Diversity Is Legitimacy

Non-Elites,

​  The Real Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech​ ,   Natalia Dashan   August 5, 2019 

​  When I saw him, he was outside Payne Whitney. Nothing about the tall, gray façade suggests it is the university gym, unless there is a new trend of contractors housing athletics departments in Gothic cathedrals. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the frosted glass panes and arches that the third floor hosts the world’s largest suspended indoor swimming pool. It is a work of art, like the rest of Yale’s buildings.
  Marcus was smoking by a bench, his face jaundiced from three packs that day. This is atypical for Yale students—most abstain from smoking. There was no reason for him to smoke so much, just as there was no reason for me to ride around campus on a blue Razor scooter. But Yale students tend to have such quirks. His suit-jacket was dusty and smelled of sweat—he didn’t mind lifting weights in a dress shirt and trousers if that meant more time to read Nietzsche alone at the bar.
  When I hugged him, he felt skeletal. I asked if he had eaten today. He assured me that his earthly requirements were limited—no need for anything other than alcohol and cigarettes. “I can buy you a sandwich.” He refused. I insisted. A nice one. Bacon and egg. Or steak and cheese. I was testy now. “GHeav is right there. I’ll be back in six minutes.”
  He turned his face towards me, warm with friendliness—and with one sentence, he changed our relationship forever.
“You know I’m rich, right?”
“What?”
“You know I have a trust fund, right? I can buy my own sandwich if I wanted it.”
  This is the moment when after three years of friendship, Marcus sat down and told me his life story. His cottages in Norway. Sneaking into the family study. Learning about the cost of hardwoods and hearing his boorish, critical father sulk in 5-star hotel rooms.
  Marcus did not act this way out of anxiety, grief, stress, or because he had nobody to tell him his habits will kill him. He lived as a starving writer not out of necessity, but for the aesthetic. Out of some desire to imitate the Bohemian 19th century writers. Out of artistry. Style. Intentional choice.
  In terms of income at Yale, I was in the bottom 2%. And the people to whom I extended my generosity did not need it, whatsoever. This is mildly entertaining, but not the point. This is not a story about me, or about Marcus, or about our amusing adventures at Yale.
  This is a story about an institution and an elite that have lost themselves...
..Over the past decade, elite colleges have been staging grounds for what Matthew Yglesias has termed the Great Awokening. Dozens of scandals have illustrated a stifling new ideological orthodoxy that is trickling down into the rest of society through HR departments, corporations, churches, foundations, and activist organizations. The nation is becoming polarized and its parts disconnected. The right is evil, and the left is stupid. Or is it the other way around?
  The campus “free speech” debate is just a side-effect. So are debates about “diversity” and “inclusion.” The real problems run much deeper. The real problems start with Marcus and me, and the masks we wear for each other...
..The story of how I ended up at Yale is not typical. Yale’s tuition costs $50,000 per year, but if a student’s parents earn less than $60,000, they can attend virtually for free. This means that for the poorer subset of American society, Yale is not just cheaper than the state school, but cheaper than community college. Through the magic of the universe, I figured this out, and I wanted to go. I wanted to leave my small town, and I had the SAT score to try.
  Based on statistics from the class of 2013, approximately 2% of students hailed from the lowest income quintile, while 69% came from the top 20%. How did those poor students fare after graduation? Around 2% of students at Yale move from the bottom to the top quintile. In other words, nearly all of them. You show up poor, and you leave rich. Going to an Ivy League school may be the fastest way to join the upper class.
  But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody kept talking about how broke they were.
  “Want to go out for brunch?” “I can’t—I’m so broke.” This was a common line. Sometimes the conversations had a more accusatory tone. “Wow, you took a taxi to the airport? I always take the subway.”... ..What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country-club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.​..
..There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored when they volunteered information that countered the main narrative, because the surface-level debate wasn’t the point. The point was to signal that you were with the program. Only a select and secret group of student “leaders”—who were already savvy enough to engage comfortably with hierarchy—were invited in to chat with administrators.
  Shouting from the rooftops that “They aren’t doing enough!” is much easier than following any traditional system of elite social norms and duties, let alone carefully re-engineering that system to reestablish order in a time of growing crisis.
  Western elites are not comfortable with their place in society and the responsibilities that come with it, and realize that there are deep structural problems with the old systems of coordination. But lacking the capacity for an orderly restructuring, or even a diagnosis of problems and needs, we dive deeper into a chaotic ideological mode of coordination that sweeps away the old structures.
