The Boston Tea Party Story
For better or worse (it’s ok to curse), the tea party is a part of the scene. The seminal event was the Boston Tea Party in 1775. The first post below is a look at what really happened in Boston harbor. It is tough to discern truth from fable at a distance of 236 years, but we will try. The tea party metaphor gets worked over in another post, would you like a refill?
The second part is a look at the phrase “founding fathers”. This phrase is “liberally” sprinkled into rhetoric of all persuasions. This author sees a square peg being forced into round holes.
In the first year of the Obama regime, America has seen the rise of the “Tea Party”. These affairs are usually right wing, and have lots of clever signs. The general idea is that taxes are too high, government is too big, and that the people need to do something.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people (some dressed as Mohawks) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax.
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. (spell check suggestions: contraction, contraption) According to them : “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea. The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
The photogenic tea party movement seems to be destined to stay a while. The question remains, how much does it have to do with the namesake event?
People often try to justify their opinions by saying that the “founding fathers” agree with them. They often are guilty of selective use of history. A good place to start would be to define what we mean by the phrase founding fathers.
The FF word was not used before 1916. A senator from Ohio named Warren Harding used the phrase in the keynote address of the 1916 Republican convention. Mr. Harding was elected President in 1920, and is regarded as perhaps the most corrupt man to ever hold the office.
There are two groups of men who could be considered the founding fathers. (The fathers part is correct. Both groups are 100% male.) The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which cut the ties to England. Eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention wrote the Constitution that governs America today. While the Continental Congress was braver than the Constitution writers (We must hang together, or we will hang separately), the Constitution is the document that tells our government how to function. For the purposes of this feature, the men of the Constitutional Convention are the founding fathers.
Before moving on, we should remember eight men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and later attended the Constitutional Convention. Both documents were signed by George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson. George Wythe left the Constitutional Convention without signing the new document. (He needed to take care of his sick wife. Mr. Wythe later supported ratification.) Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of gerrymandering) refused to sign the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights. Both Mr. Wythe, and Mr. Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence.
The original topic of this discussion was about whether the founding fathers owned slaves. Apparently, PG is not the only person to wonder about this. If you go to google, and type in “did the founding fathers”, the first four answers are owned slaves, believed in G-d, have a death wish, and smoke weed.
The answer, to the obvious question, is an obvious answer. Yes, many of the founding fathers owned slaves. A name by name rundown of the 39 signatories of the Constitution was not done for this blogpost. There is this revealing comment at wiki answers about the prevalence of slave ownership. “John Adams, his second cousin Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine were the only men who are traditionally known as founding fathers who did not own slaves. Benjamin Franklin was indeed a founder of the Abolitionist Society, but he owned two slaves, named King and George. Franklin’s newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette routinely ran ads for sale or purchase of slaves.
Patrick Henry is another founding father who owned slaves, although his speeches would make one think otherwise. Despite his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, he had up to 70 slaves at a time, apologizing a few times along the way, saying he knew it was wrong, that he was accountable to his God, and citing the “general inconvenience of living without them.”
Patrick Henry was a star of the Revolution, but not present at the Constitutional Convention. The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was in Europe during the convention. Mr. Jefferson not only owned slaves, he took one to be his mistress and kidsmama.
One of the more controversial features of the Constitution is the 3/5 rule. Here are the original words “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” In other words, a slave was only considered to be 60% of a person.
That seems rather harsh. The truth is, it was a compromise. The agricultural southern states did not want to give up their slaves. The northern states did not want to give up Congressional representation. This was the first of many compromises made about slavery, ending with the War between the States. This webpage goes into more detail about the nature of slavery at the start of the U.S.A.
The research for this feature turned up a rather cynical document called The myth of the “Founding Fathers” . It is written by Adolph Nixon. He asks : “most rational persons realize that such political mythology is sheer nonsense, but it begs the question, who were the Founding Fathers and what makes them so great that they’re wiser than you are?”
Mr. Nixon reviews the 39 white men who signed the Constitution. He does not follow the rule, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all. Of the 39, 12 were specified as slave owners, with many tagged as “slave breeders”.
The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, have served America well. However it was intended, it was written so that it could be amended, and to grow with the young republic. It has on occasion been ignored (when was the last time Congress declared war?). However fine a document it is, it was created by men. These were men of their time, who could not have foreseen the changes that America has gone through. Those who talk the most about the founding fathers often know the least about them.
A big thank you goes to wikipedia Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This repost was written like H. P. Lovecraft.
Cracker
cracker is not the pale face
version of the n word
many crackers don’t care what others think anyway
why give people the power to turn you
into a mass of quivering rage because
the wrong kind of person said a seven letter word?
Six Letter Label
There is yet another blog post about Shirley Q. Liquor, I’m Tired of Explaining Why I’m Offended by a Racist Drag Queen. SQL is a comic character, a black woman played by Charles Knipp, who is white. The concept is not pleasing to many people.
There is a sentence in the post which needs to be broken down. “Here’s my question: When people like me say that something is potentially racist, why do we have to defend ourselves to White people who act as the final jurist of the opinion?”
To begin, people very seldom say anything as restrained as potentially racist. The judgment is made with great force and certainty. The accuser appoints herself judge, jury, and hangwoman. There is a rush to be seen denouncing the so called racist, usually at top volume.
Racist is a six letter label, just like the N word. It is a word that gets attention. Racist is casually tossed around, and is filtered out by many people. Maybe, just maybe, there are better ways to deal with situations without using this six letter judgment.
Last summer, PG received a mailer that had some questionable content. It discussed the creation of a city of Brookhaven. The mailer was displayed, and the racially obnoxious aspects of it were discussed. Six letter labels were not used.
