Citizen, Ink.

Les Leopold: Tennessee is fast becoming Ayn Rand's vision of paradise

Les Leopold is pretty much reflecting my feelings about Tennessee politics right now:

If you're worried about where America is heading, look no further than Tennessee. Its lush mountains and verdant rolling countryside belie a mean-spirited public policy that only makes sense if you believe deeply in the anti-collectivist, anti-altruist philosophy of Ayn Rand. It's what you get when you combine hatred for government with disgust for poor people.

Read the rest of the article...

I just started reading Tracy Thompson's book, The New Mind of the South, which is one Southerner's attempt to make sense of the South and how it came to be what we see in 2013. I'm loving it so far, and find it -- in terms of my own attempts to understand this region I've chosen to live in -- a good sequel to reading Made in Texas: George Bush and the Takeover of American Politics by Michael Lind.

See a list of Michael Lind's articles at Alternet.

Still trying to find time to blog more about this stuff...

Related articles

Bill Maher on Ayn Rand: 'It's all stuff that seems very deep when you're 19 years old'

The Atlas Society Republishes In-depth Report: "The Persuasion of Nixon: How Objectivists helped to end the military draft"

Prosperity, Not Austerity - In These Times

After playing a key role in President Obama’s re-election, the labor movement must pivot immediately to a new task: moving the president away from a potentially disastrous policy of “austerity economics” and toward a second-term adoption of more worker-friendly “prosperity economics.” In the weeks after the election, Obama will negotiate with the hard-right House Republicans about the looming threat of automatic across-the-board cuts.

Read more at www.inthesetimes.com

This article has an interesting link to Prosperity Economics: Building and Economy for All (pdf 1MB) by Jacob Haecker and Nate Lowentheil, who debunk austerity as a flawed strategy and argue for government investment in research, infrastructure, education, improved economic and environmental security for working families, constraints on corporate political power, and more widespread unionization.

Ralph Lopez: Why Is the Media Lying About New NDAA Power for Indefinite Military Detention of Americans? | Truthout

Great article by Ralph Lopez, who blogs at War Is a Crime.org (formerly After Downing Street):

At some point a sideshow to a story becomes so painfully obvious that it becomes the story, and this now should be: Why is the media taking such pains to knowingly and falsely claim that the new power of the military to detain and imprison people without charge or trial, for life, does not include US citizens?  We know what happened.  The Bill of Rights has been overturned.  And enough has been written on the deceptive language first warned of by Congressman Justin Amash, when he told The Grand Rapids Press that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was "carefully crafted to mislead the public," for newspaper editors to know better.

via www.truth-out.org

Deficit Predators: Everything You Need to Know About the Twisted, Dangerous Debt Ceiling Fight | | AlterNet

After a week of nauseating news on Congressional ceiling debates, I found an article by James Galbraith to be refreshing, and a good source for comments to my Congressional Reps on the mindless and juvenile behavior that appears to have seized Washington and many of my fellow citizens:

Never mind that to force default on the public obligations of the United States is plainly unconstitutional. Section 4 of the 14th amendment says in simple language that public debts, once duly authorized by law and including pensions, by the way, “shall not be questioned.” The purpose of this language was to foreclose, to put beyond politics, any possibility that the Union would renege on debts and pensions and bounties incurred to win the Civil War. But the application is very general and the courts have ruled that the principle extends to the present day.

via www.alternet.org

Bernie Sanders Outs the Koch Brothers

 

Is Tennessee ready to re-enact the Civil War?

"Union sympathizers decry legislation"

NASHVILLE - About 200 union sympathizers waved signs and cheered Wednesday as speakers denounced Republican-sponsored legislation that would curb collective bargaining and political activities of public employee associations and unions.

Hmmm. I was really interested in the choice of words for this headline in a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper. And check out this quote on the next line down:

"They have said that they introduced these bills because they believe that unions are an obstacle to progress," said Mary Mancini. "We're here today to state unequivocally that they are the obstacle to progress."

My interest in the use of "Union sympathizers" in Tennessee -- where citizens split within the state just as the South split with the North (Union) -- may need little explanation. The quote from Ms. Mancini is interesting because -- depending on where I as a reader hear the emphasis on "they" -- it's not clear if she is saying that it is unions or legislators that are an obstacle to progress.

I personally am a "union sympathizer" either way you look at it. I know some folks who participated in the rally, and, based on their politics, I would guess that Ms. Mancini thinks the legislators are the obstacle. If that's true, I agree with her  wholeheartedly.

I got really curious about all this because it is through media of all kinds that we often get clues that in essence read the more subtle energies swirling just below our collective consciousness. So my next step -- because I was not sure where the author might stand personally -- was to check out his archive.

