The May Day workers who united this day seemed to come mostly from Latin countries. Signs in Spanish. Flags from their countries of birth (no American Flags) but, yes: Marxist flags. Socialist flags. And drums! Always drums mixed with Latin music blasting across Union Square. We weren’t in Kansas anymore. REVOLUTION. REVOLUTION. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And…the chants, followed by the opening speech to inspire the United Commie Workers Rally.

Next we heard from Imani Henry – Peoples Assembly- workin’ the crowd.

Enough with the speeches. I moved on to the taking of many pictures of the divergent hoards assembled. My task took wing. Pictures of signs. Lots of signs. Including the white protestors who shilled for The Socialist Green Party, the Marxist.com Party, Bob Avakian’s true Marxist Party. They are the behind the scenes facilitators of the revolution to Free Mumia. To Dump Trump. To Stop Killer Cops. The END to White Supremacy — Cause—- BLACK Lives Matter.

FLICKR Slide show.

But today was more than just speeches and pictures. Antifa arrived and the game changed. I heard an agitated leftie tell their lead guy to hurry – pointing towards the center of the square -there was “a problem.”

Seems Brittany Venti vs the Antifas was the next event leading to the arrest of this popular streamer. What I think I witnessed prior to the assault is first  presented in a series of pictures mounted in video format.

We don’t want you here!” Imani Henry (seen in another video) was  leading a ‘wall’ of people already harassing Brittany and forcing her and a friend from a Public Square. “

Something happened between Antifa-guy and Brittney, leading up to a  sign hitting her on the head.  She says Antifa-guy  hit her with the sign. Video that was released shows someone does hit her in the head, and Antifa-guy was bloodied near his left eye in retaliation.

Brittany was not bloodied.  Whatever, they were BOTH arrested.

Brittany talks about what happened. It’s a bit long, but she does give perspective on how she was attacked.  Link to short tweet  video  … from @JessixOW – she shows some of the confrontation. This is a good video that shows how long the harassment went on, how it grew, BTW, “WHERE WERE THE POLICE?”

Vocativ link report on assault and arrest:

 …. an “alt-right”  (I HATE that bogus label) social media provocateur.

Venti and anti-fascist (Antifa) protesters clashed, eventually resulting in Venti’s arrest and a bloodied protester. The moments leading up to her arrest were captured on a Periscope stream. After the arrest, she claimed someone hit her with a stick. It’s not yet known with what crime, if any, Venti has been charged.

When asked “what do you have to say to your fans,” she replied, “free Brittany Venti!”

THEN there were the Libertarian kids. They too were assaulted. The assault in action. (vocativ. com)

Another scuffle broke out between Antifa protesters and Trump-supporting Libertarians about 30 minutes later, the latter group eventually being be led across the street. The faction of Trump backers, about 30 people at its height, chanted “Build the wall!” and “You lost!” to the May Day participants in Union Square.

Assaulted. Pushed. Flour-bombed  Punched. Crunched. Till finally the police got wind there was something serious happening at the SW end of the Square. No one was actually hurt – that I could see – so perhaps a lot of bluster and show for the cameras- still these libertarian free speech protestors kept smiles on their faces even in the thick of the “madding” crowd.

Once on the scene, the police pulled them to the island SE of the square, sharing the area with Pro-Trump Build-the-Wall protestors.

Eventually, all joined in the chorus BUILD THE WALL. Pumped. Fearless.

Which sent one white, Commie flag waving millennial into a seething rage. From the Union Square side, he paced with his Marxist flag, shouting at the patriots.

He was seeing red, but not the kind he wanted.

After the assault video

Gen X Millennials. Self-identified as libertarians. They got spunk.  They are NOT Fascists. They are NOT Nazis. They call out Communism, Socialism, the Soviet Union, et al. They have but one solution: Keep America free of totalitarian despots.

But, Never Forget, why they were there. This was MAY DAY. Commie Day. America, she is BAD. The REVOLUTION is the Only SOLUTION: WORKERS UNITE!

++ Pictures and video property of Pamela Hall++

Those of you who’ve read Todd Gitlin’s fantastic account of ’60s Era political activism are well aware of the New Left’s descent into chaos, infighting, and terrorism during the course of that decade. However, I’m not sure how many of you realize just how much destruction the sectarian left inflicted upon our society during the 1960s and the ensuring decade. That’s why this blog post, which explores another book about this tumultuous chapter in American history, is so fascinating. Although I’m not sure I agree that we are on the same trajectory as the baby boomers, there are some unsettling parallels, including the near universal support among the left for using violence against its perceived opponents, and passive acceptance of the terror visited upon completely uninvolved parties who are allegedly obstructing the militant left’s objectives.

