The argument over statues and monuments tells us more than we want to face as a nation

As people may have read from me, I see the statues/monuments arguments as an informal, ad hoc truth and reconciliation commission. Statues and monuments are what tells a society what it values. I am therefore okay with a tear down of most statues, as they obscure the nasty truths we often want to cover up, ignore, or lie about. I want to see a whole different set of statues, of people we don't have to defend for heinous acts, including my saintly Abe Lincoln, who did stand up for African-Americans more than any other president of his time, but who nonetheless was largely willing to let US Cavalry slaughter Sioux and other Native American nations in the middle of our own nation's Civil War. This short piece at History.com shows how what we want to whitewash as a part of a continuing policy of starvation, removal, and ultimately extermination of Native Americans.  This article from a historian, however, does a more thorough job showing how Lincoln acted more in an ad hoc way, reduced the number of executions of convicted Native Americans in the reprisals from over 300 to 38, and immediately sought to reform US policy regarding Native Americans in a more humane and helpful way.  However, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has stated, in her brilliant polemical history, The Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (see Chapter Eight, "Indian Country"), Lincoln's range of policies were still part of a pattern of destruction of Native Americans' nations, and extermination of most of their people.  

However, we should also see this growing and continuing argument over these statues and monuments as something much more hard to face. This statues/monuments argument sadly reflects how our nation's politics are drenched in mere symbolism, whether it is this argument over 100 and 120 year old statues/monuments, Trump holding a Bible, Nancy Pelosi wearing a kente, or Congress critters arguing over adding a substantively meaningless one line amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that refers to "lynching," even though federal laws against the act of lynching--without using the actual term "lynching"--have been in existence for over two decades. These types of arguments reflect a sad, hard truth, which is our nation's political structures are substantively unresponsive to most Americans--and how we are essentially an oligopoly, where only rich people and corporations have and receive representative government when it comes to economic power distribution, and with respect to how our nation conducts its foreign policies, both economic and military. 

Worse, our corporate-owned media continually distract us with their incessant focus on symbolism, and, how they tell us to vote for people based upon superficial levels of gender, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, the place one attended school, and the like. Or, when that same corporate media want us to vote for an old white guy--cough, cough, Biden--they tell us he is "moderate," "centrist," "no drama," etc. all while pushing (and influencing) us to think our own world views, political policy proposals, and reformed structures have no validity, or any significant support across the political duopoly of the Democratic and Republican Parties--when of course, the polling data they won't talk about tells us the majority of Americans actually agree with us. 

This week, we saw how people voted, in various elections, for candidates who openly demanded a particular change in particular public policies. Corporate media talking heads then hastened to tell us what we saw did not happen, and told us the elections merely showed people are being driven by anxiety and anger without knowing what precisely was being talked about.  

It is why I am both happy and sad over the debate over statues and monuments.  It is great to see people arguing over history in a way they learn more than they did in school.  It is sad because it is about symbols and it is reflective of the way in which we feel powerless in the face of the owners of our nation, and the way the owners control substantive policy-making in all three branches of our national government, and our various state and local governments.

Bernie's unemployment provisions have saved millions of Americans from dire poverty in a pandemic

This article from Slate's Jordan Weissmann supporting the continuation the unemployment benefit of $600 a week is nicely argued. It is not 100% persuasive to those of a different world view or political philosophy, but shows us the cruelty inherent in anyone's world view or political philosophy if they disagree with his arguments. 

I don't think many economists, let alone political pundits, realize how deep our nation's economic problems would be if we did not have people (including me) receiving that extra $600 a week on top of the usual unemployment check. What has happened is the US chose a different route than most of the other civilized nations. Instead of nationalizing payroll departments of most businesses, so as to keep people technically employed, and practically speaking, tethered to their jobs, the US ended up letting people get laid off, and had people wait weeks or months to start getting money again. This is still a bad result because, instead of maintaining people's employer-based health coverage, millions were now solely responsible to pay into their employer-based health coverage, so that much of the $600 would go to the health insurance companies. 

I thank God Bernie Sanders put in that provision for the extra $600 and a provision which widened definition of "unemployment" to include gig workers, small business owners with no employees, and independent contractors, that people like McConnell, Graham, Schumer, and Pelosi did not read carefully. It is one of those rare instances where the incompetence of these leaders overwhelmed their corruption, and, in the case of Graham and McConnell, cruelty on top of corruption.

Trump wants to give China what it wants because he knows he can fool enough people while doing so

Digby read the Bolton book chapter on China, which has been excerpted for public consumption, so I didn't have to waste my time. Digby includes significant block quotes from Bolton's book, revealing Trump sucking up to China's President for Life, Xi, and begging Xi to help Trump get re-elected. It shows Trump wanting to protect China's private-public companies' desire to further infiltrate the US telecommunications market. Trump even tells Xi it is the Democrats who hate China, and that he wants to be friends with China and its business-political complex that resembles classic fascism more than anything else. 

