Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'

Absolutely no argument on that score, Miriam. There are still a
goodly number of Americans hanging onto the coattails of the Ruling
Class. In fact, they are so delusional that they believe they are
part of that Ruling Class. Like the house slaves on the old
plantation, they live better than their less fortunate neighbors, so
they mistake their favored position to be one of kinship to their
Masters.
And of course they are being rewarded for their faithfulness,
gathering about themselves some of the material trappings that we use
as the measure of success. But there are fewer of them. And they
will be abandoned when the scale tips and their Masters are in
retreat. While that day may not arrive until my bones are turned to
dust, it will arrive for certain. We cannot continue to expand in a
world that has definite limits. Most probably my grandchildren or
great grandchildren are in for a rough time. The impact of our
present direction will be with us for a thousand years, if we were to
change directions today. But Corporate Capitalism is exactly the same
to planet Earth, as a cancer is to the human body. So long as it
remains and so long as the body remains alive, the cancer will devour
all around itself.
Are we already past the point of no return? Is Planet Earth in stage
4? Time will tell. Perhaps those who flit about enjoying their
fortunes, perhaps they are the smart ones. They aren't going to
change anything, or so they believe, so they may as well ride the
crest and hope it will not crash on the rocky shore before they are
done with life.
And by the way, one of my greatest frustration is in visiting older
folks who are living in very expensive retirement apartment complexes.
We are often treated like hired servants, being told of the evil
government that has made life so difficult, even as they take the free
services being offered. And they love to preach the Gospel of
Capitalism and Greed. These are folks who will vote against their own
well-being and give us a smug smile. Of course there is no way we can
alter their beliefs. It's worked for them. They are at the end of a
successful life, by societies standards. Back in the day of our Great
Recession, when many of the retired folks saw their savings gobbled
up, we shed no tears as they were sent from their fine apartments to
seek shelter with a family member or move into a shabby low income
apartment. As much as they grumbled to us, we had seen those folks
who were living in their cars or in abandoned shacks.

Carl Jarvis


On 7/3/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Try looking in the suburbs where people live in large homes with landscaped
> grounds and swimming pools, where they entertain themselves with watching
> TV, going on vacations to tropical climates or Europe, visit Manhattan to
> see Broadway shows and eat in upscale restaurants, send their children to
> summer camp and to college, and read fiction on their devices. Visit the
> upscale assisted living facilities and retirement communities. I'm not
> posting articles about them but they exist. They will watch the
> Presidential
> debates and they will vote for Bush or Clinton. They will be hosting
> Fourth
> of July barbecues at their homes tomorrow.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Friday, July 03, 2015 11:54 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>
> Good Friday Morning Frank and all Disenfranchised Folk, Here it is, the day
> before Independence Day. As I look about my great Land of the Free and
> Home
> of the Brave, I have to ask myself...self, just where are those Free and
> Brave People? Are we talking about the people who used to own homes and
> property with growing equity? Or are they the people who used to have
> decent paying jobs, but are now out-placed?
> Maybe its the free folk living in rat infested ghettos, or sleeping in
> doorways and under overpasses.
> Or is it the growing number of modern Slaves incarcerated in our newest
> industry, private prisons, working for pennies an hour. Talk about how
> Plantation Slaves were mistreated. Try living year after year in a 6 by 8
> cell. In these new slave quarters there are no Sunday Church gatherings,
> and certainly no Fish Fries or Clam Bakes like in Green Pastures.
> No, as I wander through my Land of the Free, I see little evidence of
> Independence. Oh sure, folks can grab a few days, pack the old family bus
> and head for the Parks and beaches. Or they can take an afternoon to suck
> up some suds and cheer their home team to victory. But even then they are
> losing their Independence. Surveillance cameras, armed police, and the
> piles of new laws, rules and regulations that control more and more of
> folks
> lives.
> Even the Ruling Class are not so brave these days. They hunker behind
> gated
> estates and travel with body guards and in private planes.
> We need to draft some new songs and poems to replace the, "America the
> Beautiful" theme.
> "Americans, Americans, once so free and proud. You hunker down in your
> ghetto town, And breathe the toxic cloud.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
> On 7/3/15, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@littlebreezes.com> wrote:
>> Carl, was it really that short lived? When you witness the actions of
>> our nation's police forces I think Davis's values are still well
>> practiced, as are those of those other persons you mentioned.
