baldilocks: January 2020

Monday, January 13, 2020

Halfrican Keeps it Real About Why 3rd World Immigrants Come to America

Tom Mboya

Originally posted on January 13, 2018 at DaTechGuy Blog. Edited.

When the students of the Mboya Airlift were hand-picked to come to America, it was for a specific purpose: to educate demonstrably gifted Kenyan and Tanzanian students in the Western tradition and to send them home to be the leaders and information venders of their countries in preparation for independence from the European colonial powers. One of these students was my biological father, journalist Philip Ochieng.

That was in the late fifties to early sixties and most of the students did return home. The Airlift was a privately funded endeavor by the likes of the Ford Foundation, the Kennedy Foundation, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harry Belafonte. I’m sure that there have been other experiments like it.

The 2018 tempest regarding President Trump’s alleged description of Haiti and African countries as shitholes got me thinking again about this vehicle for my presence on earth and incarnation as an American -- born and raised -- and the concept of it. If the intent was to lift these countries up close to the economic and social level of the freer Western nations, I’d say that it failed, predictably, since nation cannot be transformed through its leaders alone. But it can be manipulated by indoctrinating leaders and planting them.

And this was the intent of the two foundations involved — though Mr. Belafonte, Mr. Robinson, and Dr. King, undoubtedly had nothing but the best of intentions. I believe that the project was an attempt to create an elite in the two countries – a rulership.

And since tribal societies are used to the headman concept, not much changed for the average citizen/subject of these countries.

In 1965, the US Congress passed a new immigration law and LBJ signed it. Suddenly, there was a flood of immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and other non-European nations. Here came the Third World’s go-getters and risk-takers: i.e. the rest of the gifted students. And they’re still coming.

And what is their shared gift? The ability to get up and move.

Meanwhile, back home, their friends and relatives remained mostly resigned to the old ways: kleptocracies, tribal wars, criminal cartels, monstrous pollution, deadly disease, etc.

I’ve seen a lot of outrage from Haiti immigrants and immigrants from African countries about the alleged remarks. Some African leaders called for President Trump to apologize. Typical floor-showing.

But I’ve seen only one immigrant — a Nigerian — talk about going back home and making a difference there. Good luck, bro.

Most of the immigrants from the Third World thrive here in the USA and do not return to their countries of origin because it’s a lot easier and more profitable to stay here, have their children born as Americans, and raise them in relative safety and prosperity. And who can blame them? I certainly don’t.

But let’s stop pretending that they left some idyllic Trump-less places of beauty and peace. They left places that were dirty, stinky, dangerous and which have leaders who are blatantly corrupt.

A.K.A. shitholes.

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Wednesday, January 1, 2020

The Real Purpose of the 1619 Project

Originally posted on August 24, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Like always.

Title of the Project is wrong, not to mention the Premise

From Lyman Stone at the Federalist on New York Times 1619 Project.

1619 is commonly cited as the date slavery first arrived in “America.” No matter that historians mostly consider the 1619 date a red herring. Enslaved people were working in English Bermuda in 1616. Spanish colonies and forts in today’s Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina had enslaved Africans throughout the mid-to-late 1500s: in fact, a slave rebellion in 1526 helped end the Spanish attempt at settling South Carolina.

The presence of Spanish power continued to inhibit English settlement of the deep south basically until the Revolutionary War. In some sense, the 1526 San Miguel de Guadeloupe rebellion cleared the way for English settlement of South Carolina.

(...)

But before 1526, slavery was already ongoing in the eventual United States. The earliest slave society in our present country, and our most recent slavery society, was in Puerto Rico. The island’s Spanish overlords were enslaving the Taino natives by 1500. By 1513, the Taino population had shrunk dramatically due to brutal violence and disease. Thus, Spain brought the first African slaves to Puerto Rico.

Chattel slavery in Puerto Rico continued, despite many “Royal Graces” easing life for free blacks and sometimes promising eventual emancipation, until 1873. Even then, slaves had to buy their own liberty. It’s not clear when the last slave was free in Puerto Rico, but it would still have been a fresh memory in 1898 when the United States gained control from Spain.

Slavery in America did not begin in 1619. It began in 1513. Any argument for a 1619 date implicitly suggests that the American project is an inherently Anglo project: that other regions, like Texas, California, Louisiana, and Puerto Rico, have subordinate histories that aren’t really, truly, equal as American origin stories.

But even if the title were correct, what's the true propose of this project? Stone gives the answer earlier in the piece.

It isn’t mostly about helping Americans understand the role played by plantation agriculture in American history. It’s mostly about convincing Americans that “America” and “slavery” are essentially synonyms.

Previously, I've discussed the Civil War and whether (or not) present-day black Americans should be grateful to our country and to those who fought on the Union side. A lot of people didn't like my conclusion.

