‘a sacrificial lamb to the gods of fear-mongering’ — a letter from Japan

Respected Colleagues,

Last month on the 23rd, a young female nurse from Fukuoka, aged 26, was found dead on her sofa. Her lunch box was seen packed and ready near the front door. But, she was lying in rigor mortis on her sofa, foaming at the mouth, bleeding at the nose, the food from her stomach lying all around.

She died two days after receiving the experimental gene therapy that she took on our behalf. Part of the reason for her death may have been the experimental therapy (although nobody seems to die after a vaccination these days). But, there is a deeper reason.

She died on the altar of fear, a sacrificial lamb to the gods of fear-mongering who, refusing to leave from our lives every day since March 2020, shout at us through the television, smart media platforms, and announcements at work.

Hardly any day goes by without hearing the number of infections, clusters, and dead people, and admonitions to wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep a safe distance from others.

When a staff member receives a positive test, we panic and start splashing the alcohol, and line up contacts for more testing. We do all that with a test whose manufacturers and drug regulatory agencies clearly state that it does not actually detect an infection.

I apologize to the two staff members who had to pass by my class to check whether I was wearing a mask or not. It seems that we are in a war-like situation and have to keep an eye on dissidents all the time. It is ironic that this happened inside a center of higher learning.

Let me state that I am not opposing the wearing of masks. I also wore them when I got sick with the flu a few years ago. I remember forcing my 3 little children to wear them outdoors when the nuclear explosion on March 2011 sent radioactive dust to our region. I did that out of tremendous concern for the ill effects of inhaling radioactive particles into their bodies. I forced them to do that for a full three months till I personally verified that the situation was safe. I do have sympathy and understanding for the people who chose to wear masks.

However, the situation we face today is not because of a deadly pathogen, but because of misinformation. When incomplete information is relentlessly pushed day and night, it receives a name most befitting — propaganda.

My job as an academic is to critically assess information. It is the academic who provides society with a primary defense against the adverse impacts of misinformation, and it is for this reason that academic freedom is treasured in all democratic societies. But, with academic freedom also comes the responsibility to evaluate a situation from multiple aspects.

I am carrying out this responsibility and am continuing at it everyday. I have not seen any evidence that we are facing a life-threatening situation that needs us to maintain this state of fear.

It seemed at first that we could all be fearful for two weeks till the curve flattened, then it was going to be just for three months more. Without noticing it, fear now has become our New Normal, and receives an upgrade every festive season.

I feel very lucky to live in Japan, but the situation in other developed countries involve severe restrictions on personal freedoms including medical freedoms. I am deeply grateful that the Japanese Constitution protects society against unreasonable threats to liberties.

I am not alone in my opinion, which you may dismiss as quirky and unqualified. Thousands of scientists worldwide are fighting this misinformation, which is resulting in a human medical experiment on a scale we have not witnessed in our lives before.

These include Nobel prize winner Michael Levitt of Stanford University, Luc Montagnier the Nobel laureate virologist from France. These include professors from prestigious universities all around the world such as Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, and John Ioannidis of Stanford University, Carl Heneghan, Tom Jefferson, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, and Sucharit Bhakdi and Karin Moelling from Germany.

Even the gentle giants of the Japanese science community have warned about the dangers of rushing to conclusions based on incomplete analysis, and about the dangers of poorly tested medical interventions.

Should we not wonder why we are not hearing such voices more often, from expert immunologists such as Japanese Nobel Laureate Tasuku Honjo or from expert virologists such as Masayuki Miyasaka?

Why have the voices of leading scientists that offer alternative perspectives suddenly become anti-scientific? Why are social media giants censoring the voices of these prominent scientists? These are the questions we must be asking, instead of silently accepting the messages of fear and the contortions to our perfectly all right Normal.

Karin Moelling received the highest honour of the German state, the "Order of Merit of Berlin" for her contributions to virology. But, now she is an outcast, because she criticizes the fear-based approach that we adopted since 2020. Sucharit Bhakdi has an h-index of 84, John Ioannidis has an h-index of 214. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson are leaders in the Evidence-Based Medicine movement. Why are they all of a sudden anti-scientific?

My conscience does not allow me to take part in a fear campaign that is bringing severe consequences to most living people on Earth. … I am opposing the fear, because the costs of maintaining this fear are much more than being in our Old Normal. In Japan, the number of suicides among young women and school students have become staggeringly high in the New Normal. Why can't we see that we are killing the young, while claiming to save the old?

