Tag: Cultural Marxism

SubscribeStar Saturday: The State of Education Update

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Back in February, I wrote about the “The State of Education” in the United States today.  The post detailed the travails of a New York City public school French teacher, Mary Hudson, and her often horrifying experiences trying to mold young minds in the worst of conditions.

Fortunately, I do not teach in corrupt, inner-city New York City public and magnet schools helmed by incompetent administrators; nevertheless, some of the underlying problems Ms. Hudson faced are universal for educators in all settings and all across the country.  I teach at a small private school in rural South Carolina—about as distant from the bustling, crammed schools of urban America as one can get—and still see some of the same issues that faced Ms. Hudson at work.

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TBT: Progressivism and Political Violence II: Candace Owens Attack and the Deficiency of Decorum

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About a year ago I wrote about the Leftist attack on Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk while they were attempting to enjoy breakfast.  Last summer, all the rage was for Leftist activists to harass conservatives and Trump administration officials while they were trying to dine.

Fast forward one year and we have conservative journalists getting smashed over their heads with concrete-filled milkshakes and guys in MAGA hats assaulted in the streets.  Nevertheless, the ranks of Conservatism, Inc., stubbornly insist on taking the high road, ruthlessly policing any threats to their Right, while shrugging helplessly—perhaps accompanied by a schoolmarmish finger wagging—as the Left ratchets up its wanton, unabashed violence.

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Funcling

The Portly Politico6 Comments

It’s a super belated, super short post this evening.  I’m helping out with my niece and nephews as part of an extended goodbye to summer vacation, and the babies have been whisked away to sleep.

Regular programming will resume tomorrow with an edition of TBT.  For today, I don’t have much to say.  It’s been a fun, tiring time with the little ones, who are big fans of the Nintendo character Kirby.  They’ve also recently started watching episodes of Pokémon, and have taken to calling themselves their favorite critter (Vulpix, Pikachu, Oddish, Gloom, and Psyduck seem to be household favorites).

If the SJWs had their way, my niece and nephews would be forced to undergo species reassignment surgery because, at varying points, they have strongly identified as one or multiple of these characters.

Ludicrous, you say?  Yes, but when it comes to this gender wackiness, the slippery slope is very real.  Why stop at giving a three-year old gender-altering hormones?  By that same logic, shouldn’t a three-year old be made into the pocket monster of his or her wildest playtime dreams?

But I digress.  I’m looking forward to another couple of days of “funcling”—that is, being a fun uncle—before getting back to the spirited grind of another school year.

—TPP

Unspeakable Horror

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Blogger photog has a piece up at his blog, Orion’s Cold Fire, entitled “What I Took Away from the Weekend Horror Fest,” which sums up the root causes of this weekend’s two terrible shootings: fatherless, isolated young men with few prospects, few role models, and an excess of narrow ideology.

As I wrote way back in January, I don’t typically write about shootings, because I don’t have much to add, and because the discussion always (incorrectly) focuses on controlling guns, not on addressing the real underlying issue.  The United States doesn’t have a gun problem; we have a God problem.  More precisely, we’ve jettisoned any sense of a transcendent moral order in favor relativism and a form of neo-paganism.

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Unspeakable Fear

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Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day for August 2 demonstrates the fear and distrust that grip our public discourse.  According to Rasmussen’s polling, 22% of voters are afraid to share their political views most of the time, with another 25% fearing to do so some of that time.  That means that 47% of voters are afraid to discuss politics with their co-workers, friends, neighbors, etc.

Of those voters polled, 39% who strongly approve of President Trump believe they are discriminated against because of their political views.

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Lazy Sunday XIX: Music

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While I’m all about politics here at The Portly Politico, I also possess the tender heart of a sensitive warrior-poet.  Music is a major part of my personal and professional lives (if you want to learn more, check out my website, or listen to and buy some tracks on my Bandcamp page), so it’s not surprising that I’ve written about it from time to time on this blog.

