RECOGNIZING MINNIE MINOSO -- (House of Representatives - December 09, 2014)

[Page: H8872]  GPO's PDF
---

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.

 

 Mr. COHEN. "Mr. Speaker, yesterday there was a vote by the Major League Baseball committee on who should be inducted into the Hall of Fame from a particular area. One of the players who was up for consideration--and, unfortunately, wasn't chosen--was Minnie Minoso, and it reminded me of the debt I owe Minnie Minoso.

   Minnie Minoso was the first African Latin baseball player. And in 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee--a town I was born in and a town in the Southern United States that was especially a part of the Jim Crow era--I went to a baseball game, an exhibition baseball game. And I was on crutches because I had polio. I had a Chicago White Sox cap on and a Chicago White Sox T-shirt.

   A player came to give me a baseball from the opposing team, the St. Louis Cardinals. I thanked him. And I went and told my father. And we came down to thank him. And he said: ``Don't thank me. Thank that player over there.'' He was the blackest player on the field, number nine, Minnie Minoso. He didn't feel comfortable in 1955 to give me a baseball. Yet he was the player with the most compassionate heart and humility on the field because that was the segregated South.

   Minnie Minoso became my hero, and I followed his career and became friends with him. We exchanged gifts. He came to Memphis, and I went to Chicago.

   In 1960 when he came to Memphis, he was staying at the Lorraine Motel--the segregated African American hotel in Memphis--because African Cuban Latin players, African Americans weren't allowed at the Peabody Hotel, where the other players were.

   I couldn't believe that my baseball hero, a great all-star, was staying at the Lorraine, which happens to be where Dr. King was murdered. But that is where he had to stay.                                              

   I learned about segregation from living in Memphis and from being befriended by Minnie Minoso. The insanity of segregation and the separation of people by race, that period of Jim Crow and previous slavery--which existed in this country for 250 years of slavery and 100-and-some-odd years of Jim Crow--still pervades this country.

   There are lingering consequences which must be dealt with. The gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) well addressed them. Much must be done in law enforcement and criminal justice but also in education and opportunities for jobs, which people don't have today in the South and many other places, in inner cities.

   So as I think about Minnie Minoso, and I think about segregation and the effect that it has had on America--America's original sin was slavery. We haven't overcome it.

   Some write about it and get recognition. People read their books. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in the Atlantic. Edward Baptist has written a book about the benefits that America got from the slave trade and how many people made money from it shipping cotton, making clothes, insuring the slave trade. It was the great economic benefit of this country and made this country great, all on slavery. Edward Baptist writes it well.

   Michelle Alexander writes in ``The New Jim Crow'' about the incarceration rate of African Americans, that it is wrongfully high. If you are African American, the likelihood that you are going to be arrested and incarcerated is so much greater than a Caucasian for living in the same society and doing the same things.

   We must put an end to discrimination in all its forms and fashions. In the criminal justice system, sentencing reform needs to take place. In the criminal justice system, we need to see that law enforcement agencies and prosecutions of law enforcement officers are done transparently and fairly and justly.

   We need to be sure that Americans continue to have faith that this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and that our Nation is one in which people get equal justice, as was planned by our Founding Fathers but was never quite implemented."

---

THEY'RE ALL ABOUT US

I don't think there exists a more salient symbol of American abundance and bounty than the supermarket; especially the modern Super supermarket (if I may) with its enormous square footage of row after row and aisle after aisle and section after section of just about every edible substance that there is to eat on this rapidly devolving earth. Its really quite beautiful; the myriad array of foodstuffs and sundries.

  I can linger seemingly for days at the meat counter or watch the fresh fish being carefully laid out on shimmering ice or wander through the cheese section and lose myself to the pungency or perhaps peruse the deli section with its vast assortment of salads and specialities and salami options and don't get me started on the bakery offerings. I can stand amidst the display crates of tomatoes and eggplants and the other produce that our good earth puts forth ( although I still wonder whatever happened to the "taste" of many of these as I can't remember when I last ate a tomato that tasted like, well, a tomato) and marvel at all "God's creation"; it was worth a bite of that delicious apple. But as it seems with so many of our enterprises we are more taken with the beautiful illusion than the reality behind what we see. Afterall, if you're not having to work in such a venue you're there for only one reason and lets eat. What you don't know or care not to know just how these wonderful strawberries and oranges and bananas and lettuce and beans and corn and peas and turnips and cherries and melons and peaches and, well, you get the idea, got here, won't trouble your holiday table- or the conditions of the various slaughterhouses that all that lovely meat came to be shown behind the glass-case - we are a nation who despite much evidence to the contrary still trusts a lot and why not that thick sirloin is going to go great with the mashed potatoes tonight.