Most of us working in the university have a steady salary, but pretty much every small- to medium-scale commercial operation is seriously suffering. How long can we close our eyes to this communal harakiri, because we don't feel the pinch? Do we think that economies run on printed money, and not on commerical activities?

Japan’s closest friend, the USA has 22 out of its 50 states not imposing any mask mandates. Yet, why is it that a constitutionally illegal mandate has been brought into existence at a small university located in a rural corner of Japan?

Is itt because a 60–140 nano meter long virus, smaller in dimension than the wavelength of UV radiation (100–400 nano meter) is miraculously confined by a cloth mask?

Or is it because we have found some empirical evidence that the masks are working?

There is hardly any Japanese person, including elementary school children who does not wear a mask. Sincerity is a hallmark of the Japanese personality, and most people religiously follow the sanitation measures, even outdoors in the hottest weather of the Japanese summer. Then, why is the curve never flattening?

If the masks are indeed working, then why are the positive testing rates in US states that mandate masks not different from states that do not mandate masks?

The answer seems to be that, regardless of what we do or not do, the PCR tests are going to keep at its games of fear-mongering. My not wearing a mask or others wearing one does not seem to make any difference. … [P]erhaps the most important life saving measure would be for all of us, the stakeholders of the Normal life, to allow free and fair public and scientific discourse into the conditions that have brought us into this dystopian nightmare.

Most sincerely yours,
saji

Pandemania

A Critical Analysis of the Covid Response
Eine kritische Analyse der Covid-Strategie
Un análisis crítico de la respuesta al Covid

by Dr R. Iván Iriarte, MD, MS
29 March 2021

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 global pandemic, many issues have arisen that run contrary to historical precedents and known and practiced public health principles of the last century. This article discusses some of these issues: assumptions made without evidence, the incorrect case definition, PCR diagnostic test problems, the impact of these two factors on morbidity and mortality estimates, school closures, facemasks, lockdowns and their effects on children.

Assumptions about SARS-CoV-2 made without evidence – the creation of panic

Panic has been spread among the general population since the beginning of the pandemic, based on the idea of “asymptomatic transmission”. This idea was strongly influenced by a case report in Germany, in which an infection was attributed to contact with an asymptomatic person. Further investigation revealed that this person had actually been sick and had been suppressing her symptoms with medication. The original misleading paper was never rectified. Based on this, and limited case reports from China, the “experts” began to promote the idea that this virus behaves differently to other respiratory viruses. All prior knowledge indicates that epidemics are not driven by asymptomatic individuals. However, the decision-makers in this epidemic determined that this does not apply to COVID-19 and every single individual we encounter could be an infectious person capable of killing us. This is contrary to conventional reasoning in medicine and public health. Decisions have always been based on prior knowledge, until there is compelling evidence to disprove what we thought we knew. Articles in the literature have found that secondary transmission by asymptomatic individuals is very low. In a cohort study with a very large sample size, no one became infected among 1,174 contacts of 300 asymptomatic subjects who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Another assumption promoted by the “experts” in this epidemic is the idea that the general population would be immunologically “naive” to this virus and thus 100% susceptible to develop the disease. This is again not consistent with previous knowledge about human immunity to viral agents. Cross-immunity is a well-known fact. It is not reasonable to assume that the entire population is immunologically susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, when in fact it is very likely that many individuals have at least partial immunity to the virus due to prior infection with similar viruses or agents with similar antigenic properties. There are several studies showing that individuals have immunity to SARS-CoV-2 by T-cell mediated mechanisms.

Problems with the “case” definition

Over centuries of epidemic management, a case always constituted a sick individual who presented a series of established clinical criteria, confirmed – if deemed necessary – by a laboratory test. In the COVID-19 pandemic, a “case” has been redefined as anyone with a positive PCR test result, independent of clinical signs and symptoms. There is no historical precedent for defining a symptomless infection with a respiratory virus as a medical case.

The practice has been to report “new cases” every day based on positive test results and including asymptomatic individuals. Any person with even a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology knows that this is not how the incidence (new cases) of an illness is measured. Only the prevalence of positive test results is being measured every day. As we will see below, these results do not necessarily relate to infectiousness. The number of reported positive test results depends on the number of tests administered. When a high volume of tests are being administered, there will be a high number of positives. These positive test results are not “new medical cases” with the disease.