>> Frank
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
>> Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2015 12:53 AM
>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>> Cc: my blog carl jarvis
>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>>
>> Jefferson Davis defied the laws of his government, and he became a
> traitor.
>> He left his job as a senator of the United States, and allowed himself
>> to be crowned president of the confederacy. Davis was certainly not a
>> noble man, being president, he was ultimately responsible for all the
>> deaths and ruin brought about by this unholy war. But Evil? As far
>> as I'm concerned, Jefferson Davis was just another puffed up loser.
>> No more and no less than Adolph Hitler or Czar Nicholas II, or
>>
>> chang kai shek, or many many others. So why do we spend so much of
>> our energy lifting Jefferson Davis up as if he were a fallen hero?
>> And by the way, Jefferson Davis is my great-great-great uncle. My
>> great grandmother Sarah Davis Hickman was his niece. But I feel no
>> kinship, nor a need to hold him up. He did what he did for his own
>> reasons, and he paid for them. Just as do each of us.
>> What should concern us, trouble our Souls, is the fact that those who
>> worship the likes of Jefferson Davis, are actually yearning for a
>> return to those long ago days. No, say what you will. But tell me
>> this, how many Black people do you know who hold up Jefferson Davis as
> some fallen hero?
>> Davis represents all that was ugly then. And worshiping him today is
>> simply a sign that bigotry and racism continue to be seen as
>> acceptable. And the same is true of the Confederate Flag. And so is
>> dressing up in the Losers Uniforms and play acting that we are back in
>> those "glory days". We are in deep denial if we believe in any part of
> what the confederacy stood for.
>> When the Colonies took up arms against England, there were many local
>> folk who supported the King. But look around the history books and
>> tell me if you find any English Flags fluttering above local court
>> houses following the establishment of the Union.
>> Today, none of us have any control over who we are related to. Past
>> or present. In fact, none of us living today have any claim to that
>> short lived Confederacy. Some of my relatives fought for the Union,
>> and some for the Traitors. But that was what was going on back then.
>> We have no say, nor in fact do we really have a firm understanding of
>> the events and the forces at play back then. We have enough on our
>> hands sorting out today's mess.
>> Jefferson Davis was just a man who lived and went about his business
>> back in another time. And that flag, and all the other trinkets of
>> the Losers, should be tucked away for our grandchildren to see as a
>> backdrop to lessons about how our ancestors failed to treat one
>> another with respect. The flag now posted at the Charleston Court
>> House should be shown as a reminder to future generations, that once
>> upon a time our People did not know how to treat one another. That
>> flag represents the collective shame of All People in All of these United
> States.
>> And upon you, uncle Jefferson Davis, I close the cover of the book.
>>
>> Carl Jarvis
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/1/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Parry writes: "Unlike the Germans after World War II who collectively
>>> shouldered blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation,
>>> America's white Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had
>>> committed by enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United
>>> States into a bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage."
>>>
>>> Supporters gather for a rally to protest the removal of the flags
>>> from the Confederate Memorial Saturday, June 27, 2015, in Montgomery,
> Alabama.
>>> (photo: Julie Bennett/AL.com)
>>>
>>>
>>> Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>>> By Robert Parry, Consortium News
>>> 01 July 15
>>>
>>> Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands
>>> that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed.
>>> But the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery
>>> and then segregation were wrong, instead offering endless excuses,
>>> writes Robert Parry.
>>>
>>> Unlike the Germans after World War II who collectively shouldered
>>> blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation, America's white
>>> Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had committed by
>>> enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United States into a
>>> bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage.
>>> Instead of a frank admission of guilt, there have been endless
>>> excuses and obfuscations. Confederate apologists insist that slavery
>>> wasn't really all that bad for blacks, that the North's hands weren't
>>> clean either, that the Civil War was really just about differing
>>> interpretations of the Constitution, that white Southerners were the
>>> real victims here - from Sherman's March to the Sea to Reconstruction.
>>> Some white Southerners still prefer to call the conflict "the war of
>>> Northern aggression."
>>> Indeed, Southern white "victimhood" has been at the heart of much
>>> bloodshed and suffering in the United States not only during the
>>> Civil War and the ensuing decades but through the modern era of the
>>> civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s to the present bigoted
>>> hatred of the first African-American president and the coldblooded
>>> murders of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
>>> Dylann Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston murders,
>>> apparently was motivated by racist propaganda that highlighted
>>> incidents of black-on-white crime and led Roof to believe that he was
>>> defending the white race, under siege from blacks, another excuse
>>> used to justify the Confederate cause.
