I've posted e-mails from Doug Porter at Words & Deeds before, but here's a good one regarding Nikki Haley's bizarre (to say the least) response to a question about why the U.S. Civil War (the one from 1861 to 1865) happened. If you've seen the clip on TV, you can sense the gears going around in Haley's brain as she tries to figure out what's the "right" response. The plain truth is that the U.S. Civil War happened because some white people in the seceding states wanted to make sure they kept having the "right" to own Black people as slaves. Everything else is just B.S., and it's fascinating to hear Haley saying the Civil War was a battle over "individual freedom" without specifying just which side was for "individual freedom" and which side was against it. – Mark Gabrish Conlan, January 2, 2024
GOP Flaunts Racism as Election Strategy
It's as American as apple pie.
by DOUG PORTER
JANUARY 2, 2024
A GOP Presidential wannabe, Nikki Haley, is getting noticed in the media because she danced around a citizen’s questions concerning the civil war and slavery.
Get this: a brown-skinned person who presents as white pandered to the racists in the electorate who would harm her if given the opportunity. I suppose nothing is surprising in a political world shaped by lies and conspiracies.
Haley is trying to represent herself as a “reasonable” candidate to lead her party into the 2024 elections… wink, wink.
Here’s columnist Thom Hartmann, who also has a lot to say about the economic conditions prior to the Civil War:
When she was called out on it by the questioner, who said he was “astonished” that her answer didn’t mention slavery, she tried to be glib, asking rhetorically, “What do you want me to say about slavery?”
When the gaffe went viral, Haley tried to clean it up by saying that “of course” slavery was a cause of the Civil War, and, later, blaming the “gotcha” question on a “Democratic plant” who’d sneakily inserted himself into her town hall.
The simple reality is that the pro-slavery South is still very much with us, and is still—after 163 years—trying to make the case that democracy should be replaced with a strongman white supremacist oligarchy.
“Freedom” is the word of choice by modern day apologists, used to paper over past events connected to an economic and cultural system based on the belief that their supreme being created a hierarchy determined by sex and skin color.
Having fostered the perception that the white population in this country is threatened by granting rights or eliminating barriers to other racial groups, GOP politicians are openly supporting causes and actions designed to protect its imagined majority of citizens. Individuals considered extremists are now accepted as part of their coalition by party leaders.
Since they can’t use the words “n***er lovers” any more, GOP politicians have adopted the term “cultural Marxism” to dismiss criticism of their political actions and portray those opposing them as dangerous. We’ve reached the point where the concept of a nation built around advantages for certain classes is considered normal
Books and curriculum inclusive of or featuring those considered to be outside the white, male nexus are being suppressed. Companies with diversity programs are coming under fire. And cultural events with non mainstream leading characters are boycotted and disparaged.
Jumping back into US history, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t accepted by his opposition or much of the populace as a great moral statement. As Heather Cox Richardson enumerates, Lincoln’s party lost bigly in the 1862 midterm elections, losing 25 seats in the House of Representatives and control of governance in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.
The sausage-making of the Emancipation Proclamation had long-term repercussions. The redefinition of Black Americans as superhuman workers undercut later attempts to support formerly enslaved people as they transitioned to a free economy, and the road to equality was not at all as smooth as the Republicans hoped. But that such a foundational change in our history emerged from such messy give and take, necessary in order to preserve our democratic system, seems a useful thing to remember in 2024.
The well of racism in this country runs deep. The shockwave after H. Rap Brown declared that “racism is as American as apple pie” eventually led to processes of nation self-examination and some realization that so much of our society was built upon the assumption of white supremacy.
The process came up short when it came to understand racism’s role in our national wealth and its shaping of the economy. Thus, the door to Make America Great Again was left open. The foundation of racism renewal is economic, of course, a building block in the quest of a few to destroy democracy and pave the way for an authoritarian oligarchy.
