U.S. Soccer Agrees to Pay Men and Women Equally. Americans Agree Not To Watch Either One.

(How John Kerry won Afghanistan)


	In groundbreaking news, Soccer players, a game usually played by toddlers and angry America-hating leftists with purple

U.S. Soccer Agrees to Pay Men and Women Equally. Americans Agree Not To Watch Either One.

The pro-crime party <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/new-york-state-senate-passes-bill-limiting-use-of-song-lyrics-in-court/">keeps on pro-criming</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		New York’s State Senate approved a bill Tuesday (May 17) that would limit prosecutors’ use of song lyrics and other forms of “creative expression” as evidence in criminal cases.&nbsp;Senate Bill S7527&nbsp;would not ban prosecutors from presenting lyrics or other material to a jury, but would require them to show that the work is “literal, rather than figurative or fictional.”

	
		The bill, which was sponsored by Senators Jamaal Bailey and Brad Hoylman, received&nbsp;public support&nbsp;from Jay-Z, Meek Mill, Killer Mike, Fat Joe, and Robin Thicke, among others. Before the bill can become a law, it must pass the New York State Assembly; a&nbsp;companion bill&nbsp;sponsored by Assembly member Catalina Cruz is pending before a committee and awaiting a vote.

	
		The bill, while in the works for months, comes as Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna&nbsp;face RICO charges&nbsp;in Georgia in a case where their lyrics and music videos make up the bulk of the state’s evidence of criminal conspiracy. In the 2013 case&nbsp;Dawson v. Delaware, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to use protected speech as evidence, provided that speech is irrelevant to the case.

	
		The court&nbsp;declined&nbsp;to hear the case of Jamal Knox, a Pittsburgh rapper known as Mayhem Mal who was&nbsp;convicted&nbsp;on charges of terroristic threats and witness intimidation over lyrics in a 2012 song called “Fuck the Police.”&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	It is awkward when an entire genre based on violence whose members routinely engaged in violence toward each other and innocent people start pretending that they're engaging in fictional threats, not real ones.


	I usually err on the side of free speech, but a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/rap_song_that_threatened_police_officers_is_not_protected_speech_pennsylvan">recap&nbsp;the Mayhem Mal </a>case in a way that virtually no media outlet, which focuses on celeb rapper support, shows why it happened.

<blockquote>
	
		The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected a free speech claim by a rapper who threatened to kill two Pittsburgh police officers he identified by name in a video titled “F— the Police.”

	
		Using the name Mayhem Mal, Knox and another rapper threatened the officers who were scheduled to testify against them after arresting the pair on drug charges. The other rapper’s case was not before the court.

	
		One of the officers said the video was one of the reasons he left the force and relocated.

	
		Both officers are named, and Knox states in the song that the lyrics are for them. In one part of the rap song, Knox said, “I’ma jam this rusty knife all in his guts and chop his feet,” and, “Well your shift over at 3 and I’m gonna f— up where you sleep.” The song also suggests the rappers know the identity of a confidential informant and a have a plan to murder an informant with a Glock handgun.
</blockquote>


	This is what New York Senate Dems seem to driven to protect.


	Would such a law, clearly preferencing criminals of a certain culture, survive a Supreme Court test?

<blockquote>
	
		If the court found First Amendment protection for the video, Saylor said, “we would in effect be interpreting the Constitution to provide blanket protection for threats, however severe, so long as they are expressed within that musical style.”
</blockquote>


	It's a good question.


	If a criminal writes a death threat in words cut out from a newspaper, isn't that also an art project?


	The New York Senate Dem "F___ the Police" bill, "Establishes an assumption of the inadmissibility of evidence of a defendant's creative or artistic expression against such defendant in a criminal proceeding; requires the proffering party to affirmatively prove that the evidence is admissible by clear and convincing evidence."


	How are prosecutors going to prove that a criminal's communications aren't part of a creative project in an era where anything, from mutilated horses to a golden toilet to Banksy and rap can be considered art?


