Tag Archives: On Politics

Trail of fears

By Dennis Hartley

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Last night, the Great White Father in Washington decreed before a joint session of Congress that there is a new sheriff in town:

(from The Independent UK)

Donald Trump will form a new agency to publish a regular list of all crimes committed by immigrants.

During a speech markedly softer in tone than his inauguration address, in which he dialed back his trademark brash rhetoric, he revealed that he would set up a special agency for “immigrant crime”.

The agency is expected to publish a weekly list of all crimes committed by what it terms “aliens”.

That does not seem to refer only to undocumented migrants – suggesting that anyone who has moved to the US could find their name on the public list.

Audible groans greeted the President’s announcement, during a speech that was mostly met with applause from lawmakers.

“I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American Victims,” he said in the speech.

“The office is called VOICE — Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement. We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.”

He went on to list a number of people who he claimed had been killed by immigrants that he would have banned from the country.

“A weekly list of all crimes” Hmm. Sounds awfully familiar:

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The headline above roughly translates to: “Jewish Murder Plan Against Gentile Humanity Exposed”.  Der Sturmer  was the weekly Nazi tabloid founded in 1923. It was the brainchild of Julius Streicher, who was tried, convicted and executed for crimes against humanity in Nuremberg after the war.  The paper regularly issued tallies on alleged crimes committed by Jews against Gentile German citizens; with names, dates, and descriptions that were limited only by Streicher’s fevered imagination.  Fake news of the worst kind.

My heart went out to the grieving families of murder victims that the POTUS had stationed in the gallery expressly for this portion of his speech.  However, as Digby Tweeted back to me after I observed that the manner in which Trump went on to exploit their pain went “beyond bad taste”, it was more aptly described as  “grotesque”.

But it also got me to thinking about the way Trump put the emphasis on the word “Americans” in reference to the victims, as well as the specificity of  his new agency’s moniker: “Victims Of Immigrant Crime Engagement”.  Historically, there is only one group of Americans who can lay genuine claim to this victimhood. So let us take a moment to remember one of the American victims of “immigrant crime engagement”…

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The body of  Chief Big Foot at Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890

Home to roost: I Am Not Your Negro ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 4, 2017)

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Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.

– James Baldwin, from The Fire Next Time (1963)

Last month, we celebrated the life of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose incredible example is unique in American history. You read all about Dr. Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office. It turned out that that was fake news. Fake news. The statue is cherished, it’s one of the favorite things in the — and we have some good ones. […]I am very proud now that we have a museum on the National Mall where people can learn about Reverend King, so many other things. Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed.

– President Trump, from his Black History Month speech, 2017

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed

– Frederick Douglass (born ca. 1818, died 1895)

While he hasn’t been dead as long as Frederick Douglass has, I have a feeling that the late James Baldwin, who is the subject of Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro will also be “recognized more and more” (you’ll notice). Specifically, anyone with half a brain who watches the film will recognize not only the beauty of Baldwin’s prose, but the prescience of his thoughts.

Both are on full display throughout Peck’s timely treatise on race relations in America, in which he mixes archival news footage involving the Civil Rights Movement, movie clips, and excerpts from Baldwin’s TV appearances with voice-over narration by an uncharacteristically subdued Samuel L. Jackson, who reads excerpts from Baldwin’s unfinished book, Remember This House.

Baldwin’s book (which he began working on in 1979) was to be a statement on the black experience, parsed through the lives (and untimely deaths) of Civil Rights icons Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Given Baldwin’s literary chops, and the fact he was personal friends with all three, and that each of these extraordinary individuals was working toward the same end but through different means, one can envision a classic in the making.

But it was not to be. By the time of his death in 1987, Baldwin had completed only 30 pages. So the director has essentially set out to “complete” Remember This House (or construct a viable facsimile), filling in the cracks with Baldwin’s own voice (via the TV interviews).

While occasionally arrhythmic to the film’s flow, Peck is on the money whenever he interjects  images that connect the dots with the Black Lives Matter movement. Baldwin’s sharp sociopolitical observances have no expiration date, and speak for themselves. This is particularly evident in the television clips, where Baldwin (whose persona is an amalgam of Mark Twain and Lenny Bruce) always seems light years ahead of the hosts and fellow guests.

Peck also gets a lot of mileage (and truckloads of irony) from a wealth of TV and print advertising images that speak volumes as to how African-Americans have been viewed by our society over the decades. In this respect, Peck’s documentary recalls The Atomic Café; particularly when he digs up a 1950s corporate film with a rather unfortunate title (“Selling the Negro”) that offers up handy tips to marketers who want to reach African-American consumers.

Most fascinating to me are Baldwin’s deconstructions on traditionally lauded race-relation themed films like The Defiant Ones (1958) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). He posits that, no matter how well-meant these and similar films were, they were produced by white liberals for other white liberals, who could pat themselves on the back for buying a ticket (he was defining “virtue signalling” before it had a name). Even more provocatively, he sees little difference between them and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927).

Now that I think about it, Baldwin himself remains a cypher as credits roll, so it may have been unintentional misdirection to state at the top  that the author himself is the “subject”, particularly if you’re expecting a straight-ahead biography. Neither is it “about” the Civil Rights Movement, although it is woven throughout. It’s worth noting that Baldwin (self-admittedly) was not a movement activist in the literal sense, but was committed in the literary sense (present as an observer, chronicler and deeply insightful social commentator).

