oh-so-good, like “liberte, egalite, fraternite.” It’s the sort of compassion Flannery O’Connor wrote of when she noted that “tenderness leads to the gas chamber.” That’s because, at the end of the day, socialism is a manipulative machine of human cruelty powered only by a blind greed for power. It forces people to finely mince their words, or remain silent.”

http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/15/socialisms-bloody-history-shows-millennials-should-think-twice-before-supporting-it/