Documenting the Confederacy, Part 4: Documenting Secession: Florida

We, the people of the State of Florida in Convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish and declare: That the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the Confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America, and from the existing Government of said States: and that all political connection between her and the Government of said States ought to be and the same is hereby totally annulled, and said union of States dissolved: and the State of Florida is hereby declared a Sovereign and Independent Nation: and that all ordinances heretofore adopted in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded: and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union be and they are hereby repealed.

Florida Ordinance of Secession, adopted 10 January 1861

Florida's Declaration of Causes remained unpublished, and is undated.  It was authorized on 21 January, 1861 but the committee was discharged on 1 March without the document being accepted.

Unlike the other states, Florida puts States' Rights (actually, their denial of rights of other States) right at the top.  They deny the ability of either individual States or the Union to make their own laws regarding slavery:

…The nullification of these laws by the Legislatures of two thirds of the non slaveholding States important as it is in itself is additionally as is furnishing evidence of an open disregard of constitutional obligation, and of the rights and interests of the slaveholding States and of a deep and inveterate hostility to the people of these States.…

Elements dealing with slavery include:

…It is denied that it is the purpose of the party soon to enter into the possession of the powers of the Federal Government to abolish slavery by any direct legislative act. This has never been charged by any one. But it has been announced by all the leading men and presses of the party that the ultimate accomplishment of this result [...to abolish slavery...] is its settled purpose and great central principle. That no more slave States shall be admitted into the confederacy and that the slaves from their rapid increase (the highest evidence of the humanity of their owners will become value less.…

And they jump directly into racism, proclaiming immediately that slaves (i.e. Africans) are idle, vagrants, and criminals, and that considerations of humanity should not be extended to slaves (clearly indicating that they are not humane to their slaves):

...Their natural tendency every where shown where the race has existed to idleness vagrancy and crime increased by an inability to procure subsistence. Can any thing be more impudently false than the pretense that this state of things is to be brought about from considerations of humanity to the slaves.…

And that (OMG!) they might possibly to required to live with and be legally equal to "the african")

...we will not confiscate your property and consign you to a residence and equality with the african but that destiny certainly awaits your children…

Finally, they raise a new issue: that the North isn't paying its fair share.  Ironic, when you consider that, in 2014, Florida received between $4 and $5 from the federal government for every $1 in taxes they send and gets almost exactly 1/3 of its general funding from the federal government.

...It is time that the northern consumer pays his proportion of these duties, but the North as a section receiving back in the increased prices of the rival articles which it manufactures nearly or quite as much as the imposts which it pays thus in effect paying nothing or very little for the support of the government....

Collectively, Florida's arguments against the Union are more expansive than some other traitor states, but slavery, racism, economic opportunism, and opposition to states' rights fit in well with the rest.

Part 3: Documenting Secession: Mississippi

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Documenting the Confederacy, Part 3: Documenting Secession: Mississippi

Third flag of the CSA, the "Blood-Stained Banner" made it clear (as the

"Stainless Banner" did not) that it wasn't a white flag request to negotiate.

Only used for a few months in 1865.

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."
The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit:
Section 1. That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free, sovereign, and independent State.
Sec. 2. That so much of the first section of the seventh article of the constitution of this State as requires members of the Legislature and all officers, executive and judicial, to take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same is hereby, abrogated and annulled.
Sec. 3. That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed, or treaty made, in pursuance thereof, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.
Sec. 4. That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.
Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.
Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 42.

From "Ordinances of Secession" at constitution.org

Mississippi declared its secession from the Union on 9 January 1861.  It's worth noting that Abraham Lincoln had not even been on the ballot in Mississippi, which voted nearly 60% for the Southern Democrat John Breckinridge, 36% for John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, and Northern Democrat Steven A. Douglas received less than 5% of the vote.  Jefferson Davis, elected to the US Senate from Mississippi, said in his final speech to the Senate:

She [Mississippi] has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.*

"A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union" begins:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. 
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.
...

and continues:

... by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
... 
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. ... 
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. 
Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or
...

Mississippi leads directly with "it's about slavery!" and follows up with "OMG!  Equality for Negros!" and "It's going to cost of billions of dollars".

Again, Mississippi wanted to deny northern states the right to abolish slavery within their own territory.  That's for anyone who thinks "States' Rights" had anything to do with secession.

* Apparently the Declaration of Independence's "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" didn't actually mean that men were created equal and that among their Rights was Liberty.  The only explanation is that the people of Mississippi either 1) couldn't read English; or 2) didn't consider black people actual people.

Part 2: Documenting Secession: South Carolina
Part 4: Documenting Secession: Florida

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Documenting the Confederacy, Part 2: Documenting Secession: South Carolina

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."
We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.
Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.
Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 1.

From "Ordinances of Secession" at constitution.org 

According to Wikipedia, "An official secession convention met in South Carolina following the November 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln".  The convention issued the above "ordinance of secession" on 20 December, 1860, and ordered seven members to draft a separate statement, which was adopted by the convention on Christmas Eve as "The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" (hereinafter "The Declaration").

...an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. ... The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; (emphasis mine)

Regardless of questions of Constitutionality, South Carolina's Declaration makes it quite clear that slavery is the reason for their secession.

Part 1: The Confederate States of America and Treason
Part 3: Documenting Secession: Mississippi

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Documenting the Confederacy, Part 1: The Confederate States of America and Treason

Second flag of the CSA, the "Stainless Banner", incorporating the

battle flag of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia on a field of white

to represent "the heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man

over the inferior or colored race"

The states of the Confederacy (the "CSA") declared their secession from the United States (the "Union") in a collection of documents which are called the Ordinances of Secession.  Several of the CSA also issued "Declarations of Causes" which provide supplementary information.

For those who haven't kept track, the eleven states of the CSA were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.  They formed a self-proclaimed nation in 1861 after the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln and fought the Union until 1865, when they were defeated.  The last four states listed (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) did not declare their secession until after the attack of Fort Sumter by the other seven secessionist states.

No foreign government ever officially recognized the CSA as an independent country.  According to US precedent (notably SCOTUS Texas v. White), unilateral secession is an impossibility because the Constitution creates an "indestructible" union: the Articles of Confederation call the Union "perpetual" and the US Constitution created a "more perfect union".

[Salmon P.] Chase, [Chief Justice], ruled in favor of Texas on the ground that the Confederate state government in Texas had no legal existence on the basis that the secession of Texas from the United States was illegal. The critical finding underpinning the ruling that Texas could not secede from the United States was that, following its admission to the United States in 1845, Texas had become part of "an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states." In practical terms, this meant that Texas has never seceded from the United States. (Pavkovic & Radan, 2007, p 222)

 Precedent leaves open the possibility of successful rebellion (as the CSA did not achieve) or an Act of Congress permitting secession.

Legalistically speaking, so far as the United States and the rest of the world is concerned, the CSA never existed as an independent nation.  Had they succeeded, they would have.  Because the CSA never legally existed, the taking up of arms against the Union met the definition of treason in 18 US Code 2381:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason...

During the war, President Lincoln had issued a number of pardons for treason and rebellion.  President Johnson chose not to have wholesale trials of 3/4 million soldiers who served in the Confederate Army.  Instead, he issued a series of general pardons, with a large number of exceptions. In a final act on Christmas Day, 1868, President Johnson declared:

unconditionally, and without reservation, ... a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws ...

Meaning that that vast bulk of Confederate participants in the Civil War were granted a pardon for Treason.

Why is that significant?  One word: Burdick.  OK, three words: Burdick v. US.

Burdick is a 1915 SCOTUS decision that clearly establishes an individual is allowed to reject a pardon.  As a result, the state cannot compel testimony covered by the 5th Amendment by offering a pardon -- the defendant must accept the pardon.  In accepting a pardon, however, one confesses guilt of the crime pardoned:

This brings us to the differences between legislative immunity and a pardon. They are substantial. The latter carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.

Thus, any member of the Confederacy (in particular any member of the Confederate Army or Navy) who accepted their pardon and was not tried for treason confessed to the crime of treason against the Union.

