The Right Wing War Against The Future

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" – Statute of Liberty

For the past two years the Republicans, the tea-partiers, and the other wing-nuts have been waging war, but despite the prognosticators on cable and the talking heads they are not at war with President Obama, the Muslims, or the Latinos. These folks are not upset about health-care reform, deficits, or bail-outs. This war is not about secret Muslim terrorist’s plots, socialist takeovers, or gangster governments. What we are witnessing is the historic battle between those who cling to a false sense of history against what they see as an uncertain and frightening future. A future that is frightening because it is looking darker and more foreign.

For all of the talk about the promise that is America the truth is that there is and always has been a large segment of our society that has sought to prevent the inevitable movement into tomorrow. The one constant in life is change and those cultures that have resisted change have done so at their own demise. It’s not like we don’t have thousands of years of human history to study and learn from. But let's not forget that the Flat Earth Society still meets annually. All we have to do is look at our own brief history to witness the lengths that some will go to prevent the march of time. Our history is filled with anti-immigrant, anti-religion, and racial prejudice all under the same pretense of maintaining someone’s version of their America that didn’t include the unfortunate groups who were targeted.

It is mind boggling to me how those who sought change, tolerance, and what appeared to be an embracing of the future by electing our current president could so easily be frightened by the rhetoric of those who for personal gain are willing to stoke the fears of so many. I believe that America is schizophrenic. On the one hand we want to be perceived as this nation of tolerance and equal opportunity and on the other hand we cling to this desire to maintain the status quo. Change is great so long as nothing really changes or change is what other people need to do. I believe that there is a deep seated fear within all of us that we try to keep hidden. A fear that dates back to the beginning of human time that if fed or left to fester can lead to unspeakable horrors in the human soul.

We all at some point have had to face this fear of the others. Some of us have been able to confront these fears and overcome them and are better people for it. However, there is also a segment of the population who has chosen not to confront these fears and instead have chosen to allow innuendo and stereotypes to reinforce their worst fears about their fellow citizens. I guess it just goes to show that if you repeat something often enough and loud enough some people will eventually begin to believe it. What is troubling to me about this current state of political discourse is that the further we get into the term of this president the more people begin to question his religion, his right to be president, and even his Americaness.

What the wing-nuts don’t seem to understand is that in a republic form of democracy the representatives govern by the agreement of the governed. Once you delegitimize the government then anarchy and chaos are sure to follow. You can’t throw gas on the conspiracy crowd by calling the government illegitimate and unlawful and then expect them to recognize it for the rhetoric that it is. I don’t think there is any serious person who would argue that our government is broken, but those who have for years worked to break it should not be rewarded for their efforts.
We have a choice in America as we’ve always had. We can cling to our fear of the future and each other choosing to try and go backwards. The problem with that strategy is that you can never go backwards because the world you are trying to recapture never truly existed. Or we can continue on the path we have embarked on choosing rather than fearing change we embrace it and rationally direct it.

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected. – Justice William O. Douglas

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The Copperfield Dollar

What I have found interesting about the financial crisis of 2007-2010 as it is being referred to is that prior to the crisis there was a lot of money that was being invested in derivatives and other risky investments and yet after the crisis none of that money was accounted for. My question is where did that money go? I understand that some of the money was for loans that were defaulted on so there was no recovery there and there was the money that was built into the value of overvalued assets that will also never be recovered. However there was real money in the system that has never been accounted for. According to my crack research staff there was billions in profits made from selling these derivatives and other investment vehicles by the large trading companies. Those are the same trading companies that we had to bail-out. So again my question is where did that money go? What about all the billions the hedge funds made by betting short on the market?

It has taken me awhile but I have figured out what happened to all of that money. You see it wasn’t regular currency like we are use to using. No it was a special currency used only for these types of special transactions. You see these transactions were done using “Copperfield dollars”. For those who don’t know David Copperfield is a famous magician or illusionist who is famous for among other things making the Statue of Liberty disappear on television. So as you can imagine anyone who can make the Status of Liberty disappear would have no trouble making a few hundred billion dollars disappear. These Copperfield dollars on the surface appear to resemble ordinary currency however they have one unique characteristic that other currency do not have. These Copperfield dollars once placed in certain banks vaults disappear into thin air without a trace. You put them in the vault in 2006 and you go back in 2007 and they are gone. Poof like a puff of smoke, gone.

