Americans have all told the mainstream press to fuck off. The chattering classes have never been less relevant to the way things really are. At this point the media are just talking to each other, not realizing that no one else really cares what they say.
There's a tiny group of over educated people who still think that the opinions of the legacy press mean anything. But most Americans have declared independence from the morons who write about America without understanding it.
But the elites have never thought so highly of themselves--and of their righteous vision. In one of the ironies of my lifetime, Democrats have become the party of the elites, despite whatever they might claim.
I have found their circle jerk on substack. It's on the Heather Cox Richardson comment boards and the level of self certainty and TDS is high entertainment. And somewhat enlightening in regard to how their lamentable thinking is generated.
Yes and these women who seemingly distain marriage and having children - ironically pray for a utopian 'nanny' state which they hope will take care of them because they are incapable of forming their own families....it's time for these types to grow up...
And Robert Reich. And The Bulwark. And Michael Moore. In fact, there's been a wholesale woke leftist takeover of Substack from indie journalists. Some Substack writers have started talking about this. Not sure if Substack did something to their algo to promote these people or what. Matt is the only one hanging on, with Bari Weiss sitting on top but TFP is playing both sides these days.
Indie journalists made Substack. Lefty propagandists first tried to discredit it. Now they're all here. Check the top ranked in Politics, Culture, etc and you'll see them. They've knocked Shellenberger off not just the top but the whole chart.
No, it's word of mouth from the following class. That's how I saw it - I can see multiple leftist ladies in my family orbit going and reading it.
The funny thing is that their sense of community mirrors what I felt from the Taibbi substack in 2019. But my hopes then that the truths being discussed would eventually see the light of day and be believed by >50% have been realized. Their parallel hopes are fantasy, because what they are sharing are predominantly self-reassuring lies.
Well Substack would be dumb not to digitally market. Not simply internal algos - if you have a couple of friends on fb who talk about HCR, they must be smart enough to market her to you.
Robert Reich is worse than untrustworthy. He wrote a whole column in past couple of year about how bad NAFTA was without once mentioning that he was Bill Clinton's labor secretary or his role in enacting it. How the Guardian or whoever let him even do that is beyond me.
A Heather Cox Richardson groupie friend told me this morning that if Mamdani wins the mayoral election, Trump is going to kick New York City out of the United States of America. If Trump said it, it must be true. I’m packing my bags and renewing my passport, just in case.
You know, knee jerk opposition to Trump is goofy, reactive and histrionic. I hate it for all those reasons.
But it also has real repercussions.
Would Biden have even let in 3 million a year if it wasn't a big showy thing that he could do that was the opposite of Trump? I don't think so. He just would have been normal-stupid on immigration. But knee jerk reactiveness to Trump made him let in like 5-6 million extra. Crazy.
Love how the Dems are scared shitless. In reality, without Albany approving all the pie in the sky election promises from whatever propaganda promulgating politician gets voted in, very little if nothing will change, including the DNC and the doddering elderly out of touch career politicians and their exhortations and gesticulations and warmongering. And the garbage in New York will still stink.
There is indeed an awful lot of "go fuck yourself" -ing going on these days.
I've never heard a Canadian say fuck, much less fuck you or go fuck yourself. I figured it would be something like, "well, perhaps later, if you have some spare time, you might consider humping yourself--but only if it's convenient."
I think season 5 was their peak, and seasons 6 and 7 are also entertaining. The first movie was just rehashing the earlier shows, although we do has this little nugget:
07/04/25: It's "a tiny group of ... people" who have a vested, intransigent interest in being unhappy.
"As the United States retreats from the world..."
I went to check if this dimwit wrote the above before June 21st... nope. Dateline, today.
B-2s obliterate Iranian nuclear facilities. Some retreat!
It must be nice for all these people like poor Stephen, who have nowhere else to go (who would want them?), to be able to congregate at The Guardian.
(Which used to be called the Indians before the British government took offence at the name and made them change it...)
Poor Greg Grandin. Not even the Guards could put up with him; he had to slither off to the New York Times.
Take a look at him (Google Images).
He looks like Phil Silver's stuntman in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," when Silver's car was starting to sink into the rampaging river, after the wise-ass little kid had told him (for a $1) how to take a short-cut back to the main highway.
Just rewatched IMMMM World about a week ago and pictured the scene of Otto Meyer (Phil Silver) and his convertible floating downstream soon to be submerged
07/04/25: A film endowed with an enormous sense of good-will towards its audience, from which all of its other blessings flowed. And it could only be done on the scale that was achieved once, in 1963 (incredibly, at the same time that JFK was assassinated). Which is preferable, considering how dependably familiarity breeds contempt.
07/07/25: One cool dude. And genius casting to play him as Ethel Merman's son (the unreality of it was so glaring, it distorted perspective and in itself became the reality).
Americans have also told academia to go fuck themselves. The title of college professor has shifted in just a few years from being an honor to being associated with people who pose a danger to democracy and a free society. The corporate press and big academia have become a cancer to the Republic.
A classmate of mine is married to an immigration consultant who was chief of the Harris campaign’s policy (‘nuff said).
Anyway, her hubby is in Paris licking his wounds apparently and he sent her an editorial from Le Monde about the unveiling of a statue of Lady Liberty hiding her face in shame.
The rest of my classmates (granted - we went to architecture school at Yale) expressed sympathy for her shame and indignation.
To quote that famous sage, Bugs Bunny: “What a buncha maroons!”
Loved it! 'To he'll with the sourpusses' should be the new 'American ' creed. No more left or right, just sourpuss or normal. 'Sourpuss' (and smug) is why I turned off CNN. Wat h it with the sound off!
I think Grandin's piece provides sad demonstration of the intellectual slovenliness that prevails in top American universities these days. Internationalist Latin America? Was the Honduras-El Salvador soccer war America's fault? Ask any Argentinian about Brazilians--and vice versa.
Does he think there was no slavery and Indian removal in Latin America? Does he read history books (perhaps he is a STEM professor with opinions)? Indian removal is still happening in the Amazon today.
For Grandin, the point is not the truth or the history but the story, and Grandin's story is that America is the root of all evil.
Slovenliness or bias or just lying. The U.S. accounted for only 6% of the Atlantic African slave trade. The remaining 90+% went to Latin America and the Caribbean Islands.
Honestly, I couldn’t really tell after reading the entire piece that this was what Matt was trying to say. I thought *maybe* it was but it was hard to tell with all the bs about letting illegals just crap all over the constitution and rule of law. But whatever I guess.
I guessed he was celebrating American people and culture, generally, and disputing every political /historical claim in Grandin’s revolutionary laundry list would be a tl;dr. Terry’s added facts helped air out the stench of reheated Howard Zinn.
Matt, sorry to say, but America is pretty much the root of all evil today. Grandin is just guilty of expecting America to live up to its, admittedly propagandized, ideals. Much like we expect our police officers, and judicial system, to hold higher standards when it comes to the law, as opposed to regular folk.
Anyone who reads Chris Hedges, or people like Matt Kennard, Max Blumenthal, etc. know the reality of our current rot, and it’s been a long time coming. I’ve enjoyed much of your work, and admired your focus on the censorship issue; you displayed far more forbearance in your Congressional testimony from the pathetic Democrats than I would have been able to muster.
But I’m ending my paid subscription, as of tomorrow. Your reluctance, and believe me, you’re not alone, to wade into the Gaza milieu, and it’s tentacles on the student protest front, as well as the tone of this particular piece (snatching people of the street kinda sucks… but Obama. And hey, Val Kilmer!) leave me… we’ll, let’s just say, disappointed, in your ability to read the room vis a vis the unitary executive, and geopolitical, as well as increasingly domestic, empire maintenance and execution.
Hugs to you and the fam. We’re all in for some serious ugly ahead. As Frederick Douglass stated, no struggle, no progress. Unfortunately, that means blood most likely will be shed. Peace, t
If your "America" is the evil country today then your definition of our nation is not mine. I have always consider America to be its ordinary, everyday citizens. The ones that go to work everyday, have families, play baseball, go bowling, farm the land, feed its people, fight in endless wars, give their lives . . . .
It is not Congress, not the President or Judiciary, not the socialist running higher ed, not the billionaires, Hollywood or the MSM (who are the worse or the worse).
Lighten up Tom, just because people are not all Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, Donna Reed, Lawrence Welk does not mean the Nations' majority at any given time were evil.
I think Tom IS stating that there's a difference between ordinary Americans and the elite class that lies to them and wreaks havoc overseas (and here, increasingly), in the name of "democracy." Corporations (i.e., the elites who benefits from corporate profits) run our government and thus the world to the extent they can. The world is pushing back. Wouldn't you?
Tom is part of the problem in that he expects everyone to share his beliefs and cancels them if they don't. Matt has a right to focus on anything he chooses; he is not an elected official. Good luck, Tom, finding your echo chamber.
If you have voted for any Republican candidate for president since Eisenhower, your ‘pushing back’ has been performative fantasy. Same for Democratic candidates since ‘88.
It is true, there is no Genocide in Gaza. There is a war and if you want to make the case civilians are being unnecessarily harmed by the IDF go for it. Still not a genocide.
You don’t read enough. I can give you a list of ten books that will change your mind.
Of course, you’d have to read them, and I’m guessing anyone who spews bile like ‘not the socialist running higher ed’ would lack both the curiosity and the courage to go there.
"the socialists running higher ed" is hardly my idea of spewing bile. You know good and well that your own bile is way more bitter than Shelley's. I agree with her a lot more than I agree with you, and yet all 3 of us probably do agree on the roots of the corruption flowering at the top. I think the USA is not the standard bearer of evil - that honor belongs to humanity. I suspect her glass is half full, mine is half empty, and yours is pretty near down to the dregs.
Maybe you're so out of sorts because your dogs don't like fireworks. Tomorrow is a new day. I hope you don't leave.
Yeah, but my bile is based on some modicum of reality; Shelley’s is straight up propagandized bullshit. For all the flaws in higher Ed, and there are many, the notion that socialists are running it, as opposed to neoliberal endowment donors and business school hacks, is laughable insanity. Think, Ann. Think.
The current USA is the standard bearer of evil, and the evidence just keeps on coming.
My dogs don’t like fireworks, but we made it through. If you’d like my books list, substack message me.
Your critique is right on though I'll continue to subscribe to get different perspective, even if one I often find detestable. FYI, I have similar issues with the NYT.
It's of course annoying to see evidence in both Taibbi's rant and reader comments that none have actually read Grandin's "America, América". I have and highly recommend it.
I'm about to post a reply to Taibbi's complaint about my comment. You might wish to look for it.
And where else do you expect to read what Matt provides? Whatever he has chosen to report on is based on deep research and is honestly reported. So, he doesn't cover every issue. E|xpecting everyone to believe as you do , and rejecting them if they don't, has become the American Disease. The fact that this exists alongside demands for respecting diversity and practicing tolerance is hypocrisy writ large.
I feel sorry for you,man. If your life is so barren personally that you allow yourself to get caught up in the pathetic propagandized food fight that is a sorry state. Life if great. I love my country and wouldn’t trade it for any other place. Is it perfect? Fuck no. It was never designed to be perfect. That doesn’t exist
Tom, I can understand that there are a range of opinions and that is much to criticize about both America’s today and its history. I but I cannot understand why you begin and bias your critique with the loaded comment that our ideals are propagandized, which our any discussion of that viewpoint.
And I am amazed by what I consider the obvious hyperbole ( maybe for attention and impact) in the declarative statement that America is pretty much the root of all evil today unless you define evil very differently from my conception.
My rejoinder would be that I view Putin as head of Russia, Ci as head of China, the clerics who rule Iran and their satellites Hamas and Hezbollah all considerably more evil and authoritarian than the USA. They are all brutal hierarchical dictatorships that desire to impose their will and worldview on as many others as possible by the use of force. Individual freedom ( which does not impinge on others) is of no importance to any of those regimes. If you really believe that these are not more evil than the USA then I would live substantial factual evidence backing up your view, not opinions put forward by others such as Grandin with a very simplistic and biased view of history based on cherry picked facts which fit his preconceived narrative.
Read ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’. Read ‘The Jakarta Method’. Read ‘American Exception’. Read ‘The Racket’. Read ‘Silent Coup’. Read ‘How To Hide An Empire’. Read ‘Mastering The Universe’. Read ‘Provoked’. Read ‘Blowback’. Read ‘The Brothers’. Read ‘The Shock Doctrine’. Read ‘With Liberty And Justice For Some’. Read ‘Merchants Of Doubt’. Read ‘Levers Of Power’. Read ‘Goliath’. Read ‘The Division Of Light And Power’. Read ‘Dirty Wars’. Read ‘Democracy, Incorporated’. Get through those, and I’ll give you twenty more. Of course, you’ll probably say all are cherry-picked, from a ‘factual’ perspective.
