The Soul of How We Got Here.

The Teal Deer has been silent over the past... nearly forever, for a number of reasons. But silence, as I have said numerous times, is the enemy. Silence and fear = Problemz. So...

So Ferguson. So Baltimore. So Sal's Pizzeria.

And on the other hand-- so Charleston. So the Confederate Battle Flag. So this fucking election.

So to understand these things, and more specifically, the reactions of most of the black people in this country to what is happening with them, it might help to understand Reconstruction, and what happened after the slaves were emancipated, and the civil war was won by the North. Also, there's a thing we haven't really talked about, because it has a bit of middle child syndrome-- poor white people.

There's some homework to do here: I suggest Black Reconstruction in America and the Souls of Black Folk by Du Bois in particular, but you're not going to go read those right now, so let's get into it.

White and Poor is a distinct racial identity, and it's time to admit it. White and Poor is an identity that is functionally powerless, but which possess the possibility-- the hope-- of becoming powerful one day, if they work hard enough and do all the right things. White and Poor couldn't vote before the civil war, because the planters had property requirements at the polling place. White and Poor in the south were stuck in an untenable position:  the employer class had slaves, so they were only hiring whites to do things like help keep the slaves docile-- overseers, police, bounty hunters. If you could get a bit of land, you could do some sustenance farming, but competition was a laugh. You might be able to get lucky and move into the planter class, but that was a long shot, like the jackpot on the slot machine.

Let's be clear-- I'm not saying that the situation of the poor white is the same as, or comparable to, chattel slavery. But this doesn't mean that we should never talk about the situation of the poor white. And right now, we have to, because it is the reality that informs Dylan Roof, and informs white folks in the South who think that the confederate battle flag is their heritage, and informs white folks who don't get why we can't just move on.

The problem is that white culture, particularly southern, white, poor culture, has been for too long linked and bound with racism, with ignorance, with a certain down home wholesomeness that looks nice on the surface but really equates ignorance with honesty by demonizing intellectualism. "Black Culture"(tm, because seriously, there isn't just one) has something similar, in point of fact; the difference is that you can't really buy your way out of it as a black person, because to be black, regardless of personal wealth, is to be associated with the poor and criminal.

The problem of the poor white has a lot on common with the problem of the mulatto: but it is not the ability to pass for "a white person," it is the ability to pass for rich, or at least, the ability to past for someone who could, legitimately, have wealth.

Now, I can already hear people saying, "but Rabbit, you're making it about class, not race, and that's simplistic." My argument is that the two cannot be separated in America (I can't speak for other nations), and that race fundamentally defines an economic class. The construction of the white race in America was an economic function, but it was also a lie: for the White Property Owner was not about to share anything but a thin label with the white person who didn't own property. Not even the vote, for a very long time.

Anyway, here is a white person, who does a really excellent job of illustrating this here.

What do I think this all means? I think it means that we need to stop shutting down white people, especially poor white people, when they want to talk about race and class, and about themselves in relation to it. I think we need to point out that white people need to talk amongst themselves about it, and also to people of color constructively. But we really, really have to stop treating marginalized white people as if they are invisible, and as if they don't exist. The great trick of reconstruction was playing on the fear of the poor white that black people would be raised above them, and they would be at the very bottom of the pile, and we can see this in the results of this election. One of the first and immediate consequences is that like it or not, white people are now a group for which the actions of one reflect on the whole. The rest of us can relate, and understand exactly how shitty and insulting it is. But it is the new reality, and it's a bad one.

Now, what I am NOT saying here is that black people need to be patient and complacent when we are being actively and physically assaulted and attacked by white people, poor or not, doing the dirty work of this kind of enforcement of white supremacy. Fuck no. What I am saying is that a culture in which, to a white person, being called a racist is the worst, most unthinkable insult, while actually being racist in effect and result is not even noticed is the opposite of useful. And further, we're seeing, in effect, that if white people with no positive identity to adhere to are continually denied one, they'll stop seeing the bad things associated with the negative identity as bad. So I'd expect the white supremacy to get worse, going forward- and people of color, people who aren't white in general- we are not going to be the ones who are going to be able to stop it.

On Plutocracy, Anarchy, and bitterness.

If Socialist is going to be a bad word, I want Objectivist to be a word at least as bad. Objectivist and Plutocrat should be synonymous with Anarchist, in the way that I see conservative blogs conflating Socialism and Fascism. Yeah, Dichotomy. Yeah, how the worm turns. But look here-- we have right-wingers shredding government past the point of Monarchy-- who wants monarchs? No one. And they're managing to skirt around Fascism even, except in the case of religious politics, because a non-secular government can't help it. One Faith = One Party is kind of... accidentally mandatory. But that's another shade of teal deer.

I am here today because I am bitter as all hell. The tear-down of government-- as a tyrant, as restrictive, as evil and thieving-- angers me deeply. Who is making this argument? Would-be Plutocrats who are convincing those of us who are a little-bit successful that the Government is trying to rule and run our lives for us.

No, not ours. Yours. Why? Because you can afford to run our lives, and Government is there to stop you. So what do you do? You forment near-anarchy, because you know you'll be able to buy your way out of it. You're plugging for the pure economic tyranny of the USSR, except instead of the State, wealth and the Plutocrat will be revered. You are holding up as an idol the spectre of "Success".

I don't think that word means what you want us to think it means.

Anyway. I need to make another post here-- a personal link list of Andelku's posts about The Hedgehog.

You'll understand when you see.

Sometimes, there are certain restrictions which allow freedom. The Bill of Rights is this kind of restriction-- something which restricts the right of others to restrict.

