Saturday, September 12, 2009

Political-enter at your own risk

A lot of us who write westerns read a fair share of history about our country as it pushed west. I like to look through old journals in used bookstores because they often contain material you don't find in books. Today I was at Half Price and I found a Journal of Popular Culture from 76 that had a number of interesting articles in it. By far the most striking was "Racial Reservations: Indian and Blacks in American Magazines, 1865-1900" by Professor Charles R. Wilson. The piece introduced me to a particularly repellent racial theory I'd never heard of before.

White intellectuals of the highest order found blacks superior to Indians for a simple reason. Here's Nathan Shaler, Dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard:

"We see the essential difference between the African and the Indian in the measure of this faculty (the tendency to imitate whites). The American aborigines are content with their ways, and slow to take on the manners and customs of the whites; they have thus never reconciled themselves with their conquerers. The Negro is contented only when he feels that he has brought himself into accord with his superiors."

There are three pages of quotes like this from various academic publications. I chose the above because it was the easiest to condense.

After I read this I turned on the news and saw the Glen Beck rally in D.C. Wile I'm sure there were some decent and well-meaning people there, I'm assuming that most of them were the dirtbags, KKK wanna bes, mental defectives and white trashers who squelched all serious discussion at town hall meetings. Today they probably went to the bathroom on the street and killed squirrels and kittens for their food.

You know, there's a legitimate argument to make about how Obama has spent our money. Yesterday, the NY Times, the Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post all ran long articles attacking Obama for doing nothing to change Wall Street. The CEOs who should have gone to prison are back to making millions a year and the unlicensed derivates that caused a good deal of the trouble are being sold again. Every piece predicted that we will have an even bigger crash within ten years because Obama let Bernacke, Geithner and Summers sell us out to Wall Street. To me they should be sentenced to prison for life. Paulson would go in first.

But as much as I find it hard to forgive Obama for his cowardice and incompetence with Wall Street, I have no stomach for what I saw on the streets of D.C. today because despite the posturing of "he's spending too much money" just about everybody I saw interviewed said in one way or another "We want our country back." I.e., we don't want no colored guy in the White House. Pure and simple. The placards were offensive as usual--Obama with big lips; Obama as Hitler; and a new one, "Obamacare should be buried along with Kennedy." Nice. Plus a variety of misspellings. I can't spell either but how tough is "nation"?

Do we really want a dirtbag nation? I always quote Mencken: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." That was proved again today in Washington, D.C. I came from the working class. I met very few people of the sort I saw on screen today.

I thought of something today I'd never considered before. If Reagan hadn't fought Gerry Ford in 76 then Ford (Ford had also come to hate his neo-con employees Cheney and Rumsfeld) would have won. We wouldn't have had Carter, to me one of the worst presidents in our history and thus we wouldn't have had Reagan and "acceptable racism" ("welfare queens" anybody?). We would have had a nice moderate GOP president like Ford or somebody and we wouldn't be where we are today.

We're in a hell of a fix when the dems stand by and let their president sell us out to Wall Street and the only opposition can be found in the streets at the behest of a sissy like Glen Beck who, I'm pretty sure, agrees with that Harvard quote I used to introduce this post.

14 comments:

Mark said...

Reagan and "acceptable racism" ??
That's such an unfortunate point of view.
You are a brilliant writer who should keep his political thoughts to himself.

Jeff Clarion said...

Ed, be careful. Those folks in DC are probably your fan base.

J. Kingston Pierce said...

People who chide writers for expressing opinions outside of their familiar bailiwicks are fools. Ed has as much right to comment on politics as the next guy, even if I don't always agree with him. And in his assessment that Reagan was far from guiltless in perpetuating and perhaps even stoking America's history of racism, Ed is not alone. A couple of articles worth consulting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/
13herbert.html?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/
0,8599,399921,00.html

Reflexive apologists for Reagan could use a shot of reality every now and then. But of course, if they don't fall back on the Gipper every time they need a 20th-century Republican't presidential spokesperson for what they think is right and just, who else have they got?

Cheers,
Jeff

Tom K Mason said...

Well said by both Ed and Second Jeff. Bravo!

Anonymous said...

"we don't want no colored guy in the White House. Pure and simple."

It's neither pure nor simple...nor accurate. The argument that those who disagree fervently with Obama's approach to matters must be racist is as unaccurate as it is tired, and illustrates another kind of bigotry. It's your blog, Ed, so espouse whatever views you wish, but it's a bit sad to see.

Carl said...

Oh please. The race card is tired. Rev Al, OJ, and dozens of others have seen to that.

Concerned people are going to march on Washington when a vice president says "We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation. Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Anonymous said...

In his memorable farewell address, Dwight Eisenhower warned against giving rein to the military-industrial complex. The nation forgot his advice. We continue to wage wars that don't need fighting. We would enhance, not decrease, our national security by just coming home and letting other sovereign nations govern themselves as they see fit. But Mr. Obama seems unable to sway the inherited bureaucracy and his designs are frustrated. What bothers me most is the rise of private armies, brownshirts, in this republic. One of them is called American Police Force, and it is a mysterious command, apparently staffed with anonymous thugs. See today's Billings Gazette.

Anonymous said...

And who is to blame for that?

Maybe it is the Democrat party who for the last 15 years abandoned their foundational values and embraced a left wing one. The vast majority of Americans do NOT want their country moving towards a socialistic society. I'm afraid that this is where we are heading.

The day that we have a true Democrat running for the Presidency has long past.

Todd Mason said...

Or, Democratic Party, which has no set values per se, so much as being an election machine, and has Never, as a whole nor even in majority, been a leftist party, though so many people seem to want to pretend that it has. I guess this "Democrat Party" of which you anonymously write might be worth looking into, if it existed. I guess it mostly contends with the Republic Party.

Todd Mason said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt said...

Anyone who complains about public healthcare or calls the Democrats "socialist" but never once stood up against no-bid, tax-payer supported military contracts to Repubublican cronies like Haliburton or Blackwater?

Well, sir. That's a fool of the highest order. And a hypocrite. Probably one of them guys who never served in uniform but supports war. Sitting safely behind his computer. Whining just because someone somewhere said something he didn't like. Boo hoo hoo...

Say whatever you want, Ed. I didn't vote for Obama because he's just another "Republican" to me. There's no left wing any more.

But no matter what you say, we aren't sissies who can't handle hearing an opposing viewpoint every now and then.

Well, most of aren't anyway. What happened to real men? These guys are soft. And that's sad. [shakes head]

Anonymous said...

"I didn't vote for Obama because he's just another "Republican" to me. There's no left wing any more."

WHAT???????
Matt are you serious?

Todd Mason said...

Far more serious than anyone who thinks Obama is of the left in any meaningful way.

Anonymous posting also tends to argue against seriousness.

There certainly is a left (in fact, as diverse a left as right, if not moreso) in this country, but it's about as disenfranchised electorally as usual.

Matt said...

Dear Anonymous,

HUUUUHHH??!!!

:) Um, yes? I'm serious. And thank you for your continued scintillating contributions to the debate.