	There's no metric for art, which means anything is art.


	Drug dealers can freely send text messages brokering drug deals as long as they do it in rap form.


	I'm sure that this won't make New York an even worse hellhole.

NY Senate Dems Pass "F___ the Police" Bill Protecting Violent Rap Threats

The pro-crime party keeps on pro-criming.


	
		New York’s State Senate approved a bill Tuesday (May 17) that would limit prosecutors’ use of song lyrics

NY Senate Dems Pass "F___ the Police" Bill Protecting Violent Rap Threats

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio shouldn't have had a political career. Radicalism is not a problem in NYC, but even most radicals hate his guts. Bill de Blasio's combination of arrogance, incompetence, laziness and corruption contrived to make him widely hated across the spectrum.


	So of course he ran for president.


	After that fizzled, thought was given to running for governor and <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/bill-de-blasio-eyeing-run-at-newly-drawn-ny-seat-nadler-has-left-behind/">now the House</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		Ex-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told a state lawmaker he plans to run for New York’s&nbsp;newly drawn 10th Congressional district&nbsp;— the seat entrenched Rep. Jerrold Nadler is vacating to fight it out with former longtime ally Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the rejigged 12th.

	
		De Blasio&nbsp;considered a run&nbsp;for the NY-11 district – before the&nbsp;state’s redistricting maps&nbsp;were thrown out the first time – but then&nbsp;dropped his bid in February before it started.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	As the Post notes,&nbsp;Bill de&nbsp;Blasio&nbsp;blew a presidential and gubernatorial campaign. If he abandons a House run, what's left? City Council? Assemblyman? Dogcatcher?


	De Blasio's own Twitter feed is a mishmash of attacks and virtue signaling at the state and the federal level, barking about state gun laws and federal social media regulation as if his own online persona can't figure out which office he wants to run for and is just keeping all of his possible options open.


	It seems as if it might be kinder to take him off the street and give him some kind of job where a complete incompetent would be allowed to mismanage billion-dollar budgets and just misplace $800 million.


	Maybe Burger King or Starbucks?

Won't Someone Hire Bill de Blasio To Do Something?

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio shouldn't have had a political career. Radicalism is not a problem in NYC, but even most radicals hate his guts. Bill de Blasio's

Won't Someone Hire Bill de Blasio To Do Something?

Give Chesa Boudin some credit, the Soros DA is responsible for the deaths of a lot more Americans than his Weather Underground&nbsp;parents. This is why the counterculture lefties decided to <a href="https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/da-chesa-boudin-fentanyl-court-data-drug-dealing-immigration/">destroy the system from within</a>.

<blockquote>
	
		Despite a surging fentanyl crisis that&nbsp;killed nearly 500&nbsp;people last year in San Francisco, the office of District Attorney Chesa Boudin did not secure a single conviction for dealing the deadly opioid for cases filed during 2021, according to a review of court data.
</blockquote>


	No drug dealer is illegal apparently.

<blockquote>
	
		Another big factor is the DA’s attention to offenders’ immigration status, which by law they are required to consider. Prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys point out that drug dealing convictions are grounds for deportation, and a substantial number of drug dealers in the city are Honduran nationals who could face deadly consequences if deported. The accessory charge still gives them and their families a path toward eventual citizenship.
</blockquote>


	So Americans have to die so that Honduran drug dealers can become citizens.

<blockquote>
	
		The DA’s approach is not winning many fans in the most-affected neighborhoods. “I know the horrors of being undocumented and selling drugs, but we can’t let our people continue to die,” said Rene Colorado, executive director of the Tenderloin Merchants Association.&nbsp;

	
		“My best friend died of a heroin overdose here in San Francisco, because I couldn’t help him. There have to be limits,” he said. “If you’re undocumented and selling fentanyl, guess what, you have to face the consequences. You have to do your time here in the States and you’re probably going to be deported.”&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	Not on Chesa Boudin's watch. Or on any Soros DAs watch.

