ON ORDERS - by Hugh Murray

ON ORDERS  -  by Hugh Murray

Over the weekend I watched a Netflix disc movie, "Your Unknown Brother," made in 1982 in German.  It was about an anti-Nazi German during the 1930s.  He had been sent to prison for his political activities, but once released in 1936, decided to continue his activities, despite his fear.  I found the movie slow and boring.  In some ways it was more like a theater production than a film with some of the actors’ movements utterly unrealistic, choreographed  like dance.

            Not until the end of the film did I realize it was a DEFA (East German) film.  The main characters portrayed were members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), seeking to discredit and overthrow Hitler by placing a red flag atop a factory smokestack, distributing leaflets, and other activities to let others know that there still existed an opposition to the Nazi dictatorship.  The Communists in the film seem to be aware of their ineffectiveness following  three years of Hitler’s domination in Germany.  One of the members of the KPD has even informed to the Gestapo.  The film’s mood shows it was made in the last decade of the DDR, for an earlier film would have depicted the ever correct policy of the Party, and how it sparks some success in persuading Germans to reject Hitler.  By the 1980s, one senses, that the Party was aware that it was not always correct.
            More interesting than the film were the features on the same disc.  One in particular, interviewed a woman who had joined the KPD in the 1920s.  She relates the story of some of her activities.  She lived in a neighborhood in which the Nazis were popular even before Hitler achieved power.  Beginning in the late 1920s, the KPD asked her if some people might stay in her apartment from time to time.  She said yes.  She did not know who the visitors were, and the conversations with them were minimal.  She noted that sometimes they did not even speak German.  But the Party ordered her to do this, so she did.
            In 1933 she was visiting her mother, who asked if she had read the day’s newspaper.  No, not yet.  Her mother showed her, - several Bulgarians had been arrested in connection with the Reichstag fire, treason, (the burning of the German Parliament building led to emergency security measures that soon would transform Hitler from mere Chancellor to dictator).  The woman looked at the newspaper photos of the Bulgarians on page 1.  (One, Georgi Dimitrov, would later head the Comintern).  She told her mother she recognized them as those who were staying at her apartment.  Decades later she peers into the camera to explain – she had no idea who the men were, but the Party ordered me to do it, so I did it.  She may not have known who they were, and it is still disputed as to who fired the Reichstag building, but she was simply following orders.  Party orders.
            After WWII various Germans were tried for war crimes.  Their main excuse was simple – I was simply following orders.  Orders not of a Party, but of the nation and its elected leaders.  Also after WWII there was a famous psychological experiment conducted in the US.  At Yale University students were to use a devise to administer electric shocks to others at the command of a “scientist.”  The student could see the reaction of the human guinea pig, their contorted face, even if they might not hear the shouts of pain.  In reality, the victims were also students pretending to be shocked.  The devises controlled by the student did not sent electricity to the victim area.  On the other side of the glass, the actors only pretended to be victims.  Yet, most students were quite willing to administer what they assumed to be shocks, very painful ones by the expressions of the “victims.”  In liberal, democratic America, enlightened university students (at a time when relatively few attended university), were willing to inflict pain on command of a minor authority figure.
            The results of the Milgram experiment were so disturbing to liberals (who seem to prefer the assumption that only Germans could follow brutal orders to such extremities) that they pressured to psychological association to enact “ethical” rules which would in future prohibit another Milgram experiment.  That is often the liberal approach to science, by the way, when they disapprove of the results of scientific research: forbid the test – be it IQ exams, police promotion exams, firefighters tests, and even future Milgram experiments.  Interestingly, the New York Times published an article on the 50^th anniversary of the Milgram experiment and its importance, and I commented on line that had the “ethical” procedures of today been in effect 50 years prior, there would have been no Milgram experiment, and no New York Times article assessing its importance.  Indeed, had the liberals had the present “ethical” procedures in place decades ago, mankind would have been deprived of the important results of those experiments.  The liberals and their “ethical” concerns are determined to prevent mankind from learning the truth about humanity.
            I did it because I was ordered to – says the Nazi war criminal; says the woman Communist who harbored Dimitrov in Berlin in 1933, perhaps says an American Communist who simply delivered a sealed suitcase containing papers from one apartment to a hotel room (a suitcase that may have contained atomic secrets).  I did it because I was ordered to do so, said many of the American students in the Milgram situation.
            Yet, a child does something because mommy said to do it, no questions asked.  Just do it.  Do like your daddy says.
            We all have done things because we are ordered to do so. We do it to please mom and because we love her and trust her.  We do it for dad for the same reasons.  Should we do things in the same manner for Stalin?  For Hitler?  We may have extremes, with Hitler and Stalin on one side, and parents on the other.
            What about teachers?  Scientific authorities?  (Or seeming scientists, as in the Milgram experiment.  Or even the American TV ad of previous decades, “I’m not a medical doctor, but I play one on television;” he then urges the audience to purchase a brand of headache tablets.
            We cannot survive as total skeptics.  We need to trust.  The question is, whom do we trust?  In what areas of life:  How far should we go:  Should we prepare to execute our child because God has commanded it as He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis?  As a test?  Or should we refuse such a command?  Which commands accept?  Which refuse?  And how much should we calculate the cost of refusing to obey?
            I do not want to excuse, but surely it is “understandable” how a good Communist might seek to rid the earth of Ukrainian kulak vermin; how a good Nazi might seek to purify the earth by eliminating Jewish vermin; how Ruandan Hutus might seek to destroy the Tutsi cockroaches, how in Bosnia…But if they perform such tortures, such executions, such murders, such mass murders, one hopes they are made to pay the price for such atrocities.
            I did it because I was ordered to do so!  Did you approve of the order?  Disapprove?  Neutral?  If you disapproved, did you resist, in part, in full?  What might be the consequences of your failure to perform your duty?  To you?  To your family?  Friends?
            Some of us have been fortunate to have had basically good parents, basically good friends, and to have lived in a nation that is essentially fair and just.  But just view the terrific 2011 South Korean film “My Way” for a glimpse of the horrible choices afforded two talented men born in the 1920s.  One was forced to fight inside two armies in which he did not believe.  The other had to fight in three.  By contrast, we in the West are most fortunate.  And to retain these basically good choices granted to us, we may even have to struggles against those who have been corrupted, distorted, crippled, by their family, friends, party, ideology, or nation.  Sometimes we must join or act alone to insure that right does make might.

WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE? by Hugh Murray

     This week in Milwaukee the Milw. Public Schools is sponsoring a class on white male privilege.  If one completes it, he will receive college credit for the course.  The class will be held at the Unitarian Church on the East Side.  I went to one of the services at that same church over a decade ago, but believed that, because I am not a liberal, I would soon be in constant conflict if I joined.  I had been quite active in the Unitarian Church in New Orleans in the 1950s and 60s, even teaching in the Sunday School.
     Although the theme of the class is white male privilege, and although I wrote an article "White Male Privilege: A Social Construct for Political Oppression," and although I reside in Milwaukee, no one attempted to contact me.  My article was published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1999, and has been on google's p 1 of p 2 of the subject ever since.  If you read my article, you will soon discover why I am not invited to this class, or to the many university conferences meant to prove that white men have a privilege based on their sex and race.
     Below is part of my article.  The full article may be read on line simply by googling "white male privilege." As education departments and the general academedia complex assumes that white male privilege exists, and  white men should be penalized as a consequence, I urge everyone to read the article in full.  Here it is in part:
      WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE? A SOCIAL

CONSTRUCT FOR POLITICAL OPPRESSION

Hugh Murray

     Each day in America, white males face government-sponsored discrimination. If in high school, the white male may be denied a chance to apply for special programs because he is not a preferred minority, or in some cases, a female. There are scholarships available, but many cannot be awarded to white males. In applying for university, admissions will admit “basically qualified” minorities, but reject better qualified whites. When applying for a job, the same type of discrimination occurs. If the teen finally succeeds in finding employment, special on-the-job training may be denied him in order to guarantee slots for minorities, even if they be lesser qualified, even if they have been on the job for a shorter time. At the firm, he may be subjected to the racial and sexual harassment rituals called “diversity training,” whereby he is supposed to confess guilt to crimes committed before his birth. Yet, at the same time, he must deny his own experience; he must utter not a word about the discrimination he has encountered because he is a white male. His is the discrimination that dare not speak its name; were he to mention it, he would immediately be labeled “racist,” disruptive, and a possible threat to the firm’s good graces with the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and its commissars in his employer’s personnel office. If he tires of such oppression, or if he is fired, or wins a lottery, or somehow scrapes together enough money to begin his own firm, he will be denied even the opportunity to bid on many government contracts simply because he is a white male—those contracts are set-aside for minority or female companies.

     And how is this discrimination justified by our courts, our media, our academia? First, it is ignored. When occasionally the issue surfaces, it is dismissed as an aberration. But on another level, liberals proclaim that in the name of “equal opportunity,” equal opportunity must be denied white males. Before her appointment as Chair of the Civil Rights Commission during President Clinton’s first term, Mary Francis Berry, a black woman, had announced that civil rights do not apply to whites.

     The way liberals interpret and enforce the law, equal opportunity and civil rights are granted to some but denied to others.  Moreover, discrimination against white men is to be encouraged because it is the discrimination to end discrimination; government takes race into account so in future we will not have to take race into account. Such is the sophistry of liberal Supreme Court Justices and Civil Rights bureaucrats! To our governmental, corporate, and academedic elite, the white man deserves to be discriminated against because he is privileged. How did this system come to prevail throughout America?

     It is clear that the answer cannot readily be found in the media, with its liberal bias on race. Just ponder how what I described above has been purposely avoided on the nightly TV news.

Sociological journals have so neglected white male victims of affirmative action that Frederick R. Lynch titled his book on the subject Invisible Victims: White Males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action.1   Historians have distorted the history of the civil rights movement so as to pretend that this racial discrimination IS civil rights.

     In monster movies of the 1950s, scientists combed the countryside with Geiger counters measuring radioactivity; today “civil rights” proponents investigate every institution in America with their “proportional” counters. If blacks, or women, or Asians, or “Native Americans,” or Hispanics do not have their proportional share of jobs, promotions, managers, scholarships, etc., there is an immediate outcry in the media of “racism”; the EEOC, Justice Department, and other agencies swoop in to punish culprits and set quotas under the euphemism “establishing goals and timetables.”

     To understand the incredible injustice of affirmative action, and the cover up of this injustice by the liberal elite, we must look more closely at this policy and the arguments presented to justify it.  How do liberals justify such discrimination? Their theory is based on a number of assumptions. First, all peoples are equally talented in all fields. Liberals modify the Jeffersonian “all men are created equal,” acknowledging differences in intelligence, athletic ability, character, between and among individuals.

     However, they assume that all large groups of people are equally talented in all fields. Women are just as intelligent, and given a chance to prove themselves, just as strong as men (though to maintain this some liberals will redefine strength to emphasize endurance or areas where women may outperform men.) Blacks have already proven themselves on the athletic fields, but given a fair chance, they can be seen as just as intelligent as whites (again, some liberals redefine intelligence to include emotional intelligence or artistic ability to emphasize areas wherein blacks may outperform whites). And so the assumption is made for all large groups—Hispanics, Asians, Amerindians, etc. If all groups are equally talented, then why are white men so dominant in business as CEOs, in government, and in academia? The reason is prejudice, past and present. Because blacks were enslaved, and then denied equal educational and other opportunities during the era of segregation, they could not rise to their proper place in government, medicine, business. Women, too, were oppressed, even being denied the right to vote for President until 1920, and denied equal rights in other areas until quite recently.

     And so with other groups. They lag behind in America today because of their history of oppression—racism, sexism, ethnocentrism. The beneficiaries of this oppression were and are white men. Today, the imperative of justice is to break the historic chain of injustice by ending the historic advantage inherited by white men.  Since all peoples are equal, it follows that in a just society, all peoples, equally talented in all fields, will each have their proportional share of lawyers, doctors, fire chiefs, criminals. But as this is clearly not the case in America today, the aim of justice is to strive for such in society. Thus, it is necessary, and fair, to give preferences to groups that have been excluded or underrepresented in various fields. So if a white teen has a higher score than a black teen from the same high school on an SAT for a scholarship, it is not really discrimination to deny the white that award and give it to the black. It only seems like discrimination; in reality, it is fair and just. 

