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“Are the images of who was left to drown or starve during Hurricane Katrina so easily forgotten? At that time racial disparity stood clearly in front of the eyes of every person who turned on a television.”

By Rowan Wolf

CJO’s Avenger

6/30/07

Well, SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) has dealt yet another “conservative” blow to the nation. This time by essentially overturning Brown vs the Board of Education. Schools are still expected to achieve racial “diversity.” However, accomplishing racial integration is very difficult if it is unconstitutional to use race as a criteria. Justice Roberts argument was:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” (NY Times, 6/28/07)

Roberts’ statement is a tautological argument that is based on a false premise - that race would not be an issue if we did not attempt struggle against institutionalized racism. His quote is reflective of the bumper sticker political analysis which has become all too familiar. However, the assumption of a color blind society, which is enforcing discrimination through attempts at racial integration, is faulty to the point of criminality.

What the Bush administration, “conservatives,” and now Bush’s Court, are attempting is the elimination of civil rights and affirmative action advancements over the last 50 years. Why? Is it because they do not want a society with increasing levels of equality and participation? Do they want a society of peasants and patricians? Do they oppose a representative democracy, but support a feudal government run by a moneyed (white) elite?

Roberts’ trite argument plays well to the mythology of race and privilege in the United States. The rhetoric - particularly now - is that everyone in the U.S. is equal, and there is no structured inequality. Race is a non-issue which we dealt with long ago. Race-based policies and considerations are not “fair” to whites, and place whites at a disadvantage. This is sometimes ridiculously referred to as “reverse” discrimination. Of course there is no acknowledgment that without the body of legislation and policy under the umbrella of “affirmative action,” whites could not argue they had been discriminated against. The legislation refers to “race” - not as confined to people of color, but also to whites.

The often posed solution is to use socioeconomic status, rather than race, as a basis for social policy and integration. The argument is that class is the only real divider after all. Unfortunately, that is a false argument.

There is no proxy for race in the United States. Race is its own system of inequality, though it is certainly reinforced by social class. That reinforcement is not accidental - but structured into social policy. Social policy is, after all, a form of social engineering.

The United States started out with the restriction of citizenship to whites. At that time citizenship carried with it the right to own property, to testify in court, to access public education and public services - and eventually - the right to vote. These privileges of citizenship were granted largely on the basis of race - not social class. However, they certainly had (and continue to have) social class implications. These policies gave whites a social class advantage which was passed down from generation to generation. It facilitated an opportunity path for whites that did not exist (or was significantly restricted) for those who were deemed “not white.”

The institutionalization of race, and race separate policies, continued for more than two centuries, and they continue today. Unimaginably, we are still fighting voting rights and gerrymandering based on race in 2007 (among a myriad of other race-based disparate impacts). Are the images of who was left to drown or starve during Hurricane Katrina so easily forgotten? At that time racial disparity stood clearly in front of the eyes of every person who turned on a television. Also remember, that very quickly the interpretation was put forward that this was not about “race,” but social class. The dominant white population is much more comfortable talking about social class (which is largely perceived as an “individual” issue) than about race - where we must examine the costs of racial privilege.

Race and social class intertwine, they are not the same. While there are more poor who are white than any other racial group, whites are disproportionately under represented in the ranks of the poor. Whites are also dramatically over represented in the ranks of the middle class, and even more so in the upper class. This is largely due to race based policies that subsidized the accumulation of wealth (most significantly with home ownership) for whites, while denying that access to those who were not white.

So what does all of this have to do with the Supreme Court ruling regarding education? Education is strongly related to people’s ability to participate and advance in the social class environment in the US (though this is changing). Without equal access to education the doors of social class mobility once more start to close. Brown vs Board of Education ruled that there was no legality or validity to “separate but equal.” The decision to desegregate public education was not to make a more “diverse” environment, but to equalize the playing field for social class participation.

There has been a terrible transformation in education systems’ arguments about the importance of racial and cultural diversity to education. While those arguments are valid, it is not why we integrated schools. Diversity in education (race, culture, age, class, sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc) is tremendously valuable for all kinds of reasons, Brown was not about the value of diversity. It was about addressing institutionalized inequality based on race.

