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Answer the door

What are we trying to pretty up, by maintaining fictions that the current state of affairs is somehow normal, that it cannot be as grossly psychopathic for no benefit as it seems? And more importantly, why?

We’ve never had to make the case that maintaining a healthy ecosystem is good. The opposite case seemed self-refuting, until it making it became a badge of honor for disingenuous fraudsters to scare fraidsters, of whom we have plenty plenty and now more than is manageable because the original case that didn’t have to be made at all now seems questionable. Circular is the logic. Refuse to accept it but decline not to acknowledge its presence and malevolence.

Reason has been caught flat-footed in the face of the transparent willingness to lie and scare. Some call it boldness and question whether norms and even constitutional principles can hold. These are quaint notions, a reliance upon and retreat into status that were never anything more than rationalizations for themselves. And as long as they lasted, they bred contempt for any questioning of the status quo. The skullduggery has always been present but for decades channeled mostly yet viciously from pulpits and through direct mail campaigns, seldom wielded openly as the weapons they have become. Those who were getting fleeced should know better, so there was no need to defend them or point out the obvious problems with the arrangement. Or listen to the warnings of those tried.

Reason has not been ready to defend itself. Never felt the need.

Now the need is pounding at the door, and we are trying to act as though we do not hear, might not be home. Maybe the knocking will go away on its own. Consult any car repair manual for a detailed explanation regarding this strategy.

And along with the formerly self-evident case for a healthy ecosystem, add that for democracy, scientific research and discovery, postal delivery, voting rights, civil rights, marriage equality, human rights. Whatever the shape of the latest outrage or their accumulation, it is a symbol of an axiom long considered safe now under assault from all sides, with stunned onlookers staggering backward, wondering WTF and waiting for someone to do something.

And understand these strategies for exactly what they are – efforts to destroy the system.

Knock, knock.

Image: Author photo, Lefkes.

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The Nation’s Racial Divisions at the Time

mlk01_JaarChilean artist Alfredo Jaar produced this work in 1995, and however it hits you will produce the best sketch of your feelings about where we stand as a country, right now, on our continuing struggles with race.

The artist found it unimaginable that so few whites would attend Dr. King’s funeral:

How could Americans of all racial backgrounds not have mourned the death of the great civil rights leader?

“When I started looking at the shocking absence of white faces, I couldn’t believe it,” Jaar said, “so I started looking for a way to represent this in a graphic and almost funny way. I did not want to preach to people. This was a way for me to express my outrage to what these images reveal.”

How, indeed. In too many ways, the distance between these dots has only grown, even if there are more of them.

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Anniversary of Emancipation

On this day in 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Labor historian Erik Loomis at LGM details the reasons why it was considered a cowardly half-measure by some at the time, and also why it was political genius as well as morally correct:

On the other hand, African-Americans, north and south, knew what the war was about. While many in the North were trying to say it wasn’t about slavery per se, like southern whites, African-Americans never had any question of the stakes. Frederick Douglass and other northern black leaders urged Lincoln to immediately emancipate the slaves and organize black regiments for the Army. Perhaps more importantly, slaves themselves took advantage of nearby U.S. troops, fleeing to the military. Generals such as Benjamin Butler quickly recognized the potential of taking away the South’s labor force and turning that into a Union labor force. But Lincoln, nervous about the effects of making this an official policy on his plans to lure the South back into the Union, originally rejected the idea.

By mid 1862, Lincoln began to change his mind about the expediency of freeing slaves. The situation in the border states was more secure, with the ardent secessionists now significantly outnumbered by unionists. Congress pushed him on this, passing in March 1862 a law barring the military from returning escaped slaves to their owners. Still, Lincoln decided to avoid Congress and issue the proclamation as Commander in Chief, thus avoiding a tense debate and possible rejection. Lincoln wanted a major victory by Union forces before he issued it so it didn’t look desperate. Unfortunately, he had George McClellan as his commanding general, which meant that no major victories was likely. With the partial victory at Antietam a few days earlier as good as Lincoln was going to get, he decided this was the time.

There is a reason we revere certain people in our history, and not because of any one single thing they might have done. Any country is blessed to have individuals who can navigate conflicts with no obvious right answer or guaranteed outcome. Courage, sure. But also willingness to change one’s mind, an ability to see through perilous issues and steer clear of needlessly dramatic acts in favor of compromise, even and especially when it comes at a cost to your reputation and credibility. Lucky to have someone who could walk this minefield at that hour, even though we’re now mostly unable to appreciate the doubt and misgivings it took Lincoln to think he could preserve a union that was worth preserve. Without an elevated idea of his country and its countrymen, only lesser outcomes would have been imaginable.

Image: “Emancipation,” Thomas Nast lithograph, circa 1865, via Library of Congress.

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Diverse views on the news

What does it mean when everyone delivering the news and discussing it on the electronic television is the same hue? Same gender? Are we looking too deep when notice this? Are we ignoring the obvious when we don’t? Media Matters has some interesting charts on this, a grand total of zero of which will shock you:

White Guests Hosted Most Often On Cable News. Fox News had the largest proportion of white guests — 83 percent. African-Americans were the largest non-white group on all networks, representing 19 percent, 10 percent, and 5 percent of guests on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN, respectively.

ethnic-diversity-cable-3

As a completely white dude with a TV show, I have responsibility as part of the problem here. Why does this even matter? We have a guest this week (another white dude) who talks about a concept called cross-cultural competency – how comfortable we are interacting with people who are different from us. When it comes to integration in public schools, interested parties aka major corporations are coming down on the side of this sort of competency as a good in a society like ours. Now there are a zillions reasons why that is, but the subject itself sheds some new light on how we see ourselves – and others – and how that prism shapes our views about the world.

And if you set that aside for an instant and think about how you get the news and who decides what is news, you’ve got all kinds of reasons to be suspect of this heavily skewed arrangement. The situation in these charts breeds its reality in our society, one in which existing fears and biases must be constantly and always re-enforced, even before any ‘news’ stories get presented. When you contextualize everything first in how it fits the interest of one race or ethnic group, of course you’ll have trouble getting an accurate sense of anything. And we have plenty enough of that already.