One specific person of note, however, attempted to confess and was denied for 110 years, then accepted retroactively.  General Robert E. Lee, specifically covered by exception to the general pardon because he resigned his commission in the US Army to serve in the Confederate Army, and because his rank was above that of Colonel in the Confederate Army, made application to President Johnson on 13 June 1865:

Being excluded from the provisions of amnesty & pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th Ulto; I hereby apply for the benefits, & full restoration of all rights & privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Mil. Academy at West Point in June 1829. Resigned from the U.S. Army April '61. Was a General in the Confederate Army, & included in the surrender of the Army of N. Va. 9 April '65.

Lee signed an Amnesty Oath on 2 October 1865, complying fully with Johnson's general pardon proclamation.  But Lee was never pardoned while alive, and President Ford signed a joint congressional resolution making the pardon effective 13 June 1965.

And thus, 110 years after the end of the Civil War and 105 years after his death, General Robert E. Lee confessed to treason against the United States.

Part 0: Introduction
Part 2: Documenting Secession: South Carolina

(Edit 2017.08.16: removed double quotation marks; fixed white background; replaced "Articles" of Secession with "Ordinances" of Secession; added 's' to Article(s) of Confederation)
(Edit 2017.08.17: corrected 1968 to 1868 as year of Johnson's final pardon; corrected 'effecting' to 'effective')

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Documenting the Confederacy, Part 0: Introduction

First flag of the Confederate States of America (CSA)

Found on the intarwebs, used without permission.

I found a blog a while back that was systematically going through a collection of documents about the Confederacy and pulling out the proof that secession was about slavery.  I've since lost that blog, can't find it, and think perhaps it has slipped down the memory hole.

So I'm going to start doing that.  I'll be periodically posting a link to each of the traitor state's document describing their reasons for leaving the Union and selecting pull quotes that describe their reasons.  By doing so, I will be documenting, in their own words, that slavery was a significant reason for secession.  It will provide a library of responses to "the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about ...".

There will be an opportunity to discuss the meaning of the Confederate flag, as well.

In the end, I hope to create, if not a definitive resource, a sufficient one.

Part 1: The Confederate States of America and Treason

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First Nations People Saying No To Arizona's Community Destruction

The O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective, whose members participated last Friday's occupation of Arizona Border Patrol Headquarters, have released a video of their action.



The O'odham Solidarty Across Borders Collective is made up of "Akimel O'odham and Tohono O'odham youth who are pressing the attack against the ongoing colonization of our traditional lands (i.e. U.S./Mexico Border policies), environmental racism from transnational corporations and the state, and all colonial polices aimed at destroying our O'odham Him'dag (Traditional Way of Life)." The group organizing the occupation included "members of Indigenous Nations of Arizona, migrants, people of color and white allies." Their peaceful resistance at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson resulted in arrests and citations for trespass.

According to their press release, "Six people used chains and other devices to lock themselves in the building. These Arizona residents disrupted the Border Patrol operations to demand that Border Patrol (BP), Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), their parent entity, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Obama administration end militarization of the border, end the criminalization of immigrant communities, and end their campaign of terror which tear families apart through increasing numbers of raids and deportations."

For an in-depth look at what SB 1070 will look like to people on the ground, check out Uri Lerner's analysis via HispanicLA at Behind The Vote: SB 1070's Risk To Citizens.

To read more about this particular resistance and to assist with the fines and possible criminal charges they are facing, go to O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective or contact Leilani Clark at (520) 982-5687.

Below is an excerpt from their statement:

Border militarization destroys Indigenous communities.

The development of the border wall has lead to desecration of our ancestors graves, it has divided our communities and prevents us from accessing sacred places.

Troops and paramilitary law enforcement, detention camps, check points, and citizenship verification are not a solution to migration. We have existed here long before these imposed borders, my elders inform us that we always honored freedom of movement. Why our communities and the daily deaths at the border ignored? The impacts of border militarization are constantly made invisible in the media, the popular culture of this country and even the mainstream immigrants rights movement which has often pushed for “reform” that means further militarization of the border, which means increased suffering for our communities.

Indigenous communities such as the O’odham, the Pascua Yaqui, Laipan Apache, Kickapoo, and Cocopah along the US/Mexico border have been terrorized with laws and practices like SB1070 for decades. Indigenous people along the border have been forced by border patrol to carry and provide proof of tribal membership when moving across their traditional lands that have been bisected by this imposed border; a border that has been extremely damaging to the cultural and spiritual practices of these communities. Many people are not able to journey to sacred sites because the communities where people live are on the opposite side of the border from these sites. Since the creation of the current U.S./Mexico border, 45 O’odham villages on or near the border have been completely depopulated.

On this day people who are indigenous to Arizona join with migrants who are indigenous to other parts of the Western Hemisphere in demanding a return to traditional indigenous value of freedom of movement for all people. Prior to the colonization by European nations (spaniards, english, french) and the establishment of the european settler state known as the United States and the artificial borders it and other european inspired nation states have imposed; indigenous people migrated, traveled and traded with each other without regard to artificial black lines drawn on maps. U.S. immigration policies dehumanize and criminalize people simply because which side of these artificial lines they were born on. White settlers whose ancestors have only been here at most for a few hundred years have imposed these policies of terror and death on “immigrants” whose ancestors have lived in this hemisphere for tens of thousands of years, for time immemorial.

In addition, the migration that the U.S. government is attempting to stop is driven more than anything else by the economic policies of the U.S. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA have severely reduced the ability of Mexicans and others from the global south to sustain themselves by permitting corporations to extract huge amounts of wealth and resources from these countries into the U.S. This has led to millions of people risking the terror and death that so many face to cross into the U.S. looking for ways to better support their families. Thousand of women, men, children and elders have died crossing just in the last decade. If the U.S. really wants to reduce migration it should end its policies of exploitation and wealth extraction targeted at the global south and instead pursue policies of economic, environmental and social justice for all human beings on the planet, thus reducing the drive to immigrate.

The protestors are demanding:
-An end to border militarization
-The immediate repeal of SB 1070 and HB 2281
-An end to all racial profiling and the criminalization of our communities
-No ethnic cleansing or cultural genocide
-No border patrol encroachment/sweeps on sovereign native land
-No Deportations
-No Raids
-No ID-verification
-No Checkpoints

-Yes to immediate and unconditional regularization (“legalization”) of all people
-Yes to human rights
-Yes to dignity
-Yes to respect
Yes to respecting Indigenous Peoples inherent right of migration

 

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First Nations Occupation of Arizona Border Patrol Headquarters (Updated)

Breaking from Occupy California:

"Reports are coming in that the Border Patrol Headquarters at the Davis Monthan Air Force Base has been occupied and locked-down as of 1:15pm today by 16 members of a First Nations Indigenous Peoples’ group in opposition to SB 1070 and HB 2281."

For more immediate details and a press release, go to the link above. If you have updates, please place them in the comments.

UPDATE AT 7:30 PM CST: The protestors have been removed, cited for trespass, and released.

KVOA of Tucson reported the number of those actually chaining themselves in the Border Patrol headquarters as 6-8, with 15-20 additional protestors at the scene. The photograph below from an update at Occupy California seems to corroborate those numbers.



UPDATE 22 May 2010: The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), an international organization, is meeting in La Paloma, Arizona this weekend with 700 attendees. At the same time yesterday, a protest of about 100 people was held in Tucson against SB 1070 and HB 2281. Local KVOA footage below. Note the white supremacist interviewed by the news crew for "balance" who states "Learn the language and assimulate (sic)". What language would that be, O’odham or Cocopah? Clearly it's not English for him.



And correction to the news report via Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: Please note that while NAISA appears to be taking credit for organizing and attending the 5/21 rally, they DID NOT organize it. A few of their members did go to the rally, and then apparently headed back to the Westin La Paloma. The rally and related events were organized by Indigenous activists, scholars, and allies.

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Six Rules For Allies

Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones gave 6 rules for allies (cross race/ gender/ sexuality/ nationality/  religion etc) in her keynote speech given 19 February 2010 at a luncheon sponsored by Abriendo Brecha Vll Conference and The Seventeenth Annual Emerging Scholarship In Women’s and Gender Studies Conference, University of Texas, Austin.