That fundamental inequality based on race has not been resolved. Look at test scores, high school completion rates, college entrance and graduation rates or even the status and reputation of different school districts. All show there are significant racial divides. Racial integration is not a relic of some bygone day. In our schools; in our neighborhoods; in our health and infant mortality; in the work force; race still stands as hugely significant to social and personal outcomes.

Contrary to the rhetorical argument put forward by Roberts, the promoter of discrimination is not efforts to have schools that mirror the racial demographics of their districts and population. The discrimination happens at virtually every level of social interaction and organization. It is reinforced by racial segregation which fosters the mythology of stereotypes, and the reality of disparate economic opportunity. Education (and not simply K-12 education) is an important component of social maintenance and change. Race and social class inequality are principal among the systems being maintained or changed.

The most common example of past in present discrimination is: segregated neighborhoods lead to segregated schools lead to segregated job opportunities. We have done a rather pathetic job of changing housing segregation (both in terms of race and class) which is why integration in education becomes monumentally important.

The 5-4 decision by the Roberts court reversed the decisions of two appellate courts. It has also virtually reversed Brown vs the Board of Education -one of the most important court decisions impacting racial equality in the United States.

One might wonder what happened to both Roberts’ and Alito’s highly touted respect for stare decisis - legal precedent (see end notes). Justice Breyer issued a stinging rebuke which is pertinent and hopefully not prophetic: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” In regard to the importance of precedent, he stated: ““It is my firm conviction that no member of the court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.” This pretty much rules out any confusion over the context and intent of Brown v. Board of Education.

END NOTES
Supreme Court Cases involved: Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association v. Brentwood Academy and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al.

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By Ramzy Baroud

6/23/07

All my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to pieces.

For years I have been warning of a civil war starting in Gaza. I wrote about it in my last book, The Second Palestinian Intifada. I warned via every media platform available that there are too many hands working to ensure the demise of the Palestinian national project, both from within and without. I urged Palestinians not to fall into rhetoric. I saw very clearly that the fragmentation of Palestinian national identity — an outcome of two combined realities: one stemming from the post-Oslo political culture, the other from Israel’s Bantustan ghettos imposed in the West Bank and the total isolation of Gaza — was almost perfected. I’ve toured many cities in many countries taking on Palestinian division, worried that Palestinians will reach a point where they no longer identify themselves as such, but as ideological and tribal extensions of factions and sub-factions.

In recent months I became belligerent — in the eyes of some — in my frankness. Not one public speech I gave would conclude without a few Palestinians abandoning the gathering; either Fatah loyalists furious over my chastisement of Abbas, Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan and the rest of the clique for their corruption and deviation from the aspirations of their own people; or Islamists, angry for my suggesting that Hamas shouldn’t act as the sole proprietor of the Palestinian narrative, despite their parliamentary majority, but merely as a conduit for Palestinian constants and the will of the Palestinian people. My comments were not always popular: they ruffled many feathers, and recently they cost me my job.

The devastating embargo imposed on Palestinians after the Hamas landslide victory in January 2006, didn’t produce the results publicly projected. To the contrary, it greatly hampered the American “democratic” experiment in the Middle East. Everywhere I travelled since, I have witnessed a sense of giddiness and much hope being pinned on Hamas’s rise in politics. Thus it was resolved that Hamas had to be removed, with Abbas’s Preventive Security Forces, riddled with corruption, entrusted with the task. Dahlan, man of the hour, was given the Israeli and American nod. His Palestinian “Contras” wreaked havoc: kidnapping, assassinating and provoking endless feuds.

One can well imagine what impact such meddling would have, knowing that Gaza is essentially a huge open-air prison. I was a prisoner there until the age of 21. I remember how people picked fights for no convincing reason — isolation, hunger and hopelessness lead to self-destruction. The US and the EU took part in the siege and embargo, and Israel’s bombardment never ceased, not even for one day. Hundreds of besieged Palestinians have been blown to shreds by Israeli bombs. Their only mechanism of defence has been makeshift Qassam “missiles” that have killed no more than a dozen Israelis in six years. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the same period. Gaza bore all the signs that warned of disaster and civil war was looming, it was one assassin’s bullet away — one provocative statement, one kidnapping.

