Yesterday, David Ignatius had a piece in the Washington Post that uncovered the attempt of the Trump administration to reorder the Middle East along an axis anchored by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudia Arabia (more popularly known as MBS), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Jared Kushner of the U.S.
This tired woman leaves the Middle East, Jared Kushner and Critical Race Theory to your able minds. I'll return to give the subjects more time tomorrow.
Before I say goodnight, here's a message for you.
I started reading Letters from an American at the beginning of January, 2021. The drumbeat of Heather’s Letters begins my mornings. Eventually, I joined the forum.
You have been my friends, teachers, dramatists, sources of amusement and arguments. Men and women from around the country, a few living in other places; a mixture of professions; different ages; retirees, married, single, widows and widowers are the beating heart of this forum.
Heather’s Letters inform me and you are my community. Without seeing each other’s faces or voices, we are close. Together, we share a pivotal point in America’s history.
I have a personal project to begin this month. With its start, I must end my time on the forum. The loss of your sensibilities will grow stronger, not fade away. I am grateful for Heather’s and your predictability during the early months of Joe Biden’s presidency. Subscriber friends, you have brought me an abundance of life and a 2nd sunrise each morning. Please accept this wide smile of appreciation to each and every one of you. Salud!
I find Dr. Peggy McIntosh's article "White People Facing Race: Uncovering the Myths that keep Racism in Place" very helpful in understanding how racism and white privilege are both denied and perpetuated. The five myths she discusses are: 1. "The Myth of Meritocracy is the myth that the individual is the only unit of society, and that whatever a person ends up with must be what he or she individually wanted, worked for, earned and deserved." 2. "The Myth of Manifest Destiny includes the idea that white people were intended by God to take the lands of indigenous people and others in order to possess the whole of what is now the continental United States." 3. "The Myth of White Racelessness is the notion that white people do not have race or racial experience. In this view we [whites] are just "normal." 4. "The Myth of Monoculture is that there is one American culture and that we all experience it more or less the same way." and finally 5. "The Myth o White Moral Elevation, also called internalized superiority." Here is the link to the entire article. https://nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/peggy/Peggy_McIntosh_White_People_Facing_Race.pdf What this tells me is that we won't address the biases in our systems - in the law, medical care, etc. -- until we face these myths and acknowledge their impact in distorting our society and culture. Here is Peggy's TEDtalk on How to recognize your white privilege — and use it to fight inequality. https://www.ted.com/talks/peggy_mcintosh_how_to_recognize_your_white_privilege_and_use_it_to_fight_inequality Whites as a whole do not recognize their white privilege.
Can’t tell you how much today’s LFAA bothers me. Let’s just forget thousands of years of violence, hatred and enmity including the Holocaust, the Crusades and the world wars. No problem is too big for money and American individualism. And by the way, let’s throw those who have helped preserve a very fragile peace under the bus ‘cause they really aren’t one of the big dogs. Americans, led by a rich, arrogant punk kid, will show you how to get it done. Don’t bother the kid with the details of history because he has the attention span of a gnat - and the morals of, well, I guess no morals involved since that might cloud things.
Just when I think I have learned the worst things 45’s administration threw at us and the world, I learn more. And become ever more concerned about how to preserve American democracy and our role as a respected leader. Biden is doing a good job. So too his cabinet, staff, advisors. But the damage done by Trump and his minions is deep, wide and dangerous. Add the pandemic into the equation and the cauldron is boiling. How do we keep it from exploding?
I am an American of Irish, English and Scots descent with one set of Catholic grandparents and a set of Protestant grandparents. When I lived in Ireland in 1978 as a student, the so called “Troubles” were raging. 800 years of subjugation based on religion and ethnicity resulted in terrorism, war on the streets, poverty, death, destruction and seemingly endless hatred. Took a hellava lot more than money and political will to even start the discussion about peace, let alone how to end the cycle of death and destruction. Kushner’s and Trump’s mindset could well have set off a world war. Just unbearably arrogant and stupid, not to mention immoral. Did I mention it was dangerous?!
