White Supremacist Racism (WSR)

Picture credits: Houston Chronicle. 

     The world is trying desperately to deal with racism and white supremacy but the more we listen to those who have suffered from white supremacist racism (WSR) for centuries the more we realize that we have a daunting task ahead of us.  I recently changed my Facebook page 'Studying the Hunter-Gatherer', which was a research page, to an advocacy page for HG, indigenous people and all people of color who have and are suffering from WSR.  My current idea of support is to study questions about the history and practice of WSR.  As an undergrad historian and philosopher, (i) I truly believe that we can learn from history. Understanding the history can help us know the best attack. Why do you think that professional sports teams spend so much time studying game films?  Knowing what happened - history - can identify an opponents' weaknesses and/or help one avoid making the same mistake again. 

     For me, in our current crisis,  looking at the game film; i.e. studying the history of WSR;  is an important step.  I can't blame people of color (POC), which is basically the entire world except those of European ancestry, for boiling over and demanding immediate action. They deserve it. Nevertheless, acting too hastily can result in laws that are passed just for show, have no teeth and are about as good as the Indian peace treaties the US government has made over the years and subsequently broken.  I'm not advocating for slowing down or backing off!!  Quite the contrary.  We just need to make sure that we have a game plan that will not only bring some quick success and relief as well as success that will endure backlash and last for perpetuity.  Besides the fact that most people have neither the patience nor the desire to do this type of research,  I'm seventy-four years old and people like me don't have the physical ability to hit the streets like I did in the 1960s.  

     I believe that the first, and perhaps biggest question is "how did the white colonialist overcome all these people?" -OR- "what is the origin of WSR?"  We know the Europeans weren't smarter.  Europe was just coming out of a period of great superstition and ignorance while their POC neighbors, in what is now the Middle East, were the keepers of knowledge in what we call the western world and Asians had successful, sophisticated medical systems. The Asians had gunpowder long before the Europeans. Some native tribes in North America had been successfully practicing pure democracy (ii) for centuries before the white colonialist.  What happened?  

     We know that the white Europeans believed themselves superior and so treated others with total disregard and inhumanity.  I think we see that that is still true of the modern WSR. This belief can be translated into a total lack of concern for the effects of their behavior.  In other words, early colonialists might smile sweetly at the indigenous person while another colonialist stabs the indigenous person in the back.  Do you think that the modern WSR would do this?  You can bet on it.  Andrew Jackson told many stories about the horrible, bloody, ruthless behavior of the Indians.  He was actually describing his own behavior and that of other white people but, to turn the unsuspecting and naive US citizen against the natives, he attributed his behavior to his victims.  The white historical account of Lt. Col George Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Greasy Grass; the native name for what whites call the Battle of Little Bighorn; was called a massacre and an appalling example of Indian savagery. This is what appears in many school books. Thankfully historians aren't going to be put off. If you read the whole story, the true story, you find that Custer had just slaughtered a village of women, children and elderly, and that wasn't the first such slaughter. Whites tried to rewrite history. There were, and probably still are, those who tried to make slavery look good; depicting the southern plantation as a comfortable, happy life and ignoring the reality of being chained and dragged from their homes in Africa, of being bred and sold at auction, and being whipped at their owner's discretion, and much more. Do you think that the modern WSR would resort to such lying?  You'd better believe it.  Colonialist, which include the so-called pioneers, had no qualms about murdering native women, children and elderly, and as a result the saying "the only good injun is a dead injun" (iv) made its way into the twentieth century western movie. Speaking of movies, for decades the black slave was little more than a simpleton, and people of color were almost always the bad guys.

     These are just a few of the behaviors and issues which I can tell about without having to go do research.  As the son of an historian and a history major myself as an undergrad, these are facts that I've always known.  These are the facts, coupled with personal experience, (iii) which made my Father and me the protagonist of the WSR.  It is written in the Cambridge English Corpus (iv) that "All good protagonists require a formidable foe,..."  We have that in the WSR.  Our efforts and the results of the 1960s civil rights campaign were good, but only a good start.  They have proven to lack the strength to survive much more of the modern WSR attack. Looking back and thinking about the blatant racism that still exists, I think we failed to cut off the head of the evil serpent.  

     In J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel "The Hobbit", Bilbo Baggins crept into the lair of the evil dragon, Smaug, and discovered the weak spot in the dragon's armor.  Until then the dragon was invincible.  Until now WSR has given indication of invincibility.  While people are still manning the front-lines of the everyday battle, I propose that we dedicate some serious brainpower to finding the weak links in the WSR armor and exploiting them for the good of all.  

FOOTNOTES.

(i)   I did history and philosophy as an undergraduate. Even though I ended up a psychotherapist, these are still subjects important to me.

