The following is a correspondence between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Sarah Haider on Wokeism and The Culture Wars.

Dear Ayaan, 

Let me begin with what I hope is obvious: I’m very excited and honored to have this discussion with you. 

I’m even more thrilled that our correspondence will not be centered on the topic people might expect from us—Islam. Instead, we will be focusing on the phenomenon commonly referred to as “wokeism.” However, as many have pointed out, wokeism is not entirely different from religion, so our experiences in addressing the excesses of Islam will be highly useful.

In fact, it was my activism with religion that first drove me to investigate this issue many years ago. When I first began speaking publicly about Islam, I quickly found (as did you), that those whom I anticipated would be on our side viewed me with suspicion. My criticisms of Islam were based on the very principles that those liberals claimed to champion, and yet I was swiftly rejected by them. This behavior left me stunned and confused, so I set out to understand it.  

Very quickly, it became evident that the hesitancy to critique Islam actually had nothing to do with Islam. Educating my fellow liberals would not be enough—as ignorance was not the root of the problem. 

Over the previous few decades, a new ideology had taken hold throughout liberal and progressive circles: writer and cultural critic Wesley Yang called it “the successor ideology,” but now it’s more usually called wokeism. At its core, this ideology is a delegitimization project—and it targets the very foundations of humanist, Enlightenment values. Wokeism is not the only movement to exploit the same programming that makes us vulnerable to religion. But it has achieved astounding success because it has also managed to neutralize liberals, who might otherwise stand against religious impulses, by hijacking our caring instinct, and by ruthlessly exploiting social dynamics to crush dissent. 

Before we dive in too deeply, I would like to elaborate on a point I made in a private conversation prior to this exchange, which seemed to surprise you. I will repeat it here for the benefit of our audience: I believe that what we are witnessing is not the dawn of open war, but its conclusion. The woke have won, and decisively. But all is never truly lost, and this is not a prelude to submission. My approach is one of pragmatic optimism: In order to fight this—and we must fight it—we need to understand what lies ahead of us. 

Let me briefly attempt to justify my view. 

Wokeism has won because it has captured our cultural and sense-making institutions. 

Nearly all our educational, media, and non-profit institutions (including major grant-making organizations) are advancing in one direction. Meanwhile, the hearts and minds of the global elite are almost uniformly supportive of this new secular faith. 

To give just one example: Although the guillotines posted on his doorstep might indicate otherwise, the richest man in the world is not the enemy of wokeism. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post not Breitbart, and his former wife has pledged to dedicate nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars to causes relating to social justice. 

Let me also make a brief analogy with a subject all too familiar to us. We know that jihadists do not appear in a vacuum. They require a degree of permissiveness within their larger context to exist in significant numbers. We can therefore use the number of jihadis from a particular country as a crude measure of the overall level of liberal tolerance within it.

Pulling this analogy back to the “woke,” it is no anomaly that the New York Times can hire and stand by an employee who speaks of white people as “dogs pissing on fire hydrants,” but cannot publish an op-ed by a sitting US congressman without a major staff insurrection. The conditions required for the extremists to thrive already exist. The door is open; they only need to walk through. 

One may object, however, and point out that the majority of Americans are not woke. I believe that this is true. I also believe that it doesn’t matter. When so many of our fundamental institutions are in cult-like consensus, when the richest and most powerful among us routinely display public allegiance to one faith, the preferences of the average American are largely irrelevant.

We must adjust our approach accordingly. To put it rather dramatically: we are not meeting the barbarians at the gate; we are rebelling against the empire. 

I’ll end this first letter here. I’m excited to explore this topic with you, and would love to hear your thoughts on how we might tackle this issue.

Dear Sarah,

I am delighted that we are having this conversation. For a while I thought I was the only one who saw the parallels between the Islamists and the woke. I agree wholeheartedly that “wokeism” has quite a number of dogmas, rituals, a dedicated priesthood and a fellowship just like a religion. In that respect, I see what you mean when you say that our experiences in addressing the excesses of Islam are useful in understanding wokeism.

However, I must admit that I was slower than you in connecting the dots of the woke faith. While I found the adherents of purist Islam (and still do, by the way) highly motivated, well resourced, insidious and incredibly dangerous, I thought of the woke at first as just bothersome cowards who wanted to appease the Islamists because they were either scared of them or because they wanted the Muslim vote. Even the term “woke” is still relatively new to me. I may have heard it for the first time as recently as 2018. Certainly not earlier.

I have been cancelled many times. As far back as 2006, a group of Dutch professors and other illuminati wrote a letter as a collective to try stop me from speaking, arguing that I was suffering from phobias. On countless occasions, my attempts with my Dutch and other European colleagues to push for the assimilation of immigrant minorities into their host societies was frustrated by people using language that we would call wokeism today. 

In response to my attempts to criminalize female genital mutilation, child marriage, forced marriages and honor violence, some feminists claimed that we must not impose our Eurocentric views on immigrants.

Activists and journalists put forth arguments they said were derived from multicultural principles to compel us to respect the customs, faith and ways of doing things in immigrant communities—even if they trapped female members of those communities in poverty, illiteracy and domestic violence. Government officials set aside longstanding norms and granted the dole to young immigrant men who refused to work on religious grounds. 

In those decades so called parallel societies emerged in many European countries. 

Yet slowly—painfully slowly—sentiment has changed. Arguments that once got me cancelled are now made openly by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron. German politicians no longer defend multiculturalism; they now actively promote programs of integration for reasons I explore in my forthcoming book Prey. 

In the same way, I think, the tide will turn against wokeism. And I believe it will turn more swiftly, because wokeism is a far less substantial thing than Islam, one of the world’s three enduring monotheistic faiths.

