AFFIRMATIVE ACTION - DUBIOUS POLICY

 

A DUBIOUS EXPEDIENCY: HOW RACE PREFERENCES DAMAGE HIGHER EDUCATION

(New York, etc. 2022)

Edited by GAIL HERIOT and MAIMON SCHWARZSCHILD

Review by Hugh Murray

This is a collection of essays on a narrow, but important topic: affirmative action in higher education. There are overlaps as the different authors analyze the policy from different aspects on campus and reactions to it by the general society. A main thrust is the contention that affirmation action results in a mismatch at top-flight universities of academically weaker, minority students with much stronger white ones. This harms the black students. There is a similar concern about Hispanic students. One chapter details the new cultural atmosphere on many campuses, while another describes growing Asian opposition to affirmative action (hereafter, AA). As part of the current Zeitgeist in academia, there is little discussion of the effect of AA's discrimination against white males, who in the new WOKE era are to shut up, listen, (and take whatever the others decide).

John Ellis in the Slippery Slope chapter relates how he, a university dean at the dawning of AA, was encouraged to accept Federal funds for a program of outreach to minority students. He thought it a superb idea as the federal money allocated to this program would allow the university to spend more money on its traditional programs. However, soon it was revealed that many of the minority students recruited under the program lacked basic skills and were having difficulties and doing poorly in classes. There was now mounting pressure not to disappoint, to hire tutors, and to speak with professors who might be more sympathetic (and lower their standards). The Federal Government was paying, but changing the university's quality of education, and forcing more hiring of diversity staff, as well as more recruitment of lesser qualified minorities. The newer minority staff became a lobby inside the university administration to press for ever more recruitment, retention, hiring, and the concomitant lowering of standards further. After some years of this, Ellis came to the conclusion that not only did he oppose AA, but he now also opposed any special outreach to recruit minorities, for “the one removes any defense against the other.”(18) Once you lower academic standards for one, inevitably you must lower them to continue the spiral downward process.

In the next chapter Gail Heriot reveals the source of the book's title. By the 1970s, AA was established as policy at many colleges, and the U. of California Davis had devised its plan on admissions: 84 openings were admitted according to the best qualifications, while 16 were set aside for “disadvantaged” applicants. In university liberal NewSpeak, disadvantaged translates as racial minority. A white applicant, Allan Bakke was rejected, though he came very close to making the merit based 84. Nevertheless, he believed he had performed better than the minority hopefuls, and sued the university to gain admittance alleging he was the victim or racial discrimination. Bakke was the son of a postman and a school teacher. He had served in Vietnam as a medic, and had volunteered at local emergency rooms at night. He wanted to become a doctor. Bakke sued the university, won in the lower courts, and UC Davis appealed to the California Supreme Court. In 1976 the California high court decided 6-1 and a liberal wrote the decision, Judge Stanley Mosk. Many assumed that the university had won the case. However, Mosk ruled in favor of Bakke and against the university, because to rule in favor of AA “would represent a retreat in the struggle to assure that each man and woman shall be judged based on individual merit alone.” It would “sacrifice principle for the sake of a dubious expediency”(20) By ruling against AA for minorities Judge Mosk became the subject of denunciations, protestors screaming outside his office window in the court, and mobs shouting him down when he spoke on a campus.

However, the case did not end there. UC Davis appealed to the US Supreme Court, and in 1978 that court ruled on the case too. The Supreme Court ruled in a very split, complex decision – 4 Justices affirmed the lower courts and Bakke's right to be enrolled, and rejected the racial discrimination inherent in AA. Four others quite disagreed and upheld the university's racial favoritism for blacks and minorities that permitted discrimination against the white applicant. One Justice, Louis Powell, Jr. found the Cal Davis AA policy too inflexible, and he therefore found it unConstitutional. So with the 4 conservative justices on board with this part of his decision, Powell had a majority, and consequently Bakke must be admitted. However, if the university could propose a more flexible manner to give a better chance to minorities, that would be Constitutional. Justice Powell opined that with a flexible admissions approach, AA would be legal because it bestows the advantages of “diversity,” on both black and white students. They all gain from learning in a diverse atmosphere, and to achieve this goal through AA, everyone gains. On this part of his decision, Powell lost the votes of the 4 conservatives, but gained the 4 liberal justices, so his entire decision was affirmed 5-4, with different majorities for different parts of his decision. Therefore, it is permissible to discriminate against some (who might have better credentials) in order to achieve a diverse student body which will benefit all.

It is noteworthy how this Justice, and others to follow, dislike a simple, obvious and mechanical AA formula for discrimination against whites. Perhaps, if the formula becomes known, it is too easy to see how unfair it is in traditional terms (it is outright racial discrimination.) In 2003, when the Supremes next took up the AA issue, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority upholding AA. She too objected to too rigid formulae, and sought nebula evaluations so each group would achieve a “critical mass” on campus. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in dissent, asked why the “critical mass” for blacks was so much larger than that for Native Americans. He observed that the critical mass of students in both cases was quite like a quota for each group (but of course the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had made quotas illegal). “Critical mass,” “holistic” assessments, or Harvard's evaluations of Asian's inferior personality traits, are all performed behind the thick ivy university walls of secrecy but their purpose is to arrive at the proper quotas in admissions using whatever discrimination against whatever race serves their “diversity” goal.

While Heriot rightly discusses the significance of the Bakke case, she nowhere mentions a comment by Justice Harry Blackmun, one of the 4 who outright supported U Cal Davis and its AA policy. However, Blackmun did write: that this decision was a “regrettable but necessary stage of 'transitional inequality'”, hoping it would end “within a decade at the most.”(The Civil Rights Era, Hugh Davis Graham, p.472) Did AA end in 1988? In 2003 Justice O'Connor, who authored the majority decision upholding AA also wrote that she hoped the policy would end within 25 years.

Heriot writes that Powell's decision gave the green light to anti-white discrimination so long as performed in the name of “diversity,” and universities, government agencies, and corporations joined the diversity crusade. What were some of the results? Heriot fails to mention the case spotlighted by the New York Times Magazine (July 2, 1995 by Nicholas Lemann). To deflect growing opposition to AA, Lemann sought to bolster its importance by contrasting the careers of 2 doctors: Allan Bakke, who had originally been denied admission to U Cal Med School, and Patrick Chavis, a black applicant, who though doing less well on objective examinations, and receiving lower grades, was admitted to that university through its special program for the disadvantaged. Lemann reported the young Chavis was indeed disadvantaged: the son of a single mom, he grew up poor. But Chavis pressed forward, even if he did not get as many A's as Bakke. Even after graduation Chavis received a Master's in Public Health from UCLA. He served the poor black community of Compton, and worked with young mothers and those expecting. In the magazine a picture showed him holding a new born he had just delivered. By contrast the white Bakke was an anesthetist working in a white area of the Middle West; a pedestrian practice by a pedestrian physician. So, even without the higher credentials of Bakke, Chavis, through AA admission to Med School, provided a public service to the community that went beyond just being another doctor. The black AA recipient paid back to the community in a way Bakke did not, and probably could not. That is why AA is necessary, for the good of all communities and for the good of the nation. This is why the AA candidate outshines the one chosen on mere merit. That was the point of the article.

