Justice for Trayvon Martin:
| ||
At the forefront of the headlines has been the blatant and apparent case of racial profiling and murder of Trayvon Martin, an African American youth, because of his race. Complicit in this crime are George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Florida Police and the so-called Stand Your Ground law. Now the Florida and US Justice Departments have been summoned and pressured as a result of public outcry to get involved and investigate why Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch leader, was able to carry out a vigilante style murder of unarmed Trayvon Martin without a police investigation.
I’ve been paying attention to critical thinkers who offer different perspectives on this case, such as Rev. Al Sharpton, anti-racism scholar Tim Wise, the Southern Poverty Law Center, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry, Law scholar Kenji Yoshino, and Fox journalist Geraldo Rivera. From this I tried to develop an understanding of how to contextualize this unthinkable act of violence.
Race is a complex issue in the US, and for many (especially Euro-American, or white people) it is an extremely uncomfortable subject to discuss. For many African American’s and people of color race is ever present in their minds. Many news reports this week included young African American men who talked about their parents lecturing them about how to behave in public and how to treat policemen. There is a long tradition of African Americans and other people of color being subjected to racial profiling and having to deal with a double standard in the American justice system on a federal and local level.
To most of us, this was a blatant act of racist aggression. There have even been white people who displayed solidarity with Trayvon Martin in the “hoodie” protests. But on many blog sites and in news stories there were people who defended Zimmerman’s actions. Even Geraldo Rivera argued that the hoodie was as responsible as Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin’s death, which proves that even a university educated person can make ridiculously stupid arguments.
We live in a nation that thrives of fear of people of color in general and specifically fear of African American males. It is evident that George Zimmerman feared or loathed African American males.
While I believe Zimmerman and the Sanford police department should be investigated and convicted as co-conspirators in Trayvon Martin’s murder, I think we should look at how racism is pervasive in the justice system, in society in general, and in how laws like “Stand Your Ground” are fundamentally instrumental in perpetuating killings of people of color by white people. This incident heightens awareness that the idea of living in a post-racial America is nothing but a myth.
Racism is often viewed as a personal act, perpetuated by ignorance or an individual’s hatred of people of other racial or ethnic groups. But in reality it is a system of laws, policies, philosophy, beliefs and actions. When you evaluate every sphere of American life, from education, employment, incarceration, housing, health care and social status, we are all designated to our positions in society because of our racial or ethnic backgrounds as well as the historical pattern of racial and ethnic violence that was employed to build this nation. Unfortunately, even the poorest white people in American believe that they are superior to any person of color (even the President) due to their ethnic and racial heritage. That is problematic because even though white people may suffer from the same class related issues, they still believe that their lives are better for being white. Where there could be unity of all racial and ethnic groups around critical economic and social issues there will not be as long as race is a factor.
Race is a social-construct. It really has nothing to do with a person’s color. It all began with colonialism and continued with the American system of slavery, genocide against Native Americans, and displacement of Mexicans after the conquest of northern Mexico. It includes the colonialization of Island nations such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. Racism and ethnic oppression is also manifested in the fear of the “other.” Anyone who does not come from the European/Anglo tradition is viewed as the other.
Today Americans fear and loathe people from Africa, Asia, Arab and Muslim countries, Latin America and the Caribbean Islands. Who is left?
Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and other states have enacted racial profiling laws that target Latinas and Latinos. Racial profiling is prevalent anywhere that you find large numbers of the “other.” For example, in San Jose, California in 2008 the police department was sued for racially profiling, detaining and arresting disproportionate numbers of Latinos in downtown San Jose. Recently an Iraqi mother of five children was beaten and found with a note saying “go back to your country,” and she died from her wounds in El Cajon, Californiaions. As a result of the national attention brought to his case, five New York policemen were fired as a result of an investigation of the police murder of unarmed Sean Bell. It has also increased news coverage, blogging and commentaries about race. The discussion about race has to go further than people having bad attitudes. The discussion must address the question of the systemic application of government, corporate and societal laws, policies and actions that systematically oppress people due to their race and ethnic origin.