<blockquote>
	
		In one example of using the “accessory after the fact” conviction for fentanyl dealing, a defendant was arrested and charged five different times from July 2020 through December 2021 for dealing fentanyl, heroin, meth and crack cocaine. According to court documents, evidence included a backpack with cash and “numerous” colorful plastic baggies of drugs. All five cases were consolidated for a January 2022 sentencing where he received two “accessory after the fact” felonies and served several months in jail.

	
		Another example in San Francisco involved a man with four separate drug dealing arrests last year between June and December. He was charged with selling fentanyl, crack, more than an ounce of meth and over 14 grams of heroin. His ultimate conviction was for two misdemeanors for&nbsp; “accessory after the fact,” and his sentence was two days in county jail, which he had already served.
</blockquote>


	Remember when lefties complained about California's "draconian" drug laws. Then go look at the bodies on the street. That's what the alternative looks like.

Americans Die of Fentanyl Overdoses as Soros DA Protects Foreign Drug Dealers From Deportation

Give Chesa Boudin some credit, the Soros DA is responsible for the deaths of a lot more Americans than his Weather Underground&nbsp;parents. This is why the

Americans Die of Fentanyl Overdoses as Soros DA Protects Foreign Drug Dealers From Deportation

It's official. Women don't exist and neither does "<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/weird/democratic-pro-choice-caucus-releases-language-guide-saying-choice-is-harmful-language/">choice</a>".

<blockquote>
	
		The House Pro-Choice Caucus has released a language guide with suggestions about what to say and not to say on the issue of abortion, including an admonition on the harmfulness of the word “choice.”

	
		In addition to “choice,” words deemed “harmful language” include “reduce abortion,” “safe, legal and rare,” “unwanted pregnancy,” “conscience clause/protections” and “back-alley abortions/coat hangers.”

	
		“Helpful language,” on the other hand, includes words like “decision,” “safe, legal and accessible,” “unexpected pregnancy,” “refusal of care/denial of care laws” and “criminalizing healthcare.”
</blockquote>


	This reeks of a focus group being convened on how to best market abortion to millennials.&nbsp;


	Why is the&nbsp;House Pro-Choice Caucus dumping "choice"?


	Choice, a key element in pro-abortion branding, is 'freedom' language. It's likely been concluded that freedom language is out of sync with an illiberal Left. And thus "choice" has been replaced with the illiberal "decision" which was probably determined to be far more empowering.


	The implication is that abortion is not a choice, that there aren't two sides or options, but an absolute decision. Abortion, the message goes, is not optional.


	But nothing under the Left is. Just ask China's One Child Policy.

The End of "Choice"

It's official. Women don't exist and neither does "choice".


	
		The House Pro-Choice Caucus has released a language guide with suggestions about what to

The End of "Choice"

This free-falling into a new America is becoming increasingly unlivable.&nbsp; For anyone over a certain age, this America, this culture, this society have become beyond foreign.&nbsp; It is not the country we grew up in and it is not the country we want to die in.&nbsp; It is alien.&nbsp; The obsession over hyper individualism is turning surreal.&nbsp; But then, is it not inevitable?&nbsp; Are these not the seeds planted of our own destruction?&nbsp; There is a reason our Founding Fathers agonized about what would happen with freedom in a society without virtue.


	So, where do we go and what will we become?&nbsp;


	The country is still out there, that America that we remember, the one that was proud and strong, but also assured, humble -- the one that embodied a quiet patriotism that didn’t need boasting and the over-the-top half-time shows and fly bys and millions in ad spends.&nbsp; We rightly hesitated at the thought of Empire, of marching off to endless wars.&nbsp; Our love of nation just was, it was in our blood, in our quiet demeanor.&nbsp; We knew who we were.