Here is something which talks about this in the context of teh internets:



I believe this in the context of most things, and Religion in particular-- and I apologise if I'm harping on this one-- it is only in a secular state that the practise of religion is truly free. I can, in my very bizarre and personal-faithy way, not interfere with the practise of the Catholic mass or the Pentacostal anything or the Muslim prayers or any of those things, by law. And I love listening to the bells of the church across the street of a Sunday, as much as I'd like to hear the Muzzein call to prayer to mosques of a dusk, whilst reading my tarot cards on a café table. I realise that it is unthinkable to certain religions that anyone else might have answers, but it is imperative that that lack of ability to comprehend that kind of diversity not in fact squelch the same. Because while individuals may believe that They Know Truth, the segments that agree on said Truth are by far smaller than society as a whole, and are trumped thereby.

Rulebreaking: The Obvious.

What the shits is this?

Obviously, Barak Obama wants to lose now. Obviously, our government is now more corrupt than it was when Nixon was in office. Obviously, those sitting in government are behaving like the old Roman Senators, or the members of the First Republic, and they don't give a shit about what happens to this country a hundred years from now, as long as they save their asses now.

I hate the word 'obviously', and 'clearly' is just as bad. They're words that one uses to tell you that the emperor has clothes, really. But this... not only does the emperor have no clothes, he is shitting in the street.

But there are times, as our constitution says, when it is not only the right but the responsibility of the people to kick the ass of the administration. If that time isn't now, I fear it will be soon. And I'll tell you, I am being overcome by an urge I would never have had before-- the urge to buy a firearm and keep it in my house.

Because I can.

While I can.

Dichotomy

I would like to see an Obama/McCain ticket. A lot. If McCain weren't a social idiot, in a lot of ways. But what is necessary is a true bipartisan ticket, and a true bipartisan office.

That's all I have to say.

The Teal Deer of Iraq.

I admire and somewhat envy David Petraeus. I really do: He's getting to do something on a large scale and with enormous resources that few people get to do-- Fix Things.

No, I'm serious. He gets to go somewhere profoundly broken (let's leave aside, for the moment as immaterial, the question of who broke it) and make a concerted effort to make it less broken.

Now, this is very distinct from fighting a war, although what he has are soldiers (and National Guardsmen, another element of distinction), and there is some fighting. This is, in effect, what the establishment called Vietnam: a police action. But I digress.

The point is, here is a man who has the ability to ignore the questions of shouldn't and should, ignore the controversies, bend his head, and do-- not /precisely/ what he has been told to do ('win the war' is at this point an abstract that has no meaning; there is no victory against insurgents. You can't kill an idea, and a faith that encourages martyrdom gains strength everytime you do it physical damage, something that implies that the Military Heads should learn more strategy from Japanese video games), but rather, what is the best thing to do in the context of his given mission. I am hardly trying to draw a comparison between him and the 'Just Following Orders' school of Godwin. No, he's turning this whole thing into a humanitarian mission, and basing his reports on the assumption that the Primary Objective is to make Iraq a successful state. In his behavior, (because I am not going to escape a Third Reich comparison, but in this instance, it isn't wholly negative I swear), he is more a Gaulieter, of the school that wished to look after their respective regions like, well, like Murat or Bernadotte did the areas over which they were given Kingship. And you can have respect for that, know where he's coming from, if you think of it that way.

That said.

He /is/ coming to the table with the assumption that... well a) that we ultimately care about whether or not Iraq is a thriving, successful state and b) assuming that yes, on some level we care, that Iraq's success trumps any number of other possible priorities at this time. Given this, of course he will say that we need to keep troops there. It's in order to preserve stability.

And there are those that say he's right, to allude to the point I ignored earlier, if for no other reason than the fact that we broke it, and so ought to fix it. Although some others will argue that it was broken in the first place.

However, there's a wide and possibly growing segment who disagree with the General on the basic assumption-- they simply have decided that stability in Iraq is not a priority. Sorry, Dave. Your mission doesn't matter.

Barak Obama, I think, was saying this clearly when he made the statements about how he was certain that the military establishment would carry out the missions he gave them. He, I gather, understood where Petraeus was coming from-- he was giving the best report he knew, in light of his set goals as he understood them. Great. As far as Obama's concerned, he'd probably do just as well (and his methods have been rather ingenious and creative, or else not unlike the US Army's in The Last Samurai)if he were sent to Zimbabwe, (to mention an international travesty in which the US definitely won't intervene), or Darfur, or Lhasa. And there are those who might be of the opinion that those would be worthier missions, myself included.

Because on the other end of the responsibility spectrum, the real war is, and always should have been, in Afghanistan. And we've got to pay for that one already. While not having to suffer from the usual problems of fighting a war on two fronts-- i.e., exposure to being sliced apart, although we've definitely got some troops being stretched thin, we're really being hit in the cost department, that way. And at the moment, for numerous reasons, the American people can't afford a war. The gas prices hiked with the invasion of Iraq, and the Oil companies want to keep them right where they are, because it seems that a prerequisite of being an Oil baron is short-sightedness (except in the arena of strict market futures), and narrow field of vision. Tl;dr: they want to make money NOW and don't give a toss about the future in general. But that's another, and painfully obvious rant, and perhaps, if I were in a doomed industry, I might decide that hastening its demise by jacking up prices to the point where consumption will necessarily shift to other forms of energy, to make as much as possible while I still can would be a great idea. After all, maybe one day, oil will be like coal now, the fallback position for developing nations who have to use dirty energy because they can't do anything else. And I would bleed those economies happily. Perhaps.

But I was talking about David Petraeus. And sympathizing. Sir: I feel your pain, I really do.

And yes, I have something of an idea as to what one might do to /actually/ stabilize the middle east as a whole. But Jimmy Carter's gone and tried to do a lot of it, so... yeah.