(ii)  pure democracy is where everyone in the community, males and females, had equal say in the community decisions. There were no "representatives" and the chief was often selected by the people and subject to their demands.  Read  Hudson, Charles (1976).  The Southeastern Indians.  Knoxville. University of Tennessee Press.

(iii)  My Father grew up in a small Midwestern town that had no people of  color.  His first introduction to racism was in World War II.  He was a disabled vet, who could barely walk and had just been returned to the US days before, when a gang of white men threatened to hurt him because he held the door for a black lady.  That was his trigger. He became a member of the NAACP and, as a professor, advocated for black students throughout his career. He was responsible for the Pennsylvania university system offering black history, and, realizing that there were no black faculty  to teach it, he did copious research so that he could be the first professor. His original specialty was the US Constitution.

(iv)  This saying can be traced back to General Philip Sheridan, 1869, when he replied to Comanche  chief Tochaway's statement about being a good Indian by saying "the only good Indians I ever saw were dead."  Racism. WSR


(iv)  The Cambridge English Corpus is a multi-billion word corpus of English language (containing both text corpus and spoken corpus data). The Cambridge English Corpus (CEC) contains data from a number of sources including written and spoken, British and American English.

No such thing as bad publicity

     The line "there's no such thing as bad publicity," is credited to PT Barnum of Barnum & Bailey fame.  He was a self-publicist and a publicist's publicist. Is his saying true?  Movie stars and politicians seem to believe it.  Barnum's show, touted as The Greatest Show on Earth, and its precedessors ran from 1871 to 2017! What do you think? 

     It is really difficult to stop someone like Barnum. Case in point: Donald Trump.  Whether it is a picture and an old statement about his daughter that leads one to wonder about incest or factual evidence of encouraging violence, they all provide name and face recognition.  

     We can't stop the tweets, posts and behavior, but we can reduce the publicity impact by following a few guidelines.  

(1)  Don't use derogatory nicknames. It immediately turns off everyone you'd like to have read what you write.   

(2)  Don't show pictures of Trump even if you're talking about something horrible he did. Pictures create face recognition. Post pictures of what he did; e.g. a picture of polluted water on a native American reservation. People remember the face and forget why they know it.  

(3) Don't read and react to every Tweet he posts.  The man puts out about 1 Tweet every 15 minutes for 8 hours a day. To acknowledge and argue each of them gives him name recognition. People recognize a name and forget why they heard it. You also give his faithful something about which to argue.     

      Another factor. Twitter will tell you of the millions who follow Trump's tweets. That doesn't mean that all of those agree with him. Those vast numbers who disagree and debate his tweets are counted among "followers".  That builds his ego, which already surpasses Genghis Khan,  Julius Caesar and Adolph Hitler all rolled into one. I think we would be best to totally ignore him on social media and focus on his actual behavior. That gives anyone plenty about which to write. 

Statues, sound bites and blogs

There has been a lot of attention on statues over the past few weeks. It is good that we have the discussions we have about statues and that many must come down. I'm happy to see racist/divisive statues removed. Personally I'd also remove statues that glorify war or conflict. In fact, the only statues that I might leave standing are a representation of a person on their grave which simply says "here lies a good person."   Whether racist or divisive, all statues have the same problem; viz. they don't tell the entire story and can be quite misleading.  Even a plaque, which I feel far superior, is limited by the amount of information its space allows. Frequently that isn't nearly enough to really tell the story, and people are generally too lazy to seek out more information.  

     Statues, plaques, etc., were the means of universal communications to our predecessors. Our sound bites, video clips and blogs are our current means, and they have the same limitations. They show only one minute part of the story.  For example, the statue of Andrew Jackson. Wow, does it make him look impressive. It doesn't tell the rest of the story about how he cheated, killed, defied the Supreme Court and stole the land of the Native Americans who helped him win a war. It doesn't tell you that he was the worst thing to happen to the US until 2016. 

     I must admit to disliking sound bites and video clips. I took you-tube off my phone. I want to read accounts, opinions and facts so that I can think, reread, ponder, reread, form a visual images or opinions and then reread.  I want to see the whole picture, or at least enough of it that I can learn where to go to get the rest of the story. 

     Case in point: Oct 19, 1969.  As a graduate student, I drove a bus load of college students to the Washington DC anti-war demonstration. There were over 500,000 of us there. The sound bites weren't going to include the organizers tell new arrivals how to stay out of trouble, they were going to focus on every nasty thing anyone said on either side. That's sensationalism and that's what keeps the ratings up.  Pictures and videos were going to be of those students who broke the march rules and tried to stop traffic or damage property.  They weren't going to be of the cops calmly redirecting traffic around the trouble makers or the marchers distancing themselves from those who wanted to throw stones.  Pictures definitely were not going to show the DC cop soaking his feet in the reflecting pool at the end of a long day with students skinny-dipping nearby.  