On election day, the voters chose to create a new city. PG’s protest did not do any good. Would using a six letter label have made any difference? Probably not. This blog does not have that large of a readership. Also, some people who were troubled by the mailer felt that a new city was the correct thing to do. PG just wanted to let people know he was not pleased.
PG is white, and can only speak for himself. When he hears the word racist, his BS detector kicks into action. These arguments are rather one sided, with white people usually the bad guys. If you want to influence behavior, you might think twice before tossing a six letter label into your speech.
There is a bit of logical fallacy in that sentence. You make a statement, go past considering whether or not it is true, and go directly to asking “why”. That would seem to be the case here. When is a person made to feel that “we have to defend ourselves to White people who act as the final jurist of the opinion?” Do these PWOC (People With Out Color) use a weapon to force this explanation? Why would you have to explain yourself anyway?
It is *racially specific* that she says white people in this sentence. Would it be better if a POC (Person of Color) didn’t automatically believe everything the author says? PG, the PWOC, could also add that he has observed POC, who generally act as the final jurist on racial matters. Maybe it is POC privilege.
When you google the phrase “what is racism?”, you get 156 million results. The definition is changing everyday. Certainly when you discuss so called reverse racism, or anti PWOC nastiness, there are many who say that racism is a society wide privilege for the PWOC, and that POC cannot be racist. Whatever.
The point is, when you hyperdefine a concept like racism, you run the risk of defining racism so narrowly that offensive entertainers do not fit the definition. Shirley Q. Liquor talking about her nineteen babydaddies does not affect the larger issues of white privilege. Or maybe racism is anything that annoys a POC. At some point, the six letter label does not mean very much.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Conversations I Am Tired Of Having
There was a post a while back, 10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People. The original started at The Chronicle, but LiveJournal is kind of weird, so a mirror image will have to do. There are comments, at the sourced post, that illustrate some of the points covered today.
I got to thinking about “10 Conversations”, and a reply began to take shape. I started a list of conversations the I am tired of having, and before you could say affirmative action, there were a dozen items. Many of these incidents have involved people of color, or POC. Many others have not. Often, the ethnicity of the other person has little importance to the discussion. Therefore, the title of this feature will not be racially specific. This monolog will probably not go viral, or even bacterial, but will enable me to express a few thoughts. Washing your hands might be a good idea when you are finished reading.
Meetings where one person does all the talking The word conversation implies that more than one person says something. Often, this does not happen. One person will talk for a while. Before person two finishes a sentence, person one will interrupt them.
This does not work. When the other person is talking, shut up and listen. Don’t be thinking of your clever comeback, but pay attention to what the other person is saying. What the other person says is just as important as what you say.
Listening is not valued in our culture. It is seen as a loss of control, a sign of weakness. It is really a sign of strength. If you are weak, you don’t want to allow the other person to say anything. Have you ever heard anyone boast about the clever things that they say to someone? Of course you have, just like you never hear anyone talk highly about himself because he is a good listener.
My question is not an excuse to make a speech. Some people have an agenda. Whatever you say is an obstacle to the message they want to broadcast. When you ask a question, some people think you are handing them the talking stick, to do whatever they want. When your eyes glaze over, they plow on, in total disregard to your discomfort, and lack of comprehension. It is almost as if they are talking to hear the sound of their own voice.
I’m not talking to you. If you are screaming something, anyone with earshot can hear you. Do not get offended if there is a reaction to your words, especially if it is subtly directed at the person you are not talking to. This applies to the internet as well, where all of humanity is *privy* to your innermost thoughts. Keep the farmyard meaning of *privy* in mind when sharing your innermost product.
Conversations should be with people. If you are a business, and you want to tell me something, send me a written message. Please refrain from using robocall machines. I feel very foolish talking to a machine, especially one that doesn’t understand southern english.
You don’t have to shout. The amount of truth in a statement is not increased by the volume of expression. If you are standing next to me, the odds are I can hear you in a normal tone of voice. If you are across the room, come stand next to me, rather than shout across the room. If your normal tone of voice is shouting, then you have a problem.
The same principal goes to controlling your temper. When you choose not to control your temper, you show disprespect to yourself, and the person you are talking to. There is no situation that cannot be made worse by angry speech.
Privilege Racial polemic is getting more subtle these days. We are not quite post racial, although there are rumors of a PostRacial apartment complex in Dickhater. The phrase that pays these days is Privilege. This is always something owned by the group you do not belong to. Last summer, I heard this quote in a discussion, and nearly fell out of my chair.
From the N word to POC. Labels for groups of people can cause problems. I have expressed myself on the N word before, and don’t have much to add. As for POC, that is even sillier. Colored people is an insult, but people of color is preferred. I am sure some of you have a terrific speech to ‘splain this, but I am not interested. My neck may be red, but that is a color. PWOC is an insult to my humanity, whether you are talking to me or not.
This is getting longer than the attention span of many readers. It might be continued at a later date. If you can’t say anything nice, say something about race. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
She Is Nursing The Baby Jesus
The story below was found at the website of James Petras . HT to palestinianpundit. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The settlements were still being built, financed mostly by Jewish money from America, contributions from Wall Street speculators and owners of gambling dens.
“Good thing”, Joseph thought, “we have a few sheep and olive trees and Mary keeps some chickens. But Joseph worried, “cheese and olives are not enough to feed a growing boy. Mary is due to deliver our son any day”. His dreams foretold of a sturdy son working alongside of him…multiplying loaves and fish.