Rather than wallow in fear and anger today, I’m going to write more postcards to potential voters, and organize my equipment - I have my first outdoor art fair in a year and a half next weekend. As an artist, I sometimes wonder how bringing beauty into this world matters right now. Then I realize that sharing the joy of my work might raise another’s spirits too which really does matter. Do something you love today too. Then, let’s all be active as hell in defense of democracy.
I will never get over the roles Kushner played in the Trump administration. Trump, ignorant of history, chose his "highly educated" son-in-law - who must have slept through history classes - to change the face of the Middle East! That is chutzpah to the nth degree! And don't even get me started on Kushner's disastrous response to the Covid epidemic!
The importance of history! Being educated about history. If we don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it. Seems like our countries lack of support for education continues to be a sticking point. But if we have a strong educational system that teaches history, critical thinking skills, differentiating between reliable information and an unreliable source, then the masses are harder to dupe. Harder to control.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread” - Anatole France
In 1981 I wrote in my diary to my newborn daughter my fear and sadness for our country had just elected Ronald Reagan. Today we are celebrating her 40th birthday. I am proud to say she is educating me on the extent of racism in our country and white supremacy. My hope for the future comes as I join her and her children in BLM rallies.
Thank you Heather for your gift of putting these events in historical perspective. I so appreciate this forum.
My father once said to me, a history major, and a long time reader of all sorts of history, that history does not matter. I let him know what I thought of that and reminded him that history does matter in all sorts of situations large and small. People do not forget what has happened to them and history is replete with examples of this. Thank you, Professor Richardson, for this excellent summation of the awful Middle East that Kushner was trying to build based on money and deals. That turns my stomach.
I confess have not read it through in detail; reliving anything about trump is crushingly depressing and I have to pace myself!
The last one is titled "The Case for Prosecuting Donald Trump" . The sidebar summary succinctly sums up what I have feared since he appeared on the scene.
"Donald Trump’s presidency made clear that our institutions are currently incapable of holding presidents accountable for breaking the law. Unless he faces consequences, the message to future corrupt leaders is that they will not face consequences either".
I read one of the early news items about CRT in Florida, and de Santis' argument is that it makes our children "hate America."
That seems to me like saying the Declaration of Independence made people hate America.
After all, the DoI has a bit to say about what a shambles the colonial government was, a hateful government, a hateful system, a thing that needed to be destroyed by warfare. Now, it's Holy Writ.
My take is that the people who hate CRT are the people who are mired in the past, and in an illusion of perfection that is being destroyed by ... well, by change itself. If the past was perfect, every change is, by definition, a decline.
Personally, my fairly recent exposure to CRT has made sense of a lot of the history I've seen and lived, and it gives me a vision of an America that is no longer burdened by its history of slavery and racism. And that is not a vision that I hate. It is a vision that I love.
Kids are anything but stupid. CRT will not make them hate America. It will make them hate injustice. And it will only make them hate America if America clings to injustice.
Today, I saw this statement: "The fact that you have a social security card means that you literally are a card carrying socialist." Loved it. One aspect of right wing messaging is that "socialism" is to be feared. I don't understand this. Wouldn't you rather live in Norway than North Korea?
As a daughter of Holocaust victims, history can have all the theories it wants. Proof is in the pudding, as they say. All I know is that most of us have had our heads buried in the sand not to realize that all of our lives are at stake here. If anything, the Reagan and Trump administrations caused undue chaos. Reagan deregulated banks, helped tear down the wall in Germany while convincing our government to take much needed welfare money away from blacks and poor people. Reaganites insisted that blacks were “lazy” and didn’t work hard enough. The result was homelessness and more hardship. We already know about Fake45 and his band of deniers, liars, grifters, misogynists, and rapists. Rapists in the biblical sense as well as ripping us all off…”the biggest heist” we have ever seen. Kushner is quite the squeaky little criminal, is he not? I would not doubt that he and MBS arranged Khashoggi's gruesome death. I never ever knew that there was a Jewish mafia as dangerous as the Nazis. My precious parents are buried not realizing the further harm created by their own. I am grateful they are not alive.
