Climbing the Tower of Babel
A follow-up to “Guilt-ridden Madison …”: Madison’s Equal Opportunities Commission Thursday evening 01-13-22 postponed acting on Ald. Brian Benford’s “Truth and Reconciliation process” — a thinly veiling trojan horse for reparations.
His proposed ordinance is so insular for Folk that are Woke that it is written in insider acronyms. This preening exercise in social justice is reserved for “BIPOC residents and organizations in a citywide effort to address and repair the harms perpetuated on BIPOC individuals and communities.” For our platinum subscribers, BIPOC stands for “black, indigenous, and people of color.” (More thoroughly defined here.) In other words, another taxpayer-supported exercise in segregation.
Not that BIPOCs speak with the same forked tongue.
Truth and Reconciliation got good and unreconciled right off the bat. Ald. Arvina Martin played her membership card in the Ho Chunk nation. “I would like a resolution like this to be fully inclusive … …but he [Ald. Benford] doesn’t have the same experience with my community and I don’t have the same experience with his community.” Plus, Martin said she “would like …more under-represented groups.”
Benford, who identifies as black (we don’t know his pronouns) genuflected at this diversity coup de main. “I follow a path of cultural humility and maybe the Ho Chunk want to do their own process.”
We can only speculate on what kind of “repairs” are in store for Madison taxpayers — many of whom are guilty only of voting these people into office. Evanston IL, home to Northwestern University, already pays reparations.
Iowa City has Truth and Reconciliation but, like Madison’s Civilian Police Oversight Board, can’t get anyone to run the thing. (Iowa is offering $198,000/year!) Last September, an Iowa City group called the Black Voices Project showed up to oppose T&R itself. “The current membership of the [T&R], as well as the majority of the city council, is out of sync with the wide cross-section of the black community that does not support this,” their leader said, according to that college town’s daily newspaper. That’s after Iowa City’s black mayor suspended the effort in March 2021 after months of in-fighting. (More here.)
Benford, need we say, is a piece of work. As a good progressive, he opposes police body-worn cameras because they might exonerate police. At this week’s city Public Safety Review Committee, observe what the alder takes as givens. “It is worth asking whether investing limited municipal resources in body cameras will address the root problems fueling police violence and white supremacy.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: One gets the idea that Truth and Reconciliation will also dissolve into internecine acrimony like the Tower of Babel. A perfect fit for Madison WI. Bring popcorn.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
“Anyone else think that Ald. Brian Benford is a root problem?”
Benford is not “a root problem” but rather a symptom, the corporeal result, an effect not cause, of the mindset of the dumb asses that voted him into office.
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Grifters gotta grift. Don’t be mad at the shark for eating the surfers.
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Ald. Martin would like more under represented groups. Name a more under represented group in Madison or Dane County than Conservatives. Are they to be included as well?
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How can you possibly claim that one’s political beliefs are as important as the color of one’s skin or the configuration of one’s genitals?
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Am I the only one who breaks out in a cold sweat at the thought of a government agency with the word “Truth” in its title?
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Yes, we conservatives in this county are the minority. Especially the religious conservatives. Our voices are ignored or seldom heard.
Black, white or brown, our voices are ignored. Why is that?
When I go to church and stand or kneel with my fellow parishioners, people of all colors, I can only say that I am stunned by those who have far more religious devotion than I could ever muster.
To believe with such intensity is more than I could ever hope to have.
That is a reflection of those on the left believe. They believe in their religion. The religion of socialism.
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Mixed messages–
Most of Wisconsin: “Follow the Badgers, enjoy the Packers, and try the cheeses!!!!”
Madison, and the other Progressive utopias: “Smell our Dairy Air”
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Stop writing about some low level nobody nonsense and get to real reporting. The state is being run by a bunch of gop grifters looking for snipes under logs, spending a boxcar of our money and doing nothing but working to keep their own lifestyle paid for by us. This is just another attempt at “hey; look over there” while the real crooks are stealing everything not nailed down. It’s time to get rid of the bums in the capital; Vos, Darling, etc. need to go. No more gerrymandering. If Wisconsin wants to survive it’s time to kick these guys to the curb. Start with Gableman and work out from there.
