America is not America

Yes, I would appear to have contradicted myself but hear me out. Last night my wife and I watched the finale of this season's episode of Boston Legal. Two themes dominated -- one was on the nature of friendship. The other was what does America stand for? The conflict that drove the latter theme was that the city of Concord, MA wanted Alan Shore, a liberal lawyer with Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, to bring an action against the United States to sever its relationship to the country. The second theme was driven by the fact that Denny Crane, who has "Mad Cow" (aka Alzheimers) and is a cognitively impaired (but mostly in regard to his behaviors) patriot and Alan's best friend decides to defend the US against this secession law suit.

Alan was very good as an advocate for Concord's suit. Denny was, to everyone's great surprise, a good deal better. He countered Alan's argument that the US under George Bush has ceased to abide by the values held by the founding fathers of the country in allowing torture, imprisonment of people, including Americans, without any access to family members, to say nothing of lawyers, invading another country for totally fabricated reasons, etc. We all know what the Bush Administration has done. Denny responded by pointing out that America has been violating the principles held by the founding fathers, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. from the very beginning His argument, then, was that there is nothing new under the American sun.

Is Denny right? During my time working for Civil Rights in the early 60's and against the Vietnam War in the mid-60's to the mid-70's I wondered why I was getting so worked up about how Blacks were being treated in Texas, where I was living during the time of my civil rights activity, or our fighting in Vietnam in order ostensibly to make S. Vietnam free of Communist rule. (America's actions toward Vietnam began with our canceling an election that would have unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, who, by the way, had been an ally in WW II, which was totally at variance with our professed values.) The answer I came up with was that the values I was taught in civics class in Junior High or High School seemed to be being violated and I believed it was my duty to do what I could to bring our behaviors in line with our values. We were taught about all the wonderful things we stood for and the wonderful actions we had taken to help others. We were not taught about all the rotten things we have done, such as imprisonment of perfectly innocent Japanese Americans during WW II, among very many other quite rotten things. Had our text book and teacher been honest, I might not have grown up to be the Idealist I came to be (and still am despite all the evidence that it is a pretty hopeless perspective on the world). I shouldn't forget, of course, that my parents promoted the same values as those taught in my civics classes. I suspect that ver few parents tell their kids the ugly truths about America.)

The way Conservatives talk, they had their brains frozen after their educations in all the wonderful things America stands for. The result is that they brand anyone who draws attention to our flaws as a traitor.

America was not America when it was founded. The language of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is totally inconsistent with slavery and Founding Fathers knew this but chose to ignore this inconvenient truth in order to form our "more perfect union." Note now that slavery -- at least the sort of slavery that Blacks had to endure -- does not now exist. At the height of my disdain for the United States (I would cringe during the playing of the national anthem) for its failure to provide equal opportunities to all people and and its fighting in Vietnam on behalf of puppet leaders, my wife and I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I did research at the University of Edinburgh. While there it became apparent to me that Great Britain was some 20 years behind the US in its race relations and that did it have the military power of the US the UK would likely be engaged in even worse military atrocities. At the time, if memory serves, the UK was the only country that continued to supply arms to the White government of S. Africa. I decided that maybe the US was not as bad as I thought it was.

I learned from that experience that the values I believed America stands for are less a reality than an ambition. It is our ambition that minorities of all sorts (even when they are majorities, as in the case of women) should have equal opportunities but that is not yet a reality. With a simple change from the quite evil government of George Bush, to an administration led by Obama or Clinton (I'm much less sure of McCain) we will make a quantum leap toward making America's values a bit more of a reality.

Sadly, Obama is going to get the nomination in the Democratic Party to run for President and he is going to lose. America's reality is that it is too racist to elect a Black man -- even one who is very different from the sorts of Blacks who have run in the past (with perhaps the exception of Shirley Chisholm) that White America has been afraid of in some sense of the term. However, if the superdelegates in the Democratic Party were to see this truth for what it is -- a truth that the voters in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and now Kentucky have made quite evident -- and decide to move over to Clinton's side, then Hillary would lose as well, for Blacks would be very, very angry at this. What they would do, I do not know.

So, my prediction is that America is insufficiently evolved to elect a Black man and that is a shame

Symbolic Acts and Symbolic Words

We like to think that we are rational beings moved to take action upon reading or hearing or mongering up for ourselves some rational argument favoring taking that action. In fact, that is rarely the case. We much more reliably respond to symbols (the flag) and symbolic speech(I regret that I have but one life to give to my country).

Many Americans respond with anger if they see anyone, especially another American burn the flag. The people who burn one know this. They could have chosen to burn their Levis but didn't. In recent months, reprobates of the worst sort have taken to hanging nooses in various places. We all know what that means. Just hanging a rope would mean nothing. Flags and nooses are mere things but they have meaning just as "I hate America" and "I hate Niggers" do but with the possible exception of the word "Nigger," they are more powerful than the language.

