For some reason Asra Nomani's piece today in the Washington Post brought this idea back to my mind: on the one hand liberal, progressive and 'secularized' Muslims, and on the other liberal, progressive and 'secularized' Christians (myself among the progressives)--and nearly all Jews with brains befitting them--are fighting the same battle, although not at the same stage.
The progressive, etc. Muslims are now fighting to separate mosque from state, both here in the West and in their native countries. We now fight to maintain and strengthen the separation we have between church and state. I at least like to think that those of us who are God-, or religiously, oriented understand that separation to be absolutely vital, not only for human freedom of mind (also necessary for technological progress) but also to allow real religion to flourish as it does here where no religious body has been (since 1833) nor will ever be again part of the state establishment. Upwards of four centuries before our First Amendment stated, "Congress shall make no law..." a poet who was himself a friar wrote these words:
When the kindness of Constantine gave Holy Church endowments
In lands and leases, lordships and servants,
The Romans heard an angel cry on high above them
"This day has[the church] drunk venom
And all who have Peter's power are poisoned forever."
If Will Langland could see the corrupting nature of religion and state in the same bed in a time when a different arrangement could hardly be imagined, what excuse do any of us have, with most of the European churches now being near-empty shells as a consequence of that very connection?!
No, those who fear such separation are not afraid on God's account nor for fear of not saving we innocent sheeple but for fear that they won't be able to terrify and enrage their 'flocks' into giving them hefty incomes for doing nothing but terrifying and/or enraging them--that is, with no more reason to 'fleece' the sheeple they actually may have to go and figure out how to earn more honest livings! I say this is so for both Islamist rulers and imams on the one hand and for the far-right Christendomist (new word) preachers, publicists and noisemakers on the other!!
One distinguishing characteristic for them all seems to be a reluctance to 1) use their imagination, especially on behalf of anyone without bursting purses and/or pockets and 2) to use, still less encourage others to use, the rest of their minds except what's necessary to pull the plows so that the massas can keep making money!. Minds awake tend to ask so many seditious and blasphemous (really meaning 'inconvenient' and/or 'difficult for me') questions, don't you know? So they fight tooth and nail against having to actually engage new information and ideas and lie to their flocks that they must consider even such thoughts as blasphemous and possibly damning!
Maybe, Asra, you remind me of these things because self-criticism is also a necessity for engaging the new information, which in turn gives rise to growth and progress for both individuals and societies as a whole.
As for all the should-be hedgerow (or sand-dune?) hollerers, listen up: the hands of many of you are stained, yea, caked (for some) with the blood of others you have either urged to bloodshed or whose blood you have goaded others to shed and that blood will, without your repentances, drag you down to the lake of fire!
And when you stand before the Throne, what will you say to the God Whom we have all been commanded to love with all our hearts, souls, strengths and minds?! Think about it and I hope you charlatans lose plenty of sleep over it!!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
CAMPAIGN ADVICE FOR ALL PROGRESSIVES
This is actually a series of posts put together on this post for (I
hope) the benefit of all progressives campaigning for any office on any
level from local on up to federal for this year, next year (2014) and
beyond! And as I am a 'channeler' of Harry among others, I'm putting myself more firmly at the head of a hopeful progressive Democratic ticket for 2016--unless another 'conviction' pol like, say, Alan Grayson is interested in the top spot!
Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.
The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri . His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.
When he retired from office in 1952 his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."
As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.
Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.
Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, "My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!"
I say dig him up and clone him!
I think the more Harrys and Harriets we can find to run for offices at all levels, the better. Weigh in, all!
Something to say about campaigning: if I'm right, most legislative districts, both for Congress and both houses of state legislatures, are compact enough to be well-covered by candidates going around those districts--WITHOUT KOWTOWING TO LOCAL BIG MONEY INTERESTS.
This is important, so I need feedback from this.
For those on the other side, we already know that kowtowing to big money and petty tyrants of nearly all kinds (except experts who really do know their stuff) is what they're about anyway. But we are different. Let me then ask a question: I'm pretty sure none of US like the idea of grovelling before possible campaign contributors because we're under the illusion that it's an 'easier' thing to do than, say, to cover the whole district ourselves even if we do it in church/synagogue basements and local diners.
Think about it: it may take more time (but probably not much more) and more gas, but which is more encouraging and indeed more nourishing to the soul of anyone who really wants to serve the people?
And isn't the purported need for moremoremore moneymoneymoney allallall the g.d. time incredibly corrosive to those same souls? So, really, what is better, at least on the levels up to congressional--collecting money for media spots or going out among the people with a series of 'townhalls' throughout the districts?! Not to mention how, once one is elected, that same need eats up time far better spent on the people's business? Am I not onto something here? If not, let's hear it now!
But on the offchance I am, well, maybe it's time for progressive candidates and incumbents (again, at least up to congressional level) to forgo the pricey crapola and git down with the real people! I suggest that both people and representatives will be happier when THEIR representatives have more time to listen to them and attend to THEIR business! Doesn't this make sense? I think it does. Let's do it!
If
a progressive wins the presidency in 2016, it may well be for nought
UNLESS we organize to also elect progressives to as many seats in
Congress as might be humanly possible. If we can elect more progressives
in 2014, so much the better. But that victory, too, can be rendered
relatively trifling UNLESS we also find, and elect, progressives to the
state legislatures in both upcoming election years
and thereafter. Those so elected must know that they owe their places
to a progressive majority in their states or districts--and ONLY to that
progressive majority, not to any big-money contributor or
contributors!! Better still if our candidates and officeholders have a
strong sense of themselves apart from holding office, but as Mick would
sing, we can't always get what we want and that last might be asking a
bit much as we are just beginning to organize.
But let's begin looking for people whose progressive politics we can trust and who we think would be good legislators, representatives, or senators--and let's start telling our friends and neighbors about them!! Let's organize in such a way that billionaire would-be contributors become irrelevant!
For those who have doubts about the possibility of such a thing, I ask this: how much more time does it really take to cover either a state legislative or senatorial district, or a congressional district--and to speak with as many real people as possible--than it would to beg fat cats for contributions? And which is more satisfying to the soul of any conviction progressive politician?
So, folks, let's keep rolling as we look for and find good people to run for office or to keep in office! And remember--we need progressives at EVERY level of government!!