Tom Humphrey is the Nashville Bureau Chief for the News-Sentinel. The first article I found was posted just a few days ago and was entitled State's rights nothing new in Nashville. In it, Humphrey notes that:

Declaration of support for states' rights dominated the 33rd General Assembly, which was controlled by Democrats and which is now officially off the record.

He then comments on the current session of the Tennessee Legislature:

Maybe such declarations are not dominating the 107th General Assembly, which is controlled by Republicans. But there is a lot of on-the-record support for assertions of independence from the federal government.

So maybe it's worth a brief look back into state government history as the nation moves toward the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Not to suggest that history is repeating itself, for there are dramatic differences of degree and basis of the assertions.

And then he further discloses his interest in the subject:

Still, if you'll indulge a Tennessee history buff who spent a bit of time in amateurish research recently, including a brief visit to the Legislative Library, those differences on the states rights theme are worth noting.

The rest of the article was very helpful to me as Yankee transplant, as well as a psychoanalyst who loves psychohistory, and I recommend this and other articles by Humphrey to anyone interested in Tennessee politics.

For the final word on the observations and questions noted in this post so far, we'll just have to stand by and see what unfolds. By the looks of legislation introduced so far in Tennessee and elsewhere, I'm sure I'll be posting more on them. I will also be interested to see what comes up around the Civil War this year. Ever since I moved to Tennessee, it has been painfully obvious that there are traumatic leftovers yet to be healed. And I suspect that in the "union" question in Tennessee we might find several historical threads connecting it to  "states rights" "slavery" and other "Civil War" issues, at least here. (See in particular the article by Mike Papantonio linked below.)

For now, I'd like to throw out this idea out for further exploration:

Ideas and feelings that are unconscious or not-to-be-spoken nevertheless leave clues in everything we say and do -- individually or in the groups and ideologies with which we identify. From the point of view of psychoanalysis, history will repeat itself until we find and transform those core beliefs and identifications that keep us circling the drain instead of revitalizing our politics, our economy, our society, our Earth.

 

RELATED LINKS:

Mike Papantonio (23 September 2009) Why They Hate Their Emancipated President

Respected Civil War scholars have written mountains of books explaining that the driving force for that war was that an aristocracy wanted to perpetuate its slavery money machine. But it was different for the typical confederate soldier. Their war of "Northern Aggression" was ginned up more from a fear that their social status might fall to the point that there would be no class distinction between themselves and emancipated slaves.

Kirk Johnson (March 2010) States' Rights Rallying Cry for Lawmakers

Whether it’s correctly called a movement, a backlash or political theater, state declarations of their rights — or in some cases denunciations of federal authority, amounting to the same thing — are on a roll.

James Loewen (January 2011) Five myths about why the South seceded

One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?

 

I'm with E.J. Dionne Jr. - New GOP House can't govern with rhetoric alone

It was snowing here in the holler yesterday, but for a few brief moments I had some very warm thoughts toward John Boehner after he took the gavel from Nancy Pelosi. I imagined (or intuited?) his enjoyment and celebration of winning his new position as the 61st Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the pride his family would experience with his achievement.

I don't cleave to conservative ideologies, and I never would have voted for this guy even if I lived in Ohio. I can remember times when I was disappointed that a GOP candidate beat out the person I voted for, but that fact didn't threaten to drop me into a pit of dread. That has not been the case lately. George W's administration marked the end of that, though I must say that I occasionally can wrap my heart around him as well. I think I must have a lot of mirror neurons firing together in my brain's federal government.

As I listened to the Congressional shift yesterday, especially to Boehner, it occured to me that it didn't matter if I'm not from Ohio. When somebody gets to be speaker of the House, they become one of MY Reps, whether I voted for them or even like their politics.

In his remarks, Boehner spoke -- as many on both sides of the aisle have lately -- to the mandate of "the American people" via the last election. Frankly, this phrase uttered by any politician lately induces kind of a primitive growl because a good bit of the time they are claiming  to speak for me -- one of these "American people" -- in a way that sparks zero-resonance with how I really think or feel.

Boehner's rhetoric sounded at least a little inviting, open, friendly to views different than his, and a willingness to work on real solutions to the multiple crises that we face as a nation. But on that point, I'm from Missouri. I need him to show me.