The pressure Hamas faced as a result was insurmountable. The movement had reached the limits of political concessions; any more would be considered a retreat from its political platform and could lead to fragmentation within its own ranks. Yet a state of isolation from within (Fatah’s total control over the 10 branches of the security apparatus), and from without (the US-led international embargo that called for Hamas’s removal), was sure to weaken Hamas and eventually deprive it of popular support. The decision was thus made that Hamas must take its chances and push for what it termed the “second liberation of Gaza“.

Now the situation is very bleak. Hamas is in control of Gaza, and Abbas and Fatah are in control of as much in the West Bank as Israel allows. This places Palestine’s destiny back in the US neo-conservative court.

Dividing the West Bank and Gaza appears central to the agenda: “This turn of events frees Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend on the Israeli Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces,” wrote Martin Indyk, the pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, in The Washington Post, 15 June. Most American mainstream editorials are sounding the same message. And various Arab governments, the EU, the US and Israel are flocking to back Abbas. Money, weapons and political legitimacy are being bestowed upon him from all directions. The once irrelevant leader is now the darling of the international community; the sanctions set to be lifted on his emergency government, which he has appointed after sacking the unity government, an unconstitutional act by all standards.

Israeli officials cannot imagine a more satisfactory scenario. The new experiment suggests that the West Bank will be lavished with aid and Gaza will be starved further. This is the pinnacle of injustice, and as always the US and Israel take centre stage, directing the show. Abbas and his men are presented as the true heroes, already making their debut as the true and legitimate face of Palestinian democracy, a democracy determined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not the Palestinians.

-Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian American author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com; his latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London)

by Phil Rockstroh

6/21/07

Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public? Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It’s the world’s way of delivering the life lesson that it’s time to shed the vanity of one’s innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here’s lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism, the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It’s that simple.

Why do the elites lie so brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they’re entitled to, by virtue of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant conclusion? Because they think they’re better than us. If they believe in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few billion neurons short of being governable by honest means.

Yes, you read that correctly: They believe they’re better than you. When they lie and flout the rules and assert that the rule of law doesn’t apply to them or refuse to impeach fellow members of their political and social class who break the law — it is because they have convinced themselves it is best for society as a whole.

Continue Reading »

By Ivor Hughes

6/19/07

That question is soon answered … Democracy is not Democracy if one votes for the wrong party… for the one… that the manipulating parties refused to deal with.

A case in point was the political victory of Hamas… that told the story… that rang the Palestinian bell. But it is sure that the sound it made was not to Israeli taste… Since that time Britain… America and Israel have funded Fatah with money and arms via the Egyptian back door… this under American duress… Look at the murderous assault on Lebanon backed by Britain and the U.S. .. It is this double dealing and its historical injustices that are rooted in the foundation of Israel as a Nation with their apartheid and megalomaniac attitude that counts a non Jewish life as inconsequential.

There has been 60 years of brutality and genocidal behavior toward the Palestinians… and the Palestinian Christians… Bethlehem is a virtual no-go area. The arrogance that persuades the Israeli’s to ignore U.N. directives… the arrogance that persuades them to kill their allies (USS Liberty) and shell and kill troops of the U.N. peace keeping force… it is this contempt for International law which has led to this current political configuration.

Symbolically the Israelis have been sowing dragons teeth for 60 years or more… the violence has spawned yet more violence… but this time it is not randomly sporadic… it is organized violence .. well-versed in guerrilla tactics violence… well armed with surveillance drone capability.. There is a new air in Gaza… The People have Spoken! ….that is real Democracy my Friend.