Immediately, Trayvon Martin’s family deserves justice. This case should serve as an indictment of the justice system in Sanford, Florida and in this nation.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Joe Navarro is a creative writer, poet, educator and community activist who currently lives in Hollister, California. You can learn more about Joe at joenavarro.weebly.com. Click here to contact Mr. Navarro.
|
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Many news reports this week included young African American men who talked about their parents lecturing them about how to behave in public and how to treat policemen. There is a long tradition of African Americans and other people of color being subjected to racial profiling and having to deal with a double standard in the American justice system on a federal and local level.
Now, more than ever, is the time to understand how this violent system perpetuates itself at the expense and terrible pain of everyday people. It is time to collectively change the system, not reform it. Systemic reform perpetuates this hypocritical, violent system. How does one reform a rotten and putrid pie? One doesn't. One gets rid of the putrid pie, and creates a different one!
The National Tragedy Of Violence
| ||
Violence, both physical and emotional, is an integral part of the United States. It isdeliberately propagated and perpetuated by the U.S. government, the corporate-stream media, Hollywood movies, television programs, and Internet games. It is a major symptom of this corporate controlled society and hypocritical political system.
The violent and cold-blooded publicized murders of people of all ages and colors in this nation, including those of Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, and most recently Trayvon Martin are but the tip of the insane iceberg of violence nationwide. The violence that permeates this nation is akin to this government's violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Libya, etc. These aforementioned organized acts of U.S. government violence in other lands are conveniently and hypocritically referred to as "police actions" abroad. Yet, there is a direct link between the violence that U.S. citizens carry out against one another within this nation and the violence that citizens of this nation are directed to carry out against citizens of other nations. This violence is also akin to the daily so-called "justifiable" police brutality and violence perpetrated against everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people throughout this nation.
Part of the terrible tragedy of Trayvon Martin's case is another indication of how people have been so thoroughly brainwashed to act as judge, jury, and executioner for whatever demented rationale that can be manufactured to supposedly make it "justifiable." The root cause of this is systemic, and goes far beyond color or ethnic considerations.
Some of the most despicable displays of hypocrisy and disingenuousness are being made by the ever eager systemic gate-keepers and opportunists who invariably turn up in front of news cameras, etc. for photo-ops to decry such horrible instances of violence, but who refuse to decry the systemic violence practiced by the corporate politicians whom they support. These politicians and their supporters must not be allowed to have it both ways. Their objective is to confuse everyday people and play upon their legitimate pain to further their own systemic political objectives.
Then of course there are those political pimps, hustlers, and parasites who use the terrible pain of cases such as that of Trayvon Martin to incite color and ethnic hatred,and grab their despicable moment in the limelight. This also serves the cyclical perpetuation of this violent system itself, in that it keeps everyday people in fear of one another and divided on the basis of color and ethnicity.
Now, more than ever, is the time to understand how this violent system perpetuates itself at the expense and terrible pain of everyday people. It is time to collectively change the system, not reform it. Systemic reform perpetuates this hypocritical, violent system. How does one reform a rotten and putrid pie? One doesn't. One gets rid of the putrid pie, and creates a different one!
The everyday people of this nation and world need and deserve so much better. But it is only the everyday people themselves/ourselves who can and will bring about this much-needed systemic change.
Let's get busy and stay busy, collectively pushing for real systemic change!
Onward, then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.
| ||
Whether the violence is privatized or state-sponsored, the end result is inherently barbaric.
Trayvon Martin and the Execution of the Innocent
| ||
The killing of Trayvon Martin reminds us that the death of an innocent person is senseless and tragic, whether at the hands of a self-appointed executioner, assassin, vigilante or lynch mob - or the state itself. Whether the violence is privatized or state-sponsored, the end result is inherently barbaric.
Like so many others in the past, black boys have provided a convenient target, and a scapegoat that was made to order.
Hoodies are by no means the monopoly of black and Latino young people and yet,hoodies are being used as a proxy for black criminality. And the badge of black criminality, in turn, stems from the stigma of slavery. Based on the assumption that two or more black men congregating in public constituted an uprising, the Slave Codes - and the Black Codes after the Civil War and Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction - restricted the movement and activities of black people. The goal was to limit their freedom and deprive them of their rights.
And under the Fugitive Slave Act, officials could deputize entire white communities to hunt down and capture suspected fugitive slaves, whether or not they actually were slaves. Ultimately, slave or free, all blacks were slaves, or criminals for that matter. No warrant was necessary, just someone who claimed ownership, whether or not that person actually was a slave owner. Yes, the George Zimmermans of that day thought they had a right, because they did. In fact, it was their duty.
