Issues & Views - The Blog

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Stung by the word "white"

To observe that blacks are voting in mass for a black man, only because he is black, is considered acceptable conduct and even praiseworthy. Yet, to bring up the reality of race, when it's clear that many whites prefer to vote for white candidates, is a sign of "racism" and unmitigated bigotry. How could anything except outright racial bias account for Barack Obama getting 91% to 98% of the vote of a single ethnic bloc?

How have so many whites allowed themselves to be supportive of double standards that mock them, and represent nothing more than a strategy on the part of those who are determined to usurp power from those already in power? On the liberal Ed Schultz's radio show, a male caller, identifying himself as white and an "employee of the Pentagon," claimed that he supports Barack Obama for President. You could hear in his voice his pride in declaring Hillary Clinton wrong for her comments about the preferences of particular white voters for a white candidate. By golly, he isn't that kind of white bigot!

Similarly, a white woman caller to Bill O'Reilly's radio show expressed her indignation over Hillary Clinton's reference to whites. The very word "white," the caller confessed, "stung" her. In typical fashion, she seemed eager to show her intolerance of any sign of bigotry against minorities. As a good, card-carrying non-racist, she probably has no problem with speculations on the voting patterns of blacks or other colored ethnic groups. I suspect had Hillary used "white" in a pejorative manner, that is, to bash whites as a group, this good, white lady would have joined in the bashing.

These callers are typical of whites who are so happy to publicly remove themselves from the taint or even suspicion of bias for their own kind, while asserting their acceptance and even devotion to the coloreds. How, in one breath, can anyone declare how wonderful it would be to elect the "First!" BLACK President, yet in another breath proclaim as racists those who wish for a white President? Once race has been made the focus of intention by any side, it has to be accepted as a major factor on both sides. If you can say, I prefer black, why can't you say, I prefer white?

Political analyst Paul Begala is right in his observation that his Democratic party cannot win the presidency "with just eggheads and African-Americans." However, in this uniquely American race circus, such indisputably true insights are forbidden. In this country, in every election, demographics are scrutinized, with emphasis often being placed on the importance of the "ethnic" vote. Politicians brazenly fall all over one another to reach out to blacks and Hispanics for support. To reach out in a similar way for white support, however, is to engage in the evil "southern strategy," for which Ronald Reagan has never been forgiven.

[It cannot be lost on anyone that it is Begala's party, with its emphasis on racial-multicultural politics, that is now causing grief for the left. Watching liberals eat their own is becoming common these days. For me, the first demonstration of this phenomenon has been occurring over the last half-dozen years on the leftwing Pacifica Network's New York radio station WBAI, where a cabal of blacks have usurped the reins of power from the white rad-libs – the very people who opened the doors to them in the first place. But that ongoing saga is for another post.]

Moving on up to the White House

Not only are Americans expected to cautiously toe the line when approaching the dangerous subject of race, here is yet another concern to keep in mind in the ongoing quest of finding ways to keep blacks content.

An editorialist on BlackPolicy.org worries over "disillusioned" blacks, who must daily face the "saddening possibility" that there might never be a black who serves as the country's President. One wonders how the nation's Chinese-American citizens make it through each day, living with the possibility of never seeing one of their own as President. Is it a painful condition? And how has the country's Jewish population managed to live with the "saddening possibility" that a Jew might never serve as President? Do they exist in a "disillusioned" state of mind?

Some apologists even blame the slow progress of the black masses on the lack of a black President as "role model." Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who has been known to write sensible treatises [he has the right handle on "hate crime" laws], in the case of Barack Obama, becomes yet another enamored journalist. Citing crime among blacks as an "urgent" problem, in one of his weirdest columns to date ("Taking the Call on Black Men"), Cohen claims that Obama would be best suited to answer that proverbial 3:00 AM phone call to the White House -- if it pertained to the inordinate numbers of homicides committed by black men.

His reasoning, if such it can be called, goes like this: Because Obama could be a role model to young black men, he is "uniquely qualified" to meet the challenge posed by their criminal behavior. Cohen does not explain, however, why black criminal behavior has failed to be modified by those role models who are closer to the citizenry than the distant President, that is, all those Mayors of cities – from Harold Washington to David Dinkins to Sharpe James to Marion Barry to Kwame Kilpatrick, and many more too numerous to mention. Cohen also does not explain why he skips over the most important and influential role models in young people's lives, like the adults who live within their own homes. Are blacks the only group whose good behavior is dependent on the indulgences of politicians?

It's one thing for devious black elites to try to make entry into the White House yet one more necessary step in the black journey of "moving on up." It's quite another to watch as foolish whites buy into this disingenuous sentiment – as though blacks are on some kind of inevitable sojourn that ultimately must lead to the Oval Office. It's about power, and nothing else.

Why isn't John Edwards the candidate?

I never understood just what the problem was between the liberals who control the Democratic party and John Edwards and his populist message. Why was he not their ideal candidate?

Michael Brendan Dougherty offers his take on what went wrong with the Edwards candidacy in "Progressively Irrelevant" (The American Conservative, 2/11/08). He tells of dead coalitions that cannot be revived and of an altered social and political world. "The problem for Edwards was that progressives and only progressives embraced him," writes Dougherty.

In 2004, when Edwards first ran for the presidential nomination, he won the South Carolina primary. He got half the white vote and over a third of the black vote. But this time around, in South Carolina, he won only 2% of the black vote and did not do well among the working whites who earn under $30,000, a major target of his campaign. Edwards' populist appeal failed spectacularly, claims Dougherty, because "the Democratic coalition he sought to capture has changed dramatically from the time of the New Deal and cannot be reconstituted."

That liberal alliance, which once consisted of rural whites, trade unionists, European immigrants, and recently enfranchised blacks, no longer exists. Dougherty explains: "Today, where the party is white, it is less working class. Where it is working class, it is less organized and more divided into competing racial categories. Where it is unionized, it is not private-sector and is thus less insecure about its economic future."

It's been obvious for some time that it's a new day in the story of unions and organized labor. In 1960, 37% of private-sector workers were unionized, but by 2003, this figure had dropped to just over 8%. Dougherty reports that public-sector unions now make up half of organized labor. These people are teachers, policemen, firemen, and government bureaucrats, who have guaranteed pensions and other perks. "Whereas the old power of organized labor appealed to an American sense of fairness in sharing wealth, the new public-sector dominated unions seek only to expand their benefits and insulate themselves from private competition."

Not to be overlooked is the decline in Democratic allegiance among white men, a pattern that has been going on since the days of John F. Kennedy. In 2004, only 36% of this demographic voted for John Kerry. Dougherty observes: "As Thomas Edsall has pointed out, since 1960, the Democratic share of voters employed in the professions 'has doubled from 18% to 35%, whereas the share of the Democratic vote made up of lower-income skilled and non-skilled workers has dropped from 50% to 35%.'"

And then there are those "values" voters, who don't easily fit into economic categories. These are liberals who are committed to particular social ideals and a host of beliefs and behaviors that are the result of the sexual revolution. Dougherty suggests that Edwards lost out among this group, because he demonstrated reticence about such issues as gay rights, which "makes him an oddity in elite Democratic circles."

Without the old alliances and coalitions to help him, "Edwards found out the hard way that the past is useless to a Democratic nominee." Both political parties have been transformed by what Dougherty calls "the long re-alignment of the South and the Northeast and the migration of the working class to the GOP." Describing Edwards' campaign as "funereal," Dougherty writes, "His defeat in the primaries signals the end of a long-held progressive hope: that the social and racial politics that began tearing apart the FDR coalition could be overcome and a left-liberal majority could again be built out of the white working class, together with blacks, immigrants, and women."

