Kingdom Come

In modern times “prophets” are commonly thought of as religious figures, but at the time that this prophecy was made religion and socio-politics  were inseparable, and we need to apply that understanding to the reprise of this oft-repeated refrain.

Americans still backed the redistribution of wealth from humanitarian aid to defense because the mass murder of WWII was more than doubled by the human toll of twentieth-century socialism by false prophets Lenin and Mao, estimated to be about 200 million killed worldwide, even though not in a war against foreigners, but domestic purges of “enemies of the state” during state-organized famines,  purges, collectivization, cultural revolutions, campaigns against “unearned” income, and other devilish experiments in social engineering.

In its monstrosity, this terror is unrivaled in the course of human history.

Among recent books on Nazism, the one that may prove most disquieting for American readers is James Q. Whitman’s “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law” (Princeton)…Whitman methodically explores how the Nazis took inspiration from American racism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He notes that, in “Mein Kampf,” Hitler praises America as the one state that has made progress toward a primarily racial conception of citizenship, by “excluding certain races.”  

In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called “progressives” fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton’s eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind–and less or none of everyone else.

Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called “defective” family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior–the so-called “unfit.” The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. 

With their money and social connections, eugenic ideas were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies”.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.

Of the eighteen eugenic solutions explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 “Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder’s Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population.” Point eight was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a “lethal chamber” or public locally operated gas chambers.

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows resulting in a thirty to forty percent annual death rates. Some doctors practiced lethal neglect, especially on newborns with birth defects.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. 

Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes’s words in their own defense.

During the ’20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany’s fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. “There is today one state,” wrote Hitler, “in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”

As well as lots of other destructive social movements.

• in the early 1900s the new woman, the Gibson Girl embodied the ideal look and styles of American girls at the turn of the century. Often depicted as independent and active in sporting and social activities, the Gibson Girl reinvented womanhood and left a profound influence on society and how it viewed women and laid strong foundations for the emerging flapper thereafter as the momentum of change and breaking free from tradition took root.
• In the 1920s a new breed of women sent shockwaves across conservative American society. Flappers adopted a Garconne or little boy look by bobbing their hair and adopting a style of straight-line dress that flattened the chest and eliminated the curves of waist and hips, and shortened the hem. The effect was to copy the look of young boys – who still wore dresses at this time – with the gaudy embellishment of their dresses to create androgyny. Hello! Expressing the androgyny of the evil spirits through their look as well as their lifestyle characterized by cigarette smoking, drinking, dancing, casual sex, and a lack of care for social norms. While a flapper girl is best remembered as an icon of the Roaring Twenties in the United States, she has also existed in many parts of the world, far beyond the Western hemisphere and Europe. There was a universal desire for independence and freedom to embrace one’s sexuality, as well as a modernized interpretation of societal and gender norms.
• The first wave of feminism is believed to have started around 1848 in the United States and Europe, growing out of the anti-slavery movement, primarily advocating for women’s right to vote, which was won in the 1920’s. When reproductive rights later became a significant issue for women Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1924, leading to the deaths of millions of pre-born humans.
• The second wave feminism 1963-1980 AKA “women’s liberation” grew out of the civil rights movement and called for a reevaluation of traditional gender roles in society and an end to sexist discrimination. High points included passage of the Equal Pay Act and Roe v. Wade (1973) related to reproductive freedom. The Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 fell short of the number of states needed for ratification.
• In 1992, embracing the spirit of rebellion instead of reform, third-wave feminists encouraged women to express their sexuality and individuality. “Riot grrl” groups like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy brought their brand of feminism into pop music, including songs that addressed issues of sexism, patriarchy, abuse, racism and rape.
• Fourth wave feminism is a new type of social media-fueled activism with the emergence of the Internet. The #MeToo movement took off in 2017 in the wake of revelations about the sexual misconduct of influential film producer Harvey Weinstein. In addition to holding powerful men accountable for their actions, fourth-wave feminists are turning their attention to the systems that allow such misconduct to occur.
• From the Future is Female logo, to the empowering #MeToo movement, to women taking to the streets yelling, “This pussy grabs back!” there’s no denying that the female empowerment is gaining momentum now more than ever. And women have been embracing this revolution by creating a new persona for women: the “Bad Girl.” The Bad Girl is loud: she speaks her opinion and refuses to take no for an answer. The Bad Girl is unapologetic: she doesn’t say sorry for what she’s wearing, who she is sleeping with, or what career she decides to pursue. The Bad Girl embraces her femininity without needing to conform to what that is “supposed” to look like: she farts, she drinks, she swears and she smokes,  and no, she won’t make you a sandwich. In my own life, I always thought that the way to be successful and stay safe was to be a “good girl”.  Societal norms/expectations for women coupled with my own severe anxiety and OCD equaled me acting in ways that kept me confined.  I liked to blend into the background and do what was told. I trembled at the thought of upsetting someone.  Lying, cheating, stealing? No chance.  Because this notion of needing to be good all the time was heightened by the rules created by my mental illnesses, I couldn’t actually live the way I wanted too. My insecurities and fears of breaking out of the role of “the good girl” were so great that I seriously thought I wasn’t always following those rules, than something bad would happen.

  The rise of the Bad Girl is a becoming of who we, as women, were truly meant to be before we were told by society that we shouldn’t behave a certain way because that’s just the way things are. So, are the Bad Girls really that bad? Realistically, no. The Bad Girls of today aren’t breaking the law, they are simply refusing to blend in to the background. They are refusing to submit to the patriarchal order that has guided our society for centuries.

  The Bad Girls aren’t saying sorry for being who they are and we’re looking good doing it.

What is Woke?

• “Woke” began in Black vernacular as a warning to be wary of racism. 

• It was adopted by liberal social justice advocates during the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements in 2020.

• “Woke” has gone beyond racial social justice to also apply to LGBTQ rights and feminist causes.

• Political definitions for “woke” are all over the place.

  • “Generally, the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

  • “for the left, a fundamental attribute of wokeness is the subordination of facts and evidence to anecdote and ideology.”

  • “The woke were people who understood that America is a systematically racist place and also understood that capitalism is inherently unjust and unfair,” he said.

  • “The Republicans who condemn the woke believe the opposite. They believe that America is inherently a great place and that socialism is inherently evil. These are the battle lines. It’s a good fight to have.”  

November 15, 2024 WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s vision for education revolves around a single goal: to rid America’s schools of perceived “ wokeness ” and “left-wing indoctrination.”

The president-elect wants to forbid classroom lessons on gender identity and structural racism. He wants to abolish diversity and inclusion offices. He wants to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ sports.

Janine A. Parry, a University of Arkansas political science professor said…concepts such as “woke” are trending…because — despite being conceptually squishy — loud swaths of the electorate have staked out hyperbolic positions on them.

Hyperbole. As in raging diatribes instead of rational dialogue. Sounds demonic to me.