For me, there are the historical antecedents to Trump's brazen behavior. In the presidential election year of 1972, Nixon and Kissinger, during the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) with the then-Soviet Union, threw away many nuclear cards the US held in order to have a deal--literally any deal--cut with the Soviet Union. Gerard Smith, the lead US negotiator, never forgave Nixon and Kissinger for their short term political actions, and wrote about it in detail in his book on the topic. Sy Hersh, in his masterful take down of Kissinger, spoke with Smith, and relied upon Smith's perspective, for the chapters on the negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding strategic arms.

Trump does the work for the international corporations, while Tweeting racism and fascism to divert his fans. It is really that obvious if one cared to look and read. I am not saying Bolton should be fully trusted, and Bolton is a hardline hawk for the American Empire. However, Trump's conduct is so consistent with Trump's narcissism and corruption, and so consistent with Trump's drive for autocratic power. What should concern any thinking or honest American is why even right wing generals like Mattis, who supported Trump in 2016, and eagerly joined Trump's administration, blanched at what they saw with Trump. Trump spoke like a hawk, as did Nixon and Kissinger, but both sell out their hawkish views and pretty much anything, to secure and maintain power. It is not statesmanship. It is not anything but autocratic power of a cynical, manipulative type, and designed to zig and zag to keep opponents on the defensive and confused.

Anyone considering voting for Trump again is beyond any reasonable position for any patriotic oriented American should take.

A great article about how the ghosts of George Floyd and the Confederacy haunt our nation (with great links and information)

This article in Salon is worth reading, especially the links. It points out the following, for those seeking a summary:

1. From 1877 to 1950, nearly 4,000 individuals were the victims of lynchings. Some have speculated that as many as 75% of historical lynchings "were perpetrated with the direct or indirect assistance of law enforcement personnel." Despite drawing attention from large crowds, many perpetrators of historical lynchings were never charged with a crime — a fact seen in many modern-day officer-involved shootings.

2.  In comparing "historical lynchings and present-day officer-involved shootings," the researchers concluded that "historical lynchings are positively associated with officer-involved shootings for Blacks. That is, counties that experienced a higher number of historical lynchings have larger shares of officer-involved shootings of Blacks in the last five years."

3. Political scientists have shown that Southern counties which had a Ku Klux Klan chapter in the 1960s were more likely to abandon the Democratic Party and become Republican. This shift in party allegiance came in large part in response to the Democratic Party's support of the civil rights movement.  A 2016 article in the Journal of Politics shows that white Southerners who live in counties where the enslavement of Black people was prevalent are now more likely to be conservative, vote Republican and possess hostile attitudes towards Black people, compared to white people who live in counties where slavery was not as common.

4. A 2016 YouGov/Economist public opinion poll suggested that 20 percent of Trump supporters believe that Black people should still be slaves.  Deplorable, right?  Really.  Right?

The entire article is worth the read, including the personal thoughts of an African-American woman quoted near the start of the article, noting it is not her blackness which should be a cause for worry and despair, but racism.  The end has thoughts from a white southerner who is a modern novelist, who captures my very thoughts about the topic of the Confederate (really Northern Virginia army) flag and the Confederate generals' and presidents' monuments erected at the end of the 19th Century and early 20th Century to re-enforce white supermacy.

A great review of Thomas Piketty's book in The Nation suffers from a bias against Marx and Marxist intellectuals--but is otherwise an excellent review

This is an excellent review, from The Nation magazine, of Thomas Piketty's 1,110 page book, Capital and Ideology. My criticisms of the book review are two-fold:

1. The author, Cole Strangler, shows a clear, and, frankly, ignorant, anti-Marxist intellectual bias. Strangler asserts Marx and Marxist intellectuals had no conception how ruling classes' ideologies play a role in suppressing far-reaching reformist thoughts, let alone revolutionary action. In fact, Marx wrote a work called The German Ideology, and explained how ruling class ideas are used in modern societies to maintain and enforce capitalist political and economic power. Worse, Strangler appears oblivious to Antonio Gramsci, the leading early 20th Century Italian Marxist, who wrote about how capitalists use coercion, force, and ideology to maintain and enhance power. 

2. Strangler never mentions the way in which corporate dominated media play a major enforcement role in maintaining and enhancing corporate capitalists' power, despite his recognizing Piketty's point that ideology is central to how corporate crony capitalists maintain power (I am using crony capitalist here to ensure libertarians can be part of the critique).

These critiques are substantive, but relatively inconsequential compared to the information Strangler provided in his otherwise able review. The review makes clear Piketty's points, which are: (1) the redistributive policies of the early to mid 20th Century republics were largely successful in ameliorating terrible economic inequality, and did wonders in creating a healthy working class, but (2) global markets undermined the ability to implement further redistributive policies, and, worse, capitalists were able to convince a sizable voting majority of voters to accept more and more pro-capitalist and anti-redistributive policies; and (3) The educated classes (what Barbara Ehreneich calls the professional-managerial class), became the focus of Europe's Labour and Left parties, and, in the US, the Democratic Party, which fractured worker solidarity that had given rise to the more effective Labour parties, and US Democratic Party, in the early to mid 20th Century.  Of course, outside of this analysis is the racism factor, though it is part of #2 and #3, and helps explain how a sizable part of the white working class went to right wing xenophobic and racist appeals from the Republicans and Conservative Parties across the North Atlantic and into Europe.

