Trump makes Culture War THE election issue; China's 'Cultural
Revolution' cf the U.S. one
Newsletter published on July 5, 2020
(1) China's 'Cultural Revolution' cf the U.S. one
(2) Speaking at Mt. Rushmore on July 3, Trump makes Culture War THE
election issue
(2) Donald Trump Speech Transcript - Mount Rushmore 4th of July Event
(3) NYT ridicules Trump's battle against "new far-left fascism"
(4) WaPo: sculptor of Mount Rushmore was a White Nationalist (yet
Lincoln freed the slaves)
(5) NYT condemns 'race-based caste pyramid' in USA (but where are Jews?
at the top?)
(6) Karl Kautsky says Jews are a caste: 'an exclusive, hereditary caste
of urban merchants, financiers, intellectuals'
(1) China's 'Cultural Revolution' cf the U.S. one
Comparison: China's 'Cultural Revolution' Versus the U.S. Today
Jennifer Zeng
The death of George Floyd, an African American, has sparked unrest and
turmoil in the United States and around the world. The scale and the
intensity of the riots have raised many eyebrows, as well as alarmed
many Chinese who came from China and have personally experienced the
Cultural Revolution there. Some of them ask: "Are we experiencing
another Cultural Revolution or Cultural Revolution 2.0 in the U.S.?"
Today, I’d like to talk about some of the similarities between the
Cultural Revolution in China and what is currently happening in the U.S.
and other countries.
1. Ideological Basis
"Smashing the old world" is the most important ideological basis of
communism. The Communist Manifesto says, "The Communist revolution is
the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder
that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional
ideas."
When the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, seized power in 1949, it had
already "smashed" the previous "old world" and established the so-called
"people's democratic dictatorship" and the "People's Republic of China".
However, before the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong, the head of the
CCP, felt that those were not enough and that it was necessary to
continue to "smash" them. Thus, the CCP continued to "smash" its own
systems, including the judicial, governmental & administrative,
education, cultural and artistic systems, etc.
After "smashing" all these systems, the Red Guards or the "revolutionary
masses" took over. "Rebellion is justified", or "rebellion is
wonderful", became the loudest slogan, and also bestowed moral and
ideological justification and legitimacy to all "smashing". The
"rebellion" itself has become more important than why there had to be a
"rebellion".
Under such circumstances, the entire country was plunged into internal
turmoil and chaos, and various so-called "verbal struggles" or "armed
fightings" became the new social norm. Normal orders no longer existed.
Everyone was eagerly "defending Chairman Mao", and they fought one
another to death to defend "Chairman Mao".
In the course of ten years, China was flooded by blood. The death toll
was somewhere between 7 to 20 million; the society and the entire
economy was on the verge of total collapse.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, even the CCP itself admitted that
it was a huge national disaster and called it "Ten Years of Catastrophe."
During the current wave of protests in the U.S. and around the world,
have we seen any similar ideological manifestations to that of "smashing
the old world" and "rebellion is justified" during China’s Cultural
Revolution?
I don't want to draw any conclusions about this but would like to raise
the question for everyone to think about.
2. The Inner Sense of Justice and Fanaticism
After the Cultural Revolution, when Chinese people began to reflect on
the catastrophe, it was hard for them to believe that such madness could
have happened. For example, to show his loyalty to Chairman Mao, a red
guard pinned Mao's badge into his flesh, and when Chairman Mao waved his
hand to millions of Red Guards at the Tiananmen Square, many Red Guards
couldn’t help crying with emotion, as they were just too excited and
honored.
However difficult it is for us to understand those people now, at the
time, those Red Guard youngsters would not have felt their own frenzy.
Instead, their hearts and minds were filled with a tremendous inner
sense of justice, as they believed that they were doing something
particularly great and righteous.
All kinds of craziness, when driven by an inner sense of righteousness,
became noble. No one would feel or believe that they were crazy, or
overly frenetic.
I had always had problems understanding the inner madness of those Red
Guards until I read the book "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party"
published by the Epoch Times in 2004. The book says that the Communist
Party is not a normal political party, it is in fact a cult; while in
another dimension, it is an evil specter, and this evil specter will
dominate or manipulate people in the human world who identify with it to
achieve its goals.
Only when I read these points did I suddenly understand all the madness
of the Red Guards and all those unbelievable phenomena during the
Cultural Revolution.
With the theory and the statement in the "Nine Commentaries on the
Communist Party", I felt that everything could be explained.
As a matter of fact, at the very beginning of the Communist Manifesto,
Karl Marx announced himself, "A specter is haunting Europe — the specter
of communism." Only I didn’t pay much attention before, nor had I tried
to understand what lies behind the word "specter".
In 2018, the Epoch Times published another series of articles "How the
Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World".
The article begins by saying, "Though the communist regimes of Eastern
Europe have disintegrated, the specter of communism has not disappeared.
On the contrary, this evil specter is already ruling our world, and
humanity must not harbor a mistaken sense of optimism."
If this is true, is the communist specter also behind what is happening
today in the U.S. and some other countries around the world?