     After all, why is the black teenager not performing as well as the white on the test? His father may be in jail; his mother on drugs; he may not have been encouraged enough toward academic pursuits. His cultural milieu is the heritage of slavery and segregation. The SAT test, far from measuring the intelligence or academic abilities of the two teens, merely measures the privileges inherited by the white. And so the SAT, the LSAT, the medical exams, nursing exams, teachers exams, and all other objective exams are objective only in highlighting the degree of prejudice experienced by blacks, women, and other minorities.

     Such “objective” exams are thus objectively racist and sexist.  Similarly, police and firefighters exams, even if minorities help construct the tests. Even drug exams are racist because it is natural that more oppressed minorities might be more prone to use illegal substances. Clearly then, seemingly color-blind objective exams are racist; sex-blind objective exams are sexist. The only test, the only exam that should be used is proportionality. Only when the same proportion of women and blacks and Hispanics do as well as whites on an exam is that examination truly free of immediate bias and the effects of past bias. The proportionality exam thus provides the test for discovering bias, the measure of discovering the degree of bias, and the method of overcoming such bias. The proportionality test is the test that tests all other tests. Thus, the white teen and his successor should be denied the scholarship until the black teen, and his successor, have a proportional number attending college, teaching in college, and as CEOs.

     This is the theory that underlies affirmative action (hereafter AA). For example, Barbara Bergmann, an economist, in her widely-publicized,  In Defense of Affirmative Action, presents her case. To her, AA is a matter of conscience, “planning and acting to end the absence of certain kinds of people . . . from certain jobs and schools.” The purposes of AA are to end discrimination, promote integration, and reduce poverty of minority groups. “The heart of an AA plan is its numerical hiring goals, based on an assessment of the availability of qualified minority people and women for each kind of job.” Bergmann acknowledges that AA programs “ do have quota-like aspects,” but she contends that this is the only method to get qualified women and minorities into jobs, for without AA they would be rejected.

     One of her points is that not only is AA necessary to redress the wrongs of slavery and segregation in the past, but that in today’s job market there is considerable racist and sexist discrimination proved by her charts showing continued racial and sexual segregation in employment. Furthermore, the wage gap continues to exist between white men and black men, white men and women.  Because “a majority of Americans desire to live in a country that is fair,”  the only method to overcome such discrimination is by continuing and intensifying affirmative action. Bergmann does consider alternatives to AA, such as a program based on economic need rather than race, but as most of the poor are whites, they might overwhelm such programs unless there were quotas and set-asides established for poor blacks. So Bergmann concludes, the present system is the best.

     Bergmann opens her book by commending President Clinton for his desire to choose a Cabinet “that looks like America,” shortly after his first election. But, which group was most overrepresented in the Cabinet by the end of Clinton’s first term? Is it the privileged white males, villains of Bergmann’s book and liberal ideology? Of the 14 members of his Cabinet in the summer and fall of 1996, eight were white men. As whites are about 76% of the national population, those eight white men and two white women compose approximately the “fair share” Bergmann would allot to whites. But white men are 57% of the Cabinet, far more than their 38% of the population. Again, just looking at the Cabinet, one can encounter white male privilege! Bergmann seems correct. But look closer. Four of those white males are Jewish. So white male gentiles, who compose about 37% of the population, form only 28% of the Cabinet—they are underrepresented. Yet, Jewish males, some 1% of the population, compose another 28% of the cabinet. And, because Jews are so vastly overrepresented, the underrepresented white male gentiles are branded by liberal Jews as the “privileged” group!

     Bergmann and the other liberals distort the picture of America through their misuse of statistics. Thus, gentile white males are called “overrepresented” and deemed worthy of being discriminated against, when they may indeed be underrepresented and, by the liberals’ own standards, “deserving of affirmative action.” But white male gentiles are denied any aid because liberals consciously ignore them in their statistics by including with them the overwhelming overrepresentation of Jews! Liberals seek to camouflage the overrepresentation of Jews by pointing the finger at alleged “white male privilege.” But what is true in Clinton’s Cabinet is true in medical schools and law schools and other elite areas. No wonder, Bergmann can declare, “we no longer have a ‘Jewish seat’ on the Supreme Court because it is no longer needed.”  Of course not! The reason: of the nine justices, two are now Jews. So representatives of 2% of the population compose 22% of the highest court of the land. Bergmann does not complain about this “unfair” proportion. (Since this article was published, Jews now have yet another seat on the Supreme Court, so that 2% of the population has 33% of the High Court.)  Similarly, when Mrs. Bergmann complains about so few women and minorities in the United States Senate as an illustration of discrimination, she neglects to mention Wisconsin, where both Senators are Jewish men. Thus, less than 1% of the state’s population provides 100% of its Senators. True, Bergmann might complain, but only because it is an all-male delegation. Then, consider California’s Senators—two female Jews. No complaint from Mrs. Bergmann. She is from the most privileged, the most over-represented group in America. Yet, she diverts attention by decrying the overrepresentation of white males, even declaring white male waiters in restaurants privileged, though they serve her!

     Mrs. Bergmann’s statistics are aimed at obfuscating and distorting. She seeks to portray all white men as privileged because some are overrepresented in profitable enterprises. And because of this “privilege,” preferences must be granted to all those who are not white men. But the group most overrepresented is NOT white men, it is Jews. Even economically, the gap between whites and blacks is NOT as great as that between Jews and gentiles.

     So, if Bergmann is accurate that the purpose of AA is to narrow the economic gap between blacks and whites, how much greater the necessity for AA on behalf of gentiles to narrow the ever wider economic gap between Jews and gentiles? If Bergmann were to reply that this is beyond the scope of the Civil Rights Act, she is wrong. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on religion as well as any based on race, sex, or ethnic origin. Bergmann, the EEOC, and the civil rights lobby all stress that the individual is less important than the statistical aggregate in exposing “discrimination”; that statistics are the method of revealing what is wrong in the work place, and, with, AA (quotas) goals, and timetables, providing the best means of overcoming the discrimination proved by the numbers. Then, by her own system of determining discrimination, it is clear that Jews are the most overrepresented group in the most lucrative positions in the nation. Furthermore, the average income of Jews is sufficiently higher than gentiles to exhibit a massive economic gap. Why does not Mrs. Bergmann include this among her statistics? After all, she is an economist.