Today, I saw the power of actions and words in politics, when Teddy Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, JFK's daughter and Teddy's niece, and Patrick Kennedy, Teddy's son, all spoke at a Barak Obama rally in Washington by way of endorsing him. They made quite clear that they meant to be passing on the Kennedy "torch." The Kennedy political line is coming to an end and I think they saw Barak Obama as a way of keeping its social and political values alive.

I first saw Teddy when he spoke on behalf of his brother in his campaign against Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic Nomination. Later, during the campaign against Nixon, I saw JFK give a political speech in Houston, Texas and then latter that evening saw him face a bunch of Baptist Preachers who thought they needed reassurance that he would not be answering to the Pope. Don't be surprised if desperate Republicans start questioning whether Mitt Romney will be answering to the Mormon church Elders.

Their speeches as well as that of Barak Obama were powerfully moving to someone of my age. As I watched Obama's speech, I could see Patrick and his gaze was riveted to Obama and he smiled and applauded when you would expect a true believer to do so. I suspect that Teddy was moved to act in part because what Obama had been saying resonated with him in the way his brother's speeches must have and in part because he was pissed off by Bill Clinton's attacks on Obama. As I began writing this blog, it occurred to me that Teddy might have seen what Bill Clinton was doing to Obama as little different from what Johnson and his supporters did to JFK in their effort to defeat him for the nomination.

Before they spoke, Hillary had a nice edge nationally over Barak. We will see if the action the Kennedy's took in endorsing Obama and the especially eloquent language in which they expressed their support will have a power that goes beyond your garden variety endorsement and endorsement speech. Super Tuesday may give us the answer. Alas that is the day I undergo a hip replacement and I may be too groggy that night to follow the election returns.

This Issue of Code

After posting my last blog, I turned on MSNBC for a full day of politics and immediately saw in succession two Black men, one old and one young, claiming that some things the Clinton's have said are code -- that they have social meanings for Blacks that are negative in nature. I think that they are wrong and that what they are saying is as divisive as anything that the Clintons might have said. For something to be code, it has to be shared. It was not in this case.

First, we have to understand that all language has to be interpreted relative to the context in which it occurs. That is a given. Second, there are two types of code of interest here. One is code that is actually a cypher, as when one does some sort of letter substitution known to writer and reader or speaker and hearer that allows them to communicate without others who are not intended to receive the message understanding it. The codes of the military, CIA, etc. are examples of this.

There is another type of code in which people use language that on its face seems harmless but is understood as having some sort of negative meaning. The problem here is that like a military code it too is conventional in that there is a regular association of the negative meaning with the language used. Sports announcers often refer to certain receivers as "possession receivers." The great majority of these are White. In fact, I think that broadcasters automatically assume that if a receiver is White he is a possession speaker. In the 2006 football season, Ohio State had two great receivers, one Black and one Hispanic, the latter as White as any White man. The Hispanic one was constantly referred to as the "possession receiver" even though he was nearly as fast as the Black guy (who had near Olympic class speed), and regularly caught deep passes. Both were first round draft choices and both had successful first pro seasons.

Now there are things that Whites say that Blacks see as deliberately negative. Hillary said, "“Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” This is factually true. It says nothing whatsoever negative about Dr. King or Blacks or anyone else. Clinton was trying to make the point that Presidential leadership is critical to obtaining changes in policy that people want. Activists inspire -- politicians achieve. This is a fact. This in no way denigrates Dr. King's contribution. Without his inspiration, the dream would have come but surely much later than it did. But without Johnson's driving force and political skills, which were enormous, it probably wouldn't have been realized in law as soon as it was. We had the conjunction in time of the right activist and the right politician, both wanting the same thing.

The reality is that Blacks in general are as racist as Whites are. The problem is that Whites in general have power and Blacks in general do not. So long as that is the case, Blacks will often have a legitimate reason to see some remark a White person makes as racist or racial (evokes race but not as a put down per se). That does not mean that speaker meant it that way. I do not think Hillary's remark was either racist or racial. Obama turned into a racial issue.

Now, had Hillary said, "Martin Luther King was very well-spoken man and he was a great Black leader, but President Johnson is the one responsible for getting legislation through Congress and signing it," then we would have a racist statement. She didn't come close to that.

Race and Gender in the Democratic Race

Were it not for George Bush, the worst President in American history, and a dismal array of Republican candidates, I would be somewhat fearful of the fact that H. Clinton and Obama continue to be the leading candidates for the Democratic party, for we have never elected a woman or an African-American President before. People are slaves to their habits and voting for white men for President has been our habit from the beginning.

Democrats do have a white male in the race but he has not been able to compete successfully. How much this has to do with him as a campaigner and how much it has to do with the qualities of H. Clinton and Obama I can't say with any assurance. Since Edwards is a quintessential Democrat, in fact a liberal Democrat by today's standard (as opposed to the standard in the 1960's), and is quite presentable, I have to assume that it is H. Clinton's star power (fame and notoriety) and Obama's novelty (the first African American to run who did not come out of the civil rights movement) that is forcing him into the shadows.

Obama's initial appeal to Whites, I believe, was that he has not been running primarily to advance the cause of African Americans or what the very tiresome Jesse Jackson has called the Rainbow Coalition. Rather, he has represented himself simply as running for the Democratic nomination, just as Hillary and Edwards have been. That was a real novelty. African Americans could expect that he would look after their interests, although he was not saying so, but so would the other candidates I imagine.

Then Hillary said, what seems to me to have been a quite innocuous point that it took politicians to enact Martin Luther King's dream and Obama took exception to that. That was, I think, a very stupid thing to do. Her remark would not have been questioned were neither running for President. Obama knows that activists all by themselves can't accomplish very much of anything besides winning the hearts and minds of the people. It takes politicians to realize or, much more commonly, almost realize the reforms of activists. Obama knows this.

Why Obama simply didn't leave this alone I can't say. It has clearly helped him in garnering Black votes and, I suspect, he will win in S. Carolina today thanks to stripping away Black voters (especially women) who might have supported Hillary. But this victory will I think be a Pyrrhic one.

Americans, in contrast to others, have sometimes been described as less racist than racially conscious. Of course both could be true. A symptom of one's being racially conscious is feeling the necessity of including the word "Black" (or whatever other word you use) in sentences like, "I saw this Black doctor yesterday who said I have a stress fracture in my foot." Clearly, the doctor's being Black is totally irrelevant. This verbal behavior is a clear sign that you are racially conscious. Men very commonly would include "female" as a descriptor in the same sentence evidencing clearly that they are gender conscious.

Even if Obama hadn't taken issue with Hillary's statement, race would have become an issue because the media would make it one. It wasn't an issue in the early caucuses and primaries. They all occurred in states in which Blacks were a small minority. But it is an issue in S. Carolina and inevitably the media in analyzing pre-election polls, and the exit polls taken on election day and in post-election analyzes, will break down the voting by race. Once that has happened Obama is doomed unless something unforseable now occurs.

Why do I say he isn't going to win? A continuing problem in America is that while White Americans are often or even usually perfectly comfortable with individual Blacks they are not, I think, all that comfortable with Blacks in general. And in my experience, African Americans are no different from Whites in this respect (except it is Whites in general they aren't comfortable with). I will never forget a Black friend of mine telling me that he would root for an African runner in an Olympics event over a White American. I was stunned. And, I saw Black college students cheering the O. J. Simpson murder trial verdict on TV. That came very close to breaking my heart. They were no different in my mind from the racist Whites that cheered when KKK murderers were found innocent by White juries.

All of this goes back to the fact that we are hard-wired to be suspicious of those who are different from us. During the period in which humans were quite primitive, one's survival depended making sound judgments as to who were and who were not a threat to us. Strangers would normally I think have been perceived as dangerous until they showed they were not. This provides the seed for racist feelings today.

Here is my prediction: Obama will win S. Carolina. (I have not turned the TV on to any news or information channel so I am not cheating here.) This victory will be due to the fact that some whites will vote for him and most Blacks will. Hillary and Edwards will split the rest of the votes. I have heard that Edwards might edge Hillary out. This victory due to Black solidarity -- as ugly a phenomenon as White solidarity or male solidarity -- will, I think, inspire Blacks to gravitate to him and this will lead Whites to move away from him and toward Hillary and Edwards. The net effect will be that Obama will not get the nomination.

Many years ago, I heard a paper at a conference at Georgetown concerning a class room experiment the speaker had run at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He raised a question for debate that he had earlier determined was one that did not break down as to the yeas and nays on racial lines. He picked a Black male and a White male and gave one the nay and the other they yea. By the time the hour was up, the entire class had polarized along racial lines. In a nutshell (the speaker gave a deeper analysis) the division in the class had more to do with debate style than the arguments that were given. The Black speaker was more aggressive than the White speaker and Whites began to see the Black male as hostile when he wasn't at all and the Blacks saw the White speaker as lame though his arguments were as robust as the Black guy's.

I fear there will be considerable racial polarization within the electorate as the campaign continues. It is hard to say whether gender polarization will also occur but it will be very hard to tell sexist attitudes from anti-Hillary attitudes in such a case. What I hope is that Clinton and Obama quit fighting and spend their time and energy on presenting their views on the issues. I think Bill may not let that happen. One benefactor could be Edwards.

