Tag Archives: USA

Not the Worst Dental Banter, But…

10 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by in History, Politics

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So, I am sitting in the dentist chair for a deep cleaning, and the woman doing the procedure asks what I do? I tell her I teach.

“Oh really, what do you teach?”

I tell her its history. (It’s actually more complicated than that, but my jaw is sore, I’m stressed, and my whole mouth is numb, so this is more than I really want to say about this or anything else at that particular moment, really it is.)

My dental tech. (I don’t know her official title) then goes on to tell me that history has changed a lot lately. It’s one of those comments that could mean a few different things. Just too general to mean much to me, and I am still working on getting the ball back in her court, so I try to wrap it up with something equally vague and unworthy of follow-up commentary; “history is always changing.”

I know. That doesn’t mean anything either. What I really meant to say is; “Get on with it!”

I think she was waiting for the latest numbing shots to set in, so she added some commentary about how America used to be thought of as a good place, but now people thinks it’s awful, so they want to change history. She adds that some people should go back to their home country if they think America is so bad.

I didn’t respond at all this time, and she soon resumed her work.

Now before you imagine this woman in terms of redneck, xenophobic, white lady stereotypes, let me just add a couple important details. This woman was Asian. She had a very thick accent. I think likely that she is an immigrant. She probably finished her training as a dental tech. (or something like that) in a strange country speaking a strange language, and that HAD to be a Hell of a challenge. I will add to this that she did a good job and I am very happy with her work today. This woman is not an idiot, and I have no reason to believe her a bigot. She is an accomplished professional who has almost certainly experienced the difference between America and some other place in terms far more vivid than anything in my own background.

Still, muted as I was now by the sharp pointy things once again attacking the space between my teeth and my gums, I couldn’t help but think about her words. I couldn’t help but start down the paths toward answering her, the ones I would have taken had I more time, less stress, and a functioning tongue.

And also if I was free of the pointy things.

I wanted to tell her that I teach at a tribal college and that my indigenous students have legitimate complaints about America, complaints that are not well answered by telling them to go home. (Indeed, some of those students might suggest a fitting answer would be for me to go home.) Of course, I would want to expand on this by suggesting that “go home” or “go somewhere else” doesn’t really answer any questions about injustice or oppression, even when such arguments are not made with perverse irony. Sure, there may be some folks with less to complain about than they imagine, but there are also plenty with more cause to complain than they themselves imagine. And of course many with legitimate grievances of which they are quite well aware.

Whether or not this all adds up to America being a terrible place is another question. Being critical of America doesn’t necessarily entail such a sweeping condemnation, and in my experience, that sweeping condemnation has as much to do with the way some people hear the criticism as it does with the intent of the critics. Slavery, genocide, patriarchy, colonialism, and many other themes can be voiced with or without the rancor. For some these are causes to hate America; for others they constitute long-term patterns of social injustice which must be opposed, and that opposition in and of itself is the point.

Bottom line is that I think there is more to the criticisms my dental tech alluded to than this she might have imagined. I could be wrong. I mean, details matter, but absent a specific reference to a specific complaint, I think it rather likely that I would be inclined to support at least some of the complaints she was unhappy about.

I do think it rather likely that this woman picked up on some of the recent right wing response to critical race theory (CRT). To be honest, I was never that keen on CRT, but I must say, the right wing effort to quash it, ban it from the schools, and use it to scare the shit our of parents and political donors all over the country has certainly given me good reason to reconsider my take on the subject. The right wing makes a good case for critical race theory. I don’t think they mean to. But they sure do.

All that said, I can imagine at least one line of thought that works positively in favor of this woman’s narrative. As I said, I do think she is an immigrant. Given her allusions to going back home, it seems pretty clear that America has been a positive experience to her, one that likely brought her increased possibilities and genuine improvements in quality of life. Maybe not, of course. But, given her comments, this does seem likely. I can well imagine that someone with such an experience would find those critical of the United States quite objectionable. I can well imagine that their narratives might strike her as wrong-headed, even as deceitful and clear evidence of bad faith. I can well imagine that her own life story, had she the time to give it to me, might well have served as a great reminder that there are some good things about this country, and that those good things are not limited to the experiences of the dominant white majority.

So, what am I left with? A sense that this woman was unfairly dismissing the legitimate grievances of people who have been treated unfairly in this country. It’s not that I think this woman is wrong to love America; it is that I think she is wrong to dismiss who seem to think otherwise. As I see it, she is right to think of America as a wonderful place. I also think that others are right to think it a terrible place. It’s not even that I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

I think both of these takes are true at the same time.

Tom Horn Died for Your Sins

10 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by in History, Movies

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That’s right!

Tom Horn died for your sins

I know, Custer died for your sins.

I’m not so sure about Jesus.

But Tom Horn and George Armstrong Custer definitely died for your sins.

If you are American anyway.

Tom Horn definitely died for your sins.

SPOILER ALERT!

I am, of course, talking about an old Steve McQueen movie. I might also be talking about the real Tom Horn whose life and death inspired the movie, but I’m definitely talking about the Tom Horn of that movie.

This is one of the last films that Steve McQueen did. He was reportedly short of breath during filming, a symptom of the cancer that would soon take his life. It’s hard to escape the parallel between this story about the final days of a frontier legend and the final days of a Hollywood legend. It may be hindsight, but something of the tone of this film suggests a sadness not entirely contained within the plot of the film itself.

The real Tom Horn was tried in 1902 and sentenced to death for the murder of a Willie Nickell, the 14-year old son of a sheep rancher. Questioned while drunk, Horn reportedly confessed to the murder, saying; “(it was) best shot that (he) ever made and the dirtiest trick that (he) had ever done.” Suffice to say that many have questioned the validity of the trial, and of Horn’s drunken confession. Suffice it also to say, that few have questioned whether or not Tom Horn was guilty of murder, but many do question whether or not Horn was guilty of THIS murder.

In his life, Horn had served as a scout in the Apache wars. An ill-fated attempt at ranching afterwards had left him broke and bitter. Cattle thieves had taken the bulk of his stock. Horn spent the much of his life in subsequent years serving as a cattle detective. By all accounts, his ‘detective work’ was often a cover for the hired murder. Whether or not Horn’s murders were restricted to cattle thieves or other criminals, we will never really know. The range wars of the old west claimed the lives of innocent and guilty alike, and Tom Horn had been a willing participant in several of them, yet THIS trial and THIS killing is still a controversy.

The question of whether or not Willie Nickell was one of those murdered by Horn is one of the great legends of the old west. That this question is framed in relation to the final days of the old western period (or perhaps even a little after that period had ended) makes the story a bit more poignant. It makes the story about Tom Horn’s execution for what may or may not have been his final crime a question about what the old west actually means in American history. It makes of his trial an occasion to ponder the significance of the frontier in American history.

(Apologies to Frederick Jackson Turner!)

McQueen’s version of Tom Horn has the confession reading a little different. He has Horn saying that IF, he had shot the McNickell boy, that WOULD HAVE BEEN the best shot he ever made, and the dirtiest trick he had ever done. The account provided in court is, according to this version of the story, a sleazy twist his actual words, one arranged in an effort to railroad Horn to the gallows. Like the actual controversy itself, however, McQueen’s Horn stops well short of saying he had never committed a murder.

McQueen’s Horn refuses to defend himself from the actual charge at the trial. Asked whether or not he committed the murder in question, Horn replies that he won’t give the court the satisfaction of a direct answer. He knows the fix is in, arranged by the same people who who had arranged for his services as a cattle detective, and he simply will not humor the court by pretending his answer matters.

Now, whether you shoot me, or hang me, or take my horse and rifle, one reason is as good as another. I believe that, I really do. That’s my last word on this matter.

The problem from the perspective of McQueen’s Horn isn’t whether or not he actually killed the child. It is that his trial is no more about justice for the murder sheep-herder’s son than the murder of the sheep-herder’s son had been in the first place. Both are about the needs of the cattle industry, and in a larger sense, the needs of the establishment now growing in the frontier he had once known. Horn’s coming execution is as much a function of financial interests as any of the killings he had carried out in the name of those very same interests. His killings had once been effective in removing obstacles to big ranchers, and now they were an embarrassment, even a scandal. In the larger story of the American west, by 1902, so had all the killings carried out by men like Horn.

Just as the sheep-herder’s son, Horn himself had to go. Whether he had killed the boy or not, his own execution was, in effect, a murder arranged by cattle interests.

Horn understood murder.

He was fine with murder.

Even his own.

In this account, Tom Horn, and so many like him, are the civilizing agents of the west. Their rough lives, their conflicts, even their outright murders, all committed on the mythic frontier, are what made present-day American society possible. We in the present-day share in their crimes to the extent that we enjoy the fruits of their violence, and while we may balk at this or that terrible act, we are who we are now and live how we live now because of those very acts. America is what it is because of murderers like him.

Horn’s execution is thus a kind of final, necessary crime, one carried out by faceless men, acting in concert to erase the violence which made their success possible, the violence which made America possible. Professional killers like Horn, once the rock-stars of their day, were now an uncomfortable presence, and a reminder of uncomfortable truths. Like Jesus going to the cross voluntarily, Horn accepts his hanging, because that is how it must be. His crimes were necessary, so to speak, but so is his execution.

We cannot have the likes of Tom Horn living on into the modern era, reminding us every day that cruel men once killed children on behalf of the upright citizens of our great country.

