Con Men, Pimps, And Little People - Shoring Up The Biden Diversity Wagon Before Election Time

The Biden Administration was already awash in diversity - and as a final move to fill in the cracks, a small person was added to the Cabinet as a deputy to the Secretary of the Interior.  Why should he, recently retired from the circus industry, winner of the Maryland lottery, and journeyman WWE wrestler, be included in the portfolio of Interior, asked many.  'Because of our national parks' was the reply from an Interior spokesperson, a non sequitur end run that had become familiar as the Biden Administration continued to 'pack' his administration with diversity. 

So Elmer Fiddie took his place at the table, tastefully and inconspicuously boosted, and was called on in the first few meetings, to comment on the height of accommodations throughout the National Park system.  Was the Administration doing enough for little people, and did they feel comfortable at places of national heritage? 

"Well", Elmer began, "Can't rightly say", adding that he had yet to undertake a survey, but was in the process of putting together a team of little people to do just that.  'No high doorknob, stool, ticket window, or entryway will stand', he said, raising himself from the booster seat to make the point. Applause followed, appreciative nods in the direction of the Secretary of Defense who was chairing the session on that day. 

The whole idea of this former third rate circus act sitting in his Cabinet room had always been irritating for the President - a weirdo experiment to open the door to the underrepresented - and he wanted to focus more on the truly needy and socially important, especially the black man.  Yes, he had plenty of them in his Administration but not a real black man, one from the inner city, the ghetto, the slums

LaShonda Phillips, a voluble, excitable woman from Detroit with few credentials of her own, had been on the front lines of Black Lives Matter, and had come to the attention of the White House always on the lookout for edgy black women who could give it some street cachet. She would need some tailoring and sanding, but was exactly what the President had been looking for.  

A longtime black wannabe, Joe Biden had envied Bill Clinton for his ease and familiarity with black people, and secretly wanted to shed all his altar boy, shanty Irish whiteness and become a homeboy.  Barack Obama had been too white for him, and for eight years he wanted to be from Anacostia, the black slum across the river. 

‘We've got to do more', said LaShonda Phillips, now Chief DEI Advisor to the President and 2024 campaign insider.  'We've got to expand our reach'. LaShonda never forgot her own, and explained to the President that reviving the post of White House Spiritual Advisor, held by none other than Billy Graham, would go down well with the black population more used to Jesus and the apostles than any white congregation.  Secular as the Administration was, it would benefit from a black, inner city preacher. 

 

She had someone in mind, and quickly and easily recruited the Reverend Billings Johnson.  Added to his spiritual portfolio, he was also made the Ambassador to the Inner City, a position for which he was perfectly well qualified, coming as he did from the nastiest neighborhood of Baltimore where he became known as The Great Facilitator, a man who had relieved social service agencies, non-profits, and small businesses of millions for his community and of course himself.  

He seemed a shoo-in for political office, but the 'remunerations' he enjoyed from his preaching and social activism were more than enough incentive to keep him in Baltimore.  Only when the President called him, did he agree to leave.  Regardless of the term of his White House service, his visibility and cachet would be worth millions when he left. 

LaShonda of course knew him for what he was - a canny, agile, brilliant con man who could bilk the most circumspect donor out of thousands in a minute.  He was a racial acrobat, talking pimp talk on the streets, equally fluent when preaching Mark, Luke, and John, and as Park Avenue as could be when applying to Gates, Bezos, or Buffett.  All he cared about was feathering his own nest, getting his due, and especially bilking The White Man - all legitimate enterprises given the long American history of slavery, Jim Crow and persistent racism. He was the Ur black man, the one who outhustled, out-conned, and out-maneuvered everyone. 

So the two of them became an item, a savvy, streetwise, team of con artists who knew exactly how to play the full deck of race cards while gaining plaudits for their diversity.  The President's Infrastructure, Social Welfare, and Inflation Reduction programs, worth billions of dollars and dispensed with little oversight and even less accounting, were exactly what they were looking for. 

Millions of those dollars were intended to raise the black man from dysfunction and poverty to his proper and appropriate place atop the human pyramid and no expense was to be spared to do so; so it was a bounteous feast. Side deals that ensured everyone down the line got paid were their stock in trade. They became heroes to the inner city and champions of the progressive Left. 