A complete transcript of her speech is available at Sharon Bridgforth's site by clicking here. I'm excerpting a portion here, but it will not do complete justice to the moving and brilliant words of Dr. Jones, so please take in the entire message from the video and/or the transcript -- and pass it on:

"I take this opportunity to speak with you very seriously. The times require that I use every moment of public presentation to speak the truth as I know it. That is my job as an artist, a scholar, a teacher, a committed human being seeking to make a world of peace and justice for everyone.

"This truth telling is dangerous business. It leaves one vulnerable — but our vulnerability is our strength. It leaves one exposed, but exposure allows the wind to whip through all those dank and musty spaces of terror and blow away isolation and fear. Truth telling leaves us free—and that is, after all the point.

"This truth telling is especially dangerous for a Black queer woman, for me. My very safety is at stake when I speak the truth, the truth of my life, and the truth of the world as I know it. My truths challenge the very foundation of the systems around me, systems that variously support and denigrate me, systems that applaud and slap me.

"So, as I walk, I look for mirrors, for allies who are also committed to everyone’s freedom, allies willing to risk their own safety in order to insure mine."

"I offer some reflections on what it means to be an ally to queer people, to women, and to people of color."

(1) "Allies know that it is not sufficient to be liberal. In fact, the liberal position is actually a walk backwards...The liberal position supports the status quo of the academy which means that racism, sexism, homophobia, the perils of nationhood, and a commitment to class structures cannot be undone in the academy—unless we move toward a radical rather than liberal position."
(2) "Be loud and crazy so Black folks won’t have to be! Speak up! Say it! Name it!" (Likewise men, straights, and Christians.)
(3) "Do not tell anyone in any oppressed group to be patient."
(4) "Recognize the new racism, the new sexism, the old homophobia. It is institutional and structural."
(5) "When called out about your racism, sexism or homophobia, don’t cower in embarrassment, don’t cry, and don’t silently think 'she’s crazy' and vow never to interact with her again. We are all plagued by racism, sexism, and homophobia. Be grateful that someone took the time to expose yours—remember, exposure allows the wind to whip away isolation and fear."
(6) "Allies actively support alternative possibilities."

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Kickin' Ass and Namin' Names

(Dale Robertson, a Tea Party activist, holding his sign at the Feb. 27, 2009 Tea Party in Houston)

The conservatism which took hold in America during the cultural devastation of Ronald Reagan, the Neocons who successfully married the Religious Right, depends on conning the working class to benefit the owning class by actively maintaining or advancing two bedrock values: woman-hating and white supremacy. It's a one-two punch that sucks in otherwise progessive males who are covertly terrified of powerful women and otherwise intelligent women who are covertly terrified of brown folks. (Or not so covertly.)

I agree with Katha Pollitt that I'm personally relieved we are not sitting in the raging floodwaters of woman-hating sewage that would fill all the airwaves if Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency. The backlash would be horrific.

But equally horrific is how white supremacy has come out from under wraps (well. it never was concealed for those of us without privilege or choosing to not accept denial) and has fueled a 250% increase in terrorist organizations whose raison d'etre is race hatred. And make no mistake about it, to quote Bob Cesca's essay at Huffpo today, "The Tea Party is all about race."

I'm going to quote a few sections from his post to whet your appetite but I hope you'll go read it for yourselves. We must continue challenging the media coverage which acts like these people have a rational agenda and force exposure of what actually brings them together -- why separatist, eliminationist Sarah Palin is their darling. Why Rick Perry is running for Governor of Texas with TV spots openly declaring his support for Tenthers, a code for white supremacists who want to roll back federal civil rights protection in "their" states. We have to decode their dogwhistles at every turn and organize that majority of citizens for whom race hatred is un-American. We are the real patriots, and we must not let them steal that term.

From Bob Cesca The Tea Party Is All About Race:

"...when you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that's left is race. The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.

"...The tea party is an extension of talk radio. It's an extension of Fox News Channel. It's an extension of the southern faction of the Republican Party -- the faction that gave us the Southern Strategy, the Willie Horton ad, the White Hands ad and the racially divisive politics of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. It's an extension of the race-baiting and, often, the outright racism evident in all of those conservative spheres.

"...In the final analysis, when you boil away all of the weirdness, it becomes clear that the teabaggers are pissed because there isn't yet another doddering old white guy in the White House -- like they're used to. That's what this is all about."

(Hat-tip to Brilliant at Breakfast for pointing me toward the Cesca post.)

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Minstrel Shows

("Drinking melted snow water in Richmond, Vermont", photo by Oak LoGalbo)

A day with physical limits at the forefront, so I will push elsewhere.

The whole question of "should white people do art based on/coopted from POC culture" is on folks' minds today. It's a big question with a complicated answer. As a writer myself who creates nonwhite characters (main characters), I constantly revisit my assumptions, my sense of entitlement, my intentions. Who am I writing for? What would (insert various friends) think or say about this scene? Am I challenging the status quo, raising the energy, or simply perpetuating existential hopelessness? Can I find a similar lesson from my OWN culture and use that instead, with more integrity?

After watching the first episode of White Teeth this weekend, I assumed Zadie Smith was Jamaican, i.e., the character Clara. Turns out, she is more or less Irie, the daughter of Jamaican Clara and white working class British Archie. I haven't finished the series, but it has thus far gone off into Pakistani culture as experienced by Irie's family friends Magid and Mallat. The writer clearly knows it inside out, and thus far I'm willling to trust her as the voice bringing us this other world.

But is that because I'm white and my ability to experience "the other" is most comfortably brought to my doorstep by border crossers?

I have noticed that Archie's character is rather one-dimensional, and benevolently dim despite his early suicide attempt and history of a war crime.

In my scifi world, I slice through the Gordian knots of gender, race and class by constructing a post-cataclyscmic, isolated culture where values attached to physical differences have been eliminated. The productive tension of diversity comes from elsewhere. The feedback I'm getting is that it works. But it is serious internal work to give authentic voices to these characters, and I'm well aware they may be off in ways I cannot imagine. The fear of all writers.

In Ginny Bates, my POC characters are frank border-crossers who have picked some "good white folks" to make family with but never entirely lose their irritation with the conditioned whiteness of Myra, the character based on me. I modeled this after how I approach gender, how the men I love and trust must still occasionally encounter in me a wall put there by our different gender upbringing and I expect them to do at least half the work of scaling that wall. At LEAST. It's the lesbian-feminist in me that won't make excuses or cut extra slack. I find it an ethical, if challenging, way to live, and I respect that mirrored choice in the POC I know.

I agree with Jill Cozzi that the ice dance pair doing a traditional Indian dance showed smarts and ethics by having it choreographed by an Indian expert. But the show itself, especially the judging, is overwhelmingly white -- how does that not make it a sophisticated minstrel show? My gut rebels, in the same way that watching middle-class drag kings portraying their take on the brutish masculinity of working class males for sexual arousal of screaming mostly middle class (or aspiring thereto) women struck me as sick-making cooptation.

"Queering" or "subverting" in contexts where permits have been issued and "we're all the same really" is the mandatory message is not contradiction enough, and almost always tends to reassure the imagined liberal default, instead of fomenting actual thought-provoking discomfort.

The route to actual parity of voice will not be found by white folks going on travel adventures or Avatar-like saviors who become Lakota because they can't bear their own culture any longer. It will mean ripping out at the root (i.e., radical) all the gender, race, and class-based constructs of our current "reality" and shivering naked in the floodwaters that come to reshape our social terrain.

Some art takes us in that direction. Some does not. I can only tell you what works for me, and share it with you here.

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“You Make The Call”

“There's a thin li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-innnnneee...”

As a kid, I remember these cool, old IBM-sponsored commercials that ran during NFL football games, showing a slo-mo replay of a controversial moment in a game—some borderline-ish play that could be ruled one of two different ways, testing the layman viewer's knowledge of the sometimes arcane rules of pro ball. The bombastic NFL Films announcer John Facenda would diagram the dramatically scored play, freeze it at that pivotal moment and then boom from the TV “You...Make The Call!” You'd have some thirty seconds during which the sponsor's message would run until he'd return with his sonorously intoned, correct answer.

