The Republican outrage over Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia after the passage of the state’s new voter suppression law reveals a bigger crisis in American democracy: the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority.
Republicans are the penultimate "cancel culture" as they proceed to “cancel” things with which they disagree. They tried to cancel the presidential portion of the 2020. They are trying the cancel democracy.
The present Republican Party is really the former southern Democratic Party that took our nation to civil war. They tried to cancel the Union. When the lost the Civil War, they tried to cancel that with Jim Crow. In 1898, one of many examples was their canceling of Amendments passed during and after the Civil War freeing blacks and giving black men the right to vote. The white supremacists of Wilmington, NC who called their objectives "White Supremacy" canceled the Republican governments of Wilmington and all of North Carolina. They openly declared they would shoot and lynch to kill every black person and white person helping black people to vote and obtain elected office. This cancel culture was the "final solution" that Adolf Hitler picked up on when he developed his own cancel culture in what we know as the "Holocaust". Long before southern Democrats set the stage for president Republicans, we had the cancel culture of the Indian Wars. So, as we hear and discuss "cancel culture" the real manifestation of this practice is extermination by whites of everything non-white that threatens the "white privilege" of dominance. In 1898 Wilmington, the white "cancel culture" advocated by white Democrats then claimed that a small minority of blacks in elected office were "negro domination" when in fact, whites were dominant in government. Republicans today claim "Democrats", "liberals", "elites", "socialists" or "communists" are dominating government when in fact they have been dominating our government and canceling out every effort to address our local, national and world needs from covid19 face masks to sustainable green energy to living wages and healthcare to the point of extinguishing humanity, life on earth and the planet as we need it to survive and prosper.
After the Civil War the Southern Democrats were the party of the KKK. The Justice Dept. was formed to combat all these anti-black-rights measures, and to uphold the new post-Civil War anti-slavery amendments to the Constitution. We learned all this from Heather.
LBJ, a southern Democrat from Texas, knew the Party of the KKK would change when he established the Voting Rights Act, so ironically it was a President from that culture who enacted the law which caused the flight of the KKK to the Republican Party in the 1960s and 1970s.
So when we hear “Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party,” we have to think “Democrat.”When we read “Democratic Party from Civil War to 1960s,” we have to think “KKK and George Wallace and lynchings.”
Unfortunately the ending that you might give to your Paries' redefinitions ....or their frequent twisting in the wind...could be "and ne'r the twain shall meet" but unfortunately its not the case and the boundaries remain fuzzy......as they became after Lincoln because the same forces played on both parts of the spectrum. Manchin today is facing the conundrum in which both parties found themselves untill Earl Warren and LBJ set out to clarify the issues and place the law alongside where the great majority of the American people stand. The natural rearguard of the "southern factions" has been going on since.....and quite succesfully for the GOP ever since.
Now their only option is to go public and go nuclear. This is live or die time....John Wayne at the Alamo stuff... and they know it and a rat cornered in alliance with rabid dogs....to really mix the metaphores....is a dangerous and totally amoral foe. They are fighting now for their congnitively re-engineered memories of past times of inexistant glories which remain like a will of the wisp flirting with the unconscious in their dreams. They are fighting to keep their hand on the joy stick which commands the flow of wealth and power. They are fighting for the joys promised in the unexpurgated capitalist's dream of heaven and final oligarchic market dominance and control where opposition is eliminated and human inputs are practically costless. Power, money, dreams and ideas all mixed up in their "fake news brains" that have only one possible "finale solution" and direction for the future .... down the drain to the sewer.
The disintegration of the old social order, and by extension the Republican Party trying desperately to cling to it, is visible from afar. You are in France, I am in northern California, worlds away from Iowa or Montana or Texas even. I always get blowback, though, and understandably so, from the fighters in the trenches. I know how they feel. I have a father born and raised in Hitler's Germany, who brought much of it with him despite adjustments over the decades but remains to this day a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter. I grew up in an assumption of Old Order Society in my own family. I work with truck drivers and warehouse people, Trumpsters mostly, the few exceptions and the few African-Americans excluded.
You can see the tide has turned and the writing is on the wall when most of corporate America sides against the Republicans and their efforts at legislation. The Republicans know they're screwed, but tell that to the HCR community that is still fighting in the trenches.
As for California, our history is not perfect. Wild West lynchings galore of Chinese, blacks, native peoples, you name it, the history of California is as filthy and vile as the history of every other state. Ronald Reagan. Now there's a national disgrace for you. Shit, he was an actor. An ACTOR. He was a racist actor, a professional at putting up an image. Thanks for nothing that this reject wound up in California. Why do I keep having to hear how wonderful this loser is? He's no hero, he's part of the same racist sexist culture that we all have had to reject and recondition. "Down the drain to the sewer" is right, to hell with the Evil Empire.
Roland, structures are most definitely falling apart but i'm not sure what shape the new Phoenix bird will take. Reagan is just a poor "B" movie actor who fits very well the maxim about lawyers...those that are good are in court, those that aren't so good teach and those that are useless administer or go into politics! He ran the actors union and got elected...QED!
Ah...let's leave the stereotypes about lawyers out of this. Lawyers do much more than "go to court." Just as "Hugh Spencer" went off topic, I shan't do that here. Let's stay focused and keep our eye on the ball.
I don't think I went "off topic" - that list came from an American (I don't know who) who posted it to a colleague, hence to me. OK I should have done a bit of due diligence, and didn't - however - from the very beginning, comments were made about his criminal past. It's all getting very messy. The heated responses to this issue here (and I have been very heartened by the seeming balance shown by commentators on this HCR blog - I expected less vitriol), indicates to me that getting some kind of closure on this issue, will be very difficult, if not impossible. Peace.
I could always refer back to my daughters 5 years in France's top law school...but what's the point. There is a big difference, i think, between teachers who really wanted to be there and those that ended up there for lack of other choices. Sometimes it works for the kids, sometimes not.
Yes, thank you janet. Power inequality. Wealth distributed (unequally) according to race, gender, and gender orientation. And the dominant religion as well.
Roland, LBJ was believed to have bemoaned the loss of the South for decades even as he was signing the civil rights act. He knew what the repercussion was going to be.
Which one of us yesterday suggested that a better name is "consequence culture" to describe the actions of liberals and progressives (or even just-minded Ike-style Republicans).
Brilliant. You combine also Nazi Germany, who might well have taken their cue from the South’s lynchings = cancel culture, and the Earth, so forgotten and neglected by a global society narcissistically lost in its troubles.
The Indian Wars are, of course, the ultimate cancel culture story in this nation of Europeans that invaded and conquered without ever acknowledging that it canceled the culture of an entire continent.
The Native Americans predicted that the European invaders would be buried under their own waste and die of hunger next to their piles of gold....and they were not wrong. Now we are starting to think that the Native Americans had something to teach us. We are very fortunate that the effort to eliminate totally their culture didn't quite work! It's about time we revived the "Ghost Dance" movement against the rampant Orcs streaming out from the dark GOP mountain.....and make it final.
It's probably worth pointing out that what Euros did to the indigenous peoples probably went on all over the globe as stronger cultures sought more land and took it from weaker (militarily) cultures. This has been bad H. sapiens behavior probably since the dawn of agriculture. So we need to look at ourselves--which we Democrats seem to be far more capable of doing than most of the current GOP.
Population explosion, enclosure of common land leading to surplus human ressources which were absorbed by the massive international emigration, commercial and investment drives of the European wealthy looking for new sources of profit in the 16thC....and lo and behold everyone had an empire. Africa, Australasie South Asia and the Americas were swallowed with papal blessing and the "right of discover" .
Isabel Wilkerson, in her book Caste, has some interesting details on that. The Nazis did actual research on how the US oppressed based on race. When their decision makers read the report section on segregated water fountains, train cars, and so on, they literally could not believe it. US segregation was too weird for Nazis to credit as real. They took what made sense to them as a starting point..
You brought up something I happen to be reading about right now...New Yorker critic and writer on classical music, Alex Ross, is author of a recent book on "Wagnerism". It is a deeply researched and fascinating exploration and influence of composer Richard Wagner's music and art on practically everything in the late 19th-early 20th century. I'm at the section now exploring how Hitler and the Nazi's basically conscripted Wagner's music and philosophies--Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite, but with some big exceptions--into their regime. A part I'm at now that deals with how Hollywood in the war years associated Wagner's music with portrayals of Nazis. In many instances Hollywood exaggerated the connection, but they also turned it around and began to use Wagner's music AGAINST Hitler and Nazi-ism. Wagner's true political beliefs actually were about as far afield of fascism as one could get--he was a very much a socialist, bordering on communism--but like so many other things about Wagner the Nazis chose to ignore the bulk of what he actually believed. Apparently the Nazis were more than marginally influenced by what they saw in the post-Civil War South with regard to racial cleansing and disenfranchisement. They also intensively studied D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (it was regular viewing by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and Co.) with its depictions of KKK en masse terrorizing Blacks. They were big fans of Hollywood extravaganzas. (The Nuremberg rally of 1936 and film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" had genuine Hollywood touches...) I was really struck how much from the Jim Crow era South had an influence on the 3rd Reich. Now I'm gonna have to look up the Isabel Wilkerson book Joan Friedman mentions below!