I know it seems odd to think of a hired murderer as a Christ-like figure, to think of him as the savior of the American people, but to me it seems a bit more fitting than the Prince of Peace. Time and again, it’s been murderers that saved our nation. They have saved us from real enemies, to be sure, and they have saved us from innocent people who merely stood in our way. We don’t always know the difference, because we really don’t want to, and that is why the Tom Horn of this movie has to die.

Confined to the frontiers of our nation, men like Tom Horn even save us from thinking too much about the whole thing.

Fake Patriots and Fake George Washington Quotes

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in History, Politics

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See this meme?

You can find it all over the net. The quote contained in it is extraordinarily popular in right wing circles. This should surprise nobody of course. It has George Washington singing the praises of private gun ownership as a means of preparing the population for possible war with their own government. The price of freedom, it seems to suggest, is the need to be ever vigilant against one’s own government, to be prepared at all times to rebel against that very government.

If you were to boil down the thinking of the Insurrectionists on January 6th, it might well be this quote right here.

There are different variations of the meme, to be sure, but the quote itself is near and dear to right wing America. They share it with each other, and with the rest of us, on a regular basis. I first encountered it when a friend posted it for my benefit on Facebook. I have seen it there many times since. The quote finds its way onto twitter every day. It certainly found its way into Parler a number of times before that crappy service found its way into oblivion. You can find the quote on Instagram. It’s all over Pinterest, compliments on websites like Zazzle and BrainyQuote. It certainly makes its way around Tumblr. You can find this quote on merchandise at various online outlets, …T-Shirts and such. I could go on, but you get the idea. This quote gets around. It’s popular.

I mean, it’s REALLY popular!

And it’s fake.

To be a bit more specific, the first 11 words of this quote are from the fourth paragraph of George Washington’s first address to Congress. Everything after that has been doctored so as to make it into a talking point for gun owner’s rights.

Here is the fake quote:

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might abuse them, which would include their own government.”

Here the original:

A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a Uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufacturies, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.

Another Variation on this Fake Quote

(Emphasis added.)

So, what happens when you call people out on this? Well, sometimes, folks get the point. Some decent people actually take the correction and get on with their lives. More often, they refuse to believe they are wrong. Some just ignore you. Some sources, I suspect, are bots, programed to simply post this and other propaganda over and over without regards to any efforts to engage them. The most common response, I get, however is to tell me that the quote above is actually a paraphrase of something Washington actually said. Some even provide me with a link to the actual speech. (Whether or not they have read the speech is another question.)

In a parallel development, I have noticed a lot of people taking to twitter in recent years to post the actual quote above. This might well be a response to the fact that some of us keep addressing the fake quotes wherever we find it. Realizing they don’t need the fake quote, they use the real thing for pretty much the same political purpose. In their minds, the real thing is still very much a statement about the importance of the Second Amendment. It may not contain an explicit prescription for revolution-readiness, but at least it makes the case for private gun ownership, ad we all know what that means…

Right?

The problem is, it doesn’t.

If you read the rest of Washington’s speech, you can see quite clearly that its overwhelming theme is the exercise of the Federal government’s newly expanded powers. Yes, that’s right, Washington was actively working to expand the powers of the Federal Government, as did many of the founding fathers now celebrated by those whose very definition of evil is encapsulated in the phrase “big government.” One of the powers Washington was most happy to have at his disposal was the ability to outfit a viable military force. THAT is what this paragraph is about. It is nestled in between two other paragraphs that are most explicitly about troops and preparations for war. Keep reading that same speech, and you find Washington speaking quite explicitly about the prospect of war with Indians in the present-day southeast.

Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defence will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a Uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.

The proper establishment of the Troops which may be deemed indispensible, will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it, it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the Officers and Soldiers with a due regard to œconomy.

What Washington is actually talking about is the ability to field an army. He sees this as an essential exercise of the powers newly granted to the Federal Government under its new Constitution. He is urging Congress to encourage the manufacture of weapons so that the armies of the United States will not have to rely on foreign powers to arm them in the event of any future war.

Just to be clear, the prospect of such future wars certainly does include the possibility of open rebellion, but Washington isn’t arguing that citizens might need to rebel against their own government. If anything, he is mindful of the prospect that he might need to put down such a rebellion. Remember, it was Shays’ Rebellion that triggered the urgent need for a constitutional convention in the first place. Its purpose was to fix perceived weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation, specifically, the inability of the central government under that plan to tax the population directly so as to give it the means of fielding an army capable of putting down such an insurrection when it happens again. That’s right. The trigger for creation of the U.S Constitution was the need to put down rebellions, and Washington himself was fully down with that very agenda. Lest anyone think this might have been idle speculation, one has only to remember the whiskey rebellion.

When private citizens decided to rebel against the Federal government over taxation while Washington, foreshadowing so many of the themes of modern right wing politics, far from backing the rebels, Washington sent troops to put down that very rebellion.

Now there is an interesting detail here insofar as the troops in question took the form of a militia. I reckon some might say, “See! See, that’s what we are talking about,” but of course that ignores the difference between the actually regulated militias of Washington’s day, and the self-appointed weekend warriors who call themselves militias today. More to the point, it ignores the fact that the militia in the Whiskey Rebellion was not defending itself from “their own government”; it was actually serving as the arm of enforcement for that very government. You see, that Constitution whose powers Washington wants to flex here gives Congress authority over the militia, a provision quite controversial at the time, and arguably one of the inspirations for the Second Amendment still in draft form as Washington made this speech. One of the newly expanded powers of the Federal government Washington is actually trying to build upon in this very speech is power to arm and control the militia.

The enumerated powers of Congress includes the following:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Hopefully, you caught the part about “suppressing insurrections.”

Because that’s what Washington actually did on his own watch.

This meme would have us believe Washington would side with the rebels. This meme would have us believe that Washington was hyping the virtues of an Amendment not yet ratified as a means of countering the very power he was actually seeking to build in his First Address to Congress.

This meme is a lie.

It is not a paraphrase of Washington’s actual statement, and it is not (as several folks have assured me) an honest description of Washington’s actual views. It is not an honest mistake; it’s not a different point of view.

It is a lie.

***

FYI. The Spurious Quotes page at Mount Vernon certainly includes a brief repudiation of the quote. The text of the speech itself is certainly worth a read.

The Politics of Personification

04 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Politics

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As I watch the election coverage tonight, and I wonder how a President who has compromised our national security, broken countless laws, enriched himself at the public expense, and willfully allowed an infectious disease to kill thousands of Americans is still in the running, or even on the ticket at this point, I am thinking more and more about the way Americans think about the electoral college.

What first got me thinking about this?

It was the election maps deplorables began circulating after 2016, maps showing how much of America voted in favor of Donald Trump. Comparing the vast swaths of red turf against the lonely spots of blue on these maps, it was easy to think of Trump’s victory as fitting. How could the rest of us doubt his legitimacy if so much of America voted for him? This wasn’t even close.

Clearly, the vast majority of America wanted Trump as President!

Of course these maps show us territories, not people, a fact easily demonstrated by accounting for population using a 3D projection.

Once you do that, the story quickly changes!

If you are counting territory on a map, Trump’s win back in 2016 looks impressive as Hell. It’s a decisive victory. In fact, it’s a grand slam! How could any Democrat even show their face in public after such a one-sided slaughter?

Once you account for actual people, however, it’s easier to remember that Donald Trump didn’t even win the popular vote. He won the electoral college, but the majority of Americans who weighed in on the 2016 election actually chose the other candidate.

If the will of the American people had determined the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton would have been president these last 4 years.

The discrepancy between the popular vote and the actual outcome of the 2016 election kicked off a new round of discussion about the electoral college. Democrats had a new reason to oppose it. Republicans had a new reason to defend it. This of course means some of us were treated to a whole new round of sophomoric semantics over the difference between a republic and a democracy.

Which brings me to a fascinating argument in favor of the electoral college. You see this a lot from the right wing, the notion that without the electoral college, a few states would dominate our national politic. According to some of these folks, L.A. County alone would have more impact than many states. New York City would have more impact than quite a few states. The Electoral College is, according to this narrative, the only thing preventing ‘coastal elites’ from dictating every major political decision at the expense of the more rural states.

It’s a fascinating narrative, one with clear villains and clear victims. The story elicits a genuine fear for the states that would be oppressed under such conditions.

What’s particularly fascinating about this narrative is that its characters are geographical units. They are stretches of land. Without the electoral college, it is the Dakotas that will suffer, Montana, Wyoming, or even my own state of Alaska. Actual people appear in this story, only as the loosely implied victims of oppression by virtue of being within the rural states of our nation. The implication that anything is wrong only emerges so long as you remain focused on geography, forgetting how the electoral college actually skews the significance of individual voters to begin with.

As a citizen of Alaska, my vote counts more than that of the Californians in my family. Hell, it even counts more than those of the Texans! It is the electoral college which makes this possible, because it boosts the impact of smaller states, giving us more representation per person than than states with larger populations. This means each individual voter gets more impact out of a vote cast in a rural state than she does in a vote cast somewhere like New York. Without the electoral college, our votes could be given equal value, and if certain states have less impact in such a system, it would only be because our individual votes are actually given equal value. The present system gives some people more of a say over who becomes President than others. Equalizing our the votes of individual citizens effectively skews the significance of regions, even as it puts us on a level playing field with each other. So, the narrative which has us crying about mistreatment of rural sates has the ironic effect of making equality look like its opposite, and that only works if we mistake states for people.

So, what does this mean? It means the prospect of keeping or rejecting the electoral college poses a decision over which matters more?

Geography?

Or people?

A Certain Value of ‘Greatness’

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in History, Native American Themes, Politics

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When exactly do you suppose America was great according to Donald Trump?

