"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.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
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!
Monday, November 26, 2012
WHO ACTS ENTITLED?
'Entitled' is on my mind today. Especially concerning those who really act that way and who project that beauty-full addytood (as we say in the Philly area) onto others who, more likely than not, don't really share the 'entitled' attitude with those who were born on third base and never cease trying to convince themselves they hit a triple! Trumpty Dumpty might be the outstanding example of such creatures, along with the Mittster.
Some months ago, Newark mayor Cory Booker learned whether he can last a week on a SNAP allotment--you know, the one which gives people $4.30 a day to keep from starving. He seems to be a smart man and as such he's surely learned that SNAP ain't no hammock, by a long stretch! I could wish slavecatcher Limbaugh, Beck the simian, Hannity and O'Reilly the barstool pontificators and all the rotten Republican politicians they've supported would do the same but I think none of them would last even a day on the current allotment. Now would anyone care to tell me how much entitlement that program, along with WIC, TANF and Medicaid is likely to foster? If anyone on these programs feel 'entitled', it's likely those who had jobs till recently and who paid into the social-insurance system, such as it is, while they worked. And under such circumstances, feeling entitled may be a saving grace unless Rush, Trumpty, Mitt et al. want such unfortunate people to die of shame. Perhaps it is what they want; I put little past them.
Not every rich person shares the 'entitled' feeling by any means: an increasing number have joined the Patriotic Millionaires' club and now lobby the government to raise their taxes because they're smart enough to know their own stake in a flourishing and expanding middle class. These people know that the better off more of us are, the better off they are too and are champing to pony up to that end. Some wealthy families have learned to act with the sense of noblesse oblige and public service behooving those born to the 'purple'. They don't share the sense of 'entitlement'. Neither do those who have become wealthy through success as inventors or artists for the most part. Here I return to an earlier post I wrote about real and counterfeit elite members: those who are members of the real elite think of themselves still as scientists and/or artists, as opposed to being Wealthy People.
One needn't be born wealthy either to share the sense of 'entitlement'. If I'm not mistaken, many a hedge-fund traitor (deliberate!) wasn't born wealthy. Neither was John Schlatter, aka Papa John and maker of bad pizza, or whatever that fellow's name in Florida who's building a replica of the Versailles palace. But I've heard he started out as a scam artist. It would seem that those who weren't born wealthy but share their feeling of entitlement are those who become rich either by means of franchises OR by selling things with no real substance to them--i.e., all the paper snake-oil Wall Street's been selling for at least the last ten years! And for them (if not necessarily for the Trumps, Romneys et al.) the feeling of 'entitlement' might well be as much a cover for how very un-entitled these pirates (I include the rightwing fear-merchants in this gang) know themselves to be! And since they've been so damnably (literally) good at getting something for nothing themselves, they resent anyone else getting even a pittance! People, if we've been listening to this lot I think at least some time spent in sackcloth and ashes is warranted for us!
Now is the time to repair and renovate our infrastructure, including speeding the switch to clean and renewable energies and ensuring a level educational playing field for real. The Bourbon sense of entitlement exhibited by the wickedly stupid rich must go, and all those who want a job should be able to find one at wages which will enable their greater participation in a growing economy. The last time we did something like that, the lifted-up were grateful enough to vote that party's way for thirty or forty years! Now again: to whom does 'feeling entitled' belong?
Some months ago, Newark mayor Cory Booker learned whether he can last a week on a SNAP allotment--you know, the one which gives people $4.30 a day to keep from starving. He seems to be a smart man and as such he's surely learned that SNAP ain't no hammock, by a long stretch! I could wish slavecatcher Limbaugh, Beck the simian, Hannity and O'Reilly the barstool pontificators and all the rotten Republican politicians they've supported would do the same but I think none of them would last even a day on the current allotment. Now would anyone care to tell me how much entitlement that program, along with WIC, TANF and Medicaid is likely to foster? If anyone on these programs feel 'entitled', it's likely those who had jobs till recently and who paid into the social-insurance system, such as it is, while they worked. And under such circumstances, feeling entitled may be a saving grace unless Rush, Trumpty, Mitt et al. want such unfortunate people to die of shame. Perhaps it is what they want; I put little past them.
Not every rich person shares the 'entitled' feeling by any means: an increasing number have joined the Patriotic Millionaires' club and now lobby the government to raise their taxes because they're smart enough to know their own stake in a flourishing and expanding middle class. These people know that the better off more of us are, the better off they are too and are champing to pony up to that end. Some wealthy families have learned to act with the sense of noblesse oblige and public service behooving those born to the 'purple'. They don't share the sense of 'entitlement'. Neither do those who have become wealthy through success as inventors or artists for the most part. Here I return to an earlier post I wrote about real and counterfeit elite members: those who are members of the real elite think of themselves still as scientists and/or artists, as opposed to being Wealthy People.
One needn't be born wealthy either to share the sense of 'entitlement'. If I'm not mistaken, many a hedge-fund traitor (deliberate!) wasn't born wealthy. Neither was John Schlatter, aka Papa John and maker of bad pizza, or whatever that fellow's name in Florida who's building a replica of the Versailles palace. But I've heard he started out as a scam artist. It would seem that those who weren't born wealthy but share their feeling of entitlement are those who become rich either by means of franchises OR by selling things with no real substance to them--i.e., all the paper snake-oil Wall Street's been selling for at least the last ten years! And for them (if not necessarily for the Trumps, Romneys et al.) the feeling of 'entitlement' might well be as much a cover for how very un-entitled these pirates (I include the rightwing fear-merchants in this gang) know themselves to be! And since they've been so damnably (literally) good at getting something for nothing themselves, they resent anyone else getting even a pittance! People, if we've been listening to this lot I think at least some time spent in sackcloth and ashes is warranted for us!