I've been thinking about those old spots a lot lately after all the idiotic faux-furor over President Obama's address to schoolkids not too long ago. You can almost hear the paraphrased voice-over about the aggrieved parties, “Idiots or Racists? You...make...THE CALL!” President Obama's message was a simple one, really—'Stay in school, pursue your dreams, achieve, achieve, achieve, and all that sort of usual Tuesday Assembly Day yadda-yadda, but the flaming-haired freakout among certain circles over the very idea of a message that innocuous is something we should take a good, long look at.

There were parents—ostensibly adults, so terribly aghast at the President's tapioca-ish words possibly getting to their children that they threatened their local school boards and mounted a goofball campaign to pull their kids from school for that period, and even more draconian-ly from school for the entire day in protest.

Their reasoning? Well there was the whole 'I don't want my kids exposed to his socialist / communist / anti-West-Bumfuck-Church-Of-The-Holy-Spirit-And-Lindsey-Graham's-Lip-Gloss propaganda' angle. Then there was the almost canny “Concerned Harper Valley PTA” member shpiel about curriculum protocols and the suddenly convenient 'Thar is rulez 'bout this kinda stuff, y'know. 'Spit-tooeeey!' obstructionist folderol. Best of all was the one uttered by Grade-Z Kansas City talk show host Chris Stigall, who railed “I wouldn’t let my next-door neighbor talk to my kid alone; I’m sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone.”

Running the classic “child molester” standard up the ol' flagpole is always a nice touch, isn't it?

The state of Texas, home of playful truck-dragging to one's death, President George W. Bush (whenever he'd drunkenly misplace his whale-print pants and have to miss those Kennebunkport kegger weekends) and 'Dixie's Dr. Kinsey'—Sen. John “Box Turtle” Cornyn, surprised no one with its vehement shunning of the broadcast. People down there were quite literally howling and crying to anyone with a microphone about this “Gasp!” dastardly intrusion into the psyche of their little ones. Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News actually kind of surprised me with his unequivocal analysis of the phenomenon.

“If you want to get a sense of just how haywire the country has gone lately, in less than eight months of the Obama presidency, start here. Start with the crazy people you saw on television this weekend, women actually crying that Obama's plan is really to brainwash her children, like he's invading her kid's middle school because some other President already invaded Iraq.

Of course. Who would want to put their children at risk this way, listening to a success story like this President's, listening to him describe the possibilities of both education and America, talking to them about hard work? But then so much of this comes from the same mouth-breathers who look at a health care plan as some sort of Socialist manifesto, and see opposition to it as a call to arms.

Only in this kind of climate could a traditional speech like this, to be delivered on C-SPAN and via the White House Web site, be seen as a controversy, actually get parents to think they are putting their children at risk by sending them to school tomorrow.”

Now, the news media beyond Lupica for the most part has been pretty reluctant to look this stuff straight in the eye and call it for what it is, preferring to take the false equivocation / Sgt. Joe Friday “Just the facts...even if one side's 'facts' are clearly made-up bullshit” tack to cover their asses against I suppose...a Limbaugh-led boycott of sponsors...or some such nonsense.

They don't want to point out the big, scarlet-necked, angry elephant tearing the Goddamned room apart with its wild charges into the walls.

We have no such timidity here.

The overwhelming majority of these people are sore-loser, racist wingnuts. Plain and simple. They are still smarting badly over the fact that not only did a Republican not win last year's Presidential election, and not only did a Democrat actually win, but the kind of Democrat (ie. Dusky, Darkie, Ding-Dong-Dammit, He's Black!) they have been indoctrinated to believe would bring the end of the ever-lovin' world as they knew it won. The ones most up in arms are the direct ideological descendants of the original target audience of Richard Nixon's fabled and divisive “Southern Strategy”. So-called “Rule of Law” lovin', Black-hating, educat-urbanophobes'. The folks Barack Obama not-so-ironically caught holy hell over for noting their narrow-minded “bitterness” during the primary season. Fear and loathing has been the fuel for their electoral triumphs for decades, and heaven forbid when they don't win...for there is no exhaust for that powerful and dangerous engine of mischief. It comes apart violently with shrapnel flying every-which-way. This wacky outburst over the school speech is one such flaming chunk of that machine's having come undone.

I'm also kind of surprised that few have noted the phraseology these losers are tossing about in their venom towards President Obama. The cries...no...shrieks really—of “Commie” and “Socialist” are just retreads of the same, old silly “Duck and Cover” era fear-speak they threw at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day when his mere presence on the public scene worried warm effluence down their legs. These words were the more polite way for the racially aggrieved to shout “nigger” without all those hard and angry “g's” in the word snagging on everything and pointing out what hateful lunatics they were. Barack Obama most certainly is not a Dr.King—but as a (in their minds) 'n*gg*r of influence that too many people respect', he might as well be. And as we've seen in recent years, as near-to-now as this last election cycle, this mind-locked crew really has nothing else to go to as they wore that “CommieHitlerFascistRadical” shpiel so threadbare that to call it a “throwback” would mean there was a shred of something left in their hands to throw—which there wasn't. 'One Trick Elephants', our wingnut pals are these days—put one pachydermic foot on the Fox News step-box, raise their trunks high and bellow...while taking a massive and messy dump all over the circus floor. First time's a shocker. Second and third time's maybe good for a scat-humor hoot.

It's gotten old quick, though.

What's unhinged them to where they've gone into 'Stage 3 Bigo-tourrette's Syndrome' is fear.

Fear...that this particular electoral choice for America means the end of the centuries-long, taboo-to-cite, skin-color privilege gravy train that has benefited them for just as long.

Fear...of justice / retribution—for the slights and injustices inflicted as that gravy train's wheels rolled over and sliced people of color into little, second-class citizen bits.

And the worst fear of all, and oddly enough—the one that actually makes a great deal of sense if you consider its sociological weight—is that their kids, their annoyingly-open-to-all-manner-of-richly-multicultural-things-anathema-to-NeHi-Mom-and-Nacsar-Dad, oh-so-impressionable kids—might possibly see this reasonable-seeming Black man on TV, who actually is the duly elected President of their United States, and having seen and heard what he has to say...possibly in that said annoying openness, not have the visceral, pathological problem with him that they the parents do. The steady watering-down of rabid, knee-jerk racism would hit a tipping point then, effectively time-locking those petrified, previous generations in a capsule welded shut with their own racial animus. It would relegate them and the four-hundred-plus years of awful, unjust ways they cherish to—if not the dustbin of history, at the very least, swept much closer to the base of it. Their own children being the harbinger of that change is so ironically devastating that it cannot be risked. Thus, the attempt to shut them away from the words of the President, a furtive and feeble trip down dat ol' river of De-nial.

So...you make the call. Are they idiots or racists?

Wait—before you answer that, add to this roux of insipid intolerance that wackadocious Republican representative from the proud, semi-Confederate state of South Carolina, (Insert rueful, syrupy Shelby Foote voice-over here: 'It seems some folks never have come back into the United States after our tragic mid-19th century internal conflict. Tsk-tsk”.) Joe Wilson. He of the braying, intemperate, down-home style j'accuse “You Lie!” on the night of President Obama's health care address to Congress. We've seen moments of partisan pissitude during State of The Union addresses and the like before. Grumbling. Overplayed silence. That sort of thing. But not since the incendiary congressional scenes from D.W. Griffiths' “Birth Of A Nation” have we seen so naked a public break with the well-known collegiality of the Congress during a Presdential address. It's all “Robert's Rules Of Order”—on steroids when you deal in the legislative arenas of Congress. In the back rooms? Well, that's a different story. You lean on (sometimes literally), you cajole, you pressure, you sometimes threaten, you deal-cut and horse-trade. But in public? “The distinguished gentleman / woman from blah-blah-blah”, “May I cede my minutes to the Senator from yadda-yadda?”, and “The floor will recognize Rep. Joe Blow” from the great state of I don't know.”

You get the picture.

Wilson, that sorry-assed clown—decided to simply freak the fuck out and scream at the President during his address. He knew Goddamned well it was wrong<, but he inexplicably did it anyway.