Beyond any legitimate critiques of President Trump-whose administration has yet to take any significant executive action-the fact that the left, ranging from conventional liberal apparatchiks to hardcore Marxists, has become completely unhinged is not a good sign for political comity in the days ahead. While some progressives have taken anti-Trump Democrats to task for their hysteria, and even questioned the utility of identity politics, the vast majority seem obsessed with demonizing their opponents and purging those engaged in heretical thinking. It’s a far cry from large scale urban terrorism, but it would still be wise to keep George Santayana’s admonition in mind over the next 4 years.

Addendum: For some more historical context, here is Ayn Rand on The Return of the Primitive. 

Fidel Castro, like his psychopathic patsy Ernesto Guevara Lynch, was a man who relished terrorizing civilians-in Cuba, the United States, throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and even in Sub-Saharan Africa-even if it meant the immolation of millions in a nuclear holocaust. Unlike Che-who in addition to being a sadist and mass murderer was a complete and utter failure-Castro was able to watch his experiment unfold on his 11 million guinea pigs over the course of half a century.

He lived to see a million and a half Cubans flee the tropical gulag he had created, including his sister and daughter. He inherited a country that had one of the best healthcare systems in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a positive net migration rate, and turned it into the sort of dystopian hellscape you can only experience in a state controlled solely by Communists. A country where even the upper middle class remain mired in the sort of entrenched poverty that those living in the most decrepit housing projects here would blanche at. Castro lived long enough to immure tens of thousands of his opponents in brutal slave labor camps and dungeons-including some of his most devoted Marxist comrades-and bury thousands more beneath Cuban soil. After all, dead men speak no tales.

Of course, this hasn’t prevented a rogue’s gallery of Marxist cretins and useful idiots, including most of the Canadian political establishment judging by my Twitter feed, from heaping praise upon a man who murdered more innocent people than Augusto Pinochet by a factor of 10. While this headline from The People’s Cube might be satirical, the message it conveys is completely accurate. Namely, the ruling class continues to valorize the life of someone responsible for democide simply because he shared its affection for socialism. Although some writers in the mainstream press are brave enough to describe the destructiveness of this vile ideology and explain how Fidel Castro’s victims are a direct result of its implementation on a mass scale, this awareness hasn’t reached the rest of our culture’s opinion-shapers.

They continue to lie not only about pre-Castro Cuba but also about the innate and ineluctable brutality of socialism, because if they were forced to tell the truth it would mean the death of their worldview. Egalitarianism and altruism are the first steps on the path to the guillotine, which is why the charnel house created by the Castro regime was so predictable. For those of you who’d like to learn more about trail of tears left behind by the left’s favorite monster, I’d recommend reading the following books:

Against All Hope: A Memoir Of Life In Castro’s Gulag, by Armando Valladares

Exposing The Real Che Guevara: And The Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, by Humberto Fontova

 Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, by Humberto Fontova

 Before Night Falls: A Memoir, by Reinaldo Arenas

So many have opined on Black Lives Matter over the past 3 years that it’s difficult to imagine anything novel being said or written about this organization. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to add my 2 cents, if for no other reason than the fact that I’ve never tackled this subject before on this website and my readers are entitled to know what I believe.

There are a number of characteristics that distinguish BLM and its supporters from previous civil rights movements and which identify it as part of the current wave of millennial, leftist political activism, the most prominent being its imperiousness. Like the strident social justice and feminist activism flourishing within this country’s most expensive hug boxes, Black Lives Matter refuses to countenance the idea that the opinions of its critics-or even those who disagree with some of its policy prescriptions-matter. They exist to dictate terms of submission, not debate.

A perfect illustration of this is the spectacle which unfolded at Toronto’s annual gay pride parade, an event effectively shut down while its organizers acquiesced to the incoherent demands of virulent racists. Leaving aside the tactical problem of a culture that comprises less than 3 percent of a country demanding recognition from a governing majority which it insists is systemically bigoted against black Canadians, there’s the question of why they believe this approach will be strategically successful. Based upon an interview with one of BLM’s co-founders north of the border, they seem to believe that if their movement can successfully manipulate language, effectively shaping how we speak, then they will be able to implement their goals-however nebulous they may be-without opposition.