Ross's book is REALLY fascinating, BTW...and I am a fanatic about Wagner's music, FWIW. Now...back to the posts.....
I also will add that Hitler was influenced by Henry Ford who was very anti-semitic. Hitler even had a photo of Ford on his desk. So what goes around comes around...
It begs the question, does a corporation ever outgrow its roots? Take a look at Deutsche Bank, the favored bank of the Nazi regime. What more nets nationalistic and patriotic name than “Bank of Germany.” Deutsche Bank is still completely filthy with money laundering and evil deeds.
And what does it tell us about the level of dirt behind (in and around) the recently evicted inhabitants of the White House, when even Deutsche Bank no longer wants to lend them money?
Not only are they the true "cancel culture," they have mastered the art of projection and have their own upside down version of the dictionary these days.
Republicans are more outraged about the All-Star Game than were outraged at the actions of Trump's army of goons who stormed the Capital. That's all you need to know about the GOP's moral compass.
State and national Republican lawmakers didn't foresee that large companies would react as they have to voter suppression efforts. It's unsurprising given the GOP's lack of vision for the country. And Trump's call for boycotts will amount to nothing. His clout is ebbing fast. The Republicans can thrive on outrage and division only for so long, especially when Democrats have a clear and broad vision for fixing the nation on so many fronts.
Perhaps, if they had taken a moment to consult with business interests, they might have had a heads-up, but I think they were hell-bent on grinding out the sausage without worrying about how it was going to taste.
It seems to me that the business interests were reacting to public outrage after the fact, not trying to bend policy in a more democratic direction before the fact. Better than nothing, but not good enough, at least in Georgia.
In the 1950s, the top federal tax rate was about 90%. The government invested heavily in infrastructure. And the white pop music was awful. I don’t hear anyone attempting a Perry Como revival.
Elvis got his start in the '50s. Ricky Valens. The Big Bopper. Buddy Holly. There was also a lot of great jazz in the '50s. Dave Brubeck. John Coltrane...
So did I, at the time. Also country music stations from Texas, late at night when the AM waves bounced into the night sky and down again into my lights-out room in NY. I also remember the relief I felt when rock and roll took over.
Perry Como had a song in the late '60s, when I'd lived away from Seattle, my first home town, for about half of my life (I was 15). That song made me terribly nostalgic, and I loved it.
Preferably to the Pleistocene, if not, to the Dark Ages… At the very least, way back before the Philadelphia Convention…
The only thing that holds our heroes back from limitless regression is when they remember that slaves had to be housed and fed… Their ideal is an economy in which 45 million people count for nothing. It would have been too expensive to neglect slaves that much.
Such a strange and wonderful ideal: a household economy which classifies most of the house’s human residents as vermin would have seemed eccentric even to Dean Swift.
Please don't insult the medieval period by a) calling it the "Dark Ages" (it wasn't) and 2) claiming that the period between 500 and 1500 was monolithic and would have been appealing to Repugnicans. It would not have been. (spoke the medievalist in the community!) They would have been far more comfortable with the 17th century. the alleged Age of Reason, when autos da fee were common, women were murdered as "witches" and Otherness was raised to a high art of torture and genocide by the Protestant overlords of Northern Europe and the Catholic overlords of Souther Europe.
Linda, of course you're right... I was using the term almost as pure metaphor. I should know better than write so loosely when in the company of historians!
But... Thank heavens for your energy and enthusiasm! Oldies like me can do with the constant encouragement of seeing those younger than us take up the torch and run!
At my age, thoughts turn to the children and to their future when we shall no longer be there. And our time must surely be unusual, if not unprecedented, in caring so little that the world we're passing on to future generations should be better than the one we've enjoyed in our lifetime. Instead of which, we're passing all our bills to them and to the unborn.
YoungER. But then the thought did cross my mind that the ER might be ERroneous. Or, more likely, insignificant. If the photo is anything to go by, my beard is whitER.
Now I see something about you on the road... Looks like we (Stuart and I) got a subliminal picture of those roads... but if you're at the wheel of one of those huuuuge trucks, you'll understand well enough my image of dangerous bends after an endless ride on a straight-as-an-arrow highway.
Pity we can't share a beer on this thread—but the feeling's much the same. Good company! And when it come to that, I’ll not give a damn whether we agree or not.
Let’s dream of when our countrymen can all just feel good together—to hell with the differences!—and drive all all all those who’d set us at each other’s throats out of town to keep company with each other and the coyotes.
Oh yes, I read you perfectly well, and I still want to give you four or five or six more ❤️s. What’s not to love about your brilliant observation that the Republicans want to return to the Pleistocene, short of that, the Middle Ages, if all else fails, sometime before the birth of this country. I LOVE that.
I think that they have a problem of dating the Nirvana to which they wish to return as it has never fully existing outside their fantasies. It is just necessary to convince people that it did once exist...just over the hill...but not so close that people might contest their propaganda. Therefore any age will do as long as they've guarrantteed the peoples' ignorance and their anger, blinding their senses and firing up their emotions...logic doesn't have a chance.
Highways on which you have to keep up a steady cruising speed, one that respects the limit. And to stay wide awake. Unlike our hitech world of look-no-brakes acceleration in which we passengers risk losing consciousness through no inattention on our part.
. . . and women were property, too, and in some places they still are. I wouldn’t call Saudi Arabia a paragon of human rights, and what I read about Japan and China society is just ridiculous, it’s pre-1950s USA for women’s rights. It is shocking to consider these realities are such a recent part of human history. This world is downright Stone Age, you got that right. “Barbaric” and “medieval” just begins to tell the story.
Stone Age? How about Stone Age peoples’ survival skills?
Bear with me, but here’s a touch of the brakes, Roland. A reminder of overarching priorities:
Most of what troubles us is at best secondary. To the extent that our politics are inconsistent with global survival, they are irrelevant and consign us and our children to irrelevancy.
So let’s avoid chasing idiots down their Jonestown foxholes when they go to ground. We have to live. We have responsibilities, we have real challenges to face up to.
None of what I’ve just said invalidates HCR’s work of putting the present in historical perspective—on the contrary—it all serves the fundamental cause of grounding awareness in truth and restoring sanity to our lives while there is still time. IF there is still time…
Sane policies all hang together, and we must do likewise.
Driven by a death wish, the adversary would have us each and all hang separately. Let us never be sidelined by fools and rogues. The task that lies before us all is greater than any that has yet faced mankind. It demands that we stop messing around with tinkers’ projections and draw to the full on our innermost resources.
My only question for you, Peter, is why you think I’m not with you. I understood perfectly everything you are saying. As far as I can tell, we agree completely. Elsewhere in this huge cavalcade of messages today, I posted something to the effect that when society becomes too narcissistically self-absorbed, it loses sight of the fact that humankind itself as a whole has a sustainability issue on this planet. That is the subject of the book I am writing. Humanity and society and its problems are interesting to a point, but the much bigger issue, the much more profound and consequential issue, is the entirety of humanity’s footprint on this planet, the effect of humanity’s degradation of this planet. Why the details of society, all of global human society, are important: society needs to change so that humanity’s footprint can be reduced. So my study of society is for the purpose of discovering and identifying what will encourage society to reduce its global footprint. 🌏 🥰🦎🦚🦜🌺
OK Peter, I will say this: perhaps you are baffled by the fact that I am not turning miserable at the thought of the dire straits that global civilization has put us in. Perhaps my idealism or optimism or enthusiasm appear like I am missing the point. This is my calling. My calling is my joy. Yes the planet is in deep trouble. Yes humanity has put the planet in deep trouble. Yes I am feeling joy despite that knowledge. It’s because I have discovered my calling, which is writing a sci-fi book about that very issue. I know that sounds strange, and that this statement probably won’t compute for a lot of people reading these words, but you have to understand that I have been looking all my life for my calling, and it turns out my calling is writing a science-fiction, future-brighter-society story (with associated movie script) to address this precise issue. Sure it’s a daunting problem. But it’s MY daunting problem. It’s OUR daunting problem. Love and life energy and United Consciousness can find a cure. So what better task than being one of the ones assisting human civilization in rescuing itself from its own demise? Don’t you think that’s a worthy challenge, a worthy mission, a worthy calling?
By the way, housing and feeding slaves was no big deal. Do you think the whites lifted a finger? They made the slaves build their own housing, farm their own food. And on top of that, build the houses for the whites and feed them too. I keep reading that the US Capitol was built with slave labor, I don’t really know but it wouldn’t surprise me.
These voter suppression laws are exactly and more of what RFK addressed in 1968 as "the violence of institutions". From GA to Texas to the Minneapolis court room, today these words ring true.
"For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers."
Thank you Ted. I'm tired from a busy day but your post makes me glad that I chose to stay awake and read the HCR comments. This one is excellent and I am grateful for you sharing it. The truth of it makes my head and heart ache. But the truth of it also inspires me to do better.....This HCR community is a lifeline.....food for thought and balm for the soul.. So much appreciation for your post.
