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I recently had a very disturbing discussion with a dear friend. He is recently retired and enjoying his love of research and writing. He spent a career flying multimillion-dollar passenger jets, and now he is piloting Google to uncover information he finds lacking in the mainstream media. We get together weekly, smoke cigars and exchange ideas and review each other's research. He is a diligent and creative investigator, combing through tons of websites and documents to get to the bottom of his inquiries. And I believe he is a very good analyst and writer. I have encouraged him to start a blog or write a book to share his ideas and his writing skills. He shook his head. "Not going to happen"... "Why not? You're talented!" He said he had recently floated the idea with his wife, but she forbade him from publishing his work online. She claims his views would be considered "dangerous" and "embarrassing" within the academic community. It would put her in an untenable position at work. And though he was hurt, he agreed to keep his work private. He has been motivated by the media's preoccupation with identity politics and by the near universal portrayal of white men in television dramas, situation comedies and advertising as insufferable buffoons. And he is angered by the media's obsession with characterising America as systemically racist, so he has been focused on studying the history of black activism, and the intersectionality of feminism and male domination of Western culture. Professionally, she is struggling with Pandemic restrictions requiring conducting classes online from home, and figuring out how to maintain important personal contact with her students and her colleagues. Additionally, she is concerned that his new hobby is making him bitter and resentful. The result is she feels increasingly stressed at work and at home. They have always agreed to respect each other's political inclinations and to refrain from engaging in arguments about the current state of affairs. He knows what her positions are and vica versa. So he graciously agreed to honor her request. But it raises a larger concern…When she said his views would be considered "dangerous" by her cohorts, he was taken aback. He was indirectly being censored. "We live in America. Discussing civil and social events and policy is classically American" he said. "Any thought of censoring, or discouraging the free exchange of ideas is memorialized by the 1st amendment of the constitution. If I was encouraging violence or the overthrow of the government, she would be right to caution me. But all I am doing is asking questions, connecting historical data points and expressing my opinions. What's so 'dangerous' about that?" I have always viewed academia as the petri dish of free thought. A place that encourages different points of view, and discussions about those ideas and conflicts. We are supposed to use schools to instruct people on how to think, not what to think. Her fear that the academic community would presume to label her husband's thinking as "dangerous" is itself a dangerous abuse of academic influence. That kind of GroupThink undermines the American Dream: that citizens can feel free to express themselves without persecution. For an institution of higher learning, or any of those working within it, to in any way stifle public expressions that don't threaten other citizens, is antithetical to the 1st amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression and association. In this case, it isn't a hill he wants to die on. It isn't worth putting her career and happiness at risk. Is it her job to stand up to such bullying when it could undermine her career and all of the good work she performs for her students? No. But isn't it frightening to think that both people are capitulating to academic bullying? China has economically and ethically compromised the Biden Crime Family and the Radical Progressives in the DNC to annex the USA. The potential exposure of their complicity in the corruption of the 2020 election solidified their command and control of not just the White House and Capitol Police, but institutions like the DOJ, FBI and CIA. America is now being operated as a ministry of the CCP. The resulting subjugation of transnational industries that serve nearly 80% of the Earth's population (Blackrock, Vanguard) could make restoration of American autonomy impossible. Unless the forces of freedom form a coalition amongst other freedom loving, and Chinese hating nations, the lifespan of the American Dream will be over. To the massive financial fraternities like Blackrock, money is their commodity. They do not trade in human rights or local political interests. All they care about is ROI (return on investment) and none of the 'social justice' and 'populist' intellectual exercises have any. Money transcends borders and collects like minded movements that need resources to survive. So most asset managers are risk aversive and apolitical and view popularity movements as nothing more than speed bumps along the worldwide economic highway. They straddle the K-Rails of geo-politics to obtain and retain as many investors and investments as possible. They have no dog in the fight between cultures and administrations, and only concern themselves with maintaining ownership. That is why they routinely donate money to multiple political organizations. Though Putin recently shook hands with CCP Chairman Xi Jinping as an ally, I don't believe it was done with sincerity. Russia has nothing to gain by submitting to Chinese worldwide hegemony. Putin has publicly pondered the demise of honor and respect for community in western culture, implying he thinks Russians still uphold human rights and dignity more than most, so maybe he is looking for a new partner against the Chinese Dragon. Obviously he is interested in expanding Soviet influence or why would he endure so much economic and political turmoil to invade Ukraine, just to subjugate his empire to a demanding and antithetical CCP? After confronting each other for six decades with the most powerful and destructive weapons known to mankind, without so much as a skirmish, perhaps it is time to recognize the enemy of our enemy is our friend. While America and the Soviet Union have been distracted by our compulsive need to build nuclear weapons and armed forces, the Chinese have been marching down the path of their '100 Year Marathon', quietly expanding their wealth and influence, all while planning to become the world's most dominant political and economic force. Can The Bear and The Eagle stop the Red Dragon? The very first time I listened to a baseball broadcast, I was treated to Vin Scully. I didn't know at the time how good he was because I had no frame of reference. I was just a young boy living in Pasadena, listening to my crystal operated transistor radio (inspired by Sputnik). It was something I found interesting and I could get a good signal while doing my homework or laying in bed. That was my experience with baseball until I got into Little League. Then my coach took me to a Dodger game at Dodger stadium. That night Sandy Koufax pitched a no hitter and most of the people attending the game listened to Vin tell the story on their transistor radios! There was no television coverage at that time. That is one of those transformational moments I will never forget as Scully described the ninth inning and the pressure on both Koufax and his teammates. The crowd was so quiet you could hear transistor radio broadcasts throughout the stadium. Vin's word painting, his skill at describing the electricity in the air, is beyond normal. That radio moment is still played in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and revered by radio professionals all over the world. Vin Scully broadcast Dodger games for 67 consecutive years! He started the year I was born. He is the Voice of My Generation. I listened to him describe many of the Dodgers' most historic moments, as well as NFL games ("...Montana ... looking, looking, throwing in the endzone ... Clark caught it! Dwight Clark! ... It's a madhouse at Candlestick!"), women's tennis, the PGA and he brought a unique point of view to The Masters in Augusta. Scully's call of Kirk Gibson's game winning walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series will always bring chills down my spine. Later, Scully retells the story of Tommy Lasorda behind the scenes, asking the injured Gibson if he could stand up long enough to bat, and only at the last possible minute he decides to stagger up to the plate on a seriously damaged knee. He has had so many special moments in the history of professional sports, it is almost unbelievable. Vin Scully represents to me the best of broadcasting talent and ethos. As a trailblazer in an industry experiencing explosive growth in the second half of the 20th century, he set the bar very high. There have been many DJ's, sportscasters, news anchors, talk show hosts, interviewers and singers that captured my attention in those days, but there was no one who could mesmerize his audience for 2 or 3 hours like Vin Scully. Scully was always a proud American who consistently gave thanks to God and to his country for giving him the chance to live his dream. Always a strong supporter of Americanism, in 2017 Scully stated that he would "never watch another NFL game again" due to some of the league's players kneeling during the pregame playing of our national anthem. He was more than a play-by-play man, he was a great storyteller, a great American patriot and I can only hope some of that rubbed off on me. |
Too hot to handle!
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