The settlers looked down on Joseph. He rarely attended shul, and on the high holidays, he would show up late to avoid the tithe. Their simple cottage was located in a nearby ravine with water from a stream, which flowed year round. It was choice real estate for any settlement expansion. So when Joseph fell behind on his property tax, the settlers took over their home, forcibly evicted Joseph and Mary and offered them a one-way bus ticket to Jerusalem.
Joseph, born and raised in the arid hills, fought back and bloodied not a few settlers with his labor-hardened fists. But in the end he sat, battered on their bridal bed under the olive tree, in black despair. Mary, much the younger, felt the baby’s movements. Her time was near.
“We have to find shelter, Joseph, we have to move on …this is no time for revenge”, she pleaded.
Joseph, who believed with the Old Testament prophets in an “eye for an eye”, reluctantly agreed.
So it was that Joseph sold their sheep, chickens and other belongings to an Arab neighbor and bought a donkey and cart. He loaded up the mattress, some clothes, cheese, olives and eggs and they set out for the Holy City.
The donkey path was rocky and full of potholes. Mary winced at every bump; she worried that it would harm the baby. Worse, this was the road for the Palestinians with military checkpoints everywhere. No one ever told Joseph that, as a Jew, he could have taken a smooth paved road – forbidden to the Arabs.
At the first roadblock Joseph saw a long line of Arabs waiting. Pointing to his very pregnant wife, Joseph asked the Palestinians, half in Arabic, half in Hebrew, if they could go ahead. A path was opened and the couple went forward.
A young soldier raised his rifle and told Mary and Joseph to get down from the cart. Joseph descended and nodded to his wife’s stomach. The soldier smirked and turned to his comrades, “The old Arab knocks up the girl he bought for a dozen sheep and now he wants a free pass”.
Joseph, red with anger, shouted in rough Hebrew, “I am a Jew. But unlike you … I respect pregnant women”.
The soldier poked Joseph with his rifle and ordered him to step back: “You are worse than an Arab – you’re an old Jew who screws Arab girls”.
Mary frightened by the exchange turned to her husband and cried, “Stop Joseph or he will shoot you and our baby will be born an orphan”.
With great difficulty Mary got down from the wagon. An officer came out of the guard station, summoning a female soldier, “Hey Judi, go feel under her dress, she might be carrying bombs”.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like to feel them yourself anymore? ” Judith barked back in Brooklyn-accented Hebrew. While the soldiers argued, Mary leaned on Joseph for support. Finally, the soldiers came to an agreement.
“Pull-up your dress and slip”, Judith ordered. Mary blanched in shame. Joseph faced the gun in disgrace. The soldiers laughed and pointed at Mary’s swollen breasts, joking about an unborn terrorist with Arab hands and a Jewish brain.
Joseph and Mary continued on the way to the Holy City. They were frequently detained at the checkpoints along the way. Each time they suffered another delay, another indignity and more gratuitous insults spouted by Sephardim and Ashkenazi, male and female, secular and religious – all soldiers of the Chosen people.
It was dusk when Mary and Joseph finally reached the Wall. The gates had closed for the night. Mary cried out in pain, “Joseph, I can feel the baby coming soon. Please do something quickly”.
Joseph panicked. He saw the lights of a small village nearby and, leaving Mary on the cart, Joseph ran to the nearest house and pounded on the door. A Palestinian woman opened the door slightly and peered into the dark, agitated face of Joseph. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Joseph, a carpenter from the hills of Hebron. My wife is about to give birth and I need shelter to protect Mary and the baby”. Pointing to Mary on the donkey cart, Joseph pleaded in his strange mixture of Hebrew and Arabic.
“Well, you speak like a Jew but you look like an Arab,” the Palestinian woman said laughing as she walked back with him to the cart.
Mary’s face was contorted with pain and fear: her contractions were more frequent and intense.
The woman ordered Joseph to bring the cart around to a stable where the sheep and chickens were kept. As soon as they entered, Mary cried out in pain and the Palestinian woman, who had now been joined by a neighbor midwife, swiftly helped the young mother down onto a bed of straw.
And thus the child was born, as Joseph watched in awe.
It came to pass that shepherds, returning from their fields, heard the mingled cries of birth and joy and hurried to the stable carrying both their rifles and fresh goat milk, not knowing whether it was friend or foe, Jew or Arab. When they entered the stable and beheld the mother and infant, they put aside their weapons and offered the milk to Mary who thanked them in both Hebrew and Arabic.
And the shepherds were amazed and wondered: Who were these strange people, a poor Jewish couple, who came in peace on a donkey cart inscribed with Arabic letters?
The news quickly spread about the strange birth of a Jewish child just outside the Wall in a Palestinian’s stable. Many neighbors entered and beheld Mary, the infant and Joseph.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers, equipped with night vision goggles, reported from their watchtowers overlooking the Palestinian neighborhood, “The Arabs are meeting just outside the Wall, in a stable, by candle light”.
The gates under the watchtowers flew open and armored carriers with bright lights followed by heavily armed solders drove out and surrounded the stable, the assembled villagers and the Palestinian woman’s house. A loud speaker blared, “Come out with your hands up or we’ll shoot.” They all came out from the stable together with Joseph, who stepped forward with his hands stretched out to the sky and spoke, “My wife, Mary cannot comply with your order. She is nursing the baby Jesus”
Twitter Bumper Stickers
Yesterday, Israel killed Ahmed Jabari. The IDF is boasting about the killing. As for the question, who is Ahmed Jabari … that depends on who you ask.
The IDF has put out a graphic about the killing. “Planned multiple terrorist attacks that killed Israeli civilians… Commanded the operation to kidnap Gilad Shalit … Ordered Palestinian terrorists to fire thousands of rockets into Israel” Democracy Now tells a different story.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Omer, I wanted to ask you about a new report in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. The Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate between Israel and Hamas in the deal to release Gilad Shalit, told the paper that Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari was assassinated just hours after he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the ceasefire. What do you know about this?
