It's an important reminder that even now the battle lines are drawn, and intentionally obscured. While people are told by Fox 'News', or ignorant wealthy narcissists that the battle lines are around the woke versus 'true patriots', the battle is really organized wealth versus people.
While pawns are indoctrinated as 'patriots' they parrot what they are told without any thought. They are told nonsense like the election was stolen, caravans of drug dealers and rapists are passing through the southern border in order to vote in our elections and take well-paying jobs as executives and senior managers, "Big Solar" is lying about climate change, healthcare for all will result in 2-3 year waiting periods to be seen by a doctor, and that regulation and enforcement of things like food and water safety, and air pollution are just examples of a big, bloated, "Big Nanny" government intruding in our lives -and controlling women's bodies is, I can't even explain using MAGA logic.
This is all about misdirection and greed. Misdirection divides us while democracy, justice, and the quality of life for this and future generations are siphoned off and given to the already wealthy in the form of tax cuts and privatization.
The South was all about the concentration and preservation of wealth (and slavery was the egregious method used to enrich already wealthy white landowners).
The same battle lines are drawn today -the cultists and/or the willfully ignorant are just intentionally directed at the wrong arena.
"The South was all about the concentration and preservation of wealth (and slavery was the egregious method used to enrich already wealthy white landowners).
The same battle lines are drawn today -the cultists and/or the willfully ignorant are just intentionally directed at the wrong arena."
Economic motivations were only weakly tracked in the history I learned in school. Figuring in and following "the love of money" makes it all so much more comprehensible.
In 1966-1968 I was in the Army, and before and after I went to Vietnam I was stationed in Columbia as part of the army of the occupation of the south. In Vietnam several soldiers were caught stealing selector switches to turn M-14s and M-16s into automatic weapons to use in the pending race war that we were told was coming.
On return, off post, there was still segregation. Everyone was on edge. It was still Dixie exhibiting "massive resistance" to us Yankees. E.G. Walter Cronkite was deemed too radical to be shown on local TV, so we never got the news the way it actually was. We were "on call" and were told something was "up."
After discharge, riots erupted nationally, and as our cities burned I was recalled.
"Same battle lines." I agree. These days, the best I can do is volunteer - to Field Team 6.
Your story is one I’ve never heard, Daniel. It stopped me in my tracks. Suggests, as I’ve always suspected, that the MAGA elements have been there, perhaps more hidden, throughout our US history. And now they’ve been given permission by Trump to come out again with vitriol and violence.
So true, always there (white racist Protestant Christian Nationalism, i.e., KKK) and now financial backing by the oligarchs. "What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank, 2004. American history has some very ugly aspects (enslaving captured Africans, the genocide of Native Americans, the stealing of their homeland, Jim Crow and now Donald Trump.) We are the hope for redemption.
Does anyone know what has happened to Thomas Frank? I've looked and looked but can't find any opinion pieces by him for at least the last year or so. I really miss his dry wit writing about these frightening times!
Churchill knew all about that, he was quoted as saying that if Hitler attacked the devil, he would have a kind word to say about him, or something like that. Enemies don’t forever remain so, nor do friends. We are proof.
If you’re interested and haven’t read it, Richard Hoftstader’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (or something close to that) it is an excellent explanation of how belief in conspiracy theories about plots to undermine American “freedom” are long and deep in our history.
I’d also suggest Patrick Moynihan’s “Pandaemonium: ethnicity in international politics” …. He presciently pointed out in 1992 what we are now hearing and seeing in the complaints from MAGA nation: “the civil rights act of 1964 was the very embodiment of the liberal expectancy. ‘Race, color, religion, sex, national origin’: all such scripture categories were outlawed. No one was to be classified in such primitive terms. The government was to become colorblind. However within hours of the enactment of the statute, in order to enforce it, the federal government, for the first time, began to require ever more detailed accountings of subgroups of every description —job trainees, kindergarten, children, teachers, university faculties, debt office secretaries — terms of race, color, and national origin…[A]n application form to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University now states “It is to your advantage to state if you are a member of an ethic minority.” Quoting from Caste and Class in a Southern Town” by John Dollard, 1949.
If we want to pull all people together, we have to stop treating them differently.
Absolutely - great point! I live among people who are “trumpers” (1/6 angers them - you don’t beat up cops). But all this categorization of people is like a thorn in their sides. “Which race!” Then all these categories that are so specific- then “white”. Even I got 😡. If everyone else got “special categories” why was I just a color? And I’m not “white”. I’m Caucasian. I can just “hear” those “angry white men” who are around me grumbling about those categories. It’s the same with gender. Why does “everything” need to know a person’s gender? You doctor needs to know but not everything else. We are “supposed to be equal” - so stop putting us in categories.
They have always been there, partly because wealthy white southerners make sure that their only status was being superior to black people and would not make common cause. Native Americans were considered part of the fauna and were just in the way to Manifest Destiny. All it takes in an atmosphere as in the 1920s to bring these people to the fore. Now we have culture wars and some progress for minorities and women, so let' turn back the clock to at least 1864 and put all these people back where they belong. The 1864 law, btw, had a lot more in it than just abortion.
Worse yet, "normalized" like a 'coming out party' of sorts (sincere apologies for any unintentional derivations contrivable; Honestly..., but it's what comes immediately to my mind).
When I moved from New England to Southern VA (near Yorktown/ Williamsburg area) 30 years ago, I was shocked to learn the Civil War still raged. In my quiet little county in the last couple of years the confederate flag has been raised high on flag poles on the three major routes into the county. It's sickening. While there are Trumpians and "confederates" still even in the North, I am moving back to the North. To New Hampshire, where the snow still falls (to remind me that it's important to vote blue even for the issue of climate change) and, if there is to be another physical civil war, I hope to be among like minded people.
I'm in a discussion group with Virginians and a few interlopers like me who used to live in the old dominion. They are among those who have come a long way. Until recently, the Tidewater was dominated by Pat Robertson and his minions. They may not have a Democratic governor, but Abigail Spanberger, who may be your representative will make a hell of a governor, and both senators are blue.
I am hoping that after the June 18 primary all of the candidates will partner with FT 6. Since Tim Kaine and Spanberger run state wide, increasing their base will increase all Democratic candidates in the down ballots.
I’ll be doing what I can to get Rob Wittman out of Congress in Virginia’s 1st District, and Spanberger into the governor’s office. Thanks for the links.
NH is a "purple" state when it comes to voting. But be aware, in my experience, it is a lot more conservative. So, it may be a search for "like minded" people. Compared to other NE states, NH has very lax gun laws (permit less carry-open or concealed) which may be a double-edged sword if there were to be another physical civil war.
NH is complicated. We live nearby in MA. On occasion we need to visit NH for an appointment. While there are "enclaves" that are sane, there are a LOT of whackadoodle Trumpers with guns and big flags on their pickups.
That being said, I feel safer there than when we visit family in Florida.
I was on a destroyer on the Golf of Tonkin at the end of the war and we experienced the same thing. In the sleeping births where we slept with 50 to 60 fellow sailors, there were white, black, brown and from all over the country. The tension was so high that one white and one black would keep watch throughout the night to make sure no one attacked the other. And to this day, I can’t figure out why there was any tension because we all had the same goal. To have a job, work for our country and make our lives better. Sure, we served our country but during the recession we all just needed a job and the Navy seemed like a good option.
Walter Cronkite too radical?? Wow. He was just what every journalist should be. 1968 was an upside down world, but it allowed me to see so much in a different way. I saw it as a plus. Others saw it as opportunity to deceive. When I became a Dem for life.
In 1968, Blacks in Dixie were relegated to second class citizenship. The Dixiecrat/Republican boss in South Carolina was Strom Thurmond, demagogue par excellence, abject hypocrite, who all the while had a Black love child.
I was a White girl in kindergarten in Georgia in 1968. We sang “Dixie” in class and I’m told that there was a dust up because I liked a Black boy. The older kids played Civil War at recess and my 3 cousins who were from Washington state were the Union soldiers (except my cousin Mary, who was relegated to being their nurse). Times have changed, but not enough.
She did well. Thurmond never visited with her when she was a child but he took care of her monetarily. Her name was Essie Mae Williams. She received her masters in education. She didn’t even know that he was her father until she was 78 yrs old.
When I moved to Alabama in the late 70's as a northerner I was shocked to realize that the Civil War was not over in the minds of many. I discovered that there was such a thing as Southern hospitality. Also they do not think of themselves as racists because they socialize with friends who are black. But they did gloat about paying out of their own pocket to ship busloads of blacks to NYC for welfare that they thought would contribute to the then financial problems of NYCity.
A reaction to "freedom riders" in the south was shipping Black populations north. A friend documented how his family and all his old neighbors were forcibly shipped from Cheraw, South Carolina to Farrell, PA and Fitchburg, MA.
The Nixon administration used busing to divide the old FDR Democratic Party alliances. Although our schools were always desegregated, we were targeted and forced to close the only elementary school in a predominately Black neighborhood and bus most kids, of all races. We represented all third class (i.e. not Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) in litigation.
I grew up in a small town in West Texas (Monahans, pop. 10,000.) We integrated our high school in 1956 - five Black students, without incident. We didn't even know that they lived in town. They were bussed to school in Odessa, 36 miles away. I learned that integration in the schools here in Polk County, Florida didn't come about until 1969, the result of litigation. Racism is a factor here. I'd move back to California but I can't afford to do that now, and I'm not poor. An average 3-BR home with 2 baths in San Jose goes for $2.5 million now.
At about 2 am this morning I heard a lot of rapid pop, pop, more than once. It didn't sound like the jerk going down the street and deliberately backfiring and it didn't sound like fireworks. I also heard no sirens, so who knows. I have heard gunshots in the neighborhood which I am sure is bristling with guns.
Did hear a couple recently that were definitely gunshots and close by with shouting. We have some jerks quite close by who are Oregunians. Also shoot off tons of fireworks including late at night during holidays. We also have a dope who has his car fixed to backfire rapidly. Woke me up one night and I thought at first it was gunshots.
I was raised in Texas where my seventh grade English teacher (1958) talked about reconstruction, carpet baggers, scaliwags, and damn yankees. The Klu Klux Clan is what saved Texas. This she was taught by her grandmother. For many my age the war never ended.
Money could be one of the "roots of all evil." It has company: racism, greed, indifference, ignorance, greater-nation chauvinism, religious fundamentalism, etc.
I see money as being the root to all the things you mention. Isn't each entity you mentioned related to money? Why is there racism? To make enslavers rich. Why is there greed? For more money. Why is there indifference? I got mine. Ignorance is often rooted in poverty. etc, etc.
I forgot one. Please, ladies, forgive me: In addition to racism, greed, indifference, ignorance, greater-nation chauvinism, religious fundamentalism, etc. there is misogyny. How could I have overlooked perhaps the oldest and most ingrained aspects of "evil?"
Richard, this female thanks you. What more do we have to prove to males, who still think their power is in being “stronger” than we? Time we got together solving problems instead of fighting each other. It’s a tough call, but go read Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and get wise, guys.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -Thoreau
The Bible called "the love of money" the root of all evil, and while I agree it's more complicated than that, it was very much on the right track. It appears to me that we use the word "love" in a sense of intense self-gratification like "I love chocolate" as well as "love" in the sense of what we care about, nurture, and protect, as in "I love my child". There can be overlap and the two can be confused, which I think leads to a lot of clueless conflict. Money in and of itself is clearly in the former category
Lord Acton was not the first to observe that "power tends to corrupt", and money is a form of power, as is political position, and violence, and the more corrupt the society, the more easily these forms of potentially extortionate power are exchanged for one another. I'm not trying to claim that it's as just simple as that, but you can see the toxic blend in historical fascism. Yet also in real-world communism. It is all about assumed supremacy, and all about the narcissistic desire to dominate.
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." - Lincoln
Money, interestingly, is the one thing that one never has enough of. Look at Musk and Bezzos - billionaires, yet they fight against their employees unionizing to get livable wages.
Well, it appears my redneck pal and HDT have similar ideas! Thanks for your interesting and enlightening expansion of my comment. There’s a lot of food for thought there. I do so love that Lincoln quote!
The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Money is a tool. When lusting after it, accumulating it, becomes the main goal instead of using it in positive ways it becomes destructive and evil.
"Mr. James Ford Rhoades recounts the long preliminaries of the War and shows us, all lucidly and humanely, the Southern mind of the mid-century in the very convulsions of its perversity--the conception that, almost comic in itself, was yet so tragically to fail to work, that of a world rearranged, a State solidly and comfortably seated and tucked-in, in the interest of slave-produced Cotton.
The solidity and the comfort were to involve not only the wide extension, but the complete intellectual, moral and economic reconsecration of slavery, an enlarged and glorified, quite beatified, application of its principle. The light of experience, round about, and every finger-post of history, of political and spiritual science with which the scene of civilization seemed to bristle, had, when questioned, but one warning to give, and appeared to give it with an effect of huge derision: whereby was laid on the Southern genius the necessity of getting rid of these discords and substituting for (374) the ironic face of the world an entirely new harmony, or in other words a different scheme of criticism. Since nothing in the Slave-scheme could be said to conform--conform, that is, to the reality of things--it was the plan of Christendom and the wisdom of the ages that would have to be altered. History, the history of everything, would be rewritten ad usum Delphini--the Dauphin being in this case the budding Southern mind. This meant a general and a permanent quarantine; meant the eternal bowdlerization of books and journals; meant in fine all literature and all art on an expurgatory index. It meant, still further, an active and ardent propaganda; the reorganization of the school, the college, the university, in the interest of the new criticism. The testimony to that thesis offered by the documents of the time, by State legislation, local eloquence, political speeches, the "tone of the press," strikes us to-day as beyond measure queer and quaint and benighted--innocent above all; stamped with the inalienable Southern sign, the inimitable rococo note. We talk of the provincial, but the provinciality projected by the Confederate dream, and in which it proposed to steep the whole helpless social mass, looks to our present eyes as artlessly perverse, as untouched by any intellectual tradition of beauty or wit ..."
Today's GOP - molded by the Southern Strategy and Newt Gingrich's fallacious but disciplined rhetoric - is established by the blood heirs and spiritual heirs of the Confederacy. The operative syllable being the first - con.
“Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,” he said.
Pretty much the last 11,000 years of human history can be explained by two main principles: the “haves” have to remain the haves; and the haves have to lord over and be protected from the rabble.
"But by the end of the conflagration, the institution of human enslavement as the central labor system for the American South was destroyed. " Replace "human enslavement" to "Immigrants" you see the current system.
Wow, George! I’ve rarely heard the situation portrayed so concisely and fully! Thank you!
The big difference today is that it’s not large tracts of land that are prized so much as large stock portfolios. The companies who raised costs due to supply chain problems four years ago have kept them high to reward their “Mastahs” with stock buybacks resulting in higher costs for the rest of us. Then blame the President for not stopping greedflation. I hope that they revive the excess profits tax.
Thank you Mary. When people talk about a rigged game they are really talking about a runaway economic system that has corrupted the political system. The extreme concentration of wealth makes any form of meaningful democracy impossible.
To do that, we have to double the number of justices to the Supreme Court, institute 15 year term limits, and stagger the limits to appoint 2 new judges every year — no exceptions to keep seats open when a justice dies or retires unexpectedly.
The greater irony is that we were making progress in that direction and the preponderance of the public was persuaded to abandon the effort.
Money is the way we get things done, and we can't operate a campaign or government on any scale without money being involved. That said, we can't get far in physical space without movement of inherently dangerous vehicles, even bikes, so we regulate speed and circumstances and methods of operation. It is just as crazy to fail to regulate money in politics as to fail to regulate vehicular traffic in school zones.
Money is indeed a system and the value of its tokens is contextual, as we see in the latest waves of Greedflation. Confederate money has value only as a collector's item. There are healthy patterns of flow around the whole of a society and unhealthy flows in any society, including the problems of government corruption and organized crime. "Robber barons", whether in feudal times, era of slavery, or the "Gilded Age" are the problem, not the solution.
The system of “Robber barons” and the “Gilded Age” is exactly what I thought when I reviewed the Republican Project 2025. They want to turn the United States into a “Feudal System”. That’s when I realized that there could be no compromise. I have been telling the “angry white men” I am around about the MAGA Project 2025 plan. They laugh 😂 when I asked them if they thought of various things in Project 2025. Their answer was “Are those people out of their “f**king minds??? I repeat - these are the kind of angry white men being targeted.
Americans need to know what MAGA (aka) Republicans have planned for the United States with Project 2025 and Agenda 47.
Just got into The Anatomy of Fascism. You have hit a l9t of what I have read. The wealthy and powerful are purposefully using the system to destroy the system so they can then remake it to their desire....protecting their wealth and ability to get even more.
That is the purpose of the Convention of the States.
Thanks Rickey. I try to make the concepts more accessible to people so (some) can gain more understanding about what is happening -which ultimately impacts all of us.
Reagan is famed for disparaging government, but the government he wanted to dismantle was government of the people, by the people, for the people and replace it with rule by the rich. "Supply side economics" reviving the old feudal argument the it is those who control concentrated wealth who are the natural leaders and benefactors of society, evidence be damned.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
The oligarchs still want slaves: people who must work hard to barely afford a roof over their heads. The recent increases in slave wages and workers’ ability to procure health insurance without depending on the slaveholders constitute an uprising. Steps must be taken. Rollbacks in pay and worker benefits. Get rid of water breaks for “field hands” working in the southern sun. Get rid of child labor laws; young slaves are likely to be less uppity. And women? Well, they need to know their place as Handmaidens to the real masters.