	My thoughts wander off to driving through Wisconsin farmland, the rolling hills and bluffs, the rivers and woods, the nestled burgs, the tall corn and wheat, dairy farms and hollows, the rising wind and late summer chills, the dry harvest and burning leaves, the weather turns and cold chills.&nbsp; I reminisce on the hearty and sturdy stock who tend those fields, assured and solid, as old as the centuries of our past, from first to come ashore across the colonies in all their glory.


	How long before the road closes before me, the long last ride, the final push across valley clear, the river crossed mightily and fallen back in mirror gone, into the receding fog of our past?&nbsp; How long before our final look past, the fading hills and trees rise down into our forgotten history?


	How do we recover what has been lost, or is that a fool’s errand? &nbsp;For time in its continuum races forward, the need, the urge and desire to pull it back to retreat, is nothing but a dream turned into a saddening nostalgia, bitter torn and tears and lost remembrances.


	Beware of old photos, they are just a snapshot, made to fool us into a false sense of what was. I glance at two old photos, one of Van Nuys Boulevard and another of a shopping area in Panorama City, both parts of the San Fernando Valley, in the city of Los Angeles.&nbsp; The photos are over a half century old, they bespeak of a long-ago part of America, one idyllic, flawed maybe, but simple, a different time and era, but they speak of something.&nbsp;


	Again, that nostalgia, it can fool us, but drive down those streets today, Van Nuys or Roscoe Boulevard, one sees in block after block, a cesspool of drugs, graffiti, homeless encampments, boarded up stores and rampant crime.&nbsp; It speaks of thousands of streets and towns across this country, the fallen, the despair, the hopelessness.&nbsp; Do we not care, does it not mean anything to see America turn into a third world country?


	Wild thrushes glide backwards, falling into the wind, cold snap, whipping fast to tears rolling --and then the ice on sheathed skin, bare and bracing against the coming night.&nbsp; The things those eyes have seen, the cries and lost greatness, the sad turning downward as all that was once held true and right has been torn and ripped and attacked as ghosts of an evil past.&nbsp; What had built this nation into a City on the Hill and beacon is now ridiculed as nothing, nothing but a graveyard wavering on the guilty carcass of a cancerous beginning and the Founder’s Dreams that we are now taught are nothing but nightmares.


	Gaze at a Thomas Cole painting, listen to a Samuel Barber composition, walk along the wide Missouri River, get lost in the poems of Walt Whitman, study the life of George Washington, stand in the fields at Antietam, recite Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural, and don’t dare apologize for any of it.&nbsp; Not a thing, not a darn minute of our history needs to be sullied like the haters of our great nation are doing today.


	I see myself in my aging years seeing this America race by, sitting on a porch, wondering how we let it all go. Again, maybe it was all inevitable.&nbsp; Too many forces against us, globalization and greed allowed for the destruction of the American heartland and industrial base.&nbsp; Our love and embracing of radical individualism, once the source of such greatness in the building of the American spirit, has run rampant, the community and family are dissolving, the churches are emptying, we “identify” as whatever or whomever we please.&nbsp; We celebrate our own destruction.


	The leaves fall gently, golds and reds and vibrant colors downward settle as the sun recedes in the west, the eastern sky turns dark, and evening comes on, in all its quietness and relief of a long Autumn day, the last days of Indian Summer fall backwards, into a past that yearns and pulls at my heart.&nbsp;


	I become that old man, that character from a Wendall Berry novel in Port William that looks past and beyond, gazing downward for the longest time, lamenting what has been lost. &nbsp;


	And praying for the coming generations, that they may recover that which was our greatness.


	Michael Finch is the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His new book of poetry is <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/dp/1973680890/ref%3Dsr_1_1?keywords%3Dmichael%2Bfinch%2Bwanderings%2Bin%2Bplace%26qid%3D1576637878%26sr%3D8-1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1652166878151000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3VdabLcYrbG6fsRMLKBli0" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1973680890/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=michael+finch+wanderings+in+place&amp;qid=1576637878&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"> Wanderings in Place</a>.

