A recent article on community organizing in Arizona in the wake of SB 1070. Check out the mentions of The Repeal Coalition at the bottom. Also check out Jordan's new book (Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six), more information at floodlines.org.

A Movement Rises
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/a-movement-rises-in-arizo_b_663567.html
by Jordan Flaherty

Three months ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the notorious SB 1070, a bill that put her state at the forefront of a movement to intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants.

Since then activists have responded through legal challenges, political lobbying, grassroots organizing and mass mobilizations. More than a hundred thousand people from across Arizona marched on the state capitol on May 29. Today, hundreds more have pledged to risk arrest through nonviolent direct action. These are the public manifestations of a widespread struggle happening in this state. The organizations leading this fight offer a template of inspiring and strategic action for people around the US who want to join in resistance to these policies.

A Rogue State

Yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against sections of Arizona law SB 1070, which is scheduled to go into effect today. The judge put a hold on some of the most outrageous parts of the bill, such as language that mandates racial profiling by officers. However, Judge Bolton left much of the rest of the law intact, including sections that specifically target day laborers.

For Arizona activists, the legal ruling represents - at best - a small respite. "It's not a victory, it's a relief," says Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). "We're putting a band aid on a wound."

Alvarado and the organizers with NDLON are part of a broad network of national organizations and volunteers who have joined with local organizers to fight not just against this unjust law, but also against a general climate of anti-immigrant hatred. "Arizona is a rogue state," says Alvarado. "We're going to use every single means that we have at our disposal to fight back."

Puente Arizona, a Phoenix-based organization that describes itself as a human rights movement working to "resurrect our humanity," has formed Barrio Defense Committees in neighborhoods across the city. Emulating the structure of groups founded by popular movements in El Salvador, the community-based structure work to both serve basic needs, and also build consciousness and help bring people together. The committees host regular "know your rights" trainings and ESL classes, and are organizing Copwatch projects. "We ask the community to unite and organize themselves," says Puente activist Diana Perez Ramirez. "And we are just there to support that." More than one thousand people have joined these neighborhood organizations so far, with more joining every day.

Puente has made use of volunteers from across the US, utilizing national support to help with local organizing, and initiating direct action with the support of out of town allies like The Ruckus Society, Catalyst Project, and various chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They have issued calls to action including a Human Rights Summer (modeled after the civil rights movements' Freedom Summer) and "30 Days for Human Rights," a month of actions culminating in mass civil disobedience today, the day SB 1070 will become law.

Just after midnight, as the law took effect, the first protest of the day began. Nearly 80 people blocked the intersection at the entrance to the town of Guadelupe, a small - one square mile - Native American and Latino community just outside of Phoenix. Residents and elected leadership in the town have a history of public criticism of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been one of the main public faces of SB 1070, and most of the protesters (and all of the organizers) were from the community. Holding signs declaring their opposition to the new law and leading chants against police brutality, activists declared that Arpaio's officers are not welcome in their town - a point they made concrete by physically blocking the main road leading in. The stand off against police lasted more than an hour, before protest leaders in consultation with the town's mayor decided to open the intersection. Several more actions are planned for throughout today, and Arpaio has threatened mass arrests.

Working Proactively

The Repeal Coalition, a Flagstaff- and Phoenix-based grassroots organization, was formed in 2007. The group came together because they saw a vacuum in the immigrants' rights movement in Arizona. "Some of the left here were not being very audacious," explains Luis Fernandez of the Repeal Coalition. "The positions in the public debate ranged from 'kick them all out,' to 'get their labor and then kick them out.'" The Repeal Coalition has staked out a position of calling for the elimination of all anti-immigration laws, declaring, "We fight for the right for people to live, love, and work wherever they please." With this call, says Fernandez, "Now we can have a real debate."

When the coalition was founded, organizers brought in labor activists to advise them on how to build an organization along similar models to those that have built strong unions, utilizing house calls, neighborhood mapping, and group meetings. Although they are an all-volunteer group with little to no funding, they have developed a structure that has initiated large protests and provided direct service, and they are now strategizing more ways to take direct action and non-compliance in the post SB 1070 era.

Fernandez says that this struggle is ultimately about overcoming fear and moving from reaction to proactive action. "We've been in a crisis in Arizona for a long time," he explains. "Even if SB 1070 weren't implemented, it wouldn't matter. The political crisis would continue." To address this crisis, Fernandez believes organizations must build unity across race and class. "Traditionally in America, when the working class starts suffering, instead of connecting together and looking upwards at the cause of the problem, they look sideways or downwards for who to blame." Most importantly, he believes activists must take action to seize the initiative.

In this vision, he has been inspired by young organizers working on the DREAM ACT, a federal law that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented youth. "They came to Arizona and said, 'we're undocumented and we're going to commit acts of civil disobedience.'" At first, Repeal Coalition members tried to talk them out of this action, but the youth explained, "We are going to lose our fear because it is the fear of being arrested or the fear of being deported that fuels the inability of political action." The bravery and vision of these youth has inspired Fernandez to continue to search for new and bold ways to take action, rather than just continually respond to right wing attacks. "We need to set the agenda," explains Fernandez. "We have to say, 'No, you're going to react to us.'"

Despite a range of tactics and philosophies, one thing organizers here have in common is a dedication to exporting the lessons of their struggle. While Arizona's law is the first and most draconian, similar laws are pending across the country. And during this current national economic crisis, more and more politicians have found that they can score political points by demonizing immigrants. "The last two months we've had a lot of people calling us asking what they can do to help Arizona," says Fernandez. "We say, organize in your own town. You don't have to come to Arizona because Arizona is coming to you."

I don't know if I agree with some particulars of how Jensen sees white supremacy as functioning, but the talk is a big-picture lecture. All in all, this is an interesting video. Below is the introduction taken from Zmag, you can access a lot more articles from Jensen at that site as well.

I liked this article from Left Palate about what the left should do about ACORN. It isn't a full-blown position, but it's a start. As someone who's posted not flattering things about ACORN, I thought this would be a good addition.