As I said, at first, I paid little attention to wokeism. Thanks to people like Helen Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, I now see that it is a distinct and quasi-religious ideology. It is interesting to see the symbiotic relationship there has been between the Islamists and the woke. That may be material for another letter. But for now, I want to respond to your words: 

When I first began speaking publicly about Islam, I quickly found … that those whom I anticipated would be on our side viewed me with suspicion. My criticisms of Islam were based on the very principles that those liberals claimed to champion, and yet I was swiftly rejected by them. This behavior left me stunned and confused, so I set out to understand it.

My understanding is that you and I mistook many of the woke for true liberals when in fact they are anything but.

I found and still receive abiding support from true liberals. Some are world famous like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens. You may even recall that Theo van Gogh was murdered for his work to help bring about the emancipation of Muslim women. There are many other true liberals—too many to name here—whom I met over the years in various countries whose views are completely aligned with yours and mine.

I bring up the distinction between the true liberals and the woke because I believe this is the reason you are wrong when you argue that the woke have won—that they are the empire now, and the rest of us are the underdog rebels.

As long as there are true liberals out there, I do not think the woke are anywhere near any kind of victory. The key thing to remember is the resilience of the philosophy of liberalism—the sheer strength of the institutions that evolved based on those principles and the strength of the ideas and ideals of universal human rights, individual freedom, the sanctity of life, the rule of law and property rights, the democratic process, free inquiry, science, and free markets. 

Islam has mounted a partly successful resistance to all these ideas for centuries, at the price of impoverishing Muslim-majority societies around the world (aside from the ones that were sitting on oil fields).

But wokeism is a far less compelling ideology. Let me give just one example, a quotation from a professor named Sunny Singh, who teaches a creative writing course at London Metropolitan University: 

I get regular invites to debate on various platforms. I always say no. Because debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression.

It seems to me that the more the woke turn their fire against true liberals—for example, the author J.K. Rowling—the more they reveal the fundamental intellectual bankruptcy of their cult, and the more they encourage other true liberals to cease the appeasement of wokeism that has characterized the past decade or so. 

In short, I am more optimistic than you because I believe both battles—against the Islamists and against the woke—can be won. And the latter are in fact the much weaker foe.

I look forward to your reply.

Warmest,

Ayaan

This is the first of two commentaries relating to the 2020  presidential election process by Charles Landis.

Dissent, demagoguery, and populism have written important chapters in our history and is as American as apple pie. Indeed, the history of America could as well be written as the history of dissent in America. It is , therefore,  useful to examine this history in the 2020 election process..

In “Dissent, the History of an American Idea”, (2015), Ralph Young, historian at Temple University, explains the rich history of dissent in America from  the   18^th century  to the unrest of today and the influence of evangelism and the Age of Enlightenment.

While there has been dissent throughout the ages, the arrival of George Whitefield in America  in 1739,from England, marks the beginning of the dissent in America that led to the Declaration of Independence, the  Revolutionary War, and the   formation of the first  abolition society in America at a  church in Newport, RI by evangelists Samuel Hopkins and Sarah Osborn. This evangelical movement is  known as  the first Great Awakening.

Whitefield, a young  itinerant  evangelical, who had developed a  very large following in England, believed established  traditional churches had become too dogmatic and salvation was only through the teaching of the gospel by ordained ministers of established churches and good works. Whitefield preached hell-fire  and darnation if one did not seek redemption by confession of sins and acceptance of Christ as personal savior. When he preached, there was much weeping, wailing, and confession of ins. This resulted in bitter anger and resentment by the established churches and as  assaults on their authority. Especially the Anglican/Church of England, and  caused schisms within. It is reported Whitefield  preached over 18,000 sermons through-out the colonies and gave rise to what is known as the Bible Belt.

In the decades  following Whitefield’s arrival, many other evangelicals joined in the dissent against the established church authority and hierarchy. Together with John Locke’s writings on the laws of nature and the social contract and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense,   this led to the dissent against the authority of king and parliament governance of the colonies, inevitability of the Revolution, and the forming of these United States.

The greatest dissent in our history was the decision of the Southern states to secede from the Union. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, dissent from this new order of things came when  Jim Crow laws and the KKK were established. This in turn was followed a long period of dissent by Blacks over denial of equal rights as promised in the Reconstruction Amendments following the Civil War. The demands for greater equality and social justice  continues to this day.

For over 300 years there has been dissent and protests about income inequality, working conditions, racism, sexism, and related issues .There have been many marches on Washington, often with violence, and  angry riots. And yes, calls for  socialism and communism if only short lived. Most of these dissents were populist movements.

Populist movements arising out of dissension, not established political parties, is the future, as evidenced by Trump’s’ ascendency over established Republican candidates, and over establishment  Democrat candidate Clinton in,  2016. In  this 2020 contest, while Biden is presumed to be the establishment Democrat candidate, he has promised to be the most progressive president in American history. It is the populist progressive movement of Sanders, Warren, and AOC that dominates the Democrat party.

In American Demagogue, 2019, JD dickey. Historian, examines how demagoguery is inspired by populism and began with the Great  Awakening of  the  early half of the 18^th century and the evangelism. Indeed, Ben Franklin was so impressed   with Itinerant Evangelist George Whitefield, he published  his sermons, bound in volumes, and sold throughout the colonies.  Patrick Henry emulated Whitefield’s oratory.  John Adams was inspired by evangelist Jonathan Mayhew’s preaching at Harvard. (They did not ever fall to the ground weeping and wailing.)

I, and many others, believed the 2016 election of Trump would be the most consequential election since the Civil War. Today, I believe the 2020 election will be more so because the Civil War conflict was  about slavery and disunion. The populist movement of the Progressive Democrats is about a “movement” to “fundamentally  change America”;the end of the great experiment of a republican form of governance.

