The Ugly American

In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. - Peggy McIntosh

As the flames of revolution are being stoked by the loyal opposition, the tea-partiers, and libertines everywhere I think it is interesting to note what issue is at the heart of this fervor. It seems odd to me that when George W. was spending money like a drunken sailor, dismantling the financial regulatory system, and expanding government that these angry mobs were nowhere to be found. So if we strip away the deficit spending, the expansion of government, socialism, radicalism and all of the other red herrings we are left with only a handful of possible issues. I think the largest and most dangerous is the issue that has always been simmering just below the surface in American history. This issue has never gone away but becomes more pronounced during periods of economic uncertainty and general fear by the majority population.

In spite of the great opportunity American presents to the world that people from different countries, races, and religions can live harmoniously together that opportunity has never truly been realized because at our core we are a very tribal nation. We have accepted the false dichotomy that in order for one tribe to prosper another has to decline so during times of economic uncertainty each tribe begins to protect what it perceives as its right to the remaining assets. The problem with this scenario is that it is based on the false premise that we are operating under a truly free market system and of course we are not. The system we are employing is akin to placing magnets on the roulette wheel in Vegas. It is slighted to one group over another already. I believe that a lot of the anger that is being displayed is legitimate. Hell, I’m angry. But I think it is being misplaced.

Instead of focusing on those who are using house money to make extravagant bets and when they win they keep their winnings, but when they lose their loses are being covered by the house. Imagine going to Vegas with 100,000 of someone else’s money and placing bets and if you win you keep all of the winnings, but if you lose the house pays your losses. We are the house and we are paying the winners and the losers. My problem with this round of protests is this. The majority of us are being screwed. The difference is that if you belong to the majority group you are getting lubricant while the rest of us are not, but make no mistake in the morning all of our butts are sore. My question is that if you wake up and your butt is sore and so is mine why would you blame me for what happened. It would seem to me that the logical thing to do would be to find those folks who do not have sore butts and ask them why not.

But the reason this is not happening is because of a little thing we have in this country called “white privilege”. To show how deep this runs in our society imagine if a group of Latinos would show up at an immigration rally armed or a group of blacks would show up at a affirmative action rally strapped what the reaction would be. You see the media and the talking heads debate the appropriateness of the venue of being armed but never that you have an angry mob of armed white folks talking revolution. White folks have an inherent right to be angry when their perceived privilege is threatened and this right goes without question, it is considered patriotic. However, when any other group replicates this behavior it is considered treason and a threat to our security.

What many of these protesters are angry about is not a real threat to America, but a perceived threat to their America”. What is “their America”? It is an America where their tribal right’s supersedes the rights of others. An example of this mentality would be when Pat Buchanan on MSNBC stated publicly that the white man single handedly built this country and that the only contribution of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians was the drag they put on the white man’s progress by living off of the system and abusing the kindness of white folks. Not to mention that the blacks were the cause of the “2nd American Revolution” when the Yankee aggressors took away the “states rights” from the peaceful southerners. To rewrite history in this way is akin to Japan stating that Pearl Harbor was a precursor to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes to prevent the western aggressors from enslaving the peaceful Japanese people.

What we are seeing with these latest protests is that because they are really about maintaining white privilege there will not be a groundswell of support from those who are not white. This is just another example of “the ugly American” truth that we are not ready to put tribal differences aside for the sake of something larger like “country first”. Until we realize that we are all taking it on the chin for the sake of a few who are making out like bandits we will continue this tribal warfare against those whom we have the most in common with. All the while the real culprits will continue laughing all the way to the banks we bailed out in the cars we bought. Is this a great country or what?

Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves. - Author Unknown

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Wal-Mart – Pariah to Pleasantville

This is for all of those people who constantly write to me or write comments to my essays that no one can make a difference. Who would have thought that the biggest corporate pariah could be moved? I know I didn’t, even those who were on the front lines of this thing had given up. It seems that Wal-Mart is moving away from its previous stance concerning health insurance for its employees, to a more nuanced approach. Wal-Mart was notorious among major employers for its lack of a comprehensive health insurance plan to cover its employees at a price they could afford. It looked like Wal-Mart could deliver the lowest prices on everything except health insurance premiums for its employees.

The company, according to data available for the first time, is offering better coverage to a greater number of workers. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, provides insurance to 100,000 more workers than it did just three years ago — and it is now easier for many to sign up for health care at Wal-Mart than at its rival, Target, whose reputation glows in comparison.
Wal-Mart has hardly become a standard-bearer for corporate America: it still insures fewer than half its 1.4 million employees in the United States.[1]

Because of the pressure and the damage to its corporate brand especially among state legislatures, many of whom were preparing or had passed legislation to force Wal-Mart to upgrade its insurance plans, Wal-Mart has found it now to be in its best corporate interest to begin the process of implementing a more affordable and less onerous plan.

What would cause a behemoth like Wal-Mart to retreat from its long standing policies? It was the constant pressure of those thought insignificant by the pundits, the media, and by the politicians. The thing about the power of the people is that it is not the fastest way to do things, nor is it the easiest. The first thing that happens is that you will be ignored and marginalized by the corporate media and the special interest politicians. The word must never get out that people power changes anything or that it works. They must continue the great myth that individuals cannot make changes, but time and again throughout history that has been proven to be false. People can make a difference, if they are willing to not give up in the face of innumerable odds.

