Every Friday night, young folks from miles around jammed the place. There was a dance floor, but it was too crowded to dance. You'd hug your date and swing and sway, shoulder to shoulder with the couples around you, to Adderly, Coltrane, Rollins and Monk; to Mingus, Roach, Gillespie, Mulligan and Clifford Brown; to Kenton, Parker, Bellson, Jamal and Dave Brubeck. It was the only place to be, man, with that juke box and that crowd.
The whole crowd was there one Friday in September of 1957, the same week Ike sent the army in to Little Rock to escort the black kids into Central High School in defiance of Gov. Orville Faubus and his Arkansas National Guardsmen.
One fellow, well-fueled by the elixir du nuit, was loudly praising Ike and disparaging Faubus, making himself heard over Miles or Duke or whoever was blaring from the Wurlitzer. The pert little blonde who was with him kept shushing him.
They closed the bar and accompanied a group of friends to an all-night restaurant for ham and eggs and coffee and sobering up. They filled a large booth; other groups from the bar filled other booths. The blonde girl said she had to get home, she had to get up early Saturday to drive to her parents' home across the state, so she and the guy with the mouth left early. They paid no attention to the six young men from another booth who left shortly afterward. The guy with the mouth paid no attention to the car that followed them to the girl's place, and again after the good-nights as he drove to his own apartment. Once there, they jumped him before he could close his car door. They gave him a nigger-lovin' lesson . That's one of the things they called him: nigger-lover. He awoke in the hospital with a concussion, nine stitches, a broken collarbone and uncounted aches, pains, abrasions and nicks.
And this wasn't a state where the Klan rode. This was Iowa.
* * *
Iowa wasn't a racist state 51 years ago. That town with the bar with the great jazz on the jukebox had always had Negro students in the schools and thought nothing of it. Why, one year the captain of the high school track team was a Negro kid, state champion in the 440. Folks in town loved to tell the story about how Coach would say to that boy, "You learn the proper way to pace your splits, son, and you'll break the state record." "Pace? Splits?," the kid would reply. "Coach, Ah jes' wins!" Guys at the Elks Club never tired of telling that one. The captain of the track team and the other black kids couldn't go to the local public swimming pool, of course. The best paying factory jobs were down at the sugar house, and they had five or six Negroes working there, but they were janitors and trash collectors and they couldn't belong to the union. Hadn't ever been a black man, or a hispanic, for that matter, on the city council or the school board or in the Chamber of Commerce or the country club. But it wasn't a racist town and Iowa wasn't a racist state. Why, some of the town's leading citizens would even drink a Bullfrog beer or two with the darkies fishing for carp down by Beaver Slough on a really hot, muggy summer day. Kept the fish flies away.
* * *
Here in post-racial America, there's a black man in the White House. His unlikely political run to the Oval Office began in Iowa, the very same state where, 51 years ago, a guy with a loud mouth got busted up pretty badly by half a dozen young heroes who didn't like what he had to say about admitting black kids to public schools.
But this is post racial America.
A black man and a white cop can agree to disagree over a beer in the Rose Garden, right?
Only in America.
And the voices of hate? Limbaugh and Beck and Dobbs and O'Reilly and their ilk? Racist? Nah. Outspoken, maybe, but, hey, that's why we got a First Amendment, right?
Only in America.
And the Republicans? In post-racist America, they'd never play on deep-seated racism among their "base" for political ends, would they? Nah. Those mobs at the town hall meetings, at the Palin rallies, toting signs depicting a black president as Hitler, filling the internet with watermelon patch "humor," the so-called "birthers" -- they're patriots, man. Not a racist bone in their bodies.
Only in America.
I had occasion to drive across the Deep South earlier this year. Sure enough, in Mississippi of all places, right there in broad daylight, a black man and a white man, sittin' side by side on a river bank, drinkin' Bullfrog beer and fishin' for carp, keepin' the fish flies away. And the white guy is tellin' the black guy, "I'm gonna marry a Lesbian nigger gal and live like a king off the gummint the rest of my natural born days."
Only in America.
Citizens toting everything from an AR-15 assault rifle to 9-millimeter Beretta sidearms have been detained in crowds at town halls across the land, several outside the building where President Obama was speaking in Arizona, one of those pack heat legally states. And in Hagerstown, Md., a man appeared at a town hall meeting hosted by Sen. Benjamin Cardin with a sign that read 'Death to Obama' and 'Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.'"