>>> Yet, the overriding reality has been centuries of white racist
>>> violence against blacks - from the unspeakable cruelties of slavery
>>> to Jim Crow lynchings to the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and
>>> other civil rights leaders to recent police shootings targeting blacks.
>>> Considering that grim history, what is perhaps most remarkable about
>>> white Southerners is that they as a group have never issued an
>>> unequivocal apology for their systematic abuse of African-Americans,
>>> let alone undertaken a serious commitment to make amends. Instead,
>>> many white Southerners pretend that they are the real victims here.
>>> We see this pattern again with the white backlash against public
>>> calls from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and others to retire the
>>> Confederate battle flag and other pro-slavery symbols. This weekend,
>>> news reports revealed a rush among white Southerners to buy the flag
>>> and clothing items featuring the flag. And across the Internet,
>>> Confederate apologists rushed to reprise all the sophistry that has
>>> surrounded the pro-slavery cause for generations.
>>> In Arlington, Virginia, I encountered some of that when I again urged
>>> the County Board to petition the state legislature in Richmond to
>>> remove the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from
>>> roadways that pass Arlington National Cemetery (founded to bury Union
>>> soldiers killed in the Civil War) and that skirt historic black
>>> neighborhoods in South Arlington (conveying a racist message of who's
> still the boss).
>>> Jefferson Davis's name was put on the stretch of Route One in the
>>> early 1920s amid a surge of Confederate pride, a period of increased
>>> lynchings of blacks, a growth in Ku Klux Klan membership, and release
>>> of the movie, "Birth of a Nation," celebrating the KKK as the brave
>>> defender of innocent whites endangered by rampaging blacks. In 1964,
>>> as a counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act, Virginia extended
>>> Jefferson Davis Highway to a roadway near Arlington Cemetery and the
> Pentagon.
>>> 'Rankled' and 'Crazy'
>>> A year ago when I first suggested removing Jefferson Davis's name,
>>> the local newspaper treated my appeal as something of a joke,
>>> referring to me as "rankled" and prompting angry responses from some
> Arlingtonians.
>>> One hostile letter writer declared, "I am very proud of my
>>> Commonwealth's history, but not of the current times, as I'm sure
>>> many others are."
>>> A top Democratic county official confronted me after a public meeting
>>> and upbraided me for raising such a divisive issue when there were
>>> more practical and immediate issues facing the county. The official
>>> said the state legislature would think Arlington County was "crazy"
>>> if it submitted a recommendation on removing Davis's name.
>>> However, after the Charleston massacre, I wrote to the board again:
>>> "When even South Carolina's Republicans say it's time to retire old
>>> symbols of the Confederacy - especially ones associated with slavery,
>>> white supremacy and violence - isn't it time for Arlington County to
>>> petition the state legislature to rename Jefferson Davis Highway
>>> something more appropriate to our racial diversity?
>>> "As we've seen tragically in recent days, symbols carry meaning. They
>>> encourage behavior, either good or bad. And, in the case of
>>> Confederate symbols, it is clear how individuals like Dylann Roof
>>> interpreted them, as a license to murder innocent black people. As
>>> for Confederate President Davis, not only was he a white supremacist
>>> who wished to perpetuate slavery forever, but he also authorized the
>>> murder of captured or surrendering black soldiers of the Union Army,
>>> an order that was acted upon in some of the final battles of the
>>> Civil War.
>>> "There's even an Arlington connection to some of those U.S. Colored
>>> Troops murdered based on Davis's order. Some were trained at our own
>>> Camp Casey before marching south to fight for freedom. Some Camp
>>> Casey recruits fought in the Battle of the Crater in a desperate
>>> effort to save white Union troops who were being slaughtered in
>>> battle. However, after the fighting stopped, Confederate troops -
>>> operating under President Davis's order - executed captured USCT
>>> soldiers." [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Mystery of the Civil War's
>>> Camp Casey."] My letter continued: "As a longtime resident of
>>> Arlington, I have often wondered what we think we are honoring when
>>> we name a major highway after Jefferson Davis. Are we saying that we
>>> think slavery was a good idea? Are we saying that we believe in white
>>> supremacy? Are we saying that we favor murdering black people simply
>>> because of the color of their skin? What message are we sending to
>>> our children - and indeed perhaps to some troubled young people like
> Dylann Roof?