ACORN gets Teabagged

http://www.leftpalate.com/?q=node/310
Fri, 09/18/2009 - 02:23 — bayano

Below is an article from the Colorlines RaceWire blog. I have heard of cases where a parent, usually involved in an interacial marriage and getting a divorce, is told by the judge she/he can only speak English to the child or lose custody. This is the first time I've heard of a state saying not speaking English is a reason to lose your child. The link provided is to the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. As an aside, check out the comments on the RaceWire blog. Apparently being a blog dedicated to fighting white supremacy still means you can collect a ton of white supremacist comments. Yet another argument for generally not allowing anonymous commenting.

Speaking English a Requirement for Motherhood? Reunite Cirila Baltazar Cruz with her Baby

by Cindy Von Quednow
http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/06/speaking_english_a_requirement.html

In Pascagoula, Mississippi, in November 2008, Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to a baby girl. Soon after, her daughter was taken away from her because she could not communicate with the hospital attendants.

Far away from her native Oaxaca, Mexico, she did not understand the Puerto Rican interpreter assigned to her. Cirila speaks Chatino, an indigenous Mexican language spoken by about 50,000 people. A social worker called in by hospital authorities deemed the new mother negligent and unfit to raise the baby, stating as reasons that she was an “illegal immigrant” and that she did not speak English.

To date, no one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

Baltazar Cruz is up for deportation, while her daughter is reported to be with an affluent Ocean Springs couple.

About 65 percent of Pascagoula’s 26,000 residents are white. Only 904 Pascagoulans are foreign born — about 20 of them from Latin America. Since most of the people that live in this tiny Gulf Coast town are isolated from the realities of immigrant life, it seems the authorities involved acted first and asked questions later. Now a woman has been separated from her child and can only wait to be sent back to her home country.

The Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance has started a campaign to reunite mother and child by asking people to pressure Mississippi. officials. Get more information about Cirila Baltazar Cruz, along with the addresses and phone numbers of the authorities to contact, here, and help right a wrong.

This article is from Imagine 2050, a blog put out by the Center for New Community about immigration and race in the U.S. This article is about one of the gubernatorial candidates for Georgia, Nathan Deal, who apparently believes bashing immigrants can still benefit republicans. Mentioned in the article is everyone's favorite Georgia immigrant hater, D.A. King. The original article can be found at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/06/10/deal-cutting-the-14th-amendment-at-the-intersection-of-racism-and-immigration/.

Deal-cutting the 14th Amendment: At the Intersection of Racism and Immigration

Posted By Rev. David L. Ostendorf On June 10, 2009

This was posted on the History News Network. The full letter, along with signers, is reprinted below. If you like a laugh, check out the comments section on the HNN site. Apparently the neo-confederates are a little pissed. Good.

5-19-09

Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument
http://hnn.us/articles/85884.html

By Edward Sebesta and James Loewen

This letter was written by Edward Sebesta and James Loewen and signed by the scholars listed below.

May 18, 2009

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day.

We ask you to not send a wreath or some other commemorative token to the Arlington Confederate Monument during your administration or after.

There are several reasons as to why this monument, a product of the Nadir in American race relations, should not be honored, and we list and explain them in this letter.

The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy and glorify the Confederacy. It isn’t just a remembrance of the dead. The speeches at its ground-breaking and dedication defended and held up as glorious the Confederacy and the ideas behind it and stated that the monument was to these ideals as well as the dead. It was also intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers. In its design it also tells wrong history, boasting fourteen shields with the coat of arms of fourteen states. Thus it claims that Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were part of the Confederacy. They weren’t.

The monument was given to the Federal Government by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which raised the funds to erect it. The UDC’s reasons for the monument are instructive. In the address of Mrs. Daisy McLaurin Stevens, President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at its dedication, she makes clear that the monument is to glorify the ideas of the Confederacy:

Great ideas and righteous ideas are alone immortal. The eternal years of God are theirs. The ideas our heroes cherished were and are beneficial as they are everlasting. These were living then; they are living to-day and shall live to-morrow and work the betterment of mankind. Thus our heroes are of those who, though dead, still toil for man through the arms and brains of those their examples have inspired and quickened to nobler things.

Since the United Daughters of the Confederacy upheld in multiple publications in the early 20th Century that the Ku Klux Klan was the heroic effort of the Confederate soldier, we have an idea what the “noble past” and “ideas our heroes cherished” were. Of course one of these “ideas” was secession to preserve the institution of African slavery.

Likewise General Bennett H. Young, Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans also defends the cause of the Confederate soldier, the neo-Confederate cause of their descendants, and defends secession in his speech as follows:

At this hour I represent the survivors of the Southern army. Though this Confederate monument is erected on Federal ground, which makes it unusual and remarkable, yet the men from whom I hold commission would only have me come without apologies or regrets from the past. Those for whom I speak gave the best they had to their land and country. They spared no sacrifice and no privation to win for the Southland national independence.

I am sure I shall not offend the proprieties of either the hour of the occasion when I say that we still glory in the records of our beloved and immortal dead. The dead for whom this monument stands sponsor died for what they believed to be right. Their surviving comrades and their children still believe that that for which they suffered and laid down their lives was just; that their premises in the Civil War were according to our Constitution….

The sword said the South was wrong, but the sword is not necessarily guided by conscience or reason. The power of numbers and the longest guns cannot destroy principle nor obliterate truth. Right lives forever, it survives battles, failures, conflicts, and death. There is no human power, however mighty, that can in the end annihilate truth.

In fact, most white Southerners in 1914 agreed that both slavery and secession were wrong. Not Young. No apologies. No regrets -- despite the historical record of Confederate soldiers having committed racial atrocities of massacring surrendered African American soldiers on at least eight occasions.

Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association, makes it clear that the monument stands for the legitimacy of secession, in opposition to Reconstruction, and for white supremacy. In his History of The Arlington Confederate Monument at Arlington, Virginia, he writes:

In 1867 the seceding States were subjected to the horrors of Congressional Reconstruction, but in a few years American manhood had triumphed; Anglo-Saxon civilization had been saved; local self-government under the Constitution had been restored; ex-Confederates were serving the National Government, and true patriots, North and South, were addressing themselves to the noble task of restoring fraternal feeling between the sections.

Within a generation after Congressional Reconstruction, American historians condemned it …. as “a crime against civilization,” and public opinion seems to have approved the verdict.

