I am not a Jewish American but for anti-Semites, tribal wranglers, and the boundaries of my own concessions.
I am not a German American, and not a word of it.
I am not a Polish American although I may appreciate the Polish tradition in tea cup and pot design.
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I am an American who admires and appreciates the world, its myriad cultures, races, and religions but returns always to a pale-to-black nation separated from alliance with any one acknowledged church, life way, or god even though I may acknowledged the presence of an All that becomes the idea of God.
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I am an American free to watch baseball or porn, to catch the world’s news or none at all, to reflect on my nation’s Constitution — or not worry over it, for it’s a strong thing by itself, and I am free and secure to fall asleep beneath clouds or stars, to read or write as spirit moves, to seek company or seclusion as my self sees fit.
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I am an American aware of the effects of American Natives, the currents of European history, and the presence of ruthless and sadistic Puritans on the cultural outlines within the spacious boundaries and potentials of the now modern state.
E Pluribus Unum. Our Founders wrote far ahead of their own circumstance in the creating of an unbiased democratic constitution. They set out ideals for later generations to realize. As a blogger, I have found Medieval Absolutism v Modern Democratic Distribution of power thematic.
I don’t know if the groups and leaderships attending what the SPLC might refer to as “Neo-Confederate” and “Neo-Nazi” are authentically homegrown perennials or stylish annuals that keep seeding themselves from year to year, but it has occurred to me that world always moves on around its hotheads, especially the archaic and romantic who may wish to hold on to what they believe they once had. So from the awesome conversation with the world at my desktop, here’s a note on all of that.
From the Awesome Conversation
I would think the Southern Far White Right in part the great-great grandchildren of settlers and the last of the pioneers, invariably white and looking for their place in the developing New World and who bore with them from one generation to the next the legends of the settling of the west. Farms, ranches, railroads, trading posts, towns, cities, dirt tracks, and highways. Where are they now? Ill-educated, some; overrun, for sure, and no longer the law and the outlaw with a few Mexicans around for decoration. They’re working for their hires; the children of slaves are bosses (some, I’m sure); John Wayne’s a foggy memory; Denzel’s more the memory for America’s middle aged; Bond’s partner is a black woman . . . .
The cities may be cool or mildly restive with all while the rural lanes, whether real or just winding through the heart, may be still what they were and now surrounded by an alien colorful all-inclusive all-tolerated multi-gendered multicultural powerful hypermodern New American political and lifestyle culture.
Bureaucracy, law, and technology may support American domestic security, but it sure can’t solve cultural issues involving birthrights and expectations about how the world should work. It’s understandable that we would have some disappointed-struggling sons of old white sons for whom official favor might seem (by themselves) deserved.
Addendum
Who would stop history?
The processes attending conquest and the establishment of sovereignty across geopolitical space and time give way, inevitably, to periods of Administration either, Genghis style, for sustained plunder or, alas, for The Good, i.e., for renewed husbandry, shepherding, and stewardship of all that may be valued in peace. These days, bloody expansions needs must give way to community care, development, and trade, mere avarice proving insufficient for the defense of sustained new wealth.
My correspondent accused me of holding hackneyed views in relation to what I’ve labeled the “Far White Right”, a term invented for Donald John Trump’s not-so-colorful base. Members of the FWR, I was told, were also highly educated and wealthy and enamored of the American Dream, so I was told. My response –>
If “They both believe in and live the American dream”, wherefore the racial angst and want of (renewed) privilege?
Wherefore the want of racially-based political ascendance and dominance?
I’m inclined to publish my own words, but, as always would be interested in seeing what a true political topology looks like for those now deeply resenting the darker hues along with Jews.
Here’s the thing about race and white boys and black boys and girls and all the shades and stances between –>
As a species . . . .
Hitchhikers thumbs, cars, old shoes, planes, ships, and trains and legions of defenders, traders, and raiders — we sure do “get around” and have gotten around, and there’s nothing to undo it.
The mentalities of criminals and extremists seems always archaic, self-adoring, and self-aggrandizing as if humiliation and mortification somewhere near has compelled repair and some former perceived noble state of affairs may be found forward with an heroic defiance of the future.
Republicans, no less committed to Israel as well as liberalism of the west, have been left to either join or repudiate an authoritarian assault or solution to American governance. Again, enough switched sides to get Biden elected. That doesn’t make Biden great; it just means the electorate refused to go further down the line with the then incumbent President Trump.