  When you live with this mindset, what you end up with is not an establishment where a woke upper class rallies and advocates for the rights of minorities, the poor, and underprivileged groups. What you have is a blind and self-righteous upper class that becomes structurally unable to take coordinated responsibility. You get stuck in an ideological mode of coordination, where no one can speak the truth to correct collective mistakes and overreaches without losing position...
..Let’s take down the Man. They say this in front of their PowerPoints. They clink champagne glasses. Let’s take down the Man! But there is no real spirit of revolution in these words. It is all in the language they understand—polite and clean, because it isn’t really real. It is a performative spectacle about their own morale and guilt.
  If you were the ruler while everything was burning around you, and you didn’t know what to do, what would you do? You would deny that you are in charge. And you would recuperate the growing discontented masses into your own power base, so that things stay comfortable for you...
..The capacity to really think through what an alternative should look like, and create one, is so rare as to be effectively nonexistent. Instead, idealists are forced to take the easy way of just going along with dominant ideological narratives of what it means to do good. They feel guilty about their wealth and privileges, and feel that they won’t be doing their part unless they do something very altruistic, and the idealistic ideologies reinforce these feelings. So they go overboard, and rush headlong into whatever they are supposed to do. They purport to speak for and be allied with underprivileged groups. They get their professors fired for minor infractions. They frantically tear down whatever vestiges of the old institutions and hierarchies that they can, and conspicuously feel guilty about the rest.
  These are the people who buy clothes from Salvation Army and decline your Sunday brunch invitation because it’s too expensive, sometimes with the implication that they are saving their money to donate to more effective causes, if they aren’t pretending not to have it. They are the people who might attack or cut off their friends for ideological reasons. They discharge their personal responsibility by sacrificing everything outside of their distant mission, including friendships and social fabric...
..But ultimately, by going along with the narratives of an ideology that can efficiently capture these impulses, but has no structural ability to deliver on its promises, it just diverts more energy from what a normal benevolent elite should be doing...
..Now we can begin to understand the real problem at Yale. It is not free speech—and it is not non-inclusivity. The standards of reality, and the standards of morality not based solely on being woke, are ousted. That’s because the conventional standards of elite morality, based on responsible use of power—actually responsible, not just a convenient feeling of doing good—are much harder, and based on the very self-consciousness that everyone is trying to avoid...
..Yale is having an existential crisis. Students are taught to break the system, but Yale doesn’t even want to teach them what the original system is, what it was for, or how to productively replace it. The university is so lacking in vision that it doesn’t even know what the ideal student looks like, or what it wants to teach them...
..Students are demanding more mental health resources. A new wellness space was created with bean-bag chairs and colored walls. But the real sources of unhappiness are more systemic. They are rooted in uncertainty about the future.
  If Yale students are uncertain about the future and their role in it, what does that say about the rest of society? ...
..Yale will not be replaced any time soon. Its worldwide brand recognition is worth trillions. And Yale’s role as an institution older than the Republic is important. It is the preserver of cultural knowledge. While Stanford can produce entrepreneurs, it still falls to Yale to produce the bulk of Supreme Court justices.
..Current Yale administrators have a sense of self-preservation for themselves and their corporation, but not for what made them great in the first place. They are quick to appease students, when they go along with the new zeitgeist, as if students and the latest wokeness were the preservers of cultural knowledge. This is the key to understanding why beloved faculty members can end up purged, against all public sentiment. Whether out of ideological commitment or hard-nosed realpolitik, these apparatchik administrators, bolstered by a minority of students, have effectively outmaneuvered their rivals. In doing so, they have also accelerated the tearing down of Yale’s institutional legacy and undermined its historical mission.
  If they were confronting a university and student body with a powerful commitment to that mission, things might be different. But they aren’t...
..The same vacuum of awareness crops up again and again, influencing both people and institutions, until they are unable to even grasp the potential of their position. Without doing that, rebuilding a shared set of goals around which to coordinate on a large scale will remain impossible.
  Yale is supposed to be using its power and reputation to set standards for excellence, but instead it is abandoning its responsibilities and getting embroiled in controversy after controversy. Yale is not special in this regard—other colleges are also often embroiled in controversies. But the controversies of top colleges matter most because they determine what is acceptable for everybody else.
  And what’s happening at Yale reflects a crisis in America’s broader governing class...

