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It may seem excessive to continue to analyze the motivations of Mad Men creator “Matthew Weiner” in depth. But he is an influential individual. If I enter into Google News, not Google overall, just the official news sites:
“Mad Men” Weiner
I get this count of pages:
About 7,070,000 results (0.48 seconds)
To give that some perspective
“secretary of state” kerry
Brings up:
About 556,000 results (0.46 seconds)
In Haaretz, Matthew Weiner explains, “Sterling Cooper is modeled on my high school,” which was Harvard-Westlake Prep in the Hollywood Hills.
Getting personal with the nice Jewish boy behind ‘Mad Men’
Matthew Weiner opens up about his landmark show, identity, anti-Semitism, and U.S. nostalgia for the sixties.
By The Forward and Anne Cohen | Mar. 27, 2015 | 1:46 AM
… A. I was raised with a real Jewish intellectual identity. Freud, Marx and Einstein — those were the holy trinity of the household I grew up in. …
Q. I want to talk about a scene from the show’s first season, in which the Israel Tourism Board approaches Sterling Cooper for an advertising campaign. It’s an interesting plot line. How did you come up with it?
A. When we started the show, I really only had a few episodes I knew I was going to do and that was one of them. I wanted to talk about America’s love affair with Israel. I love this idea of people like Don, who is white, looking at us and seeing us as heroes.
Q. You once mentioned that the show portrays America’s “sophisticated” or “casual” anti-Semitism. What is that?
A. I experienced direct anti-Semitism in my youth. Sterling Cooper is modeled on my high school.
See? I’m not making this stuff up. The more interviews Weiner gives, the more it turns out that Mad Men is driven by Weiner’s objectively bizarre but highly useful feelings of self-pity and ethnic animus.
Weiner’s prep school, Harvard-Westlake of Studio City on Coldwater Canyon in the Hollywood Hills (current tuition $33,500), was the arch-rival in debate of my high school, Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks down in the flats (current tuition $14,050).
Of the 120 kids in my class there were 20 Jews and people would talk about how the school was half Jewish.
Weiner is obsessed with this statistic. In interviews with him I’ve read, he’s given estimates for how Jewish his class at Harvard Prep was of one-tenth, one-eighth, and now one-sixth. He’s probably still upset over an L.A. Herald Examiner article from his time there 1981 that said “an estimated 40 percent of the student body is Jewish.”
That line Pete Campbell says in [the Season 1 pilot], I heard someone say: “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.” Obviously I remembered it.
Indeed you did, Matthew, indeed you did.
There’s also institutional anti-Semitism. Like, ‘You’re okay — I don’t like your people in general — but you’re ok.’ Even Don is in that boat. It’s not like anyone ever pretended that there wasn’t anti-Semitism. I wanted to express my feeling of being a minority, marginalized on some level because of overrepresentation in cultural aspects of the United States in general.
This is a subtle argument Weiner is making: Weiner wants to express his feelings that Jews are marginalized because they are overrepresented in formulating American culture. It’s a little bit like saying Bill Gates and Warren Buffett need to express their feelings of being a minority, marginalized on some level because of overrepresentation in plutocratic aspects of the United States in general and thus have to salve their emotions by playing golf together at Augusta National.
All of these jokes that we make about ourselves are based on stereotypes. I’ve experienced direct anti-Semitism because for some reason or other I’ve been in situations where people didn’t know I was Jewish. And like Sal [the closeted Sterling Cooper art director who gets fired after a client comes on to him], I had to stand there while people said horrible things. So, for me to own this part of the story was important.
Q. How does your Jewish identity shape the way you think about characters?
A. I think it does. Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog. I have two older sisters, I have a mom who’s Trudy Campbell’s age and I totally identified with everyone from Betty Friedan to Helen Gurley Brown. I have, for lack of a better word, a minority experience. When they’re talking about everybody they’re not talking about you — I have arrived but conditionally.
A half decade ago, I asked American Jews to please start developing a sense of noblesse oblige about their fellow American citizens. But what’s in it for them as a career strategy? How much good did noblesse oblige do the old WASP elite?
Weiner’s fabulous career demonstrates that what pays these days is not nobility but pettiness.
“Freud, Marx and Einstein”: what sort of lunacy results in putting the second best theoretical physicist in history in the same classification as two crooks? Racist lunacy I suppose.
I have to believe that only name recognition, rather than the merits of their work, accounts for his enthusiasm for these three.
Good god. Tell me he’s just trolling you at this point. He has to be, right?
Just tossing this one out there, but why not just ditch Freud and Marx and bring in Emile Durkheim?If you ask me, his work has held up a lot better than Freud’s.Besides, Einstein and Durkheim look really good when written side by side.
“Weiner’s fabulous career demonstrates that what pays these days is not nobility but pettiness.”
But Weiner is for noblesse oblige. He says so:
“Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog.”
He’s saying that his people competed with Wasp for the power, and his people won. But he never forgot where he came from. Even though he made it, he still cares for the underdogs and outcasts.
So far so good.
But here’s the problem. The class of underdogs are not uniform in success or power. For instance, certain groups of minorities are far more successful than others. Asians in academics, blacks in sports. Women not so much in fashion as they should be.
If Weiner is for the people of color, and if the people of color in California are with BDS in support of underdog Palestinians, where is Weiner on that? Should he side with the people of color and Palestinians against Zionism or will he side with Zionism(favored by GOP)?
Another problem is there’s a certain irony to how all this noblesse oblige dynamics play out.
Wasps could have had more noblesse oblige precisely because they were more exclusive. Feeling comfortable in their position of power, they may felt they should act as a honorable ruling class.
In contrast, Jewish narrative is all about struggling to rise to the top and break down the gate of privilege to get in. To the extent that Jews want to hold the door wide open so that others will get in, they can be said to be operating in the mode of noblesse oblige.
But because they are so busy identifying with ‘victimized’ underdogs, they are blind to their new status as the ruling class and, worse, blind to the fact that they use various tricks to ensure and favor Jewish power over all else. They keep the door open for more to get in but fill up the room with so much Jewish aggressiveness and acrimony that many dare not approach the door… except as servants. Most gentile politicians might as well be butlers to the new ruling class.
Wasps were more exclusive but also more caring. Jews are more inclusive(officially) but less caring. Wasps, feeling confident as rulers, were willing to ease their own privilege in favor of principles. Jews, still ferocious in their underdog mentality, continue to act in ways that favor Jewish interests above all else.
Jews are now in a unique position as the most powerful overdogs and most outspoken underdogs. They occupy top position in both. And this mentality is actually most encouraged by the GOP that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party as ‘antisemitic’ for negotiating with Iran and not cheering Netanyahu loudly enough.
The result can be amusing, like what happened to Rick Sanchez. An underdog ‘person of color’ left out in the cold because he noticed that Jews are not the underdogs of America.
Doctor dad, fancy-pants neighborhood, posh private school - Matthew Weiner considers this middle class? I think he's a little out of touch with reality. Generally speaking, this is about as good as it gets, with the exception of those whose incomes/wealth are really in the stratosphere.
This is totally bizarre. I’m of Jewish parentage and went to one of the top prep schools.
My attitude is one of nothing but gratitude to the WASP élite, which over only a generation or two allowed us the benefits of American culture, remarkably ungrudgingly, in historical terms, and as much opportunity as we could handle, no matter how annoying many of us were (and still are, in many cases).
Maybe it’s because I have no interest in golf, and rarely got to sail, but I can’t get excited over which clubs will admit me and which won’t.
This country and its white, mostly Protestant majority, has been very good for the Jews. The dusky future may not be so accommodating.
I don’t agree with you and many of your commenters there are any Larger Lessons About The Jews to be drawn from the self-promotion tour of a random 2nd tier Hollywood executive.
I guess I should channel my Scots-Irish, Norwegian and Cambro-Hibernian resentments to succeed on life.
Down with the Frankish bastards! Death to Acadians and their Iroquoian allies! And subjugate the Swedish interlopers in New Jersey!
Oh, wait… We already won that war 250 years ago.
The thing is, the Jewish struggle never ends, because it’s codified. It’s a part of their faith.
People put too much emphasis on the genetics of Jews while ignoring the culture. As Razib Khan wrote a few days ago, humans are “sui generis.” Judaism, as a race forged by Torah and the Law, is the best example of this.
If you don’t understand Torah and the Law, Weiner makes no sense. If you do, Weiner is no mystery.
But to condemn Torah and the Law is a mistake. It’s a far better system for understanding and coping with humanity and its nature than the ephemeral fashions and puerile scientism that govern our own culture. Struggle is the way of the world.
The Jews are pioneers in the wilderness of civilization. If we are the ignorant savages, then it’s up to us to learn and change. Let Weiner and those like him be an example. To criticize them is to miss the point. It doesn’t make us better; it merely provides an excuse for our weakness.
I’ve only seen a couple episodes of “Mad Men,” and I hold no particular brief for Matthew Weiner.
But gosh, Steve, give the guy a break.
He’s giving an interview to The Forward, apparently reprinted in Haaretz, both of which are Jewish newspapers. Of course he’s going to talk about Jewish this and Jewish that.
Personally, I think that we Jewish Americans worry too much about anti-Semitism. It does exist, but not much in the United States and hardly at all among educated people. Some anti-Israel activism such as the BDS movement can be interpreted as anti-Semitic, but most of it is just mindless leftism. They hate Israel for the same reason they hate what’s left of the United States: it’s civilized. The Jewish connection is incidental.
I have friends who see anti-Semitism everywhere they look. They’re not making it up; they really do. The only time I’ve ever encountered it, it was so ridiculous that I almost burst out laughing.
The stereotypes are as likely to help you as hurt you at this point. ("Maybe he's smart and/or loaded! Let's hire him!")
I have friends who see anti-Semitism everywhere they look. They’re not making it up; they really do."
Woody Allen satirized that in Annie Hall (I think it was) - when his character endlessly dissected a brief encounter he had with someone who asked him "D'you eat?" thinking he had said "Jew eat?"
But Weiner is for noblesse oblige. He says so:
"Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog."
He's saying that his people competed with Wasp for the power, and his people won. But he never forgot where he came from. Even though he made it, he still cares for the underdogs and outcasts.
So far so good.
But here's the problem. The class of underdogs are not uniform in success or power. For instance, certain groups of minorities are far more successful than others. Asians in academics, blacks in sports. Women not so much in fashion as they should be.
If Weiner is for the people of color, and if the people of color in California are with BDS in support of underdog Palestinians, where is Weiner on that? Should he side with the people of color and Palestinians against Zionism or will he side with Zionism(favored by GOP)?
Another problem is there's a certain irony to how all this noblesse oblige dynamics play out.
Wasps could have had more noblesse oblige precisely because they were more exclusive. Feeling comfortable in their position of power, they may felt they should act as a honorable ruling class.
In contrast, Jewish narrative is all about struggling to rise to the top and break down the gate of privilege to get in. To the extent that Jews want to hold the door wide open so that others will get in, they can be said to be operating in the mode of noblesse oblige.
But because they are so busy identifying with 'victimized' underdogs, they are blind to their new status as the ruling class and, worse, blind to the fact that they use various tricks to ensure and favor Jewish power over all else. They keep the door open for more to get in but fill up the room with so much Jewish aggressiveness and acrimony that many dare not approach the door... except as servants. Most gentile politicians might as well be butlers to the new ruling class.
Wasps were more exclusive but also more caring. Jews are more inclusive(officially) but less caring. Wasps, feeling confident as rulers, were willing to ease their own privilege in favor of principles. Jews, still ferocious in their underdog mentality, continue to act in ways that favor Jewish interests above all else.
Jews are now in a unique position as the most powerful overdogs and most outspoken underdogs. They occupy top position in both. And this mentality is actually most encouraged by the GOP that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party as 'antisemitic' for negotiating with Iran and not cheering Netanyahu loudly enough.
The result can be amusing, like what happened to Rick Sanchez. An underdog 'person of color' left out in the cold because he noticed that Jews are not the underdogs of America.
And another angle is diminishing marginal returns in inclusiveness. For example, Weiner gives a shout out to WWT as a continuation of the process portrayed in Mad Men. But we’re getting awfully far into the microscopic fringes by this point, relative to the interests of average people. Is it exactly a surprise that the Establishment’s response to the revelation of massive financial skullduggery in 2008 was to double down on WWG and start up WWT?
I don't think too many of the Wall Street or Hollywood types believe in God, but they seem to be following the same sort of principle in all this transexualism advocacy. Comes the Change I doubt it will ultimately do much good for them either.
I don’t personally know anyone who has watched Man Men. I gave it a try but after half an episode I gave up on the painfully slow pace of the plot. I wanted to like it because I really appreciate the effort at getting the physical set historically right.
You can’t really trust the ratings though with online streaming and downloading depressing the rating of different shows by different percentages.
If I enter into Google News, not Google overall, just the official news sites
“Mad Men” Weiner
I get this count of pages:
About 7,070,000 results (0.48 seconds)
To give that some perspective:
“secretary of state” kerry
About 556,000 results (0.46 seconds)
Yet you're not writing about Letterman's anti-White political advocacy. For example:
That was my thought when I first saw the passage….oh well…one out of three ain’t bad!
How much good did noblesse oblige do the old WASP elite?
Not much. They went through the meat grinder of the Great War along with everyone else and got blamed for their blunders. Probably rightfully so, but still.
Noblesse oblige is a forgotten term, but it’s a lot like Steve’s Frontlash-Backlash. Rather than ‘Nobility obliges’ it’s ‘Obligated to the Nobility’. Whites are expected to vote for the GOP, blacks for Democrats, workers give their all to corporations despite getting punch in the face, repeatedly.
Edit: OT, but I am pretty sure CBS news had a segment a couple days ago about the Notre Dame HS track coach. He’s been running every day for 36 years. Including the day he had hip surgery.
Besides country clubs, there is another example of anti-semitism Jews bring up, which is the Ivy League quotas. Such policies limited Jews to around 10-15% of students. But what they don’t mention is that Jews are only 2-3% of the population, meaning even with those quotas Jews were getting about 5 times overrepresentation. And this at institutions which were founded by Christians for the purpose of training Christian ministers and preserving Christian heritage.
When 2% of the population takes up 10% of the spots, the other 98% is going to be underrepresented. But despite their own 5 times overrepresentation, Jews still claim they are the excluded victims.
And here’s Weiner, aware of Jewish overrepresentation in Hollywood, giving just that as a reason for his resentment.
“marginalized on some level because of overrepresentation” – how does that make sense? It’s totally irrational.
In my experience, there is one thing Jews are right about, and that is that anti-semitism tends to make people crazy. Anti-semites raise valid points, but they also go off the deep end about holocaust denial, banking conspiracies, zionist occupied governments, and so on.
But in the same way, Jewish anti-gentilism makes Jews crazy.
So the position I’d like to propose is this: minimalist anti-semitism, which consists only of the proposition that Jews are biased against gentiles. That’s it.
All ethnic groups are biased against one another, so all this really amounts to is saying: Jews are people too.
When even overrepresentation isn’t good enough for Jews, when even that becomes a source of resentment, all they are doing is revealing their bias against gentiles.
Instead of Jewish resentment like Weiner’s being seen as the normal way all smart people think, it will be something we can point to and say “that’s just a Jew being biased against gentiles.” It will help prevent gentiles from internalizing Jewish prejudice and distorting their own self-conception.
“Jews are biased against gentiles” – that’s all you need. But doesn’t everyone already know that Jews are biased? Nope, no one ever taught me that growing up, I had to piece it together from stuff I read on the internet.
If psychoanalysis were conceived today, they wouldn’t ask “Tell me about your childhood…” but rather, “Tell me about your time in high school…”
I appreciate that our host, Mr. Sailer, usually focuses his observations on other figures in contemporary society rather than dwelling merely on his own experiences, like the narcissistic exercises in navel-gazing that the ladies of Slate-Salon-NewYorkTimes-HuffingtonPost foist on us with their personal experiences supposedly of universal relevance.
On the few occasions that Mr. Sailer does share some of his own biography, it serves well as background for the issues he’s discussing. Nonetheless I’d be interested to know if there were some experiences, regrets, insecurities or disappointments in his past that shaped him like Mr. Weiner was scarred by his own perceived exclusion from elite Los Angeles society. Perhaps young Steve was a normal solid well adjusted, well integrated young man of the kind seldom depicted by out popular culture. Do such spiritually healthy individuals without serious cares or complexes actually exist? Indeed if Mr. Sailer benefited from the privileges of strong family and values, perhaps we should consider how other families can learn from this so they too can raise their kids with the same kind of privileges. It’s not merely a question of economics or inequality either. Mr. Weiner likely lacked for nothing of the sort in his prosperous professional family but still matured with a sense of cranky bitterness. Not exactly a case for well-adjusted equanimity.
Well, the Anglos have Newton, Hume, and Adam Smith; that’s certainly a trinity to envy.
But Freud, Marx, and Einstein looks a bit lackluster in comparison.Even Einstein can’t compensate for the other two fellows.
Still, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a Jewish equivalent.Einstein and Durkheim are easy enough,as a duo, but then what? Spinoza? Ricardo?
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor--you have an actual physical universe you're trying to explain.
Except that Hume and Smith were Scots. I suppose you could drop Newton and add Jamie Watt and have a Scottish trilogy that ruled the earth.
These trilogies are fun. Hans von Buelow used to say: "Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and all the rest were cretins." To which Moszkowski replied: "Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Moszkowski: and all the rest were Christians."
I am an ominivorous reader and while browsing in a bookstore 30 years ago I came across a "Big Book of Jews" thing which had lots of graphics and was clearly printed to increase group self esteem in the target audience. On one page, there was a cartoon depiction of Einstein, Marx, and Freud, all together, smiling, like they were just schmoozing while hanging out at the local deli. The caption was something like, "That's right: the three most important people in the modern world were Einstein, Marx, and Freud -- and they were all Jews!" I thought it was kind of funny.
Husserl was a greater thinker than Einstein, but physics has more prestige.
As a counterpoint, I was the only even vaguely Jewish person in any of the public schools I went to in the 90s. I did not experience any discrimination, but rather was consistently popular and a teacher’s pet who got away with things less affable children did not. One teacher did ask me to have a family member come in and do a Yom Kipper presentation, a request I did not pass on to my family.
The only religious discrimination I noticed was some mild teasing at the Jehovia’s Witnesses who made themselves conspicuous every single morning by not saying the Pledge of Allegiance. A couple teachers were annoyed enough by this to tell them they still had to stand at attention and face the flag even if they could not make them say it, but that was as bad as it ever got.
The black kids on the extremes of pale and dark skin also got some mild teasing from other black kids, but again it was all pretty mild.
I have, for lack of a better word, a minority experience. When they’re talking about everybody they’re not talking about you — I have arrived but conditionally.
Everything is heritable, Mr. Weiner. You’ve obviously inherited a group of traits that have given you a proclivity toward feeling the victim—a persecution complex is the result. (Martyr or victimhood status comes in handy for people who emotionally need excuses for why they’re not “this” or why they’ve not accomplished “that”).
I suspect that had you gone to an expensive all Jewish high school, you’d have written a series about how you were THE OUTSIDER there too.
No matter where you are or who or what they group around you, Mr. Weiner, you will, of course, always be the outsider. You wouldn’t want it any other way.
Our whole society isn't atomized, but the part that is was big on Mad Men.
Question: Why are you a Democrat?
Barbra Streisand: The Democrats have always been the party of working people and minorities. I’ve always identified with the minorities.
As a Jew, and as a woman growing up in Brooklyn in a poor neighborhood.
Barbara Streisand interview on America Online, November 2, 1998
****************************************************************************************
I wanted to express my feeling of being a minority
Whether it’s women or gays or people of color
I side with the outsider and the underdog
I have, for lack of a better word, a minority experience
Matthew Weiner interview in The Forward, March 27, 2015
****************************************************************************************
Guess it must be genetic…
Mr. Weiner is an inspiration to all the Jewish boys in America like me… That if we work hard we might some day beat the odds (and the Daves) to break into Hollywood and write for television or movies. As much as it would delight me, I don’t dare to dream that Jewish Americans like me might some day write for a reputable news media outlet like the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Republic or Slate.
One day we will arrive!
Maybe I should aim even higher and submit my application for that journalism internship with Mr. Sailer?
If none of that pans out, maybe I can just console myself that at least I could be in a fine country club and find distraction in golf.
My take on this, as someone who’s been around Jews most of my life, is that they are pretty much like everyone else except that they tend to be educated, value education, and do in fact feel a certain noblesse oblige expressed in the familiar “Tikkun olam” which as I understand it is essentially a credo of improvement, which flows naturally into progressivism of all sorts.
Having said that, there are smart Jews, dumb Jews, petty Jews, magnanimous Jews, pushy Jews, passive Jews, etc. I really don’t see the point in talking about them as a group.
By the way, probably the biggest split are Jews who are into being Jews and Jews who are tired of being Jews (not necessarily Christians, just secular people.) In the USA, you can go from one group to the other in a heartbeat: no one will notice, and frankly, nobody cares.
I think the only reason why Jews are spoken of as a collectivity in this sense is because there appears to be a belief that Jews as a group have a lot of megaphonic power, and thus, if various items on a conservative agenda could be shown to be “good for the Jews”, “the Jews” would go for it, and pretty soon we’d have no more immigrants in America.
I seriously doubt this.
As for Weiner, he reminds me of a certain class of people who, as they enter their middle years, realize that they aren’t really very happy with themselves and thus have to affiliate with something larger than themselves. So now Weiner is portraying himself as a Social Justice Warrior, who fought back against the oppressive forces of darkness that tormented him as a child. It’s not a good idea to do one’s therapy in public. It’s ludicrous.
With Jews we usually mean only people who identify as Jews. All others can reasonably ignored in this case. But making use of this restriction allows us much more useful generalizations, because people who identify as Jews have much more in common, like e.g. looking for a gallery of Jewish luminaries (which at least stimulates Jewish children's efforts or at best proves Jewish superiority).
Being a European, I have grown up with this cult of Jewish Genius embodied in Freud, Marx and Einstein. I was luckily cured from it by the work of Karl Popper who at first showed that Einstein's logic was just the opposite of the way how Marx or Freud thought. (Funnily, Popper himself was of Jewish origin, but without Jewish identity; so he didn't feel that he had to protect the reputation of Marx or Freud.)
This country club/quota stuff is very minor. I’d have thought the immigration restrictions of the 1930s would be a bigger cause of resentment. Those did real harm to Jewish people rather than Jewish pride.
I appreciate that our host, Mr. Sailer, usually focuses his observations on other figures in contemporary society rather than dwelling merely on his own experiences, like the narcissistic exercises in navel-gazing that the ladies of Slate-Salon-NewYorkTimes-HuffingtonPost foist on us with their personal experiences supposedly of universal relevance.
