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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Wednesday Salon: William Buckley Interviews Huey Newton and Muhammad Ali
Oh the good old days when a man could smoke a cigarette on television.
In the interest of balance, I have decided to occasionally highlight Conservatives that I find tolerable...and perhaps even like, if not respect. Although he was wrong on Civil Rights, I still hold William F. Buckley's intellect in high regard.
By comparison, the metaphorical suicide bombers in the contemporary Tea Party GOP who are holding a gun to the head of the American economy with their irresponsible position on the debt ceiling makes me yearn for a return to the days of Buckley, Goldwater, and Bush the Elder. I never would have imagined that I would write such a thing.
A healthy American democracy is prefaced on responsible political parties and a responsible electorate that works in the interest of the Common Good. In the Age of Obama and the Great Recession, the Republican Party with its cultish followers have abdicated their seats at the table of good sense in order to play a game of ill informed political brinkmanship with the U.S. economy as the ultimate victim. It would seem that once more the Federalists were correct in their worries about the rabble and the dangers of vested interests in the form of a political party that has lowered itself to the level of a brutish faction.
I wonder if the Constitutional fetishists on the Right appreciate that irony?
As seen here, Ali, one of my heroes, is not a perfect man. Nor, is he always as coherent and integrated in his thinking as memory and its worshipful lens would have us believe. Likewise, Huey Newton, he whose picture adorns many a young black nationalist in training's college dorm wall, is also freed from the lens of nostalgia. Both are sincere and imperfect. Neither is as articulate as we dreamed them to be decades later. Huey P. Newton and Muhammad Ali remain high in my estimation precisely because of those traits. Once more, I like my heroes down to Earth...not so high on a pedestal that I cannot reach them.
The American people do not need great men or great women to get us out of this mess. We just need reasonable folks who are not willing to burn a village in order to "liberate it" in the interest of advancing their political ideology.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Of Happy Slaves and Racial Microaggressions: Why Herman Cain Could be the Perfect Obama Rival
If you prick me do I not bleed?
After reading The Christian Science Monitor's essay "Why Herman Cain Could be the GOP's Perfect Obama Rival," I am in violation of one of my own pedagogical rules as something about Professor Charlton McIlwain's analysis has rubbed me the wrong way--and well, for lack of a better phrase, it feels personal.
I often tell my students that the "I" in our discussions of politics is a beginning and not an end for analysis. Normative priors are important to the degree to which they are transparent and acknowledged. Feelings matter, emotions matter, but they must not cloud reasoned analysis. Especially in discussions of race and identity politics--where the personal can be quite political--this is not always easy.
McIlwain's analysis of Herman Cain's branding in his campaign ads is spot on. And while the focus on the strategies used by Cain to distinguish and market himself as a black conservative to white conservative audiences may be correct, the conclusion (that those strategies will translate into electoral success) is a shaky one at best. By comic book analogy, if President Obama is Superman, Herman Cain is his bizzarro universe flying backwards doppelganger. Ultimately, the latter has not a snowball's chance in hell of winning the Republican nomination in 2012.
Nevertheless, there is a sharp moment in "Why Herman Cain Could be the GOP's Perfect Obama Rival" that gave me pause. Consider the following passage:
Label me a pedant, but as a point of historical clarification, those times were never simple.
But Cain counters the black liberal stigma in one fell swoop. He stamped "conservative" across his political ads, making the label his badge of honor. You see, in today's racial parlance, conservative is not only antithetical to being liberal; it is antithetical to being black, which is what you must be if you're a black man looking for Republican votes.
Cain further showcases his conservative persona. In one such ad he recalls one of his greatest life lessons. "My daddy always said, 'dem that's comin', get on the wagon, dems that ain't, get out the way." Cain's quaint recollection taps into conservative nostalgia. They remind viewers that the good 'ol days were not only simpler. They were days when folks like Cain's daddy still spoke the broken English of their slave forebears, and tended the mules pulling those wagons.
McIlwain offers a half-digested thought where follow through is oh so critical. Most important, a failure to bring the argument full circle and to close its loop leads to an avoidance of some hard questions such as the following:
1. Why do Conservatives find said images comforting? Why the stereotypical image of worn over, former slaves, who are simple folksy types ready to receive the benevolence of the White Man's Burden, and not of a free people with agency who fought every step of the way to liberate themselves in the face of horrific and oppressive white supremacy?
2. What precisely about the idea of black folks a few years removed from slavery and perpetual status as human property resonates with the White Conservative Soul?
3. Is this a Gone with the Wind moment, where some silly, empty nostalgia of happy darkies on the old plantation still looms large over the American psyche? What types of political work does that do for Herman Cain, for the Tea Party GOP, for Conservatives?
4.Why do folks like Herman Cain (i.e. his obsession with "being off the plantation" or a "runaway slave") and others feel so free to abuse the history of black Americans and the hellish reality that was chattel slavery? No other group, with perhaps the exception of Native Americans, has their history so easily played with, where there are few, if any, consequences for such gross misrepresentations of fact?
There is angst afoot here. In sum, "Why Herman Cain Could be the GOP's Perfect Obama Rival," feels like a racial microaggression, where it is not the intent, or even the soundness of The Christian Science Monitor's claims, but the context and implication of said work that signals an uncomfortable and unpleasant truth.
Help a brother out if you could. Am I on to something here?
Chauncey DeVega on Ring of Fire Radio Discussing the GOP's "My Best Friend is Black" Strategy
Sharing as always in the interest of improving my game.
Here is my interview from a few weeks back on Ring of Fire Radio that is a followup to my "The "GOP's My Best Friend is Black Strategy" over at Alternet. This was a solid 15 or so minutes--of which the above clip is the first half--where I covered a good amount on Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, and the other assorted low hanging rotten fruit that comprise the black face of the Tea Party GOP.
It was fun, and fingers crossed, there is more to come. I was a radio host for many years, and as I do more interviews I am reminded of how I miss the format. Perhaps Crom will smile down on me and an opportunity will make itself available in the near future? We shall see...
Monday, July 4, 2011
"The Constitution Has Been Highjacked by Vicious People": Michael Dyson's Ownage of George Will and the Constitutional Fetishists
Academics are often too nice. I am not: the Tea Party Koch brothers funded movement is sinister. They are the Know Nothings of the 21st century and should be swept into the dustbin of history with great haste.
Professor Michael Dyson brings some sonnage to George Will on This Week and the onanistic originalism of the Constitutional fetishists. Brother Dyson is sometimes a mile wide and an inch deep in his analysis. But he is never boring or lacking in lyrical dexterity, flow, and more than a few quotables--fitting given that dude is "the hip hop professor" after all.
Harvard's Jill Lepore is also great. She has had her foot ten inches up the Tea Party brigands behinds from jump street. Dr. Lepore's C-SPAN interview from a few months back is also quite good, as is her book on the tea baggers and their misunderstandings of American history and the political tradition of which they are part (but not heir, please make note of the distinction, as it is quite important).
The Constitution is a practical document, authored by imperfect people, and has always been a work in progress, whose fully democratic possibilities still await us. The Framers thought the American people to be forward looking and not moribund by a narrow devotion to the past. The Constitutional fetishists on the Right oftentimes, and in particular as of late, have forgotten that fact.
This can be forgiven: the impossible made real with the election of Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States, can tend to do that to those who are drunk on the white racial frame and possessed of a sick White Conservative Soul.
On July 4, 2011 let's embrace a new maturity. America is at the apotheosis of her Empire. It is now time to grow up and see her founding document as something real and practical. The Constitution is not divine. Moreover, the answers to our collective problems do exist and will be found...but not if the American people embrace a wax museum come to life version of their collective history (and possible futures).
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Independence Day Heroes: On Black Loyalists and Freedom Fighters Like Colonel Tye
I hope you are all enjoying your 4th of July weekend gluttony, cheap beer drinking, failed efforts at rutting, obligatory fireworks and patriotic proclamations. Independence Day is like all national holidays--a day to reinscribe sacred mythologies. One such mythology is that of Crispus Attucks, the first person to be killed by the British in what would become The War for American Independence.
Crispus Attucks is a great character in our national play. For Conservatives, low information real American types, the average lay person, Right-wing bloviators, and Constitutional fetishists, Attucks is proof positive that the country, and the framers, were not racist, and slavery a mere inconvenience in America's "exceptional" narrative. It would seem that in total, simple minds like simple stories.