     I don't really like what we call "blogs". Have you ever read directions for writing a blog that will get picked up by a search engine? It is basically writing techniques that are antithetical to good writing skills. I avoid calling anything I write a "blog". To me that's almost an insult.  Some actually argue for longer texts but most say that you want to keep the length down because people won't read more than a minute or two. Evidently that's around 800 words. You see blogs or news articles that tell you how long it will take you to read it. The blog has become an over-sized plaque; insufficient to get the entire story or message across. 

     I don't know how my anthropologist family and friends feel about it, but my historian Father found all this appalling. It is hard enough to glean the truth of an event or social situation studying piles of books and hundreds of documented references. I have an anthropologist friend who often laughs about the piles of books in her study and how she is receiving more each day.  These are the tools by which she learns of people, places and times she can't visit in person. How does one expect to really learn anything from a short video or 800 word "blog"?  You can have a picture of Donald Trump standing by the Mexican border with his hands outstretched. You and I know that he isn't saying "give me your tired, your poor, your  huddled masses yearning to breathe free,..."  Quite the contrary. But how is that going to look to someone who hasn't lived through Donald Trump's reign? 

     Going back long before I started going to school people called subjects like history the boring, egghead subjects. I'll agree that there are teachers who can make a class on the Kama Sutra boring, but that doesn't make the book or the subject boring. I've also witnessed lecturers who can make an obscure historical place or event so interesting that the listeners go away wanting to learn more. 

     I hated having to give up my books when I hit the road as a nomad. Behind my desk were hundreds of reference and professional books. Beside the chair where I would end the day reading and sipping Irish were probably two hundred books on a myriad of subjects. 

     I guess I must admit that while I was labeled by my profession as a psychotherapist, my real love was as an amateur philosopher, historian or anthropologist. During the short period of life where I was an advisor to doctoral students, I actually envied the research they were doing.  The result of this is that I truly and sincerely fear for our society that doesn't want to read, can't write a complete sentence, and wants everything in short sound bites, 800 word blogs or 280-500 character tweet. I can't help but to fear that if we don't study, read and understand why we are tearing down statues, etc., that we will indeed repeat the history that put them there.  

Finding out who we really are

I find it quite sad that so many people never find out who they really are. It seems, from rather simple observation, that the lucky ones among us tend to discover who they really are rather late in life. I have a number of nomad friend whom I think have discovered their real selves, but even most of them were well into adulthood. 

     If you have read any of my philosophical essays on social systems, you will know that I believe that social systems (i) tell us who we are, what we believe and set expectations on our lives and behavior. This is quite unfortunate because it leave us totally out of the loop. What is the current popular acronym?  WTF?  It's our life. What right do social systems have telling us who we are. 

     My Mother has been called a "spitfire". Sometimes that was meant as a compliment. She defied her father, who was speaking for the social system, and refused to just get married and start having babies. She went to college. Well, college was interrupted by WWII, but when I was eleven years old and she graduated from Indiana University, you wouldn't find a more proud father. Sadly, I'm not sure she ever discovered who she really was. She had lots of talents. She earned her PhD when she was over 60 years old. The up side is that I don't think she ever stopped trying to find out, even though I don't think she was conscious she was looking. 

     My Father was again limited and pidgeon-holed by the social systems. Returning from WWII as a disabled vet, he completed his PhD with a specialty in US Constitution. He was strongly recruited by the US Department of State but the social systems told him that he shouldn't risk taking a family to foreign countries. He turned down an unbelievable opportunity. He was cautious to the extreme. Even though he had a good career and retired as a highly respected professor, knowing him, he wasn't happy.  He learned about our family roots in Ireland. That seemed to be a turning point in his discover of who he really was.  He studied Irish history and became Cainteoir Gaeilge (Irish speaker), which, by the way, is one of the primary reasons that I ended up moving to Ireland and starting my PhD.  By the time he retired at 65, he was spending three months a year in Ireland.  Part of that time was spent on the west coast where they don't speak English, and part of that time was in Belfast. He started a program where he brought Belfast teenagers from both sides of the trouble to the US where they could get to know each other on neutral ground and become leaders of peace. It was a very successful program. The program meant that he spent a lot of  time in the middle of the dangers of Belfast and he told me stories of being followed by "protestant" gangs and rescued by the provisional IRA and being on the English MI6 watch list. He enjoyed Irish dancing into his 80s, founded a very active Irish heritage group, and traveled the country visiting or presenting at Irish festivals. He had learned who he was and it wasn't the frightened, bespeckled academic he had been taught to be. 