Ancient allegiances have faded away, along with formerly durable political bonds and, as the country's demographics continue to change, there is no chance that old alliances will ever again be reinvigorated. John Edwards and his supporters either could not recognize or could not accept the evidence that an era has come to an end.

Bill Clinton as warmonger

Author William Blum claims that Americans who feel outrage at the "Bush crime syndicate's foreign policy" should not lose sight of his predecessor's criminal dealings abroad. In "Don't Look Back: Who Said Clinton Didn't Kill Anybody?" (CounterPunch), Blum outlines the Clinton administration's interventions around the world that would warm the heart of any lover of George W. Bush. Here are thumbnail sketches of just a few described by Blum:

Yugoslavia – Contrary to the administration's lies, the great exodus of the people of Kosovo resulted from Clinton's bombing, not Serbian "ethnic cleansing."

Somalia – Presented as a mission to help feed the starving, the Clinton administration not only took sides in this clan-based civil war, but tried to eliminate particular warlords. Attempts by the Americans to kidnap clan leaders resulted in the loss of thousands of Somali lives.

Sudan – The Clinton administration unnecessarily destroyed an important pharmaceutical plant that produced 90% of the drugs used to treat Africa's most deadly illnesses – all due to a rumor that the plant manufactured chemical weapons. (Today's pernicious excuse for destroying property and possessions in other people's lands.)

Sierra Leone – Clinton sent Jesse Jackson to act as his envoy to give greater power to the corrupt Liberian president Charles Taylor, well known for his human rights atrocities against his opponents and for supporting the Revolutionary United Front, a band of government-sponsored cut throats.

Iraq – And, of course, Clinton continued the horrendous economic sanctions against the Iraqi people, devastating almost every aspect of their lives, resulting in the deaths of thousands.

These are just five of the countries described by Blum as negatively impacted by the foreign policy of Bill Clinton. After citing several more of the President's destructive exploits, he reminds us of another horrendous Clinton intervention right here at home, that never had to happen. "And let's not forget the massacre at Waco, Texas," where a blundering, incompetent federal government caused the deaths of over 80 innocent people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The integration fixation

Booker Rising, a popular black website, recently published a chunk of copy from a post on this blog, entitled, "The downside of integration." A spirited discussion ensued in the forum concerning blacks and integration, including the following comment, which I think is noteworthy:

Posted by Al From Bay Shore (4/21/08):

I think integration was a disaster. I often wonder what would have happened if we had taken a more nationalistic approach to seeking liberation rather than equality. I'd much rather have people calling for a salary cap in baseball, because of the out of control spending of the Homestead Grays, rather than to celebrate Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. For me, integration has resulted in black existence playing second fiddle to the larger society. I often wonder what would have happened if black athletes made black colleges their first choice or if John Hope Franklin had stayed at Morgan State.

There was so much wealth within our community in terms of human capital and we squandered it by running to be a part of white institutions. If we had actually gotten past our emotional reaction to Booker T. Washington's use of the term "accommodate" and, as a whole, applied all his ideas and approaches, we would be where integration was supposed to take us.

The integration mindset has burdened us with a crop of approaches (i.e., civil rights and its leadership) that seek to find solutions outside of our communities AND each time an attempt is made to self-critique, the dialogue is often railroaded towards a discussion on what other entities have done to us. We've even gotten to a point where we question the blackness of people who try to have these dialogues. If anything, one can argue that the insistence upon integration is a fixation on white people and a belief that black folks are incapable of individual success.

Africa's vampire elites

Every so often, an African comes along and tells us once again what we know so well about the many countries on that continent. Here is economist George Ayittey sounding the alarm for the umpteenth time. (See here and here.) In "Soiled African Continent Needs Purging," on the African Executive website, he writes:

Africa's creaky statist interventionist behemoth needs to be de-wormed, de-tribalized, and thoroughly cleansed. Bloated bureaucracies, packed with cronies and tribesmen, reek of graft, venality and inefficiency. The state sector or "government" has become the arena of self-enrichment. Everybody who wants to be rich heads straight into government. The richest people in Africa are heads of state and government ministers. Quite often, the chief bandit is the head of state himself.

These ruling vampire elites suck the economic life-blood out of the country to deposit in overseas accounts. Because they benefit enormously from the rotten status-quo, they are not interested in reform, PERIOD. If you exert pressure on them to reform, they would perform the "Babangida boogie" -- one step forward, three steps back, a flip and a side-kick to land on a fat Swiss bank account. Much ado about nothing. . . .

They care less about reliable supply of electricity, clean water and medical care for the people as long as they (the politicians) have access to them. When they need medical care, they go abroad. Their food is imported. They send their children abroad for education. As for the people, they can eat grass. . . .

The chicanery of these ruling vampire elites knows no bounds. As a result, the reform process across Africa has been stalled by strong-arm tactics, vaunted acrobatics, vexatious chicanery and willful deception. But without reform, more African countries will implode or remain stuck in the mud.

Okay, so now that we're informed again of the perfidy and greed of African elites, do you think there's a chance for a semblance of reform -- this year, next decade, or in a hundred years? Won't enlightened Africans, five decades from today, be writing the same critical commentaries as the indomitable George Ayittey?

Whites not allowed

In a column in the New Pittsburgh Courier, black columnist William Reaves once asked, "Can any progress be made without settling the concerns of white people who want to insure a future for their white posterity?" Reaves asked his question back in 1998, emphasizing those blacks and whites who were "uncomfortable" about sorting out the actual reasons for what he called "the true motivation for white supremacy."

He then described events from one of the conferences sponsored that year by Bill Clinton's President's Advisory Board on Race, where the white Robert Hoy, an audience observer, took the initiative, from a floor microphone, to point out that no one on the discussion panels were speaking for white people. This conference, billed as an "honest discussion on race" and part of a year-long symposium, turned out to be just another assembly for the airing of minority grievances, and was completely controlled by activist blacks and their white partisans.

Reaves claimed that the whole year-long forum was "conspicuously lacking one thing, the opinions of white people." Since Hoy had followed the formal rules of the meeting, and was perfectly polite in his presentation, Reaves asked, "Why did Hoy get escorted out of the President's forum on race, given that the Constitution is generally interpreted to allow for free speech?" He called the ouster of Hoy "sadly predictable."

Do you think that those blacks who today are calling for an "open discussion on race" have any more intention to allow for honesty on all sides than they did ten years ago? If Reaves did not know it before, he learned that day that whites are not allowed in on the dialogue. They're just expected to be window dressing – listen and make nice. And, most of all, be ready to go along with whatever demands emanate from the camp of the coloreds – from more quota-driven policies, to more intrusions into other people's lives, to another Federal holiday for a black hero.

Stuff and white folks

By now, most people have caught up with one of the funniest blogs on the Internet – Stuff White People Like. Although designed to be pointedly satirical, some of the responses to the blogger's posts can be quite serious -- like this comment in response to post #20 - "Being an expert on YOUR culture." The responder deals with Europeans' past history of colonization, and the pretentiousness of many whites to counter their guilty feelings about this history, by trying to become "experts" on other people's cultures. The writer also suggests some of the inner drives that keep whites from standing up for themselves as European-Americans.