On the few occasions that Mr. Sailer does share some of his own biography, it serves well as background for the issues he's discussing. Nonetheless I'd be interested to know if there were some experiences, regrets, insecurities or disappointments in his past that shaped him like Mr. Weiner was scarred by his own perceived exclusion from elite Los Angeles society. Perhaps young Steve was a normal solid well adjusted, well integrated young man of the kind seldom depicted by out popular culture. Do such spiritually healthy individuals without serious cares or complexes actually exist? Indeed if Mr. Sailer benefited from the privileges of strong family and values, perhaps we should consider how other families can learn from this so they too can raise their kids with the same kind of privileges. It's not merely a question of economics or inequality either. Mr. Weiner likely lacked for nothing of the sort in his prosperous professional family but still matured with a sense of cranky bitterness. Not exactly a case for well-adjusted equanimity.
I tended to look at my upbringing and felt the glass was fourth-fifths full, while Matthew Weiner has never gotten over how his glass was one-twentieth empty.
There is the point that he might be covering up the fact that he basically wrote an extended love letter to the Fifties with all the SJW stuff--let's say we're deconstructing it so we can meticulously copy hairstyles, clothing, music, and surroundings and pretend we live there for a while. But I could see it going either way.
I probably resemble Weiner more, but my resentments aren't ethnically based.
He needs to repent and call upon God to free him from his slavery to the demonic energy of hatred. Essential to the doctrine is that humans are powerless to free themselves from being slaves to sin.
In addition to being Calvin approved, this explanation is also Occam approved.
I'm reminded of something the mattress girl at Columbia said recently, about how she and another jilted former sex partner of that German student came to an understanding of their "shared trauma" after talking about it.
So, in her case, she was a "victim" of no-strings-attached casual sex which didn't lead to her hoped-for relationship, but there's no victimology Pokemon points in being humped and dumped. So she retconned being rejected into being raped, and was feted for her courage.
If Weiner went to interviews and said, "Mad Men is based on my experience in high school. I wasn't good looking, funny, or good at sports, and I never got invited to the cool parties..." everyone would just laugh at him. But if he can shoe horn his unhappy high school experience into some kind of civil rights narrative...
When 2% of the population takes up 10% of the spots, the other 98% is going to be underrepresented. But despite their own 5 times overrepresentation, Jews still claim they are the excluded victims.
And here's Weiner, aware of Jewish overrepresentation in Hollywood, giving just that as a reason for his resentment.
"marginalized on some level because of overrepresentation" - how does that make sense? It's totally irrational.
In my experience, there is one thing Jews are right about, and that is that anti-semitism tends to make people crazy. Anti-semites raise valid points, but they also go off the deep end about holocaust denial, banking conspiracies, zionist occupied governments, and so on.
But in the same way, Jewish anti-gentilism makes Jews crazy.
So the position I'd like to propose is this: minimalist anti-semitism, which consists only of the proposition that Jews are biased against gentiles. That's it.
All ethnic groups are biased against one another, so all this really amounts to is saying: Jews are people too.
When even overrepresentation isn't good enough for Jews, when even that becomes a source of resentment, all they are doing is revealing their bias against gentiles.
Instead of Jewish resentment like Weiner's being seen as the normal way all smart people think, it will be something we can point to and say "that's just a Jew being biased against gentiles." It will help prevent gentiles from internalizing Jewish prejudice and distorting their own self-conception.
"Jews are biased against gentiles" - that's all you need. But doesn't everyone already know that Jews are biased? Nope, no one ever taught me that growing up, I had to piece it together from stuff I read on the internet.
Another way of saying it is Jews are extremely ethnocentric. Everyone generally favors their own ethnicity and culture, except for Sweden of course.
Steve, did you ever read Ben Stein’s story “The Bad Girls of Gamma Nu”? Real life anti-semitism (supposedly) of the kind Weiner imagines, at a USC sorority.
http://unz.org/Pub/Search/?ContentType=Article&XPeriod=1986&Author=ben+stein&Action=Search
“All of these jokes that we make about ourselves are based on stereotypes. I’ve experienced direct anti-Semitism because for some reason or other I’ve been in situations where people didn’t know I was Jewish. ”
This reminds of African American discussion boards where some Blacks on the internet claim that they are so light skin that they have experienced situations where White people were making anti-Black jokes within close hearing distance because they did not know they were in the same presence as a Black person.
Some Jews like Matthew Weiner like to compare the Jewish people with “Caucasian looking African Americans” meaning that mentality of we look White but we are not actually White.
As we approach the anniversary Elliot Rodger’s ‘Day of Retribution’ it maybe that Weiner is higher functioning version of Rodger. Here is some of Rodger’s high school memories from his ‘manifesto’.
“Some boys randomly pushed me against the lockers as they walked past me in the hall. One boy who was tall and had blonde hair called me a “loser”, right in front of his girlfriends. Yes, he had girls with him. Pretty girls. And they didn’t seem to mind that he was such an evil bastard. In fact, I bet they liked him for it. This is how girls are, and I was starting to realize it…”
Did something like this happen to Matthew or was Matthew, like Rodger, obsessed with status, money and power? More from Rodger’s manifesto.
“What a bitter coincidence, that right at the point when my life fell even deeper into agony, my father is cursed with this financial crisis. Right at the time when I needed
my father’s support the most, he lost all of his assets. It was as if some malevolent being cursed me with bad luck. I truly had no advantage at all. The universe was not kind to me. I formed an ideology in my head of how the world should work. I was fueled both by my desire to destroy all of the injustices of the world, and to exact revenge on everyone I envy and hate. I decided that my destiny in life is to rise to power so I can impose my ideology on the world and set everything right.”
Obviously they do feel a sense of noblesse oblige, but towards Sephardic, Mizrahi and former Soviet Jews. Expecting them to develop that sense toward the goyim was naive of you, Steve. Have you read any history? Or was that noblesse oblige thing of yours just a rhetorical device? If it hasn’t happened once in all these centuries, why would it happen now?
Nice way to put it.
There is the point that he might be covering up the fact that he basically wrote an extended love letter to the Fifties with all the SJW stuff–let’s say we’re deconstructing it so we can meticulously copy hairstyles, clothing, music, and surroundings and pretend we live there for a while. But I could see it going either way.
I probably resemble Weiner more, but my resentments aren’t ethnically based.
But Freud, Marx, and Einstein looks a bit lackluster in comparison.Even Einstein can't compensate for the other two fellows.
Still, I've been racking my brain trying to think of a Jewish equivalent.Einstein and Durkheim are easy enough,as a duo, but then what? Spinoza? Ricardo?
Marx wrote a good critique of capitalism, even if his solutions left a lot to be desired.
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor–you have an actual physical universe you’re trying to explain.
I am experiencing a deep aporia as I read this post. About 50 years ago, I was rummaging in the kitchen cupboard for something to eat. The regular cereal was all gone, there as no peanut butter, there was a can of chow mein in a cupboard, and what looked to be a really old can of oysters. I found a box of Grape Nuts that my mother would eat (she worked and was out a lot) and just as, say, a box of Trix will have some fun fact on it, Grapes Nuts had fun facts on it, too. On this particular box there was a picture of Sigmund Freud on the side, along with a little caption of what he had done. He had discovered the Unconscious.
That blew my mind. You mean, before Freud, nobody knew there was an unconscious? I pondered that for a long time. It sounded so strange. Sort of like, Malcolm X discovered that people have dreams. Really?!
Of course Freud didn't discover the unconscious. Many philosophers have pondered it going back at least to the Hellenistic philosophers of the Alexandrian period. They just didn't have the right lingo for describing it. That came with the interior monologs of German philosophy, and especially Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. That's why I consider Freud first and foremost a continuation of that tradition, and of some value as such a continuation (an amalgam of Jewish philosophy also.) He is useful in that way. As medical practice, I don't think so.
Freud discovered nothing.
The concept of unconscious processes affecting human behaviour is embedded in many cultures.
More specifically, the notion of a sub-stratum of the mind - a term yet to be comprehensively defined, much less understood - being unconscious was recorded by at least one Spanish monk in the 14c: half a millennium before Freud's resurrection. (Cf. "The Literature of the Spanish People" , Gerald Brennan (Penguin).
Even some of my own people the Italians have also adopted the flight from White mentality. This Italian American guy made a Youtube talking about how he is not White.
But Freud, Marx, and Einstein looks a bit lackluster in comparison.Even Einstein can't compensate for the other two fellows.
Still, I've been racking my brain trying to think of a Jewish equivalent.Einstein and Durkheim are easy enough,as a duo, but then what? Spinoza? Ricardo?
Well, the Anglos have Newton, Hume, and Adam Smith; that’s certainly a trinity to envy.
Except that Hume and Smith were Scots. I suppose you could drop Newton and add Jamie Watt and have a Scottish trilogy that ruled the earth.
These trilogies are fun. Hans von Buelow used to say: “Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and all the rest were cretins.” To which Moszkowski replied: “Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Moszkowski: and all the rest were Christians.”
I am an ominivorous reader and while browsing in a bookstore 30 years ago I came across a “Big Book of Jews” thing which had lots of graphics and was clearly printed to increase group self esteem in the target audience. On one page, there was a cartoon depiction of Einstein, Marx, and Freud, all together, smiling, like they were just schmoozing while hanging out at the local deli. The caption was something like, “That’s right: the three most important people in the modern world were Einstein, Marx, and Freud — and they were all Jews!” I thought it was kind of funny.
Yeah, I see it a lot more, but that’s mostly on manosphere sites. Which aren’t exactly representative of America as a whole.
The stereotypes are as likely to help you as hurt you at this point. (“Maybe he’s smart and/or loaded! Let’s hire him!”)
Except that Hume and Smith were Scots. I suppose you could drop Newton and add Jamie Watt and have a Scottish trilogy that ruled the earth.
These trilogies are fun. Hans von Buelow used to say: "Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and all the rest were cretins." To which Moszkowski replied: "Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Moszkowski: and all the rest were Christians."
I am an ominivorous reader and while browsing in a bookstore 30 years ago I came across a "Big Book of Jews" thing which had lots of graphics and was clearly printed to increase group self esteem in the target audience. On one page, there was a cartoon depiction of Einstein, Marx, and Freud, all together, smiling, like they were just schmoozing while hanging out at the local deli. The caption was something like, "That's right: the three most important people in the modern world were Einstein, Marx, and Freud -- and they were all Jews!" I thought it was kind of funny.
That’s why I said Anglos, not English.
Southern California outside of Hollywood was a hotbed of anti-Semitism up to the 50s. Much of its population was composed of rural farmers untill then. But much of it had abated by the time Wiener was a youth in the 60s and 70s. Wiener might not so much be recalling his own youth and experience as the stories he had undoubtedly heard growing up of when the area had been a fever swamp of anti-Semitism in recent memory.
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor--you have an actual physical universe you're trying to explain.
Freud did discover the unconscious
I am experiencing a deep aporia as I read this post. About 50 years ago, I was rummaging in the kitchen cupboard for something to eat. The regular cereal was all gone, there as no peanut butter, there was a can of chow mein in a cupboard, and what looked to be a really old can of oysters. I found a box of Grape Nuts that my mother would eat (she worked and was out a lot) and just as, say, a box of Trix will have some fun fact on it, Grapes Nuts had fun facts on it, too. On this particular box there was a picture of Sigmund Freud on the side, along with a little caption of what he had done. He had discovered the Unconscious.
That blew my mind. You mean, before Freud, nobody knew there was an unconscious? I pondered that for a long time. It sounded so strange. Sort of like, Malcolm X discovered that people have dreams. Really?!
Of course Freud didn’t discover the unconscious. Many philosophers have pondered it going back at least to the Hellenistic philosophers of the Alexandrian period. They just didn’t have the right lingo for describing it. That came with the interior monologs of German philosophy, and especially Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. That’s why I consider Freud first and foremost a continuation of that tradition, and of some value as such a continuation (an amalgam of Jewish philosophy also.) He is useful in that way. As medical practice, I don’t think so.
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor--you have an actual physical universe you're trying to explain.
Not a very difficult task
The unconscious has a genealogy that goes back to Plato.By the time Freud started work, it was a cliche.And Freud’s take on it was absurd
But Freud, Marx, and Einstein looks a bit lackluster in comparison.Even Einstein can't compensate for the other two fellows.
Still, I've been racking my brain trying to think of a Jewish equivalent.Einstein and Durkheim are easy enough,as a duo, but then what? Spinoza? Ricardo?
I’d say Husserl. He wasn’t an equivalent; he was greater than any Anglo philosopher. The English/Scots are weak in philosophy.
Husserl was a greater thinker than Einstein, but physics has more prestige.
Plus he converted to Christianity.
Off-topic:
http://variety.com/2014/film/markets-festivals/berlin-film-festival-review-gueros-1201092018/
Thanks, Steve. Additional confirmation of my initial negative reaction to the show when it first came out.
Well said. This guy is nuts.
Husserl was a greater thinker than Einstein, but physics has more prestige.
I don’t think too many people would go with the idea that Husserl was a greater philosopher than Hume. He certainly was nowhere as influential as Hume, or Locke, or others.
Plus he converted to Christianity.
When 2% of the population takes up 10% of the spots, the other 98% is going to be underrepresented. But despite their own 5 times overrepresentation, Jews still claim they are the excluded victims.
And here's Weiner, aware of Jewish overrepresentation in Hollywood, giving just that as a reason for his resentment.
"marginalized on some level because of overrepresentation" - how does that make sense? It's totally irrational.
In my experience, there is one thing Jews are right about, and that is that anti-semitism tends to make people crazy. Anti-semites raise valid points, but they also go off the deep end about holocaust denial, banking conspiracies, zionist occupied governments, and so on.
But in the same way, Jewish anti-gentilism makes Jews crazy.
So the position I'd like to propose is this: minimalist anti-semitism, which consists only of the proposition that Jews are biased against gentiles. That's it.
All ethnic groups are biased against one another, so all this really amounts to is saying: Jews are people too.
When even overrepresentation isn't good enough for Jews, when even that becomes a source of resentment, all they are doing is revealing their bias against gentiles.
Instead of Jewish resentment like Weiner's being seen as the normal way all smart people think, it will be something we can point to and say "that's just a Jew being biased against gentiles." It will help prevent gentiles from internalizing Jewish prejudice and distorting their own self-conception.
"Jews are biased against gentiles" - that's all you need. But doesn't everyone already know that Jews are biased? Nope, no one ever taught me that growing up, I had to piece it together from stuff I read on the internet.
>>….there is another example of anti-semitism Jews bring up, which is the Ivy League quotas. Such policies limited Jews to around 10-15% of students.
Please put this quota business in the correct context. When Jewish quotas were established for Harvard back in the 1920s Harvard was largely a finishing school for the Wasp elite. There was very little competition among the best and brightest across the land to attend Harvard, and only a minuscule amount were even encouraged to apply or had any interest in doing so. Likewise, It never occurred to Harvard or Yale to seek out the best and brightest across the land, or even the northeast for that matter. Suddenly, Harvard is inundated with Jewish applicants who indeed did score high enough on the the Harvard admissions test (an achievement test) to beat out the scions and legacies. Big deal, no great shakes. Basically, Jews gamed the system. They weren’t competing with the best and brightest across the land to get into this prestigious institution, they were competing against a slightly higher than mediocre group of legacies and scions. In response to this Harvard had every right to establish reasonable quotas that both recognized Jewish achievement while upholding Harvard’s legacy. But Jews have distorted this whole quota business – as if they uniquely were denied entry into Harvard despite overwhelming testament to their superior achievement – and won’t let anybody forget it. And here is something that we know with 100% certainty: today there are Jewish men and women sitting in Harvard or Yale with lower grades and test scores than Asians who were denied admission due to quotas. If Jews wish to talk about quotas, these quotas are more appropriate.
Speaking of Mad Men, the ginger haired Joan Harris is married to an ugly Pakistani guy in real life. They are a real life beauty and the beast couple. What is it with White women and Pakistani guys? This pairing seems to be quite common, especially in Great Britain. This combo is strange because Pakistani guys are not known for having handsome good looks.
You are crazy. The guy's name is Geoffrey Arend, he was born in NYC and his father is as white as whites get.
How much physics do you suppose Weiner actually understands?
I have to believe that only name recognition, rather than the merits of their work, accounts for his enthusiasm for these three.
@dearieme
How much physics do you suppose Weiner actually understands?"
Likely, next to none. Someone who understands physics can appreciate Einstein for his considerable and numerous accomplishments. To others, he's just a symbol - a desktop icon for "genius". To guys like Weiner, it is probably Einstein's jewishness that is important. He's a wizard - he's our wizard - the jewish Gandalf.
And, as dearieme pointed out, to place Einstein in such company - with an instigator of tyranny like Marx, or a medical fraud like Freud - is actually pretty insulting.
“The slang title refers to light-skinned and/or blond-haired Mexicans, taking ownership of a nickname that perhaps unfairly implies that “gueros” have it easier than their less-Euro-looking compatriots.”
We must fight all these unfair stereotypes of white Mexicans having it easier in Mexico than their less-Euro-looking compatriots. Look at poor Louis CK …
We must fight all these unfair stereotypes of white Mexicans having it easier in Mexico than their less-Euro-looking compatriots. Look at poor Louis CK …"
Louis CK strikes me as the type of Mexican that would feel more culturally comfortable hanging out with SWPL types in Newport Beach and Beverly Hills than he would hanging with working class Mestizo/Amerindian Mexicans in East Los Angeles, South Central, and Compton who drive six four impala lowriders.
Louis CK is more culturally Gringo than he is culturally Mexican.
The analogy that often comes to my mind is the supposed tendency of European noblemen and monarchs in Olden Times to give alms to hideously deformed beggars or lepers, sometimes even gold pieces. Presumably such massive displays of public generosity were meant to raise their popularity and justify their rule under God, but it didn’t seem to spare them from the guillotine following the French Revolution.
I don’t think too many of the Wall Street or Hollywood types believe in God, but they seem to be following the same sort of principle in all this transexualism advocacy. Comes the Change I doubt it will ultimately do much good for them either.
I always assumed that World War T/G was meant to distract the population, but another intriguing possibility is that WWTG is meant to demonstrate to the masses that the rulers are kindly and compassionate and therefore should continue ruling. Giving alms to the most disadvantaged elements of the population establishes that.
A Google News search for “David Letterman” yields 10.8 million results… significantly more than Mad Men.
Yet you’re not writing about Letterman’s anti-White political advocacy. For example:
Plus he converted to Christianity.
People in the US and UK certainly wouldn’t. But many people in the US and the UK have never even heard of Husserl. In Europe he’s been more influential than Hume or Locke.
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor--you have an actual physical universe you're trying to explain.
@ SFG
Freud discovered nothing.
The concept of unconscious processes affecting human behaviour is embedded in many cultures.
More specifically, the notion of a sub-stratum of the mind – a term yet to be comprehensively defined, much less understood – being unconscious was recorded by at least one Spanish monk in the 14c: half a millennium before Freud’s resurrection. (Cf. “The Literature of the Spanish People” , Gerald Brennan (Penguin).
Mr. Weiner may identify with people of color, but I do not believe the sentiment is reciprocal. Throughout my primary and secondary years in Philadelphia public schools I was simply known as “white boy.” Ironically, the only person who ever identified me as Jewish was a Palestinian. The anti-semitism that Weiner “suffered” was the failure of Anglos to notice his Jewishness. I would be happy to introduce him to people of color who will fully appreciate his Jewishness and give him their full and undivided attention.
All of Matthew Weiner’s delusions and bad behavior can be simply explained if you accept the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity.
He needs to repent and call upon God to free him from his slavery to the demonic energy of hatred. Essential to the doctrine is that humans are powerless to free themselves from being slaves to sin.
In addition to being Calvin approved, this explanation is also Occam approved.
““The slang title refers to light-skinned and/or blond-haired Mexicans, taking ownership of a nickname that perhaps unfairly implies that “gueros” have it easier than their less-Euro-looking compatriots.”
We must fight all these unfair stereotypes of white Mexicans having it easier in Mexico than their less-Euro-looking compatriots. Look at poor Louis CK …”
Louis CK strikes me as the type of Mexican that would feel more culturally comfortable hanging out with SWPL types in Newport Beach and Beverly Hills than he would hanging with working class Mestizo/Amerindian Mexicans in East Los Angeles, South Central, and Compton who drive six four impala lowriders.
Louis CK is more culturally Gringo than he is culturally Mexican.
Everything is heritable, Mr. Weiner. You've obviously inherited a group of traits that have given you a proclivity toward feeling the victim---a persecution complex is the result. (Martyr or victimhood status comes in handy for people who emotionally need excuses for why they're not "this" or why they've not accomplished "that").
I suspect that had you gone to an expensive all Jewish high school, you'd have written a series about how you were THE OUTSIDER there too.
No matter where you are or who or what they group around you, Mr. Weiner, you will, of course, always be the outsider. You wouldn't want it any other way.
In an atomized society, everyone is an outsider.
Our whole society isn’t atomized, but the part that is was big on Mad Men.
I don't think too many of the Wall Street or Hollywood types believe in God, but they seem to be following the same sort of principle in all this transexualism advocacy. Comes the Change I doubt it will ultimately do much good for them either.
You really think there’ll be a Change? I just see a vague Brazilianization of the USA with a downward IQ drift. I don’t think there’ll be mass lynchings of white people; you’ll just have lots and lots of mestizos and castizos, and blacks will wind up separate and unequal, as always.
(That, and the weather, music, and girls are nicer.)
Having said that, there are smart Jews, dumb Jews, petty Jews, magnanimous Jews, pushy Jews, passive Jews, etc. I really don't see the point in talking about them as a group.
By the way, probably the biggest split are Jews who are into being Jews and Jews who are tired of being Jews (not necessarily Christians, just secular people.) In the USA, you can go from one group to the other in a heartbeat: no one will notice, and frankly, nobody cares.
I think the only reason why Jews are spoken of as a collectivity in this sense is because there appears to be a belief that Jews as a group have a lot of megaphonic power, and thus, if various items on a conservative agenda could be shown to be "good for the Jews", "the Jews" would go for it, and pretty soon we'd have no more immigrants in America.
I seriously doubt this.
As for Weiner, he reminds me of a certain class of people who, as they enter their middle years, realize that they aren't really very happy with themselves and thus have to affiliate with something larger than themselves. So now Weiner is portraying himself as a Social Justice Warrior, who fought back against the oppressive forces of darkness that tormented him as a child. It's not a good idea to do one's therapy in public. It's ludicrous.
If only Jews themselves were of the same opinion, then we’d be getting somewhere.
Freud did discover the unconscious, even if he went way overboard with bizarre theories.
