Al Franken Revisited

July 29, 2019 / oleblacklady / Leave a comment

all franken Jane Mayer dropped a bombshell in a July issue of the New Yorker, her investigation into charges of sexual harassment against Al Franken that quickly ejected him from the Senate, without any investigation by the Senate ethics committee. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken. Her discoveries are shocking in that Franken’s primary accuser, Luanne Tweeden, a right wing pundit, was once an employee of the Sinclair TV syndicate The Death of Local News. and was assisted in developing her accusations by fellow employees. The group decided how, when and where they would be announced. There is some suggestion that the charges were linked to vengeance against Franken by Roger Ailes, whose reach was both demonic and far reaching. The surreptitious way in which Tweeden’s story was released, without fact checking and without the journalist practice of asking the subject for comment before the story is printed, is testimony to media outlets that are not journalistic, but propaganda machines. Ailes was fond of saying he didn’t report the news, he created it, aiming to help his audience understand their feelings. He understood that capturing feelings, not facts, was the key to sociopolitical persuasion. Both Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler understood this dictum as well. In this case, the conservative media engineered a Saturday night massacre of one of 45’s most productive Senate opponents.

Many of my thoughts at that time are mirrored in Mayer’s questions Senator Al Franken, A Saturday Night Ambush. Her investigation raises many of the questions about #metoo, misogyny and rape/sexual harassment/abuse that need to be explored. How should men be confronted, punished and perhaps forgiven is far more nuanced and complicated than the current rush to judgement or the alternative tentative concessions to a “mishap”. Throughout the post, I will use woman/she to refer to survivors of sexual abuse, including boys and men.

I believe that every woman must be heard, with the assumption that she is truthful. But like every other circumstance in life, there is the exceptional woman who will unscrupulously claim false injury with an eye to fame, or monetary compensation and yes, revenge. A few bad apples should not set the standard that all women are liars first and their account should be discounted unless proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. The man is always presumed to be truthful, the victor of he said, she said. And many a man has happily lied to support a bro.

Men innately sense that the quintessence of their hegemony over women is physical and sexual.

Underpinning this disbelief is the universal male phobia of false witness, based on the myth of woman as Temptress, first advanced in the story of the Garden of Eden. Some would say this nightmare is the primordial essence of socialized man who from the beginning believed he owned woman. His weapon, his physical superiority, allowed him to establish societal rules that woman accepted as the price of security against man and beast. For all of our sophistication, we have advanced only slightly from that point of view in the US and not at all in the majority of the world. Men innately sense that the quintessence of their hegemony over women is physical and sexual. It is their weapon to remain the power in society.

Nowhere is this more evident than the central role of fellatio in the spat of high profile sexual harassment allegations. Men like Harvey Weinstein and Roger Ailes are old; their big bellies have obscured their johnsons from view for years. These men are out of shape; for them sexual positioning encapsulates the inflexibility of aging which they need desperately to deny. Fellatio however is the posture of dominance, the power stance that puts the victim on their knees, grovelling and helpless, no matter how much sweet talk comes out of their lips. It is the effortless gratification of only one; there is no giving or mutual enjoyment. It carries no risk of failure for dirty old men.

Listening to women does not mean their stories should go unquestioned. Just listening is a huge step forward. Listening must be non-judgemental with an eye toward gathering details of the encounter(s) to help identify assailants, particularly physical ones that are unknowable without an intimate encounter. The setting and the circumstances present opportunities for corroboration. But circumstance must also dictate classification of the type of transgression. All transgressions are not equivalent. A pattern of behaviors against other individuals is also critical in defining the type of offense.

We must avoid the tendency to apply today’s standards to yesteryear. The cacophony of voices from different generations complicates our discussions. My generation of Baby Boomers grew up when men had free run of the place, they could pretty much do whatever they pleased. There was no behavior in a domestic setting that was out of bounds. Women were required to do their wifely duty wherever and whenever it was demanded; there could be no rape between husband and wife. A girl who found herself in a compromising situation was “asking for it”. Once you had sex with a partner, submission every other time was not a choice, it was a requirement. A sexual attack was always the woman’s fault. Clothing that was provocative to any man’s eye; a smile, a tilt of the head, a drink; each was “asking for it”.

Rape is a safe crime; victims don’t report it; DNA evidence goes untested; police aren’t pursuing perpetrators; DAs aren’t prosecuting the cases. Why would a rapist alter their behavior if they can get away with it over and over again?

Although we now know that most sexual assaults occur between acquaintances, the idea of acquaintance rape has been slow to take hold, particularly among overwhelmingly male, law enforcement agents and prosecutors afflicted with the wisdom of dinosaurs. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/an-epidemic-of-disbelief/592807/ Law enforcement and prosecutors are true believers in the two myths, the temptress, one, and the majority of acquaintance rape allegations are the product of regret, a commitment gone wrong, and are therefore false. If the people in charge of justice for the survivors don’t believe it’s a crime, the idea of acquaintance rape is just that, an idea with no footing in the justice system. Acquaintance rape is a safe crime that leaves a perpetrator free to cross over into stranger rape, which it turns out they frequently do. In fact, rape in general is a pretty safe crime; victims don’t report it; DNA evidence goes untested; police aren’t pursuing perpetrators; DAs aren’t prosecuting the cases. Why would a rapist alter their behavior if they get away with it over and over again?

But we have all stewed in the same societal narrative, a survivor will feel guilty as she questions her own participation: did I send out some vibe; did I say now; did I fight back? Her own self doubt will niggle her, even if she decides to report her attack and submit to the vagaries of the criminal injustice system. Her female friends may even join the chorus of doubters.

The idea of consent is strictly 21st century. A woman has to say yes or it’s an assault. No man has an inalienable right to sexual congress; a no is a no, no matter when it’s uttered. There are still many of all gender identities that have not accepted this idea or that alcohol, young age and unconsciousness make consent an impossibility.

No matter how many studies report it or how many times we say it, sexual assault is always about power and never about sex. It tends to be a random crime of opportunity; the victim is literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. Age and appearance don’t matter. Contrary to the crime drama image of the serial rapist, serial rapists may have a type they pursue, but they’ll take whatever they can get. That observation comes from the study of that pile of untested rape kit DNA tests that have finally being tested and yet, it has not gotten to either law enforcement or prosecutors or the general public.

Al Franken was not accused of rape or sexual assault. The allegations against him fall into the category of sexual harassment. The definition of sexual harassment is about as clear as mud; is it an off color joke, the unwanted brushby or touch that can escalate into grabs and forceful intimidation? Does it involve a power dynamic between a superior and underlings or can it occur between equals or employees in different departments? Sexual harassment is more shades of gray than black or white; men can’t quite wrap their heads around it, being boys being boys.

Many women aren’t sure what it is either. Sexual harassment evolved as a cultural concern when women became more vocal about the workplace as they rose in management. That is only to say that white middle class women energized by the feminist movement created more media buzz for practices that had taken place in low wage jobs among immigrants and minorities for time immemorial. Beyond class differences, the generational differences are acute as well. Many Baby Boomers wrote off their treatment as “the way things are” while Gen Xers are on hypersensitive alert. It seems clearer when inappropriate touching or sexual assault is involved, while verbal harassment is not so easily characterized.

The case against Al Franken is full of holes. Tweeden has no real corroboration of her accusations and many witnesses corroborate not just Franken’s behavior but that his character is inconsistent with it. He’s a well intentioned, touchy-feely guy, much like Joe Biden. He’s been described as clueless and clumsy, unaware of how his actions are perceived, clouded by his comedic roots. The 5 or 6 other accusers that popped up once the groundswell for resignation materialized were even more flimsy. Each incident happened in crowded areas during interactions lasting seconds; each is uncorroborated. One woman claimed he whispered a remark about following her to the bathroom after she excused herself to go. And yet, everyone describes Franken as devoted to his wife and children, the very opposite of a womanizer wannabe.

Beyond the rush to judgement over accusations with the substance of cotton candy. Franken was repentant. Even before the accusations, when staff cautioned him about actions that were offensive, he changed those behaviors. Not coincidentally, most of the ancillary accusations are from the period before those changes. What is the role of forgiveness in the era of #MeToo?