     Bluntly, the proportional test, the liberals’ test of all tests, when applied to the religious clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, shows Jews to be the most privileged and oppressive people in America. The favorite test of liberals reveals white men to be less privileged than Jews. Why does not the New York Times, the EEOC, the television networks, report that statistic? The media is silent on Jewish privilege. But if the media began to expose “Jewish privilege” and demanded preferences for gentiles until they had received their “fair share” of important posts, there would be immediate denunciations of the media’s bigotry.

     However, the media and government are even more bigoted when they denounce white male privilege and demand preferences for women and minorities. Yet, few denounce this bigotry. 

     Either the liberals’ proportionality test is valid, in which case Jews are the most privileged and oppressive people in America, or the proportionality test is flawed, providing bizarre results, and should not be used to allege white male privilege. Nor should that test be used to undermine the SAT, the LSAT, the medical tests, the police exams.

     Concisely, here is the liberals’ dilemma—either white male privilege is a myth and AA, erected upon the myth, should be demolished; or, if white men are privileged, then Jews are even more so. And if, because of white male privilege, AA is essential to aid underrepresented minorities and women (the majority) until they have achieved their “fair share” (quota) of lucrative rewards in society, then because of Jewish privilege, all the more reason to institute AA to aid underrepresented gentiles (again, the majority) until they have achieved their “fair share” of lucrative rewards in society.

For the full article and the footnotes, you can read it on line by googling my name and “white male privilege.

January 2013 Comments: Berlusconi, Mussolini, China's One Child...

·  Berlusconi defends Mussolini, draws outrage from political left

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Hugh Murray

One only need read Jonah Goldberg's book on Liberal Fascism to see all the Western leaders who praised Mussolini in the 1920s and 30s, including Winston Churchill and many stars of the Left. Some of the leaders of the Fascist Party in the 20s were Jews. Only after the alliance with Hitler did Italy begin to impose racial laws against Jews. Read Jonah Goldberg for comments more favorable to the Duce than Berlosconi's, and uttered by liberals and progressives.

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Repeat Offender  •  3 hrs ago Report Abuse

Goldberg is a bit nuts. In his book, "Liberal Fascism" he calls the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton "fascist"

Liberals in the 1920's worked to get women the right to vote, while people like Hitler and Mussolini believed they should raise children, stay in the kitchen, and go to church, hence the Nazi slogan: "Kinder, Kirche, und Kuche" (Children, Church, and Kitchen). Liberals also opposed racism and militarism.

Any intersection of values or policies between liberals and fascists was scant and short-lived, at best. The #$%$ held strongly rightwing beliefs: nationalism, militarism, and corporatism.

In the 1920s and more in the 1930s when women fought for "equal rights," they were more likely to be Republicans.  The liberals always favored "protection" for women, even in sports.  Competition was bad for women, according to liberals, and they sought to change sport competitions into more fun, less competitive displays.  Liberal labor views, even with Sec. Perkins in FDR's Cabinet, was more to get men to have a wage sufficient enough for him to support his family.  And there was nothing against the church in the New Deal.  Big government and monuments and the art that accompanied them seem almost identical in the US, Germany, Italy, and the USSR - exceptions, the postal murals in the US.

Big government, socialism, was an attribute of all in the 30s.  Nationalism was certainly part of the package, even in the US.  And FDR in his first 2 terms certainly did not disturb segregation and racism in the South or elsewhere in the US.  The NRA was big government joined with the big corporations to crush the small business.  Corporatism.

Liberals generally admired Mussolini in the 20s and 30s up to his attack on Abbysinia, and some even after that.

·  Wis. sheriff urges residents to get gun training

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Hugh Murray

How lucky I am to reside in Milwaukee County. Despite the pro-crime policies of the Democrat Mayor Barrett (he ran against GOP Gov. Walker, and lost, twice in the past few years) and Chief of Police Flynn, Sheriff Clarke, a Black Democrat has a sensible view. Barrett and Flynn lead the anti-gun, pro-crime crowd. Sheriff Clarke is a reasonable Democrat, willing to disagree with the liberals who seek to disarm the honest citizens and let the criminals run wild and free.

·  What's Behind the GOP's Fixation on Benghazi?

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Hugh Murray  

Hillary assured relatives of the murdered Americans in Benghazi that the maker of the video would be arrested. She and Obama were in an advert in Pakistan stressing the horrible nature of the video. They lied to the American people and the world about the video, blaming free speech in America for acts of Muslim terrorists.
Hillary and Obama cheered the Arab Spring, which is a continuing disaster. They assured us that fanatical Muslim Morsi, who is now Pres. of Egypt, and his Muslim Brotherhood were moderate. Morsi calls the Israelis descendants of apes and pigs.
The Obama/Hillary foreign policy is leading the world to war. Their pro-Muslim policies have encouraged the terrorists - to the killers in Algeria and Mali in the past few days.
Americans have made a terrible mistake by reelecting Obama and his pro-Muslim, even pro-fanatical Muslim, policies.

·  High school senior comes out as LGBT while accepting award

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Hugh Murray  

Being gay IS normal. It is as normal as being left-handed rather than right-handed. Why are there gays? Why are there lefties? Prejudice against left-handers once deemed them sinister. Prejudice against gays considers them sinners. It is the same absurd prejudice.

·  King 'content of character' quote inspires debate

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Hugh Murra

King's speech was part of the movement of the early 60s to end discrimination, to treat people without regard to race, creed, or color. That was one of the slogans of the era. King was in DC to promote a civil rights bill. That bill created an equal opportunity commission - NOT a commission to grant preferences to this pet group or that.
Nixon made affirmative action a national policy, and too many Republicans refuse to repudiate this outrageous discrimination against poor and middle class whites.
Giving scholarships to poor performing Blacks and denying them to better qualified whites is racial discrimination. It is racist.
And if we have illegal alien amnesty, most illegals jump to the front of the immigration line, AND to the front of the employment line because of affirmative action.
Why should an illegal have affirmative action preferences over an American citizen?
Nixon, the EEOC, and the Democrats have created a nightmare from King's dream.
Obama gave many speeches about how we should all play by the same rules. Affirmative action insures that we DO NOT play by the same rules; preferences for this group, more preferences for that group; and ignore and humiliate white men.
For a just society, we must destroy affirmative action.