CRT should, in fact, be taught by people of color because who better knows how to educate those who question the beginnings of hatred.
Before I even start reading tonight's threads I have an idea to offer that I've gotten from other Forums I participate in. It's called "trolliquette" or proper handling of trolls and trollbots. First, thanks to Fern for putting a label on it and to Roland for his super due diligence in tracking down our troll buddies. Here's the idea:
1. Have fun with this and don't take trolling too seriously. Clowns are supposed to help us laugh.
2. Upon noticing a troll, simply reply "Ploop". That's the cartoon sound of poop hitting the floor. Extra "O" in there to signify it then sliding, or ozzing, off to the side.
3. If so inclined, reply with SNARK (see Urban Dictionary). Good snark is a high literary art form and should be practiced.
4. A little Southwestern Buddha thought. "Your ego is not your amigo". You can't control what others do, you can only be responsible for your reaction to it.
I hope this news about the Middle East gets the attention it deserves. It's astounding on so many levels. And just think how many people died because of Kushner's handling of the pandemic.
As for Critical Race Theory, Fox News has turned it into just another bogeyman, a wedge of manufactured hysteria to further mislead and divide the country. Who would have thought that teaching the truth about America's original sin of slavery and how it so adversely affects the country today would actually provoke more racism and hate.
The truly bizarre thing is that virtually everything they touched or even got near was befouled because of their proximity to it, the stench is going to be with us for a long time to come.
I had never heard of "Critical Race Theory" until today but I totally get just how unbalanced our system is. The last couple years have been a real eye opener for me. If you believe in our constitution and that all men are created equal, then it's obvious that we need to make some deeply systematic changes, I pray we have the courage to accomplish what will be a Herculean task.
Deconstructing the mythology exalted in a hundred years of cowboy movies and fully embraced in Reaganism would be a monumental task for white Americans, even if they were inclined to take it on, which they aren’t.
This tired woman leaves the Middle East, Jared Kushner and Critical Race Theory to your able minds. I'll return to give the subjects more time tomorrow.
Before I say goodnight, here's a message for you.
I started reading Letters from an American at the beginning of January, 2021. The drumbeat of Heather’s Letters begins my mornings. Eventually, I joined the forum.
You have been my friends, teachers, dramatists, sources of amusement and arguments. Men and women from around the country, a few living in other places; a mixture of professions; different ages; retirees, married, single, widows and widowers are the beating heart of this forum.
Heather’s Letters inform me and you are my community. Without seeing each other’s faces or voices, we are close. Together, we share a pivotal point in America’s history.
I have a personal project to begin this month. With its start, I must end my time on the forum. The loss of your sensibilities will grow stronger, not fade away. I am grateful for Heather’s and your predictability during the early months of Joe Biden’s presidency. Subscriber friends, you have brought me an abundance of life and a 2nd sunrise each morning. Please accept this wide smile of appreciation to each and every one of you. Salud!
I find Dr. Peggy McIntosh's article "White People Facing Race: Uncovering the Myths that keep Racism in Place" very helpful in understanding how racism and white privilege are both denied and perpetuated. The five myths she discusses are: 1. "The Myth of Meritocracy is the myth that the individual is the only unit of society, and that whatever a person ends up with must be what he or she individually wanted, worked for, earned and deserved." 2. "The Myth of Manifest Destiny includes the idea that white people were intended by God to take the lands of indigenous people and others in order to possess the whole of what is now the continental United States." 3. "The Myth of White Racelessness is the notion that white people do not have race or racial experience. In this view we [whites] are just "normal." 4. "The Myth of Monoculture is that there is one American culture and that we all experience it more or less the same way." and finally 5. "The Myth o White Moral Elevation, also called internalized superiority." Here is the link to the entire article. https://nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/peggy/Peggy_McIntosh_White_People_Facing_Race.pdf What this tells me is that we won't address the biases in our systems - in the law, medical care, etc. -- until we face these myths and acknowledge their impact in distorting our society and culture. Here is Peggy's TEDtalk on How to recognize your white privilege — and use it to fight inequality. https://www.ted.com/talks/peggy_mcintosh_how_to_recognize_your_white_privilege_and_use_it_to_fight_inequality Whites as a whole do not recognize their white privilege.