For black Americans and their allies, Crispus Attucks is a martyr who can be channeled to demonstrate the quintessentially American nature of the black experience. Because whiteness remains interchangeable with "American," Attucks is a great counterweight. If the first American killed in the war to end British "tyranny" was black, what does that say about a narrative in which blacks folks are/were imagined as perpetual outsiders?
Moreover, what of inconvenient facts? For example, more blacks fought for the British than the Continentals. With the former promising manumission, and the later hypocrites on their failure to reconcile their own high minded virtues of liberty and democracy with the perpetual bondage of many thousands, the choice seemed a logical one. And lest there be any confusion, African American Loyalists and Continentals were both engaged in a grand freedom struggle for their people.
One of my favorite little known African American heroes who happened to fight for the British is the legendary Colonel Tye. A former slave, he put the fear of God in white Continentals throughout New Jersey and New York. Sadly, Colonel Tye will never get his own movie because Americans across the color line prefer their stories of black liberty and freedom to be portrayed in simplistic terms.
This Brother was no joke. Read on:
Colonel Tye, the most feared and respected guerrilla commander of the Revolution, was one of the many enslaved Africans who escaped and fought for the British.
Known in his youth as Titus, he was one of four young men owned by John Corlies of Shrewsbury, in the eastern part of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Shrewsbury Quakers, under increasing pressure from their Philadelphia-influenced counterparts to the west, finally began to end slavery among themselves in the 1760s. Corlies did not follow the local practice of educating his slaves or of freeing them on their 21st birthdays, and by 1775, he was one of the few remaining Quaker slaveholders in Monmouth County.
In November 1775, the day after Dunmore's Proclamation was issued, 22-year old Titus fled from his cruel, quick-tempered master, joining the flood of Monmouth County blacks who sought refuge with the British as soldiers, sailors and workers. Titus changed his name, gaining notoriety three years later as Captain Tye, the pride of Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.
While not formally commissioning black officers, the British army often bestowed titles out of respect, and Tye quickly earned their respect. In his first known military incursion, the June, 1778 Battle of Monmouth (in which not a single black from the county fought for the patriots), Tye captured a captain in the Monmouth militia.
In July, 1779, Tye's band launched a raid on Shrewsbury, and carried away clothing, furniture, horses, cattle, and two of the town's inhabitants. With his "motley crew" of blacks and white refugees known as "cow-boys," Tye continued to attack and plunder patriot homes, using his knowledge of Monmouth County's swamps, rivers and inlets to strike suddenly and disappear quickly. These raids, often aimed at former masters and their friends, were a combination of banditry, reprisal, and commission; Tye and his men were well-paid by the British, sometimes earning five gold guineas.
During the harsh winter of 1779, Tye was among an elite group of twenty-four black Loyalists, known as the Black Brigade, who joined with the Queen's Rangers, a British guerrilla unit, to protect New York City and to conduct raids for food and fuel.
By 1780, Colonel Tye had become an important military force. Within one week in June, he led three actions in Monmouth County. On June 9, Tye and his men murdered Joseph Murray, hated by the Loyalists for his summary execution of captured Tories under a local vigilante law. On June 12, while the British attacked Washington's dwindling troops, Tye and his band launched a daring attack on the home of Barnes Smock, capturing the militia leader and twelve of his men, destroying their cannon, depriving Washington of needed reinforcements, and striking fear into the hearts of local patriots.
In response, Governor Livingston, who had tried two years before to abolish slavery in New Jersey, invoked martial law -- a measure which proved totally ineffective -- even as large numbers of blacks, heartened by news of Tye's feats, fled to British-held New York.
In a series of raids throughout the summer, Tye continued to debilitate and demoralize the patriot forces. In a single day, he and his band captured eight militiamen (including the second in command), plundered their homes, and took them to imprisonment in New York, virtually undetected and without suffering a single casualty.
In September, 1780 Tye led a surprise attack on the home of Captain Josiah Huddy, whom Loyalists had tried to capture for years. Amazingly, Huddy and his friend Lucretia Emmons managed to hold off their attackers for two hours, until the Loyalists flushed them out by setting the house afire. During the battle, Tye was shot in the wrist, and days later, what was thought to be minor wound turned fatal when lockjaw set in.
After Tye's death, Colonel Stephen Blucke of the Black Pioneers replaced him as leader of the raiders, continuing their attacks well after the British defeat at Yorktown. Tye's reputation lived on, among his comrades as well as the Patriots, who argued that the war would have been won much sooner had Tye been enlisted on their side.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
On "Kenyan" Birtherism: Herman Cain Goes Mandingo and Commits Black on Black Crime Against President Obama (Again)
Given Herman Cain's obsession with slavery, and how he, unlike Black folks who are not Tea Party GOPers is "off the plantation," this clip seemed oh so appropriate.
There is an interview with King High Vizier of
As is his recurring script, Herman Cain double blackens up and channels the worst Tea Party New Right Birther demagoguery in his Times' interview. And of course, Cain puts Dr. King in his mouth...again--just nasty given how Herman Cain has proudly admitted that he was a free rider during The Civil Rights movement because he had better things to do.
The real money shot in Cain's channeling of Birtherism is how he is the human chaff and cover for the worst of the GOP's race baiting. In the Age of Obama, he is the black front man for Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy where the latter's famous admission still rings true in the stale "Kenyan" and "show us the birth certificate" verbal Right wing ejaculations that:
''You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.The relevant portion of the interview follows. I do wonder what was edited out, and if the reporter tried to save some of what remains of Herman Cain's dignity.
''And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'''
Before you announced your campaign, you said that the liberal establishment is scared that "a real black man might run against Barack Obama." Are you suggesting Obama isn't really black?
A real black man is not timid about making the right decisions, that's what I meant. Look, I'm not getting into this whole thing about President Obama. It is documented that his mother was white and his father was from Africa. If he wants to call himself black, fine. If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I'm not going down this color road.
But you're saying he's not really a black man.
Not in terms of a strong black man that I'm identifying with. I identify with a strong black man like Martin Luther King Jr., or my dad, Luther Cain Jr., who didn't have a lot of formal education, but he had a Ph.D. in common sense.
It has been said that the Tea Party has embraced you partly to provide cover for some racism in its ranks — like, How could racists support a black guy?
There's no validity to that whatsoever. People who are still making those accusations have no other way to intimidate the growing force of the Tea Party citizens' movement.
At Tea Party rallies, you see signs referring to Obama as Kenyan. Are those racist?
Not if you're from Kenya. But he was born here.
I don't think calling him a Kenyan is racist. Secondly, I think those kinds of signs have stopped because the leaders of the Tea Party movement have instructed their folks that we don't need to do that kind of stuff.
Friday, July 1, 2011
July 4th BBQ Reading: A Brief History of Racial Violence at Chicago's Beaches
Question: Why are the black kids sitting together
Zora and I were strolling about one of Chicago's beaches last weekend when she smartly observed that the black folks were sitting on one side of the beach, and the whites on the other. Those of mixed race and members of groups who exist between the black/white binary were quite predictably sprinkled among and between the two groups.
"A practical social scientific puzzle!" I exclaimed.
My intuition was that folks take signals about seating from others and it becomes a game of sorts. Thinking more sentimentally, I also suggested that maybe the black folks sit so that they can see the South and the West of the city. Thus, they are facing home. The whites sit facing north, towards Downtown and The Gold Coast, their "natural" space and 'hood.
We did not resolve the puzzle to our satisfaction. A few days later the obvious dawned on me, in a hyper-segregated city, one with a long history of racial violence at its beaches, perhaps the racially coded spaces were echoes of the near past? Jim Crow may be dead, but history isn't even yesterday. Moreover, our daily habits are functions of the past even if it exists only as cultural memory...or for some, a practical life survival skill.
In what promises to be a long hot summer full of flash mob ign't antics, rumors of race remain real. That phrase, "rumors of race" is so beautiful because it captures so very well, and so much, the history of America. From race riots, to lynchings, to rebellion, to resistance, they are all bundled under that umbrella phrase. Rumors of race does some double work in an era of colorblindness because race remains an unspoken to signifier in the media's coverage of flash mob violence, where "urban" is the politically correct stand in term for "young" or "ghetto" black criminals.
In sum, public space is political space. When black folks would break and refuse the white supremacist law and custom where they were to get off of the sidewalk to let whites pass, those were claims on dignity and rights. Likewise, when African American men and women would put on their finest clothes and parade from their neighborhoods and into unfriendly white ethnic neighborhoods--where violent gangs of whites awaited them--those were claims on citizenship and belonging. Or in one of my newest favorite moments, when soldiers of the United States Colored Troops would remain in uniform and march through the streets of the Old Confederacy daring former rebel secesh trash to stop them, those were claims on manhood and citizenship.
