Why Are U.S. Liberals So Eager To Be Fooled By VP Harris?

"Does AIPAC control Kamala?" ask Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal in their recent video.

As we hurtle toward full scale war with Iran while Israel and the U.S. fan the flames, why are liberals here in the U.S. so eager to be fooled (again)? In the last week I've heard, "I hope you're as excited about Kamala as we are!" and, "She is going to be much better on Gaza than Biden" as well as the old trope, "orange man bad!!!!!" 

Of course most liberals are still bashing Russia and Putin for defending themselves from NATO aggression via Ukraine, so the orange man thing is on brand at least.

Years ago I wrote about how liberals considered their support for President Obama as a sort of get-out-of-racism-free card. They could only see race and feel their own self-congratulatory feelings for supporting a man of color in the White House. A man of color raised by white grandparents that had both worked in the predecessor to the CIA. A man of color sponsored by the white Crown family of Chicago who bankrolled his meteoric rise from "community organizer" (a claim for which not a shred of evidence has ever been offered). But his wife was actually a Black descendant of enslaved people! So he and she could do no wrong.

Never mind all the Black and brown children he killed in drone strikes, including American citizens like 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (pictured above). Never mind that on his watch, by his own admission, "we tortured some folks." Never mind that Black people in the U.S. continued to experience huge disparities in terms of net worth, health, death at the hands of police, and incarceration rates -- race blotted out all other views of the two-term president.

But I'm just an old white lady who thinks Biden has been as bad a president as Trump was, worse in some respects if you care about international affairs as much as I do. As I wrote to someone who launched an ad hominem attack on me after I declined to financially support their advocacy for Harris' campaign, "Have BIPOC lives improved under the current Democratic administration? I would argue they have not in terms of wealth, safety, health, or pretty much any metric you care to name." They have yet to respond.

We are often admonished to listen to Black women. Harris has only the slightest claim to being Black as she was raised by her Indian mother in that culture and in the absence of her Irish-Jamaican father. But I get that as a woman of color she has faced a lot of vitriol and racist harassment just living her life and then even more while taking on public roles.

That does not change the fact that the biggest item on her resume -- arguably the only item on her resume -- is presiding over the incarceration of millions of BIPOC in California. And keeping them in prison beyond their sentences to profit from their labor. All well-documented. Unlike her policy positions, which are nowhere to be found on her campaign's website.

But we don't know how she'll be on Palestine and Gaza, say liberals. Yes, we do. Here's the White House confirming she conferred with Israeli PM Netanyahu before he went back home and green lighted the assassinations in Beirut and then Teheran.

President Biden spoke today with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. The President reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The President discussed efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive U.S. military deployments. Together with this commitment to Israel’s defense, the President stressed the importance of ongoing efforts to de-escalate broader tensions in the region. Vice President Harris also joined the call.[emphasis mine]

Who has Harris surrounded herself with in her own rise through distinctly undemocratic paths? Glenn Greenwald interviewed Lee Fang on that topic, and it's not encouraging.

A radical friend of mine suggested, ask liberals if they would support Condoleezza Rice for president because it amounts to the same thing. By which I think she meant, elevating faithful servants of the death-dealing empire based on their apparent race which makes them more desirable as leaders. (I would argue that Rice was both more intelligent and certainly more articulate than Harris has shown herself to be.)

If you'd rather hear Black voices speculating on the prospect of VP Harris ascending to the top job, I recommend subscribing to the Black Agenda Report  and following Margaret Kimberley,

 

https://x.com/freedomrideblog/status/1819438761828061278

following Ajamu Baraka, 

https://x.com/ajamubaraka/status/1820221745221255257

and following Ann Garrison, who shared this gem on Twitter:

Leftists, not liberals, have much to say about the "Black mis-leadership class" in general and VP Harris in particular.

And much to say about the thoroughly undemocratic process that has imposed Harris as the Democratic Party candidate.

There are race riots, real ones, going on in the UK right now. The cost of the war in Ukraine -- especially much higher energy prices -- has impoverished millions and they're lashing out after Axel Rudacubana, a Black teenager born in Britain to Rwandan immigrant parents, killed three little girls by stabbing them. (Several more people were injured at the time.) This provided the spark for people to attack anyone who doesn't appear white enough to them, and to attack mosques even though the murderer allegedly identifies as Christian. 

Because putting a few people of color in front facing positions does nothing to address either systemic racism or systemic poverty. 

