Michigan State University’s College of Education is under scrutiny for its radical training materials for teachers as part of its program, “Social Foundations of Justice and Equity in Education.” The material includes radical race theories and a video of Communist and Black Panther Angela Davis explaining that “racism is integrally linked to capitalism.”
The Federalist reported on the material, which includes a warning to educators that those “who cling to their Whiteness cannot participate in abolitionist teaching because they are a distraction, are unproductive, and will undermine freedom at every step, sometimes in the name of social justice.”
Imagine if material told black or other minority teachers that they had to drop identities to their race if they want to teach. “Clinging to your Whiteness” is often a complaint leveled against those who do not repeat race-based mantras or statements in these sessions. Such public demonstrations have long been a part of the academic orthodoxy. Years ago, I noted with concern how academics were expected to engage in public confessions like the one at Northwestern University School of Law when Northwestern Law Dean declared publicly, “I am James Speta and I am a racist.” He was followed by Emily Mullin, executive director of major gifts, who said, “I am a racist and a gatekeeper of white supremacy. I will work to be better.”
MSU requires teachers to listen to Davis make the absurd claim that capitalism is inherently racist. Another video claims that “America can never be a meritocracy” without fundamental changes to create an “equal starting point and equal resources.”
Telling teachers that they cannot succeed unless they give up their racial identity can be an environment of extreme intolerance and orthodoxy. It is one thing to address racism (in all forms) and singling out white teachers as having to address their race. Some students may assume that public demonstrations or affirmations are required to counter assumptions about their bias or inherent racism.
As for the use of Davis to claim that capitalism is the driver of racism, it ignores how capitalism fuels the advancement and empowerment of citizens. There is nothing inherently racist about a system emphasizing individual productivity and success. My Sicilian grandparents faced prejudices and extreme poverty in arriving in our country. They soon found that hard work allowed them to secure a better life for themselves and their children.
While she later left the party over internal disputes, Davis previously declared:
“I am a Communist because … If we are going to rise out of our oppression, our poverty, if we are going to cease being the targets of the racist-minded mentality of racist policemen, we will have to destroy the American capitalist system. We will have to obliterate a system in which a few wealthy capitalists are guaranteed the privilege of becoming richer and richer, whereas the people who are forced to work for the rich, and especially Black people, never take any significant step forward.”
I actually think that Davis’s views on capitalism and racism would be valuable in a course on those subjects to explore different views on such subjects. The question is why MSU would select Davis to be part of the mandatory material for new teachers as part of an education training and whether there is true balance offered in the material from figures like Milton Friedman or others on the benefits of capitalism. That does not appear to be the case at MSU.
MSU should address these concerns and show how, if such material is included in required reading, there is also material that offers real balance and counterpoints to these radical views.
“ MSU requires teachers to listen to Davis make the absurd claim that capitalism is inherently racist.”
Professor Turleyk, as usual, is exaggerating the issue by focusing on Davis. The discussion about Davis’ view is just one part of the course. Not the entirety of it. We don’t know if the unit of the course is just a one or two day discussion on Davis’ views and ideas.
What this is about is the Federalist taking offense on the fact that the course includes an opposing view to theirs. Which is exactly what Professor Turley supports with regard to University teaching. This piece is used as fodder for those pushing the false narrative of a radical higher education agenda.
Turley spends almost the entire article on Davis and ignores the fact that it’s only a small part of the overall course that teaches other views opposite of Davis as well. Part of having a well rounded education includes radical ideas like Davis and those. The course is not only about Davis’ views. Of course the Federalis would not pass up an upportunity to paint this course as an example of “radical teaching” of our future teachers without the benefit of a proper context.
Those of us who have gone to college or Univeristy know that there are always going to be required courses that don’t align with your primary interest. Every University does this. They are meant to expose students to different ideas and views that may seem radical or crazy to some, None of it means you have to accept what is being taught. The student who provided the materials to the Federalist seem more offended about the fact that she was exposed to a radical idea and she did not agree with it. Cool. that does not mean she is going to be radicalized or others will take it seriously and become communist or believe Davis’ point. The idea is to be exposed to the opposing idea. Even the Student admitted the professor teaching the class was not adverserial or expectant of her to accept the ideas in the course. This is just an example of a reactionary pearl-clutching moment for student who was shocked by the fact that radical ideas like those of Davis are discussed on a University course.
Well X, if you know that the teaching of the David doctrine is just a small part of what is being taught you should post the documentation to support your theory. How do you know oh wise one that opposing opinions are also being taught. If you have such information please share it with the rest of us. Short of that we must assume that as usual you just made it up in your head.
Thinkitthrough, have you ever been to college or university?
It takes a little reading comprehension and experience to figure out that Turley and the Federalist exaggerate the issue.
The clues are all over their articles. It’s a unit, a part of the course. Every college course will have a history of the idea and point of view being discussed. They are often part of a broader discussion involving other ideas, often opposite. It wouldn’t help Turley’s or the Federalist’s narrative if they included the admission that opposing ideas to those of Davis are discussed. It would sabotage their narrative which is to paint Universities as radical left indoctrination centers, which is what they want you to believe.
How about exercising some skepticism or curiosity about what the course in its entirety is about rather than focusing on one unit of the course.
Did you know there are math course requirements that will have nothing to do with the field one chooses to teach in, but they have to take them anyway? This is just the social sciences version required for the degree. Every college and University has these courses that often have nothing to do with the field one chooses. That is just there to expose students to different ideas and disciplines which would allow future teachers to at a minimum have the knowledge that these ideas exist. So when in the future if a student of theirs asks a question related to communism or racism they can offer an answer instead of an “I don’t know”. That does not mean future students will be indoctrinated or radicalized. That’s just the ignorant being fearful of what they don’t understand.
geroge
have you ever been to college or university?
_____________________________
Yep two of them (UCSD & Miramar.
Thanks for identifying yourself, X.
t takes a little reading comprehension and experience to figure out that Turley and the Federalist exaggerate the issue.
BBBBUUUTTTTT…. MUH TURLEYY!!!!! And I’m going to add “Your reading comprehension” as well!
George X’s one day love affair with his host Professor Turley is definitely over.
TiT – you are correct, and X lies whenever he writes.
But even if X was correct – which he is not – teaching Communism favorably is no different from teaching slavery, human sacrifice, nazism actual fascism – the latter two being variants of socialism favorably.
A university is free to do so, and should be judged harshly for doing so.
No one should send their children to a university that addresses the failed and bloody ideas of history in favorable light.
John Say,
You miss the point, as usual. Your ideological zeal clouds your judgment obviously.
All Universities and Colleges teach about Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Libertarianism, Racism, etc, etc. They don’t force you to accept any of it. What they do and should do is expose students to the concepts and ideas so they can understand them once they are faced with them at some point.
The whole idea is to expose students to a different point of view, idea, or thinking. This one student at the Michigan school obviously felt shocked that these ideas are even disussed and went straight to the Federalist to tattle on the “shocking” concept of being exposed to different views and ideas and the Federalist, as expected, took advantage of the issue to push the long running narrative of academia being a nest of radicalization and crazy leftists because one student got spooked at the idea that these things are discussed in higher education.
The irony is that Professor Turley is against viewpoint discrimination and he is a huge supporter of free speech and the expression of opposing points of view. This article is just a push for a narrative that seems to go against his own principles so his more conservative readers have a reason to gripe and whine about things they barely understand.
“No one should send their children to a university that addresses the failed and bloody ideas of history in favorable light.”
Why?
The whole point is to be exposed to the ideas so they can be recognized. That is part of a well rounded education. You seem to prefer encouraging ignorance over the fear that some student may see a positive while recognizing that there are nuances and distinctions. The saying, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” makes this course a part of a worthy education.
when someone tells georgie that he missed the point, he suddenly starts telling others that they missed the point.
All Universities and Colleges teach about Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Libertarianism, Racism, etc, etc
Which university teaches racist views? When you say they teach about racism, you mean they teach the views of anti-racists, condemning racism. They never teach the views of the racists themselves, or let them speak for themselves. And what about not just racism but actual Nazism? Is there a single university in America that teaches the works of such nazis as George Lincoln Rockwell? Or David Duke? What’s the difference between them and Davis? Other than not also being murderers?
They’re contrarians, John. It’s a psychological thing. Offer a carrot first, then they may follow. It’s like horse training.
Don’t forget Davis is addressing the most disadvantaged. Capital takes generations to aquire a substantial sum of money. If one generation fails its back to ground zero. Ambition plays an integral part in the story.
One tactic that’s been used is to destroy several generations. The true capitalists can’t be found Ms Davis. Obama searched the land with drones and surveillance balloons. It’s a no contest so figure out how to live a good low class life instead.
The vast majority of the truly wealthy you’ve not seen nor heard of because the flashing lights of rags to riches make headlines.
It’s old generational money that is the vast majority of wealth. It isn’t sudden money. Harvard has been busy deleting legacy chairs. Do you imagine those legacies were plundered and not known in advance?
The task is not for them. What have you made? Violent ill educated generations you’ve made.
B.S.
True
“Professor Turleyk, as usual, is exaggerating the issue by focusing on Davis. ”
David is a violent criminal espousing an ideology that has brought violence poverty and blood everywhere it has been tried.
“The discussion about Davis’ view is just one part of the course. Not the entirety of it. We don’t know if the unit of the course is just a one or two day discussion on Davis’ views and ideas.”
Any serious discussion of Davis’s thoughts MUST include all the myriads of failures.
As Turley notes he has no problem with Davis’s views being part of a debate – but Turley is actually wrong their.
We do not debate the merits of human sacrifice today. There are ideas and ideologies that have failed heinously, they are no longer debated,
They are studied only as part of history, as how badly things can go wrong. As examples of ideas that have failed.
“What this is about is the Federalist taking offense on the fact that the course includes an opposing view to theirs.”
No they are taking offense that an ideology that has been tried repeatedly and failed always is being shilled to students devoid of any consideration of its manifest flaws.
Does Free expression allow that ? Absolutely. Is it a wise choice ? No, it is moronic.
“Which is exactly what Professor Turley supports with regard to University teaching. ”
No X, I do not think there is anyone who supports favorably teaching human sacrifice.
Some ideas and idelogies are absolutely heinous – There is no more merit to communism than to human sacrifice.
Communism has failed always in practice, the more closely people have tried to impliment communism the more disasterously it has failed.
Communism also fails in theory – it is not surprising that Davis attacks capitalism. It is the elements present in capitalism and lacking in communism that are why communism fails. Commnisms foundation is the rejection of property rights – but even marx eventually came to grasp that you can not organize any societal system without property rights. You can not trade, you can not barter. The entire system depends on everyone or atleast a sufficient number of people producing what everyone wants and needs wiithout any promise that their own wants and needs will be met in return. It should not be a surprise that such a system does not work. Most of what we call socialism today is communism with concepts such as property rights in some form included. Or more accurately – western democratic socialism is free market capitalism with SOME communist elements included. The pretense that healthcare is a right as one example. The ONLY instances were socialism has not failed catastrophically are those where it is a small part of a fundimentally capitalist system.
Regardless, my point is that communism and socialism fail as evidenced by history and fail as evidenced by logic and philosophy.
We teach students about human sacrifice – we do not do so favorably.
MSU is entitled to teach communism favorably, they are entitled to teach human sacrifice favorably.
And they should be judged harshly for doing so – just as all those who shill for any systems of values or ideology that have failed in the past should be judged harshly.
Those on the left would rightly demand that slavery, racial supremecy, colonialism all be taught disparagingly,
communism is historically and intellectually worse than all of those.
“This piece is used as fodder for those pushing the false narrative of a radical higher education agenda.”
The fact that Angela Davis teaches anyway is itself proof of that higher education has been radicalized
“Turley spends almost the entire article on Davis”
Most of us would oppose teaching National Socialism – NAZI ideology favorably too.
X as usual you are full of schiff.
John Say,
Great comment and a excellent take down of the slow and dumb one!! Well done!`
John Say,
“David is a violent criminal espousing an ideology that has brought violence poverty and blood everywhere it has been tried.”
So what? So was Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, etc. They all espoused an ideology that brought poverty and violence. College and Universities will discuss those ideologies in some form or depth.
“Communism also fails in theory – it is not surprising that Davis attacks capitalism.”
Again, so what? Communism hasn’t failed China. They successfully embraced some form of capitalism while holding on to a communist form of government.
“ Regardless, my point is that communism and socialism fail as evidenced by history and fail as evidenced by logic and philosophy.“
They fail when they don’t adapt or acknowledge the need to change certain ideals or views. Capitalisms is not immune from failure either. We don’t operate with a pure form of capitalism. Socialist systems like the Nordic ones adapt to what works and what doesn’t. That doesn’t make them failures.
Your issue is an aversion to anything other than free market ideals. You’ve made it abundantly clear what your views on the free market and the idea that it is the ONLY system that is beneficial because…you say so.
You continue to miss the point of teaching about the different points of view like those of Davis and the importance of being able to at a minimum understand what they are on about. None of that means anyone is being forced to accept or live by those ideals. Many here laughably think these students are being brainwashed or “indoctrinated” into these ideals or views because they are being discussed in a University course. That just shows a some level of ignorance and intolerance of an opposing or different point of view.
As usual, you’re just being a overracting ideologue. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s certainly amusing.
“amusing,” says George, who learns all his comeback replies from others on the blog.
George Svelaz recycles what others say by copying and pasting without finding it necessary to understand or recognize how the pasted material conflicts with previously copied material written by himself.
Elsewhere, he indicates he graduated from a university, further proof that the universities are graduating blithering idiots.
S. Meyer, what on earth are you talking about?
We know you have no idea what you are talking about or that you understand what you are saying.
when someone tells georgie that he missed the point, he suddenly starts telling others that they missed the point.
“You have no idea”
That is a copy-paste you got from another. That might be difficult for you to understand, but surely, you can understand, you fit in perfectly with the blithering idiots.
X
I have no idea if your expression is your own or not – it certainly not new.
The garbage that you are spewing about marxism and socialism has been proven nonsense by logic and history repeatedly starting atleast with the french revolution.
Those who can not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
But YOU are deliberately inflicting misrepresentations of Failed ideologies on students who you have failed to provide the critical thinking skills necescary to grasp your idiocy.
That is immoral conduct.
X, you have to understand that Meyer is the unfortunate victim of multiple psychiatric disorders.
He is completely unable to express original thoughts in any rational manner. He simply strings together words that he has heard somewhere into short statements that make absolutely no sense, except to him. This is the symptom of alogia, frequently associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He seems to think that that these terse statements offer some high level intellectual insight, when in fact they are just meaningless words randomly strung together into meaningless statements.
You simply have to dismiss his rambling comments as the product of a defective mind.
You will note in the above post that he simply states that the commenter he is attacking copies and pastes material that contradicts his other comments, without actually specifying exactly what is contradictory. It is simply an attempt to make some point that is completely without foundation, except in his disturbed mind.
You will also note that he refers to all the various commenters who challenge him as George Svelas. This is his one of the many insults that he resorts to, such as the alcoholism insult which is actually pure projection. He simply assumes that any commenter challenging him is the same mysterious character. This is a result of his highly abnormal thought processes that are the product of his persecutory delusional disorder. Unfortunately he believes that this mysterious George Svelaz is everywhere and “out to get him”
It is not really possible to have any meaningful interaction with this poor unfortunate individual.
^^^ skip Sigmund
sigmund suffers from logorrhea and dissociative verbal diarrhea
So says our resident nutcase.
“So was Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, etc. They all espoused an ideology that brought poverty and violence. College and Universities will discuss those ideologies in some form or depth.”
Absolutely correct – and they should discuss those ideologies in depth.
But NOT favorablably.
I would note that EVERY example you presented – Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin was a socialist.
“Again, so what? Communism hasn’t failed China.”
Of course it has – Chinese Communism died with Mao – and it was an absolute total complete disaster.
From the death of Mao through the Rise of Xi China engaged in the most rapid shift to free market capitalism of any nation anywhere on earth ever. But they Retained a one party political monopoly. But that partyu for the most part moved away from communism as an ideology.
I would strongly recommend Ronald Coases “HYow China became Capitalist” – it is an incredibly good book.
It is the eocnomic history of China post Mao. It is also a primer on economics written by on of the 4 greatest economists of the past century and like everything written by Coase it is easy to read and understand.
https://www.amazon.com/How-China-Became-Capitalist-Coase/dp/1137351438
China became economically capitalist starting from Maos death until 2013.
“They successfully embraced some form of capitalism while holding on to a communist form of government.”
False – The govenrment of China post Mao was not “communist” it was however an authoritarian monopoly on power.
I would note – as Coase did in his book that – China did not embrace political freedom, only economic freedom. Cause wrote that without political Freedom China had gone about as far as it could economically – and that has proven to be the case.
We do not know the scope of the massive economic problems that china has today – The chinese govenrment and quality data remains closed. But we KNOW they problems are very large. We KNOW that because no matter how hard you try – some information is self evident. Adam Smith was able to derive almost the entirety of the science of economics from the poor data that existed regarding Spain, the UK and Europe over a period of about 300 years during which very little govenrment data was collected.
Just as Smith was able to accuractely measure the development of the economies of Spain the UK and Europe over 3 centuries – we can get some understanding of the very serious economic problems in china today that emerged mostly since Xi.
Today China is not really a free market or capitalist system.
Today China is the most fascist country on earth That would be real fascism the same as Franco, Mussolini and Hitler.
And that is very dangerous.
Regardless the Chinese economy has been nearly stagnant since Xi took power in 2013, while the US exonomy hasnearly doubled.
“They fail when they don’t adapt or acknowledge the need to change”
Correct – ALL governments are notoriously bad at change AND THEY SHOULD BE – the combination of significant change with the FORCE that is governmnt is a recipe for Failure.
This is precisely why limited govenrment outperforms expansive govenrment. Change and adaptation take place OUTSIDE the domain of govenrment.
We have discussions here about jurisdiction and the rule of law – at core those are about govenrment staying out of those things that are not its business. They are about govenrment staying out of the domains where change and adaptation are not merely necescary – but the norm. Economist Joseph Schumpeter felt that the fatal flaw of capitalism was its incredibly dynamic nature – the speed at which change took place and the distruption it caused.
Who gets a gold watch at retirement today ? People do not work for businesses for 20 or more years. You will be lucky if the business that hires you out of college still exists when you are ready to retire.
That is disconcerting in the free market – but things still work out because despite the constant failue of businesses, people with incredibly,y few exceptions are better off from year to year.
But that kind of change in govenrment is completely devastating.
“certain ideals or views.”
Core principles do not change over time. They are true – whether we know them or not.
Gravity existed as long as the universe. Newton found the way to express it as a mathemtatical and physical principle – but it was always there.
The same is true of all other things that are truly principles. We discover them – we do not create them.
We have discovered Free Will – we did not create – depending on your beleifs – god or nature or evolution created it.
Regardless it existed and governed human behavior before we understood it.
The things that change over time are values – not principles.
Principles are universal – values are not.
Principles are true even if you do not beleive in them. Values are individual. What is a value for you may not be for me – and that is ok.
Values change. Principles do not.
“Capitalisms is not immune from failure either. ”
I have no idea what that means or what you think that means.
Free markets ALWAYS reflect the agregate choices of the participants in that market.
They do not “fail” they do exactly what they are supposed to . They do what humans in aggregate want them to do.
I used the term agregate rather than sum or majority deliberately – because while free markets pretty much always deliver what the majority values – and what they TRULY value – not what they say they value. Free markets are NOT binary democracies.
The left likes things that are non-binary – free markets are the ultimate non-binary, while sex is close to the purest binary.
Free markets will FIRST deliver the values of a weighted majority. But when they are able – when we have raised our standard of living through greater productiveity they will increasingly deliver on the values or smaller and smaller minorities.
NO OTHER SYSTEM DOES THAT – No other system even conceives of that as a possibility.
Separately Always what is typically identified as a failure of free markets is a failure of govenrment.
Inflation does not exist without government control of money. As an example.
“We don’t operate with a pure form of capitalism”
Correct – but the closer we come to pure free markets the better they work
“Socialist systems like the Nordic ones”
There is no “nordic socialism” – there is this massive nonsense of the left.
There is alot of socialist elements in European social safety nets. There is also a lot of socialism in European economic regulation.
Nordic countries have less economic regulation that the US – they are ranked higher in economic freedom than the US.
They are most definitely NOT economically socialist .
The nordic countries do have economic problems that stem from decades of socialsit safety nets and the high taxes those systems require.
Those nordic nations you idolize are trying to wean themselves off those socialist safetynet programs specifically because the high taxes they require are destructive of standard of living.
But even there – to a very large extent the social safety net in the US is actually more elaborate, much more expensive and much more socialist that that of europe or nordic countries – and much more screwed up. However the Untied States has far more constistently adhered to free markets – not over decades, but over centuries and as a result has a higher standard of living than most of the world
There is no nation even 1/10th our population with as high a standard of living. Of those nations with higher standards of living all are much smaller. All are monocultures, nearly all have massive oil wealth. Nearly all have higher economic freedom than the US.
Nearly all have social safety nets that are MORE free market than the current US.
Most of Europe mandates health insurance – the US does not. But most of Europe does NOT provide public healthcare. They have private health insurance and private healthcare. The epitomy of socialist healthcare is England and hat system is dying – almost everyone in the UK from the middle class up has private health insurance and increasingly uses a private healthcare system NOT the NHS.
You rant about European socialism – yet you know very litte about it.
But lets pretend you are correct about european socialism
If you were RIGHT about everything you claim – which you are not, you would be describing a system that has a standard of living 1/3 lower than the US AND FALLING relative to the US.
But left wing nuts like to pretend that the nordic countries are all of europe – norway is not part of the EU.
All the nordic countries have higher economic freedom than the US. While they all have some form of mandated social safety net, that is atleast partly funded by very high taxes, it is not for the most part a Govenrment healthcare system – like that of the UK, it is much more like either Medicare for all, or mandated private health insurance.
Further all these countries are monocultures.
Comparing them directly to the US is extremely hard. All of them are trying to become more diverse and they are all having problems accomplishing that that make the conflicts in the US over diversity look time.
Trying to force diversity on a monoculture is REALLY hard.
Diversity in the US is in our DNA – The founding of this country precluded a monoculture. Further a significant portion of those who came to the US fled monocultures in Europe that did not accept them. Even so we have had our own problems. The original 13 colonies were almost 13 different monocultures. united into one country.
“That doesn’t make them failures.”
No actual failure makes socialism a historical failure.
“Your issue is an aversion to anything other than free market ideals.”
No my issue is with failure.
You said Free markets fail too – no they do not. They are NOT perfect – nothing is perfect, but they do not fail,
Further they outperform everything else.
” You’ve made it abundantly clear what your views on the free market and the idea that it is the ONLY system that is beneficial because…you say so.”
No it is because it is the sytem that has worked best in reality and that works best logically mathematically and in principle – consistent with immutable aspects of human behavior.
Regardless in THIS debate the alternative is marxisim, communisn and socialism – these are all permutions of each other – we could add fascism to that too.
These have ALL failed everywhere they have been tried in direct proportion to the extent they have been tried.
There is no instance of a system with even ANY socialist elements at all that has succeeded that is not MOSTLY a free market system with a few buts of socialism in the pot. Even small amounts of socialism can not and do not exist successfully without an underlying free market.
While in reverse – free markets have and continue to succeed without socialist elements. And in fact they work better without them.
“You continue to miss the point of teaching about the different points of view like those of Davis and the importance of being able to at a minimum understand what they are on about.”
It is self evident from our exhcanges that I understand marxism, comunism and socialism better than you.
Frankly I understand them better than Angela Davis – or should would not still be trying to shill schiff on all of us.
No one is teaching national socialism favorably today.
No one who is not a moron is teaching marxism, communism, or socialism favorably today.
“None of that means anyone is being forced to accept or live by those ideals.”
That is not what this is about
When you sell a Tar paper shack as a Mansion – you are engaged in FRAUD.
When you pretend that marxism, communism or socialism have ever worked, you are engaged in FRAUD.
“Many here laughably think these students are being brainwashed or “indoctrinated” ”
Because they are – that is what we call it when you lie to a captive audience.
“into these ideals”
Marxism is not an ideal – it is a nightmare.
“That just shows a some level of ignorance and intolerance of an opposing or different point of view.”
I am intolerant of teaching racism favorably.
I am intolerant of teaching fascism favorably.
I am intolerant of teaching marxism favorably.
These are not merely “different points of view”
Shilling for them is FRAUD.
“As usual, you’re just being a overracting ideologue.”
As usual you are pretending that a vile and immoral ideology that has failed every time it has been tried is entitled to favorable representation.
You can shill of rmarxism all you want.
And I will call you out as a fraudster everytime – just as I would if you were advocating for white supremacy.
So what? So was Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, etc. They all espoused an ideology that brought poverty and violence. College and Universities will discuss those ideologies in some form or depth.
None of them assign anything written by Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco. None of them allow any presentation of their ideologies from supporters. The only thing they teach about them is written by their opponents, characterizing (or mischaracterizing, as the case often is) their ideologies in order to condemn them. Which is as it should be, but communism needs to be treated the same way.
John, what’s the reason socialism fails? What is the flaw?
Please read my other posts, I have covered the MANY logical and historical failures of socialism.
But without elaboration – you can get that elsewhere.
It is inefficient – can you name ANY instance in which govenrment delivers any good or service that can be provided by the free market that government has been able to do so efficiently ?
Another name for inefficient is costly – it LOWERS standard of living – is that something you think should be cited as success ?
It is at odds with immutable human behavior.
Paraphrasing Madison – if Men were angels socialism would work.
The engine of the world is self interest. Socialism requires us all to be saints.
Economically I would refer you to the “socialist calculation problem” this is an irresolveable problem of socialism.
Frankly it is an irresovable problem of all govenrment interference in the marketplace.
There are nobel prize winners who have explained the socialist calculation problem far better than I.
But a cursory effort – prices are incredibly important – in ALL markets, not just free markets,
socialism either attempts to work without prices, or it attempts to set prices through government which is like trying to nail jello to a wall.
Just ONE of the issues with prices is that prices are dynamic and they are one of the most important economic signals.
If you supress them or try to fix them you damage the information they communicate and that bad information ripples through the entire economy significantly decreasing its efficiency and therefore lowering standard of living.
Prices tell as when to buy and wen to sell.
They also tell us what to produce and when to produce it.
These are only a few of the things they tell us.
Most economist will tell you that price controls do not work – EVER.
Typically they create shortages. But that is not actually set in stone.
What is set in stone is that they disrupt the signal that prices are suppose to communicate
That results in changes in supply and demand in ways that disconnect them from reality.
These are just a few of the many flaws.
If you want some others – Read Coase, Read Solzhenitsyn, Read Mills, Read Bastiat,
Real Olstrom, Read history.
