The Barack Obama phenomenon has caught most people black and white by surprise. Many thought that he was a flash in the pan and that his appeal would not transcend into a viable national campaign. Iowa has done much to dispel those ideas and now those who previously regarded him as unelectable are starting to jump on the bandwagon. What has caught the pundits and many cynics by surprise is the degree to which many Americans want change. Barack Obama could not have existed prior to George W. Bush. If George Bush had not done such an awful job the past eight years, the country would not even have considered electing a black man no matter how much hope he inspired or how eloquently he spoke. Despite his enormous popularity there is still concern among many blacks, bloggers included about Mr. Obama’s agenda and if it will address the concerns of black Americans.
There are two main reasons for this concern in my opinion. The first is that during his campaign so far Mr. Obama has done little to highlight the issues that affect blacks specifically. His message has been from the start equality and justice for all Americans, with no special emphasis towards blacks. Now many have chalked this up to the American political landscape and how a black man has to run for national office in this country. He cannot appear too black; he can be black in appearance only. I read an interesting quote from General Colin Powell when I was researching this essay that I would like to share. When asked during his deliberation of running for the presidency in 1995 about his appeal to white voters, Mr. Powell had this to say.
No one was blunter about this than Powell himself. Asked in 1995 to explain his appeal to whites, he volunteered that "I speak reasonably well, like a white person," and, visually, "I ain't that black."[1]
The second reason and the one that I think has caused the greatest concern for blacks is the fact that Barack Obama is not a product of black America. To many this statement will be confusing so I will try to elaborate on its significance to blacks. First consider the black men who have run for President prior to Mr. Obama, there was Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Both of these men were creations of black America, their status as leader’s right or wrong were created by their perceived service to blacks. When running for President they spoke directly to the issues that blacks faced. They were in fact black candidates who were running grass-root campaigns that originated in the black communities. Neither man had ever held to my knowledge any prior elected office, let alone a statewide office like a Senator.
In my analysis, let me state that in my opinion Mr. Obama is black; I have no misgivings about his “blackness” or his ability to address the concerns of blacks. He will just do it in a way that is different from the way things have been done in the past. Mr. Obama will do it in the context of larger social issues that face all Americans in a certain class status. But to continue with the point at hand, while Mr. Obama came to fame as a community organizer in Chicago, he had little notoriety outside of Chicago. Mr. Obama went to Columbia and Harvard and was a civil rights lawyer, so unlike the others he was educated at prestigious white schools. There is also the fact that Mr. Obama does not share the direct history of American slavery with other black Americans.
Much has been made of his being the son of a black Kenyan and a white American, but to me this is a red herring. We have had many politicians and black leaders who were of mixed race and they did not receive the same scrutiny that Mr. Obama has received. To understand where a lot of this uneasiness is coming from I think we have to look at his history in politics. From the outset Mr. Obama has had the financial backing of white supporters and has always enjoyed the support of white voters. He did not ascend to his position as a result of the turbulent civil rights movement of the sixties and so he owes no allegiances to the past in that regard. Because Mr. Obama projects a non-confrontational style of discourse with whites, he has been labeled as not being black enough by many blacks.
With his Kenyan father and white American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and Ivy League education, Obama's early life experiences differ markedly from those of African American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement.[2] During his Democratic primary campaign for U.S. Congress in 2000, two rival candidates charged that Obama was not sufficiently rooted in Chicago's black neighborhoods to represent constituents' concerns.[3] In January 2007, "The End of Blackness" author Debra Dickerson warned against drawing favorable cultural implications from Obama's political rise. "Lumping us all together," Dickerson wrote in Salon, "erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress."[4] Film critic David Ehrenstein, writing in a March 2007 Los Angeles Times article, compared the cultural sources of Obama's favorable polling among whites to those of "magical negro" roles played by black actors in Hollywood movies.[5] Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough," Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. "What it really lays bare," Obama offered, is that "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong.[6][7]
The majority of black politicians and so-called leaders are and have been homegrown or products of the struggles of the civil rights movement. Mr. Obama represents a different type of black politician and leader in that he was created outside the community and came into the community to earn his stripes, for many blacks they are apprehensive of anyone black or white who wants to help that is not from the neighborhood or community. They are mistrustful of the motives of outsiders wanting to “help” due to the fact that many so-called outsiders have used them for their own nefarious purposes, especially concerning politics. The problem is that many of those same insiders have done equally as much damage as the outsiders, you would think it would be more damaging coming from insiders. Yet, we have always been more forgiving of the inside thieves and cons for some reason. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama rather than being cheered for his efforts, they are being met with aspersions. Instead of praise for giving up an opportunity to live a wealthy life based on his education and opportunities, he is getting derision for not being “black” enough.