As if the financiers and warmongers who preside over austerity to prep for another world war don't come in all the colors.

Bias Against China & Anyone Who Sounds Vaguely Chinese Is Not A Good Look On Liberals

So many racist political cartoons about China on the interwebs it was hard to choose just one.

Admittedly I do not know if it was liberals who flagged my annual subscription fee to Lee Fang's substack (a whopping $60) and put a hold on my credit card with the explanation "Possible Fraudulent Activity Detected." 

What I do know is that no such hold or warning has been triggered by my subscriptions to journalists with last names like Johnstone, Hedges, or even Taibbi.

This happened in the same week that the leader of a Democratic Party-aligned "peace" group in my state commented about an article on NATO I had shared: "The article you linked is incoherent (and look where it is published)."[emphasis mine]

Global Times published the piece on April 7 and included this introduction:

Editor's Note:

April 4, 2024, marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. As a product of the Cold War, NATO should have been disbanded, but over the years, it has served as a war machine and facilitated US hegemony. The Global Times talked to a number of experts and scholars to reveal how the US exploits NATO to serve its geopolitical purposes and how NATO destabilizes the world, exacerbates nuclear threats and brings confrontation to Asia. 

In the second interview of the series, Global Times (GT) reporter Li Aixin talked to John Pang (Pang), a former Malaysian government official and a senior research fellow at Perak Academy, Malaysia. John said that having set Europe on fire with its aggressive enlargement, NATO proposes to bring their formula to Asia, against a far more powerful opponent - "It's an imbecile proposition."

Yikes! Both interviewer and interviewee have Chinese-sounding names. Who could possibly want to read and consider their opinions on geopolitical realities as the U.S. slouches toward WW3 with China?

Several times in the past week I've seen articles about the U.S. instigating a proxy war in the Pacific using the Philippines as their cat's paw. I've also read analysis from sources we're being trained to consider suspect. Here's a short list:

Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China  by Dr. Binoy Kampmark, published April 7, 2024 by the Australian Independent Media Network

Snow Job: 15 Years of U.S. Gaslighting in the South China Sea published April 9, 2024 by Peter Lee's China Threat Report (audio version also available there)

Xi Jinping's Thoughts On China's Nuclear Weapons by Gregory Kulacki & Robert Rust, published April 1, 2024 by Union of Concerned Scientists.

That last article debunked a New York Times report claiming that China's leaders 

“are looking to nuclear weapons as not only a defensive shield, but as a potential sword — to intimidate and subjugate adversaries.” [The Union of Concerned Scientists] examined the evidence and found it did not support that claim. 

Actually found a political cartoon about China that isn't racist!

The narrative management strategies employed by liberals around China are extremely familiar, because we have just been through two years of being told that the war in Ukraine started in 2022 all the while being scorned for reading anything published in Russia. 

A thought police officer on a "peace" listserv based in Maine constantly attacks posts that deviate from U.S. State Department talking points while citing sources like the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN as beacons of truth. Uh huh.

Pot calling kettle black cartoon from the New York Times.

We've seen the recent claim that TikTok is being used to manipulate young people into hating Israel's genocide in Gaza, and China is at fault because, as Nancy Pelosi said on camera, if China's government can control the algorithms "we" are in big trouble. A backhanded admission that the U.S. controls the algorithms on Meta products, Twitter/X, YouTube, and search engines like Google.

This kind of bias makes you look stupid, folks. When Chew Shou Zi, CEO of TikTok, was attacked during a hearing in Congress for being Chinese he responded, "No, I'm Singaporean." 

I was embarrassed for my country. 

You should be, too.

 

Rich Men North Of Richmond vs Try That In A Small Town

Two summer anthems of disaffection with decay in the U.S. could not be more different. Yes, they're both in the country genre and feature male leads but one is a pro-policing screed that couldn't be slicker, and the other is as genuine as it gets.

Viral hit "Try That In A Small Town" from Jason Aldean's 11th album was written by a team not including Aldean, recorded in a studio, and then embellished with one of the more incoherent music videos I've seen. Granted I don't see that many music videos, but my impression of this one was that the lead singer is mailing it in while the montage of images behind him -- flag-draped White House, looting, assault -- do the heavy lifting. Basically a 2nd Amendment commercial laced with the kind of threats you may remember from your elementary school playground.