Only in America.
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
About those town hall mobs
Surely Nancy Pelosi misspoke when she called the actions of the town hall mobs "unAmerican."
She might have chosen more apt words, among them being uncivil, ignorant, rude, addled, disrespectful, screeching, despicable, bad-mannered, impertinent, ugly, troglodytic, impudent, churlish, illiterate, benighted, ill-informed, dyslaliac, thuggish, bullying, ominous, prattling, boorish, stupid, malicious, deranged, mad, disturbed, revolting, bellicose, unhinged, irrational, crazed, demented, berserk, lunatic, hyperbolic, wacko, rowdy, spiteful, barbaric, malevolent, vindictive, vengeful, heinous, mean, brutish, nasty, hurtful, bitchy, untruthful, dyscrasic, maladjusted, pin-brained, frightened, loathsome, loutish, frightening, alarmist, obnoxious, alarming, racist, protodawic, out of control, misled, vicious, coached, vacuous or imbecilic.
But unAmerican? Alas, the opposite. In this terribly polarized nation, the mobs' behavior has been quintessentially American.
To our everlasting shame.
Surely Nancy Pelosi misspoke when she called the actions of the town hall mobs "unAmerican."
She might have chosen more apt words, among them being uncivil, ignorant, rude, addled, disrespectful, screeching, despicable, bad-mannered, impertinent, ugly, troglodytic, impudent, churlish, illiterate, benighted, ill-informed, dyslaliac, thuggish, bullying, ominous, prattling, boorish, stupid, malicious, deranged, mad, disturbed, revolting, bellicose, unhinged, irrational, crazed, demented, berserk, lunatic, hyperbolic, wacko, rowdy, spiteful, barbaric, malevolent, vindictive, vengeful, heinous, mean, brutish, nasty, hurtful, bitchy, untruthful, dyscrasic, maladjusted, pin-brained, frightened, loathsome, loutish, frightening, alarmist, obnoxious, alarming, racist, protodawic, out of control, misled, vicious, coached, vacuous or imbecilic.
But unAmerican? Alas, the opposite. In this terribly polarized nation, the mobs' behavior has been quintessentially American.
To our everlasting shame.
A New Nation, Conceived in Greed
In these United States, the myth of the president's election by "the people" persists, but in fact the office always goes to the candidate who raises the most money for pursuing it. The myth that the Congress makes laws also persists. In fact, legislation is written by people called lobbyists, who are paid handsomely to shape the law of the land to the will of the oligarchs who really run the country.
President Eisenhower called them "the military industrial complex" but we ignored his warning. Now they are enormously more powerful and exponentially more sinister than they were when he left office. The United States of America we knew, whose government, in Lincoln's immortal phrase, was "of the people, by the people and for the people," may soon perish from the earth.
In its place today is rising the United States of Goldman Sachs, whose government is "of the rich, by the very rich and for the obscenely rich." Its motto is "In Capitalism We Trust" and it has a state religion: the worship of Profit. It is dedicated to the proposition that big companies are more equal than small ones. And the people? It ignores them, save for using the fruit of their labor to feed the maw of corporate greed.
If the old USA was the very model of successful democratic government, the US of GS is the very model of oligarchy successfully masquerading as democracy. It maintains token trappings of democracy -- a bicameral national legislature, a judiciary and a chief executive. These vestiges of a former democracy are but window dressing on the work of the lobbyists. They carry large sums of cash and other rich emoluments from office to office on Capitol Hill, giving the representatives of the people their instructions on what to legislate.
Lobbyists and their oligarchs are the interchangeable parts of government of the rich, by the very rich and for the obscenely rich. They head the bureaucracies of the executive branch, dictate to the legislative branch and fill the judiciary with lawyers beholden to them. The oligarchs determine which corporations are "too big to fail," and squeeze the people for taxes to assure that they don't fail, no matter how badly managed. Detailed explanations of how this works can be found by Googling "bailout," TARP or Geithner.