At least for Arizona, Goldwater’s long gone, or so it seems, and this most modern woman has been making her mark.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I did, I would see the Republican Party distilling down and out both its most reactionary representatives and anti-state extremists.
For the Democrats, the Far Out Left presents other issues, mostly holdovers from the ferment of the 1960s and the flow-down from Russia’s “Active Measures” — investment: $1B during the Vietnam War Era — some of which comes through in our environmental policies and some, alas, freighted with the Palestinian Solidarity Hoax. For the Dems too, the “Modern and Moderate” had best get to work against a fringe that seems to have gathered power but has nowhere to go with it. It too proves itself archaic.
Character ‘done in’ Trump’s chances for a second term.
On YouTube, “Republicans Voting Against Trump (RVAT)” and the same but titled “Republican Accountability Project (RAP)” provide plenty of material for again regarding Republicans as plain old good solid Americans, much relieving more faddish and unthinking Americans of their preference for demonizing one another over taking more sensible courses in facing challenges together and defining and resolving issues.
Stanislav Lunev’s claim that the KGB invested $1 billion in America’s own Vietnam Era Anti-War movement stands (as it has with Congress), and while we may appreciate grounded environmental policies, we may from this perspective question the fallout from that meddling in political culture. Putin, by the way, has continued the KGB/FSB tradition of meddling so well that both the Obama and Trump Administrations took action to expel the “known spies”, i.e., the crowd working under diplomatic cover in Maryland and San Francisco, California. BackChannels has commented on one aspect of that lesser and little known world in “Diplomatic Harassment–Short Compilation” (Dec. 29, 2016).
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/07/01/fbi-antifa-and-swamp-gas/ That something may be believed doesn’t mean it exists, at least not in a format known to investigators. Re. BLM: of the three founders, Patrisse Cullors has — or has had — issues related to the Far Out Left’s group-think with the Palestinians and related BDS. BDS has been well debunked by representatives of the Far Left, i.e., i.e., at least Finkelstein and Chomsky — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/03/08/bds-cult-modules/ (as much has been shared with Ms. Cullors, but where her hinge is in relation to the demystification of Palestinian myth, I don’t know). The Israel Action Network has an in-depth PDF on BLM: https://www.jcouncil.org/sites/default/files/documents/BLM%20and%20M4BL%20%28002%29%206.30%20.pdf For the most part, Blacks and Jews share minority status in the United States and may be regarded as equally worth lynching (more or less) by the White Supremacist faction of more the general Far White Right politics that drifted into the Republican quarter with the development of the Civil Rights and Great Society movements and programs of the mid-early 1960s. The Far Out Left flows down from Russia’s Soviet Communist Era and remains likely to ignorantly fly and sport the image of “Che” — or Red-Green art. Look up Danish illustrator Rune Agerhus who may be in Yemen with the Houthis these days. Where the center — moderate and reasoning — has not held in American politics, the drift toward OLD extremism has been distinct and polarizing. Rx for the confused (or prepared to be bigoted): dive into real intellectual and political history. Useful reference regarding our long-lived enmity with Stalinesque political psychology: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4874089,00.html https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/07/22/russian-active-measures-donald-trump-and-either-evil-or-gullible-americans-or-both/ Moscow’s “Active Measures” programs and other assaults — critical western cybersystems hacking — remain quite active.
Related Online
“The Party of Lincoln” Swapped Roles with the Invasion of the Dixiecrats
Kenneth L. Marcus, Accusation in a Mirror, 43 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 357 (2012). Available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol43/iss2/5 (a good reminder of the adage, “He who points the finger has three pointing back at himself”).
While the Communist Party Soviet Union (CPSU) dissolved into history, more or less, on December 25, 1991, what emerged in the character of the Russian Federation could not be called “democratic” in any modern sense. The renewal of the Russian State under Vladimir Putin’s aegis has been regarded — by those who have looked! — as feudal as mafia and heartbreaking for Russians in the breadth and depth of related state-bound corruption. Putin challenger Navalny’s nationalism now lends itself to national pride but with the hurdle of overcoming Russia’s complex networks of undeniably criminal relationships.
In which political realm do you wish to live — medieval with ignorance (and ignorant mobs) serving political absolutism? Or modern with democracy propelled by higher integrity and empirically reasoning souls?