Beginning NOW, we need to do a both-sides strategy around at least two issues: 1) we ask ourselves whether we should support already-extant officeholders and openly aspiring candidates OR find our own candidates and stay independent of the two-party system. We need to do BOTH--fight the progressive battle within the Democratic party AND build a literally INDEPENDENT network of progressives which may ally itself with, but without being swallowed by, that same Democratic party! 2) We know that GOP will double and triple efforts to suppress voters. This too needs to be fought two ways: frontally through the courts, legislatures and direct protest action--but we also need to look at the 47% of Americans who voted for Mitt and figure out how, and how many, can be turned away from the GOP to the Democrats or other progressives. If we can erode that number by at least 20 percent, that 20 percent can encourage others until the GOP is left with only the billionaires and their sectarian stooges. And at that point our renewal of America may be unstoppable!!
Anyone with any ideas about the vulnerable points of the 47 percent, please share them now! 2014 and 2016 start NOW, brothers and sisters!!!
Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.
The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri . His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.
When he retired from office in 1952 his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."
As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.
Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.
Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, "My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!"
I say dig him up and clone him!
I think the more Harrys and Harriets we can find to run for offices at all levels, the better. Weigh in, all!
I
cannot concur heartily enough with this article. To those listening, I
also say that NO ONE who calls him/herself a progressive of any kind
should support anyone, for any office on any level from local on up to
federal, who does NOT agree to throw private money OUT of ALL elections!
If we can't find such candidates, then let's either find them or run
for those offices ourselves! Let's get moving on this NOW!!!
http://truth-out.org/news/
truth-out.org
One
thing which we ABSOLUTELY MUST DO in ALL ELECTIONS this year, next
year, to 2016 and probably beyond that is PIN every person running for
office at ANY level with 'Republican' after his/her name about their
party's 1) professional-style gerrymandering at ALL governmental levels
and 2) scheme to RIG the Electoral College in their favor.
'Everybody does it' is a LIE and any candidate who uses that as an excuse deserves spit in their eye!
This can hardly be more serious, ladies and gentlemen! We are talking about schemes to vitiate our democracy and also the very republican form of government most of us cherish!!
For anyone running for office, NOTHING LESS THAN AN EXPRESS ATTACK AND/OR DISAVOWAL OF SUCH ANTI-DEMOCRACY MEASURES SHOULD SUFFICE!! If anyone tries to shuffle or fudge this question, or worse, that should earn them a sentence of PERMANENT ELECTORAL DEATH!!!
Let NO ONE forget this and let's keep on throwing it at every single 'Republican' candidate for ANY federal, state or local office!!
Don't be dissuaded by anything, including phony pleas to 'let's move on from this' or 'why dwell on this?' Well, there's an A1 reason for 'dwelling' on it: it endangers our democracy at its very foundation, that's why!!
Again, let none forget this and let's all POUND the GOP with it!!
'Everybody does it' is a LIE and any candidate who uses that as an excuse deserves spit in their eye!
This can hardly be more serious, ladies and gentlemen! We are talking about schemes to vitiate our democracy and also the very republican form of government most of us cherish!!
For anyone running for office, NOTHING LESS THAN AN EXPRESS ATTACK AND/OR DISAVOWAL OF SUCH ANTI-DEMOCRACY MEASURES SHOULD SUFFICE!! If anyone tries to shuffle or fudge this question, or worse, that should earn them a sentence of PERMANENT ELECTORAL DEATH!!!
Let NO ONE forget this and let's keep on throwing it at every single 'Republican' candidate for ANY federal, state or local office!!
Don't be dissuaded by anything, including phony pleas to 'let's move on from this' or 'why dwell on this?' Well, there's an A1 reason for 'dwelling' on it: it endangers our democracy at its very foundation, that's why!!
Again, let none forget this and let's all POUND the GOP with it!!
Something to say about campaigning: if I'm right, most legislative districts, both for Congress and both houses of state legislatures, are compact enough to be well-covered by candidates going around those districts--WITHOUT KOWTOWING TO LOCAL BIG MONEY INTERESTS.
This is important, so I need feedback from this.
For those on the other side, we already know that kowtowing to big money and petty tyrants of nearly all kinds (except experts who really do know their stuff) is what they're about anyway. But we are different. Let me then ask a question: I'm pretty sure none of US like the idea of grovelling before possible campaign contributors because we're under the illusion that it's an 'easier' thing to do than, say, to cover the whole district ourselves even if we do it in church/synagogue basements and local diners.
Think about it: it may take more time (but probably not much more) and more gas, but which is more encouraging and indeed more nourishing to the soul of anyone who really wants to serve the people?
And isn't the purported need for moremoremore moneymoneymoney allallall the g.d. time incredibly corrosive to those same souls? So, really, what is better, at least on the levels up to congressional--collecting money for media spots or going out among the people with a series of 'townhalls' throughout the districts?! Not to mention how, once one is elected, that same need eats up time far better spent on the people's business? Am I not onto something here? If not, let's hear it now!
But on the offchance I am, well, maybe it's time for progressive candidates and incumbents (again, at least up to congressional level) to forgo the pricey crapola and git down with the real people! I suggest that both people and representatives will be happier when THEIR representatives have more time to listen to them and attend to THEIR business! Doesn't this make sense? I think it does. Let's do it!
Some facts of political life necessary to take into account.
But let's begin looking for people whose progressive politics we can trust and who we think would be good legislators, representatives, or senators--and let's start telling our friends and neighbors about them!! Let's organize in such a way that billionaire would-be contributors become irrelevant!
For those who have doubts about the possibility of such a thing, I ask this: how much more time does it really take to cover either a state legislative or senatorial district, or a congressional district--and to speak with as many real people as possible--than it would to beg fat cats for contributions? And which is more satisfying to the soul of any conviction progressive politician?
So, folks, let's keep rolling as we look for and find good people to run for office or to keep in office! And remember--we need progressives at EVERY level of government!!