No, the less considered the better, besides if it wasn't for us those farm workers wouldn't even have a job! And don't bother thinking about how this stuff got transported here in the first place- the long history of American labor is strewn with the overturned turnip trucks that were late to market. And look if you will at the workers wearing those neat red or white or blue outer garments with their names neatly printed on ID tags proclaiming how glad they are to be able to help you find those cans of anchovies that were listed as on sale. And when you're done selecting and picking and ordering there are the cashiers standing  as sentinels to facilitate your shopping and servicing your coupon and bagging needs. Most of the workers in these stores today, if you have ever noticed, are somewhat older on average than workers in grocery stores used to be- the American economy has changed drastically and, for most for the worse in the past-oh say 30-40 years.  Most of these workers are working second jobs because the job they're doing right now- checking you out as efficiently and without fuss to see you comfortably on your way-doesn't pay them enough to put enough food on the table for their own families. In my neck of the woods most of these cashiers are women in their 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's (sorry Helen) and older and they have to stand for their entire shift- the Company provides no tall stools for them to occasionally sit- but thats ok because the Company- in this case its the Wakefern Corp, parent of what we all know to be the SHOP RITE supermarket chain - they call themselves a business "cooperative"- and according to the Progressive Grocer they set a new record last year of achieving over $14 Billion in retail sales, has in years gone by dramatically cut back its employee hours and although they tried as have other companies to blame the Affordable Health Care Act for these "necessary" measures such a trend among large corporations started well before- with all sorts of ramifications for workers' benefits and insurance and union rights. At the minimum wage it will take that much longer to qualify along with the shortened hours for benefits and -if any- pension plans. Hence the second job AND if your an older person today, say with a kid or two of school-age how much more difficult is it to hold down 2 jobs if you have no one to help out at home when the kid comes home.

 From a recent Supermarket News:

Approximately 10% of new retail jobs in November came from the food and beverage sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of 50,200 jobs created between October and November, 5,700 were in food and beverage stores — essentially, supermarkets — according to BLS figures released Friday.

That compares with 4,700 new jobs among health and personal care stores — essentially, drugstores; 1,200 at general merchandise stores; and 26,500 at restaurants, the BLS reported. During the 12 months from November 2013 to November 2014, employment at food and beverage stores totaled 3.03 million, compared with 2.96 million at the beginning of that period, Tom Braun, principal at Braun Resources, Mahwah, N.J., told SN. He said he is “encouraged” that employment is up in the food and beverage sector, calling the increases “significant.”

(And to think I wasted my time reading Time Magazine all those years)

Wakefern- Shop Rite is the largest retail cooperative in the country and seems to be very proud of this fact and what corporation wouldn't be? But a goodly percentage of their very own workers have to depend on the SNAP program (food stamps) to help purchase what the shelves of Shop Rite that they stock have to offer. To underline the difficulty of being a low-wage worker in this American Dream of an economy Shop Rite is even a union shop. At Shop Rite, management likes to refer to the employees as "associates" - as if everyone has a personal stake in the company's success; someday you too shall be a "partner". At holiday time the  big boss- actually he is not the really BIG boss but he gets to be president all the same, sends out a holiday greeting letter of sorts to all his Shop Rite "Associates":

       "As you know, ShopRite's purpose is, "to care deeply about people, helping them to eat well and be happy" and there is no better time than the holiday season for our purpose to come alive. Together we have taken care of our neighbors by offering services that allow them to spend more time with people they care about most, providing food they are proud to bring home to their family, or simply giving a warm smile to brighten someone's day.

      Through many challenges this year your hard work and dedication gave us strength to remain the best at delivering an exceptional shopping experience. Thank you for being a part of our ShopRite Family.

     I am pleased to offer the attached coupon which allows you to receive 10% off one entire shopping order up to $500. This coupon is valid through January 3, 2015 in any SRS ShopRite store.

     The Executive Staff and I, wish you and your family a Healthy and Happy Holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,"

The Executive staff will tell you that the grocery racket (my word) works on a narrow margin and what with drought and rising utilities and the general cost of business ( and always blaming the high cost of "Obamacare" , which, by the way, has reversed the trend but don't tell management) and a record $14 Billion in sales we couldn't possible pay our workers any more or- perish the thought -even offer a regular amount of working week hours. But we'll continue to vote Republican so your SNAP dollars will be cut thus saving our great country billions more for the Executive staff. And remember don't try to buy more than $500 worth of groceries at one time or you will not be able to take advantage of our generous one-time only coupon.  Have a prosperous New Year!

Mr. Johnson of Georgia Rises

NO INDICTMENT IN ERIC GARNER'S CHOKE HOLD CASE -- (House of Representatives - December 03, 2014)

[Page: H8360]  GPO's PDF
---

   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Brat). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 30 minutes.

Rep. Hank Johnson from Georgia

   Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, ladies and gentlemen, with a heavy heart because today we had a secret grand jury finding in New York that resulted in no charges against the police officer who killed an unarmed man named Eric Garner, a man whom they accused of trying to sell some cigarettes. That man was approached by law enforcement on the streets of New York, and when approached, he said that he had not done anything wrong. He held his hands up in the hands up, don't shoot position, and they took him down while his hands were up and applied a choke hold, an illegal choke hold, and applied it until the man took his last breath.