One of the joys of this blog is reading comments to see what bizarre lengths leftists will go to defend the indefensible. X, if you had read the column carefully before rushing to criticize you would have noted that the column is NOT about a class, it is about teaching materials designed to train teachers! Yet, you prattle on about how the Davis approach is only a small part of a course for which you have invented and created a curricula. Well done. I am thoroughly entertained by the leftist deflection, as usual.
garyesq2k2,
You’re no differen than the rest. You miss the point. This is one unit of a particular course that seems to cover more than just Davis’ views and ideas. This is not about teaching future teachers what to believe. It’s just exposing them to a different view that is out there. Nothing more.
It’s not a deflection to point out the issue in context vs Turley’s exaggerated narrative designed to make YOU think it’s about indoctrinating teachers. That is why reading comprehension skills are important.
X, not it’s not a small part of a course! It’s instruction to teachers about how to teach their courses. Read the damned article.
“You miss the point.”
No we get your point and it is wrong.
“This is one unit of a particular course that seems to cover more than just Davis’ views and ideas.”
Yes, it includes other reprhensible and failed views that are synergistic with those of Davis.
But that is irrelvant.
Teaching marxism favorably is no different from treaching white supremecy or fascism favorably.
So that we are clear – Neither Turley nor I nor do I think anyone else objects to a college teaching about Marxism.
Just as we do not object to a college teaching about Nazism, or fascism or the KKK.
What is being objected to is framing favorably a vile and failed ideology.
No one objects to teaching people about murder. Nearly all of us object to teaching people to murder as a legitimate means.
“Turley…ignores the fact that it’s only a small part of the overall course that teaches other views opposite of Davis as well.”
If the rest of your bias-confirmation were true, you’d have many-many more “professors” representing and teaching conservative and capitalist values, and that’s just NOT the fact of it. SEE blow:
“The HERI approach that asks how faculty members self-identify across the political spectrum gives us a better sense of the ideological leanings among the professoriate. It powerfully shows that the number of faculty on the right is far outweighed by those who identify as moderate or on the left. In 1989-1990, when HERI first fielded this survey, 42% of faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate, and another 18% were on the right. This is not a normal curve – it is a clear lean to the left…..Almost three decades later in 2016-2017, HERI found that 60% of the faculty identified as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being conservative or far right.” NOW HERE”S the kicker, and the truth, “x” :
“As Abrams wrote in The New York Times in 2016, “It appears that a fairly liberal student body is being taught by a very liberal professoriate — and socialized by an incredibly liberal group of administrators.”
https://www.aei.org/articles/are-colleges-and-universities-too-liberal-what-the-research-says-about-the-political-composition-of-campuses-and-campus-climate/
Nothing from Angela Davis should be required as part of the curriculum for a teaching degree.
Because you say so?
Angela Davis should be no more part of a teaching curriculum than Adolph Hitler.
Everyday I’m happier and happier you identify your posts, X.
Turley spends almost the entire article on Davis and ignores the fact that it’s only a small part of the overall course that teaches other views opposite of Davis as well.
No, it doesn’t. But even if it did, that wouldn’t justify putting her views in.
Part of having a well rounded education includes radical ideas like Davis
Oh, really? Does it also include radical ideas like those of George Lincoln Rockwell, or those found in The Turner Diaries? What is the difference between Davis and Rockwell? Oh, right; Rockwell never murdered anyone.
Professor Turley, as usual, is exaggerating the issue by focusing on Davis.
BBBBUUUTTTTT…. MUH TURLEYY!!!!!
George X’s one day love affair with his host Professor Turley is definitely over.
I worked in the building trades my whole life. It’s not that blacks don’t have opportunities, I worked with many over the decades. However, I’ll give one glaring example, a friend I worked with, was talented, but slower than molasses in a Wisconsin winter. I often tried to get him to pick up the pace. And asked him directly once, his reply, “why should I.” To which I responded with a plethora of reasons. Later, he would call me Butch, after a well known commercial back in the day, Butch Burdock the self confessed Bully. So, I started calling him Lightening! There were many such examples, to varying degrees. Recently, a crew I watched, installing gutters, new windows, weren’t exactly slow, but, the Quality suffered greatly. Lots of steps left undone. These were, supposedly, men with lots of experience. And in some instances, it showed. Overall, just very sloppy workmanship. And don’t get me started on painters. Yikes! So, it’s an attitude problem for many blacks I’ve seen & worked with over 5 decades. I have tons of stories I could elaborate on, but, I think you get the idea.
Read the Bell Curve
from birth, many of them continue to be instilled/inculcated with Resentment that has no bearing on, or reality with, present-day opportunity.
(I laughed at your phrase about molasses. My mother used to call out to my brother and I getting ready for the school bus, “like molasses in January!”)
Black people should be taught to admit their black supremacy and to accept the guilt because black people enslaved other black people. Black people should be taught to remember that it was black people who rounded up other black people and delivered them to the slave ships so that they should forever grovel in their masochistic guilt. The urge to be accepted by the crowd is sadly underrated. Virtue signaling is an art form controlled by the RHP of America. Race Hustlers Party of America. Give them your money and you too can feel so much better about yourself and they will reassure you of what a wonderful person you are for admitting how you’re guilty for what people did five hundred years ago. The more guilt the more you pay. They love it when a good plan comes together.
“Black people should be taught …” Boy, if that doesn’t have the ring of racism….
Black people should be taught about blacks enslaving other blacks is somehow racist.
There were others that believed black people should be taught the truth. Were they racist too.
Key leaders for Black education in the South include Booker T. Washington, who founded Tuskegee University; Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded Bethune-Cookman University; and W.E.B. Du Bois, who advocated for higher education for an intellectual elite. Other influential figures include Susie King Taylor, an early Georgia teacher, and Hiram Revels, the first president of Alcorn University.
You may choose to keep your mind an uninformed mind and it is every bit your right to do so.
It doesn’t change the fact that blacks enslaved other blacks. There were even black people who owned black slaves in America. I bet you won’t find that in the enlightening propaganda course at
MSU.
So if that’s racist, then White people being taught the flip side argument is then racist also.
And what is racist about commenting on the general ignorance of black people about slavery. I realize that they are kept ignorant about it because of the progressives in our media/education industry, but knowledge is important and the “Black People” have been kept ignorant on purpose. Don’t try to turn this into a racist rant – it is the plain truth.
The Spartans (Michigan State) and Wildcats (Northwestern) should be focused on what’s important in a Globalized World (All U.S. Universities for that matter).
Visualized: The Most Common Master’s Degrees in 43 Countries
According to new OECD data, the world’s graduate students are primarily focused on just a few key disciplines.
In this graphic, we visualize the most common master’s degrees in 43 countries, revealing how business and law is the most common choice globally.
A few countries buck the trend, including Japan, Sweden, Spain, and Brazil, where a larger share of graduate students specialize in fields like engineering and education.
By: Marcus Lu | Graphics/Design: Miranda Smith ~ November 1, 2025
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-the-most-common-masters-degrees-in-43-countries/
Ref.: (Details)
Education at a Glance 2025
OECD Indicators
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/09/education-at-a-glance-2025_c58fc9ae.html
Why is anyone surprised. A counter argument is never allowed because that’s what communist do.
Once upon a time Stalin replaced the rich peasant farmers with people from the city and thirty million people starved to death. You can bet your bottom dollar that this little piece of history won’t be taught at good old MSU.
What makes you a expert on Stalin and peasant farmers? BTW, it was Lenin who collectivized rich farmers.
If you had a university degree in Marxism, you would know that.
Anonymous, you question my knowledge of the actions of Stalin in implementing collective farms.
Look what I found on Google. Disruption and famine: The violent disruption of farming, coupled with poor planning, quotas that were often impossible to meet, and the confiscation of food, led to a massive decline in crop yields and widespread famine, particularly in Ukraine between 1932 and 1933. Here’s another piece of information you could have found before flapping your lip. Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture was a Soviet policy from 1928–1940 that eliminated private land ownership and forced peasants onto state-controlled collective farms to increase agricultural output. Stalin blamed the so called rich Kulaks who he said were rich because they were the only ones in Russia who were eating on a regular basis. One of us has read the history and one if us has not.
I’m guessing he/Ano never read up on Stalin’s taking over the farm lands.
I bet he read the NYT for info.
That Stalin move resulted in killing about20M people. Similarly same era Winston Churchill cornered the rice markets and starved millions of India.
Anonymous, so a minute ago you said that Stalin didn’t collectivize the Russian farms and now you say he did. As for Churchill cornering the rice market in India he did so because they were selling rice to the Japanese during war time.
From Google. “Denial policy”: The British administration in Bengal ordered the destruction of rice stocks and confiscated or destroyed boats to prevent the Japanese from using them, which crippled the local transportation of food.” India was siding with Japan and supplying its army with rice. You know, the same people who were slaughtering American solders and tossing Chinese babies into the are and catching them on their bayonets just for fun.
So good for Churchill to say you side with our enemy and you will pay a price. My father fought in the Pacific and had PTSD as did my uncle who had a hole in his back the size of your fist. Churchill limiting the supply of rice to the Japanese soldiers was a necessary measure to save the lives of America’s and Britain’s fighting men and women including Rosie the riveter.