MOHAMMED OMER: Well, this is accurate. This is what some of the Hamas officials are confirming. Now, I should say that the—there is outrage among the Palestinian political parties, particularly Islamic Jihad and Hamas and even PFLP and the more secular movements. They are angry because they say that al-Jabari is known as a moderate and negotiator, just to remind our people that al-Jabari is the one behind the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. And al-Jabari was the one who’s actually the contact person during this critical time of the year; when there is bombing and F-16s firing and there is a need for truce, al-Jabari is the person to talk on behalf of the Palestinians. So far, the Egyptians will not be able to reach anybody who is able to talk to the Palestinians and to install real truce. It’s exactly like losing Yasser Arafat, who had a lot of influence on the Palestinians. And now we are losing al-Jabari, who has a lot of influence on the military wings of all the political factions, given the fact that he plays a most important role as a Palestinian leader among the Palestinian factions and in the Palestinian street.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Omer, how did this latest violence get started? The Israeli government says it’s because of Hamas rocket fire out of Gaza.
MOHAMMED OMER: Well, there was a truce, actually. There was a truce. And they also made it—they also made—the Israelis made it possible for the people to believe that there was a truce. Otherwise, someone like al-Jabari would not be moving in Gaza City. That’s out of the question. Most of the Hamas leaders, when there is no truce, they won’t be moving. He was driving with his driver or with his bodyguard, Muhammad al-Hums, in the streets of Gaza City. And I happened to be next to this bomb. There was absolutely quietness. There was no need for worry for anybody in Gaza. It was about two days ago where they were installing truce, and al-Jabari was involved in this. It was just a sudden attack by the Israeli F-16 missiles, which hit al-Jabari and caused all this riot and the retaliation, which is coming from both Hamas and other factions who are firing rockets.
And now for something completely different. At twitter, a trending topic today is #HamasBumperStickers. Tweeters are getting ready for some feel good killing.
@lillivonschtupp #hamasbumperstickers i tried to get to heaven and all i got was this lousy shrapnel
@KevinZ418 #HamasBumperStickers – I Never Shower! I Could Die Any Hour!
@JBucknoff #HamasBumperStickers I’m so proud of my husband. He tied a bomb to our 6 yr old daughter & threw her at & killed an innocent Israeli family.
@theeAuthentic “@EDMLounge: My other car blew up your Honor Student #HamasBumperStickers” this is why twitter is amazing @theryanwalsh
@lgyandell #HamasBumperStickers “We Blow Up More Hospitals than ObamaCare”
@alexbrown17 Not a great sign that so many are more offended by #HamasBumperStickers than they are by the actions of Hamas — a TERRORIST organization.
@azola42 My son the blessed suicide bombers eyes were blue – one blew this way one blew that way. #HamasBumperStickers
@mrgeology #hamasbumperstickers –> I blew up my honor roll student.
@unbiased610 5 yr old potential bride for sale for 2 goats #HamasBumperStickers
@BellaPelosi #HamasBumperStickers C-4 It’s not just for Breakfast anymore.
@suzibasterd Is that C4 in your pants or are you just happy to see me? #HamasBumperStickers
@SCUDHunter76 #HamasBumperStickers I miss my ex. Perhaps I shouldn’t have honor killed her.
@davidjkramer #HamasBumperStickers We voted for Obama! Twice!
@NathanWurtzel #HamasBumperStickers Honk If You’re About to be Taken Out by an Israeli Air to Surface Missile Retweeted 1093 times
@joshingstern #HamasBumperStickers Dynamite $250.00 Knapsack $35.00 Ball bearings dipped in arsenic, exploding in an Israeli kindergarden….priceless
@JustCallMeFrank “What’s The Martyr With You?” #HamasBumperStickers
@Onelifetogive #HamasBumperStickers “Ask Me About My Exploding Grandchildren”
@michellemalkin #HamasBumperStickers is still trending. Hamas supporters are still up in arms==> http://is.gd/yzeiQh
@CaptYonah Gaza Auto Sales: We Blow Away The Competition #HamasBumperStickers
@patrickgaley It’s easier than ever now to identify racists and advocates of child murder on twitter. Just follow #HamasBumperStickers
@TheFunnyRacist #HamasBumperStickers My kid can blow up your kid.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Flag Lapel Pin Upside Down
As you may notice, this blog sometimes puts up collections of quotes. There is usually a document on the desktop, which serves as a recycling bin. This document also serves as a writing station for comments. The idea is to write the comment out, include all the salient links, before you enter your tidbit of wisdom. Often, a moment of discretion will occur, and the comment will not be posted. Comments never die, at least at Chamblee54. Today, we will have a collection of recent thoughts, some of which are smarter than others.
A typical night in Brookhaven sees PG editing pictures, while listening to “something”. When literally hundreds of regular podcasts, PG can only follow so many. One favorite is Bloggingheads.tv. The viewer at BHTV allows you to make a video clip. This device was invented by Greg Dingle, and is sometimes known as a Dinglelink. It is not known if this is connected to Dingleberries. This device allows the listener to illustrate a comment, with a quote from the discussion. PG even wrote a poem … Imagine a world without David Corn, ~ in which he had never been born, ~ Bob said without any scorn, ~ without a beard that is shorn.
This blog post is interrupted to listen to radio. Every Friday morning, porcine radio whiner Mike Gallagher has Chris Wallace on the show. Today, Mike is heartbroken over the election, asking if it is appropriate to wear his american flag lapel pin upside down as a sign of distress. When Mr. Wallace talks about problems with Hispanic voters, Mr. Gallagher says the Hispanics need to reach out to the republicans, not the other way around.