Jesus, will this never end? How many generations will it take?
It will take courage, short and long term effort, and vigilance. This battle preceded us and will continue to rage until democracy rests upon the pillars of an educated, informed, and engaged society.
that's the key! Keeping the people educated ( Pay teachers better wages , invest in public ed, Bic ed courses, types of govts, peoplescrights, rise and fall of democracy. )
When the public has to work endless hours and raise families they have little time to cate about govt until voting day, if that. That's the conundrum..getting people engaged. Democracy is not a spectator sport
Engaged in extending and protecting the rights of one another. That is the condition of liberty, universal rights and responsibilities to uphold them for all. Bit that gets fudged without commitment.
It is important to remember it is a marathon relay and not a sprint. Take care of yourself and health first. Zen breathing. Nature. Friends and family.
It appears to me that we as a society pay too little attention to the concept of wisdom. It seems to me like a hard thing to actually define, but I believe that it is at least in part a keen attention to the "big picture" as well as nuances, and a pragmatic awareness of which parts of an overwhelmingly connected and nuanced universe are most fruitful to attend to. Not only learning, but sensing what "most matters". what we notice and what we think about is at least as important as the capacities and exercise of our neural systems. What we feel is at least as essential to our sense of being as what we think, and how we are able to integrate the two.
My daughter was joyous when she had her first loose baby tooth, but she knew that meant was growing up, not just losing a precious tooth. I was part of a conversation in which one woman spoke of her first menstruation, having been given no preparation to expect it. She was terrified. Exchange of conversation and attempts to understand one another's experiences extends and refines our internal realm of sentience, and enriches our real world encounters.
An excellent thought-provoking comment just before retiring this app for my evening. I am reminded of Noam Chomsky’s book ‘Miseducation in America’ (or similar title). We don’t place much significance in empathetic philosophers and thinkers. We just want obedient hyperconsumers.
The desire for wealth,power & control never dies! And it’s camouflaged with inaccuracy! One would think the MAGA facade would be penetrated and exposed, but the “both sides” philosophy is a roadblock!
Excellent post, George, to explain how the wealthy power hungry few manipulate swaths of the population who are angry because the same plutocrats sent their jobs overseas, ruined companies by taking all the assets and then closing them, by stirring the culture pot and ranting about immigration. Most of us would not eat without migrants. All manner of scut work is done by them: landscaping, roofing, finishing cement work, fixing potholes (losing their lives in Baltimore), tree service, all the jobs white Americans do not want to do. Like the sewer street improvement project on front of our house, the white boys with their death star stickers and often tattered flags would not have this work without the federal government. And one of the things I learned many years while there was a large project at the school: i spoke to one the workers about something wrong with the flooring that he was not a floor dog, so the pecking order is everywhere.
Thank you Michele. To your important point, that pecking order is continually used to divide us through what john a. powell at Berkeley/Haas would call ‘othering’.
And it is not a coincidence that this flip-flop of politics followed Richard Nixon's implementation of "the Southern Strategy" to bring the unreconstructed Confederate traitors into the Republican Party 56 years ago. Now the "Party of Lincoln" is the Party of Southern Treason.
Though Republicans were at least embarrassed by some of Nixon's outed conduct. It's my opinion that Nixon did not have to go to jail to underline that that there are lines even presidents dare not cross, but I think that was largely sabotaged by Nixon's pardon. So much for equal justice under law. Now Republicans argue that the (Republican) king can do no wrong.
O_M_G_ George... Salute ! In five well crafted and succinct paragraphs in your comments last night, some 14 hours ago EST, you revealed to me that you not only have the very same conclusions I have held for decades now, but an awesome gift to boil them down to their essence and communicate to share them simply, far better than I. Profound gratitude, admiration, and yes..... Salute friend !
What a terrible disaster was the Civil War. I was born and raised in Maryland, a segregated state the significance of which I didn’t comprehend until I was in an all white high school. Then I discovered that not far from where I lived was an all black community. The children wee all bused a long distance to an all black high school on the other side of the county. The University of Maryland was close to where I lived. Students there every year held so-called minstrel shows. They were very popular in their racial baiting of whites featured with black faces. Funny then but horrific as I matured into understanding about segregated
schools and in every aspect of our segregated society. Thankfully, as I went away to college and graduate school I was part of integrated situations including lasting friendships with black friends. Martin Luther King became the most influential person in my life. Civil rights became my cause including involvement as a Presbyterian minister with other church leaders of all faiths in the civil rights movement In Mississippi. That included a brief stay in the county jail of several of us. Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, my favorite author these days, for her article above. Her daily articles are the first thing I read every morning.
Your post brought back memories of 70 years ago that are both fond and cringe-worthy. I was born and raised in Rhode Island, a state that was not segregated by law, but was so in practice. I attended a Catholic primary school that lay at the edge of a part of Providence that was rapidly changing to a mostly Black population. Every year the school put on a minstrel show involving all six grades, including my own. We had Mr. Bones, Mr. Interlocutor, the whole shebang. I can't remember if these "End Men" were in blackface or not, but I can remember that their jokes seemed funny, and the skill of these older kids was impressive to a seven-year old boy. The parents in the audience loved it, and the little kids, including me, had fun doing the show.
My England-born mother did have one Black friend, whom I met occasionally, but other than that I had no knowledge of or interaction with Black people. Just that they existed. We later moved to an all-white suburb, and I attended an all-white Catholic high school. It wasn't until I went to college that I had the opportunity to meet and interact with a number of Black students. It was not until then that it occurred to me that the minstrel show in which I had participated so many years before might have been offensive to Black people. This coincided with the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
Civil rights became my cause during those years, as it did yours, and has remained so ever since. We still strive, so many years later, to make the promise of America available to all her citizens.
I recall my mother helping me and my sisters whip up some last minute Halloween costumes. I became, with black face and a red bandana scarf "Aunt Jemima".
Horrifying to recall that that could have been in any way acceptable.
Empathy needs to be a pillar of our collective educations. The extreme lack of it produces a sociopath. I think there is a bit of "Mr. Hyde" in us all.
But..., such words ought not to be banned from our 'utilization' of them. And as for those POS's who would take what's written out-of-context...? I have some cement blocks and a chain and live near a deep river. Clearly, you understand that maintaining a "civil society" is important. Dumbing things down stifles education. Manners, politeness, civility. Kindness.
My NJ community was white. In grade school and high school desegregation came in the form of one black family. I was totally unaware of racism in our school as we had no minstrel shows. I do remember one friend's father making what I thought was a very unfunny comment at the table one night. My friend was horrified and whispered to me, "he is just kidding." I knew he wasn't.
My mother cried when Martin Luther King died. I had never traveled further south than Maryland so I thought the South was just poor people. When the Carter/Ford election came, my first time voting, although I was very down on Nixon and his pardon my distrust of the South prevailed over my distrust of a government that had recently been caught in numerous lies and I cast my vote for Ford. I was totally unaware that I carried my own prejudices.
My dad was a member of the Elks. I remember their doing a minstrel show I guess as a fund raiser for the mentally challenged. This would have been probably 60 years ago. My only encounter with such shows, but common at the time.
Our sense of what was amusing was very different in the 30s. Maybe many of you will not remember black and white movies, but blackface routines were simply part and parcel of entertainment.Stereo typing was so common we didn’t even recognize it. Al Jolson and Jimmy Cagney were popular movie attractions. To tell the truth we thought it all very innocent. For many this kind of exposure was our only acquaintance with black people. We didn’t get daily news on the television to reveal the truth. Lynching, segregation, extreme poverty were not topics of conversation for those of us still feeling the effects of the Depression. We were, quite simply, unaware. When we did wake up to reality we did our part for Civil Rights, for humanity. None of the above is meant to be an excuse for bad behavior, more of a comment on the media.
It's complicated. I never saw a minstrel show and somehow got the sense they were not respectable from pretty early on, but saw plenty of racist stuff in movies and TV, as well as out and about in northern Ohio. At the time it seemed innocuous. Some of that same cluelessness has surfaced over time, and I don't doubt that some of that early cluelessness is still with me.
People were focused on that great new invention called the “talkies”. They just wanted to laugh again after the Great Depression. I know I lived in a rarified atmosphere, but the people I knew did not think of that kind of entertainment as insulting to anyone. Neither would anyone I knew wear the flag or think of voting as anything less than a privilege and a duty. My neighbors lived within blocks, not within thousands of miles,so yes, attitudes were certainly parochial. Jet travel, even the interstate were some years in the future. We heard whatever classical music we knew on the radio, and we thought Bing Crosby was a fine, upstanding, family man. What did we know? Back then who would have dreamt that I would participate in sit-ins, or join the Teacher Corps?
Thank you Jean. It is understandable that there are readers and posters here on this forum who did not experience what you so truthfully and innocently recounted. Even to the extent of questioning how you can possibly relate that in such a non-remorseful manner or tone. At the same time, lots of people can't imagine that even well-traveled roads were still dirt and impassable in the 30's, 40's, 50', and into the civil-rights 60's. A lot of societies ills didn't travel farther than 25 miles (of mud) back then in a more rural America. The "mud" admittedly is different today, but still mud (or worse). Please consider that hindsight is so 20/20 and as kids (then or now) we are too busy with day-to-day "stuff" to fathom what the long term effect of our behavior 'might' be. No? Truth be damned, then. I can relate well to what you wrote.
Yes. I am 75 years old and raised in a small town near Scranton Pa. I saw at least two minstrel shows. One in the Catholic Youth Center and another performed by our student teacher in her farewell. Our town was all white but I did have an advantage in that for third and fourth grade my mother moved us to South Ozone Park on Queens N.Y where I attended PS 155 and was befriended by three classmates in particular ,Stanley, Edward and Edith. I was lonely and missed my hometown. Those three kids were so kind and welcoming to me. One moment stands out. While we were waiting “ on line” for the bell to ring for us to go to our classroom, Edward and Stanley Asked me to settle an argument they were having ; which one of them was blacker? Even as an eight year old it struck me as sad that these two kids saw being lighter skin was better. To think that something so much a part of you is something you don’t like.
My sense is that due to what I think, humans tend to be insecure hence the need to feel superior to the other. That is why we see forms of discrimination everywhere. We are more familiar with racial discrimination but elsewhere and historically it can and does take the form of religious discrimination, ethnic discrimination, etc. There always seems to be someone that one can feel superior to.
And it seems any “difference” can trigger aggression or exclusion. I remember a study, many years ago, when a researcher would paint a spot on a chicken, resulting in the rest of the flock pecking the “marked” bird - even to death. Something similar was done with moths and the unmarked moths would not mate with the marked ones.
I believe there is some inborn tendency to label “us” and “them.” A classroom experience separated the kids by eye color and ultimately had to be terminated when kids with the “better” eye color began bullying the “other” kids. But we can be better than moths and chickens and blue-eyed children. Why do we not choose to be?
I like to watch film and video from many different parts of the world, and one frequent feature of schoolyard scenes is nasty bullies. Perhaps it's in our genes, though it is also mitigated to a greater or lesser degree by society. What does bullying do for a society? What does bullying do to a society, let alone its victims? I read somewhere recently that a very high percentage of people sent to prison have a history of being abused. Perhaps an ounce of prevention is worth a great deal of unreliable "cure".
I read that most of the worst dictators, who cumulatively killed millions, were abused by a parent. Yet it doesn’t seem like preventing bullying or domestic/family violence is a very high priority, does it?
In my 12 years in the Medford, OR school system, I can only recall one Black student, and that was for half a year my junior year. My senior year, we put on a musical, "The US is Us" (it was, after all, the 1975-1976 school year, the "Bicentennial Year") and the only time I ever saw make-up used to turn a white person Black was when the choir featured a classmate as Harriet Tubman, who sang an amazing rendition of "Follow the Drinking Gourd".
Medford was and is racist as hell. At least no "minstrel shows". That I know of.
I started high school in 1964, in Milledgeville, GA. I had black classmates from then through graduation. It wasn’t forced integration, but voluntary desegregation, so my black classmates were there because they and their families wanted them to be. The white high school was acknowledged as better than the black high school, but our marching band couldn’t hold a candle to theirs, and the best singers in our high school chorus were black students. None of us white singers would have dared attempt “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, especially not in blackface, and not then.
The year after I graduated, the school systems consolidated, and a new, private, all white “academy” was established for students from racist white families who could afford the tuition. From my observation, this happened all over the south.
Oregon. A not much thought-about State, stuck between CA and WA, but kind of a nice place. Not that unlike Maine, just less frosty. However, seems to be pretty f'd up, by what I'm seeing and hearing. Glad it's far away on the Left coast. On Mars would be better, with only dead alien creatures to deal beat up on.
Ally, I moved *back* to Georgia, after 25 years in Buffalo, NY. My boys were young, I was widowed, and their cousins in GA and FL were strangers to them. Also, I got an offer for the job I had always wanted here. It worked out well for us, but the politics here is often frustrating as hell. Sorry, not sorry.
Apparently, the legislature never managed to draft enabling laws to enforce the constitutional provision. Even so, the effect was to declare Blacks unwelcome in Oregon.
I am told that the state's present-day racial demographics reflect that early policy.
I will risk throwing in here: in my country school we did a talent show, put together by students (1948?). All of us had sung spirituals all our lives and belonged to various Christian churches. We knew that back singers were the best, so we sang in black face which would put the best face on our quartet. I have been sad that no one is left to make that statement. I can still sing many verses of many spirituals and have “The Golden Book of Favorite Songs” which contains a lot of them. Music belongs to everyone. It’s survival and blessing through the ages. We still have Verdi’s Othello and I cherish minstrels black or black face.
Whewww!! Black gospel singers. Black churches and church-goers. Quite something to see or hear in person while living 'down South'. I remember in simplicity my mother playing the piano and us singing "Old Black Joe"; reading some of "Mark Twain" along with Homer's Odyssey, and Earth for Sam. Gentler times in my life. Now we have Cap'tn Underpants and the booger-man and guides to transitioning for pre-schoolers. together with Teacher U. graduates who can't spell Illeeadd by some homey. Gag me.., go ahead!
🤣 MadRussian, the liberal arts fell to the Koch brothers’ onslaught. But as Koch industries continues to flourish in Russia, I do wish they’d teach Putin that Russian composers are much better than his wars. At least that would give both Putin and Kochs a small pardon for their sins.
Teacher U graduates who taught me were really good. Now I read that education courses are multiple choice testing. Are fifth graders still taught ancient history? We were in my small country school.
I was watching a documentary on Jazz I think it was and they said. that many of the black gospel songs use only the black keys on the piano. I was really surprised at that and had to sit down at the piano to verify whether that was really true.
The few songs I played really did only use the black keys.
My experience in 1962-63 was that even Oregon promoted racism.
My first year of University was Fall Term at U of Oregon in Eugene. My next two terms were at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. What a big difference in the student body. It was a shock, to say the least that there were NO Black students at OSU. I found out that the Head of the Athletic Department and Head Coaches didn't allow any Black students on their teams and the OSU Administration followed the policy with their Scholarship policy. No Blacks got Scholarships. Or didn't meet the academic standards of OSU. You do realize that at that time that money talked as to who is accepted into University. No doubt it still does.
To this day, I still have a grudge against OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY for their bigotry. I don't think it has changed too much yet..
I have no chance to be racist. When I was in Albany Union High School, my father asked me to befriend two Black sisters and help them adjust to an all White school. I said, "Sure, Dad". Apparently as a Sophomore, I was helping to integrate my High School and didn't even realize it.
Thurgood Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School and was rejected (due to race). Its policy was among his first lawsuits once he became a trailblazing legal force and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice.
That Clarence Thomas sits in his seat is a disgrace.
And on Monday, jury selection will begin. And those who still support T**** will have to face reality: their candidate will be tried in a criminal court, likely to be found guilty of the charges based on the preponderance of evidence. Will this keep them from voting for him in November? Or will his loss (he's a loser, remember) in November make them want to take themselves out of the Union.
I think they will want to take themselves out of the Union but where would they go? Clearly the United States is not a place they love. They only love the chaos and the people who look like them and think like them. No other country would want them. So, the sane people of America must stand up and say, "ENOUGH".
I'm not sure they love the chaos. Chaos is what has overtaken them, irretrievably changing the world in which they grew up. They want to bring back that world and are willing to cause further chaos to try to make that happen. Or worse yet are willing to surrender their liberty to a con man who promises to make that happen for them.
They (R'ss) didn't know what was really going on 'back then' so how can they possibly want to go back to it. When they remark "but, he's done so much" it pretty-well sum's things up. They.. the (R)'s are totally FUBAR.
J L, as more comes out about Nixon, it becomes plain that some of the corruption began back then (contacting Vietnam to undermine Johnson), but it was like a hidden termite infestation. 45 feels emboldened enough to flaunt the venial actions, bragging about how he outwits the laws.
When Nixon died I couldn't get over the pomp and circumstance around his funeral. TV stations preempted , hundreds of people in attendance. Somehow forgotten, the shame he brought to this country.
Publicly asked if he had any regrets about his presidency, he replied "not destroying the tapes". I can only guess, but I don't think he would have dared without his pardon.
Better late than never. This time, right now, is what we have to work with. No more “woulda,shoulda”! What can each of us do in our local area, to get out the vote for democracy and freedom?