The correct way to estimate the disease incidence is to have doctors count and report subjects who are ill with characteristic symptoms and are then confirmed as COVID-19 cases through a positive test result. Incidence of hospitalizations should be reported in the same manner.

Problems with the PCR test

There are serious problems with the use of the PCR test on asymptomatic individuals. There is extensive literature that shows that the PCR test is not a “gold standard” for defining a case of disease and that it can have a high percentage of false positive results. It remains a well-known epidemiological principle that even with a highly sensitive and specific test, if the test is administered in a population with low disease or infection prevalence, there will be a relatively high percentage of false positive results.

This becomes even more problematic in light of the studies showing that at a high number of amplification cycles (as have been used during this pandemic) the PCR test detects RNA fragments that do not represent a viable virus. Authorities managing this epidemic have been identifying individuals who are healthy and do not present a risk to the community.

The research paper used by WHO at the beginning of 2020 to establish the PCR test as the primary criterion to diagnose COVID-19 was written by Corman, Drosten and several others. An independent panel of scientists found this work to contain a large number of flaws in its methodology and in the validity of the results. In addition, it was accepted for publication in a most irregular manner without the standard peer-review.

In a notice written on January 13, 2021, and published on January 20, 2021, WHO confirmed that PCR tests should not be used as the sole method of diagnosing COVID-19; they should only be used where clinical signs and symptoms are present; and they can yield false positive results at high amplification cycles. The package inserts accompanying PCR test kits state that the test should be administered only to patients with signs and symptoms suggestive of COVID-19.

Problems with estimates of morbidity and mortality indicators

It is evident that COVID-19 “cases” are being defined incorrectly. The logical conclusion is that there may be major errors in all reports of incidence, deaths and hospitalizations attributed to this disease. In the United States, anyone who dies with a recent positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 (up to 30 days prior to death) is counted as a COVID-19 death. CDC guidelines published in April 2020 encourage the reporting of COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death in circumstances where it played a role in the death, even without laboratory confirmation. It is unclear to what extent this was done in other countries as well. It is very important to investigate this matter, as the reported number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 is likely to be inflated.

Mitigation measures

World leaders believe – without evidence – that the way to mitigate the effects of the epidemic consists of imposing confinement measures, the generalized use of masks, restrictions on social activities, restrictions on mobility, business closures, curfews, school closures and more, including contact tracing and the quarantining of asymptomatic individuals. In the past the WHO established that the latter two measures should not be used under any circumstances. These measures were theorised to be effective without any evidence, and the potential harms caused by these policies were not calculated or taken into account. This goes against the fundamental principles of public health and medicine, which require the implementation of any intervention to be supported by evidence of its effectiveness. Any intervention should attempt to minimize the impact on the population’s daily life. The stated goal of all public health policy is to reduce total harm to the population, while considering a wide range of health, economic and social factors. The goal is not to reduce harm from a single disease only.

School closures – children are “granny killers”

The impact the epidemic response has had on children is one of the greatest disgraces in history. At the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, it was established that children mostly have a mild or asymptomatic presentation of the disease. However, decision-makers relentlessly promoted the idea that children, although they rarely get sick, are capable of infecting others. This unsupported idea was enough to order school closures and keep children away from their grandparents, as if they were potential “granny killers”. Studies show that children do not significantly transmit infection. Yet we already see the adverse effects that confinement and school closures have had on the mental health of children and adolescents. Sweden’s experience demonstrates that keeping schools open does not result in any excess morbidity or mortality in children or teachers. A recent article found that adults living in households with children actually have a lower risk of getting sick with COVID-19 than adults who live in households without children.

Mask use

There are many studies that show that masking is not effective in preventing infection transmission, except possibly in settings where there are sick individuals. A recent document published by WHO – in December 2020 – states that there is very inconsistent evidence proving the effectiveness of mask-wearing in the community for the prevention of respiratory virus infections, including COVID-19. When we compare the epidemic curves in places with and without mask mandates, the curves look similar. In fact, we observe a higher number of infections per 100,000 of the population in places with mask mandates.

