The Presuppositions of the System: Keeping People Passive

My Facebook account is restricted again*. I've discovered a new thing you can't talk about. As I've scanned the net lately, there has been a burst of actual disinformation. Even Wikipedia has been hit with efforts to show that Republicans and Democrats "switched" policies, especially on the subject of race. The discredited Big Switch Theory which posits that the entire Democrat Party suddenly saw the light in the 60s and rejected their racist past and Republicans suddenly embraced it, has risen from the almost dead and is bleeding into the history books and encyclopedias. 

The trouble with this narrative is that Republicans have continued until the present day to promote racial equality. They were solidly in favor of the Civil Rights Bill. Democrats had to be bullied into it by LBJ who told them that if they did, that then the n!@#$% (his word) would vote for the Democrat Party for the next 200 years. Democrats at the time referred to it as the "Nigger Bill" among themselves. I used the word deliberately for its shock value so as not to gloss over the cold-bloodedness of the Democrats of the time. They appear hardly on the verge of a sudden conversion to racial holiness. 

Of 60 openly racist Dixiecrats in the House and Senate, 59 of them remained in office for 10 to 30 more years. The only one that went Republican did so after it was revealed that he had a black girlfriend and a daughter by her. So he had already decided black people, at least black women, weren't so subhuman.

The alterations to Wikipedia entries, blogs, articles and historical websites have tended to push the narrative of so-called Republican racism back to the 1920s, adding all sorts of sinister behavior to "facts" about Republicans and to minimize Democrat support for racism in the 20th century. The strategy seems to be to recast Democrats as actually heroes, standing against racism in the early Progressive era. There's little historical evidence for that. The one major Democrat figure who began eliminating racial segregation after WWII was Harry Truman. Eisenhower continued to press against the racist policies of the day. Kennedy pushed for Civil Rights. Both Truman and Kennedy wouldn't last 10 minutes in today's Democrat Party which has doubled down on racial paternalism in a thinly veiled pseudo-egalitarianism that still maintains it's old white superiority over minorities who they firmly believe need the protection and guidance of the white plantation owner class of Democrat.

Noam Chomsky explains above how that tactic works. A big part of the tactic is to limit what you can talk about. At this point Facebook is limiting any talk of mid 20th century Democrat racism or the racist history of the Democrat Party. Part of this complex power grab is a strategy to hide Democrat racism and to find anything they can dig up to paint Republicans as the new racists and thus insure for themselves the power to effectively protect their own wealth and power.

 © 2022 by Tom King

* I've been released from one of 5 types of restriction. The other 4 appear to be designed to prevent my infecting others with my disinformation (which although true makes Democrats look bad). I'm spending more time on other social media and I don't care what Facebook is doing toward cracking down on conservative thought. Like the Democrat party, I think the technocracy is over-playing its hand. It's a rerun of 1860 except this time the South has developed a little sense. 2024 will be an interesting year.

Almost Free at Last, Master Mark!

 

My April 25 two week Facebook account restriction is supposed to end today - one month later. I think they may have gone back to February and added 2 weeks for the Hillary Clinton meme where she was calling the suicide hotline to place an order. The most recent post was about a guy who went on a school campus with bolt cutters and stole a child's bicycle - a dirty rotten thing to do by most societal standards. 

This February post got me in trouble.

Since the dissolution of CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, we've had an epidemic of this that (accidentally if you listen to the FB fact checkers) correlates with the mass migration from Seattle by shopkeepers, the elderly and other victims of chronic predatory criminals. It seems the chaos and rampant crime that has plagued Seattle is leaking out into the nearby towns to which Seattle refugees have escaped. In my town, developers are rapidly building condos and apartment buildings for senior especially, to capture the flood of refugees with a glut of empty apartments freshly constructed. Many of these are specifically for seniors - Millenials and post-Millenials (whatever they are calling themselves) are excluded from these apartment complexes for obvious reasons, the penchant for loud late night parties, orgies, pooping in the pool and drug trafficking being just some of the reasons they don't want that kind in their "serene senior communities."  

Meanwhile in Seattle there are so many moving out leaving behind nearly abandoned senior housing complexes and empty apartments, that the progressive city council is thinking of installing their homeless drug addicts and mental patients in those empty apartments. The folks still living in those apartments, of course, are thrilled with the idea of having people used to living in the local tent cities as next door neighbors, leading I'm pretty sure to more episodes of 'Escape from New Seattle'.~ (note this punctuation mark .~ is called a snark mark and indicates sarcasm for those readers from Rio Linda who may miss it).~  

Anyway, I originally wrote this as a Facebook post, but decided that it would be safer to post it as a blog post with an innocuous headline that the vapid fact checkers of Facebook might miss. Anyway, the whole thing is ridiculous, but that's our leftist brothers and sisters who seem to be vying to see who can be the most ridiculous. This used to be called propaganda; now it's called marketing. It used to be called lying; now it's called "fighting disinformation."  

Gotta love them, they tell us.~ Yeah, right! © 2022 by Tom King

Progressive Prison Policy Rewards Bad Behavior by Inmates

Last year Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) in a "brilliant' strategic move, responded to a minor prison riot by moving the worst behaved prisoners from Coffield Unit, one of the oldest, most uncomfortable prisons in Texas to Michael Unit one of the better prisons in Texas. Meanwhile, in a move inspired by progressive-philosophy lingering from the old days when there was no thought of rehabilitation and a strictly punishment philosophy ruled the roost in Texas, TDCJ moved the displaced better-behaved prisoners into a wing of Coffield Unit with two prisoners in what were originally built as single cells, assuming I suppose that the downsized inmates wouldn't cause trouble over the poor conditions in the jail.  