The questions being asked by blacks concerning Barack Obama say more about the state of blacks in America than they do about Mr. Obama’s state. Have we become so petty and “institutionalized” by the past that when presented with an opportunity for changing the whole dynamics of America we get lost in the “crab syndrome”? Barack Obama represents an opportunity for change not just in politics, but in America as a whole. As a nation we must move beyond the racial and class divides that have kept us fighting the civil war for over 140 years. If elected will Barack Obama solve all of America’s problems? No. Will he solve all of black America’s problems? No. What his election will do is be the first step towards changing the agenda and the tone in America. I want to say thank you to George W. Bush and all of his Neo-Con cronies, because of them we will possibly have our first black nominee for President from any major Party and for me as a black man that is something to cheer about. The question we as black Americans must ask ourselves is this, are we ready to divorce the strategies of the past that have lost their effectiveness or shall we continue to watch as our young people and our communities are devastated by those policies.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/30/opinion/main2413315.shtml
[2] Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. "The Great Black Hope: What's Riding on Barack Obama?", Washington Monthly, November 2004.
[3] McClelland, Edward. "How Obama Learned to Be a Natural", Salon, February 12, 2007.
[4] Dickerson, Debra J. "Colorblind", Salon, January 22, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-30.
[5] Ehrenstein, David. "Obama the 'Magic Negro'", Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2007.
[6] Payne, Les. "Sen. Barack Obama: In America, a Dual Audience", Newsday, August 19, 2007
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Why Blacks Don’t Trust Barack Obama
The Politics of Rage and Hate
In what is sure to become his last ditch effort to gain the Republican nomination Mr. Giuliani is pressing forward with the politics of rage and hate that has endeared his Party to so many Americans. Speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire Mr. Giuliani proposed expanding the war in Afghanistan with his own variation of the “surge” strategy. Also, Mr. Giuliani has released a new television ad with all the usual suspects (Osama, WTC, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and he’s added a new one (Benazir Bhutto). In the ad Mr. Giuliani stresses the point that the world is in chaos and America needs a leader who is ready, ready for what it doesn’t say. Nor does the ad mention who has been the creator of most of this world’s chaos.
“I think it wouldn’t be unfair to describe us as the 9/11 generation, because how we handle this is going to say something about us in history,” Mr. Giuliani said in his speech.
The push comes as some of Mr. Giuliani’s Republican rivals are questioning how his background as mayor of New York City gives him national security or foreign policy experience — questions Mr. Giuliani may not have allayed Wednesday when he told reporters that the United States had some troops “under U.N. command” in Afghanistan (when in fact the United States has some troops there under NATO command).
Military officials said last month that the NATO-led security assistance mission in Afghanistan had about 40,000 troops, including 14,000 Americans. Separately, the United States military has 12,000 other troops conducting specialized counterterrorism missions. Charles Hill, Mr. Giuliani’s chief foreign policy adviser, said that it was the American-led troops that Mr. Giuliani wanted to double, but that the rise could be gradual.
