tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36334728238400798552024-03-19T15:25:20.487-07:00The Intellectual AmericanObservations on America from an Intellectual Perspectiveneslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-43981295333846210792023-12-10T16:50:00.000-08:002023-12-10T18:51:17.355-08:00The Bigotry of the Literal Mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYTlEtP8JBFxReOM_Xq-uBGZ-kS97TM_RoPpjpMVIEu8Q8P_VYCMMcHUdsJ8J1umekqJDcC5SN9J96Fz5eXKcaeI2-m0NDf9PcHGGT8AvjZLodAxcjDJ59IDUsFwzY1m4dWQqaq_SYTDzfMcuY581tqo1usRkUKfhzmVS7I4uh56JwpEkk2XglRgxVSEce/s212/broke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYTlEtP8JBFxReOM_Xq-uBGZ-kS97TM_RoPpjpMVIEu8Q8P_VYCMMcHUdsJ8J1umekqJDcC5SN9J96Fz5eXKcaeI2-m0NDf9PcHGGT8AvjZLodAxcjDJ59IDUsFwzY1m4dWQqaq_SYTDzfMcuY581tqo1usRkUKfhzmVS7I4uh56JwpEkk2XglRgxVSEce/s200/broke.jpg" width="212" height="142" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="142" /></a></div>
Leave it to the great Lionel Trilling to bring clarity where once there was confusion. I have the complete works of Trilling on my bookshelves and regularly dip into them, not only for his insights into literature but, more importantly, for his insights on society. I even have the book, <i>Why Trilling Matters</i>, by Adam Kirsch, but I can save you the trouble with one sentence. Trilling matters because he didn’t believe in literature for literature’s sake; he believed in literature as one of the most important ways to understand our own morality, not just individual but social morality. One example of this comes in the title of an essay by his most influential professor, John Erskine. The title of the essay was, “The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.” We see the startling effects of this today, as a large swath of proudly anti-intellectual voters regularly participate in the very immoral act of trying to elect immoral leaders to the highest offices in the land. And so their very lack of intelligence directly affects the rest of the populace in a decidedly negative way. Morality, unlike personal integrity, is a social construct because it has to do with the effect of people’s actions on others. Intellect is absolutely vital to this, precisely because it is our rational mind that allows us to comprehend the negative effects we can have on others through our actions, and hopefully avoid them. The fiercely ignorant, on the other hand, have absolutely no idea that they are willingly destroying themselves and utterly clueless that they are taking the rest of us with them in the process.
<p>
What Trilling taught me today, however, is not about the ignorance of the political right, but the ignorance of the political left. For years I have struggled to understand what writer and professor John McWhorter has described as the religion of Wokeness. The reason he puts it in those terms is because Woke ideology is founded on dogma rather than intellect. Dogma is something to be followed, adhered to unquestioningly, just like the sacred texts and teachings in a religion. So, as far as that goes, the greater part of the paradox of Wokeism can be thus understood by the fact that it is just as anti-intellectual as the MAGA right. That much I knew already, but it still didn’t explain why that was the case. And that in itself is another troubling aspect of society today, primarily in the media but increasingly infecting academia and all of American letters. I used to tell my students when I was teaching that the only question that matters is “why.” The reason for that is a “why” question forces the responder to begin with the word “because,” and therefore must always be followed by an explanation—requiring the responder to understand what it is they’re talking about in order to explain it. But with increasing frequently, writers of books and articles today do not have the intellectual capacity to explain anything, so instead they choose not to. Most writing today is primarily descriptive, which means that it is also primarily meaningless. Without explaining why something is the way it is, the mere fact that it is the way it is means relatively little.
<p>
So that’s the question that has haunted me about Woke ideology: why? Why would those on the left, liberals, who I take for granted believe in social equity, be so unflinchingly critical of other liberals, for absolutely idiotic reasons? It makes no sense. To begin at the beginning it’s important to realize that America’s public education system is primarily to blame. I witnessed firsthand the fact that the vast majority of teachers in classrooms have no interest in analysis or explanation—the “why” questions—but instead fall back almost exclusively on “what” questions, that is, recall of facts, identification, and description. The simple reason for this is that they themselves were never taught to analyze in school, so they obviously can’t teach it. The bitter irony, however, is that the reason public school classrooms wound up operating in this manner is because that’s exactly what they were designed to do. For the past hundred and fifty years, public education has been living up to its original intent of churning out good workers: wage-slaves who do not think, who do not question, and therefore are incapable of explaining why they are in the downtrodden position they find themselves in. They have been taught to believe in the most destructive of all American myths, the unquestioned good of Capitalism and the social-Darwinian pseudo-science of competition as the guiding principles of society. So given that context it really shouldn’t be a surprise that people indoctrinated by religion and public education are incapable of thinking for themselves, because they have been trained not to. And in the case of Woke, just as with MAGA, that is what everything else follows from.
<p>
The reality is, the dogma coming out of the Woke movement today is nothing new. It really began in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, when it became painfully obvious to almost everyone that it was the Republican policies of unrestrained capitalism that were to blame for the financial disaster that had befallen the United States and the rest of the world. At the time, people who continued to espouse making the rich even richer seemed especially abstruse and almost anti-American, in that it was not a leap at all to see that doing thus would simply punish suffering Americans even more. Following this idea was an offshoot that would regain momentum in a much broader social context eighty years later, and that was the belief that anyone working in a public sphere, be it Congress, a corporate CEO, or celebrity, has an obligation to society to voice only accepted liberal beliefs or they risk betraying society and becoming a de facto enemy to the liberal cause. Fortunately in the 1930s there was so much overwhelming political support for the New Deal, that the idea was never politically divisive the way it is today. There were still Republicans who tried to fight the New Deal, but by and large they were not politically successful. In the depths of the Depression, there were not a lot of politicians who had the temerity to deny outright the federal government’s obligation to help he citizens of the country through the worst economic crisis in history. Where this idea did manage to stay alive, though, was in literary criticism.
<p>
In an essay by Lionel Trilling entitled “Hemingway and his Critics,” written in 1938, the professor bemoaned the fact that this idea had taken root in literary circles and as a result it began causing authors to write in a specific way in order to prove their liberal credentials, rather than as their inspiration dictated. For Hemingway, as far as Trilling could tell, this had been a disaster as the self-conscious abandoning of his decidedly anti-liberal themes and symbols in his recent work had led to an inadvertent undermining of the power that had made him a great artist in the first place. Instead of simply being an artist, and creating works of art, Trilling now sensed that Hemingway was trying to write “as Hemingway,” the man, rather than ignoring critics and embracing the separation that had always, and will always, divide the creator from the created.
<p>
One feels that Hemingway would never have thrown himself into his new and inferior work if the<br>
necessity had not been put upon him to justify himself before this magisterial conception of literature.<br>
Devoted to literalness, the critical tradition of the Left took Hemingway’s symbols for his intention,<br>
saw in his stories only cruelty or violence or a calculated indifference, and turned upon him a barrage<br>
of high-mindedness—that liberal-radical high-mindedness that is increasingly taking the place of<br>
thought among the “progressive professional and middle-class forces” and that now, under the name<br>
of “good will,” shuts out half the world. (Trilling 1980, 127)
<p>
The problem for liberal critics was that in his early work Hemingway told the truth, but by the end of the 1930s critics didn’t want to hear that anymore. Liberal-radical criticism only wanted to hear the truth as they saw it, an ideal of what <i>should</i> be rather than what was still left to overcome. And Trilling duly called them out, stating quite assertively, “what should have been always obvious is that Hemingway is a writer who, when he writes as an “artist,” is passionately and aggressively concerned with truth and even with social truth” (Trilling 1980, 127). When Trilling says these critics were “devoted to literalness,” what he meant was this: in writing about the social ills of the day, those critics could only see the truth as an endorsement of the status quo, rather than the reverse. What they lost the ability to do was understand that only by exposing the unvarnished truth in a context—in this case literary—in which that truth is believed in and acted upon by its characters, can that truth be seen in all its ugliness, can it be truly understood for the detrimental impact it is actually having on society. And this is the same misunderstanding that society is faced with today in the Woke movement, but infinitely worse as it has infected political discourse to the point where many on the left are so literal-minded that they have become utterly unable to grapple with the truth and, even more crucially, understand why it’s so incredibly important.
<p>
In providing an example to prove his point, Trilling made the genius move of citing Mark Twain’s novel, <i>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>. While it is the perfect example, it certainly didn’t come out of thin air, as Trilling cites Hemingway’s oft-quoted remark that all of American literature comes from <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>. Of course Hemingway never explained what he meant by that, and left it up to us to figure out why. What’s so frustrating is that no one, it seems, in the last hundred and forty years since its publication, has really understood the actual importance of <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>—perhaps not even Hemingway. It even seems clear that Trilling himself really didn’t know, not fully anyway. To be honest, Trilling had any number of things wrong over the years, but that’s not finally the point, because his message was never ultimately about literature in a vacuum. Trilling, as a teacher—not <i>of</i> literature, but <i>through</i> literature—was one of the greatest in all of U.S. history. Again, going back to public education, the fact that so many people over the decades have failed to understand the significance of Twain’s novel should not come as a surprise. Readers, critics, teachers, students, and especially blacks, have all been baffled for nearly a century and a half as to what the novel really does.
<p>
But let’s first begin with Trilling, as a way of understanding how the reading of the story of Huck Finn could go so terribly wrong. What Trilling does understand is that, “Huck’s prose is a sort of moral symbol” (Trilling 1980, 127). Why the qualifier, however, I have no idea, because Twain’s novel is <i>entirely</i> a moral symbol, the whole thing, which is the primary reason it has confused readers for so long. And Trilling is symbolic of this confusion himself, as he compares Woodrow Wilson to the Widow Douglas: “the pious, the respectable, the morally plausible.” It’s the final phrase, moral plausibility, that is crucial here, but unfortunately Trilling goes completely off the rails at that point, declaring that the novel is “the prose of the free man seeing the world as it really is.” No, no, no, no, no! That is <i>not</i> what Huck Finn is about. Huck is <i>not</i> a free man, even when he is out on the river! With only one exception, everything he sees along his journey is a reflection of <i>who he already is</i>, a slave to what Arthur Miller so eloquently called “the moral fashion of the day.” Huck believes that slavery is right, that blacks are inferior, and that Jim should be returned to his owner—throughout the entire trip. And that’s the whole point. Huck is <i>supposed</i> to be racist.
<p>
Trilling’s interpretation of the novel in terms of Hemingway, however, focuses on the lies that politicians like Wilson told the young men of that era, lies that led to their death and destruction in the First World War. Just as Huck had internalized the lies told to him about slavery, similarly the young men at the turn of the twentieth century had gone to war believing in the ideals professed by men like Wilson:
<p>
To the sensitive men who went to war it was not, perhaps, death and destruction that made the<br>
disorganizing shock. It was perhaps rather that death and destruction went on at the instance and<br>
to the accompaniment of the fine grave words, of which Woodrow Wilson’s speeches were the<br>
finest and gravest. Here was the issue of liberal theory; here in the bloated or piecemeal corpse<br>
was the outcome of the words of humanitarianism and ideals; this was the work of presumably<br>
careful men of good will, learned men, polite men. (Trilling 1980, 128)
<p>
It’s actually quite a fascinating interpretation—as it relates to Hemingway. As it relates to <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, however, it’s quite wrong. Huck does not change his view of slavery because of what he sees along the trip. What he sees of the world, “as it really is,” only goes to reinforce the ideas he’s been brought up with. His relationship with Jim prior to the trip, immersed as they both were in a slaveholding society, also reinforced his beliefs. What changed Huck was not the world, but spending an extended period with Jim <i>outside of the world</i>.
<p>
What pains me the most is how so many black critics and black academics have entirely missed the point of the novel, and still do. Twain’s novel is a work of genius, and not only does all of American literature begin with <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, but I would go so far as to say it is the peak of American literature, the summit to which many have attempted but only Harper Lee’s <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> has come close to reaching. Sadly, blacks see the novel as inherently racist. They are embarrassed by the character of Jim. He’s uneducated and penniless, a superstitious man who never once questions the institution of slavery. But the thing is, <i>he was written that way on purpose!</i> The whole point of Twain’s novel is that Jim shouldn’t have to be educated, shouldn’t have to have money, shouldn’t have to be intellectual, and shouldn’t have to be a social critic against slavery. He should be respected and treated like a human being <i>because he is a human being</i>, not for the way he behaves. The whole point of <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> is that it’s not Jim’s fault for the way he’s treated. The onus for change is entirely the responsibility of whites. Huck is the one who needs to change, not Jim. And that’s just what Twain does.
<p>
It’s no coincidence that the Widow Douglas and her sisters are both Bible thumpers. The Bible is one of the first how-to manuals for owning slaves. It’s a slavery-positive piece of literature. It’s no wonder that God-fearing Southern slave owners we so confident in their conviction that slavery was endorsed by the God of the Bible—<i>because it is!</i> That was the world Huck was brought up in and that’s very much what he believed at the beginning of the story. One of the most powerful scenes in the book then, is when Huck makes the decision that he would rather go to Hell than make Jim go back to his owner. In that instance his own personal integrity became more important than the social conscience he had inherited. Huck makes the decision, for himself, about what is right, rather than listening to what the rest of society believes. And if that means he has to argue his case before God himself in the afterlife, then he’s willing to do it. Finally, the real climax of the novel comes when Huck describes Jim in the only way he knows how. When Jim tells the story of coming out of hiding to help the doctor with the wounded Tom Sawyer, knowing Jim was giving up his chance at freedom but refusing to turn his back on a friend, Huck tells the reader, “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say.” What Huck expresses in this simple sentence is the very essence of racial equality, that all people are the same inside, no matter what they look like on the outside. All people are the same . . . because they’re all people. In his novel, published in 1884, Mark Twain was able to convey to the entire nation the reality of racial injustice: that whites began it, and whites need to end it. The responsibility for ending racism has nothing to do with the behavior of blacks.
<p>
The problem is, this makes absolutely no sense to modern readers. One of the cardinal rules in writing fiction always used to be “show” the reader what’s happening rather than “tell.” But people today do not have the ability to understand what they are being shown, and so without an author telling them what’s going on they are incapable of seeing what an author like Twain is really doing. Just as with Trilling’s literal-minded critics, today's modern critics see only a racist novel, an embarrassing stereotype of a black slave, along with an abused white boy who travels down the river to find freedom. But the physical freedom Huck achieves at the end of the story is absolutely nothing compared to the freedom of thought he achieves in realizing that he has to make up his mind for himself about what is right and wrong, and not go along blindly with what society or the Bible has taught him to believe. Freedom of thought, however, seems to be alien to the radical Woke crowd, who for some unfathomable reason believe that it’s racist for whites to do anything to help blacks—and yet all the time castigate whites for their “unconscious” racist behaviors. The whole exercise is not only dumbfounding, it’s just plain dumb. And does absolutely nothing to solve the problem! The inability of the Woke warriors to think in any way but literally—when it comes to dogma; the dogma itself is wildly fictitious—has turned them into blithering idiots who adhere to nonsensical strictures instead of thinking for themselves. And yet if an uneducated teenager, “so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery,” as Huck describes himself, in the 1840s can figure out how to think for himself, the question for the radical Woke mob becomes, “What’s your excuse?”
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-30986390236793825122023-09-29T09:48:00.004-07:002023-10-07T17:52:36.931-07:00A Notable Day in Left-Wing Media<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9rPUg6alCB3efjhATSvUDCSSwvJ_cpljM6HKWHPxBCUtm6G7ISUqe5UeybNJcb7CCJjXvGGF947EMjlj1uKnxTiCPehvNGCWsCC9Dnu_0b7Jyt8Nc204CiK92aA2Y3BGc_sSGiR1BmpvOT2rhpUexSgixcNBhnQqg4h0Yh9iz7YigYV1sVmtfXRu47mV/s212/politics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9rPUg6alCB3efjhATSvUDCSSwvJ_cpljM6HKWHPxBCUtm6G7ISUqe5UeybNJcb7CCJjXvGGF947EMjlj1uKnxTiCPehvNGCWsCC9Dnu_0b7Jyt8Nc204CiK92aA2Y3BGc_sSGiR1BmpvOT2rhpUexSgixcNBhnQqg4h0Yh9iz7YigYV1sVmtfXRu47mV/s200/politics.jpg" width="212" height="142" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="142" /></a></div>
After eight long years the left-wing media has finally begun to grasp what has been going on ever since the stupidest man in history descended down the escalator into our lives in an attempt to destroy the United States of America from within. In their defense, however, it wasn’t as if this has been easy to explain. For one thing, it is unprecedented, and without any historical parallels for comparison things are understandably more difficult to comprehend. The closest analogy we’ve had is the Nazi takeover of Germany early in the previous century, but even that has failed to instruct us because the circumstances are so very different today. I’ve been struggling with the same inability to describe this attempted fascist takeover in a way that makes sense of what we’ve all been experiencing. Ironically, it has taken the 2024 Republican debates—possibly the most pointless and insignificant event in U.S. political history—to clear the haze and put the destruction of democracy we’ve been witnessing into relief and allowed the left-wing media to finally grasp—in a way they really hadn’t before—the question that Marvin Gaye put to us fifty years ago: “What’s going on?”
<p>
This day of days begins with a preamble, what Keith Olberman has labeled Trump’s numerous Fatwas: calls for his most violent and deranged followers to kill his political and criminal-justice “enemies.” This is criminal behavior, and the direct result of it being left unchecked has made things infinitely worse by allowing him feel that there are no consequences for his actions. Trump believes, justifiably, that this country lacks the political and moral will to do whatever is necessary to save democracy from a demagogue in waiting. And so he behaves accordingly, and we are left to suffer the consequences. From the moment he stepped out of office and was not ushered immediately into a jail cell, the government and justice system in this country has been negligent in its duty to its citizens, and we continue to pay the price. Olberman stated the desperate need to put Trump behind bars in order to stop his calls for political violence and murder this way:
<p>
If it makes us look for a time like a third-world country, or it makes the current president look like<br>
he is prosecuting a political rival, or if it makes it seem as if one political party is trying to put another<br>
political party behind bars . . . <i>so be it!</i> Because what happens if we do not act against Trump <i>now,<br>
now, now</i>, is far worse! . . . We continue to head down a road to utter disaster in this country, where<br>
Trump’s belief that he and everything connected to him is more important than the entirety of the<br>
lives and welfare of every other citizen of the United States of America, where that belief is going to<br>
lead to open systemic violence here. And it is his fault. And he must be . . . Well, let me just use his<br>
words, from that post about Judge Engoron: “This political hack must be stopped.”
<p>
Tangential to this, but still decidedly on-brand, is the failed former president’s promise—right out of the dictator playbook—to arrest those in the media who have the temerity to tell the truth about his undemocratic, un-American, unethical and criminal behavior. And yet the sad truth is that the news media has been entirely unwilling to tell the truth about Trump, or call for accountability, as the media itself serves the corporate power structure in this country that Trump is helping to enrich, not the people it purports to serve. MSNBC, which certainly has its flaws, has been the only major news outlet to consistently label Trump’s lies as lies, and to point out the avalanche of attempts by Republicans to normalize his behavior through false equivalences on the left. CNN, which has failed utterly in its attempt to be balanced by refusing to acknowledge the incredible <i>imbalance</i> in what the right-wing is claiming, has by now been fully discredited in the eyes of anyone who can see the truth. And network news has been no better. But beyond that, what uneducated whites in this country are left with, is what I call the Fake-News-Industrial Complex. It’s one thing to call Fox News a propaganda network—which it is, a right-wing disinformation arm of the capitalist oligarchy—but no one until now has been quite as precise as Keith Olberman in explaining exactly how that system really works.
<p>
The extraordinary sweep of right-wing television news networks and streaming services and pod-<br>
casts and radio and conspiracy theorists and publishers, the whole complex running the gamut from<br>
Alex Jones to Fox News to [Joe] Rogan . . . is bankrolled by one or more conservative billionaires<br>
who are delighted if they invest fifty million dollars and get back, ah, buck ninety-seven. Because<br>
the rest of the money, the other forty-nine million plus has been well-spent buying and creating<br>
public opinion, and fomenting an environment of stupidity and hate and rage that makes a trans-<br>
parent, two-bit con man like Trump seem like George Washington . . . The machine is well-oiled<br>
and perfected. At the fringes the John Solomons and the gateway pundits and people like that,<br>
<i>make stuff up</i>. And then places like One America News quote them. By the end of the week Fox<br>
has taken the story, suitably washed, with lots of places they can quote so they don’t have to claim<br>
<i>they</i> made it up, and Fox is taking that story and devoting seven shows a day to it.
<p>
As bad as Fox News was before, it was Trump who really opened the door to a way of talking to the right-wing base that is based not just on inuendo and rumor as it used to be, but on complete lies. Nowhere is this more evident than in Trump’s counter-programming against the most recent Republican debate. The event spurred left-wing podcaster David Pakman to opine, “Failed former president Donald Trump, yesterday engaged in the closest thing I recall he or any American politician doing that is this close to overt Russian- or North Korean-style propaganda.” It seems natural to feel this statement must be hyperbolic in some way, but unfortunately it’s not. Trump was refused an audience with the United Auto Workers, who are presently on strike, and instead was offered a podium before a group of non-union workers at which he pretended to be pro-union, and lied about his support for union workers. But beyond that, he had people in the audience holding up signs reading “Union Members for Trump,” who when questioned later admitted that they weren’t union members at all. The best summation of his blatant deception came from Pod Save America host, Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump doesn’t mention that he was the most anti-worker president in history, who passed a tax cut that most of the benefits went to the rich and encouraged and led to more offshoring of American jobs, who got rid of overtime pay for eight million Americans, costing them more than a billion dollars in wages.” Ask Trump any policy question and he will gush about how great he is, how he has done more than anyone else on the topic, and done it better . . . without giving <i>one, single specific</i>. The reason for that is he can’t, because all of his bluster is a lie.
<p>
The question that has haunted me since the Insurrection is, why do his followers believe his lies? But the simple answer is, they don’t. Their agenda—one that Trump offered them, and they accepted—has nothing to do with the truth. And the reason <i>why</i> they don’t care about the truth, is what has led at last to an explanation for the lurch toward fascism that a sizeable portion of the electorate now seems eager to embrace. It was Rachel Maddow, in a post-debate roundtable, who finally articulated what the entirety of the political left has been unable to fathom thus far, a genuine explanation for this inexplicable behavior:
<p>
I feel like what’s happening in this Republican primary, and what’s happening in Republican<br>
politics right now, is that the Republican party, the Republican base, the Republican electorate,<br>
has effectively decided that they don’t really want to do politics anymore. And they’re not all that<br>
interested in what politics is, and governing and political campaigning and policy competition<br>
and all that stuff. They’re not interested in it. They would prefer to have a strong man, a particular<br>
strong man who they already know and who they like, and they would prefer to have <i>that</i> . . . <br>
a strong man who is going to end politics.
<p>
That, in a nutshell, explains the desire for fascism. It’s one-party rule for people who are fed up with politics. What’s so fascinating is that they’re not altogether wrong. Politics, as I’ve said many times before, is theater. It’s not real. It’s the outward manifestation of a capitalist control structure that uses wealth and power to manipulate the country from behind a curtain. Just as they do in media, they control the political process through money and influence to essentially purchase the policies they want enacted from their employees in Congress and the White House who are paid to do their bidding. Where the real disconnect comes is that the people can feel it but they don’t have the education and the rational facility to truly understand why they feel that way. They hate politics, but instead of trying to understanding why they hate it in order to do something productive to change it, they would rather destroy it all together.
<p>
But where Maddow was able to finally articulate this point, it was Joy Reid who took the idea to its logical conclusion.
<p>
The Republican party exists in a world in which, demographically, six out of the seven last<br>
presidential elections, they can’t win the popular vote. Because the dispersion of [inclusive]<br>
communities [and ideas] makes it very hard for them to win through conventional politics . . . <br>
Voter suppression is the only way; gerrymandering is the only way they can actually get what<br>
they want because what they want is so unpopular that when you put their ideas through the<br>
political process, they can’t win . . . So when you think about it, all of politics has enraged a<br>
certain group of Americans who <i>can not win</i> through politics. So what do you go to? You go<br>
to autocracy. What do you do when something like forty percent of American adults have<br>
given up on politics, and say, politics isn’t the answer, give me a strong man who can impose<br>
my minority position on the rest of you?
<p>
And that is the real question. What do we do? Because this is where the parallels with Nazi Germany finally do come into play. There were no politics in Nazi Germany, no political arguments, no debates, no Reichstag intrigue, because they had done away with political parties altogether. With only one party in control of everything the populace never had to be bombarded with political wrangling, and this is what the followers of Trump apparently want, because the result of all that is that Nazi Germany also had no need for elections. But people need to be careful what they wish for, because there are other less savory aspects of fascist rule. Again, on this same post-debate coverage, it was former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele who, in talking to Maddow, expressed the fundamental problem with fascism, a dangerous and deadly problem that the vast majority of its proponents are completely unequipped to understand.
<p>
They want a strong man. They want to own the libs. They want to take out their opponents. <br>
They don’t want to hang out with people who look like me [black]. They don’t want to talk to<br>
people who look like you, and act like you [homosexual], and live where you live. And this<br>
is the America they’re trying to set up, because they think they’ll feel safer in it. They think<br>
they <i>will</i> be safer in it. And the reality of it is, no, you won’t, because at a certain point it comes<br>
back on you, too, [when] you suddenly become “other” to someone else in that group.
<p>
It’s an old saw, but it was never truer than in this moment: when people put in place mechanisms to discriminate, disenfranchise, and destroy people they don’t like, they unwittingly put themselves in a position where those mechanisms can be used against them as well.
<p>
As notable as this day was for left-wing media in finally making sense of the fascist motivation of the right-wing electorate, they have all failed miserably in their obligation to move beyond politics and expose the true force behind the chaos. Corporations and wealthy individuals have been poisoning our country for hundreds of years. Their all-consuming quest to acquire ever more, at the expense of the rest of us, has led to an economic imbalance the likes of which threaten to return this country to a horrifying version of its past in which wage slavery in the north was nearly indistinguishable from the chattel slavery in the south, a past in which people were forced to work for starvation wages, living and dying in tenements and slums, unable to afford health care, unable to clothe and feed their children, afforded not even the most basic of human rights in a country that was one of the richest in the world. But even that is not the end game. What the capitalist oligarchy really wants is to turn this country into an anarchist hell-hole in which lawlessness reigns and people are encouraged to hate and harm each other instead of those responsible for their plight, where the only rights are the rights afforded by wealth and position, an autocracy kept in power through intimidation and death, in which the people are disenfranchised and downtrodden and pitted against each other, and where the rich are given a free hand to abuse the people and the land in any way they see fit in order to acquire even more. The day <i>that</i> is on the evening news, is the day this country will have finally turned the corner. But until that day comes it is incumbent upon the rest of us to use the political and legal avenues we still have available to us, and to resist the urge to give up and allow the fascist takeover of a country that is still very much worth saving.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-66339613446522772942023-09-06T13:12:00.003-07:002023-09-06T13:13:02.718-07:00New Regulations Needed for State Elections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimB2bZeii5bH0-ywBRUZZ6ETkOIVW-7J9VqQvUzg91ZdHGb54Vvt9xVraC4MOQ2-HI5oIDw52hCRVUN6LhDY8yFn8HVYIoRVTZ-6ucP-CeWWKiqBByHcpRQ-Tox1OEtu2OP6Bl88x2AEb5Css-OGFhtS-nNY0Dyli2PRfQh2D-RWnM8HV5zimHIDYWJoxc/s212/ballot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimB2bZeii5bH0-ywBRUZZ6ETkOIVW-7J9VqQvUzg91ZdHGb54Vvt9xVraC4MOQ2-HI5oIDw52hCRVUN6LhDY8yFn8HVYIoRVTZ-6ucP-CeWWKiqBByHcpRQ-Tox1OEtu2OP6Bl88x2AEb5Css-OGFhtS-nNY0Dyli2PRfQh2D-RWnM8HV5zimHIDYWJoxc/s200/ballot.jpg" width="160" height="212" data-original-width="160" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
In the wake of recent calls for Trump to be removed from presidential ballots in the individual states, I decided to write to my secretary of state in Washington State, Steve Hobbs, to let my concerns be known. I simply requested that due diligence be taken to assure that requirements for appearing on the ballot be exercised, and because of the former president’s treasonous activities that he be determined ineligible to appear on Washington State’s presidential ballots. Of course, I didn’t expect that to happen. What I expected was to be reassured that the Secretary of State’s office would diligently follow the rules for appearance on the state’s ballots and that the question of Trump’s eligibility still needed to be assessed. But I just wanted to get on the record along with other fellow voters in advance of the presidential primary next year.
<p>
What I received from the Secretary’s office, however, was anything but reassuring: “Hi, and thanks for your interest in Washington’s presidential primary and election process,” the unsigned response began. “Washington state law and the state constitution do not give the Secretary of State authority to decide who appears on the ballot for presidential elections.” Okay . . . At this point I was eager to find out who is responsible for requirements to be on the ballot. “For presidential primaries, state law RCW 29A.56.031 says that no changes can be made to the candidates submitted by each political party.” I was so stunned when I read that I figured it must be a mistake. Political parties submit candidates to appear on ballot in Washington State, and they’re just rubber stamped with absolutely no qualification restrictions at all? And not only are there are no rules for appearing on the ballot, I was also told the only process by which to redress this situation is through the courts.
<p>
I wrote back, incredulous, but still sure that there must be some mistake. I wanted to make sure I had understood correctly, and posed a hypothetical situation to Hobbs’ office. If a person was thirty years old and born in another country, as long as a political party submitted their name for inclusion on a presidential ballot, Washington State would go ahead and put that name on the ballot with no questions asked? Is no one or no state agency responsible for making sure that presidential candidates meet the requirements set out by the U.S. Constitution before they appear on our ballots? Are voters of the state really expected to hire a lawyer and pay money out of their own pockets to file a court case in order to remove someone who is obviously ineligible to hold that office from the ballot, only after that name already has been put on the ballot?
<p>
This time the response was from a real person, the deputy director of external affairs for the secretary of state’s office. His first sentence began promisingly, “It’s not correct that ‘there is no one and no agency responsible’ for ensuring officeholder eligibility requirements are met.” That was a relief. But this was followed by, “Any voter can ask a court to remove an ineligible candidate from Washington ballots or to stop an ineligible person from being declared election winner.” Again, I was stupefied. But worse, I also was being lied to. A voter forced to spend their own money on a legal suit to do something the government should be doing in their capacity as servants of the electorate is not the same thing. So this time I tried to make it even more simple, and in my next reply I asked, “If my ten-year-old daughter wants to run for governor of Washington State, as long as a political party submits her name to the Secretary of State she will absolutely be on the ballot, and if she wins, the state is going to do absolutely nothing, unless a private citizen brings a lawsuit? Tellingly, I have yet to receive an answer.
<p>
But Washington State is not alone in this conundrum. Apparently several other states have regulations that are incomprehensively inadequate for such a seemingly simple task. The U.S. Constitution clearly lays out the requirements—as well as disqualifications—for the office of President of the United States. It seems a justifiable expectation then that individual states, who are mandated to carry out those elections, abide by the Constitution and make sure that those who are put on state ballots running for President, are indeed eligible to become president. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has run into something similar in his state:
<p>
In Arizona we have a supreme court decision that indicates that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment<br>
cannot be enforced because there’s no federal enforcement mechanism. Now, I’m on record as<br>
saying that’s pretty absurd because that means you can’t enforce the natural-born citizen clause<br>
[either], and you also can’t enforce the 35-year-old clause.
<p>
This seems to me a glaring lack of election oversight. Some person or some agency in each state government needs to be responsible for making sure candidates for public office are eligible to hold that office before their name appears on the ballot. This just seems like common sense. The onus should not be on the voters to spend their own money in order to bring a lawsuit for a simple procedural matter that could be resolved as easily as requiring candidates to submit an affidavit affirming their eligibility to hold the office they are seeking. If it’s discovered later that they signed their name to false information, they can then simply be removed from the ballot. The voters in the state of Washington, and elsewhere, should expect at least some minimal screening on their behalf to make sure that people who are not eligible for office do not appear on our ballots. I encourage all voters to contact the representatives in the states they live in to make sure something is done to rectify this egregious lack of oversight in our electoral process, as it may be of vital importance not only in the current presidential race but beyond.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-24521457724611035882023-08-26T13:37:00.001-07:002023-08-26T13:41:56.414-07:00The Bigly, Boy-Child Criminal, Pt. II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQybNdz8FL-lq-O5fC_qB3KOTkopvL2QfAp-oXVK0lIKz0eOAVeUPvpAlNfh3LPJRrgcZupCnrF4Eawn4zkwBdiKxY9eTUli0HXXks1oDKy2mOhAYf1z0TKc4KP7-SitI466uNct4GkOdvMFlxlJsLzGsz3n1U24gi9WPfRv17wyyHS_yu4JJO3J_G1o73/s212/bigly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQybNdz8FL-lq-O5fC_qB3KOTkopvL2QfAp-oXVK0lIKz0eOAVeUPvpAlNfh3LPJRrgcZupCnrF4Eawn4zkwBdiKxY9eTUli0HXXks1oDKy2mOhAYf1z0TKc4KP7-SitI466uNct4GkOdvMFlxlJsLzGsz3n1U24gi9WPfRv17wyyHS_yu4JJO3J_G1o73/s200/bigly.jpg" width="200" height="200" data-original-width="200" data-original-height="200" /></a></div>
The latest round of head-scratching by the media is just as head-scratching itself. The most recent question that seems to have stumped them, after the failed former president’s booking and mug shot in Georgia, is why he seems to have abandoned his cohorts in crime, all of those who tried to help him attempt to overturn the will of the voters and install himself as president—in an election he lost by nearly eight million votes. This newest round of “what is he thinking?” is especially unfathomable considering everything that is known about the twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted loser. The general assumption seems to be that because Trump aspires to be a mob boss, that he actually will act like a mob boss. But nothing could be further from the truth, because in order to be a mob boss a person first has to be an adult. Trump has been crippled by narcissism his entire life and it has led him to lose far more money than he ever made. Not very mob-boss-like behavior. He’s a congenital idiot who can barely read, a child of five in a man’s body, and because of that he’s never going to act like an adult—mob boss or no—he’s going to act like a child of five. And there’s no more indicative precedent to explain his behavior than what he did after losing the 2020 election; he cried like a baby and claimed that it didn’t happen, that he didn’t really lose. Trump’s defense for every one of his criminal acts has been the same: “I didn’t do it!” Why would anyone at this point think that his defense in the four criminal trials will be any different?
<p>
The first thing that has to be understood is that Trump doesn’t care who turns on him or why. In fact, the more of his minions who turn on him the more it helps his case—or so he thinks. They are going to argue that what they did they did at Trump’s behest. But like a five-year-old, Trump is going to assert just as vigorously that he had no idea what they were doing, and that of course they are going to want to blame him in order to divert guilt from themselves. And the more of them that pile on, the more it will appear—in the desolate vacuum that passes for his brain—that his defense is working. But even more baffling for the media is why he doesn’t help the rest of his co-conspirators with their legal bills so that they will remain loyal to him. For the answer to that, refer back to point number one. Paying the legal bills of the other criminals—in Trump’s mind—would only make it look as if he has a reason to pay them. And he probably has a point: quid pro quo. Helping his confederates financially would obviously make it seem as if he is one of them. For his planned defense to work, however, he can’t pay them anything. And he’s already previewed that defense on Troth Senchal: he didn’t do anything, they did it all on their own, and he doesn’t even know who these people are. Given that, why <i>would</i> he give them any money?
<p>
Like every other employee throughout his entire life, Trump is going to leave the people who worked for him twisting in the wind. He doesn’t care about them because he doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself. He is going to continue to cry like a baby—as he has for his entire life—and continue to claim that he didn’t do anything wrong. That’s it. That’s the whole defense, primarily because there is no defense for his indefensible acts. He’s going to continue to grift his followers out of hard-earned money they can ill-afford to give him to pay his legal bills, and give them absolutely nothing in return. Perhaps the reason that Trump felt he hadn’t committed quid pro quo with Ukraine, is that’s he’s entirely unfamiliar with the concept. Taking, he understands. Giving back, what the hell is that? The biggest problem the news media is having in attempting to get inside Trump’s head, is that there’s nothing there to get into. Attempting to analyze his actions in terms of adult behavior is never going to work . . . <i>because he’s a child!</i> Figuring out why Trump does anything only necessitates looking at the behavior of a five-year-old. There’s no strategy; there’s no game of wits going on—primarily because he’s witless—and there’s no master plan. There’s just denial. Why this continues to elude the news media is beyond me, because there’s nothing simpler to figure out than a simpleton.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-73642263249313540522023-08-25T12:37:00.007-07:002023-08-25T13:12:20.863-07:00The Capitalist Corporate Control Party<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uvSnfKZ00rBuhqXTg4h5IQpApdZGX-dxVP3gi4Rdpc-LiUj-NZam3Pw4934XmxPsNmHQQbdNGaQC1IY6IBUyQx-BraiPCqvxgr1FJPZaFQUo5PfE57-Gb062mfIRDP_aRzlC2tNmPX8CyuWHqZCMCRAMgSKTqufckGGUhERGk1Xglg12KfEMRHKypDLQ/s212/cccp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uvSnfKZ00rBuhqXTg4h5IQpApdZGX-dxVP3gi4Rdpc-LiUj-NZam3Pw4934XmxPsNmHQQbdNGaQC1IY6IBUyQx-BraiPCqvxgr1FJPZaFQUo5PfE57-Gb062mfIRDP_aRzlC2tNmPX8CyuWHqZCMCRAMgSKTqufckGGUhERGk1Xglg12KfEMRHKypDLQ/s200/cccp.jpg" width="212" height="142" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="142" /></a></div>
For anyone of my generation or older the initials CCCP immediately bring to mind the Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union. But the CCCP is making a comeback, not only in Russia itself, where Putin is attempting to get the old band back together—totally against their will, naturally—but also in this country where a new attempt at totalitarian control is at a crucial point in its evolution. For anyone who still believes the Cold War propaganda that the Soviet Union was a Communist nation, it’s long past time to wake up and smell the borscht. It wasn’t Marxism that failed in the Soviet Union, it was totalitarian dictatorship. One-party rule, in the guise of socialism, is what finally brought down the last of the European empires, when the colonized peoples who were unlucky enough to share a border with Russia finally had enough and kicked out their oppressors from Moscow for good. It was a lesson that Great Britain had already learned as they gradually allowed their empire to become a commonwealth before it revolted as well. For some reason, however, the capitalist oligarchy in the United States still believes it has a chance to bind and oppress America’s citizens in a one-party, totalitarian state, this time in the guise of Capitalism, without anyone noticing. But hey, I guess hope springs eternal.
<p>
The most important thing for the average American citizen to realize about their country right now, is that they are in the midst of a hostile takeover . . . from within. The corporate oligarchy that has been attempting a slow-moving coup since the fifties, had their finely detailed plans derailed by the Trump presidency, primarily because Trump is such an abject moron. The initial goal of people like Charles Koch and his ilk was to follow up the George W. Bush presidency with more of the same. But the presidential pendulum swings of the post-Reagan era have been impossible for them to control. Every time the capitalist right-wing has been able to install a friendly executive, the resultant undermining of American progressive values has prompted an opposite electoral swing, fist to Clinton, then to Obama, and most recently to Biden. It’s a difficult phrase to say about a criminal and seditionist, but it may be that the Trump era will be looked at by historians as a blessing in disguise. Capitalism’s Republican tools in the Senate and House are abundant, willing to do anything for their right-wing corporate employers, well-paid fronts who will gladly sell out the electorate to pave the way for a capitalist utopia in which the rich enslave the rest of America. But it was Trump who stole the election out from under them in 2016 by pandering to racists, xenophobes, Christian fascists, and international isolationists, and then presided over the worst administration in U.S. presidential history. That’s why Koch is going to such lengths to undercut Trump—not because he’s pro-democracy, but because Trump is ruining his plans.