When do you suppose it was great in the minds of his supporters?

America is not great now, at least not in the minds of Donald Trump, and it certainly wasn’t great when he ran for office. That much is clear from the very nature of his old campaign slogan. “Make America great AGAIN,” certainly means it’s not great in the present age, at least not when he decided to run.

Perhaps Trump and his supporters might think to claim the economic stats he used to parade as success stories in the first 3 years of his administration made the difference and pulled us all the way from something else to greatness. How those economic trends differed from those under Obama is a different question, and whether or not Trump did anything but coast his way to a good look on paper is another. Either way, I could imagine he and his supporters might see in that enough cause to claim putting his label on the nation had made us all great again, but that would be a thin pretext indeed. Regardless, the moment in which this pretext could be claimed is long since gone at this point, and we are back to the same other-than-great world Trump seemed to see in America back in 2016.

***

So, when was America great in the minds of Trump and his supporters?

Could it be when Thomas Jefferson said that “all men are created equal?

Or when Martin Luther King challenged us all to live up to that very principle?

Some folks might say ‘both,’ and maybe so, but that is the answer to a different question. I didn’t ask which message you approve or admire? I asked when do you think America was great in the minds of Donald Trump and his supporters?

Maybe the former, but only if we discount the latter. They might well love the promise of equality and freedom, but only so long as that promise remained unfulfilled for a great many Americans. To the deplorables, the gap between American ideals and our political realities is an essential feature of our greatness. The greatness they seek is always gained at the expense of others.

***

I really don’t see how there could be any doubt in the matter. This man is a bully, and he has a bully’s sense of the world around him. His heroes are bullies. His villains are those that stand in their way. The vast majority of mankind are but cannon fodder by which his heroes distinguish themselves. They are the human sacrifices by which true greatness distinguishes itself from the mere men and women of ordinary humanity. Greatness in the world of Trump is a boot ground into the neck of someone unable to do anything about it.

(Or a knee.)

When was American great according yo Donald Trump and those who support him?

***

When slaves were sold on the market in Charleston, South Carolina, and when the profits from slavery flowed into all of the United States, North and South alike. This was greatness in Donald Trump’s world.

When Confederate Statues went up all across the south, reminding African-American that those who held slaves in bondage were the real heroes of their time, that was greatness in the world of Donald Trump. The suffering of African-Americans in slavery, and in segregation was (and is) a small price to pay for the greatness made possible by the profits of slavery.

…and the second class citizenship which was to follow.

There are those who would return African-Americans to that very second class status in the most explicit terms possible. Trump is a hero to these people. He would deny it of course, but countless White Supremacists have organized in the wake of his rise to power, encouraged by a dog-whistle here, a slow condemnation there, and of course the occasional glaring statement of racist sentiments by Trump or those in his inner circles.

There were those who thought the existence of a plebeian class in America was critical to republic, the price of greatness for those free enough to enjoy it. Clearly, a number of Americans see in Trump’s rise to power the chance to reconstitute that servile class of Americans who don’t quite enjoy their full rights.

For those who share this vision, every confederate statue is a memorial, not just to history, but to a natural aristocracy. Most, I expect imagine themselves the righteous heirs to that aristocracy, denied their proper station by the corruption of liberals and various minorities who are but pawns duped by the white liberal agenda.

It’s a message driven home every time right wingers tell us about the evils of the “Democratic plantation,” or tell us, as Phil Robertson once did, that African-Americans were happier in the days of Jim Crow than they are now living in the shadow of this very ‘plantation.’

For a good portion of Trump’s base, greatness lies in hierarchy, but only when it’s the right kind of hierarchy. In their world, we are all a little happier with slavery or something as close as they can get to it. Equality just means people end up in the wrong places within that hierarchy. For America to be great, each must be in his or her proper place.

***

Lest anyone forget this greatness, the greatness of slavery, it is celebrated in the Star Spangled Banner before every ritual in America’s one true religion, professional sports! This celebration takes the form of the star Spangled Banner, a song which triggers in every good American the obligation to display their loyalty and love of the nation by standing with their hands over their hearts for all to see. Any athletes who take exception to this on behalf of African-Americans mistreated by the police become enemies of America itself, and of its greatness, at least in the eyes of Trump and the deplorables.

That the full song includes a stanza celebrating the return of escaped slaves to their former bondage is perhaps a little more significant than this little-known passage would seem to suggest. That great celebration of freedom is also a celebration of slavery.

A point well made every time Trump and his fans demand obesiance of players and seek punishment for those who hesitate.