Mr. Giuliani’s new campaign advertisement — which will be broadcast here and in Florida, as well as nationally on Fox News — contains images of Muslims with rifles; explosions; a bloody man; Benazir Bhutto, who was recently assassinated in Pakistan; and the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[1]
Will this guy stop at nothing to become President? Now we are the 9/11 generation, as if to say everything we do will be couched in 9/11. The sad part about it is that for too many of our fellow citizens this has been true and this has led to an assault on our personal freedoms, our constitutional rights, and the world community. How many of these crack pots do they think they can get elected with the politics of fear? After 8 years of Bush, do they really think that American is looking to elect another one of these “the sky is falling” nuts? If the best campaign slogan you can come up with is “Be very afraid”, I think maybe this isn’t your election and someday soon won’t be your country.
My hope is that the first thing the next President will do is to lower the US threat level. After 8 years of being on red, maybe it is time to dial it back a little. While I am not advocating returning to the lax standards of security pre-9/11, I am saying that we have allowed fear of the unknown to go unchecked for too long. We must wakeup from the nightmare and stop fearing every little thing that goes bump in the night. We will never be able to do this, if we allow our fears to be stoked by Mr. Giuliani and his ilk. This line of “You are in danger and I am the only one who can protect you” is the same logic he tried to use to extend his term as Mayor. If the choices are an America with Rudy Giuliani as President or the terrorists, I am not so sure I wouldn’t be better off with the terrorists. How painful can getting your head cut off be? As one famous patriot so eloquently stated, “Give me liberty or give me death”. If nothing else the last 8 years should have shown us that the way these clowns want to protect us is with cameras, wire-taps, and by shredding the constitution; no thanks fellas I prefer the following sentiment. “It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”[2]
Freedom like so many of life’s cherished gifts will not be missed until it has been lost. The greatest freedom one has is the freedom to decide what one is willing to die for. Mr. Giuliani may promise safety, but at what cost? I personally do not believe we as a nation are any safer today due to the policies of George Bush than we were seven years ago. Yet, despite approval ratings in the high twenties, Mr. Giuliani wants to out-Bush, George Bush. What is this guy smoking? The Mayor of 9/11 needs to go back to his rip-off consulting firm and allow America to get past the nightmare of 9/11 and move forward into a new day.
If the Iowa caucus taught me anything, it is that America is ready for change and in a big way. If you aren’t a part of that change I am afraid you will be left behind. I don’t know if there is enough sentiment to take the White House and government back, but it can no longer be ignored. The journey to take back America has begun. It is now time for all of us to decide. Do we continue to cling to fear and hatred of the past or do we get behind the change and move towards a better future? The choice is ours. I pray we choose wisely.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/us/politics/03giuliani.html
[2] http://thinkarete.com/quotes/by_teacher/Thomas%20H.%20Huxley
Friday, January 4, 2008
They Don’t Feel Your Pain
In what I can only describe as just another indication of the subtle racism has become embedded in our modern society, a study was released that found that there is a large discrepancy in the dispensing of narcotic pain relievers between blacks and whites in our nations emergency rooms. Are we to understand that there are two types of pain, black pain and white pain? The sad part about this study is the majority of doctors if asked would say they prescribe medication equally between patients, however the study proves otherwise.
CHICAGO -- Emergency room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites.
Minorities were slightly more likely than whites to get aspirin, ibuprofen and similar drugs for pain.
In more than 2,000 visits for kidney stones, whites got narcotics 72 percent of the time, Hispanics 68 percent, Asians 67 percent and blacks 56 percent.[1]
The results of this study are frightening and insulting to me as a black man. What the study indicates is that doctors have an innate belief in some very biased ideas concerning black people and pain. All of these ideas are entrenched in racist attitudes of the worse kind. The worse type of racism is not the belligerent in your face type, because with that at least you know where it is coming from. The worse type of racism is the type that goes unnoticed, undetected even by its perpetrator. The type that knows no political or ideological boundaries, it affects liberals and conservatives; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
I think the thing that troubles me the most about the study is what it reveals about both blacks and whites and the stereotypical roles we are still cast in. On the one hand you have the white doctors who view the black patient more as a potential drug abuser or as being more capable of handling greater amounts of pain than whites. On the other you have the black patient who accepts the stereotypical role of bearing more pain and less willing to complain. The problem with racism in America is that because we don’t confront it unless it involves nooses, inequitable justice, or police brutality; many whites believe that it no longer exists, especially in them. Because we have not had a national conversation on this subject in decades the subtler forms of race and privilege continue to go unabated. Racism is like a cancer in the soul of America and ignoring it will not cause it to go away. Just like the cancer of the body, it requires aggressive treatment and confrontation.
