Citizen, Ink.

The New America Is Not About Identity Politics

Some interesting thoughts to chew on as we roll into 2013:

The prevailing narrative is that President Obama's re-election and hopes for long-term Democratic Party control are rooted in a demographic revolution, in which Hispanics, African-Americans and other nonwhite minorities are becoming the new American majority. This view is not wrong, but it is incomplete and misleading. 

The deeper narrative is economic, pointing to a socio-economic transformation in which majorities of all races depend increasingly on government protection and public investment. The two narratives, while they agree on the demographic statistics, have different policy implications, with the current interpretation of the demographic story belying the deeper change that both parties must make. 

via 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.

 

Van Jones: A message for progressives (Video)

  

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...

Primary Results Send Message That Extremism on Immigration, Islam is not Good Politics - TIRRC - TN Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition - TIRRC

Here's an article from TIRRC on Tennessee's August 5, 2010 primary election results. Read the whole article here.

Thursday’s gubernatorial primary results sent a strong message to politicians throughout the state that Tennesseans are by and large unswayed by anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric. Proving pollsters correct, Tennesseans supported the most moderate, economy-focused candidates, while rejecting those candidates who pandered to extremist views on immigration and religious freedom.

via www.tnimmigrant.org

Memo to the Media: Hate Matters. - Jack & Jill Politics

Have we reached the point where the media can no longer ignore the elephant in the room? For reasons that I’ll discuss later, this question is somewhat rhetorical, but the following clip at least begins to talk about the problem in more direct terms (Note: sans the obligatory Is the White House responsible? introduction). . .

Don Lemon asks for an answer. I’ll address the media as a whole.

Memo to the Media: Hate matters.

And your failure to call it hate is a big part of the problem.

via www.jackandjillpolitics.com

Citizen's note: Read the whole response at Jack and Jill Politics.

Reflecting on Harris-Lacewell: Is this the Birth of a Nation?

In her blog, The Notion, Melissa Harris-Lacewell commented on post-health care reform bill hate speech that hit a crescendo in the past week.

I really appreciated Harris-Lacewell's view in this piece, and her very "civil" questioning of views expressed by two commentators that I have be-fanned -- Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow -- as they "drew parallels between the health care battle and the civil rights movement." She notes that crafting such a metaphor is seductive, especially since Representative John Lewis played a key role in both.

In March of 1965, as a young civil rights worker hoping to secure voting rights for black Americans, Lewis was brutally beaten when he led a peaceful protest march across a bridge in Alabama.  Last weekend, in another act of nonviolent resistance, Lewis walked through a storm of hate speech and spittle on his way to work for national health care reform.

In the interviews of Lewis that followed this scene at the Capitol, he kept to the high road of civility. I never heard him say anything hateful back to those who had disrespected him.

In her article, Harris-Lacewell notes that despite the hateful behavior directed toward him, Representative Lewis said that he harbored no ill will against those people and insisted that we must learn to live peacefully and respectfully together. "It was the kind of response," says Harris-Lacewell, "that makes Lewis a hero to many."

She goes on then to make this point:

But there is a very important difference between Bloody Sunday of 1965 and Health Care Reform Sunday of 2010. In 1965 Lewis was a disenfranchised protester fighting to be recognized as a full citizen. When he was beaten by the police, he was being attacked by the state. In 2010 Lewis is a long time, elected representative. When he is attacked by protesters, he is himself an agent of the state. This difference is critically important; not because it changes the fact that racism is present in both moments, but because it radically alters the way we should understand the meaning of power, protest and race.

The power of this and other Harris-Lacewell articles for me is her weaving of history with current politics and culture in a way that I was too young and too white to "get" back in the fifties and sixties. I am beginning to see how this piece of my own history has left me with a foundation that, despite being privileged, is nonetheless an impoverished space from which to launch engaged citizenship in the 21st century.