I don't want to draw any conclusions here either. But I am raising this
question for everyone to think about. And I do highly recommend that
everyone have a read of "How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our
World" if you haven’t read it yet.
3. Glorifying Violence
From the very beginning, the Communist Party has glorified "violent
revolution". In the context of the Communist Party’s doctrine, to
overthrow the old world and strike the enemy with "violence" is natural,
out of question, glorious, and a great choice. The "righteousness" of
the 'goal' gives justification to the 'means' and 'methods'.
To pursue the "noble" goals, to achieve communism, or "equality",
violence, especially violence against "enemies" becomes almost as
"lofty" as the goals.
During the Cultural Revolution, the "righteousness" of such violence
exploded in China. It was everyday practice for students to beat up, or
struggle against teachers and children against their parents. The use of
guns, cannons, and other weapons was also everyday practice among the
"rebels". Sometimes even tanks and gunboats were brought into the fights
among different groups of "rebels", and for the same purpose of
"defending our great leader Chairman Mao".
In the current protests, or riots, in the U.S. and other countries of
the world, are we also legitimizing, justifying and glorifying violence?
I am pretty much sure that I don’t need to give out an answer here, as
you must already have one of your own.
4. The Nature and the Manifestation of the Movement
The essence of the Cultural Revolution is the destruction of traditional
values, as well as the existing social system and order. The so-called
"public security, procuratorial and court systems" established by the
CCP itself were completely "smashed". The judicial system ceased to
exist and was replaced by mass public denunciation sessions or events.
The Red Guards were able to even drag out Liu Shaoqi, the Chairman of
China at the time, and publicly denounced and humiliated him. There was
no rule of law, not to mention human rights or human dignity.
In the current protests in the U.S, we heard about "dismantling the
police", "defunding the police", "end America", "cancel culture", etc..
Do they contain, or are they brewing, the same kind of "spirit" or
substance, as that of China’s Cultural Revolution? I also invite you to
answer this question yourself.
5. The Need for Power Struggle
As we all know, 35 million or more Chinese people starved to death as a
result of the "Great Leap Forward" movement launched by Mao Zedong in
the late 1950s to early 1960s. As a result, Mao was forced to admit his
own mistakes in1962, and hand over his power to Liu Shaoqi, who was the
number two person of the CCP at that time.
After that, for Mao, in order to regain his power, "smashing" the power
that had been handed over to Liu Shaoqi became a necessity. That was a
very important reason why Mao started the Cultural Revolution. The Red
Guards were actually "rebelling" to meet the needs of their "Great
Leader Chairman Mao", and thus became the vanguard for helping Mao to
regain his power. So the various atrocities of the Red Guards could be
tolerated and were actually encouraged.
Do we have similar needs in the U.S. now? I think everyone can work this
out.
To be frank, I am very, very, very, very reluctant to get involved in
American politics. Several days ago, I said on Twitter that "I am
politically ‘blind’ when it comes to exposing the evil of the CCP. CCP
is the common enemy for everybody. People should join the force to fight
the CCP. After that, the left and the right can fight each other."
However, I see what’s happening in the world now is beyond American
politics, or politics anywhere. It’s a fight between the specter of
Communism and the free world. It’s a fight for mankind to choose its
future. The specter of Communism wants to destroy mankind; and mankind
has to defeat it if we want to survive, and prosper.
That’s the reason why I chose to talk about this sensitive issue now.
6. "Social Class Category" and "Racial Identity"
After CCP established its power in 1949, everyone was given a "Social
Class Category" according to how much money or land you owned before the
CCP took power. If you belong to the working class, or "proletariat",
you are politically righteous, and you can be trusted, and given much
power and privilege.
If you belong to the exploiting class, you are doomed. Even your
children and grandchildren cannot raise their heads and are looked down
upon by everybody. Nobody from the working class would want to marry
you, or your children, as you would pollute the pure blood of this
working-class family, etc.
In the US today, while we don’t put people into different "class"
according to their wealth, we are also starting to category people based
on their color, race, or what their ancestors did in the past in some
areas, or to some extent. We no longer treat people or look at people as
an individual based on his or her own merit. If you belong to the "wrong
race", it seems you carry some kind of "innate" sin, and you must pay
for it.
In China, during the Cultural Revolution, landlords’ children were
inherently "son of bitch", or "bastards", or whatever bad names people
wanted to call them, as they belonged to the shameful "landlord" class.
If we are making special policies based on people’s race, on the
surface, it seems we are protecting the so-called "vulnerable" people in
society. But in reality, we are creating division and racism of another
kind. And society will only be more divided.
A divided society is always what the Communists like. If there is no
division, the Communists will create one so that people can fight among
themselves to benefit the Communist specter. People who have experienced
the Cultural Revolution in China understand this particularly well.
7. "Destroy the Four Olds" and "Cancel Culture"
"Destroy the Four Olds" is a term that many Chinese people are very
familiar with. It means destroying "Old Customs", "Old Culture", "Old
Habits", and "Old Ideas". The campaign to destroy the Four Olds began in
Beijing in 1966, shortly after the launch of the Cultural Revolution.