I was left saddened that so many of Baldwin’s statements remain applicable to our current political climate. While we have made “some” progress in healing the racial divide since the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., the all-too-easy and all-too-recent triumph of Trumpism indicates that the fear and ignorance that fed the ugliness of “those days” never went away.

We’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Week 2: “You’re a bad world!”

By Dennis Hartley

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Well, let’s  see how busy Donnie’s been on the Twitter this week:

In other words, he is continuing to plow forward with the unchecked megalomania of an 8 year-old old with the power to change reality, while all the adults who surround him kowtow in fear for their lives.

I’m sure we’ll be fine. It’s GOOD that he’s my president. Real good!

How it was: 1/19/17

By Dennis Hartley

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Just for giggles, let’s look at some of the developing news stories on this day before the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the POTUS:

Oh, boy.

Aw, jeez.

Ay, cabron.

Oh god.

Oh, fuck…

…this is no dream, this is really happening, isn’t it?  I feel safe. You?

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“Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it.”
– From the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A Trump era survival guide

By Dennis Hartley

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In anticipation of what may be in store for us,  here are links to the resources likely to be more crucial than ever.  Bookmark this post!

ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom

American Civil Liberties Union

Amnesty International

Center for Democracy and Technology

Committee to Protect Journalists

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Human Rights Watch

Indivisible

League of Women Voters

Planned Parenthood

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Rock the Vote

Southern Poverty Law Center

You’re welcome.

 

*  *  * UPDATE 1/20/17 *  *  *

And so it begins:

(from People Politics)

The moment Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States at noon on Friday, the LGBT, climate change, health care, and civil liberties pages disappeared from the website of the brand new Trump White House.

Motherboard, VICE’s website focusing on science and technology, reported that the changes occurred at noon, when the Obama administration turned over the official White House website, whitehouse.gov, to the Trump team.

As I said: bookmark this page. Perhaps a screen capture, just in case?

A new low (as if that were possible)

By Dennis Hartley

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Representative John Lewis has stated in an interview he did for Meet the Press that he will not be attending the presidential inauguration ceremonies on January 20, because he feels that Russian interference in the 2016 election nullifies the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s win. As we have come to expect, the President-elect Tweeted up a storm:


“No action”? Really? You mean the same John Lewis in this photo?

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Future Congressman John Lewis is the gentleman in the lower right of the photo, being “helped” to the ground by a policeman and his truncheon…that John Lewis? The John Lewis who marched with Dr. King, and put his own life and limb on the line for civil rights? OK.

While you’re at it, Mr. PEOTUS, are you sure you don’t want to throw in a jab at that gutless choker, Gandhi? Or that nasty overrated woman, Mother Theresa? Those people are just talk, talk talk! Sad!

Nice inspirational lead-in to MLK Day, Mr. PEOTUS! Stay classy!

Bands still wanted! Sad!

By Dennis Hartley

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With SNL on hiatus, I’ve really been getting a kick out of the venerable weekly Canadian sketch comedy series This Hour Has 22 Minutes (on the CBC, which we get as part of our cable package here in Seattle). While I admit I don’t “get” all the jokes regarding Canadian politics (which, like most Americans, I don’t really follow that closely), they have been pretty relentless (and consistently hilarious) in their take downs of Donald Trump. God knows, there’s years of comedy gold to mine coming down the pike (or at least until he Tweets North America into nuclear oblivion). This recent bit had me in stitches:

I love Canada…

The gorge will rise again

By Dennis Hartley

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As Congress heads into Day 2 of confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump’s choice of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (missing from the painting) for Attorney General of the Confederate United States of America, an interesting document has been making the rounds of the internet and other media outlets:

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That is excerpted from a 1986  letter, signed by a Coretta Scott King:

[from the Washington Post ]

Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress in a letter to block the 1986 nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge, saying that allowing him to join the federal bench would “irreparably damage the work of my husband.” The letter, previously unavailable publicly, was obtained on Tuesday by The Washington Post. […]

Thirty years later, Sessions, now a senator, is again undergoing confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and he is facing fierce opposition from civil rights groups. […]

“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she wrote, later adding, “I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husband’s dream.”

During the 1986 hearing, the letter and King’s opposition became a crucial part of the argument against Sessions’s confirmation. The current Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), has not previously released the letter, which committee rules grant him the sole authority to reveal.

Yeah, that’s an ‘R’ in front of ‘Iowa’. Shocking, isn’t it?

If this man is confirmed as  “our” Attorney General, all I can say is, this Monday will be The. Saddest. Martin. Luther. King. Day. Ever.

And I ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

On Women: Three views

By Dennis Hartley

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Michelle…Michelle LaVaughn Robinson of the South Side…for the past 25 years you have not only been my wife and mother of my children, you have been my best friend. You took on a role you didn’t ask for. And you made it your own with grace and with grit and with style, and good humor. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody. And a new generation sets its sights higher because it has you as a role model. You have made me proud, and you have made the country proud.

Malia and Sasha…under the strangest of circumstances you have become two amazing young women. You are smart and you are beautiful. But more importantly, you are kind and you are thoughtful and you are full of passion. … you wore the burden of years in the spotlight so easily. Of all that I have done in my life, I am most proud to be your dad.

President Obama, from his farewell address, January 10, 2017

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And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.

Now, I — I know — I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.

And — and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

Hillary Clinton, from her concession speech, November 9, 2016

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Trump: Yeah, that’s her, with the gold. I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Unidentified voice: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

President-elect Trump, from the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tapes.

C’mon, everybody! You know the words…