<p>
The unpredictability of the electorate has convinced the wealthy elite that voters need to be taken out of the equation all together. The plan is a delicate one, as it seeks to gerrymander districts at the state level, disenfranchise voters nationwide, sow dissention in the electorate through fanning the flames of wedge issues that make absolutely no difference to the corporate elite, all without being too obvious. The objective, as the Frankfurt School demonstrated a hundred years ago, is to keep the people of this country fighting with each other so that they won’t be able to fight against the systemic control that the right-wing is wresting away from the people. The hope was that Americans would suddenly wake up one day only to realize that they were now living in a totalitarian state that works only for corporate wealth, and yet have no idea how they got there. But Donald Trump is such a monumental idiot that he upended the game board and scattered the pieces of the capitalist coup all over the floor for everyone to see. He’s so tremendously stupid he didn’t realize that by attempting become a dictator before the electoral system had been completely rigged in favor of the right, that he inadvertently exposed what has been going on all this time and galvanized the majority against him. Trump’s four indictments may have hardened the support of his base, but it’s whittled away everyone else who might have voted for him otherwise—not a huge number of voters, but hopefully enough to keep Democrats in control.
<p>
And this has created a seemingly insurmountable problem for Koch and his comrades. Trump’s base isn’t a Republican base, it’s a Trump base. Nearly thirty percent of Republican voters have no interest in voting for anyone else but Trump. So, given that, how do the capitalist tools that are running for the Republican nomination gain a footing in the Republican primaries against Trump? The short answer is, they can’t. By trying to appeal to Trump voters by parroting the same MAGA talking points they only reinforce the vote for Trump (DeSantis and Haley), and by setting themselves against Trump they effectively eliminate themselves from the nomination (Christie and Hutchinson). As bad as Trump would be for the CCCP in the general election, things are even worse for them if he’s prevented from being on the ballot. The wave of support for Trump’s exclusion from holding office via the Fourteenth Amendment is gaining momentum on both sides of the political spectrum and promises gut the Republican turnout in the general election far more than if the failed former president winds up campaigning from a jail cell. As far as the corporate elite is concerned, Trump is the proverbial turd in the punchbowl; you can’t just fish him out and pretend that things are back to normal, because no one is going to drink from that bowl again. So that only leaves them with a set of Republican candidates who are uniformly unelectable—as demonstrated by the first primary debate Wednesday night.
<p>
The lineup of corporate automatons onstage in Milwaukee was like a new Disney exhibit: the Hall of Losers. They all stand in front of the crowd and fight to see who can make the most outrageous lies, leaning in to climate denial and lies about the economy on the one hand, and valiantly vowing to fight against hot-button cultural issues that have been manufactured by them in the first place on the other. They take credit for Democratic successes and then lie about the work the Democrats are doing for the American people—the only work being done for the people, by the way, as Republicans have no interest in people at all. After a mention of the catastrophe in Hawaii not one single candidate expressed any sympathy at all for the people who died—not one. But they sure care about oil companies. And while they breathlessly vow to fight for human lives unborn, at the same time they unabashedly vow to fight just as passionately to deny any aid to the children they want to force to be born. But then the CCCP has always been a party that hates people, especially Americans, and sees them as only fit to be wage slaves in a corporate haven free of taxation and regulation. Perhaps a better name for the exhibit would be the Hall of Haters. <p>
But the worst of the bunch was easily Vivek Ramaswamy because his positions are so obviously contrived and phony, the CCCP attempting to put their own version of Trump in the White House—but someone <i>they</i> control. The nickname Vivek the Fake is an appropriate moniker for the wealthy tech entrepreneur who has been induced to dabble in politics this cycle. After all, if Trump could do it, why not Ramaswamy? <i>Pod Save America</i> host Dan Pfeiffer has had the best take on this pre-fabricated candidate:
<p>
[Ramaswamy] is an interesting experiment. He believes <i>none</i> of this. He didn’t even vote in 2016<br>
or 2012. He voted for the Libertarian candidate in 2004. This is some sort of experiment in reverse<br>
engineering a candidacy, where you go see what the voters want, and then you build a campaign<br>
platform to fit that. Because politicians enter political races at a point in which they have a record,<br>
what they’re really doing is taking—to use a bad business metaphor—they take a product and see<br>
[how] it fits with the market. What Vivek did was look at the market and built a product that fit the<br>
market. And that’s what all of this is . . . He understands, better than the rest of these people, what<br>
the [Republican] electorate wants, which is an outsider, who’s not a politician, who wants to burn<br>
the system down. And that’s what he sounds like. (Pfeiffer)
<p>
But to what end? If Republican voters want someone to burn the system down they already have their cult leader in Trump. In the end Ramaswamy has no better chance of becoming the nominee that the rest of the corporate company men, and woman, who came up through the usual political channels. Ramaswamy may be the new Terminator T-1000, but as everyone who’s seen the second <i>Terminator</i> movie knows—spoiler alert—the old T-800 beats him in the end.
<p>
One of the major questions that is asked frequently by some progressive commentators is, “Why are these people running if they have absolutely no shot at winning?” And no one seems to have a good answer for them. But the thing that has struck me from the very beginning of the campaign—especially with the cast of vacuous, clown-car candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring, is that they’re all secretly hoping that Trump is convicted, or otherwise excluded from the ballots in a majority of states. Once that happens, there would be a mad scramble to anoint a new Republican nominee, and those who are running now hope to find an empty seat when the music stops. That is the only answer that makes any sense at all. As Republican strategist Sarah Longwell said on <i>Pod Save America</i>, “By some measures, up to seventy percent of the Republican Party, they believe that Donald Trump won last time” (Longwell). So, as far as the Republican electorate are concerned, these candidates are essentially running against an incumbent, something that rarely happens in presidential politics because it’s such an impossible task. The only conclusion to draw from that, then, is that they’re counting on Trump not making it to the convention a year from now. The only alternative suggestion, that they’re hoping to get name recognition for a 2028 race, seems too far-fetched, as losing badly this time around would hardly seem to be a springboard to success in future races—as well as being incredibly naïve to think that Trump won’t keep on running, and losing, until the day he dies.
<p>
The glimmer of hope for the rest of us, however, is that the debacle that the capitalist oligarchs find themselves in has resulted in awakening many people to the fact that if we don’t act now, together, it might soon be too late. Challenges in courts of nearly every red state to counteract voter suppression laws have been steadily increasing. And the electoral victories in the wake of attempted abortion bans are equally promising. But Democratic lawyer Marc Elias recently made a very sobering observation about the inability of the U.S. to provide a federal voting law that would instantly void all statewide attempts to disenfranchise voters: “I wish I could say there’s a solution other than to elect Democrats to your state legislatures, and encourage them to pass better, more expansive voting laws” (Elias). So, it really is up to us. Now that the CCCP plan has been exposed, Republicans have stopped trying to hide their agenda. They are now committed to a full-on assault on voter access before the rest of us realize what’s happening, lying all the way to achieve their goal, until they either win or they are defeated. As Robert Reich said, echoing Martin Luther King Jr., “America is now a hotbed of socialism. But it’s socialism for the rich. Everyone else is treated to harsh capitalism.” If the wealthy right-wing oligarchs in this country really are anti-socialist, then they need to stop syphoning off money from the rest of us through massive corporate welfare, and pay their fair share along with everyone else. But it’s up to us to make sure that happens before we find ourselves unwittingly living in a new kind of communist totalitarian regime, under the Capitalist Corporate Control Party.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-79563691375385348782023-06-12T18:04:00.005-07:002023-06-13T14:08:43.608-07:00The Bigly, Boy-Child Criminal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-2Uu_A9hwn6JD1Z0-Bf4hE5SwoeNQT_PkD9s3IUsLxDneg11Y3gMT1ZTxPQ0KBemTy_1X0_hhJR9idinWBpxXs7CWorSjxaum-VOWv2Zt6kRwsa3R9BtU9pzSdiMWvCFf_rF7mwB3P1SUSQGNIXmj1TTSwvBUD79Jww3vnpKF7aVCcS9x9_vsUIxnNQ/s212/mine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-2Uu_A9hwn6JD1Z0-Bf4hE5SwoeNQT_PkD9s3IUsLxDneg11Y3gMT1ZTxPQ0KBemTy_1X0_hhJR9idinWBpxXs7CWorSjxaum-VOWv2Zt6kRwsa3R9BtU9pzSdiMWvCFf_rF7mwB3P1SUSQGNIXmj1TTSwvBUD79Jww3vnpKF7aVCcS9x9_vsUIxnNQ/s200/mine.jpg" width="142" height="212" data-original-width="142" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
One of the truly mind-numbing exercises the news media has been going through in the wake of the Grifter-in-Chief’s latest indictment, is the handwringing and mystified discussions of why he did it. Why would he have kept the documents in the first place, and why wouldn’t he give them back when the National Archives asked for them? It’s truly stupefying to see anchors from every network asking what is, for all intents and purposes, a rhetorical question. The bottom line is that Donald Trump is a five-year-old, which means he hasn’t been to school yet, barely knows how to read, is emotionally stunted, and has learned only one mode of behavior that he has used his entire life, that of the schoolyard bully. So, in that context, going to the trouble of attempting to parse the motivation of a kindergartener seems laughable. The answer is every bit as simplistic as the man himself. Donald Trump has one, and only one, motivation for everything he does: money. He is a greedy, narcissistic, sociopath who cares for no one and nothing else but himself. He wants what he wants, demands what he wants, takes what he wants, and cries like a five-year-old if he can’t have it. Who else, other than a five-year-old, would have spent the last three years whining that he was the real winner of an election he lost by seven million votes because someone else stole it from him? You can’t reason with a toddler, just like you can’t reason with someone who has the mind of a toddler. Donald Trump is a toddler.
<p>
The only interesting commentary that has emerged in the last few days has come, not surprisingly, from Michael Cohen, who appeared on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC program over the weekend. Says Cohen,
<p>
In the indictment, five-hundred documents. That’s only, Rev, the five-hundred documents that they<br>
know of. I said on your show a long time ago, they need to play like a Where’s Waldo game and go<br>
to every single location that Donald has been to, his kid’s houses, his golf courses, where ever he<br>
went. You need to follow the Donald trail because, I am certain, knowing what he does, there must<br>
be files someplace over there. (Cohen)
<p>
Again, there’s no mystery here. Trump wants to make as much money as he can by abusing his position, this time as President of the United States. The only thing that would be surprising about his behavior at this point, is if he hasn’t already sold information, to the Saudis, the Chinese, or to his buddies Putin and Kim Jong Un. He’s corruption incarnate—not because he’s evil, but because he’s a five-year-old. He has no impulse control, no sense of delayed gratification, and to be perfectly frank he doesn’t even know the difference between right and wrong. He will lie, cheat, and steal to get what he wants and is so delusional that he truly believes his own warped sense of morality.
<p>
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the man himself. In a recent interview with Sean Hannity a few months ago Trump made it crystal clear exactly why he took the documents. According to the failed former president, “This is the Presidential Records Act. I have the right to take stuff. Do you know that they ended up paying Richard Nixon, I think, $18 million for what he had?” And there it is. Everything is a payday for Trump. The Nixon case, as with everything else in Trump’s mind, is completely backward. The Presidential Records Act was passed precisely because Nixon didn’t want to hand over the Oval Office tapes he made, and so Congress set about rectifying that situation by making all Presidential records the property of the U.S. and not the president. However, since that act didn’t go into effect until <i>after</i> Nixon had resigned, the courts agreed that he was entitled to compensation for records that had traditionally belonged to the President and that he assumed belonged to him. Trump’s false claims about the Presidential Records Act, on the other hand, are like information from a kid giving a book report who hasn’t read the book. What he claims the act says, to no one’s surprise, is the exact opposite of what the act really says, that no president has the right to keep documents from his administration. Instead, they belong to the people, and are curated by the National Archives on our behalf.
<p>
Unless someone with a lot more brains than the previous presidential moron, actually figures out a way to really overthrow the government and install him- or herself as dictator, Trump will be forever immortalized by history as the worst president in the history of the United States—by a wide, wide margin. Despite his copious lies to the contrary, he did only three things as president: played golf, gave a trillion in tax cuts to the rich, and committed crimes, abusing his office to make as much money as possible for himself. And he’s no different now than he was in office. Every action to hold him accountable for his crimes is followed up immediately by the breathless grifting of his base to fill his coffers with money they can ill afford to give. With any luck, the wheels will finally come off the travelling con-man wagon that he’s been using to keep himself afloat financially. Approximately no one, give or take one person, showed up in support of his arraignment in New York a month ago, and a similar crowd is shaping up not to turn out in Miami for his first federal indictment. At this point the plethora of so-called “witch hunts” against him are utterly comical, and it’s difficult to believe as he lists them out one after another on his Troth Senchal posts, that even he doesn’t realize they can’t ALL be fake. So, it’s time—long past time—to do the only thing that can be done with a bratty five-year-old who won’t behave, and put him in a time out . . . a long time out . . . in federal prison.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-60037392054000007832023-05-22T15:23:00.006-07:002023-05-22T15:44:05.398-07:00Capitalist Propaganda Against Socialism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5MHVPRddtSKXJNSmOWCuK2788m6AmlY_LK3mwL4W9lW6IgrBQiJeHw5vOty0KkU6SEhHnJkNCH4ORV5Cn2otFRL8TNFjNwz5CyPG_kNdVMBhUphlK56dZmeRqGNmE-gReztx56cnCjGRUZmKaEeJcc5m96WR5HHy8ggTZnLfiB2tzdme9tGkKoOXRA/s212/social.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5MHVPRddtSKXJNSmOWCuK2788m6AmlY_LK3mwL4W9lW6IgrBQiJeHw5vOty0KkU6SEhHnJkNCH4ORV5Cn2otFRL8TNFjNwz5CyPG_kNdVMBhUphlK56dZmeRqGNmE-gReztx56cnCjGRUZmKaEeJcc5m96WR5HHy8ggTZnLfiB2tzdme9tGkKoOXRA/s200/social.jpg" width="160" height="212" data-original-width="160" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
One of the greatest propaganda campaigns in all of word history happened in the United States in the 1950s. Because the Soviet Union was purportedly a socialist country, the right-wing in the U.S. was able to nearly destroy in the minds of most Americans—for what may wind up being close to a hundred years—the intrinsic superiority of socialism over capitalism. The campaign has been so effective that it wasn’t until twenty years into the twenty-first century, that cracks first began to show in the capitalist redoubt that was constructed against Marxism three-quarters of a century ago. One fairly recent example, from back in 2001, will demonstrate just how effective this propaganda has been, to the point where people up until now have for the most part simply taken this right-wing message as a given. In a book on the American Revolution by British author Robert Harvey called <i>A Few Bloody Noses</i>, he has this to say about the ideological underpinnings of the American way of life:
<p>
As one prominent American told me, “America is a profoundly ideological country.” This may sound<br>
odd to those who consider it primarily a pragmatic and materialistic nation, but is nevertheless <br>
absolutely true, in that most of its people still believe in its founding ideals (in contrast to the widely<br>
discredited ideology of, for example, its old Communist opponent). (Harvey 2001, 2)
<p>
This is a statement that should make every American cringe . . . and yet it doesn’t. To begin with, America IS “profoundly ideological,” but that ideology is, in fact, "pragmatic and materialistic." Those ARE the founding ideals: freedom and liberty for the monied interests, not the average citizen. The Constitution was strongarmed into existence by wealthy capitalists who were determined to undermine the federal government through the maintenance of powerful state governments that could exert their own radically anti-American agendas without fear of oversight; the most extreme example of this was the secession from the Union by the slave-holding states that precipitated the Civil War. So there’s no contradiction there. The average citizen has been indoctrinated into belief in the professed ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but those who have run this country for nearly two-hundred and fifty years have had only their pragmatic pursuit of wealth to guide them in the subjugation of the rest of their fellow citizens.
<p>
Then there’s the parenthetical phrase at the end, almost as if Harvey is embarrassed at having to express an idea that is so patently true that it barely needs repeating. But again, this idea is a complete falsehood. Soviet Communism, has been discredited, not Marxism, and yet the two are treated as if they are interchangeable. And all of this is especially ironic considering that in his very next paragraph, Harvey goes on to say: “As far back as the late eighteenth century, the Americans were strikingly adept at, in the modern phrase, ‘spinning’ their own version of events. Americans mastered the use of propaganda from the beginning” (Harvey 2001, 2). The irony is that Harvey himself doesn’t realize how American propaganda has interfered with his own ability to get to the truth about Marxism. The right-wing propaganda machine’s most successful campaign to date is the destruction of socialist ideals in the United States, and to a lesser extend Great Britain. Fortunately, Continental Europe has been much less susceptible to this. The only thing about Soviet Communism that was ever genuinely discredited was the dictatorship at the heart of the Russian Revolution, one that led to an oppressive regime that in terms of its negative effect on its people, was little different from the Third Reich. So why is it that nobody mentions the discredited ideology of the Nazis? It’s because Naziism was defeated militarily. But only recently has it been generally understood that Stalin was even more of a despot and killed more people than Hitler. But then the Red Scare of the fifties was not about despots; it was about ideology. Sure, Stalin was a product of the Russian Revolution, but it was Communism that was the real enemy, and that’s where the majority of propagandistic effort was expended. Capitalists in America, who were nearly overcome with despair at the success of the New Deal, were now poised to destroy socialism for good, and make sure nothing even close to it could take hold in the United Sates again. And that’s exactly what they’ve nearly done.
<p>
Harvey goes on to mention the parallels between the American Revolution for the British and the Vietnam War for the U.S., a concept first explored in detail by historian Richard M. Ketchum back in 1971. “The ironic similarities between the American War of Independence and America’s own experience two centuries later in Vietnam are striking . . . Contrary to the widely held American view, but as with the Americans in Vietnam, [Britain’s] motives for resisting independence for the inhabitants of its colonies were idealistic as well as self-interested” (Harvey 2001, 3). It’s the unintended irony here, however, that is most salient in Harvey’s statement, because for both the British and the Americans, democratic ideology was easily in the low single digits as far as percentage goes, compared to the overwhelming percentage of self-interest that was at the heart of both conflicts. And it should be no surprise that the specific self-interest was monetary. And yet the U.S. in Vietnam had nothing like the British determination to keep what it considered its citizenry in the fold, which was much more similar to what the U.S. went through in the Civil War than Vietnam. U.S. motives in Vietnam were purely capitalistic. The abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion to the Korean War left the military-industrial complex at loose ends for over a decade, with both the Pentagon and armaments manufactures chomping at the bit to get American embroiled in a new conflict, be it thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia, or right next door in Cuba.
<p>
Almost laughable is the warning statement Harvey makes a few paragraphs later: “Virtually every common assumption has to be substantially modified, if not rejected” (Harvey 2001, 4). To be fair, Harvey is talking exclusively about the American Revolution, so he can be forgiven on some level. But the fact remains that his earlier statement utterly dismissing Communism cannot simply be glossed over, especially for an author who is attempting to separate myth from fact. The right-wing has done its job well, for even at the dawn of the twenty-first century the idea that socialism is inferior to capitalism—or in most arguments utterly incompatible—has convinced Americans there is no other way, that we are stuck with capitalism because, as Churchill once said about democracy, it’s the worst thing in the world . . . except for everything else. Hand in hand with the propaganda blitz that began in the 1950s is the other myth that was perpetuated on the American public at the same time, that socialism leads inevitably to a behemoth federal government that once attaining power will never let it go, and from there it’s just a slippery slope to oppression and societal slavery. Interviewer Lex Fridman articulated this idea recently, that Americans have bought into the idea that the real myth is “this government of the people, by the people, and for the people that actually represents the people, as opposed to a bunch of elites who are running a giant bureaucracy that is corrupt, that is feeding itself, and they’re actually not representing the people” (Fridman).
<p>
This is the other side of the same propagandistic coin. Not only does the right-wing need to defame socialism as an evil unto itself, but it must also poison the very idea of federal government in order to convince people that even were socialism a viable alternative to capitalism, that those in charge of the government would simply take control and oppress the rest of their fellow citizens--usually on the Russian model. This is, however, another one of the right-wing’s propagandistic tools, that of projection. In order to deflect suspicion for gradual takeover of the federal government by a corporate oligarchy that has been taking place for two centuries, the right-wing first blames the other side for doing the same thing. Like the lawyer joke that says that the way to detect if a lawyer is lying is if the lawyer’s lips are moving, the way to understand exactly what the right-wing oligarchs are doing—both directly and through their proxies in government—is to simply listen to what they accuse the other side of doing. That will be exactly what THEY are ALREADY doing. Again, co-existent with the fearmongering surrounding Communism is a simultaneous propaganda push that continues to this day, for deregulation and small government, and for one reason only: to eliminate any limits on unfettered capitalism. Ronald Reagan was pushing this idea during his bid for the governorship of California back in 1966.
<p>
I’ve been protesting the growth of government for a number of years. I’ve had a concern, lest the <br>
permanent structure of government becomes so big that it would become beyond the control of <br>
all of Congress and beyond the will of the people . . . Wasn’t this the admonition of the founding <br>
fathers, that government tends to grow and take on power until freedom is eventually lost? The <br>
fact is--we can’t escape it--only government is capable of tyranny. (Velshi 5-21-23)
<p>
To answer Reagan’s question, no, that wasn’t the admonition of the founding fathers, that was the admonition of the anti-federalists, who were determined to make sure the Constitution kept the federal government weak, so that it couldn’t serve the people and at the same time give disproportional power to the states in order that the monied interest could have a free hand. Government regulation at the federal level is the only bulwark against capitalist overreach and abuse of the people. Sorry, Gipper, but you’re entirely wrong; government is capable of tyranny only when it is in the hands of tyrants. And right now, at this point in our history, those tyrants are capitalist oligarchs who are trying desperately to take control of the government and institute economic tyranny over the rest of the citizens of the United States. Though the propaganda program against socialism and big government was anything but subtle, the fact that the masses have absorbed it so completely makes it almost unnecessary now. But the long game the right-wing was playing was brutally exposed by the former presidential administration. The idiot-in-chief unleashed the hatred of a large minority of citizens, weaponized federal agencies against the people, and left exposed for all to see the naked power grab of the monied interests who control a majority of Congressional politicians and the Supreme Court. So the only recourse they had was to unleash their end game early.
<p>
Ali Velshi, in a recent program, outlined the extreme measures the Supreme Court has taken in finding against regulatory agencies, a result of a calculated move on the right to pack the court with capitalist lackeys like Clarence Thomas who benefit in being rewarded monetarily by wealthy elites for their adherence to capitalist doctrine.
<p>
Just in the last year the Supreme Court ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency, against<br>
the Federal Trade Commission, against the Security and Exchange Commission, in a series of <br>
decisions that have severely limited agencies’ regulatory power . . . Last week the Supreme Court <br>
accepted a case that has the potential to upend the entire system [and could] challenge the constitu-<br>
tionality of the very existence of certain executive agencies. (Velshi 5-21-23)
<p>
This should not be a surprise. The complete and total unethical nature of the right-wing Supreme Court justices was beyond question once they struck down Roe vs. Wade. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the criminal former president’s selections, as well as previous right-wing justices, committed perjury when they stated under oath to the Senate during their confirmation hearings that Roe vs. Wade was settled judicial precedent, and therefore there were no legal grounds to overturn it. But like their partners in Congress and their capitalist employers, they are all liars, because that’s exactly what they did. They have proven their inherent bias through their fealty to the big money that pays them. Their only goal, like that of the elected representatives in Congress, is to eliminate any and all regulation, as well as all taxes, so that corporations and the monied interests in this country can destroy the nation from within, through pollution, collusion, wage slavery, and the disenfranchisement of the average citizen.
<p>
We are in a precarious position today, deluded by decades of propaganda that promotes individual freedom, individual accountability, individual wealth, and individual power, all at the expense of the people as a whole. The right-wing of this country has been afraid for decades of the power of the people, the power of consensus, and the massive change that would bring about in the United States. The only path forward for this nation is socialism. And for everyone who reads that and feels an immediate pang of resistance, it’s crucial to know that this feeling is not real but instead has been manufactured by a propaganda campaign that works in conjunction with a public education system that has as its primary goal the creation of wage slaves, so intellectually numbed by social media and endlessly distracted by entertainment media that they lack not only the energy to change their lives, but the imagination to realize that they don’t have to be enslaved by capitalism. I’ve touted this book for years, and will continue to do so, but for anyone who doubts this assessment, please read Nancy McLean’s <b>Democracy in Chains</b>, because it exposes the corporate-capitalist blueprint for the destruction of democracy and the destitution of a nation. The only hope for this country is for the people to come together, as we did in the most recent presidential election, and demand change for the better, change that benefits all of us—including the wealthy—rather than a hostile takeover that only benefits the wealthy few. “Once fully enslaved” said poet Walt Whitman, “no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.” America's fate, appropriately enough, rests in the hands of We the People. Let's hope we can act collectively to save it.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-42895407651924537022023-03-26T15:02:00.017-07:002023-03-27T06:18:08.546-07:00It’s Coming from Inside the House!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VIu4EkLq2MpuIX8YbvnEfU991SeZV9j5bkPtR2E8jzPQmByBUnIgKpnw8gvG-sCjtmO7DTJhfE7vuR54VhJjco3H0A9bZqzxCbod9R3rcpwELIjVEMXzTWvTBdjloZVHdNNRqdqOGSSPo7EFjWr4NB37vyNpUKPT87JTjmtHInnXg05QJnkJ2g-kLA/s212/inside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VIu4EkLq2MpuIX8YbvnEfU991SeZV9j5bkPtR2E8jzPQmByBUnIgKpnw8gvG-sCjtmO7DTJhfE7vuR54VhJjco3H0A9bZqzxCbod9R3rcpwELIjVEMXzTWvTBdjloZVHdNNRqdqOGSSPo7EFjWr4NB37vyNpUKPT87JTjmtHInnXg05QJnkJ2g-kLA/s200/inside.jpg" width="198" height="212" data-original-width="198" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
Jon Stewart has been on a pretty steep learning curve since getting back into the media fray after stepping down as host of <i>The Daily Show</i> in 2015. The program he helmed on Comedy Central was primarily focused on politics, which worked as an entertainment vehicle, but was well removed from the real dangers facing the county—exactly what the corporate owners of the network wanted. It’s been heartening, then, to see Stewart begin to focus on the genuine evil at the heart of our political system: the capitalist oligarchy that runs the county. He’s been able to do that because of the independent nature of his new program, <i>The Trouble with Jon Stewart</i>. He’s done some substantive interviews with financial experts, and shows that focus on the big money that controls the halls of Congress. He’s been circling ever closer to the real mechanism that operates behind the scenes in the halls of government. Unfortunately, it seems that he hasn’t quite hit the mark, and is still incorrect in his assessment of the precise way that monied interests are crippling the nation. Hopefully, he will keep working in this new direction and eventually discover what he has been searching for the past two years.
<p>
In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Stewart described what he sees as the nature of the U.S. political system within the Congress today:
<p>
This county is held together by hundreds of really talented legislative aides. Their bosses . . . many<br>
times . . . are wind-up dolls. It’s held together by these legislative aides who are relentlessly trying to<br>
do the right thing, and by the thousands of grassroot activists that are trying to get access. And they’re <br>
blocked by a moat of lobbyists and monied interests that prevent the people in that building from doing<br>
the work that best benefits all the people outside that building.
<p>
Sigh. Nope, Jon, that’s not it. And really, he’s not even close, because in Stewart’s description the Congress is the equivalent of a teenager in a large, empty house in the middle of the night who is being terrorized by phone calls from a killer: the monied interests. Like the standard horror film trope, however, Stewart doesn’t realize that the killer is <i>already inside the house!</i>
<p>
In my own analogy, one I have used before and will continue to use until something changes, Senators and Representatives are little more than employees of the oligarchy. They work directly for the monied interests. The U.S. Capitol is their place of business and, like most businesses in America, customers never really interact with the owner. The oligarchy directs their employees to write laws that benefit them and disenfranchise the rest of the population. To do this they provide legislative cut-and-paste tools like ALEC for the wind-up doll employees, and let other tools like Rick Scott float radical policies just to see how it plays with the electorate. But all the time they are busy working in the back rooms with their employees to do two things: eliminate all taxes and regulations on corporations and the wealthy, while at the same time pushing the rest of the citizenry toward poverty. And Stewart’s description comes apart further when this analogy is examined closer. Congressional politicians are really middle management. The aides are only there to do their bidding, not to direct policy. Lobbyists like the ones comprising Stewart’s fictional moat are only a distraction, a visible representation that voters can vent their anger on, while the corporate oligarchy stays insulated from suspicion. And even supposing grassroots workers make it past the lobbyists, the Congressmen and -woman inside are no different, just another layer of distraction, avatars that merely represent but are not, in fact, the controlling force of this country.
<p>
It’s not an accident that things have evolved in this way. The Constitution from its very inception was a document that was designed by and for the moneyed interests of the new nation. And those interests have spent the intervening centuries attempting to erode the democratic portions in order to eventually control the country from the inside, to the detriment of the vast majority of the population. Professor Henry A. Giroux—who moved to Canada because things are so bad in the U.S.—comes as close to expressing the true nature of corporate control of American society when it comes to education:
<p>
There is nothing serendipitous about the cultivation and celebration of ignorance and civic literacy<br>
as the organizing principles of much of the corporate media and the discourse of corporate and<br>
ruling elites . . . A host of financial and corporate elites have a common interest in destroying public<br>
education, imposing a pedagogy of repression, replacing public schools with charter schools,<br>
destroying teachers’ unions, and privatizing the education system. They are petrified of public<br>
schools that might promote critical thinking, unsettle the commonplace assumptions that students<br>
rely on, and encourage students to become active and engaged citizens. Such a pedagogy is<br>
considered both dangerous and a threat to those right-wing antireformers who want to turn schools<br>
into high-tech training centers while producing students who revel in conformity and obedience,<br>
and conveniently refuse to hold power accountable.
<p>
Written in 2015, Giroux’s description came before the utter debacle of the previous presidential administration and the attendant fascist lurch to the right of a significant portion of uneducated right-wing voters. Things are demonstrably worse today. Though the corporate controlled government is nearly undisguised, they have enough of a tradition of hiding in the shadows that the public still doesn’t understand what they are truly seeing. People are still distracted by a corporate media that focuses all their attention on politics, a theater of the absurd in which those purporting to wield power are little more than minions doing the anti-democratic work of their corporate employers. The media, including Stewart, will never be able to trace legislative proposals back to their true originators because the oligarchy is so adept at keeping themselves hidden. That is the real challenge in fighting against the corporate-fascist takeover of the country.
<p>
The one glimmer of hope in the interview was when Zakaria asked Stewart about the Republican emphasis on culture war issues, which Stewart rightly described as the desperate ploy of a party utterly bereft of ideas about governance or the ability to solve the real problems the nation is facing. In his response, Stewart identifies the reason that the culture war is even an issue in the first place. “All these diversity initiatives, critical race theory, and all those other things, are only there because we refuse to actually fix the real problem . . . we won’t actually dismantle the vestiges of systemic racism, all the systemic classism, all the systemic gender issues.” Because the country as a whole—particularly those in government—refuse to even acknowledge the genuine defects in our cultural history, nothing gets solved, and so the oligarchy can then use these as wedge issues to keep people fighting with each other rather than addressing what actually caused those problems in the first place. And it’s here that Stewart, almost inadvertently, demonstrates the way to understand every single issue facing the nation:
<p>
I’ll explain it, like, the NFL, right? You know the Rooney Rule? The Rooney Rule in the NFL is<br>
because there are so few African-American coaches, you have to at least interview, like, one of <br>
them. So that’s the rule now. It’s the thing you put in place instead of looking at the owner’s box<br>
and realizing, oh, right, that’s just the legacy of the economic segregation that’s been in our country<br>
since its founding.
<p>
This is exactly right. All of the issues facing this country can be traced back to economic inequality, the corporate control of government, and the wage slavery that has been a perpetual part of our lives because of it. Oh, right, blacks aren’t just segregated racially, but economically. Oh, right, the middle class hasn’t just evaporated on its own, it’s been forced out of existence economically. Oh, right, gender discrimination isn’t just a social issue, it’s an economic one. This is how everyone—including Stewart—needs to be thinking if we’re going to make any headway at all in combating corporate fascism.
<p>
Another important point that Stewart makes is something I’ve written about before, and that is the war on government itself. The monied elite must make sure that government doesn’t work, so that they can continue to undercut any idea of socialism. Government is the problem, they rail, and therefore it needs to be eliminated, not given greater economic power. Never mind that the largest government handouts by far go to corporations and the wealthy. They need to make sure the average citizen views the government with suspicion so that citizens can’t use it as a vehicle for making their lives better. “If you didn’t know how to govern a country of this magnitude, a country of this diversity, you basically are running on government is broken. And then when you get in office you have to be terrible to prove the original premise . . . ‘This government doesn’t work, and by me not funding it, and breaking it, see? See what I told you? Keep me in power.’” The final thing Stewart said in his interview that rang true, about the moral arc of the nation, is something that needs to be a warning to all of us: “They always talk about arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. But it doesn’t bend toward justice by gravity. You have to bend it. And there’s a bunch of people trying to bend it back.” So until we really understand precisely who it is that’s working against us, and what they’re ultimately after, we will always be pushing back in the wrong place.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-14093164736246792072022-11-02T05:33:00.003-07:002022-11-02T13:44:42.616-07:00American Fascism: Closer Than You Think<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPy2VnFFSLmSXXmGwnwdR3d4ezWWnCPWUTpkyxbCvOU7_Z38-v_LcSVlLR9c1J0CHcm84rlfZ-kbEDC__pyf2fO0odPB3PVpMVjOQRkSolMax-xh5lK9T55Wnqyq58Lu3yCoLlMecDtLLvhy4ESgtg5M3fb2RtKZB0hM3-Hjjc-ON4wj6Q0gLDgC4bQ/s212/fascist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPy2VnFFSLmSXXmGwnwdR3d4ezWWnCPWUTpkyxbCvOU7_Z38-v_LcSVlLR9c1J0CHcm84rlfZ-kbEDC__pyf2fO0odPB3PVpMVjOQRkSolMax-xh5lK9T55Wnqyq58Lu3yCoLlMecDtLLvhy4ESgtg5M3fb2RtKZB0hM3-Hjjc-ON4wj6Q0gLDgC4bQ/s200/fascist.jpg" width="212" height="142" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="142" /></a></div>
Last night I had a bad dream—a nightmare really. I just don’t understand how half of this country can turn so fascist. It makes no sense. I hear all the time, commentators on the left like Bill Maher trying to make peace between the two sides—but the right isn’t listening. It doesn’t matter how much we try to accommodate them, the right-wing voter is truly stupid to believe the lies that Republicans tell them. It’s all a load of crap, and they’ve bought into every word of it. Even while they’re being screwed by the politicians they elect, they just don’t seem to care—or more inescapably, they are simply too stupid to understand how they are voting against their own self-interest. Politicians on the left want only to make life better for everyone in this county. Those on the right, however, are merely the employees of the corporate oligarchy, and have only two goals: to eliminate taxes for the rich, and regulations for corporations. That’s it. The people can go to hell. The Congressional employees of the rich have tapped into the ignorant, anti-intellectual hatred of the underbelly of this nation, and they realize now that it is the only way for their corporate bosses to remain in power. The left is increasingly trying to socialize—though not nearly fast enough for me—but that is the fear of the oligarchy. And now their only hope of wresting power from the people is through fascism.
<p>
But to my dream. About a week ago something popped up on YouTube that I glanced at, read, and then tried to ignore. But it obviously stayed in my subconscious because this nightmare bubbled to the surface. The title of the piece, from MSNBC, said something to the effect that if Republicans take control of the House and Senate that they will attempt to impeach Joe Biden. For nothing. Because they have absolutely nothing to impeach him for. But if that succeeds, then they truly have found a way to subvert the will of the people. They will no doubt do the same thing to Kamala Harris, and then the Republican Speaker of the House will simply move into the White House and fascism will reign in this country. It’s unbelievable. In my dream I was watching a sort of documentary about the new president: Scoop Jackson. Not our Scoop from Washington State in the seventies, but a black guy who had been made the new president by the new fascist Congress. It was as though I had woken up one morning and the world had tipped on its side. The inmates had truly taken over the asylum. And to have to watch news coverage that wrings its hands and nearly weeps at what is going on is akin to someone giving a detailed description of the Titanic going down . . . while we’re all onboard. And worse yet, half of the people cheering as the fucking thing sinks.
<p>
Well, I couldn’t get back to sleep, and that’s why I’m writing this now. I simply can’t believe that a time will come in this country when the will of the vast majority of the people will simply be ignored, a right-wing fascist government will be installed, and the oligarchy will finally have won. I can’t even find the strength to hope to believe that things will eventually right themselves, that the people will finally come to understand how they have been lied to and stop the madness. I know too much about history to do that. People are fucking morons. All you have to do is look at religion to know that. In a week either the tide will be stemmed—temporarily—or we will find ourselves staring into the abyss. It’s so ironic now that I once wrote a whole piece on this very blog about how the mid-term elections are of no importance whatsoever. But if the oligarchy and their employees in Congress take over, then the end of our democratic society will have come about as a direct result of a mid-term election. I truly hope my dream is not prophetic, but at this point I refuse to hope. Until the voters on the right, who only care about hatred, turn their back on lies and deceit, everything I thought was true about this county will be in peril. I guess we’ll find out what happens in another week. The previous president was bumbling, stupid idiot, but we didn't know how good we had it. We won’t be so lucky next time.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-6591499360354566552022-06-29T18:13:00.012-07:002022-09-17T11:34:35.725-07:00Historical Blindness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3y2QhtMVzd2s8QqJH9GEYFyoM-NsiP-rFXLMLaWM9TcPpHH_zJaujQ1G0tyt3vaBMbcP-mzkWDm2xc3W-N9Q_CMEPz8T86GyY9vh6ow8GeTOQyx01w1SasurNZw2JnRHyUzmcxMnKxFrVXTnwY5VFiCWXrdUfDMf3FT4GzOKLANtPNP88Hd7uepfhyA/s212/am-cre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3y2QhtMVzd2s8QqJH9GEYFyoM-NsiP-rFXLMLaWM9TcPpHH_zJaujQ1G0tyt3vaBMbcP-mzkWDm2xc3W-N9Q_CMEPz8T86GyY9vh6ow8GeTOQyx01w1SasurNZw2JnRHyUzmcxMnKxFrVXTnwY5VFiCWXrdUfDMf3FT4GzOKLANtPNP88Hd7uepfhyA/s200/am-cre.jpg" width="150" height="212" data-original-width="150" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
What’s so maddening in attempting to really get to the historical truth behind the Constitution is the way in which historians themselves—consciously or unconsciously—continue to perpetuate American mythology through the repetition of societal norms that keep the truth buried. When blatant right-wing historians do this it’s understandable because they have either an ideological axe to grind or they benefit in some way from the standard belief system that has been indoctrinated into U.S. citizens almost from the time they’re born. What’s more unsettling, however, is when otherwise respected historians accidentally slip these kinds of things into their texts because they don’t understand the way they themselves have been indoctrinated. Joseph J. Ellis is a case in point—though it’s impossible to say which of these categories he fits into. Ellis, the author of the very popular <b>Founding Brothers</b>, which was made into a miniseries by the History Channel, more recently published a book entitled <b>American Creation</b>, which takes a look at the period from the Revolution to the Louisiana Purchase through a series of lengthy, interrelated essays that examine events though a tightly focused lens. In his otherwise informative section on James Madison’s work on the Constitution, writing about the debates between the Federalists and Antifederalists, this startling passage by Ellis suddenly appears:
<p>
All attempts to explain the debates in primarily or exclusively economic terms have been discredited<br>
by modern scholars. The messy truth is that there was a maddening variety of voting patterns from<br>
state to state, and within states from county to county, that defied any single explanation, economic<br>
or otherwise. (Ellis 114)
<p>
He then moves on as if all this is self-evident. There’s not even a citation to back up his assertion, attempting to obviate the need for that through the collective weight of his anonymous plural “modern scholars.” <i>I hear people talking . . .</i>
<p>
Ellis does his work well here in the way he uses the phrase “any single explanation.” Given that very specific context, he’s right, there wasn’t any one, single explanation for why individual delegates framed the Constitution the way they did. But where alarm bells go off is when he says the motivation of those involved cannot be understood in “primarily . . . economic terms,” which is patently false. Even Madison understood that. His list of grievances against the individual states in their obvious scorn for the Articles of Confederation were all economic. Madison’s second reason for why anyone even goes into politics in the first place was economic. Everything from Indian removal, to taxation of citizens, to slavery was “primarily economic.” So it seems quite disingenuous to make a blanket statement that utterly dismisses the major—if not exclusive—economic underpinnings not only of the Constitution itself but the formation of political parties, the efforts of lobbyists, and the economic right-wing agenda that has continued in an uninterrupted line from the founding to the present. Politics, in America, from the very start, has always been about economics, and to suggest otherwise is incredibly misleading.