Lemann was not alone in making this point. Soon after Tom Hayden, the main founder of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) who had become an elected politician in California, wrote a similar article in the leftist magazine, The Nation. Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy was informing a Senate Committee about the advantages of AA, as seen in the careers of Bakke and Chavis. In 1996 not only were several Republican candidates for President openly declaring AA unfair, one Gov. Pete Wilson of California, worked with Ward Connerly, a black member of the U Cal Board of Regents, to place the issue before the people. An amendment to the state's constitution to repeal AA in California state universities and agencies wiykd be in the ballot in the November 1996 election. The usual left forces rallied against this ballot initiative, and Chavis's name and service was invoked in the campaign to save AA. As what usually happens when voters can choose, AA was defeated, the amendment for equal rights passed, and the pro-AA academics had to retreat to their faculty lounges to scheme up other ways to discriminate against white males.

Things changed in 1997. A short, powerful description is in Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism, by William Mc Gowan, (see especially pp. 1-4) In those few pages Mc Gowan tells more of the story of Dr. Patrick Chavis, a black admitted to U Cal Davis through AA the same time as the white Bakke. Mc Gowan adds information beyond the scope of the New York Times article: “On June 19, 1997, the Medical Board of California suspended his [Chavis's] license to practice medicine...unable to perform some of the most basic duties...guilty of gross negligence and incompetence in the cases of three patients – one of whom had died -...” I urge all to read some of the details in the McGowan book of the horrors Dr. Chavis subjected some black women to. The poster boy of AA suddenly became the poster boy against AA. But this addition to the Chavis story seemingly failed to make it to the New York Times, The Nation, or most major media.

In June 2022 Michael Louis, a black man, in notes he left at the St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrote that he was going to kill the doctor who had recently operated on him as well as anyone else who stood in his way. On May 19 Louis had undergone back surgery by Dr. Preston Phillips, and had been complaining since because of the pain. Dr. Phillips, who was also black, was known as the “consummate gentleman,” a graduate of Harvard Medical School with advanced degrees in organic chemistry, pharmacy, and theology. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, even the best. When I undergo eye surgery, I must sign a paper saying that anything can go wrong. Happily, so far, nothing has. One possibility is that patient Mr. Louis was simply a nut. Most people vent criticism by giving a single star on Yelp for poor service, not shooting several bullets. Or is it possible that the esteemed Dr. Phillips was an AA graduate, one who had failed to acquire certain basic techniques in the procedures but was passed on because he was black? Mr. Louis, true to his mission, also killed several others who stood in his way; another doctor, a receptionist, another patient, and then he killed himself.

In an article by Richard Pearson in the Washington Post on the murder of Dr. Chavis by a carjacker (23 July 2022), Pearson noted that the liberal defenders of Dr. Chavis's inadequacies “pointed out that there was no statistical correlation between AA admissions to medical school and later malpractice charges.” That may be true, but who would be the first to demand a halt to any such investigation, who would be calling it “racist” before any statistics were gathered, or even seek to block any submission of such data? And any researcher who tried to perform such research would be engaged in an academic suicide mission.

Peter Kirasanow, in his chapter “Segregation Now” describes today's encouragement and growth of separate organizations, and dormitories on major universities following the implementation of AA. Particularly, in the early stages of AA, some of the newly admitted students (who normally might not be qualified to attend that particular institution), were experiencing academic troubles, difficulty in following the professor's lectures, failing to perform required assignments, and were consequently doing poorly on exams. They might consult with the university's diversity dean and cluster with their fellow black students who were encountering similar problems. Not told their own academic records had ill-prepared them for this university, they could quickly learn instead to blame their common problems on the uncaring, racist professors, the arrogant white students, the university's systemic racism, and racism in America generally. How to overcome this? Band together and the easiest method, live together in an all-black dorm. As AA expanded this might even be the case for Hispanic, Asian, and Native American dorms, too. The news, interests, and especially the culture of each minority would be emphasized, and, most important, the political demands of the group readily organized into action, so as to prevent a speaker on campus who researched race and IQ, or race and crime, or who opposed AA, or who was simply a Republican.

Kirasanow notes that the Supreme Court's justification for AA – bringing the rewards of diversity to ALL students, was being thwarted by these segregated, politicized dormitories. With this segregation on campus, where the races ate separately, often lived separately, socialized separately, and later even had separate home-comings and graduations – all of this violated the spirit of diversity. Only in classes did the races mix, and even these integrated spaces were in decline as more minorities enrolled in separate racial and ethnic studies programs. So while “diversity” became the legal justification for AA on campus (and throughout society), the more blacks on campus, the more segregated the university became – physically, intellectually, and culturally. Kirasanow also presents evidence that the purpose of some of these dorms and organizations is to prevent assimilation into the larger (white) American culture, and even to de-assimilate those already there (like some Native Americans who had been residing in cities). Furthermore, the ideology underlying much of this is anti-white, anti-Western, and often anti-American. A view of multiculturalism in the mix is that somehow all other cultures are equally good, but Western civilization is oppressive and inherently bad.

Strangely, Kirasanow does not remark on one phenomena that others have noticed: the one table in the university cafeteria that might be integrated ls the one where the athletes gather. Perhaps the main department where blacks do not require AA to gain admission, the one where all are on an equal footing, is the one that is most integrated.

Amazingly, somehow in this chapter Kirasanow fails to mention the HBCU's (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). For much of the 20^th century, most blacks who received college educations did so at the HBCUs. Even in the mid-1960s Southern U. in Louisiana was the largest black university in the world. Although it was not his first choice (he wanted Harvard), the young W. E. B. Du Bois departed his integrated world of New England in 1885 to attend Fisk U. in Nashville, Tennessee, a newly founded black college. (There were no old ones in the South where before the Civil War, it was a crime to teach a black even to read in many states.) With Northern victory, the American Missionary Society and other abolitionist groups joined with Freedmen in the South to try to establish schools and colleges. Many struggled to stay afloat, especially when Republican rule in the South was challenged by the resurgent Democrats and their Ku Klux paramilitary forces. Some of Du Bois's friends sought to dissuade the 17-year-old from leaving the land of freedom for a college in the land of slavery, but Du Bois, who had an outstanding record at high school among the Yankees, was excited about his new venture.

Fisk, even before Du Bois's arrival, and though a newly established college, had already earned a world-wide reputation! In 1871 the impoverished college sought to raise funds in a new way. The white choir director, smitten by the unusual songs of the former slaves, he cleaned up the grammar, gathered some choir members into an a Capella group, threw in some popular songs of Stephen Foster, and off they went to sing and raise money. Their program was more serious than the popular, contemporary minstrel shows of lighter, comic, but often demeaning performances. The Fisk Jubilee Singers expanded their tours, and sang before Pres. Grant in the White House, and before an international peace group in Boston. Later in the 1870s they performed for, and won applause from Queen Victoria, who then ruled over so much of the globe. Is it possible that by 1880 more people round the world had heard of Fisk than of Harvard?