Einstein may have been lucky in that science requires a lot more intellectual rigor--you have an actual physical universe you're trying to explain.
Marx: 95% of his writings were on simple economics, all of which is now ignored, because it was wrong. It was based on the labor theory of value, which even current socialists don’t believe. That was the basis for his theory of value, so it wasn’t a minor mistake. His understanding of business cycles was also incorrect (supposedly, they would get wider over time), and the nature of profit (supposedly would fall over time in aggregate), and simple human nature (he thought we had more than enough productivity to do whatever we pleased, so that if we redistributed rewards we would all float about like rich kids, doing whatever struck our fancy). Marx lives on in literature, sociology, anthropology, and other fields, but only because they like the class struggle dichotomy. yet this is incorrect in that coalitions are not top vs. bottom, but top/bottom vs. middle or some other complex coalition. Top vs. bottom fails because the bottom is too numerous so the top needs a way to coax the bottom aboard. Baptists and bootleggers is a better theory of coalitions.
As per Freud, his theories were based on the Sherlock Holmes books he loved as a child, where the solution to the problem was subtle and clever. Thus, the Oedipus complex and other insane theories that I think are only plausible because their tint of classical allusions and other intellectual conceits (how many of you ever remember wanting to kill your dad and have sex with your mom?). He was always the smartest boy in his class, and unfortunately, he took his ability to win any debate to the Dark Side, and convince people of an absurd theory that–as Karl Popper showed–could not be falsified. I’ll give him ‘projection,’ however.
It is relevant to remember that while Marx and Freud were considered two of histories geniuses circa 1950, I think it’s reasonable to say they were simple anomalies with no lasting impact on our understanding of the mind or society.
GrumpyOldMan wrote:
I’m an American Jew in my 60s, and he seems like a crackpot to me too. I think there is a spectrum of racial paranoia among American Jews, ranging from people like you and me who feel none to people who feel a lot. This guy is an extreme outlier.
I agree with you completely, and in fact, if it were in my power, I would amend US law and policy to preserve a white, northwestern European majority. This would be very difficult at this late date given the fact that adult Americans of tomorrow have already been born, and increasingly, these newly-born Americans are majority non-white.
But let’s face it: you and I are probably outliers in the opposite direction. 🙂
Given the 58% outmarriage rate for American Jews, I suspect most of them are closer to our end of the spectrum than Weiner’s.
Is it possible that Matthew Weiner was just unhappy and excluded in high school for reasons that had nothing to do with him being Jewish, and, in this era of victimology Pokemon points, he’s retconned the typical travails of being an uncool high schooler into antisemitism?
I’m reminded of something the mattress girl at Columbia said recently, about how she and another jilted former sex partner of that German student came to an understanding of their “shared trauma” after talking about it.
So, in her case, she was a “victim” of no-strings-attached casual sex which didn’t lead to her hoped-for relationship, but there’s no victimology Pokemon points in being humped and dumped. So she retconned being rejected into being raped, and was feted for her courage.
If Weiner went to interviews and said, “Mad Men is based on my experience in high school. I wasn’t good looking, funny, or good at sports, and I never got invited to the cool parties…” everyone would just laugh at him. But if he can shoe horn his unhappy high school experience into some kind of civil rights narrative…
I’m reminded of something the mattress girl at Columbia said recently, about how she and another jilted former sex partner of that German student came to an understanding of their “shared trauma” after talking about it.
So, in her case, she was a “victim” of no-strings-attached casual sex which didn’t lead to her hoped-for relationship, but there’s no victimology Pokemon points in being humped and dumped. So she retconned being rejected into being raped, and was feted for her courage.
If Weiner went to interviews and said, “Mad Men is based on my experience in high school. I wasn’t good looking, funny, or good at sports, and I never got invited to the cool parties…” everyone would just laugh at him. But if he can shoe horn his unhappy high school experience into some kind of civil rights narrative…"
Yeah I agree that Matthew Weiner was unpopular in high school because he was a geeky nerd, not because he is Jewish.
Yes.
If you look at the long-term national debt projections, there’s absolutely no way that the US can continue spending like this. There will eventually come a debt crisis, which will force huge cuts in spending (defense, education, Medicare, SS) and tax hikes. Those spending cuts and tax hikes will decimate the middle class standard of living, especially for senior citizens. Of course, even non-seniors will be affected, as they rely on their parents/grandparents for intergenerational wealth transfer.
This will be worsened by the large-scale elimination of jobs by robotics/software automation. So I see a future of high joblessness and low wages.
When the middle-class economy collapses and turns into a two-tier wealthy/poor society, the masses will turn their rage on their politicians and want them “to do something.” When the politicians can’t do anything, then it’ll get interesting.
The reason for the NSA surveillance/security state isn’t to catch terrorists. It’s to keep rebellions suppressed when there’s finally an outburst of national outrage. If the security state is unable to get the funds it needs during the coming debt crisis, then it’ll be much more difficult to suppress the population.
We shall live in interesting times.
Those US population projections (80+ million people within 35 years) aren’t realistic. America won’t be able to create enough jobs for all those additional migrants.
I'm reminded of something the mattress girl at Columbia said recently, about how she and another jilted former sex partner of that German student came to an understanding of their "shared trauma" after talking about it.
So, in her case, she was a "victim" of no-strings-attached casual sex which didn't lead to her hoped-for relationship, but there's no victimology Pokemon points in being humped and dumped. So she retconned being rejected into being raped, and was feted for her courage.
If Weiner went to interviews and said, "Mad Men is based on my experience in high school. I wasn't good looking, funny, or good at sports, and I never got invited to the cool parties..." everyone would just laugh at him. But if he can shoe horn his unhappy high school experience into some kind of civil rights narrative...
“Is it possible that Matthew Weiner was just unhappy and excluded in high school for reasons that had nothing to do with him being Jewish, and, in this era of victimology Pokemon points, he’s retconned the typical travails of being an uncool high schooler into antisemitism?
I’m reminded of something the mattress girl at Columbia said recently, about how she and another jilted former sex partner of that German student came to an understanding of their “shared trauma” after talking about it.
So, in her case, she was a “victim” of no-strings-attached casual sex which didn’t lead to her hoped-for relationship, but there’s no victimology Pokemon points in being humped and dumped. So she retconned being rejected into being raped, and was feted for her courage.
If Weiner went to interviews and said, “Mad Men is based on my experience in high school. I wasn’t good looking, funny, or good at sports, and I never got invited to the cool parties…” everyone would just laugh at him. But if he can shoe horn his unhappy high school experience into some kind of civil rights narrative…”
Yeah I agree that Matthew Weiner was unpopular in high school because he was a geeky nerd, not because he is Jewish.
Yet you're not writing about Letterman's anti-White political advocacy. For example:
If Letterman were giving a lot of interviews about his high school days in Indiana two miles from my Indiana high school, and his high school was my high school’s arch-rival in debate, and we were closer in age, and I knew Letterman’s memories of high school, which he keeps citing as a sort of Rosetta Stone for understanding the Late Night Show, were tendentious, then, yeah, I’d have a lot to say about Letterman.
But it seems the outcome is that your readers make comments displaying a colossal availability bias.
Your readers think Matthew Weiner has committed a crime against their interests by including extremely innocuous elements like Pete Campbell saying “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.”
Meanwhile, your readers are uninformed that other figures are doing real things 1000s of times worse, like David Letterman, Angelina Jolie, Richard Branson, Joss Whedon, the Catrambone couple who should be infamous here, etc.
If tendentiousness is the target, there's plenty of it in those figures' far worse actions, yet they get a free pass here, and thus they, the actual causes of trends in the world, can never learn they're doing something wrong.
His upbringing was “middle class”? Jesus, this guy is delusional.
I don't think too many of the Wall Street or Hollywood types believe in God, but they seem to be following the same sort of principle in all this transexualism advocacy. Comes the Change I doubt it will ultimately do much good for them either.
Interesting analogy.
I always assumed that World War T/G was meant to distract the population, but another intriguing possibility is that WWTG is meant to demonstrate to the masses that the rulers are kindly and compassionate and therefore should continue ruling. Giving alms to the most disadvantaged elements of the population establishes that.
Suppose that Kim III officially declares that the Moon is made of blue cheese. Who would question that? Dimwitted people would believe whatever they heard on TeeVee. Cowardly people would just keep quiet or mouth the propaganda. Dishonest, opportunistic people would shout the slogan and endlessly promote it. Those sorts aren't much threat to the Regime.
On the other hand, a few people might raise questions about the dogma, revealing themselves to be exactly the sort of individuals who might eventually question other, far more serious matters. And purging them on the blue cheese nonsense tends to avoid bringing unwanted attention to those other issues. Furthermore, if some borderline people grit their teeth and publicly endorse the blue cheese question, their spirits may have been partially broken, making it less psychologically likely they'll eventually rebel over other matters. Towards the end of the USSR almost nobody believed in the regime ideology, but most people still pretended they did.
I think Orwell made some of these points in 1984.
So the reason the King walks down the street naked in his imaginary suit is to draw out and catch those people unwilling to say they see what isn't there.
In an actual historical example, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse to the highest official government position in the Roman State. How better to break the spirit of potentially disloyal Senators and military commanders, and determine which of them might have independent thoughts.
This sort of system tends to be metastable, holding together until sufficient pressure causes a crack to develop, at which point the entire edifice collapses, possibly in very messy ways. Eventually Caligula and almost all of his relatives were butchered in a revolt by the top imperial courtiers and the palace guard.
Husserl was a greater thinker than Einstein, but physics has more prestige.
Scotus? Anselm? Russell?
So, the people who benefited the most from the Anglo-American-created socio-political order hate Anglo-Americans the most.
Wow.
Steve, maybe elite Jews like to play up the WASP bogeyman to distract from their own machinations in Wall Street, politics, and foreign policy. Jewish leaders are involved in massive amounts of corrupt activity and it’s only natural that they should feel nervous. Obsessing over the crimes (even fictional crimes) of aged or long-dead WASPs gives cover for all these Jewish oligarchs robbing the American masses and sending US soldiers to die for Israeli national security. Fictionalizing accounts of WASP bigotry also helps Jews to play the victim, which is useful when your ethnic group’s leaders are running the country into the ground.
But Weiner is for noblesse oblige. He says so:
"Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog."
He's saying that his people competed with Wasp for the power, and his people won. But he never forgot where he came from. Even though he made it, he still cares for the underdogs and outcasts.
So far so good.
But here's the problem. The class of underdogs are not uniform in success or power. For instance, certain groups of minorities are far more successful than others. Asians in academics, blacks in sports. Women not so much in fashion as they should be.
If Weiner is for the people of color, and if the people of color in California are with BDS in support of underdog Palestinians, where is Weiner on that? Should he side with the people of color and Palestinians against Zionism or will he side with Zionism(favored by GOP)?
Another problem is there's a certain irony to how all this noblesse oblige dynamics play out.
Wasps could have had more noblesse oblige precisely because they were more exclusive. Feeling comfortable in their position of power, they may felt they should act as a honorable ruling class.
In contrast, Jewish narrative is all about struggling to rise to the top and break down the gate of privilege to get in. To the extent that Jews want to hold the door wide open so that others will get in, they can be said to be operating in the mode of noblesse oblige.
But because they are so busy identifying with 'victimized' underdogs, they are blind to their new status as the ruling class and, worse, blind to the fact that they use various tricks to ensure and favor Jewish power over all else. They keep the door open for more to get in but fill up the room with so much Jewish aggressiveness and acrimony that many dare not approach the door... except as servants. Most gentile politicians might as well be butlers to the new ruling class.
Wasps were more exclusive but also more caring. Jews are more inclusive(officially) but less caring. Wasps, feeling confident as rulers, were willing to ease their own privilege in favor of principles. Jews, still ferocious in their underdog mentality, continue to act in ways that favor Jewish interests above all else.
Jews are now in a unique position as the most powerful overdogs and most outspoken underdogs. They occupy top position in both. And this mentality is actually most encouraged by the GOP that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party as 'antisemitic' for negotiating with Iran and not cheering Netanyahu loudly enough.
The result can be amusing, like what happened to Rick Sanchez. An underdog 'person of color' left out in the cold because he noticed that Jews are not the underdogs of America.
“Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog.”
Doctor dad, fancy-pants neighborhood, posh private school – Matthew Weiner considers this middle class? I think he’s a little out of touch with reality. Generally speaking, this is about as good as it gets, with the exception of those whose incomes/wealth are really in the stratosphere.
I have to believe that only name recognition, rather than the merits of their work, accounts for his enthusiasm for these three.
“PV van der Byl says:
How much physics do you suppose Weiner actually understands?”
Likely, next to none. Someone who understands physics can appreciate Einstein for his considerable and numerous accomplishments. To others, he’s just a symbol – a desktop icon for “genius”. To guys like Weiner, it is probably Einstein’s jewishness that is important. He’s a wizard – he’s our wizard – the jewish Gandalf.
And, as dearieme pointed out, to place Einstein in such company – with an instigator of tyranny like Marx, or a medical fraud like Freud – is actually pretty insulting.
I always assumed that World War T/G was meant to distract the population, but another intriguing possibility is that WWTG is meant to demonstrate to the masses that the rulers are kindly and compassionate and therefore should continue ruling. Giving alms to the most disadvantaged elements of the population establishes that.
Actually, another suspicion I’ve often had is that much of that massively-promoted total nonsense like transexualism and Gay Marriage is meant to flush out and expose potential troublemakers potentially lurking within ranks of the elite before they can rise high enough to become a serious problem. In support of this hypothesis, the leading purge victims are usually found within the fields of popular culture, entertainment, celebrity, and the media, which constitute a crucial chokepoint in controlling our society. It’s obviously much easier and safer to detect and purge a future Mel Gibson while he’s just a rising young actor than after he’s spent a dozen years as Hollywood’s #1 star.
Suppose that Kim III officially declares that the Moon is made of blue cheese. Who would question that? Dimwitted people would believe whatever they heard on TeeVee. Cowardly people would just keep quiet or mouth the propaganda. Dishonest, opportunistic people would shout the slogan and endlessly promote it. Those sorts aren’t much threat to the Regime.
On the other hand, a few people might raise questions about the dogma, revealing themselves to be exactly the sort of individuals who might eventually question other, far more serious matters. And purging them on the blue cheese nonsense tends to avoid bringing unwanted attention to those other issues. Furthermore, if some borderline people grit their teeth and publicly endorse the blue cheese question, their spirits may have been partially broken, making it less psychologically likely they’ll eventually rebel over other matters. Towards the end of the USSR almost nobody believed in the regime ideology, but most people still pretended they did.
I think Orwell made some of these points in 1984.
So the reason the King walks down the street naked in his imaginary suit is to draw out and catch those people unwilling to say they see what isn’t there.
In an actual historical example, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse to the highest official government position in the Roman State. How better to break the spirit of potentially disloyal Senators and military commanders, and determine which of them might have independent thoughts.
This sort of system tends to be metastable, holding together until sufficient pressure causes a crack to develop, at which point the entire edifice collapses, possibly in very messy ways. Eventually Caligula and almost all of his relatives were butchered in a revolt by the top imperial courtiers and the palace guard.
指鹿為馬
“Jewish American says:
I have friends who see anti-Semitism everywhere they look. They’re not making it up; they really do.”
Woody Allen satirized that in Annie Hall (I think it was) – when his character endlessly dissected a brief encounter he had with someone who asked him “D’you eat?” thinking he had said “Jew eat?”
“SPMoore8 says:
@syon
“”Well, the Anglos have Newton, Hume, and Adam Smith; that’s certainly a trinity to envy.””
Except that Hume and Smith were Scots.”
A lot of lowland scots have a lot anglo-saxon ancestry, or scandinavian – germanic at any rate. Smith, for example, is not a celtic name.
“Dave Pinsen says:
Is it possible that Matthew Weiner was just unhappy and excluded in high school for reasons that had nothing to do with him being Jewish, and, in this era of victimology Pokemon points, he’s retconned the typical travails of being an uncool high schooler into antisemitism?”
Maybe Weiner’s avatar on the series is not Don Draper. Maybe it’s really Pete Campbell.
I’m going to agree with some previous commenters that describing his family as “middle class” is pretty ridiculous, given who his father is. But then again millionaires always feel poor in the company of billionaires…
@dearieme
How much physics do you suppose Weiner actually understands?"
Likely, next to none. Someone who understands physics can appreciate Einstein for his considerable and numerous accomplishments. To others, he's just a symbol - a desktop icon for "genius". To guys like Weiner, it is probably Einstein's jewishness that is important. He's a wizard - he's our wizard - the jewish Gandalf.
And, as dearieme pointed out, to place Einstein in such company - with an instigator of tyranny like Marx, or a medical fraud like Freud - is actually pretty insulting.
Einstein isn’t just famous for his physics. See Freeman Dyson’s recent review in the NY Review of Books of a new biography with a clever title, Einstein: His Space and Times.
Suppose that Kim III officially declares that the Moon is made of blue cheese. Who would question that? Dimwitted people would believe whatever they heard on TeeVee. Cowardly people would just keep quiet or mouth the propaganda. Dishonest, opportunistic people would shout the slogan and endlessly promote it. Those sorts aren't much threat to the Regime.
On the other hand, a few people might raise questions about the dogma, revealing themselves to be exactly the sort of individuals who might eventually question other, far more serious matters. And purging them on the blue cheese nonsense tends to avoid bringing unwanted attention to those other issues. Furthermore, if some borderline people grit their teeth and publicly endorse the blue cheese question, their spirits may have been partially broken, making it less psychologically likely they'll eventually rebel over other matters. Towards the end of the USSR almost nobody believed in the regime ideology, but most people still pretended they did.
I think Orwell made some of these points in 1984.
So the reason the King walks down the street naked in his imaginary suit is to draw out and catch those people unwilling to say they see what isn't there.
In an actual historical example, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse to the highest official government position in the Roman State. How better to break the spirit of potentially disloyal Senators and military commanders, and determine which of them might have independent thoughts.
This sort of system tends to be metastable, holding together until sufficient pressure causes a crack to develop, at which point the entire edifice collapses, possibly in very messy ways. Eventually Caligula and almost all of his relatives were butchered in a revolt by the top imperial courtiers and the palace guard.
Our oligarchs have done the Emperor one better, as they each have seated their own personal asses, rather than horses, among our elected representatives.
@Steve Sailer
Is it possible that Matthew Weiner was just unhappy and excluded in high school for reasons that had nothing to do with him being Jewish, and, in this era of victimology Pokemon points, he’s retconned the typical travails of being an uncool high schooler into antisemitism?"
Maybe Weiner's avatar on the series is not Don Draper. Maybe it's really Pete Campbell.
I haven’t watched enough of the show to know who Pete Campbell is, but Jon Hamm’s career exemplifies a point I think a lot of us often forget: a lot of good looking, successful people didn’t get success handed to them on a silver platter; they had to hustle too.
Suppose that Kim III officially declares that the Moon is made of blue cheese. Who would question that? Dimwitted people would believe whatever they heard on TeeVee. Cowardly people would just keep quiet or mouth the propaganda. Dishonest, opportunistic people would shout the slogan and endlessly promote it. Those sorts aren't much threat to the Regime.
On the other hand, a few people might raise questions about the dogma, revealing themselves to be exactly the sort of individuals who might eventually question other, far more serious matters. And purging them on the blue cheese nonsense tends to avoid bringing unwanted attention to those other issues. Furthermore, if some borderline people grit their teeth and publicly endorse the blue cheese question, their spirits may have been partially broken, making it less psychologically likely they'll eventually rebel over other matters. Towards the end of the USSR almost nobody believed in the regime ideology, but most people still pretended they did.
I think Orwell made some of these points in 1984.
So the reason the King walks down the street naked in his imaginary suit is to draw out and catch those people unwilling to say they see what isn't there.
In an actual historical example, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse to the highest official government position in the Roman State. How better to break the spirit of potentially disloyal Senators and military commanders, and determine which of them might have independent thoughts.
This sort of system tends to be metastable, holding together until sufficient pressure causes a crack to develop, at which point the entire edifice collapses, possibly in very messy ways. Eventually Caligula and almost all of his relatives were butchered in a revolt by the top imperial courtiers and the palace guard.
Ron: please say this again in a longer piece. It’s something I’ve always thought to be true. It’s weird occasionally running into folks in, say, the local physics department who do not drink the kool aide. There is ostensibly nothing to fear: we live in a free country because the oppression isn’t always government enforced, yet we whisper like characters in a Solzhenitsyn novel for fear of being labeled thought criminals. One of my favorite pieces by Dalrymple more or less says this, but it could be expanded upon, and should be said often.
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
Another angle is that in 2008 the big money boys got caught with their pants down, but here it is seven years later and we’ve kind of moved on from worrying about that because were all supposed to be worked up over World War T.
With one big difference: you don’t need Spanish to get a job in Brazil!
(That, and the weather, music, and girls are nicer.)
A silver lining is that we don’t have to look at trannies with their pants down. Concealed carry, so to speak.
Fair enough, and I appreciate the response.
But it seems the outcome is that your readers make comments displaying a colossal availability bias.
Your readers think Matthew Weiner has committed a crime against their interests by including extremely innocuous elements like Pete Campbell saying “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.”
Meanwhile, your readers are uninformed that other figures are doing real things 1000s of times worse, like David Letterman, Angelina Jolie, Richard Branson, Joss Whedon, the Catrambone couple who should be infamous here, etc.
If tendentiousness is the target, there’s plenty of it in those figures’ far worse actions, yet they get a free pass here, and thus they, the actual causes of trends in the world, can never learn they’re doing something wrong.
And Angelina Jolie? Yeah, she's kinda weird. She also just made one of the most conservative, pro-white movies I've seen in a long time.
Anyway, TV ratings don't tell the whole story. Mad Men was very popular with a lot of the people who matter, or who think they matter - people who help form elite opinion. The NPR and Slate types gush on about it endlessly.
For the vast majority of people, their first sexual attraction is to their opposite sex parent. Children also go through a phase where they feel in competition with the same sex parent. This is pretty basic stuff, and widely accepted. Hell, you can even observe this behavior in a lot of pets.
You guys really get carried away with the Freud bashing around here. Not just Freud, but psychology in general. It’s ironic to me that so many of you believe behavior and culture arise from genetics, but pan a belief in the very mechanism that makes that link manifest itself, simply because our understanding of it is less than perfect.
I have high blood pressure. Modern medicine’s answer is to put me on medication for the rest of my life. If I were to hold them to the standard demanded of psychology, I would insist that they cure me or their entire belief system is a fraud.
It seems to be a fairly standard Jewish thing. I heard exactly the same from Jews in three different countries on many occasions.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas. Some of them are bad ideas, some of them are good or at least indisputably correct, but if your attitude is that you like things just the way that they are, ANY new ideas are bad ideas.