Strangler's review in The Nation is must reading in helping us understand what Piketty is trying to set forth, though less for what a more radical vision may begin to look like. Reading the excellent book review also helps us be more understood when we note how our society's mental health problems arise, in part, from the stresses of economic and political inequality. The beauty and really irony in reading Strangler's book review is readers may now better understand Frederic Lordon's outstanding substantive critique of Piketty's work, which critique, unfortunately, Strangler caricatures to begin his detailed review. It is on par with Strangler's anti-Marxist intellectual bent, again, unfortunately.

One day, we will return Marx to the pantheon of economic and political philosophers--not because Marx is a god or is right about everything. What I simply mean is returning Marx to the pantheon allows us to understand the development of Western political and economic philosophy, as Marx helps explain Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and understand their limitations. Reading Marx directly, and without Cold War propagandistic blinders, may help readers better understand those who came after, and who were critical of, Marx, including non-Marxists such as John Dewey, John Milton Keynes, Buckminster Fuller, Bertrand Russell, and Joseph Schumpeter, among others, and those who embraced or built upon Marx's thoughts and arguments, such as Gramsci, Paul Sweezy, Harry Braverman, Michael Harrington, and David Harvey.

The fight between environmentalists and workers is more often a hoax designed to enrich corporate power

See here and here.  Erik Loomis is an excellent labor historian.

I have read similar arguments over previous decades from Ralph Nader, RFK, Jr. (before he glommed on to anti-vaccine positions), and others.  And, most recently from Bernie Sanders, with Sanders' pro-labor Green New Deal platform.

To no avail.  

Most Americans remain entrenched in thinking environmental policies only destroy workers' jobs.

Sad. 

And what is really frustrating is Sara Nelson, flight attendants' union leader, truly understands this.  If only other current labor leaders were half as great as Nelson.

CHAZ is the threat of a good example

For those of us who know about the history of the Paris Commune, there are echoes with regard to the CHAZ movement-district in Seattle, starting with misinformation and disinformation from those in establishment authority, from media to government to police organizations. There are echoes in how much misinformation and disinformation was printed in and after February 1917, when the Czar was deposed, and how such errors of fact and lies accelerated after the October 1917 revolution throughout American newspapers (radio would not show up until around 1920). In 1920, a then-young Walter Lippmann and another reporter, Charles Merz, analyzed and evaluated the lies and misinformation the NY Times told against the Russian Revolution, in a long article printed in the New Republic, that should be required reading for at least any journalism class. It was stunning to me when I pulled it out of a college library to read through back in the 1980s.

I feel badly for older people in the US who rely on cable news, particularly FoxNews, in this instance, but even CNN and MSNBC, as they will never really get to what is happening in the so-called CHAZ. What needs to be recognized by all is this CHAZ will eventually fade away, as it is simply not large enough to be anything other than a long term Woodstock situation. What the CHAZ portends, however, is what worries those who revel in the mis- and disinformation. The CHAZ is a danger to those in power in our nation because it is the threat of a good example of human cooperation. It is the threat of a good example of non-punitive policing. It is the threat of a good example of priorities that are not market based. It is a threat of a good example of responsiveness to communal needs.

These are the threats that animate the need for lies and errors of fact regarding what has happened and is happening in a small district in Seattle.

David Brin remains correct about the privacy vs. transparency issue

John Oliver did his usual great show last night, this time on the mis-reliance on and promises/dangers of facial recognition technology.  His focus was more on the incompetence of the technology at this stage, but also the dangers more than promises of the technology advancing to near perfection.

I kept waiting for Oliver to talk about David Brin's critique of the privacy primacy argument.  Unfortunately, he didn't.  

Here are three links where Brin sets forth his position. Brin's book, Transparency, from 1998 (!), remains a Bible of sorts in discussing Brin's theory of watching the watchers, and what he sometimes calls "sousveillance," which is the opposite of surveillance. I agree with Brin for the simple reason that he is correct from a most practical viewpoint.  Brin, as a sci-fi writer and astrophysicist, and sometimes consultant to the US military, knows the dystopian scenarios, and is a major advocate for the goals of those who seek privacy.  What is indisputable, however, is Brin's point that if we outlaw the technology, it goes underground, and only available to the worst of the worst, and the government will establish secret channels to use the technology, too.*  

Early in Oliver's show, Oliver provides an example about the creepy guy at the bar taking a random woman's photo, and, using facial recognition technology, finds out her phone number, where she lives, and works, and other personal information.  Then, the creepy guy texts her, and says he is going to stop by this evening at her home, and hopes she is home.  Brin's response would be that the software would have a protective device alerting the woman that someone is taking her photo, and giving the information on that person taking the photo.  And of course, Brin understands some geeky creep will try to develop a technology that gets around that protective device, and we are adding another layer to the continued battleground of encryption. Brin's point is technology wants to be free and will continue to develop, whether or not we put up our hands and shout "Stop!" And we should welcome this development for the same reason Star Trek based societies want to explore the universe through the open intergalactic government known as the Federation of Planets. Open and wise inquiry is a most salutary and positive goal and value.

