Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Jamestown 1619: A Tale of Two Tales
Who knew that President Trump directly addressed the “1619” slavery and American history issue directly … before the New York Times? It is true. See for yourself, and then consider the larger implications for our media, politics, and society.
President Trump went to Jamestown, VA, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of our first legislature, what would become the Virginia House of Burgesses, now the Virginia General Assembly. While the deeply compromised and rabidly partisan Democratic leaders in the state hated to have him come, there was no getting around having the President of the United States, yes he is, appear and speak. Speak he did, telling two hard truths: America is great and America is imperfect.
Consider these excerpts from President Trump’s remarks [emphasis added]:
Remarks by President Trump at the 400th Anniversary of the First Representative Legislative Assembly | Williamsburg, VA
LAW & JUSTICE
Issued on: July 30, 2019THE PRESIDENT: … [I]t’s a tremendous honor to stand on these historic grounds, as the first President to address a joint session of the oldest lawmaking body in all of the Western Hemisphere, the Virginia General Assembly. Congratulations. (Applause.)
On this day 400 years ago, here on the shores of the James River, the first representative legislative assembly in the New World convened. By the devotion of generations of patriots, it has flourished throughout the ages. And, now, that proud tradition continues with all of you.
To every Virginian and every legislator with us today, congratulations on four incredible centuries of history, heritage, and commitment to the righteous cause of American self-government. This is truly a momentous occasion. (Applause.)
[…]
On this day in 1619, just a mile south of where we are gathered now, 22 newly elected members of the House of Burgesses assembled in a small wooden church. They were adventurers and explorers, farmers and planters, soldiers, scholars, and clergymen. All had struggled, all had suffered, and all had sacrificed in pursuit of one wild and very improbable dream. They called that dream “Virginia.” (Applause.)
It had been only 13 years since three small ships — the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery — set sail across a vast ocean. They carried 104 settlers to carve out a home on the edge of this uncharted continent. They came from [for] God and country. They came in search of opportunity and fortune. And they journeyed into the unknown with only meager supplies, long odds, and the power of their Christian faith.
Upon reaching Cape Henry, at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607, a long time ago, the first men of the Virginia Company erected a cross upon the shore. They gave thanks to God and they asked His blessing for their great undertaking. In the months and years ahead, they would dearly need it. The dangers were unparalleled.
The Jamestown settlers arrived in America amid one of the worst droughts in over seven centuries. Of 104 original colonists, 66 died by the year’s end. During the third winter, known as the “Starving Time,” a population of up to 500 settlers was reduced to 60.
By spring, those who remained were in search of whatever they could get to survive, and they were in dire trouble. They left Jamestown deserted. They just sailed away, never to come back. But they had not gone far down the James River when they encountered the answer to their prayers: ships bearing a year’s worth of supplies and more than 300 new settlers. As we can see today on this great anniversary, it would not be the last time that God looked out for Virginia.
Together, the settlers forged what would become the timeless traits of the American character. They worked hard. They had courage in abundance and a wealth of self-reliance. They strived mightily to turn a profit. They experimented with producing silk, corn, tobacco, and the very first Virginia wines.
At a prior settlement at Roanoke, there had been no survivors — none at all. But where others had typically perished, the Virginians were determined to succeed. They endured by the sweat of their labor, the aid of the Powhatan Indians, and the leadership of Captain John Smith.
As the years passed, ships bearing supplies and settlers from England also brought a culture and a way of life that would define the New World. It all began here. In time, dozens of brave, strong women made the journey and joined the colony.
And in 1618, the Great Charter and other reforms established a system based on English common law. For the first time, Virginia allowed private land ownership. It created a basic judicial system. Finally, it gave the colonists a say in their own future: the right to elect representatives by popular vote.
[…]
As we mark the first representative legislature at Jamestown, our nation also reflects upon an anniversary from that same summer four centuries ago. In August 1619, the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies arrived in Virginia. It was the beginning of a barbaric trade in human lives. Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage.