There was nothing loaded about my statement re. our ideals being propaganda. From its inception, when we were told all are created equal while only white property owners actually had a say, we’ve been bombarded with ‘we are the good guys’ bullshit. Nobody does propaganda like America. A least the Russian and Chinese and Iranian people know they are being propagandized; Americans are mostly clueless.
No progress in America. Not ever. Not a single time. All propaganda. Good to know. I thought some good things might have happened since "all are created equal while only white property owners actuallly had a say" And there's certainly no hope for the future, just propaganda all the way down.
You are going too far back. Let's at least talk about this century. Just by being on this board, among others, Americans are trying to understand what is going on. We no longer just take their word for it..
Ha-ha. The whole point of propaganda is that people believe it, especially if the propaganda is good. I don’t know about Chinese, but Russian people certainly swallow it without the slightest clue.
But, Obama, and oh yeah Clinton. Dubya? Buh buh buh Biden? Oh yea. I would assume Tom High is a rather young person who hasn't lived through career politicians decades long behavior to realize the rot is endemic and always has been everywhere on the planet. No student of history, eh?
To be fair - Terry Quist may wish to correct the typo in Grandin's name. I make similar mistakes constantly, but if we're going to pile on, let's at least get Pr. Grandin's name right.
Many here, I suspect, will find themselves in close alignment with Pr. Grandin's more serious academic work. He's without doubt an expert on the exploitation of the America's by Europe's empires and, more recently, by US corporations.
I believe Matt's original post had "Gandin," then I went out of curiosity to the internet to check out his summary CV and saw that it was "Grandin." I wanted to edit this and my typo for "Argentinian," but the display on my phone did not offer an "Edit" function. I Just now checked on my Surface Pro and the edit function appeared. And so, I edited. Thanks for your patience.
I do think it's deeper than that. White Anglo-Saxon humans are the root of all evil. It extends beyond we piddly little Americans. Ask Hungary how they are treated. If you haven't bowed down to the new notion that whiteness is pure evil, and the cause of all wrongs... you in fact... should have no voice. This is also the reason he glossed over Latin America. In this opinion piece, Latin Americans aren't white. Though Scholars do bend that notion depending on the point they are trying to make.
They talk of Trump and his fanatics rounding up anybody that disagrees with them, and hope and pray that their "Normie" followers don't open any newsfeeds from Europe where indeed.. this is actually happening, just... not done by the political types they think.....
We live in a dumb society that gets dumber every day that an Ivy League Graduate/Professor/student opens their dumbass mouth, or puts pen to paper or keyboard to screen...
The most Highly Educated Morons to ever grace this planet. Right here.. Right now.
Yes, and this “new notion” is guaranteed to create a white identity backlash. It already has. This used to be understood as something bad to be avoided. It used to be understood that insisting on dramatically different rules for different groups was doomed to fail. Now I think people like this Yale fellow actively yearn for it. They need an enemy. If white people are no longer racist enough to justify your lifetime of judgment and contempt, well …. keep kicking the dog. It will snap eventually. Then your own hate and resentment and contempt are not your character flaws. You were right all along.
My illiterate Russian grandfather, who worked like an ox on his Connecticut dairy farm, would have thought it hilarious had someone accused him of being in some slave-owning class.
Does anyone else remember the "whiteness" chart, displayed large and seriously, in the Smithsonian's museum of African-American History? I remember my dumbfounded shock on seeing it there. How to cut off your nose to spite your face…
Whiteness is code for anything, anyone who doesn't hate what these people hate, e.g., America, the flag, controlled borders, parental authority,women's safe spaces, etc.
The idea of “race” was invented by Cuvier and Buffon (with help from Linnaeus) in the scientific frenzy of the Enlightenment. But it’s an empty term, and was quickly adapted by the slavers to justify their peculiar institution. The sooner we drop it, the better.
Please do feel free to present your own argument? Critical Race theory came from Cornell, and has permeated through higher academia, very much specifically the Ivy League schools. These are also the loudest voices for white people being evil in our ever fractured society.
Berkeley, one of the bastions of freedom from my youth, is now a hot bed of segregation, and frequent videos of "minority class" students threatening the "privileged class." I agree with you... It's the dumbest thing I've ever written, but just because it's dumb doesn't make it untrue.
I want to be clear about one thing in my typing here. I quoted Minority class and Privileged class very specifically because the notion is idiotic, and completely foreign to my upbringing. I grew up in the 70's and 80's and while I am very ignorant to what it was like growing up in an inner city, I myself was brought up to respect all people.
Now... that said.. Did I do and say stupid shit as a kid? Oh hell yes I did, many of them I regret to this day, but I tend to love or hate people based on their actions. I watched more hate as a kid between Irish and Italian Catholics than I ever saw with those same groups against blacks. But, that's just my little idiot life.
"During the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12.5 million Africans embarked on slave ships to destinations primarily in the Americas. The most frequent transatlantic slave route destinations included Brazil, the British Caribbean, the Spanish Americas, and the French Caribbean.
Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America.
Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747 came to North America. "
Africa and the Arab world have been the epicenter of slavery for centuries. It’s 100% unacceptable wherever it occurs, but slavery has been a global phenomenon for millennia. The U.S. didn’t invent it. We were just willing to recognize it and kill hundreds of thousands of our brothers to end it. It continues to this day, mostly in Africa and everywhere in the form of sex trafficking.
Small quibble, but the U.S didn't even EXIST when it came to this continent. Yes, it continued as a practice after the formation of the U.S.A., but then as you rightly stated "We were just willing to recognize it and kill hundreds of thousands of our brothers to end it."
Looking to the past to bash the present and to doom the future is a stupid way to live...
Good point, Shaun. The European countries created plantation economies throughout the Western Hemisphere, but their citizens were never directly affected because they accrued the benefits of slavery in their many faraway colonies.
While they officially banned slavery a long time ago, Europe continued to benefit from one sided relationships in Africa and Asia until fairly recently.
I remember reading, I believe J A Hobson, who analyzed the economics of the British Empire in the late 1800s. He found the (mostly military) support of the British Empire cost more than it brought in return and only financially benefitted a small group of people (their leaders).
Both the UK and Japan have few resources relative to their populations and their colonization, partly to get rid of criminals and troublemakers (Imperial Russia did this as well with their Pale), secured needed resources (less expensive than trade).
Some historians claim that Germany and Italy which became countries only in the second half of the 19th century, were late to the Colonization Table and that fueled their aggressive military policies. Colonies replaced slavery to much extent but was largely hidden from the citizens of the Empires by distance, and as the Belgian Congo showed were no better as institutions.
France still dominates the Sahel in Africa and has been stealing their resources for over a century. The French are now being forced out but are not going peacefully. Lots of parallels with Indochina where the US replaced France in Vietnam. Less about dominoes and communism, much more about rare minerals and avoidance of a free market economy (ie, capitalism) by the colonizers.
In proportion to population, the Islamic world has been by far the greatest slaveholders in history. A large proportion of these slaves in various centuries were Europeans. Slavery existed in the Ottoman Empire until its dissolution and exists in parts of the Muslim world (where it was not ended by Europeans) even today: there are more slaves in those countries than there were in the American South in 1860. Most discourse on the subject ignores this and is historically preposterous.
Wait, I thought America invented slavery, and then callously perfected ways to carry it out in its most sinister and inhumane form?
You mean slavery is actually an international human stain that's spanned centuries? Or that slavic countries to this day are filled with white people who were brought there to ... be slaves? Or that some of the worst examples of slavery in modern times (yes, like today) are black Africans abducting other black africans?
We can all agree that slavery from 1750-1865 was a stain on America. But can we finally stop giving a soapbox to all the phony, lying, partisan people in academia and the media who talk about it as a uniquely American tragedy?
But if we stop beating ourselves up about it, how are these edugrifters going to make a living? How will the journals be sustained? And what about the conferences? thanks for sharing the truth.
I disagree. The uniquely american part was the civil war that ended it, and the war's legacy that continued it for so long in all but the name. The undoing is Time and a great deal of conscious effort.
You don’t have to agree with his conclusions, obviously, but “drivel”? In my experience his work is extraordinarily well researched and transparent. Seems your mind is completely fixed.
My overall view is that any author/researcher can have something important to say about a certain topic or topics but be way off the mark on another topic. With Sowell I would say his work Discrimination and Disparities is really useful and he provides a perspective that many left-ists simply want to ignore - that were are massive disparities and "discriminations" built into the natural world and also in the social/cultural sphere that are simply ignored when people say "omg, look at the terrible discrimination in x, it must be the result of oppression.
You truly are an imbecile. I suppose you think that world history began with Marx and Engels. "world history of slavery deflection" is absolutely a moronic comment for the ages.
And who established, ran, and profited immensely from the slave trade? The British Empire, which never went away, just went dark (see Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner, and the Round Table group). To our great good fortune, we threw the bastards out, but they have never forgiven us, and are still actively working to subvert this grand experiment, grown foul with the corruption of money, as do all republics, but still filled with good, decent people, and salvable in some form.
Good ole Cecil Rhodes, the gift that keeps on giving. I'm thinking Slick Willie and Biden's transportation secretary, Buttigieg, if I spelled it right.
Yellow Fever did not discriminate. The survivors, particularly those slaves of Haiti (then Saint-Domingue, the richest country in the Western Hemisphere) used their immunity to that disease to become the only slave colony to gain independence.
You're right, sadly, but that intellectual slovenliness I can assure you extends far beyond US borders, although an argument can be made as far as the "discipline" of history is concerned, the US has been one of the epicenters of the politicization of historical discourse.
Greg Grandin's history is a morality tale with cherry-picked footnotes stripped of fact, nuance, and context - from Yale and published in the political press for a particular audience.
Grandin takes a gigantic dump in the punch bowl celebrations of billions around the globe who understand that warts and all, the world is a far better place because of Americans.
So take a bow, Americans! Best wishes to Matt, Terry and the entire Racket team, commenters and all!
I correspond with a very senior member of the Yale history department on topics of mutual interest. He's excellent within his area of expertise. I can't, however, think of a single reliable historian who attempts to draw historical comparisons between past and present of any useful purpose, or value.
Historians, I was taught, identify and mine sources, ideally producing work that allows others to formulate better questions about the past.
My brief account of the privatization of the French tobacco industry in Paris in 1791 is currently the most-viewed article on my own site month by month, and a good case in point.
Re-investigating what others pass by can produce wonderful results and we've never had better tools. I taught my own undergrads these skills for years. Most were delighted with the quality of the work they learned to produce. For real.
Thanks for an excellent comment. Too many historians, as only one example, have take leave of their common sense - perhaps because the field is over-saturated with lazy quacks. They are enabled by students who are unacquainted with the value of “why."
The best case I can think of, and I'm not going to source the account, is of a German reporter working in the US who fabricated "tales from Maga world" for a European audience craving horror stories of modern American depravity. The desire to find the very worst in others is a temptation always to be resisted, and that applies as much to "us" as "them."
My granny described Northern visitors in Savannah being regaled with horror stories by a young man she knew “because they likes it and they pays me."
The Europeans I know think we all duck bullets in the streets daily.
I've lived with it for so long that I think it's comical, like Trump as a Russian spy or pizzagate. People will believe what they want to, no matter how ridiculous or crazy it looks to others.
I agree (I think). I think that a historian focused on his proper role of understanding the past through the historian’s art, rather than selectively aligning historical items with a political stance, would never have written this piece. Tell that to your correspondent.
Of course, but we shouldn’t pretend that their opinions are justified by “history” or that that the author deserves any deference because he or she is a historian. This is what is so gag-inducing about Heather Cox Richardson.
has Grandin ever visited Latin America and seen the poverty and systemic bribery and corruption that drives so many to come here at great sacrifice. People like him are absolutely writing only for their tribe, for surely they know everyone else would call it bull s-it!
Pr. Grandin's work will be based on his visits to the region, his expertise and familiarity with the literature on his subject areas, and his professional interactions with other historians - colored through the lens of his politics. Grandin's an excellent example of a self-promoting historian using often solidly-researched histories of the past to affect and change the present course of history. Free country - he knows of which he speaks - what he says? That's a different question.
Bolivar wasn’t even dead and buried when his internationalist project of Gran Colombia blew up in his face. Latin America in the early 19th century was far more riven by regional identity than the early US (which is saying a lot). Bolivar for all his brilliance couldn’t keep three colonies together, let alone thirteen.