How do we determine punishment across the range of transgressions? For those who committed a sex crime, prosecution should be the standard. Unfortunately, many revelations have come too late for criminal prosecution. The remaining recourse is civil suits, but signed confidentiality agreements have often prevented that in high profile cases. Beyond that, financial settlements generally amount to a pimple on their fortunes. In cases still within the statute of limitations, the major hurdles are the reluctance of law enforcement to investigate and prosecutors to prosecute. Both are afflicted with the aura of male disbelief; their theories of criminal behavior have prejudiced their approach to investigation with victim shaming. In addition, they firmly believe that juries will think the same thing and perhaps they will continue to, given the older composition of most juries. But prosecutors select juries and formulate a prosecution strategy that can shape what is presented to the jury and how they interpret it. And ideas about sexual assault are changing in the general public. If prosecutors are not willing to bring cases, they will never know. It took a few tries to get Bill Cosby and finally, somebody is trying to put R Kelly behind bars; the results are there if lawyers are willing to pursue them.

Then there is public reaction. If people want to patronize Bill O’Reilly, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Bill Cosby, to name a few, they are free to do so. The public has a short memory with few principles that interfere with their commerce and entertainment inclining the odds toward a future comeback. The choice is in the hands of employers who have to weigh the prospect of alienating an audience against the profitability of their venture. For politicians like Franken, it is the political establishment who will decide if he can make a comeback long before his name would ever appear on the ballot. As detailed by Jane Mayer, he is unlikely to consider it, with no desire to step into the lion’s den again, having been deserted so quickly by people he considered his colleagues and friends.

The women, in sharp contrast, often find themselves unable to find other employment. Some of the women with confidentiality agreements were essentially blackballed from their professions. Their financial problems only compounded their emotional trauma and their general mental state. Their stories were never considered in the melee. The spotlight remained firmly focussed on the men.

In less high profile cases, employees should be fired for sexual assault and prosecution pursued. This is complicated by the presumption of innocence principle. In my own experience, one employee literally caught in the act could not even be suspended until he was convicted and while on bail, could have worked closely with the types of people he had assaulted.

Employees should also be fired when a history of past behavior emerges. To my mind this is making the workplace safe. During my career, I have watched several persons who serially committed inappropriate sexual behaviors across several institutions. Each time, they are allowed to quietly resign, with no mention of the transgressions but with a full severance package. In some cases, they married their subordinate partner which did not prevent them from the same offenses in the next place. Even a willing subordinate partner is guilty of inappropriate behavior, illustrating that you can’t always get what you want. The rules are there for a reason. Sexual harassment was never mentioned in references and these persons went on to prestigious jobs at other institutions, only to reoffend. All of these employers failed to protect their workforce. And once again, the women were punished for coming forward, and fired without severance.

As for less aggressive behavior, offenders should receive behavioral modification therapy with the disclosure of the offense in the general workplace while preserving the identity of the victim. General disclosure is important to bring sexual harassment from the shadows into the light of day; it demonstrates the employer’s commitment to a high standard. It also creates an environment that encourages employees to call out inappropriate conduct and use peer pressure to create an environment where harassers become outliers.

General disclosure of offenses to the workplace is important to bring sexual harassment from the shadows into the light of day; it demonstrates that the employer’s commitment to a high standard.

As 45 continues to hook commercial and social media with every tweet, attention to sexual assault and harassment has fallen below even the Democratic Party candidates, who are having trouble breaking through. Cases are dependent on survivor reporting. Only high profile cases will be considered newsworthy and even then, reputable reporters exhaustively research them before publishing the stories. If the investigation does not meet institutional standards, then it will not be published as we’ve seen in several cases that bounced around publications. Social media is an alternative venue for disclosures, although far less reliable requiring further corroboration.

Unfortunately, we don’t now have an arena for national discussions. Even so, Americans respond to crises, not reasoned discourse. We don’t seem to have ever discussed anything in the absence of some threat. With conservatives chipping away at science, fact and evidence, many people don’t even know which way is up. There’s the conservative bubble on the one hand, steeped in misinformation, innuendo, false causation and their specialty, undermining accepted definitions so that people literally talk past each other. And then there’s the rest of us, hopefully still a majority.

Law enforcement and the injustice system are unlikely to pursue sexual assault perpetrators anymore aggressively than they have in the past; they are immune from public pressure.

Individual workplaces will go their own way. There should be considerable frustration that law enforcement and the injustice system are unlikely to pursue sexual assault perpetrators anymore aggressively than they have in the past; they are immune from public pressure. The groundswell required to revamp their approach isn’t coming soon; it’s more likely to retreat from the minimal progress made as conservatives desperately force the clock back to the time when men ruled the roost unchallenged. Betsy DeVoss’s dismantling of educational institution policies on sexual assault is an example of a stunning success in this area. But maybe, just maybe, we can discuss among ourselves to keep ideas alive until a brighter day.

July 28, 1917 10,000 African Americans marched silently through New York City to protest racial violence.

Dems Outplayed Again

July 25, 2019 / oleblacklady / Leave a comment

mueller cartoon

Did we learn anything from the two Congressional Mueller hearings? Yes. It’s not new, Republicans and Democrats live in two different worlds. But Republicans did put the heart of their newly spiced counterattack on display. Devin Nunes laid it out nicely in his opening statement: Hillary Clinton was the only person who colluded with the Russians, through a conspiracy that fed Russian disinformation to intelligence agencies in the Steele Dossier.

Democrats refused to accept that Mueller would be a hostile witness. Lionized by progressives, he became the hero that would lock up impeachment. But he is after all a Republican. He made it clear he didn’t want to be their poster child and after maneuvering Bob Barr to limit his testimony, Mueller’s opening statement set out his major concern: the Russians have invaded our electoral process and we need to fix that. Beyond that, he wasn’t going to give the impeachment balloon any helium.

And so, their impeachment kick-off centerpiece could not present a narrative of Agent Orange’s crimes in choppy yes or no questions interspersed with GOP diatribes castigating the witness. They didn’t even get any good soundbites in Mueller’s voice. Instead, they provided a forum for conservatives to trash the investigation, the report and the special counsel while trotting out conspiracy theories drawn from their vast media paradise to reach a national audience. Interestingly, the commercial media failed to expand on them, thank goodness, and even the late night comedians stayed away.

The GOP simply outmaneuvered the Democrats. Armed with their marching orders, they fanned out to spread Trump/FoxNews created conspiracy theories to the whole country. And they excelled. Beyond the usual drivel about partisan FBI investigators and Democratic staff lawyers, they introduced newly revealed Russian actors and Trump/FoxNews “reported” ties to which Mueller could not respond, given the DOJ memorandum mandated restrictions. Mueller himself asked for the limitations on his testimony, relieving him of the hazards of wading into piranha infested waters. Barr craftily created an abyss that carved out space for GOP stormtroopers to lob conspiratorial hand grenades with impunity. In his opening statement, Mueller circumscribed the Steele dossier as untouchable. Boom! Republicans whirled with the speed of dervishes, throwing out all kinds of permutations on the treachery of the Steele dossier.

Conservatives pounced into the vacuum left by Mueller’s “I can’t get into that” with their own elaborations, as Mueller sat stoically deadpan, looking old and fatigued. They insinuated that some of the agents involved, like Constantine Kolimnic, were actually domestic intelligence operatives, knitting strands into Deep State conspiracy webs spun out in Sean Hannity’s charts; that the Clinton team met with Natalia Veselnitskaya more times than Donald Jr to link that back to the Clinton Foundation. They peppered him with questions that they knew he couldn’t answer, “just to get them into the record” and of course, to national audience eyes and ears. It had all the appearance of a coordinated effort orchestrated from the White House through the capable hands of Bill Barr. All done with an eye toward generating Trump/FoxNews sound bites for the next 18 months. Barr is the MVP of BullyPresident appointments. In his short tenure, he has consolidated chief executive control of all three branches of government, par excellence.