The Real Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

​  Yale Reinstituting Standardized Tests For Admission I​t was reported last week that Yale is once again instituting standardized tests for admission after years of keeping them optional for "DEI" reasons.
​  The university's undergraduate admissions dean announced a change in their student selection process amidst ongoing debate over the efficacy of traditional tests. Critics argue these exams don't fully capture a student's potential, suggesting high school GPAs as a more accurate measure. The move, seen as a step towards fairness for disadvantaged students, aligns Yale with institutions like Harvard, MIT, and Dartmouth, which have already adjusted their admissions policies, according to The Daily Mail.​... .."Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed," he said. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/yale-reinstituting-standardized-tests-admission

UN, West just watching Israeli crimes in Gaza for 140 days: Turkish President Erdogan
Even UN Security Council does not and cannot call for an immediate cease-fire, says Recep Tayyip Erdogan https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/un-west-just-watching-israeli-crimes-in-gaza-for-140-days-turkish-president-erdogan/3146702

Sexual abuse and beatings: A Palestinian mother's ordeal in Israeli custody
A woman abducted by Israeli forces from a school in Gaza recalls her harrowing experience in detention "They asked me many questions about my family, my husband and my siblings," Hussain recalled.  
"The soldiers kept threatening to hurt my children, shouting at me that if I don't tell the truth, they will torture and kill my kids.​"
"They kept asking about my brothers and sisters. One of my brothers is a lawyer and two others are professors and one is a doctor and one barber. They are working people, they have no connection to anything else. They kept insisting that they were 'activists', and when I asked what they meant, they said I knew the answer.
"During the interrogations, they tied me to a chair and a female soldier stood next to me, kicking me and shoving me with her weapon to answer properly.​" https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sexual-abuse-and-beatings-palestinian-mothers-ordeal-israeli-custody

How Israeli settlers are exploiting Gaza conflict to seize more Palestinian land in the West Bank https://www.arabnews.com/node/2466026/middle-east

​  Gaza faces famine as Israel blocks aid, breaching food rights treaties ​  Early treaties by international organizations include the right to food among fundamental human rights, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 recognizing it as a basic human right. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966 further guaranteed the right to freedom from hunger, making it the most comprehensive treaty addressing the right to food.
​  A report highlighted that the framework for realizing the right to food obligates parties to take necessary measures to provide food and alleviate hunger, particularly in emergencies. International instruments mandate countries to ensure food provision and sustainability, allowing access through all means and providing healthy food to all groups without discrimination.
​  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also noted that numerous provisions of international humanitarian law pertain to providing food in armed conflict situations. Prohibitions include starving civilians as a means of warfare or combat, as well as depriving populations of food sources and supplies. https://www.jordannews.jo/Section-20/Middle-East/Gaza-faces-famine-as-Israel-blocks-aid-breaching-food-rights-treaties-34458

Aaron Burned Himself To Make Us Look At Gaza An active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, in apparent protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which he described as a “genocide.”
The burn victim, who identified himself in video of the incident as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell, reportedly succumbed to his injuries on Sunday night. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/aaron-burned-himself-to-make-us-look-at-gaza.html#more

​June 12, 1963, in front of the US Embassy in Saigon, Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death, in peaceful protest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c

Former Prime Minister Urges Israelis To 'Besiege The Knesset' To Oust Netanyahu https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/former-prime-minister-urges-israelis-besiege-knesset-oust-netanyahu

​  The Christian Zionist view from last Thursday: No, Virginia, Trump Has Not Lost A Step​ , Roger L. Simon ​  I was in the audience of two thousand plus at Nashville’s Opryland on Feb. 22 when Mr. Trump addressed the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) for more than an hour and a half with nary a stumble, consulting a teleprompter or extemporizing as he wished.​ He was also wittier than anyone on late night television... ​ ..Mr. Trump delivered a speech that was, in part, what many of us had heard before but skewed slightly to emphasize his Christianity and, probably consequently, his deep-seated love and defense of Israel.​ He stated he “fought harder for Christians than any president has done before.”​... ..Mr. Trump’s evolution has led him to affirm his religious faith emphatically as he did that night with statements like “Our allegiance is to our Creator. They [the Democrats] don’t get that.” Or: “They can’t stand we don’t answer to bureaucrats in Washington. We answer to God in Heaven.”... ..Who did accompany him, the sole person he invited to join him on stage—he often invites many—was his former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
​  Mr. Friedman was greeted with utmost warmth and applause by an audience largely of evangelicals who are known as the greatest friends of Israel, not only in our country but arguably anywhere. (There were also a few religious Jews I spotted in the audience wearing their yarmulkes.)​ Mr. Friedman saluted his former boss, saying, “Mr. President, you are the greatest friend Israel ever had.” https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-virginia-trump-has-not-lost-step

