I have something I passionately wish for. I am soon to enter my 76th year of life; I also have several preexisting conditions which will probably preclude living a very long life; I probably will not see this wish fulfilled in my lifetime. But I am optimistic that one day, my wish will become a reality.
I do not wish for any thing. Much less for vain things, since at my age, I realize that it is the fate of human beings to dissolve into the air like a wisp of smoke. To be somewhat vain at 40 is somewhat acceptable; to be vain in the eighth decade of life is, however, ridiculous. Old people know that entropy is paring them down, hopefully relatively slowly, like apples. Claiming to be a ruddy MacIntosh while turning into a sour crab is, however, ridiculous indeed. I'm not here to make entropy laugh.
What am I here for? Research has clearly proven that the most important aspect of life is relationships. Not fame, not fortune, but relationships. I've heard of a group of old Koreans who met daily at a local McDonald's. They ordered maybe a coffee and doughnut each and talked and talked and talked. Not like a typical American who takes a bun on the run. That the Koreans remained in their seats for an hour or so drove the management wild. Their primary interest is, of course, money. I like to think of the management as Time (time is money, after all, as a proverb popular among the young goes)--I admire those Koreans for continuing to practice what's most important in life until Time has the audacity to throw them out.
This little essay will not stress the personal, but the political. (The personal is the political; this cliché has a point, but the personal and political are political in very different ways). My fervent political wish is this: I would like the working classes of all races to come together. I would like to see them initiate a "revolution of fairness." (Let the czars live, but not in palaces). This would include increasing taxes, especially on the very rich and on corporations, and using the funds for infrastructure programs, universal health care, expanded social programs, etc. We need an era of vibrant unions again; workers need to participate on corporate boards and have some control over policy. This is not an exclusive list!
There are two major impediments to this view of the future: Racism and class division. We will discuss these in turn.
Racism
Let us imagine that Uncle Sam's mother breast-fed her soon-to-be powerful son. If she did, there is no doubt that there was racism in the milk. It has been characterized as our original sin. (Not very original, one must admit, since racism is and was widespread. But just as fascism was not limited to Nazi Germany, the Nazi example was so horrible that one could consider them the worst fascists ever. Similarly, America, the most powerful country of the world, was one of the last nations to repudiate slavery--it took a war to do it--and continued extreme racial injustice for decades after that, the legacy of which lasts to this this day; similarly, America may be considered one of the worst racist nations ever.
You know the history.
Recently, George Floyd became Rosa Parks. (If a Rosa Parks had refused to go to the back of the bus a decade or so earlier than the real Rosa Parks did, she would have been arrested and no one would have heard of her. In 1955, when Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, the times they were a changin'.)
The times they are a changin' once again. How many George Floyds died at the hands of the police before George Floyd was murdered? How many acts of brutality were never recorded on video? I shudder to think of the number,
The zietgeist is different now. First, many blacks are well educated and have positions of power; they cannot be cowed into silence. Second, just as during the Civil Rights Movement, many non-black Americans today have been protesting alongside their black brothers and sisters.
I imagine that blacks of all classes have felt Derek Chauvin's knee on their necks. It is a disgrace. It is also symbolic of the knee of opression in general. It has to stop.
It's not going to be easy.
In the nineteenth century, there thrived, for a while, the Know Nothing Party (an apt name), which opposed immigration, especially Irish, Italian and East European migration. If your name had a vowel at the end or a "Mc" at the beginning, you were in trouble. (The Protestant rulers thought that other religions would change the American character for the worse. Even in the 1960 presidential election, which I remember well, many had doubts about electing a Catholic president).
Now it doesn't matter if you're last name is Esposito, Cuddy or Smith.
Remember the fuss Trump made when he discovered that the judge presiding over a suit against him had an Hispanic surname? I think the day is coming when one will be as indifferent to names like Lopez and Rodriguez as they are now to Esposito, Cuddy, or Smith. But what if you happen to be named Jamal?
No other ethnic group in the United States--with the possible exception of Native Americans--have been the victims of such vicious, persistent racism as African Americans. It has to stop.
Class
Americans don't like to talk about class, but class says a lot about us. Conservatives talk about class warfare against the rich, while the rich are the ones who have been waging class war against everyone else. Especially during the past forty years, which might be characterized as the age of neoliberalism. It began with Reagan, perhaps with his infamous dictum that government isn't part of the problem, government is the problem. Neoliberalism involves decreasing taxation of the rich, deregulation, cuts in social services, including transportation. Prior to Reagan, the working class might not have been doing well, but at least it kept up. According to neoliberalism, The great Market machine will supposedly drip down oil to keep its cogs in good shape. The opposite happened.
In Trump's only major legislation, the 2017 tax cut, 80% of the benefit went to the top 1%--Classic neoliberalism.
For those earning below the median income--and even considerbly higher--this is no longer a democracy.