Politics is a dirty mangy pack of dogs guarding their corporate masters… since when do they truly speak for the people? How many shamelessly lie against the interests of those who placed them in power? Higher up… where there are dangerous levels of Methane afflatus in the air… they are playing mega-bucks at so many dollars per life… not to mention the cost of equipping that life… to kill another life… it is we that are the fodder in this evil game. It is we the people that pay for this insanity with our children’s bodies and the taxes that support the madness.

Is it not time? …that those that fail to obey the wishes of an electorate should be pursued into the Justice System… Breach of Contract .. you write the charge… The Palestinians of Gaza have spoken… they have had enough of the brutal feudal despotism that has been inflicted on them… they have had enough of the land theft and the apartheid and the Gulags… they have had enough of the Israeli brutality and the collective punishment such as the bombing of Gaza’s Electricity Supply and the crippling of the water and sewage systems.

Israel must wake up and see … the bogey man is under the bed … Hamas has espoused the same philosophy toward the Jews in Palestine… as the Israeli philosophy directed at the Arabs in Israel… they both have hard line positions… both of those positions revolve around one word … ‘Hegemony’ .. Israelis ‘Nuclear Option’… is not on the table because it would suicide a lot of Jewish lives … Hamas have already demonstrated their mettle in South Lebanon and the ability to cripple an Israeli Gun Boat.

This situation has come about because of the very clearly defined policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians… it is all well documented… unspoken bestiality whilst Britain and America pointedly look the other way… Iraq is the living proof of a war that Israel cannot win even with the direct intervention of Britain and the U.S… Again Iraq is proof of that… It is time for some serious talking because If Democracy is not the will of the people… then what the hell is Democracy?

By Steven Jonas

6/12/07

Originally published at Buzzflash

It was a rebuke that was little noticed, nor will it be long remembered. But last week George W. (I call the Pope “Sir”) Bush had some interesting things to say to Russian President Vladimir (in the past Bush has called him “Vlad”) Putin (June 6, The New York Times, “Chastising Putin, Bush Says Russia Derails Reform,” S. G. Stolberg).

Among other things, Bush told Vlad that: “In Russia, reforms that were once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development. . . . The most powerful weapon in the struggle against extremism is not bullets or bombs - it is the universal appeal of freedom. . . . Freedom is the design of our maker, and the longing of every soul. . . Freedom is the best way to unleash the creativity and economic potential of a nation. Freedom is the only ordering of a society that leads to justice. And human freedom is the only way to achieve human rights.”

Wow. What a statement. What a ringing endorsement of the whole concept of human freedom, of inalienable rights, of the striving of each and every human being for freedom. Why he even relates freedom to “our maker” (by which George, and since he calls Vlad “Vlad” I guess it’s alright to call him “George,” presumably means the “God” to which he has referred so many times in so many speeches). And by “ordering of a society,” one could be so bold as to infer that he is referring to the Rule of Law and Constitutional Democracy. By golly.

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By Jason Miller

6/10/07

Each day untold millions of US Americans unwittingly immerse themselves in an intellectual, social, cultural, economic, political and spiritual cesspool so rancid and toxic that even microbes with the most voracious appetites for human waste, vomit, and inanimate flesh would shun this infinitely repulsive sewer.

Many highly qualified and intelligent researchers, analysts, and authors have written books, essays, and reports documenting the astounding multitude and variety of crimes committed by the United States throughout its history. Since a nation is an entity comprised of numerous elements and dynamics, we can’t simply blame the government, the Republicans, the Religious Right, the Democrats, George Bush, Bill Clinton, or any one particular component. Therefore, nearly all US Americans bear a degree of responsibility. Obviously, some (i.e. Bush and Cheney) are far more culpable than others because they wield such tremendous power and act with a conscienceless, cynical awareness of the suffering they are inflicting on the Earth and its sentient inhabitants.

Continue Reading »

The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

6/6/07

President Bush is in Europe flaunting, in a hard sell pitch, his brand of democracy to the world at large and to Russia in particular. He is known to have said: “We believe that the voice of the people ought to be determining policy, because we believe in democracy.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is as fallacious a statement as any that the President of United States has been giving since he took over the reins of his great country. Fallacious too because the American President is selling a product that America does not have.