>>> "Please, finally, petition the legislature to remove Davis's name
>>> from these Arlington roadways - and keep at it even if it requires
>>> multiple efforts.
>>> It
>>> is way past time to do so."
>>> I have received no reply from the County Board. My guess is there
>>> will be the same timidity about riling up the Confederate defenders
>>> who will draw fury from their bottomless well of victimhood. When my
>>> letter circulated on some local message boards, it did prompt a
>>> number of hostile responses (as well as some supportive comments).
>>> But history should tell us that a grave injustice that is not
>>> confronted - that is allowed to lie dormant while its perpetrators
>>> nurse their imaginary grievances - will resurface in a myriad of ugly
>>> and destructive ways. It is best, albeit difficult, to take on the
>>> injustice and demand accountability.
>>> (Update: Sadly, some of the comments to this story only prove my point.
>>> Confederate apologists just can't bring themselves to admit that
>>> American slavery was one of history's great evils. Instead, they
>>> engage in endless sophistry, obfuscation, excuses and misdirection.
>>> The goal apparently is to confuse the topic and distract from the
>>> heart of the matter - that many of them still believe in slavery and
>>> white supremacy. If they don't, why don't they just say so.)
>>> Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
>>> stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
>>> buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
>>> or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
>>> order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections
>>> to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
>>> America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
>>> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
>>> valid.
>>>
>>> Supporters gather for a rally to protest the removal of the flags
>>> from the Confederate Memorial Saturday, June 27, 2015, in Montgomery,
> Alabama.
>>> (photo: Julie Bennett/AL.com)
>>>
> https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/29/confronting-southern-victimhood/https:
>>> //consortiumnews.com/2015/06/29/confronting-southern-victimhood/
>>> Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>>> By Robert Parry, Consortium News
>>> 01 July 15
>>> Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands
>>> that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed.
>>> But the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery
>>> and then segregation were wrong, instead offering endless excuses,
>>> writes Robert Parry.
>>> nlike the Germans after World War II who collectively shouldered
>>> blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation, America's white
>>> Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had committed by
>>> enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United States into a
>>> bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage.
>>> Instead of a frank admission of guilt, there have been endless
>>> excuses and obfuscations. Confederate apologists insist that slavery
>>> wasn't really all that bad for blacks, that the North's hands weren't
>>> clean either, that the Civil War was really just about differing
>>> interpretations of the Constitution, that white Southerners were the
>>> real victims here - from Sherman's March to the Sea to Reconstruction.
>>> Some white Southerners still prefer to call the conflict "the war of
>>> Northern aggression."
>>> Indeed, Southern white "victimhood" has been at the heart of much
>>> bloodshed and suffering in the United States not only during the
>>> Civil War and the ensuing decades but through the modern era of the
>>> civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s to the present bigoted
>>> hatred of the first African-American president and the coldblooded
>>> murders of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
>>> Dylann Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston murders,
>>> apparently was motivated by racist propaganda that highlighted
>>> incidents of black-on-white crime and led Roof to believe that he was
>>> defending the white race, under siege from blacks, another excuse
>>> used to justify the Confederate cause.
>>> Yet, the overriding reality has been centuries of white racist
>>> violence against blacks - from the unspeakable cruelties of slavery
>>> to Jim Crow lynchings to the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and
>>> other civil rights leaders to recent police shootings targeting blacks.
>>> Considering that grim history, what is perhaps most remarkable about
>>> white Southerners is that they as a group have never issued an
>>> unequivocal apology for their systematic abuse of African-Americans,
>>> let alone undertaken a serious commitment to make amends. Instead,
>>> many white Southerners pretend that they are the real victims here.
>>> We see this pattern again with the white backlash against public
>>> calls from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and others to retire the
>>> Confederate battle flag and other pro-slavery symbols. This weekend,
>>> news reports revealed a rush among white Southerners to buy the flag
>>> and clothing items featuring the flag. And across the Internet,
>>> Confederate apologists rushed to reprise all the sophistry that has
>>> surrounded the pro-slavery cause for generations.
>>> In Arlington, Virginia, I encountered some of that when I again urged
>>> the County Board to petition the state legislature in Richmond to
>>> remove the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from
>>> roadways that pass Arlington National Cemetery (founded to bury Union
>>> soldiers killed in the Civil War) and that skirt historic black
>>> neighborhoods in South Arlington (conveying a racist message of who's
> still the boss).