Beginning NOW, we need to do a both-sides strategy around at least two issues: 1) we ask ourselves whether we should support already-extant officeholders and openly aspiring candidates OR find our own candidates and stay independent of the two-party system. We need to do BOTH--fight the progressive battle within the Democratic party AND build a literally INDEPENDENT network of progressives which may ally itself with, but without being swallowed by, that same Democratic party! 2) We know that GOP will double and triple efforts to suppress voters. This too needs to be fought two ways: frontally through the courts, legislatures and direct protest action--but we also need to look at the 47% of Americans who voted for Mitt and figure out how, and how many, can be turned away from the GOP to the Democrats or other progressives. If we can erode that number by at least 20 percent, that 20 percent can encourage others until the GOP is left with only the billionaires and their sectarian stooges. And at that point our renewal of America may be unstoppable!!
Anyone with any ideas about the vulnerable points of the 47 percent, please share them now! 2014 and 2016 start NOW, brothers and sisters!!!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
'ME NO ALAMO!!'
"Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!!"
So Santa Anna's troops pled at the battle of San Jacinto where Texan independence from Mexico was won and where the Texans remembered the Alamo. Hence the plea from the Mexicans to save themselves from the same fate as the Alamo's defenders.
I defy anyone and everyone to explain to me how what certain whites say (and with which I am thoroughly fed up), "What's race got to do with me? My folks didn't get here till after 1900 and it's not MY fault!" is any different in kind from 'me no Alamo'?
My initial response to this particular whine is "Ptu!" through two fingers of my right hand, but that requires elaboration.
I'll start by agreeing: no, it's NOT your fault and no doubt your grandparents (or further back for the younger set) heard their share of ethnic epithets. And, yes, more than likely you don't use them either.
However, somewhere along the line you benefited by not being held back and having a real chance to prove yourselves when others, because of their color, did not. You, or your parents, weren't held back because of your familial lack of pigmentation.
So, like it or not, you have benefited from racism. No, you didn't ask for it but I'm sorry; that doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is, what are you doing to erase the extremely stubborn remnants of that structure? Except in the criminal justice system, that structure's gotten quite a bit subtler than it used to be. Jim Crow has been succeeded by James Crow, Esq.
My mother's people were among those immigrants of a century ago too, so I'm one of this crowd as well. But it is from my dad's side (Southern free farmers, aka 'scalawags' courtesy of the ex-planters) that I get my nose and my near-violent antipathy for even whiffs of racism.
Here's the deal: what they used to say in the 1960s is really true, still, today. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
If we're not already there, how do we become part of the solution? First, TUNE OUT Rush, Glenn, Rupert, Breitbart, Drudge and other liars and go to Truthout, Alternet, The Daily Beast, Haaretz and the (Jerusalem) Post for news. Read the Times with a few grains of salt. And read what African-American scholars really have had to say about this matter. Do NOT accept anything cribbed together by Glenn et al.
So, first thing is get and keep yourself correctly informed and form a reasonably accurate idea of the background of the current state of affairs.
Second, don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. If we want the Shoah to be remembered, don't slavery and Jim Crow deserve as much? Promote knowledge of such shameful incidents as the destruction of the thriving and prosperous black section of Tulsa in 1920 (including, by the way, aerial bombing--no joke!!) and the destruction of another prosperous black town in the 1920s in Florida (Rosewood) by the KKK and find out what we can of other incidents. If we want wrongs done to us remembered, what business have we of mouthing 'move on!' to others?! I say to do that is nothing but SHANDA on us and surely race-based slavery and its aftermaths cast shadows comparable to Cossacks, pogroms and attempted annihilation!
Third, develop your own senses for this sort of thing. Teach yourself more analogies; that'll probably help a lot as this is how one learns to see parallels. Do all you can to develop a true sense of who really has the power in each case. While it's true that Proverbs advises us not to 'favor a poor man in his quarrels', this is advice to treat the poor equally, not preferentially. But if the poor today are treated anywhere near equally to others, I've a bridge I'd like to sell you!
So, brethren, no more excuses for not doing our parts. No more whines like the one with which I began this post and no more anythings which have the ring of 'me no Alamo'--or explain to me, in proper detail and without befogging the issue, where, how and why I am mistaken. I have time to wait, so take all the time you need.
So Santa Anna's troops pled at the battle of San Jacinto where Texan independence from Mexico was won and where the Texans remembered the Alamo. Hence the plea from the Mexicans to save themselves from the same fate as the Alamo's defenders.
I defy anyone and everyone to explain to me how what certain whites say (and with which I am thoroughly fed up), "What's race got to do with me? My folks didn't get here till after 1900 and it's not MY fault!" is any different in kind from 'me no Alamo'?
My initial response to this particular whine is "Ptu!" through two fingers of my right hand, but that requires elaboration.
I'll start by agreeing: no, it's NOT your fault and no doubt your grandparents (or further back for the younger set) heard their share of ethnic epithets. And, yes, more than likely you don't use them either.
However, somewhere along the line you benefited by not being held back and having a real chance to prove yourselves when others, because of their color, did not. You, or your parents, weren't held back because of your familial lack of pigmentation.
So, like it or not, you have benefited from racism. No, you didn't ask for it but I'm sorry; that doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is, what are you doing to erase the extremely stubborn remnants of that structure? Except in the criminal justice system, that structure's gotten quite a bit subtler than it used to be. Jim Crow has been succeeded by James Crow, Esq.
My mother's people were among those immigrants of a century ago too, so I'm one of this crowd as well. But it is from my dad's side (Southern free farmers, aka 'scalawags' courtesy of the ex-planters) that I get my nose and my near-violent antipathy for even whiffs of racism.
Here's the deal: what they used to say in the 1960s is really true, still, today. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
If we're not already there, how do we become part of the solution? First, TUNE OUT Rush, Glenn, Rupert, Breitbart, Drudge and other liars and go to Truthout, Alternet, The Daily Beast, Haaretz and the (Jerusalem) Post for news. Read the Times with a few grains of salt. And read what African-American scholars really have had to say about this matter. Do NOT accept anything cribbed together by Glenn et al.
So, first thing is get and keep yourself correctly informed and form a reasonably accurate idea of the background of the current state of affairs.