Comment posted by: About as White as it gets (2/15/08)

This is [the] most obnoxious part about being white. But it's important to understand that this “expertise” is based on white people's own self-hatred.

White people are so ignorant of history they actually believe that they’re the only people in history ever to have "oppressed" other people. They are also totally convinced that no people have ever "oppressed" white people. The invasions and untold slaughters into Europe by the Mongols, Moors, Arabs, Turks, Huns, and other assorted Asian or North African peoples is one big blank of history. Even more comical is the idea that places like "the New World" were like great big Grateful Dead concerts, before Europeans arrived. Never mind the Aztecs wiping out the Incas or sacrificing over 20,000 babies so the sun would rise in the morning, white people don’t want to hear it.

Don’t tell a white person that the Arab slave trade consumed 10 times more black Africans compared to their own slave trade, as the white will explain that the Arabs treated their slaves much better. And NEVER bring up the fact to a white person that the Muslims also enslaved an untold number of white slaves out of Europe during the “Dark Ages.”

This is a form of White supremacism that is very misunderstood. It's basically telling the world "Well, we expect you to slaughter, invade, colonize people but we’re white, so its very bad if we do it, and not so much if you do." It's basically telling the world that they're a bunch of animals, who, of course, act like animals, but only whites should be held accountable because they’re white (read: Human).

The reason whites become "experts" in other cultures is to suppress the hate they feel towards their own feelings of superiority. It sounds confusing but it's kind of like letting your little niece win in checkers to make her feel good and afterwards feeling bad about it. A white person must never show any positive feelings towards anything accomplished by a white person, but must always point out that when a non-white accomplishes something that they were the "first" fill-in-the-blank, to do so. At the same time, if a white person accomplishes something, it's for "humanity" or for "mankind." To you non-whites reading this, I know this must sound confusing as hell, but we’re a very strange people.

Still the third rail in politics

Imagine, writes Leonard Fein, that the U.S. candidates for the presidential nomination were asked for their views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and, instead of coming up with the usual formulaic answers, one of them replied that, "Israel’s occupation of the West Bank must end, that the illegal outposts must be removed, that all settlement expansion must end, that Israel should help rather than hinder the modernization of the Palestinian security apparatus, that the status quo is simply not acceptable."

In "Better Safe Than Sorry for Candidates on Israel" (The Forward, 1/16/08) Fein claims that if you can imagine such a scenario ever taking place, then "employment awaits you at the Fantasy Channel." He explains that candidates, whether Congressional or otherwise, must stay put "within the walls of pro-Israel orthodoxy. Open a door to the outside of that house, and you’ll find yourself in never-never land, and not the fun kind either. Open just a window, and you will spend weeks, months, explaining, apologizing, repairing the damage. The Israeli-Arab conflict is to foreign policy what Social Security is to domestic policy -- a third rail."

Read his complete, candid article here.

And to the same subject, Taki adds his voice on Takimag.com. Claiming to be no fan of former President Jimmy Carter, Taki nevertheless defends him against the attack of the neocons, who express outrage over Carter's discussions with Palestinian leaders. Taki accuses all three current presidential candidates of a "crippling and chronic reluctance to let Israel feel the rough edge of their tongue."

He writes, "Utter a word against Likud policy and retire to your farm for the duration. This applies to all politicians in the United States – remember Charles Percy and William Scranton, two long ago politicos who dared to criticize and retired to their farms in turn."

Still castigating whites

"So it’s not surprising then," said Mr. Obama, "that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Oops! Careful, Barack, or your own bitterness might begin to show. And how would that look coming from a "post-racial" man, a brother who has risen above bitterness? You just might yet expose the typical black notion that only people who look like you (more or less) should be moved to express grievances – be they social or political.

No matter how hard these benighted American whites have tried to make amends, for at least the last 40-odd years, they still bump into the castigation of old Zeke clinging to his guns and religion, as a display of his antipathy to the Other.

It has long been determined by people like you, Barack, that whites have no legitimate self-interests. Apparently, whites cannot have real gripes, like not wanting to live in high-risk neighborhoods; or having their country overrun with aliens; or being stuck with the consequences of free trade or the outsourcing of the country's industries. No, these are not real grievances, so whites obviously must be suffering from something else – their own personal frustrations, which, needless to say, are unreasonable. Therefore, they must be racists against "people who aren't like them."

Barack, you implied such sentiments in your recent Great Speech. The dreamers just weren't listening closely, or did not want to hear. You then claimed that whites should not mistake "distractions" for real grievances. Although you won't come out and say it, you know you think as typical blacks do that, given all the evil things done by their ancestors, whites should look only to solve the problems of the coloreds, i.e., those folks with the "real" grievances.

It could be, Barack, that your recent diatribe will be smoothed over, and you will continue to be feted by most whites, who believe they deserve any disparagement that comes from a black. Author Tom Wolfe, in his devastating satires, describes scenes in 1960s New York of white audiences voluntarily coming to events, where they were denounced and literally cursed by black nationalist rhetoricians, who became celebrities for their "eloquent" rantings. The whites ate it up and couldn't get enough.

Rightwing pundits claim that your off-the-cuff remarks reflect "elitist contempt." But we blacks know that's only the half of it.

The Democrats' cul-de-sac

Some stark observations from the American Thinker website. Contrary to what we are urged to believe, is Obama really the most overtly racial candidate?

The Democrats' cul-de-sac

By James Edmund Pennington

The current agony of the Democratic Party, which grows more acute every day, is laden with an unspoken truth. As the unending Clinton-Obama struggle drags on, the core unutterable reality for Democrats is simply this: because of the composition of the Party's domestic coalition, its continued electoral viability makes absolutely necessary perpetual capture of 90+% of the black vote.

Because of this grim fact -- of the Party's own making -- the Clinton/Obama fight is over. Obama has won, and every leading Democrat knows it. In short, because of his race, Obama must be awarded the Democratic nomination. So much for the myth of America's first major post-racial candidate.

Read complete article here.

How quickly "conservatives" changed their tunes

Following is a compelling excerpt from "The Reality of Red-State Fascism," by Lew Rockwell. It sure didn't take long to learn to love the state.

In 1994, the central state was seen by the bourgeoisie as the main threat to the family; in 2004 it is seen as the main tool for keeping the family together and ensuring its ascendancy. In 1994, the state was seen as the enemy of education; today, the same people view the state as the means of raising standards and purging education of its left-wing influences. In 1994, Christians widely saw that Leviathan was the main enemy of the faith; today, they see Leviathan as the tool by which they will guarantee that their faith will have an impact on the country and the world.

Paul Craig Roberts is right: "In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush." Again: "Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."

In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism. Why fascist? Because it is not leftist in the sense of egalitarian or redistributionist. It has no real beef with business. It doesn't sympathize with the downtrodden, labor, or the poor. It is for all the core institutions of bourgeois life in America: family, faith, and flag. But it sees the state as the central organizing principle of society, views public institutions as the most essential means by which all these institutions are protected and advanced, and adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world needs, and has a special connection to the Creator that permits him to discern the best means to bring it about.

It's about power

It's not about "social justice," it's about power. It's not about doing what's morally right for the underdog, it's about power.

Wherever two or more groups live in proximity to one another, the men are going to jockey and compete for power. The bunch on the bottom of the social-economic ladder will seek ways to usurp power from those at the top. The prevailing conditions will be unique in every instance, but it's still the same old story.