Can’t tell you how much today’s LFAA bothers me. Let’s just forget thousands of years of violence, hatred and enmity including the Holocaust, the Crusades and the world wars. No problem is too big for money and American individualism. And by the way, let’s throw those who have helped preserve a very fragile peace under the bus ‘cause they really aren’t one of the big dogs. Americans, led by a rich, arrogant punk kid, will show you how to get it done. Don’t bother the kid with the details of history because he has the attention span of a gnat - and the morals of, well, I guess no morals involved since that might cloud things.
Just when I think I have learned the worst things 45’s administration threw at us and the world, I learn more. And become ever more concerned about how to preserve American democracy and our role as a respected leader. Biden is doing a good job. So too his cabinet, staff, advisors. But the damage done by Trump and his minions is deep, wide and dangerous. Add the pandemic into the equation and the cauldron is boiling. How do we keep it from exploding?
I am an American of Irish, English and Scots descent with one set of Catholic grandparents and a set of Protestant grandparents. When I lived in Ireland in 1978 as a student, the so called “Troubles” were raging. 800 years of subjugation based on religion and ethnicity resulted in terrorism, war on the streets, poverty, death, destruction and seemingly endless hatred. Took a hellava lot more than money and political will to even start the discussion about peace, let alone how to end the cycle of death and destruction. Kushner’s and Trump’s mindset could well have set off a world war. Just unbearably arrogant and stupid, not to mention immoral. Did I mention it was dangerous?!
Rather than wallow in fear and anger today, I’m going to write more postcards to potential voters, and organize my equipment - I have my first outdoor art fair in a year and a half next weekend. As an artist, I sometimes wonder how bringing beauty into this world matters right now. Then I realize that sharing the joy of my work might raise another’s spirits too which really does matter. Do something you love today too. Then, let’s all be active as hell in defense of democracy.
I will never get over the roles Kushner played in the Trump administration. Trump, ignorant of history, chose his "highly educated" son-in-law - who must have slept through history classes - to change the face of the Middle East! That is chutzpah to the nth degree! And don't even get me started on Kushner's disastrous response to the Covid epidemic!
The importance of history! Being educated about history. If we don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it. Seems like our countries lack of support for education continues to be a sticking point. But if we have a strong educational system that teaches history, critical thinking skills, differentiating between reliable information and an unreliable source, then the masses are harder to dupe. Harder to control.
Thank you, Heather!
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread” - Anatole France
In 1981 I wrote in my diary to my newborn daughter my fear and sadness for our country had just elected Ronald Reagan. Today we are celebrating her 40th birthday. I am proud to say she is educating me on the extent of racism in our country and white supremacy. My hope for the future comes as I join her and her children in BLM rallies.
Thank you Heather for your gift of putting these events in historical perspective. I so appreciate this forum.
My father once said to me, a history major, and a long time reader of all sorts of history, that history does not matter. I let him know what I thought of that and reminded him that history does matter in all sorts of situations large and small. People do not forget what has happened to them and history is replete with examples of this. Thank you, Professor Richardson, for this excellent summation of the awful Middle East that Kushner was trying to build based on money and deals. That turns my stomach.
A little off Heather's specific topic today, but the Boston Globe has a 6-part editorial series called "Future-Proofing the Presidency" https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2021/06/future-proofing-the-presidency/
I confess have not read it through in detail; reliving anything about trump is crushingly depressing and I have to pace myself!
The last one is titled "The Case for Prosecuting Donald Trump" . The sidebar summary succinctly sums up what I have feared since he appeared on the scene.
"Donald Trump’s presidency made clear that our institutions are currently incapable of holding presidents accountable for breaking the law. Unless he faces consequences, the message to future corrupt leaders is that they will not face consequences either".
I read one of the early news items about CRT in Florida, and de Santis' argument is that it makes our children "hate America."