On the same day I found this article, I happened to see an ad -- I think it was for Frosted Mini-Wheats -- in which a black child is being quizzed by a little mini-wheat character on points of history. What is the first question to the little boy about? Christopher Columbus. The ad proceeds to make use of a familiar grade-school doggerel, "In fourteen-hundred-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

This triggered an association not only to grade school, but to an anti-racism workshop I attended. Using the power of educational systems as an example, a facilitator offered up a portion of the 1492 chant to introduce a discussion of structural racism, i.e. that systemic power of the "state" that protects white privilege and maintains a legitimized state of oppression against people of color. And this association brought me back to the question posed by Harris-Lacewell with her article.

Harris-Lacewell continues from the paragraph excerpted above with a discussion on the notion of "the state:"

The state is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, force and coercion. If an individual travels to another country and kills its citizens, we call it terrorism. If the state does it, we call it war. If a man kills his neighbor it is murder; if the state does it is the death penalty. If an individual takes his neighbor's money, it is theft; if the state does it, it is taxation.

When we challenge the state as the only legitimate owner of violent, forceful and coercive tactics, says Harris-Lacewell, we confront it "at its core." This was the situation that led southern states to challenge the legitimacy of a central state's government, and to secede on the basis of a "state's rights" claim. When these states lost the Civil War, the authority of a central state was again legitimized.

What followed historically was an era of attempted reconstruction. I don't remember hearing much about this period in school, other than its being named, dated and quickly passed by. Which is kind of what happened. Harris-Lacewell writes that, for ten years after the war, black Americans had a chance to experiment with full citizenship and a share of political power:

During this decade black men voted, held office and organized as laborers and farmers. It was a fragile political equality made possible only by the determined and powerful presence of the federal government. Then in 1877 the federal government abdicated its responsibilities to new black citizens and withdrew from the South. When it did so it allowed local governments and racial terrorist organizations like the KKK to have the monopoly on violence, force and coercion in the South for nearly 100 years.

As Harris-Lacewell points out, this general challenge-restore scenario was re-played when the Civil Rights Movement organized against abuse of state power enacted through violent police tactics in the South, and the federal government intervened in support of civil rights. She suggests we're seeing it again -- a kind of act three or four, maybe? -- in the emergence of the Tea Party, which essentially challenges a central United States government as a legitimate state.

We're at another crossroads, it seems. "We must now guard against the end of our new Reconstruction," says Harris-Lacewell,  "and the descent of a vicious new Jim Crow terrorism."

Harris-Lacewell's discussion adds meaning to my long-held suspicion that the Civil War never ended. My belief is informed from an intuitive level, a level of psycho-spiritual history that is ubiquitously re-enacted but not often symbolized and brought to conscious awareness.

The human psyche is structured to record and retain both individual and collective history. What each of us brings into this life and what we experience in our earliest relationships is what wires us for dealing with those histories -- what wires us to recreate karmic lessons, so to speak.

The patterns that played out in the Civil War -- patterns of exploitation and oppression that have ancient roots -- will repeat themselves until we, individually and collectively, discover the real lessons at the core and learn them well. Only then can we fully decommission those patterns, and change the structure of psyches and systems.

This process is underway. I see the positive response to Obama's presidential campaign and election as a mirror, in part, of a shared (but for most, unconscious) soul-level commitment to implant a more spiritually sound government of united, equitable states. It may look pretty ugly and doubtful at the moment, but "yes, we can" takes us a long way toward "yes, we will."

By the way, just to tie up a loose end with the Frosted Mini-Wheats -- in this one-minute or less gift from Madison Avenue (yep, that's kind of near Wall Street, I think) there is much to be questioned.

Lots of folks seem to be obsessed lately with a perceived failure of the American education system to prepare our kids to be competitive with other nations' kids in math and science, i.e. a technological future. But isn't it humanity's access to technology that disrupts Earth's ecosystems faster than nature can repair itself?

Harris-Lacewell and many others continue to remind us that much human suffering remains because we have failed to learn from history. So I hope kids continue to study history. But not the Frosted Mini-Wheat's kind. I mean a complete and transparent presentation of history that fairly represents the experience of people of color -- no matter how ugly and painful for white people -- and teaching kids to think critically about who we all are and how social systems are structured.

But maybe we should start with this question: who the hell says that starting the day with Frosted Mini-Wheats is the best way to feed a kid's brain for learning anything?