Recovering America

This free-falling into a new America is becoming increasingly unlivable.&nbsp; For anyone over a certain age, this America, this culture, this society have

<div>
	<div>
		
			The specter of nuclear war has risen again, it haunts our dreams for the first time in decades.&nbsp; The “end of history” was supposed to have completed that chapter, but of course that evokes our own narrow vision of the world.&nbsp; For those in the shadow of North Korea and for nations and peoples that fall in range of a seemingly inevitable nuclear Iran, those halcyon peaceful days of the end of history never existed.&nbsp; Indeed, for all of us, “peace” never lasts, never endures, we all live in the shadows of chaos, war and share the nightmares of human nature and none of us can escape the horrors of our worst selves.
	</div>
</div>


	Trying to make logical sense of it is an impossible task, to get into God’s mind, to understand His will and his plans is a temptation that we all have, but it only leads further into a never-ending depressing fall into the abyss.&nbsp; I will make sense as best I can by leaning on the writers and poets, the ideas and thoughts that speak as visions, and speak to hope.&nbsp; Hope is indeed a dangerous thing, but hope and faith are all that ties us, tethers us, and anchors us from that endless abyss.


	We yearn for peace, but peace is allusive.&nbsp; Peace in our lives, peace in the world, it has never been, and never will be the norm.&nbsp; We are blessed to live in a nation that has known peace as we have.&nbsp; May we continue to be so blessed, though the horizon is darkening, and night is before us.&nbsp;


	The yearning is strong, but again, is so allusive.&nbsp; William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem “Lake Isle of Innisfree” that “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow”.&nbsp; Indeed.&nbsp; Wendall Berry sought answers in his poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” which opens “When despair grows in me”, and “I come into the peace of wild things” closing with “I rest in the grace of the world and am free.”


	And peace for the world, we also yearn for it, sometimes we become blinded by its allure.&nbsp; Infamously British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 proclaimed we have “Peace for our Time”, yet just a year later the world would become fully engulfed in a war that would kill tens of millions.


	Turmoil rakes at our souls and in our minds.&nbsp; Greed, hatred, conquest and all the great sins rile through us as people and as nations.


	Nowhere can we trace the modern yearning for peace more clearly then to horrors of the First World War.&nbsp; We still live in the shadow of the devastation of that war a war that would mold and set the entirety of us for the next 100 years, a war that would shape our psyche and transformed us in ways that we are still trying to understand and grapple with.


	Perhaps the greatest poem of the 20th Century, T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” laments the tragedy and horrors of the great conflagration of WWI, the war that destroyed Western Christian Civilization and began the downward spiral.&nbsp; Written in 1922, just four years after the close of the war, Eliot’s modernist poem, would speak in lines such as ‘April is the cruellest month’, ‘A heap of broken images’, “I Had Not Thought Death Had Undone So Many’, and ‘These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins’.


	The poem, while describing the fallout and ruin of WWI, falls back and draws on the greatness of our Civilization with references to Shakespeare, Dante all the way back to the Punic Wars.&nbsp; The great draw of Western Civilization fold into this epic poem on the fall of Christendom.


	Just two years before Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” W.B. Yeats also saw the War for the devastation and destruction that it would prove to be in his great poem “The Second Coming”, a partial stanza:

<blockquote>
	
		Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
		Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
		The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere&nbsp;&nbsp; 
		The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
		The best lack all conviction, while the worst&nbsp;&nbsp; 
		Are full of passionate intensity
</blockquote>


	WWI shook the world; indeed it ended the world that Europe was.&nbsp; For WWII was just an extension of the First War, the fall out of which sees the rise of Nazism, Hitler the Holocaust, the Russian Revolution, Lenin and Stalin, the Gulag, the rise of Chinese Communism and Mao, the Khmer Rouge and the coming killing of tens of millions more.&nbsp; WWII may have ended for America with VJ Day in August of 1945, but for the millions trapped and imprisoned in the countries of Eastern Europe, in the Soviet Union and Communist China and how many other places, it would last for decades more.&nbsp; WWI’s shadow is very long.&nbsp; All due to missteps and a needless charge to war.