It is hard to estimate how many books, paintings, cultural relics,
temples, and other personal items were destroyed during this campaign.
The only thing we know is, it took 5000 years for China to build up the
most wonderful, most brilliant, and most profound culture that was once
admired and respected by the entire world. But it took only 10 years to
destroy almost all of it.
Recently a Chinese friend of mine is doing a series of TV programs
called "Walking out of cultural death". For many intellectuals, Chinese
culture has already died; and China has already died in the cultural sense.
Are we doing the same thing to the culture of America and other
countries? Yesterday I saw a friend showing his deep concern on Facebook
about the news that some rioters in London are threatening to loot the
British Museum, after the defacement of the statues of Abraham Lincoln
and Winston Churchill.?
This friend also experienced China’s Cultural Revolution himself, just
like me, that’s why the news of possible looting at the British Museum
worried him so much. He clearly mentioned that what is happening today
made him remember the Cultural Revolution in China.
8. Re-allocate Wealth
CCP’s leader Mao Zedong summarised Communist ideology into a very simple
and easy to understand slogan: "Cracking down on the local tyrants and
confiscating their lands." He promised the peasants that they could own
landlords' land, and sleep with landlords' young wives if they followed
Mao to overthrow the "evil old society".
Taking away people’s property became the most righteous thing to do in
Mao’s "revolution", as those properties belonged to the evil "exploiting
class."
Have we seen something similar here and now? Let’s watch a short clip.
Below is a short speech made by someone at the Capitol Hill Autonomous
Zone in Seattle, USA, on June 13. (Credit: @FromKalen)
"Okay. I want you to find, by the time you leave this autonomous zone, I
want you to give $10 to one African American person from this autonomous
zone. And if you find this difficult, if you find it's hard for you to
give $10 to people of color, to black people especially, you have to
think really critically about in the future, are you willing to actually
give up power and land and capital when you have it? If you have a hard
time giving out $10, you got to think about are you really down with
this struggle?"
If 10 dollars are not a big deal, there are other things for a group of
people to "give up" and "donate" to another group of people, such as
properties. A certain woman in the U.S. has already asked this, but I
don’t want to mention her name here.
9. "Blank Paper Hero" and Ziad Ahmed
During China’s Cultural Revolution, there was a very famous "Blank Paper
Hero". His name was Zhang Tiesheng. As he did not know how to answer the
questions when taking a national exam on physics and chemistry, he
handed in a blank paper and wrote on the back "a letter to respected
leaders", saying that he came from a "politically clean family", he
loved his time in the countryside where he received "education" from the
peasants, and that he was disgusted by bookworms, etc.
His letter somehow fit the political needs of that time, when the
so-called "Down to the Countryside'' movement was in its peak. All urban
youth, high school graduates, were sent to the countryside to be
"re-educated" and "reformed" by the peasants. Universities stopped
admitting students via entrance examinations. Instead, they admitted
worker students, peasant students, and soldier students through
recommendations. Politically correct workers, peasants, and soldiers who
obeyed the party could go to universities if their leaders recommended them.
Therefore, Zhang Tiesheng, who didn’t know physics or chemistry, became
a "Blank Paper Hero" for daring to challenge the conventional
examination system. He later even won a seat in the Standing Committee
of the National People's Congress in 1975.
For 10 years, qualified students were refused by the universities, while
politically correct workers, peasants, and soldiers became heroes for
not having to master any knowledge.
Have we seen similar things in the U.S?
In 2017, high school senior Ziad Ahmed, was accepted to Stanford
University after writing #BlackLivesMatter exactly 100 times in his
application essay.
There was a famous movie in China’s Cultural Revolution called "Breaking
with Old Ideas". In this movie, there was a famous scene in which the
Communist Labour University was selecting students. When a professor
questioned a young peasant’s qualification, as he only had one year’s
high school education, the party secretary grabbed the hand of that
peasant and declared that the "calluses on this hand are his
qualification for the university!"
Let’s watch a short clip from this movie:
Professor: How many years did you go to school?
A Peasant candidate: I attended one year of high school.
Professor: Too little education.
Party Secretary: For years, the landlords and the bourgeoisie have been
using education level to block our way. Can we be blamed for lack of
education? No! The responsibility lies with the Kuomintang, the
landlords, and the bourgeoisie! It’s been only 9 years since the
liberation. if only people who have much education can attend the
Communist University, we are effectively shutting out the children of
workers and peasants.
Some say you have to be qualified to go to university. What are the
qualifications? The capitalists have their capitalist qualifications,
the proletarians have our own proletarian qualifications! The first
qualification for admission to the Communist Labour University is the
working people! The hard calluses on this hand are the qualification!
Comrades of poor and middle-class peasants, do you think he is qualified?
Crowd: Yes! Yes! Yes!
After the Cultural Revolution, this kind of movie once only made me
laugh. Now, seeing what’s happening in the world, I don’t feel like
laughing anymore. Instead, I am worrying that this could be our new reality.