The reason for Mueller’s public reticence became clear. The Mueller lion had become an old cat. At times, his memory seemed clouded; he was inarticulate; he struggled to keep up; he looked as if he was in a fog; he had difficulty hearing, although that is attributable to the acoustics of a Congressional hearing room which most people don’t know. He had probably wanted to leave public life with his career image intact, unmarred by the restrictions of aging.

Conservatives will ride this investigate the investigators elephant through the 2020 campaign, throwing out the findings of the future GAO and DOJ reports, no doubt polished to a reflective shine with falsely constructed associations courtesy of Trump/FoxNewsTV.

The House hearing began with discrediting Mueller. They were rude and disrespectful, frequently cutting him off and badgering him about his partisan investigation that failed to explore multiple leads, often leading toward the Democratic campaign; his failure to indict several individuals outside the MAGA campaign, some of whom bargained for their way out of indictments. But they reserved their highest contempt for his failure to reach a conclusion about the charge of obstruction. Millions of dollars and two years and Mueller didn’t do his job!

The old elements were there, like a conclusion on collusion when the report specifically states it investigated conspiracy which is a crime and not collusion which has no legal definition. Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy, but it wasn’t for the lack of Russian efforts. Astonishingly, conservatives seem perfectly comfortable with the idea that acceptance of assistance from a foreign foe is laudable and not treasonous, having abandoned staunch patriotism for “do whatever it takes to win”. Borrowing from Jr’s idea that his meeting with Russian agents wasn’t wrong because he didn’t get anything out of it, they insisted that it can’t be obstruction if all of the chief executive’s attempts failed to shut the investigation down, buttressed by the assertion that he can fire anyone in the executive branch. Never mind that attempted obstruction is a bona fide crime. It’s the Trumpian worldview- there are no principles, only results.

Then conservatives hoisted new themes. Mueller’s investigation was inadequate and incomplete. But more importantly, he was a failure because he didn’t perform his charge: make a determination on obstruction. Mueller said there was no point if he could not indict by the DOJ criteria. In the report, he says that the evidence was unclear, that it was insufficient given the failure of witnesses to respond to subpoenas, including the Liar in Chief. Thus he would not be able to mount a case in a speedy fashion with the evidence that could be obtained and he didn’t want to shut the door to further development of a future case. And that perhaps there were other avenues, implying impeachment as perceived by Democrats.

Their most critical new assertion will resonate broadly. Exoneration is not a legal thing. All the time juries acquit criminals who committed the crime, OJ, R Kelly, Michael Jackson to name a few. On the other hand, innocent suspects are convicted all the time, like the Central Park Five or any Equal Justice Initiative death penalty rescuee. Because of the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof is on the state to convince a jury of guilt. Failing that, the suspect is innocent, or at least we’re supposed to pretend they are. In actual fact, they have not been found guilty, they are not innocent. This is patently obvious about 45; his crimes are ongoing but we are the ones in jail, some of us literally.

Similarly, when the state declines to press charges, they don’t present the details of their case to the public, the sin that Comey committed against Hillary Clinton by publicly announcing an investigation into her email server. Conservatives contend that the Mueller Report is just that, a recitation of evidence that didn’t amount to a prosecutable case of obstruction of justice and so, should have been confined to one page saying just that: there is not enough evidence to indict. Republicans seemed shocked when Mueller testified that the RealityTVPresident could be tried after he left office, an assertion that could fast track his maneuvers to emulate Xi Jiping, Chinese president for life. Republicans ignore two things: first and foremost, this is POTUS, who should be held to a higher standard than the garden variety criminal. And two, the DOJ mandate that a sitting president could not be indicted. The GOP is quick to deflect that it besmirches the reputation of upstanding rich white guys and that is the most criminal of all.

This presumption of innocence argument is enticing to the average man on the street; it’s an American hallmark. Not coincidentally, the Central Park 5 or a Black youth today don’t have a similar presumption of innocence but that is the American injustice system. If you’re brown, you are tackled and brought down, handcuffed and carried off, even if you’re never charged, you’re gonna spend time in cell or you’re just gonna be killed. If you’re white and rich, you’re gonna be treated with kid gloves, questioned and allowed to report on your own. This is how it’s always been.

While conservatives are being disingenuous in their anger about the report, Democrats should be prepared to respond as the 2020 campaign proceeds; Trump/FoxNewsTV will be hammering the theme that exoneration is not the function of the justice system relentlessly. Obviously, because it is the president, as a democracy, we need to know what is happening in our elected government, particularly as it threatens our ability to solve our pressing problems and defend against enemy attacks. But Trump/FoxNewsTV won’t be saying any of that.

The real border Wall is the one across the White House lawn, keeping Congress at bay.

The House also concentrated on advertising their alternative investigation from Bob Barr to “investigate the investigators”. Here again, the Steele Dossier is central, as the GOP continues to insist that it was critical to the initiation of the “spying” on Trump campaign hanger-ons like Carter Page while the FBI evidence documents an earlier starting date. They want to project the illusion that the intelligence agencies have been weaponized against “private citizens” and of course, the RealityTVPresident himself, in the service of a partisan witch hunt. As a veteran of the Black Power Movement and the Student Anti-Vietnam War Movement (yes, I had my own FBI file), I recall the fear of the out of control FBI against the ordinary as well as the political, like JFK, RFK and MLK. The student movement may have had more FBI agents in it than believers; we were always joking about who was an informant. White nationalists are laboring under that same fear, although unwarranted as the Trump DOJ has ignored them. Given my history, it feels strange to transition to a position supporting government intelligence agencies, no longer tied to the vagaries of J Edgar Hoover but with immensely enhanced surveillance capabilities wielded by a workforce notoriously unsympathetic to progressive opposition to government policies.

But there lurks in the average Trumpophant the feeling that they’re doing something “anti-government” which Trump/FoxTV exploited into the liberal establishment controlled Deep State that hungers to gobble up every “true conservative patriot.” Conservatives want to ride this elephant through the 2020 campaign, throwing out the findings of future GAO and DOJ reports, no doubt polished to a reflective shine with falsely constructed associations at every turn. It’s going to be 24-7 Trump/FoxTVNews fare, feeding their presidential frontman with some of his best tweets and taglines.

The question still remains, if 45 is innocent, what is he hiding while he masquerades as the “most transparent president in history” (his words, not mine). Given his sordid past and gang of crooks Why is Donald Trump Putin’s Bonbon? and Kompromat, More Complicated Than It Seems, is he fearful that any crack will lead to a torrent of unethical and criminal activity that would reveal the emperor wears no clothes? Why has he used Barr, most recently, to block every effort of Congress to carry out their constitutional oversight duties? Why has he refused to provide documents? What’s so precious about his tax returns that he has the Treasury Secretary lying to block legally mandated IRS information to Congress? His actual income? His business associations? The ongoing suits to fight release of documents; the invocation of “executive privilege” now expanded to anyone who has heard any utterance from Agent Orange’s mouth except those at a MAWA rally are all a part of his real border Wall, the one across the White House lawn.

Democrats are in a muddle. They need to let go of impeachment. They pretend its a moral issue, but impeachment is and always has been political like it was originally conceived by the Founding Fathers. Democrats are waiting for the public to demand it, rather than leading the uproar. But Democrats are just politicians interested in staying in office. And if they are going to stay in office, they should get out there and campaign to defeat the GOP at the ballot box. Given the current GOP hegemony, that is a daunting enough task. Right now, Democrats appear to be scrambling, not ready to assume leadership of what must be a formidable movement, not for impeachment but to take our country back. They can’t be counted on to do the right thing; it doesn’t look like the party how.

July 25, 1974, SCOTUS ruled in Milliken v Bradley that school district borders could not be crossed to effect integration, codifying the school segregation that today finds >60% of minority students in what are called “highly segregated” schools with > 80% minority student bodies among the >80% of Black students overall in segregated schools. So much for Brown v Board of Ed.

No Policy, No Friendship Can Undo a Racist Mind

July 22, 2019July 30, 2019 / oleblacklady / Leave a comment

Racism can not be undone by a friendship or a policy. There is no remark by a person of color that can justify a racist response about that person. No matter how much one disagrees with someone else, one can respond to the substance of the remarks, but they can not attack them using or invoking stereotypical characterizations of the group to which that person belongs. That is the essence of racism and it is always wrong. If one uses racist speech, they can be nothing other than racist because they believe racial stereotypes, apply them to individuals and know that will sting. If one applies stereotypes to one Black, or Asian or Latinx, then they believe them about others, even if they make exceptions for the people they know.

