Northern Valley Beacon
Information, observations, and analysis from the James River valley on the Northern Plains----- E-Mail: Enter 'Beacon' in subject box. Send to: Minnekota@Referencedesk.orgSunday, September 18, 2005
"Keep this nigger-boy running."
The right has a program for dealing with poverty, race, and class. Simply deny them.
When the Census Bureau came out with the statistics that the nation had added another 1.1 million to the poverty roles, increasing them to 37 million, right wing commentators claimed that poverty does not exist to that degree; it's all a matter of someone lying with statistics. They quibbled about what income level should be designated as the poverty line, as if a dollar more here or there raises anyone's living standard. They said that the statistics showed that the poor can't really be poor, because they spend so much more than their incomes. If there was a case of people playing shyster games with statistics, it is in that claim.
When Katrina came along and blew the cover of denial off the poverty claim, the right claimed two things. The first was that those "people" were left without help because they are too lazy and unintelligent to get help. The stream of racism that throbs in some American veins was as visible in those comments as the flood waters that covered New Orleans. Then, the charge came that the people were the products of big government programs that made them dependent and incapable of fending for themselves.
We assume that the next step in the logic of racism will be the denial of slavery, Jim Crow, and systematic repression of people by a culture that truly believes that the person who ends up with all the toys wins. It is a culture that can think only in terms of winners and losers. So in a time when we cannot escape evidence of need in some of our population, the ruling class talks about tax cuts that would benefit only the very rich. It is the old class rule of less for the needy and more for the greedy.
If blame is to be placed, and it must be, the progressives must take a huge amount of the blame for moral and political cowardice. When a few commenters have noted that the right wing in America adheres to fascist beliefs, the right wing howled and screamed in indignation. In the name of reason and comity, some liberals chided those commentators. Nice people don't call people fascists when they demonstrate elements of fascism. Nice people don't call people racists when they see those people holding people of color in states of economic and cultural disadvantage. When Dick Durbin makes a rather obvious comparison of the torture in American prison camps to the most viciously repressive regimes of recent history, he is called a bad man by his liberal colleagues and forced to grovel in a submissive recantation.
The left wing has allowed the right wing propaganda organizations, which are designed right out of George Orwell, to cow them into feeble and fawning denials of the fact that there are fascists and racists operating and promoting their principles in our society. Fascism today does not nationalize industry and take it over. It lets corporations take over the government, but the result is the same. (What the hell do you think Enron and Worldcom and Halliburton are all about, stupid?)
In their intellectual and moral cowardice, the liberals have facilitated the inequalities, the oppressions, and the injustice in our culture and allowed them to grow. While the right has oppressed, the left has betrayed.
Even though 83 percent of the people think that the war on Iraq is wasteful and wrong in light of Katrina, we do not find this encouraging. If a speech or two can't get the American people to change that attitude, all we need do is invade Iran or North Korea or both and assail any dissenters as unpatriotic. It will be a great economic boon for the yellow decal industry.
There is no reason for optimism. The right will abuse and accuse. The left, for the most part, will betray under the guise of being reasonable and peace-loving. And the smart will start inventing a new America.
In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the young black protagonist is given a letter of introduction to many important people by his black college president. After the letter is presented to many people over many years of turmoil, the young man opens it and reads it for himself. The letter says, "Keep this nigger-boy running."
That is the message that the feckless left has signed for the poor of America. What happened with Katrina was long in the making. America failed.
When the Census Bureau came out with the statistics that the nation had added another 1.1 million to the poverty roles, increasing them to 37 million, right wing commentators claimed that poverty does not exist to that degree; it's all a matter of someone lying with statistics. They quibbled about what income level should be designated as the poverty line, as if a dollar more here or there raises anyone's living standard. They said that the statistics showed that the poor can't really be poor, because they spend so much more than their incomes. If there was a case of people playing shyster games with statistics, it is in that claim.
When Katrina came along and blew the cover of denial off the poverty claim, the right claimed two things. The first was that those "people" were left without help because they are too lazy and unintelligent to get help. The stream of racism that throbs in some American veins was as visible in those comments as the flood waters that covered New Orleans. Then, the charge came that the people were the products of big government programs that made them dependent and incapable of fending for themselves.
We assume that the next step in the logic of racism will be the denial of slavery, Jim Crow, and systematic repression of people by a culture that truly believes that the person who ends up with all the toys wins. It is a culture that can think only in terms of winners and losers. So in a time when we cannot escape evidence of need in some of our population, the ruling class talks about tax cuts that would benefit only the very rich. It is the old class rule of less for the needy and more for the greedy.
If blame is to be placed, and it must be, the progressives must take a huge amount of the blame for moral and political cowardice. When a few commenters have noted that the right wing in America adheres to fascist beliefs, the right wing howled and screamed in indignation. In the name of reason and comity, some liberals chided those commentators. Nice people don't call people fascists when they demonstrate elements of fascism. Nice people don't call people racists when they see those people holding people of color in states of economic and cultural disadvantage. When Dick Durbin makes a rather obvious comparison of the torture in American prison camps to the most viciously repressive regimes of recent history, he is called a bad man by his liberal colleagues and forced to grovel in a submissive recantation.
The left wing has allowed the right wing propaganda organizations, which are designed right out of George Orwell, to cow them into feeble and fawning denials of the fact that there are fascists and racists operating and promoting their principles in our society. Fascism today does not nationalize industry and take it over. It lets corporations take over the government, but the result is the same. (What the hell do you think Enron and Worldcom and Halliburton are all about, stupid?)
In their intellectual and moral cowardice, the liberals have facilitated the inequalities, the oppressions, and the injustice in our culture and allowed them to grow. While the right has oppressed, the left has betrayed.
Even though 83 percent of the people think that the war on Iraq is wasteful and wrong in light of Katrina, we do not find this encouraging. If a speech or two can't get the American people to change that attitude, all we need do is invade Iran or North Korea or both and assail any dissenters as unpatriotic. It will be a great economic boon for the yellow decal industry.
There is no reason for optimism. The right will abuse and accuse. The left, for the most part, will betray under the guise of being reasonable and peace-loving. And the smart will start inventing a new America.
In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the young black protagonist is given a letter of introduction to many important people by his black college president. After the letter is presented to many people over many years of turmoil, the young man opens it and reads it for himself. The letter says, "Keep this nigger-boy running."
That is the message that the feckless left has signed for the poor of America. What happened with Katrina was long in the making. America failed.
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