After Bolívar, all of Latin America experienced a bloodbath for years. Borges among others described it well. And this “historian” understands history?
Yeah, Grandin seems utterly clueless about the reality of Latin America over the last 200 years. Removal of native people isn't just happening in the Amazon, either - it is going on in Central American countries as well. In Nicaragua in the last few years, for example, Ladinos just expropriate indigenous land, and anybody who protests just gets disappeared.
Just looked at his bio page on his website; the photo veritably screams, "I am a smug twat."
Also just looked at his Wikipedia page. Apparently he wrote on obituary on Hugo Chavez in The Nation, in which he wrote (the page pulls this quote from the article), "the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn't authoritarian enough."
Grandin also apparently worked with Guatemala's Historical Clarification Commission (which investigated atrocities committed during their civil war). For somebody with this on his resume, you would think that he would have some freakin' perspective. But the imperatives of Trump derangement and Murka Bad override intellectual integrity, apparently.
Of course, but we shouldn’t imagine that his political observations are justified by “history” or that he should get some extra credit because he is (also) a historian.
Remember also that it's the failed legacy of Simon Bolivar and similar others that begat the flood of economic migrants to the US today. Proud needy poor masses that failed to create solid societies and feed themselves. Sure colonialism failed them, funny how it managed to fail so many all at once.
I have often said the same about freedom, and also that it can often be scary. For those that crave security and safety, instead of freedom, I suggest migration. It seems to be the "in" thing.
“Still, the image of the America that took in everyone’s tired, their poor, their huddled masses is gone for now, and that’s something to be mourned, no matter what your politics. “. Is that what you think was happening over the last four years?? It’s almost as if you’re conflating uncontrolled invasion at the southern border with Ellis Island. Ah yes, Ellis Island. That long forgotten point of entry for the world’s ‘huddled masses’, where people were properly vetted before entry, and many rejected because of their lack of suitability to help build this country. If you think that’s what Joe Biden’s people did during his reign, you are seriously deluded.
And that is perfect. I live in a small community that has had a Refugee Center for 40 years. People go through a rather lengthy process, but they come with a structure in place to help them start out with a place to live, a job opportunity, help with the English language, and help getting their children enrolled in local schools. It still isn't easy to adjust to an entirely new culture. Multiply that million that you mentioned by 15 to 20 with no structure in place and you have a completely inhumane and impossible situation--for both the illegal alien and the communities that are expected to assimilate them.
Wonderfully stated, Norma. I think we've looked at correcting illegal immigration the same flawed way we try to eliminate drugs and abortions: We always try to attack the supply side.
Billions for drug interdiction, and the drug problem is worse than ever. No money for education and treatment.
Laws to restrict abortion, but no good education and support to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
And we continue to see the supply of illegal immigrants as the problem. It's not. If there were no jobs for them, they would not come. When a meat processing plant in a farm town in Nebraska or Iowa stops paying living wages and benefits, Americans won't do that work (nor should they) for crap wages and no benefits. Illegal immigrants will do it, and they are exploited. So if we want to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants, it's time to send some Plant Managers and corporate VPs to jail for the illegal act of hiring them. The hiring will stop FAST.
Just as Wall Street nonsense would have dramatically improved if any Wall Street villains saw the inside of a courtroom, much less the inside of a Club Fed.
Well-paid people do not want to go to jail. No one wants to go to jail. But well-paid people breaking the law for their companies REALLY don't want to go to jail. So they will stop illegal hiring.
Had the same take on the issue, then I moved to an illegal immigration mecca. 10 people dead, dozens seriously wounded in Texas in mass casualty wrecks caused by Biden's new arrivals, in the last 100 days alone.
In Texas we are use to fatal 2 car wrecks, caused by Biden migrants, but we have now moved to double digit deaths and Big Rigs. We had migrant murderers and rapists here first. And I promise you the carnage on Texas roads is headed to every US state. It is just a matter of time.
Corrupt driving schools are handing Big Rig commercial licenses to people with no training or tests, who cannot read a roadside sign or regulation book, nor speak a word of English. They are driving semi trucks thru 6 lanes of traffic, when their previous driving experience was limited to a car on a 2 lane dirt road, with no regulations.
We need to criminally charge the employers, but the unvetted who arrived in the last 4 years, and do not qualify for asylum, must leave, get in line, be extensively vetted and return legally. They must be able to exist, including paying for medical care, without subsides or any form of welfare.
If we do not demand their removal, the next Dem to occupy the WH, will simply dissolve the Southern Border again for 4 years, and then demand every non violent criminal be allowed to stay. Only next time it will be 20 million more new arrivals, not 10.
I am still waiting to see business owners arrested for hiring illegal aliens.
Instead, we get Trump lamenting their plight, and pushing legislation to grant some sort of amnesty to those in the agriculture and hospitality industries.
Why not go all the way, and extend it to those in landscaping and construction?
Our elected leaders just love stabbing the working class in the back.
Ahh… if humans will do the labor at that cost maybe the western holdouts have their own value inflated too much. Those are free beings accepting employment - immigrant labor is distinct from say a private prison undercutting a business to exploit the labor of its inmates.
I do agree, however, that of Wall St quit getting bailed out they’d have to behave more conservatively. The practice of privatizing profits and socializing losses doesn’t appear to be serving anyone except mf’ers that should be on the streets like Randolph and Mortimer Duke.
Your attempt to rectify the very bottom rung while allowing the real benefactors to prosper is treating symptoms and not the disease, imo.
And speaking of the most recent (Biden) wave, jobs are the least of it. They don't have the language or the skills to work - if anything they are competing with each other for scraps. The terrible problem is the massive burden they bring to medical/social services and school systems.
I don't think of society in rungs, and don't know what you would consider the very bottom rung. I'm talking about working Americans, including middle class.
I think the vast, vast majority of American workers will not do slaughtering and cutting for minimum wage. They won't work on pipelines or build condos on Billionaires' Row for minimum either. I don't think they have an inflated sense of their own value.
The fact remains that we've allowed businesses--small, medium, and large--to use illegal labor in their businesses. Which is against the law, but we're not enforcing that law.
Soon it will be robots doing that work. Robots assist in complicated surgeries every day. The notion they cannot pick a head of lettuce or disassemble a beef carcass is ridiculous.
Grain farmers do not use illegal labor. They do not need it. Technology and massive equipment mean grain farmers can now farm a few thousand acres, with the same basic number of humans it once took to farm a few hundred acres.
Produce growers and other industries refuse to modernize, because it is cheaper for them to pay an endless supply of illegal labor pennies on the dollar, and allow tax payers to pick up the slack.
Illegal labor is better than slavery , but not by much. Workers must tolerate subpar wages, unsafe working conditions and sexual harassment. The Biden inflation that has increased housing costs 50%, and sent the cost of medical care soaring, nearly guarantees the illegal workers will be a permanent lower caste, with no chance of upward mobility.
I assure you Americans can and would do those jobs. Low wages, bad working conditions, and displacement by foreigners are humiliating. Restore respect and determination to build that workforce back and it will come. Consider also the possibilities of technology adoption, which is hindered by low wages (as it was by slavery). Any executive who whines ‘we just can’t get the skilled labor’ should be slapped in the face and then invited to come up with some American can-do spirit.
Well yeah they kind of do, and govt “benefits” is the reason. Between starving and plucking chickens, I,m guessing most people would pluck chickens. Jeez, where I live, people still raise/kill/pluck and eat chickens (and eggs).
"Billions for drug interdiction, and the drug problem is worse than ever. No money for education and treatment.
Laws to restrict abortion, but no good education and support to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place."
Throw MORE money at the problems? More administrators, bureaucrats, agencies, grift, graft and incompetence: that will definitely work. Spend more money to educate people on how not to get pregnant? Spend it on telling them that illicit drugs are bad for their health?
Dude, you have a very low opinion of people and their intelligence levels, don't you?
The way budgets work is if you cease spending money on no-results initiatives, and spend some of the savings on worthwhile initiatives that will obviate the need for the wasteful spending, and leave some left over. This spending of LESS money solves the problems.
States that have legitimate sex education programs have significantly lower teen pregnancy rates than those with abstinence-only education. Ever wonder why that is?
But go ahead and keep doing things the way you always have, and keep anticipating those completely different results. People say this is the definition of insanity. I believe it's the definition of retard.
I have a pretty dim opinion of your intelligence level.
If you don't like the *millions* of illegal aliens being tossed out of the country, please sacrifice your family to be the victim of crimes some of them are committing against your fellow citizens. Why is it that on the Left, the sympathy is never for America and its citizens?
"Everyone is welcome here." Except. . . . Their piety drips from those little signs with the many-colored hands reaching up. I wonder how many illegals they are inviting to their backyard BBQ today. And welcoming them to stay over until they figure out their place in the community.
To further critique your comment above, we are all illegals here. We stole the land, and committed more atrocities doing it than any current immigrant gang or cartel could dream of.
You want the end to the immigration coming across our southern border?
Well, start electing politicians who will turn their back on the Monroe Doctrine, and have the U.S. stop sticking its nose in the internal affairs of the other countries in this hemisphere, which does nothing but create terror and misery for indigenous populations and cause them to flee. I’m guessing you won’t. All this just so your corporate masters can continue to extract resources and give you cheap raspberries in the grocery store in the middle of winter.
Read Matt Kennard’s ‘The Racket’ and ‘Silent Coup’. Or continue living in the American corporate propaganda fantasy land, and stupidly rant about ‘illegals’. Your choice.
Please. Yes, I know there were treaties and trinket exchanges. The fact that you ascribe complexity to massacre, theft, forced migration, and continuing discrimination is frankly, pathetic.
No, we did not STEAL the land, anymore than the various tribes STOLE the land from those mysterious red-haired giants who used to occupy it.
What we did, was what has happened over and over again throughout world history. A stronger group moves into territory occupied by a weaker group, and takes possession of it. It was not uniquely horrible. It was just what humans have been doing forever -- and the tribes did the same thing to neighboring tribes, too.
I do agree with you that we should stop mucking around in other countries, though. 100%!
Tom, the fact that until now you were on this board encourages me to think that at heart you are someone who respects honest reporting. Now you are putting Matt down and mocking backyard barbecues. Suggest you focus on your own life, family and friends and stop doing the bidding of whatever faction(s) profit from your anger.
My, my. I wish I could just let myself go emotionally as easily as you do. "Money for war, a police state, and millionaires". Amazing. You should listen to yourself sometime.
You may want to listen to him as well. He does raise a good point. Trump certainly has had success with populist themes, but NONE of them are contained in that bill. Tax cuts for rich people already bloated on globalization stock market riches. Even MORE money for the fucking Pentagon. Oh yeah, and let's cut some health care for poor people.
That's what that bill is. Trump personally can survive it, but he can't run again. Someone else (JD, Rubio) will have to defend it, and it won't be easy. Of course, the Democrats would have to find a credible opponent, which I don't see out there right now.
I laugh when I read you socialists' complaints about "tax cuts for rich people". Rich people are already paying the vast majority of taxes: we have the most progressive tax system of any country in the world. Yet, you socialists think it is your right and duty to take rich peoples' money and spend it how you'd like. Amazing hubris and ignorance, blended into one.
Tell you what, Mike, if you could explain to us how $73 trillion went from the bottom 90% of America to the top 1% in the past 50 years, and make us understand that this is GOOD for America, we'll listen to your nonsense about socialist-this, blahblah-that. (that's $73 trillion, with a T)
Yes, I'm sure you'd love to take the discussion off on some useless tangent. "Tax cuts for the rich people", eh? You find it offensive that people should keep their own money? Yes, you do. As I said, the U.S. has the most progressive taxation in the world, but it seems that you socialists won't be happy until you control everything that everyone else does. It's called authoritarianism and you're it.
Lots to criticize legitimately in the bill. However, as someone who is in the medical field I can attest to the fact that the critiques about healthcare are overblown: Cuts to Medicaid are primarily requiring able adults to work, seek work, or volunteer 20 hours a week. Seems reasonable to me. I was stunned to learn that this hasn't been required until now. Re Medicare: No cuts were made to Medicare. As a matter of fact, doctors received a 2.6% fee increase, which should increase the number of doctors who accept Medicaid patients.
Democrats have been playing this card for decades. Any cuts to growth or any efforts at all to reign in any program and the word goes out "Children will starve!!!!." I see it all over Facebook today. Obviously none have read and understand the bill. They are just repeating what their masters have fed to them.
