PROGRESS

Hubris Born Of Greed Will Result In The Permanent Loss Of American Society

There’s A Hole In This Country Where Its Heart Used To Be

Who are we to wade into the policy battles of international tariffs? We didn’t write our thesis on von Mises and don’t remember much about McKinley. Still, the discussion on tariffs is critically interlinked with Independent X School and the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). It’s no coincidence the decline of the working and middle classes in America rapidly accelerated with the 1993 passage of NAFTA and the decline of education and governance in Independent X Schools rapidly accelerated with the 1996 establishment of NAIS’ Principles of Good Practice (PGPs). The clear throughline connecting these seemingly unrelated events was the outsourcing of sovereignty and loss of self-sufficiency for temporary conveniences. While we are now living the untenable consequences, it’s not too late to course correct.

They Say Building Back Better Will Make America Great

The first and most obvious consequence has been the devaluation of the foundational elements of our nation – education and vital goods, coupled with skyrocketing economic stratification. What originally catapulted us to become the greatest modern empire worked together to escalate the degradation of our society. Look at what handing sovereignty over Independent X School to NAIS on a silver platter has wrought. The top NAIS School headmasters are raking in upwards of $2M a year. Dalton (NY) has three headmasters on payroll at the same time. DEI in all its shapes and forms has overtaken all forms of learning and worse, the power structure in Independent X School. Independent X Staff view the vast majority of us and our children as entitled privileged headaches regardless of our situations. Top NAIS Schools already have no regard for long time supporters and donors. Maybe Horace Mann (NY) dads Howard Lutnick and John Paulson can explain how NAIS Schools can have continued asset growth while wasting resources on the Pollyanna Conference and claiming tuition does not cover our children’s schooling.

The outsourcing that increased capital fed the cycle of fraud until every NAIS School, every institution, every industrial complex, every nation state felt entitled to our capital. The more capital we gave Independent X School or X nation, and the more we continue to give, the more they feel entitled to endless capital and the more disdain they have for us. It’s like being a mom – the more we do for our children, the more they expect and the less appreciative they are. But that’s where the analogy ends, because even if we love Independent X School, the only way to turn the tide is to starve it of capital. We’ve been saying this for years. Now Trump’s threatening Harvard. Starve them.

You Can Have Back Your Freedoms If You Do What We Say

Which leads us to the second consequence. Have you seen every member of the winning math Olympiad team in the US? UK? Canada? Australia? Look at him. Have you noticed anything different about him? Look at his face. Look at his eyes. We’ll give you a hint. His name is Yang. (See The Big Short.) Yes, the second consequence is the China problem. When we say China, we mean CCP because as we know, every Chinese national and business is subject to the direct control of the CCP. As Confucius Institutes throughout US colleges shut down, Chinese capital and corresponding influence surged throughout NAIS Schools. NAIS Schools invited the red dragon into its gates with an increasing number of Chinese affiliated partnerships and trustees. NAIS boarding schools even reserve special Board seats for the Chinese. At the birthplace of GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliance), Concord Academy (MA) Trustee Jane Du is executive of Wahaha Group and established the 3Js Investment Group. Andover (MA) Trustee Yichen Zhang is Senior Vice Chairman of Center for China and Globalization. Lawrenceville’s (NJ) Board has three Chinese nationals with significant Chinese businesses including Alibaba cofounder and Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai whose foundation launched the Social Justice Fund which committed $50 billion to address purported racial justice issues in Brooklyn. Mmm…okay… Hotchkiss (CT) Alum and Trustee Nisa Leung ran the seventh largest venture fund in China in biotech before stepping down when the House Select Committee on the CCP released findings the fund was associated with the CCP’s surveillance state, human rights abuses, PLA, and companies blacklisted by the US government. The father of Deerfield (MA) Alum and Trustee (Yilun) Jack Chen is, among other things, on the board of Xiaomi and married to Mao Zedong’s granddaughter – ensuring authoritarian expansionism remains firmly within the family. Are you getting it yet?

For China, it’s not merely getting an American education or trade, China is looking to capture institutions from within and purchase influence and ownership outright. Xia Baolong calling Americans “peasants” is not an anomaly. In 2017, Primavera Capital, a China-based private equity firm, reportedly paid about $500 million for the Stratford School system in California, while Newopen Group, a Chinese education company, bought Florida Preparatory Academy (FL). NAIS Schools, farmland, land neighboring US bases, infrastructure, political bribes, chauffeur and Fang Fang spies, and not-so-secret CCP police stations in America, the China issue is not one of competition, it’s annihilation from all directions. It’s cute when Western leaders pretend Russia is our biggest enemy and cuter still when they confidently invite China into our systems and thoughtlessly believe the West will remain in control in the end. Their hubris and frankly their racism presents the greatest of existential dangers. That’s not how the Chinese function. The Chinese aren’t stealing IP or building underwater data centers to be accepted by the global Euro-American set. They are looking to dominate. When the CCP freezes your assets, you can be sure your civil liberties along with Taiwan and its semiconductor chip factories will go with it. If you doubt the owners of the largest beverage producer in all of China or chairmen of China Venture Capital are beholden to the CCP, just ask Jack Ma how his orchids are doing. Clearly Ma should have become an NAIS School Trustee.