For years, black mothers and fathers have advised their sons on what and what not to do or say when confronting white folks in public, in an effort to save their babies’ lives from the Ku Klux Klan, the angry mob, the police, and other purveyors of extrajudicial executions. Black men were lynched and disappeared, later found in some river, as was the case with Emmett Till in 1955
When lynching found its way to the court system, it was dressed up and made respectable under the guise of capital punishment. Same lynch mob, different venue - or at least, the mob was told to go home and let the kangaroo courts reach the desired result.
In 1944, 14-year-old George Stinney became the youngest person in the past century to meet his death in the electric chair. At 5’ 1” and all of 95 pounds, the diminutive black boy was convicted of the impossible - applying blunt force trauma to the heads of two white girls by way of a railroad spike, shattering their skulls simultaneously in multiple places and leaving them in a ditch. There was no physical evidence.
Stinneywas interrogated without parents present, and coerced into a confession of which there was no written record. The all-white-male jury deliberated for only 10 minutes before passing judgment on one of their so-called “peers.” They needed to tie someone to the murders, and Stinney was the perfect scapegoat.
Fast-forward to today. The National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council - or ALEC, the Koch Brothers-funded operation that has brought us voter ID, union-busting, forced transvaginal ultrasounds and other deplorable legislation - want to enact “Stand Your Ground” laws in all 50 states. The law, which is supported by corporations, adopted by at least 21 states and first adopted in
Meanwhile, under “Stand Your Ground” laws, there is no duty to retreat. A person has a right to “stand one’s ground” and use deadly force anywhere he or she feels threatened - in the home or on the street. Critics rightly concluded the law lays the groundwork for a shoot ‘em up, Wild Wild West environment. Moreover, it doesn’t take much legal knowledge to realize that the new law forever turns the concept of self-defense on its head.
And those who are inclined to “blame it on a black man” have found their excuse to kill a black or Latino youth because they don’t like them or feel threatened by them, and believe youth of color are dangerous and prone to violence. This paves the way for Trayvon Martin-style, race-based assassinations - a privatized sort of execution made legal, and vigilante justice with all the guns you care to use. Now, this should concern you.
Not that the state-sponsored variety of executions is any better.
BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, David A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based in
| ||
[I]ndividual health insurance, as currently constituted, just doesn’t work. If insurers are left free to deny coverage at will — as they are in, say, California — they offer cheap policies to the young and healthy (and try to yank coverage if you get sick) but refuse to cover anyone likely to need expensive care -- Paul Krugman
Hurray for Health Reform
By PAUL KRUGMAN
It’s said that you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. If the same principle applies to legislation, the Affordable Care Act — which was signed into law two years ago, but for the most part has yet to take effect — sits in a place of high honor.
Now, the act — known to its foes as Obamacare, and to the cognoscenti as ObamaRomneycare — isn’t easy to love, since it’s very much a compromise, dictated by the perceived political need to change existing coverage and challenge entrenched interests as little as possible. But the perfect is the enemy of the good; for all its imperfections, this reform would do an enormous amount of good. And one indicator of just how good it is comes from the apparent inability of its opponents to make an honest case against it.
To understand the lies, you first have to understand the truth. How would ObamaRomneycare change American health care?
For most people the answer is, not at all. In particular, those receiving good health benefits from employers would keep them. The act is aimed, instead, at Americans who fall through the cracks, either going without coverage or relying on the miserably malfunctioning individual, “non-group” insurance market.
COMMIT THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH
TO MEMORY: IT IS ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY.
The fact is that individual health insurance, as currently constituted, just doesn’t work. If insurers are left free to deny coverage at will — as they are in, say, California — they offer cheap policies to the young and healthy (and try to yank coverage if you get sick) but refuse to cover anyone likely to need expensive care. Yet simply requiring that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions, as in New York, doesn’t work either: premiums are sky-high because only the sick buy insurance.
The solution — originally proposed, believe it or not, by analysts at the ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation — is a three-legged stool of regulation and subsidies. As in New York, insurers are required to cover everyone; in return, everyone is required to buy insurance, so that healthy as well as sick people are in the risk pool. Finally, subsidies make those mandated insurance purchases affordable for lower-income families.