The less powerful men will work at devising whatever tools or methods they can, to defeat the dominant men, who usually are the ones with greater weaponry and manpower. For the black man in this country, it was unrealistic to think he could succeed against his opponents' armaments, so other means had to be found. Beginning with a little help from his white Abolitionist friends, continuing onward with the help of his white Communist friends, and carried forward with the help of his white liberal friends, race and the endless ramifications that could be derived from his degraded past history, became the weapon of choice.

The pose of anger and indignation over past humiliations must be nurtured, since this has proven to be the most effective club in the black man's arsenal. Whites, who have all but given away the store to blacks, in terms of the abandonment of constitutional principles, required nothing more than the threat of public disorder and mayhem. That blacks should be appeased, by granting the never-ending demands of their elites, was hardly questioned by the establishment whites.

Once appeasement became the norm (a Federal holiday for a preacher?), the die was cast for the future. Those whites and blacks who protested many of the strategies of the civil rights movement, because they understood where it was leading, were marginalized, and are still exiled to the fringes of decent society.

The initial reaction of blacks to Barack Obama, who seemed to come from nowhere, was a sense that power was being taken from the hands of "real" American blacks, those who could count many generations of black grandfathers and great grandfathers born here in the States. How could they bring themselves to support a semi-foreigner of dubious antecedents?

This visceral objection did not last long, however, as black men quickly realized the benefits that can accrue from the presence of a black in the White House, who owes his very station in life primarily to his racial group. It dawned on them that no matter which black man got there first, it will not only mean power over Whitey, but ownership of the most prestigious base from which to expand that power. How can it get any better than that?

Deborah Mathis, writing on BlackAmericaWeb, speaks for many blacks, when she obliquely references those "eyes on the prize." She can hardly control her exuberance at the prospect of a black becoming "the most powerful being on the entire planet," and declares, "This is the prize."

Obama's "Great Speech" makes it clear that if he wins the Presidency, he will encourage blacks to continue wielding the same weapon of power that has served them so well, that is, the victim's call for "social justice" and an "end to racism." Because the nation's institutions, for decades, have complied with the race game as established by blacks and their political compatriots, white men have nowhere to go -- except to continue the pretense that the conflict with black men is a moral issue, not one of power. It's embarrassing to admit that you've been complicit in your own dispossession.

Fantasy has taken over

A dissection of today's American journalism doesn't get any better than Sean Wilentz's thoughtful column, "The Delusional Style in American Punditry" (The New Republic, 12/19/07). He zeroes in on the inanity of editorialists and pundits, as demonstrated by their gentle, even romantic treatment of Barack Obama's candidacy. Here is an excerpt:

The Boston Globe, in an ideal specimen of the delusional style, ran an editorial that endorsed Obama because he is biracial and grew up in "multi-ethnic cultures"--adequate substitutes, by the editorial's lights, for serious background and expertise in foreign affairs. Obama, according to the Globe, has engaged in "a search for identity" and taken "a roots pilgrimage to Kenya," all of which supposedly displays a "level of introspection, honesty, and maturity" that the newspaper longs for in a president. "Obama's story is America's story," the Globe intoned--a sentence that comes as close as any distinguished newspaper ever has to perfect emptiness. Let us hold aside that the book the Globe relied on in discovering these singular Obamaesque virtues, Dreams From My Father, contains composite characters and other fictionalized elements--not exactly a portrait of sterling honesty or authenticity. What is especially delusional is the Globe's confidence that its own projections about Obama's character and personality, as well as the mystical conclusions it draws from his ethnicity, are serious grounds for endorsing any candidate for any office, much less the presidency. . . .

There are many possible explanations for this latest outbreak of the delusional style. An ever-intensifying cult of celebrity personality-worship, the more sentimental the better, may finally have overwhelmed precincts of political commentary. (Obama's sidekick, Oprah Winfrey, is, after all, the reigning master of that cult.) Democrats may simply be so battered after what the Globe calls "seven desolating years" that they are looking for a man on a white horse to deliver them from despair--and so they have invented one.

Complete article here.

EW Note: Not until I read the dozens of responses to Wilentz's article in The New Republic did I learn the depths of adoration for this man Obama. The angry retorts to Wilentz's very sensible description of the irrational acceptance of Obama's bidding to trust his "intuition" were ludicrous. Where do such loopy people come from? Below is one of the rare, sensible insights offering agreement with Wilentz's thesis:

Posted by jpwink -- I think that the responses to Prof. Wilentz's post seem to have missed his point. I started to listen to Obama's speech at Oprah's Iowa rally last weekend, and I decided to try an experiment. I shut off my TV and listened to the speech without the video. It would have been better if I had read a transcript.

What I heard was a series of rather tired Democratic Party platitudes, delivered in a religious-revivalist style. Most effective, but when you read or listen to it cold, you know that he is clearly adept at selling the sizzle, not the steak. Prof. Wilentz cuts through the multi-racial, multi-cultural blather that has so infatuated the pundits, all while missing the ultimate irony.

At the end of the day, whatever his "multi-cultural" inner self, we know that Obama was raised by three white midwesterners. As far as I am concerned, he can find his "identity" on his own time.

The pundits need to understand that the next President will come with instincts, knowledge, experience and character, and he/she will undoubtedly be lacking in any or all of them. The pundits do not know them well, and Prof. Wilentz simply points out that they should not fawn all over the candidates when the pundit's track record in this area is clearly lacking.

If you want to experience genuine sentimentalism, read author Scott Turow's love poem to his friend Obama, where he injects excuses and rationalizations, even for the senior Obama's abandonment of his family. Oh, the pressures of living in an age when miscegenation was still frowned upon! We are to remove from memory what we have learned about Senior's own personal ambitions, which did not include the families he left behind.

Turow, who held fundraisers in his Illinois home for Obama, when he ran for the Senate, speculates over Obama's prospect to become a "pivotal American leader," compares him to "a walking Statue of Liberty, holding up the torch 24 hours a day," and sees him as "the embodiment of one of America's most enduring dreams." Turow writes like Obama talks.

See his complete article here on Salon.com.

Obama, the visionary, disappoints again

There I was, listening to Barack Obama's Great and Eloquent speech, but I had not yet learned from the Anointed Wise Men that it was Great and Eloquent. Since I was not yet privy to this information, I just continued listening, while doing my own spontaneous evaluation of his message. About three-quarters into his speech, it occurred to me that this was simply the same old, same old. It sounded like the standard boilerplate liberal stuff to me.

How stunned I was to learn a couple of hours later that my evaluation of the speech had been all wrong, that I had, instead, heard one of the Greatest Speeches of the century. By then the Anointed Wise Men, in the form of media pundits, politicians and various self-professed philosophers had weighed in, and were explaining to us simpletons the deeper meanings and nuances that I guess people like me were just too dense to catch.

It seemed to me that he was delivering just another black grievance wail. “You don't know what it's like to walk in my shoes.” Another litany of black sorrows. I thought, Isn't that taking us 10 steps back? Here I thought I was sensing a growing mood among blacks in the country, where the messages of people like Booker T. Washington were getting a hearing in places where such messages previously had been disdained. Even younger blacks seemed to be picking up on some of the themes of responsibility.

People identified with the political left, like Bill Cosby and Juan Williams, who were making strong cases for black introspection and the need to put an end to blame, were getting widespread media play. Include with them forthright speakers like authors John McWhorter and Shelby Steele, who were constant voices on the radio and TV talk circuit, exposing the airwaves to heavy doses of Do-for-self and Clean-up-your-act themes. These, and other such prominent voices, I hoped, could not be ignored forever by the general black public.