<p>
But it’s not until the next essay in his book, about the formation of political parties, that Ellis’s pose as an impartial historian completely unravels. One of his early salvos is to perpetuate another sacred myth in American history that has no basis in fact, and this has to do with ignoring the crippling effect of the two-party system on the ordinary citizens of the United States.
<p>
From our modern-day perch it is easy to see the indispensable role that organized political parties<br>
came to play later on in channeling the combustible energies of a wild-and-woolly democratic culture<br>
into a coherent and disciplined framework. It is also possible to discern the invaluable contribution<br>
that the two-party system made in providing a safe and structured location for ongoing dissent, in<br>
effect creating a routinized and institutionalized outlet for argument in lieu of the guillotine or the<br>
firing-squad wall.
<p>
The rhetoric here is chilling. First he uses the smug security of hindsight to suggest the we can understand so much better than the founders how things were to turn out. Of course the phrase “organized political parties” has nothing controversial about it, and it makes sense that those parties would be the most rational way to focus the energies of “democratic culture.” But that in no way should imply that limiting the country to only two of those parties is better than, say, half a dozen parties that could more accurately represent the varied interests of the average citizen in Congress and the White House. And yet, from there Ellis immediately goes on to tout the “invaluable contribution” of “the two-party system” before indulging in a whopping false equivalency by suggesting that any democracy with more than two parties leads inevitably to “the guillotine or the firing-squad wall.”
<p>
This is absolutely crazy. In the first place, parliamentary democracies around the world have used multiple-party systems for centuries—England being the primary example—and yet throughout Western Europe there have been no firing squads or guillotines for hundreds of years. It is only when the number of parties has been reduced to one that the people suffer under tyrannical dictatorships as they did in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and in the Soviet Union. The crippling flaw in the two-party system in America is that it leaves citizens in a highly vulnerable position. As Republicans have worked assiduously over the last thirty years to jerrymander districts, restrict voter access, and obstruct beneficial Democratic legislation, the majority of the people in the U.S. are dangerously close to becoming disenfranchised. The great danger in having only two parties, is that if one takes over there is nowhere left to turn. Author Jason Stanley, whose book <b>How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them</b> came out during the middle of the previous administration, says, “That’s where we’re tilting, at the very least, into a one-party state where that party is supported only by a minority of the population . . . That is where we’re headed unless Americans wake up and we all do something about it together.” And yet like all dangerous myths Ellis simply pronounces the obvious good of the two-party system as if it’s a given that requires no other explanation. “The invention of the two-party system was a major achievement . . . that seems beyond contention” (Ellis 169).
<p>
Worse still, Ellis then goes on in the essay to suggest those founders who were alarmed by the economic hegemony of the federal government—specifically Madison and Jefferson—were in some way mentally unstable. In fact, he goes so far as to label Madison and Jefferson’s beliefs as a “conspiracy theory” in order to undermine their concerns completely with the reader. Author Joseph E. Green has gone to great lengths to explain how the very words “conspiracy theory” have been used historically to label someone as outside the mainstream of thought and cast aspersions on their character, while at the same time reassuring the users that they are members of the group with correct beliefs, all this from a two-word phrase whose only function is to destroy credibility at a single stroke.
<p>
The term “conspiracy theorist” is meant to be dismissive, obviously . . . You call someone a “con-<br>
spiracy theorist” to put them down or accuse them of being an intellectual outcast without having<br>
to think hard about it . . . The term is a psychological attack meant to marginalize the speaker of<br>
the improper thought . . . However, this is only one half of the equation. The other half is that the<br>
term imbues the speaker with psychological reassurance and power . . . When this power is given<br>
over to television networks and beat reporters and those who provide opinions in voice and print,<br>
there is an incredible foundation laid to support the “sacred” premises against the “profane” ones<br>
. . . to promote a dedication to certain ideas that short-circuits our reason. We hear certain concepts<br>
and are granted a pass from thinking about such unpleasantness. <i>That guy is a conspiracy theorist</i>.<br>
(Green 2014, 13-14)
<p>
What makes this chapter in Ellis’s book so bizarre is that he goes to great lengths to disparage both Madison and Jefferson in order to reinforce the mythology that he apparently believes, societal assumptions like capitalism as an unquestioned good, a two-party system that is likewise the apex of political organization, and that criticisms of the Constitution by certain of the founders were little more than conspiracy theory. Ellis describes these criticisms by Madison and Jefferson as “distinctly hyperbolic.”
<p>
If you accept their rhetoric at face value, the deepest impulses of the American Revolution, the true<br>
“spirit of 76,” were being hijacked by a conspiracy of northern bankers and “paper-men” who com-<br>
posed a “speculative phalanx” moving forward behind the satanic leadership of Alexander Hamilton.<br>
Though these men represented a tiny minority within the overall populace, they had somehow managed<br>
to engineer a hostile takeover of the fledgling American republic and were now poised to consolidate<br>
their control to the detriment of all the ordinary citizens, mostly farmers, the true lifeblood of the nation.<br>
The ultimate goal of this Federalist faction was to undermine the republican government and replace<br>
it with a monarchical state in which the presidency became a heredity rather than an elective office<br>
and “money-men” became the new American aristocracy. (Ellis 170-71)
<p>
Other than the “hereditary state” aspect of what Ellis considers the two men’s fever dream, all of these things are true. In the twenty-first century it is crystal clear that a “tiny minority” is in fact working to take control of the government, “to the detriment of all ordinary citizens,” and this capitalist oligarchy has every intention of becoming the “new American aristocracy.”
<p>
Ellis goes to great lengths to portray these two founders as somehow mentally unbalance for the simple fact that they were able to see how a federal government almost completely focused on economic growth was going to marginalize the vast majority of its citizens.
<p>
There is no question that Jefferson and Madison were sincere; their personal correspondence<br>
confirms the heartfelt conviction that a Federalist plot was afoot. There is also no question that<br>
Jefferson and Madison were wholly sane and thoroughly rational men. The question then becomes:<br>
How did they develop such a quasi-paranoid image of the Federalist agenda? . . . By any neutral<br>
standard, the picture that Jefferson and Madison saw in their heads was a preposterous distortion.<br>
(Ellis 171)
<p>
The condescension here is thick as Ellis admits that both men were “sincere” and “sane” before going on to call them “quasi-paranoid.” Then he has the audacity to claim that “by any neutral standard” the two men obviously had become unhinged. This is a common rhetorical device, to enlist the agreement of the reader by suggesting that the only sane—neutral—position to hold is to agree with the author. But this is disingenuous at best, and at worst insultingly insidious. It’s a travesty to the legacy of two great men in this nation’s history that an historian like Ellis can cast aspersions on them because they were able to see what others weren’t—and apparently Ellis still can’t. But it also makes it painfully obvious where Ellis’s affinities lie, as what Madison and Jefferson warned about has actually come to pass. In that context Ellis’s attempt at obfuscation of the truth is shameful.
<p>
Ellis continues on in this vein by asking a series of rhetorical questions designed, once again, to elicit the reader’s agreement. How, he muses aloud as though he’s Tucker Carlson, could Washington and Adams be considered “Tories?” And how could Hamilton’s financial program be considered bad for the country? Ellis inadvertently gives the answer to the latter question when he writes offhandedly, “The enrichment of a few investors was an extraneous by-product of an economic policy rather brilliantly designed” (Ellis 172). Brilliantly designed for whom? Madison and Jefferson could see the handwriting on the wall, and U.S. citizens of today are suffering under the reality of that prescience as a small percentage of Americans have manipulated the federal government into making them rich while the vast majority of citizens work as wage slaves. As to the first question, Ellis is monumentally dishonest to pretend that he doesn’t understand exactly what the two founders were saying. Washington and Hamilton weren’t monarchical “Tories” in the traditional sense, but the economic system they were designing had the potential to become something very similar. After all, it was obvious Hamilton wanted to emulate the most successful model of economic power he had available to him: the British Empire. Washington and Adams were simply guilty for letting Hamilton do whatever he wanted.
<p>
But Ellis answers his own questions by suggesting that some kind of senility had overtaken them, that the two addle-brained men were attempting to re-enact their Revolutionary War triumphs all over again. The Revolution, he reminds the reader, was undertaken “because the American colonists were not represented in Parliament . . . taxes or restrictive laws were being imposed on them without their consent” and then with smug assurance adds that America’s representatives “were duly elected or appointed officials chosen by the citizenry in accord with the rules prescribed by the very Constitution that Madison had done so much to shape.” (Ellis 173). This coy attempt at deceit is maddening. The lack of representation in colonial times under the British is absolutely no different than what Madison identified as happening in the states under the Articles of Confederation after the war. And the abuse is no different today, with Republicans trying to tax the poor so that they have some “skin in the game,” while at the same time legislating gigantic tax cuts for the rich. And talk about restrictive laws. With the Supreme Court having been groomed over the past twenty years to strike down federal freedoms and allow states to enact draconian legislation that the vast majority of citizens disagree with is exactly like Parliamentary oppression. Finally, it’s positively ludicrous to suggest that the majority of politicians working in Washington are doing so in order to work for the public good. Even Madison could see that. When Ellis cries out, “How, in heaven’s name, could fiscal responsibility be seen as an unmitigated evil?” he might as well be writing Fox News talking points.
<p>
Ellis also portrays Madison and Jefferson as flip-floppers. “How did they develop such a quasi-paranoid image of the Federalist agenda, an image that would cause one of the primary authors of The Federalist to repudiate all his previous arguments on behalf of a sovereign federal government and make Jefferson, a member of Washington’s cabinet, believe that his highest duty was to subvert the very government he was allegedly serving?” (Ellis 171). This is especially galling considering that Ellis had already answered the question in a previous essay, and now completely ignores the implications of what he had already written. Madison was in favor of a strong federal government—not for economic reasons but for the good of the people. His experience of the behavior of the individual states toward their residents was disappointing at best. “The overwhelming evidence, as Madison read it, revealed a discernable pattern of gross irresponsibility, a cacophony of shrill voices, a veritable kaleidoscope of local interests with no collective cohesion whatsoever . . . and that there was a glaring gap between what advertised itself as the will of the people and the abiding interest of the public” (Ellis 105). It was the abuse of the people that prompted Madison’s belief in a strong federal government, in order to protect them from abuse by the state legislatures—abuse of exactly the same nature as that being experience today—and the two most important aspects of the new Constitution he was proposing were both meant to meet that obligation he felt to the people.
<p>
The legislative branch should be bicameral and, most crucially, both branches should be proportional<br>
according to population, thereby decisively shifting the core definition of representation from states to<br>
the citizenry itself . . . Madison regarded as his most controversial but nonnegotiable proposal, [that]<br>
all state laws must be subject to approval at the federal level in order to leave no doubt where<br>
sovereignty now resided. (Ellis 107-108)
<p>
But Madison didn’t get what he wanted, what he knew was best for the American people. The state delegates to the Constitutional Congress could only be induced to vote for the new document if one of the chambers of congress was not proportional to the population—the Senate—and absolutely refused to entertain any suggestion of a federal veto power over state laws. So that’s what Madison was stuck with, and in both of those compromises he knew, with absolute conviction, that the Constitution would be a failure because of it. So why did he exert so much energy in trying to get it passed? It’s because the Articles of Confederation had been such an unmitigated disaster. The Constitution might be a failure for the people, but it was infinitely better for the country than what the United States had at the present, which was almost equivalent to having no federal government at all. Once that task had been finished, however, it makes perfect sense that he and Jefferson would then try to correct the mistakes that had been made and attempt to fashion a federal government that was more responsive to the needs of the people than to business interests. They knew what the problem was. They could see it with singular clarity. And history has proven them correct.
<p>
Finally Ellis is unable to resist dredging up a favored trope among Revolutionary historians: slavery. Apparently, both Madison and Jefferson feared how powerful the federal government had become because they didn’t want the government to outlaw slavery. Now that’s an argument that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In the first place, the most beneficial federal government to slave owners was the Constitution that slave owners had a hand in shaping. Slave states from Virginia to Georgia had refused the federal veto, and along with the non-representative Senate had increased their individual power in the Congress. And second, Madison wanted a stronger federal government, one that theoretically could outlaw slavery in any states it wished by overturning state law. What he didn’t want was one that was controlled by big money interests at the expense of the people.
<p>
It was not just the bank itself, then, that terrified Madison and his fellow Virginians, though that<br>
source of dread was real enough. It was the open-ended definition of federal power on which the<br>
bank was authorized, which in effect gave the federal government a roving mandate to extend<br>
its authority wherever it wished, to include the thoroughly vulnerable issue of slavery. (Ellis 176-177)
<p>
How any historian can pontificate that slavery was vulnerable, when it was one of the largest business interests at the time, is inconceivable. And this is especially misleading when hindsight makes it quite clear that it took a civil war to finally end the practice. Not only was slavery anything but fragile at this point in history, in retrospect it appears positively invulnerable.
<p>
Ellis continues in the rest of the essay to trash Jefferson’s reputation, and Madison by association, but the whole exercise is sickening. Using snide comments and knowing asides he gleefully assassinates the third president’s character with just as much relish as he claims Jefferson did to Hamilton. To be fair, Jefferson from the beginning was much less interested in federal oversight of the states than Madison, but went along with his younger colleague to get the new Constitution passed because he also understood just what a disaster the Articles of Confederation had been, a most profound disaster when it came to his area of expertise: foreign policy. Jefferson’s concern, as was Madison’s, was for the people. And Ellis can’t help himself in attempting to cast doubt on that fact, with his claim that that the two weren’t real farmers because “neither man ever did a full day’s work in the fields” (Ellis 177). So what? Both Madison and Jefferson were part of the planter class in Virginia, slaveholders just like Washington—and, by the way, Ellis makes no such attempt at character assassination when it comes to Washington. Madison fought in 1790 to prevent the federal government from having authority over slavery, only to get them to honor the twenty-year moratorium that they had initially agreed upon. But he knew that the clock was already ticking. It’s a matter of record that all the founders from Virginia were bothered tremendously by slavery and at a loss as to what the answer was short of abolition. Nevertheless, Jefferson continued to remain a staunch supporter of the yeoman farmer throughout the republic, and yet the fact that his efforts on their behalf just happened to coincide with the planter class is simply something Ellis doesn’t even want to consider. He’d rather make him out to be an evil schizophrenic instead. <p>
The snarky tone of the whole chapter is incredibly off-putting, but even worse is the blithe perpetuation of the myth of capitalism. All of the capitalist givens that Ellis accepts without question—and wants the reader to accept as well—are in truth the reason that the United States is in so much internal trouble today. Corporations and the wealthy continue to demand that their employees in Congress give them bigger and bigger tax breaks, and allow monopolistic practices like price gouging, collusion, pollution, and wage slavery to punish the working class. The one percent has a strangle hold on the citizens of this country, and yet Ellis has no problem touting how great those “innovations” are that gave them that power, while at the same time making a mockery of the Founders who could sense with alarm where the emphasis on economic power and lack of proportional representation in the federal government was going to lead. All of which supports the conclusion that Ellis is little more than a right-wing shill instead of a serious historian. That the federal government has to take a backseat and watch while state legislatures oppress their people is simply wrong. That the two-party system has allowed this kind of abuse to continue is simply wrong. And that a capitalist cabal has been able to take control of the government and continues to line their pockets while bankrupting the majority of the country is simply wrong. But you wouldn’t know that from reading Ellis’s book.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-85484620542976095932022-06-18T13:28:00.000-07:002022-06-18T13:28:01.273-07:00Good Testimony from Bad People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdfTDhrnYKMAqSk4N2VxkcSCcImof6iK4YQVCHbHjdpsCBaFG9KmrrnubOWcw2ZI2xvq3VWr_P0AiVCUkbmX_l81uW9cGeySGGBgVXF4RkvTLzeh7CJ3SLjBzsZj8llZA_2isv-JjDtuc3F64Zins04U6OiYFIplXj7fxL7uMn1NEr1HodcqSsexElg/s212/devil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdfTDhrnYKMAqSk4N2VxkcSCcImof6iK4YQVCHbHjdpsCBaFG9KmrrnubOWcw2ZI2xvq3VWr_P0AiVCUkbmX_l81uW9cGeySGGBgVXF4RkvTLzeh7CJ3SLjBzsZj8llZA_2isv-JjDtuc3F64Zins04U6OiYFIplXj7fxL7uMn1NEr1HodcqSsexElg/s200/devil.jpg" width="173" height="212" data-original-width="173" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
In many respects the January 6th Hearings have been something of a tremendous relief, as dozens of former aides of the former Criminal in Chief have been shown making the case we all knew was there: the former president knew he lost the election, knew there was no voter fraud, and purposely set about to undermine democracy in order to avoid at all costs the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden. He okayed the planned insurrection, personally set it in motion, and continued to stoke the flames while it was going on, including refusing to allow the national guard and military to stop it. And in the process he was perfectly willing to sacrifice the lives of his own vice president and members of congress in order to remain in power—in the same way he sacrificed the lives of District of Columbia police officers. But in experiencing that relaxation of tension we all feel from seeing the truth finally come out, it’s important to remember who these people are that we are watching. One of the best headlines I’ve seen since the public hearings began was something to the effect of “Good Testimony from Bad People.” This is vitally important to keep in mind. People like Bill Barr, Eric Herschmann and the presidential grifter’s family members who have testified are NOT HEROES. Far from it. They are criminals, every bit as much as the leader they were following and carrying out orders for. The fact that some of them told the truth to their fearful leader’s face was not heroic . . . IT WAS THEIR JOB. It’s what they were SUPPOSED to do. It goes without saying that the architects of the "big lie" like Rudy Giuliani, Peter Navarro, and John Eastman should be tossed in jail and the key thrown away—along with their seditionist leader and the Congressional traitors who supported him. But that doesn’t mean those who spoke out against them at the time should be given a free pass.
<p>
It’s important that we don’t forget the nightmarish four years that led up to the January 6 Insurrection. For four years this country’s grifter president was doing everything in his power to make underhanded deals and wield his presidential power to coerce others into making those deals—It’s not a stretch to believe that the only reason this idiot didn’t roll out the Covid vaccines when he should have is because Pfiser and Moderna weren’t giving him big enough kickbacks, so he decided to punish THEM by not purchasing any—forget the hundreds of thousands of American citizens actually dying from the disease. From strong-arming leaders of other countries, to screwing taxpayers out of money by funneling government funds to his hotels and other properties, to lining the pockets of his biggest sycophants, his children, and his own company, EVERYONE who worked for this criminal is culpable for enabling his illegal operations and they should be punished right along with him. THEY were the ones facilitating his crimes and in doing so broke their sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution after it was clear he never intended on honoring his oath from the very beginning. These people were on the inside, they KNEW what he was doing, and in many instances they were profiting from the president’s illegal activities. These are not good people, and their testimony—often reluctantly given—does not whitewash their own culpability and does not atone for their sins against this nation.
<p>
Mike Pence is probably the most egregious example of this. This man was the presidential idiot’s most sycophantic, boot-licking, toady in his entire administration—and that’s saying something. For an entire month after the 2020 election he sat by and did NOTHING. And when the question was raised about possibly refusing to certify the votes of the electoral college, he seriously looked into it with his staff and his lawyers. Only then did it become clear that refusing to do his job would be a criminal offence. And THAT is the only reason that he refused to do it. PENCE IS NOT A HERO. Pence did not refuse to get into the limo because he was a hero, he refused because he did not want to be assassinated. Mike Pence’s actions on January 6th were not heroic. He is a coward. In the end, all Mike Pence can be said to have accomplished was doing his job—which is what he was supposed to do. What he did was no different than a criminal pulling his car into the parking lot of a 7-11 with a gun in the passenger seat, and then deciding not to rob the store because he could go to jail if he were caught. THAT’S IT. Believe me, if there had been some path to doing what the president wanted without landing Pence in prison, HE WOULD HAVE DONE IT. In the words of presidential historian Michael Beschloss: “Until the 6th of January [Pence] was a silent accessory to a president who was running a diabolical plot to fix the 2020 election against the will of the voters . . . and it almost cost us our democracy.”
<p>
The testimony these people have given—and will continue to give—does not absolve them of their crimes. They were an integral part of a criminal presidency that came to its ultimate fruition in the January 6th Insurrection. The former president is guilty of sedition and crimes against the Constitution and the United States of America. The January 6th Committee has already proven this. The only question now remains as to the strength of character of Merrick Garland and whether he will prosecute the former president to the fullest extent of the law. The former president belongs in jail. He is a criminal. He is a seditionist who betrayed his oath of office, betrayed the Constitution, and betrayed the American people. But those who aided and abetted him age guilty too, and it’s important to keep that in mind throughout their testimony. This country seems to be teetering on the precipice of fascist anarchy disguised as “libertarianism,” and the only way to restore law and order is to demonstrate the consequences of breaking what should be the most heavily penalized crimes in the country short of murder: the willful disregard of the Constitution and crimes against the state. So, while it has been good to finally hear the truth about the criminal activities of the former president and those in his inner circle, we must remember that those giving testimony are guilty as well, and should not be allowed to go unpunished for simply stating what actually happened in the days and weeks leading up to the Insurrection. It’s important not only because of who these people are—in all likelihood, if given the opportunity, they would do the exact same thing again—but for all those who have followed their example and continue to emulate their illegal activities. There must be consequences, commensurate with their crimes, and the failure to do so would be equally criminal.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-78918997095566025342022-05-28T14:40:00.022-07:002022-06-06T07:24:37.021-07:00Democratic Destruction by Design<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDmQlwNb7ipHHU9J3ZG15lfyBLOGkS756_uItoGP-KnQxlwsYEfL-N35m0mTLWwT2wTrKYYkgTe7_JI7Ua3XK_KRzLc3LK_0xqvDxzhgpK9nOdJcPJ0nt8U0ysVXxKtyF91zRbnNuuM6X4Lgq4GubpuSNHhgUkqU9QJ1C4UQDuMvxVQ5DqTh8dTt2nFw/s217/const.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDmQlwNb7ipHHU9J3ZG15lfyBLOGkS756_uItoGP-KnQxlwsYEfL-N35m0mTLWwT2wTrKYYkgTe7_JI7Ua3XK_KRzLc3LK_0xqvDxzhgpK9nOdJcPJ0nt8U0ysVXxKtyF91zRbnNuuM6X4Lgq4GubpuSNHhgUkqU9QJ1C4UQDuMvxVQ5DqTh8dTt2nFw/s200/const.jpg" width="217" height="138" data-original-width="217" data-original-height="138" /></a></div>
Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING that has happened in the United States during the past six years has happened by accident. I know that a lot of people in this country are confused by what the Republican Party has been doing, but that’s only because they don’t have any historical perspective. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the trends that we are seeing from the right-wing have been a part of our country’s battles between the average citizen and the wealthy elite since before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence. It’s no wonder that U.S. history has been hijacked by the right for their own purposes—everything from Southern revisionism in the myth of the lost cause to the demonizing of critical race theory—because anyone who studies what has actually been going on in this country since the founding—not the myths—can only come to one conclusion: the wealthy in the United States have been trying to wrest control of the country from the people since the very beginning. I know this sounds like a paranoid, conspiracy-theory rant. But if there is an actual conspiracy . . . then it’s not a theory.
<p>
It's very simple. From the beginning the moneyed interests in this country were bent on making sure the federal government stayed as weak as possible. The reason? So they could avoid the things that prevented them from making more money: regulations and taxes. That’s the entire reason that so much power was left up to the individual states. Without a powerful federal government, the states could do whatever they wanted and limit voting rights in order to create tax havens and regulation-free operations for the corporations who set up shop there. The Constitution itself was built on the idea of keeping political power away from the citizens themselves, and vesting it in the hands of a wealthy elite. The Electoral College is just one vestige of this oligarchical past. And if it seems maddeningly archaic today, think about what it used to be like in its original design: the individual senators from the states were the ones who picked the electors, NOT the voters. Everything, I repeat, EVERYTHING that is wrong with our country today was designed to be that way. The whole goal, from the very beginning, has been to make sure that rich, capitalist oligarchs were able to wield complete and unfettered control over the country in order to create a capitalist utopia in which the citizens worked as wage-slaves for the wealthy. And it has nearly come to pass.
<p>
As I have said over and over on this blog, politicians are employees of the capitalist oligarchy. They have no other job but to make sure that their constituents pay as little taxes as possible, that they have no regulations on their businesses, and that the electorate—the expendable cogs in their money-making machinery—has no way to stop them. There have been a couple of major glitches in the plan, to be sure. The most devastating was the Civil War, which forced Southern aristocrats to forego literal chattel slavery for the less obvious method already in place in the North: wage-slavery. The Great Depression was also a major misstep for capitalists in that it destroyed much of their wealth and ushered in the only socialist era of the country’s history: the New Deal. Since then, however, wealthy capitalists have been working tirelessly to take over the country from within. And now the final phase of their plan has been set in motion. The only question is whether or not the citizens will wake up out of their stupor and resist, or keep their heads buried until one day they find themselves living in a capitalist dictatorship.
<p>
The key to achieving this goal is so ionic that it almost defies belief. The cornerstone is getting the most rabid and jingoistic Americans to hate democracy. Essentially, to get them to hate America itself. This is why we saw the former presidential moron cozying up to dictators, because the trick is to float the idea of strength over freedom to his followers. This is why Fox news propagandists recently went to Hungary to tout the authoritarian government there, or sided with Russian aggression over the sovereignty of Ukraine. The idea is to get the anti-intellectual right-wing voter to eventually give up his rights and freedoms to an authoritarian government in the U.S., one that is based on unfettered and unlimited capitalism. And it’s working. Gun rights aren’t about guns for Republicans in Congress, they’re about money, money for their employers who make the guns. Busting unions isn’t about the freedom to work, it’s about freedom to keep wages low in order to make money for their employers. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING that goes on in Washington D.C. in the Republican caucus is about politics—it’s about MONEY for the people who employ them. That’s it. And a right-wing agenda that is all about curtailing freedoms—in the guise of morality—even when it isn’t directly about money simply works in their favor by getting their base used to the idea of not being free.
<p>
The capitalist oligarchy doesn’t care if nut cases shoot up grocery stores and schools and churches. In fact, they WANT that, because it keeps the people at large arguing among themselves. And while the people are embroiled in political theater, with the right-wing ignoring the problem and the left losing their shit because they can’t do anything about it, corporations and the wealthy elite continue to work tirelessly behind the scenes to strip away voting rights and entrench unregulated capitalism in order to enslave the rest of us—EVEN THOSE WHO VOTE REPUBLICAN—to the point where eventually we won’t be able to do anything about it short of armed revolution. How’s that for irony? What’s so unique now, in this late-stage end game, is that they don’t even have to pretend anymore. The oligarchy simply orders their employees in Congress to do their bidding and lie about why they’re doing it, and because that works they continue to lie, and even when they’re caught they just lie some more, to the point where it is absolutely clear that right-wing politicians have absolutely no fear of completely ignoring the will of the people who vote them into office. It costs them nothing because most of the country is so stupid that they can’t see what’s happening. People have become so blinded by the very idea of “politics” as it is fed to them by the propaganda arms of the oligarchy in the media that they can’t see that politics itself is meaningless, something merely to distract them from the truth.
<p>
The most recent articulation of these historical facts is by Nancy MacLean in her excellent work on U.S. economic history entitled <b><i>Democracy in Chains</i></b>. But her work is nothing new. As early as 1955 historian Richard Hofstadter and like-minded academics put out a book of essays called <b><i>The Radical Right</i></b>, outlining the multitude of ways in which the right was bent on taking over the country, through eliminating voting rights, controlling the judiciary, and eventually taking over the entire federal government itself. Again, the big push by the corporate oligarchy came in the wake of the New Deal because of how much it threatened to curtail unfettered capitalism. And I want to be clear, this was absolutely NOT a fear about the elimination of capitalism in any way, shape or form, because the New Deal was in no way anti-capitalist. That’s right. The problem for the oligarchy is that ANY government is too much government. Because what they really want are NO RESTRICTIONS of any kind on their capacity to make money. They want to be able to destroy the environment, destroy communities, destroy families, destroy the workers themselves, and do the same to every other country in the world, all in the pursuit of making as much money as quickly as possible. And to accomplish this, all they need to happen is to destroy democracy itself. Because that’s what is finally standing in their way.
<p>
One of the first democratic protections to be wiped out in enacting their end game was the gutting of FCC regulations by Ronald Reagan that made it permissible for public news broadcasts to lie to their viewers without any repercussions. This was done so that media oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch could make millions more dollars in the short term, while at the same time the capitalist oligarchy as a whole could undermine the intellect of the uneducated electorate in preparation for their final takeover. Propaganda is a crucial element in the success of this particular takeover. As early as 1944—before the war was even over—the big capitalist lie was formulated by right-wing economist F.A. Hayek in his book <i>The Road to Serfdom</i>—talk about ironic—by doing what the capitalist right has been doing ever since: projection on a grand scale. Because of what he had seen throughout the Roosevelt administration in its attempt to create a more equitable society, he took the truth and turned it around one hundred and eighty degrees to come up with this, Nancy MacLean’s summary in <b><i>Democracy in Chains</i></b>:
<p>
“It is because nearly everybody wants it that we are moving in this [socialist] direction.” Everywhere,<br>
people were deluding themselves “that socialism and freedom can be combined” when in fact they<br>
were dire enemies. The growth of government, he argued, would in time undermine all freedom and<br>
usher in totalitarian states. (MacLean 39)
<p>
The reason everyone was so positive about the New Deal is pretty obvious, because the capitalists and their employees like Herbert Hoover had bankrupted the country. And at that point in time the ONLY entity that was in a position to help a destitute nation—much less actually care if people lived or starved to death—was the Democratic Party in Washington and the Roosevelt administration. The big lie, propagated to this day, is that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive, unable to co-exist together. But that lie has been demonstrably proven as such by the many socialist countries in Europe whose people have flourished under the combination. The growth of government—and not just growth, but a powerful government given the mandate to wield sweeping changes on behalf of the people for their best interests—is now the only way to guarantee freedom. It is the corporate state—a fascist, authoritarian government that has as its only mandate the complete freedom for business interests and the wealthy elite—that is the definition of a totalitarian state.
<p>
All of the work that sprang from Hayek’s disciples was based upon the completely false assertion that capitalism couldn’t survive in any kind of socialist context. But that was the whole point, to get rid of any kind of government oversight, no matter how slight, in order to free up capitalist markets that were anything but free. The simple fact of the matter is—again, looking to our own history—that the natural evolution of capitalism is NOT toward free market competition, but toward monopolistic consolidation and collusion between those monopolies to set prices which allows for inflation and artificial spikes, to fix low wages, and standardize poor working conditions, just as we see Amazon and other like-minded corporations doing today. These economic disciples of Hayek broke from traditional economic theory in one very dramatic way: NONE of their work was based on testable and verifiable data. None of it was based on facts. Instead, the goal was to destroy democracy from the inside. “But how to spread that view,” says MacLean, “in an era in which Americans—indeed, people the world over—distrusted markets after the Great Depression and the global conflagration it set off, and found government protection beneficial for more and more?” (MacLean 41)
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That’s right, the economic reality that motivated this crowd was that the socialist policies of the New Deal were actually WORKING, and making lives better for “more and more” people. It’s maddening in retrospect to look at the utter disingenuousness of these so-called economists. The goal was never to make things better for people in society, only to make them better for corporations and the wealthy. And what we see today is the end result of decades of pushing a flawed ideology that is, at its core, anti-democratic. Since the U.S. government was actually working for the people and making their lives better, the only recourse was to destroy the people’s faith in that government, and so that’s exactly what they set out to do. Instead of “positive” economic practice that attempts to measure and quantify through actual experiment and factual data what works, their only recourse was to turn government into the bad guy. “If only one could break down the trust that now existed between governed and governing, even those who supported liberal objectives would lose confidence in government solutions” (MacLean 42).
<p>
Thus we have the deliberate sabotage—from the inside, by Republicans—of nearly every government program and department that can be thought of, from the Veterans Administration and Social Security, to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, Education, Health and Human Services, the CDC, Transportation, Housing, the Interior, you name it. If Republicans can find a way to slow down, disrupt, defund—if not utterly destroy—a beneficial government agency, they will do it. And they will do it with only one objective in mind: to make people believe, FALSELY, that government is inept and incapable, and not to be trusted. Every frustration that you have with the government, from the IRS all the way down to the DMV, has been consciously created by the corporate right, with the sole objective of getting you to hate government and, it is hoped, democracy by association. If you hate what goes on in Washington D.C. and your state capitol, then you will be less likely to vote, less likely to work for change, less likely to care what happens to other people. They WANT you to feel as if you have no rights so that one day when you wake up and find out you actually don’t have rights anymore, you won't do anything about it. Nothing about government ineptitude in this country is an accident. It is a carefully calculated plan to get you to abandon the only chance we have of making substantive change for the better in our society: by renouncing unfettered capitalism and embracing WE THE PEOPLE instead.
<p>
And that’s why everything happening today—EVERYTHING—is unfolding as it was designed to unfold. Convince the population that capitalism is the only economic system that works and that socialism is evil. Convince the uneducated that it is democratic freedom that is responsible for their economic destitution so that they will want to destroy democracy. Convince the people that there is no “system” in place—it’s all a conspiracy theory—so that they believe the real enemy is their next-door neighbor and will expend all of their energies fighting with their fellow citizens rather than the capitalists who have actually enslaved them. Distract them with entertainment, sports, and social media so that they stay uneducated, and will believe any crackpot, anti-government lie fed to them. Make them believe that gun control is bad, that unions are bad, that a living wage is bad, that welfare is bad—never mind the fact that the single largest, by a gargantuan margin, recipient of welfare in this country is corporations. Make them believe that price controls are bad, that wage controls are bad, that regulations that make sure corporations don’t kill them are bad. Convince them that EVERYTHING that is good for them and will make their lives infinitely better . . . is bad. That’s what is going on today. The sky isn’t falling, it’s being dismantled on purpose by a corporate cabal that wants only one thing: to transform this country into a corporate dictatorship bent on turning its citizens into batteries that they can toss into the garbage when they’re used up. It's time—long past time—for people in this country—ALL the people—to wake up to what’s really going on and vote—while you still can—like your lives depend on it . . . because they do.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-14956369448523052812022-05-01T12:39:00.007-07:002022-05-20T08:54:39.589-07:00The New Abolitionism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cNUV6vDyxMtrlTjQ3YHvBKIgro_hSpTt9jVSCJ3a6lFNYZrz1e-8c6Hgk1PUooQBNfINYclPtNRofs05ZeOUK5jYWusirFPWdCU6-9tvdto52BtcM2K0W_XnX-NLKy3ru9kXFhuavs4RtgqT0PJYQwRodHDVYyUko7JAFRJGUS1FN4Pjsx9OIb5FFg/s212/wage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cNUV6vDyxMtrlTjQ3YHvBKIgro_hSpTt9jVSCJ3a6lFNYZrz1e-8c6Hgk1PUooQBNfINYclPtNRofs05ZeOUK5jYWusirFPWdCU6-9tvdto52BtcM2K0W_XnX-NLKy3ru9kXFhuavs4RtgqT0PJYQwRodHDVYyUko7JAFRJGUS1FN4Pjsx9OIb5FFg/s200/wage.jpg" width="212" height="160" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="160" /></a></div>
Long before films like <i>The Matrix</i> or <i>The Terminator</i> audiences have been presented with stories of dystopian futures, from novels like <i>1984</i> and <i>Brave New World</i> all the way back to ancient times in the story of Plato’s cave. What all of these tales have in common is that they are extended metaphors, allegories that conceal a sobering truth, and that is the fact that whatever enslavement mankind finds itself suffering in the future, it will be because mankind has created that suffering for itself. At that point man will be the only one to blame for the forfeiture of his own freedom. It’s tempting—and comforting—to believe that what is happening in the United States today is a recent phenomenon. But history tells a different story. The attempt to enslave the population in America has been going on since European settlers first arrived on these shores. Things took a detour for a while when the people’s attention was distracted during the rise and fall of chattel slavery, but since the mid-nineteenth century the capitalist forces at work in our country, both North and South, have turned to wage slavery as their objective and have gradually used their considerable wealth and influence toward achieving the goal of taking over the country and turning all of its citizens into wage-slave zombies who have neither the intellect to recognize, nor the will to fight against, the tide of complete corporate dominance that seeks to control every aspect of their lives in pursuit of the single-minded accumulation of wealth.
<p>
There are several avenues by which the corporate oligarchy in this country has been able to wrest control of the government away from the citizens so that it works only toward the goals of the oligarchy and against the interests of the people. The most fundamental of these is education. Over the last hundred years—and perhaps even further back—public education in the United States has had as its primary objective to indoctrinate children into accepting ideas and philosophies that will make it easier for corporations to control them in the future. Myths like the superiority of individual freedom over cooperative effort, capitalism over socialism, that anyone can become anything they want if they just work hard enough, the value of working and saving for the future, the more insidious ideas of social Darwinism that manifest themselves through sports and competition, and the most destructive of all, the normalization of religious mythology, have all served to weaken the intellect of the U.S. population over the last century, to the point where the working poor in this country have willingly surrendered their freedom to the very people and corporate entities that are enslaving them. They can’t tell the difference anymore between a lie and the truth. And in the most tremendous of ironies, they seem determined to give away their freedom to those who display the very power that will one day enslave them.
<p>
Once the appropriate educational programming has taken hold over a significant portion of the population and disarmed them mentally, the next step is to isolate the individual from a society that has the potential—when people work together—to diminish and ultimately defeat the power of the oligarchy. In the beginning the only avenue available to achieve this was the church. Subservience to an imaginary god and his self-chosen disciples on earth has been unimaginably successful. Brainwashing people into believing that they are inherently sinful, and therefore dependent upon an ideology that denigrates life itself in favor of a fictional heaven has trained people to endure otherwise unacceptable hardships without complaint in exchange for a reward that doesn’t exist. In that kind of environment rampant hypocrisy and suspicion take hold quite easily and serve as a successful tool with which to isolate individuals from one another. But that still leaves out the non-gullible in the population who reject religious mythology, and the way to enslave them is to develope ever more individualized forms of entertainment. The motion picture in the first half of the twentieth century served to further inculcate the masses with the ideas that are promoted in public education and the church, the myths that further the aims of the corporate elite: competition, individuality, the other as enemy, the intellect as enemy, the unquestioned good of capitalism and the evil of socialism, and above all a zero-sum game mentality. Television in the second half of the twentieth century went a step further and was able to isolate family members within their own homes. Finally, the twenty-first century has seen this technique perfected through social media, smart phones and Internet streaming of content in order to completely isolate individuals from one another and render their potential political power inert.
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But atomization and indoctrination still aren’t enough. The population also must be enervated to a significant degree by channeling their energies into manufactured conflicts in order to drain them of the ability to resist what is happening to them every moment of the day. The goal, from the perspective of the oligarchy, is to antagonize people, to get them to fight and argue with each other so that they will focus their energies and frustrations in combat with other individuals rather than against the true enemy: a capitalist system that keeps them enslaved to subsistence wages. From the very beginning of this country’s founding, the most effective method of doing this has been hatred for the “other.” Among whites themselves this was—and still is—accomplished through religious division, hatred for those who do not follow the same Protestant doctrine, primarily Catholics and Muslims. Once it became clear to the working poor, however, that it was the rich who were the enemy, the oligarchy changed tactics by promoting white solidarity against those of other races, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and all immigrants, from Black slaves initially, to the Catholic Irish and Italians and Hispanics, the “exotic” Asians, and finally the religious fanatics from the Middle East. This has been an extremely successful tactic, and while it has been transformed and refined over the centuries it is still a potent avenue of control. Anyone who looks different, who behaves differently, or thinks differently, is pointed to as an enemy of the people, responsible in whole or in part for all of society’s ills to distract people’s ire from those who are truly responsible. Most recently, this hatred of the other has been expertly inculcated into those with liberal leanings and has infected the left through the culture wars in a way that is now indistinguishable from the overt racism that has always infected the political right.