No. Hold on. That tantrum was explicable. Very explicable.

You sit there and tell me what made him think it was okay to go off like that in front of the eyes of not just his congressional colleagues, but the millions of people watching the event that night? What makes President Barack Obama so different from the presidents who've preceded him, that a deep-fried, “Dixie”-warbling nut log like Wilson was perfectly comfortable in shattering the debate / disagreement protocols that have otherwise been recognized for like...forever?

We broke it down not too long ago in the post “Res-pect Mah Authori-taaaaaayyyyh!”

And at that confluence is a vehement and open hatred of what I will call “American Otherness”—in essence, if you do not look anywheres like the powder-wigged, silk legging-ed founding fathers in the old image of the signing of The Declaration Of Independence, your rights—and any authority you may have through an Alger-esque climb through the ranks, or election to office by the people can simply be denied by those who do resemble our rouge-cheeked founding fathers.

As bad as things were for Bill and Hillary Clinton during their brief, but brutal first-term run at health care reform (and they caught hell, make no mistake), there was still enough respect for the legislative process (pre-Lewinsky scandal, of course) where a stunt like Wilson's would have been considered far beyond the...well...far beyond the pale. Bill could still deflect fire with his “Bubba” shield of down-home bonhomie. At any given moment, he could still kind of, sort of be “one of them”, and that carried a lot of weight. Obama however, has no such shield or camouflage to dilute the bitter wine of irrational hatred—especially from supposed colleagues in government. And because of this, they have no problem with acting out as broadly as their hate allows. There is no subtlety, no wit or brain...no nuance at all to their disagreeing. Just raw, bulging-veined rage.

Mixed with a touch of the glee of the ignorantly evil to boot.

Witness the almost dancing-in-the-streets happiness of much of the right over Chicago's losing out in the 2016 Olympics sweepstakes. Never mind the fact that in a way it's probably a good thing the U.S. lost out bid-wise when you consider the money toilet Summer Olympiads have been, but even the mainstream press noted the over-the-topness of the celebration of the “defeat” by the right wing.

'It's gonna be in Chicago? The place that gave us the accursed Obama? We hate it! Obama's lobbying for it? We really hate it! The IOC (International Olympic Committee) said “no” to Obama's Chicago? Yay! We love it! We LOVE it! WE LOVE IT! U--S-A—um...Obama loses! O-ba-ma LOSES!'

Question: What is the opposite of a “smart mob”? A “dumb” mob of course. And these folks are exactly that. The same sorts of mobs in our history who were known to celebrate with a smile the uncelebrate-able. Negativity. Ignorance. And yes, even worse...
Smiling Faces...Sometimes...

How bent is this bunch? I can say this without fear—that there are many among them who would actually cheer a major terrorist attack on our soil, and would hope for at the least, 2978 American deaths—exactly one more than we suffered on September 11th under George W. Bush—just to have something to horrifically, desperately and most contrived-ly scream on Obama over. I sooooo wish I was wrong about that gut feeling, but I know I'm not. And if you truly consider the lunatic behavior of allegedly fellow Americans in fits of spiteful, hateful pique since last january 20th, I seriously doubt you'll feel much differently.

So, welcome to the full-tilt reality-show-ization of American political discourse, people. We were hanging at the Richard Hatch / Survivor-style for a good while. Fun little cliffhangers and gripping, if still contrived drama. But now? Politics' “Big Three Network Decorum” has been tossed aside for the raw, rancid meat of cable crazy post-January 20th 2009. 'I will embarrass myself for attention and spite. I shall stuff my ears, throw my own excrement AND SHOUT YOU DOWN! SHOUT YOU DOWN!' SHOUT YOU DOWN!''

Why are we here? Here, now?

What is so damned different than before?

Well...let's take a literal look...


History it turns out, is just as brilliant a teacher as it is a cruel one.

The defenders of Wilson, our country's non-Olympics celebrants, and those poor, myopic fools who lost their cookies and kept little Ethan and Kayla (Or Hunter and Brittany...Tyler and Caitlin...who-the-hell-ever...) on the day of the President's address will say nothing worse than maybe, just maybe these people are just a touch “misguided”. “Misinformed”, perhaps. Others more directly confronting the looniness but wishing still to not touch the third rail this hate train barrels along on will extend the diagnosis to include “inane” or “stupid”.

Which is a canny dodge for what the real deal is. Because it is simply far more palatable in America to be called an idiot...than a racist.

Bringing us back to the question up at the top. “You make the call. Are they idiots or racists?

It's a choice you don't really have to make. So, let's remove the sting of possibly being wrong...by being fair and equivocal then, shall we?

There's more...

Keeping Clear of the Pod-People: After Last Night's Speech

(Ant With Acorn from Tugboat Printshop)

I was once friends with someone who is a direct descendant of Edmund Ruffin. For those of you who don't recognize the name, Edmund Ruffin is the South Carolina slaveholding farmer who is credited with fining the shot which began the Civil War. My friend was, among other identities, an anti-racism activist. She spent a great deal of personal energy coming to peace with her family history, her white Southern identity, and her owning class roots.

According to my friend, her family's version of events is that Ruffin was definitely a fierce advocate of slavery and secession, but he was not a nutjob. In particular, they claim the men around him got him liquored up and then convinced him the Yankees were attacking in order to persuade him to be the first to fire. After the war, Ruffin committed suicide, and his family believed it was because of shame rather than an inability to adjust to a changed world.

But believing in slavery, advocating secession, and choosing suicide are all clear indicators of an inability to handle reality. They all exist on the continuum of crazy. So, alcohol aside, Ruffin was living in a particular zone of denial which won't allow his actions the excuse of an unforeseen accident. Any more than Republicans can claim there was no warning Al Qaeda would attack the U.S. in 2001 using domestic airplanes.

Richard Blair at All Spin Zone has a post up today which begins "It’s hard to believe the 'lone gunman' theory of Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) outburst yesterday evening during the president’s address to congress. Someone put him up to it. Low level hit men in crime families don’t freelance."

I agree with him. The larger point is that while there is a solid 30% functional delusional segment of our population (see my post of yesterday), there is also an organized, highly orchestrated effort being made by the Republican Party, their mouthpieces on hate radio, and the corporate elite who fund them to persistently exploit that Crazy 30% to keep change from occurring. They used fake terror alerts and trumped up wars during Dubya's tenure. Now they're relying on more "grassroots" means to scare the shit out of the rest of us and immobilize us enough to keep their dominion going.

What happens in a democracy when nobody listens to each other any more? What happens when guns and camouflage are commonplace sights in public settings? What happens when you can shout absolutely anything at an elected official? This is not protecting or promoting freedom of speech, this is tyranny by the few at the expense of information reception by the many.

And, let's be clear, the Right will be thrilled if the progressive response is to start putting curbs on public expression, because those laws will be enforced by the status quo and will not come down in our favor. (Just like hate crime laws, which I oppose because they are overwhelmingly be used against poor and/or nonwhite people rather than the most flagrant perpetrators of hate.) I think the best reaction is going to be one which comes from us, the masses, rather than through courts or g*d forbid taser-wielding SOA trained urban cops.

The tools at our disposal are education, thinking on our feet, humor, community, common decency, and, most importantly, our liberal belief that respect for the individual trumps blind adherence to authority.

There's a joke among lesbians of my generation that when you came out to your family, a day later it was as if you'd said nothing at all -- not through acceptance, but because the news was so disturbing to them, they blocked it from family consciousness. This would occur simultaneously with someone, usually your mother, saying "All right, but don't tell you're father, it'll kill him."

Alix Dobkin, famous singer/songwriter, became intrigued with this notion of lesbian as a word that is so powerful it passes by without registering and concurrently can strike men dead. As a result, she wrote one of her most famous hits, "View from Gay Head", which uses the word lesbian 22 times. The rollicking chorus goes
Lesbian, lesbian,
Let's be in no-man's-land
Lesbian, lesbian
Any woman can be a lesbian.