	Again, we can look to poetry to explain just how WWI changed everything in our world.&nbsp; The war brought about a flourishing of what become known as War Poetry, particularly the poetry of English writers, who captured the fall of that idyllic society, the Victorian age closing, the loss of innocence, the end of European culture and greatness, the slaughter of almost a million men in the horrific trenches of Flanders and France.&nbsp; Just to recite one poem, from one of the lesser-known War Poets, Ivor Gurney, but it is a poem that captures that fall from grace as well as any:

<blockquote>
	
		To His Love

	
		He's gone, and all our plans 
		Are useless indeed. 
		We'll walk no more on Cotswolds 
		Where the sheep feed 
		Quietly and take no heed.

	
		His body that was so quick 
		Is not as you 
		Knew it, on Severn River 
		Under the blue 
		Driving our small boat through

	
		You would not know him now… 
		But still he died 
		Nobly, so cover him over 
		With violets of pride 
		Purple from Severn side.

	
		Cover him, cover him soon! 
		And with thick set 
		Masses of memoried flowers- 
		Hide that red we 
		Thing I must somehow forget.
</blockquote>


	The despair of that War led many into the arms, indeed into the dreams of utopian fantasies from fascism, Nazims and Communism.&nbsp; Western Christendom had failed, fallen, and bankrupted itself in the eyes of many, in Europe especially.&nbsp; How could it have not?


	One classic example of that is the great poet, writer and essayist, Ezra Pound.&nbsp; The brilliant expatriate American writer that helped shape all of 20th century literature, who “made” Eliot’s “The Waste Land” the poem that it became, would then fall into the thrall of fascism.&nbsp; He became a war time apologist for Mussolini, spewing anti-Western tracts and anti-Semitic bile on radio broadcasts from Italy.&nbsp; He would end his life, disgraced, from an insane asylum to self-imposed exile in Italy.&nbsp; His contributions to literature, his brilliance is noted, but dwells in dark shadows.


	WWI shook our world, worse, in many ways it destroyed it and our damaged our souls.&nbsp; We are still living amidst its ruins, the fading beneficiaries of the glory laid down from the centuries previous.&nbsp; We yearn for that peace daily, to great ends, even a peace that can be more destructive than the chaos we try and escape from.&nbsp;


	What can the poets of the past teach us?&nbsp; It seems to be peace at all costs.&nbsp; Many historians have made such accusations of the WWI War Poets, that the horrors of the war led to an overwrought search for peace and later appeasement, a poetry that seemed to only focus on the horrors and senselessness of the war and nothing of the heroics, the cause itself of defeating German militarism, the ultimate sacrifices that were made.&nbsp; The merits of that war can be argued another time.&nbsp;&nbsp; But poetry, in of itself is not considered marital, it is often seen as idealistic, romantic, and illusionary, it is not the stuff of Sparta and the conquering hordes upon horses and Viking pillaging and conquest.&nbsp;


	Perhaps, but war is not always just, not always wise.&nbsp; Poetry speaks for our souls and yearnings and humaneness.&nbsp; We march to war with parades and drumbeats and tossed flower petals.&nbsp; The Union ladies set up summer picnics on the hills over the first Battle of Manassas, full of such excited expectations.&nbsp; Until it wasn’t so exciting, and they had to flee in the face of a Confederate rout.&nbsp; And then four years of hell and hundreds of thousands of dead.&nbsp; Can Ivor Gurney be faulted for remembering the Cotswold’s in contrast to four years of trench warfare and true hell?&nbsp; Is Wendall Berry being too “romantic” to think of the small farmers in their homes over the Kentucky River in relation to the horrors of war?&nbsp; Maybe we do have something to learn from the poets, all in balance, all in perspective.&nbsp; Avoid war, always, but also prepare for war.&nbsp; That is not appeasement.