This is not a completely baseless assumption, as the hijacking-to use a triggering word-of language has been essential to the left’s subversion of most cultural and political institutions in the West. In fact, manipulating language, distorting the way we communicate, is at the heart of critical theory, arguably the most destructive intellectual development of the past half-century. Just as past totalitarian ideologies sought to control and wield words in their quest to crush human autonomy-exemplified by the Communist corruption of language-contemporary cultural Marxists recognize how essential this tool is to achieve their political objectives.

It’s not simply a matter of language though. BLM and its advocates seem to inhabit an alternate reality where their perceived enemies don’t have any independent beliefs or philosophies of their own. These activists are not interested in any dialogue, much less debate, but instead want the uniform enforcement of a list of racial diktats they have devised. My only engagement with a white supporter of this movement is emblematic of the problems one encounters whenever he attempts to broach thoughtful critiques of Black Lives Matters.

Even when I explained that black people are not the victims of disproportionate violence at the hand of law enforcement-as Kevin Jackson has pointed out, Native Americans are much more likely to be killed during encounters with the police, to say nothing of whites-he refused to acknowledge this enormous hole in the BLM narrative, after which he chose to block me from his Twitter account. This is a typical response to anyone who tries to challenge blanket statements and irrelevant anecdotal evidence with statistical evidence and concrete, verifiable data.

The idea that rogue police officers might be acting out of a sense of impunity rather than a systemic hatred of black people, or that white people have also been victimized by cops is not even entertained by BLM demagogues. While you can probably recount the names of most black civilians killed by police officers, whether unarmed or armed, peaceful bystanders or aggressive criminals, how many of you remember the names  Zachary Hammond or Jeremy Mardis, an autistic 6 year-old white boy killed by a black police officer in Georgia?

The question answers itself, the reason being that academe, the media, and our cultural gatekeepers are intent upon perpetuating the concept of black Americans being the apex victim within our society. While there are occasionally thoughtful, nuanced national discussions of this subject, they are dwarfed by the institutionalized propaganda portraying minorities, but particularly black men, as eternal victims who are perpetually denied justice. Keep in mind, the previous and current Attorney General, as well as the man ostensibly charged with upholding the Constitution, are African-Americans. Correspondingly, white men are seen as super-predators in this country, continually oppressing their non-white prey through their ubiquitous racism. This meme suffuses American society and popular culture and has been a feature of daily life for at least the past 2 decades. Like the  doctrine of total hereditary depravity, white people are inculcated with the belief that their very existence is contaminated from birth. Their original sin is being born to race which is currently disfavored by our political and social elites.

The idea that there are no practical consequences to this institutionalized bigotry is absurd. When one race is persistently demonized by academe, the news media and within popular culture, and another is imbued with the sense that it is being exploited at the hands of that racial group, you are creating a toxic society. Beyond the mentally deranged who will exact violent, lethal revenge upon the people who they believe are responsible for their oppression, there are scores of people who aren’t sociopaths that will use the racial narrative they’ve absorbed to inform their daily lives. You need look no further than public opinion polls to discover the depth of this country’s racial divide and ask yourself, who or what is contributing to this philosophical chasm?

It’s ironic the same sort of people who acknowledge the damage false racial narratives inflicted upon black Americans and American society in the past, and even warn us about the danger they pose in the future, gleefully demonize the race they believe threatens their hold on power. The dysfunction that decades of cultural conditioning has created can be seen not only in the supremely narcissistic, myopic BLM but at virtually every liberal arts university in the country, as Jonathan Haidt and Sam Harris have explored far more eloquently than I could ever hope to. Black Lives Matter and its peers in similar affinity groups simply demonstrate the triumph of untethered emotion over reason.  The question is how do you reason with people who don’t recognize the value of reason? We must find an answer before the entire country finds itself living out the screenplays to The Wire.

Correction: As the commenter below points out, Jason Richwine is a regular contributor to National Review Online. We regret the error. 

One of the benefits of the Trump campaign, regardless of one’s thoughts on the merits of a Trump presidency, is its exposure of the conservative establishment. The irony of an undisciplined and at times extremely uncouth candidate, whose grasp of policy is tenuous, to say the least, obliterating the intellectual veneer of a movement with hundreds of millions of dollars in endowments and countless scholars at its disposal is one which will be endlessly analyzed in the years to come. Professor George Hawley’s book, Right-Wing Critics Of American Conservatism, does not seek to analyze or deconstruct the Trump phenomenon, but it does hold some clues as to why Donald Trump has succeeded in dismantling a political infrastructure which has dominated the Republican Party for over half a century.

