A TRY TO FRY A BIG LIE

 "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."

LBJ said those words in a limo along what was then the new I-40 interstate to the young Bill Moyers. The year was 1964.
It is also possible to substitute 'Arab or other Muslim' for 'white man' and 'Jew' for 'colored man' with at least as much truth. Before 1948, most Muslims regarded Jews about the same way as 'common n***ers' were looked on in the Jim Crow South and, indeed, much more of our country as well.
And I have no idea whether or not the legal abolition of 'untouchability' in India in 1950 caused adverse reactions from higher-caste individuals in any economic class, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
The great W. E. B. DuBois wrote at much greater length and in much greater detail about what he named 'the psychological wages of whiteness' than I ever have and, probably, ever will. In any case, my mind works better the other way: distilling the essence of whatever I write about. That is, what does it boil down to?
Right now, right here, methinks what I name the illusion of automatic or unearned superiority boils down to two things: first, it can, among those who have little and many, if not most, of whom, barely scrape by each day living paycheck to paycheck, drain plenty of what might be righteous rebellion against those who already have more than what's good for them--as seen by their continual and bottomless greed! I suspect their real greed, though, is for power rather than for money per se.
This happens because, once a hairless biped hath a group on which s/he is not only allowed but encouraged to look down, they can, at least to a point, shrug their shoulders and mutter, 'At least I'm still better than [fill in the blank}' and not rebel against those who have much more wealth and, thereby, actual coercive power. At least not after saying or thinking that, anyhow.
We cannot say often enough that such 'superiority' is illusory, counterfeit and only helps to keep the other 'rackets' (I think of such 'superiority' as a racket in and of itself) of the greedy going.
And now I turn unsympathetic eyes on that group. Let me be clear that I certainly don't mean that to be wealthy is to automatically be viciously greedy; I know some (at least) moderately wealthy folks who are quite generous. Some made it on their own and some inherited wealth, but suffice it to say none seek to be Supreme Rulers of the World.
And this is the second function of such fake and divisive 'superiority': as long as a ruling class, as a group, can keep those below them fighting each other, they can usually be sure of holding onto all the wealth and power which they enjoy and do not want to share with anyone else; be sure of that!
This is why, when those divisions appear to be weakening and the working classes are unifying themselves, the forces of the greedy and, usually, a government which listens to those greedies throw the kitchen sink at the efforts of the unifiers of the 'little people'. Read what that vicious old queen J. Edgar Hoover did against attempts to build a trans-racial coalition of working people. That was an unmentioned but large part of his COINTELPRO operations!
And look at what Rupert the Gnome and all his networks and publications are doing right now. Without Rupert the Gnome and Roger(Ailes) the Groper, no president Trump!
We cannot urge each other to 'follow the money' often enough. Not so much the campaign contributions (although keeping tabs on them is important) as who benefits from X, Y or Z. To put it classically, cui bono? It seems we can keep saying this ad nauseam before it sticks in the minds of enough of us but maybe these times, with Orange Julius Caesar hankering to be a real Caesar, are pressing that phrase into the minds and hearts of more, maybe many more, of us. Let us hope so!
Let's see if we can make LBJ to be mistaken this time and strengthen and extend democracy. We ain't finished yet, brothers and sisters!