True freedom fighters have the clean conscience of God. May that be enough for them.

And at the same time, however, this country has no need to pay for its past sins. This very same Civil War was America's trial by fire, its conviction, and its sentence -- something that American leaders chose.

But, it seems as if all too many are intent on keeping everyone angry about hardships none of them had to bear. All the New York Times wants to do is make itself the drum major of the anger and vengeance parade.

And what if America and slavery are synonymous? What then? Oh, yes, reparations.

Reparations, just like every other government program, will become just another cistern for politicians to wet their beaks. How do you think they all get rich?

Because that's the true purpose of all this -- to create another means for our money to become theirs.

By the way, what about those Spaniards?

UPDATE: For some strange reason, people seem to think I'm unaware of the world history of slavery. I am not.

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About Blogging and Social Media

Originally posted on August 23, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali

I prefer blogging to Social Media because, with blogging, ideas can be more easily expanded upon and have its foundations described. A downside, however, is that those who need to read these types of pieces won’t do so.

Something else about Social Media: if you put up a status, on, say, Facebook, it is always prone to the commenter who hasn’t read your previous statuses -- or your blog -- and who refuses to do so. He has made up his mind about whatever it is you are saying and about who you are.

And then there are your regular friends, those who regularly comment on your statuses and vice versa. Most of them are great—even the liberals. But, sometimes, you find out that your friends are harboring all manner of misconceptions about things you thought you had in common.

Example: when you find out that a friend who calls herself a conservative, thinks that when someone posts an opposing opinion on her page, that she is being forced into another opinion. And when you try to explain why this is not so, you get the post-modern version of how to define a word/concept.

This is a good, smart lady and I like her. But her thinking has been so post-modernly molded, that she thinks that anything which makes her intellectually uncomfortable is “force” and cannot see the lack of logic in it.

Call it the Safe Space mindset, where a person is free from the violence of your horrible opinions.

I have only blocked two people from my Facebook page; both were out-and-out straight-jacket lunatics. I’ve never blocked anyone on Twitter, which is, in my opinion, primarily a place to share links, brawl and to toy with trolls. But, occasionally, I'll put something substantial there.

At my old blog, I blocked a few trolls after many warnings and after tiring of changing their comments to something more entertaining.

On Facebook, I’ve trying to keep my page from being an echo chamber. It surprises many people when I argue with them; they assume I’m angry or that they are about to be blocked. One the contrary, argument is what keeps your thinking from becoming sluggish, from gazing at your navel for too long.

Additionally, if I argue with someone, it means that I respect their intellect.

I’d like to see more people become open to at least reading other points of view and having their minds changed. Yes, I know it won’t be many.

Have I had my mind changed recently? You bet I have. I thought that conservatives were better critical thinkers than liberals. It turns out that we are just as prone to error as liberals are. The culprits: pride and the refusal to be humbled by God.

You cannot improve your thinking process without at least reading what your ideological opponent says; exercise for your brain.
.
And this analogy can be taken further: everyday events continually show just who has been going to the intellectual gym -- the library is one example -- and who has been sitting on their duffs.

Excuse me while I go exercise.

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I’m Staying on the Battlefield

Originally posted on July 23, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Roger L. Simon:

I left Los Angeles for Nashville slightly over a year ago. When I call friends back in my former home (for 50 years), most of them tell me I got out just in time.

Actually, they’re wrong. I should have gotten out ten or even fifteen years before. The handwriting was on the wall. (…)

Now everybody knows about the 36,000 homeless on the streets of LA, over 60,000 in the county, replete with human feces and syringes littering the sidewalks, along with rats, typhus and even rumors of bubonic plague.

And those figures are what we’re told. No one, if you can trust the comments sections in the LA Times or the Next Door app for my old Hollywood neighborhood, remotely believes them. They could be three or four times the number. And how do you take a census of the homeless anyway? They are inherently nomadic. But everyone knows they are everywhere, along those sidewalks, under the freeway underpasses, even in the brush up by Mulholland Drive. Maybe they should add homeless encampments to the Disneyland Mulholland ride. (…)

Shelters, some of them well built, have been constructed all over the city but the homeless don’t want to stay in them. The reason is these shelters are drug-free zones and the homeless of LA (and San Francisco and Seattle) are anything but drug-free. Most are addicts. They prefer to live in tents where they can smoke what they want, shoot what they want, pop what they want.

And this is the stark reality. I know because I lived in homeless housing — different from a shelter — for nine months in 2015. No illegal drugs and no alcohol; you are drug tested before being allowed to live there. And violations of the rules result in eviction.

For myself, I like red wine, but I went without during my stay there. And I saw many people get booted for smuggling in their numbing agent of choice and being discovered.

Given a choice between getting high and sleeping indoors, all too many will choose the former.