·  Actress-turned-activist Eva Longoria says Republicans have reasons to back immigration deal

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Hugh Murray  •  7 days ago Remove

How nice for a Democratic activist to give free advice to Republicans! If the Republicans ever want to win, they should not cave to the illegals and the supporters of invasion. They should demand equal rights for all citizens, and an end to affirmative action that insures that we do NOT play by the same rules. If illegals get amnesty, they will get a-a preferences over most American citizens, in college admissions, scholarships, jobs, promotions, etc. It is outrageously unfair.
Of course, one expects such injustice from the Democrats. But keep your destructive advice to yourself.
The GOP should be the party of equal rights for all citizens. Unfortunately, 7 of 8 Hispanics voted against equal rights. That is not the fault of the GOP - it shows the selfishness of most Hispanic voters.

·  Egypt: Ton of explosives seized on way to Sinai

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Hugh Murray  •  7 days ago Remove

Obama's Arab Spring - more persecution of Christians in Egypt in the past few days, and tons of weapons on way to attack Israel, Israel is a nation composed of descendants of apes and pigs, according to Egyptian Pres. Morsi, This Middle Eastern nightmare is in part the result of Hillary's policies and those of her boss.
All thanks to Barack Hussein Obama!

·  The 'Undesirable Impact' of China's One Child Policy

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Hugh Murray  •  11 days ago Remove

If there are fewer workers entering the work place, wages may have to rise - and that is an economic effect of the policy. Some of the effects, I question. Many pupils attend boarding schools, where they have several room mates, who become like brothers and sisters. At university, they will have 7 other roommates for the full 4 years. Again, they may become like brothers and sisters, trusting, etc.
In the rural areas, the 1-child policy was not adopted, so there were usually two children.
"Oppressed" minorities were allowed to have as many children as they wanted. The leader of the terrorist Muslim Uigers had 8 children. China would do better by abolishing its affirmative action policies for ungrateful minorities.

THE NARROWNESS OF ACADEMIC HISTORY

FDR, DEWEY AND THE ELECTION OF 1944

BY DAVID M. JORDAN (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana U. Press, c2011)

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            Jordan concludes his book reflecting “on a particularly nasty election campaign, caused,…,by…Republicans’ lack of real issues (hence the…Communism emphasis)….”(p. 331)  I disagree.  It was a nasty campaign BECAUSE there were real issues that separated Republicans and Democrats, and one issue rightly concerned communism.

            In January 1944 in a radio address President Franklin Roosevelt basically read his State of the Union message to the nation, and also to allay fears about secret arrangements at recent international meetings in Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran, asserted “there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments.”(66)  October 8, 1944, during a Polish parade in New York City, and with only a month before the presidential election, New York Gov. Dewey denounced FDR’s secret deals concerning the future of Poland.(261)  Three days later President Roosevelt met with Polish Americans to assure them there would be no (Soviet) puppet government established in Poland nor would there be major population transfers.  Who was more accurate, Dewey with his wild, anti-Communist charges, or FDR with his platitudes?  Was this not a “real” issue?  Recall, WWII began as a defense of the Polish nation.

            Somewhat like John Dos Passos’ USA, Jordan punctuates his narrative with short snapshots of the culture of the time: Tallulah Bankhead in the Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat, Broadway singing homage to “Oklahoma,” bobby soxers screaming for Frank Sinatra, Count Fleet winning the Triple Crown, and the flight of Walt Disney’s Dumbo.  Yet, for contrast, Jordan should have included the 1943 film, Mission to Moscow, based on the diaries of FDR’s first Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies.  True, the USSR and the USA were then allies.  But the film stresses the superb leadership of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and it concludes that those executed in the purge trials were indeed traitors, a view challenged at the time by most knowledgeable observers, and one exposed as fraud by Khrushchev in his famous speech of the 1950s.  The movie was such propaganda for the Soviets that during the Cold War, Congress would use this as an example of Communist influence in Hollywood.  Yet, the film was based on the book by FDR’s appointed ambassador.  If it were simply Communist propaganda, what does that indicate about the Ambassador and the man who appointed him?  In 1950 Hollywood mogul Jack Warner testified, telling Congressmen that he had been requested to make the film by Davies and by Roosevelt.  Hollywood produced several films, like North Star, depicting the happy collective farmers of the Ukraine who undergo a terrible sneak attack by the Germans in 1941.  The latter part is true, but the film says nothing of the unhappy Ukrainians who starved by the millions a decade earlier as a consequence of Stalin’s policies.

            How could anyone associate President Roosevelt with Communism?  In his State of the Union speech of January 1944, he introduced his Economic Bill of Rights.  I quote Jordan:  “Roosevelt enumerated these rights: the ‘right to a useful and remunerative job’ to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation; the right of the farmer to sell his produce for a decent living; the right of businessmen large and small to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and monopolies; the ’right of every family to a decent home’; the right to adequate medical care and good health; the right to ‘protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment’; and the ‘right to a good education.’”(66) 

Even in today’s America, these are radical proposals.  “The right to a decent home?”  To achieve this goal the federal government pressured banks to lower their standards in making loans to purchase housing, basically awarding homes to those who could not pay for them.  When the bubble burst in 2008 the right to decent housing was exposed as a right that required the ability to repay loans.  The US government and the world economies are still suffering because of the liberal attempts to establish this right for poor credit risks.  Moreover, the struggle over Hillary Care in the 1990s and Obama Care in 2010 indicate that many Americans are suspicious of government intrusion in the health industry, even if to establish a right to adequate medical care and good health.  FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights did not make him a Communist, but it did demonstrate that his policies were radical, far more radical than the programs of the Republicans.  There were real issues separating the parties.