Good point. But maybe just one of the times the Dems should have stood up to McConnell and many others. They (the Dems) really seemed to underestimate and failed to recognize the Republicans had not been playing by the rules for some time. They were and continue to make up new rules that serve their purposes. And their purpose - feed and protect the wealth, wealthy & power of unregulated capitalists.
#45 (TFG) can "take credit" for anything. Marching around with that microphone in his hand., the morons of his fan-base: (1) Don't have a problem with it. (2) Don't know the difference. (3) Firmly agree because 'truth' is a forgone ('far' gone is more like it) conclusion. (4) They adore him.., he has done "so much" (please don't ask them). Ugh!! I'd like to see that microphone and his 'bully pulpit' shoved up his elephant (R)ss!! Wouldn't we all? Let's hope we don't squander THAT opportunity. We're on the final lap.. step on the gas!!
James, I am afeared that conviction or not, TrumpMaga will be around longer than the Stars and Bars crushing bigotry requires removing the instruction of hatred from within the family home. When their leaders and their propaganda machines constantly spew it, the children shall be indoctrinated
You're so right. They. Don't. Care. and They. Don't. Believe that Trump has does anything wrong. I've heard several of his followers say, when asked how they feel about all the accusations against him, that they DON'T BELIEVE any of it! That is so unbelievable to me!!
Can you imagine what Lincoln would have thought and said about a presidential candidate whose platform includes promoting dishonesty, greed, ignorance, self-importance, and violence?
That is what I get from my MNJ friends. Cops or cops spouses and NONE of them believe that he has broken any laws, and insist that Biden (never Pence) also having unauthorized possession of classified material (quickly returned) is "just the same" as all those boxes in the Maga Lardo bathroom, and never mention the ones that are undiscovered that went to New Jersey.
The question is not, are all humans created equal, but rather, do we choose to treat them as equals? Not one of us possesses the standing or the competence to assign equality to a fellow human. Humans choose to diminish other humans because they can. Whatever we choose to believe is the source of human life, we are but agents in the process; the source of life is beyond our grasp. Yet, we choose to permit human exploitation because we can. We do have a lot of work to do, don't we?
Our founding documents are based on the assumption of equality of all men (which we now construe as all human beings). We start from that assumption, whatever its source, to attempt to create a more perfect union. We are indeed the agents of that process, and indeed we do have a lot of work to do. Well said.
Just look at the outrage merely recognizing our inherent equality as humans has caused!
Yes, the backlash IS intense and we certainly haven't yet achieved equality, but we should take into cosideration that we're undoing the work of literally thousands of years! Before the American Revolution, talk of equality was only speculative. For anyone to put it into practice (however imperfectly) was mind boggling.
Such an attempt impudently questioned comfortable assumptions and contradicted most long-standing traditions and religious works, and it threatened the very roots of the existing societies, governments, and power structures. It shook the world.
The world is still shaking because of that one idea and its implications.
A significant segment of our society has never shaken to urge to practice feudalism and conquest, as our destruction of indigenous nations and slavery illustrate. That said, we have haltingly pushed the envelope of equal justice, and yet the battle continues to rage.
Good point. People are born with varying talents and disabilities into greatly differing circumstances. But I think it is fair to say meaningful justice requires equal human rights.
"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Lincoln
There’s a mythical word we’ve all grown up with FINISHED.
The process once begun is a constant effort to complete the task, best possible.
No project ahead is more consistent for the whole than that of LIFE.
In as honest a statement as ever I’ve made (though what time I have left may render one better) I’ve made mistakes -they were as much a lesson as my consistent and continuing goal to better understand ,improve , be fair and patient.
Our country is young. This spoken of ‘endless fight for equality for all’ is not ours alone.
It IS the highest calling of LOVE. That those least of us can be protected, the middle supports most, and the gifted lend their privilege to.
However, there is always the sector , in any whole-the selfish and those they mislead , who will exist.
I hadn't considered ranking people by their value. Of course, the elites believed the white men are the most valuable and they should be ranked by their assets. And then free black men of color the same way on down to the children of black slaves. But where do women fit it and how to rank them? The patriarchy then (and now to a degree) value women that can and have had babies. But once women are beyond child bearing age, their value would diminish so the re-ranking is never static.
And how can a poor white woman pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Obviously, this is a flawed concept, but even today wealthy white men rank others by their net worth. How else can you explain most Republican politicians who don't have the brains God gave lettuce?
Yes and choosing isn’t episodic like we’ll choose in November and be done with it. Choosing is as close, immediate, and constant as breathing. Choosing is a state or way of being-in-the-world. Choosing is a kind or level of acceptance and honoring of self.
My father, a stanch Republican, is appalled by Trump, his past business dealings and his actions during his presidency. Yet, he has a faith that our constitution and the strength of our government will survive all of this nonsense. I worry that the general population is so caught up in their daily lives that they too, believe, it will all work out for the best.
Here, we are singing to the choir. There is a, not so apparent, general malaise across the nation that keeps Texas women voting for criminals and oppressors, residents of states hit by global warming disasters saying the general rhetoric of democracy at stake and environmental collapse is much a do about nothing.
Hopefully a modern day Lincoln will keep our nation from falling into fascism.
But do we the people understand what is at stake....was my point. You and I do....and all of Heather's subscribers. But that is only a small percentage of the population.
What if it’s not them and us? What if (as a place to stand and look out or consider from, not as truth) what if all those not understanding non-Heatherites ARE US? What if they are an expression, a physical manifestation of all that is incomplete and unfulfilled in OUR lives? That is to suggest that strange as it might be to say or consider, that they actually are us? It’s not us vs. others, ever. Consider there’s no one out there. Or if you prefer “the other” “the one” “the beloved” is out there.
It’s a radical idea and not suggested as a truth or the truth. It’s an approach to radical ownership of everything to consider that it’s YOU (not personal you) out there and not some other. It can be a practice that can lead to insight and actions that work rather than more of the same or changes that are again more of the same.
Said differently, service is interacting with the God over there and giving space to the “junk” rather than interacting with the junk and giving space to the God over there. That’s what the expression Namaste means. I bow to the God within you or that you are.
The more you know God within the more you see God everywhere, as everyone, moving everything, behind everything. What if it’s God seeing out of every eye? What if God speaks every word? What if it’s God doing everything? What if only God exists? It’s the cosmic joke that “we” are here alone and God seems so distant, so inaccessible and it turns out it’s only been God all this time!
A fair question is why would you be thinking of anything other than God? What else is there to attend to?
Again (because we are so forgetful) this is not writing truth to be believed. Truth is far too grand to be captured by or in words. One knows it or is it while it remains ineffable. Paradox to the mind but that’s a limitation of mind not truth.
Allow me to suggest a book in which you will find much thoughtful personal history and social commentary that is close to the theme of your essay here. It is See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (2020), by Valarie Kaur. You can find some of Valarie Kaur's public presentations on YouTube and elsewhere.
You are right about 'choosing', but what is the correct choice? Are we going to share the mind of Christ or harbor jealously? Sharing the mind of Christ is correct...seeing and talking to the Christ with everyone you meet is not only possible, it is essential for correct understanding of true being...try it. Closer than the air you breathe...Christ is the now of life. It is always 'now'.
Can we say, today, that "all men are created equal"?
Clearly some tens of millions of Americans relish public displays of inferiority -- of mental pygmy-ism, delusional nonsense, illiterate ridge-runner talk, and gaseous clouds of lies spun first and foremost by the orange-entertainer-in-chief.
Trouble is, we can't enjoy that show because of the damage it allows dictators like Putin to do to whole countries, the damage it allows medievalists, perjurers, and the bribed on the Clarence court to do to tens of millions of American women denied their health care and personal freedom.
So rather than play dumb, and permit, egg on the reign of the hucksters, let's face it: we can only have equality if our schools have higher standards -- if our schools employ, model, celebrate much higher literate arts. We need to quote those better than us -- artists in many fields -- in detail examining, enjoying the individual lives of others in their circumstances.
Our schools don't do this (for any reasons), the vaudeville goes on.
Phil, I was thinking about Putin doing the same thing to his young people that the Southerners did to theirs. Putin has sent well over half a million of his young people to be slaughtered and maimed. This, of course includes prisoners that have committed no violent crimes that are only unproductive because they spoke out against Putin or were LGBTQ.
If the US killed off or deported a million young people how it would devastate our country.
It's likely it would be even worse than we could imagine.
"If the US killed off or deported a million young people"?
Of course the U. S. government never did do any such thing, but the U.S. billionaire classes did worse -- offshored those millions of working-class jobs. Left the American communities abandoned. Left the schools gutted of humanities and strangled by other billionaires and their regimes of standardized testing. Left the tens of millions of the abandoned working class as prey for other billionaires and their social media hate sites.
I'd only amend your last line, Gary, instead to read, "It's likely it will be even worse than we can imagine."
This is probably a rant for a different time, but I'd argue that the 0.1% did not gut humanities departments directly. What they did was create conditions in which prospective students and their families saw it as more important to get a diploma than to get an education. Far too many of our educational institutions have done the gutting all by themselves, to boost the average salaries of graduates, thus enhancing one aspect of their rankings. Time spent on humanities electives means less time spent on career-related courses. Your comments about the abandonment of communities and of the working class are spot on.
What you doubt, however ("that the 0.1% did not gut humanities departments directly"), sadly also in fact true.
First thing the new Heritage Foundation and an enlarged Hoover Institution did following the 1971 Powell memo was to hunt for, hire, and pay right-wing ideologues to begin writing articles lambasting academics who were active in lefty causes in addition to their other campus work. One message cohered: that academics should stick to their departmental specializations only -- abandon women's rights, La Raza worker issues, Vietnam war rank stupidities, and gay stuff.
Heritage and Hoover paid, organized, persisted all through that decade.
It paid off big-time when another off-shoot of the Powell memo kicked in: ALEC. This, the American Legislative Exchange Council, got into gear a bit more than one year after Heritage and Hoover, but it was enormously funded by far right billionaires and corporate coffers. It hired competent staff, and grew lobbying campaigns at all state legislatures, but first and most mortally at those Republican-leaning.
Remember, James, the Powell memo above everything else saw and hated the power of American humanities. Films, books, and music of the late 1960s galvanized justice concerns brilliantly. And the profiteers of industry and commerce hated these humanities and those who bespoke them.
ALEC's first deliberate target: the tenured. The way to kill them off and their extra-curricular voices was to have U.S. state legislatures begin reducing funding to all the great land grant colleges and universities which had grown across the country since Lincoln signed into law Justin Morrill's land grant legislation for higher education in 1862.
It worked. Tenure slots froze by the early 1980s, then reduced. Colleges and universities began hiring tens of thousands of "contingent" labor, teaching assistants and multiple-campus laborers with semester-by-semester, low pay, no-benefits contracts. In a few years over two-thirds of all U.S. undergrad teaching was being done by the peon scholars, gypsy labor. For the few new tenure slots up for grabs, new pressures for specialization ruled the market. Anyone making references in public to any humanities was a doomed careerist.
Schools of biz ed skyrocketed faster than humanities majors collapsed.
Students not only learned never to reference humanities, but, further, to disappear entirely into group identity silos, all mutually hostile to each other and to anyone and everyone outside each set of ghetto imaginations.
"Theory" killed English departments. Wonk killed all language in all textbooks and all of the new standardized testing which also began to displace humanities at the K-12 levels. (See Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police," 2003).
Corporations began systematic raiding of U.S. campuses, to buy up interests in research at campuses which for more than a century had grown and prized public openness. (See Wendell Berry, "The Unsettling of America," 1977).
Sorry, James, but U.S. billionaires and corporations did deliberately and by organized, hidden means "gut humanities departments directly."
Except, too, in the exchange you cite, our billionaires have also introduced poisonous levels of corruption, cynicism, lies, feudal tax schemes perpetuating the rich, gerrymandering the worst in Congress, and bribery and perjury immunizing the Clarence court.
Phil, thank you for your detailed, informative and passionate response. I was aware of a lot of the things you mentioned but didn't think it part of an organized effort on the part of the billionaire class. Probably a lot of naivete on my part, with a reluctance to ascribe deliberate malice to anyone. This attitude is affected by two things, one of which no longer applies. I'm now four-plus years retired from a civil service position during which I remained studiously apolitical (despite generally liberal sympathies, as I've mentioned elsewhere). It is only recently that I have looked carefully at such things as the Powell memo (What a remarkable document that is, and how injurious its consequences!). The second thing, which continues to affect me, is confusion. Why pursue such a course? What is its purpose? Is it only to acquire more money and power? If so, again, why? I honestly don't get it.
I ended up as a "civil serpent" :-) during what I thought would be a sabbatical from graduate school. I was able to enter grad school, after eight years away from academics, due to sympathetic advisors, who found my background interesting, some savings accrued during a stint in the commercial world, and the support of an extraordinarily patient wife. This was during the time that many of the phenomena you described in your post were taking hold. I remember one very good professor who left his tenured position to enter the administration of the same university at which he taught. He continued to teach occasional courses in between his admin duties because he liked teaching. I didn't understand his decision at the time, until I realized that the money was in administration, not in academics.
I went to grad school just to learn more about subjects in which I was interested, rather than to pursue an academic career. But the further along I got in my studies, the more I found myself headed in that direction. I also encountered the "theory" and "wonk" you note in your post. I learned to speak that language, essential for academic survival, but found it off-putting in the extreme. "Lit-crit" theory seemed to me then, as it does now four decades later, a philosophical dead end. It provides some useful insights into our thinking, and can enhance our understanding of some things, but is basically pointless.
The civil service position for which I diffidently applied was intended as a two-year sabbatical. It turned out to be one in which all my haphazardly acquired skills and abilities were tested to the utmost, in field of endeavor that was beneficial to our country, and in which I enjoyed the company of skilled and dedicated colleagues.
Looking back on what happened to academia in that same period, I can't believe my good luck. I'd almost certainly have ended up as one of those underpaid itinerant adjunct professors looking for a new gig every two years (meaning I'd have spent one year out of two looking for a new job).
The recent proliferation (well, at my age everything seems recent) of right-wing think tanks does support your argument for an organized effort to destabilize and replace our current system of government. I'm reluctant to call it a conspiracy, because it's being done right in the open. These places provide rocks under which their occupants can slither and hibernate when non-believers hold positions of power. They then re-emerge when conditions are favorable for them to wreak their havoc. Hoover is probably the most "normal" of these (Note: I'm on their mailing list). They're often wrong, but never in doubt. Claremont is, I think, the most recent and the most extreme, increasingly out of touch with reality. Heritage, as the perpetrator of Project 2025, is the most dangerous (whose heritage? one might ask).
I find your argument persuasive. Maybe at some other time we can discuss the personalities involved, the sort of people whom TR once described as the "malefactors of great wealth."
I also apologize for what may seem to you a delayed response. It takes time for me to write clearly, and there is a five-hour time difference between here and EDT. I get LFAA in the early evening here, and when I do post it's usually in the late evening, when most of our community is asleep.
Love especially one Q from you, which I think nobody can answer: Why? "Why pursue such a course? What is its purpose? Is it only to acquire more money and power?"
In 1977 I graduated from Iowa State with a double major - Psychology & Zoology. I was sick of school and didn't want to work on any advanced degrees, so I became a house painter. After 6 months the weather turned and I could no longer make a living working outside. A friend of mine suggested I apply for a programmer trainee position at a local insurance company. The Executive VP of investments was my painting partner's dad and that was enough to get me hired.
I took no computer programming classes in high school or college but they only required someone with a college degree. 47 years later, I am still programming.
Iowa State apparently had a decent computer science department, but I didn't really have any interest in taking those classes.
Seven years later I was Sr. VP of DP at a small life insurance company and I needed to hire several programmers. Because, I knew that what the programmers needed to know could be learned on the job in about 4-6 months, without any formal background, I went to the local community college which taught the classes mainframe programmers needed to do the job. The head of the department sent me the top students and over the next 5 years I hired 6 programmers. It turned out to be a win-win-win situation.
Fast forward to the early 1990's when everyone was panicking about Y2K. Billions of lines of code had to be reviewed and modified to handle YYYY instead of YY. And tested. And implemented. The schools were starting to focus on teaching C and Visual Basic instead of the mainframe languages because keeping a mainframe was expensive--much more than keeping a room full of PCs.
By 2000, virtually no major colleges, tech schools or community colleges were offering any mainframe classes. However, thousands of businesses still needed mainframe programmers. So instead of training them in-house, they hired Indians who they could pay 1/2 as much as Americans. Corporations thought we were all the same, but of course we weren't. There was often language and cultural issues, lack of knowledge and the Indian companies oversold their programmers skills.
And now, there is STILL a need for mainframe programmers, just not as many. Most of us are over 65 except the Indians. I have worked with several hundred Indian programmers and their skills are often very very good. Most of them now are understandable or else we are better able to understand them. They are incredibly kind people as a whole and non-combative.
But, they have taken American jobs mostly because schools quit offering mainframe courses and the corporatocracy is greedy and wants to pay as little as possible for programmers and technical personnel.
I could write a book on fuck-ups that have occurred which have cost companies millions of dollars, but that is for another time.
I would make one observation, Phil. The value of our schools has been diminished in the decades since I attended a good and caring public school system. It hurts my heart to see and hear reports of this - from my granddaughters to excellent teachers who have left the classroom.
We must get back to valuing education and teachers well trained and eager to help young people “learn.” I would wonder if the decline in schools is because there are too many voices raised in narrow, self interest trying to hold on to their past rather than bringing everyone along to the 21st Century with broader knowledge, respect for others and an appreciation of ideas vetted with critical thinking and self reflection.