Second, don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. If we want the Shoah to be remembered, don't slavery and Jim Crow deserve as much? Promote knowledge of such shameful incidents as the destruction of the thriving and prosperous black section of Tulsa in 1920 (including, by the way, aerial bombing--no joke!!) and the destruction of another prosperous black town in the 1920s in Florida (Rosewood) by the KKK and find out what we can of other incidents. If we want wrongs done to us remembered, what business have we of mouthing 'move on!' to others?! I say to do that is nothing but SHANDA on us and surely race-based slavery and its aftermaths cast shadows comparable to Cossacks, pogroms and attempted annihilation!
Third, develop your own senses for this sort of thing. Teach yourself more analogies; that'll probably help a lot as this is how one learns to see parallels. Do all you can to develop a true sense of who really has the power in each case. While it's true that Proverbs advises us not to 'favor a poor man in his quarrels', this is advice to treat the poor equally, not preferentially. But if the poor today are treated anywhere near equally to others, I've a bridge I'd like to sell you!
So, brethren, no more excuses for not doing our parts. No more whines like the one with which I began this post and no more anythings which have the ring of 'me no Alamo'--or explain to me, in proper detail and without befogging the issue, where, how and why I am mistaken. I have time to wait, so take all the time you need.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
POST FROM AN ANGRY WHITE MAN*
I am very, very angry over a number of things. I am also a middle-aged white man. So, I guess that makes me an angry white middle-aged man.
And the people on whom I want to detonate my anger are almost entirely other angry, middle-aged or older, white men.
And why would that be? Well, here it comes, so y'all brace yourselves:
I am angry at my fellow ruling-caste members because too many of them are behaving in ways unbefitting to a ruling caste genuinely confident and secure in its power and rectitude. No, they now act in ways which indicate they are anything but that! Most of them dare not speak the guilty truth that too many of them acquired wealth by adding no value to the economy but simply by legalized thefts from the community at large. Most of them are gaming the system to such an extent as to make their class even more hereditary than it was before 1981 even as they now pull up the ladders by which they themselves ascended. Maybe some of them are peckerwoody enough to close advancement even to poor whites rather than allow people of color to ascend to (to them!) an intolerable degree. Whence else comes the serious campaign to dismantle public education and replace it with a school-to-prison pipeline for all young men of color and probably a significant chunk of whites as well?!
I am angry that they are in the process of destroying nearly everything that makes our country exceptional. They have already largely destroyed a relatively broad way of upward mobility for which we were long famed and envied. Now they and their boughten and paid-for slaves in Congress, in our state legislatures and on the airwaves of radio and television are making a serious bid to complete democracy's hollowing out, leaving us with only the empty shell of the forms and procedures!
I am angry that, from colonial times even to this day, whenever our law or history has offered us a chance to lift out of slavery we have responded with further clampdowns. The English common law which we brought here with us stated that the children of a free father and an unfree mother inherited the father's status and, hence, were free people. Because of our own greed, we broke that law and continued to keep mixed-race people in bondage till God's vengeance overtook our country starting on April 12, 1861. Then we went to the prison-labor, chain gang and sharecropping systems and from there to skewing government help such as FHA loans away from people of color even unto directing blacks and browns into subprime loans when they qualified for better and thus making sure they suffered worst when the crash came in 2008! To this, affirmative action benefits amount to peanuts!!!!! Men who look like me have done little else but steal, on a consistent basis, from those with darker skins. With those like me, they've been subtler and more sporadic in their thefts. And when the law has compelled them to make redress, they usually work it so that working-class whites either wind up 'paying' or believing they are even when they're not.
I am angry at other white men not so well-educated and yet again falling for the crow (that is, Jim) which the planters and their economic descendants have used to keep too many of us thinking we, too, are part of the ruling caste. Our children might need medical care, but all is well because our 'kind' own it all. And, hence, we resist any attempt to redress a badly skewed distribution of wealth, income and good jobs which would ultimately benefit us too. I am especially angry that peckerwoods, with their other-ethnicity stooges (and that's putting it so politely!), all but control the highest court in the land now poised to knock out the floor from under the voting rights of minorities!!
I am angry that they might well be about to complete a gross crime against us all and the rest of Creation to boot summed up in this old English verse:
The law locks up both man and woman
That steals the goose from off the common
But let the greater felons loose
That steal the commons from the goose.
We, the geese and the other critters may well lose this (still) good earth which sustains us and our economies still unless we act fast and NOW!! But we have the distinction of having the chance to save it--but now's the time to really start!
I am angriest of all at those who break the Third and Ninth Commandments as part of their stock-in-trade whatever their religious labels are from Baptist to Shiite by misusing Scripture and communities of faith to oppress rather than liberate, to crush rather than nurture and love. Worst of all are those who claim their god requires that believers kill, enslave or even put at legal disadvantage others who do not believe in their tribal idol! If they know any spiritual beings, they are demons and devils!! Any oppressive use of faith is of the devil; any so-called 'faith leader' who forbids or discourages asking any kind of questions is also of the devil!
I very much doubt I've exhausted my wrath and the fuels thereto, but (fortunately for my readers) I'm sort of 'articulated out' for the moment. So I'll conclude by restating: I am an angry white middle-aged man, and these are some things which fuel that anger the most. Let me know if they make you angry too.
And the people on whom I want to detonate my anger are almost entirely other angry, middle-aged or older, white men.
And why would that be? Well, here it comes, so y'all brace yourselves:
I am angry at my fellow ruling-caste members because too many of them are behaving in ways unbefitting to a ruling caste genuinely confident and secure in its power and rectitude. No, they now act in ways which indicate they are anything but that! Most of them dare not speak the guilty truth that too many of them acquired wealth by adding no value to the economy but simply by legalized thefts from the community at large. Most of them are gaming the system to such an extent as to make their class even more hereditary than it was before 1981 even as they now pull up the ladders by which they themselves ascended. Maybe some of them are peckerwoody enough to close advancement even to poor whites rather than allow people of color to ascend to (to them!) an intolerable degree. Whence else comes the serious campaign to dismantle public education and replace it with a school-to-prison pipeline for all young men of color and probably a significant chunk of whites as well?!
I am angry that they are in the process of destroying nearly everything that makes our country exceptional. They have already largely destroyed a relatively broad way of upward mobility for which we were long famed and envied. Now they and their boughten and paid-for slaves in Congress, in our state legislatures and on the airwaves of radio and television are making a serious bid to complete democracy's hollowing out, leaving us with only the empty shell of the forms and procedures!