Basically, if you do not “hit ‘em where it hurts”, then these obnoxious folks will continue their denial and the rape of black and brown ownerships of their votes. MLB went with their better conscience.
I spent a little time on Twitter today just to see what some R’s were saying. Cancun Cruz took a pic, with a beer in his hand. Hardly a great piece of PR if you are supporting the evangelicals. Kevin McCarthy was quoting biblical nonsense that I am certain he knows nothing about. I admit it...I troll them because they deserve to hear from those of us who can’t tolerate their inhumane treatment of people and also, their many many lies.
We have now vaccinated millions more people which includes, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. Joe’s plans are working, so far. His American Rescue Plan makes perfect sense to this layperson. I say go for the gusto! The payback will be tremendous.
The Voting Rights Expansion act passed by the House needs to become law. I understand that passage in the Senate will require a reform of the filibuster. A reasonable change to the filibuster would be that you can't filibuster Constitutional issues.
Reasonable yes. Likely no. The Republican politicians who, as it turns out, do not represent the Republican rank and file, are toast without the filibuster. We need to crank up the spotlight on Biden's amazing achievements in just two short months. These achievements are bipartisan, they have the support of a strong majority of Republicans and NO support of Republican political leadership. We need to capture the narrative and make THIS the news.
It might be easier to arrest the seditious bums in the senate and then the filibuster will not be a problem. (I know, I know, I am boring about this travesty).
Don't forget: More than 120 of the 196 Republican members of the House of Representatives signed their names to an amicus brief to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election and keep Donald Trump in office for a second term. Never forget. Is anyone doing anything about this? Why are we pretending life is normal in our government? How can you apply our republics' principles of democracy with so many seditionists? This is a constitutional crisis. Everyone is acting like this is....normal???? What is wrong with so many of our pictures here?
Keep up this drum beat, Penelope. One if the traitors is my seditious representative. Cuts to the heart of democracy. You are so right - something must be done about it NOW. Or after insurrectionists convicted, filibuster busted, Kavanaugh disrobed...
I fervently hope that the complex investigation of the 6 January insurrection will lead to the prosecution of the congress critters involved. I hope it will not be too late.
The US Senate is the only legislative body in the world that requires a supermajority to conduct regular business.
The Constitution required the supermajority to override presidential vetos, approve treaties, amend the Constitution and impeachment. I recall that being about it.
Yes, Senate Bill 1, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, must be passed. HCR sums it up by saying “the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority,” and points out that by “by legislating from the bench, Republicans dodge accountability for unpopular policies,” using Trump-appointed judges, appointed for life, who do not need to worry about whether their decisions enjoy public support. The problem would be solved if the results of polls determined our government, but that kind of “pure democracy” is what the framers of our current system feared and instead chose our creaking system of checks and balances. True, our Constitution can be amended, but the current system still enabled the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be emasculated by Courts and States. Right now, passage of Senate Bill 1, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would seem to be the best way of bringing the “mechanics of our current system” more into sync with the “will of the majority.” Once passed, its enforcement will be crucial. Eventually, its provisions might even be the basis of further amending of the Constitution, but first, it must be passed. And that's where dealing with the filibuster comes in.
MY DEAR HEATHER, I KNOW YOU NEVER READ THIS SITE, BUT I LOVE YOU
The only word I disagree with in this article: the word "crisis" in the 1st paragraph.
We are no longer in crisis. The crisis moment was the period, arguably, from January 5 through the impeachment trial in February.
We are no longer in crisis because we are in heaven. We are in paradise. Heather is reporting what I have been predicting, that the Tide Has Turned. America is turning its back on the Old Social Order.
Goodbye racism, sexism, genderism. Hello diversity. Hello inclusion. Hello woman power, black power, gay power, bi power, Latin power, Pacific Island power, . . . . . . . . . .
Heather is Switzerland. Heather tries to keep her material sounding like it comes out of a textbook or a newspaper article. So she rarely mentions sexism and racism and genderism (anti-LGBTQ+ bias).
Why do Republicans complain about the culture wars? Why do they engage in voter suppression? Why do they gerrymander and suppress like there's no tomorrow? Because there is no tomorrow for them. They are now in the minority and, for some of us, in the rear-view mirror. (I'm a little bit ahead of myself, but you get what I mean)
They want to keep things the old way, long live the old social order, resist change. Keep Dr. Seuss intact, racism and all. Keep Confederate monuments and symbols intact. Resist change in Congress (McConnell, Sedition Caucus, Anti-Democracy) and resist change in society. Attack non-whites. Attack women in power. Retain the boy-girl version of Potato Head. Resist bathroom changes. Attack anything that isn't whites-first, whites-on-top, whites-in-power, men-first, men-on-top, men-favoritism, straights-favorable, et al. We want the old culture. White supremacy. Male supremacy. Straight (boy-girl) supremacy.
They are saying, "We want the old culture back. NASCAR with Confederate flags. Football without kneeling. Dr. Seuss as racist as he wants to be."
But they've lost the fight.
All that's left is for Congress to catch up with society.
Now I know I am going to be inundated with replies about the need to stay vigilant, the need to work hard, the need to fight the gerrymandering and voter suppression and Republican Congressional obstructionism. Feel free to reply in this way, I love hearing from fellow fighters. But know that I am giving the big picture view, that's part of my job, someone here once called me the canary in the cola mine. My wife calls herself Cassandra, that's one of the reasons she is my wife and I am her husband, we are well matched, we are both Cassandras. Cassandra understands the need to fight hard in the present moment, but Cassandra is also paying attention to the direction that things are going, the long view.
Remember what I have been saying about California, where the Republican Party has been relegated to permanent minority status consequent to the redistricting after the 2010 Census.
California be praised, I guess, but where is the evidence that the demographics of CA are in the future for EVERY state in the Union? Sorry, but it ain't like that in the Midwest, the Northeast, or even the South - excepting maybe someday TX and FL. The country is still called the United STATES of America, and nearly all of those states will continue to have White majorities for quite some time. DEMS need to work harder at finding progressive majorities in rural states, where they were once to be had. See Senator Tom Harkin in IA, for example, and also in a way the current Senator from Montana. Even the current governor of KY, of all states, is a DEM, though not exactly a progressive. Diversity's a good word, but it cannot and should not become code for nowhites only.
Agreed, diversity is about far more than color. Power imbalance is the real culprit.
That said, when people who’ve long been repressed begin to find their voice and exclude others it makes those others uneasy.
In the 70’s I recall the discomfort of many liberal men when their wives and girlfriends began attending women’s only support groups and feminist meetings. But, we needed a safe place to say difficult things and to realize we weren’t alone in our feelings. It was healing and empowering. The presence, let alone the participation, of men would have changed everything.
Decades later I’m on the other side of the equation watching people of color and the LBGT community flex their muscle and find their voice.
I’m willing to live with the discomfort of being excluded or asked to be quiet while groups who’ve long been disenfranchised explore their identity and power in a safe environment. It’s a developmental process we should find a way to embrace, however uncomfortable.
Knowing that you have support from other than the militants in your "minority" is important too and necessary to show that it is first and foremost a question of the power of another "minority" ...the elite however you define it. Seperate "non-white" meetings only confirm the hypothesis of the elite that it is necessary to stop " non-elites" combining their forces in order for elite control to survive and prosper.
The perils of challenging the status quo are real and the outcome unknown. But, it’s a journey they have every right to take. Perhaps instead of piling on we can stand up in support of their process. Even if it means standing on the outside, we can form a buffer giving them the space they need to develop their own agency without our interference.
Respectfully to all the good hearted white liberals here, we sometimes forget that just because we support justice and equality, it doesn’t entitle us to sit at every table. That assumption is a remnant of our white privilege.
I fear that each minority on their own without the active complicity of the willing parts of the white "majority" will be blown away. Only when the elite is faced by a total, united opposition will the dam break.
I agree Stuart. My point, poorly made, was that we should have their backs rather than trying to take the lead or influence their process. “Helping” can read as disrespectful to people learning how to exercise power. They are charting new territory and may have insights we don’t. Humility is a good approach, given that our own progress has been far from perfect.
The picture changes when the elite contains true diversity. Kamala Harris. Kyrsten Sinema. Katie Hill and Katie Porter. The new cabinet, not including Vilsack. Etc. Now the elite includes diverse voices and opinions, which is partly why the corporations are getting on the right side of history for a change, the change in their executive suites provides new voices with new power. Thank Goodness.
"Code for nowhites only"..........Mitchell, this is starting to happen on the left here in France. Left wing politicians (the leader for the Socialist Party's official list for this summer's Regional Elections around Paris, Audrey Pulvar, for example!) are starting to organize "Black only" meetings or meetings where Whites are asked to hold their tongue on the subject of racism! Who is racist now?
