White Supremacists March on Washington

So, this past weekend about 50,000 to 70,000 people went to Washington DC -- ostensibly to celebrate the legacy of 9/11*, but really to protest the presidency of Barack Obama. From the signs shown on the news, they were apparently a collection of 'Birthers', 'Deathers', and 'Tea-baggers' united only by hatred of the new president and his administration.

Coming as it does almost a half-century since Martin Luther King's March on Washington, which drew a quarter-million people, I view this event as affirmative-action for racists. It's only fair the white supremacists have their turn. After all, according to wikipedia it's been over eighty years since the Ku Klux Klan had its big rally in D.C. (1925), and this year's gathering more than doubled their turnout of about 25,000.

All irony aside, it took a while, but I'm not the only one who's noticed the racist undertone to the anti-Obama movement. I can see folks getting caught up in the 'birther' conspiracy theory -- it re-enforces the preconception that he's 'not really one of us'. The 'death panels' idea simply shows how stupidly gullible people can be; no big surprise there. And as for the tea-baggers, both tax deadbeats and 'states rights'/secessionist sentiments have never been too far away from the surface.*** 

But that the same people just happen to converge in belief on all three entirely unrelated points shows something else is at work here: a deep, deep desire to de-legitimize the president. A rejection so visceral that I reluctantly have come to conclude that it's racist at heart: a desperate attempt to deny the reality of our now really, truly having a black president.

And now, just in the past day or so, I find I'm not the only one. Yesterday came the brief notice by Josh Marshall on talkingpointsmemo.com:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/09/show_some_respect_boy.php?ref=fpblg

Then, of course, there was the article to which Marshall referred. I don't usually have much use for Maureen Dowd, who seems to think she's Dorothy Parker in the same way Geo. W. Bush thought he was Abraham Lincoln, but here I think she deserves credit for connecting the dots:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13dowd.html?_r=1

And then just tonight came news that our greatest ex-president has weighed in on the issue: I guess hitting 85 (as he will next month) means you can speak your mind. And remember that this is the man who ran against Lester Maddox, Georgia's would-be George Wallace: he knows racism when he sees it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/jimmy-carter-wilsons-outb_n_288003.html

Now, given that people are printing up t-shirts to wear expressing solidarity with Congressman Wilson's failure to learn the manners most of us were taught in kindergarden, I'm wondering how long until the tea-bagger-birther-deather-racists start to put the white hoods on and proudly boast about their common ground with the KKK.

--JDR

*[as if any of use really want to commemorate the unnecessary wars, warrantless wiretapping, torture, and rendition that followed in 9/11's wake]

**[surprisingly enough, the stations that ran Rev. Wright's "God damn America" clip over and over and over again a year ago don't seem to be running the footage from that recent Texas secessionists rally in which the (white) speakers in their cowboy hats shouted out "We hate America"]

***[tax deadbeats were the cause of the first time President Washington had to call up the U. S. Army after the Revolution, while 'states rights'/secession/nullification goes all the way back to Jefferson & Madison's plottings against Washington's and Adams' administrations.]

The President Quotes Tolkien?

So, saw an interesting post today by someone purporting to identify sources for inspiring lines from the President's not-quite 'State of the Union' speech last night. Among the sources claimed were great orators like JFK and Wm. Jennings Bryan and Dan'l Webster, or great writers such as the author of The Book of Isaiah or Shakespeare, was -- J. R. R. Tolkien.

I think most of these so-called source identifications are dubious, but the idea that we now live in a world where someone can suggest in that sort of context that the President is drawing on Tolkien's words for inspiration, and expect to be taken seriously, is amazing. Somewhere out there the ghost of Edmund Wilson is silently harumphing its disapproval.

Here's the relevant passage , from Aaron Zelinsky's "Obama's Rhetorical Inspirations: Presidents, Poets, and Hobbits":

6)"But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary."*

Fear not, Hobbit-fans. You have not been left out of the speech! J. R. R. Tolkien is this phrase's progenitor. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gildor Inglorion declares that, "Courage is found in unlikely places."

and here's the link to the full post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-zelinsky/obamas-rhetorical-inspira_b_169727.html


--JDR
current music: THE SMITHEREENS 'The Beatles' B-Sides.


*Note: my own recollection is that Obama actually said "ordinary Americans, who are anything but 'ordinary'".

History Now

So, today we made history.

Too often, we're only aware of history when it touches our lives in traumatic ways. We remember watching the Twin Towers fall or the Challenger disaster, or where we were when Lennon or Reagan or Robert Kennedy or JFK were shot, just as an older generation remember the shock of Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima. We forget sometimes how vastly important things can happen quietly, peacefully,

So, today's a day to feel good about the times we get things right.

--JDR