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But perhaps the most effective method to control the masses has been through political theater—a redundant phrase if ever there was one. As I have stated before on this site, politics is a lie. There is no such thing as politics. The capitalist oligarchy has worked hand in hand with the government of the United States since the colonial period. Because the economy of the United States has become so conflated over the years with the government, the myth of capitalism has been able to argue that the government—and therefore the existence of the United States itself—is dependent upon capitalism for its very survival. Without capitalism, so the myth goes, America would cease to exist. Because of that, nothing—absolutely NOTHING—that happens in Washington D.C. is going to change the fact of corporate control of the government and by extension its citizens. Politicians, Senators and Representatives, Supreme Court justices, and even the President, are all employees of the oligarchy and therefore are only there to serve the constituents who pay them—not the citizens who vote for them. What we are seeing today is just the end game of a very long process, cultivated over centuries, and reaching its final, critical phase: either the citizens of the United States are going to wake up to the danger facing them, band together and resist, or they are going find themselves having capitulated without their knowledge to overt corporate control of the government and, by extension, every aspect of their lives.
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The goal of the capitalist oligarchy is incredibly simple, and has only one tenet: to appropriate as much wealth as possible by stealing the energy and production of the masses. I realize that this probably sounds Marxist, but that’s only because it is. And, of course, Marxism has been branded as a godless evil in this country precisely because it flies in the face of everything the corporate elite are attempting to accomplish. The demonization of socialist philosophies has been incredibly easy to achieve, far easier than discrediting science has been, because economics has no laws, no process by which to demonstrate its truth. Therefore, capitalists have been able to take the facts and twist them to mean exactly what they want them to prove. This technique has worked so well that it is used in nearly every aspect of right-wing propaganda now, and the easiest way to describe it is projection. Capitalists argue that a free and unregulated economy is necessary in order to promote healthy economic competition. This is a lie, and in fact the opposite is true. What the lack of regulation allows corporations to do is to collude with one another, enabling them to fix prices and hold down wages. But by convincing an uneducated and isolated population with their noses pressed to their phones that any kind of cooperative economics is evil, the people inadvertently have colluded with their captors to reject the only way of life that promises them true economic stability and security. And now, because this technique has worked so well in the past, the right-wing uses the same tactic with everything. If you really want to know what the oligarchy is up to now, all you have to do is listen to what they say about the left. EVERYTHING they accuse the left of doing is a practice they are already engaged in today.
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It’s not just about maximizing profit, either. Corporations pay almost no taxes, but that’s still too much. What they really want is to pay nothing. That is why taking over the government is so important to them. Wealthy individuals pay far less in taxes on a percentage basis than the working class, and yet what they really want is to pay no taxes at all. As such, right-wing propaganda would have us believe that taxes are a government plot to steal your money. Once again, projection. The tax cuts enacted by Republicans are aimed exclusively at the rich, and they do absolutely nothing to keep the working classes from paying a far greater share of their income in taxes than the wealthy. The capitalist oligarchy knows they need taxes from the rest of us to pay for their roads and bridges, airports and sea ports and everything from garbage men to the CDC. It’s just that they don’t want to pay for any of it themselves, and want you to pay for it instead. Republican senator Ron Johnson is a perfect case in point. When the seditious traitor who occupied the White House during the last administration led the call for a huge tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, Johnson made it clear to the Criminal in Chief and his Republican colleagues that he could not support such a measure . . . unless corporations that he was invested in personally were allowed even greater economic relief. Republicans gave in to his demands, and Johnson made millions, money that was siphoned off from the rightful coffers of the government and into the pockets of capitalist oligarchs and their corporate arms in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the electorate. But this is nothing new, as it has been going on for centuries. The only difference today is that Democratic DINO’s like Manchin and Sinema have been allowed to infiltrate the left and openly flaunt the system in order to use the same destructive policies from the other side of the aisle.
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The brutal reality is, the myths that corporations and the wealthy elite have created around socialism are all lies. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING that critics on the right warn about would ever, or will ever, happen under socialism. In the first place, the very idea that capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive is another of the big lies that have been forced down the throat of the populace. In point of fact, there is nothing wrong with capitalism in the vast majority of cases. There’s no one who feels that shoe stores, or restaurants, or nail salons, or the corner coffee shop need to be government owned. The fact is, ninety-nine percent of existing businesses would—and should—continue to be privately owned and operated. There are others, however, the one percent, that absolutely need to be taken out of private hands and turned over to state control. Those industries are the ones that directly affect the personal health and wellbeing of the citizens of this country: healthcare, insurance, housing and, most importantly, energy, all of which need to be in the hands of the federal government rather than for-profit entities. The reason why is simple. These are the primary areas in human life, and corporations should not be incentivized to withhold these basic human needs in order to make money. Period.
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The political right continually rails against government regulation, for the simple reason that anything that prevents them from making money is seen as evil. The corporate oligarchy wants to be free to collude together to give employees as little as possible in order to make as much money as possible for themselves. As such, it only makes sense that in order to make people’s lives better, MORE government control is necessary, primarily when it comes to employment. While Bernie Sanders and others on the progressive left laud the miniscule movements made by labor unions, the reality is that unions are fragile and ineffective at best, and completely impotent at worst. The goal of all working citizens of the United States needs to be the abolition of wage slavery. There needs to be direct government oversight and control over every aspect of employment of this country. That means that wages—across every single industry and business in the entire country—need to be set by the government at levels that allow for a COMFORTABLE living wage for all. Benefits also need to be standardized and regulated. Business needs to be out of the business of health care. Period. Employers need to be told what wages they have to pay their workers, and relieved off all responsibility for healthcare and other insurance.
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Housing needs to be controlled by the government, too. No longer should anyone be at the mercy of landlords who can raise rents at their discretion, evict people without cause, and gouge renters through a multitude of fees and penalties that they are helpless to refuse. With energy regulated, people will have set energy costs that do no fluctuate during the year. Prices of consumer goods will also be fixed by the government so that the exact same produce will cost exactly the same no matter what state or community it is purchased in. Taxes will also be regulated so that EVERYONE in the country, rich and poor, large corporations or small businesses, will pay the same percentage of their GROSS income or GROSS revenue as every other. No loopholes and no exceptions. With the wealthy and corporations paying at the exact same rate as everyone else, the percentage for all will be relatively small. Every aspect of a worker’s life will be supported and sustained by a government that suddenly has absolutely no use for lobbyists, because the vast majority of laws passed by Congress will have nothing to do with economics. Republicans will scream at this idea—as will those who have been indoctrinated to believe the propaganda they are fed. They will say that the government’s track record is horrible. And they are right—but for the wrong reason.
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The reason that the Federal Government appears so inept is because it has been designed that way. Those in control of the government WANT it to seem as if it can’t function effectively so that people will naturally be suspicious of any government control. It must be remembered, however, that it is those people working directly for the corporate oligarchy—the employees of capitalism—who are purposely making the government inefficient. At this very moment, the political right is also hard at work attempting to overtly subvert the will of the people at the ballot box so that they can stay in power and do the bidding of their capitalist employers. And while there is some pushback from states and individuals, it is a systematic campaign that must be defeated before it’s too late to do anything about it. The vast majority of those who vote for right-wing politicians do not benefit AT ALL from the policies they enact, and yet because they have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the right, they willingly vote against their own personal self-interest every time they go to the ballot box. At this point in time, it is arguably true that nearly anyone who votes for a Republican politician is voting for their own slavery.
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In 1858 Abraham Lincoln declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That is the place we have come to in America today. As long as the corporate oligarchy continues to wield nearly absolute power in our federal and state governments, there will be no progress made for humanity. This country has the potential to become the most beneficent state in the entire world, one that takes care of its population, gives them a living wage, a secure future, and the FREEDOM from the wage slavery that has so infected our society that the people don’t even realize that’s what’s going on. Socialism is the only way out. If your response to the word “socialism” is negative, it’s for only one of two reasons. Either you are part of the problem, a cog in the wheel of the corporate oligarchy, someone who benefits from keeping wages low and employee insecurity high . . . or you have been so brainwashed by capitalism that you can’t see how much capitalism has destroyed our society and how much it wants to continue to do so. Freedom from government is not freedom at all, but instead is the opposite, because under our current system the only entities that are free are the capitalist ones. The rest of us have become slaves to an ideology that is completely false. And the only way to combat that control is to ban together and insist that the government, “of THE PEOPLE, by THE PEOPLE, and FOR THE PEOPLE,” begin working for us instead of against us. And the only way that will happen is if we demand, en masse, to get rid of wage slavery for all time and make all of our lives worth living in the process.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-9737121882101007902021-11-12T07:01:00.005-08:002021-11-12T09:38:40.289-08:00Aaron Rodgers is a Moron<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLVK8Kn5aEU2p6hl0TQ0bDedoR_Pk2uT8Bhxjp29GrcgbYbJ_bnHwpA3bfHolZIIG7Sbg87swdNj-TnRPLEakL_AmVjKEfCLp-QszUkHdUbZp2swpRL4-gQCA1zQVSVzg9RY-DSdK0Mtx/s212/rodgers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinLVK8Kn5aEU2p6hl0TQ0bDedoR_Pk2uT8Bhxjp29GrcgbYbJ_bnHwpA3bfHolZIIG7Sbg87swdNj-TnRPLEakL_AmVjKEfCLp-QszUkHdUbZp2swpRL4-gQCA1zQVSVzg9RY-DSdK0Mtx/s200/rodgers.jpg" width="176" height="212" data-original-width="176" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
I suppose it was inevitable, that any population within the United States today is going to reflect the attitudes of the population at large. As a result, there are bound to be morons in the NFL just as there are morons in the U.S. as a whole. And as if they needed any more evidence, the message to the anti-vax crowd should be obvious: if you don’t wear a mask and you don’t get vaccinated, you’re going to get Covid. Period. Not that I care a whit about their health or their moronic decisions. I don’t. I have absolutely no sympathy for those who flout the science and then catch the Coronavirus and die, because they did it to themselves. What angers me is that their moronic decisions put other people’s lives at risk. That, I do care about. But Aaron Rodgers is a special case. Whether on purpose or not, at least Kyrie Irving of the Nets had the self-respect, as well as respect for others, to announce his idiocy to the world and let others know that if they played basketball with him they were putting themselves at risk. And so the Nets organization did the responsible thing—even if it <i>was</i> mandated by the laws of New York—and told Irving that until he decided to get vaccinated he wouldn’t be playing. That places the ball, so to speak, firmly in his court. And yet, whether or not Irving is still just as moronic, things played out quite differently with Rodgers.
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Instead of being honest, the Packers quarterback made the calculated decision last summer to lie to the public—and, one assumes, the other players in the locker room—by making the claim that he was vaccinated when he wasn’t. Oh, sure, he didn’t use the word “vaccinated,” but that’s precisely what makes his lie so obvious. No one who watches that press conference can come away with any other conclusion. When asked if he was “vaccinated” Rodgers slipped in the word “immunized” and then continued on with the rest of the briefing as if he had used the word “vaccinated.” It was calculated deception and it worked. That is, it worked until he contracted Covid. As of course he was always going to, <i>because the moron is unvaccinated!</i> It doesn’t matter how much horse de-wormer or anti-malaria medication a person ingests, it’s not going to keep them from getting the Coronavirus any more than injecting themselves with bleach. Polio and small pox have been irradicated in the U.S. because of vaccines. And yet, unfortunately, measles and whooping cough are still with us because of anti-vaccination imbeciles like Rodgers. If proving to the world how stupid he is is more important to Kyrie Irving than playing basketball, then so be it. But the same should be true in the NFL, regardless of the city that the team is in. If players like Rodgers don’t want to be vaccinated, then so be it. But they should also have to sit their ass on the couch on Sundays just like the rest of us.
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Anti-vaxers are always on about “personal choice” and “personal freedom.” But the point that has been made continuously since the pandemic began is that a person’s individual freedom ends at the point that it puts others at risk. The boneheaded anti-intellectualism of people like Rodgers has never been clearer than it has been during the pandemic. While they cry and whine and complain about the imposition on their freedoms of having to be vaccinated and wear masks in public, they seem absolutely clueless about their imposition on the freedom of others not to be put at risk by their foolish decision to ignore the science. Of course, the Packers organization is as much to blame as Rodgers—their only concern, just as with State Farm, is money—but that’s another subject for another time. Arron Rodgers purposefully lied about his vaccination status, and put not only his teammates—who quite possibly may have known—but the rest of the players and staffs he played against, as well as fans who attended the games, none of whom could possibly have known, at risk because he is too stupid to understand that people have an obligation in a free society to consider the results their actions have on others before they act. Rodgers knew exactly what he was doing, and should be made to pay the price by being barred from the workplace, and the salary that goes along with it, until he has been vaccinated, just like Kyrie Irving . . . and just like the rest of us.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-39765788515228040722021-02-02T11:14:00.002-08:002021-03-01T15:04:38.272-08:00The Beatles: the Biography<font size="+1">by Bob Spitz</font>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3SHW-5-F1mD_okyiBnga54VtTe1IWrO-LGmfDev3JBKv0axyHV-L63eQ2D86BjLMz79fh7wJnYYh-U3l8wWWMIaFzLcM3-522352CGxdjiLpIY3IHrWgpz2Y1TSz5yTFaTnQoIgG2hCH/s212/beatles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3SHW-5-F1mD_okyiBnga54VtTe1IWrO-LGmfDev3JBKv0axyHV-L63eQ2D86BjLMz79fh7wJnYYh-U3l8wWWMIaFzLcM3-522352CGxdjiLpIY3IHrWgpz2Y1TSz5yTFaTnQoIgG2hCH/s212/beatles.jpg" width="142" height="212" data-original-width="142" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
First published by author Bob Spitz in 2005, his book on the Beatles would be more appropriately subtitled “a biography.” I wasn’t properly introduced to the Beatles’ music until 1981, though I actually remember watching the Beatles cartoon show as a little kid in the late sixties. In the seventies I only heard their hits on the radio during the oldies program on my local Top 40 radio station, and I was intimately familiar with a few of their later songs like “Hey Jude,” because it was on a couple of jazz fusion albums I owned, and “Got to Get You Into My Life,” which was released as a single in 1976 to support the <i>Rock and Roll Music</i> greatest hits package and was given frequent radio airplay. But it wasn’t until I was out of high school and playing music professionally that the bass player in the band I was in loaned me all of his Capitol LPs because one of the songs we played in the band, “I’ll Cry Instead,” absolutely fascinated me. Well, that was all it took. The Beatles instantly became one of the few bands where I liked almost every single song they had recorded—Steely Dan and America are the only other two that come to mind. As far as I’m concerned, they are the most consequential and influentially important band of the 20th century. Further, I would go so far as to say they are the greatest pop/rock group in history.
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A couple years later I began purchasing books on the band and devoured them. I read Philip Norman’s <i>Shout!</i>, which I enjoyed tremendously, but couldn’t really get into the Hunter Davies’ biography because it seemed like a PR piece, more fluff than substance. I was far more captivated by the inside stories, like Peter Brown’s <i>The Love You Make</i>, and especially George Martin’s <i>All You Need is Ears</i>. The later was absolutely fascinating because it focused so much on the music. And I even found Mark Lewisohn’s detailed <i>Complete Beatles Recording Sessions</i> an absolute page-turner, though there was no narrative thread at all, again because of the emphasis on the music. In subsequent decades I did very little reading on the group, however, and was instead content to listen to the music—especially after the Capitol LP box sets came out and I could hear the music as I first remembered listening to it. They are still my preferred mixes and track arrangements. So in 2005, when Spitz published his new biography of the group, I immediately bought the hardback and waited for the perfect opportunity to read it. My assumption was that the 856-page book would finally be the definitive biography of the group and I wanted to savor every page. Well, it took fifteen years, but I finally managed to make the time to read it, and all I can say is that it was decidedly <b><i>not</i></b> worth the wait.
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One of the things I hadn’t been conscious of when I read Philip Norman’s book in 1985 was the particular bias that the biography had. But since it was really the only complete story up to that point—like my VHS copy of <i>The Compleat Beatles</i> prior to the <i>Anthology</i>—as a beggar, I wasn’t in any position to be a chooser. Author Erin Weber gives a nice rundown of the problems with most Beatles narratives in her book <i>The Beatles and the Historians</i>, which she divides into three categories: 1. The Fab Four narrative, which is where the Hunter Davies’ book firmly resides. 2. The Lennon Remembers narrative promoted by <i>Rolling Stone</i>, which is similar to the cult of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in jazz histories in that the story slants so heavily in their direction that there’s little room for anything else. And 3. the <i>Shout!</i> narrative, which I consider a subset of the second category because it makes Paul responsible for every negative thing that ever happened to the group. Well, Spitz’s book lands squarely in the Lennon Remembers category because of how heavily he emphasizes John Lennon to the detriment of the other three members of the band. It doesn’t take long for the reader to figure this out, even in the Liverpool section. If I were to roughly divide the entire book strictly in terms of content, Lennon gets about 50 percent, McCartney 35 percent, Harrison 10 percent, and Starr a paltry 5 percent.
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There are long, lavishly detailed sections in the book about everything John does, about his school, his friends, his family, his drug use, and his relationships, first with Cynthia and then Yoko. Jane Asher, on the other hand, though she was Paul’s primary girlfriend during most of those years, barely gets a page. Pattie Harrison gets a single sentence saying that George was able to get her a bit part in <i>A Hard Day’s Night</i>, and Maureen Starky . . . nothing. The reader has absolutely no idea who she is or how she met Ringo. At first it’s a bit shocking, but by the halfway point in the book it’s so disappointing that it makes it difficult to plow through the rest of it. Similarly, the stages of the band’s history are equally uneven. The pre-fame Liverpool history nets an entire third of the book’s length. Then, as they become increasingly famous—and their story increasingly more interesting—Spitz spends less and less time on each subsequent year, until the end of the book rushes to a close, as if the author had been working on a deadline and had to summarize the final years of the group’s existence rather than write about it in any depth. The longer one reads, the more one has the sensation that a lot more was left out of this version of the story than what remains between the covers. Though it doesn’t seem possible, Spitz actually manages to make the story of the most fascinating music group of the rock era boring.
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By far the most egregious flaw in the book, however, is the short shrift that Spitz gives to the music. He uses lots of flowery adjectives to describe the music that provide absolutely nothing to the reader in the way of insight or appreciation for either the writing of the songs or the recording of them. But in a way that particular flaw makes sense, as there are major gaffs throughout the book that expose the fact that Spitz has almost no understanding of music at all. Just a couple of examples will suffice. In one section early on, about John and Paul writing songs together, Spitz states that the two were especially conscious about attempting to write a clever “middle eight” for each of their tunes. Then, as a knowing aside, the author tells the reader that what the two songwriters actually meant by the middle eight of a song was the “chorus.” <b><i>Wrong</i></b>. Unbelievably <i>wrong</i>. The middle eight of a song is called the bridge, not the chorus. And there are other, less maddeningly stupid, but just as irritating musical errors, like when Spitz states that the solo instrument on “Fool on the Hill” is a flute, when it’s actually a recorder. This is so unfortunate, because the music is finally the point. It’s the reason <i>for</i> Beatlemania, not the other way around. The Beatles’ melodic and harmonic sophistication as a group was light years ahead of any other recording act in the sixties—and even the individual members in the decade that followed. And their execution of that material in the studio was also unmatched. But that wouldn’t be apparent from reading this book, as a ten times more space is devoted to Brian Epstein than to George Martin.
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<i>The Beatles: the Biography</i> is simply not a very good book, no matter how one looks at it. Spitz has been commended for conducting a bunch of new interviews, which did have a lot of potential, but then used those sources in a very uninspired manner. And while quotes by the actual Beatles are sprinkled throughout—from extant sources—it only serves to make the paucity of more unique interview material by them all the more noticeable. Even when he does use Beatle quotes it’s to poor effect, as they almost never add anything substantive to the story and therefore feel unnecessary, as if he wasn’t really able to discern which Beatle quotes were important and which weren’t—then went ahead and chose the latter. It’s a shame, because Mark Lewisohn’s first volume of the absolutely definitive biography of the Beatles, <i>Tune In</i>, only reaches the year 1962, and on the author’s website he says that the second volume won’t be out until at least 2023. That biography, however, will be well worth the wait. In the meantime, Spitz is what Beatle fans are stuck with. Though honestly, for all its overt bias and fictionalized history, Philip Norman’s book is a much more entertaining read. My suggestion to Beatle fans is to acquire books by participants like Peter Brown, Derek Taylor, George Martin, Geoff Emerick and the like, and those specifically about the music like <i>A Day In The Life</i> and <i>All The Songs</i>, and forgo Spitz’s biography completely in favor of Mark Lewisohn’s infinitely more satisfying approach.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-36736182799868797102021-01-23T16:14:00.003-08:002021-01-23T16:28:04.408-08:00The Big Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsNx5Vu37O9d1wyzRysZke5doQpQg4cEpY6fYu1U9P1eflitZjNZ4EcSLvE6QhU9n14Fm8HXJK05nof-qyfbb0_OuDNnXM8hyphenhyphenKNQsLs06Y8wS0QePywhHOFjK8Twb_msex72MXw3ifvu8/s212/politics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsNx5Vu37O9d1wyzRysZke5doQpQg4cEpY6fYu1U9P1eflitZjNZ4EcSLvE6QhU9n14Fm8HXJK05nof-qyfbb0_OuDNnXM8hyphenhyphenKNQsLs06Y8wS0QePywhHOFjK8Twb_msex72MXw3ifvu8/s212/politics.jpg" width="212" height="149" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="149" /></a></div>
The fact that this country has endured—and successfully removed—a chief executive who lied to the people over 30,000 times during his four years in office, an average of over twenty lies per day, is reason to celebrate. But the stain on our democracy represented by the previous administration is only a symptom of a disease that will not be cured simply by changing our brand of executives. Unfortunately, the previous fascist presidency is not the worst that America has endured in this respect, and is still being forced to endure, even after the inauguration of President Joe Biden. While the Big Lie has resided in the Oval Office every four years for at least the last hundred and seventy years, and may to some extend reside there even now, the Big Lie’s home is really in the Congress. This should be clear to anyone who pays attention to what is going on the Capitol, because the insurrection there on January 6th was only the most obvious manifestation of a more subtle and insidious insurrection that has been going on ever since the end of the Civil War and continues to threaten our republic up to this very moment: the Big Lie.
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The first thing to understand about the Big Lie is the way that it is perpetuated. An interview that Fox News did on inauguration day with Karl Rove is a perfect case in point. The goal of Fox News is to promote an alternate reality to its viewers, and after President Biden’s inauguration speech one of the anchors on the network expressed his disappointment at the way the president had accurately assessed the dire situation in our country. “Why do you think they’re talking everything down?” This is an absolutely ludicrous question to ask because things in this country are objectively bad; they are empirically bad; they are demonstrably bad. And the reason they are bad is due entirely to the abject failure of the previous president and his administration to do anything to stop it from becoming that way. The previous president did absolutely nothing to address the pandemic and the attendant economic collapse that resulted from his own inaction. The reason President Biden was “talking everything down,” was because it is down, and it was the failure of the previous president that made it that way. That’s why the citizens voted him out of office. Karl Rove’s response?
<p>
Well, part of it is to lower expectations. The economy is really bad, Covid’s all screwed up, it’s all<br>
bungled, you know. It’s gonna be really hard to get these things fixed. And then as people get their<br>
vaccinations and the economy begins to rebound as a result of it being opened up, they can say,<br>
“Look at us. Didn’t we do a great job?”
<p>
Uh . . . yeah, they can. And yes, they will have deserved every bit of that recognition because of the economic and pestilential wasteland the previous president turned the country into. If President Biden can manage to reverse the disaster wrought by the most blatant criminal ever to occupy the White House, he will deserve all of that praise and much, much more.
<p>
What Rove seems to be doing here is trying to shift the blame to the Biden administration for the disaster that the previous administration created—the very same thing the right did after Obama took over during the cratered economy of the Great Recession that had been brought about by the Bush administration, one that Rove himself participated in—implying that Biden shouldn’t be able to take credit for his success because somehow he must have been responsible for it in the first place. But Rove doesn’t dwell on that talking point because, were anyone to even think about it for a second they would realize he actually has no point. His comment simply <i>sounds</i> negative, and conveys the connotation that something is not quite right with the new administration if they claim success for cleaning up the mess that the country is in, when in fact it was the previous administration that was responsible for setting the height of those “expectations” by kicking them to the ground. Though Rove’s clear implication here is that President Biden and his administration for some reason should not deserve that praise, he can’t dwell on the point because the idea is demonstrably false.
<p>
From there Rove moves over immediately to the Big Lie, the falsehood that has been undermining the success of this country for hundreds of years. And I’m not talking about the success of the rich. I’m talking about the promise of this country that has never been realized, ever, in its two hundred and forty four year history, and that is the commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL of its citizens. This is Rove’s next comment:
<p>
I thought it was a good speech. It wasn’t a great speech but it was a good speech, and it was the<br>
right speech for the moment. But there was a point in there where he said we’re divided as a country<br>
between the people in the country who believe in the American ideal, and [the people who believe in]<br>
racism, nativism, and fear. No, no, no. We’re divided as a country politically over questions of policy<br>
and direction and respect.
<p>
And <b>THAT</b>, ladies and gentlemen, is the Big Lie. That is the lie that has kept ninety-nine percent of us in bondage to wage slavery for hundreds of years, and distracts us from understanding what is truly going on in our government because those who perpetuation the Big Lie don’t want us to know.
<p>
When Rove says that this country is divided politically, he is lying. What the citizens of this country have yet to figure out is that politics is not an end in itself. It is not a self-contained, closed system. Politics in a republic, especially a representative democracy, is all about constituency. It is about the people who are <i>represented</i> by politicians, not the politicians themselves. Politics as it is practiced in America has absolutely nothing to do with “policy and direction and respect.” It is about the needs of constituents, pure and simple, and how the politicians elected by those constituents can best deliver to their supporters the things they desire to meet their needs. In order to understand politics in the United States it is imperative that people look beyond the politicians to see who they actually represent.
<p>
The problem for most of us is that we can’t seem to do that. Just one example of this phenomenon can be seen in an interview with a pop music star from the mid nineteen sixties, well before he scared the skirt off of J. Edgar Hoover when he became radicalized in the seventies. John Lennon had begun to grasp the primary elements of the Big Lie when he spoke to journalist Ray Coleman way back in 1966.
<p>
The trouble with government as it is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them. All they<br>
seem to want to do—the people who run the country—is keep themselves in power and stop us<br>
knowing what’s going on. The motto seems to be: “Keep the people happy with a few (cigarettes)<br>
and beer and they won't ask any questions.” . . . It would be good if more people started realizing<br>
the difference between political propaganda and the truth . . .
<p>
So far, so good. Lennon has identified that the government doesn’t represent the people but instead controls them. They do this through a coordinated campaign of distraction—cigarettes and beer in his day, entertainment and social media today. But then he hits an intellectual wall, as most people do when attempting to discern the real forces at work:
<p>
We’re being conned into thinking everything’s okay, but all these bloody politicians seem the same<br>
to me. All they can talk about is the economy and that. What about people, and freedom? These<br>
things that matter more don’t seem to worry them.
<p>
That’s because the politicians aren’t the real problem. Lennon comes incredibly close to understanding the truth, but then mistakenly winds up blaming it on the politicians themselves. “From what you hear, none of the politicians has any intention of giving ordinary people complete freedom. Just keep them down—that’s all they really want.” And as a result, he’s forced to admit that, “I’m not suggesting I know what the answer is—I just know there’s something wrong with the present way of governing the country.” The reason he doesn’t know the answer is that he’s looking for it in the wrong place.
<p>
So, what is the answer to combating the Big Lie? The first step is to understand exactly who the constituents of our politicians really are. They are the wealthy elite, a corporate oligarchy that donates heavily to both Republican and Democratic political campaigns in order that those politicians will secure their interests in Congress. Then, to ensure compliance with their agenda, they hire lobbyists to make direct payments—as indirectly as possible to avoid <i>overtly</i> breaking the law—to these politicians in order to make sure they are working for the interests of the oligarchy. Those payments don’t have to be money, and they don’t have to be paid immediately. One of the most lucrative bribes that politicians frequently accept is the assurance of a job as a lobbyist themselves once they are out of office. This is precisely what happened to the <i>Democrat</i> that New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated in 2018, Joe Crowley, a 10-term congressman and the Democratic Caucus Chair. A year after his ignominious defeat he went right to work for the largest lobbying firm in Washington, and in doing so exchanged his paltry $174,000 salary as a politician for a salary that is potentially worth millions. The true enemies of the state are those who want to use the mechanism of the state to make themselves ever richer by denying opportunity and security to those on whose backs their wealth is created. The brutal truth of the way the government of the United States is run is that politicians are <i>employees</i>, and Americans are never going to get anywhere until they stop yelling at the employees and start asking to see the owner.
<p>
What makes this task so difficult is the massive—and quite effective—campaign of misdirection funded by the corporate oligarchy. Their primary tool in this regard is the media, right wing and left wing alike. Watch any corporate-owned media outlet when they attempt to report on the workings of the government and you will see that they focus almost exclusively on politics. For the right-wing organizations like Fox, this is all they report. Left-wing sources like MSNBC will sometimes report on the regularity of former Congressional politicians who take jobs as lobbyists, or the travesty of judicial rulings like Citizens United, or the influence of big money on politics. But the infrequency of that kind of reporting only serves to emphasize the importance of the relatively unimportant majority of the reporting that focuses on political struggles within the House and Senate, and between the Congress and the White House. The biggest obstruction in the Congress to democratic reform is not Mitch McConnell . . . it’s the Koch brothers. But watching mainstream media, that’s not readily apparent. McConnell—and Cruz, and Hawley, and Tuberville, and the rest of the fascist Gilligan’s Island castaways who attempted to block the counting of electoral votes even <i>after</i> the armed insurrection of the Capitol by Maga-ites (pronounced “maggots”)—is an employee of the corporate oligarchy and, like the soldiers of the SS, he’s just following orders.
<p>
Corporate controlled right wing propaganda has effectively neutralized a vast swath of the electorate who have been brainwashed into believing that government is bad, that taxes are bad, that programs from which they themselves benefit—like Medicare and Social Security—are bad, and that Democrats are evil socialists who want to destroy our capitalist way of life—even though only a small percentage of Republican voters even make enough money to benefit from austerity politics. But voters on the left are not immune to the lure of political struggle as entertainment that misdirects their attention away from the corporate oligarchy to meaningless political battles by combatants who are all essentially on the same side. One of the most idiotic statements made last summer in the midst of the peaceful protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder and others, came from Joe Rogan. When he learned that protesters in Seattle were demonstrating in front of the house—or one of them, at any rate—of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, he mused aloud as to why they would be doing that. What does Amazon have to do with anything? This is the problem for many on the left, a completely different kind of brainwashing. Systemic racism does not exist in a vacuum—hence the adjective “systemic.” That is why protests in Portland have continued even after the Biden inauguration, because <i>politics is not the problem</i>, the corporate oligarchy is.
<p>
The most recent example of this truth is the phony moratorium on political donations in the wake of the Capitol insurrection. After January 6th many corporations announced that they were going to temporarily postpone political donations, not just to the supporters of the insurrection like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, but to politicians in <i>both parties</i>. The reason for this nakedly disingenuous move is clear. By halting donations only to those actually responsible for aiding and abetting the insurrection, Senate and Congressional Republicans, it would necessitate that some action be taken to hold those politicians accountable for their reprehensible actions before the resumption of donations could begin again. But by halting donations to both parties, it allows those corporations to make a token expression of disapproval, and then at some later date resume donations to both parties without requiring any consequences be administered to those traitorous Republicans who continue to shamelessly remain in office. This should not be a surprise to anyone. It is those very politicians that have prompted this faux outrage on the part of corporations who are the employees of the corporate oligarchy, and who have enacted the very legislation that facilitated—as well as obstructing legislation that might hinder—their employer’s ability to increase their net wealth by $931 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic at the same time that more than ten million Americans have lost their jobs.
<p>
The right loves to parrot phrases from civics class to the effect that politicians work for the people, that they act at the behest of the citizens who voted for them, that they are only carrying out the will of their base of supporters. This is a lie. Federal politicians, both Democrat and Republican, work for their employers, the donor class that funds their campaigns, that lines their pockets, and that rewards their loyal service with golden parachutes once the actual citizens have finally had enough of their lies and shameless greed. That is what finally happened in the Georgia senatorial runoff, and while it is a hopeful sign of things to come it may only wind up being an isolated instance because of the inability of the electorate to stay focused on the real enemy. Again, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are merely employees, working at the behest of their corporate donors, but it only muddies the waters to focus on the fact that they are also wealthy. They, just as other rich politicians like Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, all benefit from the tax breaks and deregulations they sponsor, granted, but they are not doing this work for themselves alone. They work for other, much wealthier employers, their real constituents.
<p>
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By distracting the electorate with politics, however, and stoking the flames of discontent by emphasizing the meaningless goals of “policy and direction and respect,” the corporate oligarchy keeps people from going after those who are truly responsible for the miserable state of this country for the vast majority of its citizens. Jeff Bezos and others like him are the modern day equivalent of slave planation owners and later industrialist robber barons. They are able to pay slave wages because if a person can’t, or won’t, work for the pittance they offer there are hundreds of other desperate people willing to take their place. And if wealthy elites can keep people zoned out on the “cigarettes and beer” of today, sports, entertainment, social media and politics, then those people cease to be a threat to their financial insurrection against the U.S. Those they can’t placate with mindless obsession they can misdirect by pitting them against each other, either literally through the perpetuation of racism, classism, sexism, and identity politics, or through their proxies in the federal government. Even independent left wing commentators like David Dole, Sam Seder and David Pakman continue to get bogged down in political conflict instead of emphasizing all along the way what the actual conflict is. Brilliant books have been written exposing the true nature of the struggle, like Nancy MacLean’s <b>Democracy in Chains</b> and <b>One Nation Under God</b> by Kevin M. Kruse, and then nothing happens. Events like Occupy Wall Street during the Obama administration tend to remain isolated and are then marginalized and eventually forgotten as the oligarchy continue their own march to occupy the U.S. government and legislate the rest of us into an existence that is nearly all “pursuit” and no “happiness.”
<p>
The Big Lie is that politics has anything to do with this. In the coming months and years the Biden administration will do battle with the Republicans in the Senate. Little will actually be accomplished, though the vaccination rollout will no doubt continue to be administered by the desperately overburdened states. As a result, the Republicans may win back the Senate in 2022 and continue to aid the oligarchy in obstructing any legislation that could help working class voters in both parties. They may even win back the White House in 2024. And then the whole thing will start all over again as the political pendulum continues to swing back and forth. But none of this will have anything to do with who is pulling the strings, who is actually manipulating the way the issues are framed. Politics is a symptom, not the cause. This country is not divided of its own accord. It has been divided purposely, a rift manufactured by a wealthy elite intent on exploiting that artificial division as a way of keeping the citizens of this country fighting against each other rather than the real criminals in our midst. We have not simply <i>become</i> a country of haves and have nots, devolving into economic divide that we cannot control or understand, helpless victims of the hand of fate. No, we have been played—and are still being played—by those who have only increased their wealth during this most recent economic downturn, because they have actively created the very system that allows them to do so. And until we really begin to fully grasp the true nature of the problem we will continue to be duped by the Big Lie.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-18703181295000415242021-01-09T04:15:00.007-08:002021-01-11T08:11:28.097-08:00We Don't Have To Win Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf-u4HTncFz2XLgKuCAT1jyQyGMCzM1jwedQaIhI73hT_rtFVrD9xQbjoJMikVlLLYb-SO0Ekh2gzd28J0jG6unKxKLwL_cfqkpzLOoHfVJ67kV6O0GRWzL7NP3fVS2M1QSXkqJQqWuUp/s212/rump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf-u4HTncFz2XLgKuCAT1jyQyGMCzM1jwedQaIhI73hT_rtFVrD9xQbjoJMikVlLLYb-SO0Ekh2gzd28J0jG6unKxKLwL_cfqkpzLOoHfVJ67kV6O0GRWzL7NP3fVS2M1QSXkqJQqWuUp/s200/rump.jpg" width="212" height="212" data-original-width="212" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
When I was a public school teacher I was given one of the best pieces of advice in my entire career during my first year of teaching. I had already endured a frustrating couple of months in a mostly rural community school that was vastly different from the well-heeled urban high school I had done my student teaching in, when the staff was given a presentation by a local law enforcement officer. What he told us was essentially this. When you have a conflict with a student who is acting inappropriately or violating school policy, do what you can to mitigate the damage in the moment but don’t attempt to completely resolve the situation right then. Tempers may be raised, and confrontation may do more harm than good. While it may be difficult to leave things unresolved for the time being, the officer explained to us, especially if the student thinks they’ve triumphed or gotten away with something, the thing to always keep in mind is that you’ve already won. Simply by virtue of the fact that you are the teacher and the students are the violators, you have already won. The key to any confrontation in public school, he told us, is to always remember that <i>you don’t have to win today</i>. The advice was transformative. As a teacher the policies of the school, and even state law, were on my side. In any confrontation with a student violating those policies or laws, therefore, I had already won, and I could rest easy as I filled out a discipline referral or reported the student to the administration later because . . . I didn’t have to win today.
<p>
Something similar is going on in Washington D.C. at the moment, in the wake of the deadly and unprecedented armed insurrection of the Capitol Building on Wednesday. In the discussion about the relative effectiveness of proceeding with another impeachment of the president, many people are unaware of the full scope of this act and what it means for the country in the long term. While the justification for the immediate move to impeach the president a second time is obviously with an eye to removing a dangerously unhinged man from office, it’s also important to remember that we don’t have to win today. While removing the president from office as soon as possible is an absolute necessity, there is also the time consideration to deal with. He will be gone by law in less than two weeks, and so it may be difficult to achieve the desired results before then. As such, many people are rightly uncertain about the efficacy of proceeding with the impeachment if it may only result in removing him from office a few days early, or perhaps not at all before he is required to leave on January 20th. President Elect Biden appears to be thinking the same way. But there are other reasons to proceed immediately with articles of impeachment, no matter how long it takes, and even if the entire process cannot be completed before inauguration day.
<p>
The first important reason is that the impeachment will also be a referendum on Republican complicity in the most corrupt and undemocratic administration in the history of the United States. The vote in the House of Representatives to approve the articles of impeachment will force House Republicans to either vote for democracy and the American people, or to continue to side with a fascist tyrant who has wantonly incited an insurrection against his own country. The vote in the Senate to convict or acquit the president will do the same thing for Senate Republicans. This is a vote that should define their entire careers and provide ample evidence of their lack of fitness to hold public office in the future if they vote against democracy and against the very people they have been entrusted with representing. And while it's doubtful Mitch McConnell would ever bring it to the floor of the Senate, he won't be in control much longer either. The second reason for proceeding immediately with impeachment is actually not about removing the president from office, as important as that is. What many people in the media and throughout the country don’t seem to realize is that the other penalty for impeachment is to disqualify the president from ever holding public office again. This is the real and lasting benefit of impeaching him again because it will forever silence the specter of further attempts by him to overthrow democracy in America. What’s also important to understand is that the proceedings do not require that he still be in office. Even if he were to resign, the impeachment can continue and he can be prevented from ever holding office again. We have already won; the president has been voted out of office. But there also MUST be consequences for his treasonous, anti-democratic actions. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that we don’t have to win today.
<p>
This is also true when it comes to the president and his crime family operations. There has been so much talk in the media about the Department of Justice memo that suggests a sitting president should not be investigated or indicted for wrongdoing. And at the same time, there has been ongoing speculation about the possibility that the president will attempt to pardon himself. These two things taken together, and especially the way that they generally have been reported in the media, have been understandably frustrating to the majority of the electorate who sees this as a technicality that may allow a thoroughly corrupt president to avoid the punishment he has only brought upon himself and so richly deserves. But there are two aspects of this narrative that need to be articulated better—and hopefully emphasized much more by the media in the coming days. First, presidential pardons are only valid for <i>federal</i> crimes. Even were a presidential self-pardon to survive legal challenges, the president is still in violation of numerous <i>state</i> crimes. And for those, a presidential pardon would do him absolutely no good. The president’s most recent violation of election laws in Georgia and his ongoing illegal financial activities in New York are just the most high profile of his state crimes. It’s almost certain that many more charges will be filed in other states the moment he leaves office.