Thank you, Prof Richardson, as a devoted reader and a still-learning elder, for rewarding us with more specifics ( Washington elites taking picnic baskets out to watch the battle of Bull Run)
along w commentary from a few survivors.
Our current battles of words and courtroom scenes and online ramblings
often elicit similar hate-filled passions.
The essence of who we are nationally is now so important to the world at large that we must continue to LEARN PEACE. Educate Ourselves and our Children to the truth of hard work, even-tempered social interaction and Equality of Opportunity.
Or we dissolve. . In bubbling reactionary verbiage and anger.
The huge financial buttressing of Mr Trump and his shredded crude dramas to ‘return to the White House ‘ must be constantly fended off with truth, repeated over & over day in, day out.
When our work is successful, we can grab our picnic baskets and meet on our village and neighborhood greens to ponder the next steps to reinforce equality for all… even immigrants from faraway places.
It’s too late at night & it’s been a difficult day. I want to sleep in peace, so I tried to respond to your offering this evening!
I have so much more to learn. Thank you for your commitment to helping all of us gain a clearer view of how historical activity colors, defines and suggests new directions for our present!
This post is powerful, poignant and pertinent to our present condition. Altogether too many of our fellow citizens think the time is ripe for a new civil war; others say, "bring it on." As it was in the 1860s, one side is more vociferous than the other. With her customary concision, Dr. Richardson summarizes the enormous costs of the decisions made in support of those 19th century attitudes. This is a classic example of the more recent aphorism, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
I was particularly struck by this quote from Lincoln:
“You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”
It seems to me that there are now a large number of people in our country who are willing to be ridden by the current members of the class Lincoln decried in the false hope that they will be better off, when in fact this would lead to their virtual enslavement. It is hard thing to make democracy work. It takes a lot of effort on the part of both individuals and the institutions they establish to support it. A lot of people are unwilling to put in that effort, deferring to false prophets who offer them security in exchange for their liberty. Let us hope that a larger number of people will continue to support a democratic system that is ideally of, by, and for the people. All the people.
Will Rogers knew on Nov 26, 1932. “All the money was appropriated for the top in The hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.” Mr. Reagan knew well that money trickled up. But he didn’t want the pour fellow to get a smell. Gamed the system for generations. Duh
Tom, I don’t think it is about “scuffles.” While there are some Dem voices who speak out, the good news is that the Democratic Party is more unified than one could imagine given the state of affairs in the U.S. and throughout the global community.
I believe the Democrats care about the future. By contrast the Republicans (a larger number than makes sense) have gone awol and just don’t give a damn. They are riding this cult for cultures sake until it blows up in their face, hopefully not in ours as well.
There I go bolting for a tangent on Ukraine! This explains a lot of my hawkishness: the conviction that this ghastly invasion will end up requiring something close to, or actual, unconditional surrender. President Lincoln apparently faced some Northerners who wanted to let the South leave peacefully.
Perhaps these Northerners deemed slavery a dirty business. The President dismissed that idea as unconstitutional, interestingly and astutely arguing that, once that precedent had been set, then the Union would fragment into petty princedoms, dissolving eventually unto anarchy.
Putin sees the ghastly invasion of Ukraine as an existential war. He believes that, allowing Ukraine to leave peacefully in 1991, not only broke up the U.S.S.R., but also started the eventual fragmentation of Russia-proper. Thus re-conquering Ukraine is essential to keeping Russia together.
With the wars in Chechnya and unrest elsewhere, Putin may be right. So, is he right to attack Ukraine as President Lincoln counter-attacked the Confederates? Absolutely not. The differences then? The Confederate states were part of a Union into which they had entered voluntarily.
Ukraine, however, was conquered territory. Her exit from the Soviet Union was more like a move toward de-colonialism vis à vis an evil empire. Another difference: while the North and South had wrangled, the North did not display a genocidal intent toward the states in rebellion.
This was a great historical read about the North and the South during the Civil War. Thousands of life's were sacrificed and fighting against each other because of the color of a man's skin. And where are we today? With the acceptance of people of color? Sure we have made progress , but not enough.
We're reverting backwards with hatred and division that Trump has instilled in this country and the American people for 8 damn years. We have alot to be concerned about in this election.
Our Democracy and our freedom. Women rights to choose, and our civil rights.
Let us work, hope and pray that we never have to utter these words in our time.
While Heather's aces high analogy bridging the leadup to the Civil War to our just-about-now time shines through her solid rendering of the Election of 1860 and its aftermath, methinks the comparison ultimately falls short.
In 1860, our young Republic was nearly two score from its centennial year. We had 34 States in the Union. Only White Men could vote in national elections. Four political parties vied for the White House. And the institution of slavery, present since the founding, was economically integrated both horizontally and vertically. Slavery and its shrinking or its expansion was at the very heart of the election that year.
In stark contrast, in the Year of our Lord 2024, we have only two major political parties. All citizens over 18 years of age and registered to vote can do so, and the contest is open within all 50 States. There is no one issue dominating the political discussion as slavery did 164 years ago.
There is however, an unspoken and indeed a nearly unconscious issue dividing voters both then and now. The propelling vision of our National purpose was put forth by a young political thinker in 1776, a man whose wealth allowed him the time and space to build upon both his philosophical nature, and his revolutionary spirit. True, his Enlightenment sensibility sparred with his vast land owning and slave holding practicality, to the extent that he could pen the most poetic of paeans to human governance---"All Men are created Equal"---while watching the prisoners of a most unequal status toil his vineyards where the grapes of later wrath were stored.
Thomas Jefferson's equality of man is an idea sunk deep within the very sinews of all Americans, irrespective of whether it was fully realized or not. From the time Washington raised his battle weathered right hand to take the oath as our first President on that spring day on Wall Street in 1789, to the day Lincoln rose his right hand to swear the identical oath with the smoke from a horrific Civil War still streaming wispily through Washington D.C. in 1865, slavery was the albatross around the neck of the Republic. Yet, once said albatross was dead and gone, its spirit still remained.
An odious spirit that manifested itself in opposing virtually every movement for equality and respect, from the sharecroppers' dilemma to that of the Bonus Marchers, from the Suffragettes' struggle to that of the United Farm Workers, from Matewan to Delano, from Selma to Stonewall, the struggle of the disenfranchised and the disrespected, against the deeply rooted mindset of "that's the way it is"
Our Nation's founding ideals have been at war with its long standing consciousness, and its conscious practicalities since at least the time Sally Hemmings' beauty caught the eye of the Sage of Monticello.
Contradictions abound, multitudes are contained, and on we go, "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past".
"There is however, an unspoken and indeed a nearly unconscious issue dividing voters both then and now. The propelling vision of our National purpose was put forth by a young political thinker in 1776, a man whose wealth allowed him the time and space to build upon both his philosophical nature, and his revolutionary spirit. True, his Enlightenment sensibility sparred with his vast land owning and slave holding practicality, to the extent that he could pen the most poetic of paeans to human governance---"All Men are created Equal"---while watching the prisoners of a most unequal status toil his vineyards where the grapes of later wrath were stored."
This is a great paragraph. We should always be aware that it was the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of enslaved Africans that made it possible for our country to come into being, both philosophically and practically. Even those who never held slaves or abhorred slavery benefited from the prosperity that their labor helped produce for all the colonies. In such an economy men could, through their own efforts, make something of themselves, as long as they were white men. I'm thinking of people like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and the "foreign"-born Alexander Hamilton. None of them were complicit in slavery, as far as I know, but they all benefited from the conditions that slavery had helped produce. If such recognition constitutes "wokeness", then so be it.
Unless and until we can admit, as a country, that our "greatness" descends from the theft of Indigenous lands and the subsequent near genocide of those populations coupled with the enslavement of Black Africans, we will never free ourselves from that yoke of dishonor.
Given our human tendency to compare our best, if not our ideal, self to others' often worst moments, I often wonder where I might have fallen had I been part of a different historical time. Would I have had the gift of truth and seen all races as equal? (Time would tell that "equal" was a slippery concept for many as post Civil War attitudes and policies, though moving from actual, literal enslavement, were hardly the stuff of true equality). Or would I have accepted the environment in which I lived, an environment, even in the north, where the concept of equality was more an ideal than something treated as true in real existence? Of course, I love to believe that I'd have been a voice (a woman could be little more) calling for what was right and just, but I do wonder...
Some of us who grew up in the South don't have to wonder. I was born of white parents in a segregated hospital, attended an all-white church, a segregated public school and a private white women's school before finally in college encountering Black students. I had to leave the South to think clearly. As the fog cleared, my world broadened and my friendships and political alliances changed. My hat is off to those who struggled and continue to struggle for racial justice in the South—and indeed in this country. There's a reason people are afraid of critical race theory even when they don't understand it. White supremacy is a powerful myth.
I noticed many commenters here make the connection between going to college and awakening to racial injustice in America, past and present. The connection that came to mind was reading, just a few days ago, about Ronald Reagan's contempt and loathing for college students, and all the damage he personally caused to American higher education (think about the massive student debt inflicted on the less well-off financially who never-the-less sought higher education; and think of current Republican resistance to President Biden's efforts to lift that debt burden) . MAGA is totally in line with this because RACISM IS AT THEIR CORE. The Monstrous Event, for them, of a black man being elected President, electrified them: "No! Never Again!", and the "Great Again" these racists yearn for is the Jim Crow era.
Don, you are 100% accurate in identifying "racism is at their core". I would go so far as to say that their white, male, cisgendered, heteronormative, Christian assumption of superiority is at their very core.
"White supremacy is a powerful myth." Sure. I don't so much wonder about myself in the present. I am well steeped in liberation theology, as well as the belief that we have instutionalized (or structural) racism still in this country. Still, I wonder how I would have responded in the different climate of 1860...
You are right, it is a human tendency to idealize ourselves. But we must do what is right and just, if we are to evolve. I believe that the American experiment is designed to improve society. Emulating people like Lincoln and MLK Jr and their ideals is the way forward.
The civil war still goes on perpetuated by the descendants of that time’s recalcitrants. It’s delusional backwards way of thinking has spread to other states the idea that some are better than others. Their misguided way of thinking shows up today in Arizona with it’s Supreme Court going backwards to grab a law banning abortion circa 1864. It shows up in Congress with extreme republicans taking over one of our political parties. It shows up in individuals like Greg Abbot, Ken Paxton, Kari Lake, Marjorie Green, Scott Perry to name just a few. It’s the strong urge of some who have power and influence to hold the nation back. To find comfort in earlier times that were not better. Yes its still as tho we are still engaged in civil war struggle by other means. Now the thinking that caused the South to secede threatens our national security, women’s rights, voting rights, governance itself. There is a case to be made that the civil war still goes on perpetuated by old south thought.
I'm sorry, but the south has come a long way. Deep in the heart of Dixie there is a concurrent majority -- of people who want to forget that history and want to progress. The problem is that many of them feel isolated and intimidated by the backward politicians noted above.
I live in a red state -- working to flip it. That's why I volunteer for duty in Field Team 6 and donate to groups like Forgotten Democrats.
This essay is about perhaps the most tragic or one of the most tragic periods of time and events in the history of our country, one that could pale beside what will happen with a second Trump administration. The essay, however, also made me think about the remarkable inconsistency between the belief by many that some are born superior to others, and the belief that all life, even in a test tube, even when the life of the mother is at risk, even if the fetus can be determined to be non-viable, has "personhood" rights. I am no philosophical intellect, but to guarantee freedom for an embryo and deny freedom to women, to people of all colors, to LGBTQ, to religions other than Christian, to the poor and underprivileged, is as hypocritical as Trump saying the Bible is his favorite book. We must rise up against this oppressive hypocrisy.
Thank you, Gary. As you say, "the remarkable inconsistency between the belief..." is absolutely mind-boggling to me, especially in the realm of favoring an embryo implanted by rape or incest over the victime carrying that embryo.
Great essay. Now I would like to see an essay about how it came to pass that Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis both responsible for the deaths of 339,000 Union soldiers died free men. If slavery was our original sin, surely our failure to punish the traitors who nearly destroyed the Union is our second sin.
The original sin was made by whoever came up with this original sin crap and the heaven and hell that are part of the authoritarian Midieval mindset that burns crosses in the name of the Prince of Peace to appease the vile Wizard of Oz of the Old Testament and his Ten Commandments of an ownership society.
Jesus alternative: "Love one another."
Greed is not good.
War is not righteous. The best it can be is the lesser evil.
Gandhi. His last words were of fogiveness and compassion for the nationalist fanatic who killed him.
Strip away all the crap about a vuolent superhero showing off and keep the words of wisdom and kindness. Luke those of Lao Tsu and other honerable characters theoughout history.
That requires an important part of growing up. Accepting one's own mortality and finding peace with it. As a start to finding moraliry. And continue the fearless search for truth unencumbered by the fear of the unknown. And the claim that everyone is by nature 'sinful and unclean.
General Grant showed them mercy. After Lincoln was assassinated, Southern-leaning Pres Johnson put in place Southerners in positions who would protect the Confederate leaders. What mercy was ever shown in return? l
Thank you Professor Richardson.
It's an important reminder that even now the battle lines are drawn, and intentionally obscured. While people are told by Fox 'News', or ignorant wealthy narcissists that the battle lines are around the woke versus 'true patriots', the battle is really organized wealth versus people.
While pawns are indoctrinated as 'patriots' they parrot what they are told without any thought. They are told nonsense like the election was stolen, caravans of drug dealers and rapists are passing through the southern border in order to vote in our elections and take well-paying jobs as executives and senior managers, "Big Solar" is lying about climate change, healthcare for all will result in 2-3 year waiting periods to be seen by a doctor, and that regulation and enforcement of things like food and water safety, and air pollution are just examples of a big, bloated, "Big Nanny" government intruding in our lives -and controlling women's bodies is, I can't even explain using MAGA logic.
This is all about misdirection and greed. Misdirection divides us while democracy, justice, and the quality of life for this and future generations are siphoned off and given to the already wealthy in the form of tax cuts and privatization.
The South was all about the concentration and preservation of wealth (and slavery was the egregious method used to enrich already wealthy white landowners).
The same battle lines are drawn today -the cultists and/or the willfully ignorant are just intentionally directed at the wrong arena.
"The South was all about the concentration and preservation of wealth (and slavery was the egregious method used to enrich already wealthy white landowners).
The same battle lines are drawn today -the cultists and/or the willfully ignorant are just intentionally directed at the wrong arena."
Economic motivations were only weakly tracked in the history I learned in school. Figuring in and following "the love of money" makes it all so much more comprehensible.
"Battle lines." Buffalo Springfield?
In 1966-1968 I was in the Army, and before and after I went to Vietnam I was stationed in Columbia as part of the army of the occupation of the south. In Vietnam several soldiers were caught stealing selector switches to turn M-14s and M-16s into automatic weapons to use in the pending race war that we were told was coming.
On return, off post, there was still segregation. Everyone was on edge. It was still Dixie exhibiting "massive resistance" to us Yankees. E.G. Walter Cronkite was deemed too radical to be shown on local TV, so we never got the news the way it actually was. We were "on call" and were told something was "up."
After discharge, riots erupted nationally, and as our cities burned I was recalled.
"Same battle lines." I agree. These days, the best I can do is volunteer - to Field Team 6.
Uncle Sam needs you! Register Democrats -- save Democracy. https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Your story is one I’ve never heard, Daniel. It stopped me in my tracks. Suggests, as I’ve always suspected, that the MAGA elements have been there, perhaps more hidden, throughout our US history. And now they’ve been given permission by Trump to come out again with vitriol and violence.
So true, they were hidden for so long. Now they are loud and proud. With financial backing like never before.
So true, always there (white racist Protestant Christian Nationalism, i.e., KKK) and now financial backing by the oligarchs. "What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank, 2004. American history has some very ugly aspects (enslaving captured Africans, the genocide of Native Americans, the stealing of their homeland, Jim Crow and now Donald Trump.) We are the hope for redemption.
May this be the final battle, but human nature says it's not likely. Maybe when aliens present a threat, we will unite???
Does anyone know what has happened to Thomas Frank? I've looked and looked but can't find any opinion pieces by him for at least the last year or so. I really miss his dry wit writing about these frightening times!
Well stated.
"The enemy of my enemy, is my friend" (for now)
Churchill knew all about that, he was quoted as saying that if Hitler attacked the devil, he would have a kind word to say about him, or something like that. Enemies don’t forever remain so, nor do friends. We are proof.
If you’re interested and haven’t read it, Richard Hoftstader’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (or something close to that) it is an excellent explanation of how belief in conspiracy theories about plots to undermine American “freedom” are long and deep in our history.
I would also suggest Charles Pierce's aptly named book, "Idiot America--How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free".
I’d also suggest Patrick Moynihan’s “Pandaemonium: ethnicity in international politics” …. He presciently pointed out in 1992 what we are now hearing and seeing in the complaints from MAGA nation: “the civil rights act of 1964 was the very embodiment of the liberal expectancy. ‘Race, color, religion, sex, national origin’: all such scripture categories were outlawed. No one was to be classified in such primitive terms. The government was to become colorblind. However within hours of the enactment of the statute, in order to enforce it, the federal government, for the first time, began to require ever more detailed accountings of subgroups of every description —job trainees, kindergarten, children, teachers, university faculties, debt office secretaries — terms of race, color, and national origin…[A]n application form to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University now states “It is to your advantage to state if you are a member of an ethic minority.” Quoting from Caste and Class in a Southern Town” by John Dollard, 1949.