The Progressive Socialist Democrats refused to accept the election of Trump and the constitutionally mandated decision by the electoral college. From the moment the election in 2016 to the preset, they have tried to remove him from office and obstruct everything he promised he would do.  Nor, will they accept his election in 2020.            

 This will be further addressed in a following commentary.

Reader Submitted Letter.

Dear LeBron James,

You don’t speak for me and my boys.

I’m a father of four brown boys. It is my responsibility as a father to protect and serve them. There is no need for police in my home because as the father, I’m the authority in my home.

Police are needed where fathers and law and order are absent. When there is no father to protect and serve children, police have to move into that community to protect and serve.

Where there is no father or authority in the home or neighborhood, young men rebel. This is why police are having a hard time gaining compliance with fatherless boys on the side of the road. They refuse to sit down, be quiet, and comply. Why? Because the police are the first men to tell them NO and assert their authority. These boys have spent years under no ones authority. This is the main problem.

Accepting Authority

So please don’t speak for me and my boys. Me and my boys are not terrified of the police because we respect the police and accept their authority. That’s because they first had to respect me as their father and accept my authority. Actually one of them wants to be a police officer. You Lebron are trying to destroy that dream by painting police officers in a negative light when most a good guys.

We are terrified of the black men that kill each other in their black neighborhoods everyday. We are afraid of the black men that threaten us and call us cūns and uncle toms for desiring to live a peacefull and successful life. We are aware of the fact that 93% of all black homicides are by black men. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)

If you really want to help fatherless boys like yourself, stop using fear tactics and guilt trips. Help promote legislation like “EQUAL SHARED PARENTING” that helps divorced dads and single dads have more time with their children without paying more child support.

Help get legislation passed to make child support more fair and equal. Fund programs like my former #GoodGuys #GoodGirls Program (killed by ObamaCare) that helped young black youth save sex until marriage, learn their history, learn to respect police, develop work ethic and accomplish their goals.( https://youtu.be/1ZxCe3JXp3M ).

Stop blaming the police and help build better fathers. Stop saying police need more training and train more dads and young black boys on the the rule of law and police protocols.

Remember, there are millions of black and brown boys out here that are not being killed by police. They are alive and doing quite well. How? We obey the law. Comply with police and if the police does something wrong or unethical, they live to fight in court and not the side of the road.

The following Opinion is by C. Augustus Landis

“Interpreted as it ought to be, the Constitution is a Glorious Liberty document” –Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

This quotation of Frederick Douglass was his response to William Lloyd Garrison, the fiery abolitionist who burned the Constitution in protest over slavery. Douglass believed there was no need to tear up the Constitution or re-write it because it was a Glorious Liberty document. There are those today who wish to re-write or re-interpret the Constitution to right the perceived wrongs of a capitalist society and to establish new rights in accordance with a socialist agenda. They call themselves Socialist Democrats and social justice warriors but their end is always the same… power and control.

It can be argued the division in America today is greater than any time in our history, including the Civil  War. Then, the fundamental issue was the Constitutional issues of disunion and slavery. Today, the existential issues are dueling views on the Constitution, populism, and liberty vs. the threat of the Socialist Democrat ideology. This essay addresses the first of these issues  in a continuing series on issues related to the 2020 elections.

In reading the Declaration of Independence  and the Constitution it is easy to imagine two of the greatest political  philosophers of the 17^th and 18^th centuries were sitting at the table: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1794).  Indeed, all of the founding fathers had studied their treatises’ on natural law, civil government, liberty, and the social contract.

In “Of Commonwealth” (Part2 of the Leviathan, published in 1651),  Hobbes writes that in the beginning man lived in a state of nature where there are no laws. Because of conflicts between people, by “mutual consents”, man enters into a commonwealth where absolute rule is by a sovereign which may be a monarch or an assembly. There is no separation of powers and no appeal to  a legislative body or judiciary. The founders and thirteen royal colonies in America  rebelled against the King of England, Parliament, or any kind of absolute sovereign.        

John Locke rejected the ideas of Hobbes and believed that man, living in a state of nature, had certain natural laws of life, liberty, and property. Man had a right to live, be free, and to own that which was produced by his labor. If he grew a crop or built a dwelling on a piece of land it was his property. Any laws beyond these natural laws must be by mutual consent and man had a right and obligation to rebel if laws were abusive of authority.   

The first paragraph of the Declaration speaks to it being necessary to break the bonds with England (rebel) because of abuse of authority, absence of consent, and… to assume …”the separate and equal station  to which the Laws of Nature and Natures God entitle them.” The second paragraph says it is self-evident that all men are created equal and are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Locke was very much a part of the conversation. The Declaration then lists 27 abuses and usurpations by the King of England constituting absolute Despotism and Tyranny.  Imagine in 1776 Hobbes making the argument for Loyalists and Locke making the case for as it was to be.

Note. The right of property Locke asserts refers to the right to own what you acquire as the product of your labor. The founders were concerned this property right might be taken to mean everyone could demand government give them land as a matter of right. Meaning , however, remained as was Locke’s intent. Most certainly, neither Locke or the founders did not mean “the pursuit of happiness” to mean every man had a right to the fruits of labor of others (equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity).

Because the Constitution submitted to the States for ratification  did not enumerate rights they believed important and necessary, ratification was conditioned on amendments to include enumerated rights and unenumerated rights reserved to the states and/or the people. Assuredly they did not mean a right to all the free stuff Socialist Democrats now consider rights.

Today, the Democratic Socialists are trying to lead us back to the absolutist sovereignty of Hobbes via the administrative state with judicial allowance of the Chevron Deference (deference to experts) in the vast bureaucracy , promotion of the dialectal materialism of Marx, the utilitarianism of the administrative state, and identity politics of intersectionality.