Here is the picture of the “ugly Pakistani guy”: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20716681,00.html
You are crazy. The guy’s name is Geoffrey Arend, he was born in NYC and his father is as white as whites get.
The Freud thing is an obvious example of how culturally powerful Jews were at the beginning of the 20th Century that they could impose their own L. Ron Hubbard-type on the world and make everybody take him seriously for 80 years. I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s.
There’s never been much of an accounting of: How did we fall for that? The obvious answer is the one put forward around 1974 by John Murray Cuddihy in “Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle With Modernity” — it was a Jewish thing:
Cuddihy was this brilliant Irish-American NYC intellectual who used the entire New York Intellectual apparatus to analyze Jewish intellectuals like Freud. It worked so well that you’ve never heard of Cuddihy.
The family seems to be doing well, though: I played 18 holes at The National in 2004 with Prof. Cuddihy’s nephew. He was getting away from the crowds next door attending the U.S. Open at his club, Shinnecock Hills.
Said it before, but I'll say it again: Emile Durkheim.If Jews want to venerate one of their own for his insights into the human psyche, Durkheim is the better choice.
As for Freud, I recommend reading:
Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend, ed Frederick Crews.
http://www.amazon.com/Unauthorized-Freud-Doubters-Confront-Legend/dp/0140280170
It clears away the myth-making quite nicely
Freud visited the USA in 1909 to give a series of lectures on his theories, and noted how enthusiastically the Americans took to his ideas, compared to his reception among Europeans.
"I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s."
The study of Freud's theories is still de rigueur for psychology students in the year 2015.
Uncovering the deep, dark secrets of the patriarchal middle class family and exposing the hypocrisy of bougeoise society, tasks which "we" have only just begun to tackle, as you well know...
Timur Kuran had a lot to say about this in his book, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification..
As a fan of classic Hollywood films, the Freudian fraud comes fast and heavy, in practically every Golden Age film dealing, directly or tangentially, with psychology or psychiatry. The practitioners of the latter, especially, are almost always Freudians, especially during films from the 1940s. In many of them, I actually have noted the same picture of Freud hanging on the doctors’ walls! I think this Hollywood indoctrination had a lot of effect on American consciousness. There are a number of lyrics from the Great American Songbook that also laud Freud.
Suppose that Kim III officially declares that the Moon is made of blue cheese. Who would question that? Dimwitted people would believe whatever they heard on TeeVee. Cowardly people would just keep quiet or mouth the propaganda. Dishonest, opportunistic people would shout the slogan and endlessly promote it. Those sorts aren't much threat to the Regime.
On the other hand, a few people might raise questions about the dogma, revealing themselves to be exactly the sort of individuals who might eventually question other, far more serious matters. And purging them on the blue cheese nonsense tends to avoid bringing unwanted attention to those other issues. Furthermore, if some borderline people grit their teeth and publicly endorse the blue cheese question, their spirits may have been partially broken, making it less psychologically likely they'll eventually rebel over other matters. Towards the end of the USSR almost nobody believed in the regime ideology, but most people still pretended they did.
I think Orwell made some of these points in 1984.
So the reason the King walks down the street naked in his imaginary suit is to draw out and catch those people unwilling to say they see what isn't there.
In an actual historical example, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse to the highest official government position in the Roman State. How better to break the spirit of potentially disloyal Senators and military commanders, and determine which of them might have independent thoughts.
This sort of system tends to be metastable, holding together until sufficient pressure causes a crack to develop, at which point the entire edifice collapses, possibly in very messy ways. Eventually Caligula and almost all of his relatives were butchered in a revolt by the top imperial courtiers and the palace guard.
There’s a Chinese idiom for this idea, from a similar anecdote 2200 years ago.
指鹿為馬
But Weiner is for noblesse oblige. He says so:
"Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog."
He's saying that his people competed with Wasp for the power, and his people won. But he never forgot where he came from. Even though he made it, he still cares for the underdogs and outcasts.
So far so good.
But here's the problem. The class of underdogs are not uniform in success or power. For instance, certain groups of minorities are far more successful than others. Asians in academics, blacks in sports. Women not so much in fashion as they should be.
If Weiner is for the people of color, and if the people of color in California are with BDS in support of underdog Palestinians, where is Weiner on that? Should he side with the people of color and Palestinians against Zionism or will he side with Zionism(favored by GOP)?
Another problem is there's a certain irony to how all this noblesse oblige dynamics play out.
Wasps could have had more noblesse oblige precisely because they were more exclusive. Feeling comfortable in their position of power, they may felt they should act as a honorable ruling class.
In contrast, Jewish narrative is all about struggling to rise to the top and break down the gate of privilege to get in. To the extent that Jews want to hold the door wide open so that others will get in, they can be said to be operating in the mode of noblesse oblige.
But because they are so busy identifying with 'victimized' underdogs, they are blind to their new status as the ruling class and, worse, blind to the fact that they use various tricks to ensure and favor Jewish power over all else. They keep the door open for more to get in but fill up the room with so much Jewish aggressiveness and acrimony that many dare not approach the door... except as servants. Most gentile politicians might as well be butlers to the new ruling class.
Wasps were more exclusive but also more caring. Jews are more inclusive(officially) but less caring. Wasps, feeling confident as rulers, were willing to ease their own privilege in favor of principles. Jews, still ferocious in their underdog mentality, continue to act in ways that favor Jewish interests above all else.
Jews are now in a unique position as the most powerful overdogs and most outspoken underdogs. They occupy top position in both. And this mentality is actually most encouraged by the GOP that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party as 'antisemitic' for negotiating with Iran and not cheering Netanyahu loudly enough.
The result can be amusing, like what happened to Rick Sanchez. An underdog 'person of color' left out in the cold because he noticed that Jews are not the underdogs of America.
Boy those Wasps were wonderful – caring, confident, etc. That must be why Roosevelt arranged for millions of Jewish refugees to be admitted to the US in the ’30s, thus saving them from the gas chambers. That’s why Harvard, Yale and Princeton never had quotas for Jews. Etc.
Not just Jews – in Argentina the junta was obsessed with the idea that these 3 Jews had overthrown the Christian order of the world in 3 different spheres. I guess they were still mad about Galileo too.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas. Some of them are bad ideas, some of them are good or at least indisputably correct, but if your attitude is that you like things just the way that they are, ANY new ideas are bad ideas.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas."
Right........ Whereas gentiles - they just stand in a field and chew cud. No new ideas among the goyim.
Any animosity against Jews can be explained by the fact that they're just so damned smart. The kind of ethnic animosity that Steve is pointing out about Matthew Weiner has nothing to do with it.
Left to their own devices, Jews tend not to accomplish much (cf Murray's discussion on 404 of Human Accomplishment)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudo-Marxism
The Frankfurt School created Cultural Marxism by mixing Freud and Marx theories, all the intellectuals from the Frankfurt Schools were jewish and they worked for the US Government during WWII.
Regarding Freud, read some magazine articles, non-fiction books or biographies from the 1930s to the 1960s and you’ll see that Freud was accepted in the USA as a scientific genius whose “Science” had unlocked the mystery of the human brain and given us the key to solve mental illness. Literary guys like Edmund Wilson wrote books analyzing Novelists from a Freudian perspective. People boasted about going into psychoanalysis. Hollywood even made a 1962 movie hailing him as a scientific genius.
And anyone skeptical about Freud or psychoanalysis was laughed at as a Rube or a Fundie who hated “science”.
And then poof, we finally found out that Freud was full of Bullshit – its all brain chemistry – and he’s gone down the memory hole. Its like he never existed. Somewhat like Marx and his “Scientific politics”.
@syon
""Well, the Anglos have Newton, Hume, and Adam Smith; that’s certainly a trinity to envy.""
Except that Hume and Smith were Scots."
A lot of lowland scots have a lot anglo-saxon ancestry, or scandinavian - germanic at any rate. Smith, for example, is not a celtic name.
I don’t think of these things in racial terms, otherwise I’d have to call Kant a Scottish philosopher (at least in part) and Schopenhauer a Dutch philosopher (at least in part.)
But the achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment tends to be overlooked and the Other Guy served it up with two of his triad being Scotsmen.
Actually, I think that a lot of Jewish accomplishment at the turn of the 20th Century and beyond was the result of what might be called the “Galitzianer Enlightenment”; I think there’s a certain dynamic at play here. I’m sure there are sociological studies on this phenomenon.
Incidentally, my own heritage is overwhelmingly Celto-Germanic but covering every conceivable nationality, and I have a number of other minor Europoid heritages, as do my kids, covering the entire continent, so I tend to see ethno-nationalism in the European sense as kind of dumb. (There’s also the usual soupçon of non-Europoid heritage which is typical for a lot of Americans.)
Speaking of Galitzianers, that is Mathew Weiner’s ultimate heritage, but filtered through the typical fastidious Yekke (German Jewish) culture, which explains why he talks the way he does, seriously influenced by the SoCal vocal fry uptalk intonation. Not to disparage anyone’s personal appearance, but he’s 5’7″, barrel chested, bald, jutting chin, and just watching the 92nd Street Y appearance is a bit sensitive about his manliness. I repeat, his personal appearances are coming across as therapy in public, which I think he should avoid. One has to work one’s issues alone, I think.
Anything else? Oh, yes. Several of Marx’s shorter pieces (e.g., 18th Brumaire) are well worth reading and a lot of Freud’s shorter books (Civilization and its Discontents, Moses and Monotheism) are also well worth reading. They were both bright guys with some interesting ideas. But again, their downfall is that their attempts at systematization were abysmal. And Husserl? Yes, very influential in continental philosophy in the 20th Century and up to today. The problem is, I don’t think philosophy in the normal sense has much use in the modern, empirical, materialistic world.
There is a happy medium between alone and in front of the world wherein lies good mental and spiritual health.
The real problem is that in the US and the UK, there's a bias against philosophy in general and continental philosophy especially for not being "useful", while on the continent, Anglo-American philosophy is dismissed as not being properly philosophical and wallowing in trivialities. So there's going to be significant disagreement over who is regarded as important and influential.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas. Some of them are bad ideas, some of them are good or at least indisputably correct, but if your attitude is that you like things just the way that they are, ANY new ideas are bad ideas.
“Jack D says:
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas.”
Right…….. Whereas gentiles – they just stand in a field and chew cud. No new ideas among the goyim.
Any animosity against Jews can be explained by the fact that they’re just so damned smart. The kind of ethnic animosity that Steve is pointing out about Matthew Weiner has nothing to do with it.
Your maniacal focus on Matthew Weiner is both good comedy (repeating a joke until it becomes unfunny, then continuing to repeat it until it becomes funnier than ever), good analysis (the picture gets clearer) and most importantly, it’s echt Steve. Don’t change for nobody!
But it seems the outcome is that your readers make comments displaying a colossal availability bias.
Your readers think Matthew Weiner has committed a crime against their interests by including extremely innocuous elements like Pete Campbell saying “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.”
Meanwhile, your readers are uninformed that other figures are doing real things 1000s of times worse, like David Letterman, Angelina Jolie, Richard Branson, Joss Whedon, the Catrambone couple who should be infamous here, etc.
If tendentiousness is the target, there's plenty of it in those figures' far worse actions, yet they get a free pass here, and thus they, the actual causes of trends in the world, can never learn they're doing something wrong.
You keep mentioning David Letterman. His cultural influence has been waning for years. And now that he is retired, he wil probably sink into insignificance very quickly. Does anybody even like that unfunny, bitter old creep?
And Angelina Jolie? Yeah, she’s kinda weird. She also just made one of the most conservative, pro-white movies I’ve seen in a long time.
Anyway, TV ratings don’t tell the whole story. Mad Men was very popular with a lot of the people who matter, or who think they matter – people who help form elite opinion. The NPR and Slate types gush on about it endlessly.
1. Make a movie called "Beyond Borders" about Whites saving Africans.
2. Adopt non-White children from around the world
3. Give a speech to the U.N. demanding Europe accept all African and Muslim immigrants who want to come.
If Jolie was Jewish, we'd never stop talking about her actions, as they'd be the smoking gun proof we've been waiting for that we're not fighting liberalism, but rather the Jews.
Mad Men hasn't committed a single sin that we can point to. Everything listed so far is completely innocuous and banal. The characters admire Israel defeating 14 nations and carving out their ancient homeland from the sand? Good. That's how White Americans feel, particularly White men, and particularly during Mad Men's time period, when men were still men.
Which other ethnic group(s) fit in? Blacks and Hispanics certainly do. Gays, lesbians also practice group self-pity and hostility against white males.
Ethnic animus works against a white plurality that has, perhaps, a little guilt over collective mistreatment in a society where food, water and material goods abound. Make these items scarce and it becomes self-destructive to annoy white males who make up the group most effective at securing, well, security. Ethnic animus in those circumstances secures obliteration.
Attitudes depend on circumstances. Did it matter that most northern Europeans were illiterate when paper was scarce, ink was frozen for six months each year and lighting was dismal? Compare to the present. Circumstances allow literacy, literacy is useful, illiteracy is shameful.
As a tactic for dealing with challenges, self-pity ranks below inactivity. What becomes of the tribe of self-pity when resource scarcity replaces resource excess?
Well, you’ve got at least a little WASP in that Celto-Germanism then. Stiff upper lip, good man!
There is a happy medium between alone and in front of the world wherein lies good mental and spiritual health.
If Weiner’s right, then the Jews sure do have a lot of villainy to answer for.
And to think, Einstein wasn’t even Jewish by religion, but he’s Jewish enough to be part of Weiner’s Holy Trinity of Jews.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas. Some of them are bad ideas, some of them are good or at least indisputably correct, but if your attitude is that you like things just the way that they are, ANY new ideas are bad ideas.
Very few great minds of any note are conservative in that sense. Jews are in good company; do not flatter, nor demean, yourselves in thinking you are alone.
Fundamentally if you are conservative in the sense of wanting to keep things the same, Jews are very disruptive because they keep coming up with new ideas. Some of them are bad ideas, some of them are good or at least indisputably correct, but if your attitude is that you like things just the way that they are, ANY new ideas are bad ideas.
Not really.The new ideas that reshaped the world and created modernity during the period 1500-1800 were generated by European Gentiles.Only Spinoza counts as a significant Jewish contributor to the process, and he was cast out by the Dutch Jewish community.The exception that proves the rule.
Left to their own devices, Jews tend not to accomplish much (cf Murray’s discussion on 404 of Human Accomplishment)
NW Euros and Jews were both culturally isolated in their respective periods of low accomplishment, and both have since experienced substantial selection that have made them different genetically than they once were.
What matters now is metrics for accomplishment in the modern period. Israel is #1 in the world per capita for scientific papers and number of startups.[1] They're second in total startups only to the United States, despite Israel only having 8 million people, with only 3 million Ashkenazi.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140925022720/http://www.jfns.org/page.aspx?id=43769
RE: Jewish Freud worship,
Said it before, but I’ll say it again: Emile Durkheim.If Jews want to venerate one of their own for his insights into the human psyche, Durkheim is the better choice.
As for Freud, I recommend reading:
Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend, ed Frederick Crews.
It clears away the myth-making quite nicely
Mr Weiner:
You are an unutterable bore.
I’m amazed Weiner can stand up straight, what with the weight of that chip on his shoulder…
“The Freud thing is an obvious example of how culturally powerful Jews were at the beginning of the 20th Century that they could impose their own L. Ron Hubbard-type on the world and make everybody take him seriously for 80 years.”
Freud visited the USA in 1909 to give a series of lectures on his theories, and noted how enthusiastically the Americans took to his ideas, compared to his reception among Europeans.
“I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s.”
The study of Freud’s theories is still de rigueur for psychology students in the year 2015.
Uncovering the deep, dark secrets of the patriarchal middle class family and exposing the hypocrisy of bougeoise society, tasks which “we” have only just begun to tackle, as you well know…
"My short visit to the New World encouraged my self-respect in every way. In Europe I felt as though I were despised but in America I found myself received by the foremost of men as an equal...This was the first official recognition of our endeavors."
from "The American Reception of Sigmund Freud" by Ruth Pedersen Hunsberger
http://www.hunsberger.org/freud-america.htm
"The Freud thing is an obvious example of how culturally powerful Jews were at the beginning of the 20th Century that they could impose their own L. Ron Hubbard-type on the world and make everybody take him seriously for 80 years.”
Freud planted the seeds of psychoanalysis on fertile ground in America, indeed, the soil of America had long since brought forth ample crops of revolutionary righteousness decades before Freud existed. All the various SJW causes which afflict us today, the extreme social leveling, ideas of sexual liberation, the equality and equivalence of the sexes, racial and ethnic equality, the urgency and necessity of social change, and much else were present in the West in general, and America in particular, in the early 19th Century, and even in embryonic form in the 17th and 18th Centuries, long before the "emancipation" of the Jews.
When a Chinese historian of the 22nd Century writes the definitive history of the death of the West, Ashkenazic Jews will have a starring role, but they did not initiate the suicidal revolutionary curse of the West.
The Principles of Psychology, vols 1 & 2
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-1-William-James/dp/1602062846/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-2/dp/1602063141/ref=la_B00BUHKE94_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432414243&sr=1-14
The absolute silence on the part of the great many Jews in the American Establishment in response to Weiner’s statements (in the Jewish press), or the statements of Mike Wallace/Barbara Streisand/the anonymous Feldstone parent, definitely implies dissent.
Sure, but by the same token, the adventures of Trayvon Martin don’t hold any larger lessons about teh bleks either. Rather, they are both vivid illustrations of accurate but socially disapproved stereotypes.
Having said that, there are smart Jews, dumb Jews, petty Jews, magnanimous Jews, pushy Jews, passive Jews, etc. I really don't see the point in talking about them as a group.
By the way, probably the biggest split are Jews who are into being Jews and Jews who are tired of being Jews (not necessarily Christians, just secular people.) In the USA, you can go from one group to the other in a heartbeat: no one will notice, and frankly, nobody cares.
I think the only reason why Jews are spoken of as a collectivity in this sense is because there appears to be a belief that Jews as a group have a lot of megaphonic power, and thus, if various items on a conservative agenda could be shown to be "good for the Jews", "the Jews" would go for it, and pretty soon we'd have no more immigrants in America.
I seriously doubt this.
As for Weiner, he reminds me of a certain class of people who, as they enter their middle years, realize that they aren't really very happy with themselves and thus have to affiliate with something larger than themselves. So now Weiner is portraying himself as a Social Justice Warrior, who fought back against the oppressive forces of darkness that tormented him as a child. It's not a good idea to do one's therapy in public. It's ludicrous.
SPMoore8,
With Jews we usually mean only people who identify as Jews. All others can reasonably ignored in this case. But making use of this restriction allows us much more useful generalizations, because people who identify as Jews have much more in common, like e.g. looking for a gallery of Jewish luminaries (which at least stimulates Jewish children’s efforts or at best proves Jewish superiority).
Being a European, I have grown up with this cult of Jewish Genius embodied in Freud, Marx and Einstein. I was luckily cured from it by the work of Karl Popper who at first showed that Einstein’s logic was just the opposite of the way how Marx or Freud thought. (Funnily, Popper himself was of Jewish origin, but without Jewish identity; so he didn’t feel that he had to protect the reputation of Marx or Freud.)
Of course ultimately “the modern, empirical, materialistic world” is merely a philosophical presupposition….
The real problem is that in the US and the UK, there’s a bias against philosophy in general and continental philosophy especially for not being “useful”, while on the continent, Anglo-American philosophy is dismissed as not being properly philosophical and wallowing in trivialities. So there’s going to be significant disagreement over who is regarded as important and influential.
Russell once defined philosophy as "something intermediate between theology and science." The Continentals lean more towards theology, whereas the Anglos lean more towards science.Or, to borrow a phrase from William James, the Continentals are tender-minded, whereas the Anglos are tough-minded.
Left to their own devices, Jews tend not to accomplish much (cf Murray's discussion on 404 of Human Accomplishment)
Don’t forget Joseph Vizinho and Abraham Zacuto: https://twitter.com/dpinsen/status/602190670271492097
Freud visited the USA in 1909 to give a series of lectures on his theories, and noted how enthusiastically the Americans took to his ideas, compared to his reception among Europeans.
"I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s."
The study of Freud's theories is still de rigueur for psychology students in the year 2015.
Uncovering the deep, dark secrets of the patriarchal middle class family and exposing the hypocrisy of bougeoise society, tasks which "we" have only just begun to tackle, as you well know...
A quick search for Freud’s quote re. his reception in America brought it up, and much more as well:
“My short visit to the New World encouraged my self-respect in every way. In Europe I felt as though I were despised but in America I found myself received by the foremost of men as an equal…This was the first official recognition of our endeavors.”
from “The American Reception of Sigmund Freud” by Ruth Pedersen Hunsberger
http://www.hunsberger.org/freud-america.htm
“The Freud thing is an obvious example of how culturally powerful Jews were at the beginning of the 20th Century that they could impose their own L. Ron Hubbard-type on the world and make everybody take him seriously for 80 years.”
Freud planted the seeds of psychoanalysis on fertile ground in America, indeed, the soil of America had long since brought forth ample crops of revolutionary righteousness decades before Freud existed. All the various SJW causes which afflict us today, the extreme social leveling, ideas of sexual liberation, the equality and equivalence of the sexes, racial and ethnic equality, the urgency and necessity of social change, and much else were present in the West in general, and America in particular, in the early 19th Century, and even in embryonic form in the 17th and 18th Centuries, long before the “emancipation” of the Jews.
When a Chinese historian of the 22nd Century writes the definitive history of the death of the West, Ashkenazic Jews will have a starring role, but they did not initiate the suicidal revolutionary curse of the West.
He is manly enough with four sons, worth 25 million and has a stay at home wife.
A poster above said the interviews were for Jewish publications so one must expect he is going to give a Jewish slant that he would not give to mass market media.
Left to their own devices, Jews tend not to accomplish much (cf Murray's discussion on 404 of Human Accomplishment)
How do you explain all the hard science Nobel prizes won by Jews? And all the Jewish billionaires Steve reports about? I would like a read on the number of Jewish millionaires in America and Canada. And ones worth ten million on up. Like Geddy Lee.
Compared to Newton, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Adam Smith, Francis Bacon, Leibniz, Gauss, etc they are puny things.
The real problem is that in the US and the UK, there's a bias against philosophy in general and continental philosophy especially for not being "useful", while on the continent, Anglo-American philosophy is dismissed as not being properly philosophical and wallowing in trivialities. So there's going to be significant disagreement over who is regarded as important and influential.
I agree of course about the assumptions concerning the modern world. I just don’t think that “philosophy” as such has the social and cultural stature it had 50, 100 years ago.