Herbert goes on to refer to the Confederate soldiers who joined the Ku Klux Klan and Red Shirts as being heroes for restoring white supremacy and overthrowing Reconstruction, referring to “the soldiers who fought the battles of the Confederacy and … by their courage and devotion during the two decades after the war, were saviors of Anglo-Saxon civilization in their section.”

The monument itself has a Latin motto, “Victrix causea Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” It translates, “The winning cause pleased the Gods, but the losing cause pleased Cato.” This is a classical reference which to the cognoscenti implies that Lincoln was a despot and the Union cause unjust; Cato, the stoic believer in “freedom,” would have sided with the Confederacy.

The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African Americans by slave owners, Confederates, and neo-Confederates, through the monument’s denial of slavery as the cause of secession and its holding up of Confederates as heroes. This implies that the humanity of Africans and African Americans is of no significance.

Today, the monument gives encouragement to the modern neo-Confederate movement and provides a rallying point for them. The modern neo-Confederate movement interprets it as vindicating the Confederacy and the principles and ideas of the Confederacy and their neo-Confederate ideas. The presidential wreath enhances the prestige of these neo-Confederate events.

Fr. Alister C. Anderson, as Chaplain-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), at the 85th anniversary of the dedication of the Arlington Confederate Monument in 1999, gave a lengthy speech explaining its meaning. His understanding of the Arlington Confederate Monument can be said to be fairly representative of modern neo-Confederate opinion.

Anderson believes that the Civil War was a holy war between an orthodox Christian nation (the South), a view widespread in the neo-Confederate movement, and what he feels was an un-Christian and heretical North, as he explained in a series of articles in the Confederate Veteran as Chaplain-in-Chief of the SCV. This explains some of the passages of his speech at the Arlington Confederate Monument. In his speech Anderson explains regarding the monument:

… It reveals and concentrates in beautiful, rugged bronze nearly every idea that a true Southern historian, theologian, statesman, and patriotic citizen could present about the religion, culture, morals, economics, and politics of a civilization from out of which the Confederate States of America evolved. The monument captures the ideals and accomplishments that still existed at the end of the War for Southern Independence. Thank God it does not depict the beginning of the Reconstruction Era, the most disgusting and destructive period in United States history from which the South has never really recovered.

Anderson goes on to note Washington’s presence in bronze:

It depicts George Washington on horseback with the Latin inscription DEO VINDICE, which means, “God Vindicates.” Southerners believed under the Constitution they had the right to secede if they were being harmed by a tyrannical government.

To Anderson, as to other neo-Confederates today, the Arlington Monument exists to glorify the ideas of the Confederacy, which he sees as the ideas of the neo-Confederacy.

Anderson goes on to explain, correctly, the meaning of the main inscription on the monument, “Victrix causea Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” This is a line from a poem Pharasalia by the Roman poet Lucan, used to represent Lincoln as a tyrant and the North as tyrannical. Fr. Anderson explains:

Victix causa, “the winning cause (or side)”, referring to Julius Caesar’s inordinate ambition and his lust for total power and control, is compared with President Lincoln and the Federal Government’s desire and power to crush and destroy the South. Next we read diis placuit which translates “pleased the gods.” In this context, gods are with a small “g” and refer to the gods of mythology; the gods of money, power, war and domination, greed, hate, lust and ambition. Next we come to the noble climax of this quotation, sed victa cantoni which translates “but the losing side (or cause) pleased Cato”. Here Lucan, the poet, refers to Pompey’s fight to retain the old conservative, traditional republican government of Rome. Even though Pompey was defeated by Caesar’s greater military power, his defeat, nevertheless, pleased the noble Cato. And here, of course, Cato represents the noble aims of the Southern Confederacy. The South fought politically to maintain the Constitution which had guided her safely for eighty-seven years. She merely wanted to be left alone and governed by it. The aggression-minded totalitarian Northern government would not permit that and so she pleased the gods of abolitionism, transcendentalism, utopianism, state centralism, universalism, rationalism and a host of other “isms.”

Anderson here denounces abolition, the anti-slavery movement that ultimately led the United States of America out of the moral evil of slavery, as an evil itself.

Sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Memorial Monument enhances the prestige of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization with a long history of racism from praising the Ku Klux Klan in the early part of the 20th century, to publishing articles against the Civil Rights movement in the Civil Rights Era, to promoting neo-Confederacy today. When the president of the United States of America enhances the prestige of this monument and of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, he strengthens a group working to set back America’s progress in race relations.

Finally, in 2009, the main speaker for the annual observance at the Arlington Confederate Memorial is Ron Maxwell, director of the movie “Gods and Generals,” whose neo-Confederate meaning he made clear in an interview in Southern Partisan. He also has written expressing his fear of Hispanic immigration leading to civil war in the notoriously racist Chronicles magazine, the organ of the ultra-right Rockford Foundation.

For the president of the United States of America to send a wreath to the monument this year would contribute to providing Ron Maxwell with a more prestigious setting for his speech. It would aid and abet the ongoing use of presidential prestige and this monument for their neo-Confederate agenda.

We ask you to break this chain of racism stretching back to Woodrow Wilson, and not send a wreath or other token of esteem to the Arlington Confederate Monument. This monument should not be elevated in prestige above other monuments by a presidential wreath.

