The following guest article gives a historical world overview of todays Social Justice campaign as it is being played out in both the Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory movements throughout the country.  It is well documented, accurate and thought provoking.  I found it brings much needed clarity to what we are witnessing today.  I recommend a careful reading and sharing of this important document.   Bob

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The World View of “Social Justice”

by Rev. Steven Krogh

Everyone has a world view. Each of us has a core understanding of who we are, our purpose in life and how we see the world. Our world view works as a “lens” through which we see the world. A common phrase denoting this way of thinking is, “Seeing the world through rose colored glasses.” Another way of thinking about world view is to compare it to a map. A map tells us where we are and how to get to the next place. Or we can consider our world view as a kind of puzzle. In putting a puzzle together, it is essential to have the original picture (probably on the box) so one can decipher what pieces go where. Without the original picture there is no reference to how all the individual pieces fit together to make a whole.

The easiest way to discover one’s world view is to ask four basic questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s wrong with the world? How can what is wrong be made right? To these questions, contemporary Social Justice, or more precisely Critical Social Justice, has very specific answers. However, to understand these answers one must know the origin of the concept of Critical Social Justice. The ideology behind Critical Social Justice can be traced all the way back to Karl Marx. Karl Marx saw the world (and human relationships in general) as a conflict between various people over limited resources. As such, Marx saw history as violently progressing through four stages: Ancient, Feudal, Capitalism and eventually Communism. For Marx, each stage of history was birthed by way of violent revolution. He believed that in his lifetime he was seeing the beginning stage of capitalism which would eventually be overthrown and replaced. Marx believed that capitalism would be toppled worldwide because of its innate oppressive nature. He was a staunch atheist whose world view affected the next generation of his followers.

For Marx, the answer to the question of “Who am I?” was found in the theory of evolution. This world view saw human beings as a product of random evolutionary processes. “From the goo, to you, by way of the zoo”. This atheistic world view led Marx to answer the next question, “Why am I here?” with another evolutionary conclusion: We are here to consume and enjoy. “Get all you can; can all you get; sit on the can.” The third world view question, “What is wrong with the world?” Marx answered with a two-part solution. Either 1) We are insufficiently educated or 2) We are insufficiently governed. For Marx, every social ill could be “fixed” by either more education or by creating larger government to address the problem. This was Marx’s answer to the fourth question, “How can what is wrong be made right?” This is the world view that Marx developed, embraced and taught. The next generation of Marxists would adopt this same world view while attempting to address the issue of why the “revolution” wasn’t happening worldwide.

Although revolution certainly happened in Russia and other parts of the world, it didn’t happen worldwide as Marx had thought. Hence, the next generation of Marxists would ask why not? Why wasn’t capitalism overthrown by the masses worldwide since capitalism was inherently oppressive? One voice that gave answer to this question was Antonio Gramsci. He developed the concept of “cultural hegemony”. Hegemony is defined as leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others. According to Gramsci, cultural hegemony referred to a certain group within a culture that set the rules and social norms for society in order to keep the masses oppressed while promoting the hegemony’s own self interests. Another set of voices that answered Gramsci’s question was the Frankfurt School. This group of Marxist scholars started in Frankfurt Germany, moved for a short time to Switzerland and eventually landed at Columbia University in New York. The Frankfurt School developed a methodology (based on a Marxist world view) of analyzing society called “Critical Theory”. Critical Theory (based on a Marxist worldview) gave Critical Social Justice its worldview. Critical Theory also gave us political correctness and multi-culturalism.

The Marxist worldview and its subsequent Critical Theory worldview are diametrically opposed to Western Culture. To understand this opposition between Marxism and Western culture, we go back to the four questions.

Question One: Who am I? For Western Culture, the answer to this question is found in its Judeo/Christian histsory. Western culture views humankind as being made in God’s image. This means that every human life is sacred. It means every human life has dignity and a divine calling. According to Marx, however (and critical social justice), human life is easily dispensable, and it’s worth found only in how one serves the Marxist (Or Social Justice) ideology. This is why Communists will resort to killing millions of their own citizens “for the greater good”. This is also why Marxist language employs the phrase, “The ends justify the means.” in carrying out mass executions. In contrast, the Declaration of Independence (one of the founding documents of America) states that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. This is why the Critical Social Justice movement is antithetical to the Judeo/Christian worldview.

Question Two: Why am I here? For Western Culture, humanity’s purpose is to glorify our Creator and edify our fellow human beings. Our God-ordained purpose is to take care of God’s creation and each other as we were divinely appointed. This is why western culture values equality. The Judeo/Christian worldview sees everyone as made in God’s image and, therefore, every person deserves to be treated equally. For Critical Social Justice, however, human beings are here only to consume and enjoy. Critical Social justice being an atheistic ideology, sees humanity’s purpose in strict biological terms. There is no transcendent purpose to humanity. We are here solely to pursue pleasure and to consume. This is why critical social justice is obsessed with equity. Equity and equality are not the same. Basically, equity means that everyone should have the same stuff.  Equality, however, means that everyone has the same opportunity. The goal of critical social justice is to forcibly create a society in which everyone has to have the exact same everything as everyone else.

