It's more like we're getting to know the country we're living in.
We can't lose sight of the millions deported by the Obama administration. We can't deny decades of lynchings and Jim Crow. We must not forget "No dogs or Irish." We fought a brutal civil war over the holding of human beings as property. We still live in the shadow of slavery. We have never atoned for the near-extermination of Native Americans.
Driving across the country, for hundreds of miles at a stretch with no company but country music stations and christian broadcasting, a question occurs:
Why is it that no one can write a country song in which righteous Yankee soldiers kick the ass of traitorous Confederate militia?
Historian Paul Street is interviewed by Truthout's Mickey Z.
Independent policy researcher, historian, journalist, activist, political commentator and speaker Paul Street harks back to the day of the public intellectual, a quaint time when facts and reasoned analysis were essential components of our political life.
Mickey Z.: So much of the American experience is based on myths like the two-party system, "land of opportunity," and more. How do you offer a more nuanced view of US history in your work?
Paul Street: I agree on the power of those great American myths and would add some other and related ones: the notion that the United States is a benevolent force for democracy and good in the world; the idea that that the profits system is a form of freedom and democracy; the myth that we can achieve significant democratic change simply by voting in quadrennial corporate-crafted and candidate-centered elections; the notion that we live in a "post-racial" era wherein racism has been mostly defeated; the myth of an independent and objective media. What I try to do to explode these and other key national legends is fairly similar to what you and other American dissidents like Bill Blum and Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn do. I try to rescue from what E.P. Thompson called "the enormous condescension of posterity" (and from what George Orwell termed "the memory hole") some of the many inconvenient facts that do not fit the official narrative imposed by the dominant fables. And I try to fit the doctrinally inappropriate alternative facts into a compelling, accurate counter-narrative that links past to present and vice versa.
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’? by Chris Hedges (TruthDig 2010-03-29). "The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die."
The Inhumanity of War by Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute (Huntington Post 2010-04-03). Constant warfare is good for America and boon to the world. Not.
Nearly six months ago, in a must-read piece in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer pondered the risks of the C.I.A.’s covert drone program (The Predator War 2009-10-26), Obama's ramping up of the terror bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The situation has only become more dire in the months since; as with the torture of prisoners, the debate over the indiscriminately murderous drones has devolved into an argument over how far we can go without committing acts that are actually indictable: see, Drone Attacks Are Legit Self-Defense, Says State Dept. Lawyer by Nathan Hodge (Danger Room 2010-03-26) and The Legal And Moral Issues Of Drone Use (NPR 2010-03-30) with Peter Bergen, Amitai Etzioni and Philip Alston.
Will the Pentagon send surveillance drones and other military support to the Somali government for its offensive against al-Qaida-linked insurgents, as the Associated Press reports? Perhaps you should ask your members of Congress.
Newsweek calls Afghanistan’s police force a ”$6 billion fiasco” that could cost us the war. Nation building is a risky business; no wonder presidential candidates promise not to do it.
"A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush." By Charlie Savage and James Risen (New York Times 2010-03-31).
And speaking of the important role of late night comedians in our national dialog, David Letterman's interview of Tea Party member Pam Stout on the Late Show was a "quietly remarkable piece of television," according to Entertainment Weekly's tv critic Ken Tucker.
Catch Henry Farrell and Daniel Drezner's Fun for the Whole Family episode on BloggingHeads -- will health care reform give Obama a foreign policy boost?; Obama and Netanyahu, less than the best of pals; The Frumble in the Jungle; can conservative intellectuals ride the Tea Party tiger?; the Catholic Church’s systemic failure; is the Greek financial crisis just the tip of the iceberg?:
Speaking of the Frumble in the Jungle, Carl Bloice takes on The Myth of the Sensible Center (Black Commentator 2010-04-01). Left, Right and Center become meaningless anyway when the central ideologies controlling our politics, corporatism and militarism, are forbidden subjects.
US GAO releases 2010 Assessments of Selected Weapons Programs (2010-03-30), one- or two-page assessments of 70 weapon programs, most found wanting against "best practices" criteria.
Music video of the week is from a tribute to Skip Spence's legendary Oar (full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for the second Moby Grape album), with a wild guitar solo by Wilco's Nels Cline:
Women in Their 90'S Who Make A Difference Today by Joan Wile (AfterDowningStreet 2010-04-03). My 94-year-old mother, having lent a hand in the battle to permit wind farms in New England, now wants take on the war in Afghanistan. "I think you should leave the world a little better than you found it," she says.
It took a while for the corporations to lay their cold dead hands fully on the the switches of mass media access after the terrifying (to them) social, intellectual and artistic cacophony of the 60s. Throughout the 70s and 80s, though, brief flashes of anarchy and creativity could still sneak past the cultural police lines, as in this energetic Black Leather Monster by punk rockers Wendy O. Williams and The Plasmatics on “Solid Gold,“ the pop hits countdown that usually featured lipsyncing bubblegum bands and eroto-aerobic dance routines.
A Critic's Place, Thumb and All is a thoughtful meditation on the future of arts criticism by Times film critic A.O.Scott (New York Times 2010-03-30).
Finally, a song much abused by karaoke singers is given its most disturbing reading ever:
One site to visit regularly for links to must-see web content is Best Free Documentaries. The site's proprietor, Dmitry Davydov (check out some of his other great blogs), scours the internet for worthwhile docs, with remarkable success. For example, today's offering is a video biography of the great anarchist writer and organizer Emma Goldman.
Essential reading: Living My Life by Emma Goldman (Penguin Classics)
Solidarity Education Center & The Center for Labor Renewal announce:
A program for all workers and activists who want to win struggles in workplaces...in communities...on the political front...and in the global economy.
Education for Struggle: All of America's workers are under relentless attack. No region of the country has been more oppressed than the U. S. South. Today's labor movement is on the defensive and its historic failure to build power and worker solidarity in the South has continuing consequences today. We need new workplace and community strategies to build a sustaining movement for social and economic justice throughout our region.
In the past unconventional worker schools and training models have played an important role South, providing "education for struggle" for past generations of activists. A new generation of activists needs to be prepared to lead a great struggle and build solidarity today's South and beyond.
The Solidarity Education Center's regional weekend schools are designed to bring members and leaders of worker and community organizations together to explore strategies to do just that.
Topics to be covered: History of Working Class Struggle in the South Challenges to Organizing the South - Jim Crow past, etc.; Immigration & New Working Class Realities; Building Solidarity out of Diversity War & Imperialism: The Price for Workers and Communities; Healthcare for All: A Fight We Can Win!; Politics for People: Building at the Base for Real Power; Strengthening Our Fightback in Workplaces & Communities; International Labor & Global Capital: An Injury to All.
Discussion leaders include regional labor educators, strategists, and social activists.
"No other country with a population of over 50 million has had as high a number of political assassinations or attempted assassinations....Why has the United States, with its commitment to rule of law and due process, been so susceptible to assassination?...The most troubling issue raised by political assassinations is whether they alter the course of history." -- from the website. <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/>