Looking to the long history of the relationship between race and access to public space, Chicago Magazine has a great essay on the city's experience with violence at its beach areas that is well worth reading in its entirety. Of particular note, be sure to pay close attention to how mass public violence against black people engaged in leisure activity is so common (and was in fact fun and a rite of passage and privilege for whites and Whiteness), and the responsibility for said assaults is placed on African Americans for daring to go where they were unwelcome.
This is starting to look like the summer of the "flash mob." It started with the closure of North Avenue Beach due to several cases of heat exhaustion. But rumors, which could initially be found at the Second City Cop blog—update: here's the right link, that one's from 2010—and newspaper comment threads, spread that the closure was due to groups of young people and/or flash mobs, i.e. groups assembled by text message or social networks to cause havoc (or, in more innocent cases, levity).
The CPD denies that was behind the beach closure, but flash mobs continue to dominate the news: last weekend, it was five youths arrested for robberies in Streeterville and on the Mag Mile, and last night another robbery downtown, though it's unclear whether there was any flash to the mob or whether it was just standard-issue street violence.
It's not terribly surprising that this incipient panic would begin on the beach. Chicago has a long history of newsworthy beach violence, which actually used to be much worse. In the early 20th century, beach riots were a fairly regular occurrence; from a scan of the Tribune archives, it seems residents could count on one every summer or two during the 'teens and 1920s, perhaps because they were even more heavily used before the advent of air conditioning. Beyond the infamous 1919 race riots, which started on a beach at 29th Street and lasted for eight days, Chicago's free and clear lakefront was often the scene of territorial battles and random violence.
(Manhattan Beach was "a popular spot for middle-class boys and girls to meet in the early decades of the twentieth century." It would later become Rainbow Beach, and would be the site of another riot.)
(Allegedly Connell was not wearing a suit that distinguished him as swimming "under the jurisdiction of the Wilson beach company.")
(On the same day, there was a crush at the Clarendon beach when 300 people tried to force their way to the water; one man was slightly injured, "and about twenty men and women fainted in the locker rooms." Temperatures were hot that summer; one night in July an estimated eight to ten thousand people slept in Grant Park, according to the Tribune.)
("Those in the crowd accused the police of undue violence, of striking girls in bathing costumes, and of roughly handling little children.")
(The beginning of one of the most notorious race riots in American history; it lasted eight days, and 38 people were killed.)
(The "simple little remark" was an exchange: upon hearing two lifeguards say "something about Jews, which Mrs. Stein resented," she responded to the [white] lifeguards, "I hear a life guard once married a white girl." According to R.L. Bessmer, one of said lifeguards, he had said nothing about Jews, and "believed he had been called a Negro and he resented it. He is not a Negro, but his skin has been tanned such a dark color that he has become sensitive about his complexion.")
(The above is an editorial, which requests: "Under the circumstances it would seem that the Negroes could make a definite contribution to good race relationships by remaining away from the beaches where their presence is resented.")
("Police claimed they foiled a plot by gangs of youths from various neighborhoods on the city's south and west sides to attack the integration waders at the sound of a bugle." Social media, circa 1961.)
(The scarlet head-shaving: "Judge Obermiller said yesterday he ordered the boys' heads shaved to identify them as 'teen-agers who drink.'" Because in 1962, the way to identify miscreants was... a buzz cut.)
("Local residents, however, said the increased presence of groups of high-school-age youths in the area concerns them.")
Also worth noting: the ostensible cause of the July 1966 riots, or at least the catalyst, was the closing of fire hydrants that residents were opening to cool off. In the wake of the riots, the city installed pools near where the violence occurred:
I'm also reminded of Robert Caro's The Power Broker, his magisterial biography of urban planner Robert Moses, some of which is devoted to the racial conflicts that arose over access to New York's beaches and pools:
Whites routinely beat up blacks and Puerto Ricans in East Harlem when they tried to swim at Jefferson Pool; on occasion whites swam at Colonial Pool, although others felt unwelcome. Moses knew about these situations, referred to in his Harvard speech. Clearly he recognized racial and ethnic categories were in flux in the 1930s: the line was hardening between black and white, as the city became more racially diverse, complicated place. ["Race, Space, and Play: Robert Moses and the WPA Swimming Pools in New York City," Marta Gutman, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, December 2008]Photograph: juggernautco (CC by 2.0)
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Shameless Self-Promotion: Chauncey Devega on The Ed Schultz Radio Show This Thursday
I am scheduled to be on The Ed Schultz Radio Show this Thursday at 2:30pmish EST. As always, please listen in and offer up some constructive criticism--and praise if deserved. The topic is pretty open, but we (meaning me and kind patron benefactor Mr. Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire Radio who is sitting in for Ed Schultz) will likely talk about Mr. Black Conservative Victimologist Herman Cain, my piece on the Democrats' misplaced fixation on the white working class vote, and whatever else happens to jump off.
Our last interview was a good one. Hopefully, my second appearance on The Ed Show will be worthwhile. Fingers crossed, this should be a fun 15 or so minutes.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Boo Hoo Conservative Victimology: Glenn Beck and Family Attacked by "Violent Liberals" in New York City's Bryant Park
Cue up the violin for a sad, sad and familiar song: Conservatives are victims once more in the Age of Obama.
In New York City's Bryant Park, with "patriotic" blanket in tow, Glenn Beck was set upon by "bloodthirsty," "hateful," liberals that wanted to "lynch him" because he is a Conservative.
[Insert finger into mouth to induce vomiting]
Question: How long until the Right wing media and blogosphere are going to call for Eric Holder and the F.B.I. to investigate this egregious violation of Glenn Beck's civil rights as a white conservative?
Second question: Is Glenn Beck a liar, liar with pants on fire regarding this whole attention getting episode?
Let's just file this one in the capital "I" irony file. Glenn Beck is a political thug and provocateur who calls for violence against his ideological foes. Now, he has reaped a minuscule bit of what he has sowed. Thus, the rules governing the conservation of energy apply once more, even in the world of political theater:
Energy can be converted from one form to another, though. Mechanical energy, such as the kinetic energy of motion, can be converted to heat energy, for example in the heating of a car's brakes when it slows down. Chemical energy in the gasoline of the car can be converted into both heat energy in the exhaust and heating the engine, and into mechanical energy to move the car. Potential energy, such as the gravitational potential energy stored in an object which is on a high shelf, can be converted into kinetic energy as the object falls down. Electrical energy can be converted to heat or mechanical energy or sound energy in a variety of useful ways around the house using common appliances.What say you all? Is this just a little bit of poetic justice? Or is Glenn Beck, crocodile tears on full display, a legitimately aggrieved person, and "victim" of a Liberal/Progressive "lynch mob?"
It is often the conversion of one form of energy to another which is the most important application of this rule. Often predictions of the behavior of physical systems are very much more easily made when using the idea that the total amount of energy remains constant. And careful measurements of different kinds of energy before and after a transformation always show that the total always adds up to the same amount.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Man Bites Dog in the Age of Obama: Black Hoodlums to be Charged with Attempted Lynching of White Teenager
Time for some real talk.
Humanzee mouth-breathing urban troglodyte street pirate highwaymen brigands are apparently using Facebook and other social networking tools to organize coordinated assaults and robberies in cities across the United States. One of these rampaging hordes attacked a young white man and beat him to a point where he was left disfigured and unrecognizable by his own mother.
Why? These barbarians want their gold and loot--the Ipad and other assorted electronic goodies. Thus I must ask, what is the cost of a life?
These repeated incidents of street pirate flash mob assaults have reminded me of an irony and a danger. To the first point, I love etymology. The origin of words and phrases has always been a bit of a hobby as the social history of language tracks the evolution (or is that devolution in some cases?) of a culture.
The phrase "race riot" for example almost exclusively applied to rampaging white mobs who set upon black communities where they would satisfy their blood lust in the name of racial hegemony through rape, robbery, murder, and other wanton violence. "Lynching" referred to any attack by two or more people on a single person.
Of course now solidly linked to the torturous, ritualistic murder of blacks in the United States during Reconstruction and through to some one hundred plus years later, lynchings were also conducted against Jews, Catholics, and other not-quite White immigrants. In sum, lynching was a catchall phrase that later became linked to ritualistic violence against some marked Other.