Getting back to dinglelinks, there is one that stands out. Last summer, certain Atlanta communities were having a group hissy fit about racism and white privilege. While this was going on, Glenn Loury said that African Americans were an extremely privileged people. PG nearly fell out of his chair.
Here is the rest of the collection. Some are calling the POTUS wannabe Money Boo Boo. ~ The Buford/Clairmont Kroger has perhaps the worst parking lot ITP ~ An unnamed source says that Fox News is going to be renamed Wolf News Network, in honor of the little boy who cried wolf. ~ After one hour and fifty seconds of chatter, there was a kumbayah moment. The contestants today kept saying “read the transcript”. Has BHTV started to provide transcripts? This would certainly benefit lazy bloggers who like to discuss your show. ~ Without any effort at coordination, here are the three loose dinglelinks that remain. tongue for truth ~ stupidity of wmr strategy ~ good person.
1- This show , with Dr. and Mr. Loury, was great fun to listen to. There were a few sound recording shortcomings, and Mr. Loury could have been better photographed. 2- Religion is a highly individual affair. Dr. Loury chose to attend a church, and it makes him feel good. I have had the church experience shoved in my face, and it made me unhappy. 3- Mr. Loury made a very insightful comment about politicians co opting a narrative politicians co opting a narrative to get elected. I don’t know whether all politicians do this, but the vast majority do. Certainly the chameleon ex Governor of Massachusetts is borrowing a different narrative every day. 4- Dr. Loury has some great comments about the “black identity” that BHO has assumed. Yes, this is the experience of the descendents of slavery, which BHO is emphatically not. (Did the ancestors of Ann Dunham own slaves?) 5- Dr. Loury had a long list of things that Jeremiah Wright is not. I cannot make a clip for everything. I found myself saying, though, that he might not be this or that, but that the public personality that I have seen is one of an asshole. You should not force white people to listen to that style of preaching and react with anything other than disgust. 6- No discussion of religion is complete without the baby and the bathwater. 7- If you disagree with the basic beliefs of a religion, you are unlikely to change your mind because they condemn your sexuality.
1- Another thing to consider is that a lot of things get posted, and sometimes some people miss a few. I honestly don’t have a clue what this discussion is about. I am not sure that I want to know. 2- Many of the race oriented discussions get very heated. There is a lot of people typing first, and maybe thinking later. You take a real chance when you comment in one of these discussions. Life is short, and I am not sure I want to spend part of mine being attacked on facebook. 3- There is an element of supremicism in anti racism. There seems to be a bully element, of people whipping up on others because they don’t like their attitudes about race.
The Chris Stevens who was killed was a diplomat. ~ “And so then I told her, I ain’t eat none of that pork or fish or whatever– all I trust is chicken and Jesus!” ~ Is there anyone who doesn’t want to march, but would like to find a spot to sit down and watch the parade? There is going to be a faerie viewing area in front of the Fox Theater during the parade tomorrow. All are welcome to join, especially those that bring snacks. ~ “A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat, which isn’t there.” – Charles Darwin ~ The phrase I heard was “you throw like a girl”. There is an active/passive duality in throwing and catching. ~ E-Mail Filter effective immediately: Dear friends: In order to avoid repeating the last four years of discussion and anxiety please be aware that we have added another filter to our e-mails: Filter name: OBAMA contains OBAMA begins with OBAMA ends with OBAMA Send to: SPAM
After the knee jerk joke in the first comment, I felt obligated to read your feature. It seems that atheism is more closely related to Jesus Worship Religion than many realize. They are both belief based systems. You replace one set of beliefs with another. You seek validation through the conversion of others. I have my experience with the belief/disbelief cycle. To me, the goal is to live a compassionate life, and block out as much noise as possible. Sometimes my body chemistry looks for a reason to be unhappy, and Jesus is always there to remember. I don’t know what the answer is. I have written about this many times at my blog, chamblee54. I find that often when I write about these issues, I feel more unhappy than before I started. At least I can put some pictures up. The theme of chamblee54 is pretty pictures and ugly opinions. At least expressing these opinions in a written form allows the target to skip over the text. It also allows me to finish my sentence without being interrupted. Perhaps the number one problem with Jesus worshipers is the eagerness to interrupt and say things that please themselves. This is another function of the belief paradigm.
To whom it may concern, You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein, including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other “picture” art posted on my profile. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee, agent, student or any personnel under your direction or control. The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE!
For the record, the name is pronounced BAH decker.(spell check suggestion:pecker) Just remember Bah Humbug. ~ I made a comment, regarding this comment. A man says, referring to abortion, that all life is precious. “How can you say all life is precious, but make an exception for someone in Iran, because you say the dictator wants a nuclear weapon.” “Wanhope” replied… “All life is precious … except when the life in question is being lived in a nation that does (or seems to) threaten America. It is then still precious, but must go away. ” ~ This was written like David Foster Wallace. Mr. Wallace should not be used as a role model. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Christian Privilege
There is a lot of chatter about privilege these days. Where people used to talk about racism, today the buzzword is privilege. Chamblee54 has tried to contribute to the dialog (polylog) with recent posts about black privilege and white privilege. This is a repost.
One day recently, PG was exercising his vehicular privilege. The thought occured to him about another form of privilege. This privilege is stronger than race based privilege. In fact, many of the people, who whine about white privilege, benefit from this privilege. The president of privilege in America is Christian Privilege. (CP)
If you ask Mr. Google about CP, you get 3.6 million results. The first few give us plenty of text for this feature. A report about CP from About.com Agnosticism / Atheism has the traditional list of examples. The last few paragraphs tell more about the story.