Not surprisingly, Du Bois excelled academically at Fisk. He soon edited the school newspaper. Du Bois developed his powers as an orator, and he was a popular student. Here he was socializing in a black environment, noting perhaps different pronunciations, but also different customs. In addition to learning in class, he roamed the environs, keeping his eyes and ears open, and he too heard the music that the singers sang round the world. He also heard the raw, ungrammatical lyrics they did not sing, and some of this would provide material for his chapter on music in his classic Souls of Black Folk (1903). Upon graduating from Fisk, Du Bois was admitted to Harvard, where again he excelled academically. But how much more did Du Bois learn by attending the newly founded college, the segregated college, in Nashville? Had Du Bois NOT gone to Fisk, would there have even been the book, Souls of Black Folk? Would Du Bois have even been aware of the black soul had he not attended Fisk in Nashville? With his background at Fisk, perhaps the reader will not be surprised by this quote from wikipedia: ”While taking part in the American Negro Academy in 1897, Du Bois presented a paper in which he rejected Frederick Douglass's plea for black Americans to integrate into white society.”

My question, if many black students wanted a black cultural experience, why attend an historically white, still mainly white university with a ghettoized dorm instead of going to Fisk or one of the many other HBCUs? The reason – money. Many are unaware that the civil rights era of the 1960s and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ushered in difficult times for many (not all) HBCU's. Many black students who in the past might have enrolled in these colleges, were suddenly offered numerous, handsome scholarships by the wealthier white universities, North and even in the South. Many HBCU's were suddenly starved for students and funds, and many Northern liberals seemed to think – like the friends of Du Bois in 1885 – that these relics of the past in the land of slavery and segregation should disappear. The larger white universities simply siphoned off the students and grants that might otherwise have gone to the traditional black universities. A few, like Xavier U. in New Orleans, did thrive, becoming one of Louisiana's most important dental schools for all races, while also retaining its traditional black, Roman Catholic heritage.

While some HBCU's folded and others neared the brink, integrationists like former Pres. Obama, seemed to emit a “good riddance” to the institutions of that horrid era. It was Republican Pres. Trump who took up the challenge and sought out financial support to keep these institutions alive, at least for some years to come. And these institutions continue a strategy of accommodation/conflict that kept them alive and sometimes thriving through decades of often hostile, one-party Democratic Party political dominance. They survived. Their physical facilities were often inferior, a truly negative heritage of segregation, Yet the content of their character, in class and out, was distinct. Surely Du Bois encountered that in the 1880s. In the 1960s I recall some conversations with Prof. Lester Granger, at Dillard U. I was then on the left, I voted (my first time at the polls) for Kennedy, and my folks had never said a bad word about FDR (except obliquely, mentioning the rumors that the order to assassinate the very popular La. Senator Huey Long in 1935 had been ordered from Washington, DC). Prof. Granger informed me that on a trip to Arkansas, when the FDR motorcade passed a white neighborhood, all the white children cheered him. And then, in the black neighborhood, all the black kids cheered him too. But Granger added; the white kids were being paid to cheer; the blacks were cheering from their hearts. He had stories critical of Roosevelt and the New Deal that did not fit my leftwing mindset, but I recall his words almost 60 years later. Only for this paper, did I look up his background. On campus, I had heard only that he wrote newspaper columns. Only now I discovered that for over 2 decades Granger had headed the National Urban League, and often pushed the US national administrations to do more for blacks. I do not mean all the faculty at Dillard was conservative (though in the South, the Democratic Party was the party of segregation.). I certainly do not maintain that all professors on the campuses of HBCUs were conservative; they were not. By contrast, Howard Zinn, famous for his Marxist history of the United States, which is often required reading in public schools today, taught at another HBCU. My point is that there was variety of views, and approaches. There was certainly more diversity of thought at the HBCUs then, than at the segregated ethnic houses on white campuses today.

Heriot does mention the HBCUs in her chapter on mismatch. Her point simply put, - major universities use AA to siphon off the best black students in the STEM areas, and indeed, many, when they first arrive on the white campuses, are quite interested in science and engineering. In some, half the black men want to major in those fields. However, at top universities, most AA admissions are not among the top students overall on these elite campuses; and they tend toward the bottom of their class. Within a short time, many of the new black students cannot follow what is being taught in class. They begin to fail, and leave the university, fail and are discouraged, or change majors to ethnic studies or sociology or some subject where their lack of preparation is not an impediment. She argues that black students who might get an AA admission to a lesser white university, might fit in better, and they may well graduate in the STEM courses. Most important, she quotes National Science Foundation statistics, that now with only 20% of black enrollment, the HBCU's graduate many who go on to earn doctorates at non-black universities, producing 42% of black biologists, and 36% of black engineers.(36)

The chapter on Asians by Lance Izumi and Rowena Itchon is interesting because the challenges facing Asians are often the reverse of those faced by blacks and Hispanics. For example, by the 1960s when it became the orthodox sociological view that poverty causes crime, there were enclaves of extremely poor Asians, yet crime in their neighborhoods was lower than in those of blacks or whites (the term “Hispanic” had not yet been fully adopted, and many Hispanics were simply classified by their race usually white, or black. Having resided in a black ghetto for a short time, my view was that crime causes poverty, the obverse of the official approach.

The other major difference, whether because of culture or genetics, Northern Asians tend to do very well academically with an IQ to rival Ashkenazi Jews. Thus, in university admissions, AA (a fancy name for quotas), tends to greatly increase black admissions, somewhat increases Hispanics, and reduces the number of Asians. Some Asians from Southeast Asia seek a separate AA for different kinds of Asians. Even North Asians in business may gain from traditional AA disbursements to businesses, so Asians and AA is a mixed bag. But there is much more open and vigorous opposition to the policy among Asians than among other minorities.

In 1996 with the aid of California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, and Regent Board member Ward Connerly were able to get AA on the ballot, and defeat it. The Asian chapter notes that Connerly took the issue to other states, and AA lost when it was on the ballot. The city of Houston was an exception. In 1996 Democrat Bill Clinton carried California with 51% of the vote, but AA lost in the same election with 45.5%. The lgenerally eft hates when AA goes to the popular vote, and the Bush wing of the Republicans, continuing the tradition of Richard Nixon, try to keep AA legal by keeping it off the ballot. Thus, the Bushes obstructed efforts to vote on the policy in Texas and Florida.

In 2020, liberals believed their time had come, at least in our most populous state – California. After losing the vote in 1996, for over over 20 years the state functioned without an official AA program. By 2020 California had become an overwhelmingly Democratic Party state, and the Democrats decided to repeal the anti-AA amendment by placing a pro-AA initiative on the California ballot in 2020. This was the same election as the Biden Trump competition.