In fairness to Oliver, it is hard to see where Oliver could have found time to describe, let alone develop, Brin's analysis, as it is a perspective not often discussed when these privacy issues are raised in corporate media articles and interviews.  I expect Brin may contact Oliver and offer to have a discussion with him. That would be great, if that could occur and Oliver agreed to conduct the interview.  We need to move beyond Skynet and Project Insight scenarios and realize our most effective, though still uncertain, defense is sunlight and disinfectant. Big Brother technology will continue to develop whether or not we try to outlaw it. To effectively combat Big Brother, we have to be able to watch government and business back.  It is why Brin is such a big booster of Edward Snowden, for example.  

If there is an historical analogy anywhere, it may be in Calvin Coolidge's Secretary of State Frank Kellogg thinking, in 1928, he could outlaw war.  You couldn't outlaw war then, and you can't today.  And frankly, no pun intended Mr. Kellogg, we should not outlaw war because a war may sometimes be necessary. With technological developments, we need to ensure commonly used technologies are diffused throughout the population so as to minimize overreach and abuse from government and corporations. 

* For those who say, Shouldn't we apply Brin's argument to guns, the response is there are differences between computers and guns. First, computers are ubiquitous, have many positive and non-lethal uses, and are already fairly diffused throughout our society. A gun is great to have (well, maybe not...), and is only to be sparingly used, and under extreme conditions. Handing out guns to the general population would arguably lead to increased violence, while handing out computers and wi-fi access would be a much more positive development for our society. Additionally, putting someone in jail for misuse of a gun, or having an unregistered gun, is a far more practical task for law enforcement. Unlike guns, not having a computer, in a society already as wired as ours, puts people at disadvantages which have far reaching economic, political, and cultural ramifications.  I also agree with David Brin the issue regarding guns should not revolve around banning or not banning weapons, whether military weaponry or AR-15s, though an argument may be made for continuing to ban military-style weapons, including even AR-15s. Instead, the gun control issue should be centered around accountability, and, in the context or substance for that term, accountability, we should treat guns like cars, with continued testing, license renewals, insurance, and other regulations.

Vice President Michelle Lujan-Grisham?

My God, what a motley VP list. However, Michelle Lujan Grisham aka MLG, New Mexico's governor, is definitely the best of this bunch. If this strategic leak was not a cynical trial balloon--and I think it is not at all a final list--MLG may really have a running chance to be a VP nominee. 

I am convinced this so-called list was really leaked to tell Amy Klobuchar and Stacey Abrams they are no longer in the running. I therefore predict another list will be leaked in about a week.

I mean, really, look at this so-called short list: two cops, Harris and Demings, an odious traitor to the progressives with no constituency Biden needs to win (Warren), and a mayor with no showing she knows anything about national policies. Oh, and Susan Rice, who has never been in any position of true electoral leadership, such as, say, a national union leader who was in the trenches negotiating major legislation, hint, hint, Sara Nelson. If he picks Rice, the whole Benghazi nonsense gets another vampiric lease on life.

Still, MLG making the "this week's top five," to quote the late Casey Kasem, is the big surprise. As my closest friend here in NM and I say, MLG is definitely the best of the national corporate-oriented Dems, and has shown great humane flexibility and strength since assuming office after winning the governor position in 2018. MLG also served nearly a decade in Congress, and knows the DC critters and federal electoral politics. And...she is a Latina, and Biden desperately needs Latino voters to energize for this fall's election. Heck, I think I just made the case for MLG for VP, didn't I? 

But, what about that pesky sexual assault claim against MLG late last year from the disgruntled, can't-play-well-with-others and now former campaign advisor guy? See here for the background. My take is, now that the hypocrisy of #MeToo and NOW have been exposed, Don't mind that torpedo, full speed ahead! The hypocrisy is only going to get worse in our culture anyway, as Ms. Roving Eye, Republican Nikki Haley, is already doing her best to run for president in 2024. And to listen to Haley's appeals to xenophobia and racism, you would think the daughter of South Asian immigrants was a white Southern belle from the Antebellum period. So, my advice to MLG on the sexual assault allegation is: Say what you've said, which is "It didn't happen." But now, add, "If it did, so what?" 

Onward and upward, MLG!

Trump moved Tulsa rally one day to avoid juxtaposition of his pro-white nationalism and Juneteenth

So, Trump moved his Tulsa, OK rally from June 19, aka Juneteenth, to June 20.

If Trump had "many" African-American friends, why not hold the rally and celebrate Juneteenth, and provide an education oriented speech which many of Trump's white fans could use right now? 

