Casar Chavez, Fresno State & Tolerance Police

Casar Chavez, Fresno State & The Tolerance Police

"Chavez was particularly taken with a Synanon practice called 'The Game,' another Maoist 'struggle session' ripoff of the sort so popular at the time, refashioned to accommodate the imaginary 'needs' of rich, guilty white Western liberals."

–Kathy Shaidle, ‘Little Cesar,’ Taki Magazine, 10/23/2012*

A fine article. I'm thinking this must be similar to what were then called "encounter groups" or "rap sessions." As some at the time pointed out, if everyone knows that they are supposed to be building toward some emotional catharsis, a shouting crying crescendo of leftist utopian revelation, it makes the entire enterprise just a script that must be followed. Therefore these sessions were about as free-spirited and intuitive as being strapped into a dentist chair and having your wisdom teeth yanked out.

In my role at the time, as semi-professional student on serial campuses, I was at Fresno State for a couple of years, majoring in government--Model Cities anyone?--and the Chavez grape boycott was a fairly big deal. I recall a student council meeting right before it was about to vote, as the packed-in pro-Chavez crowd proceeded to perform its power clap, a sort of synchronized mechanical clapping of the hands with increasing decibels and frequency, and my watching at least some council kids looking pretty scared. Forget now what the vote was about, but the power clappers definitely won it.

I should have seen the handwriting on the wall. A later incarnation of these same loving members of the Tolerance Police are now firmly in power in America, even in the White  House.

*http://takimag.com/article/little_cesar_kathy_shaidle/print#ixzz2AC2kGcZm