In California, the liberal vote in the 2020 election was overwhelming:

Biden (Dem) ….11,110,250 Trump (GOP) 6,006,429

63.58% 34.3%

For AA..... 7,217,064 Against AA 9,655,595

42.77% 57.28%

Not only did the anti-AA forces win, they won bigger in 2020 than in 1996. Biden, who supports AA, won the state overwhelmingly, but 3.8 million Biden voters did NOT vote for AA. The anti-AA vote was probably all the Trumpers plus 3.6 million Biden votes. In almost every state when the people have voted on AA, AA has lost. Only in Houston did it win. This is why the left does all it can to prevent it going on the ballot. The Bush family prevented AA from losing in Texas and Florida, and AA nationally goes back to Richard Nixon (who made it national policy) and the corporate wing of the Republican Party. As on many other issues, there is a rift between the elite and the majority of people on this issue. It is good that we can still have books that describe the problems of the policy.

THE TULSA HOSPITAL SHOOTING, IS IT POSSIBLE IT'S AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION REACTION?

   The other day a man went to a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, apparently intent on killing a doctor and anyone else who stood in his way.  This was the latest in a series of shootings in America - the white teen who searched for a supermarket in a Black neighborhood so he could kill many Black people - and he killed about 10.  A week later in a school near the Mexican border a school was locked down - they have had around 20 lock downs this past year, probably because they are near the border with Mexico and illegal aliens (invaders) may come to disrupt the community.  This time many armed officers were there in a short time, but did not enter the class room where another 18-year-old (this time an Hispanic) shot and killed about 20 pupils and 2 teachers.  A few days later - Tulsa.

     I suspect the motivation for the Tulsa hospital shooting was quite different.  This occurred Wednesday 1 June 2022.  A Black patient has operation on his back by a black doctor. After operation, the patient feels worse, tries to contact the doctor many times. How bad is the back pain the man endures??? Is it possible the o peration was botched by the doctor? Is it possible the black doctor had been admitted to med school not because he was one of the best qualified but BECAUSE he was black, an affirmative action admission? An affirmative action graduate? An affirmative action doctor? The black patient in a note declared he was going to kill that doctor and any others who stood in his way. He entered the hospital and proceeded to do just that, killing the doctor who operated on him, another doctor, a receptionist, another patient, and finally he killed himself.

In the book COLORING THE NEWS the first chapter notes how the New York Times had a story praising an affirmative action black doctor who served his community UNLIKE that Bakke the white guy who sued tje California university and tried to end racial preferences (affirmative action), but who was finally permitted to enter and graduate medical school too. However, unlike the black doctor, Bakke was simply just a doctor, just another white doctor.. But later, the NYT poster boy black doctor, turned to liposuction performed on black women patients, but the affirmative action physician did not bother to give these patients local anesthetics or any meds to numb the pain, and finally allowed one patient to bleed to death. He lost his license to practice medicine. Sometimes affirmative action doctors may not serve their community well because of incompetence or whatever. In his note "He blamed Dr. Phillips for causing the pain following his surgery."(KOCO 5 News)

Don't expect the major media to discuss this possible aspect of the Tulsa hospital shooting.

HUGH MURRAY

AMERICA'S BIG MISTAKE IN UKRAINE AND TAIWAN///pART 2

By Hugh Murray 

 China just signed a deal with the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, not long after surprising America by signing another deal with Samoa.  China has cash to help build infrastructure, pay of bribes to politicians, and do other things, like perhaps construct a Chinese naval base located there.  The UP reports today that China is negotiating with 7 other island nations in the Pacific right now.  Well, it is a good thing the Hawaiian Islands are already American territory or perhaps China might soon have a base there.  Is Pearl Harbor up for sale now?  These new treaties will give China room to get to the other side of the Philippine Islands, possibly interfere with American shipping to Australia, Philippines, Vietnam, and if war comes, restrict our plans to defend Taiwan. 

 

     China was once the world's premier naval power.  But first an aside: during the American Revolutionary war, a young Andrew Jackson fought beside his brother against the British.  They were captured.  When a British officer commanded the 13-year-old Andrew to polish the gentleman's boots, the young Andrew refused.  The officer drew his sword, slashed Andrew's left hand to the bone and hit him on the head - leaving scars on both head and hand.  In the late 1300s, there were wars in China a leader of a Mongolian group killed in fighting the Chinese, and when his young son was questioned by his dad's opponents, the youth spoke defiantly.  He too was punished.  But there are cultural differences.  This youth was castrated, became a servant in the court of the victor's, and rose in rank.  By the early 1400s, this boy grown to manhood, becomes Admiral to the largest fleet ever to sail - some 28,000 sailors sailing from near Suzhou down the South China Sea, the Spice islands, India, Sri Lanka, even Arabia (Admiral Zheng He is a Muslim and goes to Mecca), and to East Africa.  They return to China with many goods and animals like giraffes that were unknown in the Middle Kingdom.  The Admiral, with several major expeditions to the Indian Ocean and Africa, may give the Chinese a claim to the South China Sea.  Compare his huge expeditions with those that came later: Magellan fewer than 300 men\; da Gama 170;  and Columbus, a mere 90 men.  Yet, which voyages changed the world?

     (One more aside: it is interesting to note that both He in China and Jackson in America begin on the bottom rungs of society, and in both lands, both rise to the top or near the top.  Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and was later elected American President; He in China fought in the military there and became the most famous Admiral or one of the largest fleets on  several successful expeditions.  But he never became emperor.  Both societies may have been more open to talent than we are aware of.) 

 Moreover, by 1433 China had a new emperor, and soon he decreed that there should be no more ocean-going ships to sail, or to be built, and all those in existence and all their plans should be destroyed!  Surely China did not dominate the South China Sea after 1450.  China ceased to be a naval power.  There are cultural differences, and often these have huge consequences.  In the 1890s China even lost a war to Japan, a nation only "opened" to the world by the American navy's Commodore Perry in 1853.  Japan then quickly sought to catch up with the west, learning from imported military figures from Prussia and naval ones from Britain.  When China lost to Japan, it had to cede Formosa (Taiwan) to the Japanese.  The island remained Japanese until 1945, when Japan lost WWII.

     Formosa, no longer Japanese would go to the official Chinese government, the one recognized by the new UN organization and all major powers, the Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kai-shek.