They Shut Down Our Pipelines, And They Shut Down Our Voices

What good fortune the outsourcing of sovereignty and deterioration of education at NAIS Schools coincided with peak Chinese economic power to allow for the reimagination and transformation of Global/Universal Education. It’s no coincidence Global Studies at Latin School of Chicago (IL) includes, “While analyzing texts about the Industrial Revolution, students were asked to represent a historical figure from that time period—such as Karl Marx…” At Andover’s Tang Institute, whose aim is “reimagining education,” the aptly named list of Collaborators is a who’s who of sabotaging real education in America including NAIS WEF Klingenstein Center and organizations normalizing mediocrity – Challenge Success (co-founded by Harvard-Westlake (CA) alum), GOA (Global Online Academy), and MTC (Mastery Transcript Consortium).

If outsourcing is allowed to continue and China is allowed continued free trade, free capital, and free reign in our systems, our future is nothing but a long road through AI, Alpha Schools (AI learning), Palantir Palisades, and Charles Koch sponsored school choice to Global/Universal Education that will trap us directly into unrestricted technocratic authoritarianism ruled by China. 1984 and Brave New World will be quaint in comparison. We cannot let this happen. Our children are not global citizens. They and we are Americans.

They Shut Down Our Main Streets, And They Shut Down Our Choices

We realize we’re making it seem simpler than it is. The forces in favor of chasing capital and against reciprocal tariffs are much more complex. Or are they? In the end, it comes down to one thing. What do we value? Do we value relatively short-term profit that relies on communities held together by complete compliance? How much is enough? We all know you can’t take it with you. Why are we subsidizing everyone else at devastating costs to our children? So Larry Fink can forget he’s a kid from Van Nuys? Those who lack humility will never be happy. Having a granddaughter at Spence (NY) will not change that.

The “invisible hand” of the market economy may direct our self-interest to produce economic good, but it is not intended to replace the virtuous conduct necessary for a healthy society. As we have seen in recent years, without Smith’s “impartial spectator” guiding our conscience (God), firms, markets, and even governments themselves will collapse under the weight of unfettered self-interest. Independent X Schools used to be where the cradle of American leadership was nurtured, but the chase for profit over noblesse oblige has resulted in the disintegration of morals. NAIS’ institution of its PGPs over Independent X School not only cultivated a culture of institutional greed at NAIS Schools, it also fostered an environment that encouraged NAIS School alums like Valerie Lau (Harvard-Westlake, CA), Sam Bankman-Fried (Crystal Springs Uplands, CA), Elizabeth Holmes (St. John’s, TX), and Mark Zuckerberg (Andover, MA) to create selfish schemes of staggering levels of deceit and even more staggering levels of (illusory) capital. The same can be said about the affects free trade has manufactured in America.

Stick Your Progress Where The Sun Don’t Shine

We can right the ship. Four years after we infiltrated the People of Color Conference (POCC) – NAIS’ crown jewel of conferences, and after we helped expose the blatant racist demagoguery to children at NAIS’ Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), NAIS cancelled POCC and SDLC. Porter-Gaud (SC) was so devastated it had a drop-in session to process the news together. Womp, womp. Now it’s vital we keep going, because whether it’s Klaus Schwab stepping down or NAIS pausing POCC and SDLC, the agenda only goes further underground. NAIS even placed the PGPs behind paywalls after we repeatedly exposed them. Meanwhile, mani-pedi Yazz Queen Rodney Glasgow is on to the next grift, already announcing his own conference to fill the NAIS POCC and SDLC void after having left Sandy Spring Friends School (MD), where he was recently headmaster, in such ruins it is shutting its doors this year. Our hearts are with the Sandy Spring Friends families, teachers, and staff. This should not be happening. This is why we are fighting. It may be too late for Sandy Spring Friends, but St. Andrew’s (FL) Trustees: You can still right the ship at St. Andrew’s. Be courageous and be strong. YOU are the Trustees. Pull up your big boy pants and take control of YOUR school.

Keep Your Big Mess Away From Me And Mine

Don’t let anyone tell you protecting ourselves and our children is a bad thing. Chinese manufacturers exposing on TikTok the real fabrication of luxury goods (something we already knew decades ago) are no threat at all. It’s like Canada threatening to block Pornhub from America. Do it! We are fighting for the soul of America, and it doesn’t come from gauche conspicuous consumption or trashy voyeuristic sex. It’s time to right the systems, save our institutions, and protect ourselves. Starve out DEI until it rebrands to DOI until it reimagines to Community until it is DOA.

If You Leave Us Alone, Well, We’d All Be Just Fine

While we can’t predict what the future holds, protecting the cradle of American “democracy” (constitutional republic) does not come from Astro-turf dark money sponsored white Boomer anti-Musk protests or mentally unstable beta Gen Z anti-TPUSA Fuck Trump protests and patriotism-appropriating newsletters. It comes from actual policies like reciprocal tariffs, which whether classified as a tax or not, are necessary to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. So do you prioritize our own children or shall it be as the greatest social commentators of the past century said, “Like the NBA, we welcome Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We, too, love money more than freedom and democracy.” It better be the former because we ain’t backing down.

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