Now is the time to repair and renovate our infrastructure, including speeding the switch to clean and renewable energies and ensuring a level educational playing field for real. The Bourbon sense of entitlement exhibited by the wickedly stupid rich must go, and all those who want a job should be able to find one at wages which will enable their greater participation in a growing economy. The last time we did something like that, the lifted-up were grateful enough to vote that party's way for thirty or forty years! Now again: to whom does 'feeling entitled' belong?
Saturday, November 17, 2012
MISTAKES (AT LEAST) IN TANDEM
I must be returning to my 'normal' self in the election's wake. I read Paul Krugman's post which ends on how blithely much of the developed world is repeating the economic mistakes of the 1930s. And then it occurred to me, not only economically are the 1930s mistakes being repeated: in Europe, hatred of the Jews is at a level unseen since the 1930s. True, such hatred is in decline in North America (throughout the hemisphere?) and Israel is, thankfully, building or re-building good relationships with both Oriental (including India) and sub-Saharan African nations. Still, how much do these relationships 'weigh' when compared with the Islamist propaganda machine churning out anti-Jewish lies on a scale that would turn Josef Goebbels green with envy plus the increase of such rancor in Europe, abetted in large part by 'Muslim' immigrants?
Back in the 1930s, when the Jews needed refuge, the whole world turned its collective back on them. This will never be forgotten in Israel and among Jews outside Israel, nor should it be! Now let me ask: if Israel were not there, where would there be refuge for fleeing Jews today? Indeed, would there be any refuge at all for them? Let none treat this question hastily; take your time over it. Treat it with respect and consideration--that is, differently than how the Jews of the 1930s were treated! That said, how much respect and consideration do the greater part of today's immigrants (at least to Europe) show their host societies? Or are the silently assimilating majorities obscured by the minorities trumpeting intent to conquer? If so, I hope the majorities put the minorities in their place, which I've heard is starting to happen. As an American who knows his country's history better than most, I know that most immigrants assimilate and change their adopted countries to some extent in the process as well.
Considering on the one hand Europe's real and/or imagined problems with today's immigrants and their slamming their doors in the Jews' faces in the 1930s, they're showing a remarkable consistency in making the wrong choices then and now. Jews have almost never brought anything but real benefits and imagined problems to their host societies; can the same be said of today's European immigrant minorities? Unless I'm mistaken, weren't today's European governments were under the impression that they were 'paying forward' the debt they owed to murdered Jews by admitting other 'refugees'? Or were they simply pursuing their own perceived interests and using 'paying forward' as window-dressing? I'm inclined to believe the latter myself. To me it is plain that the grinding of the faces of the poor and middle class labelled 'austerity' and growth in anti-Jewish sentiment go hand in hand, whatever bloviations come from the politicians on either side of the aisle or the Pond. I do believe the decline of anti-Jewish feeling in North America is joined somehow with the unpopularity of austerity here, and vice versa in Europe. Notwithstanding that fact, I still ask: how welcome would 'stateless' Jews be here, even today? And because I'm profoundly doubtful of a welcoming answer is a big part of my gratitude for the state of Israel!
A repeat of the bankrupt economic policies of the 1930s and another one of anti-Jewish rancor, now using the excesses of an unjustly beleaguered Israel as a fig-leaf. When mistakes are repeated, they come not single spies, but either in battalions or at least in pairs. How often will humans need to have their lessons written in blood, preferably their own, before they get it right?
Back in the 1930s, when the Jews needed refuge, the whole world turned its collective back on them. This will never be forgotten in Israel and among Jews outside Israel, nor should it be! Now let me ask: if Israel were not there, where would there be refuge for fleeing Jews today? Indeed, would there be any refuge at all for them? Let none treat this question hastily; take your time over it. Treat it with respect and consideration--that is, differently than how the Jews of the 1930s were treated! That said, how much respect and consideration do the greater part of today's immigrants (at least to Europe) show their host societies? Or are the silently assimilating majorities obscured by the minorities trumpeting intent to conquer? If so, I hope the majorities put the minorities in their place, which I've heard is starting to happen. As an American who knows his country's history better than most, I know that most immigrants assimilate and change their adopted countries to some extent in the process as well.
Considering on the one hand Europe's real and/or imagined problems with today's immigrants and their slamming their doors in the Jews' faces in the 1930s, they're showing a remarkable consistency in making the wrong choices then and now. Jews have almost never brought anything but real benefits and imagined problems to their host societies; can the same be said of today's European immigrant minorities? Unless I'm mistaken, weren't today's European governments were under the impression that they were 'paying forward' the debt they owed to murdered Jews by admitting other 'refugees'? Or were they simply pursuing their own perceived interests and using 'paying forward' as window-dressing? I'm inclined to believe the latter myself. To me it is plain that the grinding of the faces of the poor and middle class labelled 'austerity' and growth in anti-Jewish sentiment go hand in hand, whatever bloviations come from the politicians on either side of the aisle or the Pond. I do believe the decline of anti-Jewish feeling in North America is joined somehow with the unpopularity of austerity here, and vice versa in Europe. Notwithstanding that fact, I still ask: how welcome would 'stateless' Jews be here, even today? And because I'm profoundly doubtful of a welcoming answer is a big part of my gratitude for the state of Israel!
A repeat of the bankrupt economic policies of the 1930s and another one of anti-Jewish rancor, now using the excesses of an unjustly beleaguered Israel as a fig-leaf. When mistakes are repeated, they come not single spies, but either in battalions or at least in pairs. How often will humans need to have their lessons written in blood, preferably their own, before they get it right?
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