I am angry that, from colonial times even to this day, whenever our law or history has offered us a chance to lift out of slavery we have responded with further clampdowns. The English common law which we brought here with us stated that the children of a free father and an unfree mother inherited the father's status and, hence, were free people. Because of our own greed, we broke that law and continued to keep mixed-race people in bondage till God's vengeance overtook our country starting on April 12, 1861. Then we went to the prison-labor, chain gang and sharecropping systems and from there to skewing government help such as FHA loans away from people of color even unto directing blacks and browns into subprime loans when they qualified for better and thus making sure they suffered worst when the crash came in 2008! To this, affirmative action benefits amount to peanuts!!!!! Men who look like me have done little else but steal, on a consistent basis, from those with darker skins. With those like me, they've been subtler and more sporadic in their thefts. And when the law has compelled them to make redress, they usually work it so that working-class whites either wind up 'paying' or believing they are even when they're not.
I am angry at other white men not so well-educated and yet again falling for the crow (that is, Jim) which the planters and their economic descendants have used to keep too many of us thinking we, too, are part of the ruling caste. Our children might need medical care, but all is well because our 'kind' own it all. And, hence, we resist any attempt to redress a badly skewed distribution of wealth, income and good jobs which would ultimately benefit us too. I am especially angry that peckerwoods, with their other-ethnicity stooges (and that's putting it so politely!), all but control the highest court in the land now poised to knock out the floor from under the voting rights of minorities!!
I am angry that they might well be about to complete a gross crime against us all and the rest of Creation to boot summed up in this old English verse:
The law locks up both man and woman
That steals the goose from off the common
But let the greater felons loose
That steal the commons from the goose.
We, the geese and the other critters may well lose this (still) good earth which sustains us and our economies still unless we act fast and NOW!! But we have the distinction of having the chance to save it--but now's the time to really start!
I am angriest of all at those who break the Third and Ninth Commandments as part of their stock-in-trade whatever their religious labels are from Baptist to Shiite by misusing Scripture and communities of faith to oppress rather than liberate, to crush rather than nurture and love. Worst of all are those who claim their god requires that believers kill, enslave or even put at legal disadvantage others who do not believe in their tribal idol! If they know any spiritual beings, they are demons and devils!! Any oppressive use of faith is of the devil; any so-called 'faith leader' who forbids or discourages asking any kind of questions is also of the devil!
I very much doubt I've exhausted my wrath and the fuels thereto, but (fortunately for my readers) I'm sort of 'articulated out' for the moment. So I'll conclude by restating: I am an angry white middle-aged man, and these are some things which fuel that anger the most. Let me know if they make you angry too.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
DON'T GLOSS OVER THE INCOMPREHENSIBLES
The counterproductivity of what I call our attempts to gloss over the things we don't understand in religion--both our own religion and those of others--occurs to me this morning. Such as the supposed immaculate conception of Mary, or any attempt to show that the young Jacob wasn't really what we'd call today an a**hole with brass b***s when he hornswoggled Esau out of both birthright and blessing, or the idea that Jesus wasn't really crucified, to name just three noteworthy examples.
Now that I've offended everybody, I intend to continue doing so--or, rather, to continue with shoot-from-the-hip truth and if anyone's offended, that's their problem. If anyone wants to argue any points--hey, let's get it on! Along with mulling this over, my explanation of the Trinity for those who struggle with it also pops up.
Go to your kitchen faucet and fill the following items with water: a glass, an ice tray, and a teapot. Now put the kettle on, as our cousins say, and put the filled tray in the freezer. Now you have, or shortly will have, three items: water, ice and steam. But the last two items are still molecularly identical to the first--something I hope everyone reading this knows! All three items are still H2O. In the same way but only infinitely more so, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all the same substance: God.
Now sip from the water in the glass. Then go to the freezer and get some ice cubes and drop them into the glass. Drink again. Chances are the water 'tastes' appreciably better with the ice in it, right? Well, when the Son is in the Father as the ice is in the water and we understand this in our hearts, the water (God) goes down into us all the easier--and yes, I know the Father is in the Son too. After all, the ice is still H2O. Remember?
Maybe some of us don't necessarily want God to 'go down easy' and we all need to watch out for what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called 'cheap grace'. Well, if you feel like the first, that's your right: you can drink your water neat, again as our cousins might say. As to the second, 'cheap grace' is basically the idea that all one has to do is 'sympathize' without actually doing much of anything, and that's not what any religious/spiritual leader has ever preached! No, we all must exercise our spiritual muscles by doing, including asking questions persistently.
And there are many who do ask questions that way and study and pray to find answers. I myself have found that the God I know asks me questions in the way we may remember our favorite teachers (the ones we wished all teachers were like) and for much the same reason: by helping me come to the answers, He makes sure that they will be engraved on my heart and mind. All of us, in every religious community, need to dig for such answers. But my experience has been that relating to God and through Christ is, truly, the express train to God. Not to say there aren't plenty of locals with the same final stop; there are. I think Christ is there especially for those who may not have time n/or the native talent for long study, and also for the least among us as God seeks to draw all Creation to Him from the bottom upwards.
We cannot comprehend how it is Christ can be both the road and the fuel for it, but do we need to? And how much do we know about how our cars work outside of how to drive them, to give an example? Allow me to say that in relation to God, we're a lot more like toddlers at most as opposed to adults as well. And I could also be mistaken about the fuel; that could be the Holy Spirit--not that it matters a whole lot but it makes more sense in light of referring to God as 'Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer'. And indeed invoking God in that way can help many to whom the old formula is a stumbling block.
But back to incomprehensibility: how many of us would worship a God we could fully understand? This much I can say with some confidence: when we see the patterns in the things we can't comprehend they are patterns of love and that is Who God is-- Love to such an extent as we can barely comprehend when we can begin to comprehend it at all. The lesser 'incomprehensibles', such as why did God favor the sly young Jacob over his open and honest brother, have been in a way fuel for the journey as God has led me to at least some answers for such--well, maybe we should call them 'surface incomprehensibles'. The miracles may well fall into that category too.