<p>
But while the president’s inability to avoid state prosecution has been reported by the media, what isn’t generally talked about is the complete context surrounding self-pardon. What reporters and commentators typically focus on is that there is nothing specifically in the Constitution to prohibit a president from pardoning him or herself, which means this president will absolutely attempt it. That said, however, what is almost never mentioned in these discussions is that very memo from the Department of Justice which states that the president should not be indicted while in office. Because further along in the memo it states quite unequivocally that while the DOJ should leave the president unmolested while in office, the trade off for doing so is that he is not allowed to pardon himself. So, while it is an absolute certainty that the president will pardon his crime family and himself before he leaves office, those pardons will not protect his family or himself from prosecution at the state level, and further, the president himself will certainly not be able to avoid eventual federal prosecution because his self-pardon will never be upheld legally in light of the DOJ memo.
<p>
What all of this means is that the forty-fifth President of the United States will almost certainly be convicted of numerous crimes at the state and federal level. It won’t happen immediately, but then it doesn’t have to. Time is on our side. This also explains the itinerary that the president had planed months ago that included a trip on Air Force Two to Scotland on January 19th. That’s right, the president had planned on heading to his resort in Scotland on the day before the inauguration, conveniently placing him on foreign soil when his term of office expired. Fortunately, Scottish authorities have denied his request to enter their country. While they cited Covid-19 restrictions as the reason, it also seems fairly clear that they have no intention of welcoming a fugitive from justice. But while the president has been blocked from going to Scotland, there are many other foreign countries that may be more amenable to harboring a wanted criminal. The president has already made it clear he will not be present at Joe Biden’s inauguration, but he hasn’t said where he will be on that day. With any luck he will flee the country and thereby tacitly admit his guilt once and for all to his followers. And with even more luck he will be extradited back to the U.S. to be held accountable for his numerous criminal acts against the United States and its citizens and spend his final days in prison. To accomplish this, the impeachment is a necessary first step. We just need to be patient.
<p>
Like Al Capone, or O.J. Simpson—who eventually did go to prison, just not for their actual crimes—it may not be as satisfying as seeing the Capitol Police walk into the Oval Office and haul the president out in handcuffs while the Secret Service looks at the warrant for his arrest and shrugs, but I believe that American justice will finally win out in the end. The weak willed vice president is never going to agree to invoke the 25 Amendment. Nor is the president’s amoral cabinet—who choose to avoid the West Wing these days rather than confront the catastrophe that they helped create—going to do anything to hasten his removal. Instead it is the people, through their chosen representatives in the United States Congress, who need to move forward and impeach the president with all deliberate speed. While he will certainly be impeached by the house, the impeachent may not make it to the Senate until well after Joe Biden tkes office, in order to guarantee his conviction and disqualify him from public office. And that's okay. While the president is a criminal who must be removed from office as soon as possible, that soon as possible may only turn out to be on January 20th. Thus it’s important to keep in mind that we’ve already won; it's just the punishment that will come later. He will, in fact, be gone in a few days, and will most likely end up in jail or as a fugitive, which means we’ve already won. We just need to remember that we don’t need to win today.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-91167811876950122022020-12-09T11:15:00.007-08:002020-12-11T20:21:21.624-08:00The Grifter In Chief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKwtMeLbusxMOzii9DxeWg0VNxQk492_WydXD2bxUs48wNJ1wp4eG3_oEJE_6ejWuxvpdmz8mZXRnrI3_wqmrIul2hfQsCmieSmCGRpm6kbdmkBBj0Lpq2FU48_jzuiE_-zYywIzn1BiM/s212/hamb2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="212" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKwtMeLbusxMOzii9DxeWg0VNxQk492_WydXD2bxUs48wNJ1wp4eG3_oEJE_6ejWuxvpdmz8mZXRnrI3_wqmrIul2hfQsCmieSmCGRpm6kbdmkBBj0Lpq2FU48_jzuiE_-zYywIzn1BiM/s200/hamb2.jpg" width="180" height="212" data-original-width="180" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
Shortly after the election of Joe Biden to the highest office in the land, the lame-duck president set in motion the last great con of his administration: stealing as much money as he can from his own supporters before being forced to leave office. The idea was to claim that the election had been stolen from him, then inundate the courts with a barrage of baseless lawsuits designed to subvert the will of the people, and make the people pay for it. But almost as soon as the website went up and the emails were sent out demanding that his supporters foot the bill for these legal challenges, astute reporters read the fine print and saw that the money was actually going to two places, the president himself—not the legal fund—and the Republican National Committee. This was reported on by all of the major media outlets in the second week of November, with articles like this one on MSNBC: “For Trump, One Last Fundraising Scam Before Leaving Office.” Likewise, in the <i>Washington Post</i> an editorial headline read, “Trump’s Election Challenge Looks Like a Scam to Line His Pockets.” <i>Politico</i> as well, in an article by Maggie Severns entitled “Where Trump’s Recount Fundraising Dollars are Really Going,” made it clear exactly what the true nature of this scam actually is:
<p>
Much of the money raised by . . . the Trump campaign won’t go towards challenging election results,<br>
however, but to help set the stage for the president’s next act. The Trump campaign has a recount<br>
fund, but the money won’t go to it unless someone gives more than $8,333. Rather, 60 percent of a<br>
donation up to that amount for Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” is routed to a new PAC started<br>
this week by the president that can pay for a wide range of activities . . . The remaining 40 percent<br>
goes to the Republican National Committee.
<p>
All of the mainstream newspapers and on-air personalities covered this story at the time, and it should have been the foundation for all of the reporting that has happened in the last month since. Instead, the media has moved on to a different narrative. The hosts of news shows now discuss the intricacies of the legal challenges—even though all of those legal suits have been entirely baseless and without a shred of evidence—and the wrangling between the president and the individual state legislatures, election offices, and governors, all illegal activities, it should be pointed out, but rarely is. There is also much pointless hand wringing about what this means for the country, when that is not the point of these activities at all. In speaking about the plethora of court cases being summarily dismissed or withdrawn, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, on MSNBC, put the situation this way: “Trump and his allies aren’t filing these cases because they believe he won the election. They’re not trying to reverse the results in any meaningful way.” True, very true. But it’s then that Vance goes off the rails. “What they’re seeking to do is to undermine the integrity of our elections, to cast doubt in the minds of so many American people that the future of our elections is really in doubt.”
<p>
No, no, no, no, no!
<p>
That is absolutely NOT what is going on right now. The president does not have a plan and he does not have a grand strategy, for the simple fact that he does not have a brain in his head. He’s a functionally illiterate narcissist who can’t even get out of his own way long enough to succeed at his own criminal undertakings. Sure, he can say the words on a teleprompter, but don’t ask him what they actually mean because he doesn’t know. The only way he can make sense of the President’s Daily Brief is if it’s in comic book form—with the words redacted so they don’t confuse him. Attempting to ascribe some kind of Machiavellian scheme to his actions is tantamount to claiming Jaws had a personal vendetta against the Brody family. A shark is fish with a tiny brain that has no way of distinguishing between the kicking feet of individual humans in the water, much less the humans themselves. And the president’s brain is nowhere near that complex. The president has already scammed over 200 million dollars from his supporters through the election defense fund, and so there’s no way he’s going to give up that pipeline of free cash by conceding the election, ever. He is a common criminal—very common indeed—and the only thing that animates his every activity is how he can enrich himself. Period. There is no other motive. The president said as much in his recent rally in Georgia, which was ostensibly for getting out the vote in the state runoff for two crucial Senate seats, but as with everything else was really only about him: “You know, I don’t do these things for other people . . . I don’t like doing it for other people.”
<p>
Of course not. The president has absolutely no concern for anyone but himself. His sociopathic response to the Covid-19 pandemic is only the most obvious case in point. Not only did he ignore warnings about the deadly epidemic early this year, but purposely downplayed it with the public. Then, when he was proven wrong about the true virulence of the virus he doubled down and said people should not wear masks, and so as part of the 296,000 deaths so far—and still climbing—that he is directly responsible for, are the over seven hundred deaths of the supporters at his mask-less rallies in which he should rightly be charged with manslaughter. It would not in any way be out of line or unrealistic to suggest that the reason the president refused more doses of the vaccine from Pfizer last summer is because they weren’t willing to give him a big enough kickback. So he thought he’d try his luck with other pharmaceutical companies also working on a vaccine. None of what the president has done in the last four years—NONE of it, including what has transpired in the last month—is out of character for a man who has been such an abject failure in business that the only way he can actually make any money is to steal it from other people.
<p>
The two commentators who consistently seem to focus on the president’s criminal activities with any regularity are the independent Keith Olbermann and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who said the other day that despite all of the attempts to overturn the election results that people shouldn’t loose site of the “crimey things” the president is doing. What Maddow—and the rest of the news media, it seems—cannot seem to stay focused on is that IT'S <i>ALL</i> CRIMEY. That’s right. The only thing the president knows how to do is lie, cheat, swindle and steal, all day, every day. This latest escapade is nothing but the next chapter in the long con he is playing on the American people, the Republican Party, and his anti-intellectual followers. This president is the most repugnant human being ever to hold office in the U.S. government, and that’s saying something for a political party that also boasts the likes of Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio among its membership. But the mainstream media cannot seem to keep their focus on what really matters in these remaining few weeks, that the president is a criminal, and therefore everything he does is simply a part of his criminal operation.
<p>
No doubt the president will announce his intention to run for re-election at some inopportune moment, perhaps on January 20th, and perhaps timing the announcement to occur at the very moment when Joe Biden is being sworn in as a genuine president. <i>When</i> it happens, however, is less certain than the fact that it definitely <i>will</i> happen. Why? Again, for only one reason. This will allow him to continue to raise money from his clueless base after he is gone from the White House, from people who can ill afford to be sending their hard earned money to a grifter. His re-election organization will then allow him to keep on stealing a steady stream of cash from the electorate for his personal use for years. That’s right, every time he takes a trip somewhere his plane fare will be paid out of campaign funds. Every time he stays at a hotel it will be paid for with campaign dollars. He will argue that everything he does for the next four years and beyond is part of one endless presidential run and therefore he will be able to live off of the money he steals from the working class people he has duped into believe he cares for, despite the fact that he has no more concern for them than he does for the women he has sexually abused, the undocumented immigrant children he has caged, the non-violent protestors he has violently attacked, or the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens that he has killed through his criminal negligence.
<p>
The current president of the United States is a sociopathic criminal and a con man, and the only hope of restoring the confidence of the people in the office of the president is if individual states’ attorney’s general and city district attorneys open numerous investigations next year into all of the illegal activities of the president’s crime family operations, then take the president and his family to court, and eventually put them all behind bars where they belong. Keith Olbermann, bless his heart, seems to be the only political commentator with his eyes on the prize, continually pointing out the president’s many crimes, as well as the crimes of his family and associates, and the specific laws they have broken. And in doing so he unambiguously advocates for the vigorous prosecution of these un-convicted felons. But for them to actually be convicted, the rest of the news media need to stay focused on what the president really is, and what his only goal is: a continued and concentrated effort to subvert the laws of this country for his own benefit. Nothing President Joe Biden does in the next four years will be able to bring this country together if a known criminal is able to roam free and continue his blatant illegal behavior without any consequences. The only thing that will wake up his brainwashed followers to the fact that he is not above the law is if he is finally put in jail. And for that to happen the media needs to fulfill its duty to the American public, not just by calling out the president for his many lies, but by pointing out the specific treasonous criminal activity he is engaged in every time they mention his name.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-32066344397399963622020-12-02T16:28:00.002-08:002020-12-02T19:31:34.806-08:00The Next Jimmy Carter?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHa_-rFGuF_GkTsn78N_fdHdiKZcqYzm5Bo8CeU9ch1LeKpdpGjrm6GvnRLQG6NaKjwVpyd85GDbd4kHpP9Hl97yETq7if_FkdhwJI3g1wCR-bVyfi8Ee0CF_aX1aQM8ndVDwfQpCM04e/s212/biden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" width= "157" height="212" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHa_-rFGuF_GkTsn78N_fdHdiKZcqYzm5Bo8CeU9ch1LeKpdpGjrm6GvnRLQG6NaKjwVpyd85GDbd4kHpP9Hl97yETq7if_FkdhwJI3g1wCR-bVyfi8Ee0CF_aX1aQM8ndVDwfQpCM04e/s200/biden.jpg"/></a></div>
Like millions of other people who voted for the Democratic ticket in the general election in November, Joe Biden was decidedly not my guy. As a Democratic Socialist I believe that the kind of governmental reform that Bernie Sanders has been advocating for the past decade is not only desirable, but necessary for the long term viability of our democracy. I voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primary, but would have been quite happy to cast my vote in the general election for Sanders. And early in the primary campaign that appeared to be the consensus of the rest of the Democratic voters as Sanders took an early and commanding lead, while Biden didn’t appear to have a chance of becoming the nominee. After Super Tuesday, however, it was all over but the shouting. Covid-19 had been allowed to sweep through the country by the inept and criminally negligent occupant of the White House, and somehow Joe Biden had captured the momentum and the Democratic nomination, and went on to deliver a crushing loss to the man-child who had used the highest office in the land as the platform for his own criminal enterprise. Though Biden was definitely not my guy, like so many other millions of people in this country, I was ecstatic that the country would no longer have to suffer four more years under the worst president in the history of the United States.
<p>
But even with two weeks until the Electoral College ends the massive disinformation campaign being waged by the petulant child in the White House and his propaganda arms in the media—and another month beyond that before the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president and vice-president of the United States, I’m actually concerned that this might have been the worst thing that could have happened. Not worse that four more years of fascist and anti-intellectual rule, don’t get me wrong; nothing could have been worse than that. But historical precedent has me worried. I was in elementary school when Watergate engulfed the nation and was only vaguely aware of the specific details about it at the time. And it was only a few weeks before I was to start junior high when my dad made me come into the family room to watch President Nixon resign. Gerald Ford then made things worse by pardoning the disgraced president, denying the country the ability to hold Nixon accountable for his comparatively minor crimes when viewed from our perspective today. As a result, the voters not only rid themselves of Republicans in the White House, but voted in a complete Washington outsider, Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, to be the new president in 1976.
<p>
But Carter was ill prepared for the job, in both experience and personality. Endlessly empathetic and a devoutly religious man, he also micro-managed his subordinates and seemed far more interested in foreign affairs than solving the multiple crises at home, which included massive inflation, rising oil prices, and a military-industrial complex looking for a new war and itching to use the nuclear weapons that had been denied to them during Vietnam. Ironically, for a guy who negotiated a truce between Israel and Egypt, and eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize, the worst foreign policy disaster ever to befall a presidency came on his watch during the Iran hostage crisis. The real nadir of his presidency, however, came during the “malaise speech” in which, like a disappointed father looking over a bad report card, Carter took to the airwaves and essentially told the citizens of the United States that it was all their fault because they had such a bad attitude. In the end, voters were so sick of Carter that they inadvertently ushered in twelve years of militarized, anti-regulatory, predatory capitalism under Regan and Bush. And it was only another outsider—way outside this time—in the form of billionaire Ross Perot, who siphoned off enough of Bush’s votes in 1992 to throw the election to Bill Clinton and save the country from even further middle-class devastation.
<p>
The parallels with today are too similar to ignore. The country didn’t vote for Carter because he was Carter, but because he wasn’t Nixon and Ford. Likewise, a large percentage of Biden voters this year did so not out of a desire to see him in the White House, but because they wanted the dumbest man to ever hold the office out of there. Similarly, Biden, like Carter, is an empathetic and devoutly religious family man. And like his Democratic predecessor, he seems just as ill equipped for the task at hand, this time to take on a rogue Republican Party bent on destroying democracy as we know it. The most troubling thing about Biden is his political history. This was something recounted in detail back in a March 2019 cover article in <i>Harper’s</i> called “No Joe! Biden’s Disastrous Legislative Legacy.” The article, written by Andrew Cockburn, is a cautionary tale published just ahead of Biden’s announcement of his presidential run, and should be read by every American to acquaint them with the new president’s political predilections. In it, Cockburn begins with Biden’s apparent willingness to compromise with the right on just about anything.
<p>
“I believe that we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart,” he<br>
declared in the Rose Garden in 2015, renouncing a much-anticipated White House run. “It’s mean-<br>
spirited. It’s petty. And it’s gone on for much too long. I don’t believe, like some do, that it’s naïve<br>
to talk to Republicans. I don’t think we should look on Republicans as our enemies.”
<p>
This does not bode well for the next four years because Biden believes that he’s a deal maker, someone who can work across the aisle and get things done. He may, but in the end they won’t wind up being the things this country really needs. For one thing, the landscape has changed, and dramatically so. Biden came of age during a time when Democratic stalwarts like Edward Kennedy and Tip O’Neill actually could get things done—to a certain degree—by compromising with the Republicans. But politics in the twenty-first century is so completely different that it no longer bears any resemblance to the political world that Biden inhabited before being tabbed as Obama’s VP. The public heard something similar in this campaign, when Biden proclaimed that he will govern for all Americans, not just Democrats. But as Cockburn stated, “By tapping into these popular tropes—‘The system is broken,’ ‘Why can’t Congress just get along?’—the practitioners of bipartisanship conveniently gloss over the more evident reality: that the system is under sustained assault by an ideology bent on destroying the remnants of the New Deal to the benefit of a greed-driven oligarchy.”
<p>
What makes this outdated attitude even worse in Biden’s case—or if looked at another way, actually explains it—is that as a senator from Delaware, he was in the pockets of big money from the very beginning.
<p>
There are some causes that [Delawareans], or at least the dominant power brokers in the state,<br>
hold especially dear. Foremost among them is Delaware’s status as a freewheeling tax haven.<br>
State laws have made Delaware the domicile of choice for corporations, especially banks, and<br>
it competes for business with more notorious entrepôts such as the Cayman Islands. Over half<br>
of all US public companies are legally headquartered there . . . [as such] Biden was never going<br>
to stray too far from the industry’s priorities.
<p>
This is a situation that led Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren to state of her Democratic presidential rival: “His energetic work on behalf of the credit card companies has earned him the affection of the banking industry and protected him from any well-funded challengers for his Senate seat.” Given all of this, it’s also quite possible that his cozy relationship with the banking industry explains his inexplicable overtaking of Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Both Sanders and Warren have been outspoken advocates for banking and finance reform, and because of that earned the wrath of the moneyed interests and inspired completely fictional hyperbole on the right to the effect that either one of them as president would mean the complete destruction of the American economy.
<p>
Biden’s hand-in-glove relationship with Wall Street, however, is nothing new. John F. Kennedy was the last Democratic president—with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter—who wasn’t beholden to big business and the banking industry. And just look what happened to him. Lyndon Johnson was the absolute worst, rubber-stamping a war in Southeast Asia that killed tens of thousands of Americans, with the only result that it fattened the wallets of defense industry owners and executives. In fact, it was the utter failure of the eight year Obama administration to make any substantial reform of the financial industry during the Great Bush Recession, anything that might stem the tide of the shrinking of the middle class and the wage slavery that is the daily reality for most of the citizens of this country, that resulted in the devastating election of 2016. Slick Willy was even worse, which not only tainted Hillary by association, but in point of fact. She was unable to escape her own Wall Street ties, dubious ethics, and the devastating policies of her husband, especially in regard to black incarceration—something that Biden had his hands in as well. According to Cockburn’s article,
<p>
By the 1980s, Biden had begun to see political gold in the harsh antidrug legislation that had been<br>
pioneered by drug warriors such as Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon, and would ultimately<br>
lead to the age of mass incarceration for black Americans. One of his Senate staffers at the time<br>
recalls him remarking, “Whenever people hear the words ‘drugs’ and ‘crime,’ I want them to think<br>
‘Joe Biden’” . . . Despite pleas from the NAACP and the ACLU, the 1990s brought no relief from<br>
Biden’s crime crusade. He vied with the first Bush Administration to introduce ever more draconian<br>
laws, including one proposing to expand the number of offenses for which the death penalty would<br>
be permitted to fifty-one. Bill Clinton quickly became a reliable ally upon his 1992 election, and Biden<br>
encouraged him to “maintain crime as a Democratic initiative” with suitably tough legislation. The<br>
ensuing 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed with enthusiastic administra-<br>
tion pressure, would consign millions of black Americans to a life behind bars.
<p>
One hopes that Biden has seen the error of his ways, and his selection of Kamala Harris as vice president may be the evidence for a genuine reversal of policy in the coming years. But Harris has no executive powers, and it remains to be seen how seriously Biden takes on nation wide systemic racism in law enforcement.
<p>
There’s no doubt that Biden will have his hands full with his response to the coronavirus, something his immediate predecessor ignored and which resulted in over a quarter of a million U.S. deaths—a total that is still rising. The attendant economic collapse of small businesses and growing numbers out of work employees is only slightly less urgent. Foreign affairs as well have been an unmitigated disaster under the current administration, and though Cockburn’s article demonstrates that Biden’s reputation in this area is also greatly exaggerated—“Biden’s claims of experience on the world stage cannot be denied. True, the experience has been routinely disastrous for those on the receiving end, but on the other hand, that is a common fate for those subjected, under any administration, to the operations of our foreign policy apparatus”—it will command much of the commander-in-chief’s time as well. But if Biden is going to avoid the ignominious fate of Jimmy Carter he’ll need to focus on three areas of domestic policy that compelled voters of all stripes to the polls to get rid of the current president: healthcare reform, economic reform, and law enforcement reform—including a wealth tax to pay for it all. Currently, however, the president elect has no plans to deal with healthcare at all, other than by attempting to expand the Affordable Healthcare Act, a half-hearted compromise in the first place and something Republicans have been trying to kill almost from the moment it was passed.
<p>
It’s criminal that this country is the only advanced nation in the world that doesn’t have universal healthcare. But again, the reason for that comes down to political support for the moneyed interests that control politics in the first place. To allow something as critical as the health of a nation to be held hostage by the profit motive is unconscionable. Privatization of health insurance in this country has been a travesty, especially since these companies stand to make even more money beyond their overpriced premiums by denying benefits to their customers. Meanwhile we have a system already in place, Medicare, that could be extended to all citizens and solve the problem almost at once, and yet the very people who benefit themselves from free government healthcare, Congressional Republicans, are the same people most actively trying to do away with that system for the rest of us. Unlike any president in the last fifty years Biden has a golden opportunity, in the midst of a worldwide medical crisis, to effect real healthcare reform, and yet it’s doubtful Biden will come anywhere close to solving the problem. That’s what happens when politicians seek only compromise rather than reform. And like appeasement with the Nazis in Munich, Biden may face the same consequences as Neville Chamberlin by doing likewise with Republicans.
<p>
As Andrew Cockburn’s <i>Harper’s</i> piece points out in detail, Biden looks to do no better with financial reform. Rather than sweeping regulatory limitations placed on big business and financial institutions—including paying their fair share of taxes—his only economic plan seems to be his “Build Back Better” program of expanding the clean energy industry. One can already see the growth of lending and subcontracting that will continue to support and grow wealth for the top end of society, while completely ignoring necessary reforms like a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage, strengthening manufacturing unions, addressing income inequality, closing loopholes for overseas production by U.S. businesses, and putting a stop to a host of other practices that continue to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Biden’s obligation to big money will likely prevent any meaningful change for the working class he panders to, a relationship that he carefully cultivated during the campaign. Finally, racial tensions, exemplified by the continuing spate of preemptive murders of blacks at the hands of white police officers must be dealt with in some kind of substantive way once and for all. Defunding the police—an unfortunate term, if an extremely accurate one—has real potential. By farming out many inappropriate police responsibilities to other agencies, especially those dealing with domestic abuse, homelessness, and drug abuse, those funds typically allocated to police departments could then be diverted to fund groups better equipped to deal with those issues than uniformed men carrying guns.
<p>
What’s so frustrating about Democratic centrist ideology is that it doesn’t work. Not only hasn’t it worked for the past fifty years, it has failed miserably. The tremendous irony is that, were Democrats able to embolden themselves to run roughshod over the corporate tools that the Republican Party has become, they would finally be able to institute much needed reforms that would help <i>everyone</i>, not just those with money. And once that happened <i>all</i> Americans, especially the working class, would be able to see the benefit to themselves and others, and finally be able to understand the disinformation that is being fed to them by the right for the lie that it is. Instead, centrist Democrats have been cowed by the very propaganda coming from the right that insists “socialism” is a dirty word, and that they can’t get elected by pursuing a progressive agenda. Well, the most recent election has put an end to that particular myth. All of the Democratic senators and congressmen and women who stayed in the center lost their races, while those on the left with progressive ideology won or held their seats. The new reality in politics is that the wealthy oligarchy fears the power of the majority as a threat to their tyranny in a way they never have before. That’s probably the reason that Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination in the first place, and from the looks of things he is busily assembling a third, do-nothing Obama administration, with cabinet picks like Neera Tanden promising to make things even worse.
<p>
Again, however, I do want to emphasize that the colossal difference between the last four years and the return to normalcy that Joe Biden’s election represents will possibly go down as one of the most important turning points in United States history. And the people were right to celebrate in the streets at the removal of the most corrupt, hate-filled, democratically corrosive administration in our history. I’m sure I’ll cry watching the inauguration, just as I did when I watched Obama’s first acceptance speech in 2008. But it’s the very idea of a return to normal that worries me, because there is a new normal today. And in this new, severely altered reality, “normal” is not going to succeed. This is something that Republicans figured out back in 2014 when they gained control of the Senate. They began then, and have never stopped, their all out assault on democracy through complete Congressional obstructionism, a far right Supreme Court judiciary, and the use of full-time propaganda arms in the form of right-wing news networks. And if working class voters elect another fascist that is even marginally more intelligent than the imbecile in the Oval Office now, the country is going to be in real trouble. Meanwhile, Democratic politicians still wring their hands and profess a desire to “reach across the aisle.” It’s a recipe for disaster if the left doesn’t push back against the anti-democratic policies of the right with equal force, because we may not get this chance again.
<p>
If Joe Biden continues with Democratic business as usual, or worse yet, makes poor decisions like choosing to ignore the current president’s crimes for the sake of healing and deny the country justice yet again, he runs the very real risk of handing the reins of government over to the Republicans for a long time to come—the very thing that happened in 1980 when the following 12 years of uninterrupted Republican control nearly destroyed the middle class. With any luck Biden will decline to run in 2024. He’s already the oldest president ever elected; four years from now he’ll be 82. That may be fine for Supreme Court justices, but an old man is still an old man, however sharp mentally, and if he’s saddled with a Republican controlled Senate, accomplishes nothing and still runs again, it seems impossible that he could win a second term. Kamala Harris is the one bright spot on the horizon. A Democrat with a progressive ideology and agenda, she could be the way forward for the party, but only if Biden does the right thing and steps aside when the time comes. Morning in America has mercifully come and gone, but now that it’s Midnight in America we still have a long way to go until the true dawn. Control of the Senate may help, but only if Joe Biden has the fortitude to do what is absolutely necessary for this country to survive. We need Joltin’ Joe rather than Grandpa Joe, and so let’s all hope that he steps up to the plate and delivers. If not, in a cruel twist of irony, the last four years may turn out to be the good old days.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-53139686301024227482020-10-02T16:10:00.002-07:002020-10-02T17:09:23.226-07:00An Open Letter to a TraitorTo the Current Occupant of the White House:<p>
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I have put up with this situation long enough and I just can’t do it anymore. I have tried to endure the last four years as best I can, but can hold my tongue no longer. And now I am compelled to tell you—for myself and on behalf of the people of the United States—that you’ve made me hate you. The phrase is not one I feel comfortable using, and yet nothing else even comes close to expressing my feelings about the job you have done over the last four years. I am a humanist, and I don’t like the word “hate.” I believe in the sanctity of human life, and that for life itself to be worth living human beings have an obligation to each other to do what we can to make everyone’s life as meaningful and happy as it can be. But you, sir, have betrayed the people of this country every single day that you have occupied the highest office in the land. You have disrespected me and my fellow citizens, talked down to we the people, and you have demonstrated by your very words and actions that you have nothing but contempt for all of the people you are supposed to be working for—including those people who voted for you. You betray our country every day by your mere presence in Washington. And because of that, you’ve made me hate you.
<p>
You are supposed to be the President of the United States, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and yet you have colluded with foreign enemies, asked them to illegally interfere in our election process, and turned a blind eye when they put bounties on our servicemen and women. And at the same time you run and hide in your secret bunker at the first sign of a threat. You don’t deserve the title of Commander in Chief. Instead you are a traitor to this country and all the people who live here. You are a joke to the international community. The leaders of other nations laugh at you behind your back. You are drawn to dictators in the rest of the world because, like them, you are unable to function in a democracy. You have no idea how to lead. You can only bully. You have committed treasonous acts that have put men and women’s lives at risk overseas, especially in our military, and you are putting our democracy at risk as well. But then you don’t care for democracy, and have made it clear to the American people that you would prefer to be a dictator. You have made a mockery of the office you hold and of the country you were sworn to protect and defend. You lied on your first day when you took the oath of office, and you have lied every day since. That is why you’ve made me hate you.
<p>
You lie, cheat and steal during your every waking moment, which was bad enough when you were a private citizen, but in the last four years you have carried on as if nothing has changed, as if you have absolutely no obligation to the people you are supposed to serve. Instead you have used your office as your own private base of criminal operations, hiring crooks like yourself to break our laws and deceive the people of the United States. You have purposely attempted to dismantle their liberties and remove the constitutional rights they have fought and died for over the last hundred years. You allow your criminal underlings to ignore the laws of this county, as you have done yourself countless times, and then pardon them so that they—and you—can get away with it. You care nothing for anyone but yourself. You have no humility, no compassion, no empathy. In point of fact, you are a sociopath. You are completely devoid of human emotion and concern for anyone else, including the members of your own family, and you blame the citizens for your own shortcomings, accusing them of wrongdoing when it is your own ineptitude that is responsible for all of the problems we now face in this once great nation. You belong in prison. I don’t want a criminal for a president, and that is why you’ve given me no other choice but to hate you.
<p>
You are lazy and refuse to do your job. Anyone else who had that kind of track record would be let go and find it difficult to get any kind of job in the future. You barely go to work at all, and when you do it is only to plan your next criminal action. The only effort you expend is to find ways to cheat the American people in order to line your pockets and those of the corporate interests that support you. You cheat on your taxes, you borrow money you can’t pay back—and then don’t pay it back. You pretend to collect money for charity and then spend it on yourself. You are an embezzler. You have failed at everything you have ever laid your hands on and now you continue to fail, except this is not a casino or a business deal that is falling through but the United States of America, the country I live in with the rest of my fellow citizens. As a young man you were given money that you didn’t have to earn, and then promptly proceeded to lose all of it. You are a failure as a businessman, you are a failure as a husband, you are a failure as a parent, you are a failure as a human being. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that you are the biggest failure as president that this country has ever seen. It’s bad enough that you’ve failed yourself, but now you’ve failed all of us and feel absolutely no remorse for it. That is why you’ve made me hate you.
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You brag about how smart you are, but you have no plans, no ideas, not a single thought about how to make our country better. And because of that you have no idea how to talk to others, no conception of how to discuss differing points of view. Because you have no point of view. All you know how to do is attack people personally, like a child, with insulting nicknames like, say, #DumbDonald. You are, in reality, the stupidest person to ever hold the office of president. You are probably the stupidest person to ever hold any public office. To call you an anti-intellectual would be a misuse of the term, because that implies that you can formulate actual thoughts in your mind and then reject the intellect of others. But actually, a new definition of the word will have to be coined to apply to you, one that means a complete and utter lack of any kind of intellect at all. And even worse, you then take your stupidity and use it to foment hatred and dissention in this country, to disenfranchise voters and incite violence between Americans against each other, gutting Constitutional protections and their political representation. You have pitted the people of this country against each other and sown hatred wherever you go. You wear orange paint on your face when it would be much more appropriate for you to wear a pointy white hood. In a country that has had presidents who were actual slaveholders, it is unconscionable that you are the most racist president in the history of our nation. It seems you have purposely set out to destroy America, and that’s why you’ve made me hate you.
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Finally, you have killed more Americans through inaction than have been killed in combat in all of the combined military conflicts since World War Two. You killed them, and that makes you the greatest mass murderer in the country’s history. U.S. citizens, whom you were sworn to protect and defend, you’ve let them die because you are incapable of leadership. You have no experience with the concept and don’t even know what it looks like, and so instead you let our citizens perish without lifting a finger. The only thing you care about is avoiding responsibility, and so you take none, leaving the people of the country to fend for themselves. You act as if you want them to die. And as if that weren’t enough, you also seem perfectly happy to let hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs, lose their homes, lose the dignity of being a human that all of us should possess by right. But then you never cared for anyone’s rights. You only care about yourself. And now you want to deprive the people, in the middle of a pandemic, of the health insurance that will keep them alive. I don’t believe that people are evil, but your actions and inaction are a different story. Your abject failure to do anything to help your fellow citizens during this crisis is evil. There is, quite literally, no other way to describe it. And that is why you have forced me to hate you.
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But as bad as all of that is, what’s even worse—as if such a thing were imaginable—is that you are nothing but a tool. You are the symptom of a disease, a figurehead for everything that has gone wrong in this country since the end of the Second World War. The real culprit behind your abject failure, the party truly responsible for everything that has happened in the last four years, from the subversion of American elections, to the murder of blacks in the streets by police, to killing nearly a quarter of a million people through your inaction to Covid 19, are Senate and Congressional Republicans who support you despite the fact that you have wantonly broken federal laws and misused the office to benefit yourself while completely ignoring the needs of the country you are purportedly here to serve. Senate Republicans in particular, had the opportunity to rid this country of the scourge that sits in our Oval Office. It was served up to them on a silver platter. All they had to do was the right thing, the moral thing, the only thing that would have allowed them to uphold their sworn oath to the Constitution. And yet they utterly failed, just like you, their so-called leader. Had Senate Republicans acted as duty demanded when you were impeached, had they responded appropriately to the will of the people when called upon by the country to remove both you and your complicit vice-president from office, someone else would be president now and the nation would not be in the miserable state it’s in, suffering not only from a global pandemic but from the economic chaos that followed in its wake.
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But Republicans have stopped pretending to care about the people who elect them, block any beneficial legislation that will help ordinary people, and refuse to admit they are wrong when they are caught in their lies. They must keep up the façade of infallibility even at the expense of hundreds of thousands of American lives. At the same time you, their so-called leader are truly the emperor with no clothes. You are a nakedly racist, misogynist, homophobic narcissist who is incapable of opening your mouth without lying. You are a delusional adolescent bully who maintains his position through the criminal actions of his miscreant supporters in Congress who have allowed you to remain in office despite numerous treasonous actions against our country and the Constitution you were sworn to defend. I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to feel hatred toward anyone. And yet you’ve made that impossible. You’ve forced my hand. But like so many other millions of Americans who also don’t want to feel animosity toward another fellow citizen, you’ve given us no other option. Despite all the odds, despite common sense, despite every method of prognostication, you have finally managed to bring the majority of this country together . . . against you. You have finally made us hate you.
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Sincerely,<br>
E.B. Neslowe
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-91994904403633273772020-07-07T15:39:00.001-07:002020-07-07T17:53:36.049-07:00Critical Theory . . . It’s Complicated<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLd98joIcQ6G3Ge-BAge4Gm6emE4KJVVkbUV4GLT-jvQhyGssTRUKuFZm7pOfz8yGMaxmczBgS7rXjtzue6JqTDJWjWbM9f5zTapFDBphCfUy5dwf8omTRmE6fhSguhQmLgMdWC2xg95X/s1600/lindsay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLd98joIcQ6G3Ge-BAge4Gm6emE4KJVVkbUV4GLT-jvQhyGssTRUKuFZm7pOfz8yGMaxmczBgS7rXjtzue6JqTDJWjWbM9f5zTapFDBphCfUy5dwf8omTRmE6fhSguhQmLgMdWC2xg95X/s200/lindsay.jpg" width="142" height="212" data-original-width="142" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
Critical theory is being thrown under the bus . . . yet again, and so it has propelled me out from under my quarantine rock to defend it. Like most people, I would imagine, the pandemic and the necessity of self-isolation has led me to spend more time online than I would normally like. And recent events in the wake of even more murders of black men by police officers as well as the utter incompetence, inaction, and treasonous behavior of the stupidest man to ever hold the office of President, have given me plenty of content to consume. The specific content that has spurred me to action this time is a recent episode of the <b>Joe Rogan Experience</b> in which Rogan’s guest was author James Lindsay. Lindsay was on the program to promote his forthcoming book, <b>Cynical Theories</b>, which he co-authored with Helen Pluckrose and is due out in August. My typical pattern is to watch one or two of the clips from the show, and if I like the guest and the conversation I’ll go ahead and watch the whole podcast. The clip in question was intriguing, as in it Lindsay began by talking about how Wokeness will eventually destroy itself from within, ironically, when people “wake up” to the fact of what is really going on. That was good enough for me, and so I cued up Rogan’s show #1501 and began to watch
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Lindsay, who I had never heard of before this, is someone for whom I would seem to have a natural affinity, a religious and cultural critic who also has a scientific background. As the show began, he and Rogan were discussing the negative aspects of keeping animals in zoos, and from there went on to point out the way some people today have the audacity to criticize things that others have done in their childhood as if it still represents them now, and then on to the Woke Movement in particular. Lindsay rightly says at this point, “The theory that is fueling this . . . is this idea that comes from French philosophy that words and ideas and thoughts and patterns have traces that don’t ever really go away. And so if something used to be associated with something bad and we still use the word, or even if you pretend that it was the case and you still use the word, then it carries this negative trace.” Rogan asks the obvious question at this point, if people are really aware of the ideological underpinnings of their outrage. For the average person, Lindsay says, it’s unlikely, and then he compares the whole thing to religious hierarchy with deconstructionist professors playing the part of priests and theologians. So far, so good. But then Rogan tries to sum it all up this way: “So, you’ve got the Woke academics, the serious Woke people, that are teaching it to kids, that really teach it as critical theory, like critical race theory.” And when Lindsay responds with “That’s right,” my heart sank.
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In the end it’s a small thing, I realize, as what Lindsay was really agreeing with was the way that academics—college professors, mostly—preach their deconstructionist dogma as a way of making themselves feel as if they’re smarter than everyone else, and yet remain oblivious to the damage they are doing to society as a whole by inculcating college students into believing in an entirely fictitious narrative—which really is very similar to religion. What I object to, however, is the way that Lindsay’s assent blithely lumps German Critical Theory in with French Deconstructionist philosophy, when the two could not be more different. At this point he and Rogan go on to discuss the execrable book <b>White Fragility</b>, and compare that author’s seminars to something resembling cult indoctrination. One of Lindsay’s interesting arguments is the idea that there is also a moral component to this type of race shaming, which makes the religious comparisons even more obvious. Then he gets back to Critical Theory territory when he says that a person’s denial of racist beliefs is actually proof to the Woke crowd of implicit guilt because, “one of the symptoms of participation in systemic racism is an inability to see it if you’re white. It’s invisible to you.” Then Lindsay goes on to explain how all of this evolved.
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It is Marx who cooked up this idea called conflict theory. He actually took it from other German<br>
philosophers . . . He changed Hagel’s idea of what’s called—you can’t even say this anymore, the<br>
master-slave dialectic, because master and slave have traces. Even though that’s what it was called,<br>
you can’t talk about it . . . Hagel wrote that people have power, and then there are people who don’t<br>
have power. The person that’s being oppressed by the power understands the oppression, whereas<br>
the person who’s doing the oppression can’t. Simple enough. Marx cooked this up into this idea called<br>
conflict theory that says, oh, different groups in society—and he mostly meant rich people versus poor<br>
people—are completely separate from each other and there’s no idea that they help each other . . .<br>
So, what Marx’s idea was is that the oppressor class is always the enemy of the underclass. And this<br>
has actually traced down through history.