Whenever the presence of racism, especially in its subtler forms is encountered it must be confronted and exposed for what it is. It is my hope that someday this country will be able to confront the truth about our racist heritage and our current racial ambiguities in a national conversation that will allow us to once and for all confront the prejudice that has for too long been just under the surface. This will never happen as long as we continue to deny its existence in each of us and pretend it only affects “other” people. Being a multi-racial and multi-cultural society doesn’t mean we ignore our differences, it means we celebrate and accept our differences. We will never be a color-blind society and I for one don’t want us to be. My hope is that equality of education and opportunity will be offered to all regardless of their race, creed, or national origin. This can never happen if we continue to ignore the beast that lives in all of us.
Those doctors prescribing the medication didn’t consider themselves racist; on the contrary many of them are probably involved in many worthwhile endeavors benefiting poor and minority patients. The issue arises when we refuse to expose and acknowledge our innate prejudices, by doing so we allow them to continue unchallenged and in the end we all suffer from them. It is like the teacher who in some misguided sense of guilt may hold minority students to lower standards, believing that they are innately incapable of attaining the higher standard or the millions of white Americans who are surprised by how “articulate” Senator Obama is. Then of course who could forget the infamous restaurant scene with Bill O’Reilly where black people actually ordered and ate their food like other races, Mr. O’Reilly spoke for a lot of whites if they would only be honest.
The thing that is sorely missing from our discussions about race and privilege is honesty, honesty with each other and with ourselves. We must be able to sit down together and discuss and debate the causes of our continued division and prejudice. Of course this will never happen because currently the one thing that America has in abundance is dishonesty. Why is it that after 300 years we still think this thing is just going to “work itself out”? Hell, we’re still getting aspirin for kidney stones. I’m just glad I don’t need surgery anytime soon, I can’t imagine what they give us for gall bladder or prostate surgery; maybe some Tylenol PM.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/01/AR2008010101202_2.html?hpid=sec-health
Thursday, January 3, 2008
School Integration 2007; A Difficult Proposition
We will be positive.
We will strive to succeed.
We will help one another.
We will not allow anyone to interfere with us achieving our goals.
Hashay!
The previous verse is an affirmation spoken daily. What makes this something of note is that it is being said by young black men at a high school. These young black men are part of a group called Project Earthquake that is in place at a high school in the Ossining, NY School District. Ossining, NY is located in Westchester County on the Hudson River. What makes Ossining unusual is that for decades the town has embraced the concept of school integration and has made it a priority. The district has developed and tried a number of innovations to create an environment to help all of its students to succeed. The problem has been that despite all of their efforts, there is still an achievement gap for its minority students, especially the black males. The graduation rate for Ossining is 93% for white students and 48% for black students.
The fact that Project Earthquake needs to exist -- that a district as diverse as Ossining still struggles to guide African American boys toward graduation -- is a reminder that integrated school buildings aren't enough to improve the academic achievement of poor, minority kids. Indeed, the persistence of the achievement gap in Ossining echoes the national data available on race, class, and academic success in integrated schools. A study of about 1,200 children from poor families who relocated to subsidized housing in mixed-income areas during the late 1990s showed that the academic achievement of those children did not improve with the move. The findings were most discouraging for boys, who in some cases did even worse in integrated schools.
