Elite Opening: China's American Defenders

 

To sum up this article from Lee Smith, the historic opening to China created a class of elites that prioritize their wealth and privilege over everything else.

 I saw a clip from Tucker Carlson where he interviewed Smith about the saturation of Chinese influence among  the elite. I’m getting tired of using the word elite. It’s assumed everyone has the same understanding about who this special group is but is that true? I’m not sure. The “elite” members of society run the gamut from business to government and entertainment to sports. Being rich is part of the deal but it’s more than just money. It’s access for yourself and your kids to the best life has to offer. Naturally it isn’t just here in America. Elites come from all over the world and really have more in common with each other than with their fellow countrymen. 

I'm not one for envy. I love the freedom we have to make a lot of money in this country and spend it how we like. It's always set America apart from the rest of the world. I don't begrudge people riches but I do have a problem with ingratitude. 

Lee Smith sounds almost jealous of elite success, but he makes a solid case that certain members of elite castes, in America, have thrown in their lot with the CCP at the expense of their countrymen. Did you notice Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks stopped playing the national anthem for home games? That’s a good picture of elite arrogance, making money in this free country but disrespecting its traditions and culture. This kind of anti-Americanism used to be more hidden. No longer.

Trump was hated by the establishment and China. There is solid evidence that Beijing has a hand in stealing the election for Joe Biden as well. Did you see the Mike Lindell’s video? Ok so he’s not a polished operator. He lined up some expert analysis on the elections. CCP penetration of America is much farther along than I imagined but the self-censorship of the press is common in China, not so here.

For the new Top Gun movie with Tom Cruise, China sensors managed to blur a patch of Taiwan on Cruise’s jacket. But of course they did it. The Chinese market is a key mover of big budget films. What’s scary is to think how many similar moves have happened like this that we don’t even know about? Some producer notices a reference to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in a dialogue scene and decides to cut it before anyone sees it. That’s self-censorship and it’s how news runs in Xi Jinping’s country. Reporters just stay away from certain topics after a while, the party need not bother with a crack down.

Smith’s seminal moment for the US’s abandonment of principle was the famous détente arrangement by Henry Kissinger in the early seventies. The purpose was to have an ally opposite the Soviet Union. The access to China, which hadn’t existed before, made it possible for diplomats and business leaders to get rich. No one got rich in the seventies of course, China was still a very poor country. The promise of cheap labor and a vast market became too much to resist. One would have to ignore the treatment of communist leaders toward their people however. Maybe this was never a big deal. In the nineties the view from the State Department was that with economic growth comes liberty and prosperity and voting rights.

I remember buying pretty hard into this view as well. It worked in South Korea and Taiwan, why not China? Wasn't it worth a try?

 Lee Smith doesn’t believe this was ever the elite’s view. There was money to be made so they told themselves whatever they needed to. Senators like Diane Feinstein pushed for Most Favored Nation status at the WTO leading to full trade. Mitch McConnell’s connections to Chinese industry also run deep through his wife’s father. I’m not fully on board with the idea that elite’s sent our industry to China (purely) to enrich themselves. From a practical standpoint the costs to build and manufacture are significantly cheaper in countries with low wages. It might be cruel to send work to a place with slave worker conditions, but do the high taxes and regulations in the United States get any of the blame? 

If making t-shirts and socks in the United States becomes too expensive, it makes sense to find alternative sourcing. It’s too simplistic to say those SOB's took our jobs and gave them to the Chinese. There were very real wage and material cost concerns to keep producing them here. But greed was undoubtedly a motivator.

I think the article is a perfect summary of what’s wrong now. It doesn’t offer solutions and even suggests the reign of elite hegemony won’t last long. But with a pro-China White House it might be a while before the US de-couples like it should. The elites have thrown in with the Chinese leadership at the expense of American citizens. This won’t end well for them in the end.