The overarching factor for the exploding numbers of homeless persons here, of course, is that involuntary commitment into mental hospitals and insane asylums is illegal. “Civil rights,” you know.

And then there’s the great weather.

Roger picked a very nice state for relocation. Last year, I visited Tennessee – first time ever — and it’s high on the list for my own future move.

But I’m staying for now. Yes, it’s tough to live here, but as I’ve mentioned several times, I stay because of my church and it’s the lone reason.

California is the battlefield — not just a political one, but a spiritual one; the rising numbers of addicts is one of dozens of indications.

I have no plans on going out to “save” anyone, but I do sense that this state is on the edge of something good and I want to be here to see it and, maybe, be a part of it.

We will have to hit bottom, though, like all addicts.

And I think we’re almost there. At least I hope so.

2020 will be a very illuminating year.

ADDITIONAL (1/1/2020): California Law AB5, which effectively bans freelancers of almost any stripe -- like me -- became active today.

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Aftereffects of the Obama Presidency

Originally posted on June 1, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Like a Very Long Hangover

Some people think that we should leave Former President Obama alone, since he’s not president anymore. Problem is he and his minions won’t leave us alone.

First, there he is in Brazil — the former POTUS — lying about American gun laws.

President Barack Obama said the United States’ gun laws “don’t make much sense” and claimed anybody “can buy machine guns” while speaking at VTEX Day 2019 in Brazil.

“Some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon any time. Without much, if any, regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns,” Obama told the audience.

It’s hard, however, to get too worked up about BHO’s whoppers. After all, his lips are moving. And, in fairness George W. Bush set the precedent for former POTUSes lying about/criticizing his country on foreign soil.

But, then there’s this.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday [May 30, 2019] that John Kerry “should be prosecuted” for allegedly violating the Logan Act through his conversations with Iran, escalating a feud between his administration and the former [Obama-appointed] secretary of State.

“John Kerry violated the Logan Act,” Trump said during a White House press availability. “He’s talking to Iran and has has many meetings and many phone calls and he’s telling them what to do. That is total violation of the Logan Act.”

The response from Kerry's spokesperson amounted to “we will do what we want since we are the professionals and we know how to do this better than you do, Philistine.”

And it seem that other former Obama officials are intent on interfering in relations between the US and Iran.

This is what you get when you elect a person — BHO — who feels entitled to his elevation and, ironically, feels contempt for those he leads. You get all of his “elite” cohorts, flunkies, and puppeteers who can “see the bigger picture,” the picture that we rabble who would elect some real estate mogul-reality TV star to office cannot see.

And their bigger picture always involves more power for them and elites in other countries — Iran’s mullahs, for example — and less for you.

These “elites” won’t let go without some … incentive. They will have to become convinced that letting go is in their best interest.

And I am convinced that there is a lot of “best interest” located in the declassified files of the Russian Collusion Investigation.

We spent eight years being afraid of what Obama had in store for us next. I want to see what’s in store for him.

Alternative: they could all HAVE A SEAT.

No, I don’t think it will happen either.

ADDITIONAL (1/1/2020): Interesting, in light of the Iran news from the last two days.

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Heartbeat

Originally posted on May 11, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

Everyone must participate in the sacrifice!

On Thursday [May 2, 2019], fanatic feminist Lauren Duca, who has hitherto had a rather hostile perspective toward men, suddenly issued a highly-unlikely plea, begging men to get more involved in fighting against the state of Georgia adopting the “heartbeat bill” which outlaws abortion once the baby shows it has a heartbeat. Duca pleaded, “Hey, all men? We need you to show up for this fight.”

On Tuesday [April 30, 2019], Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, ignoring threats from the Hollywood community that they would boycott his state if he signed the so-called “heartbeat bill” which would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected, signed the bill.

Many years ago, I had a miscarriage very early on. Before that, the doctor had ordered an ultrasound. During the procedure, the technicians pointed out my child’s heartbeat. I was seven weeks along.

Fast forward almost two decades, I was arguing with a man who was pro-abortion. He claimed that the fetus’ heart wasn’t even beating before the three-month point. When I told him that I had seen my baby’s heart beating at seven weeks, he claimed that I had imagined it!

After I told him that the technicians were the ones who pointed it out, he still wouldn’t believe it.

This sort of thing shows that the fanatical pro-abortionist will refuse to hear anything which will prove the idea that fetus is a human being. It’s a “thing” or a “clump of cells” unless the mother wants it. Only then does the “thing” become a human being.

And, should the mother change her mind about wanting the human being, that human being becomes a thing again.

It’s certain that I’m not the only person who thinks that the obsession which many leftists have with making abortion easier and allowing it later and later during pregnancy is a spiritual issue.

A form of human sacrifice? That would explain why many of its advocates seem to worship it.