   What did Eric Garner say 13 times before he died? What did he say 13 times before he died? He said, ``I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.'' And he said that over and over again until he could not breathe. He took his last breath just like Michael Brown, accused of stealing some cigarettes--or cigars, excuse me--Michael Brown, accused of stealing some cigars, Eric Garner, accused of selling some cigarettes. I don't know when possession and/or sale of tobacco merited a death penalty in this country, but both of them, both of those cases involved tobacco products. Both of them involved men--Black men--with their hands up in the ``don't shoot'' position. Both of them were killed. Both cases were handled in a secret grand jury process. We don't know the names of the grand jurors, we don't know what went on in that grand jury room, although we do have the transcript in the Michael Brown case, and it shows that a lot of injustice was done in that grand jury room which resulted in an unjust no bill against the police officer involved in that case.

   We don't know what happened in the New York case, but we got a result, a no bill against that police officer who was caught on tape just like in the Rodney King case, all caught on tape, Eric Garner caught on tape, the killing, but still no justice done. Cameras are not the sole answer, it appears. It runs deeper than a camera.

   These are dark days, ladies and gentlemen, that we are living in today. The first African American President is treated like no other President has ever been treated before. Is this a symptom of the Obama backlash that is occurring in this country? Is there any connection between what we see happening in the streets of Ferguson and on the streets of New York, with what is going on with the dehumanization of the leader of the free world?

   First they said he was not a resident, not a citizen of this country. Then they said he was a Communist, a socialist. They accused him of being weak and indecisive as a President and not really having the intellectual capacity to be the President. Now they are saying he was a Muslim. Now they are saying that he is an emperor, a king, disregarding the Constitution. Where are we in America when it comes to Black males and how we treat them and how they end up faring in life?

   Is it our fault? Yes, we do have responsibility. We can always do better. But don't put your foot on my neck and tell me that it is my fault that your foot is on my neck. People are tired of seeing what is happening over and over again. A young, 12-year-old Black male with a BB gun at a park on the streets and a police car rolls up, a police officer gets out and immediately shoots the young man and kills him. Will that go to another secret grand jury process and have the same result as what we saw with Michael Brown and Eric Garner? It is happening throughout the streets of the Nation.

   I tell you, I have been gratified by the protesters. I have seen protesters out there. It has been Black and White protesters out there demonstrating peacefully being met with a militarized response. And I say that to say this, that I am going to paraphrase something that you will probably be familiar with:
   They first came for the gypsy, and I wasn't a gypsy, and I didn't say anything. Then they came for the Jews, and I was not a Jew, and so I didn't say anything. Then they came for the women, and I wasn't a woman, and I didn't say anything. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to say anything.

   Is that where we are headed in this country, ladies and gentlemen? Because there are all kinds of people out peacefully protesting, and that is what I advocate for, peaceful protests. Violence is not the way. Violence just produces more pain and agony. Violence is not the way. Nonviolence is the way that we must confront this because really, when you move past the fact that Black males are at the bottom of the totem pole, and we are the ones who bear the brunt, these who come to aid us are in the line of fire also.
  

[Time: 19:45]

   What happens to one of us happens to all of us. If not you now, then what happens tomorrow when you come to my assistance? So we all are our brother's keeper.

   Right now, we are operating under an economic philosophy in this country that only the strong survive. If you are weak, it is your fault, and I don't owe you anything. Don't ask me for nothing. You get yours. I got mine; you get yours. Don't worry about me. Don't ask me for nothing.

   That is the economic attitude that we have that we are trying to preserve and protect in this hallowed body here. It is called laissez-faire capitalism, and it is supported by the U.S. Supreme Court that has contorted itself in such ways so as to rule in ways that enable a corporation to become a person.

   When we have a corporation having a right to free speech and having unlimited funds and unlimited duration and we have a corporation that has a right to religious freedom, so that it can dictate to its employees their religious beliefs--it doesn't even make sense for a corporation to have a religious belief, but that is what our Supreme Court has found--and every other way that it can aid corporations to become richer.

   The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and I don't owe you a thing--you are on your own. That is what they want us to believe, but it is time for people--for us to come together. It is all about economics.

   They put Blacks against Whites, poor Whites and poor Blacks against each other, and then they are going to the bank in the Brink's truck, and we are sitting, pointing fingers at ourselves, when we are all in the same boat together, the 99 percent--or the 47 percent, as one of our Presidential candidates most famously talked about in the last election. I am proudly one of those 47 percent, and I represent the 47 percent that is really the 99 percent.

