AN IGNORANT, MIS-EDUCATED, SEMI-LITERATE CULTURE

As an addendum to the latest Cleopatra flap, I find the coverage of the "controversy" even more depressing in supposedly serious media, across the board. I have read article, after poorly written article, by journalists abysmally ignorant about history and worse not at all interested in seeking the truth. We have a country where even people coming out of the "best" schools cannot write a coherent sentence, and who are only dimly capable of distinguishing between facts and feelings. The latter is what drives things for them.  How does something square with their worldview on “racism?”  If inconvenient, they simply ignore the truth and go with a fictional narrative they find more congenial. What matters today is not the truth, nor the facts, but rather the spin, or “narrative” that prevails. This world of distortion permeates everything from the White House to the local news. 

 

But when it comes to Cleopatra, we are referencing one of the most well-documented figures in history. To suggest, as many have that, well, "we just don't know," is to deliberately obscure the truth to avoid hurtfully puncturing the racial fantasies of some people. Worse, I have read some obscure "expert" (the only one sought out by an idiot reporter) claim that even if she was Greek she couldn't possibly be "white," or fair, dismissing the world's leading Egyptologist (Hawass) suggestion that she might even have been blonde, when, in fact, people in northern Greece are often blonde and tall like Alexander, so it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. Instead, when the facts ruin the fantasy, it gets ridiculously redefined, so that the original Greek authors of European civilization are no longer considered European and thus no longer “white” in this crazy worldview.

 

The Egyptians are incensed because of attempts to depict them as sub-Saharan Africans or as being closely related to them. They are not, and even when very briefly ruled by black people of Kush or Nubians, those rulers had more aquiline features found in northeast Africa and had little more in common with West Africans, (from whom most American blacks are descended), than they would have had with Europeans. 

 

It is a sad commentary on the level of ignorance and credulity in contemporary society that several decades after Newsweek ran a cover with the ridiculous, and universally debunkeduestion “Was Cleopatra black?” there is even moreignorance today. It is a consequence of the self-hatred of radicalized “scholars” constantly aimed at poisoning and undermining our great western civilization, going back to its foundation in the Ancient Greek world through all subsequent periods culminating in the free world of today. 

 

Our heritage is not just being stolen; it is being destroyed. Our culture, as well as the entire western hemisphere is an offshoot of European civilization. The more they can obscure that the less we will know of who we really are, which is what has facilitated their attempts to remake and redefine us in accordance with the phony ideological group identities they have conjured up. But this cultural suicide being forced on us will in no way uplift supposedly marginalized groups, on whose behalf it is being proffered. It will only bring all of us down. While the “Anglosphere” has gone overboard on this, fortunately most of Europe, is not buying it, nor for that matter, is the rest of the world.  If we do not reverse this disastrous trajectory, our country will again, over time, come to be perceived as little more than a remote backwater populated by dimwitted people. 

 

There is no doubt in my mind that a 19th century high school graduate was more articulate and better educated than graduates of today’s universities. From the time I was teaching five decades ago to the present we have gone from dumb to dumber. Sure, there are, as there always has been, a small number of very bright people that really drive scientific, technical and intellectual progress for everyone else. But the leveling, “equity” ideology is increasingly destroying opportunities that enable such people emerge and excel. That costs everyone and we are left only with mass mediocrity. Without cultural restoration the point of no return will soon be reached. 

 

In that case America is over. 

 

  

CLEOPATRA: THE HISTORICAL REALITY

 It is a sad commentary on the level of historical ignorance that prevails today, especially in the USA, where gullible people easily respond to narratives that patently are not true. Thus it has become necessary to explain who one of the most well-known and documented figures in history was, due to myths that have been proffered about her without any foundation or evidence. The last Cleopatra, a name born by many predecessors, was simply not “black,”as most recently suggested by a Netflix “documentary” based upon falsehoods and wishful thinking. 

Cleopatra was ethnically Greek, descended from Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian generals who came to power in Egypt after his death. She was clearly not black.She was European. Nor was she even particularly dark. Macedonians from northern Greece are mostly fair-skinned. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander himself and run by Greeks (although with a multinational population), for three hundred years. It became the greatest Greek city in the Hellenistic world, where numerous brilliant scientists and philosophers did their work. Cleopatra was herself a brilliant woman who spoke several languages; in fact she was the first and only Ptolemaic ruler to bother learning the Egyptian language. She also strongly identified with Egypt, adapting its religion and many aspects of its culture in the Pharaonic tradition. Her affairs with Caesar and Mark Anthony were also political, as she strove to maintain the security of her wealthy country. But as is well known, she wound up on the losing side in a Roman power struggle where the Roman Republic was transformed into the Empire under Augustus, and so absorbed Egypt. 

