Do Republicans Want a Fedual Society?

I remember the William Blake class I took in pursuit of my Master's Degree. I took it for purely nostalgic purposes. As an undergraduate, I did most of my course work in British Literature. So, returning back to the Romantic Era was like going back to my intellectual home.
Well, Blake, at first, was extremely difficult to understand. And the professor assigned this one book, Reflection on a Revolution in France by an Edmund Burke. Reading it was like watching paint dry, and my eyes began to fill with tears of sheer boredom. Besides, I thought, we live in America, why in the Hell are we reading something a British Whig Party member wrote about the French Revolution?
Over the years, as American politics have gotten crazier and dumber, I've come to appreciate that boring book. I've come to see it, the very long letter to a colleague, as the foundation for conservative thought.
Harshly critical of Populist political movements and anti-intellectual in tone, this long letter seemingly, advocates a two-class society: the very rich who Lord over the very poor. And ironically, this long letter has everything to do with modern American conservative thought. There are many allusions to Burke's original philosophical thought. If Republicans accuse Obama of secretly conspiring to turn America into a Socialist society, all we have to do is listen very carefully to John Boehner and conclude that Republicans are secretly conspiring to turn America into a feudal society: a society in which the richest two percent control both wealth and political power.
I don't have to waste time here quoting the grim economic statistics that would support my theory. As a nation, we've been looking at and experiencing this for the past eight years. For people in lower economic classes, the American Dream seems further and further out of reach, even with extensive education. We know, as actually finishing graduate school looms closer and closer, that we will be faced with massive student loan debt, and will have to delay home-ownership, retirement savings, and childbirth for several years, yet. Thus, the birthrate continues to decline, and the average age for first-time mothers keeps rising.
As Republicans continue to cloak their secret agendas in the rhetoric of "small-business" talk, how long will we shut our eyes to their truth. They want a modern-day feudal society, whatever that may look like. I wonder if they'll want to practice Enclosure in a few years?
Reader pick up Burke, and get back to me with your thoughts.

Mississippi is not a real place

Earlier this week, I read something in the Huffington Post about the poorest states in the nation. Not surprisingly, the poorest states were all red states, and mostly Southern. No argument there. The numbers don't lie, and of course, Mississippi is the poorest. It is not the reddest state in the South, the numbers show from the last presidential election that it was more Democratic-leaning than Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. But, like its neighbors, Mississippi does have a Republican governor who is testing the waters for a presidential run in 2012.

I was not offended at any of these things. What angered me the most, what really, really chapped my behind, was the number of times people used "uneducated" to describe the populace of Mississippi. People made these random assumptions that everybody from Mississippi is "uneducated" and "behind the times". A quick Google search would reveal that Mississippi actually has more universities and community colleges than states comparable in size and population. And even the most dilapidated school systems of Mississippi do not have the drop-out rate as high as Wayne County's of Detroit. Yet, nobody calls the populace of Detroit, or any other metropolitan area where the dropout rate is above 50%, "uneducated."

Then, I had this sudden realization: Mississippi is not a real place with real people in the minds of most of Americans. Mississippi is an idea. It is an ideological dumping ground for everything that America doesn't love about itself: homelessness, racism, uneducated masses who slavishly follow the Republican party against their own will, poverty, failing school systems, low-paying jobs that are non-unionized, teenage pregnancy, rises in sexually transmitted diseases and abortion rates among teens, sky-rocketing divorce rates, etc. All of these things are Mississippi's problems. I don't need to waste any space here outlining all of the "good ole' boy" and "cotton-picking" stereotypes about Mississippi that circulate in our national culture. According to Hollywood, there are no paved roads, it is never winter, and nobody has air-conditioning. We all talk lak Hai-leeeeeey Baaaaaaarbour (Whose accent is very questionable. Some people believe he has a coach so that he can appeal to his base. He certainly didn't talk like that at a commencement ceremony I once attended), and the state doesn't extend past the Delta region where white folks are forever night-riding with white sheets over their heads and Black folks are forever sitting on their porches singing the Blues about how miserable white folk done made them.