 Originalists, or textualists, believe the  words written in the Declaration and  the Constitution should be read and interpreted today as meaning and understanding was when written. Those who believe in a living Constitution believe the Constitution should  be read and interpreted to meet the exigencies of today. For example, in America’s Unwritten Constitution, 2012,AKIL Amar,  acclaimed professor of Constitutional Law at Yale, argues the amendments and interpretations since ratification constitute an unwritten Constitution with many new rights to be addressed based in good measure on who has the power.

In The Second Founding (2019), Eric Foner, historian at Columbia University and  and contributor to the Nation, argues the Reconstruction Amendments ( 13^th,14^th, and 15^th Amendments) constitute a second founding  and the Civil Rights  interpretations constitute a second reconstruction. Also, the New York Time’s 1619 Project endeavors to re-write our history and founding from 1776 t0 1619, when first slaves arrived in Virginia, and to have this be taught in all public schools.

Consider, also, the initiatives  now pursued by the Socialist Democrats relating to the founding documents as written vs. a living Constitution:

Article 2, Sec. 1. The Electoral College.  The Socialist Democrats think half of population (republican/conservative) is “deplorable”. Parts of the country between the large Democrat urban areas is fly over country populated by “deplorables.” Therefore we must eliminate the constitutional guarantees of representative government provided in the Constitution by the Electoral College and change to direct  popular vote in presidential election. Thus, vote of large democrat controlled cities will determine and the flyover parts  disenfranchised. Thus, for example, Los Angeles County would have a larger voice in deciding election of President than 43 states.

First Amendment.  Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech, of the press, or right of the people to people to peaceably assemble. While Congress has made no law limiting free speech or assembly, there is an abundance of evidence showing that free speech and assembly  of conservatives is suppressed on college campuses. Trump has taken action by executive order restricting federal funds for this abridgement, but Congress has not. The Left has asserted the right to censure speech they do not agree with or is not politically correct.   

Surveys show 95%  of reporters vote Democrat and same percent report negatively on Trump. Coverage on some issues favorable to Trump or Republicans  are  ignored or time devoted is negligible. CNN,,MSNBC, NY Times, and Washington Post, appear to have no other purpose than promoting leftist agenda,  over rule the 2016 election and removal of Trump from office.

Second Amendment. Right to bear arms. While this would require a Constitutional amendment, there is a constant demand for regulations to accomplish same.

Fifth Amendment. Due process. While the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing was not a trial, every Democrat Senator voted against confirmation on basis of belief in accuser in spite of absence of proof or witnesses. Again, in the impeachment hearing of Trump in the House and trial in the Senate, while not criminal/judicial trials, due process in the proceedings was much abused in the House, and in both House and Senate  the vote was on party allegiance. High crimes and misdemeanors to the Socialist Democrats was reduced to unenumerated offences being whatever a majority  of their polity said it was.

Those who believe in a living Constitution also believe there is need of a an ever evolving unwritten Constitution and new “founding’s”. These to be based on inclusion of rights and social justices as perceived in other countries and cultures.

AS Franklin said, we “have a Republic if we can keep it”,  Douglass said, the Constitution is “ a Glorious Freedom Document”, lets keep it and interpret as it ought to be and intended.

Opinion by Paul Plante

As we American people watch this incredible spectacle unfolding around us, with panic spreading and chaos looming large on the horizon as the lights of America blink out and the nation gets literally shut down, with people in San Francisco ordered to “shelter in place,” and New York City threatening to follow suit, this in response to a virus that has so far killed one hundred and eight (108) people in America out of a population of some 330 million, with some 6300 diagnosed cases as of this writing, in all likelihood we missed an article in Marketwatch entitled “Norwegian university urges students to return home from the U.S., cites ‘poorly developed health services’” by Shawn Langlois published March 15, 2020, wherein was stated as follows, to wit:

The U.S. health-care system?

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology clearly isn’t impressed, so it’s urging students studying there to come home immediately.

The university later tweaked the language in the Facebook post so as not to single out the United States, but by then, the slight emerged as a top-trending topic across social media:

“In accordance with the recommendations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs NTNU strongly recommends that all NTNU students who are outside Norway return home,”

“This applies especially if you are staying in a country with poorly developed health services and infrastructure and/or collective infrastructure, for example, the USA.”

The U.S. health-care system has come under increased scrutiny in recent days as the coronavirus outbreak spreads across the country.

end quotes

So, is the US getting a bad rap there, with Norway accusing us of being a country with poorly developed health services?

Is that unfair?

Should we institute some real serious sanctions against the Norwegians to make them real sorry they ever thought to think that way, let alone state it in public, as they have chosen to do?

Or my goodness gracious me, could it possibly be true?

Are we really living in a country with poorly developed health services as the Norwegians say?

Or is it a question of them simply not understanding or comprehending how protection of the public’s health in this country was supposed to be provided, if we didn’t have a public health protection system in this country, especially here in corrupt New York state to the north of Cape Charles, where Democratic Socialist “strongman” Young Andy Cuomo is running around in a frightful panic calling on Trump to send in the Army, that was either broken, as is the case in New York and has been since the 1970s, when Democrat Hugh Carey was governor, or badly bent?

Given that life in America has literally come to a screeching halt, and we are not really going any place, especially on a cruise right now, as a qualified associate level public health engineer knowledgeable of the history of public health, not only in America, but throughout history, going back to the Cloaca Maxima (lit. Greatest Sewer), one of the world’s earliest sewage systems constructed in Ancient Rome in order to remove the waste of one of world’s most populous cities initially constructed around 600 BC under the orders of the king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, I thought this a good time to delve into the serious question of who really is responsible for protecting the public’s health here in the United States of America, and it is not the federal government, as we clearly see from our own history, to wit:

Health Care: Constitutional Rights and Legislative Powers

Kathleen S. Swendiman Legislative Attorney

April 5, 2010

Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R40846

Summary

The health care reform debate raises many complex issues including those of coverage, accessibility, cost, accountability, and quality of health care.