Question Three and Four: What’s wrong with the world? How can what is wrong be made right? For Western Culture, what’s wrong with the world is that humanity does not do what they were divinely created to do . . . give praise and glory to the Creator. Tragically, humanity has turned away from God to serve themselves and not their creator. This state of brokenness is called “sin”. And the remedy for “sin” according to Christian thought is realized through the person and work of Jesus Christ. For Jews, the “sin” solution is found through observance of Judaic law. Critical Social Justice, in contrast, sees the problems of the world as stemming from either insufficient education or insufficient government. For Marxists and their ideological grandchildren, social- justice adherents, the only way to solve the world’s problems is through more education (as if educated people can never do bad things) or more government involvement (as if government is the solution to every problem).

There is much more to the worldview of critical social justice. It has taken a few generations to develop to what it is today. Hopefully this brief overview will help give a more general understanding of what is currently being played out within today’s culture.

Follow-up

The flyer below is for an in depth seminar on this subject to be held on July 31, 2021.  Following the seminar I will provide a link to the video presentation on this site.  Please check back after that date for the link.  Thank you.

photo credit – Victor Davis Hanson – Zerohedge – Tyler Durden

Excerpt from an article by Victor Davis Hanson June 11, 2021

Victor Davis Hanson: This Isn’t Your   Father’s Left-Wing Revolution

Sixties protestors mainlined divorce, abortion on demand, promiscuity, drug use and one-parent homes. But by the late 1970s and the 1980s, most veteran cultural revolutionaries had gotten married, were raising a family, bought a house, got a job and made money.

This time around, their offspring’s left-wing assault is different — and far more ominous.

The woke grandchildren of the former outsiders are now more ruthless systematic insiders. The woke and wired new establishment knows how to use money and power to rebirth America as something the founders and most current Americans never envisioned.

Name one mainline institution that the woke left does not now control — and warp. The media? The campus? Silicon Valley? Professional sports? The corporate boardroom? Foundations? The K-12 educational establishment? The military hierarchy? The government deep state? The FBI top echelon?

The left absorbed them all. But this time around, members of the left really believe that “by any means necessary” is no mere slogan. Instead, it is a model of how to disrupt or destroy American customs, traditions and values.

end of excerpt – full article available on line

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In a world where I can’t turn on a TV, look at a newspaper or hear a conversation without being confronted with “Wokeness”, Black Lives Matter and  Critical Race Theory, I have begun re-examining my own views on “Critical” issues in life.  In the process I have developed what I will call “Critical Bob Theory”.  My own theory is based on observations and facts and not on heated hyperbole. 

Critical Bob Theory

It seems that as a culture and nation we seem to be losing our grasp on established boundaries on cultural values, acceptable behavior, equal justice and expectations. Things that we can depend on being true, every time, all the time. 

Many sports are played on a field with boundaries and specific rules that must be complied with by contestants on both sides of the ball.  If those boundaries are not respected and rules not equally applied, chaos is the only possible outcome.

Nature has rules that are constant and predictable.  Gravity is one.  Fall or jump from an airplane several thousand feet in the air above the ground without a parachute or other flotation device and you will fall to earth. Not once in a while but every single time you do it. 

If we defy the laws of nature we will lose every time.  Natures laws are like basic mathematics, not negotiable.  2+2 is always 4.  

Civilization needs constants and as citizens we need reliable boundaries.  If our civilization loses it’s predictable constants and boundaries, we will lose our way and end up in a “through the looking glass” world where up is down and down is up, nothing makes sense, lacking direction in our lives and ending up confused and troubled.  I see much of this happening now.  Look at too many of our major cities that have become infested with unpunished crime, drugs and homeless encampments filled with misery and filth.

Most people of faith (I am Christian) have a set of laws set down by God to live by and to follow.  Honor your Father and your Mother,  Thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, etc.  These were Commandments, not suggestions. They are constants.  They don’t change and if  we stray from those constants we find ourselves in trouble, morally and in many cases legally. 

At one time most of us thought Government was a constant, ruled and kept in check by the Constitution, Bill of Rights and those Amendments like guaranteeing Freedom of Speech,  Right to Bear Arms, etc.

A constant.  with Laws and Rights that apply to everyone equally, no fudging. 

But, government is not applying laws evenly and appears on a path to shred much of the original Constitution, Bill of Rights and those Amendments. 

