Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 1:37pm

Leftist Witch Hunt

 

My daughter over the summer helped move a friend in to her new house in Bloomington, Indiana.  I was therefore somewhat interested when my bride brought this story to my attention yesterday:

 

The market was a lot calmer once it reopened compared to two weeks ago, but some of the same concerns were there.

Schooner Creek Farm, the vendor at the center of the farmer’s market controversy, was back.

They’ve been accused of having ties to white supremacy.

“I’m only feet away from them and knowing that makes me completely uncomfortable. I am a minority. If there is someone here affiliated with a hate group, it needs to be reviewed,” said vendor Monica Billman.

We tried speaking to the owner of Schooner Creek Farm, Sarah Dye, but she didn’t want to go on camera.

In a previous interview, she denied any ties to a hate group.

She describes herself as an Identitarian.

Protesters with No Space for Hate showed up to voice their concerns peacefully.

“We have specific designated areas were people can voice their opinions and have those debates and discussions. We have made it very clear to people,” McDevitt said.

No Space for Hate’s founder, Abby Ang, says the market still needs to become a more inclusive space.

“If you are transgender, if you are LGBTQ, if you’re an immigrant, if you’re not from around here or you’re not what people consider to be the face of Bloomington — not white — you should feel welcomed here,” Ang said.

She thinks by the farmer’s market allowing Schooner Creek Farm to still do business, it shows that the city isn’t trying to be more welcoming.

Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton says Schooner Creek hasn’t violated any rules, and therefore they are allowed to sell at the farmers market.

“I can’t kick people out because of what they believe, whatever that belief is. If they behave in ways that are problematic for the market, if they behave in ways against the rules, or if they behave outside the market in ways that violate the rules, we can impose, but we can’t be the thought police,” Mayor Hamilton said.

Go here to read the rest.  I am old enough to recall when Leftists used to be against this type of thing when Communists were involved.  They condemned it vociferously using terms like “blacklisting” , “red=baiting”, etc.  Now it seems that the contemporary Left can’t tolerate that anyone be left in peace to earn their daily bread if they are guilty, or suspected of being guilty, of badthought.  That this is completely inimical to any concept of a free society is for them a feature not a bug.  The only freedom most Leftists today really endorse is the freedom to agree with them.  It all calls to mind the Twilight Zone episode Four O’Clock:

 

 

That’s Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He’s rather arbitrarily chosen four o’clock as his personal Gotterdammerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it’s four o’clock – and wherever you are, it happens to be the Twilight Zone.

 

Rod Serling

 

0 0 votes
Article Rating
21 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Hank
Hank
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 4:26am

Perhaps, printing an accusation of “hate” an easy way to restrict the competition’s trade or eerie a score.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 7:43am

Stefan Molyneaux has an excellent series on YouTube about the collapse of California.
The Left cannot win any debate or any argument in the marketplace of ideas based on logic, reason or success of their ideology. They seize power by setting off one class against another, one race against another, one ethnic group against another. Alinsky, the consummate Leftist, put it in so many words when he said to pick the target, isolate it and attack it.
There is no civil discussion of issues. There are only screams of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia ad infinitum.
The Left is totalitarian in nature. There is no disagreeing with the Left. Those who disagree must be destroyed.

Well, I won’t go down without a fight.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 8:43am

They seem pretty consistent to me– they want the folks who make the uncomfortable to be forbidden from being around.

That’s what segregation was.
That’s what the Blacklist was– note it was Hollywood doing it to folks who basically made them look bad, not that they actually disagreed with.

They really like ‘othering’, and then excluding the other.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 8:49am

Yesterday’s Gospel reading drives home the point. If we are His we don’t cave to the false mercy of the world or it’s kings and princes.
We stand firm with love for neighbor but hatred for sin. To call sin a choice that must be respected or celebrated is nothing more than blasphemy. We didn’t pick the fight but we must stand our ground or else our demeanor will be taken as acceptance…silence has a cost.
Just look at pro- choice Catholics and Obama slithering in the WH.
Silence has killed so many babies.
Bishops have failed in the fight for life. Rant over….

Gospel – Luke 12:49-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Grace, Redemption and Heaven is not cheap. It costs too. Are we willing to pay the cost by our witness or are we being swept away in the current? The current culture is raging. Our foundation will not crumble. God keeps His promises.

Art Deco
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 9:50am

You may not be interested in the gleichschaltung but the gleichschaltung is interested in you.