Now let’s be clear not every bank used these Copperfield dollars. They seemed to only have been circulated at the largest banks, investment houses, and hedge funds. So are we to believe that during this gambling frenzy that there were not profits being made. That would be like the casinos in Vegas winning all the bets but at the end of the night they have no money to show for the day’s receipts and yet there were no payouts either. So no one won any bets, but the house has no money either. How is that possible? Oh yeah I forgot they were using those pesky Copperfield dollars. Every time you think you see one you really don’t, it was an illusion.

I have to admit I have an economist friend who I think is a pretty smart guy and he has tried to explain to me what happened and the more he explains the less I understand. Finally I walk away just shaking my head with a headache. One thing he did tell me though that I thought was interesting and I believe it is something most people don’t know. Based on the terms of the bail-out loans ( yeah they were loans or stock options) it is estimated that in the final calculations it will have cost the American public around 38 billion is the figure I think he used (it may have been 48) but anyway that worked out to be about 280 dollars for each household in America to save the financial system. Now of course these were not Copperfield dollars because they came out of mine and your pockets and we are not allowed to use these special Copperfield dollars.

My question is this, why aren’t the armed tea-partiers at the offices of Goldman Sachs, Citi, and the others who used those Copperfield dollars to make 10% of our economy disappear? Who are the real terrorists here? Even the 9/11 terrorists did not shrink the economy by 10%. We started two wars behind that attack, but you’re telling me some folks can get away with stealing 10% of our economy and nothing happens? That 10% by the way is conservative because it only includes what we had to replace 700 billion not what actually disappeared in Copperfield dollars. We will never know the extent of that robbery I’m afraid. I understand people being angry, but what I don’t understand is this misplaced anger. Was it the overreach of the government that caused our economy to crash? No on the contrary it was the fact that government was not upholding its responsibilities to watch out for its citizens or is that a function of government? According to these folks it is everybody for themselves. I think these folks have been watching too many John Wayne movies because they surely don’t want that scenario.

Well, I have decided because the banks and others were so successful using those Copperfield dollars that I am going to replace my currency with them and I am going to paying all of my bills with them. Let’s see how the banks like it when they go to cash my checks and the money that was there yesterday is gone today. Poof!

“If you ever have to steal money from your kid, and later on he discovers it's gone, I think a good thing to do is to blame it on Santa Claus” - Jack Handy

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You’re Surprised

Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. – Proverbs 27:20

I find it amazing the degree of surprise so many people are feeling while witnessing the level vitriol being spewed at President Barack Obama the first non-white president in our nation’s history. Who thought that a country who only less than 50 years ago allowed black folks the right to participate in our democracy and still have not fully integrated non-whites into our society would quietly accept this change with open arms. It never fails to amaze me how dumbfounded white folks are when they have to face the racism of their fellow citizenry. I remember the horror of my white friends as they watched the dogs, water hoses, and bombings televised on their television sets as they were forced to accept the hatred that has permeated America for centuries.

The thing that surprises me is that racism is now being used to make a profit for those who are willing to traffic in it. At least in the old days the leaders were true believers and not hucksters marketing gold, books, and other trinkets. Unfortunately, today there are plenty of folks who are willing to exploit the true believers hatred for short-term political and personal gain. Not only do we have individuals willing to profit from the spewing of hatred but also major media outlets in which to disseminate it. My question is how do you win national elections if you continue to alienate persons of color? The demographics of this country do not lie. The days of white majorities controlling elections on a national scale are over and no matter how much the tea-party protests they are not coming back.

My guess is that the only way this strategy can work is by marginalizing the non-whites while you play up the fears of whites to the point that it becomes an us versus them scenario. This strategy may have worked 50 years ago, but today even the white population is too diverse to accept this obvious ploy. How many times have white supremists attempted to start the dreaded race war by providing provocative acts to rally whites only to not be able to find enough takers to materialize. It is difficult to find revolutionaries when you have all the money, systems and power. Despite the claims of the tea party and their ilk that white folks are being discriminated against in this country by this black president and his extremist white sidekicks there appears to be few outside the movement who are taking these claims seriously. And who could argue with the numbers. Nearly twice as many whites as non-whites graduate from college, 91% of the richest 1% of the population is white, and the average net worth of white families is 10 times higher than black families.

There is fear in this country today among whites that they are losing their wealth and it is not completely unfounded. The problem is not that non-whites are stealing wealth from whites. The problem is that rich whites have stolen wealth from middle-class whites. We have witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth in our nation’s history and that wealth has moved from the middle income brackets to the top income brackets. The wealth that middle-class families once had in their homes, stocks, and retirement plans has evaporated. The wealth was not taken by non-white home invasion robbers; no it was taken by greedy white men in suits. You have to admit though that they are good, they have turned attention away from their pillaging of the national treasury by putting the focus on folks who are barely making a living in this country.

