White supremacy has always served the rich

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.

I am working my way through the brilliant PBS documentary on Reconstruction Dr. Henry Louis Gates.

It is not news that white supremacy was and remains America's original terrorism. But it's interesting how social issues and economic issues, often treated as separate, are usually inter-connected.

What I did not know is that after the Civil War, poor whites and poor blacks worked together to wrest some degree of political and economic control from the plantation class. Hundreds of black men were elected to various offices throughout the south, until disenfranchisement in the 1890s. Aggressive promotion of white supremacy and racial caricaturing was a way to drive a wedge into that alliance and thus for the rich to preserve economic and political power.

Lynchings, which were inevitably triggered by fabricated accusations of the rape of white women, were not random. They specifically targeted black men who ran businesses or who were otherwise economically successful.

White supremacy was way to divide and conquer poorer people. It still is.

 

Without accountability, we have a police state

We've all seen countless stories of police abuse - many more disturbing than this one - in recent days.

I think most people accept that the police deserve the benefit of the doubt.. But what we're seeing is too many agencies wasting that benefit of the doubt by essentially proving the claims of the protesters. This is not new, it is just being more widely filmed.

Police often have a difficult job, but so do soldiers and firefighters and social workers and nurses. Those workers have accountability when they screw up. The benefit of the doubt CANNOT be a blank check. Especially not here. Police without accountability is a police state.

Most would agree that most cops are good cops. There's a saying that nobody hates bad cops more than good cops. But until bad cops are consistently held accountable - ie: systematically and not just when protests erupt - all cops will be tainted.

Police reform - in whatever guise it takes - is the human rights issue of our generation. We have been avoiding dealing with systemic racism for 400 years. Enough's enough.

Right-wing ideology is literally killing our country

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.

I saw this really interesting essay in The Boston Review entitled 'Dying of Whiteness.'

It gave some examples of how some people would rather die - literally die - by not getting  treatment than accept the help of medical services provided by 'Obamacare' (which was developed by a Republican governor and inspired by a conservative think tank). They would rather die than than accept help from a 'liberal' program.

It shows the extent to which the right-wing nihilism has taken our society hostage.

I don't know what kind of public policy can be developed when neither the two foundational cornerstones of governance - the greater good and pure self interest - are considered valid.

The right-wing notion that social progress is a zero sum gain - that my prosperity is entirely dependent on harm to you - is killing this country, both figuratively and literally.

Hillary's appeal to middle America: blacks are lazy!

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

How desperate and despicable is that egomaniacal (expletive deleted) Hillary Clinton?

We've long known she's corporate owned. But she's now stooped to a new low, even for her.

The woman of privilege recently claimed that Obama's support was "weakening" among "hard-working Americans, white Americans."

It's a good thing she added that clarification. Because she wouldn't want to leave the impression with saintly "middle America" that she thought black Americans were hard working.

Democrats should ask, if they haven't already, if they really want someone so divisive and contemptible as their nominee.

As I've said before, I was never a huge fan of hers before the campaign but I didn't hate her.

I do now.

Is there any question now she's willing, more so that even the ordinary politician, to put her own gargantuan ego ahead of the good of not only her party but her nation? How in Heaven's name can anyone still see her as having a shred of honor?

Liberals like to think that such pathetic garbage is the unique provenance of the Republican Party. And it certainly is more popular in the GOP. But some Democrats obviously aren't above appealing to such naked bigotry in order to help their poll ratings.