[Peace-discuss] Race & class, re: News notes 2005-09-18

[Ricky Baldwin]

Actually I think it's interesting that Bush has been
forced to address the issues of race and poverty at
all, though he obviously didn't do it in a very
comprehensive way.  Shows how bad it is, I think, that
he would admit that some people are "cut off" from the
"opportunity of America" through no fault of their
own, and not just the hurricane.

Of course there is a long history of racial
discrimination in the US, particularly in the South,
and a legacy of racial slavery.  And it's been hard
for anyone not to notice the disproportionate
representation of African Americans among those who
were abandoned in New Orleans -- even for those who
managed not to notice much racism in our economic
system before (like Bush?).

But of course, Carl is right: the President will dodge
the question of why *anybody* should be so poor.  The
simple answer is: by design, which is not allowed, so
the question cannot be asked.  

And it's easier to justify such an inhumane system,
like the war, if its victims can be seen as very
different from ourselves in some way, not worthy of
solidarity or aid or even much compassion.  Race is a
tried and true way to do that.  Language another, life
style another and morality (if they just didn't have
so many babies! or if they would just marry and stay
married! or if they wouldn't eat so much junk food!
etc.)  Religion is also an old one, and works well for
war.  But why does it have to be anybody?

Would it be okay to summarily execute an innocent
person every year, so long as the person were chosen
fairly?  But I'm preaching to the choir.  Just a
little angry sometimes.

So the President first acts like he never knew poverty
existed, or racism, in all his time in the South, in
America, on Earth.  But knowing there is no defense
for it that will stand under the present circumstances
(which after all, will pass), he takes the escape that
is one of the reasons capitalism is so resilient as a
system.  He says, I agree.  (Here is the reason we
have to be careful about what our criticisms are, I
think, because they are often too easy to agree to,
while the deeper problem floats by.)  He says,
injustice has been done by individuals with bad
thoughts in their heads about their fellow humans. 
True, of course, as far as it goes.

But where is the Administration that shortly after the
attacks of 9-11-01 cautioned against going after
individual criminals responsible for terrible deeds
and instead insisted that there is a network of
support and collaboration that must be broken up?  No,
this is not a systemic problem in need of a
comprehensive solution.

(Of course, the Administration never allowed that no
one  should ever be the victim of terrorist attacks,
or that no one should ever kill innocent people or
civilians of any kind even if they do support bad
things or at least not pay much attention to them, or
maybe dislike them but fail to stop them, or just make
convenient targets.  The Administration doesn't
believe it, either, nor do millions of Americans -
although millions do.)

No, as Carl points out, Bush has the solution and its
is 'just what I have been telling all you
pointy-headed liberals all along': militarism.  The
resilience of the rhetoric is worth blabbing on about
a bit more, I think.  There's a basic format to the
argument, not too hard for even Bush to follow: (1)
propose cut-throat policies that serve 'us' and
victimize 'them', like cutting social services; (2)
claim these are good for everybody if we'll give them
a chance; (3)  admit that everyone hasn't benefitted
-yet; (4) claim that the solution is even more
cut-throat policies.  

The 'us' here is a class, as Carl says, not just
people who happen to have more money than others. 
It's a socially cohesive grouping, often defined along
ethnic lines but not necessarily - Domhoff did some
great reserach on the American ruling class (Who Rules
America? and Who Rules America Now? etc.) - and they
tend to have business ties as well as other
connections like fraternities, marriage, etc., as we
know because we are constantly running across them.

But here's a golden opportunity, the kind this
Administration is particularly good at seizing, to
advance its fascist or neo-fascist agenda (we can
debate which it is).  It isn't just that Katrina shows
we need more free trade and supply-side economics,
etc.  We actually need more military.  (There will be
more disasters, and who knows? we may even need more
military to keep order among the victims, keep them
quiet?  Is this paranoid?  Recall the lock-and-load
talk in response to "looting" in New Orleans, as
opposed to, say, dropping food and water, and the
decision to pull personnel off the search-and-rescue
in order to "combat looting".)

I'm usually wary of such talk, and tried to discourage
it after 9-11-01, but I think now it may be time we
had a serious discussion about what fascism really is,
which is not at all clear.

Enough from me for now.
Ricky

> [4] The president gave a speech from Jackson Square
> in New Orleans in
> which he tried to account for the awful scandal of
> government malfeasance
> in the wake of the hurricane.  It was interesting to
> see how he did it.
> He said that "...all of us saw on television [sic]"
> that there was "some
> deep, persistent poverty in this region" -- but he
> ascribed it to race,
> not class.  The problem, according to Bush, was
> simply discrimination, not
> an economic system that makes people poor and simply
> has no use for many.
> "That poverty has roots in a history of racial
> discrimination," he said,
> "which cut off generations from the opportunity of
> America" -- that was
> the administration's position.
> 	Whom the real opportunity of America exists for was
> on display,
> with contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.,
> already in place. The WSJ
> reports that real estate prices in New Orleans are
> *rising* sharply since
> the flood, even for lots still covered with water
> and toxic sludge, in
> expectation of federal money for rebuilding. 
> Frenzied ads seeking any New
> Orleans property to buy, submerged or not, appeared
> in the press and on
> the net.
> 	The administration's priorities were clear from the
> fact that Bush
> has put his top political adviser, Karl Rove, in
> charge of the
> reconstruction effort instead of appointing an
> independent reconstruction
> czar, although he didn't mention that in his speech.
>  But he did say, "It
> is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires
> greater federal
> authority and a broader role for the armed forces";
> he "called for an
> expanded role of the U.S. military in times of
> national emergency."


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