But there's a problem with that argument: Research shows that students who attended racially and socioeconomically integrated schools have better life outcomes than their nonintegrated peers of similar socioeconomic status. Integrated kids of all classes and races grow up into more tolerant adults. And although integrated schools don't always do a better job of sending poor, nonwhite kids to college, studies have shown that black students are more likely to be successful in the workforce if they've attended integrated schools.[1]
Based on the numbers and the current data it appears that for many young minority men traditional methods of education are failing them. As I have discussed previously, the number of young black men that drop out of high school each year in America is a national catastrophe. As we move to more standards based education I believe the number of drop-outs among young black men will increase beyond the catastrophic numbers we see today. We can continue to ignore these children who are dropping out by continuing to use educational methods that are obviously not working or we can be willing to use more non-traditional methods in an effort to try and salvage some of these young lives. The school board in Ossining has decided to do something about it, incorporating new methods.
Education is such a complex issue and involves so many different variables that it is frustrating to see this drive to create a standardized system that will apply to all schools and students. As if educating young people could be reduced to a score on some certification test. While I acknowledge we need to have a system of accountability, one size in education definitely does not fit all. The obstacles confronting many of our minority children cannot be overcome with a focus on writ memorization of obscure facts. Much of education is support and reinforcement, the two areas that so many of our young black men are finding nonexistent. For too many of our students there is a culture of “playing dumb”, instead of striving to excel they seek to fail. The causes of this phenomenon are many times institutionalized racism at the schools; they are expected to do less, the culture of “acting white”; for many excelling at academics is perceived by fellow students as acting white, and a lack of educational reinforcement at home; many of their parents are themselves in fact high school dropouts.
I believe that we are basing our educational decisions on the wrong criteria, as if all things are equal in the home, employment, and income areas. They are not equal and our goals should reflect that inequality. Right now, I would be glad if we could raise the number of black high school graduates. There is no sense in continuing to debate that there are more young black men in jail than in college if we are only graduating less than half from high school in most of our major cities. I believe that if we increase the numbers graduating from high school the college numbers will also increase. We must enlarge the pool of young black men eligible for college to begin to impact the lack of representation of young black men on our nation’s campuses.
I have always been an advocate of separating sexes during early education and the current data has given me no reason to change that thinking. Our current educational system is not reaching our black boys and if we don’t begin to address this issue, we will have lost many of them forever. The time has come to adopt new systems and methods. We need to begin to incorporate a holistic approach to their education; combining not only the basics of education, but also to include structure and support. The military has a long and successful history of instilling discipline and pride in our young men; we should begin to incorporate techniques that have been proven successful, even if they may seem unconventional. The cost of doing nothing is too great to continue down the current path.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
John Edwards Big Gamble
In an interview on Sunday, John Edwards dropped a bombshell and took an enormous gamble. My first thought was why would he make such statements on the eve of the Iowa caucuses? My second thought was to consider the viability of his proposal. I wondered if this was some last second ploy to pander to the anti-war voters in Iowa based on some last-minute polling data. The thing about the Edwards campaign is that he has never shied away from providing details to accompany his policy statements and Sunday appears to be no different. While others have continued to throw out generalities and vague statements concerning Iraq and ending our involvement, Mr. Edwards has taken the bold step of actually outlining steps he would take to do so.
“To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq,” he said in a 40-minute interview on Sunday aboard his campaign bus as it rumbled through western Iowa.
In one of his most detailed discussions to date about how he would handle Iraq as president, Mr. Edwards staked out a position that would lead to a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal than his principal rivals, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have indicated they are open to keeping American trainers and counterterrorism units in Iraq.[1]
According to the interview Mr. Edwards would call for the immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 US troops, followed by the withdrawal of the remaining troops within 9 or 10 months. Mr. Edwards’ plan would leave a force of 4,000 to 5,000 troops for embassy duty and protection of aid workers. This plan of course is the most accelerated withdrawal of any of the other major candidates; it also flies in the face of the military, the State Department, and conventional wisdom. There are many who predict a complete collapse in Iraq if we withdraw.