For some of us (and this highlights the failures of all religion) our world expands when we believe there is no god. For some of us, including myself, faith in God expands the world immeasurably and so it should, and perhaps one day will be, for all of us as we move towards the God of (so far, to us) barely comprehensible Love. But to continue to do so means not glossing over but persistently seeking to understand, in and with our hearts as well as our minds, the surface incomprehensibilities--and let's understand that each of us will seek answers to different questions, too.
Now that I've offended everybody, I intend to continue doing so--or, rather, to continue with shoot-from-the-hip truth and if anyone's offended, that's their problem. If anyone wants to argue any points--hey, let's get it on! Along with mulling this over, my explanation of the Trinity for those who struggle with it also pops up.
Go to your kitchen faucet and fill the following items with water: a glass, an ice tray, and a teapot. Now put the kettle on, as our cousins say, and put the filled tray in the freezer. Now you have, or shortly will have, three items: water, ice and steam. But the last two items are still molecularly identical to the first--something I hope everyone reading this knows! All three items are still H2O. In the same way but only infinitely more so, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all the same substance: God.
Now sip from the water in the glass. Then go to the freezer and get some ice cubes and drop them into the glass. Drink again. Chances are the water 'tastes' appreciably better with the ice in it, right? Well, when the Son is in the Father as the ice is in the water and we understand this in our hearts, the water (God) goes down into us all the easier--and yes, I know the Father is in the Son too. After all, the ice is still H2O. Remember?
Maybe some of us don't necessarily want God to 'go down easy' and we all need to watch out for what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called 'cheap grace'. Well, if you feel like the first, that's your right: you can drink your water neat, again as our cousins might say. As to the second, 'cheap grace' is basically the idea that all one has to do is 'sympathize' without actually doing much of anything, and that's not what any religious/spiritual leader has ever preached! No, we all must exercise our spiritual muscles by doing, including asking questions persistently.
And there are many who do ask questions that way and study and pray to find answers. I myself have found that the God I know asks me questions in the way we may remember our favorite teachers (the ones we wished all teachers were like) and for much the same reason: by helping me come to the answers, He makes sure that they will be engraved on my heart and mind. All of us, in every religious community, need to dig for such answers. But my experience has been that relating to God and through Christ is, truly, the express train to God. Not to say there aren't plenty of locals with the same final stop; there are. I think Christ is there especially for those who may not have time n/or the native talent for long study, and also for the least among us as God seeks to draw all Creation to Him from the bottom upwards.
We cannot comprehend how it is Christ can be both the road and the fuel for it, but do we need to? And how much do we know about how our cars work outside of how to drive them, to give an example? Allow me to say that in relation to God, we're a lot more like toddlers at most as opposed to adults as well. And I could also be mistaken about the fuel; that could be the Holy Spirit--not that it matters a whole lot but it makes more sense in light of referring to God as 'Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer'. And indeed invoking God in that way can help many to whom the old formula is a stumbling block.
But back to incomprehensibility: how many of us would worship a God we could fully understand? This much I can say with some confidence: when we see the patterns in the things we can't comprehend they are patterns of love and that is Who God is-- Love to such an extent as we can barely comprehend when we can begin to comprehend it at all. The lesser 'incomprehensibles', such as why did God favor the sly young Jacob over his open and honest brother, have been in a way fuel for the journey as God has led me to at least some answers for such--well, maybe we should call them 'surface incomprehensibles'. The miracles may well fall into that category too.
For some of us (and this highlights the failures of all religion) our world expands when we believe there is no god. For some of us, including myself, faith in God expands the world immeasurably and so it should, and perhaps one day will be, for all of us as we move towards the God of (so far, to us) barely comprehensible Love. But to continue to do so means not glossing over but persistently seeking to understand, in and with our hearts as well as our minds, the surface incomprehensibilities--and let's understand that each of us will seek answers to different questions, too.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
C'MON FOLKS--DON'T BE '21ST CENTURY STOOPID'!
I know that, coming from a liberal, this post will be a surprise and probably an unpleasant one to many who are old-style 'bleeding hearts' (especially 'Noble Savage' freaks) and/or those puffed up with self-righteous indignation about What White Men Did to my Sainted Ancestors. And I don't pretend to know who's who; I'll just say, if the shoe fits...
But it is to one of the latter to whom I owe the inspiration which produced at least this post's title. When Dr. Dyson either said, or quoted another person saying when he filled in for Big Eddie's show on MSNBC this past week, as saying Django Unchained needs to be seen with 'the masses', he included something on Mr. Spike Lee's reaction to it. I went and saw the movie this past Saturday and I don't know what seeing it in the middle of Brooklyn was like but my guess is it was a lot livelier than the suburban multiplex audience in whose 'company' (if one can call it that when no one even 'shares' after the film) I thrilled to it. In terms of my fellow viewers, I may as well have waited for xfinity to show it.
However, it is a consummate masterpiece and I think Mr. Lee is showing the symptoms of a condition all too common among those with whom I share a part of the political spectrum which I call being '21st century stoopid'. That to which I refer actually reflects, in a sort of fun-house way, more faith in the stated values of either the Western World, or Judeo-Christian civilization, than the right wing can certainly claim and maybe more than the 'center' as well; not sure about the latter.
Mr. Lee says he won't see it because of the frequency of use of a certain 'fighting word'. Well, sir, in 1858 that word was not so considered, not even to most of those who were called so. There are many things we in 21st century Judeo-Christian civilization consider abominations about which earlier epochs would have only shrugged at, if even that. As a film director, does Mr. Lee think Mr. Tarantino should sanitize his film for the sake of our oh-so-tender 21st century ears? Would Mr. Lee do that, were he making such a film about such dark matters past and/or present?
And tell me: what sort of 'holocaust' is it when, out of 11,000,000 Africans brought to the Americas over 350 years multiply to the extent they have? Especially here on the North American mainland to which only 400,000 Africans were brought and whose descendants have multiplied nearly a hundredfold? Take a look at the eastward African slave trade if you want the real 'African holocaust' story--not to mention that slave traffic that way is still going on, as it has been for at least twelve centuries! I have sources I can share with you on request. Finally, your ancestors were bought from other Africans for the most part, not stolen. And twenty years ago, some of the descendants of the sellers had the chutzpa to ask for reparations!