***

When Jewish women jumped from the upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in hopes of escaping the flames consuming the building and those within it, that was greatness to Donald Trump. It was greatness, because it was the price paid for great profits and a nation of industry unfettered by regulation or those Goddamned unions and all that bullshit red tape that comes with them. Those were days when Captains of industry were free, dammit, free from the death of a thousand paper cuts that require working fire escapes, reasonable work hours, and countless other protections for the safety and dignity of workers. That world without such regulations, that was greatness to the likes of Donald trump. The women who died in that fire? They were the price paid for the captains of industry to thrive, and the success of those men was worth every life snuffed out in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

…and every indignity suffered by any worker ever sacrificed in the name of that greatness.

***

When Custer died for our sins on the greasy grass, THAT was greatness.

A great sacrifice.

And before that when Custer sacrificed the lives of Cheyenne Women and children at the Washita River, that was greatness, a greatness beautified by the music of Garyowen. Garyowen was the song played by Custer as he attacked Black Kettle’s encampment in the early morning of November 27th, 1868. Still reeling from the massacre at Sand Creek, Black Kettle had come to the Washita River in the hopes that he and his people could camp in peace and stay out of the fighting (just as they had tried to do at Sand Creek 4 years earlier). Custer showed them American greatness!

Lest the lesson be lost on any of us, the Trump administration made a point to play Garyowen at their July 4th celebration at the Black Hills this last summer. Most of America would have missed the message sent to Native American activists that day, perhaps noticing only a slight trace of nostalgia for the old west upon hearing the tune without quite knowing how they had come to form that association. For those that knew the tune, however, the message was unmistakable. What made American great was its willingness to slaughter Native Americans, not to respect them or their lands or anything else about them, but to slaughter them.

Accompanied by a catchy tune!

***

This message should have been clear enough earlier in Trump’s administration when he honored the Navajo Code Talkers.

With the name ‘Pocahontas’ falling from his sneering lips.

And the image of Andrew Jackson presiding over the whole scene.

***

Was greatness Abigail Adams telling her husband; “Remember the Ladies?” Or was it John Adams’ response, dismissing her concerns with platitudes about who is really in charge? Does greatness lie in Susan B. Anthony’s efforts to cast a vote in direct violation of the laws of her day. Or does it reside in the fine levied against her for doing so? Perhaps it can be found in Trump’s decision to pardon her? Or in the decision of the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House to reject that very pardon?

Could her greatness reside in the courage to break an unjust law, a greatness only erased by Trump’s worthless pardon?

Or did greatness actually reside in Trump’s pardon itself, a gesture which effectively put Anthony in a league with then likes of Sheriff Arpaio, Roger Stone, or Dinesh D’Souza, all men who have spent their entire lives punching down at those less fortunate than themselves? Some might think these men unworthy of respect. Clearly, they meet Trump’s standards of greatness. I somehow doubt, he’d have thought to put Anthony on par with these feckless whores if she were alive today and ready to give him a piece of her mind. A few a Republicans have indulged in fantasies about taking the vote away from women since Trump’s rise to office. If Anthony really does count as great to Trump, it is for a cause that neither he nor his supporters seem eager to support themselves. I don’t think Trump has suggested taking the vote away from women himself, at least not in public, but it’s easy enough to see how others might see it in Trump’s willingness to trash any woman who stands up to him in public.

…a point driven home withe every humiliation Trump unleashes on any woman who dares to stand up to him in public.

…or when facile deplorables make a point to remind us of the women who Trump always finds to speak on his behalf.

…as he punches down at others.

…other women.

***

I could go on of course, but you get the point. If America was ever great in Trump’s eyes, it was precisely when America’s greatness was clearly obtained at the expense of others, and that expense was itself celebrated openly in full view of bystanders and surviving victims alike.

For both Trump and his supporters, it must be said, the cruelty is always the point. If there is anything about America that they well and truly love, that is it.

Cruelty

That is what passes for greatness in the land of Trump.

Personal (Ir-)Responsibility: An Irritation Meditation

28 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by in Irritation Meditation

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indexhjkukThis meme to my left just smacks of good old fashioned common sense, doesn’t it? I mean, who could be against “personal responsibility?” Just reading it makes me want to go take care of something, maybe take responsibility for something wrong even as I fix that very wrong up good, just like a real man oughtta.

Then go fly a flag!

Yeah buddy!

Seriously now. The first problem here isn’t that personal responsibility is a bad thing. Of course not. It’s that the world itself isn’t going to magically fill up with people who live up to that value any time soon.

Neither is Murica!

The idiots at Turning Point USA didn’t really come up with this bit of folk wimpdom, I don’t think, not any more than they came up with the various fake founder quotes bearing their name lately, but I’ve ranted about that before. This meme can’t be debunked with a simple press for evidence, but it comforts the already-comfortable just the same. Like fake quotes from America’s founding fathers, this meme is designed to light up a warm and fuzzy feeling right in that place where folks might keep their inner old codger.