Coffield is an older prison across the road from Michael Unit. One wing features single sized cells into which bunk beds have been crammed. The cells have little storage for inmate's personal items. To get to the top bunk requires an awkward climb over the lower bunk and, I think, using a toilet or a sink to get up top. There is no ladder. 

Everything about Coffield is old-fashioned punishment geared. I suppose the thinking was that if they bunched up all the prisoners who were trying to serve their time without causing trouble in hopes of getting out and returning to their families, they wouldn't cause the staff trouble. One wonders what sort of lesson the system is teaching the inmates.  Be good and we'll treat you to worse conditions?

Well it seems to have worked like a charm, except with those inmates who see the move as punishment for good behavior.  All the violent, problem-causing congenital thugs and hoodlums, it seems, have been moved to better quarters after the riot. It has to feel like a reward for bad behavior.

And, how did the problem inmates show their gratitude?  I mean, according to progressive philosophy 101, they should have demonstrated better behavior in gratitude for their improved circumstances. After all, Maslow's Hierarchy of Need says that if you take care of a person's simpler needs like shelter, food, and daily needs, people will just automatically behave better and begin to pursue the higher, more noble goals of life. 

So how's that working out for TDCJ?

Well the newly upgraded bad boys started off by trashing the nicer day rooms, by busting up the more pleasant dining room, and by beating up guards. And, in a burst of unintentional karma, they beat up the Michael Unit warden while they were at it. The better-behaved guys, newly ensconced in the crappy quarters over at Coffield are not rioting at least, though their living conditions have worsened considerably as a "reward" for their good behavior.

Now everybody in a TDCJ facility was put on lockdown after the riot. Why? Because one of the high security prisons screwed up and allowed a lifer/murderer to smuggle a tool onto a prison bus while he was being transferred to medical treatment in Huntsville. He's still loose at this writing. TDCJ staff is out hunting him along with the Highway Patrol and Texas Rangers and Sheriff's deputies. In essence, it's one more punishment for the prisoners who did NOT try to escape, did NOT stab the bus driver and did not try to steal the bus and trigger a manhunt costing the state millions of dollars.

People are beginning to see that the basis of progressive government, the philosophies of Marx, Freud, Russel, Maslow, Wells, Shaw, and the rest simply don't work. Rewarding bad behavior, and punishing individual free speech, free commerce, free choice, free thought and personal liberty trades on a false belief that there is no such thing as free choice; no such thing as a God who can make us better people. 

Progressives and those who act on their college brainwashing that told them that if you give bullies and sinful people what they want; if you lie to people for the greater good; if you control what the ignorant masses see, hear and are taught, that you can create a human-designed Utopia without the need for religion or God. Even poor often misquoted Albert Einstein was tempted by the thought that there ought to be some way the "smart" people of the world could figure out a way to make everyone safe, happy and content. Sadly, as we are seeing worked out in front of us, there isn't a way to program people to be good. One can claim that people do not really possess freedom of choice and that given the right programming you can make people better. Unfortunately, for Marx, et al, it never works. The belief that you can reprogram people without engaging their will is downright diabolical. It goes back to the original controversy between Satan and God.

People wonder why Jesus hasn't come yet to take us home. I believe and there is evidence in Scripture that God is allowing the "man of sin" to totally reveal himself before he closes out Earth's history. There are currently more people alive on Earth than have died in all it's history. The audience is in the theater and seated for the working out of the final consequences of both Satan's progressivism and of God's mercy. 

One need not look far in the halls of Earthly power to see the evidence of evil intent behind the craving for power. Power, as it's being shown, is what this whole thing has been about from before the Garden of Eden. To achieve a true Utopia such as God intends for us, requires us to surrender all of our lust for power and control to the only One who can wield that power wisely, and always for the good of His children. 

Faith in our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Father in Heaven is the only thing that can bring us everlasting joy and contentment. It is how we were designed to be and surrender to that great Truth is the only way to achieve the joy that we so long for. 

The truth is all around us if we only choose to see it and Heaven is the only true Utopia mankind will ever have.

© 2022 by Tom King

PS: It's been 4 years since I wrote this. Apparently even prison "professionals" can be taught. Things went badly in the months after the prison system tried out the reward the bad guys, take advantage of the good behavior of the guys who are trying to rehabilitate themselves largely without much encouragement from the system. Someone with actual intelligence ordered a change and they began putting the guys who were no trouble and were actually trying to be upright citizens were transferred to a "faith-based" wing of the prison. What they discovered was that guards had an easier time of it. Violence became rare and aggresive prisoners were put back in the regular wings. Rewards like access to water, washing machines, showers, TV on the wing and open doors during the day privileges, individual computer tablets with access to phone calls, movies and positive TV channels were provided to the men. The incentive wing has reduced acts of violence on the wing drastically, reduced injuries to guards and increased recruitment of guards since on the incentive wing, they no longer needed to be six foot four with arms like the incredible hulk to move about on the wings without danger to themselves. So a change in policy from rewarding negative behavior to rewarding positive behavior. Weekend church service attendance numbers are up. It appears to be working. Of course, there will always be knuckleheads who can't seem to understand the relationship between being a decent person and getting extra privileges the way the system is beginning to work now. I just hope the prison staff can learn from experience..