Sincerely yours,

Last Name	First Name	Institution	Biographical Information (for identification purposes only)
Alexander	Shawn Leigh	Langston Hughes Center, Kansas University	Assistant Professor African and African American Studies, Interim Director, Langston Hughes Center
Attie	Jeanie	Long Island University	Associate Professor of History
Ayers	Bill	University of Illinois, Chicago	Professor of Education
Barber	David	University of Tennessee, Martin	Assistant Professor of History
Blakely	Allison	Boston University	Professor of European and Comparative History; George and Joyce Wein Professor of African American Studies.
Bridges	Roger D.	Rutherford .B. Hayes Presidential Center	Executive Director Emeritus
Brown	Joshua	The City University of New York	Executive Director American Social History Project/ Center for Media and Learning, Professor of History, Ph.D. Program in History, The Graduate Center.
Burton	Orville Vernon	Coastal Carolina University	Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University. Formerly he was Director of the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (ICHASS) at the University of Illinois, where he is Professor of History, African American Studies, and Sociology. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he is Associate Director of Humanities and Social Sciences. In addition, he is Executive Director of the College of Charleston’s Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World.
Christie	Thomas	Lincoln Public Schools, Lincoln, Nebraska	Multicultural Administrator
Davis	Simone	Mt. Holyoke College	Professor of English
Ewert	George		Former Director of the Museum of Mobile
Farley	Jonathan	Institute fur Algebra Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz	Teaching and Research Fellow
Fellman	Gordon	Brandeis University	Professor of Sociology
Fink	Leon	University of Illinois, Chicago	Distinguished Professor. Director of WRGUW (Graduate Concentration in the History of Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World) Department of History
Finkelman	Paul	Albany Law School	President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Gundaker	Grey	College of William & Mary	Professor of Anthropology
Hague	Euan	DePaul University, Chicago	Professor of Cultural Geography, editor of "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction."
Hayes-Bautista	David E	School of Medicine, UCLA	Author of numerous articles on Calfornia Hispanic history
Hicks	David	Virginia Tech	Associate Professor of History and Social Science Education
Jackson	Kenneth T.	Columbia University, NYC	Professor of History and Social Sciences
Jennings	Matt H.	Macon State College	Student
Katznelson	Ira	Columbia University, NYC	Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History
Kennedy	Roger G.	National Museum of American History (ret.), National Park Service (ret.)	Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Former Director, National Park Service
Key	Barclay	Western Illinois University	Assistant Professor of African-American History
Key	DeWayne	Mars Hill Bible School, Florence, Alabama
Knapp	Peter	Villanova University	Professor of Sociology
Leib	Jonathan	Old Dominion University	Associate Professor of Geography
Loewen	James	Univ. of Vermont	Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Univ. of Vermont; author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me," "Lies Across America," "Sundown Towns," etc.
Love	David, A.	Commentator	Columnist at www.blackcommentator.com
McPherson	James	Princeton University	Professor of History
Miller	Willaim Lee	Univ. of Virginia
Mitchell	Don	Syracuse University	Professor of Geography
Mizell	Linda	University of Colorado at Boulder	Assistant Professor, School of Education
Murray	Paul	Siena College	Professor of Sociology
Nieto	Sonia	University of Massachusetts at Amherst	Professor Emerita, Language, Literary, and Culture
Owens	Deirdre Cooper	University of Mississippi	Assistant Professor of History
Parenti	Michael		On advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, the Jasenovic Foundation, New Political Science, and Nature, Society and Thought. Author of many books in political science.
Phillips	Michael	Collin College, Plano, Texas	History Professor, Author of "White Metropolis"
Roisman	Florence W.	Indiana University School of Law	William F. Harvey Professor of Law
Schmeeckle	Maria	Illinois State University	Associate Professor of Sociology
Sebesta	Edward H.	Independent researcher.	Editor of "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," University of Texas Press.
Shabazz	Amilcar	University of Massachusetts at Amherst	Professor and Chair of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies
Sinha	Manisha	University of Massachusetts at Amherst	Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and History
Sleeter	Christine	California State University Monterey Bay	Professor Emerita, College of Professional Studies
Sowa	Maureen	Bristol Community College	Professor of History
Webster	Gerald Raymond	University of Wyoming	Chair, Department of Geography
White	George, Jr.	York College, CUNY	Assistant Professor of History
Wiener	Jon	University of California, Irvine; The Nation Magazine	Contributing Editor at "The Nation"; Professor of History at UC-Irvine.

This last session the state legislature passed a resolution "affirming states' rights based on Jeffersonian principles." The sponsors of the bill are not marginalized right-wing extremists. They are prominent leaders of the Republican Party like Senate majority leader Chip Rogers. These are powerful right-wing extremists. The post below is from The Washington Monthly and puts the resolution into great historical context. I found it through the History News Network.

Originally posted May 8, 2009 by Hilzoy
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018093.php

About That Georgia Nullification Resolution ...

As Steve and others have reported, the Georgia State Senate has adopted a resolution allowing the state to nullify any federal laws it thinks are unconstitutional. Hendrik Hertzberg actually read the resolution, and wrote a post that made me want to read it as well: he described it as "a Kompletely Krazy Kocktail of militia-minded moonshine and wacko white lightning -- a resolution that not only endorses defiance of federal law but also threatens anarchy and revolution."

So I did, and as I read I had two main thoughts. First, while Hertzberg writes that the resolution is written in "a mock eighteenth-century style, ornate and pompous", I thought it was an unnervingly good imitation of eighteenth-century prose. And not just in general: in referring to the Constitution as "a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States", the 'style and title' part struck me as pitch-perfect.

Second, there is something very peculiar about its content. Consider this passage:

"That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

Where, I wondered, is the Supreme Court in all this? The Supreme Court determines the constitutional limits on the exercise of federal power. It has the power to nullify federal statutes. Therefore, it obviously puts a check on the executive and legislative branches. And while one might think that it has interpreted the Constitution wrongly, it's very odd to write as though it didn't exist, and did not have the authority to keep the other branches of the federal government within constitutional limits.

It occurred to me that there was a simple explanation for all this. So I googled a distinctive phrase, and lo! it turns out that the Georgia resolution is a lightly modified version of Thomas Jefferson's Resolutions Related To The Alien And Sedition Acts. (Most of the resolution follows this version, but towards the end, it substitutes the eighth resolution, here.) It omits all references to the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves, as well as the part where Jefferson seems to say that states, rather than the federal government, have authority over "alien friends", and that the federal government has no right to imprison people who do not obey deportation orders.

UPDATE: I inadvertently cut the following: And they added this piece of lunacy:

"Any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America."

It's followed by a list of laws that would constitute a nullification of the Constitution. Read it and weep. END UPDATE

This matters for the following reason. Jefferson wrote his Resolutions in 1798. At that time, it was still an open question how the Constitution was to be enforced, and, in particular, how the federal government was to be kept within its limits. In 1803, the Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison, which answered that question by holding that federal courts had the power to determine whether or not federal laws were constitutional. It did so on grounds similar to those that moved Jefferson:

"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction, between a government with limited and unlimited powers, is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed, are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable."

