Most celebrated fantasy holiday? I nominate Kwanzaa.

Periodically, TOC has reminded people that Kwanzaa is a cynical ploy; a steaming pile of Marxism, racism, and ignorance. Previous TOC entries from 2006, 2008, and 2021 can be found here. There are contemporary comments and local observations which may be of interest.

But, the occasion for this update is a comprehensive article by River Page at Pirate Wires: Abolish Kwanzaa (pay walled, but clicking ‘Continue reading’ works).

If you celebrate Kwanzaa, “a holiday created by a LAPD-armed black nationalist and convicted torturer who advocated the genocide of all white people,” you should come to terms with what you are celebrating.

IAC, you will find some illustrative battle space preparation rhetoric from 196x. The sentiment hasn’t changed; today we just have more ignoramuses willing to publicly express it. American academics can be thanked for that, even as they are currently preoccupied with excusing Hamas.

Ron Karenga (nee Ronald Everett and AKA Maulana Karenga) was the inventor of Kwanzaa, ©1966. He was an “LAPD-armed black nationalist and convicted torturer who advocated the genocide of all white people.” Today his final solution suggestions are echoed by our friends in BLM, Hamas, and American University faculties and students. Inventing Kwanzaa was a side show to genocide incitement.

Karenga was eventually convicted of torturing 2 women and served 4 years of a 10 year sentence in prison for it. But, not to worry; 8 years after his release he was emulating fellow terrorist wannabes Angela Davis, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn. That is, he became a college professor – “the chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University at Long Beach – a job he still has today despite the current hypersensitive, microaggressions-focused cultural moment.

From that link:

“I created Kwanzaa,” laughed Ron Karenga like a teenager who’s just divulged a deeply held, precious secret. “People think it’s African. But it’s not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!”

He invented Kwanzaa based on the SOP (Standard Oppressive Progressivism) used by Democrats on blacks. They’re easily manipulated because… well, you decide if Karenga thought it was stupidity, partying, cultural appropriation, or anti-Americanism. The word ‘and’ could substitute for ‘or.’

The Beeb

Brilliant satire. The ending puts a rapier point on the anti-Israel bias of the BBC.
You may prefer a less charitable term.

It’s hardly the first example of the Beeb’s mindset. They’re recently plentiful.
BBC accused of putting lives at risk after rushing to blame Israel for hospital blast that ‘killed 500’ as PM takes jab

That was BBC correspondent Jon Donnison’s on-air speculation a month ago; “Israel was behind an explosion at the Ahli hospital in Gaza, which Hamas claimed killed more than 500 people.”

“Hamas claims” should be a triple red flag to any person pretending to be a reporter. For Donnison, unfortunately, Hamas’ approval is a commendation.

It was a Hamas rocket. At most 50 people died. They died due to their presence in the hospital parking lot over which Hamas fired the rocket. A rocket Hamas intended to kill Jews. Those who died were in the hospital parking lot in the first place because of the Hamas murder of 1,400 Israeli civilians. And because they knew Hamas uses hospitals as shields: “It’s as safe as it gets when Hamas denies us entry to their bunker complex.

These noncombatants died… did I mention this?… because the faulty Hamas rocket fell on them.

Happens a lot.

I pick on Jon Donnison only because a brief DDG search reveals his complicity in historical Beeb misreporting going back to at least 2012: Beeb war boob.

In that case he claimed a photo taken in Syria of Muslim-on-Muslim dead children violence was an Israeli depredation in Gaza.

He still works for BBC.

I see a pattern.

Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Poppies grow in Flanders Fields. And beyond.

Golda Meir…

We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us.

An admirably succinct summary of Israel’s dilemma.

More Golda Meir Quotes on Israel & Judaism

Whatabout

Arnold Kling on Substack.
I Condemn. . .But

You say “I condemn. . .but” and then play the whataboutism card. What about “open-air prison? apartheid? occupation?”

Let’s turn around this whataboutism. Did you ever use “open-air prison” to describe a country that is surrounded on all sides by enemies who periodically have launched unprovoked wars? Did you ever use “apartheid” to describe the way that Jews were treated by Arab countries before Israel became a state? Did you ever use “occupation” while making it clear to Arabs and Muslims that it only refers to land acquired in 1967? Or did you let them indulge in drawing maps without Israel, to teach Jew-hatred to their schoolchildren, to chant “from Jordan to the sea,” and to use “occupation” to refer to every square inch of land claimed by the Jewish state?

RTWT