Fueled by a hunger on the part of reactionary whites to feed the beast of reverse discrimination and white victimhood in the Age of Obama, the "urban" flash mob meme is the newest moral panic, a wilding and Central Park Rape case waiting to happen in the 21st century. Drudge Report and the other media organs of the Right-wing are loving every minute of this ign't, black hoodlum foolishness because it sates their fixation on the myth of the black rapist and their yellow journalistic dreams of "When Giant Negroes Attack." Thus, these mob attacks are the ultimate fulfillment of the black image in the White mind.
The racially tinged, coordinated gang attacks on innocents in cities as varied as Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Peoria, and elsewhere certainly speak to the death of shame, a lack of family structure, and a predatory urban youthocracy that has run amok. They also represent a puzzle for those race men and race women, sociologists, social workers, and others who while trying to explain these behaviors through appeals to structures and theory often give in to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Consider: When one of these trolls sets upon you, will you respond with a treatise on social disorganization and the decline of two parent homes?
When a group of these thugs tries to curb stomp you for an Ipad, will said scholar/professional offer up an explanation for how young people almost always attack in groups, and consequently a group think mentality creates bad behavior in otherwise "good kids?"
As these street pirate highwayman parade about and riot, will an appeal to structural inequalities in the labor market for black and brown young people provide comfort as they break the bones and put terror in the hearts of good, law abiding citizens of all colors?
We no longer live in an era where the hammer of white supremacy demanded as W.E.B. DuBois famously observed that it makes good sense for black folks to protect even their worst criminals given the greater evils of the white criminal "justice" system. No, we are creeping towards Bernie Geotz, one of those moments when a young tough runs into someone they should not have messed with.
When one of these street urchins are put down for their ill deeds, for death is often the wages of sin, we will inevitably witness an old ritual where grandma or auntie cries and wails that their son was a "good boy" and "didn't deserve to die," all the while knowing that he was none of those things.
In that moment the choice a simple one. Do good folks who know better stand up and engage in a little truth telling? Or do they get behind the excuse makers, and "social justice" types, who wallow in the Pollyannaish waters that are the soft bigotry of low expectations?
Theory matters. Not so much when there is a fist beating you about the head or a gun in your face.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Herman Cain's Race Card Follies
Herman Cain is poetry in motion and a life riot...again. I never thought I would see an upright walking human race card playing the race card as he complains about his detractors. Having witnessed the absurd, I can now say that I have lived a full life.
Herman Cain, Grand High Vizier of the black garbage pail kids black conservatives, gospel singer, and political coprophagist is upset that John Stewart mocked him. Apparently, when he gets called out for flubbing the Constitution, rank bigotry against Muslim Americans, or silly talk about a 3 page maximum limit on all Congressional bills, it is an act of racism. The critical self-reflection rule would seem not to apply, as Cain, in an act of self-delusion that is enabled by his white populist fan base, quite literally "has the complexion for the protection."
Ironically, just as Conservatives wield the race card as a crude cudgel to beat liberals, blacks, and others over the head with charges that they slavishly and dishonestly play the victim, in the Age of Obama it is Herman Cain and the Right who are masters of race puppetry and identity politics.
Herman Cain, as a self-described "American Black Conservative"--God forbid someone call him an African-American--is race obsessed, all the while calling for a colorblind campaign. On the flip side, the race card is also used by the Right to transform pride by intelligent, link-fate aware, and historically grounded people of color into an act of prejudice.
To point: When black folks overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for example, many of the bloviators on the Right called this reasoned choice an act of anti-white racism and a priori evidence of automaton-like group think.Thus, a basic question: Who gets to dictate how the "race card " is played?
Here, Colin Powell's explanation of his Age of Obama moment springs to the forefront of my memory as a great counterpoint to Herman Cain's race card paraphilia. Both are black conservatives: the former is a black man who happens to be a Republican; the latter is a race mascot token for the Right.
Colin Powell seems to have a fully integrated personality where his racial self is not maladjusted and rooted in shame at being a black man, an African-American, in America. A victim of racial Stockholm syndrome and a proof of concept for Frantz Fanon's theories, Herman Cain appears disjointed in this regard, where his appeals to being an "American Black Conservative" are plaintive musings for acceptance by his white Tea Party followers, for Cain (unlike "those blacks") is one of "the good ones."
Are Cain and Powell more alike than different? Are both playing the race card, albeit in quite different ways? More specifically, when does pride and joy transcend into unseemly race pandering and race fixation?
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Why the Democrats Need to Stop Hand-Wringing and Losing Sleep Over the White Working Class Vote
...There will be a lot of white working class voters showing up at the polls next November, and the degree to which they support (or abandon) President Obama could very well make or break his reelection.The 2012 election is creeping closer. Like a ritual, a perennial in the political ecosphere, the hand-wringing has begun over how the Democrats and Barack Obama can win over the white working class vote.
In 2008, during his otherwise-solid election victory, Obama lost the white working class vote by 18 points. In 2010, however, things got much worse: Congressional Democrats' experienced a catastrophic 30 point deficit among the same group. While the first number is a figure Obama could live with repeating, the second could very well prove fatal.Indeed, if Republicans can replicate that 30 point deficit in 2012—a margin which seems increasingly possible given the recent bad news about the economy—Obama will have little to no room for error among his other constituencies.
For example, who can forget how John Dean brayed that the Bubba/Nascar/Walmart/Soccer Mom vote was critical for victory in 2004 or the infectious arguments put forth by authors such as Thomas Frank who painted a scary story of false consciousness in which white working class "values voters" support the Republicans against their own economic self-interest?
And as we saw in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the 2008 campaign, these worries are only amplified by the realities of race and how if a black man who happens to be President can win over the whitopian dreaming Middle America border states with all of their misplaced faith in "guns, God, and religion."
In sum, the question of how President Barack Obama and the Democrats can win the white working class vote in 2012 is a veritable Riddle of the Sphinx standing in the shadow of The Bogeyman. It is also a canard and a distraction, one which is based on incorrect assumptions about just who constitutes "the white working class" and the role of class in voting decisions and partisan behavior.
Thus, there is a basic problem: For all of the allure of "the false consciousness stealing of the white working class vote as the secret of the GOP's electoral gains" meme, the facts simply do not match up with all of the sensationalistic accounts. As recent works such as Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State; Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics; and (most compellingly) Unequal Democracy have demonstrated, a belief in the power of the white working class vote as the Achilles heel of the Democratic Party does not necessarily mean that it is true.
To that end, as I did in "They're Poor, Scared, Less Educated, and Left Behind: New Polling Data from Gallup on Conservatives and Red State America," let's work through the basic premises and first principles of The New Republic's article "The White Working Class: The Group That Will Decide Obama's Fate" to get a more accurate sense of the political terrain.
Some questions:1. Who is the white working class? While we may have images of construction workers and rough neck blue collar types interspersed with Roseanne Barr typecast in our collective consciousness, how do we actually define this group? Is "working class" primarily about income or is it about intangibles of taste and leisure...what Pierre Bourdieu famously described as "habitus?"
Moreover, is "working class" just as ambiguous a phrase as "middle class?" A series of words that refers to both everyone and no one? While The New Republic does a great job of painting a potentially dire picture for the Democrats among the white working classes (however defined), there is a complication that must be engaged.
2. In these conversations, who in fact comprises the "white working class" is vaguely and poorly explained. As a substitute for precision, there exists an assumption that this group consists of white Americans who have not earned a college degree. Despite a broadening in access to colleges and universities in the United States, this group constitutes a majority of Americans, with a broad range of incomes, resources, and social capital.
As Larry Bartels deftly argues, "working class whites" is a catch-all phrase that does not stand up to rigor as we try to predict their support (or not) for the Democratic Party. In fact, when one actually uses income as a definition for working class (looking at those families who make less than 35,000 dollars a year) the Democrats have an advantage in support among this group. Moreover, when defined this way white working class voters are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.
3. Forget Joe the Plumber, what the Democrats should really be concerned about is the degree to which the GOP is actually peeling white voters away from the Democratic Party across all income levels. While there may be an image of a white working class guy or poor Christian Evangelical who is drunk on all of this Culture War talk looming in the heads of the Left-Progressive pundit classes (to the degree those appeals hold any real traction for voters), in fact it is among the middle and upper classes that the "values" narrative holds the most purchase.