Lobbyists coach the elected representatives of the people in how to appear to heed the voice of the people while in fact ignoring it. In the Oval Office, this is done through well-crafted speeches that say one thing while appointing cabinet officers who do the opposite. Google "Summers," "Brennan" or "Gates" for examples. On Capitol Hill this is done by a process called "markup" which takes place "in committee." Here's how it works:
A). The people clamor for, say, cleaner and cheaper energy, cleaner air and water and genuine efforts by government to address the scientific facts of global warming. Advocates write a bill whose provisions might in fact achieve most of those goals.
B). The bill is assigned to "committee" for "markup." The oligarchs of industries that would be affected by the bill's provisions then summon their lobbyists, instruct them in how to eliminate those provisions and substitute provisions that would serve to increase the industry's profits at the cost of the health, welfare and interests of the people. The lobbyists write new versions of the bill, take their bundles of cash and emoluments, and go from office to office in Washington. The representatives of the people "mark" the lobbyists' changes into the bill.
C).The "marked-up" bill is sent to the floor of the House, or the Senate, for debate. But the god of Profit is supreme and corporate greed is limitless. Those representatives of the people who received the largest bundles of cash, the richest emoluments, from the lobbyists for the oligarchs, dominate the debate, abetted by the media, who give equal weight to every bleat no matter how ludicrous.
D). A final bill even worse than the marked-up bill eventually passes. The representatives of the people trumpet their work as another masterpiece of democracy in action. The corporate accountants, who were in on the joke all along, continue chortling in glee. E). Profits rise. God is happy. The elected representatives of the people once again have successfully opposed the people's interests without appearing to oppose the people's interests.
The United States of Goldman Sachs has one of the worst health-care systems in the industrialized world. Its oligarchs have the best health care in the world. Their lobbyists have superb health care. The elected representatives of the people have their choice of a number of truly excellent health care plans, provided and administered by the U.S. government.
It's only the people -- 46 million of them -- who don't have health care because they can't afford it. And what of the millions more who have health-care insurance that only covers people who aren't sick, or haven’t been sick yet? Or have health insurance written by companies that employ tens of thousands of people to find reasons to reject claims for benefits? Or whose insurance companies won't pay health-care providers who are "out of network," or do not participate in the HMO? Or who dare not quit a low-paying job for a higher-paying one because they'd lose their health insurance?
The people clamored for something better. Their elected representatives pledged to enact legislation to reform health care in the US of GS. They wrote bills, which are now in various committees for mark-up. The bought-and-paid-for representatives of the people, instructed by their fat cat speech experts, began to prattle about "socialist agenda," "government takeover," "rationing," "denial of choice" and "death panels." Their blather bestirs many in the voting class, including those who need government-run health care most, to oppose it with blind anger. The language that achieved this counter-intuitive result – fooling the people into opposing their own interests -- continues to be deployed until the real point of the debate is lost in hot air and smoke.
You can guess what happens next. But why guess?
It cost the energy industries just over $202 million in lobbying money to emasculate the energy bill as “marked up” by the two houses of Congress.
The very profitable health industries have already spent nearly $300 million lobbying against health-care reform. They are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so dedicated, can long endure. They are met on a great battlefield of that war, called health-care reform. They can spend millions more on that field, without beginning to tap the last full measure of their devotion to Profit.
Sorry, Citizen, but those who are Too Big to Fail have decided that you're too small to succeed. Take two aspirin, go to bed, and if you're not better in the morning, there's always an emergency room -- somewhere.
In these United States, the myth of the president's election by "the people" persists, but in fact the office always goes to the candidate who raises the most money for pursuing it. The myth that the Congress makes laws also persists. In fact, legislation is written by people called lobbyists, who are paid handsomely to shape the law of the land to the will of the oligarchs who really run the country.
President Eisenhower called them "the military industrial complex" but we ignored his warning. Now they are enormously more powerful and exponentially more sinister than they were when he left office. The United States of America we knew, whose government, in Lincoln's immortal phrase, was "of the people, by the people and for the people," may soon perish from the earth.
In its place today is rising the United States of Goldman Sachs, whose government is "of the rich, by the very rich and for the obscenely rich." Its motto is "In Capitalism We Trust" and it has a state religion: the worship of Profit. It is dedicated to the proposition that big companies are more equal than small ones. And the people? It ignores them, save for using the fruit of their labor to feed the maw of corporate greed.