Stuart, what we're being shown is that "color blind" always was a fiction, invented most probably by Whites (although MLK employed the ideal for political purposes) and now surely in use by the same in order to pretend to themselves that all has been well since the passage of civil rights legislation. As though laws could end racism, or truly change racially structured attitudes and behaviors. French "egalité" definitely (and provably) was an invention by White elites who regarded themselves at the time (1789) as virtual representatives of humanity as such. It was an extremely useful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. I don't live in France, but my unsolicited advice regarding Audrey P. and her people would be to let them do what they think they need to do and watch them lose (again).
Indeed and the "intersectionnal" stuff doesn't compensate the French left for the loss of the workers support to the right extremes and the decline of "class conflict" in the political jargon popularity stakes. Now they are attempting to hoodwink and piggyback on the ecology wave in order to maintain their minority power. It just about succeeded in major cities by the "skin of its teeth" last year but bombed abysmally elsewhere. Lose they will when they face other than the Parisien "Bobo" .
Slavery existed well before whites saw the advantages that it could offer in the 13 colonies and this in every corner of the earth and within every "colour" . It didn't stop either the "racist" skin colour dominated social hierarchies just because the whites found their conscience and banned it....in its most blatant expression. Humans indeed can be equally malevelant under the skin.
Good morning everyone! Good morning HCR! My spring break over (sigh), I have to get back to the grind-computer and the Zoom prison, so keeping this brief. Is anyone else kind of delighted with the term "woke supremacy"? It seems to me that in an attempt to make a nasty pun, whoever invented that actually created a beautiful meme. If "woke supremacy" were to be the goal then:
*Everyone would agree that difference is GOOD and that a rising tide lifts ALL boats and would therefore welcome diversity and inclusivity
*Everyone would agree that equity is GOOD and that the tools people need to achieve equity should be promoted, resourced, and pushed forward
*Everyone would agree that, despite one's personal history of trauma, it is ALWAYS better to promote empathy over divisiveness; that emotional maturity is a legitimate and sought-after goal
*Everyone would agree that our greatest asset is an EDUCATED POPULACE and that education--a progressive, inclusive, diverse education system that promotes critical thinking skills and does not demand conformity--is something that has to be supported financially, politically, and culturally.
Love this!!!!: “Everyone would agree that, despite one's personal history of trauma, it is ALWAYS better to promote empathy over divisiveness; that emotional maturity is a legitimate and sought-after goal”. Now, how do we get there??
Thank you! I was beginning to feel an outsider, since those two "insults": cancel culture and woke supremacy resonate with me as COMPLIMENTS. I can't envision a more satisfying "culture" to "cancel" than that embodied by the GQP nor a better "supremacy" to welcome than one which is "woke."
Off today's topic, it's Easter Monday, but Monday nonetheless and the trial of Derek Chauvin continues. I admit to being a fan of Common Dreams newsletters. I rarely have to read a sentence more than once to understand what the author's intent is: "Despite the harrowing testimony, it paled before newly released bodycam footage of Floyd's pained, flailing final moments - his terror, his crying, his claustrophobia, the awful baffled dawning he was about to die for a $20 crime he didn't know he'd committed, the heartrending pleading of a reported 'Mama's boy' that, 'I'm not a bad guy.' Viewing the video - here and here - several jurors broke down in tears. Understandably: It's almost unwatchable. Our job is to not look away. And to acknowledge how astounding it is that black people haven't yet burned this country to the ground." Here's the full article: https://www.commondreams.org/further/2021/04/02/totally-unnecessary
It is unwatchable. I cannot watch it. Suffice to say that I’m glad that the trial of this atrocity, a crucible for so many similar atrocities, probably 100s if not 1000s of them if not tens of 1000s going back to the beginning of slavery, is hitting the spotlight.
Morning, Roland!! I wasn't going to watch either mostly because it is so time-consuming. I figured reading/seeing summaries would suffice. But now that I'm in it, I cannot look away.
I can’t, and haven’t, watched, either. I don’t want my heart to shatter into a million pieces. I know we need to honor by not looking away, but I just can’t.
I am quite interested in how this latest sophomoric display of chest beating from the GOP is panning out. Timing is everything to them. Is their newest dog whistle of "cancel culture" with the MLB merely a diversion from the Gaetz crash and burn? I check on a few Republican friends pages and noticed a complete change from aggressively"owning the Dems" to lost dogs, pictures of kittens and religion. I can always tell the temperature of their Facebook page by their agrecious beating down of Democrats but when facts about their Party members come to light, it's a different story. Given the Matt Gaetz situation, if you brought up the name Andrew Cuomo right now, they wouldn't know who you were talking about. 😂
For some time the proportion to which our elected constituents reflects reality is alarming. This makes the mid-terms that much more important. Getting our ducks in a row should be, and hopefully is a 24/7 plan.
“the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority.” Exactly, Dr. Richardson. The Republicans seem only want freedom to stay in power, and to suppress not just the votes, but the will of most of the people. They are anti-freedom. Their Congressional oaths they swore turned out to be lies. We must keep making our voices heard and keep writing and calling our Congressional representatives and keeping pressure on the big corporations. It does make a difference.
GOP.....Dirty Players... Dirty Liars... Will stoop to no level, not one dirty depth to seek and reach their dirty ends. Buy it, bribe it, appoint it and whatever else they can think of to meet their dirty means. Only the voting American people can stop them and our truth telling citizens like HCR to light the way. If it means we also must play dirty, then that is what must be done! Or we are facing not a future of democracy and decency but something so much more sinister. The movie Vendetta!! Is that our future? Good God I hope not!
It's time for Democrats and Independents to be stern in their rebuke of these would-be-oligarchs and oligarchs. We slept while they gerrymandered, filled court benches, and filibustered their way to an almost unbreakable hold on power. We must put them in a permanent minority not only in numbers but in power. Ban the filibuster and do what America needs to have done.
Republicans long ago realized that they would start losing elections unless they gamed the system. So, between gerrymandering and voter suppression, they have found a way to keep in power. The thing is, they were smart enough to realize that they couldn't do those two things without controlling the courts, as the courts would decide legal challenges to both gerrymandering and voter suppression. So, they have packed the courts with a legion of right wing judges, a process that has taken place over decades. We should therefore not be shocked that the courts are now upholding all of the Republican-initiated legislation and/or "redistricting". As HCR has noted, this has led to minority rule, a process that will only get worse and worse as the years go by.
And to continue nominating (and, one hopes, confirming) a diverse slate of judges. Per Joyce Vance at MSNBC.com:
"This week, President Joe Biden proposed 11 nominees for vacant federal judgeships. They are a diverse and exceptionally qualified group that includes trailblazers like the first Muslim federal judge, the first female Asian American judge for the district court in the District of Columbia and the first woman of color for the federal district court in Maryland — if they are all confirmed. All told, nine of the nominees are women. Many of them, while well-credentialed, are relatively young."
"But this group is also unique in another way: Four of them have experience in public defender’s offices. You might be surprised that a former prosecutor would laud experience as a public defender as a critical qualification for a federal judgeship, but it is."
Republicans are the penultimate "cancel culture" as they proceed to “cancel” things with which they disagree. They tried to cancel the presidential portion of the 2020. They are trying the cancel democracy.
The present Republican Party is really the former southern Democratic Party that took our nation to civil war. They tried to cancel the Union. When the lost the Civil War, they tried to cancel that with Jim Crow. In 1898, one of many examples was their canceling of Amendments passed during and after the Civil War freeing blacks and giving black men the right to vote. The white supremacists of Wilmington, NC who called their objectives "White Supremacy" canceled the Republican governments of Wilmington and all of North Carolina. They openly declared they would shoot and lynch to kill every black person and white person helping black people to vote and obtain elected office. This cancel culture was the "final solution" that Adolf Hitler picked up on when he developed his own cancel culture in what we know as the "Holocaust". Long before southern Democrats set the stage for president Republicans, we had the cancel culture of the Indian Wars. So, as we hear and discuss "cancel culture" the real manifestation of this practice is extermination by whites of everything non-white that threatens the "white privilege" of dominance. In 1898 Wilmington, the white "cancel culture" advocated by white Democrats then claimed that a small minority of blacks in elected office were "negro domination" when in fact, whites were dominant in government. Republicans today claim "Democrats", "liberals", "elites", "socialists" or "communists" are dominating government when in fact they have been dominating our government and canceling out every effort to address our local, national and world needs from covid19 face masks to sustainable green energy to living wages and healthcare to the point of extinguishing humanity, life on earth and the planet as we need it to survive and prosper.
Thank you David. Yes to all of it.
After the Civil War the Southern Democrats were the party of the KKK. The Justice Dept. was formed to combat all these anti-black-rights measures, and to uphold the new post-Civil War anti-slavery amendments to the Constitution. We learned all this from Heather.
LBJ, a southern Democrat from Texas, knew the Party of the KKK would change when he established the Voting Rights Act, so ironically it was a President from that culture who enacted the law which caused the flight of the KKK to the Republican Party in the 1960s and 1970s.
So when we hear “Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party,” we have to think “Democrat.”When we read “Democratic Party from Civil War to 1960s,” we have to think “KKK and George Wallace and lynchings.”
