Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
Do not for a moment believe that, just because Trump and the Republicans won the 2024 election, Woke-ism has been decisively defeated. The battle for our cultural soul is not won so easily, in one great Hollywood movie-like triumph.
Woke folk would, if they could, cleanse human nature and human society of anything that does not fit their ideology. They are convinced that they can use the manipulations of social engineering backed by brute force to build a new type of human being worthy of inhabiting their worldly utopia. They are utterly dedicated to what they see as redeeming humanity and saving the world, all on their terms.
Because of their commitment, the Culture War will continue. This is not a bad thing. So long as people who hold traditional values and are recognizably culturally American keep fighting, the Woke will never prevail.
As tedious, exhausting, and frustrating as it can sometimes be, we who resist their counterfeit paradise should remember that it is a privilege to be in this fight. We who actively engage in the struggle for freedom and against being reprogrammed are doing nothing less than preserving Constitutional liberty.
So long as the Constitution is the fundamental law of the land, we may continue to think our own thoughts and speak our own words, even if they are unfashionably politically incorrect. Our reward is to continue to remain free enough to fight to perpetuate our ongoing individual autonomy.
The latest battle in this war for America’s soul involves a Woke female executive taking the barrel and a reclining old man off of the logo for Cracker Barrel restaurants. Despite the calumny that “Cracker” refers to the man who held the whip over slaves, Georgia Crackers were the poor white farmers whose skin was so calloused that corn could proverbially be cracked upon it.
Also, in old country stores, there was literally a barrel filled with crackers, as well as a pickle barrel. The man in the rocker next to the cracker barrel is supposed to be symbolic of the cozy, neighborly atmosphere of the old country store and the hospitable values of that time.
Heretofore, Cracker Barrel has been a unique celebration of “good old-fashioned Americana”. Now, more than its logo is being ideologically purged.
The entire restaurant is being twisted into a soulless corporate cafeteria where traditional American popular culture is displaced by “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI).
Like Aunt Jemima (who was previously upgraded to a working businesswoman in the 1980s), Uncle Ben, the Land-o-Lakes Indian, the Washington Redskins, Bud Light, Harley-Davidson, Jaguar, and Disney, in going Woke Cracker Barrel will likely go broke. When these companies abandoned their core mission in order to embrace political activism, they richly deserve to fail!
These changes in symbols are not merely innocent and superficial commercial re-brandings. Executives in all of these entities have, each in their own way, proudly proclaimed their commitment to abandon “problematic past practices” and embrace a new social justice orientation.
One can reasonably wonder why executives would do this, given the plentiful evidence that such changes predictably decrease profits and harm investors.
It seems that the pursuit of gain, by providing a superlative product or excellent service, has been supplanted as the corporation’s reason for existence. If this is the case, then serving the customer and stockholder have also been replaced as the company’s primary priority.
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has been touted by activists as an antidote to what they deem to be the excesses of Capitalism. Collusion between government regulators and business executives in service to what they broadly categorize as environmental causes (which paradoxically includes DEI) has been increasingly implemented internationally.
The greatest inroads of ESG and DEI activism have been in the fields of banking and credit. Many loan officers and reframed corporate policies now make the loaning of seed monies contingent upon the adoption of Woke ESG and DEI priorities.
These policies effect hiring, promotion, and internal procedure; making identities of race, sex, and ideology more important than individual merit or operational effectiveness. Regulators back these changes with revised legal interpretations and government policies.
Purges are conducted by the newly empowered Commissars-by-any-other-name against whatever they construe to be ideologically impure. They are especially intense in their policing of expression. All language within the workplace must be politically correct. All advertising must be divested of what they label as settler-colonialist white supremacy. All efforts must be made to make the corporation serve the Woke cause.
As consumers, we should boycott the products and services of Woke companies. As Americans, we should insist that the un-Constitutional ESG collusion between our government bureaucracy and companies be stopped.
