Black Lives Do Matter. But Tolerance Matters More.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: I had to think twice before publishing this article. That I needed to think twice, reinforced my decision to publish. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy. Not speech that preaches violence or intolerance. Just to dare question “mob think”. I thought of my late father and millions like him who fought in World War 2. So many still laying in overseas graves. They made the ultimate sacrifice so future generations did not live under tyranny. The counter-culture and censorship that is now taking hold, vilifies this sacrifice and their memory.
Though a “business site”, issues of significant social impact are relevant. And my industry, communications, has contributed significantly. Advertising packages its messages in prevailing social trends. Advertising, despite many claims, does not change human behaviour. But it plays one hell of a role in reinforcement.
Since the end of World War 2 in 1945, the world has been relatively “calm”. There was the Korean War, Vietnam, (and other regional flare ups) recessions even the GFC (from which Australia was mostly insulated), didn’t last long and the economies bounced back quickly. September 11, 2001 whilst still having a long-lasting impact, did not erupt into a world-wide “blow up” that many feared.
Leaving out the hiccup of the GFC in 2007/8, we have had 30 odd years of continuous growth. Some will argue this has skipped over many tumultuous events, but relative to the first 50 years of the 20th century, most countries have settled into a comfortable existence. For all the arguments of inequality, in one generation more than 1 billion people moved out of extreme poverty. (They are not taking holidays in Aspen, but they are not starving to death as they were).
Since 1900, the world average life expectancy has doubled. This is not to say that poverty, starvation, and disease have been eliminated, but the past 100 years saw greater improvements in these areas since people moved from being hunter gatherers, over 2000 years ago.
“We learn from history”, is not some hackneyed expression. It is a fact. Unfortunately, history today for so many starts at the year 2000. That Germany was ruled by the Nazi Party is widely known. But how many people know that in the 1928 election, the Nazi party won only 2.6% of the vote? The Nazi Party did not come “storming” into popularity. Germany, prior to the Great Depression, was arguably the most technologically advanced country in the world, with a history of culture that was the opposite of the barbaric policies of the Nazi party. This is not a lesson in history, but it is relevant to understand how Germany came to be governed, is not the right word, dictated by a bunch of “gangsters”, as Sir Winston Churchill described them. (The one and the same man who a British founder of BLM said “I don’t know him, or have met him yet…..)
World order became unhinged during the Great Depression, along with reparations imposed on Germany after World War 1, and once unelectable, despotic leaders and parties came into power, as people sought a falsely promised panacea to their miseries. Today we are seeing social cohesion in developed countries breaking down. It is never one specific event which is the cause. In 1990, no sane person would wish for a Marxist regime – the difference in the lifestyle and liberty between a genuine social democracy and Marxism/Communism were on clear display.
But how easily people forget the lessons of history. The GFC breathed life into the hard left and they have slowly but surely taken over academia and much of the media. The “Green Left” has been predicting the extinction of human life due to climate change. Whilst more and more reasoned scientists have started saying “Hey, these predictions are getting out of hand and more and more removed from proven scientific fact”, they are howled down by the media who worship Greta Thunberg, someone has not even completed high school.
There has been something “brewing” in the developed world for some time now. A high school drop out’s opinion is more highly regarded than scientists with PhDs? Then the George Floyd incident occurred and the world, I should say the developed world for whom the next meal and trying to stay alive until the next day does not occupy their thoughts and actions, exploded. Of course, racism is an anathema, a scourge, but the death of one man has resulted in the developed world exploding into violent protests. Looting and the destruction of property is overlooked – it is supposedly all in the name of cause so worthy and so urgent, these are deemed trivial matters. All rational thought has been lost to the mob. To dare question anything about The Black Lives Matter movement is deemed to be heresy.
The BLM movement is founded by committed neo-Marxists. The irony of this is lost. Companies and high-net worth individuals are taking a knee to an organisation that decry them as “enemies of the people”. Their companies would be taken over by “the state”. Their homes, cars and all other assets would be stripped from them, with most ending up in concentration camps. The Marxists are responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, close to 100 million, people in the 20th century.
So we have the world business community in general, 99% of publications, Hollywood (nothing surprising there), eminent scholars, sportspeople, I say all social media as anyone who dares question is attacked mercilessly – it would be easier to list those who don’t go down on one knee to an organistaion whose core philosophy is not anti-racist, but neo Marxist.
Many blacks in the US are questioning if their country really is racist. In an interview Larry Elder (Radio host, lawyer & documentary film maker) asked the interviewer to provide him with just one, only one, example of racist policy in the US. He could not. Of course, with a massive left bias and after the way Larry carved up the typical left-wing interviewer, not many organisations will risk providing Larry the forum to put forward an alternative narrative. (Larry rejected being called “African American”. He rightly points out he has no connection with Africa. He is an American).
The same protesting world blithely ignores the suffering in Syria, where over 1 million people have been killed and more than 3 million have been displaced. Or the Middle East, where workers from South-East Asian countries are treated more like slaves, their plight ignored by each country’s government. The despotic leaders in many African countries who commit crimes against humanity with impunity. The Indian caste system or the Uyghur province in China which is suffering what can best be called genocide, slavery is still widespread, even in western countries – the world is full of inequalities and atrocities.
The madness has reached a point where people who rightly say, “All lives matter”, have lost their jobs, been ostracised, and called racist. Logic has been thrown away. So, all lives don’t matter then? Black lives mean more than other lives? The size of the protests and the conduct of the protestors are in countries where racism has been all but eradicated. Australia for example has had to endure protests, yet it is one the most successful multi-cultural countries in the world. Fully one third of private businesses are owned by migrants. Yes, there are significant problems within indigenous communities, but these are not problems that are the result of racism. They are social issues, caused more by poor policy than any other factor.