LANCING A LIE & OTHER WEIGHTY MATTERS

 Not long ago, I read a post by someone I respect in which he seemed to think to have fallen for the lie that Israel is not only a 'white' country, but indeed 'ultra-white'. And that their Arab cousins are 'people of color'.
That doesn't make sense. Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers, both sons of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel, was Ishmael's nephew.
How many people know that the Shoah happened because Nazis, many other Germans and their fellow-travellers from other European countries, hyped up on racial pseudo-science, decided that the Jews were essentially 'brown bastards' and that all their pathetic attempts to assimilate into Europe were actually a sinister plot to contaminate the Pure Aryan Blood of Blue-Eyed Nordics? 
And now Europe is faced with those same cousins, and their non-Arab fellow religionists who are apparently making far less of an attempt, if any, to assimilate to their new host cultures and some of whom have openly declared they mean to remake Europe into Eurabia! It's way above my pay grade to assert this, but I do at least wonder if having to deal with Muslim minorities is not a sort of judgment upon Europe, as if God has said: "OK, you didn't believe Israel really wanted to assimilate. Now, get a taste of these cousins of theirs, many of whom have no intent to assimilate! Like that better, do you?"
I know a woman, now in her nineties, who, when she was a wee lass starting school at P.S. 221 in Brooklyn in the 1930s, was not considered 'white' by many white so-called Christians right here on the North American continent. Canada, I'm looking at you too; I haven't forgotten what W.L. Mackenzie King had to say about Jews!
It is because of the 'civilized' nations of the world all shutting their doors to Jews frantically trying to escape certain death that too large of a segment of both Israel and the Diaspora can say, with too much truth, 'We have no real friends except our own people. It has always been this way and always will be this way, until Judgment. Almost all others hate us and they will hate us regardless of how much good or evil we do. So let us do whatever we need to protect ourselves, for no one else will.'
I think I should also point out that the Jews who have returned to Israel from elsewhere in the MENA region tend to vote Likud, and further right, more than do those Jews returning from Europe or the Americas. I must ask, what do they know about Arabs that the rest of us either don't know or refuse to acknowledge?
Even the liberal wing of both Israel and the Diaspora has somewhat switched gears in response to this. No longer do they speak of making friends among other peoples but they now ask (as I agree they should) what is right? Are not we as a people charged with pursuing justice? And how is it 'justice' to let little children starve, however bloodthirsty their parents might be against us? Remember Ezekiel 18:1-4. Tom Friedman does an excellent job of capsulizing this in his NYT column on July 30.
The right-wingers will say, with an unfortunate amount of truth, the minds of those children are already poisoned against us thanks to UNRWA and Hamas! And their mothers will tell them that we feed them because we're afraid of them. They will LIE to their children about us! Why should we help those who already want to murder us all?
So, what now? What shape can peace assume? I also want to forestall famine in Gaza and I frankly detest Bibi and his gang. I also want UNRWA disbanded and no more multigenerational refugee status (imagine if Germany had done that after WWII! I think it safe to say that all Four Powers--USA, UK, USSR and France--would not have allowed it!) and Hamas banished. 
Not sure about the PA; I think it might be a better deal if we put the dozen or so sheikhs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in charge as a confederation as they are willing to recognize and work with Israel. Perhaps they might be under joint guidance from Israel, the UAE and maybe Jordan.
On a related matter, if the Druze of Syria are asking for Israeli protection, I say let them have it! The Druze have stood by Israel; let Israel reciprocate!
So much for what I think. I am not on the ground in Israel but far away across both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But I stick to sources I know to care about the actual people--of all kinds--in that region.
If the 'civilized' world wants to show it's changed since 1940, one thing they can do is support those organizations which seek to build relationships between individuals of different communities and that seek to realize equal justice for all within Israel and Israeli jurisdiction. Maybe those Israelis on the no-friends-but-our-own side just might rethink their stance then. In any case, it's worth a try.


NB: for those unacquainted with Scripture, here is Ezekiel 18:1–4:
The word of the LORD came to me: ‘What do you mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
As I live, says the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer repeat this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son — both alike belong to me. The soul that sins is the one who will die.

NOW. NOW. NOW!