This book is a marvelous discovery for a number of reasons, not least because it provides a coherent, internally consistent definition of conservatism, as well as its ideological antipode, contemporary liberalism. After examining and rejecting several philosophical distinctions between the right and the left-including Thomas Sowell’s assertion that this divide reflects a difference in beliefs about the innate malleability of human nature-Hawley arrives at an intelligible cleavage between these two very broad political groupings. He asserts that the left/modern liberalism is an ideology which extols equality as the primary virtue above all others when considering how our society should be structured, whereas the right/conservatives view equality as a subsidiary or ancillary value within our society.

Although the goals of the left have shifted over the course of time, with campaigns to redistribute wealth and level economic inequalities being replaced by affinity groups emphasizing racial, sexual, and spiritual  identities-to the consternation of some traditional leftists-it has retained its emphasis on radical egalitarianism. Just as the right, with a  few exceptions, has always placed some other value above regimented equality. Professor Hawley is not the first scholar to make the observation that the modern conservative movement is largely a synthetic, artificial creation. The fact that it is a union of three widely disparate strands of right wing thought, i.e. foreign policy hawks, libertarians, and religious/traditionalist conservatives, is common knowledge.

However, he has broken new ground by exploring just how this tenuous marriage has made mainstream conservatism an ideology of such narrow public appeal, in a book which gives a respectful hearing to its most important right wing critics. In addition to examining the grievances voiced by paleoconservatives, Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, among others who were drummed out of-or never invited in to-respectable conservatism, he also points up the hypocrisy of conservative icons such as William F. Buckley Jr., as well as his less impressive heirs, and asks some pointed questions. For example, why did a vociferous defender of Senator Joe McCarthy believe that the anti-Communism of the John Birch Society was beyond the pale? Also, why are the seemingly benign sociological observations of Jason Richwine worse than the anti-civil rights editorials from the early days of National Review?

While these stances could be chalked up to a natural Burkean evolution, a much more reasonable explanation is that the leaders of the conservative movement, or racket, as some would describe it, simply want to insulate themselves from any legitimate challenge from the right. While opponents of conservatives have always adhered to a policy of no enemies on the left, movement conservatism has taken precisely the opposite tack, making alliances of convenience with its ostensible enemies whenever popular right wing movements threaten its place within the political firmament. By imposing rigid constraints upon the range of  ideas which can be expressed, the conservative movement has simultaneously marginalized grassroots conservatism while emboldening and strengthening its theoretical enemies. Which explains why writers who enthusiastically support the dismemberment of unborn children up to the moment of birth remain well-respected members of the socially progressive commentariat, while conservative scholars who publish academically rigorous papers demonstrating the burden unskilled immigrants impose upon American taxpayers are ritualistically denounced and shunned by the likes of Rich Lowry and his peers.

These periodic purges of right wingers have real-world consequences, which Professor Hawley methodically illustrates in a book which those promoting a chimerical Ben Sasse candidacy, or the deus ex machina scenario envisioned by Bill Kristol, would benefit from reading. He demonstrates how unappealing mainstream conservatism has become to the  majority of the American electorate, despite the fact that conservatives still exert an outsized influence over American politics. There are a number of reasons for this, including the enormous and unrelenting demographic change imposed through mass immigration-a policy we’ve explored at length on this website-the increasing secularization of the American public, the lingering stigma of Bush administration failures both domestically and abroad, and finally, the almost complete cession of popular culture to the left. The investment that the conservative movement has made in politics over the past half-century has been complete, despite Andrew Breitbart’s trenchant observation that politics is downstream from culture.

It’s entirely possible that all of these developments collectively, or one of them in isolation, would have ultimately limited the appeal of mainstream conservatism to the American public. However, the epistemic closure within the conservative movement-and demonization of any intellectual on the right, whether it be Ayn Rand or Pat Buchanan, who defies its dogma-has created a situation where no one outside of the hermetically sealed world of Bucklyean conservatism is willing to seriously entertain its increasingly irrelevant arguments. The ossified nature of contemporary American conservatism, which, supply side economics aside, has changed remarkably little since the ascendancy of Goldwater Republicanism and the new right, is one of the main takeaways from this book.