"My short visit to the New World encouraged my self-respect in every way. In Europe I felt as though I were despised but in America I found myself received by the foremost of men as an equal...This was the first official recognition of our endeavors."
from "The American Reception of Sigmund Freud" by Ruth Pedersen Hunsberger
http://www.hunsberger.org/freud-america.htm
"The Freud thing is an obvious example of how culturally powerful Jews were at the beginning of the 20th Century that they could impose their own L. Ron Hubbard-type on the world and make everybody take him seriously for 80 years.”
Freud planted the seeds of psychoanalysis on fertile ground in America, indeed, the soil of America had long since brought forth ample crops of revolutionary righteousness decades before Freud existed. All the various SJW causes which afflict us today, the extreme social leveling, ideas of sexual liberation, the equality and equivalence of the sexes, racial and ethnic equality, the urgency and necessity of social change, and much else were present in the West in general, and America in particular, in the early 19th Century, and even in embryonic form in the 17th and 18th Centuries, long before the "emancipation" of the Jews.
When a Chinese historian of the 22nd Century writes the definitive history of the death of the West, Ashkenazic Jews will have a starring role, but they did not initiate the suicidal revolutionary curse of the West.
When a Chinese historian of the 22nd Century writes the definitive history of the death of the West, Ashkenazic Jews will have a starring role, but they did not initiate the suicidal revolutionary curse of the West.
You’re such a pessimist! I just feel certain it’s going to be a much more sympathetic Russian or Persian who will write about us after we’re gone.
Charles Péguy (Le Mystère des saints Innocents)
What do you suggest? Carpet-bomb some Palestinian neighborhoods?
Freud visited the USA in 1909 to give a series of lectures on his theories, and noted how enthusiastically the Americans took to his ideas, compared to his reception among Europeans.
"I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s."
The study of Freud's theories is still de rigueur for psychology students in the year 2015.
Uncovering the deep, dark secrets of the patriarchal middle class family and exposing the hypocrisy of bougeoise society, tasks which "we" have only just begun to tackle, as you well know...
Well, William James went to the Clark Congress specifically to meet Freud, and he was far from enthusiastic:
And, while I’m here, why not a word in favor of William Jame’s own work in psychology? It strikes me as being a good deal sounder than Freud’s (faint praise, I know):
The Principles of Psychology, vols 1 & 2
James may not be profound but he is clear, erudite, honest, and even funny sometimes. Good company.
William James is considered 'The Father of American Psychology", and has a much firmer grasp of reality, as opposed to Freud's more outlandish theoretical concepts, IMHO.
I consider Freud's theories, and those of his disciples, to have held back the fields of psychology and psychiatry in the mid 20th Century. All those years of thinking that mental illness are caused by unresolved sexual tensions, cold or distant parents, to name just two, in the end caused much more harm than good.
Freud was very much a prisoner of his own time and place.
And Angelina Jolie? Yeah, she's kinda weird. She also just made one of the most conservative, pro-white movies I've seen in a long time.
Anyway, TV ratings don't tell the whole story. Mad Men was very popular with a lot of the people who matter, or who think they matter - people who help form elite opinion. The NPR and Slate types gush on about it endlessly.
The 2 links I provided on David Letterman also had quotes from the other late night hosts. They take positions that would earn them condemnation on this site if they were Jewish.
Angelina Jolie’s beliefs are made clear when she uses her enormous megaphone to:
1. Make a movie called “Beyond Borders” about Whites saving Africans.
2. Adopt non-White children from around the world
3. Give a speech to the U.N. demanding Europe accept all African and Muslim immigrants who want to come.
If Jolie was Jewish, we’d never stop talking about her actions, as they’d be the smoking gun proof we’ve been waiting for that we’re not fighting liberalism, but rather the Jews.
Mad Men hasn’t committed a single sin that we can point to. Everything listed so far is completely innocuous and banal. The characters admire Israel defeating 14 nations and carving out their ancient homeland from the sand? Good. That’s how White Americans feel, particularly White men, and particularly during Mad Men’s time period, when men were still men.
In any event, even if Weiner were not jewish - even if his name was Oliver Cromwell Winthrop, or Desmond Fitzroy - what he says is of some importance. Mad Men is a contemporary cultural phenomenon, and Weiner is emblematic of the culture today.
That said, although I haven't seen much of Mad Men, I'll probably watch it in it's entirety someday - just because I dig the nostalgic 60s vibe, and it was very well done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kamphttp://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n6p39_Cobden.html
The real problem is that in the US and the UK, there's a bias against philosophy in general and continental philosophy especially for not being "useful", while on the continent, Anglo-American philosophy is dismissed as not being properly philosophical and wallowing in trivialities. So there's going to be significant disagreement over who is regarded as important and influential.
Albeit one that works pretty well on a day to day basis….
Russell once defined philosophy as “something intermediate between theology and science.” The Continentals lean more towards theology, whereas the Anglos lean more towards science.Or, to borrow a phrase from William James, the Continentals are tender-minded, whereas the Anglos are tough-minded.
Russell once defined philosophy as "something intermediate between theology and science." The Continentals lean more towards theology, whereas the Anglos lean more towards science.Or, to borrow a phrase from William James, the Continentals are tender-minded, whereas the Anglos are tough-minded.
Continentals lean more towards theology, whereas the Anglos lean more towards science.
I think it’s that Continentals lean more towards theoretical science and theology while the Anglos lean towards technique. “The greatest possible activity with the least possible thought”, as a Frenchman described it.
It worked well over the first two Industrial Revolutions but is it still the best way? It’s a bit of a moot point now anyway because our countries are run by magical thinking, which is hardly in either tradition.
Left to their own devices, Jews tend not to accomplish much (cf Murray's discussion on 404 of Human Accomplishment)
That’s like saying that NW Euros hadn’t accomplished much when Mediterraneans were founding civilization.
NW Euros and Jews were both culturally isolated in their respective periods of low accomplishment, and both have since experienced substantial selection that have made them different genetically than they once were.
What matters now is metrics for accomplishment in the modern period. Israel is #1 in the world per capita for scientific papers and number of startups.[1] They’re second in total startups only to the United States, despite Israel only having 8 million people, with only 3 million Ashkenazi.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140925022720/http://www.jfns.org/page.aspx?id=43769
That’s why talk therapy has disappeared, because “it’s all brain chemistry”?
There was a vogue among HMOs a number of years ago to dispense with counseling sessions in favor of medication therapy for the psychologically afflicted. The hope was that expensive, time-consuming sessions with licensed clinicians could be replaced by cheaper new-generation neuroleptic, anxiolytic, and anti-depressant drugs, which had greater efficacy and lessened side effects compared to earlier generations of these medications.
Unfortunately (for the HMOs) it turns out that a combination of talk therapy and medication are what works best for many psychological and psychiatric conditions, medication alone not being the cost-saving miracle treatment as originally suggested.
We are neither Freudian*-Skinnerian blank slates upon which the environment writes our destinies, heedless of any biological imperatives, nor are we Jaymanian automatons in thrall to genetic and biochemical blueprints that environment can never alter.
*Actually, Freud was of the opinion that one day, many psychiatric conditions would be found to have a biological cause.
Freud visited the USA in 1909 to give a series of lectures on his theories, and noted how enthusiastically the Americans took to his ideas, compared to his reception among Europeans.
"I had to study Freud’s theories at Notre Dame High School and Rice U. in the mid-1970s."
The study of Freud's theories is still de rigueur for psychology students in the year 2015.
Uncovering the deep, dark secrets of the patriarchal middle class family and exposing the hypocrisy of bougeoise society, tasks which "we" have only just begun to tackle, as you well know...
I took an English/writing class in college in which they assigned Freud’s 21 Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, some book about or by the feminist Freud, Karen Horney, and a Margaret Atwood novel. I had to write an “x” in pencil on every page I wrote of the Freud book after I read it, because otherwise I’d zone out and forget my place because it was so boring.
I read Victorian literary journals for fun, so extraneous verbiage doesn't faze me. What gets me about Freudian theory is that, based on my own professional and personal experience, the theory leaves much to be desired in its applicability in the real world. I'd find myself thinking "nah, that isn't the way it is", or "that's not so" too often to enjoy the experience.
I'd rather read about phrenology or the theory of phlogiston...
You and I are puny things, who waste hours commenting on blogs. Vizinho and Zacuto helped change the world in ways that still reverberate today, and they preceded the Age of Enlightenment by centuries.
As I said, the only truly significant Jewish contributor to modernity in the years 1500-1800 was Spinoza.It's a blow to Jewish self-esteem, but there it is.Jews will have to content themselves with figures who came after roughly 1800: Einstein, Durkheim, Marx, etc.Or, going in the opposite temporal direction, figures like Paul, who lived before AD 100
The Principles of Psychology, vols 1 & 2
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-1-William-James/dp/1602062846/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-2/dp/1602063141/ref=la_B00BUHKE94_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432414243&sr=1-14
I second you on James. The Principles is a great book, everyone should read the chapter on Habit. The chapter on Association of Ideas is directly relevant to HBD because he is in effect discussing g.
James may not be profound but he is clear, erudite, honest, and even funny sometimes. Good company.
They were little fellows, ants trudging through history.They were no were near as consequential as genuinely great men like Galileo, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Leonardo, John Napier, Montaigne, Raphael, etc
As I said, the only truly significant Jewish contributor to modernity in the years 1500-1800 was Spinoza.It’s a blow to Jewish self-esteem, but there it is.Jews will have to content themselves with figures who came after roughly 1800: Einstein, Durkheim, Marx, etc.Or, going in the opposite temporal direction, figures like Paul, who lived before AD 100
Russell once defined philosophy as "something intermediate between theology and science." The Continentals lean more towards theology, whereas the Anglos lean more towards science.Or, to borrow a phrase from William James, the Continentals are tender-minded, whereas the Anglos are tough-minded.
A tender-minded theology isn’t much use to anybody. Matthew Arnold’s theology offers the best of both worlds, as was his wont:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/4.html
“The uppermost idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can do away with this ineffaceable difference; the Greek quarrel with the body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking, the Hebrew quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting.”
As I said, the only truly significant Jewish contributor to modernity in the years 1500-1800 was Spinoza.It's a blow to Jewish self-esteem, but there it is.Jews will have to content themselves with figures who came after roughly 1800: Einstein, Durkheim, Marx, etc.Or, going in the opposite temporal direction, figures like Paul, who lived before AD 100
Ants trudging through history? They made possible the discoveries of Da Gama, Cabral, etc., discoveries that did more to change the world materially than anything Spinoza wrote or Raphael painted.
Just so that people know what we are talking about, here are the two gentlemen’s CVs:
Not very impressive when compared to the achievements of Galileo……
Ho hum, the Iberian hobbyhorse makes its customary appearance…..
And your Jewish hobbyhorse makes its daily appearance. You ever consider getting therapy for whatever issues you had with your Jewish mother?
But more historically consequential than some of the great cultural names you’ve mentioned.
James may not be profound but he is clear, erudite, honest, and even funny sometimes. Good company.
As a general rule, I’ve noticed that the “profound” has no utility when it comes to human psychology.Attempts at “profundity” simply lead to nonsense.Cf, for example, the work of Lacan. Sheer gibberish.
She was a truly wonderful woman.She made sure that I knew that the most precious gift that I had been bequeathed was my status as an Anglo.
Dear fellow, the monkey who bit King Alexander of Greece was consequential…..Yet I would hesitate to rank the beast alongside Galileo as a creator of Western culture….
Leonard Cohen explained the meaning of his song “First We Take Manhattan” by citing a poem that approvingly describes these figures as “terrorists”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_We_Take_Manhattan#Meaning
“That’s why talk therapy has disappeared, because “it’s all brain chemistry”?”
There was a vogue among HMOs a number of years ago to dispense with counseling sessions in favor of medication therapy for the psychologically afflicted. The hope was that expensive, time-consuming sessions with licensed clinicians could be replaced by cheaper new-generation neuroleptic, anxiolytic, and anti-depressant drugs, which had greater efficacy and lessened side effects compared to earlier generations of these medications.
Unfortunately (for the HMOs) it turns out that a combination of talk therapy and medication are what works best for many psychological and psychiatric conditions, medication alone not being the cost-saving miracle treatment as originally suggested.
We are neither Freudian*-Skinnerian blank slates upon which the environment writes our destinies, heedless of any biological imperatives, nor are we Jaymanian automatons in thrall to genetic and biochemical blueprints that environment can never alter.
*Actually, Freud was of the opinion that one day, many psychiatric conditions would be found to have a biological cause.
If they want to make serious advances, they probably need to start introducing preventative talk therapy. Identify highly neurotic individuals in their teens and then strengthen their emotional resilience through CBT etc.
“I took an English/writing class in college in which they assigned Freud’s 21 Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, some book about or by the feminist Freud, Karen Horney, and a Margaret Atwood novel. I had to write an “x” in pencil on every page I wrote of the Freud book after I read it, because otherwise I’d zone out and forget my place because it was so boring.”
I read Victorian literary journals for fun, so extraneous verbiage doesn’t faze me. What gets me about Freudian theory is that, based on my own professional and personal experience, the theory leaves much to be desired in its applicability in the real world. I’d find myself thinking “nah, that isn’t the way it is”, or “that’s not so” too often to enjoy the experience.
I’d rather read about phrenology or the theory of phlogiston…
The Principles of Psychology, vols 1 & 2
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-1-William-James/dp/1602062846/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Psychology-Vol-2/dp/1602063141/ref=la_B00BUHKE94_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432414243&sr=1-14
“And, while I’m here, why not a word in favor of William Jame’s own work in psychology? It strikes me as being a good deal sounder than Freud’s (faint praise, I know)”
William James is considered ‘The Father of American Psychology”, and has a much firmer grasp of reality, as opposed to Freud’s more outlandish theoretical concepts, IMHO.
I consider Freud’s theories, and those of his disciples, to have held back the fields of psychology and psychiatry in the mid 20th Century. All those years of thinking that mental illness are caused by unresolved sexual tensions, cold or distant parents, to name just two, in the end caused much more harm than good.
Freud was very much a prisoner of his own time and place.
I very much wish I could, but unfortunately I’m totally preoccupied with some frustrating software issues right now, and have a long backlog of other things in the pipeline once I somehow manage to get those resolved.
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn’t be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they’re just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy “bilingual education” system, under which millions of immigrant students weren’t taught English in school. It’s difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I’ve directly heard he always quietly thought “bilingual” was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers’ union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped ’em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn’t easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I’d like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I’m stuck writing code…
1. It makes immigration more "visible" to the natives. There will be newspaper articles and television news segments about the "bilingual education controversy". Laws will be passed. Schools will have to buy new textbooks and children will tell their parents about the Spanish being spoken at their schools. You will hear Spanish spoken when you are out in public.
All this will cause the average uninformed citizen to become more aware of the fact that there are a lot more immigrants living amongst him. A lot of people live in enclaves or don't interact much with the general public and wouldn't otherwise notice.
2. It gives people a reason to be against mass immigration that isn't racist.
Why would he think it dreadful, would he make less money in a bilingual world?
But the couple of thousand bilingual activists ... were so fanatic and noisy
But his Open Society Institute funds two organizations that support bilingual, LatinoJustice and LaRaza.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
LATINOJUSTICE PRLDF (LJ)
The promotion of Spanish as an acceptable alternative to English in the business world has been a central LJ issue throughout the organization's history. Indeed, its very first lawsuit, the 1974 Aspira v. New York City Board of Education case, resulted in a groundbreaking consent decree compelling New York to expand its bilingual education programs and increase the number of Spanish-speaking teachers in its employ. School districts in other cities soon implemented comparable bilingual programs, and to this day supporters of bilingual education invoke the Aspira ruling.
Another LJ court victory in the early 1970s (López v. Dinkins) led to the provision of bilingual ballots and interpreters—in English, Spanish, and Chinese—for parents voting in New York City school-board elections. The same legal arguments were subsequently used in the landmark voting-rights case, Torres v. Sachs, which required that bilingual ballots be made available for all New York City elections. By 1975, this mandate had spread across the entire country.
...
When Senator S.I. Hayakawa in 1981 introduced a bill declaring English to be the sole official language of the United States, LJ responded with a flurry of oppositional advocacy, publications, journal articles, media appearances, and litigation—particularly in New York and New Jersey.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA (NCLR)
Strongly supportive of bilingual education and the provision of bilingual ballots for Spanish-speaking voters, NCLR in 1998 joined other left-wing groups in filing a lawsuit designed to prevent Proposition 227, California's ballot initiative for bilingual-education reform, from becoming state law.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sotomayor and Her Radical Liberal Legal Group
Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF
...
According to the group’s website, it gets some of its funding from George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
...
A search of philanthropy databases reveals other significant donors to LatinoJustice to be Carnegie Corporation of New York ($1,025,000 since 2000), Ford Foundation ($2,280,000 since 2001), Rockefeller Foundation ($1,275,000 since 2000), and JPMorganChase Foundation ($70,000 since 2001).
...
But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.Looks like one has infiltrated CNN and sneaked through a pro-bilingual story. Not so forgotton...:----------------------------------------------------------
From www.cnn.com
Why this bilingual education ban should have repealed long ago
By Phillip M. Carter, Special to CNN
...
In the mid-1990s, conditions were right for California to build the multilingual economy of the future.
...
But in 1998, ... Californians voted instead to pass a ballot measure known as Proposition 227 that imposed wide-reaching restrictions on bilingual education, effectively banning it.
...
Millions of Spanish-speaking immigrant students lost the opportunity to learn or retain valuable literacy skills in Spanish while they acquired English. And, millions of California-born Latinos who enrolled in school with the gift of native bilingualism would later leave school unable to read and write in Spanish.
...
Today, Proposition 227 is once again in the news, as California state Sen. Ricardo Lara has proposed legislation designed to repeal it.
...
Looking back, it's clear that restrictive language policies such as Proposition 227 have been problematic all along
...
What is instead now desperately needed is linguistically informed education policy that supports the acquisition and maintenance of both languages for all students who want to develop bilingual fluency. We need not force our students to choose one language or the other -- they can have both.
--------------------------------------------------
...
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped ‘em all out, mostly within twelve months.
A chance to (partially?) repeal Proposition 227 will go before voters in November 2016
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Lara Announces Bill Supporting Multilingual Education
Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Long Beach/Huntington Park) announced legislation today that would enable California’s public schools to provide multilingual instruction
...
If passed, SB 1174, the Multilingual Education for a 21st Century Economy Act, would place an initiative before voters on the November 2016 ballot to repeal prohibitions to multilingual instruction passed through Proposition 227.
---------------------------------------
[California] Senate Bill No. 1174
Approved by Governor September 28, 2014. Filed with Secretary of State September 28, 2014
...
Existing law, as added by Proposition 227, a measure approved by the voters at the June 2, 1998
...
This bill would amend and repeal various provisions of Proposition 227.
...
This bill would provide that it would become effective only upon approval of the voters, and would require the Secretary of State to submit this measure to the voters for approval at the November 2016 statewide general election.
-----------------------------------------------------
Now you know why there was such an effort to populate admissions offices with the right kind of people. That scenario has played out on campuses and HR departments. You are up against a nameless, faceless opponent, and have strikes against you before trying to get up to bat.
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
If you agreed with Steve and most of his commenters on the benefits of limiting immigration, how would you wipe out advocates of mass immigration?
That being said, I do think immigration levels have remained much too high over the last dozen years or more, and should certainly be reduced. As it happens, I think I solved the theoretical problem and published the solution in a major article a few years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/immigration-republicans-and-the-end-of-white-america-singlepage/#escaping-the-low-wage-society
Somewhat to my surprise, my political solution has gaining lots of momentum since publication, helped along by various follow up articles and political campaigns I've personally launched, though obviously one can't expect such a huge national shift to take place overnight. Here's a brief summary of the subsequent history to 2013 followed by a collection of my most recent articles and columns:
https://www.unz.com/runz/nr-on-tnr-on-unz-on-minimum-wage-immigration/
https://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/topic/minimum-wage/
Just a week or two ago, Los Angeles raised its local minimum wage to $15/hour, adding a huge head of steam to the political tide, which seems reasonably likely to sweep most of the nation, at least in the $12 range, within the near future. So while anti-immigrant activists have been endlessly complaining on websites and following all sorts of political blind alleys, I think the strategy I created may be on its way to substantially solving America's immigration problems.
P.S. I should mention that one of the amusing ironies is that although VDare and quite a number of rightwing anti-immigrationists have strongly endorsed my strategy, all the actual work on the ground is being done by liberals, with the Republicans and mainstream conservatives generally being conflicted or somewhat opposed.
Doctor dad, fancy-pants neighborhood, posh private school - Matthew Weiner considers this middle class? I think he's a little out of touch with reality. Generally speaking, this is about as good as it gets, with the exception of those whose incomes/wealth are really in the stratosphere.
He means “middle class for Jews”
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
Bilingual would interfere with a goal of maximizing immigration, so they would be against it.
1. It makes immigration more “visible” to the natives. There will be newspaper articles and television news segments about the “bilingual education controversy”. Laws will be passed. Schools will have to buy new textbooks and children will tell their parents about the Spanish being spoken at their schools. You will hear Spanish spoken when you are out in public.
All this will cause the average uninformed citizen to become more aware of the fact that there are a lot more immigrants living amongst him. A lot of people live in enclaves or don’t interact much with the general public and wouldn’t otherwise notice.
2. It gives people a reason to be against mass immigration that isn’t racist.
1. Make a movie called "Beyond Borders" about Whites saving Africans.
2. Adopt non-White children from around the world
3. Give a speech to the U.N. demanding Europe accept all African and Muslim immigrants who want to come.
If Jolie was Jewish, we'd never stop talking about her actions, as they'd be the smoking gun proof we've been waiting for that we're not fighting liberalism, but rather the Jews.
Mad Men hasn't committed a single sin that we can point to. Everything listed so far is completely innocuous and banal. The characters admire Israel defeating 14 nations and carving out their ancient homeland from the sand? Good. That's how White Americans feel, particularly White men, and particularly during Mad Men's time period, when men were still men.
You mentioned Letterman. I responded about Letterman. He is now, effectively, a nobody. I haven’t heard anybody talk about him much since Leno trounced him in the mid-nineties. He could almost be a dictionary definition for “bitter old has-been”. And as to whatever Conan O’Brien and Seth Meyers say on the air – don’t you imagine they have several jewish writers on their staff? At least a couple?
In any event, even if Weiner were not jewish – even if his name was Oliver Cromwell Winthrop, or Desmond Fitzroy – what he says is of some importance. Mad Men is a contemporary cultural phenomenon, and Weiner is emblematic of the culture today.