The change at Wal-Mart will never be presented for what it truly represents. What it represents is a lesson to all of us who want to change this country. The lesson is, it won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy. It means that we have to continue the pressure year end and year out, not succumbing to the temptation to give in. The belief that no one cares and we can’t change anything. It has taken almost a decade to change the corporate mentality at Wal-Mart, however if more people had taken up the mantle it would probably have succeeded sooner.

We must not be fooled into thinking that Wal-Mart developed some compassion and decided to implement these changes for the sake of its employees. Remember these were the same people who were willing to allow their employees to swell the state rolls of Medicaid just so they wouldn’t have to provide them insurance. No, this change was due to the people who continued to highlight the injustice of a company making 11 billion dollars annually in profits and yet cannot afford to provide affordable health insurance to its employees.

The company’s turnabout demonstrates the power of public pressure to change even the biggest corporations like Wal-Mart, which has based its business strategy on low costs at all costs.

What Wal-Mart discovered is that the chorus of critics it had long ignored or blithely rebutted had a point. “We were spending a lot of energy, and we weren’t making any headway,” said H. Lee Scott Jr., the company’s chief executive, who once traveled the country defending the retailer’s practices. “Retrospectively now I say, yes, that plan needed to be improved.”[2]

Make no mistake about it; this is a victory as much as the Orange Revolution was a victory for the Ukraine. We now have to build on this victory and continue to highlight and mobilize public opinion to address the many other issues that confront this nation. The injustice of higher corporate profits and lower wages, the injustice of a criminal justice system that has more people locked up than other nation in the world, and the injustice of a nation where we are still not judged based on character. The fight is long and hard, but if we endure we can move mountains…

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/business/13walmart.html?pagewanted=1&hp&adxnnlx=1194984041-%20p4bFvh82AsCi6n7vWCHYg
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/business/13walmart.html?hp

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Taking It to the Streets

WASHINGTON, July 5 — Support among Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq policy eroded further on Thursday as another senior lawmaker, Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, broke with the White House just as Congressional Democrats prepared to renew their challenge to the war.

“We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress,” said Mr. Domenici, a six-term senator who has been a steadfast supporter of the president.

Thus Mr. Domenici joined a growing number of Republican voices in opposition to the war just as Senate Democratic leaders are readying plans to put the political and policy focus back on Iraq next week.[1]

What is it going to take to for us to get fed up enough to take this government back? I’m not talking about the fed up of sitting behind these screens and complaining and analyzing as this country is sent crashing in flames. As this piece illustrates even those who know this war is wrong and know that it is a no-win situation still want to continue the death march.

It is obvious that these guys (Democrats & Republicans) are not going to stop this. It is no longer about elections, we had an election. Anybody remember that? Where the majority of Americans voted to end this war; yet it continues. While we wait on the wheels of politics to turn; more and more Americans and Iraqis are dying and for what purpose? Is our presence in Iraq making it a safer place or a better place? Who can continue to back this argument with the overwhelming evidence that we are not doing either.

No my friends, it is time to take action to organize and to put pressure on these politicians. It is time to say enough is enough. How can the vast majority of people in a democracy be against something and yet it continues to fester. This thing is festering like an infected sore on the soul of America and the more we pick at it the more infected it becomes. It is time for direct civil action against the war-mongers and war profiteers that continue to feed the war machine with bodies of our sons and daughters, the bodies of Iraqis. It is time to shut down this government that has refused to listen to and follow the will of the people. It is time to make it plain in no uncertain terms that we have had enough of the lies and deceit.

We need to start putting together city by city, state by state, the mechanisms to carry this message to the street. We can no longer be content with the small rallies staged in individual cities and towns; we must go directly to Washington. We must go with the strength that cannot be ignored. As long as we silently stand by and watch the carnage we will continue to be ignored.

I have to give it to these guys they have gotten smarter at this; we no longer have the daily pictures beamed to our homes of the violence that is Iraq. We no longer have the daily visions of the maiming and injury that we had for Vietnam. They learned not only from Vietnam, but also from the civil rights movement. When those pictures of Black people being hosed, beaten, and attacked by dogs were sent into the homes across America, the outrage could not be contained. I guarantee you will never see pictures like that again on television. These guys know that those images had power; they motivated a nation to stand up and say enough. It was the same with the war pictures from Vietnam. Now what do we see these nice little “smart bomb” video game images of precision killing. We no longer see the real visions of war and you know what we are ok with that. It makes American Idol and Desperate Housewives go down easier. Gone from our senses are the visions of little Asians kids running down the street with napalm burning their skin off or G.I.s getting limbs blown off. Yes sir, gone are the good ole days of real war footage, the kind that would make you lose your appetite for dinner. The kind that would make you want to put down the remote, the mouse, the cell phone and do something. These images that kept us awake at night, they did because we knew that the violence was being carried out in our name.

Let’s have a good old fashion peace concert in Washington on the mall. It’s time we showed these clowns who’s really in charge and these kids how changing the world is done. Let’s leave no doubt in anybody’s mind that we are fed up and we aren’t going to take it anymore. We are not only tired of the violence in Iraq, but the violence right here on our streets in America. Where are you people who say you want your government back? It will never happen without direct action from us. Begging for it won’t get it, obviously voting for it won’t get it, and praying for it won’t get it. I’m waiting to see who is willing to unbuckle their seatbelt and stand up on the plane that is about to crash and burn…

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/washington/06cong.html

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