4. Race wins again. There is a reason that the politics of white racial resentment, "real America" nativism, the mantle of a faux American "silent majority" exceptionalism, and the GOP's Lee Atwater dog whistle politics are the bread and butter of the Tea Party Republican Party: the Southern Strategy works. The gains of the Republican Party over the last few decades among white voters can largely be explained by how it was able to use a backlash against The Civil Rights Movement and The Black Freedom Struggle to flip the Jim Crow South solidly red and Republican.
The myth of the ill-informed, false consciousness possessed, Right-wing Reagan Democrat white working class vote is compelling for a variety of reasons. Primarily, it stands up to the power of personal anecdote--who doesn't know one of those "confused," "angry," "white working class" types who digests a steady diet of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, believes that the AstroTurf, Koch Brothers funded Tea Party is a grassroots movement, and who hates unions and the evil "big government" all the while receiving Social Security, getting a pension, or working as a state employee?
The myth of the white working class vote is also validating to liberals and progressives: "Those white working class voters are just confused; If they could only be liberated from the Right-wing echo chamber their votes would make sense as the choices of reasonable and rational individuals."
These narratives are also seductive...and easier to grapple with than hard questions such as this one: While the Right is plain out wrong on just about every public policy issue relating to the economy and job growth, how is it that they are able to consistently win elections and attract voters from the Democrats?
The puzzle of the white working class and their support for the Democratic Party in the Age of Obama is both fascinating and compelling because it nakedly plays on America's national obsession with race. The struggle against white supremacy and to become a more inclusive and truly democratic society has been one of the central tensions in American society.
Consequently, the echoes of history are strong here: whiteness was created and has worked precisely to smooth over class differences by encouraging white people to ally with one another on the basis of perceived skin color and racial group membership. While the psychic and material wages of Whiteness were grand, they were not always in the service of the Common Good and/or the long-term material interests of the white poor and working classes.Votes matter. Of course the Democrats should be working to expand their base across all income levels of the voting public. But an obsession with the white working class is a distraction, a political unicorn and Moby Dick sized fool's errand that is energy misspent. In the time of the Great Recession, with an effective unemployment rate reaching at least 20 percent in many communities, the Democrats and Barack Obama need to be on the offensive.
The Republican Party is waging class warfare on behalf of the plutocrats and corporateocracy--and in the name of gangster capitalism--against the American middle, working classes, and the poor. The rape and destruction of the social safety net is the ultimate goal of the contemporary Ayn Rand infused Republican Party.
In the United States, when the top 1/100th of 1 percent of earners make an average of 31 million dollars a year, and the remaining 90 percent of Americans earn 31,000 dollars a year there is class warfare of the few against the many. When worker's wages have been stagnant for 40 years while corporate CEO's enjoy record salaries by outsourcing American jobs overseas there is class warfare of the few against the many.The Democrats need to 1) forget their obsessive worries about the white working class vote; and 2) focus on the cruel realities of the new economy and how best to communicate their plans to correct it. Given the facts, those should be easy slogans to write and campaign commercials to program. In the time of The Great Recession, the Republican Party has blood on its hands from vivisecting the American Dream. The Democrats just need to show the body. This is a simple plan...and it is theirs to lose and bungle.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The New Public Sphere: Making Videos While Sitting in Your Car and Then Posting Them to YouTube
Yesterday was a bit dark with all of the eliminationism talk. So, let's have a laugh today.
Damn air conditioning! Keeping me fat all these years.
The 21st century is typified by gross narcissism. Facebook, Youtube, blogging, the simultaneously unreal irreality of reality TV, and a 4th estate in which opinion has been elevated to the level of fact and "news," are signs of a sick, faux democratic society. As one more sign of the sickness of the age, folks are cutting promos while sitting in their cars, offering automobile inspired wisdom to the Earth bound masses. Oh once more to the joys and inspiration of the open road. The exodusters would indeed be proud and understanding.
Well, if you can't beat them...at least join them, and get in a chuckle or three along the way.
This brother (who is supposedly a "cleric") from Dubai is a public intellectual of the first order. He is a true intellectual in the Foucaultian sense--not a narrow technician who produces knowledge on a very narrow terrain. No, his reach is broad. His production deep. From musings on sweat and obesity, to using hot chiles and the hot firey sensation they produce in one's excreta as a barometer for wellness and alkaline balance in the body, Brother Cleric from Dubai is one to follow and believe in. He is indeed the new hope.
As further proof of Brother Cleric from Dubai's greatness, he has shed his 9 ugly tummies of toxic waste. Behold and kneel before Brother Cleric!
[Did I just write that? Even I must bow to the absurd every now and then. What the heck.]
Monday, June 20, 2011
A Featured Reader Comment on the Power of Willful Denial (Continued): Of Genocide and the Barbaric and Ruthless Efficiency of the Corporation
Barbaric and ruthless efficiency.
Corporations have no ethics, or friends, or patriotic loyalties. Given that fact, it is tragically funny that so many still pray at the altar of the free market and view the invisible hand as a force that works for the common good.
The bottom line and the dollar is all that matters to the Corporation. From the economies of scale necessary to support the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to the "human traffic management program" of the death camps, ingenuity in the service of exploitation and death dealing seems to know no limits.
For all of our enlightened talk, and the musings of lessons learned in the aftermath of World War 2, I do wonder if civilization has progressed all that much, or if we are only a system shock away from descending into a primal abyss.
On that point, Daniel had a wonderfully reflective comment on today's earlier post that is worth bringing up to the top for more discussion:
What can one take from the Shoah? From Rwanda? From South Africa? From the U.S. and Native Americans? That humans are capable of the most unspeakable horrors, that individual virtue, as important as it is, is typically an inadequate buffer against groupthink and authority (think Milgram), that evil is truly banal (the agenda at Wannsee indicated a morning meeting to discuss the murder of the remaining Jews in Europe and then noted that breakfast was scheduled)? That liberal education is no proof against such evil (9 of the 14 attendees at Wannsee held doctorates)?Very dense. We have questions of nature or nurture; the shield and inoculation of "education" against evil; and making sense of some of humanity's greatest crimes. I wonder, is humankind more good than it has any reason being, or are these lapses into mass killing the true face of the homo sapien?
Perhaps old Sigmund Freud was right in his Civilization and its Discontents, that we need society and rules to control our most base impulses because we are at the core irrational and monstrous:
On the Power of Willful Denial: Jewish Germans Who Were Not Initially Opposed to the Nazis
Something with which to start Monday (and the week) off.
I bristle at the overuse of the phrase, "they are like Nazis." Nazis are Nazis. Nothing less. Nothing more. Language is power. By implication, language of the above sort is not to be flippantly deployed.
I held that belief when folks were labeling Bush the Second as a Nazi. In the present, I double down in my objections when the New Right Tea Party GOP Conservatives and their bullies attempt to Mau Mau President Obama with like assertions.
In sum, I am carefully try to avoid any allusion to the Nazis because it is so much dynamite and teetering nitroglycerin on a two legged broken stool. Yet, I have watched this clip (and the documentary of which it is a part several times over the last few months) and remain chilled at its cautionary themes, themes which remain as warnings to us all. Thus, my wanting to share The Third Reich with all of you.
We are not islands onto ourselves. When strivers support pernicious policies that hurt their brothers and sisters of the lower classes I think of this clip. When Conservatives support torture or the breaking of the Constitution as a mere convenience to serve their ends I think of this clip. When those who are the Other, such as black conservatives, get in bed with Whiteness because "they are the special ones" immune from racism, marginalization, objectification, or the fist of Power, I think of the broad themes of this clip.
Maybe I am too much an adherent to those themes of linked fate and the collective good to be drunk on the false promises of radical Ayn Randian individualism? Hell, it could be my Blues Sensibility as a Black American which has taught me to run away, far away in fact, from such silly dystopian dreaming. Either way, the tale remains cautionary.
All of us could learn greatly from its lessons.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Yes Virginia, There Are Positive Father's Day Songs: I Present to You All, "Patches" by Clarence Carter and "Color Him Father" by the Winstons
Happy Father's Day to you all. On this day, where for many the impulse is to the contrary, it should be reiterated that not all us men folk are rolling stones.
One more for the daddies of the world courtesy of The Winstons:
From Johnnie Taylor. A cautionary tale for the cum droppers who drop trow everywhere and have 5 kids to visit by 4 different baby mommas today:
Please be good to each other on this day. And do remember that families--and fathers--come in many shapes, sizes, forms, and arrangements.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Saturday Fun: How Would You Caption This Photograph of Corrupt Clarence Thomas and Honest Abe from The New York Times?
