Here’s a post that is being celebrated by Deplorables as evidence that Social Justice is under pressure in Corporate America:
Our customers’ trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance to everyone at John Deere. We fully intend to earn it every day and in every way we can. pic.twitter.com/8BgyPyQJQo
If you read to the bottom however, the company promises to “continue to track and advance the diversity of our organization”. Isn’t that a promise to continue discriminating by skin color and gender ID? If they don’t discriminate how are they going to “advance” diversity?
“Our D&I commitments remain unchanged,” a Microsoft spokesperson, Jeff Jones, said in a statement. “Our focus on diversity and inclusion is unwavering and we are holding firm on our expectations, prioritizing accountability, and continuing to focus on this work.”
One common demand from the encamped righteous has been that colleges bring in more students from “Palestine” (example in Oregon; state-sponsored NPR gives us an example from New Jersey). If we look at photos from Gaza, however, we don’t see people who dress and act like American college students. Nobody is drinking alcohol. Nobody has a pet dog (“Islam forbids Muslims to keep dogs,”). Females don’t go out without being well covered in hijab and long dress (to do otherwise would be to dress like a prostitute (BBC)). Here’s an example from UNRWA (they provided 3 million medical consultations to 2.3 million Gazans during 6 months of war, which means that it is easier to get in to see a doctor in Gaza during wartime than in the U.S. during peacetime):
Lets have a look at the encampments. Here’s one at the University of Coimbra, founded in 1290:
There were about 10 protesters (out of 25,000 students total at Portugal’s oldest university) and at least two of them had pet dogs. In the photo above, a dog is not only kept as a pet, contrary to Islam, but is allowed to walk on the sacred Palestinian flag.
Here’s the encampment at Brown:
Instead of hijabs, students who appear to identify as “female” are wearing halter tops, showing cleavage, etc.
How are students from Gaza supposed to feel welcome in this debauched environment? Shouldn’t the pro-Hamas college students demand that administrations ban alcohol (including for those over 21, e.g., at faculty and alumni events), ban immodest dress, and ban dogs from their campuses?
The evidence is clear: wherever women take part in a peace process, peace lasts longer. In fact, a peace agreement, which includes women, is 35 per cent more likely to last at least 15 years. And without the solid foundation of peace, development is doomed to be unstable and unsustainable.
A recent Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council called women leadership and participation in peacebuilding a “prerequisite for the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” In other words, without women’s participation, we will not achieve lasting peace; and without the stability of peace, we will not achieve sustainable development.
Put forward by the Resolution 1325, the idea that women should be given greater access to leadership roles in peace and security is closely aligned with the aim of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, on gender equality and women empowerment.
When more women are empowered to lead, everyone benefits. Decades of studies show women leaders help increase productivity, enhance collaboration, inspire organizational dedication, and improve fairness.
Combined with the erroneous reverse-causality nature of McKinsey’s tests, our inability to quasi-replicate their results suggests that despite the imprimatur given to McKinsey’s studies, they should not be relied on to support the view that US publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.
More from the United Nations, this time a complaint that only 26 of the world’s countries have implemented McKinsey’s recommendations and selected female heads of state:
FACT: 🤯 113 countries have never had a woman Head of State and only 26 countries are led by a woman today.
Gender parity in politics is crucial for an equal future for ALL.
Given all of the above, shouldn’t we expect celebratory and congratulatory tweets from the United Nations, UN Women, McKinsey, et al. following Marine Le Pen’s recent electoral victory in France, the world’s 7th largest country by GDP (while working 32 hours/week and taking 8 weeks of vacation per year!)? Instead, the Guardian describes female leadership in France as “unthinkable”. The Washington Post says “Marine Le Pen is now part of France’s mainstream. That should scare us all.”
Separately, no discussion of France is complete without this poster:
Portugal so far has been short on what Americans would consider Social Justice. We witnessed one pro-Hamas march on a Lisbon synagogue and the number of participants (about 50) was a tiny percentage of the Lisbon metro area population (nearly 3 million). The pro-Hamas encampment at the University of Coimbra was also poorly attended (and they let a dog walk on the sacred Palestinian flag; see future post). Our almost-9-year-old’s sharp eyes spotted a single rainbow flag, rather faded, above a bar in Lisbon (i.e., that’s one rainbow flag in a 10-day period). At Portugal dos Pequenitos, a theme park of miniature houses and architectural monuments designed to delight children, the Portuguese “voyages of discovery” are presented as great achievements, not as pernicious precursors to slavery and colonization:
Does all of the above mean that I am not participating in Juneteenth? Au contraire, as they say in Lisbon! Today I tried to return a phone call from John Hancock regarding my 90-year-old mom’s insurance. I turned on my Xfinity Mobile SIM ($10 per day of usage, with a meagre 0.5 GB data allotment that one will blow through in less than a day of using Google Maps, uploading a few photos, etc.) and called John Hancock. I spent about 15 minutes dealing with their automated system before an attempt was made to connect me with a human. My reward was a recording: “Our offices are closed today in observance of Juneteenth” (this became a new paid day off for government workers in 2021; see “Biden Signs Law Making Juneteenth a Federal Holiday” (NYT)).