That said, although I haven’t seen much of Mad Men, I’ll probably watch it in it’s entirety someday – just because I dig the nostalgic 60s vibe, and it was very well done.
Letterman and Conan O'Brien are the bosses of their shows. They decide their positions, and they hire and fire accordingly. Conan O'Brien's above opposition to conservativism is particularly influential given how much he has the ear of the younger generation.
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I’ve directly heard he always quietly thought “bilingual” was totally crazy and a dreadful idea,
Why would he think it dreadful, would he make less money in a bilingual world?
But the couple of thousand bilingual activists … were so fanatic and noisy
But his Open Society Institute funds two organizations that support bilingual, LatinoJustice and LaRaza.
———————————————————————-
OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE
LATINOJUSTICE PRLDF (LJ)
The promotion of Spanish as an acceptable alternative to English in the business world has been a central LJ issue throughout the organization’s history. Indeed, its very first lawsuit, the 1974 Aspira v. New York City Board of Education case, resulted in a groundbreaking consent decree compelling New York to expand its bilingual education programs and increase the number of Spanish-speaking teachers in its employ. School districts in other cities soon implemented comparable bilingual programs, and to this day supporters of bilingual education invoke the Aspira ruling.
Another LJ court victory in the early 1970s (López v. Dinkins) led to the provision of bilingual ballots and interpreters—in English, Spanish, and Chinese—for parents voting in New York City school-board elections. The same legal arguments were subsequently used in the landmark voting-rights case, Torres v. Sachs, which required that bilingual ballots be made available for all New York City elections. By 1975, this mandate had spread across the entire country.
…
When Senator S.I. Hayakawa in 1981 introduced a bill declaring English to be the sole official language of the United States, LJ responded with a flurry of oppositional advocacy, publications, journal articles, media appearances, and litigation—particularly in New York and New Jersey.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA (NCLR)
Strongly supportive of bilingual education and the provision of bilingual ballots for Spanish-speaking voters, NCLR in 1998 joined other left-wing groups in filing a lawsuit designed to prevent Proposition 227, California’s ballot initiative for bilingual-education reform, from becoming state law.
————————————————————————-
Sotomayor and Her Radical Liberal Legal Group
Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF
…
According to the group’s website, it gets some of its funding from George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
…
A search of philanthropy databases reveals other significant donors to LatinoJustice to be Carnegie Corporation of New York ($1,025,000 since 2000), Ford Foundation ($2,280,000 since 2001), Rockefeller Foundation ($1,275,000 since 2000), and JPMorganChase Foundation ($70,000 since 2001).
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy “bilingual education” system
…
But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Looks like one has infiltrated CNN and sneaked through a pro-bilingual story. Not so forgotton…:
———————————————————-
From http://www.cnn.com
Why this bilingual education ban should have repealed long ago
By Phillip M. Carter, Special to CNN
…
In the mid-1990s, conditions were right for California to build the multilingual economy of the future.
…
But in 1998, … Californians voted instead to pass a ballot measure known as Proposition 227 that imposed wide-reaching restrictions on bilingual education, effectively banning it.
…
Millions of Spanish-speaking immigrant students lost the opportunity to learn or retain valuable literacy skills in Spanish while they acquired English. And, millions of California-born Latinos who enrolled in school with the gift of native bilingualism would later leave school unable to read and write in Spanish.
…
Today, Proposition 227 is once again in the news, as California state Sen. Ricardo Lara has proposed legislation designed to repeal it.
…
Looking back, it’s clear that restrictive language policies such as Proposition 227 have been problematic all along
…
What is instead now desperately needed is linguistically informed education policy that supports the acquisition and maintenance of both languages for all students who want to develop bilingual fluency. We need not force our students to choose one language or the other — they can have both.
————————————————–
...
But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.Looks like one has infiltrated CNN and sneaked through a pro-bilingual story. Not so forgotton...:----------------------------------------------------------
From www.cnn.com
Why this bilingual education ban should have repealed long ago
By Phillip M. Carter, Special to CNN
...
In the mid-1990s, conditions were right for California to build the multilingual economy of the future.
...
But in 1998, ... Californians voted instead to pass a ballot measure known as Proposition 227 that imposed wide-reaching restrictions on bilingual education, effectively banning it.
...
Millions of Spanish-speaking immigrant students lost the opportunity to learn or retain valuable literacy skills in Spanish while they acquired English. And, millions of California-born Latinos who enrolled in school with the gift of native bilingualism would later leave school unable to read and write in Spanish.
...
Today, Proposition 227 is once again in the news, as California state Sen. Ricardo Lara has proposed legislation designed to repeal it.
...
Looking back, it's clear that restrictive language policies such as Proposition 227 have been problematic all along
...
What is instead now desperately needed is linguistically informed education policy that supports the acquisition and maintenance of both languages for all students who want to develop bilingual fluency. We need not force our students to choose one language or the other -- they can have both.
--------------------------------------------------
What multilingual economy of the future? The economic future belongs to English.
However, in all fairness, my earlier remarks shouldn't be taken as implying that all the totally crazy things in our society necessarily have the sinister explanation I suggested. Sometimes they're just totally crazy things which somehow got started and developed momentum despite the absence of any powerful backers or logical motives, but that no one can get figure out how to get rid of.
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy "bilingual education" system, under which millions of immigrant students weren't taught English in school. It's difficult to imagine a more insane or disastrous social policy, yet it grew exponentially for decades.
Consider George Soros, an extremely wealthy and influential figure in liberal circles. I've directly heard he always quietly thought "bilingual" was totally crazy and a dreadful idea, but he was too timid to ever dare say anything in public. All the neocons hated the policy but even the toughest ones were scared of the bilinguals and with very few exceptions gave them a very wide berth. All the top teachers' union leaders had been trying to get rid of bilingual for decades, but were too cowardly to ever say anything in public, although once I got involved, lots of them privately met with me and wished me luck. So who really supported the policy? Almost nobody. Who opposed it? Just about everyone. But the couple of thousand bilingual activists in our country of 300M were so fanatic and noisy and ferocious that everyone was too terrified to do anything about their crazy programs.
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped 'em all out, mostly within twelve months. That gave Soros, the neocons, and the teachers unions one less thing to worry about, allowing them to devote their undivided attention to whatever else they spend their time doing.
The key to getting something accomplished is to find the correct point of leverage, which sometimes isn't easy.
And there are lots of other useful things I'd like to be working on right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck writing code...
Take a now increasingly-forgotten example personally familiar to me, namely the crazy “bilingual education” system
…
Fortunately, I came along, figured out the right point of political leverage, and wiped ‘em all out, mostly within twelve months.
A chance to (partially?) repeal Proposition 227 will go before voters in November 2016
——————————————————————–
Senator Lara Announces Bill Supporting Multilingual Education
Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Long Beach/Huntington Park) announced legislation today that would enable California’s public schools to provide multilingual instruction
…
If passed, SB 1174, the Multilingual Education for a 21st Century Economy Act, would place an initiative before voters on the November 2016 ballot to repeal prohibitions to multilingual instruction passed through Proposition 227.
—————————————
[California] Senate Bill No. 1174
Approved by Governor September 28, 2014. Filed with Secretary of State September 28, 2014
…
Existing law, as added by Proposition 227, a measure approved by the voters at the June 2, 1998
…
This bill would amend and repeal various provisions of Proposition 227.
…
This bill would provide that it would become effective only upon approval of the voters, and would require the Secretary of State to submit this measure to the voters for approval at the November 2016 statewide general election.
—————————————————–
They’re not left to their own devices. They’re part of an ethnic European culture.
More accurately, they earn condemnation on this site (like this: Letterman’s a scumbag) that would be objected to by Jews and Jewish-water-carriers, if they were Jewish.
The problem is the rates. You guys always ignore the rates.
I can make an extensive case that Jews tend to pursue their own ethnic interests, at the expense of Europeans. Go ahead and make an extensive case that these treacherous whites are pursuing European interests, at the expense of Jewish interests. Me, I see them both as being on the same side, the one that lines up with Jewish interests against European interests.
In any event, even if Weiner were not jewish - even if his name was Oliver Cromwell Winthrop, or Desmond Fitzroy - what he says is of some importance. Mad Men is a contemporary cultural phenomenon, and Weiner is emblematic of the culture today.
That said, although I haven't seen much of Mad Men, I'll probably watch it in it's entirety someday - just because I dig the nostalgic 60s vibe, and it was very well done.
Letterman’s final episode was watched by 13.7 million vs Mad Men’s final episode being watched by 3.3 million. The comparison is relevant because their final episodes aired within 3 days of each other.
Letterman and Conan O’Brien are the bosses of their shows. They decide their positions, and they hire and fire accordingly. Conan O’Brien’s above opposition to conservativism is particularly influential given how much he has the ear of the younger generation.
There was a vogue among HMOs a number of years ago to dispense with counseling sessions in favor of medication therapy for the psychologically afflicted. The hope was that expensive, time-consuming sessions with licensed clinicians could be replaced by cheaper new-generation neuroleptic, anxiolytic, and anti-depressant drugs, which had greater efficacy and lessened side effects compared to earlier generations of these medications.
Unfortunately (for the HMOs) it turns out that a combination of talk therapy and medication are what works best for many psychological and psychiatric conditions, medication alone not being the cost-saving miracle treatment as originally suggested.
We are neither Freudian*-Skinnerian blank slates upon which the environment writes our destinies, heedless of any biological imperatives, nor are we Jaymanian automatons in thrall to genetic and biochemical blueprints that environment can never alter.
*Actually, Freud was of the opinion that one day, many psychiatric conditions would be found to have a biological cause.
One positive thing about the latest drug therapy for mood disorders is the switch from SSRIs to more stimulating SNRIs, or even just NRIs in some cases. CBT doesn’t do much good if your left frontal lobe is half asleep because you’re sedated by too much serotonin.
If they want to make serious advances, they probably need to start introducing preventative talk therapy. Identify highly neurotic individuals in their teens and then strengthen their emotional resilience through CBT etc.
I would take issue with your putting Marx and Freud in the same class. Marx’s writings actually had a substantial truth content. The materialist conception of history is incomplete, but it is insightful, or it least it has considerable truth value.
But Weiner is for noblesse oblige. He says so:
"Whether it’s women or gays or people of color — I’m from a middle class family and I’ve had advantages, but I side with the outsider and the underdog."
He's saying that his people competed with Wasp for the power, and his people won. But he never forgot where he came from. Even though he made it, he still cares for the underdogs and outcasts.
So far so good.
But here's the problem. The class of underdogs are not uniform in success or power. For instance, certain groups of minorities are far more successful than others. Asians in academics, blacks in sports. Women not so much in fashion as they should be.
If Weiner is for the people of color, and if the people of color in California are with BDS in support of underdog Palestinians, where is Weiner on that? Should he side with the people of color and Palestinians against Zionism or will he side with Zionism(favored by GOP)?
Another problem is there's a certain irony to how all this noblesse oblige dynamics play out.
Wasps could have had more noblesse oblige precisely because they were more exclusive. Feeling comfortable in their position of power, they may felt they should act as a honorable ruling class.
In contrast, Jewish narrative is all about struggling to rise to the top and break down the gate of privilege to get in. To the extent that Jews want to hold the door wide open so that others will get in, they can be said to be operating in the mode of noblesse oblige.
But because they are so busy identifying with 'victimized' underdogs, they are blind to their new status as the ruling class and, worse, blind to the fact that they use various tricks to ensure and favor Jewish power over all else. They keep the door open for more to get in but fill up the room with so much Jewish aggressiveness and acrimony that many dare not approach the door... except as servants. Most gentile politicians might as well be butlers to the new ruling class.
Wasps were more exclusive but also more caring. Jews are more inclusive(officially) but less caring. Wasps, feeling confident as rulers, were willing to ease their own privilege in favor of principles. Jews, still ferocious in their underdog mentality, continue to act in ways that favor Jewish interests above all else.
Jews are now in a unique position as the most powerful overdogs and most outspoken underdogs. They occupy top position in both. And this mentality is actually most encouraged by the GOP that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party as 'antisemitic' for negotiating with Iran and not cheering Netanyahu loudly enough.
The result can be amusing, like what happened to Rick Sanchez. An underdog 'person of color' left out in the cold because he noticed that Jews are not the underdogs of America.
That’s not noblesse oblige, which is “the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged.”
Women, gays, and people of color are all categorically privileged compared to Whites. Wittingly or unwittingly, he helps the privileged over the oppressed. That’s the opposite of “noblesse oblige”.
Having said that, there are smart Jews, dumb Jews, petty Jews, magnanimous Jews, pushy Jews, passive Jews, etc. I really don't see the point in talking about them as a group.
By the way, probably the biggest split are Jews who are into being Jews and Jews who are tired of being Jews (not necessarily Christians, just secular people.) In the USA, you can go from one group to the other in a heartbeat: no one will notice, and frankly, nobody cares.
I think the only reason why Jews are spoken of as a collectivity in this sense is because there appears to be a belief that Jews as a group have a lot of megaphonic power, and thus, if various items on a conservative agenda could be shown to be "good for the Jews", "the Jews" would go for it, and pretty soon we'd have no more immigrants in America.
I seriously doubt this.
As for Weiner, he reminds me of a certain class of people who, as they enter their middle years, realize that they aren't really very happy with themselves and thus have to affiliate with something larger than themselves. So now Weiner is portraying himself as a Social Justice Warrior, who fought back against the oppressive forces of darkness that tormented him as a child. It's not a good idea to do one's therapy in public. It's ludicrous.
The point of talking about them as a group is that they engage us as a group.
So, who’s giving all the media jobs to the Lettermans, O’Briens, and Weiners?
Yeah, but noticing that is ANTISEMITISM!!!
Well, please do realize that unlike maybe 99% of the commenters here, I am really *not* anti-immigration. Indeed, for about about a decade centered on the 1990s, I was probably one of the leading *pro-immigration* figures in public policy circles, even having probably been the key individual who shifted the powerful neocons back into the pro-immigration camp when they’d gotten a little “confused” on the issue (I briefly recounted this history a few weeks ago in a different thread).
That being said, I do think immigration levels have remained much too high over the last dozen years or more, and should certainly be reduced. As it happens, I think I solved the theoretical problem and published the solution in a major article a few years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/immigration-republicans-and-the-end-of-white-america-singlepage/#escaping-the-low-wage-society
Somewhat to my surprise, my political solution has gaining lots of momentum since publication, helped along by various follow up articles and political campaigns I’ve personally launched, though obviously one can’t expect such a huge national shift to take place overnight. Here’s a brief summary of the subsequent history to 2013 followed by a collection of my most recent articles and columns:
https://www.unz.com/runz/nr-on-tnr-on-unz-on-minimum-wage-immigration/
https://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/topic/minimum-wage/
Just a week or two ago, Los Angeles raised its local minimum wage to $15/hour, adding a huge head of steam to the political tide, which seems reasonably likely to sweep most of the nation, at least in the $12 range, within the near future. So while anti-immigrant activists have been endlessly complaining on websites and following all sorts of political blind alleys, I think the strategy I created may be on its way to substantially solving America’s immigration problems.
P.S. I should mention that one of the amusing ironies is that although VDare and quite a number of rightwing anti-immigrationists have strongly endorsed my strategy, all the actual work on the ground is being done by liberals, with the Republicans and mainstream conservatives generally being conflicted or somewhat opposed.
Well, of course reality had to reassert itself sometime and in the last year, the Pena Nieto government has completely collapsed, with corruption scandals, several mass massacres perpetrated by different government agencies, and even lower economic growth than the paltry 2% the country had been averaging for 30 years since the neoliberal ideology took over. But what did the US gain with his election? Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity. Pena Nieto was to do one thing, privatize the national energy companies especially PEMEX and sell them at rock bottom prices to US multinationals. This was very important to the neocons in the US government because they are preparing for a cold war with China. General Petraeus is quite open about this. The huge downside is that the Mexican government receives an astounding 40% of their revenue from PEMEX and once the privatization kicks in this source of revenue will collapse spectacularly, wreaking havoc across the country and potentially causing another huge wave of immigration to the US.
That being said, I do think immigration levels have remained much too high over the last dozen years or more, and should certainly be reduced. As it happens, I think I solved the theoretical problem and published the solution in a major article a few years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/immigration-republicans-and-the-end-of-white-america-singlepage/#escaping-the-low-wage-society
Somewhat to my surprise, my political solution has gaining lots of momentum since publication, helped along by various follow up articles and political campaigns I've personally launched, though obviously one can't expect such a huge national shift to take place overnight. Here's a brief summary of the subsequent history to 2013 followed by a collection of my most recent articles and columns:
https://www.unz.com/runz/nr-on-tnr-on-unz-on-minimum-wage-immigration/
https://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/topic/minimum-wage/
Just a week or two ago, Los Angeles raised its local minimum wage to $15/hour, adding a huge head of steam to the political tide, which seems reasonably likely to sweep most of the nation, at least in the $12 range, within the near future. So while anti-immigrant activists have been endlessly complaining on websites and following all sorts of political blind alleys, I think the strategy I created may be on its way to substantially solving America's immigration problems.
P.S. I should mention that one of the amusing ironies is that although VDare and quite a number of rightwing anti-immigrationists have strongly endorsed my strategy, all the actual work on the ground is being done by liberals, with the Republicans and mainstream conservatives generally being conflicted or somewhat opposed.
I certainly hope you’re correct, but unfortunately there are forces decidedly going in the other direction. Specifically, in 2012 a puppet president (Pena Nieto) was installed in Mexico by one of the leading oligarchs in the country, Emilio Azcarraga Jean – owner of Televisa, the largest tv network in the country and in latin america- as well as by the US . The whole elction processed was rigged by the unprecedented propaganda campaign by Televisa in favor of Pena Nieto, and on election day, the PRI, Pena Nieto’s party, bought over 5 million votes! The US suppressed all negative coverage of Pena Nieto’s campaign on this side of the border and after his election manufactured a false image of him as a great reformer and even gave him the “World Statesman Award”. Did you ever hear about the Mexican moment?
Well, of course reality had to reassert itself sometime and in the last year, the Pena Nieto government has completely collapsed, with corruption scandals, several mass massacres perpetrated by different government agencies, and even lower economic growth than the paltry 2% the country had been averaging for 30 years since the neoliberal ideology took over. But what did the US gain with his election? Mexico’s oil, natural gas and electricity. Pena Nieto was to do one thing, privatize the national energy companies especially PEMEX and sell them at rock bottom prices to US multinationals. This was very important to the neocons in the US government because they are preparing for a cold war with China. General Petraeus is quite open about this. The huge downside is that the Mexican government receives an astounding 40% of their revenue from PEMEX and once the privatization kicks in this source of revenue will collapse spectacularly, wreaking havoc across the country and potentially causing another huge wave of immigration to the US.
Have you checked the oil and natural gas prices lately? It's like you missed the whole fracking boom (and bust) for energy in the United States. Hint: the U.S. is expected to become an oil exporter shortly.
Not everything wrong with Mexico is a nefarious Yanqui conspiracy. Mexicans do a bang up job of corrupting and screwing up their country on their own. I had the misfortune of having to work with the Mexican federal police and military in the past. They are some of the most corrupt ones I've seen up close and I've seen more than a few worldwide.
The U.S. doesn't want "Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity." What the U.S. wants in Mexico is stability foremost, control/suppression of narco-traffickers, and decreased poverty, so that it doesn't destabilize our southern border.I wish. China has spread around A LOT of money in the U.S., and there is sadly too few who contemplate any such conflict with China outside the military.
“Southfarthing says:
Letterman’s final episode was watched by 13.7 million vs Mad Men’s final episode being watched by 3.3 million. The comparison is relevant because their final episodes aired within 3 days of each other.”
And people actually go out of their way to buy DVDs of Mad Men, and similar shows, and set aside whole evenings to watch them, rather than just tune in Letterman or O’Brien while they brush their teeth.
That being said, I do think immigration levels have remained much too high over the last dozen years or more, and should certainly be reduced. As it happens, I think I solved the theoretical problem and published the solution in a major article a few years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/immigration-republicans-and-the-end-of-white-america-singlepage/#escaping-the-low-wage-society
Somewhat to my surprise, my political solution has gaining lots of momentum since publication, helped along by various follow up articles and political campaigns I've personally launched, though obviously one can't expect such a huge national shift to take place overnight. Here's a brief summary of the subsequent history to 2013 followed by a collection of my most recent articles and columns:
https://www.unz.com/runz/nr-on-tnr-on-unz-on-minimum-wage-immigration/
https://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/topic/minimum-wage/
Just a week or two ago, Los Angeles raised its local minimum wage to $15/hour, adding a huge head of steam to the political tide, which seems reasonably likely to sweep most of the nation, at least in the $12 range, within the near future. So while anti-immigrant activists have been endlessly complaining on websites and following all sorts of political blind alleys, I think the strategy I created may be on its way to substantially solving America's immigration problems.
P.S. I should mention that one of the amusing ironies is that although VDare and quite a number of rightwing anti-immigrationists have strongly endorsed my strategy, all the actual work on the ground is being done by liberals, with the Republicans and mainstream conservatives generally being conflicted or somewhat opposed.
The higher general minimum wage will put a lot of low-wage foreigners out of work, but it could put low-wage Americans out of work as well. We need a minimum wage specific to foreigners, to the green card. Something protective and revenue-enhancing, like $35/hr.
Anyway, consider it from another perspective. Probably the biggest driving force behind very high immigration levels has been the business community, eager to hold down costs and fill their lowest wage jobs. But suppose the minimum wage were raised to $12/hour or higher, with very harsh enforcement penalties. Suddenly, lots of Americans would be willing to take those jobs, removing the magnetic lure for new foreigners and also the incentive for employers to bring them in. Not only would a great deal of immigration dry up but so would the business lobbying pressure behind it.
I'm certainly not saying the results would satify all the fanatic anti-immigrationists who tend to comment here, but the impact would be vastly greater than just endlessly shouting "Close the Borders!!!" at the top of their lungs for the last two or three decades, which seems about their only political strategy.
Well, in my articles I’ve argued that the the disemployment impact would be greatest among newly arrived low-skill immigrants, such as illegals, who have the weakest language skills, work history, and community ties.
Anyway, consider it from another perspective. Probably the biggest driving force behind very high immigration levels has been the business community, eager to hold down costs and fill their lowest wage jobs. But suppose the minimum wage were raised to $12/hour or higher, with very harsh enforcement penalties. Suddenly, lots of Americans would be willing to take those jobs, removing the magnetic lure for new foreigners and also the incentive for employers to bring them in. Not only would a great deal of immigration dry up but so would the business lobbying pressure behind it.
I’m certainly not saying the results would satify all the fanatic anti-immigrationists who tend to comment here, but the impact would be vastly greater than just endlessly shouting “Close the Borders!!!” at the top of their lungs for the last two or three decades, which seems about their only political strategy.