 Well, it's happened. We no longer have a SCOTUS. We have a Fascist Grand Council (hereafter the FGC) which still calls itself the SCOTUS, but is no longer. By their decision yesterday, they have shown their only interest in the Constitution is to make it solely an instrument for the rule of the rich white males! Their only interest in democracy is to drive a stake through its heart and bury it twelve feel under!
So, fellow citizens, if you wish to remain citizens and not decline into subjects, and abject subjects at that, now--right now--is the time to rise up and say 'NO!!' to what the FGC has handed--or, rather, thrown down in our general direction and in the autocratic style familiar in prerevolutionary Versailles and/or St. Petersburg!
I say that by such an action they have sawn off the branch on which we all sit, including them, although it's likely they'll be drawn apart by wild horses sooner than acknowledge that. That they themselves have thereby abrogated their authority.
A warning to my 'fellow' pale males without money: in a way, we shall be their first targets. They will target us with lies. They (that is, the FGC, national GOP politicians, the Fascist noise-and-lies machine) will try to convince us that we, too, are part and parcel of the same class as they. Why, some of them will even condescend to enter our bars and taverns and maybe even will buy us a beer and invite us to sit down with them--if they think they can get what they want from us!
No, brothers, be not deceived: all that mob sees us as their useful dogs, to keep the women and everyone of color at a 'safe' (for them and them only!) distance and to be abundantly fed with crow--that is, by and with James (or Jane?) Crow, Esq. Jim Crow has put on 'bidness' attire, gussied up his name and has hired a secretary. If we were to put on our best and come into their clubs, most of them would scowl at us and hiss, "What the hell are you doing here?!"
But with the women and anyone of color, they won't even waste time trying to humbug them. They'll tell them flatly, "We don't share any power with you anymore! Get back to the kitchen, the barns, the cornfields, the whoopie-houses and stay there! Our word, and only our word, is law to y'all!"
What they don't tell us is those words also apply to us, their supposed 'brethren'--but only when it serves their interest. Apart from that, they mean those words to apply to us as well.
The FGC's decision yesterday carries with it the implication that wealthy white males can do as they like with anything and anyone they choose. Including making free with our goods, our monies and our womenfolk. Droit de seigneur is back all right, but not necessarily for us. Only for them!
Some time ago, actually in the wake of the 2016 election, the time came to dust off Madame and prepare to use her. We are now overdue for that. Maybe only in the sense of disabling the political and economic power of our currently ruling oligarchy, but I say, by any means necessary!
All of us, male and female, whatever color of skin, hair and eyes we have, who have little or no more wealth than our humble homes and vehicles and whatever skills we may have, need now to join together and unseat our Fascist Grand Council, put the Fascist noise-and-lies machine out of business and dump almost any and every officeholder with (R) before or after their names, depending on local circumstances.
Can we wait till midterms? I'm not sure of that anymore. Hath not this FGC given Trumpelthinskin a more effective tool to suspend or cancel elections altogether? I'm not sure but it surely looks and feels that way to me.
Now is the time for all of us who have no or little wealth to rise up and take back what rightfully belongs to all of us, all of We The People. God willing, we shall do this nonviolently but if the Fascists start shooting, let us respond. Now, fellow citizens (for the moment anyway). Now, all colors, races, ethnicities and faiths. Now, men and women. Now. Now. Now!

 

ORGANIZE! UNITE! WIN!

 

Well, here we are, back to the 1930s. The great, mostly white middle class produced by postwar legislation and the boom on which it rode, is now mostly gone. Sixty percent of Americans are again living hand-to-mouth. And yet, our ignoble oligarchs are still not satisfied. And they won't even be satisfied with medieval-style ownership of all us peasants!

Most of you have, courtesy of Faux News and other such fascist media, have fallen for the lie that the political and economic descendants of the planters have been using on us ever since Bacon's Rebellion in the Virginia colony of the 1670s.

One of that rebellion's remarkably rich ironies is, it actually began because enough newly-freed indentured servants thought that the colonial legislature wasn't grabbing enough of the natives' land quickly enough!

But whatever its roots, Bacon's Rebellion terrified the Virginia planters because black and white indentured servants made common cause against the Virginia aristocracy. From then on, blacks were to be slaves all their lives and whites would be indentured for a few years, then used to do the planters' dirty work while being fed the lie that THEY were now part of the ruling class!

How many of you have been told that lie and swallowed it in its current form? That you, too, might be rich one day and it'll all be by your own efforts?