Jessica Mitford claimed that some FBI agents showed up at her employer’s and persuaded him to fire her from her job (selling classified ads for a newspaper). It wouldn’t surprise me to discover this particular story was misrepresented if not outright false, but perhaps it was true and yet another black mark contra the FBI. I think if you unpacked it, you’d discover the vast majority of people fired from their jobs for political affiliations were union officials, teachers, and public employees NOS and the vast majority of people ‘blacklisted’ worked in the entertainment business. BTW, people up to their eyeballs in Communist affliations (e.g. Howard da Silva and Will Geer) were back on the job by 1961 / 62; the blacklist lasted about 10 years. Howard Zinn, a three-meetings-a-week Communist Party member and known to the FBI as such, landed a f/t tenure-track faculty position at Boston University in 1959. All of Earl Browder’s children were able to land faculty positions.

People like Ellen Schrecker and Victor Navasky have promoted the idea that all of this was vicious aggression against the innocent. See the late RWB Lewis on the atmosphere of the publishing business in New York, ca. 1945; red haze operators therein were quite successful at blocking anti-Communist literature from being published and could and did injure careers. Ronald Reagan’s political odyssey began in 1947 during his terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, attempting to keep Communist cells from acquiring and maintaining control of union locals. (The critical mass of red haze types employed as screenwriters had been able to keep anti-communist films from being made). And, of course, we know what happened to academe once the left had free rein.

Art Deco
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 9:51am

What’s the over-under on the amount of the grant these activists scored from a sorosphere outfit?

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 2:00pm

Gospel – Luke 12:49-53

I must admit, I spent way more mental cycles trying to game that out than I probably should have– I recognize it’s a metaphor, but there do my cattle graze– and while I noticed the kids are against the parents, and GRandma with the kids, only just noticed that the only pressure on the married couple is via loyalty of the same kind that is attacked by the other ‘against’s.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 19, AD 2019 2:23pm

Jessica Mitford claimed that some FBI agents showed up at her employer’s and persuaded him to fire her from her job (selling classified ads for a newspaper).

Never heard of her, but a quick look at her Britannica article suggests she’s one of those ‘well behaved women never make history’ sorts.

Which, based off of prior observation, means there’s a good chance she felt justified in “adjusting” the content she put out, and folks objecting were vile aggressors. (yes, you can do a lot with fiddling with ads)

Nathan
Nathan
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 12:25am

@ArtDeco and ,
I know a bit about the extremely famous, and also very troubled Mitford family.
Jessica Mitford was indeed a Communist, who moderated in later life to a progressive Democrat, but still her suspicions here were indeed true. She also was a respected journalist, who published a good expose on the corruption in the funeral industry. In fact, what happened to her was nothing compared to what happened to the other Mitford sisters. One sister (Diana) was arrested and imprisoned in Britain without breaking any crime during WWII…and was turned in to authorities by yet another sister (Nancy). But Diana was a fascist, married to the head of the British Union of Fascists (and married in the home of Joseph Goebbels). Yes this is all true, and you can Google it if you don’t believe me. But it gets even worse–another sister, Unity, shot herself in the head because Britain went to war with her beloved Hitler.

So authorities like the FBI decided to infringe upon Jessica Mitford’s civil rights because they had grave suspicion about her, and worse had been done to Diana.

Catholic writer Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited, among others) was also very close with numerous Mitford sisters and helped and encouraged Nancy to become a world famous writer. So the family is very complex and not all evil either.

The point of this story. Life is difficult and complicated and things are not so simple. Jessica Mitford was indeed harassed by police because she was part of a very famous family that had very extreme political views.
But I guess you are technically correct that people who are not so well behaved do often become infamous and make history, but please have compassion and empathy to someone who was put in a difficult situation which we could never imagine. And don’t prejudge people, even if they are far left.
Thank you.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 2:23am

In Luke 12 the Lord is telling us in no uncertain terms that the pull of the world must not take first place in the hearts of men. His kingdom must reign in us. All of us. No room for fence walkers.
All in, if you will.

The left is bent on the world.
The Bible is a hindrance for the left and their agenda of making earth a paradise here and now.

We must not be complacent.
Our families may not be on board with Jesus Christ but that doesn’t mean we cave in and adopt false God’s to “keep the peace ” so to speak.

Art Deco
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 5:25am

She also was a respected journalist, who published a good expose on the corruption in the funeral industry.

Or she made good coin publishing an extended libel of undertakers. Take your pick.

Art Deco
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 5:27am

\ Jessica Mitford was indeed harassed by police because she was part of a very famous family that had very extreme political views.

Do we have any evidence of this other than her say-so? Antique FBI 302s, perhaps?