Even as the cultural left has notched victory after victory-forcing mainstream conservatism to adopt  almost all of its central premises-the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the the respectable right have become more and more narrow. Thus, we have essays which could have been penned by Joan Walsh appearing in a magazine which describes itself as the most influential magazine and website for conservative news and opinion. The fact that there now exists an unbridgeable divide between conservative elites and their purported audience has been acknowledged by no less a conservative mandarin than Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

Whatever merit fusionism once held during the Cold War, its time has clearly passed. The splintering of the right-and consequent loss of power by its putative leaders-has opened up a long-suppressed discussion of what conservatism in its organic form means. Professor Hawley’s work is an invaluable starting point for that conversation.

Even as the collectivist enterprise in Venezuela implodes, spreading misery, resentment, and hopelessness among the 30 million people suffering under Chavismo-whose tales of woe are easily accessible-there are those who refuse to acknowledge the destruction their ideas have caused. The allure of Marxism, in spite of its astronomical body count, to public intellectuals and elite opinion-makers cannot be underestimated, in spite of its dismal track record.

That’s why organizations like the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation are absolutely necessary, even in our post-Cold War world. This week, the foundation will hold a commemoration of the dedication of its memorial to the millions of martyrs sacrificed on the alter of Communism over the past century. I would urge all of my readers who live in the Washington D.C. Area to attend. You can register for the event here. We must never forget the crimes of this heinous, inhuman ideology, both past and present.

New York City can often feel like an alien environment for those who prize rationality and individualism over collectivist groupthink and social justice campaigns designed to distract you from the fact that public section unions and non-profits exercise a stranglehold over the decision-making process. Our mayor is a Cold War Era relic who fetishizes policies that  the Vietnamese and Chinese Communists abandoned decades ago, while there are members of the New York City Council who are not able to communicate in the English language.

That’s why the upcoming We Are Breitbart Meetup in midtown Manhattan is a cause for celebration. To converse with individuals who are not completely and utterly delusional, and who have an actual understanding of how the free market works-rather than a set of regurgitated Paul Krugman talking points-is a rare opportunity for most New Yorkers. I invite you all to come to this week’s event, the details of which can be found below.

Where: Emmett O’ Lunney’s, 210 West 50th St. 

When: Wednesday, April 13, 2016, 6-8 PM 

Limited to the first 200 people 

Update: Photos from the melee. 

As most of you might have heard, this weekend saw a spate of anti-Trump rallies in both Arizona and New York City. Although the demonstrations here did not result in widespread lawbreaking and disruption, they did give you a sense of the mentality pervading open borders fanatics and socialist political activists within this country. Our good friend Pamela Hall was there to witness and record the scenes outside of Trump Tower and Columbus Circle, including a spirited counter-demonstration by NY ICE.

You can watch Part II here.

The day after Christmas-Boxing Day, for those of you in the Commonwealth of Nations-seems like an appropriate time for two inspiring stories which exemplify what this country stands for. Namely, freedom and the opportunity to pursue your dreams, both for yourself and your loved ones. Yasiel Puig, the superstar outfielder currently playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers embodies these values and has lived them in his heroic quest to achieve the American dream. In addition to escaping-after several failed attempts-the tropical gulag that is Fidel and Raul Castro’s Cuba, he successfully stood up to Los Zetas, arguably the most potent and ruthless paramilitary narco-cartel in Mexico. You can read his captivating tale in Los Angeles Magazine, which explored Puig’s circuitous route to the United States earlier this year. 

Just as inspirational as Puig’s journey is the story of Hans Von Spakovsky’s family, which endured the unspeakable horrors which befell Eastern and Central Europe during the first half of the 20th century before eventually coming to the shores of America. The contrast between the values that sustained them and the values that are inexorably eroding the foundations of the country into which Mr. Spakovsky was born couldn’t be more stark.

Both men define, in different ways, the agency and ambition that is synonymous with the United States-and which beckons enterprising people from across the globe. They also provide hope that, despite the narrative of decline that so many are eager to embrace-and which can be very seductive at this moment in our nation’s history-there is the possibility of eventual renewal for the United States.

The past few weeks have been filled with news of dramatic happenings throughout the globe, not the least of which is the rapidly metastasizing ebola epidemic. In order to put things into proper perspective, it’s always useful to have an intelligent, rational guide who’s not captive to multiculturalist dogma and elitist groupthink. Thankfully, the latest edition of Radio Derb has just arrived! 

From the latest political turmoil engulfing Hong Kong-including the Chinese Communist Party’s ham-fisted attempts to crush the Occupy Central democracy movement-to the dubious hiring practices of this city’s Marxist mayor, John Derbyshire covers it all. Definitely worth checking out for those of you who have been enjoying a news sabbatical.