It was in President Biden's fantasy home district, Anacostia, that LaShonda and the Reverend Johnson found the ideal partner - The Blade, a Cadillac-driving, clown-suited, pimp-walking, macho procurer, the talk of the town, wealthy beyond his dreams, and a figure of admiration and imitation.  His empire had extended far beyond prostitution - there was only so much nooky the community could bear - and profited from the District of Columbia's generous entitlement programs, walkin' around money, and non-profit grants.  More importantly he was a 'facilitator' in the drug trade, never a cash player, but an important one out of the reach of the law, and banked thousands every week in Aruba. 

The Blade, more than LaShonda or the Reverend Johnson was what the President was looking for - a real black man, no Oreo Uncle Tom - and he was delighted with the news of his recruitment.  To be fair, the President had not gone that far around the bend, and the thought of a rainbow-suited, gold chain, Patek Phillippe watch-wearing, pimpmobile-driven bawd standing in front of the nation was never a consideration, but a tamed, spit-shined young man with impeccable credentials, with not a trace of white in him, would be right and proper - and would assure votes that not even the blackest member of Congress could muster. 

It took far more tailoring, sanding, and polishing to get the Blade ready for duty, but he, like LaShonda and the Reverend, knew how to make the most of a good thing.  The President was just another rube to be had, and if the Blade had to lose some of his baubles and rides, he would for the good of the nation. 

So when the first campaign busses headed out from Pennsylvania Avenue, the DEI cabal was on board, ready to stump for their patron, their Sugar Daddy, their man.  It was easygoing, for the President and his shills did all the heavy lifting.  It was just like the old days, their granddaddies' day when Negroes were given street front offices to be seen by the passing crowds and be responsible for nothing in particular. The first of many scams on the way up and out of the ghetto.

The election is a few months away and the campaign just really getting underway, their man behind in the polls and facing a strong opponent; but they didn't care. Even if Joe lost, they still had plenty of time, exposure, and influence to pad their bank accounts and prepare for the next gig.  

'This DEI shit is something, ain't it!' said the Blade to LaShonda, as they relaxed by the pool at the Four Seasons.  

The Electoral Value Of The Oppressed - Biden's Milking Of Victimhood For All It's Worth

'There are simply not enough, Mr. President’, said one of his closest advisors, referring to people of color, LGBTQ+, and Mexicans. 'The numbers don't add up'.

Yet the President was running on a platform of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and he knew absolutely that his commitment to the oppressed would bring them out of the woodwork in droves. How could any one of them turn their backs on his generosity, the open border that let Mami and Papi in, the billions in social welfare perks for the ghetto, ridding America of the white man and placing the black man on his rightful place atop the social ladder? 

Oppression politics, as his opponents called it, was not just an electoral gambit, but a deep-seated, righteous policy; and if it was a zero-sum game, so be it.  It was about time that the pendulum be reset, that the black, brown, and mulatto millions rise up while the discredited white man consigned to the margins, dismissed, and ignored.

All of this had stuck in the President's craw when he first took office.  He had been distinctly proud of his white heritage despite his lace-curtain, shanty Irish background.  It didn't matter that most of his ancestors had never made it out of a watery, thatched roof peasantry.  It was whiteness that counted, the legacy of Louis XIV, the Hapsburgs, Romanovs, Plantagenets and Tudors, some of whose glory must have dripped and seeped his way.

 

European civilization was responsible for the greatness of th human race, and no cant or febrile progressive hysteria could change it; yet here he was running on just that platform.  Every time he went to the podium to limn the praises of the oppressed he couldn't help thinking of limp tacos, collard greens, and cotton fields.  He had tried for his almost four years in office to rid himself of these awful, hateful, racist thoughts, but there they were, hardwired, set in concrete, unassailable. 

No one noticed - not because of his rambling anecdotes about boyhood summers on Rehoboth beaches, or stories about this grandmother's fondness for rum cake - but because the power of assumption, suspension of disbelief, and the downright credulousness of the electorate were all working in his favor.  Thanks to his shills in Congress, and the drumbeat of the media, the country was well attuned to issues of diversity, oppression, and exclusion.  He, as leader of the country, could only be a man of sincere progressive belief.