While many will view this as a desperate effort to garner last minute votes in Iowa, I see it as a long-term strategic move to tap into the larger anti-war vote in America. In the last mid-term Congressional elections the voters of America elected the Democrats to end the war. In what has been the best example of spinelessness in the history of our country, they have failed to do so. In fact they have provided Mr. Bush with every piece of legislation and funding he has sent to them. Despite the “surge” is working rhetoric and the “good news” from Iraq, there is still a large number of voters, especially Democratic voters who are very disappointed with the efforts of the current Congress and their jellyfish imitation.
The anti-war movement in this country has been minimized and under-reported from the beginning by the MSM. Make no mistake about it, just as Mr. Edwards has declared war on the corporate elite and their disproportionate share of wealth in this country, part of his wide-ranging agenda is to also end the occupation of Iraq. Mr. Edwards recognizes that part of the historically high profits being made is a direct result of our involvement in Iraq. There is the war-profiteers being supplied at taxpayer expense, there is the high cost of gas being fueled by the instability in Iraq, and there is the corruption of Iraqi politicians that continue to allow them to drag their feet on reconciliation. We must begin to show some resolve not just against the terrorist, but also against those who are stealing us blind under the guise of terrorism. We need to think about all the costs we have paid since 9/11, I would venture that the cost of each one of those 2,900 plus lives has been to the tune of over 2 billion dollars each. Think about that for a moment. If we were to include all costs associated with homeland security, the two wars, and the war profiteering and corruption since 9/11, what has it been for each life lost.
I believe that what Mr. Edwards is saying is we must begin to put this all in perspective and the way to do this is by dialing down our involvement in Iraq and allowing the Iraqis and the rest of the world to take a part in this reconstruction. Since 9/11, we have not had a national conversation about what sensible and responsible responses we should be pursuing. We all just jumped on the Neo-con bandwagon and went off half-cocked around the world to extract our revenge. We must move away from the temple of 9/11 where too many have been worshipping and begin to look realistically at the world and our place in it.
“That is a very important question for the president of the United States because it is very much a judgment call,” Mr. Edwards said. “Do I believe that we have had a moral responsibility? I do. The question is, How long does that moral responsibility continue and at what juncture is it the right decision to end what we have been doing and shift that responsibility to them?”
“Let’s assume for a minute that come January 2009 we still have a significant troop presence in Iraq, which I think is likely,” Mr. Edwards added. “If that is the case, then I think another 9 to 10 months of American troop involvement and expenditure of taxpayer money with an intense effort to resolve the political conflict and intense diplomacy, then at that point America has done what it can do.”[2]
The time has come to end the crusade. We must begin to refocus on America and all that ails us. Many will say that this is the beginning of isolationism, they would be wrong. What it is, is the beginning of cleaning up our own house before we begin to clean up the world. We have a major struggle before us here at home, the struggle of corporatism and wealth strangulation from the top. The war on terror has been a distraction and it has allowed us to watch the biggest disparity of wealth accumulation in our nation’s history. It is time we focused on this struggle or it won’t matter what happens in Iraq or anywhere else in the world.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1199297375-nTvB2yKgo93g2bIG+4mpqg
Not Another Year in Review
Well, it’s another end of the year and with it comes the onslaught of year in review diaries and analysis. So, in keeping with the spirit of the times, I’d like to offer mine. Rather than review a litany of stories and issues that have developed over the past year, I thought I would do just one. I wanted to find the one story that stood out over all the others. Of course this is a formidable task considering the sheer volume of information we are bombarded with on any given day. More information does not necessarily translate into better information. As our sources of information are being reduced by mergers and media conglomerates, it is easy to get caught up in the hype of what others want us to know.