Once again you are a producer of selective history in your but what about this poorly researched comment.
Different Anon
Churchill cornered the market to feed the British troops. India was totally dependent upon their rice production, I have never seen anything where they were selling the embargoed Japanese rice. Too bad about your Pop, mine came home but didn’t make it.
So in your response you assume India is selling their rice crops to Japan. That was not the case that I read in your direction, the Japanese were confiscating boats laden with rice in Burma. India had troops fighting the Japanese, this was 1943?! They destroyed the rice rather than allow it to fall into the Imperial Japanese army. This action with a typhoon led up to Churchill denying India’s request for Wheat and this in turn led to the deaths of a million of Indias people. Maybe you should read your own direction.
The british historians reviewing the stories you are citing from the BBC dispute the historical accuracy of this claim.
I would separately note that your story keeps changing.
First Churchill was deliberately “cornering” the rice market for the racist purpose of starving Indians – no mention of a ar or that Rice was being provided to the enemy in a war.
Now the story has changed to failing to transport wheat to India after a typhoon in the midst of the war.
I do not know what the actual facts are, but I know that the truth is not in you.
This occured in the midst of WWII. 1943 was the height of the battle for the atlantic England was teetering on the edge of starving. And you expect that Churchill is going to ship wheat – which in 1943 was not coming from anywhere near india,
Through the wolf packs in the atlantic and mediterainian to India ?
Dude read the freaking historical record. The rice was being taken by the Japs in Burma shipping transport during wartime. A typhoon hit the area crippling Indias rice production, India made a request for emergency relief as Churchill had leveraged the rice to feed the British army. Churchill denied their request for wheat supplements and a million dot heads starved. Jeez you are truly challenged.
Different Anon, would you rather he had fed the Japanese troops who were getting rice from India or the British troops who were fighting the Japanese?
Hmmmm a million innocent civilians starving to death or feeding some Japs living on rice. The outcome would’ve always been the same, Japan lost the day it started, just how many dead was the question. Why do you think we dropped the Abomb on them instead of invading?
Door number Two TIT, otherwise we are what we hate. Aren’t all wars really about reducing population and control of the land?
Vietnam could have been ended in a year by strangling the golden triangle rice flow but then it was NEVER about winning was it?
“Hmmmm a million innocent civilians starving to death or feeding some Japs living on rice. ”
In 1943 the Japanese were advancing through southwest asia. The high water mark of Japans excusions into southwest asia did not occur until July 1944 with the battles of Imphal and Kohima these were very narrowly won victories by the British, and american forces. A japanese victory in southwest Asia would have at the very least prolonged the war significantly and cost the lives of millions of chinese. The Japanese came close to severing the supply link to Nationalist Chinese forces challenging the Japanese. The defeat or even mere retreat of those forces would have resulted in the brutal deaths of millions of chinese and the redeployment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers from Mainland China.
“The outcome would’ve always been the same, Japan lost the day it started, just how many dead was the question. Why do you think we dropped the Abomb on them instead of invading?”
I would strongly suggest reading Historian John Tolands work on Japan during WWII including specifically the impact of the Atomic Bomb on the Japanese. With things going to H3ll on all fronts for the Japanese – There was still a coup attempt against hirohito when it was suspected that he was going to urge surrender.
But even ignoring the fact that with circumstances as dire as they were the Atom Bomb STILL only barely had sufficient psychological impact to get the Japanese to surrender. Outside of the Auth West Asian theatre – India and Burma – the Allies did NOT directly fight or defeat large numbers of japanese soldiers. The War in the pacicifc was a naval war in which the initially almost evenly matched and ultimately massively larger US naval forced defeated the Japanese navy.
The Japanese army was fought with the exception of the Philipines – which was primarily a ego issue for MacArthur – though it did force the japanese to commit much of what remained of their navy, and Okinawa, which was strategically necescary to invade Japan, in all other instances, the allied armies took on smaller Japanese forces that had been isolated on islands and could not be reinforced. In 1945 when the Japanese surrendered – their navy was in tatters, but their army was as strong as it ever was – but mostly deployed in China Manchuria, and southeast asia.
The allies effectively did to the japanese what Hilter attempted to do to England in the 1939 “Battle of britain”
At that time the overwhelming majority of the british army was deployed elsewhere in the world.
While Britian has managed to extract most of the British expeditionary force from Europe at Dunkirk, Britian extracted troops – not weapons – particularly heavy weapons. In 1939 there was no army of consequence defending the England.
England was was isolated, and starving and could easily have been invaded – but for the British home fleet. And even the mighty british fleet would have ended up at the bottom of the Channel if the Luftwaffe could establish air superiority over the channel. Britian had plenty of forces left to reist Hitler and germany – But those forces were NOT available to defend the english islands. Plans had been made had Britian lost the “battle of britian” to remove the british government and monarchy to the Caribbean to continue the war.
Many in the Japanese govenrment in 1945 sought to do exactly that. They were prepared to remove the japanese government from Japan, fight a US invasion to the last japanese citizen just as they had on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and continue the war from the Chinese mainland. Had the Japanese managed to defeat the British ad impahl and Kohima that is with near certainty what would have happened in 1945.
I would further note that the Battle of Stalingrad had only just finished in Early 1943, Germany was very close to its high water mark in WWII.
The view you are expressing that the defeat of Japan and Germany was inevitable by 1943 is only true with perfect hindsite.
But even if you conclude as Churchill had even in 1939 that the defeat of the Germans and later the Japanese was inevitable once the massive productive capacity of the United states became available.Even nowing that victory was inevitable does not tell us how soon it or how many tens of millions would have died
had the japanese not been stopped at Impahl and Kohima.
“Door number Two TIT, otherwise we are what we hate. Aren’t all wars really about reducing population and control of the land?”
War is politics by other means”
Clauswitz
“Vietnam could have been ended in a year by strangling the golden triangle rice flow”
That ios incredibly difficult to say – the North vietnamese endured a casualty rate as a percent of the population that has never been matched by any nation winning a war. Who is to say how many more casualties it would have taken surrender.
Nixon’s “Secret Plan” ultimately tuned out to be bombing North Vietnam into the stone age. That did get North Vietnam to the negotiating table.
Different Anonymous. I researched what the British troops ate during the war. Not one article said that they ate rice. It was a change from grazing land to farm land that provided the food that the troops needed not rice from India.
ATS – your source is likely the BBC – that story has been debunked by historians.
It is one of the issues that came up recent resignation of Top BBC staff triggered by the deceptive editing of several Trump speeches including his J6 speeches to make it appear that he said things that he did not.
Another issue was the massive political bias and error found by a 10 year reviewed conducted by commissioned historians.
The #2 most egregious false BBC story was claims that Churchill was responsible for the 1943 Bengal Famine.
How many times do your sources have to be unmasked as fraudsters before you quit beleiving garbage.
Thank you TiT.
it is universally true that when the left calls out some purported heinous aspect of their oponents – they are only telling a smal part of the story and not accurately.
That goes directly to teaching David and Communism at MSU.
We do not teach Nazism favorably.
We do not teach slavery favorably.
We do not teach human sacrifice favorably.
These and many other ideas and ideologies FAILED – both as a matter of history and as a matter of logic and reason.
We are not barred from teaching any of these things favorably.
We do not do so because it is stupid.
Communism the same.
Communism should be taught in the same way we study cancer.
To understand how dangerous it is and how it spreads and destroys whatever it comes in contact with.
Absolutely communism should be taught in depth – and that includes teaching the falws in communism that always lead to failure.
Not at all similarly.
I have no clue what you are claiming regarding Churchill nor does google.
But starvation in india was because the india could not produce sufficient food to feed their own people.
That has been a problem in india for a very long time. It was ultimately solved by capitalism and the introduction of higher yeild grains.
The starvation in Russia – replicated by Stalin in China was because collective farming does not work. It did not work in Russia, or China or Jamestown, or Plymouth.
Now John, don’t you feel ignorant?!
Not the slightest. I have never claimed to know everything. I have repeatedly asserted that I nearly always check any facts I assert before I post.
Getting things right is not about being stupid or smart, it is about checking what you say before you write it – something available to everyone.
I did note that it was all but certain that the Claims regarding Churchill and india were from a source that was known to lie and unlikely to be correct. And that proved to be correct.
Interestingly I have been following the Resignation of Top BBC officials for deceptively editing Trump remarks.
It was odd to here numerous left wing nuts – many in high office coming out to Support these frauds,
But an additional story that has been getting significantly less attention is that a commissioned review of BBC conducted by actual historians founds a pattern of large scale historical error quite often reflecting intentional political bias.
At the top of the list of examples of significant misrepresentations of history was
#1 Various aspects of slavery and the slave trade
#2 Claims regarding Winston Churchill and the Bengal Famine in 1943.
So put simply Historians are claiming your slander targeting Churchill is FALSE.
As others here have noted – the British Military in the midst of WWII did engage in efforts to Thwart the supply of Rice and other material from India to Japan. Aparently ATS thinks that a nations is required to provide material support to an enemy in the midst of a World war.