The Shadow Knows

 

Time magazine (yes they’re still around) released a long form piece on the secret cabal in charge of keeping the election ‘honest’. That they needed to put millions (likely billions) of dollars into keeping the democratic process on track, shows me their true intentions. It was never to keep democracy alive. The effort to rig the election started with the mail in votes and they pretty much say so. No of course they don’t use the phrase “rig the election”. They’re much too clever for that. The term is “fortify” now.

The narrative goes like this. Trump represents a unique threat to democracy and as such needs to be blocked from running a campaign his own way. He’s such a devious fellow that orange man, he needed a full scale shadow campaign to oppose his treachery. The article isn’t clear on how Trump would cheat, I guess they still think the Russians maybe? It’s dotted with indications that Trump doesn’t like minorities or that he colluded in the first election. Most of these cheap shots are taken on faith.

The assumed treachery of the president portends the need for the coalition in the first place. These brave individuals sought to save truth, justice and democracy, as they understand it. How fortuitous that Time magazine was there for the story.

Here is a nice summary of the dirty deed.

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. 

They “got states to change voting systems and laws”. This was illegal according to state constitutions. Only the legislatures can change the laws and the systems; they do it the same way that pass other laws, by voting on it. But the effort this time relied on judges in most cases or sympathetic governors like in Pennsylvania. When one decides to change an item they just do it. Damn the laws. This was the very thing that Texas tried to challenge at the Supreme Court. You can’t have states issuing decrees and wholesale changing how votes are counted.

When it says “They fended off voter suppression lawsuits” it doesn’t mean those lawsuits were bogus. It means they successfully stopped them from having an effect. But what of cases where Republicans were denied entry to view the ballot counting? We saw videos of this in Pennsylvania. nothing? Maybe that explains the next line about “recruiting armies of poll workers”. You know, kinda like the Union does when it wants to suppress a vote, it recruits armies of ‘persuasion artists’. Of course we know about the mail in votes and the numbers of dead casting ballots, also the unlikely percentage of eligible voters (85-90%) casting a vote. I’m looking at you Wisconsin.

“They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation”. Yeah I think I remember that. Actually it’s gotten worse on Twitter and Facebook for a lot of big names. Disinformation of course means anything that didn’t fit their pro-Biden shade. Who can forget watching the New York Post article about Hunter Biden get blocked right before a critical election? After the election they went ahead and let it go, the challenge to losing now just a memory.

“They executed national public awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days of weeks”. This was always bullshit. Third world countries manage to get their votes in the same day. Myanmar just arrested a group of officials for trying to steal the last election. How many European countries drag out vote counting over the course of a week? These irregularities and middle of the night shutdowns all signal fraud to me. Will it ever be believed?

The moral of the story is the deep state fought back with a massive coordinated effort to undermine a fair election. They couldn’t go another year with this ‘troublemaker’ at the helm. They found a willing army from both parties, mostly the left, that would do anything to get rid of him. This article is the proof that despite the soaring language about saving democracy the participants actually killed it. Just the thought of voting on anything again makes me queasy.  

The deep state sat down with Time and, Keyser Soze like, admitted to their crime in code. Because it’s so brilliant it demands to be shared.

 

 

 

Isaiah 5: The Importance of the Vine

 

Isaiah 5

It’s not hard to find references to vineyards in the scripture. In I Kings Jezebel had a man killed over his vineyard so her husband, King Ahab could possess it. In Deuteronomy Moses reminds the owners of vineyards “not go over” their vines a second time but leave for the fatherless a portion. It is a perfect metaphor for God and His people, whether Israel or the ‘grafted in’ Christians after Christ’s resurrection. “I am the vine and you are the branches” (John 15:5). So it’s safe to say that grapes and wine and everything the vineyard represented was important to the people of Israel.

Isaiah begins verse 1 with a detailed description of cultivation “My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so he expected to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.”

The first thing I notice is the effort put into making this a world class crop. He uses the “choicest vine” and puts a tower in it. Why put a tower in a vineyard? I had to look this one up because it seems odd phrase unless I just really don’t know anything about agriculture. If you think of vineyards as wealth then make efforts to guard them. One source I read says enemies might burn it to the ground in a dispute, slash and burn agriculture is a warfare tactic to starve your enemies. So the tower is a watchtower for protection. 