That seems to me like saying the Declaration of Independence made people hate America.
After all, the DoI has a bit to say about what a shambles the colonial government was, a hateful government, a hateful system, a thing that needed to be destroyed by warfare. Now, it's Holy Writ.
My take is that the people who hate CRT are the people who are mired in the past, and in an illusion of perfection that is being destroyed by ... well, by change itself. If the past was perfect, every change is, by definition, a decline.
Personally, my fairly recent exposure to CRT has made sense of a lot of the history I've seen and lived, and it gives me a vision of an America that is no longer burdened by its history of slavery and racism. And that is not a vision that I hate. It is a vision that I love.
Kids are anything but stupid. CRT will not make them hate America. It will make them hate injustice. And it will only make them hate America if America clings to injustice.
Today, I saw this statement: "The fact that you have a social security card means that you literally are a card carrying socialist." Loved it. One aspect of right wing messaging is that "socialism" is to be feared. I don't understand this. Wouldn't you rather live in Norway than North Korea?
As a daughter of Holocaust victims, history can have all the theories it wants. Proof is in the pudding, as they say. All I know is that most of us have had our heads buried in the sand not to realize that all of our lives are at stake here. If anything, the Reagan and Trump administrations caused undue chaos. Reagan deregulated banks, helped tear down the wall in Germany while convincing our government to take much needed welfare money away from blacks and poor people. Reaganites insisted that blacks were “lazy” and didn’t work hard enough. The result was homelessness and more hardship. We already know about Fake45 and his band of deniers, liars, grifters, misogynists, and rapists. Rapists in the biblical sense as well as ripping us all off…”the biggest heist” we have ever seen. Kushner is quite the squeaky little criminal, is he not? I would not doubt that he and MBS arranged Khashoggi's gruesome death. I never ever knew that there was a Jewish mafia as dangerous as the Nazis. My precious parents are buried not realizing the further harm created by their own. I am grateful they are not alive.
CRT should, in fact, be taught by people of color because who better knows how to educate those who question the beginnings of hatred.
Before I even start reading tonight's threads I have an idea to offer that I've gotten from other Forums I participate in. It's called "trolliquette" or proper handling of trolls and trollbots. First, thanks to Fern for putting a label on it and to Roland for his super due diligence in tracking down our troll buddies. Here's the idea:
1. Have fun with this and don't take trolling too seriously. Clowns are supposed to help us laugh.
2. Upon noticing a troll, simply reply "Ploop". That's the cartoon sound of poop hitting the floor. Extra "O" in there to signify it then sliding, or ozzing, off to the side.
3. If so inclined, reply with SNARK (see Urban Dictionary). Good snark is a high literary art form and should be practiced.
4. A little Southwestern Buddha thought. "Your ego is not your amigo". You can't control what others do, you can only be responsible for your reaction to it.
Now, let's all have a nice day.
I hope this news about the Middle East gets the attention it deserves. It's astounding on so many levels. And just think how many people died because of Kushner's handling of the pandemic.
As for Critical Race Theory, Fox News has turned it into just another bogeyman, a wedge of manufactured hysteria to further mislead and divide the country. Who would have thought that teaching the truth about America's original sin of slavery and how it so adversely affects the country today would actually provoke more racism and hate.
You know we've reached peak crazy when there's a push in Nevada to force teachers to wear body cams to ensure the public will know if they dare teach Critical Race Theory. https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-nv-state-wire-nevada-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-6185b8f9c5b56e1fa1347b7f4a203a52
The truly bizarre thing is that virtually everything they touched or even got near was befouled because of their proximity to it, the stench is going to be with us for a long time to come.
I had never heard of "Critical Race Theory" until today but I totally get just how unbalanced our system is. The last couple years have been a real eye opener for me. If you believe in our constitution and that all men are created equal, then it's obvious that we need to make some deeply systematic changes, I pray we have the courage to accomplish what will be a Herculean task.
Deconstructing the mythology exalted in a hundred years of cowboy movies and fully embraced in Reaganism would be a monumental task for white Americans, even if they were inclined to take it on, which they aren’t.