     It would be interesting, but I'm afraid that it would be depressing, to know how many people actually have the opportunity to learn who they really are. I'm seventy-four years old. Until I was twenty-one I spent as much time out in the mountains and forests as possible. I loved sleeping on the ground under a tree, canoeing down a fast stream, being in the middle of a forest far from humanity. It would have been interesting to know where that love might have led me, but, alas, my future was dictated by social systems.  It was understood that I would become some sort of academic or professional.  Ending up in medical school was a bit of a surprise, but it was in keeping with the dictates of my social systems. It was understood that I would end up in a "helping" profession. I have to credit my eldest grandson with being the catalyst of my enlightenment. 

     My eldest grandson, who was about seven at the time, wanted to run a 5k race at Disney World. His father had had a hip replacement, his mother was running the half-marathon, and his two sisters were in college. Even though I walked with a cane due to arthritis, I figured that I could hobble along for 3.1 miles. I didn't know there was a time limit. Long story short, I learned to walk, then run, and fell in love with running to the point that I was soon doing ultras - running 40-60 miles through mountains and deserts. It brought me back to what the social systems had forced me to give up when I was young. I started traveling the country running and living in a 5x8 cargo trailer that I fitted out with a bed, galley, chest of drawers, and table. 

     I lost my wife in 2011. Being disabled by a serious heart condition and a host of other problems, she had been my biggest cheerleader. Then I met Pamela in December of 2013. She had been a tri-athlete. She became my catalyst, my fast-track, to learning who I really am.  We clicked and by the spring of 2014 we had hit the road together in a sixteen foot 1980 trailer. We worked as volunteers for Glacier National Park. That's how we ended up Montana residents. 

     It was this opporunity that enabled me to learn who I really am. The farther off the grid we lived, the happier I was. We went to the deserts of southwestern Arizona for the winter and fell in love with the desert. Again, the farther off the grid, the happier I was. I can't express how happy I was to find myself, and I can't thank Pamela enough for helping me. 

     Thanks to Pamela and our nomadic life, I learned who I am.  I find that I love being a nomad. I love living and sauntering through  the wilderness. It is my natural home. I don't want a place to settle down. Sticks-n-bricks; the nomad's term for houses, scare me. I'm also pretty much of a recluse. If it weren't for Pamela, I'd be happy by myself for great lengths of time, as long as I had the wilderness. We are currently riding out the pandemic in a lovely home, with a wonderful 1.25 acre hollow, in a nice western Kentucky town. I'm happy spending my time here with Pamela.  Nevertheless, I'm desperately homesick for the wilderness. I've learned who I really am. 

     It is sad that it should take so long for the lucky few of us who learn who we really are. It is even more sad that so many people; I'd guess a vast majority; never have the opportunity. I can't help but wonder whether the real problem with humanity is that most people never have the opportunity to discover the real "me".  The more I study social systems, the more I find them the source of our misbehavior, our unhappiness and the barriers to becoming who we really are, the more angry I become. Perhaps, rather than try to make sense of the horrible destructive, violent, apathetic society, I should be focusing on how people can overcome the social systems that misdirect us, mislead and misinform us, and create the evil, destructive, violent creatures we've become. 

     With this realization, my heart goes out to the uneducated, misdirected masses who have become the almost mindless, definitely unsuspecting, slaves of the social systems. It will be hard to free them. The social systems love to vilify the intellectuals; i.e. people who think on their own. It appears to be coming down to a battle between the social systems and the intellectuals. The prize is the freedom of the masses who still think that "this is all there is in life."  

One more step toward totalitarianism

     Does this article (i) scare anyone else?   I can't believe how many of my family and friends have taken an "oh, it's going to be okay" attitude throughout this debacle even if they are strongly against Donald Trump.  Here is yet another step toward totalitarianism. We should be afraid and take action. 

I grew up with an historian father - a specialist in Constitution. Maybe this is why I seem to be more aware of  ebbs and flows of history around me.  Perhaps this is why I take the saying "those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it" so seriously.

Sports teams and fans should definitely understand the concept.  The team that doesn't review a game to see why they got their butts whipped is destined to get defeated again and again.  The people who believe that their government is immune to those things which brought down governments throughout history are one day going to be greatly surprised.  That's us.  

Freedom of speech and the existence of a free and unfettered press were the first ones listed in the Amendments to the Constitution.... freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.  Trump has openly said that he thinks this is ridiculous. We should do whatever he says.  Wait a minute.  Doesn't that sound like authoritarianism or totalitarianism?  We already have fascism according to the very definition of fascism written by its founder, Benito Mussolini. "The definition of fascism is the marriage of corporation and state."  "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."  (ii)   

Donald Trump has openly violated the constitution, calling it an archaic document and calling its authority over him "phoney". (iii)   Trump's most recent act of taking over the US Agency for Global Media and replacing its leadership with faithful followers should give all American cause for concern. Actually I propose that this is cause for more than concern. It is a cause for fear and action.  For most dictators, that's one of the first thing they do - take over or shut down the press. 