If we compare carefully, there are many other similarities, but I am
afraid today I am running out of time. So I’ll stop here. And I do hope
that we don’t repeat the mistakes and tragedies of the Cultural
Revolution of China.
(2) Speaking at Mt. Rushmore on July 3, Trump makes Culture War THE
election issue
Trump warns of culture war 'designed to overthrow the American
revolution' at Mt. Rushmore
By Gabriella Muñoz - The Washington Times - Friday, July 3, 2020
President Trump said a culture war is targeting the legacy of America,
lambasting far-left forces for ‘policing speech’ and for vandalizing
American monuments at his Mt. Rushmore fireworks event Friday evening.
"I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before
the world, this monument will never be desecrated. These heroes will
never be defaced. Their legacy will never ever be destroyed," Mr. Trump
said. "Their achievements will never be forgotten and Mount Rushmore
will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our
freedom."
The president said there is a liberal movement "designed to overthrow
the American revolution" by rewriting American history in schools and
squashing debate through policing speech.
"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our
history…erase our values and indoctrinate our children," he said. "Every
flaw is magnified. The history is purged, and the record is disfigured
beyond all recognition."
The president’s events at Mt. Rushmore comes amidst a renewed national
debate about racism and the country’s early ties to slavery.
As protests have carried on across the country for nearly a month, some
demonstrators have turned to vandalizing and tearing down statues of
historical American icons whose great accomplishments are under scrutiny
for their connections to slavery or racial inequality.
Mr. Trump is attempting to crack down on those destroying statues, and
signed an executive order last month protecting U.S. monuments and
calling for prison terms of up to 10 years for damage to federal property.
Mt. Rushmore, showcasing Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, has come under fire as a
national monument because of the former two presidents’ connection to
slavery.
The president rejected the "cancel culture" criticizing the presidents
on the memorial and highlighted the achievements of those "American giants."
Some Native American groups have also protested the monument, arguing
the mountains were taken from the Lakota people in violation of previous
treaties.
A group of protesters, reportedly mostly Native American, blocked the
road to Mt. Rushmore several hours before the president was set to
speak. Several were arrested after disobeying dispersal orders from
authorities.
The firework event itself has faced backlash for bringing a massive
crowd — which issued 7,500 tickets for the fireworks display — in the
middle of the coronavirus pandemic as the country struggles to keep
cases from spiking during the reopening phase.
As of Friday, there were more than 2,780,000 COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
and 129,777 deaths, according to data gathered from John Hopkins University.
South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem said that social distancing and
masks won’t be required during the event, but organizers will provide
masks for anyone who wants them and screen attendees for COVID-19
symptoms. Not many attending chose to wear masks, according to those at
the event.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams defended the administration’s stance
on not requiring masks at either of President Trump’s Fourth of July
firework shows this weekend, while still urging the public to do so.
"If you make something mandatory, particularly for the younger age
groups we’re talking about, many of them will rebel and do the exact
opposite," he said Friday on NBC News. "If people understand why they’re
doing it they’re more likely to comply. If it’s mandatory they’ll only
do it if someone is watching."
The fiery speech marked a return of fireworks to the national landmark,
which were canceled about a decade ago due to concerns about its large
population of Ponderosa pine trees and an infestation of pine beetles,
which make the forest more susceptible to wildfires.
(2) Donald Trump Speech Transcript - Mount Rushmore 4th of July Event
Jul 3, 2020
Donald Trump Speech Transcript at Mount Rushmore 4th of July Event [...]
Donald Trump: (06:13) Our founders launched not only a revolution in
government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality,
liberty, and prosperity. No nation has done more to advance the human
condition than the United States of America and no people have done more
to promote human progress than the citizens of our great nation. It was
all made possible by the courage of 56 patriots who gathered in
Philadelphia 244 years ago and signed the Declaration of Independence.
They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they
said, "All men are created equal." These immortal words set in motion
the unstoppable march of freedom. Our founders boldly declared that we
are all endowed with the same divine rights, given us by our Creator in
Heaven, and that which God has given us, we will allow no one ever to
take away ever.
Donald Trump: (07:48) 1776 represented the culmination of thousands of
years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of
wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet, as we meet here tonight, there
is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought
so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a
merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our
values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear
down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and
unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have
no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They
think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the
American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country
and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.
Donald Trump: (09:17) One of their political weapons is cancel culture,
driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total
submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of
totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our
values and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.
Donald Trump: (10:24) This attack on our liberty, our magnificent
liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will
expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children from this
radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our
schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new
far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak
its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its
commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted,
persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.
Donald Trump: (11:25) Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural
revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing
they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from
poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new
heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible,
they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our
national heritage.
Donald Trump: (12:01) – Memory of our national heritage.
Speaker 2: (12:08) Not on my watch.
Donald Trump: (12:09) True. That’s very true actually. That is why I am
deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments, arrest the
rioters, and prosecutors offenders to the fullest extent of the law.
Speaker 3: (12:28) Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
Donald Trump: (12:48) Thank you.