Over these past couple of years, I sometimes believed that promising inroads were being made. But Obama set me straight. It's still a horrible world out there for a black man. That persecuted soul is still standing out there, on that street corner, trying to catch that elusive taxicab. And he still faces the indignity of all those mean white folks who pass him in public with fear in their hearts.

Obama also reminded me that whites still are not off the hook. No, they have plenty of work yet to do with respect to blacks. They've got to do something about those resentments that some of them harbor over all those special programs set up for the coloreds. Since their grievances are intangible ones, mere “distractions” (in Obama's words), unlike those of blacks that are real, whites must learn to direct their anger to the proper places. And, yes, they must still concern themselves with providing “ladders of opportunities” for blacks, as well as worry over any “current incidents” of discrimination.

According to the Anointed Wise Men, Obama came up with many original ideas. Like, let's all have a discussion about race. But didn't President Clinton initiate a year-long discussion sponsored by the President's Advisory Board on Race, which featured lots of conferences, forums and panels, that met in all parts of the country? What happened to all that talking? Don't those discussions count?

At any rate, Obama has taught us that blacks can settle back into their old grooves, assured that their troubles cannot be resolved until we all “come together” and engage in an “honest dialogue” on race. This re-hash is all we get from the inspirational candidate? From the Visionary?

The downside of integration

How confusing it must have been back then for the black bourgeoisie. What to do, what to do! On the one hand, it's the 1960s, and the gates have been opened to the world of whites, to jobs created by white men, to entry into places only once dreamed of. Here is the desegregation-integration so yearned for.

But on the other hand, what to do about the downside? Is there a downside? Well, yes, according to none other than Dr. Andrew Brimmer himself, who for years served as a leading economist and was on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank. Certainly, there was no more bourgeois, eager integrationist than Brimmer, the Harvard doctoral graduate, who taught at the Wharton School of Business and was appointed to public offices by three Presidents. Yet, here he was, in 1965, admitting that segregation had provided a kind of "protective tariff" when it came to black businesses, which, for years had met the needs of the black communities their entrepreneurial owners had helped develop.

And, he confessed, "The process of desegregation is already affecting adversely some of the key segments of the Negro middle class," referring to business and property owners. But wasn't this the very class for whom integration was invented, for whom black institutions, including school systems, were being scrapped?

Brimmer then went on to offer statistics showing the demise of black businesses, as owners were unprepared to compete with the more advanced enterprises of whites, which the black masses were now being encouraged to patronize. Go help the other guy prosper! Needless to say, as black businesses tanked, so did the communities around them. He cited the deaths of "restaurants, barber shops, hotels, hardware stores and mortuaries."

Brimmer also cited the impact of integration on a large black professional class, such as black teachers, most of whom were dismissed whenever a community's schools were merged, due to integration mandates. He pointed to such trends in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Florida and Oklahoma.

Brimmer, the good civil rights advocate, and promoter of affirmative action, did not want anyone to get the wrong idea about what he was saying concerning the glories of integration, and clarified, "Obviously, I am by no means suggesting that the process of desegregation should be slowed down in order to lessen the effects on the Negro middle class." Wouldn't want to suggest anything like that.

Instead, he offered suggestions of what black entrepreneurs could now do with themselves. Instead of reaching for the large capital that would be required to create manufacturing enterprises or retail outlets like department stores in black neighborhoods, he claimed blacks should try to enter into joint ventures with "willing" whites. Find agreeable white owners of corporations who would grant franchises for sale of their products. And Brimmer just happened to have such a list in his pocket, a "sizable list," as he called it, compiled by the U.S. Commerce Department.

Brimmer, the good government functionary, assured one and all that Uncle Sam was on the case. Those former entrepreneurs might be losing their base in their own neighborhoods, but the government was looking out for minorities and had, in fact, established the Small Business Administration, which "has made numerous loans to Negroes under a new program."

Earlier economic-oriented black leaders, like businessman S.B. Fuller, banker Richard Wright, and educator Booker T. Washington, had always encouraged blacks with financial resources to develop capital in the manner of their counterparts in other ethnic groups; blacks were especially encouraged to emulate the entrepreneurial patterns of the country's immigrants. But under the guidance of the civil rights leadership, blacks were led towards finding government alternatives, as internal economic initiatives were abandoned. A great many left the path of business enterprise on which fathers and grandfathers had prospered.

Now, fast forward to 1991, and take a look at remarks made by New York millionaire businessman Percy Sutton. In a speech he presented as a participant on a “race relations” panel, he excoriated whites for still not doing enough. The dapper Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and an owner of Inner City Broadcasting, was renowned for his ability to use race and politics to build his financial empire. Yet here he was cleverly whining about how New Yorkers lived in two worlds. “You live in your world and I live in my own world,” Sutton whimpered, as he attempted to depict “his world” in a pitiable light. Here he was, a leading figure in a city which at that moment had a black Mayor, a black Police Commissioner, and dozens of other black officials, playing white guilt to the hilt.

And then he capped off his speech with the saddest lament of all, the one that always wins the sympathy of those white folks, the one that stops all criticism in its tracks: “It doesn't make any difference what money I gather. I will always remain black.” Of course, the response to such a remark should be, So what? And a Chinese will always remain Chinese. But, instead, the ardent listeners usually imagine all manner of daily insults and social snubs. Was there some country club in which Sutton wasn't welcome, and should we care? His being black had not prevented his huge financial successes. In fact, skin color had not prevented blacks who lived in far more dire circumstances from achieving comparable success. Being black had not stopped those enterprising souls during the segregation era, who managed to found banks, along with endless varieties of businesses, schools, and acquired millions of acres of land.

This is because blacks have never been prevented from amassing capital among themselves, not even during the worst of times. A significant result of research, conducted separately by economic historians John Sibley Butler and Juliet Walker, is the evidence of the many blacks who, even before slavery ended, made the connection between the ownership of businesses and property and the ability to have greater control over what happened in their lives. Walker observes that "In pre-Civil War America, even the absence of political freedom did not preclude the business participation of blacks as creative capitalists. . . . Antebellum blacks developed enterprises in virtually every area important to the pre-Civil War business community."

She makes the case that the very principle that protected property rights in general, including slave ownership, was what protected the rights of blacks to own personal property and develop wealth, and writes, "It was the very sanctity of private property in American life and thought that allowed blacks, slave and free, to participate in the antebellum economy as entrepreneurs."

In her many articles and in her book, The History of Black Business in America, she offers examples of the hundreds of black entrepreneurs who, long before segregation ended, took advantage of a system where even an ex-slave with limited means could start a small business. Butler, in his book, Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black Americans, also traces the development of business among blacks in pre-integration times and its significance in providing stable communities where generations were able to provide their children with higher education and professional training.

The naysayers like to exaggerate the extent and degree of white resentment when it came to black property. They would have you believe that whites spent most of their time in torching black businesses, in vengeance for some real or imagined infraction, as if this were the norm, instead of the exception. As so many blacks have pointed out again and again, it is not white malevolence that killed black businesses and the potential for further economic expansion. It is blacks themselves who did that. Once the doors were opened for black elites to integrate among whites, the elites rushed out, and made it clear that they were not about to take risks with their own resources, when they could now coerce such resources from the white man. There were blacks who went so far as to openly discourage enterprising blacks from initiating businesses or founding institutions such as schools, lest their successful ventures result in whites thinking that blacks were not, after all, in quest of integration.