Friendships and even screwing a Black woman don’t undo racists ideas and behaviors. In fact, one might say screwing an enslaved woman was the ultimate in ownership of another human being. Sally Hemings is only one example. In modern times, there was Strom Thurmond, a Southern segregationist who had children with his Black housekeeper. It has always been the way; denigrate Black people in public; desire Black women in private.

The abolitionist movement is a perfect example as well. Abolitionists sincerely believed in ending enslavement as a cruel and immoral institution. But all of them believed the racial stereotypes that Blacks, snatched from a primitive culture, are intellectually inferior, sexually promiscuous, and even lazy unless beaten into working. Some thought these were temporary characteristics that could be overcome by education with religious and social instruction. They held up Frederick Douglas as exemplary of what could be accomplished, if only Black people would commit to becoming darker skinned whites. In short, they did not believe that African descendants in America shared the same humanity as whites.

Enslavers could be kind to their chattel, as a dog owner is to his expensive pet but they could not acknowledge the slave’s humanity without upending their beliefs in their own.

Abolitionists had no desire to live near freedmen or sit next to them as their hasty abandonment of freedman’s rights demonstrated. That contrasts with enslavers who lived their lives intimately enmeshed with African descendants who dressed them, fed them and cared for them throughout their lives. They suckled milk from Black nipples. That intimacy demanded that the enslaved must be subjugated into subservience, least they want what enslavers had and acquired the gumption to take it. Enslavers could be kind to their chattel, as a dog owner is to his expensive pet but they could not acknowledge the slave’s humanity without upending their beliefs in their own.

Is the MAGAPresident a racist? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, isn’t it a duck? This latest trespass is not a one off. Republicans have tied themselves in knots on numerous occasions to rationalize his racist language. From the beginning, he had a persistent history of discrimination in his housing units, once settling a federal suit for discrimination in housing. It is likely that he continues to discriminate in his housing units, although the high costs make camouflaging discrimination far easier. He can select from a crowd of foreigners and business associates of color to appear not to discriminate.

He’s held on to his race baiting opinions about the Central Park Five, despite the confession of the actual rapist and decades of false imprisonment of the 5 teenagers. He began his political career with the racist innuendos of birtherism. He stands on both sides, for the Nazis and white nationalists who beat and killed demonstrators in Charlottesville and an ill defined other side, presumably with a different philosophy. He’s used illegal immigrant and special visa Latinx labor in his businesses because they are easily exploited and cheaper, even as he rails against illegal immigrants using racists slurs of criminality at the same time he is hunting them down in the streets.

These are only a few highlights in a pattern of behavior dating back to the 90s that confirm that Agent Orange joins a long line of racist presidents in the last century, no matter how much the GOP tries to misrepresent his core beliefs. Wilson resegregated the federal government, premiered Birth of A Nation in the White House and supported the KKK; Hoover managed the lily white strategy to purge African Americans from the GOP in an attempt to end the southern dominance of the Democratic Party; FDR did what was politically expedient rather than combat racism in federal policies, consistently creating programs that allowed segregationists to exclude African Americans from them in compromises for Dixiecrat support; Nixon and Reagan used dog whistle politics to make racism more palatable in order to recruit Southern segregationists into the GOP. In contrast, Lyndon Johnson began as a racist, but shed the dark side and became a civil rights warrior.

In their personal lives, these presidents probably had little interaction with African Americans, except as servants or employees, so it is not a matter of personal interactions in which they never question their own superiority. But their political decisions and policies for the most part excluded Black citizens, either intentionally for Dixiecrat support or by neglect, without understanding or caring about the consequences for minorities. Anti-racism has always been sacrificed for economic or political expediency.

Can we have a national debate about racism? Sadly no.

Can we have a national debate about racism? Sadly no. There can be no discussion when there is no agreement about what we are discussing. Conservatives have drained the meaning from the terms racism and racist. Powerful White Men Define Racism. Essentially, nothing is racist unless you intend it to be. It has nothing to do with racial stereotypes, or majority intimidation of the minority, paving the way for the ludicrous belief in reverse racism. Thus racism has disappeared from conservative’s eyes; they are racism-blind in the same way they pretend they are color blind. But racism is special. It embodies superiority and inferiority. Only minorities can be its targets. That is not to say that minorities like LatinX or Asians can’t also be propagators of racist attitudes against Black citizens; they can replicate the attitudes of their white tormentors and deflect them toward others.

How is it that a minority without power can threaten a white majority? By asking for equal access to the pie and in so doing, eliminating the adage that all things belong to whites and they have the power to distribute whatever crumbs they want to nonwhites.

Why is it important to insure that the privilege continue? The projected date in 2023 when whites will become a minority in the US. 45 has even tried to push it back by sabotaging an accurate Census 2020 count of the population, intimidating as many minorities as possible not to respond. That has created the window for those in power to insert and amplify fears of loss of majority status. The powerless, already feeling angst in the face of an unresponsive government, understand change as a collapse of their culture and what it represents. It is, after all, what America is to them. And that is the strength of racism, xenophobia and nationalism used to transform politics into the fight to save America, white America that it. That is the genesis of 45’s schemes to close the southern border against more brown people, to ban immigration from Muslim nations of brown and Black people, to hunt down and throw out every brown or Black immigrant or asylum seeker in the country, regardless of status (recall the revocation of temporary emergency status of Haitians and El Salvadorans who’ve been here for decades). Note, there is no movement against the largest group of illegal immigrants, Asians, who come by plane and overstay their visas. Not yet anyway; one group at a time.

Lurking underneath is the fear that the minority newly become majority will be vindictive. Whites ask, will they make us pick vegetables or clean chickens, clean bathrooms or work in kitchens? Will we have quotas for college admissions? Of course, these fears are absurd. The people with political and economic power in this country, often the same, have always been and will always be white, even though their interests do not align with the mass of whites in the other 99th percentile. They’ve long steered them in ways that present people of color as the enemy, rather than the people who make policy. The truth could topple the powerful, but that would take revolution and a revolutionary abandonment of the racism, xenophobia, and nationalism that has maintained the status quo.

Can we have a national debate about racism? Sadly no. As long as racism-blind conservatives and non-conservatives are struggling over the definition of racism in all its dimensions, they can only talk past each other. Conservatives will do anything to avoid addressing the issue at all; they can’t even say the word except as an epithet to shut down debate.

Not Agent Orange who has tapped himself, as he is want to do, to lead the campaign to scrub “racism and racist” of all meaning. It’s the latest turn in his political strategy that glues the media to his Tweet teat. His daily racist tweets send the media scurrying and the Democrats to calling it out. This provides the platform to in turn call them racists, further muddying the waters. It’s a cycle on political rewind. And everything else– the Democratic debates, the candidates, another mass shooting, the undermining of Congressional oversight, the policies at the Southern border, the buildup of troops in Saudi Arabia to supposedly police the Strait of Hormuz, the attempted seizure of the intelligence agency with the nomination of a national security amateur puppet engrossed in conspiracy theories about the Deep State to head the intelligence community and on and on. The BullyPresident’s timing is strategic. Fresh from the drumbeat that the Mueller hearing was a dud, he moved on the overshadow the Democratic Debates.

The RealityTVPresident has been extraordinarily successful, more so than almost anything else. It is his media sleight of hand that maintains his Trumpophants and peaks the minds of independents. Perhaps it is more depressing than surprising that none of his targets have seen through his ruse; he seems to have them reeling in a cattle prod-like spasmodic reflex, honed systematically since 2015. It remains to be seen if he’s got the Democratic candidates trapped in their upcoming debate. Will they scramble to out anti-racism him and each other, wasting precious time needed to define the dimensions of their candidacies? Or will they concentrate on untangling the differences in their positions to allow intelligent choices by voters. But they must also preview their path to victory in the general election. Victory lies in showcasing the RealityTVPresident’s failures. Not his failure of character but unmet promises to remedy the nation’s problems and the difficulties in Trumpophant lives. In most cases, he’s only exacerbated them. If one starts with the wrong causation, one can’t create solutions. That’s a broad based call to the nation to stop waiting on 45 to improve their lives. They need to pick a new leader to do that.