Yes, the changes will make Medicaid dollars available for people who are legitimately eligible. If someone is ineligible for Medicaid, but can't afford private insurance, there are programs like ChildHealth that insures children up to age 19, and also a sliding scale of premiums matched to income. Outside of that, the obscene premiums now paid by the middle class are what is funding Obamacare. A perfect example of redistrubition of wealth, without rendering any credit to the donor.
But those tax cuts benefited my working class family & their friends. Now they won't expire. I don't care about tax cuts for the wealthy, as long as there are still cuts for the working class, which there are.
I have no problem with them insisting that able-bodied adults with no young children should have to work or volunteer 20 hours a week in exchange for free health care. That's a bargain!
I also have no problem with them ceasing medical care for people who should not be in the country in the first place.
I am, however, horrified at the money for "defense."
I wish you could as well. Some have the universal empathy gene; some, such as yourself, can only muster it up for friends, family, and the occasional fellow online idiot.
Says you. I have empathy for anyone who voted for Trump. Or Biden. Doesn’t mean I won’t call out their flawed logic, and yes, up to and including insults.
Are you talking the redistribution in which wealth flows upward to the already wealthy, or downward from the already obscenely wealthy to those living under oppressive poverty or constant economic anxiety?
Exactly Mike. America can still be a beacon of hope yet not allow 10 million illegals to cross the border. Don't like the optics of deportation? Then you should have disliked the optics of millions pouring across the border for 4 years. The excesses of the prior regime will require some unpleasant optics to correct.
You are so right Dazed! Only God knows who was let into our Country by the previous administration…. Chinese Nationalists, drug cartels, Islamic terrorist to name a few, plus the gang members from who knows where! I’m glad that the Trump Administration is doing everything they possibly can to deport these criminals and making us safer!
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...."
- Don't know about you guys, but I am pretty comfortable being part of a country whose foundational principles include the above.
- As with Biblical morality, it is aspirational and we are all sinners.
- But with that said - I think we do a pretty good job.
OK...Canadian as musicians are acceptable. It's only when they stray into social or political commentary (same as many US musicians) that it becomes apparent. I DGAF about their opinions. Never have and never will.
Sure, but haven't we all wondered what the big deal of Moosehead vs. Labatt's is all about? And surely, no one else could tell us what that whole big thing is about.
I swear: the histrionics and the complete focus on the negatives of this country, while ignoring the negatives of every other country in the world are just EXHAUSTING.
There are 195 recognized countries in the world. If you can’t stand the USA, why not pick one of the other 194 countries to live in?
So my brother, decided he didn't like America anymore back in 2015 and he found a job overseas and just left with his wife. They sold all their stuff and moved to Japan where he's always wanted to live his whole life. We're not a rich family at all (in fact went onto welfare when dad left when we were kids) but he figured out how to get out of America. Just took a couple duffle bags. It's totally possible to do. Don't know why more people don't do it.
I’ve thought about leaving about 100 times, and I’ve actively tried about 5x, and the truth is: life is is easier in the United States. Especially for an academic. You have a better chance of getting grant support for your research. You have more independence. You can complain all you want about life in the US, but researchers in the US have it pretty good. When push comes to shove it’s hard not to notice.
Francis, I came to this country with a few duffel bags about four decades ago as a refugee There is no other country in the world where I’d rather live. No other country gives you as much freedom and as many opportunities. Those who whine and complain have no idea what is out there in the world and have no guts to experience it.
I cheer when ICE deports violent illegal aliens. I cheer when DHS gives other illegals a chance to come in legally along with $1,000 and a free plane ride home. I did not cheer when the media falsely reported how CBP agent on horses whipped running illegals and then I was angry that they tried to manipulate my thinking with biased, patently wrong reporting. The USA is my country, my homeland and it is not some experiment that should allow anyone to come in willy nilly without permission from its citizens based on a warped interpretation of a slogan on the Statue of Liberty.
Agreed Rob. Unending illegal immigration is clearly an attempt to overwhelm the US & Western Europe. Get in line and legally immigrate. Then we will welcome you. Work hard, learn English, pay taxes, earn your citizenship. No security net services for illegals. It’s amazing that blue cities try to deny they’re not trying to influence elections with illegals voting. It’s illegal to ask for ID to vote in California and NYC voted to allow it——-election interference anyone? Plus since illegals are counted in the census, blue sanctuary cities get more seats in Congress. I have compassion for illegal families for sure, but more for American citizens injured or killed by illegal criminals and there’s plenty of them here.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to celebrate the end of slavery in the US, the only monument to the Freed US Slaves at the time.
The Emma Lazarus cultural appropriation was to increase funding of the Pedestal. Lazarus' family made their fortunes from slave labor in the Caribbean, so there could be no paean to freeing slaves. Instead, her pet project was bringing Eastern Europeans to NYC. After the race riots of the Civil War, at least 25% of the Black population of NYC left, and were not a favored population in NYC when Lady Liberty was erected in the harbor.
I love being an American. I was an exchange student to Brazil in 1970 71, and experienced a military dictatorship and saw the level of self censorship that imposed on people. I travelled in Argentina, where the natives were all killed. There does not exist a political entity without faults, yet as recent months have shown, we have stronger mechanisms to protect our rights than most places on the planet. Happy Independence Day, guaranteeing our rights to be wrong
Americans have all told the mainstream press to fuck off. The chattering classes have never been less relevant to the way things really are. At this point the media are just talking to each other, not realizing that no one else really cares what they say.
There's a tiny group of over educated people who still think that the opinions of the legacy press mean anything. But most Americans have declared independence from the morons who write about America without understanding it.
But the elites have never thought so highly of themselves--and of their righteous vision. In one of the ironies of my lifetime, Democrats have become the party of the elites, despite whatever they might claim.
The brainwashing is still in full throttle. Power is everything
When you view EVERYTHING through the lens of “oppressors” vs. “oppressed” all there is is power. What a pathetic way to live.
I have found their circle jerk on substack. It's on the Heather Cox Richardson comment boards and the level of self certainty and TDS is high entertainment. And somewhat enlightening in regard to how their lamentable thinking is generated.
I took a quick look, and now need a breakfast margarita.
I did notice that at least 75% of the comments were written by women, who likely prefer a "caring" if smothering nanny state.
Yes and these women who seemingly distain marriage and having children - ironically pray for a utopian 'nanny' state which they hope will take care of them because they are incapable of forming their own families....it's time for these types to grow up...
And Robert Reich. And The Bulwark. And Michael Moore. In fact, there's been a wholesale woke leftist takeover of Substack from indie journalists. Some Substack writers have started talking about this. Not sure if Substack did something to their algo to promote these people or what. Matt is the only one hanging on, with Bari Weiss sitting on top but TFP is playing both sides these days.
Indie journalists made Substack. Lefty propagandists first tried to discredit it. Now they're all here. Check the top ranked in Politics, Culture, etc and you'll see them. They've knocked Shellenberger off not just the top but the whole chart.
No, it's word of mouth from the following class. That's how I saw it - I can see multiple leftist ladies in my family orbit going and reading it.
The funny thing is that their sense of community mirrors what I felt from the Taibbi substack in 2019. But my hopes then that the truths being discussed would eventually see the light of day and be believed by >50% have been realized. Their parallel hopes are fantasy, because what they are sharing are predominantly self-reassuring lies.
Both are plausible explanations and not mutually exclusive
Well Substack would be dumb not to digitally market. Not simply internal algos - if you have a couple of friends on fb who talk about HCR, they must be smart enough to market her to you.
Mike Shellenberger hasn't been posting much lately so that may be a reason. I typically pass by the ones that are posting the B.S
Not worth wasting the brain space on folks that have proven themselves less than trustworthy. For my sake, the Nations sake time to move on, speak up.
Robert Reich is worse than untrustworthy. He wrote a whole column in past couple of year about how bad NAFTA was without once mentioning that he was Bill Clinton's labor secretary or his role in enacting it. How the Guardian or whoever let him even do that is beyond me.
Yes, what has the Guardian become? Unrecognizable.
A Heather Cox Richardson groupie friend told me this morning that if Mamdani wins the mayoral election, Trump is going to kick New York City out of the United States of America. If Trump said it, it must be true. I’m packing my bags and renewing my passport, just in case.
You know, knee jerk opposition to Trump is goofy, reactive and histrionic. I hate it for all those reasons.
But it also has real repercussions.
Would Biden have even let in 3 million a year if it wasn't a big showy thing that he could do that was the opposite of Trump? I don't think so. He just would have been normal-stupid on immigration. But knee jerk reactiveness to Trump made him let in like 5-6 million extra. Crazy.
Very insightful. You’re totally right. What a mess.
07/05/25: Your sarcasm is droll and delightful. Please continue...
Aw shucks
07/07/25: !!!
Love how the Dems are scared shitless. In reality, without Albany approving all the pie in the sky election promises from whatever propaganda promulgating politician gets voted in, very little if nothing will change, including the DNC and the doddering elderly out of touch career politicians and their exhortations and gesticulations and warmongering. And the garbage in New York will still stink.
Americans have also rejected the grandees of academia who hate America and the people who live here (legally).
There is indeed an awful lot of "go fuck yourself" -ing going on these days.
I've never heard a Canadian say fuck, much less fuck you or go fuck yourself. I figured it would be something like, "well, perhaps later, if you have some spare time, you might consider humping yourself--but only if it's convenient."
You need to watch some Trailer Park Boys.
Always loved Bubbles and his kitty day care!
FYI, you can buy Trailer Park Boys chips up here: https://www.gianttiger.com/products/trailer-park-boys-dirty-burger-flavour-85-g?variant=40878415380541
The Dirty Bird!
Philadelphia Collins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf_jMMgyDMw
Only the first four or five seasons. The quality goes way down from there and the Netflix takeover ruined it.
I think season 5 was their peak, and seasons 6 and 7 are also entertaining. The first movie was just rehashing the earlier shows, although we do has this little nugget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnCS4qfl4iI
Canadians say Fuck you, eh?
Or "Fuck you, hoser."
No its buy Canada not US everywhere
Too funny..Love that last line..LOL
07/04/25: It's "a tiny group of ... people" who have a vested, intransigent interest in being unhappy.
"As the United States retreats from the world..."
I went to check if this dimwit wrote the above before June 21st... nope. Dateline, today.
B-2s obliterate Iranian nuclear facilities. Some retreat!
It must be nice for all these people like poor Stephen, who have nowhere else to go (who would want them?), to be able to congregate at The Guardian.
(Which used to be called the Indians before the British government took offence at the name and made them change it...)
Poor Greg Grandin. Not even the Guards could put up with him; he had to slither off to the New York Times.
Take a look at him (Google Images).
He looks like Phil Silver's stuntman in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," when Silver's car was starting to sink into the rampaging river, after the wise-ass little kid had told him (for a $1) how to take a short-cut back to the main highway.
Just rewatched IMMMM World about a week ago and pictured the scene of Otto Meyer (Phil Silver) and his convertible floating downstream soon to be submerged
Brilliant
07/04/25: A film endowed with an enormous sense of good-will towards its audience, from which all of its other blessings flowed. And it could only be done on the scale that was achieved once, in 1963 (incredibly, at the same time that JFK was assassinated). Which is preferable, considering how dependably familiarity breeds contempt.
Was JUST thinking about Dick Shawn, this morning!!!
“I’M COMIN’ MOMMA!!! I’M COMIN’!”
07/07/25: One cool dude. And genius casting to play him as Ethel Merman's son (the unreality of it was so glaring, it distorted perspective and in itself became the reality).
Americans have also told academia to go fuck themselves. The title of college professor has shifted in just a few years from being an honor to being associated with people who pose a danger to democracy and a free society. The corporate press and big academia have become a cancer to the Republic.
Or ill-educated, in my opinion.
07/04/25: Indoctrinated. The exact oppose of being well-educated.
A classmate of mine is married to an immigration consultant who was chief of the Harris campaign’s policy (‘nuff said).
Anyway, her hubby is in Paris licking his wounds apparently and he sent her an editorial from Le Monde about the unveiling of a statue of Lady Liberty hiding her face in shame.
The rest of my classmates (granted - we went to architecture school at Yale) expressed sympathy for her shame and indignation.
To quote that famous sage, Bugs Bunny: “What a buncha maroons!”
“No one else really cares what they say” - really? Tell that to my mother in law. Please. Someone. Anyone.
Well I think the point is that we got to where 55% no longer care. The No Kings protests were a means to emotional release, not political results.
The No Kings protests? What/when were those?
Can't tell if joking?
Yes, but I wouldn't actually call it joking - except to make fun of the protesters.
Or intentionally publish an inaccurate hyperbolic story.
This exactly.
One wonders when the gladly deceased mainstream press will finally realize they’re dead. It’s like a zombie apocalypse.