Jefferson and Justice Marshall were confronting a similar problem: the need to keep the federal government within constitutional limits. They proposed different solutions: in Jefferson's case, state nullification, in Marshall's, judicial review. When Jefferson wrote, his views were not "militia-minded moonshine and wacko white lightning". They were an attempt to answer a serious problem that had not yet been answered. His solution was, in my view, not the best one, but it was a serious answer to a serious question.

It matters when you write something. The Articles of Confederation were not ideal, but when they were written, they were a real solution to a real problem. Proposing them now would be idiotic. Likewise, what makes the Georgia resolution a Kompletely Krazy Kocktail is that it parrots Jefferson's words as though we had not arrived at a solution to that problem nearly two centuries ago. But we have, and acting as though that solution does not exist, or as though it does not make state nullification both superfluous and a recipe for lawlessness, is absurd.

I beat up a lot on Georgia. I would pick on Alabama more, but it seems wrong to kick a state when it's down. There no reason for me to get morally righteous about this article since Georgia also celebrates Confederate Memorial Day. The state even puts out little confederate flags on the graves at Oakland Memorial Cemetery. Gotta love the South.

Southerners celebrate Confederate ancestors April 28, 2009 Montgomery Advertiser http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20090428/NEWS01/904280316 By Sebastian Kitchen More than 120 people gathered around the Confederate Memorial at the state Capitol on Monday to honor their ancestors who fought in the Civil War. One by one, those in attendance said the name of a relative who fought or otherwise supported the South during the conflict. Organizer Connie Mori was no exception. She named her great-grandfather, John White, who fought with Company B, the 14th Light Artillery, Battalion 1, the Army of Tennessee. Mori said her great-grandfather, who was from Georgia, was wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga, later losing a leg because of the injury. Mori was joined by the Alabama divisions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who have sponsored the event for generations, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans at the annual Confederate Memorial Day service. The ceremony is at the base of the historic Confederate Memorial on the north side of the Capitol. The Legislature established the state holiday more than a century ago. Mori said the United Daughters of the Confederacy has organized the event since the early 1900s to honor their ancestors. A bagpiper and a drummer followed behind children who helped carry a wreath to the memorial, which was followed by salutes with guns and a cannon that echoed through downtown Montgomery on the state holiday. Some people at the service were dressed in outfits similar to period clothing. Robert Reames of Birmingham, the commander of the Alabama division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the memorial in Montgomery honors those in Alabama who served and "all who served the cause no matter where they rest." He said they defended their home, their state and their constitutional rights. "This is an opportunity for us to come out and remind people what our ancestors did," Reames said. The commander said the people of Alabama "have every right to be proud of our ancestors." Jeannette Taylor of the United Daughters of the Confederacy read a poem, "I Am Their Flag," which recounted Fort Sumter, Bull Run, Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, Missionary Ridge and other battles and altercations during the war. People stood and removed their hats as Ellen Williams sang "God Save the South," which talked of the invaders and of "freedom or death." In his invocation, Herman Williams said the war was a "heavenly cause." "We know that cause was right," he said. Right does not win all battles, Williams said, but "right never dies." Reames also used the event to criticize the recent actions of Auburn City Councilman Arthur Dowdell. Last week, Dowdell removed small Confederate flags from gravesites of Confederate veterans at the private Pine Hill Cemetery. He called them symbols of racism and hatred that intimidate black people. Reames called on the mayor of Auburn and the district attorney in Lee County to prosecute Dowdell for stealing the flags and defacing the graves. He said the councilman's action was a "terrible dishonor," "out of bounds," a crime and for Dowdell's own political gain. Mori said the Confederate flags should be honored and used for historical purposes, such as memorials. Additional Facts * Currently only three states celebrate Confederate Memorial Day -- Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. * It is celebrated on the fourth Monday in April to coincide with Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's surrender to Union Gen. William Sherman on April 26, 1865. * At least three Southern cities -- Macon, Ga., Columbus, Ga., and Richmond, Va., -- claim to have started Confederate Memorial Day. The confusion is probably because the observance, which started in 1866, began at many places at about the same time.

This was originally published on the Guardian America site.

Georgia judge jails Muslim woman for wearing headscarf to court
• Two women barred from entering courtroom in recent days
• Sabreen Abdulrahmaan sentenced to 10 days in jail

by Daniel Nasaw in Washington
Wednesday 17 December 2008 21.15 GMT

Lisa Valentine was arrested after a Georgia judge charged her with contempt of court after refusing to take off her headscarf. Photograph: John Amis/AP

A city judge in Georgia has in the past eight days barred two Muslim women wearing Islamic headscarves from entering his courtroom, jailing one, and prompting an inquiry from the civil rights office at the US department of justice.

Judge Keith Rollins of Douglasville, Georgia, yesterday ordered Lisa Valentine, 41, to jail after she refused to remove her scarf before entering the courtroom, citing rules governing appropriate dress. Last week, Sabreen Abdulrahmaan was forced to leave Rollins's court before her son's probation hearing because she would not remove her scarf.

"It's a religious right," Valentine said. "It's our constitutional right that we can have our religious practices, no matter if it's a courtroom or not. He's supposed to be handing out justice, not taking away civil rights."

Valentine said she sought to accompany her nephew to a traffic hearing yesterday but was told by a court security officer that she could not enter the courtroom with her headscarf on. She said she refused to remove it and turned to leave, saying, "This is bullshit".

Security officers handcuffed her and brought her before Rollins, who sentenced her to 10 days in jail when she declined to defend her actions at the security checkpoint, her husband Omar Hall said. Valentine, an insurance underwriter, was forced to take off the scarf and don an orange jumpsuit, chained and put aboard a jail bus with men and women.

"It felt like I was naked, because that's how I feel without my hijab," Valentine said. "You could have taken off my clothes and it would have felt the same way."

Her husband phoned an Islamic civil rights organisation and sought an attorney, and she was released without explanation after about seven hours.

"Judge Keith Rollins has inexplicably, blatantly usurped our innate human rights as American citizens," Hall said.