Can such a system work? It’s already working! Massachusetts enacted a very similar reform six years ago — yes, while Mitt Romney was governor. Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who played a key role in developing both the local and the national reforms (and has published an illustrated guide to reform) has surveyed the results — and finds that Romneycare is working pretty much as advertised. The number of people without insurance has dropped sharply, the quality of care hasn’t suffered, and the program’s cost has been very close to initial projections.
Oh, and the budgetary cost per newly insured resident of Massachusetts was actually lower than the projected cost per American insured by the Affordable Care Act.
Given this evidence, what’s a virulent opponent of reform to do? The answer is, make stuff up.
We all know how the act’s proposal that Medicare evaluate medical procedures for effectiveness became, in the fevered imagination of the right, an evil plan to create death panels. And rest assured, this lie will be back in force once the general election campaign is in full swing.
For now, however, most of the disinformation involves claims about costs. Each new report from the Congressional Budget Office is touted as proof that the true cost of Obamacare is exploding, even when — as was the case with the latest report — the document says on its very first page that projected costs have actually fallen slightly. Nor are we talking about random pundits making these false claims. We are, instead, talking about people like the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, who issued a completely fraudulent press release after the latest budget office report.
Because the truth does not, sad to say, always prevail, there is a real chance that these lies will succeed in killing health reform before it really gets started. And that would be an immense tragedy for America, because this health reform is coming just in time.
Over the past fifty years, black men have been identified as “suspicious” by their clothing, whether they were or not. And most of the time, they weren’t. In the 1960s, wearing leather jackets made you suspicious and dangerous. In the 1970s, wearing army jackets (as many of the returning Viet Nam vets did - and many school kids - Hell, I had one), made black men suspicious and dangerous. In the 1980s, it was P-Coats. In the 1990s, it was Raiders jackets. In the 2000s, it was Georgetown jackets. In the 2010s, it is “hoodies.” The problem was the intersection of a criminal element, as popular wear became “gang wear” after the 1980s. That stigmatized all black males - so that every kid who wore what was cool, in or popular was linked to criminality on a societal scale - which we now call racial profiling.
The Hoodie Debate:
| ||
Journalist Gerald Rivera set off a national firestorm when he suggested the hoodiethat
It was Trayvon’s skin color that made him Zimmerman’s mark, but Rivera’s assertion raises some points that are not being discussed in the midst of the outrage and the grief. Zimmerman hasn’t been charged because he asserted his self-defense right in a state that has a “shoot first” law. Shoot first laws, in this case - called the Stand Your Ground Law in Florida - allows citizens to apply for concealed weapon licenses and to carry those weapons, where they have the right to use those weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that they are about to be assaulted, robbed or harmed in any way. This will be Zimmerman’s defense - whenever he is charged (and he will be charged) - that he acted within the law. The problem is, Zimmerman also found a loophole in which to act out his racism, or fear of black people. Martin’s clothing, thehoodie, exacerbated that fear. The hoodie made Martin a suspicious black male in the neighborhood and Zimmerman knew if he confronted Trayvon, he’d have the “Shoot First” law on his side, making his Negrophobia a twisted defense of justifiable homicide.
Time will tell if that rationalization holds up, but now the “Shoot First” law needs to be put on trial, because we now see the adverse effects of when a reasonable racist exploits the law. Florida Governor, Rick Scott, has appointed a special task force to look into the case, but Florida Senate President, Mike Haridopolos, has said there will be no special committee appointed to review the Stand Your Ground law. That’s a problem, but we can’t lose sight of why this happened in the first place. We first have to acknowledge that Negrophobia has returned to
It was ushered in by the election of Obama. The week after President Obama was elected in November of 2008, the FBI reported a 49% jump in background checks for gun and assault rifle purchases. Some 374,000 people sought to buy guns between November 3rd and 9th, 2008. It wasn’t that “Fear of a black planet” that Public Enemy had predicted, but there was clearly some high anxiety of this black President and that Negrophobia had re-evidenced itself.
Negrophobia is a 19th Century construct that came about as a result of blacks seeking equality in public spaces during Reconstruction. That became a problem. The national referendum of the Presidential election of 1876 was one in which candidate, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes or Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, was going to address “the Negro Problem.” Black people in white people’s social spaces would a suspicious occurrence from then on. The redemption Period (1877-1896) was an entrenched effort to put blacks back in their social “place” and strip all rights gained during Reconstruction. The Plessy decision of 1896 legalized separation for another 68 years, until the Civil Right Act of 1964 (the Brown decision outlawed it, but didn’t stop it).