Whether it is Arizona or Washington, DC the game is the same. Despite many volumes being written by white authors about the corporate and individual thefts of our economy by their white brethren we still have the racist rants of the tea-partiers and their corporate overlords distracting the debate from the real culprits to some “bogeymen” who are not like us. If we as a nation following this corporate theft of historic proportions cannot recognize once and for all that we are not each other’s enemy but are all at risk from the rich and powerful then we will surely deserve our fate.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic - John F. Kennedy

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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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Bizarro World: The New Left is now the Tea Party

Because of this assumption, members of the Tea Party right, like the members of the New Left, spend a lot of time worrying about being co-opted. They worry that the corrupt forces of the establishment are perpetually trying to infiltrate the purity of their ranks. – David Brooks New York Times Columnist

First of all I want to apologize to all of those people from the peace movement, civil rights movement, and the other groups from the sixties who fought and died for long denied social change in America for this article from David Brooks. Obviously while so many Americans were actually trying to grapple with a social system that they felt no longer represented who they were Mr. Brooks was too young to know what was going on. I have a real hard time taking anyone seriously who writes about a period of history that they did not actually participate in. To me most post-history is either conjecture or an attempt at a mulligan for those who are promoting their own agendas.

At no time has this fact become more true as it is now during the current period in our history when we are about to be bombarded by the “memoirs” of the disgraced Bush officials and their apologists. The three poster children for this period of selective amnesia ought to be Cheney, Rove, and now Brooks. If this column weren’t so dangerous it would almost be laughable. The reason that this column is dangerous is that it attempts to give legitimacy to the tea-partiers as neo-hippies taking on “the man” and “the system”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The tea-partiers began as astro-turf bankrolled by the defeat health-care lobbyist and no amount of cover from the right will legitimize them.

What Mr. Brooks fails to realize is that there are profound differences between what the tea-partiers are protesting and the protests of the “new left”. Has he forgotten that there was actually a war going on in Southeast Asia that was taking the lives, dreams, and family members of hundreds of thousands of Americans? Has also forgotten that blacks were living under the crushing oppression of Jim Crow while their civil rights were being denied in all areas of America? Has he forgotten that many blacks were still being lynched, sent to prison, and beaten for trying to express the rights that he and his friends take for granted? His attempts to equate the tea-partiers exploits to those of people who were willing to risk life, limb, and future for a true cause is not just disingenuous, it’s an insult to the memory of all of the slain civil rights workers and anti-war protesters.

To be fair many people may actually believe that President Obama is a foreign-born citizen and is not legitimately President. There also may be those who truly believe that he is leading the country towards socialism through a government take-over of healthcare. There may be those who truly believe that the federal budget was balanced prior to his taking office, that the country was at full-employment, and our economy was flying right along until President Obama’s coup took over in January of 2009. The truth is that we know that the “paranoia” of the sixties radicals was well founded by the release of so many FBI documents and internal government memos. To compare their legitimate fears to those of a bunch of folks many of whom who have some form of government healthcare today who believe that healthcare reform is a government plot to create death panels is unconscionable.

Actually, I am quite pleased that the Republicans are trying to recruit the tea-party folks it will give them a taste of what Democrats go through daily when you have a big tent. When you allow every voice to be heard you are liable to hear some things you weren’t expecting and for a party where everything is scripted right up to the candidates voting record for the next 10 years this could be a little disheartening. I agree the tea-partiers are radical and theatrical but to compare corporate mouthpiece Dick Armey to Saul Alinsky who spent his life trying to improve the lives of those less-fortunate is a stretch even for Brooks.

"Negroes were being lynched regularly in the South as the first stirrings of black opposition began to be felt, and many of the white civil rights organizers and labor agitators who had started to work with them were tarred, feathered, castrated -- or killed. Most Southern politicians were members of the Ku Klux Klan and had no compunction about boasting of it” – Saul Alinsky

For David Brooks to try and give credence to the “straw” and “boogie” men of the tea-partiers as being similar to the new left is criminal. Mr. Brooks, I don’t know where you got your research of the sixties and seventies but you might leave that history to those who were actually there. Another small difference between the two that continually gets ignored by the mainstream media is during the protests of the new left all races were represented because the issues being addressed affected all the people in the country. Where is the “melting pot” with the tea-party movement? If the issues they are protesting actually affected us all like the injustices of racism or the destruction of a senseless war where are the rest of the folks? Are minorities not concerned with losing their freedoms in a communist takeover?

One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide. – Saul Alinsky

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