More than 150 years later, at America’s founding, our Declaration of Independence recognized the immortal truth that “all men are created equal.” (Applause.) Yet, it would ultimately take a Civil War, 85 years after that document was signed, to abolish the evil of slavery. It would take more than another century for our nation, in the words of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to live out “the true meaning of its creed” and extend the blessings of freedom to all Americans. (Applause.)
In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended, and sustained our nation from its very earliest days. Last year, I was privileged to sign the law establishing a commission to commemorate the arrival of the first Africans to the English colonies, and the 400 years of African American history that have followed. That was an incredible day. That was an incredible event.
Today, we are grateful to be joined by that commission’s chairman, Dr. Joseph Green. Thank you, Dr. Green. Please. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Green.
Notice this? There is an African American History commission, formed pursuant to a 2018 act of Congress, signed by President Trump into law. That commission was formed late last year to address 400 years of both the bad and the good in the African American experience. The New York Times was sufficiently interested in Communism to plan and execute a year-long whitewash of barbarism in 2017, on the centennial of the Bolshevik victory in Russia. Yet, they couldn’t be bothered to follow the lead of the Democrats in Congress who drafted and saw the 400th-anniversary bill through to enactment.
No, the New York Times did not plan and execute a year-long retrospective on African-Americans because they didn’t really matter, because it was assumed they would stay in line and vote the Democratic Party ticket in 2020. After losing the “Russia, Russia, Russia,” hoax, and seeing the threat of the deep state and Obama administration meddling in the 2016 election, the New York Times leaders and staff finally had to turn their attention to the emerging threat of African Americans thinking for themselves and voting their pocketbooks and the real interests of their communities.
It tells you a great deal about the New York Times, and about President Trump, that they downplay and he trumpets good economic news for all Americans. This graph, in a White House report this September, discomforts and drives the Times fraudulent “news” coverage:
John Hinderaker repeats the old James Carville admonition: “It’s the economy, stupid.” He noted that, in the second big Democratic presidential primary debate, the economy was barely mentioned:
This is understandable, perhaps, to the extent that the Democrats have no answers to President Trump’s economic boom. But not caring about the economy is a luxury of the liberal upper class. It is not an option for the rest of us. Minority voters, in particular, are acutely aware of the increased job opportunities they have seen since the beginning of the Trump administration. If the Democrats continue the course they are on, Trump will make historic gains among minority voters.
Hence the New York Times‘ newfound interest in 1619 and African Americans. The media wing of the Democratic Party are simply amplifying Joe Biden’s old gambit, “they’re gonna put y’all back in chains!” They are running this crooked game in the same way as they are running the “anti-semitism” gambit. Indeed, the New York Times and Democrats are burying the truth in their own backyard, grossly exaggerating “white nationalists” while running anti-semitic operations.
Burying the Truth in their own back yard:
The New York Times willfully buried their knowledge of the Holocaust, as they had already buried their knowledge of Stalin’s genocide against Ukrainians and his mass enslavement in the gulags. They did so for domestic and international realpolitik reasons. Now, they are burying the truth in their very own backyard, as young black men are caught repeatedly on camera beating men wearing identifiably Jewish clothing on the streets of New York.
In the 1930s and up until the end of World War II, the New York Times buried German anti-semitism, only covering it enough to keep plausible deniability. They did so out of a dark view of Americans and in their self-interest [emphasis added]:
While the events of 60 years ago in no way implicate the current generation of Times owners and editors, the Holocaust wasn’t a proud moment in the newspaper’s history, and it’s shocking to consider, when other tragedies received careful analysis and reporting, how far off The Times’ radar screen the Holocaust remained. The publisher at the time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and his family were members of the “our crowd” German Jews in this country, and they didn’t want to alienate the powers that be in government and business. So questions of Jewish identity were often diluted in the paper’s pages, lest the Sulzbergers be seen as being on the “pro-Jewish” side. A conscious decision was made from the top to downplay stories which might give the impression that The Times was a “Jewish newspaper.” The editorial page mostly avoided mentioning Jews as specific victims of Nazi horrors; as reported in The Trust, a book by Susan Tifft and Alex Jones on The Times, the paper referred to those involved in the Warsaw ghetto uprising as “the Poles” and “Warsaw patriots.” Other examples: Stories in 1943 about the massacre of Jews in Italy and Austria didn’t make it on to page 1. The following summer, The Times reported that 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been sent to their deaths and 350,000 more were about to follow them-but the story was hidden, given only four column inches on page 12. Sulzberger was also very much against the Zionist movement and opposed the creation of the state of Israel.