You have those in this country who will never get over race. Race is part of the cultural fabric, and Negrophobia is also. You can always tell a Negrophobe. They get anxious at the very presence of black people - even just one. People staring at black people for no reason. Negrophobes. Won’t service black people in restaurants and department stores. Negrophobe. Negrophobes never know exactly what to say to black people. When somebody came up to you and said something stupid, we used to pass it off as ignorance. Today - mostly likely, Negrophobe. And Negrophobes are more likely to overact in a racial encounter. Whites, while still a significant segment of the Negrophobes in this nation, are not the only ones. Asians and Latinos have their share also, as do Armenians and Iranians. Those who come to
Negrophobia has been studied over the past century or so, usually in the context of social construction and the law. When de jure segregation ended in the last quarter of the 20th Century, new forms of racism morphed to give support to the nation’s ever-present black paranoia. One form was called “reasonable racism.” USC law professor, Jody Armour, wrote about it 15 years ago in a book called, Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America
 (New York University Press, 1997).
The synopsis of the theory around reasonable racism was that as overt racism had become impolitic and so undetectable, covert forms replaced it. Racism didn’t go away. White racists just became “reasonable” in their engagement. One of the aspects that Armour called out was the use of deadly force against blacks, and the rationale that Negrophobes were using, was that they could shoot somebody, in anticipation of what they thought might occur, based on what they thought a black person might do to them. Of course, this was partly in response to the hyper-radicalized lexicon of Pro-Black Radicalism and the “Kill Whitey” rhetoric coming out of the 1960s and 1970s. However, anticipatory reaction was being vetted as public policy, and a legal defense, then. It’s a cultural reality, and a legal quandary, now. Now this law is about to be tested and the eyes of the world are on
In the 21st Century, “Shoot First” (and ask questions later) laws were precipitous reaches into citizen protection advocacy whereby the citizen could, in essence, take the law into their own hands.
Twenty-three other states have passed “shoot first” laws since the
Though we understand quite clearly that this, reasonable racism, has new legal cover. Now let’s get at the clothing claim. On a very lightweight level, Geraldo is right. We have often warned our youth about wearing clothing that may identify them as gang members and thus, open to harassment by police or targeted by other gang members. But to suggest that his clothing got him killed because some white man saw him as “suspicious” is a reach. Trayvon’s clothing didn’t get him killed. His skin color got him killed, as it has for countless numbers of black men over the centuries. The apparel argument is a red herring argument, and here’s why…
Over the past fifty years, black men have been identified as “suspicious” by their clothing, whether they were or not. And most of the time, they weren’t. In the 1960s, wearing leather jackets made you suspicious and dangerous. In the 1970s, wearing army jackets (as many of the returning
We tell the young men to pull their pants up, or tuck their shirts in, because we know it makes them targets for the police and the criminal element, but they don’t - because it’s popular. It’s their swag. Their clothing is their style and their stamp on the culture - and everybody dresses like them in today’s society. Even white youth.But we know it’s really not about the clothing. The clothing changes, but the target remains the same - black males. Their clothing becomes an identifier - for who you should stop, or who you should shoot at, on a premise that they are gang members or some other kind of social menace.
This is what Geraldo was talking about but the reality is that it happens to black men regardless of what they wear, and with greater frequency. Why? Because black males are born suspicious, and whatever they wear cues society of their presence in public spaces. The hoodie is Zimmerman’s alibi based on a stigma associated with it. But all our kids wear them.
Wearing popular apparel doesn’t make black males criminal. It just makes them identifiable. Or does it? Not when you’re a white male. Zimmerman didn’t see ahoodie first. He saw a black male first. And something tells me that Zimmerman might have known that he had some law on his side, which is why he pursued Martin. Without a confrontation and a struggle, there is no defense for murder. That’s why he went after him.
The hoodie debate is symbolic for one reason and one reason only…it’s the latest example of how black males are profiled and used by some reasonable racists as the latest excuse to commit murder. Despite
Justice for Trayvon. The world is watching.
BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author ofSaving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com.Twitter @dranthonysamad. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.
|
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street - Immanuel Wallerstein
The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street
The Occupy Wall Street movement – for now it is a movement – is the most important political happening in the United States since the uprisings in 1968, whose direct descendant or continuation it is.