... why they want as many entities – men, governments, taxpayers – as complicit as possible.

... why they would turn anti-abortion advocacy into racism.

Simply, abortion is demonic. It is the shedding of innocent blood and it’s how these lost souls appease their father.

It is a perversion of the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ — who voluntarily shed His innocent blood to atone for the sins of all so that no more atonement is necessary.

And if everyone is involved somehow in soaking our ground with blood, then we’re all guilty — or that’s how they and their father hope it will be.

And it accounts for the rabid, unhinged responses against public pro-lifers, especially against unashamed Christians like Vice President Mike Pence.

On a related note, my dad sent me five bags of coffee as a gift for Mother’s Day. I have given birth to no children, but Dad knows that my children are with God and that I look forward to the day when I will meet them and hear them call me Mom.

Thanks, Daddy. I love you.

RELATED: Donald Trump May Have Saved His Country

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A Little Bit About Those Refugee Camps in Kenya

Originally posted on April 30, 2019 at DaTechGuy Blog.

With two Somali-Americans – Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-5) and Sports Illustrated “swimsuit” model Halima Aden — being in the news of late, I think it’s important to dispense some information about a singular part of their backgrounds.

Both spent their childhoods in Kenyan refugee camps.

If you recall, the last time a person whose lineage was from that part of the world became famous, a lot of made-up information (read: lies) was spread around and, over a decade later, I still see some of it. Therefore, I’d like to get out a little ahead of information on the refugee camps, or, at least run alongside of it.

I don’t intend for this to be any kind of expose on the camps — kind of difficult to do anything like that from my living room in Los Angeles — nor is this an opinion piece about the women. I’ve made my opinions about Omar plain, and, as for Aden’s SI hijab-burkini debut, I’m agnostic on the topic other than the fact that I think that swimming in full hijab might be dangerous. Also, she seems like a nice young lady.

My only purpose here is to provide accurate information available from open sources about the camps .

From World of Camps:

The Dadaab refugee camp complex is situated in northeastern Kenya, near the border with Somalia. Until early 2017, it consisted of five refugee camps. However, one of the camps, Kambioos, which was also the newest, was recently closed as refugees began returning to Somalia and the few remaining moved into the other camps.

Dadaab was established in the year 1991 following the beginning of the civil war in Somalia. Somalis were forced to flee as the war worsened, leaving to neighbouring countries including Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan.

The Dadaab Complex consists of five smaller camps: Dagahaley, Hagadera, Ifo, Ifo II and Kambioos. The latter two camps were opened in 2011 when more Somalians fled their country to escape drought and subsequent famine.

Who manages and funds these camps? Why, the UN, of course. Its Twitter feed is here. And there are many more foreign agencies involved.

Kenya has been trying to shut down this complex and repatriate its inhabitants since 2013.

From Kenya’s Daily Nation:

[T]he camp situated in Garissa county has been the centre of protracted negotiations between the Kenya government, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Somalia.

This will be the fourth attempt to close it.

In 2013, the three parties had signed a tripartite agreement to source funds, prepare the ground back in Somalia and facilitate the voluntary return of refugees. Those who accepted were to be given a stipend and other support.

But refugees seem to have shied away from this programme. Figures from UNHCR show that the number of refugees who left the camp on their own is more than those who went under the guided programme.

In 2014, there were about 350,000 refugees. Today, the camp hosts 210,556 refugees, of which 202,381 are from Somalia.

By their own law, the Kenyans are prohibited from simply throwing the refugees out, which is good because I suspect that they’ve had enough of the Somalis.

Back to our two subject personalities.

Omar, 37, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She and her family spent four of her childhood years in the Dadaab complex. She entered the United States in 1992 and became an American citizen in 2000.

Aden, 21, was born in a camp called Kakuma, which is not part of the Dadaab complex. It is located

Halima Aden. Cite.

on the opposite end of Kenya and, therefore much further away from the Kenya-Somalia border than is Dadaab. She and her family came to America when she was six. I can only find one article mentioning her citizenship; the writer assumes that she is an American citizen.

As we know, the largest concentration of Somali refugees and Somali-Americans in the USA is in Minnesota, which is where both women live.

And here’s a little more opining from me: regardless of what one thinks of either woman, it is for certain that they both hit the jackpot.

ADDENDUM:

Dadaab gains a new benefactor.

The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) [of Saudi Arabia] is set to open a regional relief office in Kenya that will aid refugees in the Dadaab Refugee Camp.

According to the General Supervisor of the Center Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Rabiah, the organization will also provide urgent food and medical assistance to Kenyans facing starvation.

He stated that last year, it distributed over 1,200 tonnes of relief food aid to the Dadaab refugees after the UN cut funding and food aid ratio for the 3 refugee camps of Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley. [Ed note: It appears that there are more camps in the complex than are named in some sources. JAO]

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