Ethically embattled corrupt mute black golem who sleeps during Supreme Court hearings Justice Clarence Thomas is at it again.
Apparently, he is not content to get kickbacks via his wife for making decisions favorable to her business interests. When not looking at the TV show 24 for guidance on how to write Supreme Court decisions, Uncle Justice Clarence Thomas is getting goodies for a museum that will highlight his relationship to the town of Pin Point, Georgia.
One of the gifts Justice Clarence Thomas has received from a Conservative booster includes a 15,000 dollar bust of President Abraham Lincoln. Together the two cut quite a profile in the above photo, do they not?
Let's play the caption game. Given the kindness and professional comportment of The NY Times, they couldn't take advantage of such a great juxtaposition.
But we can...here are some of my opening parlays:
1. What unintended consequences the emancipation of the slaves has wrought.
2. Clarence, embarrassed, caught once more pilfering chickens from massa's chicken shack.
3. In the foreground, a profile in courage; in the background; a profile in cowardice.
What captions would you offer?
Friday, June 17, 2011
Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: Grognard Military News Roundup and Some Shameless Self-Promotion
I will be on Ring of Fire Radio tomorrow discussing the Republican presidential debate, Herman Cain, and other such matters. It should be good--the interview ran about 20 minutes at taping and we had a good rhythm going.
Here is the first of my military ghetto nerds Grognard roundups for those who are interested in such things. I grew up playing Gary Grigsby's strategy games, Microprose flight sims, and read too much G.I. Joe and military history. The interest as a layperson is still with me years later. These Internets only make it easier to learn things that years ago were confined to a very narrow set of specialist magazines and journals.
As always if you come upon something of interest send it along and I will offer a comment or add it to the list every so many weeks or so. Given the wide range of interests held by the readers of WARN, this could be fun. Let's have at it.
1. The Atlantic has some gems this week. This photo gallery of the do it yourself weapons of the Road Warrior Mad Max Libyan Rebels is a great example of both human ingenuity and foolish recklessness. If necessity is the mother of invention, these rebels are certainly proof of that folksy truism. The photo essay has some cool stuff for the gun crowd (make note of the bullpup design Belgium FN F2000). And how can you not love a guy who disassembles a land mine while smoking Marlboro cigarettes?
The past and future of camouflage is pithily surveyed here. Little did I know that one person, a genius of sorts, is responsible for most of the innovation in camo designs over the last decade or so. Active camouflage, the stuff of Predator is coming. Or is it already here?
2. This is your brain on combat: Neuroscience for Combat Leaders: A Brain-Based Approach to Leading on the Modern Battlefield. The above article also references Dave Grossman's indispensable book Learning to Kill. So it gets extra points from this ghetto nerd.
3. I'd buy that for a dollar! Active vehicle defenses are apparently a go for the U.S. military. The Israelis and the Russians have been playing with these systems which deflect incoming anti-tank rounds a few years. Question: Aren't these systems lethal to the dismounted infantry?
4. The Ipad goes to war. This makes sense given how many field manuals, translation software, and other necessities you could put on one device. And yes, the U.S. military has its own app store.
5. I have always had a good amount of worry about the effectiveness of UAV's as a catch all solution across the full spectrum of air combat needs. Call me traditional, but I am a man in the loop sort of guy. I remember luminary Robert Pape telling me some years back that UAV's were/are the future. This decision was made long ago. Thus, the sea change is inexorable.
Maybe I am paranoid about how easily some of their systems have been hacked, or that a foreign combatant could simply flip a switch and turn the Reapers, Global Hawks, and Predators off? For missions like SEAD, UAV's are quite literally a life saver. But for other duties, and in contested airspace, I remain uncertain as to the maturity of the technology. The Department of Defense would seem to share my anxieties.
6. Back to Libya. How hollowed out is NATO? After a few months of operations the European partners are running low on ammunition, cannot maintain their sortie levels, and are wavering in commitment. Never mind how sad the British navy looks--once the world's greatest force, now she is reduced to borrowing surveillance aircraft from the U.S. and consolidating flight operations with the French on their carrier.
Was NATO always such a hollow organization? Would they have been nothing but a speed pump for the Warsaw Pact? Or is this flaccidity the direct result of the post-Cold War "peace dividend?"
[Random story: my former building super was a crewman on the M60 series of tanks in the late 1970s and very early 80s and he was stationed near the Fulda Gap. I asked him if he thought the U.S. had a chance at the time. He smiled and said their expectation was to hold off the Reds for as long as possible and then beat feet out of there. My super smiled when I asked him about the nuclear land mines...]
7. Some random academic and online finds:
The first is an article that examines letters from African-American soldiers in World War 2 and how black enlistees and officers fought back against Jim Crow under arms; The second traces the rise of the "warfare state" and "how it rests upon two assumptions: that safety can be achieved only through power, that prosperity depends upon the constant pump-priming of the domestic economy through the expenditure of military billions. Both assumptions are false."
The real prize of the week is a serendipitous discovery that comes totally out of left field. Here is an issue of Collier's magazine from 1951 that worked through a hypothetical World War 3 scenario. "Preview of the War We do not Want" has it all: there are nuclear raids on the city of Chicago, saboteurs in Grand Central Station, suicide paratrooper raids over the U.S.S.R., and the occupation of Alaska. Oh yeah, some of the contributors to the issue included Edward R. Murrow with illustrations from the legendary World War 2 comic artist Bill Maudlin.
8. Did you know that China has no plans to wage cyberwar against the U.S.? Yeah, right. Try not to laugh at that one. In an admission of what we already know, the U.S. already has cyberweapons in the toolbox ready to be deployed if necessary. Stuxnet?
9. Don't mess with the Ghurkas. No, I mean never, ever...seriously.
10. Any thoughts on the free to play mmorg military game World of Tanks? Is the grind worth it?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Workings of a Pathologically Narcissistic Mind? Sarah Palin Channeled God in an Email About Her Unborn Son Trig
It is okay to talk to God. When a person hears God's voice responding to them they are certifiably crazy. Question: if a person writes letters in which they pretend to be God are they similarly demented?
Sarah Palin's emails were
While we know that Palin is a lightening rod for controversy, a person who wallows in the slop bucket of white populist mediocrity that is the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging Tea Party GOP crowd, little did we know that she also channels the word of God.
In a letter to friends and family about her then unborn son Trig (a human political prop who she carried around like a football during the 2008 campaign as proof of her Right-wing, fecund womanhood), Palin writes in THE ultimate first person voice as she welcomes her bundle of joy into the world. Not content with this private exercise, Palin emailed her Godly proclamations and wisdom to friends and family.
Question: is this more proof of Sarah Palin's grand narcissism? Evidence of a person whose megalomania and self-importance know no limits? Or is Palin's God email to Trig the act of a loving and compassionate mother? Could it be both?
For your amusement and inspection:
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:17:11
Subject: Baby
To the Sisters, Brother, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Friends of Trig Paxson Van Palin (or whatever you end up naming him!) :
I am blessing you with this surprise baby because I only want the best for you. I've heard your prayers that this baby will be happy and healthy, and I've answered them because I only want the best for you!
I heard your heart when you hinted that another boy would fit best in the Palin family, to round it out and complete that starting five line-up. Though another girl would be so nice, you didn't think you could ask for what you REALLY wanted, but I knew, so I gave you a boy because I only want the best for you!
Then, I put the idea in your hearts that his name should be "Trig", because it's so fitting, with two Norse meanings: "True" and "Brave Victory". You also have a Bristol Bay relative with that name, so I knew it would be best for you!
Then, I let Trig's mom have an exceptionally comfortable pregnancy so she could enjoy every minute of it, and I even seemed to rush it along so she could wait until near the end to surprise you with the news – that way Piper wouldn't have so long to wait and count down so many days – just like Christmastime when you have to wait, impatiently, for that special day to finally open your gift? (Or the way the Palins look forward to birthday celebrations that go on for three, four days... you all really like cake.) I know you, I knew you'd be better off with just a short time to wait!
Then, finally, I let Trig's mom and dad find out before he was born that this little boy will truly be a GIFT. They were told in early tests that Trig may provide more challenges, and more joy, than what they ever may have imagined or ever asked for. At first the news seemed unreal and sad and confusing. But I gave Trig's mom and dad lots of time to think about it because they needed lots of time to understand that everything will be OK, in fact, everything will be great, because I only want the best for you!