The most important argument against the compulsory use of masks is simply the lack of evidence that anyone without symptoms walking around the community will be a contagious person. In public health management, sometimes it is appropriate to impose a certain measure upon an individual, for the common good, when there is evidence that the individual represents a major risk to the rest of the population. It is not acceptable, however, to restrict or impose a behavior on individuals without evidence that the individual represents a significant risk to the community, and that this measure will not harm the individual. It is very unlikely that an asymptomatic person is infectious. Therefore, it is unjustified to require everyone to wear a mask in the community, even if masks have shown some benefit when worn by individuals with symptoms. This argument becomes even stronger when we take the potential adverse effects of masks into consideration. These include symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath and other problems including psychological impact, acne, respiratory infections and dental problems.

Lockdowns

“Without lockdowns, the situation would have been worse”. This is the claim of lockdown advocates. However, this is the equivalent of administering treatment to a patient and claiming that despite a negative outcome the treatment is effective, because without the treatment the patient’s condition would have been even worse. Never in past epidemics or pandemics have lockdowns been imposed as a mitigation strategy over a large area or for a long period of time. Studies have shown that lockdowns cause unintended negative consequences to social well-being, mental health, physical health, mobility, employment, education, and the economy at large while undermining fundamental rights. Lockdown-induced deaths occur in younger people, causing an increase in total years of life lost. The comparison of epidemic curves in places with strict lockdowns and those with less stringent measures shows no significant differences in COVID-19 indicators. A simple cost-benefit analysis would clearly show that lockdown harms greatly outweigh any claimed benefits.

Summary

It is inexplicable that world governments and the “experts” advising them have chosen to completely ignore this information as if it did not exist, and persist in doing the following:

1. Reporting “new cases” on a daily basis, using only PCR test results.
2. Doing mass PCR testing, including asymptomatic individuals.
3. Imposing quarantines on asymptomatic individuals based on a positive test result or history of exposure.
4. Requiring the use of masks despite lack of evidence to support this mandate.
5. Insisting that lockdowns are the way to mitigate the pandemic.

A course-correction in the management of this epidemic is urgently needed. The response to the COVID-19 epidemic should be based on reliable data and sound public health principles that have been practiced successfully for over a century. The following measures should be adopted immediately:

1. Provide the public with accurate information about COVID-19 risk in order to reduce the fear.
2. Cease the mass administration of diagnostic tests on asymptomatic individuals.
3. Define cases according to clinical criteria – confirmed by laboratory tests. The determination of a case should be the decision of a duly licensed medical doctor.
4. Use the case definition listed above to determine indicators such as new cases (incidence), hospitalizations and mortality.
5. Establish measures to protect vulnerable individuals.
6. Encourage the population to take hygiene measures such as hand washing, covering the mouth when coughing and staying at home when sick.
7. Open schools, businesses and travel.

These measures are described in a published document by Pandemics Data & Analytics titled: “Protocol for Reopening Society”.

[References are available at the original.]

Covid, fetishism, fear → hatred

I am so sick of the masking charade. I am not diseased. You are not diseased. (No more than usual.) It’s like people just learned about the germ theory and something they've lived with forever is now seen as a deadly threat. It's pathetic and idiotic. The people pushing it are simply evil: manipulative psychopaths insisting that people fear each other. And demonize those who don't play along.

It’s particularly appalling that so much of the health care industry has participated in the panic. They have destroyed any good reputation they have had.

Even if Covid-19 were an especial threat, masking and distancing are almost completely useless. But after a few weeks in 2020, it was clear that it was not a threat at all for most of the population – particularly the young – and effective prevention and treatment were soon established for the rest, though denied and still denigrated by the opportunistic psychopaths who prefer to keep people living in fear. The mask is today’s version of a string of garlic. It is a fetish, a talisman.

And now the vaccines (of unknown efficacy, for just one of the thousands of viruses we live – yes, live – with) are clinching the whole charade’s purpose of separating an imagined unclean class from the clean, the blessed, those who walk in grace. The vaccine is another fetish. Instead of determining actual need – like, maybe you’re at virtually no serious risk if you contract the virus, or maybe you’ve already carried the virus and therefore already have the antibodies that the vaccine is supposed to stimulate production of (and a reminder here that asymptomatic people don’t spread it, and that even symptomatic people don’t spread it except with longer close contact than passing someone in the grocery aisle or even chatting with them for a few minutes) – instead of determining actual need, or weighing risk vs theoretical benefit, for each potential recipient, the vaccine has become a salvatory elixir. And those who refuse to take it will be pariahs, shunned from society, barred from jobs, shopping, dining and drinking and entertainment, travel, etc, life itself.

It’s all so sickening: the barriers both literal and figurative that have been thrown up between us all.