	For our own lives, for our nation and for the world, the struggle to find that peace and to remain free, to not succumb to false hopes and the pull of a false security are warnings that must be heeded.&nbsp; For at the end of the day, there is only one final peace.&nbsp; We must remember, there is always hope, there is always faith.&nbsp; To close, we go to the great 19th Century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who in “God’s Grandeur” wrote:

<blockquote>
	
		And for all this, nature is never spent; 
		There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 
		And though the last lights off the black West went 
		&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — 
		Because the Holy Ghost over the bent 
		&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
</blockquote>


	Michael Finch is the President and Chief Operating Officer of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His new collection of poetry is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082WXFP87/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0">Wanderings in Place</a>.

Reflections on Peace, Poetry and War

The specter of nuclear war has risen again, it haunts our dreams for the first time in decades.&nbsp; The “end of history” was supposed to have completed that

Bruce Herschensohn, a longtime friend of David Horowitz and the Freedom Center, passed away this week at the age of 88. Bruce was a huge figure in conservative circles and touched the lives of so many in so many ways.


	Bruce led an incredibly varied and full life. Many remember him as a Republican candidate for the Senate in California in 1992, a race he should have won. He was the unfortunate victim of Democrat dirty tricks pulled at the 11th hour that caused him to lose to Barbara Boxer.&nbsp;


	What many don’t remember or know about Bruce is that he was also an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, wrote classical music scores, was a longtime teacher of politics, most recently at Pepperdine University, and served under four Presidents: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon as a Deputy Special Assistant, and as part of Ronald Reagan’s transition team in 1980. He also was the author of numerous books and countless articles during several decades as a columnist.


	Most of all, Bruce was simply one of the kindest, humblest, and nicest people that one could meet. He was the epitome of class, always with a positive outlook on life and a kind word. He always wore a dark, tailored suit and I am not sure if a day ever went by when Bruce didn’t enjoy a cheeseburger, something he seemed to love almost as much as freedom itself. Though born in Milwaukee, he was the quintessential Californian, his first job being a bagger at the Ralph’s Grocery Store in Westwood.


	I had the great pleasure of getting to know Bruce when we both worked at the Claremont Institute in the late 1990’s and we stayed in touch over the past 20 years. The defense of freedom in places like Hong Kong and Taiwan were of particular interest to Bruce, and the recent events in Hong Kong were an intense worry to him.&nbsp;


	Throw a dart at a map of the world and no matter where it landed, you would get a wonderful lecture on the people, the history, and the politics of that land, and you would be mesmerized by Bruce’s knowledge and teaching. You will never meet anyone with a greater knowledge of the world.&nbsp;


	So much can be said of Bruce Herschensohn and one hopes that a lot more will be written by those who knew him. His stalwart love of liberty and his incredible voice for freedom cannot easily be replaced. But most of all, for those who knew him, his kindness and friendship will forever leave a huge void. He will be missed.

Bruce Herschensohn, RIP

Bruce Herschensohn, a longtime friend of David Horowitz and the Freedom Center, passed away this week at the age of 88. Bruce was a huge figure in conservative

I was fortunate enough to be in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, traveling with a group headed by the estimable Bruce Herschensohn. It was an extraordinary, if bittersweet trip, seeing the British ships sail out of Hong Kong harbor on the evening of July 1st. The lowering of the Union Jack across the city allowed a moment of great sadness, a passing of an era, given way to a future of trepidation and worry.


	On the trip, we were honored to meet the politician and freedom fighter, Martin Lee. Lee was just recently arrested and freed, but will now, almost certainly, be under threat of harassment and further arrests. William McGurn, then senior editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, also spoke to us, offering some hope, but tinged with warning. That week marked a pivotal moment in history, one that anyone present in Hong Kong at the time will never forget.