   So this extrajudicial killing of Black men has to end. If not, then what is going to happen to you tomorrow?
   With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

---

WAITING WITH FERGUSON

Waiting for the Ferguson grand jury to return with their much anticipated "no indictment" decision can be a bit distracting while planning my football watching schedule today, Sunday. As it is, my supply of chips and dip is depleted and my beverage allotment has been curtailed due to my fixed income budgetary concerns. Life is hard ain't it?  If I wasn't so lazy I could walk right out my front door and mosey down to the nearest grocery which is about 4 1/2 miles as the crow flies and pick me up some emergency potato chips with ridges and get me some of that cheddar and horseradish dip and perhaps a 6 pack without ever worrying about being shot while walking through neighborhoods where nobody knows me- no cop would slow up behind me to watch my slow deliberate striding- at 62 I'm not as spry as I was-

come to think of it I don't think I was ever a spry type- and unless my wife called 911 to report me missing- a gray-haired somewhat disheveled slouched strider who after 2 heart attacks took an early retirement, sold his favorite pick-up, and now spends all day with his best friend, Willie, a lab mutt, at home waiting for his wife to return from her day job with our one and only vehicle, no one would ever take a second glance as I shuffle by. An old white guy going for some dip. Maybe a salsa, too. The only times I can remember being afraid to venture out was in my childhood, oh maybe sometime around 5 or 6, and there were stories going around my neighborhood in Queens, NY about evil foreign-speaking janitors kidnapping children and offering poisoned candy- real Brothers Grimm stuff. Anyway I had an older cousin who I insisted accompany me home. The threat soon passed with my childhood. The only other time I felt threatened while walking was so many years later in another town. Columbus, Ohio of all places. I had attended college there for a couple of years and was returning one early Sunday morning to visit some friends on my way west one spring when emerging from the bus depot downtown I crossed what was a very quiet and very deserted street. I mean its about 6AM, its Sunday morning in Columbus -over 40 years ago, now, not a creature was stirring- not even the cop sitting against a lamppost on the other side of the street I was crossing. Until he started waving his forefinger in my direction. I hadn't a clue. He: "where are you going?" Me: "toward campus" He: "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Me: "No, was I going too fast?" He:" You're from New York?' Me:" Yes.." He then proceeded to read me the riot act and we started to walk together in the direction of the precinct jail as he was going to arrest me for jaywalking. He didn't like my attitude and my "New York" accent. "You New Yorkers think you can do anything. Well I'm going to teach you a lesson." And we walked  for a good 20 minutes or so it seemed and got right up to the jailhouse door before he decided that I had learned my lesson and let me go. For but a brief sighing second I thought better than to turn my back and walk away from him but in that same flash of time my lazy head is all the time thinking, "Nah..he wouldn't. I'm white". Privilege has its place. Even if you're from New York. And yet... for most of my life I've lived and worked in New York City. And I even managed to find some lasting friendships along the way and for that I am a very fortunate man. And these friendships are with a wide range of individuals from different walks and places and cultures and even neighborhoods and up until very recently (ok, within the last decade or so) I never even considered or never thought to ask or never thought period that one of my closest friends, a Black man, would have been subject to not one but several public search and frisk procedures so enamored by the NYPD- it could happen anytime -then?- while walking to the grocery, to work, to the store, waiting outside for his wife- anywhere, anytime and did and he never mentioned it for the longest time. The only time I was ever frisked and bodily searched was when I was doing research for another friend- a Unitarian pastor who was a distinguished scholar and writer and  having met through a mutual acquaintance he asked me to help him with a book on the American-Christian Palestine Committee which required periodic visits to the "Zionist Library and Archive" which was located at the time in 515 Park Ave. which housed several Israeli and Zionist groups and was literally guarded by Israeli security personnel who insisted on searching my dubious presence. Each time I went. I was merely inconvenienced by obnoxious Israelis who talked in accents of my wife-at the time- who was also Israeli - I was more embarrassed by their rudeness. My friend's "procedure" ,the undergoing , is humiliating enough in a power-implied gesture with a four-hundred year old brutality behind it and as my friend explained he was too upset and too angry to tell some of his friends. "We" wouldn't and couldn't understand all that that was to him. Its part of that Black-white divide in this country that is never really bridged- call it the cost of history. So while I'm out of chips I never take for granted that long walk to the grocery- and back again. But 4 1/2 miles each way I'll miss the game easily and won't be back til the last quarter of Sunday Night football, so whats the point?

Race Matters

Justice Sotomayor Dissents

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 12–682
BILL SCHUETTE, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MICHI- GAN, PETITIONER v. COALITION TO DEFEND AF- FIRMATIVE ACTION, INTEGRATION AND IMMI- GRANT RIGHTS AND FIGHT FOR EQUALITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (BAMN), ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[April 22, 2014]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, dissenting.

"My colleagues are of the view that we should leave race out of the picture entirely and let the voters sort it out. We have seen this reason- ing before.  (“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”). It is a sentiment out of touch with reality, one not required by our Constitution, and one that has properly been rejected as “not sufficient” to resolve cases of this nature. While “[t]he enduring hope is that race should not matter[,] the reality is that too often it does.”  “[R]acial discrimination . . . [is] not ancient history.”

Race matters. Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being denied access to the political process.  (describing racial discrimination in voting as “an insidious and perva- sive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution”). And although we have made great strides, “voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that.” 