If the old USA was the very model of successful democratic government, the US of GS is the very model of oligarchy successfully masquerading as democracy. It maintains token trappings of democracy -- a bicameral national legislature, a judiciary and a chief executive. These vestiges of a former democracy are but window dressing on the work of the lobbyists. They carry large sums of cash and other rich emoluments from office to office on Capitol Hill, giving the representatives of the people their instructions on what to legislate.
Lobbyists and their oligarchs are the interchangeable parts of government of the rich, by the very rich and for the obscenely rich. They head the bureaucracies of the executive branch, dictate to the legislative branch and fill the judiciary with lawyers beholden to them. The oligarchs determine which corporations are "too big to fail," and squeeze the people for taxes to assure that they don't fail, no matter how badly managed. Detailed explanations of how this works can be found by Googling "bailout," TARP or Geithner.
Lobbyists coach the elected representatives of the people in how to appear to heed the voice of the people while in fact ignoring it. In the Oval Office, this is done through well-crafted speeches that say one thing while appointing cabinet officers who do the opposite. Google "Summers," "Brennan" or "Gates" for examples. On Capitol Hill this is done by a process called "markup" which takes place "in committee." Here's how it works:
A). The people clamor for, say, cleaner and cheaper energy, cleaner air and water and genuine efforts by government to address the scientific facts of global warming. Advocates write a bill whose provisions might in fact achieve most of those goals.
B). The bill is assigned to "committee" for "markup." The oligarchs of industries that would be affected by the bill's provisions then summon their lobbyists, instruct them in how to eliminate those provisions and substitute provisions that would serve to increase the industry's profits at the cost of the health, welfare and interests of the people. The lobbyists write new versions of the bill, take their bundles of cash and emoluments, and go from office to office in Washington. The representatives of the people "mark" the lobbyists' changes into the bill.
C).The "marked-up" bill is sent to the floor of the House, or the Senate, for debate. But the god of Profit is supreme and corporate greed is limitless. Those representatives of the people who received the largest bundles of cash, the richest emoluments, from the lobbyists for the oligarchs, dominate the debate, abetted by the media, who give equal weight to every bleat no matter how ludicrous.
D). A final bill even worse than the marked-up bill eventually passes. The representatives of the people trumpet their work as another masterpiece of democracy in action. The corporate accountants, who were in on the joke all along, continue chortling in glee. E). Profits rise. God is happy. The elected representatives of the people once again have successfully opposed the people's interests without appearing to oppose the people's interests.
The United States of Goldman Sachs has one of the worst health-care systems in the industrialized world. Its oligarchs have the best health care in the world. Their lobbyists have superb health care. The elected representatives of the people have their choice of a number of truly excellent health care plans, provided and administered by the U.S. government.
It's only the people -- 46 million of them -- who don't have health care because they can't afford it. And what of the millions more who have health-care insurance that only covers people who aren't sick, or haven’t been sick yet? Or have health insurance written by companies that employ tens of thousands of people to find reasons to reject claims for benefits? Or whose insurance companies won't pay health-care providers who are "out of network," or do not participate in the HMO? Or who dare not quit a low-paying job for a higher-paying one because they'd lose their health insurance?
The people clamored for something better. Their elected representatives pledged to enact legislation to reform health care in the US of GS. They wrote bills, which are now in various committees for mark-up. The bought-and-paid-for representatives of the people, instructed by their fat cat speech experts, began to prattle about "socialist agenda," "government takeover," "rationing," "denial of choice" and "death panels." Their blather bestirs many in the voting class, including those who need government-run health care most, to oppose it with blind anger. The language that achieved this counter-intuitive result – fooling the people into opposing their own interests -- continues to be deployed until the real point of the debate is lost in hot air and smoke.
You can guess what happens next. But why guess?
It cost the energy industries just over $202 million in lobbying money to emasculate the energy bill as “marked up” by the two houses of Congress.
The very profitable health industries have already spent nearly $300 million lobbying against health-care reform. They are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so dedicated, can long endure. They are met on a great battlefield of that war, called health-care reform. They can spend millions more on that field, without beginning to tap the last full measure of their devotion to Profit.
Sorry, Citizen, but those who are Too Big to Fail have decided that you're too small to succeed. Take two aspirin, go to bed, and if you're not better in the morning, there's always an emergency room -- somewhere.
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