Can we have a national debate about racism? Sadly no. Where would the debate even take place? The 40% Trumpophants suckling on Trump/FoxTV are trapped in the echo chamber of their own views, firmly in the hands of the powers that be. They are the very people most in need of the talk.

But non-conservatives have much work to do to get woke; first to learn and acknowledge history. And then to understand and reverse the integral role of racist government and economic policies that leave African Americans permanently disadvantaged. Very few non-conservatives are in the space where they abhor racism enough to rise up and end it; to integrate their neighborhoods and schools; to expand diversity in their businesses, not on the basis of the “appropriate mix of racial, ethnic and gender diversity” but rather on who is the best qualified for the job. If that turns out to be all minorities, then so be it. And then they have to figure out how to effect policies to achieve that end. I see that as the fulfillment of the promise of America but remain skeptical that that is the dream of my fellow Americans.

Unlike the days of 3 TV networks, there are no media outlets that include potentially everyone in the country. We know media compete with each other; they don’t collaborate. Many millennials have unplugged from news sources; Facebook is a silo for like thinkers; Twitter is the extremes; older people, with the most experience with racism from both sides, are less likely to be on the internet and interactive with those sources. There are no public forums, only individual silos. The Democratic campaign should be more than a sound bite machine but substantive debate is sorely lacking. In fact, it is our disconnectedness that makes the continuing spread of racism by the White House so effective.

On July 22, 1899, Frank Embree, a Black man was whisked away by a white mob to be whipped over 100 times, moments before his trial. Over 1000 people in Fayette Missouri looked on as he was then hanged.

Powerful White Men Define Racism

July 19, 2019 / oleblacklady / 2 Comments

Bill Day / Cagle Cartoons

Since racism is, after all, a figment of the imagination of white men, Agent Orange, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham think it’s perfectly reasonable for them to continue to define it. Mitch tells us that it’s absurd to think the Chief Executive is a racist and cautioned that BOTH SIDES (there it is again) should be more civil. A Republican Congressman, in defense of his Fuhrer, earnestly told a PBS News correspondent that none of his Kentucky constituency thought 45’s latest remarks about the Squad were racist. But then he’s a Republican and probably didn’t poll any African Americans in his district since he doesn’t consider them part of his constituency. He’s certainly not doing anything to represent them in this Congress built on partisan representatives choosing their voters rather than the other way around. Too bad; African Americans as racism’s centuries old victims know exactly what it is, in all its many guises. We live with it everyday; whites do not. As John Lewis said on the House floor “I know racism when I feel it” and he’s had it literally beat into his head.

Conservatives are afraid to talk about racism; instead they hurl the word racist as an epithet at any opponent, in an effort to terminate an argument. They have adopted a definition of racism that evolved in legal strategies to beat back affirmative action initiatives in the courts in the ‘90s. Their definition centers on intent; essentially, if a speaker does not intend malice, then the speech can’t be considered racist. (45 with only malice in his heart has been granted yet another pass). Racism was now completely detached from its foundational majority oppressing a minority dynamic. In the courts, this approach set a high standard of intentional discrimination, which was almost impossible to demonstrate once officials found wording that appeared race neutral but disproportionately disadvantaged people of color. Never mind the impact on African Americans whose voices continued to be ignored.

Simultaneously the concept of colorblindness became fashionable. “I don’t see color” is supposed to convey that race is not a consideration. Although race is a social, not biological concept, color is not. Human eyes see skin color and register it in the brain where it activates implicit biases associated with racial stereotypes. This process is instantaneous and completely unconscious. Only a conscious moment of hesitation allows the brain’s intellectual centers to process more thoughtful action. And this brings us back to the meaninglessness of intent. Most racial bias is unintended by the perpetrator by the very nature of implicit bias itself. Thus to rely on intent, rather than the harm done to the victim, snatches the core from racism. The feelings are still there, but now they can be nameless. In an interview on PBS NewsHour, Lisa Desjardins said when she asked Republican John Thune if there was anything that he would call racist, after a pause, he couldn’t come up with anything. Conservatives, swimming in a racist society, can’t see what is right in front of their faces. They are racism-blind, not color blind.

This area is dangerous territory for them; many of their supporters hold racist views because the GOP was built on recruiting Dixiecrats from southern Democratic parties in the wake of civil rights legislation in the ’60s. They grew their party through the dog whistles of the Nixon and Reagan years, substituting code words like welfare queens, drug users, criminals to evoke images of Black people which the media happily provided. 45 brought the party full circle, abandoning political correctness for unadorned racist phrases, extended now to include all those who aren’t white. He energized those whose racism had become socially unacceptable in the “post racism” Obama era, extending a red carpet to white nationalists to hop off their couches and leave their computer screens to come into the streets and voting booths.

The GOP pitch is that “they’re taking your jobs and restricting your rights; they’re trying to be your equal. They’re voting for the enemy, the liberals. In this war, we’ve got to do everything to reduce their influence by disenfranchising them in any way possible.” It’s the same narrative from Reconstruction and the Jim Crow police state. History repeating itself. The GOP needs to maintain its aggressive racism to keep these troops enthusiastic, but the more upfront they are, the higher the risk of alienating those suburban women, who like their more subtle flavor of racial bias to be reticent. They form the theoretical tipping point that pushed 45 over the finish line in 2016. It’s just easier to pretend that racism doesn’t exist; that the Democrats are crazy communists talking about reparations. In fact, from their point of view, reparations are racist, the acceptable kind that white Trumpophants believe the government is practicing against them. This is not a thing!

The Democrats take the traditional view that racism is the use of false stereotypical characterizations of a minority group of people because of the color of their skin. Intent is irrelevant; the impact on the minority is the significant concern. Since minorities have little choice of party, Democrats have given lip service to responding to minority experiences to retain the participation of minorities in the political process. African Americans have often provided the balance of power. In contrast, recent polls that show that 60% of Americans have no interaction with people of another race, religion or political persuasion help explain why conservatives can’t see racism; it doesn’t happen to anyone they know.

For his part, the White Supremacist in Chief reached back into history for the narrative of the White Redeemers of Reconstruction: if the n*@gers don’t like being disenfranchised, swindled out of their land and labor, beaten and lynched here, they can go back to Africa. At the time, support for colonization in Africa reemerged as an alternative way to reduce the country’s more than 4.5 million African descendants, except that the formerly enslaved weren’t having it. They had tasted freedom and were determined not to abandon their investment of blood, sweat and tears in the US.

But “go back where you came from” says more than that. It is the trope that screams you don’t belong in the land in which you were born. It is meant to establish that this land is wholly a land that belongs to white people. You should be grateful that we tolerate your presence. You have no right to complain because it is only through our liege that you remain. Ironically, in this nation of immigrants, my ancestors were here in 1619, long before many of theirs arrived. This trope has been used for Asians from all countries, Spanish speakers, Middle Easterners, etc. In olden days before whiteness was extended beyond Anglo-Saxon, even the Irish, Slavs (think Melania), and Mediterraneans felt this sting.

They are racism-blind, not color blind.

These themes have been repeated whenever Africans Americans have tried to hold the country to account for the declared “all men are created equal” lie. Segregationists were happy to have Black people move on in the 60s when sharecropping had outlived its usefulness and Black hands were no longer needed to do the bulk of the work. But if they stayed, they had to knuckle under to dogs, fire hoses, KKK murders and bombings.

Ironically, there has been no president who has complained more than Agent Orange about almost every aspect of government; the federal courts, Congress, foreign policy and anything Obama even thought about. As the supreme exceptional, he believes it was his right to seize the government rather than abandon the country. The Squad has chosen to do what he has done; create a movement that will cement their position in government. But for 45, brown women don’t have that same right; he’s trying to create a ground swell to kick them out.