Unfortunately the ending that you might give to your Paries' redefinitions ....or their frequent twisting in the wind...could be "and ne'r the twain shall meet" but unfortunately its not the case and the boundaries remain fuzzy......as they became after Lincoln because the same forces played on both parts of the spectrum. Manchin today is facing the conundrum in which both parties found themselves untill Earl Warren and LBJ set out to clarify the issues and place the law alongside where the great majority of the American people stand. The natural rearguard of the "southern factions" has been going on since.....and quite succesfully for the GOP ever since.
Now their only option is to go public and go nuclear. This is live or die time....John Wayne at the Alamo stuff... and they know it and a rat cornered in alliance with rabid dogs....to really mix the metaphores....is a dangerous and totally amoral foe. They are fighting now for their congnitively re-engineered memories of past times of inexistant glories which remain like a will of the wisp flirting with the unconscious in their dreams. They are fighting to keep their hand on the joy stick which commands the flow of wealth and power. They are fighting for the joys promised in the unexpurgated capitalist's dream of heaven and final oligarchic market dominance and control where opposition is eliminated and human inputs are practically costless. Power, money, dreams and ideas all mixed up in their "fake news brains" that have only one possible "finale solution" and direction for the future .... down the drain to the sewer.
The disintegration of the old social order, and by extension the Republican Party trying desperately to cling to it, is visible from afar. You are in France, I am in northern California, worlds away from Iowa or Montana or Texas even. I always get blowback, though, and understandably so, from the fighters in the trenches. I know how they feel. I have a father born and raised in Hitler's Germany, who brought much of it with him despite adjustments over the decades but remains to this day a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter. I grew up in an assumption of Old Order Society in my own family. I work with truck drivers and warehouse people, Trumpsters mostly, the few exceptions and the few African-Americans excluded.
You can see the tide has turned and the writing is on the wall when most of corporate America sides against the Republicans and their efforts at legislation. The Republicans know they're screwed, but tell that to the HCR community that is still fighting in the trenches.
As for California, our history is not perfect. Wild West lynchings galore of Chinese, blacks, native peoples, you name it, the history of California is as filthy and vile as the history of every other state. Ronald Reagan. Now there's a national disgrace for you. Shit, he was an actor. An ACTOR. He was a racist actor, a professional at putting up an image. Thanks for nothing that this reject wound up in California. Why do I keep having to hear how wonderful this loser is? He's no hero, he's part of the same racist sexist culture that we all have had to reject and recondition. "Down the drain to the sewer" is right, to hell with the Evil Empire.
Roland, structures are most definitely falling apart but i'm not sure what shape the new Phoenix bird will take. Reagan is just a poor "B" movie actor who fits very well the maxim about lawyers...those that are good are in court, those that aren't so good teach and those that are useless administer or go into politics! He ran the actors union and got elected...QED!
Ah...let's leave the stereotypes about lawyers out of this. Lawyers do much more than "go to court." Just as "Hugh Spencer" went off topic, I shan't do that here. Let's stay focused and keep our eye on the ball.
I seem to recollect studies showing a massive surplus of lawyers in the US. I suppose they have to do something else!
I don't think I went "off topic" - that list came from an American (I don't know who) who posted it to a colleague, hence to me. OK I should have done a bit of due diligence, and didn't - however - from the very beginning, comments were made about his criminal past. It's all getting very messy. The heated responses to this issue here (and I have been very heartened by the seeming balance shown by commentators on this HCR blog - I expected less vitriol), indicates to me that getting some kind of closure on this issue, will be very difficult, if not impossible. Peace.
Hey! No dissing teachers. That rant to the burn pile please.
I could always refer back to my daughters 5 years in France's top law school...but what's the point. There is a big difference, i think, between teachers who really wanted to be there and those that ended up there for lack of other choices. Sometimes it works for the kids, sometimes not.
QED
Quod erat demonstrandum ...indeed.
Distilled, it always gets down to distribution of wealth.
Yes, it does.
Yes, thank you janet. Power inequality. Wealth distributed (unequally) according to race, gender, and gender orientation. And the dominant religion as well.
Yes!
If workers, perhaps past a certain age, 18?, guaranteed a living wage would we need the subsidies for low income families?
Glurg glurg, is the sound I hear every time I see a Republican speaking on a news channel.
Well said Stuart!!🤔😊
Roland, LBJ was believed to have bemoaned the loss of the South for decades even as he was signing the civil rights act. He knew what the repercussion was going to be.
Yes yes yes David. Every time they say “ cancel culture” It’s pure projection. Just like djt.
Which one of us yesterday suggested that a better name is "consequence culture" to describe the actions of liberals and progressives (or even just-minded Ike-style Republicans).
Sorry, I don’t recall.
Brilliant. You combine also Nazi Germany, who might well have taken their cue from the South’s lynchings = cancel culture, and the Earth, so forgotten and neglected by a global society narcissistically lost in its troubles.
The Indian Wars are, of course, the ultimate cancel culture story in this nation of Europeans that invaded and conquered without ever acknowledging that it canceled the culture of an entire continent.
The Native Americans predicted that the European invaders would be buried under their own waste and die of hunger next to their piles of gold....and they were not wrong. Now we are starting to think that the Native Americans had something to teach us. We are very fortunate that the effort to eliminate totally their culture didn't quite work! It's about time we revived the "Ghost Dance" movement against the rampant Orcs streaming out from the dark GOP mountain.....and make it final.
Totally agree. Thank you, Stuart.
It's probably worth pointing out that what Euros did to the indigenous peoples probably went on all over the globe as stronger cultures sought more land and took it from weaker (militarily) cultures. This has been bad H. sapiens behavior probably since the dawn of agriculture. So we need to look at ourselves--which we Democrats seem to be far more capable of doing than most of the current GOP.
Population explosion, enclosure of common land leading to surplus human ressources which were absorbed by the massive international emigration, commercial and investment drives of the European wealthy looking for new sources of profit in the 16thC....and lo and behold everyone had an empire. Africa, Australasie South Asia and the Americas were swallowed with papal blessing and the "right of discover" .
Well said.
Isabel Wilkerson, in her book Caste, has some interesting details on that. The Nazis did actual research on how the US oppressed based on race. When their decision makers read the report section on segregated water fountains, train cars, and so on, they literally could not believe it. US segregation was too weird for Nazis to credit as real. They took what made sense to them as a starting point..
Wow. History never ceases to amaze and disgust.
Oh, yes. The Nazis loved the U.S. eugenics movement, too! Their breeding programs for creating the Master Race came straight from our shores.
You brought up something I happen to be reading about right now...New Yorker critic and writer on classical music, Alex Ross, is author of a recent book on "Wagnerism". It is a deeply researched and fascinating exploration and influence of composer Richard Wagner's music and art on practically everything in the late 19th-early 20th century. I'm at the section now exploring how Hitler and the Nazi's basically conscripted Wagner's music and philosophies--Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite, but with some big exceptions--into their regime. A part I'm at now that deals with how Hollywood in the war years associated Wagner's music with portrayals of Nazis. In many instances Hollywood exaggerated the connection, but they also turned it around and began to use Wagner's music AGAINST Hitler and Nazi-ism. Wagner's true political beliefs actually were about as far afield of fascism as one could get--he was a very much a socialist, bordering on communism--but like so many other things about Wagner the Nazis chose to ignore the bulk of what he actually believed. Apparently the Nazis were more than marginally influenced by what they saw in the post-Civil War South with regard to racial cleansing and disenfranchisement. They also intensively studied D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (it was regular viewing by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and Co.) with its depictions of KKK en masse terrorizing Blacks. They were big fans of Hollywood extravaganzas. (The Nuremberg rally of 1936 and film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" had genuine Hollywood touches...) I was really struck how much from the Jim Crow era South had an influence on the 3rd Reich. Now I'm gonna have to look up the Isabel Wilkerson book Joan Friedman mentions below!
Ross's book is REALLY fascinating, BTW...and I am a fanatic about Wagner's music, FWIW. Now...back to the posts.....
I also will add that Hitler was influenced by Henry Ford who was very anti-semitic. Hitler even had a photo of Ford on his desk. So what goes around comes around...
Hence why my parents necer bought a Ford!
Crap! *never*!
Hitler liked Ford so much, he had two German consuls to the US pin a medal on him.
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/
It begs the question, does a corporation ever outgrow its roots? Take a look at Deutsche Bank, the favored bank of the Nazi regime. What more nets nationalistic and patriotic name than “Bank of Germany.” Deutsche Bank is still completely filthy with money laundering and evil deeds.
And what does it tell us about the level of dirt behind (in and around) the recently evicted inhabitants of the White House, when even Deutsche Bank no longer wants to lend them money?
Touché
🤮
Let me barf now.
🤮
Not only are they the true "cancel culture," they have mastered the art of projection and have their own upside down version of the dictionary these days.
I’d say the ultimate cancel culture...
I would like to cancel their culture!
That's pretty rich. Republican-made laws to cancel voters are the epitome of cancel culture, and autocrazy.
