who supported Trump and are now finding out that they're screwed because of their guy and his billionaire owner the druggie white-supremacist from South Africa I wondered if there will ever be a Daniel Patrick Moynihan who does a sweeping supposed academic study of America's white racists. They should because it's not only us non-racists who the racists are costing so much, they cost themselves at least as much, the difference is they never seem to learn anything from the hardest of experience.
America has never had a "Black problem" it has always, ALWAYS had a racist problem. There would have been nothing problematic about the presence of Black People, Native Americans, etc. without the racism of the racists - certainly the victims of Racism understand that that is the source of their added burden of problems but academia, once lily-white and hegemonically male but still carrying the cultural and proceedural vestiges of that, has never really focused on the cost to us all of this, our indigenous fascist movement.
Racists are our predominant fascist power as macho-males (male supremacists) are our predominant criminal class and that fact is invisible to academia, the mid-brow untelligentsia in our society, the media and, certainly, the law.
As I mentioned here the other day there are entire states in the United States which have always, every year of their presence in the United States been ruled by white supremacy, that is racists. Alabama, Mississippi, I would argue the original states of the slave power, perhaps excepting a few years in Virginia and North Carolina.
But I would guess I'm right that there has never been a single state which has entirely escaped having been governed under a racist regime at some time, including Massachusetts, New York, the New England States, including my own.
Yet I am unaware of any great movement among historians to study that fact as a basic fact of our Constitutional order, a major force in our law, a major force in our institutions and society. I AM UNAWARE OF ANY EXTENSIVE STUDY INTO THE ENORMOUS COST, IN DOLLARS AND CENTS AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, not just for the victims of racism but for poor whites, middle-class whites, even the less affluent affluent whites, including the very racists themselves. I have mentioned that this fact first came to my attention when I was thinking a lot about the Bush II-Cheney invasion of Iraq which was costing us trillions of dollars and the part that the racism of Bush II and Cheney and the neo-cons who expected - against every indication in history and the present - that the Iraqis were going to welcome the great white father as their liberators. If you need a reminder of that, here's one from a useful website:
Assurance #1: The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money
• RUMSFELD: The Office of Management and Budget estimated it [the cost of war] would be something under $50 billion dollars.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Outside estimates say up to $300 billion.
RUMSFELD: Baloney.
• Testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, March 27, 2003:
WOLFOWITZ: There’s a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money. And it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people... We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.
The war has exceeded $500 billion in costs as of 2008 – and probably in excess of a trillion dollars when all costs, such as caring for wounded soldiers over time, are included.
In estimating the cost of the war, Bush officials attempted to assuage people’s concerns about the financial burden by focusing on the short-term, direct military costs (the cost of the invasion) – and by not accounting for a long-term occupation of Iraq, the possibility of an insurgency and ongoing violence, as well as significant reconstruction costs.
The Bush administration further claimed that the reconstruction costs would be mostly offset by Iraqi oil revenues, which has not been the case.
Furthermore, the lack of support from the international community for the war has placed the primary financial burden on the U.S.
AND THAT WAS JUST THE MONETARY COST OF THE INVASION. Look at the racist, condescending, couldn't-be-more-wrong assurances that they would just love the great-white-father coming to liberate them.
Assurance #6: We will be welcomed as liberators
• CHENEY: The Middle East expert, Professor Fouad Ajami, predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy...
RUSSERT: Do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.
WOLFOWITZ: These are Arabs, 23 million of the most educated people in the Arab world, who are going to welcome us as liberators.
Although some Iraqis welcomed U.S. troops, the reception was mixed at best. The notion of a Western army occupying an Arab land summoned up humiliating memories of colonialism, as well as fears regarding underlying U.S. intentions. Before long a growing insurgency took hold, which has led to more than 4 years of violence.
I maintain that it was the racism of those in the Bush II regime which led to them holding what was essentially a 19th century colonialist mentality towards the Iraqis. But it should never be forgotten that they sold their war to an initially skeptical American public on the power of a racist ignorance of the differences between Iraqis, Iranians, Al Qaeda, etc. Even Americans who are racist enough to not care about the lives of Brown People in the Middle East might understand the cost in money and, maybe, somewhat, in American lives that the racism of the Cheneys and Wolfowitzes have cost them. Indeed, Trump made reference to that cost as part of his con-job to get power again, so it's something that apparent that even the massively racist Trump has some understanding of that.
But back to home.
The racism of farmers who put Trump back in office, the racism of working class white racists AND THE LAWYER, ACADEMIC-JOURNALIST, WHITE COLLAR RACISTS who put Trump back in office, putting the drugged up South African racist Musk in the presidency from where he is in the process of stealing everything he can get his hands on, are the most expensive and wasteful minority group in the country AND NO ONE IS SERIOUSLY STUDYING THEM AND THEIR IMPACT FROM THAT POINT OF VIEW.
One of the few things that is satisfying about listening to the whining and crying of famers who voted for Trump finding out that in and among Trump and Musk stealing the subsidies that Democrats supported providing for them is that some of them are twigging on to the fact that THEY, THEIR FARMS, THEIR INCOMES WERE THE MAJOR BENEFICIARIES OF FOOD ASSISTANCE TO THE POOR - no doubt most of them imagining those poor People as media stereotyped Black welfare recipients - and that if those People can't buy food, that means they lose income, too. Mid-Western and farm state Republicans in Congress, most of them as racist as can be, would never have voted for food assistance unless it benefited their constituents. Too bad their constituents didn't understand that well enough to overcome their racism. Now their representatives figure their bread is buttered on the Trump side.
There is no group in the United States that is suffering from a surfeit of information and intelligent understanding of the reality they are living in - media, especially entertainment and hate-talk as ersatz "news" making sure of that - so these FAFO farmers aren't unique but they're finding out that as the beneficiaries of the federal programs that Democrats have championed and supported far more than Republicans - even farm belt Republicans - just what they voted for.
It is unfortunate that another group which is paying an enormous price for the racist-Trump voting farmers are the Democratic voting farmers, white as well as People of Color among them, who are as screwed as the ones who voted to get screwed. See what I mean about the enormous cost that racists have been, especially to the targets of that racism?
Racists are the most costly, most destructive minority group in the United States - there's a reason that the states with the most racist histories are among the states which get the most subsidies from the Federal government.
And I haven't gone into the enormous cost in crime and sedition and treason that America's racists have been at the center of. What's interesting about that is the extent to which the corporate elites in the media, elsewhere and in white supremacy governed states have been banning even the study of this history, its teaching even research into it.
The study of the history of EVERY SUBJUGATED MINORITY GROUP IN AMERICA is the study of our struggle against those who oppress us AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER WHICH HAS PERMITTED THAT OPPRESSION TO GO ON UNDER THE RULE OF LAW. It's clear that the fact of the injustice of that has not much moved the agenda of equality much, such progress as was won with enormous struggle and sacrifice, INCLUDING SACRIFICE IN VERY REAL BLOOD, has been swept aside by Supreme Court fiat and media encouragement of a reaction against that progress. But if it was presented to those with a tendency towards racism, sexism, etc. to understand that racism, sexism, etc. comes with a very real and decisive cost to them WITH A BENEFIT TO THE WEALTHY WHO ARE THEIR REAL ENEMIES IN LIFE, that might convince them that it's not worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment