Thoughts After Charlottesville 2017

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Trump is the best wake-up call Americans have had in decades. America has always been this way, but American politicians and capitalists have tried to mask it to keep the wheels of profitability: business, pork barrel and graft, turning smoothly. “Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness” for that overarching purpose (Orwell quote). But Trump has dispensed with that, which is why the professional Republicans and Democrats hate him (for pantsing the long-standing corporate-run bipartisan con-job on the public) and most of the public hates him (for stating the crude heartless reality crudely; embarrassing, frightening and insulting them, a tough blow after eight years of Obama’s soothingly elegant and inspirational lying). Trump has the fool’s witless honesty of parading the leprous body of white-supremacy-capitalist-controlled government naked in public for all to see (because he’s a narcissistic true-believer in his religion: Mammonism). People who say “America has changed” or “America has degenerated” are actually reacting to the fact that the core reality of American government and capitalism (particularly since Ronald Reagan, 1980, but generally since far back) has finally broken through their benign wishful fantasies about American society. Trump’s overt and inadvertent ripping back of the curtain hiding the rotten truth has dispelled those innocent illusions, and that in turn has excited his religion’s worse elements to act out.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, resentful White knuckleheads torch-marched protesting against the demographic dilution of White Supremacy in America, shouting: “We will not be replaced!” Yvette Carnell (a Black woman political commentator) continues voicing the protests of resentful only-African-American-descendants-of-slaves against African and Afro-Caribbean Blacks and Hispanics prospering in America: “We should not be displaced!” These are two sides of that most popular American thousand-sided counterfeit coin: “My race uber alles!” Race-love and race-hate are both the opium of the discards from American capitalism.

Black men are 6% of the US population, and that group “contributes” 40% of the killed-by-police dead. Not all of those dead were armed and/or significant threats to society. Police in America have a very difficult job to do (because Americans are so efft-up, and on opoids and all kinds of other street shit, as well as alcohol, and are TV-addled dopes, sports fans, and even domestic abusers; besides so many just normal drama-queens wanting attention). And, by and large, our police are doing a meh job. Most cops are so-so, but too many are total shit. It would be good for Americans if their cops were unarmed (no guns). Those cops who didn’t like that would quit (good) and those who accepted that challenge would probably do okay. Knuckleheads seeking power-by-association do not make the best cops. Bigotry exists in America because most Americans find it comforting (they feel scared and inadequate), “business” finds it more profitable to tolerate than reject (don’t contradict the richer customers, and take advantage of the hungry workers), and most people are too chicken to go beyond their ethnic-racial-‘cultural’ clannishness, especially if it impedes attending to their greed/self-interest. America hasn’t changed, it’s just that in the Trump “era” no effort is being made to mask the reality: it’s all about the money. If you REALLY wanted to see racism disappear (at least in actions) in the USA, we would have to do what the Cuban Revolution did: full socialism (all in for the benefits and opportunities), and inflexible laws for inclusion and anti-discrimination (regardless of the “cost” to “business”). Americans aren’t there yet, they’re too wrapped up in their stupid, selfish fantasies.

It got so bad in Charlottesville, VA (where the whiney white supremacists were yowling about not being uber-special anymore, roughing people up, and in one case committing automobile homicide of a counter-protester), that President Trump had to give an almost Bernie-like speech, that “regardless of your race, color or creed, we are all Americans.” Wow, he had to push back on his base for his own political survival. What the proportions of hypocrisy and sincerity were in Trump’s speech, I’ll let you judge (and I believe there is some degree of sincerity in it) [15 August 2017, I now believe there was zero sincerity], because ALL Americans are race-conscious (that is to say, racist!!). Bigotry in our country will not die in our lifetimes, because it is so comforting. Bigotry will live in America as long as it is good for business (money beats morals every time). The popular attitude is: “I’m perfect, all my problems are caused by other people.” My vision of America is unachievable: fairness, support and equal opportunity for all, regardless: “to each according to his and her needs, from each according to his and her abilities.”

13 thoughts on “Thoughts After Charlottesville 2017”

  1. On my comment about Trump’s speech: “I believe there is some degree of sincerity in it,” I have to say now (the next morning) that my estimation of the amount of that sincerity has diminished considerably from the low level I had initially assumed.

  3. I support Reparations for Black slavery and Native Tribe genocide in America, as a Socialist Revolution, not an exclusionary capitalist subsidy.

    After Charlottesville, the professional Republicans are worried that overt political support for white supremacy bigotry will undermine public support for capitalism (which I hope it does).