Trump knows he does not want to celebrate Juneteenth, or anything relating to African-Americans. He moved it to the 20th to stop the juxtaposition with Juneteenth.  It should not be lost on anyone how Trump is no longer using "very fine people on both sides" remarks he used during and after Charlottesville protests, where many in the pro-Trump/pro-Confederate monument side were pretty scary in their racism and anti-Semitism. Now, faced with multi-colored protestors, mostly peaceable, demanding reform of the racism inherent in our criminal justice system, Trump's remarks are about crackdowns against protestors, continued criticism of the protestors, as well as unending exhortations in favor of police and National Guard forces--when there are so many recorded instances of police and National Guard overreach and abuse in responding to the protesters.

Trump moved the date of his rally, practically unnecessary in Oklahoma, a state he remains slated to win big in November, in order to make sure his pro-white nationalist message did not have to be tempered.

The duplicity of Blairites in the Labour Party and destruction of the Corbyn candidacy, and its echoes into American media and politics

Here is an op-ed piece from a pro-Tory/Conservative reporter, Peter Oborne from the London Daily Telegraph, and David Hearst, a Middle East correspondent who wrote for various newspapers in the US, Great Britain, and elsewhere. The two writers analyze and admit something they would not otherwise like to admit, about how corporate media manufactures narratives. The op-ed is about how Jeremy Corbyn, a genuinely nice, intelligent, caring person, who favored policies well within the range of mid-20th Century economic policy positions that created the British "general welfare" state, and whose mother had fought on behalf of British Jews against Nazis inside Britain,* was turned into some sort of Stalin-esque monster and an anti-Semite.  Here is their interview with Corbyn, which itself is worth reading as it helps readers see how astute, deeply knowledgeable, and empathetic Corbyn actually is on a host of political, historical, and literary issues, especially including Brexit and the European Union, and the discussion of anti-Semitism.  Corbyn truly understands the pros and cons regarding the European Union, which is also what Yanis Varoufakis has long understood, and this interview Varoufakis did a few years ago with Corbyn shows Corbyn's perhaps-too-subtle view, though it has been consistently and resolutely held.

The op-ed from Oborne and Hearst is another part of what we had learned, in April of this year, how the Labour Party's own internal investigation revealed various Blairite leaders in the Labour Party were hoping the party's fortunes would fail in order that Corbyn could be replaced, and how it was those Blairites who, ironically, were in charge of "investigating" anti-Semitic statements from members and local political officials.  See this article in Jacboin about the report, and this article from Jonathan Cook at the same online magazine as the initial article cited in this post. 

What I saw, in real time, and repeat now, is how British corporate-dominated media, and most shockingly, the BBC, were willing to overlook Tory anti-Semitism, and work, hand in hand (whether there were meetings is not the point, as I seriously do not think any were had nor were any meetings necessary) to destroy Corbyn, and, each time, when Corbyn tried to be conciliatory, it only made him look weak at a time British regular folks were looking for resoluteness. See my initial take the morning after the election, and this take from the brilliant David Graeber in the New York Review of Books a few weeks later.  I had updated my "initial take" post showing how polling data proved fairly well what I had thought about the lack of resoluteness, and the media attacks on Corbyn as both monstrous and dithering worked to undermine Labour, and how, in an ironic twist of fate, most of the Labour seats lost were of Blairites--including one particularly odious (and sadly Jewish) anti-Corbyn MP, Ruth Smeeth.** 

The anti-Semite charge against Corbyn was always, to me, as a person of Jewish religious heritage, most astonishing and most defamatory.  I went through each of the allegations against Corbyn, and found the same consistency that he followed during the Northern Ireland wars in the 1970s through 1990s.  He was accused then of being pro-Irish Republican Army, but those who rip into Corbyn seem to want to ignore how even then Tory Prime Minister Cameron acknowledged the truth behind the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" massacre, which had been Corbyn's position nearly all along.

What I have learned, since the time of the British elections last December, is Corbyn lost older voters who remembered the unfair attacks on Corbyn for his "support" for the IRA, when, of course, it was not support in any nefarious sense, but one of common decency, and genuinely seeking peace.  That the organized Jewish community, led by an anti-female and homophobic, and anti-pluralistic, Chief Rabbi, who wrongly attacked Corbyn personally for being anti-Semitic,*** were hysterical in their attacks on Corbyn and Labour, was an icing on the cake of overall media dishonesty.

Had Bernie Sanders won the Democratic Party's nomination, I can't help but think corporate media, and their allies in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, would have gone out of its way to undermine Bernie's candidacy, the way the British media and Blairites did with Corbyn. These people would rather lose to fascistic elements in the opposing conservative parties than win with anyone who would challenge the societal inequities to which they sometimes give lip service of wanting to change. It is why I am continuing to think about #DemExit after November, notwithstanding my support for most Democrats up and down the ticket--while still refusing to endorse Biden at this point, notwithstanding his now having enough delegates for a first round victory.  Anyone who thinks the corporate elite oriented Democrats, or their handmaidens in corporate media, really want "unity" in any honest way need merely return to 1972, when the corporate powers already in the Democratic Party, and the reactionary union leader, George Meany, deserted and sabotaged another decent, kind, and intelligent candidate, George McGovern. It is bad enough for progressives to have to fight media powers, who continue to overly influence too many Democratic Party voters. However, it is not possible to successfully fight that media, when those in the same party have their knives out and attack anyone and anything resembling progressive policies, which would get to the heart of our society's inequities.  At least with a new political party, which has no corporate power within it, one may convince its growing rolls of voters to not trust broadcast corporate media narratives and presentations.