Mississippi exists as a psychological booster for the rest of the United States. When all else fails, when all looks bleak, when everything looks substandard and subpar, every state in the United States has the privilege of saying, "At least we're not Mississippi."

Blue Dog Dems in the Bush Era

I have but one question: where were these Blue Dog Democrats during the Bush/Cheney era?

What Exactly, is Fascism

In 1995, Toni Morrison published an extremely, extremely insightful article titled, "Racism and Facism" in The Journal of Negro Education. For those of you who are tech savvy and who have access to a college library, please use J-Stor, EbscoHost, or Academic Search Premiere to check this article out. Published more than 10 years ago, this article is scary in its accuracy.

Earliear this week, the NAACP challenged the TEA Party on its overt and covert racism and racist attitudes toward the President. Also, during this same week, I went into Wal-Greens for some oh so delicious salsa chips that they sale, and I heard the song, "Cult of Personality" playing on the loudspeaker. I was horrified by that song. Never, never in my life, even after surviving Reaganomics, have I heard so much disrespect toward the leader of the free world internally.

In response to the charge by Jealous and the NAACP, most TEA Party members claim that they are not racist at all. They simply don't like the socialist policies of Obama and the rest of the Democrats. These people use the rhetoric of fear, throwing around big words like fascism and racism, but absolutely do not know what they are talking about. The beauty of Toni Morrison is that she marries the calling of someone a fascist or a racist with covert racism...

Also, the beauty of Morrison is that she defines fascims for us, something that neither Glenn Beck nor Sarah Palin can do. Here's how Morrison defines it:
"Conservative, moderate, liberal; right, left, hard left, far right;religious, secular, socialist -we must not be blindsided by these Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola labels because the genius of fascism is that any political structure can become a suitable home. Facism talks ideology, but it is really just marketing -marketing for power."

Morrison goes on to link Fascism with unconstrained greed and rampant, global capitalism. She defines Fascism as dominance and control of entire populations by deregulation and abusive financial practices. As I reread her article today, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. As I read, I heard a newscaster say BP lobbied the British government to release a convicted Libyan terrorist with 200+ murders on his hands just so the company could drill oil off the coast of Libya. Another Senator came on immediately after, claiming that continuing to pay unemployed people unemployment benefits makes people lazy.

On Both Sides of the Aisle

I must admit, when I go to vote, I vote based on my bank account. Since I'm not a six-figure wage earner, I vote Democratically for most elections. However, that does not mean that I don't listen to and understand Republican view points. Hell, I even like the way they get things done. They have an agenda and they stick to it, regardless.

Republicans are the REAL gannsters. They stick together much closer than any mafia, and are much more organized than the Bloods, Vice Lords, or Crips. They set an agenda and they go after it. Everyone else is either for them or against them. They pull their friends along and reward them handsomely for their loyalty. They run the country like drug empires, with policies benefitting a select few while destroying a whole populace. On top of that, they wrap it up in scripture, I tell you. Now what separates Republicans from vastly organized drug lords?

But seriously, Black people need Republicans as well. We shouldn't be one-party voters. We need people on both side of the aisle to effectively agitate for African American interests. For instance, many struggling African Americans want something done about welfare. It is too easy to fraud the system from state to state, and the laws are not written to favor those who really need the assistance: the elderly. I can already tell you that welfare reform is not something Democrats will touch, not now not ever! Republicans, on the other hand, may just try to reform welfare as an entitlement issue, if they ever get back around to making policy instead of running the country like they are drug lords.