FÁSACH: waste, desert; deserted place; luxuriant growth

Fás, -áis, pl.id. m., act of growing, increasing, becoming; springing or resulting from (ó, de); growth, cinrease; a plant, a rod; a growth; an dara f., second- or after-growth; f. (na h-) aon oidhche, mushroom, al. the name of an ancient monument near Dundalk; ní’l aon fh. fé, it (he) is not growing well; d’éirigh an f. leis, he has grown considerably; tá f. gach uile shóirt ann, everything grows there; tá sé ag f. geal, fuar, ⁊c., it is grwoing white, cold, etc.; dims. fásán, -óg. See fáis.

Fáis, a., gs. of fás, growing; flasraidhe f., growing vegetables, greens.

Fás, a., empty, void, vain; go follamh, f., quite empty; in compds. fás-buille, a missed stroke; fás-bholg, an empty bag; fás-chogaint, empty chewing; fás-bhruchtghail, empty belching.

Fás, -áis, m., a void, a waste, a vacuum.

Fásach, -aigh, pl. -aighe, m., a precedent.

Fásach, -aighe, a., desolate, desert, overgrown with grass.

Fásach, -aigh, pl. id., -aighe, and -atha, m., a desert, a wilderness, a prairie, a wast; paster land, a field, luxuriant grass, pasture ungrazed for a long time; the grass headland of an unploughed field; a deserted place or house. f. coille, a grove; tá f. ag na buaibh ’san pháirc sin, the cows have prairie pasture in that field; ní féar atá ann acht f., that is not ordiinary grass but something more luxuriant; ag tabhairt an fhásaigh, lit. growing grass, i.e., dead and buried; bhí an gnó ’na fh. air, he got into business difficulties; beidh an teach so ’na fh. ort, you will not be allowed to enter this house; dearg-fh., sheer wilderness; flaitheas na naomh ar Shéamas ’na dhearg-fh., may heaven be completely closed against James (McD.). See fásaigh.

Fásachadh, -chta, m., desolation, act of depopulating.

Fásaidheacht, -a, f., act of devastating or turning into a desert.

Fásaigh, gs. of fásach, a., wild, overgrown with vegetation, ruined; teampall f., a deserted church yeard; biolar f., wild cress.

Fásaim, vl. fás, v. intr. I grow, increase; I am born, sprung from (ó); I rise, as a river from its source; I come constantly, as an income or a periodical allowance; tá an t-airgead ag fás chuige, he has a constant income; ar fhás eadrainn, those of our stock, those who grew up with us; there is a mod. tr. use.

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen

Bealach na Spáinneach le Liam Mac Cóil

Is grástúil é an leabhar seo, an triú cheann sraithe. Agus grástúil atá a laoch óg, Lúcás Ó Bhriain, pionsóir den scoth, léannta, fiosrach, machnamhach, múinte, agus saonta. Giota beag mar Parsifal mar laoch. Tá sé gafa istigh plota mór casta, spiaireachta agus polaitíochta, agus creidimh i gceist freisin – bhíothas siocháin ar bun in Eoraip sa bhliain 1612, ach tá gabháil níos crua ar bun in Éirinn faoin rí nua Sasanach. Le linn a thurais ó Ghaillimh go dtí an Róimh, tá níos lú ina thuiscint an níos mó ina fhios air.

Tar éis a éalamh Sasana le báid go dtí na tIsilthíortha ag an deireadh dara leabhar, dúisíonn Lúcás ag tús an cheann seo i bhFrainc, baile beag cois fharraige san Bhríotáin. Bhí stoirm ar muir agus bhualadh a chloigean le crann scóide (.i. búm) an bháid. Tar éis an oiread sin gníobh i Sasana, bhí sé anois ina scíth, an t-aoi amháin in óstán leis an bhean tí agus a hiníon déagach aisteach, ag fanacht a neart a fhilleadh.

Ansin bád eile go hOstainn agus eachtraí nua ina hiarraidh a bhealach a dhéanamh go Róimh an litir diamhair a sheachadadh cuig an lámh Aoidh Mhór Uí Néill. Go fírinneach tá an cuid is mó den eachtraí i dtaobh an turas fada seachas an tóir Sasanach chun Lúcás a dunmháradh agus an litir a gabhail as: tríd na tíortha éagsula, na cathreacha mhúrtha, na bailte ar an mbóthar, agus na daoine go hairithe.