Readers: How did you observe Juneteenth? Were you obstructed in any of your attempts to be productive?
Here’s Joe Biden crediting Black Americans as having “led the march from slavery to freedom”, but weren’t the relevant marches for Juneteenth led by Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman? Is he saying that Grant and Sherman identified as “Black”?
I was proud to have made Juneteenth a federal holiday –
It was and will always be a testimony of and testament to the resilience of generations of Black Americans who led the march from slavery to freedom toward that more perfect union. pic.twitter.com/W3HjtwffUC
Which young Americans care enough about their fellow humans (or at least those oppressed by Jews) to camp out in support of Hamas? The rich. From “Are Gaza Protests Happening Mostly at Elite Colleges?” (Washington Monthly):
Using data from Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium and news reports of encampments, we matched information on every institution of higher education that has had pro-Palestinian protest activity (starting when the war broke out in October until early May) to the colleges in our 2023 college rankings. Of the 1,421 public and private nonprofit colleges that we ranked, 318 have had protests and 123 have had encampments.
By matching that data to percentages of students at each campus who receive Pell Grants (which are awarded to students from moderate- and low-income families), we came to an unsurprising conclusion: Pro-Palestinian protests have been rare at colleges with high percentages of Pell students. Encampments at such colleges have been rarer still. A few outliers exist, such as Cal State Los Angeles, the City College of New York, and Rutgers University–Newark. But in the vast majority of cases, campuses that educate students mostly from working-class backgrounds have not had any protest activity. For example, at the 78 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) on the Monthly’s list, 64 percent of the students, on average, receive Pell Grants. Yet according to our data, none of those institutions have had encampments and only nine have had protests, a significantly lower rate than non-HBCU schools.
Whatever the cause, the pattern is clear: Pro-Palestinian protests are overwhelmingly an elite college phenomenon.
A couple of charts from the article:
(Why would it be accurate to characterize these as “pro-Hamas” protests? See Talking with a pro-Hamas college student for how the expectation among the protesters is that their success will enable Hamas to rule Gaza for the foreseeable future.)
George Floyd should be alive. He deserved so much more.
Today, I join all those who loved him and all those touched by the civil rights movement he inspired in remembering the tragedy and injustice of his death.
George Floyd changed the world and we should “act in his memory”.
Readers: what have you done today (or recently) to act in George Floyd’s memory? What did this American hero do that we should also do so that our children can see an ideal way for an adult to act?
Some other things that happened on May 25 that Joe Biden isn’t talking about (source):
1241 1st attack on Jewish community of Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1784 Jews are expelled from Warsaw by Marshall Mniszek
1787 Constitutional convention opens at Philadelphia, George Washington presiding
1927 Henry Ford announces that he is ending production of the Model T Ford
1942 First commercial fluid catalytic cracking facility begins production at Exxon – now produces half the world’s gasoline, developed by the “Four Horsemen” research team at Exxon
1961 JFK announces US goal of putting a man on the Moon before the end of decade
1961 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A. Walker takes X-15 to 32,770 m
1968 Gateway Arch in St Louis dedicated
1973 US launches 1st Skylab crew Kerwin, Conrad, Weitz
1977 Original “Star Wars” movie (Episode IV – A New Hope), directed by George Lucas and starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, premieres
1979 Israel begins to return Sinai to Egypt
1986 Hands Across America – 6.5 million people hold hands from California to NY 1991 Israel evacuates 14,000 Ethiopian Jews
2017 Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg receives an honorary degree from Harvard University, after dropping out in 2004 (a Harvard commencement without a pro-Hamas component!)
2018 Harvey Weinstein turns himself in to New York police to face charges of rape, a criminal sex act, sex abuse and sexual misconduct (conviction overturned in 2024)
Brent had long held sway over a cerebral corner of the New York art scene, promoting women and diverse artists in the early 1990s when few galleries or museums exhibited either. … friends gravitated toward his wicked sense of humor, a zest that extended to an ebullient social life, often populated by a revolving door of lovers. “He liked younger men,” says his friend, the artist Vik Muniz.
DEI box… checked. 2SLGBTQQIA+ box… checked.