Thus, one mechanism of oppression is preventing certain words or kinds of speech from occurring -- though not all restriction of speech is oppression. Oppression, remember, has to be part of a systematic and institutionalized imbalance of power, not simply reflecting a difference of opinion. Another mechanism is ignoring reality, such as how the corporate-controlled media is simply not reporting on the large numbers of people currently meeting for/organizing around their need for a public option in health care reform. On a daily level, this plays out in households when someone can reel off sports statistics in minutiae going back decades but cannot recall how to load a dishwasher or separate laundry. Such deliberately obstructed learning and listening is common currency to Republicans, and if it can be linked to an underlying vein of culturally-embedded oppression -- sexism or racism, for example -- it seems "normal" enough to often not be challenged as attempted domination.

Here's a few immediate actions you can take regarding the extreme disrespect and obstructionism displayed during last night's speech on health care reform by our President:

(1) Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a petition asking Congress to censure Rep. Joe Wilson: "Enough is enough. On an issue as critical as health care reform, it's time to stop the lies, the misinformation, and the uncivil disruptions. Rep. Joe Wilson went way over the line by yelling 'You lie' during President Obama's speech, and Congress should censure him immediately." You can sign it by going here.

(2) Since Joe Wilson's outburst on the House floor his Democratic opponent, former Marine Rob Miller, has received over 11,000 individual grassroots contributions raising over $414,000. If you want to contribute, you can go to his Act Blue page here.

(3) Make sure this is not simply attached to Rep. Joe Wilson, but that it is linked to the overall Republican effort to bring down Obama and stop ANY reform from occurring. Alex Koppelman, writing for The War Room at Salon.com, in his post Joe Wilson Wasn't The Only Disrespectful Republican points out: "There's video of Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the Minority Whip, on his BlackBerry during the speech, for instance...When Obama addressed the charge that he plans 'panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens,' someone on the GOP side shouted out 'shame!' The president went on: 'Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical.' 'Read the bill!' someone shouted back. Obama mentioned those who accuse him of a government takeover of health care. 'It's true,' someone shouted back .... Even as Obama delivered a tribute to the late senator Ted Kennedy, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga), a leader of House conservatives, perused his BlackBerry. Shortly before the speech ended, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) walked out to beat the rush."

Call your Member of Congress today at (202) 224-3121 to express your outrage.

Longer-term, it's important to keep naming what's going on for what it is. Identify crazy when it is crazy, and don't let them shout you down that you're not being fair. The ability to scream at a President while s/he is speaking to Congress is not a right granted by the rules of that body. The assumption that this long-standing rule could be broken is NOT DIVORCED from the fact that the President in question is African-American and the Representative in question has been a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans. As researched by Dave Neiwert at Crooks and Liars, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is a white supremacist organization tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center which, among other things, defends slavery as a benign institution. What Wilson was calling a lie was Obama's denial there would be health care coverage for undocumented immigrants, a key recruitment issue for the Republican Party's white supremacist base.

It's also important to keep our eyes on the prize, which is not simply countering their terror, nor is it Obama's appeasement path (doomed to fail).

Our goal is No more loss of life or livelihood because health care is currently rationed by profit-obsessed death panels (called insurance companies) rather than being acknowledged as a basic human right.

There's more...

Seeing What's Been Broken For Centuries

Rick Perlstein absolutely nailed it last month: "In America, crazy is a pre-existing condition."

I want to take this extremely useful reminder one or two steps further. We need to ask ourselves (1) When dealing with manifest mental illness, what is an effective and humane form of behavior that doesn't make things worse, for us or for them? and (2) Let's be explicit about what kind of crazy we're facing here.

Once I was having dinner with an old friend who had retired to a rural area for a while after an extended, messy break-up. She was back in town and we were catching up. She looked much brighter and happier than she had when she'd left town, and I was relieved to see it. Before we got to dessert, however, she confided that she'd finally gotten over her heartbreak after having visitations from aliens -- she could name the planet and galaxy -- who let her know she'd been born there, not on Earth, and she would always have problems relating intimately to Earthlings. I broke into giggles, but she was dead serious. She had come up with a way to cope, a narrative which worked for her, and I had about twenty seconds to figure out what to do.

That sort of situation, once the shock passes (take several sips of tea), is not so hard to handle. Ask questions, stay kind, remind yourself what they -- any of us -- really want/deserve is love and interest. Easy to remember when it's your friend. She didn't have any children she was responsible for, she was clean and eating well and driving okay, and she wasn't going around telling everybody she was from Planet X, only the folks she trusted, so she wasn't about to get locked up. Functionally delusional.

I'm thinking, at this point in America, about one out of every three people is functionally delusional. I think we've always had more than our share because of the nature of our immigration here -- folks who can healthily adjust to and remain in their home communities don't leave those communities. And being persecuted doesn't mean you haven't also become pretty messed up along the way.

On top of that revisitation of the great American myth, I also believe that white supremacy, woman-hating, class exploitation, and child abuse are all concrete forms of mental illness. They are interlinked, they have for millenia been fostered and supported by European governments and the Christian Church, and they are the bedrock upon which our country was founded. When Che said he envied us because we live in the belly of the beast, the point is not whether he was being sarcastic: The point is that living in the belly is a very poor strategic position from which to fight the beast unless you first acknowledge all your sustenance is coming from the beast.

To put it another way, if you say you are not a racist, you most definitely are. Racism is a core value in our culture and nobody escapes the conditioning. And the basic tenet of racism is not that "there are differences between the races" or whatever Websterian bullshit semantic game you want to trot out: The basic tenet of racism is white supremacy. If you are not white, you are second-class (on a good day). You are the Other. You are a risk to the American Way of Life.

Yes, some white Europeans got labeled not-quite-white or The Other for a while, but that merely proves the point. You can lose your position of safety in a system built on racism by associating with/defending/or becoming not-white. It keeps white people in line, this risk; most especially working-class white folks who are already on thin ice.

So, because of a brilliant campaign in which one of the subliminal messages was "I'm not entirely black, I'm not black like Jesse Jackson or Jeremiah Wright, I've picked up enough class polish to not embarrass you like Dubya, and I will NOT make America deal with its bedrock racism", we've elected an African-American to the Presidency. I'm not saying those are the only reasons Obama was elected, but for too many white people who cast the deciding votes, I believe the hope that we could simply side-step racism and Just Be Together made Obama someone they voted for.

Plus: The mess about to handed to the next President was godawful. Who do we get to clean up our messes for us in this country? The really terrible messes, the ones that make you need to gag? Women and/or People of Cullah. Goes without saying.

But for that 30% who are functionally delusional, part of their functionality vanished when the Presidency didn't go to a white guy. They simply cannot cope with what has actually occurred. They are, to use jargon, decompensating. I happen to believe the impact would have been just a great if Hillary had been elected, and if there's one bright lining in all these, it's that I'm not having to listen to the non-stop woman-hating jag that would be going on if she'd been elected. Not Sarah Palin, because she is a Real Woman, according to the delusion, which means she's under the thumb of a man. But in comparison to all the horrifying racism that has bubbled up to the surface (didn't have far to go, let's be honest), if it were Hillary as target, it wouldn't just be the Right. It would be all our nice liberal boys who get twitchy at the mention of her name.

You'll see their flecks of spittle start appearing in the comments as soon as I post this. Until I delete those comments for being unhingedly off the point, that is.

Thus, the racism that was always there, always running the show, has been unmasked for a lot of white people, and we can't live in the same comfortable pretense that we had before. Even those of us who have other labels which make us pitchforks-and-torches targets -- dykes, fags, Jews, crips, poor and not upwardly mobile -- have had a jolt, seeing how much crazy is pouring from the seams. To quote Madge, "We're soaking in it."

And the only way to clean it up thoroughly is to scrub down to bare wood. Otherwise, we'll keep having what we've got.

It won't be Obama and his inner circle who does this work. It's going to be so-called progressives (which is not a cohesive, clearly defined community, either) who will help steward our culture from about to self-destructive Crazy to admitting-we-have-a-problem-and-maybe-we-can-work-on-it Crazy. What I've promised myself in this process is to not lie just because what I'm criticizing Obama and his crew for may remind me/us of the hate pouring from racism. I have to remember, I voted for him, I want him to succeed, I want him to find a way to live up to ideals that he may have only mouthed for political expedience, but people can change.