Jobs aren't the only lure for unskilled immigrants; government benefits are too. Most European countries have high enough de facto minimum wages to attract native job seekers and immigrants still risk their lives for the chance to be wards of a first world welfare state.
Granted, our welfare state may be less generous than those of the EU, but it's still a lure for poor immigrants. How would you approach this part of the issue?
Well, of course reality had to reassert itself sometime and in the last year, the Pena Nieto government has completely collapsed, with corruption scandals, several mass massacres perpetrated by different government agencies, and even lower economic growth than the paltry 2% the country had been averaging for 30 years since the neoliberal ideology took over. But what did the US gain with his election? Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity. Pena Nieto was to do one thing, privatize the national energy companies especially PEMEX and sell them at rock bottom prices to US multinationals. This was very important to the neocons in the US government because they are preparing for a cold war with China. General Petraeus is quite open about this. The huge downside is that the Mexican government receives an astounding 40% of their revenue from PEMEX and once the privatization kicks in this source of revenue will collapse spectacularly, wreaking havoc across the country and potentially causing another huge wave of immigration to the US.
I’ll admit I’m no expert on the internal policies of Mexico, but I have the impression that the economy has been doing much better recently. More importantly, over the last decade or so, I think Mexico’s total fertility rate has dropped to replacement or perhaps even a bit below, and with the population no longer growing, I’m skeptical of the likelihood of any huge wave of new immigration. Hasn’t net Mexican migration has been as often negative as positive over the last six or seven years?
Census results show this cannot possibly be true.
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/economia/2015/02/20/2015-no-da-senales-de-mejoria-para-la-economia-mexicanaYou also writeTFR has dropped to nearly US levels in Mexico, but the demographics are still shocking
http://www.indexmundi.com/mexico/demographics_profile.html
Population 120,286,655 (July 2014 est.)
Age structure 0-14 years: 27.9% (male 17,188,577/female 16,423,421)
15-24 years: 18.1% (male 10,999,445/female 10,741,999)
25-54 years: 40.4% (male 23,385,321/female 25,200,511)
55-64 years: 7% (male 3,850,792/female 4,527,074)
65 years and over: 6.6% (male 3,594,675/female 4,374,840) (2014 est.)
And the traitorous puppet Pena Nieto has given away the nation's only source of wealth, its oil. I very much doubt that Exxon, Chevron or Shell will be paying an awful lot of taxes per barrel. Without this source of revenue, how will the government provide education and jobs to all those young people? Sadly, no one is interested in a prosperous Mexico. Mexico's role in the world economy is to provide cheap labor for multinationals.
Anyway, consider it from another perspective. Probably the biggest driving force behind very high immigration levels has been the business community, eager to hold down costs and fill their lowest wage jobs. But suppose the minimum wage were raised to $12/hour or higher, with very harsh enforcement penalties. Suddenly, lots of Americans would be willing to take those jobs, removing the magnetic lure for new foreigners and also the incentive for employers to bring them in. Not only would a great deal of immigration dry up but so would the business lobbying pressure behind it.
I'm certainly not saying the results would satify all the fanatic anti-immigrationists who tend to comment here, but the impact would be vastly greater than just endlessly shouting "Close the Borders!!!" at the top of their lungs for the last two or three decades, which seems about their only political strategy.
Ron, raising the minimum wage is a constructive approach to dealing with the business community’s demand for immigration, but what about the left’s demand for future voters?
Jobs aren’t the only lure for unskilled immigrants; government benefits are too. Most European countries have high enough de facto minimum wages to attract native job seekers and immigrants still risk their lives for the chance to be wards of a first world welfare state.
Granted, our welfare state may be less generous than those of the EU, but it’s still a lure for poor immigrants. How would you approach this part of the issue?
(1) From what I've read, my impression is that something like 80-90% of all immigrants come here for jobs and economic opportunity. If the jobs aren't available, they'll generally go home and after word gets around, others won't come in the first place. Obviously, a high minimum wage only impacts low-skilled immigrants, not e.g. H1-B types. And Probably a good fraction of "refugee immigrants" might also not be impacted, but again they're a relatively small slice of the total.
(2) Very, very few immigrants come to America for "government welfare benefits." Just because all the fanatic anti-immigrant activists have said something for decades, doesn't mean it's actually true.
(3) I'm also *extremely* skeptical of the endless rightwing claims that Democrats support heavy immigration for votes. Put another way, these days approximately 0% of Democrats oppose a big hike in the minimum wage, and any really stupid one who did would lose the votes of all the immigrants. So why bring in immigrants for votes if they'll all vote against you?
[ I think Mexico’s total fertility rate has dropped to replacement or perhaps even a bit below]
Census results show this cannot possibly be true.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:MEX:USA:CAN&hl=en&dl=en
I’m not surprised that you indeed have that impression given the agenda driven coverage of Mexico by the oligarchical corporate US media. But sadly the complete opposite is true, that is the Mexican economy has actually under-performed since Pena Nieto came to power in December 2012. In the last 30 years mexico has averaged economic growth of 2.5%, but during the first two years of the Pena Nieto administration the country only averaged 1.7% growth. Here is the source although in Spanish.
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/economia/2015/02/20/2015-no-da-senales-de-mejoria-para-la-economia-mexicana
You also write
TFR has dropped to nearly US levels in Mexico, but the demographics are still shocking
http://www.indexmundi.com/mexico/demographics_profile.html
Population 120,286,655 (July 2014 est.)
Age structure 0-14 years: 27.9% (male 17,188,577/female 16,423,421)
15-24 years: 18.1% (male 10,999,445/female 10,741,999)
25-54 years: 40.4% (male 23,385,321/female 25,200,511)
55-64 years: 7% (male 3,850,792/female 4,527,074)
65 years and over: 6.6% (male 3,594,675/female 4,374,840) (2014 est.)
And the traitorous puppet Pena Nieto has given away the nation’s only source of wealth, its oil. I very much doubt that Exxon, Chevron or Shell will be paying an awful lot of taxes per barrel. Without this source of revenue, how will the government provide education and jobs to all those young people? Sadly, no one is interested in a prosperous Mexico. Mexico’s role in the world economy is to provide cheap labor for multinationals.
Census results show this cannot possibly be true.
Well, I checked and I was slightly mistaken. As of 2012, Mexico’s TFR had only fallen to 2.2, with 2.1 being replacement-level. Still, given the trendlines, it may have well reached 2.1 by now:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:MEX:USA:CAN&hl=en&dl=en
Jobs aren't the only lure for unskilled immigrants; government benefits are too. Most European countries have high enough de facto minimum wages to attract native job seekers and immigrants still risk their lives for the chance to be wards of a first world welfare state.
Granted, our welfare state may be less generous than those of the EU, but it's still a lure for poor immigrants. How would you approach this part of the issue?
It sounds like you’ve totally swallowed all the nonsense endlessly written by anti-immigrant activist-types, including on my own website.
(1) From what I’ve read, my impression is that something like 80-90% of all immigrants come here for jobs and economic opportunity. If the jobs aren’t available, they’ll generally go home and after word gets around, others won’t come in the first place. Obviously, a high minimum wage only impacts low-skilled immigrants, not e.g. H1-B types. And Probably a good fraction of “refugee immigrants” might also not be impacted, but again they’re a relatively small slice of the total.
(2) Very, very few immigrants come to America for “government welfare benefits.” Just because all the fanatic anti-immigrant activists have said something for decades, doesn’t mean it’s actually true.
(3) I’m also *extremely* skeptical of the endless rightwing claims that Democrats support heavy immigration for votes. Put another way, these days approximately 0% of Democrats oppose a big hike in the minimum wage, and any really stupid one who did would lose the votes of all the immigrants. So why bring in immigrants for votes if they’ll all vote against you?
57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
So, it seems logical it's part of the attraction.Why? Immigrants tend to vote for Democrats when they become citizens. Given that, why wouldn't Democrats want more immigration? Look at how immigration has made states like California into solid blue.I don't follow your logic here at all. Why can't Democrats be in favor of increased immigration and a higher minimum wage? In fact, it seems pretty clear that most of them are in favor of both. If you're thinking that these are contradictory policies in that one (raising the minimum wage) raises wages and the other (increasing immigration) puts downward pressure on wages, that's true, but how does that hurt Dems at the ballot box? Once citizens, most of the new immigrants will vote Democrat whether they're unemployed or not.
(1) From what I've read, my impression is that something like 80-90% of all immigrants come here for jobs and economic opportunity. If the jobs aren't available, they'll generally go home and after word gets around, others won't come in the first place. Obviously, a high minimum wage only impacts low-skilled immigrants, not e.g. H1-B types. And Probably a good fraction of "refugee immigrants" might also not be impacted, but again they're a relatively small slice of the total.
(2) Very, very few immigrants come to America for "government welfare benefits." Just because all the fanatic anti-immigrant activists have said something for decades, doesn't mean it's actually true.
(3) I'm also *extremely* skeptical of the endless rightwing claims that Democrats support heavy immigration for votes. Put another way, these days approximately 0% of Democrats oppose a big hike in the minimum wage, and any really stupid one who did would lose the votes of all the immigrants. So why bring in immigrants for votes if they'll all vote against you?
That might be true with respect to illegal immigration from Mexico. This article offers some support for that.
I don’t know how you’d quantify what percentage came for government welfare benefits, but, according to the Center for Immigration Studies,
57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
So, it seems logical it’s part of the attraction.
Why? Immigrants tend to vote for Democrats when they become citizens. Given that, why wouldn’t Democrats want more immigration? Look at how immigration has made states like California into solid blue.
I don’t follow your logic here at all. Why can’t Democrats be in favor of increased immigration and a higher minimum wage? In fact, it seems pretty clear that most of them are in favor of both. If you’re thinking that these are contradictory policies in that one (raising the minimum wage) raises wages and the other (increasing immigration) puts downward pressure on wages, that’s true, but how does that hurt Dems at the ballot box? Once citizens, most of the new immigrants will vote Democrat whether they’re unemployed or not.
This interpretation, if correct, does not vitiate Ron Unz's point about immigrants being attracted to jobs and, as a corollary, being deterred from emigrating by the lack of jobs. If breadwinners don't bother to migrate, neither will their dependents.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:MEX:USA:CAN&hl=en&dl=en
Those figures are made up. That’s why I refer to the census results.
57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
So, it seems logical it's part of the attraction.Why? Immigrants tend to vote for Democrats when they become citizens. Given that, why wouldn't Democrats want more immigration? Look at how immigration has made states like California into solid blue.I don't follow your logic here at all. Why can't Democrats be in favor of increased immigration and a higher minimum wage? In fact, it seems pretty clear that most of them are in favor of both. If you're thinking that these are contradictory policies in that one (raising the minimum wage) raises wages and the other (increasing immigration) puts downward pressure on wages, that's true, but how does that hurt Dems at the ballot box? Once citizens, most of the new immigrants will vote Democrat whether they're unemployed or not.
You can interpret this in a different way, that welfare benefits for family dependents are the result of chain migration, not the attraction. The original immigrant is the breadwinner, who is attracted purely to the job opportunities and not to the welfare benefits. But since family reunification laws permit the entry of a large number of dependents (who are in no position to work, being old, or children, perhaps disabled), many immigrant families end up being net consumers of welfare.
This interpretation, if correct, does not vitiate Ron Unz’s point about immigrants being attracted to jobs and, as a corollary, being deterred from emigrating by the lack of jobs. If breadwinners don’t bother to migrate, neither will their dependents.
Another issue, raised in this NY Times article, is that the children of unskilled immigrants are often unwilling to work at their parents' menial jobs but don't have the skills to do anything else, so they end up mired in gangs, crime, and poverty.
57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
So, it seems logical it's part of the attraction.Why? Immigrants tend to vote for Democrats when they become citizens. Given that, why wouldn't Democrats want more immigration? Look at how immigration has made states like California into solid blue.I don't follow your logic here at all. Why can't Democrats be in favor of increased immigration and a higher minimum wage? In fact, it seems pretty clear that most of them are in favor of both. If you're thinking that these are contradictory policies in that one (raising the minimum wage) raises wages and the other (increasing immigration) puts downward pressure on wages, that's true, but how does that hurt Dems at the ballot box? Once citizens, most of the new immigrants will vote Democrat whether they're unemployed or not.
Actually, from everything I’ve read, immigrants tend to have very high rates of labor-force participation and low rates of welfare-dependency. Since CIS is an anti-immigration outfit, I’d assume they’re using “welfare program” propagandistically, referring to means-tested programs aimed at helping the working-poor, such as food stamps, medicaid, and housing subsidies. Their figures seem to indicate that almost *half* of all families in America with children are getting “welfare benefits.” Gullible rightwingers believe all sorts of ridiculous things, but if you accept that figure, you’ve stretched the notion of “welfare” beyond all plausible recognition. Maybe everyone taking a home-mortgage interest deduction should be considered “on welfare.” That’s how fools like Mitt Romney eventually blow themselves up, by absurdly claiming that 47% of Americans pay no taxes.
Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that I'm a gullible right winger, the CIS is tendentious, and immigrants are almost always drawn here by the lure of jobs. Could you address my last paragraph in my previous comment?:
New facts from Pew:
From 1993 to 2013, the Hispanic HS dropout rate fell from 33% to 14%.
For whites, it fell from 9% to 5%.
For Asian, it fell from 5% to 4%.
For blacks, it fell from 16% to 8%.
https://twitter.com/FactTank/status/603369283075248129/photo/1
Here's a chart that shows labor force participation rates by ethnicity: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100105b.png
It doesn't go far enough. Theres expenderture per capita to build and maintain:
Roads, schools, water system, police, court houses, prisions, fire stations, power plants, parks, stadiums, museums, hospitals, etc.
Well, of course reality had to reassert itself sometime and in the last year, the Pena Nieto government has completely collapsed, with corruption scandals, several mass massacres perpetrated by different government agencies, and even lower economic growth than the paltry 2% the country had been averaging for 30 years since the neoliberal ideology took over. But what did the US gain with his election? Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity. Pena Nieto was to do one thing, privatize the national energy companies especially PEMEX and sell them at rock bottom prices to US multinationals. This was very important to the neocons in the US government because they are preparing for a cold war with China. General Petraeus is quite open about this. The huge downside is that the Mexican government receives an astounding 40% of their revenue from PEMEX and once the privatization kicks in this source of revenue will collapse spectacularly, wreaking havoc across the country and potentially causing another huge wave of immigration to the US.
This is about as silly as “US went to war in Iraq for the oil” meme. It’s the classic and false Marxist simpleton rhetoric (to which a lot of Mexicans subscribe, it seems).
Have you checked the oil and natural gas prices lately? It’s like you missed the whole fracking boom (and bust) for energy in the United States. Hint: the U.S. is expected to become an oil exporter shortly.
Not everything wrong with Mexico is a nefarious Yanqui conspiracy. Mexicans do a bang up job of corrupting and screwing up their country on their own. I had the misfortune of having to work with the Mexican federal police and military in the past. They are some of the most corrupt ones I’ve seen up close and I’ve seen more than a few worldwide.
The U.S. doesn’t want “Mexico’s oil, natural gas and electricity.” What the U.S. wants in Mexico is stability foremost, control/suppression of narco-traffickers, and decreased poverty, so that it doesn’t destabilize our southern border.
I wish. China has spread around A LOT of money in the U.S., and there is sadly too few who contemplate any such conflict with China outside the military.
http://www.nature.com/news/natural-gas-the-fracking-fallacy-1.16430
https://youtu.be/sbHwT21aNNU
https://youtu.be/XBZnOU9adds
https://youtu.be/NbFKZj1tQIA
According to several studies, a large percentage of jobs will be automated by software applications or robotics devices in the near future. An Oxford study estimated that 45% of all jobs are at risk of automation in the next 20 years. Do you find this plausible?
If you do, do you believe our economy will be able to offset this job loss with job growth in other sectors?
There’s some argument over whether human labor is becoming obsolete. If labor is becoming obsolete, that obviously will have tremendous ramifications for our middle class society and our immigration policies. I was interested in your views on this topic.
Albert's not for limiting immigration though, which he thinks is impractical.
However, I am strongly convinced that the number of people going to college is *vastly* greater than it should be, especially relative to the number of projected jobs that reasonably require a college education. This was one of the main points I made in my New America Foundation article a couple of years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/raising-american-wages-by-raising-american-wages/
And I'll really have to now curtail my commenting here, which is enjoyable but unfortunately doesn't help me with my programming. I lost a full week on a couple of blind alleys, and I really need to get my work finished...
Have you checked the oil and natural gas prices lately? It's like you missed the whole fracking boom (and bust) for energy in the United States. Hint: the U.S. is expected to become an oil exporter shortly.
Not everything wrong with Mexico is a nefarious Yanqui conspiracy. Mexicans do a bang up job of corrupting and screwing up their country on their own. I had the misfortune of having to work with the Mexican federal police and military in the past. They are some of the most corrupt ones I've seen up close and I've seen more than a few worldwide.
The U.S. doesn't want "Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity." What the U.S. wants in Mexico is stability foremost, control/suppression of narco-traffickers, and decreased poverty, so that it doesn't destabilize our southern border.I wish. China has spread around A LOT of money in the U.S., and there is sadly too few who contemplate any such conflict with China outside the military.
BUST! BUST! BUST! You said it right buddy, BUST! You tell me why in the hell would the US begin to export oil when it is no longer profitable to extract shale! Most shale plays break even at around 80$ a barrel! So, this shale crude will be sold at a loss? Does that make any sense? Of course not, but why then is the media endlessly hyping this up? Well, because the neocons in the US government are pushing this propaganda to plummet oil and natural gas prices to weaken Russia. It’s a very dangerous and shortsighted game they’re playing. Furthermore, the much bandied about “massive shale reserves” are pure fiction! The University of Texas recently conducted the most in depth study of shale reserves to date, and it concludes that shale reserves are far, far lower than what the industry trumpets.
http://www.nature.com/news/natural-gas-the-fracking-fallacy-1.16430
And, understand, that there are fluctuations in pricing that alter production decisions. For example, as of 3 hours ago, this was the forecast: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/26/us-markets-oil-idUSKBN0OB02J20150526
Two words: "ample supply."
Have you checked the oil and natural gas prices lately? It's like you missed the whole fracking boom (and bust) for energy in the United States. Hint: the U.S. is expected to become an oil exporter shortly.
Not everything wrong with Mexico is a nefarious Yanqui conspiracy. Mexicans do a bang up job of corrupting and screwing up their country on their own. I had the misfortune of having to work with the Mexican federal police and military in the past. They are some of the most corrupt ones I've seen up close and I've seen more than a few worldwide.
The U.S. doesn't want "Mexico's oil, natural gas and electricity." What the U.S. wants in Mexico is stability foremost, control/suppression of narco-traffickers, and decreased poverty, so that it doesn't destabilize our southern border.I wish. China has spread around A LOT of money in the U.S., and there is sadly too few who contemplate any such conflict with China outside the military.
HAHAHA! Sure, that’s what the average citizen wants, but that’s not what the US government is interested in. How come the US government never raises a word about the corruption in Mexico? About the human rights abuses in Mexico? About rigged elections in Mexico? About the lack of due process in Mexico? Why does the US endlessly condemn Russia and Putin, but it doesn’t condemn Mexico and its corrupt politicians, many of whom are involved with the cartels? The political parties in Mexico are all compromised by the cartels and everyone in Mexico knows this. Brave journalists routinely denounce the ties between politicians and drug traffickers only to be assassinated. Tell me, does the US support these brave voices the way it supports terrorist groups in the middle east or in Ukraine whenever these groups are attacking what the US considers an even greater enemy?
Well, here’s General Petraeus in all his glory describing the US pillaging of Mexico and the coming cold war with China.
This interpretation, if correct, does not vitiate Ron Unz's point about immigrants being attracted to jobs and, as a corollary, being deterred from emigrating by the lack of jobs. If breadwinners don't bother to migrate, neither will their dependents.
You and Ron could be mostly right about that, with exceptions such as pregnant women and minors immigrating here illegally, and elderly relatives migrating here legally via chain migration.
Another issue, raised in this NY Times article, is that the children of unskilled immigrants are often unwilling to work at their parents’ menial jobs but don’t have the skills to do anything else, so they end up mired in gangs, crime, and poverty.
Ron,
Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that I’m a gullible right winger, the CIS is tendentious, and immigrants are almost always drawn here by the lure of jobs. Could you address my last paragraph in my previous comment?:
Albert Wenger, who, has a somewhat similar background to Ron (PhD in computer science, tech company CEO, and now venture capitalist) suggests in this video two ideas to deal with increasing automation: a basic income guarantee (i.e., paying everyone enough money to keep them out of poverty whether they work or not), and the right to be represented by a bot.
Albert’s not for limiting immigration though, which he thinks is impractical.
Another issue, raised in this NY Times article, is that the children of unskilled immigrants are often unwilling to work at their parents' menial jobs but don't have the skills to do anything else, so they end up mired in gangs, crime, and poverty.
In reality, the vast majority of the children of unskilled immigrants do much better than their parents. In fact, a troubling statistic that often comes up in studies tracking Hispanics by generation is that while the second generation makes significant gains, the third generation stalls. This “third generation stall” has become the favored new argument against low skilled immigration for restrictionist right-wingers. There are several problems with the data however, given that the studies rely on self identification and a substantial and highly selective fraction of third generation Hispanics don’t identify as such. Furthermore, Hispanic educational attainment has tremendously accelerated in the last 20 years.
http://www.nature.com/news/natural-gas-the-fracking-fallacy-1.16430
I see your understanding of basic economic concepts is about on par with your understanding of basic statistics and geopolitics, which is to say very crude (pun intended). Petroleum is a commodity and, as such, is subject to the supply-demand equilibrium pricing. The fact that shale production is not price-competitive of late is a direct evidence of “over” supply of petroleum. Why would we Americans “want” Mexican oil when we are shutting down some of the less competitive wells within the United States?
Even at “far lower than what the industry trumpets” level, the shale reserve is a vast addition to the prior reserve calculations.
And, understand, that there are fluctuations in pricing that alter production decisions. For example, as of 3 hours ago, this was the forecast: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/26/us-markets-oil-idUSKBN0OB02J20150526
Two words: “ample supply.”
1.) Saudi Arabia increasing its production
http://rt.com/business/250317-saudi-arabia-oil-production/
Would the US have anything to do with this insane decision by the Saudis?
2.) The over production from shale plays in the US which are at this point unprofitable
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-03/the-shale-boom-has-already-gone-bust-at-least-for-now
3.) And most important of all, weakening global demand!