As he often does, Agent Orange evoked the racist spirit of his MAGA movement to paint 4 US Congresswomen as immigrants from other countries, absurd, given the requirements for election to Congress. But Trumpophants are not thinkers, they’re believers; the women all have foreign sounding names, like many families among Trumpophants who sprang from immigrant roots now conveniently forgotten since their skin is white and the Squad, all brown, have Afro or Muslim sounding names. But AOC is from the Bronx, Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib from Michigan. Only Ilhan Omar is a naturalized citizen from Somalia, elected from Minnesota. But a naturalized citizen is the same as a birthright citizen, just as Trump’s wife and her recently made citizen parents are, even though Melania got special skills visa status for f@#king the faux real estate tycoon in order to immigrate. Massachusettsans, New Yorkers and Michiganers should be up in arms at the insults hurled against their states, characterized as “shithole countries” in the BullyPresident’s tweets. Where’s their outrage at 45’s effrontery?

Over two days, our WhiteNationalistPresident has embellished, i.e lied, to blow as many whistles summoning his Trumpophants as possible. Two are Muslims, so “Alcaida”, as he spelled it in his notes, entered his narratives. They’re communists, they hate America, they’re anti-semitic, they’re for open borders and everything that’s wrong with the world. He literally put words in their mouths as he simultaneously misquoted what they have said. And then he brought it centerstage to his MAWA rally, engaging the crowd with a rallying cry to “Kick her out!” 2020 is all about his race baiting campaign.

The master media manipulator has pulled out all the stops. He’s pivoting his reelection campaign to center on the Squad rather than the 24 candidates vying to be his Democratic opponents. And this cycle of moral outrage has seized the airwaves, blotting out whatever the candidates have to say. But more importantly, it distances Agent Orange from running on his record of executive orders, staged diplomatic extravaganzas, and an economy that is booming for the oligarchs but leaving people working two jobs in communities devastated by plant closures or farmers on the verge of bankruptcy.

He obscuring a look beneath the impression that he’s shutting down the border, despite legal challenges that have invalidated almost all of his policies. He’s cloaked his policies that have narrowed access to the southern border to a trickle, even as more people are trying to cross. The closed ports of entry, the mandatory detentions, the inadequate number of judges that have at least a half a million cases of asylum seekers waiting for years for hearings, the virtual absence of lawyers for immigrants, the off loading of immigrants to wait in unsafe areas in Mexico and the fear of detention. Now deportation raids that have put Latinx people in ICE crosshairs. They are literally being hunted down without proper legal documents or due process.

These are the origins of the humanitarian crisis at the border, not the natural evolution of an increased flow of women and children, the first wave of climate refugees in this hemisphere. Trumpophants, fed a steady diet of Trump/FoxNews, don’t hear even the sliver of media coverage of the situation on the ground, beneath the glitz and glitter of signing ceremonies, rally speeches and tangled Homeland policies. The MAWAPresident has created a humanitarian crisis, without the campaign promised Wall or a solution to immigration. Is this a promise kept, or just a lot of bullshit about it?

His policies are designed to create a climate of fear in new immigrants and their relatives here under the spurious reasoning that it will deter new immigrants and asylum seekers, a strategy that hasn’t worked in the past. As a result, 45 has tried to dump families in Nicaragua, one of the countries from which people are fleeing and Mexico, totally unprepared for new immigrants as it struggles to maintain its native population.

The Trump agreement, made with the central government, had no input from Mexican provinces which need to depend on unforthcoming appropriations to absorb new asylum seekers. This will engender internal national conflicts destabilizing the central government and produce hostility toward immigrants. They will have problems working in an economy with high unemployment, opening them up to exploitation and further endangering their safety. And without policies in place to distribute these immigrants, their distribution across the country is likely to be random with an overabundance of families deposited near the border waiting to be called to to the US to establish a claim.

For the GOP 45’s a hero; for the rest of us, he’s an ass who’s running the country into the ground.

There’s no need for Democrats to waste time responding to the BullyPresident. We know who he is; for the GOP he’s a hero; for the rest of us, he’s an ass who’s running the country into the ground. He will say whatever he wants, particularly if it isn’t true. Ignoring his bullshit is likely to make him even more unhinged and that could be advantageous but it takes a stout constitution to withstand the unrelenting shit storm that will come their way.

The House should stop wasting time on symbolic legislature that will never become law or symbolic reprimands. Nobody even knows about most of it within the media echo chamber. Democrats should let the Mueller Report go and despite 45’s obstruction of justice, multiple conflicts of interest, corrupt behaviors and corruption in his cabinet, they should lay down the impeachment albatross. He would never be convicted in the Senate and the development of a list of charges in the House will be drowned out by the RealityTVPresident’s campaign portrayal of little Donny against the Goliath Deep State. He will win that propaganda war because he has the commercial media mesmerized and his owns state Trump/FoxTV.

The voting box is the only way to boot Agent Orange out and Democrats will have to be savvy not to fritter it away in another close electoral college loss. They should not be diverted by the media’s persistent tweet chasing and questions that focus on their reactions to them. Every press interaction should be redirected to what Agent Orange has not accomplished and Democratic alternatives to fix the nation’s problems. Democrats should be talking about Trump’s failures. They should take every opportunity to hold the RealityTVPresident accountable for the campaign promises that he has failed to deliver. Those are the economic issues that people care about; ones which he has exacerbated more than helped. Does anyone feel better off today except the top 1%? Every Democratic plan advanced in the primary campaign should be placed in the context of the failure of the Trump administration to address or worsen the problem. This strategy is not complicated and easily accomplished.

Where Trump has succeeded is in dismantling Cabinet agencies and diverting them to the service of corporate interests. He has also devastated the federal courts, so Democrats should be promoting the importance of voting for their candidates to reclaim the courts at all levels, particularly as they threaten the loss of reproductive rights and could limit any progressive change. They should emphasize the importance of taking control of state legislatures as well because reapportionment based on the 2020 Census could further cement a GOP hegemony that could spell the death knell for democracy as we know it. In their local events, candidates should lay the groundwork for supporting good local candidates in the 2020 races. If the Democrats don’t step up to the plate. . . our future is in the hands of the gods. Perhaps the gods are exacting punishment for our destruction of the planet.

July 19, 1919 A Black man accused of trying to rape a white woman was released, sparking 4 days of white mob attacks on African Americans throughout Washington, DC. 40 Blacks were murdered and 150 were injured.

Say It Again, Donald

July 2, 2019 / oleblacklady / Leave a comment

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

At this point in his administration, we can pretty much assume that if Agent Orange says it, it’s probably not true. In some instances, it may have a kernel of truth. In others, it is wildly false. There is no historical fact, statistic, or quote that he hesitates to butcher. Sometimes, he’s just ad-libbing, as any showman would. Given his age, there’s probably a fair amount of forgetfulness involved as well. More often it’s intentional; a denial of a statement that he’s made on video or a misdirect from his absurd activities. No one can deny that he is a pathological liar; he literally can’t help himself. But it is also an intentional element of his strategy to reaffirm his “fake media” fantasy as well as waste media time trying to pushback or fact check. But most importantly, it helps subvert the very existence of fact. He has told his rallies, “Don’t believe what you see”. He wants his Trumpophants to question reality. And it works. We are all questioning the reality of the country today. “Can that possibly be? Is this really happening?” we ask. It takes a lot of work to ferret it out. Most people don’t have time for that. And they’re just tired. They’ve tuned out in favor of cat videos, Facebook posts, Game of Thrones, Netflix binging and on and on.

In the meantime, the media has let the CelebrityPresident set their agenda, framed in a wild tweet chase that generates ancillary stories about the implications of his pronouncement or the faces of individuals affected. It covers the stream of ceremonial fetishes of executive order signings and press statements as if they represent policy or concrete action. And yet, there’s no substance to any of it. 45 touts them as accomplishments; his is a magical sense of governance that involves waving one’s wand and instantaneous transformation. The illusion of governance overshadows the chaos in the nuts and bolts of implementation situated in the agencies charged with making it happen. These agencies are plagued by personnel shortages and lack of leadership as evidenced by 5 acting Cabinet positions and the rapid reshuffling of temporary department heads in Homeland and HHS that leaves border security operations wondering which way was up.