If you join a group for a peaceful, unarmed, noisy protest at the Nations Capitol you can be labeled a Domestic Terrorist, locked up, without bail, indefinitely without trial.  However, if you engage in violent protests, destroying the private property of innocent citizens, looting and burning large areas of a major city under a false flag of “Racial Injustice” there are no legal consequences.  If arrested you will be released without bail and any record of arrest will be expunged by a corrupt legal system. 

Government no longer fills important positions on a merit based system.  Decisions are being made based on gender, gender identification, political affiliation and skin color.  

Government is no longer a reliable constant, it has become a purely political entity that seeks its own agenda and power for those in charge.  It also wants to force feed this divisive and destructive Woke Culture and Critical Race Theory propaganda to the most vulnerable of our population, our children.  

Nature is constant and has certain immutable laws.  Violate them at your own peril.  In the womb and at birth we are all either male or female.  Government may tell us that we can choose any of a long list of genders to live our lives as, it may even declare there are no longer any gender differences, surgeons can alter, many would say mutilate, physical biological differences,  but in the end they are not able to change genetics.  Too often these efforts only create pain, confusion and some measure of personal and social chaos.

I believe boundaries are an essential element of any successful culture and civilization.  Without them civilizations crumble and fall into the dustbin of failed civilizations in history.

If you agree with much of what is written here, please share this article with family, friends and neighbors.

Bob Bandy – June 2021

The Biden Administration recently announced they were forming a new department within the Justice Department.  A “Pre-Crime Investigation Bureau”.  The goal of this new agency is to identify, investigate and monitor individuals and groups who might engage in activities that would threaten the tenure of those in power. 

A sort of Americanized version of the KGB or other “Secret Police” type internal “Spy Network”.  North Korea, eat your heart out.  In this way they can target and eliminate individuals and groups that don’t agree with their Utopian Progressive Movement before those individuals or groups can act.

They will be “making a list and checking it twice” to make sure you and I don’t wobble from the official government dogma.

For example:  Were you ever a Donald Trump supporter?  You just made the list.  Were you now or ever a neighbor of a Donald Trump supporter? Bingo!  Were you ever at a Trump Rally?  Gotcha!  

Ever been to one of those Pro-Second Amendment Rally’s?   Home run, move to the top of the list.   

Are you a supporter of requiring voters to provide identification at the polling booth?  That will make you an instant target of investigation.

Are you one of those that believe “Critical Race Theory” should not be “force fed” to our children, is divisive and in fact a textbook definition of Racism in and of itself?  Expect a visit from a “Pre-Crime SWAT Team”.

If you are suspected of any of the above, or numerous other Anti-Progressive – dare I say Marxist – violations of the ruling Party’s ideology, you can expect a very thorough “anal” examination of your life and movements. 

Remember, “Big Brother” has their spy’s, cameras and microphones everywhere, including in your home.  Is that really just a regular mirror or is there  a camera or spy behind it?  Is there a microphone in that flower pot?  Is that a Sparrow on the window sill or one of those new drones?  Had a feud with relative or neighbor who just might share one of your “sins” with some “friendly” government agent or agency?

You see, now you no longer need to commit a crime to be investigated or prosecuted.  Government plans to “nip it in the bud” by taking you out while its still in the Pre-Crime state.  You may not have committed that crime but “Big Brother” knows you will commit a crime,  you just don’t know it yet.

Of course the Biden Administration is only doing all this for your own good.

Feel better now?  Maybe you might want to share this good news with a neighbor or friend. 

Or, you or they can just Google:  Biden Pre-Crime 

Wait!  Is that a Bull-horn I hear out front?

Bob Bandy – June 2021

I wrote the following/below post some eight years ago during a particularly low period in the Obama Administration.  Skyrocketing National Debt, very high unemployment, Corporate America and jobs fleeing the country, and Administration statements like “This is the new normal” and “Manufacturing jobs will not be coming back to America”.  At the time I felt almost hopeless.  Incompetency had won and the future was bleak.

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EVER WONDER WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO “YOUR” WORLD?

In some ways I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle awakening from a long sleep wondering where I am and what has happened to the happy and ordered world I grew up in.

It seems to me that our lives are now ruled by a consortium of Clowns, Criminals and Lunatics.

A  journey through a looking glass into a world where the Lords of Darkness have stolen power and are creating a society where no good deed will go unpunished.

If the United States were the Milky Way Galaxy, then Washington D.C. would be the gravitational heart of that galaxy.

At the heart of  the Milky Way Galaxy there resides a Super-Massive Black Hole.  In space lingo a Black Hole is the collapsed heart of a large star that has compressed into a point where gravity is so intense that everything, including other stars and star stuff,  is sucked in and nothing of any recognized value, not even light, can escape.

Washington D.C. is like that.  A place where our tax dollars get sucked in and nothing of any value can possibly escape.