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/10/17-world-oil-demand-ebinger
Having established these facts, it is clear then that the US cannot export where there is simply no demand. Also, the US does not even produce enough oil to satisfy its own needs. As of 2013, the US consumed a total of 18.96 million barrels of crude while it only produced 7.44 million. This fact is the reason why the US is over exploiting and quickly running through its shale reserves.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=usBut it is not nearly enough and as Petraeus and former president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick have explained, the US needs secure suppliers of oil, mainly Canada and Mexico, hence the plan for a "North American Community". It is highway robbery, armed theft and the Mexican people deserve better.
https://youtu.be/sbHwT21aNNU
https://youtu.be/XBZnOU9adds
https://youtu.be/NbFKZj1tQIA
Let’s look at the State Department report on Mexico, shall we? http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/220667.pdf
As for GENERAL Petraeus, let’s look at my original statement, shall we?
The U.S. military and its personnel are keenly aware of the growing conflict with the PRC. They deal with it everyday. But that sentiment is not replicated much in the civilian world. Most economic elites in the U.S. (who are in charge of the national politics) see China mainly as an important part of the industrial supply chain and a source of (market for) economic opportunity, not as the primary security threat and competitor to the United States.
According to the big longitudinal study by the UCLA sociologists Teles and Ortiz (Generations of Exclusion), education attainment declines among 3rd and 4th generation and Mexican Americans, and a majority of 4th generation Mexican Americans self identify as Mexican.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207354/And the rise in Hispanic educational attainment these last 20 years has been well reported on.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/04/hispanic-college-enrollment-rate-surpasses-whites-for-the-first-time/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/latino-white-uc-admissions_n_5187943.html
https://www.unz.com/isteve/ross-douthats-red-pill/#comment-928685
Meanwhile, if we step back a bit and look at the vast quantity of sociological data that exists, I think we'd come to a very different conclusion. I would actually argue that over the last couple of decades Mex-Ams have advanced socio-economically and educationally at a rate far more rapid than that of almost any European immigrant group of the American past, including the Irish, the Italians, the Slavs, the Germans, and quite possibly even the Jews. This isn't because Mexicans are so much smarter than Italians, but mostly because so many aspects of American society are totally different today than they were 100 years ago, much worse in many ways certainly, but better and providing greater opportunities in others. I've made these points at length in previous comments, including links to some of my articles:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893649
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893698
And, understand, that there are fluctuations in pricing that alter production decisions. For example, as of 3 hours ago, this was the forecast: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/26/us-markets-oil-idUSKBN0OB02J20150526
Two words: "ample supply."
Ok, let’s break this down point by point. First, you must acknowledge that this “over supply” is due to these factors
1.) Saudi Arabia increasing its production
http://rt.com/business/250317-saudi-arabia-oil-production/
Would the US have anything to do with this insane decision by the Saudis?
2.) The over production from shale plays in the US which are at this point unprofitable
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-03/the-shale-boom-has-already-gone-bust-at-least-for-now
3.) And most important of all, weakening global demand!
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/10/17-world-oil-demand-ebinger
Having established these facts, it is clear then that the US cannot export where there is simply no demand. Also, the US does not even produce enough oil to satisfy its own needs. As of 2013, the US consumed a total of 18.96 million barrels of crude while it only produced 7.44 million. This fact is the reason why the US is over exploiting and quickly running through its shale reserves.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=us
But it is not nearly enough and as Petraeus and former president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick have explained, the US needs secure suppliers of oil, mainly Canada and Mexico, hence the plan for a “North American Community”. It is highway robbery, armed theft and the Mexican people deserve better.
By the way, regarding the cold war with the Chinese, you seem not to realize that the Chinese are FAR more dependent on outside (shipped, in fact) energy supplies than we Americans are. Bulk of that shipped energy travels through the Straits of Malacca, astride which sits Singapore. Our 7th Fleet can choke that in shorter order and bring the entire Chinese economy to a grinding halt in 2-3 weeks. Why do you think the Chinese are busy building "infrastructure" on the Burmese-Chinese border and port facilities in Burma and Bangladesh?
Umm… That was a study of approximately 500 individuals including the original 1965 respondents so I’m not sure how that’s “big” especially considering that the Hispanic population numbers 50 million. And again, ethnic attrition among 3rd and 4th gen Mex-Ams is substantial and highly selective.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207354/
And the rise in Hispanic educational attainment these last 20 years has been well reported on.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/04/hispanic-college-enrollment-rate-surpasses-whites-for-the-first-time/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/latino-white-uc-admissions_n_5187943.html
Hispanics have high dropout rates and a large fraction of their "college" enrollment is at community colleges and 2-year institutions. Their share of the population with 4-year degrees is still low.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-college-completion-rates-low-despite-enrollment-n80326The Pew Study itself notes:In both high school graduation rates and 4-year college graduation rates, they are still doing *worse* than blacks, who are supposed to be our "problem ethnic group." And we are suppose to bring more such people into the country? Um, yeah, okay.
Hey, Ron.
New facts from Pew:
From 1993 to 2013, the Hispanic HS dropout rate fell from 33% to 14%.
For whites, it fell from 9% to 5%.
For Asian, it fell from 5% to 4%.
For blacks, it fell from 16% to 8%.
https://twitter.com/FactTank/status/603369283075248129/photo/1
Here’s a chart that shows labor force participation rates by ethnicity:
Actually, I think the absurdly high 33% Hispanic dropout rate of the past was always known to be nonsense, being based on the percentage of adult Hispanics who had graduated H.S. The problem was that for a couple of decades a very substantial fraction of all Hispanics were poor immigrants from Latin America, very few of whom had H.S. degrees, which massively skewed the overall numbers. Now that a much larger percentage are American born or at least grew up here, their graduate rates are converging to far more reasonable figures.
New facts from Pew:
From 1993 to 2013, the Hispanic HS dropout rate fell from 33% to 14%.
For whites, it fell from 9% to 5%.
For Asian, it fell from 5% to 4%.
For blacks, it fell from 16% to 8%.
https://twitter.com/FactTank/status/603369283075248129/photo/1
Here's a chart that shows labor force participation rates by ethnicity: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100105b.png
Thanks for the data, which doesn’t surprise me at all.
Actually, I think the absurdly high 33% Hispanic dropout rate of the past was always known to be nonsense, being based on the percentage of adult Hispanics who had graduated H.S. The problem was that for a couple of decades a very substantial fraction of all Hispanics were poor immigrants from Latin America, very few of whom had H.S. degrees, which massively skewed the overall numbers. Now that a much larger percentage are American born or at least grew up here, their graduate rates are converging to far more reasonable figures.
Since that “Syon” individual has quoted the Teles/Ortiz study something like 100 times on this website, I finally ordered it from Amazon and read it a few weeks ago. Although the academic quality seemed perfectly solid, I didn’t find the results very convincing:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/ross-douthats-red-pill/#comment-928685
Meanwhile, if we step back a bit and look at the vast quantity of sociological data that exists, I think we’d come to a very different conclusion. I would actually argue that over the last couple of decades Mex-Ams have advanced socio-economically and educationally at a rate far more rapid than that of almost any European immigrant group of the American past, including the Irish, the Italians, the Slavs, the Germans, and quite possibly even the Jews. This isn’t because Mexicans are so much smarter than Italians, but mostly because so many aspects of American society are totally different today than they were 100 years ago, much worse in many ways certainly, but better and providing greater opportunities in others. I’ve made these points at length in previous comments, including links to some of my articles:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893649
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893698
Using college enrollment data to track trends sounds pretty useless.
Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that I'm a gullible right winger, the CIS is tendentious, and immigrants are almost always drawn here by the lure of jobs. Could you address my last paragraph in my previous comment?:
Well, I’ve never really seen any evidence that Democrats wholeheartedly favor increased immigration, as opposed to decent/liberal treatment of the immigrants who have already lived here for a decade or two, legally or not. Meanwhile, these days Democrats are massively, totally in favor of a much higher minimum wage, and if the minimum wage goes to $12 let alone $15 an hour, jobs for new (lower-skilled) immigrants will automatically dry up, and they won’t come any more in large numbers.
Maybe a few ultra-fanatic multiculturalist zealots will be oppose the idea on those grounds, but if they speak up, they’ll just get trampled. I think something like 90% of Democrats and liberals support a big hike in the minimum wage, and I’d assume that low-wage immigrants are especially enthusiastic.
If fairly recent immigrants can’t find jobs, they’ll just go home again, since that’s where they have most of their friends and families and the cost of living is so much lower.
In fact, in my original article I even suggested that the government mitigate the impact of a high minimum wage by offering a one-time cash bonus of something like $5000 and free transportion to any immigrant who wanted to go home. All my conservative and rightwing friends were terrified of that suggestion, saying it was a great idea but being sure it would cause me to be attacked and vilified as a “vile racist nativist xenophobe” thereby tainting the rest of my important proposal. But all my liberal and leftwing friends thought it was a wonderful idea and very humanitarian.
Rightwingers just don’t understand how liberals and Democrats think…
If Mexicans are humane people, Mexico's treatment of her own immigrants must, by definition, be "decent/liberal". Will Democrats agree to enact Mexico's corresponding policies in the US?Will immigrants pay income tax at $15, let alone $12? Minimum wage for green carders needs to be $25, or $35 if they bring (or join) a family. We have to stop subsidizing them and have them subsidize us for a change.
I’ll have to plead agnosticism on this issue, which I’ve never investigated. Some of the arguments seem reasonably plausible, but they’ve been made frequently enough in past generations that I’d have to remain somewhat skeptical.
However, I am strongly convinced that the number of people going to college is *vastly* greater than it should be, especially relative to the number of projected jobs that reasonably require a college education. This was one of the main points I made in my New America Foundation article a couple of years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/raising-american-wages-by-raising-american-wages/
And I’ll really have to now curtail my commenting here, which is enjoyable but unfortunately doesn’t help me with my programming. I lost a full week on a couple of blind alleys, and I really need to get my work finished…
But that kind of a system in more multi-racial in the United States would be dead on arrival, politically. Can you imagine the outcries of racism if only mostly whites and Asians made it to Gymnasium (and later university) while blacks and Hispanics were channeled to Hauptschule and Realschule (manual labor/technical labor tracks)?
All distributionary decisions are political decisions. All income is welfare.
EDIT: Actually, no. That’s wrong. There’s one form of income that isn’t welfare: illegally obtained income.
1.) Saudi Arabia increasing its production
http://rt.com/business/250317-saudi-arabia-oil-production/
Would the US have anything to do with this insane decision by the Saudis?
2.) The over production from shale plays in the US which are at this point unprofitable
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-03/the-shale-boom-has-already-gone-bust-at-least-for-now
3.) And most important of all, weakening global demand!
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/10/17-world-oil-demand-ebinger
Having established these facts, it is clear then that the US cannot export where there is simply no demand. Also, the US does not even produce enough oil to satisfy its own needs. As of 2013, the US consumed a total of 18.96 million barrels of crude while it only produced 7.44 million. This fact is the reason why the US is over exploiting and quickly running through its shale reserves.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=usBut it is not nearly enough and as Petraeus and former president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick have explained, the US needs secure suppliers of oil, mainly Canada and Mexico, hence the plan for a "North American Community". It is highway robbery, armed theft and the Mexican people deserve better.
Yes. OPEC is dead. What else?
“At least for now” doesn’t last all that long in oil production. Per my 3-hour old link:
Shale is only “unprofitable” because there is a glut of supply. If there were to be significant reductions in supply and/or increases in demand, the U.S. has ample reserves of its own. We don’t need Mexican oil.
And? As I mentioned before oil is a globally trade commodity subject to the supply-demand equilibrium.
Um, per that graph, oil consumption in the U.S. has declined since 1997 while production has risen since that time. I think that’s an excellent trend for autarky should we pursue it. Currently the U.S. is projected to be the biggest energy producer in the world by 2020 and to meet its own demand completely from domestic sources by 2030.
I see, so what you are saying is the nefarious Yanqui is keeping the Mexicans down! And your solution is for Mexicans to keep their oil companies nationalized so they can continue to be extremely inefficient and continue to serve as a giant, corrupt piggy bank for the rapacious Mexican elites.
By the way, regarding the cold war with the Chinese, you seem not to realize that the Chinese are FAR more dependent on outside (shipped, in fact) energy supplies than we Americans are. Bulk of that shipped energy travels through the Straits of Malacca, astride which sits Singapore. Our 7th Fleet can choke that in shorter order and bring the entire Chinese economy to a grinding halt in 2-3 weeks. Why do you think the Chinese are busy building “infrastructure” on the Burmese-Chinese border and port facilities in Burma and Bangladesh?
http://www.thewagnerreview.org/2015/01/addressing-global-energy-demand-in-north-america/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207354/And the rise in Hispanic educational attainment these last 20 years has been well reported on.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/04/hispanic-college-enrollment-rate-surpasses-whites-for-the-first-time/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/latino-white-uc-admissions_n_5187943.html
Nope, not “attainment,” just “enrollment.”
Hispanics have high dropout rates and a large fraction of their “college” enrollment is at community colleges and 2-year institutions. Their share of the population with 4-year degrees is still low.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-college-completion-rates-low-despite-enrollment-n80326
The Pew Study itself notes:
In both high school graduation rates and 4-year college graduation rates, they are still doing *worse* than blacks, who are supposed to be our “problem ethnic group.” And we are suppose to bring more such people into the country? Um, yeah, okay.
Actually, I think the absurdly high 33% Hispanic dropout rate of the past was always known to be nonsense, being based on the percentage of adult Hispanics who had graduated H.S. The problem was that for a couple of decades a very substantial fraction of all Hispanics were poor immigrants from Latin America, very few of whom had H.S. degrees, which massively skewed the overall numbers. Now that a much larger percentage are American born or at least grew up here, their graduate rates are converging to far more reasonable figures.
You think 1/3 of the white/Asian rate is “converg[ence] to far more reasonable figure”?
However, I am strongly convinced that the number of people going to college is *vastly* greater than it should be, especially relative to the number of projected jobs that reasonably require a college education. This was one of the main points I made in my New America Foundation article a couple of years ago:
https://www.unz.com/article/raising-american-wages-by-raising-american-wages/
And I'll really have to now curtail my commenting here, which is enjoyable but unfortunately doesn't help me with my programming. I lost a full week on a couple of blind alleys, and I really need to get my work finished...
In this I agree. I think that the German system of feeding secondary students to three separate levels of education (only one of which leads to university education) makes much more sense.
But that kind of a system in more multi-racial in the United States would be dead on arrival, politically. Can you imagine the outcries of racism if only mostly whites and Asians made it to Gymnasium (and later university) while blacks and Hispanics were channeled to Hauptschule and Realschule (manual labor/technical labor tracks)?
Hispanics have high dropout rates and a large fraction of their "college" enrollment is at community colleges and 2-year institutions. Their share of the population with 4-year degrees is still low.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-college-completion-rates-low-despite-enrollment-n80326The Pew Study itself notes:In both high school graduation rates and 4-year college graduation rates, they are still doing *worse* than blacks, who are supposed to be our "problem ethnic group." And we are suppose to bring more such people into the country? Um, yeah, okay.
Judging from anecdotal articles about for-profit colleges, I suspect some of that increased Hispanic enrollment was in for-profit schools.
Actually, I think the absurdly high 33% Hispanic dropout rate of the past was always known to be nonsense, being based on the percentage of adult Hispanics who had graduated H.S. The problem was that for a couple of decades a very substantial fraction of all Hispanics were poor immigrants from Latin America, very few of whom had H.S. degrees, which massively skewed the overall numbers. Now that a much larger percentage are American born or at least grew up here, their graduate rates are converging to far more reasonable figures.
For American-born Hispanics, the dropout rate is about 10%. It fell from a little above 20% in 2000.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/u-s-high-school-dropout-rates-fall-especially-among-latinos/
By the way, regarding the cold war with the Chinese, you seem not to realize that the Chinese are FAR more dependent on outside (shipped, in fact) energy supplies than we Americans are. Bulk of that shipped energy travels through the Straits of Malacca, astride which sits Singapore. Our 7th Fleet can choke that in shorter order and bring the entire Chinese economy to a grinding halt in 2-3 weeks. Why do you think the Chinese are busy building "infrastructure" on the Burmese-Chinese border and port facilities in Burma and Bangladesh?
First of all, Mexicans don’t call Americans “Yanquis”. Secondly, I must state again how much of an ignoramus you are, not because I’m eager to insult you, but because you can’t help but to open your trap and opine about subjects which you know nothing about. You see, it is precisely because everyone in Mexico knows that the problem with the national energy companies is the rampant corruption, that the public demands action on this front. Surprise, surprise, there has been none! No investigations, no indictments, no trials! What’s worse is that the puppet Pena Nieto and his administration publicly acknowledge this rampant corruption exists! However, in 2 years as president no one in PEMEX or CFE has been charged! This is the exact same experience that Mexicans had when TELMEX, the national telecommunications company was privatized in the 90’s! Back then the politicians also acknowledge the rampant corruption, and cited it as a reason for privatization. Well, what was the result of this privatization? THE CORRUPTION AND THE INEFFICIENCY GOT WORSE! The plundering reached obscene levels, so much so that Carlos Slim is now one of the two richest men in the world! Before he was given TELMEX, Carlos Slim’s net worth was about 1 billion, now he’s worth 76 billion! Needles to say his wealth has come from the monopoly position TELMEX holds, not because of any innovations, and the service is worse than ever.
And again, raping Mexico’s oilfields is a top priority for the US government, it is an open secret. The US imports over half the oil it consumes, airhead, so it most definitely does not have ample reserves.
http://www.thewagnerreview.org/2015/01/addressing-global-energy-demand-in-north-america/
http://www1.appstate.edu/~stefanov/proceedings/hughes.htmNote that the effects have been positive, except in quality of service, for which the main solution is something to which I alluded earlier - competition. No matter who owns a producer, a monopoly will always have poor service since its customers will not be able to vote with their feet or pesos.
Obama’s recent prosecutorial discretion/amnesty? The cheerleading on the Left for an increasingly non-white America? For a man as politically engaged as you, I find it odd that you’ve never seen evidence of this.
As I mentioned elsewhere, unions in Los Angeles are angling for the right to negotiate sub-minimum wages.
I don’t think I’d draw the same conclusion from that. It could be that Rightwingers are understandably gun shy of being accused of racism and nativism, because the left does that to them all the time. In fact, you may recall leftwing journalists conspiring on the Journolist email list to attack any Republican critics of Obama as racists.
That said, I think your idea of relocation cash plus a free transport home for illegals makes sense. Steve has proposed that himself, noting that free airfare in particular would eliminate the disincentive of dangerous overland travel home through crime-ridden parts of Mexico and Central America.
One of the unions' favorite arguments is that non-members are "free riders". Usually that means they don't deserve the higher wage the union has negotiated for them. In this case, they don't deserve the lower wage the union has negotiated, do they?
Any business that goes along with this should be boycotted.
http://www.thewagnerreview.org/2015/01/addressing-global-energy-demand-in-north-america/
First of all, do you think that you can stop resorting to incessant name-calling? It gets extremely tiresome and I strongly doubt it improves your argument one whit or its acceptance by others here.
First of all, I don’t consider a government-regulated monopoly a true privatization even if the ownership is entirely private. That is cronyism, not real privatization. But even setting that aside, let’s look at the actual facts about the outcome of the TELMEX “de-nationalization” instead of your raving and ranting assertions:
http://www1.appstate.edu/~stefanov/proceedings/hughes.htm
Note that the effects have been positive, except in quality of service, for which the main solution is something to which I alluded earlier – competition. No matter who owns a producer, a monopoly will always have poor service since its customers will not be able to vote with their feet or pesos.
Ok.
Maybe “welfare” is the wrong word to use, maybe “expenditure” vs “taxes payed” would be better. The idea is of a “net taxpayer” and all that counts as an expenditure.
It doesn’t go far enough. Theres expenderture per capita to build and maintain:
Roads, schools, water system, police, court houses, prisions, fire stations, power plants, parks, stadiums, museums, hospitals, etc.
You must be talking about the rank and file. The ones in office seem to cluster around F or F- at NumbersUSA.
If Mexicans are humane people, Mexico’s treatment of her own immigrants must, by definition, be “decent/liberal”. Will Democrats agree to enact Mexico’s corresponding policies in the US?
Will immigrants pay income tax at $15, let alone $12? Minimum wage for green carders needs to be $25, or $35 if they bring (or join) a family. We have to stop subsidizing them and have them subsidize us for a change.
I can’t imagine that would work in a right-to-work state.
One of the unions’ favorite arguments is that non-members are “free riders”. Usually that means they don’t deserve the higher wage the union has negotiated for them. In this case, they don’t deserve the lower wage the union has negotiated, do they?
Any business that goes along with this should be boycotted.
I think that would be a good plan with a slight modification:
1. Make it $0
2. Remove the “wanted” part.
One of the unions' favorite arguments is that non-members are "free riders". Usually that means they don't deserve the higher wage the union has negotiated for them. In this case, they don't deserve the lower wage the union has negotiated, do they?
Any business that goes along with this should be boycotted.
Yeah, it’s nuts.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/ross-douthats-red-pill/#comment-928685
Meanwhile, if we step back a bit and look at the vast quantity of sociological data that exists, I think we'd come to a very different conclusion. I would actually argue that over the last couple of decades Mex-Ams have advanced socio-economically and educationally at a rate far more rapid than that of almost any European immigrant group of the American past, including the Irish, the Italians, the Slavs, the Germans, and quite possibly even the Jews. This isn't because Mexicans are so much smarter than Italians, but mostly because so many aspects of American society are totally different today than they were 100 years ago, much worse in many ways certainly, but better and providing greater opportunities in others. I've made these points at length in previous comments, including links to some of my articles:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893649
https://www.unz.com/isteve/california-v-texas-test-scores-umpty-umpth-round/#comment-893698
There are countless ways to hide trends by relaxing standards and funneling students into easy college majors that will leave them in debt and without serious career prospects.
Using college enrollment data to track trends sounds pretty useless.
1. Make a movie called "Beyond Borders" about Whites saving Africans.
2. Adopt non-White children from around the world
3. Give a speech to the U.N. demanding Europe accept all African and Muslim immigrants who want to come.
If Jolie was Jewish, we'd never stop talking about her actions, as they'd be the smoking gun proof we've been waiting for that we're not fighting liberalism, but rather the Jews.
Mad Men hasn't committed a single sin that we can point to. Everything listed so far is completely innocuous and banal. The characters admire Israel defeating 14 nations and carving out their ancient homeland from the sand? Good. That's how White Americans feel, particularly White men, and particularly during Mad Men's time period, when men were still men.
Jolie’s great uncle, Joseph Kamp, was a very different kind of activist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kamp
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n6p39_Cobden.html