In that spirit, here are some scribblings about music:

  • “The Bull on the Roof” –  I wrote this piece on my phone while watching my nearly-four-year old niece play.  It was about a charming symphonic composition I heard while driving to visit family.  The titular work is from a French composer, but draws from popular Brazilian music of the early twentieth century.
  • “Ocarina of Time Soundtrack Review” – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a classic entry in the storied video game franchise.  But no LoZ game is complete without a signature soundtrack from famed Nintendo composer Koji Kondo.  This piece is really a review of a review about the game and its legendary soundtrack.
  • “Right-Wing Rockers” – This post was inspired by some reading into the right-wing-ish politics of some major rockers from the classic rock era—and, no, not just Motor City Madman Ted Nugent.  It even includes a recording of an Iggy Pop song about being a conservative!
  • “TBT: Music is for Everyone” – This post dates back to the TPP 2.0 era of 2016.  I posted about President Trump’s amazing entrance to the strains of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” at the Republican National Convention, and a “bitter progressive” snarkily posted in response about how it was ironic that Trump was entering to a song sung by a gay man.  Yeesh.  Trump has never been against same-sex marriage, for one thing; more importantly, you can appreciate music and other forms of art even if you don’t endorse every lifestyle choice of the artist.  That should go without saying, but this is the world we live in now.
  • “TBT: Conservatives and Country Music” – I really like classic rock; I’m not a big fan of country.  This post goes all the way back to the TPP 1.0 era of 2009, so it’s an interesting look at what I thought about these topics a decade ago.  The piece was an early look at the cultural divide to come:  how even genres of music have become implicitly politicized to signal support for or against one ideology or another.  I bemoaned the fact that progressives got rock ‘n’ roll, and we got stuck with country.

Happy Sunday!

–TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Rudyard Kipling’s “The Mother Hive”

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To start yesterday’s History of Conservative Thought class, I had students skim through Rudyard Kipling’s 1908 short story “The Mother Hive.”  I stumbled upon the reading in our class text, Russell Kirk’s The Portable Conservative Reader.

It is a grim little fable that warns about the perils of progressivism infiltrating a proud but weakened nation.  In the story, a deadly wax-moth sneaks into a large but bedraggled beehive during a moment of confusion.  She quickly steals away to the cell of the youngest bees, who have yet to take their first flight.  There, she fills their impressionable heads with gentle words and promises of a glorious future, all while covertly laying her eggs.

One young bee, Melissa, who has just returned from her first flight, is suspicious of the beautiful stranger’s soothing words, but the wax-moth plays the victim and insists that she’s only spreading her “principles,” not the eggs of her hungry future children.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Real Color of Environmentalism is Red, Not Green

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Environmentalism is an easy target for the Right, but radical environmentalists are dogmatic and effective at advancing their anti-humanity agenda. “Climate change”—and before that, “global warming” and “global cooling”—have been tools for advancing Marxism and statism for over fifty years.

Environmentalism is one of the many gods in the polytheistic pantheon of pagan progressivism. It fits in nicely with some of the other deities in Leftism’s cosmology, such as Abortion and Open Borders: “don’t procreate because babies use up too many resources and there are starving children in Guatemala—bring them in instead!”

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The Desperate Search for Meaning, Part III: Progressive Power Crystals

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As I watch my niece and nephews grow up, I often think about their practical and spiritual educations.  It’s heartening to hear the older two sing hymns of praise to God.  In an age of progressive indoctrination in public schools, they’re going to need a lot of prayers and Christian parenting to grow up to be men and women of God.  Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law are no-nonsense Christian conservatives.

Unfortunately, many Americans 40 and under grew up with a great deal of relativistic hogwash, and have imbibed deeply from the solipsistic brew of the “if it feels good, do it” and “I can define my own truth” culture.  Satan comes as a being of light, surrounded by overpriced power crystals.

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You Can’t Cuck the Tuck: Immigration

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Consistent with my own posts on immigration, and particularly Somalian immigration, Tucker Carlson nails it (see the video in the Tweet below):

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