The artist denies it, but dog whistle racist imagery abounds. It's possible this song could be construed as a campaign ad for Trump since the disorder depicted is widely viewed by Republicans as occurring under the Biden administration and Democratic mayors of big cities.

(For an insightful discussion of disorder and other electoral issues, I highly recommend Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn's "America This Week: Campaign Preview" available here.)

Newer viral hit "Rich Men North Of Richmond" is performed by singer/songwriter Oliver Anthony in a lightly amplified outdoor setting. He nails the aggrieved white working class male lament in a way that the wealthy Aldean's performance only mimics. 

Or maybe it's not even a particularly white point of view? Rapper TRE TV nodded along in sympathy before sharing his reaction to Anthony's intro, I been selling my soul, working all day, overtime hours for bullshit pay:

That's how we all feel. We working, ain't getting nowhere, the money ain't adding up. You get your check and you're like, What. Is. This?...Hell, this thing missing a couple of zeros! 

I thought the vocals were tough.. and the message. I give this a 10. 

Anthony also takes a potshot at riders on Epstein's "Lolita Express," excess taxation, and references the suicide epidemic among young men suffering under top down control from the rich men north of Richmond. An interview with the singer revealed he was specifically thinking of Washington DC swamp monsters when he penned the alliterative line (he appears to like puns, rhyming, and alliteration).

He goes off the rails only once when he engages in fat shaming aimed at food stamp recipients. Hard to know for sure, but maybe he has an ex-girlfriend who's 5 foot 3, weighs 300 pounds, and is partial to fudge roll?

It cracks me up how conservatives are trying to claim Oliver Anthony for their own. Did they listen to his words? Cue the mainstream media, now in overdrive claiming the song is a big hit with the right but leaving leftists cold. Wealthy media are having to spin extra hard to depict the ballad as a rallying cry for Civil War 2.0. You know, the war the wealthy hope we have instead of the revolution we need.

The problem with their analysis, of course, is that right and especially left have become so diluted in meaning that the terms are increasingly useless. Anthony has shared with journalists that he considers himself a centrist with no allegiance to either of the corporate parties.

Chris Hedges writes searingly about this from time to time. His latest is set in rural Maine aka northern Appalachia where I live and which, this time of year, looks nearly identical to the West Virginia setting of Anthony's video. "Forgotten Victims of America's Class War" lays out about as well as anything I've read how left vs. right or red vs. blue are increasingly meaningless in a gutted economy that's failing working people.

Nice Manners Uphold White Supremacy & Brutal Class Warfare

A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: “A 22-year-old woman was arrested..on Sunday 11 September 2022 in connection with a breach of the peace.” This occurred during a public ceremony to recognize Charles as the new King of Scotland. Source: The National

One of the strongest messages a white baby boomer received growing up was the need to behave well. "Pretty is as pretty does," was one such admonition, particularly tailored for girls. "Fools' names and fools' faces are often seen in public places," was another. 

This conditioning must be overcome in order to raise a dissenting voice.

The changing of monarchs in the United Kingdom produced an outburst of fawning over crowned heads as well as an outburst of truth telling and its inevitable companion, tone policing.

Scots were arrested protesting the ascension of the rather unpopular Charles III. Some with signs were put in handcuffs, while others who boo'd appear to have gotten away with it.

The quintessential tone policing remark was predictable. As reported in The National:

Donald Maclaren, 64, of Livingston, said: “It’s very disrespectful, there is a time and a place if you want to protest, but this isn’t it."

 

See, his mother just died, so it's not the time and place to protest a man who just inherited a vast fortune and is exempt from the 40% inheritance tax others must pay. 

No matter how rich you are, you are likely to be totally clueless about how bad tone policing makes you look. Billionaire labor nemesis Jeff Bezos chastised a Black academic on Twitter who wrote: "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating." 

His criticism and the pushback to it greatly elevated her original tweet (which now appears to have been censored by Twitter). More tone policing came from Carnegie Mellon University where she is employed. They said her remarks did not reflect their values despite Dr. Uju Anya's explanation to a journalist:

"I am the child and sibling of survivors of genocide. 

From 1967-1970, more than 3 million civilians were massacred when the Igbo people of Nigeria tried to form the independent nation of Biafra.. 

this genocide was directly supported and facilitated by the British government.. 

weapons, bombs, planes, military vehicles, and supplies were sent to kill us and protect their interests in the oil reserves on our land."

If you're white and live in a racist country like the U.S., you've probably been in lots of situations where you were hearing white supremacist rhetoric while wondering what to say in response.