Sorry-not-sorry to tell you that you've been sold a bill of goods! IF your grandchildren are lucky, they'll be doing exactly the same work you're doing now! If they're UNlucky, they'll be literal beggars and some will have their their starved, probably unburied carcasses merging with landfills! And you can guess what your granddaughters might have to do in order to keep breathing, can't you?

One lie you've been told is, y'all, or your grandparents, made it by their own efforts while others (and we know who THAT means) 'had things handed to them'.

THAT lie started the day after the 13th Amendment made technical slavery illegal in the whole country. Some of you may remember that the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to the 'states in rebellion', not to the loyal slave states. And, since so few of us have known any African-American, LAtino or native individuals, too many of us have swallowed that LIE, generation after generation!

And now, as a pretty direct result of too many of us allowing ourselves to be pitted against other working people of different skin shades, what every president beginning with FDR and ending with Carter has built, fostered and maintained is....gone, gone, GONE! No more middle class majority; too many of us started to think of ourselves as aristocrats! Not a smart move when your family's middle-class prosperity was built on the GI Bill and FHA insured home loans!

This next item is something neither most of you, or parents and grandparents, could have been expected to know or even ask after: those programs were secretly 'labelled' 'For White Men Only, or Almost'. Almost no African-American, Latino or Native applying to those programs got anything from them!

Again, this is something almost none of you could be expected to know.

I know about it because I heard about it and did my homework and because my daddy was also a Southern white anti-racist. And probably mostly because of him I was lucky to grow up in what is still too rare in our country: a successfully racially (AND economically) integrated neighborhood. Three cheers for West Mt. Airy!

This is how I know no person of color ever got anything we didn't get first and out of which they were initially shut out for too long! Yes-sir-ee! Y'all got help and they didn't, at least till the 1960s! And even then they were only added to the list. Which is to say, you were never excluded from help on racial grounds!

But you, and/or your parents and/or grandparents,swallowed the hornswoggle!

Now, if we are to return to the days when there were no billionaires (although there've always been wealthy individuals, and that's OK) we need to TAX the rich according to their ability to pay! Maybe in order to do that, some of you need to understand that the likelihood of your families becoming wealthy is about as likely as being able to reach the moon by flapping your arms!

Most of our current billionaire class is making sure that none of you or your grandkids will EVER be able to join their ranks! If you want our children and grandchildren to have a real chance at better lives, first requirement is: you have to want this for ALL our children of all colors and act, especially vote, accordingly! Don't fall for ANYTHING that tries to pin our problems on some low-power group that can barely hit back OR onto honestly earned, disinterested expertise, but FOLLOW. THE. MONEY. As the citizens of the Roman Republic once asked, Cui bono? Who benefits?

Our oligarchs try very, very hard to prevent you, or anyone honest and not downright worshipful towards them, from finding the money trail! Every single law that makes following the money harder for ordinary folk has to go into the trashcan!

Organize across the lines of race, ethnicity and faith!

WE now stand on the brink, if we do it together, of creating something that human history has not yet seen: a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-faith, secular, representative, democratic republic!

Until now, we Americans have been pioneers of one form or another! And now history is giving us another chance to be pioneers again--this time for all of us! White, Native, Black, Latino, Asian, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or whatever! Let's return to what we have been in this respect and NOT let the greedy, ruthless, dam' near psychopathic billionaire class knock us apart!

STICK WITH WESTERN CIV, FELLOW LIBS, PROGS, ETC.