Granted that we in the Muslim countries have not much idea of the fruits of democracy, having been perpetually ruled by kings, despots, generals, tyrants, autocrats and dictators of all hues. Granted too the fact that no democracy is perfect and at any given time it is either getting better or getting worse, yet the President’s statement is a wholly fallacious one. Fallacious because despite calling itself ‘the champion of democracy’, internally, the U.S. has hardly ever had a direct democracy where American people determine American policy, the true essence of democracy, and externally, it has a long and sordid record of closely coddling mambas like Pol Pots, Marcos’s and Zias of the yore. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because corporate corruption of American politicians and government has shredded to bits whatever semblance of democracy America was left with. Fallacious too because instead of having democracy in the decision making institutions of America it is rather the fine art of corporate corruption that now stands democratized and institutionalized with all now having a chance at equal opportunity corruption. All it takes is money. Corporate corruption in America is now at a stage where it has become a bipartisan, open, and legal practice with Americans finally coming to accept it as a status quo, an integral part of a dollar-driven, cheating culture. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because it is now plain for all to see that misrepresentative government and corporatism has oppressed American citizenry to the extent that their democracy has become nothing more than a corporate theocracy, a fascist feudal state in which “the serfs” serve the corporate state as voiceless workers, voracious consumers, submissive citizens and pliant subjects. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because the immoral alliance that he and his predecessors have been having with dictators the world over runs exactly counter to the false pledges of democracy to their subjects. Fallacious too because those who cosset ruling tyrants cannot advocate for themselves the exclusive privilege of bringing democracy to the oppressed. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because despite the fact that for all his internal and foreign misadventures, from social issues to Iraq war, the support of American masses having decidedly moved from a trusting to a distrusting majority, he presses on stubbornly. Fallacious because while clinging doggedly to his disastrous policies, he is known to have called himself ‘the decider’ on more than one occasion. Fallacious too because despite the aforementioned fact, there is not one single institution in that ‘mother of all democracies’ that can help loosen the death like grip of the yellow fangs of his administration from the jugular of its unfortunate victims. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because contrary to its democratic plumage, his own party’s strategy is now out in the open. And that is a Republican Party that permanently runs the United States and a United States that permanently runs the world. Fallacious too because the severely mauled, but still breathing, Democratic opposition has so far miserably failed to nip in the bud this wicked vision of a one-party global empire. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because he has had real laws passed at home that have torn bomb-size holes in the Bill of Rights, set into motion an actual shift of American judiciary toward the radical right and has so fused his government with corporations, the military, portions of the media and a hugely expanded secret police apparatus that now it scares the living daylights out of common Americans. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because the world can see his quisling lackeys overseeing his experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq about to roll in dust and his ally in Pakistan looking with stunning disbelief at the shifting sands of national opinion beneath his feet. Fallacious too because had his vision of democracy bore even a scrap of resemblance to the original idea, his friends in these countries would have been elevated to prophet hood by the innocent masses of these countries. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because we the world can see that for us at least, American democracy has boiled down to nothing more than that of a lynch mob who vote on the fate of their victims even as the rope is being readied to carry out the inevitable verdict. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because American democracy is not only not a democracy; it is in fact the exact opposite…a ‘minocracy’. He is trying to sell to the world a system in which if only 60% of the people bother to cast their vote, in a majority system with two parties, 31% of the electorate can impose its will on the remaining 69%; and with three parties competing, 21% of the people could rule a country through an appointed elite. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

The President’s statement is fallacious because American democracy has actually translated itself into vesting the incredible amount of the power of the President of United States into a mediocrity like the incumbent President with disastrous results for America and the world at large. Fallacious because mediocrity has now become the rule and unlimited irresponsibility one of the privileges associated with his kind of totalitarian democracy. Fallacious too because with the justification of a popular mandate, a third-rate politician has been given the license to squander resources and bring chaos into the world without the fear of being held accountable for it. The American President is selling a product that America does not have.

Some democracy, America.