I did a bit of research.  I took twelve of the best known authoritarian rulers (dictators) in twentieth-century history and, reviewing their history and methods of rule, arrived at nine things which almost every dictator does.   None of the twelve had more than two of these nine that did not apply to them.  

All tyrants . . .

1. Attack the press
2. Have someone for people to hate and blame
3. Promise to make the country great again - the promise of lost glory makes uneducated people think they're going to get something.  Nationalism.
4. Attack intellectuals
5. commit human rights abuse
6. practice and promote political persecution
7. nepotism
8. corruption
9. economic mismanagement 

 The authoritarian rulers I reviewed were . . . . 

Benito Mussolini, Italy, 1922-1943   

Adolph Hitler , Germany,  1933-1945 

Mao Zedong, China,   1949-1976

Vladimir Lenin, Soviet Union   1917-1924

Joseph Stalin, Soviet Union  1924-1953

António de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal,  1932-1968

Francisco Franco,  Spain,  1936-1975

Abdul Qassen, Iraq,  1958-1963

Hafez al-Assad,  Syrdia,  1970-2000

Saddem Hussein,  Iraq,  1979-2003

Muammar Gaddafi,  Lybia,  1969-1977

Idi Amin Dada Oumee, Butcher of Uganda,  1971-1979    

Actually, on a global basis, this list just scratches the surface, but I couldn't check them all. 

Now consider how Donald Trump compares to them. 

1. Attacks the press.  Trump calls the press the "enemy of the people". This is not unique to him. While most commonly associated with Adolph Hitler, several of the above dictators used that or a similar phrase.  Trump has been tireless in his attempt to discredit the American press.  Fox News, which has been caught in lies and doctoring photos, is his only ally.  Now he is literally taking over the US Agency for Global Media.  
2. Have someone for the people to hate and/or blame.   Hitler used Jews and people of color.  Mao had the "capitalist pigs".  Hussein had the Shi'ites and Idi Amin had the English.  Trump uses Immigrants, Muslims and to some extent any non-Fundamental-Christian group, "liberals" and LGBTQ.  He has attacked these groups as not only un-American but a threat to America and all but given followers permission to physically abuse and attack them. 
3. They all promise to make their country great again.  Super-nationalism is not only dangerous but a very powerful control tool, especially over generally uneducated people.  This was part of the "dictatorship of the proletariat."  Question is, who defines what makes a country great. Trump obviously feels that making the super-rich even richer is making America great.  Nevertheless there is no doubt that he is using MAGA for his own purposes. 
4. Attack intellectuals. (iv)  All of the above dictators either attacked, tightly controlled intellectuals or both.  The Khmer Rouge (v) systematically jailed or killed most of their intellectuals.  We sponsored a young Cambodian girl whose father, a police office, was killed while she, her brother and mother, a nurse, were dumped in the jungle to die.  Trump has very carefully created a conspiratorial fear of scientist, educated people and anyone who insists upon thinking for themselves.  He has successfully used a very long-standing American attitude; viz. anti-intellectualism and "my ignorance is as good as your knowledge."  (vi) 
5. There is no doubt that Donald Trump has committed numerous human rights violation. It is strongly suggested that he is aware of what he is doing since he has refused to permit United Nations human rights investigators and advocates into this country.  His treatment of people presenting themselves at the US border seeking asylum, the separation of migrant children from their parents, and treatment of Native Americans is absolute evidence of  human rights violations.  In reviewing the dictators we find that they generally pick on people who, as a group, might pose a threat or gain public sympathy and vilifies them. 
6. Political persecution is perhaps the best known hallmark of a dictator/authoritarian ruler. That Donald Trump practices political persecution is beyond argument.  Obviously, since he is not a confirmed dictator yet, he doesn't have the power to throw his political opponents in prison as the other dictators did.  However, he does the next best thing. His tweets, such as "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat," incite violence. (vii)  His sole method of dealing with political opposition is insult, threat and encouraging followers to do the same. 
7. Nepotism is another common practice of dictators and authoritarian rulers. They do it because they can.  Donald Trump's children have no qualification for the positions they hold other than being his children.  Need I say more? 
8. Corruption.  This is another very common practice.  Of course, there is the old saying that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Trump is a master at corruption.  He puts visiting dignitaries up at hotels he owns and then charges the US government. He vacations and golfs at his own facilities yet charges the US government.  He funnels money intended for his campaign into his personal account.  His children travel the world at the US taxpayers' expense. Even before announcing his intentions to run for President he was known as a liar and cheat being sued countless times for it. 
9. Economic mismanagement.  If running up the largest deficit known in US history and having the worst economy since Herbert Hoover, isn't proof of mismanagement, let's not forget the billions of dollars he has directed to the super-rich without accountability or oversight. 