 I have what might be seriously unhappy news for a good many of my fellow liberals, progressives, 'greenies', etc.
If you cherish such ideas as democracy, the rule of law and justice for all (including other creatures and ecosystems) under that law, the only civilization that even entertains such quaint notions is that which has in large part grown from the creative tension 'between Athens and Jerusalem'--that is, Western civilization and its subsidiary cultures.
Because of what Jerusalem brings to the table, there is some understanding that the strong should uphold and strengthen the weak. 'A flickering wick He will not quench,' etc. Does Muslim culture say or live this at all? Do the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, or of the Americas say or do likewise?
Athens brings the faculty of clear and acute observation; Jerusalem a cultivation of compassion which stood alone in the ancient world, along with the ongoing attempt to apply divine revelation to human life. Both may well have self-critical faculties probably unequalled in the ancient world and still all too rare in today's world. I defy one and all to show us any culture or civilization with anything like such setups!
I've heard a little of the concept of ubuntu, summed up as 'Because we are, I am'.
Well and good. We of and in the West have, indeed, historically not paid enough attention (at least for perhaps the last two centuries) to connections between ourselves and other creatures and life-forms. Certainly in the US of A, neoliberal individualism has gone some ways too far; I'll be one of the first to agree with that!
Two things are important to remember here: first, as I've written before, democracy is based not on any Romantic claptrap about the (on life-support) Goodness of Humankind but on exactly the opposite: every single hoomin is equally corruptible by economic and political power, which are almost always the same thing, and only other humans can check the corruption of others. If we want God to keep us free of such corruption, we must ask Him to do so and ask that on a continuing basis--and be prepared for responses to come from unexpected quarters.
Second, by reminding the rich and powerful that they are as human and as mortal as the rest of us, we are actually doing them a mighty service. Without such reminders, wouldn't they find themselves diving towards Dives in record time? I certainly think so. As we contain and constrain their power, we also pull their eternal souls back from the lip of the Fiery Pit on the edge of which they totter!
I know of no other culture or civilization that, at least in theory and at least sometimes in practice, puts such checks on those entrusted with such power. If anyone else does, well, friends, speak up right now and hold not your peace! Expound on the arcadias of which most of us won't know and tell us how they do it! After all, democracy is not yet complete and will probably not be within the lifetimes of nearly all of us currently breathing! We can still use quite a bit of help that way.
Two places in the ancient world strike me: first, Cahokia, where it seems that the natives of that area tried 'civilization' but eventually gave it up as not worth it. Second, Mohenjo-Daro, which seems to have been remarkably democratic inasmuch as it shows it had sanitation facilities for all its inhabitants and no monarchical great palaces or temples or anything like that. We've probably only begun to scratch the surface of what each place will be able to tell us today!
Dr. Franklin acknowledged the Six Nations as being (at least in part) as being more politically and organizationally advanced than us colonists and he sought to copy certain sections of how they ran their business. Another strength of Western civilization: the ability to note and, when beneficial to at least some folks, adapt parts of other cultures.
Anyhow, fellow liberals, progressives, etc., stick with Western civilization. Yeah, it's had and has its own shortcomings. Find me a culture and civilization that doesn't have them on our fallen planet!
Stop trying to be better than Jesus Who asked the rich young man, "Why do you call me 'good'? There is none good save God."
And, finally (I hear the relieved sighs!) don't forget that the underpinning for the Enlightenment which provides much of our intellectual fuel has very definitely Judeo-Christian underpinnings. Ponder that long and well, brothers and sisters.

THE INEQUALITY OF ISLAM WITH JUDAISM & CHRISTIANITY

 

Let's not deceive ourselves about Islam. Islam per se is not our enemy, but they have a l-o-n-g way to go before they can be equal partners with (most of) Christianity and Judaism in Abrahamian culture and civilization.

Why do I say this? Simply this: today, most Christians and nearly all Jews understand how inherently evil slave trading and slave holding are and nearly all the 'voices' in both faith communities reflect this. Not so with Islam. Islam was the 'faith' that opened the first (which might still be proceeding under the law's radar) great slave trade, the trans-Sahara slave trade which has lasted not four but fourTEEN centuries with a death rate closer to 85 percent rather than the 25 percent or so from the Atlantic slave trade--which, btw, began as an extension of the trans-Sahara slave trade!

No: in the absence of Muslim voices unafraid to raise themselves against slavery and slave-trading across the board and in favor of EQUAL human rights and dignity for ALL, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, I for one neither can nor will accept the 'equality' of Islam with Christianity and Judaism.
Individual Muslims are another matter. Toward them I hope I will always show Christian charity, mercy and forbearance.