Underlying these policy considerations are issues regarding the status of health care as a constitutional or legal right.

This report analyzes constitutional and legal issues pertaining to a right to health care, as well as the power of Congress to enact and fund health care programs.

The United States Constitution does not set forth an explicit right to health care.

As a major component of many health care entitlement statutes, Congress has provided funding to pay for the health services provided under law.

Most of these statutes have been enacted pursuant to Congress’s authority to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its mandate “to … provide for the … general Welfare.”

The power to spend for the general welfare is one of the broadest grants of authority to Congress in the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court accords considerable deference to a legislative decision by Congress that a particular health care spending program provides for the general welfare.

A number of state constitutions contain provisions relating to health and the provision of health care services.

State constitutions may provide constitutional rights that are more expansive than those found under the federal Constitution since federal rights set the minimum standards for the states.

end quotes

And how many people in America are aware of that reality, one must wonder, especially in the wake of all this hysteria and pandemonium unleashed by these hysteria mongers like Young Andy Cuomo of New York state?

And what of the people of Virginia?

Are they aware that the Commonwealth of Virginia has its own state Board of Health, which is a 15-member independent agency that regulates health facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, two members of which shall be members of the Medical Society of Virginia, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Pharmaceutical Association, one member shall be a member of the State Dental Association, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Nurses’ Association, one member shall be a member of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association, one member shall be a representative of local government, one member shall be a representative of the hospital industry, one member shall be a representative of the nursing home industry, one member shall be a representative of the licensed health carriers responsible under Title 38.2 for a managed care health insurance plan, one member shall be a corporate purchaser of health care, two members shall be consumers, one member shall have public environmental health expertise, and one member shall be a representative of the emergency medical services community recommended by the State Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board?

Are they aware that Board is the policy-making arm of the Virginia Department of Health and the law gives the Board a variety of important duties such as establishing the framework for Virginia’s public health services as well as also approving regulations for the Department of Health?

Would they know that it works, or is supposed to work if the system is not broken, with the Virginia Health Planning Board to consider issues of health care policy and financing and issues formal studies on these subject?

And of importance to this specific subject of public health protection, would they know that the Board is supposed to promote health education and outreach, for example, by setting the Department of Health’s program of patient and community health education services to include services addressing health promotion and disease prevention, and encouraging the coordination of local and private sector health education services?

As to COVID, this latest public health “threat” that seems right now overblown with reports coming in today of people in Los Angeles in long lines outside of supermarkets waiting to get in to find the shelves empty of what they need to survive, the Board has the emergency authority to issue “orders and regulations to meet any emergency, not provided for by general regulations, for the purpose of suppressing nuisances dangerous to the public health and communicable, contagious and infectious diseases and other dangers to the public life and health.”

So, have they done that?

Does anyone have a clue?

This Opinion was first published in the Eastern Shore Post in February. After receiving another letter regarding Superintendent Lawrence and the School Board, the Mirror reached out to Nancy Proto about publishing her article here.

If I were to describe my time on the Northampton County School Board in one word, that word would be:  enlightening.  Since moving to the Shore in 2011 one  consistent concern heard over and over by the residents has been the public school system.   “Improve the school system.“  If the schools are not where we want them to be, what should be done? How do school boards improve a school system?

I had no idea, but with 25 years of experience in public education combined with my increasing knowledge of Northampton County, I thought I could help.  I was elected to the school board in November 2015.

Early on, I attended a Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) workshop on Superintendent Evaluation.  It was enlightening. Superintendent Evaluation is a major responsibility of the SB. I discovered we were not following the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) guidelines and reported this to the SB.  Not until over a full year later was a Superintendent Evaluation Committee formed so we could get “on track.”  At that time the board approved the VDOE process for evaluating the superintendent that includes identifying goals and plans to achieve those goals. To date, this process has not been followed.  

In 2017 I attended another VSBA training, “How School Boards Make a Difference.”  Dr. Phil Gore, Director of Board Development Services in Texas, presented.  It was enlightening.  I reported to the SB details including the Six Statistically Significant Actions that High Performing SBs Do That are Related to Student Improvement That Low Performing SB Do Not Do.   There was no interest. 

In 2018 because of the positive feedback from the school boards across the state, VSBA offered two webinars with Dr. Gore on the same subject. My motion for the SB to attend these webinars was approved.  Most did not attend. That July, goals were developed consistent with what those who attended had learned. It was a very good start, but they were not presented to the superintendent until January. The superintendent, subsequently, stated they were not appropriate for a superintendent.  The school board accepted this.  

In August 2019, I reminded the board that we had still not approved goals for the 2018-19 school year, which at that point had already ended, and that the superintendent per his contract was supposed to have provided goals to the SB by September 1st of 2018. 

As school board members we each pledge to “discharge all duties …to the best of my abilities.”  The board as a whole, in my opinion, has not done this. Specifically, to date the Board has not: 

• Followed the superintendent’s contract stating that he: “shall provide proposed goals and objectives….”
• Followed SB policy that states:  the superintendent will “provide to the SB a work plan designed to implement the goals….”  
• Followed the VDOE Guidelines for evaluating the superintendent. 
• Implemented the six researched-based (Lorenzen and McCaw) best practices, namely:

          1. Establish specific goals focused on student achievement.

          2. Develop a plan to achieve goals and how the superintendent will demonstrate progress.                       

          3.  Communicate goals/plan to the community. 

          4.  Base contract decisions on objective evaluation of performance against the goals.

           5.  Base SB work on district goals.  Put goals on SB agenda.

           6.  Monitor progress towards goals – quarterly   

Can School Boards make a difference?  Research says “yes.” Would following these practices override our challenges?  I have no clue, but the SB has a responsibility to do them.  The question is: Do they have the will? To quote Dr. Gore: “Get in the game or get out.  Don’t waste district time or students’ precious learning opportunities.”  