These acting administrators are part of a strategy to circumvent Senate confirmation of nominees. Frequent turnovers in agency leadership maintain the status quo rather than effect response to criticism.

These acting administrators are part of a strategy to circumvent Senate confirmation of nominees. These hearings preview nominee attitudes and blind spots. Even as Mitch will be victorious in confirmation, the prospect of transparency still terrifies Agent Orange. In addition, frequent turnovers in agency leadership maintain the status quo rather than effect policy changes that are being demanded. Demanded of course by everyone except the Senate.

But Agent Orange is a media strategist par excellence. The next day he throws more chum in the water, the media swarms almost before it has time to generate a story with any depth. Boom! He’s created yet another fantasy scenario. They don’t have time to get back to investigate and report that none of the previous pronouncements ever happened. Although they try to cover the big messes, like the treatment of children and their parents at the southern border, their coverage so often focuses on administrative personnel or the victims because personal narratives affect people more intensely. But the business of government continues to be impenetrable, locked behind a security curtain that has all but eliminated access to what is supposed to be public information.

45 frequently claims he is the most (fill in the blank) in history. Lately, its administration transparency from the guy who refused to answer Bob Mueller’s questions and conducts government business (his commercial business?) in a private club where guest logs are closely guarded. He also eliminated White House visitor logs. Who’s doing who?

The CelebrityPresident is increasingly accusing his opponents of the very things that he is doing himself. This may be an invisible implicit bias, attribution bias, where the mind believes that others act the same way they do. It’s a normal mental heuristic. On the other hand, it may be a projection meant to deflect away from his activity. The opposition sounds like a petty schoolyard “you too”comeback when they make legitimately documented complaints. In the tit for tat of accusations, attention remains focused on the issue. Behavioral science shows that when information is frequently repeated, it becomes an established fact that must then be vigorously disputed. A fact is harder to dislodge than it is to become established.

For example, let’s take the CelebrityPresident’s trip to the border in California. It was pure theatre, as only a former reality TV star could tee up. He’s standing in front of new Wall, he says, implying that the administration is currently building his Wall, even as the courts have blocked new construction. Meanwhile, he castigates Dems at his rallies for blocking his will while reassuring Trumpophants that “we’ve built a lot of new Wall. But there is no new Wall at this site. It is a project begun during the Obama administration to remodel a segment of the barrier built years earlier. Just to repeat, Obama did it. Aye, yaye, yaye! A dagger in 45’s heart. Standing in front of it, 45 touts its transparency, even as we see a solid cement like material with metal prongs extending from the top. Does the border patrol have Xray vision?

This appearance was a contrivance to enhance media coverage of his nearby rally, as if he needed to boost it for the hungry mainstream media who can’t help trolling his rallies for video clips to support their commentary. SNL and many a late night TV host, pundit, podcaster and opinion writer will root around in the speech for a clip or two or three. Trump/FoxTVNews is obligated, as the arm of the president’s administration, to carry it live. It’s the CelebrityPresident’s connection to all those who can’t attend which drives the network’s ratings and therefore its bottomline.

This state of affairs is the inevitable result of the decades old decision by commercial media to make news into entertainment. Agent Orange has merely extended it to the White House itself. No one envisioned that news as entertainment would become government as entertainment and that may be the genius of The RealityTVPresident and Roger Ailes. He spends almost no time on governance, except for the occasional flourish of his pen signing executive orders. Between golf, TV watching, Mar-A-lago and executive time, he’s left the mission of dismantling the government to some very effective officials. Unprincipled, yes, but very effective; part of another story that we’re not hearing from a media blinded by the blizzard of Tweets.

45’s thoughts are on the Keep America Great campaign (stay tuned for the slogan to morph as he gets up more steam). He’s been trying out new campaign themes; what rocks a rally? What’s a winning tweet? What nicknames will stick? So far, the Dems as socialists has been added to immigration, arguably his most successful theme from 2015-16. It allows him to showcase division most broadly while appealing to the race based nationalism that he has cultivated in Trumpophants. It combines national security with the militarism of the supremacy of whiteness. Attacks on the Democratic Party as Socialists extends national security themes into his brand of nationalism.

These are extraordinarily effective tools with people who know almost nothing about socialism except that they’ve heard the term. In fact, that’s probably true for 90% of the population excluding some curious Millennials. They are easily scared by the ghost of McCarthyism and the Cold War. Just for the record, McCarthyism was nominally about communism although the Senator often conflated the two. The irony of our Cold War nemesis, now as the darling of the Republican Party, can’t be overlooked.

On the other hand, the party of healthcare trial balloon from Trump’s mouth didn’t seem to float, particularly among down-ballot Republicans still reeling from that poison pill in the midterms. 45, speaking in zealous campaign hyperbole found a crowd pleaser without thinking about (knowing?) the complexity of creating the ‘best healthcare you’ve ever seen!” For the GOP, healthcare recalls the double failure of Repeal and Replace Obamacare. Republicans simply can’t create a healthcare plan because they believe in the free market, not operational in healthcare for multiple reasons; they believe government is the problem, never the cure; they have no way to pay for it. In fact, they want to cut Medicaid, now expanded to an ever larger segment of the citizenry. And of course, there is the party’s financial links and lobbying support from insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and physicians.

high view of brown water surface green lands and houses

Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

Neither has the tariff war garnered an enthusiastic response, tamped down by farmers struggling against catastrophic weather (climate change) and workers facing manufacturing slowdowns caught in international supply chain breakdowns. Companies are reeling with the on again, off again tariffs, contributing to economic slow downs and a mad dash to relocate to countries unaffected by tariffs. The tariffs have also led to slowdowns in the EU and Japanese economies, further depressing exports. Supporters know what it means for the economy and their jobs, although they seem to be forgiving enough to allow 45 some maneuvering room. Their faith in their icon allows them to believe, as they do in their god or their superheroes, that his super powers will bully the opposition into submission. They are willing to hang on until … when?

The MAGAPresident may refine his themes over the coming months and write new scenarios to showcase his prowess. According to him, he’s doing a lot that only he can do. Unfortunately, he’s doing things that only he would do. “I am the Greatest” he echoes Mohammed Ali. The world doesn’t stand still. Any moment now, a new event could trigger infinite possibilities for campaigning. Those are the moments the RealityTVPresident lives for.

Today, in 1777, Vermont became the first territory on the continent to abolish slavery.

National Security with an Open Flank

July 1, 2019 / oleblacklady / Leave a comment

mexican-wall

The BullyPresident, having announced that he is a proud nationalist, has tried to commandeer the patriotic space, even as his history as a draft dodger for dubious medical claims would suggest otherwise. Never mind; he and his followers live in the moment, with an erasable hard drive that makes every day new. Sometimes, it refreshes hour to hour or when necessary, minute to minute as he contradicts himself within the same sentence. Instead, 45 shows his patriotism through salacious hugs of the flag reminiscent of his sexual assaults on women.

45’s dedication to protecting the nation has focused almost exclusively on the southern border. The nation is under assault from caravans of weaponless, poor families, fleeing the threat of sexual assault, torture and murder. He’s tried to inject MS-13 and a terrorist threat into this Central American human stream, now that the demise of the Caliphate has left him terrorist-less.

But what of the most powerful nations in the world, China who plans world dominance in the next two decades and our old enemy, Russia? These nations with massive militaries, sophisticated cyber weapons surely pose the nation’s most pressing threat. These well organized autocratic countries are Transformers; Central American toddlers are Raggedy Ann and Andy.

Agent Orange has steadfastly ignored nation states, unequically the most pressing threats to security, in favor of an unorganized mass of weaponless poor. Instead, he’s lobbed threats against trade deficits and threatened/delivered selective tariffs in his bully diplomacy. With China, he has circumvented pressing issues of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage in favor of tariff bashing. Always inventive in the art of fantasy, he’s substituted the drama of an encounter with Xi Jinping at the G20 that proffers the empty gesture of continued negotiations and deferred tariffs for substantive proposals. TheRealityTVpresident emerges the hero to Trumpophants because he’s spun cotton candy out of previously stated intention without clear goals. He’s saved the farmers from disastrous tariffs that he himself created while simultaneously reversing the ban on selling US manufactured technology to Huawei, ignoring the real security threat that company poses for Chinese espionage and cyber terrorism. Like every other Chinese company, they are legally required to follow the dictates of the government.