 That's if you could find the courage to speak up at all.

You might have been at a family holiday dinner.

You might have been in a hair salon where the person you angered could be holding scissors next to your face.

Is it a coincidence that the part of the U.S. where many still revere the Confederacy has the reputation of being especially polite?

No matter where you live in the U.S., you were probably raised to be conflict averse in a society where "conflict" is a euphemism for war. 

So there's likely an element of fear of violence involved in the calculus about what to say or whether to say anything.

Doris Lessing, one of my favorite authors, grew up white in apartheid colonial Africa, the part that is now Zimbabwe. Her penchant for telling the truth about British colonialism among other things did not always make her popular. She died in 2013 but I'll give her the last word:

Divide & Conquer, Part 3: White v. Human

Source: McGill University

The divide and conquer trope at the heart of the U.S. empire's moral rot is race.

Race is the biologically imaginary distinction between humans based on melanin i.e. skin color.

The fact that white supremacy was first enforced against indigenous people in the Caribbean and North American continent gets muddied by the ideology of Christianity's Doctrine of Discovery where not-white = heathen. 

It took 1619 and the enslavement of African people to start cementing in place a permanent underclass based on the skimpy ideology of skin color-hair texture.

White America has been sitting on a powder keg of race relations ever since, with discontent always brewing, and terrified owners desperate to keep their power over workers.

Enter white supremacy and its unearned benefit, white privilege.

When I was a young child my father pointed out that I was white but that fact didn't make me better than anyone else, just luckier. "Many doors will be open to you that would not be if your skin were a different color," he explained.

Some examples of what dad was talking about:

Dad used the GI bill to get a college education after discharge from the Army. Many Black GI's did not receive this earned benefit. They also did not receive GI bill support for home ownership as millions of white veterans did.

This set up Black families in the U.S. for generational disparities in net worth. As reported by the Federal Reserve:

In the 2019 survey, White families have the highest level of both median and mean family wealth: $188,200 and $983,400, respectively. Black and Hispanic families have considerably less wealth than White families. Black families' median and mean wealth is less than 15 percent that of White families, at $24,100 and $142,500, respectively. Hispanic families' median and mean wealth is $36,100 and $165,500, respectively. 

The 1619 Project is a collection of research-based essays on how white supremacy warped not only our hearts and souls but the actual structures of government (think electoral college). It also argues that racism hurt labor organizing. What true strength in numbers can there be if white workers don't stand shoulder to shoulder with workers of color? How will labor stand up to capital if solidarity is rotted from within by racism?

The Project's authors also cite the dreadful state of public transportation in this country as an effect of racist public policies based on white flight from cities to suburbs. 

The horrifying state of policing likewise is a logical outgrowth of slave patrols and the notion that any white man with a gun is entitled to rob any person of color of their freedom. How many #sayhisnameDonovanLewis cases will there need to be before white people stop funding more and more violent police forces out of fear? 

Police gunning down unarmed, even sleeping, Black and brown people is part of the very fabric of the U.S. Now, with cell phone cameras and bodycams for police, even white people can see the problem.

And as Chris Hedges argued recently, a low-income white person without health care, living precariously as the U.S. empire declines, clings to gun ownership as the final bulwark against humiliation.

Black majority cities like Jackson, Mississippi and Flint, Michigan go without potable water for years.

Mortality and other indicators of health are significantly different by race, both pre and post Covid.

Source: Ben & Jerry's

Mass incarceration for a myriad of victimless crimes (cannabis possession springs to mind) denies Black families of their parents, and Black communities of their voters. And keeps ex-cons in the prison labor force many compare to slavery, but out of the labor force where they would compete with white workers.

Jennifer Schulte aka "BBQ Becky" became famous for calling police in Oakland on Black men who were grilling with charcoal in an undesignated area of a public park.

White women have played an outsized role in demonizing Black people just for existing. Emmett Till was lynched at age 14 after white adult Carolyn Bryant Donham lied about him sexually harrassing her, but a grand jury in Mississippi still failed to indict Donham for her role in Till's death.

Media has pushed the narrative of an alleged criminal class based on melanin so relentlessly that even Black and brown people are more likely to identify what a young man of color is holding as a gun when it's actually a cell phone or a soda can.

Liberals like 3rd grade teacher Jane Elliott could easily demonstrate the educational impacts of separate, unequal treatment based on eye color, but that did nothing to change systemic racism.