And here's a few thoughts I've had over the last couple of weeks.

(1) The Birther insanity is code for "There is no such thing as a legitimate black birth." Admitting that black children can be born with as much legitimacy as white children strokes a sledgehammer blow at white supremacy. ESPECIALLY if it's the result of miscegenation, which was still illegal in this country for a chunk of my lifetime.

(2) The school speech "controversy" is code for "We don't let our children see or hear black people who speak well and with pride." This is no joke: Families built around authoritarian principles don't let African-American images in television come into their homes, unless they are being arrested by cops, clearly poor and/or "know their place", or the parents are there to make sure the kids hear non-stop racism instead of noticing the black people look/sound like people. White people who have been raised with this kind of isolation and deliberate poisoning are all around us. Continuing that practice is the real point of not letting their kids hear Obama speak in a non-racist, public setting. Contagion, you know -- if they find out they can be lesbians, their daughters will never choose men, and if they find out black people can be smart and powerful, they'll insist on living in a world where that's the case.

(3) Having lots of people openly carry guns makes public settings extremely unsafe for everybody present. Statistics have proven it over and over again: Add a gun to a crowd, and the odds of somebody innocent dying go way up. The point of having armed presence at public forums is to scare away the non-crazies, to get us used to further militarization of our discourse and community environments, and to have weapons handy in case somebody goes off the deep end and DOESN'T HAVE ONE OF THEIR OWN TO USE. "Hey, I was just carrying for self-defense, how was I to know that lunatic would snatch it from my holster and fire at the President?"

(4) Recruitment and glomming together of the deranged can be subtle. During the 1980s, the activist group I worked with finally figured out how come the Klan and Nazis kept having rallies in places where they were absolutely going to be shouted down by the opposition. They didn't hope to persuade any of us to change our minds, and they knew they were pissing off the neighborhoods they intruded upon. But because of that antagonism, they had to be surrounded by cops two or three rows deep, cops who were facing screaming commies, Jews, lesbians, and POC. Those cops were the Klan's recruitment target. These days it's cops plus the military.

(5) If somebody says, in any translation, that they cannot handle what is actually occurring -- and we're hearing that now, 24/7 -- we need to point out over and over again that THEY are the ones with a problem. Crazy people seldom admit they are crazy.

(6) You don't argue with crazy people. We go on with our work, and if they interfere, we say "Nope, I don't have time to help you right now with your emotional imbalance" and MEAN IT.

There's more...

Matchless Valour

When I was in fourth grade, our beloved teacher, Frances Wilmeth, told us about a new program which would provide free school lunches for anyone who needed them. In that small South Texas town, each grade in elementary school comprised an A class and a B class totaling about 60 students altogether. The A class held whatever white children there were (around 8-15) and Latino children who were not from migrant families, who had arrived at first grade able to speak some English, and/or were the children of "important people". All the other Latino children were in the B classes.

Yeah, it was that overt.

Children who registered for first grade without being able to speak English were held back for a year to be taught by an elderly white man whom every one of us knew was the meanest teacher in any grade. We heard him screaming at his kids all day long, interspersed with whacks from his wooden ruler on terrified small hands and shoulders.

My family, new to town, was at the very bottom of the white social register. This meant one of the unspoken rules that we cling fast to our whiteness, not associate with any brown children, and try to prove our worth by being "good poor". Mama herself was conflicted by these pressures, facing ends of month (each month) when there wasn't quite enough to feed us, and her not eating didn't close the gap. I responded by becoming anorexic, which only upset her more. My only refuge was in books and learning. This made me a favorite among teachers, not so much other kids.

We ate mostly beans and rice at home, whatever vegetables Mama could grow, lots of macaroni and homemade red plum jam which I complained about but I'd give anything for one of those jars now. These sorts of meals didn't translate readily into lunches Mama could pack in a metal box. (This is before the days of Tupperware.) Bread, bologna and bananas cost money at the grocery store. Thus, each Monday morning was a tinderbox of tension as Mama tried to find enough change to send us off with the 1.20 cents it cost to eat in the cafeteria for a week. My brothers stayed out of her way. I didn't. I was already making the choice to allow her to dump on me rather than face our situation alone.

Once every two weeks, Daddy came home with a paycheck and, usually, steaks or chicken he'd bought along the way. I didn't enjoy those feasts, because I understood instinctively what came out of his pocket for the steaks would have to be made up by us after he was gone.

So, Miz Wilmeth's offer of free lunches arrived like a hand from g*d. I carefully folded the mimeographed sheet she handed out to every one of us and took it home after school with enormous excitement.

Mama was in the kitchen, trying to make rice and beans into something different. She was a consummate cook, and often succeeded. I stood out of her path and opened the hand-out. "How much money does Daddy make each month?" I asked. "Is it less than $250?"

"Shit yes" said Mama, distracted, giving a bitter laugh. Then she realized who was asking and focused on me. "What do you have there?"

I began explaining. I can still recall my extreme joy: I'd found a way to help. Painfully skinny and shy, asthmatic, only nine years old, I was at last going to be able to contribute something to the survival of my family.

She snatched the sheet from my hands and read it swiftly, disbelief on her face. "This is about that goddamned government program Johnson signed off on!" she shouted at me. "This is charity, do you understand what charity means? Ever la-di-da shitass in this town will be able to spit on us if we take charity!" She ripped up the paper and threw it on the floor. "Don't you EVER bring home one of these goddamned forms again, you hear me?"

However, by the following year, the school had become smarter in handling the issue. Not only were free lunches offered, but also free breakfast and a free mid-morning bottle of milk. Families were given a form where they could apply for a "discount", and enough folks did that there was no longer such a stigma attached to it. Furthermore, it was done privately, at the principal's office, not through the teacher collecting lunch fees at the start of every Monday.

The difference this make can hardly be described. Kids stopped falling asleep in class by 10 a.m. Boys having fist-fights virtually stopped. Test scores climbed. I'm crying as I write this, because it is graphic proof of how much hunger there was in that small town, and how many children were suffering.

In fifth grade, we passed from everybody's favorite, Miz Wilmeth, to the care of Eula Farmer, who was reputed to be strict but fair. That is, those of us in the A class did. All the B class teachers were allegedly mean and bad-tempered. Miz Farmer was as tall and lean as Miz Wilmeth had been short and round. She was grey, hair color, eyes, clothing, even her skin seemed to be slightly metallic. But she was a fabulous teacher, it turned out.

She worked us hard in the mornings. After lunch and a raucous recess, however, she had us lie our heads on our desks and she read aloud to us from a book. I think she probably instituted this practice after decades of teaching hungry children who might have had their first meal of the day half an hour earlier and needed a chance to let their systems crash in relief.

Some of the kids did, in fact, take a nap on their desktops, without shame or reprisal. But a lot of us lay with closed eyes listening to Miz Farmer's surprisingly expressive voice take us magical places. That first semester, she read us The Wind In The Willows. It remains one of my favorite books of all time. The second semester, she read us Magnificent Joe and made blazing animal rights activists out of us all.

But back to The Wind In The Willows: I imagined the four friends, Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Toad, as leading the kind of all-one-gender unmarried lifestyle I dreamed of having one day. Messing about in boats, having picnics, keeping each other in good spirits. They had plenty to eat and community respect. It was all I dared allow myself to want.

Toad was a problem, of course. Impulsive and unable to learn from his mistakes, he was like Daddy, but Badger and Ratty had a handle on the situation. It looked grim when weasels and stoats moved into Toad Hall. But I can still remember the afternoon when the four friends used one of Badger's mysterious tunnels to come up under the Hall itself, burst in and retake the place. Nobody napped that day; we were all sitting upright in our desks, fidgeting with tension, then giving a loud spontaneous cheer when at last the vile vermin were handcuffed, beaten senseless, or driven away into the Deep Woods.

I was reminded of that satisfaction today when I read Lance Mannion's post Everything I Know About Writing, I Learned From Beatrix Potter (hat-tip to Batocchio at Mike's Blog Round-Up, who published the link). Mannion writes about Pat Buchanan's scorn of Sonia Sotomayor learning English from stellar children's books, how misplaced his sneering is, and only a thin veneer for woman-hating and racism.