We guard what’s important.

But this vineyard produced “wild grapes”. So what gives? All this effort and expense and the produce grows wild?  This is a picture of the God’s people and their behavior. He provides them with land and vineyards, protects them with towers and hedges and they fail to produce. Or more accurately, they produce of their own imaginations. The seeds of rebellion were not placed within the crop originally so something has gone wrong. 

Next comes the appeal “What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (verse 5)

The next few verses describe the destruction of the vine by its creator. Even though we realize this represents the Children of Israel who have lost their way, we still want to know how. How did it all go so terribly wrong? How did something designed to produce fruit become corrupted along the way? Isaiah never gives us a clear answer or a direct blame, but there are clues sprinkled throughout that suggest to me greed is to blame.

 This being the Old Testament there is the usual list of Woes. “Woe to those who join house to house; they add field to field, till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!” I think this means buying up excessive land, forcing people out of homes and squeezing every crop for profit—like um…a grape.

“Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may follow intoxicating drink; who continue until night, till wine inflames them!” (verse 11) these aren’t people who know how to have a good time, they live to party and they revel in excess. What is at the heart of the matter here? This is what is meant by “wild grapes”. Their purpose is to produce a specific type of grape, specified by the instructions contained in the seed’s code. But they reject their inherent creation and grow according to their own understanding, pleasing the senses.

It’s interesting to me that Isaiah mentions drunkenness a few times in this chapter, presenting a perfect picture of how vineyards get abused. But the drunkenness and anomie of his day are symptoms of greed. They don’t exist as often in a society wrecked by famine or those coming out of a long war. Party culture requires a wealthy base first, but it quickly goes off the rails if the core issues aren’t addressed.

In Isaiah’s day and probably ours as well, greed explains a lot of the excess living. Greed is trying to get more out of a thing than it’s able to produce. The result is uneven growth and wild behavior. But God who is gracious and unrelenting calls out to His people to change. He still uses prophets, but now we have the Holy Spirit. We receive our sustenance from the vine and nowhere else.

Taiwan's Uncertain Future

 

Among the many leaders around the globe, Tsia Ing-Wen will certainly miss Trump.

On the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration the Chinese military flew jets into Taiwan’s airspace. The size of the fleet made it a much bigger provocation then the usual fighter jet sortie. It was probably an aggressive ‘show of force’ display meant to see how Biden’s team would react. In other words, can we trust Joe to interfere?

The State Department did issue a pro forma statement of support for Taiwan but those don't carry weight.

For those who need a quick refresher on Taiwan, here is the 2 cent version. After World War II the nationalist government was run out of China by the Communists and Mao Ze Dong. The United States supported the nationalist government of the Kuomintang (KMT) and their leader Chiang Kai Shek. But the better organized Communists pushed the nationalists out in 1949. Chiang Kai Shek’s forces were no match and key members of the court were moved to Taiwan.

Taipei became the seat of the government of China. The United States recognized this group as the official government of China in exile but abandoned the position in 1979 under Jimmy Carter. The Communist Party were as good as rebels, but as the years went on in became difficult to pretend the real leaders of China were in Taipei. So who was in Beijing? A policy called “One China” became the framework for diplomacy with the United States. It recognizes that China or the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is a sovereign state and the only government of the Chinese people. The US stops short of saying that Taiwan is part of China, putting them in a difficult situation.

Imagine if Hawaii had a government that didn’t answer to Washington DC and had independent arms deals with foreign countries? This is how Beijing sees Taiwan, as a member of the motherland that’s acting rebelliously. I’m not completely sure how modern Taiwanese see their country in relation to China, but the old KMT wanted eventual reunification. Newer parties like the DPP, of which current president Tsai Ing Wen leads, prefer distance if not actual independence from Beijing.