Douglasville police told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Valentine was jailed for violating a policy barring headgear in the court. Neither court officials nor the police department returned calls seeking comment. Reached by the Associated Press, Rollins declined to comment on Valentine's case.

"It's an issue of religious freedom, it's an issue of access to the American legal system," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Islamic civil rights advocacy group, which advised Valentine and Hall on the case. "There are all kinds of implications that you can take form this troubling incident."

The US department of justice is reviewing the matter, according to spokesman Jamie Hais. Hooper said that Eric Treene, special council for religious discrimination at the justice department's civil rights division, was examining the case.

Valentine's case was Rollins's second dispute with a hijab-clad woman in a week. Last week, Abdulrahmaan, a 55-year-old community organiser, went to Douglasville municipal court to observe her son's probation hearing. Security officers outside the courtroom initially denied her entry, saying Rollins does not allow scarves in the courtroom. She made it into the courtroom, but once inside a bailiff motioned for her to remove her scarf. She told him she was a Muslim, but then left when he started to approach her.

"There are a lot of prejudices here," Abdulrahmaan said. News of Valentine's case, "just sent my blood pressure all the way up".

Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the matter does not merely affect Muslims.

"What if you're a Jewish man wearing a skull cap? What if you're a Catholic nun wearing a habit?" Hooper asked. "All would be denied access to this judge's courtroom. We need to know what's going here and why this has apparently been going on for so long."

Below is a great commentary on the move in the legislature to destroy Albany State and Savannah State by merging them with white schools. The essay is from Black Agenda Report, a great progressive site focusing on Black politics in the US as well as around the rest of the world.
The legislative champion of the move seems to be Rep. Seth Harp. I've written about Harp before. He pushed a plan to have counties vote on lifting the ban on alcohol sales on Sunday while also voting to ban municipalities from extending domestic partner benefits and from implementing living wage policies. At the end of this commentary is contact information for those interested in fighting to save Black colleges in Georgia.

PS - If the Georgia legislature were serious about cutting costs, why would they want to close colleges instead of prisons? Just a thought.

Black Colleges Face Whiteout
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=924&Itemid=1
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

"In Georgia, efforts are afoot to dismantle at least two Black colleges."

As the great unraveling of finance capitalism unfolds, lots of issues that were prime concerns in Black politics not long ago, are getting buried in the economic debris. To many, the survival of Black colleges seems less of a priority when measured against the loss of nearly two million jobs over the past year, and the impending erasure of what is left of the nation's industrial base. It is in times of general crisis that the enemies of identifiably African American institutions find new opportunities for mischief. Such is the case in Georgia, where efforts are afoot to dismantle at least two Black colleges: Savannah and Albany state universities.

Members of the Republican-controlled state legislature are using the economic crisis as a rationale to merge majority Black Savannah State with mostly white Armstrong Atlantic State University. Historically Black Albany State University would be forced to combine with majority white Darton College. Adding insult to injury, Darton College is only a two-year institution, a community college, while Albany State is a full university.

Modern-day racists have learned to cloak their anti-Black ideas in progressive-sounding language. Georgia Senate Higher Education Committee Chairman Seth Harp claims he wants to merge the Black universities with white schools because they're "part of the legacy of segregation." When a Georgia Republican goes on a crusade against the vestiges of Jim Crow, it's time to watch out! Senator Harp says the state would save money by eliminating duplication of administration and courses. Black lawmakers counter that the state could save money just as easily by merging nearby white-majority schools, such as Georgia Tech and Georgia State. But of course, the white alumnae of these two schools would not tolerate the loss of either institution's distinct identity.

"It is the white schools that have failed Black students."

Georgia's higher education chancellor Erroll Davis is more honest about the deal. He admits that a Black-white merger would be a "political decision," not one based on cost-cutting. The truth is, cost-cutting decisions are always also political decisions, based on relative political power. Georgia is betting that African Americans don't have the clout or inclination to save Savannah State and Albany State from institutional oblivion.

There is no question that Black colleges provide a modern, as well as historical, service of great value. White four-year state institutions seldom recruit Black students in numbers that even come close to the proportion of African Americans seeking higher education - and have even more difficulty retaining Blacks. The logical conclusion from the vast body of evidence is that white schools are often hostile environments for African Americans. In other words, it is the white schools that have failed Black students. White supremacist ideology cannot accept this obvious truth. No, the "problem" must always be rooted in Black institutions, or in Black culture - anything but white incompetence and hostility. Questions of equity in education require debate in which both parties are recognized as equals - which is precisely what racists cannot abide. Their solution is always to eliminate the Black voice - in this case, Black educational institutions - so that whites can win the argument by default. That is one lesson history has taught us.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

To become part of the Coalition to Save Albany and Savannah State Colleges, contact Ruby Nell Sales at 706 323 0246, or email spirithousedc@aol.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I'm a regular listener to My History Can Beat Up Your Politics, a history podcast put out by Bruce Carlson. Carlson is not a historian, he's a serious observer with good insight. He has a recent podcast on the election called Historic. The first half talks about what happened after the Civil War. If this country had stayed on the path to democracy instead of betraying Reconstruction, who knows where we would be today. Below is the description of Carlson's podcast. I recommend it highly.

Historic

This election is clearly historic. In this podcast we talk of course about the most obvious way: the first African American President. And how that achievement might have happened a long time ago but not for a turning point in history. But we also talk about the myriad ways this election is historic: the major event of a serious female contender for President, the 2nd female VP candidate and first Republican, an election during a war, an election during a recession, an election with no incumbent or veep, a high turnout election, a non 'anti-Washington' election, an election with incumbent party candidates who (once again in history) tried without success to run against the President, an election where money was king but not fatcat money as much as little money, an election where the polls were right, an election where a losing VP candidate (edwards) and a NYC mayor didn't win..but a man unknown to most four years ago, became President - elect, something it appears Americans may like to do. So many ways 2008 is historic, and a great data point for future elections to be judged by. For historical political observers, it's like a nice piece of steak to dive into.

Dear Mr. Nader:

For the last 8 years you’ve pretty much shown you don’t care at all about social movements or justice. When you ran in 2000 I thought there might have been some possibility of you helping galvanize something at the grassroots. Your behavior then and after showed I was wrong.