Perhaps, 45 lacks a concrete understanding of what national security means. He seems fecklessly casual about security clearance for instance. Early on, he divulged top secret information to a foreign diplomat in the Oval Office. Swimming in a cesspool of scalawags and shadowy operatives, he seems blithely unaware that “do anything you can get away with” should not be a maxim for democratic governments, although it often is. But then, he has no love for democratic governance; he’s said he aspires to Xi Jingping’s lifetime position. He’s looking beyond Putin’s model of rigged elections, so effective in 2016. While 45 has duped himself into believing his magnetic personality has drawn Putin into a “great relationship”, Vladimir is working his KGB experience to hoodwink the chief executive. While DJT spouts Putin’s propaganda lines, Putin’s domestic and global pronouncements make his position perfectly clear. The US and Western Europe are his enemies and he wants to replace their governments with his own form of Russian oligarchy. Russia in his vision is destined to rule the continent, resurrecting the inglorious USSR. Trump Continues to Step Through Putin’s Paces. TheCelebrityPresident envies Putin’s Russian oligarchy, but he’s hampered by the lack of a state-run economy here. Still his first building block is his DC hotel, doing an extremely brisk and profitable business in bookings from domestic and international organizations, and international lobbyists and official delegation visits. The hotel was the biggest money maker in the Trump businesses last year, if you can believe their official business statements.

Security clearances are designed to protect government officials from blackmail or the undue influence of business interests on policy. This is the reason for FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2015. The FBI couldn’t imagine that Trump was in fact a Manchurian candidate; they were trying to protect the candidate from foreign espionage. Similarly, when Obama approached Mitch McConnell with evidence of Russian meddling in the election in the spring of 2016, he never expected that McConnell would respond with a threat to politicize this attack on the country as slander against Trump.What If Obama Had Announced That Russians Interfered in the 2016 Election in July? This is the party of Cold War warriors. Obama was flabbergasted at this response from the purported party of patriotism although he shouldn’t have expected anything less from the rechristened party of partisanship. For 45, those are normal business practices; his Cabinet appointees, his children, business associates, Russian oligarch friends as well as now jailed political associates are all down with these practices. A government populated with shoddily cleared officials leaves the nation’s flank unprotected from foreign enemies.

Agent Orange’s continuing refusal to allow any federal support for protecting the election process exposes his instinct to use all the help he can get to retain power. He’s announced that he’s open to any interference from foreign agents. GOP officials are also reluctant to tighten elections systems because they have manipulated results in key races themselves, with only local self-investigations from Republican officials. And now, the Supreme Court has handed them the second gift: GOP elected officials can keep choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives. First it was overturning the Voting Rights Act. Now the Court has ruled that it has nothing to say on partisan gerrymandering, just in time for the 2020 elections. With Republicans in charge of most state legislatures and governor’s mansions, the fix on that front is in. With the 2020 census reapportionment the following year, the GOP will be set-up like a Margaret Thatcher-style parliamentary party. Or at least that’s the plan. Unfortunately, they seem to have the three branches of government well in hand with Democrats only biting around the edges. And the Dems seem well on their way to f*#king it up again. This may be in fact our greatest national security threat because it threatens to transform our governance.

brown bull on green glass field under grey and blue cloudy sky

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

And then there are the domestic enemies. 45 has steadfastly ignored the threat from white nationalists, responsible for more terrorist acts on US soil than any other group. He doesn’t want to alienate any who are predisposed to vote. And they are a handy tool for intimidating any opposition that disrupts El Trumpo’s desired course of action. He’s holding them in reserve for voter intimidation at the polls, reminiscent of the White Redemption that ended Reconstruction, just in case the Democrats seem to be breaking through all the multiple election rigging devices. And later, they’ll be handy to eliminate resistance to 45 leaving the White House if he is actually defeated. Talk about a dystopian nightmare.

For the RealityTVPresident, there is no higher calling than his brand. He may call himself a nationalist, but he has no sense of nationhood. He rules MAGAland, a territory inhabited by Trumpophants, not the multicultural nation that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Amplified through his Trump/FoxTV, he eggs on his citizens to carry out guerilla attacks against the enemy within– nonbelievers, people of color, Muslims, Jews, the LGBTQ community, progressives and the media. He’s simply creating the alchemy to siphon off as much of the country’s wealth as he can cart away. He’s directed attention to misidentified enemies without–our allies and trading partners–while representing our true enemies–Russia and other autocrats in Europe and the Middle East as friends. He’s honed in on battling Iran while supporting Saudi Arabia and Israel who indulge in some of the same activities. North Korea surprised him with an aggressive move, using this egomaniacal “old dolt” to bring Kim Jong-Un into the world community that had treated him as a pariah. Now Kim is exchanging visits with Putin, Xi Jingping and the president of the United States. He joined the RealityTVPresident in stepping into North Korea for an historic event that symbolized nothing about denuclearization but everything about campaigning for reelection. He’s even invited Kim to the White House, an event that can’t happen because North Korea has missiles that could reach the US, but not a passenger jet. Imagine 45 sending Air Force One to pick him up! As we inch toward war with Iran, we’re still simmering in a crisis with North Korea, both over nuclear weapons. Damn, is Donald J Trump really our worst enemy?

oleblacklady

"GET IN GOOD TROUBLE, NECESSARY TROUBLE!" John Lewis "If now isn't a good time for truth, I don't see when we'll get to it." Nikki Giovanni.

Month: July 2019

Dems Outplayed Again

Conservatives will ride this investigate the investigators elephant through the 2020 campaign, throwing out the findings of the future GAO and DOJ reports, no doubt polished to a reflective shine with falsely constructed associations courtesy of Trump/FoxNewsTV.

The real border Wall is the one across the White House lawn, keeping Congress at bay.

Say It Again, Donald

These acting administrators are part of a strategy to circumvent Senate confirmation of nominees. Frequent turnovers in agency leadership maintain the status quo rather than effect response to criticism.

Today, in 1777, Vermont became the first territory on the continent to abolish slavery.

National Security with an Open Flank

Men innately sense that the quintessence of their hegemony over women is physical and sexual.

Rape is a safe crime; victims don’t report it; DNA evidence goes untested; police aren’t pursuing perpetrators; DAs aren’t prosecuting the cases. Why would a rapist alter their behavior if they can get away with it over and over again?

General disclosure of offenses to the workplace is important to bring sexual harassment from the shadows into the light of day; it demonstrates that the employer’s commitment to a high standard.

Law enforcement and the injustice system are unlikely to pursue sexual assault perpetrators anymore aggressively than they have in the past; they are immune from public pressure.

July 28, 1917 10,000 African Americans marched silently through New York City to protest racial violence.

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Conservatives will ride this investigate the investigators elephant through the 2020 campaign, throwing out the findings of the future GAO and DOJ reports, no doubt polished to a reflective shine with falsely constructed associations courtesy of Trump/FoxNewsTV.

The real border Wall is the one across the White House lawn, keeping Congress at bay.

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Enslavers could be kind to their chattel, as a dog owner is to his expensive pet but they could not acknowledge the slave’s humanity without upending their beliefs in their own.

Can we have a national debate about racism? Sadly no.

On July 22, 1899, Frank Embree, a Black man was whisked away by a white mob to be whipped over 100 times, moments before his trial. Over 1000 people in Fayette Missouri looked on as he was then hanged.

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They are racism-blind, not color blind.

For the GOP 45’s a hero; for the rest of us, he’s an ass who’s running the country into the ground.

July 19, 1919 A Black man accused of trying to rape a white woman was released, sparking 4 days of white mob attacks on African Americans throughout Washington, DC. 40 Blacks were murdered and 150 were injured.

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These acting administrators are part of a strategy to circumvent Senate confirmation of nominees. Frequent turnovers in agency leadership maintain the status quo rather than effect response to criticism.

Today, in 1777, Vermont became the first territory on the continent to abolish slavery.

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