In any case, the worldwide slave trade has existed almost since civilization began. Only within the last two and a half centuries did some Christians and Jews begin to have doubts about the rightness of the slave trade as practiced at all, never mind protecting one's own group from it. Only from our own revolution does the idea of my freedom being bound up with your freedom and your freedom being bound up with her freedom over there and so on all the way around the globe even begin! I dare you to find me any other example of a culture or civilization where that idea has taken native root and if so, to what extent? All right, not everyone here understands or believes that--not yet, anyhow. But where do more people actually believe and live that than do in North America? The Orient? Who are you kidding? The Middle East? What you smokin', man? India? Latin America? Europe? Definite 'maybes', all of 'em.
We can only judge a particular culture or civilization by how the rest of the world of that time is or was organized. And our common yardstick, courtesy of Jews, Christians and some Enlightenment skeptics, is how much freedom does anyone have to choose his/her lot in life, develop his/her conscience according to their own spirituality and to have his/her voice heard in the counsels of the realm? I know it's not just a legal matter; I'm quite well acquainted with the ways certain rich and powerful folks have of vitiating the laws and institutions which are supposed to facilitate greater freedom and 'upward mobility', thanks ever so.
Anyhow, while this might be addressed to one in particular, it's also to all those who share the condition outlined in this post. I should also say that seeing the wisdom other cultures have which we can share is in my opinion facilitated, not impeded, by a healthy knowledge and appreciation of the gifts of our own. Confidence comes from knowledge and confident cultures know how to borrow from others. Those who pretend the two to be mutually exclusive I call 19th century stoopid!
Look, boys and girls: we're supposed to be the smart people, so let's not fake it in this. Jefferson was not so much a hypocrite as he was a visionary with at least one foot in his own times, to use a prominent example. Let us all develop and cherish a respect for all who sought (and seek) to expand freedom for the least among us, even if they did (and do) so unevenly, tentatively and with concessions to their own times. Uneven (that is, human) visionaries are different from hypocrites, especially from those now in our legislatures. We can't go back to Eden; if we try, we will soak the road with blood on a horrific scale. No, the only way out is forward and through. And while we're at it, remember that there are more things in heaven and on earth than you dream of in your philosophies.
But it is to one of the latter to whom I owe the inspiration which produced at least this post's title. When Dr. Dyson either said, or quoted another person saying when he filled in for Big Eddie's show on MSNBC this past week, as saying Django Unchained needs to be seen with 'the masses', he included something on Mr. Spike Lee's reaction to it. I went and saw the movie this past Saturday and I don't know what seeing it in the middle of Brooklyn was like but my guess is it was a lot livelier than the suburban multiplex audience in whose 'company' (if one can call it that when no one even 'shares' after the film) I thrilled to it. In terms of my fellow viewers, I may as well have waited for xfinity to show it.
However, it is a consummate masterpiece and I think Mr. Lee is showing the symptoms of a condition all too common among those with whom I share a part of the political spectrum which I call being '21st century stoopid'. That to which I refer actually reflects, in a sort of fun-house way, more faith in the stated values of either the Western World, or Judeo-Christian civilization, than the right wing can certainly claim and maybe more than the 'center' as well; not sure about the latter.
Mr. Lee says he won't see it because of the frequency of use of a certain 'fighting word'. Well, sir, in 1858 that word was not so considered, not even to most of those who were called so. There are many things we in 21st century Judeo-Christian civilization consider abominations about which earlier epochs would have only shrugged at, if even that. As a film director, does Mr. Lee think Mr. Tarantino should sanitize his film for the sake of our oh-so-tender 21st century ears? Would Mr. Lee do that, were he making such a film about such dark matters past and/or present?
And tell me: what sort of 'holocaust' is it when, out of 11,000,000 Africans brought to the Americas over 350 years multiply to the extent they have? Especially here on the North American mainland to which only 400,000 Africans were brought and whose descendants have multiplied nearly a hundredfold? Take a look at the eastward African slave trade if you want the real 'African holocaust' story--not to mention that slave traffic that way is still going on, as it has been for at least twelve centuries! I have sources I can share with you on request. Finally, your ancestors were bought from other Africans for the most part, not stolen. And twenty years ago, some of the descendants of the sellers had the chutzpa to ask for reparations!
In any case, the worldwide slave trade has existed almost since civilization began. Only within the last two and a half centuries did some Christians and Jews begin to have doubts about the rightness of the slave trade as practiced at all, never mind protecting one's own group from it. Only from our own revolution does the idea of my freedom being bound up with your freedom and your freedom being bound up with her freedom over there and so on all the way around the globe even begin! I dare you to find me any other example of a culture or civilization where that idea has taken native root and if so, to what extent? All right, not everyone here understands or believes that--not yet, anyhow. But where do more people actually believe and live that than do in North America? The Orient? Who are you kidding? The Middle East? What you smokin', man? India? Latin America? Europe? Definite 'maybes', all of 'em.
We can only judge a particular culture or civilization by how the rest of the world of that time is or was organized. And our common yardstick, courtesy of Jews, Christians and some Enlightenment skeptics, is how much freedom does anyone have to choose his/her lot in life, develop his/her conscience according to their own spirituality and to have his/her voice heard in the counsels of the realm? I know it's not just a legal matter; I'm quite well acquainted with the ways certain rich and powerful folks have of vitiating the laws and institutions which are supposed to facilitate greater freedom and 'upward mobility', thanks ever so.
Anyhow, while this might be addressed to one in particular, it's also to all those who share the condition outlined in this post. I should also say that seeing the wisdom other cultures have which we can share is in my opinion facilitated, not impeded, by a healthy knowledge and appreciation of the gifts of our own. Confidence comes from knowledge and confident cultures know how to borrow from others. Those who pretend the two to be mutually exclusive I call 19th century stoopid!
Look, boys and girls: we're supposed to be the smart people, so let's not fake it in this. Jefferson was not so much a hypocrite as he was a visionary with at least one foot in his own times, to use a prominent example. Let us all develop and cherish a respect for all who sought (and seek) to expand freedom for the least among us, even if they did (and do) so unevenly, tentatively and with concessions to their own times. Uneven (that is, human) visionaries are different from hypocrites, especially from those now in our legislatures. We can't go back to Eden; if we try, we will soak the road with blood on a horrific scale. No, the only way out is forward and through. And while we're at it, remember that there are more things in heaven and on earth than you dream of in your philosophies.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
HOMESTEADERS v. PLANTERS PART X
"For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself when he can make another labor for him." Thomas Jefferson.