This manipulation of language to bury truth foreshadows “some people did something” and “zealots” who “randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” The “paper of record” setting the tone for national evasion of politically inconvenient, to the NYT and its party, attacks on Jews is not old news. Sure, they offered a cheap apology for their cover-up of the Holocaust (but not really the Holodomor).
In September 1996, The New York Times ran a statement about its Holocaust coverage:
“The Times has long been criticized for grossly underplaying the Holocaust while it was taking place. Clippings from the paper show that the criticism is valid.”
Now, however, they are back to the same game on a smaller scale, along with all their cohorts. Several black men have attacked men wearing clothing marking them as observant Hasidic Jews. The attacks are caught on camera, again and again. These attacks are under-covered and deceptively reported, obscuring the attackers’ common denominator.
Mind you, the problem that must not be acknowledged is not new. See Jessie Jackson. See Al Sharpton. See “all about the Benjamins.” A Somali-born woman, black and Muslim, expressed hatred taught from childhood, but that would not include this phrase. The phrase is clearly American, and its use against Jews is homegrown here, so we see the conjunction of virulent, open antisemitism from recent African Muslim immigrants with resurgent American antisemitism, here from the red-green alliance in the Democratic Party.
Consider just two accounts. First, an account of an arrest in a recent attack on a rabbi omits any reference to identifying characteristics of the suspect (but see the video for the truth):
According to Benny Friedman, Gopin’s son-in-law, the victim heard his attacker yell, “Dirty Jew,” at him. Friedman said that the slur “makes it very painful.”
“My father-in-law has a big beard,” he added. “My father-in-law is very easily identifiable as a Hasidic Jew. My father-in-law speaks English with a very heavy Israeli accent.”
ABC reported that NYPD data showed there were 145 antisemitic hate-crime complaints from January 1 to August 25 this year. That is an increase from 88 during the same period in 2018.
A large increase in attacks on Jews, motivated by hatred of Jews as such, surely this is big news. Not a word about the ethnicity of attackers. It would be front-page news if white men, especially ones who could be labeled “white nationalists,” were the attackers. Just from the absence of reporting, we know the attackers belong to a favored group in the intersectional virtue hierarchy. Indeed, the leftist mayor has even created a commission to look into “hate crimes,” with a woman identified in the news as Jewish leading this commission:
“I think all New Yorkers should be appalled at what we’re seeing,” [Director Deborah] Lauter said.
What we’re seeing is an increase in hate crimes – in the past week, several anti-Semitic attacks. There have been 146 anti-Semitic hate crime complaints for 2019, according to the NYPD. That’s compared to 88 for the same period last year.
“In this country, you have a right to be a bigot. It’s protected. It’s what we’re seeing now is people being emboldened to act out on that bigotry,” Lauter said.
Lauter, who previously worked at the Anti-Defamation League and is Jewish, says back in the ’90s she too was the victim of a hate crime in Atlanta and knows what it feels like.
So, the leftist mayor creates a new office to pretend to deal with the real problem, while actually burying the truth and pushing the lie that it is Trump and his deplorable bitter clingers who are to blame. Notice that the Jewish frontwoman for the mayor, and for their party, carefully avoided speaking the truth about the actual crimes and invoked the bad, old South, while not noting that Atlanta was led by African-American mayors throughout the relevant period and has long been a majority-black city. She is fully complicit in burying the inconvenient truth, partially told by Bari Weiss in her new book on the reemergence of anti-semitism.
Making stuff up:
The New York Times, along with the rest of the Democratic propaganda machine, must peddle fabrications and exaggerations to make white conservatives, the deplorable bitter-clingers, the problem. See Maggie Haberman pretending “Edelweiss,” played by the military band at the White House, is code for Nazism. In this lie, she reinforces the left’s hijacking of history and culture, twisting older inconvenient narratives into forms that pin the left’s view in viewers’ minds.