I don’t mean you being a “spoiler” because that’s a straw man. You didn’t spoil the 200 election. Republicans stole and Gore gave it away. What I do mean is that you had a chance to build something and you passed. Have you yet shared your lists with the Green Party? Did you provide any help or substance in following up with the millions who did vote?

By itself these questions aren’t enough to lead to a letter like this. It is enough for me to not consider voting for you, or the Greens, again. It’s also enough for me to avoid watching you on TV, when I do get the chance to watch. By purposefully avoiding your image on the tube, and also by not turning it on much, I missed the interview you had on Fox “news” on election day. Remember that? You were asked about a comment you made to Fox “News” Radio. In that comment you said

“To put it very simply, he is our first African American president; or he will be. And we wish him well. But his choice, basically, is whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

You had every chance to backtrack on that quote. You were specifically asked by Shepard Smith- who came across to me like an arrogant, self-righteous ass- asked, “If that’s what you want your legacy to be?” You wiggled around a bit, but you never admitted that phrase was offensive. Or that it could even be possibly considered. Smith actually gave you an out. Remember this:

SHEPARD SMITH: I just wondered if, in hindsight, you wished you used a phrase other than ‘Uncle Tom’?

RALPH NADER: Not at all

Frankly, when you said that you came across as an arrogant, self-righteous ass. Also, you’re a white supremist dickhead. I think you know exactly what you said, you meant exactly what you said, and you said exactly what you wanted to say. Now I’m going to take a turn. Can you just be quiet?

It does feel pretty good.

Seriously, though, shut up.

For a while now Adolph Reed, Jr. has been sounding a cautionary note on Obama's candidacy. This essay, from Black Agenda Report, is not just good analysis of the campaign, but also gives a hint of what we can expect from an Obama presidency. The end of white supremacy in the US? Hardly. More like the end of being able to talk about it being a structural bullwark of capitalism.

BTW, I encourage everyone to check out Black Agenda Report. However, when I tried to read this on their site the layout made it impossible. It seems to be only a error on the one page though.


Where Obamaism Seems to be Going

by Adolph Reed, Jr.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
http://www.blackagendareport.com

A friend called me a few days ago from Massachusetts, astounded at a WBUR radio program featuring Glen Greenwald from Salon.com and Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, in which vanden Heuvel not only unflaggingly defended Obama's open and bald embrace of right-wing positions during the last few weeks against Greenwald's criticism, but also did it from the right herself, calling him a "progressive pragmatist." She affirmed Tom Hayden's insistence on the Progressives for Obama blog that the candidate is a progressive, but a new kind of progressive, or some such twaddle. In response to Greenwald's sharp rebuke of Obama's FISA sellout, she acknowledged that he had "missed an opportunity to lead." Defending his June 30 patriotism speech that included a gratuitous rehearsal of the right-wing line about anti-Vietnam War protesters from the "counterculture" who "blamed America for all that was wrong in the world" and the canard about antiwar activists "failing to honor" returning Vietnam veterans, which Obama asserted "remains a national shame to this day" despite the fact that is an utter lie, vanden Heuvel pointed again to Hayden's endorsement as a sign that Obama's cheap move must be okay because, after all, Hayden was a founder of SDS.

And perhaps most tellingly, despite their disagreements, Greenwald and vanden Heuvel both supported Obama's practice of going out of his way to attack black poor people, most recently in his scurrilous Father's Day speech and again before the NAACP. (And, by the way, he grew up without a father and is running for president, no?) To Greenwald, this is the "Obama we want to see more of," the one who takes positions that are "unorthodox" and "not politically safe." Since when has it been unorthodox or unsafe politically to malign black poor people in public? Who the fuck has been doing anything else for at least twenty years? Public sacrifice of black poor people has been pro forma Democratic presidential strategy since Clinton ran on the pledge to "end welfare as we know it" and made a burnt offering of Rickey Ray Rector, and victim-blaming based on just-so stories about supposed "behavioral pathology" has been the only frame for public discussion of poverty for at least as long. To vanden Heuvel, Obama's contretemps with Jesse Jackson, who, ironically, has his own history of making such attacks, around this issue reflects a "generational division" among black people, with Obama representing a younger generation that values "personal responsibility." She also, for good measure, asserted that Obama has been "nailed unfairly"for his cozying up to the evangelicals and promising to give them more federal social service money. In explaining that he comes out of a "community organizing" tradition based in churches in Chicago, she didn't quite say that the coloreds love their churches.

But she didn't really have to say it out loud, did she?


This is what passes for a left now in this country. It is a left that can insist, apparently, that Obama's FISA vote, going out of his way (after all, he could simply have followed the model of Eisenhower on the Brown decision and said that the Court has ruled; therefore it's the law, and his job as president would be to enforce the law) to align himself - twice, or three times -- with the Scalia/Thomas/Roberts/Alito wing of the Supreme Court, his declaring that social problems, unlike foreign policy adventurism, are "too big for government" and pledging to turn over more of HHS and HUD's budgets to the Holy Rollers are both tactically necessary and consistent with his convictions. So, if those are his convictions, or for that matter what he feels he must do opportunistically to get elected, why the fuck should we vote for him?

I'd been thinking about doing a "See, I told you so" column about Obama; then, especially given the torrent of vituperation and self-righteous contumely I got after arguing that he's not what far too many nominal leftists were trying to make him out to be, I was tempted instead to do a "To hell with you, you deserve what you get" column. But the smug yuppies to whom I'd address that message -- the fan club we encounter in foundation offices, faculty meetings, soccer games and dinner parties and on MSNBC and in the Nation -- are neither the only people who've listened to Obama's siren song nor the ones who'll pay the price for their self-indulgent idiocy. (And Liza Featherstone deserves acknowledgement for having predicted early that the modal lament of the disillusioned would compare him unfavorably to Feingold.) Among other things, as I saw ever more clearly while watching Rachel Maddow talk with another of that Dem ilk about Obama and his family-- how adorable and "well-raised" or some such his kids are, etc, etc -- a few nights ago on Keith Olberman's show, an Obama presidency (maybe even just his
candidacy) will likely sever the last threads of any connection between notions of racial disparity and structurally reproduced inequality rooted in political economy, and, since even "left" discourse in this country seems capable of conceptualizing the latter as a politically significant matter only in terms of the former (or its gender or similar categorical equivalent), that could just about complete purging entirely out of legitimate political discourse the notion that economic inequality is rooted fundamentally in capitalism's political and economic dynamics.