But then lets not let reality get in the way of a good false narative
I truly hate to burst your bubble John but BBC was not my source. I followed TiTs directions; Churchill -India-Rice. Several sources came up but I don’t recall BBC, I had read about this several years ago so I knew a little about it from that.
Down and down the rabbit hole we go and where we stop nobody knows. Remember, the Victors write the history … always.
Aparently ATS thinks that a nations is required to provide material support to an enemy in the midst of a World war.
Well, that is what the entire left, and all the leaders of Western nations with the possible exception of Trump, seem to expect of Israel. So why not expect the allies to feed the Japanese and the Germans?
And now Anonymous tells us that she has a University degree in Marxism so she knows all about the history of Russian agriculture. Anonymous the know it all strikes again. The true history is there to see for anyone with the ambition to look it up. The fact is that Anonymous is afraid of what she might find and her thought house would come crumbling down. The eternal child speaks again.
Please rad what TiT wrote carefully.
Nowhere did he claim Stalin was the first to do anything. Lenin was not first either.
Lenin was a complete and total disaster, but Stalin is responsible for the murder of almost 100million of his own people
The collective farms are just one example of the myriads of failures of communism every where it has been tried.
Lenin was the one. And, most of the farmers weren’t rich by the standard of the day, they had land and Marxism demands the resources and means of production. Cuz, Marxism sucks. Next, they kill the Intelligentsia that got them into power.
Lets hope that when “they” come for the Intelligentsia commenting here… no wait, no one here has anything to worry. No intelligentsia here, just mindless peons.
Oh look, another ignorant comment from the mindless peon here 24/7/365. In the name of higher EOE for blacks, your Momma.
The history of leftwing SOCIALIST racism is long and well-documented. Germany. The Soviet Union. China. Vietnam. Cuba. South Africa. One after another after another. No way MSU and the other leftwing racists running that place would dare teach reality.
” SOCIALIST racism’ is not a concept in Marxism, Communism or Socialism theory. I have a MA in history. You obviously don’t.
”’SOCIALIST racism’ is not . . .”
Actually, that racism is baked in socialism’s collectivism — the vicious notion that the group is everything; the individual nothing.
And that racism is on bloody display throughout the last 100 years — in Soviet Russia, China, the Khmer Rouge, the Bosnian war, the Rwandan ethnic wars . . .
“I have a MA . . .”
Apparently they did not teach you that appeal to authority is a fallacy, not an argument.
I’m sure he was a big earner with a Masters in History. Probably from NOVA University…
Correct – it is just found most everywhere communism or socialism grows.
Fascism is socialism.
Nazism is socialism.
Even Russian socialism which pretended to end discrimination frequently inflamed it.
China is socialist – and very racist.
Noreiga murdered 80,000 native indians.
I can go on.
When did Noriega murder 80,000 Panamanians? I spent time in Panama in the 70’s and 80’s and that’s the first I ever heard of that. He was landing loads of Cocaine on the island of Coiba off of Sanra Catalina but I never saw or heard of mass murder.
Who said anything about Panamanians?
“I can go on.”
There is a word that encompasses all of those evils, and more. “Collectivism”
If you have an MA in history – I would expect you to know the bloody history of socialism.
Marxism, communism, and socialism are economic theories. Do you have a degree in economics ?
Do you even know what the socialist calculation problem is ?
As someone with an education in history – I would expect you to be able to show from history how socialism, communism and Marxism failed
You might even understand the flaws in the theory that explain that failure – but the flaws in socialist theory are the domain of economics – not history. The evidence of failure in reality is history. That I would expect you to be familiar with
In order to obliterate Capitalism and institute Communism one must certainly foment strife and enhance division by race, religion, gender, age, ability, or preference strife amongst the non-Communists while levelling and keeping in check, any and all within the movement who would view themselves as anything other than devoted agents of the revolution, and may use their own inner revolution as part of the movement–even to the point of confession and sacrifice of life. Communism does leave open, permission to advance one’s interests and personal pursuits, but not for self-gain or amusement, but for example to the lesser abled or devoted revolutionaries of how to use excess motivation to further the greater cause only. “Radical teacher” and former Black Panther, Angela Davis is quite consistent with this messaging and even amusingly uses the term “meritocracy” in a context to demean Capitalists and their unwitting advocates who value and extol personal merit in supporting the current system. Even the claims of fighting “oppression and poverty” are simply emotionally accentuated to attract support, agitate, and instill subjective victimization for Proletariat and Bourgeoisie Socialists rather than being used as objective and analytical terms to be properly addressed by mere policy. Crying out for “balance” and presenting facts to dispute a Communist’s assertions are the actions of arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it takes on water.
Communists do not want to “obliterate” capitalism, they want to transform it.
Ano
transform it.
_________________________
Into death of a country
Davis uses the terms “destroy” and “obliterate”, but transform sounds more cooperative, innocuous, and less forceful and disruptive. Whatever the preferred descriptors used for a particular audience being reached, they all apply in parts of the process to achieve the ultimate aims.
No actually it seeks to obliterate it. Communism is an economic theory that can not coexist witl capitalism, that outright rejects capitalism, and that fails in theory and practice.
Capitalism itself was a derogatory term for free markets concocted by Marx as an insult.
The term caught on and Marx’s negative connotation mostly failed.
I would note that there is really no economic system of capitalism. Capital is a small but important part of free markets.
Capital is not strictly nececary for free markets, but the accumulation of capital and its subsequent use to improve productivity and raise standards of living is an automatic outcome of free markets. While the destruction of capital is literally a tenant of communism , and the consequence of that is lower productivity and lower standards of living.
None of this is debatable.
Yes, for in simplistic terms Capital is excess wealth gained as a result of exploitation of subsistence-living (proletariat class) workers, for the ever-increasing benefits, pleasures and pursuits of the “Capitalists”. Communism explains historical-social-political transformation in terms of economic forces involved in competing and adversarial class relationships and is not merely some sterile economic theory. I suppose that all “excess capital” being absorbed or directed by the State to be doled out as seen fit is always pragmatic and useful, even if the State isn’t outright Communist. Off-sets, grants, or endowments can be paid out and the shepherds of the masses are free to attain a higher level of privileged lifestyle without being seen as oligarchs hoarding capital. Marx and Engels worked out their theory long before presenting it upon the industrializing world as inevitable, settled fact. They certainly allowed for wide latitude of dynamics and fluid varieties of interests within all populist-socialist movements globally and historically, and also within proletariat, bourgeoisie and other classes as generally defined. Marxists and Communists really don’t truly concern themselves with productivity, living standards, meritocracy, environmental protection, health, or individual freedoms, as these are lesser concerns within the progressive flow that ultimately corrects and then maintains erasing all disparities. “Capitalists” and their apologists feel obligated to explain logically, in detail, the successes and failures of “both systems” but this only serves to convince themselves. One’s study of economics and data must always factor in human emotionalism which drives the highest levels of policy down to individual spending far more than does objective decision-making. The aspects of culture and race are only factors in that all groups must eventually relinquish these identities for the Revolution. Capitalism is the evil boogeyman that must be sufficiently, fundamentally transformed to repatriate the proletariat. A sufficient level of International Socialism (90%?,120%?) is the insatiable, phantom-like, panacea-magic to humanity’s ills with a proper vanguard from the apex down to each collectivist shop and farm, school and family .
No Capital is what people who do not spend everything they make accumlate.
Virtually always they invest that capital to improve productivity which raises EVERYONE’s standard of living.
There is no exploitation in free markets. A truly free market requires that Govenrment preclude the use of FORCE in contracts.
Absent the use of force all agreements are consensual – an agreement will not occur unless BOTH parties are better off than they would be without agreement. To engage in actual exploitation you have to be able to use FORCE – Communism and socialism bring the economy into the domain of govenrment and always result in exploitation – such as the exploitation o Kulak farmers that resulted int he Famines in Russia.
Further you (and Marx) are completely wrong in your analysis of capitalists. Adam Smith noted long before Marx, that there was an upper limit to the ability of the wealthy to increase their pleasure. Infamous leftists publicly state exactly this all the time without understanding the significance of what they are saying. As those like Marx or Sanders or Warren or pretty much all left wing nuts note – there is only so much money that Elon Musk is capable of enjoying. Musk and Bezos and Sorros and …. do not need $400B They do not need a tiny fraction of that. They do not personally benefit from but a tiny fraction of that. Almost the entirety of Musks wealth is injvested in improving life for everyone else. When that investment is successful – when it actually produces something that benefits everyone else – Musk profits, and reinvests the entirety of those profits in a virtuous circle.
I am using the obvious case of Musk as an example, but this is also true far far far down the ladder from Musk,
It is true of all billionaires, it is true of EVERYONE that has invested money. Your 401k is YOUR capital that is being invested in much the same way as Musks billions. With one difference. Musk is never going to spend 99.999% of his wealth on personal pleasure or his own quality of life. Your 401K will be incested to build wealth that in all likelyhood will eventually cease being an investment that benefits yourself AND everyone else and eventually become income that only benefits you.
That is the Capitalism part of free markets. While NOT an essential part of free market economics, it is something that happens automatically so long as people are economically free.