Former Democrat lawmaker endorses Trump for US president​ , Tulsi Gabbard has been listed among the leading Republican candidate’s possible running mates https://www.rt.com/news/593028-tulsi-gabbard-cpac/

​  Why Possible Trump VP Pick Tulsi Gabbard Is Visiting Mar-a-Lago Soon ​  Ms. Bryan asserts: the former Hawaii congresswoman’s March 7 appearance at the ritzy resort in Palm Beach, Florida, is unrelated to President Trump’s big announcement involving Ms. Gabbard and others.
​  On Feb. 20, President Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, revealed at a Fox News town hall in Greenville, S.C., that Ms. Gabbard, a former Democrat, had made his “short list” of possible running mates.
​  Long before that revelation, Ms. Bryan had been in contact with Ms. Gabbard about serving as a guest speaker for the group’s annual gala. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-possible-trump-vp-pick-tulsi-gabbard-visiting-mar-lago-soon

CIA Built "12 Secret Spy Bases" In Ukraine & Waged Shadow War For Last Decade, Bombshell NYT Report Confirms​  (Not just bioweapon labs.) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cia-built-12-secret-spy-bases-ukraine-waged-shadow-war-last-decade-bombshell-nyt

  ​At the 2 year mark of the Special Military Operation, Ukraine has burned through 2 or 3 NATO-trained & equipped armies, extinguishing about 450,000 Ukrainian human lives, and most of the available loose military equipment and ammunition in Europe, the US, and even some from Israel. Funding has been cut off since early December. Morale is so low that exhausted Ukrainian soldiers are fleeing or surrendering, rather than fighting. The 1200 km line of contact is crumbling wherever Russian forces advance. Ukrainian (Patriot missiles and such) air defenses have been so degraded that Russian planes can rain down the huge 1000# to 3000# "FABs", fuel air bombs, remotely-targeted with satellite guidance and glide-wing kits. The Ukrainian army is not able to set up new defensive lines or hold defensive lines under devastating attack. The month of mud will soon arrive, but Russian FABs and long range artillery will not be impaired, nor will precision Russian missiles and drones. Zelensky's presidency ends at the end of March. He says he will remain in office, due to the emergency. Many think he will not, but will have to accept blame. A successor may negotiate peace with Russia. ​  Avdeevka Denouement: Russian Momentum Turning Point

Avdeevka Denouement: Russian Momentum Turning Point

​  "Like A Warzone": Farmers Surround EU Headquarters Building ​  The mephitis of manure, melting tires and malodorous teargas pervaded downtown Brussels this Monday morning as angry farmers encircled the European Union's headquarters. This protest coincides with a meeting of the bloc's agriculture ministers. The farmers are expressing their anger over the EU's disastrous green policies.
Hundreds of Belgian farmers on tractors clogged roadways around the European Council building. Videos posted on X show the chaotic scenes...
​  "There is a clear problem with the reduction of the import tariffs for Ukraine and massive imports of grain and poultry which depresses the prices," said Guillaume Van Binst, secretary general of the Federation of Young Farmers. Guillaume added: "The measures proposed by the commission are very weak and it is more passing the hot potato to member states." ...
..EU leaders are scrambling to defuse this ticking timebomb of social unrest spreading across the bloc. They are taking steps to reduce red tape and delay some green rules.  "It can always go more quickly, But we're already working faster than usually." David Clarinval, Belgium's agriculture minister, told reporters Monday. Clarinval said, "One can understand the anger of the farmers. One can also understand that some are in a difficult situation. But aggression has never been a source of solutions."​   (Oh, Really?) ​https://www.zerohedge.com/political/things-are-heating-farmers-surround-eu-headquarters-building

​  EU must find ‘enormous amount’ of money to face global challenges, ​(​former Goldman Sachs banker, Mario) Draghi says ​  He presented EU governments with his diagnosis: The three pillars the EU has relied on — energy from Russia, exports from China, and the U.S. defense apparatus — are no longer as solid as before, and on the green and digital transitions alone the EU would have to spend €500 billion a year. The funding gap between Europe and the United States in terms of investment is equivalent to half a trillion euros a year, and a third of that would be public money...
​..Draghi called for "bold action" on the matter of investments.​.. Draghi stressed the necessity to channel European private savings, because “public money will never be enough,” but he also put on the table options to find funds at the EU level, according to the aide.​   ("Find" funds?)
​  The EU could create a new common cash facility, such as debt or loans, or use private partnerships where the European Investment Bank would have a role to play. ​(Rothschild banker) French President Emmanuel Macron and others support the idea of new common debt. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-must-find-enormous-amount-of-money-to-face-global-challenges-draghi-says/