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 10:10am

Nathan-
apparently you’re unfamiliar with the bumper-sticker?

I didn’t judge her as ‘evil’ in any way, and I didn’t judge her beyond an evaluation of the probability that her specific claim was inaccurate and/or misleading.

Having crazy sisters has nothing to do with it, having a sister arrested for close, personal ties to guys that the country was at war with isn’t relevant, and assuming that she was telling the absolute complete and objective truth when she made an extraordinary claim is a heck of a high bar to jump.

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 10:26am

The only thing I can find for evidence is that after she went to a socialist meeting, they made a file on her and her employer was interviewed as part of that.

You know, the socialists, those guys whose kill count makes Hitler drool and turn green with envy?

That isn’t harassment. It’s basic investigation.

Nathan
Nathan
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 9:02pm

Simple Google search shows the FBI kept a large file on her. I don’t have the time to wade through the documents. The government should not be spying on private citizens in a democracy. This whole article was about conservatives being harassed. Anyway, here it is. https://vault.fbi.gov/jessica-mitford/jessica-mitford-part-1-of-8/view [You can witch to the other 7 parts if you want to read many hundred of pages, but I know you have no more time than me to search through this.]

Yes, the fact that two of her other sisters were Nazis, would likely shape people’s views of her, and make them suspicious. It’s just human nature.

And what evidence do you have that she is lying? You want me to disprove a negative. That’s almost impossible. And find that in writing, when if it happened it would probably never be written down. And the burden of proof is on you.

I don’t have the time here to keep arguing. Sorry I got involved in the first place. Keep thinking whatever you want that she’s a liar because she is a leftist.

I hope you do know that the FBI had files trying to find dirt on the civil right movement leaders, including MLK, Jr.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 9:46pm

I’d be more worried about the dirt Google has on everyone than about any government spying,

were I you.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 10:27pm

On a more somber note, I’ve been thinking a lot about stories like this one, the earlier one from Michigan, where the farmer in question was banned from the local farmer’s market, the trolling antics of the dispicable and deeply disturbed Jonathan Yaniv, bakers, photographers, etc. and what keeps rolling around in my mind is this: Nero was a cross-dressing bisexual of insatiable appetites. He once played the role of the “bride” in a marriage to one of his freedman, and the groom when marrying another (in which he first had his “bride” castrated, in order to preserve “her” girlish good looks).

He that hath understanding, let him [understand].

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, August 20, AD 2019 11:28pm

And on a sour note: Speaking of Leftist witch hunts, Australia sucks.

Big time.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 21, AD 2019 6:37am

Capitalism will win out in Australia as the tourist business falls. How many tourists visit Venezuela now? My brother spent his honeymoon there but no more.
When Australia is disinvited from the United Nations and the United States; when Australia has lost its American Embassy and it U.S. ambassador, Australia may start to think.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, August 21, AD 2019 8:49am

Nathan-
again, they investigated her AFTER she went to a meeting for an homicidal enemy power.

On what do you base your idea that the gov’t shouldn’t have files on “private citizens,” since that is what criminal investigations involve?

And the burden of proof is on you.

No, because I already managed it. You keep making assertions and accusations only slightly related to what was being said, then run off in another direction.

I don’t have the time here to keep arguing. Sorry I got involved in the first place. Keep thinking whatever you want that she’s a liar because she is a leftist.

Oh, that’s cute. Throw out a bunch of chaff, sling mud, declare you don’t have time to argue and stick in a final accusation. But wait, there’s more final assertions! Whooo!

Thank you for conceding that you don’t actually have any support for your flip-out, you just want those who don’t agree with you to be wrong.

You might also want to read the documents you linked. They started that file because a foreign national with known ties to Nazis was in the US, so of course they were checking if she was a spy. Le horror! Let us all be outraged that someone actually investigated a possible threat before there was a pile of bodies! And then they found that there was no reason to investigate further, and kept it on file– so that when someone noticed suspicious behavior, they could open the file, go “oh, yeah, we know about that, she’s cool” and carry on.
Then it has her application for federal employment and background check.

Then it has the documents from the investigation where she insisted she wasn’t in any groups that donated to Communist causes…while having a life-time subscription to their newsletter, and being a member who regularly went to meetings for the Communist Party of America.

So she definitely lied, according to your linked documents, and frankly given the known tactics of the communists that’s pretty dang suspicious.

But clearly it’s horrible and evil and wrong to have any sort of a file on possible spies.
Because being America means we have to give folks the first punch for free, or something?

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top