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All of this makes sense, as Deconstructionism has much more to do with Marx’s theory than anything else: the unconscious behavior of the oppressor class is the culprit for the unhappiness in the world. But then Lindsay takes his history lesson a step too far. “This philosophical school started in Germany at first, moved to Columbia University during World War Two. It’s called the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.” The problem here is that when Lindsay says “this” it sounds as if he’s talking about the ideas of Marx and Hegel and that this Frankfurt School decided to take the ideas of the master-slave dialectic and conflict theory and run with them. In point of fact, the Frankfurt School thought that Marx was wrong in one very significant way: it wasn’t the oppressor class that was unconscious about what was going on, it was the oppressed. What that means is that Critical Theory actually believed the <i>opposite</i> of what Marx had proposed, which Lindsay seems to understand, as he then adds, “They moved it into ideology and culture. So the dominant culture, whoever has the most status and power, the elites, which at the time was generally white, straight men for the most part, those people basically brainwash the underclass into not realizing that they should rise up against it.” This is clearly a significant difference from Marx, and yet the “it” makes it sound as if he’s still saying that it’s the ideas of Marx and Hegel that the Frankfurt School are promulgating. And then he makes the disappointing mistake of completely submerging Critical Theory back into Marxist theory when he says, “So you have this whole dynamic of conflict where the oppressor class doesn’t realize what it’s like to be oppressed, the oppressed class constantly can’t get away from it . . . and then the underclass always has to be at war to try to overturn the power above them . . . This stuff all has a very long history. It didn’t just pop up in 2014.”
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This is an incredibly frustrating description, because while Lindsay apparently understands the distinction between Marx’s unconscious oppressor class and the Frankfurt School’s unconscious underclass, he not only fails to make that distinction clear to the listener, but instead he folds Critical Theory right back into Marxist theory as if they were one in the same. It would be nice to think that was an accident, but later on in the podcast he confirms his misunderstanding when he says, “Critical Theory was how you complain that things aren’t Marxist enough . . . People bomb me for saying that, but it is actually, generally true.” No, it’s not. It’s also a gross misrepresentation of Marx’s goal, which was to improve the lives of everyone in society rather than making the working class the economic slaves of the moneyed elite. As stated earlier, Critical Theory was a reaction against one of Marx’s main ideas. The problem wasn’t that the underclass was constantly at war with their oppressors, it was that they didn’t realize the oppressor class was constantly at war with them. Just one of the ways that the oppressor class wages their war on the unconscious underclass—and there are many—is by keeping them distracted and absorbed in meaningless pursuits, especially things like sports and celebrity. With men spending all their time glued to ESPN and fantasy sports leagues, in addition to the real thing, and women obsessed with the supposedly real housewives of this or that city, and poring over <i>People</i> magazine, the oppressors keep the oppressed so preoccupied with what amounts to nothing that the oppressed have no time or energy to devote to overturning the power of the elites, much less even realize that’s what’s going on in the first place.
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But it wasn’t enough for the capitalist oligarchy in this country to make cultural and economic slaves of their fellow citizens. In order to make even more money, corporate elites decided that overseas markets were the way to go. This phenomenon was explained by writer and historian Joseph E. Green, in his book <b>Dissenting Views</b>. U.S. citizens can only spend so much time and money numbing their brains in meaningless pursuits, while subjecting the rest of the world to the same fate seemed like the new version of Manifest Destiny to corporate America, something Green labeled the American Idea.
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If we speak solely of the cinema, music, and television—the pop cultural milieu that forms one of<br>
the last remaining exports of the United States—we cannot help but notice the overwhelming<br>
juggernaut that is most obviously expressed in the worldwide interest in film and music stars. What<br>
Americans sell to other countries is the stuff that dreams are made on. For we are out of the manu-<br>
facturing business . . . but we remain experts in the various aspects of the mellifluous nothing we<br>
might call the American Idea.
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Critical Theory, which began at the end of World War One in Germany, had been around for nearly forty years before French theorists used it as an inspiration to go off in a completely different direction in response to American cultural hegemony in the world, which itself was a direct result of the American capitalist desire to expand markets for overseas exports of American cultural products. Green explains the effect this had on some European intellectuals.
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Not everyone likes the American Idea. The French, we might say, are at the forefront of the resistance<br>
movement against this wave. Indeed, one could characterize the works of Michel Foucault and Jaques<br>
Derrida, for example, as little more than attempts to undermine or otherwise get around the American<br>
Idea, as it is instantiated in monopoly capitalism . . . [and] there are many [others] who have gone on<br>
the record as lamenting the fact that universal ties between human beings are [now being] formed<br>
along the lines of reality television stars rather than anything of consequence in the real world.
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Green is right when he says that French deconstructionist philosophy was developed in some sense as a bulwark against the American cultural invasion of Europe. By breaking down any piece of literature, texts, films, what have you, and deconstructing it into its constituent parts, those parts quickly become meaningless when separated from their overall context. Thus, essentially having no meaning at that point, those individual parts can then be assigned any meaning the reader or viewer wants them to have. The real evil genius in the philosophy, however, is that once those parts with their new meaning attached are reassembled, this new meaning now informs the entire work, usually damning it as the product of corporate American designs to flood the rest of the world with “mellifluous nothing” in its mission to extract as much money from that world as possible without any thought to the consequences for the people themselves. Meanwhile, this idea was soon picked up by American university professors who had lost the ability to analyze literature and needed some way to justify their existence. Using these principles they were able to deconstruct literature and show how it actually meant whatever they wanted it to mean rather than what the text explicitly said. In this case, however, the underlying meaning they assigned was one that indicted whites over blacks, men over women, straights over gays, and any other cultural disparity that could be exploited in the name of publishing rather than perishing. In fact, James Lindsay himself, along with a couple of colleagues, wrote out meaningless academic papers a few years ago that they crammed full of deconstructionist ideas and jargon, and of the twenty they submitted to peer-reviewed journals, seven were actually accepted for publication. One was even given an award by the journal that accepted it.
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So, what the hell does any of this have to do with Critical Theory? The short answer is, almost nothing. Critical Theory is about as <i>responsible</i> for Deconstructionism as classical music is responsible for smooth jazz. Sure, both Mozart and Kenny G use the twelve-tone scale of Western music, but there the similarity ends. And while Mozart represents a high point in Western culture and rewards repeated listening, the loss of Kenny G’s music might actually be a cultural gain for society. Similarly, while both Critical Theory and Deconstructionism share an emphasis on trying to understand the hidden forms of oppression in society, there the similarity also ends, and the loss of deconstructionist principles would also be a net gain for the American people. The confusion comes from the fact that American academics co-opted the name, probably because it sounds a lot better than Deconstructionism. Rather than the utter destruction and dismantling of the literature and culture that academics are pretending to analyze—which is all that deconstruction really accomplishes—the term Critical Theory instead turns these faux intellectuals into genius analysts who can see what others are oblivious to. I have no issue with the use of the word “theory,” as in race theory, feminist theory, or queer theory—though the philosophies themselves are overtly damaging to society—but once they tack on the word “critical” it winds up dragging the Frankfurt School into ideologies they have no business being associated with, let alone the responsibility for.
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The only tenuous connection that Critical Theory has with Deconstructionism is in the idea that things are not really what they seem, and that oppression can be lurking in those unseen hidden depths. But where Deconstructionism sees oppression in other <i>people</i>, and makes <i>them</i> personally responsible for the systemic disenfranchisement of perceived victims that they couldn’t possibly be responsible for, Critical Theory tries to open the mind to the ways in which the system itself is responsible for the oppression of everyone, and that it’s the victims themselves who need to take personal responsibility for their own complicity in that oppression. Sports and celebrity, for instance, would seem to be an innocent pastime, a hobby to enjoy as a respite from work and other obligations, and for some people that may be the case. What the Frankfurt School was attempting to demonstrate, however, is that when seen within the totality of a person’s life, those things are nothing more than distractions to keep people from using their energies to actually make their lives better, and by extension improving the lives of everyone around them. The idea was to see things as they really are, not simply make up some meaning that justifies a person’s inchoate and incorrect ideas about their own perceived victimhood. For the Frankfurt School the most oppressive form of control was that of the workplace, but they quickly branched out into other areas as well, especially the numerous ways that the capitalist oligarchy—first in Europe but later in the U.S.—was controlling the masses through the manipulation of the media and entertainment as well as commerce.
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The ultimate refinement of this goal, it has become pretty obvious, is the smart phone, whose very presence in people’s lives robs users of their own smarts by plugging them instead into a corporate matrix that delivers non-stop sports and entertainment, or anger-fueled social commentary and meaningless connection rather than real life experience. And it is in the toxic sphere of modern social media where both of the ideas of oppressor manipulation and deconstructionism come together. As Rogan says, “The format of Twitter itself, I think it’s detrimental to people’s mental health. Communicating through these small, little sentences, and little paragraphs of two hundred and eighty characters.” And then Lindsay naturally goes on to make the obvious connection. “I actually call Twitter a deconstruction machine.
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Deconstruction is the idea that we’re going to take a thing apart, make it look absurd, or show it in<br>
a particular light, pull it apart until you don’t really trust its validity anymore. And so anything you put<br>
on Twitter, once you get an account of a certain size at least, [there’s] a one hundred percent chance<br>
that some jackass is going to say something that just messes with your head. Somebody’s going to<br>
take it out of context, or they’re going to tell you what <i>they</i> thought you mean, and now that’s the<br>
thing you mean . . . So they take you apart, they deconstruct <i>you</i>, the real Joe Rogan, your real<br>
intentions and your real meaning, and then they put it out into the world and now there’s this new<br>
Joe Rogan that does terrible things, or there’s this new Joe Rogan that’s maybe a saint.
<p>
The idea behind Deconstructionism as it is used in this country today, first as a way of making literature mean whatever university professors want it to mean so that they don’t have to go through the arduous task of working out what an author is actually saying, is then passed on to their students, who are now stuck with these specious theories as a way to try and understand the world around them. Except they end up doing exactly the opposite. Instead of being able to undertake the difficult intellectual work of making sense of the world as it is, people now have permission to make up whatever kind of world they want, seeing people and institutions and politics not for what they really are, but as whatever the individual wants those things to be, increasingly either a comfort or an outrage and with almost no gray area in between. My issue with Lindsay’s history lesson is that he makes absolutely no distinction between Critical Theory and the Deconstructionist philosophy that emerged out of it much later, when the reality is they are really quite different. Critical Theory. It’s right in the name. The Frankfurt school was critical of Marxist theory as a way of accurately explaining what was going on in the world, and so they took a far more nuanced look at the forces at work in capitalist oligarchies to explain it. Instead it is Deconstructionist theory, not the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, that is the driving force behind the Political Correctness Movement and it’s current incarnation in Woke philosophy, which has resulted in the absolutely bizarre creation of right-wing fascism by left-wing zealots in our country.
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What’s so ironic in all of this is that Lindsay has no trouble at all making distinctions when it comes to religion.
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I used to be kind of hard ass about religion, a tough, angry atheist, but I’ve thought about it more—<br>
which you’re not allowed to think about things and change your mind now, but I did—and what I<br>
realized is that some religions look up, they’re looking at God and they’re afraid of sin, but they’re<br>
paying attention to God, they’re thinking about renewal, they’re thinking about redemption, they’re<br>
thinking about forgiveness. And then some religions look down, and all they do is look at the sin,<br>
and they focus on the sin and that’s where the witch hunts came from . . . If you look up, then religion<br>
can be great, it can actually lead people to spiritual development and community and so on. But if<br>
you’re looking down, you’re going to start obsessing—and if you’re obsessing about sin you’re going<br>
to start obsessing about everybody else’s sin too.
<p>
When Lindsay talks about the difference between upward looking Christians and downward looking Christians this is exactly the same distinction he needs to be making with regard to Critical Theory and its monumental difference from Deconstructionism. Unfortunately, because of the informal nature of their discussion, which was primarily focused on the end results, that distinction is left unclear, and Critical Theory once again winds up being held responsible for the evils of modern social fascism and is unfairly maligned in the process.
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Putting definitions and distinctions aside for a moment, it’s once again fascinating to see Lindsay make the connection between religion and Deconstructionism because the Bible is the ultimate deconstructionist text. For every passage that promotes peace and love and turning the other cheek—those the upward looking Christians focus on—there are just as many, if not more, passages promoting hatred toward others, enslaving them, raping them, killing them, all in the name of trying to be the people God likes best and justifying all manner of inhumanity to others as a result. As the saying goes, believers need only to pick their poison. For downward looking Christians it’s not enough to rid themselves of sin, they somehow feel mandated to remove everyone else’s imaginary sin as well—and through whatever means necessary. This translates quite easily into Woke philosophy as it is not enough for people to act in non-prejudicial ways, and instead it is the mandate of the Woke to root out prejudice where it is hiding in the minds of people, even if it’s not really there. This same phenomenon is one that Arthur Miller wrote about nearly seventy years ago in the contextual narrative portions of <b>The Crucible</b>, his play about the Salem Witch Trials.
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Our difficulty in believing the—for want of a better word—political inspiration of the Devil is due in<br>
great part to the fact that he is called up and damned not only by our social antagonists but by our<br>
own side, whatever it may be . . . In the countries of the Communist ideology, all resistance of any<br>
import is linked to the totally malign capitalist succubi, and in America any man who is not reactionary<br>
in his views is open to the charge of alliance with the Red hell. Political opposition, thereby, is given<br>
an inhumane overlay which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized<br>
intercourse. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevo-<br>
lence. Once such an equation is effectively made, society becomes a congerie of plots and counter-<br>
plots . . . The results of this process are no different now from what they ever were, except some-<br>
times in the degree of cruelty inflicted, and not always even in that department. Normally the actions<br>
and deeds of a man were all that society felt comfortable in judging. The secret intent of an action<br>
was left to the ministers, priests, and rabbis to deal with. When diabolism rises, however, actions<br>
are the least important manifests of the true nature of a man.
<p>
This is a lot to take in, and so it’s important to give Miller’s words the kind of analysis they need in order to be crystal clear about how they describe the societal fascism that’s coming from the left today. He begins by mentioning the “political inspiration of the Devil,” by which he means using the idea of evil, or sin, or criminality, as a way of controlling people. The use of the Devil as a means of control in organized religion is fairly obvious, especially for those downward looking Christians. But in addition to the diabolism imagined by religion, there is also a new secular diabolism that manifests itself in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia and a host of other perceived sins. Then Miller goes on to say that anyone who is not reactionary in their views against obvious evils—even if those evils are only obvious to a specific group—automatically aligns them with and makes them part of that evil. The same thing is true in Woke philosophy. Bill Maher talked about this earlier in the year on Rogan’s podcast #1413, and illuminates the fact that Miller’s observation from the middle of the previous century is even worse today. Rogan begins by stating, “The left has this dirty thing that if you disagree with them in any way you become an alt right person,” which Maher picks up on and further refines. “I am always reading a story, daily I read something, and what goes through my mind is, ‘This country now is completely binary.’ There’s only two camps. We’re totally tribal. You’re either red or blue, liberal or conservative, and everything that one side does, that anybody does that represents that side, has to be owned by that entire side.” Rogan then articulates the way this perverts important issues by creating false conflicts, when in reality the major problems faced by this country should be seen as major problems by everyone. “It should be something that everybody rejects; it should be something that angers everyone; it shouldn’t be tied to one party or another party.”
<p>
What comes next is rather chilling. As Miller states, once this type of dynamic is embraced, the “normally applied customs of civilized intercourse” are thrown out the window. Once the enemy has been labeled as such they become evil, and because of that its perfectly permissible to attack them in any manner deemed necessary, no matter how violent or cruelly inflicted. Even more disturbing, in a properly functioning society the secret intent behind a person’s actions is not something that other people can know or should at all be concerned with, but once secular diabolism is assumed to be present, then a person’s actions become irrelevant in the face of presumed bigotry. By using deconstructionist principles it actually becomes very easy to ignore people’s actions and simply assume that every person who finds themselves born into a privileged class is automatically guilty of oppressing others. What Lindsay sees in this kind of behavior, however, is merely a form of projection.
<p>
That’s what I’m thinking is going on. I’ve thought this for a number of years, that a lot of this stuff<br>
where you get these Woke activists doing their blogs or these scholars writing this stuff down is<br>
that they’re looking at their own lives. So you have these people walking down the street, or what-<br>
ever, they walk into the hotel, they walk into the restaurant, and [they think], “I saw a black guy.”<br>
And then it’s, “I’m not supposed to notice that.” And they start having this thing in their head, and<br>
then they go write an angry blog about how terrible racism is because they’re wrestling with it<br>
themselves . . . And now “everybody’s a racist” is kind of the vibe of the new thing.
<p>
What’s so fascinating is that this is a perfect example of what Critical Theory predicts. Rather than fighting systemic racism and other kinds of oppression where it really lies, with people using their considerable energy to eliminate it by working together, politically correct deconstructionism turns people against themselves. And so instead of waging war where it will do the most good, people become distracted by attempting to police everyone else’s thoughts. The biggest problem with this kind of focus is that it turns out to be a completely meaningless exercise. In speaking about the book <b>White Fragility</b>, Lindsay had this to say about the type of seminars the author gives around the country, and the ludicrous extremes to which that type of thinking is taken when pushed to its illogical conclusion.
<p>
This lady emailed me the other day, this Indian woman. So this lady says “I had to go through<br>
this Brown Fragility training at work.” What happened was, they explained to the whole group—<br>
it was done in a room in front of a bunch of people—and they explained Brown people in general<br>
have anti-black racism, too, and that upholds white supremacy. And it’s almost like cold reading.<br>
They wait for somebody to start looking like they’re getting the sweats or something happening,<br>
and then they say, “Now, what we need to do, now that we’ve introduced this idea of your brown<br>
fragility and your anti-blackness, is we need to interrogate the feelings that came up.” And so they<br>
go one by one through the room and made every single one of them confess their feelings. Who’s<br>
not going to participate? And here’s that double bind, because it gets to you, right? And so what<br>
do you say? You say, “Well, I don’t really know what you’re talking about.” They’ll say you’re<br>
ignoring it, and then if you confess to it, then you’re falling in.
<p>
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The only thing this kind of inquisition demonstrates is that people have racist thoughts . . . all people, which doesn’t really seem to have a point. For the Woke crowd, however, that’s enough to condemn them outright. But those kinds of assumptions only expose the illegitimacy of that way of thinking. Because if having racist thoughts is enough to make a person a racist, then the Woke Movement needs to be just as vigilant about condemning blacks for the very same thoughts. That’s right. Racist thoughts don’t just come out of nowhere, they are inculcated into people by others who want to indoctrinate them into a specific way of thinking. And as far as Critical Theory is concerned, propaganda makes no concession to race. It is equally damaging to all citizens, including blacks. A perfect explanation of this comes in the film <b>13th</b>. In her documentary about the propaganda campaign that led to the mass incarceration of blacks in this country, Ava DuVernay interviewed a number of people, but it’s black activist Malkia Cyril who makes this point the most eloquently. “So you have then educated a public deliberately, over years, over decades, to believe that black men in particular, and black people in general, are criminals. I want to be clear, because I’m not just saying that white people believe this, right? Black people also believe this and are terrified of our own selves.”
<p>
And once again, that fact in and of itself proves nothing about the person. A person’s thoughts are a person’s thoughts, and should in no way define them. Further, those who indulge in that sort of thinking are actually flying in the face of true morality. Matt Dillahunty, the current president of the Atheist Community of Austin and a regular host of that organization’s <b>The Atheist Experience</b>, has gone to great lengths to explode this particular myth. In one conversation with a caller to the show, Dillahunty had to explain to a morally outraged Christian why being a pedophile is not inherently immoral.
<p>
It’s okay to have that desire, it’s <i>not</i> okay to act on it. In fact, the person who has that desire and<br>
never acts on it is engaging in a morally superior position, because they recognize the action is<br>
distinct and different and has consequences . . . Our actions have consequences, and it is the<br>
actions that matter. My desire, what goes on in my head, first of all is nobody’s business. Nobody<br>
can know unless I state it. Nobody can make an assessment of me. I could be sitting here every<br>
day on the show with really horrific desires that I never act on. I’m not, but you don’t have any<br>
way to know that; you don’t have any right to know it. What you’re doing is trying to make thoughts<br>
a crime. But thoughts aren’t a crime.
<p>
So even though it’s possible to separate thought from action, that still leaves the country with the problem of what to do with all of that previous indoctrination and the way it may inform unconscious actions today. In Miller’s day he was writing about America’s conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and he went on to illuminate the real issue at the heart of the conflict in the way the Salem Witch Trials translates to modern times by pointing out that, “while there were no witches then, there are Communists and capitalists now.” A similar situation is complicating the search for answers in the twenty-first century. To recast Miller’s point in terms of racism: while not everyone the country is a racist, there is racism in the country. So even though it makes no sense on its face to assume that every non-black person in the U.S. is prejudiced against blacks, it is equally incorrect to then make the false assumption that there is no racism at all.
<p>
The pushback by many whites against the idea that there is systemic, institutionalized racism in this country is only an attempt to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction, and completely ignores the surfeit of evidence from just the past decade. One of the most embarrassing attempts to deny this reality was made by Sam Harris, who increasingly seems to be espousing views that are regressive and reactionary rather than intellectual. His podcast from June 12th of this year is profoundly disturbing in its implication that the murder of blacks by police officers, while tragic, are not really evidence of racism. “Do the dozen or so videos that have emerged in recent years,” he begins, “of black men being killed by cops, do they prove or even suggest that there is an epidemic of lethal police violence directed especially at black men, and that this violence is motivated by racism? If you take even five minutes,” he continues, “to look at the data on crime and police violence, the answer really appears to be no, in every case.” The justification he uses for this absurd assertion is that, today, “the police use more deadly force against white people, both in terms of absolute numbers, and in terms of their contribution to crime and violence in our society.” But in making this kind of argument, Harris falls victim to the most boneheaded intellectual blunder a person can make: the belief that statistics are the same thing as facts. They’re not. And this attempt—by someone who should really know better—to gaslight the country into believing that police crimes against blacks are not racially motivated is naïve at best, and insidiously divisive at worst.
<p>
There are hundreds of stories out there that make Harris’s statistics a moot point, but the one I came across in the last few days was an account of a stand up show by Dave Chappelle, and the way that his experience belies all of the statistics that Harris can dredge up. Chappelle was in New York shortly after the Eric Garner murder by police, and talked at the show about how incidents like that make him afraid for his children. Then a white woman in the audience decided to heckle him by shouting “Life’s hard. Sorry about it!” According to the description of the evening by fellow comedian Kenny DeForrest, “It takes the air completely out of the room. A collective gasp.” But as is his way, Chappelle didn’t get confrontational, and instead used the opportunity to educate the audience about the history of police violence in their interactions with black people. He went on to tell a story about being pulled over by a cop near his home, and reacting with extreme caution because of how conscious Chappelle was that he is black. The cop who pulled him over said to relax, that he knew Chappelle, and sent him off with just a warning. “The twist?” according to DeForrest, “The same cop would go on to murder John Crawford III,” a short time later. Chappelle finished by telling a story about a friend from South Africa, and what it was like right before apartheid ended, and his description was a heightened version of what happened after the George Floyd murder. “Critical mass,” Chappelle said. “That’s what we have to hit. Once enough of you care, there will be nothing they can do to stop that change.” And then he ended his set.
<p>
The real point of the story comes after the show, when the white woman from the audience asked to see Chappelle. She not only apologized for what she said, but thanked him for educating her, and said she would never talk like that again. Chappelle was gracious and thanked her in return, because now she was now part of the solution rather than the problem. She was part of the critical mass that it would take to make things better. This is in direct refutation of the deconstructionist thought-police and their indictment of those who don’t know any better simply because of the way that they were indoctrinated. “The point is,” DeForrest concludes, “It doesn’t matter what you thought before. You can always change.” But that’s not how Woke philosophy views it. To them, according to Lindsay, “It’s like everything’s a permanent stain on you. There’s no growth. You can’t become a better person over time.” This way of viewing the world essentially says, once a racist always a racist. What the Wokesters don’t realize, though, and Dave Chappelle obviously understands, is that the solution to the problem of systemic racism is education, not shame. Guilt doesn’t help anyone—which is something organized religion still hasn’t figured out. All it does is pit people who are supposed to be on the same side against each other. But this is exactly the kind of infighting that the ruling oligarchy wants to see happening because it distracts people from the real problems and the real culprits. Again, this is the precise scenario that Critical Theory warns about—in complete opposition to the Deconstructionism that creates it.
<p>
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This is why Critical Theory is so frightening to the corporate-political elites on the right, because it attempts to expose the real truth for all to see. That’s why when articles and books appear on Critical Theory by those from the right, they are little more than diatribes and screeds accusing the Frankfurt School of being dedicated to the destruction of this society and the American way of life. But that argument assumes that American society and its way of life as it currently exists is actually working in a positive way for the American people, when clearly it’s not. One only has to look at what’s happened in Washington D.C. over the past year and it’s pretty clear to see that the right has become so brazenly dedicated to the acquisition of money and power, regardless of the consequences for the average citizen, that they will allow an utterly inept criminal to occupy the highest office in the land, kill hundreds of thousands of Americans through inaction, and put millions out of work just to keep the stock market humming along and be able maintain their own power. As to the desire for the destruction of <i>that</i> part of American society, the Frankfurt School would happily plead guilty. And it’s precisely that aspect of Marxism, to use Lindsay’s phrase, that “wasn’t Marxist enough” for them. But all revolutions are not equal, and it does a major disservice to Critical Theory to assume that the only form of revolution that results in meaningful change is a violent one. Even Lindsay confessed during the podcast that Herbert Marcuse, one of the founding members of the Frankfurt School, was unhappy with the anti-intellectual nature of the demonstrations in the late sixties. Rioting is always going to be ineffective if the people participating can’t articulate exactly why they are rebelling and exactly what they hope to gain—something the protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder have been very clear about.
<p>
To see just the kind of thing that Critical Theory hoped to destroy, it’s instructive to look at where ideas like <b>White Fragility</b> come from. The book’s most open critic has been Matt Taibbi, who pointed out on the news program <b>The Hill</b>, “the extraordinary irony of white America in the wake of this racial tragedy in Minneapolis elevating, of all things, a white corporate consultant to number one on the best seller list, because this is how they want to reinterpret racial issues . . . Corporate America views the race problem as an individual issue, where racism is sort of inexorably stuck in all of us and the only way that we can combat it is by relentlessly listening to corporate consultants tell us how to fight it.” But this is exactly what Critical Theory predicts corporations will do. By using deconstructionist principles to distract people from institutionalized racism and blaming it instead on the individual, it absolves the corporate world from their complicity in manufacturing the problem in the first place, while at the same time setting people at war with each other. All one has to do is watch the first half of Ava DuVernay’s <b>13th</b>, to see that this is not the conspiracy theory that politicians, corporate executives, and misguided people like Sam Harris would have people believe. These were corporate created, politically instituted policies that were designed specifically to criminalize race and turn the rest of America against blacks. What Critical Theory wants is for people to open their eyes and see the systemic corruption right in front of them, something that has been easier than ever over the past six months.
<p>
A perfect example of this kind of revelation about what is really going on in the world, what the Frankfurt School was attempting to help regular people understand, was experienced by the novelist Stephen King when he was in college in the late sixties, and which he wrote about in <b>Danse Macabre</b>. During his junior year a group of Black Panthers visited the school, and calmly and rationally began to explain to the audience in attendance the way that the corporate oligarchy in America was manipulating the system to their advantage—and to the decided disadvantage of the average citizen. King wrote about the many ways he already believed that the government and corporations were responsible for a myriad of evils in the country. But the thing is, all of the things King listed were essentially scandals that had been uncovered and reported on in the big city newspapers of the time. According to the Panther speakers, however, this was just the tip of the iceberg. “These Panthers were suggesting a huge umbrella of conscious conspiracy that was laughable . . . except the audience wasn’t laughing. During the Q-and-A period, they were asking sober, concerned questions about just how the conspiracy was working, who was in charge, how they got their orders out, et cetera.” At this point King could not contain himself, and stood up to deliver a litany of ludicrous suggestions about what he called “an actual Board of Conspiracy in this country.” After he was finally shouted down by the crowd, “the Panther who spoke did not respond to my question (which, to be fair, wasn’t a question at all, really); he merely said softly, ‘<i>You</i> got a surprise, didn’t you, man?’ . . . I <i>did</i> get a surprise—and a pretty unpleasant one, at that.” Unfortunately, the surprise didn’t stick, and King allowed himself to be reeled back in by the political-industrial complex, which he clearly demonstrated when he went on to write a fantasy novel based on the preposterous notion that Lee Harvey Oswald had anything at all to do with the actual killing of President John F. Kennedy.
<p>
Who knows why King resisted believing what the Frankfurt School would have said was painfully obvious. Perhaps it’s because he’s made so much money that he realized he had more in common with the wealthy elite than with his fellow citizens, I don’t know. But in a tremendous irony that feels inescapably just, King recently found himself cowed before the Woke Movement. According to Lindsay, when talking to Rogan about trans-women, “Stephen King got dragged into this, with the whole trans thing.
<p>
He’s long-time been a supporter of J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling has decided that she’s had enough<br>
of this trans rights thing, [and their] going after the women’s issues. And so at first Stephen King<br>
stood up for her, and she put out a Tweet saying, “You’re such a good friend, blah, blah, blah.” Then<br>
somebody came after <i>him</i>, and he [Tweets], “Trans women are women.” And it’s like, he just caved.<br>
He just immediately caved. It’s like: All Woke and no play makes Steve a dull boy. You get this sense<br>
that it’s like something out of one of the novels he would have [written]. All of a sudden it’s like <B>Needful</b><br>
<b>Things</b>, the whole town going crazy because of demon possession.
<p>
But it’s not demon possession that the United States is struggling with today, its possession of the seats of government, the seats of industry, the seats of finance, all the seats of power that are held by a tiny fraction of the population. And then they use that power and control to manipulate everything to their advantage, property, education, taxes, the legal system, the financial system, the military, energy, and medicine, and leave nothing more than crumbs for everyone else. And for the <i>coup de grâce</i>, they get everyone else to fight among themselves for those crumbs without ever understanding that they could have so much more if they all worked together for the common good.
<p>
The thing is, it’s much too easy to blame the President for the current state of the nation, for what’s wrong with America. In reality, he is just a figurehead. The real culprit behind the failure who sits in the White House, the party truly responsible for everything that has happened in the last three and a half years, from the subversion of American elections, to the murder of blacks in the streets, to making Covid 19 even worse, are Senate and Congressional Republicans who support him despite the fact that this President has wantonly broken federal laws and misused his office to benefit himself while completely ignoring the needs of the country he is purportedly there to serve. Senate Republicans in particular, had the opportunity to rid this country of the scourge that sits in the Oval Office. It was served up to them on a silver platter. All they had to do was the right thing, the moral thing, the only thing that would have allowed them to uphold their sworn oath to the Constitution. And yet they utterly failed, just like their so-called leader. Had Senate Republicans acted as duty demanded when the President was impeached, had they responded appropriately to the will of the people when called upon by the country to remove both this man and his complicit vice-president from office, Nancy Pelosi would be the President now and the nation would not be in the miserable state it’s in, suffering not only from a global pandemic but from the economic chaos that followed in its wake.
<p>
But Republicans refuse to change, refuse to learn and grow, and refuse to admit they are wrong. They must keep up the façade of infallibility even at the expense of hundreds of thousands of American lives. At the same time, their so-called leader is truly the emperor with no clothes. He is a nakedly racist, misogynist, homophobic narcissist who is incapable of opening his mouth without lying. He is a delusional adolescent bully who maintains his position through the criminal actions of his miscreant supporters in Congress who have allowed him to remain in office despite numerous treasonous actions against our country and the Constitution he was sworn to defend. When looked at in this light, the modern Republican Party is really not that different from the Catholic Church. And just as the Vatican shielded pederast priests for decades—if not centuries—the right wing of this country is content to figuratively sodomize its own citizens in order to support a capitalist oligarchy that has become increasingly less covert in its actions. This is the very thing that the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory have been attempting to warn people about for the last hundred years. But because those on the right continue to denigrate Critical Theory, purposefully conflating it with Deconstructionism as a way of damning it in the public eye, and hopefully distracting people from the profound truths contained within, it’s vitally important, now more than ever, to remain vigilant about pointing out the distinction between the two theories and not fall prey to sloppy explication in the manner of James Lindsay. Critical Theory provides not only hope, but an answer to the debilitating conflicts that plague this country. And it’s not about being Woke. It’s about genuinely waking up to the real enemy, and realizing once and for all that it’s not each other.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-49787909795920931092019-06-01T15:04:00.000-07:002020-07-19T08:30:32.112-07:00From Atheist to Anti-theist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJqAu6wnNO902BpBXMiDzU8W5o39Ynv1fETcSHkfPdjpXEDlKcqdLVYsquIiGvSBwsDhU4wNVN5-ODFsM2TwiSncITCuTi7Y4ltpVbVcIa6oIkNXQ8VasLAAn1MTx6kmrm78lGRCxMsL7V/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJqAu6wnNO902BpBXMiDzU8W5o39Ynv1fETcSHkfPdjpXEDlKcqdLVYsquIiGvSBwsDhU4wNVN5-ODFsM2TwiSncITCuTi7Y4ltpVbVcIa6oIkNXQ8VasLAAn1MTx6kmrm78lGRCxMsL7V/s200/images.jpg" width="150" height="212" data-original-width="150" data-original-height="212" /></a></div>
Though I’ve been an atheist for a while, and have several books on the subject, they haven’t been pressing in terms of things I’ve felt compelled to read. As Richard Dawkins said in one of his TED talks, his words for me, as someone who has already rejected the fantasy of religion, is like preaching to the choir. But the other day I was watching various debates and presentations by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, and I stumbled upon a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland from 2013 that included Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist and cosmologist—sort of the Canadian Neil deGrasse Tyson—and suddenly a whole lot of things that I had known of and understood in isolation suddenly came together in a way I had never considered before. The first thing that struck me in his comments was something that I have known for a long time to be true: “When you base your beliefs and actions on myths that are incorrect, you’re inevitably going to take irrational actions.” That is not only obvious but extremely bothersome for me, especially when it takes place in the kind of interconnected world we live in now. It’s also at the heart of one of my favorite essays of all time, John Erskine’s “<b>The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent</b>” from 1914. Taking irrational actions in today’s world is not only going to have a negative effect on the people making them, but a negative effect on the rest of us as well—we only have to look at the utter disaster that the White House has become to see that—and therefore we have an obligation to the rest of mankind not to remain ignorant.
<p>
But then, the thing that hit me like a thunderbolt is when Krauss said, “I don’t define myself as an atheist. I define myself as an anti-theist.” He had taken that stance from Christopher Hitchens and so he didn’t go on to explore the distinction in quite the way I would have liked, but it nevertheless caused a bunch of things that I had heard and read in recent years come into sharper focus. The way I see things now, it’s not enough to simply say that one doesn’t believe in the fantasy of religious mythology; you also have to say, in the most vehement way possible, that others are wrong for believing it. As Krauss went on to point out, “The doctrines of religion are outdated, and that’s for good reason. They were created by Iron Age peasants who didn’t even know the earth orbited the sun. So the wisdom in those books is not wisdom at all.” And yet people everywhere on the planet are acting on that very lack of wisdom in the mistaken belief that it is somehow divine in origin—without a shred of evidence to support that claim. Going back even further than Erskine, Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” And religion is the most frightful ignorance of all. One of the many proofs of the absence of wisdom that their holy book supposedly provides them, is the lack of any kind of rational argument as to why anyone should believe in an imaginary deity, and why anything that religion purports to provide can’t be obtained infinitely better through reason and intellect.
<p>
In atheist circles this is a given. There are simply no valid arguments for a belief in mythology over rationality. What is so dangerous, however, is the inability of believers to understand that their arguments not only fail to persuade, they are invalid to begin with. But rather than using their intellect to extricate themselves from a world of ignorance and blind obedience, they instead retrench and become even more convinced of their own righteousness. As Richard Dawkins explains, “Dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature.” One particular circular argument, that because people have believed in Christian mythology for two thousand years then it must be true, isn’t an argument at all. People no doubt believed the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth, for tens of thousands of years and yet both of those ideas have been demonstrated to be patently false—just like religious mythology. The fact that people believed in all of those things doesn’t prove the legitimacy of the ideas, but more accurately represents a flaw in human genetics and socialization, as Krauss also relates.
<p>
Religion has pervaded all of human society throughout all of human history. There’s clearly something<br>
ingrained, either in an evolutionary sense or a neurophysiological sense, in the need to believe in<br>
something bigger than ourselves. And to deny that is to deny the evidence of reality. But just because<br>
we all share that doesn’t mean it’s true. It just means that we have an ingrained need to believe that.<br>
So I think the recognition that religious belief is universal is really important to understand if you want<br>
to understand human beings. Xenophobia is ingrained in biological systems, in and out systems, us<br>
versus you. All of these things have a sound evolutionary basis, but if we want to be a human society<br>
and work together, we have to understand that basis so we can move beyond it.
<p>
Unfortunately, religion tends to solidify the “us versus you” mentality to a frightening degree. Rather than moving beyond it, the idea is actually the very foundation of all three Judeo-Christian religions that dominate the world today. And this is the area of thought where Krauss’s science based observations sort of end and Sam Harris’s slightly more philosophical arguments begin. For Harris, this intractability on the part of religion is what proves it to be a menace to human society. “While all faiths have been touched, here and there,” he states in his book, <b>The End of Faith</b>, “by the spirit of ecumenicalism, the central tenet of every religious tradition is that all others are mere repositories of error or, at best, dangerously incomplete. Intolerance is thus intrinsic to every creed . . . We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man’s inhumanity to man.” One of the many ironies associated with religious belief, is the apparent sacredness of life when it is in the womb, and yet the complete denigration of that life when it begins thinking for itself—especially when it thinks something different. The certainty of a life beyond this one leads religious followers of all kinds to perform utterly barbaric acts in the name of their god. But that only makes sense, as Harris relates: “Certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one.” This is the primary argument that Christopher Hitchens had with the Muslim world, and one that is still valid. Richard Dawkins went on record in 2015 as saying “Islam is one of the great evils of the world today.”
<p>
This assertion is demonstrably true, and without going anywhere near something as definitive as the 9/11 attacks. Their treatment of women, children, homosexuals, other ethnicities and other religions is positively medieval—because it is. The Islamic religion hasn’t changed its core system of beliefs since its beginning over a thousand years ago. It would be the same thing as if Christians and Jews today still practiced stoning and slavery and ritual sacrifice. And yet Dawkins also understands the consequences of attempting to expose believers to the ignorance of religious dogma and their blind adherence to it, as he related in a 2016 discussion with Krauss in Vancouver. “I don’t think we want to go around telling people they’re idiots, not in so many words. But so many people will think you’re saying that if you criticize what they believe, because it’s as if their beliefs are part of them.” A similar idea came up at another discussion Krauss had with Noam Chomsky in 2015, he brought up Chomsky’s argument that intellectuals in society have an obligation to that society to expose lies and tell the truth. In the context of Chomsky’s career as a political activist, this imperative is usually confined to that sphere of life. So Krauss went ahead and asked him the natural question. “If you go back to your argument about the responsibility of intellectuals—which is to expose lies—is it not, therefore, our responsibility to expose religious lies?” Chomsky took the pragmatic view, one that relies solely on a person’s actions: if a person’s religion causes them to do bad things, then the lie of their religion must be exposed. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.
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Unfortunately, this kind of tolerance no longer works, and in fact, is actually one of the most insidious aspects of our society today. This is the point of both Sam Harris’s book <b>The End of Faith</b>, as well as Christopher Hitchens’ book <b>God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything</b>. Harris makes the necessary distinction between religious moderates and extremists, but where the danger from extremists is obvious the concurrent danger of toleration has been completely ignored. “Religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of another. [But] the very ideal of religious tolerance—born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God—is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss.” The main problem is that the very idea of religion is antithetical to religious pluralism. “As long as a Christian believes that only his baptized brethren will be saved on the Day of Judgment, he cannot possibly ‘respect’ the beliefs of others, for he knows that the flames of hell have been stoked by these very ideas and await their adherents even now.” Christopher Hitchens, in his book, enumerated the various ways in which religious toleration has turned back on its proponents, none more absurd than the following:
<p>
Empty-headed multiculturalism . . . ensur[ed] the distribution of cheap and mass-produced Saudi<br>
editions of the Koran, for use in America’s prison system. These Wahhabi texts went even further<br>
than the original in recommending holy war against all Christians and Jews and secularists. To ob-<br>
serve all this was to witness a kind of cultural suicide: an ‘assisted suicide’ at which believers and<br>
unbelievers were both prepared to officiate.