The political scientist, Martin Gillens, has demonstrated that there is hardly a linear relationship between public sentiment and policy. The legislators more or less pass policies that the rich want, not what the public wants. This is not surprising, since we live in an oligarchy, the members of which lobby assiduosly, and usually get what they want.
Since the 1980s, salaries and job aspects for the working poor have precipitously declined.
The working class, especially the white working class, is angry. They realize that the government has been unreponsive to working class needs. As Bernie Sanders pointed out, the working class has a right to be very angry. But they are angry for the wrong reasons. Their rage has driven working-class whites to support whites who are diametrically opposed to their interests.
A resident of Montana was asked why he and his neighbors support Trump. Because he is the only one who will look after us, was the reply.
The white working-class's alienation from the Democratic Party is partially the latter's fault. It is, of course, good to advocate for diversity, but a more frequent mention of how class warfare having produced white victims as well as black victims would help. Diversity, yes--but what about such things as the organization of labor?
Chris Hedges in his book America: A Farewell Tour eloquently addressed white working-class plight, as follows;
Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton blame the suicide rates among white males (which have skyrocketed) on what they term "cumulative disadvantages," meaning a combination of unemployment or underemployment, the failure of marriages, the loss of social cohesion, and declining health. They argue that the "collapse of the white, high-school educated, working class after its heyday in the 1970s led to a variety of "pathologies" that fostered a potentially fatal despair.
It is not a stretch to attribute a large portion of this decline to an elite which controls legislation and who only care about themselves. What is a once proud bread-winner to do when he is left with a handful of crumbs?
Let them eat cake, say the elite. (Which they, alas! increasingly do).
The oligarchs, one of whose core principles is divide and rule, undountedly enjoy the partisan split plaguing our nation. Ever since poor, indentured whites were made overlords of poorer blacks, the elites have used the "race card" to maintain the support of the working class.
What about my wish to see the white working class unite with the minority working class? It is not going to be easy.
I do, however, have a few suggestions.
The Democratic Party needs to address working class concerns. The party's tent must welcome working-class whites, without making any compromise to diversity. It needs to combat class supremacy as well.
Whites need to get used to black leadership. One day soon working-class whites must come to realize that an Ilhan Omar represents their interests better than does a Mitch McConnell.
Workers must organize from the grass-roots to see to it that government is more responive to working class needs. The Citizens United ruling, for instance, must be rescinded.
We must combat voter suppression in all its forms.
We have a lot of work to do! It is my fervent wish that we join hands and work together.
Better sooner than later!
I do not wish for any thing. Much less for vain things, since at my age, I realize that it is the fate of human beings to dissolve into the air like a wisp of smoke. To be somewhat vain at 40 is somewhat acceptable; to be vain in the eighth decade of life is, however, ridiculous. Old people know that entropy is paring them down, hopefully relatively slowly, like apples. Claiming to be a ruddy MacIntosh while turning into a sour crab is, however, ridiculous indeed. I'm not here to make entropy laugh.
What am I here for? Research has clearly proven that the most important aspect of life is relationships. Not fame, not fortune, but relationships. I've heard of a group of old Koreans who met daily at a local McDonald's. They ordered maybe a coffee and doughnut each and talked and talked and talked. Not like a typical American who takes a bun on the run. That the Koreans remained in their seats for an hour or so drove the management wild. Their primary interest is, of course, money. I like to think of the management as Time (time is money, after all, as a proverb popular among the young goes)--I admire those Koreans for continuing to practice what's most important in life until Time has the audacity to throw them out.
This little essay will not stress the personal, but the political. (The personal is the political; this cliché has a point, but the personal and political are political in very different ways). My fervent political wish is this: I would like the working classes of all races to come together. I would like to see them initiate a "revolution of fairness." (Let the czars live, but not in palaces). This would include increasing taxes, especially on the very rich and on corporations, and using the funds for infrastructure programs, universal health care, expanded social programs, etc. We need an era of vibrant unions again; workers need to participate on corporate boards and have some control over policy. This is not an exclusive list!
There are two major impediments to this view of the future: Racism and class division. We will discuss these in turn.
Racism
Let us imagine that Uncle Sam's mother breast-fed her soon-to-be powerful son. If she did, there is no doubt that there was racism in the milk. It has been characterized as our original sin. (Not very original, one must admit, since racism is and was widespread. But just as fascism was not limited to Nazi Germany, the Nazi example was so horrible that one could consider them the worst fascists ever. Similarly, America, the most powerful country of the world, was one of the last nations to repudiate slavery--it took a war to do it--and continued extreme racial injustice for decades after that, the legacy of which lasts to this this day; similarly, America may be considered one of the worst racist nations ever.
You know the history.