Beating up on Hillary

It seems that Obama and Edwards paid dearly for their ganging up on Hillary in the New Hampshire debate, handing her a nice victory thanks to angering women. Male political talking heads, who also have been treating her in predictable sexist ways, may also have helped her out a bit. At the same time, the "First Black President" did not do her candidacy much good when he attacked Obama's proposals as being "fairy tales." The latter seems to have irked some, perhaps many African Americans.

Interestingly, Bill Clinton called Al Sharpton's radio show and, according to an article in The Trail, a section of the Washington Post devoted to the election campaign,

Sharpton began by asking Clinton about the criticism he's received, especially from Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress, who told the New York Times that "To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us."

If Rep Clyburn believes that Clinton's comments had a racial subtext, then he has a problem because the comment has no racial implications whatsoever, especially given Bill Clinton's record. Surely not all attacks on Clinton aren't sexist and not all attacks on Obama aren't racist but I suspect we will hear a lot of charges of sexism and racism as the election heats up. With any luck it will be over before too much damage is done.

The reaction by women and by Rep. Clyburn, who is not alone in his feelings, serves as an indication that from now until the end of the General Election women and African Americans will have their "feelings outsticking" as my father used to say of himself and others in circumstances in which people were being a bit too sensitive. There is no question that it would be best for the party if everyone behaved and stuck to the issues. However, there is a fundamental difference between Clinton and Obama. Clinton has been a great deal more forthcoming about what she would do as President. Indeed, yesterday Bloomberg.com reported that Hillary has proposed a $70 billion dollar program to deal with the predicted impending recession. This caught Obama and Edwards with no plan at all.

The problem that Obama and Edwards face is that they can't use the phrase "tax and spend Democrat" to poke a stick at her on this issue since that would make them sound like Republicans. We should understand that Bill Clinton meant to be communicating only that there has so far been no real substance to Obama's campaign. He is against the war in Iraq but has no specific program for dealing with terrorists and the nations that in one way or another support them. Like Obama, I was against going into Iraq, but like Obama, who was in the Illinois legislature at the time, and unlike Clinton, who was in the US Senate, I did not have to vote on the issue of giving Dubya the powers he thought sufficient to invade. It is easy for him to say that he didn't support the war.

From now until the end of the Democratic Convention, I would like to see Hillary and Barak tone down their rhetoric and run on the issues with personal attacks being forbidden. This will be very difficult since women and African Americans do seem to have their feelings outsticking. I plan to focus my blog between now and then on this question, not because I care a whit about political correctness issues per se but because I want the Democrats to beat the living hell out of the Republicans in the General Election and my ideal ticket includes both of them.

The Petreaus report as brought to you by...

I am clearly a little stupid. I had thought that General Petreas would come to the US and present Congress and the American people with a report of the positive and negative outcomes of the infamous "surge" that was supposed to make Baghdad safe for Democracy or, at least, safe. Of course, that hasn't worked and we all know it.

The other day we learned that Congress in its lack of wisdom had demanded of the White House a report on progress in Iraq in mid-September. And that seems to be what we will get. Petraeus will report to Bush and Bush and his political hacks will tell us what they want us to know and will call that "the Petraeus Report." It will be "The Petraeus Report as written by George Bush," as when a book about some NBA players life and loves comes out under his name with, below it, the phrase "as written by ..." Some sports writer will have written the book. So, General Petraeus's report will be ghosted by the White House. None of this is new. Generals do what they are told.

General Petreaus will also testify before Congress. What will he do? Testilie? Will he craft all his replies so they are consistent with the White House interpretation of his views? Or will he tell the truth? General Petraeus can be a great war leader only if he wins the Iraq war, whatever that might mean. What we can be sure of is that he doesn't want to be the General in power at the time that we "cut and run" as we surely will some day.

Bush has run out of options. He has played the "Wait until the September Petreaus Report" card and can't play the Petreas card again, especially now that we know that it won't actually be a Petraeus report. What matters now is what the Republicans in Congress will do. Will they work with Democrats to craft an end the war policy or not. Interestingly Deborah Pryce, a powerful House Republican is cutting and running. And this morning I learned that Dennis Hastert, the former leader of House Republicans is also cutting and running. I thought that Republicans are against cutting and running.

Maybe they will give the country a nice going away present by working with the Democrats to end this stupid war. They know that the Demos will take over the House and Senate and the Presidency unless they screw things up, as so many of us fear they will do. Who should be the Demo candidate? Hillary has real positives to go with her "negatives." Despite my opposition to the Iraq war, I am not a dove. In fact, IMO, we should have stayed in Afghanistan until every last Al Queda and Talliban member was dead or had cut and run. And then we should have chased them to wherever they set up their camps and bombed the living crap out of them. Just no stupid wars. Or should it be Obama. He has the virtue of having lived as a child in a Muslim country. That has surely given him a good perspective on the world. Unfortunately, a buddy called Obama "Obambi" in an email to me. This renaming, unfair or not, has colored my perception of him since.