If we want to pull all people together, we have to stop treating them differently.
Absolutely - great point! I live among people who are “trumpers” (1/6 angers them - you don’t beat up cops). But all this categorization of people is like a thorn in their sides. “Which race!” Then all these categories that are so specific- then “white”. Even I got 😡. If everyone else got “special categories” why was I just a color? And I’m not “white”. I’m Caucasian. I can just “hear” those “angry white men” who are around me grumbling about those categories. It’s the same with gender. Why does “everything” need to know a person’s gender? You doctor needs to know but not everything else. We are “supposed to be equal” - so stop putting us in categories.
We read that in my American History class in college in the 60’s!
They have always been there, partly because wealthy white southerners make sure that their only status was being superior to black people and would not make common cause. Native Americans were considered part of the fauna and were just in the way to Manifest Destiny. All it takes in an atmosphere as in the 1920s to bring these people to the fore. Now we have culture wars and some progress for minorities and women, so let' turn back the clock to at least 1864 and put all these people back where they belong. The 1864 law, btw, had a lot more in it than just abortion.
Worse yet, "normalized" like a 'coming out party' of sorts (sincere apologies for any unintentional derivations contrivable; Honestly..., but it's what comes immediately to my mind).
When I moved from New England to Southern VA (near Yorktown/ Williamsburg area) 30 years ago, I was shocked to learn the Civil War still raged. In my quiet little county in the last couple of years the confederate flag has been raised high on flag poles on the three major routes into the county. It's sickening. While there are Trumpians and "confederates" still even in the North, I am moving back to the North. To New Hampshire, where the snow still falls (to remind me that it's important to vote blue even for the issue of climate change) and, if there is to be another physical civil war, I hope to be among like minded people.
@ Cindy and Janet -- Uncle Sam needs you!
I'm in a discussion group with Virginians and a few interlopers like me who used to live in the old dominion. They are among those who have come a long way. Until recently, the Tidewater was dominated by Pat Robertson and his minions. They may not have a Democratic governor, but Abigail Spanberger, who may be your representative will make a hell of a governor, and both senators are blue.
One of the members of the VA group is Fred Wellman who is involved in the Eugene Vindman campaign. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/evfc-ads-gs23?refcode=ads-231115-gs-launch-dtd-natl-20779599308-156236029592-680964367327-vindman&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2uiwBhCXARIsACMvIU2Q1MehzdpTDjhVzQLD5MDgLQyhQCoQzUn7bhknN0ESnKxmX-nB66UaAmr9EALw_wcB
I am hoping that after the June 18 primary all of the candidates will partner with FT 6. Since Tim Kaine and Spanberger run state wide, increasing their base will increase all Democratic candidates in the down ballots.
Fred is also the head of other groups. like Forgotten Democrats and has a TV program every Friday on Midastouch. https://twitter.com/FPWellman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Whether you're in VA or NH, join https://www.fieldteam6.org/volunteer-ops.
I’ll be doing what I can to get Rob Wittman out of Congress in Virginia’s 1st District, and Spanberger into the governor’s office. Thanks for the links.
Yes, I sure hope she wins! She’s definitely more than capable.
NH is a "purple" state when it comes to voting. But be aware, in my experience, it is a lot more conservative. So, it may be a search for "like minded" people. Compared to other NE states, NH has very lax gun laws (permit less carry-open or concealed) which may be a double-edged sword if there were to be another physical civil war.
Yes, I'm aware of NH voting record. I have found an enclave of like minded people. It'll be ok.
Glad to hear that. Hope you settle in well.
NH is complicated. We live nearby in MA. On occasion we need to visit NH for an appointment. While there are "enclaves" that are sane, there are a LOT of whackadoodle Trumpers with guns and big flags on their pickups.
That being said, I feel safer there than when we visit family in Florida.
I have "like-minded" friends living in Rochester. They have been very happy there.
Vermont would welcome you!
I was on a destroyer on the Golf of Tonkin at the end of the war and we experienced the same thing. In the sleeping births where we slept with 50 to 60 fellow sailors, there were white, black, brown and from all over the country. The tension was so high that one white and one black would keep watch throughout the night to make sure no one attacked the other. And to this day, I can’t figure out why there was any tension because we all had the same goal. To have a job, work for our country and make our lives better. Sure, we served our country but during the recession we all just needed a job and the Navy seemed like a good option.
I'd never heard this, Tom. That had to be hard...
Walter Cronkite too radical?? Wow. He was just what every journalist should be. 1968 was an upside down world, but it allowed me to see so much in a different way. I saw it as a plus. Others saw it as opportunity to deceive. When I became a Dem for life.
In 1968, Blacks in Dixie were relegated to second class citizenship. The Dixiecrat/Republican boss in South Carolina was Strom Thurmond, demagogue par excellence, abject hypocrite, who all the while had a Black love child.
I was a White girl in kindergarten in Georgia in 1968. We sang “Dixie” in class and I’m told that there was a dust up because I liked a Black boy. The older kids played Civil War at recess and my 3 cousins who were from Washington state were the Union soldiers (except my cousin Mary, who was relegated to being their nurse). Times have changed, but not enough.
Hell no, not enough
I wouldn't exactly call it a "love" child.
That guy, like Kissinger, lived way too long!
Was Thurmond ever capable of love??
Is there a word for child of rape?
Not a love child. Rape.
I wonder how Thurmond's child fared in life. I do hope that he/she made it to California.
She did well. Thurmond never visited with her when she was a child but he took care of her monetarily. Her name was Essie Mae Williams. She received her masters in education. She didn’t even know that he was her father until she was 78 yrs old.
yeah, that statement shocked me too!
When I moved to Alabama in the late 70's as a northerner I was shocked to realize that the Civil War was not over in the minds of many. I discovered that there was such a thing as Southern hospitality. Also they do not think of themselves as racists because they socialize with friends who are black. But they did gloat about paying out of their own pocket to ship busloads of blacks to NYC for welfare that they thought would contribute to the then financial problems of NYCity.
"Ship busloads of Blacks."
A reaction to "freedom riders" in the south was shipping Black populations north. A friend documented how his family and all his old neighbors were forcibly shipped from Cheraw, South Carolina to Farrell, PA and Fitchburg, MA.
Most of the time, they were used (and abused) as strikebreakers. Farrell produced many pro football and basketball players with roots in Cheraw. E.G. https://msuspartans.com/news/2008/4/9/msu_basketball_all_american_julius_mccoy_passes_away_at_age_76.aspx
The Nixon administration used busing to divide the old FDR Democratic Party alliances. Although our schools were always desegregated, we were targeted and forced to close the only elementary school in a predominately Black neighborhood and bus most kids, of all races. We represented all third class (i.e. not Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) in litigation.
I grew up in a small town in West Texas (Monahans, pop. 10,000.) We integrated our high school in 1956 - five Black students, without incident. We didn't even know that they lived in town. They were bussed to school in Odessa, 36 miles away. I learned that integration in the schools here in Polk County, Florida didn't come about until 1969, the result of litigation. Racism is a factor here. I'd move back to California but I can't afford to do that now, and I'm not poor. An average 3-BR home with 2 baths in San Jose goes for $2.5 million now.
i know! Isn’t that ridiculous?? All of the houses in the Bay Area are expensive now.
Bless their hearts
At about 2 am this morning I heard a lot of rapid pop, pop, more than once. It didn't sound like the jerk going down the street and deliberately backfiring and it didn't sound like fireworks. I also heard no sirens, so who knows. I have heard gunshots in the neighborhood which I am sure is bristling with guns.
Be safe, Michele. That’s scary!
Did hear a couple recently that were definitely gunshots and close by with shouting. We have some jerks quite close by who are Oregunians. Also shoot off tons of fireworks including late at night during holidays. We also have a dope who has his car fixed to backfire rapidly. Woke me up one night and I thought at first it was gunshots.
Just checked out Field team six. Cool!
I was raised in Texas where my seventh grade English teacher (1958) talked about reconstruction, carpet baggers, scaliwags, and damn yankees. The Klu Klux Clan is what saved Texas. This she was taught by her grandmother. For many my age the war never ended.
Is money not the root of all evil? It is a rare problem where money is not at the core/root.
Money could be one of the "roots of all evil." It has company: racism, greed, indifference, ignorance, greater-nation chauvinism, religious fundamentalism, etc.
I see money as being the root to all the things you mention. Isn't each entity you mentioned related to money? Why is there racism? To make enslavers rich. Why is there greed? For more money. Why is there indifference? I got mine. Ignorance is often rooted in poverty. etc, etc.
I forgot one. Please, ladies, forgive me: In addition to racism, greed, indifference, ignorance, greater-nation chauvinism, religious fundamentalism, etc. there is misogyny. How could I have overlooked perhaps the oldest and most ingrained aspects of "evil?"
Richard, this female thanks you. What more do we have to prove to males, who still think their power is in being “stronger” than we? Time we got together solving problems instead of fighting each other. It’s a tough call, but go read Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and get wise, guys.
It's LOVE of money.
According to Jung, it's baked into the collective racial subconscious of many people.
I would say the root to all our vices is the love of money/ greed.
As a good friend once said, "Money may not be the root of all evil, but it sure is one of the main branches."
Thanks to Bob, from Shidler, Oklahoma.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -Thoreau
The Bible called "the love of money" the root of all evil, and while I agree it's more complicated than that, it was very much on the right track. It appears to me that we use the word "love" in a sense of intense self-gratification like "I love chocolate" as well as "love" in the sense of what we care about, nurture, and protect, as in "I love my child". There can be overlap and the two can be confused, which I think leads to a lot of clueless conflict. Money in and of itself is clearly in the former category
Lord Acton was not the first to observe that "power tends to corrupt", and money is a form of power, as is political position, and violence, and the more corrupt the society, the more easily these forms of potentially extortionate power are exchanged for one another. I'm not trying to claim that it's as just simple as that, but you can see the toxic blend in historical fascism. Yet also in real-world communism. It is all about assumed supremacy, and all about the narcissistic desire to dominate.
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." - Lincoln
Money, interestingly, is the one thing that one never has enough of. Look at Musk and Bezzos - billionaires, yet they fight against their employees unionizing to get livable wages.
Well, it appears my redneck pal and HDT have similar ideas! Thanks for your interesting and enlightening expansion of my comment. There’s a lot of food for thought there. I do so love that Lincoln quote!
And lust for power....
More than likely it is power AND money
The love of money is the root of all evil.
My mother said that almost every day. I still remember the shock of reading about the Golden Calf in Hurlbut’s
“Story of the Bible.”
The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Money is a tool. When lusting after it, accumulating it, becomes the main goal instead of using it in positive ways it becomes destructive and evil.
"Mr. James Ford Rhoades recounts the long preliminaries of the War and shows us, all lucidly and humanely, the Southern mind of the mid-century in the very convulsions of its perversity--the conception that, almost comic in itself, was yet so tragically to fail to work, that of a world rearranged, a State solidly and comfortably seated and tucked-in, in the interest of slave-produced Cotton.
The solidity and the comfort were to involve not only the wide extension, but the complete intellectual, moral and economic reconsecration of slavery, an enlarged and glorified, quite beatified, application of its principle. The light of experience, round about, and every finger-post of history, of political and spiritual science with which the scene of civilization seemed to bristle, had, when questioned, but one warning to give, and appeared to give it with an effect of huge derision: whereby was laid on the Southern genius the necessity of getting rid of these discords and substituting for (374) the ironic face of the world an entirely new harmony, or in other words a different scheme of criticism. Since nothing in the Slave-scheme could be said to conform--conform, that is, to the reality of things--it was the plan of Christendom and the wisdom of the ages that would have to be altered. History, the history of everything, would be rewritten ad usum Delphini--the Dauphin being in this case the budding Southern mind. This meant a general and a permanent quarantine; meant the eternal bowdlerization of books and journals; meant in fine all literature and all art on an expurgatory index. It meant, still further, an active and ardent propaganda; the reorganization of the school, the college, the university, in the interest of the new criticism. The testimony to that thesis offered by the documents of the time, by State legislation, local eloquence, political speeches, the "tone of the press," strikes us to-day as beyond measure queer and quaint and benighted--innocent above all; stamped with the inalienable Southern sign, the inimitable rococo note. We talk of the provincial, but the provinciality projected by the Confederate dream, and in which it proposed to steep the whole helpless social mass, looks to our present eyes as artlessly perverse, as untouched by any intellectual tradition of beauty or wit ..."
Henry James
The American Scene
Richmond
https://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathawar/americanscene2.html
Today's GOP - molded by the Southern Strategy and Newt Gingrich's fallacious but disciplined rhetoric - is established by the blood heirs and spiritual heirs of the Confederacy. The operative syllable being the first - con.
Thanks for this quote, lin.
"The love of money is the root of all evil." St. Paul It's still true today as it was 2,000 years ago.
I think it's from Timothy. I see the Bible as a great grab bag of disparate material, but there is a lot of wisdom to be found in it.
Prescient words from President Lincoln.
“Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,” he said.
Exactly what I was thinking when I read those words.
Pretty much the last 11,000 years of human history can be explained by two main principles: the “haves” have to remain the haves; and the haves have to lord over and be protected from the rabble.
"But by the end of the conflagration, the institution of human enslavement as the central labor system for the American South was destroyed. " Replace "human enslavement" to "Immigrants" you see the current system.
Have you seen the new movie, Civil War?
Wow, George! I’ve rarely heard the situation portrayed so concisely and fully! Thank you!
The big difference today is that it’s not large tracts of land that are prized so much as large stock portfolios. The companies who raised costs due to supply chain problems four years ago have kept them high to reward their “Mastahs” with stock buybacks resulting in higher costs for the rest of us. Then blame the President for not stopping greedflation. I hope that they revive the excess profits tax.
Thank you Mary. When people talk about a rigged game they are really talking about a runaway economic system that has corrupted the political system. The extreme concentration of wealth makes any form of meaningful democracy impossible.
And the overwhelming irony is that the fix for this is so straightforward: get the money out of politics.
To do that, we have to double the number of justices to the Supreme Court, institute 15 year term limits, and stagger the limits to appoint 2 new judges every year — no exceptions to keep seats open when a justice dies or retires unexpectedly.
The greater irony is that we were making progress in that direction and the preponderance of the public was persuaded to abandon the effort.
Money is the way we get things done, and we can't operate a campaign or government on any scale without money being involved. That said, we can't get far in physical space without movement of inherently dangerous vehicles, even bikes, so we regulate speed and circumstances and methods of operation. It is just as crazy to fail to regulate money in politics as to fail to regulate vehicular traffic in school zones.
Money is indeed a system and the value of its tokens is contextual, as we see in the latest waves of Greedflation. Confederate money has value only as a collector's item. There are healthy patterns of flow around the whole of a society and unhealthy flows in any society, including the problems of government corruption and organized crime. "Robber barons", whether in feudal times, era of slavery, or the "Gilded Age" are the problem, not the solution.
The system of “Robber barons” and the “Gilded Age” is exactly what I thought when I reviewed the Republican Project 2025. They want to turn the United States into a “Feudal System”. That’s when I realized that there could be no compromise. I have been telling the “angry white men” I am around about the MAGA Project 2025 plan. They laugh 😂 when I asked them if they thought of various things in Project 2025. Their answer was “Are those people out of their “f**king minds??? I repeat - these are the kind of angry white men being targeted.
Americans need to know what MAGA (aka) Republicans have planned for the United States with Project 2025 and Agenda 47.
"Greedflation." Perfect.
George, let me say that your comment is brilliant and well-written. Thank you.
Thank you Harvey.
Just got into The Anatomy of Fascism. You have hit a l9t of what I have read. The wealthy and powerful are purposefully using the system to destroy the system so they can then remake it to their desire....protecting their wealth and ability to get even more.
That is the purpose of the Convention of the States.
Thanks Rickey. I try to make the concepts more accessible to people so (some) can gain more understanding about what is happening -which ultimately impacts all of us.
I just try to remind folks politics does not ignore them and then list the many things affected by politics
Reagan is famed for disparaging government, but the government he wanted to dismantle was government of the people, by the people, for the people and replace it with rule by the rich. "Supply side economics" reviving the old feudal argument the it is those who control concentrated wealth who are the natural leaders and benefactors of society, evidence be damned.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
The oligarchs still want slaves: people who must work hard to barely afford a roof over their heads. The recent increases in slave wages and workers’ ability to procure health insurance without depending on the slaveholders constitute an uprising. Steps must be taken. Rollbacks in pay and worker benefits. Get rid of water breaks for “field hands” working in the southern sun. Get rid of child labor laws; young slaves are likely to be less uppity. And women? Well, they need to know their place as Handmaidens to the real masters.
Jesus, will this never end? How many generations will it take?
It will take courage, short and long term effort, and vigilance. This battle preceded us and will continue to rage until democracy rests upon the pillars of an educated, informed, and engaged society.
that's the key! Keeping the people educated ( Pay teachers better wages , invest in public ed, Bic ed courses, types of govts, peoplescrights, rise and fall of democracy. )
When the public has to work endless hours and raise families they have little time to cate about govt until voting day, if that. That's the conundrum..getting people engaged. Democracy is not a spectator sport
Very true Doreen. Democracy must be a verb.
Indeed!
Engaged in extending and protecting the rights of one another. That is the condition of liberty, universal rights and responsibilities to uphold them for all. Bit that gets fudged without commitment.
Very true JL. And all three pillars have been assailed for multiple generations.