Race also matters because of persistent racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities. (cataloging the many ways in which “the effects of centuries of law- sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools,” in areas like employment, poverty, access to health care, housing, consumer transac- tions, and education); recognizing that the “lingering effects” of discrimination, “reflective of a system of racial caste only recently ended, are evident in our workplaces, markets, and neighborhoods”.

And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends his teenage years watching

others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here.”

In my colleagues’ view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfor- tunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter."

 This is the conclusion of her dissent. For the full text of the decision and of Judge Sotomayer's important dissent go here: 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf

"The Constitution does not protect racial minorities from political defeat. But neither does it give the majority free rein to erect selective barriers against racial minorities. The political-process doctrine polices the channels of change to ensure that the majority, when it wins, does so without rigging the rules of the game to ensure its success. Today, the Court discards that doctrine without good reason.

In doing so, it permits the decision of a majority of the voters in Michigan to strip Michigan’s elected university boards of their authority to make decisions with respect to constitutionally permissible race-sensitive admissions policies, while preserving the boards’ plenary authority to make all other educational decisions. “In a most direct sense, this implicates the judiciary’s special role in safe- guarding the interests of those groups that are relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to com- mand extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.” The Court abdicates that role, permitting the majority to use its numerical advantage to change the rules mid-contest and forever stack the deck against racial minorities in Michigan. 

The result is that Michigan’s public colleges and universities are less equipped to do their part in ensuring that students of all races are “better prepare[d] . . . for an increasingly diverse workforce and society . . .”

Today’s decision eviscerates an important strand of our equal protection jurisprudence. For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.

I respectfully dissent."


Note to my reader(s?):

Go and read the Court's inane decision and pay careful attention to "Chief" Roberts response to Judge Sotomayor's eloquent dissent. He has - in his own pathetic way- proven everything she has written.

WHY JEFF BEZOS IS A SCHMUCK

4/19/2014



"...some find it to be accurate,..."

The International Jew [Kindle Edition]

Henry Ford (Author)

3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)

---

Print List Price:	$9.99
Kindle Price:	$0.99
You Save:	$9.00 (90%)

---

Length: 166 pages (Contains Real Page Numbers)  Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Formats Amazon Price New from Used from Kindle Edition $0.99 -- -- Expand Hardcover -- -- $39.99 Expand Paperback $9.49 $9.49 $32.95 Expand Unknown Binding -- $47.00 --

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2012

The International Jew is a book written by Henry Ford, who authored books and articles which make claims about Jews. Readers will be able to make their own judgements of this work, as some find it to be accurate while most have historically found Henry Ford's writings to be filled with innacuracies and bigotry. This book is presented here for educational purposes and for those who are interested in reading a book written by important American businessman Henry Ford. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition and was provided by the publisher.

The edition shown here may have typos and missing text.

Swelling The War-Whoop (again)

We thought it appropriate -actually more like a public service- to re-post this at this time while the usual war-mongers are busy saddling the Light Cavalry.

While Reading (again) Dwight Macdonald

Originally posted on June 1, 2012

I thought it correlative to lift Mr. Coleridge from his eternal solitude as had Dwight Macdonald 45 years hence in Esquire (Jan.) what with recent talk of Vietnam commemoratives and having just past the 10 (or 11th?) Memorial Day since our

War On Terror began I had begun to feel a bit feverish with an incessant anxiety (must be the presidential campaign) that reminded me of an exasperated John Houseman playing an intelligence exec in that movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the novel with more days, anyway, Houseman, I think( I really should check this somewhere- google movie lines? google movie character lines?) is asked if he misses the "old days" (I'm thinking WWII) and he answers not really but he does miss the clarity and it is the way he annunciates cla-ri-ty that I most remember (like I was sitting in his first year law..) Which, somehow brings me to Coleridge as cited in old Dwight's essay which is the name of the poem-"Fears In Solitude". I am just a kid in Jan., 1967, a HS sophomore trying to hit a curve ball on the outside corner and girls faces were just starting to form a forward path (I know I heard that before) and the war -undeclared - was starting to intrude upon my green and silent dell.

In January Neil Sheehan was reporting in the NYTimes that the DoD was expecting the costs of the war to level off by mid-year barring some unforeseen development (the Tet Offensive was exactly a year away- any 15 yr olds you know today know this?).During the same week the Times was also reporting that post-war (WWII that is) babies were coming of age and for some reason that meant a good year for confetti manufacturers and cookbook publishers. A UPI story that first week in January told of how Gov. John Connally, Jr of Texas did not want President Kennedy to come to Texas in November, 1963 (and neither did I). Also in January the good gray paper published an article stating "practically the entire securities industry appears to be up in arms against a proposed government regulation that would require securities salesmen to recommend to customers only stocks that are suitable to the customer's financial situation."(Why oh why did I buy Facebook? at 39!!) On the first Sunday that January 

The Johnson "welcoming" a guest

the Johnsons, according to an AP story, heard a sermon from a Protestant minister expressing great sympathy with Cardinal Spellman's call for victory in Vietnam. And Hanson Baldwin(!) reported in the NYTimes, of course, that plastic baby bottles, complete with nipples and teflon had been accepted for combat use in the war in Vietnam. A few days later we learn that the Marines had moved into the Mekong River Delta(with baby bottles with nipples?). Among other news that month South Vietnam was planning to hold local elections that spring. And in Esquire, Dwight Macdonald introduced the relevant parts of the poem this way,

"England had used its power unjustly, had become insensitive to the sufferings of alien peoples on whom they had forcibly imposed their self-righteous ideas. Just as we are doing in Vietnam." 