Republicans are more outraged about the All-Star Game than were outraged at the actions of Trump's army of goons who stormed the Capital. That's all you need to know about the GOP's moral compass.
Perfect summary.
Perhaps they thought that it was a practice for a American Football match?
State and national Republican lawmakers didn't foresee that large companies would react as they have to voter suppression efforts. It's unsurprising given the GOP's lack of vision for the country. And Trump's call for boycotts will amount to nothing. His clout is ebbing fast. The Republicans can thrive on outrage and division only for so long, especially when Democrats have a clear and broad vision for fixing the nation on so many fronts.
Perhaps, if they had taken a moment to consult with business interests, they might have had a heads-up, but I think they were hell-bent on grinding out the sausage without worrying about how it was going to taste.
It seems to me that the business interests were reacting to public outrage after the fact, not trying to bend policy in a more democratic direction before the fact. Better than nothing, but not good enough, at least in Georgia.
True, but it's better than their silence.
The GOP's vision for the country: let's go back to the 1800s. Maybe the 1950s.
In the 1950s, the top federal tax rate was about 90%. The government invested heavily in infrastructure. And the white pop music was awful. I don’t hear anyone attempting a Perry Como revival.
The white pop that did well was mostly stolen from Black musicians.
Elvis got his start in the '50s. Ricky Valens. The Big Bopper. Buddy Holly. There was also a lot of great jazz in the '50s. Dave Brubeck. John Coltrane...
Hey, I loved Perry Como!
So did I, at the time. Also country music stations from Texas, late at night when the AM waves bounced into the night sky and down again into my lights-out room in NY. I also remember the relief I felt when rock and roll took over.
Perry Como had a song in the late '60s, when I'd lived away from Seattle, my first home town, for about half of my life (I was 15). That song made me terribly nostalgic, and I loved it.
😂
No! No! No!
Preferably to the Pleistocene, if not, to the Dark Ages… At the very least, way back before the Philadelphia Convention…
The only thing that holds our heroes back from limitless regression is when they remember that slaves had to be housed and fed… Their ideal is an economy in which 45 million people count for nothing. It would have been too expensive to neglect slaves that much.
Such a strange and wonderful ideal: a household economy which classifies most of the house’s human residents as vermin would have seemed eccentric even to Dean Swift.
Please don't insult the medieval period by a) calling it the "Dark Ages" (it wasn't) and 2) claiming that the period between 500 and 1500 was monolithic and would have been appealing to Repugnicans. It would not have been. (spoke the medievalist in the community!) They would have been far more comfortable with the 17th century. the alleged Age of Reason, when autos da fee were common, women were murdered as "witches" and Otherness was raised to a high art of torture and genocide by the Protestant overlords of Northern Europe and the Catholic overlords of Souther Europe.
Linda, of course you're right... I was using the term almost as pure metaphor. I should know better than write so loosely when in the company of historians!
Oh, geez...
Can I give you four or five or six more ❤️s❓
But... Thank heavens for your energy and enthusiasm! Oldies like me can do with the constant encouragement of seeing those younger than us take up the torch and run!
At my age, thoughts turn to the children and to their future when we shall no longer be there. And our time must surely be unusual, if not unprecedented, in caring so little that the world we're passing on to future generations should be better than the one we've enjoyed in our lifetime. Instead of which, we're passing all our bills to them and to the unborn.
That feels to me like the ultimate crime.
Oh my goodness, a deluded soul who thinks I’m young. 🙄
😉
😄
YoungER. But then the thought did cross my mind that the ER might be ERroneous. Or, more likely, insignificant. If the photo is anything to go by, my beard is whitER.
Now I see something about you on the road... Looks like we (Stuart and I) got a subliminal picture of those roads... but if you're at the wheel of one of those huuuuge trucks, you'll understand well enough my image of dangerous bends after an endless ride on a straight-as-an-arrow highway.
Pity we can't share a beer on this thread—but the feeling's much the same. Good company! And when it come to that, I’ll not give a damn whether we agree or not.
Let’s dream of when our countrymen can all just feel good together—to hell with the differences!—and drive all all all those who’d set us at each other’s throats out of town to keep company with each other and the coyotes.
Now THAT would be GREAT!
Oh goodness, Roland... You can't have read what I've just written you when you posted your flattering words!
Hurtling down the straight, and me yelling "Hey, Friends, we're coming to that deadly bend in the highway..."
Oh yes, I read you perfectly well, and I still want to give you four or five or six more ❤️s. What’s not to love about your brilliant observation that the Republicans want to return to the Pleistocene, short of that, the Middle Ages, if all else fails, sometime before the birth of this country. I LOVE that.
I think that they have a problem of dating the Nirvana to which they wish to return as it has never fully existing outside their fantasies. It is just necessary to convince people that it did once exist...just over the hill...but not so close that people might contest their propaganda. Therefore any age will do as long as they've guarrantteed the peoples' ignorance and their anger, blinding their senses and firing up their emotions...logic doesn't have a chance.
As long as it isn't the "Yellow Brick Road". I love the highways in the West which, like life, seem to go on for ever and well beyond the horizon.
Welcome to my life. Those are the highways I drive. I’m a truck driver.
Highways on which you have to keep up a steady cruising speed, one that respects the limit. And to stay wide awake. Unlike our hitech world of look-no-brakes acceleration in which we passengers risk losing consciousness through no inattention on our part.
💙💚💜💛🧡❤
. . . and women were property, too, and in some places they still are. I wouldn’t call Saudi Arabia a paragon of human rights, and what I read about Japan and China society is just ridiculous, it’s pre-1950s USA for women’s rights. It is shocking to consider these realities are such a recent part of human history. This world is downright Stone Age, you got that right. “Barbaric” and “medieval” just begins to tell the story.
Stone Age? How about Stone Age peoples’ survival skills?
Bear with me, but here’s a touch of the brakes, Roland. A reminder of overarching priorities:
Most of what troubles us is at best secondary. To the extent that our politics are inconsistent with global survival, they are irrelevant and consign us and our children to irrelevancy.
So let’s avoid chasing idiots down their Jonestown foxholes when they go to ground. We have to live. We have responsibilities, we have real challenges to face up to.
None of what I’ve just said invalidates HCR’s work of putting the present in historical perspective—on the contrary—it all serves the fundamental cause of grounding awareness in truth and restoring sanity to our lives while there is still time. IF there is still time…
Sane policies all hang together, and we must do likewise.
Driven by a death wish, the adversary would have us each and all hang separately. Let us never be sidelined by fools and rogues. The task that lies before us all is greater than any that has yet faced mankind. It demands that we stop messing around with tinkers’ projections and draw to the full on our innermost resources.
My only question for you, Peter, is why you think I’m not with you. I understood perfectly everything you are saying. As far as I can tell, we agree completely. Elsewhere in this huge cavalcade of messages today, I posted something to the effect that when society becomes too narcissistically self-absorbed, it loses sight of the fact that humankind itself as a whole has a sustainability issue on this planet. That is the subject of the book I am writing. Humanity and society and its problems are interesting to a point, but the much bigger issue, the much more profound and consequential issue, is the entirety of humanity’s footprint on this planet, the effect of humanity’s degradation of this planet. Why the details of society, all of global human society, are important: society needs to change so that humanity’s footprint can be reduced. So my study of society is for the purpose of discovering and identifying what will encourage society to reduce its global footprint. 🌏 🥰🦎🦚🦜🌺
OK Peter, I will say this: perhaps you are baffled by the fact that I am not turning miserable at the thought of the dire straits that global civilization has put us in. Perhaps my idealism or optimism or enthusiasm appear like I am missing the point. This is my calling. My calling is my joy. Yes the planet is in deep trouble. Yes humanity has put the planet in deep trouble. Yes I am feeling joy despite that knowledge. It’s because I have discovered my calling, which is writing a sci-fi book about that very issue. I know that sounds strange, and that this statement probably won’t compute for a lot of people reading these words, but you have to understand that I have been looking all my life for my calling, and it turns out my calling is writing a science-fiction, future-brighter-society story (with associated movie script) to address this precise issue. Sure it’s a daunting problem. But it’s MY daunting problem. It’s OUR daunting problem. Love and life energy and United Consciousness can find a cure. So what better task than being one of the ones assisting human civilization in rescuing itself from its own demise? Don’t you think that’s a worthy challenge, a worthy mission, a worthy calling?
By the way, housing and feeding slaves was no big deal. Do you think the whites lifted a finger? They made the slaves build their own housing, farm their own food. And on top of that, build the houses for the whites and feed them too. I keep reading that the US Capitol was built with slave labor, I don’t really know but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Most of the city of Washington was built by enslaved people.
Oh, ya, I remember now...
These voter suppression laws are exactly and more of what RFK addressed in 1968 as "the violence of institutions". From GA to Texas to the Minneapolis court room, today these words ring true.
"For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt7IuKoETEc&t=4s
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-to-the-cleveland-city-club-april-5-1968
Such a loss that RFK was murdered. He had the brains, the mettle and the heart that could have done so much good.