I don't know whether my Tarheel ancestors were able to buy slaves or not, but in any case they didn't buy them. Nor did they buy (at least I like to think they didn't) the whole plantation ethos. They were free farmers who actually did labor for themselves and knew they weren't 'trash' either, for all the planters' sneaky efforts to press them and their like down into the 'trash'!
This is something--homesteaders v. planters, say--which I see as a subtext of the Civil War. Lincoln himself, for all his legal work for the railroads, was a definite homesteader. Who else but a homesteader could or would say, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. To me, this is the essence of democracy."? And Lincoln was rarely as prescient about what would follow the Civil War as he was in a letter to a Colonel Elkins dated November 22, 1864. In that letter he expressed his fears about corporations corrupting democracy after the war. Rarely was he more right.
The industrialists also believed in having others, yea, legions of others, labor for them. This has traditionally been a feature of societies dominated by hereditary privilege from the Roman Empire where a majority of the Empire's population were slaves of one kind or another through medieval times when the great majority of the people were serfs to our own South, both before and after the Civil War and e'en unto the present day.
And now the North is belatedly fighting against becoming, to use Fannie Lou Hamer's phrase, 'up South". The results of the last election help our fight, but to what extent is highly debatable. We can all be sure that our country, and democracy itself, has dodged a bullet but what more than that remains to be seen. But we are far less of an exception to that societal pattern than we once were. And I suggest that if American Exceptionalism is anything but an empty phrase used by bloodthirsty trench-dodgers to drum up wars to fill the pockets of crooked contractors, it means to be the exception from that ancient, sad pattern--and to encourage others who seek to change their societies' patterns too!
I see the stage set for yet another serious war between we homesteaders and planters. Be warned here: 1) Many planters have mastered the art of camouflaging themselves to appear as homesteaders, so be not deceived. Most of those doing so tend to mouth certain memes which they don't respect in their own lives. 2) To be rich does not necessarily mean to be a planter and not all 'planters' are rich. To be a 'planter' is a mindset more than anything else. I'd never call uncle Warren a 'planter', nor Steven Spielberg nor (probably) Bill Gates or even certain Rockefellers. On the other hand, your crazy uncle who lives in a trailer but won't stop mouthing Rush and/or Glenn even though he never earned more than sporadic hourly wages in his life and says rot like 'git the gubmint offa my Medicare!' very definitely is a 'planter' inasmuch as if he could, he'd be hiring 'slaves' to do his scut-work. And we all need to get away from delegating necessary work which we just don't want to do ourselves. And yes, there is a difference between this and hiring someone to help with a job they know better than you do. If and when we're honest, we know in our hearts which is which. Now is a time when such honesty is absolutely necessary. The coming confrontation need not have bullets flying, but if past experience is anything to go on sooner or later the 'planters' will, as they did in 1861, fire the first shots. Another trait of 'planters' is that most of them share a trait with the Bourbons: they forget nothing and learn nothing! Do we then need to buy military-grade weapons while we still can? I very, very much hope not!
I don't know whether my Tarheel ancestors were able to buy slaves or not, but in any case they didn't buy them. Nor did they buy (at least I like to think they didn't) the whole plantation ethos. They were free farmers who actually did labor for themselves and knew they weren't 'trash' either, for all the planters' sneaky efforts to press them and their like down into the 'trash'!
This is something--homesteaders v. planters, say--which I see as a subtext of the Civil War. Lincoln himself, for all his legal work for the railroads, was a definite homesteader. Who else but a homesteader could or would say, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. To me, this is the essence of democracy."? And Lincoln was rarely as prescient about what would follow the Civil War as he was in a letter to a Colonel Elkins dated November 22, 1864. In that letter he expressed his fears about corporations corrupting democracy after the war. Rarely was he more right.
The industrialists also believed in having others, yea, legions of others, labor for them. This has traditionally been a feature of societies dominated by hereditary privilege from the Roman Empire where a majority of the Empire's population were slaves of one kind or another through medieval times when the great majority of the people were serfs to our own South, both before and after the Civil War and e'en unto the present day.
And now the North is belatedly fighting against becoming, to use Fannie Lou Hamer's phrase, 'up South". The results of the last election help our fight, but to what extent is highly debatable. We can all be sure that our country, and democracy itself, has dodged a bullet but what more than that remains to be seen. But we are far less of an exception to that societal pattern than we once were. And I suggest that if American Exceptionalism is anything but an empty phrase used by bloodthirsty trench-dodgers to drum up wars to fill the pockets of crooked contractors, it means to be the exception from that ancient, sad pattern--and to encourage others who seek to change their societies' patterns too!
I see the stage set for yet another serious war between we homesteaders and planters. Be warned here: 1) Many planters have mastered the art of camouflaging themselves to appear as homesteaders, so be not deceived. Most of those doing so tend to mouth certain memes which they don't respect in their own lives. 2) To be rich does not necessarily mean to be a planter and not all 'planters' are rich. To be a 'planter' is a mindset more than anything else. I'd never call uncle Warren a 'planter', nor Steven Spielberg nor (probably) Bill Gates or even certain Rockefellers. On the other hand, your crazy uncle who lives in a trailer but won't stop mouthing Rush and/or Glenn even though he never earned more than sporadic hourly wages in his life and says rot like 'git the gubmint offa my Medicare!' very definitely is a 'planter' inasmuch as if he could, he'd be hiring 'slaves' to do his scut-work. And we all need to get away from delegating necessary work which we just don't want to do ourselves. And yes, there is a difference between this and hiring someone to help with a job they know better than you do. If and when we're honest, we know in our hearts which is which. Now is a time when such honesty is absolutely necessary. The coming confrontation need not have bullets flying, but if past experience is anything to go on sooner or later the 'planters' will, as they did in 1861, fire the first shots. Another trait of 'planters' is that most of them share a trait with the Bourbons: they forget nothing and learn nothing! Do we then need to buy military-grade weapons while we still can? I very, very much hope not!
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