<p>
Even Christian apologist Chris Hedges, in a 2010 lecture in Toronto promoting his book <b>Death of the Liberal Class</b>, was prophetic in the way that he articulated the idea that, beyond the obvious reality that the Muslim religion is a danger to society from without, toleration for Christianity no matter what form it takes is the biggest danger from within.
<p>
One of the great failings of the church is that, with the rise of the Christian right—which I look at<br>
as a mass movement, not a religious movement, a group of Christian heretics, people who have<br>
acculturated the worst aspects of capitalism, imperialism, greed, chauvinism, and racism into the<br>
Christian religion-—the liberal church remained silent and said nothing . . . In the process they<br>
have surrendered their moral authority. They have nothing left to say to us.
<p>
It’s clear that this way of thinking comes from the very American idea that in limiting someone else’s freedom, we can inadvertently wind up limiting our own. But the problem in using this idea to support religious toleration is that the result winds up being exactly the opposite. In his book <b>Letter to a Christian Nation</b>, Sam Harris makes the attempt to convey this idea directly to the bulk of the religiously deceived in this country. “It is my hope . . . that [the Christian right] will also begin to see that the respect they demand for their own religious beliefs gives shelter to extremists of all faiths.” Harris also points out that religious tolerance leads quite naturally to the dangerous belief that all religions are equal, when they’re clearly not. In a lecture about <b>The End of Faith</b> from 2005, Harris goes on to say that, “Religious moderation prevents us from even noticing the differences among our religions. Under cover of this respect, we are now powerless to say the very harsh and necessary things about religious extremism that we need to say because it is taboo, [because] you have to respect faith. [And yet] by no stretch of the imagination can you argue that the core principal of Islam is non-violence.” The reality is, even though you <i>can</i> argue that the core principal of Christianity is non-violence, the history of Christianity is filled with senseless bloodshed. And as we in the United States know from personal experience, the violence propagated by Islam is just as great. “We are at war,” says Harris, “with Islamic fundamentalism.”
<p>
Noam Chomsky, at least, seems to understand that you can’t separate a person’s beliefs from the person themselves. But that is not the case for moderate Christians who plead for religious toleration in the mistaken belief that religion itself is good while only individuals are to blame for their bad actions. Nothing is more emblematic of this faulty logic than Ben Affleck’s pathetic appearance on Bill Maher. Affleck was nearly apoplectic at the suggestion that Islam is a bad religion, for the simple fact that there are “good Muslims.” What he completely failed to understand, however, is that the very phrase “bad religion” is itself redundant. Nothing good can come from people shutting down their minds and refusing to think, and then acting on that ignorance. One of the best rhetorical devices for exposing erroneous thinking is to take a person’s belief—in this case that only the actions of individuals should be considered, not the belief system behind it that causes their actions—and apply it to another situation. Take a family who has a sick child, suffering in torment. But instead of taking the child to the doctor or a hospital, they pray over the child until it finally succumbs to something that could have been cured with modern medicine. Would Affleck think that’s a good thing? I doubt it. Further, would he really believe that it is only those isolated parents who are to blame, or is the real culprit the Christian Science indoctrination that led them to falsely believe that prayer alone could cure their child? Just last year Matt Dillahunty had a terrific take on the death of Billy Graham that demonstrates this very point. “When Billy Graham died the other day I wasn’t glad that he was dead because he was an enemy, I was happy that he was no longer alive to poison minds, because what he believes is the enemy.”
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The problem isn’t with people in the first place, and never has been, which seems to be a major sticking point for Affleck and others like him that they can’t seem to get past. The real problem lies in a belief system based on magical thinking and supernatural superstition that forces people to suspend intelligent thought. The people themselves aren’t bad, but their beliefs are no matter how they behave, and Affleck was unable to make that distinction. This is another point that Lawrence Krauss made at the economic forum. “I agree with you completely, that you can’t condemn a whole population because of some individual. But the difference is, there are no rule makers in science.” At this point Krauss heads in another direction, but in his book <b>The Greatest Story Every Told—So Far</b>, he completes the thought in a more succinct way. “In science the very word <i>sacred</i> is profane. No ideas, religious or otherwise, get a free pass.” But this is not the case in religion, in which words and ideas are said to be above reproach, above questioning, and to be taken on faith as absolutely true. And the only reason this seems to work is because for so many people their indoctrination begins well before the age of reason. How ironic in our society that children are not assumed to be intellectually capable of consenting to sex until they are eighteen, and yet from the time they are born they are brainwashed into believing in the fantasy of religion. As Dawkins says in <b>The God Delusion</b>, “I want everybody to flinch whenever we hear the phrase such as ‘Catholic child’ or ‘Muslim child’ . . . children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics.”
<p>
And this leads, quite naturally, to the inability of people who have been indoctrinated as children to think as adults, Christians who think and believe in things that are for the most part indistinguishable from their Islamic brethren. Again, Sam Harris weighs in:
<p>
Another problem with religious moderation is that it is intellectually bankrupt. It really represents a<br>
fundamentally unprincipled use of reason. I’ve got news for you. I’ve read the books, and God is<br>
not a moderate. These books really are engines of fundamentalism; they are engines of intolerance;<br>
[they] laid the foundations for the Inquisition. This is not an accident. We have this idea that the fact<br>
that we were burning heretics alive for five centuries in Europe represented some kind of departure,<br>
a civilizational departure into psychopathology. It didn’t. It is perfectly reasonable to do this, if you<br>
believe the books.
<p>
This way of thinking, of course, is in direct opposition to scientific inquiry. “The problem with faith,” Harris continues, “is that it’s conversation stopper. You hear religious people say things like, ‘There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.’ Just imagine that said in medicine. Only a willingness to take on and consider new evidence and new argument guarantees that this human collaboration is open ended,” rather than ending in war and death. In a 2012 discussion with Richard Dawkins in Australia, Lawrence Krauss had this to say about the vast difference between the kind of close-minded lack of thinking exhibited by religious adherents, and the scientific experience. “Science changes what we mean by words, and it changes what we mean because we actually learn about the Universe. We actually make progress in science, unlike theology. That’s because we can be wrong, and we can learn.” A year later in Switzerland Krauss gave a more specific example of what it really means to learn. “What scientists hope for, and what science does for us, and what I hope every student and every person experiences once in their life, is to have something they deeply believe in, that’s at the heart of their being, and without it they wouldn’t feel they’re human, proved to be wrong. It happens to me every day as a scientist and that opens your mind.” As author Aron Ra says in his book <b>Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism</b>, “I would rather spend my life learning than pretending to be learned.”
<p>
This actually happened to me the other day, and Lawrence Krauss was absolutely right: it has been one of the most exhilarating things I have ever experienced in my life. It wasn’t even something that I was particularly attached to, and yet it was still intellectually overwhelming. Science historian James Burke called one of his programs <b>The Day The Universe Changed</b> because of the way scientific discovery completely rearranges the way we see and understand the universe. And that’s just about the way I felt after listening to Richard Carrier discuss the historical reasons for making the claim that Jesus Christ never really existed. This was a bombshell for me. Despite the crazy claims and fictional stories rife in the New Testament, I never doubted for a moment that Jesus was a real man who lived in the first century and after his death was the center of a religious mythology that was gradually built up around him. And Carrier apparently felt the same way. “For a long time I thought this was a crackpot theory, that Jesus didn’t exist. The whole Jesus myth idea was nonsense and I thought I could easily refute it.” It turns out that upon closer examination Carrier became convinced—as I have—that the supposedly historical Jesus was actually a myth, one of dozens of mystery cults that operated in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. This particular one mixed Judaic elements with a mythical Hellenic sky god who was killed and resurrected, then Euhemerized later and subsequently written about as if he were an actual man.
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Of course Carrier’s research doesn’t “prove” anything, but that’s not the point. Just like the hard sciences, the goal isn’t to prove what’s true but to disprove what is false and then study the remainder. And Carrier’s latest book, <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b>, spends seven hundred pages doing exactly that. What is left, then, is historical research that is convincing on its face. More compelling even than the lack of an obvious historical Jesus, is the abundance of similar mystery cults at the time as well as resurrection myths that predate Christianity and seem to explain quite convincingly the origins of the modern Jesus cult. Though Carrier is scrupulous in refusing to make a definitive statement that the historical Jesus never existed, it’s clear what his research demonstrates. He had previously debunked the Gospels and most of the New Testament, and add to that the fact that the title of his forthcoming book is <b>Jesus from Outer Space</b>, and it seems fairly clear where he stands on the subject. It was such an astounding revelation for me, especially in the way that it tends to put Christianity on a more even basis with other religious mythology. The Christian Jesus as a sky god who does battle with Satan in outer space, now seems every bit as crazy as Mormonism or Scientology . . . because it is. It has only been a massively successful PR campaign over the last two thousand years that has made it seem even slightly more rational . . . but it’s not.
<p>
In a previous post I wrote “If history has shown us anything, it is that the problems of today are ones that cannot be solved by religion, Christian or otherwise, and anyone who believes differently has bought into an even bigger fairy tale than the Bible.” While “faith” and a belief in magic and supernatural deities may have sustained man and served some kind of purpose centuries ago, it has clearly become a hindrance to modern society and needs to be stopped. Comedian Jim Jefferies has a terrific analogy to illustrate the problem—and from which I removed the profanity.
<p>
If you’re religious, I’m sure some of you might be very nice, but you are slowing us down. We’re<br>
trying to move forward and you’re in the way, I’m sorry. Now, imagine that the world is a train track<br>
and society’s a train going forward. Now in this train we have the people in the engine room, running<br>
the show, and they’re the scientists. These are people inventing medicines for you to live longer and<br>
finding alternative fuel sources, and engineers making machines run more efficiently. Whether you<br>
like it or not, scientists are primarily atheists and they’re all in the front carriage dragging us along.<br>
Now in the second carriage we have the wishy-washy agnostics. They’re all standing around going,<br>
“Who knows?” Then there’s this last carriage that’s fifty times bigger than the first two carriages<br>
combined, with the rest of the human race dancing and going, “Man on a cloud, man on a cloud.”<br>
And there are so many of them that the train is <i>hardly moving</i>. And the people in the engine room<br>
are like this [looking down at the coupling], “If I just pull this peg here . . . Do you know how fast we’d<br>
be moving?”
<p>
Back in the World Economic Forum in 2013, Lawrence Krauss came up with a more pointed analogy when another panelist attempted to argue about the “importance” of religion: "The question isn’t, 'Is religion important?' because that’s an obvious thing. Religion is obviously important. So are nuclear weapons. The question is, 'Is religion outmoded, and are nuclear weapons outmoded, and would the world be a better place without them?' And the answer to both those is, yes. Neither of them, in the modern world, serve a productive purpose." Krauss inadvertently connects two things here that are much more serious than simply the lack of a productive purpose, because when religious people act on their ignorance with righteous indignation bad things result, especially if they involve nuclear weapons. The greatest physical threat to our society today is the possibility of a religious terrorist—of any stripe—who manages to obtain and set off a nuclear device. And it doesn’t even have to be a terrorist. Stephen King presented another scenario back in 1978 in his novel <b>The Dead Zone</b> when a psychotic Christian politician—redundant, I know—makes his way to the White House and starts World War Three. Ultimately it is the contempt for life on Earth—the only life that we can be sure we have—by those who believe in a divine afterlife, that is the most corrosive force in the world today. As Christopher Hitchens explains, “Something I find repulsive about monotheistic messianic religion is that a large part of it clearly wants us all to die. It wants this world to come to an end . . . we will be with Jesus, and the rest of you can go straight to hell.” Finally, Hitchens expresses the real goal of anti-theism. “This belief in a supreme and unalterable tyranny is the oldest enemy of our species, the oldest enemy of our intellectual freedom and our moral autonomy, and must be met and must be challenged and must be overthrown.”
<p>
That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because atheism is not enough, as religious toleration has allowed religious extremism to grow and threaten our very way of life. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because religion is defined by its hatred and intolerance for the other, and has completely undermined and sabotaged the efforts toward peaceful coexistence and cooperation in the world. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because those who believe in the fantasy of an afterlife don’t care if they kill us all, and are actively working to achieve that end. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because in our modern world there is too much at stake to allow those who believe in myth and lies to control the lives of the rest of us. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because allowing irrationality to flourish unchecked is not conducive to a healthy society. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because a book written by people who had almost no scientific knowledge has absolutely no relevance to our lives today. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because totalistic belief systems shut down the willingness and ability of people to learn and grow. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because the uncritical belief and acceptance of lies like creationism threaten the very existence of life on this planet. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because the future of our world is going to depend on children who are being lied to and indoctrinated into an anti-intellectual belief system that will render them incapable of solving problems by discovering solutions that will be essential to their survival. That is why I’m an anti-theist. Because people who believe in the fantasy of religious mythology deserve a better life and need to be awakened from their intellectual stupor. That is why I’m an anti-theist.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-35713386234937141442018-03-19T09:28:00.002-07:002018-03-20T08:44:10.654-07:00White Makes Right: Racism in America<FONT SIZE=+1><i>Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs</i><br>
by David Ikard</FONT>
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Twenty years ago I read a terrific novel by Fredrick Barton called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Prejudice-Fredrick-Barton/dp/0747245398/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521473984&sr=1-6&keywords=barton+prejudice&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=c6a2f8b3dd85859aed1e2357deb87d90"><u>With Extreme Prejudice</u></a>. It was a mystery set in New Orleans in which the central murder was racially motivated. One of the things that mystified me at the time was how the white protagonist’s efforts to demonstrate his lack of racial prejudice only made his black friend and co-worker angrier with him. Though it was explained at the end of the novel, that feeling of confusion as I read the book always stayed with me. Ten years ago when I was with my wife and two young boys at Disneyland, we were in a long line waiting to get into Pirates of the Caribbean. Next to us was a black family with a small girl who couldn’t have been more than two years old. She did something incredibly cute--I can’t remember now what it was--but I remember looking up at her father and smiling with parental recognition at what she had done. Instead of a knowing return of my smile, however, he simply glared at me and turned away. I remember being incredibly angry about the incident, and it had nothing to do with his behavior. I was angry that we still lived in a country where he had every right to be angry with a white man he didn’t even know. Though I didn’t fully understand either incident at the time, I knew instinctively that racial prejudice in this country was very real. What I understand now, is that it may be as bad as it ever was.
<p>
There have been three major phases of racial discrimination against blacks in the United States. The first begins with the settling of this country in the seventeenth century and runs right up to the Civil War. During that phase black slavery was openly practiced, protected by the Constitution, and rationalized as an economic necessity in the southern states. The second phase begins after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, with the end of Reconstruction and the institution of Jim Crow laws in the South. Legalized segregation, voting disenfranchisement, and the turning of a blind eye toward lynching lasted another hundred years until the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century. The third and most insidious phase is the one we live in now, in which white supremacy has finally gone mainstream, resulting in a backlash against civil rights, equal status under the law, equal opportunity, the promulgation of the myths of white fear and white fragility, and specious accusations of reverse racism against blacks. What Vanderbilt University professor David Ikard does so well in his new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lovable-Racists-Magical-Negroes-Messiahs/dp/022649263X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521474080&sr=1-1&keywords=lovable+racists&dpID=51aNlGJXfpL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=7898851b10690e0e9c2a7cce31b9a57a"><u>Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs</u></a>, is to show that while those first two phases may be over, their effects can still be felt today in the white blindness this country operates within. “It is rare indeed--even in this day and time--to get most whites to acknowledge that racism still exists or, for that matter, that slavery, segregation, and racial terrorism of the past are responsible in large part for the problems that plague Black America in the twenty-first century” (Ikard 15).
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I purchased this book while doing research for my own book on Mark Twain’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Huckleberry-Finn-Bantam-Classic/dp/0553210793/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521474510&sr=1-2&keywords=huckleberry+finn&dpID=51N9m0VC0IL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=7cc4380a3a5c0cc10db012708f54426f"><u>Huckleberry Finn</u></a>, but I was utterly unprepared for what I found in the pages of what I assumed would be a straightforward literary analysis. What emerges from Ikard’s treatise is a philosophy of white supremacy that has informed this country’s thinking since its inception, a way of look at the world through white power and privilege that seems no different in 2018 than it was in 1618. As his starting point, Ikard uses the works of James Baldwin (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0140182756/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521474149&sr=1-1&keywords=fire+next+time+baldwin&dpID=51kINeVCflL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=d05e8ec88fb14703050aacf46c3b46f5"><u>The Fire Next Time</u></a>) and Toni Morrison (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Dark-Whiteness-Literary-Imagination/dp/0679745424/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521474215&sr=1-1&keywords=playing+in+the+dark+toni+morrison&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=a5efcb4dcdebd40f6e0ae880f13a9340"><u>Playing in the Dark</u></a>) to identify and define the nature of white supremacist thinking in America—and it’s important to note that this is not a phrase that refers to radical, fringe elements like the KKK, but regular Americans who don’t even think of themselves as racist. “Whites often genuinely do not see the consequences of their oppression or privilege because they have conditioned themselves not to see them” (Ikard 14). He then builds upon their ideas to show how this unconscious belief system has informed notions of white identity and, far more tragically, black identity for centuries. This way of understanding the world is not a new one, but has roots in many more areas of cultural life in the United States, in which default assumptions of normalcy include Christianity, patriarchy, and capitalism.
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Though Ikard mentions all three of these in passing, he doesn’t go into depth about similar modes of thought control in other areas of American life as a way of explaining the incredible longevity and tenacious hold that racism still has in this country. My recent exploration of the writers of the Frankfurt School has opened my eyes to a world of propaganda and manipulation that disguises itself as cultural identity, but actually has as its only goal the indoctrination of people to a particular way of thinking and behaving that aids and abets the ruling powers who benefit from the control over laborers, women, and minorities that comes when they internalize these false beliefs. Max Horkheimer, one of the critical theorists from the Frankfurt School, wrote about the challenge faced by those who would attempt to make society better, when faced with a nation of people who have been taught, and internalized, that the status quo--whether White, Christian, Patriarchal, or Capitalist--is normal and good, and that anything else must therefore be bad. Though Horkheimer was writing about capitalism, the concept itself is applicable to any of the societal assumptions that American culture operates within.
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Because a bad society transacts man’s business although it does it badly, the person that endangers<br>
its survival also acts directly against mankind; [mankind’s] friend appears as its enemy. In reality, the<br>
bad cannot be disentangled from the good, and therefore the fight against what is outdated also<br>
appears as the fight against what is necessary . . . [This results in the] absolute readiness to loyally<br>
adopt all significant values of the ruling class, to hate and libel the person who commits his life to the<br>
improvement of conditions . . . Every thought, every show of sympathy, every relationship, every minor<br>
or major act <i>against</i> the ruling class involves the risk of personal disadvantage . . . People who want<br>
to get somewhere must early acquire beliefs which enable them to have a good conscience as they<br>
do what reality demands . . . The system affects everything, down to the most delicate tendrils of the<br>
individual’s soul. It has placed a premium on vileness. (Horkheimer 29-31)
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Because of this, ideas like cut throat competition, male chauvinism, religious superiority, American exceptionalism --and racism--are the norm in this country, and to go against those ideas is, in a perverted way, to be anti-American. In Ikard’s words, “Critical engagements with our nation’s troubled and troubling past are treated as unpatriotic, socially disruptive, and bordering on treason” (Ikard 19). Thus these ideas are absorbed and normalized in our society through the media, education, and business to the point where the vast majority of citizens don’t even realize their thoughts are not their own, and yet have been so thoroughly indoctrinated that they defend those thoughts as if they were.
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Ikard opens the book with an introduction in which he relates the story of being accosted by a fellow professor at a book signing who, in the guise of mistakenly trying to correct the author about the rap group NWA, used the word “nigger” loudly and freely, much to the shock not only of most of those within earshot but to the author himself. He relates the incident as an example of what Robin DeAngelo calls “white fragility,” a negative reaction by whites to the suggestion that their unconscious behaviors constitute a substantial and continuing assault on black citizenship in America. “My sense is that, at bottom, he was actually upset with the audacity of my claim that even the most progressive (middle- and upper-class) white liberals have a deep and abiding investment in certain aspects of white supremacy and, by extension, institutionalized racial inequality” (Ikard 3). The offending professor is also an example of Brit Bennett’s “Good White People,” whites who are not only unaware of how their unconscious beliefs perpetuate white supremacy, but are also unable to comprehend how their “ostensible gestures of white goodwill and good intentions reproduce white supremacy in the expectation of, if not demand for, black gratitude” (4). The basis for this behavior is the way in which blacks are perceived in the culture, “the unuttered racial mindset that blacks are prone to criminal and pathological behavior” (5). Rather than apologize, the professor insisted on reciting his anti-racist credentials to Ikard, even going so far as to continue his demand for recognition by sending Ikard an email later. This, then, explains the wide disparity in the experiences of the fictional characters in Fredrick Barton’s novel, which Ikard summarizes rather neatly: “Whites are simply defending their right to <i>remain</i> socially, culturally, and economically dominant; blacks and people of color are defending their very humanity” (8).
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The episode goes by rather quickly, and though Ikard doesn’t take the time to spell it out in his introduction, it seems to me to be the real thesis of the book. Whites have been the dominant racial group in the United States for the past four hundred years. Very little--if anything--that happens to blacks has an impact on the lives of white Americans. The relative comfort from which they view the racial struggles in this country are light years away from the day to day experiences of blacks, who find themselves fighting battles on seemingly every front, from being defined as the other--as opposed to the white appropriation of normalcy--to ongoing insensitivity in nearly every aspect of society, marginalization in education and employment, negative portrayals in the media, and a white majority who seems to have no interest in defending obvious abuses that range from racial profiling to overrepresented incarceration to murder. Whites—quite literally—have no idea what the black experience in America is like. Max Horkheimer had something to say about that as well:
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Our privileged position, our capacity for experiencing the suffering of all living beings within ourselves<br>
does not mean that we can truly become one with them and certainly not that we can free anyone by<br>
that act of identification. We can make the life of individuals easier, we can deduce some practical<br>
consequences from empirical insight. But we are still surrounded by a sea of darkness which cannot<br>
be illuminated by language. (Horkheimer 31)
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This is what I see as real white blindness. Acknowledging that whites know absolutely nothing about the suffering that blacks have experienced seems to be the first step toward meaningful change--much more meaningful, certainly, than pretending to empathize with or understand what whites cannot possibly know. But instead the opposite happens, an example of which is one of the most misguided attempts at addressing white ignorance ever put on film. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/White-Mans-Burden-John-Travolta/dp/0783115008/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1521475167&sr=1-1&keywords=white+man's+burden&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=30c8a8d0d1353bfebc7ff3031a73699d"><u>White Man’s Burden</u></a>, starring Harry Belafonte and John Travolta, was intended to provide a vicarious experience for whites by reversing their role in society. Belafonte is now the rich member of the dominant black class, while Travolta is an example of the oppressed white minority. Instead of allowing whites to see what they are doing to blacks, however, all the film does is to perpetuate racial stereotypes: blacks are cruel and heartless while whites are good hearted and put upon. Even with the roles reversed, whites are still the good guys and blacks the bad. The term “epic fail” was never more appropriate in describing a work of art than it is with this film. In this context it’s no wonder that white sympathy and assurances of understanding are cause for black anger rather than gratitude, as the very real plight of blacks in this country is “not going to matter one way or another in terms of exploding white supremacist ideology or institutional dominance” (Ikard 132).
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In his first chapter Ikard contrasts the two versions of the slave narrative <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Years-Slave-Solomon-Northup/dp/1420952447/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521475265&sr=1-1&keywords=years+slave+solomon&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=460651af918e593a18c6291dd3212172"><u>Twelve Years a Slave</u></a>, by Solomon Northrup, which presents a challenge to any analysis right up front because of the unclear nature of the authorship. While the story was Northrup’s, it was actually written by white attorney David Wilson. The result is a curious disconnect between portions of the narrative which attempt to expose the inhumanity of slavery, while at the same time seemingly making a moral distinction between slave owners, going so far as to call one of them, “a model master, walking uprightly, according to the light of his understanding, and fortunate was the slave who came to his possession” (Ikard 22). This is one of the earliest examples of what Ikard calls “the low bar of black expectation” (12). Because the white terrorism against blacks was so horrific in the past, whites see any concession toward blacks as something that should be gratefully acknowledged. But problems arise, in the form of perpetuation of this behavior, when blacks willingly engage in it along with whites.
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The metaphoric bar of black expectation of humane treatment from whites was often set very low,<br>
meaning that blacks experienced white common decency . . . as laudable and even heroic. This<br>
calculus of low expectations, gratitude, and indebtedness made blacks who pushed for true racial<br>
equality seem radical and dangerous to whites and to a significant number of blacks. (12)
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These historically low expectations for white behavior toward blacks are an example of Ikard’s first trope, the lovable racist, in which as long as token recognition of blacks by whites is seen as something that blacks should be grateful for, otherwise racist ideologies and behaviors by whites should be ignored. “A lovable racist is a white character who is rendered in such a way that it encourages the reader or viewer to see his/her racism or inhumanity toward backs or people of color as a minor, if not justifiable, character flaw” (24). The end result of this tacit acceptance of white racism is that anyone who challenges the status quo—black or white—appears to be operating outside the accepted mode of societal behavior and is therefore to be feared.
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Ikard goes on to show how this trope makes no sense on its face. Despite Solomon’s contention--via Wilson’s authorship--that “Were all men such as he [the good slave master], Slavery would be deprived of more than half its bitterness,” the mere idea that slavery of any kind is acceptable is absurd (Ikard 22). Thus Ikard partially titles this chapter, “Good Slave Masters Don’t Exist.” The author then compares the dubious nature of Solomon’s narrative with the more demonstratively anti-slavery narrative of Frederick Douglass, and finally goes on to illuminate the significant changes that were made to the narrative when it was produced as the Oscar-winning film <a href="https://www.amazon.com/12-Years-Slave-Chiwetel-Ejiofor/dp/B00G4Q3KOC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1521475527&sr=1-2&keywords=12+years+slave&dpID=41VY74b7pkL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=4fa2b1e83f94f4106d81b8d14e7739a8"><u>12 Years a Slave</u></a>. What screenwriter John Ridley and director Steve McQueen were able to do, according to Ikard, is take the isolated narrative of Solomon and the uncomfortable issue of who is responsible for his lauding of the “good slave master,” and include “the critical perspectives of other enslaved blacks” in order to provide a “space therein to interrogate the problems of lovable racist thinking” by both Solomon and the viewer (27). Solomon’s defense of the kindly slave owner Ford in the narrative is indicative of what Ikard calls “battered slave syndrome,” in which the slave, like the battered wife the term is derived from, exhibits “the conditioned belief, borne of fear and violent verbal and physical assault, that you cannot escape the abusive relationship; that compromising with your abuser on his terms, and with the misguided belief that things will get better over time, is the best way to manage the relationship” (27). Using other slaves in the film, primarily black women, to essentially call out Solomon’s timid reaction to his captivity, provides what Ikard calls a “corrective intervention” to the white supremacist thinking that defends slavery as an institution and the continued belief in white supremacy in American society that has evolved from that defense.
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Ikard’s second chapter is a fascinating exploration of the way in which ideas of white supremacy are passed on to children, and the attempt to disguise that indoctrination with the myth of “white innocence.” The idea here is that the complete disavowal of the way in which children absorb societal norms and understand their place in society gives whites a way of rationalizing their own internalized negative beliefs about people of color. “The extant myth of white innocence functions on many levels to obscure the systemic ways in which white privilege and power are passed down from one generation to the next” (Ikard 48). By linking whiteness to innocence, what whites are able to do is define whiteness as normal. In this way whiteness is the default setting, so to speak, for one’s existence in American society. Referencing tragedies like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or the school shooting in Newtown, and contrasting public reaction to aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Ikard says, “What this means in terms of lived experience of race is that whites’ problems are American problems and people of color’s problems are people of color’s problems” (51). When victims are primarily—or assumed to be—white, as in the 9/11 attacks, societal discourse tends to center on how to protect future victims. When victims are primarily black, however, discourse tends to devolve into back complicity in their own suffering.
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If the shooter in Sandy Hook were a black or a person of color, then the entire political focus point<br>
would change. Rather than addressing the possible motives for the shooting, including mental health<br>
issues and violent video games, the focus would be on the supposed criminality and violence of black<br>
men and politicians would be calling for heightened surveillance of and profiling of black men. (55)
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From here Ikard goes on to show how the idea of white innocence has bee able to adjust to the changing cultural landscape as the country has moved through its phases of racial prejudice. “As we know, ideologies of power are not easily dismantled. When they face serious social, cultural, or economic challenges, as was the case with white supremacist ideology during the Civil Rights Movement, they adjust like a chameleon to the new environment” (57). The author uses the example of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Toms-Cabin-Signet-Classics/dp/0451530802/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521475998&sr=1-2&keywords=uncle+tom's+cabin+signet&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=704859242b47ee8e8c392a2a2a222194"><u>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</u></a> to demonstrate the way in which her abolitionist sentiments were tempered by a reliance on the trope of the “magical negro,” which actually served to reinforce white supremacist thinking about blacks within a call for an end to the practice of slavery but not its underlying ideology. “In order to make . . . Uncle Tom redemptive within her white liberal paternalistic framework, Stowe had to make him pathologically selfless and tether his redemption to white paternalistic Christian sponsorship, protection, and logic” (58). In this way the character of Tom has to fit into the expectation of black gratitude in order not to be seen as an outlier, undeserving of white intervention. Thus, as Ikard demonstrates, “The key point here is that white redemption, not racial equality, is the driving motivation behind the novel” (59). In modern entertainment terms, “updated versions of these myths in pathologically self-sacrificial, caring, and loving sidekicks, lucky charms, maids, secretaries, butlers, and mascots operate to obscure the lingering and tenacious legacy of white supremacist slavery” (61).
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In this way the Magical Negro is directly related to the Lovable Racist. Granting specialness to certain blacks who adhere to white expectations, and then showing their gratitude on screen or in the pages of a novel, serves to reinforce the idea that it is only through white largess that blacks earn their way into a modified version of citizenship. “The idea of indebtedness to whites derives from the thinking that whites must ‘accept’ blacks into US society and make the grand sacrifice of tolerating their integration in white schools and other previously segregated spaces . . . which, of course, drives willful white blindness [and] radically informs black notions of self-determinism and agency” (15). At the same time, however, the magical negro is unable to escape from the very debilitating definitions imposed on him by the white majority. Ikard makes this clear by examining Stephen King’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Green-Mile-Two-Disc-Special/dp/B000HEWEDU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1521476119&sr=1-3&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=1f41e6ba2187c8afb0fd90a41d62c364"><u>The Green Mile</u></a>. Though the character of John Coffey is eventually turned into a Christ figure, he is at first understood by all the whites in the film to be a child murderer and rapist—an assumption that is never questioned because of his blackness. Like <b>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</b>, the film is not about the humanity of the black character--who “is a modern-day version of Uncle Tom with the temperament and IQ if a very tame ten-year-old”--but instead is about the redemption of the jailer Paul (62). Despite whatever redeeming qualities John might have, including complete innocence of the crime, the black man remains in jail the entire film and is ultimately executed. “It purports on a surface level to expose white racism as vile. But in reality the racist idea that black men in general are criminals and prone to violence is never seriously under scrutiny” (64). In the end, the message of the film is ultimately that Paul is to be forgiven for his racist assumptions about John, thus reinforcing his position as a lovable racist, forgiven yet again, by the magical negro.
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What I found most enlightening in Ikard’s book was his discussion of distraction as a means of oppressing blacks. This is something that I have been extremely familiar with in the context of capitalism’s indoctrination of consumers. By providing all sorts of distractions, from cell phones and social media, to video games, sports and entertainment, citizen-consumers are continuously kept from examining their lives and the true nature of their place in society. Ikard’s distraction, however, is more along the lines of changing definitions in order to redirect the argument in a completely different direction. One of these distractions is a perversion of one of our most sacred legal precepts, innocent until proven guilty. In practice, however, the media typically portrays black victims in the most unflattering light possible, which in real terms renders them guilty until proven innocent. “This pattern of perpetually placing blacks in this defensive posture is immensely advantageous to the dominant white supremacist power structure as it allows whites to blame imagined black pathologies for black social and economic struggles without having to contend with their white privilege, pathological racist behavior or the white supremacist power structure that licenses black social degradation and death” (70). By constantly having to prove their innocence, or refute white victim blaming, blacks are never able to get out from under the argument and focus attention on the real cause of inequity: white oppression. Ikard also goes on to cite Derrick Bell in an argument that is a variation on Richard Hofstadter’s “pseudo-conservative” from the mid nineteen-fifties. Rather than giving ordinary citizens a true path to success, and as a way to keep them mindlessly working for corporate interests, the controlling elite has instead given them a common enemy in the form of people of color. “Instead of providing the masses with access to real wealth and power, they provided them with embodied wealth in the form of control and dominance over blacks” (74). Ultimately, as Ikard shows, this is simply a variation on property rights concerning blacks that goes back to the days of slavery.
<p>
Making the situation even more untenable is white reaction to calls for examination of white complicity in continued black disenfranchisement in the form of intentional misunderstanding. “It places the onus on blacks to prove to whites what they already know to be true and have a significant socio-economic stake in <i>not</i> knowing or acknowledging--namely, that blacks are human beings whose basic rights to freedom have been ruthlessly trampled on by whites for economic, social and cultural gain” (76). But the biggest distraction of all comes in the form of white admonishment for any act by blacks that seeks to make headway in seeking redress for four hundred years of oppression and abuse that can only be defined as white terrorism. From so-called black “rebellion” in the days of slavery, to marches and protests in the Jim Crow era, to movements like Black Lives Matter, white response has always been to see these acts through the lens of black sabotage of their own cause. Ikard cites James Baldwin as identifying “the white habit of perpetually blaming blacks for the consequences of long-standing patterns of white oppression and then claiming ignorance and innocence when their destructive tactics breed civil unrest and protest like Civil Rights and Black Power movements” (78). The result of this distraction trap, as Ikard puts it, is “treating violent black responses to white violence as the source of the racial conflict . . . [exposing] the audacity of the chief historical white perpetrators of looting and violence against black humanity to proclaim that they are somehow victims when blacks retaliate in self-defense or protest against such white assaults” (77).
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The overt way in which white society has co-opted black cultural achievement in areas like music and sports is fairly well known. What is far less understood is the way in which the dominant white culture has absorbed successful black resistance and rendered it impotent by folding it back into the larger white supremacist historical narrative. This has certainly happened with Martin Luther King, Jr., but also with figures like Rosa Parks and Malcolm X. “Radical black human rights movements and black leaders who inspired them become deradicalized to the point of gross historical distortion. Their laudable stories of resistance, organizing, strategizing, and outwitting their white oppressors in pursuit of racial equality and social justice are transformed . . . into feel-good narratives about the American Dream, white redemption, and American exceptionalism” (10). In the fourth chapter of the book Ikard examines more closely the Magical Negro trope, in which the motivations of black leaders and heroes to resist white oppression is turned instead into proof of white magnanimity, and used to further rationalize continued white dominance. In this way white culture is able to turn someone like Dr. King who, at the time, “was tagged as a kind of terrorist threat to the United States,” into a what can be seen by whites as a “good black” today (131). Unfortunately, propaganda itself makes no distinction between races, and blacks are equally susceptible to its false messages as whites. “Because what we experience as real is inextricably tethered to what we have been conditioned and policed to experience as real, it is often an uphill battle to get even oppressed people to see how white supremacist apparatuses . . . have altered their perceptions of self-determination, personal accountability, meritocracy, institutional racism, and reality itself” (95-96).
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Interestingly, white messiahs get very little attention in Ikard’s book, perhaps because they are so closely related to the lovable racist. The examples he gives are Clint Eastwood’s racist character from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gran-Torino-Clint-Eastwood/dp/B003ASLJO0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1521476334&sr=1-2&keywords=gran+torino&dpID=41BaCsJsFIL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=6fda5569566a652e4cf5ff1e5c69e0c3"><u>Gran Torino</u></a> who, in the end, sacrifices himself for the Hmong teenagers who live next door, but in doing so vilifies the gang members who have tormented them, “because the film treats the gangbangers as heartless thugs, ignoring not only their humanity but also the white supremacist capitalism that has decimated their community” (25). The other white messiah that Ikard singles out is Bill Clinton, and by association Hillary. Despite Clinton’s affinity for blacks and black voters, his record on drugs and incarceration prove his policies to be every bit as deleterious to black self-determination as the culture at large. Again, this is another example of someone whose claims of black advocacy are only successful in comparison with the more extreme hatred of blacks professed by those on the political right. “Culturally speaking, white-messiah figures like Clinton are able to leverage blacks’ historically low expectation of just white treatment to appear heroic in their empathy toward black concerns . . . In reality his welfare reform and crime policies have had a devastating impact on black communities” (15-16). Likewise Ikard sees Hillary Clinton’s pivot on Black Lives Matter--from initially declaring that “all lives matter” to supporting the cause when running against a blatant racist--as motivated by “social pressure and political expediency” rather than a genuine “change of heart” (16).
<p>
While Ikard deals briefly with the interconnection of capitalism and racism, his final chapter brings religion, specifically Christianity, into the mix as well. He returns to the idea of the indoctrination of children, this time using the imagery of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ, both religious icons despite their seeming differences. Tellingly, Ikard also associates the two figures with other elements of American cultural mythology, as well as illuminating their use in social propaganda. “Because being white is still synonymous culturally with being ‘normal,’ the cultural programming of our children vis-à-vis whitewashed superheroes, myths, and religious figures typically flies under the radar of concern . . . What’s more, the majority of villains and antichrist figures tend to be of a darker hue . . . Even black folks internalize these messages (oftentimes despite ourselves) because we have been conditioned to see them as universal and morally transcendent” (112-113). And just as with Critical Theory, Ikard accurately assesses the role that the media and entertainment play as the tool of the oligarchical elite in controlling the cultural messages that have become an intrinsic part of the American experience for all citizens. “If we take seriously the intensity and insidiousness of the white supremacist messaging that is rendered through fairy tales, mythologies, cartoons, and even religion in the United States, it should become clear that we cannot rid our society of racial inequality if we cannot rid ourselves of the cultural mediums that reproduce and substantiate it . . . There is nothing random or innocent about this whitewashing phenomenon. Santa Claus and the Judeo-Christian messiah figure Jesus are constructed as white for specific political and ideological purposes” (125).
<p>
Again, this is all part of a white supremacist ideology in which, counterintuitively, the white majority has a vested interest in promoting racial tension. Some critics argue, and Ikard references, that the whole idea of racial difference is merely a construct that continues to reinforce white appropriation of normalcy compared to that of any people of color.
<p>
Americans and Westerners in general conceptualize brown Middle Eastern terrorists as heartless<br>
religious fanatical monsters who prey on the weak—a conceptualization that conspicuously ignores<br>
how Christianity and white supremacy has been employed for centuries in the United States to exploit,<br>
dominate, enslave, and murder generations of people of color, especially people of African descent” (131).
<p>
In a curious case of construction, Ikard saves his most powerful argument for the end of the book, in a coda that is not only highly personal, but chilling in its implications. By far the most disturbing aspect of continued white supremacist indoctrination is the devaluation of the lives of people of color. Ikard references the terrorist killings in a black church in South Carolina by Dylan Roof. While whites clearly define attacks against other whites as terrorism, they refuse to do so when the victims are black. Attacks on white school children, now too numerous to list, are seen as hate crimes by mentally ill white perpetrators. Black children dying everyday in in urban neighborhoods, on the other hand, are virtually ignored, even though their numbers are far greater than the more highly publicized massacres. But even that cannot compare with the tragedy that is the blatant killing of black citizens by white police officers. The ubiquitous number of murders of innocent and unarmed blacks by police--especially considering that nearly all of the white police officers wind up being exonerated--is no less than the modern day equivalent of lynching.