I think just about all of us have had that experience, we’ve all seen some living train wreck crashing through our presence without any sense of personal responsibility. It’d be easy enough to imagine they could do better in life, both for their own sake and for those around them, if only they would just take some responsibility for their actions. Collect enough such stories and I suppose it could become really tempting to think that same prescription would go a long way toward making the world a better place.

But of course we could say the same thing of kindness and compassion.

Of honesty.

Of hard work.

Of self restraint.

…you get the idea.

It’s the nature of moral principles. We can often see how neglecting them means unnecessary hardship for ourselves and others. We can also see that people do neglect them on a regular basis. Sadly, that just isn’t going to change any time soon. So any solution predicated on this possibility is a non-solution.

But of course the point of this meme isn’t really to hope against all hope that everyone suddenly learns to cowboy up and resolve every problem from homelessness to the persistent popularity of boy bands. (Dammit anyhow!) No, the point here is to conjure the illusion that this fantasy is an actual solution to real-world  problems, and perhaps more importantly, to point a finger, so to speak, at those who may be in the way of that fantasy-solution.

Why are there poor and homeless people? Cause the lazy bastards won’t work! Why do people cheat on tests or taxes? Cause they haven’t taken personal responsibility for meeting their t-challenges. Why is there crime? Why is there corruption in Congress? And why do the Bluetooth devices in my home fight over the signal from my cell phone? You got it! Cause some bastard hasn’t taken responsibility for making it otherwise. The meme conjures these and so many other inferences without stating them outright. It invites us to imagine a brave new world in which everyone tackles their own problems and we all right off into the sunset after enjoying a hearty steak-dinner at the end of every day.

…and really, let’s be honest, that first item above, the one about poverty, is probably the big one for this particular fantasy.

The folks at Turning Point USA do love their commie-bashing, so the poverty theme is right up their alley. At the heart of this folk idiocy is the notion that such problems are, at bottom, simple, just a result of lazy people who refuse to take responsibility for their own lives. We have poor people, so the thinking goes, because of the poor people. It’s their own damned fault! If only they took responsibility for their own welfare, they’d be just fine, but they won’t so it’s their problem, and not ours. We can forget any questions about the underlying social causes of poverty, and we can flat out ignore the existence of the working poor or the known consequences of getting seriously sick in a nation whose government is so wholly devoted to the profits of the insurance industry. No, if people are poor, it is their problem. That is all we need know.

If only the poors would just buck up, America would be the fifties fantasy-land some of us grew up watching on television. And boy-howdy, wouldn’t that just be swell!?! But they don’t, so we can’t and it’s all their fault.

And that’s what’s important; knowing whose fault it is.

Thus, a solution to a problem becomes a means of avoiding it!

…speaking of responsibility, and the utter and complete lack of it.

 

Taking a Knee?

24 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Politics

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Institute of American Indian Arts (Photo compliments of Moni)

Not everyone really appreciates just how powerful the ritual of standing for the National Anthem really can be. I got a real sense of this when I was 14. My Jr. rifle team won the Wyoming-state BB-Gun finals, which earned our way to the International BB-Gun Championship in Bowling Green, Kentucky. …on July 4th. As the child of a career military officer, I was always happy to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner or to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, but standing there during the final ceremonies, the whole thing took on a whole new layer of meaning for me. That time, I had my heart in my throat. That time, the whole ritual moved me nearly to tears. I loved my country so much, and at that moment, putting my hand over my heart for that beautiful song was absolutely the most perfectly meaningful expression of that love I could possibly imagine doing.

There was something extra meaningful about the whole experience that came with doing it in the context of a sporting event. Granted the International BB-Gun Championships were really more of a national contest with Mexico and Canada thrown into the bargain, but being 14 and all, I was happy to go along with the rationale. In some sense, I was representing the country whose National Anthem we stood for. That gave the whole thing so much more power. The ritual lent extra meaning to the contest, and the contest gave more meaning to the ritual. On that day, for me anyway, the National Anthem was a deeply spiritual act. So, I can definitely understand the power that ritual must carry for many as it is done in sporting events all across the nation.

I can only imagine what the Anthem must mean for professional athletes who stand for the anthem before great audiences in the course of their career, but I do imagine the sense must be a little bit like the one I had at 14. I really cannot imagine what it must mean for servicemen who stand for the Anthem in the service of our country. Full stop. I really cannot imagine what it must mean to them. It must be a very powerful experience. What could one possibly do that would express their love of country more than standing for the Anthem?

…except perhaps taking a knee for it instead.

Seriously! Is it just me? Am I the only one who finds the whole protest oddly dignified, almost deliberate in its respect? Taking a knee could as easily be a gesture of fealty as one of protest. I can think of way more vile ways to disrespect the flag than kneeling respectfully and waiting patiently for the the completion of the Anthem. This protest almost seems like a gesture of respect in itself. Watching Colin Kaepernick and the others take a knee instead of standing, I always get strange sense that this supposedly anti-American gesture of contempt for America is at least a little bit like a gesture of love in itself.