Some believe, and I'm among them, that reparations is the only thing likely to effect real progress.

It would be hard to find a more divisive issue than reparations. Unless it is the first Black president of the U.S. -- a neoliberal who did almost nothing to address economic disparities by race, but allowed a lot of white people to pretend that electing him had ushered in an era of post-racism. Uh huh.

Apology To The Black Woman On The Path At Willard Beach

Photo: Soul Cap

Greetings to the Black woman I met on the path at Willard Beach in South Portland on Friday, July 16. Our brief encounter has stayed with me because I regret my choices and hope that by reflecting on them I can do better. 

This is a story about how intentions don't matter nearly as much as impact matters.

It was late on a warm, muggy day when I arrived at the beach. My husband went ahead with two little grandkids eager to get on the playground after a long car ride. After reorganizing the car a bit I hurried to catch up with them and found my way to the path by the outdoor showers. It was wet and puddly and there were wild roses crowding it on both sides. Meant to be a two-way path, but only if both parties skirted the puddles in the center and scraped the edge of the roses.

I was about halfway up the path when I saw you at the other end. You had almost shoulder length curly dark hair and a blue print dress. I'm not sure how old I thought you were but definitely an adult and definitely younger than me.

I kept to my edge of the path and continued as you began walking toward me. When we were about six feet apart, skirting our respective edges around the puddles, I said, "Excuse me" in what I thought was a polite tone. I thought about stopping to let you pass but I didn't. As you passed me you said distinctly but quietly, "She's everywhere I go." There was no one else nearby that you might have been talking to or about, though I suppose it's possible you were on the phone talking into a bluetooth device I couldn't see. My impression was that you were speaking both to me and about me.

Doing the work to examine my own racism within a system of enforced white supremacy that has benefited me for 64 years, I found these feelings: surprise that you spoke; hurt that my "excuse me" wasn't viewed as the polite expression I intended; annoyed that I was being lumped in with all the white women hogging all the paths; compassion for the weariness in your tone; confusion about what, if anything, I had gotten wrong; fear at the iceberg that your brief sentence is the tip of; exasperation that a Black person in the whitest state in the nation expressed annoyance at being surrounded by whiteness.

Reflecting on my brief utterance, it occurred to me that the words "excuse me" can be weaponized with sarcasm and undoubtedly are by passive-aggressive white women.

Reflecting on how my body took up space that could have been yielded, I realize that my upbringing in a society dominated by white privilege was worse than useless. As the older person and the one who was already on the path, I assumed my right to keep using it.

As a white person, I have never expected a person of color to step off the sidewalk to let me pass. But I look like a whole lot of people that not only expected it but might use violence to enforce it. Even a woman definitely too young to have lived through the Jim Crow segregation practices that traumatized my young parents in Georgia in 1955 probably knows this in her bones.

Even if she was not the descendant of enslaved Africans, but possibly part of the diaspora communities from Somalia, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo that now live in southern Maine. Because Jim Crow doesn't care what country you were born in or what language you learned to speak as a toddler. The fact that you don't look white is the only salient fact for segregationists.

So I want to apologize to you, Black woman on the beach path. 

I wish I had paused on the path and let you pass without comment. I might have said "hello" as you passed by, but I wish I had not said "excuse me."

Thank you for saying what you did. Without it, I would have quickly forgotten our brief encounter.

I would have gone on clicking heart on the Instagram posts of both ___brick and the group blacksand.surf who are claiming the right to surf and otherwise enjoy the beach while Black in California. 

Source: How the memory of a black resort refused to fade "A bather at Bruce’s Beach. The Shades of LA Collection, LA County Library"

I know the history that a Black resort owned by the Bruce family was thriving until 1924 when it was stolen from them by the City of Manhattan Beach.

I know that when I got up this morning both Huntington Beach and Proud Boys were trending on Twitter, because of a white supremacist rally yesterday in another southern California beach town. Some history on that location, as reported by Mark McDermott in easyreadernews.com:

in early 1926, the most ambitious Black resort of all, the Pacific Beach Club, which was near completion in Huntington Beach and intended to be “the grandest escape of all” for Black Californians, complete with Eygptial Revival architecture, was destroyed by arson. The project had been headed by Ceruti and was clearly intended not only as a resort but as an act of economic activism, a statement that Black people would not only have a place at the beach, but build the “Queen of the Pacific.” It had all gone up in flames. Though no arrests were ever made, the Ku Klux Klan’s very active presence in Southern California at the time caused many to believe that they had started the fire. 