  5. well said, especially about the delusional past. tho i will admit that a cuban-like society would be nice. if i were younger i might be tempted to move there

  7. The two things that seem to bond people together, beyond the confines of their instinctive ethnic-racial-‘cultural’ clannishness, are: (1) an obsession with avarice-greed-selfishness-self interest, or (2) a vision of social justice and making poverty and war history.

  8. Response to a defense of keeping the confederate statues:

    Kathryn Morse, you have phenomenal patience [to put up so politely with those defending the Confederate monuments, because of “history”]. This very long thread (on Facebook) about “history” versus “white supremacy” just goes to show that “people believe what they want to believe, facts don’t matter.” It makes me wonder: why have the Germans removed all Nazi monuments and public insignias, but insist that all German children learn the detailed facts of the Nazi regime and their “historic” WWII, specifically so as to be thoroughly educated on what NOT to cherish or repeat in the modern German state? In the U.S.A. we prefer to cherish those parts of the “history” we variously prefer to remember, and whitewash (literally) those not-so-comfortable parts, so we can ignorantly continue with our cherished forms of bigotry and discrimination. Why not erect a statue to Charles Manson?, or Lee Harvey Oswald? One was certainly a clever “leader” and the other certainly a resourceful “fighter” who made historic impacts – approved of by numbers of Americans. However, I can somewhat understand the nostalgia by some for the loss of states’ rights to impose slavery, and proud nostalgia for the white Americans who gallantly gave their lives at the Alamo – in Mexico – in 1836 to defend their illegal immigrant rights to maintain black slavery in a country that had outlawed it, and to draw the US into a war with Mexico in a crusade to liberate 1/3 of Mexican territory for the freedom to expand the southern American black slavery economy. Stirring, certainly deserving of monuments. Did you know that the thousands of American war dead planted in Arlington National Cemetery are resting on the front lawn of Robert E. Lee’s old estate? This was started by the Union (a.k.a. the United States of America), which confiscated the property during the Civil War to bury USA war dead. I guess this massive ghost army now guards the Lee mansion, justifying keeping it. If the Germans had thought of that they could have kept the “Eagle’s Lair” in Berchtesgaden, instead of blowing it up and carting the rubble away, so future generations could nostalgically breath in the historic majesty of the bygone German and world leadership of 1933-1945, that looked out to the Bavarian Alps for solace and inspiration. Ah, yes, the love of history – edited for comfort.

  9. Tonight (13 August 2017), after our feast of German food (at Gaumenkitzel – a local German restaurant), we watched the 1961 movie “Judgment at Nuremberg.” I had wanted Ella (my teenage daughter) to see this movie, and now after the events in Charlottesville I felt it was most important. Today, this movie is probably considered by young viewers to be “slow” and “heavy” and “long,” but it is so important they know the moral truths it holds. It preserves crucial lessons from history that were very painfully gained, and in bringing those lessons vividly to life it bridges a long gap of time between the people struggling against fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, and we here today, looking afresh at the eruption of a similar disease in Charlottesville, and so many other places in the U.S.A. “Judgment at Nuremberg” is a wonderful example of exquisite art made in the service of humanity. Every part of it: the screenplay, the cast, the acting, the dialogs, the cinematography, the editing, the directing, are superb. It is a magnificent collective work of deeply touching humanity. It is very important that we older folks transmit the truths and the human-hearted values so clearly presented in that film to our younger generations. For if we are lax in making such transmissions, how is society going to progress?, or even how is civilization going to continue? What a tragedy to imagine that all those war dead in places like Arlington National Cemetery might have wasted their lives and died terrible deaths in vain, if in a few short generations after them we allowed the bigotries, hatreds, injustices and violence of past toxic ideologies to reemerge and advance to power in our own times. That is the potentially long shadow that events like Charlottesville could cast into our collective future — if we let them. Learning the historical details of life, death and events of the past are less important than fully comprehending the moral lessons that the survivors of those past tumults came to realize. Civilization does not remain the normal condition of human society on autopilot, it has to be worked on a daily basis by as many people as possible – ideally all – if it is to continue. Transmitting this idea, and responsibility, to younger people is much better done through exposing them to classic, engaging and exquisite works of art, than by dreary lecturing by us old, very imperfect and plenty ignorant “squares” and parents and blabbermouths and worrywarts and has-beens. If you have not seen this movie, then do yourself a favor and see it whole from start to finish; don’t ruin its impact by just quickly looking at a few YouTube clips. The short clip I’ve posted here won’t spoil the movie for you, and it shows exactly what we Americans should do with all our Confederate monuments, and (metaphorically) with the ideologies of bigotry we saw brazenly displaying themselves (and even killing) in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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