His legacy lives here in this HCR Herd.
I certainly felt that RFK would’ve really made an incredible president. He was a brilliant strategist.
Thank you Ted. I'm tired from a busy day but your post makes me glad that I chose to stay awake and read the HCR comments. This one is excellent and I am grateful for you sharing it. The truth of it makes my head and heart ache. But the truth of it also inspires me to do better.....This HCR community is a lifeline.....food for thought and balm for the soul.. So much appreciation for your post.
Sleep well. We stay together, and vigilant, tomorrow will be better.
Exactly.
Good evening, HCR. Hope you had a good holiday.
Basically, if you do not “hit ‘em where it hurts”, then these obnoxious folks will continue their denial and the rape of black and brown ownerships of their votes. MLB went with their better conscience.
I spent a little time on Twitter today just to see what some R’s were saying. Cancun Cruz took a pic, with a beer in his hand. Hardly a great piece of PR if you are supporting the evangelicals. Kevin McCarthy was quoting biblical nonsense that I am certain he knows nothing about. I admit it...I troll them because they deserve to hear from those of us who can’t tolerate their inhumane treatment of people and also, their many many lies.
We have now vaccinated millions more people which includes, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. Joe’s plans are working, so far. His American Rescue Plan makes perfect sense to this layperson. I say go for the gusto! The payback will be tremendous.
Marlene, you are my kind of troll.
😉
The Voting Rights Expansion act passed by the House needs to become law. I understand that passage in the Senate will require a reform of the filibuster. A reasonable change to the filibuster would be that you can't filibuster Constitutional issues.
Reasonable yes. Likely no. The Republican politicians who, as it turns out, do not represent the Republican rank and file, are toast without the filibuster. We need to crank up the spotlight on Biden's amazing achievements in just two short months. These achievements are bipartisan, they have the support of a strong majority of Republicans and NO support of Republican political leadership. We need to capture the narrative and make THIS the news.
It might be easier to arrest the seditious bums in the senate and then the filibuster will not be a problem. (I know, I know, I am boring about this travesty).
Don't forget: More than 120 of the 196 Republican members of the House of Representatives signed their names to an amicus brief to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election and keep Donald Trump in office for a second term. Never forget. Is anyone doing anything about this? Why are we pretending life is normal in our government? How can you apply our republics' principles of democracy with so many seditionists? This is a constitutional crisis. Everyone is acting like this is....normal???? What is wrong with so many of our pictures here?
Keep up this drum beat, Penelope. One if the traitors is my seditious representative. Cuts to the heart of democracy. You are so right - something must be done about it NOW. Or after insurrectionists convicted, filibuster busted, Kavanaugh disrobed...
I fervently hope that the complex investigation of the 6 January insurrection will lead to the prosecution of the congress critters involved. I hope it will not be too late.
The US Senate is the only legislative body in the world that requires a supermajority to conduct regular business.
The Constitution required the supermajority to override presidential vetos, approve treaties, amend the Constitution and impeachment. I recall that being about it.
It’s time for to go back to the original intent.
Wow - a constitutionalist view, I'd say!
The filibuster has done little good, as far as I understand.
Yes, Senate Bill 1, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, must be passed. HCR sums it up by saying “the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority,” and points out that by “by legislating from the bench, Republicans dodge accountability for unpopular policies,” using Trump-appointed judges, appointed for life, who do not need to worry about whether their decisions enjoy public support. The problem would be solved if the results of polls determined our government, but that kind of “pure democracy” is what the framers of our current system feared and instead chose our creaking system of checks and balances. True, our Constitution can be amended, but the current system still enabled the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be emasculated by Courts and States. Right now, passage of Senate Bill 1, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would seem to be the best way of bringing the “mechanics of our current system” more into sync with the “will of the majority.” Once passed, its enforcement will be crucial. Eventually, its provisions might even be the basis of further amending of the Constitution, but first, it must be passed. And that's where dealing with the filibuster comes in.
👍🏻❤️🤍💙
MY DEAR HEATHER, I KNOW YOU NEVER READ THIS SITE, BUT I LOVE YOU
The only word I disagree with in this article: the word "crisis" in the 1st paragraph.
We are no longer in crisis. The crisis moment was the period, arguably, from January 5 through the impeachment trial in February.
We are no longer in crisis because we are in heaven. We are in paradise. Heather is reporting what I have been predicting, that the Tide Has Turned. America is turning its back on the Old Social Order.
Goodbye racism, sexism, genderism. Hello diversity. Hello inclusion. Hello woman power, black power, gay power, bi power, Latin power, Pacific Island power, . . . . . . . . . .
Heather is Switzerland. Heather tries to keep her material sounding like it comes out of a textbook or a newspaper article. So she rarely mentions sexism and racism and genderism (anti-LGBTQ+ bias).
Why do Republicans complain about the culture wars? Why do they engage in voter suppression? Why do they gerrymander and suppress like there's no tomorrow? Because there is no tomorrow for them. They are now in the minority and, for some of us, in the rear-view mirror. (I'm a little bit ahead of myself, but you get what I mean)
They want to keep things the old way, long live the old social order, resist change. Keep Dr. Seuss intact, racism and all. Keep Confederate monuments and symbols intact. Resist change in Congress (McConnell, Sedition Caucus, Anti-Democracy) and resist change in society. Attack non-whites. Attack women in power. Retain the boy-girl version of Potato Head. Resist bathroom changes. Attack anything that isn't whites-first, whites-on-top, whites-in-power, men-first, men-on-top, men-favoritism, straights-favorable, et al. We want the old culture. White supremacy. Male supremacy. Straight (boy-girl) supremacy.
They are saying, "We want the old culture back. NASCAR with Confederate flags. Football without kneeling. Dr. Seuss as racist as he wants to be."
But they've lost the fight.
All that's left is for Congress to catch up with society.
Now I know I am going to be inundated with replies about the need to stay vigilant, the need to work hard, the need to fight the gerrymandering and voter suppression and Republican Congressional obstructionism. Feel free to reply in this way, I love hearing from fellow fighters. But know that I am giving the big picture view, that's part of my job, someone here once called me the canary in the cola mine. My wife calls herself Cassandra, that's one of the reasons she is my wife and I am her husband, we are well matched, we are both Cassandras. Cassandra understands the need to fight hard in the present moment, but Cassandra is also paying attention to the direction that things are going, the long view.
Remember what I have been saying about California, where the Republican Party has been relegated to permanent minority status consequent to the redistricting after the 2010 Census.
Viva la Revolution!! Power to the People!!
I can guarantee that no one ever called me the canary in the cola mine, but cola is part of the problem, not part of the solution, just like coal.
California be praised, I guess, but where is the evidence that the demographics of CA are in the future for EVERY state in the Union? Sorry, but it ain't like that in the Midwest, the Northeast, or even the South - excepting maybe someday TX and FL. The country is still called the United STATES of America, and nearly all of those states will continue to have White majorities for quite some time. DEMS need to work harder at finding progressive majorities in rural states, where they were once to be had. See Senator Tom Harkin in IA, for example, and also in a way the current Senator from Montana. Even the current governor of KY, of all states, is a DEM, though not exactly a progressive. Diversity's a good word, but it cannot and should not become code for nowhites only.
Agreed, diversity is about far more than color. Power imbalance is the real culprit.
That said, when people who’ve long been repressed begin to find their voice and exclude others it makes those others uneasy.
In the 70’s I recall the discomfort of many liberal men when their wives and girlfriends began attending women’s only support groups and feminist meetings. But, we needed a safe place to say difficult things and to realize we weren’t alone in our feelings. It was healing and empowering. The presence, let alone the participation, of men would have changed everything.
Decades later I’m on the other side of the equation watching people of color and the LBGT community flex their muscle and find their voice.
I’m willing to live with the discomfort of being excluded or asked to be quiet while groups who’ve long been disenfranchised explore their identity and power in a safe environment. It’s a developmental process we should find a way to embrace, however uncomfortable.
Let’s shut up and listen.
💜💙💚💛🧡❤
Knowing that you have support from other than the militants in your "minority" is important too and necessary to show that it is first and foremost a question of the power of another "minority" ...the elite however you define it. Seperate "non-white" meetings only confirm the hypothesis of the elite that it is necessary to stop " non-elites" combining their forces in order for elite control to survive and prosper.
The perils of challenging the status quo are real and the outcome unknown. But, it’s a journey they have every right to take. Perhaps instead of piling on we can stand up in support of their process. Even if it means standing on the outside, we can form a buffer giving them the space they need to develop their own agency without our interference.
Respectfully to all the good hearted white liberals here, we sometimes forget that just because we support justice and equality, it doesn’t entitle us to sit at every table. That assumption is a remnant of our white privilege.
I fear that each minority on their own without the active complicity of the willing parts of the white "majority" will be blown away. Only when the elite is faced by a total, united opposition will the dam break.
I agree Stuart. My point, poorly made, was that we should have their backs rather than trying to take the lead or influence their process. “Helping” can read as disrespectful to people learning how to exercise power. They are charting new territory and may have insights we don’t. Humility is a good approach, given that our own progress has been far from perfect.