A nonconscious ideology is analogous to the water fish swim in: fish don’t think of the water as wet because this environment is all they know — it structures their experience of life itself. Water simply is. Members of privileged groups don’t have to think about their environment because, for them, that environment simply is. They don’t have to be concerned about others’ opinions because it’s safe to assume that most think like them.
Those who don’t benefit from such an environment do have to think about it all the time because they are so susceptible to being harmed by it. For members of less privileged groups, what others think matters a great deal because their opinions and actions control access to the larger benefits of society. Fish don’t have to think about the water; mammals must remain conscious of it at all times lest they drown.
In most of the examples here, we can replace Christian/religion with male/gender or white/race and come up with the same results: examples of how our social, political, and cultural environment reinforce the dominance of one group over others. Male privilege and white privilege are closely related to Christian privilege because they have all been undermined by modernity and have all become part of America’s Culture Wars.
Christians realize that many of the above privileges are in decline. They interpret this as persecution because privilege is all they have ever known. The same is true when men complain about the decline of male privilege and whites complain about the decline of white privilege. The defense of privilege is a defense of dominance and discrimination, but for those who benefit it’s a defense of their traditional way of life. They need to become conscious of their privileges and realize that in a free society, such privileges are inappropriate.
A blog called Shakesville weighs in with On “Real” Christians and Christian Privilege . It tells the story of being asked not to identify Ann Coulter as a Christian. PG totally understands being embarassed by Ms. Coulter. There was a radio show once, with Ann Coulter promoting a book and PG listening. Some famous person was mentioned, and Ms. Coulter started to make jokes about what would happen to this famous person when he died. The line was that when he gets to heaven, he is going to wish he had been a Christian. This assumption that your ideas about life after death are correct, and universally practiced, is one especially vile example of CP.
The feature at Shakesville (which is easier to pronounce than Shakespearessister) is about how many people deflect complaints about bad behavior by saying “He is not really a Christian”. This is unsatisfactory on a number of levels. Many of the “good” Christians support “bad” Christians in their evil work. This excuse is one reason why PG prefers to say Jesus Worshiper to describe the members of this tribe. Shakes addresses this issue: “Frankly, it’s hurtful to me when Christians address what happened to me by saying, “Those aren’t real Christians,” expecting me to salve their discomfort about the baggage of privilege by not disagreeing. People who would never in a million years think to try to console a victim of a hate crime with “All [white/straight/cis/abled] people aren’t like that!” nonetheless responded that way to me when I was targeted and threatened by droves of self-identified Christians.”
Shakes is a good writer. She says things much better than this slack blogger. Maybe we should just let her explain a few things.
Christianity has a 2,000-year history that has seen countless iterations of the religion based on countless interpretation of the text and shaped to fit countless times and spaces and needs in disparate cultures all around the world. Christians have done great things, and not-so-great things—and anyone who makes the personal choice to carry the Christian mantle associates themselves with a history that includes all the good stuff and all the shitty stuff, too. One can’t say, “I only associate with the good Christianity—not the inquisitions and the genocides and the warmongering and the colonialism and the institutional misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, anti-Semitism…”
That’s all part of Christianity’s legacy, too—and it just isn’t intellectually honest to say, “Well, those weren’t real Christians.” Yes, they were. And so are the Christians who do shitty stuff today. They might not be the same kind of Christian as you are, but they are nonetheless Christians.
Christianity, at least (and especially) in America, is a privilege—and, like any privilege, it can be uncomfortable to face the ugly reality of what other members of a privileged class can do to non-privileged folks, even if you don’t do it yourself. I’m white, I’m straight, I’m cisgender: I understand the impulse to distance oneself. But as a white person, I am obliged to acknowledge that the history of white supremacy in America is one of slavery, of lynchings, of segregation, of sundown towns, of internment camps, of genocide, and of all manner of institutionalized racism. I don’t get to say (nor do I want to) that the KKK aren’t “real” white people. They sure as hell are.
That Christianity is a chosen privilege does not mean its members can claim a lower standard of rigorous self-examination. And it doesn’t mean that less privileged Christians, i.e. progressive Christians, can claim a lower standard, either, just because the more privileged Christians marginalize them. Poor whites don’t get to disclaim their white privilege just because they are further marginalized by their lack of wealth.
In fact, chosen privileges demand, if anything, a higher standard of self-examination, because one has a choice whether to participate in the privilege. But so often, the fact that Christianity is a choice is instead used to deny the effects of that privilege altogether—”I’m not one of those Christians; I’m one of the good ones!”
Are My Attitudes About Race Any Of Your Business?
PG was living his life when see saw something on facebook: “And another thing: if you are going to claim NOT to be racist, I feel like you should familiarize yourself with some contemporary writings and definitions of racism, not just what Mirriam Webster says.” The first reaction was to ignore this. If you reply to a comment about racism on facebook, you are asking for trouble. Life is too short to be wasting time on such unpleasantness.
But the thought engine had been kickstarted, and continued to idle in the background. When PG pulled into the Kroger parking lot, the idea hit full force. Maybe whether you are, or are not, a racist, is no one else’s business.
Some people say that a PWOC is not affected by racism. If this is the case, then why should the racial attitudes of a PWOC affect another PWOC? If a person treats you fairly, do you really need to know this person’s attitudes about race?
The fbf does not say what the context of this claim is. Did anyone ask you whether or not you were a racist? If not, are you assuming that they are interested? Maybe someone assumed the listener was interested. Is the proper response to look bored, and say TMI?