Just as we continue to do 45 years hence.

from "Fears In Solitude" by Samuel Coleridge:

We have offended, Oh! My countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven! 

The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs
And, deadlier far, our vices...
...Meanwhile, at home,
All individual dignity and power
Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,
Associations and Societies,
A vain speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,
One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,
We have drunk up, demure as at a grace
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth.

Thankless too for peace
(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!
...and forth
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven)
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound.

And Macdonald ends his essay with words from this poem -"When will we know the meaning of our words? When will we be forced to feel the desolation and the agony of our fierce doings?"

the end

by sam enderby 2/11/2014

"There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent"- R.W. Emerson ("History")

"There really is only one world soul, which I for preference call my soul and as which alone I conceive what I call the soul of others"- L. Wittgenstein

In the end we're all toast anyway. Frozen dust perhaps? Everyone and everything. Unless we take Dr. Hawking's advise and get the hell off this orb we're doomed and our little dog, too. He's figuring another 300 to 1000 years and we should all live so long (wait-on second thought) . Of course if we do make it off this planet in time- find another life-sustaining ball spinning around

out beyond the outskirts of Cassiopeia or at least beyond Bayonne we'd probably wind up wrecking that sphere too within unreasonable time. In all of god's blue Earth there aren't that many of us who have learned not to hate or at the very least learn how not to distrust someone because they are different than you are; speak differently;  believe differently, look differently, eat differently, dress and even work differently. As if we inhabit this one planet with aliens -  and according to Prof. Hawking when we meet the real aliens OUT There- R U N ! -  who need to be controlled, enslaved , and, eventually, exterminated-because they ain't US. And we're going to take such basic earthbound sentiments along to a new world that is if we can agree to who gets to go? That should be interesting-if and when that time draws nigh. Well you and I won't be around if that leave-taking earth day ever comes (maybe Ted Williams can still make it-someone should reserve a seat for him)

(Oil on canvas by Jacqueline Jolles)

 but our descendants will be and I can't be convinced that they will take along for the long journey the same old faults and ignorance and hatreds that we seem to always have- part of our DNA I guess because we never learn as I say,. Why just the knowledge and know-how to be able to do that- take off for distant stars - came with a price too horrible to imagine and yet there we go and here we are. So what EXACTLY are we supposed to learn from HISTORY?  If its how to be better humans - forgedaboutit.  And that includes everyone. Memo to Pew and Gallup: Be sure to question all Republicans on what should be America's goal in the next 300 years- A deficit of 0 ? or good jobs and decent wages for everyone? That is if there is still an America to be around. I guess as long as we stay away from the drinking water in West Virginia, keep praying and dancing for rain in California, keep clear of any mismanaged (ha!) nuclear waste and assorted toxic chemical sites , stop ingesting too much contaminated meat and sugarinfused snacks (damn), limit our burning of fossil fuels (perhaps just for the weekend grill), stop paying heed to the NRA and if need be start treating the sale and use of guns as we do cars (for a start), start buying coastal properties in western Tennessee or at least in West Carolina,  because we're in big trouble here as Prof Hill tried to tell the Iowa caucuses and we will not allow ourselves the communal will and imagination to do anything substantial about it. But don't take only my word for it ( Memo to myself for a future post (maybe) - the sign on the message board outside that church atop Scotchtown hill read yesterday: "Words are the windows to our hearts".- ) As it seems to be always the case here at the Joyful Moocher we are on the same worldly wavelength with our more articulate brothers and sisters; I know its easy - too easy at times to be drawn to those that we are more -what? simpatico? have the same or almost the same political bent? are fans of Willie Mays (although I have big problem with George Will-, Murray Kempton was one thing, but Will? Hey, its baseball afterall.)?

["Humanity will disappear in 300 years. The word 'apocalypse' appears in the media on a regular basis. Some scientists believe that the planet will be destroyed as a result of the Third World War, others believe that it will be a deluge. Some others predict an impact with an asteroid. The list is endless. Recently, however, the most popular idea is the idea of ​​global warming. Thus, according to forecasts of Australian scientists, by 2300, due to global warming, humanity will not be able to exist normally on Earth. A change of the thermal regime will change the moisturizing regime. All this may undermine the natural water cycle. The speed of the increase of temperatures and the reaction of the entire climate system to this factor will play a decisive role in the process."]