<p>
In a word, the book is brilliant. Ikard resists the temptation to give in to deconstructionist fantasies that are hardly relevant. Instead, his literary examples are well drawn, and his references to other analyses by the likes of Baldwin and Morrison are equally well chosen. If there’s a criticism it is that he doesn’t take enough time to explain the context in which his literary arguments are being made. He criticizes white authors and filmmakers for their white blindness in terms of the myths they perpetuate, but he isn’t necessarily blaming them. Their white blindness simply reflects their own indoctrination and the identification of that unconscious racism is finally the point, by allowing the reader see the ways that white supremacist thinking has always been part of America’s cultural landscape. While he rightly criticizes them by pointing out what they <i>could</i> have done instead, I have the sense that he isn’t blaming them for what they <i>should</i> have done. At least I hope that’s the case--although it may be my own white blindness that makes me think that. I also take exception with Ikard’s blanket condemnation of Twain’s <b>Huckleberry Finn</b>, as I’m not sure he fully understands that Huck is anything but redeemed at the end of the novel and Twain indicts society fairly decisively in the form of Tom. But these are minor quibbles in an impressive work overall.
<p>
As Horkheimer said, it’s impossible for whites to know the suffering that they have put blacks through in this country, as mere language is not enough to convey what it’s like, for example, for black parents to have to give “the talk” to their children. That said, however, it’s not to difficult to take their word for it, especially considering the mountain of empirical evidence that is available. At the same time, language cannot be overlooked as a means to continue to apply pressure to a system that has built in resistance to change. “As exasperating as it may be at times to speak out on racism and white supremacy, it is crucial that anti-racist scholars within and beyond black spaces do so wherever and whenever we encounter it.” By going beyond mere literary analysis, David Ikard has masterfully demonstrated how racial tropes in literature not only reflect but inform a way of thinking in this country that significantly devalues the lives of people of color. <b>Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs</b> should not just be on the bookshelf of every home in this country, it should be in the hands of every person in America so that they can begin to see how their unconscious behaviors negatively affect those around them, as well as their moral obligation to do something proactive about those behaviors.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-49365956721515711572017-11-03T10:54:00.001-07:002017-11-03T12:35:43.982-07:00A Revolution of the Mind (2010)<font size="+1">by Jonathan Israel</font><p>
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I was initially intrigued by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Mind-Enlightenment-Intellectual-Democracy/dp/0691152608/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509731769&sr=1-1&keywords=revolution+of+the+mind&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=0ecd98a2bc17a10588f83bc2019c6fb2"><u>A Revolution of the Mind</u></a> because of Jonathan Israel’s thesis, that while the idea of revolutionary change that began in the Enlightenment has waned—after producing not only the American Revolution but subsequent revolutions in France and, a century later, in Russia—the actual ideals of Radical Enlightenment have become far more pervasive internationally than most people realize. The problem is, that isn’t his thesis at all. Israel is an authority on the Enlightenment, having written a number of books on the subject, this one based on a series of lectures given at Oxford in 2008. Unfortunately, the book is a challenge to read. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the scholarship. In fact, Israel’s command of the thinkers of the period and their ideas is impressive. What seems to be lacking is a coherent narrative, with similar ideas and expressions scattered throughout the book rather than dealt with individually and for a specific purpose. It’s still compelling reading, but repeated elucidation of the same ideas—sometimes by the same writers—feels redundant at times. The other negative is that many of his sentences are tortuous in execution and take some real work to tease out their true meaning. In re-reading them they appear much clearer, but in many instances they can hardly be said to flow. Ultimately the book seems to be less about the influence of the Enlightenment on later centuries and more about the differences between the two competing factions of thought at the time. And that, it turns out, is an incredibly important idea that has been virtually ignored by historians, and what makes the book itself so important in retrospect.
<p>
Israel makes a distinction right away between the moderate ideas of the Enlightenment period in history, which tended to advocate slow and gradual change over time, and what he calls Radical Enlightenment, “an originally clandestine movement of ideas, almost entirely hidden from public view during its earliest phase (the late seventeenth century).
<p>
Radical Enlightenment is a set of basic principles that can be summed up concisely as: democracy;<br>
racial and sexual equality; individual liberty of lifestyle; full freedom of thought, expression and the<br>
press; eradication of religious authority from the legislative process and education; and full separa-<br>
tion of church and state. It sees the purpose of the state as being the wholly secular one of promo-<br>
ting the worldly interests of the majority and preventing vested minority interests from capturing<br>
control of the legislative process. It’s chief maxim is that all men have the same basic needs, rights,<br>
and status. (vii-viii)
<p>
All of this hardly seems radical today, but that is just Israel’s point. While in one sense the history of the United States can be viewed as a long, slow, steady decline from the ratifying of the Constitution in 1789, with religion, racism, sexism, intolerance for free speech, intrusion into personal lifestyle all trying to claw their way back to prominence in American political life—and with some success—there are still a majority of people in this country who hold dear those ideals that were promoted over three hundred years ago with only one thought in mind: to make people’s lives better. Surprisingly, according to Israel, “the history of this process—the gradual advance of the ideas underpinning democratic Enlightenment in the modern era—remains very little studied or known. Indeed, there exists scarcely any historical accounts that analyze and narrate the story of the origins and rise of modern equality, democracy, individual liberty, and freedom of thought in their intellectual, social, and political context” (ix).
<p>
Israel’s goals are ambitious and laudable. The unconscious nature of Western ideals means that they are vulnerable to being undermined by “long-dormant monarchical, aristocratic, and religious ideologies, privileged oligarchies and elites,” as well as “various Counter-Enlightenment popular movements that so resolutely and vehemently combat egalitarian and democratic values” around the world—and that includes the United States. (x-xi) “The risk,” he claims, “in considering our core values as purely abstract concepts,” is that they “remain only weakly embedded in education, the media, and in many people’s minds.” The paradox, here, in terms of American culture, is that an abstract idea of what the United States is was necessary for the cohesion of a population that had little else to bind it. This became especially crucial as immigration, expansion, and the Civil War threatened to destroy the tenuous bonds that existed between citizens of widely differing backgrounds. Authors Patrick J. Deneen and Joseph Romance make this clear in their book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Democracys-Literature-Politics-Fiction-America/dp/0742532593/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509732086&sr=1-5&keywords=democracy's+literature&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=1386d636560cde96cc6291972a3a0b4e"><u>Democracy’s Literature</u></a>:
<p>
Because of the continental expanse of the American system, such identification with the whole<br>
increasingly required a philosophic frame of mind. Devotion was not to “land” or place as such,<br>
but to the <i>idea</i> of America. We were a people devoted to a <i>proposition</i>, according to Lincoln, not<br>
to a particular piece of land in which generations of our ancestors were buried. America presented<br>
a unique challenge: how to cultivate a generalized philosophic disposition in the citizenry of such a<br>
sprawling and “abstract” nation . . . America was faced with a challenge—seemingly insurmountable—<br>
of making philosophy sufficiently accessible and broad yet sufficiently profound to forge a democratic<br>
seemingly insurmountable—citizenry on a mass scale. (Deneen 3).
<p>
For Israel, those necessarily abstract notions of America tend to lose their meaning in isolation, and for citizens to truly appreciate the kind of egalitarian principles that this country was founded on it requires that “Not only scholars but the general reading, debating, and voting public need some awareness of the tremendous difficulty, struggle, and cost involved in propagating our core ideas” (x, xii). In terms of the specific importance of this understanding for Americans, Israel makes clear what have been the two most dangerous enemies of freedom in this country for the last fifty years: anti-intellectualism and the capitalist oligarchy.
<p>
Who can doubt that ignorance and credulity, identified by the eighteenth-century radical enlighteners<br>
as the prime cause of human degradation and oppression, remain still the foremost foes of democracy,<br>
equality, and personal freedom; or that an informal aristocracy, like that which arose in America,<br>
eventually nurturing vast inequality of wealth, can endanger equality and individual liberty as much as<br>
any formal nobility based on lineage, rank, and legally anchored privilege? (xii)
<p>
The book proper starts, rightly, with the great minds of the late seventeenth century, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Bayle, chief among them Spinoza. What Israel stresses is the theoretical nature of their thought, and the immense challenges that lay ahead of them for implementing the kinds of change they believed possible in order to make life better for all of humanity. Their pessimism, however, was borne out of a sense of the practical rather than the possible. “The notion, still widespread today,” says Israel, “that Enlightenment thinkers nurtured a naïve belief in man’s perfectability seems to be a complete myth conjured up by early twentieth-century scholars, unsympathetic to its claims” (3). Writers like Voltaire, Kant, Turgot and Hume, while expressing the Enlightenment belief in the ability of the mind to ennoble humanity, did not embrace the kind of egalitarianism that Israel is talking about. This, of course, is in direct opposition to someone like Thomas Paine, who advocated for nothing less than the wholesale reformation of European society. Many of the moderate thinkers simply couldn’t see what Paine did, from his vantage point of the successful American Revolution. For them, it was all well and good that the British in North America had thrown off their colonial yoke from three thousand miles away, but historically monarchical Europe was a different world. And the French Revolution only seemed to prove their point. Again, practical considerations tended to limit the scope of imagination in mainstream Enlightened thought. While Paine advocated something on the order of early suggestions during the Space Race—namely landing a man on the moon and worrying about how to get him back later—many thinkers of the day were not willing to take that kind of risk to achieve their aims. Hume, reflecting the views of many, “urged extreme caution—though admittedly not outright conservatism—when evaluating plans for the future depending on any ‘derangement in the only scenes with which we are acquainted’” (15).
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This dichotomy of thought between radical and moderate Enlightenment thinking is actually plaguing us to this day, especially in the United States. As Israel points out, “all these were essentially either/or questions. Either history is infused by divine providence or it is not. Either one endorses a society of ranks or embraces equality, one approves representative democracy or opposes it . . . (18). The problem with the moderate Enlightenment is that it postulated “a balance between reason and tradition . . . broadly supporting the status quo” (19). Twentieth-century philosopher Max Horkheimer, in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eclipse-Reason-Max-Horkheimer/dp/1614274134/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509732952&sr=1-1&keywords=eclipse+of+reason&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=9deb923c70b8b6498d46a536b967b917"><u>Eclipse of Reason</u></a>, renamed these two elemental ways of thinking as “objective reason” and “subjective reason.”
<p>
Objective reason aspires to replace traditional religion with methodical<br>
philosophical thought and insight to become a source of tradition all by itself . . .<br>
Subjective reason . . . is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting<br>
up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one for<br>
institutionalized mythology, thus recognizing both of them. (Horkheimer 12)
<p>
Unfortunately the modern mind does not recognize both of them equally. Objective reason has not been a strong enough truth to dislodge mythology from the minds of religious believers; it has not been allowed to become a “source of tradition” but simply another stream of truth in the believer’s mind that, when faced with a choice between the two, will almost always take the path of irrationality, like atheists in foxholes who then pray for salvation. Israel makes it clear, however, that “it is essential to avoid simply equating the split with the difference between theists and atheists” (19). At the time the split was far more along political and philosophical lines, while today Horkheimer’s subjective rationalism does center primarily on religion. But in the eighteenth century there was also another way of thinking that was embodied by the “Counter-Enlightenment, a system of ideas that rejected both kinds of Enlightenment, insisting on the primacy of faith and tradition, not reason, as the chief guides in human existence” (34-35).
<p>
What makes the book so meaningful for today is that the United States seems to be dealing with exactly the same issues, all of which can be understood historically. The reason that the French Revolution takes such a prominent place in the revolutionary history of the period, rather than the earlier and successful American Revolution, is that the United States failed to abolish slavery, thus rendering it an incomplete revolution. The other failing of the American Revolution from the perspective of radical Enlightenment thinkers was the retention of an American aristocracy, again, another vestige of the past that continues to haunt the country to this day in the form of a capitalist oligarchy. In the words of French philosopher Denis Diderot, written shortly after the Declaration, he warned the colonists to “fear a too unequal division of wealth resulting in a small number of opulent citizens and a multitude of citizens living in misery, from which there arises the arrogance of the one and the abasement of the other” (45). One explanation for the failure of the American Revolution to fully exploit radical Enlightenment ideals is the relative stability and comfort enjoyed by the former British colonists. “European writers visiting America in the 1780s and 1790s . . . noted that practically everyone in the United States enjoyed at least a modicum of dignity and prosperity, as well as liberty, whereas most men and women in Europe eked out their lives in hardship and destitution” (51).
<p>
The great irony here is that many of the European poor, while their lives were arguably worse than Americans of the same station, were the least likely to advocate for a kind of radical change that might makes some meaningful difference in their lives, and instead supported a gradual approach that was far less likely to institute change in their lifetimes. They did this for the simple fact that moderate ideas carried with them the perception of the possible. In their minds, radical ideas were doomed to be quashed and ignored, while moderate ideas stood at least a chance of being implemented.
<p>
It is worth noting that in Britain the bulk of the lower and middle orders of society proved entirely<br>
willing to unite under crown and Parliament in decrying radical activity and seditious writings.<br>
But this was because, behind the scenes, democratic and egalitarian ideas were gaining ground<br>
and a fierce defensiveness, even signs of desperation were taking hold of the <i>ancien régime</i>’s<br>
defenders. (35)
<p>
Barron d’Holbach refused to blame this timidity on the people, however, and put the responsibility where it belonged, on the nobility that had all but turned its backs on the people. “‘A morally blind politics,’ proclaimed d’Holbach, ‘guided by interests contrary to those of society does not allow men to become enlightened either about their own rights, or their true duties, or about the true ends of the association which it continually subverts’” (57-58). The answer to this problem—and others posed by a tyranny of the majority in a direct democracy, or the siren song of the tyrant himself—was representative democracy of the kind eventually adopted by the United States. On this point the radical thinkers were all in agreement.
<p>
Another interesting division between the two competing modes of though is the emphasis on the proper place of the individual in society. For the moderate thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others like him, the average man had no need for social interaction, and best performed his function in society as an individual. For the radicals, however, nothing could be further from the truth, and renouncing society, according to d’Holbach, was “wholly misconceived and immoral” (57). The radicals, it turns out, were correct in their assumptions, something author Tim Blanning points out in his book on the period, in emphasizing what he considers one of the major factors in the successes of the revolutionary period.
<p>
Whatever their social complexion, all European states had to come to terms with the emergence of<br>
a new kind of cultural space—the public sphere . . . a forum in which previously isolated individuals<br>
could come together to exchange information, ideas and criticism. Whether communicating with<br>
each other at long range by subscribing to the same periodicals, or meeting face to face in a coffee-<br>
house or in one of the new voluntary associations, such as a reading club or Masonic lodge, the public<br>
acquired a collective weight far greater than the sum of its individual members. (Blanning xxiv)
<p>
In modern times the ability of the majority to communicate with each other has been obliterated by providing the citizenry with far more information than they can possibly be expected to sift through. As a result, people tend to communicate only with like-minded individuals, resulting in the same kind of isolation that people face in the early seventeenth-century.
<p>
Economic divisions are tackled next, as the more moderate thinkers advocated for unlimited free trade. While at first this seems a far left position—and it is even called liberal economic theory—one can see why the radicals disliked it. Those with money already, the nobility, the clergy, the landed classes, were able to use their wealth to invest and finance, and could afford to take losses once in a while. Those who had no accumulated wealth, then, were unable to participate fully in the nation’s economic life and were relegated to working for those with capital. It’s easy to see in this position a nascent Marxist theory in which working for wealthy business owners is simply another form of tyranny, this time economic, which was decidedly not in the best interests of the majority of people and in practice almost indistinguishable from current forms of noble privilege. Nevertheless, the radicals did not believe that this kind of future Marxist philosophy would be beneficial to workers either. “While championing egalitarianism, however, Diderot, Helvétius, and d’Holbach firmly disavowed any intention of leveling society or seeking to impose full economic equality, which, they appreciated, would inevitably establish a new form of tyranny” (96-97). Again, the radicals were prescient and one only has to look at the twentieth century attempts at Communism to see their greatest fears at work. Nevertheless, in criticizing the works of free-market economists like Smith and Turgot, “Diderot argues, no one has the right to sanction manipulation of price rises in grain while his fellows succumb to famine” (118). And yet this is precisely the situation that we are faced with today, another task left to this generation to complete.
<p>
The next chapter focuses on the ability of the state to make war, and the reality that it is the people who bear the brunt of the consequences, both as soldiers and civilians. But where moderates were able to make arguments that economics and social instability weren’t necessarily the fault of the nobility, the act of making war could be laid nowhere else but at the feet of the monarchy. More than in any other sphere this supports Israel’s assertion of enlightened thought as an either/or proposition. The only way to assure against the caprice and whim of the monarch for war . . . was to remove the monarch. “Moderate Enlightenment, then, and Rousseauism lacked any political strategy that could conceivably produce the kind of structural changes capable of transforming the existing order so as to diminish the likelihood of war” (129). The moderates used a tactic common today among the right wing, arguing that while war is an unfortunate occurrence it would be folly to disarm and fall prey to those who don’t, conveniently sidestepping the issue of who is ultimately to blame for pulling the trigger—pun intended. On one side is Adam Ferguson, asserting that war is “the will of Providence,” and that only in the prosecution of war “the virtues of human nature are its happiest, no less than they are so in reaping the fruits of peace.” For the radicals, though, this idea is as ridiculous as it sounds.
<p>
These wars, fought purely in the interests of monarchs, courtiers, aristocratic cliques, financiers,<br>
and merchants, they considered an inherent part of tyranny, an injustice abominably destructive<br>
and irrational caused directly by the system of authority, nobility and princely courts . . . in which<br>
many tens of thousands of soldiers were killed or maimed fighting all across the world for reasons<br>
few had the slightest inkling of, and which bore no relation to the true interests either of the population<br>
or of the soldiers and their families. (131)
<p>
The last hundred years of warfare by the United States certainly bear this out with “financiers, and merchants” the only ones who have benefitted, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and the citizen soldiers and their families doing all the suffering. The radicals were also prescient in proposing something like the United Nations, an international body of democratic republics that would be the ultimate arbiter in a world that had no more need for war. The flaw in the modern implementation of this idea is that not enough countries today are democratic republics.
<p>
Israel then moves on to deal with morality, the most obvious schism between moderate thinkers still in the thrall of church and king, and the radicals who believed that morality does not need to be imposed from without: “morality is a universal, purely secular system based on a conception of justice wholly separate from, indeed best cultivated without, the influence of any particular religion” (154-155). One of the most fascinating responses to this is by Rousseau who, while disagreeing with the radicals, could actually find no rational argument against them and could therefore only resort to an anti-intellectual rebuttal.
<p>
He calls Diderot, d’Holbach and their disciples, “ardent missionaries of atheism,” so intolerant in<br>
practice that they were incapable of not losing patience with anyone thinking differently from them-<br>
selves. Rousseau again admits, though, that . . . he could find no adequate arguments in terms of<br>
reason with which to oppose their contentions. It was his heart, his feelings, he emphasizes, not<br>
reasoning, that told him they were wrong. (159)
<p>
In fact, the entire anti-intellectual stance of religion was one that was going to inevitably put moderates in conflict with the radicals, especially where morality was concerned. “Revealed religion, maintained the radical <i>philosophes</i>, fragments rather than consolidates society, undermining true morality by extolling credulity and ignorance and discouraging science” (165). Those who argued that religion was the only way to ensure moral behavior, however, were drawing on a terminally weak hand, for if it did, “we would surely not daily hear of assassination, rapine, and brigandage in Europe’s most devoutly religious lands, such as Spain and Italy” (168). Parallels today are numerous. Just one is that while enlightened countries like Great Britain and Australia have been able to legislate just laws that have reduced gun violence almost completely, we are stuck with a credulous and ignorant electorate that is willing to accept an astronomically absurd number of gun deaths every year in the most “advanced” country in the world.
<p>
Israel makes some space here to talk about the Scottish Enlightenment, which for me is easily the most important element of the book. It actually helped to make sense of something that had always been a source of confusion for me. In writing about the Scottish Enlightenment, which is usually held up for praise, especially by those writing about the American Revolution, Israel is more accurately able to place it “within its larger international context.” As “opponents of atheism and materialist ideas,” they decidedly fall into the moderate camp and, as such, are far less impressive in terms of their long-range thinking than the radicals. (177) More than that, however, is the way that these particular Enlightenment ideals have been embraced by the right in the United States, something that never seemed to make sense. But Israel puts it all into clear focus. “Precisely the social conservatism implicit in Scottish moral thought and its emphatic restricting of philosophical reason by means of faith and theology lay at the root of its immense appeal at the time (and subsequently)” (182). Suddenly the vehement embracing of the Enlightenment aspects of American Revolution by those on the right in U.S. politics makes sense—for the reason that it is not enlightened thinking they are celebrating at all. By citing the Christian thinkers from Scotland to the exclusion of the radical thinkers, the U.S. right continues to support the myth of America as a country founded on religion. It’s a tactic that was even used by counter-Enlightenment writers at the time. “A much-cultivated philosophical strategy of the <i>anti-philosophes</i> was to invoke the great Moderate Enlightenment thinkers” in order to discredit the radicals. “By highlighting in this manner the deep chasm between Radical Enlightenment and Deist mainstream while at the same time also sharply criticizing the later, Christian Moderate Enlightenment refined a powerful rhetoric effective for disparaging and discrediting all the philosophical authors it condemned” (174-175). Thus the religious right in this country can have it both ways, claiming to be enlightened by citing Scottish writers, and keeping their anti-intellectual religious beliefs at the same time. As a result, “Scottish moral sense and, most of all, Scottish Common Sense, were destined for a long and glorious career, remaining for decades highly influential in Germany and Scandinavia as well as Britain and North America” (182).
<p>
At the end of his lecture series on the founding of the United States, Daniel N. Robinson contrasted the thoughts of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine in their reactions to the French Revolution. The final chapter of Israel’s book seemed as if it was going to do something similar, with Voltaire representing the moderates, and Spinoza as the founding thinker for the radicals. But instead it really comes off as more of a rehash of what has gone on before. The idea actually makes for an intriguing missed opportunity, however. One of the online reviews of the book says that Israel takes a lot for granted in terms of the reader’s pre-existing knowledge. Had Israel put this chapter at the beginning of the book and spent some time outlining Spinoza’s influence on the radicals, as well as Voltaire’s desperate response, that might have been a good way to provide some crucial background for the reader. In the end, the primary notion that comes out of the book is that there were really two Enlightenments. The first was geared toward the nobility itself, and of course these moderate thinkers supported and justified the existence of the nobility and the church in order to further their own cause. The radicals, on the other hand, “had no other recourse but to turn philosophy into effective ideology and inundate the reading public with its new revolutionary awareness . . . Ultimately, their aim was to transform the political and social framework of modern life” (223). But by far Israel’s most forceful declaration is, however destitute and abused the French people were by the nobility, that fact alone was not enough to account for the revolution that followed. “Indeed, without referring to Radical Enlightenment nothing about the French Revolution makes the slightest sense or can even begin to be provisionally explained” (224). As a result, any history that fails to take into account the importance of the Radical Enlightenment writings—and Israel claims almost none of them do—is incomplete at best, and highly misleading at worst.
<p>
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This is part of an overall problem with the historiography about this period, in which historians mistakenly attempt to look for the instances that brought about the French Revolution in the area of social change rather than in the area of thought, “some dramatic transformation of conditions, as their primary cause. This seems to be a fallacy . . .” (37). The reason for this becomes clear if one looks at a nearly contemporaneous example: the Industrial Revolution. In that instance the complete reshaping of economic life for the citizens in Great Britain brought about an attendant change of ideas that resulted in the formation of labor unions on up to more radical ideas like the Luddite movement. The revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century, however, was exactly the opposite. “The real structural shift before 1789 has been broadly missed because it was a ‘revolution of the mind’; an intellectual transformation, bringing with it a huge cultural shift” (37-38). Thus it was that the ideas preceded the action as “radical writers hoped that the American Revolution would not just continue internally but also accelerate the process of democratization in Europe, the West Indies, Spanish America and elsewhere” (47). This is a point that Israel would make clear early in the book:
<p>
This does not mean that the whole emphasis should be placed on books and ideas. Rather, the<br>
interpretation proposed here envisages revolution as a complex interaction of thought and action<br>
emerging by stages at a particular moment in history. But while great revolutions are always fueled<br>
by pre-existing social grievances, to create genuine revolution these grievances must be articulated<br>
in new, forthright, and much broader terms than previously. (87)
<p>
To see a negative example of this effect, one only has to read Nancy MacLean’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stealth/dp/1101980966/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509734316&sr=1-1&keywords=democracy+in+chains&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=04df308d0337709becb3b573e5a1f699"><u>Democracy in Chains</u></a>, to see how the anti-democratic right wing in this country has been attempting to manipulate themselves into complete power for the last fifty years.
<p>
It’s difficult to know how to assess Israel’s book. On the one hand there’s a strong sense of abbreviation in the chapters, part and parcel of its original inception as a series of lectures. But at the same time Israel’s other works on the era are gargantuan, in the neighborhood of eight hundred pages or so each. Given that, there’s probably something to be said for the introductory aspect of this book, though it would have been nice if his thesis were clearer in the beginning. What the book is really about is the largely unsung nature of the radical wing of the Enlightenment during the revolutionary era, one that turns out to be more highly influential than historians give it credit for. The big names of the era, Hume, Voltaire, and Locke, it turns out were rather timid and overcautious, while names that I had never really heard of before—as Paine tends to suck the oxygen out of the room in most histories—like Helvétius, Diderot and d’Holbach are given a considerable amount of credit, and deservedly so. The real success of Israel’s book is to place the radical Enlightenment thinkers in their rightful place in the context of the age, especially given some of what passes for scholarship about the era today. It’s easy to miss this because the moderates were the only ones who were able to implement some of their ideas, and so “it has often appeared that they represent the real Enlightenment, the sensible Enlightenment, the Enlightenment that counts . . . But, on closer examination, such an analysis hardly seems plausible” (120). This is the real importance of <b>A Revolution of the Mind</b>, discovering the true thinkers behind the Enlightenment, the true ideas that have gone into creating our own Democracy, and by doing so demonstrating how far we still have to go.
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3633472823840079855.post-13483374324778459602017-06-30T15:44:00.000-07:002017-06-30T16:22:58.668-07:00Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)<font size="+1">by John Keats</font><p>
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Anyone who knows my literary preferences will know that I have a strong dislike for poetry. In the first place, poems are far too brief to be compared favorably to anything like the sustained effort it takes to produce a novel. But it’s probably the artificiality of the rhyme and meter that put me off the most. I prefer my literature in naturalistic language, and so I will always prefer prose. That being said, there is no denying that there are examples of poetry that are unsurpassed in their beauty and eloquence and must be respected as a the literary equal of any other. John Keats’ “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/John-Keats-Complete-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140422102/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498864936&sr=1-1&keywords=john+keats&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=1eb4990a86d5533c6ac5a380ea2a1276"><u>Ode on a Grecian Urn</u></a>” is just such a poem, and as such has been the source of much spilled ink over the last two centuries. The greatest source of contention for modern critics has been the quotation in the final sentence of the fifth stanza: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” At first glance it is difficult to make out how there could be any controversy in the statement, for the simple fact that it seems self-evident.
<p>
The best example supporting Keats’ idea comes from, of all places, science. In 1987 the BBC produced an episode of their <i>Horizon</i> science series called <i>Life Story</i>, eventually renamed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Race-Double-Helix-VHS/dp/6303247911/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1498864601&sr=1-1&keywords=race+double+helix&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=0a2348605635d77f5ebb6bdc2ae1f5be"><u>Race for the Double Helix</u></a>, about the discovery of the structure of D.N.A. The film was based in part on James Watson’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Double-Helix-Personal-Discovery-Structure/dp/074321630X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498864669&sr=1-1&keywords=double+helix&linkCode=ll1&tag=theliclfire-20&linkId=9cfcd0920288deb1c9e611ed18dd9515"><u>The Double Helix</u></a>, and written by William Nicholson. In the film Watson, played by Jeff Goldblum, and Francis Crick, played by Timothy Pigott-Smith, attempt to guess at the structure of D.N.A. without using any original research, taking what they know and have heard from other scientists working in the field to see if they can piece it together before anyone else. As they are beginning their quest, Crick suggests William Astbury’s work might be a place to start, but Watson shoots down that idea by saying one word: “Ugly.” Crick responds by saying, “You don’t like ugly?” to which Watson replies, “It doesn’t deserve to be true. Truth is . . . pretty.” At the end of the film when the two scientists do in fact come up with the structure, Watson says, “I knew it would be pretty.” Again, the idea seems self-evident, as the simple beauty involved in the scientific structure inheres its very truth. And this idea seems just as fitting a way to explain the historic messages conveyed by Keats’ personified urn. Others, however, are not as convinced.
<p>
T.S. Eliot famously said of the statement, “This line strikes me as a serious blemish on a beautiful poem; and the reason must be either that I fail to understand it, or that it is a statement that is untrue.” While Eliot’s inclination is clearly toward the later, I’m inclined to see it as the former. Literary critics Kenneth Burke and Cleanth Brooks, among others, have devoted entire essays to the explication of the poem. Brooks essay, “Keats’ Sylvan Historian: History Without Footnotes,” begins rather unfairly, however, suggesting that Keats, “would have approved of Archibald MacLeish’s dictum ‘A poem should not mean / But be.’
<p>
Hence it is the more remarkable that the “Ode” itself differs from Keats’s other odes by culminating<br>
in a statement—a statement even of some sententiousness in which the urn itself is made to say<br>
beauty is truth, and—more sententious still—that this bit of wisdom sums up the whole of mortal<br>
knowledge. This is “to mean” with a vengeance—to violate the doctrine of the objective correlative,<br>
not only by stating truths, but by defining the limits of truth.
<p>
The reason I say this is unfair is that Brooks begins by putting words into Keats’ mouth—the words of MacLeish’s dictum—and then chiding him for violating them. The fact that Brooks wants to read into Keats’ poem an underlying objectivism based on the subject matter, an inanimate urn, does not obligate the author to adhere to the critic’s expectation. Rather, the onus is on the critic, in the words of Eliot, “to understand <i>it</i>.”
<p>
Brooks goes on to make a further misstep when he states that “one can emphasize <i>beauty</i> is truth and throw Keats into the pure-art camp, the usual procedure. But it is only fair to point out that one could stress <i>truth</i> is beauty, and argue with the Marxist critics of the ‘thirties for a propaganda art.” How anything labeled propaganda can be associated with the idea of truth is a bit mystifying as the two would appear to be mutually exclusive, but the real question that emerges from Brooks’ two arguments is, what’s the difference? Clearly Keats didn’t think there was one, which is why he tied the two phrases together and united them as a single thought. The more beautiful something is the more it speaks to the truth inherent within, whether that truth is designed to enlighten or ennoble or inspire. Likewise, the truth inherent in the work of art is born out by its beauty. Certainly there are truths to be had in things that are not beautiful, but that isn’t really Keats’ point. The two phrases belong to one sentence, and begin with the word beauty. In the context of the poem they must be referring to the same specific object. Once the beauty of an object has been established then beauty and truth are interchangeable. Reinforcing this is Brooks best line in the essay, where he finally grants Keats the genius of his own artistry. “This is surely not too much to ask of the reader—namely, to assume that Keats meant what he said and that he chose his words with care.”
<p>
In the opening sentence of the poem, Keats offers an utterly devastating—in its positive sense—example of compression. “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, / Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, / Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:” Though he speaks of quietness and silence, this is light-years away from the comparison Brooks tries to make with MacLeish’s “palpable and mute” fruit. The emphasis here is on the nouns. Keats’ unravish’d bride still holds within her the secrets of history that she has been decorated with. Likewise, she has also been born away from her home like a foster-child who remembers a time long before but can only tell us what it was like, vague reminiscences of something we can never experience for ourselves. And then all of this is summed up in a phrase of almost Shakespearean invention: “sylvan historian.” Again, it’s the noun that informs the previous phrases by demonstrating that the urn itself is not merely a piece of history, but an historian that has the ability to tell us something about the past. As Brooks says, “historians tell the truth.” What is most telling is the adjective sylvan. The urn, while man made, has now become a part of nature, perhaps even reclaimed from the soil in which it was once buried. Like the scientist who examines plants as a way of making any number of deductions about their lives and habitats, the narrator understands that the urn can only reveal its secrets in the same voiceless way. And just like the plant, the urn is able to express her “flowery tale” with an aesthetic quality more pleasing than the poet’s pen.
<p>
In the second half of the first stanza the narrator wonders aloud what secrets the urn has to tell. “What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape / Of deities or mortals, or of both, / In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? / What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” The ring of leaves that frame the scene is similar to that worn by men, thus reminding us of the personification of the urn in the first sentence which also renders the last spoken line of the poem perfectly understandable. The scene it decorates is a legend that “haunts,” a vestige from the past, murky and unclear but vivid enough to seem real, from a time back in time that the ancient Greece of Tempe and Arcady evoke. The male figures might be mortal or might be representations of the gods, as are the maidens they pursue. Loth in this context means reluctance rather than hatred, though it depends on the context. If the “mad pursuit” is love, then reluctance is merely prudence. If it depicts a “struggle to escape,” then hatred would certainly apply. The fact that the scene is accompanied by musicians playing flutes and tambourines implies the former, especially as the narrator goes on to use the phrase “wild ecstasy” to describe it. Nevertheless, all of this is conjecture, a questioning on the part of the narrator who must explore all possibilities—much as the botanist does—before coming to any conclusions.
<p>
Again, Keats uses the next sentence to explain not only what has come before, but what will come after. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; / Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, / Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:” The unheard melodies are like the information offered by the sylvan historian, silent and yet all the more exquisite because of it. As is so often the case with art, the imagination is far more powerful than anything the artist can render. The musician on the urn who plays in perpetual stillness therefore plays for our soul rather than our ears. It’s in the second half of the second stanza that Keats most obviously waxes Shakespearean. “Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave / Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; / Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, / Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; / She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” Comparisons with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18—and there are many others—in which it is the poem itself that forever captures the beauty of the narrator’s lover, are inevitable. Frozen in time upon the urn, the lovers who are serenaded by the silent musician will never touch, will never consummate their love. But the narrator tells them not to grieve because their love will never grow old and never be spoiled, and they will always be beautiful.
<p>
In the opening of the third stanza Keats uses his overlapping technique to good effect by taking a passing phrase from the previous stanza, “nor ever can those trees be bare,” and expanding on it. “Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; / And, happy melodist, unwearied, / For ever piping songs for ever new;” Though in the previous stanza Brooks would have us ponder the fact that perhaps the musician who “canst not leave” is trapped, here we are told he is “unwearied,” as is everything else in the scene. The branches on the trees are just as happy as the musician, as they will never grow old, never lose their leaves and always exist in the full spring of their youth. Keats then expands on this idea for the lovers. “More happy love! more happy, happy love! / For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, / For ever panting, and for ever young; / All breathing human passion far above, / That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, / A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.” The first line is important, because the emphasis here is on the adjective happy. The love that young lovers experience—and even more so because they have yet to consummate their love, “still to be enjoy’d,”—is the most exquisite there can be. And so it is only that happy love that the eternal lovers will share. Keats continues with an impressive description of the heart that is “for ever panting.” First he says that the heart is “high-sorrowful,” as in the bittersweet ache for something not yet possessed. But then he goes on to use the word “cloy’d,” meaning completely full up with desire, which is really an absence. This is a tremendous juxtaposition of ideas, though he ends the stanza with a more prosaic comparison of unconsummated love to a fever in the final line.
<p>
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In the fourth stanza Keats shifts his gaze completely—to another scene on the urn in the conceit of the poem, though in reality probably an entirely different work of art. Here he witnesses a religious rite being performed. “Who are these coming to the sacrifice? / To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, / And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?” If there’s a stanza that’s confusing, it’s this, not the final one. Keats repeats the same kind of questioning from the end of the first stanza, wondering aloud exactly what these people are doing, especially the “mysterious priest,” but the rest is primarily description. From the foreground scene Keats then shifts to the background. “What little town by river or sea shore, / Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, / Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? / And, little town, thy streets for evermore / Will silent be; and not a soul to tell / Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.” The issue is that Keats has devoted fully three stanzas to the lovers and the musician, only to shift to unanswered questions about this new scene that suggest there is no background at all and we are simply left to imagine whether these people lived by the sea or in the mountains. Brooks, however, manages deftly to remind the reader of the purpose of the urn in the poem, and that Keats’ intention here is “thoroughly relevant to the sense in which the urn is a historian.” Thus, instead of seemingly being taken in a different direction by the poet in this stanza, he is actually returning full circle to the main idea rather than allowing us to be so transported by the timeless lovers that we forget our purpose, which comes finally in the fifth stanza. According to Brooks:
<p>
The “reality” of the little town has a very close relation to the urn’s character as a historian. If the<br>
earlier stanzas have been concerned with such paradoxes as the ability of static carving to convey<br>
dynamic action, of the soundless pipes to play music sweeter than that of the heard melody, of the<br>
figured lover to have a love more warm and panting than that of breathing flesh and blood, so in the<br>
same way the town implied by the urn comes to have a richer and more important history than that<br>
of actual cities. Indeed, the imagined town is to the figured procession as the unheard melody is to<br>
the carved pipes of the unwearied melodist.
<p>
The beginning of stanza five also finds Keats returning to the first stanza in the way that he once again addresses the urn directly. “O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede / Of marble men and maidens overwrought, / With forest branches and the trodden weed;” Attic is a reference to another region of ancient Greece and, along with the weaving together of branches, men and maidens on the urn, is taking the reader back to the first stanza literally as well. The next sentence is probably the most important in terms of understanding the final stanza. “Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought / As doth eternity:” Thought, in this context, is the mind filled with the cogitations of everyday life. The “silent form” of the urn is then able to release the viewer from those mundane thoughts in order to focus on something else, in the same way that the contemplation of eternity makes us think of things beyond ourselves. These scenes of everyday life in a time long past, will eventually be no different than the viewer’s life, swallowed up by the distant march of time. “Cold Pastoral!” the poet addresses the urn in another cunning juxtaposition, a lifeless piece of clay that nevertheless has the power to conjure the bucolic reality of those long dead and give solace to those in the present. “When old age shall this generation waste, / Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe / Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, / ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”
<p>
Brooks makes a nice observation about the word generation here, which is in keeping with Keats’ own use of juxtaposition. The verb form of the word implies action, things being generated, people being continually created as in the breed (brede) of the men and women who inhabit the urn peopling the earth down to the present day. But as a noun, along with Keats’ reference to the wasting of that generation, the word conveys the finite amount of time that humans have to live. And still the urn remains, a friend to future generations in the way that it will continue to inform the human soul. More importantly than the “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” line, however, is the context in which it is presented. This is all that we can know on earth. Things beyond our sensory perception will forever remain beyond them, and the urn is letting us know that this is as it should be. It’s all we need to know. The implication is that in setting our sights on things beyond our knowledge we ignore all the aesthetic truth that the world has to offer right now. Whether we believe that a god created that beauty or not, the emphasis of life needs to be on allowing beauty to “tease us out of thought” so that we don’t wind up mired in our own “woe” all our lives. The search for love, the creation of music, the attention to duty, these are all to be done with the consciousness of the truth inherent in all of these actions, and the more beautiful they are the better.
<p>
It’s clear by the end of Brooks’ essay that his initial unfairness is simply his way of playing devil’s advocate. Despite some minor quibbles, his respect for the author and the assumption of authorial preeminence in analyzing the author’s work become obvious the deeper the reader gets into the text. In looking at those elements of juxtaposition in Keats’ poem, which Brooks calls irony, his respect for the author is evident. “The purpose in emphasizing the ironic undercurrent in the foregoing lines is not at all to disparage Keats—to point up implications of his poem of which he was himself unaware. Far from it: the poet knows precisely what he is doing. The point is to be made simply in order to make sure that we are completely aware of what he is doing.” And this gets to the very heart of what it means to analyze literature: the assumption that the author knows what he or she is doing. The first step in finding meaning in literature is to understand what the literature means in and of itself, “‘to mean’ with a vengeance,” rather than bringing to the work preconceived theories or ideas that turn Keats’ “well-wrought urn” into something unrecognizable. This is something Brooks deals with convincingly in his conclusion:
<p>
If we can see that the assertions made in a poem are to be taken as part of an organic context, <br>
if we can resist the temptation to deal with them in isolation, then we may be willing to go on to<br>
deal with the world-view, or “philosophy,” or “truth” of <i>the poem as a whole</i> in terms of its dramatic <br>
wholeness: that is, we shall not neglect the maturity of attitude, the dramatic tension, the emotional <br>
<i>and</i> intellectual coherence in favor of some statement of theme abstracted from it by paraphrase.
<p>
And nothing could be more beautiful than the truth of the author’s words allowed to stand on their own and conveying all their meaning to us in “silence and slow time.”
neslowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01892301715353558045noreply@blogger.com0