Instead of a civilization reaching for the stars of equality and empathy, these are advocates for a future existing in the sewers of ignorance and hatred; where violence and cruelty are currency.
An indication of the weakness in our democracy is that there won’t be anti-racism advocacy involved in the vast majority of voting choices we get to make this year. In fact, such advocacy is actively portrayed as a call for chaos by those who would use this imagined chaos as a stepping stool for power.
Simply saying the phrase Black Lives Matter is portrayed as a call for anarchy and destruction. In vetting the profiles of users at Threads**, a would-be successor for Xitter, I’ve noticed the preponderance of ordinary people who use the BLM initials as a statement of beliefs.
Politicians, on the other hand, rarely use the phrase. If you wanna push back against the book banners and denialists, let’s make that phrase mainstream for good. It’s just a word choice, but symbolism is a powerful political motivator.
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I am currently signed up with a half-dozen social media platforms with formats and intentions similar to those of the company that Elon Musk has destroyed. Sometime this spring I’ll publish an accounting of my perceptions and experiences. One thing I can already tell you, is that the days of social media serving as news feed are long gone.
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Tuesday’s News Shorts
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Nebraska Legislative Preview - The Definition of Insanity Via Daily Kos
Erin Porterfield, executive director of nonprofit Heartland Workforce Solutions investigated why blue collar workers are now leaving Nebraska. Among reasons cited are that negative experiences with racism “contribute to feeling unsafe” and to reduced employment and social opportunities. “Feeling like Nebraska isn’t for everyone,” was another refrain, along with increased limits “on rights for people of diverse identities, including transgender care.”
How are the Nebraska Republicans responding to this crisis? If you guessed more tax cuts for the rich, you would be right! Surprise! Surprise! They are consistent.
Pillen has pledged to cut property taxes “significantly” in the next legislative session. The Nebraska Governor promised to reduce property taxes by $2 billion or 40%. Pillen would fund these massive tax cuts by cutting state spending by 6% and placing draconian spending caps on county and local governments. That would most likely include cuts to public school funding.
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Playbook PM: Biden’s big election-year choice Via Politico
And in a handful of swing-state counties that have backed the last four presidential victors, WSJ’s Ken Thomas, Catherine Lucey, Eliza Collins and Paul Overberg find a familiar refrain: Voters aren’t enthused about either frontrunner. In these areas, often removed from big cities and home to aging populations, there’s “a broader frustration with America’s trajectory and a desire to break the logjams that impede progress on the country’s economic and social problems.”
Behind closed doors, an uncorked Biden often gets more candid, or assertive, at campaign fundraisers. That can create headaches for aides who have to clean up his gaffes or inconvenient truths, but several donors tell Reuters’ Steve Holland, Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt that his campaign “could actually use more of this type of aggressive language, especially pushing back on Republican attacks.”
Meanwhile, Trump is laying big plans: He tells Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle and Alexander Marlow that he’ll make a “heavy play” for Minnesota, New Jersey, New York (!), New Mexico and Virginia in the general election. And he floats the possibility of a rally at Madison Square Garden.
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Shawn Fain’s New Year’s Resolution Is to Lay the Ground for a National Strike Via The Nation
Fain’s May Day throwdown takes aim at capital’s divide-and-conquer legal regime. But to be successful in 2028, the labor movement will need millions of workers to join in: those now in unions, who should begin to line up contracts for that decisive date, and many more who are not yet in unions but are beginning to organize.
This vision is what makes the new surge of auto worker organizing the UAW is currently embarking on particularly momentous.
In the wake of the UAW’s breakthrough strike and contract settlements at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, workers at the industry’s growing non-union plants—Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Hyundai, BMW, VW, Tesla, and more—are beginning to organize on a scale not seen in generations. Thousands of workers have signed union cards in the last few weeks. The UAW has dispatched organizers to non-union plants and launched a splashy national media campaign along with social media organizing tools.