I sometimes think that is impossible. Stress overload is overriding the prefrontal cortex and what’s left is amygdala-driven fear and anger. 😢
It is important to remember it is a marathon relay and not a sprint. Take care of yourself and health first. Zen breathing. Nature. Friends and family.
It appears to me that we as a society pay too little attention to the concept of wisdom. It seems to me like a hard thing to actually define, but I believe that it is at least in part a keen attention to the "big picture" as well as nuances, and a pragmatic awareness of which parts of an overwhelmingly connected and nuanced universe are most fruitful to attend to. Not only learning, but sensing what "most matters". what we notice and what we think about is at least as important as the capacities and exercise of our neural systems. What we feel is at least as essential to our sense of being as what we think, and how we are able to integrate the two.
My daughter was joyous when she had her first loose baby tooth, but she knew that meant was growing up, not just losing a precious tooth. I was part of a conversation in which one woman spoke of her first menstruation, having been given no preparation to expect it. She was terrified. Exchange of conversation and attempts to understand one another's experiences extends and refines our internal realm of sentience, and enriches our real world encounters.
An excellent thought-provoking comment just before retiring this app for my evening. I am reminded of Noam Chomsky’s book ‘Miseducation in America’ (or similar title). We don’t place much significance in empathetic philosophers and thinkers. We just want obedient hyperconsumers.
I agree with you George!!!👍We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again!!!💙💙💙!!!!!!
The desire for wealth,power & control never dies! And it’s camouflaged with inaccuracy! One would think the MAGA facade would be penetrated and exposed, but the “both sides” philosophy is a roadblock!
Excellent post, George, to explain how the wealthy power hungry few manipulate swaths of the population who are angry because the same plutocrats sent their jobs overseas, ruined companies by taking all the assets and then closing them, by stirring the culture pot and ranting about immigration. Most of us would not eat without migrants. All manner of scut work is done by them: landscaping, roofing, finishing cement work, fixing potholes (losing their lives in Baltimore), tree service, all the jobs white Americans do not want to do. Like the sewer street improvement project on front of our house, the white boys with their death star stickers and often tattered flags would not have this work without the federal government. And one of the things I learned many years while there was a large project at the school: i spoke to one the workers about something wrong with the flooring that he was not a floor dog, so the pecking order is everywhere.
Thank you Michele. To your important point, that pecking order is continually used to divide us through what john a. powell at Berkeley/Haas would call ‘othering’.
And it is not a coincidence that this flip-flop of politics followed Richard Nixon's implementation of "the Southern Strategy" to bring the unreconstructed Confederate traitors into the Republican Party 56 years ago. Now the "Party of Lincoln" is the Party of Southern Treason.
Though Republicans were at least embarrassed by some of Nixon's outed conduct. It's my opinion that Nixon did not have to go to jail to underline that that there are lines even presidents dare not cross, but I think that was largely sabotaged by Nixon's pardon. So much for equal justice under law. Now Republicans argue that the (Republican) king can do no wrong.
Well said, George. "The same battle lines are drawn today--..." is spot on. As is usage of the phrase "willfully ignorant". Thank you!
Perfectly reasoned.
Well said.
Very well said George. Spot on.
George, I felt exactly the same way as you defined - democracy continues to face the insurrection of the organized wealth.
O_M_G_ George... Salute ! In five well crafted and succinct paragraphs in your comments last night, some 14 hours ago EST, you revealed to me that you not only have the very same conclusions I have held for decades now, but an awesome gift to boil them down to their essence and communicate to share them simply, far better than I. Profound gratitude, admiration, and yes..... Salute friend !
What a terrible disaster was the Civil War. I was born and raised in Maryland, a segregated state the significance of which I didn’t comprehend until I was in an all white high school. Then I discovered that not far from where I lived was an all black community. The children wee all bused a long distance to an all black high school on the other side of the county. The University of Maryland was close to where I lived. Students there every year held so-called minstrel shows. They were very popular in their racial baiting of whites featured with black faces. Funny then but horrific as I matured into understanding about segregated
schools and in every aspect of our segregated society. Thankfully, as I went away to college and graduate school I was part of integrated situations including lasting friendships with black friends. Martin Luther King became the most influential person in my life. Civil rights became my cause including involvement as a Presbyterian minister with other church leaders of all faiths in the civil rights movement In Mississippi. That included a brief stay in the county jail of several of us. Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, my favorite author these days, for her article above. Her daily articles are the first thing I read every morning.
Your post brought back memories of 70 years ago that are both fond and cringe-worthy. I was born and raised in Rhode Island, a state that was not segregated by law, but was so in practice. I attended a Catholic primary school that lay at the edge of a part of Providence that was rapidly changing to a mostly Black population. Every year the school put on a minstrel show involving all six grades, including my own. We had Mr. Bones, Mr. Interlocutor, the whole shebang. I can't remember if these "End Men" were in blackface or not, but I can remember that their jokes seemed funny, and the skill of these older kids was impressive to a seven-year old boy. The parents in the audience loved it, and the little kids, including me, had fun doing the show.
My England-born mother did have one Black friend, whom I met occasionally, but other than that I had no knowledge of or interaction with Black people. Just that they existed. We later moved to an all-white suburb, and I attended an all-white Catholic high school. It wasn't until I went to college that I had the opportunity to meet and interact with a number of Black students. It was not until then that it occurred to me that the minstrel show in which I had participated so many years before might have been offensive to Black people. This coincided with the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
Civil rights became my cause during those years, as it did yours, and has remained so ever since. We still strive, so many years later, to make the promise of America available to all her citizens.
This is an amazing personal story. How many others can still recount such awful minstrel shows demeaning another group of citizens?
I recall my mother helping me and my sisters whip up some last minute Halloween costumes. I became, with black face and a red bandana scarf "Aunt Jemima".
Horrifying to recall that that could have been in any way acceptable.
Other things we heard too are fortunately unacceptable today. Many things non white and American had nasty names attached.
Empathy needs to be a pillar of our collective educations. The extreme lack of it produces a sociopath. I think there is a bit of "Mr. Hyde" in us all.
But..., such words ought not to be banned from our 'utilization' of them. And as for those POS's who would take what's written out-of-context...? I have some cement blocks and a chain and live near a deep river. Clearly, you understand that maintaining a "civil society" is important. Dumbing things down stifles education. Manners, politeness, civility. Kindness.
When my daughter was three we got matching cow and calf costumes for Halloween. We both applied "white face".
Was that racist? Asking for a friend.😎
I’d call it applying white makeup. A cow is not a human.
😎
My NJ community was white. In grade school and high school desegregation came in the form of one black family. I was totally unaware of racism in our school as we had no minstrel shows. I do remember one friend's father making what I thought was a very unfunny comment at the table one night. My friend was horrified and whispered to me, "he is just kidding." I knew he wasn't.
My mother cried when Martin Luther King died. I had never traveled further south than Maryland so I thought the South was just poor people. When the Carter/Ford election came, my first time voting, although I was very down on Nixon and his pardon my distrust of the South prevailed over my distrust of a government that had recently been caught in numerous lies and I cast my vote for Ford. I was totally unaware that I carried my own prejudices.
Me. I had to be a part of a minstrel show in jr high. Of course I was too young and ignorant back then to realize the implication.
My dad was a member of the Elks. I remember their doing a minstrel show I guess as a fund raiser for the mentally challenged. This would have been probably 60 years ago. My only encounter with such shows, but common at the time.
Our sense of what was amusing was very different in the 30s. Maybe many of you will not remember black and white movies, but blackface routines were simply part and parcel of entertainment.Stereo typing was so common we didn’t even recognize it. Al Jolson and Jimmy Cagney were popular movie attractions. To tell the truth we thought it all very innocent. For many this kind of exposure was our only acquaintance with black people. We didn’t get daily news on the television to reveal the truth. Lynching, segregation, extreme poverty were not topics of conversation for those of us still feeling the effects of the Depression. We were, quite simply, unaware. When we did wake up to reality we did our part for Civil Rights, for humanity. None of the above is meant to be an excuse for bad behavior, more of a comment on the media.
It's complicated. I never saw a minstrel show and somehow got the sense they were not respectable from pretty early on, but saw plenty of racist stuff in movies and TV, as well as out and about in northern Ohio. At the time it seemed innocuous. Some of that same cluelessness has surfaced over time, and I don't doubt that some of that early cluelessness is still with me.
People were focused on that great new invention called the “talkies”. They just wanted to laugh again after the Great Depression. I know I lived in a rarified atmosphere, but the people I knew did not think of that kind of entertainment as insulting to anyone. Neither would anyone I knew wear the flag or think of voting as anything less than a privilege and a duty. My neighbors lived within blocks, not within thousands of miles,so yes, attitudes were certainly parochial. Jet travel, even the interstate were some years in the future. We heard whatever classical music we knew on the radio, and we thought Bing Crosby was a fine, upstanding, family man. What did we know? Back then who would have dreamt that I would participate in sit-ins, or join the Teacher Corps?
Thank you Jean. It is understandable that there are readers and posters here on this forum who did not experience what you so truthfully and innocently recounted. Even to the extent of questioning how you can possibly relate that in such a non-remorseful manner or tone. At the same time, lots of people can't imagine that even well-traveled roads were still dirt and impassable in the 30's, 40's, 50', and into the civil-rights 60's. A lot of societies ills didn't travel farther than 25 miles (of mud) back then in a more rural America. The "mud" admittedly is different today, but still mud (or worse). Please consider that hindsight is so 20/20 and as kids (then or now) we are too busy with day-to-day "stuff" to fathom what the long term effect of our behavior 'might' be. No? Truth be damned, then. I can relate well to what you wrote.
Yes. I am 75 years old and raised in a small town near Scranton Pa. I saw at least two minstrel shows. One in the Catholic Youth Center and another performed by our student teacher in her farewell. Our town was all white but I did have an advantage in that for third and fourth grade my mother moved us to South Ozone Park on Queens N.Y where I attended PS 155 and was befriended by three classmates in particular ,Stanley, Edward and Edith. I was lonely and missed my hometown. Those three kids were so kind and welcoming to me. One moment stands out. While we were waiting “ on line” for the bell to ring for us to go to our classroom, Edward and Stanley Asked me to settle an argument they were having ; which one of them was blacker? Even as an eight year old it struck me as sad that these two kids saw being lighter skin was better. To think that something so much a part of you is something you don’t like.
My sense is that due to what I think, humans tend to be insecure hence the need to feel superior to the other. That is why we see forms of discrimination everywhere. We are more familiar with racial discrimination but elsewhere and historically it can and does take the form of religious discrimination, ethnic discrimination, etc. There always seems to be someone that one can feel superior to.
And it seems any “difference” can trigger aggression or exclusion. I remember a study, many years ago, when a researcher would paint a spot on a chicken, resulting in the rest of the flock pecking the “marked” bird - even to death. Something similar was done with moths and the unmarked moths would not mate with the marked ones.
I believe there is some inborn tendency to label “us” and “them.” A classroom experience separated the kids by eye color and ultimately had to be terminated when kids with the “better” eye color began bullying the “other” kids. But we can be better than moths and chickens and blue-eyed children. Why do we not choose to be?
I like to watch film and video from many different parts of the world, and one frequent feature of schoolyard scenes is nasty bullies. Perhaps it's in our genes, though it is also mitigated to a greater or lesser degree by society. What does bullying do for a society? What does bullying do to a society, let alone its victims? I read somewhere recently that a very high percentage of people sent to prison have a history of being abused. Perhaps an ounce of prevention is worth a great deal of unreliable "cure".
I read that most of the worst dictators, who cumulatively killed millions, were abused by a parent. Yet it doesn’t seem like preventing bullying or domestic/family violence is a very high priority, does it?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
Human Nature.., keep yer guard up Burt! Meanwhile: "onward" Christian soldiers....!
In my 12 years in the Medford, OR school system, I can only recall one Black student, and that was for half a year my junior year. My senior year, we put on a musical, "The US is Us" (it was, after all, the 1975-1976 school year, the "Bicentennial Year") and the only time I ever saw make-up used to turn a white person Black was when the choir featured a classmate as Harriet Tubman, who sang an amazing rendition of "Follow the Drinking Gourd".
Medford was and is racist as hell. At least no "minstrel shows". That I know of.
I started high school in 1964, in Milledgeville, GA. I had black classmates from then through graduation. It wasn’t forced integration, but voluntary desegregation, so my black classmates were there because they and their families wanted them to be. The white high school was acknowledged as better than the black high school, but our marching band couldn’t hold a candle to theirs, and the best singers in our high school chorus were black students. None of us white singers would have dared attempt “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, especially not in blackface, and not then.
The year after I graduated, the school systems consolidated, and a new, private, all white “academy” was established for students from racist white families who could afford the tuition. From my observation, this happened all over the south.
And we still have a long way to go.
We do, indeed.
Makes one wonder how that song got into the show. Who did they think was travelin’ that muddy road to freedom?
The town is racist. Not the music department at the high school.
Oregon. A not much thought-about State, stuck between CA and WA, but kind of a nice place. Not that unlike Maine, just less frosty. However, seems to be pretty f'd up, by what I'm seeing and hearing. Glad it's far away on the Left coast. On Mars would be better, with only dead alien creatures to deal beat up on.
We're kind of stuck on ourselves; it really is a decent place to live...
Ally, I moved *back* to Georgia, after 25 years in Buffalo, NY. My boys were young, I was widowed, and their cousins in GA and FL were strangers to them. Also, I got an offer for the job I had always wanted here. It worked out well for us, but the politics here is often frustrating as hell. Sorry, not sorry.
Russian:
I am pretty sure that the original state constitution of Oregon included an exclusionary clause intended to discourage Blacks from settling in the state. See https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/.
Apparently, the legislature never managed to draft enabling laws to enforce the constitutional provision. Even so, the effect was to declare Blacks unwelcome in Oregon.
I am told that the state's present-day racial demographics reflect that early policy.
\Vince S
I will risk throwing in here: in my country school we did a talent show, put together by students (1948?). All of us had sung spirituals all our lives and belonged to various Christian churches. We knew that back singers were the best, so we sang in black face which would put the best face on our quartet. I have been sad that no one is left to make that statement. I can still sing many verses of many spirituals and have “The Golden Book of Favorite Songs” which contains a lot of them. Music belongs to everyone. It’s survival and blessing through the ages. We still have Verdi’s Othello and I cherish minstrels black or black face.
Whewww!! Black gospel singers. Black churches and church-goers. Quite something to see or hear in person while living 'down South'. I remember in simplicity my mother playing the piano and us singing "Old Black Joe"; reading some of "Mark Twain" along with Homer's Odyssey, and Earth for Sam. Gentler times in my life. Now we have Cap'tn Underpants and the booger-man and guides to transitioning for pre-schoolers. together with Teacher U. graduates who can't spell Illeeadd by some homey. Gag me.., go ahead!
🤣 MadRussian, the liberal arts fell to the Koch brothers’ onslaught. But as Koch industries continues to flourish in Russia, I do wish they’d teach Putin that Russian composers are much better than his wars. At least that would give both Putin and Kochs a small pardon for their sins.
And do read the article in the Atlantic about the WWII sailor who believed in the liberal arts education.
Teacher U graduates who taught me were really good. Now I read that education courses are multiple choice testing. Are fifth graders still taught ancient history? We were in my small country school.
Interesting Virginia.
I was watching a documentary on Jazz I think it was and they said. that many of the black gospel songs use only the black keys on the piano. I was really surprised at that and had to sit down at the piano to verify whether that was really true.
The few songs I played really did only use the black keys.
It may be because people who play by ear tend to use black keys. Sung music gets transposed for various voices or combinations of voices.
Thanks for this thoughtful remembrance of your past. We have much in common.
My experience in 1962-63 was that even Oregon promoted racism.
My first year of University was Fall Term at U of Oregon in Eugene. My next two terms were at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. What a big difference in the student body. It was a shock, to say the least that there were NO Black students at OSU. I found out that the Head of the Athletic Department and Head Coaches didn't allow any Black students on their teams and the OSU Administration followed the policy with their Scholarship policy. No Blacks got Scholarships. Or didn't meet the academic standards of OSU. You do realize that at that time that money talked as to who is accepted into University. No doubt it still does.
To this day, I still have a grudge against OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY for their bigotry. I don't think it has changed too much yet..
I have no chance to be racist. When I was in Albany Union High School, my father asked me to befriend two Black sisters and help them adjust to an all White school. I said, "Sure, Dad". Apparently as a Sophomore, I was helping to integrate my High School and didn't even realize it.
We grew up with unconsciously red-lined minds in our all white neighborhoods and schools.
Thurgood Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School and was rejected (due to race). Its policy was among his first lawsuits once he became a trailblazing legal force and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice.
That Clarence Thomas sits in his seat is a disgrace.
And on Monday, jury selection will begin. And those who still support T**** will have to face reality: their candidate will be tried in a criminal court, likely to be found guilty of the charges based on the preponderance of evidence. Will this keep them from voting for him in November? Or will his loss (he's a loser, remember) in November make them want to take themselves out of the Union.
I think they will want to take themselves out of the Union but where would they go? Clearly the United States is not a place they love. They only love the chaos and the people who look like them and think like them. No other country would want them. So, the sane people of America must stand up and say, "ENOUGH".
I'm not sure they love the chaos. Chaos is what has overtaken them, irretrievably changing the world in which they grew up. They want to bring back that world and are willing to cause further chaos to try to make that happen. Or worse yet are willing to surrender their liberty to a con man who promises to make that happen for them.