Now, the fact that Donald Trump practices all the same behaviors as a dictator doesn't mean that he is a dictator . . . . yet.  The fact that he has asked foreign leaders to help him get re-elected ... the fact that the GOP is practicing voter suppression to retain power ... the fact that he actually said that he would leave the White House peacefully if he loses the election indicating that he is aware that we know him capable of using violence  ... the fact that he definitely sees himself as being superior to the Constitution and law of the land  ... the fact  that he practices these behaviors and appears to be using famous dictators as his role-models, all tell me that he wants to be an absolute ruler and we should worry.  Many powerful countries throughout history; some bigger, older and more powerful than the US; have fallen to an authoritarian regime.  This tells me that we should be afraid, and do everything in our power, as citizens, to get this man out of power as we work to return the republic to being the truly representative democracy we all desire. 

FOOTNOTES. 

(i)  https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/media/us-agency-for-global-media-michael-pack/index.html  a news report by CNN, among others, on 6/17/2020 describing Trump's take over of the US Agency for Global Media.  

(ii)  As dictator of Italy and founder of Fascism, Benito Mussolini strongly influenced  totalitarian rulers such as Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, António de Oliveira Salazar, and several others. In 1932 the Enciclopedia Italiana published a thirty-seven page essay by Mussolini and an Italian philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, entitled  La dottrina del fascismo  (The doctrine of fascism.).

(iii)  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/23/how-trump-disparages-the-constitution/       a 10/23/2019 article by the Washington Times 

(iv)  I must impress upon the reader that the term "intellectual" does not describe some sort of highly educated elitist. It describes a person who is a seeker of knowledge and wisdom. Often they are educated, nevertheless, I know several people who are definitely intellectuals and have very little formal education. Intellectuals also tend to be free and independent thinkers which pose a threat to dictators.   

(v)  The Khmer Rouge was a communist military junta that governed Cambodia from 1975-79. 

(vi)  see: Pierce, Charles P. (2009)  Idiot America: How stupidity became a virtue in the land of the free.  Doubleday. New York.   and 

Hofstadler, Richard (1962)  Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.  Vintage Books. New York. 

(vii)   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-shares-video-of-supporter-saying-the-only-good-democrat-is-a-dead-democrat/    a 5/28/2020 article by CBS. 

A strange and scary new world

The pandemic has definitely created a strange and scary new world.  You never realize how much humans rely on facial cues, especially the mouth, until everyone around you is wearing a mask. Eyes tell a lot but the mouth finishes the sentence. 

     Pamela and I have been carefully quarantining ourselves.  When we must go out for groceries we wear mask and gloves and then slather ourselves in hand sanitizer when we return to our vehicle. I'm in very good health, still climbing mountains, but I am 74 years old. I won't deny I'm frightened to go out.  Over the past seven years I've learned that the farther away from so-called civilization I am, the more relaxed and the happier I am.  To add the threat of a viral death makes me even less anxious to wander out into the human infested world. 

     We've ended up riding out the pandemic in western Kentucky.  We are two widowers who got together and have seven children and eleven grandchildren between us. The oldest grandchild is twenty-nine and the youngest isn't quite two.  This is as close as possible to a central location to our family. Our adopted home is northwest Montana, in the Rocky Mountains, where we work as volunteers for the National Park Service from May 1 to the end of September.  We fell in love with the desert and winter in southwest US, visiting family in fall and spring.  While I'm horribly homesick for the west and being a nomad, this has been a good place to be quarantined. Kentucky governor, Andy Bershears, has done a good job.  

     One of our children and his wife were facing a situation where they needed help with child care for their baby. They had been self-isolated, working from home, for almost 90 days. We had been practicing self-isolation for 89 days and felt that it would be safe for Pamela to go help for a few days.

     It was fine until the day she was to come home.  The baby complained of a sore throat and was running a fever.  Before 2020 we would have been concerned, had the child treated and gone on with life. Not now!  Panic. Terror.  At least that's how I felt.  

     Many times I've found myself face to face with a bear without fear or panic. That's because I know bears and I know what to expect and how to act.  Even the ever-predatory mountain lion doesn't elicit the gut-wrenching fear that I felt when I got the news. This type of fear and panic can be deadly in the wilderness.  

     After regaining my composure, we decided that Pamela should stay there until at least Friday by which time they should know if the baby has Covid-19. 

     Our "home" is a twenty-one foot 1996 Roadtrek we call Mr. Spock.  If we must be isolated from each other, I could take Mr. Spock and disappear into the backcountry of nearby Land Between the Lakes. We are capable of living off the grid in Mr Spock for 14-18 days. Despite the fact that I'd much rather be out in the backcountry; preferably the western wilderness; I hate the idea of leaving without Pamela. 

     At this point in time it appears that the baby does not have Covid-19 and that quarantine/separation won't be necessary, but that isn't the final determination.  We face at least another twenty-four hours.  