Hear hear!
Loved it! 'To he'll with the sourpusses' should be the new 'American ' creed. No more left or right, just sourpuss or normal. 'Sourpuss' (and smug) is why I turned off CNN. Wat h it with the sound off!
Sourpussies after eating sour grapes!
Americans have “all” etc? “…most Americans…” No. And no.
I think Grandin's piece provides sad demonstration of the intellectual slovenliness that prevails in top American universities these days. Internationalist Latin America? Was the Honduras-El Salvador soccer war America's fault? Ask any Argentinian about Brazilians--and vice versa.
Does he think there was no slavery and Indian removal in Latin America? Does he read history books (perhaps he is a STEM professor with opinions)? Indian removal is still happening in the Amazon today.
For Grandin, the point is not the truth or the history but the story, and Grandin's story is that America is the root of all evil.
Man, that’s what I was trying to say - thank you.
Sorry, Matt, Terry said it better.
07/04/25: And the Gratuitous, Ill-Spirited Comparison of the Day goes to Big Noise.
Slovenliness or bias or just lying. The U.S. accounted for only 6% of the Atlantic African slave trade. The remaining 90+% went to Latin America and the Caribbean Islands.
This is completely correct, but a lot of American slaves were brought in from the Caribbean, as well the 6 % from Africa.
Well done.
Honestly, I couldn’t really tell after reading the entire piece that this was what Matt was trying to say. I thought *maybe* it was but it was hard to tell with all the bs about letting illegals just crap all over the constitution and rule of law. But whatever I guess.
I guessed he was celebrating American people and culture, generally, and disputing every political /historical claim in Grandin’s revolutionary laundry list would be a tl;dr. Terry’s added facts helped air out the stench of reheated Howard Zinn.
Matt, sorry to say, but America is pretty much the root of all evil today. Grandin is just guilty of expecting America to live up to its, admittedly propagandized, ideals. Much like we expect our police officers, and judicial system, to hold higher standards when it comes to the law, as opposed to regular folk.
Anyone who reads Chris Hedges, or people like Matt Kennard, Max Blumenthal, etc. know the reality of our current rot, and it’s been a long time coming. I’ve enjoyed much of your work, and admired your focus on the censorship issue; you displayed far more forbearance in your Congressional testimony from the pathetic Democrats than I would have been able to muster.
But I’m ending my paid subscription, as of tomorrow. Your reluctance, and believe me, you’re not alone, to wade into the Gaza milieu, and it’s tentacles on the student protest front, as well as the tone of this particular piece (snatching people of the street kinda sucks… but Obama. And hey, Val Kilmer!) leave me… we’ll, let’s just say, disappointed, in your ability to read the room vis a vis the unitary executive, and geopolitical, as well as increasingly domestic, empire maintenance and execution.
Hugs to you and the fam. We’re all in for some serious ugly ahead. As Frederick Douglass stated, no struggle, no progress. Unfortunately, that means blood most likely will be shed. Peace, t
If your "America" is the evil country today then your definition of our nation is not mine. I have always consider America to be its ordinary, everyday citizens. The ones that go to work everyday, have families, play baseball, go bowling, farm the land, feed its people, fight in endless wars, give their lives . . . .
It is not Congress, not the President or Judiciary, not the socialist running higher ed, not the billionaires, Hollywood or the MSM (who are the worse or the worse).
Lighten up Tom, just because people are not all Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, Donna Reed, Lawrence Welk does not mean the Nations' majority at any given time were evil.
I think Tom IS stating that there's a difference between ordinary Americans and the elite class that lies to them and wreaks havoc overseas (and here, increasingly), in the name of "democracy." Corporations (i.e., the elites who benefits from corporate profits) run our government and thus the world to the extent they can. The world is pushing back. Wouldn't you?
Tom is part of the problem in that he expects everyone to share his beliefs and cancels them if they don't. Matt has a right to focus on anything he chooses; he is not an elected official. Good luck, Tom, finding your echo chamber.
I expect nothing of the sort, and don’t require an echo chamber.
Yes, Matt has the right to focus on anything he chooses, and I have the right not to send him money if I feel his writing has lost its way.
Different strokes.
Absolutely. The old kindergarten sandbox is just too small for me and you.
If any of the "world" is pushing back, they are doing it because Trump wants nothing to do with a One World Government.
Personally, I have been pushing back against the political class that have been hell bent on taking this country down for over 100 years.
If you have voted for any Republican candidate for president since Eisenhower, your ‘pushing back’ has been performative fantasy. Same for Democratic candidates since ‘88.
There is no genocide in Gaza
Do you believe that if you post that enough times, it will somehow become true?
We can all see what's happening in Gaza, no matter what you deign to call it.
It is true, there is no Genocide in Gaza. There is a war and if you want to make the case civilians are being unnecessarily harmed by the IDF go for it. Still not a genocide.
You are an idiot.
I thought you were gone?
Mirror gazing again, Tom?
Well said.
You don’t read enough. I can give you a list of ten books that will change your mind.
Of course, you’d have to read them, and I’m guessing anyone who spews bile like ‘not the socialist running higher ed’ would lack both the curiosity and the courage to go there.
Tom, remember what you said? Do act on it now. Please. Why waste this space and our time explaining why you’re leaving. Just leave.
These people always act like they're in an airport, constantly announcing their impending departures.
Pfftt!
As if we care!
Because your space and time are soooo precious?
Bless your heart.
"the socialists running higher ed" is hardly my idea of spewing bile. You know good and well that your own bile is way more bitter than Shelley's. I agree with her a lot more than I agree with you, and yet all 3 of us probably do agree on the roots of the corruption flowering at the top. I think the USA is not the standard bearer of evil - that honor belongs to humanity. I suspect her glass is half full, mine is half empty, and yours is pretty near down to the dregs.
Maybe you're so out of sorts because your dogs don't like fireworks. Tomorrow is a new day. I hope you don't leave.
Yeah, but my bile is based on some modicum of reality; Shelley’s is straight up propagandized bullshit. For all the flaws in higher Ed, and there are many, the notion that socialists are running it, as opposed to neoliberal endowment donors and business school hacks, is laughable insanity. Think, Ann. Think.
The current USA is the standard bearer of evil, and the evidence just keeps on coming.
My dogs don’t like fireworks, but we made it through. If you’d like my books list, substack message me.
Your critique is right on though I'll continue to subscribe to get different perspective, even if one I often find detestable. FYI, I have similar issues with the NYT.
It's of course annoying to see evidence in both Taibbi's rant and reader comments that none have actually read Grandin's "America, América". I have and highly recommend it.
I'm about to post a reply to Taibbi's complaint about my comment. You might wish to look for it.
I should have been clearer; I just won’t be a paid subscriber. Will go back and edit.
Don’t get me started on the NYT.
That is what I enjoy about this site. Different perspectives. Although, I prefer articles that are not Government Sponsored.
Well, corporations largely farm the land nowadays, but otherwise I agree with you!
Of course they do. Where ever there is a gov hand out they are there. Shame too because the food they grow is modified and pretty worthless.
And where else do you expect to read what Matt provides? Whatever he has chosen to report on is based on deep research and is honestly reported. So, he doesn't cover every issue. E|xpecting everyone to believe as you do , and rejecting them if they don't, has become the American Disease. The fact that this exists alongside demands for respecting diversity and practicing tolerance is hypocrisy writ large.
Agree.
If I want news on Gaza, I go to Gray Zone, Antiwar.com, or Electronic Intifada.
I call bullshit on your hypocrisy fallacy. Maybe you missed the second aspect of my critique after Gaza.
I don’t reject people because they disagree with me; hell, I disagree with everyone in my book club on geopolitical and domestic policy issues.
I'd love to be a fly on that wall…
It’s tough being a socialist in liberal America.
Agreeable people are boring..
I feel sorry for you,man. If your life is so barren personally that you allow yourself to get caught up in the pathetic propagandized food fight that is a sorry state. Life if great. I love my country and wouldn’t trade it for any other place. Is it perfect? Fuck no. It was never designed to be perfect. That doesn’t exist
I love my country as well.
I love my kids, but if one of them became a serial killer, that love wouldn’t keep me from recognizing that was fucked up.
Life might be great for you. For others, not so much.
Oh Tom we are all so fortunate to have you on this Independence Day weekend to be the sole arbiter of good and evil. Your overcompensation is showing.
WE can't fix everything. Help when you can..
Good riddance, Tom High!
Goodbye. You won't be missed fool.
Ah, irony! Being called a fool by someone who has Alan Dershowitz on a reading list.
I am happy to learn that you'll never post here again.
In the words of Bette Davis, I’m so happy you’re happy.
Tom, I can understand that there are a range of opinions and that is much to criticize about both America’s today and its history. I but I cannot understand why you begin and bias your critique with the loaded comment that our ideals are propagandized, which our any discussion of that viewpoint.
And I am amazed by what I consider the obvious hyperbole ( maybe for attention and impact) in the declarative statement that America is pretty much the root of all evil today unless you define evil very differently from my conception.
My rejoinder would be that I view Putin as head of Russia, Ci as head of China, the clerics who rule Iran and their satellites Hamas and Hezbollah all considerably more evil and authoritarian than the USA. They are all brutal hierarchical dictatorships that desire to impose their will and worldview on as many others as possible by the use of force. Individual freedom ( which does not impinge on others) is of no importance to any of those regimes. If you really believe that these are not more evil than the USA then I would live substantial factual evidence backing up your view, not opinions put forward by others such as Grandin with a very simplistic and biased view of history based on cherry picked facts which fit his preconceived narrative.
Your rejoinder is flawed.
Read ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’. Read ‘The Jakarta Method’. Read ‘American Exception’. Read ‘The Racket’. Read ‘Silent Coup’. Read ‘How To Hide An Empire’. Read ‘Mastering The Universe’. Read ‘Provoked’. Read ‘Blowback’. Read ‘The Brothers’. Read ‘The Shock Doctrine’. Read ‘With Liberty And Justice For Some’. Read ‘Merchants Of Doubt’. Read ‘Levers Of Power’. Read ‘Goliath’. Read ‘The Division Of Light And Power’. Read ‘Dirty Wars’. Read ‘Democracy, Incorporated’. Get through those, and I’ll give you twenty more. Of course, you’ll probably say all are cherry-picked, from a ‘factual’ perspective.
There was nothing loaded about my statement re. our ideals being propaganda. From its inception, when we were told all are created equal while only white property owners actually had a say, we’ve been bombarded with ‘we are the good guys’ bullshit. Nobody does propaganda like America. A least the Russian and Chinese and Iranian people know they are being propagandized; Americans are mostly clueless.
No progress in America. Not ever. Not a single time. All propaganda. Good to know. I thought some good things might have happened since "all are created equal while only white property owners actuallly had a say" And there's certainly no hope for the future, just propaganda all the way down.
You are going too far back. Let's at least talk about this century. Just by being on this board, among others, Americans are trying to understand what is going on. We no longer just take their word for it..
Ha-ha. The whole point of propaganda is that people believe it, especially if the propaganda is good. I don’t know about Chinese, but Russian people certainly swallow it without the slightest clue.
Nowhere close to American swallow capability.
You been to Russia?
"But I’m ending my paid subscription, as of tomorrow." Well that's some really good news! No more reading your pablum and drivel.
But, Obama, and oh yeah Clinton. Dubya? Buh buh buh Biden? Oh yea. I would assume Tom High is a rather young person who hasn't lived through career politicians decades long behavior to realize the rot is endemic and always has been everywhere on the planet. No student of history, eh?
72
Next assumption.
GO FUCK YOURSELF TIM🖕🏻
Bless your heart.
See ya.
DLTDHYITAOTWO
GSYHUYAALS, you Rufo idiot.
Oh sweetie, I am neither a Rufo nor an idiot, clever boy. You're the one who pretended to announce his departure. See ya.
You’re both. I did announce my departure; 7/5.
To be fair - Terry Quist may wish to correct the typo in Grandin's name. I make similar mistakes constantly, but if we're going to pile on, let's at least get Pr. Grandin's name right.
Many here, I suspect, will find themselves in close alignment with Pr. Grandin's more serious academic work. He's without doubt an expert on the exploitation of the America's by Europe's empires and, more recently, by US corporations.
https://greggrandin.com/essays-articles/ (linked below, as well - worth a look.)
I believe Matt's original post had "Gandin," then I went out of curiosity to the internet to check out his summary CV and saw that it was "Grandin." I wanted to edit this and my typo for "Argentinian," but the display on my phone did not offer an "Edit" function. I Just now checked on my Surface Pro and the edit function appeared. And so, I edited. Thanks for your patience.