You know why?  Its because the Clowns, Criminals and Lunatics are busy stirring a big cauldron to turn our tax dollars into a system of Food  Stamps and Flat Screen TV’s to keep the masses complacent.

The Romans first introduced the concept of Bread and Circuses to keep the rabble quiet and content.  The Dark Lords in Washington have only copied them.

What?  Did you expect something creative and original to come out of Washington D.C. ?  Have you forgotten this is the place where 98% of our political leaders give the rest a bad name?

(Bob Bandy – Feb. 2013)

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As Yogi Berra reportedly said “It’s Like Deja Vu All Over Again”

I find myself re-visiting what I wrote “back then”. 

Living in a surreal world with an empty suit “President” totally under the control of a Pelosi-Schumer Crime syndicate, who are in turn directed by a shadowy “Star Chamber” of “Deep State” far left “Progressive Marxist’s” bent on the destruction of our way of life, our Constitution and our Rights under the Constitution.  All under the false flag of Social Justice. 

I firmly believe all of these folks have achieved the current state of affairs as the result of, in my opinion, a very skillfully orchestrated, and expertly executed, Coup d’etat fraudulent election, almost assuredly with the help of an unfriendly foreign power.  I am not alone in this opinion.

So what can we do?  We can peacefully, legally, persistently and loudly “Push Back” at every opportunity.  For example we do not have to allow our children to be indoctrinated with Marxist ideas in our schools. 

Always keeping in mind the so-called “Progressive’s” are going to do everything in their power to shut us up and shut down any opposition to their schemes. 

Just something to think about and consider as a call to action before the America most of us love is gone forever.

Bob Bandy – May 2021

John Carpenters

Escape from New York (1981) IMDb

photo: Google

I am reprinting the following article because what it has to say is important.  Like many others I believe there are those who would take us down a path to destruction as a nation.  One that we have grown up in and many have fought and died to sustain.  These folks may be well meaning but they are engineering a national, and perhaps international disaster.  What follows is excerpted from the beginning of the article.

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The Following is Reprinted from:

Converge Media

WOKEISM – THE NEW RELIGION OF THE WEST

There is a new religion. It is moving like a tidal wave through every facet of western culture, shaping and redefining society as it goes. This religion masquerades under the guise of compassion and justice, but underneath is an evil ideology that is incompatible with western values and incongruent with the Christian worldview. This movement did not start in Minneapolis on May 25th, when George Floyd was murdered. That event acted as a watershed moment for an ideology that has been growing for decades. If left unchecked, this new religion could lead to a complete unravelling of western culture.

There are many names for what we currently find ourselves in; wokeness, political correctness, and cancel culture are some of them, but these only encapsulate a portion of the phenomenon. Cultural Marxism, neo-marxism, social justice, identity politics, and Critical Theory are broader descriptors. We would like to use a term that adequately captures the religiosity of the movement: wokeism.

Wokeism is a religion. Although it has not been organized into any formal religious structure, it has all the functions of religious doctrine. It has a unique epistemology (theory of knowledge), an evaluation of the human condition, and a redemption narrative. But from where did it come?

Critical Theory

In the early 20th century, a German school of philosophy called the Frankfurt School developed a social philosophy called Critical Theory. In a nutshell, Critical Theory critiques culture and challenges the underlying power structures of society. It is a movement to “liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them,” reinterpreting western culture as a story of the oppressor vs. oppressed. In Critical Theory, the only things that exist are hierarchies of power, and those hierarchies must be torn down. The goal of this movement, whether stated or not, is nothing less than the complete dismantling and rebuilding of western culture from the ground up.

Critical Theory started to become prominent among western academics in the 90s and eventually infiltrated almost every university in the western world. In recent years, the ideology has left the university and has made the jump to media and corporate culture, establishing itself as the primary moral culture within western societies. Currently, the main lines of separation between oppressors and oppressed are race, sex and gender identity.

This is not just a political or social movement within the framework of traditional enlightenment values. Concepts such as logic, science, and reason are viewed as tools of the oppressive white patriarchy. Values like individualism, hard work, punctuality and delayed gratification would be understood as perpetuating white supremacy. Critical Theory has become much more than a social philosophy and is the primary philosophical driving force behind the new civil religion of wokeism.

The goal of this movement, whether stated or not, is nothing less than the complete dismantling and rebuilding of western culture from the ground up.

The New Religion

Why call wokeism a new religion? The fact is that the rise of secular humanism over the past 70 years created a religion-shaped hole in our culture. Secularism, for all of its cultural dominance, failed to offer a robust philosophy of meaning and purpose, nor did it provide any moral framework for how to act within the world besides “be a good person because the alternative is undesirable for everyone.” Alternatively, wokeism has developed its view of reality with its own set of values and narratives. From the ashes of secular humanism, a new civil religion rises.

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To read the article in its entirety just google:

Wokeism the New Religion of the West

Bob Bandy – April 2021