     I had never thought of what it would feel like to be told that a family member might have a deadly virus.  Our oldest grandson got sick early on in the pandemic.  That threw us all into a terrified panic, but they were able to relatively quickly confirm that it was not Covid-19. Being a teenager he was able to cooperate in his care and didn't require a babysitter or hands-on care.  Nevertheless the feeling of helplessness was still there.  

     We face a strange and scary new world. Pamela is a retired biology professor and, while working in an animal pathology lab some years ago, discovered a new disease.  She and other experts feel that the pandemic is far from over.  Could we be living like this for many months, or even years?  Are we being forced into a whole new social paradigm based upon social distancing?  Could we be partially, or even totally, responsible because for centuries we have worked to distance ourself from the fact that we are animals and a part of nature thereby removing and/or reducing natural immunities?  Perhaps Covid-19 is our Dutch Elm disease or our White Nose Syndrome (i) capable of dramatically reducing or even eradicating our species. We just don't know. The best we can hope for is a highly qualified and well documented guess. 

     These are indeed strange and scary times. We live in a time when we must stop blaming each other for everything and anything that goes wrong. We must throw off the capitalistic "me first" attitude and start truly working together. We must show compassion for all living things. We must give up the religious teaching of human superiority and accept our place in nature so that we can again understand and live as a part of nature.  We must re-learn so many things which we purposely gave up to become a high-tech society.          

     These are strange and scary times. Will we be frozen by fear and eradicated by ignorance, or will we learn and grow as species?  

FOOTNOTE

(i)  Here are links if you are not familiar with Dutch Elm Disease or White Nose Syndrome. The Dutch Elm Disease all but eradicated the American Elm while the White Nose Syndrome is still killing bats across the US and Canada.   

Dutch Elm Disease:  https://extension.umn.edu/plant-diseases/dutch-elm-disease

White Nose Syndrome. 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/what-is-white-nose-syndrome.htm

Racial Capitalism in the United States

     Racial Capitalism is alive and thriving in the United States, as well as almost everywhere in the world.  Tracing its roots back to the so-called voyages of discovery; i.e. Europeans "discovering", conquering and enslaving non-white people around the world;  racial capitalism turns humans, most notably non-white humans, into chattel.  

     Capitalism actually does this to all humans which is evidenced by the fact that corporations see humans as "resources". I don't want this fact to redirect our focus from the desperate need to address racial capitalism which has always plagued the US, but I believe that by looking at how capitalism works in a broader generalized population we  can better understand its place in racial capitalism. 

     The definition of resource is "a stock or supply of money, materials, staff and other assets . . . ."  Right in this definition, which is an internet definition but no different than any you are going to find anywhere, you see people listed as "assets".  If you look up asset you will find that asset might mean being of value, as in "she is an asset to the team."  You also find that it means "property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts, commitents or legacies."  Oh, my!!  If a resource is an asset and an asset is property it follows that a resource is property and therefore you and I are all property of our employer and/or government.  Does that make you feel good?

     Now let's apply this to Racial Capitalism. For the white population our only awareness of being a resource is that we're getting poorer while the capitalist is getting richer. It is impossible for a white person to fathom how this plays out for non-white citizens, but consider this scenario: you're driving through a wealthy neighborhood and see a black man mowing the grass. How many people are going to assume that he's the gardener or an employee?  Be honest. Even if you don't think of yourself as a racist, how many of you would make the same assumption. Are you surprised to find that it is his home?  

     In an Antipode Foundation video, which can be found on YouTube and is well worth watching (i),  entitled Geographies of Racial Capitalism, Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore points out that racism, slavery and capitalism go hand in hand.  Our beloved capitalism developed and survives  by the exploitation of people, especially non-white people. 

     If that isn't bad enough, according to the founder of Fascism, Benito Mussolini, when you combine capitalism and government you get Fascism. (ii)  What was the result of Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission? (iii) Ah, that's right. It permits wealthy capitalists and their corporations to put as much money into a political campaign as they wish.  Now we have our politicians legally crawling into bed with the capitalists. Oh, my!  What did Mussolini say?  Fascism is the merger of capitalism and government. That means we have . . . dare I say it? . . . fascism right here in the USA.    

     Oh, but there's more.  While racial capitalism exploits non-white citizens, our government - most specifically the president - has continually made the hatred and mistreatment of non-white citizens a matter of patriotism.  Is it no wonder that a non-white journalist was arrested in Minneapolis while his white colleague was not. 

     Nancy Leong, in her 2013 article on Racial Capitalism in the Harvard Law Review, concluded  "One colleague  with  whom  I discussed this project observed that being a person of color within  an institution means that  “you’re going to get used,” and that the best  and only response is to  make sure you get as much as possible in return.  But my own view  is that racial capitalism is not inevitable.  Ending racial capitalism  may take a great  deal of effort across generations, but in the end  I think it can happen."  (v)  I wish that I could be as optimistic, but we must put every effort into making it happen starting with holding our government accountable and ending fascism (government + capitalism). 