Now, landing in Rio, Brent was trying to move past a personal low point. Despite his outward success, close friends say he had been emotionally drained after nearly two years of hashing out a divorce settlement with his estranged husband, with whom he had a 13-year-old son. In Rio, he could spend a few weeks relaxing, maybe walk along Copacabana beach to meet locals or meditate.
What can New Yorkers do with all of the free time they have because they never have to go to Home Depot?
After work, he and Brent sought out the same nightlife, going to sex clubs and swapping ribald stories, Renaud-Clément says.
Does marriage interfere with going to the sex club?
friends of both men say the couple was known to have an open marriage
Personal background?
Daniel was born in a tiny town in the Cuban province of Camagüey. … Daniel was fleeing a troubled childhood and doing whatever he could to survive in Havana and later Madrid, including sex work, according to Daniel’s 2006 memoir.
Low-skill immigration box… checked.
Daniel got a WhatsApp message from Prevez, his former caretaker in Cuba. Prevez had since moved to São Paulo and wanted to catch up, according to his police statement. … Like Daniel, Prevez had struggled for years to scrape together a living in Cuba, repairing bicycles by day and working as a night security guard. In September 2022, he moved to Brazil in hope of a better salary. … Prevez says he took a job making deliveries for an online marketplace known as Mercado Livre in a borrowed Fiat Palio, but he wasn’t earning enough to support his own family in Cuba.
Low-skill immigration box… checked a second time. (Mr. Prevez migrated from his caretaker job to live in Brazil.)
Prevez said Daniel told him about the ongoing divorce. Then, he told police, Daniel made him an offer: $200,000 and a free place to stay in Rio in exchange for killing his ex.
According to New York law, Daniel could seek a third of Brent’s net worth as the surviving spouse—likely more than he would get in any divorce settlement. Daniel’s lawyers say they intend to claim his share as a surviving spouse.
A European friend: “Big irony is that these gay dudes fought so hard to be able to get sued for divorce.”
Related:
“Couple who led gay marriage fight to divorce” (NBC): Julie and Hillary Goodridge were among seven gay couples who filed a lawsuit that led to a court ruling making Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriages in 2004. The couple became the public face of the debate in the state and married the first day same-sex marriages became legal. The divorce case was filed last week in Suffolk Probate and Family Court and was not unexpected. The couple announced they were separating in 2006.
Less than 50% of immigrants who arrived in the US since 2022 are employed, per new report.
The analysis is based on the government’s monthly Current Population Survey (CPS). pic.twitter.com/tfEXerw4Dz
On the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, our Administration stands in solidarity with LGBTQI+ people around the world as they seek to live full lives. We will continue to work to advance rights of LGBTQI+ people, as we have since Day One. pic.twitter.com/j2d9bAn2xH
The U.S. got Manuel Noriega out of the Vatican’s embassy in Panama City by playing Van Halen 24/7. I wonder if administrators at elite universities could clear their “river to the sea” encampments of Hamas/Hezbollah/UNRWA/Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporters via the magic of Taylor Swift. Given that the only thing more expensive, and therefore presumably more sought-after, than a day at an elite university is a day at a Taylor Swift concert (see Long term effects of taking away $5-10,000 from every upper middle class family with a female child?) nobody could complain about a DJ spinning up Ms. Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department on repeat. The schools are mostly shut down so 85 dBA (keep it within OSHA limits) of Taylor Swift 24/7 wouldn’t disturb any classes. Why not just play Taylor Swift until those who are camped out decide that they’d rather listen to something else and, therefore, have to walk away?
Separately, here’s my favorite recent social media post relating to the Ivy league:
This combines the Latinx, Queers, and a drum circle. Who could ask for more?
Lyrics to “Florida!!!”:
You can beat the heat if you beat the charges too They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true And my friends all smell like weed or little babies And this city reeks of driving myself crazy Little did you know Your home’s really only a town you’re just a guest in So you work your life away Just to pay for a timeshare down in Destin Florida is one hell of a drug Florida, can I use you up? The hurricane with my name when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine Well, me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time Yes, I’m haunted but I’m feeling just fine All my girls got their lace and their crimes And your cheating husband disappeared Well, no one asks any questions here
(Maybe she is singing about the Redneck Riviera, more properly part of Alabama, than the parts of Florida that most people consider “Florida”? Destin is shown below, straight south from Alabama.)