Back in 1965, Andrew Brimmer sagely suggested, "While it may be embarrassing to view our own image in the mirror of change, we should look critically at ourselves and be instructed by what we see." Although it's a few decades too late, it was not a bad idea.

She got her black symbol

When listening to the strange, lame argument that blacks deserve another symbolic “First,” as justification for electing Barack Obama President of this country, I am reminded of a heated discussion I had with a well-known white libertarian here in New York. It was the late 1980s, and New Yorkers faced the prospect of electing David Dinkins as Mayor.

My libertarian friend was full of enthusiasm for Dinkins. After she conceded the fact of his unremarkable performances as a borough president and city clerk, I asked her why on earth she would want to hand over the city to such a lightweight. And then she came up with a response I would have expected from any New York liberal, but not from her. It went something like this: Look at all the cities that have had black mayors; it's past time for New York to have one.

After gulping in disbelief at such an irrational remark coming from someone I had known to engage in sound, logical reasoning, I asked, “So, you would hand over this city to the empty suit Dinkins, in order to keep up with the trends in other places? Dinkins represents something symbolic to you? That's it?”

But, of course, that wasn't really it entirely. Her real quest was to keep Dinkins' political opponent from winning the office, and that man was Rudolph Giuliani. With street crime through the roof in the city, and homeless vagabonds in your face, with their open palms, at the doors of almost every storefront, subway token booth, and public and private accommodation, New Yorkers were at their wit's end, trying to deal with those daily indignities, as well as with the burglaries, street assaults, and general mayhem. Yet, here was this woman elated over the symbolic gesture of electing a black man to office.

But that was not all. The “libertarian” confessed to harboring a hope then being expressed by many in the city, and which is at the core of why so many whites have conceded ground to undeserving black politicians. Maybe, she speculated, as a black man, Dinkins can get a handle on the criminals; maybe they will listen to him. I laughed as I envisioned the drug dealers, myriad gangsters, and petty thieves, who then virtually ruled life in the city, identifying with and taking orders from the dainty, dandified, bourgeois Dinkins. For all her erudition as an economics scholar, the woman was as clueless as they come.

When I suggested that if crime was of concern to her (as it was to every New Yorker), then Giuliani would be a better prospect for Mayor, she was appalled and exclaimed, “Oh, my God, he'll lock up half the city!” At that point in time, such a notion sounded almost sensible. Although I had railed against Giuliani's grandstanding, bullying tactics, when dealing with those young Wall Street brokers, who were simply engaging in long-established practices for which others were not punished, I certainly preferred him over the docile Dinkins.

I shared the exasperation of most in the city, who were tired of either being victims of the felons, or consoling friends, relatives and co-workers after they were victimized. It had almost become a ritual when arriving at work on a Monday morning to learn whether your co-workers had all made it safely through the weekend.

I asked the libertarian lady what difference it would make if the city got its first black Mayor ten years from now, or in twenty years. She thought I was being “ridiculous.” (Actually, I always thought what the city needed was a good Chinese Mayor.)

Well, Dinkins won that electoral round, but not the next one. During his one-term tenure (God is merciful!), never had the city experienced a more indecisive chief executive, as he bumbled from one crisis to another. His term started out with a bang, with him and the media ignoring a wave of harassments and persecutions by black thugs against Korean greengrocers. For three months, word-of-mouth and radio talk shows were the only sources of information about this ongoing outrage. The city's newspapers declined to cover the story, in an effort to keep Dinkins from looking bad.

In watching today's Mayor Michael Bloomberg run the city, with his crisp, no-nonsense, I'm-on-top-of-it expertise, it's hard to believe that voters ever allowed the namby-pamby Dinkins to get anywhere near City Hall. Throughout Dinkins' tenure, the criminals, of course, continued their crime spree, as merrily as ever. We even endured a riot in Brooklyn. But the good libertarian lady got her black symbol.

The Frantic Imperative to Sell

Does the mind-boggling consumerism that engulfs our society urge us to hold onto the childish things that the Bible told us to put away? In “A Nation of Shoppers: Spent Youth” (The American Conservative, 5/7/07), Benjamin Barber claims that the goal of those who guide the global marketplace is to create a world of adolescents, that is, children with consumer power and adults with the appetites of spoiled kids. Barber speaks not only of the drive to capture the loyalties of children from the youngest ages, but of a determined effort to shape the tastes of the adult consumer, to keep him in a state of “perpetual childishness.” The aim is to dumb down the adult's taste to the level of an adolescent. He writes:

These avatars of consumer capitalism are seeking to encourage adult regression, hoping to rekindle in grown-ups the tastes and habits of children so that they can sell the useless conucopia of games and gadgets for which there is no discernible “need market” other than the one created by capitalism's frantic imperative to sell. ...

In capitalism's more creative and successful period, a productivist capitalism prospered by meeting the real needs of real people. Creating a synergy between making money and helping others – the Puritan Protestant formula for entrepreneurial virtue – producers profited by making commodities for the workers they employed, a circle of virtue that benefited both classes and society at large. Today consumerist capitalism profits only when it can address those whose essential needs have already been satisfied but who have the means to assuage invented needs.

Barber calls this new epoch one where “the needy are without income and the well heeled are without needs,” where economic inequality leaves capitalism with a dilemma: “the overproducing capitalist market must either grow or expire.” Hence, if the poor of the Third World cannot be enriched enough to become consumers, “then grown-ups in the First World, with vast disposable income but few needs, will have to be enticed into shopping.”

Barber quotes the observations of a 1930s entrepreneur, who understood the dilemma even then: “Not the overproduction of merchandise, but its nondistribution was the problem. From the point of view of business people, they were not producing too much, consumers were buying too little.” Barber continues:

I am arguing that many of our primary business, educational, and governmental institutions are purposefully engaged in infantilization. For this is how we maintain a system of consumerist capitalism no longer supported by the traditional market forces of supply and demand.

Astute manufacturers have learned that on the international scene, where hunger and destitution still prevail in abundance, “there is little profit in selling to those in need.” So, merchandisers must not only “create homogeneous global products aimed at the wealthy young,” but must also vigorously engage in the “consumerization of the child.”

Rather than employ schools to help children grow out of their toys, we import toys into the schools – video games and computers as “edutainment” teaching aids, as well as ad-sponsored TV in the classroom. ... In high school classrooms, this commercialization is supported by outfits like Channel One Network that offer in-school soft “news” television complete with advertisements that sell at rates that rival the Super Bowl. In higher education, colleges and universities that once acted as a counterpoint to commercial culture have gone prostrate before corporate sponsors of research that administrators have neither the will nor the independent funding to oppose. ...

Exit sensitive writers like J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll, who capture children in literature to free the imagination. Enter those whose aim is to capture children's imagination in order to indenture them to the marketplace: enter Super Mario Bros., Britney Spears, “American Idol.” Kiddie consumerism dressed up as consumer cool. ...

Barber reminds us of the time when conservatives pilloried welfare statism for creating childlike dependency. He says,

Totalitarian states historically were thought to act as overweening authorities that infantilized their subjects to keep them in line. Yet if paternalistic states create top-down forms of infantilization, markets today are creating bottom-up forms – less visible because they arise from supposedly pluralistic and competitive markets that turn out to be coercive in intractable ways as they seek to inspire childlike dependency in consumers.