I would have gone on shaking my head at the 2020 Olympics committee that banned swim caps that could be worn comfortably by Black women and others with thick, curly hair. Their reasoning: such caps don't follow "the natural form of the head."

Photo: SoulCap.com

Whose head is the natural form? 

I'm going to remember your words -- "She's everywhere I go" -- the next time I have an opportunity to hold space for a person in a Black body. And I'm going to do better at using that opportunity, because I sincerely want to, and to honor the work that you did for me when you spoke up. Because only impact matters.

Insatiable Greed And A $600 Slap In The Face

Fascism got a bad name in the 20th century because of the mass genocide of the Holocaust, plus the rapacious colonialism (redundant, I know) of the Japanese imperial project. For decades since, teenagers have snarled "fascist" at parents enforcing curfew in reference to the violent policing that accompanied the rise of a white supremacist party in Germany.

But it was Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, that actually had it right: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

In other words, the precise system of government we have in the United States today.

Over the last several decades we have watched as corporate power captured, not only our legislative and executive branches of national government, but the judiciary as well. 

The predictable outcome of our descent into fascism is the passage and enforcement of laws designed to benefit our corporate overlords at the expense of the literally starving and homeless people.

During any crisis of the last several decades, the already wealthy have prospered while the already impoverished have perished before our very eyes with little to no government intervention. I think Hurricane Katrina is when I first realized that the federal government would stand idly by, fat with our tax dollars, while the poor drowned and starved. FEMA like so many other federal agencies was designed to enrich corporations while the matriarch of the Bush clan toured refugees being housed in a sports stadium and pronounced on network television, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."

The fact that so many of the "underprivileged" were Black was undoubtedly a factor in their abandonment by government of, by, and for the wealthy. Kanye West increased his fame when he said live on network television at the time: "George Bush doesn't care about Black people." 

So, failure to attend to the common good is nothing new. But it is accelerating mightily under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other wealthy countries have managed the health crisis by recognizing that staying home is containment, and subsidizing people to stay home -- including staying housed -- is good health policy.

But the US Congress is in session this weekend struggling over whether to pass a relief bill that would provide $600 one time payments after sending a measly $1200 once months ago. (Note: I know at least one Black working mother who never even received that payment.)

Currently 1/3 of people in the U.S. report they are struggling to meet basic expenses such as rent, food, and utilities.

The uptick in memes and slogans advocating violent revolution is significant in my social media feeds.

A sampling includes this one with one of the planet's rapacious billionaires as poster boy:

Also:

But more specifically, Congress is in the crosshairs. Sample tweets:

$600 and whatever you can carry from your local Congressional representative’s second home

— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) December 18, 2020

 

The U.S. government gave over 40,000 millionaires an average of 1.7 million each in Covid Aid

This is our tax dollars they gave
to millionaires

AND wanna give middle class
& poor families only $600 in stimulus checks?

This is supposed 2 cover
8 months of back rent & mortgages?

— Kirk Acevedo🇺🇸 (@kirkacevedo) December 17, 2020

I also saw but cannot now find one that said, "The next stimulus is hidden inside in your member of Congress like a piñata."

Meanwhile reformers are insisting on a floor vote in the House on the wildly popular Medicare for All that our elected representatives will not even consider.

Fascists, drunk on power, always think the future is theirs. I think they're wrong about that.

Medical Apartheid Particularly Gruesome Evidence Of Caste System

Source: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/racial-disparities-in-covid-19

Taking my life in my hands (a common occurence in the time of plague) I stood in line at the pharmacy yesterday to pick up a prescription. Two customers who were in front of me had a long, interesting discussion about covid and the likelihood of a vaccine that can be trusted anytime soon. 

Both Black elders expressed skepticism about the form this might take in their community and the woman identified the source of her distrust as, "medical apartheid." Her remark has been ringing in my ears ever since. 

Higher infection and death rates for Black, indigenous, and people of color during this pandemic mirror the chronically worse health outcomes for BIPOC even before covid and are exhibit A for systemic racism in this country. 

Higher maternal mortality, infant mortality, and mortality from common diseases like high blood pressure and cardiovascular ailments are accepted by many as a fact of life in the US. A lot of victim blaming goes on and the higher castes look away from the nutritional realities of life in a food desert. 