PG was filling out a profile once, and was using some questioned borrowed from another blog profile. One of the questions was, are you a racist? “It depends on who is doing the judging”.
The comment mentioned “contemporary writings and definitions of racism”. Who are the people who set themselves up as arbiters about what we should think about race? What are the qualifications? Who asked them what they thought? How do we know that these people are dependable?.
Maybe the answer is to show compassion and kindness to your neighbor, and don’t judge them about their racial attitudes. If you are proud of your racial attitudes, please refrain from boasting. Not everyone is interested in what you think about race. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Who Is PG?
PG is a Zorlack. This tribe of morphodidic questids migrated to earth, from the native planet of Thrunombulax. The time of this migration is not certain, as Zorlacks do not recognize earth based systems of measuring time.
The migration from Thrunombulax to Earth was an event of great trauma. There was an ecological catastrophe on Thrunombulax, similar to a nuclear war on Earth. The families that got out were privileged, and expect to be treated as though they were privileged characters.
Zorlacks have been the object of prejudice in every solar system and asteroid belt they have inhabited. On earth, the prejudice is fairly mild. Earth creatures are infamous in the universe for their hatred of each other. Zorlacks can fit in here without causing too much of a stir.
On Thrunombulax, there is no distinction between G-d and Man. The two are seen as part of the same continuum. The Zorlacks are amused by the belief systems that make this distinction. Some Earth people like to think that their religious ideas are universal. This is a source of derision in galaxies and black holes alike.
PG and the author of Chamblee54 are not certain how they met. The author suspects that he may indeed be a Zorlack, but the idea is too awful to contemplate. His friends are used to his ranting, and just accept it as the way he is.
The human race could learn much from the Zorlacks. The mere fact of their transportation from a planet forty four light years away, to land on the green Earth, is a source of wonder. Green is similar to a Zorlack color that is identified with untreated waste. Thrunombulax is a color and texture close to the Sun. The Zorlacks that tried to land on the Sun got a rude surprise.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This is written like Arthur Clarke.
The AP Race Study
The first link was from the Washington Post. The AP story is coming to a media outlet near you. The headline is AP poll: A slight majority of Americans are now expressing negative view of Blacks.
There are so many windows in that glass house. This is a 3-S problem: sampling, semantics, statistics. It is said that people will believe anything you say, if you can trot out a study that agrees with you. This *matter* requires a bit of examination.
AP reports “The explicit racism measures asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements about Black and Hispanic people. In addition, the surveys asked how well respondents thought certain words, such as “friendly,” ‘’hardworking,” ‘’violent” and “lazy,” described Blacks, whites and Hispanics.
The same respondents were also administered a survey designed to measure implicit racism, in which a photo of a Black, Hispanic or white male flashed on the screen before a neutral image of a Chinese character. The respondents were then asked to rate their feelings toward the Chinese character. Previous research has shown that people transfer their feelings about the photo onto the character, allowing researchers to measure racist feelings even if a respondent does not acknowledge them.”
The AP article has a link to a 34 page report about the study. The “implicit” questions using Chinese characters were not discussed in this report. The first 12 pages are mostly about the November election.
Page 13 has a bizarre bit of data. The 2010 answers will be on the left, followed by a dash, with the 2012 percentage on the right. For Mitt Romney, only 2012 results are available. This is weird, and it calls the overall accuracy of the study into question.
IMG4. Do you happen to know the religion of each of the following people? If you don’t know, you can mark that too. Barack Obama Protestant 26-28, Catholic 4-5, Mormon 0-0, Jewish 0-18, Muslim 17-10, Some other religion 8-2, No religion 2-35, Don’t Know 41-2, Refused/not answered 1-28 Mitt Romney Protestant 2, Catholic 2, Mormon 67, Jewish 0, Muslim 0, Some other religion 1, No religion 0, Don’t Know 26, Refused/not answered 2.
There are two more pages of questions about the election, and then the race questions start. RAC7. How much do you like or dislike each of the following groups? The possible answers are Like a great deal, Like a moderate amount, Like a little, Neither like nor dislike, Dislike a little, Dislike a moderate amount, Dislike a great deal, Refused/Not answered. Whites went first, followed by Blacks and Hispanics. (The term African Americans was not seen by this reporter.)
After some more election questions, we get another race question. RAC8. When it comes to politics, would you say that each of the groups listed below has too much influence, just about the right amount of influence, or to little influence? The question was repeated for, in this order, Whites, Blacks, Elderly people, Wealthy people, Hispanics, and Immigrants.
The next question is RAC11, one of the “explicit” questions. It was asked first about Blacks, then Whites, then Hispanics. How well does each of these words describe most _____? The words were friendly, determined to succeed, law abiding, hard working, intelligent at school, smart at everyday things, good neighbors, dependable, keep up their property, violent, boastful, complaining, lazy, irresponsible.
Lets take a time out, and say a couple of things. This is a long article, and may get your blood pressure upset. If you want to skip the rest of the text, and look at the pictures, that is all right. If you want to see the results for these questions, look at this report. If you have read this far, you might agree with the author that this survey was not exactly fair, and should not be taken very seriously. Take another look at how many people think Barack Obama is a Jew.
RAC12. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements. The choices are: Strongly disagree, Somewhat disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Somewhat agree, Strongly agree, Refused/Not answered. The statements are:
* Irish, Italians, Jewish, and other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up.
* Blacks should do the same without special favors
* It’s really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder, they could just be as well off as whites
* Generations of slavery have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class
* Blacks are demanding too much from the rest of society
* Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten LESS than they deserve
* Most Blacks who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if they tried
Government officials usually pay less attention to a request or complaint from a Black person than from a white person
* Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten more ECONOMICALLY than they deserve
RAC13. Some people say that Black leaders have been trying to push too fast. Others feel that they haven’t pushed fast enough. What do you think?