 Alexandria is located on the Mediterranean Sea and was part of the Mediterranean world, as was all of north Africa. That region was in no sense “African” in the narrower sense in which the term is misused today to signify what is actually only sub-Saharan or black Africa. In addition to the great Egyptian civilization it was settled by Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, and even Germans, who established the Vandal kingdom there. The population was in no sense black, nor were the local Berbers, some of whom to this day have blue eyes. Again the entire region was Mediterranean, and the Greco-Roman term “Africa” was originally used to refer to this region and its cultures- North Africa. 

Much of the falsehoods and confusion of today are based upon a truly idiotic fallacy, which is the notion that the term, now used to  refer to the entire continent of Africa, is co-terminus, equivalent, and  identical to black Africa. It isn’t, and indeed residents of the north vociferously object to being labeled black, especially the Egyptians. This rankles the really stupid producer of this Netflix travesty, who says that the Egyptians need to learn that they are in Africa, as though that somehow makes them black, which, as explained above is nonsensical. All across north Africa from Egypt to Morocco the population is simply not black, genetically, culturally or historically. This has been obscured, to a considerable extent by the Arab conquest and conversion to Islam, which detached the region from the intimacy it had with Europe. 

 So the result is a production based upon total ignorance and wishful thinking that is rationally unsustainable. In fact the scorn has been universal, from the Egyptians to even the leading scholar in Nigeria, who has called out this abomination for its deception, while pointing out that black Africans have many cultures of their own to be studied and appreciated. They do not feel slighted by the truth and make no such claims. Indeed everywhere else in the world there is a clear understanding of true history, except for grossly miseducated and gullible Americans. Recognition of the truth in no way demeans or diminishes black Americas. Stealing other people’s cultures is a sign of weakness and insecurity, not strength and no ones benefits from the promulgation of falsehoods. It only invites ridicule. Shame of Netflix for promoting these lies, misleading the public, and forfeiting any credibility. 

A new documentary by the world’s leading Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044332304573) tells the truth based on historical fact, not fantasy. It is now viewable on YouTube. Looking forward to seeing it. It is also supposed to be on Amazon but I can’t find it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_4mEuVONA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdGThahx5sE

 

THE PARTISAN PERSECUTION OF DONALD TRUMP

 It is now ludicrous to suggest that there is any longer an impartial system of justice in this country. It should be obvious to everyone in the partisan legal harassment of Donald Trump, especially in places like here in New York. In addition to the local Manhattan DA and state AG, he faced a ridiculous civil suit from a woman claiming he had in some way harmed her decades ago. The jury of ruled against him in short order to no one’s surprise. The question his whether there is any legitimacy at all to this legal system. 

There was and remains zero chance that Trump could ever get a fair hearing from a Manhattan jury. That was my own experience  over two decades ago under another kind of political attack when I realized there was no way I could get a fair verdict in Manhattan and had to settle for an agreement. These are people with a visceral hatred of Donald Trump and incapable of fair judgement due to ideological blinders. They see all aspects of life as political and so have politicized everything, thereby ruining everything. 

Does anyone think the verdict would not be different almost anywhere else in the country, or even elsewhere in New York?  Manhattan is out of touch not only with the rest of the country but even the rest of the city and certainly the rest of the state.This was the only borough that voted for some obscure left-wing woman instead of Mayor Adams in the Democratic primary. There is not a single elected Republican official left in Manhattan at the city, state, or federal level (where once there was a congressman, state senator, and a couple of state assembly and city council representatives). The Manhattan GOP once exercised disproportionate influence. Now it basically no longer exists. Unfortunately Manhattan media also dominates communications in this country, in their parochial worldview, warping perceptions of who we really are as a people. 

I had for a time hoped that someone else might be the Republican nominee for President, only because they might possibly win with a larger margin and lower the temperature, but now given the constant harassment by a legal system that no longer has much legitimacy left Trump may be the only one who is stalwart enough to rectify the situation and clean house. It is indeed ironic that throughout his entire term of office he never once abused his power or used the government to pursue political enemies, while the Democrats have been doing so constantly thereby undermining the entire justice system. Trump may be the only one to set things right; the only other possibility would be Robert Kennedy Jr. who is equally loathed by the establishment that is doing its best to marginalize or ignore him because they know that he, like Trump is willing to take on the rotten elite that is ruining this country and bring about real reform.

 I don’t think that Trump should have participated in any of this political  litigation. He should have refused to recognize the legitimacy of it, thereby unmasking the partisan rot and leaving the left powerless to do anything about it. Had he remained in Florida Governor DeSantis would never have extradited him to a hostile jurisdiction. By cooperating to any degree Trump is confirming the legitimacy of a rotten system that no longer has any. But for once he took the more restrained option, probably to avoid a total break at this time, but if he is elected again there is no doubt that he will clean house this time around. 

By so blatantly persecuting Trump the left has strengthened him immeasurably. It is time that other potential candidates step back and save their fire for another day, unless something really does reduce his viability, which seems less and likely, but in that case they could always step in later. But given the serious injustices being perpetrated at this time there must be solidarity. There was a chance that he might have faded away, but by so grossly and unjustly overplaying their hand they have restored him to the center of everything and richly deserve whatever consequences result.