Why it started in the United States when it did – and not three days, three months, three years earlier or later – we’ll never know for sure. The conditions were there: acutely increasing economic pain not only for the truly poverty-stricken but for an ever-growing segment of the working poor (otherwise known as the “middle class”); incredible exaggeration (exploitation, greed) of the wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population (“Wall Street”); the example of angry upsurges around the world (the “Arab spring,” the Spanish indignados, the Chilean students, the Wisconsin trade unions, and a long list of others). It doesn’t really matter what the spark was that ignited the fire. It started.
In Stage one – the first few days – the movement was a handful of audacious, mostly young, persons who were trying to demonstrate. The press ignored them totally. Then some stupid police captains thought that a bit of brutality would end the demonstrations. They were caught on film and the film went viral on YouTube.
That brought us to Stage two – publicity. The press could no longer ignore the demonstrators entirely. So the press tried condescension. What did these foolish, ignorant youth (and a few elderly women) know about the economy? Did they have any positive program? Were they “disciplined”? The demonstrations, we were told, would soon fizzle. What the press and the powers that be didn’t count on (they never seem to learn) is that the theme of the protest resonated widely and quickly caught on. In city after city, similar “occupations” began. Unemployed 50-year-olds started to join in. So did celebrities. So did trade-unions, including none less than the president of the AFL-CIO. The press outside the United States now began to follow the events. Asked what they wanted, the demonstrators replied “justice.” This began to seem like a meaningful answer to more and more people.
This brought us to Stage three – legitimacy. Academics of a certain repute began to suggest that the attack on “Wall Street” had some justification. All of a sudden, the main voice of centrist respectability, The New York Times, ran an editorial on October 8 in which they said that the protestors did indeed have “a clear message and specific policy prescriptions” and that the movement was “more than a youth uprising.” The Times went on: “Extreme inequality is the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, dominated by a financial sector that is driven as much by speculation, gouging and government backing as by productive investment.” Strong language for the Times. And then the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started circulating a petition asking party supporters to declare “I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”
The movement had become respectable. And with respectability came danger – Stage four. A major protest movement that has caught on usually faces two major threats. One is the organization of a significant right-wing counterdemonstration in the streets. Eric Cantor, the hardline (and quite astute) Republican congressional leader, has already called for that in effect. These counterdemonstrations can be quite ferocious. The Occupy Wall Street movement needs to be prepared for this and think through how it intends to handle or contain it.
But the second and bigger threat comes from the very success of the movement. As it attracts more support, it increases the diversity of views among the active protestors. The problem here is, as it always is, how to avoid the Scylla of being a tight cult that would lose because it is too narrowly based, and the Charybdis of no longer having a political coherence because it is too broad. There is no simple formula of how to manage avoiding going to either extreme. It is difficult.
As to the future, it could be that the movement goes from strength to strength. It might be able to do two things: force short-term restructuring of what the government will actually do to minimize the pain that people are obviously feeling acutely; and bring about long-term transformation of how large segments of the American population think about the realities of the structural crisis of capitalism and the major geopolitical transformations that are occurring because we are now living in a multipolar world.
Even if the Occupy Wall Street movement were to begin to peter out because of exhaustion or repression, it has already succeeded and will leave a lasting legacy, just as the uprisings of 1968 did. The United States will have changed, and in a positive direction. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” A new and better world-system, a new and better United States, is a task that requires repeated effort by repeated generations. But another world is indeed possible (albeit not inevitable). And we can make a difference. Occupy Wall Street is making a difference, a big difference.
While walking down the street one day a Corrupt Senator
While walking down the street one day a Corrupt Senator (that may be redundant) was tragically hit by a car and died.
His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
"Welcome to heaven," says St.. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.
"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."
"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.
"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course.
In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.
They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes.
They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where
St. Peter is waiting for him, "Now it's time to visit heaven...”
So, 24 hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."
The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell...
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls to the ground.
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.
"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"
The devil smiles at him and says,
" Yesterday we were campaigning. Today, you voted.."
Monday, March 26, 2012
A War on the Nature of Freedom They Hate Us for Our (Reproductive) Freedom
A War on the Nature of Freedom
They Hate Us for Our (Reproductive) Freedom
The barrage of late, regarding reproductive legislation shouldn’t be viewed as an assault only on women, but an attempt to curtail and contain the entire population, men included. It’s a broad, scorched earth policy that won’t end with this patchwork of bills.