That's why E.J. Dionne's opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday -- New GOP House can't govern with rhetoric alone -- spoke to me in a way that Boehner and many of his Republican and Tea Party colleagues have not:

There is nothing wrong with reading our Constitution as part of the new Congress's debut. It's a good Constitution. But note that conservatives would much prefer to pronounce various liberal initiatives "unconstitutional" - again, in the abstract - than to say whether they are for or against minimum-wage and environmental laws, Medicaid and a slew of other initiatives that never crossed the minds of those who wrote our foundational document. The Founders couldn't conceive of Facebook, either.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to some of the rhetoric such as Dionne describes, and decided to take a few minutes to think about this phenomenon -- the empty speech more rooted in the realms of what we imagine to be real. I catch myself in it many times a day. We all do it...it's a human being thing. As a species, we are driven by unconscious beliefs and agendas for which we have virtually no awareness -- unless, of course, we have dedicated ourselves to exploring the depths of our humanity to become aware of these forces and learn to transform them.

I ended this contemplative session on two equally scary thoughts: that what's beneath this rhetoric is...nothing, and no one has a clue about how we can get out of the many messes we're in; or, that there is an agenda -- conscious or unconscious -- that no one will disclose. And maybe it's both? Or neither?

Whatever the case, I believe that every citizen will be challenged in the next two years to ferret out the truth and not succumb to fear or escape into conspiracy theory in doing so. I intend to test Mr. Boehner and the House by writing to him when the occasion seems to demand it, and tell him -- as the new Speaker of "our House" and as one who professes to have heard "the American people" -- how this American person sees things.

Boehner -- and all of our Senators and Representatives -- have a core Self, just like I do, just like you do. They get the messages that we, the people, send them at that level of being, even though the response from the smaller self may be to barf back more empty speech. Of course, that also puts it back on us, the American people, to be very clear, conscious, and conscientious about the messages we send.

 

Michael Winship | The Pulpit of Bullies

I gotta thank Michael Winship bigtime for this OpEd. Watching the unraveling of the Empire on the news every night has often left me in a state of not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Winship sufficiently mirrored, in language, the unbelievable outrageousness of it all enough to tip me into the laugh zone -- at least for a few minutes:

Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino's views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.

Winship goes on to call out some of the others behaving badlly. You may want to read those paragraphs in broad daylight, or with a trusted friend, or however you usually watch scary movies. But I loved his conclusion and it brought me out of dark regions, back into the light:

Scuffling with the press and others may seem minor, but it's just the beginning. In states where there is early balloting, already there are allegations of voter harassment, primarily in minority neighborhoods.

The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.

Amen, brother!

The Right-Wing Think Tank Where Christine O' Donnell Learned Her ABCs of Homophobia | | AlterNet

The real story of Christine O'Donnell's time at the Claremont Institute is how thoroughly she absorbed its viciously antigay politics. Read more...

Love is the key to a strong America, but do we have a national will to power it up?

Great article by William Rivers Pitt reflects on the love that seems to be missing in a country where:

Five gay teenagers - Tyler Clementi, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown and Seth Walsh - killed themselves in the last month after enduring a sustained onslaught of bullying because they were gay. A Town Supervisor in New York wants bodies removed from a local cemetery because the deceased were Muslim. Tea Partiers in Medicare-funded scooters want to annihilate funding for the care of other people's woes, because those other people are not them.

Earlier this year, Pitt disclosed his own experience of bullying in his post at truthout, Here There Be Monsters:

When I was 13, the daily violence I endured had reached a terrible peak. My grades were failing, I was withdrawing even further from the world, and my school's response to the ongoing harassment was to give the students a lecture about chickens and the "pecking order." To wit, when one chicken develops a bloody spot from an injury, the other chickens swarm the wounded one and peck that bloody spot until the wounded bird is killed. The principal admonished the student body to not be like those chickens. The end result of the lecture was that my tormentors would punch me as hard as they could whenever they saw me and yell, "Peck!"

After an especially brutal day of torture at the hands of classmates, Pitt says it all got to be too much:

I went home after school and gobbled a full bottle of pills. I lost my nerve a few minutes later, made myself throw up, and drank as much water as my stomach could hold, but the drugs had already entered my system. For the next two days, I laid in a semi-delirious stupor which my mother believed was a bad flu. I did not tell her about what really happened that day until many years later, and have told very few others about it until now.

I like his article today (Come Wake Me Up) because he ties the hateful behavior that is being enacted on so many fronts -- hatred that he has personally experienced -- to the inherent inclusiveness of both love and the political foundations of our nation:

America is hard. Nowhere in human history has any place made the deliberate choice to take all comers, to throw open the doors to any and all who want something better and are willing to play by the rules...probably because doing so is an invitation to bedlam.

"All we have in common," suggests Pitt, "are a few old pieces of parchment telling us our primary right is to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

He goes on to make a good case that, ultimately, love may be the glue that allows us to stay with the chaos but hold ourselves together in a more civil society. Read the whole article here.