The rise of Leftwing Censorship and Repression

This is a segment of an article about free speech suppression at the Daily Caller , taking place in USA  university  campuses. It seems to me the USA is being undermined by cadres of extremists who want to have the student body controlled and properly brainwashed so they support the rise of a communist dictatorship. It's like Germany in the early 30's?

Whether it’s tagging legitimate news stories they disagree with as “fake news” or launching increasingly-violent protests to shut down opposing viewpoints, it’s clear: the left is gearing up their war on free speech. 

Like most wars premised on indoctrination, young adults are the ones being overtly radicalized. Protected by tenure, radical leftists seemingly dominate most institutions of higher learning. Once a free marketplace of ideas, today’s academia seems increasingly a modern inquisition against any who challenge the increasingly cult-like radicalism being infused into the minds of college students. According to a recent Gallup survey, a whopping 72% of college students now think the government should ban all “offensive” speech. What they find offensive, of course, is any remark outside of politically-correct liberal orthodoxy.  And they protest – riot – for it. 

These aren’t your father’s college protests. Today’s mob rule on campus is something new? At California’s Claremont McKenna College, protesters blocked the entrance to a campus building to prevent conservative author Heather MacDonald from speaking. Despite being a well-respected commentator, left-wing radicals justified their anti-intellectual actions by claiming to be preventing “fascism” and “racism” from taking hold in America. Undeterred, MacDonald entered in secret through a back door. When she arrived on stage, however, she found the hall nearly empty–because the mob also refused to let anyone interested in hearing her ideas enter the building. 

Dan Backer writing in "The Daily Caller"

I never heard about this Heather McDonald, so I did a search and found this sympathetic article about her "controversial" views. It seems she thinks one reason for the increasing crime rate in the USA is the anti police movement fueled by leftists. Here's a segment of an article in The American Conservative

It’s hard to recall the last time a relatively short op-ed received the sort of instant vituperation rained upon Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal. What explains it? 

In her piece, Mac Donald parsed recent statistics showing an uptick in urban crime, which are not yet comprehensive but certainly suggest that the 20-year trend of reduced crime is being reversed. Sharp spikes in the homicide rates in Milwaukee and St. Louis, Atlanta and Chicago. The terrifying surge in Baltimore shootings since the riots last April mostly came too late for her overview. 

Then she suggested a reason for the rise in crime: “The most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months.  

The stats Mac Donald cites are what baseball fans would call a “small sample size,” and it might take several years of data to know conclusively that a crime upsurge is happening. But that can’t quite explain the strong language Mac Donald’s opponents deployed. “More sophistry than science,” opined Yale Law professor Tracey Mearnes. Bernard Harcourt, a Columbia professor, slammedMs. Mac Donald for producing “fiction” designed to “undermine the recent gains of the country’s newest civil rights movement.” Liberal websites linked to these so-called rebuttals again and again, as if terrified that, if left unrefuted, Mac Donald’s arguments would gain irresistible momentum.  

Why charges of “sophistry” and “fiction”—rather strong language from academics? The figures Mac Donald gathered were, everyone acknowledged, correct. Perhaps what was troubling was her quotations. One New York City had cop told her, “Any cop who uses his gun now has to worry about being indicted and losing his job and family.” A Milwaukee police chief is quoted as saying he has “never seen anything like” the current hostility towards police. 

Or perhaps it was her suggestion that longstanding laws and due process procedures are in danger of being circumvented, to accommodate the new anti-police sensibility. In New York state, for instance, efforts are now underway to create a special prosecutor to put cops on trial when a grand jury doesn’t come forth with an indictment. 

The overall result is what the St. Louis police chief called “the Ferguson effect”—cops are essentially retreating to a reactive mode, answering 911 calls and investigating crimes, but not going out of their way to proactively police crime-prone neighborhoods. Police officers simply don’t know how to deal with a dominant media narrative intent on portraying them as a violent blue gang.

It seems to me there's no reason to suppress her views or silence her the way university radicals are doing. Thus I have to conclude this censorship culture we see arising in USA campuses is extremely dangerous and will eventually lead the USA towards a communist dictatorship.

Maduro´s generals discuss use of snipers to kill protesters

The following is a translation of a post at Runrun.es which contains an audio and a transcript of a meeting held in Lara state, Venezuela, in which the participants were generals of the Venezuelan armed forces.