Some will say, it took Christendom long enough to come to that point. Just so. But it has, and almost from the beginning it had figures which were at least uneasy about the implications of slave-trading and slave-holding and who raised their voices accordingly. All the way back to Fray Anton Montecito who scourged his fellow Spaniards for their treatment of the natives in 1512--five years before the Reformation began.

Who can Islam put up beside Fray Anton, Bartolome de las Casas, Samuel de Champlain, Roger Williams and John Woolman? If such figures are there, why do we know nothing about them?

Until and unless such figures can be found and put among pioneers of human freedom, 'mainstream' Islam cannot be seen as an equal and we may need to treat it as a likely enemy of human freedom.

Leftists, be not deceived: if the Islamists win a jihad, you'll be among the first batch of the executed and your alliance with them will make exactly NO difference!

PROBABLY FUTILE CALL TO 'FELLOW' PALE MALES

 So now MAGA and their Orange Julius Caesar have served notice on us: NO more heroes of color, no female heroes or exemplars to be held up AT ALL! And pale male mediocrities (maybe I should apply for a post; more than one person might see me as such a critter) will be promoted over better qualified women and people of color! And saying to all the out-groups, your excellence will no longer earn you anything; only saying 'Sho' Massa!' loud enough and long enough may get you a few picayunes!
But to all those pale males who think, perhaps with tremulous near-ecstasy, they are about to be restored to their 'rightful' position with the lowest of them still better than the best people of color, let me let you in on a secret which today's 'planters' will probably chase me down for telling you:
The new rule for women and people of color that excellence will gain you nothing but the blindest obedience may get you something also applies to....y'all! To all us pale males without money, connections or social capital!
Yes, that's right! We too are now subject to the same rules the oligarchs are reinstating for women and people of color. But no one, except women and people of color, are telling us that!
And how do I know this? I know it because of memories which came out in therapy decades after my dad erected a firewall against them by means of hypnosis. Memories of seeing my father rankly abused by his planter of a boss at the small Midwestern women's college where he worked and on which campus we then lived. I also know it by hints he dropped about his being let go from another business a few years later. Whether there's a connection between the two I don't know and don't expect to know in this world.
But I do know that my dad did what was expected of him and he still got knocked in the head. Maybe twice. And he was a white Southerner of mixed British ancestry (English, Scots, Welsh) Our family name is of impeccably English origin. Maybe what knocked him askew is that we come from the Southern whites the ex-planters called 'scalawags' during Reconstruction.
That is, Southern whites willing to work with the freedmen and the Yankee Carpetbagger transplants in the Reconstruction state governments. The ones with antebellum memories of being squeezed and muzzled by the greedy, arrogant and prideful planters. The ones who know why no Southern state had any public education for anyone of any color until Reconstruction. And the ones who knew that, already by 1835, no Southern state was any kind of democracy even for white men! Only for rich white men!
So two colors determined whether these states were democracies: white and green! Or, back then, white and gold, as coin was still 'specie' as was said. That fits better as white and gold were also the colors of the prerevolutionary French monarchy--and we all know what happened to that!
Probably that's a big part of how I got to be a second-generation Southern white anti-racist.
I used to wonder why my dad had such a passionate hatred for 'whiteness'. The sixteen years since January 2009, and much of what I've seen and heard during them, have answered that question most emphatically. Today, I share my dad's deep hatred of the falsehood called 'whiteness', possibly with interest.
Anyway, 'fellow' pale males, I have pathetically little hope of you. I have little hope that you won't take the devil's bargain which, once again, the oligarchs offer you of doing their dirty work in exchange for lying to yourselves and thinking yourselves one of the ruling caste when you're not. You're only their bitches doing the work they consider too nasty for their delicate, inbred, palsied hands!
Mind you, I would never be happier to be mistaken in this than now. If you wise up and join with people of all colors and all women to build a strong working people's coalition capable of demanding what our country needs and seeing it done, I will be very pleasantly surprised!
Prove even LBJ mistaken when he said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Prove both me and LBJ mistaken in that! You call yourselves Christians; so show yourselves so by not needing to look down on anyone!