I do think it's deeper than that. White Anglo-Saxon humans are the root of all evil. It extends beyond we piddly little Americans. Ask Hungary how they are treated. If you haven't bowed down to the new notion that whiteness is pure evil, and the cause of all wrongs... you in fact... should have no voice. This is also the reason he glossed over Latin America. In this opinion piece, Latin Americans aren't white. Though Scholars do bend that notion depending on the point they are trying to make.
They talk of Trump and his fanatics rounding up anybody that disagrees with them, and hope and pray that their "Normie" followers don't open any newsfeeds from Europe where indeed.. this is actually happening, just... not done by the political types they think.....
We live in a dumb society that gets dumber every day that an Ivy League Graduate/Professor/student opens their dumbass mouth, or puts pen to paper or keyboard to screen...
The most Highly Educated Morons to ever grace this planet. Right here.. Right now.
Yes, and this “new notion” is guaranteed to create a white identity backlash. It already has. This used to be understood as something bad to be avoided. It used to be understood that insisting on dramatically different rules for different groups was doomed to fail. Now I think people like this Yale fellow actively yearn for it. They need an enemy. If white people are no longer racist enough to justify your lifetime of judgment and contempt, well …. keep kicking the dog. It will snap eventually. Then your own hate and resentment and contempt are not your character flaws. You were right all along.
I generally think the concept of whiteness is useless. It's an everchanging political term unhitched from empirical reality.
My illiterate Russian grandfather, who worked like an ox on his Connecticut dairy farm, would have thought it hilarious had someone accused him of being in some slave-owning class.
Well, your grandfather had a real job that produced something needed and useful. It makes a difference.
Yes it does & most white people that I know , work. At Real Jobs.
Well, I grew up in a trailer park above the Mason Dixon line. I saw sort of both sides of this....
Does anyone else remember the "whiteness" chart, displayed large and seriously, in the Smithsonian's museum of African-American History? I remember my dumbfounded shock on seeing it there. How to cut off your nose to spite your face…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/african-american-museum-site-removes-whiteness-chart-after-criticism-from-trump-jr-and-conservative-media/2020/07/17/4ef6e6f2-c831-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html
Yes I do and I kept a copy. A fine display of the REAL racists
I tried to find it online for half an hr with no luck. It,s like it never happened.
Yes...that tends to happen doesn't it?
I see it more as a racial betrayal by an educational institution that should know better
Yes, but it doesn't stop the Scholarly theologians from bashing us over the head with it.
Whiteness is code for anything, anyone who doesn't hate what these people hate, e.g., America, the flag, controlled borders, parental authority,women's safe spaces, etc.
The idea of “race” was invented by Cuvier and Buffon (with help from Linnaeus) in the scientific frenzy of the Enlightenment. But it’s an empty term, and was quickly adapted by the slavers to justify their peculiar institution. The sooner we drop it, the better.
Too late. It will never be dropped. It is too useful to those in power to divide us with.
And too much profit to be made from it.
Is this serious or sarcastic? If it's serious its one of the stupidest things I've ever ever read.
Please do feel free to present your own argument? Critical Race theory came from Cornell, and has permeated through higher academia, very much specifically the Ivy League schools. These are also the loudest voices for white people being evil in our ever fractured society.
Berkeley, one of the bastions of freedom from my youth, is now a hot bed of segregation, and frequent videos of "minority class" students threatening the "privileged class." I agree with you... It's the dumbest thing I've ever written, but just because it's dumb doesn't make it untrue.
I want to be clear about one thing in my typing here. I quoted Minority class and Privileged class very specifically because the notion is idiotic, and completely foreign to my upbringing. I grew up in the 70's and 80's and while I am very ignorant to what it was like growing up in an inner city, I myself was brought up to respect all people.
Now... that said.. Did I do and say stupid shit as a kid? Oh hell yes I did, many of them I regret to this day, but I tend to love or hate people based on their actions. I watched more hate as a kid between Irish and Italian Catholics than I ever saw with those same groups against blacks. But, that's just my little idiot life.
Please do elaborate. From first principles. Oh, I mean from your particular post-modern lens, ignoring that postmodernism came out of the west.
From Microsoft Bing AI:
"During the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12.5 million Africans embarked on slave ships to destinations primarily in the Americas. The most frequent transatlantic slave route destinations included Brazil, the British Caribbean, the Spanish Americas, and the French Caribbean.
Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America.
Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747 came to North America. "
Africa and the Arab world have been the epicenter of slavery for centuries. It’s 100% unacceptable wherever it occurs, but slavery has been a global phenomenon for millennia. The U.S. didn’t invent it. We were just willing to recognize it and kill hundreds of thousands of our brothers to end it. It continues to this day, mostly in Africa and everywhere in the form of sex trafficking.
"(slavery)...The U.S. didn’t invent it."
Small quibble, but the U.S didn't even EXIST when it came to this continent. Yes, it continued as a practice after the formation of the U.S.A., but then as you rightly stated "We were just willing to recognize it and kill hundreds of thousands of our brothers to end it."
Looking to the past to bash the present and to doom the future is a stupid way to live...
Good point, Shaun. The European countries created plantation economies throughout the Western Hemisphere, but their citizens were never directly affected because they accrued the benefits of slavery in their many faraway colonies.
While they officially banned slavery a long time ago, Europe continued to benefit from one sided relationships in Africa and Asia until fairly recently.
I remember reading, I believe J A Hobson, who analyzed the economics of the British Empire in the late 1800s. He found the (mostly military) support of the British Empire cost more than it brought in return and only financially benefitted a small group of people (their leaders).
Both the UK and Japan have few resources relative to their populations and their colonization, partly to get rid of criminals and troublemakers (Imperial Russia did this as well with their Pale), secured needed resources (less expensive than trade).
Some historians claim that Germany and Italy which became countries only in the second half of the 19th century, were late to the Colonization Table and that fueled their aggressive military policies. Colonies replaced slavery to much extent but was largely hidden from the citizens of the Empires by distance, and as the Belgian Congo showed were no better as institutions.
France still dominates the Sahel in Africa and has been stealing their resources for over a century. The French are now being forced out but are not going peacefully. Lots of parallels with Indochina where the US replaced France in Vietnam. Less about dominoes and communism, much more about rare minerals and avoidance of a free market economy (ie, capitalism) by the colonizers.
What’s with the historic falsification? There were slave states in the Union?
Yes indeed there were. Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland. Also slaves in free states. There’s a table in the 1860 Census. Very illuminating.
Many in the Union were allowed to keep their slaves.
In proportion to population, the Islamic world has been by far the greatest slaveholders in history. A large proportion of these slaves in various centuries were Europeans. Slavery existed in the Ottoman Empire until its dissolution and exists in parts of the Muslim world (where it was not ended by Europeans) even today: there are more slaves in those countries than there were in the American South in 1860. Most discourse on the subject ignores this and is historically preposterous.
Wait, I thought America invented slavery, and then callously perfected ways to carry it out in its most sinister and inhumane form?
You mean slavery is actually an international human stain that's spanned centuries? Or that slavic countries to this day are filled with white people who were brought there to ... be slaves? Or that some of the worst examples of slavery in modern times (yes, like today) are black Africans abducting other black africans?
We can all agree that slavery from 1750-1865 was a stain on America. But can we finally stop giving a soapbox to all the phony, lying, partisan people in academia and the media who talk about it as a uniquely American tragedy?
But if we stop beating ourselves up about it, how are these edugrifters going to make a living? How will the journals be sustained? And what about the conferences? thanks for sharing the truth.
Well said
It is a uniquely American tragedy. The fact you cavalierly designate the time frame as ending in 1865 is indicative of your flippancy.
Might I suggest the book ‘Slavery By Another Name’.
I disagree. The uniquely american part was the civil war that ended it, and the war's legacy that continued it for so long in all but the name. The undoing is Time and a great deal of conscious effort.
Can I suggest A history of Slavery by Thomas Sowell
You may. But I’ve read enough of Sowell’s drivel to pass on that recommendation.
You don’t have to agree with his conclusions, obviously, but “drivel”? In my experience his work is extraordinarily well researched and transparent. Seems your mind is completely fixed.
Oh , Tom...You think Sowell is drivel? I am sorta disappointed. Guess you're not as open-minded as I thought.
Sowell wrote "drivel"???
Alrighty then!
My overall view is that any author/researcher can have something important to say about a certain topic or topics but be way off the mark on another topic. With Sowell I would say his work Discrimination and Disparities is really useful and he provides a perspective that many left-ists simply want to ignore - that were are massive disparities and "discriminations" built into the natural world and also in the social/cultural sphere that are simply ignored when people say "omg, look at the terrible discrimination in x, it must be the result of oppression.
How about the combined works of Marx and Engels? They think everyone that works for someone else is a slave.
Did you know that the first 'slave' here was a black owned by another black, authorized by a judge.
And some freed slaves proceeded to purchase slaves of their own.
Completely and utterly irrelevant.
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/07/04/a-different-revolution/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9e1aedac-58ce-4a01-aac3-b9632e2ad9c5
Shelley, you’re a hoot!
Slavery is not "uniquely American."
That is just ignorant.
American slavery was. The world history of slavery deflection, is, by design, a tactic used to obscure the true history of America.
You truly are an imbecile. I suppose you think that world history began with Marx and Engels. "world history of slavery deflection" is absolutely a moronic comment for the ages.
theconversation.com/fact-check-how-many-people-are-enslaved-in-the-world-today-107078
And who established, ran, and profited immensely from the slave trade? The British Empire, which never went away, just went dark (see Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner, and the Round Table group). To our great good fortune, we threw the bastards out, but they have never forgiven us, and are still actively working to subvert this grand experiment, grown foul with the corruption of money, as do all republics, but still filled with good, decent people, and salvable in some form.
Good ole Cecil Rhodes, the gift that keeps on giving. I'm thinking Slick Willie and Biden's transportation secretary, Buttigieg, if I spelled it right.
Stay the course!
07/14/25: And when they were dumped in the (non-U.S.) Caribbean, they died like flies.
Yellow Fever did not discriminate. The survivors, particularly those slaves of Haiti (then Saint-Domingue, the richest country in the Western Hemisphere) used their immunity to that disease to become the only slave colony to gain independence.
The saddest part of your comment is that Haiti was once the richest country in the Western hemisphere.
You're right, sadly, but that intellectual slovenliness I can assure you extends far beyond US borders, although an argument can be made as far as the "discipline" of history is concerned, the US has been one of the epicenters of the politicization of historical discourse.
Greg Grandin's history is a morality tale with cherry-picked footnotes stripped of fact, nuance, and context - from Yale and published in the political press for a particular audience.
Grandin takes a gigantic dump in the punch bowl celebrations of billions around the globe who understand that warts and all, the world is a far better place because of Americans.
So take a bow, Americans! Best wishes to Matt, Terry and the entire Racket team, commenters and all!
Happy Independence Day.
I will say that Gandins essay leaves me with a very low opinion of the Yale history department
I correspond with a very senior member of the Yale history department on topics of mutual interest. He's excellent within his area of expertise. I can't, however, think of a single reliable historian who attempts to draw historical comparisons between past and present of any useful purpose, or value.
Historians, I was taught, identify and mine sources, ideally producing work that allows others to formulate better questions about the past.
My brief account of the privatization of the French tobacco industry in Paris in 1791 is currently the most-viewed article on my own site month by month, and a good case in point.
https://gericaultlife.com/1791-robillard-tobacco-foundation/
Re-investigating what others pass by can produce wonderful results and we've never had better tools. I taught my own undergrads these skills for years. Most were delighted with the quality of the work they learned to produce. For real.
Thanks for an excellent comment. Too many historians, as only one example, have take leave of their common sense - perhaps because the field is over-saturated with lazy quacks. They are enabled by students who are unacquainted with the value of “why."
The best case I can think of, and I'm not going to source the account, is of a German reporter working in the US who fabricated "tales from Maga world" for a European audience craving horror stories of modern American depravity. The desire to find the very worst in others is a temptation always to be resisted, and that applies as much to "us" as "them."
Folly worth avoiding.
My granny described Northern visitors in Savannah being regaled with horror stories by a young man she knew “because they likes it and they pays me."
The Europeans I know think we all duck bullets in the streets daily.
I've lived with it for so long that I think it's comical, like Trump as a Russian spy or pizzagate. People will believe what they want to, no matter how ridiculous or crazy it looks to others.
I agree (I think). I think that a historian focused on his proper role of understanding the past through the historian’s art, rather than selectively aligning historical items with a political stance, would never have written this piece. Tell that to your correspondent.