But that’s just my sense of the gesture. Neither the iconography of the protest, nor the love of country are really the point of course, but the real point is hardly one that ought to threaten anyone’s sense of patriotism. Hell, I don’t see any reason why those standing with their hands over their hearts should be the least bit ashamed to do so beside someone who was taking a knee.

Unless of course they chose to ignore the reasons for taking a knee in the first place.

It’s not as though Kaepernick has been silent about his reasons for doing this. It’s not as though he has been just trolling the nation along with those who love it. I don’t see the man laughing at our collective discomfort. This same is true of others who’ve taken up the practice in his absence.

This protest was always about police violence, about the unnecessary deaths of black men at the hands of police, and that’s as good a reason to protest as any that I can think of. It’s the sort of thing people ought to care about, and those who choose to ignore it are far from proving their patriotism. With or without a hand over their hearts, those who insist we ignore the issue demonstrate little love for their nation at all.

It’s important to realize that those who insist on treating the protest as an insult to the nation are far from showing healthy love for it themselves. The likes of Tomi Lahren or the Manchurian Cheeto castigating the protesters for disrespecting the country do little but show how easily love can be confused with abuse. Right wing nationalists love their country in much the same way that an abusive husband loves his wife. Their professions of love always come in the form of demands, demands that others do their bidding. Those talking about how ungrateful (black) celebrities are when they protest demonstrate little but their contempt for the actual successful of African-Americans who have worked every bit as hard for that success as anyone else. And there is something perfectly appropriate about the pledge as they understand it. It is an obligation to the underprivileged among us to shut up and love the nation without complaint. This is not patriotism. It is abuse.

And abuse wrapped in a flag is still abuse.

I am well aware that folks have good reason to be skeptical of those who’ve brought the issue of police violence against minorities to public attention in recent years. Some terrible things have been done in the name of Black Lives Matter and other left wing protesters. I also expect that some of the cases of alleged police abuse reflect instances in which the police in question were doing their job as best they can, their very difficult and very dangerous job. I can definitely understand a desire to support police against undue attacks from radical protests. And yet, I keep coming back to this one question; with all the footage and news reports of various cop shootings, beatings, etc., are there none that merit genuine concern? Are there no instances in which the actions of the police seem excessive? Even when the decision to pull the trigger seems justified in the heat of the moment, are there no questions about how it got to that point? Are none of these worthy of reconsideration? No police practices or policies worthy of reconsideration?

None?

I expect most of us can think of at least a few instances in which the actions of police officers on the street or correctional officers in the prison system are indeed questionable. It is precisely those instances which the right wing response to Black Lives Matter and/or protests like that of Colin Kaepernick are intended to keep from public scrutiny. Th right wing leaders are not saying that we should take care to distinguish actual police abuse from sensationalized instances of cops doing what cops do. What the right wing echo chamber has consistently done throughout the media curve on this issue is to demonize the protesters and insist that we support the police, categorically, across the board, with no damned exceptions. In effect, the likes of Sheriff Clark, Joe Arpaio, or the pathetic traitor who now disrespects the White House with his every breath are demanding that we refuse to distinguish actual police violence from proper execution of the job. These people are not defending good cops. They are defending bad cops. And they have been doing everything in their power to make sure that the rest of us cannot tell the difference.

It’s not a coincidence that the same people who don’t want us to put much scrutiny into the actions of cops on the beat are also big fans of civil asset forfeiture and private prisons. By means of the first, police steal from private citizens. Let me repeat that, by means of civil asset forfeiture, the police steal from private citizens. By means of the second, government cronies steal from the rest of us to line the pockets of those manning these prisons, the same prisons holding countless people on unnecessary drug offenses. Hell, these are the same people who want to arm more of the police with military grade weapons. This too costs money, money spent on both serious crime and frivolous crime (which are often much easier to prosecute). The police state is big business. And Americas right wing hacks do NOT want the rest of us messing that business up. They don’t want the public to sort their crimes from the actions of law enforcement genuinely serving the public interests. They want the public to buy their policies and fund their budgets in the heat of a fever, Hell-bent on getting more law-enforcement, law-enforcement of any kind.

This is why the right wing wants to silence the protesters. This is why the wanna-be dictator in chief is demanding the NFL do something about those taking a knee. It isn’t because those taking a knee at a ball game are unpatriotic. It’s because those demanding their silence are themselves without a public conscience. It is because they are working very hard to make this country more dangerous for all of us, starting those of darker skin.

The right wing response to these protests has been a calculated attempt to turn those standing with their hands over their hearts against those taking a knee. They want those feeling the surge of straight-laced patriotism in all it’s apple-pie glory to mistake public conscience of those those taking a knee for something sinister and disloyal. It is a perversely ironic response to the protests. It simply isn’t those taking a knee here that betray their country.

Quite the contrary!