Donald Trump: (12:51) I am pleased to report that yesterday, federal
agents arrested the suspected ringleader of the attack on the statue of
the great Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C., and in addition, hundreds
more have been arrested. Under the executive order I signed last week
pertaining to the Veterans Memorial Preservation Memorial and
Recognition Act and other laws, people who damage or deface federal
statues or monuments will get a minimum of 10 years in prison and
obviously that includes our beautiful Mount Rushmore.
Donald Trump: (13:54) Our people have a great memory. They will never
forget the destruction of statues and monuments to George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionists and many others. The
violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by
liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of
extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other
cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our
children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe
that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were
villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all
perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is
twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the
history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.
This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount
Rushmore. They defiled the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and
Roosevelt. Today we will set history and history’s record straight.
Donald Trump: (15:51) Before these figures were immortalized in stone,
they were American giants in full flesh and blood, gallant men, whose
intrepid deeds unleashed the greatest leap of human advancement the
world has ever known. Tonight I will tell you and most importantly the
youth of our nation the true stories of these great, great men. From
head to toe George Washington represented the strength, grace, and
dignity of the American people. From a small volunteer force of citizen
farmers, he created the Continental Army out of nothing and rallied them
to stand against the most powerful military on earth. Through eight long
years, through the brutal winter at Valley Forge, through setback after
setback on the field of battle, he led those patriots to ultimate
triumph. When the army had dwindled to a few thousand men at Christmas
of 1776, when defeat seemed absolutely certain, he took what remained of
his forces on a daring nighttime crossing of the Delaware River. They
marched through nine miles of frigid darkness, many without boots on
their feet, leaving a trail of blood in the snow. In the morning, they
seized victory at Trenton after forcing the surrender of the most
powerful empire on the planet at Yorktown, General Washington did not
claim power but simply returned to Mount Vernon as a private citizen.
Donald Trump: (17:56) When called upon again, he presided over the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and was unanimously elected
our first president. When he stepped down after two terms, his former
adversary, King George called him the greatest man of the age. He
remains first in our hearts to this day, for as long as Americans love
this land, we will honor and cherish the father of our country, George
Washington. He will never be removed, abolished, and most of all, he
will never be forgotten. Thomas Jefferson, the great Thomas Jefferson,
was 33 years old when he traveled north to Pennsylvania and brilliantly
authored one of the greatest treasures of human history, the Declaration
of Independence. He also drafted Virginia’s constitution and conceived
and wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a model for our
cherished First Amendment. After serving as the first Secretary of
State, and then Vice President, he was elected to the presidency. He
ordered American warriors to crush Barbary pirates. He doubled the size
of our nation with the Louisiana Purchase and he sent the famous
explorers Lewis and Clark into the west on a daring expedition to the
Pacific Ocean. He was an architect, an inventor, a diplomat, a scholar,
the founder of one of the world’s great universities and an ardent
defender of liberty. Americans will forever admire the author of
American freedom, Thomas Jefferson, and he too will never, ever be
abandoned by us.
Donald Trump: (20:50) Abraham Lincoln, the savior of our union, was a
self-taught country lawyer who grew up in a log cabin on the American
frontier. The first Republican president, he rose to high office from
obscurity based on a force and clarity of his anti-slavery convictions.
Very, very strong convictions. He signed the law that built the
Trans-Continental Railroad. He signed the Homestead Act given to some
incredible scholars as simply defined ordinary citizens free land to
settle anywhere in the American West, and he led the country through the
darkest hours of American history, giving every ounce of strength that
he had to ensure that government of the people, by the people and for
the people did not perish from this earth. He served as commander in
chief of the U.S. Armed Forces during our bloodiest war, the struggle
that saved our union and extinguished the evil of slavery. Over 600,000
died in that war, more than 20, 000 were killed or wounded in a single
day in Antietam. At Gettysburg 157 years ago, the Union bravely
withstood an assault of nearly 15,000 men and threw back Pickett’s
Charge. Lincoln won the Civil War. He issued the Emancipation
Proclamation. He led the passage of the 13th Amendment, abolishing
slavery for all-time and ultimately his determination to preserve our
nation and our union cost him his life. For as long as we live,
Americans will uphold and revere the immortal memory of President
Abraham Lincoln.
Donald Trump: (23:46) Theodore Roosevelt exemplified the unbridled
confidence of our national culture and identity. He saw the towering
grandeur of America’s mission in the world and he pursued it with –
Donald Trump: (24:03) – In the world and he pursued it with overwhelming
energy and zeal. As a Lieutenant Colonel during the Spanish-American
War, he led the famous Rough Riders to defeat the enemy at San Juan
Hill. He cleaned up corruption as police commissioner of New York City,
then served as the Governor of New York, Vice President, and at 42 years
old, became the youngest ever President of the United States.
Donald Trump: (24:43) He sent our great new naval fleet around the globe
to announce America’s arrival as a world power. He gave us many of our
national parks, including the Grand Canyon. He oversaw the construction
of the awe-inspiring Panama Canal and he is the only person ever awarded
both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was
American freedom personified in full. The American people will never
relinquish the bold, beautiful and untamed spirit of Theodore Roosevelt.