I wanted to review the year and pick out the story that troubled me the most during the past year and after thinking about it, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. While there were plenty of candidates to choose from:
1. Virginia Tech Shootings
2. Mortgage Crisis
3. The Surge in Iraq
4. Soaring Gas Prices
5. Chinese Export Recalls
6. The Jena Six
7. Global Warming Debate
8. Presidential Campaign
9. Immigration Debate
10. US Torture
11. Iran Nukes
While all of these stories were compelling and could be worthy of the top story, in my mind only one of them marked a dramatic change in our nation and in our standing on the world stage. In my opinion the most troubling story of 2007 to us as a nation is the acknowledgment of torture and the destroying of the tapes depicting its use. To me this is a turning point in the direction of our nation on a massive scale, we have not only crossed a boundary against international law, but also against humanity. The real crime is not the news of torture, it is the public acknowledgement of it. By going public the US has now legitimized its usage throughout the world and further alienated us from the civilized world.
I am not so naïve to believe that the US has not engaged in torture in the past and that this public pronouncement is a new development in American policy. On the contrary, the US has a long storied history of using “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Not only have we been partakers, but for decades have been instructors in the fine art of torture. I find it hard to believe that torture needs to be taught, but there you go. In all the hoopla surrounding the current torture debate a little reported fact was that torture was indeed a part of the curriculum at The US Army School of the Americas, located at Ft. Benning, GA. Many of the worst atrocities committed in Central and South America were done by graduates of the SOA.
It's a history exhaustively documented in an avalanche of books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and truth commissions. In his forthcoming book, A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy synthesises this evidence, producing a riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned into a template for what he calls "no-touch torture", based on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix programme and then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police training.
Does it somehow lessen today's horrors to admit that this is not the first time the US government has used torture, that it has operated secret prisons before, that it has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping students out of airplanes? That, closer to home, photographs of lynchings were traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On November 8, Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a question about its moral integrity, until now".[1]
The question now becomes if torture has been an ongoing modis operandi of the CIA and US military why does it warrant the top story slot? The reason it is at the top of my list is not the fact that torture is and has been practiced by the US and its proxies. No, the reason it makes the top is our response to it. Not only we’re there no protests in the streets or massive campaigns to Congress and the White House, it became a part of the campaign debate and the debate around the dinner tables and cafes of America. There was no national repudiation and condemnation; there was debate about its effectiveness. There was debate about which detainees were eligible for it and which ones weren’t. The Congress confirmed a new Attorney General who did not have to give a legal opinion on the use of torture for God’s sake, this on the heels of his predecessor writing legal opinions condoning the use of torture.
One of these days this country will have to wake up from 9/11. The truth is that 9/11 did change everything, but it didn’t have to. The thing it changed the most is that it allowed the fear-mongers, power-grubbers, and empire builders to take over without protest. It allowed civil and human rights to be violated. It allowed torture to become en vogue. It allowed neighbor to spy on neighbor. It basically gave cover to all the dark forces that have always been in America, but were kept in the crevices by common sense and dignity for human life. The goal of terrorists is to inflict terror and judging from the past six years, mission accomplished. At some point the lies will be uncovered and the insanity of the war on terror will end, then what? Will we look back in horror at what we have become or we will “whitewash” our transgressions as we have done so often in the past?
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1664174,00.html
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Shrinking Middle-Class; Shrinking Labor
There has been much talk lately about the state of the middle-class, the insecurity of workers, and the flat-lining of wages in America. Much of the debate has revolved around the changes in the make-up of our labor force today. It has been erroneously reported that the shrinking of wages and of the middle-class is due to our no longer being a manufacturing society and due to out-sourcing. While this provides a convenient foe, it does not accurately depict the situation. There is a direct correlation between the flat-lining wages and the shrinking middle-class with the reduction of the labor movement in America. The only groups who have seen real growth in wages the past few decades are groups who are represented by unions. If this is true, then why are unions and the labor movement not more powerful and vibrant?
The reason is simple, corporate America and their Washington whores have gutted the labor movement in America. The only defense that middle-income folks had against the big money lobbyists and government thieves were the unions. The unions allowed the workers to pool their resources to be able to fight against the influence of corporate America. They provided cover for and contributions to politicians with the courage to stand up to corporate America. Unions for many years were the driving force behind the increase in the standard of living for all working Americans, not just their union members. Unions allowed the development of a strong middle-class which is essential to a thriving economy and a vibrant democracy. It was the unions that guaranteed their workers an honest wage and a secure job environment. How many of today’s workers cite job insecurity as a major concern with the economy?