Crisis Can't Be Solved in Few Hours, Macron Tells Enraged Farmers Who Stormed Agri-Fair in Paris https://sputnikglobe.com/20240224/crisis-cant-be-solved-in-few-hours-macron-tells-enraged-farmers-who-stormed-agri-fair-in-paris-1116951605.html

​  Subsidies differ dramatically by country, but all subsidies support global corporate agribusiness. Producers Vs Consumers: Who Do Ag Subsidies Support?   Indian farmer protests restarted in early 2024 as talks on the producers' demands to set more legally binding minimum support prices for agricultural products have broken down.
​  The borders of city state and capital Delhi have been fortified but farmers from surrounding areas seem determined to push past the barricades this week armed with heavy equipment, supplies and masks to fend off tear gas deployed by police. Ahead of the presidential elections in April and May, farmers once again want to make their grievances heard. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/producers-vs-consumers-who-do-ag-subsidies-support

​  Xi isn’t destroying China’s economy – he’s changing it​   Xi Jinping deliberately set about changing the structure of China’s economy in order to end a growth boom based solely on real estate and debt. The newspapers love to waffle on about the “real estate crisis” and Evergrande, but can you imagine how big the problem would have been had previous policies been continued and China pushed for obscene 10% growth targets based on an explosion of debt? Xi Jinping ended this and initiated a process of deleveraging which deliberately slowed down China’s economic growth to around 6% when he came to power. Why? Because debt is not a sustainable mechanism and his policy has been literally to push the real estate industry into a managed recession, even if that has short-term repercussions.
​  Secondly, Xi Jinping’s policy has been to reinvent China’s economy to meet upcoming challenges by transforming it from a low end, export, real estate boom economy, into a high-end technological powerhouse. Instead of investing aimlessly in local government real estate booms, China has redirected state money to building up high-value industries including renewable energy, computing, semiconductors, automobiles, aviation, among other things. It is primarily this bid to become the global technological leader (by default of size) that has triggered the backlash from the US on an economic level and thus the bid to try and cripple China’s technological advance through export controls, which in fact show little evidence of working.
​  In addition to that, the global economic environment China operates in, has changed. The US has terminated its longstanding policy of open economic integration in favor of protectionism, bloc alignment, and the geopoliticization of supply chains. It has, in turn, created geopolitical conflicts with Russia and China and demanded its allies cut or reduce economic ties to the targeted countries...
​..The CIA for example, is relentless in trying to strengthen its presence in China, but if China arrests someone or links them to spying, the media will respond by calling Beijing paranoid, insecure and coercive, showing how the narrative will skewer the country no matter what. However, the point still remains that it is more challenging for China to grow in this environment than it was before. https://swentr.site/news/593120-xi-china-economy-destroy/

​Meryl Nass MD explains Globalist Government via the WHO clearly and succinctly in a 15 minute monologue , Interviews I did at CPAC Veronika Kyrylenko, editor of The New American interviewed me again. 16 minutes. (I had a cold). This is a very good summary of what the WHO is trying to do. Cue​ in to 1:18, when ​Dr. Nass starts explaining​. (Sorry if you get commercials despite my efforts.)  https://thenewamerican.com/video/dr-meryl-nass-who-and-the-great-reset/

​ Dr Nass with (incessantly brilliant conversationalist) Russel Brand and Andrew Bridgen. All express themselves well, Nass and Bridgen more succinctly. 1:07 (long). Russell Brand interviewed Andrew Bridgen and me about the WHO--the show dropped yesterday​ (sorry, commercials) https://rumble.com/v4f89q0-its-all-happening-in-lockstep-meryl-nass-and-andrew-bridgen-on-who-and-exce.html

​  Peter McCullough MD , Springer Nature Cureus Journal of Medical Science Violates Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines Publisher Retracts Valid, High Quality, and Widely Read Cureus Paper Calling for Halt in COVID-19 Vaccination ​  The paper called for a halt in COVID-19 mass vaccination based on a valid evaluation of the evidence. It topped >330,000 views/reads/downloads in a month as compared to an average Cureus-promoted paper which has only ~2700 in a year.

BREAKING--Springer Nature Cureus Journal of Medical Science Violates Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines

​Old White guy (took this picture of Jenny by blooming apple tree, with peach in foreground)