Recently, George Floyd became Rosa Parks. (If a Rosa Parks had refused to go to the back of the bus a decade or so earlier than the real Rosa Parks did, she would have been arrested and no one would have heard of her. In 1955, when Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, the times they were a changin'.)
The times they are a changin' once again. How many George Floyds died at the hands of the police before George Floyd was murdered? How many acts of brutality were never recorded on video? I shudder to think of the number,
The zietgeist is different now. First, many blacks are well educated and have positions of power; they cannot be cowed into silence. Second, just as during the Civil Rights Movement, many non-black Americans today have been protesting alongside their black brothers and sisters.
I imagine that blacks of all classes have felt Derek Chauvin's knee on their necks. It is a disgrace. It is also symbolic of the knee of opression in general. It has to stop.
It's not going to be easy.
In the nineteenth century, there thrived, for a while, the Know Nothing Party (an apt name), which opposed immigration, especially Irish, Italian and East European migration. If your name had a vowel at the end or a "Mc" at the beginning, you were in trouble. (The Protestant rulers thought that other religions would change the American character for the worse. Even in the 1960 presidential election, which I remember well, many had doubts about electing a Catholic president).
Now it doesn't matter if you're last name is Esposito, Cuddy or Smith.
Remember the fuss Trump made when he discovered that the judge presiding over a suit against him had an Hispanic surname? I think the day is coming when one will be as indifferent to names like Lopez and Rodriguez as they are now to Esposito, Cuddy, or Smith. But what if you happen to be named Jamal?
No other ethnic group in the United States--with the possible exception of Native Americans--have been the victims of such vicious, persistent racism as African Americans. It has to stop.
Class
Americans don't like to talk about class, but class says a lot about us. Conservatives talk about class warfare against the rich, while the rich are the ones who have been waging class war against everyone else. Especially during the past forty years, which might be characterized as the age of neoliberalism. It began with Reagan, perhaps with his infamous dictum that government isn't part of the problem, government is the problem. Neoliberalism involves decreasing taxation of the rich, deregulation, cuts in social services, including transportation. Prior to Reagan, the working class might not have been doing well, but at least it kept up. According to neoliberalism, The great Market machine will supposedly drip down oil to keep its cogs in good shape. The opposite happened.
In Trump's only major legislation, the 2017 tax cut, 80% of the benefit went to the top 1%--Classic neoliberalism.
For those earning below the median income--and even considerbly higher--this is no longer a democracy.
The political scientist, Martin Gillens, has demonstrated that there is hardly a linear relationship between public sentiment and policy. The legislators more or less pass policies that the rich want, not what the public wants. This is not surprising, since we live in an oligarchy, the members of which lobby assiduosly, and usually get what they want.
Since the 1980s, salaries and job aspects for the working poor have precipitously declined.
The working class, especially the white working class, is angry. They realize that the government has been unreponsive to working class needs. As Bernie Sanders pointed out, the working class has a right to be very angry. But they are angry for the wrong reasons. Their rage has driven working-class whites to support whites who are diametrically opposed to their interests.
A resident of Montana was asked why he and his neighbors support Trump. Because he is the only one who will look after us, was the reply.
The white working-class's alienation from the Democratic Party is partially the latter's fault. It is, of course, good to advocate for diversity, but a more frequent mention of how class warfare having produced white victims as well as black victims would help. Diversity, yes--but what about such things as the organization of labor?
Chris Hedges in his book America: A Farewell Tour eloquently addressed white working-class plight, as follows;
Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton blame the suicide rates among white males (which have skyrocketed) on what they term "cumulative disadvantages," meaning a combination of unemployment or underemployment, the failure of marriages, the loss of social cohesion, and declining health. They argue that the "collapse of the white, high-school educated, working class after its heyday in the 1970s led to a variety of "pathologies" that fostered a potentially fatal despair.
It is not a stretch to attribute a large portion of this decline to an elite which controls legislation and who only care about themselves. What is a once proud bread-winner to do when he is left with a handful of crumbs?
Let them eat cake, say the elite. (Which they, alas! increasingly do).
The oligarchs, one of whose core principles is divide and rule, undountedly enjoy the partisan split plaguing our nation. Ever since poor, indentured whites were made overlords of poorer blacks, the elites have used the "race card" to maintain the support of the working class.
What about my wish to see the white working class unite with the minority working class? It is not going to be easy.
I do, however, have a few suggestions.
The Democratic Party needs to address working class concerns. The party's tent must welcome working-class whites, without making any compromise to diversity. It needs to combat class supremacy as well.
Whites need to get used to black leadership. One day soon working-class whites must come to realize that an Ilhan Omar represents their interests better than does a Mitch McConnell.
Workers must organize from the grass-roots to see to it that government is more responive to working class needs. The Citizens United ruling, for instance, must be rescinded.
We must combat voter suppression in all its forms.
We have a lot of work to do! It is my fervent wish that we join hands and work together.
Better sooner than later!
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