I've given Trig's mom and dad peace and joy as they wait to meet their new son. I gave them a happy anticipation because they asked me for that. I'll give all of you the same happy anticipation and strength to deal with Trig's challenges, but I won't impose on you...
I just need to know you want to receive my offer to be with all of you and help you everyday to make Trig's life a great one.
This new person in your life can help everyone put things in perspective and bind us together and get everyone focused on what really matters.
The baby will expand your world and let you see and feel things you haven't experienced yet. He'll show you what "true, brave victory" really means as those who love him will think less about self and focus less on what the world tells you is "normal" or "perfect". You will grow and be blessed with greater understanding that will be born along with Trig.
Trig will be his dad's little buddy and he'll wear Carhartts while he learns to tinker in the garage. He'll love to be read to, he'll want to play goalie, and he'll steal his mom's heart just like Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper did. And Trig will be the cuddly, innocent, mischievous, dependent little brother that his siblings have been waiting for...in fact Trig will – in some diagnostic ways – always be a mischievous, dependent little brother, because I created him a bit different than a lot of babies born into this world today.
Every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed up world you live in down there on earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome. Doctors call it "Down's Syndrome", and Downs kids have challenges, but can bring you much delight and more love than you can ever imagine! Just wait and see, let me prove this, because I only want the best for you!
Some of the rest of the world may not want him, but take comfort in that because the world will not compete for him. Take care of him and he will always be yours!
Trig's mom and dad don't want people to focus on the baby's extra chromosome. They're human, so they haven't known how to explain this to people who are so caring and are interested in this new little Alaskan. Sarah and Todd want people to share in the joy of this gift I'm giving to the Palin family, and the greater Alaska family. Many people won't understand... and I understand that. Some will think Trig should not be allowed to be born because they fear a Downs child won't be considered "perfect" in your world. (But tell me, what do you earthlings consider "perfect" or even "normal" anyway? Have you peeked down any grocery store isle, or school hallway, or into your office lunchroom lately? Or considered the odd celebrities you celebrate as "perfect" on t.v.? Have you noticed I make 'em all shapes and sizes? Believe me, there is no "perfect"!)
Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.
I know it will take time to grasp this and come to accept that I only want the best for you, and I only give my best. Remember though: "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my ways are higher than yours!"
I wrote that all down for you in the Good Book! Look it up! You claim that you believe me – now it's time to live out that belief!
Please look to me as this new challenge and chapter of life unfolds in front of you. I promise to equip you. I won't give you anything you can't handle. I am answering your prayers. Trig can't wait to meet you. I'm giving you ONLY THE BEST!
Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father
Why do Germans Choose to Reenact the American Civil War by Playing the Confederacy?
Why the above clip? Because Werner Hernog's Bear is back, one of our resident experts for all times, and I would do a monster movie infused tag team match with him as my partner ready for a "hot tag" any day of the week as we take on the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania.
The Atlantic Monthly had a particularly sharp and insightful piece on why Germans are fascinated with the Civil War--and when they choose to play, the reasons explaining their choice to reenact the CSA in America's brother on brother conflict. I play in those waters but cannot swim in them. The solution: call up our favorite historian of modern Germany to get his take. As always, he never disappoints.
I really like Werner's essay. I hope you too do. As always please chime in with your thoughts, reactions, and suggestions.
Chauncey recently showed me a couple of articles about Civil War reenactments in
Before hazarding my own analysis as to why this is the case in
This is not just a matter of lip service. The massive, recently built Holocaust memorial in
It would be difficult to have any historical reenactments of moments from the German past, because they would be so difficult and politically suspect. Hence the desire to reenact the past of a different country.
However, this hardly explains the attraction to the Confederacy, especially given the fact that many German immigrants to the
One of my German immigrant ancestors fought for the Union despite living in
They had reason to fear persecution if they stayed around, and brought their ideals of democracy and equality across the
I get the feeling that modern day Germans are attracted to the Confederacy for the same reasons that the South has had plenty of apologists north of the Mason-Dixon line over the years: the false romanticization of the "Old South" and the depoliticization of the Civil War. In the aftermath of Reconstruction, as historian David Blight has skillfully shown, the commemoration of the Civil War emphasized reunion and the similarities between the both sides, something predicated on excluding African Americans from the story, and literally excluding them from important celebrations, like the 50th anniversary of
Fifty years after the Civil War's end, its causes and effects had been depoliticized in the public mind. It was simply a "tragedy" without a real cause, a fight fought nobly "brother against brother." That view has been remarkably resilient, and it colored all the Civil War books I read as a child. (It even creeps into Ken Burns' famous documentary, especially when Shelby Foote is given free reign to put a romanticizing gloss on events.)
Once slavery's centrality to the Civil War was removed from the story (and it still is in the minds of most reenactors today) a very southern rendition of the antebellum South began to insinuate itself in the North, and even around the world. This vision of the Old South presented a bucolic, orderly society full of genteel men and beautiful, virtuous women. Their human property did not resent their state, but were loyal and happy. It was a world of cotillions, hoop skirts, and mint juleps, carefree and pleasing. Of course, this is all complete bullshit. (I don't have the time to get into all the reasons, but the fact that ten percent of the Union army at the end of the war was made up of black soldiers fighting to eradicate slavery, when black people were only one percent of the North's population, just about says it all.)
In my mind, Gone with the Wind is even more nefarious a film than The Birth of a Nation. The ugliness of the naked racism displayed in the latter is obvious to modern audiences, but Gone with the Wind takes a horribly brutal society and drains away its violence while puffing up the hoop skirts. It presents a seductive idyll, especially for White people who secretly yearn for unquestioned mastery and racial hierarchy.
We tend to think of the romanticization of the Old South as a southern tradition, but it has long been embraced in the north. Although Margaret Mitchell wrote the initial novel, it was primarily northerners who acted in and worked on Gone with the Wind the film. It was a British actress, Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlet O'Hara. As the articles about German reenactors note, it was a popular book and film in
I see two deeper reasons for this: modernity and race. As far as the former is concerned, northerners and Europeans living amidst the upheavals and displacements of modern industrial life were and are eager to romanticize a pre-modern society like the Old South, and to eradicate its many problems and brutalities from their minds. That flight from modernity, which has a very strong and troubled cultural tradition in
Race, of course, has a whole lot to do with the idealization of the Confederacy, in
Despite recent positive changes, they have been excluded from mainstream German society, and have been the targets of violence. Germans have been very resistant to seeing
This is not to say that all Germans who dress up like Confederates are hardcore racists. However, we should still be disturbed by such a phenomenon, since it shows how the past can be manipulated in order to support horrible ideas in the present. As a historian, I think we, in this 150th anniversary of the Civil War, need to combat the depoliticized narrative of the conflict which is so easily bent to the most odious political purposes.
We need to stress the centrality of slavery, as well as the agency of the slaves themselves, who did a great deal to bring the institution to an end. We need to stop romanticizing the South, and view it for what it was: not a unique paradise but one of many slave-based staple-crop plantation societies in the New World (just like
In short, we need to show history in all its bloody reality, not a fashion show drenched in sweet tea. It simply a tragic misunderstanding, the Civil War was a war between two competing visions of America's future, and the vision that more fully (but not yet completely) embodied the American promise of freedom thankfully won out. The romanticizers and apologists are out in full force, we must get out there and expose their myths.


text:
Debates of May 15th, 2012
House of Commons Hansard #124 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was chair.
- Question Period
- Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
- Petitions
- Questions on the Order Paper
- Questions Passed as Orders for Returns
- Copyright Modernization Act
- Blood Supply
- The Economy
- Intelligent Community of the Year
- Children's Mental Health
- Roadside Cleanup
- Ultimate Class Field Trip
- Trade
- Benjamin Alan Russell
- Iran
- Sagkeeng's Finest
- Automotive Industry
- Right to Food
- Maternal and Child Health
- Palliative Care
- Budget Implementation Legislation
- Employment
- New Democratic Party of Canada
- Pensions
- Employment
- The Budget
- National Defence
- Pensions
- The Environment
- National Defence
- Afghanistan
- Employment Insurance
- Veterans Affairs
- Canadian Heritage
- Justice
- Agriculture and Agri-Food
- Housing
- Fisheries and Oceans
- Aboriginal Affairs
- Post-Secondary Education
- Public Safety
- Aboriginal Affairs
- Natural Resources
- Air Transportation
- Housing
- Copyright Modernization Act
- Act to Authorize Industrial Alliance Pacific Insurance and Financial Services Inc. to Continue as a Body Corporate
- Copyright Modernization Act
- Business of Supply
- Copyright Modernization Act
- Citizenship and Immigration
- Natural Resources
- Transport
- Business of Supply
Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Ed Fast Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 15(1) of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and for referral to the Standing Committee on International Trade, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, copies of the annual report pursuant to the Agreement Concerning Annual Reports on Human Rights and Free Trade Between Canada and the Republic of Colombia.