In case the above is memory-holed as disinformation:
Katherine Maher, the former head of Wikipedia and recently hired CEO of state-sponsored NPR, has been in the news lately. Christopher Rufo has been highlighting her years of progressive-themed tweets. This one is my favorite:
(It’s actually a prompt of exclusion since the password does not include “Ze”)
What I can’t figure out is why NPR hired this white native-born 40-year-old. Here’s the NPR diversity policy:
If diversity is their core value, as they say, why couldn’t they find a CEO who fits into more corners of the “big tent” that they’ve identified? A Black gay transgender poor religious old disabled conservative undocumented immigrant, for example. And why did she take the job? She says that she wants to help sex workers, Black and brown people, Muslims, “LGBTQ+ folks”, et al. Shouldn’t she have rejected the offer and told NPR to hire someone who fit into one of those categories?
Lawmakers must consider the intersectional consequence that this will have on activists, sex workers, Black and brown communities, Muslim communities, LGBTQ+ folks, disabled people and other marginalized communities before they make a change. https://t.co/ibpXOyYGSt
(It’s a “man’s world”, but someone with only a bachelor’s degree was able to get the top jobs at Wikipedia and NPR without identifying as a “man”?)
My brothers and I had some deep talks about this recently. We're each over thirty with real jobs, and deep discomfort about what it would mean to bring a child into a warming world. https://t.co/qFW31DUrPO
Don’t have kids, but invite 100 million migrants and their kids into a high-carbon society from their low-carbon societies? Hearing about the possibility that immigrants destroyed the natives (Anglo-Saxons moving into present-day Britain) makes her more confident that open borders are the correct choice for current Americans:
Yeah the Wikipedia article is fascinating! There’s this hideous thing happening in the US right. Ow where the white nationalists are claiming to caucus around Anglo-Saxon identity as part of their anti-immigration, racist platform. It’s a case of, “have you read history?”
Europeans, especially Germans, are famous for their Jew-hatred in the 1930s and early 1940s, culminating in the death camp system run by the Nazis and their collaborators. (Remember that the original German goal was a Jew-free Europe to be achieved via expulsion and expropriation, similar to what the Muslim/Arab nations achieved after 1948, and the death camp idea was conceived after expulsion proved impractical due to other countries’ refusal to accept Jews (to keep the Arabs happy, the British wouldn’t allow Jews expelled by the Germans to move to Mandatory Palestine, for example).)
Could it be that today’s progressives in the U.S. and Europe have outdone the 1930s/40s Europeans in Jew-hatred?
Let’s consider a German circa 1933 who was among the 44 percent who voted for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and its 25-point program (not too different from what today’s politicians promise). Getting 500,000 Jews out of Germany, whose population was 65 million at the time, would deliver a potential personal benefit to the non-Jewish German. The German who supported the Nazi plan to expel Jews might have felt that social cohesion in German society would be improved without a group whose value system was different or at least perceived as different. Such a German would not need to feel any personal animosity towards Jews in order to prefer having Christian Germans as neighbors rather than Jewish Germans. (Similar to today’s Americans who are opposed to low-skill immigration, especially from non-European nations; they might not hate Somalis or wish them any harm, but they don’t want to live in a neighborhood whose culture is imported from Somalia.)
Although only some of the progressives marching in London, New York, San Francisco, etc. will openly say that they want to “end Israel” or that they support the general Palestinian goal of destroying Israel (2021 poll, for example), support for the “Palestinian cause” inevitably is helpful to the majority of Palestinians who have a long-term goal of destroying the Zionist entity and establishing a river-to-the-sea Palestinian nation. In theory, some of the Jews in Israel could return to places where their ancestors lived, e.g., Russia, Poland, etc. But the largest group of Jews in Israel are from Arab/Muslim countries and there is no evidence that the ancestors of their former neighbors in Iran, Iraq, etc. want them back. So the progressives are where the Nazis were in the 1930s. They want to rid the former Ottoman-then-British-ruled areas of the Levant (present-day Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt) of Jews, but aren’t particular about how the ridding is accomplished.
Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted the City Council in Berkeley, California, on Tuesday, shouting “Zionist pigs!” and “End Israel!” during a meeting that included a vote on marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, video of the event shared by the Jewish Community Relations Council showed.
A sticker that a group was handing out on the Berkeley campus, March 14, 2024:
If progressives have the same goal as the Nazis how can they hate Jews more than the Nazis did? The progressives demonstrating in Washington, D.C. and Toronto don’t live in or near Israel and they have no plans to visit the new Palestinian state whose establishment they support (the new Hamas-ruled nation might not be as friendly to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community as the Queers for Palestine might want for a vacation destination). In other words, the progressive works for the destruction of Israel but would receive no personal benefit via the destruction of Israel. It’s an entirely unselfish Jew-hatred, unlike the Europeans of 90 years ago who had selfish reasons for wanting to live in a less diverse society. One could argue that this selfish desire was irrational (diversity is our strength, after all), but that isn’t relevant to the question of whether the Europeans were doing something that would have an effect on their own lives.