Whatever happened to those days when we were exhorted by the Church to guard against gluttony and greed in our daily lives and were warned against falling into the consumer trap of “keeping up with the Joneses?” Barber suggests that a new ethos has overtaken American culture.

Capitalism ... once allowed energetic risk takers to prosper by serving the growth and welfare of emerging nations. It did so with the succor of a Protestant ethos that lent moral weight to hard work, far-sighted investment, and ascetic self-denial – the very qualities productivist capitalism needed to thrive. Today its productive capacity has outrun the needs it once served even as its distributive capacity has been stymied by the growing global inequalities it has catalyzed. Depending for its success on consumerism rather than productivity, it has generated an ethos of infantilization that prizes the very attributes the Protestant ethos condemned.

Benjamin Barber is the author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (Norton), from which the above essay was excerpted.

Brainwashing whites

Issues & Views – The Website is chockful of reports on and praise for the work of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Founded in 1999 by civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate and Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history, this organization was the first to focus specifically on defending the constitutional rights of students and faculty at American colleges and universities.

For many people, FIRE's revelations about a dark side of campus life, was their introduction to the mad world of brainwashing that is the American college system. Academic course work no longer suffices as the primary function of academic institutions. For years now, mandatory “re-education” sessions, designed to divest the student participants of their own beliefs and convictions, have become ritual.

Make no mistake about it, although these workshops, orientation sessions and “sensitivity training” include participants from all races and backgrounds, this elaborate attempt at reprogramming individuals was contrived primarily to recalibrate whites, most especially young whites.

It was not long before this reprogramming began to filter down into the lower grades of high school and earlier. Soon it spilled over from the campus and class room into the work force, as businesses, under pressure from multicultural enforcers, strove to obey the demands of these now powerful social engineers, in order to avoid entanglements in “race” troubles. And so a new industry was born – one made up of phony race “experts,” “consultants,” and “diversity facilitators.” Companies learned that if they paid the right price now, they could fend off possible trouble later.

In his article, "Thought Reform 101," Professor Kors cites a “multicultural educator,” who quite candidly professed, “White students need help to understand what it means to be white in a multicultural community. For the white heterosexual male who feels disconnected and marginalized by multiculturalism, we've got to do a lot of work here.”

So, young whites were given that “help” through such diversity vehicles as “Blue Eyed,” a so-called racism awareness workshop in which, says Kors, whites were “abused, ridiculed, made to fail, and taught helpless passivity.” Passivity is the operative word here. Turning whites into passive, fearful fraidy cats, uncertain of how to safely navigate the turbulent racial waters in their own country, is essential to the multiculturalist agenda.

With their fixed notions of how whites perceive the world, the stated goal of these social crusaders is to alter the values and attitudes of these young people. Using diversity orientations to probe into the most private experiences and thoughts of students, the aim is to convince the white to remold his inner life, until it is consistent with the multicultural vision. This is Thought Reform at its crudest – an attempt at mind cleansing under the guise of achieving “social justice” for society's underdogs.

Even without the heavy-handed indoctrination cited above, the white youth learns what is expected of him before he ever sets foot in school. He is taught the rules from the minute his young eyes view a TV screen and when his ears are subjected to the socially trendy platitudes of the day. The real propaganda starts long before kindergarten, but once he enters the school system, there is never any let up in the indoctrination. The impressionable child begins to learn early on the importance of becoming a “good white person” in the multicultural sense of goodness.

Sometimes, the comic nature of this movement makes one's head spin. Last year, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for instance, Kent County high school students began a “diversity and cultural sensitivity” program featuring workshops in “healing racism.” As reported in the Grand Rapids Press, conductors of these sessions were the Center for Ecumenism Racial Justice Institute, the Woodrick Diversity Training Center, and the Grace Racial Justice Institute. That so many organizations were involved demonstrates the lucrative industry that has been spawned around this profitable sham.

In a stunning example of double talk, or Newspeak, Rev. David May, a “trainer,” claimed that, while some kids might be practicing racism “unaware,” other kids might be victims of said racism and not even know it. Hence, the need to assist these youths to see the offenses that exist, even though unperceived by the youngsters themselves. Imagine these kids, getting on with their daily lives, not feeling in any way offended by the behavior of their school chums – and along come the “Diversity” folk, bringing their special brand of enlightenment.

Not surprisingly, Rev. May clarified, for anyone who didn't know it, just who were the targets of all this attention. It happened to be those “suburban kids,” he said, who must be brought to understand what they have “in common” with the ethnics.

This decades-long inundation of propaganda by the social engineers has proven wildly successful. Coupled with the almost total acceptance of pernicious feminist ideology, which has taken its toll on the male character, and helped along by the writings of authors like Shelby Steele, whose treatises on white shame and guilt have permeated academia, it is not surprising that so many whites spend a good part of their day striving to prove their “purity of heart.”

Although Steele's books have won acclaim for his premise that whites should not carry the burden of guilt for this country's past history, he seems to consider it perfectly appropriate that whites live with shame. Guilt, it seems, is worthless, because it leads nowhere. Harboring shame, however, shows that the person recognizes the need for some form of repentance. Shame offers a reminder of past offenses for which the individual can compensate by transforming his inherent attitudes and, perhaps, behavior. This is obviously something that Steele believes whites should work to do.

Since, in Steele's world, whites can have no legitimate “white” interests, notions of racial identity should be shunned. Whites are not to indulge in thinking in terms of the “group,” which conceivably could lead to notions of “superiority,” a vice from which whites must flee. Asserting special regard for the group demonstrates “atavistic” thinking, which excludes others and, therefore, is injurious to “our democracy of individuals.”

Steele stands ready to paint with a broad brush those whites who deviate from this neutral (or might one say neutered) stance as “white supremacists.” The European imperialist who reached across the seas and colonized foreign lands demonstrated his white supremacist hubris, and the white who today strives to preserve the racial and cultural uniqueness of his group, according to Steele, demonstrates the same “white supremacist” tendencies. Whites do not possess the option to operate in their own self-interest.

Sensitivity sessions, diversity workshops, re-education programs, ceaseless media propaganda via films and television, along with the cleverly disguised anti-white writings of scholars like Steele, and the not-so-disguised biases of academics like Noel Ignatiev, have taken their toll on white confidence, backing whites into a corner, where their defensiveness often looks like downright surrender.

Proving their “goodness” has now become a preoccupation with a great many whites. Such people are beside themselves with joy at this moment, now that the candidacy of Barack Obama gives them the chance to vote for a black man. Open advocacy for Obama is the route to proving that one is not a racist. Such an act should prove, once and for all time, that “good” whites are no longer in need of sensitivity sessions or diversity workshops, or other vehicles to teach them lessons in racial justice.

But don't for a minute think that this is a fixation from which only white liberals suffer. Listen to those self-professed conservatives calling talk shows, and proudly proclaiming, “I would like to see Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell run for President, so I could vote for them and prove I am not a racist.” Those exact words have been expressed on the airwaves over and over again. In making this proclamation, the callers seem so proud of themselves. These whites consider it perfectly rational to live one's life in anxiety over how they might be perceived by invisible race monitors. The political ideologue seeks out “our blacks” as opposed to “your blacks.”