Underclass ideology -- where left and right come together to embed a common sense around victim-blaming and punitive moralism, racialized of course but at a respectable remove from the familiar phenotypically based racial taxonomy -- will most likely be the vehicle for effecting the purge. Obama's success will embody how far we have come in realizing racial democracy, and the inequality that remains is most immediately a function of cultural -- i.e., attitudinal, and behavioral -- and moral deficits that undercut acquisition of "human (and/or "social," these interchangeable mystifications shift according to rhetorical need) capital," a message his incessant castigation of black behavior legitimizes. In this context, the "activism" appropriate for attacking inequality: 1) rationalizes privatization and demonization of the public sector through accepting the premise that government is inefficient and stifles "creativity;" 2) values individual voluntarism and "entrepreneurship" over collective action (e.g., four of the five winners of the Nation's "Brave Young Activist" award started their own designer NGOs and/or websites; the fifth carries a bullhorn around and organizes solidarity demos); 3) provides enrichment experiences, useful extracurrics, and/or career paths for precocious Swarthmore and Brown students and grads (the Wendy Kopp/Samantha Power model trajectory), and
4) reduces the scope of direct action politics to the "all tactics, no strategy," fundamentally Alinskyite, ACORN-style politics that Doug Henwood and Liza Featherstone have described as "activistism" and whose potential for reactionary opportunism Andy Stern of SEIU has amply demonstrated. Obama goes a step further in deviating from Alinskyism to the right, by rejecting its "confrontationalism," which severs its rhetoric of "empowerment" from political action and contestation entirely and merges the notion into the pop- psychological, big box Protestant, Oprah Winfrey, Reaganite discourse of self-improvement/personal responsibility.


All of the above salves the consciences of our professional-managerial class peers and coworkers who want to think of themselves as more tolerant and enlightened than their Republican relatives and neighbors, even as they insulate themselves and their families as much as possible from undesired contact with the dangerous classes and define the latter in quotidian practice through precisely the same racialized and victim-blaming stereotypes as the conservatives to whom they imagine themselves superior.

This hypocrisy, of course, is understood within the stratum as unavoidable accommodation to social realities, and likely to be acknowledged as an unfortunate and lamentable necessity. Yet those lamenting at the same time reject out of hand as impractical any politics that would challenge the conditions that reproduce the inequalities underlying those putative realities. Obama, in the many ways that Glen Ford, Margaret Kimberley and others have catalogued here, is an ideal avatar for this stratum.

He has condensed, in what political dilettantes of all stripes rush to call a "movement," the reactionary quintessence that Walter Benn Michaels in The Trouble With Diversity identifies in a politics of identity or multiculturalism that substitutes difference for inequality as the crucial metric of political criticism. It's apt in this connection that even elites in the Mississippi Delta, down to the level of the Cotton Museum in Lake Providence, LA, and the blues museums that dot every hamlet on US 61 in Mississippi between Greenville and Memphis, have come to appreciate the political and commercial benefits of multicultural celebration and even civil rights heritage tourism, without destabilizing the underlying relations of racialized subordination.

Indeed, Obama represents a class politics, one that promises to cement an alliance anchored in the professional-managerial class (including, perhaps especially, the interchangeable elements of which now increasingly set the policy agendas for what remains of the women's, environmentalist, public interest, civil rights and even labor movements) and the "progressive"
wing of the investor class. (See, for example, Tom Geoghagen, "All the Young Bankers," The American Prospect, June 23, 2008.) From this perspective, it is ironic in the short term -- i.e., considering that he pushed HRC out of the way -- that Obama would be the one to complete Clintonism's redefinition of liberalism as conservatism. So there's no way I'm going to ratify this bullshit with my participation, and I'm ready to tell all those liberals who will hector me about the importance of voting that it's the weakest, most passive and least consequential form of political participation, and I'm no longer going to pretend it's any more than that, or that the differences between the Dem and GOP candidates are greater than they are, just to help them feel good about not doing anything more demanding and perhaps more consequential.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that it's wrong to vote for Obama, though I do say it's wrong-headed to vote for him with any lofty expectations. I would also suggest that it's not an open and shut case that - all things considered - he's that much better than McCain.

In some ways Obama would be better for us in the short run, just as Clinton was better than the elder Bush. In some ways his presidency could be much worse in the longer term, again like Clinton. For one thing, the recent outpouring of enthusiastic support from all quarters - including on black academic and professional list serves and blogs and on op-ed pages - for his attacks on black poor people underscores the likelihood that Obama will be even more successful than Clinton at selling punitive, regressive and frankly racist social policies as humane anti-poverty initiatives. In a way, I suppose, there could be something useful about having a large strain of the black petite bourgeoisie come out as a militant racial class for itself. Maybe that could be a prelude to a good fight, but unfortunately there's no counterweight. And the black professional-managerial strata, despite their ever more blatant expressions of contempt for black poor people, continue to insist on speaking for the race as a whole.

For the rest of the article go the Black Agenda Report.

I was driving home from vacation, listening to Talk of the Nation. I don't usually listen to NPR shows live so it was a treat to hear a talk show while it was actually happening instead of weeks later. The show was about Clinton supporters and what Obama would have to do to get them to support him. Caller after caller kept saying they had supported Clinton, they were lifelong Democrats, but they were going to vote for John McCain. Why? His "experience." Obama just doesn't have the "experience" that McCain has. McCain had this "experience" while they were supporting Clinton though, but they weren't going to vote Republican until after Clinton lost the nomination bid. What could this "experience" be? The experience of being white in the United States, of course. Tim Wise's essay, reprinted below and available at his website or on Counterpunch, explains it nicely.

Your Whiteness is Showing:
An Open Letter to Certain White Women
Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November

By Tim Wise

June 5, 2008

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.

That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.

First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?

And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...

Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?

See, I told you your whiteness was showing.

And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before. How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?

See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?

Your whiteness is showing.

Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.

But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.