Having recently read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, I've been thinking a lot about her thesis that status in society isn't necessarily tied to skin color or religion or circumstances of one's birth. In the US skin color has been used extensively to establish an underclass that receives poorer nutrition, housing, schooling, and health care. But Wilkerson argues that it wasn't always thus, and looks at two other caste-driven social orders -- India and Nazi Germany -- to examine the underpinnings of America's toxic racism.

Examples of caste in action abound in 2020. 

Germany is bending the EU's rules to rush their covid vaccine to Israel, but not to Palestinians.

Rather than hold Israel accountable for its lethal violations of its basic legal and humanitarian obligations, Germany appears eager to help exacerbate them https://t.co/auJmWAKx7K

— Electronic Intifada (@intifada) December 3, 2020

The University of California, Los Angeles showed that it considers college athletes of higher importance than hospital nurses, an example of caste that ignores race but does seem to exhibit a gender bias.

Registered nurses gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fact that UCLA's athletic department conducted 1,248 tests in a single week while health-care workers at UCLA hospitals were denied testing. https://t.co/wRXxSFg5xH

— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) November 27, 2020

As someone in the caste associated with white skin and middle class economic status, it wouldn't occur to me to worry that the vaccine offered in my community might be of inferior quality. The fact that I don't have to worry is the quintessential example of white privilege.

The mass incarceration of BIPOC prior to the age of covid has meant that they are disproportionately in danger from the disease because they are forced into a congregate setting with no power to choose where they'll go or who they'll associate with. Prisoners in California just ended the hunger strike portion of their ongoing campaign to call attention to this deadly risk to their health and safety.

🚨Update from hunger strike 🚨

“WE determine that OUR Covid Intervention Statement remains relevant as an organizing tool to those involved in the struggle to force transparency of California prisons.“

Read more: https://t.co/O75E32jolY

— TGI Justice Project (@tgijp) December 2, 2020

Excerpt from Oakland Abolition & Solidarity's blog post:

CDCr [California Department of Corrections]’s negligent and careless response to the COVID-19 outbreak at CSATF [California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility] has now killed at least three people. Active cases at the prison continue to hover near 1000 and now over half of the facility has contracted the disease. Guards and staff members are still failing to follow safety protocols and continue to move people around the facility creating more and more exposure.

Prisoners all over the nation suffer under a system of forced labor that is little different than slavery. Most are not a danger to society at all but are exploited by those who profit from their incarceration and the work they do. 

People with substance use disorder don't belong in prison to begin with, but our lack of universal health care means most in the US view prison as a treatment option rather than the punishment it really is. Many in recovery cite the stigma i.e. low caste assignment they struggle with in a social order built to reward some at the expense of others.

Our public health crisis has moved us even further away from any national greatness we might have aspired to, and it is highly unlikely that the president and VP-elect will dismantle the carceral state that helped build their political careers.

Medical apartheid is ugly and evil, and I know I'll be thinking about how to end it for a long time to come.

Report Back On Maine For Mainers Anti-Immigrant Picnic #mepolitics

Here's the report back from Andy Bourassa who stood with Stacie Bourassa and Ryan Celli on the road outside the "Maine for Mainers" anti-immigrant picnic.

The event had been publicized by unknown actors who mailed this flyer to residents living nearby in Canaan:

Several Maine newspapers, and even the Associated Press, carried the story of the flyer and the push back from organizers who objected to being characterized as white supremacists (despite their online history as such).

This is Andy's account:

We arrived at about 1:40. At that point, Ryan Celli was already there and parked on the opposite side of the street-about 500 yards from Camille's property. Fox/ABC channel 7, was already there also. 

As soon as we parked our car TOM K approached us. He asked us if we were supporters, protesters, or something else. 

I stated we were here to watch, document, and make it know we didn’t support his mission or presence. 

I began to record at this point, as he and Ryan began debating where we could and could not stand or be. 

Ryan stated he had spoken with the road commissioner and was clear on what he could and could not do. Stacie and I also had consulted on the law in Canaan. 

TOM argues that we could not follow those guidelines. Ryan made him aware that Camille had threatened him, and TOM said Camille has a tendency to give over excited and carried away. We never addressed him until he spoke to us. After I called him out on this-because he said we were arguing with him...he walked away to complete his FOX interview further up the road. 

After reporter finished with him-she came down and interviewed all three of us.

Her questions were things like-do we expect more people, how did you hear about this, and what did you think about the flyer (they say they didn’t send it)?