The kingpins are masters of distraction, and at fleecing the confused.
They (R'ss) didn't know what was really going on 'back then' so how can they possibly want to go back to it. When they remark "but, he's done so much" it pretty-well sum's things up. They.. the (R)'s are totally FUBAR.
The seem to want a society in which they always get exactly their own way, but that's difficult to scale up beyond a population of one.
Well before that actually, but yes, the more Democrats tolerated, the more vile "Republicans" have become.
Absolutely! Some of us did but we were voices in the wind. But now, we ALL must scream ENOUGH!
J L, as more comes out about Nixon, it becomes plain that some of the corruption began back then (contacting Vietnam to undermine Johnson), but it was like a hidden termite infestation. 45 feels emboldened enough to flaunt the venial actions, bragging about how he outwits the laws.
Nixon never was contrite even though he resigned. He remained defiant until he died.
When Nixon died I couldn't get over the pomp and circumstance around his funeral. TV stations preempted , hundreds of people in attendance. Somehow forgotten, the shame he brought to this country.
Publicly asked if he had any regrets about his presidency, he replied "not destroying the tapes". I can only guess, but I don't think he would have dared without his pardon.
Better late than never. This time, right now, is what we have to work with. No more “woulda,shoulda”! What can each of us do in our local area, to get out the vote for democracy and freedom?
Good point. But maybe just one of the times the Dems should have stood up to McConnell and many others. They (the Dems) really seemed to underestimate and failed to recognize the Republicans had not been playing by the rules for some time. They were and continue to make up new rules that serve their purposes. And their purpose - feed and protect the wealth, wealthy & power of unregulated capitalists.
We cannot look back and say, woulda, shoulda, coulda, din't. There is no time to waste now.
TFG takes credit for the judges that McConnell deserves blame for.
#45 (TFG) can "take credit" for anything. Marching around with that microphone in his hand., the morons of his fan-base: (1) Don't have a problem with it. (2) Don't know the difference. (3) Firmly agree because 'truth' is a forgone ('far' gone is more like it) conclusion. (4) They adore him.., he has done "so much" (please don't ask them). Ugh!! I'd like to see that microphone and his 'bully pulpit' shoved up his elephant (R)ss!! Wouldn't we all? Let's hope we don't squander THAT opportunity. We're on the final lap.. step on the gas!!
I still don't understand how that happened. Surely there was a work around that move.
James, I am afeared that conviction or not, TrumpMaga will be around longer than the Stars and Bars crushing bigotry requires removing the instruction of hatred from within the family home. When their leaders and their propaganda machines constantly spew it, the children shall be indoctrinated
TrumpMAGA is the Stars and Bars.
I agree, look at how long the KKK has been active.
Dave, it took awhile before Louisiana people stopped worshipping Huey Long, but it is happening.
Well, beyond a 'reasonable" doubt; but yes, likely convicted is justice is served.
You're so right. They. Don't. Care. and They. Don't. Believe that Trump has does anything wrong. I've heard several of his followers say, when asked how they feel about all the accusations against him, that they DON'T BELIEVE any of it! That is so unbelievable to me!!
Can you imagine what Lincoln would have thought and said about a presidential candidate whose platform includes promoting dishonesty, greed, ignorance, self-importance, and violence?
Stupid is as stupid does and proud (Boys) of it! Winks and nods to Forrest Gumph!
They don't even know how stupid they are.
That is what I get from my MNJ friends. Cops or cops spouses and NONE of them believe that he has broken any laws, and insist that Biden (never Pence) also having unauthorized possession of classified material (quickly returned) is "just the same" as all those boxes in the Maga Lardo bathroom, and never mention the ones that are undiscovered that went to New Jersey.
Love “Maga-Lardo.”
😉
The question is not, are all humans created equal, but rather, do we choose to treat them as equals? Not one of us possesses the standing or the competence to assign equality to a fellow human. Humans choose to diminish other humans because they can. Whatever we choose to believe is the source of human life, we are but agents in the process; the source of life is beyond our grasp. Yet, we choose to permit human exploitation because we can. We do have a lot of work to do, don't we?
Our founding documents are based on the assumption of equality of all men (which we now construe as all human beings). We start from that assumption, whatever its source, to attempt to create a more perfect union. We are indeed the agents of that process, and indeed we do have a lot of work to do. Well said.
Just look at the outrage merely recognizing our inherent equality as humans has caused!
Yes, the backlash IS intense and we certainly haven't yet achieved equality, but we should take into cosideration that we're undoing the work of literally thousands of years! Before the American Revolution, talk of equality was only speculative. For anyone to put it into practice (however imperfectly) was mind boggling.
Such an attempt impudently questioned comfortable assumptions and contradicted most long-standing traditions and religious works, and it threatened the very roots of the existing societies, governments, and power structures. It shook the world.
The world is still shaking because of that one idea and its implications.
Let's keep shaking it!
A significant segment of our society has never shaken to urge to practice feudalism and conquest, as our destruction of indigenous nations and slavery illustrate. That said, we have haltingly pushed the envelope of equal justice, and yet the battle continues to rage.
I think yes and no, but yes, Martin Niemöller poem the ends "Then they came for me..." (which they did) comes to mind.
Just to be clear: all white men of wealth, as Heather points out.
Amen
Good point. People are born with varying talents and disabilities into greatly differing circumstances. But I think it is fair to say meaningful justice requires equal human rights.
"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Lincoln
So much wisdom in one amazing person!
There’s a mythical word we’ve all grown up with FINISHED.
The process once begun is a constant effort to complete the task, best possible.
No project ahead is more consistent for the whole than that of LIFE.
In as honest a statement as ever I’ve made (though what time I have left may render one better) I’ve made mistakes -they were as much a lesson as my consistent and continuing goal to better understand ,improve , be fair and patient.
Our country is young. This spoken of ‘endless fight for equality for all’ is not ours alone.
It IS the highest calling of LOVE. That those least of us can be protected, the middle supports most, and the gifted lend their privilege to.
However, there is always the sector , in any whole-the selfish and those they mislead , who will exist.
The turtle won the race.
Carry on🫶
Exactly.
Wow! So much to unpack in Dr. R's letter today.
I hadn't considered ranking people by their value. Of course, the elites believed the white men are the most valuable and they should be ranked by their assets. And then free black men of color the same way on down to the children of black slaves. But where do women fit it and how to rank them? The patriarchy then (and now to a degree) value women that can and have had babies. But once women are beyond child bearing age, their value would diminish so the re-ranking is never static.
And how can a poor white woman pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Obviously, this is a flawed concept, but even today wealthy white men rank others by their net worth. How else can you explain most Republican politicians who don't have the brains God gave lettuce?
Women were ranked by the status of their men. That’s what patriarchy is.
The Greek translation is - "rule of the father" according to Wikipedia.
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are held by men.
This is the definition I am familiar with.
And in the words of Emma Watson - "Fuck the patriarchy."
Well, yes, exactly.
Yes and choosing isn’t episodic like we’ll choose in November and be done with it. Choosing is as close, immediate, and constant as breathing. Choosing is a state or way of being-in-the-world. Choosing is a kind or level of acceptance and honoring of self.
My father, a stanch Republican, is appalled by Trump, his past business dealings and his actions during his presidency. Yet, he has a faith that our constitution and the strength of our government will survive all of this nonsense. I worry that the general population is so caught up in their daily lives that they too, believe, it will all work out for the best.
Here, we are singing to the choir. There is a, not so apparent, general malaise across the nation that keeps Texas women voting for criminals and oppressors, residents of states hit by global warming disasters saying the general rhetoric of democracy at stake and environmental collapse is much a do about nothing.
Hopefully a modern day Lincoln will keep our nation from falling into fascism.
There is no Superman (modern day Lincoln) coming to save us. We The People must do everything within our power to save our democracy and our planet.
But do we the people understand what is at stake....was my point. You and I do....and all of Heather's subscribers. But that is only a small percentage of the population.
What if it’s not them and us? What if (as a place to stand and look out or consider from, not as truth) what if all those not understanding non-Heatherites ARE US? What if they are an expression, a physical manifestation of all that is incomplete and unfulfilled in OUR lives? That is to suggest that strange as it might be to say or consider, that they actually are us? It’s not us vs. others, ever. Consider there’s no one out there. Or if you prefer “the other” “the one” “the beloved” is out there.
It’s a radical idea and not suggested as a truth or the truth. It’s an approach to radical ownership of everything to consider that it’s YOU (not personal you) out there and not some other. It can be a practice that can lead to insight and actions that work rather than more of the same or changes that are again more of the same.
Said differently, service is interacting with the God over there and giving space to the “junk” rather than interacting with the junk and giving space to the God over there. That’s what the expression Namaste means. I bow to the God within you or that you are.
The more you know God within the more you see God everywhere, as everyone, moving everything, behind everything. What if it’s God seeing out of every eye? What if God speaks every word? What if it’s God doing everything? What if only God exists? It’s the cosmic joke that “we” are here alone and God seems so distant, so inaccessible and it turns out it’s only been God all this time!
A fair question is why would you be thinking of anything other than God? What else is there to attend to?
Again (because we are so forgetful) this is not writing truth to be believed. Truth is far too grand to be captured by or in words. One knows it or is it while it remains ineffable. Paradox to the mind but that’s a limitation of mind not truth.
Bern:
Allow me to suggest a book in which you will find much thoughtful personal history and social commentary that is close to the theme of your essay here. It is See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (2020), by Valarie Kaur. You can find some of Valarie Kaur's public presentations on YouTube and elsewhere.
\Vince S
Amen
You are right about 'choosing', but what is the correct choice? Are we going to share the mind of Christ or harbor jealously? Sharing the mind of Christ is correct...seeing and talking to the Christ with everyone you meet is not only possible, it is essential for correct understanding of true being...try it. Closer than the air you breathe...Christ is the now of life. It is always 'now'.
Can we say, today, that "all men are created equal"?
Clearly some tens of millions of Americans relish public displays of inferiority -- of mental pygmy-ism, delusional nonsense, illiterate ridge-runner talk, and gaseous clouds of lies spun first and foremost by the orange-entertainer-in-chief.
Trouble is, we can't enjoy that show because of the damage it allows dictators like Putin to do to whole countries, the damage it allows medievalists, perjurers, and the bribed on the Clarence court to do to tens of millions of American women denied their health care and personal freedom.
So rather than play dumb, and permit, egg on the reign of the hucksters, let's face it: we can only have equality if our schools have higher standards -- if our schools employ, model, celebrate much higher literate arts. We need to quote those better than us -- artists in many fields -- in detail examining, enjoying the individual lives of others in their circumstances.
Our schools don't do this (for any reasons), the vaudeville goes on.
Phil, I was thinking about Putin doing the same thing to his young people that the Southerners did to theirs. Putin has sent well over half a million of his young people to be slaughtered and maimed. This, of course includes prisoners that have committed no violent crimes that are only unproductive because they spoke out against Putin or were LGBTQ.
If the US killed off or deported a million young people how it would devastate our country.
It's likely it would be even worse than we could imagine.
"If the US killed off or deported a million young people"?
Of course the U. S. government never did do any such thing, but the U.S. billionaire classes did worse -- offshored those millions of working-class jobs. Left the American communities abandoned. Left the schools gutted of humanities and strangled by other billionaires and their regimes of standardized testing. Left the tens of millions of the abandoned working class as prey for other billionaires and their social media hate sites.
I'd only amend your last line, Gary, instead to read, "It's likely it will be even worse than we can imagine."
This is probably a rant for a different time, but I'd argue that the 0.1% did not gut humanities departments directly. What they did was create conditions in which prospective students and their families saw it as more important to get a diploma than to get an education. Far too many of our educational institutions have done the gutting all by themselves, to boost the average salaries of graduates, thus enhancing one aspect of their rankings. Time spent on humanities electives means less time spent on career-related courses. Your comments about the abandonment of communities and of the working class are spot on.
What you describe, James -- 100% true.
What you doubt, however ("that the 0.1% did not gut humanities departments directly"), sadly also in fact true.
First thing the new Heritage Foundation and an enlarged Hoover Institution did following the 1971 Powell memo was to hunt for, hire, and pay right-wing ideologues to begin writing articles lambasting academics who were active in lefty causes in addition to their other campus work. One message cohered: that academics should stick to their departmental specializations only -- abandon women's rights, La Raza worker issues, Vietnam war rank stupidities, and gay stuff.
Heritage and Hoover paid, organized, persisted all through that decade.
It paid off big-time when another off-shoot of the Powell memo kicked in: ALEC. This, the American Legislative Exchange Council, got into gear a bit more than one year after Heritage and Hoover, but it was enormously funded by far right billionaires and corporate coffers. It hired competent staff, and grew lobbying campaigns at all state legislatures, but first and most mortally at those Republican-leaning.
Remember, James, the Powell memo above everything else saw and hated the power of American humanities. Films, books, and music of the late 1960s galvanized justice concerns brilliantly. And the profiteers of industry and commerce hated these humanities and those who bespoke them.
ALEC's first deliberate target: the tenured. The way to kill them off and their extra-curricular voices was to have U.S. state legislatures begin reducing funding to all the great land grant colleges and universities which had grown across the country since Lincoln signed into law Justin Morrill's land grant legislation for higher education in 1862.
It worked. Tenure slots froze by the early 1980s, then reduced. Colleges and universities began hiring tens of thousands of "contingent" labor, teaching assistants and multiple-campus laborers with semester-by-semester, low pay, no-benefits contracts. In a few years over two-thirds of all U.S. undergrad teaching was being done by the peon scholars, gypsy labor. For the few new tenure slots up for grabs, new pressures for specialization ruled the market. Anyone making references in public to any humanities was a doomed careerist.
Schools of biz ed skyrocketed faster than humanities majors collapsed.
Students not only learned never to reference humanities, but, further, to disappear entirely into group identity silos, all mutually hostile to each other and to anyone and everyone outside each set of ghetto imaginations.
"Theory" killed English departments. Wonk killed all language in all textbooks and all of the new standardized testing which also began to displace humanities at the K-12 levels. (See Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police," 2003).
Corporations began systematic raiding of U.S. campuses, to buy up interests in research at campuses which for more than a century had grown and prized public openness. (See Wendell Berry, "The Unsettling of America," 1977).
Sorry, James, but U.S. billionaires and corporations did deliberately and by organized, hidden means "gut humanities departments directly."
Man! You have done your research.
So may I sum up?
Our educational institutions have abandoned humanities and community and substituted commodities.
\Vince S
Yes, Vince, correct.
Except, too, in the exchange you cite, our billionaires have also introduced poisonous levels of corruption, cynicism, lies, feudal tax schemes perpetuating the rich, gerrymandering the worst in Congress, and bribery and perjury immunizing the Clarence court.
Phil, thank you for your detailed, informative and passionate response. I was aware of a lot of the things you mentioned but didn't think it part of an organized effort on the part of the billionaire class. Probably a lot of naivete on my part, with a reluctance to ascribe deliberate malice to anyone. This attitude is affected by two things, one of which no longer applies. I'm now four-plus years retired from a civil service position during which I remained studiously apolitical (despite generally liberal sympathies, as I've mentioned elsewhere). It is only recently that I have looked carefully at such things as the Powell memo (What a remarkable document that is, and how injurious its consequences!). The second thing, which continues to affect me, is confusion. Why pursue such a course? What is its purpose? Is it only to acquire more money and power? If so, again, why? I honestly don't get it.
I ended up as a "civil serpent" :-) during what I thought would be a sabbatical from graduate school. I was able to enter grad school, after eight years away from academics, due to sympathetic advisors, who found my background interesting, some savings accrued during a stint in the commercial world, and the support of an extraordinarily patient wife. This was during the time that many of the phenomena you described in your post were taking hold. I remember one very good professor who left his tenured position to enter the administration of the same university at which he taught. He continued to teach occasional courses in between his admin duties because he liked teaching. I didn't understand his decision at the time, until I realized that the money was in administration, not in academics.
I went to grad school just to learn more about subjects in which I was interested, rather than to pursue an academic career. But the further along I got in my studies, the more I found myself headed in that direction. I also encountered the "theory" and "wonk" you note in your post. I learned to speak that language, essential for academic survival, but found it off-putting in the extreme. "Lit-crit" theory seemed to me then, as it does now four decades later, a philosophical dead end. It provides some useful insights into our thinking, and can enhance our understanding of some things, but is basically pointless.
The civil service position for which I diffidently applied was intended as a two-year sabbatical. It turned out to be one in which all my haphazardly acquired skills and abilities were tested to the utmost, in field of endeavor that was beneficial to our country, and in which I enjoyed the company of skilled and dedicated colleagues.
Looking back on what happened to academia in that same period, I can't believe my good luck. I'd almost certainly have ended up as one of those underpaid itinerant adjunct professors looking for a new gig every two years (meaning I'd have spent one year out of two looking for a new job).
The recent proliferation (well, at my age everything seems recent) of right-wing think tanks does support your argument for an organized effort to destabilize and replace our current system of government. I'm reluctant to call it a conspiracy, because it's being done right in the open. These places provide rocks under which their occupants can slither and hibernate when non-believers hold positions of power. They then re-emerge when conditions are favorable for them to wreak their havoc. Hoover is probably the most "normal" of these (Note: I'm on their mailing list). They're often wrong, but never in doubt. Claremont is, I think, the most recent and the most extreme, increasingly out of touch with reality. Heritage, as the perpetrator of Project 2025, is the most dangerous (whose heritage? one might ask).