The Biden administration will certainly favor closer ties with Beijing, if not only because it’s closer to the Washington consensus. In other words, that’s how it was before Trump came in and realigned the posture towards China to an adversarial one. It was necessary to get tough with the Chinese. They’ve been belligerent toward our navy in the Straits and all over the South China Sea, which despite the name is within the territory of the Beijing government. Those are international waters. Early last year they sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat and harassed others by bringing their navy as escorts to commercial fishing vessels. China claims the whole (nearly) of the South China Sea, but no one else does. Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines also have territorial claims to at least what surrounds their coastlines.

Anyone can make a claim to anything but if there is no force to back up the claim? Well., sorry but it’s not yours. This is what’s at the heart of so many diplomatic disputes over territories, not just in China but all over the world. Might is always right. For all of the talk about international organizations and treaties, without a strong country like the US underwriting the liberal views it all goes away. The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands ruled against China’s claims to the sea. “Oh No! not the ICC at the Hague! I guess we’ll rethink our actions now!”

China’s reaction was exactly how America would have responded. They ignored it.

Without an assertive navy who would ensure the laws of the sea and free navigation? International courts are joke because they lack an enforcement mechanism. But we’ve told ourselves for too long that the world is now governed by these agreements--would that it were true. The Biden administration won’t likely change policy toward Taiwan on paper. All the regular agreements will be there, but they won’t resist Beijing’s encroachment. This is what I think the recent ‘show of force’ was, a test case for a new administration with a much softer take on Sino relations.

Why will Tsai miss Trump? Because he kept an assertive China on their heels by sending envoys and diplomats to Taiwan. In the last days of the administration they even sent the UN ambassador to Taipei, angering the Chinese even more! That’s likely more about sticking the new Biden administration with another potential row though. I guess I’m going to miss Trump too.

Tumultuous Times

 

This feels like a tumultuous time in the country right now. 

Only one day left until Joe Biden takes over as the country’s executive. I don’t think I like the sound of the phrase “country’s executive” much. Not because it’s Joe but because it feels business-like instead of public service like. There is nothing about the leader of the armed forces in it either. Presidents wear many hats and probably have a lot more power than ever before. I’m not sure when this changed dramatically but there can be no doubt that president’s since FDR (best guess) wield much more authority relative to their congressional counterparts.

I mostly side with Congress in generic terms, because bills originate in the House. But these last few years have shown me what a populist president can get accomplished even with a recalcitrant House. Trump had an incredible amount of pressure from both parties in his first two years. He was under investigation which gave cover to politicians to not work with him. Lest we forget how much the despicable Mueller Report cost in time and money.

 Reports in the press on a nightly basis with the lead phrases like ‘It’s all starting to unravel” or “It’s just the tip of the iceberg” became exhaustingly normal. Even then they managed to put a tax cut through. He cut regulations dramatically and took a very hard line against illegal immigration. He forced the Chinese to sign new trade agreements with quotas to buy agriculture from the US. He reimagined NAFTA even if the fixes were minimal.

I’m not too keen on Congress being the big dog anymore. The legislative branch writes the laws and the executive enforces them. But Congress is all too happy to surrender their proper role to a big daddy in chief, whoever he happens to be. They can run home to their voters and complain about big government while raising money on stopping the president. They’d rather not bother with laws. That’s a lot of work. Better to exploit cultural issues and try to get on TV. Besides, lobby groups really write these laws anyway. Even the sharpest elected representatives can’t wade through all the pages and restrictions. These bills are monstrous. I’d rather they not do anything for a year. I’m usually the one rooting for shutdown at the end of the year when they need to raise the debt ceiling. Just everyone in government, minus the military, stay home for a year and stop working.

The back and forth between the two branches of government was inevitable. The founders knew how to play these strongholds off against each other. The genius of the Constitution is in allowing for ambitious men to pursue their interests, while setting up ways to hem them in. How best to hold back a bully? Appeal to his sense of decency and restraint? No chance. You get another bully and make them play in the same yard. This is how the two legislative branches keep each other restrained. The divisiveness doesn’t bother me as much as others. I’m an agreeable sort of guy, but a smooth running government means we’re all getting screwed. I worry very much about the increasing talk of forced vaccines. 