Donald Trump: (25:39) No movement that seeks to dismantle these
treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its
heart. Can’t happen. No person who remains quiet at the destruction of
this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future. The
radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of
social justice, but in truth, it would demolish both justice and
society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and
vengeance and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place
of a repression, domination, and exclusion. They want to silence us, but
we will not be silenced. [...]
Donald Trump: (27:17) We will state the truth in full without apology.
We declare that the United States of America is the most just and
exceptional nation ever to exist on earth. We are proud of the fact that
our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we understand
that these values have dramatically advanced the cause of peace and
justice throughout the world. We know that the American family is the
bedrock of American life. We recognize the solemn right and moral duty
of every nation to secure its borders and we are building the wall. We
remember that governments exist to protect the safety and happiness of
their own people. A nation must care for its own citizens first. We must
take care of America first. It’s time. We believe in equal opportunity,
equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race,
background, religion and creed. Every child of every color, born and
unborn, is made in the holy image of God.
Donald Trump: (29:26) We want free and open debate, not speech codes and
cancel culture. We embrace tolerance, not prejudice. We support the
courageous men and women of law enforcement. We will never abolish our
police or our great Second Amendment which gives us the right to keep
and bear arms. We believe that our children should be taught to love
their country, honor their history, and respect our great American flag.
We stand tall, we stand proud, and we only kneel to Almighty God. This
is who we are. This is what we believe and these are the values that
will guide us as we strive to build an even better and greater future.
Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride
and our great dignity so that we can no longer understand ourselves or
America’s destiny. In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve
the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country and that we
feel for each other. Their goal is not a better America, their goal is
to end America. [...]
(3) NYT ridicules Trump's battle against "new far-left fascism"
Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Speech to Deliver Divisive Culture War Message
Down in the polls and failing to control a raging pandemic, the
president cast himself as waging battle against a "new far-left fascism"
that imperils American values and seeks to erase history.
WASHINGTON — Standing in a packed amphitheater in front of Mount
Rushmore for an Independence Day celebration, President Trump delivered
a dark and divisive speech on Friday that cast his struggling effort to
win a second term as a battle against a "new far-left fascism" seeking
to wipe out the nation’s values and history.
With the coronavirus pandemic raging and his campaign faltering in the
polls, his appearance amounted to a fiery reboot of his re-election
effort, using the holiday and an official presidential address to mount
a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he
portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism.
"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history,
defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children," Mr.
Trump said, addressing a packed crowd of sign-waving supporters, few of
whom wore masks. "Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our
founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent
crime in our cities."
Mr. Trump barely mentioned the frightening resurgence of the pandemic,
even as the country surpassed 53,000 new cases Friday and health
officials across the nation urged Americans to scale back their Fourth
of July plans.
Instead, appealing unabashedly to his base with ominous language and
imagery, he railed against what he described as a dangerous "cancel
culture" intent on toppling monuments and framed himself as a strong
leader who would protect the Second Amendment, law enforcement and the
country’s heritage.
The scene at Mount Rushmore was the latest sign of how Mr. Trump
appears, by design or default, increasingly disconnected from the
intense concern among Americans about the health crisis gripping the
country. More than just a partisan rally, it underscored the extent to
which Mr. Trump is appealing to a subset of Americans to carry him to a
second term by changing the subject and appealing to fear and division.
[...]
(4) WaPo: sculptor of Mount Rushmore was a White Nationalist (yet
Lincoln freed the slaves)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/03/mount-rushmore-gutzon-borglum-Klan-stone-mountain/
The creator of Mount Rushmore’s forgotten ties to white supremacy
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was deeply involved with the Ku Klux Klan while
designing the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain, Ga.
By Diane Bernard July 2, 2020 at 11:50 p.m. GMT+10
Retropolis
The creator of Mount Rushmore’s forgotten ties to white supremacy
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was deeply involved with the Ku Klux Klan while
designing the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain, Ga.
Since Calvin Coolidge spoke at Mount Rushmore’s groundbreaking ceremony
in 1927, the national memorial in South Dakota has served as a backdrop
for presidential patriotism.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton spoke there.
Now, President Trump will travel to Mount Rushmore for a controversial
fireworks celebration on the eve of Independence Day. Trump is
headlining fireworks at Mount Rushmore. Experts worry two things could
spread: virus and wildfire.
The depiction of four of America’s greatest presidents — George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt — has
always been considered a grand tribute to the ideals of American
democracy. That’s exactly what its mastermind, sculptor Gutzon Borglum,
intended. Less well known: Borglum’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Borglum was born the son of Danish Mormon polygamists in 1867 in Idaho.
A talented artist, he spent his childhood on the Western frontier and
plains, in Utah and Kansas until leaving for Europe in the early 1880s
to study sculpture. There, Borglum became fascinated with art on a grand
scale with nationalistic subjects, which suited what many described as
his bombastic, egotistical personality.