      In 1944 there was no A-bomb, and even as Nazi Germany seemed destined for defeat, America faced the huge problem of invading the Japanese home islands.  FDR made promises to Stalin in order to get him to declare war on Japan.  It was agreed he would do so within 3 months of the German surrender.  In August 1945 the US dropped 2 A-bombs on Japan, the Soviets entered the war against Japan, quickly over-running the depleted defense forces in Manchukuo,  Japan surrendered.  Soviet troops were in Manchuria, dismantling factories to bring them to the USSR, but taking the Japanese weapons, and instead of giving them to the "official" Chinese government, gave them to the Communist rebel regime of Mao Zedong.  A Nationalist faction under Wang Jingwei, that had collaborated with Japan was totally discredited, but civil war increased between the "official" Chiang Nationalists and Mao's Communists, now supplied with weapons by the Soviets.  American Pres. Truman sent Gen. George Marshall to end the conflict, and he demanded Chiang form a coalition with Mao, or Marshall said there would be no aid.  This policy allowed the Communists to conquer more of China.  Finally, Marshall okayed help for Chiang, but Communists in the FDR Administration, like H D White in Treasury, obstructed any real aid to Chiang.  The result - in 1949 Mao broadcast from Beijing the creation of the Peoples' Republic of China.  Chiang, with the remnants of his defeated army, fled to Taiwan, protected by the US Navy.  Taiwan became what was left of the Republic of China.  This was the origin of the 2-China policy.

      In 1950 North Korea invaded its southern neighbor; Truman decided to send American troops to aid the South, and the war was on.  Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur was able to land forces behind the lines of the invaders, encircling the North Communists, and soon the whole peninsula was in anti-Communist hands.  Then in cold winter, the Chinese Communist "volunteers" crossed the Yalu using their large numbers and enduring heavy losses, but pushing the anti-communists back to the approximate border of before.  And so it remains.

     Having been unofficially at war with the PR China, there were few relations between the 2 nations.  Then, the Vietnam war, found America in a difficult war.  Even though there were now many reports of a rift between the USSR and the PRC, America was on the outside.  Diplomat Henry Kissinger got Pres. Richard Nixon, a Republican, to try to put a wedge between those 2 Communist lands  Ping pong diplomacy.  The US urged less Chinese support for the Vietnamese, which did occur.  Under Pres. Carter, the US formally recognized a 1-China policy, and the Rep. of China was now simply Taipei.  The US overthrew the royal leader of Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk, who was soon replaced by the radical Khmer Rouge.  Both China and the US seemed happy with that, while Communist Vietnam (ally of the USSR) was furious that the Cambodians were murdering Vietnamese.  The Khmer Rouge then began a great extermination policy of its own people too, killing up to 2 million.  Anyone who had glasses was suspect.  To what extent did the US secretly work with the PRC in Cambodia?  As Vietnam was trying to overthrow the leaders of Cambodia?  China and Vietnam also had their own small war against each other along their common border.

      The late 80s, Tiananmen - the CP will continue to rule China.  But deals with the west for trade, very cheap labor assured will mean low prices in America.  Under Clinton and Bush, more trade deals, and China joins World Trade Organization, keeping its home market safe by requiring foreign corporations to  form partnerships (where Chinese can steal secrets on manufacturing).  When in the 1990s China cannot get missiles off the ground, the Clintons make deals, receive campaign "donations," and Chinese rocket problems are solved.  PRC makes honey deals with high ranking American politicians, the Biden family, the Clintons, Feinstein, Republican Senate leader McConnel.  The CPR leadership learns a weak link of democracy - corruption.

      Kissinger worked to separate Russia and China.  Biden, with his reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, has made the Russo-Chinese relation ever closer.  Just as the Biden economic war against Putin may be making the US far weaker, the the ruble stronger today with the dollar than when Biden announced his policy.  Worse, the Biden, Democrats and Rhino Republican policies of giving Zelensky all he wants, simply keeps the war going in Ukraine.  Inflation is a problem in the US.  Now we just voted $40 billion more for that war.  UKRAINE IS NOT A DIRECT AMERICAN INTEREST.  Worse, we are facing a battle about Taiwan, which we need to win.  Will we have sufficient weapons?  Money?  Manufacturing capabilities for continued weaponry?  (Remember, we are dependent on Taiwan for the chips so necessary in the new weaponry.  If China attacks Taiwan, or merely surrounds it and blockades it, will the USA  be able to manufacture anything??  China has built up its navy so it is powerful.  Untested, yes, but are we up for the test ourselves?  China was testing hypersonic missiles last year - Gen. Milley called it a "near Sputnik moment."  The other day the US Air Force reported we too have had a successful test (after some failures).

       China ignores the World Court's decision on the South China Sea; the court denied it is China's.  China rejected the court's judgement and instead built up islands in the sea, then broke its word and militarized those islands.  China has signed contracts with 2 island groups in the Pacific since April 2022, and is trying for 7 more deals.  Will the Pacific be China's new lake??

     Some maintain that the recent virus lockdowns in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xian, and even Beijing have nothing to do with any virus, but they are exercises in control in case there is a major war (with the USA).

If China were to strike first, and not just in Taiwan, but hit our shores too, Would we be able to respond AND WIN?  What about Chinese money near the Panama Canal?

      Instead of bowing to Zelensky's demands, we should tell him to make a deal and end the war, while we prepare for our own defense.  To the Chinese we seem at a weak point - an elderly, maybe senile leader, high crime rate, inflation, instability, and general confusion, more worried about proper pronouns than how effective is your missile.  They want Taiwan by 2049, but why wait?  Especially if the balance of power has changed, if the most advanced nation is the Middle Kingdom, which rests between heaven and earth?  Perhaps they will conclude this year is the time for the Middle Kingdom to take its rightful place.  Are we prepared to shatter that "cultural difference," and prove that their proper place is NOT a superior one to all the rest of the earth.  Are we prepared to prevent a modernized, 1984 one-party state from becoming a modernized one-party world?  Our democratic republic has its flaws, but it is the last best hope for humanity. 

 

     To prepare for the big one, let us end the Ukraine war now.

AMERICA'S BIG MISTAKE IN UKRAINE///TAIWAN pART 1

   RFLECTIONS ON THE WAR AND THE BIGGER ONE COMING by HUGH MURRAY

 Ukraine's Vlod Zelensky is the well known leader who heads his nation in time of war.  The former television comedian is transformed into the new Churchill, urging his nation to fight on against the foreign invaders.  The media shows him as the man of the hour, the man of courage.  Or, is he simply the Greta Thunberg of Ukraine?

      Greta Thunberg began her activism for the environment at age 15, and her demands that adults see the necessity of protecting the environment, as she sees it, made her into a media spokes girl in the left wing media.  Her demands that governments do as she says is almost laughable, but since her message is that of the left, the media promote her, and legislators throughout the world listen to her and try to accommodate her demands.  If she were not presenting the left-wing message in a new package, the left-leaning media would never have promoted her.  She is the same old green message in a new, Swedish wine bottle.  Still trying to shame, insult, bully nations into doing what she wants.  Even in failure, she gets the publicity for her left-wing message.

     Zelensky is the latest version of Thunberg, accusing, shaming, demanding, that nations support his nation financially, legally, and militarily.  He is very popular in the US with Democrats and Rhino Republicans.  No matter his packaging, is Zelensky correct in his message?