Marxism and the labor theory of value precludes savings and investment and therefore standard of living can only improve – and later decline as your skills at your job improve and then decline. It is this failure to invest that is why standard of living rose at rates of 1%/century or 1%/melenium for most of human existance. It is the accumlation of capital and the resulting investment of that capital that has given allowed standard of living to skyrocket int he past 5 centuries.
“Communism explains historical-social-political transformation in terms of economic forces involved in competing and adversarial class relationships” Communism does posit that – and it does so OBVIOUSLY incorrectly.
The first flaw in that explanation is that for nearly all of human existance there were two maybe 3 classes – a tiny ruling class, a relatively small clerisy that lived off the wealth of the ruling class and 99% of the rest of people.
It is the emergence of free trade – even slightly free trade that resulted in the creation of classes beyond a tiny group of rulers and their clerisy and the mass of poor people. The middle class, the working class, the entire panoply of classes in the world and particularly the est was created by free markets, and the members of those classes came almost entirely from the poor – and the tiny ruling class.
I would further note that the Marxist model of competing an adversarial relations is obviously wrong – it iis dependent – like nearly everything on the left on the obviously stupid beleif that nearly everything is zero sum.
The person who starts a grocery store and rises in class – does not do so at the expense of others. That is litterally impossible.
Exchange in free markets does not occur unless both parties choose to value what they get from the exchange more than what they are giving up. If starting a grocery was exploitative – everyone would produce their own groceries. The working classes are not competing or adversarial to the classes above them – they are a benefit to them if that were not the case then the various classes above working class would not exist. Further as noted before – most everyone in the classes above working class stated in the working class.
I*n the US during the course of their lives most people – in the bottom two quintiles rise 2 quintiles and then drop back one after they cease being productive over the course of their lives.
That is reality and communist marxist theory is at odds with reality.
“is not merely some sterile economic theory.”
Marxism is probably the most sterile economic theory there is – it fails to “reproduce” it fails to sustain itself. That is the definition of sterile. Regardless, All of marxism – both the economics and the nonsense about class are testable in the real world – and they have been repeatedly tested and always fail. And they fail fairly close to the way any rational economist would predict .
“I suppose that all “excess capital” being absorbed or directed by the State to be doled out as seen fit is always pragmatic and useful, ”
Again both wrong in theory and practice. What you call “excess” capital – is not the slightest excess – it is the engine of improvement of standard of living. The absence of significant “excess ” capital for most of human existance is why it took 300,000 years for the first doubling of standard of living.
Regardless, the state does NOT produce capital – excess or otherwise. Capital is the consequence of people who produce choosing NOT to spend everything they produce. The state does not produce anything – it confiscates it. The state does invest and historically the state is just about the worst investor in ecistance. Centuries of data collected by IDEAS RespEC #4 economics Robert Barro of Harvard found that with little variation the value created by govenrment spending is between $0.25-$0.35 per dollar spent, While the AFTER TAXES value of private investment is $1.10 per dollar invested. Before taxes the rate is even higher. Basically all govenrment everywhere ever is horribly wasteful – again a major part of why it took 300,000 years for the first doubling of human standard of living.
Government is not without value -= in fact govenrment is a necescity for a working free market and for rising standard of living.
But it is only a small part of what modern govenrment does that is actually a necescity – the rest is waste.
Again decades – even two centuries of data accorss the OECD and the world has found that for every 10% of GDP that government consumes the rate of increase of standard of living declines by one percent. Modern data finds that to be true down to Government of 20% of GDP – we do not have a modern government that consumes less than 20% of GDP.
But in the 19th century – Lincoln fought the civil was and saw standard of living rise concurrently with total govenrment spending not exceeding 8% of GDP.
“Off-sets, grants, or endowments can be paid out and the shepherds of the masses are free to attain a higher level of privileged lifestyle without being seen as oligarchs hoarding capital.”
First capitalists do not “horde capital – they invest it, and it is very good they do, because it is that investment that is entirely responsible for rising standard of living.
Next as lord Acton noted – power corrupts. Government is power – it is FORCE – it is NOT free choice like free exchange is.
If govenrment dictates you MUST act – that is FORCE that is power. Chosing to buy a Burger at McDonalds is not power.
In a free market the people you accuse of hording capital attain a higher lifestyle at best as a small percent of the benefit to standard of living they deliver to others. Musk is incredibly wealthy because people place great value on what he has produced for them.
If he ceases to produce that value – his wealth will disappear almost instantaneously.
No one gets wealthy by stuffing money into a mattress.
Those who you claim justly benefit under socialism do NOT attain that benefit by producing value for others. They do so by rent seeking. Basically renting govenrment power to be used for their own benefit.
” Marx and Engels worked out their theory long before presenting it upon the industrializing world as inevitable, settled fact.”
They did – but they are completely wrong as I noted with every point you have argued above.
Worse they were obviously wrong,.
And for those who can not see the obvious flaws in Marxism as a theory – marxism has failed over and over in practice.
” Marxists and Communists really don’t truly concern themselves with productivity, living standards, meritocracy, environmental protection, health, or individual freedoms, as these are lesser concerns within the progressive flow that ultimately corrects and then maintains erasing all disparities. ”
This is a totally bizarre and self contradictory statement. First – historically communists have stuffed their nosense into just about everything that they possibly could. That is probably NOT a part of marxist economic theory – but as John Stuart Mills how likely had 50 IQ points on Marx and Engles noted before Max published, there is virtually no constraint on the scope of power of “peoples” governmnts to intrude into matters of individual liberty where they have no business. This is just a corrallary to Lord Actons – Power Corrupts. The more power you give govenrment – regardless of the form the more it will stick its nose into things that are not the business of govenrment. Further the more meddlesome govenrment becomes the more resistance their will be to that govenrment and the more FORCE will have to be used to Quell that resistance. Communist and socialist governments are bloody in practice – but they reason they are near universally bloody is because power corrupts and the abuse of power creates resistance and efforts to constrain that power are met with FORCE – violence.
This is also BTW one of the other inefficiencies as government grows. Communist governments are not the only governments where power corrupts, they are not the only governments that inevitably seek to expand their power. Expanding power creates resistance and resistance requires FORCE to overcome it.
It is inevitable that as ANY form of govenrment grows larger it will become less efficient, and if will require more force, and therefore result in more abuse of that force.
“One’s study of economics and data must always factor in human emotionalism which drives the highest levels of policy down to individual spending far more than does objective decision-making.”
While I have problems with some of your choice of words, you are atleast somewhat accurate – and it is again what you point out that is why communism fails.
More accurately – we have to separate economics – especially free market economics from govenrment.
You are correct that Government does not act rationally it is more driven by emotion. The reasons that we have limited govenrment and a constitution and the rule of law is specifically to constrain those serious flaws in government – again citing lord acton – Power corrupts.
The very aspects of Human nature that make free markets work well make govenrment work badly – in fact there is an entire domain of economics – called Public Choice economics that deals specifically with how the same factors that drive humans to on net make choices that intentionally or not benefit everyone in a free market drive govenrment to make choices that are on net harmful.
Emotion is probably not the right word to describe the aggregate economic behavior of humans, a better word would be self interest.
As Adam Smith noted half a century before Marx it is the self interest of others that provides you with food and your other needs and wants. That is true in a free market – but it is also true in a communist system, and that is AGAIN why big government fails.
The worst possible outcomes are when those with power act in their self interest – and REAL power comes from govenrment.
At the very must free market capitism will try to corrupt government to attain that power. That isAGAIN why smaller govenrment works better – less power, less to corrupt.
Regardless, the core to human behavior is perceived self interest. That i9s the foundation of free market economics, and the failure to properly account for that is one of the many flaws in marxism.
“The aspects of culture and race are only factors in that all groups must eventually relinquish these identities for the Revolution. ”
That you are looney enough to not grasp the revolutions are NOT something to be sought after.
The American founders wrote and excellent document – the declaration of independence to justify a revolution. But most any read of that document makes clear that revolutions are BAD and are only justified to get rid of something worse, and that even then only after long efforts to correct without revolution.
The very revolutionary rhetoric of marxism is a sympton of its bloody nature.
“Capitalism is the evil boogeyman that must be sufficiently, fundamentally transformed to repatriate the proletariat.”
Again massive historical error. Where the human tribes of 300,000 years of human existence capitalist ?
You can far more accurately describe the forms of govenrment and the economy of nearly all of human existence as far closer to Marxism than capitalism. While there have been the nascent seeds of free markets in humanity from the moment we started to engage in barter – which likely is only in the last 10% of human existence. Truly free market economics was born incredibly slowly and has not been close to dominant until the past couple of centuries.
That dominance would be in the only places and times in human history were the rigid class system that Marx rails about did not exist.
Put simply free markets accomplished what Marx promised communism would, while Communism in the real world recreated the rigid dual or tripple class system that it was intended to cure.
“A sufficient level of International Socialism (90%?,120%?) is the insatiable, phantom-like, panacea-magic to humanity’s ills with a proper vanguard from the apex down to each collectivist shop and farm, school and family .”