Why on earth would I do that? People can write what they like. Yes?
Of course, but we shouldn’t pretend that their opinions are justified by “history” or that that the author deserves any deference because he or she is a historian. This is what is so gag-inducing about Heather Cox Richardson.
Interested in non-political history of women, slaves, liberty, and the Americas of that time?
https://gericaultlife.com/adelaide-sarba/
https://gericaultlife.com/1790-gazette-united-states-dec-29/
https://gericaultlife.com/marie-catherine-mesnard/
History can be fun, informative, and interesting. Enjoy!
has Grandin ever visited Latin America and seen the poverty and systemic bribery and corruption that drives so many to come here at great sacrifice. People like him are absolutely writing only for their tribe, for surely they know everyone else would call it bull s-it!
Pr. Grandin's work will be based on his visits to the region, his expertise and familiarity with the literature on his subject areas, and his professional interactions with other historians - colored through the lens of his politics. Grandin's an excellent example of a self-promoting historian using often solidly-researched histories of the past to affect and change the present course of history. Free country - he knows of which he speaks - what he says? That's a different question.
https://history.yale.edu/people/greg-grandin
https://greggrandin.com/essays-articles/ (worth a look!)
Unlikely.
It's ALWAYS about narrative with Fabian Socialists. Because the reality they create is the ugliest part of humanity.
Whatever happened to the glass being half full?
Let me know when that occurs.
Bolivar wasn’t even dead and buried when his internationalist project of Gran Colombia blew up in his face. Latin America in the early 19th century was far more riven by regional identity than the early US (which is saying a lot). Bolivar for all his brilliance couldn’t keep three colonies together, let alone thirteen.
After Bolívar, all of Latin America experienced a bloodbath for years. Borges among others described it well. And this “historian” understands history?
Yeah, Grandin seems utterly clueless about the reality of Latin America over the last 200 years. Removal of native people isn't just happening in the Amazon, either - it is going on in Central American countries as well. In Nicaragua in the last few years, for example, Ladinos just expropriate indigenous land, and anybody who protests just gets disappeared.
Just looked at his bio page on his website; the photo veritably screams, "I am a smug twat."
Also just looked at his Wikipedia page. Apparently he wrote on obituary on Hugo Chavez in The Nation, in which he wrote (the page pulls this quote from the article), "the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn't authoritarian enough."
Grandin also apparently worked with Guatemala's Historical Clarification Commission (which investigated atrocities committed during their civil war). For somebody with this on his resume, you would think that he would have some freakin' perspective. But the imperatives of Trump derangement and Murka Bad override intellectual integrity, apparently.
Of course, but we shouldn’t imagine that his political observations are justified by “history” or that he should get some extra credit because he is (also) a historian.
Remember also that it's the failed legacy of Simon Bolivar and similar others that begat the flood of economic migrants to the US today. Proud needy poor masses that failed to create solid societies and feed themselves. Sure colonialism failed them, funny how it managed to fail so many all at once.
thegrayzone.com/2019/07/28/biden-privatization-plan-colombia-honduras-migration/
I went to a Jesuit HS where we were indoctrinated on The Mission. No gringos involved.
You're just saying that because you're a right-wing extremist! 😉😉
A happy Fourth to Matt and all the wonderful readers here at Racket!!
07/04/25: Thank you, SC. Same for everyone else. Took a while to get here, didn't it?
This is an oasis.
America is an experimental idea that hasn’t ended yet. People seem to look for perfection in America and then get mad when they don’t find it.
America is freedom and freedom is messy and sometimes ugly, but it beats the hell outta the alternatives.
I have often said the same about freedom, and also that it can often be scary. For those that crave security and safety, instead of freedom, I suggest migration. It seems to be the "in" thing.
Lol!
Hear! Hear! this is a great way of saying it.
This is what Jefferson said.
“Still, the image of the America that took in everyone’s tired, their poor, their huddled masses is gone for now, and that’s something to be mourned, no matter what your politics. “. Is that what you think was happening over the last four years?? It’s almost as if you’re conflating uncontrolled invasion at the southern border with Ellis Island. Ah yes, Ellis Island. That long forgotten point of entry for the world’s ‘huddled masses’, where people were properly vetted before entry, and many rejected because of their lack of suitability to help build this country. If you think that’s what Joe Biden’s people did during his reign, you are seriously deluded.
No need to look at Ellis Island as the USA grants about 1 million immigrants legal permanent resident status each year.
And that is perfect. I live in a small community that has had a Refugee Center for 40 years. People go through a rather lengthy process, but they come with a structure in place to help them start out with a place to live, a job opportunity, help with the English language, and help getting their children enrolled in local schools. It still isn't easy to adjust to an entirely new culture. Multiply that million that you mentioned by 15 to 20 with no structure in place and you have a completely inhumane and impossible situation--for both the illegal alien and the communities that are expected to assimilate them.
Wonderfully stated, Norma. I think we've looked at correcting illegal immigration the same flawed way we try to eliminate drugs and abortions: We always try to attack the supply side.
Billions for drug interdiction, and the drug problem is worse than ever. No money for education and treatment.
Laws to restrict abortion, but no good education and support to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
And we continue to see the supply of illegal immigrants as the problem. It's not. If there were no jobs for them, they would not come. When a meat processing plant in a farm town in Nebraska or Iowa stops paying living wages and benefits, Americans won't do that work (nor should they) for crap wages and no benefits. Illegal immigrants will do it, and they are exploited. So if we want to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants, it's time to send some Plant Managers and corporate VPs to jail for the illegal act of hiring them. The hiring will stop FAST.
Just as Wall Street nonsense would have dramatically improved if any Wall Street villains saw the inside of a courtroom, much less the inside of a Club Fed.
Well-paid people do not want to go to jail. No one wants to go to jail. But well-paid people breaking the law for their companies REALLY don't want to go to jail. So they will stop illegal hiring.
Problem fixed. You're welcome, America.
Had the same take on the issue, then I moved to an illegal immigration mecca. 10 people dead, dozens seriously wounded in Texas in mass casualty wrecks caused by Biden's new arrivals, in the last 100 days alone.
In Texas we are use to fatal 2 car wrecks, caused by Biden migrants, but we have now moved to double digit deaths and Big Rigs. We had migrant murderers and rapists here first. And I promise you the carnage on Texas roads is headed to every US state. It is just a matter of time.
Corrupt driving schools are handing Big Rig commercial licenses to people with no training or tests, who cannot read a roadside sign or regulation book, nor speak a word of English. They are driving semi trucks thru 6 lanes of traffic, when their previous driving experience was limited to a car on a 2 lane dirt road, with no regulations.
We need to criminally charge the employers, but the unvetted who arrived in the last 4 years, and do not qualify for asylum, must leave, get in line, be extensively vetted and return legally. They must be able to exist, including paying for medical care, without subsides or any form of welfare.
If we do not demand their removal, the next Dem to occupy the WH, will simply dissolve the Southern Border again for 4 years, and then demand every non violent criminal be allowed to stay. Only next time it will be 20 million more new arrivals, not 10.
Many of us who live in border states have a slightly different take on this issue, than those who do not.
Agree on charging those who employ illegal aliens.
Thank you!
I am still waiting to see business owners arrested for hiring illegal aliens.
Instead, we get Trump lamenting their plight, and pushing legislation to grant some sort of amnesty to those in the agriculture and hospitality industries.
Why not go all the way, and extend it to those in landscaping and construction?
Our elected leaders just love stabbing the working class in the back.
YES
Ahh… if humans will do the labor at that cost maybe the western holdouts have their own value inflated too much. Those are free beings accepting employment - immigrant labor is distinct from say a private prison undercutting a business to exploit the labor of its inmates.
I do agree, however, that of Wall St quit getting bailed out they’d have to behave more conservatively. The practice of privatizing profits and socializing losses doesn’t appear to be serving anyone except mf’ers that should be on the streets like Randolph and Mortimer Duke.
Your attempt to rectify the very bottom rung while allowing the real benefactors to prosper is treating symptoms and not the disease, imo.
Totally disagree.
American citizens should not have to compete against those who entered the country illegally for anything.
And speaking of the most recent (Biden) wave, jobs are the least of it. They don't have the language or the skills to work - if anything they are competing with each other for scraps. The terrible problem is the massive burden they bring to medical/social services and school systems.
I don't think of society in rungs, and don't know what you would consider the very bottom rung. I'm talking about working Americans, including middle class.
I think the vast, vast majority of American workers will not do slaughtering and cutting for minimum wage. They won't work on pipelines or build condos on Billionaires' Row for minimum either. I don't think they have an inflated sense of their own value.
The fact remains that we've allowed businesses--small, medium, and large--to use illegal labor in their businesses. Which is against the law, but we're not enforcing that law.
I love the Duke brothers reference.
Soon it will be robots doing that work. Robots assist in complicated surgeries every day. The notion they cannot pick a head of lettuce or disassemble a beef carcass is ridiculous.
Grain farmers do not use illegal labor. They do not need it. Technology and massive equipment mean grain farmers can now farm a few thousand acres, with the same basic number of humans it once took to farm a few hundred acres.
Produce growers and other industries refuse to modernize, because it is cheaper for them to pay an endless supply of illegal labor pennies on the dollar, and allow tax payers to pick up the slack.
Illegal labor is better than slavery , but not by much. Workers must tolerate subpar wages, unsafe working conditions and sexual harassment. The Biden inflation that has increased housing costs 50%, and sent the cost of medical care soaring, nearly guarantees the illegal workers will be a permanent lower caste, with no chance of upward mobility.
I assure you Americans can and would do those jobs. Low wages, bad working conditions, and displacement by foreigners are humiliating. Restore respect and determination to build that workforce back and it will come. Consider also the possibilities of technology adoption, which is hindered by low wages (as it was by slavery). Any executive who whines ‘we just can’t get the skilled labor’ should be slapped in the face and then invited to come up with some American can-do spirit.
Well yeah they kind of do, and govt “benefits” is the reason. Between starving and plucking chickens, I,m guessing most people would pluck chickens. Jeez, where I live, people still raise/kill/pluck and eat chickens (and eggs).
"Billions for drug interdiction, and the drug problem is worse than ever. No money for education and treatment.
Laws to restrict abortion, but no good education and support to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place."
Throw MORE money at the problems? More administrators, bureaucrats, agencies, grift, graft and incompetence: that will definitely work. Spend more money to educate people on how not to get pregnant? Spend it on telling them that illicit drugs are bad for their health?
Dude, you have a very low opinion of people and their intelligence levels, don't you?
The way budgets work is if you cease spending money on no-results initiatives, and spend some of the savings on worthwhile initiatives that will obviate the need for the wasteful spending, and leave some left over. This spending of LESS money solves the problems.
States that have legitimate sex education programs have significantly lower teen pregnancy rates than those with abstinence-only education. Ever wonder why that is?
But go ahead and keep doing things the way you always have, and keep anticipating those completely different results. People say this is the definition of insanity. I believe it's the definition of retard.
I have a pretty dim opinion of your intelligence level.
retard
I have a pretty dim opinion of your intelligence level.
In order to be granted admission, immigrants used to provide a sponsor as financial guarantor.
Now that sponsor is their Uncle Sam.
Good reminder about the reality of vetting at Ellis Island!
If you don't like the *millions* of illegal aliens being tossed out of the country, please sacrifice your family to be the victim of crimes some of them are committing against your fellow citizens. Why is it that on the Left, the sympathy is never for America and its citizens?
"Everyone is welcome here." Except. . . . Their piety drips from those little signs with the many-colored hands reaching up. I wonder how many illegals they are inviting to their backyard BBQ today. And welcoming them to stay over until they figure out their place in the community.
What do you mean suggesting these liberals are phonies?
I mean ... like ... I could give you tons of examples of liberals walking the talk. Like, take Martha's Vineyard for instance.
Oh wait....
Bwahahahahahaa!
Yeah, because it’s all about backyard BBQ invites for you legals.
The stupid… it burns.
I thought you were leaving ?!
Subscription runs out tomorrow sweetheart.
To further critique your comment above, we are all illegals here. We stole the land, and committed more atrocities doing it than any current immigrant gang or cartel could dream of.
You want the end to the immigration coming across our southern border?
Well, start electing politicians who will turn their back on the Monroe Doctrine, and have the U.S. stop sticking its nose in the internal affairs of the other countries in this hemisphere, which does nothing but create terror and misery for indigenous populations and cause them to flee. I’m guessing you won’t. All this just so your corporate masters can continue to extract resources and give you cheap raspberries in the grocery store in the middle of winter.