     Ukraine was one of the provinces of the Czarist Russian Empire.  Allied with Britain, France, and the other allied nations in "the Great War" (WWI), Russia did poorly, and in early 917 there was a revolution that brought a Western type government to power, until the fall when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control.  German armies continued to invade while the Reds sought to expand their internal control in a civil war.  Forced to sign a peace treaty, Red Russia ceded chunks of territory to newly independent countries, like Ukraine, which were to become German satellites.  Half year later, Germany and the Central Powers surrendered to the Allies, and Germany had to withdraw from all its gains in the East.  Soon after, the Communist led Ukraine requested to join the Soviet Union.  Under Stalin the Reds sought to collectivize agriculture, and use crops to get funds to industrialize.  Ukraine, the traditional "bread basket" of Europe, became the center of a war against the successful farmers (kulaks), whose crops were taken, and whose family members starved or were sent to Gulags (to freeze or starve).  The policy led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, the first of many Communist experiment in economics that led to millions more deaths under Mao and the Khmer Rouge.  But as the left reasoned, to make an omelet one has to break a few eggs.

    During WWII, when the Germans invaded the Ukraine, many natives were happy to see the end of Stalin's rule.  The choice was between Hitler and Stalin, 2 monsters.  For the Jews of Ukraine, Hitler meant death, so they had no choice.  Others did; and there were those who sympathized with and even fought along side the German invaders during WWII.  For a movie depiction of the division, see "Europa, Europa," for Poles fleeing the German invaders.  Then news that the Soviets have invaded Poland from the East, and many Poles turn around to run toward the Germans, while others were still running away.  In the West it is easy for us to condemn those who chose one or the other, but we did not have to choose between 2 monsters, one worse than the other.  Our leaders, far from perfect, have generally avoided such savagery on such mass scales.

      After WWII, there was a kind of civil war in Poland and Ukraine for a few years before the Communists could regain complete control.

     After Stalin's death, Khruschev became the next leader of the USSR.  A Ukrainian, he changed to border of Ukraine, giving it Russian territory.  This made little difference as they were all part of the USSR.  Then Reagan and Gorbachev, the Wall falls, and so does the USSR.  The enlarged Ukraine becomes independent, with a large Russian speaking population.  Indeed, in all ot the break-away nations of the USSR, Russian minorities were suddenly stranded in places like Turkmenistan.  Ukraine was close to Russia, and had a corrupt, pro-Russian elected government, until a Western led coup in 2014.  To protect the Russian naval bases, Putin invaded the Crimea, and some eastern parts of the Ukraine declared their independence from that nation and looked to Russia.  Kiev has never recognized these Russian enclaves, even though a Minsk Agreement was supposed to do so.  The new Ukraine government continued some aspects of the old - like corruption.  But now US military sponsored scientific labs in Ukraine and other former Soviet lands.  The US was very worried that these labs would fall to Russian troops with the invasion this year.  Russia alleged they were scenes of biological and chemical warfare.  The US denied the allegations.  But why was the US military sponsoring these labs?

      Why is the US subsidizing the war in the Ukraine?  Without American backing, Zelensky would have to go to the negotiating table and make a deal.  Without the support of the Democrats (and its media) and the UniParty Republicans (mainly Rhinos), (and major support from most of Fox News) Ukraine would sue for peace.  America mobilized all its allies to get on board the train to Ukraine.  NATO (North Atlantic?), and for the economic war against Russia, even Japan.  India and a few others have resisted America's attempt to isolate Russia, diplomatically, and especially economically.

     Democrats and Rhino Republican maintain that the border of Ukraine is sacrosanct and must be maintained against the Russian invasion.  Yet, Democrats and many Rhino Republicans support the invasion of the border of the US by those crossing in from Mexico.  Pres. Biden and his Administration collude with pro-invasion organizations who teach foreigners how to lie so they will seem like legitimate refugees.  Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and various NGOs and religious organizations all partake in this fraud.  Some gain considerable US federal dollars by "helping" the refugees.  Lately, I think it is near a thousand a day who come across the border.  Some have links to drug cartels, some are returning after having been deported, a few are potential terrorists.  It is clear that neither Democrats nor Rhino Republicans care at all about America's southern border, but they are cheerleading the efforts to defend that of Ukraine.

      The Ukraine is corrupt, and according to Panama Papers Pres. Zelensky has many off-shore accounts too.  More important, American weapons manufacturers can make a mint if the US subsidizes the war in Ukraine, as it did in Afghanistan, as it did in Iraq, as it did in Vietnam, etc.  So left-wing ideas about flooding the US with refugees (and the donor class Republicans favor cheap labor which comes with the thousands of illegal aliens(, and Uniparty (Dems and Rhinos) may get a% of the military contracts so they cheeer the blue and yellow flag and are delighted when Zelensky "speaks truth" that he needs more money and military aid.  Why, Zelensky is better than Thornberg in shaming us into doing what we already want to do.

       The problem is - the US has no real national interest in Ukraine.  Worse, a war is on the horizon in which we have vital interest, and we are ruining our own economy, sending military materiale to Ukraine, forcing Putin into China's arms, when we are about to face a conflict with the People's Republic of China. 

              END OF PART 1

Prof. Jason Jellison on Pat Buchanan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin

 (A friend who works in Asia had a different view of the Ukrainian war.  You might find it interesting.)  