I’m not particularly bothered by vaccines as a method of controlling viruses; but a lot of people (my mom included) want the ability to take care of their own health. America has never restricted religious liberty in this way and to do so now would be a step too far. I would probably refuse to take them on the basis that forced medical treatment is slavery.  I don’t care if it seems nutty to refuse a vaccination. An individual’s health is a private matter. Besides, in the case of Corona we are talking about a flu bug. It’s another strain of flu but instead of calling in flu 19 we call it Covid 19. We never locked down or told people to wear masks during the swine flu outbreak. Something else is up and I suspect it’s political. We’re all conspiracy theorists now.

I’m for following the constitution and letting both bullies jostle for space. But if both groups disregard religious liberty, personal freedom and right to privacy than we’re all in trouble anyway.

The written document’s that’s governed our lives since 1789 only works on a moral people. When the majority is crooked than only God can fix the mess and the best laid plans of mice and men are for naught.     

Isaiah 58: Restore the Breach

 

Isaiah 58

The Hebrews in Isaiah's day are engaged in the ceremonial duties like fasting but without the humility. They care for themselves at the expense of their neighbors but still manage their routines and sacraments. 

I’ve come to loathe the word tolerance. In our modern usage it means ignoring destructive behavior until it overwhelms you. We are tolerant about drugs among other things. Oregon just became the first state to decriminalize possession of hard drugs. This article calls them a pioneer. This was unthinkable 20 years ago but it started with loosening marijuana laws and then finally full legalization.

I’m convinced that all we’ve done is create additional problems that play out in our crowded homeless population. I used to take a more libertarian approach to these things, it isn’t my business what anyone does in their free time. But it becomes our business when our addiction starts costing society in other ways. Families split first and then communities fracture. Cities eventually get overrun with tent cities and violent crime. How much do we spend on recovery programs, counselling, incarceration?

Tolerance starts to look like avoidance.   

There are Christian organizations that get it. Plenty are doing hard work, clothing and feeding the desperate and providing counseling. An immoral society will eventually get overrun with zombies no matter what the law says. People are responsible for their choices in life and strong resistance to truth produces it’s own hell.

Isaiah writes this from the position of God talking to His people. “Why have we fasted, they say, and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’ (verse 3)

Another way to say this might be, we’re doing the stuff from the law and not being blessed, what gives? Americans might say why is all this destruction and waste filling up our cities like a landfill? I’ve never seen so many churches around the country, there hasn’t been a time with easier access to the best teachings, sermons, classrooms, and communities with the purpose of growing in Christ. Teachers of the Word offer their material for free online. Why are we not in a renaissance of growth and freedom and Godly wisdom?

The answer isn’t as one dimensional as we might think, but at the core is our ability to put ourselves first. Nothing is wrong with money and increasing wealth, our families and communities depend on it. It’s such a blessing to live in a country where wealth is possible and even likely for so many.

But we’ve shoveled off our spiritual responsibility for the desperate.

 The government takes care of the street dwellers we figure, so let them run the shelters and the recovery programs. Also the spiritually homeless are all around us and they need our direct influence. Too often we pass them up, even people in church, and get on with our lives. It takes time so we don’t bother. We are busy and investing in others takes time, it’s miserable and often not appreciated. It’s easier to let others do it, or not do it.

We do fast though. We call for God’s mercy. We call for God’s blessing. We ask Him for healing and deliverance and restoration. He answers us. But it feels like we aren’t seeing the real sweeping revival we’d like. We are too satisfied with promotions at work and financial increase, all good things.

Maybe the Heavenly Father is saying stop going through the motions. Begin to honor me with your time and money and efforts. Bear the burdens of the lost and addicted and lonely. Restore the broken and set them free from the mental restraints of depression. God answered the children of Israel in much this same way.

“If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” (verse 10-11)

That sounds a lot better doesn’t it? The wreckage and misery I see all around is the result of bad politics to be sure. But politics are a result of a culture that doesn’t think much of human life. It ignores what we’ve known about human nature since the Garden of Eden, man is a sinful being whose only path to redemption is through Christ. Because of this we need restraints that reinforce ideas about fallen man. A society that throws off restraint opens itself to ruin.