They hate us for our freedom, and I’m not talking about the “terrorists”.
To be clear in this, I would say that one could be sympathetic in the past with those anti-abortion individuals who seemed sincere in their belief that it was wrong, even if you disagreed with them. But here’s the thing- those beliefs never seemed to be combined with a desire to provide easily accessible birth control or even an acceptance of a sexuality that didn’t not result in procreation. The more recent assaults further flesh out their worldview. They are going after not just abortion, but the very funding that prevents unwanted pregnancies. It’s an ownership ethos that is punishing and immovable. Those with these ideas seem to feel something of a punitive pull- another may be less restrained in some manner, and they can’t abide that- I’m not free they exude, and in something of a hazing mentality, want others to go through what they did, and be just as miserable. It goes beyond sexuality and broaches the very limits of what we call free will.
It’s not really a shocking development when you consider that we are all considered simple consumers by most in power. Ownership and boundary issues stem from that, and can become cherished topics of the authoritarians. The bodies of women are simply easy pickings. You are pretty freaking vulnerable waddling around at 8 ½ months, and forcing that upon the many is a magnificent control method. It has morphed into something beyond abortion, into private sexual behavior- an area the “anti-government” types can’t seem to get enough of.
Freedom of any kind is feared. Any hint of anarchism (and I’m talking about the lack of external controllers on individual freedom-not the more skewed and corrupted notion of that word) is terrifying to those in power. I suspect that this was the main reason for some of the brutal Occupy take-downs. Sure, they didn’t want wealth disparity being discussed, but I think they also feared a model of concern for communal well-being. That goes against the constraints that cause us all to stand in line for the latest hideous cubicle job, and step on each other to get it.
The inconvenient fact that the US government was built on a notion of the separation of church and state is not a concern to these types, either. They can’t fathom that they would ever not be in power- that their own rights could truly be at risk. This exposes the hypocrisy of their constant bellowing out as victims. If they really perceived their station as such, they might push for protective measures against the will of a tyrannical group being thrust upon others. It’s an amazing unstated assertion that they have no true fear of anyone else ever really being in control- the railing against Muslims/Buddhist/Atheists/Others is pure theater. And the true believers seem to be carrying water for those who just want the populace under control- they benefit from that arrangement, and will never have to live under the same rules. They know their wealth and power would preclude that. I suspect they enjoy the show.
This control can force men to stay at awful jobs to support the family, just as it can do to the woman. You are certainly not likely to become an activist during dangerous times if you fear for the survival of your children. And having kids sometimes ties individuals into a lifestyle they would otherwise not choose. This is not to say that children are entirely punitive! But it’s a statement of fact that upon having children, most do become a more malleable and frightened follower of social morays. And it’s one thing to enter into this voluntarily, but quite another to be pushed into it.
Author Daniel Quinn had a term: “erratic retaliation”. He posited that unpredictable responses from certain individuals or groups could illicit better behavior, overall. You would have to consider that someone might react in an unpredictable manner to your own overarching behavior. I would term individuals who quit easily over labor abuses to be “erratic retaliators”. This sort of thing can make an employer more cautious when they consider extending future unreasonable requests on their employees. High unemployment serves in the same manner, as do the chains of student loan debt. Give folks few options and many mouths to feed, and they will not retaliate in any manner. And I’m speaking, of course, about those who respond in a clean and decisive manner that they will not tolerate abuses- not full blown psychotic episodes that hurt others, such as going postal. We seem to still have those capacities sadly intact in some of our population. That’s just the flailing out of angst with no redeemable quality behind it.
I would extend that this being termed “a war on women” is not entirely accurate. It’s really a war on the very nature of freedom and the ability to use your life as you see fit- for men and women. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security if you lack a uterus. The women will, of course, suffer more in all of this, but make no mistake that this is just another method to own and control those of us they see as nothing but cogs in the enormous machine. And that machine churns out endless growth and gluttony for the few.
As it is with most things, there is a broadness that encompasses and swallows everyone in the interconnectedness- the diminished humanity and loss of freedom will not observe boundaries.
Kathleen Peine writes out of the US Midwest and can be contacted at kathypeine@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)