As an aside, I should add I found this paragraph in the Oborne/Hearst article amusingly telling, as it shows, once again, how fascism will ape socialist policies from time to time, as part of its relentless sowing of division and hate against those on the "outside" or oppressed in a given society:

By another irony, once he had won the election, Johnson adopted a number of Corbyn’s policies which he had previously denounced as unworkable. 

Since becoming prime minister, Johnson has abandoned planned cuts in corporation tax, announced plans to nationalise Northern Rail and announced £100bn funding for infrastructure projects.

Mussolini supposedly (not really) made the "trains run on time" and started mass work projects, as did Hitler.  This is how fascists roll, and it is Trump's last card to play as this election heads into the final two seasons.  Watch for this, as Trump and the Republicans becoming increasingly scared enough of the Rust Belt and other places where Trump won in 2016 decide they may not vote for him again.

* And if you think it was because his mother was some fellow traveler Commie only following Moscow-directed orders in the 1930s, see this article in Ha'aretz, which contains, sadly, a fairly long drive-by against Corbyn, which explains how the fight on Cable Street was one where not only individual Jews, but neighbors and decent people were willing to do what most political groups and parties, including the Communist Party, refused to do. Corbyn's mother was active on behalf of the Spanish Republic in the mid to late 1930s, which put her in the firm left political category.  Her decision, then, meant she was willing to stand up and not follow political party when it went against her comscience.

** Wikileaks had previously disclosed confidential government documents showing Smeeth to have been a pro-US government person who, in American Red Scare parlance, would have qualified her as an "agent." The phrase "strictly protect" in parentheses next to her name in the Wikileaks exposed government cable means she is someone the government believes to be a person who provides "confidential" information. See this article in Wired. And see this backgrounder on her from a decidedly harsh and polemical source, WikiSpooks.  One should read the links, as opposed to the opinions and conclusions, and see how applying the style of arguments Ms. Smeeth, her establishment husband Michael, and others made against Corbyn, when applied to her, fit her more snugly.  No, I don't believe Smeeth a "spy" for US governmental interests, but that did not stop her from playing her role in the attacks on Corbyn.

*** Here is a deep dive run down of many of the attacks on Corbyn and anti-Semitism.  For me, when I looked at most of the allegations against Corbyn, I found them mostly a confusion between anti-Israeli government behaviors and anti-Semitism.  And to attack Corbyn for maintaining lines of communication with Arab groups which mouth anti-Semitism within their anti-Zionism, and not rip into how "mainstream" politicians hang with the Waahabist Saudis, which are virulently anti-Semitic, though not much in the anti-Israel camp, at least officially, is the worst form of hypocrisy. 

An old Dutch prog band knocked me over today

Sometimes YouTube knows what I want and need to hear.  There was a Dutch prog band, Solution, from the early 1970s I had missed the first time around.  I am knocked over by them.

Here is their album, Cordon Bleu, released in 1975. It is great to just let roll.

Rand Paul's racially tinged con game

I have long said, in the history of the United States, we should be wary of people who lead with the value known as "liberty." "Liberty" was often the rallying cry of slaveholders dating back to Patrick Henry, and later Confederates, and then, starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the soft language about "liberty" to refuse service at public accommodations as deprivation of private conscience.  One hears this language in those who wish to refuse public accommodation services to gays and lesbians, this time with the qualifier, "religious liberty."

We now have the spectacle of Senator Rand Paul (R-TN), who, in the past, has said his so-called "libertarian" principles would have caused him to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act, now refusing to support the anti-lynching bill which Congress is on the verge of passing.

I listened to Rand Paul's speech in favor of his amendment to limit the scope of the legislation to serious bodily injury or death, and thought, maybe he is not so off here. The proposed statute's title says "Lynching," a word which has long implied death, torture, or severe beatings by a group of individuals for racially motivated reasons. As phrased, this statute would appear to expand the term "lynching" to include someone getting shoved or someone getting a mere cut no different than what happens in a touch football game--but with racial or ethnic animus. But, then, I went through the proposed statute's wording in detail and went through the previous legislation upon which it is built. It was then I realized Senator Paul is playing a con game that is, sadly, consistent with the history of legislative obstruction racists in Congress have long perfected, going back to the Constitutional Convention, let alone the Antebellum period, meaning before the US Civil War (1861-1865). 

Let's start with the language of the bill, which is, again, on the verge of passing in the Congress.  It states, after a long preamble of "Whereas'es":

Sec. 3. LYNCHING

(a) Offense.—Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

Ҥ 250. Lynching

Whoever conspires with another person to violate section 245, 247, or 249 of this title or section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) shall be punished in the same manner as a completed violation of such section, except that if the maximum term of imprisonment for such completed violation is less than 10 years, the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years.