The BLM protests were 2 weeks prior to the latest outbreak in Victoria. “Blame the hotel security guards” is the simplistic reason given. So why are so many sources unable to be traced? Of course, people saw tens of thousands (well over 100,000 nationally) of protesters gather at the BLM protests. To think this did not influence the behaviour of many is naivety bordering on arrogance.
Our economy has been smashed, around 1 million people have lost their jobs – the effects, both direct and indirect such as increased domestic violence, depression even suicide, are way too many to list here. Yet the common thread when participants were interviewed was “this is emergency is every bit the equal of the pandemic”. That major news organisations did not report on this idiocy with the same contempt it does for “climate change skeptics”, is crystal clear proof of Gramsci’s theory.
Antoni Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian Socialist/Marxist philosopher and politician. He wrote “In the new order, socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities churches and the media”. How right he was. Our children are being indoctrinated with far-left thinking from kindergarten through to university. There would be only a handful of protesters anywhere in the world who were born, or at an age where they could think for themselves, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
The world back then could clearly see the huge difference between social democracies and Marxism. Berlin divided in West and East provided the perfect example. Those on the East, lived in almost medieval concrete apartment blocks, drove cars made in 1989 but were designed in 1959, queued for anything but the very basic foodstuffs (and often queued for even the basics), petrol was rare and rationed, medical health was decades behind the west, with life expectancy around 10 years less than in the west. But more important than the quality of life was the freedom. The “secret police” kept tabs on everyone. Say the wrong thing and you could end up in jail, or on the end of a rope. The freedom of speech is what most clearly delineated the free west from the totalitarian Marxist regimes.
It seems as if people are totally blind to the rapid loss in the basic freedom of speech in the BLM era. A mob rule mentality has sprung up almost overnight and you are only free to express an opinion in-line with the BLM narrative. Today’s protestors are not interested in history. Captain Cook is painted as a villain, yet he had been dead for years when the first fleet arrived. People are applying today’s thinking to the world 300 years ago. Madness. Cook was a great explorer in what is termed “the age of enlightenment”. He is accused of “murdering” Maoris. It was a case of self-defence. Cook committed the great sin of coming to their land. He was an explorer, not a bloody conqueror.
My parents lived through the Great Depression as young children and my father fought in New Guinea in World War 2. Millions of men and woman gave their lives, so people today are free – free from totalitarian regimes. The biggest issue facing the world today is not racism, but a lack of tolerance. The BLM protestors want to cancel history, even though they have shown a great ignorance of it. Statues of people who were champions of the oppressed are being defaced. They show a total lack of tolerance to any view that differs to theirs. More of us need to ask “Who the fuck are you to dictate to the world what we can and cannot see or say and censure history?”
Their lack of tolerance and arrogance is only equaled by their ignorance. One of the British BLM founders did not know who Sir Winston Churchill was and his role in stopping the Nazis from rolling over Britain and eventually the rest of the world. The statue of William Gladstone, the British PM who was the most egalitarian of his time, was also defaced. Historical figures from the past who supported positive change have come into the sights of the counter-culture zealots.
The madness is not confined to censoring or changing history. Current facts that do not fit with the doctrine are blithely twisted, ignored or even said to be untrue. The recent bushfires, in nearly every form of online and traditional media have been portrayed as “the worst ever” and directly related to climate change. They were in fact number 6. The “worst” were in 1975/76 in which 15% of Australia’s sustained total land mass sustained extensive fire damage.
And the Armageddon bearing down on us from natural disasters because of climate change? The decadal death toll from natural disasters have decreased by 92% from the 1920s to the decade of 2000 to 2010. During this time, the world’s population quadrupled. This is not to say that we are not damaging the environment and humans must act to not only slow, but ultimately prevent damage. But it does highlight the twisting of facts, in many cases outright lies, spun by organisations such as the Extinction Rebellion.
These people are not trying to save the planet and humanity, they want to destroy free speech and free enterprise. In fact, competition driven by free enterprise will find solutions far quicker and at less cost that a Marxist regime. People want clean air and water – competition will not only drive solutions, it will reduce the cost and increase efficiency and scale.
Not only is the past under attack, but words or deeds from the past are being thrown up, many decades later, now judged by some new moral standing. A Boeing’s communications executive was forced to resign for saying 33 years ago there was no place for woman in combat. (They are equally capable of being fighter pilots and war ship Captains. But there is one place where a woman would be a liability – in front line combat that can descend into hand to hand combat. People have been watching too many movies. That is not a criticism of women, as many on the hard left would claim. It is simply a biological fact. But even science takes a back seat to their ideology.)
I look at the anger on the faces of the protestors, different countries and nationalities and there is one thing in common – white faces out number black faces easily by 2 to 1 The loathing and hatred is what you would expect from someone who is unhinged. I have never seen such hatred and bitterness even on the faces of people who have suffered terrible personal tragedies. It is extraordinary to see so many people exhibiting so much hatred.
Though I have never seen (or been) in one, it is what I imagine a lynch mob must be like. Be it the BLM protestors world-wide, the masses trying to eradicate history and de-platform, the Syrian government and their forces, the rich Middle-Eastern families, the Chinese rulers – the whole bloody lot of them are lacking tolerance and compassion.
How ironic the BLM mobs are in fact just as guilty as those against whom they protest.