While the unions provided many positives for their members, they also provided excesses for their leaders. I would be remiss and disingenuous if I only extolled the positive without the negative, there were many instances of abuse of power in many unions by leaders. However, that abuse of power is not because of unionism, isn’t it more because of a human frailty; greed? The problem is that corporate America began a campaign decades ago to destroy the labor movement in America, the labor movement through unions offered the only protection of the American workers against the type of abuse that they are suffering today. With the help of their “political allies” in Washington, corporate America has used the broad brush of union corruption and legal defeats to cripple the unions and the labor movement in America as a whole.
The great sit-down strikes and labor uprisings in the 30s and 40s brought our nation close to real democracy when the voices of the majority, American workers, was heard loud and clear. Corporate thugs, police agencies, and federal troops openly murdered workers and their families. The corporate media supported those actions, even calling for hanging of labor organizers. Unfortunately, labor leaders mistakenly accepted the passing of the National Labor Relations Act [NLRA] as remedy. Nothing more than deception, the Act reaffirmed the Corporation's superiority over the Constitution and made the criminal behavior by employers, labor violations, effectively undermining rights our founders sought to give. Each time labor stood up and mobilized, the Corporation, with the aid of congressional pimps and the corporate media, passed new labor acts to beat down the rights of workers. A prime example was the passage of Taft-Hartley.[1]
Using PR firms and restrictive organizing regulations supported and sponsored by the politicians, corporations have created an atmosphere of appeasement and apathy for today’s workers. Many of today’s “high tech” workers have been brainwashed to believe that the cause of labor no longer applies to their concerns. I have been at many tech jobs where the younger workers have blamed labor for the loss of industry and jobs. Many of today’s workers do not believe that labor is relevant anymore. There is only one small problem with this thinking, as the unions have shrunk the disparity between the salaries of the average worker and the top executives have reached all-time highs. Are we to believe that this is a coincidence? Correspondingly, the wealth of our nation is also being concentrated in to fewer and fewer hands. The American worker has been sold a bill of goods concerning the labor movement and its relevancy to their lives.
Without a strong labor movement including unions the American worker is at the mercy of greedy corporate executives and money grubbing politicians. The call of the union is just as relevant today as it ever was, there is strength in numbers and solidarity. It is foolish for today’s worker to rely on the benevolence of corporations, just as it was foolish for their grandparents to do so. Today’s worker must not buy into the hype that the dynamics of our economy and industries have outgrown the need for labor and unions. If nothing else the proof is in the fact that corporate executive compensation has increased at the same time workers compensation has decreased or flat-lined. Never in our history has there been disparity on the scales we are now witnessing.
These are outcomes of the long, unfolding crisis, not root causes. Despite the novelty, but obvious seriousness, of the current debate, U.S. Labor did not arrive at this point of historic impotence in just the past several years. This downward spiral has been in process for decades. Workers at the base became painfully aware that corporate capital was breaking the so-called "social contract" many years ago. Their initial anticipation that leaders of the nation's unions might devise appropriate strategies to resist or blunt the assault or that, in many instances, their own local determination to fight back would be welcomed and fully supported was one of the first casualties of this new chapter of class warfare being written in America.
Unabated disinvestment, corporate whipsawing of one plant's workers against another's, job blackmail, often with union leadership complicity, and a magician's trunk full of solidarity-busting workplace reorganization schemes had, by the mid-1980s, become the backdrop for the renewed concerted employer aggression. Most labor bureaucrats were either untrained and/or more often unwilling to venture out of their comfort zones to lead struggles against this eviscerating reality.[2]
[1] http://www.labornet.org/news/0106/wvwarzon.htm
[2] http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/tucker210705.html
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