>>> Jefferson Davis's name was put on the stretch of Route One in the
>>> early 1920s amid a surge of Confederate pride, a period of increased
>>> lynchings of blacks, a growth in Ku Klux Klan membership, and release
>>> of the movie, "Birth of a Nation," celebrating the KKK as the brave
>>> defender of innocent whites endangered by rampaging blacks. In 1964,
>>> as a counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act, Virginia extended
>>> Jefferson Davis Highway to a roadway near Arlington Cemetery and the
> Pentagon.
>>> 'Rankled' and 'Crazy'
>>> A year ago when I first suggested removing Jefferson Davis's name,
>>> the local newspaper treated my appeal as something of a joke,
>>> referring to me as "rankled" and prompting angry responses from some
> Arlingtonians.
>>> One hostile letter writer declared, "I am very proud of my
>>> Commonwealth's history, but not of the current times, as I'm sure
>>> many others are."
>>> A top Democratic county official confronted me after a public meeting
>>> and upbraided me for raising such a divisive issue when there were
>>> more practical and immediate issues facing the county. The official
>>> said the state legislature would think Arlington County was "crazy"
>>> if it submitted a recommendation on removing Davis's name.
>>> However, after the Charleston massacre, I wrote to the board again:
>>> "When even South Carolina's Republicans say it's time to retire old
>>> symbols of the Confederacy - especially ones associated with slavery,
>>> white supremacy and violence - isn't it time for Arlington County to
>>> petition the state legislature to rename Jefferson Davis Highway
>>> something more appropriate to our racial diversity?
>>> "As we've seen tragically in recent days, symbols carry meaning. They
>>> encourage behavior, either good or bad. And, in the case of
>>> Confederate symbols, it is clear how individuals like Dylann Roof
>>> interpreted them, as a license to murder innocent black people. As
>>> for Confederate President Davis, not only was he a white supremacist
>>> who wished to perpetuate slavery forever, but he also authorized the
>>> murder of captured or surrendering black soldiers of the Union Army,
>>> an order that was acted upon in some of the final battles of the
>>> Civil War.
>>> "There's even an Arlington connection to some of those U.S. Colored
>>> Troops murdered based on Davis's order. Some were trained at our own
>>> Camp Casey before marching south to fight for freedom. Some Camp
>>> Casey recruits fought in the Battle of the Crater in a desperate
>>> effort to save white Union troops who were being slaughtered in
>>> battle. However, after the fighting stopped, Confederate troops -
>>> operating under President Davis's order - executed captured USCT
>>> soldiers." [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Mystery of the Civil War's
>>> Camp Casey."] My letter continued: "As a longtime resident of
>>> Arlington, I have often wondered what we think we are honoring when
>>> we name a major highway after Jefferson Davis. Are we saying that we
>>> think slavery was a good idea? Are we saying that we believe in white
>>> supremacy? Are we saying that we favor murdering black people simply
>>> because of the color of their skin? What message are we sending to
>>> our children - and indeed perhaps to some troubled young people like
> Dylann Roof?
>>> "Please, finally, petition the legislature to remove Davis's name
>>> from these Arlington roadways - and keep at it even if it requires
>>> multiple efforts.
>>> It
>>> is way past time to do so."
>>> I have received no reply from the County Board. My guess is there
>>> will be the same timidity about riling up the Confederate defenders
>>> who will draw fury from their bottomless well of victimhood. When my
>>> letter circulated on some local message boards, it did prompt a
>>> number of hostile responses (as well as some supportive comments).
>>> But history should tell us that a grave injustice that is not
>>> confronted - that is allowed to lie dormant while its perpetrators
>>> nurse their imaginary grievances - will resurface in a myriad of ugly
>>> and destructive ways. It is best, albeit difficult, to take on the
>>> injustice and demand accountability.
>>> (Update: Sadly, some of the comments to this story only prove my point.
>>> Confederate apologists just can't bring themselves to admit that
>>> American slavery was one of history's great evils. Instead, they
>>> engage in endless sophistry, obfuscation, excuses and misdirection.
>>> The goal apparently is to confuse the topic and distract from the
>>> heart of the matter - that many of them still believe in slavery and
>>> white supremacy. If they don't, why don't they just say so.)
>>> Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
>>> stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
>>> buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
>>> or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
>>> order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections
>>> to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
>>> America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
>>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>