Is é bealach na Spáinneach an bóthar mileata idir Milano agus Bruiséil. Ó Lobháin taistealaíonn Lúcás le buíon de triúr shiúr agus triúr saighdiúir agus a ngiollaí mar tionlacán, Éirinneach siúd uile. Tá na saighdiúirí i seirbhís Uí Néill, agus bhí aithne ag an ceannaire ar an athair Lúcáis. (Faoin am seo, tá a bfhios ag roinnt na hÉireannaigh i ndeoraíocht i Lobháin ar an litir agus cé hé Lúcás féin.)

Ní gá a rá, baineann Lúcás Róimh amach agus criochnaíonn sé an scéal i seomra i mbarr páláis fad a bheith an t-amhránaí cáiliúil Girolamo ag canadh amhráin John Dowland i gcóisir i mbun.

“Dúradh liom gur litir thábhachtach í agus go gcaithfinn í a leagan isteach i lámha Uí Néill agus ina lámha seisean amháin. Rinne mé sin.” Thóg sé 1,262 leathanach (agus cló níos lú ná an cinn eile sa sé chéad leathanach an triú leabhar seo), gach uile acu suimiúil, beoga, tochtmhar go minic le gliondar agus iontas nó cumha agus brón, go hálainn i gcónaí.

[Bhí an leabhar foilsithe ag Leabhar Breac]
[An chéad leabhar sa tsraith: An Litir]
[An dara leabhar sa tsraith: I dTír Strainséartha]

How the Left Hijacked Civil Rights

Robert Woodson and Joshua Mitchell write in the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16, 2021:

The civil-rights movement, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., helped deliver America from the historic sins of slavery and Jim Crow by forcing the nation to confront the full humanity of its black citizens. King’s words and actions glorified America by transfiguring its racial wound and revealing its redemptive promise. Yet today many black leaders have lost sight of King altogether and are aiding and abetting the crucifixion of their own people. Rather than hope, they see despair; rather than the Easter Sunday of true liberation, they offer the bleak Good Friday of never-ending misery.

The history of black American responses to slavery and Jim Crow generally followed three paths. They were hotly debated, but all emphasized human agency, sought liberation, and rejected despair.

First, there were the recolonization or “back to Africa” movements championed by the likes of Marcus Garvey. These movements sought an exit from America.

Second, there were the insurrectionists of the 19th century, who believed that black Americans should engage in armed rebellion or vocal opposition so that they might find a home in this country. Here lie Nat Turner and, later, W.E.B. Du Bois. They wanted to have their resistant voice heard in America.

Third, there were accommodationist movements of the sort undertaken by Booker T. Washington, who thought that loyalty to America was the best course.

Exit, voice, loyalty—however different these strategies were, each supposed that human agency mattered, that oppression wasn’t destiny. That is why, even amid great struggle, black Americans responded by building their own institutions and businesses. Great universities, medical schools, hotels, restaurants, movie companies and even a flight school sprung up. All of this was self-financed—and made possible by two-parent families, churches and other cultural institutions that provided shelter against the outside storm of racism.

In the 20th century, that same creative conflict between these three schools of thought reappeared. Debaters included the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Africa, which sought to establish a separate black state within our borders as an exit strategy.

King offered an inspiring combination of the strategies of loyalty and voice. In 1960, when students in Greensboro, N.C., became frustrated with the slow pace of legal action favored by Thurgood Marshall, King was sent to discourage them from engaging in civil disobedience. The students told King to lead, follow or get out of the way. They were determined to liberate themselves. They understood the difficulties and were undeterred by the obstacles. Like King, they were willing to persevere toward justice even when it was inconvenient, and to suffer the consequences of their actions. Hope, not hopelessness, animated all that they did.

King paid a heavy personal price for his hope that America was redeemable. Twice his home was bombed; once, his wife and daughter were nearly killed. Surrounded by hundreds of angry, armed black men after that bombing, he discouraged retaliatory violence. He was assaulted several times, and jailed as well, but he remained steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence. He united black Americans behind the proposition that racism is evil in itself, not simply because white people visited it upon blacks, and that all must unite to combat evil. He warned us about the self-destructive path of violence, not only for blacks but for the whole nation.

One of the original arguments to justify slavery was that blacks were morally inferior and thus incapable of self-government. John C. Calhoun famously asserted: “There is no instance of any civilized colored race of any shade being found equal to the establishment and maintenance of free government.” Black efforts at self-liberation in the 19th and 20th centuries were based on the opposite assumption.