The differences can be illustrated again by another issue altogether absent from Jordan’s history, Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9250.  Jordan discusses taxes in his text, and relates an important speech by Ken. Sen. Alben Barkley criticizing President Roosevelt.(73)  Yet, in that Executive Order Roosevelt proposed a tax on all salaries over $25,000.  Basically any earnings above $25,000 were to be taxed at 100%, in effect making a cap on earnings at 25K.  Above that, there would be a confiscatory tax.  Admittedly, there were certain qualifications in the Order, such as regarding life insurance, yet it was a proposal.  Because it was related to a law that was set to expire in 1944, this Order was never enforced.  Yet, it shows the thinking of the President, and how radical it was.  A salary cap of $25K!  And though that amount was worth more than 10 times the amount in today’s dollars, we know that when taxes are initiated with a stated amount, that amount seldom increases as fast as the inflation rate.  Had FDR’s Executive Order been enforced and extended, the US would be a more socialist nation.  But Jordan never mentions this.  He fails to see the major differences between the GOP and the Democrats in 1944.

Because Jordan dismisses the major issues separating Dewey and FDR in 1944, he sees it as a nasty campaign in which the GOP used the Communist issue because it had no real issues.  Jordan does indeed provide many examples of how Gov. Dewey, and especially his running mate, Gov. Bricker used anti-Communism in the campaign.(237, 238, 239, 242, 244, 253, 266, 280, and many more).  Although Roosevelt was engaged in the conduct of the war, he also did some campaigning, and he responded to his critics on the Communist issue in a radio speech on October 5.  “Labor-haters, bigots, and some politicians use the term ‘Communism’ loosely, and apply it to every progressive social measure and to the virtues of every foreign-born citizen with whom they disagree…This form of fear propaganda is not new among rabble rousers and fomenters of class hatred—who seek to destroy democracy itself.  It is used by Mussolini’s black shirts and by Hitler’s brown shirts.  It has been used before in this country by the silver shirts and others on the lunatic fringe.  …I have never sought, and I do not welcome the support of any person or group committed to Communism, or Fascism, or any other foreign ideology which would undermine the American system of government, of the American system of free enterprise and private property.”(252)

Not only did the Communists indirectly support FDR and the Democrats, there were those with pro-Communist views inside the Roosevelt Administration (like former Ambassador Davies), AND there were Soviet spies.  The Manhattan Project was developing the A-bomb for the United States, but members of this project, like the young Theodore Hall (Holtzberg), were passing those secrets on to the Rosenbergs or other couriers so the bomb could be developed for Stalin; in the Dept. of State some “experts” were already undermining the official government of Chiang Kai-Shek in China, demanding that he conclude a deadly alliance with Mao and the Communists; and others like Alger Hiss, who by not providing FDR information at Yalta allowed a large Japanese island to be assigned to the Soviets when the war had concluded.  If one thinks I have exaggerated, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in a speech of January 2012 openly gave thanks to the atomic spies who helped arm the Soviets.  He declared they delivered suitcases full of secrets.  And then he emphasized suitcases full!

One issue Dewey did not raise, and this is discussed only slightly in Jordan’s book, was the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December 1941.(240)  Was the surprise attack a surprise?  An officer leaked to Dewey the charge that Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack because the US had broken their code.  When Gen George Marshall heard what Dewey might do, he wrote to the Republican candidate, asking that he not make this an issue because the Japanese were still using that code, and Americans were still deciphering it to aid Allied movements.  Dewey suspected that the Japs were no longer using the code, and moreover, several media outlets had already stated that the US had broken the code.  Nevertheless, Dewey did not accuse FDR of knowing prior to the “sneak” attack on Pearl Harbor.  The charge of FDR’s duplicity in the attack has been made through the years – most recently and effectively by Robert Stinnett in his 2001 book claiming that the day of infamy was in reality a Day of Deceit.  The History Channel produced a program based on this work.  The point is that in the election following to the Pearl Harbor losses, the American voter had no opportunity to vote on the disputed claims concerning Roosevelt’s role in Pearl Harbor.  

              With Jordan’s omissions of all these important issues – before the public, or suspected behind the scenes, then what is left to report in his book?  The remnants, the scraps, and the scrapes.  Admittedly, Jordan weaves a fine story from the leftovers.

            Republicans had high hopes in 1944 because they had performed so well in the off-year elections of 1942 and 1943.  By January 1944 some 26 of the 48 governors were Republicans, including those of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and even Kentucky.(22)  Most of the Democratic governors presided in the Southern states – in the North the GOP led 26 to 12.  Moreover, the Republican-governed states cast 339 electoral votes; the Democratic states, 192.

            The chief asset of Jordan’s book is making clear that many believed the Republicans did have a chance to defeat the Democrats in 1944.  He makes the horse race interesting and exciting.

            Who would the candidates be?  The Republican front-runners of 1940, New York Attorney General Thomas Dewey, Michigan Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, and Ohio Sen. Robert Taft fell victim to the Nazi blitz that swept western Europe in spring/summer 1940.  A gangbusters DA, or rather isolationist senators seemed poor choices to many internationalists once Hitler’s troops marched beneath the Eiffel Tower.  The GOP’s convention galleries were packed with interventionists shouting “We Want Willkie!” Wendell Willkie, a Democrat just turned Republican who was critical of Roosevelt, a Wall Street attorney, and an internationalist.  The delegates yielded to the enthusiasm of the balconies and nominated Willkie.  Meanwhile, the Democrats nominated FDR for an unprecedented third term.  Roosevelt dumped his vice-president, Texan John Garner, and demanded his running mate be the Sec. of Agriculture, Iowan Henry Wallace.

            Many isolationists were not happy about either choice in the election.  Similarly, the far left, the Communists were opposed to any aid for the imperialist powers (the UK, or the defeated France, etc.) and determined to keep the US out of war.  (Of course, that would change in summer 1941 when Hitler broke the non-aggression pact with Stalin and began a massive attack on the Soviet Union.)  Willkie did not win, he cut the Republican voter deficit from 11 million in 1936 to 5.5 million in 1940.  After the off-year elections, many Republicans believed that 1944 would be their year.