I find your argument persuasive. Maybe at some other time we can discuss the personalities involved, the sort of people whom TR once described as the "malefactors of great wealth."
I also apologize for what may seem to you a delayed response. It takes time for me to write clearly, and there is a five-hour time difference between here and EDT. I get LFAA in the early evening here, and when I do post it's usually in the late evening, when most of our community is asleep.
Thanks, and please keep up the good work. JC
Thank you, JC, or James.
Love especially one Q from you, which I think nobody can answer: Why? "Why pursue such a course? What is its purpose? Is it only to acquire more money and power?"
We can brood over that one for awhile.
In 1977 I graduated from Iowa State with a double major - Psychology & Zoology. I was sick of school and didn't want to work on any advanced degrees, so I became a house painter. After 6 months the weather turned and I could no longer make a living working outside. A friend of mine suggested I apply for a programmer trainee position at a local insurance company. The Executive VP of investments was my painting partner's dad and that was enough to get me hired.
I took no computer programming classes in high school or college but they only required someone with a college degree. 47 years later, I am still programming.
Iowa State apparently had a decent computer science department, but I didn't really have any interest in taking those classes.
Seven years later I was Sr. VP of DP at a small life insurance company and I needed to hire several programmers. Because, I knew that what the programmers needed to know could be learned on the job in about 4-6 months, without any formal background, I went to the local community college which taught the classes mainframe programmers needed to do the job. The head of the department sent me the top students and over the next 5 years I hired 6 programmers. It turned out to be a win-win-win situation.
Fast forward to the early 1990's when everyone was panicking about Y2K. Billions of lines of code had to be reviewed and modified to handle YYYY instead of YY. And tested. And implemented. The schools were starting to focus on teaching C and Visual Basic instead of the mainframe languages because keeping a mainframe was expensive--much more than keeping a room full of PCs.
By 2000, virtually no major colleges, tech schools or community colleges were offering any mainframe classes. However, thousands of businesses still needed mainframe programmers. So instead of training them in-house, they hired Indians who they could pay 1/2 as much as Americans. Corporations thought we were all the same, but of course we weren't. There was often language and cultural issues, lack of knowledge and the Indian companies oversold their programmers skills.
And now, there is STILL a need for mainframe programmers, just not as many. Most of us are over 65 except the Indians. I have worked with several hundred Indian programmers and their skills are often very very good. Most of them now are understandable or else we are better able to understand them. They are incredibly kind people as a whole and non-combative.
But, they have taken American jobs mostly because schools quit offering mainframe courses and the corporatocracy is greedy and wants to pay as little as possible for programmers and technical personnel.
I could write a book on fuck-ups that have occurred which have cost companies millions of dollars, but that is for another time.
I relish the other time by which you conclude here, Gary.
Your experience speaks eloquently to the best of pragmatic, practical American decencies and common sense.
So good you are on this site, along with several others, as if by the magic our Heather has wafted for us.
I would make one observation, Phil. The value of our schools has been diminished in the decades since I attended a good and caring public school system. It hurts my heart to see and hear reports of this - from my granddaughters to excellent teachers who have left the classroom.
We must get back to valuing education and teachers well trained and eager to help young people “learn.” I would wonder if the decline in schools is because there are too many voices raised in narrow, self interest trying to hold on to their past rather than bringing everyone along to the 21st Century with broader knowledge, respect for others and an appreciation of ideas vetted with critical thinking and self reflection.
They made the necessary reforms in Finland, John -- and it worked there.
Hire only the best as teachers, give them full decision making, and quality, decency reign.
Thank you, Prof Richardson, as a devoted reader and a still-learning elder, for rewarding us with more specifics ( Washington elites taking picnic baskets out to watch the battle of Bull Run)
along w commentary from a few survivors.
Our current battles of words and courtroom scenes and online ramblings
often elicit similar hate-filled passions.
The essence of who we are nationally is now so important to the world at large that we must continue to LEARN PEACE. Educate Ourselves and our Children to the truth of hard work, even-tempered social interaction and Equality of Opportunity.
Or we dissolve. . In bubbling reactionary verbiage and anger.
The huge financial buttressing of Mr Trump and his shredded crude dramas to ‘return to the White House ‘ must be constantly fended off with truth, repeated over & over day in, day out.
When our work is successful, we can grab our picnic baskets and meet on our village and neighborhood greens to ponder the next steps to reinforce equality for all… even immigrants from faraway places.
It’s too late at night & it’s been a difficult day. I want to sleep in peace, so I tried to respond to your offering this evening!
I have so much more to learn. Thank you for your commitment to helping all of us gain a clearer view of how historical activity colors, defines and suggests new directions for our present!
This post is powerful, poignant and pertinent to our present condition. Altogether too many of our fellow citizens think the time is ripe for a new civil war; others say, "bring it on." As it was in the 1860s, one side is more vociferous than the other. With her customary concision, Dr. Richardson summarizes the enormous costs of the decisions made in support of those 19th century attitudes. This is a classic example of the more recent aphorism, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
I was particularly struck by this quote from Lincoln:
“You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”
It seems to me that there are now a large number of people in our country who are willing to be ridden by the current members of the class Lincoln decried in the false hope that they will be better off, when in fact this would lead to their virtual enslavement. It is hard thing to make democracy work. It takes a lot of effort on the part of both individuals and the institutions they establish to support it. A lot of people are unwilling to put in that effort, deferring to false prophets who offer them security in exchange for their liberty. Let us hope that a larger number of people will continue to support a democratic system that is ideally of, by, and for the people. All the people.
Will Rogers knew on Nov 26, 1932. “All the money was appropriated for the top in The hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.” Mr. Reagan knew well that money trickled up. But he didn’t want the pour fellow to get a smell. Gamed the system for generations. Duh
And makes the best decisions.
Tom, I don’t think it is about “scuffles.” While there are some Dem voices who speak out, the good news is that the Democratic Party is more unified than one could imagine given the state of affairs in the U.S. and throughout the global community.
I believe the Democrats care about the future. By contrast the Republicans (a larger number than makes sense) have gone awol and just don’t give a damn. They are riding this cult for cultures sake until it blows up in their face, hopefully not in ours as well.
There I go bolting for a tangent on Ukraine! This explains a lot of my hawkishness: the conviction that this ghastly invasion will end up requiring something close to, or actual, unconditional surrender. President Lincoln apparently faced some Northerners who wanted to let the South leave peacefully.
Perhaps these Northerners deemed slavery a dirty business. The President dismissed that idea as unconstitutional, interestingly and astutely arguing that, once that precedent had been set, then the Union would fragment into petty princedoms, dissolving eventually unto anarchy.
Putin sees the ghastly invasion of Ukraine as an existential war. He believes that, allowing Ukraine to leave peacefully in 1991, not only broke up the U.S.S.R., but also started the eventual fragmentation of Russia-proper. Thus re-conquering Ukraine is essential to keeping Russia together.
With the wars in Chechnya and unrest elsewhere, Putin may be right. So, is he right to attack Ukraine as President Lincoln counter-attacked the Confederates? Absolutely not. The differences then? The Confederate states were part of a Union into which they had entered voluntarily.
Ukraine, however, was conquered territory. Her exit from the Soviet Union was more like a move toward de-colonialism vis à vis an evil empire. Another difference: while the North and South had wrangled, the North did not display a genocidal intent toward the states in rebellion.
Has today's Fort Sumter moment perhaps come and gone, without reaction?
MAGA has occupied Congress, is holding the country hostage.
An interesting proposition, one that deserves some thought.
Peter, I hope (perhaps foolishly) that there is no reaction...YET.
This was a great historical read about the North and the South during the Civil War. Thousands of life's were sacrificed and fighting against each other because of the color of a man's skin. And where are we today? With the acceptance of people of color? Sure we have made progress , but not enough.
We're reverting backwards with hatred and division that Trump has instilled in this country and the American people for 8 damn years. We have alot to be concerned about in this election.
Our Democracy and our freedom. Women rights to choose, and our civil rights.
"And then the war came"
Let us work, hope and pray that we never have to utter these words in our time.
While Heather's aces high analogy bridging the leadup to the Civil War to our just-about-now time shines through her solid rendering of the Election of 1860 and its aftermath, methinks the comparison ultimately falls short.
In 1860, our young Republic was nearly two score from its centennial year. We had 34 States in the Union. Only White Men could vote in national elections. Four political parties vied for the White House. And the institution of slavery, present since the founding, was economically integrated both horizontally and vertically. Slavery and its shrinking or its expansion was at the very heart of the election that year.
In stark contrast, in the Year of our Lord 2024, we have only two major political parties. All citizens over 18 years of age and registered to vote can do so, and the contest is open within all 50 States. There is no one issue dominating the political discussion as slavery did 164 years ago.
There is however, an unspoken and indeed a nearly unconscious issue dividing voters both then and now. The propelling vision of our National purpose was put forth by a young political thinker in 1776, a man whose wealth allowed him the time and space to build upon both his philosophical nature, and his revolutionary spirit. True, his Enlightenment sensibility sparred with his vast land owning and slave holding practicality, to the extent that he could pen the most poetic of paeans to human governance---"All Men are created Equal"---while watching the prisoners of a most unequal status toil his vineyards where the grapes of later wrath were stored.
Thomas Jefferson's equality of man is an idea sunk deep within the very sinews of all Americans, irrespective of whether it was fully realized or not. From the time Washington raised his battle weathered right hand to take the oath as our first President on that spring day on Wall Street in 1789, to the day Lincoln rose his right hand to swear the identical oath with the smoke from a horrific Civil War still streaming wispily through Washington D.C. in 1865, slavery was the albatross around the neck of the Republic. Yet, once said albatross was dead and gone, its spirit still remained.
An odious spirit that manifested itself in opposing virtually every movement for equality and respect, from the sharecroppers' dilemma to that of the Bonus Marchers, from the Suffragettes' struggle to that of the United Farm Workers, from Matewan to Delano, from Selma to Stonewall, the struggle of the disenfranchised and the disrespected, against the deeply rooted mindset of "that's the way it is"
Our Nation's founding ideals have been at war with its long standing consciousness, and its conscious practicalities since at least the time Sally Hemmings' beauty caught the eye of the Sage of Monticello.
Contradictions abound, multitudes are contained, and on we go, "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past".
"There is however, an unspoken and indeed a nearly unconscious issue dividing voters both then and now. The propelling vision of our National purpose was put forth by a young political thinker in 1776, a man whose wealth allowed him the time and space to build upon both his philosophical nature, and his revolutionary spirit. True, his Enlightenment sensibility sparred with his vast land owning and slave holding practicality, to the extent that he could pen the most poetic of paeans to human governance---"All Men are created Equal"---while watching the prisoners of a most unequal status toil his vineyards where the grapes of later wrath were stored."
This is a great paragraph. We should always be aware that it was the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of enslaved Africans that made it possible for our country to come into being, both philosophically and practically. Even those who never held slaves or abhorred slavery benefited from the prosperity that their labor helped produce for all the colonies. In such an economy men could, through their own efforts, make something of themselves, as long as they were white men. I'm thinking of people like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and the "foreign"-born Alexander Hamilton. None of them were complicit in slavery, as far as I know, but they all benefited from the conditions that slavery had helped produce. If such recognition constitutes "wokeness", then so be it.
Unless and until we can admit, as a country, that our "greatness" descends from the theft of Indigenous lands and the subsequent near genocide of those populations coupled with the enslavement of Black Africans, we will never free ourselves from that yoke of dishonor.
We may have been here before Ally, but I wholeheartedly agree.
So be it indeed, James!
And thanks much for your kind words
What a beautiful post. Especially “the grapes of later wrath.” Damn, you can write!
Thanks so much, KR. You are very sweet.
Given our human tendency to compare our best, if not our ideal, self to others' often worst moments, I often wonder where I might have fallen had I been part of a different historical time. Would I have had the gift of truth and seen all races as equal? (Time would tell that "equal" was a slippery concept for many as post Civil War attitudes and policies, though moving from actual, literal enslavement, were hardly the stuff of true equality). Or would I have accepted the environment in which I lived, an environment, even in the north, where the concept of equality was more an ideal than something treated as true in real existence? Of course, I love to believe that I'd have been a voice (a woman could be little more) calling for what was right and just, but I do wonder...
Some of us who grew up in the South don't have to wonder. I was born of white parents in a segregated hospital, attended an all-white church, a segregated public school and a private white women's school before finally in college encountering Black students. I had to leave the South to think clearly. As the fog cleared, my world broadened and my friendships and political alliances changed. My hat is off to those who struggled and continue to struggle for racial justice in the South—and indeed in this country. There's a reason people are afraid of critical race theory even when they don't understand it. White supremacy is a powerful myth.
I noticed many commenters here make the connection between going to college and awakening to racial injustice in America, past and present. The connection that came to mind was reading, just a few days ago, about Ronald Reagan's contempt and loathing for college students, and all the damage he personally caused to American higher education (think about the massive student debt inflicted on the less well-off financially who never-the-less sought higher education; and think of current Republican resistance to President Biden's efforts to lift that debt burden) . MAGA is totally in line with this because RACISM IS AT THEIR CORE. The Monstrous Event, for them, of a black man being elected President, electrified them: "No! Never Again!", and the "Great Again" these racists yearn for is the Jim Crow era.
Don, you are 100% accurate in identifying "racism is at their core". I would go so far as to say that their white, male, cisgendered, heteronormative, Christian assumption of superiority is at their very core.
"White supremacy is a powerful myth." Sure. I don't so much wonder about myself in the present. I am well steeped in liberation theology, as well as the belief that we have instutionalized (or structural) racism still in this country. Still, I wonder how I would have responded in the different climate of 1860...
Well, if you had been alive as a woman then, I don't think you'd have had much impact regardless of your beliefs.
You are right, it is a human tendency to idealize ourselves. But we must do what is right and just, if we are to evolve. I believe that the American experiment is designed to improve society. Emulating people like Lincoln and MLK Jr and their ideals is the way forward.
The civil war still goes on perpetuated by the descendants of that time’s recalcitrants. It’s delusional backwards way of thinking has spread to other states the idea that some are better than others. Their misguided way of thinking shows up today in Arizona with it’s Supreme Court going backwards to grab a law banning abortion circa 1864. It shows up in Congress with extreme republicans taking over one of our political parties. It shows up in individuals like Greg Abbot, Ken Paxton, Kari Lake, Marjorie Green, Scott Perry to name just a few. It’s the strong urge of some who have power and influence to hold the nation back. To find comfort in earlier times that were not better. Yes its still as tho we are still engaged in civil war struggle by other means. Now the thinking that caused the South to secede threatens our national security, women’s rights, voting rights, governance itself. There is a case to be made that the civil war still goes on perpetuated by old south thought.
I'm sorry, but the south has come a long way. Deep in the heart of Dixie there is a concurrent majority -- of people who want to forget that history and want to progress. The problem is that many of them feel isolated and intimidated by the backward politicians noted above.
I live in a red state -- working to flip it. That's why I volunteer for duty in Field Team 6 and donate to groups like Forgotten Democrats.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
https://forgottendemocrats.org/
Thanks for the links, Daniel. Field Team 6 looks like an excellent organization!
Thank You for your service.
And these links.
Sad yet true.
This essay is about perhaps the most tragic or one of the most tragic periods of time and events in the history of our country, one that could pale beside what will happen with a second Trump administration. The essay, however, also made me think about the remarkable inconsistency between the belief by many that some are born superior to others, and the belief that all life, even in a test tube, even when the life of the mother is at risk, even if the fetus can be determined to be non-viable, has "personhood" rights. I am no philosophical intellect, but to guarantee freedom for an embryo and deny freedom to women, to people of all colors, to LGBTQ, to religions other than Christian, to the poor and underprivileged, is as hypocritical as Trump saying the Bible is his favorite book. We must rise up against this oppressive hypocrisy.
Thank you, Gary. As you say, "the remarkable inconsistency between the belief..." is absolutely mind-boggling to me, especially in the realm of favoring an embryo implanted by rape or incest over the victime carrying that embryo.
“I love mankind. It’s the people I can’t stand.” - Charles Schultz
Great essay. Now I would like to see an essay about how it came to pass that Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis both responsible for the deaths of 339,000 Union soldiers died free men. If slavery was our original sin, surely our failure to punish the traitors who nearly destroyed the Union is our second sin.
You can find that subject essayed in Dr. Richardson's book, How the South Won the Civil War.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52048467-how-the-south-won-the-civil-war?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=AnbN5dEA9g&rank=1
The original sin was made by whoever came up with this original sin crap and the heaven and hell that are part of the authoritarian Midieval mindset that burns crosses in the name of the Prince of Peace to appease the vile Wizard of Oz of the Old Testament and his Ten Commandments of an ownership society.
Jesus alternative: "Love one another."
Greed is not good.
War is not righteous. The best it can be is the lesser evil.
Gandhi. His last words were of fogiveness and compassion for the nationalist fanatic who killed him.
Strip away all the crap about a vuolent superhero showing off and keep the words of wisdom and kindness. Luke those of Lao Tsu and other honerable characters theoughout history.
That requires an important part of growing up. Accepting one's own mortality and finding peace with it. As a start to finding moraliry. And continue the fearless search for truth unencumbered by the fear of the unknown. And the claim that everyone is by nature 'sinful and unclean.
And only we have been washed.
General Grant showed them mercy. After Lincoln was assassinated, Southern-leaning Pres Johnson put in place Southerners in positions who would protect the Confederate leaders. What mercy was ever shown in return? l
Nice guys finish last.....