Read Matt Kennard’s ‘The Racket’ and ‘Silent Coup’. Or continue living in the American corporate propaganda fantasy land, and stupidly rant about ‘illegals’. Your choice.
Holy crap. This drivel is burning my eyes. It could be hard leftist AI.
You must be reading very selectively, tom. the story of how we acquired land from the Native Americans is far more complex than you imply.
Please. Yes, I know there were treaties and trinket exchanges. The fact that you ascribe complexity to massacre, theft, forced migration, and continuing discrimination is frankly, pathetic.
No, we did not STEAL the land, anymore than the various tribes STOLE the land from those mysterious red-haired giants who used to occupy it.
What we did, was what has happened over and over again throughout world history. A stronger group moves into territory occupied by a weaker group, and takes possession of it. It was not uniquely horrible. It was just what humans have been doing forever -- and the tribes did the same thing to neighboring tribes, too.
I do agree with you that we should stop mucking around in other countries, though. 100%!
stupidly rant
Actually, it is, Tom. That's what genuine friendship and family is about: celebrating our good fortune and showing love for each other.
That’s not what my critique of her comment was about, and you know it.
Whether or not someone’s desire for a welcoming environment is valid is dependent on backyard BBQ invites is bullshit, and you should recognize that.
No, because the point was, many of the people agitating against deportations would never dream of actually socializing with illegal aliens.
They just want to have them around to do all those icky jobs that American citizens "just won't do."
Both of your points are utterly irrelevant
Are you still here???!!
Yep. Until midnight.
Are you really this much of an idiot? It’s the Left with the lack of sympathy for American citizens?
Check that Big Beautiful Bill again, dumbass. Money for war, a police state, and millionaires +. Everyone else gets fucked.
Tom, the fact that until now you were on this board encourages me to think that at heart you are someone who respects honest reporting. Now you are putting Matt down and mocking backyard barbecues. Suggest you focus on your own life, family and friends and stop doing the bidding of whatever faction(s) profit from your anger.
I was neither putting Matt down, nor mocking backyard barbecues.
I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself.
Although the ‘bidding of whatever faction(s) profit from your anger’ was comedy gold. So thanks for that.
My, my. I wish I could just let myself go emotionally as easily as you do. "Money for war, a police state, and millionaires". Amazing. You should listen to yourself sometime.
You may want to listen to him as well. He does raise a good point. Trump certainly has had success with populist themes, but NONE of them are contained in that bill. Tax cuts for rich people already bloated on globalization stock market riches. Even MORE money for the fucking Pentagon. Oh yeah, and let's cut some health care for poor people.
That's what that bill is. Trump personally can survive it, but he can't run again. Someone else (JD, Rubio) will have to defend it, and it won't be easy. Of course, the Democrats would have to find a credible opponent, which I don't see out there right now.
I laugh when I read you socialists' complaints about "tax cuts for rich people". Rich people are already paying the vast majority of taxes: we have the most progressive tax system of any country in the world. Yet, you socialists think it is your right and duty to take rich peoples' money and spend it how you'd like. Amazing hubris and ignorance, blended into one.
Tell you what, Mike, if you could explain to us how $73 trillion went from the bottom 90% of America to the top 1% in the past 50 years, and make us understand that this is GOOD for America, we'll listen to your nonsense about socialist-this, blahblah-that. (that's $73 trillion, with a T)
Yes, I'm sure you'd love to take the discussion off on some useless tangent. "Tax cuts for the rich people", eh? You find it offensive that people should keep their own money? Yes, you do. As I said, the U.S. has the most progressive taxation in the world, but it seems that you socialists won't be happy until you control everything that everyone else does. It's called authoritarianism and you're it.
Lots to criticize legitimately in the bill. However, as someone who is in the medical field I can attest to the fact that the critiques about healthcare are overblown: Cuts to Medicaid are primarily requiring able adults to work, seek work, or volunteer 20 hours a week. Seems reasonable to me. I was stunned to learn that this hasn't been required until now. Re Medicare: No cuts were made to Medicare. As a matter of fact, doctors received a 2.6% fee increase, which should increase the number of doctors who accept Medicaid patients.
Democrats have been playing this card for decades. Any cuts to growth or any efforts at all to reign in any program and the word goes out "Children will starve!!!!." I see it all over Facebook today. Obviously none have read and understand the bill. They are just repeating what their masters have fed to them.
Yes, the changes will make Medicaid dollars available for people who are legitimately eligible. If someone is ineligible for Medicaid, but can't afford private insurance, there are programs like ChildHealth that insures children up to age 19, and also a sliding scale of premiums matched to income. Outside of that, the obscene premiums now paid by the middle class are what is funding Obamacare. A perfect example of redistrubition of wealth, without rendering any credit to the donor.
But those tax cuts benefited my working class family & their friends. Now they won't expire. I don't care about tax cuts for the wealthy, as long as there are still cuts for the working class, which there are.
I have no problem with them insisting that able-bodied adults with no young children should have to work or volunteer 20 hours a week in exchange for free health care. That's a bargain!
I also have no problem with them ceasing medical care for people who should not be in the country in the first place.
I am, however, horrified at the money for "defense."
Whatever happened to "no new wars"?
Yeah, justify the obscene siphoning of wealth upward because you got a few crumbs.
You’d make a fine Democratic Party Congress critter.
I wish you could as well. Some have the universal empathy gene; some, such as yourself, can only muster it up for friends, family, and the occasional fellow online idiot.
People with the universal empathy gene don't call people who disagree with them "stupid" or "dumbass". Unless they are itching for a fight.
Says you. I have empathy for anyone who voted for Trump. Or Biden. Doesn’t mean I won’t call out their flawed logic, and yes, up to and including insults.
Deal with it, or don’t. Makes no nevermind to me.
Universal empathy gene? Is that what you think you have? Sounds more like an excess of self esteem.
They're always so self-righteous.
Yeah, that’s me, Bari. Drool on.
You call it universal empathy. But when people don't volunteer to share their wealth, what do you call imposed redistribution?
Are you talking the redistribution in which wealth flows upward to the already wealthy, or downward from the already obscenely wealthy to those living under oppressive poverty or constant economic anxiety?
Socialism doesn't work, Tom. Never did. Give it up. I bet you would pine to have been part of the Cultural Revolution back in the day.
Lisa Murkowski was able to muster it up for her constituents. Fuck the rest of America, as long as Alaskans have some fed money.
Yeah, she forgot the United States part of her title.
BS.
The tax cuts for the working/middle class were extended, and those benefited all of us.
I noticed that they also cut taxes on Social Security (which will help me), and tips. These things help the working class, Tom.
get(s) fucked
dumbass
Are you really this much of an idiot?
Exactly Mike. America can still be a beacon of hope yet not allow 10 million illegals to cross the border. Don't like the optics of deportation? Then you should have disliked the optics of millions pouring across the border for 4 years. The excesses of the prior regime will require some unpleasant optics to correct.
You are so right Dazed! Only God knows who was let into our Country by the previous administration…. Chinese Nationalists, drug cartels, Islamic terrorist to name a few, plus the gang members from who knows where! I’m glad that the Trump Administration is doing everything they possibly can to deport these criminals and making us safer!
Happy Independence Day to all Americans!🇺🇸🇺🇸
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...."
- Don't know about you guys, but I am pretty comfortable being part of a country whose foundational principles include the above.
- As with Biblical morality, it is aspirational and we are all sinners.
- But with that said - I think we do a pretty good job.
When was the last time I gave a crap what a Canadian thinks? There was never even a first time
Apart from Gordon Lightfoot and Barenaked Ladies, never. Plus Rush…but only 2112.
Rush?
Geddy Lee
Superstar
71 and still kicking it
OK...Canadian as musicians are acceptable. It's only when they stray into social or political commentary (same as many US musicians) that it becomes apparent. I DGAF about their opinions. Never have and never will.
Yea, I don't really care what the guy that lives next door thinks of me, but I'll still drink his beer if he offers it.
Does that make me a good nabor?
To thine own self, be true. An "A" for effort IMO.
Nah, take your time. Naked Canadian women aren't that impressive.
Y'all sure are bringing up a lot of Canadians whose music I've heard, but I still don't care what they think about my country
And their clones, Triumph.
Come on. The Guess Who and Mark Messier.
So I'm the only one who likes the folkies - Neil Young, Joni, and Leonard Cohen?
Plus, they have some pretty funny comedians too. Norm McDonald for starters.
And don't forget the Captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner AKA James T. Kirk. He's 94 years old and hasn't even been born yet.
I'm good with Randy Bachman. He's rock solid.
Is he still alive?
Yes and still active and kicking too.
Sure, but haven't we all wondered what the big deal of Moosehead vs. Labatt's is all about? And surely, no one else could tell us what that whole big thing is about.
I swear: the histrionics and the complete focus on the negatives of this country, while ignoring the negatives of every other country in the world are just EXHAUSTING.
There are 195 recognized countries in the world. If you can’t stand the USA, why not pick one of the other 194 countries to live in?
So my brother, decided he didn't like America anymore back in 2015 and he found a job overseas and just left with his wife. They sold all their stuff and moved to Japan where he's always wanted to live his whole life. We're not a rich family at all (in fact went onto welfare when dad left when we were kids) but he figured out how to get out of America. Just took a couple duffle bags. It's totally possible to do. Don't know why more people don't do it.
I’ve thought about leaving about 100 times, and I’ve actively tried about 5x, and the truth is: life is is easier in the United States. Especially for an academic. You have a better chance of getting grant support for your research. You have more independence. You can complain all you want about life in the US, but researchers in the US have it pretty good. When push comes to shove it’s hard not to notice.
Because they really like it here. They just like to bitch and moan.
Francis, I came to this country with a few duffel bags about four decades ago as a refugee There is no other country in the world where I’d rather live. No other country gives you as much freedom and as many opportunities. Those who whine and complain have no idea what is out there in the world and have no guts to experience it.
Val Kilmer is the greatest. And to all those from Yale and elsewhere who think so little of us, I say, fuck you.
Julliard, baby! It's turned out Val Kilmer, Kelsey Grammar, Megan Hilty, and Leslie Odom, Jr. And that's just off the top of my head.
Happy Independence Day!
And Robin Williams, whose humor is so missed.
I keep wondering what George Carlin would have to say today...
Did you just mention Kelsey Grammar in the same sentence as Val Kilmer?
Mike Bond, recipient of The Best Comment On America's Birthday.
Well done, my man, well done.
Get over yourselves, Canada.
And go back to fighting amongst yourselves.
I cheer when ICE deports violent illegal aliens. I cheer when DHS gives other illegals a chance to come in legally along with $1,000 and a free plane ride home. I did not cheer when the media falsely reported how CBP agent on horses whipped running illegals and then I was angry that they tried to manipulate my thinking with biased, patently wrong reporting. The USA is my country, my homeland and it is not some experiment that should allow anyone to come in willy nilly without permission from its citizens based on a warped interpretation of a slogan on the Statue of Liberty.
Agreed Rob. Unending illegal immigration is clearly an attempt to overwhelm the US & Western Europe. Get in line and legally immigrate. Then we will welcome you. Work hard, learn English, pay taxes, earn your citizenship. No security net services for illegals. It’s amazing that blue cities try to deny they’re not trying to influence elections with illegals voting. It’s illegal to ask for ID to vote in California and NYC voted to allow it——-election interference anyone? Plus since illegals are counted in the census, blue sanctuary cities get more seats in Congress. I have compassion for illegal families for sure, but more for American citizens injured or killed by illegal criminals and there’s plenty of them here.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to celebrate the end of slavery in the US, the only monument to the Freed US Slaves at the time.
The Emma Lazarus cultural appropriation was to increase funding of the Pedestal. Lazarus' family made their fortunes from slave labor in the Caribbean, so there could be no paean to freeing slaves. Instead, her pet project was bringing Eastern Europeans to NYC. After the race riots of the Civil War, at least 25% of the Black population of NYC left, and were not a favored population in NYC when Lady Liberty was erected in the harbor.
Happy 4th of July everyone. And to 99% of academics, MSM, career politicians- please take a long walk off a short pier.
Oh and lest I forget too- kiss my AMERICAN ass, Britain.
I love being an American. I was an exchange student to Brazil in 1970 71, and experienced a military dictatorship and saw the level of self censorship that imposed on people. I travelled in Argentina, where the natives were all killed. There does not exist a political entity without faults, yet as recent months have shown, we have stronger mechanisms to protect our rights than most places on the planet. Happy Independence Day, guaranteeing our rights to be wrong
Have a great Independence Day Matt and the entire team at Racket News. You guys are national treasures! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