“Edelweiss” was twisted by Netflix from its original meaning and context (patriotic anti-Nazism) into a Nazi theme. This is of a piece with the movie inverting the real words and message of Starship Troopers, and the movie inverting the real message of A Wrinkle in Time. It is all in the service of the left, with the NYT “Edelweiss” episode having the bonus of smearing a strong anti-fascist who is threatening the real fascists’ long march.
In the same way, the left lied about a Trump appointee, falsely claiming he was writing anti-semitic social media posts, when the opposite turned out to be true. Note that it was Bloomberg that peddled that pack of lies. The corporate elite, and their media organs, hate President Trump’s disruption of their rigged games.
Running Anti-Semitic Operations:
The Israel-Trump spy story appears more and more likely to be another fraud, perpetrated by Obama and deep state operatives, peddling the story at the moment they are feeling the real heat of real investigations into their meddling in our elections. Meanwhile, we know Obama led an intelligence community campaign to spy on Jews and their supporters and to call out Jews for daring to object to the proposed Iran deal. The intelligence community and the State Department have selectively leaked again and again to hurt the only Jewish majority state in the world. The leaks have been published, amplified, and celebrated by the New York Times and their comrades in the long march.
The left lies effortlessly and cynically. President Trump has done good, made this a better country for all Americans, and that is a threat to the left and the bitter remnant of Conservatism Inc. If African Americans turn out and vote for their self-interest in 2020, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will be put on their back foot. Look for more of the same playbook on racism and antisemitism for the next 13 months.
Published in Politics
Most Blacks are not huge fans of wokiness; the parts that benefit them, like keeping affirmative action forever, are treated more leniently than unisex bathrooms or outlawing cars.
That’s a normal “cafeteria” reaction; after all, I have to admit that my staunchly anti-Communist Catholic ancestors accepted as much socialism as the somewhat tame postwar AFL-CIO was ready to reach for, while still rejecting the rest of the 1950s Democrats’ social agenda.
Bill Clinton was once extremely popular with Black America, and here’s a secret that neither left nor right liked hearing: he was no radical, and did very little to advance their claimed left wing agenda. But he was sensitive to their bruised feelings; kissing butt cost him and the country nothing, and turned out to be much of what was needed–some form of respect. The booming Nineties economy did the rest. President Trump’s Jamestown speech is an excellent video clip and thanks for bringing it to the center of the conversation. He understands what Bill Clinton understood, the need for respect even at this late date, and the crucial role of the economy.
Trump could close a deal. But he hasn’t yet, and we shouldn’t factor that into 2020 projections yet. There is no actual, sizable “Blexit” today, and if there’s ever going to be, he’s got to stick to this elevated way of presenting his presidency. He can do it. There are still some departures from mainstream conservatism that would be needed to bring them over. Trump has signaled repeatedly that he’s always ready to junk conservative dogma if the results are reasonably conservative. That’s good. But let’s not pretend we won’t have to toss a few of our own cherished policies. Dealing means compromising.
Still can’t believe that orange man was elected POTUS.
That was a great speech. Thank you.
I do wish we would honor the abolitionists too. I read a lot about them in James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. It’s a story that needs to be told.
An inspiring post. Thank you.
Read this article by Hollywood film director Joel Gilbert discussing his upcoming film documentary, The Trayvon Hoax.
This film premiers at the National Press Club tomorrow. Support and attend showings of this film if it comes to your area. It is time to tell this important story of the media’s lies and manipulation.
The movie’s trailer is at the film’s website.
The DNC-colluding media is the enemy of freedom. Blood is on their hands.
To me, a cheap apology is no apology whatsoever.
“An inspiring post” indeed.
@cliffordbrown‘s research and writing on this issue illustrates this to be as important a cause as exists today. Our President gave a great speech. And portrayed our country’s history in the proper context … America is both great and imperfect. And no country on earth is more intent on living out our commitment to the words … “all men are created equal.”