I then reviewed 18 USC 245, 18 USC 247, and 18 USC 249 to see what they state. 18 USC 245 is a law which sanctions persons who act, under alleged authority of law, to deprive other persons of rights to participate in what are delineated as "federally protected activities." 18 USC 247 makes it federal crime for a person to damage religious property or obstruct, through threat of force, persons in the exercise of religious beliefs, with an additional component for racist or other similar motivation.  18 USC 249 is the federal hate crimes statute.

What I noticed about the three statutes, 245, 247, and 249, is none of them had any wording that included "conspiracy," "aid," "abet," etc. Note now the language of proposed 18 USC 250 "Lynching" expressly using the word "conspiracy" to add to three other statutes. The use of the word "conspiracy," then, goes to the very definition of lynching in the sense of multiple people being involved in the violation of another person's civil rights.

However, there is already a section for "conspiracy" to violate civil rights in the same statutory chapter, 18 USC 241. The statute states in part:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same. (Underline added)

Therefore, prosecutors across the United States have already had the right to prosecute two or more persons who conspire to violate 245, 247, and 249. The proposed statute, then, appears to be symbolic, which is why nearly all members of Congress, including the modern John C. Calhoun, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), are supporting this bill.  The reason for the long preamble of the proposed statute is, therefore, to provide the nation with a history lesson about lynching, and most importantly, Congress' own failure to pass the legislation. This makes the preamble to the legislation more substantive and important than the actual legislation--and makes the legislation essentially a resolution in statutory guise.  Here is an op-ed by an African-American journalist, Stacey Patton, who has written extensively on institutional and unofficial violence against African-Americans, on the token symbolism of this bill. 

Sadly, as we know from long observation, Congress loves nothing more than symbolic acts, virtue signaling, and the like. If one watches Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) speak after Rand Paul's speech, one hears little but emotion and outrage from her, which is, knowing how intelligent and sharp she is, merely grandstanding and virtue signaling, a specialty in which Senator Harris excels. Harris, who, as District Attorney in San Francisco, liked to lock up poor, minority mothers to somehow make their children attend school with more regularity, says nothing in her outrage that would show us how this bill would result in any substantive change in the law. Instead, Harris sputters in emotionally-laden rage, which is perfect for MSNBC "commentary."

However, I am not here to defend Rand Paul. I write to condemn Rand Paul's objection and proposed amendment because his words and actions are also symbolic. We already have "conspiracy" embedded within the statutes 245, 247, and 249, which would include a simple cut, abrasion, or wound that heals in little time or is merely temporary. And, contrary to Paul's concern trolling, there is no evidence police officers have been hampered in apprehending people accused of crimes nor have there been abuses of the existing laws regarding deprivation of federal civil rights. Rand himself admits, ever so quickly and slightly in his remarks, the symbolism involved in the bill. And Harris, working herself up in a quivering faux outrage voice little different from the woman in Central Park trying to sic police on a black man for having the temerity to request she follow dog leash rules in that park, faintly admits, at one point, the bill's symbolism.

Is one symbolic gesture worse than the other?  Yes. Rand's symbolism is far worse. Rand is arguing for a narrowly-conceived, technical legal wording in a one-line statute (apart from a long preamble), which itself is based upon word-police political correctness concerning the word "lynching." For Rand Paul, who ranted against political correctness, when demanding more attention be made regarding the Obama administration's response to the 2014 ebola virus situation, as the virus came from, hmmmm, Africa, his sudden concern for politically correct language is hypocrisy in an odious cause. When placed in the context of symbolism and virtue signaling, what we see is Rand Paul's action is not virtue-signaling. Instead, Paul is vice-signaling in acting to block passage of a bill that merely represents recognition of the US Congress' own failure to protect African-Americans from official and unofficial violence for over a century after the Civil War.

In Rand Paul's action to block the bill, Paul is symbolically upholding and re-affirming the history of racism within the US Congress itself, no matter how much he may otherwise protest, and no matter how much he claims to want to stop police militarization, and his claim in his speech that he may support ending the "qualified immunity" for police officers. Again, Rand Paul is the man who has already publicly said he would have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act (pathetically trying to draw some distinction between property rights and civil rights in that context, which is practically speaking, impossible). He is also insensitive to the very reasonable argument that much of the modern libertarian movement was founded, and developed, in concert with racism-based opposition to the civil rights movement, particularly in the American South, including Paul's state of Kentucky, than with any true concern for "liberty of conscience" or "freedom" of the "individual." When all of this is considered, Paul's symbolism in offering a symbolic amendment to a symbolic bill is insulting and ugly--especially when Rand acted on the day of George Floyd's funeral, and ten days of grief, outrage, protests, and rioting.