I realized we've been cheated, in this country, from the redemption we'd feel at our own taking of Toad Hall -- in our instance, reclaiming the Constitution and real American values. We need to see Rummy in handcuffs, Rove frog-marched to the stationhouse, Cheney rained about the head and shoulders with Ratty's cudgel, and Mole confiscating all their weapons for none to use again. I'm not talking about revenge, I'm talking about simple justice and setting the house to rights.

Think about what a difference that would make.

Or lay your heads down on your desks and follow the words of Kenneth Grahame himself. We'll start in the middle of Chapter XII, "The Return of Ulysses", where the four friends have prepared themselves and plunged into Badger's dark tunnel, following him in the direction of Toad Hall:

So they groped and shuffled along, with their ears pricked up and their paws on their pistols, till at last the Badger said, `We ought by now to be pretty nearly under the Hall.'

Then suddenly they heard, far away as it might be, and yet apparently nearly over their heads, a confused murmur of sound, as if people were shouting and cheering and stamping on the floor and hammering on tables. The Toad's nervous terrors all returned, but the Badger only remarked placidly, `They are going it, the Weasels!'

The passage now began to slope upwards; they groped onward a little further, and then the noise broke out again, quite distinct this time, and very close above them.

`Ooo-ray-ooray-oo-ray-ooray!' they heard, and the stamping of little feet on the floor, and the clinking of glasses as little fists pounded on the table. `What a time they're having!' said the Badger. `Come on!' They hurried along the passage till it came to a full stop, and they found themselves standing under the trap-door that led up into the butler's pantry.

Such a tremendous noise was going on in the banqueting-hall that there was little danger of their being overheard. The Badger said, `Now, boys, all together!' and the four of them put their shoulders to the trap-door and heaved it back.

Hoisting each other up, they found themselves standing in the pantry, with only a door between them and the banqueting-hall, where their unconscious enemies were carousing.

The noise, as they emerged from the passage, was simply deafening. At last, as the cheering and hammering slowly subsided, a voice could be made out saying, `Well, I do not propose to detain you much longer' -- (great applause) -- `but before I resume my seat' -- (renewed cheering) -- `I should like to say one word about our kind host, Mr. Toad. We all know Toad!' -- (great laughter) -- `Good Toad, modest Toad, honest Toad!' (shrieks of merriment).

`Only just let me get at him!' muttered Toad, grinding his teeth.

`Hold hard a minute!' said the Badger, restraining him with difficulty. `Get ready, all of you!'

` -- Let me sing you a little song,' went on the voice, `which I have composed on the subject of Toad' -- (prolonged applause).

Then the Chief Weasel -- for it was he -- began in a high, squeaky voice --

`Toad he went a-pleasuring
Gaily down the street -- '

The Badger drew himself up, took a firm grip of his stick with both paws, glanced round at his comrades, and cried --

`The hour is come! Follow me!'

And flung the door open wide.

My! What a squealing and a squeaking and a screeching filled the air!

Well might the terrified weasels dive under the tables and spring madly up at the windows! Well might the ferrets rush wildly for the fireplace and get hopelessly jammed in the chimney! Well might tables and chairs be upset, and glass and china be sent crashing on the floor, in the panic of that terrible moment when the four Heroes strode wrathfully into the room! The mighty Badger, his whiskers bristling, his great cudgel whistling through the air; Mole, black and grim, brandishing his stick and shouting his awful war-cry, `A Mole! A Mole!' Rat; desperate and determined, his belt bulging with weapons of every age and every variety; Toad, frenzied with excitement and injured pride, swollen to twice his ordinary size, leaping into the air and emitting Toad-whoops that chilled them to the marrow!

`Toad he went a-pleasuring!' he yelled. `I'll pleasure 'em!' and he went straight for the Chief Weasel. They were but four in all, but to the panic-stricken weasels the hall seemed full of monstrous animals, grey, black, brown and yellow, whooping and flourishing enormous cudgels; and they broke and fled with squeals of terror and dismay, this way and that, through the windows, up the chimney, anywhere to get out of reach of those terrible sticks.

The affair was soon over. Up and down, the whole length of the hall, strode the four Friends, whacking with their sticks at every head that showed itself; and in five minutes the room was cleared. Through the broken windows the shrieks of terrified weasels escaping across the lawn were borne faintly to their ears; on the floor lay prostrate some dozen or so of the enemy, on whom the Mole was busily engaged in fitting handcuffs. The Badger, resting from his labours, leant on his stick and wiped his honest brow.

`Mole,' he said,' `you're the best of fellows! Just cut along outside and look after those stoat-sentries of yours, and see what they're doing. I've an idea that, thanks to you, we shan't have much trouble from them to-night!'

The Mole vanished promptly through a window; and the Badger bade the other two set a table on its legs again, pick up knives and forks and plates and glasses from the debris on the floor, and see if they could find materials for a supper. `I want some grub, I do,' he said, in that rather common way he had of speaking. `Stir your stumps, Toad, and look lively! We've got your house back for you, and you don't offer us so much as a sandwich.' Toad felt rather hurt that the Badger didn't say pleasant things to him, as he had to the Mole, and tell him what a fine fellow he was, and how splendidly he had fought; for he was rather particularly pleased with himself and the way he had gone for the Chief Weasel and sent him flying across the table with one blow of his stick. But he bustled about, and so did the Rat, and soon they found some guava jelly in a glass dish, and a cold chicken, a tongue that had hardly been touched, some trifle, and quite a lot of lobster salad; and in the pantry they came upon a basketful of French rolls and any quantity of cheese, butter, and celery. They were just about to sit down when the Mole clambered in through the window, chuckling, with an armful of rifles.

`It's all over,' he reported. `From what I can make out, as soon as the stoats, who were very nervous and jumpy already, heard the shrieks and the yells and the uproar inside the hall, some of them threw down their rifles and fled. The others stood fast for a bit, but when the weasels came rushing out upon them they thought they were betrayed; and the stoats grappled with the weasels, and the weasels fought to get away, and they wrestled and wriggled and punched each other, and rolled over and over, till most of 'em rolled into the river! They've all disappeared by now, one way or another; and I've got their rifles. So that's all right!'

`Excellent and deserving animal!' said the Badger, his mouth full of chicken and trifle. `Now, there's just one more thing I want you to do, Mole, before you sit down to your supper along of us; and I wouldn't trouble you only I know I can trust you to see a thing done, and I wish I could say the same of every one I know. I'd send Rat, if he wasn't a poet. I want you to take those fellows on the floor there upstairs with you, and have some bedrooms cleaned out and tidied up and made really comfortable. See that they sweep under the beds, and put clean sheets and pillow-cases on, and turn down one corner of the bed-clothes, just as you know it ought to be done; and have a can of hot water, and clean towels, and fresh cakes of soap, put in each room. And then you can give them a licking a-piece, if it's any satisfaction to you, and put them out by the back-door, and we shan't see any more of them, I fancy. And then come along and have some of this cold tongue. It's first rate. I'm very pleased with you, Mole!'

The goodnatured Mole picked up a stick, formed his prisoners up in a line on the floor, gave them the order `Quick march!' and led his squad off to the upper floor. After a time, he appeared again, smiling, and said that every room was ready, and as clean as a new pin. `And I didn't have to lick them, either,' he added. `I thought, on the whole, they had had licking enough for one night, and the weasels, when I put the point to them, quite agreed with me, and said they wouldn't think of troubling me. They were very penitent, and said they were extremely sorry for what they had done. but it was all the fault of the Chief Weasel and the stoats, and if ever they could do anything for us at any time to make up, we had only got to mention it. So I gave them a roll a-piece, and let them out at the back, and off they ran, as hard as they could!'

Then the Mole pulled his chair up to the table, and pitched into the cold tongue; and Toad, like the gentleman he was, put all his jealousy from him, and said heartily, `Thank you kindly, dear Mole, for all your pains and trouble tonight, and especially for your cleverness this morning!' The Badger was pleased at that, and said, `There spoke my brave Toad!' So they finished their supper in great joy and contentment, and presently retired to rest between clean sheets, safe in Toad's ancestral home, won back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of sticks.

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