This Youtube video (audio only) identifies the 

generals, has running subtitles in Spanish 

I listened to the full tape, and here are the main points I got out of the discussion:

• The generals believe the current wave of protests won´t stop, that eventually the National Guard and police will be overrun by the protests, and that Army, Navy and Air Force units will have to be employed.
• Maduro has given orders to contain the protests using a minimum of protester casualties, they are fully aware the opposition takes videos of the protest marches and the victims.
• They have a plan ready to move beyond the current situation by having Maduro issue an Emergency Order which will authorize the use of weapons to shoot protesters.
• The generals discussed the need to have snipers trained, psychologically tested, and prepared to shoot unarmed civilians.
• The generals discussed the need to secure bullets used to seed the scene, so that troops firing on protesters can claim they were fired upon (they seem to be preparing for a cover up investigation of a potential massacre).
• They seem worried about the lack of training among Army troops (so far the National Guard, police and paramilitary thugs are being used to contain the protesters).
• One of the generals felt they need field exercises, that planning the mobilization of the armed forces to stop protests isn´t enough.
• There seems to be a story line, implied in their conversation, that they are ready to throw the constitution out the window and do whatever is necessary to hold power.
• They feel there will be some within the armed forces who will turn sides and join the opposition, which is now backed by about 80 % of the population.
• They expect outside intervention, they think this will come because Venezuela has oil. This story line is hammered constantly by both the regime as well as the international left.

The original text, in Spanish, is here: http://runrun.es/rr-es-plus/310013/filtracion-oficiales-de-la-fanb-planean-usar-francotiradores-contra-manifestantes.html

The recording was loaded on Youtube, it´s available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpXxQNWlRE#action=share

Runrunes article starts:

An audio filtered to some international media reveals what was discussed at a meeting in which several high officials of the Bolivarian National Armed Force of Venezuela evaluate the use of snipers to control opposition protests.

The meeting would have been held at the headquarters of the Operational Zone of Integral Defense of Lara (ZODI-Lara), under the leadership of the commander of this branch, general of the National Guard José Rafael Torrealba Pérez. The debate among a group of officers from other forces raises the need to use snipers to "protect" the officials who are at the head of the crackdown on protests and to attack demonstrators.

Venezuela's conflict heating up

The USA added 8 Venezuela Supreme Court justices to the sanctions list, for abusing human rights (the Supreme Court is controlled by Maduro and serves as a key enabler for the dictatorship). The protest movement continues in Venezuela, thus far over 50 are dead, most of them killed by the regime, and who knows how many thousands are wounded. 

50 protesters have been killed, most of them shot 

USA sanctions on these crooks won't be as effective as they could be, because other countries don't cooperate. Many governments hide their mercenary nature by claiming "sanctions on individual Venezuelan regime leaders help regime propaganda". What they fail to account for is that regime propaganda is aimed at left wing radicals who will support communist dictatorship no matter what. 

These European, Latinamerican and USA communists are linked, their beacon or command centers are in Havana, Madrid, Buenos Aires, etc. The best way to defeat THEM is to go all out to free countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, because the horrors revealed after dictatorships fall are a powerful weapon against the worldwide communist scourge. 

Today I applied to renew my visa

Given the noise about Trump's wall and illegal aliens, I'm going to write about what I'm going through to renew my visa. 

Earlier this week I scanned one of my passports (I have two), all 50 plus pages, mounted two pages on a PowerPoint slide and printed it, and I printed my other passport copy which I had scanned two years ago (that's two passports fully printed). I also copied my local ID card, and placed it in the carpet with the passport copies. I think they want the passports fully copied so they can track my travels? I'm not sure. 

I think it was on Tuesday that I had to go trough my tax returns and print enough detail to show I'm a worthy contributor to the local economy (the way it works, if I'm not causing enough economic activity and paying taxes I'm not worth the visa). I also printed or copied enough paperwork to show I'm worth enough to keep around (I'm not sure if they have a minimum, but they do need to see how much money one keeps in the bank). Finally I copied my health insurance cards and the associated contracts (that's so they know I won't be a burden if I get sick). That day I also accessed the form I have to fill out asking them to please renew my visa, and printed two copies. 

This morning I went to the local municipal office and got a standard letter which confirmed I live where I do. The way it works here all non citizens had better keep the local police and municipal authorities aware of any address changes, so that letter will be used to cross check what the police file says about me. Afterwards I went to the bank with a properly filled out form, and paid the fee for the visa renewal process. 

The line at the inmigration office 

Then I went to the inmigration office, stood in line, took my turn, and eventually got to sit in front of a very nice lady who reviewed my originals (including a page by page review of my two passports) and stamped all the copies as verified. This ended step one of my review process. Part two is a separate review by police authorities. 

If the main office gets a positive police report and confirms everything is fine, in about 45 days they send me a letter saying I am worthy of a visa renewal, and in a couple of months I should be at the police office with my new photos, to be fingerprinted and sniffed over by the local police so I can be issued the ID we non citizens have to carry and show for almost every activity. 

I've already gone through this process several times, so by now I'm used to the lines, and I actually feel a sense of companionship with the Africans, Arabs, Chinese and assorted South Americans I hang around with during the visa renewal process. And if all goes well I won't have to go back for two whole years.