However, Republicans, since Barry Goldwater, have done a horrific job at branding itself as a party for the people. It has been a party of exclusivity. Though African American leaders such as Frederick Douglass and even Dr. King were Republicans at the time of their deaths, we can all agree that their Republican Party is not the same as this new pack of gangsters we see today. These gangsters do not even take their own African American members seriously. How many times have they turned their backs on Chairman Steele, while allowing Rush Limbaugh to say anything he wants? Rush Limbaugh, an entertainer and college dropout, is indeed the de facto leader of the Republican Party.

In the meantime, I will continue to listen to and take into account Republican points of view. I like some of them, and would be willing to support POLICY issues, not the hate-filled rhetoric of exclusivity that I am hearing. African Americans, though we are statistically behind white voters financially, cannot afford to be one-party voters.

A Country of Contradiction

Perhaps, Americans find it difficult to call our politicians liars because of who we all are. This Independence Day reminds me that we live in one of the greatest democratic experiments in the history of mankind.
With that said, we should all take this week to reflect upon who we are as Americans. As Americans, we are a people riddled with complex contradictions and traditions. We are largely a conservative country politically. Yet, we believe in the freedoms of speech and religion, and the right to bear arms. We have the largest population of church members in the free, industrialized world. We have the largest amount of poverty, homicides, teen pregnancy, and drug addiction. To speak of sex is not polite conversation, and there are no federal policies demanding sex education in America's classrooms. Yet, sex sells. Period. Sex is ubiquitous. We teach abstinence only in some classrooms and pass out condoms at the end of the class.
Americans believe largely that we should be free to be who we are, and we should be able to serve our country and pick a partner of our choosing, unless that American happens to be gay. No marriage and no patriotic military service.
America, land of the brave, home of the free, unless of course, that American is Black. Though 40+ years after the end of Jim Crow, Black people remain at the top of all terrible statistics, like the incarcerated population is mainly Black. Is it because Black people are naturally predisposed to crime, or is it because they are monitored more closely and given harsher sentences than their white counterparts. Ask any Black person about DWB, and you get enough stories to fill a book.
Many of our Republican lawmakers claim to be ardent followers of the Word concerning abortion and gay rights. I guess they didn't read those parts in the Bible about a rich man and a camel. Or, they completely ignored the parts where Jesus talked about poverty and allowing our fellow Christians to suffer in poverty. On top of that, most Republicans blame the poor for being "lazy," not the industries who receive tax breaks to take their jobs out of the country...jobs the working poor would have been working.
Let's face it, I could go on and on and on. I hope those in power take some time to figure out who we are as Americans. Is our power structure a conglomerate of business? Are our soldiers simply the tools of free enterprise? Are we citizens simply a collection of workers and tax payers?

Throwing Red Meat or Plain Lying

What's the difference between throwing political red meat to the base and just plain lying? It doesn't seem to be much of a difference these days. I have first-hand experience.

Most residents of the South suffer through Republican governors, senators, and representatives. Yes, many of us vote progressive/liberal/Democratic, but Republicans always seem to outnumber us. Many of our Republican office-holders win office by taking tough stances against spending, entitlements, and the deficits. Some even claim to be against stimulus funding and increasing unemployment benefits. Yet, everywhere I ride around the South, I see projects funding by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the stimulus plan). Louisiana even has signs that show you how much money the state has received from the federal government. Does nobody see anything wrong with Republicans playing to the base when they talk about "runaway, big government spending," and taking more money from the Big government;thereby increasing spending and the deficit?

Where are the people who chanted, "Drill Baby Drill?" These people encouraged more drilling by private enterprise and then criticize the federal government for not acting quickly enough to clean up the spill. Why is the oil the property of private enterprise but the spill the responsibility of tax payers? Are we mere golden parachutes for corporations and megabanks?

Scott Brown, the Tea Party, won office based on tough stances against the banks who gambled their money, and used tax-payer funds to cover their behinds. Yet, he was key in watering down the financial reform bill. In other words, he threw red meat to the base, then voted for his own interests. But when do these political moves become blatant lies?