Ah, those were the days, he dreamed.  The Hall of Mirrors, the palace gardens, the elegant men and women dancing in the great ballroom of the palace of Versailles or listening to Newton at Kings College, Cambridge or studying with Hardy, or tea with Nicholas II of Russia.  

'Snap out of it, dear', said his wife when she saw that unmistakable smile of reverie. 'There's work to be done'.  Now, Jill, with no better pedigree that the President, shared most of his reverence for the European past - and even extended her monarchist leanings to the shahs of Iran, Ashoka and the Maurya emperors.  It wasn't so much whiteness, but Caucasian-ness, but the principle was the same. 

The country might do well with some of this kind of diversity - kings, queens, and courtiers would be good things to flavor the salad of low-hanging fruit - but the President and his campaign staff could not let up race, gender, and ethnicity; and must keep banging on how Donald Trump had upset the applecart during his four years, and it took a Biden presidency to put them all back in and...

Here the President shook his head to get rid of the vision of Shecky and Abe pushing a rag cart through the Lower East Side, Jews who sewed a few rags together and made a dress and then bought up the entire West Side, moved to Hollywood, and became rich.  Not quite his Europeans, but white and enterprising nonetheless so due must be given. 

 

'We must never forget the travails of our black brothers and sisters', the President read from a prepared speech, 'for they have given us the wealth of nations.  Out of the forests and savannahs of Africa they came in chains to be finally freed in this great land of ours, this land of limitless opportunity....'

Here the President paused.  This was not right.  'Opportunity', 'great land' did not belong here.  The message was suffering, oppression, indignity, the zero-sum game of white supremacy and black enslavement.  Yet, he knew he was a bad ad-libber and hesitated to go off message, so he finished this neo-conservative speech and fired the speechwriter, a Republican plant, a mole, a traitor; but the deed was done, and the press quickly took up 'the President's newfound conservatism'. 

His inner circle closed around him and insisted that he go back on the stump and renew his core message of oppression.  This is what we are all about, sang the chorus; and so the President with renewed energy returned to form and hammered on about the black man, the abused woman, the homeless refugee, and the rightness of the gender spectrum. 

'Donald Trump will take away all our generosity, our compassion, our heartfelt embrace of democracy and the place of everyone within it...', and again he paused, thinking of the fright-wigged Viking-horned Mardi Gras crewe of revelers who stormed the Capitol, gave those buggers something to think about, no insurrection this but a bawdy group of frat boys and backwoods crackers with nothing to do on a Friday night. 

 

He shook his head again, got rid of the fog and cobwebs and returned to his fulminating speech.  'Pregnant pauses', commented his supporters, 'lapses' said his critics; but his coterie knew that as long as the message of the oppressed rang loud and clear, he would remain in the Oval Office. 

Unfortunately the only voters listening to the President's harangues were members of the choir - the white, liberal true believers who believed every word that came out of their President's mouth.  As for the so-called 'oppressed', they were having none of it.  Black enterprise, visibility, and opportunity were increasing, no thanks to his demeaning positions on affirmative action and 'diversity'.  Wetback labor was putting pressure on the legitimate, long-standing Latino community; putting ugly transgender women in the West Wing did a disservice to drag queen beauty; and prices of gas, fatback, and prepared enchiladas were rising. 

So oppression politics aside, Joe Biden is likely to be out of work come next January.  The time of wheedling, hectoring, race-bating, divisive politics will be over.  The King Is Dead, Long Live The King....but this time, the palace will be a very, very different place indeed. 

Oppressing Us To Keep Us Safe - Big Brother, Censorship, And The New Orwellian Dystopia

In a seriously disturbing move, the Governor of New York has said that she will launch a new, aggressive program to monitor and control free speech, all to ensure that New Yorkers feel safe. Not in recent memory has there been such an arrogation of power, a transparent attempt to center and consolidate government power, and a hypocritical defense of it.  

We’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts — what’s being said on social media platforms...Our media analysis, our social media analysis unit, has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence; direct threats to others, and all this is in response to our desire, our strong commitment, to ensure that not only do New Yorkers be safe, but they also feel safe.