Yes, when this bill passes, and Trump signs the bill, and when Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris do their victory laps on MSNBC and CNN, I will be saying, as did Ms. Patton above, this bill is vacuous, symbolic virtue signaling, and that what is necessary are real structural reforms and accountability to combat deep institutional and informal racism in our society. However, it is important to notice, right now, what Rand Paul has done, and acknowledge how deep the racism in our society goes in whatever we choose to argue about nearly anything else. Rand Paul has shown us once more why anyone who studies the Antebellum period, especially, should not be fooled by the sectional arguments over tariff policy, internal improvements, the continental railroad, or any number of issues, or think the ensuing Civil War was about anything equal to or greater than slavery and racism in American society. Whatever we Americans argue about, then or now, there is, embedded within the arguments, the continuing deep stains of racism. To not acknowledge that simple fact is to miss the significance of the debates over those other issues that are otherwise separate from racism in American society. This is not to say there are not substantive policy disputes concerning tariff legislation, internal improvement legislation, and the like. However, I am saying these disputes can never be properly understood without recognition of the emotionally laden argument over race, from slavery, through Jim Crow, and through our present age of mass incarceration.

Rand Paul can pass all the lie detector tests in the world (assuming lie detector tests are valid), and tell us, at gunpoint, how he is not racist. However, his actions speak louder than any denial about where he stands in the continuing argument over racism in American society.  The sad part is how Booker, Harris, Klobuchar, and Biden before them, have been accomplices, for their own self-promotion, in that continuing argument.

We have learned so little and have still not apologized to our children and grandchildren

This interview by neo-con Jeffrey Goldberg with General "Mad Dog" Mattis, who I have long detested for being a warmonger and a war criminal, much more in the mode of the infamous General LeMay than General Patton (no prize from me for Patton, either, but that is a topic for another day), shows Mattis has finally decided he could no longer avoid facing the consequences of what he supported throughout his life. It reminds me of something in the deepening past. Cut back to The Atlantic, circa December 1981, when David Stockman spoke bluntly with the now late writer, William Greider, and admitted the lie behind Ronald Reagan's economic policies, particularly when Stockman, then head of the Office of Management and Budget for the Reagan White House, and considered the architect who managed the data and arguments to push the Reagan economic agenda, admitted these were designed--and I repeat, designed--to undermine the middle and working classes, punish the poor, and exult the rich.  

And yet, too many of us continued to elect people like Reagan, elected Clinton to finish so much of Reagan's ultimate plan, and kept on voting badly, including both choices each party threw up in primaries throughout all these decades, all while continuing to revere Reagan himself.  Worse, so few of us have ever come to grips with the corporate hoax known as the Cold War, the significance of us allowing our nation's leaders to commit so much havoc, torture, and murder around the globe, creating and maintaining the military-industrial complex, which we turned into a prison-industrial complex here at home, and diverting us with the entertainment-industrial complex. So complex, one may say, but oh so interrelated, and oh so clear to anyone who stepped away from their corporate media network cable news and programming.  

We did this, or allowed this, for our own selfish economic ends. We did this for our own racism, which we justified with our fears of the people who our police otherwise oppressed and treated like a colony within our own nation. And all the while we maintained a confident, yet, uninformed set of prejudices we arrogantly called "life experience."

Ah, to live long enough to see so many echoes of past eras.  And to see how little many in our generation and my parents' generation have learned. So very little. But, sure.  Tell us we have to vote for Biden as we continue spouting our uninformed opinions with an arrogance and refusal to see how reforming our nation's systemic racism requires some sacrifice on our part for the good of others who have so long suffered.    

I guess the reason we could end up voting for Biden in November is not because of anything positive about Biden, or any foolish belief Biden ever means what he says with regard to anything hopeful. It will only be, and I repeat, only be because Trump has now ripped off any pretense of following any open governmental norms.  Here we sit in June and I am still not on board with Biden, though he is now only forty odd delegates from a first round ballot nomination for president by a confused, frustrated, and frankly frightened Democratic Party electorate. But, really, what is Joe Biden really going to do to positively earn any votes of the disaffected, especially when exit polling data* shows the Bernie Sanders agenda to complete the New Deal is far more popular, and people were more herded by fear and propaganda to vote for Biden?  What of those millions of young people, who voted for a true hope for a better world with Sanders? There is really nothing--just more vote shaming, and misplaced analogies to the 1920s and early 1930s German Weimar Republic, (see the final footnote at the bottom of this long blog post, where I exposed why that historically based analogy and argument is wrong).  

The question of the hour is when will my fellow adults take some responsibility for what our generations have done to get us to this place?  I still see no contrition, no humility, no understanding of how Trump is the result of our conduct over decades.  None.  

I say to my generation and older: Live with your fear.  Live with your arrogant ignorance. And worry, and I mean, worry, about me as well as others who are not going along with your continually stupid, mean-spirited decisions which have brought us here. You figure it out.  There is an answer or set of answers.  Do your own homework for once in your benighted, blinkered lives.   

*I guess I should at least mention the discrepancies between exit polling data and official results, nearly all of which adversely affected Bernie Sanders, and how the US government uses exit polling data for other nations' elections to determine if the elections are fair and not fraudulent.