Routine Proceedings
May 15th, 2012 / 10:05 a.m.
Justin Trudeau Papineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, today, I have the honour to present a portion of a petition signed by nearly 30,000 Quebeckers who are asking the federal government to reinvest in social housing. Many Quebeckers and Canadians do not have housing security. Yet it is key to their success and their contribution to society. The almost 10,000 people who signed this portion of the petition are asking the government to invest in social housing.
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Maria Mourani Ahuntsic, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will present two petitions today.
One of them is part of a petition signed by 27,000 people all across Canada. The part that I am presenting today has over 6,000 signatures, about a quarter of the total number of signatures. This petition asks, first, that the existing budgets, which are insufficient for the renovation, improvement and modernization of social housing, be maintained. Second, the petition asks that the government commit to maintaining the long-term funding granted to social housing units built before 1994, particularly those that subsidize low-income tenants so that they can pay rent calculated according to their income.
The government must therefore maintain existing subsidies and renew them when they expire to provide these people with affordable housing.
Citizenship and Immigration
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Maria Mourani Ahuntsic, QC
Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks that a vote not be held in the House on Bill C-31 and that the government set the bill aside because it represents a step backwards for refugees and immigrants.
I am very pleased to present this petition, which is supported by a number of organizations, including the Carrefour communautaire de Rosemont, the Organisation populaire des droits sociaux de Montréal and CANA, an organization in my riding of which I am very proud.
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
LaVar Payne Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition from residents in my riding, as well as from across southern Alberta. This petition asks the Government of Canada to enact legislation to restrict abortions. Canada is the only nation in the western world without abortion laws.
The Environment
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Megan Leslie Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition signed by constituents from my riding of Halifax. This petition is a Canadian interfaith call for leadership and action on climate change. The petition recognizes that global warming is a reality and that, despite the government's rhetoric of a commitment to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, Canadian levels have continued to rise.
The petitioners are calling for the implementation of a binding international agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol. This agreement would commit nations to a reduction in carbon emissions and to a national renewable energy policy. If we are serious about ensuring global average temperatures to stay below a 2°C increase from pre-industrial levels, fair, clean carbon emission targets must be set and implemented.
Like so many Canadians, these constituents recognize that the Conservative government is failing to protect our environment. Both the petitioners and I look forward to the minister's response.
Air Canada
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Kevin Lamoureux Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to present a petition from individual residents in the province of Manitoba asking the government to take necessary action in order to protect the aerospace jobs that have been lost at Aveos. These constituents and other Manitobans feel quite passionately that the government and, in particular, the Prime Minister, have dropped the ball by not holding Air Canada accountable to the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which would have guaranteed those overall maintenance jobs for the city of Winnipeg, Ontario and Quebec.
Human Rights
Routine Proceedings
10:05 a.m.
Elizabeth May Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present two petitions.
The first pertains to human rights. Most of the petitioners live in Calgary and are concerned about human rights in China.
Particularly, the petitioners speak to the rights of the Falun Gong and Falun Dafa and ask that Parliament and the current Prime Minister do whatever is possible to remind China about the need to progress with human rights and not just through a Communist form of capitalism.
The Environment
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Elizabeth May Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, the next petition relates to the ongoing threat of supertankers and pipelines across British Columbia.
The signators are from British Columbia, from many spots within it, from my own riding, from Victoria, Brentwood Bay, Saturna, Kelowna area, Summerland and also from Ottawa. They call on this House to respect the current environmental assessment process as it exists before Bill C-38 and to have a full, fair and transparent inquiry.
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Irene Mathyssen London—Fanshawe, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions. The first is from Canadians of all ages who are very concerned about the proposed changes to the old age security program. They regard it as a direct attack on the poorest seniors of the present and the future. They are calling on the government to rescind any idea in terms of increasing the age for pensions for Canadians from 65 to 67.
My second petition calls upon the Government of Canada to increase the guaranteed income supplement so that all seniors may be relieved from the poverty they now face. The current government process does not provide adequate GIS so that all seniors are safe from poverty.
Fishing Industry
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Lawrence MacAulay Cardigan, PE
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of a large number of Prince Edward Islanders who are very concerned about the fishing industry.
The petitioners want to inform the Prime Minister and the government that the DFO fleet separation and owner-operator policies form the backbone of the Atlantic inshore and mid-shore fishery. The removal of these policies would directly affect over 30,000 jobs in the fishing industry, end the independence of our fishery and have a devastating effect on coastal communities throughout the region.
The Conservative government has refused to properly consult with our fishers on this issue. The Conservative government has refused to answer the question on these policies and has voted down a motion to hear from the affected stakeholders, and study what the effects of the removal of the policies would have on Atlantic Canada and coastal Quebec.
Complete corporate control of the fishery has proven, in many areas, to be devastating to the income, economy and social fabric of the coastal regions, such as British Columbia, New Zealand and Iceland.
The petitioners call on the Prime Minister to maintain and strengthen fleet separation and the owner-operator policies.
Questions on the Order Paper
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre
Tom Lukiwski Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 564, 568 and 569.
Question No. 564
Questions on the Order Paper
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Pierre Jacob Brome—Missisquoi, QC
With respect to the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line (PMPL) pipeline between Montréal and Portland: (a) what environmental assessments have been carried out on this project since 2002; (b) what plans are in place to modify or upgrade the pipeline; and (c) as concerns the emergency plan of the company that operates the pipeline, (i) does it comply with existing regulations to minimize the environmental risks resulting from accidents, (ii) has it been reviewed by the National Energy Board?
Question No. 564
Questions on the Order Paper
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
Cypress Hills—Grasslands
David Anderson Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and for the Canadian Wheat Board
Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), the National Energy Board, NEB, regulates pipelines owned and operated by Montreal Pipe Line Limited. The NEB has not completed any environmental assessments under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act for projects by Montreal Pipe Line Limited since 2002.
However, the NEB continues to monitor the pipeline to ensure that it is safe. For example, as part of the six applications from Montreal Pipe Line Limited for deactivation or decommissioning of pipelines and one application for transfer of ownership of a pipeline received by the NEB, the environmental issues were considered as part of its public interest mandate in its regulatory decision-making under the National Energy Board Act.
With regard to (b), no application to modify or upgrade the pipeline has been submitted to the NEB at this time.
With regard to (c), the current emergency manuals on file with the NEB are as follows: integrated contingency plan--Portland Pipe Line and Montreal Pipe Line Limited--part A; Montreal Pipe Line Limited oil spill specific response plans--part B; emergency response action plan--part C; and Montreal pipeline system and Montreal east terminal and north tank field.
The manuals include information on critical areas to protect, environmental and socio-economic sensitivities and wildlife protection and rehabilitation.
An emergency response manual assessment was conducted by the NEB on June 21, 2010. Furthermore, a critical information check was conducted on January 5, 2012. Based on these assessments, it was noted that Montreal Pipe Line Limited has an incomplete "incident" definition based on NEB reporting requirements, as the company omitted the full definition of "incident" as outlined in the Onshore Pipeline Regulations. In addition, the roles and responsibilities of the NEB were not properly defined.
The NEB sent a letter to Montreal Pipe Line Limited, identifying the areas needing correction to satisfy the NEB requirements and requesting that the company file revisions to its emergency manual. In a letter sent to the NEB on April 19, 2012, Montreal Pipe Line Limited stated that it had received the NEB's request. The company also filed draft revisions to its emergency procedures manual. Once the NEB reviews the proposed changes and is satisfied, Montreal Pipe Line Limited will be notified, and it will file the revised emergency procedures manual with the NEB.
Question No. 568
Questions on the Order Paper
Routine Proceedings
10:10 a.m.
John McCallum Markham—Unionville, ON
With regard to the government's planned advertising campaign for the budget tabled on March 29, 2012: (a) what is the total estimated cost of planned advertising for the budget; and (b) what is the estimated cost of planned advertising broken down by the mediums of (i) television, (ii) radio, (iii) movie theatres, (iv) online video game environments, (v) internet ads, (vi) trade publications, (vii) billboards or other signage, (viii) print?

subset: commoncrawl