[Excerpted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively through VDARE.com]

Crisis in the Middle East! scream the headlines. After all these years—what am I saying? all these decades—editors everywhere must have the phrase "Crisis In The Middle East" set up as a single-key macro. But what they don’t have set up as a macro: “No Escape From Diversity Hell”—the mounting internal problems Israel has because it is an ethnically divided society. Of course, that might mean acknowledging that the U.S. has these problems too. And, unlike Israel, it’s importing more.

But Crisis in the Middle East! Is this week's news; so with a sigh of weary resignation I hit the pause button on my fantasy about a mud-wrestling contest between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Marjorie Taylor Greene confronts Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez outside House chamber, CNN, May 13, 2021) and turn my attention to it.

Last week there was some argy-bargy in Jerusalem over Arab families being evicted by Jews. That got Israeli Arabs out demonstrating; that culminated in major riots on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This is a holy place, especially to Muslims, as their ancient mosques and shrines have mostly survived there while Judaism's ancient temples haven't. Israeli police went into the holiest mosque to control the riot, which of course riled up the Arabs even more.

It hasn't helped that last week saw the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, immediately followed by the three-day festival of Eid al-Fitr. So for Muslims, religious passion was at its highest pitch this week—a sort of Muslim Easter.

Then the Hamas party that rules the Gaza Strip decided to join in the ructions by firing missiles into Israel's towns and cities. This was terror-bombing, not strategic strikes. Israel naturally responded with air strikes on Gaza, strikes which were strategic, not just terroristic.

On taking the oath of office, Jan. 20, Joe Biden may not have realized it, but history had dealt him a pair of aces.

The COVID-19 pandemic had reached its apex, infecting a quarter of a million Americans every day. Yet, due to the discovery and distribution of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the incidence of infections had crested and was about to turn sharply down.

By May, the infection rate had fallen 80%, as had the death toll.

Thanks to the Operation Warp Speed program driven by President Donald Trump, the country made amazing strides in Biden's first 100 days toward solving the major crises he inherited: the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918-1919 and the economic crash it had engendered.

But Biden's pace car has hit the wall.

Recently, VDARE.com’s Lance Welton cited my work when suggesting that a general decline in intelligence—among whites, quite apart from the immigration of lower IQ races—was one reason for the disgraceful jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin show trial. People often react incredulously when told of this IQ decline: “Haven’t you heard of the Flynn Effect? The Flynn Effect shows that IQ scores are rising and that we are becoming more intelligent!” Those who say things like this—such as Angela Saini in her book Superior: The Return of Race Science—simply have no idea what the Flynn Effect actually is. So I will now explain.

Intelligence is the ability to solve cognitive problems. The quicker you can solve a set problem, or the harder it has to be before you’re stumped, the cleverer you are.

The “Flynn Effect” was the term coined by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their 1994 book The Bell Curve for the sustained increase in intelligence test scores that took place during most of the 20^th century—until the 1990s, as it turned out. They named it after James Flynn (1934-2020), who had done much of the work establishing this phenomenon. It is vital to note that Flynn never argued that increasing test scores were proof that average intelligence itself was rising.

After a year of being browbeaten by THE SCIENTISTS not to wear a mask, to wear a mask, to wear double masks, to get vaccinated and still wear a mask, our analytic overlords are still no closer to determining the tiny little issue of where this virus came from.

Recently, the widely respected science writer Nicholas Wade published an article in Medium pushing the idea that—contrary to what “the scientists” assured us—COVID-19 might have come from the Wuhan virology lab, not the wet markets.

According to Wade, the virologists attacking the lab theory were claiming scientific certainty for something unknowable, and at least one of them has a gigantic conflict of interest. Even at a time when “TRUST THE SCIENCE!” has become a liberal mating call, I’m shocked at the deceptions of these guys.

Wade cites two groups as leading the attack on the lab theory.

Suddenly, ordinary Americans are rising to resist anti-white Cultural Marxist Critical Race Theory indoctrination in their schools. An authentic grassroots movement at the state and local level is forcing state legislatures and school boards to act against this poisonous Communist doctrine. Naturally, the Regime Media is speaking power to truth, trying to “explain” things to the peasants who don’t want their children harmed. But that this is even judged necessary is a very good sign.

Of course, if we were to take Journofa and academics at their word, Critical Race Theory would make Civic Nationalism completely impossible. If CRT really becomes the orthodox teaching of the American Global Empire, the Historic American Nation would need to break away in order to survive.

The scope of the anti-CRT movement should not be underestimated. Idaho has successfully banned Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools [Idaho governor signs bill to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools, by Mike Jordan, The Guardian, May 6, 2021]. Oklahoma has passed a similar law [Gov. Stitt signs bill that restricts teaching of critical race theory in Oklahoma Schools, by Hicham Raache, News4Oklahoma, May 7, 2021]. In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee is expected to sign a similar bill passed by the legislature banning CRT [Race shouldn’t be taught in ‘divisive’ way, Tennessee governor says, by Jonathan Mattise and Kimberlee Kruesi, Chattanooga Times Free Press, May 8, 2021]. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who increasingly looks like a presidential contender, has condemned CRT [DeSantis condemns critical race theory, says it won’t be taught in Florida classrooms, by Brooke Singman, Fox News, March 18, 2021]. Finally, there is an effort to ban CRT in Texas, where it just passed the House [Texas House advances bill targeting ‘critical race theory’ over objections from education, civics, and business groups, by Talia Richman, The Dallas Morning News, May 11, 2021].

There are also important battles being waged at the local level. Near Dallas, a group of parents won a victory over pro-CRT candidates for the school board in a local election that became national news [Voters in Dallas Suburb Lead Revolt Against Critical Race Theory Curriculum, by Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal, May 6, 2021]. In Loudon County in Northern Virginia, parents organized against CRT and were so effective that a teacher openly denounced them as, guess what, racists [Teacher accuses parent group of ‘racism,’ after group Loudon Times-Mirror, by John Battison, Loudon Times-Mirror, April 16, 2021]. There is now a PAC for parents to fight back against those who want to impose CRT on students [Virginia parents group starts PAC to unseat school board members over racial and reopening controversies, by Kaelan Deese, Washington Examiner, April 13, 2021].

However, we should be clear about what this is about. This isn’t about white identity, unless we want to say this is some implicit, subconscious form of it. Instead, it’s people who really believe in colorblindness pushing back against an effort to make everything about race.