Has there been improvement?  Yes, but if we are looking to improve the schools and have them be where we want them to be, then having the SB fully engaged in practices known to improve schools is a good place to start and, indeed, to follow its own policies.  

We have a community that gives generously to our schools.  We have many students who are eager to learn.  We have many hardworking teachers and administrators who are responsible for setting goals, implementing research-based programs and practices and who are held accountable for doing so.  The SB should hold itself to no less of a high a standard. The students, parents, and community deserve no less.  As a community, we need to hold our School Board accountable.   

Special Opinion to the Mirror by Chas Cornweller

These are the days that I wish Americans were braver than we are. What I mean by that is, special interests have so ingrained themselves into the fabric of who we are, most Americans cannot even recognize when and why they are voting against their own self-interest. And yes, I am talking about Democrats voting for the guy who presents himself as a moderate, safe and firmly planted in the middle of all issues. When in reality we all know he stands with Corporations, the ongoing game of craps nightmare that is Wall Street and the continual bleeding of the middle class by leechlike taxes, roller coaster economies and endless wars. 

How many Americans still alive, remember the depression of the thirties? How many are still alive who not only lived through it, but benefited from the policies of that era? How many alive today can name the programs that pulled our collected asses from the ash heap of a ruined economy and set this nation on a corrective course for a productive society? Unless you are a student of history and or an economist, probably not many. The term Socialism has been bantered about a lot lately. And mostly, it has been used incorrectly and in extreme cases used as a battering ram to accost the left. The startling truth is, the fabric of American economics is woven with the thread of socialism, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. And it mainly stems from the progressive policies of FDR and the failed economic experiment that was America in the twenties.

Socialism in America presents itself as Welfare Subsidies. That is a fact. And as someone who supports this, I cannot deny the truth of it. But who thrives from these subsidies? Who reaps the benefits of the lion’s share? Do America’s poor? How about immigrants and “illegals” or those that enter this country by skirting the “system” eluding the net that would disseminate and therefore either assimilate or deport them? What about those who work but still live below the Well, in actuality, Energy related corporations received a total of 8.4 billion dollars in 2016. In 2017, farmers received 11.5 billion in subsidies or 15% of 75.1 billion in total farm income. Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Auto and Boeing received a combined total of over 21.3 billion dollars in subsidies. Nike, Intel, Alcoa’s combined total reaches 11.54 billion dollars in subsidies. For a combined total of over 52.7 billion in corporate welfare. I call it that, because that is what it is. These corporations are all blue-chip corporations that live in the public domain on Wall Street and make a yearly profit. In other words, our government is manipulating the crap game with these numbers. Our money. This is not to mention the money our government pays out to other countries. Or money that is bantered about within the Pentagon and our national security in the form of navies, armies and the air forces. Yes, these are ALL social programs.

Now, for those of you who may want to challenge my point about our standing Army, please read Article One, Section Eight, Clause Twelve of the Constitution first before doing so. Yes, I understand to pay the debts and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Yes, I understand the laying and collection of taxes and excises to pay for this standing army and/or common defense. Again, read clause twelve. And yes, to provide a safety net for agriculture and education, this is what general welfare clause eluded to. And of course, the argument is much larger and broader than I intend on going into now, suffice to say, the National Bank and its establishment and the implications of a central government versus individual states. That said, fast forward to today, with the Federal Government, Federal Reserve (which is actually not even a governmental agency), Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to name just a small percentage of centralized agencies you and I pay for. These are all a form of socialized programs that have been enacted over the course of decades to solidify the power behind the central few who have dominion over the mass majority. Any authoritarian government has developed some form of these programs. Any authoritarian government has developed this. From worst case scenarios with communist Russia in 1917 and Germany with the NAZI party in 1933 to Great Britain, first with royalty coupled with the House of Commons and a political system guaranteed to perpetuate lorded power over the populace. It’s a fact and a necessary evil to ensure order and a sense of well-being. Otherwise, the alternative is anarchy.

But, the elephant in the room is this; within any form of centralized government you have the corruption of the human component to which authority is handed. With human characteristics and flaws, any number of corruptions can set in and take root. Communism, for anyone who has read the history of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, in its purest form is the perfect Utopian concept in which everyone flourishes. There is no argument. I intentionally did not say prospers, as that would be detrimental to the concept for which it is initiated. Democracy, as well, is the fairest in selection of authority and rulers or a ruler, giving each individual a vote and therefore a voice in his or her government. A Republic, too, is fair in that all of its people are incorporated into a government, however run, into a singular or centralized unit, protected and ruled. But the moment the human element is introduced, you have introduced the flaws of men. Greed, avarice, and even mental illness in the form of paranoia or self-possessed cruelty or intolerance can have such an adverse effect as to bring an entire nation to its knees. It has happened in the past and no doubt will happen again.