Does this idiotic statement actually means something ?
The reality is that socialism has failed in direct proportion to the strength with which it has been tried.
I would further note that the self interest that Smith notes as the driving force of economics, is why socialism fails.
The self interests of those in govenrment – all government is the expansion of their power.
The self interest of those out of government is their own personal freedom which is at odds with govenrment power.
Clashes between those are inevitable. Every effort to constrain free markets has always resulted in black markets.
That is true in the US with our war on Drugs and with so called Sin taxes. It is also true in socialist systems – as those systems fail to meet the needs of people – which they always do, black markets arrise to meet those needs, and that creates conflict with government.
Whether it is the more limited black markets in the US – in those areas where government control of the marketplace thwarts people from acquiring what they want or need, or the more broad black markets that are inevitable in communist systems the result is violence and bloodshed.
“. . . they want to transform it.”
Yes. Into communism. Just as Marx argued.
I have followed Davis’s career since she first emerged on the scene in the 1960s. I can’t think of a single positive contribution she has made. She is rhetorical cancer.
“I can’t think of a single positive contribution she has made.” Obviously you haven’t studied her developments and achievements in education.
What achievements – Since the 60’s Education has failed disastrously – the quality of education has measurably declined. The cost of education has increased much faster than inflation.
We know and have know a great deal about what works in education and what does not for almost a century.
Since the 60’s we have practically deliberately gone the wrong way.
Do you have an example of Anything Davis or homestly most anyone else has done that has actually improved education in the past 60 years.
Destroying one of the best education systems in the world is NOT an achievement – at least not one to celebrate.
Davis’s contribution to education is exactly the same as Mengele’s contribution to medicine.
She did have an awesome Afro back in the day!
Racism occurs under the Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry) umbrella. DEI is institutional, systemic Diversity. Capitalism is a democratic economic system to assess pricing and optimize distribution in a world with finitely available and accessible resources. Capital is retained earnings from production and labor.
Racism also occurs under capitalism.
It happen anywhere.
Try S. Africa.
DustOff,
Idi Amin.
USF
Marxism/Socialism only works unto the monies and wealth provided by Capitalism runs out. As the hard work, money and knowledge evaporates from the overthrow, the businesses, manufacturing works, Utility plants etc. succumb to the decay and mismanagement. South Africa is a stellar example of this but it can be seen elsewhere in the world that this happens. China would be another example and only the US technology has pulled them out of chaotic times.
Try Africa itself – try Rwanda ?
Public confessions of not living up to the officially accepted orthodoxy sounds a lot like what occurs in authoritarian regimes. If you don’t comply punishment follows. Doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
Under the radar by the main stream media as usual. That totalitarian Trump wants the ACA subsidies sent directly to the people instead of to the insurance companies. The Democrats want the subsidies sent to the big time donors to the Democratic Party. You might think that you could find this information on Fox News but lo and behold the story can be found on none other than the pages of Axios magazine.
https://www.axios.com/2025/11/08/trump-affordable-care-act-subsidies-shutdown. What do the insurance companies do when they receive the ACA subsidies? They raise the copays and send the money to their friends in Washington so that they can get elected and send the ACA money to their friends in the insurance companies. That there Affordable Care Act ain’t so affordable after all.
TiT,
I was just reading this, The Obamacare secret at the heart of the shutdown: insurers made billions at taxpayer expense
“Subsidies were greatly expanded by the Biden administration during the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency measure, but Democrats have fought to keep them permanent. Those subsidies went mostly to Democratic donors.”
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/obamacare-secret-heart-shutdown-insurers-got-rich-taxpayer-expense
I have always thought there should be tax deductible health savings accounts. Need to go to the doctor, tap into that and pay in cash. Cut out the insurance companies.
You think reading rightwing propaganda from JTN is true and factual? Those people are a propaganda machine that addresses low IQ people like you.
Then it should be easy for you to shred the actual topic. Instead, you engage in vile smears because that is all your very limited intellect can muster.
So why are YOU here… Tying to improve you’re IQ?
Can you name ONE story that JTN has gotten wrong ?
Reality and facts are not propoganda.
John Say,
“propoganda” That is not how that word is spelled by normal people.
You know the point of subsidies for insurance is to gain insurance coverage for people and that in exchange for that coverage the insurance companies collect premiums?
I feel you don’t understand that, in exchange for the premiums, the insurance companies take on the obligation to pay for medical expenses that are covered by the policies.
So, yes, the money goes to insurance companies. It also comes with a huge string attached to pay money out. It’s not “free” money.
The concept “Cut out the insurance companies” is the most inane on the topic.
Insurance is to spread the possibility of significant risk among a population of those subject to random fluctuations of fate.
What you propose is that everyone is on their own. Home insurance. Car insurance. Farm insurance. Why have those?
TiT,
Now it all makes sense as to why the Democrats would be so desperate to extend the ACA subsidies. Just like the USAID gravy train that was funding all those leftists useless programs and funding leftist agendas all on the taxpayers dime, ending the subsidies would stop the flow of money to some of their biggest donors. It is all about the money going from the taxpayers to the DNC and their big insurance companies cronies.
The PPACA was supposed to cost 1.6T/decade – it has cost more than that.
And it was supposed to improve US healthcare.
There are still elft wing nuts claiming it saved lives and that ending it would kill millions.
These are the same people who told us the arctic would be ice free by 2013.
The ACA has accomplished nothing except waste even more govenrment money and leave us deeper in debt.
They are also the same people who have told us, over and over again for the last 40 years, every time restrictions on gun rights are relaxed, that blood would flow in the streets. I remember them saying it when Florida went to “shall issue” 40 years ago. It has never once happened, but that doesn’t stop them from saying it again.
There are many people in education with very low intellectual achievement, but who don’t recognize how poorly they think because they are isolated from people who could tell them otherwise. Then, on top of this handicap, the core materials for teachers are not rigorous. This dooms many teachers, and they, in turn, doom their students. None of this is new. The “dumbing down” of the curriculum was already in full swing when I started graduate school in the mid-1970s. Likely it was going on widely before that.
Of course, poor teachers then influence students and demonstrate to them that education is so easy that anyone can earn straight ‘As’. This produces a feedback loop. The end result is something like what we currently have — a very expensive educational system where 25% of graduates are functionally illiterate, and an even greater percentage are functionally innumerate.
The amazing thing is that occasionally one encounters a person who recognizes that they have had a deficient core education, and have worked diligently on their own to beef-up. They are too few, however, to save the system.
Seems these people fail to recall there are a lot of people who came to this country, poor, worked hard, saved money, to get ahead in life. They did it as they wanted a better future for their children. When I read someone declares themselves as communist or socialist, I read that as I do not want to work hard, I want someone else to do the work, and I want them to give me part of what they worked for. Even minorities who worked hard, saved their money, are even looked down upon by these people.
I’m guessing you have nothing to worry about, you ain’t got any assets to appropriate.
He’s got decency and class. You’ve got hate. He’s content. You’re a miserable piece of sh!t.
Where would you get an idea like that other than from the bowels of your black heart. You like to agitate and serve as the bete noir of this site. If that is your highest achievement in life, I pity you.
Some of you guys seem like the kind of people that Dee Snider went up against in 1985.
A bunch of curmudgeons wanting to control information isn’t my idea of a free speech blog.
Quite the opposite.
Meaningless statement unless you define both information and control.
Important it is to understand that colleges of education do not matriculate the sharpest nails in the box. They have already been fully (leftist) programmed as undergrads. They have learned that anyone can teach anything. Why? Because they all learn it together. Their courses are easy. Their degrees are assured. Their pedagogy is fixed (Vygotsky currently). Their emphasis on race is legend on most campuses.
Turley is not a very good defender of the free flow of information.
Did the government silence or censor anyone in this case?
The left will never give up the hate factory
What is hate factory?
DNC.. that work for ya
#HateLovesAbortion, albinophobia, transhumanism, green and redistributive change, Diversity, etc.
@Dustoff: Not voluntarily. They seem to have traded the tried and true approach of “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us” for an approach of double standards, hatred, and cognitive dissonance.
DustOff,
Seems all they have is hate. They hate when people are successful. They hate people working hard. They hate people who save money. And when you do, when you are successful, they want to tax you, take your money that you worked hard to earn and give it to someone who did not. And if you get mad about it, they call you a racists. Even if you are not white.
Along this same line an Indiana University lecturer was removed for linking MAGA with white supremacy. Start teaching skills to get a job, one in a capitalist economy not hatred and Balkanizing our country
I am way over the flipping morons in education turning out more flipping morons.
They can’t be that stupid if they have educational credentials and licensing. So, anyone with a degree and a license is a moron?
I bet your daddy paid several tens of thousands of dollars for you to drink beer and smoke pot for four or five years so you could get a piece of paper. And we can see what good it has done for you.
You spend all day polluting this blog asking stupid questions.
They can’t be that stupid if they have educational credentials and licensing.
Excuse me?! What a ridiculous statement! Yes, they absolutely can be that stupid. A degree from an Education school is completely worthless. Not everyone with one is a moron, but most are.
Remember, those who can’t teach, teach teachers.