As we have pointed out in other posts and related sites the similitude of our concerns and thoughts are already well articulated by quite a few others, not surprisingly, of our liberal cast. But I guess that's always the case. What I can never understand-satisfactorily- is why those who aren't of similar reflection cannot see the folly or if you prefer the evil of their way. (Just by way of example: in a country where children are starving and in too many cases, dying because of inadequate healthcare- why would someone who can help alleviate such conditions by voting to increase food allotments and extending health benefits -why would they vote to do the opposite and site some Dickensian-sounding mean-ness as an excuse to do so while alleviating even more of the infinitely affordable taxes of the very rich and adding on to the burdens of the poor? Nobody can think such a course is right without keeping some other -nefarious, perhaps, evil in mind. Don't you dare Sunday- morning- TV paralogize this)  

"According to Australian experts, in 300 years, more than 40 percent of land will be flooded. The remaining part of the land will quickly use up all available resources and become unsuitable for human life. The scientists say that in 300 years, average annual temperatures will grow by 12 degrees, which will have a devastating impact on people. It is quite possible that we do not have 1,000 years to live on this planet, as Hawking said. Will mankind be able to live in space?"- S.Vasilenkov

I had an inkling, a hint of what I wanted to jot down - usually around 3 or 4 in the morning while in bed and too warm and comfortable to emerge from out of the covers to make notes and when I did finally emerge I find -these olden days-that the very act of putting pen to paper is quite arduous for me as my hand and fingers tighten too soon and after a brief stint I find I cannot even read what I had been writing and as for my Mac program and my blogging -well, lets just say I am at the mercy of poor excuses and technological glitches I have no understanding of and spend a good deal of my time writing e-mails to "hosting services" and talking to customer service reps in Mumbai who are incredibly patient

with this grouchy old man who wakes up ( my dog is always grateful that I did, my wife, I'm not too sure although she does makes me coffee every morn) to a world of forgotten dreams and a new ache.  It had to do with connections - again. I wanted to somehow share with my reader the unremarkable happenstance while reading a new (?) Roger Rosenblatt memoir I came across the passages of his walking around Herman Melville's old neighborhood in Manhattan - Rosenblatt grew up near Gramercy Park - and Melville lived for a time on 26th St -well anyway no sooner than I put this aside I come across -online- a rather poignant and extraordinary article by the great Chris Hedges for whom "the most prescient portrait of the American character and our ultimate fate as a species is found in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle."

Of course Mr. Hedges isn't the first to offer up Melville as our great chronicler of power and authority and, even, virtue (talk about forgotten dreams) but nevertheless to come across old Herman twice in the course of a solitary morning should be taken - I believe- as some kind of wake up call-again. Mr. Hedges considers: 

       "Yet we, like Ahab and his crew, rationalize our collective madness. All calls for prudence, for halting the march toward economic, political and environmental catastrophe, for sane limits on carbon emissions, are ignored or ridiculed. Even with the flashing red lights before us, the increased droughts, rapid melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, monster tornadoes, vast hurricanes, crop failures, floods, raging wildfires and soaring temperatures, we bow slavishly before hedonism and greed and the enticing illusion of limitless power, intelligence and prowess.

      The corporate assault on culture, journalism, education, the arts and critical thinking has left those who speak this truth marginalized and ignored, frantic Cassandras who are viewed as slightly unhinged and depressingly apocalyptic. We are consumed by a mania for hope, which our corporate masters lavishly provide, at the expense of truth." 

Still there is much ambiguity in Melville (as there should be) but you know that somewhere in this favored land his spirit (and words) reside with the crew of the

Pequod and workingmen and women everywhere. He may have had Capt. Vere hang Billy Budd but he at least made him cry in his heart for the rest of his shortened life.

"As the planet begins to convulse with fury, as the senseless greed of limitless capitalist expansion implodes the global economy, as our civil liberties are eviscerated in the name of national security, shackling us to an interconnected security and surveillance state that stretches from Moscow to Istanbul to New York, how shall we endure and resist?"
And he answers:

Our hope lies in the human imagination. 

And toward the end of his thoughtful and so well-written ( as always) article Mr. Hedges posits a course of action for the rest of us to perhaps- if we dare- follow. 
It is only those who harness their imagination, and through their imagination find the courage to peer into the molten pit, who can minister to the suffering of those around them. It is only they who can find the physical and psychological strength to resist. Resistance is carried out not for its success, but because by resisting in every way possible we affirm life. And those who resist in the years ahead will be those who are infected with this “sublime madness.” As Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the only morally reliable people are not those who say “this is wrong” or “this should not be done,” but those who say “I can’t.” They know that as Immanuel Kant wrote: “If justice perishes, human life on earth has lost its meaning.” And this means that, like Socrates, we must come to a place where it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. We must at once see and act, and given what it means to see, this will require the surmounting of despair, not by reason, but by faith.