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Right. Joe Biden, A.O.C., Mandela Barnes, and Francesca Hong will fix everything.
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I’d like to see term limits across the board. Lots of fossils need to go.
2 terms for US Senators.
I’d like to see marijuana legalized. Right now both Vos and Biden are against it. I have a feeling Biden is going to “evolve” on the issue and support it. He desperately needs a win on something, anything and that would go a long ways.
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It would be comical if this latest effort ended up as a clownshow before disintegrating into the dustbin of history — but always remember these people are already getting paid to come up with harebrained schemes like this and then play the Oppression Olympic Games before moving on to their next crazy idea.
Remember the city blowing hundreds of thousands on “exploring” connecting low income apartments to the internet just a few years ago before it failed miserably? (The geniuses in charge of that effort apparently never heard of mobile devices and how they connect to the internet). They don’t care. To them taxpayer money is play money.
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I’ve seen that phrase “Truth and Reconciliation” before, from Robert Reich: Robert Reich calls for ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ to erase Trump’s lies, expose enablers.
I think “Truth and Reconciliation” is Woke code for any power grab, using bogeymen like ‘systemic racism’ and ‘Orange Man Bad’ to steamroll anyone who opposes the agenda, regardless of political affiliation.
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If they are going the T&R route the first order of business should be this:
The 200+ years of systemic racism built into the DNA of the Democratic Party, which supported slavery, Jim Crow, legalized discrimination, segregation, etc. for most of this country’s history. Now they are pushing racist government policies, segregation, etc. in the name of the hideous antiracist neo-Marxism.
Let’s have some damn Truth and Reconciliation about THAT.
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Wokester sycophant Tag Evers started a push for this reparations lunacy back in summer 2020. My guess is he deferred it to Benford since he decided that his whiteness made him unworthy of undertaking such an effort.
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I’m waiting for the day when the denizens of Dudgeon-Monroe (isn’t that Tag’s district?) are forced out of their lovingly restored Craftsman homes in Madison’s uber liberal near west side enclave, because they live on stolen land. Transfer all those house titles to BIPOC’s at once.
Why won’t Madison progressives lead on this important issue by giving up their stolen-land homes?
Maybe a city committee can implement that as part of the revenge— errr, reparation plan.
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Tag Evers IS unworthy.
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I agree that for a long time in history there were differences between the races, males and females, religions, sexual identity, sexual preferences and so on and so forth. People distingusihed themselves as different from one another in this rather simplistic manner.
Today we live in a much more inclusive world. I work with a number of people of color or who are gay, or who are of different cultures and all of which are in positions that are much better than mine. They also make way more money than I do as the work they do is much, much more important than I will ever do.
To these people, I honor and respect you.
But I must ask: Where does it stop?
Iwas listening to the BBC this morning and they were talking to a professor who had 18 years of tenure who dared to question the whole transgender issue. She was fired from her job as a result of questioning the transgender issue. She did not have any problem with a male calling himself a female or vice versa, but did have a problem with the idea that in any and all respects both are the same. Simple biology says that men have way more upper body strength than women. Simple biology says that women can birth children. BTW- same goes for the animal kingdom.
So I must ask: When does simple biology go by the way side and feelings take over?
If I see myself as a German Shepard does that make me one?
Or how about a Bald Eagle?
Or how about me being a billionaire or the President of the United States?
You would be very right in calling me delusional for having any of those thoughts, but why not me calling myself a woman when I was clearly born a man? Why question me when I call myself something I don’t have the education or training for?
I say this as I as Captain am preparing for the next flight out of the Dane County Airport. Today I will be flying the Airbus 350 to San Fransisco. Looks like the weather should be fine. A nice flight all the way. Not that I have had any training on flying any type of airplane but hey, whay the heck, we’re all good, I’m a pilot because I say that I am.
Reality and delusion. Reality and delusion.
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