"Borglum was imperious, he was cocky. He was prone to angry outbursts,"
said John Taliaferro, author of the 2002 book "Great White Fathers: The
Story Of The Obsessive Quest To Create Mount Rushmore." In Europe he was
heavily influenced by ancient colossal sculpture from the Egyptians to
the Greeks. The 66-foot Sphinx of Giza and the 70-foot carved guardians
of Memnon’s Temple on the upper Nile became examples of the kinds of
works he wanted to create in the United States.
Returning from Europe at the turn of the century, he set up shop in New
York and then Connecticut and began to sculpt statues of statesmen and
generals that memorialized American history, including a bust of Lincoln
for Teddy Roosevelt’s White House that now sits in the Capitol Rotunda.
Then, in 1915, Helen Plane, the founder of the Atlanta chapter of the
United Daughters of the Confederacy, approached Borglum about a possible
project.
After the Civil War, the North began an "orgy" of Civil War monument
building, Taliaferro writes in his book. One of the primary missions of
the Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894, was to even the
score, he wrote.
The group began erecting statues throughout the South, including many
that are being removed today in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in
the custody of Minneapolis police officers. Plane asked Borglum whether
he would be interested in working on the group’s biggest project ever: a
monument to the Confederacy on Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.
Right away, Borglum was interested in sculpting on such a grand scale.
After visiting the site, he saw the potential to build a colossus of his
own, a tribute to what he considered great men. He immediately accepted
and drew up a proposal featuring Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson,
Jefferson Davis and J.E.B. Stewart riding in a cavalry carved in deep
relief across a 1,200-foot-span of the mountain’s eastern face. The
fathers of the confederacy would be 50-feet-tall, surrounded by
stampeding horses and cavalrymen.
Plane loved the concept, signed Borglum on and began fundraising. At the
same time that Borglum was drawing up his plans for Stone Mountain, D.W.
Griffith released "Birth of a Nation," the epic silent film about the
Civil War and Reconstruction. In the film, the Ku Klux Klan rescues the
South from white carpetbaggers and freed slaves who had turned the great
Confederacy into a drunken Sodom.
The film, which opened in January 1915, grossed an unprecedented $60
million in its first run. It also inspired a resurgence of the Klan,
which coincided with Borglum’s development of the Confederate monument.
The Klan soon became a major funder of the memorial. The Ku Klux Klan
was dead. The first Hollywood blockbuster revived it. Plane worked out a
fundraising scheme whereby an Atlanta theater donated its box office
proceeds from a screening of the film to Borglum’s project, Taliaferro
writes. When Plane wrote a cheery letter to Borglum announcing the
development, she added: "Since seeing this wonderful and beautiful
picture of Reconstruction in the South, I feel that it is due to the Ku
Klux Klan which saved us from Negro domination and carpet-bag rule, that
it might be immortalized on Stone Mountain."
She requested that Borglum represent the Klan in his sculpture,
Taliaferro said in a phone interview. The plan conflicted with Borglum’s
greater vision, and publicly the artist claimed he didn’t want to hurt
his patron’s feelings, so he agreed to add a Klan altar for the base of
Stone Mountain.
But in truth, Borglum had much deeper ties to the white supremacist
group. "He never came out and said he was a member of the Klan,"
Taliaferro said. "But he sure was at the table with them a lot."
Throughout his work on Stone Mountain, from 1915 until 1923, Borglum
became intensely involved in Klan politics related to Stone Mountain,
and on a national scale as well.
Stone Mountain: The ugly past — and fraught future — of the biggest
Confederate monument
He attended Klan rallies, served on Klan committees and tried to play
peacemaker in several Klan leadership disputes, Taliaferro writes. "On a
strictly mercenary level, he saw the Klan’s burgeoning, highly organized
network throughout the South and the Midwest as a source of funds for
his expensive undertaking. More than that, however, he came to view the
Klan as a promising grass-roots movement with the potential to reshape
the political map of the nation," according to "Great White Fathers."
Borglum was a racist long before arriving in Atlanta. The sculptor
referred to immigrants as "slippered assassins" and warned that America
was becoming an alien "scrap heap." But the Klan might have hardened
Borglum’s existing prejudices, Taliaferro writes. In a letter to a
friend in New Jersey in the early 1920s, Borglum asked, "Is it true you
joined the Ku Klux Klan? I hope so. They’re a fine lot of fellows as far
as I can learn and if they elect the next President, by gosh I’m going
to join ‘em."
The artist became close friends with the Grand Dragon of the Realm of
Indiana, Klansman David "Steve" Stephenson of Indianapolis. In one
letter to Stephenson, Borglum wrote, "While Anglo-Saxons have themselves
sinned grievously against the principle of pure nationalism by illicit
slave and alien servant traffic, it has been the character of the cargo
that has eaten into the very moral fiber of our race character, rather
than the moral depravity of Anglo-Saxon traders," according to "Great
White Fathers."
But by 1924, work on Stone Mountain had stalled. In addition, the
Daughters of the Confederacy and the committee backing the project
became tired of dealing with the mercurial sculptor. By February 1925,
the committee accused him of faults including "disloyalty, offensive
egotism and delusions of grandeur" as well as an excessive concern for
money and notoriety.