RAC14. How much of the racial tension that exists in the United States today do you think ______ are responsible for creating? This was asked first about Blacks, then Whites, then Hispanics.
RAC15. How much discrimination against ______ do you feel there is in the United States today, limiting their chances to get ahead? The possible answers were A lot, Some, Just a little, None at all, Refused/Not answered. This was asked about, in this order, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Men, Women, Evangelical Christians, and Immigrants.
The questions shift back to Barack Obama at this point. BKS1. How similar do you think Barack Obama is to most Black Americans? BTH1. Where was Barack Obama born, as far as you know? On page 29, the demographic information section starts. Special emphasis is given to the religion of the respondent. On page 33, the traditional demographics are covered: age, gender, education, race, census region, and marital status. The respondents were not asked about income.
The poll was taken by GFK. 1,071 adults were interviewed, August 30 – September 11, 2012. The survey was conducted online. “METHODOLOGY The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Initially, participants are chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers and residential addresses. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those who agree to participate, but do not already have Internet access, GfK provides at no cost a laptop and ISP connection. People who already have computers and Internet service are permitted to participate using their own equipment. Panelists then receive unique log-in information for accessing surveys online, and then are sent emails throughout each month inviting them to participate in research.”
People have been linking to the WP story on facebook, with a variety of comments. These comments probably say more about the commenter, than it does about race relations in America. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
UPDATE Page thirteen of the report has been updated. Apparently, the correct results show that 18% of respondents think BHO is a Muslim, with 0% thinking he is Jewish. HT to xdog.
Atlanta Pride 2012
The original plan was to just copy the JoeMyG-d pride rant, gussy it up in a tasteful rainbow font, add a few pictures, and call it a day. The pictures are here to stay, and a few quotes from the JMGPR may find their way here. The thing is, the rant was written in 2005, and this is seven and a half years later, and 800 miles south of New York. A lot can happen in that time, and somehow pride keeps changing.
As if PG would know. This was the first parade he saw since 2007, the first time he stood on the sidewalk since 1996, so someone doesn’t know what he is talking about. Not that it ever stops him. He even saw the end of the parade, where the street sweepers followed the last half naked gogoboi. Or was it he last pickup truck, dragging under the weight of a drag queen coven. There were some damn good trucks on Peachtree Street this afternoon.
Gay Pride quit being a protest about the time it dropped the first name. It is a party, a celebration, an ethnic holiday. It is an elderly congressman walking down Peachtree Street working the crowd. It is Coca Cola Delta Home Depot UPS marketing to a community. It is more freebies thrown from trucks than your pockets can hold. If you want to wring your hands about our image, then feel free to do so. As JMG put it:
“Because even if Pride doesn’t change many minds in the outside world, it’s our PARTY, darlings. It’s our Christmas, our New Year’s, our Carnival. It’s the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other “Happy Pride!” Saying “Happy Pride!” is really just a shorter, easier way of saying “Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane! Way to go for not taking a rifle into a tower and taking out half the town! Well done, being YOURSELF!”
I’m not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, (spell check suggestion: bulldozer) or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It’s OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our “debauched” celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING….
A co-worker of mine heard me discussing my Pride plans last weekend and said, “I really don’t understand what it is you are proud about. I mean, you all say that you are born that way, so it’s not like you accomplished anything.” She wasn’t being mean, just genuinely curious, and I think that a lot of gay people probably feel the same way. On this subject, I can only speak for myself.
I’m proud because I’m a middle-aged gay man who has more dead friends than living ones and yet I’m not completely insane. I’ve lived through a personal Holocaust (here we go again) in which my friends and lovers have been mowed down as thoroughly and randomly as the S.S guards moved down the line of Jews. You, dead. You, to the factory. And you, you, you, and you, dead. I am inexplicably alive and I am proud that I keep the memories of my friends alive. I am proud of my people, the ACT-UPers, the Quilt makers, the Larry Kramers, the Harvey Fiersteins. I’m proud that I’m not constantly curled up into a ball on my bed, clutching photo albums and sobbing. And that happens sometimes, believe it.”
There is a gentleman who annually seems to have the best sign of the parade. There was another winner today, as the picture browsers might notice. The creator of these signs has a sharp tongue. PG has been on the business end of this verbal weapon, and does not appreciate the owner. Still, this went on in the late eighties, and the man is still going strong. It is always a happy moment to see a gay man from twenty years ago still alive.
When people want to make trouble in Georgia, they talk about racism. While no one is saying that everything is perfect, this year has a lot more people of color than have been seen before. Everyone seemed to be having a gay ole time together today. While the real world will be here monday, on this sunday people got along together.
A single person can find it tough to get downtown on pride sunday. This year, PG posted on facebook about this, and got an invitation to breakfast. This turned out to be a lovely affair. PG who had to good fortune to arrive after the battle over how to cook the eggs had subsided. The plan was to take the train to town, and meet others at the Fox Theater. At first, this was horrible. A radio station had a loud party in the Georgian Terrace hotel, which mercifully went quiet when the parade started.
There was a sense of wonder listening to Dykes on Bikes. It was so amazing to be there, to be a part of this spectacle, to have survived life this far. The rainbow colored goodies came down Peachtree as far as the eye could see. The marquee of the Fox advertised a production of “The Beauty and the Beast”, and the sidewalks looked like one massive audition.
There was a policeman whose job was to keep people on the sidewalks, so that the parade could go by. When it was over, PG thanked the man for his patience. “Its all I got”.
Chamblee54 
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