The picture changes when the elite contains true diversity. Kamala Harris. Kyrsten Sinema. Katie Hill and Katie Porter. The new cabinet, not including Vilsack. Etc. Now the elite includes diverse voices and opinions, which is partly why the corporations are getting on the right side of history for a change, the change in their executive suites provides new voices with new power. Thank Goodness.
"Code for nowhites only"..........Mitchell, this is starting to happen on the left here in France. Left wing politicians (the leader for the Socialist Party's official list for this summer's Regional Elections around Paris, Audrey Pulvar, for example!) are starting to organize "Black only" meetings or meetings where Whites are asked to hold their tongue on the subject of racism! Who is racist now?
Stuart, what we're being shown is that "color blind" always was a fiction, invented most probably by Whites (although MLK employed the ideal for political purposes) and now surely in use by the same in order to pretend to themselves that all has been well since the passage of civil rights legislation. As though laws could end racism, or truly change racially structured attitudes and behaviors. French "egalité" definitely (and provably) was an invention by White elites who regarded themselves at the time (1789) as virtual representatives of humanity as such. It was an extremely useful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. I don't live in France, but my unsolicited advice regarding Audrey P. and her people would be to let them do what they think they need to do and watch them lose (again).
Indeed and the "intersectionnal" stuff doesn't compensate the French left for the loss of the workers support to the right extremes and the decline of "class conflict" in the political jargon popularity stakes. Now they are attempting to hoodwink and piggyback on the ecology wave in order to maintain their minority power. It just about succeeded in major cities by the "skin of its teeth" last year but bombed abysmally elsewhere. Lose they will when they face other than the Parisien "Bobo" .
Slavery existed well before whites saw the advantages that it could offer in the 13 colonies and this in every corner of the earth and within every "colour" . It didn't stop either the "racist" skin colour dominated social hierarchies just because the whites found their conscience and banned it....in its most blatant expression. Humans indeed can be equally malevelant under the skin.
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I hope you are right! What about the conservative judges, appointed for life? And how can we change the number of Senators?
I do appreciate your hopefulness. The arc of the universe bends toward justice.
With you. And thanks for saying it all out loud!
Good morning everyone! Good morning HCR! My spring break over (sigh), I have to get back to the grind-computer and the Zoom prison, so keeping this brief. Is anyone else kind of delighted with the term "woke supremacy"? It seems to me that in an attempt to make a nasty pun, whoever invented that actually created a beautiful meme. If "woke supremacy" were to be the goal then:
*Everyone would agree that difference is GOOD and that a rising tide lifts ALL boats and would therefore welcome diversity and inclusivity
*Everyone would agree that equity is GOOD and that the tools people need to achieve equity should be promoted, resourced, and pushed forward
*Everyone would agree that, despite one's personal history of trauma, it is ALWAYS better to promote empathy over divisiveness; that emotional maturity is a legitimate and sought-after goal
*Everyone would agree that our greatest asset is an EDUCATED POPULACE and that education--a progressive, inclusive, diverse education system that promotes critical thinking skills and does not demand conformity--is something that has to be supported financially, politically, and culturally.
Sounds like Paradise to me . . .
Love this!!!!: “Everyone would agree that, despite one's personal history of trauma, it is ALWAYS better to promote empathy over divisiveness; that emotional maturity is a legitimate and sought-after goal”. Now, how do we get there??
Thank you! I was beginning to feel an outsider, since those two "insults": cancel culture and woke supremacy resonate with me as COMPLIMENTS. I can't envision a more satisfying "culture" to "cancel" than that embodied by the GQP nor a better "supremacy" to welcome than one which is "woke."
Yes! I love this idea of woke supremacy, if it can be promoted as supporting the values as you to nicely outlined above.
Off today's topic, it's Easter Monday, but Monday nonetheless and the trial of Derek Chauvin continues. I admit to being a fan of Common Dreams newsletters. I rarely have to read a sentence more than once to understand what the author's intent is: "Despite the harrowing testimony, it paled before newly released bodycam footage of Floyd's pained, flailing final moments - his terror, his crying, his claustrophobia, the awful baffled dawning he was about to die for a $20 crime he didn't know he'd committed, the heartrending pleading of a reported 'Mama's boy' that, 'I'm not a bad guy.' Viewing the video - here and here - several jurors broke down in tears. Understandably: It's almost unwatchable. Our job is to not look away. And to acknowledge how astounding it is that black people haven't yet burned this country to the ground." Here's the full article: https://www.commondreams.org/further/2021/04/02/totally-unnecessary
It is unwatchable. I cannot watch it. Suffice to say that I’m glad that the trial of this atrocity, a crucible for so many similar atrocities, probably 100s if not 1000s of them if not tens of 1000s going back to the beginning of slavery, is hitting the spotlight.
Love Common Dreams.
Morning, Roland!! I wasn't going to watch either mostly because it is so time-consuming. I figured reading/seeing summaries would suffice. But now that I'm in it, I cannot look away.
Morning Lynell‼️ Can’t watch, too sensitive to violence.
I can’t, and haven’t, watched, either. I don’t want my heart to shatter into a million pieces. I know we need to honor by not looking away, but I just can’t.
I did watch it. Hell.
Remember, cornered rats are dangerous when they feel they have nothing to lose.
As I recall, cornered rats will always bite. ❤️🤍💙
Indeed they do. And these cornered rats are biting and snapping at everyone. Wait till the head rat gets indicted and you'll see a frenzy.
Nice!
“Cancel culture” is a term used by Republicans to trivialize the voices of those who recognize their behavior as unacceptable.
I vote to counter each use of the term with the word “Choice”.
It is our right to say yes or no – our right to choose. It is their choice to change.
Thank you Heather.
I am quite interested in how this latest sophomoric display of chest beating from the GOP is panning out. Timing is everything to them. Is their newest dog whistle of "cancel culture" with the MLB merely a diversion from the Gaetz crash and burn? I check on a few Republican friends pages and noticed a complete change from aggressively"owning the Dems" to lost dogs, pictures of kittens and religion. I can always tell the temperature of their Facebook page by their agrecious beating down of Democrats but when facts about their Party members come to light, it's a different story. Given the Matt Gaetz situation, if you brought up the name Andrew Cuomo right now, they wouldn't know who you were talking about. 😂
For some time the proportion to which our elected constituents reflects reality is alarming. This makes the mid-terms that much more important. Getting our ducks in a row should be, and hopefully is a 24/7 plan.
Be safe, be well.
" Is their newest dog whistle of "cancel culture" with the MLB merely a diversion from the Gaetz crash and burn?"
Yes.
“the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority.” Exactly, Dr. Richardson. The Republicans seem only want freedom to stay in power, and to suppress not just the votes, but the will of most of the people. They are anti-freedom. Their Congressional oaths they swore turned out to be lies. We must keep making our voices heard and keep writing and calling our Congressional representatives and keeping pressure on the big corporations. It does make a difference.
GOP.....Dirty Players... Dirty Liars... Will stoop to no level, not one dirty depth to seek and reach their dirty ends. Buy it, bribe it, appoint it and whatever else they can think of to meet their dirty means. Only the voting American people can stop them and our truth telling citizens like HCR to light the way. If it means we also must play dirty, then that is what must be done! Or we are facing not a future of democracy and decency but something so much more sinister. The movie Vendetta!! Is that our future? Good God I hope not!
Go Janice!
It's time for Democrats and Independents to be stern in their rebuke of these would-be-oligarchs and oligarchs. We slept while they gerrymandered, filled court benches, and filibustered their way to an almost unbreakable hold on power. We must put them in a permanent minority not only in numbers but in power. Ban the filibuster and do what America needs to have done.
Republicans long ago realized that they would start losing elections unless they gamed the system. So, between gerrymandering and voter suppression, they have found a way to keep in power. The thing is, they were smart enough to realize that they couldn't do those two things without controlling the courts, as the courts would decide legal challenges to both gerrymandering and voter suppression. So, they have packed the courts with a legion of right wing judges, a process that has taken place over decades. We should therefore not be shocked that the courts are now upholding all of the Republican-initiated legislation and/or "redistricting". As HCR has noted, this has led to minority rule, a process that will only get worse and worse as the years go by.
This is why it is important for Democrats to stick together!
And to continue nominating (and, one hopes, confirming) a diverse slate of judges. Per Joyce Vance at MSNBC.com:
"This week, President Joe Biden proposed 11 nominees for vacant federal judgeships. They are a diverse and exceptionally qualified group that includes trailblazers like the first Muslim federal judge, the first female Asian American judge for the district court in the District of Columbia and the first woman of color for the federal district court in Maryland — if they are all confirmed. All told, nine of the nominees are women. Many of them, while well-credentialed, are relatively young."
"But this group is also unique in another way: Four of them have experience in public defender’s offices. You might be surprised that a former prosecutor would laud experience as a public defender as a critical qualification for a federal judgeship, but it is."
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/biden-s-first-11-federal-judge-nominees-highlight-highly-nuanced-n1262956