FOOT NOTES: 

(i)   https://antipodeonline.org/geographies-of-racial-capitalism/

(ii)  Mussolini, Benito and Giovanni Gentile. (1932). La dottrina del fascismo [the doctrine of fascism]. Enciclopedia Italiana. 

(iii)  https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained

(iv)  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2020/05/29/was-a-cnn-reporter-arrested-by-minnesota-patrol-for-working-while-black/amp/

(v)  Loeng, Nancy. Racial capitalism. Harvard Law Review. Vol 126 Issue 8. June 2013. p. 2226. 

Intolerable

    For many of us it has become intolerable that a heavily armed redneck can enter a "no firearm" area of a government building and threaten police and elected officials not only with violence but with a deadly virus (no PPD)  and not be made to leave, arrested or otherwise held accountable for their behavior  when a black person cannot safely walk our streets. For many of us it has become intolerable that the President of the US would encourage and endorse violence, racism, the suppression of freedom and the spread of fascism.  Our government blatantly violates our constitution and our laws and we are helpless. Trumpites now control all three branches of government with absolutely no evidence of the checks and balances supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. We stand helplessly by and watch as they change rules and laws to assure that they remain in power. They either deny groups such as Native Americans their right to vote or they use gerrymandering to make those of us who would oppose them politically impotent.  

     If we speak out we run a good chance of being chastized, threatened, called names and told that we are being unAmerican. Gone is "government of the people, by the people and for the people" (Abraham Lincoln). Gone is representative democracy thanks to Citizens United v FEC (2010).  

     The most frightening reality is that Trumpites will most likely retain power. I am not altogether certain that we haven't passed beyond the point of no return.  Donald Trump has ignored, defied, and/or violated just about every norm, expectation, rule or law pertaining to the conduct of the Office of President and nothing has been done.  Even the so-called Impeachment Trial was a sham since we all knew how each Senator would vote. They made no pretense to listen to argument or fact. They didn't need or want facts. They voted as their owners; the rich elite who own our government;  told them.  

     There is a quote that has erroneously been attributed to Sinclair Lewis, but no one seems to know where it actually originated, that states "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."  Another quote, ironically attributed to Huey Long, the racist governor and senator whom some believe was the real life person on whom Lewis based his fascist character in "It Can't Happen Here,"  (1935) was supposed to have said "when fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-fascism." (i) 

     Well, we've arrived.  Unfortunately, it seems that when we arrived we'd already lost our freedom, lost our hope. Trump very successfully wrapped himself in a flag, waved a bible and gave an under-educated, anti-intellectual, and racist society groups of people to hate and permission to act violently toward them. Is there any turning back?  I have strong doubts.  What lies ahead?  I'm afraid to consider the answer(s).  

(i)  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sinclair-lewis-on-fascism/

City of evil and tyranny

     Sometimes your own thoughts can be scary. I was really upset by what that man in Washington was doing and thinking of how Washington DC is such a vile city, or at least the symbol of evil and tyranny, because of our government.  I'm very much of a pacifist so my brain came up with the idea of a hurricane sneaking up on Washington while government is in town and wiping it off the map.  Then we could start over.  I immediately felt horrible for all of the innocent people who live in that foul city who would lose their lives and the few in government who are actually trying to do the right thing.  The hurricane would technically remove my guilt, but I still thought it and it demonstrates what I have so often said; viz. humans are the closest thing nature has to a really evil species. I have long been embarrassed and disgraced by my own species. In general we are dirty, destructive, and extremely violent.  The ultimate invasive species. I can definitely relate to the rat named Remy, in the Disney movie Ratatouille, who really didn't want to be a rat.  Like Remy, I have learned that I am what I am and must live with it. 

     I am such a pacifist that the only time in my life that I was willing to strike another person was when I was in the Army being trained to kill at the whim of some old white guys in Washington DC. Once away from the military indoctrination I quickly got over it.      

     Nevertheless, this hurricane thought made me think of the story in Christian's bible (Genesis 18) where Abraham asked God to spare the evil city of Sodom.  Starting with sparing the city if Abraham could find fifty good people, Abraham finally got God to agree to spare the city if he could find ten good people.   

      I have never trusted nor liked any politician, and anyone who knows me well has probably heard me say that government is a necessary evil just because of our over-population.  I would like nothing better than to return to a time when we made decisions by meeting in the village center and talking things out. But we know that will never happen again.  If I had the power to destroy Washington, would I spare it and put up with the horrible behavior of that man for the  sake of the lives of a few innocent people?  Would you?  Are what few humane people who still exist going to perish because we are unwilling to behave like that man in Washington and those who follow him?  If life were a Disney movie we could rest assured that everthing will turn our right.  Life isn't a Disney movie.