Inspiration for this relay: I had said, “We were doing just fine with North-South peace and firecracker sales and southern rock” when the meaning of the Confederate flag was revived as a symbol of southern bigotry and secession (and slavery). My conversational partner said, “That works if you’re a privileged WHITE MALE! If you’re a Black Male it’s FUCKED!”
From the Awesome Conversation
That’s only if the Black Male thinks he’s Fucked.
Let me show you something about North and South —
Black and White?
Posted to YouTube by US National Archives, September 6, 2013 and narrated by Carl T. Rowen who was in 1963 Director of the U.S. Information Agency.
History walks slowly, and while slavery may have been done after Lincoln’s handling of the matter and segregation finished by the Great Society and LBJ, it’s understood that some evil currents and ruthless bigots hold out a long time even while time grinds them down.
With black and white bigots still at play in OUR country and some foreign agent provocateur interested in watching the United States of America come apart — and possibly just some dumb people, political simpletons, really, swallowing intellectual poison, the Confederate Flag laid to rest for war — it was created to clarify who was who in General Lee’s engagements — and made into a generalized American symbol of a rebellious spirit — has been re-contextualized BACKWARD as a living symbol of hate.
What the hell are we doing back with the mentalities of the 1930s and the 1950s?
A little more that might be associated with the now thankfully passed “Trumpian Detour”:
This guy was a bigot — and it turns out a lonely one too:
I think we’re being moved around by forces that would like to herd us back into malleable medieval mobs and somehow inclined to Think Black! Think White!
Yeah, well, Think Integrated, Multicultural, Rainbow — that’s far more our Real Cultural Politic.
Just say no to historical revisionism from Far Out Left spoilers and Far White Right idiots.
I’m not inclined to leap far into conspiracy-think. However, wind turbine technology appears engineered and manufactured by transnational corporations and firms well aware of freezing weather, so this nonsense about renewable energy failing in Texas (why not on the North Sea? Why not in Germany?) just doesn’t hold ice water.
Super conservative angst, disinformation (received or sent), and viciousness get in the way of the public’s more cool-headed gathering and perception of variables contributing to disasters. That discomforting aspect of our collective national psyche notwithstanding, I would ask news (and weather) editors and readers to simply consider the full suite of possibilities in the unfolding of dramatic stories. In this one, finger pointing at wind-generated energy overlooked frozen instruments (!) in other energy systems. Well Whisky Tango & Foxtrot, where is Homeland Security on the Big Dallas Freeze? And may the investigative journalists be all over the possibility, just that (!), of external meddling involving massive critical — and technologically delicate or vulnerable — systems.
Of course, there are other possibilities, much including the architecture and engineering in a region better known for heat than cold and successive building generations in a political environment resistant “global warming” the potential for coming extremes in the known environment.
Still, has the drama been only about old engineering and new weather?
I may be tilting at windmills.
Maybe not.
While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Frozen instruments at gas, coal and even nuclear power stations were among the main problems, Ercot director Dan Woodfin said, according to Bloomberg.
Last March—if not before, as a report by the threat-intelligence firm ReversingLabs suggests—a hacking team, believed to be affiliated with Russian intelligence, planted malware in a routine software upgrade from a Texas-based I.T. company called SolarWinds, which provides network-management systems to more than three hundred thousand clients. An estimated eighteen thousand of them downloaded the malware-ridden updates, which were embedded in a SolarWinds product called Orion. Once they did, the hackers were able to roam about customers’ networks, undetected, for at least nine months.
For the American President’s navigation: the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain; the development of an expansionist imperial Japan; polarization in the United States between the forces of self-serving fascist sentiment related to business and popular interest in the Far Left answers to abuses generated in Far Right circles.
Add the global Great Depression.
I have not yet reached the middle of this eye-opening and insightful history, but the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “working the issues” rings clear and sound for this day.
I have made much and will continue to make much of the tensions between politically medieval and modern worlds, and my own energies and hopes are with the modern world, its potential great breadth in personal freedoms, and its obligations as steward of the earth and humanity.
Whoever you may be and wherever you are in the world — and whether you enjoy or have to make yourself do this kind of reading (smile) — this volume will set the benchmark for understanding the United States and the western civilizational project in the appreciation and defense of humanity.
BackChannels 