My point is this. Any form of government has its flaws. Our form of government once worked for a certain group of people. It enabled the middle class to grow and thrive. It also encouraged a class of people to amass great wealth on the backs and labors of many, many people. Our government has built roads, fire stations, police stations, schools, other great institutions of higher learning and wonderful halls and theaters from which our people can take pride of our own national heritage. Many were paid for by our taxes. These great projects were socialism in action. Socialism is an integral part of our nation’s sustained growth. Socialism is necessary to form, build and maintain a fire department, a police station, highway construction, care for the elderly, care for the unborn. It enables those with the brains and the passion, but not the income to achieve greater things. It rebuilds towns and cities wrecked by natural disaster. It conducts the research for discovery for new medicines and fund the engineering science that once took us to the moon. If you fear socialism, you truly do not understand what it can do. You do not understand what it has already done. You do not understand the mechanism of a Social Contract.

What you should fear is not socialism nor the programs, but those that want to take them away, those that demonize them. Put them on the public shelf for private consumption and profit and narrow those fields so that only a few are able to partake. While all the while they make profits on your ill health. They make profits on your freedoms. They make profits on sending your sons and daughters to war. They make profits on your miseries. Socialism levels the field. It helps to evenly distribute that what is already accessible to us. It enables those who want to do better, contribute more, to do so. It lessens the authoritative hand in revoking freedom and voice. Socialism gives rise to justice and lessens the burden that corruption brings from high, on the common man. “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last twenty years. Socialism is what they call public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank security deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.” Harry S. Truman New York speech titled Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks dated October 10, 1952.

This past week, and I am sure in the coming months, my fellow Americans will fearfully and obtusely enter into a new phase in American history. One where the reins of power will be handed willfully and intentionally to an authoritative oligarchy. Handed over to a group of elderly white men whose power and moneyed interest are destined to eventually bring this nation to its knees, perhaps along with the rest of world as well. They care not one wit about the working man and working woman. They care not one wit about the children nor the generations that possibly may come after them. They only care for their moment in the sun today, their self-interests, and the power structure they have so carefully nurtured and crafted. And should that power structure begin to shift and crack, then be rest assured, you will eventually see and experience the full fury of humanity without conscience, humanity run off the rails, with all its flaws, and all of its darkness, and all of the godlessness man can conjure to injure his fellow man. All of this will be done because we, as a people, voted with fear. We voted with trepidation instead of faith. We voted with our pocketbooks and bank accounts instead of our morality. We voted self-interest over the common good for all. For they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind.

Special Opinion to the Mirror written by Chas Cornweller.

I’d been thinking lately of re-reading, George Orwell’s book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. I had read it once back in High School, after the required reading of Animal Farm. But it was Nineteen Eighty-Four that left me in a mild stage of psychological shock. I was sixteen at time. I am not wholly sure what the catalyst was, but I am pretty sure it was the pre-conditioning of my Vietnam years. The falsehoods of those years from our government and the final stages of the Nixon administration and the eventual lies told to the national press and the American people. Once I grasped the full meaning of Orwell’s masterpiece, it possibly dawned on me. This could happen to America and my world. Ah, the innocence of youth!

Now don’t misunderstand, I was raised a well-adjusted child in a strong middle-class family in a small town in rural America. I went to church most every Sunday. I had plenty of same-aged friends, plus cousins and a family that was close. I also had a paper route during these formative years and a natural inquisitiveness that led me to read those headlines and delve deeper into their portent meanings. So, by the time I was sixteen most of my world-view was shaped by a daily reading of world events coupled with a weekly rendering of current events before my civics class. There was no talk of “fake news” in those days. In fact, historically (and unless someone has altered the entire history of the world since the mid-fifties until the late seventies) I would venture to say almost ninety-five percent of what I saw, read and believed has come to pass as historic fact. Four administrations of presidents DID lie about the objectives and results of a war half-way across the world. ALL of those young college students were correct in deducing that the draft was for naught.

President Nixon was a crooked politician and rightly was well on his way to being impeached. Fortunately for America, he took the honorable route and resigned his presidency. But, in the year nineteen and seventy-two, the issues were not so black and white. And the nation was divided. The war on poverty and the war for social justices were just as bleak and critical then as they are now. But the lie was then, well, we’re winning the war on Social Justice. We’re going to win the war on poverty, as well. Today, these same wars continue. But hindsight being twenty-twenty, we can see all the reasons why they failed, can we not?

America has been wandering in the wilderness since the closing days of World War II. It is interesting to read somewhere…that when Germany and the Soviet Union entered into an uneasy truce (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939) that the collective world held its breath and prayed for peace. But, when Germany invaded Russia in nineteen and forty-one, suddenly the Soviet propaganda was that World War Two was a Capitalist Fraud. It certainly appeared that way to Communists around the world. But, again, in hindsight, we all know it was Hitler’s goal all along to eliminate the Bolsheviks. But what was the true intent of World War Two? Obviously, Japan had a different intent than Nazi Germany. But if you look closely enough, both Germany and Japan had rightful justifications for their intentions. This is the double-sided curse of history. Just as, if you look closely enough at America’s history, you will see a dark and horrendously bloody side to its birth and growth as a super-power nation. But most will not look, nor care too. They can’t handle that truth. Which brings me to our wandering these past seventy-odd years as a megalithic drunken giant welding an oversized and bloody sword. Anyone who dares to cross our path and tries to usurp any amount of power from this giant will face its wrath. To the extent that it sometimes has been to our own detriment. Case in point: Research one OSS member A. Peter Dewey and his relationship with communist aligned troops (Viet Minh) and how America came so very close to resolving closure with the Vietnamese people and the French colonials. Ah, but history is not kind. And America was so fixated on rooting out communism from every nook and crevice, ears were closed along with eyes and imaginations in nineteen forty-five. Peace died the day Dewey was killed accidentally by the Viet Minh and therefore, twenty years later, so had fifty-three thousand of America’s youth. Look it up…research the facts.