 

The Governor's initiative is all the more craven and self-serving because she couched it in pseudo-moralism. 'Hate has no home here' say suburban lawn signs, thinly disguised, arrogant statements of moral identity and political righteousness.  Governor Hochul has placed this febrile cant front and center, and raised the specter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a chilling tale of a future dystopian, authoritarian regime whose contradiction - oppression is freedom - is the ethos of governance.  

Intrusive, universal surveillance, identification, arrest, and punishment - the tools of Stasi, Sevak, and the KGB - will be applied in New York State. The reach of government will be universal and permanent.  Every keystroke will be monitored, every word, every line parsed for intimidating intent; every post, every article, every reference will be read, reviewed, analyzed and judged by government standards by government censors.

 

There will be no room for interpretation - satire and humor are no justification for the words themselves.  It is the most obvious, venal, and transparent tautology - hate speech is wrong because it is hateful.  You'll know it when you see it because of the lexicon, a dictionary of words, terms, and phrases that must be eliminated.  All speech is suspect speech, no assumption of innocence can be made when the words appear.

This appointed group of government censors and their newly-written AI algorithms are now the arbiter of social morality and ethics.  It is Hochul's crewe who will determine what can or cannot be said.  They will be definers of intent, and any infraction of the rule of righteous intent will be summarily punished. 

American jurisprudence is based on the principle of intent. First or second degree murder?  Juries, not appointed councils must decide.  Perception is a tricky business as the inconsistencies of eye witnesses and the art of Browning, Kurosawa, and Durrell have shown. Even with sophisticated electronic tools, determining intent is a dubious affair; but governments like Hochul's in New York have assumed an ability that no one else has - the ability to know hate speech when they hear it.  It is hate speech because it is hate speech. 

Progressives have deliberately, consciously used the aftermath of the October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians and the consequent IDF action in Gaza as a cover for this renewed assault on free speech.  There is too much hate in the world, say progressives, and we know how to rid American society of its pernicious, anti-Utopian effects.  Under such a calculated cover, the Left has removed 'offensive' statues to historical figures, changed the names of streets, schools, and public buildings, all in the name of creating a 'safe space' in which Americans can live.  

The whole idea of safety has been twisted, deformed, and co-opted by progressives in its attempt to consolidate power.  It is their speech which must be protected, and their ideas which the words express that matter  

It is discouraging to see how a nation created on the principles of freedom and enshrined in the Bill of Rights - a nation of rugged individualists who have always sorted out their differences, fought or colluded, compromised and cooperated, and through the natural course of normal exchange created wealth, prosperity, and a satisfactory life - could be so easily co-opted.  Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin never anticipated a state which was the arbiter of right - only the adjudicator of disputes.  There would always be disputes, and fairness in hearing both sides was the only principle therein.  

 

Out of chaos comes order, the age-old principle of social behavior, accounting for human nature and the need for cooperation to ensure self-interest, has never been doubted or dismissed.  We are a nation of individuals warned by Jefferson to consider social consequences in the pursuit of happiness. 

Why was the culture of victimhood, so encouraged by the Left, so quickly adopted by the electorate? Since when did we abandon the sense of individual responsibility and hand it over to government caretakers?  Why were we so gullible to have accepted every word and apocalyptic warning about the demise of democracy, the rise of the hate state, the fear of re-enslavement of the black man, the gulag incarceration of the gay one?

It is this particular arrogation of moral authority which has fomented the divisions in America.  The Left has been autocratic in its approach to American society - a society which, according to them is rotten to the core and in desperate need of reform.  Only under their tutelage and with their guidance can the evils of individualism be expunged and a new, collegial, verdant, peaceful world come about. 

The whole idea of Utopianism is falsely premised. There is no such thing as Utopia nor will there ever be.  Human nature is antithetical to enforced compromise.  The Soviets learned this the hard way; and yet the progressive Left in America still marches to that old drummer.  

The Presidential election coming up in November 2024 is likely to put a halt to this arrogant government intrusiveness.  A conservative presidential nominee who has made it clear in his first administration that he has no patience for the patently idealistic codes of race-gender-ethnicity, diversity-inclusivity and one world hyperbole will be the much-needed brake on Orwellian presumptions of righteousness.