After 10 years of work, Borglum was fired from the project. In a fit of
rage, he destroyed all of his models for the monument and raced out of
Atlanta before police could charge him with destroying private property.
He already had a new project waiting for him. A few months earlier, he’d
been contacted by South Dakota’s state historian, Doane Robinson, who
wanted him to sculpt a tribute to the American West in the Black Hills
of South Dakota.
Robinson had originally planned to include American frontiersmen like
Lewis and Clark and Native Americans, including Sacagawea. But Borglum,
eyeing an opportunity to make a national statement, dissuaded the
historian. Instead they settled on the four American presidents, two of
them slaveholders and all of them viewed by Native Americans as racist.
"Lakota see the faces of men who lied, cheated and murdered innocent
people whose only crime was living on land they wanted to steal," said
Harold Frazier, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, who called
for the removal of the monument earlier this week.
Native Americans have always contended that the Black Hills of South
Dakota belong to them, and that the sacred land was stolen after gold
was discovered there. In 1980, the Supreme Court agreed, ordering the
federal government to compensate eight tribes for the seizure of Native
land.
From 1927 until his death in 1941, Borglum and his team of 400 workers
dynamited more than 450,000 tons of granite to carve the Mount Rushmore
memorial. For many Americans, it remains a stirring tribute to democracy.
But the National Park Service makes no mention of Borglum’s ties to the
Ku Klux Klan in its biography of the sculptor.
"We want our stories of America to be simple," Taliaferro said. "We want
Mount Rushmore to be shorthand for everything that’s great about America."
But actual history, he said, is sometimes much more complicated.
(5) NYT condemns 'race-based caste pyramid' in USA (but where are Jews?
at the top?)
America’s Enduring Caste System Our founding ideals promise liberty and
equality for all. Our reality is an enduring racial hierarchy that has
persisted for centuries.
By Isabel Wilkerson
July 1, 2020
We saw a man face down on the pavement, pinned beneath a car, and above
him another man, a man in uniform, his skin lighter than the man on the
ground, and the lighter man was bearing down on the darker man, his knee
boring into the neck of the darker man, the lighter man’s hands at his
sides, in his pockets — could it be that his hands were so nonchalantly
in his pockets? — such was the ease and casual calm, the confidence of
embedded entitlement with which he was able to lord over the darker man.
We heard the man on the ground pleading with the man above him, saw the
terror in his face, heard his gasps for air, heard the anguished cries
of an unseen chorus, begging the lighter man to stop. But the lighter
man, the dominant man, looked straight at the bystanders, into the
camera, and thus at all of us around the world who would later bear
witness and, instead of heeding the cries of the chorus, pressed his
knee deeper into the darker man’s neck as was the perceived right
granted him in the hierarchy. The man on the ground went silent, drained
of breath. A clear liquid crept down the pavement. We saw a man die
before our very eyes.
What we did not see, not immediately anyway, was the invisible
scaffolding, a caste system with ancient rules and assumptions that made
such a horror possible, that held each actor in that scene in its grip.
Off camera, two other men in uniform, who looked like the lighter man,
were holding down the darker man from the other side of the police car
as dusk approached in Minneapolis. Yet another man in uniform, of Asian
descent and thus not in the dominant caste, stood near, watching,
immobilized, it seemed, at a remove from his own humanity and potential
common cause, as the darker man slipped out of consciousness. We soon
learned that the man on the ground, George Floyd, had been accused of
trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, and, like uncountable Black men
over the centuries, lost his life over what might have been a mere
citation for people in the dominant caste. [...]
Like other old houses, America has an unseen skeleton: its caste system,
which is as central to its operation as are the studs and joists that we
cannot see in the physical buildings we call home. Caste is the
infrastructure of our divisions. It is the architecture of human
hierarchy, the subconscious code of instructions for maintaining, in our
case, a 400-year-old social order. Looking at caste is like holding the
country’s X-ray up to the light.
A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded
ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group
against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of
ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the
abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning in a hierarchy favoring
the dominant caste, whose forebears designed it. A caste system uses
rigid, often arbitrary boundaries to keep the ranks apart, distinct from
one another and in their assigned places.
Throughout human history, three caste systems have stood out. The
lingering, millenniums-long caste system of India. The tragically
accelerated, chilling and officially vanquished caste system of Nazi
Germany. And the shape-shifting, unspoken, race-based caste pyramid in
the United States. [...]
(6) Karl Kautsky says Jews are a caste: 'an exclusive, hereditary caste
of urban merchants, financiers, intellectuals'
Are the Jews a Race?
Karl Kautsky
Chapter VII
The Assimilation of the Jews
THE mental race traits of the Jews are said to be of such nature as to
constitute a profound and impassable gulf between them and all other
races. On examination, this information resolves itself into the fact
that the great mass of the Jews has constituted for two thousand years
an exclusive, hereditary caste of urban merchants, financiers,
intellectuals, including some artisans, and has developed, by practice
and accumulation from generation to generation, more and more of the
traits peculiar to all these strata, as opposed to the peasant masses of
the rest of the population. [...]
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