The promise from God is the same as it was during Isaiah’s time, honor Me with your lives and I’ll take care of the rest. “Those from among you shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.” (verse 12)

Our streets need some restoration. There isn’t a city in America that doesn’t have problems with homelessness and it isn’t because we are in a famine. It’s because we tolerate and ignore, instead of caring and restricting.   

   

Golf Dumps Trump

 

Everything is politics.

 I’ve mentioned numerous times that I’m off sports for a while. In a less political time, when corporate brands like the NFL and MLB aren’t so woke I’ll tune in. I put the golf channel on at work because it’s the least political of all. During this season the pros are all over the world playing in warm locals like Hawaii and Bermuda. No matter the time of year there always seems to be a tournament or a camera crew covering some club course on the ocean. Golf isn’t even a favorite sport of mine, but the commentary is mostly focused on the sport. Yesterday the head of the PGA announced via zoom that they were terminating the agreement to play the PGA Championship at Trump National in Bedford, New Jersey in 2022.

I guess the crackdown has begun in earnest.

Everywhere I look I see weakness in the face of opposition and I’m sick of it. It doesn’t affect my life where the event is played and most people probably don’t care. But that’s another thing, even the minor stuff gets the Jacobin treatment. No event or issue is beyond the censors, or avoids cancelation due to wrong think and wrong deeds. What kills me is that too many leaders of organizations don’t get it. They aren’t willing to draw lines around their industries and tell everyone else to pound sand. They give and give and give until the company isn’t theirs anymore. Of course with these corporate entities running everything the idea of true private business with decision making ability is mostly gone.

Most are subsidiaries of this conglomerate or that global brand.

Last year Chik fil A pulled a similar move. They were brave stalwarts in the fight against left wing mobs trying to keep them out of large cities. But even they changed their policy on donations just a bit. You probably didn’t even notice. Instead of those icky Christian ones with traditional notions of marriage they opted for ‘approved’ ones instead. Salvation Army was left in the wind, isolated by their faith and left to fend for themselves when the chicken magnet moved on like a jilted lover.

Every company above a certain size is subject to intense pressure to conform to either bullshit mask mandates or social distancing craziness. The news keeps reporting “surging” cases while the fear factor grows ever stronger in the minds of already fearful people. There are cases of local restaurants in states that have ordered businesses closed of pure rebellion. Thank God for locals with courage. My cousin told me about a café in Illinois that’s so far rejected calls to close up. People get cold and flu and even Covid and still manage to get by. I had it. I was quite sick too. I could never imagine asking others to wear a mask around me.

My health is my responsibility; ditto to you and yours.

How much corruption did the dirty crooks in DC get up to while we were all worrying about social distancing? 

Something tells me it was a lot. Trump was a rock amidst a sea of sand castles. Sticking your neck out is costly as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are about to find out. But Senators braving the mob is one thing. We almost expect the left wing ascending pricks to go after them and their families. We don’t, until this year, expect private citizens and TV hosts and bloggers to be de-platformed for expressing contrary opinions. Not racist opinions either, but regular conservative or Christian ideas about religion and sex and identity.

The lack of stones among every corner of industry and government means I’ve been praying and trying to sort out my own spiritual walk with the Lord. I need to get some issues in order in my own life or become a slave for all time. Maybe exposure is at the heart of this reluctance from these leaders to stand against the rising tide of oppression.

Their past might get some unwanted attention, suddenly they become the victims of their own bravery. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some unpleasant revelations about both Cruz and Hawley. If you have to surrender this much though why bother? What benefit could you possibly get from abrogating your soul to this evil woke mob? The professional class is going to have to re-think their chosen career in the coming months or suffer some kind of rejection of Trumpism, conservatism, Christianity.

 I’d rather shovel shit in a labor camp then be told, in a free country, what I was allowed to talk about.

Sports used to be a healthy distraction but no longer. Maybe it’s time we all spent more time paying closer attention to the world around us and quit patronizing the industries that hate us.