            Willkie had been the titular leader of the Republicans, but his internationalism and other views made him anathema to many members of the party.  One example, Willkie in his campaign for the nomination proclaimed that taxes were too low, thus shifting the day’s burdens on to the next generation.  Also, Willkie had made an international fact-finding tour at the behest of President Roosevelt.  To some Republicans, Willkie was still a Democrat.  Could he win the nomination once again?  There were many fewer presidential primaries in 1944 than today.  Willkie targeted Wisconsin – what some viewed as the most isolationist state in the nation.(85)  If he could do well there, he could do well with Republicans anywhere.  He campaigned heavily in the state, one in which Democrats might vote in the GOP primary.  Dewey pretended he would not run, but might be drafted, and so did not campaign.  Gov. Stassen was in the service, while Gen. Douglas MacArthur was busy in the Pacific.  The Wisconsin primary results were decisive: Dewey 40%, MacArthur 24%, Stassen 20%, and Willkie 16%.(90)  Willkie failed to win a single delegate, and the following night withdrew from the contest for the nomination.

            Dewey continued as front-runner, and the Republican convention in Philadelphia was dull as everyone assumed they knew the result.  Another important item omitted by Jordan were the Zionists, especially Benzion Netanyahu, father of Benjamin, who persuaded Dewey and other Republican leaders to include a plank in support of a Jewish state in the Middle East.  Some allege that this forced the Democrats to also support a Zionist state.  However, the GOP platform had strong civil rights planks calling for a permanent FEPC, etc., but this did not force the Democrats to adopt a similar platform on Black civil rights.  Jordan acknowledged the Democrats waffled on civil rights issues.  One surprise was the choice for Vice President.  Most thought it would go to California Gov. Earl Warren, but Warren believed chances would be better in 1948, and asked not to be named.  So Dewey, the nominee, selected his conservative rival for the nomination, Ohio’s Gov. John Bricker.  One of their slogans: End the War quicker with Dewey and Bricker!

            Though some feared FDR’s health might preclude another run for office, his long-term doctor (whom Roosevelt had promoted to Admiral and Surgeon General) assured reporters that the President was in good health.  And for the Democrats, the question was, if not FDR, then who?  There seemed to be no other candidate with whom they could win in November.  But what if?  Should VP Henry Wallace continue in that office?  He had the support of the Left Wing, unions, and minorities, but he was hated by big-city bosses and most Southern politicians.

            Jordan is excellent at exposing the duplicitous role played by FDR, assuring Wallace he favored him, then urging South Carolinian and acting president on many issues, James Byrnes, to run for the nomination, then pushing Sen. Alben Barkley to do the same, and even encouraging others to join the fray.  Byrnes, who had resigned a Supreme Court seat, to manage many domestic issues so FDR could concentrate on the war, was opposed by Blacks who did not want a Southerner to come to power, and by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who resented his leaving the church to become a Protestant.  In a last minute desperate effort to mollify some Democratic bosses, Byrnes told them he could accept a permanent FEPC, but by then the bosses were looking elsewhere.  Kentucky Sen. Barkley was also deemed to Southern by labor and Black groups.  Byrnes thought he was the choice, but Roosevelt, while promising support, told leaders to first “clear it with Sidney” Hillman, leader of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, who had worked in his union with Communist organizers, who was a member of the popular-front American Labor Party in New York, and who led the CIO’s Political Action Committee.  Although Hillman clearly preferred Wallace, he would reject both Byrnes and Barkley, but he could accept Missouri Sen. Harry Truman.  The jilted Byrnes would leak the “clear it with Sidney” statement to the press (203), and it would become part of rhetoric of the Republican campaign, proving how radical left-wingers dominated the Democratic Party.

            The Democratic convention renominated Roosevelt for the top spot.  Although the Left packed the galleries one night, hoping to Willkie the convention to renominate Henry Wallace, the party bosses that night delayed the roll calls for the nomination.  Next day, security prevented many laborites from swelling the galleries and the floor.  On the first ballot Wallace led with 429.5, followed by Truman with 319.5, and others, but 589 were required for the nomination.  The second ballot, many favorites sons released their delegates, and the Truman stampede was on.  The ticket would be Roosevelt and Truman.

While Dewey attacked the inefficiency of the Democrats and their huge bureaucracy, FDR could joke about it.  If his Administration were so incompetent, how come the Allies are winning the war?  Ask Hitler if we are inefficient?  Ask Mussolini or Tojo.  American economic might and American fighting men were winning on ever more fronts against a shrinking Axis.  There were annoying ration cards for sugar, meat, gasoline, but this was a small price to pay. 

            Jordan writes that few Americans were aware that Japanese had been interned in camps – or that German and Italian nationals had also been rounded up.  But perhaps Jordan himself is unaware of the latter as he makes no mention of it.  Indeed, Jordan is silent on the curtailing of civil liberties under FDR;  Father Coughlin had been silenced and his National Union for Social Justice crippled by postal authorities.  Although FDR pardoned Communist leader Earl Browder, FDR’s Administration, with the support of the Communists, prosecuted strikers who were Trotskyists for violation of the Smith Act.  On the other hand, there was an election during a major war, and there was criticism of the incumbents; but there were narrower limits to permitted criticism.

            By autumn 1944 unemployment was a bad memory and labor shortages encouraged women into the workplace as never before.  The Allies were closing the pincers round a losing Axis.  The depression was over and victory in war was visible.  When the votes were counted in November 1944, Roosevelt won by more than 3 million.  It was the last time that the Democrats carried every Southern state.  Because men were at war, it may have been the first election in which more women than men voted.  Turnout was higher than anticipated, but still quite low in Southern states with the poll tax and other restrictions.  Though the GOP platform was far more explicit that the Democratic on protecting rights of Blacks, and even though Dewey had the support of Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American, and the N.Y. Amsterdam News (268), even though Gov. Dewey had enacted New York’s state FEPC, the first such in the nation, FDR won some 68% of the Black vote.

            In January 1945 Roosevelt began his 4^th term as President, and in April he died.  Harry Truman was sworn in as President.  Only then did an  Administration insider inform him about the A-bomb.  Soon after, at a Big-3 conference in Potsdam, Truman told Stalin something about the new weapon the Americans had developed.  Had he wanted, Stalin could have told Truman even more about the American bomb!  Suitcases full!

            The 1944 election was one in which the parties differed sharply on many issues.  Jordan’s book is a good read on popular issues, on the lighter aspects of the campaign.  But his book avoids the many darker issues that troubled America then, and later.        