So, what does this have to do with the book Nineteen Eighty-four? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Perhaps somewhere in the middle? You see, we’ve been at war nearly twenty years in the Middle East (Disputed Lands in Orwell’s book). We’ve been told we are there to win the hearts and minds (build schools, hospitals, preach Democracy and goodwill) of these people. We set out to bring Afghanistan into the twentieth century. We set out to free the Iraq people from a despot (which, incidentally we helped to prop up as dictator during the Iran-Iraq conflict – historically speaking). So, yes, he was our problem. Nearly twenty years of our military presence has brought us to where? Just this past week, another major attack on our embassy in Bagdad and the killing of Iran’s General Soleimani supposedly to ratchet down the violence in the area.

At what point, how could all of this have been prevented? At which junction, in the drunken ramblings of this fierce and all-powerful giant, did we take a wrong turn? When was peace on the minds of the ones who are responsible for this mess? And just who is responsible? Was it Truman, when he insulted Soviet Minister Molotov at the White House on April 23^rd, Nineteen Forty-Five? Perhaps it was Neville Chamberland caving to Adolf Hitler in giving him the western portion of Czechoslovakia in Nineteen and Thirty-Eight? We could go back to the unfortunate and highly ill-advised Treaty of Versailles of Nineteen-Nineteen. One could argue that this treaty set Germany on the course for the Second World War and so on and so forth. Maybe it was France and England carving up the Middle East just prior to the First World War ending. So many crossroads. So many ill-advised decisions. So many empty-headed politicians guiding the multitudes towards oblivion.

Now, of course, I sit at my computer with complete twenty-twenty hindsight on all of these historic and infamous moments, so it’s easy to say what went wrong. But, here’s the rub; I spoke up to anyone who would listen in Two Thousand and Three and warned that it would not go well in Iraq if we invaded a sovereign nation (unconstitutional by the way – Congress or no Congress) without provocation from that nation. Many I spoke with, agreed. Many did not. It is now history.

I have been saying for years, that this nation’s reliance on oil and oil product is much like a drug addict’s desperation and needs. America claims it is protecting its vital interest in this region. The oil does not belong to us! It would be comparably the same if Japan had staked a claim with the Bush family during the nineteen-fifties and then placed a standing army in Texas and Oklahoma to guarantee unlimited access to that oil. The Bushes get mega-rich, while the rest of this country withers. Meanwhile, Japan occupies our sovereign lands. Do you not understand how much this must chafe at the people of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? The drunken giant indeed.

So, perpetual war…at least until the wells run dry? Try asking the Ministry of Peace. I am sure we are finally gaining the upper hand within those disputed lands. As long as Eurasia doesn’t interfere.  Feeling that generous helping of prosperity and wealth yet? If not, try the Ministry of Plenty. Perhaps you’ll get lucky with one of those many lotteries they like to put in front of us.  If you still feel like you aren’t getting the answers you need, or you feel your news feed has let you down. (you know, it’s all fake news) try the Ministry of Propaganda. I am sure you’ll find what you’ll need from them and if not, it’s all soon to be there, in the history books. Fresh from the publications of the Ministry of Truth.

As a sixteen-year kid, I could not understand my anxiety by reading just one book. Little did I know then, what I know now. I was reading the future. It does cut close to the bone.  Interesting to me, it was Animal Farm that opened that door. Ironic.   

Are places like Harvard or UVA just hedge funds masquerading as universities? Take Harvard, where $40.9 billion is under active management in its endowment, and it buys things like vineyard water rights.

The school to prison pipeline has been surpassed by the school to debtor’s prison parkway. High schools have failed inner-city and rural kids so now they kick education down the road to the colleges and tell every kid they must attend college. The brainwashing starts in grade school. Calling them “public” schools is the real propaganda. They are government schools.

Yes, we are told that college is necessary for success, and if you can’t afford it, well we have these things called ‘student loans’ backed by the US government. In essence, the biggest predatory lender is the US government.

Progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seek to gain power and buy votes by addressing symptoms, not root causes of problems. Making college “free” would make it even more expensive.

The problem with college debt is that colleges are “selling” educations that are more expensive than they are worth. If people received jobs that validated the costs of those educations, they’d be able to pay it back with no issue.

Students and their parents are not understanding return on investment of education and taking out far too much debt versus the product’s worth.

This is made worse by the government being willing to lend with no direct criteria (for example, loaning more for an engineering degree vs. a Gender Studies degree).

Forgiving college debt on the tax payer’s dime does not address these problems and shirks personal responsibility, transferring it to other people. If there should be any responsibility transfer, it is to the colleges.

Let the colleges forgive the loans, since they sold ones that didn’t generate an ROI.

Next, and more importantly, get the government out of the lending game, make colleges have skin in the game, increase education and transparency on ROI of education debt and debt in general and allow loans to be tied to relevant factors (GPAs, degrees, etc.).

It’s not just college though, the same goes for healthcare. We need to address the cost of healthcare, not just try to make it “free”, which we know will ultimately bloat costs and decrease quality.

Example: What are the costs for the following procedures on average?

Lasik surgery, breast augmentation, and knee replacement.

Lasik-less than $2k an eye, breastwork is $3700 (less than $2k a boob),
but knee replacement is averaging $49,500 per knee (around $100k for both knees).

Knees are covered by health insurance but boob jobs aren’t. It’s a competition. Allowing for competition, transparency and having the recipient pay brings costs down.

The left is good at pointing fingers, but they are not addressing the root causes of problems to find solutions. We have to stop throwing money at symptoms.

Warren knows this, and Grifter Bernie doesn’t care to understand it- it’s not part of his game.

This is not just a Democrat problem. The Republicans are just as bad. They have not been able to put a simple healthcare plan forward that could pass Congress in 15 years, during which time they have whined about the ACA like little children.

When it is all said and done, we need free-market solutions. Competition and transparency bring prices down and quality up.