	Promises and guarantees were made; Hong Kong was given 50 years of freedom, under the now-infamous “one country, two systems” policy of administration. And, indeed, it did work. For just over 20 years, Hong Kong was the gateway and engine that helped propel China to a remarkable economic takeoff, lifting millions out of poverty. Hong Kong was the portal for the rest of the world into China, and the city continued to thrive. Rule of law, security of contracts, an independent judiciary and a free press were all legacies of British rule.&nbsp;


	All of this, however, was snuffed out in recent days with the new national-security law imposed on Hong Kong by mainland China. Simply put, Hong Kong has lost its freedom.&nbsp;


	It certainly didn’t go down without a fight; the past months have seen countless protests and demonstrations from the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong. It has been a sight to behold, watching thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Hong Kong carrying American flags, speaking the words of freedom and liberty. It is awe-inspiring to see that America is still the beacon that all look to, a light of freedom that casts its radiance to every corner of the globe.&nbsp;


	This makes it so heartaching and devastatingly ironic that while the American flag, and the American ideal, is so revered in the hearts and souls of these brave freedom fighters on the streets of Hong Kong, we see, here in our own country, on our very streets, the flag and the great promise and idea of America spat upon, torn down and denigrated.&nbsp;


	Hong Kong was supposed to have 50 years of freedom. Promises made, promises broken. But are we really surprised? We had false illusions that a semi-free, market capitalist economic system would somehow change the politics of the Chinese leadership and government. Those hopes have been dashed. And what now comes next?&nbsp;


	A huge looming question is, how much longer does Taiwan remain free? Even with the defense agreements and close ties between Taiwan and the United States, there is no doubt that the PRC will move quickly to incorporate Taiwan into the mainland. The Anschluss isn’t over, there are other bites of the apple that a voracious Red China is after.&nbsp;


	We need to understand what we are facing; China endured what they call, and view, to be a hundred years of national humiliation. From the First Opium War in 1839 to the Communist takeover in 1949, China was carved up and made subservient to England and other powers, Japan included. The foreign treaties, the loss of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other slices of the Chinese Empire, the dumping of opium and the ravages from that epidemic, wrought devastation.&nbsp;


	As an aside, if you wonder why China is flooding the U.S. with fentanyl and other highly addictive narcotics, causing untold addiction and death among the American populace, look no further than the parallel of the British importing of opium into China in the 19th Century.


	The leaders of Red China have not forgotten these infringements on their autonomy; now that they have the opportunity, they will attempt to redress each of these grievances. It is not a question of if they will move on Taiwan, but rather when. Taiwan is the next step, the first of many. China will adopt the same tactics to its disputes with other Asian countries, primarily over the Spratly Islands dispute with Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei. There is also the dispute over the Senkaku Islands, or as China calls it, the Diaoyu Islands, with Japan.


	It is critical to realize that we are not dealing with a sclerotic Soviet Union of the 1980’s. We must take the blinders off and realize what we are facing. Where the Soviet Union was faltering on the verge of collapse in the final years of the Cold War, China is a nation at the height of its power. China is no longer a backward, rural, Third World country making cheap plastic garbage and products destined only for Wal-Mart shelves. In many of areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum physics, advanced technology and more, they are not just catching up to us -- they have already surpassed us.&nbsp;


	The pronouncements that China is poised for an imminent collapse are simply deluded but also beside the point. Even if we thought this might happen, we have to prepare for the opposite: a continued resurgent China reaching superpower status with designs on being the superpower by mid-century.&nbsp;


	A final thought and hope: America needs to one-up British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his idea of offering refugee status to all those in Hong Kong who want to pack up and leave the coming dictatorship and authoritarian rule and move to Britain. Let them bring their dreams and love of liberty to our shores and enable them to thrive in America. We are still the last and best hope for liberty. That holds true, even with so many here now seeking to impose a Chinese-style authoritarian rule here at home.&nbsp;


	Michael Finch is the President and Chief Operating Officer of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His new collection of poetry is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082WXFP87/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0">Wanderings in Place</a>.

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I was fortunate enough to be in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, traveling with a group headed by the estimable Bruce Herschensohn. It was an extraordinary, if

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