Good Morning Hugh, As is so often the case, I strongly agree with Pat Buchanan.  What not only American leaders, but even American society is doing to Russia is very, VERY dangerous.  From my Far Eastern vantage point, I would warn any American/Westerner who would listen that WE (America & Western Europe) are backing a wounded Russia into a corner and I will warn anyone that even the most benevolent and loving of wounded wolves- once backed into a corner with few options- eventually has no choice but to finally bring out the teeth, claws, and eventually strike back.  From my side of the pond, what America is doing with Russia is utterly insane and truly redefines the word 'stupid.'  [One does not play games with, or insult, a superpower who possesses 6,900 nuclear warheads and better missiles than almost anything America reliably has on hand.] Also, Hugh, to be totally frank, the hypocrisy which America has fallen into simply stuns me.  Back in the Kennedy years, we nearly had a nuclear holocaust when the Soviets were caught installing nuclear missiles in Fidel's Cuba; a mere 90 miles from Florida (in our own backyard).  Yet, even on Fox News or The American Thinker, nary a word has been printed about the U.S. manufactured missile systems which we had quietly installed inside of Chernobyl's nuclear exclusion zone [which is also something like only 100 miles away from Russia's back doorstep].  Thus, the USA has fallen into such dramatic moral decay that we [several successive Presidential Administrations & Congresses spanning all major American political stripes] seemed to have not a care at all about funding somewhere between 25-30 biolabs which we 100% know for certain were continuing to research USSR-era biopathogens which were supposed to have been destroyed all the way back in the mid-1990's; and those same biolabs were almost certainly involved in some kind of Gain of Function [Wuhan-style] research for purposes whose final aims were probably far less than anything but Godly or Holy.  (I sincerely doubt our untrustworthy U.S. Federal Government funded those 25-30 biolabs because they wanted to help make sure the Russians did not come down sick with the flu or a light case of the sniffles.) So, to conclude my response, while I am largely neutral in this Civil War, I wish both Russia and the Ukraine Territory well.  However, Russia's military blunders in staging their Security Action (war) within the Ukraine were not just stunning and not just a geopolitical embarrassment, but also indicate that the entire Russian Military will need a complete overhaul before Russia even thinks of managing anything beyond the most elementary of basic national security measures. [...as in arresting illegal migrants &/or illegal trespassers.]  This was a military DISASTER & HUMILIATION FOR RUSSIA WHICH SEVERELY HARMED RUSSIA'S STANDING ON THE WORLD STAGE, no matter how one tries to spin it.  Bluntly, Russia was about as effective in the Ukraine Invasion as America has been effective in keeping illegal aliens from swimming over to our shores.  [UTTER DISASTER.] Hugh, I strongly respect President Putin as well as his government.  But, Mr. Putin's administration screwed up the Ukraine Affair six ways to Sunday.  As of the time of this writing, I will simply dispassionately state that the cost of this fiasco is somewhere between 20,000 to 25,000 dead Russian soldiers, two very badly wounded countries, organized campaigns of sexual violence on both sides and- for Russia- the former U.S.S.R. may soon largely lose a war which they should have easily won within a matter of only days.  Russia was incompetent & easily should have overpowered both the Ukraine, as well as its cowardly Western Godfathers who yank all of Zelenskyy's strings. After all, only one week after Trump was deposed in a stolen election, on February 1st, 2021, the Tatmadaw [Burmese Army] seized Burma and accomplished most of President Putin's kind of dreams in less than merely 4 hours because the Tatmadaw runs a competent, well-trained military.  Yet, as of the time of this writing, it may be months or even years before President Putin can secure & rule the Ukraine; at which point the Ukraine will be little more than a pile of smoking ruin which the Russians will have to rebuild at the cost of one big heap of Russia's very own Rubles.  They will also predictably face many years of a domestic insurgency so, even if Russia 'wins' this crazy thing called the Ukraine, I believe President Putin will find that just as soon as he erects a grand new building, it shan't be long before domestic Ukrainian resistance fighters find a creative way to crash all his new buildings straight to the ground. Okay.  I'll simply wrap up by stating that I will forward my ad hoc military analysis of Russia's profound strategic errors to you later today.  I actually am quite supportive of Russia but, to be totally honest, Hugh, either Putin himself (or his generals) not only screwed up a war which they very easily should have won, but now may largely lose the war.  Of course, in the event of a loss or some kind of stalemate, Russia might parade the U.S.-manufactured missile systems which the Russians dug out of the ground at Chernobyl & maybe also parade some of our U.S.-funded biolab concerns out in the streets for all of the world to see.  ...but at the cost of 20,000 to 25,000 dead Russian soldiers [so far] and a devastated Ukraine [the heartland of Russia], well, much as Sun Tzu warned over 2,000 years ago in The Art of War, that's not much for the Kremlin to gloat about. So, I guess I shall close by simply saying this:   For President Putin, he is about to potentially lose a war or preside over a disaster.  If I could have the honor of advising him at this particularly late hour in a fight which the Russian President CHOSE to start, I'd tell him either go all the way & finish what President Putin chose to start, or prepare to pay the consequences for a lost war.  (...and when you lose a war which you chose to start, the consequences of such a loss are simply not predictable.) Keep in touch, Hugh.

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE LEFT WANT SOME BLACK HISTORY TO DISAPPEAR

  I just posted a comment on a site re the media and the US Govt and their refusal to recognize Black Nationalism and black extremism - which may best explain things like the cause of the black driver of the car into the Christmas parade, killing 6 whites, in Waukesha, Wisconsin in Nov or Dec 2021.  Many academics assert that blacks cannot be racists.  Of course they can, and they can be fascists too.  Hugh Murray

Blacks, like everyone else, can be racists, and can have thinking related to any political ideology. The largest black organization in the US in the 1920s, and which had influence far beyond, was the Universal Negro Improvement Assn., led by West Indian Marcus Garvey. He pushed for black dolls for black girls, the Black Cross nurses, and bought a ship for his Black Star line to return the American diaspora Back to Africa. He opposed the mulatto W.E.B. Du Bois and the then mainly white NAACP; and it may have worked to get the foreigner deported. The Garveyites in the 1920s appear to have worked with another large, similar organization of the 1920s, the KKK. Both sought to retain separation of the races. Even after his deportation, most Garveyites did not join the NAACP.

In the late 1920s, Stalin, a specialist on minorities, wanted the American Communist Party to become more active with blacks, and in the early 30s, a Finnish Party member was put on trial for racism in Harlem, tried, and found guilty by the CP, America's first show trial on racism. A CP front group fought the NAACP for control of the defence of the Scottsboro boys, young blacks accused of rape aboard a freight train in Alabama in 1931. Tho the NAACP hired Clarence Darrow, the radical International Labor Defense hire another top-flight attorney, who so successfully defended the blacks, that the ILD attorneys won 2 major ruling from the very conservative US Supreme Court, saving the lives of the blacks. The CP also promised a Black Belt of majority black counties in the South - an indirect appeal to the Garveyites.

By the mid-30s and Hitler's consolidation of power in Germany, Stalin decided to seek unity with moderates, colonialists, in the Popular Front. Some blacks felt betrayed and left the CP, like George Padmore and others who looked to Pan-Africanism. Garvey, angry at Mussolini for his invasion of Ethiopia (and at Stalin for supplying oil to Italy), Garvey asserted that his UNIA were the first fascists.

In the late 1950s the Black Muslims grew, and like the Garveyites, wanted racial separation. They were opposed to integration, the NAACP, CORE, SNCC. The Black Muslims made deals with the KKK and other segregationists. Malcolm X was ordered to negotiate with the KKK. After CORE began its Freedom Rides in 1961, George Lincold Rockwell, drove his counter - his "hate bus" from Virginia to New Orleans. Rockwell headed the small American Nazi Party. In New Orleans, he and his group also picketed the film Exodus, about the founding of Israel. The following month, Rockwell and several of his fellow Nazis, were invited guests at a large meeting of the Black Muslims in Washington, DC.

But because none of this fits the liberal distorted history of race in America, the media, the academics, the politicians pretend it does not exist.  Under President Biden, he wants to suppress white supremacy and ignore possible black supremists - even though the enormous amount of black on white crime and murder may indicate black supremacy is more of a problem that the white variety, which is more politically correct, especially to the far-left wing and corrupt Biden regime.  It may be politically correct, but historically incorrect.