I have had whites voice this Rice-Powell scenario to me, in an obvious bid for my approval. I dare not inform them that, at that moment, I am contemplating whether to feel contempt or pity for them. I ponder the distressed white guy who wanders the earth every day worrying about whether someone, somewhere, might not know what a good person he is. I imagine such a man, during initial introductions of himself to strangers, announcing, “Hi, I'm John Smith, and I am NOT a racist!” Such people should wear a button or tag on their clothing, or, better yet, wear a sandwich board that declares, on both sides, “I am NOT a racist!” This troubled soul seems to believe that when he proves his love and total acceptance of the coloreds, and pointedly rejects all initiatives pertaining to his own white self-interest, he proves his worth as a human being.

With news of China's current incursions into Tibet, it's not unusual to turn on the TV or radio and encounter pundits and scholarly experts frankly supporting Tibet, whose “unique culture deserves to be protected,” as one academic recently put it. Europeans and Euro-Americans are granted the right to no such protection, and are looked upon with suspicion for even voicing such heresy.

As Steele has written, “Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.” And, “For whites, here is the opportunity to document their deliverance from the shames of their forbearers.”

Millions of whites seem determined to prove him right. The brainwashing is, indeed, complete.

He's at it again

In a previous critique of columns by Thomas Sowell, I spoke of his role as apologist for the War Party, and of his put down of young Americans who refuse to do their “duty” by offering up their lives for the useless wars concocted by the special interests who have usurped the federal government.

Now here is the erudite scholar turned warmonger complaining about the media's failure to give us the Iraq story that we ought to be seeing on television. Why aren't they showing what “heroes” our soldiers are through the actions they engage in every day?, he demands to know. And why are they displaying all those “pictures of badly wounded and disfigured military veterans?” Why didn't they report on the incident where a soldier fell on a grenade to protect his buddies, “smothering the fatal blast with his body, so that those around him might live when he died.” Sowell laments that this story “never made the front cover of Newsweek.”

Well, now, wise Dr. Sowell, what would you make of the following scenario? Two men break into a neighbor's home while he is away, with the intent of taking his stuff. Unexpectedly, the neighbor shows up, armed with a shotgun, which he points at one of the invaders. The second invader throws himself between the shot and his friend. I would say that was a brave, courageous act. Individual acts of courage can happen anywhere, and giving over your life for another, no matter the circumstances, is, indeed, an act of bravery.

But do you mind, Dr. Sowell, if we ask what the hell those two invaders were doing in that man's home in the first place? Who asked for their acts of bravery? Who needed those “courageous” actions? Why not have our soldiers engage in heroics right here at home, like on the borders of California and Arizona? Rightwing apologists like Sowell would like to change the subject from one of questioning U.S. policy of intervening where we don't belong, to one of “bravery, honor and loyalty” of the poor men who must carry out these ill-contrived missions.

The perceptive Sowell believes that the media is “filtering and spinning” the news. He doesn't like the idea of networks “parading casualties.” Can you beat that? It's all right that these unfortunate young men, some of whom will never see their 21st birthdays, are used as tools who disappear from earth, acknowledged and mourned only by their few relatives and friends. The country at large should not be subjected to the fact of their deaths, and most important, they must not become an embarrassment to the administration in Washington.

According to Sowell, the media's use of such terms as “honoring the dead” is “part of the general corruption of language for political purposes.” Honoring the dead? And this is the man who taught us so much about how the leftwing manipulates society and plays with our heads through the use of politically correct terminology.

Apparently, only stories about soldiers who throw themselves on grenades should be broadcast to the world. However, the media should remain mute about their comrades, who are regularly blown apart by IEDs. After all, there's no grandstanding that can be done with those run-of-the-mill stories.

The demonstration of contempt for all these lost lives is palpable among these rightwing partisans, who sometimes sound deranged. Maybe it's time for Sowell to leave his keyboard and take his big derriere off to Iraq, to do battle. Surely, the military can make a special dispensation for age for this intrepid warrior.

He took it like a man

New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch compares the manner in which New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer handled his recent troubles to the way Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is handling his similar woes:

Spitzer at last took it like a man, or an adult caught with his hand under the wrong dress. Spitzer blamed no one, resigned and went home to await what should be an avalanche of charges. Kilpatrick, who formerly referred to himself as "the hip hop mayor," seems determined to live up to qualities shared by many who fuse self-pity and a sense of entitlement. He has cast himself as a victim, used the N-word in his most recent state of Detroit speech and went on to exploit his wife and two children as victims of allegedly bigoted language and threats. I would not be surprised if the threatening calls were made under Kilpatrick's orders. That might sound cold, but we are not in a bar so I cannot tell readers what I actually think about this man. Let's just leave it at this: Playing the race card to cover up one's own dumb actions is an insult to every single person who ever suffered actual bigotry in this land. It is one of the most despicable actions and one of the most criminal.

Can politics transcend Nature?

Who are these conservatives who call for the break-up of families and children's homes, and have been doing so ever since they hunted and hounded Bill Clinton? These are the creatures who were so quick to advise Hillary to leave her husband, are gleefully taking bets that Silda Spitzer will do so, and now, I guess, Michelle Paterson will be targeted for their advice on how to ditch a marriage.

When the dam broke and the earlier prototype of Swift Boaters descended on Bill Clinton, whom they despised with visceral intensity, I accepted the reality of the politics. Just thinking of all those presumptuous Executive Orders of his was enough to make my blood boil. But I was flabbergasted when, throughout those ugly years, spokesmen for these Republican bloodhounds -- the pundits in the press and especially the talk show hosts -- continually expressed their hopes that the Clinton family would go bust, that Bill deserved to be punished into everlasting damnation where he should suffer all alone. Some of them sounded like they were actually sending up prayers to their peculiar version of God, to effect such an end. (I grew up believing that the angels sing in heaven, whenever a marriage is saved.) “Why doesn't she divorce him?” they impatiently demanded, as if Hillary's failure to do so was evidence of some flaw in her character.

In each of these cases, there are children involved, but with or without children, why would anyone want to see a couple break their vows “for better or for worse?” Why not, instead, take satisfaction in seeing them remain intact, no matter who they are, and no matter how hard they have to work at it?

For today's conservative fanatic, politics rule over even the sanctity of family. Their distorted reasoning goes something like this: If you're not in my political camp, and you screw up, then you should be denied the comfort of family affection, and deserve to be kicked in the gutter to die alone. What rock do these people live under, where only their brand of political correctness should supersede even the intimate bond between husband and wife?

Should John McCain leave his wife because of her prior drug problem and even some theft that she might have indulged in while on drugs? If we discover other infidelities or indiscretions on the part of prominent figures, should there be a crusade to convince the “wounded” spouses to dump their lifetime mates? Well, only if they're found to be on the wrong side of the political fence.

Do these “family values” rightwing folk take pleasure in observing the consequences on children, as they lose their stable homes and become visitors every other weekend to each of their parents' residences? I don't think a husband's infidelity is worth subjecting children to the vagaries of life with a dating parent or parents, and having strangers enter their lives who would otherwise be unknown to them had their parents remained together. Children deserve more than an insecure existence with a “Single Mom” or to be forced into “blended” families, to say nothing of the financial stress that is endured.

Nature as addiction?

Men cannot turn off Nature's programming; all they can do is work to modify their behavior as best they can. Even though polygamy is closer to Nature's plan for the male of the species, the West dumped forms of polygamy and chose monogamy for a variety of reasons, chief among them economic. Nature's concern is only that the male's seed is planted over and over and over again -- and in as many wombs as possible. This is why Nature embedded the sex drive deep into the m