JFK ASSASSINATION - a few comments

   First, I watched the History Channel program on the Presidents, about 8 hours.  This is a thumbnail sketch beginning with George Washington and going up to Obama, from the point of academics - that is liberals who identify with the Democratic Party.  Generally boring, and I was doing other things while watching.  One thing caught my attention - one historian mentioned that when he was in school in Miami in 1963, when the principal announced the shooting of Kennedy on the loud speaker, the historian said about half the pupils cheered.  This happened in New Orleans too.  Probably in much of the South.  But it is almost never reported.  The official liberal line is that JFK was loved.  No one could applaud his murder.  But they did.  It has been erased from history by the love-JFK, respect the President censors.
     Also of interest, a few days ago the son of Robert Kennedy announced that his father, bro of JFK, and Attorney General at the time, did not believe Oswald did it alone.  The nephew of JFK when asked about possible conspirators, added to the list, "rogue CIA agents."  Too bad RFK kept his doubt about the official line on the assassination to his family and did not demand a real probe, instead of the Warren Report.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS - OBAMA'S ON GUNS, FDR'S ON SALARIES

By Hugh Murray

     There is now speculation that Pres. Obama will issue an Executive Order to restrict gun sales and thereby avoid amending the American Constitution, and avoid Congressional opposition.
     One should stress that not all radical Executive Orders fulfill their purpose.  For example, in 1942 another extremely radical American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an Executive Order.  Below is how wikipedia describes it:   
    "He [FDR] also issued Executive Order 9250 in October 1942, later to be rescinded by Congress, which raised the marginal tax rate for salaries exceeding $25,000 (after tax) to 100%, thereby limiting salaries to $25,000...^{"
     So in FDR's America, no one was to earn more than $25,000!  Or if you earned more than that, there would be a tax of 100% on earnings above 25k.  Not only did FDR's government have Communist spies at the time, but he was pushing far-left policies for America.  Happily, Congress prevented the implementation of FDR's confiscatory Executive Order, and today many Americans are happy to earn more than $25,000 a year.
     One hopes that Congress will prevent any implementation of Obama's attempt to defy the Constitution and implement gun control through Executive Order.  If FDR's socialist program of a salary cap could be defeated during WWII, Obama's socialist program on guns can be defeated today.
     Would you favor reintroduction of FDR's Executive Order limiting salaries to $25,000?}

GUN CONTROL COMPROMISE? A MODEST SOLUTION----------------by Hugh Murray

            First the shooting at a school in Connecticut, and then the ambush of firefighters in upstate New York has provided the anti-gun lobby with ammunition to demand restrictions on guns.  President Obama, Democrat Sen. Feinstein, and the media have all heightened their hatred of the American Constitution and the 2^nd Amendment, demanding more restrictions on guns, or banning of guns altogether.

            Let us look more closely at the issue.  In New York, the murderous William Spengler had been convicted years ago for killing his grandmother with a hammer.  Why was he not executed then?  LIBERALISM!  He was a vicious murderer, yet he was allowed to live of the taxpayers for 18 years in jail.  When he got out, he went to murder again.  And did so.

            The media stresses that Spengler used weapons like those used in the school shooting in Connecticut.  But had the federals enforced the law already on the books, he should never have had any weapons.  But more is involved.  He had killed.  Why was he not executed?  If you say he was crazy when he killed his grandmother with a hammer, is that really an excuse?  If he were insane, if he were an insane murderer, all the more reason to execute him.  Justice, Dike, is portrayed as a women wearing a blindfold, holding a scale and a sword.  Justice should be blind.  And justice should be equal – if you take a life, you forfeit your own.  Spengler should have been executed after killing his grandmother.  The liberal sickness that infects the justice system prevented Spengler’s execution.  Reform him.  Pay for his incarceration for 18 years.  And the result of the liberal approach – Spengler comes out shooting, killing innocent firefighters trying to save homes and citizens.  GUNS WERE NOT THE PROBLEM.  KEEPING  THE MURDERER ALIVE SO HE COULD KILL AGAIN: THAT WAS THE PROBLEM.  Just a few days ago in Wisconsin, a convicted murderer attacked a prison guard, and the prison was in lock down.  Had the murderer been executed, the guard might not have suffered. 

            The Connecticut school shooting is different.  A nut case went ballistic.  About 20 murdered.  One hopes the killer will be executed so he cannot return to his forte.  But others have pointed out that last year in gun-control Chicago, some 400 school-age teens have been killed by guns.  But guns are outlawed there.  Yet more were killed in Chicago than in the Connecticut massacre.  One notices it less because the media do not highlight the problems in liberal urbania.

            Many Americans favor the right to own a weapon.  Others vehemently oppose.  Perhaps we might find an area of compromise.  Democrats generally favor gun restrictions; Republicans demand the right to own them.  A compromise might be this: Republicans can continue to purchase and carry guns, while Democrats would lose that right.  As most violent criminals are Democrats, this might well reduce the crime rate.  The Feds might use this law to end the crime-havens like Detroit, placing all Democrats with guns in federal penitentiaries.  The law would have little effect upon Republicans, who are mostly law-abiding anyway. 

              Disarm the criminals in the Black ghettos, and the hoods may become more livable for all the Blacks who reside there.  But that is the last thing the Democrats want to do.  Instead, they seek to disarm law-abiding America so that the criminals can “redistribute the wealth.”  The Democrats, with the trial lawyers organizations behind them, want soft verdicts for criminals.  They opposed the death penalty, and all harsh penalties.  They really do not want penalties: just rehabilitation, re-education, apologies.  But do not punish.  And so crime is so high in America, especially in areas controlled by Democrats.

            Generally, the Democrats are the party of the criminals and pro-crime groups, the lumpen poor and the super rich, the ideological Left, and the illegal aliens. And the welfare crowd.  Sadly, Obama demonstrated that this pro-crime coalition can win a majority of the American voters.  Those who abide by the law, who support the US Constitution, who seek to punish the guilty, we are in the minority now.  But perhaps a compromise is possible.  Outlaw guns for Democrats!  Ban guns in the hands of Democrats; keep them in the hands of Republicans.  Then America can move to a safer, saner future.----------Hugh Murray