At 2:00- Ryan and I walked up the street and planned to stand about 50 yards away from Camille's driveway in the shade-on opposite side of the road and document. As we walked by the property, Camille came out and engaged Ryan. She started arguing with him about us being there and saying she had called the police. At that point -Ryan stopped walking and said, I guess I’ll stand right here. Just off the property line-on the side of the road. 

Camille has some young guy in a Gandhi shirt (go figure) stand guard at the entrance to the drive. He silently shadowed Ryan for awhile.

A car arrived, with two older white men (60+). They pulled up and asked me if this was the white supremacist picnic. I planed my video up so they wouldn’t see me recording and wouldn’t get their faces. But you can hear the exchange on the video. They were from out of town and saw the event and wanted to come support TOM and Camille.

Because they stopped and chatted with me, when they tried to go in- Camille stops them and says they need to leave immediately and that they are on camera trespassing. She gets upsets and tells them to leave now! All that is on video. She actually turned away supporters-because she was so worried about infiltrators.  

After they left, Camille again addressed and argued with Ryan and then walked away. The guy that had been shadowing Ryan, suddenly took three steps toward him and reached into his pocket. It happened so fast I didn’t catch it on video-just saw it. Ryan pulled up his shirt and showed the guy that he was carrying a weapon and warned him not to approach any further. The guy pulled out his phone and started recording, (this I have on video I shared) as he narrated a false tale. In my video I correct him and he changes his story three times-but eventually says exactly what I said in his own words.  

Camille comes back out and starts yelling at Ryan again. 

At this point, Camille says: “Have you ever heard the phrase don’t shit where you sleep? You have kids-you fool. Someone could come to where you live...” 

At this point Ryan called the state police and reported threatening of his family. Police said they were on their way. 

After 25 minutes the police showed up. State police Sgt. Bryant. 

He was kind and calm. He spoke to Ryan first, then me, then went to speak with Camille and party. Stacie recorded this interaction with us-it is 15 mins long. 

Officer took a very long time with them at the picnic. We waited for 45-60 mins in the sun like he asked us to. I made the comment that I would have left sooner than that if he hadn’t made us stay-it was state sponsored protesting because he wouldn’t let us leave the scene:) 

We waited at the end of her drive while he spoke to TOM, Camille and other party goers. At some points they got heated with the officer and seemed quite upset. Overall they had the state police at their picnic for about an hour-so hard for TOM to talk.

While waiting to be released, two people left the party. One looked right at Ryan and I as he left in his pickup and said: “those people are friggin nuts!” 

The officer finally came back and told us we were being warned for Disorderly Conduct. He acknowledged we had not broken any laws but said if we persisted and they were called back we would be arrested. I challenged that as I had reported to him as a cooperating witness with video that he reviewed. How was I being disorderly. I also challenged his notion we were invading her space. All interactions happened in the easement or public roadway so it was a disagreement between two parties in public-not on privately owned land. We asked if Camille was also getting a warning and he said he would “talk” to her. We challenged that and said if we are being warned -she has to be too. Ryan also asked that the officer provide a formal warning of harassment and cease and desist on any further contact -per threats and warnings she had already sent and received. Based on evidence Ryan provided he did issue her and official no contact. Camille violates that the same night by posting at and about him on Facebook. Which the officer said specifically was not allowed. 

There were about 8-10 people in total. Camille and her partner Dave, and TOM...were three of the 8-10, and two people left. So overall, maybe 5 members showed and stayed.

We left at 4:15 when the officer released us. At that point they were mostly done.

For context, here are a few screenshots of hostess Camille Cheaney Patterson's threats posted to Facebook prior to the picnic.

To put faces with names:

A couple of thoughts about all this:

*  White privilege probably allowed Stacie, Andy, and Ryan to feel safe interacting with a state trooper the way they did. It also protected them as they stood in a public space witnessing the picnic and documenting who attended:

* People of color would not likely have felt safe in this space or these interactions.

* I wouldn't have felt safe knowing that Ryan was carrying a concealed weapon. The probability of someone being injured or killed goes up significantly in spaces where guns are present. I have asked Ryan to comment on his choice to do this, and thus I won't guess what his motivation and reasoning may have been.

* Why is avowed white nationalist Tom K. wearing an Indian kurta in the photos with his wife and Camille's partner Dave? Because Hindu Brahmins were the original white supremacists?