Today many black leaders defer to angry white progressives who make the same arguments about blacks’ lack of moral agency, reject the country’s founding principles, and seek to undermine its institutions. For months, the radical left has been exploiting the country’s genuine concern for fairness to keep blacks in a constant state of agitation, anger and grievance, urging them toward behavior that lives down to the slanderous stereotypes of white supremacists. The leaders of these movements insist that every inequity suffered by blacks is caused by institutional and structural racism, that they have no power to liberate themselves, and that they will remain oppressed until white people change. Even to raise the issue of what role self-determination plays for blacks earns you the label of “racist.”

Civil-rights organizations and their leadership, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus, need to wake up before it’s too late. A faction of black leaders has been silent about, or complicit in, the takeover of the civil-rights movement by the radical left. The effect of this is not to glorify black achievement but to crucify low-income blacks, who are represented in national media outlets by their worst-behaved members, and bear the brunt of the attacks by the woke radical left on the cities where they live.

“Justice” for black America cannot be achieved by framing it solely through the distorted lens of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in fatal police encounters. For every unarmed black American killed by the police, hundreds are killed in neighborhood homicides.

Those who call for the defunding of police departments, such as leaders of the official Black Lives Matter organization, are silent about this inconvenient truth. They have a narrative and cannot let the facts get in the way. Their story is that the whole of American history is stained and the whole of America must be overthrown. When citizens declare that they support Black Lives Matter, do they share its opposition to the nuclear family, its objective of abolishing the police, and its view that the Christian cross is a symbol of white supremacy? These positions of the organization—language that has largely been scrubbed from its website—in no way improve the lives of black Americans. They give up on black America and encourage its needless suffering.

Like all Americans, blacks have triumphed over their circumstances only when they have adopted bourgeois virtues such as hard work, respect for learning, self-discipline, faith and personal responsibility. In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass found reading to be the key to his own personal liberation amid slavery, and he understood that whites deliberately withheld literacy from blacks precisely because it was so valuable. Bourgeois values drove blacks to build the powerful religious, fraternal, and other voluntary associations that helped them thrive in the worst days of Jim Crow and cultivated the essential virtues in the next generation.

There would have been no civil-rights movement without this. But radical progressives now insist that such virtues are the legacy of white supremacy, colonialist values that reflect the continuing bondage of blacks to oppressive Western culture. The only “authentic” expression of blackness in America, they claim, is the opposite of bourgeois self-restraint and discipline—indulging in the passions of the moment, whether anarchic rioting, insulting teachers or other unsalutary forms of expression. The radical left—disdaining exhortations toward work, family and faith as “respectability politics”—argues that blacks should feel free to indulge their “true” nature, echoing the age-old white-supremacist notion that said nature is violent, lascivious and incapable of self-restraint.

The slave masters’ trick of old was to dissuade blacks from adopting bourgeois values precisely so they could be kept in servitude. Marriage was forbidden and families were split apart. Douglass observed that slaves were encouraged to indulge in drink and debauchery during the holidays so they would be “led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field—feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.”

But there were always those who saw through the trick and used the holidays to hunt, make items for sale, visit distant family members, and hire out their own labor. Some of these were even able—eventually—to purchase their freedom.

Tellingly, leftist elites teach their own children the values of working and studying hard even as they encourage behavior among blacks that will make sure they remain uncompetitive but “authentic.” By the time young blacks today discover, as did the slaves of Douglass’s time, that freedom understood as “do whatever you feel like” is no way to build a worthwhile life, it will be too late. The fruits of the civil-rights movement’s hard labor—teaching the young to be so self-disciplined that they were able to resist responding in kind to hatred and abuse from whites—will have been lost.

We must turn away from the present course, which preaches despair rather than hope. Black achievement must be glorified. The crucifixion of black America by the radical left must halt. There is a grander, more fruitful future for us all.

Mr. Woodson, a veteran of the civil-rights movement, is founder and president of the Woodson Center and author, most recently, of “Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.” Mr. Mitchell is a Washington Fellow at the Claremont Center for the American Way of Life and author of “American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time.”

Presidential Inaugural Address, January 20, 2017

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you. ...

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. ...

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves.

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

We’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;

And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. ...

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. ...

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:

You will never be ignored again.

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Wealthy Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God Bless You, And God Bless America.

[source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/]