"I LOVE LUCY" PRESENTED AN ALTERED VIEW OF THE ALL AMERICAN FAMILY

 

LUCILLE BALL'S LASTING INFLUENCE -

IN A FIELD WE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT

by Hugh Murray

I had been arrested in the first lunch-counter sit-in in my native New Orleans in September 1960. We were a small group, 5 blacks and 2 whites, all of us members of the newly formed activist organization, CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. One reason for its appearance in New Orleans and other cities in the South, the NAACP in New Orleans and elsewhere sometimes opposed non-violent direct action, and it opposed our sit-in. In 1961 CORE drew national attention when it sponsored the Freedom Rides, in which CORE members would purchase tickets to ride ordinary Greyhound or Continental bus tickets, ride like other passengers, but then, when the bus stopped for rest, CORE members would attempt to integrate the eateries and rest rooms located in the bus terminals. The courts had declared segregation in interstate travel to be illegal, but CORE sought to test the reality. In the deep South, many CORE Freedom Riders were badly beaten and arrested in these tests.

Not everyone was sympathetic to integration, and George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, decided he would bring his Hate Bus and some followers from his base in Virginia down to New Orleans. New Orleans was also the final destination of the Freedom Riders, but with beatings and arrests along the way, many did not complete the journey.

When Rockwell's bus arrived in New Orleans, the signs that covered his vehicle caused a disturbance - “Gas Jews, Queers, Commies” or something similar. The New Orleans Police demanded that he cover the provocative signs.

In May 1961 the film “Exodus” was playing at one of the movie theaters in New Orleans, and Rockwell and his Storm Troupers decided to picket the theater. I asked a young woman studying law at Tulane U. if she would go with me so we could see (and perhaps boo) the Nazis. Janet Smith was, like myself, a member of the Unitarian Church in New Orleans. She lived near the university, just off St. Charles Ave. I parked across from her building in my car, and it was pouring rain. I rushed to her building and got her and back to my car, when I discovered I had locked my keys inside the car. Could not get the side window vent open, would take forever to get help, so we took the nearby St. Charles streetcar.

The streetcar is not the fastest form of transportation, but we had time before the film began. Soon after the trolley turned on Lee Circle we got off. The water had risen up nearly 2 feet, touching the hem of her dress, and my long pants that I had rolled up lto my knees. We walked only one block, and the deep water was now merely a wet sidewalk. And the rain had lightened. When we got to the theater, we were too late to see the the police arrest the uniformed Nazis, but some plain-dress sympathizers handed us fliers The pickets were breaking up, the drama was over, and we had missed the main event. Back on the streetcar, we read the flier - Do Not Invite These Reds into Your Home. Top of the list was Lucille Ball. We laughed. Well she did have red hair.

The American Nazis were not in New Orleans that long, for by the end of the next month, June 1961, George Lincoln Rockwell and several of his members, were invited guests, in Nazi uniforms, to the mass rally of the Nation of Islam held at Uline Arenal in Washington, D.C. (The arena had a capacity of 8,000, and in 1964 was the venue for the first Beatles' concert in the USA.) If some missed the point, Rockwell and his Storm Troupers were again, invited guests, in uniform, to the mass Saviour's Day event of the Nation of Islam in February 1962 at Chicago's International Amphitheater. Rockwell was even invited to the podium to address the crowd of over 12,000.

The Smithsonian Magazine on line, perhaps as part of Women's Month, March 2022, published “Who Was the Real Lucille Ball?” 22 March 22, by Jackie Mansky, part of “Women Who Shaped History.” The author discusses Ball as an actress, a comedienne, a business woman, and a hard worker. The article describes some of the interplay among the 4 main characters of the “I Love Lucy” program, Lucy, her real live husband Desi Arnaz, William Frawleyz, and Vivian Vance, who played neighbors Ethel and Fred Mertz. Yet, perhaps the author omitted a most important part of the real Lucille Ball.

If you go to Wikipedia, you will find that while residing in California, Lucille Ball went to register to vote in 1936, and she registered, not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as a Communist. Her brother and mother registered as Communists too. In testimony, she said she so registered to satisfy her grand father, but there was other testimony, some saying she was on the central committee of the Communist Party in California. She denied ever being a party member.

In the 1930s the Communist Party was well known for pressing equal rights for blacks. They led the fight to free the Scottsboro boys, accused of rape aboard a freight train in Alabama in 1931, made in into a international cause celebre, and took the case to the conservative US Supreme Court twice where significant judgments were rendered. The CP and its front groups were involved in many racial cases round the nation.

In the 1930s Ball was often 2^nd fiddle in major films, but might be the star of a b film. One of the “queens of the b films.” She also did radio work to supplement her income. Beginning in 1948 she would be the wife in a new radio comedy, “My Favorite Husband,” on CBS. Except for the first of the series, her co-star would be Richard Denning, her favorite husband.

In 1951 CBS wanted to transfer the program to the new medium of television. Ball was quite willing, but adamant that this time her husband would have to be her real husband, Desi Arnaz. The Smithsonian article relates how much of the show was Lucy's attempt to get work in show business, or just to get work. Though during WWII, with men drafted and away from industry, which now needed more workers to build ships, tanks, planes, and everything else. So women were recruited for jobs outside the home, unlike anything before. However, after the war, when men returned, they wanted the jobs, and women were being pushed out of the job market and back into the home. This tension produced much of the humor of I Love Lucy.

But there is something else, something important, so obvious that we do not see it. In 1951 the majority of American states had laws forbidding interracial marriages of one kind or another. The typical American family, in all the films, and in the new tv, the typical American family was Anglo or Irish or generic white. Desi as a husband was different. His music was different. And his accent was very different. Singing “Babaloo” was not typically American. Richard Denning would have been the typical all American husband. But Lucy demanded Desi. The 1950s were sometimes called the age of conformity; it was also the age of assimilation. Immigrants were to assimilate, adopt the clothing of Americans, drop the accents of the distant homelands, become true Americans. Desi, playing Ricky Ricardo, was not assimilated. His accent and antics were part of his character, and the American public began to love Lucy and her “unassimilated” husband. And with the popularity of I Love Lucy, as it became the #1 program for 3 years, it undoubtedly changed the notion of the ideal American family. THAT is no small accomplishment.

I have no idea if Lucille Ball was ever a member of the Communist Party or not. But she must have been influenced by some of the racial and ethnic ideas circulating on the left. Remember, in 1931 the Communists held a show trial in Harlem, accusing a member of “racism.” In Communist circles, racism was a great crime, and forcing assimilation may have taken on some of that disapproval. By dropping Denning and demanding Desi, Lucy was hoping – not only for a successful tv show, but to expand the notion of what an all-American family was.

I have argued elsewhere that the influence of the American Communist Party is far greater that most people are aware of. Much of the political correctness and cancel culture of today can be traced back to efforts of the small, but extremely influential Communist Party in the US. Some of that influence, I would conclude has been good for the nation. Some, like the narrowing of free speech, the firing of people of alleged racism, the toppling of monuments of our heroes, and stealing atomic secrets, has been disastrous. However, in this particular case, expanding the idea of what a good husband could be like, I would say the result has been good.