Homer, Dante, Beethoven, Melville, Dostoevsky, Proust, Joyce, W.H. Auden, Emily Dickinson and James Baldwin, along with artists such as the sculptor David Smith, the photographer Diane Arbus and the blues musician Charley Patton, all had it. It is the sublime madness that lets one sing, as bluesman Ishman Bracey did in Hinds County, Miss., “I’ve been down so long, Lawd, down don’t worry me.” And yet in the mists of the imagination also lie the absurdity and certainty of divine justice:"   

It reminded me of another passionate and articulate teacher who taught about the history of  American education and who wrote in a book published over 40 years ago :

"The grounds for the establishment of limits are already present in the works of the giants of the twentieth century. Freud, Dewey, Einstein, Sartre, Schweitzer,Camus, Oppenheimer, James Joyce, Aldous Huxley, Orwell, Russell, and Buber called for an end to the monism of pure science or pure religion or pure individualism. They also refused to adjust to dualisms which end by favouring one side and tolerating the other. They disregarded the drive to promote exact definitions free of emotions. They accepted the present and acted in it, promoting full, human possibility inside the present. ..schools need to clarify these grounds and need to keep clarifying them so that everyman can establish limits not out of desperation or despair, but through hope and faith in the worth of fellow men living together in a new version of communities."   - B. Mehl, Classic Educational Ideas

I confess I have many books within reach as it is a constant wonderment to me  how alike the good people are and unfortunately the converse and sometimes how much certain opposites are more alike than they care to realize let alone admit ( why just see an old post we called "The Commonwealth").  And yet for some dumb reason each succeeding generation has to learn and unlearn once again what it means to live together.  Is it not so that ever since some brilliant s o b  came up with the concept of the "American way of life" it is left to the generation coming of age to try to solve the same old problems  that for a number of reasons should have been worked out long ago; how to be with one another. C'mon people lets get it together. (But we don't.)    There is a book recently reviewed by Al Gore in last Sunday's NYTimes chronicling what is referred to as the sixth mass extinction which is being caused by what biologists and scientists and Algore-ists know to be man-made climate change - although NBC and CBS and Fox  still seem to think there should be discussion on the matter - pretend its not happening or their ginormous oil company ad revenue may get hurt feelings ( I wonder if that blonde actress who shills in black pants outfits for the American Petroleum Institute and whose ads play on every channel I have ever watched and more recently has been seen

hawking the godbearing gifts of fracking for shale oil is among the richest performers on earth- but its not really my business - but, oh, the deviousness) if the so-called news reporters and readers so much as whisper that they are among those that are responsible for, as Al notes, "destroying the integrity of our planet's ecology" ( which sort of fits our attractive spokewoman's shushing gesture in some of those commercials, you know "don't tell anyone how lucrative and earth destroying this really is').  Of course we are destroying our only planet ( and with opening day  7 weeks away) and of course there are many things we can start doing about saving? it; at least prolonging the inevitable? Because somewhere back in those historical extinction epochs or whatever it seems COMMON SENSE went the way of the last dinosaur. For every Al Gore (I hope this doesn't give him a swell head) and Prof. Hawking there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Fox Hate watchers and holier than thou believers and American states who insist that creationism be included in their children's text books. Get on board The Pequod boys and girls the voyage has just begun.   



___________________________________________________

• 16
• Email
• Print

See Inside

 Earth Will Cross the Climate Danger Threshold by 2036

The rate of global temperature rise mayhave hit a plateau, but a climate crisis still looms in the near future

Mar 18, 2014 |By Michael E. Mann                                                                                                                                          

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One-Fifth of China’s Farmland Is

Polluted, State Study Finds

By EDWARD WONG, NYTIMES

APRIL 17, 2014

BEIJING — The Chinese government released a report on Thursday that said nearly one-fifth of its arable land was polluted, a finding certain to raise questions about the toxic results of China’s rapid industrialization, its lack of regulations over commercial interests and the consequences for the national food chain.

The report, issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land Resources, said 16.1 percent of the country’s soil was polluted, including 19.4 percent of farmland. The report was based on a study done from April 2005 to last December on more than 2.4 million square miles of land across mainland China, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

The report said that “the main pollution source is human industrial and agricultural activities,” according to Xinhua. More specifically, factory waste products, irrigation of land by polluted water, the improper use of fertilizers and pesticides, and livestock breeding have all resulted in tainted farmland, the report said.

The study found that 82.8 percent of the polluted land was contaminated by inorganic material. The most common pollutants were cadmium, nickel and arsenic, and the levels of these materials in the soil had risen sharply since land studies in 1986 and 1990. The level of cadmium had risen by 50 percent in the southwest and in coastal areas and by 10 percent to 40 percent in other regions, Xinhua reported. The soil in southern China is more polluted than in the north.

The report confirms spreading fears among many officials and ordinary Chinese that the country’s soil has been in severe decline. Its numbers also indicate a more serious problem than statistics did in a book published in early 2013 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, “Soil Pollution and Physical Health,” which said one-sixth of China’s arable land, or nearly 50 million acres, was polluted.