Now that they have failed with their Russia Hoax, the U.S. media (led by the OLD gray ‘lady’ (sic)) is hell-bent on foaming racial discord in this country. This 1619 project by the nyt and the rest of the dnc-run MSM is an evil lie. It is the same thing that caused the Ferguson riots and mayhem against our police. By taking the “truth”, locking it away and substituting their politically-inspired lies, they have made themselves the enemy of freedom.
There is no greater cause today than for all people of good will to stand up to the lies of this corrupt media and continue to expose them for what they are … the propaganda arm of the democrat party. Sad.
@cliffordbrown … thanks for finding this great speech and sharing it!
President Trump and his Press Secretary need to have a press conference and address head on this evil and subversive plot by the enemedia … the 1619 project.
Particularly so, since, in classic vile irony, it was the democrats among us who fought for so long to continue their abhorrent slavery of fellow Americans, which sadly continues to today, on the democrat ‘plantations’ that exist in every major city of this great country. Look at the crowds during speeches by Martin Luther King in the 60’s … the black family was strong, righteous and virtuous. And then the democrats intervened. D’Souza exposed the soul of the democrat party:
Compare and contrast the inner health, integrity and spirituality of the black family of the 1960’s versus the 2010’s. I’m reminded of the words of Frederick Douglass …
“All I ask is, give him (the Negro) a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone …!
An excellent post, Clifford. And a deeply distressing one. It is frustrating and frightening to watch how the cultural narrative is controlled and distorted by a media that has insidious goals. I pray often that people will come to their senses, slowly but surely, and realize how they are being manipulated and lied to. Thank you for shining a light on these issues.
Here’s something of a conundrum: why does the New York Times still have such an outsized influence on things?
An acquaintance was absolutely livid on Facebook at the Trump administration’s rollback of the Obama administration’s massive regulatory overreach in the name of the Clean Water Act (in case you might have missed this: the EPA, under Obama, in his typical “pen and phone” law-making abuse, redefined “wetlands” to include practically any land that gets wet – the courts had already been unfriendly to this power grab, and last week Trump fully removed the grab).
I queried why he was so livid, when the original expansion by Obama would have done nothing to protect the water, but would have cost the entire economy a boatload more. All he could cite back was a slew of NYT editorials about how Trump’s EPA was poisoning the water, this was driven by “greed”, etc.
This has been a very typical pattern. Try to argue anything, and leftists immediately go to the NYT deck (appealing to authority, and refusing to argue), and batter you with hyperlinks. They won’t argue. If you attempt even a modest link rejoinder, the links are ignored as “Faux News” (even if you did not source them from Fox).
Given the record of the Times, why its consistent authority on the Left? Why do they seemingly set the news agenda? Why are they still the ultimate appeal to authority? Who or what gives them such unquestioned loyalty?
Here’s part of the reason:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times
They’re one of the oldest papers with 127 Pulitzer Prizes. I guess longevity can build a lot of credibility–earned or not.
and their reporting has cheapened the Pulitzer Prizes. They are now a joke.
127 Pulitzer Prizes including the one awarded to Walter Duranty for his serial lies on behalf of Comrade Stalin, as the NYT denied and covered up the genocide and slave labor camps in the USSR.f
More motivation for the Democrats to scream “racist, racist, racist:”
1. Rising support for President Trump among Hispanics, claimed by RNC on Univision.
2. Jobs, jobs, jobs, way beyond the number forecasted in the establishment Republican Congress’s CBO 2016 projection.
Exactly – some of their vaunted pulitzers are themselves tainted, yet still they do not suffer. Now they embarrass themselves with yet another smear against Kavanaugh that they cannot corroborate, their 1619 project has relied on data debunked over a century ago to build up a false case, and yet still they’re the bible of the Left.
Old habits are hard to break? Or they simply believe basically the same stuff so they forgive their “little errors”?
If it is any comfort to you, Joe Rogan’s youtubes, which feature many decent people from the political center, garner about twelve million hits. I doubt the Times ‘ circulation matches that except on days when some catastrophic event occurs, like Nine Eleven. Or when we go to war, or have a major election.
1/2 Right you are!